Posts made by Pyrephox

What I typically do for +event type signups is disclose OOC about the focus of the plot and which characters are going to have the most relevance to it, and let people self-select. Like, "This is going to be a horror plot, heavy on atmosphere and menace. Characters who are connected with the underworld or who have an interest in cursed artifacts are most likely to hear about it, but if that's not you and you're still interested, let me know and we'll see if we can't find you a way to hook in."

But then, I honestly like to know a couple of days in advance (at least) who's going to be at the plot scene, so that I can check out their wiki and sheet (if available) and have some idea of what they're interested in, so that I can make sure to tailor the plot towards what the players seem to enjoy.

@auspice said in Encouraging Proactive Players:

OOC engagement inspires me. I've had plots spark out of OOC joking around.

But as an ST... it is so. freaking. disheartening. to run plot and basically have people disengaged unless I'm constantly holding their hand and leading the way. Show me you're interested? Please? Somehow?

Like if you're enjoying what I'm doing, let me know. Somehow. Otherwise, why am I even doing it?

This is HUGE for me as a runner of scenes/plots/etc. Just a simple, "I'm enjoying this," goes a huge way for me as far as being inspired to run more stuff. When people seem unengaged or bored, I do my best to try and figure out what's going on and then adjust, but if they're just terminally unengaged, my interest drops like a rock.

Also, from the runner end on games - I will say that having too much mystery or strictly defined things that aren't well-explained will kill my interest in running plots. I don't want to break theme, or cause problems, but my style as a GM is pretty extemporaneous, so if I don't feel confident enough to be able to answer questions off the cuff, or take things in the directions the players head, then I avoid running plots.

From a player side: Impact!

When something my character does has an impact on the world, a meaningful one, even if it is a /small/ one, it encourages me to Do More Stuff. An NPC rises or falls in their organization, a building appears or changes, a group is formed, dispersed, or changed, or there's some mark on the occult side of the world. In the first Darkwater, I still remember Cobalt letting an article my character wrote change the way people perceived a neighborhood, and thus gave everyone harvesting a particular emotion a boost in that neighborhood for a while. Tiny thing, but I really appreciated it, and it made me want to engage more with the world. Likewise, on Arx, something my character did mostly because I didn't know what to do with my personal money ended up getting my character a populist title (that he hates, and I adore). It doesn't matter at all, it's just a random folk title, but it tells me as a player that my actions don't happen in a vacuum, and that doing things can have good outcomes.

Inspired by, but not entirely appropriate to post to the Social Systems thread.

Reading that thread made me remember one of the most satisfying and enjoyable 'social manipulation' sequences I've ever had on a MU*. It was on Darkwater (Changeling version, using CoD rules), and used the Doors system. My character, an underworld smuggler with some legitimate business concerns as cover, ended up crossing/getting up into the face of another character. Both were Lost, and the other character decided to put my character over a barrel by undermining and influencing his mortal connections in order to get him to do...something. I've actually forgotten what. So, we used the Doors system, and I laid out and ran several mini-scenes where the character had a chance to meet up with specific connections my character had, and woo them to her side. Each success opened a door on my character, and when all doors were opened, she confronted him and revealed just how screwed he was, and got the concessions.

It was great fun, and I loved having a chance to explore that sort of social maneuvering. And my character ended up respecting and liking hers a great deal, because she was both clever, and gracious in victory. It was just fantastic, even though my character 'lost'.

I would love an original theme SF game. Neither Star Wars or Star Trek thrill me as a game theme, to be honest, but I love SF.

I don't think 'more choices' pulls people apart, though. In fact, I think it offers the opportunity for a breakout success. Most new MU*s will fail. But that's normal for most new /everything/, and it doesn't hurt anyone to have twenty five games that only sustain 2-5 people. They're not hurting anyone, and if they chose this game above the other options, there's probably a reason for it. When that game closes, they may very well not move on to another game, but rather just drift away entirely.

@sunnyj

@sunnyj said in The trappings of posing:

@arkandel I feel metaposing is a great way to feed others why your characters are doing what they doing, and letting your partner use that information thematically. If they realize my character is doing X because they are afraid of rejection, they can then guide the scene to approach that theme, instead of assuming my character is a dick because WoD bruh!

Also, although I like to give others metainformation on my characters, I rarely hand over the core of these issues or why they as they are on poses. That is earned through RP.

As a matter of time, if I had less time I might feel more strongly over long poses, but as is, I work while I RP, so 20~40 minutes lets me get a lot of stuff done.

I have to admit that all of this is in strict and strident opposite to my preferences, especially the metaposing. 20-40 minutes a pose just means that I won't see someone out to play, but that kind of metaposing will make me actively avoid them. If a character acts like a dick, then they get to be treated like a dick, and it doesn't matter what kind of tragic backstory or motivation gets posed in the narration my character can't read, and I am definitely not going to try and 'guide the scene' based on it.

As to the others: Basic spelling and grammar is good, but as long as I can read it and it's coherent, I don't worry too much about it. Pose length can be variable, as long as it flows with the scene - I do kinda have peeves about sticking to third person present tense, but I can over look it. Pose detail, I really only care about if the other poses are a) interacting with my character and the world in a coherent way, and b) are giving my character something to react to in turn. Tempo /is/ important. If I have to wait more than ten minutes on a pose on a regular basis, then I'll usually avoid that person in the future. It completely kills my investment in a scene. No real preferences regarding wiki codes, spacing, or pose order - I prefer a more natural flow than strict pose order, but I can usually go with whatever.

@kitteh I'm not sure any of it is worth anxiety. Revelations aren't particularly important, that I've seen. There might be a few that are groundshaking revelations, but if they are, I haven't seen them - /and/ it hasn't mattered for affecting the game in a positive direction.

In general, Arx is complex enough that I think it's important to recognize a) you will not know all the things, b) it's okay not to know all the things, and c) what you do is ultimately more important than knowing that 800 years ago Baron von Diorite built the Cogs of Awesomeness and then got his face eaten by a demon.

I have been happiest in playing when I have looked around for something that I and my character found genuinely interesting, and poked at it, whether other people were into it or not, and whether it tied into whoever's trying to murder us all this month, or not.

I would love, love love to update it to 2.0. In fact, I'm finding it hard to get back into a 1.0 game, even with a character I quite enjoyed. Just relearning all the rules and going, "But, wait, this made much more sense in CoD..." makes me kind of sad. So, you might lose some people, but you might attract others.

@kitteh Yes! You have to have a certain number of the right clues to trigger a revelation. But I was just clarifying that it seems like if you do something new that generates a clue that staff decides works for that revelation, then it works. It's not like chasing rares, and not everyone has to know the same exact thing to get the same revelation.

@kitteh You don't need a 'perfect set' of clues - people can actually have some different clues and get the same revelation, that I've seen. Including some clues that came from actions that I did, so it's not like it's preset in stone, I think.

@roz And it might mean that people would have to think carefully about appointing Voices who cover their own weaknesses. If you're a fighty lord or lady, then your voice maybe needs to be social. If you're social, you might want a fighty Voice for war-time commanding.

@fortydeuce I'll be honest. I have about 200 clues and...five revelations. Mostly around the same subject, while the vast majority of my clues are a grab bag of things or results of @actions in clue form. So do not be concerned if you haven't had a revelation, yet!

@fortydeuce SCORE! does victory dance

@fortydeuce Ooh, ooh, I know this one!

A @revelation is something that you receive when you gain the right combination of @clues to see a bigger picture perspective on a topic. It's automated, and it'll give you the revelation itself, and a list of the clues that you have that triggered it. A @theory is something like a revelation that /you create/, which may or may not be accurate.

@fortydeuce I think @revelations are meant to partially fill this idea, but I definitely think the clue system could be worked on a bit more in this direction. My concern about a 'tree' is that not all of the clues are pre-written, and it might be jarring to have trees that expand unexpectedly - especially for those players who obsess a bit about getting All The Clues.

I will also say that I think that the new @action system helps, or can help, in regards to that feeling of flailing around in the dark. The ooc_intent switch is, or at least I have found it to be, /very/ helpful. Hopefully it is as helpful for staff as it is for me, but making me state 'out loud' what I hope this action is capable of accomplishing has helped clarify what I want out of what I'm doing. Before it went in, I know sometimes I would hear people mention that the response to a storyrequest was completely unexpected, and it could sometimes feel like a dialogue in Mass Effect, where the prompt says 'express skepticism' and the dialogue is like, "YOU LYING FUCK."

One thing we all need to remember, too, is - despite having 300+ active characters (christalmighty) - Arx is in beta. Half the mechanical systems haven't even been designed, yet. The ones that exist may get significantly changed in the future. The way of doing things has changed pretty significantly over the time I've played, and I expect it to change further in the future. So, even when I express criticism, it's with the understanding that none of this is really the 'final product', and I think that staff is generally very open to considering players' actual experiences in the changes that they make - within the constraints of the game they want to run.

Which is good. I'd really rather be told 'no, that's not the game we're doing' sometimes, than have the game collapse under trying to be all the things to all the people, which is a real risk with a game this large.

I think, maybe, that some of that stuff isn't as 'out of date' and resolved as people think it is, also. Sometimes PCs think they know/understand more than they actually do. If there's something that really intrigues you as a character, I'd definitely try and pursue it on your own, too - through an action or something. You might find something that surprises you (and other people, too).

@sunny I think that accuracy can vary across experiences. PCs like yours or mine are some of the most socially powerful ones in the game in a way that other characters can't easily match, in many cases. One of the most powerful Duchies in the game can have a very different experience as a social character, I think, than a random Iron Guardsman or a Baron in the hinterlands. At least in part because staff IS very good at letting us use the organizations that we're heads of, and use the non-combat resources we have to affect change.

I can totally understand that if you're playing a non-leader diplomat of some type, it might seem like no one really needs you, because Brawny McSwordlord will do just as well AND he can go on the demon-fighting plots too, without being squashed in the face.

Note: I am part of the problem in some regards - I could and probably should be using PC diplomats more. But then I don't get to roll /my/ social skills, and I enjoy that play and would like to do more of it, not less. So I keep kinda hoping that meaningful diplomatic systems go in that I can participate in, maybe once we find another nation that doesn't want to murder us.

@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.

I would say the system doesn't need to prevent absolutely people 'falling in' to situations outside their comfort zone and managing to succeed - but that should be an outside odds proposition. And, unfortunately, there is a significant disconnect between 'high-stakes' combat situations and 'high-stakes' social situations that badly penalizes social characters entering the first over combat characters entering the latter: character loss.

There are very, /very/ few social situations that are played out IC which have character loss as a potential outcome for performing badly. However, there are a lot of combat situations which have that outcome - and more, there are coded objects which benefit people who focus on combat (weapons and armor), so the difficulty levels in those situations tend to get pushed ever higher, making it even less likely for non-combat characters to be able to achieve anything meaningful in exchange for the risk. If there were a failure mode for high-stakes social situations that was equivalent, you'd find people self-selecting pretty quickly.

And there is, in a court-based society. Temporary exile was pretty commonly used to indicate someone who had just offended the ruler of a court completely, or made themselves socially unmentionable. But the howls of outrage for implementing such a thing would be heard from orbit, despite it still being more gentle than losing one's character forever.