Posts made by Seraphim73

@arkandel I play character types that I like, not power sets that I like (usually). I often play troopers or pilots in Star Wars games, I played Children of the Light on WoT games, and I play Punisher, Arsenal, etc on superhero games. I do it because I like being sort of "the default," something that helps reinforce the setting. Also, I like having to think of a creative solution rather than just throwing a big fireball. I also enjoy being set up to be JUST THAT AWESOME //despite// not having powers. When the Clone Trooper can drop the Dark Jedi Acolyte because the Clone Trooper is just that badass (and that high level), it's a lot more awesome than when the Jedi can drop the Dark Jedi Acolyte. When Frank Castle figures out a way to take down Abomination, it's a lot more impressive than Hulk doing it.

@greenflashlight said in Balancing wizards and warriors:

"It's not harming a human! It's just throwing a boulder! GRAVITY is hurting the human!"

This one is even easier: "Are you telling me that your character is stupid enough to think that dropping a boulder on that human with the One Power (magic) isn't going to hurt them? Because your character is actually magically bound to not hurt humans with the One Power."

So my first question on this topic is always: What does the setting and theme say?

The original subject, Wheel of Time, says that channelers can defeat non-channelers with a snap of their fingers (without even snapping). So in my opinion (as someone who played on a couple of the same WoT games as @Arkandel -- almost always as a non-channeler), they shouldn't be balanced. Or rather, they shouldn't be //mechanically// balanced. Like @Devrex said, there are a lot of setting-specific downsides to playing a channeler that are rarely actually implemented. In Star Wars, it's the rare non-Force User who can defeat a Force User -- but they do exist (hello Cad Bane), so why shouldn't they be PCs and actually balance things?

In home-brew settings, I believe that either everyone should have the capability for magic (that's what we did on The Savage Skies) so you don't have to worry about balance //as// much (except those people who like to play non-magical characters), or magic users and non-magic users should be balanced.

If you're going to balance magic users and non-magic users, you have several options for how to do it on a MUSH:

1. Resource Management: A warrior can swing a sword (nearly) all day, but a magic user either uses up their mana, or gets tired, or can only cast a certain number of spells per day. We took this route on The Eighth Sea. This method feeds into @insomniac7809's point about interesting choices -- it makes every use of magic an intentional choice. It requires some very careful testing to see how your theories work out in practice, and it will still make it so that when you absolutely, positively need to drop an MFer, you turn to a magic-user (as long as they haven't already burned their mana/spell slots/reserves/whatever).

2. Specialization: A magic user might be able to nuke a room with a fireball, but they can't wear armor, so they're a glass cannon, while the warrior can tank hits like nothing else. It might be armor, it might be something else, but this method just means that magic users literally can't do something that non-magic users can. Again, it has to be balanced carefully, and it means limiting character concepts -- you're not going to be able to make a defensive magic user in the example I used, for instance (or it's going to be either very difficult or sub-optimal).

3. "Weapon" balance: Spells look awesome, but they aren't any more effective than weapons which are available to non-magic users. This is the route that we took on The 5th World. It can be dissatisfying because there isn't a whole lot of mechanical difference to how an archer or a magic user works, but it's certainly the easiest to balance.

4. Requirements: Magic users just have more skills/attributes/advantages/whatevers to spend points on, so they'll never be as good at everything else as warriors. This has the benefit of leaving niches for non-magic users, but it still means that in combat, magic users are royalty. Also, deity help you if you get a creative player playing a magic user (and you will) and they come up with all sorts of arguments about how they should be able to use their magic to do the things the other skills cover.

There are lots of other methods (@Ominous mentioned a bunch of them) that can work great in TT games where it's a small group of players with an omnipresent GM, but I think that for the reasons @Devrex and @Arkandel mentioned, social restrictions or those based on IC traditions just don't work very well on a MUSH, because players want to play the interesting types that can do more than most humans, and they want their characters to be able to be involved in all the things (and to be rebels who break tradition).

@reason Just wanted to note that most games that run on Ares //do// have a grid. No, you can't walk it from the web portal (unless you use the integrated client), but you can certainly walk it from your client. Can't help you with the slew of arcane commands that start with @ and + -- when I first started with Ares I typed them by pure muscle memory, and it's taken me a couple of years to not type them instinctively.

On topic: I have been enjoying the heck out of The Network. It's an Ares-based game that uses FS3 and has a very interesting theme: https://thenetwork.mugames.org/

@pacha There's a book series out about that (I'm sure there are many, this is just the one I read the first book of) called American Royals. As I was reading the first book, I kept thinking, "Holy crap, this is straight up MU* drama."

@devrex said in Antagonistic PCs - how to handle them:

Death is the absolute most boring thing you can do. Imprisonment is fine in the short-term, if you're providing some sort of RP experience to go with it (perhaps a fight in the prison, etc).

Daredevil Season 2 does this very well with the Punisher. Frank gets put in prison, but he gets out again pretty quickly, and he gets to do "his thing" in prison.

Building on "Yes, but," or "no, but" (in addition to 'yes,and' and 'no, and') is helpful.

Yes. Yes. Yes. It's something I have problems with sometimes, but I'm always in favor of providing a "No, but," "Yes, but," or "Yes, and" response.

@l-b-heuschkel Totally agree on the desire to have a purpose for a "purely social scene," as well as having something that explicitly links the scene to the setting. I do think it's nice to sometimes just have social scenes purely for the purpose of resetting the status quo. Sure, you can talk about all the big stuff that happened since the last time you got a chance to sit down, but to me, the purpose of these scenes is just to establish the new normal -- how has the relationship between these characters changed because of what's happened to them, and how can they find a good balance (even if it's a tenuous one) that can be upset again by the next big events (and "upset" can mean "put right" if the last big events left the characters on the outs).

Without these quiet beats between the big things that happen to characters, I feel like the big things lose their impact and they become the status quo, which isn't desirable (unless you're playing something like the 33 episode of BSG, you don't want -- come to think of it, even that episode had some moments of resetting status quo in the midst of it).

@de-villefort said in MUs That We Would Love To Make (But Won't):

Think about it, have you ever seen anyone actually have coffee shop chatter in the real world?

Yes. Regularly, over a hot chocolate or a beer or whatever.

Have you ever seen total strangers just sit down at a table and start talking about benign, mundane, stuff for no reason?

Yes. I mean, usually it's someone leaning over from the next table over to interject, but it can turn into all sitting together at the same table.

Ever see anyone organize a group of strangers for a one-off bowling game then leave without having any other form of contact outside of bowling?

Yes. Maybe there's just one lane left, and 2-4 strangers all want to bowl -- why not do it together?

Those people are freaks and weirdos in the eyes of the public because it's abnormal.

Thanks, I like being a freak, a weirdo, and abnormal -- actually I'm an introvert, but I've still been known to do all of these things.

@pyrephox said in MUs That We Would Love To Make (But Won't):

Even a 'bar RP' scene can be meaningful, if you consider the setting, the NPCs, and your characters' purposes for being in that place at that time.

I already +1ed this, but I want to do it with words too. Inhabiting the setting rather than just playing characters divorced from it is what makes your WoD game different from your Supers game and your L&L game and your BSG game. Rifle through those crop-cornered sheets of paper, or spill ink across the table from the inkwell, or struggle with a toner cartridge until you use your super strength (from being a Garou or a Vamp or from being a superhero) to just rip the MFer out.

If you're not engaging with the setting, I feel like you're missing out so much on the game. Heck, even your "X City After Dark" games can be set apart by where you are. If it's June in Seattle, you're likely ordering a hot coffee, if it's June in Atlanta you might be looking for an iced coffee. Little things that make your character and your RP part of the world, not separate from it, are SO critical in keeping things interesting. And yeah, as @Pyrephox said... those room descs and personal descs are critical for making this work.

As long as everyone involved knows the system really well, I don't mind using a TT system for combat and doing the Initiative, each turn, each pose thing. But @silverfox is totally right that it takes forever (I think the -best- I ever got at Saga Edition was 30 minutes per round for 4 PCs and a GM).

As @faraday said, it depends on the setting/theme--if you're soap opera characters, you don't need a combat system, but if you're on a war game, you definitely need something at least partially automated.

@Arkandel also put out the important note that choice needs to be important and so is the ability for support characters to feel useful.

All of that is why I like a system that automates rounds, but allows GMs some freedom to add a variety of mods to represent things that support characters might do. Something that has enough variety that not everyone is armed the same (unless that's a thing, like they all have standard military weaponry), without taking forever to learn.

Yeah, I like FS3.3. Is it perfect? Naw, I've got points where I disagree with @faraday about the design philosophy, but we've talked that over a bunch and I totally understand her reasons. But does it provide automated turns, a somewhat steep but short learning curve, enough detail to have variety and allow GMs to tilt the rolls, and the ability to feel in-universe? Yup. That's that's well beyond "good enough" for me.

I like to have a detailed description that provides a sense of the character's personality, and also 1-6 pictures of the same likeness -- the latter mostly because it's a handy refresher for what color the person's hair or eyes are that I can see right in the scene (since I'm only on Ares games right now). I don't mind if the likeness is of an actual person or "realistic" art, but unless I'm playing on a comic book or anime game, I do want the art to be "realistic." I put that in quotes because how realistic art is can be entirely in the eye of the beholder.

But first I want the description. I want to read exactly what the character looks like, and have the words used influence how I perceive the character as well. The image then becomes shorthand for me.

John Carter of Mars/Barsoom -- everyone plays Red or Green Martians while John Carter is missing. Make the societies more egalitarian (like, egalitarian at all) when it comes to gender, and let everyone go adventuring around the world. Allow riposte mechanics with whatever system you're using so that even if you attack, you can get hit to demonstrate the dangers of an incredibly skilled fighter. Create an adventure Madlibs sytem: A (mad noble) is trying to (take over) (a lost an ancient city) of (Red Martians) by means of (mind control drugs in the food). Go!

@squirreltalk I agree that the Reels and Radio example doesn't really fit what you're talking about, but Crystal Springs does a great job of this -- Pacha collects rumors from all sorts of folks via request, checks scenes themselves too, and then puts together a full group of rumors about RP that happened over the last week.

@squirreltalk On TSS we do a "Reels and Radio" update every few weeks or a month that is a listing of major worldwide news items including major PC actions as well as events that can spark scenes (or at least brief discussions in scenes, like how The Hobbit came out during game-time). Pacha over on Crystal Springs does even more: a weekly update on all the gossip at the school. Unfortunately, you're right that it seems like a limited number of people contribute to such items/use them -- but there are Staffers who are interested in similar ideas.

I agree with a whole lot of what’s being said here. One more thing that I think is incredibly important is that Staff PCs be inclusive. Sure, they can ICly be prickly or grumpy or whatever, but having them explicitly invite people “in” on IC happenings and throwing their IC weight (and they’ll have some if only for OOC reasons) being the suggestions of folks outside their usual circle can be incredibly useful to combating FOMO. I think that this not only counters the impression of Staff exclusivity, but also engages “outsiders,” helping them get natural hooks into what’s going on.

@pyrephox said in A healthy game culture:

More MUs really need an equivalent of tabletop Session Zero, where staff can talk freely and bluntly about the type of game they want to run.

I find this sort of thing incredibly valuable as a player (to know if I want to play on a game) and a game runner (to refer back to the stated purpose of the game). I always start a game with a mission statement these days, post it prominently, and refer back to it regularly to make sure that we're staying true to our mission.

@faraday said in Sensitivity in gaming:

But what is your definition of "graphic descriptions of wounds or gore"? Everyone's going to be different there

Absolutely agree that everyone's is going to be different. I agree with @mietze on this one: If you're describing that the wound happens, I don't think it's a graphic description of a wound or gore. If you're describing blood trickling down a soldier's side, or washing over half their face from a scalp wound, I don't think that's a graphic description of a wound or gore. But if you're describing the wound in detail, describing what parts have spattered where, what's happening to entrails, or otherwise focusing a lot of attention on the wound(s), I think that crosses over the line to graphic descriptions of wounds or gore (I won't give examples there, because I don't want to go beyond the pale myself on this one).

As for your examples... I think it's a question of what the focus of the scene is. As long as you're talking more about the wounded person writhing, you're fine, but if you start describing the blown-off leg... I think that's a graphic description of a wound or gore. As long as you're more worried about the repercussions of the village getting wiped out by a disaster and the recovery efforts, you're fine, but if you start describing the corpses in detail rather than mentioning that they're there and moving on, I think that's likely to be a graphic description of a wound or gore. When the focus of the scene is the situation, I think that's totally within "violence and grim post-apocalyptic themes," but if the focus becomes the wounds themselves and the human suffering, I think then a warning beyond the standard might be warranted.

But that's just my opinion. I recognize that folks have very different opinions on where the line is, and that's fine by me.

I think that any robust system is going to require both GMs and Players to work together to avoid causing harm (just like most everything else in this cooperative hobby). GMs can give some specific triggers for what they’re planning, Players can ask about their own specific triggers if it seems plausible that it’ll come up, and both GMs and Players can check in as things change (as they inevitably do).

This is a little more work than just sitting down and running a scene or playing in one, but isn’t it worth it to keep from harming fellow players?

As a side note, those of us who are arachnophobic would very much thank GMs for a warning before having graphic descriptions of spider-bits.

And I think that might be the key: it’s not (usually) just a mention that’s the problem, it’s detailed descriptions. Like @faraday and others have said, in a war game you can expect violence, but that doesn’t mean there will be graphic descriptions of wounds or gore. If there are, probably a good thing to mention. Similarly, I don’t have a problem if there are spiders in a scene, but I don’t want detailed descriptions of them. If there’s a mention of a slaughtered village population, sure, but I don’t need descriptions of any of the details.

ETA: This is absolutely not the case for some things like violence toward children or sexual assault — the detail in these can make things worse, but even a mention can be harmful.

Within the first 23 seconds of that video, I know just what it's going to be: cishet white male privilege on full whinging display (I say this as a cishet white man).

On a more useful note, @Carma, I love that worksheet for TT gaming. I don't know how practical it would be for MU* gaming, because then plot-runners have to check the responses for every one of the players signed up for their event, plus any that join at the last moment, and edit on the fly to avoid anything Red for players who joined at the last minute. That being said, I absolutely think that events in particular should include trigger warnings. Not because some people might be offended, but because some people might be harmed, as several other posters have mentioned. It might still work, it could just lead to a bunch of extra work for plot-runners (that being said, extra work is a pretty low cost to avoid harming those you are having fun with).

I think that pre-warnings are great because they allow players to either avoid topics that can be harmful to them, or to connect with plot-runners to see if a particular trigger is integral to the plot or if it might be removed. Sometimes things come up due to actions that PCs take, however, and the plot-runner might not be able to warn their players ahead of time. In this situation, I think it's important to do some check-ins with the players and, yes, roll events back if they're likely to be harmful to some of the players.

I understand what @Derp is saying about bad actors using this to manipulate events, and honestly I don't have a problem with a plot-runner saying, "If the current trajectory of the scene is going to be harmful to you as a player, I'm happy to help you extricate your character from the situation." Especially if it doesn't provide the character with a benefit or a detriment (as @mietze mentioned).

To @Arkandel's point about history, I think it's contingent upon the game-runners to acknowledge that they aren't experts on situations and to adapt to best fit their vision of the game. For instance, on TSS I freely admitted to not being an expert on Hirohito's involvement with war crimes, but when provided with evidence and examples, we altered the game's rules to treat the hardline elements of the Imperial Japanese government and the Emperor the same way we treated the Nazis and Hitler. Game runners can't be expected to know everything, but they can be expected to be open to education.

I think that the list @bear_necessities put together is a good one. I agree that the most important things are policy, theme files, and some descriptions (I like the idea of at least a dozen RP centers).

Other things I would suggest having ready are:

• A Chargen Guide to walk players through creating characters.
• A few scenes/events ready to go to set the status quo in the game (give players a couple of weeks of status quo to get onto the game, through chargen, and settled).
• A plan for the first way to break the status quo (monster of the month, metaplot, whatever it is).

You'll need enough Staff to handle apps, answer questions, and provide the status quo and the break in the status quo, but what number that needs to be depends on the Staff involved.