Best posts made by skew

I've honestly never seen thought about the cultural implications of steampunk. I have surely thought about cyberpunk, but to me, steampunk was defining rapid advancements in technology, and a sci-fi-like technological jump that was applied backwards. Which is to say, some people going "wouldn't it be cool if we could have had steam powered pens and coal-fired walking spiders.

In this story... I am planning for the "steampunk" elements to play out in ways that clash with the other forms of technology.

There is the "old ways", which cherish the artifacts left behind by the angels. Some of these artifacts are used widely, some are locked away for safe keeping. There are factions that want to expand their use, as it's a "gift". There are those that want to stop their use, as use increases the risk of breaking, then we lose the gift. There are yet other groups that wish to replicate, copy, reproduce those artifacts - that is the group that will likely be in the lead.

This reproduced/copied angel tech will name a name, "New Tech" or something like that. I'm awful with names. There will be a lot of feelings about this, but by and large it will likely be the most widespread technology, followed closely by salvaged, repurposed, or still functional angel tech.

The other grouping of technology will be the modern methods of science. Based on this poll, people seem to prefer a lower scientific level, so I might aim for 1800 instead of 1900. Steam engines exist, but in their basic form. Some ideas of modern medicine (sterilization) might exist. But I intend for this group to look a lot more like what people think of when they say steampunk. Whirring gears, brass, etc.

These groups will clash - angel tech vs steam tech, oh my! There will be religious elements to it all. There will also be those that go "what if we put an energy crystal into a steam engine!" and start to merge the threads.

I think it'll play out nicely!

@Sunny I don't think anyone but @Arkandel suggested staff make people RP together. He just likes his straw men.

What I said was... If you (in this case, actually you as your persona on KD) accepted a position of authority/power/etc (such as you have) and went two weeks without giving someone something other than "yeah we should totally RP eventually" despite their repeat efforts, AND you failed to go to staff or otherwise find an alternative to RPing with this person, then I would want staff to take action, mostly in the form of removing you from that position.

Again, since apparently I was unclear, if you stand up and say "I will do this thing" in an RP community and then do not do this thing, I think you should no longer be in charge of this thing. No one is suggesting forcing two people to RP together, because that's absurd. To quote myself: "Don't want to have to RP with anyone? Don't sign up to be a leader. Don't want to RP with a specific person? Talk to staff. Agreeing to do something then not doing it is rude."

Now, @Arkandel has pointed out that we're apparently talking about a Maltese Falcon game, or playing characters from that story, which I honestly know nothing about (which I guess makes me the ignorant slut). Nowhere in OP's prompt did s/he mention this, so I only have OP's prompt to go off of. If it's the case that this is a preexisting character, it brings up a whole lot of questions, mostly around how obligated are you to stick to whatever your source material is. I got no idea. I've never played a pre-made character, or a character from literature, or etc. I would like to believe that any game that uses premade/literary/etc characters would already have a rule about this very situation, because it seems like it would come up a lot.

My whole point was based off @Arkandel's statement: "No matter what you are never obligated to play with one specific person."

I believe, again, that if we agree to the obligation then we are obligated. Instead of RPing with someone, you might be able to pass off the duty/responsibility/scene. You might be able to work with staff to find a solution. You might be able to work with the individual player to answer questions (or approve a story) without actually having to do the scene. But, ya know, if someone steps up and says "I'll take X duty" they ought to do it, or handle not doing it.

Plot integration and continuation remains a constant pain in any MUX-type game. It's so hard to run meaningful, long-run plots and still allow them to be accessible to most players, especially in a game where there's such a disproportionate amount of player availability. We are trying, though!

And I do think the slow burn theme we've started with is rather conducive to this. Hopefully the excitement continues!

Also, punk lesbian Acanthus are canon. The picture's right there in the book!

Minor glory hogging update...

We've been in contact with @faraday , we've got some ideas going. I don't want to be premature or raise hopes unduly or whatever else, but I'm fairly confident we will have a game.

Eventually.

https://roll20.net/ is mostly the premier tool for dice, maps, and chatting. The obvious downside for this setting is that it requires an account.

I've had luck with whiteboard apps (https://awwapp.com/) as they allow you to free-form draw, and gives you a shareable link. You just click share, send the link, anyone can see it. The downside is that you don't have a grid, can't drag+drop avatars/tokens/pieces, etc.

In all, I'd probably recommend using the whiteboard, if your players agree to it, obviously. The biggest downside is that going outside of the MU (except to a wiki, if there is one) is generally cumbersome and actively opposed by some.

Alternatively, you could always "draw" up a picture of the screen in an ASCII art maker (http://asciiflow.com/) and then just @em it into the game. You'd have to do it every so often, and it would scroll the screen, but it wouldn't require players to do anything but MU.

@Warma-Sheen I think you're under the assumption FW staff and Reno staff was ever different. Several of us are and have always been (since the inception of FW) working on both games. There's no issue with juggling duties.

And, as @Ganymede says, many MUers I know are active on more than one game. We are mage-only, so if people want to get their vamp or wolf on, I don't think it's any sort of issue.

That said, I know I personally have been falling short on my job and ST duties. It has nothing to do with other games, and everything to do with big changes to my real life situation. Should settle down soon, and I'll be back at it!

We will need help with rooms and descs soon enough. This is the kind of thing that's easy to "Contract Out". Anyone that's seen the most of the Star Wars movie should be able to help us out.

I'm hammering out the "grid", but as is, we'll have one major city as the focal point of the game, with a few connected locations. So if anyone feels capable of taking a generic description (e.g., I need a gritty bar with miners go after work) and converting into a room desc, you can please let me know!

What I look for when I staff is a sense that the people I am staffing for are having as much fun playing as I am staffing.

It might seem silly, but I find players actually saying that they're enjoying themselves way more than I do any sort of "thanks staff!" sort of thing. Sometimes I'll get pages, sometimes I'll get OOC laughs or gasps or whatever else. I think those moments, where I can tell players are entertained, is what truly makes me want to keep telling stories.

@Ganymede said in Welcome to Fallen World MUX!:

@Arkandel said in Welcome to Fallen World MUX!:

Yes, he was completely shameless in approaching female characters through pages to get them to play with him, and it was pretty damn obvious he was working hard to create a harem there.

And he never once asked me to join his harem.

I, sir, am offended.

You can join my harem.

Ahem.

I have no reason to believe Incrociare is gone. Yes, it's been a bit of time since he last logged in, but staff hasn't received any information that he will or will not be returning. Could have quit, could be busy with RL, I have no idea, and I mention this only because I hate when weirdo rumors start on MSB.

@Derp said in Mage 2e game - The Golden Road:

Paradox is meant to be a boogeyman, but it's also meant to be pretty rare...

Is it? It is very difficult to do much anything at low level gnosis/arcana rating without reaching. It becomes nigh impossible to do much of your high level magic without reaching. Unless you're continually casting spells 2+ levels below where you're at, you're risking paradox.

@tragedyjones said in Interest/Volunteer Check: Major Multisphere Chronicles of Darkness:

Setting poll:

Boston. We already talked about this.

@Arkandel said in Welcome to Fallen World MUX!:

@Calibraxa I noticed this was a thing well before I had even heard of a Reno revival. The game being on autopilot was a common enough sentiment for a few weeks now, unfortunately.

I like Elphaba and I've no beef with anyone there, for the record. But from where I'm sitting at least FW's actual issues aren't really related to any external events.

Ark has it right. There's no "siphoning off attention". Admittedly, there has been a lull in attention the last few weeks... Elphaba and I both have some pretty big real life going on. That said, slow jobs are not our goal. I have read these comments and definitely taken them to heart, and we will be working to get things moving faster, in one way or another! Thanks everyone.

@Kumakun I got some BIG IDEAS for a V5 game. I actually started to code it all out before I saw a squirrel and my attention wandered off.

From the perspective of someone who really dug into this, I offer this: V5 is a fresh mix of a familiar system. It's new enough that people will be approaching with new eyes, but similar enough that you can learn as you go.

The big big big BIG difference between VtR and V5 is really the big difference between VtM and VtR more generally. The former is a whole world you play in. The latter is a system to build a setting. Players will come into V5 expecting a lot of the existing story to be present. That story, imo, is a little one dimensional and railroady. There's not a lot of nuance, and there's some big giant sweeping things (such as clan alliance) that just... have no ground in any kind of rational thought.

All that said, I think you can tweak ThenoCode for V5 without much issue. I am, ofc, here to help!

I just found this over at the Onyx Path forums. It's a spell casting calculator of Mage 2E. Just a simple .exe you can run and plug in values, and it'll output how many dice you need, how much paradox you have, etc.

The actual DL is a link in the first post here:
http://forum.theonyxpath.com/forum/main-category/main-forum/the-new-world-of-darkness/mage-the-awakening/914782-spell-calculator

@NotSanni They changed spell casting from what it was in 1E, and I've written up some guides to try and help new players comprehend the system. If there's any chance that's what's giving you pause, you can find them here: http://fallenworldmux.com/wiki/User:Skew/Noob_Guide

@Lisse24 said in Crescent Moon MUX: The state of things and a poll!:

It really is about the system and I'm gonna plop that down in a world of my own creation.

I mean, good luck? The V5 book very literally says "This is our story, use as much or as little as you want! Make your own! Tweak ours!"... but so many VtM players were very upset with the idea of tweaking anything. The loudest voices (and the potentially most active and engaging players and player STs) want to play the game that's been developed over 20-whatever years and however many books. I can't say I blame them! I just think you'll be swimming against the current. It's obviously possible, just a lot harder.

@Bobotron said in Shadows Over Reno:

If the people who are doing the wiki are on here, I might advise them to put some image auto-resize CSS on their wiki; their frontpage image is scrolling off on my screen.

@Bobotron @surreality

Got it fixed. I think. Thanks guys!

Just send a message if you need help with anything specifically. Don't think I have the capacity to volunteer to "formally staff", but I'm quite happy loitering in a @Thenomain like capacity to answer questions.

As it stands, I thiiiiiink I know his code better than anyone else (besides him, obvs, except for when I know it better than him). Though I might need to fight @Cobaltasaurus not sure.

I had no idea Fallout: El Dorado was a thing... how is it? How active?

I think the value here is in scene tracking, rewarding players, historical records, and managing your "to do" list.

If I log in, and I got a list of people who want my attention and how long they've been waiting for me, personally, and it's not mixed in with mail and boards, that's a great value. I've regularly read a mail and forgot about it. This stops that.

In addition, if someone sends a meeting request to my faction, we all see it and we all can respond, and we all can flag it as "done".