I quite like The Window http://www.mimgames.com/window/rules/quickstart.html It's free and relatively unstructured in a way that might be more suited to live-action RP than a lot of other systems.
FATE was, likewise, the other thing that came to mind right away.
This is something you should document. In some way that time stamps the phone calls if you can, in writing in your own words if not. If there are messages where the douchebag actually says your job is in jeopardy because you used a sick day, make a copy of that thing and put it in a vault somewhere, because that's gold (literal gold in a wrongful termination suit). This is an actionable complaint that brushes up against FMLA protections that you can take to HR, and your manager will get in deep shit. Your sick time, so long as the company gives you sick days, is your sick time.
I realize actually doing this is not as simple as all that, since managers and even smaller companies will make an employee's life hell if they actually exercise their rights as workers. So I'm not exactly saying complain. But document and keep, because it'll probably happen again in a circumstance where letting it go isn't an option.
@Admiral said:
I don't feel sorry for myself. I imagine many of you have had the same or worse growing up. I just wanted to say... I understand @Cobaltasaurus and others having a sense of righteous indignation at being told to find positives in examples like this.
Romanticizing addiction (and mental illness) is all the rage in a lot of creative writing. I'd say "high school/college creative writing classes," because that's the first time I can remember being viscerally bothered by it, but it's not like it isn't a thing in general pop culture. As the child of an alcoholic...yeah, I am not so much about that. It doesn't exactly make me angry anymore, but I don't have a lot of patience for it, and I think it's quite different than the healthier "triumph over adversity" that can add dimension and flaws to a story. It's really hard to get away from in settings where a lot of young writers are trying to be edgy (not that I think all addiction stories are bad, even if they aren't for me), and there's not much you can do about it, except internalize that it's often a dumb trope and it's OK not to embody it. That's what got me through sophomore year, at least.
Yeah, I'm fine with full consent, if the game is upfront about what it is. I think is has some flaws that people who are really big boosters of full consent don't like to acknowledge (it's where I started MUSHing, so I came from an environment where that was the perceived ideal and dice were for lamers), but it can work for what it is and I've had a lot of fun on those games.
Abolishing RP Staff is my anathema. But, again, I just like a different sort of game than a lot of people do. Also, like Coin, I've been RP Staff and I did not view my role as jack-booted fun-killer.
@Sponge said:
First we've switched to full consent. We don't actually think consent is the best way to go, but it's necessary for our main objective: abolishing RP staff. We feel really strongly that people having arbitrary authority over the RP of others is inseparable from the aspects we dislike in most games. Our goal is to automate away or abolish all functions performed by RP staff.
What you're describing is an anathema to anything I would ever want to play, but there's probably an audience for it. Good luck and such.
My enjoyment of 8 would go up about a thousand-fold if Squall actually was dead the whole time. I don't actually mind the game play changes or the story, but oh gosh I hated him so much.
@Glitch said:
Honestly though, anything not WoD or some other well-known IP is going to have more of an uphill struggle, particularly original games. Not that I don't think you should stick it out, just noting that original games always have a rougher time converting people who are "used" to other things.
It depends on your expectations, and how you personally define a successful game.
I prefer small-ish to mid-sized games (20/30 players on in a given night) as long as the playerbase is engaged. I find huge games like The Reach an active turn-off, only partially because I don't care for WoD. I think there's an audience for original themed games that's not necessarily being well-served, but it's always going to be a much smaller audience and the numbers who flock to the latest WoD thing. I agree that keeping things simple (both in terms of the system, but also in keeping the world relatively painless to enter for newbs) is the key to attracting players.
@Luna said:
Any one at any time can start a cps investigation for any reason. And it's anonymous.
A good friend of mine had CPS come to her house and launch an investigation because they'd gotten one of those anonymous calls. The call had been made by a psycho bitch she worked with (they'd have a personal falling out that was not related to her family in any way), and this person's mode of social revenge was calling CPS. The social worker didn't do anything more than visit a couple times and see that, indeed, the kids were happy and not abused. But it was eye-opening for me to see how that part of the system worked.
On the one hand, fear of generating friction is what leads to a large number of problems in the MU* environment.
On the other hand, most players who would actually benefit from it are so bad at taking even the mildest constructive criticism that I've just ceased to bother (and I'm well aware that criticism some people think is constructive actually isn't, but that's neither here nor there). This is a game, and people come in with the mentality that they should be indulged rather than challenged. I've taken to avoiding the players who are worst about this, but I kind of understand it.
People want to be INSTANT BESTIES or INSTANT TWU WUV or INSTANT EVERYTHING on a MUSH. There's no story there, but they want it anyway. It annoys me, and it makes these encounters with PCs who want to tell me their life story feel somehow more shallow, because there's nowhere we can really go from there.
@Arkandel said:
I can't get comfortable with paper-books any more, I think it's as much a matter of habit as anything else. With the exception of material designed in a format that makes ebook readers a bad fit (say, technical manuals with diagrams, non-free flowing text with set columns, large page layouts like RPG books etc) I wouldn't go back even without the other advantages you mention.
If a color e-ink equivalent existed that was big enough to read a comic or RPG book on, I would be the first in line to buy it. I suspect the market for it is even smaller than the market for e-readers, though, so I'm not holding out much hope for something like that.
@Cobaltasaurus said:
You do know that there are ereaders out there that are designed to mimic regular ink on a page, right? So they don't have the same effect as reading a screen?
eInk is amazing.
This is why I love my e-reader but have zero need for a tablet. I need to get away from my laptop/work PC glare at the end of the day. E-ink is specifically designed not to cause eye strain. It does feel, to me at least, comparable to reading printed text. I still like the tactile nature of a printed book, but an e-ink reader works fine as a substitute and keeps my home library from swelling beyond the one wall-length shelf. The idea of reading on an Ipad or similar device for long periods of time, I cannot fathom, but it's a very different experience.
Just paging to check seems like the better option. It's also not a great idea to conduct private RP in a public place if you don't want to be interrupted, either by staff or other players.
Like a lot of things, this is something that only becomes an issue when somebody doesn't exercise common courtesy. I like the idea of surprise plot involvement if I'm not in the middle of anything important, but I am more hyper-scheduled about my pretendy funtime now than I was when I was in college and had a ton of time for it. These two things aren't really that incompatible unless they're made to be so.
@Arkandel said:
A "staff ST" can't do anything inherently more than what a player can. You have access to the same commands.
Except they do have access to more commands and those commands are helpful in doing their jobs. They can look at +sheets and backgrounds as they please, rather than going through the process of getting all that from the player. They can make changes to the grid themselves rather than putting it through some kind of builder request. If there's a larger plot going on, they ideally have access to the areas where it's documented and can make use of it. If a player has earned XP or a stat increase through something, a staff ST can just give them these things rather than going through a request process with a bunch of jobs and logs.
There are other things, too, but those are the main mechanical advantages that come to mind. You can do things like open +sheet and command access to certain players to mitigate all this, but it's not a thing that's standard.
I always want the option of player-run-plots. They shouldn't be impeded.
But I've come to loathe the mentality that a game should be ALL PrPs, and that that's OK or sustainable or even fun for players (maybe some are fine with it, I'm not). I think, when you're running a story game, you should be telling stories, or have people on hand whose full-time role it is to tell stories. That's what it's all about.
My logical brain tells me a grid is largely unnecessary, and yet whenever I RP without one I do feel like something is missing. Not something hugely important, but something. I like the comparison of them to sets. It's just one more piece that helps with immersion a little bit.
I hate large, confusing grids, though. It should have what it needs to have and nothing more, and be relatively easy to navigate.
@Ganymede said:
As long as you understand that it may take between 1-2 months to see results, and even longer to be able to maintain a weekly regimen without damaging yourself, I think you'll be fine.
Ditch the gym. Do it all at home. Seriously.
Best investment I ever made, as far as exercise equipment goes, is a jump rope.
In theory, all games that have devolved into Lords and Ladies have included politics and war.
In practice, it's mainly been betrothals and people making a thousand alts to marry new people.
Honestly, it's more a problem of player mentality than anything else, from what I've seen, but you can kind of counter that with STs who struggle against it, and the will to do that has in the past been low.
I did see an add up on Gateway (OGR, whatever the fuck it's being called now) for a game called Star Trek: Typhon Accords, though when I logged in, it appears to be Star Trek: Yesterday's Voyages going through a revamp. Anyone know anything about this place?