Posts made by Coin

@Tinuviel said in Fear and Loathing:

They're NPCs. Glorified NPCs. What is the point?

Having them, clearly.

This is why, iof you´re running a political game, holding positions of power and holding territory should require you be able to do certain things or have other things. For example, maybe holding territory in the financial district requires that a vampire have X amount of disposable income per month, abstractly represented by their Resources 5. If someone can use their social merits to attack that vampire's Resources, they may start having trouble if they can't sustain what they require to keep that territory. If they can't find the culprit and cause and put an end to it soon, they lose the territory. That's just the simplest example I could come up with, and it can be complicated easily by making thatt erritory the requirement for their position, which they then lose if they lose the territory, etc., etc.

My problem isn't really that I don't like him being the worst Iron Fist ever. It's just that I think they did it badly.

@Auspice said in Magicians Game:

I will say that while there will be similar themes to the books, I'm not following their plotline. It'd be difficult to, anyway.

But as someone who has read the books... the show does deviate, quite a bit, story-wise. Mechanics-wise, however, I feel they complement one another.

I am OK with spoilers in the thread and can always edit the original post as a warning if people feel it may be necessary.

"This game ocurs in one particular, hidden, alternate timeline in which Jane got all of the protagonists to not come to Brakebills at all. Let's see what happened!"

I remember playing Black Adam on Universe Unlimited and I had a pretty basic rule, one available because the game was consent-based, that went something like: Black Adam lives in Khandaq. He has a whole storyline about re-taking and restructuring Khandaq. As a result, typically, Black Adam gets the "win" in Khandaq when the story calls for it (remember: consent based, so a lot of narrative stuff had more weight in the decision-making process since there were no dice). Now, when outside of Khandaq? Black Adam usually lost against heroes of the same power level.

I remember Amora the Enchantress hung out with Adam a lot (for a variety of reasons) and Thor liked to swing his hammer around and warn them to BE GOOD. And the times he did it outside of Khandaq, he got in some good licks and they retreated, were fought off, didn't achieve their desired goal, etc.

But one time he came to Khandaq and swung his hammer around and Adam punched him all the way out of the country.

In superhero games, that sort of narrative back and forth and the way power can swing from one end to the other is important, and probably why those games work best when they are consent-based, and not full of dice.

@lordbelh said in Great TV:

@Coin Its the series finale, wrapping up after 4 seasons. Also sets the stage for a sequel if they want to do the whole Treasure Island.

Its hard to think I almost stopped watching the show halfway through the first season. I'm glad I didn't!

I figured, what with [that thing happening] and [that other thing happening] and also [that third thing happening] after [that thing that happened].

It had "last season" written all over it.

@lordbelh said in Great TV:

So how about the end of Black Sails?

I thoroughly enjoyed it. All the stories seemed to come together, a mix of the unexpected and the expected, for a really satisfying conclusion.

I haven't seen the finale. Is it the series finale? Or just the season?

@Auspice said in Magicians Game:

@Coin said in Magicians Game:

@Coin said in Magicians Game:

Just some advice: Give some real thought to how the learning of magic will be represented system-wise. Becuase if you let people just learn things at the same rate other games do, then the "school experience" will be lost rapidly.

Further thought on this because I actually did a lot of thinking on how to do a Magicians-style game using Mage: The Awakening--

I think one of the best things you can do is make "Learning Magic" one of the primary themes of the game, and build a lot of it around that. Let players come up with theories (both teachers and students), and have advancement be intrinsically weaved with learning/teaching magic. You can set up schedules, have players suggest courses, etc, etc.

So, while I do intend to make sure anyone applying to be a Professor/Lecturer sort does run scenes for classes, lectures, etc...

It is hard to run classes. I've done it on HP games in the past. I actually, around somewhere, have an entire Divination class schedule, suggested RP 'homework,' etc. I think at least one MU* borrowed it once upon a time. But the problem was? Few players ever got "into" it. It was fun for flavor, but I think it'd take some very devoted people to actually make it a big thing.

I'd love for it to be, I really would, but it would need a handful of dedicated players who are willing to run a couple classes/labs/etc a month.

I didn't really mean actual lecture/studying scenes, but more make sure that the learning is important, not just a thing that happens in the background. The best way to do this, I think, is by incentivizing scenes that have to do with exploring magic and what it can do, how it works, and, the most fun and most important: how it can go wrong.

Magic is, in pretty much every instance of fiction, akin to science. Yes, sometimes it features artistry--poetry, painting, ritual bloodletting to the tune of Michael Jackson's Beat It--but even these art bits are always a component in a cause-and-effect effort that can go right... or it can go wrong.

Much like science, any setting in which learning magic is a large part of it, should have as a main theme "what lessons do we learn when we fuck up"? And I feel this is especially important if you want to make a game based on The Magicians, seeing as how that's basically what the show (and presumably the books) uses as its main anchor for creating plot situations. It's always, "we need to do X but we don't know all the specifics or don't have the experience," leading to, "we do it anyway," which becomes, "we did it wrong and fucked up," culminating in, "holy shit this is horrible," leading back to "we need to do X but...", etc., etc.

When I talk about making learning magic central, I don't mean lectures and stuff, I mean actual learning about it through the characters and what happens when you do stuff with tools you don't know how to use.

@Coin said in Magicians Game:

Just some advice: Give some real thought to how the learning of magic will be represented system-wise. Becuase if you let people just learn things at the same rate other games do, then the "school experience" will be lost rapidly.

Further thought on this because I actually did a lot of thinking on how to do a Magicians-style game using Mage: The Awakening--

I think one of the best things you can do is make "Learning Magic" one of the primary themes of the game, and build a lot of it around that. Let players come up with theories (both teachers and students), and have advancement be intrinsically weaved with learning/teaching magic. You can set up schedules, have players suggest courses, etc, etc.

And you can have experience represent what actually sticks. People FAIL classes all the time, so if someone takes a class and then doesn't buy whatever that class was teaching by the end of the course, they failed. Retake the course. Etc.

Sure, it sounds boring, but I think with enough attention that sort of detail can really work in a game's benefit.

Just some advice: Give some real thought to how the learning of magic will be represented system-wise. Becuase if you let people just learn things at the same rate other games do, then the "school experience" will be lost rapidly.

I gave the following one to a friend a few months back:

Your friend asks you to pet sit for them. During your stay, your friend's pet starts to talk... and it starts to tell you things about your friend that they really, really don't want you to know.

@Arkandel

You've found a woman that defends Joss Whedon! All my thoughts and opinions and arguments on the matter are now completely, utterly invalid. Oh nnnnnnnoooooooooeeeeeeessssss..!

P.S. That's from 2015, and not referring to this particular bit of news.

@Arkandel

Ew.

@Arkandel said in Superhero movies:

Joss Whedon to write/direct Batgirl movie. Wheee.

"Women Directors worldwide found to be unavailable. Entirely. Completely. Not a single one. No, not even that one. Shut up. Stop bashing Joss, omg, he's the besssssssst."

@Coin said in Make a Game with Me!:

One thing I recomended to someone recently is the Conflicting Interests System for any type of political faction play.

For example. You have factions 1, 2, and 3.

You also have interests A, B, C, D, E, F, any of which can succeed or fail.

You give each of these factions interests they want to succeed, and interests they want to fail:

Faction 1 wants A, B, and C to succeed, but they want D and E to fail.
Faction 2 wants A, D, and E to succeed, but they want B and F to fail.
Faction 3 wants B, F, and D to succeed, but they want A and C to fail.

And then you, the person running the game, decide when each of these interests are important. Maybe A has to do with passing a law about the restriction of magic--Faction 3 is heavy on the magic use and the other two Factions band together to overwhelm them, but Faction 2 needs to be careful, because very soon, Interest E (certain gentrification platforms) will come into effect and Faction 1 is very against it, so they might want to curry Faction 3's favor...

... and so on and so on. Might get a little complicated, but only if you spread a little too far. The key is making sure every issue is represented (and reviled) equally, and that every Faction has a stance (even if the stance is 'neutrality') regarding every issue.

You can also give it a success sale, for example:

Faction 1 needs A to succeed, wants B to succeed, doesn't care either way about D, wants E to fail, and needs F to fail. This gives them a lot of room to maneuver and see what to support at which point.

This also lets you retroactively decide what's important for a faction and why, creating something that a lot of people might be much more invested in.

One thing I recomended to someone recently is the Conflicting Interests System for any type of political faction play.

For example. You have factions 1, 2, and 3.

You also have interests A, B, C, D, E, F, any of which can succeed or fail.

You give each of these factions interests they want to succeed, and interests they want to fail:

Faction 1 wants A, B, and C to succeed, but they want D and E to fail.
Faction 2 wants A, D, and E to succeed, but they want B and F to fail.
Faction 3 wants B, F, and D to succeed, but they want A and C to fail.

And then you, the person running the game, decide when each of these interests are important. Maybe A has to do with passing a law about the restriction of magic--Faction 3 is heavy on the magic use and the other two Factions band together to overwhelm them, but Faction 2 needs to be careful, because very soon, Interest E (certain gentrification platforms) will come into effect and Faction 1 is very against it, so they might want to curry Faction 3's favor...

... and so on and so on. Might get a little complicated, but only if you spread a little too far. The key is making sure every issue is represented (and reviled) equally, and that every Faction has a stance (even if the stance is 'neutrality') regarding every issue.

Rat Queens is amazing too.

@Zobi Never got to play with Ivy or Iris, just Clover.

Ivy Lords or Ivy Weathers? We had two Ivys!

@Cupcake said in Where's your RP at?:

While watching it the other night, it occurred to me that as a dystopian setting, Into the Badlands might be pretty perfect as a MUSH.

It's as good a basis for a MU as any other show, really. Depending on how the second season goes, it'll become clear whether or not they're going to flesh the world out a little more. As it is it's pretty sparse, which is not a condemnation. It was only a 6 episode season. More of a miniseries, really.