Best posts made by somasatori

@acceleration said in PVP games/elements?:

@somasatori

PVP is great, but it doesn't need to only take place with combat dice. I want to see social and intellectual characters have strong impact on the game as well. To that end I'm considering some sort of territory and politics system, but haven't figured out a good model yet either.

Oh yeah, absolutely. You could have different groups of hunters that have claimed parts of the darkzone as their own, and all of the conspiracies have some form of internal politicking. Plus, the higher-ups will probably be doing some politic junk between themselves and the higher-ups of other organizations. But yeah, just spitballing ideas, but it could work. Plus, you could have faction heads that push their various organizations and act like "mini-staff" to that end, which might take some of the strain and stress off of staff to run things specifically for folks (except the occasional Big Plot[tm]). Ideas are kinda my schtick, so if you want to throw anything at me, let me know.

@ThatOneDude said in PVP games/elements?:

Totally could be the "darkzone"... I think this idea has a lot of merit for something like that. Easy access for PRP fodder as well to have some zone that's just a nightmare...

Yep, basically it's kind of like what the Hedge is to Changelings (or should be). This nightmarish place that's just horrible and you don't ever really want to go there, but you kinda have to. Plus if you're being ordered to, then that puts another spin on it altogether. Especially if, say, one conspiracy's territory (as mentioned above) is particularly dangerous compared to another. Then you've got soldiers going AWOL and trying to join the enemy's side, and so on. I think you guys are on a pretty good path in regards to what you want to do.

@mietze & @Duntada

I used to be a CNA in a nursing home, where often the women and men both would douse themselves in whatever cologne or perfume they had available to cover up the smell of ... to be frank, shit and piss. It wasn't pleasant for them, I'm sure, but it was understandable that they did it. Still, I felt a little bad for feeling a bit sick at the scent of floral explosion. When I got transferred to the Alzheimer's wing, this opposite was in effect.

When I worked as a social worker, I didn't really encounter much in the way of men or women dousing themselves with some sort of scent. However, the younger crowd (I worked as a child advocate attached to the Department of Justice's child support program) that came in with their disputes seemed to always have that 18-20 year old dude who was a walking Axe scent billboard at least once a day.

@fatefan

Have you ever played WWW? It's a lot of fun!

@Coin said:

If you want to come into the game playing a drug dealer, that's great. If you want that dealer to deal in a place where there's already deals going down, you're going to either have to find a way to ingratiate and integrate, or you're going to have trouble. The key is to remember that both of these possibilities are roleplaying experiences, and running from one or the other isn't going to get you RP.

Exactly. If you're coming into an area, you need to either establish a reputation through going against the current structure (which, unless you have friends or supernatural powerz, will likely get you killed), or be willing to use the current structure for your own means until you have enough clout to branch off (again, which will likely get you killed).

Either of those are incredibly good ways to build your character. Nothing in the criminal world exists in a vacuum. You will ALWAYS be on someone else's territory, and you will always be running up against antagonism from the police and from your fellows. Even if you're part of an established organization, many criminal organizations dislike one another. While there can be situations where they'll work together -- especially with ethnic organizations, this can't be overstated; in the United States, ethnic communities are still isolated bastions of the old world and if you're a white dude selling coke in Little Saigon, you're going to get some negative attention from the locals -- there are far more rivalries.

How do you deal with that? Using the old GM/Storyteller gem: what do you do?

Seeping with generic viagra.

Shangbot?

According to the NodeBB forums, Pushbullet would be the best choice, though it needs to be added as a plugin for the forum in MuSoapBox's configuration settings to allow notifications from it. It'll show upvotes, replies, and new responses on boards you're watching/speaking on. I'm testing it right now, but I'll report back regarding its functionality.

@Coin
I have nothing more to say on that than "yes, all of this." It should be directly placed into the news/theme files for criminal PCs that you should be ready to deal with all of that.

@mietze said in RL Anger:

Maybe guys would feel scared in that way though, dunno.

The first year I was married (so about 9 years ago), someone I knew from my early college years figured out where I was and contacted me. Without getting into heavy detail about my life back then or anything, she caused a lot of problems and wound up showing up on our doorstep through the traditional methods of stalking before the Facebook era. She even made an overture that I had to choose my late wife over her. I was more angry than scared, and it all started because my job at the time kept an employee listing with employee pictures on their website.

It looks like I can still downvote people. Just tell me who you want downvoted and I'll take care of them.

@Glitch -- I'd suggest Blackbirds and Mockingbird by Chuck Wendig, if you haven't read them. Also, it's not fantasy, but House of Leaves is personally my favorite novel. It's a bit hard to get into at first, but you're a smart guy; it's a horror novel. Outside of that, I'm pretty sure you've read American Gods and Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman; if you haven't, they're amazing.

Hm. Oh, Michael Shean's Wonderland books: Shadow of a Dead Star and Redeye. Loosely connected is another book called Bone Wires. Also very good. He's a former MU*er as well and a friend of mine. It's cyberpunk, not fantasy.

There are probably more, but I can't think of any right off the bat. I'll second the Scalzi suggestion by @Darinelle and the other suggestion by @Coin. The Death-Gate Cycle is really good.

Really slick, @Cobaltasaurus.

@Vorpal

I hate that, absolutely hate it. When I was writing more and getting paid for it, I would get the same question. "So what's your day job?" Mind you, I did have one, but it wasn't my real focus in life -- wasn't what I wanted to do at all. It seems like the creative community in general is just completely discounted. When my wife was doing pretty well with her music (some of it's getting sampled on the new IAMX album, if you're into them, by the way), she'd still get that same question. I don't understand it at all. Why can't your passion be your day job? What makes us assume that in order to have a "job," you need to be locked in a cubicle or office 9 hours a day (or more)? Meh.

I'm currently re-reading China Mieville's Bas-Lag series.

If you haven't, you really should check it out. It's pretty incredible. While I tend to shy away from anything that's considered steampunk in any way, the fantasy and tech really works in this series. I highly recommend it.

@Cobaltasaurus

A lot of capitalism is stripped out. While there are still goods and services for sale, a lot of things are considered universal rights.

From a Marxist framework, what you're describing is called a socialist market economy. I would personally critique it and say that it's "state capitalism," but most people aren't that annoying. Based on there being likely high government regulation of corporations (you say there is never a point of artificial scarcity) and basic services being a universal right, it seems - and correct me if I'm wrong, of course - people would really only buy either extra food, say for an event, or luxury items.

There's also a commonish concept in writings (I've noticed specifically John Gray talks about this) that suggest a kind of market socialism. I think it hinges on the question whether a citizen has access to money and, if not, what they trade to gain market resources. I would also suggest looking up consumer cooperatives, which have some cool ideas about how to handle collectivizing how people observe their behavior towards consumerism. One co-op of note is Mondragon Corporation which, while not a perfectly horizontal entity, does do a lot of work toward showing how a large-scale conglomerate cooperative could work in society.

Ethical Colonization
There is no such thing in the real world. This is not open for debate.

Hell yeah.

Anyway, I like it. It's nice to see an original sci-fi game where things aren't bleak as fuck and a massive dystopia.

Stardew Valley

@Cadi

I completely agree with everything you said. Bellis Coldwine is probably one of my favorite characters of his, if not one of my just generally favorite literary characters. I didn't read the series in order -- I went from The Scar, to Perdido Street Station, then Iron Council, which led me to feeling really disappointed with Isaac.

Normal fantasy like elves and whatnot is always so clichéd and annoying, since it's generally just variations on a theme. You take Tolkien, then play on what Tolkien did and adjust your story line a bit (which will be either a mix of coming age with dude being the be-all, end-all savior of the world, or one or the other). The grittiness of Mieville's work is pretty astounding, and sort of throws all that up into the air. You're absolutely right, pretty much every race in his work is utterly absurd or hideous. Like the mosquito people in the Scar, for example, that was a fairly intense scene when they went ashore and realized they totally weren't fucking around about the women in the mosquito-people society (totally can't remember their names right now) were bloodthirsty and vicious. Then there's the Khepri.

I'm also in the same boat with the Dark Tower series. I've read up to the Song of Susannah, but am worried about reading the last book on account of how his stuff usually ends.

@Cobaltasaurus I really want to grab Antoneo, but I'm not sure I have the time I once did to dedicate to MUSHing. What sort of time investment are you expecting?

@Roz said in RL Anger:

Hello, anniversary of my brother's suicide. Fancy seeing you again this year.

I'm so sorry, @Roz. I can kind of empathize. The anniversary of my wife's suicide is on the 30th of this month. All of my condolences for you.

@reimesu said in What Types of Games Would People Like To See?:

Pugmire/Monarchs of Mau.

Yeah this is a must.

I didn't see a post about it, but there's a game on Steam called Rimworld. It takes the graphics of Prison Architect and mirrors the gameplay of Dwarf Fortress to make a game wherein you're managing an off-world colony that's basically set up to fail in hilarious ways. You can also play as a tribe.

Here's how my most recent playthrough went:

A great devastation wiped out the tribe. The five surviving members of the tribe set out led by Crow, who was raised in a cave as a child and went on to become his tribe's most brilliant hacker despite not having the technology level to build computers. Crow and his four companions found a nice spot in a world that was largely deserts. It was the sole tropical forest.

Crow and his friends get to work! They build up some sleeping quarters, a research area (maybe one day Crow, gifted hacker, will be able to figure out how to make a computer, like the prophecy foretold), and then disaster struck. Raiders from the desert wastelands beyond the new tribe's village had attacked! After beating one of them unconscious and stabbing the other two to death with spears and taking their guns, Bear, the tribe's resident medic, stood by while the rest of the tribe very quickly built a prison. Bear brought the fallen man whose name was Gizzard, to the prison.

The group decided to try to recruit Gizzard, and meanwhile Crow and two other tribals headed down to start excavating out some of the compacted steel in the hills nearby. However, Crow noticed a wall and it terrified him. It was made out of polished granite. Despite Crow's warnings, Soup, the tribe's primary researcher (who was also a cave child, and a pyromaniac) decided to take down one of the walls.

Beyond the wall was a series of four pods. Strange things, they said CRYOSLEEP on them. The tribe went to bed that night, but Crow knew taking down that wall was a bad idea.

The next day, the pods were empty and open. What happened? Well, no bother. The tribe needed to forage, and Bear and a one of the other tribeswomen (Lilac, an art-loving psychopath), went off to hunt.

Then the sleeping occupants came back with heavy assault rifles and two arctic foxes.

Sadly, the last of the tribe of Goreflicker was no more.