Posts made by faraday

@Thenomain To each their own, I guess.

@ThatGuyThere how is that different from a MU though? I don't see the phone number analogy relating to a MU.

@ThatGuyThere I like to think of it more like showing up in a new town at a gaming store (or a con) looking to play. Yeah, you don't know these people and I wouldn't expect you to act like they're your new BFF. But there's a shared interest and experience there... some common ground you don't have with a random dude on the street. I think people have more fun in those situations when they extend the benefit of the doubt until proven otherwise. Why would you even bother if you you went into it expecting them to all be a-holes?

@ThatGuyThere said in Identifying Major Issues:

For example if @faraday and @rook both are running games with open PrP polices, I am a hell of a lot more likely to trust Faraday's and run a PrP mostly because of thier reputation with people I trust and my admittedly brief history on some games Fara has run/been involved in. No offense to @rook meant at all but I know nothing about him/her. So regardless of written policy on the game I would not have any trust in it so would not run a plot until that level of trust had been built.

Thanks. Though I think the hobby as a whole could do with a little more slant toward giving people the benefit of the doubt. We've all been burned before, but at some point it comes down to what kind of community you want to build and be a part of. I don't think I could have kept playing MU*s this long if I went around looking at each new game like the players and staff there were about to bash me in the face with a shovel at any moment -- even though I've certainly experienced my share of bashing.

@Gilette I honestly have no idea what I said that implied that staff should never run plots, or that I take it personally if people don't take advantage of the opportunity to run PrPs. If a game where players are expected (and allowed!) to entertain themselves in-between staff run plots doesn't interest you, then just don't play there. Easy enough. I love playing on such places, myself, even when I'm not running them.

@WTFE While I would be more than happy to have a separate discussion about the tools and policies I have to support PrPs - including the ability to run meaningful plots and change room descs - that's not really the point of this thread. This isn't "wah wah why aren't players running more PrPs." @Seraphim73 identified what he felt was a major issue about players expecting to be spoon-fed and I agreed. It's okay if you disagree and think the problem is on staff. I don't.

@Thenomain said in Identifying Major Issues:

let us look critically and completely into the systems that this broad category interacts with, and how they interact with it.

Fair enough, but my only point is that my broad experience with players across a dozen games and almost two decades is that the people willing to run their own plots are few and far between. Now maybe that's because they're all puppies who have been kicked one too many times, like @WTFE says. Or maybe it's because there's a sense of entitlement that expects staff to be their personal tabletop GM. Or maybe neither/both. I don't know the cause, only the effect.

@Thenomain As usual, we come from different worlds with different experiences. There's no 'bureaucracy' involved. It's literally: go, have fun, don't break the game for others. You want to go into the swamp and shoot some Cylons or (in the case of Sweetwater, some outlaws), go for it. There are no IC rewards or loot to worry about balancing because that's just not how the game's set up.

And there are staff-run plots too, so it's not like it's trying to foist off running the game. The reward - both for a staff-run plot and for a PrP is the same: the enjoyment of the story.

And still, only a minority of players are willing to do anything other than the military equivalent of BarRP between staff-run events.

Now if that's what they want to do, that's totally fine. Lots of players are happy with that and that's not a problem. It's the ones who complain about there being "nothing to do" while neither following up on plot breadcrumbs nor doing their own stuff that irk me.

ETA:

Quelling the willingness of people to do things on their own didn't happen overnight, either. You can't expect people to trust you personally when the experience has been quite different elsewhere.

Frankly I don't care if they trust me or not. But if you're not going to trust me enough to do your own events when I've bent over backwards to make it easy, then don't complain when you're bored.

@Arkandel said in Identifying Major Issues:

I think it'd need to start with coders. Most of the time that's the main roadblock; there are damn few available, but unless you have some guys to at least mentor new ones games die on the conceptional stage. Either a potential game-runner is already networked or they are not, and in the latter case things are very tricky.

It's only a roadblock though if you let it be. If your vision exceeds your ability, there are three potential solutions: Expect a coder to drop from the sky and help you, change your ability, or change your vision.

Games die on the vine when people refuse to do the latter two. There are several game frameworks out there that come with most of the basic globals and stuff. You just have to be willing to play with what comes in the box or learn enough to modify them. There are plenty of MUCode tutorials out there.

New frameworks like Evennia and Ares are trying to make it easier to learn to code for MU*s and (in Ares' case) setup/configure it more easily, but the learning curve will always be there. It doesn't really seem fair (or practical) to expect a limited cadre of MUCoders to support and mentor everyone who wants to run a game.

@Thenomain said in Identifying Major Issues:

Players don't need to be spoon fed, we just turned all their fun to Mush.

I have to disagree. My experience mirrors @Seraphim73's. While there are absolutely players willing to run their own stuff (and I love them), they are the minority. There are also a lot of players who are gunshy about participating in PrPs. My last few games have all but begged players to run PrPs and empowered them to do a lot, but the number of people actually doing so is tiny.

@Arkandel said in FS3:

Just make sure your approach is uniform and consistent over time. For example if you'd nitpick over $stat being high but the other staff member a month from now handwaves it there's going to be a problem.

Well on my games that's not a problem since I'm the only staffer

But I do think that gets to what someone said a few pages back about there being vastly different experiences on different FS3 games. I tell someone that a rating means X, and they go play on a different FS3 game where it means something completely different, it throws people. I don't know if that's something you can ever really fix with the system, though.

@DownWithOPP Well I think this is more a question for FS3 on the whole and not BSGU in particular. Currently Expertise is meant to convey a really serious level of training/knowledge - on par with the Expert/Elite level of an Action Skill. If you want to be that good, no problem. Some of the characters actually have been ex-pro pyramid players or whatnot and it totally fits. But there's a weird disconnect when one person thinks Expertise means PhD and the other person thinks it's just "Oh I'm just really good at Math".

@Ganymede said in FS3:

Look, I just thought it would be cute to have my scout get lost in examining water patterns while out on a recon mission.

@DownWithOPP said in FS3:

@faraday Half of those apps were probably mine, ha!

No but seriously - I have been wondering if the ratings need adjusting. It is still in beta, after all.

I initially thought that the levels had a good spread. Interest for hobbies and modest studies, Proficiency for something you could actually do for a living and Expertise for hot stuff (world class / PhD). But I get a ton of people with "professional" level hobbies (like Pyramid, Triad, Mountain Climbing, etc.) and a larger-than-expected number with Expertise in things that it doesn't seem they've spent a lot of time on.

I don't care if someone wants to be a world-class mountain climber, as long as they understand that's what it means. Most folks lower the level, though, when I point that out.

So where's the disconnect? Is it documentation? Expectation? I'm just being too nitpicky?

@Ganymede said in FS3:

Or me, where I shoved too many points into my Sciences, and was politely told that my PC was probably too good at them, based on her background.

Heh, that actually happens a lot and makes me wonder sometimes if I'm being overly pedantic about it or if the BG skill levels are either wickedly unclear or out of whack. I think it's probably one of the things I've written most on apps: "Sooooo you've got Math at Expertise. Did you really mean to be a PhD? If so fine but... I'm guessing not."

@HelloProject said in Identifying Major Issues:

Lack of outside advertising is also a problem, I feel. People usually only advertise within the hobby, and this is a huge mistake.

I agree, but that segues into my biggest problem with the hobby: It's intimidating as heck to someone who isn't already immersed in it. Command-line text prompts. No graphics. Bizarre and unspoken social conventions. The huge difference in experience between one game and another. The general impatience shown towards newbies. Even if you posted an ad on some other RPG forum - I shudder to think what it would be like for someone from one of those worlds to try and play here without a mentor really holding their hand for the first few months.

@Tinuviel said in FS3:

My point was more that if it is possible to accidentally make your character useless (not taking X merit or feat or whatever), then there is a problem with the system as it is being used and/or explained.

Oh yeah, I totally agree.

With FS3, if the game follows the system setup advice (10-12 action skills, 2-3 core professional skills, profession-based minimum skill alerts) I think it's really hard to accidentally hamstring yourself. You can end up not having quite as many dice as someone else, but in a PvE game that's very different from being "useless".

Of course, FS3 is configurable and games don't have to follow that advice. Dilute the Action Skill list too much and there ceases to be a meaningful distinction between Action/Background skills. Then you end up with a lot of min-maxing ("Eh, I can skip swimming I guess") and weird stuff like "Wait, you're saying my doctor doesn't know basic science because I didn't pick up Biology and Chemistry too?"

@Tinuviel Yeah, I mean, why on earth would you want characters to be useless? What the heck kind of game is that? But everyone has a different definition of "useless", so - there will always be min/maxing to stay ahead. I'm not a fan of respecs because it's like a form of retcon. But if somebody made a goof in chargen and wants to adjust something a couple weeks after they get used to the game, I'm fine with that.

@Thenomain Yeah I don't think it was a personal distrust, just skepticism about the system math. I mean , say you're that sniper who botched the 96% chance of success? What's your first thought? For a lot of people it's probably something unprintable followed by wondering if the system is broken. Whereas if they understand the dice mechanics and you show them the results, it tends to be more of, "Man the dice hate me tonight."

@Thenomain I also think it works in cRPGs because there's a level of trust there that Blizzard's game engine isn't screwing you over. And even if there isn't trust, it's not like you've got Blizzard's ear to complain about it. A MU* staff is a completely different situation.

Even with labels like "Rookie/Professional/Veteran/Expert" (which I thought were pretty straightforward) and instructions to "just pick what level fits your character", you would not believe the volume of questions I got about: "But what does Expert really mean? Is that like 5 dice in WoD?"

Even when I switched it to a dice-based mechanic, people were still skeptical about it until I showed them the dang die roll. And even now, we've seen some folks requesting that same degree of transparency in the combat rolls. You can't do that if the system is stats-based.

@The-Sands I'm an engineer and a computer programmer. I took stats and a crapton of math in college. I also worked with an actual RPG company as a freelancer. Don't mistake a lack of interest for a lack of ability. Game design is a balancing act. It's not all about the math.

ETA: I'm not offended or anything I just find it funny to hear a comment like: "Oh, if only someone with more math background worked on it..."