Best posts made by faraday

@tinuviel said in A healthy game culture:

People are going to be dicks regardless of the system or the theme. Dicks are dicks.

Experience in gaming communities just doesn't bear out that theory though. There are a few card-carrying jerks around, to be sure, but they are the minority. Most people are influenced by the type of community around them. Put them in a game filled with backstabbing, manipulation, and competition, and that tends to drive a certain type of behavior. We see this over and freaking over again whenever games have certain elements (IC PVP, OOC competition for limited slots, etc.). Put that same person in a PVE/Co-Op environment, and they behave differently.

This isn't a MU-specific phenomenon. You can see it in everything from video games to board games to RPGs to 10-year-olds on the playground screaming "I got you!" "No you didn't!".

I'm not saying that PVE games are free from drama (I wish!) or that nobody should run PVP games. I'm just saying that there's a clear correlation between certain themes/game elements and a higher degree of toxic behavior among the players. If you want a less toxic environment, consider changing the environment.

@roz said in A healthy game culture:

No one is talking about using it as an excuse? It is not about shifting blame. It is about being aware of patterns certain structures can encourage in people so that you can be best prepared to respond and deal with them. Which includes, yes, getting rid of people who are being assholes. Or adjusting how a game is being run. The point is that recognizing certain patterns can allow people to more proactively prepare for more likely possibilities.

This. Saying that something "brings out the worst in people" is observational. It doesn't absolve people of the responsibility for their own actions.

@misadventure said in MUs That We Would Love To Make (But Won't):

I think the main barrier is that most players don't want an environment that can change significantly

While I get that some folks would rather have more mutable settings, I don't think of it as a "barrier" in a negative sense, but rather a guardrail.

MUSHes are more like TV shows than most other forms of media. They're designed for longevity. For the good ones, careful attention needs to be paid to the elements of the setting that provide the fuel for the stories. Messing with those core underpinnings can blow up the entire show.

You don't often see TV shows make massive changes to their settings, and for good reason. Of course, when they do - it can be epic, but it's just so disruptive to storylines, sets, etc. that it has to be done carefully and deliberately. Not just because Bob the writer (or player, in the MU analogy) felt like doing something different on a boring Saturday.

@arkandel said in Attachment to old-school MU* clients:

But here is the thing. Why is that an issue? As far as I'm concerned the 'need' for the hobby to move to web-based clients is in order to attract new players who might find the dedicated MU* clients intimidating or off-putting.

The need to support old-school MU clients is a tremendous limitation on new platforms and individual games.

It doesn't just double the workload (because you have to do everything twice - once for web and once for old clients) - it's more like 10x the effort. You have to make sure every feature supports two vastly different ways of interacting with the game. You have to teach and support two different ways of doing literally freaking everything. Two parallel sets of code to maintain and debug, and (for new coders) to learn. I cannot overstate what a huge problem this is.

Do we need desktop and mobile clients? Yes. But IMHO they need to evolve in a way that reduces these burdens.

I get why folks like grids for the immersion factor, and that's cool. I'm not judging. If that's your thing, Penn/Tiny/Rhost or any MUD engine fits the bill nicely. Nobody's trying to take them away.

But looking forward to next-gen RP, consider having a map like this:

And a selectable list of locations - each with a wiki page (containing not only the desc you'd find on a MU grid but also maybe reference images, links to associated scenes, detailed background info, etc.)

I think most MUSHers would be able to understand where things are located and generate RP just fine without an actual "grid".

Personally I prefer it because I find it avoids some mental disconnects, like "an exit could take you to the next room or the next planet", being forced to create filler rooms to create a sense of space, and being forced to reconcile non-square locations onto a square n/s/e/w kind of map.

@ell Yeah, I may have overstated. In some cases it's the default; in others it assumes private because if you're creating a scene off-grid the presumption is that you don't want to be on grid where others could crash the scene.

Regardless, though, it's just as easy to create a public scene as a private one. What I've observed is that a lot of people (myself included) just prefer smaller scenes with people that are either OOC friends or IC connections.

This is not a phenomenon caused by Ares' scene system. Ares just lets people more easily play according to their preferences. If there aren't any open public scenes, it's because the players don't want them. Some might think that makes it harder to find RP, but that's presuming (erroneously, I believe) that those people would be available for public RP otherwise. My experience across numerous games (Ares and non-Ares) tells me differently.

ETA: There are certainly games (TGG comes to mind) that have had no OOC room, no RP/TP rooms, and no private apartments for people to RP in, thus forcing every scene to be public. If that's the sort of game you want - great, build it. You could do it through Ares with a mandate "no private scenes" or you could use one of the other MU servers that supports such a thing more natively.

The general indifference to wounds and deaths in both RPGs has always kind of baffled me. I get that everyone wants to be the hero, but even John McClaine was feeling it when his feet got shredded. And even though YOU know that your character has luck points/fate points/a kind GM or a FS3 combat system that won't kill you, your PC doesn't know that. They should maybe not be quite so reckless all the time.

@derp Yep.

On BSGU, I was very up front that the plots were going to revolve around the pilots and marines doing action stuff. While you could be some other kind of crewman, you were on your own for RP. Whenever someone apped a support crewman, I spoke with them individually to make sure they understood this. Some proceeded anyway, and I was like: "More power to them." They knew what they were getting into.

Most got bored and quit, as I expected. Two, though, took the initiative to figure out how to get their support people into the "dungeon". They worked with me to craft an appropriate storyline, generated a bunch of RP, and ended up being two of the more interesting characters on the game.

@il-volpe said in The Desired Experience:

you can make them play with someone they'd otherwise ignore, by dropping plot points over there.

Why should you have to though? Just because somebody had no idea what to play and you said "Well we don't have any Raptor ECOs at the moment", that doesn't in any way oblige you to drop special plot points just for New Guy ECO.

Now if you're deliberately telling people to make characters on Mars knowing full well that there's no RP to be had on Mars, that's a jerk thing to do. But general recommendations of what you can play shouldn't come with a perceived entitlement that staff is going to do any more for that role than any other role on the game.

@ominous said in The Desired Experience:

@il-volpe said in The Desired Experience:

Do I think RPing exclusively with four other people is cool? No. I think it's equivalent to showing up at the pot luck with four sandwiches to hand to your friends. If it's a sandboxy game, okay, its maybe more like a park where people are meant to do that, but probably you're using plates and napkins and drinking from the host's margarita pitcher.

Ooooh, I like this analogy.

See, whereas I look at it more that you're invited to a party and you choose to just hang out with a couple of people you already know. Nothing wrong with that. Nothing wrong with mingling with new people either, but it's a personal choice.

If I were invited to a party where the host was like: "Oh and I expect you to go out of your way to ensure that other random strangers at this party have fun" I would look at them like they're from Mars while I politely declined their invitation.

@ganymede said in The Desired Experience:

Ultimately, as long as I'm not shitting on other people's fun, I think I'm okay.

That's how I look at it.

If staff feels its important to encourage RP circles to interact with each other, or to get new players involved in things, they have the tools at their disposal to do so. Plot hooks, incentives, RP through their own alts. Just as the host of our hypothetical party might introduce a lonely friend to some other like-minded people, or orchestrate some group activities, or just sit down and talk to them personally.

@derp said in GMs and Players:

Personally, I hate the "living room" theory of GMing. I don't know how it became somehow the standard we reach for.

I'm certainly not saying that your philosophy is wrong, but mine is different.

A MUSH is a community that will exist (with people coming and going of course) for months if not years. It is a creative endeavor that game-runners often pour their heart into--or at the very least a crap-ton of work into There is a ton of collaboration involved, and the players also end up with a lot more effort/investment.

So yeah, it may not be exactly like inviting your besties over for a TTRPG session in your dining room. But for me it feels closer to that than to the convention of stove coil enthusiasts.

@lotherio said in MUs That We Would Love To Make (But Won't):

I could have fun doing like hotshots (the really good wild fire firefighters) but only doing occasionally fire fighting and the rest slice of life drama, whereas others would expect new bigger fires or something

I don't necessarily need it to be bigger better fires/catastrophes/etc. but I do need there to be a constant stream of something. Otherwise it just gets boring.

I haven't exactly done a scientific analysis, but just off the cuff I'd say that Chicago Fire has about a 30/30/30 split between "action" (fires, rescues, high drama), romance, and "fluff" (silly hijinks, slice of life, and randomness). That's always seemed like a pretty decent ratio to strike on a MUSH. The trouble is sustaining that 30% "action" for a much wider cast on a much more frequent basis.

@pyrephox said in MUs That We Would Love To Make (But Won't):

you'd have to have staff who are willing to be realistic about the number of people they can handle

I mean... given that it takes an entire writer's room to generate that level of plotting for 6-10 characters on a weekly basis, I'm thinking the number of players a small staff can support is going to be pretty darn tiny. Well below the minimum threshold required to sustain a MUSH.

I think what you'd need is just a MU community willing to support each other - letting others take turns with the spotlight, running NPCs, all with the expectation that when it's your turn, they'll do the same for you.

Yeah, it's a pipe dream, but it'd be nice.

@derp said in MUs That We Would Love To Make (But Won't):

People are bitchy and pedantic in MUSH and have been for 30+ years.

Maybe that's why it's a high mountain to climb to get people to run scenes for more than just their close personal friends.

@Ghost said:

How far do you think other players and staff should go to make a player feel wanted?

I don't think that anyone has an obligation to make anyone else feel wanted. These are games. Games are supposed to be fun. If it's not fun to play with someone, don't do it.

BUT... I also believe that if you want a game to have a long, happy life, then it is in your own best interests to do as much as you can to get other people involved. Activity breeds activity. Cliques get stale. New players mean new opportunities.

@wanderer said:

I use metapose as a tool to build mood and atmosphere. I'm not going to describe in minute detail how someone's eyebrows and eyes are positioned in order to describe that they're sad. I'll say something like, "she's sad, it's in her expression." Even if it's an outright thought-pose you can't react to, if it brought a sense of mood, or a creative spark, it has contributed to the scene. With the caveat that it has to be well written.

I agree. I'm not a good enough writer to convey subtle facial cues, and even if I could - would anyone pick up on what I meant? Describing feelings that others would have a chance of picking up on isn't metaposing to me. Metaposing is like: "Jane smiles, but inwardly thinks: OMG he's suck a jerk." I have no issue with something more like: "Jane smiles, but the gesture is tainted by the obvious disdain in her eyes."

@ThatGuyThere said in XP systems:

There is not one XP system that should be used all over.

I agree. XP systems are not intrinsically "better" or "worse" than each other; they each have different pros/cons, and motivations. The one that works best is the one that has pros you like and cons you can live with.

As systems go, I favor a very slow automatic XP gain (as anyone who's played FS3 knows). Slow because chargen reflects all your collective experience over a lifetime prior to the game starting. Compared to that, the amount you'll change over your 1-2 year IC timespan is miniscule. Automatic because I personally detest the idea of tying popularity to IC ability.

However, my personal favorite XP system is "justified increase". You're RPing about taking some dance classes? Great, I'll toss you a dot in Dancing. Tell me you're going to practice at the firing range every day for three weeks? Sure, I'll increase your Shooting skill from 1 to 2 next month. But that tends to be way too arbitrary for most folks, and nobody wants to hear the answer of "No, I won't raise your piloting from 10 to 11 because that takes years and you've only been on the game 6 months."

@ixokai said in Cultural differences between MUDs and MUSHes:

@Kestrel said in Cultural differences between MUDs and MUSHes:

It's pretty asinine, from an outsider's perspective, because it's totally unnecessary by the admission of everyone on this thread who's explained why it's necessary.

I responded and I didn't admit, in any way shape or form, that it was unnecessary. I said it was a courtesy, not a rule. Courtesy is how life among different people is kept oiled and moving smoothly

Exactly. Courtesy is never "necessary", and nor is everyone ever going to agree on what constitutes courteous behavior. There are those who will get offended if you hold the door for them. There are those who will get offended if you don't hold the door for them. Few would argue it's necessary to ever hold the door for anyone. That does not make it "asinine" to suggest that holding the door is commonly considered a polite thing to do.

@ixokai also said:

If you're trying to litmus test for dickness like that, then all you're doing is proving you, yourself, are a dick.

Yeah, I don't ask because I'm testing to see if the other people are going to tell me 'no'. I ask because I honestly am not interested in RPing where I am not welcome. I'm giving them the no-offense-taken opportunity to say 'no' if my character doesn't fit in their scene for some good reason. I think it's polite to do this. Everyone else is entitled to disagree.

I also think it's polite to try to work people in when they ask, as per the second bullet. But there are legitimate situations where that's hard/awkward/impossible.

@EmmahSue said in MSB: The meta-discussion:

The Hog Pit is a bit ugly, a lot cruel, and often for the fierce joy of that cruelty. There's nothing particularly wrong with that....

See that's where we disagree. I think there is something inherently wrong in being purposefully cruel to a person for the fun of it.

Now to what @ThatGuyThere and @surreality have said about everyone having a different measure of what constitutes 'bashing' - of course that's true. Negative feedback will always sting, especially for creative types, but it comes with the territory. You shouldn't have to be afraid of saying "I don't like this" or "I think this is a bad idea."

At the same time, I think there are some pretty universally-agreed-upon lines in the sand, and as far as I can tell MSB routinely and gleefully crosses those lines. If somebody posted something like "Are you high motherfucker?" in a bbs reply on one of my games, they'd get a stern talking-to. If they did things like that repeatedly, they'd be shown the door. Here the worst consequence might be someone else replying: "Dude you're an idiot." Or there might be no consequences at all, and even a cheering section.

But hey, this isn't my forum. I know that my opinion and my standards don't really matter in the grand scheme of things. It is absolutely MSB owners' right to tolerate and even encourage such behavior if they feel it's a good thing. But tying back to @Arkandel's original question, I don't think that has a great effect on the community as a whole. That's just my opinion.

@Three-Eyed-Crow and @WTFE In yet another example of why I often feel like a visiting alien among these boards, I actually have extremely fond memories of Electric Soup. It was started by a very good friend of mine from B5MU days and I regarded it as a success while it lasted. And frankly, if a forum is going to die because people can't discuss things constructively without being jerks and belittling each other, I can live with that.

So yeah maybe some day I will do that experiment. But right now I have better things to do with my time than play forum cop.

Incidentally, I find it ironic to hear 'if you don't like it, quit whining about it and go make your own' on a forum where every other advertisement thread is filled with pages upon pages of unfettered whining about how people don't like some particular thing on a game and how that's not how they'd have done it. Heaven forbid someone suggest something as horrifying and revolutionary as to just be nice.