Posts made by Lisse24

@Tempest said in What locations do you want to RP in?:

Or at least have my thoughts on why it's so prevalent. And the primary one is that doing something besides bar RP actually requires putting a bit of thought into your character (maybe I'm just getting more and more jaded lately, but a lot of people seem to really really be bad at making even slightly interesting characters --not that I'm a hero of creativity and fun or anything myself but more and more characters these days just feel like generic self-inserts 'i wish I was this pretty prince/princess') and why they would be doing something and setting a Bar RP scene usually requires 0 brain power (and tends to be pretty dull because of that). It also doesn't require communication between the two parties to explain why they'd be there.

So, yeah, I think this is a thing. When I make a character, especially when I make a mortal in a WoD game, I always think about what will make other people want to interact with me. If we take Danielle on F&L she has thing going on in a few different ways. Base level, she's a street artist, so that's an easy hook that can go a few different ways. Deeper, she's a psychic who gets visions of the supernatural world, which has led her to be Highly Suspicious of supers and causes her to go digging around in their business so that she knows what's up and how to protect herself. I don't mind her getting caught doing this, because the goal is not to know everyone's secrets, but to have a reason to be poking around places she wouldn't otherwise be, thus leading to RP.

However, I feel like sometimes people who create a character do so because the concept is interesting, but don't think about who is going to interact with that character or why.

I want to give a shout-out to Fifth Kingdom here, because when I peeked in there, their policy was that everyone had to have a position in court, which, again, helps people establish where/how they'll connect. Likewise, BITN had a rule that everyone had to be 'in the know,' which didn't completely end Bar RP, but did encourage people to create characters with past connections and networks.

TLDR; I don't think it would hurt games to help players think through how their character interacts with the world or other characters, perhaps even setting down hard and fast rules that encourages reasons to interact and interactions that move beyond shallow meetings.

@faraday I haven't really found an online tutorial that explains things in the detail that I need. I'm not saying that they aren't out there, I'm just saying that none of the ones that I've seen had it. They all seem to suppose some sort of technical knowledge that I don't have.

I will admit that I haven't looked in years, though.

@faraday said in MU Flowchart:

For me there are two sides of this.

First - even with the code suites that @Thenomain @Volund and I (not intending to gip anybody those are just the only ones I know of) have created, it requires silly amounts of technical savvy to get just a basic cookie-cutter game up and running. I can go to wordpress.com or wikidot.com and get a blog or wiki set up with a few clicks in about 5 minutes flat, but a MUSH? Forget about it. That's just silly in this day and age. It's one of the problems I'm trying to tackle with AresMUSH.

I tried 0 to Mush. I failed. I don't know why things didn't work. They just didn't.

But second - let's pretend you could have a MUSH with all the basic softcode set up in 5 minutes. Most game runners, it seems, aren't satisfied with what comes out of the box (even with modest configuration available). They always have some grand vision for economy code or space code or their own chargen system or crafting system or magic system or whatever. There's nothing wrong with that, of course, but yeah.... you're gonna need a coder. That's not some grand failing of MUSHdom that's just like: "Hey I want to paint a pretty mural" Well guess what, you're going to need to either be an artist, learn to paint, or hire an artist you trust to implement your vision. Duh.

I'm more than willing to learn, but that requires a coder sitting down with me and teaching which brings everyone back to needing a coder again.

When you get excited about an idea for your character, and others get excited about it, too.

@Ominous Totally agree.

Plus all games should have a 0 to character wiki page. This page should go beyond CG and cover the first steps that a character needs to get established including:

• How to set up a wiki page
• How to get housing
• How to get equipment
• What their first steps in getting integrated with their sphere should be, including which PCs to contact.
• A list of basic PC maintenance commands (pool spends/regains, etc) including how often to run them.
• How to get involved with plots.

You know, all those things experienced players like us just know how to do, but someone coming from a different setting would be clueless about.

I'm getting caught up on Orange is the New Black and it's killing me. Every episode is top notch. The best season ever.

Totally agree with @Roz on this one.

I also generally agree with @Thenomain remarks that the commands could be combined/rejiggered somehow to make them more useful, but he's obviously put more thought into it than I have.

@Thenomain said in What locations do you want to RP in?:

@surreality said in What locations do you want to RP in?:

@Thenomain Wouldn't this be supremely easy? Like, have a 'is hangout' attribute on the room parent and thus all other rooms? Default to 0 for no, 1 for general hangout, <name of group> for 'yes, but for <name of group> only'.

Sure it's very easy to do, but making it something that people would use is not.

People don't use +hangouts because it doesn't tell them anything that +where doesn't also tell them. In fact, in many cases, +where is more informative.

When I use a command like +hangouts or +where, I'm looking for the following things:

• Who's on right now?
• Of the people who are on, are any of them available for RP?
• Of the people who are on and available for RP, do I want to RP with them?
• Are there any ongoing scenes I can join?
• Are there any ongoing scenes I want to join?

+hangouts really only answers question #4, and provides some information helpful to question #5 when it lists the names of people in that hangout. +Where typically helps people answer all 5, even if it does so poorly, and so I don't see people ever using +hangouts more than they already do, with the exception being on very large games where +where sometimes becomes unwieldy.

Years ago, there was a Deryni RPG based on FUDGE. I played it once at a con, but don't remember what I thought about it.

Anyway, it's always the first thing that leaps to mind with 'Gothic Fantasy' because I have a soft spot for the series. It was the first series that I read that mercilessly slaughtered its chars and it delved into political machinations decades before Martin made both those things cool.

So, this reminds me of one of my pet-peeves.

Place names need to say what the hell they are. Are they a bar? A book shop? A high-end restaurant? The Elysium? Put that info up front where it's easy to find. At the very least, public and private areas need to be readily distinguishable on +where.

Don't make me go reading a 10-paragraph desc full of obtuse verbs in an attempt to try and separate my waffle house from my laundromat.

@Arkandel said in What locations do you want to RP in?:

The only time grid is important is when a game is already very well populated as then the chances of running into people randomly are vastly increased; in those cases yes, you want to encourage your players to be out and about instead of stuck into inaccessible RP rooms.

In fact I would even claim in smaller games it's often an undesired trait to be findable. When there are 8 people online stalking +where looking for RP and you start a small meeting at a bar then very often you end up with a gargantuan scene as everyone flocks there; in a larger game things scale up more smoothly (unless they don't, such as for public PrPs, but that's a different story).

I feel like this is important. I find the games that I get most invested in are the ones where I can hop on grid and find RP quickly and easily. However, in the vast majority of games, people don't use the grid/being IC as a tool for finding RP, instead electing to sit in the OOC Room. In fact, I am doing this right now.

I have mixed feelings about OOC rooms, but I think they key here is to make sure the grid is someplace that is usable and is where people are encouraged to be, either through carrots or sticks or whatever other forms of player manipulation you wanna use.

So, like, I was totally thinking I was done with MUing. The desire to connect in the evenings just wasn't there. I mean, sometimes I'd want to scene, but I really wanted to play a video game or watch TV more, and with my limited time it was one or the other. Plus, work got crazy and connecting during work hours wasn't something I wanted to do.

Then, a few nights ago, I got a real bug to get active again, which led me to log randomly into the first game I thought of that I hadn't played yet a couple nights later.

Within 24 hours of logging in, I had a char approved and a couple scenes under my belt. I'm pretty happy so far.

Look me up there, I'm Danielle.

And yes, it's another mortal, but I really like stories about people up against inconceivable odds. What can I say? Maybe if I actually play out a mortal story to what I feel is the end, I'll move on, but for right now, that's what I'm interested in playing.

@Ganymede @Pondscum I also vote Fifth Kingdom! I mean, I've only been there 2-3 days, but I haven't seen any drama, therefore, it must not exist, right? right?

@Sparks said in Game Stagnancy and Activity:

I almost wonder what would happen if you put together pre-made PRP 'kits' next time there's a major event like that: "here are the stats for this type of enemy", "here are some tips on how to run it", etc. How many players would pick up those 'kits' to run with, folding their own story bits around them?

I'm thinking tons. I think a lot of people would run things more but are hesitant for a variety of reasons (speaking in general terms here and not specifically about Arx) - feeling uncertain about the system, not knowing what to run, thinking people won't show, etc - and any scaffolding you can offer to help overcome that is going to get a positive result.

Also, if we're remembering a previous person saying that you can usually only get 1 or 2 people to run PRPs and Arx is looking at that volume of PRPs being run, well, that's more than 1 or 2 people. I'd love to hear @Apos's view on what's going right there. Obviously, some of that is going to be just volume of players, Arx is a big game, but what else is contributing to the wealth of plots?

@Apos Exactly. It's a balancing act to find enough change where people feel impact, but not so much that people feel like things are coming out of the blue.

By the way, I think HBO's The Leftovers should be required viewing for people running plots on MUs, because I think they hit that sweet spot perfectly. On that show, Big Things happen: 2% of the world's population disappears, cults swindle people out of money, a nuclear bomb goes off, BUT the story never focuses on those things, the story focuses on how those things affect people and how people's personal reactions to the Big Things flow from and cause more Big Things. The Big Things are never important. How they impact people's lives is what's important. The result is a fantastical story that feels real and grounded, impact is always felt, and when something comes out of left field that people didn't see, the reaction afterwards is "Oh, well, that makes total sense, how could we think anything else would happen?"

Now taking that sweet spot and getting it into MU form? That's the hard part.

@WildBaboons said in Game Stagnancy and Activity:

It's been touched on before I think but make sure there isn't a culture of being unfindable. I've played places where over half the players were unfindable and not idle. it really discouraged looking for public RP when you could never tell who was available.

I'll add to this - making it easier for people to connect with people IC. I've pitched this before and got scoffed at, but I'll say it again anyway. The looking for RP tag/channel is horrible (horrible defined as doesn't work well), but if you modified it so that people could add one or more scene-types they were looking for, I think it would be really helpful in getting people to connect.

So instead of +lrp/on (or whatever the command is)

it would be:
+lrp/on Wanting to connect with motorcycle types at the dive bar; Going to woods to track strange tracks.

Again, you want to give people reasons to connect and tools to help them do that.

You give people a reason that they need/want to interact with newbies and make sure that it ties back into theme.

Crisis, plot investigations, limiting actions, random pairing of RP partners are all things I've seen on multiple games that have worked well.

@Thenomain said in Lords and Ladies Game:

Well I mean, to be honest I know why I'm not entirely welcome on Arx: In part, I like to break down problems into core components and get impatient when I can't explore some deep core elements. Also, part Welsh and part Redhead and part American. Not American Indian, just White American. While I did spend a good part of my life as an Anglophile, I realized later in life it was the sardonic humor and expert understanding of satire. I don't really understand Lords & Ladies games, and who likes someone breaking down their favorite genre down to its core components? Not many people want to bother with it in the middle of their pretendy-fun-time sexy people society.

Also not welcome: Using ludology to prove that "The Game" is not a game.

Also to those people who play it: You lost The Game.

To everyone else: The only way to win is not to play.

But isn't everyone playing? I mean, you can't not play The Game.

@Nightshade said in Health and Wealth and GrownUp Stuff:

Regarding weight loss, I found a few things useful.

Well, the first thing is that dieting doesn't work for me. Oh, it does work initially. I lose all the weight and I get a psychological boost from it, and then carefully start reintroducing normal food into my diet... And the weight gets back, plus more. My body gets into starvation mode, my metabolism slows the fuck down to conserve energy, and everything gets stored into fat, because the body goes "who knows when we're gonna have food next!"

So I did several rounds of yo-yo dieting and then stopped in horror because I ended up with more weight than I started with.

There were three articles that changed my approach: that stuff about the reality show "The Biggest Loser" - they followed up with contestants after 6 years, all but one have regained all the weight lost, and their metabolism was significantly slower even after all those years. So they have to eat less than a normal person would, just to keep at a current weight. They doomed themselves to a lifetime of not being able to have a balanced relationship with food.

Secondly, there was an article that detailed how it takes a year for the body to get used to a new lower weight. For a whole year, the body has an imperative to gain the weight back, through hormones and metabolic changes.

And thirdly, this one: https://www.nerdfitness.com/blog/meet-staci-your-new-powerlifting-super-hero/. The gist is, focus on gaining strength, not losing weight. Focus on building up dense muscle by low-repetition but strenuous weight lifting, and not cardio as is usually advised. This raises the basal metabolic rate and melts the fat, as such muscles spend more energy just by existing.

So I get angry when people say it's easy to lose weight, just eat less and move more. If only our bodies weren't intricate complex biochemical systems with various evolutionary purposes, maybe that simplistic maxim would work. Everyone looks at you like an idiot with self-control problems if you try to dispute this "simple solution."

Basically the solution is, eat decently so you can move lift more. Then eat even more, so you can lift even more. Of course, this still means you gotta eat healthy stuff and not stuff yourself with sodas and snacks. I just wish I knew all this ten years ago, long before I tried low-carb dieting the first time. I also have some good experiences with intermittent fasting, as long as it doesn't go into deprivation/starvation mode.

Going to add to this because I have PCOS and I know a few others here have mentioned the same thing. Research has tied weight-lifting to positive responses in PCOS patients, while cardio did not. If I'm remembering the studies correctly, weight lifting affects the insulin response in insulin resistant patients through some mechanism that is odd because your endocrine system is complicated, yo.

Apparently, I got burned out on stuff. I definitely had shifted from "I want to log on" to "I need to log on or I will disappoint people." I thought that just dropping my main char at the moment would cure that, but then I just ... stopped doing anything.

To people I left hanging, I'm sorry. But this has really been a wonderful mental health break, and I've enjoyed feeling that I could do what I want when I want and that I didn't have to juggle all the things. I'll doubtless be back again, as soon as I feel inspiration.