More Mu* Ramblings
Mar. 22nd, 2006 10:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
orikesWow. The previous entry is probably the most responded to thing I’ve ever written on Livejournal. I’m rather impressed with and appreciative of the response I got. It’s nice to write something and then get some real meat in resturn.
The responses have got me thinking that the issue I need to be thinking about is less about how to handle villains, and more about how to handle characters in general. The setting is a main indicator of the expectations that people will have for the way conflict is handled on the game, and also a guideline of what might work, or not work for a game.
If I were to create a superhero game, I would most likely follow in![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
7th_son’s footsteps and make the antagonists be NPCs. Of course, if I were to create a superhero game I would think about it for all of two seconds, laugh at myself and then go sign myself up to staff at Worlds of Wonder.
The game I am leaning towards is more a modern gothic game. Some might consider it a bastard child of World of Darkness and the crop of current authors writing in the arena: Jim Butcher, Laurell K. Hamilton, Kim Harrison, Kelly Armstrong, and so on. That’s quite a few parents for my mutant baby, but while there are things I like about each of those settings, there are issues with putting them into a MU* setting (not to mention copyright issues). Admittedly, there’s a Dresden Files MU* in the works created under heavy influence from Jim Butcher himself (who happens to be a MU*er), so that particular setting may fly better than others.
One thing I started thinking seriously about was the games I’ve played on and what worked and what didn’t. We learn from experience, after all. I’ve been MU*ing since 1994 at this point, so I’ve seen some of the good and some of the bad.
Even as popular as it still is, I have too much against World of Darkness to consider it a good MU* setting. Perhaps it’s the attitudes of the players that tend to inhabit those games, but I feel that the setting ends up being too strict for a MU* setting. Too often characters are forced into stereotypes that leave little room for real development. It becomes an ‘us vs. them’ attitude that I just don’t like. In addition, I have no patience for the OOC Masq that many WoD games try to enforce. It’s either a wall made of tissue paper that everyone ignores, or it’s an iron curtain keeping people from getting to the interesting rp.
On Crucible City, there were strict rules about character morality. They could be dark heroes, but they still had to be heroes. No standing on the sidelines when innocents were being hurt. This made absolute sense for the theme and genre of that game, but I do think that there were moments were things got boring or soap opera-esque because of that setup. But as7th_son has already said, that’s more the fault of the way the players used the system than the system itself.
City by the Bay seems to suffer from no one wanting to be the bad guy. Even though people play for their character’s interests, or their own faction’s interests, any sort of conflict that occurred between characters or groups often ended up with people either throwing their IC weight around or claiming how they were the ones being wronged on an OOC level. Very few seemed willing to be firmly in that shade of gray to cause some dynamic conflict. There was potential there, but players would get indignant if someone were to take umbrage with how they were doing something IC. Perhaps it was because most people seemed more interested in telling their personal stories rather than the game’s stories.
Aether saw some of that, but it was to a lesser extent, I believe. Of all the games I’ve played, Aether is probably the closest to what I would want to achieve. It wasn’t perfect, but there were moments of pure beauty when mature players would get their characters into interesting conflicts that had no true villain or hero. Some players often needed to be reminded that character morality and values are not the same as the morality and value of the players, but when the players were solid, there was some good stuff there.
The best example of this I can think of may have to be Tiberius. On the surface, he was the alcoholic black sheep cousin of one of the premier families in the Empyre. Hidden beneath that, he was a shrewd, intelligent, and deviously clever man who was capable of manipulating situations into where he needed them to be. Thinking back, I can’t remember if he actually worked in the service of the Empyror or Cassius or some other nebulous group. He was subtle and wonderful. Of course, the player just kicked ass anyway. (Hiporphyrin)
That’s the type of thing I’d want to encourage to grow on any game I got involved in. Now the trick is, how to make it happen.
The responses have got me thinking that the issue I need to be thinking about is less about how to handle villains, and more about how to handle characters in general. The setting is a main indicator of the expectations that people will have for the way conflict is handled on the game, and also a guideline of what might work, or not work for a game.
If I were to create a superhero game, I would most likely follow in
7th_son’s footsteps and make the antagonists be NPCs. Of course, if I were to create a superhero game I would think about it for all of two seconds, laugh at myself and then go sign myself up to staff at Worlds of Wonder. The game I am leaning towards is more a modern gothic game. Some might consider it a bastard child of World of Darkness and the crop of current authors writing in the arena: Jim Butcher, Laurell K. Hamilton, Kim Harrison, Kelly Armstrong, and so on. That’s quite a few parents for my mutant baby, but while there are things I like about each of those settings, there are issues with putting them into a MU* setting (not to mention copyright issues). Admittedly, there’s a Dresden Files MU* in the works created under heavy influence from Jim Butcher himself (who happens to be a MU*er), so that particular setting may fly better than others.
One thing I started thinking seriously about was the games I’ve played on and what worked and what didn’t. We learn from experience, after all. I’ve been MU*ing since 1994 at this point, so I’ve seen some of the good and some of the bad.
Even as popular as it still is, I have too much against World of Darkness to consider it a good MU* setting. Perhaps it’s the attitudes of the players that tend to inhabit those games, but I feel that the setting ends up being too strict for a MU* setting. Too often characters are forced into stereotypes that leave little room for real development. It becomes an ‘us vs. them’ attitude that I just don’t like. In addition, I have no patience for the OOC Masq that many WoD games try to enforce. It’s either a wall made of tissue paper that everyone ignores, or it’s an iron curtain keeping people from getting to the interesting rp.
On Crucible City, there were strict rules about character morality. They could be dark heroes, but they still had to be heroes. No standing on the sidelines when innocents were being hurt. This made absolute sense for the theme and genre of that game, but I do think that there were moments were things got boring or soap opera-esque because of that setup. But as
7th_son has already said, that’s more the fault of the way the players used the system than the system itself. City by the Bay seems to suffer from no one wanting to be the bad guy. Even though people play for their character’s interests, or their own faction’s interests, any sort of conflict that occurred between characters or groups often ended up with people either throwing their IC weight around or claiming how they were the ones being wronged on an OOC level. Very few seemed willing to be firmly in that shade of gray to cause some dynamic conflict. There was potential there, but players would get indignant if someone were to take umbrage with how they were doing something IC. Perhaps it was because most people seemed more interested in telling their personal stories rather than the game’s stories.
Aether saw some of that, but it was to a lesser extent, I believe. Of all the games I’ve played, Aether is probably the closest to what I would want to achieve. It wasn’t perfect, but there were moments of pure beauty when mature players would get their characters into interesting conflicts that had no true villain or hero. Some players often needed to be reminded that character morality and values are not the same as the morality and value of the players, but when the players were solid, there was some good stuff there.
The best example of this I can think of may have to be Tiberius. On the surface, he was the alcoholic black sheep cousin of one of the premier families in the Empyre. Hidden beneath that, he was a shrewd, intelligent, and deviously clever man who was capable of manipulating situations into where he needed them to be. Thinking back, I can’t remember if he actually worked in the service of the Empyror or Cassius or some other nebulous group. He was subtle and wonderful. Of course, the player just kicked ass anyway. (Hi
porphyrin)That’s the type of thing I’d want to encourage to grow on any game I got involved in. Now the trick is, how to make it happen.
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(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-23 02:05 pm (UTC)Yes, easy-to-grasp cultures are key -- it lowers the learning curve well. In my case I hope to start a game with a VERY low learning curve, so we plan to have everyone start out human and eventually they can gravitate into a faction (if they want, it'd be optional)... still working that out though.
Instant allies via faction can also help get you OOCly introduced to other active RPers. It doesn't always work so conveniently, though, especially if established groups on the game tend to keep to themselves; it can backfire when someone joins a less-populated faction or a faction mostly populated by insular RPers. Sure, there are other players on the game, but they may be highly inaccessible to newbies due to faction divisions and geographic distance. Again, having a big playerbase would help immeasurably with that aspect.
Here's a thought that could apply to pretty much any game. I plan to put a lot more effort than ever before into introducing new players OOCly to others whose characters might have something in common, and encourage existing players to do the same. Getting newbies hooked up right away with people OOC will help them feel like they have someone to page and someone to talk to when they log in... someone to look for that they'd look forward to seeing. That said, of course I don't want to pressure people with my wiz status into feeling obliged to RP with said newbie. Maybe handle it over a chat channel instead, something like that...