Posts made by Ghost

Oh, sorry, I got something wrong.

It's not an "ice bucket challenge" while driving to raise bottled water for homeless people.

It's an "Ice Bucket Challenge" AAAAAAND a water balloon fight.

@Auspice Yeah, I 100% do not partake in company charity events, save for the occasional "company talent show" where ticket sales go to charity or "popcorn and watch movie at work".

I view it as a conflict of interest to assist them in lowering their tax rate, especially in ways where they get the donation for my time put into charitable causes.

Hrm.

My company doesn't understand a few basic concepts.

One year we had an egg-tossing competition during a food drive for needy people. The parking lot was covered in broken eggs. Each was a potential meal for a hungry person.

Soon? A water drive. When it's 115 outside water is important and plenty of people die each year from lack of water or shaded places to hide.

So after a "food tossing game to drive in food for hungry people", I'm sure you can guess what kind of event we are having for a "water drive"...

...ice bucket challenge.

I swear to fuckin god one year we're going to have a cupcale eating contest to raise money for diabetes research.

@Auspice said in Preferences:

@Arkandel said in Preferences:

Put this thread in the Hogpit, g'dammit. I'm ready to draw a line on the ground and go to war.

Did you forget your admin powers of thread moving?

Noob

Be careful.

nooB saiboT is a badass ninja.

3rd Kit-Kat.

Fuck everyone else.

New X-Men character announced.

She "Rasputin" has:

• Colossus' skin
• Magik's sword
• Shadowcat's phasing
• Unus the Untouchable's force field
• Quentin Quire's telepathy

I dont know what her first name is, but if it isn't yet defined, I have a few suggestions...

"Mary Sue MU-OC a.k.a. a concept made by the one major problem player in Ghost's RL TT group" Rasputin. (1)

"Mary Sue Everything Bagel" Rasputin.

"Hope 2.0 But Isn't a Summers, is a..." Rasputin.

(1) True fact. I once had a player who wanted to make the son of Magick and Nightcralwer. When their Mutants and Masterminds sheet was done they presented me with a teleporting, kinetic energy-throwing, soul-sword wielding Lord of Limbo who, by proxy of being Lord of Limbo, was immortal.

...when the person in front of you in line at the coffee house orders 9 different drinks during morning rush.

@Dreampipe dude looks so much happier.

World of Warcraft.

I know WOW already exists, but I think the ongoing faction melodrama would be fun.

"What, the Alliance went too far making the Horde the good guys for a season, but then the Horde went too far again and the Tauren/Orcs/Trolls are warring internally against the Undead within the Horde?"

"What? The Horde made a good guy's dead brother an undead but a Horde champion felt it was dishonorable so they stole the newly undead guy from the Horde and returned it to his family and now he's been ordered for execution by the Horde?"

The Way the World of Warcraft Turns is brought to you by Tide laundry detergent and Toblerone candies....

@Auspice said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:

@Tinuviel said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:

@Derp Psh, they're fifteen year olds. They're already having more sex of more kinds than I ever have.

You're always too drunk to remember the fun stuff.

She means foot stuff.

Which is weird and nope when you TS with Ghost.

Fingergunz+wink.

I read today that the voice actress for Minnie Mouse (Russi Taylor) is going to be laid to rest in a...

...mausoleum.

/gallows humor

@Coin said in Good TV:

@Arkandel said in Good TV:

@Wizz said in Good TV:

Garth Ennis is the comic-books equivalent of a shock-jock radio DJ. He's deliberately offensive and gross on the level of a maladjusted teenager, TBH. He and Mark Millar are two authors whose popularity I will never understand, and Amazon made the right choice in trimming down the content of the series. It's still very explicit and dark, but in a way that is mostly not completely cringey and awful.

It's funny that you mention that because I've been a fan of both writers - Ennis more than Millar - so perhaps I can share my perspective.

Both of these guys rely on shock value at times and they can go too far; in fact some of their finest moments are from when they skirt the line. As such they've both created some amazing comics in the past whose serious moments are right there at the top with any other authors; Ennis' Hellblazer run is downright iconic, his Hitman was so fucking good and in my opinion he created penned the definitive Punisher run as well. Millar I'm more torn on; the first year of Ultimates was pretty well done and then he just seemed to get lazy or too carried away - the second year wasn't nearly as good, and then the whole thing went to hell.

But Ennis has a trait I've seen only rarely - in that way I'd compare him with Terry Pratchett. He can write these weird-ass absurd situations and focus on humor then he can flip a fucking switch and blindside you completely, pivoting into really serious characterization and dramatic, intimate moments for his characters.

@tek said in Good TV:

I describe Katee's character as "Starbuck, if she had her shit together"

I know what all these words mean but what you are describing does not compute.

Ennis is much more palatable, even at his worst, than Millar is. Millar only ever works when he's constrained and toned down, and even then so many of the things he writes need to be cut. I mean just from your example-- Ultimates --I can pick a few things, like actually abusive Hank Pym (way worse than a slap which was anecdotally a misinterpretation of the script by the artist that they just ran with) and rapist Hulk, that the book would have been better without.

Unlike Ennis, Millar is basically limited to having interesting ideas that really should be left to others to develop.

I think the big difference between Ennis and Millar (mind you, both have stuff like horrible rape, murder, etc in their storylines) is that in "The Boys", Butcher is Ennis' voice. Ennis writes these horrible things into storylines then uses characters like Butcher to inject his biting "what the fuck is wrong with people?" narrative into the characters.

Millar, unlike Ennis, has an often less mature approach. I think that he ultimately tries to do the same thing, but Millar often feels like after 50 pages of "Wooo Grand Theft Auto Rampage!" he then will often take a turn and be more coy about the issues he introduced during said rampage.

tl;dr

Ennis is more immediately chiding and brutal about the darkness in his characters, where Millar seems to understand how people can "get off" on their own darkness long enough to learn that it's wrong. Ennis writes about characters who know theyre fucked up and do it anyway. Millar tends to write about characters who give in to their darker natures, spiral downwards, and then have to recover from being stupid enough for giving in to them.

I think Millar is a lot more clever than he gets credit for. His packaging can at first seem very immature, but he definitely has something to say.

I really like Another Life, too. Right now I feel like I'm getting some great Sci-Fi TV in (Expanse, Another Life) that is probably the best I've seen since the Reimagined BSG. I like technical, heavy, intense sci-fi.

I know I say this a lot, but it's an amazing time to be a geek. When I was a kid I'd never imagined that indie comics (The Boys, Deadly Class, Umbrella Academy, Hellboy), fantasy novels (LotR, Game of Thrones, Sword of Truth, Wheel of Time, etc), RPG settings (Final Fantasy, Star Wars KOTOR, hopefully more...), and nostalgic video games (Castlevania) are getting some decent live action/animated entertainment love.

We were watching The Boys tonight and had to hit pause to wax poetic on how some of this stuff on TV right now makes stuff like the old Incredible Hulk TV show look like poorly scripted Public Access tv, and not just in terms of technology.

A TV show about a bunch of guys seeking to hunt down and murder super heroes who are mostly sociopathic and accidentally murdering people via collateral damage on TV between 1978 and 2000? Never would have happened. This stuff is awesome.

@tek I love Katee's intensity. I'm also loving that hologram.

THE BOYS is solid, great TV.

Also: THE ORVILLE is a HULU show next season. Ixnay on the OXFay.

Actual reply to topic.

I think one of the reasons why FS3 is used so much also ties into why minimalist RPGs are doing so well right now: a sort of "time investment to launch" balance. I think the article is really spot-on and I think all of it applies to why FS3 does so well and should be factored into designing things on MUs.

Balance: If the idea/system is new, then something easy for the brain to digest needs to exist to balance it out. Original IPs with complicated systems are less attractive than Original IPs with easy to use systems. Existing IPs (people love star wars, wod, etc or are at least very familiar with them from books, movies, or similar programming) are more accepted with conplicated systems because people really wanna play a Jedi. You can either make a crunchy system less conplicated by using simplified code automation thru scripting, but also by finding other ways to make these new ideas/systems more attractive by doing anything you can to take the weight of use off of the user.

I think this article is aces.

@mietze Quick note. If you're (or anyone reading this is) into less crunchy systems and do tabletop RPGs in RL, check out the "Tiny" set of RPGs from Gallant Knight Games (easily available on DriveThruRPG for PDFs) and the games by Free League, which are slightly more crunchy than Gallant, but still have a low leaning curve.

There's a driving movement in the RPG community for easier, minimalist systems and can attest that the TINY games are a low learning curve, less bulky character sheets, and more "get out there and have fun."

Interesting topic. I didnt know anyone mushing with accessibility issues related to blindness (ex: text to speech\vice versa) but I imagine that mushing is excellent for deaf people and tabletop/skype is a lot better for blind people. I have seen color-blind people griping about the use of specific ANSI colors on mushes.

Good on Fate for coming up with a book on ways to help keep us gamers gaming.