Best posts made by Lotherio

@Arkandel said in The 100: The Mush:

I.e. they rolled a character, got out of CGen, found themselves a room to idle in, made few if any attempts to meet others, signed up for no +events but no one is inviting them to things.

It's actually a thing that happens. Very peculiar.

Its a vicious circle.

Some do log in and page about for rp, getting the 'I owe my friend rp, /I'm just checking bboards and mail/etc ... here's a rain check' which is never cashed and the asker usually get tired of paging to ask for that RP, they get crickets on chans set up for RP when they ask, or see the regulars in a scenes, ask to join and are told things like the scenes are too big several days in a row.

Reality is probably in the middle of both these ends of the spectrum. We know some folks that are in the 'regular' group(s) go out of their way to play with others and make them feel included, just as we know there is that person or two that well actively choose not to play with others and is usually the one to make comments about how they don't like their style or think their a snowflake or don't like how they 'play' the game. Plus other circumstance like time of day and availability that contribute to make it seem like either end is contributing (inclusive and promoting RP as well as walling off RP in some manner).

It all happens, but middle of the spectrum, we all seem to find our places to play here and there.

@Thenomain Heh. I know I picked up a few new ideas and thoughts in the realm of non-XP incentives in the past couple pages.. I'm pondering how to make it all fit together. No promise what I'm doing is anything like a good game, but I think it'll have some resemblance of fun, somewhere I hope.

@Arkandel said in Historical MU*s:

@Lisse24 said in Historical MU*s:

I think any game that is depending on staff to create all the Things to Do is ultimately going to fail. I just haven't seen a sustainable model for that - unless you count Fallcoast/TR, which is its own beast.

Players should provide the majority of Things To Do. But it's still staff's responsibility - on historical MU* and otherwise - to facilitate, encourage and get out of the way of them doing so.

Agreed, completely.

I'm okay talking about Things To Do on historical mu*s and pondering ideas for staff meta on such places, just not as defense of my own interest.

Historical Mu*s have the advantage of more real challenges to groups and communities. Its not played up nearly enough though.

Despotism is a real thing in most places, and your neighbor is likely to just come and want to take your stuff. Western Mu* this should be played up more. The whole law of Adverse Possession is pretty serious business and is a real thing, especially in this time, which helps solidify the necessity of making such laws. Cattle wars, land rights, heck in the territories, even other 'nations' wanting you out is a real thing.

In the settings I mentioned there are a handful of groups that are easily serious aggressors. Outsiders, neighbors, even religious entities. I would advise against the religious one, because while contemporarily we are very diverse and live side by side in most cultures with various religions, it wasn't so easy to live with neighbors. It was more like being at war with. Look at Isreal and Palestine currently. Likewise we have different views of religion today compared to how they were in the past.

Environment, the best of all. Every now and again you see, its a hard winter post. But staff can do more, randomly folks should be chosen for getting sick or coming down with some illness or another. I said I don't want to play dirt toiling farmers, but a group of friends RP'ing around a sickness can create a lot of things do to. If a town/location is full of NPCs in positions, this is a quick way to knock off one or two, upset power balance, create a vacuum/void to be filled by characters. Do they train their own doctor, do they send away for one from the school, do the RP trips to the next town to get medical attention and face the elements in dangerous voyages? Fires running rampant, nearing the town that is mostly wood ... drought, hunger critters starving cause their normal food source has stayed south too long, or been hunted off.

Internal struggle, there should always be an internal struggle in whatever group structure exists in the game, and this is heavily player driven. Small band, no everyone should be happy with the leader, any collection of families, groups, clans, organizations, they should not simply be happy with the leader.

The three periods I choose had all these elements that could easily be woven into meta for players. The day to day is really up to the players, I'm not going to stop bar RP if I was staffing such a place, but things to do are numerous from socio-political to living (hunting, dealing with a sick animal they own, dealing with a sick neighbor, scavenging for resources, whatever). But its all coupled with the threats as noted above, internal despots, external threats (other cultures/neighbors/religions/enemies), and harsh environments.

Why I choose those three times:

1. Daneland/law: You are the aggressor, you just marched a badass army through Anglia/Mercia, sacked a very important city, and mean to settle the rich abundant lands about the city. There is a ton of things I could imagine doing without staff intervention in this setting. From dealing with neighbors, to dealing with raiders and bandits, to aggression against others and the moral implications some folks would have a hard time accepting that is what you do. Would I join in against North Umbria invasions, would I sell out to North Umbria for some gold coin after getting a name for myself, would I take land in Mercia to help Aelfred? Would I help my neighbor during the winter, or watch him rot away and take his land come spring?

2. Formation of Novgorod to invasions by the Swedes: More political, the clans would be like houses in typical L&L play, a leader and some top warriors. They'd probably have regular meetings deciding what to do, where to go. Divide the land, get rid of those who don't agree with the new system, deal with external threats from the east and the far east (the puppet of the Tsar, the Mongols, etc.). Plus as you start to establish and show some resources, its an invitation to the Swedish Vikings to come and take what you have, you have to decide as a group, defenses in the east/to the sea, defense to the west against Russians and the horse riding Mongol overlords/tax lords.

3. The Roman settlement of Obuda near the Celtic settlement in the area. Same as all the above, same things to deal with the added internal struggle of Roman vs Celtic. This one could be more rife for PvP simply because of this and folks would have to be willing to accept death potential. This is hard everywhere, but seems more difficult on L&L games, there was no end to comments after each PC death in Realms. Maybe more sustainable in bouts of short term as players will ask 'what do I do today' far less, cause it easy to play Celts and have Romans come to favorite hangout or vice versa, without stretching the adventure of the week/month to wolves, bandits, other aggressors.

@faraday said in If you work hard, son, maybe someday you'll RP:

I think that instead of expecting people to compromise on a game that we're doing for our own enjoyment, we just need more recognition that people play these games differently and that's okay.

I think this is oddly where I was trying to go. Instead of 'everyone is idle' or 'this person asking for rp is hyper' recognize the difference. Walk away is one option, but if someone likes the theme and wants to stay, they may have to adapt their expectations.

Honestly I'm good with both.

I'll throw in agreement with @deadculture, Scenario 1 wounds like it could be a great setting. Usual the historical mu* caveat that deviations may abound (that most folks ignore anyone on historical mu*s to argue, cause historical minded folks enjoy arguing), it does have a lot of potential.

@faraday said in How to Escape the OOC Game:

You're equating "people can know who each other are" with "and thus they only play with known quantities".
These two things are not equivalent.

I concur, and I don't think I meant to imply people only play with known others. I did concur with @Rook such that I've seen differences where if no one knows me, I get less RP (sometimes none), and if I am myself I get a little more RP. Correlative, but not direct statistical relation, certainly not equivalent; didn't meant to imply some slippery slope there, sorry..

But there are also people who will see the new guy in the corner by him/herself and go over and introduce themselves.

I do see this as well. I can't speak to balance between either. But, chalk board analogy, one wrong things is like a mark on the chalk board, no matter how many good things happen (or it gets 'erased), that underlying mark is still noticeable.

Looking at a new mu*, central focus would be semi-historical L&L (focus on house politics) in a period of high conflict.

We are settling on 722 AD, the beginning of the Reconquista and the potential birth of the Kingdom of Asturias.

It would be semi-historical with less historical accuracy in favor of Hollywood take; drama, action, intrigue, romance, etc.. Likewise, less focus on actually technology and culture to simply 'looking' the period; lenient on customs and styles of dress by a few centuries probably. We are not playing dirt toiling peoples with gingivitis.

We are looking at just after the Battle of Covadonga, whereby Pelagius has been released from his duty as a hostage to the Wali in Cordoba. We are hand waving it to ... at the time of succession of the new governor (wali) in 718, some sons given as hostage under the Treaty of Orihuela were released in jubilation (in light of limited resources on specific chronicles of detail of the time period). Pelagius freed (escaped) at this time goes north and gets some support in the Artures (Asturian Mountains) region. They proceed to harangue local judges/magistrates until Musa marches to the region in 722 after invading Gaul/Aquitaine yet again, whereby Musa is defeated.

Anbasa ibn Suḥaym al-Kalbi is the Wali of Cordoba while the Umayyad Caliphate has not yet moved to Cordoba, it is not yet the Emirate of Cordoba either. Simply one Wali (governor) over a series of regional governors. Pelagius has some support and is establishing a court as a Visigoth prince (Asturian Prince). There is a governor in the region of Gijon for the Wali of Cordoba (the area that will become Leon).

Players will play lesser nobles from families in the region of Astures (Asturian Mountains of Northern Spain). Sons that are the noble knights who choose to fight against the Muslims, or with them in support of the Caliph's governor, some maybe recently promoted commoner landowners, but all lesser nobles at the start. The houses have the choice of the more suitable option for their personal political gains, its wide open what they decide to do. The seeds are planted for the birth of the Kingdom of Asturias, but we deviate from history at the start in favor of player choice.

Many options. They could side with Pelagius and continue to ignite the Reconquista, seeking out judges/magistrates and troops loyal to the Caliph to defeat/remove. They could join in the Berber Rebillion to come, taking roots as well with the sparks of rebellion in the air. They could side with the Caliph and invade Aquitaine and Gaul for spoils while quenching the fires of Pelagius?

The focus is on the noble families, the movers and shakers of the region, but there may be opportunity to play the administrative side of the Umayyad, from Saracen and Moor supporters, or the Berbers who were recently conquered as well and are settling more in north/west Spain (leading to their own rebellion). Maybe room for the common use of mercenary groups used by Pelagius/Asturias or the Wali (a group of Norsemen, Flemish Spearman, Frankish Knights, Moorish mounted archers, or Berber Light cavalry, mercenaries of war out for spoils and capitalizing on the turmoil in the region). Just primary focus on house and house politics with intermittent conflicts based on decisions made by the houses and their plans of action.

We are looking for those interested in staffing, which would include helping develop meta to give the player base something to do, helping develop some theme so that we can be more flushed out and ready for an actual player base, those interested in helping with building (grid/theme/etc.). If I had time, we could push forward as is, but this place will be much better with a handful of staff to help keep it running from the get go.

@surreality said in How to Escape the OOC Game:

Please note: I am not saying this is 'nothing' or 'not important'. If this happens, report that shit! It is a completely valid issue.

Just want to repeat this. Report it RL if you're able, but report it on game to staff.

If staff can't help or try, probably not a game for you. But it is disheartening to learn after the fact, as staff, a creeper has come onto your game and gotten away with stuff that has driven good players off.

@Kanye-Qwest said in The 100: The Mush:

I dunno, I don't think people opening games to play what they want with their friends is going to kill this hobby.

But my real question is, where's @ghost's game of pure altruism, where staff is not allowed to have PCs and spend all their time making fun rp for regular players (who can then never become staff or they'll have to give up their PCs).

Just saying .. if such a place existed, the staff would still get gripes, because they can't run stuff 24/7 and thus only cater to folks of certain time slots who must surely by their best friends.

I think what @Thenomain is also getting at is: if no-questions asked is the hold up, what about adapting the system?

@Auspice touched on ideas discussed, like events with ratings and helping players understand if its just not suited for them versus trying to get a GM to drop a subject.

I completely agree with the reasoning of no need to adapt it. Like in the article, the GM dropped reference to an NPC smoking or something because some player was trying to quite and raised their x-card. I do think communication is key, but is there some twist on the idea that could help people less comfortable in the MUSH world? The Red Flag Raiser, just +flag or whatever in some circumstance and it just notifies the staff or the helpers or whatever, the folks good at communicating with others, to see what the issue is and help a player decide if its not for them or if a scene is too much.

The core of x-card is no questions asked, the concept is to help with comfort levels in a community setting (and honestly all who have staffed, how many comfort levels and boundries lead to +requests and complaints - in situations staff could have helped before major blow up in the hog pit).

Obviously no questions asked is out the window, but is there some variant/new system to address this. I think it could help new players understand things like they don't have to stay in uncomfortable situations (and triggering a helper with a quick +flag is easier than seeing who is on staff, seeing who is the helper, seeing if their unidle, etc.). I can think of a few scenarios this could have helped on my games (the notification without them trying to find me to page me or whatever). I agree, unilateral no, change topic isn't the way to go.

Like its continually being shot down cause of 'no questions asked' and folks are wondering what other options there may be, similar but not exact copy of X-card?

This is the part of the debate where we curl our mustache corners (real or fake), realize neither side is contributing meaningfully to the debate itself, and step out for cigars and some scotch to talk about less debatable things. Like Religion and Politics.

I just wanted to curl my mustache.

I still think the 'getting young blood' is off the mark a little in how its being approached. I still feel the less complex, more universal approach is good; or as @Thenomain put it, more encourage the light fandom over deep nerditry.

I think we miss part of the mark to in not encouraging creativity and embracing that is it a written medium. This just came up in another thread, but I think its one of those things that needs a point made about getting young blood:

@Joyeuse said in MU*, Youth, and LGBT+ Identity:

@peasoupling said in MU*, Youth, and LGBT+ Identity:

but who even writes a "business description" and a "going to Walmart at 2am description" anyway?

I also feel called out here, because I do that exact thing for the characters I've made so far. At least once I found out about multidescs and +desc systems lol.

Old hats are good doing away with multidescs and lots of those who have been around end up focusing on PB. Forgetting part of our own draws into this hobby. Instead of defining the target audience and shooting into the dark, perspective from young blood might go a long way too I think.

This was actually suggested by another poster in another thread.

@sthanheykel said in Historical MU*s:

1. Firenze during the Italian Wars - Political Strife during Renaissance, families battle for the control of the Repubic of Firenze whilst Italy itself is engulfed in a war for the control of the peninsula, with foreign powers like the growing militaristic France or even the Germans from some of the HRE states prey for more land and vassals. PCs could be literally anyone from commonfolk, who would be experiencing the Renaissance and they still would have something to do as Savonarola would eventually come in play, changing the life of the common people or trying to rise through the ranks of society; richer/more influential people would be able to fight directly for control of the city or just enjoy the good life that their money can buy.

I do not want to leap on or steal this ideal, but I would absolutely play this game, time permitting.

@Ghost said in Getting Young Blood Into MU*'ing:

Every few months or so I get really loud and shake my cane in the air

Only every few months? ... oh oh, just on this topic, gotcha.

@BetterJudgment said in Historical Mu* - Looking for interested Staff:

@Lotherio said in Historical Mu* - Looking for interested Staff:

@Lithium said in Historical Mu* - Looking for interested Staff:

Doing a 'historical' game based only on information one can get from Wikipedia is... not a good idea imho.

Basing it on opinionated historians, when one can find historians that support the extreme opposites as well, is just as not good of an idea either.

If you think that all historians offer is opinion rather than inference based on evidence and reason, then another problem with this idea may be that you don't really understand history, either.

Here's a proposal: set it later, make the PCs all Muslims, Jews, or Mozarabs, and have any forces of the Reconquista be mooks. That will give you a setting with lots of "exotic color" (exotic, at least, for many of the players), opportunity for intra- and inter-group conflict, and the religious-based conflict people will expect without PC-driven religious conflict that is going to spill over into OOC arguments on channels, etc. I'd think that, if no one can play a Christian crusader and any Christians in the game are going to be culturally Arabic, then anyone arguing Christian vs. Muslim on a channel would be clearly outside of what the game is about and easier to identify as an asshat picking a fight.

I say opinion, you say reason. A slight view that took hold is La Convivencia, do I believe this is in part more ideological myth, yes, but it offered some sound reason. Modern historians offer a challenge to this. Do I believe in part it was less coexistence and there were honest travesties and atrocities, yes, but not to the extreme. I imagine it is somewhere in the middle. There are historians that are on either side of this coin, they do not agree. So in a matter, yes, it is the opinions of historians on whether it was coexistence or not. I believe no one really understands history, none of us were there truthfully. And reason can lead us to easily say opine one way or the other and there are historians arguing both sides of this coin. Everyone is going with it was major religious conflict, I lean middle ground were it was less religion. I also believe in part propaganda was much larger in influence how history was written and yes, there are historians that make this very point.

We can find scholarly articles and contemporary historians that make case for either side. I do think their reasoning is opinionated, to support their take on history. They all have access to the same empirical evidence and they can't always agree on the truth of the mater from 1300 years ago.

That said, your idea sounds interesting. I would be worried at one point, would it come down to me trying to 'teach' some other viewpoint or educate in some way? I'm not trying too. I'm looking at the forming of the northern kingdoms and the various alliances that are made and broke and the infighting amongst themselves between the likes of Asturias, Galicia, Basque, Vascones. Evidence points to alliances across or beyond faith. Even the Battle of Covadonga where Pelagius starts the Asturias movement, the Qadi was supported by the Bishop of Seville to broker with Pelagius (example of interfaith for one cause, the Umayyad Caliphate).

We've pulled in a few individuals from this thread already as staff, some with ungergrad and grad work in history. We are looking at adapting some of La Convivencia with the faiths working towards tolerance, and as mentioned, intolerances may abound idly (just not justified rape/murder/genocide in the name of a religion), but the faith reaction on either side to radical ideals could be in the name of heresy and quelling this internally too.

@bear_necessities said in Ares Users: Daily Prompts?:

some kinda random scene set generator in some of the more public rooms to help people who do the whole "wanna rp? What's your idea?"

I don't recall if it was on Calaveras or 5k, but I pondered the random rp card (like a dance card, that gives random partners (active when the card is generated at least) and a random idea; like 'become a thief for the day with NAME'. Folks could run with that, steal something on purpose, accidentally walk off with something, steal some pies, steal kisses, whatever. There used to be old plot generators floating around that I wanted to borrow from but no one has links to the code or offered to share (the ones I've mostly seen a player could +plotidea and get Mr VILLIAN kidnaps VICTIMS from the LOCATION, it is a ruse in his plot against Ms VILLIAN ... and people could use it or borrow from it as fitting).

Maybe a dance/card plot generator would be good for Ares as a plugin. I may look into this, I've time these days.

In the spirit of the game we decided early on not to reap any approved PC. We want casual friendly environment, were someone may only log in once or twice a month and not feel left out. There are some nice plots that staff helped with, either just info and behind scenes or running a scene for someone, but just as many and more great stuff initiated and ran by players. Really lucky to have a great group of individuals that get along.

We were happy to see you come back @toreadorfool , as you saw in the reception. A few have been hit by RL, that happens. If you make it back,great, if you found a place you like better, just as great.

Thanks all, all the work put in is appreciated, as were the comments.

@bored said in Serious Question About Making A MU:

@Packrat This is how I ended up feeling about FS3's combat. Its very streamlined and easy to run, but the limited design of it had an effect of homogenizing not just the different sorts of encounters on a single game, but combat scenarios across all FS3 games, regardless of genre. Which turned me off a lot of them.

That said, @Arkandel is right and manually rolled combat is atrocious nearly to the point of making games unplayable. If your system is less common (ie not WoD), it stands a good chance of actually ruining your game (because you get the usual slowness + the slowness of people who don't know the system at all the in the first place). So in most practical scenarios I would bite the bullet and settle for generic automated combat over more flavorful manual in most cases.

I think in part, and could just be me, a lot of FS3 places haven't utilized the combat to its fullest. There's a lot more to it than meets they eye and some runners seem to accept it at face value and other than managing NPCs, its just running turns. I've had it set up to run airship/seaship battles, folks have used 'vehicles' as troops/battallions to have PCs operate as field commanders in charge of (operating) the troops. Not long ago on Fifth Kingdom, I used vehicles to run turtle vs wall combat (one of the medics on the wall took splinter/impact damage and some focus was on non-medics figuring out how to help them before the wall broke and the fort was invaded).

I imagine Evennia may be the same, combat goes by the numbers but its not fully tapped into for the versatility it can provide.

An alternative to getting into rp on a political game, what I tend to do.

Recognize the politics. Make a char not directly involved; one that won't make a roll to determine some outcome for house or home or hearth. Those are fine, but what I do is different.

Take that character not directly involved, party sibling, one that just wants to raise crops, the one that is opposed to the meta conflict(s). Watch the politics and form a strong opinion for or against what is actually happening in news posts and gossip. Find someone and express your political views, argue if your opposed. Befriend if you agree, plot what to do about opposition. Try to have the non political type live in the face of the crazy politics going on, complain about the politics.

You'd be surprised where this can lead.

@Ghost said in Empire State Heroes Mush:

@Auspice said in Empire State Heroes Mush:

LOOK WE ALL WANT TO DO BEDROOM STUFF TO MARISA TOMEI AUNT MAY

Whoa whoa. Watch that use of all. I kinda prefer My Cousin Vinnie or The Wrestler Marisa Tomei.

I'm a sap, untamed heart Marisa Tomei for me.