Posts made by Ghost

@De-Villefort WoD solved this in v5 by making successes happen on 6+ and the existence of both critical successes, bestial criticals, and bestial failures.

Having said that, the game as a while suggests that there shouldn't be a dice roll required for anything 'rote', such as opening doors, making coffee, figuring out how to use a vending machine, and even safely driving a car from one point to the next.

I don't recommend the use of "competence dice", though, and here is why...

1. If you don't have any dots in the skill you need, then you're just supposed to roll the attribute (ex: Int + Occult with 0 occult dice should be an automatic fail OR you can attempt on Int dice alone and get lucky).

2. The harsh reality of WoD in both table top and the way MUs handle it is that players will assume specific skills like social skills or academics to be "dump stats" that they can argue with the ST for presumed pass/fail hand-waving. On the WoD character sheets, you HAVE to choose where your character is most likely to fail based on your choices (dot placement) on where you want them to succeed. You're supposed to roleplay those deficiencies, however weak GMs will let a mix-maxxed physical badass with next to nil in social or mental abilities get away with negotiating a truce between the crips and bloods because they're either afraid of what the player will do when forced to "act with their dice pool" or aren't allowed to succeed.

3. 8+ on a pool of d10s is fucking brutal and was one place where nWoD didn't make the games better. You could throw 10d10 at something and it doesn't truly make it any more likely that you will succeed because each die still has only a 20% chance of success.

tl;dr? Drop the success margin to 7 or 6 on the die, force players to roll anything that isn't "rote", and don't accept "player can Google it so the character shouldn't have to roll"...ever.

Good for you, this is a cool project.

Being the v5 storyteller that I am, I've always found v5 to probably be the best version (mechanically) of WoD to apply to MUing.

1. The disciplines are less about combat and having a massive dice pool. Even the more combat-used powers like Potence and Celerity have more "cinematic" options
2. If needed, Chronicle tenets can be set
3. Player-defined morality in convictions and touchstones
4. The combat system flows much better than oWoD 3-v20 and nWoD
5. Hunger as a mechanic is way better than blood points

There's simply just a lot more "story" in v5/w5 baked into the system that should lend really well to the MU hobby. That, and the Masquerade/Apocalypse setting is so much better than the Requiem/Forsaken setting.

Since I've been away from MU games for over 2 years now, I've had a lot of time to reflect. So, in retrospect, my personal opinion is that I disagree with the concept that MU is at least somewhat productive because there's creativity involved.

Here's why.

I think about all of the many, many, many variations of a theme that have patterned and repeated over and over and over again ad nauseum through my time MUing. From "let's do a bar scene" to "coffee house scene" to "this a completely different character experience than my last IC relationship because this one is Reeeeece Witherspoooon and the last one was that redhead from that one show". Looking back I realize that very, VERY few people play truly unique characters (or at the very least characters indistinguishable from one another) due to lack of change in writing styles. A large number of players stick to their comfort zones, but try to use PBs and setting to make their characters unique...but when you take a really hard, honest look at the history of MU you'll find that players mostly attempt to recreate similar experiences from game to game. We all know a few players who literally have used the same PB and character names across multiple games. So the spirit of really being creative isn't so...universal.

Sometimes I feel like MU is less about actual creative writing than it is about people (myself included) who have a void to fill and "assisted creativity" helps hit that sweet spot that makes it feel less empty.

So...give or take that whole "7 hours a day" thing I ranted on about earlier, apply it to this that I've just typed out, and I think a lot of other "hobbies" are far more truly creative and far less of a time sink.

On YouTube alone you can:

• take art courses
• learn an instrument or new language
• actually try to write an actual novel

...and a good number of those will leave you with something tangible to show for the hard hours you put into it. The VTT rpg community is a LOT less creepy and a lot more welcoming, and there's some really good vibes to be found there that doesn't come with even a fourth of the social anxiety that comes from all of the gatekeepy scene queens that MU comes with.

So...in summary. I AM NOT SAYING PEOPLE R DUM FOR BEING IN THIS HOBBY, I am saying that I feel that MU can become a bit of a black hole that people disappear into, spend years feeling like they're doing something, and then ultimately have nothing but "time spent" to show for their efforts. There are a LOT of super rewarding things out there, and I highly recommend people at least supplement their MUing with some of them so that they have one leg planted in RL and a source of positive energy to draw from that isn't MU. It's much healthier, I've found.

"Beef" on Nertflerx has its hooks in me. Love it. Definitely recommend.

@Macha Right on, good for you. I also recommend getting into RPG games via VTTs like Roll20, Fantasy Geounds, Foundry, etc. Not all require purchase nor subscription. I've also taken up digital art lately, so...lots to do.

@Macha Good on you! When I took my break (or HAVE I? I could be anywhere, anytime mwuahah) it really made it clear to me how much time I sunk into Mu. I really did the math on some of it, and it went like this.

• Let's say I get on after work (5p) and MU until bedtime (12a). That's 7 hours.
• Ignore that it was probably 1-2 hours of waiting for a scene to start and 1-2 poses per hour, so I was averaging: 10 poses a night, roughly 4 sentences per pose so 4 sentences per hour...and if the scene was big enough it was maybe 1 pose every 1.5-2 hours (or less depending on how quirkyperfectomg the other people in the scene were)

What can 7 hours a day buy you?

• Watching almost the entirety of Amazon's RINGS OF POWER daily
• if every wrestlemania averages 3-4 hours, then in 10 days you can watch every Wrestlemania ever to completion, but you can sit through 2 wrestlemanias in the time it took you to write 10 poses.
• if just one of those hours was dedicated to an exercise regimen, you'd STILL have enough time for that, 1 episode of RoP, and 1 wrestlemania with sexy abs.
• There are 92 NASCAR races a year, each averaging about 3 hours per race. So if you watch 2 races per night in 46 days you will have watched an entire Nascar season. This includes 36 cup series races, 33 Xfinity, and 22 cup. However if you just wanna watch the cup races you could get through an entire season in a little over 3 weeks.

So I hear you. When I took that time off it was like...

...but these days I mostly just fuck around sneaking onto games run by people who don't like me.

So the most recent episode of Mandalorian (S3Ep4) hit me right in the feels. I'm gonna put this behind a spoiler tag, but AFTER you watch the episode (or if you don't care), check this out.

***Spoiler...orian?***

Anyone have any cool "great moments" to share from their TTRPGs? Nothing negative, but moments where it was magical, or as a GM you felt like you did something amazing for your group?

I'll start. This is actually a story from this past weekend.

I'm running V5 Vampire for an in-person TTRPG group of 5 players. It's set in Chicago using the "Chicago By Night" module, and I'm taking FULL advantage of all of the canon characters (Portia, Annabelle, Gengis, DuSable, etc). Now, 4 out of the 5 players are old-school VtM players so they know a lot of the lore, and the 5th is brand new to Vampire so I am LOVING being able to introduce them to dark, scary, evil lorepieces for the first time and see their reaction.

However, in V5, there are some new things, and one of them are "Thin-Blood" vampires, whose vampiric blood is so thinned out that they can survive the sunlight better, often have warm breath and flushed skin, and could often pass as a mortal. My "OG" players had never encountered one. They don't have typical vampire powers, and instead dabble in a kind of "Thin-Blood Alchemy" that the other non-thinbloods don't have access to.

So my vampires are following a drug dealer suspected of peddling a new drug called "Ash", which appears to be made of blood and ashes. They track him to his apartment, see him leaving. He's got pink skin, warm breath, and so they approach him like he's a human. Now, "mortals" don't really get a resistance to the vampiric "Dominate" powers, but other supernatural creatures do. So assuming he's mortal they decide to roll on up, get eye-contact, and "dominate" the drug dealer into being quiet and walking with them.

It went like this:

Player: Okay I look into his eyes and say "Be quiet and follow me".
Me: "Roll a rouse check and then roll your dice pool to dominate."
Player: "But mortals don't get a defense."
Me: "That is correct. Roll the dice."
The whole table: "Holy fuck please don't let this be a werewolf."

I had them all eating out of the PALM OF MY HAND as they had no idea what the fuck they'd just rolled up on. They eventually were able to wrestle the thin-blood down after he used some sort of strange power they'd never seen before on one of the PCs. They basically beat him up and dragged him back into his apartment.

They search the apartment and find a secret basement where occult circles, chemistry equipment, and books in a cramped, filthy space. At the end of the basement is a shower stall with an old "Spongebob" shower curtain concealing something shadowy.

The looks on the players' faces was PRICELESS as they peeled the shower curtain back to find a missing Toreador from court, suspended upside down, staked, and with tubes in all of their major arteries and an empty bucket underneath with dried blood residue lining it.

They'd just stumbled into an alchemical drug lab where the blood of their peers is being used to make a street drug that works on vampires.

They're eating this chronicle up and loving it, and it feels really good.

@TNP said in Ruiz:

I have nothing further to say so shall truly depart and let you all fade into irrelevancy

Please do. I've been asking yall to do it for ages.

@Derp Yeah there's that.

I've been told that detailing the DSM definition of mental illnesses and poring through them to determine if an unpopular person is lying is a thing, now.Which, doing so is potentially fuckoff levels of damaging on a RL scale while also being the exact antithesis of providing a safe space for people with mental and emotional difficulties.

So obviously the DSM5/6 definitions of everything from ADHD to Sociopathy would be useful to cut and paste into a forum chat.

Snark aside, I will say that the people who did that should be thoroughly ashamed of themselves, as well as the people who chose not to call it out.

@Misadventure I think you'd be better off creating a series of forms and pre-generated blocks of text to simply cut and paste to save time.

Stuff like:

"______________ is one of the most toxic people in the community."

"______________ isn't apologizing correctly."

"I am being gaslighted by _____________ "

"____________ is the new Cirno."

And the blanks are filled by drop-down list with a series of names.

AND THEN have a section where entire pre-written paragraphs of text can be copied and pasted to save time, like:

• SOCIAL DICE ARE BAD BECAUSE
• FIRAN WAS GREAT BUT HORRIBLE
• WE ARE NOT A CLIQUE BUT MY FRIENDS AND I ARE COORDINATING OUR RESPONSES AND BULLYING
• MY DOWNWITHOPP STORY
• WHITE PLAYER; POC PB
• ITS NOT CHEATING, IT'S ART
• SPIDER IS THE WORST
• THIS PERSON IS THE WORST SINCE SPIDER
• THIS PERSON IS THE WORST SINCE THE LAST PERSON WHO WAS WORSE THAN SPIDER
• IS IT STILL FETISHIZATION IF YOURE A FEMALE PLAYING A SUPER PROMISCUOUS GAY MAN? (yes, it is)

Sooner or later the algorithms will be able to heuristically complete an entire year of forum chatter, but in the meantime users will be able to simply click twice and respond to everything. THEN we could just get entertainment out of the AI engine recreating 10+ years of circular forum chatter without any of it being a direct attack against anyone.

Work smarter, not harder

@reimesu for the record, I legitimately empathize with the situation Gany got put in and think it downright sucks they had to choose between their conscience and appeasing the demands of the people who thought they had them in their pocket.

If anyone is interested in these concepts, but prefers the concepts to be explained in a more digestible or less "religiousy/vague" format, check this book out

The Dharma of Star Wars https://a.co/d/fdDD5zc

Concepts like "Anakin's attachment to Padme became a source of negativity to him, and in his aversion to her dying (which everyone does) caused damage to himself and others." Help puts things in perspective for the nerdier mind.

@Bessarion In Buddhism there is a concept of "attachments and aversions", and the only way to achieve peace is to understand them. I generally think this concept could be good for everyone, but particularly the MU community.

Like all things in life, attachments can seem negative and aversions positive, right? Not exactly. An attachment (a thing you love or feel you NEED) can be enjoyable or a source of negativity based on the attachment to the thing you feel you need. Aversion can be healthy (probably best to avoid walking past the neo-Nazi rally) but can also become a festering impulse in your life (your NEED to avoid bad days has made it near impossible to enjoy ANY day).

A while back I realized that being on the games had become a sort of attachment/aversion minefield for me. I loved the writing and some people, but ultimately the drama felt unavoidable, the Hog Pit was exactly the kind of "attachment" to something negative that I felt made positivity near-impossible, and I simply wasn't happy. I couldn't MAKE myself happy enjoying my ATTACHMENT because my AVERSIONS were so under my skin. So I quit playing under the belief I still hold today, which is that there is simply too much difficulty in the games/community that it would likely never be the kind of relaxation I am seeking. Sure, I had ups and downs with communicating with people here (it's natural) but ultimately think that the split in the forums presented what could be a positive opportunity.

Ultimately, the people who dislike me on BMD did themselves a favor by creating a place where I do not exist, and I, in turn, return that favor by not disrupting their space. It feels mutually beneficial and healthy, but (attachments and aversions, again) peace will never be achieved so long as those attach/avers are still in play at either forum.

So I think the more people think about this concept the more they'll find happiness. Hope it helps someone.

@Bessarion said in Ruiz:

One of the big problems with our community is that we have opted for identifiability with handles, but still operate with a Web 1.0 culture of anonymity when it comes to our actual identities.

I fucking LOVE that you said that. Thank you. Maybe you understand then the little joke in my head that came with choosing "Ghost" as a handle and the reason why every now and then I make jokes like "I quit playing MUs...OR DID I?"

There are both positives and negatives with solidifying histories and identities, and pos/negs with reinforcing anonymity. The trick is understanding that for some the anonymity protects them from bullying, where for others the lack of anonymity has now created potentially decades of identifiable harm and bitterness.

The people I like in the community are equally "strangers" to me as the people I don't. There's a probability that some of my least favorite people in the hobby could be a great friend in RL, were it not for the lens of the community's drama and the inevitable dysfunction and lack of empathy that comes from text-based communication.

@Bessarion I'll throw my hat in with that concept. That's got my vote. A little chill and reflection does people good.

@Bessarion said in Ruiz:

@Ghost I was being reactive and I wasn't being kind.

But what if other people here are getting snippy because they are being reactive?

@Bessarion said in Ruiz:

And I'm done giving your dysfunctional ass attention

"I don't think macha's a bad person but..."

Fuckin c'mon, Senator. There's nothing wrong with owning it.

True (and topical) story:

I started playing guitar when I was 9, and around the time I was 14 and started being all hormonal, my little brother (11) started playing guitar. Hindsight being 20/20 I identified myself as the "guitar son" of the house and felt like my little brother (who got everything he wanted MarshaMarshaMarsha etc) was going to make me less special because he, too, played guitar.

So I made fun of him, bothered him, and every time he played I made it so difficult for him that he eventually gave up and I resumed being the special guitar son of the house.

I couldn't let him have a good thing, because if I let him get comfortable with it and flourish then it made me feel like I was the loser in the equation.

Shame I did that, too. Who knows, we could have ended up in a metal or punk band together. I do regret it to this day.