Posts made by L. B. Heuschkel

@silverfox said in RL-Friendly Game Design:

@devrex said in RL-Friendly Game Design:

@L-B-Heuschkel does a great job of GMing async and making it really fun and I'm not sure what his techniques are there or what he's doing differently that I'm not doing (or if he's just wired differently as a GM) but.

I think it's just that they HAVE TO DO IT or they'd never RP. You grow into whatever restraints you have to.

Bit of both.

I don't really have a choice, playing from Europe. But I've also come to enjoy that I can present people with quandaries that require more thought -- because they don't have to react at an instant.

I also have a hard rule that if someone doesn't pose for 24 hours I move the scene on -- unless they've let me know that something is up. Real life happens to people, after all.

Forgotten that just because characters are friends or lovers that doesn't mean that the player behind the screen is your friend (and obviously, not your lover either). I've allowed myself to get hurt a couple of times when I thought an OOC friendship had developed only to get dropped like a hot potato when the other player grew bored.

@seraphim73 said in Meshing Groups:

I also agree that @mietze's mention of being OOCly up-front and honest about the situation: "This is a scene to get all our characters connected." This will give the players incentive to connect the characters, and when they react to that thing you're doing as the GM that they all have to react to, they don't just react by fleeing the scene.

Or if they do -- well, if they joined the scene knowing its OOC purpose and then proceed to do the exact opposite, at least you have some basis for not making that player's meshing in a priority compared with the ones who are actively trying.

Echoing what Tinuviel said: Smaller groups. I list my events that people can sign up for as four seats only (though if I know that everyone who signed up can play well in a group, I may take five or six). It's far too easy to lose someone or end up with four separate storylines in one scene otherwise.

Also, don't be afraid of narrative buttkicking. If it takes an NPC with an ego to herd all the cats in one direction, do it.

@silverfox said in MUs That We Would Love To Make (But Won't):

@l-b-heuschkel

Oh it has been done in many places. It is just that if the prompts aren't updated then it gets stale and less used over time.

That makes sense. Particularly if those prompts have to follow some kind of linear timeline where things need to be regularly brought up to speed. That's a nightmare.

@silverfox

A random prompt for experiences and one-shots fitting the setting is not that difficult to code. I can say that because I actually managed (with a bit of help, granted) and I'm definitely no code wizard.

https://keys.aresmush.com/inspiration

@lotherio We have done something along those lines on Keys insofar that every player who wants to can set up a reality of their own and make of it what they will. It seems to be working okay.

Same. Of course I largely play in an async/slow format anyhow so somebody needing to pause for 30 minutes is hardly an issue. But always, either way, real life comes first.

You're welcome to check out Keys. While it does have a story, the pace is very relaxed and you get only as involved as you care to be. If that means slice of life nothing supernatural happens much around your character, that's fine.

@icanbeyourmuse I will expect that once the people trying to be funny but actually managing the opposite are made aware, though, they will cut it out. Because their intention was not to abuse or harass in the first place.

@silverfox said in GMs and Players:

I feel like you can make a false accusation without being a bad actor.

If you are triggered by a specific behavior it is really hard to stay calm and in perspective.

I'd be enough of a semantics nitpicker to say that then that is not a fake accusation -- it's a mistake. And mistakes do indeed happen, but they're rarely deliberately malicious.

@krmbm Allow me to toss the kudo on to the players who were cool with a simple solution to a situation that's honestly a little weird with the whole 'who actually owns intellectual property' situation. An argument not worth wasting time on was avoided, this is a good thing.

Sometimes, I really think Will Wheaton said all that needs to be said: Don't be a dick.

No game will have a 100% rate of success but communication goes terrifically far when it comes to sorting out these things. At least for the major league abusers, they tend to have recognisable histories from everywhere -- and I think it's entirely fair in self defence to have a policy of one complaint and you're out when it comes to people who have done this shit in the past. Some of them have done it so much that they shouldn't even get that one chance, given their demonstrated lack of intent to stop doing it.

@arkandel said in Decriminalise Pretty:

@l-b-heuschkel I don't think that's true. For example you can definitely find buff guys who aren't great looking online to use as models, rather than pick Chris Hemsworth for your warrior type of character.

There are lots of athletes (less well known ones, even), character actors with interesting features who don't look like supermodels, etc.

Maybe I need to amend my take to, I can't find anyone I consider to be 'ordinary' without feeling that I'm coming too close to violating someone's privacy. An actor or model, on the other hand, has 'volunteered' to be publically visible -- (yes, I know, that still doesn't give us the right but).

I've had a little more success with thispersondoesnotexist.com but that also implies only ever having one picture of the character available.

@arkandel said in Decriminalise Pretty:

Isn't this kind of a natural consequence of every Hollywood-produced movie, TV series, etc having exceptionally attractive and/or charismatic actors playing every role?

At least to the extent that it's considerably harder to find suitable pictures of perfectly ordinary people that can be considered 'public' enough to warrant some semblance of fair use. Even stock art models are rarely plain or even ugly.

@silverfox Less hugging, more IC torturing!

My characters are pretty because I use male models for PBs. It's not because I want to RP pretty (I'm not male attracted anyhow) but because there's metric buttloads of costume pics available of them on the internet -- funny, interesting, sexy, exotic, you name it, it's there.

If someone feels put off by that, well, odds are they're too edgy for me anyways.

Updated with a new alt, or, well, the recreation of an old alt.

I am in agreement with a lot of people in this thread but at the same time I'm chuckling and cringing in European. The idea that I can restrict my playing to my close circle and not bother with meeting new people? From timezone stupid, you pounce on everyone in the hope that they're a keeper. You kiss a lot of frogs to find some princes.

It's certainly important to communicate what you want -- as a player but also as a game. Personally I want to feel included on equal footing with everyone else which is bloody difficult to achieve when you're on Central European Time.