Posts made by kitteh

@Seraphim73 I don't think most people are 'ignoring' things shooting them, so much as we're trying to RP the realistic shape of a dogfight. It actually makes a lot more sense to be shooting something that isn't shooting you (because that requires you playing chicken, basically) and instead shoot something that's shooting someone else, so you get chains of people chasing their target while covering someone else and being covered by someone else in turn, etc.

So in general I think most people are trying to RP realistically over just inflate kill counts, so @faraday's worry about disclosing enemy skill doesn't seem that bad to me. In fact, it seems like it would give the 'elite' players something more to brag about, when they take out tough targets, because the kill counts are pretty meaningless (they reflect basically how long you've been on the game and how high your initial stats were). People talking about 'omg you made Ace x5' is kind of... meaningless, beyond a point, but 'wow, you took out that really badass raider that none of us could touch' seems like it would actually be worthy of RP fodder.

However we can't RP that if we don't actually know the raider is more skilled.

@faraday

Ok, that's good! I mean, maybe the guy we targeted was REALLY SUPER BADASS because even when there were 3 of us it wouldn't die, IDK.

I do still hink it makes sense to telegraph ridiculous skill levels on opponents to some degree. Even if it motivates the players to act differently, so what? It's RP, and it should be apparent if someone is that totally amazing, but it's impossible to glean that info from dice.

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.

@faraday

I think the issues overall with how the air combat works (in terms of things that are non-cinematic, min-max-y, etc) is that there's nothing that really represents the essence of pairing off in dogfights or the value of wingmen. People do pick targets and stick with them but I think that's mostly for RP value as much as kill chasing (and which is realistic, I think? if we're supposed to be dogfighting not just generically fighting everyone at the same time?), but there's also no penalty (at least that I'm aware of) for leaving a foe uncovered or additional value for pairing up with a wingman.

IE, if it was dangerous to leave bogies alone, the 'everyone teams up on the ace' would mean all the mook guys suddenly get bonuses and tear up the squad way more than they would normally. It would also mean there was more value in 'calling for help' if you were having trouble if you got bonuses for double-teaming the guy, as opposed to what it is now, which is essentially just conceding that you're worthless and asking someone else with better stats to come fight them. You may as well switch to another target that might have lower stats, right?

@faraday OK! They show as 1/4 and 1/12 but if that's just a visual error, fair enough!

Re: the combat stuff, maybe it would be good if there was some indication of who the elite enemy pilots are? I realize they're all faceless robots, but... it should be obvious RP-wise if the guy you're chasing is doing dogfighter loop-de-loops all around you vs. you're 'just missing' by a hair a bunch of times (which is annoying but just luck). Even if combat is 6 rounds, spending 4-5 of them missing repeatedly is dull. I'm OK with being the noob pilot who goes after the 'easy' enemies while the OMGAce guys show off and fight the big-bads.

Edit: Also is exceptional = elite? The word-instead-of-number stuff is a little confusing.

@Three-Eyed-Crow said in FS3:

My own experience with FS3 is that it's fairly forgiving of low skill levels in +combat (and that high skill levels tend not to be overwhelming - friends have whined at me because their 10s in version 2.0 didn't beat 6/7/8s all the time on opposed rolls. I was not a sympathetic audience for this whining).

This is a different issue than people who feel bad because they have Good as opposed to Excellent, or feel awesome because they have Excellent as opposed to Great. But I don't know that I care about those people. I understand that many people do care, though.

ETA: I guess I should add,for the BSU people, that I play Calliope there and she's statted to be pretty decent but not min-maxed, I don't think. She's Good in Piloting and Fair in Gunnery (with Exceptional Reflexes, admittedly, I DO think you can pretty easily fuck yourself over by misunderstanding ruling attributes. This is a good deal more important than skills imo), and she still manages to dodge pretty well and hit things an OK amount of the time in +combat.

OK, you're actually worse than me I know I did one scene where people were doing some real rolls as opposed to combat code things, so I could see the dice pools being rolled and it seemed like everyone either matched (at the thing I was good at) or exceeded me, but maybe that was a small selection, I dunno.

The thing in combat is that it mostly seems like I miss all the time. Even when I'm piling on bonuses (I was whiffing with luck and aggressive stance). Maybe that was a string of really terrible luck, I dunno. Again I'm not in it to be one of the 'omg triple ace I am teh best!' people, but from an RP standpoint, there's only so much 'miss' 'miss' 'miss' you can pose before you start to check out of the scene because it's repetitive and there's only so much you can type.

@kitteh said in FS3:

Two, the thing she's bad at, well, it makes her preeeetty bad and she's mostly always going to be that way. I think she can bump the skill once in a reasonable timeframe, but after that it will be (RL) years?

I'd have to look at your skills to have more insight, but just as an example - to go from Everyman (which is 'dude off the street who's never sat in a Viper before') to Fair (junior professional level) takes only 3 RL months. Getting to Good after that (solid professional level) is another 3 months. With the new XP system, you can do that with multiple skills during that same timeframe. So I don't think it's true that someone who's "really bad" at something is stuck that way.

Isn't Fair to Good 4 months? I see 1/4 on my thing, anyway. And after that it's a year, right? Those are both pretty big chunks of time. I mean, don't get me wrong. I love the game and the XP spending tracking sheet thing is a cool design, I'm just a little leery of this part. Most games I've played don't even last 16 months

I didn't grasp all of this stuff until reading this, but I'm kind of grokking now that my character is facing this on BSGU. Note, I didn't stat her (she's a roster) so I really don't know how the spending or any of that works. I don't mind that she's underpowered, but I can kind of see two problems.

One, the one (action-y) thing she's supposed to be good at, well, she's actually just the same as everyone else (because everyone min-maxes). Two, the thing she's bad at, well, it makes her preeeetty bad and she's mostly always going to be that way. I think she can bump the skill once in a reasonable timeframe, but after that it will be (RL) years?

It is what it is but I can see why people wouldn't see this design as necessarily the best. The TV show definitely has a lot of rookie pilots who become hot-shots, and even if they're not outshining the main characters, you don't get the sense of them being unskilled.

@Rook said in State of Things:

I have come to this one conclusion about racism (from this one angle) from knowing a lot of police. Police officers of both sexes, of at least six races, and all of the ones that I'm thinking of are very against the habitual criminals. I don't call them racist, because these same individuals respect upstanding citizens, they segment them differently than they do the criminal element, the ones that they've booked and jailed time and time again. That is something that compounds the problem is personal experience with some of the perpetrators of the crimes that they are investigating and/or called to. Each one of these racially diverse cops uses the 'N' word, and what might surprise you is that it isn't just against the black segment of their 'clientele'. The word (at least amongst that very small segment that I know) is applied to anyone who is (heavily simplified) hell-bent on a life of crime because they don't want to pursue any other life.

I have a friend who is a cop in a relatively poor part of a large city. He's about my age and still at the point in his career where he's regularly on the street. His job is not easy and is often dangerous, and additionally he faces a lot of targeted harassment for being a member of law enforcement (including things like vandalism at his home etc). This has, not surprisingly, increased in the last several years with the prevalence of #blacklivesmatter and related policing practice debate in local government.

All of that said, he is, or has become, not surprisingly... very opinionated on these issues and the people behind them, in ways that sometimes make me uncomfortable. Like you say, I would in no way think of him as inherently racist (his wife is hispanic, and I've been invited to local cookouts and things that are pretty diverse affairs), but some of the ways he refers to the people on the 'other side' is pretty dehumanizing. I've never heard the 'N-word for anyone' thing, but to say he thinks of and refers to these people as less than human would not be a stretch.

It's not an easy thing to deconstruct, because I feel both sympathy for his position while also fearing what his attitude promotes.

@Ataru

Ok sure, but I also just made it clear I was OK with that stuff. And the boobs/ass/etc stuff is way more culturally modulated than you seem to understand. The recent giant booty trend, because it really is a trend, is a great example of it.

Also, the 'we get it' thing is really an important take away. We really do get it, because it's a nonstop, often unwelcome thing, for basically our entire life. Seriously. I am not confused about how sexual men are, or how they view me.

@Ataru Uh, no.

Having a sex drive is biological, and the womenfolk are definitely not forgetting this or are we unaware of men thinking about sex. This is a frankly insulting thing to say and does come off mansplainy, as much as I hate that term. We're made acutely aware of it from basically every direction for most of our adult (and sadly, probably large parts of our pre-adult) lives, at nearly all times, at many times from totally inappropriate sources. There is no fucking mystery about dicks and what dicks want.

But specific physical reactions/presentations of sexuality are a lot more cultural than they are biological (and this is trivial to prove looking at cultures that thought different things were sexy), as are how we display sexual interest. People fucking learn not to stare. Most of the same dudes who would happily crane their heads to get a better look down my shirt or let me get a step or two ahead on the stairs would think better of gawking at someone in a wheelchair (not all, would, granted - there are some double assholes!). They'd recognize it, but then they'd remember we're not apes and we modulate our behavior because of cultural norms.

And where in this thread did we call you evil? Both me and @surreality were basically saying we totally understood and could even be flattered by such simple short-span reactions. Go reread the posts maybe. It's the difference between "turns his head as you walk by" and "obviously ignores you and just stares at your tits because they're there and why shouldn't he enjoy them?"

@surreality Haha, because obviously between 12 and 19 is not in any way, like, the time when you absolutely most need that bit of information, or anything.

While I love the idea of the old school game and some big, iconic city locations, the forcible division of areas/spheres sounds... reeeeeally weird and probably like it's not going to work out great.

@surreality Ah, sorry you had to deal with that, lack of support from the people who are closest it is a real downer. I've had some of my own... family issues but my mom has always been supportive (I'm guessing she might be a little younger, and she was a young mom - a lot of her support I think comes from her own negative experiences) and has encouraged me such that I'm now looking at how I can help and support other people.

@surreality I'm in a pretty similar boat. Short-stacked alliance!

I have zero issue with the guy who walks past and does an almost cartoon-comical 'woah' double-take, or just otherwise has an obvious moment of getting sidetracked by their dick in the middle of a normal conversation. That's a instinctive (if culturally trained) reaction, and, y'know, it's even a little flattering.

But it's how they act when they realize they're doing it. "Haha, ah, sorry, what was I saying?" vs. "I am tuning you out while I imagine doing something I saw on redtube last night with those" is pretty obvious.

@surreality said in RL Anger:

Completely different issue, and I'm saying this as somebody who was wearing a DDD cup by age 13 and is now in her 40s and has experienced plenty of that. Socialization and culture can change, and that behavior is within the person's control. Physical things that someone cannot change or control about themselves are not in the same category by a considerable margin and should not be conflated.

Ugh, late, but so so so much this.

It's cultural. In some cultures, people go topless and breasts are not sexual. Now I get that in our culture they are and I don't even necessarily have issue with that (something is going to be fetishized, and fashion always has a role in this - see men's legs in some medieval stuff). And I even get that any extreme physical trait is going to draw some notice for that.

But people can absolutely learn to notice and not gawk. People do! We know it's polite not to stare. Just sometimes, people decide to forget.

Socially I'm not too worried. Trump & co represent the backlash you always get, but the overall trend is clearly positive, especially in the younger generations. There's some good literature about how conservative christian communities are having a hard time selling their kids on the 'gays are evil' thing as gender diversity becomes far more visible and celebrated in every part of media (and more visible among their own peer groups as a result). Lady Gaga > local preacher, and it's hard to convince people their perfectly nice trans friend is actually the devil.

The environmental stuff is worrisome because there are some basic laws of physics you can't simply ignore once you change your mind. It's going to take some major cities being underwater & massive crippling droughts for the conservatives to have to give up this platform, probably, and by then a lot of damage is going to be done and possibly very hard to reverse.

I think I usually tend toward easier settings (the exact pick depends per game) because in general I enjoy a cinematic experience and the harder difficulties often break that immersion as you have to fall back to more 'game-y' tactics to survive. I little challenge is fine and I love it when games can do a good job of making everything hectic and busy but you still don't have to be ultra-cautious to win, I guess. Maybe the Bioshock games were kind of an example of this?

Re: the identity stuff, the term is just really clunky, because there are so many types of games, past associations for the word, etc. I have an image of 'gamers' in the classic nerdy/board/D&D sense, and I have lots of friends like this and hang out with them without really feeling I fit the label (I know how to play Settlers, but turn my nose up at the more complicated worker games, for instance). Then there's the video game version, which maybe breaks down in similar ways. Then there's the fact it's also just a generic noun that can apply to a wider spectrum of people. I don't want to tell those people they're not gamers if they call themselves such, but they're obviously a different set of people from those with Konami code t-shirts.

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.

@Thenomain said in Course Corrections:

@kitteh said in Course Corrections:

Maybe they really were legos. This has happened before.

I mean, nobody here is complaining about five people hearing a Bob Dylan song 30,000 years before he was born. Sir Terry Pratchett (RIP) said he tried his hardest to not do things like this, but the idea of interlocking blocks as educational building tools shouldn't be the problem; calling them Lego should be.

Right. I just meant it's possible in BSGverse that there's literally some kind of time loop and Legos might have actually existed both before and after because there's no before or after and it's all circular. Or.. maybe an angel did it?!!!?

But I'm just being a nerd. The player still sounds like an asshole, and it definitely defies the genre expectations to be tossing a lot of current-Earth brand references into RP.

Maybe they really were legos. This has happened before.

(I don't actually disagree, just being cheeky