Posts made by mietze

There are some of us that have seen IC pvp politics managed well by staff now. It's why I think it could work with the right staff people. You'd still have people bitching. But I have seen it happen now.

I don't think it wouldn't succeed. I do think it would require someone running it who could put very clear expectations in place for players and uphold them.

It's likely a lot of the former community might have some major adjustments (and some people would not like it), but it could be done.

I have noticed a certain amount of sparser than usual activity in the last year or so. (Kingsmouth seemed to be the exception, at least for me)

I do think that the pool of mushers has consolidated/shrunk a bit, but that now that there are a handful of GMC games open people are stretched a bit thin. I've also noticed that maybe because of that, there's less people willing to start/engage in activity/PrPs, and it does seem to very much be a culture shift now where even staff relies upon active players running things to breathe life into a place. (I don't think that's horrible or wrong, BTW, just my observation).

So what happens is largely the same players are tapped into running things (or the people who would run things see this happen) on mutiple places and they burn out quick. When staff is busy and the usual suspects are not running things, it means that there's no activity. I think most people don't idle around to chat really these days because there are other things like Fallout, non-MUSH games, family stuff, ect.

I know I personally have been feeling kind of blah. I like running small group things, but when there doesn't seem to be much real chance of reciprocation so I worry about getting stuck never really getting to play my own PC, it makes me reluctant to invest a lot of time. (As opposed to TR where for all the other valid and glaring faults, there did seem to be a lot more people I knew running the type of things I liked--Nakesha and others in the Law sphere kept my energy going for other stuff because I had a soft place to fall as far as getting to enjoy being part of another person's scene they were running that wasn't a staff plot with 15 people in attendance because people were so desparate for any kind of thing to do that wasn't social).

Usually I'd be fine with investing more effort up front (typically at least for me, it does eventually come back around for me), but to be really blunt I've been plagued with some pretty serious health issues starting with complications postpartum from my oopsie baby almost two years ago that seems to have morphed into some kind of autoimmune thing I've been struggling to get answers for (looks like maybe there is some hope soon, keep your fingers crossed), I've picked up a second job, and I'm trying to balance once more being a parent to a young child and the increase in household stuff that needs to be done alongside that after enjoying a handful of years of just parenting preteens/teens. It may be since the MUSHing crew seems to be aging a bit (when I first started mushing there were a ton of teens/early 20 somethings--many of us are still around and...not anymore) I bet that there are quite a few people in the same boat of needing to balance more life stuff. (From friend chatter, especially needing to pick up a second job, it's the decades where more health stuff happens, and then there's family stuff like children/divorce/ect.)

I have not noticed a huge amount of actual activity decrease--just less public chatter because people are doing things other than hanging out ooc chatting on windows. But every year that I've mushed there is a dip in November/early december (used to be family centric breaks or huge work increases/finals) with a bump up a little during the holidays when people were home and off work/school, with another bump mid January when people were bored and it was crappy outside. I think that's still true to a certain extent.

If Chiaka player was telling you that, with respect, I might take it with at least a little grain of salt. I mean it could very well have happened, but given my experiences with her where she was saying she was told or had to do things that I knew for a fact ICly and OOCly the opposite was said (because I was there), I mean she is I'm sure a very nice lady but not exactly very reliable. At least in almost all of my experiences with her.

I don't think anyone on that game was a sick person. I do think that in some ways though players were encouraged to be at each other's throats. It lead to a lot of frustration. I got to hear all kinds of things on all sides, because while 2 of my PCs were at least minimally involved in politics, both were somewhat neutral as well, at least on the surface.

Everyone had the same complaints about favoritsm and staff set up. Given that that started to happen on RfK as well I am wondering if it isn't endemic to understaffing when hardly anyone is getting responses to anything, things crawl to a halt or there's unsatisfying pace or advancement, somewhat of a communication breakdown, and in the absence of a very unifying personality (as Shava tended to be) the people start turning on each other out of frustration and safe target.

My Amaleathean majorly fucked up a healing roll and almost killed another PC. Luck of the draw is that he was around me again when it triggered and I didn't fuck it up so bad the second time around. It still wasn't great but better than unintentional PK. I actually really felt bad (he was super sweet about it). Some of the battle scenes were high stakes in other ways, but I too remember tantrums and all out ignoring unfavorable rolls (IC and Ooc tantrums) with one person in particular but she was by no means the only. Sometimes I felt the scene runner did not handle that well, and so it kind of encouraged that behavior.

P and I and quite a few others have had some pretty in depth and honest discussions about stuff that went wrong (for a while I was contemplating opening a game too--but realistically I don't have the time or health to do so so I'm not).

There were so many things done wrong ( and right). I think a lot of it boils down to (if you take out the personality conflicts) overextension of a too small staff for the scope of the game they were running. I agree that it's better to focus in on one or two aspect rather than to try to do everything (politics! war! Guilds! Questing! Exploration! Ect!). And at the end only 1 or 2 people had plot info as staff, things were not updated and getting lost, there wasn't enough staff time to keep up with demands/expectations that had been set (some people may blame players--I don't. I think as staff you teach people how to treat you and others by what you permit oocly in particular and what you reward, and from my outsider perspective at the time there seemed to be a pretty shocking amount of discourteous behavior all around, from STed scenes being delayed or started hours early with minimal communication or flagrantly after people had been waiting, and people throwing screaming Ooc tantrums at staff and other players in public). That's really why most of the people I know wandered away. It wasn't moving along, and the signal to noise ratio of problem behaviors was starting to rise as people grew more frustrated and started taking it out on each other.

I'm hoping that my health situation will be on the mend soon (and with it probably the time situation as well). I would still love to get involved with a FS project if that stuff permits. Old contacts and friends, don't be strangers. Always happy to chat/catch up.

Military/Ex-Military people seem to fall 50/50 on the chill factor, but the most screamy obnoxious "military" people do seem to be wannabes if you ask them questions about military life that's not super wikipediable and they stumble.

But I dunno. I tend to give people the benefit of the doubt, because having grown up in the military I know that for sure there are a lot of bad/mean/stupid people in it along with all the normal folks, so it's not like they couldn't have served but just been a moron.

For a few years I helped to moderate a non-racist non-right wing prepper site. I know what you mean about the armchair John Waynes. If only I'd been there with my gun I would have saved the day shitheads. I find it tiresome. No person with half a brain in their head and firearms training and a lick of common sense thinks that if only they had been there with their CCW they would have stopped the theater shooter or any of that shit. So if someone is swinging their balls around on that, it has more to do with making THEMSELVES feel better/safer than anything else. I don't blame people. It's a lot easier to lie to yourself that you'd be a hero than to face the unknown.

Reinstalling SWTOR might be dangerous for my MUing habit. I forgot how much I really enjoyed this game, and it's super nice stress relief, which I very VERY much need right now. Simple pleasures!

Growth, and the capacity for it, mostly.

I am a very slow chargen person, I don't super enjoy or get excited about the process.

But the two characters that I played on a consistent basis and who I thought about a great deal and enjoyed the most both started out as relatively blank slates, and over the years progressed in directions that frankly I never had even thought about or intended in the first place. Both had a great number of people and partners come in and out of their IC life too, which was sometimes frustrating but also propelled a lot of those changes.

I also enjoy having real reasons to hook in to the larger world. The PCs I've had that were just as complex and growth oriented but who tended to be very limited in their interactions with others beyond a very small 1-2 person group tended to fizzle, even if the other person(s) did not flake.

I think a few others have hit it on the head--you may be getting bored or not finding satisfying RP because you've left not as much to be interactive about, and are too reliant on others to make things for you to do with your character, vs. being open to having them effect you.

Staff run plots often have a huge number of signups (as do sphere events). IME these may be exciting actiony things but very very rarely will they introduce you truly to others or get contacts outside your playgroup. There is a scene, but then a lot of people do not get together on their own afterwards (maybe in a job, but even then people tend to do that individually or in clusters). There also are not typically enough of them to constitute regular RP. This isn't a good or a bad thing, just seems to be par for the course for most places I have played at least in the last decade.

I find when people are way too focused on their own PC being a specific way and interacting in the world a specific way and/or wanting to surround themselves with others and events that go in such a direction as to support that, it rarely goes well--especially if you're not communicating a lot OOC (and even if you are). I think most people who MUSH fall into that a time or two so it's by no means some indication of not being good at things or whatever. But you do have to be careful of an attitude of "I have such an awesome PC, if only people would come and unwrap me and see!" creeping up on you--because a lot of people are used to that kind of interaction being very one sided, when the other person won't run things/won't focus on the other PC for a change, ect.

IME games are not made exciting or interesting by /your/ PC, but by what develops between them and others. I tend to make rather open ended PCs so I have ready excuse to explore without being too bound by "Oh, I can't do/explore that, because I've had 50 years of doing something else/in my background I /hate/ that, ect." Most of the PCs with elaborate backstory (which can be rewarding, but IMO primarily when you are creating that WITH someone else, not on your own for someone else to try to discover from scratch) that I've had have had a partner to play off of and a reason to be very very very interested in the world around them. (Spy, courtesan, political machinist, personality, ect.)

If you listen and yield the spotlight and pay attention to what other people RP with their characters, you'll often build goodwill. I can't tell you how many times people have been touched that I remembered something said in play and incorporated it into our next scene or in an offscreen moment (like a @mailed letter or gift, ect). I do that because I enjoy it. It is not super reciprocated, but when it is, I know that that person is a keeper for RP and someone that I'd like to involve more, beause it really does feel good when someone notices and is thinking about your PC as they're writing about theirs. And you can do that sort of thing regardless of backstory.

I think the most helpful thing to remember though is that your character is often not the prime reason why you do or don't enjoy a place. Your interactions with others, their relationships with others, and other things often affect how and if you settle and how well so much more than your character themselves.

So I think it's good to leave some open space. It is really good to have a concrete idea in your mind of what your PC is like, but I think realistically on a MUSH you should be willing to adapt a little if the environment is different than you anticipated or be willing to ditch your PC (there's nothing wrong with ditching something that's not working for you, and nothing wrong with trying alterations or giving it time--it's just a matter of how much you'd like to invest or are willing to be patient).

But I think that staff run plots and other player run +Events and plots are not going to satisfy you unless you're just looking for tabletop ish stuff (and you know, that's fine too, really!). I do think it helps to try and adjust to seeing your PC not as the prime element of your enjoyment. (Or maybe that's just a personality thing for me, dunno.)

@Sunny I think a lot of TR policies kind of broke that barrier for a lot of WoD people. If you can bring back a permafrozen PC at will with no consequences (and having earlier transferred 100 percent to a new PC that you're playing now) then I don't see why people would fuss about Hi I'm Back From the Dead much either. And there has always been staff/GM fudging across genres and time too about the get out of death free card. I don't think it's /that/ much of a stretch.

I am going to name my next character Barbarianna.

Kung Fury (on Netflix)? Terribad in an awesome way.

@tragedyjones said:

I have often said that I approach MUSHing from a tabletop background. But I know that some people, perhaps even a majority of us, don't have access to or never have tabletopped, or don't anymore.

So a quick survey, my answers to follow.

Do/did you play in a tabletop game now or in the past?

Yep, I first played in high school.

What games(s) do/did you play as tabletop?

Started with GURPS and AD&D, but also Twilight 2000, Cyberpunk 2020, Shadowrun, Earthdawn (was one of the playtesters for that actually). Oh, and WEG Star Wars too. I played once in a Werewolf TT game (WTA) in college, but since that particular group seemed more interested in drinking than playing I didn't go back to that particular group.

Are/were you the GM/ST/DM at your tabletop?

Yes, though I was more the backup GM. When my Roleplaying Guild in college would do events, I would often run a game though. In my reguarly meeting gaming groups not so much.

Would you tabletop if you had the opportunity?

I'm not sure. I do meet every few weeks with a board gaming group composed mostly of old/current MUSHpeople. We talk about it--but to be honest, my days of being able to spend 12 hours gaming are over for the next decade now that I have an oopsie baby.

Do you have the opportunity but choose NOT to tabletop?

Yes and no, see above. I actually think I would greatly enjoy checking out regularly meeting table top groups via the local game stores or wanted ads at AFK (a local gaming tavern) as I am very much a social person who enjoys meeting new folks and sometimes it's easier to do these things outside of a current friends group. But I don't have the time commitment ability right now, truly, so it would be a disservice for me to do that.

Misc:

I find that I find much more quality/satisfaction in /storytelling/ and actual storycrafting on MUSHes. But I do miss the days of TT because not only for the story (which was usually quite good) but the friendships developed, the teasing, the social aspect, the expanding my circle of friends RL. I do get some of that via MUSHdom (I really enjoy meeting and hosting people from online, and I have made some genuine friends there, and I hope that comes across with those I know) but I don't know. There's just something nice/cozy about sitting around a dining room or den table with people and playing together, physically present. What can I say, I like the vibe.

Yeah, I'd say that WW got more of a huge change than Vampire did (vamp feels more like a badly needed upgrade).

Generally I'm indifferent to metaplot, because it's rarely done well over the long term. I feel like ES's apocalypse plot was a rare exception to this (perhaps because she seemed to avoid the pitfalls I've seen in almost every other metaplot situation I have personally seen over the years).

• Lack of continuity of staff/STs:
  This isn't overcomeable, but #Mushlife being what it is, long term staff, especially ST staff, tends to be a rarity rather than the rule. I suppose this could be a good thing if you don't enjoy the ST style of the current team, but as someone who does think that the ST tends to have a voice in any scene and it can really help bring out the best in the PCs, if you have someone who is very good at drawing in new/reticent people and keeping the scenery chewers and wanting to do 5 things in every turn people heeled, and they are suddenly switched for someone who isn't good at that sort of management (or who is actively hostile to newbies or chewers rather than being able to deal with it) then that can make things go south. Or vice versa, if an excellent one comes in.

*Narrowing of metaplot availability:
Players are affected by #MUSHlife as well. Sometimes because STs and staff take this personally, they will only give the plotstuff to people who are "proven" to them personally. Or they become over-reliant on the 'old people who deserve good things'. So the metaplot largely becomes a dinosaur thing. I do think a combination of this is why metaplot stuff has a high danger of becoming a ST alt/friends action/all other spectate type of deal over time. It does not mean anyone's evil. I think it's a natural tendency, and one that makes people kind of assume that unless they're part of that circle it's not worth their while to try to break into the plot (and IME usually they're quite correct on that front). I think that while in theory it should be that PCs will help with posting/opening up things to others/keeping people informed IME that's extremely unreliable. It's going to frankly fall to staff primarily to be sure that the plot remains open to all if that's what they want.

*Extremely Poor Recordkeeping:
If one person alone "has everything in their head" and "can't possibly lay it out for others", I don't get involved. It's not worth it. Those folks tend to be wonderful STs and plot people while they're active, but they also burn out like whoa. And then everyone's left with a mess. I think the ideal is for (staffside) there to be all running plot information organized on a forum or trello or what have you, complete with all logs and most importantly a page/entry that has a running summary that is updated every month with where it is now. In addition to indexing, who is tagged into what, ect. I am convinced though that having a running summary of metaplot status that is regularly updated is key tp keeping it moving. That alone on many places could be a staffer position (because not every ST is good about keeping good concise summaries, ect.).

I'm actually greatly in favor of regular wiki "plot summary thus far" pages for the mush as a whole too--complete to links to logs. That also allows incoming PCs to get up to speed and to kind of see what's been done before, so they don't have to deal with dinosaurs looking down their noses and squashing them by saying "Well, we already TRIED that you fucking noob, go away!" I do think that may anger some old PCs that think that that may give some info to people who didn't "earn" it, but at the same time, it helps prevent the final problem that I've seen:

*PC Entitlement/Ownership:
Especially on very long term plots, you can have a huge problem of cockblocking/bottlenecking. Sometimes that's because of poor staff management/chaos/continuity issues, but sometimes it's very much a "I was here first, so eat it bitch" attitude on the part of players with longevity. Or it is a very overt We Know Our Alts/Friends So We're the Stars. (I saw this mostly on oWoD games. But people being people, I'm sure it still happens! If it is a game run mostly by friends for friends then that's fine, but I think it would be kinder to disclose it and just own it rather than telling others they're not "trying hard enough" or "doing it right". If it's not, and staff is frustrated at the same olds responding and/or picking up pieces and then hoarding, then it's good to have a strategy in place (or even to say overtly) that a staff goal is continual entry and pivotal things done by newcomers and oldcomers, and staff will help that along if necessary. That's also being fair to the people who are used to the concept that the longest running PCs are entitled to the most information/screentime. Because that is not an unreasonable assumption on some places, it seems only fair to warn them of that.

We do have WDPT and one of our group has brought Exploding Kittens too.

So, I have an about every month/sometimes more board gaming group where we sit around and eat and talk shit about MUSHing and play board/card games. (Our group is 8ish adults regularly, but usually there's like one or two people sacked out/inebriated or chasing children or in a spectator/hang out mood so reliably 5 or 6 people interested in playing at any given time.)

What are folks' favorites as far as games that can have at least 5 players?

We play a lot of Betrayal at House on the Hill, Pandemic, Dead of Winter, Mexican Train...probably some other stuff I'm forgetting. Elder Sign, King of Tokyo, Kill Doctor Lucky, Tokaido, CAH, Zombie Dice, Smash Up all have gotten regular rotation. Also the werewolf Mafia-esque game (two people are werewolves, the rest are villagers, every round the wolves get to kill a villager, and then the villagers lynch someone they think is a werewolf afterwards by vote, whoever has the most people left standing at the end wins out of wolves or villagers) as well.

Has anyone here ever played Mansions of Madness? It looks pretty fun (though complicated) so that might be something that people would team up on. Any other game suggestions? (I'd heartily recommend all of the games listed above!)

I enjoyed CP, but luckily I'd known a few people who'd seen it first, so I was prepared for the fact that it's a frock drama more than horror. It was beautiful. But definitely not on the level of Pan's Labyrinth for story, or even Pacific Rim. I do kind of think that Crimson Peak is a little like Pacific Rim except for frock romancey drama Rebecca-light folks rather than kaiju movie people.

Is it bad and/or a sign of both the Mr and I being ancient MUSHers that it doesn't seem THAT crazy?

Even Mr. Mietze likes it, Sunny!