Best posts made by Seraphim73

@bored said in Regarding administration on MSB:

You can't bemoan toxicity existing and imply it's holding some vague population of presumably more enlightened folks (hah) from coming here, while also claiming that you're totally fine with the Hog Pit being a thing. It doesn't add up.

I disagree with this quite strongly. I think that you can think that having the Hog Pit is still alright -- or even valuable -- while wishing that the toxicity and vitriol was contained within it, rather than spilling out into other sections of the boards. From what I recall of Faraday's argument (sorry, distracted by Battlefront II), that's what she's saying. Whether or not it is, I certainly think it's possible, and would be beneficial for the forums in general.

@derp said in The Wheel of Time:

People keep saying this is fridging. It’s not.

I disagree intensely with this statement. The death of Perrin's wife is absolutely fridging. TVTropes defines "Stuffed in the Fridge" as "A loved one is hurt, killed, maimed, assaulted, or otherwise traumatized in order to motivate another character or move their plot forward." That is 100% what happened to Perrin's wife. She was killed in order to traumatize Perrin and to make his choice between Hammer and Axe all the harder. That's like... the definition of fridging.

The fact that the show passes the Bechdel test and is (generally) fantastic about representation doesn't change the fact that this is fridging, and utterly unnecessary. Killing off Master Luhhan would have been fridging too, but this was creating a character specifically to fridge them. That's worse.

Oh, yeah, @Runescryer said the same thing. Well, I already had this typed up, I'm going to keep it. Also, to Runescryer's point, there were bare breasts in the latest episode in the sauna.

@crayon It's only one anecdote, but my wife, who has only read about 40 pages of Book One (although we both played on Cuendillar a ways back), has not gotten lost despite the blur. I've answered a few questions for her, but haven't had to do much.

Cancer can eat a bag of goat dicks. My mother, who has lived her life beyond well (started a half dozen local charities, exercised regularly (hell, she did the running leg of a triathalon last year at 70ish), ate healthily) has brain cancer. Like, Stage III or IV glioblastoma brain cancer. The kind where you're lucky if you have a year.

My daughter is 2 this February, and apparently you don't start making concrete memories until you're 3 at the earliest. This means that not only am I going to lose my mother in the next year or so, but my daughter is probably never going to remember her Mimi except from photos and videos. And she loves her Mimi. Like, adores her. Asks to go see Mimi multiple times most days. And it crushes me to think that she's never going to remember that.

Fuck cancer.

@deadculture said in How should IC discrimination be handled?:

Oh, and the 8th Sea, as has been mentioned, is pretty equal in regards to how shipcrews are rostered. I don't think you'll find much in the way of gender discrimination there, at least functionally speaking.

Just for the record:

Among pirates and merchants, that's true, but the national navies are still male-only (although there are a couple of female characters who served as "boys" for a while), and it is difficult as a female character to have gone to a formal school for medicine or navigation. There is no homophobia in Tortuga or on the ships. There are also ex-slave PCs, and two slave-holding plantations on the island. Both sexism and racism exist in the world of The 8th Sea, but have been toned down to "good" Hollywood levels (because we all know that there are bad Hollywood levels of both too). It might touch PCs, but usually only by their players' choice or in off-hand sort of ways ("You're a doctor? Never would have expected it from a woman. Sure, you can take a look at the dead body.").

If someone is uncomfortable with that much, they are welcome to talk to Staff about it on the game, and we'll see if we can arrange a concept that is unlikely to touch on any of it.

@sunny said in How should IC discrimination be handled?:

Now, if it was a Wild Wild West movie game (see: Will Smith), I would not expect there to be a problem with wanting to opt-out of the racism stuff. Cos that's not the point of it (we have giant spider robots, ffs, we are not going for historical accuracy).

Interestingly enough, there was a good deal of racism in the Wild Wild West movie. Heck, they nearly lynched the black main character.

@arkandel said in The Wheel of Time:

It's quite possible authors like George Martin - or Robert Jordan - told a pretty good story. I wish those who adopt them actually showed more respect for it rather than try to 'fix it'.

I agree with almost everything that you said, but I think that it's absolutely possible to fix what's actually wrong with a book series (misogyny, for one) without "fixing" what isn't wrong (giving Perrin a wife and then fridging her for one).

Well, in the Mandalorian Wars, there are no Sith involved (yet). As I recall, there's a year of nothing major happening between the end of the Mando Wars and the beginning of the Jedi Civil War (the time when Revan and Malak are going to Dromund Kaas, getting dominated by the Sith Emperor, finding the Star Forge, breaking the Emperor's hold on them, and building their fleet/armies). So the Mandalorians aren't really a major war faction at the time that the Sith are (although I may have totally misread @Mr-Johnson's intent on when the start the game).

I'm also a pretty huge fan of playing Imperials, but most people want to play the good guys, and I would still strongly suggest starting with just one war faction plus Indies (to keep the playerbase less spread out, and to limit bad OOC feelings based on which side is "winning" the war at any given moment). I mean, it worked well enough on KotOR, and it took a nasty database crash when the database hadn't been backed up in months and significant hardware-based downtime to kill the game, but there was definitely some ugliness involved between people who primarily played Sith and people who primarily played Jedi/Republic.

Don't get me wrong, I would love to bring Darth Trucidas back (ETA: and to play a Taung -Crusader- who dislikes the Neo-Crusaders, and to play a Republic pilot, and... and... and...). And I'm -totally- not trying to claim that my opinions are right and everyone else is wrong. I'm totally just spouting off my opinion.

@sunny I don't think that racism was the point of the movie, but considering that it involved would be Confederate holdouts, an attempted lynching, "jokes"/taunting about slavery, and several people remarking with surprise on the idea of a black law enforcement officer, I would say that it was certainly one of the lesser themes of what was otherwise a whacky steampunk-y (delightfully) bad action movie.

That said, I think it's perfectly reasonable if some games want to scrub such things from their setting, and some games want to leave it in. People will vote with their logins. I do think that any game that makes racism or sexism or homophobia a major theme should be asking to get no players outside of a small group of assholes (and if the game is all bigots with nobody to be prejudiced against, they're likely to be disappointed too).

@faraday Yeah, I've been really impressed with that you've been able to do with the web portal to make it look like wikidot/mediawiki/whatever implementations. I'm sad we haven't been able to get things up to date with the web portal, because the logging/autoposting functionality in particular is awesome.

I think that @faraday's 4 (or so) points were a good rundown of why social systems are so hard to work into games, especially online games (@ZombieGenesis 's story shows that it's not just online games though). I think, however, that it all comes down to one singular point: Trust.

If you trust the other players not to screw with your character with the social combat system, not to push them into something that is totally against their morals, then you have fewer problems letting the dice make the (more minor) decisions for you in social situations.

If you trust the other player, then you're more willing to accept their view on potential modifiers for a social roll: "Oh, your character had a kitten that they loved growing up? Sure, I'll take a -3 on my attempt to get them to drown kittens." Sadly, there isn't a whole lot of trust out there in the MU*osphere (with good reason, read some of the Hog Pit threads if you doubt why), so when someone says, "My character had a kitten that they loved growing up, you could never get them to drown a kitten, EVER!" the initial response is often, "Oh, you're just trying to avoid the consequences of messing with my social-fu character" instead of "Interesting roadblock, could be fun to RP getting around (or not, based on how the RP and dice go)."

I've tried to design a system that allows for that sort of back and forth with modifiers and negotiation... but it still requires that you trust the other player at the end of the day.

As for social stats vs physical stats, even on PvE games, there's usually at least the possibility of another PC punching your PC (even if they aren't trying to kill yours), and usually you use combat stats for that. But if social stats can't be used against other PCs... well, they're less valuable. Granted, this is the same compromise we chose on the last couple of games I Staffed on (social stats only work on NPCs) because it's a nice clean line and still allows a social character to be created.

@apos said in What does Immersion mean to you in MUs?:

Ambiguity

I tend to prefer Option 1 (although not usually in that level of detail unless it's really important to the character), but I also prefer to do it in pages unless I think there are going to be a lot of other players interested in the information, because I find pages less disruptive to RP than I find OOC comments. Yes, I know that's odd.

If it's someone I feel particularly comfortable RPing with, I will make up the details as I go, assuming that they will do the same so that we are fully collaborating on the scene rather than one person essentially GMing the scene and the other one "just" playing.

So as an example, let's look at IC messengers versus @mail or page.

To me, unless there's something about the method with which the message is delivered that's important, I see no need to have anything beyond mail. Like, if you can stop a messenger going to or from a certain person, that would be awesome, and a serious reason to have a messenger system. But generally, I prefer mail, it doesn't interrupt the scene (unless you want it to, in which case you can just emit a messenger or a text message arriving), and it gets the job done just as well. It also encourages things like "when are you next free? Let's plan a time to get together and talk" and taking said request OOCly, which I think is important because our online times are definitely OOC, and if it's a critical issue, you shouldn't have to say "I'll see you a week from Friday" just because you the player are going out of town.

Now then, on to the more general question: Immersion for me is being able to believe that my character is in the world. So I want as few things to interrupt my character's experience of the world as possible. I agree strongly with @Thenomain and @Pyrephox (and others) that the thing that ruins my immersion isn't a coded command, it's whether or not the setting and characters react to the actions of my character(s) in a way that seems reasonable based on my understanding of the setting. It's the consistent rules that are important to me when it comes to immersion.

The "adaptive world" that @ThatGuyThere mentioned is a huge part of it, but for a world to be immersive, I also want to be able to understand it well enough to have some idea on how the world might adapt to my character's actions. If the setting doesn't hold together and I can't hazard a guess at how a character, faction, location, whatever might react to an action taken by a character, then I won't be immersed in it.

@roz I'm totally fine with disagreement. I also agree that having a weighted randomization method in RP is awesome. I should have been more precise in my language: I believe that lack of trust is why we need stats in CvC situations. And yes, sometimes we still just want a randomizer when we're playing with people we know and trust, but I believe that we don't need stats in those situations, you can just roll a die or flip a coin, because everyone trusts everyone to "play fair."

@ganymede said in Earning stuff:

Poe was really angry when Vice Admiral Amilyn Holdo took over the Resistance. Sure, she was a friend of Leia's and had some success in the field, but she didn't earn the command of the Raddus. But that tension is an important part of The Last Jedi, and plays itself out well.

Then maybe Poe should have put some points into Leadership and Command instead of Pilot, Gunnery, and Charm.

(Yes, that's a joke. Interesting example, and I completely agree with you on the need for trust in IC (and OOC) positions of responsibility).

I also agree with @faraday about top-level leadership positions being Staff-run NPCs. I do, however, like to have some mid-level roles available to players/characters who step up and earn trust, both of staff as players and of their superiors as characters.

@quinn said in Encouraging Proactive Players:

Maybe we all need to agree on the steps that we usually see/take:

1. Event gets posted/shouted, people sign up/show interest.
2. Event gets run, people show up and play!
3. Players RP amongst themselves about things. Perhaps put in +requests for more information and followup (?)
4. Another scene is run either because players have followed up, or plot runner has more to move it forward to try to get people involved (?)
5. Repeat of steps 3-4 as necessary until plot runner gets burned out / until plot is finished (?)

So, is question how to keep that momentum going or how to inspire people who only want to do steps 1 and 2 to move onto later steps? Or both?

My original question was both, and a little more. I always love players who RP among themselves after an event and put in requests for followup, those who chase down plot-hooks that lead to events (request Strange Sounds Investigation=There's a rumor post (bbread #/##) up about strange sounds at night outside of town, my PC is interested in looking into that), and those who put interesting tidbits into random scenes for other players to grasp hold of.

@scar gave us a great suggestion on T8S, which we ended up calling Quick Missions just because that's what came out when I started typing up the first one: little plot-ideas posted up on a board that people can incorporate in scenes. Like, sidequests in a video game. They require zero Staff input, and can just be run any time, anywhere, by anyone.

Thus far, one of the five or six we've posted has been picked up on.

It feels like these are the sorts of things that people used to do for themselves without prompting, but now they won't even engage in when prompted.

A lot of the ideas and suggestions put forward in the previous pages are great ones. I'm glad that I'm not the only one who has noticed a decrease in proactive players and an increase in players wanting events spoonfed to them (okay, I'm sad I've noticed it, but I'm glad I'm not the only one who has).

I agree with @coin, @Arkandel, and @Three-Eyed-Crow that the desire to be THE special one is one of the most toxic impulses in our hobby at the moment, because it is explicitly exclusionary: if anyone else has anything special, then the player isn't happy because they aren't the most special. I also think that it's derived from more single-narrative entertainment (movies, video games, books, etc), because that's most of the entertainment out there: 1-6(ish?) Very Special people doing everything and saving the cheerleader/town/nation/planet/galaxy/universe/multiverse/whatever.

However, I also think that this is a very, very small minority of people that have to be THE special one. I think that a much larger group in our hobby is happy enough being ONE of the special ones, one of those at least within the twilight areas of the spotlight, with it shifting over to them now and then. And I agree with @faraday that if you are careful with the character types allowed out of chargen, and have either the time or the staff to spread plot around to several groups at once, it is definitely possible to focus enough on the various groups to keep the more common ONE of the special ones happy.

The only way I can get fully into a character's head is to see them do their thing. If it's a political character, I have to get a speech written for them, or do some wheeling and dealing. If it's a combat character, I have to play them in a fight, whether it's a spar or real combat. If they're a pilot, I have to see them behind the wheel/in the cockpit.

PBs help. Sometimes music helps. But I have to see them do what they do best.

Also, movies and books within their genre help. With my swashbuckler, I've been reading a lot of Sharpe and watching The Musketeers and The Adventures of Robin Hood (and if they were streaming, I would totally watch The Sea Hawk and/or Captain Blood).

@faraday said in Earning stuff:

If you apply that ratio to a MUSH though, assuming somebody plays 3 nights a week (which is pretty typical for an active player), you're talking about one action-oriented hero plot per month.

I think that works great for the people who play 3 nights a week (which is about what I can manage at my best), but for those people who play 5-6 nights a week? That's somewhere just shy of one crazy-awesome thing each week. That means they're in every plot, which in turn means that one less person can join those plots. These are also that same vocal minority that has to be involved in everything, so if they're asked to sit out a plot or two, it's clearly the most awesome plot ever that they're missing, and they're hated because Staff wanted someone besides them involved and WOOOOOE IS MEEEEE.

Augh. Sorry. Got peeved out there for a second.

(yes, just like @surreality said... I should keep reading before I post)

I also agree with @Thenomain that a lot of characters don't seem to have (reasonable, attainable or entertainingly-unattainable) goals these days, and that's hurting games, because they tend to drift directionless, latching onto any forward motion and then trying to make it all about them.

Augh. There I go again. Deep breath.

To get sort of back on topic... is there a good way to make it clear that those pursuing a goal are "earning" the things that their characters get, while those drafting on them or on Staff are not, no matter what Big Bad they one-shotted?

@goldfish I'm a big fan of outfit posing when the outfit is a) out of the ordinary/different from their desc, or b) is important to the current status of their character (rumpled, bloody, neat and pressed like you said). Otherwise... I'd prefer a desc. And it really peeves me when someone uses a link to some high-fashion outfit and says "my character is wearing that." Like, okay, that's fine, but... eh. I prefer text to pictures for describing things that aren't going to be scene-necessary (I love reference photos for terrain that combat is happening over, for instance).

Totally agreed with @surreality about the name-dropping too.

I think that the answer to this is (of course) multi-part.

First, I think Staff needs to lay out their own expectations for the game clearly and concisely. I don't remember who suggested it, but I love the idea of a game mission statement: This is the game we want to run, and here's why. One to five sentences, two very short paragraphs tops.

Here was the mission statement from T8S:

The Eighth Sea is a game of piracy and the supernatural, of wooden ships, iron men, and the dark myths that slipped through the cracks of civilization. It will explore the edges of reason and the tensions between civilization, outlaws, and the unknown.
While there will be no prohibition on individual CvC conflict (piracy and the supernatural are dangerous), the focus will be on collaborative CvE, on determining the cause of The Storm and on working together to return to the world of the real. We are playing a Hollywood version of history, with similarly Hollywood interpretations of real-world religions and myths. There will be darkness, but there will also be swashbuckling and derring-do.

Second, I think Staff need to walk the walk. This is where we screwed up. We didn't have enough piracy in our pirate game. Too much supernatural, not enough piracy. But whatever vision Staff articulates, they need to follow through on it in every single encounter with players.

This is because Staff (and the behavior they allow/encourage) sets the culture of the game. So if you want your game to encourage group play, you need to celebrate those people who share the spotlight well. If you want to discourage spotlight hogs, you need to close off avenues of solo progression and direct them to ways in which to work with other PCs instead. And then those ways have to work if they actually follow them.

The more that player actions (and by this I don't mean just that they solved the plot, but how they did it) are shown to clearly impact the state of the game (not just showing up on a bbpost, but actually changing how things happen going forward), the more I think that players will be inspired to actually take action.

Thirdly, yes, I think that those players who try to spotlight hog need to be talked to, quietly and individually. On the flip side, I think that those players who are great in scenes, but don't really engage in the story need to be talked to also, to find out what's missing for them, and to encourage them to get involved (of course, going back to point two, once you find out what's missing for them, I think you either need to change it or let them know why you aren't changing it).

I don't think that this is a code issue in most cases (although maybe Teamwork Rolls could be emphasized in the difficulty of actions, to discourage lone-wolfing even in requests?). I think it's a cultural issue, not a code one.

Heh. Okay, I sort of get that. I'm a desc-nerd, and would totally try to describe that (probably starting with the segmented plates over the abdomen and ending with either the fringe over the hands or the snowflake/feather hair), but I sort of get that one. I think you get a pass on that one. But when it's just a pretty standard high-fashion dress? Eh. "Gorgeous red dress with an corseted bodice, cap sleeves, a short train, and a slit up to the thigh on the left side" should cover it well enough.

@lotherio and @surreality Oh yeah. I didn't mean to try to force good-in-random-scenes-but-not-into-metaplot players into metaplot, I more just meant to check in with them and see if there's anything you can/should change to make things better for them (or if they're perfectly happy doing what they're doing).

Definitely agree with @Arkandel about telling people that their idea isn't something you're interested in on your game up-front and early. Don't string them along, don't tease them, just let them know that it's not a story you're interested in telling.

On the flip side, as @faraday mentioned, I think that players need to recognize when their view of the setting doesn't mesh well with Staff's, and either adjust their view or leave the game. I don't have a problem with a player pitching something (a storyline, a PrP, whatever) that changes the game slightly, but if Staff tells them that they're not interested, it's time for them to either shift their expectations, or find somewhere else to go.

@Lotherio Just as a note, I see players running PrPs as a massively, immensely positive thing. If players are engaged in the setting and interested in telling stories in it? Great. The only possible downsides of players running PrPs in my mind are if they break theme or they're exclusive. That's it. In theme, allow anyone who fits the PrP into it? Great. Do it. I would even be totally cool giving a metaplot thread to a player who had proven they could handle it to run at a time that Staff couldn't.