I still log in to OGR (still feels wrong to call it Gateway) and MUS*H a handful of times a month to check the boards. To my knowledge there's still no better social box doing what they do, for better or worse. The embassies on OGR don't seem to be maintained anymore, but benign neglect is maybe preferable to that brief time that crazy person Ra had taken it over.
The MUSH/MUX list on mushcode.com is what I tend to use to find active games.
I think a distinction should be drawn there. I don't think massive events are bad, and once in awhile the chaos can be very energizing. I do think staff should do them once in awhile. They just shouldn't be every scene, or an obligation to make every scene as much that as possible.
@Arkandel said:
Is it efficient enough to tell people "this is when I can be on, talk among yourselves and tell me when you want the next scene ran"? Is it more or less fair than that to start the next scene with an +event at some time convenient for the ST and whoever can make it may come? Or is it reasonable for players to expect the ST to go a step further and organize them?
I feel like it's reasonable to ask players when would be best for them, to try and work around their schedules if they communicate them to you, and to use web-based scheduling tools (I like When Is Good? and Doodle.com) if there's enough buy-in to make those worthwhile. I don't have much faith in players' ability to organize themselves, but beyond that, I do feel like as the GM it's your job to cat-herd to some degree. Unfortunately.
If you ask these things and players don't tell you them (or can't because their schedules are too ephemeral), meh, stuff happens when it's convenient for you to make it happen and people show up if they can, or don't. I don't wring my hands too much about it if they can't, if I feel like I've made a reasonable effort. That's the only way to stay sane.
@Pyrephox said:
Too often, we want to build Big Plots like they would be built in conventional media, which doesn't work, because you've got 25-30 players involved instead of five or six.
While that's certainly part of the impulse to build big plots, there are also cultural pressures that are maybe a bigger driver of it. Part of it is also a feeling that a plot needs to be "fair." I put "fair" in quotes because, if you're constantly scraping to be give everyone a little bit of everything, you end up giving nobody anything meaningful. But that's often perceived as preferable to focusing a plot on a manageable group of PCs.
@Pyrephox said:
- Information should not be the bottleneck. If there's a bottleneck, it should be as PCs try to decide what to do next. But they should always have enough information available to have an idea of at LEAST one option. And if players seem confused or lack understanding, it's on the GM to make sure that information is clear and informative.
This one's really important, and hard to balance on a MUSH. It ties into avoiding, whenever possible, having Plot Progress depend on one PC being around and doing stuff, and becoming so vital that them dropping off kills the whole enterprise. By the same token, you also want to avoid being so diffuse about the impact any PC has that you nerf the feeling that PCs are impacting the plot at all. Division of labor and responsibility is something I try to keep an eye on, but I've yet to find an ideal way to manage it.
What I wish more games would do is support a mix, yeah. I will probably never want to play a roster character. I'm just not that kind of player (though I'm perfectly happy to work closely with staff or another player on the specifics of my app). But others have different preferences, and I recognize that it's a good way for people who are totally new to a genre or even MU*ing to start without a ton of overhead.
@il-volpe said:
To do it casually -- well, eventually, the alt-fraudulent player is going to fuck it up. Just watch.
This. I know there are stories about players who created elaborate alternate lives and personalities so they could play additional alts for years on end, but they're such a slim minority I don't see them as worth worrying about (and should obviously be banned once discovered, because Teh Crazy). You'll figure out who most other liars are within a week. Hell, players figure out when a former player is trying to "secretly" come back to a game after a week.
I think registration in chargen (and through your wiki or website, if you have one) is sensible and an open way to be clear that you care and that lying is frowned upon, but I don't know that it needs to go beyond that. Are there horror stories that make this a greater concern?
At a certain point, especially with phones (I'm not a tablet-user, so idk), you're running up against the limitations of the device more than the limitations of any client. I just don't enjoy playing on my phone and my laptop is generally just as convenient when I'm actually in a headspace where I can scene.
@surreality said:
@Cobaltasaurus said:
You people take things way too seriously.
Following @tragedyjones' lead here's some thoughts on Vampire Diaries as a MUSH
Shall I go on? >.>
Bonus round: And when a bunch of people want to use the same PB, you have endless doppelgangers running around.
See? PERFECT.
Reusing actors isn't even unheard of on TV shows that take themselves sort of seriously. The Star Trek spin-offs and Law & Order did it all the time, and Deadwood cast a fairly prominent new part with an actor whose character it'd killed off (also fairly prominently) the previous season. It doesn't bug me on a MUSH unless there's a reason people who look vaguely similar might be notable in-universe (BSG is the only example that leaps to mind).
I've met plenty of coders who are kind of blocks of wood, so I don't think it's a red flag in and of itself. I still personally wouldn't work with him, but I don't accept that kind of help from people I don't know even if they seem likeable. They can play and I can get to know them and if things work out we can do something together.
http://lanternhill.wikidot.com/
I think it's also in the Current Games thread here: http://musoapbox.net/topic/9/current-games
It's more CW-style soapy drama than intentional over-the-top soap, from what I can see. It's not really my thing (this is no complain about the game itself, which I don't play, the genre just doesn't interest me), but it seems to do what it does well enough.
People freak out if anyone misses a page, even if it's just a random player saying hi to another player. This comes up in the Peeves thread all the time. It's one of the more aggravating parts of this hobby for me, but it's definitely a thing.
It also seems to serve a utilitarian purpose and isn't just for the sake of perception, which is a less-flip way of stating why this seemed weird to me.
Spoiler: People are gonna be dicks.
@Miss-Demeanor said:
@Three-Eyed-Crow Its like skinny jeans. Someone made them. Someone else said they looked good. And now they're EVERYFUCKINGWHERE. I hate skinny jeans with burning, fiery passion. Unless you're a stick with great legs, they do not look good. WHERE THE FUCK ARE MY BOOTCUT JEANS?!
I was in college when skinny jeans became a thing like 15 years ago and I remember thinking 'God, I can't wait until the inexplicable love for these passes.'
Still waiting. Takes me forever to find bootcut jeans when I'm digging through racks. I suspect tons of women also feel this way and they go quickly.
@Olsson said:
Guess that's what sells now then.
Alas, which is a peeve of mine.
I prefer a one-piece and have all my life, because I swam for exercise for so long that's just how I approach going to the pool. It's a bitch to find ones that are vaguely stylish/not made for 60-year-olds, and I feel like it's getting harder every year.
I've always held to the idea that there are no bad concepts, only bad players.
Can you play a 19-year-old PhD based on a handful of real-world geniuses? Someone could, sure.
Is it more likely you're apping that because you don't have any idea and have done no research on how the academic system works, despite wanting to play a professor who everyone thinks is the smartest and most accomplished in their field, and it's only one of many weird things in your app? Most likely.
I also found TrekMUSH: Among the Stars and it was weird and off-putting, though I also had a knee-jerk reaction to a lot of it that probably wasn't fair.
A Star Trek game would be cool.
I've used Wikidot extensively, but MediaWiki also seems fine. The differences seem to fall to user-preference and familiarity.
@Insomnia said:
My like is cheaply bought when it comes to not shit games. Especially when they are free! That means I don't have to give EA any money. I don't know why, but they make it painful to try and give them money.
My last attempt to buy a game on Origin, grudgingly, ended in five credit card processing errors in a row and me ordering my first physical disk I've bought in about three years from Amazon, because fuck that. This probably has something to do with the hacker who tried to use my account to buy a bunch of copies of FIFA a few months ago (unsuccessfully, I will at least give their security people props for that). I do more online shopping than my wallet would like me to, and I've never encountered more annoyances with actually purchasing shit than I do with Origin.