Posts made by Ganymede

@L-B-Heuschkel said in Getting into Writing:

MU* people don't start out knowing how to do these things. They learn them as they go, and the more they pay attention to trying to learn, the faster they learn. And some, indeed, give no fucks and never learn. Just like a course in creative writing in real life, really.

I'm going to have to second this.

I consider myself a professional writer. Most of what I do as a civil litigator requires me to communicate ideas in a cogent manner to convince others of the strength of my proposals. To do this often requires an ability to turn facts into an undeniable tale of events which will be interpreted in a way that is beneficial to whatever polemic I am pushing for acceptance.

This is learned. More accurately it requires a great deal of unlearning and re-learning. Worse, the practice requires me to adapt and write with several kinds of voices to persuasive effect. Rhetoricians might call it "calling to the audience"; I call it the art of the bullshit.

Every time I MUSH I try to practice "calling to the audience." Every scene has a certain mood; being able to maintain that mood without falling back into a different "evocative style" requires, in my opinion, a great deal of discipline. But the weakness in practicing on a MUSH lies in the inherent failing of improv as a way to practice comedy: you need someone else to participate with you in order to make it work as intended.

Frozen 2 was cute but not memorably so. That it was not nominated for best animated flick is understandable.

That The Hidden World did not win was robbery. I liked Toy Story 4 but that movie doesn’t even hold a candle.

@GreenFlashlight

Look, I ain’t the smartest, but you’d think that men would be concerned with giving women screaming orgasms with the proliferation of porn on the Internet, or keep it up for more than a minute, or look aesthetically-pleasing, but apparently they just have unreasonable expectations for or as pizza delivery people.

Birds of Prey was really enjoyable.

Although on the top of my list of movies that had no business being watchable, Sonic the Hedgehog appears over Spies in Disguise.

@GreenFlashlight

Are we starting to call Republicanism a religion now?

@TNP

That patty would kill me horribly.

@mietze said in RL things I love:

When I was a kid, my church culture taught that using tampons would turn you into a slut, because once you started putting things other than your husband's penis into your vaginal canal, you would not be satisfied with his penis and would continue to voraciously experiment and be ruined for marriage.

If these men think that tampons would make women not satisfied with them, then they either have a true disability or need to start learning how to use what they have.

@Ghost said in The Game Game:

Popularity is not the reason.

Your attempt to distinguish "closing due to overpopularity" from "closing due to a lack of staff support" is yet another matter of semantics and attempt to move goalposts.

@Ghost said in The Game Game:

Competition isn't about keeping people that aren't quality or aren't having fun/are absent. Competition is about wanting the game to have:

A) The best/active role players with as few drama problems as possible
B) More fun/events than other places to keep the momentum going

You're mixing a lot of aims here. This may be your definition of "competition," but it is not mine.

This is closer to my definition of "quality." A quality game has few drama problems, active players, and events to keep momentum going. You can have a number of quality games within the same genre/setting/system/whatever. Similarly, you can have multiple quality restaurants and bars on the same street within spitting distance.

My definition of "competition" is where there is a motivation or drive to be the best. To that end, while some MUSHes aim to be the best game out there it is not a universal aim. For example, I don't think Fate's Harvest ever wanted to be the best game in the WoD field, but it is a quality game that has a very steady group of participants. As another example, I don't think Apos aimed to create the best game out there, but Arx is undeniably a quality game that attracts a lot of people.

To be frank, I know of very few people who aim to have the best game out there, which means there's no competition. What I think designers want to build is a quality game and there is certainly room for as many of those as we, as a community, can support with our time.

You cannot run a game without players, no matter how great you think your ideas are, if they're choosing to spend their time somewhere else. On some level to maintain whatever playspace you're paying for, you have to be a "draw".

Being a "draw," though, isn't really about competition: it is about having something about your game that people enjoy. Further, whatever satisfaction a designer or operator derives from their playspace is individual and subjective. For example, Fate's Harvest is a small game, but this does not dissuade Anna from operating it; as another example, Tat's game was wildly successful but that's not what brought her satisfaction.

I see what you're getting at, but I disagree with the implications of what you are presenting as universal truths.

@Ghost said in The Game Game:

I think it's very polite to say that it isnt competition, but each game wants to be a player's MAIN game and the only way to secure that is to compete with other games.

I have literally never staffed or run a game where the main purpose was to become a player's main game.

I have rather staffed or run a game with the purpose of providing players with an enjoyable experience.

If my game is providing an experience so enjoyable that players are deserting other games, that's out of my control and was never my purpose.

I really wouldn't call that "competition."

@Arkandel said in The Game Game:

The only 'competition' I can see is when a game is explicitly created to disrupt another. Say you're running a WoD game in New York and I fork it, asking your players to come play the same characters in mine.

I think this kind of competition is relatively rare.

A good example of how MUSH culture collaborates and spreads like this is akin to a local entertainment district where there are multiple restaurants, bars, and clubs. You would think that they would be all "competing" and hating on one another; however, the successful enterprises to the contrary collaborate and support one another by providing different experiences catering to different crowds. As a result, you get more foot-traffic and more new customers walking in.

So it is that MUSHes generally collaborate and differentiate for the purpose of providing more choices for gamers, and thereby more activity and enjoyment.

@Derp

I concur with this. Be flexible. There are a million reasons why the team composition would change between episodes, so roll with it.

@L-B-Heuschkel

I think some people look at those two games as being in competition with each other, but that’s a reasonable misunderstanding. It is more accurate to say that they are producing two choices for players.

Business majors can’t tell the difference most of the time because they don’t appreciate what their theories are based on. But I don’t expect them to either.

I doubt either of you would seriously consider living in a country where the means of production are not in private hands.

I can confirm that Modern Nights' code is pretty damn awesome. CGen is a bit wonky but kind of cool, though.

Due to people being apparently unable to follow simple directions, this topic is being locked.

If ESH’s policy on spoofing potential PCs is so problematic that one would rather continue playing on UH, then I am without words to advise you as to where to play.

That said, again: this thread is to recommend games, not critique them. This is the third time I have had to say this. I will not do so again.

@SquirrelTalk

I don't think there's a 'no-TS' policy on the game, but the creators may chime in.

@Darren said in ISO: a comics/superheroes MU* (give me your recs):

The only thing holding me back is I am not sure how well a game not based on Marvel or DC would be received.

There's enough fans of The Umbrella Academy, The Boys, and Watchmen to probably give you a non-Marvel / non-DC player base.

@Ghost