Best posts made by surreality

@Thenomain I am especially wordy when sleep deprived! (And make even less sense than usual, but hopefully that isn't the case there.)

@lotherio said in Social Systems:

@surreality Just put up the skill thread of pondering. That lead me to this. She put up medicine, but damn how we oversimplify medicine. One roll, or one roll a day. I know all the folks who come in and make a medical character feel cheated in the end when its really just one roll that determine so much stuff all at once.

I can pretty much assure you that's not remotely how it's designed to work at all, but I'm not really gonna go into that here, either. Kind of a digression, though.

@arkandel said in Social Systems:

The way I see it a primary problem here is quantifying social 'damage' (maybe let's call it influence?). Obviously no one thinks changing someone's beliefs in one roll, even for a single encounter, is appropriate.

Part of the problem is that plenty of people do think the one-roll approach is appropriate. That's a problem that needs a cultural shift on the part of the community, to put it bluntly. Again, lots of moving parts, that being one of them. Another being 'staff should be willing to step in and say no or offer to arbitrate/observe on request' when these instances come up, rather than 'it's not a big deal, just fucking deal with it, we have other things to do!' or 'I don't even want to get in the middle of this shit' the situation. These things are as critical as any game mechanic, policy, etc. anybody could ever come up with.

No mechanic is going to universally resolve this in the same way no policy will, no setting will, and no community attitude shift will without the support of settings and mechanics and policies that work together to achieve a viable outcome.

Also a secondary issue here is actually tracking this down; there are immediate short-term effects - maybe your character made mine chuckle - and long-term ones.

Not necessarily, or at least no more so than a punch is likely to leave someone permanently maimed. These things happen, but they are outliers to experience, not the norm.

@Ghost These people suck. You don't deserve to have to deal with their, and they definitely don't deserve to have a friend who does the things you do for people who aren't bullshitting.

@silentsophia To be fair, that was referenced in the ad, as part of the reason for the game to exist.

Which makes sense considering the way the community used to react, rightly or wrongly, to the kind of interpretations people want to play there (and wanted to play enough elsewhere that having a place dedicated to it does fill a need/have a niche with genuine interest/etc.) around the time the game was created.

Pretty much any 'adult' game is going to have an element of fetish material in it. That's, often, kinda the actual point. So I don't personally see that as a big deal; I take that as a given, and then play there or not like I would anywhere else.

By the same token, if someone made a game that fetishized, uh, green-haired short round busty artist chicks with a portrayal I personally found offensive, I'd probably be speaking up about it. (OK, I might not bother, but I would also not feel I had to keep silent about expressing my discomfort.)

I always got the impression random ad hominem crap was unwelcome in ad threads, but crit of the game was fair play. I could be wrong, though.

@thatguythere said in Social Systems:

Duh. No offense meant but no one likes to lose at anything, but any game has situations where sometimes you win and sometimes you lose.

I actually don't mind losing at all, within certain limits. I don't even mind losing most of the time.

I do, however, mind losing (either through just consenting to or dice) and never getting a win.

Which has happened to more than a few of my characters, enough so that even with stupidly low expectations and a willingness to 'give' plenty on stuff, probably 2/3 of the characters I've played in the last 5 years never got a single win on something.

That also stops being enjoyable pretty fast.

@Thenomain Meh. And we did have four forum trolls who lurved LGBT-baiting in particular...

@thatguythere said in Social Systems:

And yes I do think if they are an NPC only thing then they are mostly pointless since I would say 75 % of mushing (at least in my experience) has dealt with the interaction between PCs. True not all of it is diced out or need to be but I think that any system that is being used should be used for the majority of situations where mechanical arbitration is needed/desired.

This comes back to the whole 'tabletop vs. <any other environment>' clause. I would even say 'tabletop or LARP or Roll20 style online tabletop' vs. 'online persistent world', specifically.

Tabletop and Roll20 style online tabletop include an (ideally impartial) arbiter overseeing all action. This has a direct impact on what far more than 75% of players are going to attempt to do, and in what level of detail they are going to attempt to do it, in a way a persistent online game does not.

Tabletop and LARP include having to look the other players in the eye when you are taking action against their characters. Again, this has a direct impact on what far more than 75% of players are going to attempt to do, and in what level of detail they are going to attempt to do it, in a way a persistent online game does not.

In tabletop or online tabletop, the XP cost parity is much greater, because the ability to use a skill on a PC or NPC is roughly equal, because the only time action is occurring is when the GM is running a scene and can provide those NPCs -- to hit, lie to, etc. freely. The PCs are rarely around when there aren't also NPCs around to which these abilities can be applied.

When we are discussing systems created for use in one of the above environments, and not the one we are actually engaged with, we have to consider how the game was designed to be played and how we play differently. (Your post sums this up nicely, which is why I'm tacking on to it -- I'm not trying to go after you or anything here.)

Now, we could require everybody to play through skype video chat to replicate the latter 'have to look somebody in the eye', but, uh, maybe I doubt I'm alone in saying, 'maybe let's just not' (no offense to anybody out there).

We can, at least, take steps to emulate the former circumstances, much more effectively. The most obvious of which is 'call in a GM' to run the interaction. This is going to resolve the worst case scenario players -- like panther dude -- who are never going to try to pull that kind of shit in front of an impartial third party witness, let alone a witness who has any say in the outcome or potential consequences for failure (and is potentially a staffer who can say, 'this is abusive and gross, <action is taken in accordance with policy for people behaving in a manner that is abusive and gross>').

That's one step, and no matter what else someone does, I strongly recommend it, because:

• This puts the people who are keen on trying to exploit others on notice that the jig could be up at any time.

• It provides people who are gunshy that someone is going to try to take advantage to engage with the system when they otherwise might be resistant (especially if they see that others have asked for intervention and oversight and things have gone smoothly or fairly).

• If it is a case in which a player who simply dislikes the other player is trying to force them to interact when they don't want to, or screw them over somehow -- which absolutely happens ("I know we have a no contact but I can roll at any time to force you to interact with me anyway!", etc.) -- knowing that an arbiter can be called in is an important protection. We already collectively keep an eye on this when it comes to combat and potential PK scenarios, and know "I hate the player so I'm going to kill their character on the world's flimsiest pretext" is not cool behavior. That we see so few PKs compared to how things used to be 'back in the day' is some pretty strong evidence that people grew up and realized just how not chill this behavior is. That we're collectively 'not there yet' on many levels on social fu doesn't make it a big surprise that we're not there yet on this one, but that more people are starting to recognize it as problematic is a promising sign.

• "But I can't ever be intimidated/lied to/etc.!" is much less likely for anybody to try in front of an impartial observer, either, who knows that absolutely every character on grid can, in fact, be intimidated/lied to/etc., so cheating from that angle is going to be reduced as well.

There's more, but... that's a step people can take for most systems that will make some progress if people actually act impartially and staff are willing to take action if someone is behaving inappropriately. Solution? No. Progress? Yes. Progress is still helpful.

@Ganymede Oh, Tzimisce, you just keep making me happier all the time.

I just remember those being called ghoul families or something else when they were originally introduced, but I haven't actually looked at oWoD since it's second edition -- I didn't even bother with revised it's been so long.

...but I really do miss me some Tzimisce. <pines>

@faraday I have to second this, because I am more than a little disgusted by the idea that 'I know I like playing with this player and we have fun when we write together so I'm going to play with them when I get the chance to' is an indication that I'm a bad evil cheating metagamer abusing all the good-hearted players everywhere with my cheaty cheaty ways.

ETA: I'm doubly digusted that 'that player was gross and abusive to me in the past OOCly, and I don't want to play with them again' apparently also makes me a horrible cheaty cheater McCheatsALot.

@nyctophiliac Yeah, we have one full size, one of the medium, and three of the singles. (I have no idea where the the third screwed off to.)

They're waiting to be filled with some polished crystal pebbles we collected from a local beach, because somehow, doing that amuses me deeply. (Crystal skulls not of real crystal, full of... real crystal. I am very easily amused sometimes and that beach is lousy with crystal pebbles that polish up very pretty.)

I only drink vodka booze-wise, so once in a blue moon over the years, I splurged. Was a ways back, though, when they were a fair bit less than I see them for now. If we see a good deal on one and have the cash, we'll sometimes nab one. (These days, the splurge is cheaper, but for a localish distillery that makes killer sweet potato vodka, Nauti Spirits -- worth looking for if it can be found somewhere.) The little ones were coming in regularly at a local shop where the husband would sometimes pick up lottery tickets, so he'd get one if they had them and we won $10 or something.

Somewhere (I think under the desk... ) we have another skull bottle that's a touristy pirate thing from a shop in South Carolina I keep meaning to put up there with them when I can scrape the touristy garble off of it.

@Arkandel He did say primarily non-het male chars -- which really is functionally different from 'everything is allowed, but the vast majority is heteronormative' even if the het crowd is actually very chill and welcoming. Which... is not always the case.

I still think it's more chill and welcoming now than it was ten years ago, but ten years ago it was pretty fucking wretched.

@ghost When you go on for pages on end about metagaming, as cheating, in the form of 'playing the player', and then explicitly list:

"If your search turns up something negative, don't ever RP with them again."

"If you know him and like his player, plan RP together."

...I am absolutely going to draw that conclusion.

Heard twice verbatim yesterday:

Parent: "That game is called cornhole."
Child: "Why?"
Parent: <sudden extremely awkward silence>

@Ganymede I get what you're saying, but... two things.

First, the serious bit, being that I don't think a niche game that states up front they're a niche game needs to fight every social battle in the comics arena. (Even though I strongly share your view re: goddammit can we please treat our heroines equally.)

Second, the 'I wish I was just kidding' bit... about 90% of the lesbian or bisexual heroines I've seen on games have been played by men as pure porn bait. This... really only exacerbates the problem you're describing. Which is unfortunate.

@lithium What you're describing is actually pretty close to some of the stuff I'm tinkering with, re: the trio of 'health' tracks. It seems to be just common sense to have something along those lines in place.

I think it works better than the 'humanity/integrity/etc.' approach in WoD, at the very least, which has always struck me as a bit 'off'.

The current AHS tickles my 80s fetish, so I'm obligated to love it. Some bits I've seen coming, some less so. It's still fun to watch it play out.

A lot of people seem to hate the current cast, which is sad to me since I have crazy love for two of the shows by the same producers where some of them were regular cast and were fantastic: Scream Queens and Popular.

@Kanye-Qwest said in Historical MU*s:

Pedantry is only fun for the pedant. When I'm talking about fun and a good story and you are arguing that it's not 'realistic' because "whatever bullshit thing I read about instead of learning to perform oral sex", then please stop. That's the end of my contribution to the discussion, though. I'd never personally dabble in a game that was presenting itself as history accurate, because I already know who is going to be up in that game, ruining all the fun.

Quoted because I can only upvote something once, and this deserves at least 100 of them.

@arkandel said in Social Systems:

As for metagaming, the definition of it (for me) is playing the MU* as a game-within-the-game. Of course it's a collaborative experience, but I don't view "getting my OOC friends to vote for me in the upcoming IC election" as collaboration, for example.

I don't think anybody thinks that's in the category of 'fair play', or 'is just innocent collaboration'. This is the sort of thing Spider calls fair play and innocent collaboration while we all roll our eyes and groan loudly while we pause to ponder our life choices and why we're wasting our time on a game with a Spider infestation.

Are the lines thin though between that and 'my OOC friends are who I usually play with, so they're my IC allies as well, which means they're more likely to vote for my character' thin? You betcha!

And I think this also means treading with care re: making the accusation. This is another of those areas where everyone seems to go the 'guilty until proven innocent' route, and that's not helpful to anyone; it only breeds more distrust and hostility.

That said, I am actually far more likely to 'play nice IC' with people I don't know from a hole in the wall, because I have no idea how well they handle any sort of conflict -- whether they'll roll with it and we'll both have a blast, or if they're a thin-skinned lunatic who is going to explode in my face and make me miserable for months IC and OOC over it. I'm probably not going to want to go within miles of even mild conflict with that stranger's character until I have some idea of whether they're going to remain chill and we're going to have fun pursuing whatever the story of that conflict ends up being, or whether I'm going to be buried in pages every time I log in for the next six months filled with whining and screaming about what a soulless monster I am from Bachelor A that I picked Bachelor B that now-long-ago Saturday night (or that Bachelor A picked me instead of Bachelorette C from Bachelorette C, etc.).