Dice code
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I like seeing the dice mostly a) to stroke my ego, and b) so that we can easily take dice away without rerolling the whole thing in the event of a mistype.
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@il-volpe Then write your own dice code if you want it to do pointless things.
Touchy touchy. Can you tell us where the visible dice hurt you?
Jesus, players already get wild with eye-searing ansi in names and comtitles and stuff, can you imagine what kind of painful rainbow vomit we'd see if they could change the colors of everything and make other people see that shit too?
Do people really do this? I mean, I do remember when people did this, but that was back when ANSI colours were a newish MU feature, and I didn't see it because I played from a dumb terminal. For the past 25 years the closest I've seen to this is somebody complaining that the colour-scheme for the frames around room-descs is ugly.
"... you'll find the story doesn’t end how you think, and the most important characters aren’t who you expect.” - Penny 40 to Derek, The Magicians S04E07 ‘The Side Effect’
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Touchy touchy. Can you tell us where the visible dice hurt you?
That's not the point I was arguing against. I agree that, where possible/necessary, the math should be visible. I don't agree that every system needs to be designed with players doing useless shit in mind.
Try to keep it constructive.
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@Tinuviel Hahahah. Yet you appear to be offended by the math being visible as a 'useless thing.'
If you want to keep it constructive, "Build your own if you want it the way you want it" isn't.
Aside from people whinging it's because if you do +roll dexterity+basketwarping and the system isn't set up to say "You don't have a skill called basketwarping" then you probably won't know that your points in basketweaving were not applied. This is pretty much inevitable when you get to skills with more than one word names, as players forget if it's space, dash, or underscore on this particular game.
and the system isn't set up to say "You don't have a skill called basketwarping"
Then it should be setup to say that.
@Tinuviel This is an inferior solution, as it doesn't solve the whinging and it take away the player's silly toy of +rolling butt-slapping and other non-existent things that amuse them.
@il-volpe Then write your own dice code if you want it to do pointless things.
"... you'll find the story doesn’t end how you think, and the most important characters aren’t who you expect.” - Penny 40 to Derek, The Magicians S04E07 ‘The Side Effect’
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@il-volpe Except I'm not, at all. Having a mistake pointed out, as in your first quote, because the math is visible is important. Allowing people to roll things that don't exist, as in your third quote, isn't.
What isn't constructive is saying "MU dice commands ought to do this," as if coders don't have anything better to do than write code because players whinge. If you want them to make it, pay them. If you don't want to pay them, do it yourself.
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No user who wasn't paying for software development has ever had a good idea about what features users want in software.
Also, saying "things ought to be thus" should always be understood as a demand on others' time.
"... you'll find the story doesn’t end how you think, and the most important characters aren’t who you expect.” - Penny 40 to Derek, The Magicians S04E07 ‘The Side Effect’
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Also, saying "things ought to be thus" should always be understood as a demand on others' time.
If you're not willing to put the time in yourself, of course it's a demand on someone else's time. Saying how things "ought" to be isn't the wording of a request. Maybe if you said please.
Weird as it is, I actually agree with your main point. Show the dice/math. Show the dice in the order they're being rolled, even. The problem is that not every system is designed with player-intelligible math in mind.
More importantly, pay your damn coders if you want special whizz-bang shit.
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Naw, really. If I say, "A cheese sandwich ought to be melted clear through," I mean just that, and not, "Hey, anybody who can hear me and has a pan, run out and make me a cheese sandwich that's melted clear through." Promise.
I did not mean to include systems where player-intelligible maths aren't involved, though. Like Faraday said, doing this for the combat system would be off.
"... you'll find the story doesn’t end how you think, and the most important characters aren’t who you expect.” - Penny 40 to Derek, The Magicians S04E07 ‘The Side Effect’
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@il-volpe To apply your metaphor to this actual conversation, you're holding several cheese sandwiches in your hands - presumably on a tray. Made with different bread, different cheese, for all manner of people. And you're saying that the way they are made is wrong and that it ought to be done the way you want.
If that wasn't your intent, then I'm sorry I misunderstood. But it is not an entirely alien reading of what you wrote.
He/Him
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@Tinuviel Yet you agree with me: "where possible/necessary, the math should be visible." but somehow take the word 'ought' to be a demand while 'should' is not.
To be clear, I'm not phrasing it as a request because I'm not making a request. I do not need anybody to code me a dice system. Nor do I expect coders to just comply with what I tell them they ought to do 'cause I said it. They probably ought to get more sleep, too. See?
"... you'll find the story doesn’t end how you think, and the most important characters aren’t who you expect.” - Penny 40 to Derek, The Magicians S04E07 ‘The Side Effect’
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“Something ought to be that way” implies that you think that it ought to be that way. It’s not weird to read it like that.
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Yet you agree with me: "where possible/necessary, the math should be visible." but somehow take the word 'ought' to be a demand while 'should' is not.
Yes, I do. I'm not the one positing the argument, though. Just because I think something "should" be done a certain way doesn't mean that way is right, nor do I think it is the only way of doing things.
To be clear, I'm not phrasing it as a request because I'm not making a request.
When you state that you think something should be one way over any other, you're either making a request or a demand. Or you're giving un-asked-for advice to people that are quite successfully doing their own thing.
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Oh, I am totally giving unasked-for advice.
“Something ought to be that way” implies that you think that it ought to be that way. It’s not weird to read it like that.
It's not weird, but it is making that extra effort to make my opinion into something more than it is.
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Well, this thread turned weirdly masturbatory quicker than I thought it would.
