Depending on what type of Mech combat you want, FS3 will work brilliantly or not at all. I’ve worked on two different ways to handle Mech combat in FS3, with varying degrees of success.

1. Just use them as vehicles. This works best for 30-40 footers that are effectively giant armor or walking tanks. It’s simple, it’s straightforward, and it’s going to be very clean and easy.

2. Multi-part mechs. This works best for a Pacific Rim scale, alongside kaiju or something like it. You have separate ‘vehicles’ for each of the limbs, so that they can each take damage separately and you don’t get lucky one-hit KOs. It’s definitely more complex – both for GMs and for players – but absolutely doable.

If you’re interested in making FS3 work for mechs, I’m always up for talking about implementation of unintended systems into FS3.

I have a folder of faces and associated names – when I see an interesting face in a movie or show, I note down the name, look them up on Pinterest, try to wade through all of the BS AI fakes to find a good picture, and then slip that pic with their name into the folder.

I currently have 374 actors listed in there, across a wide variety of ages, colorings, ethnicities, genders, and pretty much everything else. So the first place I go when I want a PB is there.

Then again, I often get an idea for a character while watching a show, and then I already have a PB in mind (because I saw them in a similar role already). Then I just have to make sure that they don’t become an outright expy.

@Pavel Totally agree that it’s better to have an elegant reason why nuking the other side doesn’t work baked into the setting. But I also don’t really think that it should be necessary to tell players “No, you can’t end the war game’s war in a single stroke” in the lore. We did approach the player with lore reasons why it wouldn’t work first, but the player kept chasing the idea, and so we ended up saying “We’ve given you IC reasons, here’s the OOC reason: we want the war and don’t want to end it at a stroke.” They didn’t take it so well.

@KarmaBum said in World Tone / Feeling:

@Roadspike Those are good conceptual examples. Can you share any specific examples from the perspective of you, as a player?

Most of those were just generalized versions of specific examples. Here are – as best as I remember – the specific examples.

On BSGU, we ran into a Cylon snake, and my character made a quippy remark giving it a nickname. I don’t remember what it was, but as I recall, a GM-run NPC later used that nickname in a briefing (perhaps reluctantly, or with a sigh, or something, it’s been a decade, I don’t remember for sure). That made me feel like I was having an impact on the world.

On Realms Adventurous, Staff there was really good about putting out posts about the actions of players, and of mentioning them ICly in scenes. I remember a skirmish before a tournament and the herald or one of the marshals or something mentioned it, calling out the knights by name who had participated.

Oh! Here’s an even better one because it wasn’t all positive: on Steel & Stone, my character intervened in single combat to save his cousin from a death (it was like my second week on the game, and I didn’t want to be responsible for the death of another PC), and I heard about it for months from GM-run NPCs, including my character’s cousin and liege lord when the crew returned from the Iron Isles. But it came up in scenes where I wasn’t even playing, so it definitely felt like it had an effect.

As for the last concept, I’ve seen it happen enough times that I don’t know that I can come up with a specific great example, but the hypotheticals I mentioned before (a GM NPC mentions that they came in on a ship that the PCs saved from pirates or the zeppelin) should hopefully be concrete enough examples to be examples.

I don’t need my characters to change to metaplot or the setting wildly, I just want the actions of PCs as a whole to impact the game, I want my efforts to be recognized. One of my love languages is Words of Affirmation, and as far as I’m concerned, that’s how that happens in MUSHes.

@Pavel – I think that the distinction between the desires of the characters and the player is a fantastic one. Characters should want to win, players should want the game to continue to be fun for them and those around them. It’s the same way I think that players should approach PvP (at least when it’s OOCly friendly) – yeah, your character wants to win, but you as a player, you want to tell the best possible story with your fellow players.

I do think that it’s important to come up with ways to short-circuit attempts to end the setting/metaplot, but I also think that it’s fair game to OOCly tell someone “doing that would fundamentally change the game in ways that we’re not comfortable with, we’re happy to provide IC rationalization on why your character can’t succeed with this, but please don’t continue down this path as a player.”

@Gashlycrumb The whole idea of share points might work for some games, but it feels like it is absolutely rife with the possibility of the perception of bias. Like, “X told me that it only cost them 3 share points to get spotlighted at a plot, but it cost me 5” or “how does Y always have so many share points?” or even just “I never get into a plot, even when I have share points, Staff must be manipulating event signups.”

Even if none of that is actually true, the perception can destroy trust in a game.

@Faraday said in World Tone / Feeling:
Yet there are always players who want to civilize a Wild West game, create a superweapon that will defeat the Cylons in a Battlestar game, cure the zombie virus in a zombie game, etc.

Having had to deal with players wanting to wipe out the adversary in a world(s)-at-war game with an asteroid strike… I don’t get it either. The only thing that I can think is that some people just want to “win” the game, not realizing or not caring that if someone “wins” a MUSH, then the MUSH that exists is fundamentally over. Sure, something like it may be able to continue on, but it won’t be the same game that brought people to it.

@KarmaBum For me, “touch the world” means seeing my actions (or the results of them) spread through the IC world. Whether that’s something as simple as some slang that I created spreading to Staff-run NPCs, having the First Minister mention the brave, heroic actions of a group of knights who saved a puppy (“Hey, that was me!”), or having a Staff-run plot integrate something that I did as a player GM (the zeppelin that I had PCs defending just showed up in the midst of this big fight and saved the day!).

I want to know that what I’m doing has an impact on those around me, PCs and NPC, because if I’m not able to impact what others are experiencing, why am I playing a multiplayer storytelling experience/game?

@MisterBoring We did something like this on The Savage Skies: each adventure, we had a list of area hooks, common antagonists, common allies, current plots, and any specific resources (like Staff Notes that were of particular use for the adventure) to help player-GMs find their footing. It worked okay, we had a few people run some stuff based on that information. We definitely could have provided more of the “what,” “why,” and “how” for the antagonists along with the “who.”

I too am on the Grimbright or Nobledark train – if the world is dark, I want to be able to make positive change (even if it’s small); if the world is bright, I want there to be a little grittiness to it as well.

I want my characters to succeed somewhere between 51% and 70% of the time – if they succeed all the time, it doesn’t feel like the stakes are really there, and if they fail more than half the time, it gets frustrating.

In the last decade or so, the world has been grimdark enough, if the setting is going to be either grim or dark, I want to be able to punch it in the face.

I agree with a lot of what @Tat, @Faraday, @Pyrephox, and others have said. One incentive that I think can help get people interested in running PrPs is to have Staff weave references to the actions in their PrPs into larger metaplot scenes.

Did they stop a pirate ship from taking a merchantman? The important plotgiver for the next metaplot scene happened to be on that merchantman and is effusive in their thanks.

Not only does this let players know that player-run-plots matter, it provides a thank-you to player GMs, shares a little spotlight with all involved, and might even make it easier for player GMs to feel more comfortable taking on bigger plot ideas.

@Gashlycrumb said in “All the World’s a MUSH”: Genre as Destiny in Collaborative Roleplay Behaviour:

(and winged unicorns a super-special restricted sphere, oooh)

Hello, those are alicorns.

Sorry, my kid was really, really hard into MLP for a while. I promise I’m not a brony, not that there’s anything wrong with that in itself.

As a data-nerd myself (although amateur, not professional), I’m very curious about the data from the poll/study/whatever-you-wanna-call-it. And the qualitative information as well (whatever can be properly anonymized and shared, at least).

I actually love a combination between Royal Heir Finds One True Match (not necessarily love, but a good match), and Bridgerton MUSH; something like this:

There’s an NPC Royal Heir (or maybe two, depending on Staff interest and availability) that everyone is at court to meet and hope to marry, but if PCs want to settle for other PCs, they can. Sure, they don’t get the brilliant and powerful connection, but they might get someone they actually match well with. This would also allow there to be PCs of the same gender as the Royal Heir who might not be interested in a Consort match with the Royal Heir. They could even be of higher rank than the prospective matches, and with chargenned connections to the Royal Heir (probably closer personal connections the lower ranked they were for a balance). This leads to a situation where the Crown Princess’s hunting gal pals or the Crown Prince’s lords-in-waiting can get in on the politicking and can provide connections – but are the prospective matches buttering them up to get closer to the Royal Heir or because they really like them?

You could also theoretically have a Consort selected alongside a Royal Spouse in a given season, if two players play the game particularly well, one romantically and one politically.

I do like the idea of the Royal Heir being played by any and all Staffers to avoid scheduling burnout – and wonder if doing so would allow any Staffer to see unshared logs by the Royal Heir (I think it might?). I like the idea of releasing the private logs at the end of the season, and agree that the Royal Heir should not be TSing during the Season.

I also love the idea of an every-week-or-two Court Reporter sort of gossip sheet.

I also also love the idea of Love Letter as an inspiration.

@MisterBoring As @Third-Eye mentioned, there was a mini-bubble at the start of each new Season on the Network, and at the beginning of each Hiatus between Seasons. Some people preferred the Hiatus time in the Dome, some people preferred the Seasons, some people came back whenever a particular Season interested them.

Since most Seasons were 4-8 months, there was definitely a tail-off partway through most Seasons, but it did capture the burst at the beginning.

@Faraday Agreed 100% – what defines BarRP for me is that it’s just two or more characters sitting in a bar making small talk without any purpose behind it, usually because one player asked on a public channel “Hey, does anyone want to RP?” and then another said, “Sure! Meet you at That Bar” without having any further idea of what they wanted to do.

I think that characters going to a bar to try and show off their fan-language skills and send increasingly-elaborate messages with them could be fascinating, as could meeting in a salon to have piano-forte duels, as could being presented at court (although there would have to be some chance for interactivity to that one, or it could get seriously boring).

Add in to this meeting in salons to make and break alliances between the prospected prince(sse)s, having scuffles between commoner supporters, duels of honor and dishonor, accusations of pre-marital hanky-panky, trips to the seamstress that are more like putting on a suit of armor for battle, and carriage races or chases… there’s definitely a whole lot that could be done with a Bridgerton-ish setting (especially if there was also the opportunity to make a match with a lesser noble if you fail hard at wooing the Heir).

@Ominous As for the description “in my style,” I think you could do that even more directly:

The Heir of Kingdomname needs a match! Each Season will be filled with grasping members of the high and low nobility, all struggling to stand out among the crowd and nab themselves a crown through demonstration of their clear social quality.

Pretty Princess Simulator is a humorous game of dynastic intrigue and politicking in a fantasy renaissance setting. Players will portray eligible nobles trying to win a future crown, family members of those nobles trying to advance family fortunes, or servants looking to engage in some skullduggery to get ahead.

Staff will provide opportunities for the prospective spouses to meet with the Heir and their intimate circle to learn more about their likes and dislikes, and will guide players through a Season of matchmaking, providing a backdrop on which the characters can create and break alliances as they chase the crown. Once the Heir makes their choices and the Season has completed, there will be a time skip with a new generation of would-be Consorts and a new Heir. The game is intended to poke light-hearted fun at the Lords & Ladies theme, especially shows such as Bridgerton, while still being a high-quality example of such entertainment.

@bear_necessities said in The 3-Month Players:

OK but what will people RP?

This is something I always want to think about when creating a game – and what I want to put into the mission statement to guide and explain every game I work on. I think that every game should have a sentence/paragraph that talks about the OOC community you’re trying to create, and a sentence/paragraph about what characters will be and players will do.

For example:

Fly the unfriendly skies in airplanes that never were, casting spells, dodging dragons, and fighting fascism in the late 1930s. Characters will be members of a “free” militia, The Sky Guard, secretly serving the interests of the French and British governments from an airship base. They will crisscross the Continent finding high adventure.

This describes the setting in an IC manner and emphasizes a “radio serial” feel.

The Savage Skies MUSH is a game of dieselpunk adventure and modern fantasy. Players might be flying against air pirates one week, gathering information on Nationalist Spanish movements the next, trading spells with minions of the Drachenordnung another, and then treating with a great dragon to convince it to join the cause at the end of the month.

This provides a definition of the game OOCly, including the type of events that might be available.

All characters will be explicitly tied to the militia group at the heart of the game, either as a fighting member or one of the smugglers, informants, and hangers-on that work directly with them. From there, you’ll work together with other players to create your own adventures within the setting and metaplot provided by Staff. Staff-run action will take place in Adventures of 1-4 months, with some time between them.

This describes the expectation for players on how they’ll interact with the game and who they can play.

@Jennkryst I would probably let it sit organically for a little while (whether that’s a few days or a week), and then put up a time limit warning (about the same length of time) after that. Mostly that’s just because I would rather teach people to react on their own, rather than wait for a prompt, but I recognize that sometimes the prompt is necessary.

I always want to keep in mind that I want to reward the behavior that I want to see, so giving those who respond on their own a little bonus (and letting them know it) would be reasonable.

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. And there is value to @Jennkryst’s yeetable sign.

I think that there are several interconnected issues at play here in how PCs interact with plot:

• Plot Hoarders who don’t like to share because they want to do all of the things.
• Making sure that NPCs aren’t being used when there are PCs to get the spotlight.
• Making sure that plot doesn’t get hung up due to inactivity and just linger.
• People who “should” have been involved in the plot not hearing about it.

At their core, it feels like where this becomes particularly applicable to L&L games is where you have a feudal basis, so the Lord of Crakehall really should be brought in to deal with things happening around Crakehall, but if the player is idle or not in the right crowd, someone else might come in and fix the issue, even if that would “never happen” ICly. A good Staff team with good players can rationalize this away well enough, but one bad apple will spoil the whole rationalization and turn it into a morass of blame and disgruntlement.

I think that an effective way to deal with this is what was referenced above but not quite laid out directly: a chain of impact.

So if there are zombie coyotes in the Westwood, then Staff first has some folks at the lowest tier of PCs run into them (squires, unlanded knights, nobles out of direct succession, etc). If those PCs report it up the chain, then everything is good and Staff doesn’t have to intervene further except to run scenes for folks as the problem gets passed up (and hopefully back down) the chain. The Captain of the Guard is warned, assigns several PC guards to deal with it, reports up to the Head of House who adds a noble leader to the group and a few NPCs who will serve as off-screen beaters to bring the zombie coyotes to the PCs. Excellent. When the Captain of the Guard is warned, a bbpost goes up, so if some nobles are often in the Westwood for other reasons, they can reach out to you to see how they could be involved. If there’s a Bandit King of the Westwood… well, hopefully you reached out to him and his people at the same time as the squires, but if not, he can get involved now too. You have some social scenes and some hunting scenes, and your plot is off to the races.

If, on the other hand, the squires never report the zombie coyotes (they’re idle or hogging plot or whatever), then the Captain of the Guard gets an official report from a hunter that there are zombie coyotes in the Westwood attacking hunting parties (slight escalation from the first incident), and now hopefully the rest of the plot works as above (and the squires get chastised ICly for not saying anything if it was a choice they made). If the Captain of the Guard doesn’t do anything either, then there’s a bbpost about an attack on an outlying village, or maybe random nobles are pulled in for a picnic that goes horribly wrong. Either way, the Head of House is now involved (whether they’re a PC or an NPC), with bigger consequences because two levels of folks haven’t handled the problem, and your plot can continue. And if the bbposts go out when it’s still a problem, not a solved one, then your Westwood-frequenting PCs can either ask to get involved at that stage, or can integrate the incidents into their RP and stay uninvolved otherwise.

As for the tangential problem of having NPCs do the work of PCs, I think that this can be addressed directly and OOCly by Staff to the PCs who control those NPCs. If your Captain of the Guards puts in a request to have a group of NPC guards go out and hunt down the zombie coyotes, a note that they have PC guards who might like to be involved, and that the plot can hold for a few days while they reach out to those other PCs, should handle that. Of course, if a couple of the PC guards were the first ones to encounter the zombie coyotes, they’re already involved, and are likely to want to stay involved – hopefully they’ll be working with the Captain of the Guards to pursue the plotline.

I feel like if there’s a system to allow a character to affect the world with dice, they’re great. If there’s an attempt to allow a character to affect another PC with dice… I’d prefer not to.

@Gashlycrumb Then don’t let PCs app into immediate positions of power. Create a setting where your succession rules are flexible, and have the Faction Heads and their current #2s be NPCs to start with, and then move people up as they “prove” to the players and staff that they’re worthy of it.

Heck, that would even allow for some in-faction competition as opposed to only between factions. And if the succession rules are flexible enough, you can encourage rising above people rather than killing them off to get ahead.

@Gashlycrumb said in Lords and Ladies Game Design:

If Abelard has enormous influence in ‘society’ and everybody loves him based on his dice, but every single PC thinks he’s an insufferable prick and an idiot, it’s rough.

See this just tells me that Society doesn’t actually “love” him, but they fear his family’s influence (or the dastardly things he’s done to others, or even that he’ll get his stink of failure on them) so they let him do what he wants. The PCs, being special as PCs are, might stand up to Abelard despite his influence on Society.