Best posts made by Misadventure

I dislike anonymous anything on a forum. You want to have your actions/voice seen/heard? You put your name to it.

You want an anonymous poll, make one.

I had friends who belonged to an anime club. Through that they met a guy who set up Anime MUCK. They used it for RP some, but also to build models of anime settings, fun coded bits, and to have slow conversations about whatever. This was done through tinyfugue and a free for students university dial up.

I remember you had to be an anime character, but I had no desire that even in the remotest sense someone would think I had signed up to RP a given property, so I made up my own character based on a Vampire variant I was writing up, the book Night's Master by Tanith Lee, and my love of tuxedos. I am unsure if Tuxedo Mask existed to me then.

I just realized this may have relevance. My mother(!) bought me Tunnels & Trolls and the solo dungeons for it. That inspired me to code up similar for the PET computer. It may not seem related, but it crossed the line between reading and participation.

I don't care about roundedness, I just care that everyone has the same opportunities befor and after cgen.

And to vex @Arkandel whenever I can.

I agree with @Ganymede. I understand the initial concern, that RL couples will always act as a trustworthy, honest and open ally. This sort of thing can ruin board games. However, were you to police that, you would also need to hit up RL friends, people who have MU*'d together before, Staff who know each other, and so on.

The reality is that playing among strangers, having people you know and can rely on is a solid benefit.

There are many forms of fudging the roll:

You can literally ignore the roll.
"Roll stealth plus dex." notes failure "Okay the guards don't react when you sneak by." hopes players never ask.

You can literally ignore the result.
Especially if you don't announce what a roll is for. "Make a stealth roll." "Oh, you failed." nods, writes something. "Make another roll" That note might be someone saw you approach the area, even though usually the rolls are only against the direct opposition. It doesn't have to be used.

You can ask for another roll to mitigate the original result.
"Okay not a great stealth approach, make an Int + Security check to notice the flaw in your effort."

You can give stronger or weaker consequences.
"A guard going home from work stumbles upon you. How do you take him out?" This guard is off the clock, unarmed,and isn't in a position to be trouble or set off alerts.

You can alter circumstances so the results don't play out as long or as effectively, or cut them short later on.
"The first set of guards alert the second, but they don't call it in." or "The police are delayed by the crowd around the dead homeless guy." "The police find no clues, and they let it go after a week."

This is part of why I favor strongly organized approaches to play (by tradition or the rules), so you know what a roll is, how many will likely be made. This is also why i favor systems that measure level of success over pass fail. Many pass fail games keep the chance to fail fairly high to maintain tension and suspense, but it does lead to failing a basic check. I also favor systems that allow for some sort of "fix" to a roll. Something that says you always get at least average results, or need not roll when difficulty is Normal or less, or a limited number or re-rolls, or modify the roll after the fact. (These are in a way a form of skill situation "hit points" and you can see them running out, and the tension rises, the the players are gently reminded that the rolls are getting closer and closer to real, no change results.

@Arkandel said:

@mietze Oh, the number of players who're hacking military sites from their iPhones on a starbucks wifi.

Yeah, you hack military sites on Starbucks wifi with OTHER peoples iPhones. srsly.

The whistle to blow here may be more about players thinking they have it worse than anyone else, as discussed above.

The folks who tend to post to MSB and WORA are a pessimistic lot.

What are the goals, the positives, of a social conflict system?

I said before: chance to have others learn some about my character, and the mirror, I get a chance to learn about theirs.

Have appropriate skills, and social advantages and disadvantages matter.

Make clear the limits of quick influence, as well as long term influence. (I'm a limiting sort of guy, I like to savor things.)

Don't dilute strong personal values.

Let the player be clear when they are solid in the area of effort, as well as when they are gambling big.

Suggest compromises to the players, with a guideline to what is enough and what is too little or too much.

Have it be reasonably easy to quick glance at all of the above and just play through without rolls and have it be a decent approximation.

Change your apparent age by bathing in the blood of virgins, or people younger than you. Or just a lot of blood.

I in no way wish for social recognition.

+badges, if given out strictly, can be a useful way to communicate what you have done.

Noting a variety of positive traits such as:
able to run a short story in 4 hours
able to accommodate and challenge low IC skill
able to accommodate and challenge high IC skill
able to coordinate many interrelated scenes
good thematic presentation
good setting presentation
good portrayal of NPCs
able to make an on the spot call
able to herd players towards participation
integrates background, rp hooks, or other character specific details
patient with OOC questions
accepting of OOC criticism
steady, will complete series of sessions to complete story

It is also possible that some people react differently to the exact same wording and actions, so to some one appears as something positive, to other as a negative. It may have little to do with the actual core intentions or even the tools used. In the end, your audience can be stupid. You can either try to accommodate the stupid or avoid it, or get used to it mouth breathing about you til you go away.

It would be nice if everyone could be aware of this idea, and maybe give people more slack, but whatever.

The snide answer is people hear what they want to hear.

A more accurate answer is they talk about what they want to talk about.

Still have no replies on what if anything someone would do to impart the risk feel.

A person can be a pernicious catalyst of destruction.

They can be the ever renewing trigger of destruction. So no it's not all their masterful control of humanity, just their ability to see human weaknesses, and instead of shoring those up, they manipulate them to tear everything down.

JFC.

Are the exotic races going to be known by how they call themselves, or by how another culture/language refers to them? (See red skin for First Nations as an initially accepted misname that worked anyway).

Do they all belong (in their own minds and or in land dwellers minds) to some category, other than Sea Folk? Like all blessed or ruled by a certain goddess, a common origin event, or just common abilities like the ability to walk land and sea?

So you're saying the reply was framed to suit their end goals. Even if the end goals weren't necessarily the same as yours.

The Court of the Air, from the Jackelian series, had a crustacean people called the Craynarbian. I suspect it is the term used by humans, in the one or more of the human languages.

It is best if the absolute value of everything a character has is clear. Package deals suck.

Have you not seen Shaolin Soccer?

Literally, cooking becomes goalie kung fu.

Not directly related plug!

There have been a few recent games worth looking at for their different origins and perspectives.

Coyote & Crow TTRPG

The Wagadu Chronicle MMORPG

Into the Mother Lands TTRPG

Ehdrigohr TTRPG

There are more, those are just ones I have personal experience with.

@noodle-mcdoodle and now I know what a parasocial relationship is.

@prototart Then you haven't been paying attention. What you just declared is that you, and everyone upvoting this, literally think nothing else here has ever been someone skating the edge of the rules and violating the spirit of them.

No one, ever.

You might want to double check on that before making an absolute stance your own.

This literally applies in all cases of an absolute stance. <-- an absolute stance.