Posts made by Lithium

@FiranSurvivor Maybe I did, but I am very vehemently against the idea. MUSH's are about cooperative play, and not about solo adventure. That is the realm of MUD's, in my eyes.

@Thenomain See. I was right all along.

@FiranSurvivor said:

@Lithium said:

@FiranSurvivor That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard, why would I want to spend the time and waste my hours coding something that SEGMENTED the games players from each others further by allowing coded runs that they could go on BY THEMSELVES?! Why would I want to turn it into a MUD that is all about coded combats and encounters when I am using MUX code and the idea is to tell a story not provide people ways to wack their e-pud to how bad ass they can design a character into doing EVERYTHING they need to do to replace a whole team and EVERYONE ON THE WHOLE GAME?! That is the stupidest idea I have ever heard of! Clearly my MUSH is going to FAIL because I'm not turning a MUX into a MUD. OHMERGERD! Grow the Eff Up.

Get real, The only butthurt I am seeing wasn't from me. I was basically just saying No. Nobody likes it, but it doesn't mean it's hostility.

I don't think you know what the word hostility means.

I guess you missed the line directly over that point you tried to take out of context where I made abundantly clear, I was about to be hostile.

We really need a way to ignore posts by other people...

@Alzie said:

@Lithium said:

I'm /not/ going to force people to have a connection to other people who they don't even know, don't know if they're even compatible time wise, rp wise, or even /like/ each other OOCly or ICly.

I'm confused. I didn't see anyone suggest this, but EITHER WAY, even if they had, I would have to say....Okay, seems fine. The fact that you're suggesting that shadow runners shouldn't team up really speaks more to a misunderstanding of Shadow running theme than anything else. They don't have to know each other, they get put on the job together because they're getting paid to work together. End of story.

It was suggested, that I do such a thing. That when people make a character, they are automatically making connections to other people who are already on game, automagically, through the creation process.

@Alzie said:

@Lithium said:

People will come together and make ShadowRunning Teams /without/ staff involvement. There doesn't need to be /coded runs/ this is not a mud. It's not a moo. It's not a muck. It's a MUX. I'm most definitely not going to code up some automated run creation system where /1/ person could go on some simulated run all on their little lonesome.

You keep saying this thing. I do not think you understand this thing.

I do understand, actually. I don't think you understand, possibly due to not reading the post I am referencing.

@Alzie said:

@Lithium

If you want to go on Runs, then wait for someone to run one. Or run one for someone else. Or wait for staff to run one you can get involved in.

Lithium says, as if STing for shadowrun is somehow easy.

It's not hard. It's no more involved than running a scene for any other crunchy system which we all have done over the years. I have ran scene's on Seattle, Denver, and Detroit. I've also ran scenes and plots for old and nWoD, for RIFT's (Now /that/ is way more annoying than SR), and Amber, and Pern, and Dungeons & Dragons 3rd and 4th edition on various MU*'s.

I wouldn't call ShadowRun exactly difficult to run for.

@Alzie Not going to happen. @Thenomain was right when he said I was kidding when I said I didn't know why, I do know why. It's because every single post I see on this thread from @Jeshin and @crayon always seem to be the same old tired stuff consisting of 'Look how cool we are, you want to be like us, you want to read our opinions on gaming and you want to follow them religiously. Why? Because we said so and we have a site and that makes us cooler than you.'

THAT is how it reads to me, and that is why I don't care to look at their articles, because the very presentation on this site is that it is their intention to /replace us/ with their own site.

It's like we don't know how to think, and must think along the same lines as they when it comes to our hobby.

We're /never/ all going to get along about any one thing, and there is no way to pander to everyone. It's impossible to do with human nature being what it is and it seems to me that they don't want to believe that they aren't the next best thing since sliced bread to gaming.

@Arkandel said:

I booked a ticket very recently to visit my family overseas for a couple of weeks. I did it with one of the large travel agency chains, and ever since then they're already bombarding my mailbox with offers for luxurious vacations to assorted exotic locations ($27 off!).

How many vacation days do these people think I have! I know it's automated but surely their code should let me fly first to the place I already booked which is in less than a month, then try to sell me on more destinations.

I flew, once, using this small airplane company and every single day I got 3-5 e-mails from them giving me promotional rates to places I'd never want to go, and didn't fly to, until I had to unsubscribe/block them.

Airline wars are cray.

@WTFE said:

Headline writers. What would the world be like without the wonky, zany antics of these?

That is perfect. Thanks for a good laugh

@Arkandel said:

@Lithium said:

@Arkandel ... Really?

Just because I post on a discussion board doesn't mean I can't respond that I'm not going to take random joe #336's idea to heart and change my whole game because of it. Think about it. Just for a little. I wasn't killing discussion I was saying no.

Absolutely really!

You're under no obligation to agree or use anyone else's idea over your own approach. What I pointed out is your very obvious growing frustration at people volunteering such ideas, and seem to interpret them as challenges.

What I'm saying is you'll need to be far thicker skinned than that if you want to not be continuously upset here since throwing suggestions at things from different angles is pretty much all we do. Some of those are better than others and not all are offered as courteously, but that's the price you pay for discussion.

Eh. Text can be a frustrating medium. I am actually not bent out of shape at all I just tend to write aggressively at times. It can be easily construed because I have a somewhat aggressive personality. Which means I am driven! I take it as a good thing because I'm to old and stuck in my ways to change it.

I typically don't let people I don't even know have enough power over me to make me angry, but, I admit it does seem a bit like a virtual slap in the face when someone just comes in and goes 'No you are wrong about everything you are going to FAIL!' which makes me immediately throw them into rubbish bin and just shut it down before it invites more of the same and we get another derailment.

@Jennkryst said:

@Lithium Sorry, knee-jerk reaction on my part about the teams. Most of what I've seen is solo-chargen, and places where staff ignores backgrounds because reading, and if it not being on the sheet, it's useless. (to be fair, some of the not-on-sheet-stuff at the time was rediculous)

I don't want to be that person, and this is going to make me sound like I am, so sorry... but while you didn't say there would be none, you also didn't say there would be. My suggesting it was more a way to clarify if it would be a thing. I'm a fan of 'more is better'... all of the information on the table that way.

It's like if you're a teacher, and you tell people to take notes, I'm just over here like... 'DO I WRITE IT ON PAPER, OR JUST ABSORB THESE NOTES THROUGH OSMOSIS?' Writing on paper is intuitive to you, but I'm a moron over here.

As for the Mafia and Yakuza... I'm curious if the 'everything else' you mention includes... a detective agency, or a security firm, somewhere between mom-and-pop level and Rating B Corporation (I should dig out the corporate handbook to see if B is the actual thing that I mean), who have all manner of legal permits for stuff. Or a person who works for DocWagon? Or Lonestar. Or Hard Corps. Or GOD. Or any number of government agencies. I ask as though they are currently on payroll (day job flaw!), rather than formerly employed.

I understand. I also haven't been able to write everything, because it's not all done yet. I am still coding this thing up and doing data entry, there's a TON of fucking data entry, my god. And because of the way I am changing the lifepath system it means everything has to be more than re-worded...

I've been doing this since 1992 (Wheel of Time RPMUD's and AmberMUSH were my dinosaur days). I've participated and staffed on a wide variety of games since then, so I've got a LOT of ideas, and a LOT of things I am going to implement, but there's things I'd like to do that I can't, because I'm not a psychocoder.

In the end it'll be what it will be, and hopefully (All I can really try and do) it will be a ShadowRun game that people enjoy playing on and have fun with other people who enjoy ShadowRun.

I don't know why, but seeing every post start with

Hey,

<Stuff>

Just to me indicates it's to fucking formulaic to be anything more than a bot spitting random words back at us like a limited ai with a thesaurus looking up the words we type and then throwing back a 'No U' response.

Considering this is a forum where people talk about games, the initial 'salespitch' also came across like:

We are you, but better, because writers.

Which made me never click the link even as a lurker before I started posting.

@Jennkryst said:

@Lithium said:

People will come together and make ShadowRunning Teams /without/ staff involvement.

Without staff forcing, perhaps, but providing tools to make this easier would be super awesome. Since there is that lifepath system, we could maybe include an option of like... 'on X team' where you get benefits! Not forcing... players can be lone runners if they choose. But the choice is on them.

If you want to go on Runs, then wait for someone to run one. Or run one for someone else. Or wait for staff to run one you can get involved in.

Denver's Plot Lever is an example of a thing for this. It doesn't actually do the plot for you, but it randomly generates things to at least provide the initial creative spark for people.

Be proactive and don't expect /anything/ to be fed to you on a silver spoon.

Can it be fed via potato canon?

EDIT: And if /anyone/ ever manages to hoard enough money they don't need to go on runs anymore? Congratulations! You've made it off the streets and out of the life. Not many runners get that far! You've done it! Throw a party! Retire the character since clearly they're not a runner anymore.

Some folks run for other reasons. Some folks, like those on WoD places, want to play the cops, while others want to be involved with the crime sphere. I'm not advocating people being CEOs, but there is the Day Job flaw... and the rank perk!

I was also going somewhere with some people wanting to play more suppot roles... cyberdoc/surgeon, fixer, mechanic, enchanter... but I lost it somewhere. Basically, it was 'some people prefer less punk in their shadowrun'... which is cool, and why mixing all of the things together is fun.

sighs I never once said I would have no tools to /assist/ people in making teams. I just said I am not putting in a system that forces people to have contact with other PC's whom they do not even know the player of OOCly, don't know if the time zones are going to work, or if they even /want/ to RP with that person at all.

facepalms

As for people playing non-runners... I could have /sworn/ I talked about wanting people to play gangers, and mafia, and yakuza, and everything else. In fact I could have sworn I was going to make playing those types of characters even easier than playing a Runner because I wanted lots of people to play them to help bring the world (and the game) to life.

@FiranSurvivor said:

I'm mostly surprised at the hostility to coded tools and automation. At the end of the day they are tools and are there to help people. It seems a lot of MUSHes these days put way to much stock in the idea that "Oh the players will do it themselves." I think human nature itself and the plethora of failed games that have relied on that maxim have shown that is faulty thinking when it comes to this hobby. Sometimes the players need a push. Sometimes it comes from Wall-E and not Bob the Builder Wizard. The two games I had the most fun on, RP wise, had coded tools that generated content and conflict for the player base and kept staff involvement to a minimum.

There wasn't any hostility to coded tools and automation, you are writing tone into what was just a response saying: No.

I wasn't being a bitch, I was saying 'My game, my vision, my way.'

I don't know HOW many posts where people have said: Running a MU* is not a democracy, the HeadWiz needs a clear vision and they need to stick with it and yet now I am some kind of baby who is being aggressive by clearly saying 'No' in a firm tone to some random guy I don't even know who has made predictions of doom and gloom because I am not doing things his way?

No, I don't think so.

If people want to pretend that I was being hostile to those 'suggestions' then more power to them I guess. Here's me being hostile, for future reference (clears throat):

@FiranSurvivor That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard, why would I want to spend the time and waste my hours coding something that SEGMENTED the games players from each others further by allowing coded runs that they could go on BY THEMSELVES?! Why would I want to turn it into a MUD that is all about coded combats and encounters when I am using MUX code and the idea is to tell a story not provide people ways to wack their e-pud to how bad ass they can design a character into doing EVERYTHING they need to do to replace a whole team and EVERYONE ON THE WHOLE GAME?! That is the stupidest idea I have ever heard of! Clearly my MUSH is going to FAIL because I'm not turning a MUX into a MUD. OHMERGERD! Grow the Eff Up.

Get real, The only butthurt I am seeing wasn't from me. I was basically just saying No. Nobody likes it, but it doesn't mean it's hostility.

Also:

@Arkandel ... Really?

Just because I post on a discussion board doesn't mean I can't respond that I'm not going to take random joe #336's idea to heart and change my whole game because of it. Think about it. Just for a little. I wasn't killing discussion I was saying no.

I've already said what system I am going to use.

I've already said where I would, and would not, set the game.

I'm /not/ going to force people to have a connection to other people who they don't even know, don't know if they're even compatible time wise, rp wise, or even /like/ each other OOCly or ICly.

People will come together and make ShadowRunning Teams /without/ staff involvement. There doesn't need to be /coded runs/ this is not a mud. It's not a moo. It's not a muck. It's a MUX. I'm most definitely not going to code up some automated run creation system where /1/ person could go on some simulated run all on their little lonesome.

If you want to go on Runs, then wait for someone to run one. Or run one for someone else. Or wait for staff to run one you can get involved in.

Be proactive and don't expect /anything/ to be fed to you on a silver spoon.

I am using ShadowRun 5th edition, modified for timeline and location.

The End.

EDIT: And if /anyone/ ever manages to hoard enough money they don't need to go on runs anymore? Congratulations! You've made it off the streets and out of the life. Not many runners get that far! You've done it! Throw a party! Retire the character since clearly they're not a runner anymore.

@JDCorley said:

Gonna throw back to the OP and say that MXT 3.0's character system was the best I've ever seen in many years of superhero MU*s. Basically, you picked out a Marvel character, linked to a page on the Marvel wiki about them, put a few sentences on a trait for people that didn't want to click through, and said what you intended to do with the character over the next 30 days of roleplay. Since superhero comics contextualize everything about character in terms of immediate action (your romance is only important insofar as the bad guy is blowing up your boyfriend or is secretly your boyfriend or both), and since there's no point in just retyping/re-editing what 1,000 comic book nerds have already distilled out of your characters' idiotic continuity, it was simply the perfect system.

There were many good follow-on effects of this system. If you wanted to see a character played, you posted about it and someone could try it without much in the way of investment. So you saw characters played that had rarely been played before. You could express clearly what you wanted from the character and everyone could see it. You could instantly put a team of 4-5 characters together, have a rollicking adventure, then high five and move on to a different situation.

It didn't last and it didn't spread. Most superhero places these days are still asking you to write long backgrounds (instead of linking to someone else writing the background) and traits. It's boring and pointless when you didn't invent the character, their background or traits - those all belong to Disney now so why pretend like I've got some control over it or that the staff does?

Even this is still a horrible basis for a game to me. I want some crunchy dice rolls or /something/ beyond taking what someone else has written and trying to RP out someone else's character.

Heck even FATE would be better than a system with no definition at all other than nothing much more than what amounts to AoL Chat RP.

At least that's how I view it. Some people like that style of thing, but I am one of those who want system other than handwavium.

Not that I would ever code something like that, that would make a person into a wizbit I still want to give a shout out in thanks for this. I checked all the code I ported in and am not vulnerable to it, but at least I will try and break my u() habit, which I usually type just because it's more universal. I'd use v() except I hate having functions and databases on the same objects as actual code. Guess I'm weird like that... so get() here I come. I suppose those two extra characters won't kill me

@Tyche said:

Checkboxes no longer appear on the unread posts screen, so there isn't a way delete selected threads.

You can click their icon and it'll check them

Elves, orks, trolls, dwarves (And their variants) are all a part of the core ShadowRun setting. They all exist.

Since I am using a life path and point based system, being non-human costs a portion of your points, depending on the race you pick. Races have different maximum and minimum stats for example: Elves have a minimum of 3 Charisma, they have a cap of 8 Charisma. Trolls have a cap of 4 Charisma, but have a max of 10 strength. Humans are across the board normal with 1 minimum and 6 maximum (Before magic and cyberware) in all attributes except Edge which they get a bonus in that other races do no get.

Basically all the races are called 'Metahumans' and 'Metahumanity' because there is more than just humans, but they all originated from Humans in ShadowRun.

As magic began to come back, there were children born as dwarves and elves. When magic returned, A bunch of humans 'goblinized' by turning into orks and trolls, it was very traumatic and not everyone made it alive or with their sanity intact. The disparity between the races and humans is a key part of ShadowRun as a thematic element.

I am allowing most (not all) metavariants as PC's. I'm not allowing HMHVV positive characters. I'm also not allowing certain metavariants that don't make sense for an urban setting such as Dryads. I'm also not allowing centaurs, shifters, sasquatch, pixies, etc. (Though I might allow Pixies, I am still waffling on them).

It'll be very newbie friendly in my game. I am going to have archetypes people can just pick and play, it'll have a life path creation system so you pick where your character is from, what sort of childhood, teen years, further education, and job training they've had... The system is a lot nicer now than it used to be to.

@silentsophia said:

Um. But my character's desc mentions her being busty and having curves. No one ever got on me about anything beyond a honking typo I made. Granted, yes, I play a human monk but.

shrugs Maybe things have changed. It would certainly be a change for the better.

@Rainbow-Unicorn said:

HERO would do okay, I guess, but it strikes me as a bit too complicated a system with too much up front time investment behind it for something like Fallout.

That's where GM created templates come in. They can really speed up creation. You set up skill packages, origin packages, even race packages if you wanted to (For say like super mutants) and then people spend points on skills and attributes and have at.

It does require a lot of prep work though, a /lot/.

I still think Hero system would work well for it, normal characteristic maxima, no 'powers' beyond mutations, skill based game with every piece of equipment being foci...

You'd have to really map down what you can and can't do with it like with any setting, but it would work well. The biggest beef with Hero system is the way speed works and how mathy it can be to make powers but bypassing powers negates a lot of the issue, and speed can be house ruled to something more easy to use.