Best posts made by lordbelh

@Cadi I like this, too. It fills my comedy needs alongside Brooklyn 9-9

I like having rosters on a game. I'll often pick one off the roster list if I find one that looks semi-interesting, and I can't be bothered to go through the grueling effort to build a character from scratch on a game I don't yet know if I'm all that invested in. When I play a roster character, its always my first character, and later characters inevitably are OCs. That said, since I don't often play more than character at a time, that first roster character can last the whole time I play on the game.

I do like my roster character to not be some useless throw-away. Because while I pick them up for the ease of introduction into the game, and the premade hooks and tie-ins to other characters, once I play them I'll start to invest, and its hard to do that if there's no real progress to be made.

@mietze Feel better. Take care of yourself.

@tragedyjones

I'd say:
Easy: Los Angeles
or
Hard: London

I'd love Hong Kong, but I don't think it would work very well for a big multi sphere game. Seems an awesome setting, but more if you want to run a game that focuses on the eastern vibe, and for that you need a smaller game where you can more readily form theme.

@tragedyjones said in Interest/Volunteer Check: Major Multisphere Chronicles of Darkness:

@Seamus Yeah, I only even suggested Tokyo BECAUSE it has a write up in Vampire, Werewolf, Beast AND Mage.

I'm thinking, unless someone has a very compelling argument, that Los Angeles is best, because of the diversity, both ethnic and financial. And it lets people play fucking movie stars like they wanna.

And them being there makes sense. As opposed to in some middle of nowhere Maine.

ETA: Blah, double posted for some reason trying to make a small edit. NO MATTER. Gone now.

@surreality said in How Many Alts Would An Alt User Alt If An Alt User Could Use Alts:

'no more than one fachead/family head/gov position/etc.' and this problem is rapidly resolved.

I'm not so sure it is. I'm not saying that people who play multiple alts are bad people and are doing wrong fun. I'm not judging them. I'm just saying I've found I prefer to play on games with alt restrictions. I find that it encourages a healthier game. When I said 'roles' I didn't mean it necessarily just as leadership roles, but more in the expansive way @Pyrephox was talking about.

I don't think OOC rooms are cesspools. I don't miss having one on Arx, but I never found them to be problematic either. There might be problematic players in them, but frankly, that just allows me to know who to avoid.

@Ganymede Yeah, consent matters. I wouldn't turn a social scene into something more unless everybody was on board. In fact I can't remember doing it where there were more than 1 or 2 people other than me in the room. In that situation the 'game' and power mechanics do not really matter. Its just about telling a bit more interesting a story than three people drinking at a bar, and to have some fun.

@Ganymede I think I'd call myself a V20 player, in the sense that I like the game better than I do nwod in nearly every aspect (except the actual mechanical systems, where nwod is a dream compared to the shitty v20 mechanics that makes especially combat about twice as complicated, and that's a feat). I just don't tend to play on v20 games because every one of them seems determined to shoot themselves in the face by trying to shove Sabbat and Camarilla into one game. It wrecks any chance that the vampire game will be about politics and schemes and all the good vampire stuff. Sabbat never plays nice. The Camarilla have to all be combat monkeys so they don't get eaten, and instead of back stabbing each other and fighting for power they band together against the Sabbat (its only logical, yo).

Every game that tries to bridge that gap by presenting common enemies, or whatever, fails in execution, because you're still trying to cram two vastly different games together, and expect it not to blow up in your face.

./end rant.

Actually, I wrote that too soon. While the Anarchs aren't quite as terrible to combine with the Camarilla, I still think you're basically undercutting the basic premise of the Brujah et all, who are supposed to rage against the oppression and regime from the inside. Give them Anarchs in the same setting and you've basically ensured that anyone who sticks with the Camarilla gets branded the sell out pussies (which they are, that's the point of it all). They no longer have their purpose, because you've given the rebel purpose to the Anarchs. And that in turn puts a wrench on the whole Camarilla dynamic. I've seen it occasionally work, but only when the Anarchs are so weak and obviously helpless that only the completely crazy freedom fanatics and Camarilla rejects actually go to them. At which point their purpose isn't to play the rebels, its to play the hopeless.

From what I saw of City of Hope, though, that's just a terrible game with a terrible culture and generally full of utter terribleness, rather than the baseline of v20 players.

ETA: Make a Camarilla game, or make an Anarch game, or make a Sabbat game. Don't start out trying to make one that gives you all three. If you absolutely want to mix Anarch and CAmarilla, start out with one of them and get that sphere on its feet and good and kicking, before you throw in a wrench by adding a second sect. And never, ever, put in the damn Sabbat.

@Ganymede said in Harassment in VR, there's something we can likely learn from this.:

You're being sexually harassed because some asshole thinks it's okay to sexually harass you.

This.

I admit I'd rather keep fight styles simple. The mix-match reminds me of the way they redid fighting styles in armory in the 1st ed, and I wasn't all that of a fan. More realistic, perhaps, but there is something to be said for simplifying shit for a game.

@Ganymede The difference between vampire disciplines and social fu is that disciplines you can (or at least I can) easily explain why you're doing these crazy things. VAMPIRE MIND CONTROL. There's a cause and effect. No matter how crazy these emotions and thoughts are, they have a plausible reason for being there. To me in this they're like physical combat. They follow the same rules of cause and effect (even movie realism cause and effect) that everybody can more or less get behind. Or should be able to, unless they're just absolute control freaks.

@Ganymede I've read and tried to use the Doors system effectively. I've had a lot of fun with the Doors system. I think you're absolutely bonkers for thinking its a decent way to solve PvP social conflicts, because as I've said before it so utterly favors the aggressor that it just doesn't work in any antagonistic scenario. In the hands of someone who doesn't want to play nice and cooperative its made to be abused.

@Arkandel I signed up, but even I sigh at the 20.00 EST timezone even as I soldier through.

@WTFE You might not realize it, but you're coming off as the crazy person in this back and forth with @apos.

@Arkandel As long as they're not benefiting each other in any tangible way, but rather just enjoying a story from different angles (this is just a prp, folks!), I don't see the problem as long as their paths don't cross.

If they're not taking anything from anyone, and they're not enriching their characters in any way, where's the conflict of interest?

In my experience a lot of people who can't be bothered to have fun, still want to squint at those who do.

@Admiral I don't. I know I' m not a genius, that I don't have endless resolve, that I'm pretty horrible at manipulation and lying (which is why I try to avoid it). I'm fairy sure I don't have a single 5 anywhere on my imaginary nWod sheet. Shit. I would be lying if I said I had any 4s. A few 3s with lots of 2s and 1s. Though I would probably have more skill points in total than a starting nwod character. But that's OK, I've got life experience to justify it with.

@Ganymede I think what you meant was the wish fulfillment crowd. Who rather than making a character or build a story, just want to be the best. With the most stuff. And the best. And with the hot sex. And the best. Did I mention the best? At all things? While looking super sexy while I do all the things?

Sure, Fantasy Escapist.. but y'know, it's a term that on some level pretty much fits us all. Which HR's point, I guess. We're running into fantasy, whether it's because it makes us feel better because shit is aweful, or just because we're bored. Just watching a movie, or a tv-show, or reading a book can be equally escaping into fantasy. And I don't think it's even a bad thing, as long as you don't vanish so completely you have nothing outside.

@Arkandel 1) My character (Victus) swears a lot. He's not the only one, but he used to swear noticeably more than the other nobles. Quite a few of the commoners outdid him, though. And I'm not even sure if he's the most foul mouthed noble anymore either. The game has gotten huge.

2. I don't own a single piece of itemized clothing. I usually toss in something about it in my post, about wearing something regular like. But the standard rule is as @sunny's described. The fancy eye-catching clothes and jewelry and stuff.

(Weapons and armor are different, in that if you don't have the coded pieces they don't exist)

Think of it as the equivalent of the WoD equipment bonuses. Fashion Clothing +3 etiquette, if you want that stat, needs to be on your sheet. On Arx the fancy needs to be an item.

@Arkandel I think big scene events on every game, unless it comes with a build up, tends to suffer the same half engagement from a sizable portion of the participants. If you want people to shine at their best, they need a smaller stage on which the stakes seem personal.

re: Combat Dinos. I certainly play one of them. That said, being a complete and absolute dino from there were only a handful of players, and probably with consummate advantage of xp.. I still can't do it all. I can do combat (and with only two combat skills above 1) , and I can do stuff related to war. That skill cost increase really, really, really slows you down. Anyone who invests in combat is going to be unable to do it all. It just isn't possible.

What is possible is for a rank 8-9 to be top tier combat pretty much straight out of the gate. After everybody collecting @randomscenes from them, they should be able to bump their weapon skill to 5. If they play a noble it'll take them a bit longer, but not that long.

Same with being good at anything.

Where newbies get the short of end of the stick, I feel, is in clues. Clues are a great gateway into plot and feeling included, and roleplaying about, but instead there's this artificial wall that directly discourages dinos with lots of clues to share with the newbies.

When you talk about AP limiting people; it limits me. I can't see myself sharing a clue again anytime soon. Perhaps once every blue moon. And if some newbie stumbles onto some of those clues, and comes to me with star eyed joy for their shinies, I'll feel a bit bad about robbing them of that joy. Because if it was related to something I should've probably clued them into, they could've been building on the clue instead of sinking a lot of time and effort (now that investigations take way longer) to just duplicate.