Best posts made by Lisse24

Yeah, I've got some thoughts.

***=Thoughts and all that***

I'm going to say again, that I really like nWoD conditions and I think that a system that builds on that idea is more likely to get buy-in.

So, again, keeping it simple and understandable, I imagine a system where a player could declare their immediate goal, and perform a simple, agreed upon contested roll. Keep it uncoded, so that players can quickly adapt to the circumstances.
If the player wins, they can impose a level-1 condition. Level-1 conditions would have impacts that last only a few minutes. The condition would have two options for how players respond, a 'going along' option and a not going along option. Both give a penalty of some sort. The going along option also gives XP.
If the opposite player already has that level-1 condition from that player, it gets bumped up to level-2 which lasts longer, maybe has steeper penalties. Level-2 gets bumped up to Level-3, etc.
However, if the player loses, either the opposite player gets to shed a condition level or there's a condition that gives the opposite player the advantage, but the originating player gets the XP.

This system has the advantage of being simple, predictable, maintaining player autonomy and offering players multiple opportunities to suss out and avoid the situation if they prefer, while keeping "loss" to something that is low-risk.

@ghost said in Social Systems:

See, the only way to have a character effectively lie to another character on most MUs is to lie to the player. This is because a lot of players aren't okay with having to RP something that they know is a losing play. Little bits of meaning happens all the time to avoid it, and many of them get pissed when they find out they were lied to oocly (TotallyNotMetaGaming).

For the record, I fundamentally disagree with this assertion. In my experience, while some players are out only to win, most are out to tell stories and are OK with periodic losses. They are not OK with feeling like they got screwed over. Social skills are often used spuriously and leave people feeling like they got screwed. So lets make a system that negates that feeling and encourages collaboration.

@mietze said in Dead Celebrities 2019:

Honestly, while I am sure there's a possibility it could be a conspiracy, anyone who thinks that also negligence and incompetence on the facility's part wasnt just as or more likely clearly hasn't ever worked in or around corrections.

While I don't know how much negligence was to blame and I don't know if anyone was actively working to shorten Epstein's life, I do know beyond a shadow of a doubt that there is one person who has the most to gain from people in our country slinging around and believing in political conspiracy theories. I know this because he's repeatedly tried to ramp up conspiracy theories around political deaths and has been, to a large part, successful.

I'm a bit shocked and dismayed that I seem to be the only person out there that remembers this.

@Lotherio said in Historical MU*s:

I'd venture to say most staff who offer things to do suffer from the same blow out of no fun when half the players always argue with them on when certain armor and tech came about and complaining about when they should be able to get it.

This is sort of turning 'there is nothing to do' on me, I can think of a million things to do and have fun doing them. I'm sort of moving to defense of me saying I'd like to play in a Danelaw game.

I think any game that is depending on staff to create all the Things to Do is ultimately going to fail. I just haven't seen a sustainable model for that - unless you count Fallcoast/TR, which is its own beast.

This might be my own personal bias coming out, but the games that I have enjoyed the most and found the most RP on were games that provided systems and means whose sole purpose was to provide players with reasons to interact with each other and give them something to do.

@faraday said in Social Systems:

@thenomain I understand your POV. But again, it comes down to how much you view these things as stories and how much you view them as games.

Did John McClane just make a whole bunch of really good Willpower / Courage rolls, or is he just fundamentally not the kind of guy who's gonna sit back and let terrorists threaten innocent people?

I would like to posit that his core characteristics determined that he wasn't just going to sit around and let terrorists threaten people and his rolls helped determine what sort of method of stopping terrorists was both possible and in character for him to pursue.

IT companies have horrible documentation and How-To's.

Just sayin'.

I'm really looking forward to playing Changeling for the first time! I'll definitely be in once life settles down and I can handle more than one game at a time.

Things that I have seen work well for creating proactive players:

Non-sandbox games
Giving players tools to be proactive and Do Things (+actions over on Arx, for example)
Putting limits on UberPlayers to do all the things (like with action points used on several games)
Similarly, limits on number of alts - people are more proactive when they're more focused.
Nudging players towards IC activity, through killing off of OOC rooms, encouraging the use of the grid, making finding RP easy and desirable.

TLDR; Activity breeds activity. Games with an active RP scene will eventually lead to players who want to do things. This means encouraging RP and activity, it also means making sure that 1 or 2 players aren't sucking up all the activity.

@Auspice This is always my favorite:
More adventures in replying to spam.

I had some time this week, and so transferred a lot of my ideas from a half-formed disorganized gdoc, to a half-formed, somewhat better organized wiki.

Still looking for people interested in planning/staffing, especially in need of a coder.

http://antilliamux.wikidot.com/start

@auspice said in Encouraging Proactive Players:

I see more interaction on sandbox games than non-, personally. Might be a YMMV there. But then, I consider WoD to be sandbox? So that might be why.

When I think of active games, I think of RfK, Arx, and Firan. None of them are Sandboxes, but in any of those games, you can take a char and find RP within moments of hitting the grid. F&L, for all it's issues, was also not-a-sandbox and also far easier to find RP on than other games of its size. I can't think of a single game that was a sandbox that I would characterize as active. I define active as logging on and being able to tell through +where (or similar command) that several scenes are ongoing, and also easily being able to drum up RP.

I'm kinda extroverted in MU* terms, but I have no idea how to approach this person. I need some form of OOC engagement. NO OOC!!! would be a reason to never, ever touch a game for me.

OOC engagement inspires me. I've had plots spark out of OOC joking around.

I agree 100% that there has to be OOC interaction. I fundamentally disagree with the people who are all "keep it IC." It's all about balance though. I've seen a lot of games where people just hang out OOC and never do anything IC. I've never seen a game where people were gently encouraged to hang IC, where there wasn't also a good deal of on-grid activity.

But as an ST... it is so. freaking. disheartening. to run plot and basically have people disengaged unless I'm constantly holding their hand and leading the way. Show me you're interested? Please? Somehow?

Like if you're enjoying what I'm doing, let me know. Somehow. Otherwise, why am I even doing it?

I feel like this comes from the nature of how plots are planned and run. Plots tend to be run top-down. PRPs lean monster of the week, but these things aren't necessarily what players want to do, which makes it hard for them to be engaged, even if they want to do things.
I'll again point to Arx's +actions, which is a way for players to get STing for what they want. I know you tried to have wiki pages where players filled in what they wanted, but that's actually a very passive way to accomplish something (I'm going to write on my wikipage that Cerise is hoping to set-up a lab to study changelings and I really hope that someone might write a plot with that! as opposed to, Okay, I'm going to set up a lab to study changelings, lemme submit a +action and see what's needed).

While I'm thinking about it, games where some measure of the results of plot actions/PRPs etc. are posted and emitted help drive action by keeping players informed of what's going on and by putting weight on player actions. It also reminds players that if PlayerA put in a request to do reallycoolthing they wanted to do, PlayerB can too!

@botulism said in Encouraging Proactive Players:

@auspice I have to second part of this. There are lots of players who will show up to events, but have zero interest in follow-up. You can leave a dozen threads for them to pull on and they just don't. It gets discouraging.

Personally, I find it hard to reply in a thread or +request to a plot action until I know what to do. I need to sit down and talk with people and RP it out. In plots and PRPs, the people who sign up often have very little IC ties to my char and it's hard to get together and chat with them. Maybe schedule a post-action/downtime scene in between action scenes to give the chars involved a chance to debrief/talk/plan? I mean, when I want to discuss something at work, I either schedule a call or set up a channel on Slack when I know that everyone is at their desk. I never try to get things done through email, because it's such a horrid way to do that type of communication.

I've had a low-grade fever all weekend and now I'm sitting at work with a fever of 100.something, feeling just bad enough to want to be lazy, but not bad enough to justify going home, especially since I have several deadlines coming up.

@Ganymede I get what she's saying. I seldom ever get equipment on CoD MUs because staff rarely ever writes up the process to do so. I'm often frustrated on MUs in the disconnect between what you're expected to know to do and what's explained to you. MUs are not user friendly, not because telnet (although that to), but just because they don't tell you basic things and almost always assume some level of base knowledge, instead of assuming no base knowledge.

@phatdenny said in Encouraging Proactive Players:

I think both sides on the Aspirations system debate make decent points. For instance, it can quickly turn into a chore depending on the type of character people want to play and has plenty of opportunity for abuse.

That being said, once in a blue moon I do manage to make use of it and go 'hey this is what I'm trying to do'. It's good for characters who are very active and constantly involving themselves in new things. It's shit for characters with one general goal in mind. I know the long term vs. short-term aspirations is supposed to remedy this somewhat, but I don't think it does a particularly good job.

Yeah, it's not a perfect system, but I really like what it's trying to do, and I think it's the start of a really good system for awarding XP and helping characters find RP based on IC goals, which I like.

Of course, I'm also sitting on a char whose aspirations I haven't changed since chargen, despite her having accomplished them.

@kumakun For me, I didn't mind how they were handled so much as how easy they were to set up. For some reason or another, half the time I can't get spawns in Potato to work right, so I just don't use them anymore. Instead, I rely heavily on coloring things that I need to see and I keep the list of channels I'm on down.

I'd love what Atlantis has though, if it was just on Windows ... eyes @Sparks longingly

@silverfox said in The Work Thread:

Also.

I'm not allowed to RP again until I grade the damn pile of essays on my plate.

I hate essays guys. I hate them. Even if they're only one paragraph long. I. hate. them.

Never did ELA, but did you ever try this method?
https://www.cultofpedagogy.com/rubric-codes/

@stabeest Last night I walked into a scene with a mental checklist of three things my char wanted to accomplish. The third being to break up with the guy (after he's agreed to the other things, of course), and then the opposite happened. It was great. I loved it!

I use MUDRammer on my iPad. Like others said, it's clunky and doesn't have spawns, but it gets the job done. It's enabled me to sit without needing a heavy laptop in the evenings and for that it's a lifesaver.

I do find that my poses are slightly shorter on MUDrammer than when I'm using Potato on my laptop, not sure the reason for that.

I've been working on an online course for months. This is the course that our members are going to have to take before they become building reps, so it's a fairly important course and one that our president will absolutely want to look at.

So, after I finished my outline, I was like, "Do you want to have a look at this?" Silence.

Started putting up activities and wording, again asked if he wanted a walk through. Silence.

Offered another walk through during alpha testing. Silence

Beta testing. Silence.

On our team call Monday, I said, "Okay, we're ready to push this live this week, unless anyone can think of something I've forgotten." Nothing from him.

Now on one hand, I'm a bit flabbergasted at the trust this indicates, but I really do want his feedback. I'm also a bit relieved because our president is known for holding back projects and breezing through deadlines in his desire for perfectionism (which we're never going to get).

Last night, I told the director-level staff that I was going to notify staff today that we were live. An hour ago I got an email from our president asking how he logs in again and if the course was ready for review.

FML.