Posts made by Lotherio

@faraday said in Historical MUSHes:

At what point are we no longer playing any semblance of history and just playing costume dress-up with modern sensibilities?

This may be the heart of it, at what point does verisimilitude vanish for the individual (various points certainly).

Another example cause it works for me; I keep thinking a 50s cafe racer joint would be fun to play in. But maybe I'm only seeing the costume dress up side? Greased hair, kids biker gangs versus outlaw 1%'ers vs police chases and all; rum runners on the side even, souping up their pre-NASCAR cars by mixing and matching the best parts to get the most out of the pedal.

But I also know, everyone holds up the 50s as a golden era and looks at crime stats without considering that domestic and hate crimes were not reported as much. There was more hate than acknowledged by simple crime stats that were collected due to how the data was collected even, it was a big era of civil rights movement.

The suggestion @Ghost hinted at, period-piece vs historical, might help a little, but I think more folks would simply eye roll at playing on a period-piece game, wondering how much history was thrown out the window even (is that 50s cafe racer place going to involve the main motorcycle person jumping the shark on skiis at some point?).

@Cupcake said in Historical MUSHes:

female Indian medical doctor

Susan "Bright Eyes" La Flesche Picotte

Yes, the term Bright Eyes was appropriated by a white band that included @ghost's favorite Omaha personality.

I concur, but with like the discrimination isn't a thing during the civil war. I think most places in the era would be more akin to: this existed its just not something we're playing out icly rather than removing it completely. Just, then the feedback that its not historically accurate comes up. Like someone wants to play the person that takes slave bounties by collecting on the runaway ads (I'll respond to this Andrew Jackson ad, I'm sure he's good for the $50+ expenses for me to find this runaway; we're not really focused on that aspect; yes, Andrew Jackson died before the civil war).

Or even as @peasoupling pointed out, two different games same era even. Those things bad by our standards are more NPC realm here versus, discrimination happened and you have to play that here.

I mean, could you have some folks that want to play out the discrimination and the underground railroad and playing out the running and making it to Canada if they want ... and some folks playing there are slaves but owner/slave relationship stuff that isn't as bad as some people thinks (and I don't even mean historical drama accounts, I mean like Finding Your Roots genealogy accounts where the slave is freed and they live together, taking each others names, and having many grandchildren). Not saying I would even try to play out the later, not my place to be in some RP situation like that to begin with.

As staff, I know i'd be open to players playing out either situation if everyone was on board, that is consenting, but maybe the part of it that comes up is the consent issue. Like everyone wants to be the hero, so the underground railroad meets with resident uber rich guy who pays away all possible obstacles and robs them of the story, not historically accurate but plausible for some people and if their PC is rich, they think its solution. Or inversely, someone wants to be the 'bad' sort that is the obstacle for others stories and the relationship story against perceived notions of the situation, someone is playing the racist and decides they want to just be a jerk to the story continually and the originators are just getting tired of all the hurdles the other keeps raising.

This is why I upvoted the Horror Mu* stuff, and it coming down to players not being jerks to each other. There is a rich array in any historical situation that challenges our modern conceptions of history even. Like we want to say civil war era did have discrimination and a few well known racists, because it helps us make sense of it; we don't want to hear, this man of color, a free man living in the south, supported the Confederate army, because it doesn't make sense to our pre-conceived notions. Some feel if the game plays up the former, its not really a fun escapist game, some fell if the game plays up the later, its really doing injustice to the actual injustice done during the civil war.

We just all have different opinions heh:

Hello. Welcome to the Portokalos family and welcome the-the Miller family. I-I was thinking last night, um, the night before my-my daughter was gonna marry, uh, I-an Miller, that, um, you know, the root of the word Miller is a Greek word. Miller come from the Greek word "milo", which is mean apple, there you go. As many of you know, our name Portokalos is come from the Greek word "portolakli", which means orange. So, okay, here tonight we have, uh, apple and orange... we all different, but, in the end, we all fruit.

@peasoupling said in Historical MUSHes:

I mean, if you look at it that way, no one wants authenticity in modern settings either, they want to play a romanticized version of the modern world, full of sexy billionaires and heroic cops and thieves with a heart of gold and creepy serial killer cultists, and hardly anyone voted for Trump except possibly the serial killer.

Exactly this. I don't see why it should be different for historical places. The OP didn't even ask for accuracy, it just came up as it always does when Historical Game is intoned. I think in part, there are a handful of players that would prefer a game related to just trying to survive in a historical period. Nothing wrong with that at all, it just seems that if a place isn't historical enough for some, it tends to get negative feedback pretty quick on the accuracy meter.

@faraday said in Historical MUSHes:

Mind the trolls and their bait.

"Want to go on an adventure anybody? We'll probably starve, get lost, get eaten, or die of some horrible disease along the way. But hey - it'll be fun! Anyone? No?"

Aka, Oregan Trail. I imagine a game designed to be historically accurate would play like a classic Chaosium d20 Cthulhu; its not how many people died trying to discover the Northwest passage, its that a small handful made it to tell the tale and keep the story alive.

I completely agree, I don't think most people, players or staff, want authenticity of playing daily life in any historical setting; as much as even on a modern game, they don't want to RP the daily life they're living (ugh, trash collectors running late, my trash is piling up and I have a bunch of boxes to throw away, but a raccoon got into what's already out there cause its so full I can't put more trash bags in the cans, I roll a d20 to see if I can get away with throwing the boxes into the McDonald's bin before a shift manager comes out to avoid an argument).

I think, and could be wrong, one of the noted 'issues' is the disagreement with how authentic or note a place is (even when expressed in theme files). As noted with the pub chan debate on accuracy comments, is that there is always going to be someone that doesn't agree with it being authentic enough for their taste. And like most places, they'll make a point to at least express its not to their taste. Just like has been going on in this thread.

I brought up Magnificent Century on here, cause its sort of the gateway to more Turkish historical drama I feel, or at least opened the gates for others. Many of the negative'ish critiques point out the costumes are definitley not period, from cuts and excess skin exposure to the fabrication needed to make them so elaborate to the material itself. I don't care, I like it, it captures enough of the perception of the period in my mind even if embellished quite a bit. Even the storyline, as much of Suleyman's (Suleiman) life is known, far less is known about what actually may have happened among the woman and the harm; but damned it is good drama - I bought into historical portrayal of the time of Suleyman, and after half the first season finally realized I'm really just watching an historical soap opera and I couldn't stop watching.

Then I ponder if such a place opened and I imagine if it was presented just like the show, how much negative feedaback would it receive from portrayal of costumes, to gender, to religion itself.

I think there is room for fun historical places, its up to players (us, in the hobby, both staff and players) to try to work out some difference and, I don't know, be more accepting of differences in what we want to play.

June 24th, 1787.

I can hardly think of my Lieutenant James Hargrowe. Having been bitten by patient Zachary Walker but past noon this last day, my mind seems unable to focus on the others under my care even.

June 25 .. 17~`

I am ... quarantine. Hard ... to focus. Sometimes .. it feels like a fire .. spreads. Must rest, write more later

@PuppyBreath the lone deserted highway east of Omaha, not so deserted with all the people trying to get out of the city on weekends ing Loess hills for recreation or wineries. This was a crazy winter, I still use a shovel and got a his five foot pile at the end of the driveway this year.

@Ghost Heh, good call.

Omaha, somewhere in the middle of America.

For the record, Seger isn't singing about the area (for those not from the 402). East of Omaha is Iowa, so that song doesn't count as representation.

ETA: For those living outside, 531 is used enough these days that my delivery folks text and call from it more now. So if I'm filtering by area code I have to watch for 531 now. I've been getting 605's for some reason to from DoorDash,

@Goblin

Abe Lincoln Vampire Hunter, a few years later than Pride and Prejudice, but the genre is there. I never watched the movie though.

Being one who would be up for RP in a decent historical place and who agrees it needs to not be accurate so much as hollywood, figured I'd throw in a few comments too. And definitely more Hollywood, I can't imagine stumbling across a log and reading a kiss while my mind fathoms halitosis and general dental hygiene of whatever era is being played (A got a bit of something from that kiss, must be a chewing stick you had before kissing me, how considerate of you .... alas, I did not have a chewing stick, my third molar is chipped from all the stone mill gravel in the bread, its either tooth or gravel).

I don't think too many places have claimed historically accuracy or authenticity, but as we can see here, historically accurate was applied as going along with historical setting, fairly early in the responses. Its a fare response to say its not advisable, but its also assumed a lot regardless of intent.

The comment about disliking the channel debate on accuracy is one I agree with, even if you say historical Hollywood interpretive fantasy, there is going to be disagreements on which is more accurate for theme and someone will always take the high horse of having to be historically accurate despite theme saying it isn't. Someone may even ask about obscure history that wasn't considered by staff and by the time they come back after finding what suits theme, a debate could be in full swing on a channel about what should be done by staff related to the question.

That said, I'm more concerned with the points brought up by @Pandora and @Tinuviel. The theme/staff could have addressed RED historical versus what the game is after relating to racial and ethnic portrayals, but regardless, there is going to be RED portrayals with wild interpretations (ie over the top stereotypes and/or gross misinterpretation). As the one that brought up the idea of an early stages Reconquista-Era joint at one point, it was apparent it would be impossible to diverge from RED. If the game tried to reduce the concept, it wasn't accurate enough, and even if it did, player pre-conceived concepts would dominate enough it would come up, most likely in some offensive manner. That and staff would be utterly busy trying to say, that's not our theme, over and over again.

Another note from me, and probably only me, I'd also be more worried that picking any era would be a rush for folks to get PBs/character inspiration from their favorite historical drama. Like as much as I enjoyed Jeremy Irons in The Borgias, I don't know if I want to see him used to play out an incestuous manipulative sort on a game (cause I watched the series, I want to be surprised, not replay an open book). I'd rather see something new to historical genre than something played out a few times; but I think its similar to the comic debate where people would rather see a Gotham re-envisioned due to familiarity rather than an original theme dark city comic game.

Like I've been enjoying Turkish historical drama ever since Magnificent Century made its way to Netflix, but shudder at the idea for something to play out magnificently in a historical setting (see Reconquista above), it would turn into some crusade era religious war concept where being group (race/ethnic/religion) x is somehow synonymous with must hate group y.

@faraday said in How To Treat Your Players Right:

I get that people are sometimes afraid to come forward for fear of repercussions, and that's their choice to make.

Wanted to comment on this fear of staff repercussions. If a player goes to staff and staff does something to the person raising the issue/victim ... Then time to move on, learned that's not the place to go rp.

Afraid your friends/rp partners will stay and not support you, maybe they weren't really friends.

I knew GOMO has a bad connotation in these here parts, but if it's a better environment for you and your friends, it is easier these days to get a place of your own up and running.

@Arkandel said in Good TV:

I was so sure Number 5 was just a very, very young-looking adult. Nope.

Ricky Harper! This kid grew up on a Nickelodeon show, Ricky, Nicky, Dicky and Dawn. There is a slew of kid actors growing up and not tumbling down like past child stars. Looking at you David Mazouz, the fifth cutest kid in Dear Dumb Diary. I have daughters, I'm familiar with these shows, good to see them continuing their careers like this.

@Arkandel said in Favicon:

@Roz You guys live in the future now. You're welcome.

What, my tabs have little pictures on them, what magic is this?

Two years ago, Detroit was rocked by a biochemical attack. This attack decimated a third of the already struggling population. Of those that survived, a quarter came out altered. Their features changed, their limbs deformed. Altered humans that have slowly become second class citizens. Now, unaffected persons are presenting with a new virus that originated from the incident. However, a spark of hope was ignited as a powered altered human arose to combat criminals. But as the spark began, it was nearly extinguished when a similar subject went on a rampage and killed a dozen humans before being put down.

This is the world of 10 Ravine, a combination urban fantasy/superhero genre game. Players take on powered human personas, as much a curse as it is a gift. If they don't use their abilities, they become melancholic and removed from humans. Continued apathy or overuse of the power and one could become consumed by the power, turning into a mindless vehicle of destruction. Players play characters trying to maintain this balance of the gift versus the curse.

We are slowly opening for soft beta. We are sure there are bugs to work out. As well, we utilize FS3 (older version, not on Ares) and have modified combat to work for super level characters, this may need adjusting. Note we are a US daytime-centric game, plots on the meta level will occur during this time. We will welcome interested storytellers as we progress to expand this beyond this time frame, but this time frame will be a heavy focus of staff time.

If this sounds interesting, please visit our site: http://10ravine.wikidot.com
Or point your favorite client to: arthur.silvertree.org:1338
There is a web-client on the website.

@Ghost said in How do you like things GMed?:

UNDERSTATE. My phone autocorrected it to understand.

Heh, I read it as understate too. This is what happens when a dyslexic person goes with the auto-corrected word without double checking their own reading comprehension (I understood it, it looked right to me).

@Ghost said in How do you like things GMed?:

I cannot understand the importance of great villains.

Just a quick note on this idea. If I want Fred to be the villain at some point, from an open ended standpoint, I don't make a series of events that lead to Fred (and again, good GMs that go that route do make it fun). I have Fred do something dastardly. Then I let the players plan the route and help them along the way, often times listening for what they're planning and incorporating it with other ideas that pop into mind. I didn't plan the end, Fred's demise, but I set the course by having him be the dastard. I guess that's the gate that was mentioned, but in open ended, I'm fine if Fred's demise isn't the final part of that arch for the players. Heck, if they let him go, I may use him for a nugget later (or if it is super hero city, he'll return anyways). I don't plan for it though, I react as the world at large for what the players choose to do.

I'm late to this tea party but wanted to throw in a couple of cents.

Goal oriented or open ended can both be fun, it depends on the GM I think. If we're in a war campaign and our goal is to defend the last bridge, and half the story is getting there .... I expect the GM to lead us there even if we go a round about way, eventually point A (Cologne) leads to point B (Remagen). What if we saved Hohenzollern Bridge in Cologne (our demolitions expert cut the wires for those charges on March 6th)? Well, the armored infantry we need to the push over the Rhine are still tied up at Remagen with no way to navigate the 10 miles up to Hohenzollern in Cologne, the charges failed there on March 7th naturally and we need to clear that bridge before the remaining German charges arrive, so we force march over night and have a battle of Remagen just the same. Some details changed, but we still did point A, some battles in Cologne, and we still did B, a large story point of saving Remagen and getting armored infantry over the Rhine. Was it gated or railroaded, I don't know, but we fought some Nazis along the way and everyone had fun.

That said, my personal style is open ended. @Ghost covered this pretty well, offer a beginning, don't write in the end. @Botulism said how I feel about it, if all steps from A to D are planned, just write the story. Players are their to make their own direction. I prefer the nugget style of open ended. Nuggets of interest are offered (potential beginnings) and they players take the nuggets or not. As staff, and players on open BG games, we have the best nuggets available, players BGs. If I'm in super hero city, they players may not want to save starbucks (we can give a little remorse later, saying x people died in the blast cause 911 response was 2 minutes too slow or something). But maybe Johnny was bullied by Fred which lead to Johnny having a strong hero complex, but what's this, Fred is now a super villian. I think Johnny will buy into that. And if I'm not certain (as players don't like random Staffing as much as they used to), I will contact Johnny before hand via page: hey, mind if I start something involving your bg. If he needs details I'll work them out, but sometimes players just want that little heads up something is coming, instead of Fred showing up at group date night at starbucks to blow it up when they were just planning to walk out for minigolf across the street or whatever.

Both are fine, I think player buy in and GM communication helps in both.

@Ominous said in Running Wilderness Adventures:

Anyone have some suggestions on how to marry the exploration and resource management of OSR D&D and the narrative focus of most MU*a?

Most Mu's are not ready to handle random exploration and resource management, travel oriented or not. If they are, they already have some +scavange/search/explore code that runs, lets PC's know what they turn up. Most do not have great loss/gain opportunities, of that which I'm aware at least. I'm might scavenge some bullets on an apocalyptic Mu' that doesn't track bullet consumption, but the chance of stumbling upon an operational nuclear power plant (or stumble on the adventure to recover one/take one over from outland bandits and roadwarriors) is usually zero because they don't allow the chance to just find that.

Not to argue tight meta control vs. world reaction to what players are doing as what Staff should/shouldn't be doing. However, most places generally are set up with indicators how, why and to whom one should work with/on/for in creating a TP in the environment. Most seem open to small scale things that do not tip balance and only want more opportunity for wider player-base and thus why they ask for TP. To help promote it and/or direct inquiries related to said TP to the player runner/storyteller. Again, if a MU* doesn't have it or has it for other control reasons, I'm not making the argument either way as that's not the intent of the question from my perspective.

All that said, I would measure the necessity to all players involved in the story of running an Oregon Trail overland haul to get to X location, and/or return. If pausing a day to fix the wagon wheel causes a food shortage and they need to hunt, is the resource management necessary or just a story driver. If its a story driver and there is no need to work with staff to assure any loot from the hunting adventure is allowed or whatever ... have at it, so long as the players are all on board.

That's what I wanted to get at, introduce encounters as 'x happened, you are low on y resources' for them to consider their next step. You can set it up at the beginning, you have X supplies to make the trip to Y and back, you have enough space to house it all in your wagons/cars/caravan/space ship. They know up front that this could be important. Thus you can plant other encounters into your table - meet gypsies, meet space ghosts, find shipwreck, whatever. And they have their counter of supplies to think about. They can trade with gypsies, get location of actual stuff from ghosts they communicate with, or scavenge the shipwreck looking for what they need, etc.

Going back to the bolded stuff above, is travel time required or necessary on said Mu? This goes into are players on board, will they think they're missing out on events back in the main locations by being on the Oregon Trail? Is handwaving the recommended form of distances between locations? Then just make sure players are on board.

And as much as I enjoy random encounter tables, set up by environment/location/population density/whatever, do the players involved enjoy them? If it was me, and I was in some plot with another player to travel two weeks to remove location, do the thing, then come back and I knew we would off-grid for that time (required by the MU* or the storyteller), I think it might be just as beneficial/fun to handwave going/coming back and focus the time 'off-grid' on all adventure and story for whatever we're doing at the location too.

Then again, random encounters could be fun, so long as its not 'your stuck in scene for four hours discussing how to fix the real axle' then waiting for players to realize 'we need to discuss ditching the wagon and loosing a week of supplies, hopefully recover that to get back home after we get to River Dale, or take a day out and have to hunt now for food to even reach River Dale, or sending scouts ahead'. The later could be fun yes, but if players don't realize that's the intent of the broken axle random encounter either due to culture on the MU' in question or unrealized expectations from storyteller, it could go south just the same.

Spammy, but all that said, if everyone is on board, do what others are suggesting as they're all good stuff. Pick a system that already does this they way you like and adapt it to the MU' you are on, just let folks know what to expect so they don't feel rail-roaded into something they didn't realize they're signing up for.

Edited to remove asterisks and fix italicized words.

@tinuviel said in A theme-less, CGen-less game:

@lotherio said in A theme-less, CGen-less game:

main venue on Broadway

Except this place isn't that venue. This is the office of the New York Times theatre section. We criticise games and discuss improvements and the community. Some of us might be producers or actors, but this building we're in isn't for that.

Exactly, and with a lot of readers (viewers/lurkers) MSB is ideal advertisement space, being associated with the New York Times is better than my crayon attempt at an editorial piece that I'm handing out in the neighborhood.

Despite its purpose and utilizations, MSB has more real estate than you give it credit for.

@tinuviel said in A theme-less, CGen-less game:

@lotherio said in A theme-less, CGen-less game:

I just think the association with MSB would tie a sandbox style place to the most active community space relevant to MU*ing in general?

It feels a little like if Roger Ebert made a movie, in a weird way.

Lets say, I made a musical number. I'd much rather it be associated with a main venue on Broadway (assuming I presented this for the first time in America) rather than my mom's basement. I'm sure my friends and family would all say I'm great, but a Broadway venue would have more curb appeal to strangers. I'm only fathoming too, I'm not the person that spoke to @Arkandel about this idea; I just think an active social MU that included tools to sandbox could be helpful.

@lotherio said in A theme-less, CGen-less game:

I think that's why it would come down to worthy of more discussion

You mean... like a forum?

Indeed, such a forum as this. I'm only offering my constructive criticism because I do think an active social place to sandbox could be helpful on many levels. The idea is good, but not as free-form-admin-lite sandbox (these already exist).