Posts made by Arkandel

I liked the trailer for Lucifer.

I don't know if Neil Gaiman is actually involved in any capacity but that'd be nice, too.

@ThatGuyThere I'm not trying to say you're wrong (or right), I just want to point out though that the thread was started by @tragedyjones asking for ideas regarding God-Machine implementations.

It's like asking people what their favorite flavor of ice-cream is and responding "I hate ice-cream, it's full of empty carbs!", you know?

@Ganymede said:

I would go with the opposite. The God-Machine injects chaos into the world, in the form of meaningless destruction. This forces those with free will to organize in a hopeless attempt to avoid the inevitability of chaos, meaninglessness, and insanity. The only reason that it is referred to as a "machine" is because it is inevitable.

It's an fun idea. What do you think of going with the opposite-opposite? A machine created to stave off entropy and delay or defeat the thermodynamic death of the universe. Playing it as the ultimate necessary evil - either it's in place with all of its oppressive and manipulative ways, or everything dies.

@HelloRaptor said:

@Admiral said:

The God Machine is the Weaver. He won and banished the rest of the Triat and rebuilt the World of Darkness without all of the excitement of the old universe.

It's why nWoD is so stale.

A++, would upvote again.

You didn't even upvote once, you lying liar!

My God-Machine is a conspiracy, a system whose influence has grown with the rise of mankind itself so it's only invisible because we lack the baseline any more to tell what the world would be without it. It was first discovered then further advanced through the ages by an elevated pantheon of small Gods able to harvest a particular resonance from human beings to further their causes. It is thus an invention, as it did not originally exist; it's still evolving after a fashion but only internally, into an ever-greater refinement of itself.

Among those Gods that birthed it some have waned in power and are now extinct (or are now barely able to function due to extended starvation) while others are patrons of popular notions and are thriving, so they're doing everything in their power to further and integrate their agenda on the world even more. They are using their apostles among the populace, driven by Angels, to achieve this; occasionally a champion rises around whom they can build - most of our most celebrated historical figures were numbered among them.

Like liches they maintain the status quo because if they fear one thing above all others it is a true paradigm shift, something unprecedented that'll prove incompatible with their system, bringing an end to their reign. Therefore everything has to be a derivative, a product of something which came before, so that any radical turn must be suppressed, diverted from its course and stalled to irrelevance.

Time is their ultimate tool since it's the one inexhaustible resource they have left; their failures are buried in its depths (Atlantis, Lemuria, the Library of Alexandria, long-gone Empires, etc). My campaign would be based on exploration of ancient resources as characters hunt down what they're not supposed to find in whatever it is these Gods feared in the first place enough to take corrective measures, while being tempted with elevation to the status of champions or even Godhood itself themselves once they start getting too near to dangerous truths. I'd also throw some dilemmas for good measure - would they risk humanity realizing they've been played for millennia? Would they care ?

... That's what I got.

@BetterJudgment said:

@Arkandel You never played with Gond@Elendor, who was brilliant. In fact, Elendor at when I played there in 2005-2006 was full of very good players. It was only later that people were allowed to play Clumsy Awkward Teenage Elf and Hurt Cuddle Child Elf (things that never would have been allowed before).

Oh, I've no doubt at all there are great players out there. But there are also non-great players out there, and I like my LotR too much (and am too much of an elitist about it ) to test myself around Elves and whatnot doing bar RP. Argh, the thought makes me itchy.

What I don't like is having to step on my toes about asking questions which, at least from my side, are totally well-meaning.

For instance the other day I was chit-chatting with the guy while waiting for him to finish making a burrito at a local Mexican restaurant, and he ... looked hispanic, I guess? So I wanted to ask if he had mexican roots; it wouldn't have impacted me in the least either way (either I like the food or I don't) but it seemed like something that might somehow cause offense so I didn't.

No no, what we need is no-contact requests sent to MSB's administrators. Then it'll be their job to ensure no one I don't like talks to me.

@Three-Eyed-Crow said:

I keep hoping one of the new Tolkien places that pop up occasionally will catch on. I've kind of given up on Elendor, but the setting itself seems worth exploring.

I love Tolkien. I love Tolkien too much to MU* on a Middle Earth setting - the idea of horrible players defiling my happy place has made me avoid these games for a long time.

@Thenomain said:

We're in the home stretch, character generation is as done as it's going to get for open, with massive thanks to @Arkandel for screwing up enough that I could find the parts I missed.

I am the perfect screw-up.

@Ganymede I will however say that having staff sphere seems to not have worked. It might be the implementations we've seen and not a problem by design but it's led to staff looking after 'their' turf instead of looking to serve the game's interests as a whole and to spheres ran as islands in multi-sphere games.

@HelloRaptor It apparently helps, yes, unless you've won an Oscar in the last couple of years or your name is Denzel.

@Bennie There's no Changeling 2.0 out yet.

Of course I would. But the question isn't what we get from this (or any one) decision in a game but what the net result is.

So would I not like being able to get my +job handled by one of many, many people rather than wait for a specific one? Absolutely.

Would I like the inconsistency of that +job's result based on who happens to handle it? The double threat of either deadlocked jobs due to conflicts of interest or them being handled with perceived bias? The lowered standards which come when suboptimal people are hired just because they can do one thing well but not another, which they also end up handling? Saddling good staff members with drama and politics when they have to handle and manage conflicting personalities in a large, uneven roster? No.

It's a give and take, not just take.

@Midgardener Not to dissuade you or anything but you might be in for a long wait. Just ask @EmmahSue.

If you do find more free time to play come join though.

Because it does, and because (as noted elsewhere) people are promoted to the level of their incompetence - it happens everywhere, and it absolutely happens on MU*. Of course it's dumb but the world is full of excellent number-crunchers and workhorses who rose to become managers only to fail utterly.

But aside from all that... you have this person who's your builder, right? Just by being listed on +staff, talking on the staff channel and having access to staff-only boards - which they don't need to dig exits in rooms or check how descriptions conform to game-wide standards - they are exposed to conflicts of interest. People (rightfully or not) see them as staff, rulings in their favor are viewed in a negative context, etc. Plus it's one more person to manage; it's always easier to not hire someone than to fire them if they screw up or just aren't doing their jobs.

And for what? What is the upside of a builder having access to more resources than their function requires?

@Rook Where else are you going to hang your hawt PBs?

WHATEVER, @COIN!

Also by all means, for all that is holy... it's much better to leave a staff position unfilled than to fill it with someone who's just okay, or whom you don't know very well. Keeping staff lean and efficient is so important in order to have a decent culture to do whatever it is you need to do.

Need job monkeys? Code your game so you can assign code monkeys without making them staff - meaning, without giving them access to your game planning or overall decision-making. Same thing for your Storytellers, same thing for your builders.

It's so much easier to function (or communicate as @Ganymede would have it ) when it happens between a well-bonded team of 3-4 people who know each other well for years than with a ragtag rotating roster of 20, including some who barely get along and where you have to keep resolving conflicts of interest since there are so many fingers for so few pies.

I'm lucky enough to live in Toronto where... well, there are some racial tensions in some parts of town I guess, but for the most part no one gives a shit where you're coming from (or look/sound like you are). The city is packed with Asian people, no shits are given. I went to the annual Greek festival on the Danforth and expected to see mostly greek people there - nawp! People from a bunch of ethnicities were all over the place, just having fun slapping tzatziki over their souvlaki sticks like nobody's business.

That's exactly what I like, the fact folks in general aren't homogenized or forced to conform to a general identity - they're happy identifying as whatever, but they're (also in general) happy participating in their neighbor's funtimes while there're at it.

If it wasn't for all the fucking cold, this city would be so great.