Best posts made by Seraphim73

@misadventure said in Social Stats in the World of Darkness:

Physical combat and its accepted model works fine because it has one end state: defeated (yield, unconscious, dead, etc). That result is typically dull to RP.

I disagree with this.

Social interaction should not be modeled after physical combat, because simplistic to say that all forms of social success "defeated" anyone.

And with this.

I think that you're short-changing physical combat and social combat alike.

Physical combat could be about counting coup, making a point, standing up for yourself even though you get beat up, beating someone up to shut them up, beating someone up because you like it, maiming someone, killing them... some of the best RP I've had has come from RPing physical combat (granted, a good deal of it came after the actual combat, but I also love posing physical combat.

"Defeating" someone in social combat could be intimidating them into backing off, it could be charming them into liking you a little more, it could be bribing them into taking your nephew on as an aide, it could be getting them to let slip that juicy little secret, it could be getting a discount on that car you want to buy... these are all victory/defeat situations, but through RP, they become much richer than that. Heck, you could even give in to what the other person wants, but get a valuable concession in return (being defeated, but doing significant "social damage" over the course of the interaction).

@faraday said in Social Stats in the World of Darkness:

Don't even ask me what that particular contest might represent, lol But it shows how the rolls can be arbitrary.

Clearly, Cate is trying to sneak past the tripwire mine Erin set up. Poor Cate.

@tinuviel I don't think I'm looking at the widest possible audience, just like... more than a dozen players. I may be underestimating the audience for a hard historical game, but I'm pretty certain that if one existed it would a) be very small (which is not necessarily a bad thing) and b) be filled with arguments about what's actually historically accurate (which is not a bad thing if everyone digs it, but usually is a bad thing).

@faraday I agree that you absolutely need to define your setting, including how "Hollywood" it is. Just saying "Hollywood history" isn't enough for exactly the reason you mention. And I think that there is room for semi-wide-audience (like, more than 20 players) games at every point across the spectrum you mentioned (Band of Brothers would have to be more like TGG, and I would adore playing on a game like that, but I think that's the "hardest" end of Hollywood history that I think is feasible).

So a game's mission statement might be something like: "A paranormal game set just behind combat lines in WWII France, The Darkest Day (alternatively, A Bridge Too Dark) explores the terror and thrill of combat and war from a paranormal perspective. Werewolves, Vampires, and Fae stand alongside mortal heroes in a view of history similar to Fury, Enemy at the Gates, and Defiance."

I would take that to mean that it's less realistic than Band of Brothers, but a lot closer than Kelly's Heroes. Sidenote, I'm not huge of paranormal games, but I would play the hell out of that one.

@ganymede Doesn't seem to happen to me either.

Granted, that's probably because I regularly app in with my RL wife and aren't afraid to mention the fact on channels, but I've noticed that my characters get hit on a LOT less ICly now that I MU* with my wife. I mean, I'm probably not going to pursue an IC romantic relationship anyhow, but I enjoy the flirting RP, dang it.

(Yes, I know that when you're the constant, the problem is usually you, and it could very well be in this case.)

I generally schedule about 3 hours for a scene. If it's shorter than an hour, it doesn't really feel worth it (exceptions made for truly awesome and fast-paced scenes). I'm also okay with a GMed scene taking more like 4-5 hours, although I know some people start to fade off pretty quick after 3-4.

@Killer-Klown said in How do you like things GMed?:

If everyone automatically 'won', there'd be no point in gming it.

This is one bit that I wish more people were good with. In the best stories, nothing ever goes perfectly smoothly -- or if it does, then the enemy planned for it to go smoothly. And yet on too many games, everything succeeds every time. Now, it's hard to spend 3 hours doing something and lose with no progress, but I would love to see more scenes end in losses that still provide some progress through the storyline. I would love to see more scenes of heroic rearguard actions ... that still require that the PCs retreat at the end. Like, I don't know, somewhere between 1/4 and 1/3 of scenes, with the other 2/3 to 3/4 being straight-up successes.

@faraday She was also the medic who always seemed to get targeted by the "extra" enemy (I do that to my own PCs too if there's no IC reason to target someone else).

@faraday said in First Through the Gate Syndrome:

ETA: If you want to have "making a plan" be an important part of the plot, that's fine, but I think it's a distinct phase. Don't mingle planning/executing into a single scene.

I like to have people make a plan OOCly first (because that usually goes a hell of a lot faster than doing it ICly), and then drop them in media res. It takes away some of the slowness of planning, and some of the railroadiness of in media res, although it still removes some of the fun of snarking around plans and keeps some of the rainroadiness. It's not a perfect solution, but I think it's a relatively neat medium when you've got time to OOCly talk the plan over.

As for a pose-order first round, I worry that it would delay later poses and make the first round take even longer. But I could be totally off-base on this. I do like something Faraday did and I copied over on BSG, which was having the ST scene-set, the IC leader of the scene pose first, and then everyone else as they will after that (I think someone else suggested it up higher in the thread too). It lets the IC leader pass the orders down the chain as mentioned above, makes someone break the seal, but doesn't stack everyone else up to a strict order after that.

I get that this might play into @faraday's discomfort with being called on to go first, but since we always asked the person who was going to be in charge if they were okay with it, I don't have so much of a big deal with it -- you picked the rank, you 'get' to be in charge, you have to pose first.

@faraday Yeah, that may very well be the majority of the issue. I do know that I end up posing last a lot of FS3 combat rounds because I'm waiting for a response from another player that I addressed in my pose the round before, and then I have to tweak my pose for either their response or their lack of response.

@Wretched said in Carnival Row:

@Auspice What special thing is in the basement?!

We don't talk about what happens in the basement.

@Derp I agree with a lot of what you're saying -- the document is definitely tailored to the more intimate setting of tabletop RP. On a MU, I don't think it's as critical to be as active in forming that relationship with everyone on the game that allows you to make sure that they're comfortable with everything going on. But at the same time, I do think that there's some valuable information/thoughts in there that could be adapted to MUing.

Plus it's a free download that touches on some of the recent conversations here.

@ZombieGenesis I think that checklists and aftercare and the like are a shortcut for those who haven't built up open and honest lines of communication yet. It sounds like you're doing a less formal version of what the document describes anyhow -- being open to people coming to you and asking for changes based on their comfort. Some people aren't comfortable doing that, though, so in a larger, less familiar setting than your game, it might be important to have some more formal methods of communication. As for aftercare, I certainly wouldn't do it after every scene, but if there was a scene that edged up against someone's comfort zone and I knew it, I would certainly check in with them afterwards.

@Pandora I don't know that anyone is suggesting that someone be banned for simply disagreeing with Staff (I could have missed it if they did). But if they refuse to play within the setting? If they repeat their disagreement in public to the confusion of new players? If they make themselves a pest by bringing their disagreement up repeatedly? Definitely more trouble than their worth.

@Lyanna Thanks! That's all Blu.

@Kestrel You can absolutely do one of those two things.

I'd be down for Battletech, certainly. If you weren't set on using the tabletop rules for Mech combat, you could certainly do it well enough in FS3.3 (although Heat would have to be handled via Ammo or GM fiat).

Solaris VII is a great setting, but it definitely has both upsides and downsides. It misses some of the grand space opera feel of the greater setting, but it also skips out on the travel time and brings all of the factions together in one place. Personally, I would prefer having everyone working together in a single Merc Company with its own JumpShip, so you can go place to place but everyone has a reason to be on the same side, but I think Solaris VII would work too.

My preference in general is for competing factions within a larger war. I generally prefer the politics to be Character vs Character and the combat to be Character vs Environment. I think that this generally means that there are fewer CvC deaths, which tend to be the ones that cause the most disgruntlement and calls of favoritism (you’re going to get disgruntlement and calls of favoritism even if the characters are just competing over a seat on a bench).

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

What if you did it in a low-magic fantasy setting, say like Mouse Guard only with humans? Or is the modern setting a central part of the appeal?

It's not fantasy, but the middle-magic setting of The Savage Skies has attracted quite a few people. Unfortunately, the historical setting takes more brainpower than a modern day setting does, so we've had quite a few folks get idle because braining is hard these days. That might be one reason that a modern setting would be important right now.

@Coin Yes, I know, for those south of the equator that doesn't work as well. Yes, it's cartographic imperialism.

I think that any robust system is going to require both GMs and Players to work together to avoid causing harm (just like most everything else in this cooperative hobby). GMs can give some specific triggers for what they’re planning, Players can ask about their own specific triggers if it seems plausible that it’ll come up, and both GMs and Players can check in as things change (as they inevitably do).

This is a little more work than just sitting down and running a scene or playing in one, but isn’t it worth it to keep from harming fellow players?

As a side note, those of us who are arachnophobic would very much thank GMs for a warning before having graphic descriptions of spider-bits.

And I think that might be the key: it’s not (usually) just a mention that’s the problem, it’s detailed descriptions. Like @faraday and others have said, in a war game you can expect violence, but that doesn’t mean there will be graphic descriptions of wounds or gore. If there are, probably a good thing to mention. Similarly, I don’t have a problem if there are spiders in a scene, but I don’t want detailed descriptions of them. If there’s a mention of a slaughtered village population, sure, but I don’t need descriptions of any of the details.

ETA: This is absolutely not the case for some things like violence toward children or sexual assault — the detail in these can make things worse, but even a mention can be harmful.

@squirreltalk I agree that the Reels and Radio example doesn't really fit what you're talking about, but Crystal Springs does a great job of this -- Pacha collects rumors from all sorts of folks via request, checks scenes themselves too, and then puts together a full group of rumors about RP that happened over the last week.

I like to have a detailed description that provides a sense of the character's personality, and also 1-6 pictures of the same likeness -- the latter mostly because it's a handy refresher for what color the person's hair or eyes are that I can see right in the scene (since I'm only on Ares games right now). I don't mind if the likeness is of an actual person or "realistic" art, but unless I'm playing on a comic book or anime game, I do want the art to be "realistic." I put that in quotes because how realistic art is can be entirely in the eye of the beholder.

But first I want the description. I want to read exactly what the character looks like, and have the words used influence how I perceive the character as well. The image then becomes shorthand for me.

As long as everyone involved knows the system really well, I don't mind using a TT system for combat and doing the Initiative, each turn, each pose thing. But @silverfox is totally right that it takes forever (I think the -best- I ever got at Saga Edition was 30 minutes per round for 4 PCs and a GM).

As @faraday said, it depends on the setting/theme--if you're soap opera characters, you don't need a combat system, but if you're on a war game, you definitely need something at least partially automated.

@Arkandel also put out the important note that choice needs to be important and so is the ability for support characters to feel useful.

All of that is why I like a system that automates rounds, but allows GMs some freedom to add a variety of mods to represent things that support characters might do. Something that has enough variety that not everyone is armed the same (unless that's a thing, like they all have standard military weaponry), without taking forever to learn.

Yeah, I like FS3.3. Is it perfect? Naw, I've got points where I disagree with @faraday about the design philosophy, but we've talked that over a bunch and I totally understand her reasons. But does it provide automated turns, a somewhat steep but short learning curve, enough detail to have variety and allow GMs to tilt the rolls, and the ability to feel in-universe? Yup. That's that's well beyond "good enough" for me.

@pacha There's a book series out about that (I'm sure there are many, this is just the one I read the first book of) called American Royals. As I was reading the first book, I kept thinking, "Holy crap, this is straight up MU* drama."