Best posts made by Seraphim73

I would even differentiate between "a Player-run Plot" and "a player GMing a pick-up scene." To me, the former is something that is likely to run more than one scene, and has the potential to really shake things up (beyond however far getting hurt or fighting things shakes things up), while the latter is a random exploration/combat/social scene that just happens to have one or two players playing the NPCs.

On games I run, I like to have PrPs (using the definition above) run by Staff. I want to make sure that it fits the behind-the-scenes stuff that players may not know about yet. So I like to have them submitted for approval. Impromptu player-run fights or social scenes or what-have-you? Please, please, please run them. I would love players to run them. Any time they want to. Without checking with Staff. Just do it.

@Kestrel said in Cultural differences between MUDs and MUSHes:

So, to clarify this, the kind of secrets I was referring to aren't of the 'pull lever, discover trapdoor' variety. I was referring more to, 'Everyone thinks my character's family died in a tragic accident, but in actuality, she murdered them all in cold blood.'
...
So I find it kind of sad, and I feel very cheated, if someone messages me OOCly to tell me all about their character's hidden motives. And if they ask for mine, my instinct is to just reply, 'fuck off'. @Lotherio claims that on MUSHes he plays, secrets are very much a part of the culture, but they aren't on the MUSH I'm playing on. And I think that, no matter the MUSH, when you allow for so much OOC communication, it's inevitable that people are going to want to be demanding and expect you to be more open. On most MUDs I've played, where simulationism and IC are king, 'find out IC' is a refrain held to a much higher regard than 'communication is key'. And thus, IC mysteries are much better preserved, and are more fun to unlock.

Actually, I'd say that Staff, at least, on The 100 MUSH is totally cool with players keeping secrets OOCly as well as ICly. While our +sheets may be viewable to everyone, backgrounds are not. We even have a mention in our New Player Guide suggesting that if you want to keep something secret, you include it in your background rather than as a Quirk on your +sheet.

I love ICly finding out new things about characters that I didn't know previously--it's one of the shames of being Staff, that you have most of these spoiled by reading backgrounds. It's simply that we don't enforce "OOC Masq" (as @ThatGuyThere was talking about) like some games do. If someone wants to tell you their character's big secret, ICly or OOCly, we don't punish them for doing so. If someone pushes you to share a secret about your character OOCly, tell them you're not going to--if they keep pushing, tell Staff, as that's a form of harassment.

(just to give a specific response to a semi-general/semi-specific comment)

@peasoupling said in Core Memories Instead of BG?:

But a person with a past can be a fun character type. You might not want to play the 18 year old hero's journey, you might want to play the grizzled veteran hero in retirement who gets involved to help the kids, or the lunch lady who used to be a princess of an unnamed generic Eastern European principality.

Sorry, I should have been more specific. I -love- characters with a past. I love to play 30-something mercenaries who roll their eyes at all the young pups wandering around like they own the place because someone gave them a +1 longsword.

But even when I play these grizzled veterans, the meat of their story has to be ahead of them, in my opinion. They shouldn't have single-handedly defeated a platoon of enemy soldiers, married a princess, become king, given up the crown, and created their own form of kung-fu. But having played minor parts in two or three dozen battles/skirmishes? Sure! Great! Just means you have something to compare your on-grid accomplishments to. But I think that on-grid accomplishments should always be the highlight of your character... or else why are you playing them now? Shouldn't you be playing them back when they were awesome?

@Arkandel What you're discussing is very similar to the system that I'm trying to work out. I very much want coded social combat in the system, but I also want to make sure that no one expects instant-conversions, and to limit the impacts of using the exact wrong argument and still succeeding.

With that in mind I have a section at the beginning of any fight (social or physical) that includes Setting the Stakes. Each of the players involved states what their character intends to do, and the other players state whether this is a reasonable possibility. This is more important for social combat than physical, because we all (or at least most of us) understand and agree upon the physics of real-world physical combat -- the same is not true with social combat, it's more like a Jedi and a Borg trying to agree on whose universe is "right" before beginning a fight between them. The hope is that this will rein in some of the attempts at instant-seduction or instant-conversion or whatever. If the players involved cannot agree, Staff is called in, talks to each individually, and determines the available stakes.

Physical Example One: Player 1: "My character is looking to hit some people to work off some stress, but doesn't want to actually injure anyone." Player 2: "Sure, that sounds good, about what my character wants too." Player 1: "Great, we're agreed."
Physical Example Two: Player 1: "My character wants to rip someone limb from limb and bathe in their blood." Player 2: "Uh... considering you're playing a hacker with a Strength 2, probably not. My character is just looking to escape this attack." Player 1: "Oh, yeah, you're probably right. Well, okay, my character is looking to inflict as much damage as possible with their bare fists." Player 2: "Understood."
Social Example One: Player 1: "My character wants to get a discount of 20-30% on this item." Player 2: "Sounds high, but with some really good rolling, possible. My character wants to mark the item up by 10%." Player 1: "Ouch, over list price? I guess that could be possible with a good argument."
Social Example Two: Player 1: "My character wants to get your character to betray your King and let me in to poison him." Player 2: "Our characters have never met, and mine is a Royal Guard who loves his King. Romantically. Probably not going to happen." Player 1: "Hrm, how about casting doubt on the King's fidelity to crack some of that resolve?" Player 2: "Sounds plausible, we'll go with that. My character is trying to resist this argument and get your character to go away."

The second part is adding a step before rolling, and another before posing for social combat. Yes, this makes social combat more involved, but again, we have to define the world the characters are playing in before poses make sense. The first step is for each character to state (generally) what tact they're taking. The other character then provides a bonus or penalty for the attack based on how effective that argument would be. The second step is where the defender reconciles the attack with their character. If the argument was ridiculous but the roll was excellent (countering the penalty and beyond), then the player has a chance to suggest some ideas to the attacker's player that might explain why it worked. Sadly, it requires rational adults on both sides, so I don't know if it would ever work in a public system.

Example One: Player 1: "Since my character knows that yours just got out of a bad long-term relationship, she's going to suggest that the characters should totally have a one-night stand at a later date." Player 2: "Ouch. Sadly, he's really against one-night stands. Like, really, really against. Probably a -3? My character is going to try to suggest that yours chase after Bobby instead." Player 1: "Oooh, my character thinks Bobby's a hunk, +1." Rolls are made, Character 1 wins despite the penalty. Player 2: "Hrm, wow. Okay, so maybe it's not so much suggesting a one-night stand as simply friends with benefits at a later date? No romantic entanglements, but not something utterly meaningless? Or maybe she plays it cool and just suggests going out for drinks to complain about the bad breakup with the idea that she'll get him drunk and try again?" Player 1: "Okay, that second idea sounds workable, I'll go with that."
Example Two: Player 1: "I'm going to appeal to your character's love for protecting innocents by claiming that the rebels I want him to smuggle out of the city are actually innocents the government is hunting." Player 2: "That's a good idea. I think that's probably a +2. It would be a +3 if your character had evidence that they were innocents. My character's just hanging in there, clinging to his oaths of allegiance." Player 1: "Yeah, no modifier, obviously." Character 1 rolls well, Character 2 rolls poorly. Player 1: "How about noting that a couple of the rebels are women, and one is a teenager?" Player 2: "Yeah, that sounds like a great way to handle that social beat-down."
Example Three: One round, Character 1 tries to straight-up intimidate Character 2, with Player 2 deciding that since their character is tough and nasty themselves, that's a -1 penalty. Character 1 grumbles to themselves, but accepts it. The rolls are mixed, and no one makes much progress. The next round, Player 1 decides their character is going to threaten Character 2's family. Player 2 states that this would never work, and it's a -2 penalty. Player 1 protests, stating that Character 2 has stated how much they love their family in past RP, and in fact has the Quirk "Family Conscious." Player 2 is adamant, because they don't want to lose. Staff is called in, the situation is explained (in individual pages with each player to make sure it doesn't devolve into an OOC shouting match between the players), and Staff declares that the threat to the family is actually a +3 bonus. Rolls are made.

Edit: Formatting is apparently hard, even when it's that simple.

I'm a huge fan of the Shadowrun 3rd Edition system for most anything modern and future, but I don't know how well it would work on a MU*. For a MU*, I'm a big fan of Ares.

@Three-Eyed-Crow said in What RPG SYSTEM do you want to play on a Mu*?:

I keep vaguely wanting to run a small group online TT with the "Leverage" RPG system

I've actually been using the (to my mind) key component from the Leverage RPG system on Fires of Hope: Flashbacks. No more huge planning scene that takes 3+ hours away from the execution of the plan. Instead the group gets 30ish RL minutes to come up with a basic plan, and then we start in. During the execution, every character gets one Flashback where they can flash back to a previous time where their character did legwork or pre-planning or whatever to help with whatever obstacle is in front of them.

//Example: The group is stealing starfighters from a repair yard. They sneak up to the fence, but find out that it's humming slightly -- yup it's electrified. One of the characters uses their Flashback to have, the night before, gone in and set a small charge on the generator running the fence. The roll Mechanics, pose having set the charge "earlier," and then pose setting the charge off. Pop, fence is no longer electrified, the insertion can continue.//

Advancement can mean a lot of things to me (in no particular order):

• The numbers on my character's +sheet get bigger.
• My character gets new tricks or abilities they can use in scenes.
• My character gains some social or political title or pull.
• My character is awarded a tangible reward for their deeds (even if it's "just" a shiny new medal to wear).
• My character reaches an important story milestone, and the next steps in their story (whatever those may be) are laid open.

I guess the most important thing for me is newness. That they have something now that they didn't before, and it's recognizable by me and possibly by others. I agree with @Jim-Nanban that I want something to advance every couple of weeks (I'd say every 2-3), but that doesn't have to be numbers on a +sheet getting bigger for me -- it just has to be something that I can look at and say "Yes, this character is progressing." There's very little more boring, annoying, and frustrated than a character who is stuck in one spot and unable (for some reason) to progress. Advancement is that progress.

Also, I agree with @Derp that starting low and working up and justifications are nice, but if I start really low, I want that first advancement to be fast -- I enjoy playing someone who is a professional at their job more than someone who is just starting out (usually).

@Salty-Secrets said in Social Combat: Reusing Physical Combat System?:

Social combat outside of mind control-like effects should just be role-play, not system-backed.

Is physical combat outside of executions just role-played, not system-backed? If not, but social combat should be, why should anyone invest points in social skills or defenses when they can pour them into physical ones?

I've had my own uncomfortable history with social combat... several years ago, I was wildly against it, because I thought that my immersion would be broken by someone with huge dice pools and crap-all RP skill rolling a ton of dice at me and basically posing, "You should tell me your big secret because you're dumb and I'm cool," and then expecting me to do so. In fact, when Blu and I opened up The Fifth World, we didn't have any social skills at all--that was all RP. I've come around to the fact that if you don't have social skills, all characters will be perfect (or near-perfect) liars, and you just can't really have people striving against one another in social spheres with any expectation of "fair play."

And so, like @Sparks, @Ganymede, and @Lisse24, I'm writing a social combat system for the Furystorm system that I'm working on. It's based on A Song of Ice and Fire's social combat system, but simplified a bit, and tweaked so that it has some slight chance of working in PvP, as well as PvE. My intention is to allow a system where you can get short-term results through the use of dice, but long-term results will require lots of RP, rather than a single social combat.

Example: I'm an agent of a rebel High Lord, and I want to convince a loyal Senator to act against the First Lord. With a single social combat, I might be able to convince him to speak out against a bill that the First Lord likes in front of the Senate, I might even be able to get him to vote against the bill, but I couldn't get him to rebel against the First Lord--that takes lots of RP.

More controversial example: I'm trying to seduce someone who has absolutely no interest in my gender. If I roll really well, I might be able to get them to flirty playfully with me if they were the type to do so, but I won't be able to get them into bed.

So, like aSoIaF, I use "armor" and "weapons" in social combat, and armor includes attitude (but also social standing and perhaps--I'm still pondering this--particularly strong beliefs on the subject), but I have weapons represent the relative effectiveness of the argument being used (as opposed to the persuasiveness with which the argument is being presented).

To facilitate this, I've added a step at the start of a given round where each side gives an overview of their argument, and the defender assigns it a "weapon" based on how effective that general argument might be. Granted, there's still room for ugliness if someone decides that all arguments they don't want their character to be swayed by are Ineffective, but those people are going to be assholes no matter the system.

If the rolls demonstrate some extreme results (an Ineffective argument cleaning up despite the penalties) there's another step in there asking the defender to talk with the attacker to come up with some suggestions on how the argument might be tweaked to better make sense of the roll.

Example 1: Agent of a Rebel High Lord wants to get loyalist Senator to vote against a bill that the First Lord likes. In the first round of social combat, the agent's player notes that he will be appealing to the Senator's open-mindedness. The Senator's player notes that this is likely to be Weak, since the Senator is not particularly open-minded. The rolls go predictably, and the agent makes no headway (and the Senator doesn't dissuade the agent from his goal either) and poses are duly made to that effect.
In the second round, the agent shifts his argument, stating that the character will instead emphasize a time that the First Lord didn't have the Senator's back and trying to call into doubt whether the Senator's loyalty is being returned. The Senator's player notes that this is true, and figures that the attack is Intriguing. The agent's player rolls very well (the bonus to damage and armor penetration helps), and so the Senator's player notes that there have actually been a couple of times that the First Lord didn't back the Senator that are public knowledge, so the agent could even bring up more than one. The agent's player adds this to the pose to help explain the particularly good roll.

Example 2: Player 1: "Tiberius is going to appeal to Aemulius's love for protecting innocents by claiming that the rebels Tiberius wants him to smuggle out of the city are actually innocents the First Lord is hunting." Player 2: "That's a good idea. I think that's probably Intriguing. It would be Strong if Tiberius had evidence that they were innocents. Aemulius's is just going to ask that Tiberius give up the operation, since there's a high risk of getting caught." Player 1: "Yeah, he's pretty much accepted that. I think that's Neutral." Player 1 rolls well, Player 2 rolls poorly. Player 1: "How about Tiberius noting that a couple of the 'innocents' are women, and one is a teenager?" Player 2: "Yeah, that sounds like a great way to explain the good roll."

I also allow the rules for Seeking Advantage, Multiple Attackers, Fighting Aggressively and Defensively, and Disengaging to be used in social combat just like in physical combat.

I'm currently looking into adding (thanks @Misadventure for the idea) the idea that some wins may require compromise, depending on the percentage of the winner's lost SocialPoints (the social equivalent of hitpoints).

@lotherio said in Something Completely Different:

I mean not all Germans

You brought it up yourself, but I'm gonna say... maybe not the best logical leap to make. You might want to rethink it. You might also want to rethink the idea that many of the people who left did so because of either an evil, charismatic leader or propaganda.

@Godot They were waiting for you.

@templari said in Star Wars?:

Never understood all the SAGA hatred.

I think that Saga Edition is actually a really great Star Wars system... for tabletop. But I don't think that any level-based system is great for a MU*, because ever-increasing hitpoints, attack bonuses, and defense mods tend to make it utterly useless to have a lower-level character along (unless they have some great teamwork trick).

@mr-johnson said in Star Wars?:

Well I've just been graciously donated an entire code base for the game

I'm curious whether it's the GoD/DoD codebase with their homebrew additions, or if it's the original Dahan code. If the former, you definitely will want to get someone in to pick out the additions before opening the game up to the public, some of them were dangerously unbalanced (and many of them weren't even written in appropriate Saga Edition language).

@faraday Oh yeah, any large-scale CvC component puts FS3 out of mind for me, definitely. And I might be allowing my FS3 familiarity to get the better of me, but I don't consider tweaking weapon stats and stances as much more than tweaking.

But again, I recognize that I'm not the average user, and that adding magic into FS3 in general is a significant modification of what you intended it to be used for. It's also just one of those "pet projects" that I kind of want to see if I can make work--my last attempt didn't turn out so well.

@Ghost Dude, Spider literally ruined someone's RL house and wouldn't accept responsibility. That's not overbearing or unfair. That's just crappy.

Beyond that one example, I have absolutely no wish to provide someone who has demonstrated themselves to be a crappy person with (usually yet) another chance. If they want to demonstrate that they can fix their behaviors through communications with me or through their actions on another game, I might give them another chance. But if I'm already staffing a game, I don't want to put in even more time and energy watching someone like a hawk who I know has demonstrated bad behaviors in the past. I want to spend my time and energy providing a fun game for the players who I know are there to have a good, safe time.

@BobGoblin With the changes to FS3.3, Ares is actually pretty neatly set up for general fantasy. Melee combat is no longer totally awkward, there's no Dodge/Defense skill necessary (I'm sure Fara works very hard to ensure that, given her hate for the concept), you can have mixed armor... it's pretty solid, really. A good system for cavalry and a way to enable "weariness" or something like that from magic use is... most everything necessary with a little imagination.

On the cavalry question, I've been pondering it myself, and there are a couple of semi-awkward solutions, but nothing really elegant. Those semi-awkward solutions should be plenty, really. They're just not pretty.

Sorry, been without power all morning, although it looks like @Auspice has covered most everything -- just figured I'd toss my two reale in.

Homosexual characters are absolutely okay. Like women on ships, they may be looked at sideways by some people -- PC and NPC, but if they do their job well, most people won't have a problem with it (just like if the character was anything else... do your job, no problems).

@GirlCalledBlu and I recognize that we tend to get excited on games and try to forge ahead faster than we should. We've got @Avarice and @Auspice watching for any such tendencies, and we're watching ourselves as well. Having other folks on Staff should also help us with burnout.

I don't think Ares is perfect for pirates -- too much melee, and Ares is really based on ranged combat -- but I think that Ares is pretty awesome in general, and so are pirates, so....

@TheOnceler Because we're playing Hollywood versions of the various faiths, Islam, Judaism, and Christianity share the same Faith mechanics (gaining Blessings and getting Guidance), but obviously different flavor. We're not at all opposed to having a few Jewish characters and even a Rabbi wandering the grid -- although a whole crew is probably a bit much for the setting.

@Arkandel We're definitely playing with the line between science and superstition -- a lot of sailors in particular, as you've noted, should totally expect some of these strange things to be real (although perhaps not all). The more scientific are likely to think them utterly mind-blowing. It takes all kinds, and we want all kinds.

I enjoyed RP quite a lot with both Gerrit and Solon (didn't RP with Antaeus).

@auspice I paid $20 for that license. Just because I paid that $20 20 years ago is no reason to stop using the product.

@Darinelle said in How much plot do people want?:

1. GM Buy-in
2. Player Buy-in
3. Communication.
4. Trust.
   I like telling a story together. It's my favorite part of MUing.

Yes. Just, so much all of this. Nicely put. As to your post a bit later, I think that "world-changing" doesn't have to mean that the whole world is changed by your actions, just that some corner of it is. That's a big part of why I play, for example: to see the impact my characters make on the world and on other characters (and the impact that the world and those other characters have on them in turn).

@Sparks said in How much plot do people want?:

I would say that having a concrete goal for your character is also key.

I think that this is spectacular advice for ANY character on ANY game. It doesn't even have to be a goal that they can achieve. In fact, in many ways it's better if you have one overarching goal that you know they will never achieve, with micro-goals beneath it to let them (and you) feel like they're making progress toward that main goal.

You don't have to have a goal at chargen, sometimes it takes some time to figure out what your character wants to do (or what you want your character to do), but having a goal to work towards helps so much in making sure that you aren't stuck in neutral with just bar scenes to keep you busy.

I also don't think, as @Arkandel mentioned, that your character has to be laser-focused on doing a single thing... but having an overarching goal that they are working towards can be incredibly grounding when you're flailing around, not sure exactly what they should b edoing.

@lotherio If I might suggest: a "suggested reading" section on the front page. Link it to the most important 4-6 pages, including your chargen help page, a historical overview, and pages on the most important cultural phenomena.

@faraday Agreed on all points.

I generally think it's more important to know what tech can do than how it does it (Can you teleport through shields? Can you teleport through solid rock? Can you block teleportation with other tech?) because this is the sort of thing that informs how it can be used in plots (as @Collective noted).

Maybe there's a similar balance with culture. I know that there's a tipping point where you're giving too much information about the culture ("OMG, don't you know anything? Gravball is only played with 5 people. Didn't you read page 13 of the Culture section?"). I also know that most games are well short of this point (in my opinion).

(I also-also know that I like parenthetical comments.)

@Lotherio If you're looking at two pools anyhow, how about Storypoints and Plotpoints? Other players can give you Storypoints (or fractions of Storypoints, or however you want to handle the math) for taking a failure in any scene (they're given sort of like noms) and can be spent in any non-plot scene to gain a success. They can be used to effortlessly leap across to the balcony to kiss your lady love, but they can't be used to slay the dragon. Plotpoints, on the other hand, are given by GMs (player GMs provide a fraction of a point, Staff GMs provide whole points? Any GM provides whole points? Any GM provides a fractional point?) for failures during plot scenes, and can be spent on successes during plot-scenes.

That keeps all gains based on character actions, not sitting semi-active and gaining points weekly (I have no problem with weekly XP systems, because your character is theoretically training during that down-time, but weekly Wins are a little more troublesome to me), but also provides a divide between teatime losses (and wins) and chips-are-down-swords-are-up losses (and wins).

@Kestrel
Totally not a problem to come in later. We'll absolutely let people app in "I was here all along" Delinquents--we're keeping a Timeline on the wiki and updates for what's going on in the camp on the Rumors board specifically to allow this.

As for concepts, so long as it's not one of the overdone ones listed on the Wanted page on the wiki (currently children of MedTechs and ex-Guard-Cadets), we're happy to have whatever concept works for the player and the theme, we don't mind duplication of concept here and there (we fully believe that the personalities will set the characters apart).

MSB does indeed have messaging, it's the little talk-bubble up in the upper right-hand corner, but I figured that the answers might be useful to others as well.