Posts made by Pyrephox

@surreality Here's the thing, though. I think you're right, "Believing isn't inherently bad", isn't possible to stand as true or false. However, it's also meaningless to any real conversation. It's the equivalent of "It's possible that mistakes were made." It makes no point, it stands on nothing - it can't be true or false because it has no real meaning. No matter how someone tries to engage with that statement, it's not going to be sufficient, because that statement is so broad and loose that no matter WHAT the reply is, someone can then say, "That's not what I meant!" So, yeah. Using that statement sets you up for frustration.

And, for the record, my take is, "Bigfoot probably isn't real, because in decades of dedicated hunters using state of the art technological equipment, no one, not on purpose or by accident, has ever managed to bring one in. Or a piece of one in. Or find blood from one that can be reliably identified as coming from an unknown animal species. And we're not talking deep sea trenches here, we're talking the Pacific Northwest. If someone should, in fact, turn up with a dead Bigfoot, I will be tremendously interested, but suspect that the chances are very, very low, and you probably shouldn't quit your job to go into the about-to-explode Bigfoot leather industry."

Admittedly, that doesn't fit on a bumper sticker as easily. And I suspect that you may be conflating more than is being said, as well. Someone saying, "I don't believe that Bigfoot, ghosts, psychics, or angels exist," is not actually saying, "I don't believe that all of these things exist /for the same reason/." Generally, there are distinct reasons behind the non-belief of each, although many of those reasons fall into an overarching trend of "There isn't any evidence." And while I agree that "no evidence for magic" is not the same as "no evidence for Bigfoot", it IS possible that there's simply no evidence on either of those fronts, and so those two disparate phenomenon get chucked into one broad category of, "Things there is no reliable evidence for."

@surreality said in Do you believe in paranormal things?:

@Pyrephox There's a difference here, too, though -- and there's this underlying assumption that anyone who is even willing to talk about shit is advocating that others must or should believe also.

And still a lot of 'I think this is possible' being taken to mean 'I believe this is totally true!' which are still not the same thing, goddamn, people. The more that goes on, the dumber everyone is getting, and that's just depressing.

I'm not so much seeing that from the 'I think this is possible' side of this discussion. (I am seeing a hell of a lot of it, with the typical condescension attached, otherwise. Predictable, don't even have to be a psychic on that one...)

I am all for being willing to talk about shit. Look. I have a lot of friends in my life who are neopagans. They believe in magic. They believe they can do magic. I have a lot of friends who are Southern-style Christians, who believe that they can pray about things and get very specific effects in their lives from it. I am cool with all of those people. I don't agree with them, but some of them also think it's okay to put ketchup on eggs, and that's far more terrible than their spiritual views.

But if you're going to talk about that shit, then /talk about that shit/, not just repeat "But maybe..." over and over again. There's nothing you can do in a conversation with "There's a possibility." Sure. There's a possibility. It is also possible that there's an invisible, intangible unicorn standing behind you right now. But it would be hard to have a conversation about that unicorn, because there's no way to even agree on what that unicorn might look like, much less what its purpose is, how it got into your house or office, or how the world changes with the presence of invisible, intangible, voyeuristic unicorns.

It's not condescending. It's FRUSTRATED.

Side note: There is really very little as amusing as going on a ghost hunt with two self-proclaimed "sensitives" who don't know each other. Turns out every single building we entered had multiple ghosts of horribly abused children, as the two of them wound each other up and tried to play "who's got the clearer picture of this sad spirit".

@Arkandel said in Do you believe in paranormal things?:

@Pyrephox said in Do you believe in paranormal things?:

Inherently bad? No. USUALLY bad? Yes. Why? Because people who want you to "believe in" things without being willing to offer any proof or evidence for the efficacy of them usually are trying to screw you. By and large, they want your money.

I wouldn't go that far. I mean of course you're right, there are those who'll do their best to take your money in exchange for fake hope or whatever, that's one of the oldest scams in the book...but they aren't the majority.

I think most of those who want you to believe in the supernatural are just...people. They're your aunt who lost her husband to cancer and wants to find evidence of an afterlife, that ultra-religious guy down the road who comes to your door with the fervent desire to convert you into their cult, countless folks who follow zodiac this-or-that, etc. That's without even looking at some who have had unique experiences and are trying to find answers but don't really have selfish reasons for doing so per se other than satisfying their own need to know.

Sure. Most of the people who believe in the supernatural are just people, who are hoping. There's nothing wrong with that. On the other hand, almost everyone I've ever seen who was really invested in /other people/ believing in the supernatural, had an agenda that had nothing to do with what was best for those other people. Sometimes they just wanted validation, and for other people to see them as special and amazing as they saw themselves (most of the amateur mediums, Really Real I Swear vampires, and shapeshifters I've met fall into this category), but a lot of the time, it was money that they wanted, or because they had a hate-on for some aspect of modern society and wanted fellow warriors to fight the good fight. But a lot of the time? Money.

Frauds, be they supernatural or psuedoscience, take advantage of people's hope and belief. I despise them the way I despise very little in this world. And I dislike it when people validate and support fraudulent systems in the name of not judging what other people believe. Which is why, as much as I WANT to believe in the supernatural, anyone who wants me to had better lead off with their A game, not tired canards like "but energy" and "science discovers new things all the time".

If you can move a penny with your brain right in front of me? Let's talk. If you can read a random sequence of numbers or images from my brain when you can't do a cold reading routine or see my expression? I'm there. If you can tell me of a place where I can definitely go and meet a free-floating ghost with my video camera? Hell, yeah. If you can lay on hands and close a current, open wound in front of witnesses? Goddamn, let's get you the biggest medical grant in the history of medicine. But extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof.

@surreality said in Do you believe in paranormal things?:

@Coin Which is why I'm mentioning cryptozoology at all. It's something we have a 'hard science reference' for already.

It's why making generalizations about why it's inherently bad for people to be open to believing in the possibility of something, when people lump so much together under this general topic heading that have minimal relationships to one another (ex: religious practices), is faulty reasoning.

Inherently bad? No. USUALLY bad? Yes. Why? Because people who want you to "believe in" things without being willing to offer any proof or evidence for the efficacy of them usually are trying to screw you. By and large, they want your money. Sometimes they want your money even when it means encouraging you to turn away from things that work, and that can save your life, or your loved one's life, in order to get your money. Faith healers, psychics who claim to put you in touch with your dead grandmother, reiki and chiropractic practitioners who claim they can cure cancer or autism, fucking homeopaths and their water memories, etc. and so on, and so forth.

It would be a lot easier to "believe in the possibilities" if so many people urging you to do so weren't predatory frauds who do, in fact, hurt people.

Nope.

I want to. I wish I did. I've read extensively on paranormal phenomenon, and done exploration on it with various sites/people who claim to be involved in paranormal abilities/manifestations. But I've never seen anything I can point to as evidence for the existence of the paranormal. Just a lot of logical fallacies, wishful thinking, and physiological illusions.

I like attributes. However, I would increasingly like to see them do something different than just add to skills and then you use the total as your TN.

I've been thinking about a system where your TN is derived from skills along, but your attributes give you perks per level which make the application of relevant skills and talents more effective. For example:

Let's say you have attributes on a level of 1-5. Four attributes: Strength, Grace, Presence, Intelligence, just to pull a few out of a hat. Unlike most systems, each of these start at 0 - a 1 or higher represents a degree of the attribute that is above the humdrum, ordinary baseline. However, each time you buy a level, you can also choose, say, one of two perks that will give you a special thing.

Strength 1 might open two potential perks:

• Heavy-handed: A successful melee attack has a chance to stagger an opponent, applying a penalty to their next action roll.
• Walk It Off: Character takes reduced wound and environmental penalties.

Meanwhile, skills are their own thing, rolled exclusively from their own ratings. But higher stats will definitely affect what you can do with those skills, and how they're likely to be applied. A character with Presence 3 might have an perk array of Taunt (roll Persuasion in battle to force a targeted character to attack you with a melee attack next round), Never A Stranger (Your character knows Someone in every social venue - they can get themselves and one other person into any social or entertainment event without a roll), and Negotiator (Costs for equipment and services are reduced by your Presence level.) Another character, with the same Presence level, might instead have: All Eyes on Me (With a successful social skill roll in a non-combat situation, the character can dominate a target's attention - they automatically fail rolls to notice anything but the character until the character is gone or their spiel is interrupted. If there are multiple targets, the effect is reduced by 25%. I.e. two targets now have a 75% chance to fail to notice things, 3 a 50% chance, 4 a 25% chance.), Con Man/Woman (Your character has additional income, proportionate to their Presence, which comes from running low-level scams, grifts, and hustles off-screen.), and Wordsmith (As long as your character can make themselves understood in the language at hand, they do not suffer from untrained penalties for social skills.)

Note, none of those are at all balanced or thought through. But I'd just like to see something along those lines, where attributes open up more possibilities and special actions, while skill rolls govern success or failure.

I'm greatly looking forward to it. I actually love the narrative mechanics, especially for character improvement, and think they'd work well for a MU*. However, I think it would be a challenge to get players who really want to engage with the game - it's not a system that works well for the typical, "I'm going to just create A Random Dude and see what happens," sort of play. Your character is always driving towards a goal. I like that, but I know a lot of people don't.

I would like to see something a bit more like Xenoblade Chronicles X. For those not familiar with the game: the idea is that colony ships fled Earth when Earth got caught in the middle of an interstellar war. Some of the war factions pursued the colony ships, damaging many/all of them. One crashes on a new planet, scattering stasis pods across most of the planet. The main ship has been repurposed into a home base/colony, but they're on a planet filled with unknown megafauna and alien pursuers. The purpose is to survive, but also to try and thrive. So, you have a way to integrate new characters (a new PC obviously just got thawed out of a recovered life pod), you have a home base with an explicit goal of "try to live like normal people" for those people who are more social players, but you also have a constant threat of unknown and dangerous life that needs to be understood/defeated in order for the colony to gather the resources it continues to need to expand and establish itself. That many people are highly competent in a field doesn't break the bank as much, because NO ONE is competent in "what the hell is this thing trying to eat me", because it's all new species. And a new planet gives the story staff leeway to introduce new threats over time, as people expand and explore.

Basically, I think a SF premise can be a lot more sustainable for a large population than the typical post-apoc setting, and it doesn't rely on people periodically doing incredibly stupid and self-destructive things for survival to still be a concern. Because, let's face it, if the zombie apocalypse actually happened? The living win. They may take a lot of hits in the beginning, but we're fucking humanity: exterminating anything that so much as LOOKS at us funny is what we do.

I've just received the new edition of 7th Sea, and I have to say I very much enjoy the conflict resolution presented therein (although it's still a bit mushy and underexplained). It looks at the dice roll in a whole new way. In simplified terms:

A) You determine your Approach for a scene. So, if the scene is an investigation in a haunted house, you might say "I'm going to come armed with an array of anti-ghost materials and look for ways to placate or exorcise the ghost."

B) The GM tells you what dice pool to use for that Approach. "Okay, that sounds like Wits+Scholarship." You roll that pool (plus various bonuses you might get from Backgrounds, Advantages, or special items). Let's say, in this case, that you have 3 Wits + 3 Scholarship + the GM likes your description of showing up festooned in holy symbols and ancient books (1 bonus die) + it's the first time you've used Scholarship this session (1 bonus die), so you roll 8 d10s. You roll 2, 2, 1, 2, 10, 4, 5, 7

C) See how many "raises" you have to spend, by putting together dice to make groups of 10. Here, we have (10) (4, 5, 1) (7, 2, 2) - so 3 raises and a 2 left over. I can "sell" that 2 back to the GM to get a Hero Point (which allows me to activate special abilities and other stuff).

D) During the scene, spend raises to accomplish tasks, exploit opportunities, and avoid negative consequences as they come up. If you spend a raise and the action is possible, then it just happens. "I use my ancient chant to ward off the ghost long enough for Other PC to create a holy water barrier to this room," costs a raise, and it just succeeds. If the action you propose is not possible ("I interrogate the thug to find out where the shipment is" when the thug doesn't know), then you just keep your raise. If the ghost starts hurling furniture, you spend a raise to duck and dodge away. The GM can also point out Opportunities that raises can be spent on - someone could spend a Raise to identify that lonesome, spectral tune as being the key to the musical lock back at the manor house, for example.

E) Some things raise the price of actions. The GM can spend part of their pool to apply "pressure" on the PCs that says "do this/don't do this or spend an additional raise to do what you want to do" (but PCs can apply pressure to NPCs as well), and if you want to do something out of line with your approach, or something that uses a skill you don't have, then it costs more raises. For example, avoiding the consequence of the hurled furniture above is an athletic sort of thing, not a scholarly thing, so for our PC whose approach is Wits+Scholarship, they'd have to spend 2 raises to avoid the furniture. 3 if they don't have Athletics at all. Otherwise, they can choose to hold their raises and just take the Wounds.

I really like this way of thinking about conflict and about dice rolling - there's a flexibility and a back-and-forth to it that I find very appealing.

@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 tend to care about three things when it comes to posing:

1. Does something happen? A pose should move the scene forward in SOME way. EVERY pose should do this. If someone asks you a question, don't just answer it (or refuse to answer it), but then add something new, or take an action that progesses the scene.

2. Is there a flow? This is more about the back and forth of poses - this is partially a function of time, but also a function of paying attention to what's out there. Each pose should FIT IN to the scene in a logical sort of way, rather than changing it just to change it. Also, this is where slow posers tend to irritate me, because it's very hard to hold flow when you have to wait 15-30 minutes for the next pose. Sometimes it's worth it. Usually? Even when the pose itself is GREAT, the flow of the scene is broken.

3. Is there chemistry? This is not romantic chemistry, although that can be a subtype of it. It isn't even just chemistry between PCs - you can have a feeling of chemistry between PCs and the plot, as well. Chemistry, in this sense, is a feeling of shared inspiration that comes from the INTERACTION of the players involved in the scene - these characters or circumstances fit together and become something greater than the sum of the parts.

All of these things are tangential to size of pose or even objective quality of writing - some of the scenes I enjoyed most were with a player who typically gave one liners, and who could not really spell all that great. But that player paid attention to what was going on, made sure their contributions were relevant to what was happening AND moved the scene forward, as well as playing off of other people in a way that made the whole scene more enjoyable. Sometimes, "Jason flinches at the sound of fist hitting flesh. He jumps forward to try and grab Suze's arm. "Stop, you goddamned lunatic!" is so very, very much more engaging than something that scrolls the screen and takes forty minutes to type.

Regarding how long the scene, in RL, should last? These days, An hour or so for a low-key, character development scene. Three to four hours for a plot scene. That's pretty much all I have, and all I WANT to have - there's too much competition for my time, with both work and other leisure activities. Now, sometimes, that magical chemistry happens, and you look up and it's five hours later, and you don't regret that at all. But more scenes need to be okay with...ending when they're done, in my opinion. Without people getting bent out of shape about, "Oh, you just closed this scene so you could go play with X." Nah. I closed the scene because we ran out of things to talk about or do. Doesn't mean I don't like you or the character; it just means that scene ended.

@Derp said in What do RPGs *never* handle in mu*'s? What *should* they handle?:

I know that we're getting into old hat territory here, but the Doors system already has rules for compromises built into it. If your character totally and just would absolutely never do a thing, but the other guy still won, then it's time to negotiate. Not necessarily time to get up in arms about it. If the negotiations seem to be going in bad faith, on either side, that's when it's time to call in staff.

That said, as far as certain topics being absolutely consent only -- they sort of are already, in a lot of systems, but not consenting to a specific thing doesn't necessarily mean you get to completely call the shots on how that scenario turns out, either. Again, why I like Doors -- compromises are built into the system, and both players have to negotiate something in good faith if one of them just really isn't feeling the scenario on the table. Neither player gets to dictate in absolute terms how it turns out, but they have to find an agreeable middleground, which is fairly easily done in most situations.

But i'm seriously kind of digging @Coin's suggestion of being able to spend willpower to lock doors for a scene. That's... a thing I might tinker with some.

I like that suggestion, too. And yeah, the Doors system is the best yet iteration of social skills mechanics for WoD/CoD. Especially when paired well with Conditions and Beats, it gives people a real, mechanical incentive to be willing to "fail" on occasion, and it builds a collaborative aspect into social maneuvering.

For what it's worth, CoD is better on the combat side, too, even though people (staff members too) don't use the coolest features such as purpose declaration and surrender/beaten down rules. It's absolutely designed to let people get their punch on without everything having to end in murder, as well as helping to frame the stakes of a conflict in more interesting ways than "try and kill each other".

CoD is riffing heavily on newer, stat-light systems that take player/GM cooperation and collaboration seriously, and I love where it's going. However (to bring this back to the topic of the thread), people aren't yet really thinking about how a CoD game needs to be run and set up differently than a WoD game. Just the investigation system alone suggests a massive sea change in how we think of "plots", and one that could take some of the burden off of STs, but neither STs nor Players are really running with that, yet, that I've seen.

@Arkandel said in What do RPGs *never* handle in mu*'s? What *should* they handle?:

"But", someone might say, "for example the GMC mechanics have Doors and shit, what about that, huh?" Well... again, playerbase adoption is the key. The number of times I've seen a Door used in scenes is hilariously low compared to the punches I've seen backed with dice. Obviously YMMV but I'd be surprised if most people playing nWoD even knew the rules for Doors let alone have used them regularly in scenes; for every person well versed enough to have done so I feel confident - but feel free to prove me wrong - there are many more who kinda sorta know how it works but...

Honestly, the number of people who have clearly not read the rules of the system they are ostensibly playing in always surprises me. There's getting things wrong (which, in something as inconsistently written and with as many exceptions and corner cases and editions and modifiers as WoD/CoD is inevitable), and then there is "clearly has never even looked at that section of the book". Social skills seem to get this more than other areas (I don't know any modern system which still has "roll a simple seduction check and the target falls in love with you/must sleep with you" as an outcome mechanic, and WoD/CoD certainly hasn't for as long as I've been playing, which is nearly a decade at this point), but it happens all over the place.

The underlying problem here is fairly inescapable; most MU* use systems which have been built with social mechanics in mind so you can't simply not have them in your game without gutting the system completely, which is a task that requires massive houseruling. And they're in, they'll be used less than their physical counterparts although they cost the same and in theory are just as important; in practice not so much.

Yeah. And that's not good. Not only because it cheats people who try to faithfully describe their character's abilities, but also because it pushes the culture of the game towards physical combat to resolve any and all difficulties. Players, ultimately, want to be effective at SOMETHING - what that thing is will differ by individual (and it might be OOC as much as IC - I know some players who are happiest when their character is making other players laugh), but everyone wants to know that they're having an impact and influence on the game. So whatever is the most effective route for influence is where you're going to get a majority of people focusing their characters.

@surreality said in What do RPGs *never* handle in mu*'s? What *should* they handle?:

@Pyrephox I'm more a fan of restricting certain subject matter to consent-based, typically: rape, pregnancy, sexual preference changes, romantic relationships. These are the places where the most abuses seem to occur -- and by restricting the specific subject matter rather than the stats, you diminish the possible loopholes. For example, some of the above could be done socially or physically through force/etc. and if it's the subject matter that proves problematic, no amount of mechanics change is going to prevent the people dedicated to asshattery from seeking out alternate means of being that asshat.

I would be totally okay with all of the above. Because, after all, it IS a game, and there are some things that just should not be pushed onto players if they aren't fully on board with that. Sexual RP of any type is on that list, for me.

@surreality Yes, I know. I'm not actually arguing with you; it's more that your posts reminded me of very common arguments that always come up in these situations and never fail to make my teeth grind. I even agree with it - I wish that more MU*s would tailor tabletop systems for the game play they actually expect to support. And make those tailored rules specific and posted where everyone can see them. And if that involves restricting or taking out social skills, that's fine. Just don't leave them in there, but make them ineffective.

And, as always, make your expectations for the game clear so that people can opt in (or out) of the experience up front. If you want a game where the social dice fall where they may? Make sure that's clear from the beginning, and then enforce it. People who can't deal with that can find another game. Likewise, a game where all social stuff is based on player consent. So much of the problems we run into with MU* culture have one root in people's reluctance to just...set explicit boundaries and expectations, and let players make an informed decision as to whether this game is for them or not.

@surreality said in What do RPGs *never* handle in mu*'s? What *should* they handle?:

@Pyrephox I think the suggested 'no go' zones are a good start (and they would need to be fairly broad, not loop-hole ridden specificity), but it does, absolutely, need pairing with staff with enough balls to curb stomp abusive players right out the door. Neither of these things are 'true to the system' as what was being described as a laudable ideal, though; in our environment, mods of some kind are necessary to make that system remotely viable. 'Being true to the system' should never be a higher goal than 'players not being abused'.

Well, yes. But again, that's an OOC issue, not an issue with the mechanics. Additionally, it allows for players to be abusive in the other direction, by gaming people's reluctance to enforce social mechanics in order to do frankly ridiculous things that damage other people's ability to enjoy the game. Like continuously harassing another character who has less physical/mystical power but more social power, and forcing them to take the consequences of your actions, while constantly ignoring their attempts to use their own form of power to just leave them alone. Which, by the rules, SHOULD work, but doesn't because "oh god you don't get to tell me how my character thinks/feels! If you don't like it, then throw a punch! Make me leave! C'mon, c'mon, c'mon! It's a non-consent game, if you don't like it, do something about it IC! ...except that. Because intimidation doesn't work on me! Or, no, it works, but when my character gets scared he becomes really aggressive so I'm warning you, if you do it, you'll be sorry because I've got 18 dice in brawl and 20 Defense (because I didn't have to spend any XP on social resistance)...."

I will say, though, that if you're going to fall on the side of "social dice don't work on PCs", then you either need to ensure that there is a powerful, NPC-controlled status system that allows for meaningful action and influence on the parts of the game that matter (and come down hard on any ST who does not allow the PCs to use their social skills in effective ways in interactions with NPCs), or you need to do away with those skills. It's frankly unfair to expect people to invest XP into skills and abilities that have no functional use on the game.

@surreality Except that what you point out isn't an issue with social mechanics. It's an issue with games and game staff tolerating and protecting abusive players. Abusive players will do the exact same thing no matter what social system is or isn't in place - the ONLY way to stop them is to build a culture in the game where people feel comfortable and supported going to staff and reporting attempted abuse, and where staff follows up on those reports quickly and completely, including uninviting people from games. Social dice have nothing to do with it.

Personally, I like the suggestion further up of letting people pick a few things that OOC, they would find ruining their fun if their character bent on, and leaving everything else up to dice in PvP, and having social skills be meaningful and powerful ways to resolve situations (on a par with combat dice) in PvE.

One thing that tabletop systems pretty much never address, which MU*s desperately need, is a ruleset that assumes from the outset a persistent setting without any real central theme or plot, and how characters continue to express development within that context.

Improvement mechanics in tabletop games typically assume a centralized campaign structure where the PCs rapidly improve as they are subjected to serious ongoing (and escalating) challenges to overcome and learn from. Trying to put this in a MU* unaltered typically leads to the dinosaur/sheet monster effect, where some (or all!) of the PCs have the kind of stats and resources that the game system assumes that MAYBE one in a million people have access to. And even systems which are prepared for PCs to become monsters of power assume that as the PCs assume that mantle, that they will have changes and complexity of challenge that is commiserate with their abilities. In MU*s, they're just as likely to be solving street crimes as they were at the beginning of their careers.

However, just capping or eliminating experience/improvement isn't a solution, either, because a lot of players are primarily incentivized by seeing their character become more power and get more Stuff. Remove the opportunity to mechanically grow and change, and you lose a lot of people's interest.

@ThatGuyThere I think of them more like committees. They can serve a purpose, but generally are used to evade having to make decisions, or get so diverted into pointless minutia that they suck all the life and inertia out of the initial proposal. Typically, putting anything into a +job means that it'll be forgotten for weeks, then someone will get around to asking you to make a series of rolls, there will be more weeks of waiting (by which time whatever it is has probably been done/discovered by someone else), and then you'll get a reply of, "Sorry, you don't find anything" or "Hey, it looks like this was already wrapped up in X Event, so I'm going to close this," or "You rolled really well, but you're asking the wrong question/using the wrong method, so I'm just going to close this out because I don't have anything to give you," or, "Hey, this is a cool idea, but you can't do it because it conflicts with something else that's going on - I'm not going to tell you what that is, or how you could get involved, or why in a city of tens/hundreds of thousands of people two similar events couldn't be happening, but just ask people IC and try to figure it out."