Posts made by faraday

Of course you can doctor logs, but in my experience most people don't. Heck, they don't even deny saying what they did. It's always just "But I didn't mean it like that..." or "But he/she led me on..." or "But I thought they were cool with it..." or something like that. Yes, there are genuine malicious harassers out there, but there are also a lot of people who just lack self-awareness. So you tell them "Well it's not cool so knock it off" and hopefully that's the end of it.

To @Auspice's point about the web portals... yeah, they don't log (though I think the Cheese WebMU does) but you don't need to capture a whole log. Just when it happens, copy/paste into a mail - either to yourself or to staff depending on severity. I would think this could work even for @GangOfDolls' scenario about not storing anything locally.

Worst case for a persistent offender is setting them SUSPECT. Not to just randomly snoop on them, which I would never do, but for the sole purpose of verifying the authenticity of a log that's in dispute. Obviously this will only help if there's a "next time" - you can't retroactively do it.

I'd think privacy concerns preclude any sort of pre-emptive log protection like @Arkandel is talking about. I'd considered a similar system where pages and OOCs were put into a temp buffer and you could generate a log automatically from that for reporting. But I think anything like that would freak MUSHers the heck out. It's a tradeoff between privacy and security.

My current laptop backpack, which I've been quite happy with. Comfy padded straps, padded laptop compartment, waist belt, room for extra junk: https://www.amazon.com/Targus-Backpack-Designed-Notebooks-TXL617/dp/B0001EMM10

Another consideration is LLBean's line of backpacks. The one I have doesn't have a laptop sleeve, so I can't recommend a specific model. But man, those things are built to last. Mine lasted for fifteen years - all through high school and college and dozens of overnight trips lugging a ton of books and other heavy crap.

@ganymede Without a coder, that pretty much leaves you down to FS3. (unless there's a pre-build Unisystem game out there somewhere I'm unaware of, which would be cool)

@three-eyed-crow Sure, but you can have open sheets on a WoD game. That's not FS3-specific (and actually in FS3 that's configurable, so some games might not have it). And the benefits of having linkable documentation that's "the same for everybody" goes out the window when people use it in square-peg-round-hole kinds of ways. (House rules are always a thing in any system, but many of the house rules for FS3 go beyond 'house rules' to 'wtf').

FS3 has advantages, sure. It rocks mass combats. Chargen and approvals are super-fast. It's already coded in a kinda-sorta generic way. I'm just not seeing the "oh it's so much easier to run plots" argument.

I mean, I don't have to see it. That's fine. Just struck me odd is all.

@Auspice - I never said for you to code your own system from scratch? I just said "WoD minus merits/flaws is virtually indistinguishable from FS3 in a mechanical sense." Removing the commands to set them would be a trivial code change to the WoD code base, I would think.

@auspice I was contrasting FS3 and WoD, both of which are systems that exist in 'ready-made' MUSH form. And unfortunately, you're going to need to know how to code at least a little bit to expand either of them for a Magicians game. FS3 would probably work out-of-the-box for Expanse though if you wait for Ares. If you use it on Penn, you still need to know at least some code just to get it installed and set up.

@auspice I think you missed the part where I said "ditch merits if you hate them as much as I do". My first chargen on B5 was based on WoD and it was a big inspiration for FS3 so I know how similar they are. But we can just agree to disagree.

ETA: in FS3 the system it's also rolling brawn+athletics, it's just that the code doesn't make you type the attribute when it's the obvious one. You could do the same with your wod code. So the mechanics are indeed identical outside of modifiers from powers or merits.

If you set aside the superpower stuff, I really don't see the appreciable difference between FS3 and nWoD. The die mechanics are virtually identical (just d8 vs d10), the skills work the same (attr + skill + mods), and chargen is only slightly different (fixed skill list vs. freeform background skills).

Where WoD gets complicated is with merits and flaws (which you could easily just ditch if you hate them as much as I do) and superpowers.

"But Fara, we have to consider superpower stuff for a Magicians game." Sure, but the existing WoD mage system doesn't fit and FS3 has no magic system, so either way you're going to end up cooking up something custom. Just cook up something simple and it shouldn't matter which system you use.

(Unless of course you plan on doing mass combats, then FS3 offers significant benefits.)

@auspice said in Potential Game / Temperature Read:

People who are more comfortable with a system from the word 'go' (CG) are more likely to ST in said system. They want to have a grasp of what they're doing.

Yeah I think it goes both ways though. A simple/flexible system like FUDGE, Fate or FS3 is easy to grasp because it's, well, simple. But that puts more burden on the STs to try to figure out how to apply that system in specific circumstances. What do you roll for what and with what modifiers? Contrast that with a more robust yet complicated system like Shadowrun or 7th Sea or Cortex where there are lots of specific rules for everything. It's more to learn, but easier to apply with less debate. (Rules lawyers will, of course, debate everything.)

YMMV obviously.

@auspice Yes I agree it has advantages in character building. That's its whole point. I thought we were talking about storytelling though.

@auspice said in Potential Game / Temperature Read:

Which is why I really like FS3. It's just easiest for 'dive in and go.'

Really? I mean, sure if you're doing mass combats it's comparatively easy for running something, but for anything else? It's a basic "roll and count success" system just like a million other RPG systems out there. I don't see how it's any easier to dive into. And it certainly doesn't help with generating content, as @Arkandel says. What will the players do in those settings other than relationships and BarRP... that's the key question.

@thenomain said in Potential Game / Temperature Read:

Mostly this is WoD and Pern, but a lot of players have had the "you are encouraged" beaten out of them, and there is a culture that continues this.

I don't think the discouragement is limited to those kinds of games. It's so pervasive that even when your game policies are all: "You can run plots. No really. PLEASE RUN PLOTS." nobody(*) believes you.

And because people are so sensitive about it, even the slightest thematic or continuity correction often gets taken as "ZOMG you said I could run plots WTF" and leads to people being gunshy.

Offer encouragement? Sure, great idea. But how? If the rewards are too good, you get people running plots for the wrong reasons, and it can also lead to a have/have-not atmosphere for those blessed with the schedule, free time and organizational skills. If the rewards aren't good enough, nobody cares.

For me, it feel very much like a no-win situation, so it's something I've just given up stressing over. Either people will run plots or they won't. Either they'll be happy with the number of staff-run plots or they won't. Largely it's out of your control.

Also... this is how threads get de-railed. But I'm too lazy to spawn a new one, so... guilty your honor.

(*) hyperbole alert

@tempest said in FCs on Comic MUs:

I still say that in the grand scheme of things, it can't be that hard to set up. Comic games don't really need much code. Bboard, +finger, and a +sheet/traits thing. Maybe a +roster/+pc's thing. There's no stats/dice/etc like a WoD game.
Somebody do it, make a copy, and give it out to people. Plzkthx.

There are several starter MU setups around - mine, Volund's, etc. The trouble is that they still require some measure of server-side savvy to set the thing up, and some measure of code savvy to configure and administer it. That's unfortunately just not going to change any time soon. I would argue it'll never change until MUSHers are willing to move to a web-oriented server, but I'm probably in the minority there (as usual.)

@seraphim73 said in Which canon property/setting would be good for a MU* ?:

That was an NPC, wasn't it? Or was it a PC? Huh... now I don't remember. I think they were all too busy shooting the Tank-lady.

Yes, you're right. Though at least one other Arker PC took a potshot. And it wasn't really true PvP since I was the only one on the other team and went into it knowing my team would lose and went out of my way not to target other PCs. So not the best example but my point still stands

@auspice said in Which canon property/setting would be good for a MU* ?:

It was just two people and one was... rather unreasonable in their response. There's actually a lot of folks around here who don't mind consent-based roleplay at all.

Yeah, I'd dare anyone to find a single post on MSB favoring consent-based games that wasn't immediately met with snark, disdain, cries of "wrongfun" and/or insults about "wusses who just can't stand to lose".

@DariRyu you're not alone. I personally prefer consent games too. But yes, it is a distinctly minority opinion around here.

@Ganymede @Three-Eyed-Crow Yeah, 'treat' represents first aid. It's a one-time thing (you can't bandage a wound three times and expect to get better results) and it only gives you 1 healing point (negligible in terms of how fast you heal, but important in combat because it reduces damage modifiers). But all you really need is to either modify that command's behavior or make a different command that could be used multiple times and/or gave you more healing points each time.

@ganymede Treat is a one-time thing. There's also the heal command which augments healing, but works differently than you'd expect for a healing potion/spell. It wouldn't be hard to add but you would have to do something custom.

@apos said in Make MSB great again!:

I dunno why you wanna make it harder for people to find games tho.

The idea is to make it easier to find actual, playable games. Right now looking at the first page of the 'Ads' thread I see 2 games that are closed, several that are in development, a couple I'm not sure about, and one Evennia release note.

@mietze Locked threads still show up in the list, requiring more paging through to find games that are still open. Having separate sections for "Ads" "Games In Dev" and "Closed Games" doesn't delete anything, it just organizes it a bit better IMHO and makes things easier to find. But whatever folks want. It was just a suggestion.

@tempest Does active discussion have anything to do with whether a game still exists?
Are we expecting game owners to come by and bump their thread every few months just to say "Hey, by the way, we're still here" ? If not, then sifting through pages of ad threads trying to figure out what games may or may not still be open is not a very user-friendly experience for someone seeking a game to play.

Now if the admins don't want to do that housekeeping because this is a discussion forum and not a games directory, that's their business.

@Ganymede @mietze To clarify: a couple of us suggested moving the threads to a "Game Graveyard" section, not deleting them.

@thenomain We were just talking about Ads. It's kind of disconcerting to have an Ads category with Ads for games that no longer exist. It would be like opening the classifieds section in a newspaper and find pages on pages of ads for stores that closed years ago

@ganymede Oh I have no idea about that one so I'll take your word for it. My only real experience with the FF games was watching second-hand. There seemed to be a lot of magic.