@faraday said in What is the 'ideal' power range?:

You can start with level 6 (out of 7) in both Piloting and Gunnery if you want, yet you don't see Viper pilot players leaving in droves like: "Wellp; I've maxxed out my skills. There's nothing more to do here." There are other ways to measure achievement -- story arcs, relationships, thrilling heroics, even to a lesser degree medals, victory tallies and promotions.

For what it's worth from a story telling perspective I'd put Wedge Antilles (Corellian frieghter pilot tuned star fighter) and Biggs Darklighter (Imperial trained pilot, friend of Luke's from home, visited after academy graduation in deleted scenes) at the same level or a few points off each other in FS3. Same chances maybe more gunnery in the trained Biggs. Biggs dies at Yavin 4 and Antilles is on ask three original trilogy films, firing the first torpedo in death star two to weaken it for Landos file through). Everyone has the same chances at start and to catch up a little after even only a few action skill raises. In a more complex system getting these two closer to the movie payout sounds nightmarish.

I prefer power variety but with equal chance for story impact. Vet's and rookies alike.

@Seraphim73 said in Model Policies?:

it's not going to interest all the players, but it's still good to have available so that players who are interested can all be on the same page.

I wish I could upvote this a dozen times more.

Often, the 'too much!' issue isn't the issue people assume it is. Reference-as-needed is a thing. If it's needed and it's not there, the problem surpasses someone whining that they feel like they have to read everything first, when that's rarely the case at all.

@Kestrel ugh, I hate being let down like that. These days, every time I like something a dude has done/created I have that nagging "you are probably going to regret enjoying this" feeling. Women are not immune, of course, but...

The thing about 'sexist behavior' - or racist, or whatever - is that it's so rarely a binary. I know several men I've had to bring around in my actual life who seemed to think sexist men were these mustache twirling goons who couldn't stop themselves from making comments like GET IN THE KITCHEN AND SUCK MY DICK every time they so much as saw a woman. It's so rarely like that. These biases and entitlements are deep seated and strongly conditioned, and often you don't even see them until you knock that person off-canter. You don't see that a man is sexist until a woman challenges him/has some kind of control over an aspect of his life.

RP is so emotionally charged, and SO full of wish fulfillment. You see sexism coming out of people around rp because almost no one gracefully accepts having their fun/power fantasy affected by someone else. I am an ethical, thoughtful, and compassionate person, and I get bent out of shape emotionally about rp.

First they came for the child molesters and I did nothing, for I was not a child molester.

Then they came for the animal fuckers and I did nothing, for I was not an animal fucker.

Then they came for the rapists, and I did nothing. For I was not a rapist.

They never came for me, however, for I was not a child molesting, animal fucking rapist.

@bored It really comes down to basis of opinion. I think in MU the more the numbers creep up the less individualistic a character might feel, especially when you add in alts. Maybe it's just my "old school" showing, but back in the day there were 7 Camarilla clans and few bloodlines and I saw people dig for a whole lot of complexity without the need/existence of those things. Stuff like Bloodlines/RU stuff like Koldunic Sorcery grew in popularity, which I suspect is why they ended up common CG options with nWoD.

Still, back in the day of 7ClanCam, I think players who found ways to make their "painter Toreador" stand out amidst 2 or 3 other "painter Toreadors" was part of the art form.

@silverfox said in Engaging the Whole Scene:

So... it's okay to step out when you realize it isn't your pot of tea.

This. So much this. No character needs to be part of everything. It's quite legit to simply not be part of a storyline, not be in the mood for a storyline or, to be honest, not like the way a storyline is done.

Personally, I alternate depending on the mood of the scene. Some scenes are slow pose affairs where we write perhaps an entire page of carefully thought out text at a time, and subsequently, wait an hour or two for the other player to respond. Others are machine-gun scenes where dialogue goes pang pang pang and is pretty instantaneous. Both work, for different purposes. But it's pretty important to have aligned expectations between players in advance because I for one do not want to wait an hour for a pose if I'm expecting rapid-fire arguments.

@Jennkryst said in What game system would you prefer for a big-tent nWoD project?:

@Coin Yeah. It's why I said nothing is perfect and devil's advocate and all that jazz. The good part here is that a dedicated new player can catch up to a week 1 dinosaur.

@Auspice said in What game system would you prefer for a big-tent nWoD project?:

@Jennkryst said in What game system would you prefer for a big-tent nWoD project?:

@Coin Yeah. It's why I said nothing is perfect and devil's advocate and all that jazz. The good part here is that a dedicated new player can catch up to a week 1 dinosaur.

And otherwise, you almost never can. Even if a game has 'XP slowdown' vs a cap, a newbie is still gonna be churning away for months upon months upon- likely never pulling it off.

I would go so far as to suggest that the system works best if the "Auto XP" is regulated depending on how far away you are from the maximum.

Let's say when you chargen the maximum is 100 XP. Grand. You are 90 XP away, which is over 50. Maybe everyone who is over 50 XP away from the max gets 3 Auto Beats per week (or whatever). When they are between 30-49 XP away, they gain 2 Auto Beats per weeks (or whatever). And then when they are between 0-29 XP away, it drops to 1 Auto beat per week (or whatever).

This is similar to what happened on The Reach (which gave you more auto Xp per week the further away you were from the highest XP on the game). This would help newbies catch up faster but also not have them do so at a rate that's just ridiculous.

There's a ton of ways you can tweak my suggestion to cater to the usual complaints without bending over backwards for them.

@neksinnad said in Empire State Heroes Mush:

As BB's player, I use his animal forms, ICly, mostly to punctuate conversation.

Sorry, I didn't think of how my post could sound accusatory. I only mention Beast Boy in the context of how I can't figure out what the no animal rule is meant to accomplish, since any goal I can conjure for it could be defeated by Beast Boy.

On the subject of creeps & creepiness:

In much the same way we often quickly close out our porn browser tabs once we're uh... done with them, what is or isn't sexy or welcome can vary wildly with one's mood or willingness to be exposed to it. So what one person may consider creepy behavior, someone else might find alluring in that moment even if they would probably agree it was creepy from the outside looking in.

There needs to be a line drawn between 'creepy in a "I'm just not interested" way' & 'creepy in a coercive/manipulative way' & we should definitely handle them differently. Context matters, and situational expectations matter.

Someone hitting on someone in a bar is expected behavior, and if they do it badly they might be creepy (IC) but that's not by itself indicative of OOC creepiness. Someone hitting on someone in a way that indicates there will be negative repercussions for the player if they choose not to engage, while IC, could certainly be a sign of some OOC creepiness that warrants further action.

There is no one-size-fits-all answer to the issue of creepiness, but shout-out to all the creeps out there doing it the fun and friendly way, I appreciate some good old-fashioned awkward.

Shadowrun.
My mage was kind of an idiot. All arcane knowledge, not much common sense.
The cyber-ninja in the party was not much better.
You pointed us at things you wanted dead.
We were not invited to the strategy meetings with the smart people.
...

After almost dying to a nest of vampires ICLY we needed to figure out a way to kill them so the 4 players of the smart people got together ICly and planned out the next attack with the GM int he middle of my apartment's living room floor.

My bestie (who played the Ninja) and I sat at the apartment's kitchen island drinking whiskey shots trying to 1-up each other while playing "101 uses for a dead hooker" ICly. (Real drinks)

About 20 minutes in, we get bored and come up with a plan. We pass the GM a note explaining that while they have their meeting, we ICLY go to the store and buy a tarp and some fake vampire fangs. We put some camo makeup on the ninja's face, turn the tarp into a shredded looking hood and cape, then put the fangs in and spread catsup around his mouth then enact our plan.

The GM makes the rest of the party make checks. Unfortunately, they all pass the combat checks but no one passes the check to realize what is happening so the GM tells them that they see what must be an elder vampire fly up to the balcony window facing out over the bay and bang on the glass while snarling at them in the middle of the bright sunlight.

They all immediately grab their guns and start shooting and this is where the oopsie happens...

You see, normally our cyber-ninja was so freaking fast he could have used his reaction and agility to get out of the line of fire but what we didn't take into account was the fact that I was levitating him so he didn't get to go on his reaction... he could only be moved on my reaction.

What followed was 4 seconds of him trying hilariously to dodge a wall of machine-gun fire while held in place mid-air, blowing off one of his arms and taking him to the brink of death. By the time it was my turn to go and I could release the spell, he was pretty much a bloody stump missing one arm and a foot.

The new cyber-arm and replacement cyber leg came out of our cut of the bank.
Fortunately, we had a great doc wagon package or he would have been soooo dead.

luckdragoncat.jpg

@Auspice

alt text

@Ghost said in Staff’s Job?:

Head staff states what they're looking for from staff, then posts what staff IS and ISNT to the players. Everyone is on the same page. Boom.

This is actually something that we came up with too. I think it's a good idea to define what Staff believes Staff's responsibilities are, because then players know what to expect. They can define how much metaplot they'll be providing, how much theme-custodianship they'll be enforcing, etc. Players can see how PrP-dependent the game will be, how theme-strict it will be, and whether they want to play there.

@mietze Oh! Oh, one more thing.

As a player ST I feel I get to choose who I run things for. Is it my own friends that I enjoy playing with? Although the funny thing is it never turns out like that because soon enough I'm running one-on-one scenes for people I've never met before, at least I still have the liberty to say no and not have to explain myself.

As staff I'd feel really awkward and probably for a reason - after all it's my job to spread plot around. If two people come to ask me to run a plot and one sounds way more fun than the other I'd feel inclined to run both or neither. I can't play favorites.

@faraday said in Privacy in gaming:

If the problem is bad enough that the person doesn't belong in your community, then you ban them. Otherwise I think rehabilitation is more productive than punitive actions.

Rehabilitation is a wonderful concept, but I have neither the time nor the inclination to be a counselor for someone who clearly has issues. I concur that rehabilitation is more productive than punishment, but I don't expect as a player that staff instruct or convert someone into a productive player; that's entirely on them.

And, let's face it, we're not talking about people who just "don't understand how to MUSH." The problem players we are talking about are legitimate problems on a game, and need removal rather than coddling.

@Tinuviel Somebody got the reference. ❤ ❤ ❤