Posts made by Coin

@Arkandel

I think you're just nitpicking terms to agree with the spirit of my comment.

@Arkandel said:

What I find fascinating (and I kinda suspected) is how we all have such very diverse expectations about having a large grid. Some of us are like me and just want the basic stuff, others won't really be satisfied without a full map-like representation. That's pretty interesting.

There's absolutely no consensus.

The best a game's staff can do is build something that is satisfying to everyone and that, at least in some way, manages to give everyone something resembling what they want. A grid for people who want a grid, a map for those that need it, and the ability to @tel and make temprooms for people who want that.

@Arkandel
As far as importance? Yes. But as far as numbers? A game needs more storytellers than it needs coders.

@Ganymede
I did actually say the two can mix and switch; I'm certainly not adverse to it, and have as a player run metaplot and as a staffer run personal plots. So we don't disagree; I just think the default should be that particular division because it makes the most sense when it comes to what sort of responsibility being a player compared to being a staffer entails with regards to plot that affects the entire game.

@Arkandel said:

What I want is the freedom to run plot that I find fun (which usually means 'stories I'd have enjoyed if someone else had ran them') without being burdened with being staff.

I just don't particularly enjoy my PCs being a 'staff alt'. That's an unfun label.

So any game that lets me run my stuff - with reasonable supervision, I wouldn't ask or expect carte blanche - is what I prefer.

The best way to not have the "Staff Alt" label is to make sure that Staff are treated the same way as players. If anything, the label should be something that helps people recognize that that person is a-- putting effort into making the game work, and b-- possibly not doing something they might like (maybe they'd like their PC to be in a position of power, but the rules say Staff Alts can't) in order to provide a--.

In my opinion, this hobby needs Storytellers. Badly. Especially skilled ones who are willing to be Staff and take on the challenge of running game-wide plot.

Nobody would ever trust me given the choice, @Luna. That's why none of you will get a choice.

@Luna said:

I think there should be a happy medium. I would at least like staff oversight. I would like the plot to have actual meaning. Or none could work I guess. Just consistency. And if you just want to run things for your friends, fine. Limit the scope and quit inviting other people on the pretense you don't just run things for your friends.

Some oversight is necessary for theme purposes if you purport to have any sort of consistency in theme in your game. One thing we're going to be trying is giving people their own areas of the grid (territories, domains, turfs, etc.) wherein they can run plots with relatively little oversight as long as they a-- keep us informed (the world isn't a vacuum), and b-- respect the scale, i.e., keep it within that area.

Also, I feel there should be someone to go to if you're blocked from a plot that is supposed to matter. I'd like to say it's not necessary but some people are some petty motherfuckers.

And that person should be Staff.

A lot of the time it's the confusion wherein people think that "strong female character" means "badass woman that kicks ass all the time". This is a fallacy. Not all strong female characters kick ass all over the place. A lot of them don't. A lot of them are just women that are portrayed realistically, with their characterizations based on who they are, not what their gender is.

No one is ever going to expect Felicity from "Arrow" to put on some tights and start kicking ass all over the place, and if she did, it would ring hollow; it wouldn't make her stronger as a character or a woman, in my opinion. This does not mean she is not a strong female character.

Also, fuck, @Kireek, don't tell women what they should and shouldn't like. Seriously, this is Being Decent 101.

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.

@Jennkryst said:

@Bennie Mummy: the Curse. It was out before Demon. But it breaks the conventional power stat/fuel stat of everything else in nWoD.

Mummy: The Curse is not second edition. It was out before Demon as the last corebook that came out before they started the swap. It doesn't use the rules from second edition (i.e. God-Machine Chronicles). Not only that, but it breaking the conventional Supernatural Tolerance/fuel trait, as you mentioned, make it incompatible with other game lines to the point that Mage looks like a welcome fit.

So no, no Mummy. However, I fully welcome you to start your own Mummy: The Curse game. While I'm not sure it would be all that popular, I'm positive the people who would play would thoroughly appreciate the opportunity, at least.

@ThatOneDude said:

@Coin I know, I just like asking cause its exciting. I was going to make a joke asking if I had to make a character that sucked at life to get the approval of @il-volpe , but, I don't think the humor its meant to convey translates into text

The 'holes in your brain' was a Deadpool ref. You suck. Take off that icon, you don't deserve it.

@ThatOneDude

Yes. You also asked this the first time I mentioned it. You have holes in your brain!

@Haven said:

@Coin said:

The game I'm working on...

Continue... more words.

I've peppered these entire forums with stuff about the game I'm working on. It's nWoD, Vampire/Demon/Werewolf.

Lots more information soon, when we start openly advertising!

@Arkandel
I think it can be fun to walk the grid. You certainly find more random RP if the game fosters a culture of hanging out in public and walking the grid; together, these two can lead to some nice impromptu scenes that can make you get to know people you wouldn't otherwise meet.

@Jennkryst, yeah. And NYC was most navigable because Manhattan is, when you get down to it, a straight(-ish) line. (This is also the reason Manhattan was a valid location for "The Warriors", while L.A. definitely... isn't.)

@Jennkryst, heh. I wrote it way back when we were still on first edition. Wow... I just checked. Last edit was January 17, 2006. Holy shit.

@Luna, I don´t know, because I've never been to AmberMUSH, and in fact only read the first Amber novel maybe two years ago. I also wrote this a few years before I even start MUing at all. It's still around on my wikipage on the ExaltedWiki, IIRC.

@Ganymede
2 alt limit! At least for now (and probably forever).

@Jennkryst
I wrote a magical tavern for the Exalted setting called The Elsewhere Tavern that basically existed in Elsewhere and every hour its door shifted to another location of Creation. So if you went in and didn't leave before the next door-shift, you'd have to stick around for a day or so before being able to go home. However, it did double as a great way to get across Creation in broad strokes. I mean, there might still be thousands of miles between the door and your destination, but that pales in comparison with, say, tens of thousands of miles.

@Arkandel

No. But I think "sizeable" depends on the context.

For example, Aleswich is a small town in Maine, technically; but counting its Underworld and Hedge, plus the reservation, and Cresmire Island, the grid spans over 90 rooms. This is insane. There is no reason that there should be 90+ grid squares for a small town.

The game I'm working on, conversely, is a large metropolitan city in Northern California. If you combine the main city with the large forest, mountain, and desert area to the east, and the island to the west, you have a total of 30 grid squares. Put differently, it's easily more than three times (if not much more) the size of The Reach's official area, but has a third of the grid squares.

We will be allowing people to create their own Neighborhoods within each grid square, of course, because that's part of the territory system that we're going to be using. But the grid itself has no "streets"; a whole district, easily as large as, say, "the East Side" area of Aleswich, is a single grid square. Instead of, you know, eleven.

Way to stifle the free sharing of information, @Thenomain. Clearly this has become a dictatorial forum in short order. /flipdesk.