Posts made by faraday

@Ganymede said in First Through the Gate Syndrome:

I can understand this, but there's a way around it. It's called pose-queuing.

Pose-queueing works better IMHO when you're in a regular group scene. In a GM-directed plot, a large chunk of your next action is going to be based solely on whatever the GM's last emit was, not necessarily as much to the other players' actions. It can help to an extent, but you're still stuck waiting to see what the GM has cooked up next.

Of course, most GM-run scenes I've been in have been on 3-per, so there's nothing requiring you to pose first after the GM emit every time.

@Auspice said in First Through the Gate Syndrome:

I know in a lot of systems (WoD, D&D, etc...) initiative is a big deal in combat, but thankfully that's not a thing in FS3... and is one of the things I really appreciate about it.

Glad it's helpful!

And you probably knew this but for anyone who didn't - FS3 does actually have an initiative system; it's just all handled behind the scenes by the code. Players all declare actions in parallel and pose in parallel, but when the code is resolving actions it does matter what order people go in. If A shoots B first, then B is now suffering wound modifiers when they try to attack C. It actually does make a big difference, it's just buried under the hood.

@popes said in Whatever Happened To Star Wars MU*s?:

I think there's a FFG plugin for Ares?

There is, but it comes down to what @Auspice said earlier - a great many SW players are more interested in the gritty simulationist aspects. They want gear lists and ship code and all these ancillary systems. Ares just provides a chargen + die roller; doing the rest of it would require a crap-ton of custom code, and that's a big barrier to getting a game off the ground.

@Arkandel said in Whatever Happened To Star Wars MU*s?:

It's like going to a fantasy MUSH and only being allowed to play peasants until you can earn the right to roll a Lord or Lady.

Except in the "Rebels" era, it's more like going to a fantasy MUSH and not getting to play the king. It's not like Jedi are an entire class of citizenry like lords/ladies, they're crazy-rare as an intrinsic part of the setting. Sure you could do KoTOR or whatever, but for some folks (like me) it's the rebels vs. empire that are interesting, not jedis running around rampant.

@Arkandel said in Whatever Happened To Star Wars MU*s?:

The playerbase being spread out between different planets, galaxies, etc.

This was a big problem even in early SW games. Some of my earliest MU experiences were being frustrated as all heck because I was stuck on a planet with no RP. It's only compounded with the smaller playerbases of modern MUs.

@Ghost said in Whatever Happened To Star Wars MU*s?:

By this I mean that if you go onto a Battlestar Galactica game, you'll probably come across players who were on the first, second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh etc Battlestar Game that has come and gone. With enough time in the hobby you may notice that players and/or characters tend to repeat things from game to game.

That does happen in every genre (I know WoD players have complained about it too), but I really don't think it's as widespread of a problem as you make it out to be. I've played on most of the BSG games that have been made, but I can count on one hand the number of blatantly-repeated characters. I don't really think it's cause for concern.

@mietze That's cool. I thought what was being discussed was more like: "OK here's the scene set. Pose order for the first round is: Faraday, Seraphim, Auspice, (etc.)" as a means of making sure that somebody was dubbed to go first. Must have misunderstood what you were proposing.

@Seraphim73 said in First Through the Gate Syndrome:

I get that this might play into @faraday's discomfort with being called on to go first, but since we always asked the person who was going to be in charge if they were okay with it, I don't have so much of a big deal with it -- you picked the rank, you 'get' to be in charge, you have to pose first.

I don't have a problem when there's a logical reason why that person needs to go first - there are all kinds of reasons why kicking off a plot might hinge on the actions of someone in particular. Usually that's pretty obvious too - they're the leader, they're the one with the gun to their head, whatever. I just object to springing it on people as a general practice.

@mietze There's a difference between saying "you guys have 15 minutes to pose or I'm moving on without you" (which I do too) and "ok, Faraday, you HAVE to go first".

I'm not telling anyone how to run their plots. I'm just saying that kind of thing would make me super uncomfortable and I likely wouldn't participate in plots that were run that way (after the first time I discovered that's how it was done).

@Auspice said in First Through the Gate Syndrome:

But, if as @Goblin suggested, the order is dropped after that point... the other issues that you mention aren't a thing.

I thought it was a strict pose order for the first round. But I mean even if it's just for the first person - what if they're AFK at that moment? Now everyone's still waiting for someone to pose first, but for a completely different reason

@Auspice said in First Through the Gate Syndrome:

@Goblin said in First Through the Gate Syndrome:

@Auspice That'd just be to get the scene started, once people get to posing it usually rolls onward. You can introduce the 3pr after the initial set from everyone.

Hmm.
I might try this at some point and see how it pans out.

I have to say that this personally makes me squicky. Picking someone and forcing them to go first feels like the equivalent of a teacher calling on someone who hadn't raised their hands. It could potentially put someone on the spot / in an uncomfortable position, and I don't think that's good for a pretendy-funtime game environment. Also I wouldn't want to have to be in a forced 'initiative order' and keep track of when it was my turn to pose in a big scene like that. What if someone had to go to the bathroom or had a crying kid or whatnot?

Just seems like you're substituting one problem for another set of them.

@Auspice said in First Through the Gate Syndrome:

One method I've taken (to your standing around part) is, when STing, I start people in media res. And I know other STs who do the same.

Yeah, I also favor that approach. It does take some choice out of the hands of the players, so I think it only works if there's NPC leaders involved. But in general, it seems to me that if you leave players to their own devices to choose a direction, they just dawdle and/or argue endlessly. Then the plot goes nowhere.

ETA: If you want to have "making a plan" be an important part of the plot, that's fine, but I think it's a distinct phase. Don't mingle planning/executing into a single scene.

@Auspice said in First Through the Gate Syndrome:

So how can we encourage more people to be willing to go first?

Beats me. How do you motivate players to do anything that requires some initiative?

I have only compensatory mechanisms for when they don't Like the turn time limit, nudging people OOCly to pose, having leaders give them some direction, starting a scene in media res, etc.

@Auspice I think in large part it's just a universal 'nobody wants to raise their hand' thing, because I see the same thing in Storium. The sets are perfectly clear, and many times the characters are even doing their own thing so there's no reason not to go independently. But the silence will stretch on until finally I'm like: "FIIINE, I'll go first." Because I really don't mind doing it (it actually helps me, so I don't have to keep it in my ADD-fragile 'pending todo list' column), it just gets tiresome and self-conscious always going first.

@gryphter said in First Through the Gate Syndrome:

If I'm a Corporal and there are Captains and senior NCOs around, mine is not to 'lead the way' (at least until I'm ordered to).

Even when there's no implied IC hierarchy, the first person to respond to a plot often sets the tone / takes the lead in some fashion. This has an aspect of leadership to it, and many people are reluctant to take on a leadership role. It's easier to just react.

In this vein, I see this 'nobody wants to go first' phenomenon less when I bake the leadership into the scene set via a squad leader or some other kind of authority figure. Then you're not just setting a scene, you're giving some direction.

@gryphter said in First Through the Gate Syndrome:

being the one to do this every time is also not a good look.

Also this. It's like in school if you're always the first/only one to raise your hand. At some point you feel like an overeager show-off.

@Seraphim73 said in First Through the Gate Syndrome:

most of the poses are going to flood in between 10 and 15 minutes.

That might be part of it, sure, but I know that there have been numerous times where it's stretched on well past that mark, to the point where I'm internally thinking 'Oh FFS would someone pose please?' until someone breaks the ice. Then there's a flood at the 20-25-30 minute mark. I really do think people are waiting.

@Bad-at-Lurking said in Getting Young Blood Into MU*'ing:

I wonder how many folks there are out there carving out their niche, at least moderately successful, that are basically just off this community's radar, largely.

Lots of people from those games you mentioned are here though. I see folks talking about how MSB is like... all WoD all the time or something, but there are plenty of non-WoD MUSHers participating. I think this community represents more of the MU community than folks think.

@Bad-at-Lurking said in MU*, Youth, and LGBT+ Identity:

Eh, experience is lovely, but talent and enthusiasm are more important in RP. And reliability. And sanity. And ... a lot of things, come to think of it.

This. I don't care how old somebody is as long as they can RP decently and aren't a creeper/jerk OOCly.

@Ganymede said in Getting Young Blood Into MU*'ing:

But I’m not going to pretend it doesn’t exist elsewhere. I don’t play MMORPGs or games like Fortnite because of the people I’ve bumped into.

Yeah, I mean... I've encountered just as much toxicity from the MMO, video game and TTRPG communities as I have MUs. And that's not even counting the internet at large.

We get what we tolerate, though. As long as people continue to stay on games run by insane staffers just because their friends are there, or they don't want to give up the char they've invested in or whatever, then such places will continue to thrive. And believe me - I understand all those reasons.

But it's kinda hard to muster a decent recruiting pitch when the environment is toxic. Imagine trying to draw somebody into a TTRPG that way. "You should join this D&D RPG I'm in. The GM pretty much sucks, half the players don't bother following the rules, and the one guy is a real creeper - but hey, it'll be fun!"

@Joyeuse said in MU*, Youth, and LGBT+ Identity:

@Ghost Followed your advice and went ahead and snipped that. Figured it might have been handy, but if there's stuff like that going on it may just be best not to put myself out there like that!

I adore Ghost, but this is one thing where we definitely don't see eye to eye. Yes, there are creepers, people who will hold something from 20 years ago against you, or folks who form an opinion and will grit their teeth every time that you're both on a game together.

BUT, there are also a lot of good people out there. As you participate in the community and build a reputation for being a decent person, then having that playlist or OOC identity will benefit you in getting involved in RP and making OOC connections with other players.

Also people just aren't as good at keeping their identities secret as they think they are. Pose styles, online times, etc. Usually it comes out who people are.

You can see from the number of people who have created Ares player handles or MSB playlists that a lot of people feel the same as I do. Not everyone, of course, but a sizable chunk of folks.

Anyway, welcome to the community!

@Derp said in Getting Young Blood Into MU*'ing:

Remember Pueblo support?

Not every code advancement is a 'win'.

But MUs haven't fundamentally changed in the last 20 years. Sure there have been some technological steps forward - SQL linking, better permissions systems, stuff like that, but most of it has been aimed at coders, not at players. In part because many players really don't want their interfaces to be changed. ("You can have my SimpleMU when you pry it from my cold, dead fingers." and stuff like that something I've heard, more than once)

Ares is a little different because it preserves the existing interface for the veterans, while offering new interfaces that address everyday struggles. Playing from work/commute/different timezones, filling out stupid wiki templates, remembering whether it's @desc or +desc, wondering why it's +finger and not something sensible like profile, updating wiki profiles when something changes in-game. Like @Tat said, these are things that us old-time-MUSHers have been doing long enough that we don't think about, but they are significant barriers to entry for someone new. Especially someone from the younger digital native/touchscreen/mobile generations.

Code is not the only solution by any stretch, but it does remove some barriers.

@Tehom said in Getting Young Blood Into MU*'ing:

My understanding is it's intended to be a full backend solution with built-in deployment - they even intend to handle database migrations in it. Here's the hackernews thread with the link to the medium article: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20394166

It's kind of interesting, but it sounds like a step backwards. It has many of the same pitfalls that MUSH softcode coding had. Changes live in prod as soon as you hit enter (they can tout "feature flags" all day long but anyone who's tried to implement those in a real-world system knows it never really works out that way in reality), losing the many rich features of common editors, no code review process, no staging.... I will be shocked if it gets any real traction within the software community.

@Thenomain said in Getting Young Blood Into MU*'ing:

@Auspice said in Getting Young Blood Into MU*'ing:

@Derp

Ares web portal supports YouTube videos.
MediaWiki doesn't

That makes it an auto win in my book.

Because people referencing ten million images wasn't enough bloat.

Fan.

Tastic.

There's no "bloat". It's an embedded youtube link. You can do it on any wiki on earth, Ares' just has a shortcut to make it easier so you don't have to copy/paste iframe code.

If you don't like it, just maybe don't click on the link? But wrongfunning other people for wanting to express their creativity on their character's profile page - whether through images, youtube, spotify playlists, pinterest boards or whatever - is exactly the kind of senseless hostility that makes it hard to retain new players.

@Derp I assume you're asking about Ares. And yes, that's correct. Though I've done my best to mimic wikidot syntax pretty closely, along with the common extensions folks tend to use for MU wikis.

Nothing's stopping you from setting up a mediawiki and just not using the internal wiki, of course. But Ares is designed to be easy for non-techy people to set up and use. Installing and managing a separate mediawiki install is a PITA and getting it to interface with a MUSH doubly so. So Ares internally has everything you need to set up a typical game built in. One stop shopping.

@Griatch said in Getting Young Blood Into MU*'ing:

It's possible that one has to stay away from such convenience if wanting to be fully REST compliant, but I'd personally hardly say the functionality is not useful.

I would not say it's "not useful", but I would venture to say it's not essential.

Ares doesn't have a way to do that sort of direct query-response command, in part because PennMUSH never did. Maybe Penn does now, but it's not something I ever really encountered in MUSHing. And you see a shift away from interactive commands in regular command line interfaces, mostly for automation reasons. So generally I find it jarring.

It's pretty straightforward to store a variable so you can do chargen/next or store a prior state to do destroy/confirm after you tried to destroy something.