Posts made by Arkandel

Alright, that makes sense. See, most players can work well with staff telling them "this is what we are doing in this game and this is how we're doing it", so they can make an informed decision about whether it'll be fun for them to play there.

For example I - and others - have vehemently disagreed with @Coin about the implementation of Renown but once his mind was set I stopped bugging him about it - taking 'no' for an answer is a matter of essential sanity in our hobby.

So afterwards I had the chance to weigh the pros and cons at my leisure and decided the former were more than the latter, thus I'll be rolling a wolf there not because of the system but despite it. In fact I don't believe I even get to complain again about the overall implementation from that point on because, in making this informed choice I accepted it was worth my while.

However that puts a slight onus on staff to make it clear what's yet to be determined and what's in the brainstorming or design phases, otherwise toes will get stepped on both ways. I think it's worth keeping in mind as a practice since it can spare everyone some misunderstandings.

Does that make sense?

The question is, are you asking us about these things or informing us?

I mean it's no skin off my back as I am not staffing and won't be going +dark any time soon, but I think the thread could benefit from the distinction between "this is something we were thinking to do and want input on" and "this is something we've already decided to do but if you have input it's welcome" being made clear .

Well, sure, but the choice should be there.

I was nearly never dark, but there were times I was dealing with things (such as, say, building or having conversations about the sphere or even waiting for someone to log on while playing my character). I didn't want to be spammed during those times, as I was already either doing something - and as others mentioned, even an @idle ends up spamming you.

Would it have been better for the game if I simply logged off my staffbit to avoid this? If so, elaborate.

Treating people like adults never fails in the long run. If you can't trust your staff members will use dark or any other feature properly you already have bigger problems than code can hope to solve, but treating them like potential screwups (we can't TRUST you with this much POWER!) will certainly not achieve the expectant results.

I don't like *-shaming. But it's been true, especially online, that people who would defend fat-shaming vehemently would then themselves attack people for being 'too skinny'. What's that about?

As long as someone is reasonably healthy leave them alone, and even if they're not... well, unless you're their doctor (or maybe friend, and even then in private) and it's not impacting on you in any way - such as second hand smoke, sorry - it's not up to you to speak up.

So yes, sometimes models might be considered anorexic. That's not healthy, right? I guess, sure, but I've also seen some people who're pretty heavy and that is not terribly healthy either - if I wouldn't (and I wouldn't) make remarks about the latter, what gives me the right to do so about the former?

Some people online lose all decency. WORA? MSB? That's nothing, its not even remotely that bad around here because there's some minor accountability but if anyone has read Yahoo! articles... man. These folks are downright toxic. "She's so ugly!/She's disgusting!!" would be rather mild user comments when referring to celebrities there. I can't imagine the posters hold themselves to a similar standard of beauty, I mean everything else aside, usually those celebrities have pretty good skin, excellent dentistry, the photos were taken by professionals, etc. It's really nasty.

I think you want to avoid a situation where staff who want to be on just in case (but are doing Other Things such as playing alts and would rather not have to handle staffy stuff) would be forced to go offline.

@lordbelh There are a few things to consider here, I think.

1. As long as there's no clear separation between "I lose" and "my character loses" it's impossible for someone to even understand their behavior is an issue. It doesn't help some people are just hypocrites. I've literally seen someone complain that people are afraid of losing on WORA while on Skype they were trying to rally OOC support to help their PC avoid losing.

2. Having said that I can still understand being attached to a character. You invest time in them, you have developed IC friends, in some cases regaining XP is hard... it's natural losing them would suck. "My character got his ass kicked/humiliated/disgraced" is a whole lot different from "my character is dead". Especially if it just happens for no semi-meaningful reason.

3. Other than multiplayer gaming specifically, nothing prepares players for the idea they're not the center of the universe. In books or movies the protagonist doesn't die (or not often), in table-top PCs tend to benefit from plot armor, etc. Then you play a MU* and that nasty homicidal Gangrel just took your head off, wtf!

Alright, I'm playing Adrian on SHH and soon (?) Daniel "Thugbear" on Eldritch. I'm usually available for scenes between 20:00 and midnight EST.

@Chime said:

Expanding that to more places seems like a good idea.

Yeah, it works better specific games (and times) than a thread like this. After all if I put down my name here it means nothing because when @Luna goes to page me I might be busy, AFK, not in the mood, not have enough time, etc.

@Admiral said:

The only way I'd do it is if you let me change most of the theme and mechanics so that rather than playing as John who is subtly influenced by the ghost Bill, we made it so you're playing as John-Bill, the product of the merging of John and the ghost Bill.

But that's not following the WoD paradigm at all. In all of them there's a dualism between what you were and what you could become; the Vampire struggles with her Beast, the Lost have to not become what they hate, Werewolves value Harmony, etc.

There's no conflict in what you describe, it's already done. Even worse, it's done by the time you get out of CG, so you don't even get to RP it in the first place.

@ThatOneDude said:

Who's down to create a Sin-Eater 2e version for mu* consumption? I think we have a great group of people here that can collaborate to make an interesting and great addition to the 2e games (this is based on the assumption that Sin-Eater will be the last thing ever re-written if at all). With the way Demon, Vampire and Werewolf look I think Sin-Eaters can fit in... What's everyone think? If nothing else it could be an interesting project to mess with.

I'm always up to help make Geist a 2.0 thing. I don't even think it's that hard for the mechanical parts, as those likely only need updates concerning Conditions, Tilts etc.

The bitch of the matter would be thematic parts in sections the splat really needs to be cleaned up and straightened out. And the reason it's hard is that it'd entail a lot of writing and, potentially, end up being significantly contradicted when/if Onyx Path ever puts out a book a year from now or whatever.

@Admiral said:

I am allowed to hate Renner as much as I choose.

Well, of course you're allowed, this is the internet after all.

But it's one thing to say "I hate @HelloRaptor" (because let's face it, it's a natural reaction) and another to say "@HelloRaptor is a canibal". One is a sentiment that doesn't need to be rational but the other presents as a fact that he's acquired a taste for human flesh.

'There's a rumor' just makes people like me ask you to back it up, and if you can't, call you on it. I think that's reasonable.

@Admiral said:

Well, aside from being a bad actor who was in a shitty overblown movie (Hurt Locker), a 'replacement' for Matt Damon in the Bourne movies (Sure, call it a 'spinoff') there's a story going around about someone suggesting he might be gay, and him flipping out and going off on them and making homophobic statements.

Also he's got a rat face. His face? It looks like a rat.

Dude, I'm all for some celebrity antics-bashing, but being a shitty actor (or not liking his looks) doesn't make someone a disgusting human being.

The gay thing sounds troublesome, sure, but unless that rumor is corroborated in some fashion - hence the 'citation needed' request above - then it's just that; a rumor.

On the other hand, when it comes to mind control and mental manipulation, Vampires are the undisputed masters at it.

I'm not sure who's second and third, but the gap between top and runner-up is huge.

@The-Tree-of-Woe said:

Are you factoring in Animalism 1 and 2, or just considering Obfuscate?

No, I wasn't. Vampires are amazing in 2.0, aren't they?

And yep, @tragedyjones , Irraka sure can fuck your shit up coming out of stealth, it's just that if it's an ongoing scene where they've been already seen it's very hard for them to simply vanish - and infiltration into secure places is harder for them than the other two splats.

It just takes more effort to do everything, and they can do less, but if they catch someone by surprise (or lead their pack to spring a trap) it's going to be so very painful.

@tragedyjones They have so many tricks in their bag - even Covers, a very integral part of their entire splat, contributes to stealth by default. Or spoofing, reflexively hiding from (and being aware of) supernatural scrutiny attempting to figure out your species. Then they have a ton of crap meant to assist infiltration, including borrowing people's likeness, etc.

Vampires of course have the combination of Obfuscate and Dominate (to remove memories of whoever might end up seeing them anyway) which is so very good - plus they don't show up on many forms of photography, cameras, infrared, etc by definition.

Irraka lack insta-stealth (the 'now you see me, now you don't') if I remember correctly. However they can do things coming out of stealth, and they can extend stealth to their entire group which sure is nice. They're not nearly there though compared to the other splats, unless I haven't thought of something.

@Admiral said:

@tragedyjones said:

Newest AoU extended TV spot - if this doesn't hype you, then you probably just don't like Superheroes:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OSFEboLhq44

He's a disgusting human being and a terrible actor. Rabble rabble rabble.

Citation needed. What did he do?

So let's forget about just raw power for a second. How would you rate the splats for stealth?

At a glance it goes Demon -> Vampire (but very close) -> Werewolf.

@Coin Well, to be fair, neither does your face.

@Admiral said:

I haven't read Harry Potter. Also I don't like Lord of the Rings.

Wh... what? What?

All that means is I don't like bad literature.

I FIXED THAT FOR YOU.

Non-deterministic hardware issues.

My SSD is burned out. Fine. My motherboard had to be changed. Fine. But I'm still having weird issues with a brand new installation of Windows (and Mint straight out failed to install at all), so what does that mean? It could be the power supply, but do I want to spend $100+ on a hunch, or do I risk it destroying more components if that's the culprit after all? All I can do that doesn't involve shelling out cash is a memcheck overnight, and in the mean time I have a brand new fancy CPU running off of a HDD installation.

<grumble>