Best posts made by Lotherio

Two quick cents. I don't see alt policy (none/one/four/whatever you can play) as being the issue that makes or breaks a game.

Some of the arguments say less players means more positions of powers for players, but I support what @Arkandel said earlier, positions of power shouldn't make or break a character and their story. Someone else mentioned interpersonal relationships are a prime draw to Mu*'ing over say TT or even OTT campaigns that are episode to episode.

Ultimately I think it comes down to the player and their investment into their storyline that fits within theme/meta that makes or breaks interest in a game for that player. A couple months ago I asked about meta and such and everyone seemed to favor staff having to run things, I'm still not sure if this is the way to go, staff having to control meta to the point of giving folks something to do.

This may be from decades of being a daytime player only. The majority of staff only do things in evenings, just the way it is ... all the haters that come to my places and complain about daytime activity, you've no idea how much worse people that play during my connect times have it with the feeling left out part.

I've always just made my own story, folks can call it sandboxing, but I can't get into meta which is 90%++ only in evenings (low estimate to be honest because I'm trying to be nice). I always find it that interest should be player driven.

If they want 4 alts in less active relationship circles (@faraday mentioned 4 meaningful relationships per PC regardless of alt policy, but some may only RP with 1-2 others only), only want to focus on social drama and their IC relationship, and it keeps them playing with those others, let them have at it. If someone else only wants one alt and interacts with the entire grid and drives their own stories separate from staff meta, more power to them.

I view Mu* more as an environment to encourage creativity, to give players some place to play, to hopefully be safe for them to come and simply enjoy themselves. If that commitment is once a month and they want an adventure on their one day a month, I think the opportunity should exist. If they are daily and socialize only, that opportunity should be there (dependent on activity of other players).

I see a lot of focus always pointed at staff, staff should have alt policy, the should police all player activity. I'm more aimed at the player, if a player can't go out and make their own fun, or find the players that do that, its more on the player, regardless of who has one alt and the ones who have 12 alts.

Sorry, I took the thread and borrowed the soapbox for another topic, but it seems fitting. Arguing about alts, when, if maintaining interest and vestment in a game is what the discussion is about, seems off the heart of the discussion.

Edit to add instead of posting my own reply:

The common topic 'There is nothing to do here', I place more on player than staff. Staff should have opportunities for things to happen, I think it gets players together and that should be the focus of meta, getting folks to mingle more, creating some new potential hooks for players storlyines, introducing ideas of what can be done on the game to help inspire their own plots and stories.. I think things to do anywhere, having something to do, is on the player. I think restrictive PrP policy is more damaging to activity than alt policies and blaim staff for not allowing player creativity to flourish.

This is what I get for trying to start a new thread so another isn't derailed too much. I think staff have responsibility too, more closer to @Arkandel's point of providing environment and tools to stimulate player interest and activity. I mentioned in the 2 Many Alts thread that staff should provide things to do, meaning plot, events, RP opportunities. Things to get players together to mingle, to meet new chars, to see what sort of things can happen, to give some flavor and inspiration, to make some cohesion, to inspire other ides for players in their continuing development of their characters and character driven plots.

@Vorpal ... I agree in part. I think staff can make the splash bigger for folks without having to run multiple events each week or holding the reigns on the weekly adventure (and I enjoy weekly adventure), by both allowing broader spectrum in PrP arena and by having the world react to others plots. I favor logs and log posting, as a means to easily keep staff appraised of what's going on without constant bombardment by +request and page alone (I do favor both, I favor communication between staff and players, I enjoy working with a player on a plot idea they have, I prefer pages and such over official +request system).

But staff should react. If two player run plots involve fires in a large city. On one level, folks may say they should of checked with staff before blowing up the city. On the other hand, it takes staff two seconds (five minutes) to simply put up an IC news response, officials are looking into the fires, any word on culprits or suspected arsonists would be appreciated. They can take another two seconds (10 minutes) to contact any folks in the RP circles to spread it out (contact fac heads, the authorities asked around for culprits, point out there is a pinch on the city for anyone selling items related to arson (from chemicals to explosives), etc.).

I think I'm of the mindset, its easier to be reactive to what players do than to be proactive and make hurdles. But, having nothing to do or being bored, is more towards the individual I think, its just seems more and more lately as others are pointing out.

@saosmash said in How Many Alts Would An Alt User Alt If An Alt User Could Use Alts:

I see no reason whatsoever to limit people who have the time and attention to spend on a character and aren't creating problems.

This.

Alt policy needs to correlate with activity policy. When will a character be reaped?

Activity is a reason to applaud one alt. What is considered active? Are players that can only play once in a two week cycle discouraged from play there, do they miss out on lots of important development by only being on once every two weeks? Usually I see other places say, if you haven't logged in within x timeframe, nuked.

That may be confusing, but its leading to ... if all the players that only play once a week only need to log on once a week ... why couldn't someone play someone different every day of the week?

I can only handle one or two chars these days. I'm only curious why a limit to some is better?

@Sunny said in How Many Alts Would An Alt User Alt If An Alt User Could Use Alts:

Whatever. I am clearly so off base in my viewpoints that I'm not really sure why I am even bothering anymore. Peace out.

I downvoted this, cause upvoting this makes it seem like I agree with you, get out the door, but no .. you're not off base. I agree with you, a 1 alt policy means 2 chars to me, not one character.

@Thenomain said in Making a MU* of your own:

You know, this just occurred to me.

All of the games I know that were more successful than their kin kind of had one thing in common:

• People were playing on them when they were being built.

Not staff, but players. Hey y'all, come on by, let's socialize and talk about the game and play a little. Sure, you build this, you build that, etc.

Many of them were migration games. "Hey people I know I'm making this game over there because I love this game but I want to do something new so come check it out." Many of them were like that, the more I think about it, but I believe all of them were never soft-opened, were never carefully constructed then opened, they were just ... open.

Something I'm going to be thinking about.

Word of mouth and sense of community are better than tossing up random ads all over the place?

Inviting people you know you trust, letting them invite their friends?

Starting when enough is working but before its all done gives live feed back during the process. Also lets players contribute to establishing the game by asking FAQ questions that lets them feel something of theirs is part of the world?

At any point the direction of focus of meta is in queston staff should not make the decision as npc or pc; this focus should be given to players.

Its the age old argument of NPC vs DM-PC.

Staff and gamemasters know the rest of the world that PCs (key p- player, not staff or gm) do not. Even if as staff is a fully randomized determination for PC, it will always come off as railroading or going on the direction the staff wants.

No good analogy, but it's like playing backyard ball and player A on team one is the ref. If they win, ref played favorites. If they lose, ref threw it in purpose.

Objectivity vs subjectivity.

@Ghost said in Leadership, Spotlight, and PCs of Staffers:

I don't think there's a always whole lot of malevolence to this. I think a lot of this staff putting their chars in the drivers seat and railroading everything chalks up to a difference in viewpoint in GM styles:

1. GM runs games like games. Lets the dice decide, will let characters die, will let characters decide their own fate. Is okay with this. Enjoys rping all of the NPCs and is comfortable letting the game be its own monster.

2. GM has a story they wrote, with beginning, middle, and end written up. They're running the game to tell a story and don't logically associate the players as people who want to make their own decisions, but as players that want to play the GMs story.

Agreed, as a GM, I've always ran my TT as games, the dice decide, the character decide to take a plot hook or go in a random direction. I don't prepare episodic events that happen no matter what, instead I have some NPCs that could be interesting (either prepared for a campaign or drawn from past NPCs from years of being a GM), I have some other groups (leaders, hidden groups, etc) that have their own agendas going on, if they run into them or mess with something to get attention, the groups respond.

I've had to go to the game store in the past, play a few games to invite others in with natural player attrition (moving out of city/state) and I have seen the playing the story GMs doing just that, even some completely diceless where the GM would decide if the action succeeds or fails, I assume based on it meshing with the story they are telling or not. The players that found this campaign, even if I viewed it as unfun or railroading, had a good time. If they enjoyed it, more power to them.

But I am in the boat, you open a Mu* to the public, the players want some say in what happens or what direction things go at some point. If its going to be a GM story, or detailed metaplot they want to get out in sequential order, they need to know it up front, otherwise more players seem to assume its #1, they can affect things and make change in the game.

On the recent CGen thread, wiki's came up. Both for sing it pre- and post-cgen. Some places going to web based app even, others mentioned some people refuse and loathe to use wiki at all. Maybe its been discussed already but, I'm curious of opinions on Wiki as a companion to the Mu* experience?

My take, I'm good with a wiki. I still use +news for some basic theme, some policy, a few things specific to CG when I work on a place. But I feel a wiki is easier to store and sort the information, and lets players contribute to the creativity of developing the theme for a Mu*.

Same thing with character information, not everyone is into doing things with their char's wiki, but I find I'll go look at other Pc pages on places I play for some motivation. +finger works, but if it breaks the buffer it confused my dyslexia and we don't always get along. Or if I have to dig through pages of +notes, typing the command each time and assuming my dyslexia and poor grammar/spelling doesn't have my mis-keying too much, its still a chore. Easier to click a tab or a link and read away.

As staff, its easier for me to see logs and activity when someone uses wiki then to ask for constant +requests to know what's going on, on the grid. Likewise, I prefer to open plots for players to run more than hoops via +request. I will usually put a quick plot page up, so people can go there, type the name in a button and start collecting plot information, including logs related to the plot. It can be started and tracked without the hands of staff involved in the mix, reduce waiting times and allowing players to plot to their hearts content and even share plots. Thus another player could even see what's going on to contact the runners (hey, I saw you're investigating the psychic murders of the children of sleepyville, my char has dream powers, maybe I could help ...).

I also like it when players can contribute to theme. If you're in a city, they can add their motorcycle club or restaurant. Others can see it, be inspired to play with those things, even volunteer to help. In bigger themes, they can contribute more ideas. They can add organizations, locations, NPCs, etc, to help flush out theme and join in the contribution process; yes, this can backfire in some cases, as on Realms, but more often I've seen it help players feel more a part of the game as a whole.

I think, for me at least, wikis are a tool that can help others find RP, or share stories and help the creative process of the shared environment. I am probably wrong, but those opposed to wikis seem like dinosaurs just not wanting to accept the change. Don't get me wrong, I'm old(ish), I've played on Mu*s since 94'ish, did BBS in the 80s when we dialed up like David Lightman, had a high school teacher who hooked up IBMs on lan to run 'on-line' campaigns for us nerds who played a char from our computer.

@Arkandel said in Wiki and You:

@Lotherio Reasons why I like wikis:

2. You can hang things such as maps images, format long lists into tables so they're easier to read, include hyperlinks to reference material - all things you can't due due to telnet limitations.

3. Since you can't edit bbposts custom pages are far more suitable for many tasks. For instance I've used a 'plot index' before, pointing to all the logs in a particular story I'm running along with some basic information regarding what it's about OOC, hooks into it, what people might already assume they know IC regarding it, etc. If I had to do it on a board I'd need to delete the old one and repost every time I want it updated.

These two, double these. To have maps and reference material. Even if you put in +news all the rules of the game, having reference tables on a wiki is way easier to have open while running scenes. And just a second of plot coordination.

@surreality said in Wiki and You:

@Lotherio said in Wiki and You:

I think, for me at least, wikis are a tool that can help others find RP, or share stories and help the creative process of the shared environment.

Like any other 'new thing being tried', some people hate the very idea of people trying it. Sometimes it's because something similar has been done badly. Sometimes it's because they like the old way a lot. Sometimes it's a misconception about how things work, or an assumption that things will be a certain way -- they can't see a positive way it could work, or one that would be seamless from their end re: what they're used to.

This right here, how its done, is probably part of the issue. Like staff that lock down a wiki completely and have to 'create' a char page for others to work on. Once its staff only and players have little stake in it, its not fun or pointless.

Its so easy to make tools for others to add pages, to add theme, plot pages, etc. It is easier to learn than mu-code for most and further still, its much easier to make it functional for others to use. It not hard to set up templates to add new elements.

It goes back in part to staff control; like plots or needing every thing +requested.

@Seraphim73 said in PC antagonism done right:

@ThatGuyThere Oh, I've seen a few scenes where the NPC opposition was resolute, powerful, and a real threat. But often it seems (at least to me) like the player expectation is that the NPC opposition be a speedbump--when the PCs start to get pushed around in a scene, their players tend to panic from what I've seen, and many get grumbly if they get too beat up (physically or politically) or fail to accomplish something. It's one of my least favorite trends in "modern" MU*ing.

People don't like to lose, or perceive a loss. Even if back and forth, players would hope to have some wins. Eventually PC vs PC antagonist, one side would feel a need to have a win, or the do-gooders would want resolution. Getting PC and PC Antagonist to agree, or to disagree and avoid each other. A big gripe on Realms was too many PC deaths; 5 total, realistically a small amount given the volume of players and the number of combats (actual not tourney) that did take place. Even while the players accepted their deaths, the rest of the players felt beat up on too, like PCs couldn't win.

there's a lot of general feeling-out for RP partners but then no specifics are offered to help direct the invention of a situation to build a scene around. (e.g., "What do you want to do?" "Whatever.")

Saw this in another thread, it's been discussed before. It's worth it again.

When approaching another to start a scene, offer ideas to RP. Don't lead to the point of asking what they want or like. If they're uncertain, it will lead to this very response, whatever.

Taking for granted the context of the above was superheroes related, and that means various levels of interest (street, cosmic, whatever).

Offer ideas, they can yay or nay. Something might stick or, if too many nays, you can move onto the next person to try and figure out some RP with.

@Bobotron said in PC antagonism done right:

All this is beautiful discussion, but one thing to bring up: how? Or rather, how without it turning into the massive staff overhead that RfK handled?

I think it still comes down to it, its improbable to have open acceptance and adherence to long term pc antagonists.

I think part of the culture is everyone wants beginning, middle and end. Even MU*s, more and more there is some planned end, or season that have a conclusion before going to the next.

Old allegory, we played Dragonlance Mux until 2002~? It was the same dragon war, for a ~decade. Everyone wanted it to develop, but it stayed constant, same bad guys, same background conflict. If that opened today and played out that way, everyone would give up after a few months because it is too stagnant in today's environment.

And on the other hand, I know a few long term players out there that stick to their stories and play them through. I'm pretty sure if I went to Chicago Mush, the same 2-3 people would be there playing out their stories. Some people can play out character development longterm, some do not prefer it. I don't think any system will address this or culture change will make it more wide spread.

Play out antagonists with those you know and trust. If you try it with someone new, you're open to everything pointed out in this thread as potential pitfall, from bad PC antagonism to the white hat burn and murder stuff, burn and murder stuff.

Edit: grammar.

@faraday said in What RPG SYSTEM do you want to play on a Mu*?:

@Sparks said in What RPG SYSTEM do you want to play on a Mu*?:

I am rarely super-excited about the dice mechanics of a game, though I admit I love my time/advancement system I used elsewhere. There are systems I think 'oh, well, I already have that in my brain so I can use it easily', but I'm not going to go, "Oh, this game with this random setting is using GURPS, so I'm super stoked!"

I'm the same. There are systems that are a turn-off for me (D20 or Dahan's system for instance) but rarely are they a total deal-breaker, and never are they a big reason for excitement.

My pref is FS3 or WEG d6 for simplicity. Dahans initial was d6 conversion before the percentile one. Found this funny cause his d6 and FS3 are my preferences.

Otherwise the sentiment echoed most is what I think ... Rpg Systems are meant for tt and small number of players that are focus of play and break with more players.

@ThatGuyThere said in What RPG SYSTEM do you want to play on a Mu*?:

I definitely feel that he system and setting should match up with the same feel but since setting wasn't mentioned really in the initial question I went with the system I most want to play more of.

I'm the opposite of this. On a Mu*, I want simple mechanics that makes for quick resolution and doesn't distract from role-playing. As long as one can do stuff in general easily, doesn't have to be tailored to a setting for me. Too many rules or additions or splats and it's inevitable that every fight scene/action sequences/multitude of dice rolls gets bogged down at one point by rules discussion ... And usually both sides are valid with certain interpretation but neither wants to buckle. Some might arguing the room for interpretation is a sign of bad system design; I firmly believe no system can account for every plausibility and that is left in the hands of the story teller/plot runner/gm/whatever.

@cirim13 said in Strange Game Dev Inquiries from surreality (condensed):

but how cool would it be to have a character who needs to eat insane amounts of algae for 3-4 weeks of the year but then basically lives on sunshine and has to stay in shallow waters for a year because sunlight...

It's dead but thumbs up ... The Red Fete ... Part religious, part hook up and make offspring ( lay eggs and fertilize?), part party, then of to wallow in the shallows.

Edit: typing on phone, spelling bad, fixing

@tragedyjones said in Innovations to the form (Crowdsourcing?):

• Grid Design - Part of me feels that a pre-made, pre-described grid is... a waste. Many players eschew the room descriptions, and many prefer to use +temprooms, RP rooms or private builds. How much is a minimum necessary grid design for a city? The sprawling layouts of DM or even HM are, imo, dead.

I disagree, for longevity, more grid means less of the same bar rp day after day. The other half of this problem is a) staff burns out and mu ends in 3 to 6 months, or b) players only stay for a few months and leave cause ' nothing to do', which relates to some players not wanting to ST or run PrPs. I don't think grid size is any issue, a few rooms to start and temp rooms as needed is good. But large grid for longevity, means players have more ideas for potential scenes the longer they stay ( what's this, we have back alley jewellery shop, gives me an idea for a one shot that could develop into a tp of some sort).

• An End to Bar-P - I have long ranted against random social banter RP, slice of life stuff, when that is all I can find. It is something I personally feel should be used as a downtime thing between active story

If you don't like social rp or slice of life, don't play it. In 20 years of this, loving all the action adventure, I can set the most fun character development for me is from slice of life, reacting to the last adventure, reacting to the big meta bbpost, developing more relationships. If I want adventure after adventure I'll do tt or just regular adventure day once a week. But slice of life helps perpetrate stories, ponder new points of view and affects adventure time.

• Homework - Some games thrive on this, some entirely balk at the idea. But in general, how much effort is fair to ask of your players? Is background too much? Scene tracking? How can we streamline this process as well. Clearly automatic logging is not something most people, or anyone, wants.

Character wise, minimal bg, but homework to know the game a little. My pref is after approval they contribute to the theme by adding to the game. Thru a wiki is the best, developing a house, an org, a hangout not on the grid, npcs, a new business, an idea. Anything. I'm off the mindset it's collaborative story telling more than a game where staff do all this work and players wait for staff to make things happen. This detracts from longevity through staff burn out.

• Making things matter - How do you make what happens logical, consistent, and important without dedicating a small team to it? How do you ensure that the firefight that happens in one neighborhood actually impact the lives of the characters who live there but were not logged in at the time? How can we establish continuity of Non-Player characters between stories, characters, players, and scenes?

I've tended to create tracking for player plots and npcs on the wiki for places I help with. The issue is usually player by in to contribute to these things. I started villain tracking on comic mu*s a few years back just to help with continuity; like reading a log with villain x when yesterday your group put him into space and planned to use him tomorrow. The homework is needed and lots of players just want adventure and hope someone else is stinging continuity together at some point.

It's a collaboration between all players (staff included) and without commitment and buy in, the rest inevitably doesn't work either way so well .

Sorry belated reply.

@Arkandel said in Which canon property/setting would be good for a MU* ?:

@Tempest said in Which canon property/setting would be good for a MU* ?:

Into the Badlands could be pretty dope. I'm pretty sure there's a crowd around who are always talking about wanting a post-apoc game. The problem is they probably want more Fallout-y?

One of the many, many, many issues that fragment our community (but also make it great in a way, take your pick) is we're so hard to please and won't compromise easily.

Sure, I want a post-apocalyptic game, but not Fallout, and no no, The Walking Dead isn't it either, I want Badlands - exactly that, nothing else will do. Or... sure, I want a DC Comics game but set in the post-Rebirth Universe not the New 52. What do you mean the Flash is Barry Allen? No no, I'm out.

This is why my pref is actually not cannon setting but original theme. Us that love cannon can't argue with Flash is best, or which splat book should be used. But everyone seems to want cannon for familiarity which circles back into which parts of cannon are best.

+sheet is less an interest to me than character development. If +sheet is the focus just feels like a game to me and everyone is making meta decisions for advancement.

@Derp said in What does advancement in a MU* mean to you?:

@Arkandel said in What does advancement in a MU* mean to you?:

Make damn sure to let your newbies be able to catch up. It doesn't need to (and shouldn't) happen too fast; let them work for it since otherwise it invalidates your oldbies' efforts, but make it possible.

See, this is the part that I'm getting hung up on in most of our systems that currently exist. You either start off as Pretty Damn Powerful, or you know you'll get Pretty Damn Powerful within X amount of time just because of the way the system is coded, and I see two problems with it:

Inversely longevity again ... After a year or two of dinosaur bloat, new players don't want to join. Or join then complain because it's the same dinos with all the power that affect the game.

@Derp said in What does advancement in a MU* mean to you?:

@Lotherio said in What does advancement in a MU* mean to you?:

nversely longevity again ... After a year or two of dinosaur bloat, new players don't want to join. Or join then complain because it's the same dinos with all the power that affect the game.

See, I ... kind of don't think that this is necessarily a valid counterpoint.

Maybe John the New Guy, Perennial Loner can't do things around the oldbies.

But John the New Guy, Tina the Couple Monther, and their friends Tim, Jerry, and Fred could all get together and figure out a way to make changes to their environment by consolidating their specific stuff. A coalition of people can accomplish between them more than what any one oldbie can do. And if they have such a problem with the Way Things Are that they think it needs to change, then they can surely find Like-Minded Folk out there to help them achieve it. (Or if they can't, it might be best that they aren't able to enforce their specific vision of changes).

Gee. What a shame that would be. Players having to work together to get stuff done, instead of Going it Alone Forever. Those dinobots are a problem, man.

Newbie retention not valid? I'll forget that comment.

At what point does newbie get to be cool experiences person, dino is always that much ahead of them?