@yyrqun The Dragon's Peace will fall apart once the Dragon is out of the picture. I think there's a lot of room to create a kickass political game with all the nations picking up their pieces, some more destroyed than others, all trying to gain the upper hand in this brave new world.
Shara would make for some good NPC antagonists, as would factions within the Seanchan Empire.
Do you know how sometimes you hate to be on the same side of an argument as some people?
I'm an avid WoW player and I more than agree there are issues with this expansion on many levels, but damn if the negativity online isn't getting to me.
Case in point, there was a Reddit thread this morning in which someone was asking "hey, I want to roll a new alt for arenas, would you recommend a Mage or Warlock?".
There were 9 replies on that question. Four of them - by different people - were variations of "this game sucks, go play something else, it's circling the drain".
Like, fuck off people.
@Jennkryst Settings based/depended on canon 'secrets' of any kind would either not work too well for a MU* if set at the time of the original work, or they are set so that the advantage of instant familiarity with the material is negated.
For instance place a Lord of the Rings game around the time of the books and every other character will 'know' about the Ringbearer's mission. You can place it fifty years after Sauron's fall and then you miss out on a lot of elements that make that Middle Earth recognisable and popular.
@Insomnia I know, but what I meant is... at the moment you buy (or 'buy') a game. Like, the title is what you purchase.
In the cloud/streaming model it's more likely we'll be purchasing subscriptions to libraries of games instead. So instead of $60 for the latest CoD we'd be paying $10/month for premium titles, $3/month for casual games, etc.
There are a lot of conflicting opinions on whether vampires 'really enjoy' sex and to what degree compared to say, drinking blood. You can find (and probably will in this thread) people who feel one way or the other about it.I'd say most people play it up as a mixture of both. I.e. IC sex is still fun, but sex + feeding is better.
As for other themes, it depends on the characters (and even the players) but I see them as modified human behaviors. For example however someone might feel about polygamy, vampires - who are naturally paranoid creatures in general - might not trust their ghouls to sleep with others in case they slipped out valuable information about their affairs, or a werewolf might consider their mate part of the domain, something to literally defend against someone else infringing on their territory on top of what mundane people would consider jealousy per se.
It depends a fair bit on each person's take on the genre as well as the individual PC in question.
@Lain said in Eliminating social stats:
@Ganymede said in Eliminating social stats:
I think part of the point of social stats is to deprive targets of the exact kind of agency you describe, though. Let's say I want to use Intimidate in a WoD game. My character is annoyed with someone, so they decide to rob them. He pulls out his knife, waves it in the guy's face, and says, "Gimme all yer money!" with the intention of compelling him to do just that.We do our roll of dice, and my guy wins; the target is intimidated. Now, obviously, the point of intimidation is to compel someone to do something -- or refrain from doing something -- they otherwise wouldn't because they're scared of you. In this case, the point would be to make him fork over his cash and then act scared and maybe piss his pants or something. It would be to make him bend the knee, so to speak, and act like he's scared of getting stabbed.
That's one of the major reasons I'm considering eliminating social stats.
Sure, you roll, the other guy rolls, you win... and then what? Did you scare the target shitless? Is the way they're responding adequately scared? What if you think they're kinda meh about it but their player thinks that's just how the PC shows fear? What if they recover in the next pose, is that too early? Are you supposed to scare the Elder by glaring at him, you neonate? What about in the next scene, should there be a lingering effect?
Sure, various systems and mechanics attempt to address the scope of social stats but I've just...never been satisfied with them. The primary issue is that they're typically pretty complicated - but unlike punching (which happens rarely since violent confrontations aren't an everyday thing), social interactions take place constantly, so if it's not easy to use such a system then it won't be... which may be worse than not having one at all.
@Insomnia And buffing every person individually. And carrying mats for it. Oooh, and rogue poisons.
@thenomain said in Good TV:
I think this is awesome, because we have more mainstream outlets for these stories. I imagine it will also create space in the comics industry for more comics. I don't know if the comics are getting more sales because of it, but I hope they are.
I just don't want one to be at the expense of the other. Comics should have fully contained arcs, storylines which continue to their intended end barring purely financial decisions, characters that aren't just trying to get you to think of an actor or actress who can play the role of <X>, etc.
For example when Marvel basically cancelled the Fantastic Four title largely because they didn't have the movie rights to the team, that's the kind of thing I sigh about.
Also by all means, for all that is holy... it's much better to leave a staff position unfilled than to fill it with someone who's just okay, or whom you don't know very well. Keeping staff lean and efficient is so important in order to have a decent culture to do whatever it is you need to do.
Need job monkeys? Code your game so you can assign code monkeys without making them staff - meaning, without giving them access to your game planning or overall decision-making. Same thing for your Storytellers, same thing for your builders.
It's so much easier to function (or communicate as @Ganymede would have it 
) when it happens between a well-bonded team of 3-4 people who know each other well for years than with a ragtag rotating roster of 20, including some who barely get along and where you have to keep resolving conflicts of interest since there are so many fingers for so few pies.
@Ghost Or you can play Marvel Ultimate Alliance, soon released for the Switch!
I love Gauntlet games.
@aria Toronto is amazing. Even the weather isn't as horribad in the winter as uh, other places in Canada... our smog protects us, it smothers us, it sustains us.
But even with that said, the cold isn't a selling point.
@Lithium That's a separate problem to solve. How much plot you throw (or don't) at your players is different than the logistical challenge of following up on the aftermath of those plots, particularly if you're also including player-ran stories (which you should).
I had the chance to work for Blizzard in 2006. I did not take it. I do not regret it.
I have brought shame upon my clan!
This leaves me but one choice. I'll just need to pretend none of this happened.
@Darinelle I think Aspirations shouldn't need to be successful (or failed), only resolved.
For example maybe your long-term aspiration is to become Prince. You work toward it, you might even get within shot of it, and then monsters attack! Upheaval! Half the Primogen are dead! The Praxis moves on to a new government under completely different conditions than before, so now maybe your goal isn't so much abandoned or failed as it is... settled. Whatever the character had to reap out of that should be reaped, and they can move on.
Especially in MU* it should never be about the destination, it ought to always be about the road there. As long as aspirations serve their purpose that's all you can ask from a mechanic.
It's not free and it sure as hell isn't cheap but Diablo 3 (and its expansions) is simply incredible return on the investment. Just like D2 before it, Blizzard made the damn thing - there's no subscription - and then they keep expanding and building on top of it years later.
Patch 2.3 is really, really well done. So many builds!
