Posts made by faraday

@bored said in Superhero Games: Quest For Villain PCs:

I think its evidence of people being selfish douches more often than not.

I think it's evidence of people viewing MUSHes as games rather than stories. Very few folks sit down to play a game thinking, "Yeah I think I'm gonna lose today. That sounds like fun." But in contrast, very few authors sit down to write a story thinking, "Oh yeah, my hero is just going to win, win win. ALL THE WINNING." I think MU*s are much more interesting when they're treated as stories and there's a blend of winning and losing, like @Seraphim73 said. But that takes a particular type of players, staff and environment to make work.

@Thenomain But as I said, the places where it's "yes" are counter balanced by the added OOC responsibilities inherent in the role. So is an added IC cost really necessary or beneficial? I personally see no value in punishing people for being more experienced by giving them less points to represent said experience. But that's a choice each game has to make for themselves.

@ThatGuyThere said in Game Concept: Paying for rare things:

@faraday said in Game Concept: Paying for rare things:

Do you have to pay extra on a war game to be a Lieutenant instead of a Ensign just because there are fewer of them, even though being a Lieutenant doesn't really come with any inherent advantages? What's the point?

I agree with your general point but wouldn't a higher rank in a military setting be an inherent advantage? After all the high ranks can order the lower ranks around, that is one of the basic tenets of military discipline.

Yes and no. A squadron leader would order people around for instance but a Lt or LtJg doesn't really have an appreciable amount of authority over other junior officers. And fachead type positions usually come with added responsibilities, so making them pay for the dubious privilege of having more work is.. dubious.

@Arkandel said in Game Concept: Paying for rare things:

There are two issues with paying for rare things.

1. Enough people want to be unique snowflakes so the things you'd like to be rare might end up not really being that...
2. It's really hard to find the sweet spot between having the special thing people pay for being so good it makes up for the cost ...

Yeah, this. I mean, it comes down to what you're trying to accomplish with the system.

Is it game balance? If so you've gotta ask yourself whether what you're limiting really needs to be balanced. Is a X really more powerful than a Y with equal stats? If not, why make them pay extra?

Is it trying to get around a quota by actively discouraging people from being something unusual? If so, don't underestimate players' determination to be cool. You'll most likely just end up with a bunch of underpowered X's grumping about the extra points they had to spend.

Making people pay for advantages makes sense. But rarity is not the same as advantage. Like... are all women in your western game who want to be something other than a wife/schoolmarm/etc. now going to be charged a point tax for being uncommon? Do you have to pay extra on a war game to be a Lieutenant instead of a Ensign just because there are fewer of them, even though being a Lieutenant doesn't really come with any inherent advantages? What's the point?

@WTFE said in Fires of Hope: A Star Wars Story:

This leaves the third option (the one you chose) which will lead to endless shitfits over favouritism.

@lordbelh said:

accusations of staff favoritism

Unless I missed something, it sounded like they were putting the force concepts up for a player vote. I'm not sure that making it a popularity contest is really much of an improvement, mind you, but crying staff favoritism seems like kind of a stretch.

@Ganymede - @Auspice is correct. "Empty" feelings (not just sad) and loss of interest in once-pleasurable activities are two of the classic markers of depression. Brain chemistry is complicated, and I am not one to play armchair psychologist. But I do think there's value in highlighting possible warning signs and encouraging people to get a professional opinion.

@Glitch Well, the entry requirement is being willing to be subjected to unfiltered aggressive dialogue, which this discussion wasn't. Also, saying "you can open the door and go through" does not detract from the feeling of having the door slammed in your face in the first place.

Edit to add: I'm not saying 'never move threads' I'm just suggesting that maybe use a little higher bar of whether something really truly is worthy before moving something behind a firewall. I mean, considering the tone of the criticisms leveled at people in other threads, it didn't seem like anything out of the ordinary here.

It would be kind of nice if people didn't move threads to the Hog Pit that had originated elsewhere. Especially when said discussions were no more aggressive than the usual stuff I see around the ads/mildly constructive sections. Otherwise people who don't participate in the pit can no longer see their own posts or any responses. It's basically the internet equivalent of having the door slammed in your face in mid-conversation.

@gasket said in Star Wars: Insurgency:

In my opinion, things don't tend to improve unless people speak up when they think they see a problem, and aren't told to pipe down because it might be a little mean. I suppose your mileage varies from mine.

There's a difference between saying "pipe down" and saying: "hey, how about conveying your points with more empathy and less hostility". But apparently our mileage does vary.

@Arkandel said in Star Wars: Insurgency:

FCs like that don't belong in bar RP. If they are then it's a problem.

Kind of an ironic thing to say given that some of the most iconic scenes in Star Wars movies take place in cantinas.

But seriously - for those who think it's a bad idea for FCs to be PCs, or to be in everyday scenes, or to be less awesome than their movie counterparts, maybe just... don't play there? Constructive criticism is one thing, but I don't get the need to rain hostile critiques down on a game just because it isn't to your tastes. Especially on their own advertisement thread.

Constructive: "Looks neat, but I won't be playing here because FCs as PCs is a dealbreaker. I think history has proved that it rarely works out well for (these reasons)."

Not so constructive: "Having FCs as PCs is a horrible idea. They don't belong in everyday scenes. They should only ever be questgivers, period, end of discussion. This game is doooomed. But hey, good luck trying the same thing that 72 other games have tried and failed at. I'll just get the popcorn and wait for the Luke TS logs."

@Bobotron said in Star Wars: Insurgency:

Super applause for confining the focus of the game to one planet.

As someone who spent most of my Star Wars RP looking at the WHO list and all the people on planets other than mine, +1 in agreement.

@Monogram said in Mental Health and Grown Up Stuff:

Though a friend mine gave me a 20mg pill of Ativan, told me to break it into four 5gm doses to 'try and help'. Though another friend said this was probably a really bad idea to do...

Yeah, taking other peoples' prescriptions is a Bad Idea (besides being illegal in most if not all states). Apart from the risk of getting the dosage wrong or having unforseen side effects without a physician's monitoring, there's a risk of medication interactions. Some medicines (including some antidepressants) need a 'taper on / taper off' period so stopping/starting suddenly can mess you up. Others can stay in your system and muck up the real drugs that your doctor may later give you.

</end public service announcement>

@Ganymede said in Mental Health and Grown Up Stuff:

But I just am. I have no trick to it. It's how I am, and, I suppose, that means, relative to others, I don't suffer from mental health issues.

Exactly. It would be like saying to a diabetic: "I can eat all the sugar I want and not have any problems. That's just how I am." Well yeah... because you're not a diabetic. Some diabetics can control their sugar through diet. Some need pills. Some need insulin. Everyone's different. I think it's great that @Monogram is taking steps to get well.

@Jennkryst Since I felt guilty for taking the thread on an Earthdawn tangent, here you go: FFG Roller

But to illustrate my point - doing the die rollers in both Earthdawn and FFG took about half an hour each. Doing chargen or an advanced system like combat/space/econ? Many many hours. (So, no, not something I do for a random fun challenge, sorry @Ganymede :))

Dice are pretty easy to model on a MU because there's (usually) a pretty clear algorithm. Roll (something) (some number of times) and (add/subtract/whatever the results). Tabletop chargen/combat/etc. on the other hand aren't very MU-friendly because they have all kinds of special cases: "If you're an elf, you also get..." or "Pick three of these but not that..." or "And if it's raining and you're standing on your head then it's a -2 modifier..." and so forth.

It can be done (witness @Thenomain's WOD code or the various Star Wars/Shadowrun games that have come and gone), but it's a big undertaking and usually requires some compromises on the rules to make them work on an online game. I mean, ultimately that's why I created FS3. I wanted something that was designed from the ground up to work well on a MU and be easy to code. (Side note: Since the mechanics are designed for a computer, it would be just as awkward to do FS3 combat on tabletop as it would to do Shadowrun combat on a MU.)

@Ganymede Here you go: Earthdawn Dice

Obviously I didn't spend a lot of time polishing it up. You'd have to add special handling for step 1/2 (because they work weird) and for karma and some error checking, but it's got the basic mechanics down.

@Ganymede said in Searching for Star Wars RPI:

If so, then why hasn't someone coded up Earthdawn's step-system? Chop, chop.

Because nobody's ever run an Earthdawn game? It wouldn't be hard to do. FFG wouldn't either unless there are some hidden depths beyond the webcomic @Jennkryst cited, but based on what I've heard about the system, it doesn't seem so?

@Jennkryst said in Searching for Star Wars RPI:

Coding... can't you assign success/failure/triumphs/setbacks to the rand()? +roll can pull directly from your +sheet and roll the Ability and Proficiency dice for you.

Coding almost any dice system in a MU is stupidly easy (7th Sea 2nd edition dice being an insane exception). The code complexity comes from chargen and from making those rolls do something (like combat, or ship code, or what have you).

Yeah I'm not aware of anything in Penn/Tiny that would do this.

You could also ask the coder to create a global altmail() function that just wraps around mail(). Would only take them a minute, vs. asking them to build something unusual into +finger to let you capture the output, or implement your alt mail check as a global.

@Catsmeow said in Health and Wealth and GrownUp Stuff:

@Ganymede and @faraday

My only problem with my inhaler is this: My heart rate is already up because of the exercise. I'm worried if I take a hit to get my lungs to open, that it will speed it up more and I'll go into cardiac arrest or something.

Yeah like @Ganymede said, that's a question for your doctor. Everyone reacts differently to medication, and we are not doctors. But as a general rule, the heart rate increase from albuterol is not usually considered dangerous unless there's some underlying cardiac condition. And there are other meds that could help too. Hope you can find something that works for you.

@Catsmeow said in Health and Wealth and GrownUp Stuff:

@Ganymede

nebulizer? What does this do to your heart rate? My inhaler makes it feel like it is exploding out of my chest, so I don't like it.

The inhaler delivers the dose in two puffs. The nebulizer takes several minutes of inhaling the medication through a mist from a nebulizer machine. The nebulizer tends to allow more of the medication to be absorbed, and also tends to increase the side effects (including the annoying fast heart rate). Various studies (source, source) have shown no clinical benefit to nebulizers over inhalers overall. But some individuals find that nebulizers work better for them, as @Ganymede did.

Disclaimer: I'm a paramedic and asthma sufferer, not a doctor. Your doctor will be able to give you advice on alternate treatment options if your inhaler is not enabling you to run.