Posts made by Seraphim73

@gangofdolls I actually kind of prefer non-super-famous PBs too, or at least relatively unrecognizable pictures of super-famous PBs. I am, however, also a hypocrite on this and frequently use Chris Pine and Chadwick Boseman as PBs and have used Bruce Willis and Vin Diesel in the past.

For me, the answer to this question depends on how in-depth the roster system is.

If the roster is a basic sheet, with the power to tweak it as desired, a name (that can be changed), a brief description (that can be changed), and the sketchiest of BGs, then I don't think that the rostered character needs to have a PB associated with it.

If, on the other hand, the character is ready-to-play with a final description, a set sheet, and a detailed BG, I think that having a PB attached is a good idea. I also think that Staff should allow the PB to be changed, as long as the new PB still fits the description (including gender/race/ethnicity/age).

If the PB can be changed, I think it would be extremely valuable to have something saying "This PB is open to change, pending Staff's approval of the new choice" (or something like that) immediately alongside wherever the PB choice is listed (under the image, alongside the actor entry, whatever) so that it's very clear that the option for a change is there.

I'm with @saosmash and @faraday on most of this. In my mind, Chargen is to set what a character can do, and a BG is to make sure that the player understands the setting to some degree and has a character that fits into it (this is most important in non modern-day settings, not so much in WoD). I would also add that I want to make sure that the most awesome parts of the character's story aren't behind them -- I want characters who do awesome things on grid, not brag about the awesome things they did in their background.

I'll sometimes add some guiding questions to a Chargen wiki page (or in-game help files), but I certainly wouldn't require them to be answered in the BG, they're just there if someone is stuck for details on the character.

I like the idea of unspent points being available after Chargen, to encourage people to build the sheets they want rather than the sheets they think they need, but it just doesn't work well in some systems -- especially those that don't use the same resources in Chargen and Advancement.

I think that Chargen should NOT require that a player have a full understanding of their character before they hit the grid (allowing sheet tweaks for a couple of weeks after approval is great for that), but I do think that it should require that the player have some understanding of their character besides what they do mechanically.

I don't think that justifications for high stats mean that characters can't take high stats, I think it just means, like @faraday mentioned, you want to know how and why their schoolteacher is a professional demolitionist (were they a guerilla until a couple years ago, or have they become one recently?), or their pilot is a martial arts black-belt (was their mother a Marine and pushed them into it, or were they beat up a lot as a kid?).

As a Staffer, I do love having hooks built into BGs, but Staffers in general (myself included) don't use them nearly enough to justify an expansive BG just to provide them. I'm also totally in favor of bullet points for a BG. Don't give me a lot of fluff that doesn't actually tell me what the character can do and how they learned to do it.

@pacha WoD isn't really my thing, but I really like the thought that went into the location. Especially the idea that a massive tourist town/city/island would make a great place to disappear semi-random people.

@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.

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.

@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?

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.

@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.

@surreality said in Earning stuff:

@faraday FS3's learning curve was a little slow for me, but I'm not into the free-for-all 'do whatever' from things like TR, either.

This can absolutely be tweaked by game staff to be as fast or as slow as they want. You could have every step take 1 XP and the cooldown by 1 day, or you could have every step take dozens of XP, and the cooldown by a year (this would be insane and foolish, but the other extreme would probably be pretty unfun too, as everyone maxed out Action Skills and started making up more BG Skills very quickly).

Beyond that note and getting back to the original question, I believe that everyone should start in a place where they have access to the general story (this is why I like slowly increasing "starting level," whatever that means for the game, as the average level increases), but that past performance should provide additional opportunities. Basically, everyone should have the same opportunity to earn their shinies, but those who put the effort in (however the game's Staff defines effort), should get the shiniest shinies.

To be clear, I don't mean "put in the effort" as in "is online 24/7 and joins every GMed scene," I mean it more like "provides input that moves the story along and/or changes the world in interesting ways." This could be a single bbpost that sparks a whirlwind of RP, or it could be the cumulative result of two dozen GMed scenes.

@prototart The comparison between superheroes and Olympic athletes is actually really fascinating to me, especially in this context (and the context of how much sex happens at an Olympic village). For some, their body type is (unnaturally) natural -- they don't have to work at it, but for someone like Daredevil or Batman? I could see them appreciating a nicely-cut body very much, since it's their ideal for themselves as well. Interesting (to me, at least).

@ganymede said in The best I've ever...:

(props also to Ashen-Shugar's (I think?) code for Star Wars SAGA games).

Dahan. Dahan is the mad genius behind most of the Saga Edition game code.

@arkandel Just in your head? I've been known to burst into my acapella rendition of The Internet is For Porn at semi-random points. Which is very awkward with a 2-year-old who is starting to repeat things I say.

My characters generally fall into one of two or three types:

• Experienced mercenary, usually snarky, often irreverent and/or flirty. Usually morally gray.
• New, gung-ho soldier just out of training (usually flight school) who is often a nerd, closeted or not. Usually a goodie-two-shoes.
• Bombastic politician, often with a military background. Usually intends to do good, but finds themselves sliding into darkness due to good intentions.

Yes, I like military characters, because I enjoy tactical scenes.
Most of my characters are male, but I've played a half dozen female characters over the years and enjoyed them.
Most of my characters tend to be talkative too, because I like words. However, if I have a character who is particularly loquacious, I will usually make an alt who is sparse with words, if only to make it easier to differentiate when I'm playing both at the same time.

I will occasionally judge others if they lose/give up a character and come back with a character who shares a large number of traits with the former character. It's especially bad if you can't tell the characters apart besides the played-by.

As for views expressed, as someone who played quite a few Children of the Light on WoT games, I don't judge for IC views, but if the player also seems to exhibit those views OOCly, then I start getting judge-y. As with what @Kanye-Qwest said, if a character plays a lot of slavers or racists, I'll start to judge them (and yes, I realize that's a bit hypocritical, given that I just said I played a lot of Children of the Light).

To @Roz's point about passion, I find that if my character doesn't have a driving goal (preferably one that cannot be accomplished on-screen, but has steps which can be), their story will often start to drift and falter. So I've tried to create characters with driving goals, and it seems to work nicely for me.

@thatguythere I do indeed believe that we're failing to communicate. Or, perhaps, we just have opposed points of view and that's fine. You feel the need to have prior RP setting something up (if I'm not mistaking your point now), I'm fine assuming the events happened off-screen and using them to build story going forward and hook my character into ongoing plot.

I do agree with you that inventing NPCs or locations just to kill/destroy them in an attempt to garner a reaction from PCs usually falls flat unless the players want their characters to feel the impact, in which case they can certainly create reasons to feel it.

@thatguythere said in Big city grids - likes and dislikes:

Unless something has created an on screen tie the PCs favorite restaurant is like the PCs place of employment, very important IC but not worth any actual RP effort on OOC.

This is exactly what I'm saying (I think). If Momma's Diner burns down on-screen, why not add a factoid that your character liked to have breakfast there to create a tie-in to the RP thread? If you didn't know your character's favorite restaurant before, why not say that it was Momma's?

@apos I tend to put that sort of stuff into scene-setting:

"After the brawl here the other night, there are a dozen metal folding chairs from the church down the block scattered at the now-crooked and battered tables across from the bar..."

And I do that in permanent rooms as well as scene rooms, because that sort of context is always necessary, no matter if the room is on the grid or not.

@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.

@faraday said in Big city grids - likes and dislikes:

Yeah sorry, I don't get it. The Holodeck is by it's very nature ICly fake.

Oooh! I think I can shed some light on this part of it... I don't believe that @Ganymede et al are using the Ten Forward/Holodeck 1 example as an IC example, but rather what it's like on an OOC level. For them it's the difference between going into a room that is always the same thing, and a room that can be whatever you want it to be... since one of them is wildly changeable, it doesn't OOCly feel as real to them as the room that is always the same (unless changed by IC events).

@faraday said in Big city grids - likes and dislikes:

I hate them, along with weather emits. They either don't really add anything (do folks really care that a cool breeze whispered through the alley or a bird fluttered by overhead? maybe that's one of those immersion things I don't grok again...) or they're just incompatible with the RP already going on.

This is a big thing for me... what if weather is showing that it's a rainy spring day, but we wanted to RP a baseball game, so it has to be not-rainy? And then in the midst of RP, the system says that the rain changes to a drizzle? That's going to break immersion for me.

@thatguythere said in Big city grids - likes and dislikes:

Essentially every scene now takes place on Holodeck 1 and we just slap a different image on the blue screen.

I kind of think that's what we're doing anyhow. We've just agreed on some settings for the Holodeck (Joe's Bar is a default setting in your example, Frank's Bar is a custom setting). And while yes, if you just create another nearly-identical bar after one burns down to set your RP in, you could be making the burning-down RP meaningless, but if instead you spent all the time at Frank's complaining about how the pool table was better at Joe's and how it sucks that there are only two stalls in the bathroom here, but Frank is way cooler than Joe, then I think that you're actually enhancing the RP--it's allowed to continue, but it's changed by the damage to Joe's. It's certainly better than if you just stopped doing RP in a bar because Joe's burned down (or had Joe's get repaired far too quickly because people needed some place to play pool).

@thatguythere said in Big city grids - likes and dislikes:

Edit to add: For the Momma's diner thing, it would be like hearing that a random RL building burned down, a thought of I hope no one was hurt combined with a twinge of sympathy for the owner but no real impact.

I think it's important to remember that just because you've never RPed there, that doesn't mean that your character's never been there. After all, the characters live lives beyond what we put "on-screen," so maybe if Momma's Diner got blown up by Meteor Girl, you decide that your character always went to breakfast at Momma's before church, every dang week, but this week, you got talked into going to Dad's Diner instead, because your friend was in town, and oh-my-goodness isn't that lucky? You could have been killed. Viola, you have a connection.

@sunny said in Big city grids - likes and dislikes:

I don't know how to explain to you in a way that you will understand.

I think I'm somewhere in between the views of Grid-Is-Necessary-For-Immersion and Common-Experiences-In-Rooms-Is-All-That-Matters (yes, I'm using some hyperbole for clarity's sake), so maybe I can try to step in and take a swing at explaining the difference for @faraday. Warning, I am trying to generalize arguments, so please don't take anything I say as putting words in people's mouths.

On the one hand, having a sense of permanence by being on a grid can definitely lead to an IC location becoming one that characters (and hence players) interact with regularly. I thought that a similar sense could be inspired by having room descs stored and available for "loading" into scene rooms whenever people wanted them. It appears that that didn't exactly work. The Pro-Grid folks (if I'm synthesizing correctly) need to have the location on the grid, connected to everything, where they can walk to it, in order to get that sense of permanence. I can understand that to some degree, there's an ephemeralness to a room that simply disappears when you're done with it, even if the IC location (and the room desc and everything else) remains available.

From a code-side, a scene-room with a ready-made desc is just as real as a room on the grid. You just can't walk to it (in my experience, most people use meetme anyhow, but that's neither here nor there). From the story side, as @faraday mentioned, it's just as real also (although harder to track what's going on around the location or in the history of the location unless it has its own steadily-evolving desc or wiki page). From a player-side experience, however, I can definitely see a level of disconnection between having to "create" the room before using it rather than just walking into it.

As I mentioned earlier, we tried to split the difference on T8S. We put up a Locations page with room descs. Some of these rooms were on the grid, some were simply ready-to-be-used scene rooms. By the time RL really swallowed Staff whole, we had linked several more of the rooms to the grid (and added some more to the ships), but the idea was still the same: a small grid that could be expanded at will. For some people, it worked fine, for others, it clearly felt like there weren't enough locations to RP.

This may be one of those Coke/Pepsi, Windows/Mac Blue Dress/Gold Dress (thanks for the third example, @faraday) things where each side believes wholeheartedly that they're right, and just can't understand how the other side can believe what they do.