The Batman was a near well perfect film. I am not sure I'd change a minute of it.
Ominous, set in a decadent Gotham - that had character, always rainy, always miserable - with a foreboding music score throughout.
Team Edward did pretty fucking great, too. He was the goddamn Batman.
@The-Sands said in Carnival Row:
I don't need a game to tell me what my character should be doing. I mean, sure, that's fine when I'm playing on a tabletop and there's only one ref and he needs to keep the group moving in at least a somewhat unified direction, but for a MU* setting all I need is the opportunity to be able to do things, and Carnival Row seems to have that in spades.
You might not but most people definitely and absolutely do. What matters - a lot - to many players isn't the big picture cool stuff, the costumes, the high-end politics or the atmosphere.
The roadblock for a lot of folks is what to do when they log on. Sure, they're a cool faerie explorer in a London-esque city ripe with racial tensions but that's besides the point; what is Jane the Faerie specifically, that one character, going to be doing when she hits the grid?
Go to a bar? Sure, okay - so what are people at that bar going to talk about? Are there factions for her to join and who's recruiting? What are they going to ask her to do? What other factions does she have to fear, or hate, or want to ally herself with? What can she work towards, is there a power progression?
Settings like Carnival Row are super cool but if we're brainstorming about making a game set in that world then these are questions that need answering. Some folks are self-starters who can make it up as they go along - others, many others, need to see some playable paths in the road ahead, and they should better lead to some interesting destinations.
Jessica Jones is excellent. I haven't watched the entire season yet (I'm currently at episode 6 I believe?) so I won't try to judge it as a whole but for now it's easily the best Marvel series I've watched simply because it goes from strength to strength. Its characters grow in a realistic way, its plot is solid and doesn't rely on superheroing gimmicks too much - if anything it's pretty low-powered for a universe where cities are being lifted to the skies then dropped as bombs, and the cast is top notch.
Furthermore I need to give kudos to the Netflix format. Without having to care about dragging viewers along and stretching plots there are no filler episodes, no monster-of-the-week distractions; the writing just goes for the jugular and doesn't let go.
Now, eventually it'll be more diluted - we know there'll be a Defenders series, Daredevil crossovers, etc - which can be a good or even great thing based on how it's pulled off but it'll still loosen the single-minded cohesion of the story focused on the impact Kilgrave has had on people's lives.
Speaking of the Purple Man, I really like him as a villain. His power is so simple, extremely easy to understand. And he's... wonderfully petty and psychopathic - he doesn't care about ruling the world, eradicating mankind or building underground lairs. He just wants what he can't have just to feel what it's like. Maaarvelous.
I am going to be burned for this but here it is anyway; when it comes to adapting works from any medium into a game the theme plays almost no role as to its success or failure. The only time its selection really matters if it's a very poor one, otherwise you are always depending 100% on your players and staff to create and participate in interesting stories.
@Auspice already hit one of the points there by mentioning The Dresden Files; there's next to nothing you can do with a Dresdenverse MU* that you can't really do with a WoD one. The rules of magic and creatures work differently but that's not what's important; the original work has value, it's fun to read because a good author wrote it and populated the world with interesting characters who survived impossible challenges sometimes due to plot armor.
Those are not things you can rely on in a MU*. For starters Joe Blow's "Dresden" will be a forgettable Mage who throws fire around and wants to bang hot chicks from different urban fantasy backgrounds. His player is going to be using mechanics which are going to get the guy killed the first time he pulls one of the impossible (as there's a reason they're impossible) stunts he does in the books. Other powerful characters are going to smash him when he cracks some wise-ass joke about them because surprise, in the MU* setting he's not the main character - there isn't any such thing. Yet those are the things Dresden is great at and a large part of the reason his adventures are fun to read.
Games must focus on gameplay first. Theme has to support that, and if it can't, the whole thing will fall apart the moment you don't have amazing players involved who can lift any material up with their creativity.
@Three-Eyed-Crow said:
Does anybody who bikes regularly have advice on what kind to get? The Internet tells me there's a huge range of choices and price ranges.
I bought a bike semi-recently so... Basically, go to a local bike store or two with an idea of how much you are willing to spend. Be aware that they will try to upsell you - it's how they make a living after all - but also that the laws of diminishing returns apply to bicycles; if you go up from $300 to $400 you'll get a much better model but go up from $800 to $900 and won't be as big a deal for your commute and recreational rides.
Then test ride the bikes that match your range and make sure they fit your geometry. Are you comfortable on the saddle, does it feel right? Does it look nice? I mean if you're gonna spend a few hundred bucks on something you'll keep for a few years it might as well be something you'll enjoy in every way.
That's it!
This thread turned very quickly from 'mildly constructive' to a bandwagon of accusations and personal attacks. I know we can do better than that.
But it won't be here, because it's locked.
@lordbelh I had the opposite problem. I knew exactly how much I wanted more GoT yet now I'm more hyped than before. 
@surreality We did have a WM staffer whose main job (if I remember correctly, it's been like... twenty years) was taking in the submitted logs, anonymize them, then randomnly distribute them around the grader team making sure no one ended up grading their own logs.
And yes, it was subjective as hell of course. In retrospect the greatest issue with this was that a very certain 'style' of emote fighting - as we called it - was the right way of doing it. While I have no recollection of the pronation factor (I don't think I've ever used the word in... anything but maybe I championed it back then - who knows any more) there were specific things you could do wrong, both documented and undocumented.
For instance you could never close an emote meaning something like "Bob slashes at Jim and hits him in the leg". Jim could accept the hit in his own emote, but not the other way around.
The funniest incident I recall was one Lan player (who lost the character after being caught and shamed for this incident) had gone over past logs of high Weaponmastery scored players, took their poses pretty much verbatim, changed the names and used them for his fight.
These drama-free threads disgust me. You people are going to put honest admins out of work! I mean what am I even supposed to lock here?
@surreality said in Firan Secrets:
@magee101 You... do understand that not everyone engages in RP of sexual subject matter to fill their RL need for sexual stimulation/inspiration/contact/release, right?
I considered making a thread with questions like this, stuff we don't usually... ask. "What do you TS for?" would be high on the list.
But I'd be tempting fate there.
@magee101 said in Firan Secrets:
@Ghost Huh, I wonder what those are. I'm a pretty open individual so I never have problems with answering questions to the best of my ability or giving my opinion.
Folks, let's please take the generic TS discussion to a different thread. This one is for Firan, and I didn't want it to go off topic (which I apologize for doing).
Once a suitable thread exists I can move the posts to that one instead.
(Spoiler-free)
Game of Thrones. The Battle of the Bastards is as high as any movie I've seen in production values, the performances were spot-on and despite a couple of things that annoyed me about the overall writing that show is firing on all cylinders this season.
Can't wait for the season finale next week.
@Dropbear said in TS - Danger zone:
imagine if in the last 2 minutes a sports event the whole game is decided by who can get the refs off fastest
but only the refs favorites can compete
Is this a TS discussion or a TS pitch.
@wanderer said in Do you believe in paranormal things?:
Then don't. When you call it "beliefs" you're directly insulting me. You're calling my mental faculties deficient and my judgment worthless.
Everything is a 'belief' until proven otherwise. I don't call 'the earth being round' a belief because there is conclusive logical evidence confirmed in multiple independent ways that demonstrates it.
The difference - for some folks - can only be made up by being able to offer conclusive evidence for a belief to be transferable. If someone thinks something is true they must be able to conclusively demonstrate that somehow to others.
Transfer to me the conclusive evidence that man has walked on the Moon. Preferably you will be able to take me there so I can walk myself, or repeat the act where I can witness it.
See, this is where I 'believe' you are willing to read responses and argue like an adult. I have no way of knowing that is to be true but I'll act under the assumption that it is.
For starters: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third-party_evidence_for_Apollo_Moon_landings .
Also we have plenty of evidence that human beings have been in space for a pretty long time, participating in increasingly more elaborate activities there as our technology allows. We have GPS, satellites orbiting the globe providing communication and TV, there are agencies in different - competing - nations all engaged in a race to extend their presence there as well as private businesses attempting to do the same.
Nothing about science demands that you must be taken to a place or watch a thing happen. In fact that's quite irrelevant since we began with the assumption that the human mind can be tricked - the evidence for some of humanity's greatest leaps has been found on the back of envelopes, notepads and plain text digital files. So if you had the expertise (I don't) you could read the documentation of how the Apollo missions were carried out, what the physics and engineering behind the endeavor were, what the plan was and how it was executed, then you could decide if you are satisfied after all.
That's why hard evidence is needed. It's not not because we're sceptics ready to cast down anything that doesn't fit our narrow definitions of the truth but because without a recreatable chain between observation ("...hey, that's weird...") to conclusion ("oh, so THAT's what happened") there must be steps in between someone else can follow from beginning to end and arrive at the same result.
Hard evidence? Ok, bring me a stone from the Moon and prove to me you didn't just pluck that off the side of the road. As with high level mathematics, some types of proof are not accessible to everyone, because they require certain prerequisites. Some of them are physical (getting access to the stone), some are mental (understanding mathematical proof) and some are psychological/evolutionary (developing the senses and abilities to observe supernatural phenomena). This is why I've said that I'm not interested in discussing the subject, and why convincing anyone is completely futile.
Not all of us are scientists. To give you a counter-example I believe in strong cryptography and I use it on a daily basis both at work in the form of RSA keys, to sign my e-mails with GPG, etc - but I am not a cryptologist myself. The extensive source code however is readily available and has been reviewed by those who are independently and now and then someone founds a flaw (see the shellshock exploit, for instance) in which case they aren't vilified, they are celebrated for that discovery.
That's where I was getting at. Having ones 'beliefs' challenged should be something to be thankful for; it's a crucial part of progress. Science doesn't work because a genius has a great idea and then everyone marvels at it and it's there forever afterwards; it works because a bunch of smart, determined people try to poke holes into it and see how it holds up. If it does, great! If it doesn't then it either collapses or becomes refined, the edges are rounded, the exceptions are noted and it moves forward.
Talk to me about being open minded after you've spent over a decade researching this stuff in depth.
No, I am talking to you now. What were the results of your decades of research? What were your methods? Show me.
Or y'know, don't, and just throw fits at anyone who doesn't immediately agree with you.
@Coin said in TS - Danger zone:
@Arkandel said in TS - Danger zone:
@Pandora said in TS - Danger zone:
I can't believe that actually got a response. I win this thread, InB4 @Arkandel shows up and ruins my fun as usual.
I've been here for a while watching you people ruin this classy thread with your memes.
TBF, you started this thread, so it was never gonna be classy.
How dare you suggest TS - Danger zone was not destined for greatness.
Seen today:
"If Niantic puts gym and pokestops at all voting locations this year, it could swing the largest voter turnout in a long time."
It's funny because it's true.
@L-B-Heuschkel said in Staff’s Job?:
@Seraphim73 I think you're on to something very important here. Story telling, from the GM's perspective, where the point is not just writing the story, but making every bit player feel that their input mattered, that it affected the outcome.
It still comes back to somehow getting your players to buy-in.
It's a delicate balance. Give too little attention and the world is a sandbox which, as we've seen in countless nWoD cloned games that spawned and died a quiet neglectful death, doesn't work. Give too much attention and the world is being micromanaged, the players only stick figures unable to impact it in any meaningful way so they lose interest and move on.
Staff are an extension of what GMs are for table-top; they host the game and run the plot but the best laid story, the coolest GM screen or fancy dice won't mean a thing if the players are yawning and staring at their phones the whole time.
What GMs (and staff) want is players who contribute and share the creative burden of authoring this collaboratory fiction. If they don't then there's trouble in the horizon.
