Best posts made by surreality

@Ghost said in CofD and Professional Training:

Having said that, if you feel strongly that the existence of the mechanic itself is proof positive that it's appropriate and not overpowered, you're welcome to your opinion on the matter. Clearly, I have a different viewpoint, and that's okay.

If that determination -- not appropriate and overpowered -- is predicated on the notion that 9-again/8-again/rote are intended to define non-mundane/supernatural powers only, that's just factually inaccurate. It's not a matter of opinion.

Love it or hate it, think it should be or shouldn't be, is a different animal; it's no skin off anybody's nose.

Making a design intent/purity argument based on something the actual design directly and frequently contradicts, however, is just a bad argument to use for the preference. If running a game, sure, run with that, because it's pure personal preference and interpretation there. Don't try to sell that interpretation to all and sundry as the intent of the game designers, however, when the facts simply don't support that interpretation.

@Ataru Pretty sure she's lurking to read obsessively. While it's true this one thing may have changed, she revels in the attention threads like this give her and pursues them extensively to feed her victim complex.

She has yet to understand that simply relating the basic facts about her actual behavior is not persecution.

This is part of the problem, of course, but there are people who will always believe their seeming buddy over strangers on the internet -- that's completely normal, after all -- so she'll spin all this into 'those mean creepy stalkers'.

There's plenty I know that I have not, will and would never repeat. Some of it is second-hand (with evidence) stuff from friends, which is their story to ultimately tell and not mine, and some of it is stuff I saw go down RL, but no matter how much it would give people 'ammo' to mock or belittle her, I would never, ever share, since ultimately that is not the point of threads like this, and that would be vastly uncool. (No, really, do not PM me to ask, either; I know folks will/would and I'm serious about that.)

@Tinuviel I would genuinely love to be able to go the 'if it's just more evidence' route on this one, I really would.

Unfortunately, I have known a handful of people who are so vastly different on the game than they are in alternate channels, purely because they actively rely on the 'but it didn't happen on the game!!!' defense.

As in, I have been mid-page convo with someone, and had them shift immediately to skype to add heavy duty smack-talk to the conversation, actually stating they're doing so 'so it isn't happening on the game and they can't get in trouble for saying/doing it'. Then they flip their shit if ever it gets mentioned on game because it caused concern, trying to make me the bad guy for calling them on straight up lying about it once they're back on the MUX. Zero conscience about the lying, all the blame shift on the 'how could you ever repeat that!' ("Because you're lying and cheating, duh.")

Needless to say, while I will keep the most trivial confidences to the grave 99% of the time, I am not somebody to brag about how you cheated, harassed someone, etc. to, because I have zero respect for that behavior. I won't mention it unless it's harming someone (myself or someone else, and usually if it's just me it takes a lot to get me to give enough of a fuck to say boo), but seriously... people should not tell me this kind of thing if they want it to stay quiet. (Personal shit, no matter how embarrassing about whoever? Doesn't matter if I love them or hate them, that doesn't get relayed, period. That is just non-cool.)

These folks were an unfortunate wake-up call about it all. It's not suddenly not cheating, harassment, stalking, or abuse due to change of venue. Evidence still has to be there, but the venue from which that evidence comes ultimately makes no difference.

@Rook Oh, I know it's coming, and don't really disagree, but a verbatim cut and paste from someone with testicles can drive that point home without losing a potentially otherwise useful (but backward-ass) player in the process.

That I'm writing the system I'd be using won't even matter, either.

Just look at the 'how sad nobody knows how to math' at @faraday for an example; she absolutely knows how to math. Women are expected to prove ten times the competence in terms of stuff like this far more often than I feel like dealing with, there is already plenty to do, and nobody's got time for that on top.

...can the semantics argument move to a new thread? Please? Maybe a thread just for semantic arguments? (We have plenty of them on the regular, it'd doubtless be a busy thread! )

@skew Or maybe, y'know, when proposing a change regarding something that people obviously have a broad range of opinions on and preferences about, we not dub anybody not falling entirely in line with our preference as posting 'garbage' when we want people to respect our different personal preference.

Because shaming is a super classy way to get your way, right? Right! ...on some other planet than the one we live on, maybe.

Just tends to be an approach that comes in handy once in a while, particularly when making an appeal of this nature. YMMV, but I fucking doubt it.

@sibermaus I have something along these lines coded up in mediawiki; poke me tomorrow and I can pull it up if you think it will help. (Holiday chaos continues.)

ETA: Got a break from holiday chaos. The rest of what's on this site got abandoned ages ago and such, but the prefs listing and info is temporarily up here:

http://surreality.wtf/Index:Preference

ETA #2: This mediawiki preference code setup is currently grabbable for anyone, really. Just let me know, and do not claim you created it from whole cloth yourself if you do use it, kinda tired of that happening. It has a fair number of moving parts, so if you need help with it, feel free to ask.

@Nasgarath I don't think we ever ran across each other, but cheers to a fellow member of the 1996 club, and best luck on the relaunch!

@WTFE I am not a fan of the 'single metaplot' thing with a single story arc for that reason, yeah. You can keep a game running nicely with seasonal story arcs, much like any given television series tends to do. But you're back to having something designed with potential to last with that choice alone, too.

If you are using chrome, look for the following extension: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/stylebot/oiaejidbmkiecgbjeifoejpgmdaleoha?hl=en

It is called 'Stylebot' and it allows you to modify a site's css on a site by site basis.

While on MSB, click on the 'CSS' that will appear on the top of your browser window.

Click 'edit CSS'.

Cut and paste the following into the little window it pops up for you:

.topic .posts .content .img-responsive {
display: none;
border: none;
outline: none;
}

Click 'save'.

That should about cover it. It seems to be working on this thread while testing it, anyway.

@Autumn said:

I'd be a little surprised if it's even particularly laggy. Very large games have run perfectly well on 66MHz 80486s with 128mb of memory and 10 megabit ethernet.

I'm pretty sure the MOO I started on was running on something like that, and MOO has a lot more demand on the server than MUX from what I recall.

And off for about two weeks.

May check in from the phone but comments will likely be shorter than this, because I finger type for complete crap.

(Seriously, I still have a love/hate thing for the friend of mine who wise-assedly made me type out 'Massachusetts' in full while passing through it once just to watch me struggle through two minutes of trying to manage that one. Ooooh, all the fuming-while-trying-not-to-laugh for that one!)

@Arkandel said in Which canon property/setting would be good for a MU* ?:

@surreality said in Which canon property/setting would be good for a MU* ?:

It should never be a reason people are given to not create original themes, settings, or systems, and yet it often is.

I don't see why people wouldn't create original themes. But they need (and do, I think) knowing the risks; it's easier to make a nWoD game today, right now, than to make a brand new kind with its own mechanics and lore. The number of reasons range from how easy it is to find code made for it, to recruiting staff, to attracting and keeping players... but I doubt any of us will dispute it's a fact.

That doesn't mean such games are doomed. Arx is one of the largest games right now, and it did its own thing. But for each of those there are probably lots of original MU* which are either non-starters or prove to be dead on arrival.

And Arx precisely proves the point that people should not be told to NOT create these games because of this potential problem. Yet this regularly occurs, not as a warning of risk, but as an insistence that something is doomed to fail or should not even be attempted.

"My friends invited me," is common, sure, but it doesn't turn off one's critical faculties. Those friends should be helping you acclimate if they're going to extend the invite, and they should be pointing out things you need to know, or telling you important things re: what the place is about.

And they do (or did in my case) but it's still a fact learning a new system is harder than not having to learn a new system. And I think it's also an acceptable assertion that not all players enjoy learning new mechanics. We can argue this is right or wrong, but if it's a fact - which I think it is - then we have to figure out ways to deal with it, not chalk it off as their problem.

Of course learning a new system is harder. The first time someone plays an established system, they have the same learning curve, however, and it wasn't an obstacle to them then.

If someone doesn't want to learn new mechanics, it is on them to say 'no' to a game that requires them to do so, not on the game's creators to refuse to do something new or eschew anything that isn't repeatedly trod ground to benefit that person's laziness and/or preference.

Further, 'some people don't like learning new things' should never be touted as a reason to never try new things. It is. Regularly. And for a hobby that screams for innovation on the regular, there is no faster way to shoot innovation in the face and ensure it doesn't happen anywhere near as often as it could.

@shelbeast I think that's more or less what @faraday is doing with Ares. I think.

@il-volpe Yup, I was thinking of Ghostwheel, with their 'screaming along on a <hilariously laughable by today's standards>!!' login screen message, but since they had a very similar setup to Cybersphere at the time... yep, probably about the same!

@thenomain FWIW, from a costume pedant, the pins were not often super sharp. I have a few somewhere, or did at one point.

Know how people put a chopstick or a pencil through their hair to hold up a bun? Similar principle. It only has to be sharp enough to poke through the hat material. It just sorta... uses the hair as an anchor.

The modern reproduction ones you see most often are actually a lot sharper, and blunt much more slowly than the real Victorian ones, since they're usually plated steel instead of brass, copper, or silver, all of which dull and smooth out the point more quickly than plated steel.

@Arkandel I've had dozens of people I've had dev discussions with tell me this over the years, and in talking with others who work on such games, there's a lot of people hearing the same.

If I had a nickel for every time somebody told me to 'just use WoD or don't do it' -- which is a system I think is actually crap-awful for MU -- I could have paid all of my hosting bills for the entire time I was doing dev.

Edit: This is not presented as risk. It's presented as 'there is a group of people who have a bad behavior, and because of their bad behavior, you should not do something new'. And that attitude is garbage, as it doesn't call out the bad behavior for what it is, enables and encourages that bad behavior, and stifles innovation of any kind in the process.

If that's what people genuinely believe, they need to stop asking for new things, or resolve their cognitive dissonance on this issue.

I am absolutely for a 'spread out over a few RL days' play-by-post style scene. I've tried to do wiki tool things to allow for this once in a while. I don't think it'd ever replace anything fast-paced or through a proper web interface, but for folks casually popping in from somewhere and adding something to a slow-moving, ongoing log every so often is a nice option to have available for the people who would or do enjoy engaging with the game in this way.

I always liked the Rinadescer, and it's up on MUSHcode.com if that helps at all?

http://mushcode.com/File/RinaDescer-v3-0

I've seen others, but always seem to come back to that one as the easiest/most handy.

@tinuviel This is kinda the way I look at it, or did for the place I wanted to do.

Ideal? Aim for 'Black Sails' (which isn't super accurate, let's be real here, but it also isn't Xena). Expect 'A Knight's Tale' grade results, and be content with that as an average, 'cause then at least if there are anachronisms of some kind, they're being turned toward people having fun with it and creatively wedging that shit in there instead of just fudging over the stupid by wrapping everything in burlap and calling it a day.