Best posts made by peasoupling

@Arkandel said in TS - Danger zone:

Alright, I'll get this thread back to its disgusting track by asking all the wrong questions!

Does the played-by (either your character's or someone else's) matter to you when it comes to TS at all? Does it influence how you play your PC or which characters they pursue or uh, how?

Sure! I mean, a PB contributes a lot to how I imagine a character looks, and that will color my reaction and how I figure my character reacts to them to some extent. But my reaction and my character's reaction aren't necessarily the same, so it's not a linear thing.

But, on an OOC level, I think the biggest effect is a negative one. Some PBs are just nopes. Not even in a "I am not at all attracted to this character on an OOC level but my character might be." Some PBs just bypass that and go straight to nope.

In a forgotten corner of a Lords and Ladies game grid, a village where we can play: Peasants and Peasants. I would play a peasant. We could have peasant adventures, like the case of the missing cow, and dynastic politics involving rival peasant families feuding over someone moving some land markers around three generations ago!

@bear_necessities said in If you work hard, son, maybe someday you'll RP:

@Alamias Yes, Gray Harbor is my game which I made specifically because of the lack of those kinds of games My point still stands, and the popularity that both Spirit Lake and my game have seen are a result of a lack of games in those categories.

I will say, and this is not meant as a dig at Gray Harbor, at all, which I had a lot of fun on, is that one reason I fizzled out and couldn't get back into it (besides being a horrible flake) was that things got a bit Dream-centered and heavy on the magical realism for me. I loved reading about it but I couldn't relate to playing on it, in a way, precisely because I was hoping for something more lowkey there. There's a lot of room for different ways of approaching a modern or modern-ish setting, so it's not like the niche is full at all.

@Rinel said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:

And Easter, though named in the West after a pagan holiday, is tied directly to Passover.

gestures at Romance languages

@thenomain said in General Video Game Thread:

Like DA2, I didn’t feel that ME:A was about anything. It’s story was stronger than DA2’s, but that’s like saying this sheet of paper is stronger than a used toilet wipe.

DA2 works as an exploration of character and place rather than plot. I mean, it's super janky and terrible in a lot of ways, but also great, precisely because it doesn't really do a conventional gamey plot.

Plot is overrated anyway.

Oooh. Very serious, very formal, perfectly poised, old money Shadow Lord werewolf (W:20 WoD). There's some sort of werewolf function, she decides to have her kinfolk henchfolk bring in a piano because she's going to do a recital for the uncultured masses.

I botch (critical fail) my roll.

She fumbles a few times, grows increasingly frustrated, werewolf temper, snarls and says fuck it. Instead of Chopin, she plays Chopsticks in a fury, bows to the crowd and storms off stage. It was so much better than any number of extraordinary successes could ever have been.

"I need food" just sounds better, for reasons, than "I need money to exchange for goods and services", even if the second might be more honest. So people lie.

@lithium said in Creative Outlets:

@peasoupling said in Creative Outlets:

@lithium said in Creative Outlets:

See I love posing /actions/ people can respond to, not stuff that is a barrier to entry to RP. They can easily look at my character and read what I look like, or if they know me, they have already done so and posing it over and over again can be... intrusive.

I feel like people respond to what people look like all the time, though. Moreso if it's something that's likely to stand out for some reason, whether because it just does, or because of context. Maybe you're in leopard print, hot pink, and wearing gold mirrored aviators indoors. Or maybe you're wearing a vintage Dior dress with pockets, which is always relevant.

Either way, I don't tend to have a description for every single outfit my characters might wear. The closest is on Arx, but even then people kinda skim and assume all kinds of things.

Yes people respond to what people look like, but there are /so many/ multi-descers out there that are /easy/ to use and manipulate on the fly. There's absolutely no reason to need to pose it every single time rather than set a multidescer up.

Well, generally my descriptions include the character's general sense of style and fashion, the kinds of clothes you'll likely see them in, not specifics. They don't wear the same clothes every day, but I'm probably not going to multidesc the entirety of their wardrobe in advance. I did once, but the character was a street rat, literally.

There are different ways to enjoy a work of art. I can enjoy prose (including terrible purple prose, particularly if it's old) and the writing craft for its own sake. On the other hand, I have read fanfiction that made me go "this person is a bad writer but they are adorably earnest, my heart". If the latter suddenly veered off into bigotry it would wreck my enjoyment of the work entirely.

Other times I can't even enjoy the first, either because it's too much, or because it hits me in an area that's not armored by privilege, or because I'm feeling particularly fragile at the time, or simply because I realize there's a world of works out there that I could be enjoying instead without grinding my teeth.

...

I try not to support living bigots and terrible people. I think some attempts at canceling people are an overreaction, even if understandable. I agree that some people want to apply absurd purity tests to creators that are seriously lacking in perspective and nuance. It really bothers me when it's weaponized against a random ignorant creator on social media rather than a big media conglomerate or millionare author. And you absolutely shouldn't attack someone simply for enjoying a work of art, even if the art is hateful and the author is terrible.

At the same time, I also feel like the actual impact of cancel culture is often overstated.

I dreamed I joined a game where staff assigned you a character from a roster based on the outcome of a personality test. All the characters were dogs.

I feel like this is somehow Arx-related.

@Sundown said:

@peasoupling said:

@Sundown

I'm sorry, this is a very long post, and I don't really feel like I can address all the points in it one by one. If I were you I'd reread the bit you wrote about feeling distant from snotty-nosed barefoot kids while complimenting the family with a castle and a piano. That does say something, but I don't think it's about the kids or the Arab world.

If that's what you took from that paragraph, you've completely missed the point. I tried to present many angles of my experiences to show that I don't see their world from only one perspective or prejudice. Instead you make it about me looking down on poverty. Wow. That's low.

That's why it was a long post, to show those many perspectives. I see that the effort was wasted.

This just shows how badly incapable you are at looking outside of the bubble of your preconceived notions. You would rather misinterpret someone's good intentions and honesty to the point of insult, than face an unpleasant reality. I lived there, you didn't. Go, live there. Tell me if you change your mind.

I am sorry. We're all a bit classist and ethnocentric and, while snarkier than it could have been, it's not really meant as an insult. Much like saying someone is racist isn't really an insult, 90+% of the time it'll be a statement of fact. Look at how you actually chose to narrate your experiences. You did contrast the poor barefoot kids you could not relate to, with the beauty of a castle with a piano. That is how you chose to frame your experience. I think that's telling, in the context of the rest of your post.

I could be wrong. But that's why I try not to turn my limited personal experience into generalizations about entire cultures and their fundamental incompatibility with my own. Also, I know too many expats to take "I lived there, you didn't." without an enormous grain of salt. It can be an interesting point of view, but it's one point of view, and often a very insular one.

I will say that comparing Nazism and Islam the way you do in the latter paragraphs doesn't really seem to make much sense. Nazism is a pretty specific political ideology. Islam is a very diverse religion and, in fact, plenty of Muslims do denounce the kinds of Islam that support and justify terror attacks. It is possible to renounce radical and extremist varieties of Islam without renouncing other forms of Islam, or Islam as a whole, and many Muslims do so. It's kind of sucky to ignore the ones who have been persecuted and killed by extremists for being moderates and secular activists, while still considering themselves Muslims.

It's also possible to renounce radical forms of Christianity, or ignore the bad aspects of the religion, while still considering yourself Christian. Yet many people choose to renounce the religion entirely, and are able to without reprisal.

Many Muslims choose to renounce the religion entirely too, without reprisal. Of course, these usually live outside theocracies or extremist communities. Theocracies are awful, and fundamentalism is awful, and Islam has very serious and troubling issues with those.

But look at your original post. You brought that up to contrast the response of Germans to Nazism (resistance during Nazism, and outright condemnation afterwards) with the response of Muslims to acts of terror by other Muslims. It's in that context that your comparison makes no sense. I brought up European totalitarianism simply because the West tends to ignore its own recent checkered past, and its own role in the world, when making pronouncements about other cultures and their supposed character.

It's like when people calling themselves realists shrug and say, super seriously: "You have to understand that whole region has always been at war, something something tribal culture something something." which I guess is different from Europe's millennia of peace and brotherhood.

If you are trying to manipulate someone into sending your charity a few dollars a month, sure, you can try doing that in the timescale of a combat scene.

Typically, however, the timescale is entirely off. Some of these examples would not be a scene, they would require multiple scenes of getting to know someone, figuring out what makes them tick, how to make them like you, how to pressure them. You don't just talk your way into a social combat win, you actually get close to someone, you bribe and blackmail, etc.

Combat isn't super realistic, but people can suspend their disbelief and abstract it out to its outcome and still have buy-in from the players. Social and mental stuff just does not work the same. It's not just a matter of agency, it's also a matter of suspension of disbelief and player buy-in.

The main reason I don't do comics games is because of FCs, so I would totally give this a try!

I think I would prefer a modern setting over anything historical. Partly because I might not want to deal with the bigotry, even if this is somewhat mitigated by the fact I'd be playing some kind of super character. Mostly because I'd just have an easier time of it not having to worry about major anachronisms.

And, really, noir can be pretty diverse if that's what you're going with.

@derp said in Social 'Combat': the hill I will die on (because I took 0 things for physical combat):

Super major peeve -- your character doesn't get extra stats/immunity based on backstory. That also isn't the way this works, and we need to be realistic about that. People have crafted the most convoluted backstories ever to explain why they're immune / resistant / not afraid of X thing, but then rock like 4 dice in resistances on their sheet.

Those resistance stats are what should be determining how much of a badass this person is in their backstory. Not the other way around.

If the character does not get extra stats/immunity based on backstory, give me a sheet that is 20 pages long with enough detail for it to make sense. The backstory is the -5 modifier to your roll because you decided to shoot my character while blindfolded and swinging upside down from the chandelier. The majority of a character's personality and beliefs are not on their sheet because there is no place on the sheet to put them.

Where on my sheet does "this character was a complete asshole to mine and I hate them" go?

A lot of the role of a grid in providing a common point of reference, and a shared world to play in, and familiar scene backdrops, can probably be replaced by a solid wiki, maps, pictures, etc. Arranging these reference points in a conventional grid isn't mandatory.

I am used to grids, and I like them just fine, but I would love to see different approaches.

@faraday said in Spotlight.:

@surreality points out that even second-tier characters in GoT get their moments sometimes, and that's true, but nobody(*) >wants to only get one or two cool things to do over the lifespan of their character. They want to be Daenerys or Jon Snow.

It just doesn't work. Starring roles are limited. Everybody(*) desperately wants one, and then they get bent out of shape when they get passed over.

I think what happens is that, sometimes, people are playing at different scales. No one wants to get one or two cool things to do, but some people think smaller victories in their areas of interest are cool enough, while other people aren't happy unless they save the world twice in a weekend. The same character who just shows up to give the real hero their sword can be the hero of their own story, it's just a matter of POV. You can have fun playing a regular beat cop in a world of superheroes, as long as the superheroes don't actually step in to catch every single criminal out there.

@faraday said in Big city grids - likes and dislikes:

It was my hope that maybe there was some way to reach a shared understanding of why we see it differently, but maybe it's just how our virtual eyes are wired.

Because heh - the NPC thing is the same to me. Sure there are times when it's just "the nameless bartender plot device" but I don't need a roster or a wiki profile or a +sheet to get attached to Larry the Bartender, who we've emitted several times a week for two years, who's developed his own personality. Permanence comes from the story not the code -- for me.

A wiki or something like it just facilitates some kind of coherent continuity and provides reference material. That way, even if I'm new to the game I can interact with the environment in ways that make sense and don't contradict the reality other PCs have been inhabiting, even if I wasn't there for all those interesting scenes that actually gave it shape.

I like it.

I am not sure that RL diversity of different areas is that important, since the Fallout timeline diverges long before the bombs fell. As long as you use some local flavor for inspiration and interesting themes to play with, you have a lot of leeway there. You can even have random oirish people.

But when is the game set? That's at least as important as where.

I feel like a lot of post-Apocalyptic stuff tends towards some kind of reskinned Western (which isn't necessarily a bad thing, because I would also like to play on a Western game). But some really do lean more into what that means, thematically, than others.

What i like is all about small communities trying to survive, hopefully thrive, while figuring out what they want to be like, and how the world might make that difficult. Rebuilding engines is boring, rebuilding society is what it's all about. And also being basically a cowgirl but, like... with spiky cars, or a mohawk or something.

But also, I don't really like settings where the apocalypse happened yesterday. I like it when characters have been born into it and it's a fine line between looting and archeology.

@vulgarkitten said in Let's talk about TS.:

I've been MUing a long time, and have yet to encounter a single tentacle. I don't know whether I'm disappointed or relieved.

Don't wait for the tentacles to come to you. Be the tentacles.

I played an octopus Changing Breed. It's not my thing, but it's clearly some people's thing, and I think I may have disappointed them.