Posts made by faraday

@lordbelh said in Cultural differences between MUDs and MUSHes:

To prove my point about conflicting cultures...

Does it? I mean, it seemed from your responses that we were in agreement more than not? You say "within reason...", I say "if you can..." - it's semantics. And I do think there are a lot of gray areas. That's the reason why these are guidelines, not rules.

Should Mary and Joe be required to go to a TP room just because they're on a date at the restaurant? I don't think so. But then if Bob comes along, I have no problem if Bob's "Mind if I join?" is met with "Well, we're having a date at the back table, so it might be a little hard to work you in..." That wouldn't stop Bob from kicking up a scene with Harvey at the restaurant bar, which may result in a heated argument, which may distract Mary and Joe from their date... Sometimes that's the fun of having a "private" scene in a "public" space.

Tangential side note: Speedwalking doesn't bother me personally, but there are some people who are downright incensed by it. It's probably not enough to warrant having it on the list though, in retrospect.

@Thenomain said in Marvel: 1963 (Lookin for a Coder):

... Pretty much nothing else. Penn is otherwise equal to most players, but speaking as a player, man that channel system is grotesque.

Yeah the channel system is the thing that pisses people off the most (which is always funny to me because MUX's channel system is the weird one to me as a long-time Penn Player). My codebase makes a token nod toward MUX syntax by defining some channel shortcuts so you can use "que" to talk on the Questions channel or "=qu". It's not customizable for each player, but you can define a bunch of different shortcuts to cover the majority of cases. It's not ideal but it's something.

The rest of the channel commands, yeah... you're out of luck, but really, how often are you joining/leaving channels? It seems like it's not something that you do ten times a day, right? It's always been a pretty minor annoyance when I've played on MUX games.

@Kestrel said in Cultural differences between MUDs and MUSHes:

Note, I'm not really interested in the 'be yourself, all roleplay is subjective' attitude, because it can be very easy to offend, or worse, bore people if you don't engage them according to their expectations.

While it's certainly true that you can put people off if you don't conform to their expectations, in my experience you won't find a consistent set of expectations. To put it another way, there isn't "Rome" of MUSHing - there's the US and Russia and Germany and France and they each have their own unique set of expectations. And even within a given "country" if you will (or sub-culture), you'll get widely differing preferences based solely on taste.

The Glossary on this tutorial might be helpful to you, but it sounds like you're probably beyond the rest of it already.

Here are the etiquette suggestions from one of my games, but they are by no means universal:

• Ask before joining a scene in progress.
• If someone asks to join a scene, try to find a way to work them in if you can.
• If you really want a private scene, use a TP room.
• Avoid 'lurking' to watch a scene that you are not a part of unless you know the people pretty well. It sometimes creeps folks out.
• If you are speedwalking through a room with other players, a simple OOC "Just passing through!" is polite.
• Ask before posing logs containing sensitive/private IC information.

@Lithium As I understand it, the character/player separation in Evennia is configurable, so you don't have to use it. Maybe @Griatch can confirm?

@Ghost said in Faction-Based Villain Policy Idea:

I apologize if I stirred up a storm, I'm just promoting defeat as being healthy ya knows? I often work defeat/back on horse into when my tabletop players lose.

Nothing to apologize for. I wasn't reacting to your original point. I agree that protagonists frequently suffer setbacks/defeats in good fiction and that makes for more interesting stories. But as you yourself have said, setback != death. I see a lot of the posts saying that the stakes don't matter unless the stakes are life or death, and I find that notion to be rather bizarre in light of most fiction out there.

Where in the world does this concept that "protagonists must risk death or it doesn't matter" come from???

I think MUSHes are most like book/TV series, because of their longevity/multiple storylines. Character death in this sort of series is infrequent and mostly played for shock value. Series like Game of Thrones / Walking Dead made a name for themselves for their body count precisely because it was rare.

We can enjoy Firefly and Star Trek knowing that the crew will almost certainly get out of whatever peril they're currently in. Why do folks rail so much against the same standard being applied to MUSHes?

(Side note: I don't mind if you have a preference for one way or the other. Everyone has their own style. It's the rather vehement statements that death is necessary or lack of death is "couch warming" that I'm reacting to.)

@Lisse24 said in Meta vs PrP vs Planning vs Impromptu:

Why not have everyone state their intent for the round OOC, roll, and then have the GM make a summarizing pose?

@ThatGuyThere said:

I would not really be comfortable with someone else posing out my actions, even the GM of the scene.

Likewise. And as a GM, I'm certainly not comfortable posing the actions for a dozen different characters.

Personally I'm a fan of the Pose - Resolve - Pose model. It's what the FS3 combat system is based around, and it's always worked very well in my experience (both as a player and GM). Certainly you can use OOC comments to clarify things when there's confusion.

Sure, you could do the "intent" part entirely OOCly. But what folks who suggest that often miss is that your poses aren't just intent. Except for the very first round, you're mostly posing the results of the prior round. For example:

Del hears the voice in her earpiece ordering Bishop back to help the wounded in the rear, frowning at the news of Marita being wounded again. She glances back just long enough for her heart to skip a beat at the bullets licking at Bishop's feet. The accompanying clutch of fear prevents her from fully appreciating just how awesomely action-hero-ish he looks. The crack of a bullet through the leaves by her head snaps her attention forward again. Damn that was close. Her burst fire wounds a couple of the humans, grimly satisfied at the carnage of Brina's grenade. With the squishy ones pretty well taken care of, she then shifts focus to one of the shiny metal targets.

That's like... 6 lines of reaction and 1 line of intent. You don't really save much (if anything) by shifting the "intent" part to OOC chatter instead of the pose.

@Ganymede said in Alternate CoD/WoD Character Growth / XP Systems:

In the end, it doesn't really matter. My vociferous defense is in response, mostly, to people who claim that my idea won't work.

Well I will agree at least that it can work. I personally wouldn't like it, but I can understand situations where you might want it.

@Ganymede said in Alternate CoD/WoD Character Growth / XP Systems:

Still, this only occurs once you get to a limit. So there's no inherent atrophy, but, rather an atrophy when you get to maximum potential.

Except that it's quite possible for me to be "actively using" all of the skills on my character sheet (which rarely represents every single thing your character knows). Your ability to practice is largely limited by your free time, which is highly individualized.

Should someone be able to reach level mastery in every skill and maintain it? No. I agree, that's silly. But should someone lose a dot from a modest professional-level rated skill they use all the time just because they picked up a new hobby and are at some artificial cap? That's also silly IMHO.

But I will take a step back and admit this is just a pet peeve. As I stated earlier, there is no right or wrong way to model XP. If your goals with the XP system are balance/fairness or OOC rewards, then "it's non-sensical from an IC perspective" is completely irrelevant.

What I was most objecting to was the assertion that 'no form of RPing requires X'. My form does

@Monogram said in The 100: The Mush:

Death can happen in combat. But it's also FS3 combat, so the dice really have to hate you and you have to be out of luck points.

FWIW, it's not standard "FS3 Combat" if death can happen in combat. They must have modified the system. Which they're absolutely entitled to do, but the stock FS3 system has no rules for death by roll/code.

@Ganymede said in Alternate CoD/WoD Character Growth / XP Systems:

I'd amend my statement to: no form of role-playing requires an increase in total XP spent on the PC.

I disagree strongly there. Just because I go to dance classes and get a dot in dancing or take some introductory German... why in the world does that mean I lose a dot in something else? That's just nonsensical from an IC perspective IMHO.

Skills atrophy if not used, absolutely. I haven't done martial arts in almost 10 years, so I certainly suck now compared to what I used to be able to do. But I don't buy into any system that asserts that they atrophy just because you learned something new.

What are you trying to model with XP? Who are you trying to motivate and why?

When considering XP design (or any other game design component for that matter) I find it helpful to refer to the Bartle Archetypes.

You might motivate Achievers through continuous progression - always giving a next level to reach or a new skill/power to unlock.

You might appeal to Competitors (my version of Killers in MU worlds) by giving power and advantages they can leverage. They'll be the ones most concerned about power disparities between PCs.

Explorers I think value the IC world. They'll be most interested in "realistic" or "justified" progression. Timed spending and staff oversight are favored here.

Socializers probably don't care too much about advancement, but XP can be used as a reward for the OOC behaviors you value. Here's where you might find XP awards for +noms, or running plots, or whatever else your game values.

Of course this is a gross over-simplification, and you can mix and match a bit. But you can never please everyone. Handing out XP as OOC rewards will piss off the Explorers because it can't be justified ICly, and have the Competitors crying foul about favoritism. Slow XP progression will frustrate the heck out of the Achievers and lead the Competitors to min/max their chars. Etc. Etc.

Decide what your goals are and pick a system that fits them. There is no "right" or "wrong" here.

@Auspice My understanding (which could be off base) was that Thenon was looking for a web-based ticketing tool that could be run locally on your typical MUSH hosting account and writes its data to SQL. Then the SQL data could be scraped by the MUSH code. Something like Ticketman, but with SQL instead of MongoDB as a backend.

@Thenomain said in Web-Based Ticketing Software:

the first reason for the backwards way I'm trying to make this work. No, the first reason is, sadly, what I can do.

I'm going to guess your best bet is probably looking for something that uses a server-side Javascript framework like Node or Meteor, as they're lightweight and self-contained. Seems that it would be a lot more likely to run on a local account than something like Rails or Django.

FWIW, I'm leaning that way with the Ares web front-end. The initial prototype I did was in Rails. It worked, but my goodness - the server installation/management is hideous.

Alas, I couldn't find a help ticket system in these frameworks that talks MySQL. I still think you'll have to write your own. I'm sure you can manage. Anyone who can master softcode the way you have is more than capable of handling a web framework That said, I can completely sympathize with not wanting to deal with Yet Another Thing. Either way, good luck.

@Thenomain Using an existing system is an interesting idea, but I'd be surprised if you find something suitable. There are some help ticket systems written in Ember and Angular out there, but they all seem to be, like, "Bob's Ticket System". Who knows how stable they are. I'd venture to say you'd be better off making the MU side work the way you want and then write a web client side that scrapes the SQL.

@Kanye-Qwest said in What do RPGs *never* handle in mu*'s? What *should* they handle?:

If you are in favor of being able to ignore social dice rolls at will, what's the point of having them at all?

Well I tried to explain why - because a social "contest" if you will depends a great deal on the person's personality, morality, personal preferences, etc. most of which are not reflected by stats. This is very different than the situation with combat rolls, which are very well modeled in most systems.

Someone who has deliberately chosen to have "gullible" as part of their personality would react very differently to a mediocre con roll than a cop who is suspicious of everyone or a character who just doesn't like your PC. Someone who is married or highly religious or interested in members of a different sex or only into redheads would react very differently to a seduction roll - even a very good one - than someone who isn't.

So the roll is just half the story. You should still RP "appropriately" to the roll, but what that appropriateness means is not a one-size-fits-all answer that can be reflected by "Joe rolls seduction - Good Success".

I don't expect everyone to agree with this. As someone said earlier in the thread, the debate about how to handle social skills has been raging since the beginning of MUSHdom. Just explaining my position.

@Thenomain said in What do RPGs *never* handle in mu*'s? What *should* they handle?:

@faraday

Because people who believe themselves to be reasonable, steadfast, and intelligent are still manipulated because of their ego, fear, and ignorance.

They can be. They can also not be. Even the best advertisement in the world doesn't convince everybody, otherwise everyone would be buying (pick a thing). Is it because Bob failed his Willpower roll and Susy didn't? Or because they just have different tastes? I believe it's more the latter than the former. This doesn't negate the utility of social skills - people should still utilize the results of rolls in their RP as they see fit. It just makes them a matter of influence rather than mind control.

Edit to avoid double posting: @Duntada - As you pointed out, interrogation is complicated and controversial. Fortunately it doesn't come up that often in PC vs PC matchups, so I don't really have a strong opinion on how to resolve it.

@Seraphim73 said in What do RPGs *never* handle in mu*'s? What *should* they handle?:

The question of torture vs seduction and which is rolled and which isn't is particularly troublesome, because there is a LARGE segment of the MU* population that would decide that their character would never break.

I think it comes down to whether or not you believe that someone is seduced against their will (a contested roll) or whether seduction is a manner of persuasive performance akin to leadership, bluff and acting. I believe the latter, so it's not an issue for me. The seducer/con artist/actor rolls for the quality of their performance. The recipient chooses how they react to it.

To look at it another way... let's say someone tells a story that's 100% true. There's no con roll involved, obviously, but the listening character still may or may not choose to believe them. Why should it be any different for someone telling a convincing lie?

@Seraphim73 said in What do RPGs *never* handle in mu*'s? What *should* they handle?:

But I'm one of those people who thinks that you can change a PC's body if you've got the stats (it may be FTBed), but you should never be able to change the PC's thoughts unless the player chooses to allow it. I realize it's an odd line to draw, and I think it comes from the point of view of a writer.

It's not an odd line to draw for me at all. For performance/artistic skills, there are two facets: the objective quality and the emotional impact. Quality is something you can measure with dice. Wow, that was a really rousing speech. Man, that was a slick sales pitch. Whoa, worst pickup line ever.

But the emotional impact? That's for the receiving player to decide. Just because it's the best sales pitch ever doesn't mean you're going to buy it. Not everyone likes the Mona Lisa. Not everyone appreciates Shakespeare, even though these things are objectively speaking considered amazing works of art by millions.

Sure it's jarring if you've got someone who can't RP their way out of a paper bag trying to play a highly successful social animal. But that's not unique to social skills. You can get the same effect if someone's playing a doctor and knows zilch about medicine, or playing a tactical genius and knows zilch about tactics. Social skills are just more noticeable because they get used more often.

@ThatGuyThere said in [Poll in OP] Population Code:

I can think of one reason on why to bother. That was it is up and posted for when new people join the scene. I have had to deal with vamp players getting pissy when a scene had be set...

Yeah I guess it's just the culture thing again. In my experience, waiting for a scene set before posing in, and dealing with whatever time/weather/etc. they've been playing is the norm. It would be weird for someone to come in and just assume a time from a room desc... even weirder for someone to get pissy about it. I've had sceneset code on my games and it's been used, like, once or twice in giant scenes. Like @Thenomain said, if the culture of the game will use it, then code it. Otherwise, don't bother.