Posts made by Coin

Both some of the videos I saw and the reivew make me really want to play this game, so I think I will be putting it on my wishlist for Steam and checking on it whenever there's sales.

@thatonedude said in #WIDWW pt 2 - ST, Player, or staff?:

@ganymede said in #WIDWW pt 2 - ST, Player, or staff?:

@thatonedude said in #WIDWW pt 2 - ST, Player, or staff?:

Problems with Staff/Player interactions is perception, attitude, and intent. Maybe that sentence should be the perception of attitude and intent.

If a player decided by fiat to roll a pool into a +job requesting information and then told me what they should get and how it is to be delivered, I would perceive that the player felt entitled to shit and intended to be a prick about it.

ST: So, you enter the office. What do you do?
PL: I'm going to look around to figure out how he is going to rig the election. Here's my Investigation roll, where I get 3 successes. Now, tell me every intricacy of that plan.
ST: ... this is the janitor's office.

Right, but again... Perception of intent/attitude. I don't know the player that did this job in the example and I only know @Arkandel from his posts here.

With that said: What if that player didn't know how to move forward? What if they asked someone else what they should do and that person said open a job and CC the person that ran the event/plot? What if a million other things that wasn't the person being a tool was what really was going down? Granted I know there is the possibility this person /decided by fiat/ but there is also the possibility that he/she didn't.

My point is as a player, that attitude is felt and it has to be part of what makes this whole thing a problem. The ST/Player/Staff "issue".

You're missing this bit, I think:

@arkandel said in #WIDWW pt 2 - ST, Player, or staff?:

The problem in this case was in not consulting with the ST first to discuss the scope of the roll, or to accept the range of information they received out of it; that could have served (and even after the fact I tried to nudge it that way) as an introduction to a PrP about finding a different library to do research in, discuss the time it takes to go through the material, and so on.

Now, I could be assuming, but knowing @Arkandel, chances are he tried to mitigate the situation and the other person was unreasonable.

Yeah, definitely with @Arkandel and @Ganymede here. I'm going to hell for agreeing with them both in one post. Oh well.

The burden of story is on the storyteller. Unless the system specifically allows you to (some systems allow for players to change things about the story and that's part of the system itself) then how the rolls work and what you get out of them depends on the storyteller.

@surreality said in Now for something different:

I went outside today! We saw a really pretty giant moth and everything. And then every single old lady on the beach wearing so much perfume I could smell them from twenty paces with the wind against them had to stop to ask me what I was looking for amongst all the little pebbles -- clearly, the answer here is 'little pebbles I like', right? -- had to chat for twenty minutes, so we fled back home, and the peace and quiet of having my house to myself for a week is like heaven.

Hermit powers, go. I choose GrumpyCat to be my avatar.

I think @ILuvGrumpyCat called dibs.

The problem I see is that for this sort of thing to work on a MU, you need a constant ST presence developing the NPCs for the vampires in the game.

You can easily set up an "Investment" stat in Vampire where the more a vampire gets to know someone the more Vitae each point of blood from that person gives, for example, or the closer killing someone you're Invested in brings you to higher Blood Potency (but also the further it takes you from Humanity, since killing someone you have a high Investment in is worse than killing a random stranger).

But the issue is: how do you build that Investment and make it impactful in the Vampire's narrative on a MU, where there's so many fucking vampires to begin with? You need a heavy ST presence or, perhaps, you could build a buddy-ST-system like with Wraiths and their Shadows (and Kuei-Jin and their P'o, among other systems) where a second player NPCs the character's Investments. That might work. (This is, incidentally, what I would love for Geist: for another player at the table to be the person's Geist and whisper shit in their ear, etc., you can do the same with a Vampire's Beast, even).

The point is, you can do it. It just would require a lot of effort that isn't really in the player's hands.

@three-eyed-crow said in Earning stuff:

I mean I'm personally of the opinion that 'Other players being special detracts from me' is one of the most toxic impulses in this hobby but that's maybe another conversation.

I completely agree; but it's also not entirely an irrational or illogical extrapolation from the way we're fed fiction and storytelling, like @Arkandel said.

Can you guys PLEASE stop making me type shit that's in agreement with him? It's going to give me a migraine in my soul.

@faraday said in Earning stuff:

@arkandel said in Earning stuff:

It's how we are brought up - there are simply very few paradigms outside of MUSHing in our pop or gaming culture that prepare a player for not being one of the main protagonists of their own setting.

Those expectations can even be found in multi-player video games. In MMOs the quests (once you get past the "slaughter 20 bunnies and bring me their hides" stage) are designed with your character as the protagonist, even when there are umpteen million other characters on the server.

@arkandel said in Earning stuff:

From a certain point of view our expectations are unreasonable. It's not natural for players to change the way they think literally everywhere else other than in MU*.

There are, of course, teamwork-based games (e.g. Pandemic) and teamwork-based situations in games (e.g. a 20-man raid in a MMO) where it's not about stealing the spotlight. But those require the team coming into it with a set of shared expectations, and more of a community mentality. We just don't have that in MUSHland.

True, but in MMOs they've also completely gotten rid of the "special factor". Your level 60 Archmage with the Wand of Watoomb's Mom isn't the only level 60 Archmage with the Wand of Watoomb's Mom, to the point where you start to wonder how many wands Watoomb's Mom had, or at least how many moms Watoomb had.

It doesn't matter, in am MMO, if you fought the aliens off--because someone else fought them off, in fact, fifty thousand other people fought them off. It's a complete abstraction of story.

@faraday said in Earning stuff:

@coin said in Earning stuff:

I am also referencing games that are probably much larger in the terms of player bases, where not everyone can be part of the big plot in a way they find meaningful.

My intention was not to be demeaning, so I'm sorry if it came across that way. I'm just pointing out what I believe to be a fact that you yourself alluded to first - if the players are coming to a game with an expectation that the game can't fulfill, then there are going to be issues. That doesn't mean the players "have issues" or that the game sucks - it just means that there's a mismatch of expectations that's going to cause strife. Setting clear expectations can help.

Personally I see that a larger percentage of players want the "heroic style" versus the "everybody's a supporting member in the overall game story style", so I think games would save themselves a lot of headaches by catering more towards that mindset. But that's in no way implying that folks who cater to the other mindset are doing something wrong.

The problem is that not everyone understands "heroic style" as "everyone is heroes," which is my point. A lot of people are coming from experiences and searching for something that means they can be special within the world they are immersing themselves in--if everyone is special, then no one is, and that doesn't fulfill their expectations.

Also, and I guess this wasn't clear in my initial post, these aren't things I believe are conscious; they're unconscious expectations, and when they aren't fulfilled, the frustrations manifest and the causes are misattributed.

@faraday said in Earning stuff:

@coin said in Earning stuff:

You may have had good experiences with a BSG game, but as a whole, I just don't see that, haven't seen it, and especially haven't seen it last.

It's not just one BSG game. I can name a number of games that have functioned this way, with characters operating at a more epic scale of heroic adventure. I'm not saying every game does, can or should work this way. But to claim it's impossible is inaccurate, and to claim that the people wanting it have issues is slightly demeaning.

Hey, you used "issues" first; that was demeaning, too, especially since the type of game you're describing isn't the only type of game. I am perfectly fine accepting some games may work differently, but many don't. I am also referencing games that are probably much larger in the terms of player bases, where not everyone can be part of the big plot in a way they find meaningful. Or maybe the games I'm referencing just tend to attract the kind of people who want individual glory instead of group victory, I don't know, nor do I care. If the patterns I posited repeat themselves, it's for a reason. Happy for you that you found a way to create a niche where they don't, but that doesn't mean they don't exist.

@faraday said in Earning stuff:

@coin said in Earning stuff:

I would say the people that have the issues are the people who come to online gaming to reproduce something that the medium can't provide, actually.

On what do you base the statement that the medium can't provide that experience? Because I've seen games where it absolutely does. It's not a limitation of the medium, it's a (potential) limitation of individual game choices.

The medium as in "multiplayer online gaming" at the scope we function at.

You may have had good experiences with a BSG game, but as a whole, I just don't see that, haven't seen it, and especially haven't seen it last.

@faraday said in Earning stuff:

@ganymede said in Earning stuff:

It’s a little more difficult to do this on a WoD game.

Is it really? WoD is not my thing, but I am passingly familiar with it. It seems that there are any number of 'important events' that you could build stories around if that were your aim and if you steered characters into story-appropriate roles. (Which is why BSGU forced everyone to be in the mission-oriented departments.)

There's nothing wrong with saying that's not your goal - with having more of an "open world" concept where people can make anything they want. But... as @coin said:

@coin said in Earning stuff:

Many people come to online gaming to replicate and immerse themselves in the kind of stories they see the heroes and protagonists partake in on television and the big screen, or they come trying to find a way to do what they used to do in real life in tabletop with their friends back when they had time and didn't all live further away and didn't have life-sucking jobs

If a significant part of your intended audience is looking for something that your game design just flat-out can't provide then you've got issues. It's like saying: "OK I know you want X but I'm going to give you the complete opposite of X! Enjoy!"

I would say the people that have the issues are the people who come to online gaming to reproduce something that the medium can't provide, actually.

@faraday said in #WIDWW pt 2 - ST, Player, or staff?:

@coin said in #WIDWW pt 2 - ST, Player, or staff?:

Right. But part of the investment is at chargen. If it is very easy to make a new character, a lot of people (not everyone, certainly not most, but not an insignificant number) will just not give a shit.

Yes, but that's still a player issue not a system issue. I don't think "make chargen a PITA so people won't want to risk their characters senselessly" is really a good solution to the problem.

Oh, definitely not, but also "make chargen ridiculously simple and quick to make up for the high turnover rate because the players are kamikaze dopes" isn't either.

I mean, personally, unless it's important to my character, or if the sacrifice will be worth it, my characters tend to turn tail and run when they don't figure they can handle shit. That fucking "I am a PC, I am invincible" shit never worked with me, lol.

A lot of these problems stem from the medium through which we tell these stories. Roleplayers usually involve themselves in online roleplaying via at least one of the following: tabletop roleplaying in real life, reading a lot in real life, watching a lot of television in real life. These things lead them to try expanding their enjoyment online and immersing themselves in the stories further, with lots of other people.

But the heroes of a book, or a television (or movie), or a tabletop game in real life... are the protagonists of the story. They get to go to space, and they don't just get to go to space, they get to blow up the space slug, make a hole in the space shield, and beat the fucking daylights out of the oppressive aliens. Because they're the protagonists. The story is about them.

One thing I've heard a lot is how "unrealistic" it is that a story is about a person and that person just so happens to do all this stuff or have all this stuff happen to them--but the truth is, it's the other way around: the story is about that person because that shit happens to them and they do that stuff. If someone else did it, or if it happened to someone else, the story would be about them.

And therein lies the rub. Many people come to online gaming to replicate and immerse themselves in the kind of stories they see the heroes and protagonists partake in on television and the big screen, or they come trying to find a way to do what they used to do in real life in tabletop with their friends back when they had time and didn't all live further away and didn't have life-sucking jobs...

But online play, in the massive games we run and play in, is a completely different beast, where you are not the protagonist--you are a protagonist amidst dozens of protagonists, and that spotlight istemporary and transitory at best.

The more people who get that, the better the hobby will be.

@faraday said in #WIDWW pt 2 - ST, Player, or staff?:

@coin said in #WIDWW pt 2 - ST, Player, or staff?:

Question: how easy was it for people to make a new character on TGG? How long did it take to approve new characters?

Super-fast. It was pretty fast on the BSG game I mentioned too.

My point with TGG was that if you have a higher PC death rate, you can end up with people just not getting invested in their characters, as opposed to people actually being more cautious.

Right. But part of the investment is at chargen. If it is very easy to make a new character, a lot of people (not everyone, certainly not most, but not an insignificant number) will just not give a shit.

@faraday said in #WIDWW pt 2 - ST, Player, or staff?:

@arkandel said in #WIDWW pt 2 - ST, Player, or staff?:

Sometimes people like to play a game of chicken. Am I going to kill them off in some random Wednesday evening PrP? No? Then hellz yeah they'll stick around to fight when I say "you can hear reinforcements arriving! Thankfully after you rummaged through the Bad Guy's desk you discovered a secret passage out" two and a half hours after we began.

Yeah, I've run into this several times too. It's like as long as they think death is off the table, folks will fight long past the point at which it ICly makes any sense to fight. There was one time when the PCs literally charged down a tunnel into Cylon machineguns, WWI style, even after I repeatedly warned them.

Now you might say "Just kill them, then they'll learn" but we'd still see gung-ho stuff like this on TGG, the king of PK. It's just a player mindset issue. There are some folks who like adversity, who see failure as the building block to more interesting stories, but most? Just flat-out don't.

Question: how easy was it for people to make a new character on TGG? How long did it take to approve new characters?

@cobaltasaurus said in Development Thread: Sacred Seed:

It's honestly just going to be:

Birth control is available to all, works on both genders. It's 100% effective until the two players involved don't want it to be. OOC consent must be had by both parties for pregnancy to start.

And uncomplicated miscarriage is possible if the pregnant character's player does not want them to be pregnant anymore or, for example, if the character gets rostered while pregnant and the new player has no intention of playing parenthood/pregnancy.

@arkandel said in #WIDWW pt 2 - ST, Player, or staff?:

@lisse24 said in #WIDWW pt 2 - ST, Player, or staff?:

is just not fun to me, and I don't understand people who want to play the gazillion XP vampirewerewolfmage and win with no cost. I agree with the other person who says they don't really see many dark WoD games out there, because if you're going to explore dark themes, then there has to be cost and consequences and in most cases, that just doesn't exist.

But that's the thing. It's not the XP. You can make some pretty damn powerful characters with relatively little - practically right out of CGen - so you can get good academic rolls, some melee, some firearms, etc.

The problem is people playing to win, not systems that can't be beaten. It's on us.

It's also not a problem of players being too powerful compared to their antagonists, but rather the antagonists being too weak. Okay, you have your super-powerful vampire; I, as an ST, am going to ramp up my antagonists, then. It's a matter of scale, and surprise, the ST can always win the scaling game, because we don't need XP.

The problem is that players expect to win, like @Arkandel says (god that hurt to type). They expect to win because they "put a lot of effort into all this XP to be powerful" or whatever, or "this isn't really fun for me" if they aren't winning or if they're getting shit on by the antagonist. Adversity in MUs is something you play in your downtime, apparently.

I played in an IRC Exalted (tabletop style) game for like two years or something and my character was constantly shit on by this Abyssal who juast kept showing up and beating the living shit out of me. Like, "almost dead" several times. Eventually, I figured out his style, his powers (after he'd used every single one of them on me) and then I built a combo that let me shoot him in the face. And I didn't even kill him, one of my Circle finished him off.

And it was the best time because I felt like my character had earned that victory.

Most MUers don't really feel that way.

@prototart said in nWorld of Darkness 1E v 2E:

@shelbeast said in nWorld of Darkness 1E v 2E:

I ran a tabletop game of VtR like this, in another sort of way. I made Humanity and Blood Potency a sliding scale with a maximum of 11 points spread between the two, with normal starting stats of 7 Humanity and 1 BP. The basic idea was to play up the conflict between being a human being, and confronting the monstrous nature of being a vampire. If you wanted to truly grow in power as a vampire, you'd have to sacrifice your Humanity. And when you'd realize that you had become this horrible thing, and try to seek redemption, your vampiric might would ebb, as you were denying and neutering your own Beast.

that sounds kind of like the system stuff in the like print-run-of-10 blink and you missed it oWoD Africa book, which came out like a week before they cancelled the line and which i kind of loved

Kindred of the Ebony Kingdom.

And yes, it's very much like the Orun/Aye dynamic. I still have that book in surpriginsly good conditions.

@sunny said in Interest Check - Armageddon MUX (A Unisystem Urban Horror Game):

@coin said in Interest Check - Armageddon MUX (A Unisystem Urban Horror Game):

@sunny said in Interest Check - Armageddon MUX (A Unisystem Urban Horror Game):

I would be interested in this.

Saying "Unisystem" is like saying "Buffygame" around @Sunny even if she knows it's not gonna actually be a Buffygame. It's hilarious to watch. >.>

Somebody WILL make a Buffy game eventually. This is pretty cool anyway though, and I do just love Unisystem!

The year is 2047, and @Sunny is finally opening Sunnyvale, a Buffyverse MU*.

@sunny said in Interest Check - Armageddon MUX (A Unisystem Urban Horror Game):

I would be interested in this.

Saying "Unisystem" is like saying "Buffygame" around @Sunny even if she knows it's not gonna actually be a Buffygame. It's hilarious to watch. >.>