@Coin said:
@tragedyjones said:
So the opening is Real Soon Now. Anyone have any particular questions or anything before then?
Yes.
Who put the bump in bump in the night, bah-bump?
Dammit, now I'm listening to Me First and the Gimme Gimmes. Look what you did.
@Ganymede said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:
@RnMissionRun said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:
You can also get really good deals on last year's models.
These were Christmas gifts. I just can't immolate them.
Unfortunate accidents with water happen all the time. Jussayin.
@Auspice said in Engaging the Whole Scene:
@Killer-Klown said in Engaging the Whole Scene:
To my mind, there is a reason why Initiative has both a physical and mental aspect, at least in terms of WoD games. It's not just how fast you move, it's how fast you react and focus. As such, I tend to keep to Init orders even if there's no combat involved - it factors into pose orders, and it factors into what people can do before someone else gets a go. When your init comes up, you get your action. Then you have to wait until the ST goes down the list and comes back to you before you can act again. People can always pass their turn, or they might not even notice <fail a perception check before the issue becomes obvious> but it still keeps things organized.
A lot of systems, however, don't have an init order. Or you may be in the part of the scene where you're not in initiative (it's brought out during combat, largely).
I wouldn't want to force a plot scene into initiatives from the get-go for the entire scene: it'd slow things down way too much.
Even in systems without init orders, though, pose orders are a thing. I don't think I've ever played on a game without one,. If there is NOT an order of some kind -- then the ST should probably enforce one anyway, for the sake of sanity.
As far as 'who can do what the fastest', even in games without a set initiative order, we still have some idea of action economy. If everyone else is just throwing punches, then Miles Gloriosus probably isn't given enough time to run into the burning building, save the kidnapped princess, and return the kitten to the old lady.
Players should really be on the same page, and I think that it's up to the ST to fill in those blanks, if the system doesn't. Even if you just tell everyone to roll a die once per turn to see who goes in what order.
@Kanye-Qwest said:
Again, the real issue here is my lack of familiarity with the setting. I have no trouble being active to find RP (or, have never had an issue with this before) but my preferred style is the kind that happens organically - that just never seems to happen without an IC grid people want to hang out on more than the OOC rooms. Then, when I have a good feel for characters in my newly-known group, I can come up with a plot that helps advance them/appeals to their chars or personalities. That's the storytelling I like.
Alright, so then that raises another question. What do you mean by 'organically'? Do you mean people just randomly wandering the grid? Because that only very rarely happens in WoD settings that I've seen. For one, the grids are far, far too large for people to just randomly wander about it. It's not a small village via DnD, for the most part. Usually, they are sprawling metropolises, or at least decent-sized towns. They have to be in order to hold so much supernatural stuff. So for the most part, people just kind of hang around where their characters would normally be, and try and find others in that area.
So, I mean, to me (and granted, my opinion is just that), it sounds like you might be looking for something that really isn't -there-, or even easy to support. WoD really does take a lot of OOC planning and communication to pull off. Nothing in the WoD really just -happens-. It all happens to further a plot, to advance a specific goal, etc, or happens to be a social thing in a specific 'hangout' location, though people bitch about that all the time, too.
So what are you looking for when you say 'organic'? Maybe we can help with ideas there?
I think that @Chet is generally thinking of game design like I do. Rephrased, I believe that he's saying:
A good staffer does not have to be the person that plays the most popular character. You should look for the people that, even when acting as an antagonist, know how to use their actions to further the story as a whole, rather than the one that plays the character everyone likes, as they are more likely to have a fairly balanced hand and be less swayed in their storytelling by the cult of public opinion. Just beware the ones that take their villainy into OOC levels, because then they tend to think that they're on some kind of holy crusade against the injustices of the game.
Good game design requires that the odds are stacked against the characters -- but that the characters can find some clever way to overcome those odds. If everything is copacetic, there is nothing for them to work toward or struggle against. Many people try to create worlds where the characters can live their lives in comfort and get all the fuzzy feels, but those games are lacking a major component. If you give the characters something to work toward, even in the face of overwhelming odds, so long as you have some path for them to progress, even if it's trench warfare, then activity will flow.
@RDC said in NOLA: The Game That Care Forgot:
There is a surprising amount of stuff checked off on my to-do list that is not actually done. Please be patient with us on the wiki front, and feel free to log in and ask all sorts of questions if there's blank spots!
New to-do list item: double check accuracy of previous to-do list items.
@Ghost said in Pro Wrasslin':
I can't remember if Cena is Raw or Smackdown
I thought both? But admittedly I am not a huge fan. Mostly had friends that were.
@surreality said in Model Policies?:
@Derp Yeah, that's the translation I came to as well. By 'positive relations' I mean OOC, IC popularity/being loved isn't a factor there.
Yeah, I wasn't actually disagreeing. I think we're on the same page. 
Is this arc a continuation of War with the Seers? Or is that behind us now?
Are they ever going to be a playable faction?
Sorry to hear that your RL is still going all to crap. 
@Arkandel said in What is the 'ideal' power range?:
So does the existence of PvP/PK and/or a +warn mechanism relate to whether the power curve is normalized (and where) on a game?
It does, actually. I mean, I'm not sure that I can answer specifically your original question because I'm not -- entirely sure that it can actually be answered in any meaningful and systematic way.
But the existence of PvP/PK absolutely does relate to the power curve on a game. For starters, if you're looking for any sort of indicator of mechanical superiority, it's that. Whoever wins the most fights in a series of statistically relevant battles is the superior.
Perhaps more importantly, the increase of PC death/casualties that can come with PvP/PK pretty much ensures that eventually you have some kind of standard distributed spread going on, as higher-level characters will be more rare by sheer virtue of having picked each other off early.
The lack of it means that you will have a much flatter curve on that one, with everyone having much more parity with each other as many of the consequences of interacting with the game's inhabitants get pared down.
I'm still not sure that there is such a thing as an 'ideal power level' in a game. It's too broad and too situational, as has been discussed here already.. There isn't a formula that you can plug numbers into and go 'this is the universal answer'. So this is about as close to 'on topic' as we can really stay.
I don't play anything but Ares games anymore. @Faraday has ruined me for other types of games. No regrets.
Just wish that AresCentral had more listed. But given that I have two in near-perpetual development I guess I can't complain too loudly there.
Editing because late to the party and my reply is no longer relevant. Yay for fixing things with management!
The Strix can be everyone's problem. Pretty much any ephemeral can. Same goes for the Idigam.
Demon + Mage would be fantastic together, but only if you don't mind hte fact that they willl chase each other in circles and try to pin the other down constantly. Their powers and themes are similar enough to be awesome but opposed enough to provide an interesting tension dynamic.
Werewolf can play well with anything, especially given hat Oher Things can be full members of packs now.
They are what you make of htem. None of them play well or poorly with each oher by default.
@macha said in Active Games?:
@testament Until a guest logs in, sees only a handful of folks, and thinks that no one plays there. It's a vicious balancing act.
Not necessarily. There are other metrics of game activity than a gigantic WHO list. If you can see that there are regular logs being posted, for instance, that's a pretty sure sign, as well as like, active forum posts, etc.
I think that the whole 'screen needs to scroll with names' before people take a game seriously mentality is slowly shifting into different realms, but a lot of us old players are just so set in our ways that we don't really think about how it might change for newer generations versus what we're used to seeing in that situation.
@Olsson said in The Crafting Thread:
Threw this together awhile back from pieces of cork.
This is awesome!
@Auspice said in Firefly - Still Flyin':
@Derp said in Firefly - Still Flyin':
I don't try, any more, to document every possible violation in some sort of legal codex because it's more trouble than it's worth and just invites people to try and lawyer.
The reason I recommend documenting is you don't want a situation where you warn J against a certain behavior, say if it happens again they're out... then have another Staffer come along, witness the behavior, and give a slap on the wrist. Because that can lead a player to think Staff isn't serious about warnings.
Does it need to be super detailed? Nah. But just a note to the rest of staff in an area future staffers can access (like a jobs board, a gdoc, w/e) of 'J has been warned not to creep-page. Ban on future offense.'
It protects, IMO, Staff AND players. Now, if you're gonna run a game solo forever? nbd. If you run it with someone (like I do with Paradox on SGM) that you trust and talk to regularly and have no plans to add extra staff? Again, nbd. But if you have it in your game that you might add more staff someday? It might be a good idea to plan for.
Additionally, because I feel like people are painting me as some naysayer trying to paint these guys as terrible: in one of my initial posts I pointed out that the concern was due to vague language and that it left the door open to some issues on all ends. Even you, Derp, are saying that you 'try to be clear about explicitly' what you're shooting for. That was all I was getting at and why I had a big concern over a very vague (in their initial policy writeup) 'we'll monitor RP on complaints.' Something more specific (I think a prev post by the staff said they won't monitor/observe TS for example) would assuage a lot of concerns on many peoples' parts.
I'm not saying that you're naysaying. I'm not even saying that you're wrong. It's just a different style, I think. One hard to describe.
Remind me tomorrow and I'll throw some more stuff in that Sample Policies thread out there somewhere and I will try to elaborate on what I mean when I say 'clear enough to get the idea across without necessarily going into a list of prima facie elements'. Just because I think it's easier.
FWIW, I do agree about documenting actions. Big fan of staff notes on player bits. Big fan.
I went ahead and added this to the quick navigation links at the top of the page, after the Muxify link. It's the little booky lookin' dood.
Might try to find a better icon for Muxify. Dunno.
@Too-Old-For-This said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:
@Sparks Olives are gross. And oregano is the devil. Its an herb that easily overpowers everything it touches, yet its thrown about with casual abandon.
That's how I feel about cilantro.
