Posts made by lordbelh

@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.

I like PvP. I enjoy the competition and I enjoy the IC drama and excitement that comes from it. All games with politics, hierarchy, that have limited resources available, etc, are inherently going to be having some kind of PVP competition. I greatly prefer the games that are honest about it, and think about how to make the pvp enjoyable and meaningful.

Because the drama and resentment comes anyway.

All of that said, Villains vs Superheroes sounds like Camarilla Vs Sabbat. And I vehemently believe you should never pit the two together on the same game. The PvP within the Camarilla, or the PvP within the Sabbat opens up a million different story options because you're still ultimately on the same side even as you struggle and scheme for resources and authority and power and whatever. You can still stop and thump the common enemy. You still have to compromise, and those compromises are necessary rather than some odd staff fiat of 'well you can't mess with your arch enemy' or even worse 'go ahead and go nuclear' and watch the game flame out.

@Auspice Mind, @GirlCalledBlu ran some of the most fun big plot scenes I've been in. Often they can be a complete and frustrating drag, but she managed to make them fun on the 100. At least while I was playing there. So if she was doing that kind of thing, I'd probably consider it an advantage for the game. But that's me!

@Ganymede You're siting me on the wrong thread. On this one I agree with @Bobotron , because I've played on games using this system and I had a great experience with it. It made people who wanted to really use those rare concepts, be able to do so. If it was central to their concept, they spend the merits for it. If it was just a throwaway impulse, they tended not to bother.

ETA: In other words, anyone who wants to be special can, but you have to give something up for it. Not something crippling, just you have to choose to not have something else that might also be cool. You can't have all the things. That makes each individual thing more meaningful, for everybody.

@Auspice I liked their system. You couldn't start out your first character as super special, but eventually everybody could be one if they just stuck around for a bit. Or you could exchange the cookies for XP. So you had the choice between being special by being better, or being special by being fancy unique.

@Bobotron The rarity system is a good system.

@faraday said in Fires of Hope: A Star Wars Story:

Unless I missed something, it sounded like they were putting the force concepts up for a player vote. I'm not sure that making it a popularity contest is really much of an improvement, mind you, but crying staff favoritism seems like kind of a stretch.

I missed that. But that's not any better, no!

Not that I'd want to play one, I like the regular guys in the Star Wars universe. But if you're going to have the Special Fancy Characters in the game, you shouldn't limit them to just the chosen few. Either let everybody have them, or nobody have them.

Best of luck, and hope you have a great game.

I can come with some constructive criticism:

@Avarice said in Fires of Hope: A Star Wars Story:

Force apps are limited. They will be opened up as the active playerbase grows. Staff will post for applications when a slot opens up.

This sounds like a great way to create a world of resentment and accusations of staff favoritism, etc, etc, etc. Don't do it.

Black Sails is back. YAY!

The Expanse is back. YAY!

That was all.

@Arkandel Places.

In real life socializing what you describe happens, too. And the natural inclination is for people to organically split up into smaller groups at their own tables (or even just corner of tables), and shadowy recesses, etc.

Using places is what I try to do. Drag one or two people over and use places.

While you're still getting spammed, sure, you can also just not read all that spam because you're busy in your own place.

If that doesn't work, I guess leaving is the only option. Take your buddy and move on to the next room.

@Pondscum Glad to see more games around! Wish you the best of luck.

(Though I can't help but point out that just about every wod game now a days is a sandbox, where staff leaves players to do just about everything but the grunt jobmonkey stuff.)

@Shincashay That was Abbas' contribution. He went with Salt everything, and we all eagerly embraced it. Its a Salt Life, yo.

@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.

@Deviante Bribes work.

@Shincashay @Roz I'm pretty sure you're the first tho be playing him, yeah. If not, whoever held him only picked him up and then left him idle.

I'm looking forward to seeing you on the character, though!

@Shincashay Who'd you pick? I feel they're flying off the roster as soon as they're made.

Best of luck to you.

I'm not much of a fan of canon characters being played, regardless of if they have the same 'stats' as everybody else. I have never seen it turn out in a way I found satisfactory.

But I know others love it, so I'm only gonna chalk it up as 'not for me.'

@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.

@Roz thirded. Well, I don't know Killian, but the other two are pretty cool.

@Alzie I am testing this game out. I'm assuming Generations of Darkness had some baggage? Though this thread is probably not the place to take it.