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Tez

From a friend, found @ https://bsky.app/profile/jasonrainville.bsky.social/post/3lupy2j3juc2o

Ozzy and Hulk Hogan passing each other on the way to heaven and hell surprised where each one of them is headed

Pyrephox

MOD VOICE: Hey, all. Do not put up people’s Discords, emails, real names, or any other non-game identifying information on the board.

Pyrephox

@Pavel said in MU Peeves Thread:

@MisterBoring To be honest, much of the time I feel that games have grids purely because games have grids.

I’ve also seen (and been a part of) arguments that say if you want to restrict who can play in a room, you must take your scene off the grid – and I imagine staff would want to limit numbers on any particular plot related scene so they don’t get overwhelmed.

Ugh.

In one of my few stints as staff, had a couple of players throw a passive aggressive fit because I wouldn’t let them join a GM scene run on-grid: it was the climax scene of a plot that had been running with a specific group for a couple of weeks, and it was on grid because a prominent feature in a room’s desc was the focal point of the plot. It just really killed my enjoyment of that plot (and, honestly, game). Worse yet: I’d run private/tailored scenes for these players ON GRID before this, and they had no problem with it then, of course.

So, yeah, there are some incentives NOT to use a grid room, even if I prefer it, because I do not want to either have everything open to everyone or deal with people whining about being excluded.

Pyrephox

I’ll also say that you really do have to separate out two concepts:

In-character conflict, which may be between player characters

and

Player vs player conflict, where the PCs are mainly proxies for beating ‘the other guy’ on an ooc level.

I’ve had far more rich, rewarding, and intense conflict and competition between characters when there is no OOC masque, when players OOCly communicate about stakes, outcomes, desires, than when that conflict is treated as a competition between players. Like, I’ve had intrigue and espionage plots/scenes that could only happen BECAUSE we were talking OOC and cool with things happening. Also, being able to chat with people OOC about how we see this conflict helps me identify at a much earlier stage if this is a player who can handle conflict, or who it’s just not going to be fun trying to have these sorts of scenes with.

A secondary issue is something I learned as a newbie GM and which has never steered me wrong in the days since: “You can’t solve an OOC problem with an IC solution.” If the problem is “this player is playing their character in a way that makes the game unfun for other people”, then punishing/beating up/demoting/killing their character is never the solution. Having an adult conversation with them OOC about the effect their play is having on others’ fun is, and if that conversation doesn’t go well, then removing them from the game is.

Killing someone’s character because you’re OOCly annoyed with the player is one of the ways PvP gets real toxic, real fast. It’s not ‘policing the community’, it’s just taking your frustration out on someone who you usually know that you can beat and have often taken every measure to make sure that fight is as one-sided and humiliating as possible, because you’re there to ‘teach the player a lesson’, not to have fun with them.

Pyrephox

I’d say…make a game. Make it how you want it, and hopefully it will attract the people that you want.

Currently, no one in the MU* community wants to run a strong PvP WoD game, and there are a whole lot of reasons for that, but only one cure: be the person who takes it on. If you don’t want that, or can’t find help to do that, then it sort of says its own story about whether that game is wanted by the community as it currently exists.

There are some PvP-heavy MUDs out there, there are, as you say, MMOs you can model design on. But the only time a game gets made is if someone has a real passion for doing the work of making that particular game. If you don’t like the games other people have passion for, then your only true remedy is to invest your own passion. Do it. Do it right. Create something you can be proud of.

Tez

@Cygnus They are talking about the video games you noted such as CoD. They aren’t talking about PvP games.

Tez

This is on Game Gab. We’re here to, in theory, be constructive. If you want people to have a reasonable conversation about PvP, maybe don’t call all PvE games bland games filled with elderly romance novelists. Like?? It’s not a PvP conversation. It’s a conversation about PvP.

Tez

Forked off pvp stuff by request to https://brandmu.day/topic/583/pvp-vs-pvp

Pyrephox

@ten You can pry my em-dashes from my cold, dead hands. I’ve been (over)using them longer than LLMs have been in existence!

Tez

@Ashkuri said in MU Peeves Thread:

Why is there a concern with “we have to be fair” to people who are toxic to staff and other players, totally obnoxious, or otherwise a bad fit?

Every day I am grateful that the community has shifted away from this batshit behavior. IF THE VIBES ARE RANCID, BYE BYE.

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