Posts made by Arkandel

@Coin said in Shadows Over Reno:

@Arkandel said in Shadows Over Reno:

What could be done to avoid the dick comparison issue on behalf of the STs?

Give the NPC bad guys the biggest dick.

Since I don't know if you're joking I'll respond in my SERIOUS voice.

So I can't (always) do that, for several reasons:

1. Sometimes a scene won't even have a bad guy, just a victim or witness the characters are interrogating/interviewing, for example. However even in those one of them has been known to try and take over the scene and prove their powers are bigger than the others' powers, so I can see @Auspice's point - my problem there is I try to stay neutral when I'm running scenes, which I might have to relinquish at times in cases like these. However I hope other solutions can be proposed.

2. Reno has just opened and the NPCs I'm using aren't really that scary. The point of the current storyline is to provide context for characters to meet each other outside of bar scenes; no one is going to be saving the world and none of the NPCs are tough motherfuckers.

3. It's been brought up before that often STs don't let players be the badasses in their stories. Some of it is probably just normal MSB-level whining but I can understand the viewpoint - being belittled by NPCs isn't that much fun if it's the rule.

Also, run some goddamn scenes so I can play in them!

@Kanye-Qwest said in Coming Soon: Arx, After the Reckoning:

to the way it means people pose these bloated 3 to 4 paragraph poses, trying to address everything that's been done or said since their last 'turn' to pose.

It's mostly the latter that bugs me the most, as it kills any narrative immersion and also makes it take like twenty minutes for people to pose.

Well, sure, and we all got pet peeves... but I don't see how that is affected by pose order whether it's supported by an in-game system or not.

I can play in perfect order and still respond to everything anyone does trying to take over the scene.

@Apos Another case scenario would be this (also pretty common):

A, B and C are playing... it's A's turn.
C says OOC "hey, skip me for a few, cat's on fire".
A poses. B poses. A forgets about C being AFK by then and just waits.

Subcase: A skips C and poses, then B poses, then A doesn't know yet C is back so A poses again then C does... is that a new order (A, C, B) or does it go back to the old one? ANARCHY.

A system could clear these things up if it just let you know when it's your turn, and all you need to do is inform it when you're going AFK or are back in the rotation.

I don't see what the problem is anyway. The command doesn't impose an order, it just displays the default round-robin one.

Or if not maybe it can be configurable to allow for customizations like 3PR for larger scenes, etc. Then if it's in place you can be automatically made aware when it's your turn (a common point of failure is 'oh, was it my turn? sorry guys!' after 15 minutes of everyone waiting for someone else).

It doesn't sound monstrous.

@Glitch You've ruined my life because the unread red counter for messages appears several pixels to the left of the 'recent' icon now instead of being on top of it.

Several pixels.

@Auspice Hm, so you'd only sign up for Hunter-specific +events?

What could be done to avoid the dick comparison issue on behalf of the STs?

@Misadventure

<<broken sarcasm detector>>
Like this: "Hey, posing three times in a row without allowing for any responses isn't a good idea!".

@Lisse24 I'm not taking offense, I'm just trying to understand so I can either adjust what I'm doing (say, run different kinds of stories, see if the issue is the EST timezone, look outside the Vampire sphere, etc) or just decide there's nothing to be done.

As for PrPs, they don't need to be the reason one RPs to have value.

So I know the game's having staffing issues at the moment with Wendigo facing family difficulties and Leviathan dealing with school for a bit, but I've been watching the PrP situation and it looks rocky as well.

My first +event had 5 people signing up, 3 of whom showed up; the second one has 3 at the moment - the bare minimum. That's on the game's first month of life when I expected people to be at their most active and excited to put their brand new characters to work. I've been signing up for everything I'm eligible for but only one of them was actually ran (Jordanna's, who I think that's @Cobaltasaurus - thanks either way!) as the others were canceled.

So I'm wondering, does anyone have an explanation for it? Is it the stories being ran - I could try a different angle but thought to start slow as folks get to know each other. If it's not that, do people not want to participate in PrPs? Is something else the issue?

This is mainly a question for the admins but if others want to chip in that's fine with me.

So obviously we can't post copyrighted content here (scans from books, etc) or these guys could get into trouble.

However what about compiled resources referencing gaming material? What I had in mind for example are wikis out there which contain stuff like "all the Vampire the Requiem 2.0 Disciplines with a brief explanation of what each dot does and their dice roll".

Is that okay? If it's not then I'll say no more, if so though we could have a sticky somewhere pointing to pages like that for newcomers.

Clearly I'm not going to post 'example' URLs here, if anyone's curious they can message me. Thanks!

@Thenomain Now and then I am even reminded of how few people even online, even MUSHing, know of MSB. Not are on MSB... who have been playing MU* for a long time and don't even know what this place is.

For some reason that's reassuring to me. Not sure why.

Emilia Clarke joins the Han Solo movie cast.

@surreality Oh, that can work, sure.

My ideal solution is still to not need to worry about how many alts someone's playing.

I don't know how IP matching possibly works in large cities where most people subscribe to a tiny number of ISPs. In Toronto other than a handful of techies I know almost everyone's either using Rogers or Bell, and all it takes to change your dynamic IP is turn your modem off and on again.

I can see 'invite only' working but it also makes games way less accessible.

@ThatGuyThere That part isn't really too integral for my system. I threw it in there because I like little subtleties of the sort (faking going along with something) but I can see why people might think it's too trusting on the defenders' side.

The real point of my original post was speed. Pose, make an attempt as simply and quickly as possible, defend it or not and keep posing.

Any social system that disrupts the flow of my scenes is useless to me. I don't mind how it can fuck with my character's head, its integration is what needs to be as seamless as possible.

@Miss-Demeanor said in Social Conflict via Stats:

But if we can't trust our fellow players then none of this really works. I don't want my IC social attempts to succeed if the other person hates it but is forced to go along, what's the point of that? How much fun is the scene going to be?

Bolded for emphasis. Your response suggests that any course of action where someone 'hates' the outcome should be avoided.

Oh, you misread it or I didn't explain it sufficiently. That's not at all what I was saying. I was saying if the person I am playing with will either cheat if he can or need to be brute-forced into accepting an IC action if he can't, then I don't want to play with them.

That kind of person will sabotage the outcome anyway so continuing the scene is a poison pill for my fun.

Systems can't fix bad people. They can only facilitate and improve interactions between the rest.

@Miss-Demeanor said in Social Conflict via Stats:

@Arkandel I will pose a question to you then. If you aren't willing to have outside sources influence and change your character (for better or worse)... then why play an interactive non-consent game where other people have the ability to influence and change your character? If you'll only ever accept certain outcomes (and tailor your RP so you only ever see those outcomes), then what are you actually adding to the game and why should anyone want to play with you?

When did I suggest a system where outside sources cannot significantly influence and change your character, for better or worse?

@Miss-Demeanor said in Social Conflict via Stats:

@Arkandel I'll call bullshit on that. If you're only ever participating in scenes where everything goes how you want it to go... that's really no different than ignoring the things you don't like just because you don't like them.

There's no need to deal in absolutes. There's a considerable gap between "I only participate in scenes where everything goes my way" and "I will not ignore rolls and cheat if things don't go my way".

The system I proposed works perfectly well with the former. I am suggesting if someone is at the point (or the kind of person) they would go with the latter then there is no point in trying to enforce these rolls and no system would really fix the problem - I would rather just avoid the players.

Edit: Clarified the gap in question.

@Miss-Demeanor said in Social Conflict via Stats:

@Arkandel That's the honor system, and let me know when you've had a game of more than 10 people where the honor system actually worked. There's no checks and balances in your example, no way to ensure that people are actually posing according to the results of the roll.

If you're worried about that I guess the outcome being shown isn't going to break the system, it's just a little extra.

But if we can't trust our fellow players then none of this really works. I don't want my IC social attempts to succeed if the other person hates it but is forced to go along, what's the point of that? How much fun is the scene going to be?