Posts made by Roadspike

@dvoraen Housecat life is the best life. That is all.

I did a pretty extensive workup for the Wheel of Time for standard FS3 on Ares a while back for a game that never made it to open. It’s never going to be perfect, because FS3 isn’t designed for magic systems, and channelers were -definitely- more powerful than non-channelers (as it should be in canon), but it was absolutely workable with players willing to accept a few compromises and pretty fun in my testing. I would be happy to share it with interested parties for tweaking to their satisfaction.

@Coin I wasn’t going to go that far, but since you went there, I will say that I think if the game is designed around it and everyone is onboard, and it’s specifically designed to avoid “I roll to get in your pants,” then I think social skills have a great place in a MU* (I would have a hell of a fun time with an FS3 Regency MU* with a social combat system instead of a physical combat system, for instance).

But if the game isn’t designed with all that in mind, I think it’s best to keep it to rolling vs NPCs only.

If there’s a system with actual merits/benefits/stats for physical appearance, I think that it is totally legitimate to include it in an RP Hook, description, and even short-desc, as well as to pose it in scenes. Because otherwise, it feels like folks rarely acknowledge the points put into those merits/benefits/stats (because so many played-bys are so very pretty to start with).

But in a system without points being spent on physical attractiveness, I agree with the side-eye directed at those who use it as an RP Hook. If you’re not spending points on it, then it’s just like folks on games without social systems always being perfect liars or the Biggest or the Smallest – don’t make a big deal about it, because it’s basically just a player fantasy.

@Gashlycrumb said in MU Peeves Thread:

And anybody can look up a geographical location associated with an IP but I might be creeped out if a gamerunner or forum admin or whatever was to tell me where I live.

The fact that someone could find this information wouldn’t be the upsetting part of this to me, it would be the fact that someone put the effort in (even if it’s minimal) to find this information out.

Most long-time MU*ers know that we have the illusion of privacy, but that doesn’t make it any more polite when someone rips down the veil of that illusion. Someone taking the time and (even minimal) effort to connect someone’s IP to where they live and then tell them is definitely unnecessary and creep-adjacent at least (maybe unless it’s part of an ongoing investigation into their online identity and past actions? maybe?).

I started doing Historical European Martial Arts two weeks ago (finally), with a local group that just formed. I’ve been doing it most days since then, and I ache, but it’s a really good ache. I have more energy than I have in years, and I feel great. Plus I get to swing a sword around.

@mietze said in MU Peeves Thread:

It’s good to touch base to make sure its something that works for both which can be hard for randos so you may have to ask would you prefer the vampire alt or the werelobster?

When I’m of this mind, I like to go, “Want to go line-dancing or something with my vampire alt or get into a brawl with werecrabs with my werelobster alt? Or any ideas you might have for either.”

Because then I’m not setting off the instinctive “Ugh, they don’t know what they want besides me to entertain them” reaction that I totally get and often have, but I’m also offering some flexibility.

@somasatori Now you’ve got me thinking about how to do Dune with FS3…

@sao This isn’t a direct reply to you, but you were the last one on the thread talking about this subject. For me, it’s the difference between “I don’t distrust you” and “I don’t trust you.” I’ll play on a game with Staff that I don’t distrust. I may not fully trust them, but I’m willing to offer them the chance to earn that trust. I will not play on a game where I don’t trust Staff. That is for the people who have already burned me or someone who I do trust.

And I agree that life is too short for the stress of “do I trust this person I’ve put in a position of power over my fun or not,” and this has only gotten more true as my life has gotten more full.

@MisterBoring Whether or not that’s better, I don’t know if it’s practicable. And there are folks that really like that down time between episodes (I like some, just I would prefer that it be a couple of weeks compared to a month or three, again, I know people who prefer the downtime to the episodes, so YMMV).

I think that the only way you could possible get anywhere near even just a couple of weeks between episodes is to have two Storyteller Staffs, because there’s going to be some cooldown time and some administrative ramp-up time on either end of an episode. Even then, I think it would entirely depend on the setting/theme of the game whether the shortest possible downtime is the best option, a medium length, or a long downtime. I think that if you have intense episodes without much time for the players or characters to catch their breath, you’re going to want a medium-long amount of downtime; if you have episodes that meander and have time to catch your breath in the midst, then I think you would want shorter amounts of downtime.

I could see, say, a WWII game that has people at the front (or on alert at the airbase or whatever), needing a month or so between campaigns, to let the characters (and players) breathe and find their new status quo. But I could see a murder mystery game needing much less time between cases (because you’re probably going to get a little bit of investigation time and some breathing room in there, and it isn’t likely to be as life or death all the time as a combat game.

@bear_necessities This is an issue for me too – after the first 2 or so Hiatuses, I wasn’t much interested in most of the “cruise ship” RP in between Seasons on the Network. I know that others really loved those times, even more than the Seasons. Miniseries helped quite a lot during Hiatuses in order to get in even more short stories.

It could be interesting to have a second Storyteller team (or just one more Storyteller) whose duty was to run story during the downtimes. On a game like The Network or HorrorMU*, this could be someone who runs the conspiracy that’s behind the program (so that there actually could be a mystery for players to unravel). On another game it could be someone or a group of someones who runs a shortened Season – or just have two Storyteller teams (led by a couple of Administrators) who alternate seasons and then you don’t need downtime at all.

I agree with @Roz that a game probably does need some downtime if you’re having episodic stories, since they tend to be a little more intense and go-go-go than your “standard” storydriven game.

@Tez said in MU Peeves Thread:

Side peeve: why do games insist that they are in beta for years?

Agreed. I wish that MU*s used the alpha/beta/gold terminology like most video games do. It would make it much clearer what stage of development the game is in and what sort of experience to expect.

Alpha: Hammering on theme and systems, making sure there aren’t any obvious bugs.

Beta: Testing with a wider audience, looking for anything that a smaller alpha group didn’t find.

Gold: Ready for full release to the public – changes can still come when necessary (patches!).

@Nynrose Congrats on finishing chemo. Best wishes for your recovery.

@Rinel As someone who is white as a sheep in a snowstorm and somewhat frequently plays minority characters, and as someone who has looked at how someone was playing a minority character and felt very sketchy about it, I echo @mietze’s advice. It’s entirely possible that someone else has shared their concerns about the portrayal with Staff, and hearing it from two, three, or even four folks can let them know that it’s not just one person’s feeling, that there really is something wrong with the portrayal.

At that point, hopefully Staff can be diplomatic enough to find out if it’s an honest mistake, or the minstrel show that @SpaceKhomeini mentioned.

@Roz I think its the same reason that so many great stage and screen characters smoke, and the same reason @Pavel mentioned – it’s a great thing to do with your hands. You can alter how it’s done to indicate emotion, distraction, pain, or something else, and it’s something to //do//.

I remember hearing somewhere that people on stakeouts or casing a joint often smoke, because no one questions (questioned?) a smoker standing outside in front of a building, but if you’re lingering around doing nothing, it’s suspicious.

@Alveraxus Credit where credit is due, I got the idea from Clockwork’s game The Network.

I certainly don’t mind you pitching it, but I just polished up how he handles Seasons and Hiatuses and made it specific to what you had presented.

Edit to avoid double post:
@Alveraxus said in Thoughts on pre-planned Time Jumps to Retire Characters and Play Their Descendants:

One of the other debates was how accessible we wanted to make retired characters.

I like the idea of being able to emit older characters, but even if you swap servers (or change everyone’s name to CoinRetiredIV or whatever when a timejump happens so you can reuse names), you can always just refer to the past sheets and make any necessary rolls by hand. You don’t need the actual bit to be accessible – just still existent.

I would absolutely suggest having solid rules about when it’s okay to do this (I would say “for social scenes but not to use political weight or for use in combat” – but put nicer), because as mentioned, there are going to be people who want to use their character’s parents to provide weight for their character’s ideas.

As a gamerunner, I would give someone plagiarizing someone exactly one chance to explain themselves (and change the text in question). If I didn’t like the explanation, or they refused to change it? Believe it or not, straight to ban. If they had an explanation that sounded reasonable and matched up with what the plagiarized person had experienced, I would consider the plagiarist to have used their one strike that they were going to get, and watch them closely the rest of their time on the game.

As a player, if a game plagiarized another game… I’m just not going to play there as soon as I find out. I am going to go with @Nilli 's description of plagiarization, because I’ve used ideas from other folks either with attributation or with permission and attributation, and I’ve given folks permission to use ideas/text of mine, and I find both of those just fine. If someone has written policy/concepts the way you want it, and they’re okay with you using it/tweaking it/etc… I don’t have a problem with that.

@Roz Just riffing. And yes, I think that limiting player-created content in general so that you’re closer to (but not quite) a roster game in the first generation would be a good idea. Keep things a little more controlled and reset each time jump so that the game keeps on a trajectory that Staff is comfortable with. For example, if a Romeo & Juliet storyline brings two opposing houses together, either use the time-jump to split them apart again, or even better, to set up another alliance against them so that the sides shift each time-jump and player actions have impact, but don’t upset the story Staff wants to tell.

I like the general idea of this – one of the things I love about The Network is that there’s a set end-date for each of the parts that you play (not the actor, but the parts in the shows they participate in), which lets me play concepts that I would never try for a long-running character, but could be fun for 3-6 months.

Have the freedom of knowing that you’ll only have a character for 9-18 months (I think I would keep things flexible so that if it takes a little longer or a little shorter to tie up all the plotlines Staff wants to tie up, that’s fine), you have a lot more freedom to create the type of character you wouldn’t usually, and you have a lot more freedom to explore stories about loss and failure (because you’re just losing for one generation, you can gain it back next generation).

One concern that you might have is player-created Houses – are you going to let someone else take that House over next generation, or are the players who created it going to feel like they own it now? Are they going to be disappointed that the vision of the next generation doesn’t match their vision for the house?

Something I’ve noticed from The Network is that downtime to arrange the next generation is going to be very important, and you’re going to want something for players to do while you’re sorting it out. The time it takes to disseminate the information on what happened over the last 18 years, approve/alter/deny everyone’s proposals for what their previous characters have been doing and how their new characters grew up, and getting everyone on the same page is not going to be insignificant, and you -need- to have something for folks to RP during that time. Maybe there could be a 1-month break at each time-skip where staff can put up a list of major events over that 18 years and players can do vignettes in the midst of any of them? Show how the previous generation matured and the next generation grew up through the major events of their lives?

@mietze Yeah. This is definitely something I both see and feel very much so. And I think that about the only thing Staff can do is specifically stake out some events for “people who haven’t gotten as involved as they’d like” to create some GMed scenes without plot-lickers. It’s not a perfect solution and has its own problems, but it’s -something- at least.