Posts made by Ganymede

You're so uptight that --

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/uranus-is-probably-full-of-giant-diamonds/ar-AAqHhTY?li=BBnbfcL

@Wizz said in High Fantasy:

I'm not saying that it's not "real" RP, I'm just suggesting people not incentivize it.

Fifth Kingdom has been running this gig where, if you submit a log of playing with <enter player here>, you get an extra 1 XP per month (you get 1 XP per week, I think). The goal is to link people up with other people they haven't yet RPed with. This is similar to what RfK instituted.

You incentivize what you want to see. If you want to see people being inclusive, mark every new PC (less than a month old) as "NEW," and then give XP for all non-NEW PCs that submit a log of RP with that new person. That'll bring new players into the game really, really fast.

If you want to reward making boons on a World of Darkness game, offer a Beat to whomever gives the boon to another person.

And so on.

@Lisse24 said in High Fantasy:

The thing is, though, I play on MUs because I like exploring characters and relationships. That is a type of RP that is done better on MUs than any other format, and your proposal basically says that's not real RP. If I want campaigns and constant action, I'll get together with my friends and do TT.

Maybe you should try BSG:U. Just because there's no system or benefit from getting the most cookies in a week doesn't mean the out-of-battle play isn't fun and worthwhile. I get a lot of mileage out of my Trash Panda.

@Wizz said in High Fantasy:

I'd kinda like to see a MU* that is run more like a public OTT. Players can have bits that multiple characters are attached to and these characters are part of limited campaigns (as in, will end, characters get sent to that giant tavern in the sky) with scheduled scenes. "Downtime" rp is an option, but not incentivized or rewarded in any way - no weekly XP, no cookies or votes or whatever.

I mean...I'm not gonna do it but. XD

So, kind of like what @faraday's doing with BSG:U?

@Kanye-Qwest said in How low can "low stakes" be and still be compelling for RP?:

That's cool. It's my own personal hangup, the setting enforced double standard. Not because of the setting aspect of it, so much as what players (in my limited experience in mushes) do with it.

I think that if there is any double-standard, it is mostly presumed. I'm sure some courtly ladies don't approve of men sleeping around, but doubly-so for women. And I'm very sure some of the ladies of the court aren't pleased with that double-standard, and would rather live their lives free and happily.

And my PC is totally counting on that, see. Hurr hurr.

@Kanye-Qwest

God, I hope so. My alt is a raging dude-bro, insofar as those could exist back then.

Certainly, my PC doesn't give two shits about people sleeping with others of wedlock. That's because he's willing to roll around with any lady.

Dude-bro, see. That's what makes Mr. Turtle funny.

That said, it is old-timey. There should be some hang-ups, but this is before the Christian Puritanical streak really set in. With pagan religions around, promiscuity isn't an issue unless there's some sort of marriage bond. At least, that's my understanding.

Also, I don't think staff cares too much.

@fatefan said in How low can "low stakes" be and still be compelling for RP?:

However, if the game's focus is on peasant farmers, then it becomes very much a matter of (potentially) high drama.

This is what I like about Fifth Kingdom. Sure, there are Lords and Ladies, but you can also play common folk. There are battles to be won, faeries to interact with, and beasts to slay. All this is far more compelling than oh my, monsieur count, yes, i would love attend the spring ball on your arm.

But if you like that, I'm pretty sure you could have that RP too on Fifth Kingdom. Mostly, I just see a lot of action, challenges, and sleeping around liberally because my PC is like that when he's drinking, which is all the time.

@fatefan said in How low can "low stakes" be and still be compelling for RP?:

Is "trying to make sure your pet goats survive the storm while your neighbor seeks to take your land" a compelling enough plot for a handful of characters (rather than, say, being the "downtime" scenes in between more epic drama)? Or is that sort of genre likely to become boring quickly?

Someone taking your livestock or land is pretty "high stakes" for a peasant.

I do too! She didn't cut my head off immediately!

Also, I liked Victoria, for the brief time. (Played Ripley Carter).

@WTFE said in Eliminating social stats:

I'm not sure how Ophelia and Polonius can be seen as protagonists unless you're going by some definition of protagonist that means "only good guys". (And even there Polonius is a stretch.)

A quick glance at the Wikipedia article for Hamlet says:

The protagonist of Hamlet is Prince Hamlet of Denmark...

This coincides with the definition of protagonist I've always seen used: "the main character of a work of fiction". So which definition are you operating under so we can sync expectations?

I go with the former because I find that approach more useful and interesting in analysis, at least when it comes to context, culture, and themes within the story, especially in Shakespeare's fictitious plays. Going the other way would require someone to look at Iago as the protagonist in Othello: there can be no doubt that Iago is the main character because every scene revolves around him in some way, but Iago is generally considered Othello's antagonist.

Defining the protagonist as just the "main character" is fraught with difficulties, as some of the greatest works do not have a clear "main character," if "main" is used to denote a singular, most important figure in a work. Some theorists hold that there can be only one, maybe two protagonists in a work, but I rather disagree.

Anyhow, not really the point of all this, right? I was just musing with your musing. I don't think social stats are going to help when you're dealing with a player who has the social skills of a mushroom, and I don't think social stats are going to help when you're dealing with a player who refuses to play the character they have. These are player problems, not system problems. And I think I'm on your side on that dispute.

And then they'll give Matt Damon a major role.

@WTFE said in Eliminating social stats:

... here's a thought: find me three books (that aren't academic wankery that five English majors in the world have read, I mean -- something that was actually read by actual people) that "resolve" a plot by killing all the protagonists suddenly out of the blue while (important bit here!) none of the current conflicts have even begun to get resolved.

William Shakespeare's Hamlet: The only two protagonists -- Ophelia and Polonius -- are dead before Hamlet can even get close enough to Claudius to kill him. And, no, Hamlet is not the protagonist.

Mary Shelley's Frankenstein: At the onset of the story, the protagonist -- Dr. Frankenstein -- is dead. I'll admit to cheating a little on this one, as the story is mostly a re-telling from the Monster's perspective.

This is a good question, on which I wracked my brain for about half an hour. Good call. I'll probably get a third one. I was going to use Mary Shelley's The Last Man, but that would be cheating.

@Lain said in Eliminating social stats:

So if you can suspend disbelief for factual inaccuracy, why not for low interpersonal skill?

The example of knowing how to cook methamphetamine is an issue of knowledge, and fudging it. It is not analogous to whether a person can conceive of and execute a savvy pick-up line, which is a matter of expression.

On a text-based game, whether you can express an idea takes primacy over actual knowledge over and over. Whether William Shakespeare's recollection of the Battle of Agincourt is accurate is not as important to many scholars as the way he manages to express his ideas on the conflict between loyalty and duty.

As I think I said before, I don't mind or care if someone can't write or spell worth a damn, yet rolls to persuade mine of his or her intelligence. I really don't. But you can probably bet that, given the choice, I would rather spend my time with someone else that can write and spell so I don't have to scratch my eyes out or worry if the other player has either suffered a seizure or reverted to speaking in Gaelic.

@Coin said in Good TV:

It's literally "we burn these cities to the ground to fulfill some stupid cycle of burning cities to the ground because that's what we're here for because apparently cities have expiration dates that we decide".

"The pattern has repeated itself more times than you can fathom. Organic civilizations rise, evolve, advance, and at the apex of their glory they are extinguished."

@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'.

@surreality said in RL Anger:

Bonus irony: I never knew why I was allergic to penicillin. My folks had just told me I was since I was tiny, so I repeated it. Apparently, my 'horrible allergy to penicillin' was... I got a minor reddish splotch-rash on my legs that went away after a day and a half, sort of like a very mild case of hives. Which my folks weren't sure even then weren't just my normal allergies. ?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!??!?!?!?!??!?!?!?!?!

Allergies tend to worsen with each occurrence. Trust me; I know.

@Coin said in Good TV:

the Hand already took over the world, inasmuch as they ever would. Their plans for New York were more in order for them to MAINTAIN the control they had, by burning the city to the ground in order to get what they were after.

Good thing they weren't the Foot.

Although, I think I've heard this plot before, about burning a place named "Gotham" to the ground.

sigh

@Lain said in Eliminating social stats:

Such is similar with players who want to use some subtle emotional ploy with their Manip 1 Persuasion 0 character. It almost definitely doesn't work. This is precisely why we have rolls. So yes, you can RP the specifics how you want, but if you fail the Manip + Persuasion vs Resolve + Composure roll, you are obligated to make your character say/do something stupid. Something unpersuasive. Something mildly embarrassing or just cringey. Why? Because he sucks at this.

I get what you're saying. Now, go ahead and enforce it.

Basically, every pose calculated to arouse something in someone is going to need a roll, and that just doesn't happen. Do I personally care if a person rolls to check if my PC is lying? No, I don't, but I'm pretty easy-going. That said, if I'm interrupted every freaking pose, I'm going to get a bit testy.

I would love it if everyone RPed their stats, but that's nigh impossible. People take fucking Presence 5 that can't pose their way out of a box. Should staff step in and cut down their Presence to 2? Because that's where I see this going, taken to the extreme.

@Lain said in Eliminating social stats:

I write software for a living, but I think it would be bad roleplaying on my part to have my Int 2 Computer 0 World of Darkness character conveniently know how to crack people's WiFi passwords just because I do.

I get that. So if there were no system check for hacking/computer skills, you'd be totally good to go.

Fortunately, or unfortunately, those skills aren't going to convince someone to drop their panties. And, in my opinion, mental skills get shat on through all of these discussions because they generally come up only in PvE situations.

But, I digress.

@Lain said in Eliminating social stats:

I definitely see where you're coming from, with players having an interest in being able to avoid entering some weirdo's magical realm, but wouldn't it be preferable to just ban magical realm shit without suppressing the import of social roles in basically any other context, than it would be to handwave social stats completely?

Some people just don't want any such rule or controversy, really. Whether it's wise or not is what we're discussing.

I'm on the side of "I prefer a system," but I'm also on the side of "or not" because I do very well on games which don't have a social system. Even on ones where one exists, my social concepts tend to do well because I am able to convince people to see my way (eventually) through text. (It's kind of my job.) I'd like to think I'm not a social power gamer, but some people may say differently.

But I'm addressing @Arkandel mostly here, as he and I have bandied around ideas for a while. I'm not sure if I'd agree with him here, but what may be more interesting is a resource-based system for political combat.