Best posts made by Ganymede

@Derp said in MUers in the news?:

Seriously? Are we going to do this dance again? Can you maybe, I dunno. Just fucking stop with the insistence on people having the "proper" skin color in 2022? Because that is SUCH a big "oof."

You know, it may very well be that the material itself is inherently racist. We had a big discussion about this in the context of Werewolf: The Apocalypse's tribes a while back, along with the ill-conceived Gypsies supplement. If the material used is inherently racist, then I'm not comfortable labeling a person using the material as "racist."

@Bellecourt

Mods are as susceptible as anyone of being wrong, but Derp is wrong whenever I'm arguing with him.

@EmmahSue said:

If you want to play rape-plot, do your thing.

The only way I would ever allow a rape-plot or rape RP is if the player who allegedly committed the rape did so with an NPC victim off-screen. If you want to play a villain, that's fine. Be prepared for strong, harsh reactions.

Otherwise, upon receiving notice, I would investigate the truth of the allegations, and, if verified, I would probably boot the offender and and all of his/her PCs off the game. If the offender and the victim consented to the RP, I would probably warn them, retcon the entire situation, and warn them very sternly not to do that shit ever again.

While one can make a philosophical or sociological statement regarding the harshness of the penalty, and I don't mind discussing that, that does not mean I, as staff, do not have the authority and discretion to deal with what I believe to be inappropriate behavior harshly and with prejudice. I am old and mature enough to deal with the consequences.

I should've been playing Horizon Zero Dawn a long time ago.

@Misadventure

Constantly taking steps -- even easy ones -- to defend yourself against potential prejudice is fucking exhausting.

@HelloProject said in UX: It's time for The Talk:

In the context of the roll command, roll Presence + Socialize + Striking Looks + Socialize: Format Events + Applicable Condition + Applicable Discipline is, to me, far simpler than having to go and either look up notes or open up PDFs or Google trying to figure out which PDF which thing is from so that you can remember that something is a 2.

Okay.

You'll be pleasantly surprised to learn that what you're proposing is the status quo, as far as I know.

@Auspice said in Things We Should Have Learned Sooner:

And fuck instant grits.

And fuck polenta.

And an extra fuck you to anyone who tries to conflate cream of wheat and grits.

Couscous.

Delicious.

@Ghost said in POLL: Super Hero MU Gut Check:

What about DC Cosmic, such as Green Lantern Corps and the ROYGBIV spectrum of heroes and villains?

I always found that a bit lame.

But I'm in if I get to be Dex-Starr.

@roz said in General Video Game Thread:

Um yes? I do remember? I remember all the plots because DA2 had the best story and best characters of all the DA games?

I concur.

Keep in mind that I was totally blown away by The Last of Us, though, so anything else is just meh in my books. Except Horizon Zero Dawn, which is the only game that can give me vertigo after a couple of hours.

Goddamned Banuk Figurines.

@Ghost said in Telnet Safety:

NEVER give your address, phone, banking, fullname, general location, business information, etc over pages/chat in MU even if you trust the person because THE DANGER ISNT YOUR FRIEND, BUT THE SERVICE/PROTOCOL YOU ARE USING.

Fixed that for you.

You nerd.

@Paris said in UX: It's time for The Talk:

On ours, it'd be +roll presence + intimidation.regal + mantle (spring)

I know. When I'd roll, though, I'd just type "+roll <sum of my relevant dots and bonuses>." And if someone asked: "Gany, why did you roll <sum of my relevant dots and bonuses>?", I would reply with "because that's the sum of my relevant dots and bonuses."

I can count. I know how my +sheet works. I know how the game works. More often than not, I forget bonuses and apply too many negative modifiers, but I don't care, I'm having fun.

@WTFE

My short review of Paranormal Activity:

If your idea of a good time is having loud noises and sudden movement startle you, then you are either a house cat or someone who liked Paranormal Activity. The fact that this series got several sequels/installments serves to reinforce my belief that ill-educated people will always confuse pornography for sex.

I sort of understand why this is the case. This movie came out around the same time that YouTube got kind of popular, and porn tubes started to proliferate. People like to have what they want immediately, and to have it be as gratifying as possible. I shouldn't say "people", though; rather, this is the common perception of what we are entitled to, as this is as horrifyingly incorrect as labeling Paranormal Activity as entertaining.

The only thing paranormal about the movie is its popularity. It's spooky. Whereas horror fans could have enjoyed gems like The Orphanage (Il Orphanato) or [REC], they instead found themselves adulating this awful cinematic abortion that's about as fun as voyeur porn at a convenience store: something exciting might happen if you lower your standards enough, but you're probably better off buying a subscription to BangBros., which produced more films that are more entertaining, humorous, and tongue-in-cheek than Paranormal Activity.

It'd probably make more sense too.

@HelloRaptor said:

Banning a subject of roleplay for the stated reason that it causes people OOC distress and drama, while engaging in roleplay that causes people OOC distress and drama, seems pretty spot on.

But only if I'm engaging in role-play that causes people OOC distress and drama. If I don't, then I'm not being hypocritical. Your argument assumes facts not present in anything I've said so far in this thread.

Regardless, I justify the ban because I don't want to have to deal with the fallout as staff. It is less about others, and more about me. So, you can call me a capricious, unreasonable bitch, but I whole-heartedly deny that I regularly engage in role-play that causes OOC distress and drama -- or have done so in recent memory.

@thenomain said in General Video Game Thread:

It's good to know your history.

Sure. By that rationale, we should all start playing TIE Fighter again before we go after SW: Battlefront II. And we should also play Final Fantasy before we hit Final Fantasy XV. And you know I have goosebumps after learning that Star Control II is going to have a sequel in the future.

I was not impressed by Dragon Age's "tactical" combat, likely because I played it on console and I played Mass Effect prior. I've getting more into storyline-heavy games, like the Uncharted series, The Last of Us, and Horizon Zero Dawn. So, the thought of going back and playing through Dragon Age, as much as I liked it, has little appeal. I couldn't make it through Inquisition.

@Wizz

Horizon Zero Dawn is so pretty and smooth, it's unbelievable. And sort of difficult. Herds of cattle can really fuck you up, along with giant chickens.

But it is satisfying to take down massive robo-crocodiles. Oh yeah.

@HelloProject said in UX: It's time for The Talk:

But this is inherently the mindset of a seasoned MUer, like you said. From the outside looking in, this is a confusing mess.

I'm a seasoned MUer now. But when I started in 1996, I had to deal with PennMUSH, confusing documentation, the introduction of TinyMUX, and what I see as the same shit as before. It sure was confusing to begin with, but, like many things, if you give an honest effort and some time it becomes easy to decipher.

I don't like dealing with anecdotes and hypotheticals. Let me use two recent examples of dealing with new codebases: Evennia and Ares.

Arx uses Evennia. Coming to Arx was a somewhat difficult transition. But @Apos and @Kanye-Qwest were quick to come aboard, help me figure out basic commands, and get through the character generation process. My RP there was brief and preliminary, and I eventually stopped logging in because I couldn't get consistent RP during my busy times. It was a learning experience.

BSG:U uses Ares. I experienced little to no problem, largely due to my familiarity with TinyMUX and PennMUSH. Speaking of the latter, my first experience was RobotechMUSH. I had problems with some of the commands -- I was more used to TinyMUX, on which my first MUX was built -- so I soft-coded my own personal commands on my PC object. Staff helped me do this.

I actually came from MUDs to MUXs, way back when. I found MUD staff tremendously unhelpful, relative to the MUSH staff I later interacted with. I can probably say that, but for the help of staffers, I might not have stayed around. So, as a non-coder, this is I think where my disconnect is: you can improve UX immensely by having helpful staffers. Also, no matter how awesome your code is: your players will have a shitty UX if you don't have helpful staffers.

So, I'll say it again: I've never left a game -- even when I was a rookie MUSHER -- because of the code involved. If it's not my decision and fault, then my motivations have largely been due to staff and other players. Never the code.

@Kanye-Qwest said in Auspice Needs To Move!:

Snakebite seems plausible, for Texas.

Stunner seems plausible, for the Texas Rattlesnake.

@Arkandel said in Eliminating social stats:

During game design, one of the potential ideas for its systems is to eliminate all social mechanics from it. That means no 'charisma' or 'manipulation' mundane attributes and no powers that sway emotions or decision-making.

I like this, but --

The intent behind this is to cut down on incidents where social attributes like that are ignored either way ('no, I get you rolled six successes on lying, but...'), not have to deal with 'how much sway' a given attempt produced given I've never been satisfied with how social damage has been implemented before in the games I've played, but also to eliminate concepts that try to browbeat others into TS.

-- I don't think the motivation is correct.

I have always believed that the problem is using these powers to twist another into playing in a way that would otherwise be contrary to the choice they would make for their PC. The problem is depriving agency, not the use of social stats themselves. And it's never a fair trade-off: no one balks when a vampire uses telepathy to determine if someone's actually lying, but sometimes make a stink when a player rolls a set of dice to make people believe their character's lie.

If social stats are limited to how a character appears, I'd be fine with that. Rolling social stats to give the appearance of being charming, innocent, or honest when one is concealing true motives is important. In a way, it's almost defensive: a guard is suspicious that a knight is lying his way past, but that knight seems so honest and caring -- he couldn't be a liar -- so he lets him through despite his better judgment. The knight isn't twisting the guard's behavior; he's giving the guard no cause to mistrust him.

It's a hard thing to balance. I know that, in my own system, I've reduced the social stats down considerably to a single stat: Guile. Guile's important to have as a tactician as much as a merchant, and comes into play in combat and the economy.

@lithium said in Cheap or Free Games!:

I have not played it. I have heard good things but, money is what money is.

I will send a copy to you, if you'd like.

It's really that good. So good that I feel I have to spread the gospel.

@Lithium said in UX: It's time for The Talk:

I get the feeling that some people seem to want a point and click choose your own adventure.

Some people do. I'm very serious when I say this. But they don't seem to stay long in the medium. We could try to cater to them to draw them in, but I wonder privately if it's worth the effort. And that's sort of the basis I'm coming from.

I don't object to simplification. This is a worthwhile goal, and I'll leave it to the coders to figure that out. From the non-coding end, I think it's more effective to provide support to staff and players who want to make everyone's UX enjoyable to the best of their ability.

@surreality said in Good TV:

Admittedly, this is more or less the same schtick we see on MU*s a lot -- it's more or less the equivalent of the 'end of the world' plot.

My next vampire alt will be nicknamed 'The Shredder'.

@Misadventure said in Eliminating social stats:

These are all social skills in my eyes. They all come under Ganymede's Guile, representing knowledge of options, and the ability to assess which approaches will be most likely get you want you want the most effectively.

To be fair, I boiled it all down to Guile because the game's supposed to be a war game, mostly, with a lot of pew-pew-pew and a lot of boom.