Posts made by Ganymede

@HelloRaptor said:

Seifer was a whiny man-child who never did anything even remotely cool except star in a game with really good FMVs. He wasn't even the villain, just a big kid throwing an extended temper tantrum, and without the actual intent or volition to actually BE a villain.

This is why he was the perfect foil for Squall. There's not much to either of them.

There are plenty of reasons why FF:TSW shouldn't have had the Final Fantasy name attached to it, none of which have to do with "not feeling like a Final Fantasy." There was, for one thing, the absolute lack of anything remotely "fantasy" about it, as far as the genre was concerned. No chocobos, recognizable magic, magnificent swords -- nothing. Final Fantasy 8 had all of that.

I mean, seriously, are you even trying to make cogent arguments any more? Like, holy shit, you are getting useless, old man.

You can't honestly tell me that FF8 was any worse than FF7: Dirge of Cerberus. And FF15 is looking like a whole lot of nothing.

@HelloRaptor said:

Don't give me characters to play with, build up, and get attached to and then just be like "Oh hey, sorry, those guys are on hold while you play with these other assholes you have no investment in, and you can't proceed unless you do."

I felt the same way with those scenes with Frodo and Sam in the Return of the King.

Look, I get it: you really didn't like Squall. Not everyone did, and that's fine. Some people had no attachment to Laguna, and really didn't like the flashbacks to him. That's fine too. But to say that it didn't feel like a Final Fantasy game doesn't make much sense to me because fucked-up, grandiose storylines are what the franchise is known for.

I mean, did you really give that much of a shit about Cloud or Zidane? I didn't -- at all. The average FF-player likely preferred Sephiroth or Freya in the respective games, and Seifer was just all sorts of cool. So what?

Criticize the game where it counts. Calling it "not feeling like a Final Fantasy" just sounds stupidly flimsy to me, like the way people feel about not vaccinating their kids.

@HelloRaptor said:

Yeah, in FF8 you didn't have any magic of your own, no spells. You extracted them from monsters mid-fight, and could run out of them.

Or you could extract them from items. This really didn't bother me much; I felt it no different than having to create armor or potions, or stealing items during combat (as in FF6). Plus, I had a map.

If someone could explain the difference between extracting magic and harvesting resources in DA:I or the ME series, I'd be happy to listen. Otherwise, it's just an alternate system that folks didn't like -- which is fine.

@HelloRaptor said:

FF8 is basically just an employment simulator wrapped around the disjointed story of possibly (probably) the worst protagonist of any RPG, ever.

That Squall is essentially the precursor to the emo movement isn't a bad thing; it's a weird sort of prophecy. Frankly, I'm sick of playing cheery, happy, white-hat protagonists. I like Joel far more than Ellie.

Is it too much of a stretch to believe that the entire game revolved around the idea of redeeming Squall? Because that's what the game, to me, was about. Otherwise, the ending makes little sense.

@HelloRaptor said:

Not that it was a terrible game, but it's the least-Final Fantasy game of the entire line.

I don't know what the hell you mean by the emphasized text. Even so, that doesn't really make it a bad game. It's not like that FPS game they made.

@ThatOneDude

Cool with me. I resurrected my vampire -- Ripley. I need to go through the respec, but I'm still up for running scenes. Page me when I'm on; I'm most consistently on during weekdays, EST, business hours.

@ThatOneDude

I can run shit for you on The Reach, if you'd like. I'm there as Clarice or Lindsey.

If you want to RP with me as either alt, that's fine. Be advised that Clarice is a tight-lipped Winter Court Mouse, and Lindsey is a motor-mouth Ithaeur Bone Shadow. Both aren't really going to talk about who they truly are, but I've had some fun pretend-times with both.

I'm considering a vampire again. The concept's not pulling together, though, which is a sign I should heed.

@Wizz

I think in spooky ways, I guess.

No, I think there's nothing beyond the Hedge that wasn't, in some way, crafted from humanity. Those who get free are those able to pull their souls from the Hedge, along with their bodies. I think a very creepy villain are those Hedge-things that are allowed to leave: no souls, just monstrous machines of matter and flesh carved at the hands of alien-beings and destined to serve them. Sort of like what would happen if the Tzimisce existed beyond the Thorns.

Sleep well.

@Arkandel said:

Bonus points if they ask for a refill, I agree with a hopeful smile and a "yes, no ice please" then by the time they're back being busy as hell, they just forget and do it again. Then I'd feel bad about being that guy so I don't say anything.

If you can be specific as to your tastes on your refill, then you could also be specific when you order it. It's not hard to say: "I'll have water, please. Tap water, no ice, no lemon, and no straw. Thanks."

Try that. Then you can bitch all you want when they fuck up that simple order.

@Thenomain said:

[W]here did you get the "all landscape in Arcadia is human"? It sounds very Wraith, and I don't recall anything hinting that way. I admit, tho, that I have read the Changeling books an obsessive number of times tho it's been a while ago now.

The Elemental write-up, mostly.

I concur with Raptor in that I don't recall Pyrephox's interpretation from my readings of C:tL's main book.

Changelings can bargain with the Gentry after their escape, at their own peril. That's fine. But when you consider that the Gentry reap humans to create air, trees, and stone, it seems clear to me that they aren't truly interested in getting anything tangible from humans. They likely only bargain to eventually fuck with someone else, that's all.

@Arkandel said:

I'm pretty sure those are referred to as cabals.

Or law firms.

@Wizz said:

Fairest are the Faces. Ogres are the Muscle. Darklings are the Sneaks. Wizened are the Crafters.

This is true from a certain perspective. I looked at them as:

The Ogres are The Abused. The Fairest are The Cherished. The Wizened are The Enslaved. The Darklings are The Forgotten. The Beasts are The Hunted. The Elementals are The Crafted.

This is still very, very different from the roles in Werewolf. Werewolf is D&D, WoD-style.

@Luna said:

For every woman (and man for that matter) that doesn't need to check with a spouse, there are businesses dealing with credit card disputes and canceled checks for spouses who spend the last of the money. Yeah there's no need to be a dick about it but there's a lot of dysfunction in relationships and money.

My dysfunction is as follows:

1. I have a personal account.
2. My partner has a personal account.
3. We have a joint account for joint expenses.

We handle our own finances. Fuck this presumption that couples need to share everything. Some couples are better off not doing so -- especially couples that consist of attorneys.

@Thenomain said:

My question is basically: How do you know what a game (edit: a game line, a specific set of rules in the RPG sense) is about?

You only know what you're told about it, by the book, the GM, or the other gamers.

I realize I'm not helping, but that's the jist of what I'd say.

@Coin

That's the beautiful thing of contingent statements.

Anyhow, I present Oathcircle's system as a compromise. The players have control over their Renown raises, but only to a certain degree. Additional Renown XP can be given for stories that are actually run as plots., thus incentivizing plots without forbidding raises by stories. You can also limit the amount of Renown stories that can be submitted that are not run as plots.

@Coin said:

But at that point, I can just say my character did a bunch of things and ... forego roleplaying the themes of the game I allegedly wanted to play.

Why would any reasonable player want to forego roleplaying the themes of the game that they want to play? The answer is simple: they don't.

Limiting renown to only what one receives through plots isn't unreasonable, but it makes the gathering of Renown tedious and boring in practice. This is because, whereas werewolves are generally spending 100% their time being hardcore spirit-bashers, players have less time to get their badass-ness on. And sometimes, a player just wants to sit around, smoke awakened plants, and talk some real wisdom with others -- or plan pack activities, or otherwise roleplay outside of a plot.

Allowing players to "fill in the blanks" with submitting Renown stories allows players to play what they want to play when they want to. Otherwise, they will be killing themselves, figuratively, getting into plot after plot, just to meet Renown demands. And that's probably not what you're aiming for.

If your only reason for eschewing alternate systems is "I don't think that's right," then I don't think you're giving the suggestion due consideration.

@Arkandel said:

How was it received on Oathcircle?

Pretty well, I guess. It left whether or not someone went up in Rank to the players. If you're around and active, it made going up simple. Minimal effort to meet the milestones.

The process still satisfied the need for justification. I was not a staff member there, but staff had to approve of the stories too. They did not have to be particularly long-winded. If people played through the story via PRP, that was fine; if not, that was also fine.

If the purpose of justifications is to chronicle the adventures of Werewolf X, then the need is met. And really, that's what Renown is about. Even if you repetitively bust the heads of minor threats, your reputation of "beating the shit out of small, but necessary problems" ought to get you pretty far with the spirits. If anything, they'll probably worry that you won't let petty shit go by -- which is kind of what the Bone Shadows are about.

I understand why folks don't like how Renown works, especially on a MU*. Oathcircle had an interesting way of handling it, and it can be adapted as follows.

Like Arcane XP, create Renown XP. Award Renown XP to PCs whose players write up "Renown stories," which are submitted once a week. Those stories can then be attached, like logs, to a Wiki-page that is kept for each PC. That XP is the only way to raise Renown.

Award Renown XP based on two criteria: (1) who it involved; and (2) what was done. Encourage packs to come up with Pack Renown stories, which may give each PC a little more Renown than if the story were purely personal.

Yes, this is like the dreaded "report writing." But it puts the burden of advancement on the PC's player. It's no different than playing through "Renown PRPs," and achieves the same goal: creating a rich history for each PC, which ought to exist for high-Renown Werewolves.

@HelloRaptor said:

I feel like we've come full circle again, somehow.

This is only because you're too stupid to see the difference, that's all. Let me highlight it for you.

If you bother to read, you'll notice I said that the decision can be appealed to the game operators. This is always the case. Otherwise, you might as well have no staff at all.

Because game operators have never overruled their TLs. Ever.