Posts made by faraday

@krmbm I think it's a good discussion, we just need a mod to split it out of the thread.

@Three-Eyed-Crow For FS3, it was planned from the moment I started seriously considering a web portal for Ares. That was in 2017.

The other skill systems were added later, because folks kept equating FS3 and Ares, and I wanted to make it clear that Ares wasn't actually tied to FS3. So I whipped up a few alternate skill systems just for demonstration purposes. They're functional but pretty bare bones.

It's never been my intention to personally code up support - especially not on web - for endless varieties of skill systems. It's just too much work, and I don't have the interest. I created FS3 because I don't think most TTRPG systems are a good fit for MUs.

The last few posts should probably be split off maybe into a To Web Chargen or Not To Web Chargen thread so we're not hijacking the game pitch... ( @mietze @Arkandel ?) ... but here's the thing...

Ares already supports several different skills systems with the in-game commands, and it's not a gigantic hurdle to add a new one.

But making anything on web is an order of magnitude (at least) higher than making the corresponding game commands. Expecting every game to have web chargen is just not realistic IMHO.

Unless everyone's willing to accept FS3 and nothing but FS3 from now until the end of time (which I'm not advising since it only really fits a certain specific style of game), y'all kinda need to get over the web chargen as a dealbreaker thing.

Side note though - I'm not convinced that the lack of Fate games has anything to do with the web chargen. There was a whole thread on here awhile back about why folks disliked Fate for MUs.

@krmbm said in Game Pitch: Three Letter Agency (modern horror setting - X-Files, Fringe, Control, SCP, etc):

Isn't it still missing a web interface (at the very least for Chargen)? Pretty sure that's been the deal-breaker for most people.

It has the sheet display on web but no chargen.

But like... we haven't had web chargen on games for the last twenty years. That strikes me as a pretty bizarre deal-breaker if the system is otherwise a good fit for your game

Not my kind of game but I think your 'pitch' sounds really neat and touches on the important bits, like game focus and what there is to do.

As @ZombieGenesis said - keep in mind that Ares doesn't require FS3. You can turn off the skills system entirely and just go freeform. There are also several other skill systems already coded; maybe one of them will suit your needs better. But yeah, like you said - making your own custom system will be considerable amount of work no matter which codebase/system you choose.

@il-volpe said in 'The Magicians' again -- time period?:

@Derp said in 'The Magicians' again -- time period?:

How? FS3 doesn't handle magic at all.

How not? I need to hammer out the details but as far as I can tell, rolling attribute Personal Magicalness + action skill Spellcasting tells you if it worked, and a bunch of different other skills tell if it's within your power, without them you fail without a roll.

FS3 has nothing built in for magic at all. This is mostly a problem if you want to use the combat system, because then you have to handle magic manually and lose a lot of the benefits of the automated combat resolutions.

Now if you aren't planning to use the combat system, or if you can fit your magic system into what's already built in (e.g., magic is a skill like any other and spells work just like weapons), or you want to extend it with custom code (e.g. what Spirit Lake has done) then it may work. It just comes down to what you need.

Everyone's different, but y'know, it is a thing...

ADHD and Argumentative Behaviors

Your Brain Is Hooked On Being Right

Everybody has different inhibitions. Some folks don't like either grid camping or sitting in an open scene because someone they don't like might stop by and then they feel obliged to play with them. Some folks feel self-conscious asking on the RP requests channel.

There is no one-size-fits-all solution for everyone, which is why I think it's important to offer a variety of options. If you want to camp on grid, do it. If you'd rather open an empty scene, do that. If you want to ask on the RP channel, do that.

Sure, there are still some glitches about folks seeing what they need to see or filtering the information in a way that's meaningful to them -- that's why Ares is still in beta. It's constantly undergoing improvements. Whatever scene sys somebody cooks up for Evennia would have the same iterations.

@Lisse24 said in Web portals and scenes and grids oh my!:

while I can be more relaxed on another scene type to accommodate people's desire for asynchronous play.

Except that then you're relegating all asynchronous play to private scenes. I'm not in favor of that. But if some game wanted to do that, they could certainly make some custom code to adjust the timeouts based on scene type.

@mietze Yeah, y'all are kinda hitting on the complexities inherent in this, with everyone having their own definitions and expectations. Believe me, I've been round and round on this and haven't come up with a "good" solution. Which is not to say someone else can't come up with something better, just that I have put considerable thought into it and had this same conversation with the Ares community already. Having freeform scene notes seemed like a reasonable compromise.

In regards to Evennia or other platforms, there are a few nifty UIs for MUDs that do room navigation and whatnot.

https://play.achaea.com/
https://www.mudlet.org/

I decided to go in a different direction with Ares obviously, but they're still sleek designs and could give other folks some ideas.

@Derp It already shows time since last activity. The average is easily thrown off by outliers, so it's not really a reliable measure.

@Roz Seeing as how the exact same issues would affect any web portal scene system designed for evennia, it seems on topic to me?

@L-B-Heuschkel Yes that's similar to what I was prototyping.

It's still not quite ideal though. There are two "axes" of pacing...

• How fast you can expect poses to come in. For some people, anything more than 10min between poses is "too slow", whereas others might still consider 1-pose-an-hour to be "live".
• How long you can expect the scene to run. Many folks can handle a same-day slow-work-RP scene but would balk at a multi-day one because it mucks with their inner sense of continuity.

I really don't want to have TWO different settings for each scene - that's too complicated.

There's also the consideration of whether people would use and respect the settings in the first place. For instance, Storium has a 'pacing' indicator that's roundly ignored. I've been in several games marked as "Normal" (one SCENE per week) and it's lucky if you get one POSE per week.

So yeah... culture is complicated. More code may not be the right answer.

@Lisse24 said in Web portals and scenes and grids oh my!:

I want public scenes to time out rather quick. This is where people should be going for immediate RP right? But with private scenes, I'd be willing to tolerate a much longer time-out.

Open scenes can be slow paced too. @Auspice for instance ran slower-paced event scenes that spanned multiple days. There'd be nothing stopping players from having a longer-running slow-paced open BarRP scene that people could drop in and out of throughout a week.

While some folks may object to the existence of slow-paced open scenes on principle, I think the larger issue is that it's not immediately apparent from the scenes list which scenes might best fit your preferences. I'm working on making that better, but it's complicated by the fact that RP doesn't neatly fall into categories of "slow" and "fast". Everyone has different gauges and preferences.

There are already web interfaces for MUs. Ares has a robust web portal. I know there's been some click-and-go experimentation with Evennia but I'm not up on the status. Some MUDs have a pretty intricate web UI. I don't think having a web interface is a "deviation from the source material in a major way".

There are other obstacles to getting new folks into MUs though beyond the interface, as we've described ad infinitum on other threads here. Here's one. I know there are others but I'm too lazy to look them up now.

@TNP said in Web portals and scenes and grids oh my!:

With people logged on through the portal not showing on +where in scenes, you don't know who's in that scene. Maybe someone is there you're avoiding. Maybe +where shows 3 people but when you get there it's actually 7 because there's 4 portal people and it's too large a scene for you. This is one of the things I dislike about Ares.

That's a good point, and I can certainly look into that more.

The reason it works that way is because +where is traditionally designed to represent WHERE people are in the grid. The web people aren't really ON the grid.

So you can either:
a) Not show them in a room on +where (current implementation -- they show up at the bottom)
b) Potentially show them in MULTIPLE rooms on +where based on what scenes they're participating in. (ETA: which opens a can of worms because even people who ARE on the grid can also be in other scenes).

So in this example below:

• Sara and Faraday show up with a location of "Web Portal" because they're web-only.
• Sara and Ryan are participating in scene #3 too, but Sara is not actually in the room and Ryan is offline, so they're not listed.
• There may be other active scenes that aren't listed.

+==~~~~~====~~~~====~~~~====~~~~=====~~~~=====~~~~====~~~~====
                                  Ares Demo                                   
-----[ Open Scenes ]------------------------------------------
#3    Sharkey's Bar                      Cate

-----[ Other ]-----------------------------------------------------
      Web Portal                         Faraday[Web], Sara[Web]
----------------------------------------------------------------------
        3 Online                    1 IC                    7 Record         
+==~~~~~====~~~~====~~~~====~~~~=====~~~~=====~~~~====~~~~====

In Ares, the scenes command generally gives you a better view of what scenes are going on. It shows you the scenes, status (private/public), who all is in them, whether they're online, when the last pose was, etc.

+==~~~~~====~~~~====~~~~====~~~~=====~~~~=====~~~~====~~~~====~~~~====~~~~~==+
Scenes
-----------------------------------------------------
#3 <Open*>                                 Organized By: Faraday     Social     3m
Sharkey's Bar (Temp Room)                  Players:  Faraday, Sara 
Hanging in the bar.  Come one come all.
Notes: Test
-------------------------------------------------------
Scene views: scenes/open, scenes/all, scenes/unshared.
+==~~~~~====~~~~====~~~~====~~~~=====~~~~=====~~~~====~~~~====

I think the scenes command is better for finding RP. Yes, it's different, but c'mon, it's one command: scenes versus where.

Also, players who like to grid-camp can still plant a flag in that list by opening a scene with a summary like the one above. "Hanging in the bar. Come one come all." Which I feel is better than just seeing somebody randomly on grid and not knowing their intentions.

@Auspice said in The ADD/ADHD Thread (cont'd from Peeves):

I don't mind necklaces or snug necklines tho. I think the snug clothing, etc fits into why I also like weighted blankets. Or part of it. There's a light pressure involved and it feels soothing.

That's the thing about sensory processing issues... it's not consistent.

It's kinda how ADHD is not really a deficit of attention, it's trouble regulating attention. Sometimes you have too little attention, sometimes you have too much (hyperfocus).

Sensory processing is the same way. Sometimes it's an under-regulation (needing weighted blanket to sleep), sometimes it's an over-regulation (OMG TAG NUB ITCH), sometimes it can be either one depending on the situation. It's a PITA to explain to people.

@Pyrephox said in Web portals and scenes and grids oh my!:

I pose while I'm on, but as soon as I log off, I forget it exists. I'm so sorry to everyone I've let down on those, but...yeah.

That's how I was with google doc scenes.

@Sunny said in Web portals and scenes and grids oh my!:

WHY would you use Ares and then turn all that off, instead of just using a tool that does the other thing natively?

Because it can be turned off? As you said, there are many features of Ares, of which "allowing scenes to stay open and counted as active for days on end" is merely one of them. Maybe you want to use Ares because you like the built-in wiki. Or the web based chargen. Or.. or.. or... There's no reason NOT to use it for your game just because you don't like seeing scenes stay open for long periods of time.

There's a reason it's a config option that you can tune to your (the game-runner's) preferences.

ETA: I mean I generally agree that Ares is not right for every game. I've steered several people over to Evennia or Rhost because those platforms fit their needs better. I'm just focusing on this particular config option.