Posts made by bored

@cobaltasaurus Voted for 3.

I think they're not bad, but most games that have used them have heavily over-used them, and often for the wrong purpose. They've also coded them in simplistic, and at this point outdated ways, that you could (and should) avoid if you want to bring this mechanic into the modern era.

First, you need meaningful content. Emits are pointless if they're generic and unchanging. At that point they should be part of the desc. For instance, having some kind of generic NPC merchant bark that plays at frequent intervals in a market ("Fresh khlav kalash!") is pretty pointless. However, if the NPC is relating something about a seasonal good (based on time code), a rare offering (rng'ed out of a larger list), or similar... then that emit has some RP value.

Second, codewise, we can do better than simple timers, and be more context-aware. Because once you've seen an emit, additional plays in a single RP session add nothing but spam. It would probably be better to structure emits so they play (perhaps after a randomized delay, to differentiate them from simply being part of a room desc) the first time they would occur with unique content in a given scene. So you get a rain emit the 1-5 minutes after the weather object updates, and then not another one until the weather changes or you're in a different scene (or possibly after more people have joined the scene, depending on how spammy you want to be).

Also, for log purposes, you probably want to put a tag at the front so they're easy to client filter.

Liked Deadpool 2 better than the first one.

Actual budget got them a real villain, awesome supporting characters, plus looool does it take the piss out of everything Liefeld.

@lotherio said in Valorous Dominion:

1 request to gain 1 resourcese was not how it works.

You said (it's only a few posts up) that they spent both resources and made enough prestige to buy those resources back and profit. I like the idea of long-term investment and return, but it seems like, if you spend money to gain benefit X, you shouldn't get that money back in the same month to then be able to buy Y, and then get it back again to buy Z.

I don't know. Again it feels like we're talking past each other or somehow missing some little detail here.

Not to argue put to prevent jobs queue from blowing up on us.

You two burning out is a big concern and a lot of why I'm talking about this, as well as the post that started this (which wasn't even mine!) about lack of RP.

+requests create staff work and little RP. This isn't to say they're all bad, but right now a lot of the game happens behind the scenes and outpaces RP. A player who +requests 5 minutes after a +bbpost gains more than someone who does a lot of RP about a subject.

So I think it's to the game's benefit to focus on things that happen on grid (the scene yesterday was great), and structuring plots so that there's reason for the houses to interact. (Feel free to steal my idea about splitting up the necessary clues or requirements to solve a problem across multiple houses!).

@lotherio Dude this feels like spinning wheels, and you keep going back to defend things that were clarified several posts back or that clearly aren't even at issue.

I know it was posted. Thats why you're hearing this stuff now, vs. a week ago, because a week ago few players knew how the game worked at all.

Nor did I say Cristofano spammed requests, or direct anything at him (or any single player), so you don't need to defend him. I pointed out a very obvious math truth: if you can spend 1 to gain >1 and there's no throttling mechanism then it becomes possible for people to potentially spam requests (and indeed, that becomes the winning strategy).

I am not saying people have done this, I am saying, you probably want to adjust your system so people are not encouraged to do this. Because it is how the system looks right now.

@brunocerous Fwiw, I have no issue with you guys. You're our in-laws! The downsides I see are more general. IE what I mentioned about it possibly turning people off the plot thread (which was already hard to grasp with how vague the this Prince seems) as well as a mechanics-nerd concern over investment returns; if you can spend 1 resource to get 1 resource + change near instantly (which @lotherio seemed to imply was true for your action), then growth is infinite and limited only by who spams +requests faster. That's... clearly broken (and probably not intended)?

But I agree it's important to acknowledge that there's no universal playstyle and the 'spam +requests' mentality isn't going to be universal. Some games run that way, some games don't, some do it via very controlled processes, etc. It's not a universal mode of staff interaction so its highly beneficial to outline to people precisely how they can engage vs. expecting them to figure it out (or +request to get it explained to them).

@auspice said in Valorous Dominion:

Where in that is blaming the entire player base?

Go read your post. You specify 3 houses are good, and then say a 'handful' of others (there really aren't that many) are 'doing nothing.' If that's not some nasty ass bitchy vague-shade, I don't know what it is. It's also pretty much bullshit on its face as I'm fairly sure every house is doing at least something. Maybe not all of it is stuff you're privy to?

You're the one trying to insist it's staff's fault or making up some conspiracy that they've handed people special secret information. I'm telling you that they haven't. As someone who has moved forward on plot and whose house has gotten a fair bit of plot information...not one of us has been handed anything. We've just taken initiative and asked questions. Either of staff or on channels, where staff or other players have been able to answer.

That's pretty hilarious. Quoting myself: "I'm not accusing you of giving a player special information." What I am saying is that people are learning how the game works as they go, through +requests. Including asking questions. But that's my point. People shouldn't need to +request to ask a question to learn a basic mechanic (and if they do, it sure as hell should get posted rather than just replied to them). Those things should be available, but aren't.

Trying to spin into anything more is just looking for a fight where there isn't one, and also hilarious. Because I have played under @Lotherio before and have a high opinion of him. But I also know HOW he staffs, the good and bad, and some of these issues (shotgun theme blasts) are tied into that.

@auspice Or maybe don't blame the entire playerbase?

The game is new and had a lot of initial interest, so its fairly obvious people want to do things. People are also RPing in House because, as discussed, the system encourages it. But I really think the biggest thing is understanding what's available and what the options are. For instance... 30 great houses worth of NPCs? I've never heard of any of them and I'm not sure what they are or what they do if they haven't been mentioned in a specific +bbpost.

We've seen one big NPC who quickly went over to a house. That's good on them, but that process wasn't terribly transparent (personally I thought he wouldn't make a choice right after that first event, for instance), and it may discourage others from acting on that plot thread since it now feels like it 'belongs' to that house. Also people now save their parties/events till the next NPC shows up? Other bits are culturally/factionally/etc coded: not everyone is going to jump on the religious stuff (the religious PC in my house did), not everyone has ties or interests in X part of the world, etc..

Finally, I've had several people ask me what 'Pelcortia' even is. It's definitely @Lotherio's style that he has tons of theme in his head and will shotgun out names of people, places, groups etc. Some of it's on the wiki, but not all, and some requires working out what the historical analogue is supposed to be to make sense of. I'm willing to bet this is another barrier.

Basically: Never assume your players will pick up on everything easily. 3x the info/clues/NPCs/plot hooks/etc for 1x the results. Etc.

@lotherio I don't mean to be attacking you here, so I apologize if it seems like it, but this also seems unecessarily defensive.

The systems were not posted.

While its obvious players could interact with NPCs, the context, rules, etc for doing so were not available. I'm not accusing you of giving a player special information, but rather suggesting that when they contacted you, you presumably communicated to tell them how their +request would work or what choices they had. Other people didn't have that info. Even as of these very posts, we're getting new information: for instance I'd assumed it was more of a trade off (get the high prestige NPC, but pay for it), where now it sounds very win-win (get the high prestige NPC, they pay for themselves and then some).

The game is very new, so we expect to learn things as we go, but its also pretty clear you have some things detailed out more than we're aware, and the clarity is important.

The trade - your one gain to get the commodity from another house to pay debt means break even. This is intentional. Its basically using any gain your house has to pay any debt incurred but asking players to rp the exchange versus staff just accepting the exchange. You're right 1 commodity credit and one commodity debt balances to zero. The PrP doesn't help with house interaction as a quick write off and is a more viable option mechanically I agree seeing it play out.

So I think this is a place to focus on looking at some new mechanics.

As it stands, the whole income rolls aren't very satisfying. First, its a flat out punishment for a bad roll, no strategy, despite everyone having the same stats. Then it encourages an insular PrP, that while it might be fun the first time around... I'm willing to bet will quickly turn into 'busy work' as more of these rolls fail. This isn't a personal negative, just a statement that this mechanic that doesn't seem like it's working to promote interactive stories.

@lotherio ... If there's systems where people can spend resources to net gain, you probably need to actually publish those so people know what they're doing. Those systems are very unclear and some people learned about them (presumably directly from staff) vs the rest of us having no clue (ie, I thought spending resources to get an NPC vs holding them to buy something later was a choice, save up for later vs gain now, but it sounds like every time there's a PRP you should just throw your resources at it because it will get you them back and more? so saving has 0 value).

But that's not even what I'm talking about. I was discussing the idea that there's no value to interacting with another house to 'fix' a failed roll (although you suggest this somewhere on the wiki, I believe): You still end up at basically 0 for the month, because you've now spent 1 to get 1 then spent that one to cross off a -1. I don't understand how this is supposed to be viable or how the in-house PRP isn't the vastly superior option.

@lotherio said in Valorous Dominion:

@cupcake said in Valorous Dominion:

@lotherio One of my struggles is that things are pretty insular; at the recent party it felt like people were sticking by the folks they already RP'd with and I arrived late and felt completely at a loss. It's probably also in some part my own anxiety. But we've got at least two social events in the planning works which may help. Willing to take suggestions if you have advice, though?

If you feel anxious, I'd be glad to help meet others and do smaller groups for people to start getting out of their houses. Its in this sort of early stage where houses seem to be sort of figuring themselves out, but really the political minded should be considering relation to the other houses. We were hoping monthly pairings for Valor would help some folks meet others, but we have a few that are having a hard time connecting with their partners.

This is completely in the air, but as staff, I'll run bigger things like today's Siege of Viergues every few weeks at most. But maybe we can add smaller type events to get folks to mingle outside of their families and circles? Like host small feasts/hunting/something where houses only send one Rep to RP with houses and others they haven't RP'ed with. A mingler or so something to get people to meet others?

I think that the game's setup kind of encourages people to build a house out of their RL friends and whatever randos they can lure in, min-max it to cover various skill requirements (because the HoHs are forced to be turnips) and then play a lot inside that group. For instance, if you fail an econ roll (like my family did right away) it encourages you to do an in-house PrP to fix it (we are). What it doesn't really encourage is much outside RP, because 'go to another family for resources to fill the stopgap' isn't actually a good option - no one is going to give up a resource for free, and if you trade for it you've still effectively sucked the loss, just shifted it from one commodity to another. Maybe if resources were on the whole more available and a little more fluid, but as it is the trading is going to be very limited (everyone waiting 2-3 more months to get enough to trade for an addition... and then everyone will be at zero again etc).

By comparison, as you mention it, the scene going today definitely seems good for getting people to mix and mingle as it tosses us together in one place. So we may need more events like this, at the small and large scale (big events unfortunately mostly kill RP, it's just 'line up and make your one pose at the NPC'). You may also want an evening-centric GM to do some of it (this is advice that might be good for ALL your games :P). Not everything needs to be a grand siege or tournament or major to-do, and it might help to create multiple smaller things that limit participation - that way a few people can each get a part of the plot and then have to interact. Right now, it's all solo +requests in the background with very little actual RP or interaction. You might even hand a part to each house and then kind of let them all work together to piece together the puzzle.

Anyway, this is meant purely in the positive, constructive sense. I always enjoy your games, just brainstorming on what can be done to jolt people out a bit.

I want to strongly support and echo @faraday's post here re: the VG thread and forum organization.

What she's discussing is precisely what was at the core of my argument the last time around (not in this thread, in the prior one where we talked about the advertisement board). The one where, incidentally, the mods had even seemingly come to agree but then there was no real movement to re-arrange things.

While we've made progress (with the more heavy moderation dev section per the last round of fisticuffs, and thanks mostly to @Auspice apparently ignoring the other mods and general bureaucratic inaction to do it herself), the overall organizational model still seems insufficient and/or incorrect. There's still an unresolved question of what content can go in ad threads, whether it's appropriate to call BS propaganda BS, etc. 'Apology' threads are a pretty specific case, but they run into the same general issues.

@thatguythere said in Big city grids - likes and dislikes:

@bad-at-lurking said in Big city grids - likes and dislikes:

I do enjoy exploring a grid, but generally, I only do it once. And nobody else ever goes to that cool room with the ocean overlook unless they decide to build a house there.

Those are the exactly rooms I use in a grid the most, all the times when someone is like where should we RP, those are the rooms I toss out as suggestions if they fit the characters involved at all.

Yeah, this is very true for me also.

I think when grids are done well, those 'special' rooms can have a tremendous impact on one's experience as a player. Learning the layout of a big grid, knowing its secrets and interesting nooks and crannies, is not only enjoyable for its own sake, but can often drive certain fun in RP. Finding secrets and sharing them. I'm pretty sure this all links strongly into the Bartle-Explorer angle, in that there's just a pure sense of joy of not only discovering, but then sharing that discovery, as a bonding experience.

Thinking on it, years (decades in some cases) out, I can still remember the following (and many more) pretty vividly:

• a secret room on a Pern game (a cave through a waterfall) that wasn't a faction secret or anything, you just had to read the desc to guess the exit name. It was a 'common' secret but taking new people there was always an interesting social experience.

• My first nightclub on a WoD game. Stereotypical & lame, but it was mine, and I was proud of the details I included (from the places to the usable catwalks).

• Any number of slightly out-of-the-way, special, restricted, unique, simply flavorful, etc places on Firan. The Palace balcony, a favorite fishing pond, any of the private cabins out in the wilderness, the 2nd floor entrance of the Air Force tower (just for the sheer novelty of the flight code), 'the tree', etc. Also the actual awe at seeing somewhere like Perindra for the first time.

• My family's planet & residence on 5th World. My experience on that game was 'meh' on the whole, but our planet was extremely unique and I was really proud of some of the descs I did for it, just for the unique sci-fi flavor.

I think this must get into crazy brain stuff like sense memory, because not only can I recall these places, but I can remember details of the scenes I had at some of them that I couldn't possibly match in equal detail for other scenes I had on those games at the same time with the same characters. I can remember some of this stuff better than RP I've had in the last few months.

@faraday said in Big city grids - likes and dislikes:

I disagree though about the lack of spontaneous encounters. I don't really see a practical difference between wandering to "Big City - Sleazy Strip" on the grid and doing scene/start Big City - Sleazy Strip=public. Both can park your character in the Sleazy Strip with a hint (in the case of a grid) or an expressed intent (in the case of the scene system) of being open to RP in that location.

Well, I think there's a difference if that location is on the grid or in the temproom hub. I realize it can be done seamlessly on grid in nuFS3, but it's not a common feature in generic MUSH/Mux. Other than that, I agree there's not much practical difference.

That said, a common RP partner of mine quit 8th Sea over precisely this distinction. I don't think there's any logic to it beside player psychology. Yet I feel like it must come up fairly often since that game actually made expanding their grid part of their effort to renew the game after the initial opening failed.

I think generally the trend on MUs in recent years has been toward grid minimalism. It's almost guaranteed to be less work (fewer descs!), and @faraday highlights some of the other benefits. That said it's not necessarily the only answer and there are some arguments against.

Firstly, to do the standard pompous intellectual bit, 'Explorer' is identified as one of the major player motivation-types in gaming. While RP MUs use this less than MUDs, they do benefit from it and there are players who enjoy it. I know many people who explored (and even mapped out) Firan's mega grid, and some locations that focused on this (including some coded exploration puzzles) were very popular. Visiting the sunken cave as a ritual of bravery was a standard of kid RP for a while.

Secondly, there's a benefit to certain kinds of players who enjoy spontaneous RP. While a big grid seemingly keeps players apart, it actually makes chance encounters more contextually meaningful. Bumping into someone in 'Big City - Western District' says basically nothing about what kind of RP might happen, while 'Big City - Western District - Sleazy Strip' (or 'Dark Alley' or 'Tech Market') might suggest quite a lot. Common RP hotspots (bars, shops, training centers, etc) can also be utilized players who may be interested in RP but who are too shy to ask on channel or commit to a planned scene in pages. The location serves not just to advertise that they want RP, but what kind.

Finally, the costs of a larger grid to players who don't like it can be minimized (+hangout and +travel code, +meetme, etc) whereas the reverse is not true in the same way. +temproom code can give infinite variety, but it can never offer spontaneous encounters nor true exploration.

Of course, Superhero games are also their own thing and inform this discussion in various ways. Exploration may not be relevant to a Metropolis setting, where the city is cast in grand strokes and encounters are likely to play out across the sky at high speeds. Here you might need no more than a few neighborhoods and iconic locations: the Planet, LexCorp, the Watchtower, etc... along with some access to off-grid spaces like Themyscira and Atlantis. On the other hand a Gotham game might be very different and benefit from some nooks and crannies to explore and give the city its depth and factional hangouts to be used by criminal gangs.

There's never a one-size-fits-all answer to this kind of stuff.

@surreality Yeah, I think this is a great solution.

Kudos to @Auspice for the prompt action, too.

@arkandel Uh, I'm not claiming my view is popular.

I'm claiming their point view is popular and represents a significant subset of people you should cater to (with the citation being the two of them, along with one other person, having a bunch of posts in the same general thrust in the page or two preceding mine that are all well voted).

@faraday Cool enough. I think your moderation requirements are reasonable for even the current-extant forum. I still think @surreality's desires represent something that cannot be adequately catered to right now.

That's what I'm advocating for, and I don't mean it as an insult at all. I feel like people want this and would use this, and could have this WITHOUT taking anything away from anyone else. I have no clue what it's controversial, other than perhaps a tendency to attribute the worst to one another's intentions (which may be well-earned).

@surreality I maintain that my initial post was no way meant as hostile (the 'those plots are stupid' was in reference to a general trope of plots, not anything specific to your game) and that most of it was misinterpretation of tone and and a death spiral of hostility/defense, but it's fine, I'm no more interested in re-litigating that thread than I imagine (or hope) you would be. I'm not going to.

Regardless, your (prior) thread is still a good example not because of the fight, but because of what you wanted and didn't get: a controlled conversation based on certain positive elaboration on your initial concepts. We fought in that thread because I fundamentally didn't believe the 'Mildly Constructive' forum allowed you that restriction, but I am in favor of you having a place where you could have that. I don't know what more I can offer or say than that.

But it would probably need to be a new high-moderation zone.

@faraday I agree all those specific things are not constructive and should be subject to moderation even in Mildly Constructive (and if any of them are me, my bad). That said, I still think there's levels of skin thickness, hostility and defensiveness across the entire spectrum of forum posters where it would be beneficial to have a designated high moderation area.

This also has certain utility to the mod team themselves, because it allows them to prioritize reports.

@arkandel I think it's not irrelevant to identify that some people want something much different than other people want. I think its useful to identify it and actually see how we can make it work for everyone.

We had some kind of agreement on different levels of moderation in the older thread, but it's been tabled/forgotten, it seems. I'm not sure why that is, where it seems like such a compromise-y 'please everyone' option.

@roz Suffice it to say, I disagree with your interpretation, and saw the whole thing as a spiral of criticism and defensiveness that got increasingly more hostile. However, even at the time, the vast majority of it was totally within the bounds of that forum's mission, up until the point we declared blood vendetta and pox on one another to a hundred generations, or whatever (but that was already several pages in).

So my point remains that no, the current forum structure doesn't actually fit what they're looking for. They want a vastly more heavily moderated version of that forum. Which is fine and I support them in. But to me it really suggests 3 levels of 'politeness'/moderation, not 2.

@arkandel I'm really not trying to target them or be negative (like, really truly, honestly, I'm not), but pointing out they represent a pretty specific end of the of viewpoint specturm. Their argument is 'the constructive forum is already this, but people are terrible and keep it from working.'

My argument is they have a fundamentally different view of what 'constructive criticism' even means.

@faraday @surreality

Suffice it to say, I think given the variable tolerances of different people for different levels of criticism, I don't think you want what you claim you're asking for, or it's not realistic. Split the hairs however you want, on language and what is 'constructive' and what isn't, but people will react to things very differently. Your very ongoing line of complaint basically proves that the forum that exists can't suit your needs, which is why I think it's perfectly reasonable to create a new one for you.

We can go back to @surreality's last game project thread as an example of this, where basically any level of 'I don't like this theme element' or 'I think this won't work' was interpreted as 'you are the destroyers of all hopes and dreams.' Heck, even ignore my interactions with her, since I'm obviously satan or whatever. She reacted this way to @Arkandel too, in the same discussion. I'm pretty sure you all regard him positively.

So call the kinder forum whatever you want to satisfy that it sounds like it's focused on mature, intelligent discussion, but you want a (more) heavily moderated forum where people are very limited in the degree they can dissent or criticize the primary poster. Hell, @surreality even created a prototype for what I'm describing in her thread, where she tried to limit the scope of discussion but people didn't feel she had that authority. Create a forum where she has that authority!

Seriously, I'm really not your enemy in getting what you want, but you need to be realistic about what you're really asking for.