Posts made by bored

@Ganymede Oh cool, gotta continue the derail for the sake of the hivemind pile on, right! I mean, we'd stopped talking about it and were making jokes about mermaid sex, but no, it's definitely more important you come in and go for round 2, where I'm not simply calling her evil and corrupt, but now I'm trying to make her question her own sanity? Cool story.

Re the part of your post that isn't nonsense, sure, some people might disagree. I think a lot of people don't, especially based on some prior threads on this topic. You can even reference some of the recent Star Wars ones, if you don't want to dig out the more meta oriented versions. In general, the hobby has very little faith in 'staff picks who gets to play the speshuls.' Clearly even @surreality is somewhat aware of this difficulty, given her above clarification on who gets what (that makes your whole comment pretty unnecessary and a very big derail - good work!)

Ok. I'm pretty sure you're more successfully derailing her thread than I am now, at any rate, but you do you.

@Ghost I'm not sure I understand what samurai cop is supposed to indicate, but I guess confusion is a similar emotional reaction to annoyance?

I'm glad you're enjoying continuing to contribute usefully to the thread, @Ghost

The chart is basically the (not included) punchline to the gif, so it's kind of a bonus.

Ok, all my actual questions are now answered.

@surreality Again, while you insist on continuing to read my reference to a very common and obvious MU trope as a personal accusation that HEY GUYS SURR IS CORRUPT, I can't help you. Like, you are bending over backwards to insist that I hate you and I'm accusing you of whatever and it's ridiculous. I can't help you with that level of internalized expectated negativity. That's on you, on this board, on whatever, but it's not on me. I am referencing a well-known issue with these kinds of characters. We wouldn't be having this discussion if it was Jedi, not your own fish people. But because they're your fish people, because it's your idea, I'm obviously slandering you and OMG what a jerk.

And no, it's not unreasonable to ask that we keep it on focus. But you engaged me for several posts on the topic. Some of it was actually constructive, in the sense you clarified how things would work where I may have misunderstood something, though it didn't change either of our opinions. I think we really could have left it at that; I would have left it at that if your first reply today had been 'Ok, your opinion is your opinion but I love my fish monsters, lets talk about fish monsters.' Instead your first post today was, and this isn't even that much hyperbole: 'Look at this awful guy slandering me and accusing me of corruption! He is the embodiment of everything that is wrong with the hobby! Hive mind defend poor delicate Surr and her creativity!!!'

There's a two-way street to the 'lets keep on topic,' I guess is my point. I'm happy to leave you to discussing the merits of tentacles vs flippers and the very RP relevant issue referenced by my gif, but I can't do it while you're basically calling me a hateful monster, so plz stop.

@Roz If maybe she has, she should share with the class. It's only one of the... top 3? Issues of all of MUdom. If she's magically solved it, she should probably let us know.

@Arkandel Think I've covered it responding to her. I'm happy to leave it to the topic. I'm not happy being told that I'm what's wrong with the hobby and that I'm accusing her of vile evil.

@Arkandel If you're replying with actually constructive intent (toward me, not her), feel free to point out where you feel like my posts only have the value of being discouraging to her. That's not my intent.

I'm being totally honest when I say that I point out problems because... I dunno, sometimes people have blinders on about this shit. I mean, she's making a game where some people will be magic whatsits. But not all of them? That immediately means she really has to consider carefully how she's allotting these characters, the effects of any demographic division (even Firan couldn't successfully run 'multiple cities'), etc. If she wants to pretend those aren't potential game-killer issues, that's her business, but I don't think I'm a monster for bringing them up.

@Roz

In my mind, given how this forum works, it's an appropriate response. The section is called 'Mildly Constructive,' not 'Only Positive Feedback.' This is discussed in the other thread, you can make places where people are only supposed to speak if they have something nice (or better, encouraging, I don't think I was being mean - because when I'm mean I'm really mean) to say, but this isn't that place. So 'Hey guys are you super excited about my idea for magical alien fish monsters? Please answer which you're most excited for below!' is fairly predictably going to get an answer: 'I'm not really excited for them at all' in this particular forum.

Beyond that, I've said and will say 100 times more, despite @Ghost being out with the hive mind pitchforks, I support her general idea in the sense of the game existing. I will try playing on the game (and I don't play on games really any more, as discussed elsewhere). I would even help her with some of it if she wanted (because again, I really don't see ever actually doing my project, as much as I muse on it), although I think obviously our ideas probably clash and that might not help.

And the point is absolutely positivity vs negativity when fairly mild criticism is met with: YOU ARE TRYING TO SABOTAGE HER GAME FOR YOURS YOU MONSTER!

@Ghost In utterly non constructive form: Go fuck yourself.

I'm not even working on my game idea, because (as I mentioned) I can't even find a system I like for it. The accusation that I'm just tearing her down in favor of my project (that, in all likelihood, will never happen) is ridiculous. I've offered support to @Lisse24 on her game, desipte it OMG NOT BEING 7TH SEA, and you can confirm that with her if you want. Or not.

You can also fuck yourself. You're why we can't have nice things on this forum.

@Roz Really? The very first question is 'what kind of tentacled magical sea creature do you want to be'? I'm pretty sure 'sorry, I don't' is actually a proper response to that question.

But even beyond that, bullshit. You don't post a thread like this talking about the entirety of your vision for a game and expect no general criticism or commentary. Seriously, if she's not ready to have people comment on her authorial vision, she should keep it to herself. I don't feel I've remotely gone outside the realm of 'constructive' (particularly on things like 'yeah, making shit rare is hard' and 'don't split your game, because don't, it'll die'), but if 100% positivity is her threshold, well, that's also addressed in the meta thread: there have been / are other places for that.

@surreality said in Strange Game Dev Inquiries from surreality (condensed):

I started off saying you'd likely have me as a curious player despite the flaws, I don't know that anything I'm saying is mean or nasty. I don't know how I'm saying that your game is doomed to fail (I'm pretty sure I've literally implied no such thing anywhere). This is getting to 'simply cannot criticize at all' territory. What... what can I possibly say about the cthlulu thing other than the fact that I really don't like it? That is a personal taste. Are you expecting me to lie, here?

And no, I'm not accusing you of corruption, I am making an observation on MUing that I consider a truism, that you literally have two options: Everyone is a special snowflake and the game is primarily about whatever 'unique' thing (ie, whether you're talking the force, magic, being a Grey Warden or Witcher if someone made games in those universes, whatever), or staff's friends are special snowflakes. Have you solved this problem in a unique way that hasn't been done in 20+ years without mentioning that in any of the many, many, many threads on the topic?

I'm also not 'freaking out' about the idea of areas being restricted, I am, as I think the other posted was likely trying as well, again positing what is a well-known MU reality: that splitting playerbases nearly always kills games. No one is saying OMG YOU ARE GIVING CERTAIN PEOPLE THE SPEHSULS OMGOMGOMG.

Anyway, to reference the meta thread, maybe I'm being negative, but you're being so defensive its literally impossible to criticize this at any level. Like, you made a post 'here are my whacky ideas,' do you mostly want 100% praise and encouragement, is this a moral support thread?

To again (again) be clear: I support your idea. I dislike parts of it... because I do. Other things I think are practical problems based on the long history of MUing, that I am pointing out so you can address them ahead of time, avoid pitfalls, and in generally improve its chances for prolonged success.

But I guess this makes me the fucking Grinch.

@surreality I'm absolutely not trying to tell you what to do with your game, just giving my honest reaction that mostly, I hear aliens/cthulhu and... yawn. There's a lot to do in the setting, even a lot of supernatural to do in the setting (ie all the actual superstition born out fusion of African and Amerindian folklore with newly-arrived Christianity), this just seems like kind of the most generic approach.

Even if everyone is a werefish (and everyone will be magic whatsits unless you make them snowflake staff-friend only), well, then its a game about werefish. Maybe werefish pirates, which is an upgrade, to be sure, but it still ends up feeling more like a period WoD CB game plus Big Plot Badness.

@surreality Honestly that doesn't make it sound a whole lot better. Beyond the initial ghost ship, the supernatural stuff was by far what made PotC increasingly silly and unwatchable to me, and I legitimately don't see how you really work this stuff in substantially in any way for PCs while both maintaining any hint of the theme you're selling:

'What is that, lieutenant? (pronounced with a suitable British f)'
'Ah, sir, I believe it's a small band of fishmen riding seahorses'
'How terribly uncouth. Very well, you may fire when ready.'
'Jolly good, sir.'

I dunno. Then there's what someone already mentioned about it basically being a proven MUSH law that you cannot split up your playing population so I don't know how you have PC versions of any of these things that aren't just traipsing around town with everyone else, also leading to the above. Plus everyone and their mom will be trying for the Lonely Island achievement, with or without hilarious results:

As I mentioned to @Lisse24 as well, I've also (also) been working/fiddling/thinking about this sort of thing, although it was initially thoughts of maybe doing a 7th sea game. That said, I don't want to use 1st Ed (because its too much like WoD in the level of min-max, hard-to-teach, need to read all the splatbooks), and kind of think 2nd sucks for MUing so... it might not be one.

I think this mostly means you will have a couple potential players more than anything, though. I'm not sure how personally hyped I am on aliens and Cthulhu (it's overdone to hell and always = vague world ending plots which are basically the stupidest plots) but... I'd still probably play for pirates and cannons and booze, possibly not in that order.

@Paris Ah ok. I mean I can get the 'public RP' gripe if translated to the most narrow 'coffee shop' definition, but in general I'm much more interested in games where there's frequently people in character on the grid, where events happen that you can just walk into, etc. Good public engagement is kind of my measure of an interesting, healthy MU. If people are going to Sandbox and RP in private, I don't see why they couldn't just skip the CG process and do it on Shang.

I didn't really play much on TR, I'm just kind of highlighting that generation/era of WoD games as where I stopped, it could really even be a little earlier with some of the pioneer 2.0 games. The culture felt different and I failed to feel engaged by it. Most of my last run was on various Lords & Ladies style games (both literal and sci-fi). They have their own set of problems, namely usually devolving into a pretty princess fantasy for the creator, failing to give the 'plebes' enough role in the story (despite often being small games), etc.

@Paris Cool? I mean you do you, I am explicitly not claiming the hobby is dead, but acknowledging that some portion of us seem to have disengaged from it, possibly for no more grandiose reason than simply growing out of it. There's nothing to refute or defend here.

Curiously, though I'm not sure what you precisely mean by 'public RP', it's not what bothers me at all? If you look at my prior post, I point out the issue of sandbox-y games, which is pretty much the polar opposite issue. It's why my WoD career ended in the TR era, it always just seemed like so many smaller cliques RPing in private, player run plots tailored to those groups, etc, and a lot less engagement with a general shared story that felt common in Ye Olden Times of WoD.

This thread has made me reflect on a few things:

Several people comment how they don't play, and just kind of participate here. To me this is a hint of how little there is to actually enjoy in the hobby any more. Most games have the same problems they always have, good RP is painfully scarce, and little of what you can scrape up is worth the effort. Of course, a lot of this is due to a change in personal standards of effort/reward compared to games getting worse, although there are factors on that side too (very sandboxy games, etc).

I obviously count in the above category, except that I don't even post here that much. And when I do, it's primarily to be negative. So I probably haven't moved on as much beyond the WORA mindset as I'd like to think, which is on me. Then again, I think there's a lot of people like me; it's just a matter of the degrees to which people go to veil their vitriol in politeness.

The hive mind has come out in force to defend the fact that the hive mind totally isn't a thing. Quelle shock.

MSB is probably more useful as an advertising forum than anything else. The discussions are painfully circular rehashes of the same discussions we've been having for decades, no one has changed their opinions much, and any of the scarcely few good ideas we've ever come up with are typically ignored by game makers in favor of same old, same old.

I'm old and bitter.

@SG I used them a great deal when I ran a 4E game, and have actually carried that on to 5E.

That said, I never used them in the way they're presented in the book, which is terribly flat and useless (roll this or a couple skills a bunch of times, hope you get X succ before Y fails).

I used them in a much more involved way, probably similarly to some of the ones on the link you give (I definitely took inspiration liberally from blogs at the time), or even more complicated than that. Generally I'd write up a whole slew of specific actions with different skills at different DCs (sometimes scaling on margin of success as well, etc). Some would gain successes toward 'winning' the challenge, others would grant bonuses to subsequent rolls, address secondary RP objectives, modify combats that would get triggered along the way, etc. Often characters could spend combat resources (surges, power uses, spell slots going on to 5E, etc) to get bonuses or could pick up statuses (like Exhaustion in 5E) that would transfer over. I experimented with a whole lot of different formats, and some worked really well, but it was also a huge amount of prep each time and they weren't very re-usable.

Basically they were a goto when the players wanted to do something really large-scale and sweeping in the campaign, or for setpiece battles or a few other things impossible to model in a fun way in the normal rules. But they were replacements for whole sessions or large parts of them, not ways of handling smaller things like chases etc unless they were really spectacular.

My order is something like DD1 > JJ > DD2 > LC (first half)/IF > LC (second half, because killing your superbly acted interesting villain to replace with a loony toon is dumb).

But I'll agree that my biggest gripe with IF was that the fight choreography wasn't as good as it could have been for the martial arts focused entry. And yeah it probably wasn't all Finn's fault. Stunt people are a thing, you can make it work, but there was just so much weird, lame stuff, drawn out fights with single mooks, etc. I liked the tournament well enough, since those characters have a legit basis to be giving him trouble. Ultimately its hard not to be let down when DD set a ridiculously high standard, as one of the best choreographed things on TV ever, even with season 2 occasionally looking like the TMNT movies (and no, I don't mind TMNT-ish ninjas, with the obvious connection between the two, but the big rooftop fight was vague and a little silly compared to the brutal hallway and stairway masterworks).

Best thing in IF was definitely the Meachums, who really acted circles around everyone else and just had more character depth going on, although I disliked the easy role flip at the end.