Best posts made by Groth

@Arkandel said in Social Conflict via Stats:

@Miss-Demeanor said in Social Conflict via Stats:

And people don't like it when they don't have full autonomy over their character. So you will never get that relatively easy ruleset until the players stop bitching about not being in complete control of their character's choices/actions/etc.

Absolutely. That's why I keep repeating the same thing (so forgive me one more try ) - in order for a social stats system to have a chance of being culturally accepted and actually used, as opposed to being merely forced on people, it must offer something we don't currently have.

In other words it can't just be an addon to the way we already play in scenes. That's a disadvantage then. It's interrupting scenes which already flow a certain way with extra delays for OOC conversations, dice rolls, looking up tables, debating mechanics, etc.

What it must do is make things better than what we are doing now. And not just better because 'whelp, we are using social stats now' - that's the goal, not the means. We must answer the question 'how is this making things more fun than before? convincingly.

This is also why I don't think it'll ever happen.

Consider, why do we roleplay in the first place? I believe most of us enjoy imagining ourselves as someone else, trying to figure out how our character would feel in any given circumstance, how they would react and seeing how they in turn affect other characters.

In a hypothetically robust social system, that would no longer be in our control. The game decides what motivates the character, what their emotional state is, what their reaction is supposed to be. We the players would then merely be the actors playing out the actions given to us by the game system which might be fun but it would be a very different kind of game.

@arkandel said in Talking 'Bout Ares:

@wizz Yeah +help versus help used to be the bane of my life. Especially for 'custom' commands like +aspirations or whatever.

Doesn't help that people also use news for helpfiles.

@TNP said in ISO: a comics/superheroes MU* (give me your recs):

And yes, we still enforce rules and take action when someone ignores three warnings. I suspect that's common to most places.

Fuck no, that's the dumbest approach ever.

There's two kinds of problematic players, those who do learn and those who don't. If you talk to someone about a problematic behaviors of theirs and they repeat it, they're not going to improve the 2nd or 3rd time either.

@arkandel said in Constructive (keyword) Criticism of Arx Systems:

Why not?

What's the upside of creating systems specifically so knowledge of how they work or optimization can't give an advantage?

You'll never be able to create a system where knowledge and optimization are not things. However you can create a system where a player just making their sheet according to what they feel their character should be like will be succesful and not be subjected to pressures about doing things 'wrong'.

@SG said in Good TV:

Lol, it shows so much. In episode 2, Dracula pretty much is Dr. Who. I couldn't get through episode 3, it was complete trash.

Moffat can be so great, and he can also be so bad. I think he just needs a good handler to filter his ideas.

Various Exalted games

• Sparrow/Raven
• Silver Eagle
• Tixis
• Veritas

RfK

• Vireo
• Sparrow
• Weaver
• Cerys
• Groth-Golka

Kishi Kaisei

• Suzume

Generations of Darkness

• Nikoova

Haven

• Ceris
• Hwan
• Bradley

Arx

• Andry

Historically Abyssals have been one of the least popular playable splats. In large part because Abyssals have just been worse Solars, all the flexibility of Solars got traded into becoming more goth, murder and death none of which is particularly useful. Nothing stops a Solar from dressing in bones and black while they recite bad poetry.

Regardless I think the only ones who have third edition books are Solars, Lunars and DBs?

MSB Meta is OP, Plx nerf

So I finally got around to actually watch Rise of Skywalker and I think my impression of the movie can be best summed up as 'A series of very dramatic scenes that at no point attempt to create a coherent whole'. Since every individual scene is very dramatic, the process of watching the movie is enjoyable enough and it's a fine popcorn flick. However as a casual fan of Star Wars I'm not sure I'm comfortable calling it a Star Wars movie because the movie at no point seems to particularly care about maintaining a coherent universe.

***=NSFW content***

I think ultimately I'm just going to pretend this trilogy never happened. A bit like it's such a shame Matrix never got any sequels.

@le_mew said:

For the record, I'm open to any setting (as long as there is a compelling story or an inspiring historical period), but I'm not focused on any one over the other. Old west and roaring 20s seemed the most likely settings.

There are (and have been) WoD mushes, old and new, in almost ever real (or fictional) town in the United States. I'm far from an expert, but all the of the games that exist seem very much the same. How different is Maine from New Orleans? Or NYC from Las Angeles? shrug I like the idea of a historical WoD mux because it peppers a lil flavor to the WoD theme, but I realize I might be in the minority.

My understanding is that the problem you run into once you try to run a historical WoD game of non-trivial size is that the players are unwilling to research the relevant time period which forces you to either strictly theme police and give players homework or slowly watch the game feel like 21st century Maine anyhow.

@nyctophiliac said in Critters!:

Boris, the little fuck on the left with the striped nose, chewed my laptop cable and keeps eating socks. So I cant rp and my feet are cold.

Sounds like you need less tasty socks and cables!

When you make a game, make the game you would love to play. If you make it well you'll attract others who'll also like it regardless of what the theme or system is.

Somewhat tangental:
In theory the optimal form of goverment is a benign dictator, having the flexibility to always to the right thing for the people without any of the red tape and bureacracy of a democracy. In practise it never happens because people are human and thats why the most succesful countries are generally those with accountability.

MU* is similar in that if you have the perfect staff, they dont need rules to tie them down since theyll always do the right thing to make the game better for everyone. In reality though most staff are just normal people trying to have some fun with their hobby with others and there's no reason to expect them to be saints.

Good rules and policies makes the hobby better for everyone since it makes the expectations clear and you put less pressure on the staff to always make the right judgement call. Sure at times they might feel cumbersome and unneccesary if you have a lot of trust however I think it's on the whole better to lean on good policy rather then trust.

I wanted to pick up a new hobby this summer so I decided to get into miniature painting. I've never been able to draw a straight line in my life but I think my Sisters of Battle are coming out surprisingly ok. Feel free to post your own or post about miniature games in general.

@peasoupling said in PB 'realism':

Crop the face really tight, assume the actress bulked up for the role! Like Christian Bale. Solved.

This reminds me of my #1 peeve with PBs. Which is when other players take it upon themselves to google search for more pictures of the same actor/actress in less clothing and link them to you because they think your PB is sexy.

I picked that specific picture with them in that specific pose with those specific clothes because that expresses the personality I want get across. Please don't try to create your own sexier version of my character.

I think the most blatant issue I run into in online communities and is usually the most tell-tale sign for me that I am looking at someone on the spectrum is the frustration with not being understood.

You have this idea you want to communicate but it is misinterpreted and in your effort to clarify, you're viewed as obstinate.

The correct thing to do is to just step away but the feeling of being unable to communicate is very unpleasant and giving up feels a bit like accepting this inability as an inescapable fact.

I got asked today why I don't just stop being rude as if it's that easy but it's not. For the most part I am not intentionally rude but I am aware I am often perceived to be, this is a source of frustration.

There are people out there who are amazing at always keeping their arguments respectful and perfectly convey their thoughts and maybe in theory I could learn the skill but it's hard to double check your own thought pattern when at first glance nothing seems wrong from your end.

@surreality said in Tips for not wearing out your welcome:

People who have zero experience with isolation are already struggling, and I have a genuine non-snark concern that if you talk about how you're in one of these spaces to escape RL isolation and expect some indulgence on the part of staff or other players because of a combination of anxiety and isolation, you are going to get sledgehammered by people screaming, "Join the fucking club!" as it is something the vast majority are dealing with.

With all due respect I suspect you and most others on this forum have absolutely no concept for how far isolation can go and it comes across as incredibly shallow to compare a few months of reduced contact with your friends with the kind of multi-decade long stretches of time some people on the spectrum isolate themselves from most human contact.

• I always turn off automatic Windows updates because I want to decide when my computer reboots.
• I updated from Windows 7 to Windows 10 recently.
• I often use open unsaved notepad files to store random notes for use later.
• I spent the idle hours of the day organising information into one of these notepad files and went to sleep. When I woke up I was greeted by a blank desktop and Windows cheerfully notifying me that it updated itself and rebooted my computer without asking me.
• Few times I've ever felt such a sudden urge to strangle a fellow programmer as that morning.