@Yam Genuinely surprised that this conversation happened 3 years ago.

https://brandmu.day/topic/346/social-bar-rp?_=1771967913235

So take that into consideration when viewing my tolerance for async. I am old; time flows differently now.

And pretty much I am looking for every scene to have some sort of contribution to the narrative, yes. This doesn’t have to be as action-oriented as robbing the 7-11. It can be staking out the 7-11 before the robbery, trying on ski masks, hotwiring a getaway car, etc. Ideally, these provide moments that give characters depth without breaking the momentum or repeating themselves.

As to how well it works for me… My tolerance for social RP used to be higher. I used to genuinely enjoy flirting and random goof-offery, so the amount I RP (in public) was a lot more frequent in general before I got crochety. I’ve had a few characters and a few games over the years that have been full-throttle, with every single scene leading into the next and each of those scenes bringing something clutch. But these are few and far between.

I just play (mostly async, to steer back to the topic) in private for now. Something will come along eventually. It always does.

@Yam said in RP Safari - Pacing Styles:

I have to be “on” mentally, like, ready and prepared to work with what the players are dishing out or attempting, and if I have to be that level of attentive over the span of a week, I think my brain would melt.

I get this, 100%.

I know I’m losing an emotional component when I’m playing async, in that there’s no way that I (and I assume my RP buddies) feel the same way at 2pm on Thursday that I did when we started this scene at 8:45am on Tuesday.

But I get more time to craft a thoughtful response, and it makes it possible to play with people that I otherwise wouldn’t connect with, so

I just really don’t like random social fluff. I don’t understand why someone would knowingly sign up for days and days of that, and I would also hate async scenes if that’s all I was doing in there all the time.

So I guess what I’m saying is that I care less about the pacing, much more about the content. I’ll take good RP however I can get it thx!!!

My preferred pacing is distracted. I like posing every 20-30 minutes, finishing a scene the same-day if possible, but okay if it carries over and we finish tomorrow.

My lived experience is async, where scenes take as long as they take.

I see a lot of comments about async scenes dragging on forever, and I wonder if that’s a content issue? I never RP social stuff (period at this point but specifically) async. When I set up a scene, it’s always specific.

We’re meeting to discuss the hobgoblin situation.
Let’s RP robbing the 7-11.
Please provide my PC necessary medical attention.
Etc.

If I am going to play something social, it absolutely has to be live/real-time, finished in a couple hours max, or I will have gotten bored and started the “:nods and takes a drink” poses.

@Jumpscare There are two big barriers for me. This is speaking to Silent Heaven specifically.

1 - Client dependency. I play a lot from my iPad with a keyboard attached. Between the sucky options for mobile clients and the inability to keep firmly connected via the web, I’m pretty well locked out.

2 - “Join our Discord!” This is a big turnoff for me. I don’t want to have to join a Discord for a game; it makes me uncomfortable. While I’m not sure that joining Discord is mandatory on this game, it IS one of three prominent buttons on the home page, so it comes across that way. Keep it on the MUSH, thanks.

The syntax and stuff isn’t a deal-breaker, as long as it’s documented. I am admittedly a very independent player and do not like asking for help with commands. I am much more likely to just logout than to page a staffer if I can’t figure out a command - which always left a bad taste in my mouth on the Big Evennia Game That Shut Down That Shall Not Be Named, so that’s probably created a general bias in my head against the platform.

I’m also not into coded crafting, playing with coded NPCs, etc. That feels like video game stuff, not RP stuff to me. So the fact that there’s commands for things like “Food,” “Gaming” and “Gardening” suggests this won’t be up my alley.

All that to say… it’s mostly a vibe thing. Evennia does a lot of things very well, from what I can gather, but it doesn’t support casual, web-based RP very effectively.

@Jumpscare Thanks, the offer is very much appreciated.

The theme/setting/whatever always seemed exactly up my alley, and it’s one of those things I’m sure I’d enjoy if I took the time to get into it. But Evennia and me just don’t jive.

@Cobalt said in MU Peeves Thread:

I love a great deal of people in this hobby but this hobby became a chore for me.

WORD.

For me, it was just realizing that I really don’t want to play what most people want to play. I have zero interest in RPing flirting or slice-of-life; since that’s pretty much the meat-and-potatoes of every game…

…meh.

I don’t feel like I’m missing anything right now. If another game like Horror or LA came along, where every scene felt like it was building toward a comprehensive story, I’d absolutely be down to clown.

Chekhov’s Gun: Don’t put things in the scene that aren’t there for players to react to.

I know it’s a writing hobby, and sometimes we’re trying to establish a mood so we’re including evocative details, but if you mention that this obsidian cave is carved with ancient runes, has a brazier spewing purple flames, smells faintly of candied apples, and I can hear an old woman singing from the mouth of an adjacent tunnel, all of those elements should be open for some sort of follow-up.

The one where I first Impressed a dragon on PernMUSH in 1997.

The ones where @tsar and I were in jail together.

The one where @tsar burned down a bar with our characters still inside it.

The one where people just kept eating all the cannabis gummies, like you’re supposed to eat an entire bag.

The one where the combat code was broken on GH and the enemies just wouldn’t die!!!

The one where @Pyrephox HAD THE DRUGS and tased my character.

The one on the same game where we just kept running in the stairwell FOR EV ER because of how the dice were rolling.

The one where the bomb went off at the fancy party on LA2043.

@Faraday said in AI In Poses:

can’t keep the details of Evelyn’s backstory straight, forgets that she has a fan in her hand from one pose to the next, doesn’t take into account how the scene she had last month would affect her dealings with Edward, etc. And heaven help you with theme consistency if the RP is happening in an original or lesser-known setting.

i have been an ai the entire time, guys

that’s why i do all these things

It reads to me like someone probably tipped Ada off to who Warma was, and they were just looking for an excuse to ban them and found one in this exchange.

@Superbia no worries, I didn’t read it as dismissive at all. you’re good

@Superbia said in Aegis Company Discussion:

@bear_necessities I’m unfortunately not familiar with Tek’s history and only know inkling through AresMUSH games that we’ve played on before.

I will just note that I did not know at the time that I was playing with the person going by Inkling that there was even a rumor that they were Tek, so my opinion formed completely independently of this.

I did not have a good experience playing with this person. They didn’t communicate well OOC, seemed to bleed IC/OOC, and ultimately left me with a sense that they were dishonest.

YMMV.

@Jumpscare The game-owner was Tek with a new handle on. The game went under a few weeks after they were outed for lying to everyone.

• Are you Tek? https://brandmu.day/topic/53/mu-peeves-thread/1490?_=1760278262487
• “I wasn’t lying; I just wasn’t telling the truth.” https://brandmu.day/topic/53/mu-peeves-thread/1512?_=1760278262489

@MisterBoring I don’t actually know anything about Monster Hunters, but - based on the name - that’s probably a fair assumption.

Most of the material is focused on the mechanics of forstalls, weapons, monster abilities, hunting grounds, etc. And the whole thing came out of episodic YT content that was basically a guy describing a Monster of the Week.

There’s more to the world when you get into the goals of different factions, but the TTRPG is very much designed around groups going out and hunting monsters.

If a person was trying to set up a western sandbox, I wouldn’t recommend this IP at all. But if a person was interested in having focused or episodic adventures, this is a great place to start.

@MisterBoring said in Missed Settings:

Wild West microcosm in a dome floating in space, psychic powers, secret alien schemes…

This doesn’t excite me the same way. I love Dark City. I love cowboys. I don’t love them combined. But it’s a “different strokes for different folks” situation.

A Dark City game would be dope, though.

@Gashlycrumb said in Missed Settings:

I wonder if the Wild Imaginary West set says anything about the -isms.

No, it doesn’t really address that at all, but instead rewrites history from 1876 forward, giving you the United States and the Uncivilized West. The implication is that things are kind of as they would be/have always been, but even the map is a little different.

The over-arching conflict is between the East (steam) vs West (electricity), peppered by Faction conflict, like the US Railroad has a lot of economic power, the Tulos Mob runs crime, etc.

The Frontier Conservation Society has a brief mention of working with Native Americans:

The Frontier Conservation Society aims to preserve nature, both its fauna and flora. While many at this time don’t believe extinction of a species is possible, Charles Darwin helped some to see that the natural competition of things can lead to the complete loss of anything. The Frontier Conservation Society was born from a group of biologists studying the West. During their travels, they especially learned from the Native Americans how to rely on the land and coexist with its creatures.

And there’s one NPC mentioned that’s half-Native American, and it’s commented that “most of the European immigrants saw him as a Native, and most of the Natives saw him as a European immigrant.”

But there’s nothing specifically addressing social issues at the time.

My take is that the Uncivilized West is a place for everyone, from all walks of life, as long as you have the mettle to survive; they have real monsters to worry about, so they don’t have time to worry about skin-color or religious views, but that these notions still exist, especially in the East.

@Roadspike said in Missed Settings:

@KarmaBum If you like FS3, I do happen to have the stats I put together from The Network’s Western series that y’all could use as a starting point.

Appreciated, but I don’t have the spoons to make fun for other people right now.

@Gashlycrumb might want this, though.

@Gashlycrumb Yep. We started watching circa lockdown, and I kept thinking… this would make a great RPG setting. So we backed the kickstarter.

The guide is mostly mechanics that seems fun for a TTRPG, but also has some good setting information about various factions, and tons of monster info.

I would play in this world, sort of tongue-in-cheek but with real peril out there! I just don’t have it in me to set up another game right now.

It’s someone else’s turn.

But not historically accurate cowboys.

More like Wild Imaginary West - https://runefoundry.com/products/wild-imaginary-west-rpg?srsltid=AfmBOooAEp1NVTXF0ZeDBoSmAawCkPK1_tbzkyC8kqVi8MVvUz60WwxQ

@junipersky @Tez @Pyrephox Can we fork this off into a discussion thread, please?