Posts made by Derp

@too-old-for-this

Duuuuude, that suuuuucks. They didn't even give a reason? No exit paperwork or anything?

@popes

I mean, sure, that's one way to look at it. Boo, homework, or whatever.

But that's certainly not the only way to look at it.

Another way to look at it is that the 'homework' that you are putting into 'your' pretendy-funtimes game is a way to ensure that it is richer, deeper, and more accurate than it would have been otherwise. Because at the end of the day, it isn't your pretendy funtimes game. It's our pretendy-funtimes game. And part of that means putting in the legwork to ensure that we are playing the same game, which is where a LOT of games miss the mark. You don't have players playing the same game, under the same rules, under the same vision. You have several different cohorts playing different games under a vaguely similar structure with wildly different results and themes, resulting in an incoherent mess.

Nothing ruins the immersion and fun of pretendy funtimes games like a person coming in going completely against the grain of what everyone else is doing, not having put the work in to make sure everyone is on the same page.

I mean, personally, I get why someone wouldn't want to do it. I really do. It's a lot of work if you're just in it to do something quick and easy or whatever, assuming no consequences outside of your own little bubble. But that's rarely the case.

So I require them. And if players don't want to do them -- I'm not gonna hate on ya'll.

You just aren't gonna play in the space I set up.

You're gonna be writing this stuff over and over again in play in the future, presumably. You can take an hour, or a day, or whatever, to write up an outline of what that might look like going forward so that we can hash it out.

And if that's too much of a hurdle, there are plenty of other games out there, you know?

Again, no hate or judgment or whatever. But me, personally? I need to know that I, as an administrator, am on the same page with my players. That they know what I expect of them. That I know what they're expecting of me. That we both have a shared understanding of where that character fits.

And I put that right up front on the tin. No surprises.

@greenflashlight said in Balancing wizards and warriors:

I can't be more specific because the only thing I remember about WoT is how very weird it was about women.

It was weird about women.

And weird about men.

And indigenous people.

And poor people.

And rich people.

WoT is just weird about people.

@arkandel

Well, the fact that we have a thread about this at all would suggest that some kind of balance is necessary. Generally speaking (with yes some obvious and notable historical and philosophical exceptions), players will not choose a position that is objectively inferior in every way to other players with the same level of resources. They will seek to mostly maximize their advantages within the realms of what seems amusing to play, maybe sacrificing mechanical advantage for story coolness.

If you have this Ruling Class of Magical Badasses and this subclass of filthy stick-swinging peasants, why would anyone choose to play the peasant? Why wouldn't everyone want to play the magical badass?

And why would you, as the gamerunner, want to set up a situation where the Magical Badass Ruling Class is only in the hands of a few players while all the rest of them have to play stick-swinging peasants just to conform to the numbers game you set up in your theme document?

Hell, for that matter, if the Uberwizards are so powerful in the first place, how come they haven't just outbred all the plebes and now everyone is an Uberwizard in the same way we ate fucked pressed Neanderthal into relative oblivion outside of a few lines of DNA?

In some way, there has to be a way for those two forces to keep each other in check. The system of tradeoffs has to be the core conceit of any fair game, assuming you care about fairness. Players should be relatively equally effective at the things they choose to give a damn about, if they've put equal resources into it.

So, really, it's a question of Power vs. Resistance.

Warriors are strong. They are muscular and can endure almost any kind of physical hardship. They have a lot of physical power and bodily resistances.

Wizards, too, are strong. They are strong willed, and can bend reality to their whims. They're capable of seeing through most bullshit that tries to fool the mind.

Either sort can be charming, or not. Either sort can be naive, or not.

It becomes a question of deciding which things you want to be good at, and which things you want to be bad at. You can't be good at everything. You must be bad at something. And then you set up the system so that the powers and resistances work in opposition to each other. Mental power ignores physical resistance. Physical power doesn't give a damn how strong your mind is.

Etc.

Don't let them double dip. If you wanna play a reality-twisting wizard, don't let them have fireballs. Or create a reason that conjuring a fireball works against you. Sure, you can conjure up a big ball of flaming something, but it has a lot of weight and it has to be thrown like a baseball, which requires the beefy muscles you ain't got. Let them have charms and divinations and things that would typically be considered 'utility' type things.

Anyway, that's the beginnings of how I would do it.

@macha said in Health and Wealth and GrownUp Stuff:

Just got a call, doing a LOT of what I currently do, on a possibly better schedule, for more money per hour. AND they will send me equipment.

Dear gods, I hope.

Sending best possible vibes!

@jennkryst said in Dare I ask...:

@derp BRB, gotta go earn a black belt before I can put in this Martial Arts skill request.

I mean, you joke, but we've all seen the master of Wing Chun who does the aerial shaolin jump-around nonsense that makes you go 'you did not even so much as google wing chun, huh?'.

I don't expect you to be able to do the things the character can, but I expect you to have done some research on the thing. If you want to be world-class at something, I expect you to know what world-class means. If you have -- example, Athletics 5 with a specialty in Figure Skating and you're telling me that you're an olympic figure-skating gold medalist, then yeah, I expect you to have done some research on it. I don't need you to be able to do a triple lutz, but I expect you to be able to tell me what a triple lutz is. If you're going for a 5 with that kind of a background, I might even expect you to know gasp figure skating rules, and to tell the difference between a triple axle and a triple lutz.

You wanna play an elite-level thing, then I expect you to be knowledgeable enough to portray it. If you don't wanna do that work, then you don't get that thing. It's really just that straightforward. If you want the shiny thing, then you do the work to get the shiny thing.

Also, a black belt is the martial arts equivalent of a high school diploma. It shows that you know just enough not to hurt yourself and can probably be trusted in some basic supervision and instruction. You aren't at the peak of the mountain.

Just saying.

@misadventure said in Dare I ask...:

@derp That ... doesn't sound like any xp justification I've ever heard of.

Could you give an example for a mundane skill and some sort of magical power?

OK, so, sticking with WoD examples, I assume for mundane skills the progression of Novice, Practiced, Competent, Expert, Master. So a justification would ideally look something like this:

***Spammy WoD XP Justification***

Maybe also including some logs or something of him using some of his fancy new moves.

Magical abilities, especially for Mage, are the real reason why I started insisting on them in the first place. Because I can't force you to read the book before you play. But I can make damn sure you've read it before I approve you to raise anything. You will not 'just learn it IC'. #SorryNotSorry

I expect you to tell me where and how you're learning it, what it can do, and how it feels / looks / manifests from your character. I want you to show me that you know what this arcanum both can and cannot do. I don't expect you to memorize every possible spell permutation, but I want to know that you know what the Compelling practices are fairly limited, so that you don't try to conjure up dancing dragons of fire with your mighty Forces 1 because 'all you are doing is moving the candle flame that is already there omg!'

This is a ridiculously quick one because I'm at work and can't do a proper one, but something might look like:

***Even Moar Spammier WoD XP Justification***

I mean -- have we considered the idea that 'sit still and be quiet' is maybe just not a thing we should expect of a 7 year old of any sort?

@misadventure said in Dare I ask...:

I don't get xp spend justifications on a MU*

I require them.

I require them for a variety of reasons. Most of it from personal experience. I want to know that you understand what this thing you're buying does. What the requirements of it are. Where it places you in the power hierarchy in the universe you're in. I want you to show me, on paper, that you understand what it is that you're getting your character into.

And then I suffer no bullshit excuses about I didn't know! Yes, you did. You did because I made you write it out before I let you put it on your sheet. You and I reached a shared understanding of what this meant for your character. No take-backsies.

@greenflashlight said in Health and Wealth and GrownUp Stuff:

I am in the ER for dehydration from a gastric bug. I'll be fine, but the nurse wants a urine sample from me and I'm trying so hard not to say to her, "I love your optimism but I need to to temper your expectations."

Ok, this made me lol and I needed that this morning so thank you.

But also sorry that you're in the ER>

@macha said in Health and Wealth and GrownUp Stuff:

Of course, I've been messaging back and forth all afternoon with a guy who wants to sell a sort of soap I can make. Man doesn't understand a thing about soap-making, though, so I am having to explain a LOT of things. Patience is a virtue I am trying to manifest so hard right now.

Make me that soap that doesn't require fat or lye or saponifocation. Also I need it in two hours. And we need to talk about your prices.

Just feel lucky I choose to do business with you at all, ungrateful peasant.

@solstice said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:

Fuck scalpers.

I am so sick of seeing every single thing I want to purchase go out of stock instantly from digital storefronts, usually after an hour of the store being unable to handle requests because it's being effectively DDOSed by bots running API calls.

This is so stupid.

@greenflashlight said in Health and Wealth and GrownUp Stuff:

I gotta say, from all the admittedly incomplete information I have, what Macha is going through at work sounds less like bureaucratic incompetence than a campaign of punitive harassment.

Anyone that engages in a campaign of punitive harassment and expects that it doesn't leave a really obvious paper trail is the top tier of bureaucratically incompetent.

@ganymede said in Autism and The MU* Community:

@ominous said in Autism and The MU* Community:

Are you hiring? I ask for a friend. Maybe a few dozen friends.

Honestly, I wish I had the capacity. My firm's office is quite literally full.

slides Gany a resume for future consideration

@misadventure said in Autism and The MU* Community:

@macha Fuck that guy.

@jennkryst said in Movie / TV / Streaming Peeves or Whatever:

Another Life finished, and big oof. Netflix remains trash, hail Satan.

BIG oof.

I do dom's for pizza when I have to do chain pizza and not my actual favorite pizza.

But I fully admit that pizza hut gets more of my regular business just for that garlic chicken alfredo I could likely make on my own but can't be arsed to.

The Elder One is feeling under the weather today. Pets have been administered. (Also, Benadryl and Cephalexin, but mostly pets.)

@il-volpe

Honestly, this isn't just disability. There's a lot of stuff you should leave off of the resume if you can carefully disguise it. Age discrimination is also a very real thing, in both directions, so never include anything like date of birth if you can avoid it. Include degrees and where they were conferred from, not necessarily when they were conferred. Etc.

Also, despite what people tell you to do, don't include a picture. It only gets attention if you're photogenic by the standards that society considers acceptable.

There's a lot of bullshit they tell you to do in resumes that really only works toward a select privileged few.

@jennkryst

Lower Decks is fantastic! Haters gonna hate.