Posts made by Lotherio

@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.

@Ghost said in The Hockey Thread:

How the EFF did my Coyotes end up leading the Pacific division? Wow.

Because the Oilers bubble burst and they're heading back to playing how they were predicted to play at the beginning of the season. Merry Christmas Phoenix fans.

@Ghost Aside from the beginning 30 mins or so of Han Solo, David Copperfield (Dickens) and the write/smudge/write/smudge to fuzzy up the Han Solo origin on paper to rewrite up to just before robbing the train, I really enjoyed it. Warwick Davis showing up as a marauder was pretty cool element in the movie too, it was a nice touch.

@Otrere said in Otrere's Playlist:

Star Wars 1 - Inanna

Ben says: Now that's a name that I've not heard in a long time .. well of course I know him. He's me. (or something like that)

Or something, the name rings a bell, I mostly played Rixt the Ithorian at that time, but we may have interacted with me in judge roll (independent sphere random rp fun stuff) or alt?

Maybe we didn't and I just paid attention to who list, but good to see familiar names from the past, welc.eom.

@Tyche said in How to Approach (nor not) a Suspected Creep:

@Sunny said in How to Approach (nor not) a Suspected Creep:

Can somebody explain to me why it's problematic behavior to go:

p X=You ok?

As long as you're willing to accept, "Yes, I'm a man. Of course I'm okay."

Red flag. P staff=Screw Snakes!

I'm a man, totally fine. Flesh wound

@Tinuviel said in How to Approach (nor not) a Suspected Creep:

And anyone that says otherwise deserves a very long sideways glance with a dash of askance

To alliterate that, anyone deserves an askance glance, abiding a stance arms akimbo.

@Ghost said in Good TV:

I went to the Jean-Claude Van Damme school of flexibility-based groin punches and helicopter kicks.

Doing the splits over very distant parallel bars to perform groin punches is like sweep to the leg crane kicks, if you get hit by the crane kick its because of guilt and throwing the fight, much like getting punched by that wide splits fella trying to corn dog me is more me accepting the hit for reasons then his fancy fighting styles.

@Tinuviel said in How to Approach (nor not) a Suspected Creep:

I shouldn't intervene every time a snake is involved

Nope, screw snakes, if it looks like its about to bite, I'm reporting

Nope! Staff, he's rp'ing with his snakes again!

@Ghost said in Good TV:

I still can't get over just how good The Mandalorian is.

So glad that Rogue One style Star Wars storytelling didn't die with that one movie.

A day (two weeks) old and a dollar short. I did want to reply to this.

I think its way more that Jon Favreau has fan understanding (he's a fan) and enough film appreciation to get part of the allure of the original SW. Its not a Star Wars series as it opens, so much as its a flick about a gun slinger that's just set in space with robots and technology. Its not a JJ Abram splosion spectacular. Early Western genre is as much an influence on Star Wars as Flash Gordon was, its a good medium for story telling with fewer words (the time span of a movie). He has enough savvy to not change what works, or he understands what could change enough and still be accepted (like once there was a Last Mandalorian, but there is now a few in some sort of revival, it works the western space genre is embraced) versus what is too much for some (I love Han Solo, but there are some pretty big shark jumps to make the movie that not all fans embraced). I think capturing this spaghetti western lone gunslinger surviving in the wilds spirit goes a long way for the Mandalorian and Jon Favreau, not only as a well versed director, but more importantly as a fan person of SW>

A quick two cents, maybe the weight of my thoughts are just one cent on this one all things considered.

As a player I'm inclined to do less. If I know the player(s) being targeted, I might page to ask if this is okay or not. If its not, I will approach the creep...

If I see this as staff and I think its creepy, I'll page to ask and approach the creep either way. If I receive a complaint as staff, I take it as a please no by player towards target creeper and get involved.

I'll usually start with page chat, do you know its a little creepy, then direct them to a read something that might help (which is a relationship RP guide someone had for minecraft RP a while back (here it is as posted on Calaveras: http://calaveras.wikidot.com/relationship-rp)). Its pretty forward in its openings: If you get approved to play a character on the game, odds are that you’ve created a fairly balanced one at that with an interesting story and lots of potential. If you think you NEED a romance to make your RP interesting, you are not doing it right. I can usually point out the creepy behavior in there so they are at least informed of the perception of how they're coming off.

As staff, I lean towards low (benefit of the doubt)/zero harassment tolerance (yo, racist/misogynistic stuff on pub, cause I'm cool or something - instaban). If I've said something to a player, that's the 'no/stop' and persisting is harassment, this if the behavior is repeated I jump on the ban wagon for harassment.

@hedgehog said in Why We Don't Make New Friends Anymore (Or Creepers Do Creepy Things):

ramen/turkey dogs/lentils/rice/potato buds variety, too, not anything actually worth eating

Whoa, lets not get personal, lets keep ramen and Maruchan off the table in discussion of what is not worth eating..

@Derp said in The Weirdest Thing I Ever Purposefully Did on the Internet:

some other form of "I work for the government."

National Security contacted a friend after a certain number of searches, he explained he was USMC Staff Sergeant and it was job relevant. They advised him they would add him to their okay list so he wouldn't be contacted again once they had verified his credentials. So no matter what weird I've searched, I've never been contacted by enforcement agencies calling to enforce something.

@Ghost said in Why We Don't Make New Friends Anymore (Or Creepers Do Creepy Things):

@mietze said in Why We Don't Make New Friends Anymore (Or Creepers Do Creepy Things):

Almost all of my chosen family locally ate people I met because of mushing

I think you mean:

@ThatOneDude I understand the attempted humor in that YouTube clip. But, I cringed clicking it, I cringed more when he opened his mouth for the punchline, an awkward comment to recuse himself as stranger in the car instead of, I don't know, actually breaking the ice.

Getting in with a ... Good call, safety first, I live 15 minutes away, if they don't hear back in 30 yeah, sucks that should be done but creeps, glad you let someone know offer fist bump so what's your daytime job when not auditioning, I'm a file clerk at johns law offices ...

May have been better than ... Well you made this awkward by telling someone you trust you're offering a stranger a ride and letting them know where you are.

I get the ideal of the humor but unwitting demonstration of why in the first place.

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

@Sunny said in What Types of Games Would People Like To See?:

@Lotherio

Best political RP I ever had was on Redemption, hands down. Turning the water off for a province or w/e they were called was one hell of a move. I will say that maybe after you left? There were spreadsheets everywhere keeping track of economy and resources and soldiers and things. So many spreadsheets.

The spreadsheets to begin with would have helped the original head staffer bring out their vision more. The RP was good politically. I was brought in pre-alpha and did all the work on Czeryn, the warrior group, we build a lot of history with Shield/iron tech group. I started as the IC leader of the group but really, I was all about letting someone else take control, just some of the folks were less willing to give that up on the back end.

Without getting too far into the politics that turned me away, my favorite thing on a Mu ever was after I left and they let the one group have the large civil war. I did come back as one of the nutter dreamer people and screwed with a lot of the facheads for a little bit (the ones that didn't realize my IP and who I played before) they had some fun with that I think.

@Thenomain said in Punishments in MU*:

(For the audience: Faraday and I don't get each other about 95% of the time.)

Lies, that estimate is far too low.

Self reply instead of edit cause its a weighty addition:

ETA Redux: Just for recent information. We did Pendragon in what, 2015'ish? All I had was a character sheet, no political code, it had 100+ unique IPs and was averaging 60 players a day for a bit there. The politics were all non-code with the way the houses were set up, if OOC over site was more in place for estate running that would have helped with some of the drama. It could have been tested and better ready but wasn't counting on popularity. Not to say its a good venture but shows want for RP driven story and content is still there. Fifth Kingdom reached 50+ unique log-ins in its second month before that dwindled. There is want for it, I believe it needs enough staff to help, outlining politics and how to get positions of power is one of several other things that would help. I think one thing possibly effecting this is most people who can set up a place are running in silos/small groups instead of combining for one place and that's probably a want for various themes instead of just a place to tell stories together?

@Paradox said in What Types of Games Would People Like To See?:

I'm not sure such a thing can happen, but it doesn't mean there's a cessation of attempts.

It can but it requires enough buy-in to theme/setting by the players that enjoy system-less/lite play. It needs ooc structure in place (OOC heads of orgs to help run things, or STs as we like to say now, and how IC leadership and transition is managed OOCly).

There is sort of a trail of heavy coded MUSH/non-MUD that I sort of follow relative to political type games outside of like WoD; again this is my flow chart only. Crossroads was 15+ years back (2K to mid decade as it dwindled out) ~scramble of a few years~ then Firan and now Arx.

During the time at the end of Crossroads and the beginning of Firan was Redemption. It was a codeless (literally codeless outside of bg and some finger info, no sheets, and minimal BG to show familiarity with its unique theme: it was a Political/clan/house building place (it was future fantasy, low-tech fantasy people with no real magic come to future place/ruins). It was medium size at best with 80-100 unique log-ins on any given day, with 120+ chars on (included staff and alts), and I left before it got al little more popular. It was meant as politics, but its lack of control of the politics (turnover of IC leadership and paths to get there) left some bad apples in place (ie: I'm not giving up my position ever, and since I have OOC control of this group ...). It was on the precipice of being more popular but caved in before fully set up, it was in real beta testing to get the OOC stuff in-line after a popular alpha phase of invite only that got half the initial player base.

It can be done, but it needs buy-in.

ETA: Codeless/finger info stuff

@Paradox said in What Types of Games Would People Like To See?:

Theme and setting is all well and good. We could take any single one of these concepts that are suggested and put up a blank server with a few dug out rooms and it'd be done.

Many of the places I have played through the years had Zero system. The reward was positions of power which meant driving the story/RP/meta. Having a +crown and +economy to spend some coins on the great road works for some, having the crown only in story and the power to shape the economy to make the great road works as well. Both require player buy-in to theme.

I was speaking with someone here lately about the change from grid wandering and meeting folks to build connections when we were younger to the current +events and scheduling. We wondered if part of the decline is that there is no 'in' for younger folks with more time to enjoy the things we enjoyed when we started (grid RP and happenstance RP where game STs could drop random story on anyone in public). This may tie in, maybe, to a drive or want for coded incentives?

Not saying one is better than the other but the things I always enjoyed seem to be on the 'outside' lately; system-lite or systemless MUSHing, random RP, building relationship over time not just in pages to work out backstory.