@Ominous said in When is the last time you played?:

To find out how the story resolves? Just because everyone knows all the details of a setting doesn’t mean they know how it plays out.

Even if you DO know how things play out, it can still be fun. I’ve been on plenty of games based on established settings (Star Wars, Battlestar, Babylon 5, etc.) where the lore wasn’t in any way opaque but we still had lots of fun playing in that sandbox.

@Jumpscare said in Hello, Survey, and Looking for Recs:

With everyone’s responses, and to my surprise, I guess that makes Silent Heaven a MUSH, haha. Strange that I didn’t think of it as one.

I mean, Silent Heaven call themselves:

RPI-lite: MUSH-style RP + coded support for supplementary skills.

So it seems that they’re trying to straddle the line a bit. Nothing wrong with that.

There’s a very clear distinction between minimal-RP, code-heavy MUDs and code-light, RP-heavy MUSHes, but there are also varying shades of gray in-between. And the MUX distinction, which is usually just MUSH but with a different codebase. I have no idea where MUCK falls. Is it just MUD with a different codebase?

@Jumpscare said in Hello, Survey, and Looking for Recs:

For me, I see them as how much of the game is dictated by code.

I agree that the code plays a part, but I don’t think it’s that simple. There have been plenty of games branded as “MUSH”, running on MUSH platforms (aka TinyMUX / PennMUSH), that had significant amounts of coded mechanics. I never once heard any of them called RPIs.

In fact, I’ve been playing MUSHes since the 1990s and only heard the term RPI for the first time a couple years ago. It seemed like a term that had originated in the MUD community.

Now it’s possible someone from the MUD side might have looked at a game like TGG and said: “Oh, that’s a RPI.” But TGG called itself a MUSH, and I never heard anyone call it a RPI. Nor would it fit the “No OOC commo”, “figure out everything IC” rules that @Kestrel described earlier. (which, as an aside, seem REALLY weird to me. Unless you’re literally playing yourself, your character is always going to have knowledge you don’t have. Any RPG that doesn’t have a mechanism for bridging the gap between IC and OOC knowledge is bizarre IMHO.)

@MisterBoring said in Hello, Survey, and Looking for Recs:

I’ve been in this hobby 20+ years now and I still don’t know what makes RPI unique

We don’t really have good categories for any of it. There’s a technology side based on which server you use, but the rest is really just vibes.

@Yam said in When is the last time you played?:

Has anyone seen a system that effectively incentivizes players to run things for other players?

I don’t think this works, like, at a human nature level. People are generally not motivated to volunteer for things because you offer them peanuts. They might be motivated by altruism (it’s good for others) or self-interest (if everyone pitches in, I also get to play and have fun), or genuine enjoyment. But I don’t think most folks are going to be meaningfully motivated to do something hard by a tiny carrot.

(I’m not saying you can’t reward someone to make them feel appreciated, just that it’s not an effective motivational tool on its own.)

@ham said in When is the last time you played?:

The amount of fun we have on these games is really pretty largely up to us, and it doesn’t require newness or hotness. It requires effort.

I agree with this. My experience is very different from a lot of folks here, I think. I make my own fun, and it doesn’t take a whole lot of people to do it with. I’m choosy about which games I play on, but once I choose a game? I’m usually there until they turn the lights off. (And on several occasions have spun off into sandboxes or sequel games to keep going even after that).

@Testament said in When is the last time you played?:

And with many people moving to play-by-post(like what Ares does and I say that with no hate),

Ares lets people play how they wish to play. Yes there are many MU*ers who prefer async, but you only have to find a couple like-minded folks to get a healthy chunk of trad/live scenes going.

@Tez said in "My Guy Syndrome":

What do you think this looks like in practice?

I think maybe we’re just using different definitions. I’ve literally never heard of yes-and outside of improv acting. Here are a few quotes that reflect how it’s always been explained to me:

a rule-of-thumb in improvisational theater that suggests that an improviser should accept what another improviser has stated (“yes”) and then expand on that line of thinking (“and”)… one should not reject the basic premises introduced by the other person (Wikipedia)

There are no wrong ideas in improv. Every suggestion, no matter how outlandish or seemingly insignificant, is an opportunity to explore and create. By saying “yes, and,” improvisers open themselves up to endless possibilities and tap into a wellspring of creativity. It’s not just about agreeing with your scene partner; it’s also about building on their ideas, no matter how wacky they may seem. (Backstage)

That is just so far from my experience MUSHing I can’t even.

ETA: This “yes and” thing has probably tangented too far to be useful, but the reason I was brought it up originally is because I really don’t think this is the default MU behavior. Folks will consider other players, sure, but mostly they just do what’s fun for them, within the bounds of what they think their character would do. I think that’s why you get a lot of straying over into “my guy” territory.

@Roz said in "My Guy Syndrome":

we’re not talking about TTRPGs, though; we’re talking about MU*s. they may take systems from TTRPGs, stats and dice and such, but the social structure of how players have to persistently interact is entirely different from a tabletop experience.

Yes, I realize MUs are not TTRPGS (obviously). I said it was because of the TTRPG influence, which I believe came over along with the “stats and dice and such”.

Seriously - have you seen “yes-and/no-but” as a commonplace principle in your MUSHing experience? Because I haven’t, even on games with a cooperative focus.

@Roz said in "My Guy Syndrome":

i really don’t think anyone was likely intending citing this to mean they think everyone should literally be saying yes to everything every single time

I was challenging it even as a general rule / starting point. “Yes, and…” is a perfectly valid improv technique, but that’s not the framework that most TTRPGs (and by proxy many MUs, which have one foot in their TTRPG roots) operate within.

It’s not: “My character wants to shoot the Cylon.” “Yes, and…”

More often it’s “roll for it” or even “no that isn’t going to work.”

Again, I’m not saying you can’t approach things that way, I just don’t think most MUSHers do.

That aside, I think @Trashcan raises an important point that “No, but…” is an equally valid improv response.

@chorus said in "My Guy Syndrome":

Just in general, MUSH RP is a “yes, and” medium.

It’s totally fine if a game sets that as an expectation, but that has NOT been my experience with MUSH RP in general. And as a staffer, I’ve seen entirely too many nonsensical, theme-breaking, logic-breaking requests for me to ever approach a game that way.

Collaboration doesn’t mean always saying “yes” to everything. It means trying your best to find a mutually-fun solution, but also recognizing that sometimes people want opposite things and someone’s not going to get their idea of fun.

@Roadspike said in "My Guy Syndrome":

I often like to think, “No, normally my character wouldn’t be caught dead in that biker bar where the RP is happening, so why is my character there?”

Yeah, that can be fun - but I still think there’s nothing wrong with politely bowing out of a scene where your character just doesn’t fit.

@Ashkuri said in "My Guy Syndrome":

I think in MUSH we see a lot of things like:

But a lot of those things aren’t inherently bad. If your character wouldn’t think the planet is safe, and it’s really important to you to honor that, I don’t think it’s a cardinal sin to politely sit a scene out. Same for RPing out an IC grudge, or some of the other things you listed.

“My guy syndrome”, for me, is all about attitude.

“Hey, want to RP at the spaceport?”
“Nah, my guy wouldn’t go do that part of town.” vs “Well, my guy has a thing against spaceports, but I’d be happy to RP with you at the marketplace.”

“We’re going down to the planet for the plot.”
“I’m not leaving - my guy wouldn’t think it’s safe.” vs. “Have fun! I’m going to sit this one out because my guy wouldn’t want to go down there.”

There’s nothing wrong with being true to your character, as long as you’re not a jerk about it OOCly.

@MisterBoring said in Non-toxic PvP:

just clearly delineate IC vs OOC.

If someone is having trouble delineating IC vs OOC when bad things happen to their character, I don’t think changing the letters is going to help.

@MisterBoring said in Non-toxic PvP:

For some people PvP bears the distinction that indeed the player of the character wishes to end the fun of other players.

But sometimes they literally do. It’d be nice if we all lived in an ideal world where there was never any OOC bleed and everyone was a perfectly good sports, but that’s just not the case. Many people like PVP over PVE precisely because of the other P in the equation. It really IS about going up against other players and winning. That doesn’t mean it’s malicious, just competitive.

Good sportsmanship is more about playing by the rules and not being an a-hole than it is about making sure the other person/team “has fun”. (Especially when your idea of fun is “I win” and so is theirs.)

@Juniper I do not understand the meaning of your cat.

@Jumpscare said in Non-toxic PvP:

But you cropped out half the definition. It doesn’t make sense without the second half:

No, I read the second half. I consider “agreeing to fight but then refusing to fight back” to be in line with “being part of a high-conflict group and avoiding conflict”.

Of course it’s better when players can cooperate and find a mutually-agreeable solution. But when it comes to PVP (or even CVC) that’s just not always the case. Sometimes people want opposite things and there really is no reasonable compromise.

As long as the person is OOCly handling it well, I don’t really consider it to be “poor sportsmanship” (as someone else cited) if their character has sour grapes. Some characters are annoying ICly. Avoiding them has always worked well for me.

@Juniper said in Non-toxic PvP:

if I’m in the Pirate faction being a menace on the seven seas, I don’t want to be constantly having arguments with another pirate who believes a REAL pirate never takes another person’s property without permission, and I’m making life hard for pirates by giving them a bad name.

OK, but… why are you constantly having that argument? Why aren’t you like “pfft whatever” to that guy? Why isn’t he being ostracized by the other pirates? For that matter, why is the captain even keeping him on board the ship?

I don’t fundamentally have any objection to a PC going around saying that pirating is bad actually. But it seems to me that there are a million ways to deal with this issue ICly.

@Kestrel said in Non-toxic PvP:

With that said, and with the explicit caveat that I don’t see outliers as inherently problematic, it can and often does become a problem when the outlier ethos gets normalised in the setting it’s supposed to be pushing back against.

For sure, outliers taken to extreme CAN skew theme. I also recall being on The 100, and being a bit peeved because my PC (who was trying to stick to the established theme) was constantly being undermined by the outliers.

In such a circumstance, staff has two choices: limit/control the outliers, or allow theme to drift organically from what was originally established. Neither is right or wrong, but the stance should be made clear so all players are on the same page.

@NotSanni said in Non-toxic PvP:

People seem to be largely ignoring the brunt of the argument (that is, "there is a specific brand of OOC troll that weaponizes pacifism in a game designed and built around conflict and violence), so that they can instead fixate on an argument that isn’t being made by anyone as far as I can tell (that “pacifist PCs shouldn’t be allowed in PvP games”).

Because I didn’t see that as the core of the argument. I’m sorry if there was a misunderstanding, but it genuinely seemed that it was about these outlier characters (as @Kestrel alludes to) rather than a specific brand of OOC trolling. Especially when every post about the specific example just kept talking about IC Behavior. Like people keep saying “oh they were weaponizing their pacifism” and whatnot. Maybe they were - I don’t know them from Adam - but I just don’t see that from the facts presented here.

@Roadspike said in Non-toxic PvP:

The pacifist is a player archetype who will join a moderate or high conflict group, then do as much as they can for their faction without engaging in the central conflict.

This is what I’m reacting to. It’s not just someone who is OOCly trolling, which is an entirely different matter. It is someone whose very existence is predicated on being part of a moderate to high-conflict group and then avoiding conflict. Some of the previous examples cited bore this out (like the person in the Murderer’s Guild who was only there reluctantly or whatever).

The discussion took this broad, general archetype and then kept moving the goalposts to talk about a highly specific situation on one particular game, which may or may not have been out of theme.

I fundamentally don’t have a problem with somebody bad-mouthing the Murderer’s Guild for doing murder. Yes, it might be annoying to some of the murderers. So? That’s the IC consequences for the faction you chose and the actions you took. Being annoying ICly is different from trolling OOCly, though there can be overlap between the two.

Again, I’m not judging any specific game from putting rules in place that suit them, I’m responding to painting things with an overbroad brush.

To use BSG as an example, it’s completely valid to say:

“I want this game to be about fighting cylons, so I don’t want to deal with the headaches of non-combatant characters.”

Fine, cool, you do you.

But that’s very different than:

“There should be a zero-tolerance policy against non-combatant characters on all combat games ever.” Especially if it seems predicated on an assumption that all such players will engage in OOC trolling. That’s just… not the case.

@Kestrel said in Non-toxic PvP:

No one is saying you can’t play a pacifist, pacifists ruin PvP games

That was literally the statement that kicked off this entire tangent. A proposed zero-tolerance policy towards pacifist characters in high-conflict factions.

Yeah I mean… overall it seems like we’ve gone from a general “there should be a zero-tolerance policy for pacifists who join a high-conflict faction and don’t engage with the conflict” to arguing over THIS ONE SPECIFIC PERSON from this ONE SPECIFIC GAME with these VERY SPECIFIC PVP RULES. Was that person acting like a troll? I dunno, maybe - but I think it largely depends on their OOC actions, and everything that’s been described here has focused on their IC actions.

@Wizz said in Non-toxic PvP:

it’s just someone who comes into every scene until the end of time and makes it about this and will never shut the fuck up about it or move on because their OOC ego was hurt that everyone didn’t choose their solution instead.

Sure, that sounds annoying. See also: why I don’t think that PVP with rando strangers is a good idea.

My point is simply that you could get that same outcome EVEN IF both PCs pummeled each other in open conflict. It has nothing to do with one of them being a pacifist. That’s why I think a zero-tolerance policy to pacifist characters is kind of silly. But if someone wants to do it on their game, obviously that’s their prerogative.

@howyadoin said in Non-toxic PvP:

On SH, you can collab offscreen resolution.

I have no idea what game SH is. I thought we were speaking in generalities. There are certainly places where offscreen resolution isn’t always an option.

@Kestrel said in Non-toxic PvP:

But actually, they are both engaging in PvP. PP is using social tools, MH physical ones.

Oh absolutely. They were both in direct conflict over what should happen with the mcguffin.

@Kestrel said in Non-toxic PvP:

And if he’s giving signals of, “I don’t really want to fight you, however I will have to per my role if you keep trying to sneak past the barrier” that is an attempt at conflict deescalation; ignoring it, and then socially persecuting him afterwards, is the same type of unsolicited ahole behaviour as trying to start a fight with a low xp cafe worker.

I don’t agree. Imagine if PP did fight back, and then lost. I don’t think people would be judging them for then acting pissy (ICly) with MH afterward. There was a conflict and now there’s some IC bad blood. All seems completely expected to me.

I can imagine this exact scenario played out with me and a buddy and it would all be completely fine if we just kept it IC. My PC beat up theirs at the danger pit, then theirs badmouths mine about how things went down, then mine concocts some way to get back at them, etc. etc. Maybe they end up mortal enemies, maybe they find some common ground, who knows. The IC drama itself isn’t the problem, which is why I have a hard time faulting PP in this situation.