@Kestrel Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett took turns writing a scene and emailed it back and forth, I believe I've read Pratchett saying. So not really all that different from writing long poses on a code that allows time delays, such as Ares' web interface.
@Ghost If you put that forum up I'll definitely join it. I don't consider myself particularly guilty of the sins you list, but you're dangling a forum for people who write and mush, I mean, you had me right there.
On the PB thing, I have to admit that I am enough of a writing snob that I write my description first, then sketch-doodle something that matches what's in my head. I'm no great artist but I did work in the graphical design industry for a decade and I can sketch out a recognisable face. I just can't... do actors. They'll always come with associations that aren't mine, stories that aren't mine, words that aren't mine.
I think that depends very much on the atmosphere of the group of people you play with. I've been in games where everything was deeply serious and dramatic, and in games where everything was pretty light hearted and silly. Both extremes have their flaws. It gets tiresome to always, always have to be on the verge of a breakdown in character because of the trauma conga, just as it gets tiresome to never be able to do anything more serious than kindergarten level pranks.
For me, that atmosphere is a game breaker level of deal. If there is no balance between the two extremes, I'm out. I'm happy to say that I seem to have found my tribe at the moment, where dark and serious drama alternates with quite light-hearted antics, just the way I like it.
It also depends on whom you're playing with. Insecure players are often scared of showing any kind of weakness, -- and more so if they came to your game from a very toxic game environment. I quit a WoW RP server some years back and had to literally wean myself of the habit of triple examining my every in character action to make sure it wouldn't draw edgelords, flame warriors, and alt-right trolls. In the end I quit because a game where you cannot sit down for a talk with somebody without somebody else throwing a hissy fit about your character shouldn't talk to that race bad roleplay you suck you ruin everything -- is not a game I want to play. It can take a little time to get back in the habit of not being afraid of the circling sharks.
Personally I like to torture my characters. They are flawed people, making mistakes, drawing the wrong conclusions, and going the wrong places. I use die rolls a lot to determine the outcome of even moral choices -- is my character going to be smart enough to keep his mouth shut, or does he say that thing he really shouldn't have because screw this, you're not the boss of me?
Characters who exist just to boast about past achievements and complain about other characters aren't characters at all; they're player inserts.
I'm seeing one point missing in this discussion: Writers like to relax too. I should know, I am one.
I will readily agree that writing scenes for a mush is not writing as in writing a novel, not even close, not even on the same planet. However, writing a novel is a very lonely job. You're entirely alone with your 60k-120k piece for the duration of writing it, editing it, editing it again, and only then can you start hoping for some kind of feedback from beta readers and editors if you have one. It may be literal years here, where you get nothing -- nothing -- socially out of writing.
No wonder, then, that you need to take breaks. Talk to people. Use your passion for words in interaction with actual real people.
Many writers use writing prompts in a social context. They subscribe to some blogger who tosses out a 200 word prompt every morning, and then discuss what they got out of it with other subscribers, or they join Facebook groups with similar purposes. All in order to challenge themselves, write something they wouldn't have written for their novel, get forced out of the familiar. And to talk to other people because did I mention that writing is a very, very lonely job?
To me, that's what mushing is. I love roleplaying games, always have -- but mushing draws me before more grinding-type games because they let me write together with other people. Get feedback. Talk about it in and out of character. Explore my own headspace and theirs. Learn new things.
So, if you ask me, this is very much a writers' thing. It's just important to differentiate between mushing because it's a fun and great exercise and social opportunity, and deluding yourself into thinking that your collaborative fan fiction somehow is the next New York Times bestseller. It's not. But practising and playing may you enable to write that bestseller, some day.
Just nudging this up a bit because we are lovely! Activity's down a bit now the holidays are over -- but this also means that if you're sitting around looking for a game to join, now is a really good time to get on board and join plots taking off!
Join us. We have cabbages.
It's possible that I misunderstand the term OOC room, and if so, I apologise.
To me it seems beneficial to a game, to have a channel or location in which players -- rather than characters -- may connect. Not so much in order to idle time away or get into arguments about real world matters, but to check out each other's character concepts and make arrangements to get in touch in character.
It may be a timezone // small playerbase thing. I vastly prefer finding roleplay on the grid, meeting people in the appropriate locations without arranging much in advance. However, that's just not always viable, and that's where some kind of OOC room or channel is handy. It's -practical- to be able to ask, 'anyone up for a scene at...' or coordinate when the two other people for your sting operation will be online, or for that matter, put together the practical bits of next week's plot.
The down side of an OOC environment is, obviously, that it needs to be policed. Players can do so a far bit of the way on their own but eventually, there will be some git who starts manure for, well, manure and giggles.
@JinShei She sent me piles of artsy fartsy pictures of women in silhouettes dancing around with large swathes of fabric or posing in yoga and ballerina positions, always with the head cut off -- very artistic, apparently, only photograph half a body.
I mean, I'm not bitter or anything. This person only cost me most of my online friends and several very good offline friends as well.
@silverfox I AM ADOPTING YOU. YOU HAVE BEEN ADOPTED. YOU ARE MINE.
Every gentleman Assassin needs his own pet urchin full of rats.
@silverfox said in Engaging the Whole Scene:
So... it's okay to step out when you realize it isn't your pot of tea.
This. So much this. No character needs to be part of everything. It's quite legit to simply not be part of a storyline, not be in the mood for a storyline or, to be honest, not like the way a storyline is done.
Personally, I alternate depending on the mood of the scene. Some scenes are slow pose affairs where we write perhaps an entire page of carefully thought out text at a time, and subsequently, wait an hour or two for the other player to respond. Others are machine-gun scenes where dialogue goes pang pang pang and is pretty instantaneous. Both work, for different purposes. But it's pretty important to have aligned expectations between players in advance because I for one do not want to wait an hour for a pose if I'm expecting rapid-fire arguments.
@Arkandel said in Engaging the Whole Scene:
But the real issue is not even that. It's simpler - ego is very much a thing. Many players are not trying to participate in a story, they're trying to win the game. To me that's what it boils down to.
Unfortunately this is true. To me, that's a game breaker. I will roleplay with people of this caliber once. Just once.
A player who refuses to share the stage if they cannot be at the centre of it is honestly a player you'll be better off without. Good players understand that sometimes, you're on centre stage, and sometimes you're support cast. Inside scheduled events, and outside of them. While it's true that we are all the star of our own life, that's not how collaborative story telling works.
I personally quite enjoy scenes in which my character takes a sort of narrative, story driving role -- setting the scene, letting the other player(s) respond, organically developing the story as a response to their actions. My own character may be present in a minor capacity or not at all -- he mostly serves as a vehicle for me to get to make stuff happen to others.
I also enjoy being the star. But certainly not all the time, or even most of the time.
I'm going to quickly point a spotlight at something else that ruins a scene for me, whether as GM or player -- that guy who takes 40 minutes to pose that he basically does nothing. Or says 'skip me' after those 40 minutes.
That guy needs to go.
@Auspice You are unfortunately quite right. It's one of the reasons I have yet to dip into MUSH GM'ing because I'm not quite sure how to handle that. Probably calling for rolls through pages, asking people to page me their intentions before posing, something.
Or, well.
Telling people to respect each other's poses, keep to the pose order, and make room for everyone. Because really, they should be doing that anyway.
I've yet to lead a scene in a MUSH but I have nearly 40 years of game mastering experience from other places -- and my take is, you make sure to ask everyone what they do. Yes, some players talk and type fast -- and you let them, and then you wait for the other guys to get their words in, and if the fast guys can't cope with that, then frankly, that's their problem. If people want to do scenes where only they matter, they can do their own. When I game master, I want input from everyone.
@JinShei If Vimes is getting on this train, I'm going back on horseback.
@JinShei said in Discworld: The MUSH:
I hired another staffer for two reasons. Just business but also to avoid single admin related problems. He can do my jobs, and keep me flying straight.
I reported a woman breaking my composure to him and all he said was that what happens in Quirm is outside of his jurisdiction.
@Pandora said in Armageddon MUD:
@L-B-Heuschkel said in Armageddon MUD:
Oh good lord, no. If it says 'contains sex and violence' on the label, expect it to contain sex and violence.
I wish. But no, if it contains sex anyone doesn't like, violence that isn't OOCly prearranged and agreed upon by all parties, and heaven forbid it mixes sex & violence together - you are bound to have a shitstorm or two because there really is no line of demarcation between IC action and OOC motive anymore, if MSB is to be taken as any indication of public sentiment.
This is where I want to argue that the human race has not had a collective lobotomy that I'm aware of, but I know how much effort certain people go to on some MMOs, to obtain screenshots and logs that might in any fashion appear suggestive, and the drama and uproar that follows in the wake of them posting these screenshots in public fora. Won't somebody think of the children, indeed.
I think I will maintain my previous stance. An OOC community and atmosphere intolerant of grooming, stalking, and abuse is a good start. Make it clear that rape jokes, threats of violence, verbal abuse and what have you is not acceptable -- unless it is indeed an IC reference, in which case anything within the game's rating goes.
But that's also all it is, a good start. There's always going to be somebody who thinks that the rules don't apply to them, someone who yells 'free speeeeech!' and thinks it means everyone else is obligated to listen to him, someone who posts a picture of a child posing in a supposedly sexy fashion on a police car.
Game mechanics are not the single answer to this, and neither is community atmosphere. But between them, they're probably the best answer we're going to get, because there is no way to solve this problem permanently and decisively.
@Derp said in Armageddon MUD:
In this instance, the judgment against the players would be OOC because they are embracing one of those uncomfortable topics (slavery/abuse/loss of agency/whatever) that many people like to set up as 'you are a reprehensible person OOC if you support or engage in this behavior, even IC'.
Oh good lord, no. If it says 'contains sex and violence' on the label, expect it to contain sex and violence.