@sockmonkey said in Good or New Movies Review:
When can we start speculating and talking about Last Jedi? I mean, yeah sure, I guess all the cool people are like Star Wars, whatever, pfft but I can't waaaaaaaiiiiiiitttttt....
pleasebegoodpleasebegoodpleasebegood
The first person to spoil TLJ in a non-spoilery thread earns eternal damnation.
Also, the second person.
Misplaced loyalty. I was at my last job for 8+ years and loved it but at my current job people are getting laid off on a regular basis, the turnover is pretty impressive for its size. I'm relatively safe due to the nature of what I do but I've interest from elsewhere, and I'm feeling guilty just discussing it with a recruiter.
Rationally I know former coworkers came to work one day and got fired during the lunchbreak with zero warning so if management doesn't care why should I? And yet I do.
@greenflashlight That's definitely something I've seen too. In my case it wasn't done intentionally, the GM had fucked up and given a character who could punch really well some enchanted punching gloves... and he started just blasting.
One of the issues I've seen in MU* is when min/maxing has a cascading arms-race effect. Meaning that a couple of players make very effective combat characters and then STs have a choice; either they balance their encounters based on those, which means the bad guys can pretty much one-shot 'regular' characters, or they don't and those few outliers go through fights like they're the Hulk fighting bank robbers. It tends to force other other players to make a choice - either keep up, or... don't.
Usually it takes more effort for people to reject me!
I don't know if it's the nature of the hobby, the tropes behind it (in many books and movies the hero basically does all the things themselves) or players themselves being somewhat placed on the socially awkward spectrum but it's undeniable to me that a lot of people playing just don't like to share the stage. They want their toys all to themselves, and they try - subconsciously or even deliberately - to delegate everyone else into being their audience.
On table-top the guy who splits off from the group and tries to do their thing is usually marginalized fast because everyone else is glaring at him, but on a MU* they do occasionally get away with it; how many times have you been in an 'important' scene, even ones ran by staff, where one or two PCs hog the spotlight and everyone else just has to watch them? As a ST I had the honor of running plot where the one person with Fate and Space 5 wanted to solve the mystery in a couple of rolls at the start before it was clear yet what kind of mystery it was, or having to deal with the other person who when other PCs started also doing things paged me to say it 'got crowded in the PrP' (four people...) and stepped out.
But characters are also often made that way. I'm not talking about twinks but... trying to be able to fit all roles. Talk to spirits, punch the bad guys, investigate the things, do the politics. Sometimes the system sort of allows it but usually they just fake it well enough, or for long enough, that they expect no less and it suffocates plot around them since they go in with the demand that it's about them.
The reactive safeguards are, in order of preference, other players and staff. The latter will often not see it, or they'll actually misread the situation completely and consider those players to be good for their game because hey, they're active! The former often say nothing about it (direct confrontation is another thing our hobby isn't very well known for seeking out) and become inactive or at least disillusioned.
The correct approach is to keep in mind that OOC trumps IC. Getting everyone to play the game and have a share in the fun is orders of magnitude more critical than what the game is or who wins it.
@packrat said in Um...What?:
He was crying when he described how his family and him cheered as the jews from their village were rounded up and shipped off though. It was not something he was ever proud of in retrospect, just stuck in a fucked up situation for everyone involved but he did end up going along with it.
People change; they gain insights and rethink how the world works and how themselves are part of it. I read an interview a few months ago you might find relevant... but first, some context.
In Greece - my homeland - during WW2 communists (who were very popular at the time) and traditionally right-wing parties fought together against the invading Germans as part of a guerrilla rebel force which fought both on the mainland and Africa with the Allies. The communist factions became pretty powerful, their ranks well trained and armed, led by experienced leaders who knew the terrain extraordinary well and meshed with the local population at will.
After WW2 ended the western powers that be were concerned communists might have too much power and that they might use it to ally themselves with the USSR even though they had stated they had no such plans. Even after they were asked to voluntarily put their weapons down (which they did, even though they were in a position to refuse) they got hunted down... hard. I'm talking death squads and concentration camps here. British snipers opening fire openly in the center of Athens years after the war was over. And once Britain's influence waned, American influence took over from them.
Eventually paranoia became too much and a western-backed dictatorship took over in the late sixties. Things got even worse - people started to disappear and get tortured, that kind of thing. The regime lasted for a few years until, in 1973, a prestigious engineering university's students rose up in a non-violent way, barred their gates and demanded change.
That change happened, but not before a tank drove through the school's gates, leading to hundreds of those students being brutally beaten up or killed.
Anyway, so the interview I read was by the guy who drove that tank back then.
He was really emotional about recalling how it felt, how everyone around him hated 'those damn communist long-haired kids' so much, and how they wanted to hurt them. To kill them. How he wanted to kill them, despite the fact they were unarmed (and said so, it was their actual slogan - 'we are unarmed, free, and your brothers and sisters'). How after he drove the tank and saw the fear and panic in them he screamed in delight, and everyone - all of his friends, his fellow soldiers, his superior officers, everyone congratulated and praised him... how proud he felt for doing it.
He was crying as he said it. He couldn't relate to his 19 year old self any more, it was like a stranger to him. Being in that kind of environment does things to a person, especially a younger one. He talked about how dehumanizing those students made it easy, almost effortless to hate them. He doesn't now, and I believe him.
I don't know if this helps at all.
@Ominous said in How to Change MUing:
So anyone who says BSGU is a bad game because Arx has over 100 players can have their opinion written off. Instead look at how devoted and excited your players are to be playing.
Success may be hard to define but it definitely isn't mutually exclusive. Two MU* can be successful at the same time, and not for the same reasons.
What I'm saying is there's no point in comparing games.
My shiny new bicycle and its sleepless, savage guardian - MSB, meet Daphne.
@surreality Well I don't think it's a departure from the known paradigm. Is your D&D table-top campaign better because the party has 8 people instead of mine, which has 4? The number of participants is just irrelevant.
The changes in the medium mean relatively little, too. For example in the Fallcoast thread's recent posts a common issue seems to be that although the +who list is pretty long, RP is gated and it's taking place behind closed doors so new people have nothing to do; what advantage does it convey to have 50 people versus 15 people online if you can't find stuff to do?
That's what matters, not people. The true benchmark of success to me is whether you are able to log on a game and have fun things to do. The numbers are a factor in that (if there are 3 people online you probably won't find a scene very easily) but more is not necessarily better.
@derp I had the misfortune of reading through the comments section on a Troy review when I was curious about the show. A lot of posts were about 'Hollywood rewriting characters for affirmative action, lol, they made Achilles bisexual'.
Motherfuckers, have you read the Illiad?
@surreality said in MU Pacing:
@Lisse24 I refuse to speed up for fears of that happening, though. If I see an opening that makes sense, sure. If not, no, no thanks, I'll wait for it.
I've been in games where characters have found their lifemate within a couple of weeks of the MU* opening. In one such occasion I asked as cautiously as I could if they had rolled together... nope, they met in-game.
Now... there's nothing wrong with that of course. What is wrong is if they're looking to find such a mate NOW NOW NOW and they try to browbeat their intended into going along with it. Y'know, paging as soon as they enter the game to scene, and every scene has to be about Their Relationship, and every page is about how cool Their Relationship would be.
Read the (bed)room, folks!
I'll go with an inspirational one.
Today I'll do what others won't so tomorrow I can do what others can't.
@Collective said in Wheel of Time MU(SH|X):
Though, looking back on some of the stuff we put up with, I wonder if I'd have the patience for the type of game that required hundreds of real-life hours to learn to pose slashing at somebody with a sword exactly the right way, according to the 'blademasters'.
There's nothing about this type of game that makes people have to RP this in real time. In fact it's an absolute necessity that liberal handwaving takes place else you can never have fresh Novices become Aes Sedai in-game, which does take years (way longer than training a Warder up from a trainee).
But that's no more a natural part of playing than having a medical student in a modern-day MUSH who eventually becomes a MD. Sure, it takes IC years, but the entire game doesn't need to age a few years so you can 'realistically' buy Medicine up from 1 to 4.
It took me longer than I care to admit to realize I had only taken one of my contact lenses out as I walked around the house in confusion, rubbing the eye whose vision was blurry 'all of a sudden' to try and clear it.
@WTFE said in The Metaplot:
No, the problem is when staff makes a metaplot so intrusive you can't escape it. And, indeed, when you try to escape it or avoid it they go out of their way to make sure that the plot follows you around.
I think a big problem we often make here is that we mistake a general concept with its worst implementations .In other words, that we look at the way staff at a specific game we played did a thing and extrapolate from that that the thing is always bad.
In terms of the metaplot in particular it shouldn't be something you want to escape. It ought to be the reason you are there in the first place!
Let me give an example. Let's say you make a post-apocalyptic game where characters are desperately trying to survive, barely able to stay one step ahead from annihilation using low-tech tools and trading with other survivors for basic necessities; you bust your ass to stack the odds so that they can be overcome and want to put the emphasis on character relationships and growth.
Then I come in and I want to do my thing; I want to bring back civilisation in a year or less. I toss +jobs at you with wikipedia links about making solar panels and try to build mech suits and use drones strikes to defeat my enemies; I mean that's definitely great, and it could be awesome for a game, but as long as you make it clear what game you are trying to play then what am I doing in it? Is it fair that I complain your metaplot sucks? It doesn't suck... it's just not what I like, and it's not your fault I tried to turn your MU* into following my vision.
After watching Infinity War and without any spoilers...
These guys have done an exceptional job building up the moving parts up to that movie, so much that they could just focus on telling a concise story. And what's amazing about it is how patiently they allowed character growth in ways other similar franchises didn't allow themselves to develop.
For example the common complaint about Superman is that he's boring. He's got too much power, he's a nice guy, there isn't much you can do with him.
And yet look at Thor; his power levels are off the charts, yet tracking his journey from the arrogant happy-go-lucky princeling who just wants to go have fun adventures with his trusted friends and annoying brother to the guy he was in Ragnaroc, coping with personal loss and the responsibility he's having to shoulder leading up to the fall of Asgard... that's interesting. You could take that characterization down many different paths, and the fact he can hurl lightning and punch people super-hard isn't in the way of those possibilities at all.
Or Captain America - he's the ultimate do-gooder, right? He's a walking flag, which should have limited him even further. Yet by anchoring him as a morality beacon and letting others respond to him Marvel created a really fun character. He's a badass (the elevator scene in Winter Soldier was incredible) and he has great chemistry with Iron-Man which improves on both of them immensely; either wouldn't be as cool outside of their conflict.
That's what makes something like Infinity War work. All the ground work has already been done so they can focus on telling really cool stories since the setup is already in place. And a lot of it - IMHO - comes from the fact there's one guy in charge of the whole vision, coordinating the overall arc to make sure every movie isn't just doing its own thing; Kevin Feige deserves a heap of praise.
@ShelBeast said in Eliminating social stats:
In the end, no one can or should force you to play with these people. That's totally your choice. Just don't try to make it out to be anything other than you being an elitist snob who thinks that they're literally too good to play with someone else.
You are extrapolating wildly to prove your point, a point generated from your point of view. No one said they are too good to play with someone else; only that, unlike throwing an IC punch, making an IC argument is a completely different thing and far trickier to abstract through a dice roll.
An obvious example of is this: I can completely accept this sequence: +roll strength+brawl followed by "; walks over and punches you in the face". This is valid RP.
On the other hand how about this? +roll presence+manipulation followed by "; walks over and convinces you to support him"? That isn't so cool (or at least I don't think you'd agree that it is).
And also, don't try to invalidate the rules to suit your inability to tolerate someone who doesn't live up to your standards or to just generally try to help someone grow.
Nothing in this thread suggests we should invalidate the rules; the point of it is whether we should have different rules and what effect such would have on games. It's a debate on systems, not an attack on anyone's value system.
As for standards and personal preferences, those are going to exist regardless of the mechanics. No matter what your or my gameplay style is we both like some things, and the more our partners cater to them the more likely we are to play with them. That's not a game thing, it's a being human thing. I'm not a misanthrope iRL because I prefer the company of some over others, so in the context of gaming that's an even better reason for the same kind of filter to exist since we're playing them to enjoy ourselves in the first place.
No matter the game I will always try to play it with people I like. I just happen to be open to meeting new people I will also come to like. Most of us are probably wired in a similar way.
@kay said in Favorite music streaming service?:
Swedish and Scandinavian 80s/90s pop
good quality
Pick one.
<runs away>
@social-diseases said in FCs on Comic MUs:
And I understand this should go without saying but it does apparently have to be said - if you do not have the temperament, if you do not have the organizational and narrative skills, you should not even make the attempt. If your goal is self-aggrandizement, you should not make the attempt; if your goal is to create a sandbox for yourself and for your friends and your attitude is that anyone outside of that group is so peripheral to your interests that they may be subject to any level of abuse, you should not make the attempt. When you begin toxic, you have no right to complain that the environment is poisonous. And when there is a problem on a comic game, 9 out of 10 times, it is because of this. All other problems flow from the source of malicious or inept staffers.
Self-awareness is the main roadblock there. How many of those people honestly, truly think to themselves "well, I lack the narrative skills", let alone "I am a toxic person" and reach the conclusion they ought to abort the project because of those reasons?
In a way it's like politics. Sure, some folks go into it for the right reasons, but many get in for the perks.