@catzilla said in Freeform or Systems?:

This question/curiosity came about in the superhero and Star Wars threads. (Some) people said freeform superhero is great but a freeform Star Wars game is ICK?

I was one of the people you’re referencing from the Star Wars thread and it really does just boil down to the ground everyone else has already covered, for me.

I like light systems, I like crunchy systems. freeform is something I engaged with when I was much younger, but years of exposure to enormously unfun strangers make the thought of joining a freeform game in the year of our lord 2026 incredibly unappealing, regardless of genre.

I also just enjoy the “game” aspect of roleplaying games. interacting with cleverly designed mechanics is fun and interesting to me.

@DrQuinn

noooooooooo

almost every morning when I am trying to finish my bathroom routine and get ready for the day, this lump just plops himself right down in the sink

@Faraday said in Non-toxic PvP:

There was a conflict and now there’s some IC bad blood. All seems completely expected to me.

I can imagine this exact scenario played out with me and a buddy and it would all be completely fine if we just kept it IC.

now imagine this person is not your buddy, just some rando who doesn’t intend to plot out a fun and engaging “arch rivalry” or “enemies to friends” or whatever. it’s just someone who comes into every scene until the end of time and makes it about this and will never shut the fuck up about it or move on because their OOC ego was hurt that everyone didn’t choose their solution instead.

I’ve had to deal with people like that and I totally get it, just speaking personally. they are pretty far up there in the Most Annoying Player list.

@Jennkryst said in Numetal/Retromux:

@Wizz said in Numetal/Retromux:

y’all. go outside. for…like…a while.

being in this headspace is just Not Good, for anyone involved.

I work in food service. I mu for pretend fun times, not to put up with the same kind of shit I at least get paid for at work.

okay, I never suggested you put up with it. I am telling you your plan is just a power fantasy and that scenario would never play out the way it does in your head.

at best, you suddenly make a single dice roll (there’s…no “I automatically stab him and kill him” button), staff steps in and reiterates that they have already explicitly told you they will not run this scene. you push the issue and you’re shown the door and remembered as that uncomfortable weirdo who wouldn’t take no for an answer.

just save yourself a lot of grief? if a game is not working for you, be an adult and leave. post your reasons why here, and because you’re behaving reasonably way more people are likely to listen and consider it or approach staff with their complaints, change may happen, etc.

from an objective third party, there is no chance, zero, none, that “I stand up to staff by forcing them into a combat scenario and everyone claps!” works. please understand that I am being frank with you in hopes that it helps, not to mock you.

@Jennkryst said in Numetal/Retromux:

@Gashlycrumb No, my PC stabs Larry Leader in the face. And when staff goes ‘no this is not allowed’ go ‘I dunno, it sure looks like I got enough successes to kill Larry and take the throne’ and then when I get PK’d other people will maybe quit due to staff cheating fuckery. Or not. But whatevs.

y’all. go outside. for…like…a while.

being in this headspace is just Not Good, for anyone involved.

again:

@Ashkuri said in Numetal/Retromux:

WOD players are you guys okay??

if you’ve reached a point in a game where you are legitimately considering ham-fistedly trying to force a GM into a scene they have explicitly told you they aren’t going to run, I think it’s time to hang up the cape and put the fang caps away, lol.

@hellfrog said in Celebrities We've Lost 2026 Edition:

bye felicia

I mean he was a garbage human being with some truly repulsive political and religious beliefs…but at least he was also a shitty actor.

OK full disclosure: that post was about how I laughed.

like a disgusted, “why is this community like this” laugh…but I kind of needed the laugh?

what a time to be alive.

@Roz valid! some people just don’t like it, that’s absolutely fine. sorry if I made it seem like it wasn’t when I responded to you earlier, I was just trying to be a silly goose.

@Faraday said in RP Safari - Pacing Styles:

I certainly didn’t invent async RP on MUs. I’ve been doing async MUSH scenes by email almost as long as I’ve been MUSHing. It’s always been there. Now, with Ares, it can just be done on the game.

oh for sure. I actually grew up on PbP forums just as much as MU*s myself. I am more just framing how some responses to this topic unfortunately start to come off to me every time it pops up.

@Yam said in RP Safari - Pacing Styles:

If you sense any rankling, it’s because someone’s favored style may be dying, which means less people to RP with. It’s the nature of the game.

I get this and I do sympathize with it, and I’m just gonna suggest that exploratory ventures into a style you don’t personally enjoy are probably going to be colored by that bias, in addition to the simple fact that, again, there are a lot of people who are just bad at this period, lol, whether that’s due to inexperience or whatever else. it’s not just that playing a different way is worse.

sorry-not sorry but the tendency here to frame async play as bad roleplaying somehow by default stylistic choice is not just inaccurate, it is rude.

I absolutely gaurantee you will find bad roleplayers everywhere regardless of pacing choices. the MU Peeves thread from the very earliest incarnation of this board 10+ years ago was full of people complaining about purple prose passhole-aggresshole meta posing before async was even a twinkle in Faraday’s eye, it didn’t just magically appear when we stopped sitting down for arbitrary four hour blocks and good, engaging roleplay didn’t disappear when people moved to other mediums.

@Pavel said in RP Safari - Pacing Styles:

@Wizz You’ll more likely get people bitching about your survey.

@Pavel said in RP Safari - Pacing Styles:

That and people complain loudly but praise quietly. “This thing isn’t what I want” is more visible than “I am satisfied with what is going on.” So you’ll likely hear people complaining about too much async and too little async, and the truth about availability is somewhere in the middle.

^ this. I have a firm suspicion that if you were to do a broader anonymous survey that somehow managed to bring in enough people to be relevant, you probably would see some mild preference either way but not the extremes people like to express here because…we are always driven to express extremes, it’s just what this board is.

@Faraday said in RP Safari - Pacing Styles:

The prevailing sentiment in this thread is that people prefer live/traditional RP, but I’ve seen complaints elsewhere that too many scenes are async now. If live is everyone’s preference, why aren’t there more live scenes?

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.

@lucidmaus said in RP Safari - Pacing Styles:

I need the slight pressure of time - and the tight focus on a single scenario - to wrap a scene, rather than let it shamble on into inconclusive perpetuity.

what I’ve found is that without the former pressure of time so much, all you need to do is concentrate more on the latter. you think about the goal of the scene as you go and each pose becomes a little more focused and driven.

it does take away a bit of that like, split second-spirit of improv feeling, which is a big part of what plenty of people enjoy about this medium, but it’s still been fun and exciting and you have the opportunity to try a lil more on the writing side of things when it’s not like “oh god I gotta kick this out in the next couple of minutes.”

@hellfrog said in RP Safari - Pacing Styles:

‘async’ to me reads as ‘we are going into this expecting it will be ongoing for days, weeks, or even months’ and i just cannot

personally speaking, days, probably. weeks? a few times but not often. I don’t know that any one async scene I have been in has ever gone on for more than a month, it messes with continuity too much.

a scene that takes about a week became my new norm and I KNOW AND LOVE THAT IT IS HERESY