Best posts made by Lotherio

@faraday said in Earning stuff:

If you apply that ratio to a MUSH though, assuming somebody plays 3 nights a week (which is pretty typical for an active player), you're talking about one action-oriented hero plot per month. That doesn't seem like a terribly unreasonable expectation for an individual player, and it's eminently do-able if you have a setting/character/player-staff-ratio that supports it. It's not practical everywhere, though, which is a problem if people expect it.

This right here, yes. When I'm playing, I would be completely happy with one action/hero/do-something session/plot per month and I play up to five days a week. I might like it played out with clues along the way, but the equivalent of one session a month would be plenty for me.

And for me, I prefer the option to do that one thing a month as a PrP, even if I'm running it for others. With less hoops to jump through. Its been pointed out this isn't the norm and there is an expectation on all action to be provided by staff. I'm weird that way, having mostly played US daytime when most places have zero staff or work idle staff that are only there to help players if needed not run things for players.

@Bananerz Thank you very much, its appreciated, its a great map.

@arkandel said in Alternative Formats to MU:

@rook said in Alternative Formats to MU:

@Arkandel
I just don't see the difference between typing things out and filling out a webform, when it comes to making a MUSH character, other than the UI. You still have to write up a description, you have to select all the nibbly bits of Stats, Attributes, Powers, Weapons, Merits, blah blah blah...

But the UI is a tremendously important part of the exercise. Imagine if, in order to use Google Maps, instead of typing in an address (and being presented with potential matches you can just click on) shown on a map, you had to type in a long command, then manually grep through the text-only addresses to find the one you want, then having to paste the one into a second command to actually start being navigated there... in text, rather than being shown the roads.

Different experiences.

If you want to find an asteroid as part of some personal agenda as an amateur astronomy, guess what, you're best bet to locate it is telnet via the HORIZON system. You can google where the planets are right now. HORIZON has web interface, but it just isn't as advanced or useful as telnet'ing into the system. Astronomers aren't trying to update it, the tool still works and its easy to learn through the HTML/PDF documentation. If you don't know the math, it will look greek to you. If you're interested in astronomy, surprise, you'll learn it on your own.

I use google maps, but I like travelling on back roads, a lot. Like dirt roads, county roads, etc. I'll use google maps to get to another city and such, I love the interface of my phone tracking me and offering groupons in other cities, or google suggesting I review the restaurant I'm in and snag a picture and all. But if I'm really exploring about, I still pick up the current year atlas for any state/location I'm visiting just to be safe.

Edit: New systems are great, I know there is also a drive to work through SQL on the backend to coordinate between soft code in the system, altering the hard code from in the system, and utilizing that for web interface. It all sounds great, and I'm looking forward to what may come. I look forward to what's to come, but yeah, still that social barrier of 'meh' too much text to read, or 'too many commands to learn'

As for telnet and too many commands to learn, I don't think that holds ground. Look at minecraft, finding servers; you have to put your telnet address and port into a client (the launcher). You want a 'safe' environment, you have to go through a white list (ie, giving your telnet addie and port to host admin to be allowed through the ports). Many people learn this through minecraft, its not archaic yet.

@faraday said in New MUSH 'Game' Mechanics:

The PACE system limit is the two descriptive words.

If simple and fast is your goal, that's great. I'm not knocking it, it's just not my personal taste.

This I'm good with, fast and simple, and it won't suit everyone's taste.

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?

It matters to me. It feels like unfairly gaming the system and going against the spirit of what you're trying to accomplish. If the idea is to reward failures by increasing the success on meaningful rolls, it should reward failures that matter, not "ha ha I tripped and spilled my drink, go me." But that's just IMHO. YMMV obviously.

Exactly what I'm after, opinions. This doesn't change fast and simple above. This does change buy-in and validation more broadly I feel. And the suggestions above to manage this vs free for all points grabbing is something to consider more so. As noted by @Seraphim73 it's only a minor shift in points tracking.

Another more direct solution is using the shown fail to stimulate rp. The gossip that remains can only be removed by valid point spent successses vs time to wear off; lose in a fight to win a fight later, social faux pas only is removed after equivalent social win. Already planning to track the fails already, not much more to making a win/loss sheet, easier to balance the ledger. Balance of win and loss is at the meat of the simplicity ... Or the everyone gets a turn to sparkle philosophy that most systemless places aim for.

@warma-sheen said in Plot session duration:

TD;DR: Emotions are more complicated than violence. Violence is easier to codify.

I still wonder if a socially based MUSH could be viable (like Diplomacy board game or Mafia/Werewolf social/party game). Simpy because of this, complicated and some way to break it down to the psychology of it. As much as folks want it, I don't think dice will ever be a good replacement for role-playing out social situations including politics. If there was a MUSH that used dice for that too, what then is the point of even role-playing? Throw some dice then pose the results, 'ugh I was brainwashed into voting for other party candidate, my life sucks'?

The character is Luke. Dang, I thought they were at GH, now I'm curious.

@Ghost said in MSB Peeves:

Sadly, the amount of time I lived in Nebraska is now less than the amount of time I have lived in <REDACTED BOILY AS FUCK SW AMERICAN STATE>. This leads me to question if I still qualify as a Midwesterner.

It's over after this, we in Nebraska are gonna sign the separation papers after you questioned it.

I"m in the boat, camping is a problem. Whether you're on 'Any character ever is welcome' the Comic Mu or the X-Men Blue and Gold that only allows Blue and Gold FCs from ancient times, someone is going to camp on Rogue and someone else is going to camp on Gambit. No matter how many rules and safeguards are in place, they'll figure out how much they can camp (TS) while meeting minimum requirements.

But, an appeal to reason, Comic Mu*s are one of those last places that can still be played, generally, as open sandbox (have fun, fight enemies, don't blow up the walls without staff approval because we don't want to lose the sand). Lets not try to tuck them into the fold of police staff states, more code to control things like monitoring activity more and more, or relying on player favoritism of who plays who; I mean voting, which isn't much different than staff friend pretendy fun time.

Really, please, if a place sucks and is police state or whatever, please, open a new place. You can get space on the cheap, I know of at least two boxes that remain free if you ask the owner for space. Codewise, you can find all the old standard global that every place has on github or Mushcode.com or from others if you just ask nicely (BBS, CRON system, player request/staff jobs, misc global (+who/+where/finger code). Not to call her out or drag her in, @Faraday has, just prior to AresMUSH go-live, consolidated a lot of standard global features and add-ons that players have come to expect and enjoy all in one location as a Softcode Core.

The appeal continued, dislike a game for staff or staff implementation of some system or whatever, but I really want to see some return to a flourish of options for places to play rather than one basic standard for each genre (ie, this is the one place for oWoD, this is the one place for nWoD, this is the place for Supers, this is the one place for L&L). We can determine if staff is good or bad, they can even learn from mistakes and become good, or continually be bad and called out for it. But I don't want to see advocacy for just more lock down and state control.

The players don't order the state, its not Nazi Germany, they are free to leave, and there is room for other states. We're not in some closed society here. Ref: Hitler propoganda: The state does not order us, we order the state.

I’ll break silence as one of the few voices that would support something similar to this.

As its presented:

1. a) (interested) yes, b) (useful) no (there are a few social MU*s out there that offer something similar already)
2. No, people will not more or less handle themselves especially with little active administration. Most will, yes, but administration is needed for the rare bad apples. It might only be a very miniscule percentage, but without administration there will be creepers.
3. Sans few extra features, does codebase really matter other than preference of whoever it is that is elected to do codewiz stuff?

As presented, it will just look like MUSH or PUGGY or other regular social mu*s. Which generally has the same 8-16 people across the spectrum, thus making it humorous when one of them mavs the wrong window but half the people know what’s being said cause they’re in the other window too. Gateway(ORG) is set up this way (free sandbox rp, light admin, not heavily code reliant) and without the right leadership (admin or any for that matter) its up to players. And from the responses so for, that would be status quo; most folks that sandbox/freeform do so already with people they know and trust even at these places (or in other mediums).

I do support the idea, place to easily sandbox. But it needs a friendly community and to ensure community it needs some active administration to make it a community and some purpose beyond a place to sandbox would help give it direction.

Something like:

1. like some place to help new players to MU*ing in general
2. to help folks who enjoy the story telling side over the gaming side
3. to help some folks make friends who don’t yet have such a ready database of friends to draw on if they do want to freeform
4. for folks who like the gaming side it could be a place to help learn systems in a friendly environment without worry of some eventually ooc comments/snicker/whatever about being a noob
5. a place to advertise/track live games (in conjunction with the wiki you’re proposing)

A friendly place that could allow open sandbox RP could be good and beneficial, I’d be interested in contributing even. But it would take more thought on direction and purpose. But a loosely administered free-for-all could end up a train wreck, or it will just be as sparsely populated/active as all the similar attempts before it have ended up.

I haven't heard from the Texans yet that I know post around here, hope they're doing well.

I know power and water are slowly returning. Folks that way are hitting a big issue with the pipes (no basements, freezes, and breaks, faster in crawl spaces); not simply in fixing them either but for those that know what to do, stores are running out of plumbing supplies pretty quickly too.

If anyone has links to fund raising sites for plumbers (Habitat for Humanity like groups helping folks out) or money for supplies for self doers, that might be good to share. Or any other needs, food/water other supplies in general, posting those might send a few donors that way.

@Ghost said in MSB Peeves:

Runza

Almost time for temperature Tuesday's.

@faraday said in FCs on Comic MUs:

Heh, that's been around for close to ten years.

I'm old, Sweetwater Crossing feels like yesterday; but that in itself is like half a decade+ ago. Old age is settling in ...

@faraday said in Saving Pages to the Database:

What I'm really asking is whether the illusion of private pages is important enough to players that they would not want to play on a game that was explicit about the fact that they're saved to the database.

@ZombieGenesis said in Saving Pages to the Database:

I'd be all for it. Anything nasty I have to say about a game I say to people via some other messenger service anyway.

@Ghost said in Saving Pages to the Database:

You take it on faith that staff, who you may or may not know, aren't reading pages, invisible and watching you TS, or saving your conversations with personal info. You resign to I'll...raise hell on MSB if I find out, but ultimately it's about faith and ignoring the negative/risks for the benefit.

I think these all sum it up for me. Late to the tea party as usual. I've seen a few similar such discussions on MUSH when talking about administrating a penn game and actually using the suspect/monitor flags. It's about the ethics more than anything else. Because staff can do some of that doesn't mean they should. Really there's no recourse other than broken trust if staff are found out. Secondary to that, I'm in the boat if I want to throw shade at staff, I do it off site.

I think as long as its explicit, pages are recorded, I'd play on the game, and yes, the others already have it as an optional switch staff can flip anytime they like (monitoring pages). I don't think its going to create any measurable loss of players who would play with that fact expressed. Staff can set up policy on the why/how they would check pages and if it comes out there was something shady, players can raise the mistrust by telling friends about staff or posting here, etc.

Its coming to my attention that there are a lot of rumors flying around about me and on-line dating and having a history of making games and dumping them and starting staff OOC drama.

You have me confused with other people and I keep having to explain myself to multiple people, many of them long time friends who hear these rumors now and raise an eyebrow at me. Please stop.

For a record of my staffing:

Current:

• Coral Springs, ongoing since the close of Realms.

Past:

• Realms Adventurous: Admin/Head, 4 months, Dec 2015-Mar 2016. An experiment and was pretty up front that it was a try at Pendragon in Mu* format. Couldn't continue the experiment, too much OOC drama coming to staff, asking us to fix relations between the players.
• Marvel Untold/Age of Heros: 2 ~2012-~2014, off and on, I help with their wiki, I advise currently for their new incarnation, Marvel Reborn
• Strife in the Age of Steam: 2013 or 2014? short lived steampunk project, only had 3 active players at its ends, and I as head was idle due to work related audits, host closed the server as no one was logging in a month later (I came back four weeks after being gone, hoping to try and relaunch it and boost activity finally, the 3 players left already)
• Faction Head: Redemption., Mid to late 1st decade 2ks Redemption, Czeryn Faction - developed the faction theme from scratch with the three admin. I was not staff, had no relationships with staff (other than knowing one from Dragonlance Mux, and a slight knowing of Paradox from her staff time on the original Shadowrun Mu* (seattle, before Denver as even used in the 3rd ed). I started no drama with staff here, if this is the confusion that people are saying , this place died for other reasons. See the history of Crossroads for a fuller history, part of the falling out there came with staff.
• Judge: Star Wars 1: ~2002-2004'ish?
• Agent Thunder: ~1999-~2001? Erebus Sector - a cross between an old 80s game called Erebus Expanse and Star Wars
  End of line - that's all my experience staffing

If you think I'm someone/staff from some other medieval game or something, by all means ask. But the above list is my history of staffing. I learned coding from the early days of Mus when everyone was given a quota and expected to contribute to the growth of a Mu, not from staffing at lots of places. I started on Star Trek: TOS in the days when a Mu* was seen as an educational environment and they used to bring on actors from TOS for fan Q&A, I was around for George Takei and Leonard Nimoy's visit to the games.

Whoever you have me confused with, I don't know, but please stop slandering me.

I agree there is probably not one answer to the question.

I think part of the inherent root, as folks have pointed out in other ways for years, is that the basis of MU arises from TT RPG and in the small group environment success is generally rewarded more often than failure.

There are quite a few RP'ers out there though that see it the way I do, failure is often a chance for more story and development. This more often arises out of PrP when we ST for each other over events and big things Mu-wide. But we go to get the goods, it comes down to a couple rolls, we succeed and the day is done. We tend to forget about those times, its when we fail and have to recoup, regroup and find another solution that more story is created. This is cultivated rather than assumed by most though. Those of us who do this on Mu also have done this on TT.

I freeform my campaigns as a GM/DM. A lot of other campaigns more and more seem to take a prescribed route, the group has to deiscover the evil demons are taking over the world and eventually stop this, its the overall meta amidst which all the other adventures and sessions evolve with an end point in site. I see a lot of folks prefer this for a Mu* as well. But in my campaigns, the group is prevented with various ideas and mysteries to explore and they choose what they want. I've briefly mentioned it before but long ago during an Al-Qadim campaign I saw a random encounter suggested somewhere of 'PCs find a golden feather' and I included that while they were traversing the desert to cut time between two cities. One character took the feather and wanted to explore it and this developed into the feather belonging to a swanmay sort of being that was a member of the Court of Birds, they decided they liked the swanmay and courting ensued and they traveled to meet the Sultan of Birds the char expressed their intentions they received some crazy quest to prove themselves to the court of birds which involved a challenge that could easily be solved by flying at a time no PCs had access to flying magics (easily at least). I think they spent six months traipsing about this part of the desert in RL time (24 campaign session give or take). Most of it stemmed from series of 'lost' resolutions and figuring out how to overcome and get what they wanted for the character.

Incentivizing a loss to me is rewarded by the extension/creation of story and the development of the char. I think if this could easily be made incentive it would help. More XP to represent off-camera development to overcome the failure, more story time dealing with the loss, then that would help but ...

Folks have in the past pointed out that the incentive for failure would be a lure for folks seeking mechanical advantage, if there is a reward for failing more folks will choose to fail rather than win. I brought up once a different sort of MU based on PACE rpg by Evil Hat (which was free from their site once upon a time). I don't know the name for this genre/type of RPG system but it was based on the karma pool concepts that have floated around in various incarnations. Basically there is good/player pool and evil/GM pool, if a player needs extra successes to succeed they can take from the player pool, add it on their challenge, but this moves it to the GM pool that can be used to help NPCs rolls, bring some bad karma to the group, and other misfortune. I proposed that two players in conflict could also dice/face off, but the player that loses gets a karma point. The issue became that if created so players can do their own stories, some players would milk the system and do duels with each other so one looses to gain karma points.

I guess it comes down to culture, I think it failure is an incentive of its own as a player because I tend to have more memories and create more stories out of it. I think to help it could be incentivized in some fashion but I don't know the right balance to make it enjoyable in some way verses a new way to compete for the shiny by trying to out-loose as well.

Three things.

Easier to fork threads. One, as @KDraygo suggests, a thread in the pit or mildly construction from when its posted. Linked so folks know where to go to reply. Two, a category between criticism and hog pit, to have constructive, critical and outright flame (though it will just go as things go now, adding something this much extra will be ignored). Three, let folks rate on critical vs constructive instead up upvote and downvote, if folks could ignore the highly critical somehow, might lead to less mud slinging outside the hog pit.

Then again, it is what it is, you can add all the tools you want, but the history of here and its splendid predecessors, it will revert regardless. Look at recently, past few weeks sort of slow, then finally UH blood in the water pans out to something more concrete and its a feeding frenzy with more posts in less than 12 hours than the totality of a week or two combined and continuing. You can change the format but you can't truly change the community, though currently you have many lurkers and folks who would never post coming here, MSB gained some credibility, though the UH horror show (both staff side conspiracy, cover ups, and then the disgruntled players with pitchforks attacking anything remotely sympathetic to a 'hey, lets see what's going on'). The middle ground is often easily lost in favor of some level of sensationalism fed by hyperbole.

Wait, I can't tell without reading, are those gifs for the orgy mux or something else?

Thanks all, yeah its just confusing. I'm approachable, I don't try to hide anything about myself, I'm not trying to get on Catfish any time soon. I like to think its purely confusion, but if I did anything to upset someone ... well, still, I'm approachable.

@faraday said in How can we incentivize IC failure?:

The BSG games (mine and others) I think show a sort of environment where players with different preferences can peacefully co-exist most of the time. In a more adversarial environment, I can certainly see where clashing expectations would be a bigger problem.

First, completely agree, its a bit of all combined somewhere in the middle and not always clearly defined to what extent of each any given Mu* might be. I do like the improv acting as another part of the spectrum/gauge, and that needle fluctuates too (is it completely improv seeing what actors come up with giving a situation, or is there more system to it such as cues from the audience, the director, other actors that can modify this situations - or in a dice game like pendragon, when I'm about to behead the leader of the revolt on my land do I roll to see if my character is more Forgiving or more Vengeful - and it comes down to how much am I the player deciding vs how much am I taking cue from the system).

@faraday said in How can we incentivize IC failure?:

The BSG games (mine and others) I think show a sort of environment where players with different preferences can peacefully co-exist most of the time. In a more adversarial environment, I can certainly see where clashing expectations would be a bigger problem.

I'd just like to say also, especially concerning @Faraday's BSG and the way stats are presented. The in between places of must Mu*s, I think they are better suited in more universal systems. FS3 on the surface is easy to understand, attributes and skills; WoD on the surface looks easy to roll those things to determine various outcomes; Open D6 is similar. This is good for MU in a not related to the topic sort of way, its when system becomes more complex does the question of how much are we following the rules system vs the spirit of creating story and groups having different levels and not getting along comes up. On the backend or under the hood, FS3 has a easy yet complex combat system. Attack/defend isn't too hard but the realistic side of a few modifiers and determination of hit location and for how much damage and what location, how much splash damage, does shrapnel hit people in a vehicle when its shelled, does someone pass out from some damage or are they strong enough to keep standing, can other rally them, etc. Its straightforward but a lot of steps to try to remember and its why the coded combat resolution through an interface/HUD is great and helps folks only focus on the sheet.

In a universal system, folks are left to play in their way when the see the sheet. Me and my friend could 'brawl' and decide we do best of 5 rounds and the loser is knocked out, we just roll strength or we roll the melee skill (or, more universal and part of the system, if someone has melee the roll that as the roll includes strength, and if not, they just roll strength). Beavis and Bill might like the 10 charts of does it hit, what part of body, is it covered in armor, does some of the armor absorb or outright block the damage, does it depend on type (piercing goes through leather easy but not so much through metal), is it more likely to hurt when it hits (5.56 ball rounds bounce around and are designed to put you down so your friends and medic pause a little to help you out while firing incendiary rounds at peole is going to slice and dice), etc.

That level is where the gauge moves when universal systems come into play for me, the mix of is it more straight system or are folks playing in favor of a story or more just improv acting to see what the characters are going to do/how they'll respond etc. But just a little spiel for I like more universal systems.

@ganymede said in Make MSB great again!:

There is no "MSB Effect." Any claim thereof is simply untrue.

I find the inverse seems more true. Initial critique of a game tends to drive up traffic. People go to see just how 'true/untrue' a claim is, and barring that its more untrue than not, I've seen this increase populations. There is no such thing as bad publicity.