Posts made by surreality

@deadculture said in Fading Suns 2017:

Say what you mean, or don't.

Pretty sure I did precisely that.

That it failed to pass the comprehension check is as entertaining as it was predictable.

And, as usual, the urge to bash people overcomes reading comprehension to the extent it makes a complete fool of people.

I guess some things never change.

@Lithium The security issue is pretty easily handled. It isn't hard to lock down certain critical namespaces to prevent tampering. Sheets are definitely one of those things -- but even so, wiki provides a public, easily accessible record of who changed what and when. Tampering to cheat is going to be glaringly obvious to the whole internet (players and staff and everyone on this forum) because of the internal record-keeping automatically kept by the wiki in each page's changelog. That alone is going to be a huge deterrent, and it's something we don't have now.

I'm not interested in running a WoD game, nor am I. Or PvP games, on the whole. (I planned to try it on a WoD game until I got too fed up with WoD, however.)

That gets to the core of one issue, however, at least, that does rely on the trust issue: player to player, and player to staff.

We've seen the attitude grow that when staff is the only group with access to this info, staff cannot be trusted to play on the game at all, let alone privately -- and we saw that attitude spread intensely. It is simply assumed that since staff has this information, they are going to use it to cheat.

You want trust, you have to extend it, too. Collaborative environments are hamstrung without that (and also without smacking people upside the head when they do something crappy, no matter who they are). People use the wiki information currently more often to

Issue: The Trust Gap.

Reasoning behind this one is obvious enough, and plenty of it is actually reasonable: there are people who gleefully and cheerfully abuse the hell out of any power they have.

This could be IC or OOC power, since you see it in the form of people stat-bullying or exploiting a position in cheaty or shady ways (Jeurg and his 'and none shall pass without the TS!' approach being a good example here) in cases of IC power, but really, I'm interested in the OOC angle more than that for the moment.

One of the things I've focused on as a means of attempting to minimize the problems that come from this is to reduce the amount of power that rests in the hands of staff alone, spreading both ability and information to players that are (most typically) staff-only.

The wiki-based general setup goes part way to making this essential, since privacy levels are somewhat problematic. Generally, all information on the wiki is and will be public. Instead of worrying about that, I'm interested in looking at it like a feature rather than a bug. Open sheet, open background, etc. That's a whole lot of power no longer resting in staff's hands alone, and a lot more information open to all -- including who has adjusted that information, and when, as a default feature of mediawiki. (Edit protection is a lot easier than read protection, and is relevant for things like sheets.)

The ability to edit things in game (or add things to the game) has been covered somewhat, but aside from being able to add things to a room desc on a grid, what things like this would (generic) you like to see along these lines?

Further, do you think this diminishes the power disparity in terms of players/staff in a productive way?

Do you think that sort of reduction helps, or that it still really just won't make any difference in reducing the trust gap?

@WTFE said in Identifying Major Issues:

I'm sorry if you think finding "staff über alles" and "all PrPs and nothing but PrPs" being both equally problematical is an issue.

The problem is, no one has suggested, let alone said, either of these things are ideal.

You have an issue. People responded to say, "Yeah, we should do that," and instead of realizing, "Oh, hey, maybe these people are listening, cool, that will be an improvement if people get on that, do it!" you chose to find different reasons to just keep on bitching and being negative and shitting all over people. Example, @Rook, who agreed with your idea, you seemed to see fit to attack just because you don't like the kind of game s/he (sorry, don't know which!) picked (WoD), despite their support for using that idea and thinking it needs to be more available.

Then you just bash @Derp for 'probably being an American' -- while you're the only one thinking of absolutes, by insisting everyone else is thinking of them, when they're not. That's in your head, not on the screen. You're at the point of making a fool of yourself. Seriously? Take the condescending attitude and scrambled-for justifications to just keep being a dick to people for no damn reason to a different thread; this one is meant to be productive and constructive and while 'OP doesn't get a say', I sure as fuck am going to speak my mind on this point because I'm tired of people's grudgewank-filled sandy vag whining, and inability to see how inappropriate their bullshit behavior is, fucking up otherwise useful dialogue.

@Derp To some extent, some of that was handled right out of the gate. For visuals, you can cover a lot of this with wiki templates and forms, and organizing your headers and so on to be uniform MUX-side. The forms and so on are handy to lock down a consistent presentation, and allow for some fairly fancy and precisely organized presentation without any need to ever so much as look at the page code.

In my case, the game could pull data from a wiki template, thanks to @Thenomain's news/+help code and @Glitch being a saint to fine-grain it to pluck one template variable; this meant things like filling out the infobox on your character page on the wiki (which wasn't the raw code, but just filled out through data entry on a form, so it was easier to not break and keep consistent) could populate +finger and other commands on the game, so some of the basic, uniform data could be stored on the pages, and both the game and the wiki essentially had templates (in the wiki's case, actual templates and lists, on the MUX, code designed to read that data) that kept it tidy and uniform in structure and presentation from item to item of any given type. (Don't get me wrong, this is a process of doom and it was taking forever, but it felt worthwhile.)

The rest really is a matter of identifying which things you want to have open to additions, and write up something fairly straightforward to explain what is and isn't within bounds (within reason; you can't list everything in the world that is or isn't, so there will always be some judgement calls). WoD has a fairly straightforward example of this in their Mystery Cult writeup, and the build guidelines for most games handle this nicely.

People access to the form, if it's form-based content, to fill out (which will automatically populate the data to the game and throughout the wiki) or set up the build/specific object they're looking for MUX-side/etc.

@HelloProject Honestly, I think a guideline doc like that, while it takes a lot of work to develop, is a huge help later down the line.

I know I wanted to do a lot of 'contribute content' things; each of those would need its own basic design guidelines and a walkthrough to help people see the easiest/best way to make sure it worked, was within reasonable power ranges, etc. etc. depending on what it was, along with any relevant best practices.

The closest we seem to see to something like this as a common thing in terms of most games is the build guidelines, if there are any. I'd say the majority of games have them, at least in my experience. Usually there's a walkthrough, the basic essentials, and a rough style guide.

Just having that sort of resource available for all kinds of content someone could contribute (NPCs, creatures, magic items, new powers, whatever) would go a long way to enabling people to add things to the game that fit in nicely without breaking all the things.

@HelloProject said in Identifying Major Issues:

Writers generally focus on, well, plot and all that, writing stuff. Coders generally focus on efficiency and just making things work, but for a coder, what "works" can be far removed from what non-coders think works. In our hobby, there is very little emphasis on ease of use, the end user experience overall, and there is especially no real emphasis on how presentation and common sense policy can impact that.

This kinda fits in with something I keep trying to find a good way to explain, as it pertains to the various systems in place on any game. There's the RPG system, but there's also the setting (which contains cause and effect chains and systems), there's code, there's staff policy, and there's game policy, and each thing is a system in it's own right. Ideally, they all come together to form one cohesive game, but each of those unique systems needs to support, reinforce, and simplify (rather than contradict or complicate) the others.

Part of that 'let's put on a show' approach results in something of a potluck effect; each group has their thing they're doing and they're doing it in their way. It's possible to get good results with intensive communication and willingness to collaborate•, but more typically you end up with systems that don't all work as seamlessly in combination as they ultimately could.

@tragedyjones is good on the design front, for instance. He doesn't do a lot of the leg work, but he does get a team together and gets them working together, with some clearly defined goals. He's one of the few I've seen really pull this off. I get the impression that the folks running Fallen World and Fate's Harvest are likely in the same boat(ish) though I haven't played there to know directly.

Arx is a good example of 'build from scratch to fit a cohesive idea', though again, I haven't played there to know how well that consistency of purpose works in practice. I get the impression @Ganymede's project is the same way.

Intentional design is something that I do think we need to collectively be paying more attention to.

@WTFE You just had someone tell you they were planning to add precisely this to the default room code to be used freely and are still bitching and whining.

Dude, I love you, but you are your own worst enemy right now, and are bitching for the sake of 'still not good enough' bitching. In the process, you're alienating the shit out of the creators who are generally interested in ideas like this in the first place by shitting all over their faces while they are telling you that they were or are interested in providing exactly what you were asking for.

You can even go over to the code forum and see how far back I asked about this re: temprooms; same code was going on to the stock room parent to allow for public-added addendums as needed, on the fly.

If you'd rather flail around frothing, s'all good, but it's counterproductive and I have zero qualms calling that shit out when I know somebody's generally better than that.

@WTFE What you are describing is fairly trivial to add, and I've seen it on games before. It was certainly in the stuff I was working on.

@ThatGuyThere In my dream world -- maybe pipe dream world -- there would be a very very short list of things players would ever even have to ask about. They could just go run most things without even having to check in at all. Clearly defining what kinds of things somebody can do without anything more than finding other players interested enough to RP that thing and have fun with it is necessary, but I'm very firmly behind that being possible, and covering a fairly broad range of subjects with precious few exceptions.

Those exceptions -- though people will define them specifically for any given game based on its themes, obviously -- tend to fall into a fairly predictable pattern: stay in theme/setting (no space monkeys attacking in a universe without space monkey attacks), don't do something that would destroy another player's toys (builds, NPCs) without permission or their presence or participation, don't go for something that involves a massive change to the game's setting (a large scale invasion from an enemy nation, destroying an entire game-run faction thus removing a planned-for niche for players to be able to enjoy, nuking half the grid... ), and don't do stuff to gain improper benefits for yourself/your own PCs (running a plot for yourself to seize power from an NPC where you're also running the NPC... ).

I mean, really, that's about it, and it generally boils down to 'don't cheat, and don't completely break the toys everybody is supposed to be able to enjoy and share'. It's playground rules, in the end.

I have to second @faraday here.

I know my goal was to run two things a week, as staff: one thing related to the season plot for the game, and one random thing. (Could be a battle, could be a cocktail party, ideal being a scene open to anyone on the game 'general interest' kind of scene.)

That was a personal goal. That's nowhere near enough to keep people busy all week. It's a handful of hours of 'things to do'. If people don't want to make use of what's available to them in the time other than that, well, blood from a stone after a point. Only so many hours in the day, and staffing involves a lot more than running scenes.

The alternative is 'wait on staff to run one of those two things per week, and hope it appeals to you'.

Your choice.

Nobody's going to hold a gun to your head to demand you make fun for others, but if you're not willing or interested in ever doing that, I think you lose some of your right to bitch about the people who do choose to spend their free fun time that way for the benefit of others not doing enough for your personal tastes. (Which is, in a nutshell, the definition of entitlement: giving nothing yourself, and expecting to be given everything for just showing up.)

I'm grateful for good, easy to use tools that let me do my thing without what @Thenomain quite aptly described as 'sticking my hand in the blender of bureaucracy'.

@Ghost said in CofD and Professional Training:

But, still, isnt the existence of 9/again, 8/again, rote in the Supernatural creatures usually related to their supernatural age/power?

Then explain how anyone can get it from using a shotgun.

In other words, no, there is no indication that the mechanic is meant to be used exclusively or even primarily as a demonstration of supernatural ability.

@Thenomain Patchwork person, clearly, built to order as a sexbot. Totally has to be the thing.

@ThatGuyThere Yeah. It's also easy enough to resolve by dropping the beat, but there are enough other, lesser things that grant beats per the system as it is that no one seems to have any issue with.

As it stands, other than equipment bonus stuff, it's the only real way for a lot of skills to have 9/again-rote access. Most of the equipment things are, naturally, weapons, which limits the applicable skills, and as a result, further corrals concepts into the combat build arena.

@Arkandel said in Identifying Major Issues:

How do you actually have a proper brainstorming conversation which stays on topic and which yields some interesting ideas that can maturate into actual systems?

We saw how this went when I tried it, so... yeah.

Some of the problems there, though, are things I did observe in that thread (and many others about game-building):

• The Wish List Dogpile: The personal thing <player> wants everywhere is how this all must be, the end. It doesn't matter if it doesn't fit the theme, system, or intended community environment, it doesn't matter if it's the absolute antithesis of the game someone is trying to create, it won't get dropped and becomes an enormous derail. People creating games are, yes, offering you a chance to roleplay out certain fantasy scenarios within the scope of the game world they're making. That latter part is relevant, because no place is an appropriate home for every idea or every fantasy scenario or wish list item and people need to get better about respecting that on the whole. There are different ways to attempt to enforce this -- world-building-wise (Arx is a good example of this) or policy-wise (many WoD games with restricted subject lists are a good example of this), and many places use a combination of both to a greater or lesser degree -- and instead of arguing about it, there's a point at which it's a case of suck it up and deal. I don't agree with the levels of contortions Arx is going through to avoid prostitute characters on grid in terms of justification in part because I think it's entirely within their rights to simply say: sure, it exists in the world <in this form that is very different from the modern real world>, but we don't want it on screen, and we don't want prostitute PCs. And I think people should leave it the hell alone at that point.

• The Jaded Chicken Little: Seen it all, nothing works, everything's doomed. Acts like they know what you're doing more than you do and flails on that front instead of addressing anything that resembles reality. Yeah, these people can frankly just fuck themselves; there's nothing useful you're going to learn from them other than 'avoid that person, they have less than zero objectivity, and cannot perceive basic solid facts'. All you can learn is that they don't learn, aren't interested in learning anything, and these people are fine to write off as a loss in terms of productive contribution.

• The Racers: Why isn't it done yet? @Ganymede nails it: good things take time to properly develop. It is not going to happen yesterday, or in a week, and rushing through results in a product that doesn't have much of a chance of surviving in the long term. If you don't care about that, game on. If you do, you still have the frustration of investing time with no rewards over a long timeline, and that in itself can become incredibly discouraging and frustrating.

Ideas are a dime a dozen. That's the easy part. Turning them into games is fucking hard work and there's almost nothing out there - other than on a purely technical level (that does exist, courtesy of many hard-working folk) - that can help make cool new games a reality.

This is less true than you might think. Pipe dreams are a dime a dozen. Cohesive ideas are not. Not even every cohesive idea is going to work, but ideas that aren't are already playing catch-up and planting the seeds for inevitable problems down the line. Maybe some people have means and ideas for handling those, but most don't, because the 'make it cohesive' step is entirely ignored and as a result, the problems that come from internally inconsistent themes/settings/systems are not something they're necessarily preparing for or aware are coming; this leaves them ill-prepared on a variety of fronts when it comes to handling the matter in a productive or efficient way.

Everything needs to work together: themes, settings, policy, code. This isn't just work, it's an extraordinary amount of planning and intentional design before a single word of IC/OOC support data or line of code is written.

People have long made a habit of approaching games as either the grudgewank described various places around the forum, or as the equivalent of the old Judy Garland/Andy Rooney musicals: "Hey guys, let's put on a show in the barn to save Uncle Tommy's farm! The whole town will come!" There's a reason that approach is charming in feel-good Hallmark Channel fiction, but it's grossly divorced from reality, as any actual theater geek can tell you. Even high school theater on a shoestring budget has more planning and development than that.

@ThatGuyThere You'd get, at most... 2.8xp? Which is only if you started with all your asset skills at 0 and then bought them up from there -- which is completely counterintuitive to the idea behind PT. TR (and I think FC) using the nWoD PT discounts allowed those discounts to apply in CG; I haven't seen the beat gain thing do the same on any CoD game (and don't think it should).

If there is a HR required here in some fashion, I would suggest it be something like 'must begin with at least a 2-3 in your two initial asset skills' to indicate that you are, actually, a professional in those areas on approval. Otherwise, it makes no sense to call yourself a professional in those skills in the first place, because you're not.

@Ghost said in CofD and Professional Training:
You aren't looking at CoD PT, you're looking at nWoD PT, and moreover, you seem to be looking at some of the old HR variants of PT from what I can tell.

nWoD is the one with the discounts. CoD doesn't have that. You get a free skill dot at a certain level, and you get some specs. You do not get a purchase discount and all skill dots are 2xp flat cost without xRating coming into any of it at all.

You also can't buy 5 dots of one type of contact; this is the reason most games make Contacts a 1 dot merit only and allow people to buy multiple instances of it for different types of contacts. It is not like Allies, Status, etc. that allows multiple levels to be purchased in one type of <thing>.

You are railing against something that doesn't exist in the way you describe in CoD at all.

In CoD, you get what @Killer-Klown describes.

(Sorta an example, I guess.)

Issue: unspoken social norms.

Most games have them: the things you just don't do because we all know they're foul play, or generally inappropriate. It's generally because we were told at some point a million years ago, or just never thought to do it in the first place.

TR's old 'barging' rule is a good example of this one to me (though it wasn't unspoken, it was part of game policy). This is something we are all generally familiar with in the category of 'things you shouldn't have to tell people' on many games -- but others have coded locks and heavily coded environments where you can pick locks/etc. via the code and gain access to a space IC.

It becomes a lot muddier at that point: which thing is the 'norm'? Answer: depends on the game, but people coming from either general environment is going to likely be surprised the first time they run into the opposite social norm.

I think we need to be clearer about these things however and whenever possible. (Sometimes, this is going to require an explanation, especially if the understanding of the 'why' behind the norm is not immediately obvious, or if there are different standards in otherwise similar game environments.)

Why it's important: unspoken rules are a pretty big hurdle for newcomers to the hobby, or even folks transitioning to a new game environment. (Look at all the people who are MUX players here who relate to absolutely everything in WoD terms by default for a parallel example of the potential pitfalls to this 'default assumption' thinking when discussing any policy or practice or system for any kind of game.) There are plenty of roleplayers on the internet, but every community of them has their own norms. Making them more readily learned, understood, and accessible is something that, I feel, can help players who are old hats at roleplay but may be new to M* to adapt quickly and avoid potential pitfalls that might cause them to be ostracized otherwise (with the assumption that 'how do you not realize <unspoken thing>!').

This isn't about how to spot things as staff.

It's a general question to people involved in the hobby presently:

• What do you consider to be a major issue in the hobby as it exists today?
• Why do you think it's an issue?
• Do you have any ideas that you think would help resolve it?