Posts made by Auspice

@Catsmeow said in Mental Health and Grown Up Stuff:

@Admiral

I'm not sure where you are located (and it's none of my business), but like @Auspice says there are things out there. In fact, there tends to be (in most places) even something for the 'gappers'. Those people that make too much on paper but still live paycheck to paycheck.

That's what I am! We've worked it out so it's technically $25/visit, but sometimes I can't quite manage that and she's OK with me just paying what I can on those days.

If you're in the state of Washington, it's the... Human Services? department it's through. When I lived in SC, there was the whole 'Mental Health' dept run by the county, where they review your income, bills/rent, and then decide a sliding scale from there.

Therapy out of pocket is hard. I still haven't found a psychiatrist who will take my insurance (and the idea of paying $300+ to see one of those is laughable).

@Monogram said in Generic sci fi game.:

@Auspice Isn't that just replaying the story of Aliens at that point?

Not that I'm COMPLAINING. I'm not, seriously, I'm not.

You know you would love the fuck out of a game inspired by the Alien franchise, but tweaked to be more compat long-term (I mean, the movies kind of make a thing of 'one or two of us were lucky to get out alive').

I'm really digging on the 'it was already colonized,' except the colony is gone.

Space Roanoke.

Fields of crops left untended.
Homes abandoned in various states of disarray.

@Ghost said in Generic sci fi game.:

(If you're polling for interest) I, for one, would NOT be interested in a space colonization game unless it involved some other larger overplot, such as something survival horror, war, or other action-based dramatics.

Not really looking to get stuck in a sandbox of boys and girls playing HOUSE in a space setting. I would need more than playing house and the assumption that one-on-one relationship "character building" is a worthy substitute for my time and effort.

<looking, slowly, towards the full trailer for Alien: Covenant.>

@Cupcake said in Generic sci fi game.:

I think a generational colony ship game would be really fun. A giant colony ship that's been traveling for a couple hundred years or more, and the people living on it have just arrived at their colony planet.

Oh now I'm imagining playing that person who has only ever grown up with stories of what a planet is like.

Just for the joy of those 'holy shit what is that' moments, I'd likely start such a game a few weeks before 'landfall,' just so folks can get into their chars and then have those first experiences scenes.

I like FS3 as a system meant to supplement RP. nWoD, D20, you could say they drive it more than the story drives them (there are exceptions). FS3 seems more fluid (especially the latest iteration) and is good for games that are RP-heavy, but need dice in just a few situations.

I've a game in mind that I think it would work brilliantly for. I think most other systems would be limiting (for what I've got knocking about in my head).

@Admiral said in Mental Health and Grown Up Stuff:

I highly suggest therapy to anyone who can afford it.

Just being able to talk to a professional is fantastic. I am not in a situation where that is financially feasible right now myself, unfortunately.

There are often low-cost/sliding scale options. Check your state's mental health dept. That's how I found mine. She's incredible and works with me on what I can pay.

@Bobotron said in Hyper Focused Game Setting:

@Auspice
I'm dumb, I replied without reading the whole thread.

I deserve the shame gif.

I'll forgive you... THIS TIME.

@Bobotron said in Hyper Focused Game Setting:

@Auspice
You're probably thinking about Kingdom Hospital.

I was. @ZombieGenesis pegged it earlier.

@ZombieGenesis said in Hyper Focused Game Setting:

@Auspice There was also Stephen King's Kingdom Hospital.

Yes! That's the one!

Okay, good. I like finding these things exist.

Wasn't there a horror-themed show briefly about like, a haunted hospital?

...or is this one of those times where a concept/story exists solely in my head?

A side-effect of the migraines is I keep losing words. It's worse if I talk out loud, but it def. happens in text, too.

I pretty much constantly am in a state of 'it's on the tip of my tongue.' As a writer, it fucking blows.

I feel like I'm late to the Great British Baking Show. I've caught an episode or two of it at, like, other peoples' houses and I just found Netflix has 3 seasons.

I am absolutely in love with every single aspect of it. What US baking competition shows I've seen have always underwhelmed me (that Cake Wars one? so bland).

@WTFE

I love flowering teas. I have a few... but I no longer have a glass mug to properly enjoy them.

@Wretched

Years ago, on a D&D MU*, I was getting my DM legs under me, so I was running one-shots.

I made it clear, up front, that they were one-shots. There was nothing special, nothing mysterious, no need to follow up. They were just to have some hack-n-slashy fun.

But on one of these, the players became so convinced that the dire wolf they encountered MUST MEAN something more that they put in jobs.

I closed the jobs, explaining: this was a one-shot, there is nothing else. You talk to the farmers, you comb the trails, there is nothing. You're exhausted and tired and there is nothing. That dire wolf must have been a freak of nature.

...so two of the players began submitting +jobs 'ATTN' other staffers to 'investigate' with them because they became absolutely convinced I was just being mean.

So I totally get that. I reeeeeally really do. This is where Perception checks, IMO, become valid. Because I try to customize what people notice. Three people met the difficulty? I will give them each a unique thing they notice. Person A might spot the flare, while person B spots someone nearby the flare waving their arms, and person C sees the zombies in the distance on approach.

That way everyone gets a unique thing to contribute (rather than 'whoever has the fastest fingers gets the glory') and I can do my damndest to make sure the legit clues get spotted.

@TNP said in Logging your activity:

@Auspice Come log on M63 and see the help file.

I'm not a coder, myself, but I've passed it on to the FoH Staff and asked them to check it out (as Hssiss seemed interested in such a thing).

@mietze I can think of one scene over the past... 6? probably more years that I regret not logging. Community def. wins out for me, too.

@Sunny

This is where my personal "metaposing" comes into play. Because people may not get the cues just from describing physical action.

So using hint words / key words. '...sits with shoulders hunched, in a defensive pose..,' '...looks at him with a mild amusement, but also affection...'

Because these are things we'd "get" if we saw them IRL, but in just words it's a lot more difficult.

There is also the thing about how what is a glaring, obvious, neon sign of a clue to you as a writer... is just a tiny snippet of the whole picture. This goes mostly for STs. If you think you left a glaring clue and your players are just ignoring it or are 'too dense...' chances are it's not as obvious a clue as you think it is. I had an ST once tell me that a scene we had was "packed" with plot and I had to argue him into telling me what it was because I went back and read the log three times. It was all so vague that I just could not catch it.

This is something we get reminded about often in scriptwriting courses/feedback. That you, as the writer, have the whole picture, but you need to learn to step back and view it from your reader/viewer's perspective. Will that newspaper clipping truly be a big reveal like you think it is, or will it just appear as a confusing non sequitur?

@TNP said in Logging your activity:

@Auspice Nothing worse than logging with a client's logging function. The coder on Dark Spires - I don't recall his name - coded up a logger object that works fantastically. You drop it and it records only the IC that happens in the room so it doesn't pick up any of your pages, bboard reading, +wheres, etc. It's since migrated to other games, including Marvel: 1963 where @ixokai has greatly improved on the functionality and has configured it to the wiki format as well. I never log without it.

I was just talking on Fires of Hope last night about the need for an object like that.

I hate editing logs.

And no, your 'but log cleaner' doesn't help me.
I am an obsessive news file reader, +map checker, +finger/+sheet, you name it.

There is no log cleaner in existence that can catch those.
And I'm not gonna have an alt on every single game I'm on just in the hopes I can remember to do those things in the right window (and some things, like on statted games, you can't check in another window because they're in the room with you).

God bless Evennia's logging system.

@lordbelh said in Roleplaying writing styles:

@faraday This is how I view it. I don't mind it; if I do mind it then I'll say something. The littler stuff I just roll with, and expect others to roll with as well. And if they don't wanna, then they're free not to, and I won't take offense. I generally don't see the point in dancing around every possible instance of something someone might consider a power-pose.

I honestly don't give af if someone poses something like 'Bob pats Auspice on the shoulder.'

Because if it's an issue, I can just as easily go 'Auspice shifts away before Bob can touch her.'

For me, powerposing is when it's shit like 'Dave stabs at Bill and Bill falls screaming to the floor.' and I like to think the people on the games I'm on have evolved past that.