@Three-Eyed-Crow I base any GoT TT game I run in the North, Free Cities, or Dorne because of this.
@Cirno I roleplay to have my character's life fucked with. If I wanted a story where everything my character wants happens how my character wants, then I'll sit alone in the dark and write it myself. I depend on other players/staff to complicate my shit and fuck with my PC's chi.
To each their own, but on games filled with fragile egos and low self esteem cases with limited real-world social skills, I don't think one should rule out the empathetic, wishy-washy approach. You'd be amazed at how well some people will respond to you if you merely give them the impression you give a fuck what they think.
I don't mean this to sound sociopathic, but really I mean it to say that people are more inclined to work well and peacefully if they feel like the other side gives a fuck.
@RDC Agreed. Hal Jordan and the Green Lanterns ended far sooner than it should have, and that show was vastly underrated. The movie? Meh. The cartoon got it
@faraday said:
@Ganymede said:
@Derp and I had a discussion as to whether a non-inclusive clique with no influence and no desire for it is actually a detriment to a game. While we ultimately concluded that the influence would be minimal or nil, I asserted that such a group would also be pointless and, therefore, undesirable.
Well I said that it can be detrimental. It depends on what else is available on the game (to draw in new folks) and how influential the members of the clique are. For instance, if the small-town Sheriff, an important char, only ever RPs with Bob and Suzy, that might be a problem.
As for undesirable, it depends on what the point of your game is. If you build it so that players can log in and have fun, and those players are logging in and having fun - groovy.
Also, I rarely see a clique that never RPs with anyone else, so even if they mostly just RP with each other, there's still some net positive for the game as a whole.
I don't mind a clique that only RPs with each other so long as that clique isn't in some way kind of taking over the game. Again with the SerenityMush references, but this applies. The "Space Pirate" faction on SerenityMush was hideously out of canon. They also had staff support and were funneled all of the best weapons and armor from staff, and there was a lot of rules oversight. They got away with a lot of bullshit. So they became this highly exclusive faction that took on Sprogs, who were newbie characters in the faction that were PK-free bitch kids, cannon fodder, and packmules. People would join as sprogs because there was RP to be had, but there was a lot of risk/price to put on the line for joining the exclusive faction who got all of the special bonuses. Eventually, this Pirate Faction took over the game and were a standing stalemate element to every plot, could bully whoever they wanted to IC. When, due to RL issues between Mal, Inara, and Frost, the faction splintered and became stale, a lot of players were displaced.
If I were running a game I would owe it to the game to keep an eye on cliques. Within cliques can come a lot of under the table OOC communication and coordination on IC things, which is both meta-gamey and puts some risks on game balance. If the clique becomes popular, then it could become a force to be reckoned with and flip that switch from net positive to how do I get this under control without ending up on WORA very quickly.
@Alamias said in "My Immortal" reading idea:
I...have never heard nor read this
masterpiece,piece of literature, story
YOU ARE WELCOME
@bored said:
It's unfortunately almost a rule of MU design that if you split your playerbase your game will die or at least suffer horribly until you integrate them. It's not that the idea doesn't sound cool, but it's just one of those things with the size of the hobby etc. Really the only way to combat it is doing the thing you said not to (alts), and even then it tends not to work.
I have often had to come to terms with the realization that what I or a small group of mushers would think to be cool would never work for the larger mush community as a whole.
For the most part, it seems to me mushers want to choose where they show up on the grid and to be accessible to the OOC beau they made a character for, and that splitting up the grid on an isolationist game like that might lead to players leaving because it would be unfair that their former pop star can't immediately shag her former Marine she met at USO. Then again, with my kind of thinking, that above "make characters for each other" concept would be against the spirit of a survival mush where you can't choose which group you get taken in by, so fuckem? I dunno.
Some ideas are just better left to tabletop.
I'm willing to bet that isolated zombie game idea, especially with high mortality and the right rpers, could take in maybe 20-30 unique IPs
@tragedyjones I play a mean Deadpool and Spider-Man
EDIT/EXTRAPOLATION: As Deadpool, I once introduced my character to a female PC with Deadpool running down a street yelling "GO GO GO". He had two gold-plated Desert Eagle .50s with La Raza inscribed on them and was being chased by a street gang and their pitbulls. The guns were sweet and he stole them fair and square, but his teleportation belt was malfunctioning. Once they escaped to rooftop, something complimentary she said was taken as flirtation, so he arranged a date to Kentucky Fried Chicken with her. She said she'd go, then OOCly laughed and told me her char would be sticking him up.
...which resulted in a news post about a sudden holdup/terrorist threat in downtown NYC at a KFC as an man armed with AK-47s and a mask walked in and attempted to purchase a bucket of chicken.
@Aria Why would he go to Philly when he can get a good cheesesteak anywhere?
@Lithium said:
Back in the glory days of CrackMUX I lost characters pretty reliably. I'd get some power, get some sheet, and then get taken out by a group of other people who were at odds with me... or because I killed the leader of the BSD hive in an elevator using dragonbreath rounds and a shotgun for a million dollars...
God, I love character death so much. An ACTUAL Player-Character death. NPCs need not apply. I'm not a PKer by any means, but I think that the Red Shirt trope applies to a story. You see it in TV. Every now and then a character, an important character, has to die to keep the dangerous feel of the story relevant.
Just ask the cast of The Walking Dead. Shit, just ask the cast of The Walking Dead after this next half of this season is done. If my instincts are right, at least 2 characters that have been on the show for years won't make it to next season, and my money's on one of them being Glenn.
@Ganymede said in Good Music:
I’m sorry, since when does anyone consider Minaj to be the Queen of Rap?
Right.
Im sure her majesty Latifah, who was crowned in 1989 and actually carries the Lady title of Queen would have something to say about that.
I might get stoned to death for saying this, but I would have more interest if the era was the JJ Abrams rebooted Quasi-TOS setting. I like the look, the feel, and the Firefly-type chutzpah.
Sexy aliens and gunfights.
Coworker calls you while you are on vacation (waking you up) because he cant figure out why automation scripting that is asking for mmddyy is failing when he enters mmsdyyyy
Also...
...he made the same mistake a month ago and called me in the middle of the night a month ago for the same thing.
Also...
The fucking script was giving him an error message about mmddyy.
@Arkandel said:
Speaking as a Storyteller, not as a player.
I always wanted PCs who are overwhelmed or afraid for their lives. IC speaking there are many brave people around, many stupid people around and many weird people around but few who actually let the plot get to them; who will take a long wide-eyed look at the insanity of a situation and allow it to make them go 'nope, nope, shit, I'm outta here' instead of ... well, instead of treating it like a TV show where it doesn't really matter what happens because everything will turn out okay in the end.
It's rare to see it as a Storyteller. I bring in NPCs the characters have every reason to fear but they don't show it. They'll give lip, stand defiant, try to negotiate... but they won't ever lose their composure, back down or be intimidated. Sometimes I'd like that as well, to see the hopelessness sink in. Everyone conquers their fears, it seems.
This reminds me of a Jedi character I played for one scene maybe? It was a Squib with an emphasis on healing/Consular, who was just being collected for becoming a padawan. The Squib are little rodent people, but I wasn't going for the cute-trope, but instead the little person in a large world trope.
Anyway, I digress.
In the scene, he came across Sith. SITH. Sith who were, unfortunately, posing cutting down innocent people in mid-air and riding them to the ground like a surfboard, mind you. It was a little...eh, but I got a lot of props for the way I roleplayed the character, because he was terrified.
Terrified as in crawling backwards on his hands to get away, scrambling to get away, and running up to that shut cage partition between businesses, grabbing it, and tugging at it hard while calling for help.
When no one shut down your grandmother's Facebook after she passed and you get notifications of her birthday or past posts you had with her.
meh.
@Arkandel said:
Ah, @Misadventure, you are just the person I wanted here for this. I have two problems with the existence of systems in scenes where I'd really like to evoke interesting reactions from characters.
- Systematizing the challenge makes it relatable, understandable. It's a clear solution, an obvious approach; you encounter something that's truly horrific and instead of having to figure out a proper reaction to it, you have a very easy way out.
"Let's roll +init!"
There have been many times when I was the ST when I wish players - rather than characters - didn't always have that option. For starters even one player doing it seals the deal; everyone rolls. It's all broken down neatly into numbers and specific actions from there, an old song and dance.
- Players who front-load the dice. And then roll constantly, going through their goddamn list of powers one at a time, best to worst, trying to solve the encounter rather than participate in it. It's one of the worst things in scenes, particularly because this kind of player spends so little posing and so much of it trying to throw bags of dice at the problem until it goes away.
"So you walk into the room and here he stands, a cloaked figure who..."
"I roll detect magic!"
"There are elemental energies around him! So he lifts a skeletal hands and says..."
"I roll read thoughts!"
"Its thoughts are alien, you glimpse at flickering images and concepts instead of words and sentences, like dipping your hand in dirty oil. So the figure points a finger at you and says..."
"I roll flame shield!"
"Alright, done. So he says, 'Did you bring me what I seek, interlopers? For I...'"
"I roll wits+occult. Do I know anything about skeletal figures?"
"@^&^&*@#@#^&$"
I have a lot of trouble with this as a GM, even in a tabletop setting. I kind of have issues with this wherever I go that ends in "...gaming"
I want to ask "Why would your character immediately suspect the NPC is lying? Just because you know what kind of creature it may be doesn't mean your character knows." You spend hours thinking of a plot, a scenario, or a good long term bad guy and 10 minutes into the first meeting it's GobbleGobbleGobbleBURP or you have to ask yourself if you need to pull the dreaded ST fiat.
@Tinuviel Upvoting out of solidarity and support, not out of liking that there's a fire.
Scenes I wanna have, pt2:
I'm a rum and coke guy, but not am expensive alcohol guy so Bacardi Oakheart has been my go-to