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    Best posts made by Derp

    • RE: PC antagonism done right

      @surreality said in PC antagonism done right:

      I just don't necessarily think they're reason to think there isn't a lot more that can be done to empower players with thematic 'backup' of sorts for the ICly NOT trendy (but OOCly popular) viewpoints present in game without doing the equivalent of handing nuclear warheads (or something like the Spear of Destiny from the recent Legends of Tomorrow story arc) out to all and sundry with no oversight.

      At the risk of potential thread derailment -- this is the kind of stuff that social systems are designed to do. In the WoD, for example, players have access to a slew of merits that they can use to call in favors, gather intelligence, send out goons, etc. While some people take exception to social stuff being used against other players, generally speaking, there are ways of determining just how much pull the little neonate can get, or how much influence that Elder Primogen can use to try and enforce their viewpoints. These systems should matter, and in many games, they simply don't.

      Which I think is part of the real problem. we keep talking about things like 'empowering players with thematic backup' while we ignore the systems in place that already do that kind of thing, because as a culture we don't like the idea that a character might act in a way we don't want them to act. Until we can get past that hurdle, I'm not sure what else we can really do. But we can't call for a system to be put in place that does basically the same thing as a system that we choose to ignore. We can't have our cake and eat it too, so to speak.

      posted in Mildly Constructive
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    • RE: PC antagonism done right

      @Arkandel said in PC antagonism done right:

      For this to work it needs to be part of the initial design. Everything has to be tied together cohesively.

      I'm... not really sure that I agree with this statement. I mean, sure, it's good if it's a part of the initial design, but I'm not sure that I'm ready to go for the 'Abandon All Hope' approach for games that didn't have it from the outset. It might take a philosophical shift, for sure, but I fully believe that any game could do this if they really wanted to. Just saying 'welp, it wasn't there to start with, so now it's all screwed' doesn't seem like a logical jumping off point.

      @Tempest said in PC antagonism done right:

      Games need XP caps. Seriously.

      I'm... not even wholly against this. But really, I don't think they need caps. What I think that games need is a much slower rate of progression than we see on a lot of the current games. And maybe do away with the 'catchup' systems, because holy shit do those things get crazy quickly. Games need tiers of power between characters. If you know that you're within x-range of xp of whoever is supposed to be the top dog, it's much too easy to treat them as some yapping, eye-rolly pleb who you can just ignore. And it's also easy to sit around shopping for cute boots while you soak up godlike powers through the starbucks wifi.

      It's very much a 'tragedy of the commons' sort of situation. If you know that you don't have to work that hard because all the guys at the very top are working hard, and you're not that far off from them because of game design, then ... why not?

      This, too, creates problems with realistic conflict and antagonism. If you're pretty much a carbon copy, power-wise, of everyone else on the game, why do you even care? Especially on WoD games, once you hit around the 200xp mark, you're basically just adding party tricks. One more gift tree, a few more dots of arcana, a few low-level disciplines. They're drops in the bucket. You've already got your Focus Thing.

      posted in Mildly Constructive
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    • RE: MSB: The meta-discussion

      MSB is not the place where most shit-talking and cliquish hate happen.

      That's Skype and Discord.

      Every post made here is public, rather than private. And there is a reasonable chance that if it'still full of BS, it will backfire. Like, a lot.

      posted in Mildly Constructive
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    • RE: What does advancement in a MU* mean to you?

      So, we've had a lot of talk about 'how to make MU's better' lately, and every time it comes up I can't help but think "Better for whom?"

      See, while I agree with @Arkandel

      game which mismanages the amount of progress you make for time unit can render progress irrelevant; if XPs fall from the skies like raindrops and everyone's special no one is. If progress is too slow and everyone wallows in the dirt then it doesn't matter. If progress is behind a wall your playstyle doesn't support (must play too many hours, run PrPs to justify expenditures, etc) then it might as well not exist. Etc.

      and @Seraphim73's list above of what advancement constitutes, I also have to think ... some of these things are mutually incompatible. For instance, @Jim-Nanban wants things that he can fondle and do and whatever, but even he admits that certain playstyles lead to Charzilla. But then you also have it at the opposite end of the spectrum, where everyone is charzilla, so no one is, or everyone is a lowly peon, so nobody feels like they have any agency.

      Now, I for one am not opposed to Charzillas, especially in the WoD games. Those Charzillas are the ones who typically end up as Prince or Primogen or Hierarch or Queen or <Manson>Stick your stupid slogan in.</Manson>. Are some of them terrible? Sure. But so are some of the ones in the fiction for the setting, so that's not out of the ordinary. I think that some healthy amount of Hierarchy is needed in these games that doesn't exist in many of them, currently. Everyone wants to do catchups and just-for-being-approved xp, and all I've ever seen it lead to is stagnation.

      I think that, ultimately, rather than fixate on some medium between all of them, we should really just stick to one, and encourage others to make something else if it doesn't suit people's playstyles. While it might suck to feel that one game that your friends are having fun on doesn't work for you because it requires different hours or the RP is behind a wall you can't get over, it's probably important to keep in mind that not everyone can play in the same sandbox, either. Sometimes, you just need more diversity, and less amalgamation.

      posted in Mildly Constructive
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    • RE: Identifying Major Issues

      @WTFE said in Identifying Major Issues:

      @Rook said in Identifying Major Issues:

      @WTFE said:

      Players are enjoined to run plots, but only if the plots don't in any way, shape or form touch the grid in the slightest. So your PrPs are fine so long as they have zero noticeable impact on the setting!

      So I read this and think to myself, when I was building and advertising Umbral Shards as a game entirely designed to be modified, changed and built out by the players... no one was willing to either believe it or touch it with a ten foot pole... where is the draw?

      I didn't try out Umbral Shards because WoD gives me hives. It has zero attraction to me as a setting and the few times I tried it out because I wanted to see if maybe there was actually something to it were sufficiently disastrous that it's not a brick wall I'll be smashing my face into any time soon ever again.

      Granted, I suspect that most everyone that checked the project out was a MSB reader, so the sort of group-think that has lead WTFE to that conclusion above might be statistically prevalent amongst those that showed up. Thus, there was a lot of uncomfortable feelings when reading the intent and mission statement of the game. See, US was supposed to be entirely PRP-driven, with the locks taken off and the players trusted to not only do dangerous things, but game-changing things. That was the entire dream!

      And then there's this: "PrP-only" reads to me as "staff doesn't give a shit". At this stage, I may as well play over IRC for all the difference a game server makes.

      So, in all seriousness, is there anything that actually does please you? All I ever see from your posts, even here in the mildly constructive area, is whining and vitriol about how this thing is shit, or that thing is shit, and you hate the following three things, even if they're literal opposites of each other. Is there anything that you don't hate, other than, I dunno, Chinese culture, exotic alcohol, and math? Because I'm starting to think that maybe MU's in general just aren'r your thing.

      What would you actually like to see?

      posted in Mildly Constructive
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    • RE: Identifying Major Issues

      @Thenomain said in Identifying Major Issues:

      @Derp

      Cool.

      Let's try to work out what works now, then. I mean, there's a reason why Fall Coast has high connect numbers in spite of I think we can agree that it's not a deeply developed game, right?

      That's the thing. I don't think this is a problem. For as much as people bitch about 'just another copy of a sandbox game', those games always have players. Plenty of them. Which ones are hurting for logins?

      The problem isn't, as mentioned, the games. The problem is that the people who hate that aren't a member of the target audience, which is... broad, but also very clear about what it is. And those who want the setting but not the way it's run don't want to do the logical thing and just make one.

      The problem is not enough games to suit all tastes, and the easy ones to make/run are the ones that the vocal minority dislike.

      That's just the nature of the beast.

      posted in Mildly Constructive
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    • RE: Identifying Major Issues

      @Thenomain said in Identifying Major Issues:

      There's absolutely zero reason, at all, even a little, for a game to need your email address.

      You mean except for all those @surreality listed above?

      It's not a bar for entry. Plenty of things require your e-mail address when signing up for an account (android phones, most things that require account creation). Sometimes, even your phone number. (Google, anyone?) This is pretty standard fare for most things now.

      And if I'm running a game? Honestly, there are things I will want for my own security and game features that will require this. And if you can't trust me enough to even provide a burner e-mail for that, fine. Play elsewhere. There are other options.

      The staff of a game are not your martyrs, and can impose requirements on you since they are incurring costs to provide you something for free. This is a perfectly reasonable requirement to be able to benefit from that.

      posted in Mildly Constructive
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    • RE: Meshing Groups

      @tinuviel

      Everything Tinuviel said.

      I'm one of those people that if you put me in a room with more than like 4 people there is a high chance that I am finding any excuse I can to bow out as quickly as possible.

      I am not a social butterfly. I feel awkward around strangers. It takes me weeks of being around someone in RL before I stop feeling nervous around them.

      Putting me in a room with 6 other people and going find a way to play nice everyone! feels a lot like putting me in a cage with six hungry lions and telling me that they're just big friendly kitties.

      Small scenes good. Running scenes for already-defined groups is better. Work with the relationships that are there. If you want to create new relationships, that's best done one at a time, on an individual basis, and not in a big group setting.

      posted in Mildly Constructive
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    • RE: Over Derp!?

      I'm only wading into this one because Ganymede has requested that these topics be locked in her announcement. I'll let her figure out how she wants to handle the rest of it when she gets back.

      Subsequent topics will continue to be locked, per her instructions.

      posted in Mildly Constructive
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    • RE: The Worst Thing You Have Done in this Hobby Thread

      @royal said in The Worst Thing You Have Done in this Hobby Thread:

      Constantly ghosting the high holy fuck out of everyone the second my rabid meerkat attention span shifted to a new game, hobby or unexplainable burnout.

      Too many good friends casually cast aside over the years to count. Sorry, y'all. I'm better now... but not by much.

      slow hand raise

      posted in Mildly Constructive
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    • RE: Magic in games

      @hobos said in Magic in games:

      It depends on whether you want things to be balanced, too.

      As a long-time fan / runner of Mage, in particular, I really think that a couple of definitions are key: balanced and overpowered.

      What do you mean by overpowered? If you mean that Mages can do a very impressive thing in a very short time, then yes, they are more powerful than, say, a werewolf or a vampire. But that big flashy magic comes with some tradeoffs. They can't do it as often, and the magic go-juice that makes it run (in Awakening, anyway) is a bit more limited than Essence or Blood or whatever emotional go-juice changelings run on. And it takes more of it, if you play it right. Also, reality itself fights back.

      So they can get some pretty high spikes in power but they can't do it as often, as efficiently, or as safely as some of the other splats.

      Does that balance? It depends on what you want to see out of it. If run absolutely according to the rules, it tends to work out pretty nicely. No one side has a clear advantage over teh other unless the Mage has been given a LOT of time to prepare and gather their materials and things without the other side catching wind and taking any action.

      In terms of the larger discussion, I think an important question is: do you want power to look more like a flat curve or a bunch of spikes and troughs? If you want something consistent with no surprises then Mage probably is a bad choice, and you should probably go with something like a DnD-style system. If you want something with a lot of punch but limited ammo, then something like Mage might be good.

      And all of this assumes that you don't want them to, long-term, have special advantages. If that's not the case, then the calculus changes a bit.

      posted in Mildly Constructive
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    • RE: Requirements for scene progress

      I try to strike a balance somewhere between the extremes of 'do whatever' and 'on rails'.

      Let's call it Guardrails.

      Usually this is relatively easy to accomplish. I'm a big fan of starting things in media res. This has a couple of benefits:

      1. We assume that your characters are smart enough to get through the tedious research part and get to the part they should be focused on unless the research / investigation is really tension-y for some reason.

      2. There is a vastly reduced risk that someone is going to just go off and do whatever thing they want to do if they're already being confronted with the situation.

      Example

      Player: I want to use research to see if I can dig up any information on Jimmy the Crime Guy.

      Standard Way: Great! How are you doing that?
      Player: I'm going to go out and divine for patterns in the flights of birds to read the omens and figure out which street corner record scratch

      alt text

      My Way: All of Jimmy the Crime Guy's top lieutenants are fairly untouchable. There's almost no way you're going to get information out of them without spetnaz tactics, and whoever keeps Jimmy's name out of the papers and off of police reports did a really thorough job. Fortunately for you, Jimmy's accountant is a little slip of a man with a nervous disposition that looks like he jumps at his own shadow, and even his shadow thinks it's a little excessive. Which is why you're in a car, outside of his office, with a fast food bag in the passenger seat and rapidly cooling coffee in the center console. The night's already off to a great start...

      posted in Mildly Constructive
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    • RE: Highlights of Ares?

      @Ganymede said in Highlights of Ares?:

      My position:

      You don’t know how much Ares does until you’re not using it any more.

      girl same

      posted in Mildly Constructive
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    • RE: The Case Against Real PBs

      @reimesu said in The Case Against Real PBs:

      Frankly, the entire argument against <insert whatever blank you want here> isn't an argument against <insert whatever blank you want here>, it's an argument against unethical players who are being manipulative. Which really means that you have to be vigilant about who you play with and what you're willing to get into with people you don't know.

      I feel like the entire history of this forum can be summed up thus.

      posted in Mildly Constructive
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    • RE: Bring back the Hog Pit

      @Ghost shhh

      posted in Mildly Constructive
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    • RE: Bring back the Hog Pit

      I'm making an executive decision to lock this thread.

      It's not coming back, we aren't going to talk about it, it's not a debate, and this is only going to stir up shit that doesn't need stirred up.

      Good chat. Someone post some pictures of puppies or something.

      posted in Mildly Constructive
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    • RE: I owe a lot of people some apologies.

      @reimesu

      I concur with Reimesu. Such topics are charged enough that they really serve no constructive purpose on a gaming forum. At best, it comes across as myopic and a bit socially tone deaf. At worst, it feels like trolling.

      Either way, this simply isn’t the place for it. We’re willing to deal with fewer participants to have healthier discussions. There are alternative environments for other tastes.

      But to try to answer your question— it was posted in a constructive part of the forum when we still allowed no-holds-barred discussions in other parts, which is where the not-here came in. And under the current rules of engagement, linked above, not-here includes the whole forum, for the above reasons.

      posted in Mildly Constructive
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    • RE: I owe a lot of people some apologies.

      @Ghost Sigh

      DON’T MAKE ME TURN THIS CAR AROUND.

      posted in Mildly Constructive
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    • RE: I owe a lot of people some apologies.

      @Ghost

      It's probably fine. @Reimesu and I certainly find it suspicious that the specific questions being asked seem like they would come from the playbook of Andrew Tate, but the underlying point of 'are the rules enforced equally' is at least a fair question. Which is why I answered in the specific way I did, despite Tapewyrm's objections to the form of the answer.

      If this is part of a legitimate inquiry? Great! The questions have now been asked and answered.

      If it's some kind of setup for something silly, then I think that we've shown as admins that our tolerance for such games is incredibly low.

      We'll see! I'm optimistic but cautious.

      posted in Mildly Constructive
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    • RE: Staffing Philosophy: Action vs Procedure

      @Misadventure said:

      Miestz, how will anyone learn without real world examples?

      This is how our legal system works, you can see how it was applied to others. I have no interest in shaming anyone. I want people who behave well enough to stay and play, and people who don't to not be playing.

      Also, it gives you (and your staff) a certain level of accountability in order to ensure consistent rules are being followed, and that applications of those rules are universal and not subject to favoritism. This gives you a visible feedback with your players letting them know that the rules are the rules, and there are no exceptions to the rules, not even for Staff-Friends. If your players don't trust you to be fair and consistent, then your game will suffer, so while people might feel like they're getting 'bitched at', in the long run the benefits of this course of action far, far outweigh the costs. It shows that there was an issue, you acted on that issue in a fair and consistent manner, and allows you, your staff, and your players to be in on the resolution of that action by witnessing that it was enforced.

      posted in MU Questions & Requests
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