Just to throw it out here.
A remix of Into the Spiderverse. Crossing dimensions doesn't infect anyone with some degenerative disorder that kills folks who go out of their native dimensions for too long and everyone is an OC spider-person concept with some deviation of the spider bite story, some other family member killed, and other little twists to the backstory outside of various recreations and what-ifs from the main comic line.
@misterboring We agree to disagree. The vocal majority that recently left wasn't the vocal majority when they started here. They were a minority that got some changes to take place. They changes didn't favor them now.
@Selira The thing is, no clique drove anyone away, it was bad acting under some conduct they help get in place a few years ago.
@Rinel said in What Types of Games Would People Like To See?:
You'd think they'd have figured out Azeroth probably needs a united force to defend it by now
Then they'd have to call it World of Peacefulness, which is trademarked by the races of Nozeroth who've yet to release product but are adamant about keeping the rights to their world theme.
So, next month Wild Cards is like official Marvel now? I don't know how to take this news. I like the stories, would be good to see some in graphic format. It'll probably mostly be stories the readers of the series are already familiar with, to start at least.
For me thoguh, I am wondering how this play's into the Mu's now. I've always wanted to see a Wild Cards Mu*, or something based on the idea - an alternative sort of year 0/ year1 telling of comics from some trigger event that turns folks into powered people (I tried it but failed at it).
Does this mean in themes that focus on marvel or marvel/dc crossover areas, we'll get some of the Wild Cards showing up now as PCs; Jetboy or the Great and Powerful Turtle. New takes on old paragon ideas that did will in the literary medium? The Jokers could be new interesting twists, no powers and a curse and folks playing off that somehow. I'm not sure how I feel about it but I've never been into the places that include any canon source from DC/Marval and images to other comics and manga brands.
On the side, I am upset cause now George RR is spending more time away from finishing Winds of Winter; one more thing to keep his attention from doing his writing assignment!
@Ganymede said in What Types of Games Would People Like To See?:
@secretfire said in What Types of Games Would People Like To See?:
I still kinda want to see a Lords and Ladies style game that's either High Fantasy or High Sci-Fi, with plenty of plotting and intrigue.
This is the niche where Fifth Kingdom fit, and is sorely missed.
I still have the DB and could bring it back up, but I'd need some help. There is a pretty big underlying political element (why the setting was chosen) that is more convince your fellow players not something coded in. No one made a move, but theoretically a player should be able to move to the top, I was more focused on the other Fifths and them wanting to stomp the PC Fifth.
@Lisse24 said in What Types of Games Would People Like To See?:
I very much want a game that really emphasizes the relationships between characters and makes them meaningful.
This is to share experience/idea/etc, I generally try to avoid anything involved saying anything conceptual on a Mu I've worked on is good or should be used or anything of that nature. That is, I don't like to say, this is what I did on that game and why its cool.
Only because its relevant and anyone working on such a model may benefit or not if they want. When my co-head and I sat down to work on Fifth Kingdom, our focus was on how to we get to character driven story and development.
Tucked into news files on game and on wiki:
***=NSFW content***
Instead of focusing on houses in an L&L game, we worked on a model of the king's castle and his officers as the focus of play. They were both their houses required service to the king and their token in the politics of the realm. House advancement was on the side, probably as much hidden as our aim at personal stories over strategy/dominion building; but folks could have worked hard to overthrow the king and run our player realm if they were inclined. @Ganymede was beginning to plot that way.
We've dusted it off and are looking at it, with a stronger emphasis on the Court of the High King again, with more structure in place and more guidelines on how to advance. We originally had five main staff that organized other staff, we're being more open in that these are and should be run like traditional orgs (for WoD, clans under a prince), just trying to help give it player thrust in control and guidance versus staff hand. We're looking if reputation via vote/request would work more if way more emphasis is placed on it, such as needing it to get to control positions instead of apping in, then letting players run the orgs/areas of influence under high level court officers.
Which, in the end, I want this too, player driven story/emphasis/etc.
I would be very interested in other various models related to how to drive player driven story and character development to the front as we look at tweaking our king's officers/court model. And just in general curiousity, I agree, MU is good for this, I would actually like to see it more than another diced simulat/strategy/points game system.
@krmbm said in Welcome to the Euphoria!:
Going to recommend the Ares forum. @faraday is super-cool about helping.
Go to the discord too, a lot of folks have delved the elements of css and may already know what just what to do in the custom css. ETA: Ares discord that is.
@Macha said in What Types of Games Would People Like To See?:
How about a game where everyone is treated with respect? That would be a nice change.
Once we find the real world model of this we can duplicate it into a game...
@Lemon-Fox said in Spitballing for a supers Mush:
@Mr-Johnson said in Spitballing for a supers Mush:
The problem we run into with any OC server is that people will STILL app Tony, STILL app Batman. Sure they'll hide them a bit
Who cares? I'd love to see people make their own version of Iron Man or Emma Frost or whoever.
My pref is OC, I'm over multiverse or canon or all comics welcome or whatever.
I'd much rather see OC server and Iron Mike being an OC in an iron suit the say, someone changing Iron Man or Steel into something they want. On the OC places I ran, I was always excited when someone took iron suit and made it something new and unique, not Iron Man and changing it to be radically different but same name.
Two quick things when moving towards full on Mu; Purpose, Elevator Pitch.
Purpose, or mission statement, a quick sentence stating your purpose in the whole endeavor. Create a fast paced game that engages people even when RP can't be found, Create a safe place for players to tell stories through their characters, etc.
Elevator Pitch is just like a 4'ish sentence paragraph that embodies the essence of game and theme together.
X-Game is a game of intrigue, where orcs and elves play a cold-wars style game of intrigue while magic builds up like nuclear weapons. X-Game is a fantasy game modelled after late 19th century technologies that are fueled by magic. Players can advance their magical tech, conduct missions of espionage, join secret societies, etc.
The five W's might help you get to those ideas, but purpose and pitch are things you can look back to as you go and consider, does this thing I'm adding contribute to these ideas.
@faraday said in Web portals and scenes and grids oh my!:
@Lotherio said in Web portals and scenes and grids oh my!:
Would could help Ares is removing these from that list, so synchronous players get a picture of what is actually synchronous activity?
Then you're relegating asynch RP to a second-class citizen, implying that those kinds of scenes don't "count" because they're not "active".
This is already how it feels on Ares games for synchronous players when they see a place that is heavy on private scenes, scenes that have been playing for weeks and such. It feels like traditional synchronous play is 2nd class citizen. I'm not opposed to Asynchronous, I'm glad its on the game itself versus having to like to go google docs.
@faraday This just further alienates me by saying I'm wrong in feeling put off by seeing lots of private scenes.
This all sounds good to me. Wish I liked modern dark fantasy horror a little more.
The eavesdropping seems closer to the old places mutter code, where snippets sent to the room. While it could be abused as noted, it is fun when used appropriately. I remember times trying to relay some info and being upset with what the system relayed and it not being exciting enough for drama/ rumors. It sounds like it could be fun.
@runescryer said in Star Wars?:
go with D6 instead of Saga
Dahan's D6 is available and easy to use. I think some of the others utilized the Dahan Skill System, but the code for D6 is still out there. http://download.pennmush.org/MUSHcode/ in here with other options, including the org manager system.
ETA: Its offered standard SW D6, but is configurable as Open D6, used this at The Rise recently.
@faraday said in Alternative Formats to MU:
Also? Think about every game you've been on in the last 10 years. How often do they allow players to create substantial custom systems/objects? How often does anyone take advantage of that ability? How often does the code change appreciably after the beta period?
Everything does seem locked down completely of late, seems its been growing far longer than 10 years too. I think in part as the lockdowns started happening in the late 90s, with good reason (all the damn dark puppets and spying), it just continued to spread to all sorts of themes.
I, personally, would love the ability for players to be able to add to the game, even if just rooms, or an object that alters the desc if they want. And yes, if you played on Fifth Kingdom over the summer, you had a quota of 20 (alas, no one checks their build quota or knows about it is my guess). Its being lost, I just think we're moving away from MU and into something newer. Updates are fine, but I think it deserves an updated name too to distinguish it from archaic MU. I miss it, but that is truly dino philosophy and I can accept it in favor of the new.
Over the summer, I watched as my daughters were introduced to Mafia (Werewolf) and fell in love with it. I know some folks enjoy the psychological aspects of the game (not knowing the 'enemy' or the sustainability of lying to avoid detection by the 'bad' side); but I noticed it was more the storytelling aspect that really drew them in. The addition of the game runner telling the story of something happening based on the mechanics really drew them in.
So, I sat down to ponder how to use some diceless mechanics over the summer months to emulate the social games such as Mafia or Diplomacy; funny enough, its been showing up in a few threads of late I noticed too, not related to MU*ing but its been showing up.
I also revisited a few diceless games, old and new, and settled on PACE.
In a nutshell, players take a 'fail' to gain points to use on 'successes' later. Deciding to take a fail leads to the RP and how they fail or what they do to fail to gain the points that they use later in the action parts. Simple balance mechanics. A few tweeks to emulate the GM pool of points for players to gain, putting it into the hands of players for self motivated PrP, or simple environmental challenges or NPCs. Coupled with a system of team/faction competition as a way to spend the points to gain achievements in theme; which goes right back to Mafia and Diplomacy. A social, interactive game, where one basically needs to convince others to let them fail or gain points somehow in which they then spend to gain those achievements.
At the heart of it, I'm a bit gamed out and am looking to put the 'socially interactive' and 'storytelling' back into MUSH. I enjoy mechanics and game play, I even still play MUDs from time to time.
In talking with another and describing this system, which includes optional buy-in for dice rolls for individual conflicts, it boiled down to social fluff games only for them. I wanted to poll for opinions and thoughts for this concept here.
Is a social interactive diceless style game of balances (fails during RP to get points to spend on wins in other situations) anything worth pursuing or a waste of my time?
I'm in the opt in/out group.
As for Joe jumping into a public room with Bob and Mary, then posing without knowing what's going on is more on Joe than the code though. I mean, that its not raining or not could be the less vital part, if Bob is bleeding out after a gang fight in the middle of the street and Mary is an EMT trying to resuscitate him. Its half as much on Joe to say, what's going on as it is for Bob or Mary to say I'll include a scene set in my pose for you Joe. Before other comments arise, I am in the group that public room = open to any who show up, especially if there are locations to go if Bob and Mary want to play the near death experience scene without interruption.
Just that the coming to a room and posing in without some pretext is more the issue than ambiance/weather/day/night code with the example.
Removed. Just for everyone information. That's the tour map of Stourhead, a massive estate that is one of the many holdings of the National Trust. They are pretty liberal with copyright on many of their own digital images and artworks held by the trust. They clearly indicate on those images most likely to be republished what is copyrighted or public domain. They do have an entire site dedicated to images from their holdings with many of the images cleared for reuse with property and model releases while being clear if other copyright issues may apply (such as images on loan from private holders). They have bigger fish to fry I imagine than the tour map of Stourhead
My use is intended as derivative with no intent to infringe upon any profit if the tour map is copyright protected. In fact, I'd highly recommend folks visit Stourhead, they do have rooms and cottages available on the premise at pretty decent rates (all things considered, staying at a national heritage site). Those folks that played my short lived Pendragon Mu, Stourhead is near the source of the River Wyle which ran near Salisbury. Its in the neck of the woods Morgan le Fay has retreated to (so to speak). Its an awesome Palladian home and estate (18th Century).
I've removed it, that way no one has to be concerned with legality of it.
Technology isn't the issue, @ThatGuyThere noted it, it can help/hinder, but really its the players; players and admin alike?
I think that's what I was after. There are tons of places for immediate on-line text based RP. IRC places, IRC like places hidden as places for RP. Chatzy, Omeagle, Roleplay.me, RP Nation. In the three to four day spectrum, there are a lot of forums with way more players already, RPoL, RP Nation, etc. All with more players with more immediacy of getting RP.
People start on those places and go to messengers on site and off.
What is updating MU really doing to bring them into the fold. Its not the technology, its the admin I think - Arx uses Evennia and the web portal, but I'm more certain its the combination of the admin there helping to bridge the gap into learning to MU.
I honestly want to know, what are 'we' doing better that will lure the numerous on-line RP'ers from those places to MU. And inversely, what is it we're gaining by taking the limited number of MU'ers and trying to get them into a new environments? I think that's a design 101 idea, purpose to provide direction?
It goes back to what OP was asking, what other forms are out there were a persistent game can exist? I think on the options for on-line RP (Chatzy and talkers to forums like RPoL) persistence of world without a hundred other games competing for attention is a draw certainly, but can't it be done on a site using chat windows dedicated to a sites persistent world were logs could be stored with simple clicks, or character data stored.
Multi tabs in one window, one is the IRC, the second shows char info, the third a clickable map to get around the 'grid' which is just rooms to RP in that can be locked to X number of users for events as needed? I think this is all stuff already out there without re-inventing the wheel?
As noted by someone else, the other places have draw backs.
Some places have too much RP. Forums where people expect 5+ paragraphs of pose (miss the '90s when pose bombs to take up someone's buffer was like some weird competition?), which needs to use forum cause partners walk away and come back when they have time read all and pose.
Or not enough literacy. IRC with too many trolls or dealing with txt'ng sp3k3 or too many one-liners that is supposed to be RP and we, MU'ers only, prefer a little more in our immediacy of RP.
In some ways I feel the barrier to entry was what sort of what got us at least near in terms of preference of play as MU'ers with each other somehow? I don't know though. Literally, that one barrier: read the text on the screen. From 'create guest' and 'type 'help' for help', one can learn everything right there by just taking a couple minutes to read. Does everyone but us have short attention spans and won't read the text or skim it or tl;dr tell me how to play now please? Are we trying to take out a lot of the reading part to learn to play to draw in better writers?
I don't know, just food for thought maybe, I'm probably way off base, and still bad at articulating. I love Ares and Evennia; of late, I would give kudos specifically to Arx for their ability (not Evennia, but the admin of Arx) to draw in and retain new players. Of places I've seen where people say I'm new to MU*ing, Arx was their gateway drug, so yes, something new is needed to breath more life in, I don't disagree.
Sorry for so much spam.
@faraday said in New MUSH 'Game' Mechanics:
All of those numbers need to be balanced of course - they were just a first draft. But I do find the idea of making skill performance less variable appealing.
That is useful @faraday, and FS3 always had that feel of some roots in Fudge to me.
Going right here to skills less variable. Is that a bad thing? The PACE system limit is the two descriptive words. Max is 7 points split between them. Shouldn't 6 win more than 4? The only requirement is negotiating with other player to have those points to spend (stemming from my initial interest of games like Mafia and Diplomacy which are fun, story driven, but oocly dependent on player to player interaction and collaboration vs numbers, stats, and randomizing effects). Through rp fail to gain points to spend on success is the basis. My biggest question/concern is, does it matter if two players just oocly transfer there vote points directly, do it in silly fails, or do it in combat fails? In the end the 6 should beat the 4 most of the time. There are ways to monitor as noted, from distinguishing PrP points vs GM points or auto loggers. But in the end social fluff vs combat fluff vs OOCly working the system, does the difference limit new player buy-in to such a system? Weighting the system to social vs combat vs GM involvement is tweeks that add complexity but gets away from simplicity of the initial concept too? Or does it?