What stops you from running a game?

[Tat]

I see lots of people with cool ideas or themes they’d love to play in.

What are the things that keep you from actually running a game? What are the barriers?

[BloodAngel]

@Tat Can’t code, to be honest. I have tried and I don’t have the brain for it.

[L. B. Heuschkel]

@Tat Lack of code understanding, lack of tech know-how. Once I teamed up with people who do have it, things did get started.

Ares has made it a lot easier but it’s still more complicated than ‘flick this switch’, particularly if you need anything to not be exactly as is in the pre-packaged product.

[Tat]

If the answer is ‘code’, can you break down what the code barriers are?

Is it getting a game up and running? Setting up configuration? Is it a specific system you want, but can’t code?

[Testament]

@L-B-Heuschkel This.

Also trying to shove a magic system into Ares.

Playerbase size isn’t something I’m concerned with. Never have been. Ares makes things very accessible to those who are not code savvy. But I do wish there was a little more flexibility with certain things.

[BloodAngel]

@Tat All of the above. I had someone do all the framework for a CofD game for me. Then I could not get it working. I’m truly rubbish at all tech things.

[lucidmaus]

Laziness, for me. Too lazy to write all the files that need written, too lazy to learn or relearn the code I need to make the systems that I desperately want, etc.

Also, the fear of not executing it the way I want it to be executed.

I’m never worried about whether people will like it or not; it’s something I’d want to do for the sake of doing it - but I’ll also hamstring myself because I’m picky about what I want to some degree and as the saying goes: ‘perfect is the enemy of good’.

These are all things I can overcome with proper motivation, though. I can find the time if I want to do it - and I think the scales are tilting accordingly.

[Snackness]

@Tat I don’t want to staff.

[L. B. Heuschkel]

@Tat For me personally it would be anything not straight out of the box. I can do the basic coding but I’m not at the level of expertise where I’d feel comfortable taking on designing a magic system in FS3 for example.

I do think that as time passes, more and more plugins are published, we’ll see more and more small games that don’t require a full code staff. This is a Good Thing.

[Testament]

Another thing that came to mind in regards to Ares. Balancing weapons/armor/enemies in regards to automated combat.

Either the weapons/armor/NPC are too strong and crumble like wet paper, or they nuke the players. Trying to find a balance has been something of a struggle of futility, tweaking and adjusting numbers and ratings to try and find the right kind of balance to get it to work.

I know it’s possible, it’s just figuring it out.

[Tat]

@L-B-Heuschkel said in What stops you from running a game?:

I do think that as time passes, more and more plugins are published, we’ll see more and more small games that don’t require a full code staff. This is a Good Thing.

Are there any small plugins you really want? Something like magic is big and real real complicated, but I am curious whether there are any smaller plugins that would benefit a lot of people.

[Paradox]

I’d have to second what a lot of people above had said. Barriers to Entry.

If you think about the thread talking about ‘how long should a game run for’ and tie it into this. Consider: 6 months to develop a game that runs for 6 months is a pretty high entry cost.

ARES has certainly helped with this, assuming you are content to do the out-of-box packaging. If you want to make things a bit more customized, now you’re talking about at least one code base to learn if not two. That’s increasing your entry cost even higher.

Or you go with classical Penn/Rhost/MUX, which has those coding barriers plus less modern features. Anyway, it just becomes a thing. And yes, there’s always the 'Just learn to code it’s not that tough. For some people sure, for others, it is a challenge.

Summary: Barriers to Entry are too high to create a game that very well may die off in less time it took to make it.

[Paradox]

@Tat

I have considered putting in the legit work to develop a Powered by the Apocolypse plug-in for ARES. Flexibility built into it serves as a narrative-based ‘system’ and there are a lot of materials out there for a wide swath of genres.

[Jumpscare]

@Tat said in What stops you from running a game?:

If the answer is ‘code’, can you break down what the code barriers are?

For me, coding takes a very long time. It gives me headaches. I’m up to 25,000 lines of code, so it’s getting difficult to keep track of.

When the pandemic started, I thought it would be fun to try to figure out how to make a MU*. I envisioned that it’d be something I’d break within a month and toss into the trash. I’m not a coder. The fact that the game isn’t collapsing under its own weight after 2 years of my amateur coding ability is something I’m still confused about.

I just have to get this last 15% of the game coded and then I’ll finally be done… with coding.

I still have the building tasks of writing rooms, items, and NPCs, few of which are in the game at this time. There’s also the website and webclient. I could leave the game with a default Evennia template, but that feels so unthemely.

I’m going to need a break after all that, or I’ll have burned out before I can ST a single scene.

Making and running a game is an incredible undertaking which requires such a broad set of skills that a single person shouldn’t be expected to have. If I could turn back time, I’d tell myself to just make a default AresMUSH installation and call it a day, haha.

That being said, this process has been as fun as it has been foolish. I think the end result will be worth it, if at the very least for the self satisfaction of saying, “I made a game.”

[BloodAngel]

Well there we go, this thread inspired me to throw my hat into the ring. Let us see if anything does come of it.

[Jumpscare]

@BloodAngel See you in two years.

[L. B. Heuschkel]

@Tat said in What stops you from running a game?:

Are there any small plugins you really want? Something like magic is big and real real complicated, but I am curious whether there are any smaller plugins that would benefit a lot of people.

I’m trying to do the mind mapping of how a magic ‘currency’ might work – not an actual currency but a means to track the use of, say, crafted items and potions. It seems a necessary foundation before you even consider the actual crafting system – otherwise, a player will rack up several hundred magic thingies.

I’ve seen one game – yours, I think? – that used Luck as such a currency. I’m leaning towards maybe some kind of merit point also earned from scening.

It’s all very complicated. The biggest complication, probably, is that every game setting is likely to want its own take – and hence, the code needs to be extremely customisable.

[Testament]

@Tat said in What stops you from running a game?:

@L-B-Heuschkel said in What stops you from running a game?:

I do think that as time passes, more and more plugins are published, we’ll see more and more small games that don’t require a full code staff. This is a Good Thing.

Are there any small plugins you really want? Something like magic is big and real real complicated, but I am curious whether there are any smaller plugins that would benefit a lot of people.

I think a lot of people would love a generalized magic system plugin, but like you say, it would be a massive undertaking. And how would you even standardize something like that? What metrics would you go by in order to create something that could be considered a template while allowing for customization?

I’ve thought about this for awhile, but nothing has truly stood out to me in order to make that work.

[BloodAngel]

@Jumpscare Thank you. I have most of the lore and world built out and the plots. Been working on it for a few years, but the issue is I can’t code. I have Thenomain’s code loaded up on a server, but can’t do much with it. I have tried to figure out and smoke comes out of my ears like a cartoon.

[L. B. Heuschkel]

@Testament said in What stops you from running a game?:

I think a lot of people would love a generalized magic system plugin, but like you say, it would be a massive undertaking. And how would you even standardize something like that? What metrics would you go by in order to create something that could be considered a template while allowing for customization?

Where I’m at, I am thinking some kind of basic ‘currency’ – let’s call them merit points, whatever. You need to be able to specify how they are earned – from scenes, automatic over time, what’s your preference?

Then you need to determine what they do. For a crafting system, each point might equate to owning or creating and owning a magic thingamajic – a weapon enchantment, a spell, a magical potion, whatevs.

When the thing is spent, the point is used.

But, and here is the tricky thing – any implementation of such a system would require

• a decision how merit is created
• whether stats affect it and how
• all enchantments, spells, potions, you name them, needing implementation with FS3 support

And that last one is, quite frankly, a killer.