Posts made by Lotherio

@Pandora said in Cultural differences between MUDs and MUSHes:

'Activity' is nothing but a ratio of time spent in-game and time spent off-game and the only way to not hold anyone accountable for their offline time is to have zero expectation of activity whatsoever.

This rubs me the wrong way. If someone can only get on once a week, or once a month, why should they be excluded from having the fun they want?

Realms had an idle policy, because of important positions. I still feel bad about @Sunny's friend being reaped. The game I'm doing now, I've removed idle policy. If you are approved, come on any time, RP, have an adventure as much as you like.

Sure, your friends may wonder where you were, and you may have to make up an excuse, family emergency, out of town ... or just been to busy to socialize without need for why you were in RL so much.

So, yes, I have zero expectation of activity from any given player. The place is still active.

As an aside, I'll say this. MUDs, or the ones where you're accountable for offline time, really favors the players who can make time commitment and dampens the fun for those with less time. Which is why those with less time probably seem to favor MUSH that gives them opportunity to have fun without a major time commitment of building up a char slowly over time to be on par with the majority of the player base.

Its another difference all together, but with limited time, I prefer a few more open doors to what I can do, or my players can do, without limiting it to the code, or the availability of other players. I have friends in nearly every time zone, waiting on players to be available to do anything sucks too.

Edit: Well, you were off line, you didn't get the golden ticket. Well, you were off line, you missed the awesome event and tons of XP award. Well, you were offline, we had a major emergency, looked for your character, you missed out on the fun, and now you have to explain where you were. Well, the doctor is offline, your SOL, and the code has festering into it, if a PC doesn't check it you could die. Time constrained people will go elsewhere, and they do, to MUSHes or places that give them freedom to have fun like everyone else.

@Kanye-Qwest said in Cultural differences between MUDs and MUSHes:

@Lotherio said in Cultural differences between MUDs and MUSHes:

This goes into asshat territory too.

If I'm staff, and its conceivable NPCs are doctors, players shouldn't have to wait for the bone setting. It should be assumed. In fact if A, B, and even C are having fun, the NPC world should react as expected without staff needing to be there, or hand waving no NPCs. That sounds like a deterrent to RP in general.

But in that example, you had to spend a lot of time and energy saving up XP to learn bone setting. If staff had NPCd bonesetters every time someone broke a bone:
A. it trivializes the work of those players who put in the effort to learn how to yank a bone straight

I agree with this. I've been on games where staff did point out to go find the players who could do it.

But this oddly seems counterintuitive to the discussion about finding the PC doc situation too.

I'm in the if there is a third player involved and you've involved them, don't cut them out camp. But on these places where you have to find PCs, it works if the player base is big enough, but it sucks when it thins down.

I am a daytime player, these places have always sucked for me as there are fewer players on them. Sure it trivializes the work of those players who learned to yank a bone, but if our IC times don't line up, the story must go on (without making up excuses for the IC docs). Why must I have to get on during my family time, or my kids recital just to appease the player that spent all CGen points on being a doctor, the same as why must I say because they were not there during my time online, they must make up the reason my character must remain in agony while @Pandora buries my alive, whimpering and pleading for my life?

B. Defeats the purpose of having broken bones. There's no point in offering consequences that mean nothing. It's a waste of time and processing power.

If the players involved had fun, does it defeat the purpose of broken bones - no. They play out finding doc, getting it set, then healing. Instead of being forced to 'no doctors on during your time slot/commitement' and letting it fester and worsen despite the description of the hospital saying 'doctors and nurses scurry about'.

@Pandora said in Cultural differences between MUDs and MUSHes:

I played on a game where setting a broken bone was a skill that not all doctors had and if one of them wasn't around or willing to set your broken arm, staff wasn't handing out free bone-setting splints from NPC doctors, you just had that broken bone until it healed. This wasn't a MUD, so I feel fairly confident saying YMMV based on what game you're playing with regards to the argument 'You don't get to decide that there's no NPC doctors around.' and that's not just a MUD vs MUSH determination.

This goes into asshat territory too.

If I'm staff, and its conceivable NPCs are doctors, players shouldn't have to wait for the bone setting. It should be assumed. In fact if A, B, and even C are having fun, the NPC world should react as expected without staff needing to be there, or hand waving no NPCs. That sounds like a deterrent to RP in general.

Opposite the three player scenario, the two player scenario is they should be able to continue play without the time stop situation just the same.

@Kestrel

Fun is where you find it. I like the versatility of a MUSH, where other MU*s use a bit more code. Like the doctor case, its hard to think I would live in a city without an NPC doctor around if its plausible, but I'm limited to only using PC doctors or needing staff around to RP it. I'll leave such places. Or that I need an object called 'lace' to tie my shoes when its like a dime a dozen at any store.

I still play MUDs, but not RPI, I prefer my RP on a MUSH, I enjoy grinding on a MUD. Sometimes I do get into the RP if it so happens someone chances by while I'm mining or farming or making paper or enchanting something. I admit I tent to go to a MUD when OOC drama does crop up, usually in the extreme cases noted here. A break where I'm in full control and there is no OOC to worry about.

@Pandora said in Cultural differences between MUDs and MUSHes:

@Lotherio said in Cultural differences between MUDs and MUSHes:

Edit: This is ICA-ICC .... the world deserves to react, you can't hand wave it (or you can, but loses believability to me). Its like saying, we'll we killed the police chief because we wanted to, no one found us because on one was around on-line, guess we got away with it. They have to make up why they didn't notice us.

You can kill them, sure, but the story is losing verisimilitude for me by assuming it was just that easy.

There is a world of difference between killing a PC and killing a named NPC. The PC's author is here, the named NPC's author is generally staff. I'm all for intelligent debate - we all know there are differences between MUDs and MUSHes so why not discuss them, it's healthy and it's good. But when the examples become outrageous, what are we really arguing anymore? No one is saying 'let's murder the NPCs because we can!'.

Haha, I didn't make up the closed environment of the ship, the attempted murder, the guilt, the looking for a ship doctor to care for an injured person. I'm going with the story provided

I have said you can kill them and get away with it, I pointed at a city, heck if its the country even better. If its all NPCs, have at it. There was a scenario involving three players, and the handwaving of the third player because they were not online.

Edit: If its two players and you're both having fun, knock yourselves out with this story. Just if it involves others, give them the chance. If B isn't suspecting, they get opportunity to allow their family, friends, faction, etc. to investigate or ask for staff intervention from the world of NPCs. But if you're both good with this story, run wild with it, have fun with it.

Edit: Added emphasis on three players

@Kanye-Qwest said in Cultural differences between MUDs and MUSHes:

@Lotherio said in Cultural differences between MUDs and MUSHes:

On a MUSH, we assume the rest of the IC world still exists, if you conceivable demonstrate that you stabbed them (easy, in the code), gave the IC doctor a chance to be found (timestop the scene to be fair to the player, not be a douche and say 'welp offline, they failed') or got staff to check for NPC docs for you, and then make your rolls for stealth to show you buried them without being noticed yes.

...what? If A is setting out to murder B and get away with it, what exactly determines what is a 'fair' effort to find a doctor? I mean, if you stabbed someone, you are probably not going to make any actual effort to find a doctor. This example has gotten way far afield and doesn't make sense anymore. As Pandora noted.

The original scenario was on a space ship I believe. And the finding the doctor was brought up. Why do you get to determine for the entire NPC population that there is no doctor?

Also, I said in a city environment or more open, have at it. Its probably easy for A to kill B and get away with it.

Edit: This is ICA-ICC .... the world deserves to react, you can't hand wave it (or you can, but loses believability to me). Its like saying, we'll we killed the police chief because we wanted to, no one found us because on one was around on-line, guess we got away with it. They have to make up why they didn't notice us.

You can kill them, sure, but the story is losing verisimilitude for me by assuming it was just that easy.

@Pandora said in Cultural differences between MUDs and MUSHes:

it's assumed they have some reason, however good/bad that reason may be, and they can let us know later when they log on. Or not. Up to them.

It puts it on them to do the work when they couldn't conceivably be there, regardless of circumstance, rather than working together for the reason.

If anyone is giving someone a hard time OOCly about any of this, they are the ones crossing an IC/OOC line.

There is no line crossing if I ICly stab someone, ICly look for the doctor, ICly don't find the doctor, ICly bury someone in the woods.

If that's crossing an OOC line on a MUSH, then there we have yet another charming difference between MUDs and MUSHes.

In a MUD, killing is in the code, completely.

On a MUSH, we assume the rest of the IC world still exists, if you conceivable demonstrate that you stabbed them (easy, in the code), gave the IC doctor a chance to be found (timestop the scene to be fair to the player, not be a douche and say 'welp offline, they failed') or got staff to check for NPC docs for you, and then make your rolls for stealth to show you buried them without being noticed yes.

It goes to circumstance. You kill the other on a city game, have at it, bury them away. The instance involved a ship in question. You stab them on a ship, you should see if the other 100 or 1000 or whatever inhabitants didn't hear anything, also, check to see that the people running around running the ship during your frantic search for doctor didn't alert any NPC interest in your circumstance. You moved the body around, make sure no one saw the body bag being moved around.

On the MUSH, we're only saying give others a chance, but also noting the entire world exists as it logically would without having it all coded and presented. MUD is limited to what the staff has coded, the MUSH accounts for everything els.e

@mietze said in Cultural differences between MUDs and MUSHes:

The other in essence means that it's not you that controls your PC at all, unless you're on 24/7 others can make up the IC narrative and your actions as soon as you're logged off. (Maybe that would also encourage people to always plan their pvp actions by checking who list and using that as a tool...oh no wait. )

Sounds just like the 90s all over again. Planning for offline IC time, and folks trying to get in that killshot by concocting convoluted plans to off someone based on 'they're never on when I'm on'. And places where staff allowed this ...

@Kanye-Qwest said in Cultural differences between MUDs and MUSHes:

And again, this is why I'm all about limiting my OOC interactions with people in game as much as possible. It eliminates both the issue of taking things that happen IC in a personal, OOC manner (since you have no OOC interactions to color your perceptions of things) and those popups of insanely derailing OOC drama.

If on a MUSH this is the stance to take, you may find more folks to play the way you like, and you may turn away others who don't like you showing up and then forcing them to some IC conclusion for something their not planned for. It harps back to what @Thenomain had mentioned. Either try OOC etiquette, or just show up, see what works for you.

As others have said, you tend to find the folks you like to play with and stick to it. Others complain of cliquishiness, but if you're all having fun, have a it. The sandboxes are usually big enough.

Just as staff, if I get complaints that OOC/IC cross over is occurring and there is some powering (forcing them to make up reasons beyond their IC control), I'll intervene. Assuming its in policy, but nearly every place I have seen, regardless of what comes after the MU, has a policy of no powering. And I know they will complain on most places I've staffed, even if you don't realize folks are doing submitting these requests.

@Pandora said in Cultural differences between MUDs and MUSHes:

So this got me to thinking - how could A -ever- murder B and make it look like an accident if C is apparently omnipresent? I know if you stuck me in a cruiser with 2 people and I wanted to kill one of them I'd just wait until the third person is asleep or in the loo and I'd say afterwards 'I called for you, but you didn't hear me' and what are you going to say? 'No, you didn't call for me, I'd have heard you.'?

There are myriad way to do this, other than waiting for C to be offline and then have them make up an excuse for not being there.

Poisoning, and visiting and continuing to posion while under doctors care.

Not only does it include C without forcing them to make up some OOC determination for having a RL, it makes it so you could be caught, others could be brought in, the story could grow.

If you're looking for a PK when no one is around, or others don't have a chance to intervene, this will upset folks too.

Edit: Hell, someone shows up almost murdered looks like accident, doc figures it out, this could explode into a good plot ... we have a murderer on the ship, who dunit?!

@Taika said in Core Memories Instead of BG?:

@Lotherio - If there was an in-game mechanic so that not every Important Thing was visible to all and sundry, would you use it? It probably wouldn't be hard to figure out or put together (it might already exist) some kind of staff accessible code. Maybe just modify existing bg code to allow addition post-approval...

Yes. Most places could probably finger code it as an adjustable attribute easily added in, on any place.

Or just mock up the system of +finger and call it +memory ... or just use +bg.

A few places still have the potential to add BG slots and stuff, they note approved or unapproved. FS3 has this potential, lots of WoD places use notes.

I would use it yes.

@Taika said in Core Memories Instead of BG?:

I am pretty similar, actually, in that playing helps me unlock a character.

Along that train of thought, what if the idea of the Defining Moments or Core Memories was one that could be added to?

Post-Approval Cliff's Notes of things that have happened that helped define the pc? Sort of like a bulletpoint journal to help staff and the player remember key events in a pc's life?

Also: bingbongbingbong. Why do I do this myself? Damn you, Pixar!

I use wiki for this if a place has one. If I unleash a new memory, I try to add it somewhere on the wiki as I remember.

Every few weeks, I try to include a new snippet of BG in a char I'm playing. I admit some may be slightly meta, but enough to touch at a reason to some sour face he has, or some other reaction that is uncharacteristic of how he might normally react. If someone bites, I can develop the core memory and defining moment as we play it out.

@Pandora said in Cultural differences between MUDs and MUSHes:

@Lotherio said in Cultural differences between MUDs and MUSHes:

Let me rephrase this in another game.

We are playing chess. You get up to answer an emergency call, I want to capture your king. You're not there to decide you move, I do it for you ... and you can make up why you made such a horrible move.

It doesn't seem comparable, in the MU* example, no one is deciding what you DID do, they are only noting what you did not do. So the exact correlatory comparison would be:

It is forcing a 'you were not at your post'. Player cannot be on 24/7, or even every day of the week. Their char would be, this is making a weird cross over of OOC/IC.

Edit: Its forcing the player to make up an excuse for something OOC that isn't truly conceivable for the character who is in the world 24/7. I'm with Faraday, a reason could be found, but I find it better to offer the player benefit of the doubt for the character. Similar to having a character know something about the world the player wouldn't, and the GM/ST gives them a knowledge take to give them info. Instead of saying, welp, player doesn't know our theme, they're SOL, they give them the opportunity to allow character to meta for them.

@Pandora said in Cultural differences between MUDs and MUSHes:

@faraday said in Cultural differences between MUDs and MUSHes:

Yeah, I really don't understand where this became about wanting a favorable outcome or not wanting to fail. I don't care about that. What I care about is being forced to come up with a preposterous explanation (I fell asleep in the crawlspace with noise-canceling headphones on!) for something that is an extremely routine MUSH event (someone not being online at the exact moment you want them).

I was just trying to illustrate that sometimes OOC communication is done in the interests of IC continuity.

What if A specifically wants to murder B, via framing it as an accident? A knocks on C's door, C doesn't answer. A is reasonably assured that C isn't around. A invites B to a 'friendly spar' in which A proceeds to stab B in the chest. A clutches her pearls and drags B into the hall, valiantly banging on the doctor's door, to no avail. Agony! B bleeds out, unable to be saved. Acta est fabula, plaudite! A carries B to the ship's chaplain, then heads off to find D, E, and F to plot their mutiny. Story! Plot! - wait, what's this? C logs in the next morning like 'Retcon, I would have been there to save B'.

At what point is the line between 'reasonable assumption' and 'preferable outcome' crossed? It's not a black and white issue. I am not a MUSHer, so naturally I stand on the side of the line that says 'If a character isn't there, they aren't there, and the onus is on them to come up with the least preposterous yet entirely-possible explanation for why they weren't available.' No one is going to court martial you for being in the shower when someone banged on your door at Implausible o'Clock at night. Or maybe they are. It's a story, albeit maybe not the one you woke up thinking you'd be telling that day.

Let me rephrase this in another game.

We are playing chess. You get up to answer an emergency call, I want to capture your king. You're not there to decide you move, I do it for you ... and you can make up why you made such a horrible move.

If its at my place, I'd approve a list of core memories. I have approved snippet style backgrounds. I'd approve bullet style points lists too.

@Pandora said in Cultural differences between MUDs and MUSHes:

I can certainly see the appeal of having things turn out A-OK or at least more to your liking, every time something goes wrong. I just don't know that I find it altogether compels people to tell the best story they possibly could, but simply the most pleasant/convenient.

I think this is a misconception relating to Mushes in particular. Few people want to always win. Most people want the chance to roll for their character. The doctor probably would like to still roll some sort of results and most are inclined to believe that failure is just as fun as success, and may lead to even greater story.

Edit: They want to roll for their character, and with limited time, they don't want to waste on-line time having to fathom some IC excuse for why they were absent. And this is why ... the doctor wasn't at her post on a ship, if this is just assumed to have happened and we believe the rest of the ship and its NPCs run in the background, the doc would be court martialed and worse. All because they just couldn't be online.

@Kestrel said in How does a Mu* become successful?:

A friend of mine is currently working on an MU* project where he's looking to really amp up the 'explorer' factor in what I think is a rather novel way — rather than having a traditional grid designed by builders, he wants to create a self-creating, dynamic player-driven grid wherein anything you can imagine wanting would be automatically generated (and then be explorable) the moment you enter a command like, 'goto bar'. If no bar exists, the system would then simply create a bar with a randomised name/description, and other players would have a chance of finding it next time someone uses 'goto bar' as opposed to looking for that bar specifically by its new name/ID. And similarly this could be used for generating and linking generic backstory town-where-I-grew-up, where you may discover that you actually grew up in the same town as another player, allowing for the opportunity to coordinate.

What's old is new.

A lot of the original Mu's were basically if you want it, make it. Having the 'system build it sounds novel, but also a lot of work. But, way back when, part of the vetting process of learning was learning to code. Some MUDs have MUDs schools, old Mu's had Schools for new chars too, but it taught them to code. My first one was Star Trek: The Original Series MUSE. I liked Romulans and choose to be one, the first thing I did was spend two weeks in 'Romulan Academy' learning to code. I made puzzle box with six sides that would randomly determine the order (1-2-3-4-5-6 scrambled) and users would have to dial it in right to 'beat' the puzzle.

In the early 90s, lots of places enabled @quota on players and they were expected to contribute to the shared environment. Build a bar, make a ship, make cars that moved, make puppets that interacted with players and otherwise build the shared world together. At some point, people decided this created too much clutter or used up too much space, and the quota was slowly reduced until, like most places today, its either turned off or set to like 1 which is reserved for one private room, which must be @dug by staff.

Edit: CLean up italics with my use of asterisk

@surreality said in How does a Mu* become successful?:

Grids have become much smaller over time, which limits the Explorer; I've looked at some ways around this for a super bizarre project I wanted to try and found some ways around it but there's no way around a somewhat larger-than-people-find-ideal-these-days grid. (That, or I am just used to people shrieking like harpies at any over all grid of more than 20-25 rooms; I'm accustomed to that being a minor side area grid from a main area that may have two or three of those springing from it from the days of MOO, by contrast.)

Ironically, I think this is where MUX could draw more people in, or provide more options than it currently does, it's just utterly counter to the current game design mindset in a number of ways and it's time intensive on the build side before the doors open -- many staffcorps are racing to open and there's simply no time for this level of detail. To me, personally, I consider this a drastic loss. We used to see more of it. It is/was a fantastic means of imbedding plot elements or story seeds in the setting that players can uncover and then explore or pursue, solo or with STs/GMs or other staff assistance.

This makes me curious, if beefing up grids would help. You could probably extend social to other MU*s for the most part, or outside of a MUD the balance would be lost. Especially in killing; sure a lot of players like PvP of some level, but with friends and the amount of social scenes or social coordination to get to the killing without it being free for all PvP, its probably skewed more towards social.

As for grids, the argument seems to be, too big and folks don't know where to go to find each other, or its too spread out. Then again, how often is one bored to go to the same old venue to hang out:?

But meta, folks can +where/who/etc to mostly find each other. I imagine a larger grid would gives folks enough variety to mix up restaurant play and, while a MUX tends to use code for secrets and such, good descriptions could be inspiring enough.

I'm toying with altering common room descs just to see if folks bite with interest, curious why it changed.

As for secrets and such, I've seen it emulated on MUSHes too. I mentioned Nightmare LP Mud as my favorite, because it seemed to be one at the time that hid objects and descriptions. One had to read the entire desc and look at each object to see if there was more too it. A few Mu*s outside of MUDs have done this and hidden it enough so there were no visible local views or +views, but most players outside of MUDs don't tend to think to 'look' at every thing in the desc just to see if there is more too it.

Edit: @Apos commented on this above while I was writing this.

Also @Thenomain mentioned considering changing from pages to grid wandering. A lot of places have removed access to unfindable, or when you see it on WoD, you just think they're avoiding certain players mostly when its on. But I'm curious if MUSH could benefit from some of these concepts, dark grid, unfindable, interactive descriptions. Just that it would take some educating or adapting on these being things, when players, at least on a MUSH, tend to think anything possible is visible in a room/location.

I don't look at a MU's success by number of players.

Also, I want to distinguish, game vs MU*. Game to me only uses code or roll of some kind for determination and conflict resolution, a MUs is an RP environment that may use rules and code. RP is success to me in a MU regardless of size. People having fun, whether all in on immersive meta or minor social interactions between their own PRPs or even sandboxed adventures.

People involved and having fun was briefly touched on in Meta vs PrP vs Planning vs Impromptu.

Its exactly what you say, enough meta with enough to spice the downtime between meta.

Though success for me is drawing in enough players who enjoy the theme and are comfortable enough with running their own PrPs. The more staff needed to arbitrate, dispute resolute, or physical have to run everything for players, the less successful it is. I want folks to be inspired enough to go out and do things they want to make changes. Meta is a mix of running a few things here and there and leaving it up to IC info distribution and letting players react.

If I run a scene or two, then post some IC info later, then folks talk and I start getting pages asking what players can do because they're interested, that's more successful then scheduling plot events time and again.

Realms had decent numbers, 60 or so unique players came by, even when I was done there were 40 players logging on weekly. I do not see this as a success. Players had fun, but there wasn't much getting along. There was meta going on, folks were interested in it (Dorset, a few minor plots on the side that I thought were even better), but the jobs numbered about 1500 in three months and every day of the 10 new ones, about 1/2 was complaints.

Coral Springs (Island), the one I'm doing now, is small, supers themed, niche. There are about 15 individual players a week, about 25 or so who have chars that check on every week or 2 at least. No complaints, everyone is out doing their own plots, meta is slow and out there, minor changes to the world (the PCs world, not the entire cosmos), and overall folks are having fun. It was barely adverstised, on a few comic places mostly, and is more word of mouth. It just seems to be more enjoyable for me to log in. This is my concept of success, I can staff and still have fun, its not a chore to log in.

@Kestrel said in Cultural differences between MUDs and MUSHes:

It is a lot easier to be a Mary-Sue on a MUSH, because if you don't want to, you never have to expose yourself to anyone who would rain on your parade.

True, like those who would claim ownership of a public place, you learn to avoid these.

The wish fulfillment, true. On a mud you get what you find, or someone gives you. You don't get to play something cool out of the gate. On a Mush, if you apped it you got it, a cool sword, car, powers.

You sit around waiting, or you make something happen. No mobs, you make up npcs and monsters. There's a good thread recently discussing staff aproval versus player run/initiated.

You can go fight something without knowing were the special mob is on the grid. You can do murder mystery, plot sleuthing, save the village.

You do lack the pride you get in a mud for beating uber mob, or finding unique item ... More sweat and blood on the mud.

See also my bafflement on this thread. It weirds me out that people would strictly arrange for and only play out perfect relationships, even perfect friendships, or expect other players to alter their characters' normal behaviour to minimise conflict.

That is an extreme, most players prefer spontaneity versus full arranged. I think most agree if its that planned out, why not write the book instead of playing.