Best posts made by Auspice

Hareraiser: the Worst Game Ever

There's one other big thing.

I am looking at eventually running this place solo. There's very few STs out there as it is. I have asked people if they'd be willing to regularly ST on this game. Not 'I'd ST once in a while for my friends,' but to regularly run plot, like a couple times a month.

No one. Everyone wants to play and that is totally cool! But I am so far facing the fact that when I open this game, I am going to be doing pretty much everything solo. Faraday has built a system that can be run solo (she's done so for about a year and a half on BSU!), but the more complicated I make shit, the harder it becomes to actually do.

And the harder it becomes for other players to ST, the less chance there is of seeing anyone else STing.

Right now I have one person who may help me get the site and files together (which is my biggest roadblock because I am garbage at organizing that shit in any way that makes sense to anyone other than me).

I still plan to make this game. It still brews in the back of my head. I still get people asking for it. The metaplot I came up with still excites me. All it's waiting for, really, is me to finish school... which will be the end of May. What will likely happen is I'll finish school, get a week into ERMG FREE TIME, and then boot up AresMUSH and get working. I've got a notebook with a grid mapped out, metaplot drafted, @Lotherio already helped a lot with a basic site design (that would get moved over to Fara's lovely Ares web portal), etc.

So, really, look for it this summer?

But yeah. I want to keep things streamlined because I want people to be able to ST, too, without a huge learning curve.

@kanye-qwest said in Dead Celebrities 2018:

Koko the gorilla.

Cuddle all the kittens today.

Current Ares has 6.

And FS3 doesn't get sheet dinos. Even games that have been open for 3, 4 years don't have massive power creep like, say, an nWoD game does.

My sniper on BSU is wholly focused on one thing. I have driven my XP (and I can only raise my Firearms skill once every 30 days) into that one thing... and people still outshoot me half the time.

You simply cannot do this thing you want to do with FS3. These sheet dinos you speak of? Might happen if the game lasts 4 years. Sort of. If you get some of those people who have done nothing but focus on a single area of expertise and nothing else (which not many people do, admittedly).

And even then, because of how Faraday has built FS3, it's not going to really be this 'Here's these people who are massively more powerful than these other people.'

It'd also be so much more work for everyone involved to go: 'BTW, you must buy this list of background skills in CG. Yes, there's a lot of them, but it's absolutely required and it's going to take up the vast majority of your XP.'

I mean, if it's what you want, go ahead. Make the game yourself. I'm not saying there can't be multiple games out there, but having worked with the current iteration of FS3... and reading what you want...

you want a crunchy system. You want a system with math and charts and much more than the 'RP supplemental' that FS3 is built to be.

This line from my coworker:

"It's the end of the week, it's the end of the day, I'm already slightly stupid most of the time."

@il-volpe said in 'The Magicians' mechanics with FS3:

@auspice said in 'The Magicians' mechanics with FS3:

@auspice said in 'The Magicians' mechanics with FS3:

What you described, or some other system?

The one I have in mind.

Is what you have in mind what you described a little earlier in the thread?

(I would guess so, because you said 'My plan' but also you said 'was' so maybe you have something else in mind now, possibly not using FS* at all.)

I've been digging through other tabletop systems just in case I come across something I like better. So far, I haven't.

@wildbaboons said in Good TV:

@auspice I'm 2/3 of the way through and so far agree that it's at least on par with the first season of Jessica Jones. My only complaints are that some of the symbolism is groan worthy in your face (looking at you crown painting shots) and the music isn't near as effective as the 1st season.

From what I have seen currently it is the only Marvel show that has had the second season be better than the first.

I totally agree on the music front.

The first season focused on hip hop, which is Luke's genre of choice and it is what he grooves to. That's why it fit so well.

This season chose the music of Harlem and of Jamaica. I understand why. We got jazz. We got R&B. We got the traditional and modern music of the island. Hell, we even got some southern blues (fitting for Mariah since it's what her family came up from). But because it's not Luke's music, the cadence was off.

In the later episodes as we got back to hip hop (oh, 7th Chamber, when you came in....), everything clicked.

@lithium said in 'The Magicians' mechanics with FS3:

@Auspice Take a look at the Dresden Files, I think with a little conversion, FATE and the magic system there might actually be a /very/ good fit for The Magicians.

I know there's a lot of hate against FATE but... sometimes, you need a round peg for a round hole

Next time I'm at my FLGS I'll give the Dresden RPG another look. It's been a hot minute since I've really looked at it.

The other issue with FATE is I know it's a bitch to code. I've been told this by more than one person.

I'm not a coder, nor can I afford to pay anyone to code. And I really, really don't want to try to design a game geared towards RP that has a high learning curve for the players.

EDIT: Also, would one of the people who keeps cropping up with 'FATE!' or 'Eclipse Phase!' in threads just go and code it rather than keep telling other people to use it? I'm pretty sure a large part of the reason no one is using them is no one wants to code them because it's a headache.

So something I learned as an adult that I never knew in my younger days is the colored section at the bottom of lipstick tubes that looks like it's just there to show you what color it is?

Actually pops off and has lipstick in it
It's meant as a tester. So, y'know, people aren't supposed to go around opening the actual tubes of lipstick to try the things.

@thenomain said in Coming Soon: Arx, After the Reckoning:

@sparks said in Coming Soon: Arx, After the Reckoning:

@thenomain said in Coming Soon: Arx, After the Reckoning:

@tnp said in Coming Soon: Arx, After the Reckoning:

@buttercup That dog looks like Hitler.

You just invoked Godwin's Dog.

I think you meant Dogwin's Law.

“The longer a conversation on the Internet, the chances of someone invoking puppies reaches 1.”

@sunny said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:

@auspice

Good luck!

Also, good job for doing it now and not on the third.

I usually do things well in advance. I'm that person who has a spreadsheet for vacations and is (mostly) packed a week in advance.

I don't exactly advertise myself, but I'm also not afraid of it, either.

Being an author, I know my identity is out there. However, I've balanced it outside of games. I have my "public persona." There's that which you can Google. My pen name, as you will, is part of my real name. I keep it active, I keep it polished, and you can't get more than my city/State off of it. You can't get intimate details, my home address, etc etc.

But once I'm ready to approach agents to try to get published, I need to be able to go 'here, I have the groundwork done for a fanbase for marketing' and I'm working on that. I've got my active Twitter account, my author page on FB, etc.

However, I have enough of a background in IT that it's easier for me to juggle multiple accounts on platforms, I guess? Or maybe I just have fewer fucks to give in general. I dunno.

IhatemyjobIhatemyjobIhatemyjobIhatemyjob.

I could never get into Pathfinder. I'm not sure why, for all that I love(d) 3/3.5, but Pathfinder just felt... like I'd been boxed into something. It was like 'Here's 3/3.5, but... we're gonna cut off the corners, make the room a lot smaller, take away half the colors aaaaaaaaaaaaaand there you go! Have fun now. Within certain parame- oh no, not that fun. Sorry. Forgot to remove that bit. Okay. Now you can have your Council Approved Modified Fun.'

Anyway.

I've barely gotten to play 5E, but I do like it. And I think it could work for MU*. 3/3.5 was such an unwieldy mess for MU*, I think, because there was just so much going on and I think 5E manages to streamline a lot of things really well that it could work.

It's just so new that it would probably be best if you had a team working on coding it up, yeah. I'm also not sure it's a fit for Ares, knowing what I do about Ares. I'd almost point to Evennia over Ares. Esp. since in Evennia, you could design 'dungeon modules' for a...

...
Hmmm.

I may have an idea for a python project once I'm done with school.

@kay said in RL things I love:

Unagi don/unadon/unagi donburi. That is to say, a bowl of steaming hot rice topped with eel grilled in teriyaki style, with the salty sweet sauce turned into a caramelized glaze from exposure to flame. My local place adds thin marinated strips of seaweed and a generous scoop of masago. It's become my favorite comfort food, especially when the weather's cold.

I wish I had some of this right now. There's a few places in town that have it, I bet....

mebbe I'll have the spare funds someday soon!

Will step in to say I agree with @Bobotron on the have a mix of roster and the ability to create your own.

I used to think it was pointless to have ready-made characters, but I've been meeting more and more people who really enjoy being able to dive right into a game with a roster character who has connections, history, and some hooks (not necessarily secrets, but hooks into the game). This is good for the people who are more shy and have a hard time integrating themselves.

It'd also be a good idea for the player-made to have them set a flag on themselves whether they're OK being rostered if they disappear, that way you're not having to write tons of people out of the story if they disappear (so you don't have errrrr head of house just languishing away / dying off all the time... but you're also not alienating possible players because 'Ohhh I don't want my own creation being played by someone else if I leave, gross.').

OK, I'm putting this here vs. RL Anger tho it could fit there, too because it deals with a health thing.

I have anxiety. Like, on meds anxiety. Get sharp chest pains when I'm suffering an attack anxiety. Avoid large (sometimes small) social events anxiety. See a therapist when my health insurance isn't being an ass about covering it anxiety.

One of the biggest things for me is taking calls. Like not your average talk on the phone to a friend. Not even calling my doctor or other adult things. I mean working in a call center shit. Hell, one of my projects at work is essentially providing (internal) IT support for a company. I can even handle that because the people on the other hand are internal users, expected to be professional, and we can even be a little laid back and cavalier. Chat with them, be a little firm if necessary, go silent while working on something because hey: they know I'm working to fix their issue and they're probably working on stuff too!

It's customers. Customers who have that 'THE CUSTOMER IS ALWAYS RIGHT!!!!111' mindset. Customers who think it's a-ok to treat service industry people like total shit. Customers who think it's totally fine to issue threats; up to and including death threats. And the increasing number of companies that don't give a fuck that their agents are treated this way and insist: just make the customer happy!

It sets off my anxiety so bad that the last company I took these kind of calls for.... I ended up one morning waking up, getting ready to leave my house, and finding myself incapable of walking through the door. It took two months (and a few really, really difficult to even get to therapy visits, some of which were over the phone) to even begin taking short trips back into social situations.

My current job knows this. I am even working on disability paperwork with them. They are waiting on the paperwork from my doctor.

What'd they do this week? Decide that, despite me only being on a particular project for 4-10 hours a week, on weekends, I was going to be one of 5 'test agents' to start taking calls.

What the ever living fuck you fucking donkey lickers

@thenomain said in A Game of Thrones MUX Discussion:

Green Ronin has been active in not making it easy to get ahold of their rulesets; as a level of curiosity, how would you educate people in how to play the game?

Having spoken to one of their reps (specifically about the Expanse)...

If you get the permission of the IP holder (in this case, GRRM / the show creators), they'll gladly let you use the game rules provided you don't claim to own any of it, etc etc... I think the issue more comes back to them being afraid of the IP owner circling back on them, since they only have permission to create the game rules.

But from what I was told: if you have permission to run the game from the IP owner, Green Ronin is OK with you using their rulesets and more PDFs will be released of the games.

@surreality said in Video Dump:

@auspice ...why can't that guy be my neighbor? Strength in numbers, for real. (I'm that neighbor on my block.)

I love his act. I know he didn't fool them, but he's got a great stage presence and he's adorable.

I think it would depend on how it's being worked into the plot/theme.

Is it part of the storyline/setting? Like is it 'baked in' for it to happen? Are we talking time-travel shenanigans?

Or are we talking a simple 'okay guys, we're going to move everything five years into the future on the same timeline'?

Or are we talking 'okay, we're taking all of our characters and doing a wholly new, completely different storyline'?

The methodology used completely changes depending on what's being done, I think. It also changes as to whether this is something intentional from the game's start or something being done, say, a few years along to breathe new life into a dying game.