Posts made by surreality

@auspice There's also the technobabble problem. If it was reality, yes, all the science would have to make sense, and you'd need all the nitty gritty technical details to function in daily life.

We are not all technicians, programmers, etc. and for some, myself included, feeling like an engineering degree is required to get through a basic setting document turns something into an immediate 'not just no, but hell no'.

Just like people playing doctors on a modern day game need not know the technical ins and outs of heart surgery, there needs to be some leeway for handwavium.

You, RL, may or may not know exactly how your phone works down to the circuits and signals and so on, but you do know how to call on it, tinker with an app, send a text, and so on. This is the best 'target', I think, for people to stick with in terms of defining tech, and the best target you can expect players to understand. (Ex: 'Phone: makes calls, sends text messages, sends email, sometimes has silly games or other generic utilities available on it.' 'Zapper: small hand-held self-defense device resembling a RL TV remote control that emits a brief pulse of energy at settings of warning shock, stun, injure, kill.' And so on.)

Too many folks (and by this I really mean even one of these on your game is one too many) want to pry into how the circuit board is laid out and will not for the love of all things holy ever let it go until there's some specific answer that better check out as legit engineering and... this is really just not helpful, unless they want to come up with something cool that adds to the game world in a nifty way without giving them some kind of IC advantage (Ex: 'maybe that special fuel is the stuff that's only found in the caves on my character's property in alien land!' and so on), and contribute it to the game files.

It just makes things difficult, and I really wish there was some sensible solution to it.

@thenomain Quinncode MOOs had something called @nudity if I recall correctly, which was actually about body parts and clothing more than actual nudity.

Each player object had body parts, essentially, and each of them had an option to desc that part. I think some were also grouped, so you could, say, have a 'legs' that had groin, left thigh, left shin, right thigh, right shin, and so on, but I could be misremembering that. The body part 'breakdown' was also used in combat and had stuff set up for percentage of body and so on to automatically calculate things for called shots ('hit character's right hand' vs. 'hit character') in the combat code.

Each 'area' could have a desc, all of which would be listed in some order that always seemed a little awkward to me, but it was preset and not changeable; it essentially went from head to foot with desc_head, desc_neck, etc. all the way down.

Clothing objects were actual, separate objects, and you'd set a list of what body parts they covered. When worn, the clothing desc would be shown, and the descriptions of the body parts it covered would be hidden.

@sunny Definitely. He and I have kept in touch some, since I had sent him a silly rant about TS descs that went up on the pre-forum website, and we always got along OK. (It was more silly than mean, things like 'if two dudes with descs describing their dicks as 'the biggest you have ever seen' were to stand in the same room naked, would their wangs magically just keep growing to out-do the other until they blotted out the sun? Don't do this!' and such.)

@sunny It's probably worth a mention that the original creator eventually got called on that stuff when he trolled a game for lols wayyyyyyyyyback many board incarnations ago, and he knocked that off (and started a lot more self-examination/worked toward much more self-awareness after that). More or less since then, he grew up a lot and was pretty uncomfortable even with the kinds of things that were going on on the immediately-pre-MSB WORA, from what I recall, as being pointless, counterintuitive, and damaging.

He grew up a lot faster than a lot of the people who more fully embraced being assholes for the sake of being assholes across the board or for the lols, since 'we have become our own worst enemy' became pretty glaring, and it was pretty much counter to the original intent. And that bugged him.

@faraday I get where you're coming from on the desc samples, save for one bit. Namely, the second of each pair actually contains more information. If written in the first format, the amount of information conveyed would be much, much longer -- so it's actually a shortening method rather than 'here's why I want to write a ninety-miles-long desc'.

'she has a stubborn chin' is simple, and a lot shorter and cleaner than 'she has a defined jawline, and her default resting expression gives the impression of stubbornness', which is what the first actually conveys. (The previous example, just 'she has a defined jawline', doesn't have this much info available.)

With the jewelry example, both convey that the character is wearing a lot of jewelry. The second gives a lot more subtle detail -- it's 'dumped' on, it's maybe all she's got, it probably isn't well-coordinated and doesn't match or necessarily make sense together, may appear cluttered and overdone, etc. Again, adding all of those elements to 'wearing a lot of jewelry' would expand the one quick line into multiple charmless sentences when one simple phrase with easy inferences will typically accomplish the same thing.

Hopefully that makes sense. It isn't any issue of length preference so much as trying to pack personality and characterization into the words you're using, no matter how few or many of them there are. The more wisely you use them, the fewer you tend to need.

@seraphim73 said in Character Information: Wiki or Mu*?:

@faraday I've mentioned this before, but I like my descs to say something about the character rather than just describing them. I don't always manage this, but for say... a swashbuckler, I might use more purple prose (while trying not to go overboard, because that definitely gets old fast), but a by-the-book pilot might have more of a just-the-facts description. Word choice is big for me here.

I studied costume design in college. It was, like... officially my thing. I so get this. I so get this. While it takes a bit of media-based translation... have I mentioned I so get this? Costume design's main focus isn't actually the historical bits and bobs, it's about conveying character and character traits.

You get a different impression from these, and it's directly related to character:

• she has a defined jawline

• she has a stubborn chin

• she wears a lot of jewelry

• it looks as if she's upended her entire jewelry box on herself

• she dresses like a goth, mostly in black

• she dresses like an escapee from Hot Topic Addicts Anonymous

...and so on. Each pair says the same thing in terms of a physical description, but one presents something about the character that people may be able to infer more clearly than a sterile description of appearance might, without losing the ability to visualize the character's appearance.

I kinda see the difference as being between 'you can visualize the character's appearance' and 'you can visualize the character', and I tend to think the latter is more helpful and engaging.

@thenomain Not gonna lie, I kinda love quite long scenesets sometimes. If it's a case of SSDD, it's not needed, but for unique locations or unusual events going on, they're great for not just giving folks a solid idea of what's going on at scene start, but often mood, feel, etc. as well in the way it's written.

@thenomain I will poke about the things later in the week on skype or such. There are some ideas.

I suspect that between the two of us, we could figure out a 'clean pull' for what I want this thing to be doing, which would be easier to pass along independently.

The MUX side code to do that is presently way beyond me -- since I'm working off of Glitch's function which was added to your news/+help code, which I tweaked some, which was based on Chime's... which... uh, that can probably be simplified some and might be wise to do. (For instance, I don't need the category stuff for sorting/etc., and it's likely making more work than is needed.) It works, but it's likely doing much more work than it needs to be doing, and while I can live with that, I wouldn't want to pass it along to others like that.

(There's a lot of SGP I want to rip out, too; it's at the 'start a new core' level if I try to transfer things over clean. Hence the 'nnngh, I know I should, it would be neutral tinkerbait, I need a not-serious-businesses commercial project, and... yeah, but but but augh-so-much-all-the-things and migraines.')

All the <rubs her temples> for you, @Thenomain.

I chose to set things up the way I set things up because... it's the easiest for me to do, the easiest for me to explain to others how to customize on game and on wiki, and easiest to explain to a third party if I ever pass the code along.

It requires a cut and paste of the game code to set it up and a few commands, which isn't super huge.

From there, all they have to do is set up templates on the wiki. (Not layouts. TEMPLATES. Just so that's clear.)

I'd wager more people know how to set up a wiki template -- the pinnacle of not especially hard -- than know how to set up an independent database to maintain and integrate with a wiki and a MUX.

It also doesn't require staff tinkering to add to or work from, or learning more than very basic MUX code and how to set up a proper wiki template. As in, a player could create a template and could use the same basic function to draw info, and format it as they like.

For non-tech-brained people like me, this is helpful. This is doubly helpful if I ever finish it and hand it off, because it means I can actually explain more or less what's going on.

There's some stuff with it I really want to clean/streamline, since it's cobbled together from other things that do additional things I don't need it to be doing for this setup, but really... MUX code and commands are, in the end, variable enough and non-intuitive to enough folks, particularly new folks, that 'you can do everything you need to do to get started on a web-based form like the things you're used to filling out already all the time when you order something from amazon or sign up for hulu' is something I consider helpful. Provided the basic templates and info I planned to set up with it were all they needed? Helpful to new-to-game-creation staff folks, too.

Having had to walk hundreds of characters through CG -- even very simple CG setups -- in the past 6 years or so tells me this is non-trivial.

So while it may not be tech optimal? I think it's probably user-friendly optimal compared to some other options.

All the same: So much

I am still a crazy cat lady, though, there's no denying this. Once I kill this week's migraine and the brain starts to function properly post-travel, I'll try to pull the thing up so it can be poked at.

@thenomain Remind me later and I will poke some things? I was revamping +finger as +profile and had a sampling of data that did exactly what you're describing in the test bit.

@tempest said in Character Information: Wiki or Mu*?:

I mean, until we have code where +roll strength checks your name, then checks the wiki, and pulls info from some staff-maintained database on the wiki or some shit....

That was totally possible. The +roll code just wasn't done yet. Sheet data was, however, public. But I'm big on the open sheet thing. If it can be pulled for +finger, it can be pulled for +roll.

@thenomain Don't make me grumble and tinker with things.

The setup I was looking at allowed people to enter the data on a basic web form on the wiki. It then formatted everything for them for the game wiki without having to delve into wiki code at all, and kept everything there (what data was present, how it was presented) uniform.

It then piped the same data over to the game to populate finger/etc. as needed. This kept everything up to date and consistent everywhere.

I got a lot of feedback from people who were hobby-new on BITN re: the forms being very helpful, and the on-game commands being somewhat confusing to them. Being able to pick something from a dropdown menu or fill in a text box that covered both game and wiki seemed to be the safest, 'this is almost self-explanatory, and where it isn't, a description of what to do and how to do it can be right there above that section' route.

consistency + multi-platform access + ease of use =

Don't make me go wanna look at a thing, though, I'm serious! I will wanna poke at things again, or something. And augh. Not yet.

@ixokai Forms can make it easier. 'Fill in the blanks' on an actual web form is much easier even than filling out a template. It can help, anyway. There's autofill options and such, too.

If I ever get off my ass about doing a thing again, I can share an example.

@Thenomain Close, as in... the basics were there. It was going to take a ton of work still to have it functional, but the core elements to make something simple work were present.

@tinuviel Y'all have a tendency to splash or backsplash. It can't really be helped; it's physics.

But, y'know, as a result... we'd really rather not handle the exposed portions of the seat that have somebody else's potential splash on them unless we really have to.

(Worst are the guys who don't bother raising the seat and give none fucks about splash, though. 'cause we have to sit there every time... )

The hearse in the chik-fil-a drive thru.

(Was tempted to ask: dropping off ot picking up?)

@arkandel One of the dedicated ‘wear this to dye in’ shirts began white. It reads: I knit so nobody has to die with a skull and crossbones on it.

It is so, so, so very not white any more.

Because it is still funny to me. Action figures, yay!

I am not so much with the scifi, so I’d vote #1. Since I’m not playing these days, uh, give that the null weight it deserves, though.

Most historical periods are going to involve elents of sexism, racism, and/or homophobia.

Including this one, currently, today.

I have to squint a little at the implication that choosing a historical setting — or even a harshly intolerant modern one — means the game creators somehow personally want more sexism, racism, and homophobia as essential elements of their pretendy fun times, or they’d either rewrite history as something it wasn’t, or choose some other era. This implication seems to surface a fair bit and I think it’s really pushing it on the ‘thought crime’ front in a way that’s typically one hell of a stretch.

One of the over-arching themes in Marvel re: mutants has always been ‘fear of the other’ as a proxy for racism, sexism, homophobia, xenophobia, etc. That an era when these subjects were coming strongly to the fore is not at all surprising as a setting choice, even if it’s not an era I’m interested in myself.

@tempest Weirdly enough, hulu has been pulling some previously unbeknownst to all ass-kickery of late. Both The Handmaid’s Tale and Harlots — which you’d not necessarily otherwise think to mention in the same sentence — have both been pretty impressive.