Best posts made by secretfire

@Paradox

The only problem I have with this - and I swear I'm not trying to start a political discussion (please noone do that!) - the USA is not the same place it was in 1992 when Stargate game out, or even the same place it was when SG1 came out. The assumption of a sane, competent, efficient government with moral leadership is gone.

I mean, I might not vote for Ra, but I might vote for Hathor or Baal. What happens if your players go through the gate and are just like...you know what, fuck it, I'm siding with the goa'uld? I mean, a lot of them are even crazier then what we have here on Earth. But some of them...you know, some of them might seem like a decent alternative.

It was much easier to quickly acquire power in the (early) fallout games by abusing chems then anything else. I still remember killing the Deathclaw in the original fallout unarmed and unarmored at level 3 that way. Pack on some Buffout and some Psycho, make sure you've focused on Unarmed - deathclaw goes pop. Still hard, but doable. Probably should be much easier to be an addict-warrior then a power-armor warrior.

Though I mean, obviously they'll have their own flavor, and some things don't translate well to a mush.

This place just finished its first event chain; an exploration of a starship graveyard that wasn't quite what it first appeared. I stand by my initial review, and I'll add this to it - the staffer seems to honestly understand Trek, its not 'star wars in a star trek skin'; the plot felt like a Trek plot each step of the way, like something that could have been a multi-part episode of an actual Trek series.

The staffer seems good at giving people things to do when GMing an event, and seems available and interested in his/her game. I also still really like the TOS vibes, since its set in the middle of the original Enterprise 5 year mission; though there are some hints about temporal shenanigans from the 'season opener' they were done in a clever and tasteful way that called back in subtle ways (for those who got the references, it was clear enough to not be required) to specific series plotlines and even specific episodes. Honestly, I've been pretty impressed by the quality of the forethought and plotting that has gone into it.

There are currently 3 scientist PCs, 2 engineers, one shuttle pilot, one doctor, one security-officer, and one enlisted rifleman. Still plenty of space to go around. This is the ship they are using (single ship game): https://statlas.aresmush.com/wiki/uss_atlas

I'd just make it a really interesting system. Please for the love of god not Tattooine. A system with multiple planets on it, ideally also some permanent space-based presence. In star wars, thats all the equivalent of the same place. Make it an interesting place with lots of diversity.

I think there's room for 'big plots' that are 'big' because people care about their homes and each other. You don't need a whole galaxy, you need character growth and development.

So, normally (I've never, ever, ever done this before as I consider it 'unprofessional' and 'unsportsman-like') I don't go into the whole mu-story thing, but I'll do it, just this once. I'll give everyone an overview so everyone, once and for all, is on the same page. Forgive me for the length and seeming meandering of this, I do have a point but I'm not eloquent outside of poses, and I'm not a ranter by nature.

1. The original Generations of Darkness was started by Vaapad.
2. Vapaad was neurotic and insane and never around. The place was basically run by Ataru, who was an amazing GM until he took it over in a staff revolt when Vaapad kept getting more and more crazy. Not Tolssk Crazy. Not 'Hog Pit' Crazy. Bat!@#!#@ @!##!@!@# mad, crazy. Like, Trump Crazy, metaphorically speaking. It then became Dawn of Defiance. Eventually he got busy and left, and there was a third headwiz. I'd left by that point. That was years after the switchover.
3. As far as I know, both the two players above are as old as Tolssk's player and myself, or nearly so. One of them, by their own admittance, was banned. I cannot be 100% sure, but I remember Ataru banning ~3 people, two of them were for sexual harassment and one of them was for rampant cheating while attempting to PK people. Don't know for sure which the one was, no way to know. The other, who retains their bit, I looked through several years worth of logs and could not find a single scene with them, and I scened with pretty much everyone. I do recall them being around and vaugely nice, just not doing anything.
4. My previous bit was Einara. I basically ran the CIS for a number of years. I also ran a ton of plots. A lot. Eventually I stopped being a villain as I got tired of the Jedi (see above) relentlessly trying to PK me while constantly whining about having the moral high ground.

So, this was my experience on the game. I started Einara as a level 5. My first scene (my very first!) someone tried to PK me. And my second. My third was a GM'd scene. Not villains, mind you, whom I always had great rp with. The Jedi. I spent several years with the heroic Jedi, using overpowered stats, trying to PK me. Sometimes more then once a day. Once I had three random scenes (this only happened once mind you) and all three had Jedi trying to PK me. They would ONLY DO SO if they thought they could win.

This did not stop me from trying to do stuff. I beat most of them. It took me years to level up from 5 (I was not a stat hound and kept that level past having the XP for higher levels) - and I routinely, through clever rp, npcs, and running, managed to beat them. At one point, the ENTIRE PC JEDI ORDER + npcs + a high level Obi-Wan Kenobi NPC they'd summoned, showed up to try and kill me. 99.99999% chance of this including all of the above complaining players; I was so angry I didn't save the log. That was my experience. Over and over and over.

Meanwhile, I was feeding, icly, the Jedi intelligence on the Sith. You want to know why Order 66 happened? Because I'd fed the Jedi (through about 5-6 pcs) intel on the clones being programmed to kill them. I'd also, specifically, told the Jedi that Palpatine was a Sith, and they had several months, and did nothing.

Now, staff were going to explore the consequences of that slowly (if they could get the Jedi pcs to do anything) - but Vaapad logged on one day, had no knowledge of any of this, saw Dooku was dead (the CIS players got tired of Vaapad's shit early on and arranged for the Jedi to kill him in a big PRP), - decided he wanted to rp a lightsaber fight between Yoda (his alt) and Palpatine (also played by him RIGHT THEN, and gave Ataru ~20 minutes to do Order 66 or he'd @shutdown the place). This led to the staff revolt.

Following Order 66, which involved Tolssk herding the Jedi onto disguised ships I'd prepared or paid for on Coruscant (I couldn't go there myself as the Jedi would still have killed me) - and herding them off to a planet I personally had prepared for them - I was foolish enough to go visit the Jedi without him around, yes, SPECIFICALLY INCLUDING THE ABOVE HIGH AND MIGHTY PLAYERS, and specifically including the staffbit of this game, whereupon my bit was 'imprisoned for use of the dark side of the force' - for over a full real life year.

To note, on her entire time on that game, she never used a single darkside force power, and until very late in the game's life, never got more then a single DSP.

Oh, and the imprisonment bit? She got loose when I eventually came back and complained that she was still locked up, and then when I was assured the Jedi were better and different, they did the same again. Again to her. For several more months. In a cell.

Following that I decided (more out of OOC pity then anything else) to try and help the Jedi reassemble an order. They had some problems. You could fit them into a few camps.

1. Twinked out PK Jedi.
2. Jedi who were not twinked out, and would often not leave the Jedi Places for rp, no matter what RP hooks you dangled in front of them.
3. Jedi who were around for sex scenes.

Some of them were good players. They were drowned out by a chorus of people who would insist they be treated as heroes even while never generating plot, while doing bad things icly, and while (in general) acting nothing like contemplatives or a religious order.

Ataru, for the record, had hoped at one point to have a bunch of scenes with the Jedi being investigators, or police officers, so they could be loved and protected by the people. None of that could happen because they treated the whole thing like a videogame, constantly whined oocly that they were not treated as heroes, then relentlessly tried to PK villains.

Yes, we were absolutely afraid of you guys. And for most of the character-lifetimed of Tolssk and I, we were underleveled compared to them (we started off at level 5), and had to be more clever then you.

A fair amount of the really clever, amazing stuff I got credit for (repeatedly) was Tolssk behind the scenes. He's actually pretty smart. Do I like the lizard? Not always. Its a very simple, stupid character; unlike the player. I've seen him play other characters at other places (he does particularly compelling noblemen, for instance) - but he's not a bully.

In the scene above, to which I saw multiple versions of the log, he had actually gotten down to half health. Half. The freakout occured when the Jedi ran off into the woods rather then continue to fight him, and he tried to kill some NPC. The specific reason I was given, by multiple people including the headwiz, is that it wasn't fair for Tolssk, a villain, to chase after or 'win' without giving anything.

And the thing is, thats been a complaint about him even when he was level 5 or 6 and the people complaining were level 8+. If he's playing a bounty hunting Trandoshan, with a culture that literally worship "The Scorekeeper"; that's what he's going to do. Now, I think using tabletop ruleset to arbitrate fights between PCs is silly, personally. It makes winners and loosers. I prefer freeform. But that's not what the system is. Its a system where, by design, in a fight it gives specific results. I think I could have won that fight as a level 5 Einara, personally. I think that, probably, some OOC communication on both sides would have been better, and I think that's where the breakdown was. Not one-sided. Two sided.

Regardless, in the SAGA system, or any other (even freeform!) - a villain is not 'obligated' to loose. Is he as compelling a figure as Einara? Personally, I think she's a better villain. You can talk with her, she's sympathetic. But she's not scary.

But its wrong to say that, in a fight where he's outnumbered, where the staffer throws multiple clone troopers at him, and even threatens to shoot him with vehicle weapons - he can't chase NPCs because the Jedi need to be guaranteed a win. I literally personally was oocly watching in the room, and heard similar comments in the room and, more directly, via page. And I won't get into who I paged what with whom - but I will reiterate the above being the general attitude of entitlement.

I very strongly don't feel villains are obligated to loose. I do loose, and run plots whenever I play a villain. But typically I view being a villain as like being a fachead. I don't feel every player is obligated to do that. I know its the attitude here because I've been told that.

Do I think Tolssk, in this fight, was entirely right? No, not really? I watched the end then read the logs and said so at the time, in the room, and to multiple people. But do I feel he was, as was specifically noted - obligated to 'not chase' the running-away heroes or to let the NPCs go? Definitely not. And he basically never PKs anyone. I cannot, offhand, think of anyone he's ever PK'd in a star wars game. I'm sure they exist, I can't think of any.

One of the other biggest defenders of Tolssk on the old game was Ataru, who saw the crap he put up with. Was Tolssk perfect? Abosolutely not. Was he perfect in the above post or scene? Probably not.

Did he deserve to be treated, for years (and in the above!) as some hideous monster? No. No he did not. And he did nothing out of line. Really. As I was repeatedly told "the fight was fine until he tried to kill the NPCs". And then the freakout occured because of Jedi players who used to be in a clique, who were afraid of him.

And coming from people who locked up my bit, who spent years outnumbering her 3-1, 3-2, 5-1, 5-2, 6-1, and so on - I think that is saying a lot. Its really easy to say "we believe in fair play" and then expect the villain PCs to put up with this garbage.

I do know the headwiz is comitted to not running this place the way other SW games have been run, the way WOD games have been run. And I appreciate that. He won't tolerate what we put up with. But neither does that excuse the past behavior of the above people acting like Tolssk is some bully.

And neither does that excuse silently banning him, especially after he spent days saying he preferred not to play the character again even for Beta, because it would start issues. I literally personally saw him say that multiple times in cgen before bringing the bit IC. We both opposed bringing back the old bits, and said so.

So when I hear on this game "oh our last Jedi never did anything because Tolssk might have killed us" when he was literally there on the day of Order 66 on the past game saving you, and literally knew where your secret planet was and could have told Vader at any time - that's bull. When I hear 'oh he's just an overpowered character' - well, it took a lot of years for him to get that high a level. Years of being active and doing a lot of scenes. And everyone doing the complaining are on bits just as old as him, and have probably never seriously had a PK attempt against them.

But for me that was a daily experience. So, I'm not against this new place. I support the philosophy, and I think SW games, in the past, have been run competitively, and I don't think that was always a good thing. I prefer freeform, to be frank. I won't be returning after this though, and I must speak out against revisionist history.

Very Belatedly: I've actually seen a lot of games I like come out over the past year, but die for lack of people. Like I really like Fallout: Montreal (which is in beta) - but when I've logged on, its been hard to find people evenings EST. There was a gritty noir Altered Carbon game I liked; also had people issues. A Star Trek game (sometimes a great notion) came out a few months ago on Ares, which is a great codebase - but staff, also, seemed mostly active daylight EST and weekends EST, so while it /does definitely have people/ - they don't tend to be online at the same time as me. I think Mu*ing is getting to the point where 'good ideas' are less of an issue then 'good available players'.

THAT BEING SAID...

I'd like to see a 'generic d&d inspired' game using the Ares codebase. I know the Arx codebase exists, but the few times I've tried the codebase I've found it overly complicated and the overall structure not conductive to RP; I just bounced off very hard; but Ares seems easy to do and conductive to RP.

Other themes I'd like to see:

*Call of Cthulhu (would never happen, but)
*Eclipse Phase
*Spelljammer (also using Ares, ideally, and not the actual ruleset)
*Victorian Steampunk

I mean, thats just me.

@KDraygo Yes, I agree. MUSHING has moved on. SW games are hard to do, and I don't think tabletop style games work best. The best rp is character driven - people have stories to tell, and characters, and those PCs can learn and grow. ARES is best for that right now. I think the old days of things like "vast epic space opera" games are past us for that reason. And its not a bad thing. RP has to be cooperative and growth-oriented to be fun and interesting.

@Jynxbox (Seraph, I presume?)

I'm not going to go into a lesson on how to survive a fight here. This isn't the time or place for it. And I think the sort of game where this advice is warranted is is dead and buried, for good reason. However, I can say what I advise is this:

1. OOC communication. Even in fights where most people loathe your character and/or are trying to kill you, they are usually not OOC jerks. Talk to them. See how much they are willing to bend. 9/10 people, even people who will freely admit to killing you if they get a chance, will let you get away if you trap them under a rock and ask nicely. Communicate, communicate, communicate.
2. Be prepared to eat crow and run away. Einara for the most part was a coward, because she ran away alot. Almost all the time, really. When PVP matters, most people get used to running if they want to 'be active'; either that or they do nothing.
3. PREPARE AND PLAN. Have traps set. Have NPCS ready. Know their weaknesses. Hit them with something and run. Toss them out a window and run. Throw a grenade and run. Make skill checks WHENEVER POSSIBLE. Lock a door behind you. Try a persuasion check on NPC guards if there are any. Make sure to always rp knowing the entrances and exits in a scene, if your someone whose liable to have tons of people icly after them. I took out Kenobi at one point by dropping a ton of sand on him. It buried him long enough for me to escape. I called it a win. I considered it a win.

Einara was not a cheese. She wasn't even a combat build. She had basically no to-hit roll. She was a force wizard, largely up against people who were combat monkeys. But the thing with people like them (you) - that they always miss, is there are always ways to win a fight via "roleplay" in these games. Look at the environment and how you can use it. Look for their personality and how you can use it. Keep in mind all the potential neutral parties who might be around and look the other way to help you escape.

Escaping from certain fights is enough to be a win. So is 'getting the mission done'. So like, if your mission is to "accomplish X" - and you then focus on the fight instead of "accomplish X"; you've failed. Whether it be to get a code disk away, or to save npcs, or whatever; if your first thought going into a fight is the conflict, you should ask yourself "is there a good character and story reason for this" and talk to the player. Really. You have no idea how often this kept me alive. That doesn't mean they won't spontaneously try and kill you again the next day, mind you. But if you are careful you can minimize the risks. It's not as hard or as impressive as it sounds.

Back on Dark Horizons Mush (this is ~15 years ago), I accomplished a lot, politically, with a level 1 political PC. I went around to other pcs and asked them to vote with me, whereas most people focused on 'their individual numbers' instead of what they would have icly done. At level 1 I had as much influence in the coded senate as Palpy, because mine came via rp. Combat on any coded game is like that. Think out of the box. If you think in the box, or think you'll loose, you'll probably get stomped. (This is part of why these games are no longer fun for anyone, as previously noted).

Often, character development done in advance will win a fight. You might not believe that, but its true. That's part of the problem here. You think numbers will win, stats will win, absent anything else - but then want it to be like freeform. Or so you say.

What you really mean (and I know this from personal experience) is you want to win, you don't want to have to do all that much for it, and you want to feel like a hero. But numbers don't win fights, not in a MUSH, and they don't make you a hero. Neither does saying your a hero.

Regarding the codebase, I did gloss over stuff. There was actually a lot more insanity then I portrayed. I mean, you didn't have to keep playing there either. But I wasn't staff, and that's other people's business.

Anyways, TL;DR: I agree, mushing has moved on. Alot. Everyone has moved on. Mushing is better (and smaller) then it was in many ways on the days of 'grand old mushes'. Character-driven RP means more.

I still kinda want to see a Lords and Ladies style game that's either High Fantasy or High Sci-Fi, with plenty of plotting and intrigue. Not in the Arx-style (I can't get my head around the Arx codebase, its too much) - but even so, with plenty of people plotting to get the 'King of the Hill' spot and keep it.

@EvilFerret I was waiting for this.

@Arkandel I actually do like the theme of Ithir, but I have tried the Arx codebase a few times and never gotten as far as a single scene.

Its just kinda...against the grain of what I'm used to, to an extent I can't get my head around. Your usually dumped into the middle of nowhere, tons of commands, huge amounts of spam to catch up on, and then when you finally get done reading all that spam, its not clear how or where to go to get rp. Each of my prior Arx attempts (which was Arx once, Ithir once) ended up with me completely lost on the grid, unsure where people were heading for rp, and just leaving. Meanwhile they have this huge number of detailed code; but rp has to come first.

My background is more freeform, where if you want rp - you get on channel and go 'hey, who wants to rp' then people find a spot to play in. I mean, I've done code-heavy places before (and by 'code heavy', I mean some scifi places), but Arx felt more like a text-based MMO to me in terms of implementation. I'm sure its great, and that people into it have a super-fun time, its just...a bit much, for me. I generally want to be able to log on, find a scene, and roleplay. There might be plotting, or intrigue, or backstabbing, or great loss in it...but it should still be rp. With Arx, I felt like I was running around some area in an MMO or a NWN persistent world wondering where everyone was.

Yeah, post apoc Rome game is an awesome idea. You make everyone happy. Post apoc fans, historical "but not ocd" people...I'd play there.