Posts made by Gilette

This is always an interesting topic.

I run scenes on a constant, consistent basis because I enjoy RP and my timezone makes it very difficult to attend scenes I like the look of (they start at, say, 4:00am my time, for example). So, I run scenes to remain active in the communities I join. However, because of the spotlight thing, my own characters are relegated to background positions which means these characters that I create and/or have to put in applications or be approved inevitably don't end up really doing much.

It sometimes gets to the point where I'd rather just be given a GM bit and let to go wild with NPCs and setting stuff because then I wouldn't feel like my own character is being kept under the stairs, so to speak.

The other thing about the idea that you can't run things for yourself, which is a good rule, is that it runs into issues. Let's say you're on a WoD game and you're playing a mortal detective. You'd like to do some journalism but no one is willing to run it - everyone wants to run Elysium things about the Clan and Covenant political maneuvering. So, what do you do? Do you just sort of ignore your character? Do you run a scene about investigating a spooky murder which is really just for your benefit? Do you page and @mail and +bbpost things until someone bites to run it for you, basically making them give up their time for your development? It's tough. Ideally, staff would be running things like this.

It's a huge problem when people just start running things for themselves because, soon enough, everyone is doing it. But I think it's also a problem when players have to rely on other players to run things for their own characters. I think it's also a problem when all charbits are expected to be Schrodinger's GMs - if I'm a detective, I might not want to also be the entire police department.

@Thenomain

Absolutely. If anything, it's great because it preserves a vague sense of normalcy. If people are just jumping from epic event to amazing event to astounding circumstance, well, things begin to feel less special. In the end, I agree with @Misadventure - it doesn't matter who is there because nothing matters.

When I think of things I'd like to help run plots...

Something like a +plots command which is tied to the MUSH and not a wiki. So, you can send a job to have something added to it. Something like a brief description and some potential hooks. This may need to show up when people log in because, in my experience, a lot of players do not read bboards.

A way for people to express interest to be contacted. I tend to run things and find out after the fact that there were people who were interested but I never reached out to them (because they never told me they were interested). So, some way of letting people shoot off a quick indicator like 'hey, I think I'd like to be involved' would help.

A more GM appropriate bit. It's small but I hate running things through any of my PCs. It feels kind of cheap, particularly if I want my PC to do something during it. Even just a way to mask my PC's name as GM or Storyteller for the duration of the scene. Otherwise, I have PCs who never really do anything.

Personally, the plots I like best and the ones I cherish as tributes to the sheer amazing ability of a MUSH to tell stories are ones that grew organically. Plots that result more like an improvised theatre session than a DM running something.

There's one plot that I always look back on in particular as my most successful. It comes from MCM, about two and a bit years ago.

I was playing the Master Chief and doing a lot of improv coded PVP combat. Due to luck of the system, Chief won every or almost every coded combat scene to the extent that people really wanted to be the one to stop him. We came up with a small plot idea - several members of the antagonist faction decided to lure Chief into a trap, where they ambushed him, grievously wounded him, and stole Cortana. Weeks went by with the Chief doing stuff in the aftermath - investigations, trying to bring down the people who ambushed him, and so on - which eventually culminated in him infiltrating their grid HQ and escaping. It led to some epic rivalries and, eventually, something of a grudging respect epilogue between the Chief and his principal antagonist.

But it's been so long since managing to do anything like this because the idea of a plotted scene these days feels like everything needs to be pinned down in advance, including who is involved, and so everything just feels so railroady. It's something I encountered in other places I dabbled in - this idea that if a scene is 'plotless' (that is, not related to some approved plot) then it is pointless and that's always annoyed me.

@Bobotron

A lot of MCM plots these days feel like they're being run to make one or two players look good or cool while everyone else is going through the motions. There's never a problem finding RP but it feels hard to find RP with stakes and that feels like it'll matter in the long term, that aren't just vehicles to make someone look good.

@Arkandel - these days I only really scene on MCM but that atmosphere has definitely shifted away from categories two and three towards the first one. A few months ago, when I was more active elsewhere with MUSHes that had +scenes or +schedule commands, everything was plot-related. Of course, I'd say the latter two categories are diminishing because of those commands but that's an entirely different topic.

I think I agree with you that social scenes can happen organically but multi-part plots can't.

@Lotherio

I've always found those two points to be closely linked, at least in my own mind. Burnout for me generally equates to a sense of wondering if I still fit in a certain place or atmosphere.

The Gateway idea is interesting but it feels to me like it would run into the same problems that some of the more diverse multitheme places run into. That is, paralysis of choice. Or, the simple problem of certain genres of RP overtaking others. It feels like a place like that would self-select itself out of its own potential. I could play anything there, but if the big things people play are all, say, Open D6 or Anime or Whatever Thing Is Trending, it'd feel like that was what the place was about. Players who weren't interested would leave.

I do really like the idea of a place where you have, like, a playerbit with a character roster for different campaigns and worlds, though.

Merciless health checks are the right kind of thinking. This doesn't just mean checking player numbers, it means checking on what players are doing. If you're wanting to run a game of supernatural horror and investigation, all the players in the world don't mean squat if those players are TSing in private rooms, y'know? Keep a tab on trends, check what the atmosphere is. Try and get ahead of the curve and see what's coming.

I've never been on a game that has died. I've been on a lot that never really got off the ground, sure. I've left games which were going downhill, but I've never been the last one to turn off the lights.

I think @Ashen-Shugar hits a lot of the points that I'd say ensure that a game's sense of longevity will be as healthy as possible. Set rules and explain them. Staff should be a public presence and should be prepared to explain decisions - if someone is punished, ensure people know why. Be fair and refuse to grandfather anything. Take active steps to preserve the core of the game. Ensure that the scale of the game is known. Encourage people to interact with new players and facilitate a culture where they are welcomed. Discourage cliques and public channel complaining. I'd expect staff to be custodians and shepherds as much as they are just people who keep the lights on.

I was on Legends for a short time. It was very quiet even then. I'd feel pretty safe calling it dead.