@arkandel said in Do we need staff?:

True, but there's no way to systematize right.

No, I have to argue with this.

The way to 'systematize' right is frankly up to the people running the game.

If it's not right for you (the queen's you) then it's none of your damn business. Leave them have their right and go somewhere else.

Too many people try to force their version of right on everyone else, and then we wonder why the hell we have problems.

@rdc said in New Project?:

make a game set in the Wild West

hyped

@thenomain I think in general it is a net positive. Many people may not have liked the angry and frothy manner in which it was done, and yeah there was at times a tenancy to dogpile and tear people apart over the littlest thing (something that I do think has become less of a thing on MSB and as many of us have grown) i think that this communities intolerance of staff cheating and bullshit is an incredibly good thing.

Yup! It's just slow, cause I'm wanting to get it perfect instead of half-perfect. The big to-do's are grid descing and data entry. The wiki lives at cityofshadowsmux.com and the game is the same with the port of 2860.

Need to get Theno's mage code in, comb through help/news/shelp files and update. Right now I'm wading through the tilts and conditions code to update to the current splats (M/m+/mage/vamp/wolf), then to get them on the wiki. Lots to do if you're bored and want to help :3

The discord for it is: https://discord.gg/fnCqTVg

@tragedyjones You could come try Calaveras out! It's basically any Adult Drama (Law & Order, True Detective, House, any crime or medical drama, etc) using FS3.

@faraday The usual MUSH/MUX scheme is actually a fair bit like that, except that the original FCs are usually active PCs.

The very earliest Amber games were a lot like the early Vampire games, in that being Someone Special (a member of the royal family or an actual supernatural creature, respectively) was pretty restricted. More recently the style in both genres is to accommodate whoever wants to play whatever, although the last few generations of Amber games have also been pretty good about making characters who aren't royals be able to operate on a mostly equal plane with them, in case someone doesn't want to be part of this lunatic family.

Unfortunately, the early genre was heavily influenced by Erick Wujcik's vision of the book characters as people you Did Not Get To Beat (there's a particular notorious story about Morgenstern and a PC's magic dog), and so they tended to get a lot of stuff that other PCs simply did not get. That has softened some over time, so that, for instance, RtA's Benedict, Corwin, and Eric are actually beatable in swordfights by nonbook characters (something that was literally impossible on AmberMUSH), but even the most liberal game visions tend to place the book characters, or at least some of them, as special in ways that are difficult or impossible for others to equal.

I understand the reasoning behind this, because what's the point of having Benedict as a character at all if any random yobbo out of chargen can whup his ass? But I don't really like the effect it seems to have when those characters are PCs (see sentiments expressed by various people above).

Also, if you need occasional help with random bits of code, I'm always around and am highly motivated by two things: Eclipse Phase and Shadowrun.

@ominous

Well do note that the core character template is "victim and abuse survivor". I try sincerely not to play that way, but reacting to the threat of being re-captured is the driving motivating force for characters in the game.

Compare this to Mage, where the driving motivating force is to understand mysteries that have no pattern to one another.

@zombiegenesis said in Fate Accelerated Questions:

I will say that last night we opted to do some Star Wars using FAE and we had THE MOST FUN we have ever had playing Star Wars. Instead of trying to figure out what we can and can't do based on feats or powers we just justified doing "Jedi Stuff" using our aspects and had a freaking blast. It was phenomenal.

The most fun I have had with a Starwars campaign was one using Fatecore so I am with you there. Though the pulply big screen action of Starwars really is what Fate was designed for.

Do a mod pack system, where you have a baseline starting theme, and then every so often, you introduce a new set of game elements (FCs, concepts, code, world additions, storylines) with a tinyplot. It worked great for Duo in creating the basic M3 premise.

I have more time these days. Baby is in a routine and the 14" incision from the early c-section is healed nicely.

ETA: I posted an example of how the praxes were handled. I feel I have a heavy hand when it comes to politics and am too easily read? Visible? Not subtle? That's why I feel like I suck with politics.

@faraday said in Preferred App Process For Comic Game:

(Of course - I'm no longer a fan of having PCs in enforced RP-leader positions for this and other reasons, but I understand I'm in a minority there.)

I am turning against this kind of thing myself lately because actually being in one of these positions is a lot like being middle management IRL. The shit flows both from above and below, and your actual power to do anything about it is usually negligible.

@arkandel said in Descent Reboot:

Thank you for running this game, @taika!

Concur!

@arkandel Hee. I've used Carnil for a number of video games and MMO's over the years. That, at least, still seems to be obscure enough.

@ganymede said in New Games and Feature Characters...:

@faraday said in New Games and Feature Characters...:

Staff letting their friends/siblings/spouses camp characters they never intend to play is not only poor planning, but is going to open them up to cries of staff favoritism to friends.

And yet it happens all the time: the favoritism, and the crying, regardless of whether there is any conscious favoritism.

Sure, but I think the favoritism card gets overplayed. If you’re giving a coveted role to a player you know is awesome and who has a proven track record of being reliable and not crazy and just happens to be your friend then that’s not really favoritism in my book... that’s using common sense and making a decision that’s likely to benefit the game as a whole.

Now if you give that same covered role to a friend who you know is going to just camp it, TS with Batman all day, or flake out like they have on every other game... then you’re not only playing favorites, you’re a fool.

@kay NP chick.

@thenomain said in Geist 2.0 Kickstarter:

@insomniac7809 said in Geist 2.0 Kickstarter:

after he drove trans RPG developer Avery Alder, writer of Monsterhearts, out of publishing for some time

...Why?

I suspect that the answer is that Zak Smith is a professional troll, but I'm always willing to be disappointed in assuming that some people are jerks for the lulz.

I don't know. He hates her for some reason, that seems to be enough.

Although, for what it's worth, he doesn't seem to be transphobic in the general sense. He pulled his podcast off the Escapist because it gave transphobes airtime. But if he has issue with a specific transperson, deadnaming and harassment start popping up.

Not really a defense, just getting facts clear for the sake of a) accuracy, and b) preemptively in case a bunch of people show up talking about how they've never heard of Zak Smith but he sure does sound handsome and successful and do we know for sure he had anything to do with the people he dislikes getting death threats in the mail. (This happens a lot.)

ETA: Okay, so according to what I've found, Alder... removed a stretch goal from a kickstarter that would have been written by a friend of Smith's, over the friend's defense of Smith's previous harassment campaigns.

@botulism Sounds awesome! Hope you knock it out of the park. 🙂