Posts made by Ganymede

@Caryatid said in Cary's Playlist:

How many hearts would I be breaking if I did?

Probably zero. Them kids.

Sad news: I'm not playing a silver fox this time. Good news: I picked Michael Fassbender for my PB. Dis one:

@Admiral said in Health and Wealth and GrownUp Stuff:

Austin is not hipster central anymore. A lot of them died off.

Thank the Maker.

@Auspice said in Health and Wealth and GrownUp Stuff:

It just sucks to think that trying to get out of living paycheck to paycheck... may be stymied by being in said state to begin with.

I know you work remotely, so you could really work anywhere, right? Austin, I hear, is really nifty, but it's also, I've heard, hipster central.

Egads.

@Caryatid said in Cary's Playlist:

Updated, not presently playing anywhere atm. It might be time for a hiatus to rebuild some tolerance to the usual MUSH nonsense.

Come play on Fifth Kingdom. Be my spouse. I NEED ONE THIS PLACE IS FILLED WITH YOUNGINS.

@Jaded said in RL Anger:

But damn my boss needs to learn not to call my phone 15 times two hours after my shift because he thinks something needs to be done 'now.' Because at the point it is his 'now' my attitude is 'not my circus not my monkeys.'

Does your boss have a boss? If so, you should let him know that complying with his off-the-clock demands requires your overtime, so you'd appreciate it if requests are made within office hours.

If he does not? Look around.

@Pandora said in Lords and Ladies Game:

Back on topic, I was just speaking to someone about how it can be hard to get into the swing of things on political games, if you're coming in late, or playing a character that wasn't much of a mover or shaker before you took them off the roster, but your interests lie in the social arena. I'm not a shy player, but what sort of advice would you all give someone trying to get involved without having to poke/prod people OOCly?

I think it depends on the nature of the political game.

If the politics arise from resources scarcity, then being able to produce something that few others can gives you an automatic in. If the politics arise from attempting to climb social ladders and banging your way to the top, it can be a bit more difficult.

I'm not shy about asking around OOCly to get RP facilitated, so I'm not sure what the best solution would be for you. Maybe just hitting the streets, RPing where you can, and just RPing with enough people that what happens comes naturally.

@Ghost said in General Video Game Thread:

That second part was a general invite. OH MY GOD PASSIVE AGGRO MUCH??????????????

Plz.

Passive-aggressiveness isn't my thing. Dryness and sarcasm are my sidearms.

I'll let you know if/when I get it.

@Ghost said in General Video Game Thread:

PM me if you're on PS4 and wanna get axed a few questions. We will swap PSN IDs

Sure. Don't invite me.

Whatever.

@Ghost said in General Video Game Thread:

Ill play 10 rounds in a row as a counselor with no connection issues, but then I will be doing SO FUCKING WELL as Jason, kill the guy who is hosting the match, and then suspiciously, the host disconnects and I don't get my xp.

I heard that was the same problem with Evolve.

@Admiral said in RL Anger:

So that's the story of how a 1-star review made my family cut me off. Life, am I right?

Like, I have no words for this.

If you want family, I'll give you family, man. We're good people and we don't do shit like this to each other. Ever.

@tragedyjones said in Sin City Chronicles:

I can't speak for @coin, but i am in it for the money and pussy.

You're a special kind of stupid, if this is true.

(Which it isn't, I know.)

@SG said in General Video Game Thread:

My friend who works at EA is saying the new star wars game they're putting out has a single player campaign. I'm pretty excited, a game that pretty should have some thought put behind it.

Did you play the first one?

No FPS storyline in the world could have saved it from mediocrity.

@Tempest said in Game Stagnancy and Activity:

Pretty sure that's the opposite of a personal problem. But whatever floats your boat, Gany.

No, what I meant was that the people who can't bothered to type +bbread once a week have a personal problem. At least, the personal problem I was harping on.

@Tempest said in Game Stagnancy and Activity:

Meanwhile, on WoD MUs, most people can't bothered to type +bbread once a week.

That sounds like a personal problem to me. That aside, and as I've stated before, World of Darkness games provide different challenges, and, yes, one of them is how to get the word out to the players. Then again, most WoD games fall apart because they miss Point 2: Have a tight theme.

@Tempest said in Game Stagnancy and Activity:

Who is going to be taking the time out to do this? You're lucky if a game has 1 or 2 people willing to run stuff regularly. Nevermind handle all this stuff after running those scenes.

@DownWithOPP runs stuff. I think someone else does. @faraday does. So, that covers "people willing to run stuff regularly." Regarding the Scuttlebutt @DownWithOPP mentioned: whoever ran the scene writes something quick up. Logs are almost always posted; someone in the group is logging at all times, which is not a novel or difficult thing to do.

If you have 10 players, you can probably manage it. 20, 30, 40? You're not going to (reliably) have the time for the jobs and the writing, and you're going to get tired of doing it even if you do.

I think BSG:U has 20-25 active players. If people get tired, they get tired. @faraday hasn't gotten tired yet, and she's the only staff on the game.

I fully believe some of you could do it for a couple months, sure. Then you'd shut your game down or turn it over to other people to staff.

That's not going to happen on BSG:U, given that it's @faraday's baby and testing ground. Maybe she shouldn't be testing things on her baby, but I ain't one to judge.

I mean if we're talking dreamland fantasies, I'm sure a MU with STs who'd run daily adventures for random individual/small group players they don't know would be super succesful and popular.

Sure. And BSG:U seems to be doing just fine, activity-wise. In the battleground of ideas, there's always room for optimism and pessimism, just as there's room for facts. You can probably come up with a million reasons to not do something, but it's the one reason that makes you act that means the most.

@Coin said in Game Stagnancy and Activity:

It really depends on the game, though. On Las Vegas, the CofD game we're building with @skew and @tragedyjones, it's a multisphere game, so if a Werewolf sees on the newsletter something interesting regarding spirits that a Thyrsus was involved in, it might require the PRP runner or a staff member to adjudicate the rolls to find said Mage, etc.

It does depend on the game, definitely. Not going to deny that.

On Las Vegas, take the above scenario. I'd probably put a weekly newsletter on the Werewolf Board and the Mage Board, and on any Board that may be affected by the Thyrsus' action. If players wanted to investigate, I might make them make a roll; if there's a Time-based Activity system, I'd probably require the spending of Time on the project too.

But, you're right. It's game-specific, and this is revealing a whole lot of holes, to me at least, with how we've been running WoD games. Trick is figuring out how to patch the holes without requiring substantial re-writes or re-inventing the wheel too much.

@Tez said in Game Stagnancy and Activity:

How have you gathered material for newsletters / recognition posts? I've tried doing those sorts of things before -- faction newsletters, updates -- and soliciting information from players has never been super successful.

On BSG:U, you get a Luck point for running such a scene for other players. I think you're required to post a log or the results on a certain Board. Not 100 percent sure, but that's how running the plots is incentivized.

@Coin said in Game Stagnancy and Activity:

Well, I mean, even if the PRP were public and posted, there's no real reason other characters would know who was involved. Also, like, if I see a PRP log that I liked and my character is interested in that, I can cvontact the PRP runner and see how to use it to get in touch with the players.

On BSG:U, whether or not your PC knows what happened is up to you. In a military unit environment, I think it's safe to presume that mission successes and failures are known to all in the unit, and there's no real need to maintain confidentiality.

It varies from game to game, I guess. I'd recommend keeping the information open and flowing, and letting players decide if their PCs would know about it. It reduces staff work and puts PC control in the players' hands.

@Coin said in Game Stagnancy and Activity:

Anyone who runs a PRP usually has to submit something to staff at least after the fact--a log, whatever--and you can put up, in the newsletter, that x or y happened, and if anyone wants to investigate that, contact [person] (be it staff or the prp runner). That not only generates more plot-based rp, it might also lead to people going and roleplaying with other players who were involved.

True, if the PRP were something that was kept confidential. If the results were published, I think the player's investigation should start with the PCs involved, which generates its own RP without staff work. That said, if a PRP were kept confidential, perhaps staff could implement an "investigation" scheme within its political system framework.

@Tez said in Game Stagnancy and Activity:

Those kinds of impacts at the end are definitely what helps. How do you make them felt?

You advertise the successes and failures on the game.

There it is -- memorialized. You managed to make it out with the prisoners, but Sergeant Jayne is dead and Private Courtois is so badly injured that he's on-planet, recovering. Or, you screwed up, and Sergeant Ingvar is in the sickbay on life support.

The problem with many World of Darkness games I've been on recently is the lack of information. You connect each day, and you see nothing about what's happening on the Grid, even if you did do something. That's not necessarily discouraging, but it enforces the opinion that nothing you do will shape the game. On the flipside, when the smallest mission gets disclosed, success or failure, there are stakes involved, even if it's just your PC's reputation. That's BSG:U, where the pilots count their kills and the marines count their blessings.

It sounds simple, and I think it is. When I was running the Denver by Night Changeling Sphere almost 15 years ago, I tried to put out a weekly newsletter on the Board about local events, out-of-county rumors, and so forth. It got the players engaged, even if the rumors were false or the news misleading.

@Tez said in Game Stagnancy and Activity:

1. Give your players the ability to affect the world. Endorse it. Facilitate it.
2. Have a tight theme, so that whatever your players want to do will fit in to your vision.

What do you think is the best way to achieve 1 and 2? They seem gently contradictory.

@DownWithOPP summarizes @faraday's method, and I think it's pretty solid.

Start with 2. On a World of Darkness Vampire game, a tight theme could be "political machine" or "Strix infestation." The players will then know generally what sort of plots staff will run or would like to see. On a Mass Effect game, the players could be on Omega during the Cerberus takeover. On a D&D game, the game could be set around protecting a particular realm from invaders from another kingdom. This differs from the sandbox approach of "this is the Grid, play in it, and make your own drama."

Then, move to 1. Like BSG:U, you could have modules/plots that mesh with how staff is playing through the metaplot. On the Mass Effect game I mentioned, staff could run a general campaign of "Cerberus is in the lower levels taking over the power plants," and encourage players to play out skirmishes in Omega's underbelly and mines. Particular events like protecting a plant against invasion could be run by staff or players.

If 1 is going well, the game will self-sustain.

In another thread, I discussed my views on risk, and here they are: "let the players decide if their characters die." This seems counter-intuitive to the idea of "risk," but it isn't so where there are set objectives to meet or satisfy. If the players lose those skirmishes, it could have an effect on the metaplot: if Cerberus takes the plants or the Cylons crush a scouting patrol, that could negatively effect the campaign, just as success in both encounters may improve the players' situation. And advertise those successes and failures equally, to let the players know that this ain't no cakewalk.