Posts made by Arkandel

@sunny Yeah. Or the flipside - a friend of mine who's pretty athletic went to the doctor last week.

"When I play soccer I feel a pain in my knee."
"You could stop playing soccer."

... Wtf.

@apu +1. 5th Ed is great, plus there are a lot of apps out there - many free - that help build characters and keep track of combat. Check out Goblin Fight Club for a great free one.

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

One thing to consider is that a lot of players, when considering what makes an 'effective' character, aren't comparing themselves to an outside metric that measures their PCs against the NPC hordes, but rather directly measure themselves against other PCs. So that 'great' rating doesn't mean much if every other PC is also 'great'.

Yeah, quite agreed. In fact this is a very common staff pitfall where they offer things (thematic secrets, theoretical niches, whatever) which end up being completely irrelevant in-game to their players, and are then surprised when they play out the actual results of their implementation than their intention.

For example: "In our world healers are treasured and highly regarded."
Actual play: "One out of every three PCs is a healer, so it's so saturated they're stepping all over each other's toes".

The same principle definitely applies to skills. It means nothing to be 'exceptional' at something compared to NPCs since I don't play with NPCs; I play with PCs, who are all as 'exceptional' as I am at $skill.

And updated again! I kinda like Tim, I hope he sticks around.

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

@sockmonkey Deliberate obfuscation of numbers has some strong and weak points, and it is something that's existed for a long time. I've played games that didn't use any numbers at all, hiding them entirely to staff side while there was still automated systems.

This is a dangerous road to tread, though. Let me give you an example using Arx specifically.

When I first played there I knew nothing about the ins and outs of the system - things were rolled and results were given out, but I - by design - had no way of knowing the specifics of what factored into what and how strongly. So far the obfuscation worked, and whatever the purpose of obfuscation was (which can be argued whether it's successful or not), it was achieved.

However then I was talking to people who started revealing more about the ins and outs of those invisible system. Maybe they were reverse engineered the way that you described (through trial and error) or someone knew a guy who knew a guy, but the point is the formulas were better known by some players more than others.

At this point there's a fundamental imbalance - a non-systemic factor not intended by the original design - where part of the playerbase has more access to optimization than the rest. In other words, some people could min-max better than others could. At least in an open, published system everyone has the same opportunity to make that choice for themselves.

It's something to take under consideration.

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

The #1 reason people min/max IMHO? Players have a vision and your system gets in the way.

I'm a min/maxer. I'm also pretty unapologetic about it - it's like a minigame for me, I just simply enjoy optimizing stuff, having spreadsheets with numbers and tweaking them around until I get more bang for my buck. As such I wouldn't think a system is getting in my way when I do this but rather that it attracts me.

In other words if I don't like it, if it's too complicated or if it gives me insufficient options to customize then I won't get into it, which in my eyes that's a failure to engage me.

@rnmissionrun In fact putty lets you use middle click (which is obviously the one true way to paste text) if you tell it to.

But to get back to the OP's issue... there are some guides posted on this forum to set up a MU* which are basically step-by-step, and at least one where you can use docker and set the whole thing up in one step... theoretically.

However OP, you're on the right track - if you're not technically versed you'll spend way more time doing things you probably don't enjoy (i.e. figuring out Linux) and less time doing what you intend (i.e. running a Vampire game), so you do need someone to help.

To do that what I'd do is try and attract a coder with your ideas if you don't already have someone in mind, which if you did you probably wouldn't have made an open thread about it.

So... what's cool for a coder to do for you? You can probably grab enough general command line help from us as a whole to run a generic MU* instance, but if you want any customization at all you will need someone to get their hands a bit dirty... so what would those be? Why would such a person want to roll up their sleeves?

Theme is your thing, but cool coding project ideas could go a long way into getting you the help you want.

@wretched said in [Visit Fallcoast, sponsored by the Fallcoast Chamber of Commerce]

That is something I actually disagree with, pretty vehemently. A small grid I feel is detrimental when trying to represent a large city and a sprawling wilderness.

Although I'm a 'small grid' kind of player... I don't see how it hurts to have a larger one, assuming there is nothing keeping players from reaching any parts of it they could reasonably IC get to. That way explorers get to explore and temproom..ers can make a temproom to play in.

This seems to be one of those cases where everyone can just get along.

@mr-johnson said in Comic Noir Game:

Sorry to do a double post here but thought I'd give people skimming through this who might be interested an update on the state of the game.

Thanks for the update! Also never worry about double posting to tell us about cool new games and features; in a sea of cat GIF memes actual content is always welcome.

The last couple of troll accounts (Распутин, etc) have been banned.

Guys, I know they're trolls. You know it too - but I won't ban them until they go too far. In the mean time you don't have to feed them.

@seraphim73 said in Social 'Combat': the hill I will die on (because I took 0 things for physical combat):

This is a really interesting point, I think. Most humans have the same hit locations for physical combat, but most humans don't have the same "hit locations" for social combat. Trying to use a generic combat system without taking into account the target character's personalities, passions, desires, and stubborn points is like trying to use a fish hit location chart for a person. Sure, you might get a "head" or "abdomen" result that works well enough, but you might also get a "tail" or "dorsal fin" result that... doesn't really work for the situation.

The problem isn't so much that we can't have a system where players input those things for their characters somehow ("Name and rate five things your character would be angered/flattered by") but that doing so very quickly burdens everything with that much extra complexity. The interface is less intuitive, command-line arguments become a maze, CGen takes longer to do and it's easier to screw up, and all that takes place before we even figure out whether the results are 'realistic enough' or not.

Look, we've had RPGs since the late 70s/early 80s. That's almost forty years of some pretty intelligent people creating all kinds of systems, where you can play anything from a shape-shifting kangaroo to a sentient meteorite. It's not an accident no 'social system' has really been presented as a yardstick, that none of the mechanics our collective hobby has come up with have gotten any closer than "well, roll manipulation+persuasion versus composure or something"-type rolls.

It's not because the answer is really close and we just have to refine it, it's because we are asking the wrong question. We are trying to treat social combat like we do the physical equivalent, and it just doesn't work that way.

@ganymede said in Social 'Combat': the hill I will die on (because I took 0 things for physical combat):

That's Rule No. 1 for me when it comes to just about any game.

Try to figure things out before resorting to dice.

Because, man, dice totally suck sometimes.

See, I'm torn on this, and not because I disagree.

For starters I hate using dice, and very rarely roll anything unless asked to, in a 'contest of will'-type situation, or in PrPs.

However the one compelling argument I've found people who support dice and mechanics have, and which I am swayed by, is to facilitate the possibility of occasional failure and provide a scale to success. Even the practiced politician will misread a situation or say the wrong thing at the wrong time after all, so a roll could make for an interesting scene since the result is truly unexpected by all participants.

Is that enough of a reason to include them? I don't know - I'm just saying it's worth considering, because to me if not for that, the only reason I'd ever roll anything at all would be what I described above.

@rnmissionrun said in Chronicles of Darkness cyberpunk game seeking help.:

I don't see why that should be the case, assuming they are able to find enough people to help out. The hard part is usually code, but the fact they'll be writing that code in Python rather than MUSHcode should speed up the process considerably.

Another question when it comes to 'how long does it take' is comparing the original deployment versus future requests. As @faraday mentioned it's going to be considerably faster upfront to take an existing codebase and tweak rather than figure out a new one you're not already familiar with... but you (meaning the game-runners) need to ask themselves what they may want to implement down the line.

Many games (for a while there it looked like every game) was content with just this and it'd be overkill to spend the extra effort for a different codebase in that case.

Other games have different requirements; web (or any other protocol) real time integration for example. If so then it makes every kind of sense to pick something else. Hell, many self respecting programmers want to actually either transfer their hard-earned skills in existing respectable languages over or at least to hone them - for example I haven't coded in python in a long time, and messing around with a MU* could be helpful in general. That's another big reason, too.

Anyway, my point here is that the choice of tools always depends on the project's goals.

@derp said in Social 'Combat': the hill I will die on (because I took 0 things for physical combat):

I think what needs to happen is that games just need to decide whether they're using social dice or not, and then actually put the effort into making those dice matter. If certain players don't like the idea that there are social dice on this game that could be used to influence their PCs mindsets and behaviors? Cool. Play on one of the games that don't.

As I've been discussing with Gany lately I've been changing my view on social attributes. I used to think they are meant to be the equivalent of physical dice, meaning that their use in real-time RP should be as good as a punch.

This is probably not going to work because of its complexity either in mechanics or social dynamics, all of which are things we've seen highlighted - correctly - in this thread. There are just too many unquantifiable factors, too many things you'd need to call in staff for, and that's not a recipe that could work out in RP. Nearly all RP is social and you just can't keep interrupting its flow to try and figure out where dice fit in it - not without fucking it up.

It's like the observer effect in physics. The very act of using social dice themselves changes the social scene.

What I am starting to think is social attribute should be balanced in relation to their physical counterparts. Not in the same way, because that's comparing apples to oranges. The more we try to shoehorn a more direct equivalence the more we'll be bashing our heads against the wall.

So for instance have social attributes give you other things and place a tangible value on those things. Make them count for status (but make status mean something). Make it more efficient to mine resources (but ensure those buy you in-game things you really want). Ensure they get you more contacts (yet the information, secrets and access that yields should have a practical impact).

If you do then yes, the problem is solved without ever needing to run into those "u want to sleep with me lol" situations our hobby is so infamous for. But to do that it takes games designed from scratch to utilize those systems and staff willing and able to facilitate them. Feeding me a secret about the Sheriff's ghoul that's utterly useless in practice then calling it a day is futile compared to the buying power I know I'll get for that third Vigor dot.

It's only 'free' in the way that if you already have it you no longer spend any money, but Diablo 3's new season started on Saturday.

@wretched My understanding is there's very little information about the reboot, but the refugees I saw on other MU* seemed confused/upset when they talked about it.

Was the downtime related to this in some way? I mean... I assume this wasn't supposed to be a surprise, brave new world! kind of deal, right?

@ixokai said in Chronicles of Darkness cyberpunk game seeking help.:

Ugh, Evennia just sounds like, 'okay yeah like in a year this game will still not be open'

Good, fast, cheap. Pick two.

@faraday said in World of Darkness -- Alternative Settings:

Theoretically, a niche game could generate more enthusiasm, even though the audience was limited. In my experience, that's still not enough to overcome the lack of people.

Worse; woe to you if you're a casual who's trying to play themselves into a tightly woven niche and you're caught doing it wrong.

We had about a small unannounced downtime today. It's pretty rare for Linode to have those, but this is all I can tell you from their web interface:

"We are aware of an issue affecting service to this Linode.

If you are experiencing issues with this Linode, there is no need to issue any jobs or open a support ticket at this time. Please monitor our status blog for further information. Thank you for your patience and understanding."

We seem to be okay now. I couldn't even access the server through the console before.

@tinuviel Some games can be incomplete and still mostly fun even if they perpetually remain works-in-progress (which is in fact many MU*).

For some though the most time consuming part is the point of their existence, and without those at least in a functional state, they might as well not be opened.