Posts made by SparklesTheClown

I actually went and looked at their forum. I had no idea it was a 20+ year old community (I must have looked over that on the first post), I thought it was a new thing. Poking around the forum, it seems interesting.

It's like some kind of strange anti-WORA, where people have productive discussion and are nice to each other. How in the world weren't we aware that it exists?

That said, it now makes perfect sense why people devolved into arguing.

I'm going to go drink this iced coffee now. It's the one time of year where I drink a coffee and slow my brain down a bit, to see what it feels like to be a regular person that can focus on one activity and thought at a time!

That quiet moment where you just sit there and don't think anything at all.

So weird.

To be honest, I think the "handle it yourself" mentality has largely been a product of older MU*s and WoD games. If you want staff to be better, then be the change you want to see.

@calm That depends on the nature of the mistake! If it's a skill-based mistake, then as many times as it takes you to gather the necessary experience before you stop making the mistake.

If it's a mistake based on non-skill based decisions, such as breaking rules to your benefit, or cheating on someone, then exactly once. After the first time then you're just taking advantage of other people's forgiveness and are a dick.

It shouldn't take more than once to understand how your actions affect those around you. If you're just going to apologize over and over, then you're not learning anything and it gives the impression of being insincere.

I never understood why people don't just use d20 systems for everything. It's easily adaptable to any situation and any possible thing you could want to do with it.

This reminds me of what drove me to briefly be a supervillain in WORA by vomiting my personality out all over the forum.

That was my swan song.

Unfortunately I became a better person because I got bored of being me.

Is @Jaunt going to be next?

I imagine the "PHYSICAL COMBAT IS THE MOST IMPORTANT THING EVAR!" is probably some outdated vestige of olden times that tabletop MUs haven't moved beyond yet. Tabletop MUs, in my experience, are a bit like a third world country in terms of how quickly they progress compared to literally every other part of MUing. Christ, even MUDs progress faster than tabletop MU* culture and practices.

I feel like this, especially in the case of WoD, comes from a general dislike for change and risking failure or backlash. Especially true when you consider that WoD was tied up in WORA for so long. Trying something new and failing at it is like trying to feed a two year old vegetables and then getting hot baby food thrown at you (I might have no idea how two year olds work). I can imagine that there was a real fear of getting your game torn apart if you didn't just use the same old standards and practices.

Now, I will say that code-wise, WoD has pretty much stayed top notch, because of all the talented coders around here. But I think people need to be less reluctant to experiment with policies and game making. Like, I understand that it won't get you 1048610482 players, but why not build a solid theme around just one or two spheres?

Not just "Alright here is WoD, here is the city, GO!", but an actual freaking theme around a sphere or two, with a fleshed out city, NPCs who are running said city to bring it to life, and, like, stuff going on. Stuff that's really hard to do with like 8 different spheres in a single game. Doing something like that, and I'm not even saying it hasn't been done before (I have no idea), is a -great- vehicle for introducing new standards and practices for STing. You do something new, people -expect- new.

I feel much the same way about Pathfinder and D&D MU*s, but they have other things that need fixing first, which I won't get into in this thread (It'd be a bit off topic).

@surreality I could see myself enjoying things significantly more if a MU*'s rules specifically treated social combat as equal to physical combat in terms of needing an ST. It's ridiculous that we have disputes like people literally treating social rolls like telepathy, which would be easily solved if ST intervention was accepted as a normal aspect of social combat.

@surreality D&D/Pathfinder and nWoD have perfectly functional systems for this stuff. A lot of people always say "The system doesn't work", but if you just approach and implement it in a reasonable way, like you suggested. With either of these situations that you mentioned, house rules wouldn't even be required, because they -already- note that you get negative modifiers for approaching something in a shitty way.

All that's really left is enforcement of the rules and taking them seriously, in a non-optional way. If the rules are used and executed correctly, then you're good to go (Again, now I'm talking about D&D/Pathfinder and nWoD). There are obviously systems outside of those, but people should worry a lot less about finding one particular ideal system, and more about finding a tested and functional one that people are familiar with, and actually bothering to tell people to use it.

tl;dr: Read the room.

This seems to be going in an unproductive circle. I mean, not to shit on the discussion or anything, but you guys are kind of wasting your time and being stuck at the same stage of the discussion infinitely.

In @Jaunt 's defense, in the professional world you generally say "My opinions do not reflect the opinions of company X".

However, it does not work that way here. Generally staff represent their game in the eyes of this community until they are no longer staff.

If the system literally says that the social combat rules aren't optimal for PVP, then they really aren't even necessary as anything more than a novelty, which seems to be what @surreality did.

That said, if the system is in a PVP environment where people have stuff like XP and other resources that can be gained through dice mechanics, then me, personally, I'd go with a different system entirely. What system, I have no idea, since I'm not sure what theme you're trying to use the system with.

@surreality That makes a bit more sense in that context. As it's more opt-in than opt-out. So yeah, I can support that position in a system that isn't made specifically for PVP social combat nor revolves around it.

It would make no particular sense, with what you described, to make it mandatory. Though I do stick to my previous post with stuff like WoD.

@Chime I'm learning C++. If I ever decide to make a game instead of making money, I'll make all of my games in C++, but there will be no particular difference from a MUSH. Mostly to prove a point.

Obviously I should call it MUSH MUD: Honey Jack and Coke by Night.

Also, you really know how to deliver on code!

If social combat is treated as lesser than regular combat by staff, it'll be treated that way by players. If you put more emphasis on one thing than the other, then that's what players are going to do. Staff have to lead by example. If you present things a certain way and then say "But my intent was this other thing", it's simply not going to work.

That said, optional social combat rules, even if treated as equal to traditional combat, are not going to really change anything at all. It's true that you could make them be taken a bit more seriously by treating them as equal, but if people can pick and choose when rules apply to them, why have them?

Granted, I primarily only feel this way about tabletop games, I feel non-tabletop games without XP and stuff to gain are a little different when it comes to code. But in a tabletop game, where people actually have something to gain by using the code and following the rules, then everything you do affects the overall fairness of the game.

When it comes to a tabletop game, once social rules become optional, which is how they've been treated for a long time, then that option to opt out of social combat becomes a tactical aspect of the system rather than just a favor for the comfort of the players. It's a decision with consequences.

"I could get screwed, but if I opt out, I can save myself and possibly gain something/protect my character by not engaging in social combat."

Optional social combat rules always benefit the person with something to lose. The person choosing to engage in social combat, because it's what they've built their character around, has a significantly less useful character than everyone else, even though the system itself puts them on generally equal footing.

This is because characters built around actual combat have the option to literally opt out of something they'll have trouble defending against.

The only thing that would make that fair is if you give social characters an equal option. If a combat character comes after a social character with a rocket launcher, the social character's player should be able to say, "Sorry, I don't really do rocket launcher RP with code, my character would probably duck under it", because they didn't build their character around dodging rocket launchers.

Otherwise, you essentially screw an entire type of character and give another type of character a gigantic advantage.

@surreality I asked. Back when X-Men Movieverse was a MOO, they had %R but not %T. Unfortunately how they did it was not documented anywhere it would be readily available, so the only way to get it would be to dig through the game's code.

@surreality I actually know some people who used to run a MOO with MUSH-like features, so I'll see if the coder is still around and if they know how to do that.

@Lithium I've been reading your posts on the assumption that you are a friend of Cirno. I wonder what happened to Cirno.

Also if you are the worst of this community, we really -have- improved over WORA. I haven't even seen you troll.

You shouldn't let it get you down that some random person on the internet doesn't like you. I bet anyone being critical had terrible dinner, much worse dinner than you had. I stir-fried peas last night, I bet no one who dislikes me ate stir-fried peas and burgers cooked on a cast iron skillet.

I bet you're an amazing and productive member of society. You even have that coder tag up there. What are the people being critical of you contributing to society?

I love you and you are special, and that's all that matters!

You had a secret player name 0_o? Are you a secret MU* agent?

Wait a minute, if you're SRT Rei, doesn't that also mean you're Haman Karn? Or maybe you're a different Rei. Did we have an argument about The Mighty Boosh in like 2009, and I judged you for liking it?