Posts made by Gingerlily

It is possible I can guess at who you might be talking about (based on events that happened a good 4 or 5 years ago, way before I was on the game). I would suggest doing what you can not to worry about it. No one is going to be added to the staff so that they can enjoy causing grief, and having 'staffed here before' when the game was run by entirely different people in an entirely different way doesn't add to credentials to convince us to make a bigger team. Causing OOC trouble for players who don't want it on KD is difficult for the reasons I stated in the above post...just communicate with the staff if someone is being manipulative or ugly towards you, if the dramatics on your screen are not part of a storyline but something real and unpleasant, and we'll see that it is handled swiftly and thoroughly. The desire for a comfortable and stress-free environment is a mutual one we share with our player base.

Hi guys!

I come and visit this thread every once in a while, and I've seen the concerns about Custodius, though I don't believe I have ever come across the person on this game or another. I can tell you I mentioned the worries to Skaldia, and we're aware there's concern that someone with a reputation for messing with games/players/etc will (or already has?) take an interest in KD's sudden surge and come around to try to do some damage. We're not going to pounce on someone for using a name that could belong to someone that sucks, it could be some poor new player who picked that name from a list of generic French/old fashioned/whatever names.

But please, if someone is being nasty or manipulative to you OOCly, log it and send it to staff. If there is unkind, sketchy, suspicious behavior that isn't cool and is ruining your experience, don't wait, let us know. Whether it is this particular person or anyone else, let us know. We enjoy that 97% of the time, KD is an -exceptionally- laid back place to play, free from unnecessary drama that is between players instead of the entertaining drama that is between characters. We are just as interested in maintaining that as you are. Tell us what's up, and we'll do everything we can to make sure that we do.

Yeah, thanks for being patient! Sorry for the delay...this is like the first vacation S has had in years. (No joke!).

Hi! Glad to see there are some people interested in checking the place out who have not before. As was said earlier in the thread, reading the novels can help players who want to get deep into the religion aspects of game rp...but it isn't necessary at all to play, we have many players who haven't read them, and I staff pretty effectively having only read them through once...not returning to them over and over like Bibles to guide my storytelling decisions.

Though rp has been pretty central to the 'court' rp and the nobles (and the Night Court/courtesans on a lesser scale) we've been attempting to open up court rp in different ways so that it can include a more diverse cast of characters. Like so.

http://www.kushielsdebut.org/index.php/Monarchy

Most of these positions are not filled by PCs, and all that are filled by NPCs are there only to have a name to refer to in play, the NPC will be joyfully kicked out when a PC is ready and willing to take up the spot. So here we have places for court artists (the Royal Poet) and masters of ceremonies of various kinds...the head the the treasury...the commander of the city guard...all positions that could be held by nobles or by members of the merchant (or even commoner) class who were deemed qualified (And it would give the nobles something to grumble about too)

Think of your favorite trope from historical dramas, or even actual history, and there's likely a way to make it fit into this setting with minor adjustments (Except the Catholic priests/heroes of the Reformation...that part would be much harder to work out)

@Staked said:

@Derp said:

I want a Dark Sun game that isn't a) a MUD or b) house ruled so heavily as to be practically unrecognizable or c) using some weird alternate history theme.

Just straight Dark Sun, at whatever point in the timeline.

This. I used to play the hell out of Armageddon MUD waaaay back in the 90's early oughts. Would love to see a true Dark Sun MUSH to play on now. With work and a kid I AFK for brief moments too much to play on a MUD where perm-death can happen whether you're at the screen or not.

Random aside: I wish this was part of the MUD v MUSH dialogue sometimes, RPI or RPE or whatever MUD, part of the reason I found sticking to MUSH easier as I became an 'old' is that there are far fewer occasions in my life where my full and total 100 per-cent attention can be on my screen. It is nice to be able to turn away and spend a moment patiently explaining again why markers are for paper, not your skin or the walls or the cat, and if you need some more paper perhaps look on your art shelf or ask mommy, instead of screaming "NO STOP ARGH NOW LOOK AT MY HP DRAIN YOU HAVE KILLLED MEEEE"

MUSH is a +1 (10?) for parenting. I also have no opinion on Dark Sun, and this only really belongs here because it went off of what someone else said. ANYWAY.

EDITED: A typo was annoying me, I fixed it.

@Balerion said:

@Bobotron Oops. Not sure what happened. Here's the help files: http://pastie.org/10459001

Thanks much Bal. We're actually looking at it and considering. We want to play with Influence/Status in some new ways but also our rumors system too, and its likely will use bits and pieces of a couple ideas to get to an end result, including this one. Totally appreciate your sharing it!

Are there issues that players have particularly liked or disliked as its been rolled out in full and gone on? I was never there to see implementation completely in full, but if you ran into something you wished you could have done differently I'd love to know now to bear in mind.

@Balerion said:

@Gingerlily I found the original Sanguinis Nobilis code for their rumor system -- they posted it long ago on a now-defunct FTP site, but fortunately we saved it. It may give you some ideas for approaches:

The code: http://pastie.org/10451992
The help file: http://pastie.org/10451995

Sorry, I missed this buried back here, but thanks for sharing Bal. No idea yet if it is applicable for anything I/people I know are working on presently but I reallllly did lurv it so I want to remember where it is for later! Thankya!

I love you all for your passion, even though this discussion went in like 12 directions and I have to admit to totally having lost my way by now.

We're quoting Ghandi though, so somewhere it got really real. PvP or don't with a heart full of love for your fellow man, guys.

Mental Health like actual mental health because that would be hilarious/kind of not fantasy enough.

Also thank you for all the replies everybody. I have many things to consider and also to look up, because I haven't read half of these books. Usually other people have and they just tell me what to do, so this is kind of different. I am sure at some point I will have more specific questions, and I'll know where to turn. In the mean time you all debating among yourselves gives me plenty to mull over.

@Balerion said:

The Influence part of the system of Blood of Dragons works by having each player come out of CharGen with a base Influence score, created through a formula that looks at House, certain Assets and Flaws and official positions. Influence can be spent on the Rumor system (influenced by code from Sanguinis Nobilis) and also gained or lost through targetted positive or negative rumors, but this only affects the current score, not the base score, and over time Influence gradually returns to the base score. Changes in status, such as a marriage or a new position, is the only way to permanently alter the base score. Influence can also help a character in gaining a better than expected marriage or a new position as Staff takes it into consideration when approving such requests.

By having the base score be the equilibrium that Influence strives to return to over time, there's no possibility of players colluding to use rumors to completely destroy someone's position permanently; that would actually take the character suffering a permanent change in status, such as losing their place at court or being disinherited.

Thanks for explaining this to me @Balerion. I played on BoD a long time ago and time drifted me away, and I think the system wasn't quite finished at that time and I wasn't sure how it worked or was meant to work. Playing with the rumors was an awful lot of fun though, and boosting and squishing them and watching them stick around or fade away was neat. I liked it more than any other rumors system I've seen, including the one on the game I work on now.

Aww. I used to play exactly this kind of LARP even in exactly this kind of mixed territory city, back when I was a wee lassie. What fun! Good luck.

Cool, thanks so much!

@Bobotron said:

@Gingerlily
The MET system I play in for LARP and what i'm using for TheatreMUSH has status and reputation insofar as 'within your faction' that fluctuates and can be affected by players as you do fucked up shit. Hitting with Negative Status and stuff, which imposes actual in-game sanctions and rewards for being a jackass backbiting vampire, gets a LOT of play in the LARP.

Tell me more?

Hmm. Horribly abused by players is not good. The tabletop thing seems fun but hard to implement on a MUSH. @il-volpe has seen it but nobody cared. So far, not promising.

@Alzie said:

@Gingerlily Yes people tend to gravitate towards the capital city, but let's not pretend it is the only place people RP. It's not even the only place represented on grid. Even my small city was represented on grid. So 'Everyone is in the capital city' seems like a cheap reflection. You also seem to be keen on quietly stepping around the issue as presented. You say 'people are doing ambassadorial things,' yes they are with skaldia, but don't bring up the giant NPC post that made it illegal to do those things. You say 'rp with others' but don't address that people are telling you they tried and were shut out. I'm not entirely sure what your position is on the game, but dodging legitimate concerns seems counter-productive. I sent in plenty of jobs and goals when I played, I just didn't enjoy playing roll the dice with myself after my avenues got closed by staff of all people. Even if I understand the reasoning behind it, it still struck me as counter productive to game health for staff to make people not want to RP knowing that plenty of people were banking on that particular avenue.

Honestly, I'm not intentionally dodging your legitimate concerns. I thought I'd addressed them but it's possible I mistook what they were. I don't know who you played, or what avenues you referred to getting closed by an NPC post, so I can't address them in a more direct manner than just trying to explain in general terms what the theme was and what was available. If you'd like to discuss it more I'm happy to chat in the chat thing though. I promise I am not trying to gloss over anything or dodge the topic you are interested in or anything of the sort.

Has anyone played a game that had a system for influence and reputation (not Status: Whatever) something dynamic that was changed for better or worse by players in game actions? Was this fun? Totally not fun? How did it work and what did you like or not like about it? Did other players have ways of influencing it (Like if Player A acted like a complete jackass in public, could Players B, C, and D who were in the scene do something to make his reputation go down? Or up respectively if he did something awesome)

Tell me your stories, ideas, methods. The only game I have played on with anything like this was Blood of Dragons (yes, yes I did), but it was only partially complete and I was never quite sure how it was operating.

Thanks thanks!

I can appreciate both of those things. I think lines got cross when we were talking about framing things in reference to the capital city. People are in the capital city, but they are there getting news about what is happening in other places...the provinces they hold lands in or rule outright. If trading and ambassadorial pursuits were dead they don't have to be...and some people -were- engaging in those things. Sometimes its a question of who you play with and what they want to play and whether it is what you want to play, and we -do- try to help people find like minded others. I don't pretend it always works perfectly though, or that at all times there will always be someone who wants to do what a given player wants to.

There are stakes to be won or lost basically just as @Misadventure described. These last couple of pages we've talked a lot about things with foreign powers but that's not even really the focus. The 'Game of Houses' as they called it in the books is...gaining power for your family if you are loyal to them, or just yourself if you are not...that is what is there to work on day to day if you aren't engaged in some larger staff run 'We are having a foreign war' or 'Solve the mystery of the supernatural bond having severed with the Angels'. The stuff people can do with one another, without staff involved at all. 'Gentle' PvP maybe, since it rarely leads to death/maiming but can. Is it always happening? There are always -some- players sending in reports of their elaborate plots with/against one another...but I know perfectly well it isn't what everyone is up to. Those who have engaged in the game that way have won, and lost stakes, whether high or mild.

Other players will want to do other things, and I want to let them do those things, I'm not going to tell them what kind of fun to have. I think for some people this is their 'period soap' that they fluff out on when the are not being Vampire-Werewolf-Other and that's okay too. I'd like a larger group of people who want to dig deeper, but beyond the 'offer it and hope for engagement' I don't have a strategy for making it happen.

@ThatGuyThere said:

@icanbeyourmuse
I appreciate the sentiment but I honestly do not have the time to add a character to the mix i am playing right now.

Edit to add, Quite a bit of real world piracy was done along the rivers of Europe. Most notably that of the Vikings but also among the groups that followed. The ocean piracy of the Pirates of the Caribbean and such happened and have quite along Golden Age but for most of history pirates have mainly been a rivers and coasts thing.

I did not know that! Okay SO if people really want some kind of pirate plot and wish for pirates to sail down the river into the city and...pillage, then we can discuss this! You'll have to bring me your knowledge of river pirates but I am game for learning new things.

@Alzie said:

@Gingerlily wait, pirates are assaulting a land locked city? So let me get this straight, pirates which sail on ships and attack other ships are attacking a land locked city, which means there is no sea for pirates to terrorize. Sure, OK.

Oh oops I missed this part also. Pirates have attacked boats sailing out of the country from ports that are not the landlocked city that is the main grid. So if people wanted to go together on a pirate fighting boat that was not on the main grid, they could. A side quest! Or if people wanted to plan together and send their minions from their lands out to do this and not miss out on hanging out on the main grid, also a thing they could do. If they wished to rp about pirates. I hope that made more sense.

The City of Elua, the game's capital city and the main grid. (The major city in the books also, the capital of Faux Sexy Angel France if you will) actually works out to be more like Lyon. They did add a river that goes to it, but I don't know that much about pirate battle by river. Maybe it works! Does it? The coast is a bit away though.

And yeah, if you were doing Navy as your thing there wasn't much going on the last few months. I think there will be if the reciprocal 'help us with the war in Carthage' deal that the d'Angelines did with Aragonia comes around, but that is a whole war away! Sorry . We could have figured out some pirate stuff for you if you wanted to go off grid a bit though! To be honest Skaldia handles most of the mass combat/war stories at least so far as nitty gritty details. I am more into the parts with ambassadors cutting deals and going back on them and that kind of thing. We all have our strong suits. Supposedly.