Posts made by faraday

@surreality said in Original Sci-Fi?:

Hence the phone example. For most, 'it can make calls, send text based messages, and use little widgets, and you need to recharge it every so often, is breakable especially if dropped in liquid' is all someone needs to know about 'phone' to get by day to day, really.

I think the important distinction is that people need to know what it can and cannot do for RP. How it works is a different question. What kind of radio tech or battery tech the thing uses is not important... until of course the one day the players make it important by trying to "hack" the tech to do (this crazy thing). Which is absolutely a thing that sci-fi game players like to do.

@auspice said in Original Sci-Fi?:

So there is a grounding, yes, but the handwavium comes in not needing the fiddly details.

Yeah, I agree. But different people have different tolerances for what constitutes "fiddly details" versus what constitutes "appropriate RP knowledge" like @Tinuviel alluded to. But we had a whole giant thread of people flaming each other over that, so probably no need to rehash it again here.

@auspice said in Original Sci-Fi?:

But yeah, the technobabble thing is an issue and I think it's on both Staff and players of any game to foster an environment where handwavium is the norm.

To a point, but handwavium can be an obstacle too. Like, yeah, you shouldn't need to know detailed cardiology to RP a doctor, but knowing what's possible with the tech is important. And often that means knowing a bit about how things work so you can fill in the blanks between the things that are explicitly spelled out. Having one group of folks "handwaving" modern level tech while another group "handwaves" skin weaves and nanobots gets to be pretty darn immersion-breaking. At some point you have to stop handwaving and ground your tech in something players can sink their teeth into.

@puzzlebox Wiki Source -- Example. @GirlCalledBlu set that up for us.

@puzzlebox The places I've seen it used, it was able to play/pause, yes.

@thenomain said in Character Information: Wiki or Mu*?:

“You can’t please everyone” is not a replacement for discussing merits and foibles of a policy, especially not if that policy is “this is my preference”. It’s redundant; if you don’t care to have a policy outside your personal preference, then there’s nothing to discuss.

Uh... okay? I mean, I don't disagree with your underlying point, but...

I'm not sure how "This is my preference" got taken as "That's the policy on my games". And I'm really not sure how "You can't please everyone" got taken as "I'm unwilling to even discuss policies outside my preferences."

Tangentially, here's a little anecdote that may be interesting: BSGU requires you to set a desc in chargen but hardly anybody uses the 'look' command. It does not require you to set a shortdesc, but 93% of characters have set one voluntarily.

So I think, empirically it can be asserted that in this particular group/setting, shortdescs are valued more than "real" descs.

@thatguythere Fair enough. I think that's where technology becomes useful though. On my games, I've had a +wiki command that let me create someone's "starter" wiki page as part of chargen approval. If they never updated it again after that, that's fine. At least it's there. Now with Ares you don't even have to do that much. The instant someone's approved, their web portal page appears.

Folks like @ghost who don't like wikis for philosophical reasons... yeah, totally get it. But lots of folks just don't like them because the existing implementations of wikis have been a PITA. We can do better.

@thatguythere said in Character Information: Wiki or Mu*?:

True but my point was I miss the old days when it wasn't an issue because for the most part the info was not out there at all.

I guess our "old days" were very different then, because supplemental information like "RP Hooks" existed long before wikis in the sorts of games I played on. They were an in-game construct (usually in +finger or +profile or sometimes a separate command like +hooks) that later got reflected on the wiki.

@thatguythere said in Character Information: Wiki or Mu*?:

I would argue my wikis are worse than pointless since they contain information that is out of date. I have gotten pages about hooks that were no longer valid for example.

My point though was that if the information on the wiki is auto-synced with the game (which is eminently possible with some of the new servers and some tricks that places like Marvel63 have done with existing servers) then the problem isn't a wiki problem but a stale information problem. If their desc gets out of date, their last name changes because they got married but they forgot to update it, their RP hooks changed and they didn't use +hook/update... yes, that happens even in the game itself. Technology can't force people to update information they don't care about.

@thatguythere said in Character Information: Wiki or Mu*?:

All my char wikis are pointless because the only info on any of them that is not out of date withing a couple of months is the basic details like PB, DoB, splat, and name.

But all of that is still just as useful as +finger, but in a (to some of us) much more accessible and easy-to-read format. You may not find value in them, totally fine, but that doesn't make it pointless. Also, integrated website/wikis like Ares and Evennia make it easier to keep that information in sync with the in-game info. Now it still doesn't help if you don't set any in-game info. Some folks just can't be bothered to set supplemental info or relationships, just as some folks couldn't be bothered to do it when it was optional +finger fields. Those issues haven't changed, only the presentation.

@thenomain said in Character Information: Wiki or Mu*?:

And as a game creator, you often have to look beyond your own preferences in order to create a better experience for your players. What I think is a foundation, not the whole of the design.

Sure. I never said otherwise. We're just talking preferences here.

At the same time, though, you can't please everyone. There are people who won't play on a game with a wiki. There are people who won't play on a game without one. There's nothing wrong with drawing a line in the sand and catering to a subset of people with similar interests to your own.

@bleys5 said in Character Information: Wiki or Mu*?:

@faraday Put everything essential to the game ON THE GAME. Wiki sites are nice to supplement, but aren't always easily accessible.

I'm not sure what specifically you're referring to, but I've said several times that I support putting essential game information on the game. That's a no-brainer. But different people have different opinions about what constitutes "essential".

@ghost said in Character Information: Wiki or Mu*?:

Few seem to ever role play a character with Robert Downey Jr as a PB for visual purposes alone, but they role play Robert Downey Jr as...

People do it because people like that. They like to view MU*s as a TV show with actors playing roles. To them... to me, but I am not alone in this... that's part of the fun.

You don't like it, that's cool. I respect your opinion. But why can't we just acknowledge there are different playstyles and preferences? Why does one have to be labeled as the "decline" of the hobby?

@surreality said:

You get a different impression from these, and it's directly related to character:

You may get a different impression. @Seraphim73 may. Me? Nope. Those statements tell me exactly the same information about your character. And they say much less about your character to me than your mannerisms, actions and words. Jewelry girl could always be fiddling with one of her many pieces of bling to get the idea across. Goth girl would probably act goth, or her
poses could highlight how incongruous her manner is with her appearance.

I think I view descs more like a novel in that regard. I don’t want to pause a chapter midstream to read two paragraphs about what someone looks like. I want the initial summary to be short and pithy and the rest of the details to be worked in organically.

But again, that’s just preference. Not knocking anyone who likes it the other way.

@seraphim73 said in Character Information: Wiki or Mu*?:

This is actually one of the major dangers (Major Danger salutes) of wikis for me. Because just because the new guy from BSG looks like "that guy from Gifted," does he have the same voice? The same accent? Some of the same personality quirks?

I don't really get how that's a "danger". It's pretty common knowledge that actors play characters and characters have different personalities and sometimes different accents. (ETA: That sounds snarkier in retrospect than I intended. I just meant... is that really a common problem?)

Sure, people may make faulty assumptions, but at the same time... does it really matter if I picture your Hugh Jackman with his Aussie accent and you intended him to be Hugh Jackman with his American accent? Does that fundamentally change my perception of your character in any sort of meaningful way? I'm thinking no.

Also I've known numerous people commenting about the benefits of having an actor to ground themselves on. Incorporating little quirks to make their RP richer. So it goes both ways.

@Arkandel - To be clear, I'm speaking in generalities. I have no idea what the post that started this thread was all about, as it was in a thread I didn't read about a game I have no interest in. That said, I agree with this:

@sunny said in Regarding administration on MSB:

I'm not just like arguing semantics here. There is a difference between 'don't do this' and 'don't do this unless the game runner, who we'll contact, doesn't mind'.

The rules for the ads forum rather clearly and explicitly say "negative stuff to a different thread". It doesn't say "... unless the game-runner doesn't mind" or "...only if the game-runner requests".

If that's the actual policy, then just add it. No biggie. But then you'll have to have a back-and-forth with the game runner any time you or they think that something should be moved. That sounds like a PITA to me but I'm not the one who has to deal with it.

@sunny said in Regarding administration on MSB:

@ganymede Right. The rules don't say that it is up to the game runner/etc. So if that's what the practice is going to be, I'd like the rules to be clear about it. There is nothing wrong with asking for the 'rules of engagement' post to be updated with what the actual situation is.

FWIW I would suggest not leaving it up to the game-runner, as that's just going to lead to even more confusion about what is or is not appropriate to post where.

@thenomain said in Character Information: Wiki or Mu*?:

But "Jessica Chastain in a flight suit" is not useful and may push people out of the client window just to know what you're talking about, and that I have objections about.

That's fine. But I would have no problem if every single person on my game did their descs that way. I think, though, that a shortdesc that automatically shows up in the room description so you can see everybody immediately when you walk in is a reasonable compromise.

@Thenomain said:

Whoa, whoa, whoa. Nobody ever made anyone else use a multidescer...I'mma gonna do my static thing.

Wasn't part of the point of this whole thread the idea that people who don't read descs were missing some important bit about the changing parts of the character's desc? Whether they were in uniform? Injured? Whatever? Doesn't that imply that descs are inherently dynamic? I know on BSG everyone's always switching up which uniform they're in, though there's an easy shorthand to say: "Cate walks in, wearing her khaki fatigues..."

The point isn't that it's ideal for everyone. Nothing is going to please everyone. But it pleases some people, and the game can function this way.

@thenomain said in Character Information: Wiki or Mu*?:

I consider at least a shortdesc like that to be critical.

"A cute brunette with cherub cheeks" is fine. But if you try to make me read two paragraphs about that same character? I'm just not going to read it. Full stop. And even if I did somehow get coerced into reading it? All I'm really going to glean from it is "a cute brunette with cherub cheeks". So the full desc offers no benefit over the short desc for me.

And yeah, I don't know who "Sean Teale" was at a glance either, but all it took was one photo on a wiki page and now the new guy on BSG is cemented in my brain as "that guy from Gifted". That is the power of wikis for me.

@thenomain said in Character Information: Wiki or Mu*?:

(looks at the thread title)

Right, it gets down to how much information is necessary to have in the game. For me? I'd rather have an actor name, even one I'd never heard of, whom I could google (or better yet - look up on your wiki page) and be like: "Oh, okay." That's far more effective for me than reading any desc ever.

Another reason I think descs have fallen out of favor is that the entire system is so dang clunky. You have to put in the static desc, create a bunch of outfits, remember to change your outfit based on the situation, then type 'look' at a whole bunch of people... just shoot me now. A never-changing "hair/build/age" type shortdesc in a room description plus a scene-set sentence about wardrobe and/or injuries is far more user-friendly. Again though - for me.

One other random thought... If we take a step back and ask ourselves what purpose does a desc serve?

For me, the purpose is to help others visualize my character. And frankly: "Jessica Chastain in a flight suit" helps a thousand percent more than anything I could ever write.

But I think other folks would view the purpose as secondary. They would see descs as a form of creative expression. A place to stretch one's prose. And they want more than just the bare-bones facts of hair, features, clothes.

Neither is right or wrong, better or worse, it's just different preferences.