I recruited for this game, brought the thread to people's attention, etc. I was in the process of discussing concepts, group connections, etc with some of these people. But not surprisingly, some of them have RL jobs and couldn't leap on instantly this morning.

I appreciate not wanting to GM more than you can handle but this seems like an ill-planned way of handling things, to say the least. Now we're in the situation of having some people who slid in under a wire no one even knew was there, and others excluded just by virtue of not creating a charbit in the first ~12 hours. I get to choose between excluding friends and quitting (and tossing an app I worked on). Kinda sucks.

I prefer the 'no OC' thing even though it's meant skipping games that otherwise looked good because the good OCs ran out.

The bottom line is that OCs are often disruptive on FC-centric games (just like FCs are disruptive on OC-majority games, not that shockingly). I've had to deal with them glomming on a team I was a part of and trying to be involved with everything while blissfully unaware they were either stomping on people's fun with their powers or just killing the mood RP-wise.

Are there badly played FCs? For sure. But I can count the good comic OCs I've played with on no hands because it hasn't happened yet.

And it really sucks that it has shitty implications for some players but I don't know how to fix it without opening the general floodgate. Maybe the genderswapped/etc alternative versions is a good approach, whether its actually using the main character or using spinoff versions. Could these work as demi-OCs?

So I want to preface this by saying I love some of you guys (especially @Apos and @sparks) but I do kind of agree that the game has issues in terms of combat being 'the thing' compared to social (or maybe that should be, combat/investigation/snowflake magic being the stuff vs anything else). I've had the prestige system sold to me as a future patch to this.

But I'm just gonna say... looking at those lists, I can't help but get a really Firan feeling of 'some dudes just have a million SP and you'll never really catch up so why even try.' Which feels like it's going to get in the way of RP more than it helps, if that's all it is. Do we really need another system to tell us that the top houses and their leaders are on top? etc.

I have a supposed social-maven type char. Yet despite that, both her and her org are barely blips on that radar. She'd use a fashion system (heck, I've already had a major storyline hinge on her clothing choice!). But mostly I dread the idea of the Prestige stuff more than I look forward to it, because it just seems like another unassailable dino-fortress / grind / reminder that the Graysons are the best / etc.

Just so I'm not left out on the love-pile, ditto everything @Ganymede said. Also she wrote all her own code and stuff and it's amazing and really clean and easy for noobs to use and well integrated and... I could go on

It's a small game but I've gotten great RP very consistently, and I prefer this a thousand times over to sitting around playing a werepoodle sexymancer who sits around having a latte with the faepire archduke while they discuss the plot of the month that I didn't actually get to go on.*

*Not intended as an actual description of any WoD game, but close enough.

@Pyrephox It would be good if they did, yeah, at least re: the reset. The system is a total black box as it is so it's unclear how to even get higher on the list.

Re overall character stuff, I don't even know. XP has very little impact for me, largely because I don't do combat. Both my characters have their primary skills at 5 and then sometimes even sit around accruing xp they don't use. But that's also, in turn, another thing that 'devalues' social (and other non-coded things). Anyone can have those stats while combat is this rare and special thing. And while I am sure staff doesn't consciosuly think of it this way, you do get the subconscious reaction that combat is 'honored' while asking to do something impactful with another skill often gets you side-eyed as overreaching.

I'm looking at apping!

Fwiw, I'm pretty sure all L&L MUs are garbage when it comes to historical accuracy, realism, etc, so I don't really see a reason to criticize inauthentic Ireland over inauthentic England, magical Angel Sex France, or anything else.

I just hope the staff isn't expecting too much in terms of authenticity in the culture, politics, and mores. We saw this play out in Realms Adventurous; people weren't really interested in depicting early near-Roman Britons, and in general RPed toward the High Medieval version of Camelot right away (ignoring that Pendragon was meant to eventually get us there in accelerated fashion).

Basically, people gonna Game of Thrones, wherever you play and whatever your setting.

@surreality said in RL Anger:

@kitteh Here's the problem: I wasn't complaining that I am not getting attention at all times. I don't want attention at all, most of the time, let alone for the shit I consider 'high value victimization'. As stated elsewhere: this is not the place for that, full stop.

The best way for you to not get attention would have been to... not jump into our discussion and tell us it annoyed you. The best way not garner attention for your other incidents would be to not tell us they are more important than what we're talking about.

The only 'high value victimization' I have discussed on the forum here was in a fight with @Ghost a few months back, and, ironically enough, in discussion with @shangexile here a page or so back. You will, ideally, notice I'm not asking people to feel sad or offer me headpats or sympathy or support for any of it, and that it's relevant only in context of: "Dude, you knew about this stuff... " which is relevant to that interaction -- which, itself, resolved with mutual empathy, compassion, and lots of uncomfortable honesty all around. I am not going to dig around for the exchange with @Ghost to find the reference, but I'm not asking anybody for cuddles or sad-eyed kittens there, either.

I didn't know anything about your or your interaction with him. I only knew you from a few previously pretty sympathetic interactions. Which is why your whole 'I am part of the enemy tribe that is showing up here to get me, just wait, more are coming totally for realz!!!!!' is bizarre. The reason I somewhat side eye your professed desire for empathy/solidarity is your habit of attacking those who offer it to you.

Calling me a harasser is extremely offensive to me.

Saying my mindset is ugly and implying that I'm supportive of harassers or at least callous toward their victims is offensive to me, and also lolzy as fuck. Shockingly, you get what you give.

I am asking you to leave me the fuck alone at this point. You will notice there are no insults to you in this post, despite plenty in yours to me, and it's that way for a reason.

Leave. Me. Alone.

I. Was. Leaving. You. Alone.

And then, you know, you decided to ping me to call my mentality ugly. So instead of continuing your babe in the woods "oh woe why is this happening to me!!!" routine that you have accused others of, you will own up to starting shit. Beyond that I still really have no beef.

@Ghost I realize. At this point I'm going out for a walk in the park. I am sure @surreality will have her parting words, but maybe I'll be a bit more zen by the time I get back.

@auspice Ahhhhhh, yep. I got a little of this. Mild by comparison, but it set off alarm bells even then. Funny how those instincts bear out.

@DownWithOPP said in BSG: Unification:

Now can we get off Canceron please? So hating that place now, lol!

Didn't we... just get to Canceron?

It's actually one of the things I like about the game, that it does have a pretty brisk paced episodic kind of structure. Not huge if you're not there for minute 1 and active in every plot you'll never catch up-'episodes', but... like ~2 week stints where we're at place X, doing thing Y, and then we go somewhere else?

This comes a lot closer to feeling like we're RPing the structure of a TV show than most games.

@darinelle said in Coming Soon: Arx, After the Reckoning:

First, as always I think you guys are well-intentioned!

Reasons for combat characters to think - you know, maybe I could slaughter this person but in a social setting maybe I shouldn't be a douchebag because I have a sword and could do anything, because that person will get me laughed out of this party. Or shame my family. Or have some kind of meaningful impact.

I'm not sure this hits on any real issue, though? The whole 'maybe not slaughter this guy' 'there could be consequences' etc... I mean how much does that even apply to Arx? There's very little PvP, and the antagonists are all clearly evil supernatural doom armies. Who is actually swording people with impunity that this is problem social needs to address? I dunno, maybe this is just me not being in on the fun stuff where this is happening.

I'm not saying all combat characters do this (#notallcombatbeasts) or that everyone is a dick to social characters, but we want our social characters to have shiny things to play with and reasons to feel badass with what they do, and not just "hey, we're just biding our time until the combat beasts take care of business." That's seriously uncool and it's not very inclusive.

I think this is the real issue more, and it reflects your overall story structures. What use are negotiators when our enemies are demon generals or demon pirate kings or demon-elves or... you get the picture. Oh, also all the foreign nations are run by evil sorcerer kings/dragons. Staff does run some 'social' stuff (I've been on a couple), but it just doesn't seem to have the weight that 'I killed the demon of the week' does. The occasional elf treaties are the only dimplomacy that even really touches the metaplot tier of importance, but those seem very quickly handled by comparison to the months we spend tracking down ways to kill demons and searching weapons to kill demons and building armies to kill demons and then eventually actually killing demons.

Beyond that, I agree with @Arkandel's points a lot. I recognize social stuff is much harder to do. But it's still largely the case that the combat people generally can still get a lion's share of the social fun but not the other way around. Several highlords are top badasses. They get all the sitting in councils debating decisions and leading the armies and fighting the stuff. Victus being gruff and uncooth and supposedly hated (according to the system) rarely seems to do him any practical disservice (I'm not picking on his player or anything, he's just a glaring example, where staff made the effort to make him and his faction 'disliked' and... then doesn't do much with it?).

It's also a problem with the orgs, because everything (money, military AND social power) is concentrated in the top tier houses (and maybe in the faith) and so specialized lower tier ones often seem overlooked. I once had a staffer ask me 'why my (purely social) org even needed money' and basically imply I was being twinkish for thinking about it, which again feels like that subconscious bias at work.

I also ran into this issue back when I looked into apping here, and ultimately just passed the game up.

Limiting power levels is one thing, limiting power levels and then having exceptions where a special few are designated as 'the most powerful' is not great. When many games manage to be chill about this and not really care if you don't try and run over anyone else's fun, it seems telling of certain negative motivations when staff is visibly concerned about setting particular characters explicitly on top.

I recruited for this game, brought the thread to people's attention, etc. I was in the process of discussing concepts, group connections, etc with some of these people. But not surprisingly, some of them have RL jobs and couldn't leap on instantly this morning.

I appreciate not wanting to GM more than you can handle but this seems like an ill-planned way of handling things, to say the least. Now we're in the situation of having some people who slid in under a wire no one even knew was there, and others excluded just by virtue of not creating a charbit in the first ~12 hours. I get to choose between excluding friends and quitting (and tossing an app I worked on). Kinda sucks.

@Arkandel

Obviously the precise correlation of certain behaviors is going to vary a huge, huge amount. Some people are trolls online just to be trolls, or because the anonymity encourages the behavior. But the other side of your coin, and I brought this up in another thread, is the scary and very uncomfortable truth that: there are actual rapists in our hobby. Statistically, there just are.

One set of antisocial behavior might genuinely be '4 teh lulz' but another might be the person's actual lack of respect for other human beings showing through.

So in the case that (presumably) encouraged this post? Yeah, I'd be equally or even more cautious of a person who acts like this online in an RL context. Because "other peoples opinions don't matter" is a really red-flag kind of mindset, as is going 0-60 with "the ladiez are always complainin about the rape!" Same thing with all the infamous stalker/creeper/etc models. There are some cases that get discussed here that to me, have every hallmark of RL predatory behavior (from the control tactics and gaslighting to repeat targeting of prior victims, etc). I have trouble thinking that's a coincidence.

So.... I had a long, topsy-turvy relationship with the place but I don't think it's right to say the staff are sinister folks or anything. Up front, as far as I know I've never met any of them beforehand.

Initially I apped, something something disagreement about the char I picked, and I kinda gave up on it. No one really did anything horrible it was just kind of bad communication / difference of direction (and maybe trust, etc). Maybe I felt they were too 'mistrustful' of a new player, assuming the worst etc, but I don't really blame them with what they were going for.

Then I apped later on the DC half of the game, not knowing it was the same folks. Char I've always wanted to play was free, took her, had quite a bit of fun. A lot of good people there (if Wonder Girl/Cassie is around anywhere, I miss you!), and if there were any clique issues... well, I wouldn't say it was the staff enforcing it. Some people apped in with friends and so maybe focused their RP there.

At the point the DC stuff got melded back over, they nudged me toward a mutant alt (and even helped me get one that was idling, a char I'd been too slow on the first time 'round) and into some RP. I dunno if it's a clique so much as they seem to like my RP. Maybe they could be more active about nudging all sectors of the game into activity, though on the other hand a lot of people sit perma-idle who could easily get on grid.

So it's probably a bit of everyone needing to be a little more proactive?

It's a little embarrassing with how many Lords and Ladies games and assorted marriage simulators I play, I've had very few actual marriages. A good handful of courtships and betrothals but so often the games fall through or players lose interest etc etc.

Maybe I have cooties. Or my hookers are just more popular <.<

I'm excited for this place, too!

The system is really light, and it feels like a perfect alternative to using mortal-only WoD and still ending up with a ton of min-maxing to deal with. CG is super fast. It really just lets you focus on the dumb movie tropes etc.

Last night's scene was a good creepy intro and now we've all had bad dreams. Oh no!

@packrat Sure, although I don't think those characters are the tricky ones or the problem I was getting at. Since if you want to play something that's basically a knight (an upper class militant character) but just doesn't have 'Sir' in front of their name, that's easy. You just use the same CG and rules and don't put the title in your +finger.

My issue is if and how you can play, say, a noble who is a courtier, or a freeman merchant, etc. How characters who aren't based on face-stabbing can be useful and successful in the game, and not trumped by martial characters who can do all the same things and also fight (which is based on a notable glitch we had on RA with the female knights obsoleting non-militant noblewomen).

But I will talk to @Lotherio about it some more, it sounds like he has ideas!

I'm all about this, especially the setting!

On the 'what can we play' angle I also want to bring up something that was a problem the first time around and wonder how it will be handled. Namely non-knights, whether commoners or non-militant nobles or really anything else.

The underlying system often assumed these people were NPCs (make some winter rolls for your wife!) so it'd be good to know if and how the game will give them a proper role.

@faraday I don't know what to tell you. You 'don't want to piss me off' but you seem to take every opportunity to make this more contentious and/or personal. You espouse a 'different strokes' stance (which is fine) and yet seem incredibly unwilling to let even subjective experiences of the game system (not even your game) go unchallenged. And then there's the whole painting me as unreasonable thing.

I was talking about FS3 generally (and WoD!) to begin with, which includes a ton of games. It wasn't remotely BSGU specific. It still really isn't, other than examples that I can only really draw from your game because they happened to happen there. I was echoing an opinion widely expressed here.

My comments regarding sucking there I acknowledge are subjective, although they're based on events that were absolutely happening at the time (a min-maxer dominating, me literally only getting one legit kill ever). I'm not making those things up.

If my factual observations mean nothing because you saw other things at other times, OK. If my subjective feelings mean nothing to you because they differ from your peer group input, OK. Reality check, though: unhappy people often don't leave comments, they just ghost. I've only ended up discussing any of this because it's come up in these threads.

I still really dislike the CG/XP disparity. You don't care. Cool.

@Seraphim73 I don't think it was so much an issue of a house rule or wanting a skill high (I did want some skills high, because I've learned how FS3 works, but that was a separate thing), but rather a skill at... whatever the highest value was before you actually got to the limited skills you could only have a couple of? It was weird because that value was pretty low compared to the average PC and it felt odd to have to fight over it. Doubly so when you have so many points its hard not to have everything pretty high.

But yeah I do think the dice-vs.-expectations thing can be tricky to manage. When you have highly min-maxed people... doing predictably, consistently well, 'oh they really don't have much of an advantage' is unsatisfying to hear whether its true or not. Maybe it's only 17% (or whatever) but when you roll as often as you do in FS3 I do think that stuff adds up. It's fine to let the super-leet be leet, but if you're gonna design the game that way you probably want to create alternate lower-stakes things the 'mere mortals' can do so they can actually feel like they're part of things and not irrelevant spectators to the cool people.

@faraday I'd honestly say one area where most games fails is the last of your bullet points. Our gaming culture has a vague stigma min-maxing in a general sense, despite so many players honestly liking it or simply being used to doing it. So when it's an expected part of a game system, that should be stated clearly. The worst thing is feeling like you're going to be screwed either way, you ask for too much and staff calls you a twink, or you ask too little and have a character worth half the XP of the rest of the players.

This isn't aimed at you or even the FS3-verse. If WoD games are OK with you doing 5 1 1 and spending your first few XP turning those 1s into 2s they need to say that.