Best posts made by ThatGuyThere

@ThatOneDude
I think that rule is a good one, though expect a lot of push back from it. It was essentially the rule at RfK and it made finding staff difficult from what I heard.

@Lithium said in Finding roleplay:

One of the things I have considered is just dropping plots on IC gatherings. Like, if I (or other staff) see a group RP'ing in public then boom, I drop a 1 shot on them and depending on what happens it could lead to more plot.

This practice would make me avoid public scenes not encourage me to attend them.
Not because I have anything against plots, I think they are great but sometimes you are just wanting a social scene either due to RL or distractions and the spectre (Yes I am spelling it the Brit way despite what spell check wants me to do) of having random crap dropped on me for being on grid would just encourage use of a private room rather then make me more likely to go out and rp.
Now in general more plot is good, but if you do decide to drop it randomly on groups of people at least give warning so those not feeling it can pose out.

@Seraphim73 said in XP systems:

I like a Justified Increase system, but it involves a good amount of Staff monitoring. You have to check logs and be the nexus of all improvement (and let's face it, players like to see their numbers go up, because, to quote Calvin, if your numbers go up, you're having more fun).

I used to be in favor of justification for this reason, until I was on a game where I was complimented on my justifications.
The staffer paged me thanking me for putting thought and effort into my justifications, that was awesome, then they went on to say a lot of players wrote justification they felt guilty about approving. I didn't say anything at the time but that convo is what changed my mind on justifications. If both good and bad ones are going to accepted why bother having it as a hoop.
And I don't think the staffer in the conversation was unusual most will say yes and shrug then say no and risk drama over something minor.

@faraday
I can think of one reason on why to bother. That was it is up and posted for when new people join the scene.
I have had to deal with vamp players getting pissy when a scene had be set with it being daylight and +time saying daylight. So I was glad i could point ot +time and be like dude it is a public hangout +time says daylight deal.
Now granted had said player entered and oocly asked for a change it would have been accommodated.
Sadly there is no shortage of folks who lack basic respect of scenes in progress so I would welcome another tool to show what the scene it. That it also helps set scenes for the scene for others that want to join as well is also a plus.

@Lithium said in What would a superhero game need to be/do to bring in a new player base?:

@ThatOneDude I contemplated using FATE for my super hero game, but there's some real backlash against Fate games I've found. It's kind of odd. The only successful FATE based game that I've found (I haven't really looked mind you) was Dresden.

Fate gets a lot of backlash from those with rules heavy tastes as being all that is wrong with modern gaming. I have not noticed this much in regards to mushing but more in RPG communities in general.
My own tastes tend to vary with mood and intent of the game I tend to like both rules light and rules heavy but not rules medium. The only system I can honestly say that I have played once but would never again is Savage Worlds.
For fate on a MUSH, I think the lack of it appearing is the lack of demand for a generic system. Most mushes tend to be based on existing settings, a lot of those already have game systems with them like WoD, and for those that don't there is FS3, FS3 is not to everyone's tastes in some aspects but if you have a game you want a system for it is free and fairly easily to install and get running, where as far as I know there is no ready to go Fate code package ready to install so making it has to be done from scratch which is a lot of work.

@Rick-Sanchez
They did eventually but it is not like he did the reveal in person.

@Rick-Sanchez
No the reveal happened when they were out of town on a mission and arrived to find their sanctum being renovated, when they talked to the construction foreman they learned it had been sold to someone putting in a Starbucks.
The Killing of the mastermind villain happened a couple of sessions latter when they tracked him down.

@fatefan said in What would a superhero game need to be/do to bring in a new player base?:

So, it seems to be pretty loud and clear that (1) OC-focused games are the way to go (I know some said OC-emphasized, but let's go all in on that regard, for now) and (2) there should be a clear and consistent theme/tone for the game.

So, if you don't mind me asking another question: is there a preferable type of comic environment/atmosphere? That is...

1. "Four color" with brightly colored spandex-clad heroes
2. "Street-level" pulp/noir with low-powered or unpowered vigilantes
3. High-concept, globally impacting paragons
4. Something else entirely

I would vote either one or three, even though on superhero games I tend to play non-powered types they are definitely more in-line with Solo Avengers era Hawkeye with the bright purple and trick arrows then anything that is normally considered street level.
Though I do loves me some high powered world shaking stuff, a la Morrison's run on JLA, whcih also had my favorite version of Batman and allowed other non-powered folks to have a significant impact. (Huntress and Oracle most prominently but also Catwoman in her brief appearance. )

I agree completely with @Lithium 's post above, also with the addendum of challenge the players where they are weak. Granted you need to know the characters before the plot to really be able to do this, but since I don't run random public things for me that part is a given. One of the plots where I got the most positive feedback from the players involved was one where I presented a bunch of non-investigative characters with a mystery.
Or on the other side one of my favorite plots I have played in recently forced my social focused character to step up and actually fight the bad guy rather then his preferred tactic of running away and finding friends to take care of any physical problem. It was one of the few times in recent memory that I can remember my adrenaline kicking in while mushing because there was the very real possibility that I would either lose the character.

@Apos said in Coming Soon: Arx, After the Reckoning:

A better way to phrase a core thematic element of Arx would be: "What would it be like if a high fantasy world became a low fantasy one, forgot it was one, then started to change back?"

From a taste perspective the heavily coded part does not appeal to me. But if that was a teaser line for a book or movie I would buy it in a second. Hope your game is a lot of fun and you and your players enjoy the telling of what promises to be an interesting story.

@Kestrel said in Cultural differences between MUDs and MUSHes:

• Metaposing — which means the opposite of show-don't-tell, and apparently is sometimes acceptable, sometimes not

Generally it is more how you metapose then that you metapose. For example on some of my characters especially those that are not sociable ICly I tend to make a lot of Meta pose pointing and laughing at my own chars type of comment and I have never had a anyone complain. I also tend to in some cases meta-pose the thought process behind my chars actions, I do this because to me the audience is the other player not the other character. Though this is a taste thing some like it some do not so mainly it comes down to finding people whose styles gel with yours.
The one type of metapose that everyone will hate on is the snarky metapose where you use it to hurl OOC insults without having to deal with an IC responce, such as ,Bob thinks Joe is an idiot but answer his stupid question anyway, "Yes, I am from Nantucket."

@lordbelh said in Cultural differences between MUDs and MUSHes:

This is something I'd agree with, but it also runs directly counter to the idea you have to ask before joining a scene (asking means you can be denied, which means people can totally have private scenes anywhere they like.)

To me the asking to join is not about getting permission, but about acknowledging there is a scene in process and being polite. I would consider anyone who said out right no to the question to join more then a bit of a dick. that still said i will tend to minimized interaction with those that don't ask. It is one of those polite non questions that helps social situations function. Like the How are you doing? to a stranger in RL you aren't seeking a real answer just giving them polite acknowledgement.

@Kanye-Qwest said in Cultural differences between MUDs and MUSHes:

@ThatGuyThere
You are so delicate!

I can't give my preferred response response since we are in constructive. I am not delicate I am just a firm believer in making the appropriate social gruntings at each other after all that is how pack primates function.

@Kestrel said in Cultural differences between MUDs and MUSHes:

On the topic of self-selection that @lordbelh brings up, and with @faraday's (among others') analogy that explaining MUSH culture is more like explaining kilt-wearing in Europe than kilt-wearing in Scotland, I wonder if the setting one chooses is a good way to predict player trends. With Kushiel's Debut being a Lord-and-Ladies style MUSH that focuses on social/political intrigue, for instance (as I'm given to understand — I don't play there), are people more conflict-averse there than on say, the 100 MUSH, which is a criminals vs. tribes war/survival game?

Each genre has a pretty distinct culture, there is player overlap true but there is just a different OOC feel about the games that is hard to define, sometimes this gets broken down more so. For example I have found OWoD to be more conflicty/ competitive then NWoD is. Comic games have a different set of etiquette then WoD games do, as do lords and ladies games.
I cannot speak about the 100 games since i have never been on it, but my guess based on the thread here is that it would lean towards the Lords and Ladies culture since the game runners previously ran a L+L game but that is at best a semi-educated guess on my part.
Sadly little of the cultural mores ever get written down so it is a matter of having to discover the differences by playing and hopefully not screwing up too badly.

@Kestrel
I think one part that has been mentioned but deserves mentioning again is if in that situation and not asked just joined. Politeness aside, if 3 or the 5 present decide it is too big, which is what it sounds like would have happened and left, right as the new people showed up. Then how is that seen as more welcoming?
The end result is close to the same if not exactly.

@ixokai And the other Phone code discussers.
I kinda like phone code that is simple such as +call Person, cause it lets me have a conversation over the phone with out then having to Emit the same thing again to the room I am in. I ma lazy like that.
However +phone code that makes me try to remember a number can go right to dying in fire. We don't need to remember real numbers anymore for the most part if your game tries to make me you are bad and should feel bad.

On the actual topic of Places code, I would only bother using it if it was hidden from the room. Not because of any privacy issues but because of the spam reduction factor. If there are eight people in a room and I still get 8 peoples worth of spam I am out of there place code making the part I care about stand out more or not.

@Pandora said in Cultural differences between MUDs and MUSHes:

@faraday said in Cultural differences between MUDs and MUSHes:

I like @Wretched's motto:
If someone is OOCLY unavailable, never give them dickish consequences or treat them like an abandoner.

It's a nice motto, but I suppose I just don't see someone not being around for something as a dickish consequence? And at no point did I accuse C of being an abandoner. If B dies and OOCly blames/guilts C for not being around, that's B's inability to separate IC from OOC, aka B's problem.

You might not but considering the number of times I have seen just that when people have been not on for something, excuse my doubt in thinking it wouldn't happen more often then not.

@Lotherio
But there is also a system the defines the time on a MUSH as well. At least on WoD games. If all your health boxes are filled with lethal then you start bleeding out at a rate of one box turning from Lethal to aggravated per IC minute. For an average human this equals 7 minutes, for a human with max stamina and giant size merit this would be 11 minutes.
Hardly any more arbitrary then one hour, the difference a MUSH does not feel the need to have IC time equal RL time.
To me having them separate makes sense, simply looking at combat, a WoD combat round is a matter of seconds much like that for any other rpg system. The actual time needed to play this out is well more then seconds, even in table top. Pretty much every RPG book I have ever read addresses the matter of IC time not equaling RL time. If MUDs want to say it is that is fine but then also to make sure that it takes longer to travel your grid during Rush hours at least on a modern game.

@Apos said in How does a Mu* become successful?:

Those are are definitely problems, but I don't think they are insurmountable ones. I think they can be addressed. But as much as I want to see the hobby do well, and grow again, and be in a healthy place, I think there's another problem any kind of next gen game would have to address- surviving it being extremely popular. There's definitely enough role-players out there, like just looking at a popular play-by-post forum I counted tens of millions of posts and they had around a hundred thousand users. An enjin website for guild wars 2 role-players had about 13,000 users. That's a niche community site for a single MMO that doesn't even officially support role-playing at all. What would happen if 10 percent of the population of either of those sites decided to give a single MU a try?

I hate to be the barer of bad news here but if 1,300 new players decided to give a MU a try, the sad result would likely be the collective MUSH staff of the world would collapse. This is not even a code thing but a people time thing.
Even if we figure there are 50 active mushes (not sure how many their are but I would guess that to be on the high side) that would be an average of 26 new players each. Staff getting 26 new apps all at once would certainly slow things down, but then you have the question of how many games could assimilate that many new players all at once into the culture especially if all were new to MUSHing in general.
At that was the mall side of your numbers example. If tens of thousands join then MUSHing becomes the side project of the play by post community instead of being anything that unique because the current players would be a small minority in the hobby.

You are more optimistic then I in the ability of games to handle large influxes, the hardest things to maintain in this hobby is the relationship between staff and player base a large influx not only changes the player base side of that equation but also the staff side as more staffer need to be brought in, some of which will be great at it some of which will be horrible.

@Arkandel said in How does a Mu* become successful?:

Tue and things might work out well but I think that many new player would definitely change MUSHing as a whole in was we likely would not even think to guess at.
New players coming in is great but more new players coming in then currently exist all at once?
Sorry I am a pessimist by nature and have seen real life social groups destroyed by a large influx of new people.
I will freely admit a new influx could usher in a golden age must neither side has any sort of hard evidence to back up a positive or a negative outlook so I will stick with desiring small growth over large.