@Pavel said in The 3-Month Players:

@Faraday said in The 3-Month Players:

TV shows and novels don’t tend to have much (if any) BarRP

… what about Cheers?

How can I play my mysterious, be-trenched, katana-wielding cyber drifter if everyone knows my fucking name??

@Pavel said in Re: Dies Irae:

@somasatori said in Re: Dies Irae:

Thanks for reading this long-ass bullshit lmao

Who let you out of the code mines?

I get 45 minutes leisure time per day

This is wild, I never check this place anymore so I didn’t know we had this long-ish thread.

@Jynxbox said in Re: Dies Irae:

It seems like this place kind of suffers from a lack of experience. I haven’t dealt with all the staff, but it seems like some are just having their growing pains with being a staffer and making decisions. Marid clearly knows what they are doing both mechanically and thematically. If that was the experience everyone was getting when dealing with staff, the place would be hopping. But since Marid seems to be deep into messing with the code, the players are left with… everyone else. But there’s a sharp, steep drop off from interacting with Marid to dealing with some other staffers.

Hi, I’m Marid! And I absolutely, 100% agree. Also, thank you for saying I know what I’m doing, as I’m not sure of that myself most of the time. I’m largely sucked into the code world, so I can’t do as much as I would like to in order to get plot kicked off or to focus on things in the game proper.

My main concern is, and continues to be, the knee-jerk house rule thing. In early days we decided on a rule-by-committee/democratic structure for the game to prevent there from being the kind of godhead or “my way or the highway” sort of figure. This hasn’t turned out very well, IMO, but it’s difficult to redirect a moving train regardless of how slow it is.

I would love to get out of code, but there’s always something. For example, recently I noticed that for whatever reason our places code reverted to a previous build. No idea why, it’s correctly updated in github, but it’s giving an error that I cleared back in early April. So, it continues.

It feels like they kinda just forgot what fun was about. It seems like they built this place and then certain staffers never wanted to give up control. You app a PC and immediately they go about trying to turn your PC into their NPC, talking to you about your character like they know it better than you, telling you who your character is and what it needs.

This is also something that I’ve noticed happening! It goes directly against my personal ethics with regards to how staff should interact with players, which is to be fans of the character. Even if you don’t like the player very much, or you don’t know the player at all (or even if you gasp like the player??) it’s important to remember that we’re all trying to tell a story together. That means we accept the things that you bring and, rather than change the character that is presented, adapt to the best that you can. If you can’t find a middle ground, the character is still viable, but maybe not for what you have on offer immediately. Doesn’t mean you can’t make something else happen in the future.

And all that might be worth the grief if something happened with your character once your in play, but like most place, you’re just kind of abandoned to the grid…

Yes, I really wanted there to be plots set up, but given the revolving door in sphere staff, it’s hard to keep that going. It really kind of started during the initial days of the project, if I’m being honest. We had some very kick-ass Vampire staff who got pissed off at some overreach by another staffer into what they wanted to do, and they left. Rather than just scrap what was there, there was some insistence that we keep going with what was originally created even if the previous staffers weren’t going to be around to consult and keep the vision going.

One of them is making a very cool looking superhero MUSH using Evennia. I’m really stoked for her, and I hate superhero games. It looks fun, though!

And only after the fact do you find out the staffer admits that they aren’t the best with (game) mechanics.

I do want to say that I don’t think that any of the above is done with maliciousness. I don’t think they are bad people, just not very experienced with staffing and very out of touch with the player experience they are providing.

It is absolutely not intended to be malicious. Brass tacks, we needed like… maybe another 4-6 months of germination time before releasing. Some staffers were SUPER excited about spreading the word and brought players onto the Discord early (as much vitriol as there is about the Discord). This was A Bad Move. I know a thing or two about advertising way too early on account of being the OG creator of the Reach, which had a meme about how many times I’d promised the release date for a while there.

I know they side loaded a staff coordinator who has been helpful, but it looks like most of the horses (maybe just some) have already gotten out of the barn.

A lot of folks have burnt out, I think.

Here’s my personal opinion that no one asked for: I don’t think big fuck-all multi-line WoD games work anymore. I think we’re all much older now, we all have many more responsibilities, and we all have specific types of games we want to play. Single or maybe double-sphere games would work better, because of a few things:
a) it focuses the action on a specific theme and creates a strong and clear intent on what sort of game you’re playing;
b) staffers who know those spheres will be able to run those spheres, rather than applying the warm-body problem (get anyone who has a passable understanding or has heard of the game into the hot seat);
c) you might have a smaller population and that might actually not be that bad in the long run, especially if there were multiple single-sphere games that people could bounce between
d) you can be more flexible with your setting;
e) staff will probably be less likely to burn out;
f) I would be less likely to burn out trying to write a bunch of validation code because chimerical items work this way whereas other equipment works this way, but then we have to keep in mind that there are talens, fetishes, and “artifacts” which are from the Ghost Hunters book that we’re referencing for some reason; also that fucking. OOC room. visibility. bug.

I also think that new games would benefit from having a development bible. I still have the one I wrote for The Reach. It gave clear guidelines on the history of each sphere, the focus in each sphere, how they applied to the metaplot, how they function within the context of Aleswich and Dunlin’s Point, and what the EOTW scenario looks like to that sphere.

Actually, I’m briefly turning this into Soma’s game design class. Here’s what you want to know about your game:

• Where do you see the game in three years?
• What sort of gameplay do you intend for the game to have?
• How does autonomy work for the individual spheres? To what extent is there a centralized leadership?
• What sort of plots/themes can we run/use in our storytelling?
• What sort of plots/themes can’t we run/use in our storytelling?
• What sphere is absolutely mission critical for the game to keep going?

Here’s my TR answer:

• Game would end in 3 years with a big explosive metaplot thing in which case we’d reopen something depending on the events of the plot.
• Largely story-based with a focus on staff-based stories and some PrP, preventing the game from falling into a sandbox (ultimately kind of failed there)
• Sphere focused with interactions between the groups based around the metaplot and family structure. Individual spheres would be left to their own devices in terms of house rules, with larger structural house rules in place for the rest of the game as they come up. Ex. Changeling staff can HR goblin fruit and contracts all they want, but there are no individual HRs on attributes or skills specific to Changeling that makes them significantly different from the rest of the game.
• Themes are focused on the following genres/themes: Lovecraftian cosmic horror, kitchen-sink horror, mystery
• The core story-based Mage the Awakening elements were not present, high tech stuff is not available as it doesn’t fit in-theme.
• Changeling. Changeling was linked strongly with the Wailing Worm, which was an outer god that tunneled past the Hedge into Arcadia and became a weird amalgam of Keeper and Outer God.

Having something like this can be very useful in determining how to proceed if you suddenly lose staff in one arena (or multiple arenas, or can’t find staff for one group, or you’re facing terminal levels of burnout).

As it stands, Dies Irae has a great shot at being a GarouMUX-but-for-Fera given the way the population is set up, but that would require somehow convincing folks to shutter spheres. The problem being: we don’t know what spheres are required to keep the lights on. We also don’t really know what themes the game has as a whole.

Admittedly I also didn’t suggest this during development, so it’s kind of my own fault for not bringing it up.

P.S. To DI: The fact that you’ve got Tijuana relegated to one grid square with no builds is… not… great. I don’t want to assume the reason, but it would appear to me that either your cultural or political biases are showing - or you’re just not that familiar with San Diego. Maybe a mix of all of them. But just on the population numbers alone, you should be able to tell that you’re ignoring a huge resource and influence. Tijuana is the most populace city in the area. It is bigger than the largest three (or four) cities in San Diego county combined. Excluding LA, there’s not another city bigger than it for 1500 miles. Just saying. From a gameplay/thematic standpoint, that’s a huge missed opportunity. Culturally, a bit cringe.

Yeah, I agree. Tijuana was originally written in back when we had the aforementioned two vampire staffers. Tijuana in classic WoD is a Sabbat stronghold and where the original crusade for San Diego came from. I think there was more intended from there, but it would have been better to just remove it once we realized there weren’t going to be any real builds or anything of the sort. Tijuana is a massive, sprawling city. It’d be similar to having a game set in Illinois and then Chicago is just one room while the rest of it is set in Naperville, or having your Bordeaux game with one room being Paris.

Edit to add:
@Warma-Sheen said in Re: Dies Irae:

But I do agree that the proximity and size and political status does make for a big missed opportunity for a more interesting and dynamic game theme, especially in terms of sources of conflict and antagonists. It is tailor made for a MU. Not a BAD thing. Just a disappointing one.

BUT it isn’t one that’s completely wasted yet. I’d encourage them to really take a look at the opportunities there and in the future open it up like a DLC expansion pack with a full complement of themes and integration, not just some grid spaces. Dies Irae: TJ!

Absolutely this. It’s a great opportunity. We would need more staff to pull it off.

I can state with 100% certainty that it wasn’t intended to be a culturally insensitive thing. The original vamp staffers were both Latin American (not Mexican, but South American) and wanted to include some more specific cultural elements, but left the game before it could be implemented. C’est la vie, but it would probably be for the best if we at least removed the link to Tijuana and sent it over to the OOC builder’s paradise room.

I did want to note, btw: I’m not headstaff there, really. I’m the code lead, and ostensibly the Mage lead though I don’t really have too much time for it, and the Storytelling Coordinator, which I’m not too sure what that means. I was originally brought on to write the metaplot story line and do Mage.

Also: Would be super cool if someone made a Tijuana game, just sayin’.

Thanks for reading this long-ass bullshit lmao

Hello, I’d like to announce the beta opening of Dies Irae, a 20th Anniversary World of Darkness MUSH using the Evennia platform.

Dies Irae is a World of Darkness MUX set in modern-day San Diego. It uses the 20th Anniversary Edition of Vampire: the Masquerade, Werewolf: the Apocalypse, Mage: the Ascension and Changeling: the Dreaming as its core rulesets, and further provides support for Mortal and Mortal+ characters, Fera, and also Wyrm-aligned characters.

Dies Irae is a game of collaborative storytelling. We focus on the struggle of characters against - or to accelerate - the encroaching doom of the world and entities portrayed by storytellers rather than against other player characters. This even applies to Wyrm-aligned characters, who are all employed by Pentex, which has an agenda not concerned with other player characters.

Player character vampires in Dies Irae are all Sabbat. Werewolves are primarily focused on the Sept of the Rising Tide, rebuilding a formerly calcified Caern. All tribes are offered save for Red Talons. The Traditions, Technocracy and Nephandi are options for Mage characters. Changeling offers Kithain including certain Gallain, Merfolk, and Nunnehi; with conflicts focused more on borders, culture, and land claims than Seelie versus Unseelie courts. Fera are working within two court structures: one that is influenced by the Ahadi and includes all of the western Fera (Rokea, Gurahl, Ananasi, Ratkin, Ajaba, Mokole, and Bastet) with the occasional Kitsune, as well as a small, but functional Emerald Court that has been in the area since the Chinese Exclusion Act was repealed.

The power levels of characters in Dies Irae are at a low to medium level. Characters might very well have aspirations of great power, but our focus is on more modest power levels.

Join us on the game in any MU* client at diesiraemu.com:4201

The wiki and web-based client for the game can be found at https://diesiraemu.com/wiki/

You can also join our Discord at: https://discord.gg/E82vkhKJ

The game is built in Evennia. Its code can be found at https://github.com/Dies-Irae-mu and is open for anyone to use for their own games.

We are currently running a beta phase. The game is open for play. Its code is substantially complete, and its story is commencing, with the caveat that systems are subject to change.

I’m the character Tiziri there, come by and say hi!

@Narrator said in MU Peeves Thread:

But that was discarded in favor of World of Darkness MUSHes where most of the game is in the character application process and in making sure you never offend the right clique in the OOC foyer, and not in the scenes your character is in.

Methinks Narrator was an asshole in the OOC room one too many times and, as such, has decided to complain about it obliquely on here. Thankfully they’re banned, so …

I am so weirdly excited to hear that Jill the Guest is back! If there are any new MUSHers on CoG, this is like a total eclipse event for them!

I love Frieren so much

@mietze said in MU Peeves Thread:

so you may have to ask would you prefer the vampire alt or the werelobster?

Werelobster for me every time.

@Pavel said in MU Peeves Thread:

This may be something that only annoys me,

nope! Seeing messages on channels about how there’s nothing to do is like the non-constructive feedback version of saying you want to RP, in my opinion. “I’m at blah blah area for whoever wants to join,” then hanging out there is way more constructive and could even result in something. Even if no one does and you grumble to yourself about nothing to do, you’re still being proactive. Besides, you might meet someone you didn’t know before.

@Roadspike

@Gashlycrumb said in MU Peeves Thread:

But definitely an invididual thing, too – GoB’s popularity was firmly linked to that of Game of Thrones and most other MUs don’t see a burst of new apps every season premier and finale of a television show, or have people lose enthusiasm when the show’s quality falls.

This is a side note, and I do have thoughts about the main topic, but I wanted to point out that this was a fairly common occurrence in the past. In fact, I’ve been surprised that there hasn’t been a resurgence of Dune or Cyberpunk 2020/77 games in the last few years. At the turn of the 21st century, for instance, DuneMUSH got a big surge of players due to the sci-fi channel miniseries that had come out around that time. Final Fantasy MUSH always saw player surges when new games were released, and so on.

Game creation is far more accessible these days with regards to genre emulation thanks to Ares and Evennia (i.e., without specialized systems like the modiphius engine for Dune or CyberpunkRED but able to provide the aesthetic and setting with theme/story customization), so just a bit surprised they haven’t popped up. Like, no D&D-style fantasy adventure games after BG3? That would have seen a huge surge, I would guess.

Musing complete. Please return to the normal thread. @Coin makes some very good points and I appreciate your perspective here @Gashlycrumb.

@Pavel said in General Video Game Thread:

@somasatori said in General Video Game Thread:

I’m a staunch Kantian

That phrase has a very different meaning in Australia.

Both meanings fit me, I think.

I picked up Broken Roads, which is a new Dingo Elysium game (dialogue 'em up set in Australia). It’s all right so far! Still figuring out if I’m enjoying the philosophical system as it sort of seems like the usual RPG choices but with a reference to Hume or Machiavelli. Like, should I save the raider chief’s life because all human life has inherent good and I’m a staunch Kantian? Or should I kill him for the utilitarian greater good? OR should I kill him because he might come after me and I’m a nihilist and therefore must maximize my own chances to survive?

I mean, it’s cool so far. The controls and pathfinding are a little clunky. It has an isometric fallout feel, as it’s post apocalyptic.

Edit: It has terrible reviews, seemingly because of the clunky controls and bugs, but they haven’t really bothered me yet. Maybe it’s like a YMMV situation.

That’s such a cool game! Good job on the video!

Let me say my old catchphrase, ahem:
I promise that the Reach will remain in an alpha state for only a few additional months before our grand opening!

Did anyone answer if you have to eat it or if it has to be involved with the intercourse in some way?

@Prototart said in Comic Games Are Still Fun!:

(the LAST char i made, he gave a glowing approval for as a concept pitch & then rejected outright and told me i was trash when i very lightly pushed back on something he said during review)

Damn, is he my thesis advisor lmao

@Roz I remember reading him for a comedy in lit class and was particularly taken by his work (Baby With the Bathwater iirc?). Sad to hear he’s gone