@skew OMG, Thank you. That graphic is beautiful -- but I have no idea what screen size people are using to think that it even remotely worked full size on the main page. I have a 27inch monitor, but I do not want to fill the whole thing with any one web page to make it possible to read it!
I'm not going to weigh in on what brought it up, but I will say: I do think @Misadventure asks a fair question.
Plenty of people think I'm a horrible evil bitch, for instance, when I genuinely think I'm doing the right thing. Sometimes, they're the kind of people who just don't like being called out on shady bullshit or just don't like being told 'no', but other times, I am absolutely wrong, and am just bull-headed.
Happened with a friend the other day, in fact. An issue arose, and while I recognized it and took it seriously? I immediately dove into Optimist Problem Solver Girl mode to try to make it right, because I did feel bad about what happened, and wanted to see what I could do that could help make ammends.
This is not any sort of bad intention, but it kinda actually skips the I'm really sorry, though I didn't know that would upset you, I did upset you, that is not cool for me to do; thank you for being honest with me and letting me know so I can do my best to ensure I don't do something like that again part, which is pretty fucking important.
...my state. Especially my county.
Yup, had to go in for jury duty. And am typing from there. Because our county has... a cyber cafe in its jury lounge. There were so few of us called in today, most of the computers have been totally unused all morning.
@Arkandel Email to request is what I hope will work. Sure, people can game that system with alternate email addresses -- but email for first, request second/third/whatevs from an existing alt seems the best way to go.
Realistically, people are going to need (yes, need) a wiki login for the structure of the places I'm working on, so they're going to need to send in an email to somewhere, eventually, anyway.
Can even be all done in one step that way if they ask for both names desired in said email (if they aren't the same), which saves some time for everyone.
@saosmash I approve of this SO HARD, you have no idea. That made me grin when one was much needed. 
@Auspice Same. I've only even gotten called in to the courtroom for a review once, and they picked everybody before they got to me.
...I think the green hair may officially make me a nope, because 'guys, a chick with green hair helped decide this' is probably grounds for something.
@saosmash It doesn't really bug me. The only time I've even had to call in to reschedule was a time that was 'erm, I have a show setup that day, it is one of my TWO weekday workdays of the whole year, can I please go in the next round?' and they had zero issue with it. I just sit and doodle or read a book or something, which is kinda welcome 'cause I'm usually working on ten things at once and running around like a chicken with its head cut off, so it's... well, sorta... enforced 'stop that' time. (Seriously, that and soaking in the tub are all the reading time I get these days.)
@saosmash I normally have zero issue with it, like, I don't even mind going... but I know I am not in the mental state for it right now and it would not be fair to people. 
So...
Nightmares so over the top I've maybe had about 20 hours of sleep for the entire week, total.
Huge ongoing stress mess with one of my dearest friends that has me equally mad at them (for a pretty solid fucking reason) and thrice as mad at myself 'cause I know they don't need the fucking stress right now.
Jewelry/art/craft show this weekend; apparently half our displays broke in storage -- and I'd planned new ones but was told 'WHAT WE HAVE IS GOOD ENOUGH SO NO!!!!!' -- so we get to improv shit on the fly at setup tomorrow, some of the actual STOCK is just poof gone, and did I mention I'm an art hermit and I make the things and just let my mother sell it all with her stuff for a cut because I am the worst at people when I have to try to convince someone to buy anything?
Customer: "Oh, wow, this is lovely!"
Me: "Thank you, though anybody could do it, really, it's pretty simple... " <fighting urge to crawl under the table>
(I have a real problem with this. It does not matter how many things I've won awards in or had real actual competent recognized authorities in their design fields tell me are awesome or whatever, I know for a damn fact there is not a single thing I do/make that anybody else could not also do if they took the time to practice/were willing to do the work, which is, frankly, the reality here. I just take it to the extreme of feeling super fucking uncomfortable about people gushing about something because... I know that reality, that reality is 'what I'm doing is not a big fucking deal and is just a matter of investing the time and paying attention to details' and it feels fundamentally weird and on-the-spot-putting. My brain's pretty fucked like that.)
...or...
Customer: "What do you MEAN this is $100? I mean I realize it's silver and semiprecious stones but my second cousin's sister in law makes shit so just tell me how you did it step by step and I'll have her make one for me cheaper!"
My husband: <wishing he brought a leash so he could yank me back over the table just in case the murder urge manifests in the form of crazy eyes and he's afraid I'm going to lunge across the table like a rabid tiger>
...or...
Customer: "I bought a $5 pair of earrings from you ten years ago, why won't you give me this $250 necklace for the same price?"
Me: <always speechless at this, really, we're talking confused puppy head tilt and wondering if that's what actually came out of some bitch's mouth>
My husband: "Because that's not a $5 pair of earrings, but we'll happily consider giving you a $5 discount, so you will have effectively gotten your earrings for free!"
(I would fucking die without that man, truly. And this is the kind of thing we get asked every fucking show.)
This show never brings in money because it frankly sucks.
...and I have jury duty on Monday. If the weekend goes as predicted, at least I know I won't get selected since nobody wants the girl crying for seemingly no goddamned reason deciding anybody's fate, and I know full damn well I am not in the frame of mind to be doing that right now, but 'it would be grossly irresponsible for you to ask me to do this, my brain has been broken by the events of the past two months and I am not in a rational frame of mind' actually isn't something that will disqualify someone, which deeply terrifies me. 
Edit:
6. And my mother called, and here I am expecting it's to tell me to come down to work on stuff since she's home from choir. She is bawling, because a friend of hers from choir was in a lethal hit-and-run while he was walking to the church for choir practice. I... am already in family-comforter-for-the-foreseeable-future mode and... just, goddamn, universe.
2016 can seriously suck a bag of rancid eels.
@skew said in Tracking Alts on Dynamic IPs:
I'm also on another game that is invite-only. To create a character, you need to submit a request to staff, basically saying who you are. That's checked against the invite list. If you're in, you're in! Once in, you can use a command to create new characters for yourself, that are tied to your first character. Super easy!
This is what I'd suggest as well. Not necessarily the invite only part -- that could be handled a few ways (invite, email for first login, etc.) -- but the request from existing login thing.
Someone could arguably request a second login from email, but I ended up building in perks that make that less appealing unless someone's really desperate to hide, in which case they're likely to take other steps as well to obscure themselves.
Dreaded double post: It's worth mention that I don't think the game Bobotron is making is not a WoD game. It's a game with vampires, but I don't think it's a WoD game.
So it may be counterproductive to discussion to work from the assumption that all games are WoD/using that system/etc. as has been coming up rather a lot, and that that system is the only one that's being considered -- or is even the one being considered at all.
@Ganymede said in Social Conflict via Stats:
@Groth said in Social Conflict via Stats:
But what does "charmed" mean? We have a system that tells us, mechanically, what our advantages and disadvantages are, but nothing -- NOTHING -- requires the player to perform in a certain way. An actor in a play can portray and express the lines of a scene in many ways, and demonstrate the same general emotion -- but how they do it is, for the most part, between them and the director.
I think this is where the issue is, actually.
If the director is an ST/impartial third party, s'all good.
If the other actor in the scene demands to be the director, micromanaging every nuance of a pose -- and I have seen buckets of this -- you have a problem, and it's not unreasonable to have some objections there.
@Kanye-Qwest ...that would be a lot of inches. o.o
@Thenomain said in Social Conflict via Stats:
@surreality said in Social Conflict via Stats:
Has anybody truly changed their minds about it?
Over time, Wora/Swofa/Wora/Soapbox and discussions with people I know has changed my mind on quite a lot. Most people may treat these forums like a donkey show, but without positive feedback we don't know how many people have acted and tested changes.
^ This. This is why I keep wanting to attempt wacky shit and new systems. I've been increasingly frustrated with how little trying there is compared to how much arguing -- and often how the arguing can delay the trying or shut it down, or that people won't in return try the thing that's being tried.
That's where this forum falls flat. It's easy to state your opinion, but after a point that opinion needs tested or it exists in a vacuum (your own head). Worse, sometimes these forums reenforce the "my beliefs or nothing" mentality that a lot of Americans share. Not a fault of these forums, but of the people on them.
Disbelieving that anyone could possibly come to a different conclusion through discussion is, IMO, a small part of reenforcing this.
Or in Surreality Terms: It depends.
It depends on how you take it. I know this is way off topic, but the assertion that things are impossible because "nobody has ever changed their mind because of Wora" is a false one.
Definitely agreed. It's what I mean by 'we give by inches' -- there are changes, but they are incremental. There's no 'one argument and someone's whole world turns upside-down'.
In physical conflict, we all share the same basic context: One human body is vaguely like another. Without a system to decide how one human psyche is pretty much like another, coming up with a social conflict system that we can agree on will be not be a debate, but an endless chamber of Rapid Development.
This is kinda what I'm getting at in terms of 'a more comprehensive system' with notes on intimidation factor on weapons, how much someone understands or can process an opponent's capacity, etc.
As for some of the examples you mention, something like the 'triggers' setup for WtF2 isn't a bad idea: pick X# 'weaknesses', and X# 'resistance builders' (with better names) to represent things like has a weakness for 'brunettes' or resistance to 'very religious' people and so on. The list of options (while it would doubtless be LONG), could pretty easily be the same list people pick from for both categories.
@Arkandel said in Social Conflict via Stats:
In social interactions not so much! You can absolutely have debates where it's utterly impossible to change the other person's mind... and if anyone has doubts about this, read this MSB thread.
Read almost any thread.
I had to laugh, 'cause this is the best example ever.
Has anybody truly changed their minds about it? We give by inches, but the general premises we find to be the core problems don't tend to budge much.
@Arkandel If I could upvote that a zillion times, I would.
We have a system to buy physical equipment for bonuses, for instance -- armor. It gives us a bonus to resist physical damage.
We do not have a comparable system for social modifiers -- though the same one can 'buy' you positive modifiers (nice clothes, flashy money, though it offers almost nothing for social defenses).
You'd need a much more sprawling system than most things designed for tabletop to really account for some of it properly.
For instance:
This is a really loose example, but you can probably see what I'm getting at: it requires a somewhat more expansive setup than the kinds of systems we're usually working with, in which things like, say, a weapon's damage rating and durability also now have an intimidation rating and so on.
@Coin said in Social Conflict via Stats:
My only response to that is that two people who can't agree on what method would and wouldn't work are two people who really shouldn't be playing that together, which goes back to my earlier point. Everything I said is just as valid with "method" instead of "outcome".
Definitely.
I have no patience for the kind of person who says they can never be convinced, never be disbelieved, never be lied to, never be intimidated, etc. That is simply bullshit.
I do believe, like the glitter example, that if someone has the stats to <insert one of those things above> someone else, yes, that outcome absolutely needs to be respected.
It doesn't completely strip the target player of their character's real traits, however, and should not.
Just like a high brawl score doesn't make 'blow glitter at someone' a successful means of delimbing, no matter how much the delimber may want it to be the method, a high persuasion score doesn't necessarily mean <method of choice> is going to plausibly work, either.
The stats need to be respected by the target.
The method needs to be respected by the enactor.
Y'all are totally missing what I'm saying here. By a mile.
I am not, in any way, saying, "You can't do that."
I am saying: when we look at a physical confrontation, people have an innate understanding that the desired outcome (delimbing, per the example), requires a plausible means of removing that limb, and no one would insist, without some manner of special power or other magical effect, that you can slice off someone's arm by blowing glitter in their face.
We have an innate understanding re: physical conflict that to achieve a desired end (removing someone's arm), we need to rip that arm off or slice it off somehow. The cause and effect of blowing glitter in someone's face is not going to remove someone's arm, and if someone claims it's going to do that without special powers to accomplish this, we're going to consider them completely insane.
This is not the case with social conflicts.
People do not just want their desired outcome, they want their desired method to work.
It does not matter if their desired method is equivalent to blowing glitter in someone's face to slice off their arm.
Outcome is only one factor here.
Very few people will argue about outcomes.
Social conflicts become problematic when people are not focusing on outcome, but on insisting that both outcome and method are spiffylicious, even if the method is as inappropriate to achieving the desired outcome as the example of blowing glitter in someone's face to slice off their arm.
This is not just asking for outcome, it's asking for method: it's a double ask, which is actually asking more than we typically demand out of a physical conflict in this fashion.
Instead, if your stats say you can accomplish your outcome, this doesn't necessarily mean you get a free pass to ignore reality or plausibility or whatever in regard to your method. It means that you are very likely to know what method would work and that's the method you will employ to achieve your desired outcome.
This respects stats 100%, and respects a reasonable interpretation of fellow players' agency 100%. It has precisely zero to do with liking, or disliking, social conflicts.
@Jennkryst It isn't a matter of whether they are able to do it or not.
The character, yes, would know how to accomplish that end. That means that if the player doesn't know how the character would accomplish that end, they need to work with the other player to find out a reasonable way that it could happen.
"My character knows how this works!" (enactor) is not justification to completely rewrite another player's character (target) and motivations; what the enactor's character actually knows in this context is the information the enactor's player needs to acquire from the target's player to accomplish their desired goal.
It is not, "My character knows how this works, so any zany notion I concoct is what is going to work!"
It is, 'my character can tell what would work, and that is what the character would choose to do to accomplish their goal'.
We know, collectively, the casual glitter blow is not going to cut off someone's arm as a causative action. (As magic, a special other thing, etc. it's not a standard attack any more.) You're hitting on something else that's important here, too: yes, you can use improvised weapons, but there's penalties and costs for doing so, and special merits/powers/etc. are required to use them effectively. (Similarly, there are special magic powers to make an absurd method work for social conflicts.)
Edit, durrrr... lost train of thought there: The difference here is that people don't get far trying to force the absurd on other players in physical conflicts without those additional special abilities or powers and so on to back up how and why, yes, that could actually happen, in mechanical form. That doesn't exist to the same extent and depth in a social system, and while people have come to an understanding that they're not going to let the absurd go without some foundations in a physical conflict for the most part, social conflicts, which have many components that are rarely accounted for at all even if there is a system in place, people try to argue for the acceptability of the absurd in social conflicts in ways that are entirely the opposite of the way they handle physical conflicts.
@lordbelh said in Social Conflict via Stats:
While I believe that social skills and mechanics do need to be important, in fact they should have more metaphysical weight than physical stats/skills, they're not equivalents of each other. They do very different things.
They can't be handled the same, because they aren't the same. The consequences aren't the same, either.
Being beat up is a temporary setback. Even if its not temporary, even if you have a limb chopped off, you're still playing the same character (minus a limb). You decide how you handle the loss. Death is permanent, of course, but at least you played your character to the end. Physical combat is the result of two players' agency coming to a head, and arbitrates the physical result.
In my experience people would much rather be beat up, than have dice tell them that a year of scenes and friendship with character X is now at its end, and you have to play out a betrayal that will branch out and disrupt every story and every scene you were looking forward to. Social combat results in one player seizing the agency of another player, and rewriting it. Often with very little thought to the internal conflict and wider consequences of that rewriting.
Acknowledging that, and thus ensuring that your systems have a decent amount of give and take is imperative. You don't need to cooperate to create a plausible scene and story through physical combat. In social combat, its an absolute necessity.
^ This. And it ties in with much of what @Arkandel is saying in the example of the religious person and the atheist, too.
We have much more cleanly quantifiable physical offenses and defenses than social.
The agency issue is key here.
No one would expect to, using one of the physical examples here, chop off a person's arm by playfully blowing a handful of feathers and glitter in their face.
We fundamentally understand that this is a completely broken cause and effect chain that is laughable on its face (unless this is the physical acts to perform a magic arm-lopping spell that weaponizes glitter of some kind, which then becomes a magic system roll, not a physical combat roll on the lopper's part, anyway). If someone attempted this as a direct physical-to-physical means of lopping off an arm, we would rightly say: Hell no, regardless of what numbers appear on the dice, and we would be right to do so. That may take the form of saying, "No, you need to describe this as a plausible physical attack, because that method is not appropriate to the intended results," or it may take the form of a staffer or ST stepping in to say: "That is so ridiculous that none of it happens at all," or any number of other things, but I am reasonably certain that as players, staff, tabletop STs, etc., that would not be permitted to stand as the actual cause and effect chain of a character physically losing an arm in the course of play.
Is it entirely possible that the lopper's physical combat dice roll says, "Yup, I lopped your arm!" A responsible loppee is going to take that without complaint, but a responsible lopper is not going to insist on the mundane blowing of glitter in someone's face to accomplish it, no matter what the dice say.
We're pretty routinely subject, however, to the equivalent of this in social scenes. Someone cooks up an idea they want to use as their method of achieving a specific end, and no matter how implausible or ridiculous, if the dice say it works, it has to have worked. In a social conflict, using the priest and atheist as an example, you can, per the rules in many a system, say that one or the other does a tap dance, and if the dice say 'that totally converted the other guy to your way of thinking', that's what the dice say. And people will fight tooth and fucking nail to strongarm this implausible nonsense as entirely reasonable and fair "because the rules say so!"
Well, the rules also say that if the dice say your arm is lopped off, if somebody says they did it by blowing glitter in your face, you gotta stick with that, too.
Yet, in one instance, the absurdity is almost universally recognized as being absurd to the point of damaging, while the latter? Not so much.
Do people abuse this? Of course. But that's not what I'm getting at here -- people can and do abuse everything. But if we're looking at defining 'who is playing fair' here, which is ultimately the call a staffer may have to make, the physical example of glitter-delimbing is an obvious call: no, it is not reasonable or fair for the lopper to force acceptance of that method on the loppee.