Posts made by surreality

No offense intended, but simply reading this left me feeling 'throw in the towel' exhausted.

That doesn't mean it's a bad idea at all, actually -- for some games, this could be very helpful, particularly if it only kicks in after a certain point.•

Back to the exhaustion for a moment: some people enjoy sheet maintenance, min-maxing, and any or all other forms of sheet and mechanics math. It's possible these folks would love this, too. There is also a non-trivial portion of the playerbase of any given game that does not, not for a hot second, want to have to math in their pretendy fun time games. I speak for no one but myself in saying I would enjoy this roughly as much as I enjoy doing my actual taxes, and to drive home the gravity of this statement, I say this as a self-employed artist who has to do the long form every time and has to pay up since nobody does any handy-dandy withholding for me that might mean going through all of that hassle means I get some kind of refund at the end of it.

Mechanically speaking, however, this is going to depend strongly on the system. The 'tax' would be one thing under a GMC/CoD setup with flat costs, and something entirely different in a system that uses multiplied costs such as nWoD or oWoD.

Even under GMC/CoD, you're going to end up taxing some character types more than others. One dot of <Powerstat>, for instance, will cost a player the same as one dot of Contacts (Bloggers) -- never mind the fact that these two things have nowhere near close to the same impact on the game. It'd end up making it more effective for players to pile more XP into high cost powers, rather than low cost merits. When you look at the fact that the latter are the only thing available to most minor templates, it definitely gives the minor templates the crap end of the stick even more, as their powers tend to be bought on merits -- so the thing a super could do with one dot of a discipline will be something that costs four dots to a minor template as a supernatural merit, thus costing the character who is already 'the little guy' in all other respects considerably more simply to keep what s/he has.

It's an interesting thought, and the inspiration is understandable, but I wouldn't go within a mile of a game that implemented this as described, as I don't consider it to be something that actually improves the game experience in any way, and instead penalizes certain character choices and does so unevenly -- in addition to being more math than I feel like I need in my life.

• You would be better off doing something similar to what a few other games have been described as having done -- diminish the amount 'a beat' is worth as the character's XP total gets higher, and ascribe the 'lost' XP to maintenance. That hits across the board evenly regardless of what style of character the player has chosen to create. For instance, at 60XP, a beat is now worth 0.175 instead of 0.2, at 90XP, it's worth 0.15, at 120 it's worth 0.125 -- or whatever other staggered reduction metric you prefer.

@gasket said in +wantrp Command Suggestion:

@Thenomain

Because generally +bboards are a sucking chest wound of bad introduction posts, staff putting out fire long since burned through their course, and other stuff nobody really wants to read?

(Gods help me I'm mentioning them again but) Shang actually has a bboard for this. Its timeout is something like 48 hours. This leads to a lot of things getting reposted when they idle out, but the short timeout does keep it relatively current. If whatever it is gets satisfied, people don't repost it -- but there is still something of a time window in which the problem you're describing can occur.

@Lisse24 I like this idea as an addition more than a replacement, since 'generic cattle call' is still something worthwhile (even if it isn't necessarily useful all the time).

The reason I like this one: it gives someone a chance to pitch the idea for wanting the scene or a scene suggestion. This cuts out the 'Wanna RP?' 'Sure.' 'What do you want to do?' '...uh, you asked me, I thought you had an idea... ' song and dance that can be pretty painful.

In my dream world, we could also have something like +wantRP/faction <faction>=I want to get together with members of the faction to discuss my nefarious plan to monopolize the world's supply of Cheezits or +wantRP/sphere <sphere>=I'm new to the sphere and trying to make connections, if anyone is interested in RP with a pan flute player with a raccoon fetish, please get in touch for a scene!

@Sunny There will be <semi-sekrit theme>, there will.

@Hexagon That's a possibility, sure.

I would probably avoid that specific one, however, since the notification is not IC, and that has an IC vibe to it. [Another Player] is more likely what I'd aim for if I went with that, since that is more obviously an OOC notification, for OOC information only.

I think you still have me on skype if you need to poke about wiki things. Don't hesitate to!

@Sunny I actually took a teensy tiny bit of time to try to RP. Be shocked. Also had art shows all over the place this past month. I'm back to the grindstone with it this week, though!

I'm curious about using them for a project, but I would want the kind of conformat mods mentioned and so on to avoid some OOC spying concerns. I've looked at it, but am not code-savvy enough to really have a clue.

My ideal: if your charbit can see what's going on somewhere (and you're either present or somehow scrying on that location), if you can be seen IC, all's normal; if you can see what's going on somewhere and can't be seen IC, your name appears in brackets. Until I can figure out if that's possible and get it done if it is, I'm not planning to use it.

Yes, people change their behavior when they're observed. But also, yes, some people do some seriously shady things if they think they can observe others wherever and whenever and never be made known that are less about IC character goals and more about being horrible/creepy/stalky/paranoid people. I see it as a compromise.

I'm still looking at 'play-by-wiki' options for a project, but it's a ways out (and I'm more or less on break from dev work). It'll be a MUX, but that option will be there, in part for exactly the 'RL doesn't let me get online often lately' reasons (also finishing paused stuff, plot followups people would prefer to RP through rather than just put in a job, etc. etc. etc.).

@Kestrel said in Borrowing ideas — at what point does it become theft?:

Side note, I'm surprised to learn that that dream/nightmare RP of the style I described in the OP is apparently something people considered generic. I haven't encountered it in other games, but I suspect that I inhabit a different subset of the hobby to most of the posters on MSB. (e.g., I have never played a WoD-based anything.)

WoD (and I think a lot of modern horror settings) have dream-related powers to do this. I know the one I've been picking at for ages does; the game I ran on a stripped down version of the setting and mechanics way back was actually set in that reality's 'dream world', just in a particularly stabilized pocket thereof, where crazy things could happen.

One of the pairs of world-canon characters from that setting -- now I'm getting all wistful -- were millenia-old servants of some of the world's gods, of a sort. They were in direct opposition, and one of them finally managed to confine the other to the extent that, with hundreds of years of isolation, the confined one learned enough dream magic to leap into the head of his jailer with the intent of messing with her until she was too broken to keep up with the terms of his confinement, offed herself somehow, or just gave up. Didn't work. Too quickly, though she had no idea who 'that person in the dreams' was (having forgotten his actual face forever ago), they actually started to understand each other too damned well, decided they didn't want to do this dance any more, and yet, couldn't abandon their roles, either; they were unalterably locked into those until one of the gods was dead or the gods themselves were rendered irrelevant. (At which point, they actively worked together toward the latter end, aggressively, because 'Can we be done already?')

It's definitely out there, and definitely being done lots of places. If they had special code to enable it, that might be unique to them -- we just had, well, the grid. We would have needed special rooms for the real world, for instance, rather than a dreamspace. I've seen temprooms used a lot for dreams, however, over the past few years -- so it does happen.

I think it depends on what you're borrowing, ultimately.

The kinds of ideas you're describing? I think the vast majority of the hobby loves to see a good idea spread further -- and a lot of people post code, systems, policies, etc. to be openly shared or used by whoever wishes to make use of it. There's also the obvious advice: if you want to use a concept in use on a specific game, ask the staff there if they mind. I know everything I have up in dev I am more than happy to let anyone grab and use with my blessing and best wishes -- and most games I've seen go up lately are precisely the same way about their OOC content (house rules, policies, code).

I know I credit everything I've borrowed, and I ask -- even people I've been told I need not bother asking or crediting (again, because I ask every time anyway) I still ask and still credit. While most folks won't ask for credit -- I don't, and don't know anyone who does -- I like to include the credit anyway.

It's the IC content that I think gives people pause re: borrowing. Using a code framework, or a game system, or an effective house rule for an existing system, or a policy file, or a wiki thing, etc. is one thing -- it's OOC content. While there's creativity required, it's not the same animal as a setting, a character, a unique custom faction, etc. that is a part of that other world's unique story. Folks are (understandably, I'd think) less forgiving there.

I wouldn't even call the 'dream RP' example 'less innocent' -- or even an idea unique to Haven, unless they had a very specific sort of setup to bolster it. (I had a game in the early '00s that had this as a central theme, for instance, and I wasn't alone in that at the time.) Most games I've been on over the years have had characters roleplaying dreams/etc. to some extent or another; I've seen STs send out dreams as prequels to plots, and so on, as well.

Now, if they have, for instance, a specific faction that can go into someone's dreams and tinker with a set of uniquely written powers and history and so on, and you copy that verbatim (or even just with the serial numbers filed off), that gets much less innocent, yeah, as it's not just using the general idea of 'I'd like to promote the idea of people being allowed to play impossible or absurd things in a dreamscape as an option for the playerbase because it can be a lot of fun', but part of that world's unique story.

Not entirely sure if the difference is clear, as it's 7am and I'm on the wrong end of it and out of coffee, but hopefully that distinction makes sense.

@ArmedCarp Their everything is dirty. The wallpaper is extra special like that to a degree that bothers me on some level (though it's a neat look).

The mirror thing isn't too unrealistic, though -- they're actually pretty dead on with that quirk. They didn't have the kinds of materials we do to make or seal them against degrading; they wouldn't get even remotely close for another 100 years or so. Typically, they would essentially rust out or tarnish, especially in hot, humid climates, and would need to be recoated/restored/etc. with some frequency.

(Font of useless knowledge, I know; every art project fills my head with some other bit of trivia I will really never, ever need again.)

I don't have an answer here, but have an interest in the answer, so seconding the request for info if nothing else.

@Arkandel See if you can get in touch with the players and check. If they're not available, schedule a related 'prequel' scene for it tomorrow? You may end up getting more people then interested in the one you already have on the books for next week, too.

Definitely have a notion about where they actually are -- or aren't -- but that strikes me as being a bit obvious, kinda. (I don't read any online discussions of shows I like unless someone links something specific, mostly because... well, see fandom thread.)

Thus far, I'm quite impressed. It has been delivering on its promises pretty damned well!

@Arkandel said in Shadows Over Reno:

@mietze See, Reno's situation reminds me a bit of Vampire@HM - it was kinda like that. Very little staff intervention but a good cast of characters spread out across at least a couple of Covenants... and once people realized that yes, there was nothing governing their steps or hand-feeding them roleplay but there was also nothing in the way of doing with the sphere as they bloody well liked, they took over. The results were great.

That was the intent with 1.0, too, and it was working well enough until RfK closed, at which point the very word 'sandbox' became a pointed insult, and a large percentage of the folks who had been around a while puttering along and enjoying what you're describing above got driven out by a shit-ton of negativity and insistence that everything change to fit the new crowd and what they had been accustomed to elsewhere.

When attempts to do something like that happened, the IC power split was spread around to both camps, but it felt artificial, awkward, and was generally full of head-scratch-inspiring bullshit -- the usual cronyism, gossip games, back-stabbery, and so on. (I mean the OOC kind, not the IC kind.)

Being very much a fan of the kind of environment @Arkandel is describing, provided it has enough reasonable oversight to prevent the kind of stifling roadblocks that @Miss-Demeanor is describing, well, I hope it will happen this time without a repeat of the last go 'round.

@tragedyjones had a season plot for vamp at one point; all but the smallest handful of people completely ignored it. Weresphere actually had a metaplot; see above, wash, rinse, repeat. Entirely unintentionally, they linked up in a way that was pretty neat, too, and that caused some cool tensions and conflicts, as a lingering thing from the few scenes run regarding each. TJ ran a few, Hazard ran a few, I ran one for TJ's and a handful for mine. Some were +events, a number of them were pickup scenes, because since the place was relatively small, folks were happy to either run stuff for each other when asked, or with fairly minimal scheduling.

I'd like to see that happen somewhere, frankly, because that's a good vibe. It'll be a while before I'm off my ass enough to get anything done myself, so hopefully Reno will get there.

@Miss-Demeanor said in Shadows Over Reno:

Its like Reno is cursed.

^ This.

It is a game with so much potential. It really is. And the people who have genuinely done their damnedest to make it work really have tried their best, going all the way back to the very beginning of Reno1.

I know @Cobaltasaurus had horribad luck during Reno1, @tragedyjones was in the same position at various times, Pinball had an endless series of things exploding all over his RL, Triad absolutely had hell on earth going on RL-side, and I came within $14 of bankruptcy two days before Reno1 was handed off to me, @Cobaltasaurus, and Triad way back when.

And that shit was just round ONE for that MUX.

Wendigo and the current crew seem to be having exactly the same luck, and having been there, I genuinely feel for them.

@silentsophia Our fluffdork cat is like that. We have taught her to headbonk-fistbump at this point, she's so down with the headbonk. Since she is more or less the Disney Princess of Cats, and is a fluffy doof, it is painfully d'aww-melt-worthy when we're all, "Tesla, fistbump!" and she headbonks knuckles with a squeaky little merry trill.

Cats can be taught. Not to necessarily do anything useful, but they can be taught.

@WTFE That really does about sum it up. If I could upvote that shit a dozen more times, I would.

@Miss-Demeanor Dammit.

OH GOD I CAN NEVER WATCH MY FAVORITE CHEESEBALL ROMANTIC COMEDY AGAIN NOW, EVER.

...the further we get into 2016, the more I become convinced we're all living in fuckin' Flashpoint. <GrumpyCat face>