Best posts made by gryphter

@mietze

I was sad to discover that by the numbers, I am considered a millienial. The fact that I'm kind of disturbed by that probably means I/we bear a responsibility to change what the subtext of 'millenial' is. If I'm one, they're getting a lot of it wrong.

What are you thinking for codebase? It seems like you could stand this up in Ares almost overnight with the FS3 plugin.

Redux:

@surreality I like this because contributors continue to do so on a volunteer basis, yet are rewarded tangibly for doing so.

I really like the idea of a supers game where you wouldn't need to know all the deep and intricate lore behind every character and plot event, but existing in the continuity of a world we know something about. A huge amount of lore to know or learn is one of the hardest things to approach on a game and one of the easiest things to fail on.

@eye8urcake I've been listening to the new album since Friday like it's the only music in the world. I missed pre-ordering through Amazon and had to go through a lesser-known service, and as a result didn't get my hard copy until yesterday.

Which was great for me, because I got two Toolmases. My friend and I were discussing how Tool always seems to come with an album full of the messages you need right now, and Fear Inoculum doesn't disappoint.

Really damn late to the party, but Hollow Knight is the shit. Thank you, that will be all.

@surreality This tickles a not-unrelated concept in my brain where I wish our artistic players were tangibly rewarded for their very real artistic contributions.

The evolving dream, then, is not one of wage-enforced servitude to any given game, but a system that rewards people willing to do tasks. You put more time in the hobby, you extract more reward -- maybe even enough to pay your bills, if that's what you want to do with all your time.

This really has me thinking.

I even misspelled the name of the program, so that should give you a sense of how often I've actually used it. Out of guilt for my shitty and unhelpful answer I tried to research 'how to get started on a flow chart' however, that just turned up a lot of technical guides from the perspective of a multitude of different flow chart applications.

I suspect it's not the technical 'how' you need here, though. I always find it helpful to dial down to the smallest point of detail; what's the first event or decision point you can identify in the process? Get that, then work from that point step by step.

I'm sure none of this is blowing your mind with my fresh, hot take on flow charts or the vast amount of detailed information I've provided. Bottom line: You Can Do It.

No, this isn't a post about furries; it's about Animal Upon Animal, the animal stacking game by Haba.

I bought this for my mini for Christmas this year, in keeping with our theme of fewer shitty plastic toys and more quality stuff to do, alone or as a family. She's pretty good at stacking the animals, but not so good at focusing on what we're supposed to be doing instead of romping around on the table with her provision animals and knocking everything over. She has a blast the whole time.

This became a hit with the whole family, and the grownups sit here stacking animals like it's the most serious and important work currently being done on the planet long after the kids go to bed.

It's a stunningly simple premise -- get animals, stack animals. The rule set in the book comes pretty slim and requires some interpretation to flesh out; my kid wanted to turn the animals out of profile and stack them on the crocodile that way, and while nothing in the rules explicitly forbids this, we had to decide it was against the spirit of play. There are some supplemental rules included in the book for 'advanced stackers'.

This game is fun for the whole family and comes with my highest recommendation. We ordered a second set and we can't wait for it to arrive so we can play the Frankenstein's monster we've already planned out with both base crocodiles, both dice, and all 56 well-made wooden animals.

I'm already pushing to order and incorporate the Crest Climbers edition for even more crazy stacking fun.

@surreality I would really love to see something like this become a thing. I'm sold.

@surreality Certainly tangible in-game benefits and recognition on a game you love playing would be just as good as cash to some.

A sticking point I see with handing out tangible unbalancing rewards in a system like this, though, is making it possible for anyone, at any skill level, to contribute and benefit if they wish. Otherwise you're going to run into the same dinosaur/balance issues and Timmy the burgeoning new hobbyist is left out with an underwhelming character because he doesn't know how to @dig and can't write a desc anyone wants to read. He can't figure out a way to bridge the gap so he gets frustrated and logs off to go play WoW vanilla.

ETA: I don't know how disturbed I really am that people who contribute to the game get to benefit more from it. I really just want Timmy to have a way to participate.

@surreality Solid points here. Personally if someone is STing at me and giving of their time and creativity, I don't give a shit if the grammar and spelling are off and it's riddled with typos. I'll look past it to the story you're gracious enough to include me in.

Culturally encouraging new players -- or less outgoing older players, because we're not getting everything we could out of everyone in the hobby already now -- to step up and boldly contribute is certainly part of what we need to do. Our modernization efforts incorporating the things we've learned along the way have helped that a lot, but there's more yet to go.

@Joyeuse That may be so, but people have made successful entrance much younger. I don't think ageism has ever really been one of our -isms in here.