Posts made by Ganymede

@Luna said:

Maybe. I know he's in treatment for PTSD and is looking to get VA disability so that makes sense. I try to be civil and polite but he makes me excruciatingly uncomfortable. There was a lot of gaslighting and other awful things. I have no interest in this whatsoever. I've lost a lot of weight and his compliments and wanting to hug me just skeeve me out. Wanting to go to dinner alone isn't something I want to do and I don't think I could. I think I would have the mother of all anxiety attacks.

Then don't.

You could ask him why he's asking. If he doesn't say anything short of "because I want to apologize and reconcile for the benefit of my soul and our child," then tell him you do not want to hang out with him, or get to know him again. If he says the above, then tell him you are okay with that, and that you'd like to forgive him, but you can't, won't, and then tell him what I've said above about not wanting to hang out.

I certainly hope you aren't leading him into believing that things will be all right again, if they won't.

@Luna said:

Ok that's what I thought and then I was like...surely not. I was like oh hey, no. It's just so weird.

It may be that, like an alcoholic in the twelve-step process, he wants to confront himself by apologizing to you. I doubt this to be the case, but he may be looking to reconcile, so as to give himself some sort of peace.

@Arkandel said:

Auto-XP is quite friendly to alts, for instance, because otherwise good luck doing 'enough' stuff on multiple characters to get any progress at all and as noted it can be combined with diminishing returns to allow a more natural catch-up for new PCs as well.

I should probably also mention that Kingsmouth only allows 1 PC per player, so this is a non-existent issue there.

There are two differences between Kingsmouth's system and the GMC system:

1. You can claim Beats for more situations than what's in the GMC book.
2. These claimed Beats are capped based on "subject matter."
3. After you reach a certain number of Beats, it costs more Beats to translate into an Experience.

Whereas, Eldritch has the following changes:

1. You have a cap on Beats per week.
2. You get Beats simply for existing.

Yes, there are fewer mechanical changes on Eldritch, but its policies were made based on other concerns. Kingsmouth's system is just as appealing to me. I'm not making a value judgment here on some philosophical preference; these are two different games with different concerns.

I'm mentioning that there are other options -- neither better nor worse.

@Arkandel said:

There are better ways to do the same thing - Eldritch for instance simply caps weekly gains and progressively reduces automatic XP for people after the first six months.

Kingsmouth caps weekly gains, and there's no automatic XP.

Frankly, I like their +beat system. I'm toying with making it a personal diary. So far, it's more like a way for me to document my PCs foibles and unreasonable luck at getting laid.

@tragedyjones said:

Update: Their vague 'he put a ring on it' fb post is a PROMISE ring.

You should unfriend him. He's weak.

@Sunny said:

Why would I take your lunch money? I would much prefer you just spend it on me!

That's still taking it.

@Arkandel said:

Well, you might not have been a fantastic top ladder player since you're lawyering and that doesn't give you sufficient time to devote to perfecting your gaming, but you'd not have a demonstrably harder time in learning the basic controls, moving around, etc (which is what going from 0->1 would reflect).

Maybe not. I've been a proponent of diminishing returns, and did not like GMC's elimination of it.
Admittedly, this may be a bias.

@Sunny said:

Yes, well. I have a lot on my plate right now. I sadly just got around to it at the wrong time. I'll check back in a while.

You do, yes, and I was teasing, which I can do because you're really kind and don't often beat me up for lunch money.

@Arkandel said:

... but why would being very good at something mean you're having a much harder time learning the rudimentary basics of another?

I'm not sure what the official reason is, but I've always felt that the time I devoted and still devote to the practice of law makes me a better lawyer, but a crappy Call of Duty player.

@Coin said:

Setting it, sure; but we're not setting anything, we're liberally discussing "what ifs".

That's right, you are. But even politicians have a goal when they start discussing and proposing policies, even if that goal is "let's fuck up people we don't like!"

Unless you already had an application in when it closed. Which is what I thought you were doing, @Sunny.

@Coin said:

I'm sorry, theorycrafting is kind of fun for me. I didn't know everything had to have a solid, identifiable, realistic goal.

Setting novel policy should have an articulable goal in mind, over and above "wouldn't that be grand?"

Unlike Raptor, however, I don't agree that a greaser-game (my term) is a bad thing. And I don't agree that using the World of Darkness as a setting and system is a bad thing for such a game. If you make it clear what you're trying to do, people will come or they won't.

I think Kingsmouth does a decent job of ensuring some parity between PCs. They do this by altering the number of beats that you need for an experience; the more beats you accumulate, the more you need for an experience. Alternately, you could modify the cost of raises as you gather more experiences.

If you don't have a goal in mind, then you end up with The Reach, five years after it started.

@tragedyjones said:

I guess good sex is less important than not being the douchebag sleeping with someone's girlfriend.

As far as I can tell, her desire to be with you is her problem, not yours.

@Thenomain said:

@Ganymede said:

The proviso is that one should make CGen easy-as-pie. That way, if you get gacked, you can re-spawn nice and quick.

Except that WoD character generation is not easy as pie.

Well, easier, then.

@Arkandel said:

I think you can make a game pretty lethal without making it draconic, though. The illusion of hope ("I have a pretty powerful PC now with all that XP!") is more fun than the certainty of mediocrity.

Hey. It's not draconic. It's risk-driven.

If you take more risks, and win at the end of the day, you should win more XP (and gil). So, why not? The proviso is that one should make CGen easy-as-pie. That way, if you get gacked, you can re-spawn nice and quick.

@Coin said:

Make XP gains based on Conditions/Aspirations/etc., with minimal passive gains, if any at all, and then just make it fucking brutal.

That's often not good enough. If you want a brutal game, I'd suggest awarding Beats only under the following conditions:

In a scene, you:

1. You voluntarily fail a roll without rolling.
2. You involuntarily roll a dramatic failure.
3. You roll an exceptional success.
4. You suffer damage.

AND

5. You successfully obtain your objective.

It sort of forces people into lethal situations. The gamble is that, if you fail at the end, you get nothing.

@Tempest said:

Who made the bbpost? @Alzie, or somebody else?

It was not @Alzie, but @Alzie did have to clarify a post describing a system that doesn't comport with basic legal and historical concepts of agency, tenancy, and possession. That second part didn't bother me as much, though.

@Munsell said:

Recently the influence system just underwent a massive overhaul and what the post is saying is that staff is closing all influence related jobs and giving players 3 days to update them or they will lose the influence they worked for. I don’t like it, but the least he could do was to be more apologetic about it without sounding like such a dick.

I concur with you.

3 days isn't enough time to do what is requested. Even if there were 100 Influence Jobs, I cannot explain the reasoning used to decide to eliminate them all, and cannot concur with that decision.

It does appear to be a knee-jerk reaction. The policy should change.

@Miss-Demeanor said:

Gany: When I say 'sphere-wide plot' I mean 'metaplot for a sphere', as in, the major story arc for a sphere. And I say 'should' because I know that such things HAVE been handed to players before. Never saw it end well, but its happened.

I think I understood what you said. Just because you did not see it end well does not mean it is a bad idea.

What I envision is dividing up a sphere-wide plot into tiny pieces, which a player can easily run on their own. They can be events; they can be actual stories; they can be whatever. Staff can manage that, and pitch in where necessary.

It just requires some coordination and leadership. So maybe it is something we ought not consider.

@Miss-Demeanor said:

Because your player run plots aren't advancing sphere plots or (hopefully) metaplots. STAFF should be running those things, not players. Staff should have that inside information, not players. That should be a Staff ST's entire job, handling the plots that cannot or should not be handled by players.

This is not categorically true or untrue. Players generally expect that staff will handle sphere-wide plots, but this does not have to be the case. And staff does not need to reveal inside information in order to operate a sphere-wide plot. So, I disagree that sphere-wide plots must be run by staff only.

I have for a long time suggested the implementation and use of staff-sanctioned modules. These are plots that are drafted up by staff, with bits of information in them that may be discovered by the players through the plot. Players can easily run modules, and be unaware of over-arching themes or a meta-plot that is shown when you put the modules together.

You use the word "should" a lot, and I have to ask "why." It's not because I'm trying to be obtuse or childish, but because I think we ought to challenge the "should" and wonder: "what if?"