Best posts made by Pyrephox

@Sunny Upvoted in sympathy, because Jesus Christ.

Unfortunately, tabletop systems really are not meant for a long-term, persistent environment with a lot of PCs who may come into conflict with each other. WoD/CoD particularly aren't meant for it, considering just how terrible both White Wolf and Onyx Path are with balancing powers vs. costs even WITHIN splats, much less between splats.

The tabletop philosophy of 'keep getting XP indefinitely or until campaign ends' doesn't, IMO, work for MU*s for a number of reasons.

@reversed Yeah, exactly. I mean, people are people whether they're screaming for a manager down at the local big box store, or throwing a tantrum on Public over a house rule. While the content of disagreements and crises may differ, the way people react to stress tends to stay roughly the same.

Setting boundaries is hugely important, I think. My deleted third topic was actually going to be on social and interpersonal norms, and the way people develop norms. If you don't establish norms for a group explicitly, then people will default back to the norms they internalized from similar situations in their history AND people who don't have relevant histories will learn from the examples they see around them. Experience also tends to be more highly valued than statements when establishing internal schema, so even if your players are hearing 'this community treats other players with respect' if they're SEEING staff mock players, or players mock players, without repercussions, then their adaptation will prioritize that over the statement.

It's almost always better to be explicit about the boundaries of an interaction in the long run.

Although I think the worries about One True Wayism also hint at another thing we can do to reduce toxicity: communication. Be open and honest about the game you want to run or play in. Be honest about the level of pvp you want, the character risk you want, etc. Not every game is right for every player, and people trying to force a game to be the game they want it to be can cause a lot of sourness between both players and players as well as players and staff.

More MUs really need an equivalent of tabletop Session Zero, where staff can talk freely and bluntly about the type of game they want to run.

@sunny I do this all the time.

I start out being friendly and social and really trying to push making IC connections and putting scenes out there. And then the tiny voice starts thinking, "You know, no one really asks me for RP. I always ask other people. Maybe I'm actually being overwhelming for them, and they'd like some space. I'm going to stop asking for a bit so that people can have space, and surely, if they've enjoyed our scenes together, they'll ask for RP when they're ready for it."

And then...time passes. And no one asks for RP. And the little voice goes, "Oh. OH. So I was bothering people, and no one actually enjoys playing with me. That sucks. Now I feel bad that I was being a pain in the ass for people."

If you go into a 'social' scene with the idea that it's going to be a waste of your time, then you will never be wrong. And yes, RP social scenes often do have a little more 'plot contrivance' than most aspects of RL - and one of the things I like to do is take a look at the other character's wiki or finger to see something I can hang a scene hook off of that makes our conversation a little LESS 'hello random person' - it can be something as simple as 'oh, they have tattoos, so let's make a remark about that' or in a game where the theme and setting have been built with purpose, you can USUALLY find an org or faction hook between two random characters, even if it's only, "Hey, do you work at X? I think I saw you there one time."

There's nothing wrong with wanting a scene that has 'purpose', but that means, you know, put in the effort to build the scene with purpose. Concentrate on the people in the scene with you, figure out why your character might be interested in them, whether it's benevolence, manipulation, or hunger. Don't expect other players to do it - a lot of them just don't. But if YOU do it, then you can often find some satisfaction and way to advance your character's agenda in even the most mundane of social RP.

I think that if you're going to have PvP (where you have actual 'antagonists' rather than just people whose goals are sometimes mutually exclusive) then you need to build that into the theme from the bottom up.

Think about what kind of conflict you actively want to promote. Build a reason to engage in that conflict, tools to use that facilitate that sort of conflict, and rewards for succeeding OR failing at that conflict (since you want to open options for people whether their characters win or lose - an IC loss should not necessarily be a loss FOR THE PLAYER, but rather just another milestone in their play).
Communicate all of that to the players in clear, concise, and actionable OOC form. Be upfront about the mechanics, the risks, and the rewards.
And then spend a lot of time bringing the hammer down on people who attempt to game the system to try and ruin the play of players they don't like for whatever reason. Bring it down mercilessly, be open about why, and give no quarter.

And also spend time promoting an OOC culture that doesn't silo off players into their character's factions, but encourage players to mingle and form bonds and communicate openly across factions, even if (especially if) their IC factions are diametrically opposed.

I just thought of another aspect of experience that's very important to me, but it's more of a meta thing -

Having a theme that is either loose enough, or well-explained enough, that I can run stuff when the mood strikes me without requiring a great deal of oversight or bureaucracy. I burn out on games a LOT faster when I don't have the option to generate content of some sort - usually not big, sweeping plots, but being able to run scenes or miniplots with minimal handholding or approval from Staff. A game that gives me the tools/guidelines up front for that will keep me a lot longer (if I find the theme inspiring) than a game that has a whole bunch of hidden theme I'm scared of 'running into' or that requires a big approval process and checking in with staff about any plots.

@ganymede said in The Desired Experience:

@arkandel

If staff does not intend to service a particular concept, then they shouldn’t allow that concept as a PC.

It is an easy fix for this problem.

In KB/AM games, one of the things I really appreciated them doing is having a sheet for 'wanted' character concepts, and then also listing character concepts that they considered 'overdone' for the setting, and then also closing character concepts when they decided the game had enough, or that the concept wasn't appropriate for this particular game. More games should do that, I feel like.

@sunny said in The Desired Experience:

@arkandel

I mean in a perfect world, the Prince is played by somebody who can only RP once every third month to begin with outside of scheduled 'court' type scenes, anyway -- your vampire sphere is a LOT more healthy without having the head honcho about and engaged. Bad leaders are WAY better for creating RP and conflict than good ones.

Bolded for emphasis. Absolutely. And I DO tend to think, these days, that the Head Honchos should be NPCs. PCs get too invested in things going 'right', or blaming IC leaders for things going 'wrong', and they often have this utopian ideal of how an org/sphere "should" be run that basically results in systemic burnout from leaders, and constant bitching from non-leaders.

Make the head honcho an NPC who does not give a shit about people's kvetching, who has major, interesting flaws that drive story, and who is there primarily to maintain your theme and push plot. Sometimes by being terrible. Sometimes by cutting through bullshit. Sometimes by not wanting to deal with something and so appointing a few random PCs to 'sort it out and tell me when it's finished'.

I would like to see another anthology style MU*. But - and this is important - /without amnesia/.

Also, one that focuses on telling stories that just wouldn't fly on the average MU*. Break the world! Grand wars, murderous rampages, technological revolutions that Change Everything. Let people really dig in and tell all those gloriously melodramatic plots we've got tucked away, safe in the knowledge that in six months, this world is going to flit away in the wind. Nothing small or slice of life and definitely nothing that worries about 'balance'.

It might not be a hugely popular game, but gosh it would be fun.

@zombiegenesis One thing I've noticed about games meant to be sandbox is that they don't necessarily give people the tools they need to take full advantage of them. A sandbox game can't be too open or people get choice paralysis. But if you have 'mysteries' that only staff can know the answer to, or the setting/framework isn't well described, then people don't know how to create something that isn't disruptive or 'wrong'.

Sandbox games IMO really need to open the box, lay out the toys for players - and make sure those toys have clear, exciting hooks at several different levels: something that can easily be thrown into a single scene, something that can easily be spun into a 2-5 scene adventure, and then something that can play into an overarching, complex plotline (if you're doing those).

Sometimes the biggest rewards are non-mechanical. You might be amazed what people are willing to do just for recognition, visibility, or something OOC to collect. Way back in the first iteration of Darkwater, there were two neat things:

1. +votes that did nothing as far as XP, but just sent sent your RP partner a fun/quirky randomized message about awesome RP.

2. Badges. Badges were entirely OOC, much like Ares' achievements, and just granted for doing various things (sometimes helpful, sometimes just goofy).

By and large, players crave a sense that they are seen and that they matter - that they have an impact on this social space of the game. Acquiring XP and getting the 'biggest numbers' is one way to gain that, but it doesn't have to be the only way. A sincere "thank you" or "you make this game a better place to be" is every bit as much a positive reinforcement as XP is for most people.

@betternow I'm...pretty forgiving with everyone I play with when it comes to actual play. I'm not interested in judging people's GMing or playing ability, and I try to come into every scene with an attitude of 'I'm going to have fun here'.

Does it always work? No. But it's usually because of OOC incivility or behaving in a way that suggests that the other player doesn't care about me being a human being who's just here to have fun (or even see me as a person).

So, yeah, I'm happy to forgive Random Player X when they run something that isn't brilliant, so long as they tried give everyone the opportunity to have fun.

I don't need to play against a grandmaster to enjoy chess. I just need someone to know how to move the pieces in the right directions, and not be a dick about how the game turns out. That's where I keep my expectations, and I end up enjoying a lot more scenes than I don't.

I have no objections to random plot dropped out of the sky, but if you REALLY wanted to rev the engines and storytellers had time, it'd be even better to page the people involved and say, "Hey, I've got a few hours to run something for you guys - what would you like to have your characters do that could happen where you are?"

@Apos said in Sensitive cultural/political/religious aspects of game themes.:

@Pyrephox said in Sensitive cultural/political/religious aspects of game themes.:

@Apos said in Sensitive cultural/political/religious aspects of game themes.:

tbh if someone logs into Hello Kitty, Island Adventure and says that the lack of rape and sexual assault themes just ruins their immersion, maybe the problem isn't the game.

Sure. And if the game is WWII, and the game says, "By the way, there's no antisemitism in this setting," and that breaks people's immersion, maybe the problem isn't the players.

If that's in their intended scope, sure. But It doesn't have to be the absurd example I used. If someone wants to have a game intending to run for a few months just about the Battle of the Bulge and nothing but the battle of the bulge, and a player wants to tell a story about auschwitz, then the problem still isn't the setting. It can just be a matter of not wanting to tell those stories at all, and whether they say, 'this is an alternate world history where there was no holocaust' or just refuse to address it doesn't really matter if that's not in the scope of their focus.

Here's the thing, though - antisemitism isn't just "stories about Auschwitz" in the context of WWII. It's an underlying societal factor that influences every part of the war, from beginning to end - /not just the places where it's on explicit display/. Saying, "In this game, we're not going to focus on antisemitism because we're playing /here/," is actually acutely different from saying, "In this setting, antisemitism doesn't exist, but everything else plays out exactly as it did in the real world because...reasons."

What I'm trying to get at is that there's a difference between a declaration of game focus, i.e. What We Are/Are Not Going to Play In This Game, and a declaration of game /setting/, which is the assumptions that the IC society and world run on. And those two things have a very different effect on people's play and suspensions of disbelief. It's like - if I'm running a superhero game, and I say, "Our focus is going to be on global level play - you guys stop world-ending supervillain threats, not street crime and you don't get involved in national/regional political disputes, so don't worry about someone asking you why, if you're a telepath, you didn't stop their mother from being mugged and beaten up a couple of blocks down from your apartment," that's a declaration of game focus. I'm telling you what we, as a game, are going to focus on, and it's not going to be gritty street crime or the political ramifications of superpowered people. On the other hand, if I say, "In this world, there is no street crime, so as superheroes, you guys are free to focus on global level supervillain threats," that's a declaration of game setting that raises some serious questions, and I would be surprised if my players didn't stop right there and have to spend some time processing what the hell that even means. No street crime? How does that work? Do people just not WANT stuff? Are there unstoppable robot cops? Are there cops? What does that mean for the character I wanted to make who came from a family of Irish cops in New York? Yes, as far as /actual play/ goes, both have the same outcome (superheros don't have to focus on the street level crime), but one changes the world of play into something pretty alien for most people, while the other just says, "Yeah, it's out there, but it's /not what we're playing/."

Which most people find easier to swallow.

You might want to consider something like 13th Age as a system. It's meant to be gridless and high fantasy, with a couple of "story game" elements that could be a lot of fun.

Although, most especially - don't design a game by committee. If you're not passionate about running THIS GAME then it won't work well, no matter how many people the individual elements please.

I want to say that I really admire all the coding work you've put into this. That crafting system looks pretty sweet, and more user-friendly than some I've seen. And an easy-to-use OOC journal that people can keep their thoughts/plots/info in is sorely needed in any game that has mystery/investigation elements.

Wanting to have a character who is really good at the thing that you want them to be good at isn't wrong. But both systems and playstyles mean that having a character that is too optimized (either to 'do all the things' or so focused on a single scenario that they can do nothing else) tends to create some problems, in my experience. Some have already been mentioned, but also:

1. The player doesn't have fun when their character is outside of their 'niche', and torpedoes the 'nonfun' scene to get quickly to whatever it is their character is good at. ("Court is boring, so my barbarian punches the King.") Or they just tune out, which can be almost as bad, if it's a small tabletop group.

2. Other players start to tune out when the MinMax character does THEIR thing, because they feel like they have nothing to contribute to the situation. Ideally, in my opinion, every RP scene should have something for every PC to do (whether they choose to DO IT or not is up to them).

I believe in niche protection - I think every PC should have something to contribute to a group or game that other PCs can't easily replace. But with a group of minmaxers, that can be taken to too much an extreme where you're almost running four separate campaigns, where only one player is engaged at a time. Some systems almost demanded this (Early Shadowrun, particularly, had the game everyone else was playing, and then the game the Decker was playing), while others incentivize it (especially systems that tend to set difficulty levels for tasks high, and have high penalties for failing for tasks), so it's not something I tend to blame on players.

A lot of us have been trained to make the most maximized character we can have. And in MU*s, I notice this is promoted by people who ask for/demand a certain skill level before even letting you into a plot or giving you RP. Hell, even on ARES, with F3S - which is NOT a particularly 'high threshold' system - I've had to shut someone down because they wanted to find the mechanically "best" person to take on a plot scene, rather than base it on RP factors.

@ZombieGenesis My suggestion might be - use a single ship as the setting. Have three divisions: Command, Security, and Support. Aside from Captain and XO, don't get too persnickety about rank - Star Trek /rarely/ actually cared much about the chain of command, and technically it is a much kinder and gentler pseudo-military than our own. Instead, encourage people to choose based on the kind of RP they are /primarily/ interested in - Command for diplomatic/political (whether it's First Contact protocols, internal crew issues, or Starfleet Command shenanigans), Security for combat/exploration, or Support for interpersonal and support functions (everything from medbay to bartending).

Don't worry too much about what people do between plots - they will be having pretend friendships and pretend sex. But I would dedicate at least one staff member per division - one staff member to send along communiques from Starfleet, distress calls, or communications from aliens wanting Starfleet to negotiate/mediate things on their behalf for Command, one to design away missions and combat encounters for Security, and one to do some of those good, meaty social-based plots for Support (not parties, but bizarre disease outbreaks, engineering glitches that summon dimensional rifts, and the like.) Let people 'cross over' freely, because again, Star Trek characters were always getting involved in things outside their technical duty ("Damn it Jim, I'm a doctor, not a...")

Do NOT attempt to simulate a military. Do not require reports to be written, or allow things to get bottlenecked on the chain of command. You may even want to have an NPC Captain, but I know that's a hard sell. Mostly, focus on what's fun about the setting and the series, rather than the tedious behind the scenes stuff.