Posts made by Bad at Lurking

M&M character creation is daunting for those of us who aren't huge fans of the system. But yeah, with a CGen that automates a lot of that headache, the buy-in would be lower and make a game worth checking out.

That having been said, I'd love to see an OC supers game around, mostly because the (to the outside observer) weird caste system in FC and mixed games comes off as a little unfriendly and strange. Not to mention the, ah, 'uniquely entitled' mindset of a great many of the players regarding one's time and energy, if you happen to playing a character that is their favored wank material.

OC games seem to skip that nonsense in favor of their own brand of nonsense.

I've been reading Rebecca Roanhorse and Ilona Andrews lately, so I'm starting to fall in love with post-apocalyptic urban fantasy. The idea that magic came roaring back and wrecked our society before we could finish doing ourselves is a fun concept. And there are tons of avenues open that 'traditional' urban fantasy (as much as there can be tradition in a genre about thirty years old) can't explore. And no veil/masquerade.

And the variety of characters is surprisingly broad.

For the military types, sure, the first team was Air Force, but that doesn't mean that that a given team can't have a Marine commander, an Army medic, etc.

For the civilians, you don't need to resort to a Daniel Jackson clone. Brilliant machine learning chick just out of MIT who specializes in linguistic software? She and her tablet might work. Or your 'freelance treasure hunter' who is given a chance to avoid Federal prison in exchange for his expertise being put to use in a top secret program. Or your twitchy 'Yeah, I didn't believe in this shit, either, Until the Andes operation' spy type, who might have come across a piece of alien tech in some ruin somewhere before. With disastrous results.

Obviously, I'm just talking about Stargate as a whole. I have no idea what this particular game will find acceptable. But the setting is open to a lot of fun concepts, even with just earth folks involved.

Yeah, you know it's a concept that works for you when you've already come up with three or four broad character concepts and the game doesn't even have a public wiki/address yet.

Um, not that I'm confessing to nerding out to that degree, mind you.

@secretfire Well, other than that whole thing where the System Lords don't allow technology above a Roman or Medieval level and cull the population of their slave worlds down to a few million at most.

I mean, sure, supporting the body-stealing swamp snake in 2020 is a reasonable option. Right up until you get blasted by a Jaffa.

Stargate AU?

Now THAT is a cool and new idea. Color me interested.

It's funny how MUSHing (and RPG gaming in general) is slowly, fractionally being dragged towards reasonable adult behavior, usually kicking and screaming the whole way.

I can remember the first time I was playing on a MU where the staff actually had to make a rule that you couldn't pressure people to participate in rape-related RP. (City by the Bay, I believe it was.)

If an X-card helps with situations like that, I'm all for it. And honestly, there are situations I need to nope out of myself, though they usually only come up in games where there is a competition to be the edgiest of edgelords.

It's kind of a case of an asshole having a good point. I loathe Moore's fascist apologia opus, in the form of the Battlestar Galactica reboot. But he is right that if you write 'for the fans', you get drivel.

Speaking of learning Ruby, because I do want to take another run at an Ares game, I've started trying to learn it and this tutorial has been extremely helpful, thus far.

It's a four hour mini-course, broken up into 6-12 minute lessons. So far, so good, in terms of teaching the most non-code savvy person in the world how the concepts and language work.

Free Code Academy on YouTube

In general, I don't do it. But I have one or two characters I truly, deeply love playing because they seem to work so well and generate tons of RP. I don't mind recycling them and nobody has ever complained, if they even noticed.

Personally, I find wikis really useful for rounding out the character and the world they are in. Obviously, if a game's wiki or somebody's page asserts that information on it is strictly OOC, I don't use it. Nor do I ever use information regarding supernatural stuff/powers/etc unless I've seen those or had them described to me, ICly.

But, that having been said, wikis are basically a really good organic substitute for 'common knowledge' and office/school gossip. In the real world, we find out all sorts of things about people. Who has a reputation for being popular? Who is kinda bitchy? That quirky guy down in accounting? Total Jesus freak. The IT manager? Dude is a leather daddy on his off time!

And the same goes for neighborhoods, businesses, etc. As a substitute for background information immersion that we all get, wikis work fine. (Though I'd encourage people to lie on them about minor things, because office gossip often gets it wrong.)

The problem with an OOC masq taken to the extreme, banning personal pages, is that you raise the bar for engagement with every single person to silly levels. Okay, Joe Gangrel, who is hanging in a coffee bar for ...reasons... should be a man of mystery. (And odd smells.) But Stacy, who works in the same building as you and is dating Officer Marcia, the cop on the beat in your neighborhood, should not be tabula rasa.

I agree with the points about coded travel systems putting arbitrary and silly limits on player engagement. Few people have the time to wait around and do random RP until they are allowed to actually do something meaningful, plot or character-wise, these days.

But one point I haven't see addressed is that those systems don't even do a good job of emulating the genres and franchises most people want to play with. Travel in most novels and all TV shows and movies happens at exactly the speed of plot. Which is to say that if the writers need it to take a while it does and if they don't, it doesn't.

When you start adding layers of complexity to a setting that is REALLY sketchy in the way even the source material handles travel, like Firefly or Star Trek, you're not just missing the point of the narrative structure of those shows, you're wandering away from genre fidelity.

It's kind of like report RP in Star Trek games. Sure, in real life, Starfleet officers are up to their oh-so-toned unitard-clad asses in electronic paperwork. But in terms of an actual episode, that's not a thing unless the plot needs to be a thing.

@ZombieGenesis said in Teen Drama:

It's called Blood Falls.

"MMmmmoooom, we have to move! We live in a place called Blood Falls! Have you never seen a horror movie?!"

@Tinuviel said in SerenityMUSH - Discussion:

@Thenomain Yes. But WoD games don't typically rely on space systems that force sections of the playerbase into isolation for extended periods of time.

I don't know. Most WoD muds I've tried would benefit from locking up groups of characters in a single set of rooms and not opening the doors again until there is just one survivor.

My money is on the petite redhead with giant boobs. (And there WILL be one in any random WoD group.)

Not sure what's up with this, but I typed a response in the Serenity thread and posted it, but on my first attempt, rather than the new post, it copied my only other post in the thread and posted that.

Deleting the duplicate and trying again worked.

I don't see the point of coded travel systems, to be honest.

In the media that you're trying to emulate, travel time happens at the speed of plot. Unless the journey IS the story, having to herd cats and maintain interest while everybody is stuck in a tin can doing mess hall RP is an extra layer of complexity nobody needs.

@SerenityMush said in SerenityMUSH - Discussion:

Full disclosure - we don't have full admin powers on the game yet, so we're limited in what we can do.

Aaaand that's a huge warning sign for me, right there. You seem to have the best intentions in the world and I respect that. But until you are paying for the server and in possession of the code and database, all the good intentions in the world don't count for much.

It would be the easiest thing in the world for the previous management to let you rebuild a player base and then take over again.

@DarkDeleria said in City of Shadows:

I agree that it's the mass transportation for the suburban family/individual, but I wouldn't say that the Meta the "rich people's version" of the "L."

Extra wide padded seats, actual conductors and security features, 'quiet cars', double decker train cars with beautiful views from the top deck, alcohol and food is permitted, even encouraged. Hell, they lost their 'bar cars' less than a decade ago.

Trust me, ain't nobody pouring margaritas on the Blue Line.

@ZombieGenesis said in Heroes & Villains MUX:

Found a bit of good news this morning. Apparently last year, for fun, I coded up a FASERIP style system in Ares. I think I can modify this for use on H&V pretty easily. At least that's my hope.

FASERIP you say?

Oh, never mind why the dogs are barking. That's just my ultrasonic fanboy squeeing. It will subside momentarily.