Posts made by Lisse24

@arkandel said in Tools, and not just Beiber.:

I'm not convinced the presence of an OOC room is that important. In my experience it's still a net negative because people hang out there when they could be looking to RP instead, but that's about it.

This is about where I stand. I think it's a contributing factor, but only in as much as it reinforces a culture of hanging back OOC. I'm a little surprised that of everything in my post that's what got the attention. I think there's a lot that games can do to encourage activity beyond making changes to the OOC room that will have a larger effect - like actually giving players a reason to interact with people.

@faraday That's exactly what I'm saying. Having the OOC room encourages waiting for something that they're definitely interested in instead of being proactive.

Maybe I'm wrong. But if I am wrong and people listen to me anyway and get rid of chatty OOC rooms, the worst that will have happened is that games will have gotten rid of what is often a troubled part of many games.

@faraday said in Tools, and not just Beiber.:

@lisse24 said in Tools, and not just Beiber.:

OOC Rooms, while popular, incentivize sitting OOC, by making social interaction available while doing so.

I think you're mistaking the chicken for the egg here.

The very nature of the MUSH interface means that character bits always need to be present in "a room". If you force people to be IC or log off, you'll just see people idling in private rooms while chatting on channels, or being on the grid but "not really here". This has been the case for 30 years.

OOC Rooms aren't the problem. The "problem" is the trend of players with limited free time choosing to wait around for "something good" or "something specific" as opposed to just going IC and taking the first random scene with strangers that comes along. And I use air quotes deliberately there because I'm not personally convinced that's a bad thing.

I have to disagree with you. Yes, players have to be in a "room." However Arx, and Firan before it, had that room be a void. Players couldn't see who else was there, and they certainly couldn't chat. When the room that players sit in waiting for RP also doubles as a community hub, players will eventually have to face the choice of either going IC to hunt down RP and miss out on on the fun chatter or stay for the fun chatter (which is guaranteed) and miss out on potential RP (not guaranteed).

I'm not saying that OOC rooms are the sole reason for inactivity, but I do believe that they help reinforce it by imposing a punishment (missing out on social activity) for doing what we would like players to do (go IC and hunt out RP).It also blurs the lines of who is and isn't available for RP. If someone is connected and sitting in the OOC room, are they available for RP, or just chatting? If I page them, will they be down for doing something?

First, I want to applaud you for severely limiting spheres. It's not a popular move, but I think it's a good one.

Now, I took a stab at Reno several times in the past. It was always a particularly inactive game with most characters idling in rooms and little RP to be found easily on grid. What are you guys doing different this time to encourage a different game atmosphere?

@BobGoblin You have some good points here. Lack of activity is a killer for MUs. I don't care how many characters you have connected, if I can't actively find RP, you're MU isn't active. I also think you hit on the heart of the matter when you say, "I've grown bored with games where I lounge RP around waiting for a staffer to maybe run something"

I think this is largely because players do not have easy access to plot. In many cases, they may not even know what plots are happening on the game. You need to have an easy way for players to see what's going on and to get involved in it. I love Arx's +plot system as a basis for this. Arx has several other commands that give players easy ways to get involved with and interact with plot that are also worth looking at.

Conversely, if you depend on Storyteller driven plot only, there will come a day when things grind to a halt, and return to what you're discussing above. Relying on ST-driven plot is inherently unsustaiable. The plot needs to derive from the game itself and have conflict as part of the system. Your game needs a way for players to drive their own plot, so that it bubbles upwards from the bottom and is not always imposed topdown. For example, coded blood scarcity on a Vampire game can give players something to spin their wheels over while waiting for the next plot action.

I do not believe that a module-plot system will resolve the issues you're talking about, because in the end, the players are still waiting around for someone else to do a thing.

A few other things:
1 - MUs do not give people reasons to interact. When designing a game, I think you have to think hard about what you're doing to push players towards each other and how they will find each other. Downtime costs, unique roles, factions, territory disputes, etc. All play into this.

2 - Games are designed in such a way that discourages activity. OOC Rooms, while popular, incentivize sitting OOC, by making social interaction available while doing so. They also disincentivize going IC, because doing so means players miss out on essential community building and social interactions. Chatting OOC is very important to your game, but don't let it get in the way of RP. Allowing people to make more alts than they can keep moderately active fills +who and +where with characters sitting idle and obscures where RP is to be found. This creates a culture of sitting idle, even among players with only 1 or 2 alts. Allowing players to accrue too much XP creates a game where a character can feasibly do all the things themselves and doesn't need to go to other characters. Limiting XP encourages specialization and keeps dinosaurs from souring the game for new players.

It occurred to me today, not for the first time, that I tend to get antsy when a scene lasts longer than 2 1/2 hours.

When you think about it, this makes sense. I have about three hours after getting settled in for the morning and before having to do lunch. Ditto for the afternoon and in the evening after supper. When a scene hits three hours, I start to think, 'I'm hungry,' or 'I need to go to the store.'

You also generally need about two hours to get into any real meat and then see some sort of resolution. If a scene is much shorter than that, you'll probably just end up spinning wheels.

In general, I also just loose attention when something goes longer than three hours, even if there's nothing pulling on my attention. I dislike sitting that long, it gets uncomfortable. I want to get up and go be in a different room doing something else.

Now obviously, there are factors that affect this. If a scene is really engaging or if I know and plan ahead of time for something to take really long, I can stretch out my attention longer. Likewise, if the scene is kinda a dud, or if something else is pulling at my attention, I don't last nearly as long. Also, sometimes things can be resolved more quickly or may take longer to discuss, but in general, give me about 2 1/2 hours of RP and I'll be satisfied.

So, question to you all: Do you have an ideal length of time when it comes to scenes?

So, I think the appeal of the game was:
1 - Modern Setting, which makes it feel very different from Arx and there aren't that many other modern games out there. The ones that have launched in the past year tend to be focused on horror themes, which is very niche, and then narrow that niche even more, with the exception of Calavaras which seems (from an outsiders perspective) to have a very broad theme with a sandboxy feel.
2 - Fantasy elements, even if Magic isn't a big thing now, it will be.
3 - A clear narrative arc, which made it easy for players to imagine characters for this world. More games need narrative arcs!
4 - Non-fiddly game play/theme. Yes, Arx is the big player out there right now, and it has a ton of meat in the mechanics department for people to dig into, but I think a lot of people were waiting for something more streamlined. Similar to WoD: Tons of meat themewise on those bones, but do players really want to dig through hard to read books just so they don't look like a clueless idiot in game?

To sum up, Spirit Lake has broad appeal without seeming flat at a time when people are looking for games with broad appeal. It also launched at a time when there were few similar alternatives, and nothing clearly on the horizon.

@Tat You had me at slow-paced.

I've been wanting to play a char that owns a scrap yard for a while. This seems like the place to do it.

Late 20s/Early 30-something who left for college, then came back to help the parents out in their scrap yard. Family was big into spiritualism, questionable natural healing methods, etc. Of course, she never believed that all until, you know, now.

Hit me up if you want a connection?

Don't view them as cataracts. View them as free lasik.

When you notice that you made a typo in an email ... several back and forths later.

I'm working on a single sphere vamp/mortal game set in the Caribbean. I recently converted all my docs to V5, which I kinda love, and then fiddled with the V5 systems to be more inclusive for mortals (since I want the game to be mortal heavy).

I'm currently:

• working out how to integrate a system of mortal thaumaturgy/spell casting in with the V5 stuff, since that's kinda integral to the plot.
• and Mapping out the grid.

Other than that, I'm ready to begin coding and had kind of set aside my extra time over Christmas to poke around with Evennia, since the documentation there is enough that I've about convinced myself that even knowing nothing about setting up a game, I can make it work.

However, if there's anyone out there willing to hold my hand through the coding process, it will certainly make for a better game and get the game up off the ground quicker.

@tinuviel said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:

Oh hey. I have yet another one! I'm having a good week.

I teach history. How the fuck do you expect me to "keep politics out of the classroom" when political thinking and political goals are an integral part of studying history? And why is it only "politics" when it's the kind you disagree with?

As a former history teacher ...
Oooh, dish, what were you teaching??

(Also, a reminder for you to give a general heads up to any administrators/union reps/etc. just in case things escalate)

Posted in the wrong place, sorry for the double!

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.

@tempest said in Constructive (keyword) Criticism of Arx Systems:

@meg
Why does a game like Arx not have more system guides?

Nobody really tells you how to /use/ any of the systems. Sure, they'll tell you "enter this command, and then do this, and you get X". Nobody is telling you 'oh yeah, you need to do x, y, and z, to actually get much out of doing this thing', even though most of the not-new players know that stuff.

I don't know if it's because the game is "competitive" or what, but people seem incredibly inclined towards keeping the 'tricks' they learn about the systems to themselves, and the only way to learn these things as a new player is "just go run face first into the wall 20 times until you figure it out".

Yup, this is one of my beefs with Arx. The systems are so complex and so indepth that unless you're willing to devote a ton of time into figuring them out, you'll always be outgamed by a person who has the time to do all the math and figure all the things out. It's like playing a game like Axis and Allies, it's not for you if you just want a casual play.

I recently made a very, very low-level char, just to poke around again and see what's going on here for a bit. RP has been fun, but I did ask around for help with understanding the new market/haggle systems. I got, "Look at Help haggle and help broker." Yup, I see those they tell me ... nothing. They tell me nothing. Since I'm trying not to get dragged into the ultra competitive, negative/toxic side of Arx, I just shrugged and went on my way. Someday, I'll be bored enough that I sit down and work out how those commands go.

Which brings me to the other thing that keeps me from ever fully committing to Arx again - the general atmosphere. It's not healthy. Just look over at the other threads. I think a lot of this is due to competitiveness and I think the game would overall benefit from tamping down on the number of scoreboards it keeps and making it easier for individual players to do and access things without having to go through gatekeepers.

I'm basing the latter on the comments in the other thread about HoHs being bogged down in messages and work RP. That's not healthy for anyone involved. It's not healthy for HoH's to have to do stuff instead of pursuing their own RP and it's not healthy for members of Orgs to have to go through a third party to get what they want. A lot of it is due to having a hierarchical social structure, and a lot of people want the political play, I guess, but I also think it's contributing to a lot of the feelings of frustration and resentment, which there obviously are.

Has ReplyAll been brought up? I mean, as internet nerds, that's kind of a must for us.

It's time for my yearly "I think maybe I can handle Arx now" attempt.

I'm debating trying again, but if I do, I would prefer to app into with atleast some people I already know and enjoy RPing with. I think this might help me segment monster game into something more manigeable. If you fall into that category and are on Arx, hit me up.

I second what people have said about using downtime/action points to allow people to note what their characters are doing off screen that are important.

I also want to add a magic system that is robust, but maybe, just maybe, a bit less difficult to wrap one's mind around than Mage. Maybe a focus on individual spells?

Finally, I would really like to see more games adopt/modify Arx's +plot and +clue systems. I think these really add to the RP experience.

Adding:
"I'll let you know if I have any questions."

Leave me the F* alone.