A Constructive Arx Thread
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Okay, which one of y’all lives in my neighborhood?
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I am very happy to be GMing again. It’s good to stretch those creative muscles and help other people have fun; and also distract myself from other things.
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My first event I’ve run in I think a year (if I tried to run one in the intervening time, I uh, straight up don’t remember) and it went well and everybody had FUN and it was so nice. The group that came included a bunch of people I’d never gotten to play with before and they were delightful. Everyone was all in, it was just a really good time.
Thanks to those that attended, I really appreciate everybody.
the entity previously known as Sunny
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Current Projects:
Twitch -> https://www.twitch.tv/dukewhisky
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@Whisky
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@IoleRae I had a fabulous time
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Made a casual Arx reference in a conversation, and I had to explain what Arx is. Do a quick search to get a link to Ari’s page, and the first hit is a link to when Belladonna knighted Ari.
Getting all dusty in here.
What a time I had there.
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Starting a Thrax Civil War plot in November and having nearly weekly gaming sessions to complete 6 separate scenarios, until it finds its way to completion.
I had a lot of fun doing my first long term plot on the game. There were a few scheduling bumps in the road due to RL and other factors, but there was also so much laughter and fun to be had, and so, so much story to tell.
I loved every minute of it.
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Random Question
At what point does a roster character become someone’s character and not re-rostered?
What I mean is let’s say SuzieBob has been in play for ten years. Obviously, that would be strange for someone new to take it.
Or AdamMarie has done SO MUCH or has so many secrets, that would be hard to roster.
So when does a char that was taken off a roster become retired from play if the player leaves them, etc?
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I don’t think there is a hard ‘point’. I asked Kenna to go inactive vs put on the roster because I had done so very much with her and her secret that wasn’t documented anywhere but my brain really I didn’t think anyone else would be able to keep her without constantly running into issues. I would love to go back to her some day? But also my IRL has moved soooo far on it would take some shifts to give me time to play her right.
Norwood will die before I let someone else play him. He is part of my soul and it would be like having a part of me desecrated to see someone else try to play him.
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@RightMeow My impression has always just been that it’s just a case by case, subjective staff call. If a player had a roster for a significant amount of time, had notable investment into their story, I saw staff respect requests from the player as far as asking them to be set inactive or killed in story instead of rostered.
If a character is given up without that explicit request, my observation is that sometimes the character would be retired if the amount of knowledge and secrets seemed too difficult to put back into play, or if the character accumulated to much mess and drama to give to someone new. I think that, if there wasn’t a specific wish/request from the previous player, that staff generally tried to just approach it in terms of whether or not a new player would have a bad experience.
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@RightMeow At one point I asked staff if my long-term roster could be set inactive instead of going back on the roster, and that was permitted. At the time I think it was usually allowed unless the character was up to their eyeballs in story and/or would interrupt other people’s play by being off the roster (High Lords, the King, etc.)
That was awhile ago though.
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@RightMeow I’ve put in preemptive requests like, hey, this is why I feel I have ownership of this character, and they should be inactive when I leave.
But I’ve seen them decline to do that with characters they feel have more story to tell.
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I have had a great time playing Arx in the past before and I definitely met and RP’d with a lot of lovely people there. I think the two (slightly related) things that I really struggled with on Arx were:
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There is often a lot of what I will call “tonal whiplash” where there is a terrible civil war, or some other disastrous thing going in in the background, but all the player events going on day to day are like a pet fashion show or a slam poetry contest. I understand why this happens and of course anyone who runs anything on a MUSH these days is an angel, but I sometimes just wish there was a bit more “bite” to some of the day to day RP. Which, I am sure someone will tell me it is there but…(see point 2)
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Lack of (genuine) variety in Roster characters. I remember a period (not recently, but I don’t know if it has changed) where there were like five roster characters who were a variation on “vaguely piratical sailor girl with a brusque attitude but a heart of gold” or “gruff bearded warrior with a large sword, a drinking problem and a dark history he never talks about”.
Which, again, I get isn’t anybody’s fault. It was a bit better when there was an option to make an OC, but I get this also led to its own raft of problems with some kind of egregious stuff sneaking by at times. Or maybe I am just too picky.
I think the staff do a good job and have a massive amount on their plate, but I found these things really had me struggling to get back into it when I have tried. I think if they could get a handle on the rosters at least, that would make the game more appealing to new players again, since the numbers seem to have dwindled a lot.
Just a couple of thoughts!
Pacha
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@Pacha said in A Constructive Arx Thread:
There is often a lot of what I will call “tonal whiplash” where there is a terrible civil war, or some other disastrous thing going in in the background, but all the player events going on day to day are like a pet fashion show or a slam poetry contest. I understand why this happens and of course anyone who runs anything on a MUSH these days is an angel, but I sometimes just wish there was a bit more “bite” to some of the day to day RP. Which, I am sure someone will tell me it is there but…(see point 2)
Are you me? This is exactly what eventually pushed me away from that game.
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I think the tonal whiplash happens because while there are horrible things going on in the game world, they’re a) not accessible to all players and/or b) not being acted on by staff (which is not meant as a diss to staff, they don’t have TIME to act on it). So everyone has to fill in those gaps somehow and it’s…parties.
Party RP ain’t my thing either, so it’s a reason I no longer play there.
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I think part of it as well is that people use RP and the like for destressing from life. Which y’know, Arx is a pretty brutal universe in plenty of spots, but it’s also got a whimsical bent for players who are into that. Sometimes you just wanna hop on and chill in the fantasy world for awhile, without worrying about how it’ll effect the amount of time you’ve invested into a character so far.
I guess that’s pretty much the point everyone was making too, so, yeah.
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I use to love parties. Now, it’s not so much the parties as trying to keep up in a large scene.
RL is full of a lot of strife. We have work. We have family. We have illness. We have politics (for another board). The civil war has been going on for a long time. Which is not a hit at all. It has to have time to get things into place.
People get tired of bad after bad after bad. They just want to have fun. At the end of the day, there isn’t going to be a one-size fits all anything. Which is good too because it would be boring if one size fit everyone, I love the differences of people.
I think it’s just a kindness to have people play what they want when they need and that there are people around to fit that play style of the moment.
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@Pacha Not to dismiss your objections. If you don’t care for it, you don’t care for it.
But historically, when people ARE stuck in terrible wars and such, they do their best to find light, whimsical things to take their minds off of it.
Remember 2020’s weird obsessions, like sourdough starters?
“I can’t believe they’re RPing about sourdough starters in the middle of a pandemic”
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I’m probably the only person to ever notice this, but some time in the past 48 hours, Arx disappeared from the Evennia games list.
It feels weird not seeing Arx there.
