I have to this point made it a policy to read all threads on the Multiverser forum, or at least to skim them to keep current on what is happening.
It is exciting to me to see the games run by Eric here again, as well as those run by Scott and Harry and John, and I look forward to more games run by more people. However, I note that the rules I follow concerning the frequency of posts are not binding on other games, with the result that these games frequently move very swiftly with a volume of material that can be daunting--one of Eric's games generated a full page of posts in one day recently.
I have thus decided that as much as I enjoy them I cannot commit to reading the game threads of games in which I am not a participant. I will trust you all to keep them suitable for our forum audience.
That means that if you have questions about your games, you have to post a separate thread in the Multiverser forum alerting me to the situation, and probably also include a link to the point within your game to which the question relates (the # pound signs mark the links to the individual posts).
Thank you for understanding, and enjoy the game.
--M. J. Young
I got a better idea. How about all other referees and players agree to limit their posting to two posts per 24 hours? I know I'm one of the guilty parties here, but I'd rather have a better solution, since I know you enjoy reading the games. Thoughts from anyone else?
Some restraint would probably be a good idea for me too. So I'll join John in Moderation: The Plan. I will try to post no more than two posts per game I run in a 24 hr. period. Which means no more posting on Oak's party, or Jhiaxus' run-up to the wedding of the century.
I'd rather not lose MJ's game guidance. May I remind you that this IS the first game I have ever run.
This doesn't mean you can't ask questions in separate threads, and it doesn't mean MJ can't read the threads if he wants to and has the time. It just means he's not promising to read the game threads as part of his commitment to this board in its capacity as the Official Multiverser Forum in his role as Official Multiverser Guy.
There's nothing stopping you guys from slowing down your posts of your own accord, of course. I'm just saying that you don't need to feel obligated to, and that doing so is not likely to change MJ's mind about his decision to no longer officially commit to reading all game threads every day.
(If it were my board, I wouldn't be comfortable with the idea that I was getting in the way of people playing how they wanted to, and if folks slowed down because I as a mere observer was having trouble keeping up, I might feel like I was getting in the way even if they didn't see it that way. Might just be me, though.)
We all know there's no danger of me posting too much. Maybe I'm in the wrong thread . . .
Well still, there has to be another solution.
You can generate a page with two to three line responses pretty quick, or have two posts take up the entire space that page would have taken. Two posts by each can be pretty meaty, so that's fine with me, I have a lot to say in most posts, so it's not going to cut down in the amount I have to say, it will just be in two posts :P.
As much as I hate double standards, I almost have to ask for one. Adam and Eric are both experienced gamers. They know what they're doing. They don't really need any help. If you could at least continue reading the one I am running, that would mean the world to me.
I'm sure Eric and I are fine for reading the Jhiaxus posts just for pure enjoyment value. I'm sure there will be days MJ can and will have the time to catch up without having to worry about rules issues. If we have a question a separate thread will be posted.
If we have a question a separate thread will be posted.
In my case though, that would probably happen often enough that he would be better off just reading the game thread to begin with.
I think you may be exaggerating a bit John, We've only needed a rules ruling a handful of times so far. Between the two of us we've managed to work through almost everything, although in some cases I've been less than sure that my answer was correct.
These are easy cases to create a thread for, and by doing that it allows any of the experienced members to answer, potentially reducing the number of questions MJ has to answer.
Well, I just think there HAS to be a better solution than MJ not reading the games that I know he enjoys so much. I still say the two post limit is the way to go, and that's from the guy who can't stop posting to save his life.
He still CAN read what he likes, but previously he felt an obligation to, which he is saying is no longer feasible. I imagine he'll probably read them when he wants to, but perhaps not as they happen, just when he decides he has time and wants to.
This really wasn't supposed to be such a big deal.
John, your suggestion is kind but not practical.
First, I believe that Eric is running two games, Scott at least four, Harry one and you one--that's eight games in which I am not involved, to people per game, two posts per person (by your suggestion), and thus potentially thirty-two posts per day that I would have to read. As Adam observes, sure, those can be one sentence each, but they're not likely to--and particularly if everyone is limited to two posts per day, that would mean most people would attempt to cover as much ground in them as possible. Frankly, one post from Maxx, or sometimes Eric, or any of several others, can be a small article at times, and if I can cut out reading thirty-two posts on a busy day, I've saved myself a significant chunk of time.
Besides, I'm hoping to encourage more people on this board to take on more people on this board. I hope for a day when there are a score of referees running fifty games, and that would be two hundred posts a day that I would not be able to read and stay atop everything else. My decision to stop reading threads in which I am not a necessary participant is inevitable; doing it now makes it less awkward later.
On top of that, the two-posts-per-day limit is unfair to the posting styles of too many players. Scott and Maxx, for example, will go days, sometimes a couple weeks, completely silent (and Scott does this with many of his games, although several of his players are part of his "In Real Life" life so they get to play live games sometimes). Then they will abruptly post in a flurry of blows and parries that adds pages of long posts over a few days, and then one of them will again go silent for a while. When Eric is on a roll with one of his world ideas, he's chomping at the bit to get the next piece posted, and people want to read it. I think, too, if I were running only one game, I would be inclined to post several times a day when running combat, just because each frequently detailed post covers a very short fragment of in-game time, and so much of the information for each post is based on calculations in the previous one. I drew the line at one post per game thread per day long ago to cut back on my own workload.
Mike is right, though: you're doing pretty well, and if you have questions you can flag me and I can get up to speed quickly enough. For what it's worth, if I were to cut back to only one game thread for my own enjoyment, right now it wouldn't be Zombie Apocalypse Horror (not a genre I savor, and I've run Quest for the Vorgo often enough to sate any appetite I might have in that direction). (It would probably be Oak's mysterious wizard job--he seems to be the paranormal paranormal investigator of that world, which is a really fun and appealing concept to me.) You and Mike are taking advantage of your own schedules to get a lot of game posts into a limited time; I suspect that Mike will slow down when his own schedule changes, but the point is not for me to limit how much you play, but for me to make it possible for you to play as much as the two of you can manage.
The thing about role playing games ultimately is, Ed is right: the rules are pretty much whatever you agree the rules are. The system, according to the Lumpley Principle, is whatever rules exist in the social contract by which all the participants come to agreement concerning the content of the shared imagined space. We all want it to be as consistent with the Multiverser rules as possible, but in case you hadn't noticed the Multiverser rules are already something of a toolbox approach in which the referee frequently is allowed to decide exactly how he wants to determine an outcome and given several options by which to do so.
So if you're not sure about something, you can ask; and if Mike's not sure whether what you did was exactly kosher, he can ask.
And I can save an hour or two from my busier nights by skipping directly to the threads that actually involve me, instead of reading the stories and then finding myself too tired to focus on the games I'm supposed to be running.
--M. J. Young
I find many of the stories fascinating, but there have been nights when simply reading all the
I guess that this means we are officially allowed to exceed the speed limit then... :p
But as always, feel free to pace yourself for your own sake, Eric! Long term steady state maintainability is much better than short term supernova burst and burnout... :o
Perhaps we should condense questions concerning rules into a single thread, perhaps make it sticky too. All the people running their own games can post their questions there. Saves on shoe leather.
We could always use the "Behind the Scenes" thread for current rule questions as well... :)
Perhaps we should condense questions concerning rules into a single thread, perhaps make it sticky too. All the people running their own games can post their questions there. Saves on shoe leather.
Naa. (How do you spell that, anyway? Neah? It's kind of like "Yeah", but negated.)
Start a new thread for a new question. Best if you can start it in the Multiverser forum, but most people forget to select the forum (box at the bottom of the page) when they start threads. It's automatically selected to "Multiverser" if you're in the Multiverser forum when you post, but most people just work from the front page, and the default is "Roleplaying Games", which is fine, too, but that when I get a chance I'll move it.
Advantages of having separate threads for each question include:
- I'm more likely to recognize that this is a new question if it's got its own thread.
- It's easier for someone else to find and link an answer from a previous thread if they're in separate threads--much easier to say "go to this topic" than to say "it's somewhere around page forty of this thread".
- It keeps threads on-topic, particularly when an old question comes back with new parameters. Suppose, for example, someone asks about damage riders, and there's a couple pages of discussion, and then later someone asks about damage riders again. We post a link to the old thread, and the reader finds what was already said, but it doesn't quite answer his question, so he posts to that thread, and that is answered, and the material about damage riders is all on the same thread--and not in several places on one giant thread that also covers magic skills bonuses, power blocks, world design, et cetera, et cetera.
So I'd go with new threads for new questions. That, anyway, is my preference, although certainly as long as you post it outside the game threads I'm not reading I'm sure to see it.
--M. J. Young
It's 'nah', I think.
Probably, but I wouldn't pronounce that spelling that way. "Nah" would sound like "Ah" with an N in front, and the word I want is much more nasal and a much sharper vowel.
Maybe there is no spelling for it.
--M. J. Young
"Nyeh," if you want a nasalized vowel.
"Naw"
nyeh, a long 'eh' sound with an n and a y placed at the front?
or nyeah, a short and sharp yeah with the n added?
Might be "nyeh", since I've seen that in print and never matched it to anything I've heard pronounced. "Nyeah" sounds more like a taunt, as in "Nyeah, nyeah, you missed me."
Or it might be that there just isn't an accepted spelling for that particularly colloquialism.
Thanks for trying.
--M. J. Young