Topics created by Sparks

I mean, just for reference, the message is

%% There's no scene running here. Starting a scene will activate repose and make it easy to share the scene with the web portal. Just do scene/start if you want to start one.

Anyway, to answer the original question...

I play on both Spirit Lake, which is very OOCly transparent, and Arx, which is not. I like the way it works for both of those games. With SL, I like knowing OOCly what's going on because I feel like it fosters that collaborative environment.

On Arx, I think there's so much lore and so much of the theme is built around it and the mystery of it, I like not knowing things OOCly unless I know them ICly. I think that works very well for the IC theme.

So really.. my answer is.. it depends on the theme, and what 'feel' you want from the game.

@Cobaltasaurus — I think it depends on the game. Smash Brothers? Mario Party? Breath of the Wild? Those I like to have on the TV. Some, like Mario Kart, I can happily play either way if I'm playing solo; local multiplayer needs the TV. But for certain other games, I genuinely prefer the handheld experience: Octopath Traveler, Pokken Tournament DX, Kirby All-Stars (no, I don't know why I prefer handheld to TV for this one), Sonic, Little Dragons Cafe, and so on.

@Botulism I will probably always take Doomed every time you offer it purely because I ❤ you and respect your desire to some day throw my character face first into a wood chipper, nuke her, have her eaten by kaiju, etc.

Plus, seriously, y'all, getting to write a death pose is fucking fun, ok?

Another option could be charging the AP to the person being healed, on the basis that they are straining themselves by pushing on when they really should not, damaging their body and needing more 'time off' to recover after the adventure is over?

@auspice said in NaNoWriMo:

@sparks said in NaNoWriMo:

I remember the Seattle group being pretty good about three or four years ago, but I haven't really involved myself in the bigger NaNo community the past couple of years. I just haven't had the time or the energy for the bigger meetups. I'm sad that you had bad experiences with them. 😞

It seemed to be run by a few bffs around college age. All write-ins / meetups were downtown and their opinion on non-downtown gatherings were 'you can plan it but we won't put it on our calendar or help you get the word out in any way because it's not OFFICIAL'.

Oh, yeah, no. A few years ago whoever was running it was making a point to have usually 3-4 write-ins going at a time, at different coffeeshops and such, all on the calendar. On the grounds that smaller neighborhood-focused write-ins were probably more manageable than single big ones. (The exception being the November 1 midnight write-in which was usually huge and done somewhere like Southcenter.)

That's super unfortunate. 😞

My biggest piece of writing advice: stop in the middle of a sentence or paragraph. I've found it does wonders for me. I don't write until the 'thought' (as it were) is done but I stop while I still have ideas. It gives me a place to dive in the next day without hemming and hawing over 'what' to write. Once you're in the groove, it's easier to keep going.

I learned this from one of the classic authors. I forget which, tho. 😕 But it totally works.

I do often try that. I've also been using some of what I picked up from Mary Robinette Kowal at SIWC this year, about how to deal with writer's block. So far it seems to have helped.

(Also, if you want my SIWC notes, btw, as a fellow writer, feel free to peruse them. Some of the workshops, the notes haven't been great, but for some of them they've been pretty useful. SIWC'17: Diagnosing Story Problems are my notes from Kowal's workshop on writer's block and editing.)

@Alzie

+ is non-optional.
The 's' on +jobs is non-optional.

This is a UX complaint in the wrong thread, but it's always bugged me about the existing jobs systems.

The demand is real! Especially if you're gonna do that split-screen retroactive spawn thing.
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I love this! This is what I have been looking for in MU*s. It ties skill development to time rather than vague xp, and it creates projects for people to engage in while limiting them to how involved they can be. I think FutureMUD was going to have something like this but that project has gone quiet. It's also similar to Arx's investigations and tasks system, only all tied up into one streamlines system.

As for giving players benefits for playing, I have always said that if you have to be incentivized to play a game, it's work not a game, so why are you playing it?

The only bonus I consider giving players is something like "bennie points" or what Firan called CP. Turn in so many of them and you get a one to three scene GMed plot focused on one of your character's or a fancy item that doesn't give any stat boosts but looks nice and is unique, etc.

@Arkandel said in Social Combat: Reusing Physical Combat System?:

@surreality Yeah, some amount of flexibility might be a good thing anyway even if it increases complexity, for very specific cases.

For example you might want to have two rolls - a Persuasion one to convince Molly you it's okay if you just go into her boss' office for a minute to drop off a memo and a Subterfuge roll to make it sound like you'd be in trouble if she told on you ("sighs I forgot to do it last night, I'm so dumb!") to keep her quiet. Failure on either could produce different results - not being allowed into the office, or letting you in but telling her boss afterwards to cover her ass, or both.

This is kind of what the Doors system tries to represent in its short-term version.

Convincing her to go into her boss's office to drop the memo is one Door, and convincing her not to tell ony our for "forgetting" is another Door.

❤ @Sparks !