Posts made by Ghost

I still think CthulhuTech would make an amazing Mu*.

Despite the books being overpriced, the setting isn't based on "what kind of special you are", like WoD, but more "which scale of the CthulhuTech stuff are you involved in?"

1. There's an entire setting for a Band of Brothers style military campaign, which is currently a losing battle, where humans use soldiers, tanks, and MECHA (including mecha-altered Lovecraftian beasts called Engels) to fight any number of cosmic entity armies, like the Mi-Go, attacking Earth.

2. Then the scale gets smaller. You have the city life, which includes everything from hackers, to private investigators, to prostitutes and police, living within society centers which are constantly at risk of infiltration by the cult of Nyarlothotep. You could effectively film noir this setting, like Sin City, to tell any number of stories, or have characters be drafted/enlisted into #1, the war campaign.

3. Even smaller in scale are the fringe cults (hunted by #2) who use stolen texts of Nyarlothotep to bond with a monster. They become tagers, which are basically overpowered humans who shift into fleshy monsters, and they are constantly at risk of losing themselves to the alien psychology. However, they are actually good guys who risk being hunted and murdered while they fight a shadow war against the ACTUAL cults who are attacking both #1 and #2. The mortality rate for Tagers is so high, you could probably rotate who has an opportunity to play a tager through your player base, avoiding "slots" or "applications" in favor of hard no-consent rules and high risk combat.

MU* can be done with a shitty laptop/desktop and uses freeware. So I don't think the expensive factor would be much of an issue, because we come across plenty of people logged in from work or a library.

I think it has more to do with A) time investment B.) speed of reward and C) complication/harder to find.

When people want to play an RPG, for the most part, MMORPGs show up first in browsers. Then, should someone find a mush, they will need to download software, learn commands, and mess around with program settings they're not used to. THEN they will need to use creative writing skills that they may or may not be interest in to conceptualize a character, wait a day or two for approval, and then spend weeks cultivating a character with relationships and plot...

...or they could log into an MMORPG and have near-instant access to gameplay, content, and not really have to wait for anyone to help them find their fun-cookie.

I really hate glitter. Glitter is like sand. It gets everywhere and after you've been infected with it, you will be finding it in strange places for weeks to come.

Coworkers took down the Xmas decorations at work and it looks like a whole bunch of glitter was sprinkled on my desk.

Sometimes it's a perilous life being a straight guy with a perfect body and wearing tights.

@Thenomain said:

THE NOn-MAskable INterrupt

A non-maskable interrupt (NMI) is a hardware interrupt that cannot be ignored by standard interrupt masking techniques in the system. It is typically used to signal attention for non-recoverable hardware errors. (Some NMIs may be masked, but only by using proprietary methods specific to the particular NMI.)

In computer terms, "cannot be made to shut up".

We need to find you a forum sidekick named NoHup

Shit, fool, I still might get a Blink tattoo. Morph was funny as hell and I loved seeing Nocturne go to New Excalibur.

Let me be more constructive here:

SW1 and Star Wars: New Worlds were a smorgasbord of favoritism, staff-alts filling most of the force and/or FC slots, unchanging characters that had been around for so long they had become furniture, and a lot of rules about activity for FCs and Force users (like activity) that were not enforced. Both of these games, and a few other iterations, were d6 Star Wars games with "applicable" force slots, feature characters, the same OOC baggage carried from game to game, characters who ported from both games, and had a lot of favoritism problems.

So now we have AoA, a d6 game with "applicable" force and FC slots (which seem to all be taken), characters from SW1 and SWNW on grid (Gren Delede is a face I remember), and it is pretty much the same setup as all of the other d6 Star Wars games that careened into making the same mistakes its predecessors did with the same characters and the same rules.

So, sell me on this Age of Alliances. Is this game run by a SW1/SWNW veteran, and how does this game expect to avoid the same issues of its predecessors when the Force/FC slots are already taken up and old characters are already porting in?

@Coin I could bone you so hard right now. I thought I was the only Exiles fan. I loooooooved me some Exiles.

Feature Characters: The movie cast who are exciting to scene with.

Player Characters: Supporting cast for the staff-run force users and feature characters.

^that's the reality of it, IMO.

@Coin Oh, I'm not being a stickler about it and saying it's not possible to rewrite the super teams so they make sense in the new setting. It's good that it's done. All I was saying is that there's this initial learning curve to learn, or in some cases unlearn comic canon, which usually leads to a lot of reading. I, personally, have always found that process (say...over 3-4 games?) to be a bit tedious. Sometimes it's very interesting to see what the game came up with for the changes, but it also threw me off on who I wanted to app. I needed to research whether or not they had any changed history first to properly app the updated character to fit in new canon.

True story: Once I joined a SuperHero game and saw that one of my favorites, Nova, was idled about 6 months prior and free for application. So I apped and got Nova. The moment I hit the grid, I started getting hit up by the previous player of Nova's IC boyfriends who wanted to resume the gay TS...so I had to kind of figure out how to explain while after a who bunch of referenced homosexuality that I missed in the logs on the wiki, why Nova was no longer banging boys. Awwwwkward.

Being constructive here.

I've played on a few Super Hero MU* that have allowed DC/MARVEL/Image/etc all in one place. My personal feeling on this is that "all comic titles under one roof" allows for some interesting RP, but it's also very uncomfortable in the sense that there's only so much room.

For example.

• The JLA and Avengers, why need both? Why would the government sponsor an Avengers program, a JLA, and their many splinter groups, AND S.H.I.E.LD., etc etc etc.
• Nova Corps and Green Lanterns. Why two universe-spanning police groups?
• Mutants or Metas, and how do you take DC's handling of one versus Marvel's handling of the other?

Every time I stepped foot on one of these games, there was this long period of learning curve that was a bit unwieldy for me. Batman on the Avengers? Okay, cool, but who sponsors the Justice League AND the Avengers? Both groups exist? Why not just one? Captain America is Justice League? What about his back history with SHIELD and Peggy Carter in WW2? Does this mean Howard Stark and Peggy Carter didn't help form SHIELD? If that timeline changed, why does SHIELD exist, and if Captain America never became an Avenger, which he was the first, how did this change?

Headache

Not a lot of depth to mine. Ghost is short, sweet, and I've used the word in numerous ways in RL tabletop games. I also like the band Ghost...and it wasn't already taken.

Sorry to double post, but I'm gonna call bullshit on this game.

The game isn't accepting force applications on this new game, yet the "Feature Characters" of Luke, Rey, and Kylo Ren are already in play. Looks like staff already done gobbled up some force slots.

"Oh, well YOU can't play what you want right now, but since we all wanted to play Jedi we gave ourselves (or our friends) the only force characters...so be patient while we have run roleplaying them."

Any of these MU* that have "applicable slots" that claim favoritism isn't a factor in selecting players to have those slots is full of shit.

Realistically, staff doesn't want to give the slot to a player they don't like, even if that person is very active, roleplays well, and has a great idea. The people selected for these slots are a measure of game control due to the belief that the wrong player in a powerful slot could imbalance the game.

So, in the end, it really is a popularity contest, like making sure your boss never has to correct you for anything while you're seeking a promotion. It's really no different. People don't want that stress in both their real and "pretendyfun" lives.

@Cirno No shit? I'm not being sarcastic here, but the sheer number of nonBlack characters (not that anyone actively discloses their OOC skin color) have always led me to believe that the ratio of black-to-white mushers is pretty much like the ratio of black-to-white NHL players. Something like 1:95

@Coin said:

@Cirno said:

[* ] @Thenomain and I were discussing why more black people did not MU* on the old boards, and he said something that is important to consider - most MU* ers are financially secure and either have a good chunk of money and a steady, well-paying job, or are at least financially well-off through whatever methods they have available - friends, family, the Government Dole - that they can afford the equipment and the environment conductive to MU* ing - namely, the things mentioned here. He suggested something to the effect that since less black people can afford these things, less can actually MU*.

This raises interesting questions - is MU* ing a gentrified, expensive hobby out of reach to the poor? Could that be part of the reason why the population of MU* players is low in general? And why is this, since computers have sharply decreased in price? One can acquire a cheap tablet or netbook for 50$ or so.

I suspect there's also just less black people who roleplay tabletop, too, for the same reasons--roleplaying books have always been notoriously expensive. Keep in mind that tradition and generational inertia helps: if your parents are geeks and gamers and had access to it, it's far more likely you will be, too.

The monetary thing falls apart a little bit when you take into account demographic numbers for video game players (who require even better PCs than MUers, or even consoles, and expensive games). I don't actually have any numbers and it's possible that the ratio remains the same between white and black video game players--but I doubt it (with absolutely no fundament by my own gut).

I used to know a black musher. We called him The Unicorn.

If I had to take a stab at why you don't see many black mushers, it's for the same reason you don't see a lot of black RPG players or metal fans. There's this thing in American black culture where black people give each other shit for not being black, or supporting black culture enough. I've talked to plenty of black people (SURPRISE! I AM NOT BLACK!) who've told me stories about getting made fun of, or the pressure received, for liking rock more than R&B. There is definitely an element of belief in the subculture that some things are black things and some things are white things.

And then, on some fabled dark and stormy afternoons, white people like me introduce their shadowy bruthaz to Killswitch Engage and D&D and it opens a whole new world of imagination...

...I love my black brothers and sisters who RP. I wish more did it. It's like adding a girl, or a gay person, or a foreigner to your gaming group. Fresh perspectives are awesome.

I did find a d20 Saga Edition MU* once, but every time I logged in, I watched the owner/staffer talk on pubChan about how stupid most of his players were. I had a Jedi there for all of 2 login sessions after approval. I'm not gonna stick around a place where the headwiz has so little respect for his players. He used to brag about how much money he had and not having to work; it was like roleplaying with PharmaBro.

But yes, I would like to see someone make a Star Wars MU* that allows people to play where their interests lie, rather than turn force sensitive into earning a spot at the COOL KIDS table.

@Cirno This is the best question since "Does soap get dirty?"

You're making me think at 06:15. I hate you.

@Miss-Demeanor said:

I'm gonna flat out call false advertising. 'Make whatever Star Wars character you want from your wildest imaginings! ... except anything that might fall under the label of Jedi or Sith. So, y'know.. the two major factions from the Star Wars universe that everyone wants to be part of. So basically, its Lords & Ladies in Space. Pass.

Pass agreed.

I spent 2+ years on a Star Wars MU* hoping for a force slot to come into my hands. After seeing 3-4 go to staff buddies, I realized holy fuck, I just spent 2+ years roleplaying as my SECOND choice in hope of being able to play my first choice.. Never again. I'm gonna be allowed to play what I want, or I'm passing.

My favorite was the guy who was this sickly, frail, bed-ridden thing, and the reason he is so sick is because of overuse of the drug that makes him powerful. When he takes the drug, he astrally projects as a ghost that shoots these badass lasers that murder everything and cause explosions, but the drug is KILLING HIM.