Build Your Own Net Dream

[Unknown]

I've become particularly fascinated with the mechanics of a certain game. So much so that I went looking to find it myself. To my surprise, it was not hosted on Steam, Itch.io, or any other big company launcher. No, it was hosted on B.Y.O.N.D., or Build Your Own Net Dream.

In a game old enough to buy alcohol, activity is far and between. Many active servers in the game (Yes it's by servers) are run by small groups that require some form of assurance that you won't blow up the ship upon spawn. Very very fair.

But being as I'm intimidated very quickly by anything even remotely 'role playing', to the point of turning off all my electronics in fear, the ask that some servers have for only HRP or 'High Role Play' is very frightening. I can be accused of low quality role playing for not voicing actions enough? What a strangeness. As someone whose last role play attempt in earnest and not fear was when he was 13 on deviantart* and it lasted all of five exchanges, I'm how you say, rusty. Big expectations out of the gate are sure to result in failure and an even bigger fear of trying again.

I've thankfully found some much lower stakes server options in Goonstation, a group whose name has always been about the henchman type. Though I haven't attempted a round yet and have mostly been reading wikis that have yet to tell me what button to push to activate something, it feels leaps and bounds better than it expressing the request that I pretend to fully immerse myself in a little 2d guy who is just gonna get sucked out into space.

*I was a part of a more casual rp group once that was basically just a bunch of people pretending to be adults in a harvest moon (I have never played that game) type setting. I played a priest with a big ol cross earring. It was really earnest at the time.

[huckleton]

I have been playing SS13 since around 2016. That makes it sound like I play SS13 actively. In reality it's something I go through fixation phases like once every year or two years. I think one of the funniest aspects of the game is how the top 10 server list consists of 18+ furry servers, fascists, 18+ fascist furry servers, and Goonstation - the lightning rod for new players who aren't furries, horny, or fascists.

Goonstation's community has been lovely for as long as I've remembered; even in 2016 they were ahead of the game in terms of being a friendly, welcoming, and inclusive community. Even a lot of the nowadays progressive servers used to be far edgier in 2016, but Goonstation has been decent for the longest time, despite(?) their SomethingAwful-based origins.

I was a member of an 18+ furry server's community for a little bit - one of the smaller ones though, because all of the Well-Populated servers in that vein are nigh universally cesspools for one reason or another. It was a HRP server, and one time I had a very fun 8-hour long shift (where I played for the full 8 hours), but it gave me such bad "heart attack anxiety" I nearly threw up after I finished the round.

I find the real differentiation between HRP and MRP is the quality of gameplay. HRP expects you to be in-character at all times (it does not have to be in-depth though), which means there isn't as much room for "trying to break the game" type shenanigans - leaning into The Chaos has more of a limit there. In MRP, they expect light RP but it can be very basic, and they let you get up to more Shenanigans, but you should at least pretend you're a Member of the Crew.

[huckleton]

^ Important to mention that each SS13 server is a self-contained codebase; everyone is basically hosting a different version of the game itself. So HRP and MRP's biggest differences lie in how the actual game is structured.

In MRP (and LRP), the game is usually centered around the gamemode "secret" - there may or may not be antagonists playing in the round, and if there are, the type of antagonist (traitor, blob, changeling, wizard, etc.) is unknown and there may be multiple. Random events are peppered throughout the round at varying severity, which usually means that the round generally HAS to end sometime between 45 and 150 minutes after it starts because the station slowly becomes more and more uninhabitable.

In HRP, the game is usually centered around the "extended" gamemode - no antagonists, random events are far less severe (but still sometimes detrimental), and the game can go on practically indefinitely, like that 8-hour long round. This gives the players a lot more room to freely roleplay and independently decide when they wanna wrap up the round, usually after most of the starting resources have been used up and the station becomes cluttered with random items on tables and floors from its previous occupants.

In any gamemode, you can jump in/out of the game at basically any time, so you don't NEED to stay for the whole round and you can jump in at the middle if you'd like. Most people play in short bursts but I'm unemployed.

[brilokuloj]

The first time I learned about SS13 was through a vore-themed server and I assumed that was just what the base game was

[huckleton]

The first time I learned about SS13 was through a vore-themed server and I assumed that was just what the base game was

They removed the vore from the base game and released it as TGstation

[Unknown]

^ Important to mention that each SS13 server is a self-contained codebase; everyone is basically hosting a different version of the game itself. So HRP and MRP's biggest differences lie in how the actual game is structured.

In MRP (and LRP), the game is usually centered around the gamemode "secret" - there may or may not be antagonists playing in the round, and if there are, the type of antagonist (traitor, blob, changeling, wizard, etc.) is unknown and there may be multiple. Random events are peppered throughout the round at varying severity, which usually means that the round generally HAS to end sometime between 45 and 150 minutes after it starts because the station slowly becomes more and more uninhabitable.

In HRP, the game is usually centered around the "extended" gamemode - no antagonists, random events are far less severe (but still sometimes detrimental), and the game can go on practically indefinitely, like that 8-hour long round. This gives the players a lot more room to freely roleplay and independently decide when they wanna wrap up the round, usually after most of the starting resources have been used up and the station becomes cluttered with random items on tables and floors from its previous occupants.

In any gamemode, you can jump in/out of the game at basically any time, so you don't NEED to stay for the whole round and you can jump in at the middle if you'd like. Most people play in short bursts but I'm unemployed.

That does help me feel less scared about coming off as an absolute fool for not doing it 'correctly'.

[brilokuloj]

Sorry I just saw this in the Goonstation changelog and it's reallyyyy good

Players will once again lose their shit upon being filled with/covered in ants

[Unknown]

Update, I played a round and did not die!

[huckleton]

Yesterday I spent a few hours playing Space Station 14 - which is basically SS13 but ported to a new open source engine designed for the game called Robust Toolbox. This was my first time playing SS13 in a little over a year, and I found the control scheme of SS14 a lot more intuitive than SS13's. Usually when I jump back into the game after a long break, it takes a while to get a feel for the controls again, but with SS14 it was fine.

The server I was playing on is called "Wizard's Den Farm Grass Hopper", an official developer-hosted server of SS14 specifically designed for new players. I played about four rounds though only two of them lasted more than 15 minutes.

1. Engineering fucked up. Whole station lost power and oxygen. Had to leave very early.
2. I was a Moth-person Passenger who picked up squeaky rubber ducky shoes. I went into the bar and watched a moth musician play, and the musician told me to get a job change from the HOP to become a musician as well. We formed a three person (unnamed) band playing a lot of movie and video game songs. Even brought all of our instruments onto the escape shuttle to keep playing. An explosion killed the front-moth of the band on the escape shuttle and we kept going anyway. At some point the clowns used the musicians' backstage in an attempt to tame a space carp, and the clowns opened the door by accident and it nearly killed everyone in the band
3. I was a Lizard-person Passenger named Shambles-In-Denial and I kept running between the bar, kitchen, and chapel and asking for weak/strong fruits/drinks/music. The musical moth from the previous round was the chaplain trying to push their religion of Playing Music. I kept eating bananas and dropping the banana peel behind the kitchen counter so the chefs would slip on it every time they tried to serve a customer, and not once did they pick up the peel
4. Engineering fucked up, again. They had a tesla ball accidentally go loose and explode 90% of the station and its passengers

Lesson learned: Engineering is hard

[Unknown]

I have since played Several rounds of SS13! I'm not scared of role playing!!!!!!!

Right now I'm mostly staying janitor, which is easy to learn the locations of things on ships (I do have my phone open to the ship's map though). I've yet to be maliciously killed on purpose, mostly errant radiation. Botany and Rancher appear to be good steps up.

Inspector is also rather fun since it does command some respect, but the round I played was uncharacteristically clean and calm... Other than the sudden radiation spike in the beginning that rendered me blind, so if something was actually wrong, I never knew about it. Thankfully the map was the one I'd already played on 3 times so I could feel my way around to most departments.