Chewie and Kylo. Right in the goddamn feels.
Best posts made by Arkandel
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RE: Coming in 2016 - Bump in the Night
@Kanye-Qwest said:
What do you find particularly obnoxious about it? Like,what's the worst part about WoD CGen as opposed to other systems' (assuming there is an approval process of course for them, CGen-less MU* don't count).
But why not be the change you want in the world? Make something happen, get a story going. Run a PrP if need be, get your character in some trouble then ask your friends (or find some) for help, get in a faction and do something unexpected, start a group (coterie/cabal/pack/etc) if you can't find one. You know? Be proactive, make some ripples and pull others into that madness.
These things are tied together. The character creation for me is obnoxious because not only have I never played WoD tabletop, I've never really played ANY tabletop outside a couple cool one-offs my friends have done on game nights. I don't have a good knowledge of the mechanics (ok I have NO knowledge of the mechanics)
Well, I can certainly see why you'd be frustrated by having to create characters using a system you're unfamiliar with, but there's no way around it. I've had the same experience say, rolling a character on a comic book MUSH a while ago... but I can't blame the game for it unless they make it unnecessarily complex or they don't give a hand with it etc. I mean... it's the system, there are some mechanics. Just learn enough about it to go through CGen and then fake it until you're familiar with more - it's what I do (when I'm not making @Coin answer endless questions instead of RTFM myself, that is).
Which might make you ask why I'd want to play these games, and the answer is I love modern supernatural/horror settings.
No, I get that.
Again, the real issue here is my lack of familiarity with the setting. I have no trouble being active to find RP (or, have never had an issue with this before) but my preferred style is the kind that happens organically - that just never seems to happen without an IC grid people want to hang out on more than the OOC rooms. Then, when I have a good feel for characters in my newly-known group, I can come up with a plot that helps advance them/appeals to their chars or personalities. That's the storytelling I like.
Organically finding RP in my experience works only when the local MU* culture is focused on making a couple of hangouts popular enough for people to keep going there 'in case someone is around'. This isn't a universal solution either - it can end up making those few rooms so spammy people avoid them, for example. Otherwise it's very difficult to just walk around until you find a room someone is already at (unless you're willing to be that person) - but if you're willing to do that, why not use tools commonly found in many MU* these days by turning on your seek-RP flag or the such?
In other words, if you can go to a room and have the game code advertise the fact you're available and looking for scenes, does that help? Because if you do it enough maybe other people will do the same... and it might not be completely organic, but it seems close enough to me.
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Good TV
I liked the trailer for Lucifer.
I don't know if Neil Gaiman is actually involved in any capacity but that'd be nice, too.
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RE: X-Men Game
@phase-face said in X-Men Game:
I'm not even totally against the idea of /a/ school, of there being a component of education and/or training to whatever setting is used, but on the occasions that I've played in the traditional setting, I've found it to be stifling and dragged down somewhat by an overemphasis on the minutiae of school life.
Having played in games - albeit not comic book ones - where 'education' was a part of roleplay I found this to be true, but part of it was just that it gave people an instant answer to the eternal question - what do we roleplay about? So if you had nothing else going on, Cyclops could always meet up with Bob the Melter to give them a lecture about leadership or... something.
On its own that's not a bad thing. It could even be a great thing.
The problem (for me, YMMV) is that it sometimes turns into a reason to prevent people from joining other types of RP, which is of course the exact opposite of the scenario above. "Evil robots are attacking! Let's go! Uh, just not you Bob, go to your room and study."
I feel if the game is clear enough that the latter is utterly stupid (in fact X-Men have been placing teenagers into danger since ever) then I don't see this as an issue.
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RE: Star Wars - Rogue One
I made the lethal error of reading youtube comments... so much whining. MSB's hog pit is nothing, nothing in comparison.
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RE: Coming in 2016 - Bump in the Night
@Sammi said:
It's also not a one-size-fits-all solution in that some people (*hand raise*) simply can't do "wandering the city, who knows what will happen" as the basis for any sort of plausible narrative progression. Part of why I like MUSHing is that there's a wealth of information available about characters. It's easy to figure out who these people are and why they might plausibly be crossing paths before anything happens, and that's necessary in order to turn off my social anxiety.
Weeeell, it can sort-of kind-of still work by strategic hangout creation. Say, an IC popular gallery or palace for nobles, an inn where live performers are sponsored to play at for the plebes, artists and patrons, a practice yard for martially inclined characters, etc.
But really, in this matter hybrid solutions work best... having several options given to people so they can mix and match. RP-seeking flags, hangouts, +event-based things getting people together, faction-specific meetings, the more time and effort a game puts into including its introverts the better it tends to do.
Having said there, there are always people who simply want everything spoon-fed and for whom nothing will be enough. You could basically page and personally invite them to every scene and they'll still find a reason to complain about. This needs to be said.
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RE: MSB Popularity Contest
@kanye-qwest said in MSB Popularity Contest:
No, I mean some people only post every now and then. Cheaters.
Yeah, what the fuck people. More is better, duh.
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RE: Potential Game / Temperature Read
@auspice Unless you plan to do a whole lot of STing yourself (or you have an army of GMs to do it for you), you should also pick whichever system/theme allows for players to generate as much of their own content as possible.
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RE: Great TV
Double post!
This is for @Coin and other Labyrinth fans. It's not mine, there's a 'what is your favorite fan theory' speculative thread on reddit that's produced/gathered a few gems.
My sister asked if the events of “The Labyrinth” are meant to be Sarah dreaming, or are they real? Although my primary reaction was that she shouldn’t put that much thought into any children’s movie (or any instance of David Bowie in tight pants), I’d like to take this opportunity to put so much thought into this children’s movie, that it’ll blow your mind.
So why is David Bowie kidnapping a child from an underage Jennifer Connelley?
In a time long long ago a sorcerer named Jareth fell in love with a girl named Sarah. Sarah’s father and step-mother would not let her marry Jareth because they wanted her to keep her, as a servant, to care for their other child. In a fit of rage Jareth kidnapped this other child and spirited it away to the fairy world. In this new world Jareth built a palace for his Sarah. He turned the spoiled child into a goblin, and kept it to be a servant.
Many stories of the fairy world tell us that time moves differently there than in our world (Rip Van Winkle for one). In the time it took for Jareth to build his kingdom, which he may have thought was little more than a few years, Sarah grew old and died.
Overcome by grief and addled by a lifetime spent in a strange world filled with monsters, Jareth goes mad. He refuses to believe that he has lost his love. He searches the mortal world from his castle, looking for her.Sarah is Hebrew name. So, it is common, and has been in use for thousands and thousands of years. It does not take long (for him) to find a dark haired girl named Sarah, who has a younger sibling, and who feels that she is treated unfairly by her step mother. In a fit of rage he kidnaps this other child and spirits it away to the fairy world. Perhaps this new Sarah dies in the quest to find the child, perhaps she wins her sibling back and flees.
Jareth searches the mortal world from his from his castle, looking for her. It does not take long to find a dark haired girl named Sarah…This is how Jareth becomes the goblin king. Every goblin in the goblin city is a child Jareth has stolen, who was not recovered by a Sarah. (he told the current Sarah that Toby would become a goblin if she did not find him in time)
This is why he builds the maze. The magic bog, the junk yard of useless treasures, all tricks to slow Sarah down. Because if he can only have his Sarah for the time it takes for her to regain the stolen child, he will make it take as long as possible, keep her as long as possible.
This is why there exists in our world a book containing the story.Because it has happened before. So many times. At some point some lucky Sarah must have returned to our world to tell the story. This is why when the most recent Sarah first meets Hoggle at the start of the labyrinth, and introduces herself; “I’m Sarah”, Hoggle responds “That’s what I figured.”
Because of course she’s Sarah.
They were all Sarah. -
RE: Werewolf/Mafia
@auspice said in Werewolf/Mafia:
It was brought up that people have seen these games played on forums? I've personally only ever played 'live,' but if anyone's interested... I will look into the best ways to run it on a forum and facilitate a round or two.
Who knows, maybe someone can get things out of their system by hunting some townspeople.
If you turn MSB into a game then we're running a game, which means we are staffing a game, which means I'm staff again
whiI WILL HUNT YOU DOWN. -
RE: X-Men Utopia MUX
@gamerngeek That's another reason having a well defined 'period' for a game's setting is a good idea. If you app the Rebirth Batman you know which Batman you're getting, who the current Robin is, whether he already has a history with the JLA, etc.
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RE: Coming in 2016 - Bump in the Night
@Kanye-Qwest You can be rude if you want, but does it need to be off-topic in a game's thread?
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RE: Good TV
@lotherio The CW probably has a much bigger operating budget than Netflix does to be completely honest. It's also probably easier to get producers.
The biggest advantage Netflix has is that they don't need to follow the usual TV template; no cliffhangers for commercial breaks, no constant exposition to catch viewers up from last week's episode - in fact nothing to help anyone catch up, since it's assumed they can just binge watch or start over any time they want.
From a narrative and storytelling point of view those are probably enormous tools for them, and a secondary effect could be that such freedoms attract better talent. The last part is speculative though.
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RE: Potential Game / Temperature Read
@auspice Suggestion: Whatever system you choose, make sure the material is easy to find (free and available online is probably the best bet, else popular is almost as good).
If players need to find (more so, buy) five different obscure splatbooks to play a brand new game they don't even know if they will like... they probably won't.
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RE: Star Wars - Rogue One
Well, I don't wanna start a new Star Wars movie topic.
Lando Calrissian cast. He's Donald Glover!
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RE: Mage 2.0 Conversion Discussion
For The Magicians in particular you may want to expand (greatly) on the importance of rotes. Getting access to spells was super important thematically, and often the real difference between street level casters and your more formally educated variants.
Giving some teeth to improvised magic (or rather, its consequences) and maybe adjusting it so it's easier to fuck up a spell might also give you a way to keep the game low level, if you wanted to lend some rope to your players to hang themselves with.