Best posts made by faraday

@skew said in What Types of Games Would People Like To See?:

Also, people really, really, really wanted a focus on weapons, armor, gear, ships, etc. We didn't have the code (nor the desire) to focus on that, and it left a lot of people disappointed.

Sorry that it didn't work out. FWIW I've been on a couple different SW games that didn't have that kind of focus, so I hope that won't discourage someone else from trying another RP-centric SW game. (I mention this mainly because I'd like to see something like that, though maybe with a sector-wide focus like someone else suggested in this thread.)

@surreality Oh, sorry - I guess I misunderstood. Nevermind then!

@Three-Eyed-Crow I don't know. I mean, I've played on quite a few sci-fi games that didn't have gear/economy systems (a couple Star Wars places, all the BSG games, Babylon 5, this one Trek game... I think Otherspace had a couple things you could buy but it wasn't an extensive equipment list). They did all right, so it doesn't seem to be a pervasive requirement. Or maybe just a new one.

@ixokai I'd love it if someone did a FFG or Fate plugin for Ares, as I think both of those fit the overall feel of the other systems. (Like, you could technically do WoD in Ares, but so much of the built-in code is geared around an open, freeform environment it kinda feels like that would be jamming a square peg into a round hole.)

@Ghost said in What Types of Games Would People Like To See?:

Was the whole "young adult" thing handled pretty well on the 100 game?

PCs had to be 18 or older, so it wasn't really an issue.

There've been various Harry Potter/Buffy/high school type settings around. Maybe someone can comment on how that worked out.

@ixokai Fantasy Flight Games - the one with the funky dice used in Star Wars and their new Genesys generic RPG.

And Fate may be simpler than most, but there are still some nuances in chargen with the skill pyramid, and some unique mechanics with compels and stuff to model... the stress track... stunts... I think it would be a good starter project for learning a new language. And people would probably use it.

@Kitty-Kat said in Star Trek: Dreadnought Atlas (Name Pending, TOS game):

@Mr-Johnson Lots of great plugins, I've seen fate, the star wars one, and WoD I think (thenomain did it?? or I could be wrong).

No WoD. Just FS3, Fate, Cortex, FFG (technically it's base on their generic Genesys RPG but it fits the Star Wars ones pretty decently), and a generic comic-like traits system.

@ixokai said in What's missing in MUSHdom?:

So I'm not looking for an easy thing to start with, but something people find interesting/missing.

I've just seen a lot of folks interested in potentially running a Fate MU*, and I really don't think it would be quite as "easy" as you think - especially if you include the web chargen component. But you know better what sort of project you're looking for. I'm not trying to sway you one way or the other, just clarifying why I brought it up.

@Rinel said in Has anyone ever set up a server just for a small group of friends?:

Well, I already gave DigitalOcean my money, so I'm stuck for now!

Oh I'm not suggesting that you not do it, just advising of potential pitfalls based on my experience. If you can get RP schedules aligned, and/or set up "event/plot" times for folks to shoot for, and/or use async scenes, etc. - it could work. A lot of it comes down to how determined the players are to overcoming the inherent obstacles.

@three-eyed-crow said in Make it fun for Me!:

You 'win' these games by telling the best story, and sometimes that means ceding the stage to someone else or taking a loss that dramatically rich down-the-line.

Yes, this +100.

And I think this is where platforms like Storium have an edge over MUs and their RPG-drenched history. Because let's face it - the goal in an RPG isn't to tell a good story. It's to win. Level up. Get better gear. Defeat the Big Bad and be a Big Damn Hero doing it. That mentality is largely incompatible with a persistent 24/7 world that lasts for months and involves dozens of strangers.

Storium has its flaws (serious flaws) but the thing I really like about it is the emphasis on the story. When you overcome a challenge, you win control of the story. A chance to temporarily steer it in the direction you want. And the very nature of the game forces you to use both strengths and weaknesses in meeting those challenges.

@Rinel Probably just a problem with your configuration. If you grab the log information (from Admin->Logs on the web portal, or aresmush/game/logs on the server shell) you can PM me, or ask on the forum or discord for help. (Info/Links)

@the-sands said in What's missing in MUSHdom?:

I should note that I am not saying you can't do this in Ares.

You can but you shouldn’t need to. Redis is a NoSQL database so its data model is more simplistic to begin with.

@zz - I’m probably going to do a simple fate plugin.

@Pyrephox said in Gamecrafting: Excelsior:

Ah! I see where we went wrong. I do not mean 6 as in 'this is the number each die must hit' I mean 6 as in 'this is the number in the opposing pool you roll against'.

Oh sorry, misunderstood. 6 just happens to be the default target number so I thought that's what you were referring to. Opposed rolls are intended for actual NPCs with skills. Using them for difficulty is not ideal from a mechanical standpoint either (it generally makes rolls much more difficult - as I rambled about to Karma from Grey Harbor as well) but YMMV. Anyway, carry on!

@pyrephox said in Spotlight.:

So, the only thing I say is - ask. Someone can always turn it down, if they're happy as they are, but it never hurts to find out if someone wants an IC direction or boost, but just isn't sure how to do it.

And the only thing I say is -- ask If you're playing a support character and want to get involved in more, talk to the game staff. Be proactive. See if there are plot hooks you can follow up on. As @Roz said - maybe you become the crazy cook who ends up in some kind of secret society. I just put the onus on the players rather than the staff. If you want to get involved, then get involved. Don't expect fun - or spotlight - to be handed to you on a silver platter.

@Derp said in Aesca Sneak Peak:

But also I am seriously trying to figure out how to put a 'number of open jobs' thing in Ares for players to see, so that they know how much workload the staff actually has.

Should be easy enough, but also kind of misleading IMHO. Some games use jobs to track things internally, so you could have "227 open jobs" but 219 of them are just future plots, musings, things that maybe you'll build eventually, etc. And you might only have 2 open jobs but staff is really swamped doing plots/questions/RP that aren't tied to specific jobs. There's not necessarily any correlation there.

And honestly, if staff is too overworked to get to apps in a timely fashion, you're going to lose players no matter what.

@mietze said in Aesca Sneak Peak:

I do not think that an automated cg that spits a ton of people out onto the grid quickly solves the problem and may in fact exacerbate it especially on an original themed game where there may need to be some front in quality control.

You can have automated (not fully automatic) and still have quality control, especially if you build some of the quality control into the system itself. On BSGU for instance all of the limits, requirements, etc. were baked into the system. The only thing I had to review was whether the background made sense and the skills fit the background. That allows pretty quick throughput. Not all systems will work that way, of course, but if you can make it work for your system, you can alleviate the chargen backlog greatly.

@thatguythere said in Spotlight.:

The thing is except for Luke, Han and to a lesser extant Wedge, those pilots aren't special. At least not as far as the story of the movie goes. They appear in two scenes and their characters exist to add to a body count. I tend to play characters that are away from the spotlight by personal preference, but if I wanted to play someone special and was told Oh play the fat guy named Porkins that dies in his second scene or the dude who grew up with the main character and dies in his second scene I know my response would be less than polite.

But that's my point... setting aside the dying part, nobody(*) wants to be Porkins or Biggs - or even really Wedge most of the time. They don't want to be hero-adjacent, they want to be the hero.

Which is perfectly fine if you're writing a story of your own. It's even perfectly fine if you're playing a tabletop RPG and the GM can ensure that your particular group of 4-6 people are the most awesomest, most famous adventurers ever. But the scale breaks down when you have 30 players all wanting to be the Luke-and-Leia level of heroes. @surreality points out that even second-tier characters in GoT get their moments sometimes, and that's true, but nobody(*) wants to only get one or two cool things to do over the lifespan of their character. They want to be Daenerys or Jon Snow.

It just doesn't work. Starring roles are limited. Everybody(*) desperately wants one, and then they get bent out of shape when they get passed over.

(*) - Broad sweeping generalization, not literally everybody/nobody.

@Carex It depends on the game.

All the codebases (that I'm aware of) are free & open source, so you only have to pay for the server.

Penn/Tiny/Rhost - you log into the server shell account to install the game, but then all building/coding/etc. for the game is done from your MUSH client.

Evennia/Ares - you install the game in the server shell account, and typically use version control (like GitHub) to manage the game code and sync changes from your PC to the game. You can also FTP files or even edit the code directly in the server shell if you prefer. Building is done from your MUSH client.

@thatguythere said in Spotlight.:

That seem to me like you are telling people to be happy with being the bit parts, which means some will be but a lot will not, it doesn't matter how many or few players a game has

I'm not telling anybody to be anything, I'm just making an observation about why MU players want the spotlight, in response to Ark's question.

But setting aside the whole "they all got killed" thing, I do think that being one of the few pilots in the rebellion who get to participate in the final epic battle against the Death Star is a "special" thing.

@Derp said in Microsoft Azure...?:

Part of the benefit of using GitHub. So long as all that is up to date, you've basically got an offsite backup of everything.

Well your code anyway. You still want to back up your database and config files and such. Ares has built-in support for automated backups using Amazon S3 FWIW. It's mildly tedious to set up initially, but it's a nice comfort.

@peasoupling said in Spotlight.:

I don't know! Sometimes I think I might prefer playing a janitor with a real chance at meaningfully affecting the cleanliness levels of the Death Star than playing a pilot who is basically just set dressing in a battle they have no real chance of affecting in any meaningful way, other than by exploding prettily against a backdrop of stars.

Back up though... if this were a MUSH scene and not an already-written movie script (which I know makes it an imperfect example), who says that Porkins couldn't affect the battle in any meaningful way? I mean, yes, only one person can score the WINNING hit on the exhaust port, but it's not like everyone else is just sitting around twiddling their thumbs. There are TIE fighters to take out, turrets to dodge...

That's the issue I see with MU players. Everybody (again - generalizing, because like @Three-Eyed-Crow says it's not as much of a minority as folks might want to believe) wants to be the ONE GUY that does the uber special thing, and there just aren't enough uber special things to go around.