Posts made by lordbelh

@Gingerlily The important thing is that you have avenues to explore the rivalry in low key ways, that the competition becomes about IC things, rather than OOC pride. And again, that you have ways to deescalate.

@Ganymede @Lisse24

I'll add a willingness to embrace rather than shy away from healthy competition and factional conflict, and giving the tools to engage in them without necessitating ye telenukes. Messing with territory, or npc retainers, or that kind of thing. And if shit went too far, there was the deescalation mechanic where you just ended up owing a boon. You went from target nr1, to useful tool your enemy was now invested in.

There's always going to be rivalries. If you're expending your time on ICly appropriate ones, thematic ones, and with satisfactory resolutions to them, you're less likely to just sit on your molehill and stew until it all blows up. Because that happens even on strict all-consent PVE games. Wishing away conflict and competition doesn't make it go away; encouraging it down healthy avenues makes it more likely everybody'll get used to losing once or twice, and conditions people that its okay, and not personal.

I wasn’t really planning on saying more for a while, but hell.

I can’t claim I’m entirely without fault here. It takes two to tango. Without going into the details right now, I put in a Crisis action that channeled some of my recent frustrations with the game. Rereading it, I can’t say I would’ve written it quite that way again, as Hellfrog wasn’t wrong when she detected passive aggressive frustration there and a distinct lack of enthusiasm for her story. Whatever justifications or context I might provide doesn't really matter, because it was quite obviously a mistake that I own.

I was asked to leave when I explained what prompted it. I realized that I should probably just say ‘okay’ and left it at that, but I didn’t. It would be disingenuous of me to then protest on some level I didn’t walk myself right into the ‘if you feel that way, it’s best you should leave’ ending. With the should not being optional. The cat was out of the bag, regardless of any willingness to keep any frustrations in check in the future. It was clear Hellfrog thinks I am a toxic and antagonistic player, and this has been her opinion of me for quite some time.

I don’t walk away with a hate-boner for Arx. They didn’t think I was a good fit, and that’s their prerogative. When there is no trust left between player and staff, what's the point? While I have a lot of thoughts about Arx and its state, I’m going to take a break from it all before I write anything more about it, if I ever do.

Mostly I’m just a bit disappointed with the ending after a year on the game. I liked Victus, the character becoming something different than originally designed through a lot of great interactions and organic roleplay. As he kept complaining: Arx will corrupt anyone if given enough time. So again, to those of you I rped with, thanks. I would’ve kept playing if I’d been allowed, but I suspect some of my enthusiasm was already dead. My joy came from my interactions with players, not the game world or its story.

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.

@Gingerlily The most fun I've had was playing as the underdogs in RfK. Steele, a Ventrue Invictus who dabbled with the Sanctified, had replaced council power with ye ol' Princely autocracy. It really invigorated the Carthians during his rule. He greatly favored his Invictus fellows (naturally) so they got perks, and that gave us something to rail and plot against. Then Steele burned out and let his character die, and in the political vacuum that followed where territory, positions, power, etc, was up for grabs was delightful chaos.

A lot of posturing, and scheming, and betraying, and in the end nobody even ended up dead. Boons nobody'd thought about before became suddenly used to secure the reluctant support of character who hated you. One of the greatest joys I had was calling in a Major Boon (itself a bit of effort of collecting smaller boons to build up his debt) on the Big Nasty Nosferatu former Seneschal, and force him to support the Carthians even if he really didn't like my character or the Carthian Experiment at all. (And he was delightfully cool about it.)

@Nein I'd say its the only kind of comic game I've be interested in playing. In the past, its the only kind I have roleplayed, as seeing someone play Batman, (Or Han Solo in a SW game, or Harry Potter in a Harry Potter game) just makes me roll my eyes.

It took effort to convince me that MUing was worth sticking with. When I saw how horribly backwards and dated looking everything was, I felt like throwing my hands up and quitting. And that was what, 5-6 years ago now? Its even more dated now.

I mean, it still requires the game to be good. But I started out rping on a web interface. I'd not mind returning to it.

@faraday I would.

I like FS3. The only issues I've had is with staffers who for some reason think its impossible to use the entire range of the skills. 12 Shouldn't be impossible, dammit. If you want super epic villains, you can always make them extra badass. But the skill scale exists to be used.

10, 11 shouldn't either, for that matter.

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.

The only times I ever post logs, is if I need to to get xp. Otherwise I just don't.

@surreality DAMN. Just damn. Black Sails keeps being awesome.

ETA: Im a few days late, I know. But I didnt have time to catch the newest episode until right now.

I log everything by default. Its not so much so my character can remember things, as I sometimes want to remember something.

@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 have tried to RP from my phone twice, both necessitated by the internet service dying, and being in the middle of something I felt obliged to finish for other people's takes.

But man, its a solution of last resort.

Temprooms are great, especially temprooms that live on grid so they feel connected to the rest of the universe rather than floating off the OOC room in the ether of things.

@mietze said in Roleplaying writing styles:

I try to match my length to what's around me, as well as being respectful of intent of the scene.

This.

And the courtesy thing. I can forgive a lot of writing flaws from people who are easy going and treat me and my time with respect.

I love me some Dresdenverse.

@Ganymede Oh, don't get me wrong. I was advocating an AP style system since day 1. I didn't get traction from staff then, but I was pretty confident it was going to come sooner or later if the game in any way achieved the kind of popularity and metaplot activity of RfK. By and large the AP might need some fine tuning, but its a solid premise. I've always been a delegate/cooperate type anyway (or so I like to think), but now its even more important.

The clue part I feel is one of those classic instances where staff has echo chambered themselves into a decision that runs counter to the playerbase and frankly their own stated intentions for the game. Massive clue dumping in scenes were determined to be a problem (I can accept that), but the response to that was absolutely out of proportion.