@sunny said in Constructive (keyword) Criticism of Arx Systems:
But what problem does requiring a model to wear an outfit for a week solve? What is even the point? Like...why?
Agree, I don't see that as either promoting RP or necessarily forcing a reduction of modeling stuff at home, because you could still just wear the same clothes without even RPing for days, etc. etc.
Lol, all I can think of with the idea of "have to wear it for a certain period of time" is that truly high-end fashionistas would never wear the same outfit multiple days in a row.
@sunny said in Constructive (keyword) Criticism of Arx Systems:
How about if you junk a dress, you can make another dress from it, but it becomes junked silk instead of new silk and it can't be used for model clothes, just wearing clothes. Or just take junk out. Like that whole portion of things is why the working parts have to be messed with, soooo.
I think staff stated at one point that their modeling and junking records didn't really indicate this was a real, recurring issue. People mostly bring it up as like "THIS IS A THING THAT YOU COULD DO" but tbh the returns are so low/hard to get that I don't think people are doing this regularly.
@jeshin said in Constructive (keyword) Criticism of Arx Systems:
It would be nice if you allowed commoners to use their patrons to assist their rolls which would remove the 'need' for the protege to be the clout provided. Now high clout patrons of all ranks can be sought out.
I actually agree that it'd be nice for proteges to be able to use their patrons to help with work rolls, especially because work represents going out into the world and getting stuff from people, and part of the thematic point of patronage is to open doors for people with less social power in the world.
The reason there aren't more guides is probably: time. Effort. The reason I don't believe people are actively trying to hoard the secrets of the systems is that there are a number of really fantastic guides here on the player wiki, including a "mechanics cheat sheet" Google doc that breaks down things like armor type vs craftsmanship and how skills are used in various sytems, along with other guides on usage of the various systems.
If you ask about a system and aren't just looking for the basic syntax stuff in helpfiles, please just come back and say that! I always give helpfiles first by default because tbh that's what most people who start asking about a topic end up needing. But people absolutely get more in-depth stuff on Info if they're like "Oh yeah I'm good with the syntax at all, but can you give me more detail on X thing."
@ganymede I think Unbreakable is one of his best films.
Okay whatevs enough people seem to all know it at this point!
@il-volpe If you use Ares, @Tat might also be willing to talk about her process of building a magic system on top of FS3.
So after Sky came up in conversation, which prompted Meg to make this post, I did some digging and discovered that she passed away a year ago -- almost to the dot. I just want to put into the world that she was a great RPer, GM, and person in all of my experience with her. She'd retired from MUing some years before for the most part, but she was just -- really great.
Damn.
@kanye-qwest said in Learning how to apply appropriate boundaries:
@roz said in Learning how to apply appropriate boundaries:
DELICATE AS WATERFORD CRYSTAL
is this the whitest thing you've ever referenced?
you have to HAND WASH THEM
@apos said in Learning how to apply appropriate boundaries:
@faraday said in Learning how to apply appropriate boundaries:
@mietze said in Learning how to apply appropriate boundaries:
I agree , when expressing discomfort or dissatisfaction is used to try to "win" and get your way. But I think you can have situations where that isnt the case (which is what I assumed Faraday meant) and so if you want to negotiate and are up for that ooc, starting off with "change or leave" may not be the best approach. Because that can and does trigger people who would have perhaps worked with you to find something more agreeable or mutually agreed upon to just say "ok then, bye."Its like starting off a disagreement or annoyance with your spouse or partner by throwing in a "we can just divorce or break up then!"
Yeah that's what I was trying to get at. Maybe my example wasn't the best.
Yeah like I get that this is more the root of why a lot of people are reluctant to say something. A lot of times, they like the RP except for X happening, and aren't sure if they can politely ask about X without offending the other person and losing the entire RP dynamic. I get that, and I don't think there's great answers. But I would encourage everyone to go on the assumption the other person is reasonable. If they aren't reasonable, and they don't respond to a very gentle, very polite, very respectful nudge, then it's probably a time bomb and as much as it sucks to lose that, it's still probably better off.
Yeah. Sometimes treating a situation as if it's DELICATE AS WATERFORD CRYSTAL and it needs to be HANDLED CAREFULLY can actually make things more awkward. Because it kind of projects to people that you think the situation is awkward and difficult, and thus they should find it awkward and difficult.
Whereas if you treat things like "this is a normal thing and not a big deal," it can often help to keep matters low-key. Which I think is the core of "assume the other person is reasonable." It should be normal to be able to say something like, "Hey, I've actually got some issues RPing about X, can we figure out a way around that?"
Obviously this isn't a FOOLPROOF THING. But the other thing about assuming that the other person will be reasonable is that it, well, lets them disprove that assumption if they're going to. And then you know that they're not a reasonable person and you probably don't want to be RPing with them anymore anyways. It shouldn't be "how can I avoid explosions in order to set my boundaries so that I'm comfortable," it should be, "how do I find reasonable RP partners who I don't have to worry about exploding on me if I have to enforce a boundary."
@sparks said in Automated Adventure System:
On healing, one thought I had was that you could heal more often than the limit (which I might reduce to 30 minutes in Shardhavens), but it would cost you an amount of AP equal to the minutes remaining. I.e., if there was a 30 minute timer and you heal someone and ten minutes later they desperately need healing again, you could wait for the half-hour to tick over or pay 20 AP to skip the 20 minutes remaining.
One thing I'd keep in mind is that it puts a lot of pressure on healers to shell out extra AP to help save someone while that person doesn't share any of the burden. It makes sense from an AP perspective where AP=time, but maybe if there was a good way to share the cost with the person they're healing?
A good tip I picked up from several Captain Awkward's letter replies (because she is GREAT at writing about how to set boundaries) dovetails quite nicely off of @Sunny's thing with keeping things simple. A common defense when someone is pushing at boundaries is to pull a whole "oh well I didn't mean it like that!" or "I was just joking around!" thing. Don't argue with this. It doesn't matter. You just go, "Great, then it won't be a big deal to stop!" It can really take the wind out of the sails of defenses like that. They can have all sorts of reasons or defenses, but it's useless to get caught up in arguing about them. They literally don't matter when you're just trying to get someone to stop a behavior that's making you uncomfortable.
One very important thing to keep in mind when you're developing boundaries is this: your feelings are worth the same as other people's.
I find that people who have trouble enforcing their own boundaries tend to regularly underrate the importance of their own feelings in order to protect others'. But why should you have to suffer discomfort to protect someone else from the discomfort of having to mildly adjust? GUESS WHAT! Your discomfort is a valid feeling that you are feeling, and it's okay to politely seek for a way to make it go away.
Think of what you would want someone else to do if you were doing something to unknowingly make them uncomfortable. Wouldn't you feel bad if you knew they'd been keeping it quiet so they didn't upset you? Since my impression of you is that you're a generally decent person who cares about those around her, I'd be willing to guess that you'd much rather endure whatever discomfort and upset you might feel at being asked to change something a little.
or, as I like to call it, "the holiday date rape song"
Yeah... you'd be wrong on that, but I'm not going to argue it with you.
Yeah, this discourse comes up every year and it's super not a date rape song, as it's based in the humor of its day often having women lean on the idea that they've had too much to drink (while being perfectly or near sober) to have an excuse to Get Busy. But it's also totally a product of the rape culture that existed then and still does now? Complicated song is complicated, but there's a lot of cultural context to it that people lose and then draw the wrong conclusions.
@smmc said in A Shout Into the Deep Dark Void:
@roz Medieval, fantasy, sci fi, WoD, OT. If it's interesting and fun, I could be interested (even in themes I'm burned out on, like Star Wars. Disney might have ruined the hype, but good players could bring me back.)
Arx is my main game. Original fantasy theme, kind of medieval/renaissance-ish. High fantasy world that thinks it's low fantasy and has been slowly discovering magic again. It can be very dense, a lot of lore and secrets to discover and uncover, and it's more code-heavy than other MUSHes/MUXes I've experienced. I certainly love it, though, and staff and the playerbase try pretty aggressively to help make things welcoming for newcomers. Website is here if you wanna poke around.
Yeah, that was one hell of an absence, yeah? Hahaha!
I actually took a break around the same time! 2004ish, I mean. It's just that -- I came back in 2009.
@smmc What an absence! What sort of stuff are you interested in? Looks like maybe some medieval/fantasy games in there? Not sure about all the games on your list.
@kodiak But you can PROTECT THE SQUISHY SMARTIES
@seraphim73 It's probably not personal to you as much as -- plenty of RPers have had awkward experiences in regards to getting involved with a PC where there's a RL married couple in the mix. And it can make them shy away from that in the future.
@tempest As one of the testers -- I think for the second go-round, so there was another two or three test groups after me -- you definitely can't make it very far in one of these if you only have combat monsters with no skills in other areas. And there are obstacles for social characters that I saw multiple times. Dumb sentient door. I couldn't sing its stupid song well enough!! There's definitely obstacles angled towards Physical, Mental, and Social characters. (And crafters, even!) Often there are options for more than one "type" of character on a given obstacle.