Posts made by Ghost

I am such a whore for genre. So whenever I run a tabletop game IRL (using Star Wars as an example), I try to make my protagonists feel Star Warsy. So, for example, Star Wars has a small range of antagonist tropes:

• Throwaway redshirt bad guys (queue Wilhelm scream!)
• Mid-boss thugs that die over the course of a trilogy (queue Grievous, the Fetts, Jabba the HUTT, Darth Maul)
• Power players that are defended by a gauntlet of either of the above, or defended by political power/intrigue (Dooku, Palpatine, Thrawn, Vader). These guys are the major boss fights who don't often risk themselves to get the job done. They have mid-bosses who can Wilhelm scream
• Villains who are intetended to have turncoat/double agent storylines, who may or may not join the protagonist pool (Ventress, Former Sith, etc)

So, in my head, the thing to remember is that DEFEAT doesn't equal char death, but it does equal defeat that your protagonist players can celebrate, which means (rough math here) for every 25+ redshirts defeated, eventually a midboss gets killed/captured, and after doing that enough a good assault on a big boss makes sense. People love a good campaign, right?

And let's not stop at the Empire, for example. Antagonist/Villain could also be applied, as needed to Rebellion type characters because really, the Empire bad guys, they're just striving for ORDER right?

Anyway, just still spit balling ideas, but my overall point is still "how do people who run games FAIRLY (and by fairly, I mean both realistically via story and fair to each warring faction) create an environment of warfare/competition and incentivize players to roleplay risk, without requiring it be some unrealistic Mary Sue waltz through a nuclear explosion with no ICC?"

If players aren't willing to pony up on the death/capture/defeat, then the STs have to put the weight of this on NPCs, but the problem is that if your PCs are running the show (being mid-bosses and big bosses) and if neither side can ever score a victory against a PC, then the faction-based genre of MU fails.

... that's us.

I've probably said this a dozen times, a dozen ways on different threads, but I think the ultimate killer of faction based games is the "never-ending stalemate" factor. Protagonist players don't want to lose their chars to PC death. Antagonist players don't want to lose their chars to PC death. It becomes two opposing forces circling each other and...nothing really changes unless staff railroads something.

So I guess the thought behind this idea is to find creative ways to get players to loosen their death grip on their characters, provide some hard-earned IC victories, and suspend the disbelief that the dual tommy-gun and katana wielding villain/hero survived another nuclear detonation, got away, and the player base will inevitably groan going into next time...knowing that there's only a 1% chance they'll be allowed to defeat the bad guy.

To show my fair play, I will not edit that post.

This will teach me to post to MSB from my phone. lulz

I don't know if this has been done or not, but the idea came to me and I wanted to share it before it was lost on me:
What if on games where characters can choose to play villains (Star Wars comes to mind), an option were made available to flag the character as a villain? What if doing so meant the player of the villain character consented going in that the intention of the character is to -provide- antagonistic roleplay against the protagonist characters? This would mean that the focus of the character is to give other players a PC to defeat/capture/kill, and when this happens the character freezes and any xp gained goes towards a new character, especially on games where new chars have to start fresh? Who knows? Maybe the character gets captured and later on there is a jailbreak, but pre-consent to eventually being DEFEATED and inserting new villains, or giving other villains the chance to villain, will keep cycling a game around.

I remember my old SWRPG MU days and there were so many "villain" chars that would only really come out and RP or risk being taken down unless they felt going in that they had some unbeatable gambit(it seemed). Villain chars are the lifeblood of genres such as Star Wars, and even making a really dangerous TIE pilot, battleship commander, or KnightOfRen/Sith with the known intention of giving the heroes something to blow up would really spice up RP and support the game, IMO.

Maybe give an extra alt slot JUST for villains? Ideas. Ideas.

@Arkandel http://swrmud.com

The website lists factions including (Force Sensitive), Knights of Ren and Church of the Force. I don't speak for the game, but from what I gather, Jedi/Sith will be mostly replaced by Jedi/Ren, where the Church of the Force is not so much the Jedi order, but more so a group trying to reestablish the Jedi. I imagine any grade of force-sensitive, lightsaber wielding or not, can nestle into any faction in cool ways, too: mercenaries, corporation, butt cartels, the Resistance...

@Packrat my fave pennmush resource is: http://community.pennmush.org/book/export/html/21

As like any new MU, the ability to play fair, be inclusive, and work for something that is universally designed to provide RP and fun for everyone is always an option. Some of us older MUers have seen the same mistakes repeated from game to game, and some of the decisions ROGUE has made have been excellent. It's a GREAT start, and it's the exact kind of thing that will bring obvious complaints from older games to an end.

Now, all we have to do is have players come into the game with the right attitude, the right sense of fair play, and not repeat other past mistakes. Bring your fairplay A-games, people. This is a great opportunity coming.

@Fantom said in ROGUE: It is coming...:

@Haven
Kylo Ren will be in the game, but as an NPC.

We are not having any FC's in the game. Reason being, the problem we saw on other games, were the FC's were fought over, and got the most coveted RP's and attention. So a player who was a cadet at the academy often got over looked because he/she wasn't a FC. Remove the FC's, and allow everyone to play an integral part of the plot/story arc. No favorites. No staff players playing the FCs. No drama.

God damn I love you, Fantom. Put a baby in me.

Seriously, though, the SWRPG MU crowd has had years of repeating the same mistakes over and over again and it's awesome that these past mistakes are being taken into account when dipping back into the WEG SWRPG well.

The point is not to refute it, but to understand that your players past and present have these conceptions. Rushing to refute it is a defensive measure, but doesn't do anything to address the player base concerns.

That was a very long and beautiful post.

Players are complaining about your current game's staff PC focus, and players were complaining about in on 5W. What you and @Seraphim73 feel about that reputation, or whether or not you choose to acknowledge it, doesn't mean that that reputation doesn't exist.

Enjoy the game.

You would be amazed how many 5W players I've talked to since 100 got some buzz about your chars being central. There are people in this thread pointing it out the practice as well. Let's not turn this into some salty flame war, but the two of you should probably be more in touch or self-aware about the critique. Players of your games feel this is behavior that travels with you two game to game. Believe it or don't, I don't really care. Pay attention to the commentary in this thread, though, on behalf of your player base.

As to note, an incomplete list of plots that @Seraphim73 or @GirlCalledBlu chars were not central to, in any way, despite the plots being centered around their PCs/NPCs

• Marriage of Prince of Royal House to staff NPC
• Death of King and Prince's sadness/political war campaign
• multiple war campaigns led by heads of household who were staff NPCs, including war campaigns led/commandeered by staff PCs
• multiple heir/house power structure marriages between your two CHARS
• "Enemy" NPC central to plot played by staff who players often complained to me they couldn't get any real information out of until staff decided to push the plot along?

God, don't mean to double post and I'd have to go back to the wiki to gather a more complete list, but a statement like "NONE of our NPCs/PCs were central to the plots" is about as innacurate a statement as possible, or about as likely inaccurate as your own PCs on this game (as other players are pointing out independent of my own statements) are central to plots by accident?

So don't wax like I'm butthurt or that no one believes these things to be true, man. Just give the spotlight to your players and stop focusing the game on yourselves and things should be fine, but you SHOULD be aware that people notice it. It's a real thing whether you believe it or not.I'm mentioning this as a service to your players before you get Hog Pitted.

@Seraphim73 said in The 100: The Mush:

As for the Fifth World, since @Ghost has brought it up twice now, NONE of the characters @GirlCalledBlu or myself played were central to the plot in any way. One of my characters led two military missions, both were small and minor. Other characters led more and larger. Plot was funneled through other characters... including his.

I'll just let you know that at least 10+ 5W players I know are making that face right now, @Seraphim73

I'm not baggin' on your new game or anything, but there's a general consensus of many of the people in the neighborhood who commented plenty often on how all of the major houses and house decisions were funneled thru staff PCs, Staff NPCs, and the vast majority of PC created houses felt as if they got very little love and influence via RP due to the core houses of your creation taking the forefront. So, by all means, say "Well, were my chars are ACCIDENTALLY central to the plots on 100 because that's just how I roleplay them", but that's what happened on 5W as well

So either you're completely right and the people pointing out this trend are just blissfully, hopelessly ignorant to the truth, or this is just another case of being accidentally central and influential to the plots on your own game?

Come on, man.

I think all in all its very important for a game to put the non-staff players in the "starring" role. When staffer chars are the starring role in the plots, as well as the furthering of plot, it's very hard to feel like the other players aren't anything more than supporting cast in a story the staff want to play for themselves. 5W had a bit of an issue with that. General consensus I've received from a number of 5W players and maybe 2-3 players @ 100, I guess 4 now per Admiral, is that this is kind of standard stuff for the staff in question.

@BobGoblin Who's 'the crew'? I was picking around the wiki because I've heard rumor that, like 5W, the plot revolved around staff-bits. I'd like to do some research. I know some people that are considering playing there and I'd like to give them a more informed opinion.

If there were only a game in recent history where the staff funneled all plots through their characters...

Question: is there an ETA for this game you guys are shooting for?

The former. If I don't feel like I have a character in mind that I'm really interested in playing, then I don't play the game. I've done the latter before and it just feels like I'm doing it to provide people someone to RP with and it's a waste of everyone's time.