Best posts made by faraday

@bear_necessities said in Preference for IC Time On A Modern(ish) Game:

Are people really celebrating holidays EVERY SINGLE YEAR in-game though? Birthdays? Like, I guess if it's only happening once a RL year, cool, but on games that are 1:2 time or whatever - why? Why would you do that to yourself or be worried about missing an IC holiday or... why?

Judging by the number of times I've had folks request a coded alert of some kind when it's somebody's IC birthday, I'd say yes, folks care about it

I suppose if it's an important milestone type birthday (somebody turning 18 or 30 or whatever) it might actually be relevant to the storyline, but generally I'm in the 'couldn't care less' camp.

I've had mixed experiences trying to do some kind of IC holiday thing at the same time as RL holidays. Sometimes it's an interesting thing to break up the everyday RP grind (an IC secret santa or harvest dance or costume ball or whatever).

@Groth said in Evennia (Arx) webclient feedback:

Keep a buffer of the last X lines that were sent to any given webclient session

It's not the last X lines you saw that is the issue, it's all the stuff you didn't see in-between the time your phone alt-tabbed (and the connection dropped) and the time you got back to it.

Not saying you couldn't solve it, but it would be considerably more challenging. You'd have to keep a buffer of the room, but then you run into the expectation on regular MU games that if someone's not in the room, they won't be able to see your chat. (Ares gets around this with the scene system.)

All your points are valid, and you may well be right. That said...

@Ghost said in Is this hobby on it's last legs?:

In the end, I feel it's logical to assume that when THIS crowd and the MUDder crowd dont have a younger generation to pass the torch down to

I've heard anecdotal stories of younger folks new to MUSHing being drawn into Ares games. My kids have played on my test game on the web portal and dug it. Storium seems to have a younger playerbase than MUSHes, and Storium.Edu specifically recruits kids. I wouldn't count the younger generation out completely.

@Ghost said in Ares in Mexico:

The IPv6 thing is weird. I'd suspect that first and if it still fails I would suspect a telnet block.

Telnet wouldn't block the websites though. Many firewalls will block the websockets connection on the web portal and prevent it from getting live updates, but you can still at least get there and read stuff.

@misadventure said in A healthy game culture:

I'd like to see people be clear about player vs player games, and character vs character games.

It's a nice notion, but the overwhelming majority of online RPG players cannot separate themselves from their characters enough to make a practical difference between PVP and CVC.

Among select groups of either good friends or really unique individuals? You could conceivably draw such a distinction. But for the general population of Internet People? It's best to go into it eyes wide open that a CVC game is going to be treated as a PVP game by almost all players.

This FOMO thing hasn't really been an issue on most of the games I've been on, I think due to their core nature. There are some common factors that have worked on a variety of game settings:

• Open plots - If just about everybody can come to just about everything, then people don't feel left out if they miss one battle/mission/whatever.
• PRP equality - If players can do the same sorts of cool for themselves as staff can, then you take away some of the "IC capital" that commonly makes staff run stuff special.
• Cooperative structures - If you take away jockeying for power and resources, there's less need for staff intervention to allow your character to progress.
• Keeping people together (geographically and factions) - The more ready connections you have between PCs, the easier it is to find RP in general.

@l-b-heuschkel said in Battling FOMO (any game):

If there's a pattern of 'friends only' every time, though, staff may have forgotten that they opened this game to the public, and some level of public accessibility is not unreasonable to expect.

It's unreasonable to expect if staff didn't set any such expectation. If you're just running a game to play with your friends, there's nothing inherently wrong with that. Just be up front about it. Ultimately, nobody is paying for a service, or forced to be there. If it isn't fun, don't play.

Now, I think the most successful staff will set clear expectations ahead of time of what they plan to do for their players, and will try to keep the majority of players engaged and having fun.

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

it makes a boring RPG world.

I think you may have a narrower definition of "RPG World" that some of us. I think what you're maybe getting at is that RPGs are often focused on heroic (or anti-heroic) people running around having adventures for months or years on end. That doesn't exactly happen every day in the real world.

But not all RPGs or MUs need that same hook. You absolutely could do one set in the modern world, and people have. A CSI MU or Grey's Anatomy MU may have its challenges and a more narrow audience than something more adventure-driven like Game of Thrones or Star Wars, but so what? As long as the people involved are having fun, that's all that matters.

@Thenomain said:

My place in it has been, "Okay, what's the game design?" The over-simplified answer has been, "Whatever you want."

I apologize if I'm still being dense, but this is the part I don't quite get.

I'm gonna use "system" here by my definition, since yours is forthcoming

2nd edition is a system where there are attributes (representing physical characteristics like Body and Mind) rated from 1-4, action skills rated from 1-12, background skills rated from 1-12 and unrated language skills. Characters also have this goofy thing called Quirks. In chargen, skills cost (this), dice work like (that) and XP is completely customizable but the default recommendation is (this geometric progression).

3rd edition is a system where there are aptitudes (representing talents like Athletics and Technical) rated from 1-5, action skills rated from 1-5, and unrated interests, expertise and languages. Characters have RP hooks and Goals. In chargen, skills cost (this), dice work like (that) and XP is still completely customizable but the default recommendation is (this other geometric progression).

Is it really so impossible to provide feedback about the 3rd ed changes without knowing exactly what's on the action skill list, which is the 'whatever you want" part?

You do not need to like something to give useful feedback.

Quite true. But likewise, I do not need to implement all feedback given.

I have tried to explain why I have chosen not to implement the particular piece of feedback about geometric skill cost in chargen, rather than just putting my foot down and saying 'thanks but no'. Perhaps I beat the dead horse too much but I honestly felt like there was some serious misunderstanding/miscommunication going on.

And just to be clear - I do not mind that feedback. What I mind is the repeated badgering that says that the system is utterly broken/unusable without it and I'm a crack-smoking idiotic despot if I disagree.

@Seraphim73 said in What do RPGs *never* handle in mu*'s? What *should* they handle?:

The question of torture vs seduction and which is rolled and which isn't is particularly troublesome, because there is a LARGE segment of the MU* population that would decide that their character would never break.

I think it comes down to whether or not you believe that someone is seduced against their will (a contested roll) or whether seduction is a manner of persuasive performance akin to leadership, bluff and acting. I believe the latter, so it's not an issue for me. The seducer/con artist/actor rolls for the quality of their performance. The recipient chooses how they react to it.

To look at it another way... let's say someone tells a story that's 100% true. There's no con roll involved, obviously, but the listening character still may or may not choose to believe them. Why should it be any different for someone telling a convincing lie?

What are you trying to model with XP? Who are you trying to motivate and why?

When considering XP design (or any other game design component for that matter) I find it helpful to refer to the Bartle Archetypes.

You might motivate Achievers through continuous progression - always giving a next level to reach or a new skill/power to unlock.

You might appeal to Competitors (my version of Killers in MU worlds) by giving power and advantages they can leverage. They'll be the ones most concerned about power disparities between PCs.

Explorers I think value the IC world. They'll be most interested in "realistic" or "justified" progression. Timed spending and staff oversight are favored here.

Socializers probably don't care too much about advancement, but XP can be used as a reward for the OOC behaviors you value. Here's where you might find XP awards for +noms, or running plots, or whatever else your game values.

Of course this is a gross over-simplification, and you can mix and match a bit. But you can never please everyone. Handing out XP as OOC rewards will piss off the Explorers because it can't be justified ICly, and have the Competitors crying foul about favoritism. Slow XP progression will frustrate the heck out of the Achievers and lead the Competitors to min/max their chars. Etc. Etc.

Decide what your goals are and pick a system that fits them. There is no "right" or "wrong" here.

@Ganymede said in Alternate CoD/WoD Character Growth / XP Systems:

Still, this only occurs once you get to a limit. So there's no inherent atrophy, but, rather an atrophy when you get to maximum potential.

Except that it's quite possible for me to be "actively using" all of the skills on my character sheet (which rarely represents every single thing your character knows). Your ability to practice is largely limited by your free time, which is highly individualized.

Should someone be able to reach level mastery in every skill and maintain it? No. I agree, that's silly. But should someone lose a dot from a modest professional-level rated skill they use all the time just because they picked up a new hobby and are at some artificial cap? That's also silly IMHO.

But I will take a step back and admit this is just a pet peeve. As I stated earlier, there is no right or wrong way to model XP. If your goals with the XP system are balance/fairness or OOC rewards, then "it's non-sensical from an IC perspective" is completely irrelevant.

What I was most objecting to was the assertion that 'no form of RPing requires X'. My form does

@Ghost said in Faction-Based Villain Policy Idea:

I apologize if I stirred up a storm, I'm just promoting defeat as being healthy ya knows? I often work defeat/back on horse into when my tabletop players lose.

Nothing to apologize for. I wasn't reacting to your original point. I agree that protagonists frequently suffer setbacks/defeats in good fiction and that makes for more interesting stories. But as you yourself have said, setback != death. I see a lot of the posts saying that the stakes don't matter unless the stakes are life or death, and I find that notion to be rather bizarre in light of most fiction out there.

@Monogram said in Web-based MU poll:

I dunno. Yeah, tel-net clients might be ancient in terms of stuff, but it's not like there's anything inherently wrong with them.

Like @Arkandel said, it has a lot of limitations. And there are technical reasons why it kind of sucks.

But for me the larger issue is around usability. Plop any modern gamer in front of a web app and they'll figure it out. You can set up a website or blog in minutes. Contrast that with explaining MU commands to someone who's never had to use a command-line interface. Or try to tell them how to install and configure a game using Penn/Tiny. It's a night and day difference.

That said, everyone has their preferences. I was in the "pry my MU client out of my dead fingers" category for a long long time so I'm not judging anyone for liking the old way. Just curious if there's enough interest in something different to justify the effort.

@Seraphim73 said in FS3:

I would be that this isn't something that Faraday is particularly interested in, because it would involve re-writing chargen, but if it were something that she -was- interested in, it's as simple as just giving new players a bunch of XP and letting them buy up skills/attributes with it.

Yeah, I have zero interest in doing that because it goes radically against the two core tenets of FS3: 1) Fast and easy chargen, and 2) You can start at good at what you do. I'm sick of systems that make you start at level 1 and work your way up. If you want to start out as a hotshot fighter pilot, then start out as a hotshot fighter pilot. Also, ironically, systems that have complex math in chargen usually make me min-max because inevitably I don't have enough points to make up the character I want. I want to be good at something and well-rounded.

Now, there's nothing wrong with a system that treats advancement the same as chargen, but that's just not my system. It would be like me going to the D20 game designers and saying: "You know what guys? This system wouldn't be so bad if you would just get rid of levels." Levels are a core part of the system.

@kitteh said in FS3:

Two, the thing she's bad at, well, it makes her preeeetty bad and she's mostly always going to be that way. I think she can bump the skill once in a reasonable timeframe, but after that it will be (RL) years?

I'd have to look at your skills to have more insight, but just as an example - to go from Everyman (which is 'dude off the street who's never sat in a Viper before') to Fair (junior professional level) takes only 3 RL months. Getting to Good after that (solid professional level) is another 3 months. With the new XP system, you can do that with multiple skills during that same timeframe. So I don't think it's true that someone who's "really bad" at something is stuck that way.

That's really not that far off from what you see in the show with the Viper nuggets IMHO - especially considering that a lot of them had some civvie piloting experience before and weren't starting from scratch. Also for the Viper nuggets on BSG:Pacifica I gave them some bonus XP to represent the intensive nature of their training. The regular XP assumes you're just learning in your spare time or improving through regular use.

Stat-wise, It's not like someone who's Good completely sucks compared to an Expert. I mean, yes, obviously the Expert has an edge, but it's not tremendous unless they're going up against each other. Against the garden-variety badguys, they'll both do pretty well.

And that again touches on a key component of FS3, which is that it's designed for cooperative PvE games. Letting characters start out at different power levels makes no sense if you're going to pit them against each other.

@kitteh said in FS3:

@faraday OK! They show as 1/4 and 1/12 but if that's just a visual error, fair enough!

Re: the combat stuff, maybe it would be good if there was some indication of who the elite enemy pilots are?

I worried that there would be the opposite effect - that people would just pick off the low-hanging fruit to buff their kill count and then gang up on the big bad at the end.

My vision for how it would play out is that someone would be like: "Frak! I keep missing! What is UP with this guy? Hey Wingman - lend a hand would you?" But that doesn't really seem to be how it works out.

But I'll open up a discussion in-game so people can weigh in. I'm not dead-set on how it works at the moment.

Edit: Also is exceptional = elite? The word-instead-of-number stuff is a little confusing.

Exceptional is for attributes. It means you're gifted with natural talent, basically. Elite is a skill, representing the peak of knowledge/training/experience.

So to @TimmyZ's point about athletes, you might expect a young hockey sensation to have Exceptional Reflexes and Great skill (5+5 = 10 dice) whereas a 30-year-old captain might have declined to Good Reflexes but now has an Expert skill (4+6 = 10 dice). At some point the sensation might keep going up and the captain might keep going down, but this varies. Just as I'm willing to accept a young character who's a prodigy, I'm also willing to accept an old character who's gone out of their way to maintain their physical condition.

@Thenomain For the record I have no issues with the suggestions @kitteh has made nor the tone of them. This thread has been refreshingly constructive. But I appreciate the support.

@Three-Eyed-Crow combat/log is still available for everyone. It wasn't in the first version @Seraphim73 graciously field-tested for me, but it's been added since at his recommendation.

@kitteh I can look into adding different evade messages, sure.

I think it's also worth clarifying that there's never really a situation where the PCs are seriously outclassed in random combats. The basic NPC levels are 4/6/8. Even Rookie chars like Callie and Cap are 8's, putting them on par with the toughest NPCs and meaning they hit about half the time.

Now I get that missing half the time can still be frustrating, but I think it's important to keep it in perspective that far more often it's the badguys who are seriously outclassed even against low-powered characters. When PCs miss, it's usually just bad luck. There's no accounting for dice.

@Ominous - Personally I tend to prefer capping younger chars in app review ("yes you can be an olympic gynmast, no you cannot also be an expert at medicine and marksmanship too") rather than giving older characters a carte blanche point bonus, but I understand that everyone has different preferences on that score.

Other random comments to various peoples' points:

• Yes, you can suppress with any weapon. Even melee weapons. There it just represents feints and distractions.
• All ranged attacks add to the target's combat stress, but the specific 'suppress' action adds much more.
• I misspoke earlier. Suppression/stress doesn't make it easier to hit the target. But maybe it should. Will ponder.

@ThatGuyThere Yeah after mulling it over I'm inclined to agree that stress shouldn't make you easier to hit too.

I can go back and add @Seraphim73's original suggestion of having a combat/assist command that lets you sacrifice your action to help someone else. It's not a big deal to add, I just hadn't done so because I figured it wouldn't come up very often. And here's why...

Warning: Grand sweeping generalizations ahead. When I say "nobody" I'm speaking in hyperbole based on observations across hundreds of combats. I'm well aware that there are exceptions. If you're an exception, I'm not talking about you.

People play MU*s for the escapism, and that applies to combat as much as everything. Everyone wants to be the hero. Everyone wants to be the top ace. The system already has lots of mechanical advantages for teamwork, but people hardly ever take advantage of them.

• Nobody uses the suppress action, even though it's far better for your team to suppress three badguys than to shoot one.

• Nobody is willing to sacrifice their chance to shoot to treat or be treated, even though having your wound modifiers cut in half makes you tremendously more effective.

• Nobody is willing to concentrate fire on targets to bring them down quickly, even though that is the fastest way to reduce the amount of damage your team takes.

• Nobody waits for someone else to use treat/rally to get them back into the fight after being knocked out, even though their combat/hero luck point could be put to better use.

• Nobody tries to use fancy tactics or anything to give them an advantage, even though the system has ways to apply modifiers for creative solutions. (as @Three-Eyed-Crow said)

• Nobody uses the 'teams' feature to break themselves up into sub-groups for organization.

I could go on with more examples, but the bottom line is ... I don't believe teamwork is a problem that can be solved mechanically. People have to want to work as a team. When they do, the system supports them.

And hey, there's nothing wrong (ICly or OOCly) with not working as a team either. It's hard to coordinate actions when you've got a dozen people in a swirling combat. I totally get the thrill/satisfaction in solo-ing a badguy - I felt the temptation to chase kill marks on 100 as much as anyone. I'm not blaming anybody for taking the easy road of "see Cylon shoot Cylon"

I'm just honestly not sure what else I can add to the system to encourage teamwork, when so many of the teamwork tools it has are already under-utilized.

@Arkandel said in Emotional separation from fictional content:

@faraday The truth of the matter though is that most of the people being triggered aren't from baby seals. It's not rare exceptions that get players' buttons pushed the vast majority of the time; it's specific themes. Specific things.

Yes, I understand that. Baby seals was a silly example since someone mentioned animal abuse a few pages back. But I would argue that if those specific things are not rare exceptions on the game, then maybe that's not a game they should be playing. It's one thing if 99% of the RP is okay and you want to defend against the 1% trigger. But if you're triggered by war stuff, maybe don't play on a war MUSH?

@surreality said in Emotional separation from fictional content:

Let's take this analogy further: say you know you have a food allergy that could cause this to occur. Like everybody else, you have stuff that doesn't agree with you, but you have a food allergy that could potentially cause anaphylactic shock. We see the same kind of warnings as the one you're proposing on menus all the time, sometimes posted on the front of the restaurant before you even go in the door. There's a warning on the menu that tells you: fish and shellfish are prepared in our kitchens. If you have a strong enough allergy to fish and shellfish, even if you don't eat them, you may choose to avoid that restaurant. Let's say, though, it's a restaurant that's actually known for it's beef and chicken BBQ. That's its primary draw and what it specializes in, and they only have one fish item on the menu.

Do you still avoid the restaurant?

YES.

I could say more, but I'm done being ranted and sworn at.