@somasatori I totally agree with this. Each character in the roster could have a set of links to the important world lore that drives their character to help people find what they need to know.

@Superbia I don’t recognize the username, and basic attempts to check their post history did not work, so shrug

I’m a person who often joins and becomes invested in a game on a whim - I can’t tell what the formula is, but if a game is hoping to attract people like me who just hop in without knowing someone, at least some percentage of the playerbase needs to feel open to interacting with, chatting with, getting excited about new characters and new people. Not every game has to be that - I don’t mind the existence of games that are built with a network-only approach and are meant for people who already have connections to have a good time together.

But as a new player approaching an open game, seeing people only rping with one or two others a lot sets off yellow flags that a game isn’t a place where people have the time or energy to open their circles to me. I don’t mind reaching out a lot when I’m in the shiny new excitement phase, but in order to feel welcome, it helps to see signs that it’ll be reciprocated.

I don’t think activity checks or a quota on interactions with people outside of your circle are meaningful solutions, because activity requirements can’t generate enthusiasm.I’ve roleplayed in forums like Dreamwidth where gamerunners often have monthly activity rules. The rules don’t actually stop a game from slowing down, or dying, or becoming a playground for one group. But I think the urge to implement them comes from the wish to have a particular game environment. Two people playing alone in a corner aren’t hurting anybody - but the more people who are doing that, the harder it is for new people to jump in and have a good time, and a lot of games want, at least in theory, new people to have an easy time joining, to buff up the population as people need to slow down or leave for various reasons.

And on a personal level, I find its important to my RP enjoyment to be open to new connections, because sometimes my old connections can’t RP any more! And it’s so much easier not to be bitter and discouraged if I’m not rebuilding my character’s network from scratch.

As I said elsewhere – if I had a single spoon to spare from Keys, I’d be over here, rolling up an arrogant Alphatian nobleman. Prince Haldemar, move over, there’d be a new explorer in town.

@somasatori All 2e merits are done. Everything was reorganized, I’ve updated the lookup_data.py to reflect the new groupings. If you want to drag stuff over and test it against main, feel free. I’m going to start working on the legacy merits next.

@InkGolem People like me but older and somehow worse.

@somasatori said in Everworld of Darkness:

I don’t really know enough about Demon to figure that one out.

God Machine divided by Zero and that basically nuked the Gauntlet, Demons are trying to build Infrastructure to re-stabilize things.

@somasatori said in Everworld of Darkness:

Sin-Eaters

… and Mummies, who also need the Underworld/Duat… but due to the shattered nature of reality, they are temporally locked to now, solving their time-travel shenanigans.

@somasatori said in Everworld of Darkness:

Stuff about Poles

Something something Exalted Creation something.

@somasatori said in Everworld of Darkness:

Prometheans

Always gotta do something about them tainting the land and drawing in people to kill them. It’s just the way of the MU world.

@Solstice said in Your first game?:

In hindsight, I was really waaaaay too young to be on the wild west internet of 1996

oof, saaaame.

I am not quite sure I remember which one was first, but it was either The Lion King MU* or Heroes and Villains.

hilariously I tried to apply to Project Infinity for literal years and one of the appstaff replied to one application something like “I just want to say, your writing has improved so much” and I was too embarrassed to admit that it was because I had been like 13 when I first started trying, lol

i think you’ve got three dials: game size, nuance/specificity, and staff involvement. Cranking any of these up or down is going to affect the others. You can (and should! if you want!) make a game that is highly specific in a historical or fictional setting, but doing so is going to turn down max players and probably increase staff involvement in direct relation. You can turn down staff involvement and let your players mostly self-police if the guardrails are broad and high enough, until that player size gets to a certain limit.

I think you can pull off most any kind of niche or historical setting if you are willing to accept and spend your time curating a small and like minded player base.

This is a community-building issue.

Okay, yeah, probably you can never have outright let’s-murder-each-other-on-sight factions and have it work. But why would you want to? If they only interact to fight, there is no reason for the opposing group to be PCs.

But stuff like “Green apple Fossoways hate red apple Fossoways and they’re each trying to be the ruling branch of the house,” and the deal where everybody’s trying to steal the McGuffin from whoever has it right now, can be fine fun.

It needs a supportive community to be fine, though. It works on private games because everybody there thinks everybody else’s feelings count and actively wants every other player to have a good time. When this trust is broken things crumble.

Which is no surprise. There are big differences between:

Dracula: “Well shit.”

Van Helsing: “Yeah, the dice were cruel to you! But that was great, loved the way you played it out, I had a blast.And you’ll get yours once you climb out of that hoiy-water-contaminated well.”

And:

Dracula: “Well shit.”

Van Helsing: “I understand that you’re very upset. In this essay I will explain how you are wrong and a problem…”

And:

Dracula: “Well shit.”

Van Helsing: “It sucks to suck.”

Also, yeah. There’s gonna be drama. There’s just gonna be drama. Making some space for the dramas of RPG-related fee-fees is part of gaming. Gamerunners and players can draw a line about how much space and what kind of expression of ye feels. But “never express any kind of upset about the game or your interactions with others on it” isn’t reasonable. Games nobody cares are not good games. You want players to be invested. Passions will rise. Characters don’t have to die for passions to rise.

Players in general and game runners in particular really ought to try to avoid drawing that line at who’s drama rather than what kind of drama. 

Drawing the line at a who is how you get bullshit like it not being ‘drama’ when Abelard raises a “Bridget refuses to compromise in RP!,” fuss, but when Bridget replies, “You refused to turn off your camera, you were obviously bluffing, I’m more afraid of proposed-betrayee I am of your threat, and I don’t even have the information you were trying to blackmail me to get,” somehow Bridget is the drama-creating problem.

@Jennkryst said in Character Death:

Taking a moment to think about it and remember that the L5R 20 questions includes ‘how should your character die’ because the idea of death is always in the back of their minds… Im wondering if that is a factor in the L5R MUs I’ve seen not doing terribly great for too long, or if addressing this and everyone going into it knowing there is supposed to be an almost romanticized view on a good/noble death… if that will somehow help it out? I dunno.

three cartoon characters are chained to a wall with the word death written on the bottom

I keep glancing here, and keep meaning to make a joke about how the address involves gaslighting, but then I don’t do it, so now you all get to see that train of thought.

@helvetica The menchies!!!

@MisterBoring I’m not sure if it does, but if so, it would probably take someone with more technical skill than I have to make it work. 🙂

I think I’ve got character generation where I want it now, so I decided to try modifying the dice plugin for the game. I’m pretty happy with how it turned out.

It keeps the core functionality of the original dice plugin; you can still roll whatever you want, but I added a ‘Roll DMarvel’ checkbox. When you check it, the plugin rolls DMarvel(3d6, but one die is special: rolling a 1 counts as a 6 and gives you a Fantastic result).

Roll Screen:
32bd7150-94c4-493f-9641-e5f02bad679f-image.png

Result:
33026141-b86b-43a0-bec5-e840407490a5-image.png

@Pavel said in Minigames in MUSHes:

@Muse said in Minigames in MUSHes:

@Pavel Or maybe a self limiting factor, like clues know how long since the last clue and will stay in hiding until it’s time again.

Just let me have my slap-upside-head tool okay. 😞

Fiiiiiine, but only because I’m a sucker for a sad face.

@Jenn if this was discord I’d respond with a laughing emoji. Holy shit my brain is rotted

@dvoraen said in MUing Snacks:

OH NO THEY’RE BACK AGAIN

@Tez is who they warned us about in math class.

a man in an orange sweater is pushing a shopping cart full of groceries

@Hobbie said in Best Games with Roster Characters?:

alpha strike in a Nova.

Something something disco ball.

Anyway travel times alone means everyone is probably part of the same mercenary group, or it’s gotta be set on Solaris or something. To say nothing of potential ‘whoops, cockpit was hit, you died, re-roll’ occurrences.

alt text

@RedRocket said in pvp vs pvp:

If the reason for the attack is lame

There was so much drivel that I ghosted right past this but jesus christ it’s a hell of a thing to double down, triple down after someone has politely asked you “hey can you don’t?” and admin has already had to use the mod voice.

Honestly, guy, leap into the sun.