Posts made by Arkandel

For starters I do read the rulebook. I pay more attention to the fun parts - powers, special abilities, etc - but I read the rules.

I always really enjoyed reading official fiction written for the games I play on, though. I have very fond memories of going through the Drizz't, the Harper series, the Dragonlance novels etc as a teenager for example, then later on I ran into the Vampire: the Masquerade books that made me really love the setting. It's a great way not simply to familizarize oneself with how things work in-game, its NPCs and organizations, but also the intended nuances and tropes its developers are aiming for.

This practice did make young-DM-me take great strides in telling longer stories, too. It did involve incorporating Menzoberranzan in goddamn everything my party was doing for months at the time (they killed improbably numbers of Drow during that period) but screw it, those bastards never complained.

@mietze said in Social Stats in the World of Darkness:

If you want to retain agency and be able to put things in a direction that makes things comfortable for you, then I think by necessity you are going to also have to do some work other than batting down someone else's perfectly reasonable roll and success with a "nah, that just doesn't work for me."

I am starting to develop an intense dislike for that word - agency.

Agency in this context means you have a say in the direction a story is developing and your character's role in it; it doesn't mean you control their every aspect. It doesn't mean there can be no setbacks, losses or embarrassments in the way. Such control is in the domain of writing novels (or fan fiction), not roleplaying.

It's being overused to mean "I never lose". That's not what it's supposed to stand for.

That stands in both physical and social encounters. Sure, no one should feel forced to play out anything they find disturbing but there are plenty of scenarios (especially in the World of Darkness) where success is a zero sum game; for someone to prevail someone else needs to take a hit.

The only real way to retain 'agency' in this manner is to avoid being part of those scenarios, and yet many players who should know better - who ought to understand they can't handle setbacks gracefully - engage themselves in situations they're all but guaranteed to be challenged somehow.

For example one could play an artisan and probably not need to worry about losing face too much because that's not an inherently contested position, therefore if I want to avoid things that trigger my irritation that would be a suitable role to play. However if I go and make myself a High Lord wannabe in a hotly contested hotbed of political maneuvering then something has to give; even removing social rolls there's no way I can retain that precious 'agency' of controlling my character's development. I can have a say in it, for sure, but social rolls don't take that away to begin with.

Like... holy shit.

https://torontolife.com/city/queen-west-voyeur/

An aspect of this debate that's commonly overlooked, I think, is that characters can succeed or fail regardless of their overall stats - that's why randomness is introduced in the system, after all.

Who here hasn't had a combat character with plenty of dice who hilariously (or catastrophically) failed a roll chances were heavy they should have succeeded in? Or who hasn't faced "ST dice" where the ST rolls 4 and gets 5 successes or whatever?

The same thing can apply to social situations... but only if the dice are rolled. Maybe your social ignosaurus just happens to get the tone right this time, and their bubbling speech moves people, or your village idiot has a stroke of brilliance and actually comes up with a bright if improbably solution to that one problem.

None of this works if there is no roll. We can't simply assume a masterful politician always says the right things any more than we should take it for granted a suberb archer hits their mark a hundred percent of the time. If that was the case we'd only have attributes, not elements of randomness.

@ganymede Even more so it happens simply because some people are just better roleplayers - and unintentionally.

The easiest example is if you see how some great roleplayers who can write solid poses, who are mature, active, creative and courteous attract companions, friends and allies without trying even when they aren't playing charismatic characters, but for those who don't have it (whatever it is) it won't matter if they have Leadership 5.

For this there is no 'fix'. People gravitate to quality, for which there is no stat you can buy with XPs.

@pacha said in Social Stats in the World of Darkness:

I will just also say with reference to social stats that (at least to me) posing your character as making these sweeping, dramatic, highly persuasive speeches when they are (as an example) presence 1, expression 1, is equivalent to posing your strength 1 character tossing around cars for fun.

That on its own isn't a big deal.

Arkandel growls and charges at the orc, swinging his sword at his enemy's head!

<rolls 1>

"You missed, Arkandel."

It's not that hard to apply the exact same paradigm with social stats. I give what I try to be an impassionate speech meant to inspire you but I just come off as a sanctimonious self-serving prick, making you wonder what are you doing following my lead.

@ziggurat said in Social Stats in the World of Darkness:

Just my experience.

What I think you are missing is that your experience is shaped by the collective sigma of using social rolls on PCs. Of course they won't be used under the various circumstances mentioned all over this thread since the perception can flag someone as a potential creep, powergamer or bad fellow player.

That this is the effect though, not the cause.

@thatonedude We don't use https for MSB because, well, we don't. There shouldn't be any sensitive information here (and if you're sending over some, well, you shouldn't).

Just make sure to not reuse your passwords, which is a good security practice in general, and I won't have to do actual work to implement Let's Encrypt here.

I think that's the right way to do it, since I'm pretty sure they were never intended to be used on PCs in the same party in the first place.

Your own issue would be the devaluation of these attributes, but you could make them cheaper for that exact reason. So since Celerity can be used on a PC but Dominate can't, make the latter cost half (or whatever).

@ganymede said in Paragraphs, large scenes and visibility:

There's nothing wrong with your reasons.

But if you're in a combat scene, I can see why others would want you to hurry along a bit.

Yeah, adapting.

Doesn't mean you're a bad person.

The way I usually handle combat scenes is to not overthink it because it doesn't make sense to. In a bar fight it doesn't matter if your character is a super complex person with deep personal trauma they're going through, stuff in their background that keeps them up at night, relationship issues they're struggling to resolve, etc.

You're about to get punched. Fight or flight! There's no need (and in fact it's probably a bad idea) to over-complicate it; respond on whatever instincts would drive the character at that time. Punch back, retreat, dive under a table, scream at the top of your lungs, beg for mercy, whatever. Do it fast even if it takes 10 minutes to pose all that fast action due to reasons. The decision itself should be a snap one because that's how it works.

@tinuviel said in Paragraphs, large scenes and visibility:

@arkandel said in Paragraphs, large scenes and visibility:

is inappropriate

I mean if it's private, I disagree. I'd much rather be told that my style isn't jiving with people than to just simply not get play without being told why.

I don't mind a courteous conversation about anything. But messaging is really hard on issues like this because the line between 'I don't like how you pose' and 'change the way you pose so I like it' is very thin and easily crossed, or can be perceived as such (which ends up being nearly the same thing).

@tinuviel said in Paragraphs, large scenes and visibility:

@ganymede said in Paragraphs, large scenes and visibility:

That someone is an asshole, unless you've stated a reason for posing slow, e.g., I'm at work and prone to idling for it.

I would argue that if you submit a reason for posing slowly, then they are an asshole for politely calling you on it. If you dont, and you are posing slowly, it means they're aware that you are slower than the rest and are taking an opportunity to talk about it. Which is gentlemanly, if nothing else.

Yeah. I mean we don't all like the same posing styles and that's fine; if you don't like the time I take or how I write it's quite fine to not go out of your way to interact with me more than you have to in the future. However calling me out for it, unless I'm actually just being a jerk somehow, is inappropriate even if it's attempted in a 'joking-not-joking' kind of way.

It's really not that big a deal.

@thenomain said in General Video Game Thread:

DID YOU KNOW: Tabletop games are awesome?

Screw you, man. I've watched that Stranger Things documentary, I know what's up.

@goldfish I'm one of those people who do all that; I pretype responses, am a fast typist and I read quickly. However it doesn't matter that much when it comes to playing with others; being a slow poser isn't an issue - being a sloppy or inconsiderate one is.

In other words take your time. If I have to wait 10 minutes (or sometimes more) to get a pose I'm more than fine with it as long as it's worth reading in the end. Cranking out my poses faster than that isn't supposed to signal others that they need to do the same.

You don't have to change your posing style to accommodate others. Now if it's only for your own convenience, making sure you don't miss important things or name-drops in others' poses then sure, that's something... but there shouldn't ever be external or even perceived pressure to alter how you do things if you'd rather not.

Plus frankly any scene with 6+ people in it will be a scrolling, spammy nightmare for most people. It comes with the territory.

@goldfish said in Paragraphs, large scenes and visibility:

Still mad that my Sirius didn't look like Gary Oldman but WHATEVER)

If it helps, Gary Oldman doesn't always look like Gary Oldman either.

@aria Not on the same level as your dress code, but when I switched to my current company I was really taken aback by having one.

My entire career before that I was always part of a nerdsquad or other so we were all wearing shorts and comics t-shirts in the summer, etc... suddenly "just in case" a client was given the tour we had to wear button-down shirts, nice pants, non-sportsy shoes... it is hell!

At least lately they're relaxing a bit on that. We can wear sneakers now, y'all! But no t-shirts, they are the devil's attire.

I really liked Titans. All the casting choices were really good, the effects were pretty decent (for a TV show) and hopefully when the full roster is on the screen it won't feel crowded.