@Pavel / @Gashlycrumb
‘The Michael Jordan of Drunk Driving’ by AJJ
The Michael Jordan of drunk driving played his final game tonight.
Emburdened[sic] by his loneliness,
he wanted to feel alive;
His laziness built the pyramids
and his solitude was a knife.
The Michael Jordan of drunk driving played his final game tonight.
The issue is one of power parity and stat comparison in most cases. Werewolf would not have a pvp problem most of the time without Vampire or Mage. Vampire would not have a PVP problem if people stopped playing Vampire. Mage would not have a PVP problem without Vampires and Werewolves. We need to stop making big multi-sphere games.
Someone once told me (paraphrased) that the primary difference between maintaining OOC respect for your fellow players after a PVP/tense situation at a LARP and maintaining OOC respect and kindness towards your fellow MUSHers in the same situation is that MUSHers are not obligated to sit in a booth with each other at IHOP at 2am after we’ve finished our scenes.
Anonymity can be a real motivator in being a serious asshole towards others – which is interesting, because I’m fairly certain we’ve all known each other (or of each other) for the better part of a decade (which is perhaps also what leads to PVP situations).
That said, PVP is a difficult one. On one hand, if you explicitly prohibit PVP in a WoD environment, it takes some of the bite out of inter-sphere relations. On the other hand, allowing for a no-holds-barred environment will make the game – from examples I’ve seen – into a tedious free-for-all. I’m not sure if it’s just my perception based on the people I talk to, but I feel like interest in PVP has dropped off in the last little while.
@Pavel said in Numetal/Retromux:
I fear that the all-too-common assertion of this or that genre being particularly problematic abnegates the true bearers of responsibility: the players and staff playing those games. We can talk ad nauseam about systems and lore and thematic appropriateness, but that’s basically irrelevant—we’ve been having those conversations for the better part of two or three decades at this point.
I don’t disagree here, as there are many normal (or whatever) people playing and staffing on WoD games. I think the problem is a precursor to what we have now. Long ago no one curbed the behavior. Then we all put up with the behavior to our own detriment. Now it seems that the true WoDheads left are either very traumatized by said poor behavior and therefore trust no one, or are the perpetrators of said behavior. Then there’s are the people who are new to WoD on a MUSH and are deeply confused about this dichotomy.
But as you said,
Poor behaviour is only acceptable because people in positions of authority continue to accept it. Couching the problem as “this genre has its issues” is lazy and reductive and passes the buck from staff enforcement of behavioural standards to some ineffable ‘theme’ problem.
And while that is true, there are certain elements that may attract a certain kind of player to WoD over Star Wars. But it comes back to the historical “that’s how it’s always been” approach. If you see someone playing a Black Spiral Dancer, you have a short hand association of the kind of player they most likely are. It may not be accurate, but we’ve played with enough of them and have enough general understanding of the theme to know what RP they’re going for.
But hell, that’s probably incorrect now that I write that out given that the player who was banned from RetroMUX for violating the policy around erotic RP as a minor enacted this RP on a star wars game.
@Ashkuri said in Numetal/Retromux:
This system was never meant to be in a MUSH format.
This is always a very silly complaint to me. With the exception of systems like (presumably since its creator is the developer of Ares – also I may be incorrect but I believe it was designed as a tabletop system first) FS3, no tabletop system was meant for a MUSH environment. Even systems designed with VTT in mind are designed with the same dynamics as World of Darkness where you have a small handful of people who are exceptional representatives of whatever larger group they belong to – adventurers, werewolves, wizards, investigators, nobility, etc., etc. – and people external to that group are either benign NPCs or enemies. One could also say that Star Wars doesn’t work because you’re not intended to run Imperial and Rebel Alliance characters at the same table.
I’m not disagreeing with the overall point that WoD games always seem to have the wildest and weirdest stories, but blaming the system of a collection of separate tabletop games that people insist on shoving together because they use the same names for stats digresses from the overall point of why WoD games end up as a huge mess, which is usually:
@Yam said in Numetal/Retromux:
thanks to allowing a certain kind of player to gesture to the sourcebooks and go “it’s thematic for me to be a raging asshole”. Most players don’t do this. Some do. Some buckle down hard. The older books have a lot of sexually charged lore as well, and that particular player may latch onto that with some… colorful manifestations that everyone gets to deal with.
@Pavel said in Numetal/Retromux:
@Aria Hey. I was perfectly okay for approximately 37 minutes on Thursday, January 15th, 1987, between 00:04 and 00:41.
Oh yeah! I remember that, I think we were there at the same time, but I can’t seem to remember the name of the woman you were with. What was her full, unmarried name again?
@Ashkuri said in Numetal/Retromux:
WOD players are you guys okay??
laughs in 30 years of MUSH history
@Ashkuri said in When is the last time you played?:
For those who haven’t RP’d in several years, what keeps you checking in/weighing in on the forum? I’m referring here to the forum parts specifically about MUSHing and RP, not the social/ooc parts like RL support, pets, books, dead people, etc.
Pure aspiration that one day the stars will align.
@Pavel said in Numetal/Retromux:
@Gashlycrumb said in Numetal/Retromux:
<insert political party>
Hate those guys
I put “over 1 year ago.” I’ve had maybe 5 scenes total since March, 2025, where I would basically cgen a character, play them for a scene, then never come back. Regularly RPing? Roughly around July, 2024 according to a log from BeipMU. Sometimes I just create characters and never play them. I usually blame how busy I am with work and children and family, but tbh there’s some kind of spark missing that prevents me from getting hooked into a game.
@Pavel said in Scenes within Scenes:
I’m more on board with the suggestions that involve “just fucking don’t” for scenes that require it. I don’t need massive meetings, huge parties, all that shit.
This is my perspective on it. Most of the massive meetings are effectively a monologue with a guest speaker or two. There is some incentive to show up (votes, IC timer xp, etc.) but not to engage meaningfully since contributions outside of the main players will end up being sidelined. I don’t need to show up to showcase my reaction about some new plot development for the faction. Massive factional meetings are a bbpost given life.
The only times I found places remotely useful were in very, very large scenes – typically big sphere meetings, where you could organize talk to just your specific group of players you wanted to play with. However, that always made those big scenes feel like “this meeting could have been an email” occasions since no one is really engaging with the meeting in any meaningful way.
I’m with @Juniper in that it doesn’t make a lot of narrative sense to have a place where I’m functionally unable to be heard. That seems like it should just be another room.
@Faraday said in RP Safari - Pacing Styles:
This really doesn’t have to be this hard.
As MUSHers, it is our job to make everything as difficult as possible, Faraday
@Wizz said in RP Safari - Pacing Styles:
I mean, this is a sample size of about ten very opinionated people, lol. it’s just not going to be an accurate reflection of the entire population of the hobby.
The paradox of the MUSH discussion forum, alas
Coincidentally, Lewd Zork was my runnin’ around name in my 20s!
Regarding solutions to things, my suggestion is to have a tentative solution to a problem and do not, under any circumstances, rely solely on that solution/story thread to move to your next plot beat. It’s important to be flexible and be able to incorporate the emergent fiction of the game into your story.
One thing I usually do when I write out plots is use a mind map. I’ll put the inciting incident of the plot on one side and my tentative eventual goal(s) on the other side of the map, then start filling in possible avenues that could be taken to reach the goals. Next up, I create two sections for players: an active section and a bullpen section. If I know the players fairly well, I can usually anticipate the course of action the players take, which is important for developing potential story beats. Usually I’ll make a note of the characters’ primary abilities or, if I am not staff and have only observed the players, I will make a note of what I’ve seen them do most often. I’ll ask, but people are often really weird about their stats, or they used to be anyhow. Failing either of those, I’ll base it off whatever data I can mine from their wiki pages or stereotypes about those types of characters (e.g., Brujah vampires are likely going to be pro-combat).
Being a (primarily) WoD storyteller, I will also create a three-part approach to stories, with a focus on what will happen if someone attempts to develop a solution to a problem socially, through research (mental skills), or through combat. This will spin out to consequences and forward momentum, which will move to more story beats.
Since this is a largely living document, it also allows me to course correct if things are getting too wildly off path. Something that’s a bit out of left field or way out of bounds of what’s in scope for the plot might be its own spin-off. When that happens, if I can’t run that at the same time I’ll provide the player with a timeline of when we can approach it, then do some redirection if possible. Usually, but not always, those players have followed the plot to their own personal satisfaction at this point and are more interested in this sideline piece. Those players will get shifted down to the bullpen which helps me adjust the weight of some of the other possible outcomes that might come into play given the existing scenes/story beats that I’m going to be running. Do this enough, and you start to see a pattern emerge, and you can usually predict what course the story will take. Despite that, it’s important not to be reliant on your own internal narrative for the story, even if you have a fairly conclusive “big showdown fight at Important MUSH Location #1” ending.
All of that is, of course, for a longer-running thing. For shorter plots or one-shots I generally will have no ending plotted out at all, and will usually just build a few responses based on the approach type of the players: either that three part physical/mental/social, or if I’m very aware of their capabilities and reasonably sure they’re all going to show up, a set of more personalized challenges that the players will overcome based on their strengths and limitations.
This is a lot of work to do and I don’t anticipate that it’s something a lot of people want to do, but I feel like it’s been the path to success for me.
I’m still plugging away here! I think I’m close to a good release candidate, with the exception of the web-facing side. The main things I’ve been working on lately have been in display consistency, since the primary mechanics-based stuff has been done for a bit.
Some general wishlist items I’m continuing to work on:
Melee weapon example
"chainsaw": WeaponData("Chainsaw", damage=3, initiative_mod=-6, weapon_type="melee",
size=3, strength_req=4, availability=3, tags="bleed, inaccurate, two-handed")
Ranged weapon example:
"rifle": WeaponData("Rifle", damage=4, initiative_mod=-5, weapon_type="ranged",
size=3, strength_req=2, availability=2, capacity="low"),
Armor example:
"flak_jacket": ArmorData("Flak Jacket", general_armor=2, ballistic_armor=4,
strength_req=1, defense_penalty=-1, speed_penalty=0, availability=2,
coverage=["torso", "arms"]),
General equipment example:
"crime_scene_kit": EquipmentData(name="Crime Scene Kit", category="mental_equipment",
die_bonus=2, durability=2, size=3, structure=2, availability=2,
effect="Toolbox with investigative aids: magnifiers, fingerprint dust, cameras,
tape, chemicals, sample bags. +2 to Investigation. Allows evidence to be moved
and analyzed offsite at leisure.", skill_bonuses={"investigation": 2},
special_properties={"forensics": True, "evidence_collection": True}),
The special properties and coverage don’t really do anything at the moment, as that links back to the mysteries system and automated combat system. Here’s what this looks like on game:
And so on. The other configuration piece for equipment is similar to how XP is configured, using the admin commands. By default, it is a pool of resource points that you can spend on a monthly basis. This has been set up to be modifiable to address how frequently you want people to be able to buy things, whether you can save points on a time-by-time basis (default being that you add new points into your existing pool each month). I also inserted a couple supplemental merits that increase your resource pool, notably Status and Contacts. In Chronicles of Darkness, purchases are made via availability, so anything that adds to your ability to buy equipment is (in my mind) centered on your ability to source and acquire it, which includes who you know.
I think I mentioned this before, but XP can be configured in either a weekly auto release situation (default is 1 XP per week), or on a +vote system, both of which are easily configured with regards to how much XP you can acquire per week, or how much XP a +vote provides. The XP system is tied into the other functions of the game, such as roll (exceptional successes, dramatic failures), integrity rolls, and conditions and aspirations, which are all managed by the players.
I made the integrity roller a little prettier. This is using a Vampire character sheet with Humanity 6. I succeeded at my check, therefore I maintained my humanity, acquired a beat because I had a degeneration roll, and gained one of the conditions suggested in VtR.
In several cases including this as you can see, I use EVMenu to select conditions rather than rely on the player to do it manually via the +condition command. There is also an option to add a condition using the +condition command, which will also show you what conditions you have set on yourself when you use it.
Recently I’ve been playing around more with the Demon integrity stuff. Demons have the option to create additional covers when they hit a certain level of Primum (among other methods). It’s not as elegant as I would like, but right now you set your current primary cover and your integrity will be based off of that. Since Demons don’t gain a beat or condition if their Cover drops (correct me if I’m wrong), it just affects the rating based on the roll:
There’s probably a lot of other little things I’ve done in the past six five months that are generally escaping me at the moment and I also don’t to blow this up with a ton of screenshots more than I have. Anywho, still truckin’!
One last thing is that I took a lot of those generic sort of MUSH commands that people expect which were mentioned above and put them into their own commands folder called ‘commonmux’ with a cmdset. The intention is that you can just grab that cmdset and import it into your default_cmdsets file. This contains the following commands: alias, alts, emit/pose/say (with language mixin), +finger, ooc chat, tabletalk/places, shortdesc, +staff, +who, +watch, page, +weather, and +note. I’ve run through the process of getting around ten-ish different Evennia installations up and running while installing those and the only problems that arise are related to the tabletalk/places commands and the language mixins with pose/say/emit. Those two rely on the pyreach characters and rooms typeclasses. I put in some instructions on what exactly you need to remove to get them to work, though! Goal being that it makes Evennia emulate the MUSH experience a bit better so people feel more comfortable with it.
I agree with @bear_necessities. not to get all foucault and shit but the application process is a sort of prison, and the prisoner is both the staffer and the player. The main rationale for apps is generally twofold:
To some extent I feel like the community has largely moved on from the necessity of point #1. General powergaming and being the best combat monster is an extremely unsatisfying thing to play long term and it seems like most of the folks who went that route (at least in WoD) have disappeared.
On the second point, metaplot and strict staff-run plots have been on the outs for something like 10 years now. If you’re introducing PRPs into your setting at all, you’re relinquishing control over your setting to other players. Hell, if you allow other staff to run plots on your game you’re relinquishing control. My argument is that there is, therefore, no need to strictly monitor stats to maintain a theme, especially if you’re running a MUSH that emulates a TTRPG system. The system will inform the fiction and you will get characters that fit your theme because of the point allotment they have. Highly unbalanced social sexpot psychic? they absolutely exist in both WoD and other modern fantasy settings. Combat-focused werewolf who ignores any other skill aside from Hit The Guy? 100% part of any urban, medieval, or other fantasy setting. If someone apps in with these concepts in mind and does an overall bad job because they didn’t understand what they were making, they’ll probably be avoided by the rest of their fellow players because they are genuinely not thematically enjoyable RP, or they’ll find themselves on the short end of a plot that they could never have prepared for.
Put another way: if someone apps into a Mage the Ascension game and has no understanding of how paradigms, practices, and instruments work, nor how to implement them into practical use within the storyline, that will work itself out eventually (and possibly in short order)
@Gashlycrumb I came here to post that. RIP to a real one, gonna watch the yellow video again