I love these little (or big) steps forward.
https://www.popsci.com/impossible-burger-2-taste-test-ces-2018#page-3
I'm not a vegetarian but knowing how animals are treated to produce the meat I love so much makes it hard to not feelbe a hypocrite about it. The more choices we have toward 'ethical' foods the better, whether they're made in a lab or put together from soy and such.
For anyone who, for some unfathomable reason, is not idolizing J.R.R. Tolkien...
http://www.openculture.com/2014/04/j-r-r-tolkien-snubs-a-german-publisher.html
TL;DR: In response of a letter from pre-WW2 germany asking for 'proof of Tolkien's Aryan descent'...
25 July 1938
20 Northmoor Road, Oxford
Dear Sirs,
Thank you for your letter. I regret that I am not clear as to what you intend by arisch. I am not of Aryan extraction: that is Indo-Iranian; as far as I am aware none of my ancestors spoke Hindustani, Persian, Gypsy, or any related dialects. But if I am to understand that you are enquiring whether I am of Jewish origin, I can only reply that I regret that I appear to have no ancestors of that gifted people. My great-great-grandfather came to England in the eighteenth century from Germany: the main part of my descent is therefore purely English, and I am an English subject — which should be sufficient. I have been accustomed, nonetheless, to regard my German name with pride, and continued to do so throughout the period of the late regrettable war, in which I served in the English army. I cannot, however, forbear to comment that if impertinent and irrelevant inquiries of this sort are to become the rule in matters of literature, then the time is not far distant when a German name will no longer be a source of pride.
Your enquiry is doubtless made in order to comply with the laws of your own country, but that this should be held to apply to the subjects of another state would be improper, even if it had (as it has not) any bearing whatsoever on the merits of my work or its sustainability for publication, of which you appear to have satisfied yourselves without reference to my Abstammung.
I trust you will find this reply satisfactory, and remain yours faithfully,
J. R. R. Tolkien"
@tragedyjones said in Vampire the Requiem turns 15 in 2019:
Just realized this today. There is now more time between today and VtR than between VtM and VtR.
Also Cleopatra lived closer to our time than the making of the pyramids in Egypt!
@scar said in Spirit Lake: An Original Modern Fantasy Game:
- How long has magic been around for in the modern age, at least as far as is commonly known by PCs? That is, are we talking months? Years? What's our time frame to compare 'veterans' and 'newbies'?
There is no magic in the modern age. PCs have no frame of reference for it. If they do, it's the same frame of reference we have in the real world. Myths, works of fiction, etc.
I like there are no veterans around. It sets the stage where PCs are on equal footing, and avoids the XP paradox where OOC oldbies but IC newbies are somehow far more knowledgable than newcomers who happen to be playing weathered wisemen.
Here's to hoping we don't get too many indifferent 'eh, whatever' characters around only a couple of weeks since first discovering they can fling fireballs from their fingertips, too.
@Tat A couple of questions about theme in general if you don't mind:
How long has magic been around for in the modern age, at least as far as is commonly known by PCs? That is, are we talking months? Years? What's our time frame to compare 'veterans' and 'newbies'?
What is the non-magical public's awareness of it? Is there a 'masquerade' or do common NPCs expect to run into weird shit?
I also assume there's no IC organization (as in, leadership, etc) of any kind as the game opens since nothing about it was in the game files.
@meg said in Spirit Lake: An Original Modern Fantasy Game:
(I love it. You should absolutely do a lawyer and RP with them as much as possible.)
I have every intention of using TV tropes exclusively for this. Everything I know about law I learned from Matlock, L.A. Law and The Good Wife. That should do the trick.
I OBJECT YOUR HONOR.
I'm thinking of a small town lawyer (STOP GLARING AT ME GANY). Not quite sure yet if he'd be the sleazy, young idealistic, ambitious or cynical type but someone who's looking at all this magic spell-flingin' going around and flinching about the class action lawsuit that's sure to come at the end of this all.
Probably a local.
@surreality said in Looking for...:
@arkandel I'm willing/able to do it. Can't start for about 2 weeks, though; there's another project I'm working with that gets priority and is already a bit behind.
I'm in no rush. We've done without a wiki for years so I figure it can wait for a couple of weeks. It's more important to me that whoever begins it finishes the project, so we don't have to do a lot of cleanup or waste work.
If no one wants the job by then it's yours.
So I had this idea for a workshop thread for new concepts. It has a very simple format which I hope we can use, although if you want to create a different template then please by all means, go right ahead.
The original format: A quote, poem, tagline or phrase trying to encapsulate the character's theme. What are they about? What is their tragedy, their triumph or their place in life? It doesn't need to be inspirational or even feel-good; it should be workable for a hero's journey, a coward's lament or a rogue's spite. Anything!
Then others can propose their own or they can take something any of us put together and reimagine it. What concept could you run based on the same foundation? Two people can be inspired in completely different ways after all.
For example here's my take:
I made my song a coat
Covered with embroideries
Out of old mythologies
From heel to throat;
But the fools caught it,
Wore it in the world's eyes
As though they'd wrought it.
Song, let them take it
For there's more enterprise
In walking naked.
( W. B. Yeats, A Coat )
I'm imagining a fallen Tony Stark type - an Elon Musk whose enterprise was ripped from him by the accountants who now own and run what he built. In his late thirties, his best ideas spent now and what fame he has left nipping at his heels, ridiculed for the heights he had once conquered but he's struggling to keep himself together and not care about it... even when it's rubbed in his face.
He still hopes but doesn't know that he has the fire in him. What if the pool is too shallow or his success too random? His next project could be all the proof the world needs (assuming anyone is left watching - is even that only in his head?) to assume it was only luck the first time around, too, so that there is fear each time he dips his hands into the work again, and resents anyone trying to convince him to try once more.
There is room in there to plot for figures to come back from his past; litigators eager to see if the patents they own could take anything he still has, journalists interested in writing a come-back story for him, old colleagues wanting to reconnect, crazy fans, younger versions of him wanting to be inspired.
Wanna buy in?
@faraday said in Looking for...:
@paris said in Looking for...:
pages should only be editable by their creators, or people they select
That's well and good until someone decides to troll Harvey by creating a wiki page for Harvey.
The only solution for this is strict moderation, which is a very not-MSB stance. I really don't see how this is going to work.
The philosophy behind wikis is to let things be universally editable but easily reversible.
Having said that, the person who volunteers to do the actual work would get to set a lot of its internal logic. We all know all the ways things can go wrong, and many approaches are going to be mutually exclusive or negatively impact each other, so I'd be happy to consider whatever we come up with.
Now is there a volunteer?
@tinuviel said in RL things I love:
I finally bought new filing cabinets, so I can keep my work files and my family files in separate cabinets! This is the best day ever.
Of all the geeky things that make geeks happy this is certainly one of them.
I think I'm in. If anyone wants to discuss ties reach out.
@faraday said in A theme-less, CGen-less game:
@arkandel said in A theme-less, CGen-less game:
Correction. With a bit of effort to focus on that 'isolating sandboxes' part I'm pretty confident it would work since a troll wouldn't be able to reach those playing in any way in-game yet genuine friends could do it by messaging in MSB itself.
How? When you think of all the ways that there are to communicate in a MU - pages, mails, channels, bbs... I'd think you'd want at least some of them to work within the game (to coordinate with people within a sandbox) otherwise it would be a PITA to play. To try to restrict that to only work within sandboxes seems like it'd be super-hard in Penn/Tiny. Slightly less hard in Ares but still a pain.
Well, my idea was pretty simple.
You're in the open (the 'OOC room'). Pages, channels, all of that work.
You're in a RP room either because you started it or you were invited to it. Nothing works other than @mail since and no one can enter uninvited.
So all you have to do is stay in your own room sandbox and it's a world of your own in which you can't be harassed.
@auspice said in A theme-less, CGen-less game:
I think that's the question that'd need to be answered first. What does this do that isn't already fulfilled elsewhere? Because we all know you're lazy, @Arkandel. You don't wanna do work you don't need to (I say this with love :P).
Damn right.
But the answer is in a combination of dice rollers and other similar "MUSH features" and an expectation of privacy. I'm far too lazy to try to read y'all's weird-ass TS logs.
@faraday said in A theme-less, CGen-less game:
@arkandel said in A theme-less, CGen-less game:
if this would work at all it would need to be rudderless or ran by trustworthy inmates.
What from the experiences on MSB would suggest this place could be rudderless?
Unless you want it to be HogPitMUSH, which... yeah, no thank you.
Point taken! But I was hoping the answer would be the second half of that sentence - some combination of isolating sandboxes from trolling outsiders, giving multiple trusted people limited admin powers to ban those but... I can't say I know it would work.
Correction. With a bit of effort to focus on that 'isolating sandboxes' part I'm pretty confident it would work since a troll wouldn't be able to reach those playing in any way in-game yet genuine friends could do it by messaging in MSB itself.
The real question is if this is something people would use, and as such, that it'd be worth that effort in the first place.
I don't really see what this offers that you can't already do on the other social sandbox MUSHes, so I don't see the need/value personally.
Yeah. That's why this thread exists. I didn't think it'd be a very popular 'game' anyhow, but if there was enough interest I could put something together.
@tinuviel said in A theme-less, CGen-less game:
Otherwise, I don't see any reason to put the MSB label on it.
Just two reasons really.
It doesn't already exist in that exact form so... there's a host whose resources MSB is barely scratching.
If it becomes a shithole I can pull the plug. No matter how 'light on administration' it's supposed to be there are things (which are in MSB's own rules) that would be dealbreakers.
@lotherio said in A theme-less, CGen-less game:
Indeed, such a forum as this. I'm only offering my constructive criticism because I do think an active social place to sandbox could be helpful on many levels. The idea is good, but not as free-form-admin-lite sandbox (these already exist).
I do appreciate the input - and while I'd love torather pull my own eyeballs out with a rusty spoon than run a MUSH I'd have to actively administrate, if this would work at all it would need to be rudderless or ran by trustworthy inmates.
One of the ideas to reduce the maintenance needed for example is to create lockable, silent (not pageable) rooms. So if I wanted to run my own scene I can bring my buddies over, and if someone wanted in they would have to ask me on MSB for a +meetme... or something along those lines.
@ninjakitten said in Looking for...:
...so what exactly is this meant to be a wiki OF, anyway? What do we intend to contain in it? I'm half-considering volunteering, but is this just the 'we need a replacement for the open games thread' thing, or is it meant to be more? What kind of content will need to be organized? What do we want users to get out of it?
The general answer to that question is "everything forums don't do very well". MSB itself is pretty good for conversation but not for organizing information, categorizing it, searching for it (a task not made easier by nodebb's search function), etc.
So look at game ads - they're a bit of a pain since people go off topic - and I don't just mean by being negative about the advertised games - and there isn't any way to break them down; you can't look at 'all Wheel of Darkness' games in the works, or conveniently flip one from being under development to open beta or whatever. That would be a pretty good start, probably.
People's playlists are one my favorite threads on this entire site as well since they serve continuity and provide a sense of community, which are what MSB is specifically there for but similarly it'd be great if we can let users find each other easier - which would of course be on a volunter-only basis.
So basically the way I envision the wiki is a natural continuation of the forum. We'd enforce the constructive rules very strictly - it's no place to badmouth people we don't like or say negative things about any MU* out there, no matter if they feel justified. It'd be a depository of information although we can provide links pointing to MSB threads in their templates for visitors who're looking for more.
As to what else we can do with a wiki when we're no longer bound by the natural constraints of a single game? I dunno, you tell me (generic 'you', not @ninjakitten specifically).
But the first step in having any of it done is for a skilled person with some time in their hands to volunteer.
@roz said in Looking for...:
Are you looking for Mediawiki or Wikidot?
Although for now I have a mediawiki set up the person who signs up for this can pick the platform (as long as it's not a fringe undocumented monstrosity). I will install whatever I'm asked, plus any plugins needed.