One of the most, paranoid things that I worried about openning my own place is the sheer amount of drama that floats around the community. I think since our community tends to be great story tellers we are also capable of being dramatic... it's the double edged sword. People take things wrong, or too serious, or various other things. Instead of just playing a game. Maybe because it is all text based we miss on those subtilty that are expressed in tone of voice.

The other thing is I think the community has a lot of gatekeepers. About all sorts of different things. I don't know why this is the case, but in my time trying to develop or when I've been staff I can't count how many times I have heard my team is wrong in the directions we're trying to develop. It's not that a personal suggest an improvement or gives constructive criticism. People get very very passionate about having to do things the way they want. I've been yelled at literally because I choose to use Evennia instead of a traditional MU platform.

I refuse to be hubris enough to not admit that I have been guilty of both these points at some time in my life. I've caused drama at a few points throughout my time playing different games. Completely unintentional, and finding out later on it was because of an undiagnosed health condition, but it has happened. And even in writing this I can see how I can be acting like a Gatekeeper.

Lastly I think people get stuck in what they want. There is no room to growth. My example above of using Evennia is a prime example.

Just my two cents.

I'm looking to build a 5th Edition MUSH. Okay...better rephrase that. I've been trying to build a Shadowrun 5th Edition MUSH. Started about two years ago. About a year ago I took it down thinking it would never come alive. There has been some renewed interest, so I figured I would bringing it back up.

I'm running Evennia for a code base. Why? Because trying to learn the old MUSH code style was painful, and I find it a whole lot easier to learn Python than the old code.

The server is up. I'm hacking my way through Python to get a MUSH built. To be honest, we've made some great headway but I'm far from a programmer. What I really need is to find someone who is a python programmer and just as passionate to see a SR5th Ed MUSH come to life.

If this matches you, please chat me up. Let's see if our vision of a MUSH world can go from fiction to reality.

@simplications said in What Would it Take to Repair the Community?:

How do we allow a way for people like Cullen to be identified, without creating a forum that allows privileged groups to victimize basically anyone they want through character assassination?

I've been thinking about this while reading this post and during reviewing the harassment policy for my own game. I also take this as someone in RL who had false accusations against him that nearly destroyed my life as a teenager.

The basic thoughts I had, my actual harassment policy being nearly 3 pages of collected yet to be organized thoughts;

• Taking all reports seriously and investigating all reports. Any level of staff should be able to start an investigation and demanding staff to escalate it if they do not feel comfortable.
• Keeping the report anonymous from any party not directly involved.
• Mechanical systems. Unfortunately I feel like big brother, but I want to log everything in my game. Only to be reviewed for these cases.
• Anonymous reporting system? Still up in the air about this as I'm worried it'll be a time trap. Leaning more on the side it will be more useful than not.
• All parties are innocent until deemed guilty.
• How to treat players that deliberate claim false accusations?

I'm such a skeptic I don't believe we can ever have a good enough system, or that there is only one system. It's got to come down to a working system. Unfortunately I don't know how to keep people from being hurt while the system is being worked.

@Runescryer said in The All-New Down With OPP Thread:

MU community alert so that there's more vigilance

What scary is that people who are truly this bad justify their actions and EVERYONE else is wrong and they were unjustifiable judged.

Doesn't mean that something should not be done. I think it comes down to other issues they don't want to self evaluate.

First personally and in experience I've had I don't think players being at different rates matter much unless it comes to PvP.

However, I think mechanical systems could be put in place. It works like a XP cap, but think of it this way. A cool down on growth should be implemented. Some ttrpgs already have this built into their system but I can see it being adjusted to match MU play.

Keeping the analogy of Player A and Player B starting at the same time. Player A rush and raises Attribute X (or skill) to level 5 (arbitrary number). Level 1 to 2 takes 2 days. 2 to 3 takes 4 days, 3 to 4 takes 8 days, 4 to 5 takes 16 days. As Player B grows he can marginally catch up during these cool down days. I don't see them every fully catching up.

The fact is, with 99% of game it really comes down to a "play-to-win". And I think the dedication of those players should have some rewards.

I also believe those players should be the examples and not overly complicate, but you cant control behavior or force people to do this.

@ShelBeast This is what really got me interested in starting Deep Shadows.

Just a question to put out there. For those who are Shadowrun 5e lovers and Python programmers what would it take, besides a pay check at this point, for me to enlist your help on this project?

This is something I've often thought about quite a bit as I've looked to develop my own game.

Here is what I have come up with. I apologize if it has already been told in this thread. I've tried to read through it, but I'm a busy guy.

Mechanically these things work for what I'm developing (Shadowrun) but I'm sure it could be adapted elsewhere.

In no particular order...

• Bring up the negative outcomes right away, both IC and OOC. Don't pull a negative consequences out of thin air from a mission/story arch that has reached it's prime and passed.

• All negative outcomes should be a start to something positive. Care to make sure the player knows everyone is there to tell a story and sometimes that starts with bad things. Don't abondoned a story in the middle either so all that players see is the negative.

• Personal I think staff is there to tell the story that develop their players stories more than try and force their own. Tying even negative outcomes to the player's story makes them invest.

• Work with (and help newbie) players to make sure they have the means to recover. Again tying it back to their story may help encourage.

• If death is the negative outcome, let them go out in a blaze of glory. Enshrine the death. Make a monument to them somehow.

• If death is the negative outcome, reward them on their next character. This to me is especially true to the players who have made long term characters.

@tragedyjones It will start as the Priority Table Character Creation. I want to get the basic up and running, and then explore further options of expanding into the others.

The ultimate goal will be to develop a way to let the player decide what is best for them.

So I created an account just to reply to this topic, on a couple points.

1. Shadowrun on boats, yes Miami would be a perfect city for such things. It's got a lot of flooded zones, and with the Everglades I'm sure nasty things can come up with paracritters. Miami is also the 2nd largest smuggling city. It would be fun for anyone, as there is a variety for many things to be done so it would draw interest to all sort of runner types. Not many corp jobs from what I've read, mostly a lot of underground and criminal org stuff.
   Los Angeles would be a fun city as well, since it has been flooded, and there are places to treasure hunt in the flood zones, if you can survive the toxins and nasty paracritters that stalk you.

2. I'm the owner of Deep Shadows. I'm absolutely loving the coding for it, and Python offers so much more of an option that any other code base I've messed with. As far as not having the softcode, that's trivial. There are ways to work around it. They do offer an in game @reload that allows for any new code to replace the old, minus a few things here and there. But if a coding mook like me can learn Python, anyone can.

@ghost said in How can we incentivize IC failure?:

Ultimately, what I'm saying, is that I feel the only way you can incentivize IC failure is to mandate it.

Do you have to mandate it?

I personally feel that it should be emphasized it to every player joining the game. That just by playing you will encounter some sort of negative outcome. I don't think that every situation should have to be consented to, within limits. By joining the game that is a blanket consent.

Maybe this is considered mandating now that I think about it more. So I'm willing to consider you're right on this.

I think a lot of it comes down to working with players. And there comes a point that if it is clear that abuse (by staff or other players) is not the issue than there is a few ways to deal.

• Weigh the options of loosing a player vs. enforcing negative impact. This widely varies. Hard to regulate.
• Telling someone 'too bad' that x thing happened to you let's roll with it because there is good things that come from it. Since I am dealing in the Shadowrun universe, I will use the example of a player going to prison. Why can't that prison time be RPed and stories told in prison? Out of that maybe they meet a new contact who is damn good fixer and now their buddies. I'll also throw out there that for my particular game I plan on allowing players who have lose their characters (especially those who have been active for a long time) to earn a prime level character on their next character builld.
• There is always a "suck it up buttercup" attitude. Some players may appreciate this others may not. This is a lot like point number 1.
• Being honest and just suggesting this particular game might not be for them. We're all playing these various games to have fun, that includes the developers, staff, and players.

So I overcame a big challenge with development of character creation and want to post to see if there are people out there interested in helping.

Please message me here, or Kassien on the game.

@Runescryer
@Selira

To be clear I have no problem with the initial post, or even the initial responses.

However, I feel like there does come a point where the public back and forth can discourage the community as a whole.

This on going public debate and shouting match is exactly why people get driven away from the MU community.

@Runescryer said in The All-New Down With OPP Thread:

MU community alert so that there's more vigilance

What scary is that people who are truly this bad justify their actions and EVERYONE else is wrong and they were unjustifiable judged.

Doesn't mean that something should not be done. I think it comes down to other issues they don't want to self evaluate.

@faraday Ahh...my bad. I quickly read through the post and must have misinterpreted it.

@Runescryer some reddit post I read said they had it crash and there wasn't a backup.

First personally and in experience I've had I don't think players being at different rates matter much unless it comes to PvP.

However, I think mechanical systems could be put in place. It works like a XP cap, but think of it this way. A cool down on growth should be implemented. Some ttrpgs already have this built into their system but I can see it being adjusted to match MU play.

Keeping the analogy of Player A and Player B starting at the same time. Player A rush and raises Attribute X (or skill) to level 5 (arbitrary number). Level 1 to 2 takes 2 days. 2 to 3 takes 4 days, 3 to 4 takes 8 days, 4 to 5 takes 16 days. As Player B grows he can marginally catch up during these cool down days. I don't see them every fully catching up.

The fact is, with 99% of game it really comes down to a "play-to-win". And I think the dedication of those players should have some rewards.

I also believe those players should be the examples and not overly complicate, but you cant control behavior or force people to do this.

On a lighter note, what about the communities perceived inability to adapt to newer ideas of doing things like how to run games, and using newer technologies?

How can we appeal to a younger generation to bring them into our love for MUs?

@simplications said in What Would it Take to Repair the Community?:

How do we allow a way for people like Cullen to be identified, without creating a forum that allows privileged groups to victimize basically anyone they want through character assassination?

I've been thinking about this while reading this post and during reviewing the harassment policy for my own game. I also take this as someone in RL who had false accusations against him that nearly destroyed my life as a teenager.

The basic thoughts I had, my actual harassment policy being nearly 3 pages of collected yet to be organized thoughts;

• Taking all reports seriously and investigating all reports. Any level of staff should be able to start an investigation and demanding staff to escalate it if they do not feel comfortable.
• Keeping the report anonymous from any party not directly involved.
• Mechanical systems. Unfortunately I feel like big brother, but I want to log everything in my game. Only to be reviewed for these cases.
• Anonymous reporting system? Still up in the air about this as I'm worried it'll be a time trap. Leaning more on the side it will be more useful than not.
• All parties are innocent until deemed guilty.
• How to treat players that deliberate claim false accusations?

I'm such a skeptic I don't believe we can ever have a good enough system, or that there is only one system. It's got to come down to a working system. Unfortunately I don't know how to keep people from being hurt while the system is being worked.

@Seraphim73 said in What Would it Take to Repair the Community?:

Remove them from your circles instead of just warning the people around you. Tell staffers, share information, cut them out of the community. When they come back under a new name, find them (perhaps find out about them on a board like this) and remove them again.

While I understand and concur with most of your responses, doesn't this sounds a little bit witch hunty?