Posts made by Ganymede

@darc said in Experienced Tiers or How much is too much?:

There's paraphrasing, and there's what you just did there.

And yet it appears to me that you're both correct.

@wildbaboons said in Questions of Etiquette:

You page someone and they don't respond. How long do you wait before paging again to see if they disconnected/missed your pose/chose to ignore you?

It depends on why I'm paging them.

If I need their attention quickly, I will page once, and then again in 10 minutes or so. After that, if I need to ask a question or relay a message, I will send a @mail.

Otherwise, I page once and that's it.

@faraday said in What isn't CGen for?:

Mostly I'm just interested in continuity: Is there a sensible reason for it, or was it just "I didn't realize what the numbers meant".

This sums up my response.

Whatever system you put in place should be responsive to whatever staff is looking for in a PC. My preference is for PCs that fit the theme and setting. I don't care for min-maxing, as long as the player understands that doing so within the system's limits will make their PC weak in areas which they probably shouldn't. Almost every person I've approved understands that I nitpick only to confirm that they understand what they've built, and to make a decision as to whether the PC is going to fit into the game.

@rizbunz

Confusing, no, but it might hurt the immersion.

You should've picked Toronto.

That said, I can help out a little. I've been to Montreal a couple of times. Just PM.

@thenomain said in Experienced Tiers or How much is too much?:

Really it's mostly that I have problems coming up with a concept that part of my mind instantly sabotages because I've become jaded through too many years in this hobby.

I'm not interested in one more moment of making a character for you, staff. I want to make a character for me, and that means finding out what this character is about during play.

Look, we've both been around the block, and I still can't figure out why an old salty-ass slut-bag like me finds little or no trouble getting my bizarre-ass concepts through while others can't.

There's nothing wrong with your chargen.

@jaded

The gameplay looks pretty good, even if scripted. It looks damn good for the PS4, if a bit dark.

As for the cut-scene, let's face it: we all love the Last of Us for its cut-scenes and acting, and this trailer did not disappoint.

You all tried real hard, but I pretty much stopped caring about other games when I saw this.

@thenomain said in Experienced Tiers or How much is too much?:

(That's a trick question. The answer is never. I have never been excited about anyone's WoD chargen.)

Even your own? That's some real self-loathing shit right there.

@thenomain said in Experienced Tiers or How much is too much?:

I'm currently creating a character on a game far, far higher power than I'm comfortable with because this is what people around me are playing. I am angsting (loudly; sorry everyone around me) that I will not be able to justify this to the gatekeepers and therefore be asked to not play with those people around me.

On Fate's Harvest, you're not required to spend all your XP going on. In fact, you can keep a large amount of it as a "resource" to draw from to improve your PC commensurate with his or her RP. Personally, I reserved over 200 XP on my PC after character generation, and still have 161 XP left on her after a few months of playing.

So, if that's the game you're talking about, I can tell you that Annapurna doesn't care if you pick a Tier 5 PC and reserve 900 XP at the end of it. At least, I don't think she'd care.

@thatonedude said in Experienced Tiers or How much is too much?:

IE: There is less chance my 900xp Mage is going to want to destroy your 100xp Vampire. I say less chance because people are people.

Yeah. Vampires are assholes.

Ideally, I'd like games to only permit one PC per player. The starting power level should be uniform, and progression should be slow. But I realize not everyone shares my preference.

@thenomain said in Experienced Tiers or How much is too much?:

What is the goal of either method? That is, what is it you think that makes one method better than another?

I believe the goal of The Reach and Fallcoast is to allow everyone to get to a high XP level, irrespective of the number of alts at that level. Fate's Harvest is clearly stated to be a place where people can play high-Wyrd changelings, but they only allow one alt at the highest level.

I like Fate's Harvest better because it limits the number of high-powered alts per player.

@thenomain said in Experienced Tiers or How much is too much?:

It's possible that the way FH is doing it means that you're playing five distinct types of characters (one per power level). I don't know the long-term effect of it so I don't know if it's good or not, but this is the closest I can be to being optimistic about them.

It means you can do that, yes. It also means that no one person can have more than one alt starting at the highest tier. That's in stark contrast with The Reach and Fallcoast, where you could have a slew of PCs at the highest XP level.

@arkandel said in Experienced Tiers or How much is too much?:

What's much harder to implement - and in fact, perhaps counterproductive to - is allowing anyone to actually be more powerful than most.

When you say "most," to whom are you referring?

This is important. Being "a great and powerful wizard" that is more powerful than NPCs is likely the objective of many players. Being "the greatest and most powerful among great and powerful wizards" is a more difficult objective for players, but one that many still seek to be despite the propensity for toxicity that such an attitude often brings to a game.

On BSG:U, it was clear that you were a "great and powerful" soldier or pilot. Only a small handful of people bitched about not being "the greatest and most powerful," which made gameplay pleasant. Frankly, our marine teams should have been heavily-outmatched many times, but we made it through with few casualties most of the time (unless the dice or Faraday were being extraordinarily mean).

Contrast that with Fear & Loathing, where everyone wanted to be "the greatest and most powerful" and restrictions on who could be a Guest Star, and there was more cattiness and drama than Eartha Kitt presiding over the Gay Haters' Ball. (To be fair, this sort of drama-llama level is customary on Vampire games.)

I posit that making Tiers available to all without application or requirements levels the playing field. I like the way Fate's Harvest has done it. I can play my murder mouse happily knowing that there are other murder mice out there, but each player only gets one.

@thenomain said in Experienced Tiers or How much is too much?:

This is what I honestly think about Tiers:

They're stupid.

Look, give everyone 300xp (or whatever) and then go back to the slower-xp system that WoD/CoD expects.

Throwing people all over the map for what they can and can't get involved in just tweaks me the wrong way. I can elucidate, but for the moment it's just a knee-jerk reaction of "barf".

If you're referring to Fate's Harvest, the Tier system is there to allow people to have alts. You don't have to apply to become a Tier-5 PC, but you can only have one of them.

@bobotron said in Flat/starting competency on MU*:

I wonder how this would go over in general.

It depends on your player base.

That said, and it has already been said, nWoD 1E and 2E are built on the premise of advancement, 2E especially. If you eliminate XP as a mechanic, then you are also rendering null and void any power or merit that provides Beats, along with the Condition system. Regarding the latter, you are effectively gutting any of the risk-reward analysis in Vampire.

So, I'd say that, mechanically, you're going to need to adjust game mechanics. And then, you still have to deal with players bitching and wailing.

I don't think this solution to whatever problem you are trying to fix is worth the headache.

@chet said in Comics: Superman as a character:

So if you want to learn how to write a major DC Comics superhero, you have to master their archvillain, is my theory.

I have been saying this literally for a decade.

A hero is defined by his greatest struggle, which, in comics, is a super-villain. And the most compelling superhero stories have compelling villains.

I disagree with it, but Grant Morrison is welcome to his theory.

@arkandel said in The Basketball Thread:

• Houston. They'd need to take paycuts though, for sure, and get rid of some players. Capela is a restricted free agent this summer too, and the guy's gonna get paid.

They were too close to victory to mess around with their line-up. Re-upping Paul and tweaking is the way to go.

• San Antonio. A Pop-led team of Kawhi and LeBron is super appealing so... maybe that's the sleeper hit.

It's also the most likely hit. LeBron purportedly gets along just fine with Pop.

• Los Angeles. With Paul George and maybe Boogie? That's not a bad roster.

It's not a bad roster, but it's a terrible place to play. Plus, you'd have to deal with Ball.

• Sixers. Sure, and they have the salary cap space, but can he and Simmons fit on the same team since both need the ball in their hands and neither can shoot?

Putting LeBron here would seriously hamper the development of everyone else. I don't see this happening.

• Dark horse candidates. Pelicans?

As I said, Toronto.

Ibaka makes $21.7 million next year. He's a PF.

CJ Miles makes $8.3 million. He's a SF.

That's $30 million. Convince Lowry and DeRozan to a cap-favorable extensions.

And you could end up with Lowry, DeRozan, James, and Valanciunas.

@arkandel said in The Basketball Thread:

They can't. That's one of the things people talk about, but they can't.

They also said Vegas wouldn't contend for the Stanley Cup.

Kevin Love's a great player but his stock right now is low - no team wants a power forward who can't play good defense badly enough to send serious pieces back.

Then don't ask for serious pieces. Ask for cash or picks.

LeBron got Tristan Thomson and J.R. Smith paid, and they have two and one years left on their contracts IIRC; would you trade anyone good for these guys if you were a GM?

No, so don't ask for it. Ask for cash or picks.

The rest... Korver is going to be 37 years old, Hill is almost always injured and his production wasn't great, Hood forgets to show up and he's hardly a piece... Nance Jr. is trying hard but he's what he is, a jumper with no range.

Korver's out. Hood? Serviceable. Nance? Workable. But they work, can contribute 8-10 PPG, which is just fine and higher than what Thompson brings on a consistent basis.

You underestimate the value of a fire sale, and what it can do.

That said, LBJ on Toronto? Very possible, and they have the sort of lineup that caters to him. You'd make an instant 3-star team, with a potential fourth star in Ibaka.

@thatguythere

He is not staying in Cleveland.

He did what he said he would. He tried to bring a team to another Championship on his back, only to have the dumbest motherfucker in the world screw up a chance to stab the Warriors in the face on home turf.

I'd say that the team quit on him, but that would presume they were putting any effort at all at any point.

If LeBron ends up back in Cleveland, it will be because he's done seeking a ring with his friends. It will be because the Cavaliers jettison everyone older than Clarkson for draft picks and young talent. Because the only place I see LeBron is one where he is surrounded by that kind of talent, and lots of it.

I wouldn't be surprised to see him in Toronto, actually, to go for a single shot at bringing a Championship to the North, thus cementing his legacy.