Posts made by faraday

@roz said in Earning stuff:

You're misunderstanding my point. Note that I didn't say the purpose needs to be about plot. ... I'm saying that, in good writing, every word has some sort of purpose. Sometimes that purpose is plot, but sometimes it's about character... but it's still relevant and interesting in some way. Good writing has a point.

Yes, that's what I was trying to say as well. One of my favorite scenes on BSGU was the pilots going to a karaoke bar during shore leave. It had nothing whatsoever to do with the plot, but it was funny. And the uptight squadron leader kicking loose with a self-deprecating song was an important icebreaker for the group, and a key moment for that character. In contrast, some of my least favorite scenes were random "let's stack some Cylon planes up and mow them down" combat missions, because they had no real point other than people turning up to pad their kill counts.

And when people have limited time to RP, they may not want to risk ending up in a total dud of a scene, even if there's also the possibility that they'll get something brilliant.

That's it exactly. If the ratio of "dud to brilliant" was high, I wouldn't mind chancing it. But it sadly isn't. So I view the random social scenes as a necessary ice-breaker to something more fun, as opposed to the reason I play.

@surreality said in Earning stuff:

It's why the 'more games is better' principle is one I still believe in pretty strongly. It's why I worry when there's too many loud voices pushing for a 'one true way' all games must be in some respect or another, whatever that is.

I agree wholeheartedly, and want to clarify again that what I'm talking about here are just my preferences, not "The One True Way of RPing". I have nothing against Theno's preferred style. It was the "Remember when people actually liked to write?" remark I took exception to, thinking it implied an unhealthy disdain for the modern status quo.

@thenomain My favorite TV shows also have ones with imperfect characters, but those characters are central driving forces in their world. Of course you have social scenes, but those social scenes drive the narrative forward in some way. They have a purpose, whether it's to illustrate some new aspect of the character, or deepen some relationship, or provide some key plot exposition, or even just for comic relief. But whatever they are, they're not just random.

I understand that you miss the "fully unscripted" style ("seek narrative rather than structure it"), and there's nothing wrong with that. I just reject the idea that a slightly more scripted style is somehow less collaborative, or less about writing.

@thatguythere said in Earning stuff:

If I am playing Bob, I am not going to do any meaningful relationship RP and am unlikely to do plot RP with Mary or John or anyone until I reach a comfort level with them

I understand. But in the same way that @Thenomain misses the days where RP was less structured, I miss the days when people were more willing to RP with strangers. Then you could get to know Mary and John through some more interesting avenues than throwing darts at the pub or randomly running into each other in the park.

@thenomain said in Earning stuff:

I'm not interested in a plot structured story. I'm interested to write the story my character tells over its life.
So maybe you and I have different definitions of "story"

I think fundamentally we do. And that's not bad - I mean, your way isn't any less valid than mine.

I also want to tell the story of my character's life. But I want that story to be as interesting as the story of my favorite character in my favorite TV show.

Some folks can get great pleasure in "slice of life" scenes where you just explore your character's reaction to eating icecream with their buddy while talking about the Cubs game. I am not knocking those folks, but I am not one of them.

@thenomain said in Earning stuff:

That "90% of primetime TV airtime" didn't matter.

Maybe I'm still missing your point, or maybe you missed mine. When I said that a+b equated to 90% of primetime TV, I was just trying to illustrate that the +c we lost (e.g. the random social scenes) wasn't necessarily important to telling actual stories.

Pick any TV show, book, play or movie. The scenes all have a purpose to furthering the story. You don't see a scene with Bob and Mary just randomly meeting in the park to say 'hi how's the weather', which is what a lot of BarRP/random pickup scenes are like. I don't think it's a bad thing that folks have moved away from scenes like that. And I certainly don't see how it means people are less interested in writing.

@thenomain said in Earning stuff:

Way back when, people logged in to write.

I have no idea what you're getting at. Writing has always been a part of MUSHing, and always will be due to the fundamental nature of the medium. Primetime TV writers are writers too. The fact that MUSHers are more inclined to emulate those types of stories is not a bad thing IMHO - especially when you consider that the ongoing episodic nature of MU stories has more in common with a TV series than it does a movie or a book (both of which have a core "story" and a finite resolution).

@thenomain said in Earning stuff:

Tangent: I think Mushes I’ve seen have become a more like sandbox video games: Less about the story and more about the experience.

FWIW I haven't seen that. What I have seen though is that peoples' definition of "story" has shifted to include only a) Epic plot events, or b) Relationship RP (including platonic/familial relationships) with friends. What's fallen by the wayside is a lot of the random "let's hang around in the bar playing pool" or "let's sit in the park and chat about the monster we killed last week" scenes.

Personally I can't call that a bad thing, because I don't really have the patience for the latter any more either. I miss it in a sort of weird nostalgic way, but whenever I try to do one of those scenes these days it's not very fun.

And really, when you get right down to it, a+b constitutes, like, 90% of primetime TV airtime.

@three-eyed-crow said in Earning stuff:

I mean I'm personally of the opinion that 'Other players being special detracts from me' is one of the most toxic impulses in this hobby but that's maybe another conversation.

I agree completely, but as @Seraphim73 said - thankfully those folks seem to be a minority.

They are a vocal minority, which can be annoying. I remember on Sweetwater getting people complaining about how unrealistic somebody else's concept was while they're playing something equally rare.

@lotherio said in Earning stuff:

The really good stuff on TV may be about one or two heroes who do crazy things, but the crazy things make up like 10-15% of each episode, maybe a little more in periodic advances of major arcs.

If you apply that ratio to a MUSH though, assuming somebody plays 3 nights a week (which is pretty typical for an active player), you're talking about one action-oriented hero plot per month. That doesn't seem like a terribly unreasonable expectation for an individual player, and it's eminently do-able if you have a setting/character/player-staff-ratio that supports it. It's not practical everywhere, though, which is a problem if people expect it.

@coin said in Earning stuff:

True, but in MMOs they've also completely gotten rid of the "special factor". Your level 60 Archmage with the Wand of Watoomb's Mom isn't the only level 60 Archmage with the Wand of Watoomb's Mom, to the point where you start to wonder how many wands Watoomb's Mom had, or at least how many moms Watoomb had.

I don't disagree, but I think it's not a black-and-white question of "everybody's special" or "nobody's special". You can have a mix, where it's like you're special in the quests "Yay you saved the world from the Big Bad" and special in rewards "Woohoo you got the Wand of Watoomb's Mom" and still inherently not be special because the guy across the bar just did the exact same thing. Maybe it's more of an illusion of special? I dunno.

@arkandel said in Earning stuff:

It's how we are brought up - there are simply very few paradigms outside of MUSHing in our pop or gaming culture that prepare a player for not being one of the main protagonists of their own setting.

Those expectations can even be found in multi-player video games. In MMOs the quests (once you get past the "slaughter 20 bunnies and bring me their hides" stage) are designed with your character as the protagonist, even when there are umpteen million other characters on the server.

@arkandel said in Earning stuff:

From a certain point of view our expectations are unreasonable. It's not natural for players to change the way they think literally everywhere else other than in MU*.

There are, of course, teamwork-based games (e.g. Pandemic) and teamwork-based situations in games (e.g. a 20-man raid in a MMO) where it's not about stealing the spotlight. But those require the team coming into it with a set of shared expectations, and more of a community mentality. We just don't have that in MUSHland.

@coin said in Earning stuff:

I am also referencing games that are probably much larger in the terms of player bases, where not everyone can be part of the big plot in a way they find meaningful.

My intention was not to be demeaning, so I'm sorry if it came across that way. I'm just pointing out what I believe to be a fact that you yourself alluded to first - if the players are coming to a game with an expectation that the game can't fulfill, then there are going to be issues. That doesn't mean the players "have issues" or that the game sucks - it just means that there's a mismatch of expectations that's going to cause strife. Setting clear expectations can help.

Personally I see that a larger percentage of players want the "heroic style" versus the "everybody's a supporting member in the overall game story style", so I think games would save themselves a lot of headaches by catering more towards that mindset. But that's in no way implying that folks who cater to the other mindset are doing something wrong.

@coin said in Earning stuff:

You may have had good experiences with a BSG game, but as a whole, I just don't see that, haven't seen it, and especially haven't seen it last.

It's not just one BSG game. I can name a number of games that have functioned this way, with characters operating at a more epic scale of heroic adventure. I'm not saying every game does, can or should work this way. But to claim it's impossible is inaccurate, and to claim that the people wanting it have issues is slightly demeaning.

@coin said in Earning stuff:

I would say the people that have the issues are the people who come to online gaming to reproduce something that the medium can't provide, actually.

On what do you base the statement that the medium can't provide that experience? Because I've seen games where it absolutely does. It's not a limitation of the medium, it's a (potential) limitation of individual game choices.

@ganymede said in Earning stuff:

It’s a little more difficult to do this on a WoD game.

Is it really? WoD is not my thing, but I am passingly familiar with it. It seems that there are any number of 'important events' that you could build stories around if that were your aim and if you steered characters into story-appropriate roles. (Which is why BSGU forced everyone to be in the mission-oriented departments.)

There's nothing wrong with saying that's not your goal - with having more of an "open world" concept where people can make anything they want. But... as @coin said:

@coin said in Earning stuff:

Many people come to online gaming to replicate and immerse themselves in the kind of stories they see the heroes and protagonists partake in on television and the big screen, or they come trying to find a way to do what they used to do in real life in tabletop with their friends back when they had time and didn't all live further away and didn't have life-sucking jobs

If a significant part of your intended audience is looking for something that your game design just flat-out can't provide then you've got issues. It's like saying: "OK I know you want X but I'm going to give you the complete opposite of X! Enjoy!"

@coin said in Earning stuff:

But online play, in the massive games we run and play in, is a completely different beast, where you are not the protagonist--you are a protagonist amidst dozens of protagonists, and that spotlight istemporary and transitory at best.
The more people who get that, the better the hobby will be.

Except that it's perfectly fine to have it work the other way around. The more people realize that there is no singular right way to play these games, the better off this hobby will be.

On BSGU, the PCs were the badass heroes of the story. An ensemble of heroic protagonists. They were the ones going to space, blowing up the space slug, etc. and the plots were structured accordingly.

Games need to set expectations better so people know whether they're getting a game where they're the heroic protagonists or they're getting a game where they're the supporting characters in a wide-reaching story.

Then games need to set policies to support the kind of game they want it to be.

@coin said in #WIDWW pt 2 - ST, Player, or staff?:

Right. But part of the investment is at chargen. If it is very easy to make a new character, a lot of people (not everyone, certainly not most, but not an insignificant number) will just not give a shit.

Yes, but that's still a player issue not a system issue. I don't think "make chargen a PITA so people won't want to risk their characters senselessly" is really a good solution to the problem.

@arkandel said in Earning stuff:

"Players want things which are rare and special. However if many possess them they are neither rare nor special."

I agree with that assessment but not with your low/middle/high spectrum. On any game you end up with things that people perceive as being limited/cool even if it wasn't something that you ever intended to generate competition. So "giving no one anything cool" I think is inherently impossible.

@apos said in Earning stuff:

Any game owner has to choose whether they want to obscure any information on their setting for story purposes, knowing full well that if they do so, they will be accused of favoritism and stuff like that down the road. You just will.

FTFY

But seriously - it doesn't matter how transparent or well-intentioned you are. Some players will get their noses out of joint no matter what you do. Do what's best for the game.

@coin said in #WIDWW pt 2 - ST, Player, or staff?:

Question: how easy was it for people to make a new character on TGG? How long did it take to approve new characters?

Super-fast. It was pretty fast on the BSG game I mentioned too.

My point with TGG was that if you have a higher PC death rate, you can end up with people just not getting invested in their characters, as opposed to people actually being more cautious.

@arkandel said in #WIDWW pt 2 - ST, Player, or staff?:

Sometimes people like to play a game of chicken. Am I going to kill them off in some random Wednesday evening PrP? No? Then hellz yeah they'll stick around to fight when I say "you can hear reinforcements arriving! Thankfully after you rummaged through the Bad Guy's desk you discovered a secret passage out" two and a half hours after we began.

Yeah, I've run into this several times too. It's like as long as they think death is off the table, folks will fight long past the point at which it ICly makes any sense to fight. There was one time when the PCs literally charged down a tunnel into Cylon machineguns, WWI style, even after I repeatedly warned them.

Now you might say "Just kill them, then they'll learn" but we'd still see gung-ho stuff like this on TGG, the king of PK. It's just a player mindset issue. There are some folks who like adversity, who see failure as the building block to more interesting stories, but most? Just flat-out don't.

ETA: Never mind. We're so far afield of the original discussion and it's obvious we're never going to agree, so I withdraw further commentary.