Florid Answer: I try to see if someone else is trying to push a specific storyline, and fall into that as best I can. If nobody’s pushing their stories or one of the game’s plots, then I’ll try and drive things around what my character has going on. Ultimately, I play “yes and” and try and have fun with it. Actual Truthful Answer: If I don’t hyperfocus on something in the RP, I’m basically a walk-on extra.

@Thionoxial said: or, for that matter, an actual X-Com mush. But VINTAGE. Like you X-com call of cthulhu bullshit while pretending to be ordinary people in 1940s noir chicago or whatever. I got a few likes to the below similar ideas, so there is at least a modicum of interest amongst this crowd. Ominous said: A setting in the X-Files, Delta Green, SCP, Control, Triangle Agency, etc. vein. You could even include World of Darkness stuff, but the setting would mostly from the viewpoints of a government agency of “Hunters” and the occasional Mage, Vampire, Werewolf, whatever that decided to work with the agency. The server is mostly PVE as PCs work together on missions they take, but the server could also can go the Paranoia TTRPG route by having some NPCs and PCs belong to secret societies, have ulterior motives, be given contrary secret missions from the Directorate, etc. to keep people a little uneasy and wary. Operations could be investigations into weird shit, neutralization of weird shit (more tactics and combat oriented), covert ops (cause weird shit to happen so we get a funding increase), etc. Ominous said: @somasatori said in Missed Settings: @bear_necessities said in Missed Settings: Take the guiding principles behind a West Marches game for this: make the standard town area be your home base where people get refueled and are generally safe. The plots and scenes run by GMs/Keepers/player-STs-if-you-allow-PrPs are where the danger comes in. All of the in-town stuff is handled by players and any player ST reps you have, the only staff involvement in plot stuff happens when you assemble investigatory teams to search out the Mythos lore. You wouldn’t be running a town MUSH, the players would just be doing their social RP and whatnot while you occasionally (weekly or semi-weekly basis) come in to run mythos stories. This is what I was going to say. In my vision of the game, the base the agents are stationed at is like Los Alamos for the Manhattan Project, Groom Lake (Area 51), or something. The base is the town and has facsimiles (bars, restaurants, a theater, etc. staffed by soldiers or their family members) and no one leaves except for missions, until they and their family, if any, are “decommissioned”. Mages, vampires, werewolves, etc. can’t be decommissioned; well, they can, but the agency uses the sun, silver bullets, etc. instead, which probably adds to the uneasiness people have around their supernatural allies. Just how allied are they, when there is no opt out option?

I refer to resolution systems outside of the standard resolution system that rely on player skill as “mini-games” like in video game design. I think of things like Yahtzee Locks in OSR D&D or using the Mastermind board game to resolve code breaking or hacking computers.

congratulations, you all passed age verification.

@renaveleigh Naturally.

@Imagicka I’m sure @Jihgfed will eventually chime in, but it was not cancelled! About 25 people showed up to his in person presentation!

@Jihgfed Yay, glad it went well! Thanks for spreading the word about the hobby!

@Ominous said in When is the last time you played?: To find out how the story resolves? Just because everyone knows all the details of a setting doesn’t mean they know how it plays out. Quite. If the PCs have agency you can’t know how the story will resolve because you don’t know what they will do. It’s not a ‘I don’t care because I already how will things play out’ issue, it’s a potential-cheating issue. Like how we had to make up new monsters for our HS D&D campaign because one player would read the Monstrous Compendium and then somehow his character knew the weaknesses of every monster. If the PCs don’t have agency and are just watching NPCs and weather cause events to unfold, then yeah, they will lose interest if they know what’s going to happen by reading the game lore pages. But they will probably lose interest without reading the lore pages, too, because they probably think reading novels is a lot less frustrating than RPing as a character who is utterly incapable of affecting the world, and that if all you can do is watch, most published novelists produce better stories than most MUSH STs.

@Jumpscare The short-desc stuff is what I was meaning. I forgot to elaborate my thought in the previous post, but that’s exactly how it worked in a few of the RPIs I played.

Our latest plot has wrapped up! The wingleader of the rogue dragonriders was killed in battle. [image: 1781799742253-fiery-shitsplosion.jpg] The ambitious goldrider behind it all has been defeated and imprisoned while her dragon waits to lay her eggs. The Weyrs are still navigating the sustainability and resource-sink of this arrangement, as well as how exactly they want to hold her and her supporters accountable. (There already aren’t enough dragons, and the rest of the world does need them to survive.) The next leg of our rogue dragonrider plot begins to kick off in August, and the next hatchings are slated for early July and mid-August. For anybody on the fence, it’s a good low pressure time to ease into the theme.

I tend to be (I hope) rather nice, understanding and malleable as a player. I tend to yes and for the most part. Which is how one of my chars got married in a pub on a quasi-maybe-date. It leads to some great RP. I also try to go towards the funny and just see what happens. That said. I have also played a very arrogant full of himself asshole. He was a great character to play, but he also had money and power behind him so it made him more than a little insufferable. I would OOC disclaimer that as the pilot of my char, I could come up with a reason for him to be there. I can’t guarantee it’s going to be enjoyable for a few different reasons. I was also willing to tone down or full send the jerkfaceness depending on the OOC person and I did check in a lot, BUT the char was designed a certain way. If you weren’t part of his chosen few, you weren’t worthy of air in his eyes. I still had amazing RP and one of his IC best friends started as one of his nemesis at the beginning. It means I can see the ‘my guy’ as also writing for the the story line and where/how your char fits into the story.

@MisterBoring said in Non-toxic PvP: Also, if you approach IC conflict in a fully RP MU (so a MUSH or MUX or whatever) as though it’s a round of all slappers in Goldeneye, I would suggest that you’re in the wrong place and would better be served by a PvP MUD. I promise you I am in the right place lol. Also - my bros and I never demanded no contact orders from our parents after a round of GoldenEye slappers. So maybe we had it right after all? @Kestrel said in Non-toxic PvP: There are players who enjoy playing weird little gremlins or satirical characters they see as totally separate from themselves, where they get to have fun at that character’s expense. This is me. @Kestrel said in Non-toxic PvP: …is basically a service you’re providing other players… you’re welcome.

@Wikibara said in Tales of Zalanthas: @Juniper It’s for people who want to live in both denial and sadness simultaneously, I guess. Ah. Marriage.

Not a scene, but I have to give shoutouts to Arx staff because multiple action responses to me led to some of the most impactful character development I’ve ever had in MU*ing.

Big things for me: Is the house rule clearly explained so I know how it is likely to affect my play? Does it pass the “smell test”? Which is to say, when I read the rule, can I see what it’s trying to do, do I agree with what it’s trying to do, and do I think it will actually accomplish that? (And, honestly? WoD/CoD generally DOES need a little more houseruling than it gets when trying to blend spheres that have conflicting powers/themes/foci.) Do I think it’ll be fun and fair to all players? If those three things are a yes, then I’m willing to run with it. When you’re talking about big changes–adding or removing or completely rehauling a system like pledges or whatever–then I do want the new rules to maintain the theme and appeal of the game for me. Like, HR rules to streamline making spirits and how they interact with the world from the rather complicated setup in CoD? Sure, I’m in, as long as spirits are still CoD spirits in recognizable ways.

@Pavel right and i think it’s better to focus on creating culture/implementing rules that determine how those systems are utilized rather than scrapping a nice thing

@bear_necessities I think it’s more just a clash of expectations. Some people see async as merely a “last resort” when you can’t sync up to play live, but still expect a degree of responsiveness to get the scene done. For example, even back when folks were doing async with LiveJournal or Google Docs, it could be considered rude to let a pose go three days without a response. At that point, it’s not really about syncing up timezones and can start to feel more like the other player just doesn’t care enough to reply, isn’t engaged in the scene, etc. (Or they, aka me, just have ADHD and forgot the scene exists. ) Other people (including those who are influenced by other, slower RP modalities like forum RP, storium, etc.) might not even think twice about going days between poses.

@hellfrog and me

@Third-Eye said in Paid Role-Playing: The idea of dealing with players who think they’re a paying ‘customer’ always gets a legit, IRL, full-body shudder out of me when this comes up. Yeah. I think we have problems with players and staff viewing the games as transactional when are meant to be reciprocal, and making them literally transactional would make it worse.

My mentality is “I’m here for a good time and maybe a long time.” If I’m not interested in what’s happening, I just kinda…wander off. Or, if I really like the place, I’ll try to make my own fun right up until someone tells me “I’m doing it wrong.” Which is basically what happened with AoA and Cujo. Right now I’m between games and just waiting to see if one pops up that looks more interesting than just booting up the PlayStation. I don’t really feel any drive to ride a game into the sun.