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  • RE: "My Guy Syndrome"

    @Faraday said in "My Guy Syndrome":

    @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.

    Yes, absolutely, to such a degree your question baffles me so I ask:

    What do you think this looks like in practice?

    posted in Game Gab
  • RE: Long or Short? Application Process!

    I don’t like having to make stats. I like writing a bit of backstrory.

    Descriptions can kiss my ass.

    posted in Rough and Rowdy
  • RE: "My Guy Syndrome"

    I REALLY struggled not to my guy a lot. Two of my heart characters were older men (late 40s, 50s) who were generally conservative af and not generally open to new anything. To a lot of things my first thought was literally " X would NEVER…" Then I had to sit myself down and go, “But is the never fun for anyone?” Sometimes it was, but most of the time it wasn’t. Sometimes the conflict of new ideas vs old ideas was great. I had some excellent scenes with their children where they wanted to be wild and out there with a father behind them going “This isn’t right!!!” Other times that conflict was going to kill the vibe.

    Over time both mellowed a lot. I would like to think they didn’t lose their core conservative root, but they saw a ton more gray when I stepped away. That was fun too.

    posted in Game Gab
  • RE: Non-toxic PvP

    It sounds like it’s largely about good sportsmanship and deciding on an OOC level to poison an IC victory of another player so that it’s a misery to actually engage with it. It’s not really about “pacifism” so much as someone just not being a good sport and setting out to make other players’ experience worse because they didn’t get what they wanted how they wanted it.

    Although it definitely does bring up memories of the time when we invited a new player to our post-apocalyptic Shadowrun game and when we didn’t go along with what his character wanted, he suicided that character, then made a new character who was an “avowed pacifist” and ruined our attempt to ambush some targets because “he wanted to stop the violence”.

    We uninvited him, obviously. Sometimes a person just doesn’t fit with a group or isn’t capable of playing nicely with others. I suspect it’s less about it being PvP and more about just some people don’t get that it’s obnoxious to set out to ruin other people’s experience because things didn’t go as you wanted.

    posted in Game Gab
  • RE: Non-toxic PvP

    @Roadspike said in Non-toxic PvP:

    @Kestrel said in Non-toxic PvP:

    One system I’ve been thinking about which I’d like some feedback on:

    I think that this is incentivizing the wrong behavior. I think the behavior that you want to incentivize for both CvC and PvP conflict is proportional response. One of the issues with it that I’ve seen is when one character “wrongs” another, the second character (or player) turns their response up to 11 and immediately goes for the kill in order to remove the threat. That might be an effective strategy, but it doesn’t tell an interesting story.

    I would find ways to incentivize (whether through XP, FS3 Luck points, public acclaim, or whatever) minor escalation that furthers the story rather than ends it. If someone says something nasty about your outfit at a gala, you don’t send a herd of cattle stampeding through their next gala, you bribe their modiste and have their next dress be the wrong shade or cut.

    From a PvP perspective, that leaves the other character to respond and perhaps defeat your character… but from a CvC perspective, it leaves the other character still with the power and influence to continue telling the story with your character.

    At one point, I had been kicking around the idea of an escalating relationship system that would work for both friendship/allies and enemies/rivals, where if you and the other player agreed that your characters were in that relationship, you would get a series of benefits based on the length and depth of that relationship, where some of the greatest rewards would come from the biggest sacrifice - i.e. when you lost a major conflict with your Rival, you would get some significant meta-bennies (what those were would really need to be worked out on a theme basis) so long as you accepted the loss gracefully on an OOC level.

    I never got as far as fully mechanizing it, but I do like the idea of incentivizing difficult relationships. (On the allies side, the benefits came from taking risks or losses to help your ally/friend.)

    posted in Game Gab
  • RE: Non-toxic PvP

    One of the issues which hasn’t been brought up yet is “who is involved”.

    Because, honestly, I’ve had more problems in IC conflict from people who weren’t involved but now are sticking their oars in without anyone requesting their “help” than I have from straight conflict. Two characters have a bar fight or an argument, and both players are fine with it, but suddenly five other characters all want to jump in and make it a much Bigger Thing than it needed to be, and usually they’re nowhere near as respectful of other players as the original conflict-folks were.

    That’s where a lot of PvP resentment and clusterfucks come from, in my experience, and neither of the original folks have any control over what those players do, even when it pretty much ruins what WAS a fun, rich conflict plot.

    posted in Game Gab
  • RE: Numetal/Retromux

    @somasatori said in Numetal/Retromux:

    Someone once told me (paraphrased) that the primary difference between maintaining OOC respect for your fellow players after a PVP/tense situation at a LARP and maintaining OOC respect and kindness towards your fellow MUSHers in the same situation is that MUSHers are not obligated to sit in a booth with each other at IHOP at 2am after we’ve finished our scenes.

    Anonymity can be a real motivator in being a serious asshole towards others – which is interesting, because I’m fairly certain we’ve all known each other (or of each other) for the better part of a decade (which is perhaps also what leads to PVP situations).

    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 used to be in a gaming club in college where a whole lot of people were Mind’s Eye Theatre players. For my money, I’d say there’s not a whole lot of difference in toxicity: lots of vicious personal enmity, gossip, blurring of OOC/IC boundaries, sexual harassment, sexual assault, and cheating. Having to look people in the face afterwards didn’t really seem to help any of it.

    posted in Rough and Rowdy
  • RE: WoD: House Rules

    Big things for me:

    1. Is the house rule clearly explained so I know how it is likely to affect my play?
    2. Does it pass the “smell test”? Which is to say, when I read the rule, can I see what it’s trying to do, do I agree with what it’s trying to do, and do I think it will actually accomplish that? (And, honestly? WoD/CoD generally DOES need a little more houseruling than it gets when trying to blend spheres that have conflicting powers/themes/foci.)
    3. Do I think it’ll be fun and fair to all players?

    If those three things are a yes, then I’m willing to run with it. When you’re talking about big changes–adding or removing or completely rehauling a system like pledges or whatever–then I do want the new rules to maintain the theme and appeal of the game for me. Like, HR rules to streamline making spirits and how they interact with the world from the rather complicated setup in CoD? Sure, I’m in, as long as spirits are still CoD spirits in recognizable ways.

    posted in Game Gab
  • RE: When is the last time you played?

    Sometimes I feel bad having the Administrator title here when I haven’t RPed in 2+ years.

    But then again ya’ll aren’t a very hard group.

    posted in Game Gab
  • RE: Arx

    Um, um, UM?!

    posted in Game Ads

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