Best posts made by Ghost

@ZombieGenesis

For starters, I will disagree that people in the MU community are mainly interested in Urban Fantasy and Super Heroes. I think for many these games have revolving tropes and character concepts they revisit over and over and over again. Most hero MU players you'll read say things like "I'm a psylocke, emma, kitty, etc" and have close ties to their "relationship" roleplay partners oocly who have, on multiple occasions, romanced their characters with Booster Gold, Hawkman, whatever.

Fact is that SH games are popular because of two reasons:

• Comics are a never-ending spank bank a lot of us have had since our youth
• The system of popular successful most SH games is...typing. There's little to learn.

Point in case, IIRC was it you @ZombieGenesis or someone else who tried Mutants and Masterminds as a system and it didn't last long? I imagine any super game that used any of the crunchy systems like FASERIP or Champions would fall flat so long as a "write out your sheet" SH MU with somewhat passable staff existed.

WoD/CofD are somewhat similar. There's a lot of Anita Blake in those games and in my experience I've encountered 3 kinds of players on Urban Fantasy games:

• Person who hoards xp and uses it as a justification for everything
• Person who gives zero shits about the system outside of cgen, doesn't go to events, and wants to have in-theme TS in peace
• Person who actually likes the system and wants to use it, but has to find people who also will use the system.

Some players are just so used to WoD/CofD that the learning curve is over and they're familiar with it.

SO, ONTO THE TOPIC...

I think all unmakeable games fall into association with these concepts.

I think that people would absolutely play in the THEME of Shadowrun, CpunkRed, Eclipse Phase, Traveler, or any other crunchy system so long as the crunchy system isn't something they have to learn. I will go so far as to say that most MUers are NOT TTRPG players and there is such an aversion to dice deciding anything contrary to what they want for the dreaded my story that introducing a system and ACTUALLY USING IT is a fool's errand.

Now, the only caveat I have for this is Firan/Arx, because there were automated wealth/powerbuilding systems that people could metagame on the side. The systems were a little more complex, but there were clear, established ways to get up and over most players through ooc networking, asking people to do wealth system stuff that (like a pyramid org) came back to build your own character, and as I understand it...in the end led to power-locked, unbeatable factions who churned this to the point of no return.

So, tl;dr?

Cool setting, less dice. Otherwise it's dubious at best.

@kitteh said in RL Anger:

????? What on earth do you think you're saying, you egocentric living drama pile?

Not slinging mud here, but I'm taking your "she's keeping this going, not me" card away from you.

@Warma-Sheen said in Observation:

abandonment

Was it really abandoned, though? really abandoned? <hand-wobble>

@hobos said in Observation:

People are going to act like people, pretty much all the time, I guess. But I'm probably weird because I almost prefer being reamed every time I open my virtual mouth on any issue, to the feeling that I am participating in selfish hypocrisy by posting here.

A bit to unpack, here. So you're saying that you prefer to be verbally accosted every time you open your mouth to participating in a "selfish hypocrisy" that has been mostly tame and quiet? I gotta say, you sound 100% purely dedicated to an environment filled with positivity and "normal human-type communicative behavior" and it shows!

Bizarre statement altogether, imo. It's kind of a "Scottie Pippen Fade Shot I'm not saying something factual but saying something potentially provocative but idk lol j/k grr i really mean this but not sure what this means" statement. It's not really helpful.

I think that if you look at it from a certain perspective, the rift was probably the most directly honest thing to happen in the hobby in probably 20 years.

Don't apologize on the apology thread.

DOOOOONT
Don't
//don't//
Do not

Dangerous.

@Macha said in Observation:

@Warma-Sheen Well, when you consider a LOT of the MU-threads of the title before, was a lot of negative talk about things, people playing there or here, and so on?

To be honest, if I /am/ playing somewhere, I'm not likely to talk about it. For reasons I would feel are obvious.

I'm playing all kinds of places right now that people don't want me to be at.

Or am I? idk. I'm currently into PBs with dark haired guys with stubble. Figure it out.

All jokes aside I 100% support you playing under the radar. Everyone should. It gives abusive personalities less of an attack surface.

@Three-Eyed-Crow OMG Mexican Coca-Cola is amazing and one of the best parts about being in this part of the country.

@ZombieGenesis Right on. I'm always in the market for a good Supers system, because supers games are either way too "free form rpg" (BESM) for my tastes or are eye-meltingly crunchy (Champions). I haven't gone through the book post-beta, but I'm hoping they put in a solution for the challenge level system I found to be somewhat confusing.

@Meg said in Forum Factions:

@Ghost said in Forum Factions:

@mietze said in Forum Factions:

12 year old boy sense of humor faction? Though to be fair, I make more fart jokes on faction channels or pub than I do here. ;). Maybe immature humor faction would be better cause I can't really pass up a menstrual joke either, really.

What did the pirate say when he turned 80?

AYYYYYYYY MATEY

What does a pirate pay for corn?

A buccaneer!

What is Bruce Lee's preferred beverage?

WATAAAAAAAAAH!

@Devrex Yeah, there is a downside to SPG. About 90% of the games are D&D and there's no "exclude this game system from search" option, so there's some "go fish" involved.

The other issue with SPG is some of these people are asking $25-$35 per session on weekly games, and most of the people doing this are the ones trying to turn being a GM into a full time job. So one game may net some GM 500/month. Shit, I saw one this week where a guy was asking $75/session per player. There's also something different with the GMs who are trying to supplement an entire income from SPG; the ones I've been in contact with tend to be really militant about filling those player slots and booting people for being absent because it's more about the income and less about the game.

Regardless, I don't think I'd ever charge more than $15/session, but it is a good platform for finding GMs who are actually looking to produce a quality game experience, because if they're shit GMs their players will drop. There's something I like about the arrangement where I'm a paying customer and if they're flaky and keep canceling games I'm not risking a friendship by quitting.

@Auspice I'm game. Mine is fixed. It's a relatively safe plan.

(Which is exactly how I talk to my friends who are parents of teenage girls, being the parent of a teenage boy)

No bullshit, I said this to my friend Peggy last week:

"So that we can remain friends, could you please never let your 16 year old daughter know we have a 17 year old son? We need to keep that a closely guarded secret."

@reimesu TTRPG has been good to me. More consistent, less drama, and my creativity isn't restricted by the social side-game. I'm fixing to run some v5 here soon.

@Ganymede said in RL Anger:

Me: "Honey, have you seen my keys?"
Partner: from the other room "It's over there."
Me in head: WHERE THE FUCK IS 'THERE'?

^OMFG THIS

Not to mention:

ME: I lost my keys, can u help?
SO: (not looking) Where was the last place you saw them?
ME: Right where I am right now. I just looked there.
SO: Where was the last place you saw them before that?
ME: IF RETRACING MY STEPS WERE SOME MYSTIC ART I HADN'T THOUGHT OF IN THE FIRST PLACE, OR HAD IT YIELDED ANY RESULTS, I WOULDN'T BE ASKING FOR HELP.

@Misadventure said in The Case Against Real PBs:

overwrites the imagination

I loved that.

And I get it. I'm not a "slut shamer" or whatever. I don't even mind TS in theory, but in my experiences a lot of the TS is more linked to "what's your ooc kink" than "what's your character's kink", which is why I liken the concept for a number of players to it as less of a writing thing and more of a personal gratification thing.

But either way, my litmus test is "is it wrong to use a 'real' person's image (ex: Facebook, your RL girlfriend, or someone's mom) as a PB?" and if the answer is yes, then for the same reasons it's wrong to use celebrities, too.

But if it's not wrong then fuckyeah I'm gonna use every one of the cliques uncle's as PBs, right?

@Ganymede said in Good TV:

The fact we are having this conversation right now suggests to me that this episode did exactly what it was calculated to do.

I looooooove shit like this: The little lies in society that are accepted; themselves that are considered normal. The strange behaviors in humankind and what a little push or shift in logic would wrought. It's the kind of stuff someone should think about before dealing with a Djinn.

It's such a fucking shame that super deep writing like this has fallen by the wayside in an era of repetitive blockbuster action movies and pandering fanbase entitlement content. Art SHOULD be dangerous and SHOULD make people question things.

• • I personally despise Marilyn Manson as a person but he comes up with some banger quotes and lyrics.

@ZombieGenesis said in The Case Against Real PBs:

Here's the thing about someone's chosen PB, it really only matters to them.

Respectfully, I think I will have to disagree with you, here.

I would say the # of times someone sent me 2 pictures linked in a page and asked who I'd rather fuck is pretty high, as is the number of times someone's told me "I had a bad experience with a Chris Pratt so won't RP with someone with that PB (or "only crazy girls and dudes pick Milla" has been said to me more than once). I've also had instances where people specifically thought to "collect" my PC by picking PBs they think might be in my wheelhouse. I've been asked on numerous occasions to make characters with very specific PBs based on their kinks (Gerard Butler, Cilian Murphy, etc)

Just being honest, here. The hobby has a lot of platitudes about "say this but don't say that" (Storytelling not writing despite people being judged on their ability to write, ts vs ooc cybersex, etc), and I think that "the only people who care about the PB is the player" is one of them. There is absolutely an element of trying to use PBs as lures for TS and romantic roleplay, and anyone saying otherwise is either out of bias or protecting the argument.

There's a whole iceberg of stuff that is weird, and I just happen to think PBs are one of them.

@Ganymede said in Good TV:

Tritely, when my partner watched the series with me, her first comment was "looks like they really wanted to borrow from Twilight" and it was all I could do not to choke her.

You know I used to feel the same way about "Vampire Diaries" stealing from World of Darkness, but then I found out that Vampire Diaries came out before Vampire the Masquerade. When I found that out it really fucked with my head because my beloved "World of Darkness" now may be actually derived partially from "Mystic Falls High School Vampires".

#TeamCarolineForbes
#TeamRebekkah
#TeamDamon

@Ganymede said in The Case Against Real PBs:

There's no harm in using a picture in public domain

Alright, let's test this.

Let's say you use Sporty Spice (the best spice btw) as a PB and roleplay out an artful ts scene that just happens to include both your RL kinks and the kinks of the partner. This may or may not involve "chair gratification" by yourself or the other, which may or may not be admitted to.

Now, you're at dinner and someone brings a friend. It's Sporty Spice herself.

DO YOU TELL SPORTY SPICE THAT YOU HAVE USED HER LIKENESS AND IMAGE IN LINE WITH A SEXUALIZED SLASH-FIC SCENE WITH ANOTHER PLAYER WHO HAS A RL KINK FOR HER?

"Oh hey so you'll get a laugh out of this. I roleplay in an online text based game where my character uses an image of you as their likeness. The sex scenes are super hot and she's currently in an in-character relationship with someone pictured as James Franco."

it's a simply yes/no question and if the answer is no, I'm pretty sure that line of thinking will end in "...because it would embarrass me and come across as creepy."

And it would come across as creepy because it's apparently not favorable in the public eye to use someone else as a gratification tool without their consent.

It would appear that the people behind the Blood of Dragons MU (which IIRC are the same people who tried to get other Westeros/GameOfThrones MUs shut down citing their "insider" status with GRRM, and the same people who threatened lawsuit because a desc they wrote ended up on MSB?) are making the news at the moment.

According to this NY POST ARTICLE, the two helped put out a book that was like a dictionary of Westeros and are now receiving a press for 'Cultural Cancelation' due to making negative comments about characters depicted as white being cast with nonwhite actors. Fans are apparently begging GRRM to cut ties with them or risk boycott, as it appears their social media history was reviewed to find similar complaint-posts about racial recasting back in 2012.

@Derp said in The Case Against Real PBs:

@Ghost

My dude. You’re a bit out over your skis here. Take a breath, find your chill. Reasonable people can disagree in reasonable ways. Your examples and language do not currently fall within the bounds of “reasonable”, nor in fact “mildly constructive.”

Take it down a few notches.

Cool cool. I read.

I know this may be expected because I'm a Clive Barker horror fan but...

...Hellraiser was fucking RAD and I think it sits right next to the best 2 Hellraiser movies (1 and 2). It breathes new life into the film franchise, leaves the mythology open for growth, and really plays into the feel of Barker's Damnation Game and Hellbound Heart feel.

Given that the last 2 Hellraiser movies were made super soulless, quick low budget bullshit to retain the movie rights, something about this movie really felt like a reclamation of the property by people who love the series.