@Faceless said in City of Angels MUX (CofD/nWoD 2E):
There are just some aspects that would outright require direct staff involvement, such as being Blown.
If staff has to be directly involved in TS on this game I'd really have to argue against so much micromanagement.
I think this is awesome and and you're awesome and I don't think it is at all unnecessary.
I want his for my game! I don't actually have a game, but I want to make one just so I can have this in it!
A lot of good stuff has already been mentioned so I'm hardly adding anything new or insightful. But as a player who has been both proactive and inactive, I can give my personal opinion on things.
The most important thing for me is to be able to affect the world my character is in, mostly because not being able to do so makes me feel as though my character is not really a part of the world he/she is supposed to exist in. That's an immediate disconnect from my character and I'll quickly fade from the game.
Rewarding active people is definitely a plus, but that's trickier than it sounds, in my opinion. If you just give blanket rewards you get a bunch of people who do forced, stale plots just to earn the rewards as well as people who do forced, stale RP in order to reap them player-side. That's my biggest gripe with +events. You have to reward the good type of proactive player without encouraging the bad kind to continue. Some people would say there's no bad type of proactive player, but I'd disagree. Depending on the type of person and how they influence the game, sometimes it hurts more than it helps, if only in the long run. That should not be encouraged.
Engaging their characters is probably the best way to reward others who are beneficial to the game and creating an environment where people who provide entertainment for others always has a ready and willing source of entertainment for themselves would be ideal. Having a set ST for those type of players is a good start.
Also for those looking for hooks WoD had a stat for that. I forget what it was called - because it became so useless, I guess. Ambitions or something like that. But rather than being used for STs to tell stories people wanted, it just became a way for people to farm themselves xp. If it was used for what it was intended to be used for by WoD, it would be a great system to tell the type of stories people want to play. I'd recommend doing something like that which people can make public (but not attaching xp to it - unless that xp is to the scene runner for including it). So if I'm running a scene and I look over the things the players in my scene want to do or experience, maybe I can fit some in without altering my scene much. In fact, the new, random elements could give the scene a greater life than it would have otherwise had.
I'm still playing CP77 and I'm having a blast. Yes, I'm on a very good PC so my experience is better than most.
Are there bugs? Sure. But overall, they are minor. I think some people and reviewers I've read are overly harsh about the problems in the game, especially on day one releases. (That's the extra polite version of my thoughts on a lot of the negative reviews.) No one releases a bug free product day one. Patches are always a thing. The scale of the game itself is quite an accomplishment. You can travel from one end of the city limits to the other without a loading screen, then there's the vertical integration. Out of all of that, some people expect flawlessness of each and every object and encounter that exists within that for some reason.
Tech is not magic. It can be amazing. But sometimes things go wrong. It is a big theme of the genre and the game itself, ironically.
I highly recommend it as a game in general. If you like the genre, it is a definite get. Yes, sometimes you won't be able to pick up an item or two, yet. You could wait until they release a few more patches to dive in, but I think the extensive world and storylines and gameplay more than make up for a few release glitches especially if you consider the amount of code that goes into a game of this scale versus the amount of code that is glitched.
If you want to ignore the glitches and enjoy the game, you will. If you want to focus on glitches and be annoyed, you will.
@gasket said in The Apology Thread:
I dunno. Expressing regret that you maybe got things wrong (according to The Collective Opinion Of Right And Wrong) or accidentally stepped on toes shouldn't ever be a bad thing. It shows you're thoughtful about making sure you're playing WITH others instead of AGAINST them, even if the definition of that turned out different between your hobbies and you didn't realize it until later.
If that's really what you think, then sure. Otherwise, its just pandering and placating which is blatant emotional manipulation if it is done well and it comes off fake and insulting if done poorly - which is what you see in some of the posts in the thread and what people have called them out on.
@Apos That's why apologies are sometimes better left unsaid. There's a big difference between having regrets and apologizing.
@betternow said in Plot session duration:
I don't run much any more but when I did, I emailed all the signed up participants with any background/setup info AND the scene set so they could be ready when it began and have devised why they're there and how they're posing in, etc. That first round of entrances was often a stumbling block with people trying to rationalize how or why they'd gotten there.
This.
I've never understood why players in a combat scene aren't expected to show up to a combat scene with prep stuff already prepped. Waiting until you get to the scene to decide what you're going to do just drags everybody down, especially when you usually have days of downtime BSing in the ooc lounge when that stuff could be taken care of.
My alternative is to handwave prep stuff. Honor system. If you say you have it, you have it. I'm not gonna nitpick over stuff your character has plenty of time to do. If you're somehow gonna cheat about it, not only do I not care, but I'm unlikely to be able to catch you anyway since I can't see your sheet. Roll it yourself, spend what you know you should spend. If you cheat, that's on you to be that petty.
@arkandel said in Make it fun for Me!:
The only legitimate reason to complain to someone is if they are actually doing something bad - meaning they are harassing others or trying to metagame or cheat or whatever. That's it, there's no other good reason to do it.
This is the other side of this whole conversation about fun. The anti-fun. Its bad enough that people have to contend with so many different versions of what people consider fun. On top of that, we also have to contend with tip toeing around what other people believe kills their fun. And one of the main reasons I don't MU* anymore is because I so often run into people who have their fun killed by other people having fun, even when that fun doesn't affect their character in any way. Sometimes just having more fun ruins a scene for someone else. Fun envy.
Some people just want to be the center of attention so anyone else that draws attention away is killing their fun. Those people will often give the spotlight to someone else, if for no other reason than to show they are not always the center of attention, but it is always given under their own terms. If someone takes the spotlight or starts to draw it away, the drama begins.
I agree with @Ganymede that it can be both competitive and collaborative, but rarely does that work on a MU*. Many people in this community don't know how to be competitive, meaning they can't stand going up against someone else, losing, and being okay with it - much less have fun with it. The community just isn't built for it. It is a relatively small community and in general I believe its just toxic. Just mention PvP and both players and staff freak - even on games where character death isn't even allowed.
The most fun I've ever had RPing was in tabletops and LARPs, where we'd consistently be fucking each other over (or suspect that we're fucking each other over) during the game, which led to the most unpredictable and ultimately satisfying storylines and resolutions. But that just doesn't hold up on a MU - in general. If you get a small cluster of people you trust and enjoy, maybe. There was one particular amazing player-ST I knew who had these giant storylines planned out with massive flowcharts to go in multiple directions based on what the players did and how the scenes turned out and it was the greatest fun online I've had...
But then other people point and complain that you're having more fun than them and you're cliquish and if you're having so much fun on your own then you should definitely be excluded from all the other fun cause then you'd be having way more than your share of fun, etc., etc., blah, blah, cry, complain, drama fit... And staff is all hurt because people are ignoring their storyline-on-rails that will be told regardless of what players do from start to finish (here, roll some dice in these scenes while I tell this story, that way you feel like you participated) in order to focus on scenes and people they are having more fun with and then the drama starts about how you're trying to take over and how it is bad for the game.
And suddenly your plots aren't being approved for this and that minor reason, you're being scrutinized by staff within an inch of your own life (much less your character's) and your fun is sucked out like a hull breach (because the only way to make sure other people are happy is to make sure that you are as miserable as the rest of the MU*) and all you have left is memories of a time when roleplaying used to be fun.
TL:DR Which type of fun you have is irrelevant when overshadowed by the pettiness of people determined to drag you down because whatever fun you're having, other people can't stand to see you having more of it.
@Devrex said in The Great PC Death Dilemma:
In my opinion death is just the most boring possible thing you can do to a PC or to their story.
Strong disagree.
Like most things in the hobby, it depends on the player. For bad players, I find a resolution with consequences rather than death to be much more boring if the player completely dismisses the consequences, which bad players inevitably do.
"The NPC I love is gonna die. I'll find someone else to love."
"I'm in a deal I don't want to be caught in. I'll back out."
"I'm being blackmailed. So what."
"I wake up at the bottom of a well. I climb out."
For good players, death is just as interesting as other options. But death is only as interesting for the players around the dead character make it when other characters to feel the death and have it affect them and their stories.
Death usually boring because it is handled in a boring way. Dice roll, character's dead. How many times do you see a player roll into a character death, then it is RPed out in a dramatic way? Rarely. They're just dead. But there's no reason a "dead" character can't be on his way out the door, but hold on long enough to say their peace before they go. Fatal injury too far gone, but not quite so immediate that they can't be dragged back for goodbyes.
The dice can guide the story, but it doesn't have to dictate it. The dice are there to add elements of random chance to direct the story in ways you don't have to decide, not to force your characters into crappy stories. But again, good players and good STs know this already and do as they need to to keep the entertainment high.
Bad players and bad STs just look at the dice and say, "Oh. I died. That's dumb." "Yep. Sux bro."
@Devrex said in The Great PC Death Dilemma:
The PCs are supposed to be the heroes of the book, movie, or TV show. We know the MCs just aren't going to randomly die for no reason because of some random dice roll on all our favorite shows.
But MUs aren't TV shows or books. It is its own beast. What other storytelling medium has 134 main characters. The idea that the PCs are all simultaneously the main characters of a MU is unsustainable.
At the end of the day its a game that's only as good as the people involved. Bad players and bad STs will ruin any game no matter how good your policies or preparations are just as good players and good STs can make any game fun no matter how bad the rules or system is.
@wizz said in General Video Game Thread:
@warma-sheen said in General Video Game Thread:
Are there bugs? Sure. But overall, they are minor. I think some people and reviewers I've read are overly harsh about the problems in the game, especially on day one releases.
Sure generous of you to dismiss other people's experiences like that given your complete lack of evidence to the contrary as you aren't even playing on the same platform.
You're welcome, even though I wasn't talking about you. That would be why my experience doesn't seem to take into account your personal situation. You seem to think it applied though, so more power to you. Feel free to use that power to call out a 30 year old source book as being very dated.
I was referring to "professional" reviewers from online publications who run systems as good or better than mine who initially wrote glowing reviews then tried to backtrack as other people had problems by calling out minor bugs and other non-technical issues that were old news, without any mention of game issues on the last gen consoles. Many reviewers seemed to be more angry about having been 'tricked' into giving the game good reviews than the actual gameplay itself. That was what I was referring to.
Also, its just an opinion. Not some personal attack. But I am sorry to hear your experience wasn't great because I'm having a ton of fun with it and that's what I would want for everyone else, as unrealistic as that may be.
That's an extreme leap, man. Feels like you're trolling me.
Asking people to do prep beforehand is not disengaging the game system. Neither is trusting people (blindly as it may be) that they've done the prep correctly.
I'm the last person that would disengage from the game system. I'm one of those (probably few) who prefer the long, drawn our scenes with Saga Edition that @Seraphim73 mentioned to FS3. Because I enjoy the systems as much as I do the themes and the RP.
The entire purpose behind the practice is to be able to spend as much scene time as possible engaging in the game system and the game theme together in RP. It is to actually be doing things instead of just rolling numbers and listing stats for an hour and a half - things that aren't even RPed.
Time is a very finite resource, especially for scenes on a MU*. That was the whole point behind the topic. I'm not suggesting to ditch the game system. Priorities. That's all.
Definitely. The oWoD Demon the Fallen was my favorite gameline and in nWoD the Descent ranks near the top. Obviously, neither mix well with the other gamelines so it always left a big hole in my RPing appetite.
However... Even on its own it is a nightmare to run. I wouldn't actually recommend it for the faint of heart or even the casual staffer. Several powers rewrite reality and entire personal histories, which can cause some people headaches if they are shy about handwaving. To run a DtD game you have to be meticulous but at the same time completely fluid to major parts of the game changing on a frequent basis. If you prefer to run a game on railroad tracks, you will may end up with stifled, frustrated players.
@thenomain said in Plot session duration:
Is it? Even after my examples of situations where the situation can be sped up without relying on the kindness of strangers? Isn't it possible that we're approaching the issue from different angles? I feel like you're dismissing my post in order to be offended but eh, you do you.
I'm not offended. I'm surprised. I'm not used to you being so hyperbolic. I want to spend as much of the scene time using the system to play rather than to prep... and you ask why not throw out the system. Seems like it quickly moved past anything constructive.
Maybe it is just different approaches. You might be approaching it as a staffer. I've generally always run scenes as a player. So I can't always see player sheets or verify their stats. So trusting players is already a given in order to run scenes for other players. Trusting them to prep isn't much more than that. At least not in my weirdo crazy opinion.
@seraphim73 said in Plot session duration:
I also love handling prep-work before the scene. I've also started doing Flashbacks during scenes (the idea was stolen from the Leverage RPG). Each character gets a single flashback, which they can use at any time to have done something previously that has an impact on the scene currently.
That's awesome. I'll definitely have to figure out how I can use that in my scenes. I actually got the Leverage RPG Starter at Comic-Con before the full book was out (and got it signed by Aldis Hodge who randomly just happened to be walking by with his fam as I was looking at the starter), but it didn't have that gem in it. Something like that sounds like it can really bridge a lot of gaps in 'planning' since that doesn't always actually happen.
A lot of scenes just involve showing up to a +event at the proper time, killing enemy, then everyone fleeing ooc as fast as possible. Sometimes you're lucky if you can get players to even pose out, much less discuss what just happened.
@thenomain said in nWorld of Darkness 1E v 2E:
I think the lack of trust in this hobby, and the abuse of trust in this hobby, keeps too much fun from happening.
Cause or effect? Which came first - the chicken or the egg? I've only been around MU*ing for about 15 years or so so I don't know how it started. By the time I started the lack of trust was already a thing in a lot of places. But I think this is a symptom, not a cause of the problem.
I have been on plenty of games where trust has not been an issue - for the most part. And there have been funtimes. The problem is that it only takes a few small bad trust experiences to ruin months or years of a run on a good game. You hit that one bump and a long, good ride suddenly comes crashing to a premature, disappointing end. Most every character I've played has ended that way.
And in every instance it has been unwillingness of the people involved to resolve any issues in a mature way, a lack of being able to speak to each other without hurling insults or taking offense at every slight that has been the cause of failures, usually bolstered by the indomitable shield of internet anonymity.
The way I see it, not trusting someone will use an underage character appropriately in their story is not the problem. Shutting it down with no communication or attempt to come to an understanding is. But since this community is filled with 'insult first, ask questions never' types, I believe this will always, always be a thing in this hobby.
@Insomnia I also like the updates and have found good deals through this thread. Keep em coming!
@faraday Agreed. But I don't think its just that we expect combat - from everything we see around us. I think the problem is in our ability to agree on how it plays out. That starts at even the earliest ages.
"Bang. I shot you. You're dead."
"Nuh uh. I had my force shield up."
"But my bullets go through force shields."
"No they don't. Maybe they go through a force field, but not a force shield."
And it isn't like there isn't social conflict either, I just think that there is a more finite difficulty with trying to adjudicate what happens in combat that people have more issues with. Social conflicts are just easier to navigate without using so many rules because of how open ended and fluid it is. There are multiple possibilities and so, so, so many interpretations about how someone feels about how someone else acts. So multiple results are acceptable (usually), which means less arguing over how things played out.
But physical conflict is fairly final. I hit you. And it hurts. A lot. You go down. Whether you want to or not. The end. In a lot of ways this makes coming up with combat rules easier than coming up with social conflict rules because there are far fewer outcomes. I've seen a few (and probably missed a lot more) threads about social conflict rules and what they should be and how they are handled on each person's individual basis. I rarely see a large consensus.
TD;DR: Emotions are more complicated than violence. Violence is easier to codify.
@Thenomain said in Consent in Gaming:
I don't know what changed that people decided that it couldn't work without rules and code and things that made it more like asking permission to get a cookie than "yar, I raid the cookies, I am the cookie king, muahahaha!"
Like melting polar ice, the world drowned itself because it refused to seriously address its own bad behavior despite the many obvious catastrophes and numerous calls for action.
People got jaded. People got paranoid. People got burned.
Jaded people got paranoid of being burned.
@somasatori Thanks for the heads up! Got some fun stuff. This is my favorite thread...
I'm definitely in. The FFG system is by far the most fun of all the SW systems I've played. It inspires and appreciates creativity rather than stifles it. It makes for more variation in scenes than other games where everything pretty much every scene is handled the same way every time.
@surreality said in Personal Agency for Personal Boundaries:
@Derp Yes, that is a huge help, but I still wouldn't feel comfortable unless there was a list of 'nope, not happening' (ex: rape, child rape, etc.) listed as 'can't be thrown at people without permission'.
'Anything lasting longer than a single scene' is pretty important; hopefully this will include things like 'this mentally fucks someone up for life' in practice.
Why do people keep glossing over / ignoring this?
It seems like this would solve a huge majority of problems. This doesn't have to be a MU wide setting. It can be specific to each player. Many of the situations complained about can easily be put into a yes no list for each character. Characters have +finger information, +info, +prefs, etc. They can easily have a yes/no list of problematic situations that they allow or have deny. Then the responsibility is on the 'offending' person for trying to push something on someone that has already been denied.
If that's not enough, you can add that code red command to let someone know they're pushing something that's already been denied. Then the onus is on the guy that was inconsiderately entering gray territory without bothering to check the other person's settings.
The list can be as long as anyone wants. It can have an area for write in answers. It can be defaulted on each bit as all nos or all yeses as staff prefers. Every player can be required to set them in chargen before approval so no one feels looked down on for marking something off limits. None of this would be difficult to code based on what I've seen from coders.
Seems like all that makes staff intervention much easier by eliminating bad situations before they start. If people can't be trusted to speak up for themselves or for other people to not to be crappy to others, then this would probably just push the problems elsewhere rather than eliminating them, but there's a chance it could help.
Just make it a thing.