Best posts made by lordbelh

I thought Punisher was the bomb, and I loved Electra.

I fast forwarded through a couple of fight scenes towards the end, if only because I could only take so many Ninja fights in succession. Its a bit of a shame, because the action on this show is very well done and well choreographed, but I think at the end it just got a bit repetitive. Not so with the Punisher fights. The Punisher is the bomb, and that long monologue he gave at the end of the 4th episode? Man, that got to me.

I loved seeing REDACTED again. REDACTED has to be one of my all time favorite REDACTED ever.

ETA: I'm with @Coin on the Foggy question. Foggy is an unsung hero.

@ThatGuyThere said:

@bored
From what I have seen on the Standard WoD non-consent the norm seems to be finding a small group you fit with and doing your own thing.

While it is true there are people on every game who leap to get into plots there are also those who leap to avoid them, do I think it is a majority? Honestly I am not sure but at the very least I would say it is in the ball park of 30 percent of the population, and I think that small core, whether there for relationship rp or to tell their own stories among their small group are doing what they choose not because they lack other options.

I believe this has more to do with the games than the players. Most standard wod non-consent games are sandboxes. In a sandbox politics are mostly just a question of ego, and plots are just PRPs run by your friends. Interpersonal relationships and character development becomes the primary thing that drives the rp, not plots or danger or whatever, because the stakes of those PRPs are low (they don't generally matter beyond whatever self contained story you're a part of). So why should anyone be surprised if players stick to doing that? Especially the subset of players who primarily want to do that wherever they go?

What I saw on RfK was even most of the relationship type of players, and there were plenty of those on that game, too, still involved themselves in the greater story because there were incentives to do so.

Not that there's anything wrong with relationship play in itself. I don't see a good romance story being inferior to a swashbuckling adventure.

I think the Game of Thrones episode had some of the best battle scenes I've seen on TV ever. Just following Jon Snow through the chaos of it was utterly exhilarating. Actually I'm struggling to remember any fantasy/historical show or even movie that's done a better job of it.

I'm not surprised to learn that it was the same director who did Hardhome, my second favorite big action episode on GoT.

@Arkandel said in Tips on Güd TS:

I'm mainly thinking of people (I think @lordbelh mentioned something along such lines?) who prefer handling everything purely IC if they can help it, so in such cases do you feel filter partners out based on anything other than poses?

I don't really look for romantic partners when I roleplay. Sometimes it happens organically in the story and I really don't screen that. If it goes to hell it goes to hell, I'm rarely so invested in a story that it can't blow up at some point and be replaced with something else. If I know someone is a dramawhore I've probably disengaged a long time ago anyway. Sometimes someone asks me (and looking back its always been someone else to initiate that idea) to come in with a predefined relationship and then I'll only take on someone I've had a positive experience with before (not necessarily a romantic one, just it has to be someone I know I enjoy RPing with), and I'll turn down people I don't know at least a little.

But ultimately I don't see the great harm in things not turning out perfect. Even the worst dramasplosions rarely last forever. Live and let live, man.

@Kestrel said in Cultural differences between MUDs and MUSHes:

When @Thenomain walks up to Kestrel, she just glares. She thinks he's a jerk, but of course she'd never say that out loud. But it shows, it really shows. And so biting back her insult, she grits her teeth and says, "Good day... sir."

That's how I'd do it, if I was writing that post. No ambiguity about whether you can react to it.

@Kestrel said in Cultural differences between MUDs and MUSHes:

You MUSHers are looking at me like I'm wearing a kilt.

Naw. Like @Thenomain said, we hardly agree even among ourselves what the right way to do things are. Believe me when I say you're getting no worse than people give each other on this board all the time over every little detail that can be argued into death. We're all wearing kilts.

Its what I like about the place. People aren't afraid of offering differing opinions and going against the mold. Even if it means having to deal with counter arguments.

@Coin said in Fanbase entitlement:

I disagree entirely. I spend more dedicated time watching TV or reading than I do RPing at this point. Also, my choosing to invest in something does not, actually, entitle me to anything regarding that thing, regardless of how much I choose to invest.

On a Mu, players are participants, not passive consumers. That makes the difference. The stories set in the game are written by the players by and large.

The only times I run things that include my character is if it's an impromptu bit of plottage that only's come about because we were bored with a social scene and decided to do something more with it. Occasionally that'll span over a few more scenes, and involve the kind of character centered progression that are usually lacking in regular PRPs.

I would separate those sort of 'prps', as well as in general any kind of private character development 'prps', from the public 'affect the world at large' style prps or staff run plots. The latter types shouldn't involve your own character, especially if you're a staffer. As for the former.. if its all about you anyway, you might as well tell it any way you like.

@Kanye-Qwest said in Social Conflict via Stats:

yeah, I'm not feeling that. Physical skills can and are used to 'arbitrate' pc/pc conflict, thus social skills need to be at least that effective.

While I believe that social skills and mechanics do need to be important, in fact they should have more metaphysical weight than physical stats/skills, they're not equivalents of each other. They do very different things.

They can't be handled the same, because they aren't the same. The consequences aren't the same, either.

Being beat up is a temporary setback. Even if its not temporary, even if you have a limb chopped off, you're still playing the same character (minus a limb). You decide how you handle the loss. Death is permanent, of course, but at least you played your character to the end. Physical combat is the result of two players' agency coming to a head, and arbitrates the physical result.

In my experience people would much rather be beat up, than have dice tell them that a year of scenes and friendship with character X is now at its end, and you have to play out a betrayal that will branch out and disrupt every story and every scene you were looking forward to. Social combat results in one player seizing the agency of another player, and rewriting it. Often with very little thought to the internal conflict and wider consequences of that rewriting.

Acknowledging that, and thus ensuring that your systems have a decent amount of give and take is imperative. You don't need to cooperate to create a plausible scene and story through physical combat. In social combat, its an absolute necessity.

To the mention of RfK: while valuing social stats, it valued them primarily through giving characters with an emphasis of social stats immense extra resources at their disposal. Those resources then became leverage that they could use in their social scenes. To me that's a great way to do it. The power was indirect, thus side stepping the mine field of player agency. The social character had mortal pull, could destroy your territory, could leave you without blood and a million headaches if she played it right. That in itself was where the leverage came. In addition they had rolls to augment the scenes, in which if you accepted the social dice loss you got benefits, and if you didn't you were punishment.

I've heard of this Custodius person, and glanced over countless posts bitching about him and detailing various depravities. As I sit here with the idea that he's not only on a game I'm playing on, but taken a roster character in close proximity to my own, I keep thinking: Wow, this is a bit surrealistic, isn't it?

The Firan thread was always something of an amusing side show and a general warning of the pitfalls of RP to me, rather than anything I actually took very seriously. So many things were so obviously fucked up there that to take too many lessons from it risks stepping just as wrong on the opposite side of the scale.

I suspect I'll keep RPing as I have been (I'm enjoying the game, which is neither perfect nor the game I would have likely made, but still fundamentally very enjoyable), since quitting any game over one player I don't even know is never going to be an option. Nor is abruptly cutting off/changing my IC interactions with someone who is part of my organization going to happen.

Still, I do consider myself now warned. While I've a habit of giving people a chance regardless of their reputations (I was warned about @Pondscum but personally I've had nothing but positive interactions with her, for example), when someone gets as consistently bad rep as Custodius it inevitably (and should) influence your decisions.

I suppose since @Apos and @Kanye-Qwest both played on Firan, they'd be as well suited as any to make an informed decision. Assuming its not a false flag. I mean, they've happened before.

@buttercup I don't know about that. I suspect the future of Thrax will depend on the players of Thrax. There aren't a lot of Thrax vassals at the moment, but since he's a Count there's still two steps between him and the High Lord someone could app in on. That doesn't exactly put his character in the center.

And if you're not even in Thrax, the amount of association anyone needs to have with him is minimal to none.

That said, avoiding things and people you think will destroy your fun isn't something I'll judge anyone for.

@Kanye-Qwest Selfishly, I'd love myself some grand battles. But that's because my character is geared towards them. Its always great to have your character be able to do the things you've imagined they're supposed to be doing. Intimate adventures are great, too, but also perfect for crowd-sourcing out to player storytellers, if they have the tools necessary to run them. Especially if they're given plot clues to work into them, so attendance feels like it has some weight rather than being ephemeral.

@Catsmeow If you're going to make a Kushiel's game, just make a Kushiel's game. Make it a good Kushiel's game, even. The further you stray from the original idea the more likely you are to get lost along the way.

@faraday This is how I view it. I don't mind it; if I do mind it then I'll say something. The littler stuff I just roll with, and expect others to roll with as well. And if they don't wanna, then they're free not to, and I won't take offense. I generally don't see the point in dancing around every possible instance of something someone might consider a power-pose.

I would love a game set in the Roman Empire/Republic (Republic with Senate politics would be way better for a MU. You want a dynamic political landscape, not a static one, I've always felt.). What you need to keep in mind when making a game in that setting is that women were considered property of the patriarch of the family (so were younger unmarried sons and children too for that matter, let alone the slaves).

By itself simply playing a historic Roman game could possibly run into some trouble.

However if you make it a wod game, with vampires etc, then you change the dynamic completely. There's no reason why say vampire society might not be equal, and so you have these powerful vampires (or mages, or whatever) in the background that can behave largely as they please. In fact you add layers of complexity to explore.

And if anyone wants to play a plain vanilla roman lady (or a male slave for that matter), go do it!

Its only really a problem if those who want agency, can't have it. Conversely those who want to explore roles with limited agency, shouldn't be forced (or looked down upon for it) into making that choice.

To those of you whom I played with: It was great fun while it was fun.

Also, sorry for any trouble with the storylines connected to Victus that are about to be disrupted.

@Astrid I'd probably play that too. Or at the very least I'd give it a go and see how it went.

I'm perfectly fine with people playing into wish fulfilment - I think everybody does it to a greater or lesser extent. The only time it becomes a problem is if your wish fulfilment has to come at the expense of someone else. You're not entitled to be the special one.

So you get to be super pretty, but you don't get to unequivically say you're the prettiest. You might be, but someone else might feel differently about it (and if you're running a stat game they might even be 'objectively' correct as far as the game's system and world is concerned.) The same goes for being smart, or badass or whatever. The moment you start getting possessive about your character's specialness, and find it annoying that others are stealing your shine, it's time to consider why you feel that way.

Yeah, the wiki is atrocious. Which is a shame, since there's obviously a lot of love and effort poured into the game and setting. Its one of the more interesting game concepts I've seen in a while, and is on its way of luring me back into some rp.

For example the theme files really shouldn't be buried, but given their own tab up where its easy to see and find.

@Admiral said in Changes to The Hog Pit:

I dislike hiding the Hog Pit behind a wall.

I do too.