Best posts made by faraday

@Misadventure said in MU* Mystery RP:

The GM says there is a cleverly difficult set of tests between the players and their goal. They players then decide that there is a very difficult and trapped, locked door that leads into a set of rooms that goes nowhere.

This style is common on Storium. The storyteller lays out a scene set and some challenges. The challenge cards are bounded with certain outcomes for success or failure, which keep the story from going completely off the rails, but within those bounds the players can make up anything reasonable.

It works, but I've always found it a bit unsettling. Like you're always in this gray zone where you don't know what the storyteller will find reasonable or not before you write your move/pose. I can't even imagine how I'd do that in something like a tomb raider challenge or murder mystery without the larger context of what's going on (which only the storyteller knows).

It's very different from the traditional "The door is locked" style @Ganymede described.

@tinuviel said in What drew you to MU*?:

It might be perfectly understandable and natural, but that doesn't make it sensible. If people are seriously invested in something it makes more sense, at least to me, for that investment to come with a payoff at the end. A finale rather than a cancellation, if you will.

Well I can't really disagree with the logic of it, but given that even professional TV-show-runners can't be bothered to adopt this sensible model ("I've got a great idea guys! Let's end our low-rated show season on a CLIFFHANGER!"), I hold out no hope for the average MU runner to plan for a limited series run. Everybody wants to be the umpteen-season CSI or Grey's Anatomy. Nobody wants to plan for only getting one season.

@Misadventure said in MU* Mystery RP:

is that unsettling feeling because you can't ask questions and explore the situation and whatever lore you might have access to, or that enough information isn't presented in most challenges or something else?

All of the above, at times, but mostly it's that you know the narrator has some kind of overarching story vision--you just don't know what that is.

So the example challenge above with the plane crash... I could probably safely give my character a cut or concussion, but would I derail the story if I gave them a broken leg and hampered the group's mobility? Who knows.

Or in another game, we came across some completely unfamiliar desert aliens and had to try to communicate with them. All we had to go on, lore-wise, was a brief description of them in the narrator's set pose. I have no idea what the narrator has in mind for these things, yet I have to describe my character interacting with them?

Some folks may like that degree of creative freedom, but for me it's like... FLAIL.

I voted "no", but it kind of depends on your definition:

A video game is an electronic game that involves interaction with a user interface to generate visual feedback on a video device such as a TV screen or computer monitor. (Wikipedia)

Text is technically "visual feedback".

But compare that with various dictionary definitions:

an electronic game in which players control images on a video screen
any of various interactive games played using a specialized electronic gaming device or a computer or mobile device and a television or other display screen, along with a means to control graphic images.

There aren't really any "graphic images" being controlled here.

Mostly I just think that it's not what leaps to mind when people say 'video game'.

@Misadventure said in Hidden information and enjoyment:

you are expected to provide secrets and twists and things they didn't prepare for.

I've found that players are no better at accepting unwelcome plot twists/secrets from staff than they are from fellow players, and are just as content with stuff to do as they are "secrets and twists". But YMMV depending on the game.

@Ghost said in Hidden information and enjoyment:

It's really, really hard to do anything secret when it comes to "cooperative gaming/storytelling" without effectively neutering the sense of surprise. This got me in to regular trouble in MU games.

Well yeah - surprise and collaboration are kind of opposing goals. It's like if you're co-authoring a book, you don't suddenly show up one day and "SURPRISE PLOT TWIST!" to your writing partner. It's more like: "Hey, I came up with a cool plot twist - what do you think?" And even if you sketch out a plot, you still don't know exactly how the dialogue or dice will go. There's still an improv level of surprise to it.

I get where you're coming from, though. I've had loads of fun with TTRPG plot surprises. I just haven't seen that same kind of experience mirrored in MUs. Usually it just ends poorly.

@Ghost said in Hidden information and enjoyment:

if I clear every plot twist ahead of time players tend to metagame it by having their character prepared for it.

That's where the collaboration comes in. It's not about 'clearing' a plot twist with the other player, it's about working with them to achieve something that's mutually fun.

Obviously I'm glossing over a lot. If you're staff, you can't run every metaplot by committee. And as a player, sometimes you've got jerks who just won't compromise. But this is the ideal, for me.

@misadventure said in Poll: Are MU* video games?:

Ascii is a form of graphics and so not a differentiator.

I mean it really comes down to how esoteric you want to get about the definition of "graphics". All text on modern displays is converted into a raster image once you get low enough down into the video driver. But does that really mean "text = graphics" on any practical level or in common parlance? Not at all.

@tinuviel said in What drew you to MU*?:

That bit, yes. I'm talking more about the actual telemetry, rather than relying on more traditional feedback that we usually do.

I don't understand what you're objecting to re: telemetry. Gathering metrics about who actually uses/does what as opposed to just trying to gauge it with gut feel?

@sab oh I thought we were just talking about using hashtags in game posts or whatnot. Never mind.

@jeshin @scissors The suggested hosting for Ares is $5/month with a few months free if you use the referral code. Of course Ares is still in beta but it’s geting more solid every week. https://aresmush.com/tutorials/install

@arkandel said in Tools, and not just Beiber.:

3. The carrots need to work. IMHO currently in most MU* they don't. XP should have a purpose - it ought to incentivize the things we want happening on the MUSH; handing it out automatically to everyone is 'fair' but useless.

You're assuming XP can be the only carrot, though, and that's not so. In FS3 games for instance, XP is handed out fairly and automatically to everyone as a way of modeling IC progression and preventing the dino effect, or making players more powerful than one another simply by virtue of their OOC ability to contribute to the game. Luck points are the carrot.

I'm not saying this is the only or even the best way to do it for every game. I'm just saying that players fixating on XP as the only thing that matters isn't necessarily healthy for the game either.

@tinuviel said in criticism not allowed in ad threads is only enforcing a false positive, prove me wrong:

The rule encourages people to 'dogpile' demanding people obey the rule - much akin to the incredibly loud child insisting "SHHHHH" over quiet conversation.

The moderators have previously asked people to chime in when they think someone is stepping over the line.

Either there are rules and the community is expected to apply peer pressure when people step outside the rules, or there aren't. It can't be both ways.

@tinuviel said in criticism not allowed in ad threads is only enforcing a false positive, prove me wrong:

And when it does become such it is swiftly merged with the "you can't post that here" flailing (no, I won't stop going on about it it annoys me) for eventually @Arkandel to show up and sort of shrug about it.

Well, it annoys me when people can't be bothered to follow the posted rules of a forum, and when the moderators can't be bothered to enforce their own posted rules. So I'd say we're even. Shall we keep ranting in circles about it or call it a day?

@prototart said in criticism not allowed in ad threads is only enforcing a false positive, prove me wrong:

say, having to go to the length of making an account and clicking to view one particular sub forum where it's ok to say "hi this place is run by someone gross"

I will just point out that this is not necessary even if the current rules were enforced. You can a) Link to a game discussion thread from the ad thread as an alert and b) Post criticism about a game in the publicly-viewable Mildly Constructive area as long as you don't turn it into a complete dumpster fire.

@silverfox said in What's your favorite MU* client?:

That's okay with me though, because I never could use spawns. I did it for like... three months back in 2004, but I found myself unable to ignore the notifications from them. So I would quickly flip over to look, but not really read because I was posing, then forget that it was there! If I turned the notifications off I just never checked them and then missed everything!

That's actually similar to the reason I don't use spawns much. I have one for the public channel, because that gets super-spammy and it generally doesn't matter if I forget to chime in on the latest random conversation. But other than that, if I spawn things it's like... "Oh I should answer that... SQUIRREL!" and I won't get back to it until hours later, feeling guilty.

@Tinuviel said in How do you like things GMed?:

@2mspris said in How do you like things GMed?:

to me that is the point of running something for players
. If I were the 'call 911 and leave' person, I'd probably think the scene was a waste of my time.

Yeah that’s where I was coming at it from. Not that calling 911 for an explosion or running away were unreasonable actions, but that it probably doesn’t make for a very interesting experience for the players who do those things. It’s a balance. The GM should give them reasons to be involved and the players should meet the GM halfway and not blow off obvious plot hooks (or if they do, then don’t complain about “there’s nothing to do” afterwards).

I agree with @Tinuviel’s point about catering scenes to the people involved but I’ve found it harder to do that these days. 12 years ago on BSP I would see a bunch of folks in a public area and be like “hey do you guys want to do some drama” and make something for them specifically and it would be cool. These days folks are more into their own agendas and don’t seem to welcome staff dropping things on them outside of scheduled events. Plus on many games the character concepts have so little reason to interact that it becomes hard to orchestrate something for a random group.

@silverfox Far from stupid. This stuff isn't easy.

I agree with what @Tinuviel said about starting with how you're going to draw people in. You could have the best plot idea ever, but if there's no way for players to engage with it, it's not going to go anywhere.

@Tinuviel said in How To Treat Your Players Right:

It would still be up to staff to investigate the accusations.

How, though?

I can say from experience that it's hard enough establishing the veracity of non-anonymous complaints. I can't even imagine how you would respond to "Bob is being creepy" in a constructive fashion without logs or details.

The biggest issue, as @Wretched alluded to, is that most folks don't keep logs of this stuff. I've tried to combat this in Ares by creating tools to help players report things. It's really no different than keeping and submitting a log, except that it comes from within the game itself so there's no potential for "He faked it!" accusations. (It doesn't log everything; it's selective and enacted by the person being harassed.)

@Auspice said in How To Treat Your Players Right:

If the main person he'd been targeting had felt safe enough to come forward... it'd have helped.

That's exactly the problem I'm talking about though. If all I'm getting is vague reports of "Bob is harassing Susie and Janey" and Susie won't tell me anything's wrong and Janey isn't even on the game any more, I'm not going to take action. I'm just not. It doesn't matter if the accused is my BFF or someone who's been on the game five minutes. It also probably would have helped if more folks had come to me directly with their concerns instead of just badmouthing me in the hog pit.

Folks can believe what they want about favoritism. My conscience is clear.

ETA: It might be worth noting that in this case, Susie was also a near and dear MU friend. If I were going to show favoritism based on friendship, it would have been to her. But that's not how I roll.

@Thenomain said in How To Treat Your Players Right:

Some of the best players are the least tolerant toward bullshit, and if you're losing the players you want to keep then you better damn well pay attention even if people aren't coming to you.

No, really, it's not my problem. If you'd rather leave my game than talk to me about a problem you're having, I'll miss you but that's your choice. I'm not going to chase people down or try to play Sherlock Holmes of Interpersonal Drama.