Posts made by Lisse24

@Arkandel

@Arkandel said in Make a Game with Me!:

I don't know what my level of involvement can be but if you want some early questions:

• What level of technology do you have in mind for this?

The game will most likely start at early 15th c. level technology. I want the players to be able to grow and shape technology as the game progresses.

• Does magic/the supernatural exist?

Yeeeeeeesssss? The Antillia myth is tied to a boat of demonic priests that settled on the island. I like that. I also want to give space for priestly types and paganistic religions. However, I think the preferable scope on abilities is small. No gods appearing. No magic automatic healing. No supernatural abilities that allow you to overwhelm your enemies. etc.

• Is the game primarily PvE or PvP?

I think a good game is an equal mix of both. In Antillia, I would like to create an environment where characters are naturally at odds, but circumstances keep factions working together and keep any one group from ever winning.

• Do you have a system or mechanics in mind for it?

d10 system. I have some game systems sketched out in varying degrees of completeness, but I since I plan on bringing more people on board, nothing is 100% settled.

You also mention conflict How do you plan to systematize it staying healthy, and losing being a rewarding experience?

As mentioned, I have some systems in mind that would really benefit from having someone work with me on them. However, the TLDR; is that I think you reward what you want to see, and so XP is tied to healthy conflict to some extent and especially to 'losing.' I think the more a character 'loses,' the more XP they should get. Ideally, this should serve the dual purpose of keeping dinosaurs from ruling the game and encouraging loss as positive thing. Although, of course, game atmosphere and proactive staffing is equally important in this area.

Once, the island of Antillia was relatively isolated and left in peace to develop its own rich culture. Rumor has it that the people who lived there were surprisingly advanced, and the island dominated those around it. This changed though, when the Foreigners came. These hardy men and women came from the Old Continent and were on the search for riches. Antillia was conquered by these foreigners, as was the rest of the region and the New Continent, with Antillia becoming the natural stopping point before the last push into the new world. Because of it's highly strategic position and it's history, the island now finds itself caught between the old world, the new world, and it's own traditions as varied forces fight for control of the island.

Antillia is an original themed mush very loosely based on the myth of Antillia Island and Caribbean history. Though it takes inspiration from these periods in time, a setting in a unique world will allow give the game and its GMs flexibility.

With Antillia, I want to design a game that matches my philosophy of player empowerment in a dynamic world and a political atmosphere, where healthy conflict is encouraged and loss gains more reward than winning. However, while this has been something I've been wanting to do for a long time, I know it's not something I'm capable of doing on my own.

I told myself that I'd put this project on hold until my real life eased up. Well, that's going to happen. So I'm wheeling it out again and looking for people who would like to help make this a reality, by helping to clarify systems, crystalize theme, help with GMing (in the future), and help me muddle through coding (this is especially needed!).

If you're interested, please let me know. Obviously, I'm looking for someone who agrees with my basic philosophy, while bringing their own ideas to the table.

Active:
Arx - Daturo

Past games (In which my memory is awful....):
Spirit Lake - Will
Fate's Harvest - Cerise
SFMux - Natalie
Harper's Tale - I think my character's name started with a K. Definitely a healer, though.
Various other Pern games....
Castle D'Image - I vaguely remember playing with a guy named Thanatos
Various other independent themed that I can't remember
Aether & Aether II - So can't remember who I played...
Firan - Dafne, Lilana, Pythia, Lilah (and others I can't remember)...
Dark Metal - Some mortal that I can't remember, hung out with Tommy and another werewolf
TR - Cerise. There was also a ghoul, who I'm pretty sure was named Risa.
RFK - Kara
RFK II - Mackenzie
BITN - Cerise
Arx - Lydia, Zara
Fate's Harvest: Maddie
F & L - Danielle
Descent - Sam
Various other WoD games...

@Gingerlily said in Politics etc.:

The trick of it seems to be finding a system that isn't too cumbersome/doesn't feel like a grind, and yet also fosters all of those things people seemed to love so much. Balance etc, but it's not yet clear to me where that balance lies.

Yeah, this is where I think most games fall on their head. They make their systems far too fiddly and opaque, and because of that, those systems will always favor the people who are online more often and like their minigames, rather than the RPer. (I'm looking at you, Arx's +tasks).

All you really need is a way to restrict actions (which is responsive to staff availability). The variations on hours/times has been brought up. I've advocated before for a much simpler system, one where each character gets 1 action per time period, which can be used offensively or defensively, or can be split up into two smaller 'support' actions.
This should be paired with a way to collect and call-in favors, and with limited resources providing a reason why characters/factions need to interact.

@Bobotron said in Dungeons and Dragons:

Didn't they try to do this when 4e was out and it failed outright?

Did it fail? Their online tools is the only thing that made 4e workable for me. So many powers to track...

WoD needs this, too, but I don't think they'll ever get there.

Imposters on Bravo.

Yeah, I know. Bravo does not hit one as the bastion of high quality serialized TV and yet here it is - a surprisingly funny drama about a guy hunting down the woman who conned him and cleaned him out. It may not be everyone's cup of tea, but people should definitely give it a try.

I haven't listend to Undisclosed. I do like Reveal when I listen to it. However, Criminal is one of those podcasts I had in my list and removed because it was one of those that I always skipped. It just doesn't hold my interest like others do. I suspect it's the length. I do tend to prefer longform, somewhere around 45 min - 60 min is perfect for me.

@Arkandel said in Where's your RP at?:

@Astrid Arx. For all my disappointment in staff ethics, there is too much roleplay going around and it's easy to tap into.

This, and Arx is doing a lot of things right. It's the type of game that I want to play, but I have to admit, I'm eyeing what's going on and weighing my options.

Man, I listen to a whole different slate than most people. Here goes my list:

Religion:
Ask Science Mike
Relevant
Phil Vischer
The Liturgists

True Crime:
Crimetown
Serial

Informational:
Science Vs.
Intelligence Squared
99% Invisible
This American Life
RadioLab
Planet Money
Hardcore History

Politics:
NPR Politics
Vox's Weeds
538
Slate's Gabfest
Common Sense

Culture/Entertainment:
Judge John Hodgman

Work:
EWA Radio

@Ganymede
And when are you opening a game, hrm?

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

It is also possible that some people react differently to the exact same wording and actions, so to some one appears as something positive, to other as a negative. It may have little to do with the actual core intentions or even the tools used. In the end, your audience can be stupid. You can either try to accommodate the stupid or avoid it, or get used to it mouth breathing about you til you go away.

It would be nice if everyone could be aware of this idea, and maybe give people more slack, but whatever.

It's also why it's very important for staff on a game to be careful about their tone, both when speaking to players and between themselves. It's too easy to send the wrong message and open up mistrust between players and staff.

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??

@Gingerlily said in Politics etc.:

@lordbelh Yeah that's a good point, about trying to keep it more chill and being able to deescalate. RfK clearly had systems for that but they are very grounded in vampire. What do you think would work for something that wasn't WoD?

Yeah, you just need an easily trackable way for people to exchange favors or 'boons.' The exchanging of favors is the backbone of any working political system, in game or irl. Political people need to know who owes them and be able to call in those favors when they're needed.

@Ganymede
Pretty good list, but I think you're missing:

• limited actions, with lower status chars generally having more ability for action than higher status
• limited resources
• limit to a single PC, encouraging withitness and engagement, while reducing the amount of cheating that could happen.

I also want to put this in:
I think both RfK and Arx, the two politically driven games I've been on recently, suffer(ed) because of commands that are/were over-fiddly and opaque to the new player. The learning curve on both games to learn their systems was steep, and I'm not sure that the complexity added much to player engagement in the game.

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

I'll say it again, it's being staffed by people that staffed on Firan. Why anyone expected anything different to the mentality that prevailed there, I have no idea.

That's a red herring. Plenty of Firan's staff were fine people, who saw a game with an interesting theme and a large player base that wanted to help out. Some staff were fine people, who were in a staffing environment that was distorted and dysfunctional and ended up showing their worst self instead of their best self. Some staff were fine people, but shouldn't have been staff.

Many Firan staffers have diffused out into the MU community at large to play and even staff on other games. From what I've seen, they generally have good reputations.

@Auspice
For some reason, years ago, I got into the habit of hitting +where when I'm bored. It makes cleaning logs a pain.

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.

Man, I feel like I have a boring employment history:

High School: Fast Food
College: Stocking Shelves at Store & College Dish Room.
Adult:
Middle School Teacher
Current:
Program Director at an Education Non-Profit - which is a fancy way to say that I do lots of stuff and get paid very little.

@Auspice
I think this is very important stuff - recognizing the validity of feeling frustrated, down, or angry with a situation.

Right now, my family is going through the toughest time it has ever gone through. Nearly a year ago exactly, I attended the funeral of my aunt after a very short and painful battle with cancer. In the beginning of October, my sister was admitted to the hospital and gave birth to an extremely premature infant a few weeks later. Now, five months down the road, my niece is still in the NICU with no coming home date anywhere on the horizon.

One of the things that has struck me as we go through both of these situations is how reluctant people are to recognize that this is hard and it sucks for us. Up to the moment that my aunt died, people were visiting her and telling her that she would get better. This very morning, as I explained the situation with my niece, a friend said, "Well, she'll be home soon!" No. No, she won't and it sucks. We're tired and grumpy and telling us to look on the bright side delegitimizes the struggle that we're going through right now.

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

I would say that it's really still a documentation issue, no matter where you put the documentation. The fact is that everyone playing the game -- including myself, who really loves it!! -- basically are muddling through, in a lot of cases, really unclear or confusing documentation. I know it's because of limited time and the fact that systems still change and develop regularly, but honestly they could use some dedicated to just cleaning up documentation. The team seems to lack a cleaner/organizer/admin.

I'd say they probably need a team member dedicated just to dealing with communications. Making sure there's a standard way to announce things, handling issues so that they're clear, creating theme files, and improving documentation.