@Arkandel YES!

Thank you all for going the extra mile to move a LONG hijack out of a peaceful forum and into the rowdy forum.

@TNP Howl

@crawfish Or you can be an overachiever and do both!

laugh cry

Seriously though. Thank you for that reminder. It is very much appreciated.

@Faraday I’m not a kimono expert or even novice but I can tell at a moderate glance that’s AI, too. The sleeves, and the way the folds don’t match above and below the belt. That’s the first thing I look at, making sure the borders of things make sense/line up. AI is not good at it.

fatbearlove

THE ONLY BRACKETS I LOVE.

Alrighty, no default attributes at all, all rolls will call for attr+skill.

… somehow.

Oh look the guy who was clearly posting in bad faith, came back, registered a new account, and made another bad faith post.

You guys were right to ban. 100%.

@Tez Yeah I’ll poke it!

I think a lot of expectations seem reasonable on the surface–if games happened in a vacuum or were run by robots. They do not and are not.

I think everyone is happier in the long run if when they notice that they do not get a response in the amount of time before they start to feel resentful and this seems to be the rule rather than the exception either they need to accept that and play with what they have or it is time to move on.

Staying while mad and steeping in resentment poisons the experience even when it is your turn, and can also affect everyone you are around too. It doesn’t really matter why. If the Could/Should isn’t happening for you, it probably isn’t personal (unless thats your usual experience across different gamerunners and genres, in which case perhaps some introspection is needed). But it is good to make some realistic expectations shifts in how much mental energy and time you want to invest in a game where for whatever reason there’s a mismatch in what you get vs what you feel you’re giving.

And sometimes players need time off to recover from a previous bad experience elsewhere. Few things kill staff or storytelling morale (or player morale) than a player vomiting game trauma dumping all over them and having a huge chip on their shoulder about how other people have wronged them elsewhere and are unable to interact without mentioning it frequently.

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.

Hogwarts Express.

@hellfrog said in Mod Voice:

I personally just want to go back to a world where I never really thought about who was mod. Mu privilege.

Alas, that veil of innocence has been torn away permanently.

I just got an email from livejournal for a pern lj I kept in 2007 (apparently a ‘friend’ is celebrating their 15 year lj anniversary). Pern mushes and livejournal. I did sooo much writing associated with those games.

I think pre-planning can be fun, and even a Good Idea, especially if you’re looking for something that’s potentially intense or sensitive. Being on the same, explicitly stated page about what the expectations are for a connection isn’t bad!

But it ultimately does come down to being able to trust another player, because unfortunately, people will absolutely agree to X while wanting Y and figure they can just “persuade you later”.

@Ominous said in Lords and Ladies Game Design:

@Rucket Could you elaborate on what you mean by “basic House development”?

Apologies at the insane delay I don’t check this place daily. Anyway I liked the basic concept that Arx had of domains and I would enjoy seeing projects people in the house could work on to improve areas of their domain over time. I don’t know that I have any super specific things in mind off the top of my head right now.

Keeping evidence of supernatural stuff from being revealed to mortals at large impossible? People will leak all the details?

Sure would be a shame if an omnipotent being were to decide they didn’t want any evidence to be found, because of mysterious ways…

EDIT: Wrong thread, my bad.

@Jennkryst said in The Rings of Power - Discussion:

Tangentially related, FLGS had their annual Great Pumpkin sale, where I picked up the One Ring core book, so now I am almost REQUIRED to gripe about how we need a Middle Earth MU. Preferably with the lewdest of Elves, to annoy @Arkandel.

I’ve played on Shang, so I shall say no more.

I was thinking about this earlier today (literal shower thoughts), or a little bit in parallel. About what characterized the games I’ve felt the most success on. Disregarding basic things like “I need there to be people around to RP with whose RP styles and schedules generally mesh with mine” and “I need staff to not be creepers and not allow creepers” – those will go without saying. But I realized that one of the biggest things for me in the DNA of a game is:

A sense of discovery.

This is achieved on a small scale with just characters getting to know each other, because that’s two people on a lifelong discovery of new details about each other. But what really thrills my brain is when there are mysteries and unknowns to the world on some level, and part of playing on that particular game is figuring out more about those.