@lotherio Nope, wasn't you at all. I would have put Demos in the niche group, mostly due to your online times. I have no doubts that he would have gotten involved in more stuff if there were more folks on at the same times you were.
Totally agree with you that Group 1 is awesome in all ways (except some people might consider them spotlight hogs? And they might be, if they aren't bringing people into the fun with them).
As someone who has opened and run an original-theme sci-fi MUSH, I can tell you that @Scissors and @FirePuff in particular are spot on, with an original theme, there's no way to give enough shape to the world that enough players will feel comfortable in it to RP without looking over their shoulder.
Some will forge ahead happily, expanding the setting in very themely directions. Some will forge ahead quite happily, expanding the setting in wildly unthemely directions (that they didn't know were unthemely because either it wasn't spelled out anywhere, they didn't read it, or they didn't care). Some will find one thing they feel comfortable with and RP in that niche forever. Some will ignore the setting and play their relationship dramas. Some will look at the copious setting info that has been provided and get turned off (either by elements of the setting or by the amount of information available). And some will look at the setting and try to break it.
If you can find a way to encourage the first and third groups (themely expansion and niche play), tolerate the fourth group (relationship), redirect the second group (unthemely expansion), and discourage the last group, you might be able to get enough people comfortable enough in the world that it can become self-sustaining. Ideally, you would be able to do this simply by how the information is presented on your wiki, and how it is presented (a "suggested reading" group of 5-8 pages is a good start, I think), but generally it'll also be by positive reinforcement toward those who make themely contributions to the setting.
@ganymede I will usually offer to fight anyone who uses total yards as a measure of team quality (I like Yards per Attempt and Points per Game better, of the stats you used).
These two teams are, however, two of the best teams in the league in many advanced stats as well. DVOA (Defense-adjusted Value Over Average, from www.footballoutsiders.com) has them listed as #1 (New England) and #2 (Philly) in weighted DVOA, although Philly was #4 before they thrashed the Vikings. By their ratings, New England has the #1 offense, the #20 defense, and the #2 special teams, while Philly has the #6 offense, #2 defense, and #20 special teams (and they just beat the #1 defense).
I think that this game has the possibility to be closer than most people imagine, but it really hinges on whether we get Good Foles (the NFC Championship game) or Bad Foles (about half the games thus far this year). I think that unless Foles comes out on fire (possible), the New England defense falls flat on their face (unlikely), or the Philly defense plays lights out (possible), New England wins this one by 10-ish. If Foles looks bad, the New England defense looks lights out, or the Philly defense comes out flat, New England wins by 14+.
Chicken Fajitas (my go-to "impress someone" meal from High School through... well... now). Let it be clear from the start that for cooking (not baking, just cooking), I am of the "Yeah, that looks about right" school of thought, so measurements will be rough.
Chicken Breasts (2ish whole breasts, or enough tenders to make up a similar amount of meat)
Lime juice (fresh squeezed is best, but bottled is fine, about 1/2 cup)
Olive Oil (about 1/2 cup)
Oregano (a generous amount, several heavy shakes)
Black Pepper (a generous amount, but not as much as the oregano)
Put all of the above in a container (tupperware or bag) to marinade. Best overnight, but 1-2 hours is still okay.
Grill the chicken, throw away the leftover marinade.
Serve on warm tortillas (Costco frozen uncooked are the best short of homemade), with cheese, avocado, salsa, sour cream, lettuce, black beans (cooked with chili powder, cumin, garlic, oregano, and a splash of tequila), and whatever else you like to put in a soft taco/fajita. 2 tortillas worth of chicken each for 3-4.
If you want fajita veggies, saute up julienned onions and green peppers in a little olive oil, oregano, and chili powder.
It takes about 30 minutes of actual work, and you can easily double, triple, or even quadruple the recipe if you've got a big party (of course, it takes a long-ass time to cook tortillas for 12-16).
@botulism Ahhh, Karma Pool versus Good Karma in Shadowrun 3rd Edition. Got it. That makes sense, although it still doesn't allow the inexperienced character to every get better -- they're just always lucky.
@botulism said in Diceless/Stats Optional:
I can put that in as a suggestion - don't feel you HAVE to spend all your points up front. Unspent points become more permanent Story Points (you have temporary and permanent) anyway. There's a Bad Trait called Inexperienced that converts attribute and skill points into more Story Points, too. In any of these cases, I can allow people to convert permanent SP to attributes and skills.
It sounds to me like Inexperienced would be absolutely perfect... for a one-shot game. You get more Story Points, but your numbers start lower. But if Story Points are meant to be spent and earned regularly, this trade-off will quickly just turn into "lower numbers" in a living and continuing game.
I think that this might appeal to some subset of players, but I do have one caution: removing the ability to better your character removes a series of storylines from play entirely. You cannot play the rookie who becomes a pro. A solution, if you would like to keep XP out of it, is just allow characters to come on-grid with some of their points unspent, and then later on, spend them.
I played on an RP MUD years ago that (by the end) didn't actually have any combat system, combat characters had a single stat that represented how skilled they were at personal combat, and magic users had two stats (one for their brute strength and one for their finesse). If your number was higher, you were likely going to win (unless the other player pulled off an awesome trick in a pose). It worked, it was some of the most fun I've had in my entire MU*ing career... but it's difficult to get most people interested in.
Huh, I took the test a couple of times, because the first result that I got seemed wildly out-of-sorts for me (87% socializer, very little Achiever or Killer, when I know that I enjoy both of those roles). Apparently there is an array of questions for (at least) the first section. Which questions I got varied my results quite a lot.
Does this make me an Explorer because I wanted to test it, a Socializer because I wanted to get my place in the social structure right, a Killer because I wanted to make it do what I thought was right, or an Achiever because I wanted the "right" score?
Note to self... Supernatural Plots are great for The Eighth Sea. I'm yoinking like a third of the ones on that list that we didn't already have planned.
To stick with the theme, how about some high stakes plotlines, courtesy of The Internet (Bryn Donovan in this case, who I just discovered through some other links):
http://www.bryndonovan.com/2015/08/03/50-ideas-for-high-stakes-plots/
Some of them are from movies, some of them are really generic, but many of them could be good RP hooks for characters.
@surreality said in Internet Attacks? Why?:
ETA: We don't have guns in the house, but we do have a completely ridiculous prop broadsword right by the door. Hefting that fucker into view through the little central window in the front door has turned more than one person away from the property since.
I firmly believe that waving around a broadsword is the second most effective non-violent home defense technique (after racking the slide on an unloaded pump-action shotgun). Our home defense weapon is a bastard sword under my side of the bed. If there's ever a home intruder, they're going to be treated to a naked 6'3" man coming after them with a bastard sword. If they don't run... they can have what they find in the house.
@auspice I'm really, really looking forward to watching it when I get home from work.
@mietze said in The trappings of posing:
...out of synch tense...
Augh. Yes. This. SO many times this. If everyone around you is posing present tense, please do not pose past (or future) tense. If everyone around you is posing past tense, please do not pose present tense.
The most important one for me is pose detail. I want to get something back from at least every other pose. Okay, I lied, the most important one is being easy to understand from a spelling and grammar perspective. But to me, in a text-only hobby, that's table stakes.
@apos said in Coming Soon: Arx, After the Reckoning:
I don't think I need to necessarily restrict people coming into power that lack the ability, so much as having the consequences be consistent and automated if they try to act without help.
"Automated," of course, only works if you have heavy code in your game -- and particularly a heavily-coded social system. Like many others, I have worries about heavily-coded/automated social systems, because while most people are okay with the intricacies of physical combat being abstracted, fewer are okay with the intricacies of social combat being abstracted. Then again, this is an argument that has been going on forever, and will likely continue going on forever.
As @Sunny says (and by @Pyrephox's words, the Arx staff well understands), it's easy enough to impose non-automated social consequences on characters.
@kitteh hits on what the real problem is on many MU*s (and it sounds like on Arx too): the metaplot focuses on a physical combat, which means that social types are making power plays and making things easier for the fighty types, but in the end, it's the fighty types (or hopefully actually the tactical types) who make the difference in the metaplot.
Some people see MU*s as zero-sum games: if another player has gained something that they have not, then they have lost something. So if there is a mini-game that provides some benefit, if they don't play it, they're losing. Thus, it's necessary.
It's a more-than-slightly toxic view of MU*s (although one I have fallen into on occasion myself), because it makes them competitive rather than cooperative, but it is a distressingly common one.
I created a spreadsheet of all the military forces in the Wheel of Time, as best as could be figured for Book 10 or whatever we were on by them, split out by what nation they swore allegiance to, where they were currently stationed, what type of soldiers (lancers, horse archers, heavy cav, crossbow, longbow, archers, pike, sword, Aiel, or Trolloc) they were, and whether they were professional soldiers or levies.
In fact, I created at least 9 iterations of this spreadsheet, tracking the movement of forces from one nation to another as PCs moved their troops around.
This was incredibly silly, and yet I still feel drawn to read through the spreadsheet again as I pulled it up to look over the troop types.
@thatonedude That's similar to have I've run Saga Edition Star Wars previously: roll init, handle the first person's actions/rolls, then while they're posing, go on and handle the next person's actions/rolls. I would stop taking actions/rolls every couple of people, just to let the poses start to catch up, and to keep everyone from getting confused, but it generally worked pretty well.
Of course, FS3 works even better, since, as Fara said, it's everyone rolls at once, then everyone poses -- generally in any order, unless they're waiting for a response from a particular character.
We're back from our RL-crappiness-enforced slowness around the holidays. The crappy things are still crappy, but Staff is active once more and putting out events and plot hooks. We had a visit from the Krampus over the holidays, and we're putting out not just regular Monster of the Week events, but also some more player-driven ones.
Characters from the Santiago (and elsewhere) have expressed an interest in checking out the Rocher Plantation in the wake of something looking like Rebecca Rocher apparently turning into a toothy creature that tried to bite a sailor's throat out.
The pirates of the Reaver have voted to investigate the possibility of freeing the slaves on the Hembouco plantation to try to gain more fighters against the traitorous pirates of the Bachelor's Delight, Sea Lion, and Pelican.
The people of Tortuga have been assailed by troglodytes, a cipactli, chupacabras, a dingonek, loup-garou, kongamato, and there are rumors of something that is large enough to have sunk a sloop. What will be next?
And how in the HELL did they get to whatever spirit world or purgatory they have been cast into, and more importantly, how do they get out?
@surreality said in The limits of IC/OOC responsibility:
It is hard to have as zippy and memorable a moniker for it as 'ICA=ICC', unfortunately.
"The game doesn't need your consent?"
"Individual Consent, not World Consent? IC=/=WC?"
@lithium Yeah, that's what I started on, an RP MUD where combat was heavily into triggers. But I got used to the features (scrolling up and down through previous commands entered, easy logging, the ability to start entering a command, scroll up, enter something else, and come back to the in-progress command and finish it, mapping, etc) and just decided not to update, because I was used to zMUD, and because I had paid $20 for the license, damn it. Even if it was almost 20 years ago.