Posts made by Paradox

City of mist as a concept is amazing. As a mechanic based system I don't see it translating well. There was a game that did a similar idea a year ago or so. Didn't make it but was a novel idea.

@raeras

Oh this is straight up city of mists vibe

I GM at a Gaming Table with a group of about 6-8 players; a few steady, a few rotating. I originally started out with each campaign saying 'this is going to be more tactical' 'this one is more theater of the mind' 'this one is more RP/Narrative focused' and it let players know what to expect. I've actually shifted to doing that per session.

Min/Max is not a bad thing explicitly. It can be a frustrating thing when you have to adjust encounters to make them challenging enough for someone who is powerful, but as a GM that's also part of the job if you did not explicitly layout for players the expectations you have for the session.

I personally love doing Min/Max design of characters, to see what I can possibly do. Does min/max design somehow make a character less narratively interesting? I think that's a really bad assumption to make but is one made quite a bit. The real hit is the winning vs. losing thing; and I also have seen it not just in a Min/Max character but also in a 'RP Focused' character, getting upset about losing.

TL;DR -- Players should know the expectations for the game.

I went to a restaurant a couple of months ago while on vacation. I don't remember the name, but the front desk told us it was an incredibly popular place. So we went, it was an Italian styled place.

So then they handed me a menu. On the menu it said Pizza, Pasta, or anything else you could want. That was it. I was like, 'What kind of place is this?'. Because I had no idea what was going on. The Server explained that this restaurant was one where you chose what you want to eat, the chefs would prepare a recipe instruction and you could go in the back and cook it yourself. I was so excited. I absolutely love to cook. My partner? They hate to cook so it was immediately a point of tension. Do we stay? Do we go?

We decided to stay. But the menu was so vague, I knew I could do Italian food, but what did I want to make? I opted for making a pizza. (It felt a lot like that make your own pie Seinfeld episode). I went and kneaded the dough, and then came the toppings. It was whatever I wanted that they had. Just so many choices. I quickly got overwhelmed.

So I made my pizza, the partner made some pasta. It was good, I enjoyed the experience, but they did not. They wanted to just sit and enjoy a meal together rather than having to come up with what to do.

I thought this story might be kind of relevant to this conversation as I was reading it. Even if you have a setting and theme in place, asking someone to come in and run stories leaves a lot of menu options that can get overwhelming. Some people may just want to enjoy the meal rather than cook it themselves. Some people are excited to cook but wouldn't know what to make because things are too vague. The experience could be really interesting, but it could just get so overwhelming you would never go back. Anyway, literal food for thought.

@solstice

To go further, I've found that people who are rude to sprouts generally are the ones that are find themselves on the end of being disliked by other players. There was a huge influx of WoW community a few months back and the FC I was in purged a decent chunk of them when they found out they were rude to new players. FF14 is really a good community (by and large) for this.

@bear_necessities

iOS has it

@krmbm

A year or so ago we were in development phase of a wot game and an idea that was voiced was doing a mirror universe where the dark one tainted both saidin and saidar. The taint wasn't complete though so men and women could both channel cleaner OR end up going mad

Has the environment of games changed enough that people may be more willing to rely on that sort of narrative ability than coded ability to do things?

What I mean by that is would it be feasible to have channelers have sheets that have their rankings in the various elements and then a list of what the weaves need in order to be used. Then players could use the weave in combat if they meet requirements?

Do the same with sword forms and other types of things?

Also a long term WebMU client user, so sad it's down atm.

I found just a nice web based raw telnet. It at least saves my connections for me, but you know, raw telnet.

https://youfiles.herokuapp.com/telnetclient/

@arkandel

I actually agree with you. I finished it, I rewatched the whole thing over the past two days in solid sequence to get a true feel of it.

This is not Wheel of Time. It is a Fan Fiction with Wheel of Time Characters and some concepts, but taken to the point that if you changed the names, would you be able to identify it as WoT?

I do not think you would. In the end, I really want to like it because I want this book series to have this moment. But I don't like it. I don't think it has a future. It'll be done after next season.

@seraphim73

As well in our house, the spouse and child have both watched it having never read the books and have enjoyed it. Not immensely, but at least enough to want to continue watching it with me. I answer a few questions once in awhile.

@devrex

I like what you're hitting with the restrictions on the Aes Sedai. I would take it a step further. How many places were they flat out hated? How many were they mistrusted? Really outside of the halls of power (where their influence was feared) they were not liked. There wasn't some upswell of Oh Good the Aes Sedai are here! It was always fear and apprehension, even when they helped you it came at a price.

I had a long debate with a friend and I took the position that the Aes Sedai in many ways are the villains of the story. Yes, there is the outside threat of the Shadow, but within the internal structure of the main world in the Third Age they were the veiled threat that everyone disliked.

So (in my opinion) that is your balance of power in regards. Because I think the base question is neglecting the third sphere which is social interactions.

Warriors have strength of arms.
Wizards have strength of magic.
Thieves (Think Mat) have strength of social.

Instead of trying to balance on a two pronged stool, add that third leg and suddenly you can get closer to balance. Or in the classic team, you have the Looks, the Muscle, the Brains, and the Wildcard Bitches!

I've done the PC version for a few months with friends. If you have a group of people that will play consistently? It's a really enjoyable time. It's the full Gloomhaven experience (mostly) with ZERO of the setup time.

This was one of the first years I really enjoyed the Finals because I feel both teams are built and not bought. Yeah, you bring in Free Agents to fill things out but Booker and Ayton are Phoenix. Giannis and Middleton are Milwaukee. Both are markets you don't see as necessarily the 'premiere' markets.

Personally, I think this is good stuff, made it really enjoyable to watch and root. The fact that I found myself going from neutral to pro-Milwaukee surprised me. I suspect it' because as the series wore on I grew tired of Chris Paul and the antics of Crowder. But the fact that there were fresh storylines rather than the standard LeBron was outstanding.

@cupcake

Dusk City Outlaws is one of my favorite games to play during board game nights with friends. It's also got a wonderful sister game (Spectaculars!)

I think this is the reason why the 'mechanics' conversation has continually drifted back to the Masks mindset. Rolling 2d6+one of your five stats only when specific conditions are met. Everything else is narratively driven. That level of freedom I think works for people who want to just narrative and for those who want some variance in their characters and the results.

@zombiegenesis 100%

That's what I was saying as well (but doing it with half my brain shut down). I think that the primary features of Ares are what I personally would be after. The secondary elements (such as FS3 elements which don't really fit the goal) and the integrated Chargen could be set aside for an on-game chargen.

The big thought atm is this is getting a bit more into the weeds. The actual implementation of things. I'm happy to have these conversations and pitch in wherever to make things happen. I think making things accessible to people is the goal and for myself, I feel that Ares is the most accessible thing out there atm.

Well I think it also depends on how much you expect players and story tellers to lean on the system.

If it's something that is sometime used then I think you could easily do a very simple dice roll system with traits and abilities for your "moves". I could see that being the quick and easy route regarding using ares.

I'm not even sure if the question is about 'splitting' the grid or if it's about trying to be intentional about providing specific spheres for characters to shine in. For myself, it's that concept. No one wants to see Superman in a street fight and the Punisher has no business fighting Thanos.

You could have everything in one city, as long as there was that established expectation for people to stay in their lanes and not crowd out others.

@headery

Setting up a Masks game on a standard MUSH server isn't an issue. It's a straight forward CG system. I think the issue is people enjoy the Ares and Evennia avenues, so doing it for those is a bit more work to develop the plugins and the like. I could be mistaken, but in the past putting together a PBTA Mush took a couple weeks because it's not a very indepth design.