It really feels like Ganymede has just decided to let Derp drive it into the ground out of some need to avoid losing face from reversing a decision.

Well, I’m reducing my MSB activity to lurking now. Gany just basically said that the only person who needed to be apologized to on MSB for what happened was Derp.

I get two things from reading stuff from this thread.

1. That I definitely am not the target audience for Lords & Ladies roleplay.

2. That Arx, even with all of it’s trouble throughout its history, is a pretty good example of ‘doing it right’ in our hobby.

Congrats to all you Arx players and staff for doing cool stuff.

@hobos

Please stop. If you actually care, stop, step away, and come back in a few days or even a week or two. You’re making yourself look bad with each new post.

Starting a new thread, for a new year.

First up, and this one hit me hard, David Lynch, legendary director of such weirdness as Eraserhead, Twin Peaks, and the original 1980s version of Dune.

Bring back Victorian era drug problems!

I want a post apocalyptic game surrounding the events at one of the last settlements in the world struggling to survive against all manner of obstacles and threats.

@Jennkryst

I’m gonna have to run a one shot of the MMPR RPG in his honor.

Well, after that interaction with Ghost and some other odd shit I’ve seen today, I added MSB to my firewall block list. I don’t need that shit in my life anymore.

@Roz Totally. I’m all for people trying to repair relationships, but deception is not the way to make that happen.

Now, if someone came to me and was like, I want to rebuild the bridge and move on from this and in the process offered to make a new character to help push some plot I was trying to push, I’d probably see that as an olive branch.

This is my favorite Val Kilmer performance.

@Roadspike said in Lords and Ladies Game Design:

Agree with @MisterBoring’s note that some people will complain even if you reach out and ask them directly to intervene… and you’re never going to please those people.

Those people are probably my second biggest pet peeve in the entire MU hobby after the multitude of sex pests and other creepers.

@Roadspike said in Lords and Ladies Game Design:

People who “should” have been involved in the plot not hearing about it.

There’s a subgroup of these people that are another interconnected issue:

• People who “should” have been involved in the plot, but choose to avoid the plot like the plague and end up complaining when the plot changes the world in a way that disturbs their roleplay.

Using the previous example, if a group of PCs find out about the zombie coyotes and are informed they will endanger the tavern that they prefer for all of their RP, but they still take no actions, then when the zombie coyotes overrun and destroy the tavern they do the majority of your RP at, they’re not allowed to complain that the results aren’t agreeable.

Other than that, I totally agree with everything you said.

What about plots with invisible timers for this particular conundrum?

Example:

A horde of zombie llamas is coming down from the mountain pass and threatens the noble kingdom of Kinwoodie because they are attracted to the location of the legendary Golden Interspace Toothbrush. Lord Hampsterplanet and Lady Puremanse discover the horde and become the first players to interface with the plot. The staff keeps an eye on their activity to check for a few things, namely whether they are spreading the news among the players, and also what activities they are taking to thwart the raving hordes. If they immediately offer some solution to the staff that would effectively thwart the horde, well, alright. That can happen. It doesn’t mean they didn’t want to share the plot necessarily, just that they, as their characters decided immediate action was necessary. Can’t hold that against them. If they shuffle off and tell the other PCs about the horde, that’s great! Then the PCs can work together to discover that llamas of the zombie variety can be particularly thwarted by a healthy application of Whizzo Butter. Plot gets to the majority of players that want to see plots, and everyone is happy. If they do the naughty thing and conceal the plot from other players on purpose and don’t go with the “immediate danger needs immediate responses” option, staff waits a specific amount of time and then has NPCs inject the plot as random serfs and peasants come screaming into Kinwoodie yelling about llamas and potentially also the blancmange that ate their children after challenging them to a table tennis match.

I agree with the idea that NPCs should just be for boring bits, or set dressing at the most. Plot stuff should be handled 100% by the PCs.

I love Coup!

@Gashlycrumb said in Lords and Ladies Game Design:

The PC is supposed to be Machiavelli, but what I see is Mr. Magoo.

If I had a dollar for every instance the way someone perceived a character or the way a character is being played is wildly different from how it appears in their sheet & background, I’d be running DOGE.

Heck, I’m guilty of playing a character in a way that isn’t remotely how I’ve described them. Many many times.

It’s just a difference in perception. What one person perceives to be the actions of a genius is another person’s Johnny Bravo.

I’m not much for L&L games, but there’s one L&L-ish game that came out recently as a TTRPG that I’m sort of interested in: Our Brilliant Ruin. It’s a post apocalyptic game set in a world where the aristocracy chose to basically ignore a calamity that poses a threat to all of existence, The Ruin. It’s a strange energy that’s slowly turned all of the world into a rusted, collapsed, monster filled wasteland, with the exception of the Dramark, the last bastion of aristocratic society. The aristocracy is perfectly fine just maintaining the status quo for the small bit of the world the Ruin hasn’t claimed yet. Players can be members of noble houses, servants to those houses, or the unbonded, who aren’t attached to the nobility in any way, but also aren’t kept safe by them.

Oh, and did I mention it’s 100% free?

The Magicians is one of those series that I could never get into. I have nothing against it, I even own the whole trilogy (a kind Christmas gift from an old friend years ago). Everytime I pick it up to read the first one, I get about a third of the way in and just stop. It never clicked, even after my SO made me binge watch the TV series with them.

As far as magic school subgenre of stuff, there are examples of that I do enjoy. Most recently the anime / manga series Mashle. I’ve just never been able to get into the Magicians for whatever reason.

@Pavel & @Prototart

There is a game for that particular group: