Best posts made by Pyrephox

@Arkandel said in Does size matter? What about duration?:

@Pyrephox I always thought chemistry existed between players primarily. Which isn't to say I haven't had rapport with someone but we just couldn't make it work for our particular characters because it has happened, but it's very rare - I can't think of a case at least - to have solid chemistry with another PC but not their player overall.

Happens to me all the time! Some characters just "click" better than others with each other, and then sometimes PCs just don't have much in common or of interest to one another. Of course, part of that is that I don't make an effort to track the player behind a character in most cases, and there are definitely people who I've come to know as players precisely because our character seem to mesh more often than not, so we end up chatting more. But even there, there's usually been at least one combination of PCs that just...didn't want to have much to do with each other, even as rivals, and that was okay.

I am very interested in writing encouragement and buddiness. I have so many unfinished projects.

@faraday But here's the thing - you're also not taking to account all of the factors in 'how intimidating is this person' that would be presence in real life, but are not present and CANNOT BE PRESENT in the game, because we do not pose or model the world down that fine. And that includes the meta-factors of "I know I'm playing a game, and thus can examine this situation from a more detached perspective than my character could ever match." Not to mention the natural and almost ubiquitous tendency to interpret ambiguous events as favorable to your character, AND the difficulty of separating in game and out of game knowledge - for example, when someone poses badly in grammar and spelling. You, as the player, look at that and go 'pff, that's silly, that's not scary'. But your character? Cannot see how that pose is spelled. But it's still going to affect how you play that character.

But yes, social systems - like every other system in a roleplaying game - are abstracted, because no one has time to compare biographies in every single interaction that they're going to have conflict in. Because if we didn't have abstracted systems, we would be in real life. At some point, you have to suck it up and play the actual game. Or write a book, where all the narrative control is totally in your hands.

@three-eyed-crow I definitely think one thing games should think about more is 'how far outside of our intended PCs are we going to support', and what to do if someone wants to play outside of that. I don't mean a "bad" concept, but just...like, a regular, ordinary baker in a high fantasy court intrigue setting. Are you going to allow that character? If you do, are you going to devote time from high fantasy court intrigue plots to support that character's quest for the perfect cookies?

I don't think there's a right answer to either of those questions - it really depends on the pace of the game, and the amount of load staff feels like taking on - but they should be asked, and lines drawn where necessary.

@Collective said in Is there a niche for Urban Fantasy that isn't WoD or FC-based?:

@Pyrephox I wouldn't mind taking inspiration from any of those sources, but I definitely don't want to directly base a MU on any of them. I think the headaches are huge, either in blending specific themes or dealing with purists.

Also, something original can be very, very streamlined, as opposed to the baggage of something like the Anita Blake universe, which has a fairly distressing MU side effect of making the TS the plot.

No, I didn't mean I wanted a game set in those settings - honestly, they're so protagonist focused, I think that'd be a bad decision. What I was trying to illustrated was that all of those were settings where the supernatural was known, to some extent, to the humanity (and that this knowing had changed the world from bog-standards mundane earth but with Hidden Magic). Each one did it in different ways, but it would make a really nice change, for a game, from the 'the herd must not know' of WOD and similar settings. Also, gives humans more to do and be than victims or problems.

@Ganymede Eh. Will Smith is actually an impressive dramatic actor, when he's put in a role that calls for it. He's sort of like Jim Carrey in that way - the performance you get out of him really depends on the source material and how much the director is willing to insist that he play the role, and not Will Smith.

@faraday And, as I've repeatedly said, if you're playing on those games, pretty much none of this applies to you. It is an entirely different situation, and resembles breaking into a discussion of people who don't follow the rules in chess to say that people can have just as much fun playing cribbage, and in /cribbage/ there are no kings so arguments about castling never happen.

It is entirely true, mind you, but not particularly helpful.

@seamus said in Experienced Tiers or How much is too much?:

I think this is probably the best place for this.

What is the general thoughts of allowing every player a PC with 750 xp right out of the gate?

Well - one, it really depends on the system you're using on how much that actually is, and what power of characters it produces.

But let's say that we're talking having high-powered characters right out of the gate. That's fine, IF the game is set up to have events and plots that are commiserate with the capabilities of the characters. My experience is the higher powered the PCs are, the fewer GMs are able to design and run plots - especially if power translates into 'ability to change the environment or rules of the universe'. A high powered game, particularly if it's a high powered fantasy or high SF game, is going to be doing /seriously freaky stuff/ to the local social, political, physical, and occult environment. If your GMs can't handle that, or you don't /want/ to handle that, then there's really no reason to have high-powered characters as your default. They're going to get bored and start going after the only worthy challenges - each other.

This is looking really, really cool. I love the complexity of the international politics and the atmosphere.

I found a really cool page on the wiki that talked about laws and history and all of that, but then I lost it and couldn't find it again. A front page list of all the important world intro pages might be helpful!

@Kanye-Qwest said in The ADD/ADHD Thread (cont'd from Peeves):

@Ifrit said in The ADD/ADHD Thread (cont'd from Peeves):

Sooo does anyone else have the anti-routine problem? I was always told if you did things for more than 2 weeks they become a routine. For me I can maintain a new routine perfectly for 2 weeks and then I completely lose track of it and can't pick it up again.

my psychiatrist told me very quickly in my time with her that the 2 week/30 day things are myths. Habits actually take between 60-90 days to solidly form, for most people

This is truth. Also, it gets HARDER at the 2-3 week mark; that's where a lot of people drop out of maintenance.

It's important to remember that the human brain is a lazy asshole. It doesn't like to learn new routines, and it will fight back against them until the 'new' routine becomes the 'old' routine. So compliance will be very easy at first, because you're getting that dopamine hit from 'yay, I did a thing! I am Changing My Life!' but when that wears off, your brain wants you to go back to what it sees as normal, so it'll actively fight you on it, with lower rewards and negative thoughts. Then, eventually (after two or three months), it'll accept the new status quo.

I live this cycle far, far too often.

@Arkandel said in Eliminating social stats:

It really isn't an easy choice to make. In many ways it's easier to just leave Charisma in, tell your players 'hey, I got you a damn system, just use it!' and declare anyone who's not using it a borderline exploiter even though it's not very usable. That's the mentality I'm trying to avoid here, misplacing the burden of both effort and blame on players for systems which weren't ever designed to cover the use case they are expected to use them for.

We might be able to do better if we can shift the paradigm in a different direction.

It might be worth building from the ground up. Ask yourself, as the game-runner, what is it, EXACTLY do you want players to be able to do with a social system. This is gonna be different for different games, and that's okay. But once you know what problems you're trying to solve, or opportunities you're trying to create, you're on a stronger design footing. Don't ask yourself "what should a social system do", but rather "what do I want the social system on my game to allow players to do?" And think through that, fully. You may not want PC to PC manipulation to be covered at all, but rather only broad based NPC influence.

@sparks Links, maybe?

Like, when you mention classes, maybe a link to another resource that explains what classes are. I know there are plenty out there, and people might be more willing to just go, "Hm, don't know what that word means, let me click" than to Google it for themselves. I know it would help me!

I'm sorry to hear the game is going down - it was great to see it up again! I didn't stay just because the system no longer really does it for me, but I was so happy you brought it back. You did a good thing - and it sounds like people really had fun while it was up. That's all any game can ever ask to provide.

@grayson Yeah. I thought about it. But again, lump of unmotivation and tiredness.

I want to know:

• What the social structure looks like, and what are the values and major customs of any original factions, in broad strokes.
• What do PCs do? What roles can PCs play, what roles can they not play, and what spread of roles and actions is expected from PCs.
• What should PCs of different origins know about the world? Ideally, the big stuff should be clear, concise, and easy to find - mysteries are good, but the things that PCs encounter in our daily lives should not be mysteries.
• Sort of a correllary: if an original theme, highlight your big mysteries on an OOC level. Don't just start putting 'the sun rising in the west' in poses and descs and hope that characters notice it, because when you're doing an original theme, it's hard to tell if something is an actual mystery, or just something where the GM maybe doesn't care/know about accurate details. It's a game, and it's hugely helpful for there to be a bit of, "Hey, about a year ago, the sun started rising in the west, and no one but your character seems to have noticed. That's weird!"
• Tell me what the focus of your setting is, so that I don't write a character who sticks themselves on the periphery accidentally. I admit, as a player, I want to find where the action is, and settle myself into it. Make that easier for me, please, by highlighting your focus rather than saying "just play what you want".

@mietze There's this, too. My experience with OOC Masq in WoD games is that people then get too obsessed about how it was broken, and if it was broken, and how someone plans to screw them over using it. It sort of engenders paranoia that I, at least, find unpleasant to try to game through.

@arkandel said in Returning to MU*ing, looking for recommendations:

@wizz Sorry to derail the thread a bit but am I completely wrong in thinking WoD used to not work well for Ares due to its internal combat system limitations?

Has this been addressed or are folks using workarounds?

People are using workarounds. Ares and CoD/WoD don't play well together, so people are storing sheets on Google Drive, and using other dice rollers. It's awkward, which is a shame. I do think that the lack of modern conveniences in a WoD/CoD friendly format is keeping people who might make games from doing so.

@silverfox I hope they come through, and I hate that misinformation and anti-vax lies even made it a possibility.

@auspice Yeah. I love weather code. If I'm setting a scene, I like to use weather code to add atmosphere and flavor to it - I /like/ a scene that's randomly raining, or snowing, or beautifully sunny and swelteringly hot. It really does add to gameplay, at least for me.

One of the things that I'd like to do to help characters distinguish themselves is add the ability for each character to purchase a Background and an Affinity. These are separate from Background skills - each allows a character to have something that they can spend LP (again, assuming Ares) on to give them a special effect or a critical success on certain rolls.

The purpose of this is two-fold: one, to slow down character growth by giving people useful things to do with their LP outside of just buying stats and skills, and to allow character past the XP cap for stats and skills to continue to spend LP on things that aren't just background skills.

Example of a Background:

Criminal: You’re no stranger to the underworld and the skills required to survive there, whether it was a bit of smuggling on the side, or full-time wetwork for one of the many criminal organizations of known space. You can spend an LP to auto-succeed on an uncontested (by PCs) Stealth roll, and gain the Background Skill Cracking Security: ** for free.

Example of an Affinity:

Technowizardry: You’re one of those people who probably ended up in tech support (formally or not) and whenever you walk in the room, whatever was going wrong works again...until you leave. You can spend 1 LP to make a piece of broken technology work again. This technology is not fixed, but it will do what it needs to do just long enough for you to finish an immediate task. For multi-system technologies (like the Excelsior), this effect is limited to a single console or subsystem. You don't have to know what the technology is SUPPOSED to do, but operating something without determining its function first is a good way to get vaporized.

So, as you can see - Backgrounds give you the ability to spend LP to really nail a single roll when it counts, as well as a free Background Skill. Affinities offer a way to spend an LP to create a more qualitative effect. Both are meant to provide an LP sink, but also to give people ways to create characters are more than their stats and skills, without having to create five hundred 'special abilities'.

Further customization, though, can be found through genetic and cybernetic enhancements. These won't be widely available at the start of the game (since the crashed ship doesn't have a fully functioning genetic manipulation bay, or cybernetic surgery), but both of those things can be established through the Project system.