Posts made by saosmash

I don't want to date Theno but would fight him for @meg.

Again: I'm not arguing that this issue doesn't exist, I just think we need to be accurate when talking about it. For example, when you're talking about level 5 pets, there's very little systems benefit from leveling up a small animal. It's-- it's just an animal. Who cares if you have a level 5 sparrow or not? It doesn't do anything besides be an animal.

Task system doesn't relate to retainers at all except in that you need resources (which you can also get weekly through votes / randomscene) to obtain / level a retainer. That said, I kind of hate it and 90% of the time avoid RPing about tasks like the plague, so . . .

You can use retainers to assist in investigations -- many people I know use them in lieu of getting high investigate skills on characters when knowing serious investigation for those characters would make no sense IC -- but that's not why diffs went up. Diffs went up because staff was being forced to generate insane amounts of clues at an alarming rate. Retainers are also really no substitute for characters working together on an investigation, which has the benefit of spreading story around; no one can really 'solo' an investigation all that effectively, but I think that's true regardless of retainers.

@kitteh You have to spend a training slot to train your retainer, it's not automatic. I have a retainer whose number is 32 (i.e., early on in the system) but he's still level 1 and basically pointless except as a messenger gatherer, because I was using my training slots as my, you know, livelihood, or to help other players with stuff.

Also, the more you spend your XP on skills, the more it costs -- I've got lifetime earned XP of approx 900 on one character, which is, indeed, a lot, 'cause I've been around since last August or so. But it also costs twice as much for him to buy a skill as it does for someone who is newer, and teaching does not reduce the inflation.

It's not that I'm arguing with the idea that there's an advantage to being around awhile -- I think that's kind of inherent in any XP-for-advancement system -- but there are ways that the game design has developed to counteract that.

I feel like the fact that the game can be overwhelming because there's so much story going on at any given time and it can feel hard to keep up / break in because of that is a lot more of an issue than anything with respect to stat/skills, though. If you aren't joining a faction with a really actively helpful presence of current players who are willing to explain a lot of shit, you can end up really, really at sea and thrashing around.

@Roz Yes, I am sure that the next time you backflip into a room, you will be firstimpression worthy at that time.

Also, I've already written your firstimpression!

@icanbeyourmuse I don't write a firstimpression of someone until I've exchanged at least a round or two of poses with them. Because, you don't know who someone is enough to have an impression of them until you've interacted with them on some level.

What I like about firstimpressions is how cute and fun most of them have been. Although some people have been mashing firstimpression within thirty seconds of entry to a room, which is not really what it's for, and some of THOSE firstimpressions have been, er, hilariously inaccurate.

But yes, I do have awesome hair, thank you for noticing.

@Kanye-Qwest I'm really sad Myrinda died and isn't around to be like Arx GoFugYourself or WhatNottoWear.

@Meg I LOVE YOU.

@surreality that is the kitten that we need in our lives.

@Auspice Yes!!

Also, we have a really great new player trying out Mason right now and he's aces.

Historically I have found that giving players scope to run amok actually means they're less likely to do shit. Like, I have run games where the policy for PRPs was literally like 'go do the thing, don't break theme' and they still won't run PRPs because they've got this constant certainty that SOMEHOW it's not allowed or they don't know what they can do or how to do it or -- who knows? Players don't wanna do the thing. I don't know why.

Here, make a NPC object. Or a set of NPC objects! Here, have code to temporarily alter room descs to show the results of your PRP. Here, borrow my staff NPC, here's the password to the object. Here, have some NPCs with direct hooks back to metaplot villain group #2. Please, write a public news post that tells the game what your PRP has done to impact the world so that other people can interact with your plot and react to it.

They don't wanna do it. They don't want freedom to do things. Freedom to do things is intimidating. Players don't want to act, they want to react.

I'm not really running games anymore right now because I'm pretty much just playing on Arx and that's it, but I've spent years doing it, and I have never figured out how to motivate players to do their own things.

I'm completely mystified at the idea that a sex-rated rant out of the blue wouldn't be across the line. I mean ... what?

@Thenomain Lawyers, amirite.

I'm playing for story so I play on easy. If there's no story, I'm bored and wandering off anyways.

@Arkandel Mileage may vary. I do find excessive %ts annoying in situations when NO ONE ELSE is doing it, but eh. With tenses, that's actually a thing I'm READING, not like ... ... ... I don't know, window dressing.

As far as wiki codes -- if it's for emphasis, I have accidentally used **, / /, _ _, and // // almost interchangeably for like the last six years and sometimes even accidentally put two in the same pose, so it's clear that mileage may vary for me on that one. . .

The tenses thing is more about like ... reacting to the way people are around you, for me. It's not that past tense versus present tense is such a huge deal, but if a player makes no effort to react to the fact that every single other player on the game is playing in present tense and it happens for multiple scenes in a row at some point I'm starting to wonder if they're reading and responding to other people's poses.

You know, in 20+ years of RP I don't think I have ever written a pose about Legos.

I find it totally immersion breaking when people do certain types of stupid wrongfun but I do tend to generally grit my teeth and bear it unless it is actively impacting my RP (for example, when people do dumb homophobic and/or sexist shit on Arx).

Approaching critical burnout stage with client management. Caught myself telling random stranger at the dog park about how my job forces me to act as an unqualified therapist to the dregs of humanity. It's just not funny anymore.

I need a vacation. Or a new job. Or a new job all the way across the country.

@Thenomain Oh, I thought Arx's system was taken from L5R ... (speaking of tangents)