Best posts made by Lisse24

I'm also very much against tossing a sphere in just because. If you have a faction in a game, you best know why they're in the game and how their players are going to interact with the other factions.

Less is more.

Discussion with a co-worker:

Me: So this advertising write-up you did for my project looks great, but I'm gonna nix the pop-up on the website, because everyone hates those and it seems like we have better ways to advertise things.

Co-worker: Oh. I actually really like pop-ups.

Me:

As someone stumbling through trying to do my own thing with a very limited knowledge of coding. Yes, any plug and play option would be great.

For me, the draw of Ares was that most of what I needed (boards, WHO, etc) was already there. Even just getting closer to what would be considered a MU-in-a-Box with a tutorial for dummies on how to set up character sheets would be a great leap forward.

That being said, the main complaint against Ares is finding RP when you don't have an established clique. The grid helps solve that issue by giving the user helpful information like: 1. Who is currently looking for RP. 2. How active they are likely to be. 3. Some sense of the nature of the scene.

I don't think a grid is the best way to convey that information. Years ago, my non-coding self proposed a +wantrp command that added a line with proposed hooks to the end. If that same command automatically idled out after 15-30 minutes, it would provide the same info you get from +where on a grid system and might help provide some scaffolding for old-school players who are struggling with Ares.

@derp said in Mage for Multi-Sphere WoDv2 Games:

There is no problem with the system, as is, running on a MU.

The problems that happens with Mage on MU is twofold, but due to a common source:

1. XP is gained far too quickly, leading to multiple high-level characters in a very short amount of time, all of them with competing interests and with enough power that they have no need to work well with others.

2. There is very little in the way of active antagonism or storytelling, as Seers of the Throne and other external threats are almost entirely nonexistent, so they have little choice but to try and get into other active things.

You just need a better class of staffers who recognize that mages need things to do and cannot advance so quickly that working with Orders/Consilium Officials/Other Cabals becomes optional.

I would argue these aren't just problems with Mage. Overbloated XP and lack of Things to Do are problems for any game, it's just that in mage the effects of these issues are greatly exaggerated.

Just a little reminder that The Deuce started up again this week. It's a great show and if you haven't checked it out yet, you should!

@faraday said in Web portals and scenes and grids oh my!:

@Lisse24 said in Web portals and scenes and grids oh my!:

If someone is on the portal in a scene, but not logged into the game, they don't show up on +where.

I mean if that's a big deal, I can add a "In Web Scene" section to +where, but most of the non-grid scenes are typically private anyway. I don't really understand how that "actively discourages" people from using the grid? You can still wander to the grid and start your own scene?

I don't know that it's necessary, because, again, I don' t think wandering the grid is the best way to find RP, even though I know why people do it. I'd rather make finding good RP better, but I don't think you need a strong grid to do that.

@bear_necessities I think you're mischaracterizing it when you say 'passively seek RP.' I know when I played on Ares, I was pretty pro-active on asking on the RP channel for scenes and still had issues finding RP. I talked about some of the reasons why then, I don't need/want to rehash them now.

To clarify, IMO people trying to find RP need to know:
1 - Who is available to RP.
2 - What that RP may be about.
3 - When they can expect that RP to happen.

RP Channel kinda gives that information, but does so poorly. Grids kinda give that information, but does so poorly. I'm pretty convinced there's a better way.

@Prototart said in Comic/Superhero Games:

ps for the inevitable "why don't you make one then" i tried and it was v little red hen, like i asked everyone to help me make bread and they were just "oh wow i love bread hmu when it's done" but like little red hen doesn't have an oven so she just went to drink straight chartreuse and watch zombie movies in her underwear

Yup, this adequately describes my experience attempting getting a game going. Sometimes a staff team comes together and sometimes it just doesn't happen, or people flake, or any number of things. So I feel you dude.

So glad she's OK!

@Admiral said in Getting Young Blood Into MU*'ing:

@Apos No... Arx exists solely because Firan does not.

I mean, I wouldn't say that, but Arx definitely benefitted from ex-Firan players networking with each other and with their other RP-groups.

It also benefits from giving players something to do, having a large playerbase already, policies that nudge players towards finding RP and breaking out of cliques, and, yes, not being shy about banning problem players.

Arx isn't quite the game for me, but it does a ton of things right and all of them contribute to its success.

While this is the teacher thread ...

I just wrote a piece on teacher self-care during the holidays. In my intro, I argued that teachers needed to keep their stress levels low because it will help them, but it will also help their students!

I kinda hate that this profession is so mired in martyrdom that I feel like I have to convince teachers that taking care of themselves is really just taking care of their students.

So, all you educators out there: Take care of yourself because you work hard and you deserve it.

I got in a discussion earlier today with a friend about how games integrate new players. I expressed frustration that it seemed like many games seemed to put all the expectations to find out information on the new player, who often had to navigate between +help and wikis and chargen rooms to find out basic starting information. And for all this effort, the only thing that is guaranteed is that the player has read information, not that they've comprehended or internalized or that they become a regular player.

So I'm wondering, has anyone seen a game do a really good job at making sure that new players get integrated? If not, what do you think games should be doing to welcome new players?

Now that I'm thinking about it, I wonder if this is why I've always gravitated to text-based mediums over visual mediums, including MUs. I never really saw the point of MMO's because if I wanted RP, table top and MUs were just better, but maybe I just thought they were better because the visual aspect of video games isn't as important to my imagination as words are.

Also, I've always placed a really high value on getting into my characters emotional space and scenes with a strong emotional pull to them, and I wonder if that's, again, just a result of how I interact with the world.

And, like others have said, I've always struggled with descs. I spend hours looking for the perfect PB before making a character, because unless I'm looking at a picture of someone, I couldn't begin to toss together an image of what they look like. Even with a picture, it's a struggle, and difficult for me to get away from personality-driven words to describing the actual physical characteristics.

@surreality said in What themes and subjects do you look for in a game?:

• Lack of time to ICly process events in personal RP or lack of necessary staff-supported followup on the consequences of plots or other major game action. I'm not looking for a roller coaster; if there are breath-taking highs and stomach-dropping lows, I want the characters to have time to fully experience them, think about them, and figure out how these events actually are somehow relevant (or not) to them in their lives -- not immediately skip ahead to the next high or low as though these things have zero impact whatsoever. If they have no impact, what's the damn point, anyway?

I'm really glad that you brought this up, because I think it's something that's often overlooked. I think a lot of people think that more plot is better, but when I step back and think about it, I really only have time for one big plot and maybe a side plot or two. This is mainly because I want to RP about what's going on.

For this reason, I'm really not a big fan of +events, because I feel as if people show up to do something in that moment, but the events are unconnected to anything that comes before and seldom come with any incentive to tie them into what your character is doing on a broader level. I'm not saying that they can't be, but that I seldom see them done in that way.

@Rinel I can look at an image of a 3D shape and I will know that if you turn it one way or another how it would look, but I do all that without an image in my mind. I've never known how I know, I just know that, say, if you turn an apple on it's side, the stem would be sticking towards me.

In decorating my house, it's been interesting. For example, I know that I can fit two recliners into my living room, and have ample walking space and space to recline. I have NO CLUE how those recliners will look down there. Will they take up too much visual space and block my view of the woods? Will it be too crowded? Will it make my dark living room seem even darker? NO IDEA.

So I've decided when I find a model I like, I'm going to order one, shove it down there for a month or so before deciding if I want a second.

@ILuvGrumpyCat said in Interest Check: Single Sphere VtR Game:

As for RtK.....there is a lot of ooc paperwork required there, and that can be fun for some people, not always fun for others. But what I find doesn't work there more than anything else is the lack of accountability there seems to be for anyone's actions unless they make a public post. Then it just gets pulled down. So maybe just....remember to not pull down all the posts, all the time,

Personally, I'm dying to get out of Northern New England. Also, if we could play down the Cthulu stuff that I have no interest and seems to be TheThing everywhere? 'K thnx.

I listened to this episode a while ago, and I think there are some similarities:

a) both Tulpas and RP Chars are made up in human heads.
b) People in both communities meet and expand their social circles because they are in those communities (some people could argue that our social circles become smaller, too, but debate for another day).

That's honestly where I see the similarities end. The biggest reason for this is that in the online RP community IC and OOC separation has always been sacred. It's the one thing that we can all agree on. We may have different preferences for where to draw the line with some people preferring a more "immersive" environment while others want more OOC collaboration and cooperation. However, most everyone agrees that when the line between character and self are blurred bad things happen. People get too attached, too possessive. They might be too concerned with winning or pursuing an IC relationship and less concerned with story. Whatever form it takes, drama ends up happening, and so unlike the people in the tulpa community, every RPer I've ever met has actively discouraged this sort of blurring of the lines.

@Arkandel Which is why it should take longer than a roll. Social rolls should give small victories on the way to larger goals. This is what the door system tries to do, but fails by not being properly integrated. If I want to change something core about a character it should take a ton of work and several scenes of me working with that character.

People who do not read directions. Why do I bother writing a 3 page long guide on how to do a thing if you do not read it??

@Tinuviel said in Coming Soon: Arx, After the Reckoning:

There has have been rumours laid down by unnamed sources that many Firan ex-pats have found themselves on Arx and have crafted niches and cliques. It's just a hypothesis, but it explains a great deal.

I said this.
In a conversation about having difficulty breaking into RP. I did not mean for it to be nearly as conspiratorial sounding as it's coming off here.
However, as I said in my previous post, people tend to favor playing with others that they know and like over strangers. Unless there's a concerted effort to force people out of these groups, you'll see cliques inevitably form.
There's a lot of people on Arx who used to play on Firan. I think it's inevitable that those people would form their own groups and favor playing with each other.

This is just personal, but ... I prefer plots smaller and immediate in focus and scope. That is because, in my experience, if you go for something big and grand, the IC power holders tend to snatch it up and start dominating it. Maybe, they might give some task to a lower status PC but they'll favor IC friends and allies, making it hard for new players to break into plot. Where, if you start a plot around a small group of non-powerful PCs, then you can make sure that you're cycling through the different orgs and PCs with plot.

I think the spreadsheet for coordinating plots and making sure that there are different things happening on grid is a great idea.