I agree with the sentiment that instead of removing a character archetype completely as an valid option, there needs to be a clear separation and understanding of IC and OOC intent. One must also acknowledge that playing this type of character is similar to playing a ‘bad guy’ in a cooperative PvE game.

It’s incredibly challenging to play a ‘bad guy’ that not only provides more depth in a story but also ensures that everyone is having fun in the process instead of being antagonized. Playing a pacifist in the examples provided is just like that, it needs to be done in a way that can enrich the story, provide different perspectives IC, while also doing in a way that it’s not just to troll other players. ICA = ICC definitely comes into play, if a pacifist’s actions becomes a detriment to the group’s success or survival, they can be removed in an IC manner, whether it’s exile or whatever else. Just like if a pirate continues to proclaim and protest the pillaging of goods, they are forced to walk the plank.

If it crosses into the OOC boundary and the player is just there to give everyone a hard time, that is when staff has to step in. As I mentioned in an earlier post, whether it is a PvP or CvC game, staff needs to be fair but also direct in its decisions. This includes asking problem players to leave as soon as they become a problem and do not change. If a pacifist is doing it to troll others, they should be shown the door.

I also believe that it is important to categorize cooperative character conflict as CvC and not PvP. PvP is a competition between players, and players strive to beat their competition, which is antithesis to cooperative RP. Character vs Character is a much more accurate designation to use in my opinion.

For a CvC system to succeed, I believe that a very firm hand by staff is required, because it is much easier for any small misunderstandings or issues to fester into something big, especially in silence. These needs to be resolved as soon as possible, even if it means showing certain players the door that may initially prove to be a benefit and a contribution to the community but over time, has become a detriment that are also unable to recognize the issue or change for the better.

Fairness will be the hardest to maintain in a CvC environment, even if there is a cooperative mentality, because each player will have their own goals for their characters and stories they want to tell. So a fleshed out system on how IC conflicts are resolved will be needed, whether it is through dice rolls, plot/story points, IC resource management, etc.

@somasatori said in Numetal/Retromux:

That said, PVP is a difficult one. On one hand, if you explicitly prohibit PVP in a WoD environment, it takes some of the bite out of inter-sphere relations. On the other hand, allowing for a no-holds-barred environment will make the game – from examples I’ve seen – into a tedious free-for-all. I’m not sure if it’s just my perception based on the people I talk to, but I feel like interest in PVP has dropped off in the last little while.

I have not played WoD before but another issue with PvP or even RP that is PvP adjacent player interests clash, even with staff resolution, there may be claims that staff favoritism is involved or that they are part of the popular clique, that is why they ‘won’. PvP is extremely difficult to do properly in cooperative RP.

Went from 2+ years ago to Within the last week thanks to The Becoming, Aegis Company, and Empty Night.

@real_mirage said in Scenes within Scenes:

@Wuff

Why even play on a game with a large player base that is suppose to interact with each other then? I have always enjoyed large scenes because I believe it makes the world feel more alive. Even if its a scene I have nothing to do in, getting 20/30/40+ people together, online, all at once, is cool. Tables and places can make that more manageable, but I think the chaos of a large scene is part of the charm.

A game with a large player base I don’t mind, that provides a much wider variety of opportunities for RP. A large number of people in one scene? Definitely not for me for a number of reasons.

1. Pacing. The larger the scene, the slower the pacing and it’s a domino effect. If you want to interact with everyone, you will need to wait for a number of poses before being able to respond, including a GM emit if it’s an event. So if someone has to take a little more time to think of how to react and the next person has to do the same, the pacing can grind to a very slow pace. Which can result to a scene going 5+ hours to get through enough pose rounds for something substantial to be accomplished without feeling rushed.

2. Easier for people to get lost in the mix, harder to feel like you are contribute meaningfully, more challenging for those that do not naturally have a louder voice to be heard.

3. For me, large scenes are much more mentally taxing to keep track of what is going on with everyone and being constantly worried that you missed something someone else did that was crucial. You also hate to feel like you left someone out by accident and they take it as a slight.

4. Brain melting. Some people are great at large scenes and running events, personally it can be a challenge for me. It is also faster to drain the mental stamina as well which can be a shame because I want to try to stay sharp enough to continue to contribute.

On table and place posing, I know that it would probably make it harder on Ares in terms of posting the log. Maybe a table doesn’t want their part of the log posted, but I believe in Ares, everything is posted. Which is why it has a pseudo place code where it’s just normal posing, with a header of where that person is situated in the code.

There are also many scenes, at least the ones I am part of, that goes from Live to Async and maybe even back to Live. Mainly because those in the scenes no longer have 4+ hours blocks of time free to just RP. RL interrupts, we need to pause, and the scene is going great to end soon. Does this scene still qualify as Live? Is it now ASync? Does any scene that need to pause at any time lose it’s Live status?

There are too many factors involved for accurate labeling and I believe that the only way for people to tell if the overall pacing of the game is right for them is to just try it out if the theme of the game interests you. Labels can be misleading at times, just because there are more ASync scenes than normal doesn’t mean that players in the game don’t also enjoy Live scenes, it’s just how the scheduling is sometimes. Also, if a player ends up leaving the game, it doesn’t necessarily mean that the player is bad or is at fault, nor does it mean the game is bad or the staff are at fault. Sometimes things just don’t link up, somewhat like potential relationships or jobs.

Updated.

I play both on Aegis Company and Empty Night, most of the scenes under my belt are Live. Though some of them do transition from Live to Distracted/Async to finish. Apparently I’ve participated in 82 scenes on Aegis Company and 15 on Empty Night, the latter I’m still learning and the last two weeks have been RL hell for me. Just sharing my experiences. I think a lot of the scenes listed as Live that stay up much longer than expected are because they did start as Live but are not able to be completed in that one sitting.

I am willing to play in all three modes (Live, Distracted, ASync), more than willing to leave it up to the people I RP with. However, I can say that Live is the easiest and ASync is the hardest. It is much easier for me to lock in during a live scene and not lose the thread or the mindset of my character. ASync is much more challenging for me since I have to step back into what my character was feeling from the last pose, sometimes having to reread the scene just to get a better feel again.

Live does transition to Distracted more often than not because some scenes can’t be finished in one sitting and closing it out early would not do it justice, but then that is where the challenges come in. You have to hope that your schedules match up the next day or soon or is transitions to ASync. Also, sometimes you’re having a great day when the scene started so you’re in a creative mindset. Then RL clobbers you the next day and it’s definitely not the same feeling. This goes even more so with ASync since you’re having to juggle different days of RL poking at you.

The biggest factor comes down to time which was much more available when we were younger. Now, adulting makes a mess of it, which is rather unfortunate.

@Gashlycrumb I get the feeling that either the staff on those games ended up having too many players on their game or are burned out. Staff need to accurately judge how many people they can handle. Quality is better than quantity, quantity does not equate to the success of a game. Like you said, they also need to man up and tell players that they do not want to deal with or interact with straight up about it. If it something the player can be given a chance to change, offer that chance early and make a decision. If it’s a player they just don’t jive with, kindly ask them to leave. Don’t wait people’s time.

Events and scenes don’t always have to be huge affairs. It’s okay to limit the number of people or break a huge event into different areas or parts so it’s more manageable for not only the GM/ST but also the players. As someone who finds it harder to focus when scenes become 6+, half of my energy is spent on worrying that I may have accidentally missed someone in my pose. Also, I’m afraid of dragging down the pace having to respond to 7 other poses as well.

Which leads to my second item, pacing. Try to keep the scene moving, even if you have to be a bit direct. Some may disagree but if each round is taking one hour to run, then there is less opportunities for players to act or react because people get tired after a few hours.

@MisterBoring said in Brainstorming Game Ideas:

@Jupiter said in Brainstorming Game Ideas:

The idea that I keep circling around is a CK3/Vampire styled game in an original setting; where, instead of using +vote as XP-generation, it’d be activity based. XP is generated by spending blood and dice-rolling in Staff-run activities.

Players would try to acquire swarths of territory to fund their own rise and the rise of loyal vassals.

But, again, I don’t know how popular of an idea that would be; text-based gamers are notoriously anti-change.

My thought on this would be that a lot of people still in the hobby are very PVP-shy, even when the narrative should result in two PCs fighting to a terminal conclusion. I think you could do this and have fun with it, but you need to accept that you’re probably not going to have more players than the average multiplayer game of CK3 anyway.

The more time you have spent in this hobby, the more you realize how cooperative everything is and needs to be to create a successful and fun story. This includes PvP which makes it incredibly challenging, one not everyone is either capable of or willing to put the effort into. I’m not saying that as a slight but it takes a lot of communication, trust, and mental energy. PvP in RP, unlike in other games, isn’t about a player winning or losing. To win, all players involved have to enjoy the experience and accept the results.

@Third-Eye said in Brainstorming Game Ideas:

@Ashkuri said in Brainstorming Game Ideas:

IMO you can’t build for “what people want.” You can’t even build for what your friends might like, because even the closest of us don’t always like the same things. You can only build what you personally love, and that personal enthusiasm makes the work less “hell.”

The only thing that will motivate someone to create and put the hard work into starting a game long-term is to build what YOU want, to some degree with no eye toward whether it might be popular or not. That doesn’t mean ignoring advice, though frankly sometimes it does.

This I fully agree with. My view on game creation and game creators is that they should be creating the game for themselves, that is the root. They are writing their own, grand story with a large vision for that story. The creator then hires trusted individuals, staff, to help create that story with them either through more world building, coding, or management.

Then, players are invited to help with the writing and make their story become more alive. This invitation, is a privilege, not a right. It’s like inviting a guest into your home for a party you are hosting. Players should be people who you want helping you build your story and your world.

@MisterBoring Apologies, but because of rising inflation, I have gone completely paperless. You can refer to my geocities site for all the necessary information for my chargen application. Thank you.

Years ago, I used to be all about using MUSH Client and doing stuff in game. But after playing on a few Ares games, I was fully converted over to web based. A lot more flexibility with web based and the visual presentation was a lot easier to work with.

@MisterBoring Horror MU was like this when I played it, PCs will die or be maimed. Bad things will happen. Was quite a bit of fun.

@hellfrog said in Other People:

that’s probably not fun for EVERYONE but it does work.

That part is probably one of the key issues is that fun is not the same for everyone. Part of the collaboration of having fun together is also to identify what is fun for you and also the other person. The more that Venn diagram overlaps, the higher the chance of fun happening, though it still requires efforts from both parties. That’s why communication is incredibly important, even if it can be hard.

@RightMeow The chance I had to RP with you in the past was a lot of fun. What I’ve come to learn is that the paths we choose are usually not right or wrong, since none of us have a crystal ball that can predict the future. If you feel it is the right path, then embrace it fully because you never know where it will take you. You also don’t know if it may eventually lead you back to MUs again in the future.

I know at one point I thought I had stepped away and I did for a bit of time, but surprisingly I found my way back. So I definitely wish you the best on where you choose to go and I’m sure if you choose to return, there will be people who welcome you back.

@Dreampipe said in Other People:

@Roz 5’9" character over 30 years old. Playing on the hardest difficulty.

30 is the new 20.

@Lemon-Fox If your friend/RP group on AoA have fun together and they also know that the staff are predators/psychos, it’s easier for you guys to find a new game to play on that doesn’t have toxic waste of a staff base. New Ares games are popping up, there are still existing ones that have been running for a while.

If you move with your friends, it may be easier to ease into a new game since you already have people to play with instead of having to put feelers out for newfriends which could take time. It may take a little bit of shopping around before finding a new comfy place to settle down with but I would say that it’s worth it.

@Ashkuri I welcome bad stuff happening to my characters but with a caveat.

It has to make sense to the story and to the character. Either something happening in the story that caused the bad stuff to my character or my character’s actions caused the bad stuff to happen. Also, preferably, the bad stuff either leads to character development or plot development, not just for the sake of bad stuff happening because nothing is going on and we’re bored. Meaning that as a player, I can have my character react to it over time.

@Yam Maybe it’s selfish of me but I personally just don’t worry about it when I RP. When I RP, it’s to relax and have fun. If the person I am RPing with is fun and his or her character connects with mine, that’s great and I want more. If their RP style, pose style, or writing doesn’t connect? That’s a shame but there are other people to RP with, I’m not going to think any less of them or worry that they are using AI. It’s not like I’m paying for a service and getting scammed by AI. It is what it is.

Ignorance is bliss for me.