Posts made by Kanye Qwest

@Kestrel said in Cultural differences between MUDs and MUSHes:

So I find it kind of sad, and I feel very cheated, if someone messages me OOCly to tell me all about their character's hidden motives. And if they ask for mine, my instinct is to just reply, 'fuck off'. @Lotherio claims that on MUSHes he plays, secrets are very much a part of the culture, but they aren't on the MUSH I'm playing on. And I think that, no matter the MUSH, when you allow for so much OOC communication, it's inevitable that people are going to want to be demanding and expect you to be more open. On most MUDs I've played, where simulationism and IC are king, 'find out IC' is a refrain held to a much higher regard than 'communication is key'. And thus, IC mysteries are much better preserved, and are more fun to unlock.

I don't think this is restricted at all to MUSHes. If people know a secret, they want to share.

@Thenomain Neverwinter Nights!

@Thenomain said in Cultural differences between MUDs and MUSHes:

@Kanye-Qwest

I believe you missed an important part of @Lotherio's text: He is setting up a game where it doesn't matter. I can't tell if you're telling him that he's wrong to do so, but it sure seems like it.

No dear, I didn't miss anything. I was explaining why I don't feel it's right to view game requirements you don't meet as punitive. I think it's great to make a game with no activity requirements. I want everyone to have fun and be chill. Everyone in the world, except anyone involved in Duck Dynasty.

@Lotherio That's great, but is not appropriate or acceptable for all game formats, right? Sometimes, being around matters. I don't think anyone should be punished for lacking massive free time to pour into a text game, of course, but let's just be real: we are discussing games.

Sure, sometimes you get emotionally invested in games. That's natural! However, if your life doesn't allow you to play a game the way the game is meant to be played, that's not a punishment - that's just a bad fit. If you can only play a game once a month, find a game where that doesn't matter. Shangrila. Skyrim. Online poker. Whatever.

A game runner setting up activity requirements isn't punishing or excluding anyone in particular, they are laying out what their game needs.

@Lotherio said in Cultural differences between MUDs and MUSHes:

This goes into asshat territory too.

If I'm staff, and its conceivable NPCs are doctors, players shouldn't have to wait for the bone setting. It should be assumed. In fact if A, B, and even C are having fun, the NPC world should react as expected without staff needing to be there, or hand waving no NPCs. That sounds like a deterrent to RP in general.

But in that example, you had to spend a lot of time and energy saving up XP to learn bone setting. If staff had NPCd bonesetters every time someone broke a bone:
A. it trivializes the work of those players who put in the effort to learn how to yank a bone straight
B. Defeats the purpose of having broken bones. There's no point in offering consequences that mean nothing. It's a waste of time and processing power.

@Lotherio said in Cultural differences between MUDs and MUSHes:

On a MUSH, we assume the rest of the IC world still exists, if you conceivable demonstrate that you stabbed them (easy, in the code), gave the IC doctor a chance to be found (timestop the scene to be fair to the player, not be a douche and say 'welp offline, they failed') or got staff to check for NPC docs for you, and then make your rolls for stealth to show you buried them without being noticed yes.

...what? If A is setting out to murder B and get away with it, what exactly determines what is a 'fair' effort to find a doctor? I mean, if you stabbed someone, you are probably not going to make any actual effort to find a doctor. This example has gotten way far afield and doesn't make sense anymore. As Pandora noted.

@Apos said in Cultural differences between MUDs and MUSHes:

Is it me or are most of the, 'You abandoned me!' 'NO I WAS THERE ALL ALONG' arguments from dysfunctional IC couples arguing about whether one person is active enough? I'll take Shit I Never Want To Arbitrate As Staff for a thousand, Alex.

Yeah, honestly most of the nasty possibilities people are laying out in this thread are things that come about because of OOC tensions between players, making them become extremely exacting in the keeping of rules, permissive of other rules being bent, etc.

When I've seen these issues, they were more often about OOC interactions than a lack of them.

And again, this is why I'm all about limiting my OOC interactions with people in game as much as possible. It eliminates both the issue of taking things that happen IC in a personal, OOC manner (since you have no OOC interactions to color your perceptions of things) and those popups of insanely derailing OOC drama.

@Pandora Yes! While I think it's reasonable to make reasonable concessions for people who aren't online, I lean a lot more to the "make up a reason you weren't there". I'd personally say that does more to build a relatable IC continuity. I'm not sure if MUSHers live in a wonderful world where events go as scheduled and planned, people are where they should be, things work out in time for the Late Show, or what. (If so, fuck them. God)

But to me, the unexpected goes a long, long way towards building that 'immersion' I like to talk about.

I also see that it's just an issue of developed grid vs non developed. If you had a super terrible day and you don't want to be involved in any conflict RP, then by all means ask a friendly pc over and have tea and watch American Horror Story. If you are feeling more emotionally stable, get out there and see what happens. Make something happen. Be flexible! Unless someone wants you to RP about pranks.

Then, all you can do is nuke it from orbit.

@Lotherio said in Cultural differences between MUDs and MUSHes:

Let me rephrase this in another game.

We are playing chess. You get up to answer an emergency call, I want to capture your king. You're not there to decide you move, I do it for you ... and you can make up why you made such a horrible move.

Yo, this is a terrible example. There's no narrative in chess. It's like comparing mini golf and charades. Just because they are both "games' doesn't mean the ways they are played (or the reasons they are played) are remotely similar.

@ThatGuyThere said in Cultural differences between MUDs and MUSHes:

@Groth said in Cultural differences between MUDs and MUSHes:

What most people work hardest to arrange OOCly are abusive relationships and antagonistic relationships. It's been my impression that most MUSH players want IC conflict however they don't want the OOC drama and escalation that often comes hand to hand in it so they end up very shy unless things are OOCly worked out beforehand.

I won't agree to "Let's have our chars meet and become friends." But I will gladly agree to, "I am not feeling up to a lot of IC conflict, so lets have our chars meet, and if they don't get along we wrap things up quickly." the difference to me is that the first one is scripted, where the second my char is free to hate this other char and then I can come up with a reason why he just leaves instead of presses the issue.

Your character is free to dislike someone and make up an IC reason to get away from them without any sort of pre-gaming OOC, though. I can understand it in a game with a sandboxy feel, where a lot of temp rp rooms get used and there's natural in-game segregation.

I just understand (and wholly endorse) going about things IC as much as possible in a game with a more immersive grid / population.

I think I've upvoted you twice, today. Gross!

@Thenomain said in Cultural differences between MUDs and MUSHes:

@Kestrel

Part of my question is: How do G & H know there's anything going on in the Town Square? With Bob's Party I'm presuming you were invited. How would you invite yourself to Town Square?

You don't need to be invited to a town square. It's there for people to hang out in. Not approved people. Not You and Your Friends. People. Anyone not being a disruptive dick and/or breaking laws may hang out in a town square.

@Arkandel

If they'd all just shown up in a public space to rp, maybe they would!

Honestly, I don't even know what points are left to make here. Some people seem to think politeness demands you ask permission OOC before even posing into an open, public room (which I am vehemently opposed to). Some people seem to think you should ask permission OOC before butting in to someone's /scene/ specifically. As in, not to pose in to the bar but to pose sitting down at your table and joining - which is common sense, but could also be done IC.

"May I join you" is absolutely a phrase I have uttered in real life.

@lordbelh said in Cultural differences between MUDs and MUSHes:

You had fun and you now no longer have fun with Mr 5th in the room? Do something about it. Take your fun out of the cafe and into a cab, and drive somewhere else IC. Make something out of it instead of complaining, or seething internally with resentment, or bitching about it in pages.

+1 +1 +1

How about - roleplay? It's very easy to dismiss and then ignore people being disruptive for the hell of it - you know, the guy who runs in and collapses in a bloody heap at a table of strangers just trying to have coffee. And if you do it IC, then you are refusing to let it disrupt your scene and that is zen and good.

And if it's someone just posing in to see who bites and feels like interacting, do or don't, but again, it doesn't have to disrupt anything or be taken OOC.

I don't understand why it's polite to expect people to ask your permission to pose themselves into a public room. In my opinion, it's not polite to assume that, by virtue of being in a public room, your RP is the dominant and possessive RP in that room.

@ThatGuyThere
You are so delicate!

@Kestrel said in Cultural differences between MUDs and MUSHes:

@Thenomain said in Cultural differences between MUDs and MUSHes:

@Kestrel

I would be okay with that second meta pose but a lot of people would bristle at it. It's entertaining and probably accurate. If you had posed how you thought he was a jerk but would never say so out loud, you are denying the other player retort to an insult. That is not okay.

Is it different if I use my character's silently-held disdain to explain the atmosphere of the scene? e.g.:

When @Thenomain walks up to Kestrel, she just glares. She thinks he's a jerk, but of course she'd never say that out loud. And so biting back her insult, she grits her teeth and says, "Good day... sir."

This personally doesn't bother me at all, because you aren't posing anything internal that is off limits. As long as there's some VISUAL cue for whatever the internal thing happening in the pose is, it's fine.

note, I also pretend there are visual cues in twinky metaposes people do, where they might say "Kestrel hates Thenomain, hates him forever. She smiles brightly, "Hello!"

I will cheerfully pretend they were gritting their teeth and making it obvious the smile was fake, and play accordingly.

Thank you, everyone. Really!

I made it in Photoshop CS3, using a random free 'old parchment' texture as the background and painting on top of it.

I made a map of the continent of Arvum. Arx is on the east coast, and the distance from Arx to Sanctum (on the other coast), is around about 1700 miles.

@mietze
And sometimes, that person might be all about TS with some people, but about more interesting RP elsewhere, if it's available. Honestly, when someone tells me "X is just here for TS" I think there's three possible things going on.

1. X is just all about TS, which would quickly become apparent upon interacting with them.
2. The person claiming X is all about TS is in some sort of competition with X and using it to put them down.
3. The person claiming X is all about TS wanted X to spend time roleplaying things X did not find interesting. I mean, I have heard this before from people who I knew were all about sitting around in their houses roleplaying their child objects and making pies. Not everyone is into that, and I can't even cast aspersions because I am also not into that.

@Ghost said in Tips on Güd TS:

Aside from generally figuring out comfort levels, I don't really like to talk about it either. Just like someone putting YOU instead of <charname> in poses, the concept of bartering into another player's ooc fetishes or wants just seems too strangely personal to me.

shudders all over

Oh my god, this is the worst. I get so squicked out at the "you". I also get squicked out at any ooc chit chat like "Dang, this is hot :)". Yeah, good writing is great, but why would you make me think about the player behind the keys instead of the characters? Way too intimate, and I don't rp to get intimate with people.