@kk That sounds like a combination of hell, sheer hell, and pure hell. I don't envy you in the slightest. I do understand, though, as a key worker and carer for someone at-risk. Stress is no-one's friend right now, and for those of us who have to carry on as 'normal' despite being in a completely abnormal situation, it's hard work.
Feel free to contact either one of me on Arx if you want RP when I'm about; Raymesin is the obvious one, but he's not to everyone's taste.
I think for me it's about understanding the mindset.
I'm more likely to play a man than a woman, because I don't really get the whole femininity thing. If I play a woman she either ends up not really getting the whole femininity thing, or she ends up a total stereotype. Stereotypes are fine for the short term, but I can't build a long-term character out of what I don't understand.
I'm more likely to play a character who's not straight. I'm not straight. I understand that different people find different things attractive; I'm not drawn to physical attributes, and faces are the things on the front of heads, so I find it hard to tell people apart and I've no real idea of what constitutes 'pretty'. It's all pretty academic to me, so I'm not overly bothered about it personally. I've also spent most of my life having my sexuality assumed for me, to where I talk about my bloke instead of my partner purely so people don't get absolutely shocked when they meet him. Being gay doesn't define personality or presentation, it's just another part of a character, and I understand it. No problem, off we go.
I'm not likely to play a dark-skinned character in the modern world - particularly in the US - because I don't really get the experience of a dark-skinned person in the US. I'm not from there, I'm aware that it sucks to degrees I simply can't comprehend, but the only thing I have to go on for the people themselves is stereotypes. Again, I can't build a long-term character out of that. A black Briton? Sure, I know plenty of them, I can play that - but their experience is rather different from the American experience, and I don't know where the pitfalls are.
Trans people? I got misgendered a couple of weeks ago, and I'm cis. I was able to laugh it off - even consider it a compliment - but if I wasn't absolutely sure of who and what I am it could have been devastating. This may change in the future, but I'm at not enough information for a long-term character at present.
Basically, I can't build a long-term character out of stereotypes. I know the stereotypes are wrong, but I don't have the experience to tease out the truth to where I can understand it.
This same thing is why I balk at playing American military. British military, no problem, I understand that. I've brushed against it since before I learnt to toddle, to where I've helped other civvies handle forces and ex-forces people. American? Not so much. Part of British Basic Training is extracting the personality, breaking it down and rebuilding it to what the military needs. I've seen what that does to Brits several times over, including the differences between those who've seen combat and those who haven't, from a wide range of backgrounds and eras. Americans? It's a similar process, but the results are different, and I don't know where those differences lie.
@JinShei Patterns always need better instructions. That's one of the immutable laws of the universe. Along with there being a wrong instruction in every single pattern.
Looking good, though!
To me, the theme is more the undercurrents driving things.
In historical games, we might see 'Christianity versus paganism' or 'Serfs are people too'.
Urban fantasy is usually 'The things that go bump in the night have their own problems' and 'Mortal man really doesn't need to know this shit'. But in there we also get things like 'Dominance or Submission, there is nothing else' or 'If you can't justify anything, you aren't trying hard enough'.
Fantasy is frequently 'Game of Houses' or 'Breaking the universe, one bit at a time - try not to break the bit you're standing in'.
Theme is the overarching thing you're playing. Even two WoD games with the same ruleset, same spheres and same setting can be very different, depending on where the emphasis is placed.
Helix is also known as Amberyl, a coder behind one of the MU* codebases, and the one who literally wrote the book on staff ethics in MU*. She pretty much abandoned it many years ago.
Best of luck to Simulacrum, but if Hella is begging people to come back, I'm going to stay elsewhere.
Kestrel. Kestrels are the ones that hover like that.
@Packrat It comes to something when the most interesting thing in a city's history is apparently the railway...
I have to second @Wizz. Make the game you want to play. Keep an eye on making it accessible for other people to play in your game too - settings with One Big Badass are fun for the badass but not much fun for anyone else who has to deal with them, for instance - but build what you want to play first and foremost.
I generally don't get involved in Comics games because I like the grim and gritty antiheroes rather than the four-colour deities, and Frank Castle in a world with Superman is... yeah. But a dieselpunk setting with no Superman? That actually sounds interesting.
@pyrephox A lot of the people I work with have taken to booking themselves a slot of half an hour or an hour in their calendars at lunchtime, and going for a walk before it gets dark.
@curious1 Arxian society is less stratified than you might think. Most of the Princes and Princesses will talk to even SR9 street scum, so don't worry on that score, and you can always join an org that deals with people across the social scale like one of the various Discipleships attached to the Faith.
Roster characters generally do come with some sort of secret, and should have premade hooks to at least one org. Both these things give you places to start.
The question I have to ask is 'are you absolutely sure you want to make a Kinfolk?'
If you want to be a useful part of a pack, another werewolf is often the best way to go. There are some types that are more easy-mode than others, when it comes to learning a new game, and there are enough tribes and auspices that most sorts of characters can find a niche.
Kinfolk, however - well, to be honest, the first question is 'are you as a player okay with your character being forever being a second-class citizen', and the second question would be 'did you actually want to get involved in Garou stuff'. If you're okay with being a lesser sort of being and not being able to get involved, the questions are 'what do you want to play' and 'what does the pack need'.
@lifebird said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:
I have very long hair for first time ever from not getting it cut all year. Every so often it falls into my peripheral vision and scares the shit out of me.
I hate it when my hair is long.
Once upon a time it was down to my waist. It was such a joy when I got it cut. Now I can tie almost all of it back, and I hate it. It's thick and wavy and tangles in a heartbeat. It gets in my eyes, my mouth, my way, everything. It takes hours to dry and it's just an all-around nuisance. The only thing that's cheering me up about my hair is that as I get older I'm going from dark bronze to an overall auburn, with silver and gold threads and a very few pure copper. That bit I love.
But it's still a bloody nuisance, and I'm seriously considering just shaving it all off, if we're looking at a lockdown into February. I wanted to shave it off in March, but that got veto'd because someone didn't believe my guesstimate of when I'd have to go out of the house to work again, and to be fair they're the one who has to look at it.
To be honest, I'm not sure it really matters what the scale of the conflict is as long as there are enough levels of conflict to go around. If all the conflict is where only a few people can get at it, there's going to be a lot of boredom going on.
In my opinion, it's more important to have a reason for your warring groups to have something to make them all come together, and give them a reason to RP something other than fighting each other. It doesn't matter whether it's a neutral city containing the school of magic for the known world, that one bar where the bouncer's a dragon and the barmaid a god but the beer is so amazing people will come back from the dead for another pint, a big external threat that wants to eat the the world, an invading army in the hundreds of thousands, or the empty vastness of space that neither knows nor cares that they exist. There needs to be a reason to come together as well as a reason to fracture apart along the faultlines, or your playerbase becomes scattered and divided.
@goblin Union. Now. If only to watch your back.
Great. Now my subconscious is working on structural designs for corsets for the well-endowed, as well as on cheapo insulation monitors, sound as a form of fault detection, and a new form of wind turbine.
I love you and I hate you all.
@wildbaboons said in Health and Wealth and GrownUp Stuff:
@grayson said in Health and Wealth and GrownUp Stuff:
6-bedroom farmhouse at least two centuries old, set in acres of land, more than a mile away from the next human, where there's no public transport
Sounds like they need to move to the US.
The particular ones I'm thinking of ended up in Wales, half an hour from where I used to live. It's a part of the world where Londoners move to in order to drink themselves to death...
@Auspice If I'm writing a book, I can get people to help make sure I haven't screwed up. By the time anyone can check that in RP, it's too late.
@misadventure said in Autism and The MU* Community:
@macha Fuck that guy.
No, don't fuck that guy.
You really don't want to have to touch him, and you don't know where he's been.
@Tinuviel There's plenty of anti-Pole sentiment from the Russian side, too.