Posts made by Pyrephox

@wizz said in Online friends:

It's 2021, I doubt anyone (especially here) is going to say online friends aren't "real."

@arkandel said in Online friends:

Where do you draw the line, if you do?

This the more interesting question to me. I've definitely gone too far in online friendships, and I strongly suspect most of us could say they relate.

I tend to be more reserved now, but I still don't know exactly where the line should be. There does seem to be a point where you're giving and accepting so little that I would personally find it really difficult to call that relationship what I consider friendship -- instead of just like, an acquaintance I guess? Gaming buddy? -- and it seems like that arm's length is actually where I've found most MU people keep most other MU people.

What factors make y'all decide to move further? Is it solely just time and trust?

There's actually a phenomenon called the Online Disinhibition Effect - so if you ever feel like you've gotten too close too fast with someone, you're not alone and it's just a way our brains work. Talking to people online tends to be less immediately threatening than face to face, so you can share and bond /very/ fast, outpacing enduring trust and knowledge, and then emotionally recoil when you realize how vulnerable you are (or when you realize that the other person isn't as in sync with you as they first appeared).

But, aside from that - I make online friends the same way I make RL friends, honestly. First through shared hobbies, then through assessing if I feel like I 'get' them and they 'get' me, open up a little, see what happens. I'm a slow friendship builder, though, so I often feel that online relationships can leave me behind or I accidentally hurt people by recoiling a little from TMI sooner than I feel comfortable with dealing with that with a particular person.

So I'd definitely say I have an order of magnitude more /friendly acquaintances/ online than /friends/. Although that's true in RL, too. So.

While I am ALL IN on the web-based evolution of play, and haven't been able to manage to stick to a game that requires a client in years, the things I hear from people suggest that there is still a lot that clients provide.

Ability to split off streams of information, for one. I know you can sort of do it in Ares with different tabs, but I know some people have custom setups that kick, like, /these/ specific channels over to this window, and pages and secret org channels to THAT window, and then poses to a third window, and web-based things that I've seen aren't that flexible, yet.

Macros and custom code, and softcode that works from client-side, for another.

@krmbm said in Online friends:

@bear_necessities is one of my bestest friends. We met on a MUSH and now hang out in-person every few months. Is she my online friend? My real friend?

THIS IS TOO MUCH

I also met my best RL friend through my first MU*. A++ friend, definitely 'real' friend. And several others that I've met in RL from online spaces who are good, fun friends.

Online friends are real friends! I care about them, want to know how they're doing, enjoy talking with them about random things. Like all friends, they're not all EQUAL friends - there are casual friends, close friends, and intimate friends, but yeah, they're real friends.

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.

@ominous said in Roster Characters & WoD?:

@pyrephox I really liked your seasonal approach. I had thought of doing something similar only in the Whodunnit genre. Each season would be a different novel in the series. I wasn't a fan of your archetype idea, since I felt people should be able to change what type of character they were playing, but I liked the overall idea.

Oh, nothing about that is mine! I claim NO credit for it. I believe @Botulism came up with the idea for HorrorMU* and people have refined it from there.

But I do think it's a good idea, and has a lot of potential for games that don't HAVE to try and hang together for years on end, at least not in the same form.

@ominous said in Roster Characters & WoD?:

@ganymede

I think they meant my idea of perma-rostering all or most characters.

Amusingly enough, I remember when HorrorMU 1.0 first came up, one of the things I heard from a number of players in my circle at the time was disdain for the idea of 'Seasons' - how could anyone say that their PC's story would be 'up' in just a couple of months? How could anyone keep up with the pace? Why would you even DO something so weird as to have an anthology-type game, when most players clearly wanted to have one character that they played continuously from the start to the finish of that character's story, sometimes years?

And yet, now both The Network and HorrorMU* 2.0 are doing pretty well with exactly that format, with a few revisions. And it CAN BE hard to give up a character at the end of these Seasons or miniseries. But it also lets you take risks and push boundaries that people largely did not take or push when the loss of a character meant that a character was just gone in the ether forever. Neither game is for All Players, but they find enough people interested to do well, so far.

Experimentation is always good, in games. If it doesn't work, the worst you lose is a bit of time. And sometimes you discover something that works well for a good number of people.

@devrex said in Roster Characters & WoD?:

@faraday Well yeah, I never said it was an inherently terrible idea. I'm having trouble understanding how it might create a better experience or how you would avoid another player completely jumping the shark with a character or even the entire story, but I mean, I'm very "You do you and have fun" by nature. If by design you absolutely don't want anyone ever keeping control of a character then yeah, 24 hours is the right call.

I think it could give a fun 'writer's room' sort of experience. You could actually work with people to set up very dramatic arcs involving different groups of characters, and work out things so that everyone could play their 'favorite bits' of those arcs - love the hurt, hate the comfort? Play a character while they're getting whumped, pass it on to someone who likes the comfort afterwards. Some things stress you out, but you'd like to see the character in the aftermath of them? Hand the character over to someone who enjoys that sort of thing, then get the experience of the aftermath.

I can see it working. I think, again, that it'd be a niche appeal, and it would be a very different experience than the 'one player one character' RPG experience that we're more accustomed to in this corner of the hobby. But it'd be interesting.

@devrex This would not be a game for you, then. And that's okay. Not everything has to be a game for every player. I'm not even sure it would be a game for me, although I'd probably at least look at the actual setup before making a decision, if it were made.

@derp said in Roster Characters & WoD?:

@pyrephox said in Roster Characters & WoD?:

the biggest thing I could see needing some very firm rules is how to resolve conflicts of depiction when no party wants to give way.

I don't even think this would be the first big fire that you'd have to put out. The first big fire that you'd have to put out is figuring out how every single job that a player puts in is going to be resolved before that player logs out.

And who gets control over the xp pools that come with that character if you have to give them up every day.

And...

I doubt that this sort of system would have either jobs or 'XP', and that's okay. Based on what Ominious has said, it would probably be more like people collaborating on what the arcs for characters are and players who are interested in those cooperating to pursue them. I imagine that if there's XP at all, it'd be on a milestone system - but, honestly, it'd probably be better to do away with it.

It wouldn't be a typical MU* experience, or even a typical tabletop experience. Less focused on 'this is my character and it progresses individually' and more 'this is our game and we move the characters to experience the stories we want to tell'. A niche appeal but not an invalid one, at all. It actually reminds me of a lot of the better freeform RP you find out in the wilds, which is a lot less individual focused, and may have one or more players trading off for for each other during their 'poses' (which often more resemble vignettes).

@ominous This would be intriguing to me, although more from a collaborative writing standpoint than a role-playing standpoint per se. I think you'd end up with a small but invested group of players - the biggest thing I could see needing some very firm rules is how to resolve conflicts of depiction when no party wants to give way. You don't want to end up with Wikipedia edit wars, but with players.

Personally, I think it's worth giving it a shot. There's not a lot of real downside - if it ends up being too much work or too difficult, the easiest thing in the world is just 'we're not going to do that anymore', and if it excites and energizes people who do get excited by that - either as players or staff - then it's a net good.

Although I most like the suggestion made earlier in the thread of, essentially, a 'partial roster': a character which inhabits X particular space, and must have skills/abilities A, B, and C, but is otherwise customizable.

Or, honestly, I think full rosters would be a good choice for powerful mortal characters when you want to really emphasize that side of the game. Have a roster character mayor, or police chief, or crime lord that outlines exactly what power such a character can wield, and encourage people to take that character as something more than an 'instant victim'. It tends to be the mortal side of the WoD that needs more love, and break people out of their 'humans are furniture' sort of mindset, and some strong rosters with deep hooks into the meta, built by someone who can set them up not to be insta-jobbed by random supernaturals, could help a lot.

@tinuviel I think it's okay for games to exist that aren't 'for' every player. Just because something isn't to a player's tastes, doesn't make it wrong.

Roster characters aren't my first choice, generally, although I do consider them a fun challenge if there's one that sparks my fancy. But there's nothing wrong with a game having them. More diversity in games and game philosophies is a net good, I think, even if it means not every game out there will be my style.

When you have a chance to pursue a tense, dramatic plot and even if there are bumps along the way, the MAIN THING happens and it's beautiful and painful in the right way. When people are willing to let their characters be vulnerable and hurt and hurt each other without it being an OOC thing, and it's just great fun.

I tried it out a while ago! Friendly people, chargen wasn't hard, approval came pretty quick. My biggest problem was finding scenes, and I drifted away pretty quickly, but with a new setting/fresh start, that might not be a problem.

Yeah, I don't think the 'make your own spells' format really works that well in a MU* format. It usually ends up being a matter of who can BS the current GM the most effectively, which is ultimately frustrating for everyone else.

@icanbeyourmuse said in Thundergulch:

@greenflashlight I think it was a joke about the fact Thundergultch isn't doing the women in the 'women roles' and 'men in the men roles' from a historical point of view.

Or, rather, acknowledging that a 'historical point of view' doesn't actually mean "women had no agency and could only be helpless accessories to men", especially in that particular time and place.

Which is delightful and refreshing. Most people who demand that women be in a "historically accurate place" don't know their history very well.

I think part of it going to depend on how much you want to maintain a consistent theme that isn't in line with modern 21st century first world normative assumptions. The more you want to keep things that aren't 'now time standard', the more of your upper structure needs to be NPCs who are very committed to the status quo. If your theme is more modern-day friendly, or you are okay with it going in that direction, more PC leadership can happen.

But, honestly? I think the biggest thing is that IC leadership positions need to be divorced from OOC leadership responsibilities if you're going to have PCs in those spots. There's a tremendous pressure on PC leaders to be 'good leaders' by whatever crazed and entitled way that other PCs define that, and it's both hugely stressful and harmful to having a game with a consistent 'back and forth' of IC conflict and drama. A 'bad' IC leader can drive more and often more interesting story than a 'good' one, IMO, where 'good' is 'tries to please everyone and not Make Trouble with unreasonable demands'.

NPC leaders have more freedom to drive RP and action by being...not great people IC. They can be drunkards who order PCs to try and do something frankly stupid, or they can have a blood feud with another faction that means people can't just 'sit down and talk out' a thousand year old grudge the way PCs are inclined to. And they can do it without taking the IMMENSE amount of OOC flack that PC leaders get whenever they make...almost any decision at all.

I definitely don't watch an animated show if I don't like the art style, and I don't care how important The Message might be; if it's unpleasant to look at, I'm not interested. I can get my Important Messages from other media that don't make my eyes weep. That said - I thought She-Ra was fine, art-wise. It's not my favorite style, but it's at least not that awful weird squiggly ugly thing that some American shows have got going on, like all the artists are drunk or hate what they're drawing.

But, yeah, not liking a single example of an Important Show, for /whatever reason/ says absolutely nothing about a person's political or personal stances. I even know people who, gasp, spend their lives working in advocacy for disadvantaged groups who /don't like cartoons at all/. Or fiction in general.

Let people like things, or not, without it being a referendum on whether they are a Good Person.

@derp said in Good TV:

@wretched said in Good TV:

I am really loving season 2 of Evil.

It's so good. It's everything I was hoping it would be so far. Moving at a good enough pace to keep the story going with the built-up momentum but not just dumping it all on you at once as the world adjusts in all these little ways.

Augh, I have to catch up.