Posts made by Ifrit

Current
Arx: Austen

Past
Elan Vital: Ifrit (staff), Corevas, Torath
Otherspace: Ifrit/Meldor (staff), Rathenhope, Tirax
Various Pern games through the ages: Ranmar/Rathmar? (hell if I remember the spelling)
bDv/Star Trek Foundations: Marvin (staff), Bozar

There are probably others, bit parts here and there that I've forgotten, but that's all I remember right now. Hit me up if you remember me from this obscure hobby and actually liked me! If you hated me, don't tell me. I probably already know

This is absolutely something I struggle at from both sides, so, here's my take on it.

First off, I have been incredibly slow at calling out behaviour that makes me uncomfortable in the past. To the point where I've just let it continue and instead of being honest, just ghosted an entire game because of it. So call it out early and often - to the person at first and escalate as needed if they don't listen or they argue.

On the other hand, I constantly worry that I'm the person making someone else feel uncomfortable. My two ways of handling that are either a) check in with the person or b) back off. I tend to do option b without starting with option a, because I worry that that too will make the other person uncomfortable (yay anxiety).

So I as a player am all for being called on it as soon as possible, because I would rather know. And yeah, it's not nice and it can be a bit of a gutpunch for all parties, but a) as others have said, if the person is worth talking to, they'll respect that and b) if the person on the other side is as horrifically anxious as me about it, then they'll appreciate knowing sooner rather than later.

I've looked back over that and I'm not completely sure if I articulated that at all clearly, but it'll have to do.

Thanks folks, some really good points raised there. I feel generally pretty positive about the idea, but know that at the moment I couldn't devote it the attention it would need, so we're definitely in the "living in my head" phase at the moment and likely to stay there for now.

Re @Arkandel's points, yeah, absolutely agreed. Have built a MUSH before (it ran for a year or so) but there were 6 of us then - very unlikely that I could do this all by myself. For the foreseeable it's probably not going to leave my head, though I might start playing around with systems in Evennia (I'm primarily a Python programmer) to see if it's something that I could work with long term.

Well if we're going with heart-wrenching, there's nothing sadder to me than Gotye's Bronte.

Both the song and the video make me VERY SAD every time. If you want to be EXTRA sad, look up the subject of the lyrics.

Behind a spoiler for those who might want to give this song a skip:
***=Sad content***

click to show

Loss of family dog

@arkandel said in Sci-fi MU idea:

@ifrit A couple of questions for you:

1. The theme sounds interesting! Do you have ideas on what your players will be able to do when there isn't staff explicitly running metaplot things for them?

2. Do you have ideas on the systems (mechanics, etc) you want to use for this?

3. Is the game cooperative or antagonistic between PCs? Do you see it focusing more on action, politics or something else?

1. This is always where I fall down on things - I have some themey ideas but not always good at actually making the game fun. Beyond Bar/Cafe/RetailRP, I'd probably want to give players fair scope around conflict management. Perhaps a board of staff-built conflicts so you can have players GMing a mediation, taking on the alien NPCs and reporting back as to how it ended. Though now I've typed that it sounds far more like paperwork-central than I intended it, and also not great for players that aren't mediation-focused.
   There's definitely space for combat as well, and I'm not averse to building/using something like @Sparks's exploration system for exploring parts of the station, or other planets for resources to keep themselves/the station going. While I would intend for the main plot to be built around the station, leaving it should always be an option to go do other things, which leaves space for a trading/crafting mingame style thing. I'm trying not to take all the ideas from Arx here, of course, but I find it doesn't do half-bad at giving players things to do without direct GM input. (And yes, I'd ideally want an +actions like system too. DAMNIT ARX STOP HAVING ALL THE GOOD IDEAS)
   I'm also aware that as a GMTer I'm fairly in the minority so having things for people not on my timezone to do/interact with will be key.
2. No clue at present. Most MUs I've played on or staffed have had fairly homegrown systems, so I'd probably end up rolling something together. I'm not fantastic at game design, but have a few friends with fingers in that business so likely would end up leaning on them
3. I'd want it to be fairly coop, but there's always room for a bit of antagonism. The theme itself leans pretty political, and I don't see it all being rosey between PCs. There could be some interesting faction interplay between those that want to learn more about their new home and those that think that the computer knows best (hell, a religion around it is not completely unpossible). Plus plenty of space for alien cultures to interact - I really want to emphasis alienness here, and not Planet Of Hats every species (These are the warrior aliens, these are the science aliens, etc)
   I know that not everyone wants all politics RP all the time either, so the idea of the raiders is to give it that sense of danger (of course that immediately illuminates a theme-hole for me, which is if the Arbiter is so important to galactic peace, surely it'd be the best defended place in the galaxy, but I could work on that). Also everyone likes a bit of engineering RP, right? "Quick, we must fix the beryllium matrix or life support will die!"

Reading back I know a lot of the answers seem vaguey - they are because I'm still fairly vague on the idea. I'm mostly just throwing it down a) in case it appeals to people and b) writing it down firms it up.

So I have been considering building a new MU for a long time, but I've been struggling on theme. This morning, while driving to work, a half-formed idea came to me, and I thought I'd record it here to gauge interest. If I do ever decide to build this it probably won't be for a long time - for many reasons such as 'time', 'effort' and 'far too many other non-MU projects on the go', but hey, I'm curious to see if it's even interesting to people other than me.

Fifty years (or so) ago, humanity finally reached the stars and made contact with other civilisations. In the course of doing so they landed slap-bang into the middle of a galactic conflict that has been going on for centuries. As one of the most junior civilisations, humanity has nothing to defend itself with, so instead pushed its way into a peacemaking role. For the last few decades humans have been working tirelessly to bring an end to the wars, using the powers of diplomacy, mediation and empathy.

They succeeded, and peace has (mostly) fallen across the galaxy. In recognition of this exceptional feat, and to further the new role humanity has found itself in, they have been gifted a space station, renamed as the Arbiter. Neutral ground where species from all over the galaxy can come to resolve their conflicts under the watchful gaze of human mediators. The station is perfect for it too, with many rooms that can accommodate the variety of requirements for species across the galaxy.

No one's quite sure who originally built the Arbiter, and large sections of it are off-limits and locked down by the eccentric AI that runs the station, but a lot of records have been lost in the wars, and AI-run stations are pretty common, so it's not that surprising. Some species refuse to set foot on the station, swearing it's haunted, but that's just superstition. The AI seems happy enough with permanent residents, occasionally opening up new spaces as needed, and the station grows to the point where it might as well be called a city. There are shops, hotels, homes, everything you could want.

Conflict is still only a wrong syllable away, and the mediators will need to work hard to stop the galaxy falling into chaos once more. Beyond the bounds of the Arbiter, raiders denied the rich pickings of war wait, picking off easy targets. The more shrewd pirates hope to sabotage negotiations, to tilt the galaxy into war once more.

I have some serious thoughts about metaplot, which obviously I'm not going to spoil, just in case I do build it. I'm trying not to make it -too- Mass Effect-y, but that's obviously an influence. My hope would be to make aliens fairly different to humans, some communicating only by light flashes, pheromones, etc.. with communication achieved by freely available translation drones (until someone turns the power off I mean, what?)

There we go, my 8am driving to work half-baked MU idea.

@ganymede

@packrat Have you checked your browser's proxy settings? It sounds like something's trying to intercept the requests and then falling over.

@cupcake Ugh that's awful. I would respond: "No I haven't yet, have you?" and then when queried point out "Well, you said we, so I assumed you were asking about both of us."

And then I'd get fired.

There is someone I work with who signs all of their emails "Your regards". Like, no, I'm not giving my own regards to myself here.

@roz So much this. This is why I've come back to RPing after over two years off.

Heh, @TNP and I posted at the same time. As above.

@cobaltasaurus ALL OF THE PYENVS!

I align closely with Tehom's thoughts here. For me it would be a bit weird if I got a 'x brushes past you' say in the middle of a bar that the players have already set as being completely empty except for them or something.

That said I guess if you have the ability to turn them off, all is good!

I do like the 'something else is happening on grid' type emits though - like the emit that Obi-Wan got when Alderaan exploded.

@skew Oh cool I was going to give you a shout when I got home because I kinda munged together some of that apache config...

@cobaltasaurus Have you done a sudo apt-get update before running the apt-get install? I often don't do it and then find out half the packages are missing.

I think it's fair to say I definitely have a few types:

• The quiet, smart, bookish type with very few social skills and little romantic aspirations or experience
• The quiet, warrior type with very few social skills and little romantic aspirations or experience
• And sometimes, just to mix it up, the gregarious omni-sexual flirt that will sleep with anything with a pulse.

Nearly always male.

Oh that's a really interesting question!

So for me, people who want all of my time turn me off RP, or the second I log on they're paging asking for a scene (every time, that is. I don't mind the odd page, especially if it's in relation to on-going stuff!). Or get my OOC contact details so they can message me to ask me when I'm playing next. I hate it, I want to RP with other people as well! Or worse when they start chasing me around the grid to be in every scene I am, and/or paging me about how I'm scening with other people. All of that and nah, I'm out.

Also I don't personally enjoy RPing with characters whose main concept is 'a dick to everyone'. I love antagonism and have played some pretty antagonistic characters in my time, but if it's literally every scene, I just don't find it fun.

What makes me want to RP more with people? I guess when we bounce off each other well. Where we give each other space to learn about each other's (and our own!) characters. Are we good at picking up each other's style of RP and pick up on the little things, fantastic, MOAR OF THAT!

It's hard to verbalise though, there's just things that work for me and things that don't.

This entire exchange from Hogfather. I know, it's not a quote, it's dialogue. Don't care.

Susan: “All right," said Susan. "I'm not stupid. You're saying humans need... fantasies to make life bearable."
*Death: REALLY? AS IF IT WAS SOME KIND OF PINK PILL? NO. HUMANS NEED FANTASY TO BE HUMAN. TO BE THE PLACE WHERE THE FALLING ANGEL MEETS THE RISING APE.
Susan: "Tooth fairies? Hogfathers? Little—"
Death: YES. AS PRACTICE. YOU HAVE TO START OUT LEARNING TO BELIEVE THE LITTLE LIES.
Susan: "So we can believe the big ones?"
Death: YES. JUSTICE. MERCY. DUTY. THAT SORT OF THING.
Susan: "They're not the same at all!"
Death: YOU THINK SO? THEN TAKE THE UNIVERSE AND GRIND IT DOWN TO THE FINEST POWDER AND SIEVE IT THROUGH THE FINEST SIEVE AND THEN SHOW ME ONE ATOM OF JUSTICE, ONE MOLECULE OF MERCY. AND YET — Death waved a hand. AND YET YOU ACT AS IF THERE IS SOME IDEAL ORDER IN THE WORLD, AS IF THERE IS SOME...SOME RIGHTNESS IN THE UNIVERSE BY WHICH IT MAY BE JUDGED.
Susan: "Yes, but people have got to believe that, or what's the point—"
Death: MY POINT EXACTLY.

Also

And then Jack chopped down what was the world's last beanstalk, adding murder and ecological terrorism to the theft, enticement, and trespass charges already mentioned, and all the giant's children didn't have a daddy anymore. But he got away with it and lived happily ever after, without so much as a guilty twinge about what he had done...which proves that you can be excused for just about anything if you are a hero, because no one asks inconvenient questions.

DJ Avicii, 28

Bit of a long shot, but I have been reminded of a MUSH I played on around 2005/2006, bdv (beta deneb v, I think..) later Star Trek: Foundations. Interested to see if anyone's still around, though I have forgotten basically everyone's names...

I played Bozar and staffed/coded as Marvin around that time before wandering off to Star Trek: Darkness Within (a Mirror Universe MUSH that I don't think ever opened...).

If anyone's still around, hit me up!