Posts made by ixokai

@kanye-qwest said in A Game of Thrones MUX Discussion:

@ixokai that's an about face, but a more reasonable position.

About face? I said:

@ixokai

A lot of people ignorantly think that you have to defend copyright or you lose it. I don't actually believe any real lawyers are telling any authors that they must say no, though.

No. Its not. You don't have to defend your copyright or you lose it. And I still don't think any real lawyers are telling authors that they must say no.

Have To and Must are really firm, absolute words.

Especially since with trademarks, you really do have to defend your marks or risk losing them. I have seen people not fully understand the three areas of IP law have very different rules, often.

@kanye-qwest said in A Game of Thrones MUX Discussion:

So if an author said "sure, I don't care, make whatever you want" and then happened to write something that was very similar to a fan work, that fan could not then turn around and sue the author for copyright infringement, right?

Well, there's a couple elements to this. First, the owner of a copyright has the right-- among other things-- to decide who and on what terms derivative works are made. There is very little in the way of limits on what these terms can be, and can include as @faraday says a restriction on suing the original author.

But the bigger thing is, you can't copyright ideas at all. Copyright covers a specific, fixed expression. Copyright doesn't stop people from making something similar, it stops people from copying -- or in the case of derivative works, making new works that include substantial portions of another work (ie, your characters and world and such). I find people sometimes confuse copyright's rules with plagiarism's rules, since plagiarism includes copying ideas without attribution as being a no no.

This isn't entirely clear cut because this is America and anyone can sue anyone for anything, and so I can completely understand why an author might want to come out against fan fiction (or mushes) out of not wanting to deal with court headaches. But to say that this is necessary to protect their rights is what I object to.

@kanye-qwest said in A Game of Thrones MUX Discussion:

@ixokai said in A Game of Thrones MUX Discussion:

A lot of people ignorantly think that you have to defend copyright or you lose it. I don't actually believe any real lawyers are telling any authors that they must say no, though. Its just a sort of urban legend that floats around and people claim to be true.

I mean, I said that because I read an author blog about it, but I'm sure they were lying or ignorant and you are definitely in the know.

Then they have a really, really, really bad lawyer.

But yes, I'm about as well-versed in copyright law as one can be while not being a lawyer. Mostly because my day job has intellectual property lawyers who lecture us about it

@faraday said in A Game of Thrones MUX Discussion:

I've never really understood that. If they don't want people using their stuff, that's one thing, but "I really don't mind but my lawyer doesn't want me to" is bizarre. Copyright doesn't have a "dilution" clause like trademarks do. The author retains the sole right to create derivative works, and I don't see how granting permission to one person prevents them from saying no to someone else. Trademarks, of course, are a different matter. I understand why folks feel compelled to strenuously defend their brand if it's trademarked.

A lot of people ignorantly think that you have to defend copyright or you lose it. I don't actually believe any real lawyers are telling any authors that they must say no, though. Its just a sort of urban legend that floats around and people claim to be true.

@lithium said in Demon: the Descent:

My problem with Demon is that it doesn't tend to lend itself for MU play imho. The whole spy espionage thing is neat, but it makes it very hands on, imho, for staff since every demon probably has their own spy espionage thing going.

It doesn't work well in a multi-sphere MU, no, and it doesn't work well if everyone is a random, independent demon doing their own thing because the trust-tension built into the game will actively discourage anyone from teaming up.

My thoughts, though, are that all PCs would be at least affiliate members of a local Agency. They can form rings and do their own things too, but that connection provides a baseline on which to build and gives direction.

One thing I like about nWOD Demon is that it keeps the demonic 'feel' while changing all the reasons why they're there.

Demons are consummate liars, not because they're creatures of sin but because their minds have no subconscious; every expression down to the micro-expressions are acts of choice and will. They can be sincere, but no one can tell if they're sincere because the would never show as anything but sincere unless they wanted to appear insincere. Its part of why trust among demons is hard.

Demons make pacts! Only, its not some currency in hell, or for souls (really). Instead, what a demon wants is a part of your life. You have a stalker ex? Why, you let the demon take him off your hands and in return they get something (anywhere from a 1 or 2 dot merit to an 5 dot merit for free). The contracts edits reality and now that ex is stalking the demon. Why would a demon want a stalker? Because it makes his cover stronger, and this is a really easy pact to offer: it seems to the human the cost is a benefit. Now... down the road, the next time the demon makes an offer and this time he wants something more...

A demon can make a soul pact, but the humans never really understand what that means. When it comes time for the demon to call in the soul pact, they take that person's entire life and it becomes a complete, new cover. The demon slips straight into their fully formed life: this is the best kind of cover. The person ceases to exist utterly.

rambling I do love this game.

@tnp said in Demon: the Descent:

Also, the mechanics pretty much demand that you keep what you are to yourself, in word and/or deed, because to let anyone else know - even another demon - means you could have a hit squad of Angels come after you or even disappear from existence.

So they don't play well with others. I suppose that's part of the 'fun'.

Yes, they don't play well in multi-sphere games, but the 'even another demon' isn't quite right. Its not a compromise to reveal truth to other demons.

The issue with telling truths to other demons is twofold.

First, demons are perfect liars and individual bodies are so meaningless to them, do you know Mr. Coin who you met yesterday is still Mr. Coin and not an angel who replaced him since you last saw him? (This is part of the game being a spy-thriller: to combat this there's recognition codes, dead drops, communication protocols, etc)

Second, the compromise is rolled when new information is heard/known by a human-- regardless of source. So if you tell Mr. Coin something true about yourself and he/she/it tells a human, the compromise happens.

@wizz said in Coordinates-based Grid:

Can anyone maybe tell me if it's realistic to code it in Python

I can answer this with a definitive yes.

@goldfish

In Demon, you were an Angel, an instrument of the God-Machine purpose-built to serve. You might not have even existed before the mission you're on now, and when the mission is done you might be dismantled. Or perhaps you're just put in storage until needed again.

Then something went wrong, you broke. You fell.

Now, you're a demon. You live your Cover(s), a human life perhaps patched together from various other peoples lives that you acquired via Pacts. Maintaining your Cover is essential because the God-Machine does not relinquish its tools lightly; angels are hunting you.

Meanwhile, you and other demons generally attempt to thwart (or understand) the God-Machine, by searching out Infrastructure and sabotaging it.

You are a reality-hacker, able to take advantage of the subtle rules in reality called embeds and exploits that let you do amazing things.

Basically, its a supernatural spy/espionage splat. It bills itself as being "techgnostic espionage".

It's very cool.

@skew Yeah I agree those are issues, but I think a lot of them go away if you're not playing demon on a multi-sphere game. There's still the intra-demon trust issues, but with the right setting and supporting Agency's, I think it could work.

@packrat I kinda hated Demon: the Fallen, but pointedly, this thread is about the Descent, a game which has very little to do with the Fallen

I'm tired of WoD, which I've mentioned to some people from time to time. I just can't play vampires or mages or changelings or werewolves anymore. Nothing against WoD, this is me in a personal space of: hey, I don't have any more stories here in me.

Demon: the Descent is my favorite book in the nWOD line by a long margin, and its unique take, with demons being not Abrahamic-religion sin based but technomystic spies? Man, this stuff is like gold to me.

I played it briefly on uhh, that game that supported it that I think @coin ran, but I got hit by RL, and when I got back, my original notes on what my cypher was were lost and this sorta killed interest.

I'm not especially interested in any other WoD games, and don't think other WoD games especially mix well with Demon, since 'telling the vampire what you are' has mechanical consequences: the Demon's Masquerade (Cover) is far more visceral then vampire's laws are.

All that said.

Would anyone be interested in a single-sphere Demon game? Well, Demon and mortal+ (both stigmatics and other mortals/mortal+'s who make sense).

Man, did this thread go somewhere I didn't really intend it to, heh

I dunno; Chance and Soleil (@Sunny) on TR had a long build up to marriage, then got married, but then my IRL not that long later hit me in the head repeatedly.

Partly, well, its just most games don't really last that long.

@bored @Arkandel

I know rules themselves aren't subject to copyright. But, WOTC seem to be very strategic in what is in, and isn't in, the SRD.

For bards they only include one college, for monks only one order, for warlocks only one pact, for clerics only one domain.

The full D&D game can't really be played with just the SRD. There's enough in the SRD for you to make new D&D-content/supplements, like new domains or new orders, etc, but the 'full' game needs the guides.

@arkandel said in D&D 5E:

@kanye-qwest said in D&D 5E:

Once @pax is done with her exploration room system for Evennia, a game that automates adventuring would be totally doable!

A hybrid between a MUSH and a MUD would work really well for a D&D game, honestly. Something where a ST plugs in an adventure ("guys guys, the village is under attack!") plugs in a difficulty level which with D&D rules it's extremely easy to automatically generate an appropriate challenge for, then the code takes over. By taking all the gruntwork out of the equation and letting DMs just pose things I think more content would become available - hell, you could even give stock or randomized adventures for people to play out, which could still be awesome.

I think you have to be very careful with how much automation you put into adventures/stock+randomized adventures, or what you're making turns from being a platform for playing the RPG online into an online videogame using the D&D rules.

IANAL, bu I suspect strongly the latter might get a C&D and/or licensing demand.

@runescryer said in D&D 5E:

@ominous Armageddon looks to be a full-on clone of Dark Sun: just change the names of places and people around. I think that there would be a greater demand to actually play in Athas (so long as all the Troy Denning nonsense was retconned/thrown out so players could actually do epic stuff instead of NPCs having already done it), than in a thinly veiled retread. Again, just my opinion.

I personally have no real interest in Dark Sun. Well, I would be interested in playing it vaguely if it were not a monomaniacal MUD, but that's it. The role/status of magic in the setting isn't something I find fun.

... I admit Planescape is the most interesting of the settings suggested. It mirrors a lot of what I would do with a custom / original world.

I'm a strong believer that a MUSH lives an dies by what happens between events; finding RP when no one is doing something is extremely vital. A central, neutral city that is a portal away from whatever adventure / plot / event people go on....

@auspice said in What's missing in MUSHdom?:

@ixokai said in What's missing in MUSHdom?:

@auspice said in What's missing in MUSHdom?:

I like the idea of Evennia for D&D because some of its core structure is designed for building 'encounters.'

I really don't get where you're getting this from. I'm pretty familiar with Evennia's internals and don't get this at all.

The tutorial 'world' for Evennia has a whole set of rooms that are a puzzle, a combat AI, etc...

So I know it's doable. If it's there in just the base tutorial world, it's got to be able to be scaled 'up' for something like D&D.

There's nothing in that tutorial that Ares can't do, readily.

@auspice said in What's missing in MUSHdom?:

I like the idea of Evennia for D&D because some of its core structure is designed for building 'encounters.'

I really don't get where you're getting this from. I'm pretty familiar with Evennia's internals and don't get this at all.