Posts made by Arkandel

@Tempest said:

Eldritch is Vamp+Woof+Demon, and also has a sphere cap, so you can't go there and play a vampire even if you wanted.

Right now they can.

So here are some thoughts regarding Storytelling on this kind of game, with the disclaimer I'll obviously play it.

You'll be running some heavy metaplot there, way out of the generic-western-world city-sandbox. And since its themes are akin to those of Dark City/Lost, what usually works better for those is the maintenance of OOC as well as IC mystery; that is, I think a game like this will succeed on the merit of withholding but teasing both its players and characters with answers to secrets. Part of the fun on both ends then would be throwing theories of just what happened to other cities, what's going on on earth, what about the Shadow/Arcadia/etc and of course what's going to happen to them?

The problem will be how to manage storytelling while keeping your information cards close to the vest. Give out too much of it to STs and it's over, the cat's out of the bag. Give too little and you'll run into internal consistency problems where hapless STs run plot with OOC assumptions which don't match your plan (say, the reality is 'all the other cities are full of zombies' but Bob run a story in one and no one was eating brains). Requiring plot pre-approval is also a nasty thing one does to one's hated enemies, so let's not even discuss that - but this will probably prove important since this game is far more sensitive to internal contradictions than more generic versions, and will have to be protected from inconsistencies to some degree.

Proposal: Divide the game's assets into thematic domains. 'The Basement', 'Other Mages/Cities', 'The Nephandi', etc). Keep some of those as staff-only to dish out specific things as you see fit. Allow others far more freely with some documented guidelines and a range of things you expect to be possible (say, 'Earth is a post-apocalyptic landscape' so no one runs scenes where they land in Orlando and Disneyland still works juuuust fine). So you're revealing some cards but keeping others to yourself.

Conversely, you might want to introduce an appropriate character renewal engine to the game. How do new (but not new) Mages appear as they are rolled out of CGen, what's the IC mechanism?

That's all! Drop mic!

@TNP So you've never watched Dark City?

As requested another question: What happens when Mages use common powers to access the Shadow/whatever other 'parallel' reality? And what lurks there?

An initial question is... with so many games focusing on nWoD, and you guys using GMC rules for it, will players need access to both sets of material?

How easy/hard to you expect knowledge of the old theme be for people - since I assume the majority of the potential playerbase won't have played MtA in many, many, many, many years?

@Lithium said:

@Arkandel ... Really?

Just because I post on a discussion board doesn't mean I can't respond that I'm not going to take random joe #336's idea to heart and change my whole game because of it. Think about it. Just for a little. I wasn't killing discussion I was saying no.

Absolutely really!

You're under no obligation to agree or use anyone else's idea over your own approach. What I pointed out is your very obvious growing frustration at people volunteering such ideas, and seem to interpret them as challenges.

What I'm saying is you'll need to be far thicker skinned than that if you want to not be continuously upset here since throwing suggestions at things from different angles is pretty much all we do. Some of those are better than others and not all are offered as courteously, but that's the price you pay for discussion.

There's only one reason I wouldn't use vim (other than if it's not available for whatever system I'm using, of course); if I need something like xdebug and I don't have the luxury of installing vdebug for it. Otherwise when it comes to manipulating text nothing I've seen beats it at that.

@permabern said:

This Forum doesn't allow posts over 32kb. In 2015.
How exactly do I post a 30 minute or less log of insansity from a MU?

For the love of Cthulhu, please don't post a 100k log here.

@Chime said:

If you can't, get a real editor.

If it's not vim it's not a real editor anyway.

Fear the duck army!

Beheadings do tend to discourage wide use of the scientific method, yes.

That's pretty interesting, thanks for that @BigDaddyAmin .

Let's see what comes of this.

http://science.slashdot.org/story/15/09/01/1256204/carbon-dating-shows-koran-may-predate-muhammad

Alright, so those are problems related to implementing Vampire feeding in games.

What's a better way to do it? Not doing it is a way but not necessarily the optimal one, since it makes Merits like Herd irrelevant and takes away the thematic importance of having access to better domain you can use as feeding grounds.

How would you do it?

@Panda said:

Hi! I'm trying to reach out and get in touch with Chime. Could someone kindly direct me to her?

So you're saying you want to reach out and touch her?

Thanks, now I have the song stuck in my head.

I booked a ticket very recently to visit my family overseas for a couple of weeks. I did it with one of the large travel agency chains, and ever since then they're already bombarding my mailbox with offers for luxurious vacations to assorted exotic locations ($27 off!).

How many vacation days do these people think I have! I know it's automated but surely their code should let me fly first to the place I already booked which is in less than a month, then try to sell me on more destinations.

@Thenomain said:

If she censored her post, then clarify that, jeeze.

We often miscommunicate so I'll try to make it as clear as I can. She didn't censor her post, you did. This is what I was referring to:

@Thenomain said:

I dunno, @Arkandel, I rearranged her response in my head to, "Yeah, imma do it my way, thanks", and left the attack/defense nature of her response, and your response to her response, as leftovers from some tone earlier in the thread. It's not like she told you that your responses were laughable.

What I was saying is that you beautified someone's post in your head to defend them but in doing so you took out the parts I was objecting to.

Anyway, I'm not attacking the OP here (or it's not my intention). People post ideas for games I 'don't agree with' all the time, and it's no skin off either their backs or mine. What I'm arguing is that by opening game design debate to an open forum one will see recommendations which don't align with their own ideas. If they can't handle disagreement offered in a more or less constructive manner (which @HelloRaptor's were, at least in my opinion) then they can expect that fact to be pointed out. As it was.

Hey, if there's a demographic for anything, there's one for that.

Drinking and fucking all day? That sounds horrible!

It's not free and it sure as hell isn't cheap but Diablo 3 (and its expansions) is simply incredible return on the investment. Just like D2 before it, Blizzard made the damn thing - there's no subscription - and then they keep expanding and building on top of it years later.

Patch 2.3 is really, really well done. So many builds!

@Thenomain Well, at a glance I'd say it's not exactly strange you can't find the issue if you edited the original post in your head enough. Hint: I wasn't commenting on the censored version but the actual one.