Best posts made by Coin

@Misadventure said in The 100: The Mush:

So you are in fact asserting that you cannot ever, EVER, say I am sorry you took it that way without being insincere?

Correct? No other possible meaning or circumstance?

Now you're introducing a colloquial use of a phrase to mean something other than what it literally means.

Many people say, "I'm sorry that [...]," with regards to something that is not on them to apologize for, when what they mean is, "it is unfortunate that [...]". But that's, in my experience, exclusively relegated to the words "I'm sorry". I've never heard of anyone use "apologize" the same way. It's also not an apology; it is at best a sign of empathy and at worst, well... this whole mess, depending on context.

Also, if you are not actually sorry (not in the it is unfortunate but rather in the I regret my actions meaning of the word), then don't pretend it's an apology. It isn't.

At best, it's an admittance of regret that your own words weren't chosen more carefullyto avoid the backlash that you probably feel is undue.

More to the point, most people don't care if you regret how they interpreted it; they care about your actual intent, so a direct apology, instead of an apology about the consequences thereof, is much better and less likely to cause people to see a deflection of blame.

So, actually, yes. Within the context of an apology, don't apologize for other people interpreting what yous aid wrong. Apologize for expressing it inadequately or in a manner that could be misinterpreted. Or don't apologize at all, if you believe you were right and they're being melodramatic or whatever.

(Using the royal 'you', here, obviously.)

@Ghost said in Dead Celebrities 2019:

@BobGoblin said in Dead Celebrities 2019:

So to clarify, you hate him because of his lack of 'humanity' so you shall express your hatred by ... showing a lack of humanity at his death. Logical.

While I am not a fan of Koch and look forward to a future without him personally affecting politics, BobG has a pretty solid Vulcan/Buddhist point, here. If you dance on the grave of "bad men", you are still a grave-dancer.

Again, not a fan of Koch at all, but philosophically who is worse? The man with the money or the corrupted politicians who got quid-pro-quo with him?

It doesn't matter who's worse; "not being as bad as" does not make you less deserving of your grave being danced on.

@BobGoblin said in Dead Celebrities 2019:

What harm was caused by this man in his life? Funding politicians that support his political viewpoint is now causing harm?

If that political viewpoint and those polticians are harmful--yes, absolutely, it is.

@Wretched said in Dead Celebrities 2019:

@Ghost I'd happily dance on the graves of many people in history. I am okay with the title of Grave dancer.

Same.

@tinuviel said in Spirit Lake: An Original Modern Fantasy Game:

@roz said in Spirit Lake: An Original Modern Fantasy Game:

it is absolutely not baked into the theme the way it is for WoD

Yeah, most WoD games don't tend to focus on the horror bit either.

But it is baked into the WoD/CofD theme in a way that it is not in Spirit Lake.

For starts, no one is going to have a leg to stand on if they try that "it's the world of darkness not the world of sunshine and ponies" bullshit at Spirit Lake.

The last few months of Martial Arts and the last couple of weeks of biking to and from work every day are already starting to pay off: face is slimming, muscles are strengthening, and while I felt heavier due to muscle build up at first, now I feel lighter as I start shedding some excess weight. I'm going to see about tightening my diet a bit with less bread and sweets. But I am slowly starting to feel better. So there's that.

@Auspice said in If you work hard, son, maybe someday you'll RP:

@Seraphim73 said in If you work hard, son, maybe someday you'll RP:

there's very little more annoying than someone coming on RP Requests to say "Hey, anyone want to RP" and then when you say "Sure, what did you have in mind," they say "Oh, I don't know. You want to go to a bar?"

Yes, I honestly hate this v much.

Person: 'Anyone wanna RP?'
Me: 'Sure! What did you have in mind!'
Person: 'I dunno. What do you wanna do?'

...Please don't put the onus on me, Person! You tossed out the idea to RP. Gimme a hook. An idea, a place, something. This is the entire reason why I'm hesitant, sometimes, to respond to such vague queries, because these days it's become more common than not that if I reply...... I'm suddenly the one who has to come up with everything. The location. The idea. The scene set. I feel like I'm their sole source of entertainment rather than a collaborator.

Also good:

A: Anyone for RP?
B: Yeah, what did you have in mind?
A: Not sure, let me check your wiki and see if there's something that could be fun for both of us.

I mean, you don't have to have an idea right away, but be willing to put in the effort once you have full context.

@faraday said in If you work hard, son, maybe someday you'll RP:

@Derp said in If you work hard, son, maybe someday you'll RP:

Always have an actual plan when it comes to RP, and don't make others pick the venue/purpose. Offer concrete examples. Be flexible to negotiation. You'll find that this isn't nearly as hard as it seems.

One thing I haven't seen much of, but wonder how it would fly, is something like... "Anybody want to RP? If you're interested I'll pitch something specific to our chars and we can figure something out." That at least shows that you're willing to meet them halfway on doing the pitch work, but allows you to do something more targeted than "random scene in random public place."

Like that. I do that all the time.

@WildBaboons said in Good or New Movies Review:

A rebooted Highlander movie/TV series is supposed in the works by the John Wick director

Sorry. Sword. Phallus. The joke made itself.

@TiredEwok said in Dealing with bad actors:

@Coin

It's always you!

@groth said in Good TV:

@coin said in Good TV:

@groth said in Good TV:

@greenflashlight

But even if you go with original version, why couldnt Maria Stark be african american and Tony mixed?

She could. In fact, in Ultimate Marvel she's Latina. However: if Tony were obviously mixed, his experience and the level of privilege he moves in within the society he was raised in would be different.

Being rich and white and being rich and black (even mixed, even if your father is alabaster) is still very different in the U.S.

What does the audience know about being rich of any color? The rich playboy part of Tony is a fantasy written by people who dont live that life for people who dont live that life. Any resemblence to the realities of inheriting a massive company are accidental.

International audience in particular who are becoming an ever larger portion of total profit would have zero clue.

That's entirely your opinion. There's a whole other school of thought wherein accurate representation of social issues -- even in fantastical allegories -- are an important part of building a narrative and telling a story that resonates (and it doesn't need to resonate with everyone; I have no idea what being black is like, but I still enjoyed Black Panther; I'm sure black people experienced it on a whole other level despite none of them knowing what it's like to live in a ridiculously advanced secret African nation).

That it wouldn't be important to you in no way diminishes its importance to others.

@Arkandel said in TS - Danger zone:

( @bored was kinda right when he said this feels like I'm running a survey here)

TS with NPCs or during PrPs. Where do you stand on this? What I'm thinking is PrPs involving one ST and one player but y'all might surprise me.

Here's the real deal:

Even if there is a situation in which you can adequately justify explicit sexual interplay (i.e. not just bartop seduction or flirty conversation) between a PC and an NPC (putting aside whether you can or can't), unless what you're running is a small, private game in which everyone is explicitly okay with that, FTB is in everyone's best interest. It's easy not to do it and it will save you and everyone else tons of headaches. That's just the truth.

@Arkandel said in RL Anger:

Since this is a gaming forum I hope you don't mind if I frame the same thing in slightly different terms to perhaps better portray where I'm getting at, @Apos.

Let's say you were treated horribly by staff at a MU*. You came here and made a post about it, to which I responded "oh, that sucks. Yeah, that happens and it shouldn't. At least on the game I play I haven't noticed it happening, and if it did I'd have said something and done what I could to fix it - or walked away".

To begin with this is not in any way a dismissal if I immediately acknowledge such things do happen, they are undeserved, wrong, and should stop. It's a fact there are places where staff is made of terrible and possibly mentally unstable people.

Now... your concern still makes me think - and isn't that the point of raising it in the first place? To make people question what they think they know? So I start wondering that perhaps even on the game I happen to be playing bad things also happen that have escaped my notice; so I ask if you could tell me what I should be watching for. What forms does abuse take? How is it perpetuated, what would be a good way for me to be involved in actively trying to make it happen less?

And in response you tell me I'm part of the problem. Any argument, question or statement I make that doesn't agree 100% with exactly what you think I should be saying results in a condemnation (or a lol-downvote) on general principle.

Obviously such things won't make me care less. No matter what anyone says on either side (?) of this matter I won't suddenly go 'hey, people who have been treated like shit by staff are treating me like I'm the enemy so I'll side with the abusers', since that'd be dumb. But it does make me want to participate in the conversation less - who wants to be painted in such a light? - and it doesn't accomplish what I came to the thread asking for in the first place; information, insights and honest dialogue.

</endExample>

Except the example is by and large inapplicable, because of scope and, more readily, because it lacks the systemic backdrop that the topic at hand does.

This isn't just "Male Gamers Treat Female Gamers Badly" and thinking it is, is missing the forest for the trees.

This is "Yet Another Instance of the Male Population in the World Being Shitty to the Female Population of the World, as Represented and Exemplified within Gaming".

You can't distill that into something as niche as your example, especially because your example lacks the social bias of privilege that one group has over the other. You're stripping that aspect from the conversation with your example and thus making your example moot.

@Derp said in What game system would you prefer for a big-tent nWoD project?:

Alright. So, let's say that xp is capped at, say, five beats a week from any source. Plots, conditions, etc.

That means that you don't have to use aspirations, and you can be gamey and whatnot and still not have to worry about this one system. It just means that you have to utilize others more.

Would that be acceptable?

This is really the only way to do it. Games that require certain types of activity to gain XP should have a LOT of different means of getting XP (e.g. Conditions, Aspirations, PRPs, SRPs, Auto XP, Votes, Reccs, RS, etc., etc.). The more? The better. Then you set a max amount of XP you can gain per x time period and then you decide how much of that max any ONE source can net you (maybe 50%).

So some people who really like to run huge social scenes that entertain a lot of people might get a lot of their XP from votes, while others who really like to have one-on-one scenes with heav y characterization might get a lot of reccs, while still others who like to game Conditions and Aspirations can do that, and still others who really like to be in all the PRPs and SRPs can get Xp from that, etc., etc.

Create systems for people to get XP from a BUNCH of different ways so that they don't feel overly tethered to a single system, and then limit how much they can get from any one.

I put my pants on today and they are loosey goosey.

That is all.

I mean, I'm mostly in favor of people being able to post whatever logs they want. If it's erotic, just tag it with a disclaimer. But it should never be like, a culture of "post everything, everything."

If I make a werewolf on a WoD MU, I'm playing a werewolf. Sure, there may be kinky shenanigans going on, but there might not; who knows?

If I make a werewolf on an Erotic MU, I'm definitely planning on doing kinky things with the shapeshifting and the biting and the grrrr, alpha wolf, grrr.

There's a very clear veneer that colors every intention.

It's the difference between the pizza delivery boy arriving at a sorority house in a PG-13 movie and getting macked on by a few hotties (he gets macked on, but the movie goes on with either his story or the sorority's); and the pizza delivery guy arriving at a sorority house in a porn film and getting into an orgy (the orgy is the movie; that's the point). It doesn't matter if in both stories the pizza delivery guy gets sacrificed to Cthulhu in the end -- the tone and point of the scene/movie is different.

@de-villefort said in MUs That We Would Love To Make (But Won't):

I realize Clark Kent could go to some random gala as a reporter and Bruce Wayne could show up at a random bowling alley in Gotham to hang out with the plebeians... but why...? Why would you want to role play that?

The person you are presenting yourself as is a lie. The person the other players characters are presenting themselves as is also a lie.

You both ends up talking about meaningless stuff with people you know you're never going to have any real connection too because you're lying to their face and all you can hope to get out of it is a chance to arrange to meet them again to talk about more meaningless stuff while you continue to lie to each other.

Why bother?

... why both--

lol. Why am I surprised. You have a very, very limited concept of what is worth roleplaying so everything makes sense now.

@greenflashlight said in Weird or unrealistic gaming... stuff:

@arkandel said in Weird or unrealistic gaming... stuff:

Names. Very few characters are called Steve or Jen.

It's always Maximillian and Lillian.

I do kind of groan when I see characters who are supposed to be twenty but clearly have the names of someone who is the character's mom's age. It's not a huge deal or anything, but I notice it. No American born after 1990 is named Bianca.

@Jennkryst's wikipedia parlor trick notwithstanding, what? Lol.

I'm going to go ahead and assume you meant "white women in the United States", which would probably still be wrong, but I feel compelled to point out that though Bianca is a name of Italian origin, it's pretty common and popular among Hispanic and Latinx communities in the US.

Both.

I think metaplot on a game should come from Staff. I think Staff should run plots. I think the majority of a game's staff should be Storytellers who keep the game going by helping tell the game's story.

I think player-run plots are important for stories that impact only a few. For those personal stories that really grind your character down. Player Storytellers should be the ones helping tell the character's story.

The overrealiance on players to run things (e.g. The Reach's Tier system) is, to me, part of what makes up for so many people's frustrations. Staff should be in the thick of things. There should be NPCs that, while not characters in the same way PCs are, can be interacted with and weigh on the game world as much s the characters, or at least almost as much.

Vampire is a political game about undead beings both young and ancient playing deadly, cutthroat games of intrigue. A game with vampire should foster that feeling, that ambience, that sort of setting through both its location (easy enough) and its NPCs (not so easy). Have the Praxis be a(n) (un)living thing. Use the second edition's Aspirations system to give each NPC in the Praxis a Long-Term Aspiration, and then give players surprise bonuses or even surprise experience when they help those NPCs achieve those Aspirations, even if they were manipulated into it, even if they had no idea it was going to happen. If a neonate PC talks back to the Prince, even if that Prince if an NPC, make sure there are consequences: string them up, Torpor that uppity young kid and then torture them in their Torporic dreams. and if they do it again, call the Blood Hunt. That's the game. Just because the Prince is an NPC doesn't mean characters should be able to get away with shit that they shouldn't be able to. Play the game that you made a character for.

That's a very long tangent and I think it's clear where I would be going if I moved on to examples for the other games.

TL;DR: Staff plots should be the game's story, and player plots should be the characters's stories. There is room for the two to switch and even to mix, but that should, IMO, be the default. While I don't begrudge anyone making a game with no metaplot, so to speak (e.g. Reno), I don't think it's the kind of game that can keep its momentum.

Back when I played Jack Moore@Devilshire or Eliot Ford@The Reach, I would routinely let them lapse into long diatribes about the law, because they were both smooth-as-fuck lawyers. My diatribes tended to include almost no dialogue. They were something like:

"Look, I need to make the call to get you an appointment in court, but first, take a look at these forms and..." Eliot's words start to get longer, more esoteric, and what they can only assume is legalese. It's like watching a particularly annoying scene in Law & Order except none of it is actually understandable unless the people listening actually know what he's talking about. Did he just say something about jail-time? Oh, shit. That would be bad. But maybe he said "no" jail-time? Interrupting him right now seems like a bad idea. He's kind of on a roll. How long's it been? Only a minute? Holy Jesus. Oh, he's handing John a pen. Oh thank fucking fuck. "Anyway, barebones is that unless everything goes epically sideways and there are literally spinning fans falling into giant piles of manure, you'll be fine. Sign here." Thank god that's over.

You should House Rule the things you feel need to be House Ruled.

You should not let people House Rule things on your game willy-nilly.

You should be prepared to explain clearly and concisely why the House Rules exists.

You should be ready for the inevitable avalanche of disagreement.

You should be able to stand steadfast before said avalanche.

If any of these are not applicable, you should not House Rule.

I'm gonna go ahead and be the asshole here, because while it's super great to include--especially meaningfully--people outside your friends, the best advice I can give you is:

Run shit for your friends.

At least at first. Fuck other people. Your friends will understand if you fuck up, don't know a rule, have to go clean up after the dog, whatever. Basically every stressful situation I've ever had as an ST has been because of people I don't fucking know, or that I don't get along with in the first place, but was in the unenviable position of having to ST for, for X or Y reason.

I'm not saying NEVER run for people you don't know. Just... get comfortable with the people you do first, then dip your toe further out. And if people judge you as exclusionary and a jerk for it, they can go sit and spin on their lack of plot, because chances are they don't get any scenes because they act like entitled monkey farts.

Good luck!

P.S. Also, all that stuff @Faceless and @Gilette said. Keeping in mind, of course, the above.