Best posts made by Ganymede

We closed our bars.

We are a military city.

The escort and strip club industries are in shambles.

@HorrorHound said in Reality Levels and WOD Realms:

Your players need to be mature, unjaded and realize such games mean they are never alone. Specifically for things like politics. @Ganymede may have some better grip with how to implement that without coming off as weird.

I spent some time considering how to best implement a mini-game, off-screen political system for Cobalt's project. In doing so, I came to the conclusion that the most genial way to do this is by focusing the mini-game on: (1) gathering resources; (2) acquiring and completing jobs/quests/missions from NPCs; and (3) gradually building up territories.

RfK's system fell down because it tried to do too much. In addition to the above, you could wrest control of places away from factions, debilitate or destroy territories, and otherwise act in a deleterious fashion. As realistic as this might be, you are encouraging a hostile PvP environment. Managing that in addition to managing the inevitable PvP that arises in a MU* -- especially a WoD MU* -- is difficult, and runs contrary with the general theme of player collaboration in creating and maintaining a welcoming, inviting game environment.

Barring the absolute automation of every facet of a game, MU*s will not be able to compete or compare with other kinds of online role-playing games. The best way to manage politics between players and characters is to not try to do this.

I hope this might help people. Apparently, it is a list of jobs available for people that want to work remotely, updated as of the end of February.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1M-8J7z605dcPhUjYfyiKVxuci0e4AWsDLo_tvs19C5M/htmlview?fbclid=IwAR292wSPdo_Rl771WdJvglreAqpaQB5rbxVbRQrsNclV6pRFEI6kto__S7k

@Hexagon said in XP Tax:

I'm unfamiliar with RfK. How did players recompose their characters?

You really didn't, after a month or so. Why would you?

Stat decay is an understandable concept, but it's not something that seems to be applicable to a MU*. which takes place, generally, in real time. Why would my stats degrade over 6 months?

As someone said before, I don't know if there's really a problem here to be solved.

@RightMeow

I concur with Sunny. These are the victories which are meaningful.

@Seraphim73 said in Searching for Star Wars RPI:

Except for the plots that I and a few others ran, the rules weren't followed and things were very freeform -- which can be good and bad. It can lead to awesome stories, or it can lead to the (just barely) Force Sensitive Zeltron Death Watch Mandalorian Empress of the jungle planet (yes, really) Tattooine using Move Light Object to lift a creature larger than a speeder, because obviously she is Force Sensitive, so she can lift big things, even if she doesn't have the Move Object Force Power.

This may be the case, and these players may still be about. I don't know.

So far, though, staff has been naught but helpful. If they are okay with players running plots, then it's only a matter of time before some of us start doing this with an eye towards detail. I'm all for hand-wavium when needed, but you cheapen the system by blatantly ignoring certain things.

Personally, I'd like to run a big space battle.

@Derp said in The Work Thread:

I wasn't trying to pick a fight. I was agreeing that it's frustrating.

I wasn't fighting; I was concurring.

Like, I get it. I should have known that the AGO would spit out poor work product. But, like, maybe? You get a gem.

Their appellate work is just fine, but their litigation work is just terrible.

@Auspice

I see no reason not to continue as such.

@WTFE said in RL Anger:

Well, I don't claim it's harmless. I was just dubious of "it's just as bad as cigarettes" since by all accounts this is emphatically not true.

Frankly, I haven't seen reliable studies either way. Look at it this way: much like using a bong, vaporized material is far easier to inhale than smoked material. I've seen people suck in massive amounts of cloud-like vapor in a way that I've seen few cigarette smokers. That shit can't be good for you, and is definitely not harmless.

Personally, vaping is actually harder for me to stomach. That glycerine makes my lungs feel like they've been caked in asphalt after a couple of minutes, something that I simply don't get from cigarettes. Given that cigarettes have this huge stigma, I smoke socially and on occasion; however, whereas vaping is found more acceptable due to the lack of an unpleasant aroma (no matter how pungent) vapers are doing it far more they would normally smoke.

Smoking cigarettes. Smoking weed. Inhaling vapor. It's all probably a bad thing, and the delivery of more nicotine seals the deal for me. That shit is downright awful to your body.

So, my argument is anecdotal, and should be given the same weight.

But, as @Thenomain said, vapers around our parts are downright asses about that shit, and need to be given a fucking steel-toed colonoscopy more often than not.

@Darren said in ISO: a comics/superheroes MU* (give me your recs):

The only thing holding me back is I am not sure how well a game not based on Marvel or DC would be received.

There's enough fans of The Umbrella Academy, The Boys, and Watchmen to probably give you a non-Marvel / non-DC player base.

@Meg said in RL Anger:

Can we all agree that anyone who smokes marijuana in public should be shot on sight? (Just in like, the foot.)

Around people that don't want that stink on them? Sure, that's a dick move.

You walking specifically to where someone is happily smoking their weed, and telling them to stop or buzz off? That makes you the asshole.

@SG said in RL Anger:

Is vaping anything like using a hooka? I've come across articles that claim hookas are worse than smoking simply because the sessions last much longer, so instead of having like 2 cigarettes an hour, people are constantly hooking(?) over the hour.

They are not the same thing. A hooka is basically a bong through which you smoke flavored tobacco.

@Coin said in RL Anger:

No. We can agree that vaping, pot smoking, and tobacco smoking should all be regulated by the same rules, mores, and laws, regarding where it can be done, though.

I think it's pretty simple.

1. If you're going to do something that makes you smell like shit or downright pungent, don't start it up around people who do not want to be around a powerful stench.

2. If you come upon someone doing something that makes them stinky, don't walk into their space and demand that they leave you fucking cunt.

3. Whatever you might think about the stench, don't be a fucking uppity prick about it like most of the fuckwad vapers that pop up where I enjoy watering myself.

4. Although vaping is not the same as smoking, if an establishment is non-smoking don't fucking vape in it, you cockjobber.

5. Tone it down with the perfume, Janice. You can't cover your stink of failure with some Liz Taylor shit.

I mean, it's pretty basic etiquette among smokers that you don't light up around a non-smoker without asking them if it's okay first. That's where this all stems from, for me.

@olsson said in Why are there so many MUs set in Maine?:

I kinda wish we had some more games set outside of the US, personally, but I understand with the demographic why that's not the case.

To be honest, if it is was built I would consider going. Haunted Memories was a lot of fun and was set in Vienna. I would prefer, however, if the staff in charge of the setting and theme were also from the area because I honestly want to feel the culture.

@Ghost said in RL Anger:

I was a teen once and I thought I knew everything then.

When I was a teen, I never gave anyone any money that I expected to get back.

My family had a rule: never loan money to friends. Any money given is a gift.

If you get something back, great. If not, you understood the consequences.

Not surprisingly, I rarely gave anyone any money. I had enough friends.

@redjellybean said in Searching For A Game:

I thought I'd try branching out a bit and get some suggestions from people on possible games to try out that maybe aren't WoD. Hopefully a game with active players that would be welcoming of a newbie to the genre.

Arx is pretty much the fantasy game of the moment. The learning curve is steep, but the investment of time is worth it.

I can also recommend Savage Skies. I think it is still active.

@surreality said in State of Things:

• Any condition you don't report can potentially screw you over with insurance companies, or that was the old standard -- even ones you don't know you have or don't know are relevant somehow, just in case there's some tangential link you may be wholly unaware of.

This is still the standard. Fraud or negligent misrepresentation can render a policy void.

• Is this only for sexual assaults reported to the police? (Think of the percentages... )

No. Sexual assault is sexual assault.

• Would not reporting sexual assault to the police then constitute an attempt to defraud the insurance company?

No, if you report the sexual assault to the insurance company.

I think the horrible thing to consider is 1 in 5 women in the U.S.A. has reported sexual assault at some point in their life. So that means that 20% of women, regardless of circumstance, may not be covered. Consider that estimates of actual sexual assault are around 1 in 3. That means 33%.

Consider also that a woman may be denied for domestic violence too: http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2009/sep/21/michelle-obama/michelle-obama-claims-domestic-violence-counts-pre/ So, you have to increase the number for victims of domestic violence that were not the victims of sexual violence.

Over 1/3 of women may end up being uninsurable if their coverage lapses. This will keep women close to their abusers, for fear of being uninsured forever.

Think about that.

@derp said in Roster Characters & WoD?:

Your continuity goes all to hell as each and every person plays them in a different way because they don't actually give a shit about their story or history, they just don't wanna do the chargen work.

It's funny to me because this does not seem to be a huge issue on large games with a roster like, oh, Arx. I mean, sure, it has a host of attendant problems, but this really isn't one of them. And frankly, I think what you said before says more about World of Darkness players than about rosters.

To be fair, though, I'd probably allow every player to make 1 OC when they come on board. After that, like, do what you will, but if you hand-off your PC to an idle-out, like on most WoD games, that PC's fate is in staff's hands unless you give some sort of last-will instruction.

@Paris said in RL Anger:

Nobody knows about your stiffy unless you act like a dick about it.

A million teenage boys and a million awkward "walking to the blackboard" moments contradict what you say about no one noticing a man's unintentional stiffy.

@tinuviel said in Roster Characters & WoD?:

Boom, full sheet done up with random stats to play with. Hit +random a bunch until you're happy.

It's been done before. Tartarus had a "random PC" generator. You drop in, pick a concept, make a couple of tweaks, and the char-gen would make the PC for you. Once you logged out, unless you put a flag on the PC, it would disappear. This was great for people who wanted to play the victim, but allowed them to keep the PC if they chose to.

@ghost said in Roster Characters & WoD?:

Both good points, so really I think the only solution (since setting up SSL would be a bitch) would be to fall back on old-fashioned "gatekeeping" methods that clubs, parties, and other events fall back on.

Yeah, this is what I'm doing right now, and I suck at it in the sense that I don't check the approval queue often enough.

@WTFE said in RL Anger:

See, what I get out of that story is that adults are shit, not children.

The thief is also shit. It wasn't enough that it stole a cellphone, which is worth a substantial amount of money; it also had to go ahead and be a tremendous dick about it.

I'd press charges if I were the victim's parents. And then inform the school board of the principal's failure to act.

@Hexagon said in XP Tax:

I'm not quite sure how it limits the ability of well-developed PCs to increase traits versus the not-well-developed PCs. Can you elaborate on that? I appreciate the analysis.

The system itself doesn't do it, but several CoD games have limited auto-gain to 1 XP or 5 beats per week. (You can still get beats for participating in plots, to encourage activity.) When a PC hits a certain level of accrued XP, the auto-gain code knocks down the gain to 4 beats per week. Hit another level, and it goes to 3 beats per week.

On RfK, you were limited to the amount of beats you could gain per week. As you spent more XP, the cost of each XP -- these are what you need to raise stats -- increased, i.e., after 50 spent XP, each XP cost 6 beats instead of 5; after 100 spent XP, each XP cost 7 beats; etc.

I wouldn't call this a "tax," but it does throttle advancement after a certain threshold of spent XP. I don't think there should be any maintenance cost for stats because you're adding a completely different mechanic to complete the same purpose (I think) as modifying the existing mechanic.