@surreality I switch my major party affiliation based on which primary I want to vote in. Right now I'm registered as a Republican largely on the basis that their primaries appear less rigged. Maybe I'll jump ships again in 2020.
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Posts made by Lain
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RE: RL Anger
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RE: RL Anger
@Thenomain said in RL Anger:
Should we be policing people's political views?
Oh god yes please. "Your political view is without merit and based on nothing more than what you were told to believe. You are out of the voting pool until you can show a minimum national standard of independent thought."
I am obviously kidding but wishing that I didn't have to.
"You have expressed views that contradict my party's line. Your voter license application has been denied. Also your employer, university, and landlord have been informed of your wrongthink."
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RE: RL Anger
@Lithium I'm pretty anti-religion, too. I'd go as far as to say that I'm anti-thought policing in general. Which is why I raise the question of if this line of thought extends to political ideology. Should we be policing people's political views?
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RE: RL Anger
@surreality I'm not saying you're bad. I'm just not saying they're bad for having the ritual, either.
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RE: RL Anger
@Lithium said in RL Anger:
@Lithium Abrahamic religions are not terribly peaceful, broadly speaking, given even a bad reading of history. I don't mean to insult you on this one, but I'm just saying; Islam is not a religion of peace any more than Christianity is. There's a reason why the Islamic world, broadly, and the Christian world, broadly, haven't exactly gotten along this past thirteen or so hundred years.As for methods of controlling others, how do you feel about private companies censoring their political opponents in the interest of controlling the political narrative? That's a "way to try and enforce control over others."
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RE: RL Anger
@surreality said in RL Anger:
'that's what you do at that age'
Now, I'm not a religious nutter, but I will say in defense of Confirmation that I think rites of passage are important in culture. They're central to a people's way of life. Moderate religious people perform the rites of passage, and just the rites in general, do so with a sense of reverence, and make a point to display that they grok the emotional gravitas of these traditions, but otherwise don't obsess over them too much.
I think "Confirmation" is one of the least bad things that a religious institution can impose on its young members, frankly. To normal people who don't overthink this sort of thing, it's just a step toward becoming an adult as perceived by your community.
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RE: RL Anger
@Ghost I was being pretty tongue-in-cheek about that. I think political ideology today is a pretty bad deal, and we're seeing it rear its ugly head again this century. Political indoctrination has similar consequences as religious indoctrination. It's basically the same exact psychology copy-pasted but with a secular veneer.
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RE: RL Anger
Political ideology supplanted religion in the 20th century. Now people cleave to preconceived notions about how governments and societies ought to be run in the face of evidence to the contrary, instead of explicit supernatural entities.
What is your
religionpolitical ideology (definitely NOT religion)? -
RE: RL Anger
@Ghost Americans like to bitch about crazy Christian crap because Christianity is the dominant religion in the region (North America) and as a consequence of that their crazies get a lot more leeway than the crazies of any other religion.
It has nothing to do with the content of the religion and everything to do with the one that is dominant and therefore the one that most of us have to tolerate in spite of their insanity.
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RE: RL Anger
My parents were both members of Alcoholics Anonymous, which is more a religious cult than it is an alcoholism treatment program. They indoctrinated me with that crap until I started seriously questioning it at around age fifteen or sixteen.
AA has its own theology man. Shit is nuts. One thing I was taught is that if I had one beer I'd immediately turn into the most over-the-top degenerate caricature of an alcoholic. Turns out, not really. I've never shown up to school or work drunk or fucked up, I've never gotten blasted on a night before I had an obligation like work, etc.
I had a rave/drug phase in my early to mid twenties but that has come and gone. Good times, don't regret it. Today, I will have a drink or two and smoke a bowl once per week or so while I watch a movie/listen to music. I would like to drop some acid again in my lifetime but I'm not going to go out of my way to procure it unless it's for a special occasion.
I'm an atheist now.
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RE: RL Anger
I skipped exercise two days in a row. I went to the gym today and it's closed for "maintenance." Feels bad man.
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RE: Good TV
@Lain -- American Gods is fabulous in every possible way and I highly recommend sticking through the entire season. So, so, so good.
As for the "Why country music?" question, the setting of middle-of-nowhere middle-America is incredibly important to the plotline, particularly the end-game that is the entire purpose behind the insane journey that Shadow is on. I can't really explain more without giving away massive spoilers to the (novel) ending, but I strongly suspect that the showrunners did it to establish setting.
I read the book and enjoyed it quite a bit. I'm also enjoying the television adaptation. I just found it hilarious that they cast a DMX lookalike as Shadow. From that point forward, it became clear to me that the only appropriate soundtrack for this show would be DMX songs.
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RE: Good TV
I just got done watching episode one of American Gods. I'm impressed by how they seem self-aware about CGI looking cartoony, and thus have confined its use to things like dreams and the obviously supernatural, to accomplish a not-quite-real vibe.
There was one thing that caught my eye, though:
Why did they cast not-DMX as Shadow and why is the soundtrack of the first episode all country music? I can't help but wonder if this is the weed talking but me and my roommates spent about fifteen minutes alt-tabbing between clips of Shadow brawling with the leprechaun and clips of the Party Up music video. The music played in the background as it cut between images of DMX waving his hands in the camera's face and not-DMX kicking leprechaun ass.
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RE: Eliminating social stats
@Arkandel said in Eliminating social stats:
@Lain said in Eliminating social stats:
@Arkandel said in Eliminating social stats:
But I really don't think the fix is giving people a reward for using them. Awarding Beats for accepting failures and stepbacks have been part of nWoD MU* for years now and I can't say I've noticed a real difference in the use of social attributes even though arguably there has been one in other areas of those same games.
But I think it makes every kind of sense.
I don't know anyone who picks their partners, whether it's for TS/romance or anything else from politics to coteries/packs, based on their social stats. If you want to pick a lover for your PC would you ever choose the average roleplayer with Presence 4 and SL4 over the exceptional one with Presence 2 and no related merits at all?
I think you're appealing to the exact psychology I'm griping about, though. People in reality weigh the physical appearance of their partner above any other thing. People who look good get megalaid, not sure if you noticed. So if the default orientation of PCs is "sapiosexual," there's a pervasive issue of unbelievability, no matter how "natural" the ebb and flow of the scenes all feel to you.
Since one of the main arguments for getting rid of social stats is that depending on them occasionally produces really weird behaviors that defy human nature, it should be noted that not depending on them makes normal human behavior abnormal on these MU*'s. The PC snowflake plot armor stuff is one such example. So is sapiosexuality being the norm.
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RE: Eliminating social stats
@Arkandel said in Eliminating social stats:
But I really don't think the fix is giving people a reward for using them. Awarding Beats for accepting failures and stepbacks have been part of nWoD MU* for years now and I can't say I've noticed a real difference in the use of social attributes even though arguably there has been one in other areas of those same games.
Part of why I'm reluctant to just throw social stats out is that there isn't much of a basis for one beyond a reactionary/adaptive argument from people. Also, part of why I am reluctant to accept the loss of social stats is because I've consistently played Manip 1 redneck engineer types on nWoD games, and they were always welcome to all the parties and social events in spite of explicitly being weirdos. Female characters showed sexual interest in them. Frankly, it made no sense.
Engineers, and in particular high-aptitude, low-education, rural de facto engineers, are notoriously "creepy" and persona non grata everywhere they go IRL. It makes no sense that qt3.14s would be on their dick and trying to pry into the mysterious stoic philosophy of Jim-Ray the electrician , no matter how high his Crafts/Science skills are.
They keep these crafter characters around because they're useful in real life, but they rarely display real interest in their thoughts, feelings, and opinions, and these RPG's have offered an escape from the deeply-held alienation that this class of person actually deals with.
I've also seen the exact opposite, where high social stat female characters get blown off as FUUCKKENN WHOOAHHHs when they come onto a guy IC because the player has had a lot of TS on other characters, even though by their profile pic alone actual straight men would bend over backwards to buy them a drink, much less nail them.
Basically, I see people playing their characters as way more rational than actual people are, and whether or not you think the "natural ebb and flow" is important, I think imposing a degree of simulationism in the interest of having the story, you know, make some kind of sense, is important. "Highly emotional" characters that make staid, wise decisions whenever the choice counts are lame characters. Gorgeous straight women who can't get a bf are lame characters. Dumbasses who manage to come up with clever, sophisticated methods of engineering away their problems are lame characters.
The prevalence of things like this lead me to believe that the "scene's natural ebb and flow" is way off-kilter, and that there should be at least some measures taken to suppress the PC snowflake plot armor syndrome we're a bit too used to.
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RE: Eliminating social stats
@WTFE said in Eliminating social stats:
@Lotherio said in Eliminating social stats:
To incentivize, I've been pondering Pace, a 24 game (written in 24 hours). Pips are gained and used to supplement skills (descriptors). To gain pips for use later, a primary way is by accepting a loss. Their example has a dashing character takes a fail at flirting, the loss ends with them wearing a red mark on the cheek for a 2 pip loss in that situation. They can now use those two points for a success later.
Fate and Spark both use mechanisms similar to this. Probably loads more, too. This is thinking that dates back to Champions' first edition with their ham-fisted "get points for weaknesses" attempts.
FATE has proven to be fucking fantastic at incentivizing sportsmanlike behavior in the interest of good storytelling. In a WoD setting, I honestly wouldn't mind handing out WP points or even taking a Beat for accepting a humiliating defeat without the MUH AUTONOMY crap.
Taking a Beat in particular makes sense: you learned the hard way. You got owned, like outright, and if that keeps happening, people tend to wise up to how they're getting owned. Either they learn how to not get owned, or they learn skills that allow them to compensate/retaliate for getting owned.
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RE: Eliminating social stats
@Lisse24 said in Eliminating social stats:
In these circumstances, adding random events, and letting a neutral arbiter, such as dice, determine the outcome periodically, even for social interactions, can enhance narrative.
B-but my character would NEVER fall for that!!
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RE: Eliminating social stats
@Seraphim73 said in Eliminating social stats:
@Lain said in Eliminating social stats:
Now. Onto your point: social skills aren't harder to fake. Especially if you keep it in somewhat vague terms
Here's the problem with this one... you're obviously someone who can write coherently, and has some idea about how social skills work. The concern being brought up is more for people who don't have any sense of how social skills work, and they're quite prevalent on MU*s, because it's a semi-safe way for introverts to pretend to be extroverted.
The problem many people (myself included at times) have with hard-and-fast do-or-die social combat systems is that you get the character rolling up to another character, insulting them, stating that they're out to get them, and then asking for help. Or something else utterly ridiculous that the socially awkward player (not character, player) thinks is a good idea. And the dice say, "YUP! That's a great idea! You win!" It breaks immersion for many players, especially those who DID spend the points to buff up their social defense skills/attributes/whatever, but just rolled poorly.
Yeah I hear you on that. What you're describing is over-the-top, but I don't think I'm entirely out of line to harp on about how just omitting social stats outright (to allow them to be supplanted by the OOC social skills of the player) is throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Players who do crap like what you described should just be banned or otherwise incentivized to not do this. I analogize it to mental stats not because I think they're interchangeable in every way, but because just as some stranger taking a dump on your desk and then asking for a small, interest free loan of a million dollars is ridiculous and should be discarded, so is saying you'll make meth by mixing bleach and ammonia, no matter how high your character's Science/Chemistry score is.
The potential for players to emote stupid shit isn't a very compelling argument, at least not to me, to just start removing mechanics wholesale. Even if it's a recurring problem.