Posts made by bored

@Ghost I hadn't heard the Worstar thing. That is, uh, pretty special.

But I agree on the rest for sure. There's definitely not a lot of motivation for him.

I imagine it's not just the popularity, but the fact that due to his agreements with HBO, he's had a lot of material spoiled or made explicit (R+L=J), and then other material totally changed (and to his mind, probably bastardized).

So the future books will be in the position of losing their 'shocking' reputation, and even compared against the TV show rather than the other way around, which is probably a bit of a kick to the ego. This isn't to say it's not a hole he dug himself, if anyone was a poster child for needing a more aggressive editor and some publisher oversight it's Martin.

My reaction was mostly 'I dont care if you have some twu luv bond with these dragons, invent a fucking saddle.'

The one memory that always sticks out to me, not just in regard to gaming but interest in other common nerd topics (history, etc) was my mom taking me to the MET to see the Arms and Armor hall. Full suits of plate mail, swords, ridiculous exotic polearms that looked like they came right off that page in the AD&D PHB, the wing off to one side with samurai stuff (for a dash of weeb inclinations), etc. I don't even remember how old I was, probably ~8? But that memory is extremely vivid to this day. I'm lucky my mom was a teacher and always focused on taking me educational places!

After that, it wasn't long before I had my RL Stranger Things posse playing D&D.

Many of the dull male and female stereotypes frequently decried here (the 7' fuck-vikings and their sub 5' giggleprincess counterparts) are portrayed by players of those genders. They are still dull as shit, and completely unrealistic depictions of those identities. Conversely, a more interesting player portraying something other than their own gender (or ethnicity, or anything else), even if they do it less well than they would 'matching' character, will still probably be infinitely more interesting to interact with. One of my long-term RP partners is like this; she plays men fairly often, and maybe they're not informed by a deep understanding of those identities... but they're still far more entertaining than TryHard McStudmuffin version 12.

So I don't think playing what you are matters much, compared to the all-consuming vacuum of RP-suck that encompasses much of the hobby.

@Alamias My mom and all her friends are Broadway people and she took me as a birthday present. I'm not sure which was more awkward; General Butt-Fucking Naked, or one of the cast miming a blowjob while colorfully trash-talking her (I assume friends?) over on the Wicked cast during an intermission.

I'd say that nailing down rules for ronin is a good idea, as they're always popular with players. While traditional L5R sort of discourages them, they're decent on a MU, esp for players who might be familiar with general samurai fiction (Kurosawa movies, Lone Wolf and Cub, etc) but not with L5R. The rules for them are always a little hodgepodge (4e being no exception) so you want to tackle how you're treating them ahead of time (1-rank techniques vs. the generic school from SotE).

I agree that things like Nezumi or Naga would be a bit theme-diluting and difficult. Others, like Kolat and the Lying Darkness are more metaplot dependent. You wouldn't want to include them just to include them but if your game's metaplot included one or more of those elements, they might have some value as player choices (esp Lying Darkness/Scorpion via Shadow Brands, Soshi Tejina etc).

Having attempted L5R before, some thoughts/pitfalls:

• the system isn't as widely known as WoD, nor as straightforward, so teaching is a big requirement
• per the above, you'll want an almost entirely automated CG (I had this, still had to hand-hold many people)
• running inside the established storyline can mean a lot of lore clutter, you may be better picking a 'clean' period (whether one of those in Imperial Histories, the reboot timeline for the FFG LCG/RPG, etc)
• Ryoko Owari is good, but any location in Rokugan will create some pressure on what sort of character concepts work long-term (this may be why the traveling magistrate game archetype is so prevalent in tabletop)

Good luck!

@Arkandel I've never really had a situation where there was an option to compare RL/online with the same group, we do it online because we're all far-flung (hence the keeping in touch component in general). But if I had to guess, I'd say it's easier and that's going to make up for any lack of pizza related draw.

Adding to what @Jeshin said: Obviously, the engagement is different. Online plays slower, and you'll never quite have the feeling of all being at the table together constantly cross-talking or fiddling with the map together etc. But if you're talking about people who would be hard to schedule otherwise, it may actually kind of be an advantage?

If a person has to field a work email on their phone, that's a fairly big interruption in person. Online you won't notice. And family wise, yeah, they will be in the background disrupting. But? We have one new parent in our group. As of 2 weeks ago, we have another soon-to-be. The first time, we joked we'd never see the guy again. In fact? He missed 1, maybe 2 sessions and was back at it. Committing to be out of the house for 4-6 hours leaving the other parent alone is a huge difference to setting aside that time (minus travel) to be at the computer but able to get up and lend a hand.

Basically, yes, there will be distractions but I kind of think it's a strength, in a way. Just make sure you set basic guidelines so people know what pace of play is expected and can judge when they'll be too busy to keep up.

I play D&D (5th also) weekly on maptools (java client-server program, more technical know-how intensive than roll20 but for our uses more convenient and powerful) + separate voice chat, as well as an L5R game purely on Discord. The latter doesn't use a map, but does use a dice bot to handle rolls (FFG system).

As for experiences/schedules/etc I imagine that's going to be very personal to your group. The D&D game I play with people I've gamed with since college, so for us its as much a means to keep in touch as a way to play. We've kept it going for many with some minor player adds and drops and schedule adjustments between campaign chapters. We've done this even through the inevitable 'oh I am having a kid now' and such as the group has aged. So if people care and are invested in making it happen, they'll make it happen. Flakiness I imagine is just the person not really valuing the game.

The L5R group is new but people have been enthusiastic to play the new system.

@arkandel I dunno what I'm 'throwing in your face' or blaming on you, precisely? This stuff is old and cultural and if anything my view is you have little power to affect any of it.

Beyond that, I don't know how you even begin to imagine you can determine if anything is 'correct.' Mostly, that tends to come down to 'I like/agree with the person shouting / and or dislike the target,' which is obviously a pretty dubious measure. Even more, I don't know that correctness matters for what I'm talking about. Even if you reach the conclusion that, say, in this case the game staff was 'right' and theno was whatever version of not-right, there's clearly some sentiment that the combination of overbearing 'this game is awesome' from a clear cheer squad combined with 'do not criticize' was problematic. So I don't know that you can really moderate on correctness. You can aim at making sure there are both constructive and non-constructive avenues that people are free to use (which now maybe you're in the process of doing? if so great).

Re: being adults, the issue is that everyone has to do it, all the time, regardless of being 'correct,' which is another reason I think that's a bad word to hang on. That means giving up behaviors basically all of us (me and you included) clearly enjoy, a lot of the 'venting' function of the board, etc.

@thenomain said in criticism not allowed in ad threads is only enforcing a false positive, prove me wrong:

Is this where we've gotten to in this hobby? On the Internet? Where one person says "I hate this thing!" and everyone who doesn't hate that thing has to defend it to the death?

Did you just discover the internet or something?

MSB has always been this way although I think maybe what you're noticing now is that... we're old and the factions are solidified and/or there are some very specific tribes of players attached to particular systems (ie WoD), games (past or present), codebases, etc. I could point out that you're part of one of those tribes yourself.

So the mobs will exist. The only place it really matters is in terms of the mods taking that sort of 'public opinion' as having any meaning. Which is why (bringing this thread back to topic) we do want guarantees of being able to voice criticisms without being shouted down by the cheerleader squad for any particular game, just as much as we want safeguards against mob attacks being too vicious in non-designated areas.

I, for one, want details for the popcorn value.

I remember that Star Wars log, pure gold.

@faraday said in criticism not allowed in ad threads is only enforcing a false positive, prove me wrong:

I don't understand why we can't just lock the ad threads once they're posted. Preferably to the owner so they can update it as needed, but even making them post a new thread each time would be better than this constant bickering we've had for the past year. Either way, having a policy that isn't even slightly enforced is just invitation to ignore other policies too.

I would also prefer this solution, tbh. 'Constructive criticism' is impossible to quantify, and 'praise only' creates misleading threads and hides valuable information.

@meg I'm familiar with the history of the policy, because my stance has always been against Advertisement being a propaganda zone. It's been contentious every time it comes up, and it will be contentious again.

(Also, there's no evidence of what portion of 'people' wanted it, only the mod trifecta decided on it).

It's an old argument, but I see no problem with factual criticism in advertisement threads (and @Thenomain is hardly flaming here). Otherwise it's going to enforce a falsified positive view because the only feedback will be the happy players/supporters.

If people actually want a policy where advertisement threads are only that, they should just be locked and truly advertisement-only with no discussion, with discussion in parallel threads in appropriate areas.

I got recruited by an RL friend. We'd played D&D for a long time already, and one of us got one of the books and we wanted to play. It was a little harder to do in person for whatever reasons, and we were already kinda MUD-aware when one of them found CrackMUX (of all things) so we hopped on there. My first-ish scene involved my Bone Gnawer running around in Lupus, getting animal control called, and then my friend rolling up in his CODED LIMO AW YEAH SON to spirit me away from the authorities. It was pure insanity but the... flexibility of it, the interactive possibilities of having so many different people, the breadth of the grid (and potential ownership of locations, objects, etc), was all pretty appealing.

After that it was just the fun of a few particular early characters, some memorable RP that was probably only possible for my melodramatic younger self, etc. Oh right, also the underage TS, lets be real.

@testament I don't actually think we're that unforgiving, at least not as a community (individuals surely hold grudges). If anything, a theme that's come up recently is how someone can repeatedly get away with the same kind of bad behavior on many games, time and again. The only requirement is that they have some friends to back them up, give them cover, etc.

What we are, is a school playground writ large and populated by a good portion of seriously dysfunctional adults. Just like everywhere, we form our particular cliques and tribes and we defend them, and those groups definitely take their enmities seriously, even the tiniest slight or 'she took mah man!' spiraling into ridiculous drama, backed up by personal hit squads spreading rumor or blacklisting people from RP. But the people who end up on universal shitlists are few and far between, and it usually takes decades of behavior, multiple destroyed games, and then pissing off enough of the key game-runners and so on, to actually end up disgraced (ie, a situation like VASpider or Custodius).

The other thread is a pretty mild example, that blew up because it was someone random insulting someone well-respected. True pariah-ship in our hobby really takes some impressive heights of being an actual real-life sociopath to achieve. So I'm not sure we need to be more forgiving generally, so much as more forgiving of minor slights and less forgiving of negative behaviors that impact the game.

@misadventure It really depends where you're from.

While I'm sure my IP addy isn't very useful (big city & common provider, shared with another player/poster, just a jumble), I recently had a case pop up where it was trivially easy to peg a player based on theirs. Basically, if you're from somewhere less population dense, even if it's dynamic, it can be pretty identifying .

@Tinuviel To be clear also realize you're not Ark and I'm not really arguing for or against anything you said. It was just a nearby post using that language. Apologies if it sounded like I was trying to put some spin on your words. His own big post also referred to 'misconduct,' and then he declared none of it happened. So either he thinks none of the stuff that definitely did happen counts as misconduct (which seems to limit it to only abuse of powers in the strict sense you were using), or he doesn't believe it happened (in which case, lol).

Anyway, I think the whole thing is most remarkable as a reflection of how we discuss staffing on-game. This is the precise kind of staff cowardice and inaction that there is some 10+ upvoted peeve post about every other day, it seems. Yet the reaction here, despite all that supposed wisdom, is to do what any MU staffer would do: hide behind some nonexistent policy file and claim their hands are tied.