Previously Mutants & Masterminds MUX, now a Question! DUN DUN DUN!

[ThatGuyThere]

For me length of pose and length of wait are two completely separate issues.
Pose length is really a matter of scene flow more then anything else, what drive me crazy is wait time.
I understand rl coming up unexpectedly and am fine with slow with warning, but a regular wait of more then five minutes or so without word and i know my brain starts disengaging from the scene. I will stay and keep rping but at that point i know i am not giving my best, and am likely to have started focusing more on other things in other windows.
Note I am not especially harsh on this for example one of the people I rp with a lot is an exceptionally slow poser but they also chat a lot OOC so that keeps me paying attention what drives me crazy is the ten minutes of no screen movement at all.

[Apos]

Related on the subject of posing speed, but probably an unpopular opinion here: I think pose orders are god awful and inherently destructive to the tempo of any scene. I was horrified by them on the Reach. They were an unholy abomination unto the lord. Any scene with a few strangers was so very excruciating and pointless and arduous that I was like, 'Oh. So that's why everyone here hates social RP. MAKES SENSE NOW.' Holy shit they made things so damned slow and tedious. I would never, ever, ever, ever, ever, EVER play on any game where that's an accepted part of the culture again. No fucking way, I'd rather have a root canal without pain killers.

Fuck 4 hours for a 1 page long log. Jesus christ.

[Coin]

@Apos said:

Related on the subject of posing speed, but probably an unpopular opinion here: I think pose orders are god awful and inherently destructive to the tempo of any scene. I was horrified by them on the Reach. They were an unholy abomination unto the lord. Any scene with a few strangers was so very excruciating and pointless and arduous that I was like, 'Oh. So that's why everyone here hates social RP. MAKES SENSE NOW.' Holy shit they made things so damned slow and tedious. I would never, ever, ever, ever, ever, EVER play on any game where that's an accepted part of the culture again. No fucking way, I'd rather have a root canal without pain killers.

Fuck 4 hours for a 1 page long log. Jesus christ.

i love the "3 Pose Rule" where you can pose again if three other people have posed regardless of amount of people in the scene. People ask if "3PR" is okay--I don't, I just assume that unless we're going by Initiative, 3PR is in play. And if I'm playing with people I know? I'll skip you. Repeatedly. I give zero shits. If whatever you're posing is important enough you can ask me to wait.

So, yeah. I agree.

[Lithium]

Not that I RP much these days, but, I personally start typing as soon as I finish reading and absorbing the next person's pose. Then as other people pose (If it's more than one individual in the scene) I adjust my pose to react to the whole, and so on and so forth. Sometimes it takes a few minutes to get it all updated, but I find it is not exactly hard to keep things moving at a good clip, and I hate it when things stall out too.

That said, this is one of those topics that really is personal opinion and preference. I'm going to toss this thread shortly since I won't have time to continue the game anytime soon.

[Cirno]

@Warma-Sheen said:

You rambled on and on about nothing relevant because of one phrase that kind of sounds like something you've heard of before from something you read one time on the interwebs?

No, I was addressing your mad pickup skillz, dogg, because you went into excruciating detail about how you sarge mad HB10's at the clubs and bars.

@Warma-Sheen said:

When I interact with super hot chicks at the club, and at the bar...

No need to get defensive, I'm not trying to Alpha Male Other Guy you. I prefer to have a nice cup of tea, a sit down, and a book, rather than sarging all the babes at the clubs and bars and fuck-closing them. I won't be all blocking your cock and shit, man.

[Groth]

@Coin said:

I don't really see this being very difficult to do in two lines. Writers do it all the time. They can even do it in one line. It's just that we're conditioned to expect more from our fellow roleplayers; we're used to everyone writing as if they were the protagonist. Sometimes I don't write characters from their point of view and instead write them as divorced from themselves as possible. I give a reaction, then an action, and that's it.

This is the writing style I try to use. Instead of writing that my character feels angry, I try to show that they're angry by their eyebrows narrowing, posture tensing etc. Idea being of trying to show the other player what my character is feeling rather then telling them.

Sometimes I find this tricky and can sit for a fair while trying to think of the appropriate reaction. Sometimes the appropriate reaction is also quite short and I feel bad about submitting a pose that's only a sentence long, so I sit there trying to think of something, anything to add to it.

On average, I'd say it takes me 1-2 minutes to notice the other person has posed, 2-4 minutes to think of the appropriate reaction and another 2-4 minutes to write the pose, ending up at between 5-10 minutes total. While I wish I would be faster and often feel bad about keeping people waiting, it seems most people atleast tell me they enjoy scening with me.

I ran into a guy on RFK once who really impressed me in terms of response time. His technique was rather different from mine, instead of waiting until the other person posed to write his own pose. He'd write his pose while waiting for the other person, then just modify it according to that the other persons pose was. This made him able to post reasonably sized poses after just 1-2 minutes. Obvious downside of that technique is that it won't work well if the other person does anything unexpected.

[Coin]

@Groth said:

@Coin said:

I don't really see this being very difficult to do in two lines. Writers do it all the time. They can even do it in one line. It's just that we're conditioned to expect more from our fellow roleplayers; we're used to everyone writing as if they were the protagonist. Sometimes I don't write characters from their point of view and instead write them as divorced from themselves as possible. I give a reaction, then an action, and that's it.

This is the writing style I try to use. Instead of writing that my character feels angry, I try to show that they're angry by their eyebrows narrowing, posture tensing etc. Idea being of trying to show the other player what my character is feeling rather then telling them.

Yes, this is what I do generally.

I ran into a guy on RFK once who really impressed me in terms of response time. His technique was rather different from mine, instead of waiting until the other person posed to write his own pose. He'd write his pose while waiting for the other person, then just modify it according to that the other persons pose was. This made him able to post reasonably sized poses after just 1-2 minutes. Obvious downside of that technique is that it won't work well if the other person does anything unexpected.

Yes, but if they do something unexpected, it's as easy as CTRL+A, DEL, and you're back at square one and take about as long as anyone else. Not a downside, per se.

[Misadventure]

It also tells me that he's mostly not interacting with the other person. He's acting at them.

Or that their interaction is incredibly predictable.

[Coin]

@Misadventure said:

It also tells me that he's mostly not interacting with the other person. He's acting at them.

Or that their interaction is incredibly predictable.

Having used this style in the past, this isn't really the case, at least, not in my experience. There are basic set pieces of a pose that can be handled pose-to-pose without too much worry--especially during conversational scenes in which I pose my character saying something, but he's not done saying something--I just gave the other person a chance to interject.

[Arkandel]

@Coin said:

Having used this style in the past, this isn't really the case, at least, not in my experience. There are basic set pieces of a pose that can be handled pose-to-pose without too much worry--especially during conversational scenes in which I pose my character saying something, but he's not done saying something--I just gave the other person a chance to interject.

True, and on top of that it works much better in larger scenes - which is where pace is disadvantaged the most, I've found. So if I'm playing with A, B and C I have seen A and B's poses, so I'm typing what my character is doing to respond to whatever happened there while C's being typed out. When once that's out I make the necessary adjustments.

Obviously if C does something really unexpected I'd need to throw out a large portion or even the entire pose but as @Coin said that's not worse - as far as anyone else is concerned - than starting from scratch anyway. It only 'wastes' a bit of extra typing on my end, no biggie.

The problem I've seen from time is with Storytelling. I swear some people ST by having pre-written their stuff before the scene even starts which makes it really awkward to be in it since it's like you're not really there.

[Coin]

@Arkandel said:

@Coin said:

Having used this style in the past, this isn't really the case, at least, not in my experience. There are basic set pieces of a pose that can be handled pose-to-pose without too much worry--especially during conversational scenes in which I pose my character saying something, but he's not done saying something--I just gave the other person a chance to interject.

True, and on top of that it works much better in larger scenes - which is where pace is disadvantaged the most, I've found. So if I'm playing with A, B and C I have seen A and B's poses, so I'm typing what my character is doing to respond to whatever happened there while C's being typed out. When once that's out I make the necessary adjustments.

Obviously if C does something really unexpected I'd need to throw out a large portion or even the entire pose but as @Coin said that's not worse - as far as anyone else is concerned - than starting from scratch anyway. It only 'wastes' a bit of extra typing on my end, no biggie.

This is quite different though because you actually have something new to base your pose on, but same general principle.

The problem I've seen from time is with Storytelling. I swear some people ST by having pre-written their stuff before the scene even starts which makes it really awkward to be in it since it's like you're not really there.

Many people do; it's not a bad idea, especially when it comes to set pieces--locations, descriptions, etc. I tend not to do it because I'm lazy as hell and I end up writing shit off-the-cuff, but I knew at lweast one excellent storyteller (she played with you a lot on Eldritch, in fact, though she doesn't storytell in CoD because she doesn't know the system to her full comfort) who had tons pre-written for each plot, and it worked out fine.

[Lilli]

@Thenomain said:

@Lithium said:

Out of all the super hero game systems I've come across it's the easiest to understand

Because it's still a hell of a difficult thing to understand as a game in general. "Easier" does not mean "easy"; this is the responsibility of the game designers, who have apparently written a game for other people who understand the Superhero mindframe and also a more complex d20 Feats system. These are two conceits of the M&M2 system which limit who it's for and how easy it is to pick up.

If you think it's easy, then maybe consider the skills you have that make it easy, and find ways to teach this. You won't be convincing me that it's easy by simply saying so. @TNP gets it.

I have read exactly one superhero system that has addressed both theme and the best way to build powers Wild Talents. I felt that sigh of relief with one small side-note titled something like: "Why we don't throw people into the sun." I bet I can piss off any superhero game fan by building a reasonable, low-powered character who can, e.g., teleport someone into the deepest abyss of the sea and would. Wild Talents says, "Yeah, don't do that, because fun." It cares to introduce people into the game, not just make assumptions like M&M2 does.

I specifically listed two web comics that care about these aspects, and I'll name a third: Grrl Power. (Link to an example of the characters playing what sounds like M&M)

Maybe also Mutant City Blues, but I'm not sure Gumshoe makes a good Superhero game. It looks like a good game with super powers. It's probably the only superhero game I've read where the power system is not really a toolbox as much as a power-path. It is, however, another superhero game that thinks about it, for which I give it a lot of props.

Wild Talents is one hell of a system. I wouldn't want to try and code it. Then again, I wouldnt want to code Champions either.
It's just a beautiful resolution system with a sweet , if slightly complex, versatile character creation system. We're using it for out TT game, atm.

[Thenomain]

@Lilli

Someone else mentioned that the ORE, especially when it gets as complex as Wild Talents, requires care in handling the different dice types. It's easy to say "all my dice are now 10s" without realizing that this is likely to remove an entire town is wiped off the map. (Thanks, Superman.) If I remember correctly also easy to counter "all 10s" with a competing "all 10s", while someone who has a broader spectrum of dice results is more likely to get things done, if smaller things done.

It's been a while since I've looked at it, tho.

I wouldn't code this system, no way no how. ORE would be one of the few systems I would code to be: Decide what dice you rolled, here's what you get, do what you want with the results. I have created a system that sorts the breakdown of the dice (colored, even, if you want), but that's about it.

[Lithium]

@Thenomain That's why I never bothered coding up a Wild Talents system myself. It is far to easy to do far to much, or to little, based on how you build your dice, and then there is interpretational rules that will make it very difficult for any sort of consistency in the game in this environment. Table Top is a different beast of course.

[Thenomain]

@Lithium

There's nothing wrong in using a game system where too much can be done with it. Trait-based superhero games, for instance. oWoD Mage. No, the problem is that learning the system so that you don't screw over yourself and the game as a whole is more difficult. Hell, the ease of which you could create a character in M&M 2 who teleports people into the sun is one of the things that needs educated because the system itself sure as hell lets you do it.

One of my biggest complaints about M&M is that the chargen is more open than others, and the ability to screw yourself over is higher than many other games. Yeah, absolutely higher than WoD.

But the number of times I've had this conversation, I'm going to leave this to the reader to follow the logic the rest of the way down. There are certain to be turtles.

[Lilli]

@Thenomain
I've toyed around with the idea of getting the group I RP with on MU* to make versions of their characters with Wild Talents.
The dice roller could come in handy and I wouldnt mind looking at it, but we rarely roll dice in whatever system when amongst ourselves. It's mostly just a comparison and RP it from there type thing. ORE is interesting enough that sometimes you want to roll anyways just to see.
Less interesting in combat, more so out of it.

Not sure when you looked at it last, probably the reverse of me. Since I've never seen an ORE system or WIld Talents 1st ed. Just WT 2nd.
Might have to look up other ORE based RPGs for funzies, I'm just mostly hooked on the superhero genre. Usually from the perspective of Oops. You're now talented (requiring us to make normals first), now what?

[ZombieGenesis]

I'm obviously a big fan of M&M. I especially enjoy M&M 3E. That said the system is not without its flaws. The biggest of which also doubles as its greatest strength, the idea of Power Levels.

In theory 2 characters that are PL 10 should be equal to each other. In practice that's not necessarily the case. First, you have the overall PL of 10 which means you have 150 points to spend. You have to check their offensive PLs (Attack Bonus + Damage = 20) and their defensive PLs (Dodge/Parry + Toughness = 20). So you could potentially have 3 different PLs for combat purposes which are only connected to the overall character PL by a sense of what that character SHOULD have. I ran a TT game where we set the PP at PL 8 (120 PP) but allowed for up to PL 10 combat PLs for an X-Men type level game.

If that's not confusing enough you then have to deal with artificial PL inflating (my concept doesn't really call for me to have a Will save this high but for PL purposes I'm going to dump a bunch of points into it...) and powers/abilities that exist outside the PL framework such as teleportation or flight.

I'm sure this is a problem that exists for all point based character generation systems. I'm sure 2 characters made of the same number of points in GURPS or HERO are not necessarily equal across the board. At least M&M gives you defined measuring systems to know where you stand compared to other people of comparable levels. I just think the system could do a better job of letting you know what those levels are. Treat each section as a dial that can be set. How many points can be spent, Offensive PL, Defensive PL, Skill PL, etc.