Best posts made by krmbm

@Sunny said in Difference between an NPC and a Staff PC?:

If someone objects to an ethical staffer including a sexual element in their plot because it is a sexual element...

Do you think that's why people object? Because that's not why.

Plot jobs from @thesuntsar.

Also, how easy it is to search my old jobs on Ares. @faraday deserves massive credit for any plot continuity I'm able to maintain, just for this feature alone.

Install Ares. Break everything. Reinstall Ares. Break everything again. Ask @faraday for help. Fix everything. Go do her tutorials. <.<

@JinShei said in The Fate of MUSHdom:

You need an option for "nope, wouldn't support it financially"

And also the "I already spend a few bucks a month paying for a MUSH*" option.

*And/or a MUSH-resource site like MSB, Ares, PennMUSH, etc.

Thanks to @Grim for stepping up to take over the game. We wish you guys luck.

I just wanted to toss out some additional gratitude to @Pyrephox for all the energy and creativity she shared with us for the last year and a half. I had an absolute blast telling stories with you and @bear_necessities, and I appreciate how you always just rolled with things. We almost definitely took advantage of how chill and willing you are as an RPer and put your character though the wringer, and you were always awesome about it.

You are hands down one of my favorite people to tell stories with, and I hope our paths cross again sooner rather than later!

@tat said in How to launch a MU*:

I think the process of building a game is in many ways preparation for running one. If you don't have the patience to get all your ducks in a row before opening, I suspect you'll struggle to have the patience to actually do all the minutiae that comes with game running.

This just needs to be reiterated. Running a game is a labor of love. Trying to build it and run it at the same time seems like a quick trip to Burnout Town. The amount of effort that you need to pour into a game before opening, though, really depends on the scope of your project.

Are you running a soap opera sandbox? Because you can probably spin that up, throw a coffee shop on the grid, put up some policies to keep people from being dicks, and call it a day.

Are you running a game with homebrew powers? Because then you're gonna need to invest the time to explain that system to people and give them the tools to use your abilities.

Are you using existing IP? Because then you need to explain to people what level of canon they need to know to play your game, and provide them the necessary resources.

The generic "grid, theme, policy" are the broad-strokes. The details of the game you're making are going to inform what you need to have in place before you cut the ribbon.

@devrex said in GMs and Players:

Not leaping all over someone just because someone said so is not championing the abuser.

It's not coming across that way, just so you know.

It's really coming across like @Derp wouldn't believe you if you told him you were being stalked unless you have some kind of "lol hi found you!!!!! stalking you again!" log of the person.

The ones that are good at this are gonna see right through the holes in this policy and manipulate it.

@icanbeyourmuse I would add that they isolate their victims - bring conversations off-game or out of the designated safe space (Discord being the most common, but also other games where logs "don't count").

@devrex said in GMs and Players:

I, @derp, @reimesu, have told you of examples where great harm has been caused by being too reactive, too.

Which examples?

I have frequently referenced a concrete example where I made a mistake (used the philosophy you espouse) and it caused lasting damage.

There have been suggestions that people have been falsely accused in the past, but no concrete examples. Where are the logs?

@devrex said in GMs and Players:

What if the person I threw off my game on someone else's word was you?

Then I probably wouldn't have enjoyed being there. I can think of one or two people who probably dislike me enough to say I've done some bunk shit over the years, and honestly? I've been an asshole more than once.

If one of those people is one of your friends? Dude, play with them, not me. Chances are, you'll like them better than me, and I'll find somewhere else to play.

Yeah, Ares is knocking it out of the park on Spirit Lake, with the ability to portal-RP and read forums, mail, etc. The quality-of-life improvements are coming pretty quickly, too.

@bear_necessities @Snackness @thesuntsar

i am looking for you guys

@Seraphim73 Never finished the books. The world is interesting. 30,000 pages of "and then we go here and do nothing" is not.

@gryphter said in Wheel of Time:

I think the heavy hitters from the novels need to be present in the world, but not played; they should be busted out, as suggested above, for course correction and background flavor.

I'm on the exact opposite side of this fence. I much prefer having the main canon characters not exist at all.

I really like the idea of setting it right at the end of the Aiel War. Maybe spin the ending a little differently so that there was some kind of loose truce (allowing for Aiel to be playable, since people love them for some reason).

What are your thoughts on the power levels, out of curiosity? Are we talking the early books, where Moiraine is considered completely bad-ass because she can make her staff glow? Or later, where people are lobbing fireballs like it's NBD?

@thesuntsar @bear_necessities i done told you that i don't get notifications from this section of the forum, even if you @ at me

@faraday said in Spotlight.:

No. As a game-runner, I don't owe anybody anything other than a comfortable and safe environment to tell their stories. Spotlight has to be earned.

+1

Trying to write a way in to every plot for every random character drives storytellers to burnout. The best that can be asked of staff is that all players have equal access to the same opportunities.

E.g., my story is about a pirate battle, and you are playing a pretty princess, so this is not the story for your PC; you're welcome to roll a temp character for this particular plot, suggest another plot that would involve your character, or wait for an appropriate plot to come along.

@bored said in What Types of Games Would People Like To See?:

I think there's definitely a good niche for minimally-staffed sandboxes, to provide a place for people to RP their own stories with just that touch of context. Moreover, the idea that they can't be successful is obviously wrong: the most successful MUs actually fall in this category (albeit plus sex, but let's be real that this is always an implicit attraction), and there have been more typical and smaller scale games that worked liked this. Calaveras comes to mind, and I think was pretty popular?

Honestly, I wish there were more original/low-theme games that were semi-sandbox. Something like Calaveras but with just a little more staff oversight.

I had a lot of fun on Calaveras and still think Jack & Sally did a great job creating a "safe" space for people to RP. The issue with a 100% sandbox game, though, is that there's no one steering the ship, and you wind up with things becoming canon just 'cause someone RPed about it first. So you basically have players making decisions that impact the world, and there's no one to course-correct when it's just ludicrous.

I know a lot of people, myself included, who would enjoy another place that didn't require a bunch of theme knowledge (so was modern/original theme rather than based on an existing IP), didn't have a lot of hoops to jump through for running PrPs, had a quick turnaround time for approval, and had staff around to provide cohesiveness.

@thesuntsar said in Calaveras MUSH:

Didn't happen tonight, just was a real pleasure to ST for some super nice players. Good crew on this game.

It helps a lot when you have a great ST that makes it fun for everyone.

Which you are.

+1 for Ares on Digital Ocean.

If you don't want to use FS3, you can take it out and replace it. This may not be easy, but it is doable. Or you can just turn it off if you're going stat-free.

(If you don't want to use the Scenes plugin, you're insane.)

@faraday said in Wheel of Time mechanics:

I agree, but you can do that. I mean, you're going to have to code up a whole different stat system whether you pick TinyMUX, Evennia or Ares. I don't think the effort to do so is going to be orders of magnitude different no matter which one you pick.

Oh, totally agree. I mostly just meant... Don't use Ares because you like FS3. Use Ares because it's the best integration I've seen between web-and-MUSH. \o/

If @Arkandel is looking to code up an Ares power system, that'd be badass.

@peasoupling said in What Types of Games Would People Like To See?:

I can see that humans-only cutting 50% of the possible players but only in a setting that typically has non-humans as expected playable characters, maybe? Like, if you make a game in a setting with dwarves but I can't play a dwarf, you can go to hell and take your game with you, which I feel is a perfectly reasonable reaction.

Oh, for sure. If I log in to Middle Earth by Night and can't play a Hobbit Vampire, I'm probably gonna be bummed.

But if you're thinking about making a game, and you're like "WE NEED ALL THE PLAYABLE RACES OR NO ONE WILL PLAY HERE," then you're 31 flavors of wrong, friend.