Posts made by Arkandel

I've been meaning to go into this for a while now, but I'm interested in seeing how important privacy is for MU*'ers. More specifically - and you can add your own questions to this list - I was curious about how protective you are of:

1. Your real world identity - meaning anything past your first name, including your general geographical location (city, State, etc). Please remember if you e-mail or share documents using your e-mail accounts those often include that name!
2. This is a subset of the above but I wanted to isolate it... what about your gender, family status, religion, etc? That is, stuff about your social status.
3. Your 'physical' digintal footprint; for example sharing pictures of yourself, but also even being on a voicechat with others; do you only do it with trusted few or go on general channels?
4. Your e-mail address or other online traces of your identity outside of gaming.
5. Your identity on games - are you at all concerned about people figuring out your alts, or who you play on other games, including non-MU*? What about the room you are in, or who you are RPing with?

Part of this has to do with MSB in particular, since lately we've taken tentative steps to alter the new account registration process in order to address certain issues we've had in the recent past, but I want to see how you guys treat these issues and how important they are to you.

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-43330356

Susan Sarandon has revealed that Paul Newman once gave her part of his salary. They starred together in the 1998 film Twilight, with Gene Hackman. Sarandon discovered that her male co-stars were getting paid the same as each other - and more than her. Newman said, "Well I'll give you part of mine."

https://stratechery.com/2018/lessons-from-spotify/

@sunny said in General Video Game Thread:

I am already thrilled with the changes made pre-xpac in the leadup. The scaling zones is pretty much the best thing ever.

I'm pretty ambivalent, even in alpha for BfA.

On one hand I love how now you can basically pick the zone you want and stick around until it's done (or you are done with it); there's no more dropping a questline when it's incomplete because you just outleveled it. Hell, you don't even need to do entire expansions at all - don't like Northrend or Outlands? Don't go there! Which to be honest used to be annoying since you had to fly to portals, take zeppelins, etc.

But on the other hand leveling really is so damn boring these days as all of the carrots are being taken out of it. I don't look forward to the next level up since... well, nothing happens other than that a number changes. Woo-hoo, I dinged 24 to 25... but so what? There are basically no new talents (there are but very infrequently, and they usually don't change gameplay), the mobs don't get any easier since they scale up to you immediately, and if you have heirlooms - which yes, is optional - you rarely even switch to new, better gear.

For all vanilla was annoying in many, many ways every time you dinged mattered. You got better every time you got a level.

@killer-klown And that's why I love everything about that work. Also why those who don't are wrong and should be ashamed of themselves, and rethink their life choices.

@surreality You know the computer will happily wait in its box even if you need an extra day or more to set it up, right?

@tinuviel ... Hrm?

I purchased a DeVinci bicycle from a local bike store in Toronto - Velotique - which came with free annual tune-ups during the off season. I also bought all of my bike-related gear from them - helmets, rack, bags, lock, expendables... everything.

When I called on March 2 this year to ask about the free tuneup, I was told it's only offered 'until the end of February', so I could no longer do it. On March 2...

I'd understand if I brought the bike in during May in peak season, but being told it was too late two days after February ended seems like nickel and diming. I certainly don't think better of Velotique for that, and I don't know they'll have my business any longer after that.

We already were in the golden age of television, and then Netflix threw a ton of money into the mix to up the ante... which is causing others to do the same.

What I hope for is that the market doesn't eventually crash. We really don't know yet (there's no way to tell since this is all so new) if these streaming service behemoths will make their investments back in the long term.

The Shape of Water.

Oh Jesus

@faraday said in Game Design: Avoiding Min-Maxing:

Guess what - if you make chargen use XP costs? It won't be. I've played systems that have tiered costs in chargen. It's a PITA to figure out how to spend your points, and personally I've found that it penalizes people who want to be expert at something.

The true cost to this for many games - which you wouldn't have encountered while implementing your own system - is that the original mechanics use something different, and each time you depart from it there is an adaptation cost your players have to pay in terms of ease of use.

The main reason to using, say, nWoD 1.0 is that people are already familiar with it. You don't need to explain how it works too much, you can just point out which books your MUSH will use and... that's it. You can then count on veteran players to guide others right from the moment you open your doors, something home-grown systems don't have - no one's a veteran. But open a nWoD 1.0 game and you'll get a bunch right up front.

Obviously not every house rule or diversion from the material-as-is will ruin this effect, but the more you depart from it the less useful it is. And when it's right at the first time a new character is being rolled it's even more emphatic.

@sonder said in NodeBB installation:

I went to follow their install directions here: http://nodebb-francais.readthedocs.io/projects/nodebb/en/latest/installing/os/windows8.html

However, the third and last links are broken or have nothing to download on them. I also do not have that redis icon either.

...Sooo, I have a feeling I'm doing everything hilariously wrong.

All these are are packages that nodebb requires to run. I can't quite help with Windows because... well, it's Windows.

However I'd install it with mongoDB instead of redis - we're using the latter on MSB for legacy purposes, since there was no trivial free way to migrate the existing data.

@sonder What's the problem?

@munsell said in Need Coder for Political Vampire Game:

@Arkandel that was pretty good advice there i hadnt thought of that. I'm not too sure what will attract a coder. Basically, i would like to have an expansive grid and also Necropolis that consists of ghost stations, wwii bunkers, secret nazi projects, and spy tunnels that lead to east berlin.

That can help, even only to show your creativity. Attracting coders is only different than getting players to give you a chance in one way - you need to do it upfront, before there's really that much of a project in progress in place for them to appreciate. You're basically asking a person who's probably qualified and has professional-grade skills to put them to work for your game - tens of hours' worth - to make it possible, so the main question you have to answer for them is ... why your MU*? How serious are you? How do they know you'll even still be around in a few months when they finish?

I was also thinking of a travel system through the U-bahn, so that travelling around feels more immersive. There will have to be a blood system, like Rfk where you go to territories to hunt. I'm also thinking of some kind of blood harvesting or blood bank where ghouls can get blood for their regnant, and where vampires can pay their landlords in blood. We also want to have Prestation. Some kind of boon system would be nice. Maybe even a system that displays your "stock" and whether you're going up or down, and general trends. I dont know if the last thing will be possible or not!

And this is one of the exact things you can do right now... write down your system. Not "there will have to be a blood system" - write it down, specifically, the ins and outs of it in simple English. Coders like specificity - design the system you want them to implement for you, and be ready to answer a lot of questions that haven't occurred to you... because they will need those answers to do it.

In other words, don't go to a programmer with hopes and dreams. Go to them with a design.

@faraday said in Game Design: Avoiding Min-Maxing:

The expectation with FS3 is similar - if you want to be an expert then start the game as an expert. Not because it's a punishment, but because it's my game system and going from zero-to-hero in the typical lifespan of a game is a cruel destruction of my suspension of disbelief.

I obviously can't say anything about a system that's working the way its designer intended it to, since that'd be a silly thing to do. That's what you wanted, and your reasons are your own.

But I feel realism isn't the only vector in games where themes of self-improvement - a hero's journey, mentorship montages, fantasy training tropes, magic academics, comic-book sidekicks, etc - all so prevalent. Sure, it'd have taken Robin many years before he was good enough for a teenager to mow through bad guy mooks, and Luke sure started deflecting those bolts mighty quickly on the Falcon, but those sure were fun... and they make us want to play something like that too. I mean, it's part of why we got into these genres in the first place isn't it? Getting to play the stuff out that we're reading and watching?

Don't take this as criticism, it's not. Just a counterpoint.

I got a car door in the face when I was putting my stuff in this morning to come to work. Bleeding on the commute is just great.

@roz said in Game Design: Avoiding Min-Maxing:

I think you're misunderstanding what "make every part of the system important" means. It means that if you have standard stats/skills that everyone is taking points in, there should be places for all of those skills to be important in the game. If you have social skills, there should be places in the game to use them mechanically. Don't make standard skills and let people put XP into them and then refuse to let them ever be useful in a situation.

Yes, and that's where game-runners - and occasionally, players - get it wrong. Sure, you can blame the powergamer for not buying Drive and putting those XP into more Brawl instead, but how about taking responsibility for the fact Drive is completely useless and no one in living memory remembers rolling it in any scenario other than super rare stuff completely created to force its use, yet people get to use Brawl routinely?

I really think the only feasible objection we can make here is for players who don't buy stuff, but roleplay them. Yes, that's an issue. If I don't buy Drive I shouldn't drive better than a random person on their commute, else I'm cheating. However it still doesn't mean players need to be paranoid about it - just because you don't have Expression it doesn't mean you can't use big words. It takes more than a vocabulary to make someone an emotive speaker or adept tale-teller for instance.

@apu said in RL things I love:

@arkandel

dndbeyond.com is another awesome resource. No apps so far, that I've seen, but it has an awesome online character generation system and easy to find information. I like making a character using their site first and then I plug it all into a Roll20 character sheet, add what info I don't have on DnDBeyond due to not having any of the books for their site, yet, and then I am good to go!

Am I really missing something here? For me it was a bad experience because if you need anything other than D&D's most basic stuff then players or the DM needed to have bought the books from their site.

In other words although I own a hard copy of the Player's Handbook, and even if I had a digital copy from some other store, I'd have to buy it again before the content in the book was available to me on D&D Beyond.

If I misunderstood how that works though I'd love to be corrected.

@sg said in Game Design: Avoiding Min-Maxing:

@arkandel said in Game Design: Avoiding Min-Maxing:

I'm a min/maxer. I'm also pretty unapologetic about it

I am as well, I just don't understand this obsession with 'well rounded' characters that game runners have. In my experience, a well rounded character either has no need to invite other people on adventures (if the system is sane and difficulties are realistic) or is completely useless because their stats are all too low (most mush games I've encountered).

Well, I understand it, I just think:

1. there's no stigma involved (and I laugh at anyone who claims otherwise - like this: HAH HAH) or that there's anything wrong with making a specialized character.

2. it's already the case since what's the first question most people ask when they roll a new PC? "Hey, what do you guys need the most on your game/coterie/faction?" Well, if the answer is something like "we need a fighter" or whatever then why not make a good one?

3. The main argument to the contrary is kind of a strawman's argument - that people create idiot savants who are just terrible at anything else but their maxed stuff, but then they don't play out the drawbacks. So for example that you roll a fighter with Charisma 1, but roleplay a real charmer. That however is an issue with the system (for not using mechanized checks for charisma - if you have a stat it needs to be used as much as any other stat, dammit) or with the player, and mechanics can't fix bad players.

So there.