MU Peeves Thread
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Grids should be set dressing for the game and do exactly what @MisterBoring mentions. If you have a larger space dedicated to wilderness areas, then you’re telegraphing that you want to tell stories based around the wilderness.
I don’t really like the Ares model myself. I’m fond of abstract representations of grids because a lot of the grid space ends up as dead filler space. There are a few ways this manifests, but the current crop of WoD games are good examples of how this ends up working. Liberation has a lot of street/intersection rooms that see no use except to serve as a place for players to plop down builds. Those builds become hangouts, and no one will generally walk to the hangout they want to go to, they’ll use the +hangouts command (or analogous command). Dark Water kinda did this, in that it was largely just big sections of Port Angeles set up and connected up to one another.
This leads to a lot of questions: like why even bother having the highways around Los Angeles built out on the game since a) no one’s going to start scenes on those – what would that scene even be like if it’s a social scene? You’re not going to RP being in a car if random people show up; b) the storyline of the game kind of prevents players from running scenes on those (they’re controlled by the Technocracy in Liberation canon); and c) most players don’t have the authority to run scenes on the game, let alone using staff resources.
For DI and RM which arguably use the same grid method of nodal points based around neighborhoods, there ends up being a good deal of useless space that’s there to just for the sake of completionism. How many Houston wards get gameplay? Of those, what’s really crucial to the game?
It’s really frustrating to see grids get out of control rather than having like @Jenn is saying with regards to how rooms might be set up. I personally wouldn’t go so far as to desc out a parking lot for the grocery store, but jut have “Grocery Store” and either implement places (join the parking lot place) or have a scene set indicate that the scene is currently taking place in the parking lot.
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@Jenn I think you’ve missed my point. My point isn’t that the grid is required to tell stories. My point is that it’s frustrating when staff never uses the grid they spent weeks or months on to tell the stories they are claiming is the primary story on the game. It sends a signal to me at least, that staff is fully willing to abandon major projects on a whim and aren’t super dedicated to the game, or at least have changed course on how they approach it. And that’s regardless of how big the grid is. It could be 20 total rooms. If the staff isn’t willing to run plots on their own grid, why should I spend my time RPing on a world the staff doesn’t care about?
An example from a fantasy game I played in years ago: The main plot revolved around a stereotypical fantasy kingdom where the players were mostly heroes and civilians living in and around that Kingdom’s capital city. The King’s castle had a few grid rooms including a Throne Room where he was supposed to give proclamations and pass judgement on criminals and stuff, and through which a lot of central staff plots were supposed to pass. However, Staff regularly chose to run the events where the King would hold court in his Throne Room in “Generic RP #1” because staff couldn’t be arsed to walk or even use a teleport command to get to the Throne room.
Proud Member of the Pro-Mummy Alliance
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I guess, for me, I don’t assume that staff has ever written a grid so THEY can tell stories. A grid has the basics so that characters less familiar with the setting have ideas and places to congregate, the concept of where are folks most likely to gather. Putting together a bar, diner, movie theater, park, etc for the playerbase to run amok from and through.
But staff has a much deeper understanding of the greater world or finer details. They may not want to destroy the main dog park on grid that’s super popular. But. Someone MIGHT ruin a totally different background park that won’t ruin the more established places.
To each their own, and your points and positions are valid. You’re absolutely welcome to prefer a grid where staff mostly focuses on the pre-built stuff. And if there’s an easier way to get to that Throne Room that doesn’t require a bunch of folks to wander through a bunch of rooms to get there… That’s never going to bug me that getting to the story was simplified, even if the room itself is still there as a reference or for other uses. But that’s just me. YMMV.
We're all mad here.
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@Jenn said in MU Peeves Thread:
But staff has a much deeper understanding of the greater world or finer details. They may not want to destroy the main dog park on grid that’s super popular.
I will fully admit to having terrible bad guys blow up the most popular ic location (a cafe) on one of the last games I staffed on. The bad guys wanted to send a message, and so destroying a cafe and killing a beloved NPC was how we did it.
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@MisterBoring said in MU Peeves Thread:
It sends a signal to me at least, that staff is fully willing to abandon major projects on a whim and aren’t super dedicated to the game, or at least have changed course on how they approach it.
I dunno, that’s a big leap to make. Personally I’d see it as, ‘hey this is a closed scene and we don’t want other PCs randomly joining just because it’s on grid’.
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@catzilla said in MU Peeves Thread:
Personally I’d see it as, ‘hey this is a closed scene and we don’t want other PCs randomly joining just because it’s on grid’.
Being off grid in RP Rooms doesn’t stop everybody though. Also, some games have commands that make it very apparent that the scene is closed.
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@MisterBoring said in MU Peeves Thread:
@catzilla said in MU Peeves Thread:
Personally I’d see it as, ‘hey this is a closed scene and we don’t want other PCs randomly joining just because it’s on grid’.
Being off grid in RP Rooms doesn’t stop everybody though. Also, some games have commands that make it very apparent that the scene is closed.
It could just be me but isn’t joing an RP Room uninvited like, universally unallowed?
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@catzilla Yeah. But people can be dicks.
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i love real, tangible, simulationist grids and i’m sad the hobby keeps leaning away from that more and more :C
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@Roz said in MU Peeves Thread:
i love real, tangible, simulationist grids and i’m sad the hobby keeps leaning away from that more and more :C
I don’t want a simulationist grid, but I want a grid with enough spaces for multiple groups of social RP and a decent number of spots that are going to be key to the primary storyline.
Oh, before I forget, for me, this peeve only applies when Staff is attempting to run a main plotline for the game. If they’re just doing a sandbox thing based on PRPs with no central plot, then hell, they can just have an OOC lobby and 20 RP rooms for all I care.
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@Roz said in MU Peeves Thread:
i love real, tangible, simulationist grids and i’m sad the hobby keeps leaning away from that more and more :C
I love them in theory, but I can’t really tell if I love them or if I just yearn for the life I had when they were the norm. The same with everything I have nostalgia for.
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@Jenn said in MU Peeves Thread:
I guess, for me, I don’t assume that staff has ever written a grid so THEY can tell stories. A grid has the basics so that characters less familiar with the setting have ideas and places to congregate, the concept of where are folks most likely to gather. Putting together a bar, diner, movie theater, park, etc for the playerbase to run amok from and through.
Yeah, I think this is part of it for me. A lot of rooms aren’t built specifically for storytelling purposes, they’re being built to give folks places to RP in outside of that? Or because staff thinks this is what players want. That they want this kind of immersion, that they want the streets and all the intersections.
I personally am not a fan of big massive grids. I’d rather build exactly the places I think people will go and no streets and call it a day.
Because grid bloat sure is a thing.
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@tsar said in MU Peeves Thread:
I personally am not a fan of big massive grids. I’d rather build exactly the places I think people will go and no streets and call it a day.
Yep. I don’t like massive grids either, but I also don’t like small grids where none of the rooms have a point.
My ideal grid (for a game with a central staff driven plot line) would be maybe 20-30 rooms consisting of:
- 3-6 hub areas to represent different neighborhoods of the city or regions of the kingdom or whatever
- 3-4 rooms in each neighborhood or region to represent common social areas of that region / neighborhood
- A few rooms in each region that are earmarked by staff as key locations to the central staff driven plot.
I’d probably also allow player builds if they wanted to add their characters houses or businesses to the grid, but have those set up so that they are turned invisible and locked if the character that ‘owns’ it goes idle.
And if the game required faction specific RP places, I’d probably throw 1-2 of those out there for each faction that needed it.
