Posts made by faraday

@arkandel said in Historical settings:

"We want to explore the Wild West era without focusing on racial tensions". Then the onus is on players to not be jerks and derail what the MU*'s goals are.

I agree with @mietze that you need to be more explicit than that. And honestly I'm not sure that's even feasible. It's one thing to say "Hey, don't play a racist jerk; that kind of character isn't welcome here." But by saying "we're not focusing on this" -- does that mean nobody can play an ex-slave? Or if they play a Native American, they can't complain about how their people were treated? Does it mean everyone has to accept a woman doctor as if such a thing were commonplace? Regulating that kind of thing is a complicated, slippery slope.

And again - I wholeheartedly understand people not wanting to deal with those themes in their fiction. But whitewashing away the injustices of history just so you can play cowboys and stagecoach robbers doesn't seem like such a hot idea to me either.

@mietze said in Historical settings:

I really dont get why making some alterations to other parts of history would be somehow a more immersion breaking thing.

For me it's not about immersion-breaking really. It's more about having a solid footing for reference about what my character would know/think/feel.

Like I can imagine how a regular old 1866 human would react to "ZOMG ALIENS JUST ARRIVED".

But what would a regular old 1866 human even be like if racism or sexism didn't exist? Would females have been allowed to be regular soldiers in the Civil War? Would there even have been a Civil War without slavery and all its evils? What about relations with the Native Americans? It feels like going down a rabbit hole of dominoes hitting dominoes, and I no longer feel like I have a solid foundation on which to base my character. It's no longer historical; it's an uncanny valley of similar-but-not-quite-the-same parallels that I have a hard time wrapping my brain around.

That's just me, anyway.

@apos said in Historical settings:

The thought of the million conversations about someone upset about something being jarring, and other people thinking it's a non issue but finding something else jarring and immersion breaking strikes me as the most miserable game of whack-a-mole that a staffer could play.

Yeah, that's what I was trying to get at when discussing with @Arkandel earlier. It's not that it can't be done to some measure of "success" (however you describe it). It's just that it's a lot more headaches than other kinds of games in my experience.

...
the amount of bad feels over people upset at each other who gets to play the exotic character or watch the setting to get overrun by Exceptions To The Rule characters strikes me as zero fun to administrate as a game runner.

Indeed. Everyone wants to come in as the Exception to the Rule, but then most of them get pissed off that there are so many other Exceptions to the Rule around town. The amount of flak directed at staff was kind of astonishing, really. This is, again, where an extremely narrow focus like TGG can help. The character options were extremely limited, which made it hard for anyone to try to be The Special.

@arkandel said in Historical settings:

So in your example it's not so much that I'd have that stagecoach fly through hundreds of miles overnight to let your PC go to her cousin's wedding, but I'd do my damnest so that's never a necessary logistical nightmare to handle. It's why I highly recommend single-city games rather than ones set in a sprawling world where characters need to travel extensively - it's because they then isolate themselves from the rest of the playerbase.

Yeah I understand that, and the games I mentioned were all single-city games. I used the stagecoach as an example of the kind of historical issue that seems innocuous on the surface (who cares if they want to go off-grid for a week?) but can really bother people who are into the historical setting because it's an pretty jarring anachronism. Like the costumes thing @insomniac7809 mentioned. Or everyone going around a small Wild West town with modern values.

I set out to make Sweetwater the sort of "Hollywood History" you described - heck, I even said so in the theme file.

What we strive for here is not so much historical accuracy but rather historical plausibility. Think of us as a Hollywood western.

What I ended up with was what somebody not-so-affectionately dubbed "Twin Peaks 1866". I had fun, personally, but I don't know how "historical" it was in the end.

@arkandel said in Historical settings:

All 'Hollywood' means to me is that we shouldn't let gameplay get bogged down in unnecessary details. The game oughtn't be about the minutiae of history but about characters, plots, pace - all the usual elements of good storytelling.

Like @Tinuviel said - I think that's a fine philosophy, but the devil's in the details. "Sure I'll just pop on the stagecoach to go to my cousin's wedding down in Texas" is a perfectly fine story to one person and a "ZOMG that makes absolutely no sense in historical context" bugaboo to the next person.

Don't get me wrong - I enjoy historical settings. My first real game was Maddock (Western), I ran Sweetwater Crossing (Western) and played/staffed on TGG (WWI/WWII) so... that's my jam. But like others have said, on an open MU environment it can be a real PITA trying to juggle different expectations.

@kanye-qwest said in Historical settings:

@faraday I mean there many ways. There's speculative fiction, historical fantasy, alt history...I am just not sure any of them are a GREAT idea when you are introducing a wide swath of rando players.

Yes, I listed alt-history and historical fantasy as alternatives to historical settings. I was not counting those as "historical" games because they are not beholden to the actual historical setting.

I don't think too many folks are looking for a super-accurate documentary. But there's a difference between "we're not going to make our heroes die of dysentery" and "we're going to act like nobody ever dies of dysentery in this setting". One is "Hollywood Historical". The other is just fantasy. Accuracy is a range of grays, not black and white.

@auspice Trello has a lot of Git integrations as well. We use it at work. But yeah - they each have different slants. Just comes down to what you need it to do.

@auspice said in Midnight MUSH:

I am trying to think of a way to summarize what it is, but it's sort of like a... to-do list / issue tracker that ties directly into GitHub. Very handy for development processes if you're working on a project that has a Git repo.

Ah okay thanks. I'd never heard of that one before. I'm not immediately seeing how it's appreciably different from GitHub projects, but hey - if it works, great. That family of tools (GH projects, trello, smartsheet, monday, etc.) all do basically the same thing; it's just a matter of which bells and which whistles you prefer.

I also think we discussed the sticky thorns of bigotry in historical settings in the IC Discrimination thread awhile back. I can absolutely understand folks not wanting to deal with that in pretendy fun-time games, but I'm genuinely at a loss as to how you would do a "historical" game without it. Alt-history, sure - and I'm all for that. Westworld type fantasy? Go for it. But I don't know how you'd do a western that's allegedly set in the real (or even Hollywoodized) Old West and just act like women are equal and the Civil War and all its aftermath just never happened.

@seraphim73 I don’t think “Hollywood” is an adequate framing adjective for a game, because it could mean anything from Band of Brothers (highly accurate without being a documentary) to Inglorious Basterds (total fantasy) to Kellys Heroes (vaguely plausible but not meant to be taken seriously) and a dozen other levels in between.

@wizz What is Waffle? (in this context, I mean)

@misadventure said in Social Stats in the World of Darkness:

Let alone defining moderate.

Well a good system will do that, but whether you bring numbers or words into the equation, there will always be debate about what it actually means. Unless it's a pretty unequivocal state. It's hard to argue with: <<AngelOfDeath>> Walsh breathes his last...

@thenomain said in Social Stats in the World of Darkness:

As someone I know regularly says, "No system is going to make everyone happy."

Absolutely true.

@ganymede said in Social Stats in the World of Darkness:

And now I am sad and missing BSG:U.

Although, looking at this, I can't even imagine what the heck Cate and Erin were trying to do, yeah? Is Cate trying to hide from Erin's attempt to explode her?

...

Actually, that's probably the best way to look at it.

LOL. Trash panda wins.

@thenomain Yeah I mean there’s something to be said for that. I prefer some randomness though. Even Hank Aaron struck out sometimes, even against average pitchers. But I think the general principle is the same - give the players vague guidance on the outcome and let them sort it out. Some folks like that. Others prefer more concrete answers like “Faraday takes a moderate wound to her right arm.”

@thenomain I'm now quite following (never played on Aether). Are you saying there were no rolls at all? If your stat was 15% better than mine it just said "succeeds by 15%"?

@thenomain said in Social Stats in the World of Darkness:

There was no limitation to what could be compared, no hard system, just what the players decided was appropriate for the situation.

That's basically how the FS3 opposed roll system works, FWIW, which is used for everything besides when people decide to use the +combat system. It just doesn't require the other person to accept before the results are printed. (i.e. it's "object after" not "agree before").

<FS3> Cate rolls Stealth+Reflexes (8 6 5 5 4 2 2 1) vs Erin's Demolitions+Wits (7 6 6 4 4 4)
<FS3>          Marginal Victory for Erin.

Don't even ask me what that particular contest might represent, lol But it shows how the rolls can be arbitrary.

So even though I prefer a more consent-based approach to social conflict, as a thought exercise I worked out how I would create a system if I wanted to do so. Here it is: https://aresmush.com/fs3/fs3-3/social

In a nutshell, it codifies the kind of modifiers I was talking about (that aren't reflected by stats), explicitly states some guardrails and expectations, and provides some mechanics that I think could be turned into a simple command like:
social Faraday/Persuasion+Obligation+Trust vs Ganymede/Composure+Consequence

Staff may still need to be called in for idiots being idiots, but at least it offers a framework where reasonable people can work things out when they can't agree. I believe it gives defenders reasonable accommodation for agency without giving them veto power.

Obviously it's designed for FS3 and not WoD, and I'm not specifically looking for feedback on it (since it's just a hypothetical system). I just posted it to show that I a middle-ground solution might be possible, and because I thought there might be some ideas in it that might be useful to somebody somewhere.

@griatch

Where shows where everyone is. Appearance varies but here's an example:

Usage: +where

+==~~~~~====~~~~====~~~~====~~~~=====~~~~=====~~~~====~~~~====~~~~====~~~~~==+
                                MY MUSH                                 
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Offstage - Offstage                 Faraday, Griatch
Offstage - Welcome Room             Guest-1
------------------------------------------------------------------------
3 Online                         0 IC                         2 Record 
+==~~~~~====~~~~====~~~~====~~~~=====~~~~=====~~~~====~~~~====~~~~====~~~~~==+

Who is basically the same but with character info instead of locations:

Usage: +who

+==~~~~~====~~~~====~~~~====~~~~=====~~~~=====~~~~====~~~~====~~~~====~~~~~==+
                               MY MUSH                                
      Name            Faction      Rank/Position                  Idle
------------------------------------------------------------------------
NEW   Guest-1                                                     1m   
STF   GameWiz         Army         Private - Teacher              1s  
------------------------------------------------------------------------
2 Online                         0 IC                         2 Record
+==~~~~~====~~~~====~~~~====~~~~=====~~~~=====~~~~====~~~~====~~~~====~~~~~==+

finger is basically a character profile. Exact fields vary wildly but the general idea is something like:

Usage: +finger <character name>

+==~~~~~====~~~~====~~~~====~~~~=====~~~~=====~~~~====~~~~====~~~~====~~~~~==+
                                   Stirling                                   
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Full Name    Nyssa Stirling           
Callsign     Whisper                  Eyes         Blue                     
Gender       Female                   Hair         Red                      
Faction      Navy                     Department   Air Wing                 
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

@tat said in Make Evennia 'more accessible' - ideas?:

Github was a ridiculous hurdle for me.
I didn't discover the debug/dev mode in Ares until way too late in the gam

These are good examples of the sorts of things that often are not obvious gaps to people writing tutorials (like me! Which is why I appreciate folks like Tat and @Thenomain - even though he decided he liked Evennia better - helping me build better ones).

Source control is like breathing to anyone who's done software outside of MUSHing. Sure you may not know GitHub specifically, but you know enough of the concepts to figure it out pretty easily. Running a local development environment and installing the tools you need. Doing things on the server shell. These are BIG hurdles to people who only know MUSHcode.

@derp said in Social Stats in the World of Darkness:

So, distilled -- of course they'll play, and continue to use those rules.

Just to be clear - I wasn't saying people would leave the game en masse or refuse to play there. I just think folks avoid interacting with systems unless they either a) buy into them or b) are forced to use them.

Most players have no inherent philosophical objection to FS3's combat system, yet most fistfights on FS3 games are handled with just a few simple rolls or a gentlepeople's handshake. Why? Because as @Thenomain mentioned, the system, while detailed and highly automated, gets in the way of RP and slows things down when folks have other ways to resolve issues.

@ganymede said in Social Stats in the World of Darkness:

Would people still use social stats to resolve conflict? Why or why not?

Probably not, for all of the reasons that @Thenomain and @Arkandel already mentioned. Also..

Agency. Folks can mock it and dismiss it all they want, but it is a thing that a significant number of people really care about. NOT because they can't bear to lose, but because it's kind of insulting to have someone else tell you how to play a character you created. It's the MUSH equivalent of someone telling JK Rowling "Harry Potter would never do that!"

Appearances. Without conducting a scientific poll or anything, I would venture to say that most MU players would rather their characters die than be humiliated. It just goes against why a lot of people play these games, which is escapism. Die gloriously in battle? Sure, whatever. (Though some folks hate that too.) Become a coward? Dealbreaker.