Posts made by Ganymede

@arkandel said in Managing Player Expectations:

I agree with the general principle but with this caveat; it's usually the edge cases who represent a lot of the work needed to put those expectations at ease, so by bringing them up we can perhaps discuss the traits that make them edge cases, and whether they have a point or not.

My experience tells me otherwise.

The cases that require the most work are the ones involving a very active player demanding many things that would be considered reasonable, individually, but, in the aggregate, require a lot of time from the staff end. These players represent a huge workload for staff, but you cannot reasonably refuse them because they aren't asking for any individual thing that is egregious. These are the players that want to investigate every news article, every plot thread, everything, and everyone.

The edge cases may be easily dismissed.

@sunny said in Managing Player Expectations:

Managing healthy expectations is one conversation. Dealing with a tiny population of problem players is something different. I don't really feel like focusing on people who are only after one kind of RP is productive, as they aren't the problem being discussed here.

I concur.

I follow the principle of not catering to the lowest common denominator. I'm concerned with the vast majority of the players I have to deal with, not the occasional or rare ass-hat that I cannot deal with. When those players arrive, I quietly show them the door, regardless of whether they have caused problems or not.

Devoting my time to the players I can deal with consistently is a more efficient use of my time than devoting exorbitant amounts of time to those I cannot.

Fuck you, Ontario voters who decided to elect a corrupt government shill.

It was too much to ask you to have some faith in a lesbian.

It was too much to ask you to examine how much shit this eminently-capable woman accomplished in six years, turning Ontario into the most prosperous state/province in North America, just behind California.

Yeah. Like, fuck you, people who were dog-whistled by sexist bullshit and fear-mongering propaganda that were completely divorced from fact.

To quote Ray Patterson: "Oh gosh. You know, I'm not much on speeches, but it's so gratifying to leave you wallowing in the mess you've made. You're screwed, thank you, bye."

@tnp

I hope to hear it tonight when I see them live.

@lisse24 said in Earning stuff:

I think we need to do a better job of finding ways to make random/social RP focused and meaningful from the outset.

I am of the opinion that engaging in random/social RP is the point of itself. Because of this, I'm not sure how to incentivize it without deprecating it. I like the +activity/log system at Fate's Harvest, and I liked the +beat system at Requiem for Kingsmouth.

But I don't think that those systems necessarily made the interaction meaningful. That was up to the players.

I think this is what you need:

Fred Astaire's Cheek to Cheek.
Doris Day's Dream A Little Dream of Me.
Judy Garland's Somewhere Over the Rainbow.
Louis Armstrong's What a Wonderful World.
Nina Simone's Feeling Good.

@insomnia said in General Video Game Thread:

Today we have AIDS simulator.

Is it similar to That Dragon, Cancer?

@tinuviel said in RL Anger:

Supporting or advocating such a show without a caveat is irresponsible.

I haven't read anything that would suggest that Surreality said anything more than "I like this show."

I really haven't.

How does this qualify as advocacy?

@faraday said in Managing Player Expectations:

This idea that "I want to play Battlestar, so it's your duty to entertain me in the way I wish to be entertained and I'll rake you over the coals if you don't" is just entitled and unreasonable.

Agreed.

@surreality said in RL Anger:

You seriously don't think that's gonna get a 'fuck you, pal'? Really?

He might object due to the education of one Mr. Webster, ma'am.

@faraday said in Managing Player Expectations:

Players need to be more willing to realize that a game just isn't for them. All too often, they'll instead choose to stick around and whine endlessly about how the game isn't meeting their needs. That sort of attitude is toxic and discouraging. We need to get away from this idea that all games need to be everything for everyone. First off, it's impossible, but secondly, when it inevitably fails, all it does is discourage new game development.

The flip side to this is that it's possible to get around this.

For example, when Lotherio was running Fifth Kingdom, there were people that would run the occasional scenes during the evening. That kept activity going there. I can attest to efforts on that end, mostly pushed by players and approved by staff. I never had a problem finding things to do on that game in the evening, despite the fact that Lotherio was mostly active during the daytime.

And the active daytime crowd liked it. GMTers especially.

As another example, on BSG:U, we had player-run plots that occurred during daytime hours, even when you were mostly running things in the evening.

While I concur that it's not possible for a game to meet everyone's needs, I would posit that, with the right set-up and players, you can fill in some of those gaps. It's not going to happen all the time, but it can be done.

@insomnia said in Vampyr:

I'm having a blast playing, but I really think the writers played a lot of Vampire when they were younger.

Well, that'd explain the Gleam of the Red Eyes.

@carex said in Eternal High School.:

This is just a random thought but I realized today WoD: Vampire is a high school simulator for adults.

This is a random response, but it baffles me that no one seems to consider high school a simulator for teens of the stupid, ridiculous shit they will have to deal with for the rest of their damned lives.

@saosmash said in RL Anger:

One of the kids I had in this a couple years ago was literally in trouble for going to the park after school to hit people with foam weapons (it was a boffers' group).

In the 80s, a "boffers' group" meant something different.

@saosmash said in RL Anger:

A commissioner in court threatened a mother with contempt if she didn't hand over the ps4 to the school.

See, this is why Persky's recall is important.

@thatonedude said in #WIDWW pt 2 - ST, Player, or staff?:

Problems with Staff/Player interactions is perception, attitude, and intent. Maybe that sentence should be the perception of attitude and intent.

If a player decided by fiat to roll a pool into a +job requesting information and then told me what they should get and how it is to be delivered, I would perceive that the player felt entitled to shit and intended to be a prick about it.

ST: So, you enter the office. What do you do?
PL: I'm going to look around to figure out how he is going to rig the election. Here's my Investigation roll, where I get 3 successes. Now, tell me every intricacy of that plan.
ST: ... this is the janitor's office.

@bobotron said in RL Anger:

Countdown to lawsuits in 3... 2.... 1....

The Allen, TX situation is a political one, ill-suited for lawsuits.

RL Anger: Be more political; stop making courts decide your shit for you, people.

@faraday said in #WIDWW pt 2 - ST, Player, or staff?:

It's like as long as they think death is off the table, folks will fight long past the point at which it ICly makes any sense to fight.

You remember that time that Erin was incapacitated because she took an arc welder to the groin? She was cautious, but shit happens.

And it was totally traumatic to her.

As you said, it's a player issue, not a system issue. I miss all of that.

@taika said in #WIDWW pt 2 - ST, Player, or staff?:

Do players really get mad when you clobber them? Regardless of whether they die or not?

Your hellhounds were beastly, but ain't nothing that can take down Templeton.

@faraday said in Earning stuff:

If a significant part of your intended audience is looking for something that your game design just flat-out can't provide then you've got issues.

Said everyone at some point about World of Darkness games.

Important events can be scheduled, but World of Darkness games invariably contain some amount of status-earning incentive that creates competition. In a way, this is a plus: internal competition can drive the RP between PCs. In a way, this is a minus: internal competition can create divisions within the PC groups, which makes it difficult or impossible to schedule "important events" in a manner satisfactory to the parties involved and their interests.

That said, it is certainly possible to overcome this inherent system problem in WoD.

@faraday said in Earning stuff:

Games need to set expectations better so people know whether they're getting a game where they're the heroic protagonists or they're getting a game where they're the supporting characters in a wide-reaching story.

Then games need to set policies to support the kind of game they want it to be.

I concur. BSGU made managing expectations a little easier, though, because the military backdrop meant that the missions run would be, by implication, important events that everyone could take a part in. It’s a little more difficult to do this on a WoD game.

If you are going to make players earn something for their PCs, then the rules should be clear and straight-forward, and readily available. I concur with Faraday and Surreality here.

If there is discretion involved, the exercise should be consistent. Ideally, deviations in that consistency should be adequately documented to explain the deviation, and why it was fair.

These rules are different than rules about on-game conduct. Those rules are by necessity and circumstance going to need to be more vague, but should still adequately inform new players as well as provide staff the discretion to act on novel situations.

But system-based gains should be less discretionary and more strict. Otherwise, you’re going to have favoritism complaints, among other things.

Staff need to be quick and decisive when they act, regardless.