Hobby Glossary

[Autumn]

@Monogram said in Hobby Glossary:

I always heard that Mav was a girl and was knowing for mispaging TS poses on chans. Or anything on chans. Or pages to people.

The term existed before channels (other than @wall and @wall/wiz) were really a thing, and originally referred to mispages. Since "page" initially just alerted someone to your location and didn't offer the option of sending a message, we could date it a little bit more precisely on the basis of when page-with-message was first implemented. But I don't think this would really get us any closer than "between 1990 and mid-1991" which is pretty much where we are now. Although it does offer circumstantial support to @Thenomain's recollection, since the person who added messaging to page was the same person running TinyHell.

[Goyim]

A few of my favorites:

I don't think you're a good fit for this role = I think you're fucking retarded.
Unpaid volunteer = Selfless Messiah.
Do you have skype? = Psst, hey kid! You wanna cheat on text games?

[Misadventure]

I counter telenuke as starting with powers or resources that could through staff arbitration strike at any time, often with little or no chance at defending against such a focused attack. A later add on was that this might happen while the target was offline, and be told about it only as fait accomppli.

Examples might be an NPC assassin who makes rolls to deliver an unstoppable poison, , magic power targeting across space or the astral plane, or a bomb placed somewhere.

A very specific example: A Tremere with Auspex 5 at a place where you were allowed to affect the physical plane from astral form, cooking a Prince from the inside out with lightning while they were in their water filled coffin in its fortress. The Prince had to astral defenses, and so could do nothing.

[il-volpe]

I feel certain that the first time I heard 'telenuke' it was in reference to an incident where magi literally teleported impressive explosive devices into the ridiculously secure hidaways of everybody they disliked on general principles.

Not sure that they started out with the stats to do it, or the explosive materials. I think the point is more that the PCs killed not only had no defense, they had no warning, no possibility of escape, and no personal involvement in the attacker's motives, rendering their characters' deaths most boring and random from their point of view.

[Misadventure]

Isn't that what happened to the Underworld at the end of the first World of Darkness setting?

[surreality]

I think there was an incident along these lines on Darkmetal. At least I know Rathe did something re: teleporting some kind of explosive something or other back to its original source when someone tried to throw either a fireball or an enchanted rocket or something like that at his lair to take him out; he either teleported it or redirected it successfully at the source.

Details are hazy, but I just recall it ending in something-something about 'fireballs don't make U-turns!' and the person who sent it initially wondering what happened to the earth-shaking kaboom they expected while watching his lair until, well... it found them instead.

[Clarity]

Not heard the term telenuke before. Is it like a pwipe?

[surreality]

@Clarity PK from a distance. Usually done through +jobs/rolls with staff, with no warning or chance to prepare defense. Think of a sniper with magical curse or fireball or 'just randomly teleport you to the bottom of the Marianas Trench', more or less.

This is one of those things where sometimes you log in to find you're now dead IC.

[Clarity]

@surreality said in Hobby Glossary:

@Clarity PK from a distance. Usually done through +jobs/rolls with staff, with no warning or chance to prepare defense. Think of a sniper with magical curse or fireball or 'just randomly teleport you to the bottom of the Marianas Trench', more or less.

This is one of those things where sometimes you log in to find you're now dead IC.

Ahh, we don't often see instances of that happen on RPIs, at least not by staff. Some games allow for offline pkills by players, but it's usually once all other IC avenues have been exhausted first.

[Misadventure]

The offline part isn't critical to the telenuke definition, more like an addition to show that whatever it is is so unavoidable that online or not nothing could be done.

[Deleted]

Speaking as someone who has been telenuked many, many times, here is the definitive definition:

Telenuke - An act whereby a character inflicts damage or death on another character through means that do not require the two characters to be in a scene together.

[Arkandel]

@Admiral Addendum: Or to even have a scene take place at all.

Fail your saving throw and you might as well just start rolling a new character.

Telenukes are also infamous for stacking dice for the attacker, who gets to use as much time to prepare, recruit help, use situational bonuses etc... while the defender is asleep in his bed at the time, so they get only the basic roll. I don't remember that many taking place but the ones I do recall all succeeded because of this.

[Clarity]

Can you give me an example of code and IC reasoning that would be used or this? Like, are we talking a magic homing fireball from the other side of the game that can target someone? Arrows shooting from several rooms away?

[Misadventure]

Mage example: I can target the vampire. I can teleport poeple across the world. I teleport the vampire 30 miles up on the daylight side. Why because vampires are an abomination, and I am a mage.

[Miss Demeanor]

@Misadventure Or how about teleporting a human into an active volcano? That was attempted on TR. I believe another tried to claim they were going to teleport a vamp directly into the sun? Mage is probably the most handy WoD splat to go to for examples of ways to telenuke.

[Thenomain]

@Miss-Demeanor

I believe that Dark Metal was the first game where I heard the phrase "telenuke" and specifically in reference to mages, yes.

@Clarity , there is no code specifically allowing or disallowing this. When your game is a giant persistent RPG, you interpret the book rules as best you can. It's like role playing superheroes, except without the "hero" part.

[Catsmeow]

Wasn't there a telenuke loop with a volcano? Like the being regenerated, so it just kept bringing them back endlessly or something? So many stories, so little facts.

[surreality]

@Thenomain Darkmetal would have been Rathe, and the rocket/missile/fireball whatever that 'made a u-turn'. Someone was attempting to send one at him, and he virtual adepted his way around slinging it back at the source. I vaguely recall the pose of it, which had been paged to me back then; it did end with something something 'Hey, <magely weapon of mass destruction>s don't make U-turns!'

The instigator/ultimate victim may have been Lloyd? Maybe. I know they were hanging out/doing a best of enemies thing at the time, from what little of the time is left in the brain; the thing I'm thinking of was almost 20 years ago at this point. (Rathe's player was another former roomie who was here with three other folks who all moved in at once; that might have happened at a computer next to mine or was shortly before they got here or shortly after they left, but I just cannot for the life of me recall the specifics. It was around that time period, though.)

[Miss Demeanor]

@Thenomain I'm not saying telenukes are specific TO Mage.. just that they're the easiest WoD game to go to to look for examples OF a telenuke. Most other splats' powers require you to at least be within line of sight to the target, Mage is the only one I can think of off-hand where you can literally kill someone from the comfort of your own warm bed while they're across town at work.

[Deleted]

IC examples:

Voodoo magic to disable an opponent so you can murder them off screen.

Holy magic so you can paralyze someone so you can murder them by proxy.

Space lasers.

More space lasers, taking out an entire sphere.

Magic snipers.

...and that's just the ways I've been personally telenuked.