@Arkandel
I know I've mentioned this before, but for a while I went to a theater where you could ask at customer service for a call device. They only gave out a few per theater, but it had like four buttons on it, all of which would silently call someone to look in and respond as necessary.
The buttons were:
Yes, noisy children got their own button. A++. Sadly the seating sucks so we don't go there anymore.
You're addressing a different person's post! I only made the ones about the Fairest.
Yeah, I do that a lot. Sorry. >_>
I like giving them some more agency. I don't like that -- and this is based on the Kith document, where Wizened are always patchwork people and Beasts are always animalistic and Fairest are always beautiful and Ogres are always big hulking brutes, et cetera, no matter which Kith you choose -- these very specific types of agency now define how your character looks.
This time I got the right quote with the right person. I think. Right? It was you? Pretty sure.
You're wrong, though. Or rather, you're reading specific examples in the Kith document too much as if they're the only way to fly. The kith document even calls out the fact that the examples are just a tiny sampling, and any given Keeper will have its own twist on things. The examples used were the most stereotypical for the Kith/Seeming combination, not meant to imply the limitations you're reading into it.
The physical description of each Kith by seeming is 100% in alignment with 1E Seemings.
So maybe they're lazy, and only working with stereotypes they already had on the shelf?
The only actual limitations of appearance are specifically noted as such: All palewraiths have transparent skin, all razorhands always have some sort of natural or artificial weapon attached to their hands, etc. But even then they flat out say that:
Also, players are free to change the listed appearance of a kith belonging to a particular seeming as long as their Storytellers agree that the new description fits with the meaning and feel of the kith and the changeling's seeming.
So unless your Storyteller is actually a full on asshole, your particular manifestation of a given Kith can look like whatever the fuck you want within the scope of your Seeming and your ST's discretion regarding your Keeper. Obviously if your Keeper was some super high tech space alien fucker you probably don't look like a fantasy troll, but beyond that even the Kith document makes it clear: Here are a bunch of suggestions, but make up your own wherever you want.
As to Seeming appearance, from the Seeming documents:
Ogres may seem to take up more space than they should, but they are not always big, nor hulking, nor brutes. The appearance section even mentions that an ogre may be small, or conduct their violence through verbal or emotionally and without any physical thuggery involved. In fact, outside of impressions other Changelings get of the space you occupy, the only physical characteristic specific to ogre is that they don't show off any skin as they're covered in 'something harder'. You could be a slender as fuck runway model to regular humans, gorgeous as anybody could be, and to Changelings be covered head to toe in diamonds and platinum or whatever. Sparkle on, you emotionally vicious mean girl.
The Fairest 'appearance' writeup is almost laughably vague, with the only specific indication of actual appearance being that there'll be some symbol of leadership to Changeling eyes, and some kind of glow, sparkle, reflection, or light about them. There is actually nothing at all in the Fairest description about even being physically attractive, which is kind of lulz.
Darklings also mention virtually nothng about your actual appearance under appearance. Posture, disguises and masks worn, sure. But nothing about what you actually look like (or can't look like).
An Ogre could regret replacing his heart, but unless he has a death wish, he would do it again if he were in the same situation.
And... so? You're unlikely to ever be in the same situation. Changelings taken by a Keeper aren't just fighting for survival, they're fighting to not be completely obliterated and overwritten by something Other.
Your Seeming represents who you were in a transformative, supernaturally charged moment that represents the most extreme of extremes. In most cases that is likely very reflective of who a person is, but people are not wholly defined by a single moment or even a single choice in their lives. They are not represented by a story, and that story is who they are and who they must be, because they are Changelings and not truly Fae.
There's a lot of reading of the Seemings like they must absolutely represent True And Immutable Facts about how your character will act or think or be, but there are virtually no True And Immutable Facts about how people will act, or think, or be.
Perhaps that's some emphasis that needs to be placed there in Changeling, because the alternative that seems to be how people are reading it makes no goddamn sense to me. Your Seeming is what it is because at a time when the very essence of your existence was being made malleable and shaped to the liking of something Other, you (the character, obviously) made a choice, took agency and acted. That choice, those actions, acted as a supernatural mold to finish you off and your Seeming is the shape you hold because of that choice.
Maybe, back in the world of humans, where the very fundamental essence of your being isn't in immediate danger with every breath you take, that mold doesn't fit very well. Maybe it doesn't fit because absent that extreme of extremes that's not how you believe you will or would act. Maybe it doesn't fit because it's not what you want for yourself, and you try and deny it.
Is that going to be the case for the vast majority of Changelings? Probably not. But to say that you can't be at odds/in conflict with the shape of the supernatural mold you cooked yourself into when the alternative was worse than death if that's the kind of character you want to play, seems utterly unreasonable to me.
I am not familiar with Kushiel theme so help would be very welcome in plotting her concept.
I can only assume it involves a lot of standing half naked with your back to other players.
Anime sub groups who sub 10 out of 12 episodes of an anime and then go on hiatus. 
Shut up, @Glitch, I'm not learning Japanese. >_>
@Coin said:
@Thenomain said:
@Coin said:
Some day I will make a The Strange MU.
It would be easier to code.
It would be easier to run, too. Player STs could be allowed to make separate realms where they can run stories of the type and style they like with rules altered per in-game specifications (i.e. physics laws and stuff). While staff could concentrate on metaplot and the Strange.
There's no reason you couldn't do that in WoD, or elsewhere, really. There've been settings/systems that let you do that before. Even owod had Mirror Realms that both mages and werewolves could find/use for a similar effect.
Hell, to a point that's what functionally happens with a ton of PrPs anyway.
The general rule of thumb, though, seems to be that the less something directly relates to your day to day playing of the game's core setting, the less interested people are. I haven't read The Strange aside from glancing at a blurb, and while it seems neat, I don't know that it surmounts that basic issue. If one ST's realm has zero impact on or ties to the 'core' setting (see: complaints regarding PrPs having no impact because staff doesn't want to have to account for everything crazy prp runners throw into their stories, hand out rewards for, etc) or to other 'realms', you'll get some use out of them but interest will often peter out or not catch on.
Do you think it's possible your WoD-gaming has been tainted by the MU* playstyle after all this time? I know whenever I'm playing table-top I keep comparing things mentally to how they'd work on a MUSH.
I don't really think so. I think it has more to do with the modern setting, actually. I addressed this to my wife recently when we were discussing setting stuff, and I think that as much as people here whine about 'bar RP' or other slice of life shit, on a MU* people want that ability to slide into/play through just some normal shit. Even if it's just backdrop, like your living room while you use your ipad to sketch out a magic ritual with somebody else, or mention running around the corner to grab xyz from the store while you're afk for a bit RL. There's a pretty basic familiarity with a modern setting that underscores a lot of minor things in a lot of roleplay that historical, fantasy, etc settings just don't have.
I can technically do many of the same things in a D&D setting that I can do in a WoD one, but even then many of those things lack the fundamental familiarity. A D&D tavern isn't the same as a bar, I don't actually write on paper in RL pretty much ever outside of a tiny number of things where I have to sign or fill out a form, blah blah blah. I don't dislike those trappings, but they aren't as comfortable.
On a WoD game I can log in at pretty much any time of day and as long as there's people around I know and like to play with, we can roleplay something. Maybe it's a PRP, maybe it's just sitting around bitching about mundane shit, maybe it's arguing about supernatural stuff, maybe it's TS, whatever. On the D&D games I played at if there wasn't adventuring to be had I'd pretty much wander off almost immediately.
In tabletop, you're always there for an adventure. Or at least nine times out of ten. Which is cool for D&D games, but I'd often find myself wishing that WoD tabletop games would slow the fuck down and not just rush from one emergency to the next (barring specific stories where that was necessary, but even then, not all the time), and have some fun roleplaying being a supernatural creature in a modern world and how that actually feels and plays out.
Since this was true in the Vampire games I played even before I knew wod MUing was a thing, I don't believe it can be attributed strictly to MUing, though.
@Rook
I thought those were just elaborate pictograms to convey their pricing plans.
They fly it because it's also, on top of being a symbol of racist pride, just a bunch of lines and colors.
I had a big post written up that I ended up not using, but it basically related directly to this: I wish we as a people would not get so caught up in allowing assholes to empower their symbols long after they should have ceased being anything but lines and colors and shapes that shouldn't mean shit.
No, a fucking flag bearing the colors shouldn't be flying over a state capitol (or on a state flag at all), but odds are pretty even in this day and age that a guy with the flag in question on his belt buckle just thought it looked like a cool belt buckle. Hate him because he's the kind of guy who wears flashy belt buckles, in and of itself an atrocity, not because you assume he knows or cares (or should care) what it once meant as a symbol.
I feel the same way about the swastika, really. Sure, it has been used as a symbol of hate, it still is, but bigots can and do adopt all manner of symbols to represent their hate. Letting them have that power well past the time when that symbol should have held any power just seems wrong. Instead we've got people on the internet crying about how shocked they were to see that the Nazis had had such an impact in India, defacing their temples and all, after seeing red swastikas painted on buildings. They shouldn't be so surprised what with violent cults springing up all over and using such outrageously offensive 'Hail Hitler' symbols like this:
Those monsters.
Wait, somewhere I got distracted by sarcasm.
Anyway. People who fly it for fucked up Southern Pride can go jump in a lake, skinheads with swastika tattoos under 'FUCK JEWFAGS' on their arms can join them, no flags with either should be flown anywhere by any US government, but I'm sad I probably won't live long enough to see the day when people stop giving the symbols of hate groups the power those groups so desperately wanted to imbue them with, by freaking the fuck out any time they see it.
It doesn't prevent harassment on channel, page, @mail, or otherwise.
It pretty demonstrably does, for me, since the amount of bullshit I have to put up with whenever it's gotten turned off for whatever reason is almost completely absent when I have it on.
Even if it's just annoyingly snide "Oh you're roleplaying with so and so." or other stuff that isn't staff actionable in the least. Which it's not. As has been noted, there are plenty of ways for people to be assholes without breaking any rules or doing anything staff could step in for, and if the unfindable flag helps me cut down on having to waste my time dealing with that, it has value to me.
People say that a lot, @Arkandel, but it rarely comes up how much money those fat cat CEOs bring into the company. Through their connections, through their influence, through any number of things that have a vastly wider scope and impact on the bottom line than the blood and sweat of Faceless Workerbots 1-500.
I'm not trying to defend the vastly overinflated payrolls these guys bank, but the simple truth is that the work put in by any given worker, or even hundreds or thousands of workers if the company is large enough, probably barely puts a dent in the earning (or more specifically the facilitation of the ability to generate earning) power its CEO brings to the table. This can vary a lot by company, but is often enough true.
Besides which, while the CEO isn't always the owner, it is often enough that suggestions that they get rid of the CEO instead of laying people off is a bit like saying your house would always be clean if you moved out onto the street and sealed the whole thing up. It may be true, but since you're the one the thing is meant to benefit that doesn't make a lot of sense.
I'm with @Coin, @WTFE. You could basically swap out Christopher Nolan for literally anyone else with a huge fan base and you'll find a large segment that acts exactly like that, in exactly the same ways.
There are some people who can't just like something, they have to go completely batshit with their fanaticism. See: Game of Thrones, Doctor Who, Any Given Sports Team, etc.
Basically the same sort of people who write fanfiction.
@Anonymous said:
What is it with all this shit about rape RP? Who the fuck wants to roleplay that? I don't get it
One of these days somebody can make a thread and everybody can submit things to it to compile a list of all the types of roleplay that someone, somewhere, finds pointless/useless/offensive/unnecessary/etc.
I'm about 90% sure that the compiled list would pretty much cover everything people roleplay. Everything.
Can you pick up the gun from the bad guy you just shot? Usually this seems to be not allowed or require a great amount of paperwork.
Yeah, it's kind of ridiculous how touchy staff get about this.
"BUT OMG WHAT IF SOMEBODY RAN A PLOT JUST SO SOMEONE COULD GET A BUNCH OF GUNS FOR FREE!!!111omgomgomgogm!"
...yeah, that'd be... terrible, I guess? Your MU* might crack open and somethingsomething, I guess?
TV shows in 2015 which depict any business with modern office spaces using dot matrix printers for anything but large scale data logging. What the fuck?
There is no way to automate a system to take into account all the actions that a group of players will want to do.
Well, there's your problem, you're thinking of your players like players. If you'd just treat them like readers of a Choose Your Own Adventure book, like @FiranSurvivor advocates, it'd solve all your problems.
@Roz said:
@HelloRaptor said:
TV shows in 2015 which depict any business with modern office spaces using dot matrix printers for anything but large scale data logging. What the fuck?
My office technology is laughably outdated, but even we don't have those.
(What shows are these?!)
It was CSI, but I went back and checked and he was actually printing a large batch of line data from a car's onboard computer, so it's passable and I was wrong. >_<
@Groth said:
@HelloRaptor said:
For the record, for your facepalming pleasure @Groth, the primary incident I was referring to above where I later found out I'd been played was because I got logs from everyone concerned (where multiple players were accusing one other player) and ruled based on what appeared to be the accused's log being doctored. It turned out the others involved had all doctored theirs in the same way to make it look like he was up to some shady shit so he'd get banned. People are fucking assholes.
I have no words for that level of terrible.
I do. It's 'This is why I think a clean slate for absolutely everyone is not always the best policy.', but I always get voted down when new games start. 
@WTFE said:
@silentsophia said:
@Shebakoby Having worked campus IT, it's probably both underfunding and people refusing to give up things they are comfortable with (thrown in with 'but it still WORKS!')
"But it still works!" is the single best reason to keep a system in operation. I know that among techies it's all annoying that someone dares to use stuff that was around when dinosaurs ruled the Earth, but the claim that "you could replace it with modern software/hardware and it will be All Better
" has been exposed as utter and complete bullshit so many times and in so many ways that smart business managers are correct to give such claims a dubious eye.
Replacing a system that works with a new, as yet untried, system is an incredibly risky venture. There are a lot of up-front costs with no conceivable return for months to years (depending on the size of the project)—and those returns may not even happen!
About three out of every four software projects are deemed failures by the people who make them (Source: Brooks), and the people making them have a vested interest in claiming that they were the greatest thing since sliced bread. I suspect, from years of observation, that were you to ask the actual end-users if the software project was a success you'd see that number rise to 9944 times out of ten thousand.
What kind of sucker places expensive bets where the people who have a vested interest in pumping up the success statistics are saying "well, you'll lose 3/4 of the time"? Why would you do that when you can use a system that is provably doing its job right now?
While everything you've said here is technically true, @Shebakoby's gripe is still valid, because 'but it still works' is often a tenuous statement at best, and what they really mean is 'but because we have sixteen workarounds, four kludges, and two pieces of gum in place, it still works!' and that shit only 'still works' in the sense that a rickety suspension bridge that hasn't actually dropped someone into a ravine 'still works' until the moment it doesn't, and that moment will be soon.
When it's getting to the point your program won't even run in a modern OS, and by 'modern OS' we're talking about things that became common a decade ago, it's time to look at more modern options and stop clinging to the familiar comfort of your old ass bullshit. People in the construction project planning industry and holding on to a program written for DOS, that won't even run on 64bit operating systems, and runs for shit in emulation, but then complain that everything ELSE they have to use runs so fucking slow because they're stuck using <4GB of RAM with half a dozen programs open.
There comes a point where you need to bite the fucking bullet and move up. The number of times I've talked to companies that have perfectly viable (maybe not perfectly, but still viable) modern alternatives but don't want to spend the money or time to train people to use them, is just infuriating.
When it comes to XP though here's what's interesting: Most players will detest being unable to ever catch up in the power curve; everyone wants to be special. However players also detest when everyone catches up in the power curve; that's when no one is special.
The first of those grates on my nerves far more than the latter, which is more or less understandable when talking about games where there being a power curve is part of the setting.
