Best posts made by ZombieGenesis

For me all I'm gonna say is this; I've lived/suffered through the final seasons and finales of several shows I've adored that included Dexter, True Blood, Heroes, Lost, How I Met Your Mother, The X-Files, and Star Trek Enterprise(final season was fine here but the finale was awful) and I think GoT could have ended in a far worse state than it did. I'm not sure I'm quite ready to put GoT up with the shows I've mentioned above in terms of disappointing me in the final moments. In the end, once the credits rolled, I was okay with where we were storywise. I just kind of wish they had done a better job, over the last 2 years or so, of telling the story of how they got to that point

So take the first thread as a general discussion thread and this one as a more narrow, focused discussion on an actual game possibility. These are the ideas I've cobbled together from the other thread. Note these points are very summarized. Let's she how she feels...

Theme: A custom in-house x-continuity that blends Utopia and Necrosha. Someone gains unlimited power and resurrects all the dead mutants. They go to San Francisco to great a safe haven for mutants.

Timeline: Staff would create a timeline of events that make up the game history. May also list a number of events that have not happened. Anything not listed in one or the other can be discussed as needed.

Setting: San Francisco.

Available Characters: Every reasonably powered mutant who ever lived. Staff would create a +roster of available characters divided into tiers, players can have one alt per tier. Non-X characters exist in the world but are not appable and will only be seen in TPs and global events.

System: Marvel Heroic RPG would be used for basic +sheets that give people an "at a glance" view of a character. A +Dice system would exist but would be optional or used in instances when some things just can't be decided on.

Code Base: TinyMUX because that's what I know how to code.

Does this sound like a good jumping off point? I kinda dig it.

And again, these are all just very briefly summarized from things I grabbed from the other thread. Obviously nothing is set in stone, just looking to narrow the discussion a bit.

So my wife and some friends and I have been playing privately on a Unisystem game that takes elements from Armageddon, Witchcraft, and some other stuff. We've been thinking about going public but I wanted to test the waters first before we did any heaving lifting (moving from wikidot to a mediawiki, registering a domain, I'd have to modify some things to fit how we've been playing, etc). The overall theme/tone is urban horror where players can play things like vampires, witches, psychics, lycanthropes of various types, angels, and even demigods. It's set in a fictional city off the east coast.

Our game blurb reads as: Armageddon is a game of modern day horror set against the backdrop of an impending apocalypse. Vampires, werewolves, psychics and witches exist in a world where angels, both celestial and fallen, mingle with re-awakened pagan gods. It's a world of darkness and vice where evil seems poised to triumph over good. That is if the dark god Leviathan doesn't destroy the world before then…

There is a wiki at http://armageddon-mux.wikidot.com but it's old and not entirely up to date. We'd be updating that as we moved to mediawiki and stuff.

Anyway, just curious if people would be interested in such a game. Thanks!

As an update, character generation is almost done and I'm waiting on the latest source book from FFG to drop before I move on to creating the game world. I'm not sure that it's really going to impact the design I have for the planet but I figure better to just hold off a week or so and be sure than to get ass deep into building and decide to change directions all of a sudden.

Things are moving along though. Maybe not at the pace I was hoping but they are moving.

It's for mourning the dead...except for when it isn't? This is the same forum where, in similar threads, people have posted 'X has died' and it's been followed by a host of "I'm glad he's dead!" posts. I honestly don't care either way but the hypocrisy found in this forum is often hilarious.

Instead of checklists and aftercare and all the things listed above couldn't all of this be resolved with just having open and honest lines of communication?

I run a private game that deals with some gruesome stuff(it's a horror game set in the 80s) and most of the players on there are new to both RPing and MUSHing. When a plot is starting we've always been very open about what it involves and sometimes that has involved players coming to us and saying "Hey, mind toning this or that down" or asking how involved something else might be. We've always been able to work with players to find middle ground just by, you know, talking. I think some of the stuff mentioned is a bit heavy-handed and kind of intrusive.

As for aftercare, I cannot imagine a world where a plot runner goes to every player after a scene to make sure they're okay. I can see making sure staff is open to post-scene feedback(even mid-scene feedback) but, again, I think we're venturing into an odd area of making people uncomfortable by the methods we use to make sure that they're comfortable...

@ixokai Ahhh, I gotcha! I never saw it that way but I get it and I think it works wonderfully for the show! For a game, however, I think I'd want something more open. Something that didn't cause conflict and restricting slayers to 1 or even none would cause conflict in fairly understandable ways.

As for the rest, here's what I'm leaning towards...A fictional southern city that is a so-called "college town" (the college is integrated with the city so it's difficult to tell where one ends and the other begins). This way if the focus becomes college students that's easy enough but it's also easy enough to shift to other stories for those who want something more "adult"(for lack of a better phrase) we can use the same setting, same grid, and things won't be weird or contrived.

At least that's what I'm thinking at the moment.

For what it's worth(which is admittedly not much), I make a pretty decent side living writing fiction. In my opinion and experience, writing and RP are two very different animals. To break it down into my most sincere beliefs, RP is cooperative, and writing fiction is not. When you're RPing, you're telling one side of a story collaboratively with other people. The expectations for RP are often very different than they are for writing fiction. To list just a single example, most people don't like exposition or internal monologues in RP, but both can be a handy tool in fiction writing. There's also timing. I can spend a day on a scene, a paragraph, or a single sentence when I write my fiction. This would be unforgivable in an MU scene(unless you're using Ares for a long term RP scene!)

That said, I have found that RPing has helped me with my dialogue. I also know of at least two people who have taken RP logs and published them to at least moderate success. Writing is, ultimately, a personal endeavor, and what works for you may not work for someone else. You can undoubtedly use RP to sharpen your writing, but I think it must be done with reasonable expectations.

I'm trying hard to get over the lack of motivation to RP. It's something that used to calm me and relax me. For some reason, over the last year, it's just something I haven't been able to motivate myself to do. I want to get over it, however. To that end I have Heroes and Villains and a Game of Thrones game I play on.

I'll say this, Ares does make it easier for me. I can't always sit down and RP for 3 or 4 hours. Being able to start a scene and pose when I'm able has worked wonders for getting me back into things.

My intention is to allow as much as we can. It'll be set a few years after the end of the Mandalorian Wars so there may be a bit of a stigma attached with the armor but that's about it. I haven't hammered out the exacts of the timeline just yet but it'll be set after the destruction of the Star Forge.

As for dealing with so-called "experts" I'm going to make it very clear that we are forging our own timeline and doing things our own way on the game. The source material should inspire creativity without being needlessly restrictive.

So, taking everything I've read into consideration, if a game had an IC Time policy that read something like what I've listed below be acceptable to most people?

Our IC time runs on a 1:1 ratio with time with the real world. That means if it's 3:48pm on May 16th on the East Coast in the real world then it is 3:48pm on May 16th in the game. That said, you should not freak out about what time of the day it is or even what day of the week. What's important is that it's "Early May" or "Mid-June" or whatever.

You should not feel constrained by the IC time. Not going to be around for IC Christmas because you're busy RL Christmas? Play it early. Missed a character's birthday and want to RP it with them? Go ahead. It's not going to break the game. In fact, Ares allows you to set what date and time your scene actually happens at. It defaults to the current IC time but you can set it to whatever you want. Want to play a flashback scene from 5 years ago? Go for it.

The only thing we ask is that you try not to set things too far in the future for continuities sake. We don't want to have to start retconning scenes because something you RPed a RL month ago but was set in the current IC time period conflicts with what is happening now.

I intend on changing the end of the Jedi Civil war a bit to better lead into our theme. I'm also hoping it sends a message that we're veering from canon so don't expect what has come before to come again here. I haven't decided exactly how I'm going to rework things but that is my intention.

I'm in the same boat. Without Ares I would not be able to RP at all anymore. It's also allowed me to bring some people into RP with that had never MU'd before and would likely never fit on a traditional game. So, for those reasons alone, I'm eternally grateful that Ares exists.

I could be off on this(which is why things aren't nailed down yet, I need to go back and confirm dates and what not) but I think The Mandalorian Wars ended when Revan defeated Mandalore and founded a new Sith Empire. The Mandalorian Wars lasted around 16 years I think. This led directly into the Jedi Civil War(Darth Revan and his new Sith Empire against the Jedi and Galactic Republic). This lasted around 5 years, I think, and ended with the destruction of the Star Forge.

What I like about this is that there's been 20 years of nearly non-stop war. It opens the door for a lot of possibilities centered around the tragedy of war, rebuilding, loss, and what it means to live in this new era. Plus, a new Sith threat looming on the horizon(which will be unique to our game).

I hope this helps!

@betternow I think you've just brought the conversation around full circle. The points you made were the very foundation of what we were talking about. We're all busy, we all have lives, we all have other hobbies, we all have other things we do, but we all still want RP and to have fun MUSHing.

The answer can't be, "let other people entertain me". That's the road that leads to stagnation and RP death. I think we're collectively trying to find ways to inspire people to find way to entertain each other. Even if it's just for a few hours.

Some people have been PMing me about the progress of the game so I thought I'd post about it here. For the time being progress has stopped. When I thought about everything that I would need to do to get this game to an "acceptable" level of play it was just too much. I'm in the process of reevaluating my online life and how I approach things and I'm honestly not sure where this project falls into things.

I do have a desire to run a game but I need to find a way to utilize Ares that does not involve needing to write a ton of code for the game and the web portal. Obsidian Reverie has inspired me with their approach of attaching character sheets to the web profiles and I'm experimenting on a private superhero game with that approach now. I won't lie, so far from my standpoint, it's been amazing. Instead of being buried in code that may, one day, help people create their character I'm able to just help people build their character and get to RPing. It's been very refreshing. And the players I've been trying it out with seem to really enjoy it as well.

Unfortunately, I'm not sure where that leaves this project(or any other at the moment for that matter). The only thing I can say for sure is that this project, in this incarnation, is no longer moving forward.

I thought I'd post an update here as well as on the MUX. I've decided to take the game down for the time being. My intention is to rebuild it on an Ares server to take advantage of the web integration and then relaunch the game in a few months. I really do like the game, I love the theme, and I've had a blast with the people that I've met there but I feel I can't maintain an open place and put in the effort to rebuild it from the ground up on another server at the same time. My hope is to relaunch the game sometime this summer. Thanks.

IMO...

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I think a L&L style game in Hell would be amazing. I think a L&L style game set in Olympus would be really neat too.

7th Sea: 1st or 2nd Edition? I'm still wrapping my head around 2nd Edition. Played it a few times with my TT group and it seemed to flow pretty well.

I'd love to see a Masters of the Universe game. With the upcoming MotU RPG I might see about making it happen.

@ixokai My understanding, and I could be wrong, is that any potential slayer born post-Willow's spell would be active. So anyone born after the show went off the air would become a Slayer at some point (age 12 or 13?) So there could have been new slayers popping up from the end of the show till now meaning slayer ages could range from 12 - 38 or so? Again, unless I'm misunderstanding how the spell worked? And even then we could always house rule it I suppose.