I'm so, so flattered when someone stays up late to play with me. They don't need to, and I'm always vocal OOC that sleep and RL are more important and it's always totally fine if they need to tap out of or pause a scene for any reason, but sometimes it's stupid late and they just keep playing because they're enjoying themselves, and it makes me happy. 
(I am a terrible influence, SORRY.)
Hey there! I'm terrible with names, so in case you are too I've thrown in identifying context wherever I could.
If you recognize any of my characters I would love if you said hi.
Leocadio Vasquez
Hedonist gadfly.
Profile: https://thenetwork.mugames.org/char/Leo
Liam Byrne
Irish mechanic here to fix things and Have Opinions.
Profile: https://savageskies.aresmush.com/char/Liam
Isaac Cohen
American theatre kid here to fight fascists.
Profile: https://savageskies.aresmush.com/char/Isaac
The Ares system is new and strange to me, and I have no idea what I'm doing. Hello!
Sidney Whisper
"Everyone needs something, and I'm very good at being that something."
Member of: the Whisper House
Irreverent courtier who spent 90% of his time getting cheerfully drunk with people.
Tuomo "Tommy" Virtanen
a lanky, brown-haired young man
Member of: The Red Gold Society, The Lamplighters, The Synthesis Project
100% human guy who stumbled in and out of a lot of Deep Plot. I still get wistful about Tommy. I was lucky to play with some great people.
Cade Torres
a rangy, hard-jawed teenager with shorn hair
Academy student
Tense, sulky Academy student. Accidentally specialized in having conflicting desires around empaths.
Lane Hawkins
a freckled, dark-eyed woman with thick, curly hair
Everyone assumed she was a werewolf, so she got locked up during full moons. Spoilers: she was not actually a werewolf.
Nikolas Levesque
a trim, dapper man with bronze hair and full beard
Member of: The Scions
German Demigod Veteran. Present at the final battle with Sarkur, was marginally helpful in saving the world.
Marshall "Mars" Carver-Heinz
a pale, slim man with dark blue eyes
Member of: The Vanguard
A feral, unapologetic Faeborn mess who was occasionally charming.
Milo Vasquez
a rangy, hazel-eyed young man with curly blue hair
Blackfield College student. Member of: The Libertines
A charming Faeborn mess who was occasionally feral and unapologetic.
Dekken
the compactly-built dreadlocked man
Atrium student, Aide to House Borsail
Dekken was my very first Armageddon character, and he lived two and a half years real-time before I retired him. Two and a half years. Poor immortal bastard.
Cassan
a lanky, curly-haired man with a lame left arm (or something like that)
Bard with one good arm who made a lot of embroidered belts
Denian Mellos
Something something Lawful Neutral bard in Verminasia/Arkane?
Edited 1/06/20: Added Liam, changed sort order to reverse chronological because pfff who likes scrolling.
Given the opportunity, players will optimize the fun out of a game.
Oh hey, that's where this quote came from! The Game Maker's Toolkit YouTube channel uses it a lot.
I think this is absolutely true, and one of the reasons I find myself drawn lately to games running on newer, less number-y code, like Ares. There's just not that much to optimize! There's no real advantage to min-maxing your character into absurdity, and XP is usually given to active players on a time schedule rather than as a reward for doing any specific tasks. The default code even throws you free points to put into Background skills that will rarely, if ever, get rolled. They're just flavor, there to round out a character and show a glimpse of their backstory.
I don't have the same kind of time to roleplay that I used to, and it's freeing to play a game where there's no optimization rabbit hole to fall down. There are no daily tasks to hit, nothing to grind, and I can just log in and play when I want to play. I don't worry that I'm missing out on code rewards for stuff I don't actually want to do.
Habitual pot use leads to different effects, too. I've been in social circles where some people smoked weed every day, more or less all day. They rarely got giggly high unless they took waaaaaay more than usual or added in alcohol.
People react to weed in a lot of different ways, but yeah, it's always a little suspect when a character presented as a habitual user is rendered totally useless by weed.
@faraday said in Water finds a crack:
At the risk of being nitpicky, y'all are referring to FS3, not Ares.
Whoops, sorry Faraday! Every Ares game I've explored has used FS3, so I guess I conflate the two.
To take a step back, I think a code base like Ares that can slot in different number-crunching systems (like FS3 or the others) still promotes less optimization-oriented gameplay. The essential tools you're starting with are the scene system, expandable character profiles, a wiki documentation system, etc. The core emphasis of the code is on communication/posing rather than stats, and the communication is baked in.
If you enable the Ares text messaging system, for example, no one has to dump skill points or XP into Texting Mastery to reliably use it. Having been on a game where the telepathy system everyone used all day ran off a stat that started at zero, and overusing telepathy with a low stat would quickly knock you unconscious and leave you vulnerable for PvP... yeah, having that just baked into the platform is a nice difference. There's no FOMO around someone having a better experience with the fundamental mechanics of gameplay just because you didn't optimize your character to have the best telepathy skills or the most convenient messengers.
I didn't mean to make this an Ares thread, and I know less-numbery games aren't what everyone is after. I do like that approach to game design, though - focusing on a few particular mechanics (communication and documentation, in this case) and either leaving out other systems or making them optional. It bypasses a lot of optimization traps, although it can come at the loss of systems a lot of players love, like in-depth economies. And water will of course still find the cracks anyway.
Updated 1/06/20 because I was lured out of my hibernation with dieselpunk.
I'll be the weird outlier and say I really like Mudlet. It does all the things I want it to, and it's comfy to use!
Ed: And it's open source, and actively being developed, and etc.
@eye8urcake
THANK YOU That is so nice!
High five for a fellow Haven survivor