Best posts made by faraday

My daughter was sharing some of the youtube things she liked with an extended family member, including the Holderness Family ADHD video. Kid and I found it so relatable. Family member's immediate reaction was to make the "Loser" sign for Penn because he's "just making excuses for not doing what he needs to do".

While, yes, I get that having a challenge like ADHD doesn't absolve you of responsibilities, that attitude just makes me sad.

My advice, copied/pasted from the Ares forums when someone asked "how much work would it be to do cofd/wod rules in Ares".

A couple of folks have looked into this before, and it really comes down to what you mean by “CoD Ruleset” and what your vision is.

Ares is designed to accept skill systems as plugins. By this I mean the ability to have a character sheet, to set stuff in chargen, and to roll dice within the context of scenes. This is a big job (especially for a pen and paper RPG system) but it’s certainly feasible to do that for CoD.

However, CoD games have traditionally included a lot more code than just the skills system. Immersive code like that “reality level” stuff or real-time “blood tracking” systems don’t mesh well with the scene system, web portal, and asynchronous RP. And they would be impossible to build as a plugin because they affect multiple core systems.

Also, Ares systems are built with OOC cooperation in mind. For example - profiles are public, plots are public, there aren’t advanced faction permission controls and stuff. I’ve never really played on CoD games, but I’ve been told that they tend to involve more OOC obfuscation or antagonism. A game like that would not be a good fit for the Ares platform.

@juke said in If you work hard, son, maybe someday you'll RP:

For me, 'what if...our characters, two people with conflicting agendas who don't know each other at all, randomly met on a riverboat that had a poker tournament on it and tried to work those angles?' -- isn't work, that's like 'holy shit yes, let's go do that right now.' (Spoilers: the riverboat broke in half and sank, on fire. True story.)

This exactly. That scenario would be like: "Heck yeah!" Versus, "Anybody wanna RP on the riverboat?", which strikes me as something most likely to end up with a bunch of folks just sitting around posing poker hands or chilling at the bar doing nothing of consequence. The scene doesn't need to be (and shouldn't be) scripted, but it at least needs an interesting launching-off point.

If that's what floats your boat (pun intended) - more power to you! I'm not trying to call WrongFun here. It just doesn't do it for me any more.

@derp said in Dare I ask...:

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

Yeah, as long as you're up front about it, people can make their own decisions as to whether a game is right for them.

For me? XP is NOT a player reward, it's an IC thing. That's why on FS3 games everybody receives the same static XP award each week.

Chargen represents your character's life up to the point you start playing them. XP represents your character's growth since then. The player doesn't enter into it in the slightest.

So if you want to improve your athletics or learn Spanish? I assume your character is just spending their free time hitting the gym or doing Rosetta Stone. If you want to learn demolitions or earn a M.D. though? I want to know how exactly you plan on doing that, because that's not just something somebody casually picks up.

But like Derp said - I realize that's not the only way to look at it. That's just the way I look at it, and that's how my games are structured. If that's not what you're looking for, no hard feelings.

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

@aria I forget if someone else already said this, but the argument against actors being responsible for gun safety is they're not trained professionals. Every movie set has, or at least is supposed to have, two trained, licensed professionals who check every firearm to be used in a scene prior to the cameras rolling, to check that it's loaded with blanks and to announce loudly to the whole set that the gun is either live or not. Adding that responsibility to the actor, who almost certainly is not accredited, just creates another way for the system to break by adding an amateur to a system designed for professionals. I tend to support this position, from my own anecdotal experience with systems that have lots of redundancy.

Exactly. It would be like a novice skydiver taking apart their parachute to try and make sure it's been packed properly. You don't want that; you want them to rely on the expert whose literal job it is to make sure the equipment is safe.

An actor isn't going to understand the subtle differences between dummy rounds (which can't shoot and just look like real bullets), blanks (which have dangerous gunpowder but no bullet) and real live bullets.

I have no experience with the film business myself, but many pro armorers have spoken out in interviews about their own on-set safety procedures since the incident. The gulf between what they describe and the stories coming out of the Rust set can only be summarized as: "OMG WTF was going on in that set??"

@derp said in Developing a WoD Codebase for Ares:

Or something like that. I forget the exact details because it's been a minute and I'm rusty but there is a way to put your custom stuff in a place where the base Ares stuff won't cry but also tie it into base Ares stuff.

That doesn't work quite the way you're describing here. It can be done, but it requires modifying the base 'desc' plugin because that's where the 'look' command and its other switches already live.

Adding new commands can be done without affecting core code. Changing existing commands is where you run into the issues that @Rucket was describing.

Now someone could make a WoD plugin complete with a WoD desc plugin (to replace the core one) and a WoD rooms plugin and a WoD scenes plugin and... it just gets unwieldy at some point.

So in summary: doing chargen and rolls? Easy. Doing the immersive stuff? Use Evennia or Rhost and save yourself a lot of trouble.

@A-Meowley said in If you work hard, son, maybe someday you'll RP:

@Lotherio said in If you work hard, son, maybe someday you'll RP:

Ares is meant to be full web portal, client is for holdouts and older players.

Wait. It's supposed to be full web portal? How can we idly chat on channels on the web portal and stuff? Asking for a friend, because obviously I'm not so old that I can't immediately figure out a new system, that'd be absurd...

It is expressly not supposed to be full web portal. Some commands still exist only in-game, and there are no gameplay features that are web-only. (Just the game wiki aspects, like scene log archive, wiki pages, etc.)

I would say that the ultimate goal is to have everything on the web, but that's still a long ways off, and it will never compromise your ability to play with an old-school MUSH client.

@Ninjakitten said in If you work hard, son, maybe someday you'll RP:

The one thing that leaps to mind here is that you don't seem to be able to scene/start privately in the room you're actually in, which makes sense in a Cafe but is a little weird in your apartment.

You should be able to start the scene and then set it private. It's true that you can't do it in one command, but that's more an issue of syntax complexity on the scene/start options than a technical limitation.

I'm also not sure what the concern is about ending up with an abandoned scene in your unshared list. If it bugs you, you can delete it. Or re-use it for the next day and change the description. They'll get auto cleaned up eventually if not shared.

Summary is supposed to show up on public scenes. If it isn't, that's a bug and I'll look into it.

To @Lisse24 -- I agree to some extent that if the tools are failing people then we need better tools. At this point, though, I'm not convinced that the tools are actually failing. I think it's more that people are still discovering how best to leverage these tools. (And there might be some kinks, like if Ninjakitten is right about the summary not showing. It is still in beta.)

On an Ares game, you can still go down to the cafe and camp there, and hope somebody sees you on +where just as you have on MUSHes for 30 years. That hasn't changed.

But you can also do these other things - like start an open scene in the cafe to effectively say "RP HERE!", set a summary, start a temproom scene in a flexible location, etc. These are new options that didn't exist before, and it's going to take some time for people to get used to them. Change doesn't happen overnight.

ETA: Oh, the not announcing scenes thing was intentional. The feedback I got from BSGU was that people preferred the announcing to be by choice rather than automatic. You can use either the RP Requests channel or the announce command (available to all players by default) for this purpose.

@pyrephox Browsers sometimes have a cache for security certificates. If yours got messed up somehow (not sure how that could happen but eh, computers) you might need to clear that cache to remove the bad data. You can try it in a private/incognito window, or try clearing the SSL Cache (specific steps vary by browser).

@testament said in The ADD/ADHD Thread (cont'd from Peeves):

Her consoler couldn't even prescribe that, she had to refer her to a literal psychologist in order to get a proper medication.

That’s not unusual or bad. Counselors have a different set of training than psychologists and psychiatrists. They each operate under different kinds of licenses and have different limits on what they can do.

Not believing ADHD is a thing is just kind of mind-boggling. Do they believe in leeches as well?

Seriously, it’s boggling.

I don't know that anyone likes it, it's just all they have to work with.

Various coders have looked at implementing CofD on Ares, but usually they want to make the full-fledged immersive type of WoD code that people are used to. That doesn't work well with Ares' flexible scene system, and would require so many custom code mods to core systems that it wouldn't be easy to share.

Nobody seems to just want to make a simple chargen + die roller for CofD. No MUSH chargen is easy, but it would be fairly straightforward - like the Fate/FFG/Cortex ones I put together. But even if they did, there are some other considerations around whether CofD/WoD really fits well in Ares' design philosophy.

@Lotherio said in If you work hard, son, maybe someday you'll RP:

Honestly I'm good with both.

Yeah and I should clarify too - I think it's best if folks do try to meet in the middle a little. It just makes for a healthier game overall if more people are able to engage with it and have fun. I may do a random scene with a new player just to make them feel welcome, or make a token appearance at a party (even though I generally dislike random/big scenes), because those efforts can pay dividends in the long-run of ensuring that the game still has critical mass of players logging in to stay open.

But expecting people to do that, and accusing them of being selfish/elitist/sucking/whatever if they don't? That, I think, is not right. It's a game, not an obligation. (That's not directed at your remark personally; just in general.)

Aw thanks, @Ganymede. I worked really hard on AresMUSH and the wiki, so it's nice to hear when folks like it. But beyond that, I have to give credit to the players. We've got a good bunch of folks who go out and do stuff. Lots of IC drama while keeping OOC drama to a minimum. I also have to give a shout out to @EUBanana, @Three-Eyed-Crow and the rest of the TGG crew, since my vision for the game was basically "TGG in Space" (minus the permadeath) The way the PCs are clumped together in a flat organization and the regular mission structure is basically inspired from TGG.

@23quarius said in Movie / TV / Streaming Peeves or Whatever:

The thing I was reading said he was practicing for a cross draw, not filming for the real deal, so I don't really... understand why the hell the gun needed visually realistic bullets for that purpose...

I tend to agree. I've read accounts from other sets where they practice with completely fake plastic gun mocks until the moment of filming, which seems safer overall.

@23quarius said in Movie / TV / Streaming Peeves or Whatever:

I mean the gun tore THROUGH a person and into somebody else. That sounds like FMJ

Yes, the authorities have confirmed that it was a real, live bullet in the gun.

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

its time that perhaps we consumers could live with special effects.

Personally I'm fine with that. I read that Mare of Easttown used CGI muzzle flashes. I couldn't tell the difference.

I just think we shouldn't lose sight of the just HOW FREAKING MANY safety rules had to be violated for this to happen.

Live ammo had to get onto the set somehow.
Whoever loaded the gun had to not notice they were loading live ammo.
TWO people who were supposed to verify that the gun was safe failed to do so.

And those are just the verifiable facts - there are other accusations not verified. Crew members using the props on their time off, guns being left unattended on carts, chain of custody issues with the weapons once loaded, even more live ammo mixed in with the prop ammo, crew members raising safety concerns and being ignored, etc. etc.

There's a certain threshold of negligence at which all the safety regulations in the world won't help because the people involved aren't following them.

@ganymede said in Player Omsbudsman?:

So? If staff recognizes that problem, why is an ombudsman not a solution?

It depends on what the original problem was and how you expect the ombuds to solve it.

For example, one of the things mentioned by OP was the idea that players were too afraid to come to staff. How does having an ombuds fix this? They're still staff. Putting a different colored staff hat on somebody and saying "you can trust this person to help you" doesn't make it so.

Another thing mentioned was the idea that staff would self-sabotage their own game. Again, how does the ombuds keep them from doing so? If their natural response is not to take players into account and dismiss their requests out of hand, then the ombuds is going to face that same problem.

Now, if your only problem is that your staff is well-intentioned but sucks at communicating, then maybe a public relations officer to put a nice spin on things IS what you need. I'm not saying it can never work, just that it usually doesn't.

@Thenomain said in Difference between an NPC and a Staff PC?:

an NPC is part of the environment.

I like that definition from a MUSH context. A staffer should have no more investment in an NPC than they do in the sandstorm they just threw at the players. They might think it's neat, but it's part of the world and not their own personal viewpoint character for interacting with said world (which is more what a PC is all about).

I think the main concern isn't really the nomenclature, but the troubling behaviors that result. Like when a staffer is clearly playing a character like a PC, but is doing so in some shady manner under the guise of "but it's just a staff NPC". Whatever you call it, shady is shady.

@Seraphim73 can attest to the fact that I was a little leery of returning to Canceron again since we were just there I mean sure we could've done "earthquake on Caprica" or "tsunami on Leonis" but all those things felt a little random. The disaster relief story seemed to fit Canceron the best.

I don't know quite where the sweet spot is for campaign length, but a frequent change of scenery is definitely something I think is key to the game's concept. The freedom of being able to go different places was the primary reason I picked a First Cylon War setting over the traditional Second War one.

None of the analogies we're making are going to fit the situation perfectly so there's only so far we can get debating them.

The fact remains that the safety experts within the film industry have well-established practices for handling firearms. Don't take my word for it. There are plenty of interviews you can go and read/watch to hear why the professional armorers and safety experts believe that it's safer to not have actors performing the weapons checks themselves. Folks who want to disagree with them are certainly entitled to do so.

I have no personal stake in the matter. But one more imperfect analogy for the road: if you've got a perfectly good pre-flight checklist, well-proven over thousands of flights, and some nitwit decides to ignore it and just take off without checking anything and crashes? The problem probably isn't with the pre-flight checklist. It's with the nitwit who didn't follow it.

@seraphim73 said in Games:

Can't help you with the slew of arcane commands that start with @ and + -- when I first started with Ares I typed them by pure muscle memory, and it's taken me a couple of years to not type them instinctively.

I mean, you can put in the + or @ if you want. Ares doesn't care. @desc, +desc and just desc are all the same command.

@Tinuviel if that’s your experience, great. More power to you. The MUs I play on aren’t that big, and I think the tendency to look for reasons NOT to play with somebody instead of reasons TO give somebody the benefit of the doubt are not healthy for the game as a whole.

Do I think that makes the players terrible people for prioritizing their own fun above “the health of the game”? Not at all. It is, after all, a game. But I do think there’s a consequence to it.

@macha No offense to your friend, but the simple stimulants like Adderall and Ritalin are most doctors' first drug of choice for a reason. For many people it works great. For others it doesn't. Finding the right medication is an involved process, and it can definitely change over time. At least you're taking the first steps. Good luck!