@Pandora I don't know that anyone is suggesting that someone be banned for simply disagreeing with Staff (I could have missed it if they did). But if they refuse to play within the setting? If they repeat their disagreement in public to the confusion of new players? If they make themselves a pest by bringing their disagreement up repeatedly? Definitely more trouble than their worth.
Posts made by Seraphim73
-
RE: Punishments in MU*
-
RE: Staff’s Job?
@bear_necessities said in Staff’s Job?:
@Seraphim73 said in Staff’s Job?:
Ensure that the world reacts to the actions of the PCs. This touches on points 1 (hopefully) and 2 (definitely) as well, but if the world only acts on PCs, never reacts to them, a lot of players (myself included) are going to get bored.
You know, I always wondered how staff can best do this. What are some ways a staff can make you feel like the world reacting to your actions? Are emits enough? What sort of things do people expect?
I mean, obviously the true answer is that it depends on the person. For me, I think the most important thing is that it's ways in which the player can see them, and can point at them to other players and go, "See that? That was me." So maybe it's a mention in a bboard post of someone's efforts in creating a particular defensive position when the enemy is thrown back, or specifically calling out someone's contribution in the wrap-up pose of an event, or the King repeating a joke the PC told to them at the start of a big court scene, or an NPC superior mentioning a PC's idea to another PC for their input, or as simple as explicitly showing NPCs reacting to a player's actions during a round of combat.
I think any time Staff is summing up events or setting a scene, if they can mention the actions of PCs (by name or just in some way that makes it clear who made that impact), it's a great opportunity to show the world reacting to PCs. If there are NPCs interacting with the PCs in a scene, explicitly calling out how they're reacting and why is great ("the Tusken Raiders turn and run" is nice, but "the Tusken Raiders turn and run because of the Wookiee's terrifying howl," is awesome).
I think it's even better when the impact lasts beyond 1-2 scenes. Does a PC's great line become some new bit of slang that spreads throughout the whole game? Does "but you're no <PC's name>" start being used to rein in people who are getting cocky about their skill at <PC's specialty>? Does the decision to build defenses in one particular area in one particular way lead to an entire plotline as people have to defend them -- or take them back after an NPC stupidly retreats from them?
I know some (smaller) places do weekly story updates, and I think this is a great way to call out precisely how PCs (and players) have impacted the story.
I don't think that there's anything that should be expected, except for some acknowledgement by the game world that the actions of the characters are having an impact on it. But I also think that the more you can demonstrate the impact of PCs, the more engaged those players will be.
-
RE: Punishments in MU*
@Ghost said in Punishments in MU*:
- TECHNICALLY a player who drops charbits when they get bored with an IC relationship, kills the character, then regens with a charbit that is specifically designed to woo a target charbit for an IC relationship is still TECHNICALLY well within their right to do so, but arguably disruptive to the game because it makes other players angry
This is why "conduct detrimental to the MU*" or "Being more trouble than you're worth" should always, in my opinion, by high on the list of bannable offenses. If a player is OOCly making life hard for other players, they don't need to play on any game of mine (yes, this needs to be tracked for groups "going after" single players who have done nothing wrong).
-
RE: Staff’s Job?
I think that @Pyrephox has a good point that each member of Staff can have a different role and a different purpose. I think that Staff as a coherent whole has a couple of jobs:
- Stay enthused about the game. If Staff isn't enthusiastic, it shows, and that'll kill player enthusiasm too. Usually, this comes down to actually playing the game you run, but different people get enthused by different things--maybe someone really likes completing jobs and that keeps their enthusiasm up.
- Make the game fun for the majority of players. Note, not every player (that's impossible), not just their friends (that's exclusionary), but the majority of players. This includes making it as safe a place as possible by getting rid of creepers, but it also includes keeping control of theme so it doesn't drift wildly away from the game's mission statement--from the game that the majority of players (should have) come to play.
- Ensure that the world reacts to the actions of the PCs. This touches on points 1 (hopefully) and 2 (definitely) as well, but if the world only acts on PCs, never reacts to them, a lot of players (myself included) are going to get bored.
- Respond to player issues. This might be disputes between players, this might be rules questions, this might be theme inquiries... it's all the OOC stuff that goes on behind the scenes.
- Keep the lights on. Do server maintenance, pay for space, add/tweak code/stats as needed.
-
RE: TS - Danger zone
@Arkandel said in TS - Danger zone:
How long does a scene need to be before it gets to TS (feel free to include foreplay as part of TS)? What's ideal for you?
For example do most of your TS scenes get right to it once the scene begins? Are they the logical followup of a separate scene leading directly to it? Do you ever just start TS at the end of a completely chaste RP?
I don't know that there's an ideal for me, depends on if the scene is plot-related or TS for TS's sake. In the former case, it's usually the logical followup of a scene, two characters going from one thing (sparring, talking about plot, etc) to another (sexy times). In the latter case, the foreplay usually starts within the first couple of poses.
Also bonus question! Do you ever pause in the middle of TS then pick it up at a later time?
Yes, although I usually prefer to pause between foreplay and intercourse, or between bouts, rather than in the midst of intercourse. It's not particularly easy (for me) to pick up a scene again in the midst of bumping uglies and get right back down to bumping them together.
-
RE: TS - Danger zone
@Arkandel It's a Venn diagram with significant overlap for me. I've played characters who had interests (sexual preferences, kinks, etc) that don't match my own, but for the majority of my characters, I base their interests on my own, with a few items that I like that they don't, or that they like and I don't. Granted, a good deal of this could be because I only TS with my partner.
-
RE: Serious Question About Making A MU
@JinShei said in Serious Question About Making A MU:
I'll note that, as a noncoder, I've been able to set up discworld mush entirely in ares with support from @faraday and the discord.
Likewise. I mean, not with Discworld, but likewise. It's great a) to be able to have an out-of-the-box codebase that even an entirely novice coder can set up, and b) the help and support that Fara and the Discord (band name!) provide.
-
RE: How can everyone play the same game?
I'm with @surreality on this one: Mission Statement. Up front, on the game's homepage, first thing you (should) read after the title and maybe the connection information. What is the game's setting, what themes will the game be exploring, what type of characters will there be, what kind of things will the characters be doing.
Then you have to enforce it. That involves a lot of saying "No, but" or "No, and here's why," but it's critical to the game. If you have a game about tiny Rebel cells resisting the Galactic Empire at the height of the Dark Times, don't allow a bunch of Indies with no connections with the Rebels or reasons to make connections to the Rebels, don't allow bounty hunters without an explicit connection to the Rebellion, and don't allow Rebel fleet commanders -- they'll all be disappointed when they get on the grid, and their attempts to find RP will spread out your playerbase instead of concentrating it.
ETA: You also have to live it as Staff. That's where we fell down with The Eighth Sea: we had a mission statement that said we were about pirating in a world of monsters, and we ended up running monster hunters in a world of pirates. It led to disappointment and cognitive dissonance.
-
RE: PC vs Player Assumptions
Like @mietze said, I think that it's incredibly important to respect player time -- and it's also incredibly important to respect game theme.
If someone is making wrong assumptions, I would absolutely check in with the player to see if it's IC confusion, or if I as the storyteller haven't made things clear enough (that's if I don't just decide to make their wrong assumptions the right ones). Because no one wants to chase something that's going to lead to a dead end.
If someone is passing on bad information, I will again check with the player, to see if the character is intentionally passing on bad information, or if there's been confusion somewhere and I can straighten it out. Because while ICly twisting information can lead to good RP, OOC games of telephone rarely do.
-
RE: Spars and fights
@Kestrel said in Spars and fights:
@Arkandel said in Spars and fights:
Aside from the outcome, using dice or not... aside from all that, I think it's important everyone agrees beforehand how it's going to be, because mixing those things usually won't work well.
I know this is kind of bad and communication is important and all that, but having to do this takes a lot of the magic out of it for me.
I don't know that it's as critical to work out beforehand as @Arkandel mentioned, but I do think it's critical to be on the same wavelength. If one person is posing flipping around and bouncing off walls and waving a zweihander around like a toothpick and the other person is getting into how much their legs ache from having to duck so many sweeping blows and how their sweat is stinging their eyes -- there's going to be a whole lot of cognitive dissonance.
What I think is most important -- and what makes the best fight scenes -- is finding the style that works for the two of you, something you can both share, and really enjoying that. If you find your character talking more and more in response to your opponent's snappy comebacks, and you know that next time you're going to get them with a real zinger and you're excited about that, that's great. If you know that you'll get to enjoy some gritty, sweaty, achy sparring and next time you can't wait to collapse against each other afterwards and you're excited about that, that's great.
I think it's the sort of chemistry that can grow organically through the scene, and as long as the initial styles aren't too far off one another, I think that's the best way for it to happen. If, on the other hand, your styles are way off one another, that might be a time to sit down and chat OOCly, or to discuss expectations before your next spar.
-
RE: Spars and fights
@Arkandel Like @Jeshin mentioned, I think a lot of this depends on the purpose of the fight.
If you're two reasonable people just out to have fun, then I like to just pose the combat, like the emote fights of old. Sadly(?), this is a bit of a lost art, and I haven't found many people still interested in this sort of thing.
If you're two reasonable people whose characters have something on the line in the fight (a grudge match, a bet, whatever), then I like to either use the combat system or just roll skill vs skill each round to see who wins each round. We'll either let RP decide when to stop, or go to a certain number of rounds won.
I like the uncertainty and tension of not knowing the result of the fight until it happens.
-
RE: Games? Do they exist? Where?
@surreality A Moment in Tyme was an RP-enforced MUD that (for a significant period of its existence) had no combat code. All fights were determined by your "Weaponmastery Score," which was based on logs of posed-out fights which were graded by Staffers (or players with high-Weaponmastery characters under the direction of Staffers). The "better" your posing, the higher your Weaponmastery score went. Needless to say, this was very subjective.
I too have vague memories of some players of high-Weaponmastery characters getting very upset if you didn't use 'pronated' or 'supinated' to describe how you were holding your hands/forearms/weapon.
-
RE: Has anyone ever set up a server just for a small group of friends?
@Ominous The danger with this, of course, is making sure that those limited outside players don't feel like extras in a story that the close-knit group is telling. I know that Spirit Lake is working hard to counter this tendency, but it's definitely a tendency with the type of set-up that you're describing.
-
RE: Consent in Gaming
@Derp I agree with a lot of what you're saying -- the document is definitely tailored to the more intimate setting of tabletop RP. On a MU, I don't think it's as critical to be as active in forming that relationship with everyone on the game that allows you to make sure that they're comfortable with everything going on. But at the same time, I do think that there's some valuable information/thoughts in there that could be adapted to MUing.
Plus it's a free download that touches on some of the recent conversations here.
@ZombieGenesis I think that checklists and aftercare and the like are a shortcut for those who haven't built up open and honest lines of communication yet. It sounds like you're doing a less formal version of what the document describes anyhow -- being open to people coming to you and asking for changes based on their comfort. Some people aren't comfortable doing that, though, so in a larger, less familiar setting than your game, it might be important to have some more formal methods of communication. As for aftercare, I certainly wouldn't do it after every scene, but if there was a scene that edged up against someone's comfort zone and I knew it, I would certainly check in with them afterwards.
-
RE: Carnival Row
@Wretched said in Carnival Row:
@Auspice What special thing is in the basement?!
We don't talk about what happens in the basement.
-
Consent in Gaming
I don't know how widely this has been shared, but Monte Cook gaming just put out a very nice free-to-download PDF about Consent in Gaming (https://www.montecookgames.com/consent-in-gaming/). It's aimed at tabletop RPGs, but I think there's a lot of crossover with MUs. I haven't gotten in-depth yet, but there's discussion of tactics that many people here have decided don't really work in MUs (the X-Card), tactics that have been on some MUs for years (preferences cards), and others. There are also thoughts about how to recover from consent slip-ups, aftercare & check-ups, dealing with character-player bleed, and other interesting topics.
What else from the doc do people think would or would not work well on a MU?
-
RE: How important is it to be 'needed'?
When I hear a new player ask "what is needed," I think about this just like @mietze and @Apos said: I think they're worried about having a unique position where other players will come to them for RP. And that's not entirely a bad thing, but when they would rather play a doctor because people will come for them to RP than the fifth Marine on the game, a role that they would enjoy more, I think that it's turned into problematic laziness.
That's why I always say, "Play what you find interesting," and then follow it up by some data about what there are lots of and what there aren't many of.
-
RE: First Through the Gate Syndrome
@Ganymede I agree that the lack of pose order in FS3 combat is definitely a feature. I think it's awesome. And while I wouldn't call it a bug, I do think that it's a contributing factor to lessened interaction in the midst of a combat scene -- even if I agree with Fara that the size of the scenes is probably the larger factor.
-
RE: First Through the Gate Syndrome
@faraday Yeah, that may very well be the majority of the issue. I do know that I end up posing last a lot of FS3 combat rounds because I'm waiting for a response from another player that I addressed in my pose the round before, and then I have to tweak my pose for either their response or their lack of response.