Does Anyone Even Care?
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So there’s some interesting work done by social scientists on romantic relationships that, while they probably don’t track directly, I think they have strong parallels with Mushing and people’s relationship to a game/the people who play there, specifically John Gottman at the Relationship Research Institute.
The two things I think track best to MUs are these:
- A ratio of positive:negative interactions during conflict
- A ratio of successful:unsuccessful “bids for connection”
You can’t expect a game to provide a connection every single time you want one, but there is some ratio where you feel like generally speaking you’re easily able to get plugged into things when you want to, and below that, it starts to feel like it’s quite hard, even if ‘most’ times you actually are successful.
Gottmann’s numbers for couples are 5:1 and 20:1 respectively to predict a successful relationship. I think the standards are probably higher for a romantic relationship vs a game, but I put the numbers to illustrate that the gap needs to be pretty large to stave off a perceived feeling of ‘this is actually quite difficult’ from creeping in.
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Hi, my name is RightMeow and I hyper focus.
I have done both. I have stayed until a game is done, the doors are closed and people are dismissed. I have also wandered away. I wish there was some magical reason that I left places or didn’t even start them when I looked into them. I think a lot has to do with time. When I first started, I was working from home. I had time. I didn’t have as many obligations as I do now. Now, I went back to school. I am in management with odd hours to fill gaps. I am investing in people around me far more and investing in a game sometimes just feels tiring.
Previous games I have left reasons (not games they didn’t do anything wrong).
I didn’t feel connected to the story line. I felt like it was done in a way that I couldn’t break into it, but only certain people could. They were quested out and only X number could quest out on it. No bad vibes to the people, for sanity one has to lock down the number - but then they progressed and I felt not so progressed and then lost on how to get into it without seeming like a pest.
The game closed while I was on my annual holiday hiatus (I work retail management - I’m barely eating and sleeping let alone hobby-ing).
I adored the people I was playing with, but the game runners had a very very very specific vision in their heads about how the game should be run and how characters should act. It felt more like a novel than an interactive performance. It was also locked to 1:1 time and you had to achieve certain things in age, experience, etc that a young rostered char would take RL years to even break into. It was disheartening, but while there was story - I could overlook it. Then all the people I was writing stories with left.
However, that said. I do try to stay around until I can’t (I even check in at Arx from time to time). This also shadows who I am as a fundamental person though. I have a hard time giving up on people and always thinking they changed, etc. So that is more who I am then the game I’ve hyperfocused and locked in on.
Leaving just tends to be that I respect they can run the game how they see fit and I respect myself to know when it won’t work out for me. — although, I adore and miss writing stories with you. Even when someone gives dark visions of my poor teddy bear being ripped apart like a monster. (haha)
I think another struggle for me is the platform. I feel with Ares, it’s hard for me to ‘walk the grid’ and come across organic random RP. It’s scheduled and it’s strange for me (I’m old) to ask to join as I still sort of view them as private scenes and I tend to respect people want to play with their people.
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If a game hits for me I tend to stick with it for the long haul, at least if Something doesn’t happen (I also bounce off places that aren’t for me pretty quickly). I get more invested in characters over time as they and their IC connections develop. It’s part of why the 3 Month Bubble is so frustrating for me as both as a player and a staffer. It’s reality, I’ll just never enjoy it.
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@RightMeow said in Does Anyone Even Care?:
Leaving just tends to be that I respect they can run the game how they see fit and I respect myself to know when it won’t work out for me.
An understated fundamental skill. Anyone that knows how to do this is the real MVP.
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I am a stay-er, and I thought a lot about why that is, and I think most of it is just particular to me and how I operate. I have never played on a game I was not invited to, and once I am established on a game, I don’t even think about looking for a new one.
When I had more free time, I’d try out another game if I was invited, but these days I know that I only really have time for one game at a time. For better or worse, history says that means whatever game I’m playing on at that time until that game shuts down or I quit over sexual harassment (sad lol).
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@bear_necessities said in Does Anyone Even Care?:
What’s stopping you from being a stay to the end person? Or, alternatively, what makes/made you a stay to the end person?
I have a hard time verbalizing what I look for in a MU, but most of the time it boils down to atmosphere. Even over plot. I’m making this character to be in this world, in this genre, with this atmosphere/vibe to it.
Stay-to-the-end: The genre/atmosphere is one I like, I can find a variety of RP, and we all buy in to the theme. If we’re in some gothic-themed MUSH, I will bar-RP all day if the bar is a whistling shack on the moors and everyone who walks in has a dark secret, air of melancholy, a peculiar fervency, etc etc. It might be shallow, but bonus points for great writers behind the characters.
Quick exits/3-monthing it:
- I’ll misread a game’s vibe. I go in expecting a whistling shack on the moors and everyone’s in black leather and there’s a rave in the ruins.
- The vibe is too inconsistent. There is a shack on the moor in a Gothic-themed MU, but it’s been painted bright blue with sparkling mica dust for the weekend dance party, and someone let a flying squirrel loose inside a week ago. (no slander to flying squirrels, it’s about the incongruity)
- The game is too much mechanics/too competitive. I actually prefer sheets, dice, and stats, but if there’s some sort of weekly roll to put players on some List of Awesome, that could be discouraging for me. (This is obviously a personal preference, as is most of this).
- The RP style doesn’t suit me. I’m not going to well with MUD-style RP or somewhere short-form (1-2 sentence poses) are the norm.
Left before closing (in order of how common):
- Last few years, long medical leaves. Coming back and feeling lost and disconnected from the plot, with no idea how to rejoin and limited energy to catch up.
- A lack of RP. Either the game’s population trickles to 4 people idling, or it’s a personal problem of mine, with my preference for live/distracted but an inconvenient availability.
- Game closes/goes on hiatus and never returns.
- The plot reveals or transitions the atmosphere to something less interesting to me. This can take a few weeks to a few months. I try to stick it out (since I usually love my characters and probably have plot threads) but more often than not, I end up ghosting the game. Example: Game is about mysterious lights in the sky. Plot happens over months, players are now on a spaceship chasing down intergalactic pirates. It’s probably a result of the players’ successes and that’s gorgeous… but that’s the point I’ll start leaving, because I joined for the atmosphere of mystery and discovery, not action-packed space adventure.
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For me, it’s all about…matching energy.
I’m typically an enthusiastic player. I’ll be out there, approaching people, trying to set up scenes, I’ve got ideas for small scenes or PrPs, and my character has goals and things they want to accomplish.
But that takes energy, which I get back from feeling other people’s enthusiasm coming back to me. In poses, in reaching out with ideas or wanting scenes, in responses from staff, in plotty scenes that seem to accomplish something.
If the energy is off balance, especially if I’m bleeding out more than I’m getting back, then I’m going to end up drifting away. Usually, I realize I’m done with a game when I haven’t logged on in 3-5 days and I realize…I don’t regret it.
But it’s all about the energy exchange, not really about the completeness of the story or the structure of the game itself. When I log on, do I feel like my excitement is matched by other players/staff? If yes? I’m locked in for whatever is going on. If no? I’ll drift away.
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The character and the other players usually make me stay. If I really love a character I’ll stick it out–probably longer than I should in some cases, especially if I made some good friends there. Even if the plots suck or the source material is questionable if I can find a group of people I like and can joke around with that usually makes it worthwhile.
Unlike a lot of people on here I don’t have a huge list of games I’ve been on. It’s not too shabby, but I never did WoD so I missed out on a lot of that. I was a play on one game at a time sort of person for a long time and then when I started branching out was probably when Ares took off and I tried out a couple of things outside my wheelhouse. Usually the game would close around me/be short lived before I ever left.
For the few times I wandered away it was probably just because I either couldn’t get into the groove of the theme or the character I picked.
Sometimes I REALLY like a game, but there’s only like two other people there to play with. And even if they’re great, which they often are, there’s just not enough to do.
These days I just do not have the time to do a deep dive into a complex theme. I have my kids’ schedules to keep straight and work deadlines and I just don’t have it in me to read lore files in depth and then I feel bad and then I just don’t play even if I like the character and the other people. So I look at some games’ sites and I think ‘wow that seems fun’ and then I remember I’m fucking old now and there’s a million RL things I should probably be doing instead.
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@bear_necessities said in Does Anyone Even Care?:
What’s stopping you from being a stay to the end person? Or, alternatively, what makes/made you a stay to the end person?
I am a “stay until it stops being fun person”.
When the something-other-than-fun to fun ratio tips to a certain amount, I leave.
There are a million factors involved in that, and honestly a game runner couldn’t hope to manage them all. I don’t expect them to try.
Just run a good game, try to keep it as interesting as you can, and if you need help, find smart people of proven skill to help you keep the players engaged. Have a clearly defined code of conduct for your game and be fair, public and predictable in how you enforce it.
Beyond that, there’s not much you can do. Of the games I’ve left, few were because I didn’t like how the game was run or the community. I lose interest in playing my own character and that’s mostly on me and my willingness and/or availability to breathe life into an idea that is only entertaining and not otherwise contributive to my existence on this planet.
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The ADHD me wants to flit from one new thing to another. The autistic in me stays until the ship sinks.
I counter-act this largely by trying to build not only a game, but also a community around that game. That way, I find it easier to stay focused and interested because I’m not only playing the game, I’m also spending time with my friends and my tribe.
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I either stick forever or flake and wander off. I’m not sure the conditions around these things are definable even to me.
