Posts made by Ganymede

@Ghost said in Eliminating social stats:

The military doesn't lend super well to social skills since the game is task based, which leaves a lot of the social interaction to either team-based efforts or interpersonal relationships and if those get out of hand...in comes military regulations.

Politically, no, but a military game could include espionage against enemies, which might require social rolls against NPCs. We could talk about how genius BSG:U is until the cows come home, but it is what it is: very well-crafted to a particular kind of game.

I'll go ahead and say it: socially-savvy RPers get by very well in any game, but even better in ones where there are no social rolls or social combat. They will figuratively and literally get their way because they are good at what they do. You can always check them by requiring a roll where a system exists, which will at least make them honest in how they construct their PCs.

@Ghost said in Eliminating social stats:

If social skills/stats are eliminated from sheets, then games and characters can become sorely imbalanced.

Unless the game's setting and structure makes social and intellectual skills secondary or unimportant. Example: BSG: Unification, where having a particular secondary skill may make it easier to do a task or two, but actions otherwise revolve around a core of action skills relevant to combat.

@Meg's point is probably the most compelling. Eliminating social stats would give savvy players like @HelloRaptor an advantage over players that couldn't persuade Madonna to give it up for a bag of Peeps.

@Misadventure said in Eliminating social stats:

These are all social skills in my eyes. They all come under Ganymede's Guile, representing knowledge of options, and the ability to assess which approaches will be most likely get you want you want the most effectively.

To be fair, I boiled it all down to Guile because the game's supposed to be a war game, mostly, with a lot of pew-pew-pew and a lot of boom.

@Lain said in Eliminating social stats:

However, by giving players "agency" over their characters, you allow them to cop out of the real outcomes of the dice rolls, by coming up with cute and interesting ways to evade the point of the rolls at hand, and ignore the context that their characters are put in.

I know. I recognize that this is a possible outcome. But if it happens, would you ever play with that person again? Would you report them to staff? I would.

Maintaining a player of "agency" is negative when used like this, but it is positive and important when you have a player trying to use Intimidate or Dominate to get into someone else's pants or skirt. And for all the times I've had some player punk out of a legitimate social roll -- which happens regardless of whether the stats exist -- I'd rather that happen than to hear that someone rolled to seduce an unwilling player's character, and then had that enforced by staff who were "just following the rules."

As an improv performer, I'd frown at the douchebag who acts inappropriately to intimidation, but I'd seriously beat the fuck out of anyone breaking the cardinal rule of "don't be a fucking sexual predator."

@ThatOneDude said in Eliminating social stats:

But couldn't you /deprive agency/ with physical stats? IE: I grapple you and force you to stay when you want to leave. Or using force/violence I could make your PC do something they normally wouldn't. That's why to me it just makes sense to have a like for like system, that has like attack/defense. Then follow up with the "if you don't feel good with what's happening then fade to black or whatever."

By "agency," I mean intent and thought, rather than actual ability. As mentioned by another, grappling me is different than using some power or social ability to prevent me from resisting. You could physically force me to back down, or do it via power. I personally don't mind someone depriving me of agency, but it is a sticking point for others due to past histories, creepers, etc.

@Arkandel said in Eliminating social stats:

During game design, one of the potential ideas for its systems is to eliminate all social mechanics from it. That means no 'charisma' or 'manipulation' mundane attributes and no powers that sway emotions or decision-making.

I like this, but --

The intent behind this is to cut down on incidents where social attributes like that are ignored either way ('no, I get you rolled six successes on lying, but...'), not have to deal with 'how much sway' a given attempt produced given I've never been satisfied with how social damage has been implemented before in the games I've played, but also to eliminate concepts that try to browbeat others into TS.

-- I don't think the motivation is correct.

I have always believed that the problem is using these powers to twist another into playing in a way that would otherwise be contrary to the choice they would make for their PC. The problem is depriving agency, not the use of social stats themselves. And it's never a fair trade-off: no one balks when a vampire uses telepathy to determine if someone's actually lying, but sometimes make a stink when a player rolls a set of dice to make people believe their character's lie.

If social stats are limited to how a character appears, I'd be fine with that. Rolling social stats to give the appearance of being charming, innocent, or honest when one is concealing true motives is important. In a way, it's almost defensive: a guard is suspicious that a knight is lying his way past, but that knight seems so honest and caring -- he couldn't be a liar -- so he lets him through despite his better judgment. The knight isn't twisting the guard's behavior; he's giving the guard no cause to mistrust him.

It's a hard thing to balance. I know that, in my own system, I've reduced the social stats down considerably to a single stat: Guile. Guile's important to have as a tactician as much as a merchant, and comes into play in combat and the economy.

@Kanye-Qwest said in Auspice Needs To Move!:

Snakebite seems plausible, for Texas.

Stunner seems plausible, for the Texas Rattlesnake.

@Lisse24 said in MU Pacing:

Yes, I am looking at you @Ganymede, Mr. Auf der Schmermerter.

Herr Neun auf Schwerter. And, if you'll recall, Cai was super boring. Kind of.

@MrWigggles said in MU Pacing:

I hate meeting characters. I hate the intial meeting of characters. Just that cold turkey, "Oh hello. I'm blah." And it so boring, because I've done it to death, and its always akward, as you the player may not have a repour with the other player and your character and theirs dont have a repour with each other either. With mu*ing, being improv, you need to know how to give and take between each other.

1. It's "awkward."
2. It's "rapport."
3. Skilled improv performers can act with others they have not met before, provided the other person is similarly skilled. In fact, this is one of the first, basic skills improv performers practice.

@bored said in Indicating Discomfort in a Scene (online):

The only thing you can do to make people complain more is take it seriously.

Bingo.

@Arkandel said in How to Change MUing:

What is the line between what you would consider acceptable for a roleplaying game and the environment becoming a MUD?

Why can't you consider a MUD a role-playing game? Can't it be both?

I'd like some more automation. I'd like some more stuff to do with my downtime, whether it be communicating IC through a letter system or hitting code for little resource rewards (appropriately capped).

Carrots encourage people to come around. Better chance to get RP that way.

@surreality said in Indicating Discomfort in a Scene (online):

I adore the shit out of you, @Ganymede, but -- and this is not an insult -- this is a very different personality type from yours in many cases; you're very self-assured, confident, and willing to speak up. Not everybody is comfortable with this in the same way, or in the moment, and this is all I mean here. I can get why this seems really alien to you that people aren't just doing this in the way you're describing they should. I really do agree that people should be willing and able to speak up, but -- and this is critical -- people have different comfort zones here.

I get what you're saying. And you're right: there are different comfort levels. But if you are not comfortable with speaking out, you can't really expect change. And I know -- I know -- this is like I'm blaming a victim, and, in some cases, that may be the case.

So, tell someone? Anyone. If not staff, maybe another player. Please. When I've staffed, I've tried to be vigilant, but things fall through the crack. I regret decisions to not act more than decisions to act.

@surreality said in Indicating Discomfort in a Scene (online):

Bear in mind, though, those examples are seemingly silly, yeah... but I am that person that got asked for a coffee shop scene and got mage-panther mind-control oral rape from out of nowhere, and piping up about not being super keen on that or expecting that out of a coffee shop scene was 'it's a non-consent game, deal with it'.

When I was 19, I might have thought the same. I'm now 38. I mean, if this happened recently, @surreality, I have no idea what demon you peed on as a kid, but karma's coming back hard and inexplicably.

A harder situation is where there's a player that's very active, but who makes other players uncomfortable with inappropriate or badly-timed comments on channels or in pages. Still, in that case, the instant there is one complaint there is probably a dozen other players that have quietly left.

@surreality said in Indicating Discomfort in a Scene (online):

By the logic you're using here, on every WoD game, when someone asks me if I would like to meet them for RP, I should be prepared to spend half an hour explaining to them what I do not want to have happen during a first meeting over lattes at the local coffee shop, from drive-by shootings to rape to witnessing child murder to being drugged by something that will turn me into a grue to <let this list just scrollllllllllllllll> and that I not be anally violated by an entire pack of werewolves wearing spandex and doing a WWF hand-slap whilst calling out 'TAG ME IN, BRO!', and then be prepared to be met with a similar list.

If you are uncomfortable with being violated by a pack of were-bros, then you probably should not be on a World of Darkness game.

That said, I disagree; that's not the logic being employed here in the slightest. How people decide to take responsibility for their own well-being is up to them. If RP Prefs are used, that's one way to alert others. You could also interrupt scenes when they get too intense, and politely bow out.

Really, though, it is my privilege that I've never been in a scene where I've felt the need to log out or leave. Ever, in 20+ years. Whether I ask to FTB or just play through, I've been around people reasonable enough to respect that. When I've been informed of those who are not, and I'm staff, I'm not shy about showing them the door.

So, the side topic is: what do you do about people who don't respect others' discomfort? My answer: show them out.

@Vorpal

Congratulations!

@faraday said in How to Change MUing:

Racking up the XP to become super-awesome? Nope.

Speak for yourself.

I'm just really bad at this aspect of the game.

@Tempest said in Visit Fallcoast, sponsored by the Fallcoast Chamber of Commerce:

So why haven't you guys done it yet? I'm sure Ganymede could get somebody to install nWoD vampire code somewhere.

Many elements of RfK relied on "unique" bits of code that I haven't seen anywhere else. Plus, as has been said, there were problems that needed addressing, namely the over-reliance on staff oversight for important matters from territorial actions to beat-sheets.

There was an RfK 2.0, but its operation wasn't particularly good. The code was not working properly, for one thing, so the territory system was broken and inoperable. Staff weren't always there. It still had plenty of activity at all times, with political machinations and everything, but I would want to make sure that RfK's problems were addressed before launching. It fell apart when it became readily apparent that staff weren't entirely ethical.

That said, I am trying to set a political environment similar to RfK's. The good people at F&L have been nice enough for me to essentially declare a system of governance by fiat, similar to what RfK had ICly. Time will tell if my PC is gutted for it or not, but, hey, things are happening and hopefully we can keep it moving forward.

But, to my previous point: this was done by a player; this was done IC; and this was done with the non-interference of staff.

@Tempest said in Visit Fallcoast, sponsored by the Fallcoast Chamber of Commerce:

You are seriously fooling yourself if you think an RfK-style game would work without a staffer who has massive loads of time to devote to a game she isn't playing.

And your basis for this conclusion is your non-experience of being present and active on the game during this time?

I'm telling you, the political games moved with little to no involvement. Shav did not suddenly shut down the game when she could not be on for 12 hours a day; she was not as actively running things long before she closed the game.

Didn't Shav eventually shut it down because nobody else wanted to staff and have political restrictions on their characters?

Your ignorance is showing. Shav closed the game because she did not want anyone else to have what she invested so much time into. She did not want to watch it fall apart. I literally offered to take it over, and would have dropped my PC if I had to. And players willingly surrendered their privilege to hold important pieces of power towards the end to help Shav out. I didn't initially surrender because my PC had become a lynchpin in the power structure, and pulling him out would have probably done more harm than the good I could do behind the scenes.

@Rook said in How to Change MUing:

1. Narrow the roleplay of all players on the game, giving all characters reason to interact with all others.

On WoD games, the races are segregated because they have different aims. The Reach was a bit different, but every race still has their own power structures and politics. I agree that things should be narrowed, but I believe it should be narrowed to single-race games. That will help keep the setting tight and the tropes relevant.

The "whole-world" feel created in the Old World of Darkness simply does not exist in the "flexible-world" feel created by the New World of Darkness.

2. Get rid of the dependencies on +jobs. Enforce interaction.

This presumes that everything is done in +jobs. This also presumes that you have the time to interact. Those in power positions simply cannot meet with everyone, and the proclivity of gamers to multi-task with MU*ing makes a lot of scenes unbearably long. Most games do not permit proxy-RPing as well.

Encourage interaction by permitting proxy-RPing. Rely on existing tools like @mail or other bits of code to communicate in writing ICly for quick things that don't require interaction; in the corporate world, think of when you would write an e-mail or phone someone. Interaction is interaction. Keep +job interactions to players communicating with staff; that's what +jobs were for.

3. Revamp XP gain to be non-singular, non-vote dependent. My idea here was to base a global XP gain pool based on the amount of RP happening on the game.

Brother, I said this yeeeeears ago. With you.

@Tempest said in Visit Fallcoast, sponsored by the Fallcoast Chamber of Commerce:

Please stop bringing up RfK.

You left before the game got interesting and mostly managed by the players. The last few months of the game were excellent, and that's when things were very hands-off.

Until you can find me a staffer who is going to dedicate 10 hours every single day to RPing NPCs and running plots for everybody on their game. And 5 more hours on that same day handling various +jobs.

Why? It has to be repeated that, while Shav did a lot for the game, she wasn't as active in running plots in the end. And, even at the end, there were people clambering to take over.

Any game will "succeed" if you have staff slavishly running stuff 24/7 for players.

This is untrue, and you know it.

As for what @Rook said, personally I put a lot of the onus on WoD players and MUers in general, more than the games.

And that's fine because this is why RfK worked. A not-so-small number of players on that game "slaved away" in the RP mines generating an immense amount of activity, the likes of which I haven't seen since.

The vast majority of MU'ers appear to be incredibly lazy and entitled when it comes to making little effort to get involved in things and expecting everybody else to feed them story.

This is neither a reason to discount past successes nor a reason to become one of these incredibly lazy people.