It’s a privilege that can often feel like a punishment. I’ve done everything from applications to building to plot master to headwiz and I love, LOVE seeing people having fun and getting involved in things. I loved doing apps too, not only to help people really get what they were going for, but I think I called every problem player we ever had from their initial application/reaction to being asked to tweak things.

But it’s work. And I don’t know what’s popular now, it seems to flip flop back and forth, but I was always a firm believer in if you became staff you didn’t get XP for the stuff you ran. You could participate in things with your PCs and get XP, but unlike how PRP or volunteer GMs could be rewarded, that incentive went away when you ran things with your staffbit and you shouldn’t be running things on your PC at that point. The real reward was getting buy in from other players and getting them involved! And of course being able to dig into people’s sheets or backgrounds or plot notes or metaplot outlines or whatever that weren’t available to the general public.

While dealing with problem players is never, ever fun and no matter how hard you try there’s always going to be people that think you’re treating them unfairly, I still lean that it’s more privilege. It’s just the best feeling to entertain a grid full of players who keep coming back for more of your stories. To know that people are enjoying themselves and see them growing their own stories from seeds you threw out there or chasing a mystery that you put in a post one day that no one noticed for months. It’s just fun and when you have the time and bandwidth for it, worth the headaches that come with it.

@Tat @farfalla @tsar I’m sure Fantorith (he was so cool 😎) is somehow related to the belly-dancing sky-cow.

@Wizz said in Historical Games Round 75:

Just re: feeling dismissed in this thread, I do feel like it’s important to point out that any time you have several people who feel deeply passionate about a topic but are diametrically opposed in their opinion, you’re going to feel a little dismissed regardless of intent of the other party.

To be clear, I am not feeling this way because someone disagrees. There have been a number of people (among them the ones KarmaBum quoted) who have argued the opposing position quite kindly. Other comments, especially taken together, have made at least two of us feel dismissed. But as @shit-piss-love says, I’m not interested in scouring the thread and pointing fingers at specific comments. The point has been made, and folks can either keep it in mind when posting disagreements or not.

@icanbeyourmuse Sin Eaters win because they all trigger off social/willpower win/lose effects, because nobody ever uses social/mental damage tracks.

@mangosplitz said in How to mitigate Bleed (player vs character emotional response):

So it’s not like we need to have staff actually DO anything to help

This. When I talk about this issue, there’s often a response as if the suggestion of being supportive means ‘turn the MU into a mental health clinic’ when what I mean is, give your dial a twist towards ‘supportive friend’ and away from ‘cop and judge.’ If somebody at my tt game is near-tears we don’t all start in on how they’re too attached and it’s a flaw in them as a player, we meet them where they’re at. This actually takes no more energy than telling them they’re doin’ it wrong would.

@Testament Oh, of course not. Though sometimes the actions of player characters make it inevitable - depending on the kind of game you’re running.

In D&D, for instance, death is on the table at my table. It’s not creative per see, but it gives the world a verisimilitude that adds to the satisfactory nature of a story. In the view of my players and me, of course.

In case anyone needs the download link, it is at: https://riverdark.net/atlantis/downloads/

@Cornpopped THANK YOU

@Testament

Shameless plug: There’s a lot of really cool worldbuilding and premise and so far I haven’t been annoyed by a single person I’ve dealt with.

I wanted to offer something of substance instead of the glib comment that was originally here. Like every other game, Infinite Adventures has its pros and cons:

PRO: The playerbase is friendly and engaging on the whole, and a healthy number of them seem interested in running plots, creating RP for others without overtly cliquish behavior, and so forth.

PRO: Uranus in particular is, staff-wise, very invested in handling player relations issues and generating RP. For the cape circuit specifically, he does these things on a level noticeably beyond the norm for games these days.

PRO: The game is quite active thus far, with RP requests often being answered quickly and players in my admittedly limited experience being plenty open to being directly approached for play.

PRO: It is not required that players write apps from scratch: the staff will handle write ups upon request, allowing appers to make adjustments afterwards to taste. Given that the app process has been in a state of flux for most of the game’s life thus far, this is a definite boon for anyone who isn’t too particular about how their apps are written up.

CON: There doesn’t seem to be much in the way of organization or consistency behind the scenes. It’s not ENTIRELY unusual on these games to be asked to adjust things on already approved sheets days or weeks after the fact in the early phases of a game, as app requirements are finalized; it is however unusual for an approved, active character to be abruptly and without conversation be taken from their player and set as an NPC despite the player having numerous plot irons in the fire, and despite the admin in charge of their sphere claiming a lack of interest in said removal. It seems as if communication could use some shoring up, so as to keep everyone - staff AND players - on the same page.

CON: Because the game is new and has experienced a rapid growth over its brief lifespan thus far, it seems as if the head administrator in particular is in over his head, performing jobs that he isn’t especially suited to or comfortable with rather than delegating to the half a dozen or so other members of staff. Generally, I would suggest being very circumspect in dealing with him.

Overall, given that the pickings are pretty slim for active games that are not run primarily for the benefit of mediocre adult children and their toxic friends - as Heroes Assembled, the other major choice that doesn’t come with a ton of additional qualifiers - it would be difficult NOT to recommend Infinite Adventures. Despite a rocky experience in places, it’s overall got a lot of potential for people interested in mixed theme comic book roleplay with a ~Year 2 bent, and I recommend giving it a look and seeing what the playerbase has to offer; just bear in mind that the management still seems to be working some things out.

My confession is that in the past two years, I’ve played on almost every game, but I rarely last longer than two weeks.

I just like trying new things.

Also, funny story, there’s one game that I’d like to try, but its canon contains real-world events that I was a part of IRL. Which means I’m technically canon in that game. So I think I’m a little too close to the source material to play there, haha.

CP: Red is actually pretty easy to turn into a MU* system. I’m actually sort of working on this but haven’t gotten very far and had to reset my server a few times. But! I would happily work with someone who wants to help code stuff up. I even have ideas to take care of gear, xp, and other things that’d normally go to staffers/queues.

Feel free to reach out if you are interested, and I’ve currently got an Ares box running through digital ocean.

I wrote over a hundred descs of characters on Arx and some of the ones I liked best when I wrote them have been changed now because players like to customize – but I still love Eiran’s maybe the best:

Here is a portrait of Eiran Laurent: sprawled long-limbed and flung out in an attitude of perfect despair, dark hair unkempt and limpid eyes full of deepest wist. No; here he is, lean and strong in a forward charge, a shield on one muscular arm and a mace swung up in the other, his even features written with battle-mad delight. Try again; swaying forward on his toes, mesmerized by an enchanting beauty in one face or another, his lush lips pouty with earnest need. All of these are Eiran. His dynamism is what makes him striking, rather than any perfection of his looks, which are pleasant but unremarkable – except for the languid depths of those clear and velvet eyes.

What? You mean this wasn’t a place to blow my own horn? Sorry, I’m a Leo, everywhere is a place to do that. Don’t blame me, blame the stars.

@Griatch said in Yay AresMUSH 1.0.0:

What are your plans for Ares post-1.0?

For now just continuing the incremental improvements based on player and game-runner requests. A dedicated mobile app would be nice someday. Beyond that, it’s just vague pipe dreams.

@Arkandel

I know of an instance of that that’s in development right now (outside of muds, where that’s included out of the box).

@Twinkle Ahh, gotcha.

Thanks. A shame, but it’s nice to know the place went down gracefully rather than crashing and burning.

@Jennkryst

Answers to your thoughts:

You will have to hand write your own custom rules for PVP situations, as PVP actually flies in the face of the game design. One of the core conceits of the game is that only one person should roll in any given action, and that it should almost always be the player.

I don’t feel that would be a good idea, since almost all of the cyphers have a level that is variable. Two cyphers of similar level have a similar effect, but one takes up more space in your “cypher slots” sounds like something potential players would complain about in the long run. If the staff is doing their diligence to create situations where cypher turnover is happening regularly, there’s no need to put further constraints on number of cyphers owned / used.

Nope. Artifacts are not cyphers, so they should factor into that. That said, Artifacts are meant to be rare, so again, if staff is doing their diligence on that, you don’t have to worry about a lot of them existing, especially if you use plot to write them out of the story. (That big laser gun artifact you found is actually the power supply for this one thing over here, and when you install it, you can’t get it back. Sorry.)

Also nope. See staff doing a responsible job of controlling the flow of these things into the game. (Also if it’s basically the Numenera equivalent of a Ford Focus, do we really care if there are bunch of them?)

Love love love love love this game. Highly recommend.

Very async-friendly for those of us who are being bamshangalanged six ways til’ Sunday by a hectic RL.