@Kestrel said:

For my part, I recently found myself deep-diving some studies on how preferences for certain genres and literary themes correlate with certain personality traits.

Game design theory is right up my alley. Care to share the sauce?

In response to the main question of the thread, I am not sure anyone intentionally incorporates game design elements to weed out specific subsets of players. I think people just try to build the best game for what they’re looking for, and if that weeds out certain groups that the designer didn’t want playing the game anyways, that’s a bonus, as Apos and Faraday said.

@Apos said:

…the coming game might feel a good bit more like a mush merged with a RPI or old style moo in how much someone can do without needing staff to make it real.

@Apos said:
<lore>

Ooooh, a darker and edgier post-apocalyptic Arx.

@NotSanni said:

This has reminded me to back it

I’m glad I posted something then, as there is only 3 days left to back it.

Adding into this, I would love to see this expand into a megagame. It may take away some of the mini-games for the wizards - for instance, of the noble court positions are played by players, then the Warlock loses a chunk of what they do - but I think there is the start of a fantastic megagame hiding in here, especially since megagames tend to be a collection of various role-specific mini-games mixed with the politics of a bunch of various factions with disparate goals stuck in a big room together.

@Thionoxial I am concerned that the side plots that can happen in a larger central hub might distract from the missions. I’m imaging several missions going on at the same time, and missions being multi-scene, multi-RL day affairs.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/sjgames/seven-part-pact

Part board game, part tabletop RPG, and part collaborative storytelling experience. I’ve backed it; though, it is rather pricey. Also, I’m going to have a hard time finding a group to play it with. Anyways, here’s the rundown in their words:

Set in the magical archipelago of Isha, the game follows seven legendary wizards who protect their homeland while struggling with loneliness, mortality, and the burdens of power. Players take on the role of one of seven unique wizards, each with their own abilities, backstory, and dedicated rulebook. A shared Grimoire can change the rules of the game, while an Orrery at the center of the table helps shape the story as players guide their Domains through months and years of gameplay.

The seven greatest wizards in the world convene upon the Faraway Sea, their magic aligned in the service of an ancient Pact. Each governs one seventh of this world and wields power beyond comprehension over the very fabric of the cosmos. While these wizards are indeed mighty, so too are they trapped: by the pressures of masculinity, by the weight of their loneliness, by the tolling bell of their own mortality. Each has a choice: will he maintain the systems which imprison him, or will he rebel against his pact and destroy the fragile balance of his world?

@junipersky That middle link is the article I linked to.

The main thing I support is the penalties against district boards for bad student performance. If things are going that poorly those at the top should get canned.

I am trying to practice what I preach more. Anymore, I will reach out in pages or OOC and outright state what my goal is for the scene, which might not be what my character’s goal is, even if it’s revealing some secret or ulterior motive of my character and inquire what other’s goals are. Then, with all of that in the open, I write my poses as best as I can to push the scene towards everyone’s goals.

@junipersky I think every state should adopt something similar to the Mississippi Miracle and get it right.

@Thionoxial said:

or, for that matter, an actual X-Com mush. But VINTAGE.

Like you X-com call of cthulhu bullshit while pretending to be ordinary people in 1940s noir chicago or whatever.

I got a few likes to the below similar ideas, so there is at least a modicum of interest amongst this crowd.

Ominous said:

A setting in the X-Files, Delta Green, SCP, Control, Triangle Agency, etc. vein. You could even include World of Darkness stuff, but the setting would mostly from the viewpoints of a government agency of “Hunters” and the occasional Mage, Vampire, Werewolf, whatever that decided to work with the agency. The server is mostly PVE as PCs work together on missions they take, but the server could also can go the Paranoia TTRPG route by having some NPCs and PCs belong to secret societies, have ulterior motives, be given contrary secret missions from the Directorate, etc. to keep people a little uneasy and wary. Operations could be investigations into weird shit, neutralization of weird shit (more tactics and combat oriented), covert ops (cause weird shit to happen so we get a funding increase), etc.

Ominous said:

@somasatori said in Missed Settings:

@bear_necessities said in Missed Settings:
Take the guiding principles behind a West Marches game for this: make the standard town area be your home base where people get refueled and are generally safe. The plots and scenes run by GMs/Keepers/player-STs-if-you-allow-PrPs are where the danger comes in. All of the in-town stuff is handled by players and any player ST reps you have, the only staff involvement in plot stuff happens when you assemble investigatory teams to search out the Mythos lore. You wouldn’t be running a town MUSH, the players would just be doing their social RP and whatnot while you occasionally (weekly or semi-weekly basis) come in to run mythos stories.

This is what I was going to say. In my vision of the game, the base the agents are stationed at is like Los Alamos for the Manhattan Project, Groom Lake (Area 51), or something. The base is the town and has facsimiles (bars, restaurants, a theater, etc. staffed by soldiers or their family members) and no one leaves except for missions, until they and their family, if any, are “decommissioned”. Mages, vampires, werewolves, etc. can’t be decommissioned; well, they can, but the agency uses the sun, silver bullets, etc. instead, which probably adds to the uneasiness people have around their supernatural allies. Just how allied are they, when there is no opt out option?

@Wuff

I refer to resolution systems outside of the standard resolution system that rely on player skill as “mini-games” like in video game design. I think of things like Yahtzee Locks in OSR D&D or using the Mastermind board game to resolve code breaking or hacking computers.

I rarely remember my dreams. Most of the ones I do remember are work dreams. I miss having the vivid, lucid dreams of my late teens and twenties.

@Aria said in MU Peeves Thread:

Like if your goal is to get off without really caring what you have to do to manage it, there’s faster and easier ways to go about it that don’t involve being awful to other people. They can be more ethical and more efficient with their smut!

But the goal likely isn’t to get off without really caring what they have to do to manage it. It’s to get off with another person without really caring what they have to do to manage it. And just any person may not do. Cost, looks (in this medium, writing style), personality, etc. are potential qualifications for the other person. Rape would be much less of a thing if all rapists wanted was just an orgasm.

@Tez said in MU Peeves Thread:

@helvetica said in MU Peeves Thread:

Demand characters have so many administrative skills, they become virtually unfuckable.

Joke’s on you, I’m into that shit

TIL that shibari with Red Tape is a thing.

@spiriferida For L&L, really play up the politics, intrigue, animosity between rival families, and management aspects to the level that no one has time to knock boots on screen.

@Pavel Ask them to name their favorite two Nirvana songs that aren’t Smells Like Team Spirit.

@Evilgrayson I was going to reply with this as well. Age of consent even varies between US states, and Romeo & Juliet laws make things even weirder. However, this would be more like sexual communications and there may be stricter or less strict regulations than the age of consent in various jurisdictions. Sort of like how there is fraud and then there is wire fraud or how a jurisdiction can have an age of consent under 18 but minors still can’t perform sexually in front of an audience or for a camera. Someone with more legal knowledge would have to opine.

EDIT: I should also point out that Bahrain and Cameroon have an age of consent of 21. So even a minimum age of 18 could arguably not be safe from liability.

Age of majority (adulthood) varies even more. Alabama, Nebraska, South Korea, and several Canadian provinces have ages of majority of 19. New Zealand and Thailand have it set at 20. Mississippi, Puerto Rico, Singapore, and several African and Central American/Caribbean countries have it set at 21.

They didn’t have a plan. “They” being the writers. The Director admitted as much in one of the Director commentaries for the first season in the DVD set, and the moment I heard it I lost all interest in the series. Babylon 5 had established how one pulls off a well-planned sci-fi series a decade prior, and that numbskull thought he knew better.

@Yam

Philistines! You just don’t get my sophisticated, highbrow sense of humor.

@Jenn I loved the design of The Network but just didn’t jive with the theme. I wish there were more MU*s like it around.