Best posts made by Auspice

@Roz my baby brother was sending me videos of that today. XD he wants me to buy it.

But FOR NOW.

i got a colonel to romance

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

Personally I'd be tempted to basically have pre-set general spell groups and utilize wizard magic as a background skill. Do it skill v skill for magical combat - admittedly figuring out armor class for magic hurts my head.

X-Factor used this skill base for using mutations and I thought it worked really well. Gives the players room to explain what or how they are doing a thing and then roll for how well in play it happens. (Or apply some handwave if it is basic).

My plan was to have the general 'classes' of magic (Natural, Healing, Telekinetic, etc etc) as Action skills, then specializations (meditation, elemental, etc) as background skills to show further practice/study in a particular field.

Honestly, there's not much magical combat that occurs. I mean, even in the books combat magic is a rare thing. It's more about using what magic you have and your wits to get things done. Bring down that wall on the enemy! Throw that bust at him! etc. and I'd prefer to see that played up. So it'd likely be a game where rolls guide RP rather than govern it.

@arkandel

There's also that disconnect between online (Slack/Skype/email) and RL communication.

I'd rather a request in an IM just be a quick 'Could you give me access to X when you get a chance?' vs a lengthy message (or worse: series of messages!). But in person, we do factor in the please and thank you.

Over time, I can see how the former might overtake the latter for some people. It shouldn't, but I can see how it might.

@Autumn said in General Video Game Thread:

@Auspice I am irrationally enraged by how many organizations that've been happy to rake in the "socially conscious" cred as long as it represented an opportunity for free positive publicity are now not only refusing to support people who badly need that support -- but are actively undercutting and sabotaging them.

Pretty much. And people wonder why some of us are sick of companies putting out stuff like cutesy rainbow in-game loot (to use a random example).

It's like sure. Yeah. Give them your money for something easy because they'll turn around and do something like this. This kid spoke his support in a very real, very hard situation. All he did was say a single sentence.
And Blizzard pulled their support of him.
A company based out of the US.
A company that was just.........afraid of losing money. Not of legal ramifications. Just money.

Hedge Witches won't be allowed on my game. Full stop. Mostly because they're too separate from Brakebills. I don't want two separate groups that largely don't get to interact at all without breaking theme a lot.

But to make up for that, the attributes will be stuff like raw intelligence, raw magical ability, etc... then in background skills, you can add in a few other Circumstances as well. Emphasis on a few. I'm talking broad-stroke (Astronomy, Astrology, FS3 has a whole separate category for Languages, etc.).

If you start to go too far into the Circumstances, you're going to make way, way too complicated a magic system and while some people might enjoy that, your majority of players don't want to juggle 15 different stats/skills/settings just to cast one spell.

@emmahsue said in RL Anger:

You're not alone in that, @Wretched. My doc writes me a good 30u extra/day so that at the end of the month I have extra lingering for coverage. Just in case the fucking CVS IS OUT OF INSULIN HOW THE FUCK DOES THAT HAPPEN I PLACED AN ORDER AND GOT CONFIRMATION IT WAS READY WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU ARE OUT.

ES

My father has had this happen. When they visited me for Christmas, they had to drive to 3 different pharmacies for his insulin. THREE.

Diabetes is... not... rare. Why is it not stocked more carefully? I mean when I was 15 I was on a fairly obscure anti-depressant and found out I was one of the only people in town taking it (if not the only), so I kind of understood why my pharmacy had to order it special so it could take a few extra days to fill.

But insulin?!

@Thenomain said in General Video Game Thread:

@Ganymede said in General Video Game Thread:

@magee101 said in General Video Game Thread:

The main reason I said 1$ per hour would be good for Outer Worlds is because it is marketed as a open world RPG. It's also why I don't buy games like Last of Us or the Call of Duties, I buy RPG games because I want something that will give me 40-60 if not more hours for that 60 dollar price tag.

To each their own. I suppose your analysis is why I enjoyed any of the Mass Effect games more than Dragon Age: Inquisition.

DA:I was too long for you?

I never made it to Inquisition. Origins was mind-numbingly dull.

Mass Effect forever.

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

Not having hedges as PCs is one thing. Not having them /exist/ is something else. I think the setting would lose a great deal if magic is too simple, or too Mage-style open.

That's what I mean. They won't be there as PCs.

But I think you want an insanely crunchy system. You want a system that would probably have 20, 30 stats that players need to buy into, keep track of, etc. And then likely be adding up/rolling 4-5 of those each turn. FS3 will never be able to do that accurately for you. Not with the amount of XP people get or are able to spend.

Additionally, you'd need a +weather system for what you have in mind that simply doesn't exist. One that tracks weather and astronomical systems both, displaying them to PCs. Furthest I've seen is weather + moon phases.

2nd Edit: Oh, don't forget tides. You'd need those, too.

You guys are aware that there are people who have never once had a Facebook account and yet Facebook...... has their information? All because someone installed/used Facebook messenger and despite not approving it to do so, it went in and scrubbed their phone to grab information?

That is what this whole thing is about. Situations like that.

Not the people who manually checked into locations. Volunteered info, sure.

But it's been found those times you said 'No, FB, you cannot have this' ... FB ignored that setting and took/stored the info anyway. And that there have been times when Zuckerberg personally has utilized the details his site has stored of people against them.

There have been incredibly clear violations of privacy.

@Selira said in General Video Game Thread:

On a side note, does anyone else's body temperature rise when playing really action intense games?

Horror games make me tense. Like, every muscle just steadily tenses up the more I play until my whole body hurts.

So I can really only enjoy those games through LPs. I love horror games, but because of my health issues, it's no good for me to play them.

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

My thought was that the /roll/ might remain the same as your standard FS3 roll, (something like magical ability + Physical magic, for instance) but you need to have certain prerequisites to even try, unless you spend Luck to do a 'wild' effect.

With how FS3 works, it'd be Base Attribute + Action Skill for Magic Type + # Bonus (ST directed based on your Background skills), but we're talking sheets that would probably have 30+ action skills or more.

Now remember, FS3 accrues XP very slowly and people spend very slowly. I just don't think players would have a lot of fun in this method because they'd basically start at one level...... and remain there save for one or two skills, maybe. I mean, overall FS3 increases slowly and The Magicians doesn't see a huge power creep anyway, but you'd be basically negating it altogether.

You're also talking having to craft a huge list of action skills and from my work on The 8th Sea, I found this to be detrimental to a game rather than beneficial. I fought hard to trim the list of action skills we had because I found it had no benefit to have a bigger list of skills. In Alpha, it was hurting the game, the sheets, and people building characters.

From having played on and helped dev an Ares game, I honestly think the best structure is to focus on a Magic system being supplemental. If you want it to be the guiding force, FS3 is probably not the system for you.

The breakdown I think works best is:
Rebalance the core 6 attributes. Some will have to remain (Brawn/Strength for physical, but Grit, which is used when opportunity to be KO'd could be renamed Stamina and also used to represent your mental fortitude). Presence could become Aura and represent raw Magical ability while Intelligence could represent things like how Alice may not have had the raw power of Quentin, but was so fucking smart that she outdid him. Wits could be how fast a thinker you are, like Eliot.... etc.

You have to have those, because they tie into the backend of the FS3 system. If you go renaming them into the magical 'Houses' (like Physical, Natural, etc..)... You could, but you'd have to find out which ties into where, tell players which goes where, and you risk people min-maxing their sheets counter to what they're actually playing as a PC. 'I'm a Mental kid but my primary Attribute is Physical because...'

Meh! I am not gonna build a system that encourages people to play that way. NEWP.

So that's why, for me, Attributes will remain true to FS3, but named with more magic flair.

Which brings us to Action skills. Action skills will be focused on the Houses (Physical, Natural, Illusion, Knowledge, Healing, Psychic - whichever one is your highest -- and you must pick one! -- dictates where your character 'lives'), physical skills (Melee, Stealth, and so on), Welters, and any other major things 'anyone is likely to have.'

Background skills in FS3 are freeform. They're whatever you decide to pick for your character. So people would get to flesh out their PC from here. Psychic kid? You might go with Astrology, Meditation, etc. These would be where you'd pick the skills you know above and beyond the standard school teaching. Everyone knows the standard Circumstances! This shows what you've studied specially! This is where your character fucking shines. Runes. Symbology. Demonology. etc.

Then in a scene, you're casting X-spell, you can say 'Hey, ST, can I add my BG skill for Demonology to this since we're doing a summoning? I have it at Good?'

'Sure, roll Physical+2' (and the Physical skill already ties to its appropriate Attribute since that's how FS3 works).

@arkandel said in RL Anger:

@coin It can go the other way too. Having de facto allies on your side who will always be there no matter what counts for something.

But for the people who never actually get that in life?

It fucking blows.

Do you love text adventures? Of course you do. We wouldn't be here if we didn't.

AI Dungeon is a text adventure generated via AI and it is... fucking... hilarious.

@thatonedude said in MU Things I Love:

Sweeet! When I app my rainbow haired dreck I won't feel like staff is judging me >.>;

But you gotta be the best damn TS ho we ever did see, too!

I got yarn mail this week:

I'm back to working on the beekeper's quilt which is great for working on while RPing, watching TV, etc.

Not sure of how many folks know about this, but it might be something good in continued covid-times. I know a few people who have begun using it as a way to still play with people they can't do game night with.

https://en.boardgamearena.com/lobby

Tons of board games on their site. One perk is they have turn-based play, so you don't have to actively be at your computer at the same time. The site emails you when it's your turn to play. The benefit to our community here is letting us play games in different timezones.

@krmbm said in What is your turning point?:

"I just met you, but now I am going to pour out my entire back-story in our first conversation together. Now your turn to do the same!"

Those same people when they get mad that you won't do the same.

"YOUR CHARACTER WON'T SHARE ANYTHING."
...yeah they've known each other like, a week. We've RP'd maybe twice.

Did you miss the part where she's kind of a shy, withdrawn person? Patience. :<

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

@auspice This is a very common thing amongst any and all telecommunications companies. The last one I worked for (Cox Communications) flat out lied to it's new hires, claiming it wasn't a sales position, and then demanding sales quota's be met.

About six months in to my job at Verizon, they wanted us to try to upsell to people and then wouldn't even do commission. It was '....and then if they agree, hand it off to sales so they can wrap it up!'

"Do we get commission?"
"Oh no, no, only sales does."

And then they wondered why not a single person in tech ever bothered to upsell even once.

FF16 has the writing team from FF14: Heavensward and the combat designer from Devil May Cry 5.

I might be back into the FF standalones....

@jennkryst said in Helpful Spellcasting Flowchart:

The biggest issue with the flowchart is it gives suuuuuper little information. So people who do not have a certain level of knowledge going in are just blindsided.

I think that is why it doesn't feel 'right.' IMO it's more of a reference chart than a 'learn to Mage' chart.

I saw it once before I knew Mage and noped right out. But now that I do know Mage, it's something that could be a helpful tool.