Posts made by Miss Demeanor

@Thenomain is a very private tweed-loving robot and as such has used the occasional nom de plume. Frankly, I'm still amazed he managed to keep it secret that long. MU*ers are notorious for digging up all the dirt.

@surreality said:

...STRP?

STRiPpers!

Yeah, I'm failing to see where this is a big deal. This type of food has been around for years now. XD

@Thenomain Not enough ess's

@Pyrephox I don't disagree. But its still, in the end, a people problem. Don't want to play by the rules? People problem. Don't want to enforce the rules? Still a people problem. Whether the rules in place are awesome or suck (I think everyone knows where I stand on the most recent set of rules), until people will enforce them and abide by them... its not a problem with the system.

@Derp I will note that I did not and do not question Status as a way to represent influence in social situations. So the 'thing' that was originally asked for DOES exist... but some people ignore it anyways. Much like they do with nearly all social and/or mental types of manipulation or domination. You can't get away from it. The people that are going to scream and cry and swear on a stack of holy books that their character "SO wouldn't do that" are still going to scream and cry and swear regardless of any system that's put into place. You can't change the players. The question is moot because until people stop being so anal about having their characters manipulated or dominated, the problem will persist.

So no, GMC's social rules isn't an 'answer' to the problem. Because the problem isn't a rules problem, its a people problem. I hate the GMC social rules, so yes, I will gladly take the Go With the Flow option right off the bat, take my Beat, and be on my merry. But it has nothing to do with me wanting to ignore the social rules in place. That's my way of not having to draw out something that I find to be tedious, boring, and entirely unnecessary.

The long and short of it is that there is no fix to this problem. You can't make people not be people, and the people that ignored it then will ignore it now. Doesn't mean the system in place doesn't suck.

Fair enough... but twice as bad. It really is just like combat now. Everything will take forever to resolve. Its bad enough combat takes forever to resolve, now going to hang out at the local bar can take just as long with less actual posing. Just agreeing to the whatever and avoiding the whole boring mess is looking more and more enticing as an option.

@Derp I will be happy to be part of the solution, when the solution doesn't require me to sit around for HOURS AT A TIME, while YOU get to do things and I wait on you to be done. See, that whole 'roleplaying' thing? I kind of want to do the PLAYING part of it. Not the 'sitting around whilst Other Player rolls 2 dozen times, having to pause between each roll to check for the next step or figure out what is the next best move'. Its the equivalent of having 2 people get into a combat and then having one person sit around constantly waiting for the other person to decide what type of attack they want to use. I won't do the latter any more than I would the former, so why should I be forced into doing the former? Where's the fun in it? But then, I never bitched about the previous social rules of using 1-2 contested rolls determine the outcome. I rather liked it that way. It was efficient and got people back to the RP that the hobby is supposed to be about.

You want to play with Doors, throw it into a job and let me know when you're done. I'll be over there, having an actual scene with actual posing.

Besides, from what I can tell, it would take someone with low social stats and/or horrible luck rolling to actually -lose- a social contest. Much like with nwod physical combat, it seems weighted on the side of the 'attacker' with the 'defender' simply sitting there being worn down by a barrage of verbal assaults until they either give in completely or do the offer an alternative thing. I have yet to see anything set in the rules for the target to actually fight back, verbally speaking.

@Derp said:

@Miss-Demeanor said:

@Ganymede It was. And if that's all it was used for, I wouldn't care. But its not. It gets applied to player against player social interactions as well. And that's where I draw my line.

See, I think it should be applied to PvP situations. It's a neutral way to resolve a social situation that doesn't end in 'nuh uh because I said so, my person would never do that' which gets applied to just about every social roll ever. Which is lame as fuck.

I wouldn't mind tweaking the system a little bit right now, though. As it stands, everyone just assumes that everyone is hostile to everyone and like some sort of dark magic, you can't roll. There should be intervals between there that are missing. 'Uneasy' and 'Unfriendly' are the ones that I would add in, personally. Hostile would be -strictly- for active hostility, in the form of blows are being thrown, or something like that. Some very real, clear and present danger outside of 'ugh, what a dick'. Because dicks can still get people to do what they want, and people work with people they don't like after some convincing that it's the best way to go about things.

And the first time someone wants me to sit around for two hours while they figure out if their PC can sway mine? My reaction is this. And since we're on the subject... hostile is a lot more than 'I will punch you if you speak to me'. There's plenty of hostile people in the world that never lift a hand towards a person. So no, I don't think Hostile is JUST meant to cover 'ready to inflict physical violence'.

@Ganymede It was. And if that's all it was used for, I wouldn't care. But its not. It gets applied to player against player social interactions as well. And that's where I draw my line.

@Derp See, and I hate the Doors thing GMC introduced. Hate. It. I would rather completely fuck over my character by having them immediately and unequivocally agree to whatever the Social Mogul wants than be subjected to the torture of the GMC Social system.

@Coin said:

@Miss-Demeanor said:

+1 to @Arkandel. This was a HUGE thing on TR. People would complain constantly that they weren't given their due attention for whichever stat. They seem to fail to realize if that you meet up with Rich Supermodel #842 every day for lunch... you're going to eventually stop being awed and amazed by their looks/wealth/status/etc.

@Coin That's because everyone wants ALL the shinies. Frankly, some of the most fun I've had was playing a dirty, poor, homeless, scrawny, average-looking characters. Then again, I've also found that I largely hate playing bullshit social scenes where you (empirical) try to awe/cow/overwhelm everyone around you with your awesomeness and stats. I'd rather go steal an artifact or kill Monster of the Week and loot their corpses or drag race cars and have the cops show up or anything that could have some potential meaning to the character. And at this point I'd rather not RP than have to attend one more 'charity' function set up so people can show off how pretty princess special snowflake they are.

Syndrome said it best, ladies and gents. When everyone is super... no one is.

Yeah, I agree. I've had a lot of fun playing both rich and poor, etc. But a lot of people use games to fulfill their own little fantasies--and especially try to force those fantasies on others.

How many poor characters have suddenly found themselves the recipients of a wealthy lifestyle because a rich PC felt like it?

Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep. And having your character express disdain or lack of want for it is nearly always met with a scoffing 'but everyone wants to be rich!' or 'but you'll grow to love it' kind of remark.

@WTFE said:

Would they get a shave there?

Is a Burma shave anything like a Glasgow smile? Because I could get behind that.

+1 to @Arkandel. This was a HUGE thing on TR. People would complain constantly that they weren't given their due attention for whichever stat. They seem to fail to realize if that you meet up with Rich Supermodel #842 every day for lunch... you're going to eventually stop being awed and amazed by their looks/wealth/status/etc.

@Coin That's because everyone wants ALL the shinies. Frankly, some of the most fun I've had was playing a dirty, poor, homeless, scrawny, average-looking characters. Then again, I've also found that I largely hate playing bullshit social scenes where you (empirical) try to awe/cow/overwhelm everyone around you with your awesomeness and stats. I'd rather go steal an artifact or kill Monster of the Week and loot their corpses or drag race cars and have the cops show up or anything that could have some potential meaning to the character. And at this point I'd rather not RP than have to attend one more 'charity' function set up so people can show off how pretty princess special snowflake they are.

Syndrome said it best, ladies and gents. When everyone is super... no one is.

ITS THE END OF THE WORLD AS WE KNOW IT!

...and I feel fine.

EDIT: Someone had to do it!

Yeah, sorry, just grabbed the first pic my mouse wandered over. XD


This was done on Firefox, using the Upload button. I haven't been having any issues with it. I was the other person, btw.

@Ganymede said:

@Miss-Demeanor said:

By insisting on making everything 'equal', you're actually telling the people that put in the time and effort since the beginning that they're LESS valuable than the person just stepping in the door. Because that person can simply buy the dots and ruin your work.

This is not an argument for or against XP caps. This is about staff policy regarding what you can and cannot purchase without effort. If you force one player to do eleventy-billion PrPs to get Status 4 (MU* Nerds), then a person that wants to get the same should also have to go through the same labor.

I never said anything about making things equal. I'm simply tearing at the flimsy, arbitrary reasons why we explain away policies aimed to maintain a benefit enjoyed only by pre-existing players. Once we all come to terms with the fact that it all such reasoning is hokum, then maybe we'll start thinking about adopting different, potentially-better oplicies.

Okay, I'll admit that I didn't see it that way and that's my own fault. So my apologies and carry on.

@Ganymede Normally I wouldn't get involved in these kinds of discussions... but something you mentioned pinged on a memory so I felt it might be prudent to share this.

I have nothing against new players to a game. Everyone is one when they first start with -any- game. But I also don't appreciate it when I've spent months and/or years building up an IC base of influence in whatever arena... only to have some random upstart from nowhere pop up and smash all my hard work into the ground because they got 'catch up' xp. How is that fair to all the hard work, effort, and xp that I invested into the game only to have someone else ruin my fun because 'everyone should start equal'. Where is the new player's equal share in the work that went into building that sphere of influence? Where is their equal share in the effort put into making contacts and allies? They didn't go out and schmooze and deal with anyone... they just spent some xp and maybe wrote a few sentences about it in a background. There is no 'equal footing' there.

By insisting on making everything 'equal', you're actually telling the people that put in the time and effort since the beginning that they're LESS valuable than the person just stepping in the door. Because that person can simply buy the dots and ruin your work.

@Coin said:

@Miss-Demeanor said:

@Coin said:

@WTFE said:

That was the joke.

Shut up. Your mom. FACE.

YOUR MOM'S FACE

Yes, it's really pretty. I have a beautiful mum, thank you.

You're welcome.