Posts made by ixokai

@Tempest said:

I tend to dislike coded feeding systems, or even having to roll to feed, personally. It's a nice idea, but it tends to ignore outside factors which are pretty huge, and force 'A, B, or C feeding situations' on people.

The thing is, that makes vampires perfect predators -- and while they are good predators, they aren't perfect. It also completely removes all tension from the game when it comes to vampires being vampires, and removes the value of things like Herd and having prime clubbing real estate be 'your' feeding ground.

If you don't have feeding, and if you don't have feeding be possibly dangerous or problematic, then you aren't playing Vampire, IMHO. You're playing a superhero game where everyone is allergic to sunlight.

I suspect people may disagree with me on many points, but, I think LAMUSH handled feeding right.

(I realize we went to bad places later on in our coding of systems, the influence monstrosity I ultimately made was bad, even though it had good intentions-- but don't judge "game over coded" as being meaningful to all systems in a game)

On LA, every "grid square" had a certain blood value, and depending on the square, there was a different difficulty and amount of blood based on how you fed. This meant those who were good at seduction feeding did well in some squares, but not as well in others; and those who mugged / violence fed did well in some, and not as well in others.

The abstraction wasn't perfect. Yet, it created real value for the vampires. It reinforced their theme/playstyles/feedingstyles, and created real value for masters/elders/coteries in seeking to control certain places. We could have done better with it, but LA had a real solid foundation that engaged one of the essential details of "what it means to be a vampire" into the characters lives.

Nowadays, on most games, "feeding" (not just vampire: Geist, Mage, Werewolf, All of it) tends to just slowly regen, and really taking value in land/territory and having this matter to your life doesn't seem to happen as often. I'm not saying it never happens, but I think games lose authenticity when they forget about feeding their power and the importance of it.

Okay, so. We've now converted to Rhost. Why? Because I don't code on any codebase but Rhost anymore, and so that is the price and consequence of me stepping up to fully engage as codewiz.

It remains an open question if we start from Thenomain's GMC code; I talked to Ashen-shugar and got him to change Rhost to allow attributes to start with "." which it wouldn't do before(I asked for this feature not to support Theno's code but because I decided I liked the code-style), but I haven't decided if I'm going to just write from scratch or adapt Theno's code to Rhost.

Either way, I'm all in on Dust to Dust. Teh codez will bez like done, yo.

@Tyche said:

Sarah is still a babe though.

ahmahgawd

I'm gonna be sick

@Arkandel said:

No, it's the idea that player-ran plots are somehow unwanted that gets me. That somehow players actively participating in storytelling is a bad thing because it leads to staff not wanting to do the same thing - as if the two groups are at odds rather than just people on the same game wearing slightly different hats at different times.

What? How do you get that?

Player run Plots are plenty wanted. In fact, they're incentivized.

@Arkandel said:

It's an approach outside my realm of experience. It places a divide between things that needn't be divided and devalues PrPs by implying (in fact, stating) they are worth less. I don't see my plots as 'monster of the week' scenarios and I wouldn't want to run any if that was what I was permitted to.

Since Player run Plots are the only ones that get a incentive, how exactly do you think they're worth less?

Staff don't get XP for running Staff plots. That doesn't say "Staff Plot is better and worth more". Staff don't get rewards for doing their job.

The difference between Staff and Player plots is one of scale and scope, not of importance or value. Staff don't get rewards for any of their volunteer Staff duties. That's that. Players do get rewards for going above and beyond what's expected of Players and running things for people.

I can see the argument that this devalues Staff participation/time, though I fundamentally disagree with it (and I do think its a question of ethics: Staff should not benefit from their position). But the argument that it somehow is saying PRP are unwanted or not valued is bizarre and backwards IMHO.

@Sunny said:

Ultimately, it boils down to the fact that I refuse to reward staff with advantages over other players. They're there to facilitate RP, not benefit themselves.

FWIW, I concur. I don't know where this trend began where Staff would get XP for doing their jobs, but its an abomination, IMHO.

(My abbreviations are like book ends)

The rewards for staffing are social, if that. It's satisfaction (mixed in with frustration).

When we were discussing this thing, I suggested that hey, we should let players +vote Staff! Sunny was all NOO, and I was like: wait, but staff don't have stats. They have nothing to spend it on! Its just a number, a kudos. That kinda reward I don't mind, but someone else raised the objection that they'd be dis-incentivized if they saw I had like 25 kudos-worthless-XP and they had like 5, so were not loved. So it was dropped.

But feel good times and access to secrets and NPCs are the privileges of staffing. Not XP for their personal characters.

I'm forgetting, at least, two thirds:

Castle D'Image (Jaygen, Xanth, Aramais)
Eternal Nights (Danyelle, Paradox codemonkey)
Armageddon (Rachel the seer cherub, Belial the Baron of Hell, Megiddo the site-admin codemonkey)

... VAST GULF OF TIME AND MANY MANY GAMES I DO NOT AT ALL REMEMBER ANYMORE ...

Los Angeles: A House Divided (Graydon white gangrel gangster, Levi the walking mummy nosferatu elder, Exploitation codemonkey, Downtown the sphere guy)
Anytown (Bradin the werewolf)
Mystick Krewe (Samael the rich model emotion-warper, Josh the teenage delinquent telekinetic, Kermit (the second one))
Metro (Mikiyasu the kuei-jin)
Devilshire (Josh the teenage delinquent telekinetic, Iforgethisname: a sidhe played by Alex Pettyfer)
Darkwater (I don't even remember)
The Reach (Chance (the sin-eater), Jeremy (the spider), Matt (another sin-eater))
Second Pass (Milian / L'ian the awkward bronzerider)
Oathcircle (Graydon the sidhe Baron)

Eldritch (Mr. Coin)
Whispers in the Dark (Malakai)
Arx (Antonio-- the dashing captain and disciple of the sea god <NO MORE>, Preston-- the ernest young Knight Templar who believes SO MUCH it hurts, Tomwell-- the wannabe courtesan noble thrust into a life he's not prepared for)
Fallen World (Oxymandias)
Star Wars: Insurgency (Artichoke, Andanen, Chaydin, Deviant, Zexen-Seven)
The 100 (Cameron, Que)
Dystopia (Wut)
Marvel: 1963 (Alex, Venom, Spawn, Anduvin, Nexus, Venom)
Battlestar Galactica: Unification (Connor, Josua)

Current:
Marvel: 1963 (Theorem, Josh, Billy, Chance, Johnny Storm, Peter Parker, Carnelian)
Arx: Donato
From the Ashes (Chance pooka)
Valorous Dominion (Nicolo)
Welcome to Lovecraft (Bradin, Case)

God, for a hobby I've had forever I can barely remember most games. They've all blurred together into a soupy mess.

What unformatter do you use, Thenomain? I know you say 'drop in Muxify', but the way you document things doesn't get that stuff filtered out, so either I go through and manually pick it all out or there's a whole bunch of Huh?'s and mail complaints. That doesn't seem right, so I'm assuming you are using a different unformatter? (I'm tempted to go write my own)

I doubt either of you would be on this board, but I thought I'd try!

--Josh@MK

Thank you God for not including &afinger.

There's nothing at all less cute then people who think its cute to respond to a +finger with some commentary.

Beyond that, I like "Availability" to be part of the regular attributes. That, and maybe PlayedBy, considering how so many games use that. Yes, someone can put it into their custom things if they want, but what's your "standard set" sort of defines a bit about your culture as a game.

Hm, which makes me think you should probably make the standard set configurable. But I over-engineer sometimes.

@ixokai said:

I'm not sure about the setting-- its incredibly bleak, (at least, in Changeling) more so even then the wiki and news describes. I fear that this will become a thing that kills fun as time goes on, instead of something that encourages stories. But I don't know, we'll see. I'm a little bit worried, I admit.

Just in case someone's reading this: This is certainly a thing that is both fixable and meant to be fixed. Its a challenge. I got to take part in a SRP over the last couple days that made a significant milestone.. It was run well, there were some challenges there and it was resolved with a combination of some hints that were earned previously and player innovation, including one player (not me) coming up with a completely novel approach to the situation that took some on the fly ST judgement.

Also I got to say "premature bunkulation" in character which was fun.

So: The setting is grim right now, but its a WIP, and it no longer concerns me as much. I don't think the bleakness will go easy, but I also don't think it'll be this mountain we chip away at for a long time. Only the first couple steps towards the fixing have been done, but it feels like a less desolated world is on the horizon.

Just adding my two cents again.

I'm not sure about the setting-- its incredibly bleak, (at least, in Changeling) more so even then the wiki and news describes. I fear that this will become a thing that kills fun as time goes on, instead of something that encourages stories. But I don't know, we'll see. I'm a little bit worried, I admit.

Its worth noting that the Supremes was very helpful throughout the application process (Even though I was applying for something technically restricted) and evaluated and approved my app for the most part in an hour after I submitted it... I didn't write my descs, and was tired from work that day so I didn't get a final approval an hour after submission, but I can't blame him for that.

After that he went out of his way to provide an 'intro' scene into the meta and goings on-- admirable, but again, the setting is incredibly bleak so like, that's kind of a wash. Changeling, as a game, isn't really about ultra-dark bleakness. Still, the attention and support from staff is nice.

I've RP'd with two people, so far good. There's a lot of complex situations going on that seem to invite me into being proactive. I haven't figured out what to do yet (I'm still figuring out the character, to be honest), yet the people around seem eager and interested in engaging.

None of this is meant to say criticisms are invalid, and I'm not a shill for the game. Sunny will vouch for me, at least that far, I think.

I'm just sharing my personal experiences playing.

FWIW, I found this games email'd application questions to be less onerous and annoying then the questions asked on Sheltering Skies. I got bit on a few of those and found them annoying, where all of the questions on FTA seemed pretty reasonable, and I was even applying for something on the restricted list.

Just saying. I know mushes these days tend to be lax about apps, but I'm fine with Q&A apps (though I think it should be done online and not over email) -- and, personally, I didn't find this set of questions really all that hard a barrier to applying.

Anything that lets me apply without having to write a narrative background like was required in the old days. I hate those like something fierce.

Just saying:

We need a dark theme.

You can't rage against the machine without a dark background and keep a straight face.

Please? ITS SO BRIGHT.

@Cobaltasaurus said:

If you used GMC and the GMC supernatural merits for psychics, I would play. I might even play if you used GMC tweaked hunter, though I think some hunter powers are ridic ar least vs the supernat merits in GMC.

I'm still thinking about psychics. I think they need some tweaks to fit in, a bit of a boost really, but the GMC Psychic merits would be a start.

Hunter would get a big overhaul of course. Their latest book (I can't remember its name now) included some notes to detail its hunter / GMC crossover issues. Also, those Hunter groups which are purely antagonistic to anything not purely human would be npc only. My idea for a game is with psychics and witches a gray area, not something you just kill, so some compacts/conspiracies are just not suitable.

I'm totally only interested in a GMC game, no matter how much work it takes to tweak, but there's questions on what that means because obviously outside of the basic merits Onyx Path are focused on converting the major splats.

The key detail for me is, its a game about humans. Everyone fundamentally who is a PC, is a human. Human in the World of Darkness, a world which is vaster and stranger then we think of in terms of WOD, because the whole story isn't told by these monolithic histories of five races.

Its not a story about vampires, werweolves, mages, oh my; but about humans surviving and challenging against hauntings and possessions and rakshasa and vampyr and skinwalkers and wendigo and .. and and and and.

@Catsmeow said:

I get what you are saying, at least I think I do. You want to have all the major spheres, but have them as the NPC baddies that get taken out, right?

Yes and no.

I want a World of Darkness where the world is full of -- things. Some things you may look at and say "vampire", some you may look at and say "werewolf", because pop culture makes you say that.

But those things don't have major power stats, they aren't giant conspiracies, they aren't all concrete things. Maybe there's two things that you look at and say "vampire", one this ugly vicious sewer dweller-- a Nosferatu!-- one a beautiful Lestat wannabe. Maybe you as a person see these as the same, but maybe they aren't. Maybe one drinks blood, the other drinks emotion.

I'm saying the Major Templates don't exist, as written; instead, almost any variation of NPC versions exist instead.

Maybe one kind of vampire can't exist in the light, and one kind spar--- AUGH, no. There will be no sparkles.

My thought is the World of Darkness isn't a thing about this major splats, but about the people, the regular humans and near-humans who find themselves caught up in the story of something mysterious and horrible.

All the PC's are human or near-human (psychic, witch, hunter, ..etc?), and these things are -- varied and weird. They all lack a cohesive greater society. Oh, a guy may say he's a descendant of an ancient vampire line dating to Caine, but there's no power behind it. These /things/ are more rare and far between and closer to humanity (for all their horrors) then the regular major splats are.

In the major splats, you're comfortable being non-human. You have power behind you, history, culture. In a smaller, more local World of Darkness, there's nothing so big -- maybe you don't kill everything you see. Maybe you come across this thing that needs blood but lives off pigs blood and you don't see it as a monster. That decision, that question, human or not, is a bigger question when you don't have the bigger splats.

But this other blood drinker, he transforms into bats and kills on the new moon (neither of which have anything to do with the first: are they the same? Similar? Who knows? Find out. The question is open) that you judge a monster and put down.

Its a more visceral World of Darkness, more human focused.

@Thenomain said:

It is, but the dragon at the Andraste's Ashes quest in DA:O was hard as a mofo. I wanted to stab my eyes out in the two cases where you must use tactical view in order to solve some puzzles, tho.

Conceded, that high dragon was much harder. Still, I didn't find the need to use tactical in DAO a eye-stabbing event, personally. I found it a natural flow from personal control to managing the party. Hard situations needed some detailed coordination, and that dragon in particular did, but the tools of the interface didn't get in the way.

In DAI, the interface totally gets in the way of the idea of coordinated party-control. The camera pans maybe five feet up and tilts a bit and that's it. Unless you're fighting one guy its a useless view.

ALSO.

The dragon vs giant fight.

I just stood there and stared and stared and stared until it was finished.

Totally scripted but still it was a Moment.

Also, on the dragons:

They're beautiful and each different looking, though mostly its just the skin. But was anyone else disappointed by them after the first?

The Ferelden whatsamacallit was a fairly challenging fight all things considered, complete with phases and everything. You're fighting the dragon, then its flapping its wings and sucking you in, then its switching things up, and some little dragons come and you have to switch off and beat them down while momma bites your head, then it flies up around and drops fireballs, lands out of reach of melee and launches fireballs, more babies come, etc.

You know its like a better Onyxia.

For the rest they were mostly tank and spank, maybe with some adds (I think only one did), and maybe with a fly around and throw stuff at you. The only real things that made them distinct were their utterly beautifully unique skins and damage type. And that some were a challenge to get to.

The first one made me think each would be a unique sort of world boss encounter and I got my hopes up. The rest I found a bit of a let down.

Granted: still a lot harder then the high dragons in DAO, but that's at least partly because DAI's tactical view is utterly worthless.

As for magical mayor and judge, fair call. I'd say Inquisitor is a pretty decent name for what you are except that for the first chunk of the game you're sorta a heretic.

Did anyone ... let me try to word this properly: Did anyone pick support neither of the two major sides in Val Royeux?

On the contrary! Use World of Darkness.

The core rules, all the supplements that talk of weirdness and things-- ghosts, spirits, weirder.

Use those humans who are fighting against the crazy-- hunters.

Use the magic from Witch Finders to define hedge witches because its a nice and flexible system without giving godlike reality-bending power.

Its still the World of Darkness. In particular, its the basic world-lore and game systems.

Its just not using the major spheres. Its human focused, instead of vampires, mages, werewolves, oh my.

Nothing in the World of Darkness corebook demands there need to be major templates as lords and masters and ultimate powers over the whole world, but that's kinda how the game always ends up working out when you add the major templates in.

I'm talking about using the WoD at its core to make a human-focused game, with a world full of all manner of dark elements without the higher order mega-powers of the major spheres.