Posts made by Arkandel

I obviously speak only for myself, but I wouldn't mind having a PrP to join because someone else might gain an extra beat out of it. The horror! Hell, I'd give someone a beat if I could if they'd run a story for a few of us. HELL hell, I'd give them one of mine.

But yes, it's the absence of an alternative that clinches it. I've seen very few different approaches over the years though, and I recall having a similar conversation with @EmmahSue on TR at some point, but it's so hard to encourage Storytelling to begin with. It's one of the two limited resources in MU-dom.

@Derp said:

I like this, but I disagree on one point. 'Pizza party at my house' can just as easily be a good thing to have in your games. It gets players together, allows for character development to happen.

This touches on a strong, old peeve of mine - and it's been on MSB before so I won't spam much about it. I just hope in advance you pardon me if I sound grumpy about the idea.

1. What you describe is a scene, not a plot. Characters getting together to talk and have a party is invaluable and the foundation stone of all RP. But it's not a PrP any more than meeting at my PC's backyard to discuss politics is a PrP.

2. Not all PrPs need to be about 'action'. In ninety percent of my plots no one's punching anyone.

Either way, what I was referring to before was what I encountered on TR with its ''tiered characters' where, as there was a minimum of plots they had to ST per month to keep their XP, some people threw bogus scenes just for that. Pizza parties were done for months by someone in the Mage sphere and it always grinded my gears.

(Again, apologies for being grouchy about it. Snarl.)

@Autumn What keeps you from having the Princes as NPCs only, to be used for events and special things like that which move the plot forward?

The only type of Storytelling you don't want is the fake one. The non-plot things ("pizza party at my place!11!") made pretty much to squeeze XP out of the system.

Anything else - stuff ran for friends, for coteries, for whatever - still scales better than anything else. There is nothing you want less for your game than players sitting bored.

If you don't like the idea of handing out XP for balance purposes fine - come up with something else, such as social recognition or whatever else.

For any game, but way more so for a new one, get plot ran. Encourage it any way you can, bribe people, twist their arm, blackmail them.

The absence of things to do early on is the worse thing that can happen to a freshly launched MU because, at that point, players aren't attached to their characters and have placed no time investment in the game at large. Later on when they've cultivated some relationships and have on-grid antagonists and allies to milk for scenes it's somewhat smoother but at first? It's an essential lifeline to activity.

Even 'running staff plot' isn't a better answer at that point because it's exactly when you'll be the most overworked. All those new PCs trying to squirm through CGen, questions needing answering, house rules needing writing, wiki needing updating - staff will have the least time in that time period than any other.

So yeah.

@Silver The Jedi and Sith are causing such problems for Star Wars. Off with those robed fools!

@Coin Yeah, 'cause it costs next to nothing. It's a camera trick + a popping sound.

I've been watching Powers. What a lost opportunity for a fantastic take on superheroes.

I'm a big Brian Michael Bendis fan from the comics so when I heard they were putting a version of his Powers series for TV I was pretty interested. And the cast is even fascinating, Eddie Izzard is just killing it every time he's on the screen, and they got that guy from Distrinct 9 to play Christian Walker which turned out better than I expected.

But man, it was on the freakin' Playstation Network? The budget seems to be non-existent, and I mean this is a series that has to portray superheroes with, y'know. Powers. The special effects are really bad, and the director (I didn't notice if it's a rotating team of them) isn't able to hide them. Babylon 5 had better effects more than twenty years ago than these, and I'm usually pretty forgiving about that - but they were pretty distracting. Everything about the production was, the sets themselves looked cheap, the TV news casts looked hilarious, etc.

The dialogue? The plot? I'd say it's all top-notch. They deviated from the comics but that's fine when it's done right, and Bendis was personally involved in the series so he left his mark with the writing.

I'm only on episode 5 so maybe it fixes or hides its weaknesses better later but... still, a shame.

@tragedyjones Yeah, I got mine too a couple of weeks ago. The colors look fantastic, too.

Fridays.

@BetterJudgment You're welcome.

@Luna said:

Unpopular opinion time...some revealing clothing should just not be worn by some people. And furthermore, we're back to don't be trashy. Revealing clothing isn't always trashy but some sure as hell is.

I'll just talk about guys. Spandex-wearing guys that is, bicycle-riding ones. People who don't belong in tight-fitting athletic spandex-made clothes with brand names and logos on them. Come on, that's not an attractive look, and no one thinks you're an athlete because you're wearing $500 worth of athletic gear from SportChek.

Hobbyists shouldn't open Board Game stores .

@Jeshin said:

That's understandable. I think the biggest thing holding back the text-based gaming genre is normally unprofessional staffing.

The way I look at it is that staff on a MU* are the rough equivalent of Storyteller + host for a table-top game. Would you tolerate a rude Storyteller or a smelly house if the campaign itself was good? If the other players at the table were fun?

Those aren't rhetorical questions either. Many players on MU* tolerate staff because of a number of factors - often as simple ones as disliking change, or having already invested time in their current character.

Now take that, and apply it to a new player. No investment, no attachments. If they spot abrasiveness, they're gone.

Misplaced loyalty. I was at my last job for 8+ years and loved it but at my current job people are getting laid off on a regular basis, the turnover is pretty impressive for its size. I'm relatively safe due to the nature of what I do but I've interest from elsewhere, and I'm feeling guilty just discussing it with a recruiter.

Rationally I know former coworkers came to work one day and got fired during the lunchbreak with zero warning so if management doesn't care why should I? And yet I do.

The worst horror-kid thing I've ever personally watched was a couple of years ago. A movie (I think Iron Man 2) had started a few minutes earlier when a child's mother walked in with a valet who I assume was a friend of hers since I could hear them talk in stage whispers. And talk. And talk, right at the door so there was also light coming in... at which point they unleashed the kid inside and left.

The boy, who looked to be around 5-6, probably couldn't even read subtitles and he just moved from free seat to sit, ran around going vrooooom vrooooom!, got tired and sat down in the steps, ran around some more, over and over again. It was so much fun for everyone involved.

Relevant? Just from today's news.

I'm playing a character who's New At This. It's just that in his case 'this' entails shifting into a massive wolfman, which in combination with not having a pack yet to anchor him and happy circumstances where he simply hasn't ran into any of the many, many things out there tougher and bigger than he is has led him into a sense of personal invincibility. "We're URATHA", he figures, "the apex predators!".

So since he just doesn't give enough fucks to prevent him from it all coming off as overconfidence and smug superiority, it could rub people the wrong way. Hopefully it's a problem time will solve for me.

And wealthier than the sum of us, which is his criteria for winning the game of life.

@Derp said:

@Arkandel said:

@FiranSurvivor AFAIK non-full Supernatural templates aren't capped in any way. You could always even make a Wolfblooded character (for example) and have an in-game First Change when the sphere has room.

I still don't understand how this prevents storyteller burnout, truth be told. ...
Sphere caps on full supers to prevent ST burnout while not capping anything else seems to ring of the idea that everyone else is secondary.

I think you're making certain assumptions here which aren't necessarily true.

Storytellers aren't affected by the size of a sphere. When I create an +event I pick how many (or even which) people are able to be in it.

What is affected is staff, because each additional person comes with an overhead; even if a lot of things like XP spends are automated someone still has to process their backgrounds for CGen, field questions, fix things that went wrong, handle OOC issues, etc.

Smaller spheres represent a higher workload for things which have little to do with plot on their own, at least directly. They do have something to do with plot in the way that a staff member who wants to also be a Storyteller themselves might be too swamped in menial work to do so, but that's another issue.