Author: dicemistress

Revisiting My Guild Seeker’s Interview Questions

March 15, 2016
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| Musings of the Mistress

In an earlier posting I shared my Guild Seeker’s Interview Questions, but I didn’t go into depth of why I ask them and what I hope to learn from each one. I figured it would be good to revisit them. I also want to expand them from those I ask as a potential guild member to the recruitment team or leadership to include their counterpart that I’d ask as a member of guild leadership to a prospective member. One thing that people might notice is that the list has expanded by two questions. It’s gone from five to seven,…

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Bad Behavior and Organizational Culture: A Follow-up

February 26, 2016
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| Musings of the Mistress

When I posted the earlier post, it generated a lot of discussion on my personal Facebook page. One of the comments posted included the following: “I’m still left wondering why they tolerated such behavior to the degree they had.” I feel a need to share my answers because I think it elaborates not only on the situation, but on the quote in the initial article: Some people have a hard time enforcing rules because they don’t want to upset an individual, they’re too passive and accepting … of any behavior. In the case of RainFurrest, I think it came…

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Bad Behavior and Organizational Culture

February 25, 2016
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| Musings of the Mistress

“The culture of any organization is shaped by the worst behavior the leader is willing to tolerate.” I was reading about the demise of RainFurrest (no, I’m not a Furry, however it was a major area con and I do pay at least passing attention to such things) and a comment in reply to the ex-board member’s long post had this quote. That quote had me thinking about some of the organizations, groups, conventions and games I’d been a part of in my past. There are some games and/or organizations that I will NEVER* play or be a part…

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Sci-Fi Fantasy pixel killing and my guild seeker’s interview questions

January 24, 2016
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| Musings of the Mistress

The Pixel Killing Goodness Recently I decided to try a game that I saw advertised called SkyForge. SkyForge blends both sci-fi and fantasy in an interesting mix that works really well. It’s a free-to-play game, but with a premium subscription option. If you have a subscription then you gain some resources a bit faster or easier than the non-paying option, but it is NOT a pay-to-win game. It’s better to look at it as a pay-to-improve-a-bit-faster. They have done pretty good to stay away from pay-to-win, putting caps in place to keep even the paid account members from accruing…

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LARP List Update

September 11, 2015
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| Mortalis Games

It had been a while since the LARP List had been visited, links checked, and games updated. That has now been done. A couple of entries have been removed as they pointed to games or events which are no longer active and a few others have been added. Many have has URL updates so that if you click a link it’ll now go to an active site or page with information on it. If you know of a LARP in the Everett-Seattle-Tacoma, Washington area that’s not on the list please let me know and I’ll add it.

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Changes Underway

September 6, 2015
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| Musings of the Mistress

Earlier this year I started giving thought to what would become of Mortalis Games now that I’m not near as active a LARPer as I once was (I’ve pretty much entered LARP retirement). I decided that since I still game that it would become a hub for all my gaming related activity. The LARP stuff is still there, but it’s all under LARP in the menu. In addition to LARP there’s been a spot added for computer/console gaming and tabletop gaming. There’s also a link where you can watch any live-streaming of the Pixel Killing Network on Twitch.tv directly…

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It’s Alive! a.k.a. Digging up an old project

August 20, 2015
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| Mortalis Games

A recent conversation with an individual whom contacted me out of the blue has me revisiting and picking AgileLARP back up and brushing the dust off. What is AgileLARP? The page on it gives some information, however I’ve also come up with this blurb, which I think is a bit more descriptive as to what it will be when completed: AgileLARP is a LARP engine, not unlike a computer game engine, but that it is specifically designed for live role-playing. Its job is to provide the structure and framework necessary to build a LARP around, but isn’t a whole…

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Game Theory, Ideas, and a MUD. Oh my!

October 28, 2014
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| Musings of the Mistress

This post was inspired by a posting by Orpheus, one of the imms of Burning Post II, a MUD that I play. Orpheus made a posting on Facebook and asked us for our thoughts and opinions. This posting is my reply to their post. I’ve some ideas, but I’ve also got some thoughts I’d like to share that do tie into those ideas. These thoughts revolve around game design and role-play theory (humor me, please). I share this with you because I think it will help folks better understand what drives my ideas. That being said, I’ll break this…

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LARP Debate and Rant: Use it or lose it, web edition

January 31, 2014
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| Old LARP Articles

I’ve a little something that just frosts my cookies! For the past several years I have hosted a couple of LARP community oriented projects which I started in order to provide a venue for an aspect of the community that I felt was lacking. Those projects are the academic based mailing lists and the US LARP Wiki. Why is it that only when I recently shared with the people that participate on each that I was looking to shut both down from non-use, that folks finally spoke up and shared that they valued the contributions and were sad to…

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LARP at Play: The LARP Production Triangle

August 16, 2013
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| Old LARP Articles

I realize I may be preaching to the choir here, however I’d like to pass on a lesson learned regarding LARP production. It’s a lesson taken from the Project Management Triangle and revolves around the project requirements of Good, Fast, and Cheap (the Project Management Triangle typically uses Time, Scope, Cost). In any project you have control over two of those options, but not all three. In the image: The triangle reflects the fact that all three properties are interrelated, and it’s not possible to optimize all three. There will always be one that suffers. If you pick: I…

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