Posts made by ZombieGenesis

I think, often, it's not bad players that ruin things it's bad people. Over the last year and a half or so I've been RPing almost exclusively with people who are new to the hobby. Their RP was, by any standard on this board I'm sure, bad. That doesn't mean the experience was bad and, over time, they got better. Too many times I've seen new players on games chased off because they were "bad RPers".

I find most new players are very open to constructive criticism. That is generally not what they encounter. They get ostracized, mocked, and ridiculed right off of games. This can be particularly true of someone trying to stretch their RP wings by trying to play something against what they are in real life.

Maybe that dude playing a gay man is a bit over the top. Sure. Maybe it's because he's playing the character as he's seen it portrayed on various TV shows or movies. Or maybe he's just inexperienced. Maybe he's just an asshole trying to portray a caricature. I think the real problem is most people on MUs jump right to the last option and lash out at the player.

So when we ask "why don't we see more diversity on games?" or "why don't we see more new people entering the hobby" I think it boils down to this right here. There are people who will come to this hobby to explore RP. I've seen it. I've seen people new to RPGs in general excited to be able to RP online. I've seen people come from MMO RP servers excited to be able to stretch their wings textually in ways they can't in the MMO. I've also seen these players chased right off of games because they did something that set off someone's "radar" and made them suspect that the new player was "this" or "that" or "whatever the hell else".

TL;DR Version: Fewer new people try new things because they get burned for it by jaded RPers who assume the worst from every experience they have.

I love that we're living in a new golden age of board games. I hate that I have to dedicate a whole room to the kick starter games that I have/am getting. I just recently got my Gotham City Chronicles season 2 stuff and I'm looking at the Zombiecide and Bloodborne KS games that are coming in a few months and I'm seriously pondering building an add-on to my house.

My wife tried creating a character on a game, her first game that wasn't private/run by me. She made a lesbian and was chased off the first night by people eye-rolling and mocking her OOCly as "clearly another man creating a lesbian sex beast". It was truly repulsive to watch and pushed her away from playing on any other public games. People cry about being inclusive but, in the end, I think most people in this hobby are happier just to sit back, mock, and feel generally superior to those around them.

The good thing about most of the wrestling games out there is that they're 1+ players. If interested here's a list of the games I can think of off the top of my head.

Champions of the Galaxy(futuristic sci-fi wrestling)
Legends of Wrestling(tons of licensed wrestlers from every age of wrestling)
Face to the Mat Pro Wrestling(fast paced modern day style wrestling game with original wrestlers)
Various Downey Games(all modern using real wrestlers, various types and styles of play)

Those all cost various levels of $$$. You are a few older games you can find PDFs for if you look(such as Superstar Pro Wrestling). The game I've been playing the most of recently is Squared Circle Wrestling Simulator. It's a bit expensive an the book is a horrid mess to read but it's a solid system and easily hackable. I enjoy it quite a bit.

Anyway, I do think a wrestling game could work mechanically and could be fun. I'm just not sure how many players it would draw, sadly.

Here are the blueprints for the Enterprise D. Hope it helps!

I think a Mortal Kombat game could stand totally on its own as an action adventure game. The world is so diverse and layered that it'd make the perfect RPG setting.

As for a wrestling game, I agree it'd have to be totally kayfabe(wrestling is real, not scripted). Have you played Filsinger Games Champions of the Galaxy? It's a sci-fi wrestling game set in the future where wrestling is not only the #1 form of entertainment but a lot of space faring species use it to settle military conflicts.

The current WWE 2k20 game has a few "alternate universe" game modes. I'm currently running a universe mode where everything is horror themed. Downloaded a bunch of horror movie characters and used the in-game assets to create a horror themed arena(complete with zombie referee) and stuff.

What would be the perfect setting? A modern world where the supernatural and super science fiction exist? A fantasy realm(elves, dwarves, kings, queens, etc)? Far future science fiction? Lots of options I think.

Anyway, on such a game I would like to see a combat system of some sort. Even a simplified version of the Know Your Role RPG could be cool(WWE RPG from the early 2000's that used the D&D 3E open license that was, shockingly, not too bad). If we're gonna go kayfabe I don't want to know the results of the match before we head into it. I think it could add a lot of fun and drama to the "match" scenes.

Man, The Street Fighter RPG. My friends and I had a blast with that in High School. I've lost a lot of stuff along the way but, somehow, I still have all the books they ever put out for that game.

I've thought about it many times, actually. I've played pen and paper wresting games(simulators and RPGs) since the 80s and always wondered why there wasn't at least an attempt at a wrestling game(or a Street Fighter or Mortal Kombat) game. I've actually thought about it again recently because of the resurgence of play by web wrestling games(the IWA, which has been around since the 80s, Turnbuckle Smash, TZW, The Fantasy Wrestling Alliance, etc).

Apple TV is producing some pretty good stuff.

Defending Jacob is a pretty good murder mystery/family drama.

Mythic Quest is a fun irreverent comedy produced by the same people that do It's Always Sunny.

And Servant was okay. Not my cup of tea but I could see how others might really like it. Rupert Grint was amazing in it.

My work has the site blocked but I'll check it out when I get home. I like the PDF option as it lets me secure the sheets. People submit a form fillable, once approved I print it as a non-form fillable and upload to the site.

For me, I have no idea what myth-weavers is. I'll have to check it out. Thanks for the info.

A sad reality of my work schedule means that I'm limited to RPing almost exclusively on Ares games thanks to the web portal and being able to pose every few hours instead of every few minutes. Unfortunately, there are not many Ares games out there. Beyond that, I think most people are spoiled by the FS3 system which comes fully integrated with the mush and web portal. Sure, there are several plugins for RPGs but they are mush side only with no web portal integration.

Obsidian Reverie did something I found rather interesting(even if they don't seem to do it consistently). They have no coded systems that I'm aware of, aside from the standard +roll, instead they store sheets as links on the character bios. I thought this was interesting but did not like the google drive approach so I coded up a snippet of code that supports inline PDFs on the web portal.

My question is..would a lack of integrated systems and reliance on a web-only character sheet keep you from playing on a game? You'd have a +roll system to support whatever RPG you're using(both in-game and on the web portal) but no +sheet, no +attack, no +<whatever>.

During the quarantine, I've used it so my TT group(and some others) can still play Pathfinder online and it's worked out really well. I'm just curious about what a broader base of people may think. Also, I'm hoping that it may prove to be a viable option for people who are looking to get new games started up.

Been hankering some sort of Gothic fantasy type RP. Something along the lines of Game of Thrones meets Ravenloft or Vampire the Dark Ages or something. Wondering if anyone knows of anything like that out there?

So this is a game I've run privately for about a year now. We've had a lot of fun with it. We've lost some private players over the last few months and some folk thought I should see about recruiting others. So, I've decided to just try taking it public.

Blood Falls is a cooperative horror game set in the 1980s. The town of Cherry Falls is a fictional city situated in Cape Cod, Massachusetts. We run on Ares and use the FS3 RPG system. I intend for the game to largely be a sandbox where I empower players to run plots for their characters.

I'm calling this a soft opening because we may very likely fail here. Right now I'm the sole staffer and that's obviously not sustainable, even in a sandbox game. What I'm hoping will happen is that some folk will come over and be inspired to want to help out in some way. Be it just greeting new players, helping review apps(which shouldn't be too difficult), or helping run plots with or for other players.

Anyway, if anyone is interested we can be found at Blood Falls MUSH. Connection information, further theme info, and all that good stuff can be found there. I'm Transformers on the game.

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.

That's an interesting idea, flipping the time so that it's 6 month out of line(June in December or whatever).

I didn't really think too hard on the actual ratio but I would imagine either 1.5 or 2 would be the slowest you'd want to go while still maintaining any real semblance of IC time at all.

So I've seen some discussion about era games(games set in the 80s or 90s or even the 1880s or 1890s). My question is this, on such a game how would you prefer IC time to be handled? On a 1:1 ratio so that the month(and maybe even day) it is in RL is reflected on the game or at a slower pace so that the game isn't rushed?

I'm on the fence though I lean towards a slower ratio. I like the idea of being able to celebrate the holidays in-game as we're celebrating them IRL. It feels weird for it to be Christmas on a game but it's only May IRL.

That said, for an era game I feel it's important not to shoot through the era you're looking to enjoy. Time goes by fast and I think if you want to enjoy the summer of '84(ala this season of American Horror Story) doing so over a month or three doesn't seem like such a bad idea.

Just curious how everyone else feels.

I almost set a mortal only game set in 1984 but I was pretty sure I'd be the only one excited to play there.

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.