Best posts made by Tempest

Also, I do believe something addressed to literally everybody reading something (including myself, ofc), is the complete and utter opposite of "getting personal".

I'm not certain that it's @Arkandel's responsibility to protect people from things they don't like to read.

Sometimes, criticism has to be firm, when it's been proven repeatedly that 'polite discussion' of things gets ignored.

I believe I am pretty firmly within the Rules of Engagement for this branch of MSB.

If you read into other parts of my post and took things personally, when they were addressed universally at a fundamental problem in the psychosis of the hobby rather than any specific person, I'm not sure that's my fault.

What is Dark Eras? What are those 2nd/3rd VtR books?

What are the things, TJ!? Tell me!

ETA : Thanks for the PM and link to the earlier post explaining, TJ.

@HelloRaptor said:

As you mentioned things like Devotions can be pretty malleable for those that want to delve into them, but games seem to act like you're some kind of thought criminal if you try.

I imagine it's generally because people make devotions specifically designed to help their character and their character alone in some niche fashion, and sometimes it's ridiculous bullshit that doesn't add much beyond making their character more 'badass'. The Reach and that stupid 'custom' thing that was restricted to one of the families and buffed the vampire agg-claw thing to 'also steal the target's vitae' or w/e is always what pops up in my mind as the go-to for ridiculous custom BS.

I really like the idea of custom stuff, but it's hard to find a balance with it of allowing people to make fun/cool things that don't confer giant mechanical benefits.

As somebody who's never really dived into all of the WoD, magic items kind of aggravate me. In part because I don't understand them really, and in part because my only experience with them was on The Reach, and they all seemed to revolve around just giving more dots/bonuses to rolls. And there are already enough ways to stack rolls without 'magic relics' that give +5 to brawl or whatever.

@Carex said in Empire State Heroes Mush:

@onigiri said in Empire State Heroes Mush:

There's an entire terrifying Hogpit thread about him.

Link? What is the Hogpit?

My territory.

@Arkandel said:

I know this will make @Misadventure want to slit my throat but I like D&D as well. Pathfinder as well I guess. But it's not really due to some nerdy which-ruleset-is-the-best inner debate but, rather, on the basis of recognition and media support in an attempt to have a game's mechanics be as immediately familiar as possible with as many potential players as can be.

Sure, the ultra honed heavily houseruled set of Bob's Fantasy Compedium (Eighth Edition) might be exactly right for... something, I dunno, but if no one's ever heard of that shit next to no one but friends and family is going to play it. The niche will be played by our community's equivalent to hipsters, roleplay will be incestuous at best and impossible to find at worst and all that effort might as well have gone to a Skype-ran campaign in the first place.

I really disagree and think this is an attitude that is cancerous to the future of the hobby.

Not every game needs to use WoD because 'omg the most people know it'.

If people want to ignore a game just because they don't feel like learning a new system, hey whatever, but that doesn't mean everybody should stop making anything that isn't WoD.

I would say, if you're going to do something like this, you do not need to fully code/etc the game before opening. Because yes, you MIGHT be wasting a hell of a lot of time. And if people log on and give you shit about the game being 'in progress', fuck them.

@Pyrephox friendo, you seem to pop up in various threads with these “realistic solutions” that literally nobody wants to actually play through on a MU.

Do you do this on purpose, or do you actually believe your commentaries to be something that would work on MUs?

Genuinely curious.

@Sunny said in Arx's Elevation Situation:

@wahoo

I bring it up only because I know what that bank used to look like, and it is problematic to try and say Velenosa is going to feel a significant impact from losing their taxes. Unless Velenosa is way, way worse off than it used to be.

It is.

I feel like @wahoo would be better served with a constructive thread asking how to grow her own house, rather than asking how to stop other people from doing it.

By its very nature, this topic feels less than constructive.

I hate RfK's xp system, and I am baffled by the people complaining about auto-xp.

Why do you care? If you're some pillar of awesome that does "so much stuff!" and are the one true hero of MUing, out there generating all kinds of RP and are so much better than everybody else! You are still getting more xp, especially in a GMC system. So stop worrying about how Joe idles 6/7 days a week and has a decent level of XP. Jesus. Try to remember we're all here to have fun.

I tend to dislike coded feeding systems, or even having to roll to feed, personally. It's a nice idea, but it tends to ignore outside factors which are pretty huge, and force 'A, B, or C feeding situations' on people.

My current most-played vamp is a Mekhet in GMC/B&S. If I want to "mug" feed, why am I even rolling? All I have to do is obfuscate, walk up to somebody on the street, obfuscate them and feed. If I need to feed more still, do it again. Strength + Brawl (or Streetwise/whatever) doesn't really reflect that accurately, imo. Even Strength + Brawl + Obfu doesn't seem to.

Or if I want to 'seduction' feed, my character has a whopping pool of Presence1+Persuason0. Yet, I can use Auspex1 to go 'who here is most likely to give me what I want', and that should direct me straight to somebody who is drunk enough or horny enough to be an easy meal and not care what I'm rolling. Or I can just drag out a Coterie-mate/ghoul and have them majesty/dominate food.

Or I can just grab an animal somewhere, be it manually or via a coterie-mate with animalism. Do I really need to roll survival when I can obfuscate and walk right up to an animal and snatch it?

There are so many ways for vampires to feed that a coded feeding system seems a little silly. A system just to monitor /amount/ of blood might be interesting, though. Yes, the neighborhood with two clubs in it probably has more available blood than the park.

I have always found it very weird how much credit photographers get, generally speaking in regards to the modeling/etc industry.

Like it’s not unusual to find pictures and have NO IDEA who the model is, but the photographer’s shit is watermarked all over it, listed in the description of the work, etc.

I don’t get it. And it has honestly always felt VERY fucking weird to me, in a sort of ‘dehumanizing the model’ kind of way.

Down with photographers.

That is a LOT of fluffy bullshit crammed into 7 sentences.

I mean I love purple prose and fluff and pose 6+ paragraphs with certain RP partners, but still.

That is the most tryhard desc I have ever read.

Mind you it’s not /bad/ but goddamn.

@lordbelh said:

Except said ghoul was useful, in ways they are not at all in most games. Resources 5 meant something; it doesn't on most games. Allies XYZ had a purpose on the game, unlike most places. I have Herd 5 on Reno only because I felt it would be cool, but it serves absolutely no purpose, anymore than my Allies or my Status or my Resources do. All those stats are pointless fluff.

There are plenty of ways for those stats to come into play. You just have to actually do shit and not just go 'oh yeah, I've done almost nothing but TS with my regnant, but uhhhh yeah I have allies mobsters! and the mob needs to help us!'

If you want to have an impact on things ICly, you should be doing things ICly.

You say activity shoved down your throat; I say something to RP about that wasn't personal RP or throw-away-PRPs, that gave me reasons to play with characters I normally wouldn't. Sandbox games are cliquish games, ultimately nothing you do matter beyond the personal storylines. Which can be cool themselves, but it was nice being able to play a vampire as a political creature. Because frankly? Its not a game made for PRP casing badguys of the week, or what not.

What is stopping you from playing a vampire as a political creature anywhere else? The fact that there's not some system you can throw dice at and go "I WIN!" The fact that you can't claim some title to make puff up your OOC ego? (I dunno about Eldritch, but you can get a title on Reno if you decide to do more than stare at your +sheet trying to figure out what you should roll to win the game.)

I am also sad that when I next play vampire, politics (and there always is some politics regardless of intent) and conflict resolution will be a question of overwhelming PK force once more. I hear people say different, but I find that is worse.

Yes, god forbid you contact the other player OOCly and try to work something out. Communication is a bad, terrible thing. Just jump straight to PK.

@Sundown said:

@Tempest said:

Didn't Tobias (the Invictus Prince) quit playing, immediately after getting killed via +job by an NPC or something?

I'm just going to correct this one patent lie in the sea of misinformation and misdirection that is your post. Tobias quit because he didn't want to play Prince anymore, OOCly. Staff /then/ made it into a plot in which other players could pursue the murderers.

I have nothing to say in reply to the rest of your post except to wonder who managed to get you this badly peeved. Because, whoa, mother of distortions.

You're not going to touch it because everything else I said is true. Note the 'or something', I pretty much admitted to not being certain what happened with Tobias.

I played on RfK, thank you very much. Most of the ghouls/mortals shacked up with their Domitors and did little besides occasionally go WITH them to an Elysium.

Your 'cult of personality' thing you mentioned left out the fact that Shavalyoth tended to take any criticism of her 'baby' personally and not at all very well.

I am peeved because I got a glimpse of how Shav & her husband were on another game(he was powerhungry, tried to act like king of the world, and had a lot of sycophant 'ohraepmepls' followers), and then she turned around and made a game that basically seemed to be built to fulfill her husband's power fantasies. I have no idea what happened with him, but it doesn't change the fact that the game as it was at opening was 100% designed to make him feel important and like the king of the world. If you weren't playing in the first few months of the game, then you of course have no idea what I'm talking about.

Thanks for the answers! Sounds pretty interesting so far.

@tragedyjones said in Interest Check: Single Sphere VtR Game:

MAYBE SECRETS OF THE COVENANTS WILL RELEASE SOME DAY

Seriously, what the fuck is going on with it?

So, this is going to be WoD Super Friends? Vampires and Mages joining together to fight Cthulhu?

@Misadventure said in Coming Soon: Arx, After the Reckoning:

@Kanye-Qwest That is a good point, though I guess it would depend on whether there are additional things resources can get you that actually affect your ability to be good at something. EG Advertising, lavish fashion shows, wide distribution and a secure delivery network for your bridal shop may be de rigueur.

I guess the designers should chime in!

Or someone who has played there ...

Last I knew, they are supposed to tie heavily into the yet-to-be-made 'war games' and territory management stuff. I mean, one of the resources currencies is /Military Resources/.

--Yeah, fall behind in those, I'm sure you'll be fine.

@Apos said in Coming Soon: Arx, After the Reckoning:

maybe getting like 30-50 resources or something if they worked like mad at it. That would be under 2% of the income of the wealthiest great house at the moment, and like a tenth of a percent of some of the Scary Big Bad Organizations. So there's definitely a sense of, 'Bob the Fast Talker is getting rich' from an individual perspective, but from a macro perspective compared to what the powerful organizations are doing, it's pretty mild.

That is definitely good to hear.

@Arkandel said in Roleplaying writing styles:

On the contrary I've learned to associate brevity with subpar roleplay. It's largely a bias, I'll freely admit it, and there are definitely players who can pull it off. @Coin, for all he's a blight on this world, can make every word count but most people can't get away with it. There's also a stigma about it being a sign of distraction such as when someone's playing on multiple scenes and just churns out a quick pose once in a while.

I can't help but feel 'brevity' is bad. This is just personal taste, of course, and I'm sure it works for some people.

On the other hand, I agree with @Arkandel entirely in that by /no means/ does verbosity mean someone is good. Anybody can vomit out 5 paragraphs if they try hard enough (Protip : Tempest's #1 obvious sign of a verbose, shitty roleplayer, they write paragraph after paragraph about how special and awesome their character is and manage to add nothing to the scene, somehow.)

I just have a hard time remaining interested for long if you can't /at least/ give me 2 paragraphs every pose. Because, tbh, you're probably not giving me a lot to work with. And honestly, that might be more a flaw with me. Or it's just different tastes.

When I hear 'brevity' I just picture those Elysium-sort of poses we're all familiar with. Or people who will just pose "She smiles." or some other 2/3/4 word action in every pose they write. Yes, we all abuse those small gesture, but like...give me some flavor please. "She laughs and flashes a cocky smile at Jane after the woman's comment." Not just "She smiles."

I am definitely an elitist in terms of RPing styles.

Random pet peeve. People who don't seem to understand that you can combine an action and dialogue into 1 sentence with a comma.

She smiles. "Hey Jane." She looks around. "Where is everyone?"

She smiles, "Hey Jane." She looks around, "Where is everyone?"

Something about that genuinely bugs me and will make me think less of you.