Posts made by Arkandel

@Ganymede Sometimes I regret not playing on RfK, it sounds like a cool system.

Yes, if your system is caked into the overall game so that people are enticed to use all of its aspects then they will.

@Ganymede said in Fanbase entitlement:

I have been told I have a remarkable capacity for remembering shit, especially shit that pissed me off enough to remember why. Perhaps, for too long, I lived with the adage of: "forgive, but never fucking forget."

Especially for online stuff I find I remember people who pissed me off but not why; the original offence is often lost to time.

At which point, once I realise, I usually let it go because what's the use being pissed off at people for what amounts to no reason?

@ThatGuyThere said in Mostly Mage, Partially Descent Mux:

@Arkandel said in Mostly Mage, Partially Descent Mux:
Then what term would you use for players that ignore mechanics designed to limit their characters abilities?

Uninformed if they aren't comfortable enough with the (pretty hefty) Mage rules? Uncaring because they are telling a different story with a different theme and focus at the time? I can think of many terms - and I've seem players for whom the idea of cheating is pretty absurd because they barely even spend their own XP or seek any advancement for their characters, some of whom have taken gleeful pleasure in seeing those characters broken down completely.

But it's not just Mage and Paradox, as pointed earlier. Again, I've not seen Lunacy be a factor in non-PrP/First Change related RP other than quite rarely. Or daylight, I can't remember a vampire being turned away from a public let alone private scene in ages, or outside PrPs having the approaching dawn be a factor at all; even at the beginning of PrPs it was pretty typical on TR (the last time I played a Vampire or ran plot for them) for characters to restore their blood pools to full. All those are character-limiting resources, aren't they?

I naturally understand this is empirical. Maybe your guys' observations have been different based on the groups you're hanging out with, and that's fine. But from my experience has still been that this kind of thing is rather typical and not the exception.

@ThatOneDude said in Mostly Mage, Partially Descent Mux:

This conversation is amazing... Didn't you say earlier you play a mage? In the 2e variant which I'd guess would be on the Fallen Worlds game? You don't concern yourself with any of these rules?

I think the conversation is pretty interesting, yes; you sound sarcastic though.

As for the rest, I am playing on Fallen World and use those mechanics (when my character actually casts something, that is, since it hasn't happened yet); however I am also part of a community whose habits I also like to observe. And just because their playstyle might differ from my own I don't make the automatic assumption they are either bad players or cheaters.

@Ganymede said in The Descent MUX:

If you're deliberately dodging a mechanic that's built into the game, I'd say you're a pretty awful player. That's akin to not RPing the consequences of a Condition, or ignoring a social roll. The difference between Paradox and, let's say, daily Vitae-burning is that one mechanic can be more easily built into a MU*.

And it's because of how spending vitae is easier to implement that it also gets used. Remember - mechanics must be easy and entertaining.

Though while she used the term awful player I would take it one step father and use the term cheater.

That makes no sense. These days Conditions (for example) actually yield characters XP; why would their players cheat in order to penalize themselves mechanically?

Just because it's easy to point a finger - especially at the majority of players! - and place a perceived fault squarely on their shoulders maybe we should concern ourselves with the issue a little bit deeper than that?

@ThatOneDude said in The Descent MUX:

So really there are TONS of things going on in mage that if ignored I'd say make for shitty players.

Given the fact no one in the tread contests the fact Paradox isn't being used by the clear majority of players then you are suggesting almost everyone is a shitty player, which I can't accept.

Or, rather, if I need to pick between a mechanic not being a great match for MU* in its current form and universal shittiness, I'll pick the former.

@Apu The first time I caught a Pikachu in the wild it spawned for both my wife and I. Hers poofed; mine was caught. There was much hatred since, only intensified to an extreme degree when a few days later I also hatched a second one from a 5km egg.

I can live with domestic antipathy. My yellow buddies make it all worth it.

@Miss-Demeanor Although I commend the strategy, don't they have separate accounts with their own Pokemon on each?

@surreality: I must sadly concur with @Coin in that as long as players choose to not involve something then that will just not get involved. Yes, staff or Storytellers can enforce it in their own scenes that still doesn't account for 99% of the actual roleplay taking place on the grid, which complicates things even further when things do get enforced because it seems arbitrary, different than what everyone is used to and perhaps even misleading. Why is this a problem now when people have been doing the same thing for weeks (insert 'when staff alts were present' for additional effect) but it wasn't then?

Likewise Paradox is as paper a tiger as Lunacy is because it's not actually used. In a certain sense it doesn't matter why, only that it's how it is, and in that same sense policing it would be the wrong thing to do - making it desirable would be the proper way to address it. And yet system mechanics are very democratic in the way players get to choose the ones that are enjoyable to use; not useful, not advantageous, but fun. So for instance very few people would pick to make their scene inaccessible for Vampire characters by making it be daylight, or forcing them to not participate in the scene if they need to hunt first (sorry man, it'd take you too long, we'll go along without you) because they don't want to be dicks about it and that's all there is to it.

Mechanics are doomed to be underutilised if they aren't easy and entertaining to use. They need to be both.

@Apu You probably have things I've never seen or are super rare in Toronto in your insta-cookie list.

@Apu It's so weird rarities vary geographically. I've got like 4x Squirtle on me just now and I've deleted a bunchsent a bunch to the farm.

@surreality said in The Descent MUX:

To be fair, that's more a factor of player scheduling than anything else, and the time distortion that always hits with posing

@Ganymede said in The Descent MUX:

But the Vampires have to deal with: (1) the need to feed; (2) the power of Vitae; and (3) other vampires trying to turn them into pawns.

Absolutely, to both of you - it is largely a factor of players playing the game a certain way just like vampires who have to deal with certain realities of their own existences are also affected by similar conventions; in the end such things are either ignored or used purely as roleplaying hooks, not unwanted impediments. I'm not even saying that's a bad thing, gameplay trumps everything else.

I think the problem with the Mage mindset @Auspice was referring to earlier though isn't that their players are jerks; it's the same players after all who populate every other sphere. The problem from where I'm standing is that having such a large toolset at their disposal - the power level may be disputed but I think we'll all agree they are by very far the more adaptable splat with a lot of flexibility in what their abilities can do - makes them look at plots as problems to be solved. Not experienced, not played, solved.

As a Storyteller that doesn't bother me on its own since I build plots and stories as sandboxes for people to mess around with and see what happens; that's part of the fun of it for me, having to cope with the unexpected. What does bug me is that when one person takes over the rest of the players in the plots tend to get bored or just... don't have anything to do, thus I can't engage them. They become plus-ones (or even plus-fours in some cases), which is a major issue.

The fact isn't merely contained to Mages versus non-Mages, by the way; it's quite common for a player knowledgeable in the system to just Do All The Things in a PrP if other players don't know or don't want to solve every issue by some combination of Arcana and dice. It can deflate tension and generate apathy very quickly - I've seen it happen.

@Auspice Abra was weird for me. For some reason every time it'd escape and poof after the first catch - I never got a second shot at it.

Then I caught it once, followed by like five more catches within a couple of weeks.

@Auspice said in The Descent MUX:

Well, the other big issue of Mage on MU*s and why they're able to be so 'overpowered'... I have yet to see a multi-sphere place that even takes Paradox into consideration. Or enforces it if they claim to.

So their biggest drawback, on many games, just doesn't even exist.

On MU* it's almost unheard of for Vampires to have to deal with daylight at all. It doesn't even impede their roleplay as any scenes with them are automatically assumed to take place after dusk.

Mages and Paradox (which I'd argue isn't remotely as big a disadvantage than taking lethal/aggravated damage for literally half the hours of your existence if something goes wrong, and being mostly unable to function during them) aren't the only ones not having to deal with such a major issue.

@Misadventure On the other hand isn't part of dealing with stress of all sorts, including social pressure, part of well... life?

Obviously I'm not saying the extremes - death threats and whatnot as discussed in this thread - are in any way acceptable. But all of us went through high school and I reckon most didn't do so unscarred; we got a few bumps and bruises on the way, some of them emotional and others even more literal; this may be highly unpleasant but the process itself taught us how to deal with it, how to cope, which comes in really handy in the grown-up world.

Yes, we can (maybe?) get rid of that nasty asshole in forth grade who keeps making jokes or the mean girl who spreads rumors in our expense by talking to a teacher, or a parent or... someone. But then who's going to protect us from that asshole boss or senior manager later on in life? There won't always be provisions and alternatives, we have to deal with it ourselves and if the training wheels never came off before then we'll be that less prepared to do so.

Hell, asking for help is part of the learning curve too, and not something everyone necessarily realises is a perfectly viable alternative.

@deadculture Did... did I fail a nerdtest test again?

COINTELPRO Techniques for dilution, misdirection and control of a internet forum. This shit is spooky.

@ThatGuyThere said in Fanbase entitlement:

@Arkandel
I agree with this completely, if it is just people voicing an opinion no matter how crudely they express it or asinine their my be, I will say good for them that is their right and if that is the image they want to present well that is on them but I will never say they shouldn't voice it.

Please note you aren't agreeing with me here. I never said anything like 'good for them, it's their right' for people who are being complete asshats, wishing someone's children to get cancer or whatever because their game's loading screens take too long. It is those people's right, yes, but they are asshats.

What I did say is that ultimately and unless they escalate their asshattery into criminal real-life actions (physically stalking, revealing private information, etc) it's just text written on a screen. It's like an (even more) evil version of WORA, and it can be ignored the same way as any other trolling.

@Ganymede: But that's an arbitrary metric - you are right, but you are applying a very specific use case then claim there is no overall imbalance. I don't mean that you are comparing apples to oranges (although in a sense you are) but let me offer an example.

You are correct in saying a Mekhet specialised in investigation can survive an attack better than an Acanthus similarly oriented in a white-room setting; however they would still both lose to a combat-oriented opponent of equal comparative power so ... what does that matter? However in the mean time the latter will be far superior in actual investigations, and even more so if she has a little more XP to diversify her Arcana; if that wasn't enough Fate can be an incredibly flexible tool both defensively and offensively if she has time to plan it out as opposed to just facing the white-room scenario.

In practical terms for a MU* it's not even close. I know you've STed for Mage so you know how it is; in other spheres characters' tool sets are far more limited. The scope has changed between 1.0 and 2.0, yes, Mages no longer get to hang a zillion successes on themselves which do everything, but the power gap is only scaled down from 'lol' to 'ouch, unless'.

This is something mixed sphere games will need to factor in. I'm not saying it can't or shouldn't be done, but it ought to be a well considered factor.

Yeah, with my lock I specifically went affliction to farm invasions. Agony on everything to farm soul shards then AoE when they are clustered as needed. The trick is to tag everything in phase 1, make sure to tag bosses then move away (since if you're dead you get no XP) in phase 2, then depending on whether you have flying yet either also do phase 3 by going straight to the bosses on the map else relog-reset if you have time to do more.

The only case I stayed to the end is if I got bored, had stuff to do or the event was going to end soon for that location - and it still left me with more unopened chests than I'll need to gear the character with at 100.

Now if I can just find a decent RBG guild... <mutters>