Best posts made by Pyrephox

I would like to see something a bit more like Xenoblade Chronicles X. For those not familiar with the game: the idea is that colony ships fled Earth when Earth got caught in the middle of an interstellar war. Some of the war factions pursued the colony ships, damaging many/all of them. One crashes on a new planet, scattering stasis pods across most of the planet. The main ship has been repurposed into a home base/colony, but they're on a planet filled with unknown megafauna and alien pursuers. The purpose is to survive, but also to try and thrive. So, you have a way to integrate new characters (a new PC obviously just got thawed out of a recovered life pod), you have a home base with an explicit goal of "try to live like normal people" for those people who are more social players, but you also have a constant threat of unknown and dangerous life that needs to be understood/defeated in order for the colony to gather the resources it continues to need to expand and establish itself. That many people are highly competent in a field doesn't break the bank as much, because NO ONE is competent in "what the hell is this thing trying to eat me", because it's all new species. And a new planet gives the story staff leeway to introduce new threats over time, as people expand and explore.

Basically, I think a SF premise can be a lot more sustainable for a large population than the typical post-apoc setting, and it doesn't rely on people periodically doing incredibly stupid and self-destructive things for survival to still be a concern. Because, let's face it, if the zombie apocalypse actually happened? The living win. They may take a lot of hits in the beginning, but we're fucking humanity: exterminating anything that so much as LOOKS at us funny is what we do.

I'm greatly looking forward to it. I actually love the narrative mechanics, especially for character improvement, and think they'd work well for a MU*. However, I think it would be a challenge to get players who really want to engage with the game - it's not a system that works well for the typical, "I'm going to just create A Random Dude and see what happens," sort of play. Your character is always driving towards a goal. I like that, but I know a lot of people don't.

@Coin Mostly I was being snarky about my phrasing. Ideally, yeah, the players or players and staff would work it out so that an event would be fun for everyone - personally, I suspect the average festival or social gathering scene could only be improved by adding gunfire and violence. Or at least some intrigue. (Seriously, every large social scene should have sub-goals for people attending - exchange packages or information, cause social strife between specific people, repair relationships, lure someone to an isolated corner and shiv them, SOMETHING.)

Mostly, I look for something interesting that has potential for a self-sustaining environment, and that inspires me in some way. I know that's vague, but I get inspired by a lot! The biggest thing is that I want it to be clear that the game runner has a vision about what makes this game different, has clearly articulated that vision, and has chosen mechanics that are entertaining and that support that vision. So, if you say "this is a political game", then that needs to be backed up in both the kinds of characters which are allowed AND the mechanics chosen. I'm going to need to know that the staff understands what "political" means, beyond shiny hats. Likewise, if you say something is a "dark fantasy game about power and sacrifice" then don't give me bog-standard WoD, but give me something fun where every move towards power is going to cost me something, and where the powerful NPCs are coherently reflective of that theme, and where the PCs approved are ambitious, striving towards various kinds of power, but also with a lot to lose so that the sacrifices are meaningful choices.

Just don't give me "This is a <system> game set in <setting>." That ain't a theme, even if your setting information is pages upon pages of text. I'm also fine with homebrews, heavily house-ruled systems, and settings where I need to read Walls Of Text, so long as it's clear that staff knows the kind of game they're creating, and all the text helps me explain how to best create a character that fits within it. That said: I do love fantasy and SF, and will be far more inclined to enjoy a game if it has some significant SFF elements, than a game without. I only really like PvP when the game's been carefully designed to encourage long-running conflicts over nuclear strikes, and when the conflicts are both meaningful, and designed to make it as fun to lose as to win. I'm not particularly interested in playing animals or roboty-robots. I'm also not inclined to play any "feature characters" or on games that have feature characters. I also don't want a freeform or minimalist system that gives me few choices to make during character creation and afterwards. I like a moderate amount of crunch, and to know the mechanism by which my character will progress. XP ceilings are fine, though.

@Arkandel said in Fallen World MUX!:

But that's what I meant before - I'm not convinced mandates on the number of alts achieve the goal of people investing in their characters like we do simply because that's not how other people necessarily like to do it. Not everyone is enlightened like we are.

Investment isn't the only reason for a restrictive alt policy. It's also a matter of roles. Games where all the available "roles" are filled by a small minority of players who have 3-10 alts each are considerably less welcoming to new people, and more stagnant, in my experience, than games with much more restrictive alt policies. Personally, I love games that are one character only, largely for that reason. Also, because I like playing with different people, and it does actively bother me when the "fun new person" I've met turns out to be Yet Another Alt. (I have also been kinda stalked in this way, with certain other players taking every character type I thought sounded interesting to play off of, creating an alt, and then approaching me with the character without being honest about its altness. Largely, as far as I could tell, to keep me from playing with people other than them. It was kinda creepy.)

It also helps to keep staff load more efficiently aimed at making things fun for the largest group of players possible, when newly approved characters are definitely new players. You can more easily address issues of plot and activity by directing plots to different classes/factions without having the same players (with alts in every faction) taking over every plot or dominating every faction. It also helps (does not STOP, but HELPS) the character-explosion staff-burnout factor, because at least when you only add a character (and thus the work associated with that character) when you have a new player, rather than one enthusiastic player creating and putting in work for 5 characters.

It did work really well for RfK, and I think that the way it forced people to engage with new players was a part of that. You could not just make "you and your buddies" RP spheres in every single covenant and keep to yourselves. Instead, because every new character was a source of IC power and was less likely to have been made "just to play with my friends in this covenant", you really needed to reach out to new people, and figure out how to play with them if you wanted to fully engage with the game. That was an important part of the game's success, I think.

I mean I know people who want to try a couple of different things - they like say, Demon but they also like Werewolf. They have friends in one sphere but they also have buddies in another who're looking for a packmate. So either way they'd need to give something up or they'll scratch the extra itch somewhere else as well; does it truly matter to you if the awesome RP partner you ran into is distracted because they're playing another character on the same MU* or on a different one? Hell, the character you ran into might be their second alt - meaning if the game didn't allow for it you wouldn't have met them in the first place.

It matters to me! Because if they're "scratching their itch" in two+ ways on THIS game, then that's one (or more) fewer roles for awesome new people to fill, and ultimately, fewer people for me to play with. And, hell, if we're honest, it's a lot easier to avoid a player who you just don't play well with, if you only have to know about their one character, and there's little chance of them trying to create a secret alt and cozy up to you. And yeah, it means that you might not have the opportunity to play with everyone who looks interesting (there were some people on RfK who I really would have liked to play with, but couldn't because of IC circumstances), but "more people to play with than I can" is a GREAT problem for a game to have - and you can mitigate that somewhat by facilitating a positive and interactive OOC culture.

@Arkandel I think it's more than explicitly political games that have roles, though. One theory in community psychology talks about the differences in engagement in role-rich vs. role-poor environments, and they're not talking about political roles. Basically, every human activity has a set of roles - whether that's a political structure, an adventuring party, creating a play, etc. You have a certain number of niches that you need to fill, whether it's "we need a Sheriff" or it's "we need enough shooty people to keep the monsters away, enough smart people to break these codes, enough social people to get us inside the fortress, etc." When there are fewer people than there are roles, then that social structure actively recruits new blood, and it gives "newbies" a chance to try out roles and acquire new skills and competencies. When there are more individuals available than roles, however, the system becomes more insular and performance-oriented, with fewer chances for new people to enter the system, and less tolerance of new people mistakes and of putting a role into (subjectively) sub-optimal hands, meaning that what new people can join end up being pushed to the bottom of the hierarchy (the least demanding, least desired roles), until the new person is able to successfully fight their way up to a desired role. In our game environment, "people" are characters, and alt characters already have a leg up, because they're known/have insight into the game and its needs that a totally new player can't match.

While this may be true to life, it's less great for making a game fun for new people. We're already a pretty insular hobby, and it only gets worse when a shiny new person fumbles their way to a MU*, logs in, and realizes that the game already has 50 characters, who have filled every possible niche they're interested in...but, really, there are like 20 actual players, and at least 15 of those characters haven't been played in weeks (but will immediately be brought out the moment someone tries to challenge their niche, until the competitor is driven away).

@Arkandel Actually, your cautionary tale is a good example of my point - when you have more people than you have roles, you're more likely to reject and exclude a new person. Now, if there were fewer alts, maybe the chef-player would have had a niche that they valued more highly, and their one character would be in THAT role, leaving the chef space open to be filled by a shiny new person. Or, with less character-pressure all around, the family might have been more willing to say, "Hey, we actually already have someone who specializes in cooking monsters, so you might not enjoy that as much with us, but we could definitely use people with X, Y, or Z focuses. Do any of those interest you?" Because if you don't have enough characters to fill all the niches in your system, you're going to be actively trying to pull people in, and more accommodating to them. Because you NEED them. Otherwise, it's Applicant #25 of 450, all applying for the same data entry job - you're looking for a reason to REJECT them, not to bring them in.

Honestly, I think it's important to spoil a little bit (LITTLE BIT) of the plot in order to let players self-select whether their character would/could be involved. And I encourage offloading some of the burden of this TO the players. Like, "This plot is going to be action and investigation oriented, focusing on the Black Forest and negotiation with spirits. Characters will hear about the plot from either Old Man Trebond in the Guild, or through gossip among local wind spirits. Let me know if you're interested, and if you are, what angle your character might have taken to get on the trail."

That, and I try to do that backstory stuff before the actual scene starts. I'll often have a bit of OOC before we get started just saying, "Okay, Jones and Jessica - you've said you're with the Guild, so we can say that Old Man Trebond pulled you aside to say that the Guild leadership doesn't believe him, but he knows that there's been an evil locked up in the Forest for a hundred years, and the time for its bondage to be over is coming. He wants you to go check it out, and he's willing to pay you for your time. Meanwhile, Lex, you're a shaman, right? Well, for the past few days, the spirits have been getting mighty restless - they don't want to name names, but they've been throwing up images of the Black Forest whenever you try to ask about it. Everyone good with those ideas?" And if someone ISN'T, then it's their job to come up with a plausible "in" to the scene. (I try to be flexible about that, but I'm increasingly less happy with "oh, just happened to be walking by" and similar justifications.)

I definitely play more male characters than female character on MU*s (online tabletops it tends to be 50/50, RL tabletops it's almost exclusively female), and it's solely because I have significantly different experiences when I play male characters than when I have female characters, and one of those differences is the lower amount of page creepiness, /even when I play a flirtatious male character/. And, not in the harassment realm but still interesting, is that the opening page from people tends to be different when I'm playing male than female. When I play a female character, a majority of opening introduction pages tend to be somehow focused on the PC's appearance. Either "Oh, she's cute" or "Oh, wow, a female PC who isn't <insert various-degrees-of-derogatory here>". Whereas, with a male character, people's first pages tend to be more about what the character does or is, rather than how he looks (or doesn't look).

@HelloRaptor said:

@Ganymede

While one can make a philosophical or sociological statement regarding the harshness of the penalty, and I don't mind discussing that, that does not mean I, as staff, do not have the authority and discretion to deal with what I believe to be inappropriate behavior harshly and with prejudice. I am old and mature enough to deal with the consequences.

The harshness of the penalty isn't at issue, the hypocrisy of singling it out as if it's special is, along with the absurdity of the alternative which is spreading the umbrella to cover 'You may not RP anything which will cause other players on the game OOC distress or force staff to deal with uncomfortable OOC drama because of that distress.'

I don't see how any of those things follow. A game-runner is allowed to say, "This is what this game is about. This is what this game isn't about, and this is what we absolutely don't want here. If you absolutely want what we don't, find another game." We don't make people empirically justify why they're running a Vampire game and not, say, a Werewolf game. And if someone came onto a Vampire game, and insisted on playing a Werewolf, even if they were a GREAT Werewolf, showing them the door wouldn't generally be considered inappropriate. Every game is not required to fit the needs or wants of every gamer, and there are enough games that if someone absolutely cannot live without on-screen PC on PC rape, then they can find a game for them. Shang, if nowhere else. If there is, for some reason, a critical mass of players who find the lack of rapey funtimes a turnoff, then the game will fail. No harm done.

@faraday Nah.

Putting it as a continuum suggests that you can't have or want both. I do. I value good writing, I value good mechanics. I value good story, I value good game. It's entirely possible to do both.

Moreover, I think it's a false dichotomy and has little to do with the behavior observed. I don't want people to follow the social mechanics of a game because I value "game" over "story", I do so because value congeniality among players, even if I don't always live up to my own standards. Which means recognizing and not punishing other players for wanting to take a walk on the wild side and play something outside of their comfort zone or their personal capabilities. Sometimes, that means rolling your eyes at your computer, and then letting something go so that someone else can have as much fun being badass and awesome as you (presumably) do. Sometimes it means compromising on your Grand Writing Vision of your character and sucking up a loss or a setback that you didn't meticulously plot out in advance. Sometimes it means reaching out OOC and just saying, "Hey, I see you're trying to get my character to do X, and you rolled really well, but that strategy isn't going to work. With Empathy 5, you'd probably know that my character would be far more susceptable to bribery than bluster. Would you like to rewind and try a different pose?"

As a side note, that's why I've always appreciated games where it was accepted/allowed to note on a wiki/desc/whatever when someone had exceptionally high social skills. That way, I can give more emotional information to people with better empathy, I can pose being routinely more charmed by charming people, or edgy and wary around intimidating people. I consider doing those things to be my side of making the game a fun and enjoyable experience for everyone. If I want to just be in charge and decide all the factors of the world, then I write books.

@WTFE But here's the thing: you're not arguing that because one time the dice put an end to your story "prematurely" that rolling to determine success at a task is stupid.

There is no RPG system that doesn't have a rule 0, that I'm aware of. And rule 0 is, of course, "If the dice or the rules say something that makes no goddamned sense, or something that doesn't work for your group, then change it."

And if someone made a social action that made no goddamned sense, or would utterly ruin a reaasonable player's fun, then obviously that situation would need a GM's attention. That's just common sense. But that has no relevance to the day to day running of a system, and it's certainly not a reason to toss the whole thing down the toilet and decide you don't need rules at all.

@Apos said in The Metaplot:

@Ominous said in The Metaplot:

This ties into xp bloat. "Oh, there is a metaplot? Well, why should I care, since superman will save the day anyways?" If one person has all the skills and stats to solve all of the problems, it's hard to create a plot that requires group effort. It's like playing the Pandemic board game but giving one of the players three of the role cards and four extra actions. You have to ask "Why are there other players in this game at this point?"

While I understand this to an extent, it's kind of mystifying to me. To me the idea of not being able to design stories for someone is so alien I just don't understand it. Sure they might be more difficult to challenge but unless a character is literally a bag of stats with no personality, goals or interests it really ain't that hard to make a narrative they'll find interesting.

I think, in this case, it's less about "is this an interesting story" and more "what point is there for my character to be here, when Character X has 5 times my XP and thus can do everything I can do, but better, AND can do five other things that I can't even begin to do?" Which is, unfortunately, often a problem - some people share spotlight well, some people do not. And if you have a massively ICly competent character who just /cannot/ imagine not using every ability they have to its fullest extent every time, then it's pretty common to have a scene that is "The Awesome Adventures of Character X (and some other guys)."

@Ex-FaviIIa-Surgo I would argue against encroaching characters being forced into a scene for 'trespassing' for the MU* environment, unless the grid is large, and has clear demarcations between public spaces where everyone can go, and private territories where trespass will be punished.

A lot of players aren't going to want to deal with the OOC hassle of potentially being dragged into a hostile scene when all they wanted was for their character to hang out at a particular book store.for a scene, so they'll avoid traveling or playing in those grid rooms. Likewise other players often don't have a sense of proportionality when it comes to 'punishing' trespass. Together, this seems like a recipe for a balkanized grid where no one wants to leave their own territory or interact with potentially hostile folks.

In my games, the God-Machine is a physical manifestation of the human cost of standardization and the consequences of demanding that complex people force themselves to fit within simple, rigid systems, thematically speaking. It IS the "system" given form - ultimately, its aims might be good or evil, but it doesn't matter because it has no regard for humanity or human agency. It should be as much manifest in a version of OK Cupid that refuses to let you even look at anyone who doesn't "fit" you according to its compatibility algorithm, or the 'lifehack' app that rearranges your daily schedule so that it's entirely efficient and you never have to try anything that you won't enjoy, as it is angels whispering in the ears of a programmer until she throws herself off a building. It's Samaritan AND the Machine from Person of Interest, both at the same time, and pretty much incomprehensible from the viewpoint of a PC. But not omniscient or omnipotent, although the degree to which it attempts to exercise control can mimic that, to some extent. Ultimately, though, it's a parasite, an experiment gone wild and self-aware, or a corrupted savior of a world that is winding down towards an inevitable apocalypse...or all at the same time. I like the idea that the G-M is a beast with a hundred thousand brains, all of whom are THEORETICALLY working towards the same goal, but in practice are fighting their own corrupted data, or deliberately created diversions (I figure that if the G-M isn't sure which of two solutions to a problem is optimum, it simple spins off matrices to implement both, even if those two solutions are mutually exclusive), and thus may even be at direct odds with each other in the short term. This allows the kind of glitches that let people oppose it on the small scale, as well as allow things like Demons to exist.

I think about the play I want to have on this character, and I usually take into account what I've played in the recent past so that I can mix it up a bit. Also, I look through the mechanics and character-related fluff of the setting, to see what inspires me - this is one of the reasons that generic systems and settings without much uniqueness often frustrate me in character creation, because I get really excited about having a character who engages with a specific part of /this/ setting and /this/ system. My characters are often meant to explore or address a question or a thought I have upon reading the game, while also being built with the intention of being able to 'hit the ground running' for that particular game.

Once I have that, I build with the goal of creating a character who is competent in their specialty, and well-rounded otherwise. I try not to min-max, but I do enjoy when a clever and evocative combination of abilities can be found. I go back and tweak the character's concept to the level of competence that the mechanics are able to convey - if I can't afford to be 'the best' by the stats, then I make sure to adjust the character's expectations of themselves accordingly, unless it's part of their concept to be boastful or overcompensating.

Finally, I try to think of one to three things, based in the setting and game theme, that the character WANTS. Things that I can keep in mind as driving the character, especially in those first few scenes.

@Roz said:

@Autumn said:

This might sound strange, but along with versatility, I like a little direction. Especially in games (cough, Mage, cough) where the number of possible options is not so much 'large' as 'overwhelming', I like having some ideas about what a good next step might be. I might still have a brainwave and decide that I don't really want to investigate the city manager's office or track down one of the mystical owls seen outside the Consilium headquarters just before the attack or bargain with the Mysterium for information stored in their secure library, and instead go off and do something completely different.

Sometimes when I'm told I can do anything at all I just freeze up and can't decide which sounds like the best right now. And while I very much appreciate a storyteller who's willing to indulge me if I decide to order something that's not on the menu, I also appreciate there being a menu if I need to ask for one.

Not strange at all, and also really important. If the players are really lost, don't just leave them to flail. Give 'em a little something to get them going again. The point isn't to make your plot a puzzle they need the exact right pieces to solve, it's to tell a story.

So much this. My philosophy increasingly is that failure should lead to complication, not roadblocking, and that players should ALWAYS come out of a scene or interaction with a solid idea of what to do next. Ultimately, no matter what questions a character is asking IC, I feel that the player is always asking the same question OOC: "I am interested in this and would like to be involved. How do I do that?" So any reply or scene that doesn't answer that second question is a failure in my eyes.

@caryatid said in Characters You Enjoyed Playing:

@pyrephox Aww, Thomas.

He's still the sneaky, broken yardstick I measure all other Changeling characters against.

He was very fun to play with, and I loved seeing how he bounced off of all the other great characters on Darkwater. While he never really accomplished anything, there were too many great personal conflicts and interactions to name.

@bored I do think that games could be better about this. Higher ranks, across the board, tend to just have /more/ IC resources to throw at problems, without any downside. Now, in the IC world, people of high ranks should have a lot of their time, energy, and resources tied up in maintaining their position, dealing with whatever infrastructrure they're in charge of, and have a lot more eyes on them, watching for any sign of failure, weakness, or inability. And in a classist society, there are always major shibboleths of 'upper class' which must be maintained, and those of 'lower class' which must be avoided (in public - in private, of course, most people don't care) if you want to be taken seriously as a member of the upper class.

But, in the reality of play, none of that matters. You have just as much time as any other player to do anything that you want, and the playerbase by and large isn't going to enforce any IC consequences for acting 'ignoble', and there simply aren't enough hours in the day for staff on any game to enact consequences for 'good' or 'bad' cultural behavior as often as they need to be enacted. You have to rely on PCs to keep each other in theme, and that...rarely really happens. Instead, players largely choose their reaction to events based on their own, personal values, and their relationships with other players - people who we enjoy playing with usually get a lot more slack and defense, no matter the IC action, and people who we find tedious or annoying OOC get jumped on relentlessly for every mistake or poor decision.

And I'm just as guilty of it as anyone, really. I try to recognize it and take a step back when it happens, but it's very easy to get caught up in a hate fest on a character where everyone's high-fiving and validating each other and bonding over sick burns, especially if the player is someone you're already not fond of.

@sunny And staff at Arx is quite good at enforcing those penalties when a PC does level them. When I've had to set down penalties that include no, you can't go to this place and the guards have swords, staff was quick to represent that in a real way by locking the PC out of the target place. Which I commend them for.