Posts made by Arkandel

@Ganymede said in Good or New Movies Review:

Being Chinese, this fills me with an immense amount of loathing. That said, if they could make Kingpin and Stick compelling ...

I think producers underestimate us. I get both major arguments being used here; that they need A-list names for big productions and to create a sense of identification in their intended audiences ('white folks identify better with white characters'). They are just wrong.

The new Star Wars movies seem to work really well - and they are led by ladies. Ray isn't a great heroine, she's a great character, and I can't wait to watch Rogue One when it comes out. Would I have liked a kick-ass Jedi guy spinning lightsabers? Sure, I watched Anakin do it for two movies and it was kind of blah, not because he wasn't male enough but because those films sucked. Conversely I can't bear to watch Aeon Flux or Resident Evil, but that's not because females star as action heroes in those, it's because they were horrible!

Make a good movie, make it make sense and it will work. Don't and it won't.

How hard is that?

@Ganymede said in Alternate CoD/WoD Character Growth / XP Systems:

That argument is that certain RP requires mechanical growth, which I've previously described as "advancement." My response to that is: no form of role-playing requires mechanical growth. It's true, PCs evolve and change; thus, I support changing a PC's stats based on what's happened in RP by re-spec, but am adverse to a full-out re-spec, which is where a player simply re-arranges their +sheet for reasons other than misunderstanding rules out of CGen or rule changes made during play.

This is not a "wrongfun" argument; this is a "I do not agree with your presumption/premise/implicit argument" argument.

They are just referring to different games. I've played completely stat-less MU* and they were fine - I had a blast. But that's because you can grow the character, organically and at will based on your judgment of how far he/she has gone as opposed to a systemic numeric advancement.

What I object to is hybrids which control PCs' growth then, once they no longer allow it, the implication is the character has reached their peak. That's not conductive to activity in my most humble opinion.

@Ganymede said in Good or New Movies Review:

This isn't just any generic A-list film, however. It is an A-list film based on material that has a very strong connection to Japanese culture. I mean, you wouldn't cast a Scotsman as an Egyptian God, right?

Oh wait.

I wouldn't cast a Scotsman as a Spartan either but... damn.

Sometimes I wonder if we're regressing. Or maybe we're just in a two-steps forward one-step back phase.

For instance I read that in the 80s when they were writing Beverly Hills Cop Axel Foley wasn't black in the script; he had no race. Eddie Murphy just took him, made him his and the fact he was black gave him a better edge (on top of Murphy's own mad talent at the time of its peak).

That's what I'd like. Characters who are played by whoever can do a better job, as long as we avoid pointless blackface phenomena. As long as it's not a stretch, that's all I can ask.

So... dunno, if you pick Scarlet Johansson for a role in an A-list movie that's gonna cost $100m I can kinda understand the producers - they needed a big name for their big-tent film. But if that's going to be a distraction in the script then it shouldn't happen anyway, it'll just detract from the movie ('why did this white girl grow up and went to school in Japan?' isn't a question that was asked at all in Ghost in the Shell).

As far as I'm concerned the current GMC XP system works fine for all splats other than Mage. That's because every other sphere's powers still grow in a more or less linear fashion; you spend 5 XP and you get a special ability. It's for flexible for some than others but it's still essentially just one thing.

The paradigm fails with Mage where your return on investment scales up better. I believe (and this comes from a rather superficial read of MtA 2.0) it's not as huge an issue as it was as long as multiple Masteries aren't accumulated; once they are all bets are off.

A couple of notes:

1. I believe the flow of XP is important to maintain as a constant carrot to fuel the game's engine; you want to reward Storytellers to run plot, to incentivize activity other than finding relationship-mates and lock themselves up in rooms, and to keep people interested in improving their characters. While that's not for everyone it is for many, and the critical mass required to push roleplay to the point where it generates itself should be constantly prodded.

2. The solution I proposed in the original Mage thread (don't allow Gnosis over 5) is by no means the only approach but it is a fairly simple, straight-forward one.

3. The reason for blocking multiple Masteries is not to cap the power level. To explain consider single-sphere games; if all your Mages are going up 'against' (be it in politics, NPCs in plots, etc) is other Mages then balance isn't an issue since the other side have equally potent toys of their own. The idea is that with multiple Masteries Mages become too self-reliant; they have fewer weaknesses, thus Cabals have a less organic reason to be formed.

I'd be happy to argue the above.

@Tempest said in What would a superhero game need to be/do to bring in a new player base?:

Didn't read all this, but something that grinds my gears about Superhero/comic games....

Do not let one person app multiple A+++++ list characters. The guy who plays Wolverine does not need to also play Batman. He DEFINITELY doesn't need to also play Spider-Man on top of those two.

Yeah, agreed. On the one superhero game I've played on one guy had Superman, Deadpool and... I forget, the Flash I think?

That's just greedy. Spread the wealth - plus it destroys teams, since by definition you can't have more than one major member show up at the same time.

Ryan Reynolds showed up for his own Honest Trailer.

Yeah, we basically live in the golden age of TV. Enjoy it, folks.

You know what amuses me though? The Hollywood 'analysts' who keep predicting superhero fatigue. People are tired of superheroes! They've been at it for a while. Any day now!

What simply doesn't seem to sink in is people don't go to watch 'superheroes' or 'westerns', they go to watch good movies. No, your crapfest buddy cop remake/sequel didn't bomb at the box office because audiences didn't want to see cops any more, it bombed because it was crap. And while talented people make good films in any genre people will show up to watch them.

They seriously think it's the idea that matters. "Audiences want to watch volcanoes this year".

@Vorpal What I'm not sure about is how they'll launch the next Avengers movie without having to spend the first hour dealing with the fallout of this one.

Spidey and Thor 3 are coming next year and Black Panther is followed closely by Avengers: Infinity War in 2018, and only the Hulk is part of Thor 3... so unless Black Panther is is, it's hard to see it.

But since the Russo brothers are also in charge of Avengers now I have a lot of faith in them to pull it off.

Spoilers free.

Captain America: Civil War was easily the best Marvel movie I've seen. Easily.

For starters it was the first superhero film which juggled so many characters successfully and did them justice at the same time; they all had a place, they had distinct personalities and they were believable - which I feel Age of Ultron failed to do, at least for the newcomers.

For another... well, wow. The whole film worked, beginning to end. The script was good, robust and funny despite the dramatic material. Spidey was awesome.

@Rick-Sanchez My view of Mage Sight has always been Dresden-esque; you could keep using it but it's just not a good idea, because there are certain things you can't unsee.

Plus come on, you're driving, or making out, or watching a movie... do you really wanna be looking at weird shit around the clock? Even if one PC is obsessive enough that he/she would I hardly think it'd be a common choice.

@Coin said in Good TV:

@tragedyjones said in Good TV:

Not looking forward to Jon and Sansa just missing one another.

I really hope they don't do it that way. It would be a horrible choice right now. They need to start consolidating, not continue playing the keepaway game.

Yeah, the Starks separation thing has served a very important role for years - it made them vulnerable.

At some point the pack has to get together. Once it does, those fuckers who've survived have become seriously dangerous in different ways and they have more than their fair share of axes to grind.

@Coin said in The State of the Chronicles of Darkness:

Inaccurate. Scrutiny takes a long time. You can glance at someone with mage Sight and if they have some weird shit going on on the surface, sure; but as far as actually scrutinizing them, it took a lot longer. It's just that people don't read the book and also think you can someone get away with staring at someone for a full minute without the person going "hey, what do you want?"

Scrutiny? That's nothing!

Certain players were endowed with PC vision, allowing them to distinguish between the millions of random NPCs in major metropolitan areas (who'd never get stared at either for three seconds or sixty) and the special few who, despite being strangers, merited a hard staredown for being actual PCs all on the merit of some superficial excuse - maybe they 'made a weird comment' (because there are no oddballs around in cities) or 'dressed funny' (unthinkable), but they got examined by the convenient power that let you know things about them.

Now that's a power.

I only care about theme. So this is what a game needs IMHO - to pick a theme. One theme. One, easily identifiable continuity. No guesswork, no hodgepodge of everything. PICK ONE.

I hate the DC/Marvel hybrids with a passion - what the hell is going on? It doesn't make much sense, I have to keep handwaving things.

Maybe it's just me but... if you want a superhero game, make its theme consistent.

@Ganymede Some non-rhetorical questions - I have very little experience in FPSs.

I played as Mercy for a few games in random groups and it was pretty painful. For starters I often healed like crazy and my team-mates weren't winning - sometimes after the game I couldn't see any of the 3 healer types on the other team, so what gives? Did they suck or is healing not that crucial in Overwatch (given it's my preferred type of gameplay)?

Also and this is more of a L2P thing, Mercy is so fragile. I've been 1-2 shot before although I always try to play the angles and stay behind my team-mates - somewhere toward the side, partially covered by walls making people chase me... is that also a matter of the group not protecting the healer or is it something I'd just need to learn to deal with?

Final question! Is there a social element in OW? Clans/guilds so I won't have to play with randoms and there are actual strategies involved other than 'let's all go out and shoot at red things'?

Snowbowl is comin'. Cleganbowl is comin'. It's all COMIN'.

@Ganymede said in Overwatch, anyone?:

my PS4 handle is LowVirtualMemory

Because of course it is.

I guess they don't call a guy the Sword of the Morning because he isn't a goddamn badass.

@Lithium said in Good TV:

There's a high probability that if Supergirl gets dropped, CW will pick it up. So I am not worried.

You still should if you like the show. It'd mean a move to Vancouver (most likely), budget cuts (definitely) and quite possibly cast changes since say, Flockhart might not want to move.

I played as a haeler for most of an evening and it's not so bad. Either my random teams were more horrible than the other random teams though or healing isn't as important as I hoped.