Posts made by Tempest

The 'start' of Divinity 2 pretty much did the complete opposite of hook me.

It seems awful.

Got off the boat, walking around this island pointlessly to find these less than interesting party members.

And it all just feels dull.

I loved the first one, but idk. Will go back to 2 at some point. I'm sure it picks up, but back to re-running through Mass Effect for now.

ETA : Annoying thing, having to hold down alt to see interactables. And I'm pretty sure doing it in D:OS1 showed containers (chests, etc), didn't it? It does not seem to show containers in 2.

Honestly amazing how annoying such a small thing is.

To get away from the XP talk for a moment. Do you have plans for Bloodlines? Do you have writeups for them? Or not going to allow them?

@Lithium said in Descent Reboot:

Even with a paltry 50 XP it's possible with certain builds to get into the high teens for defenses and low to mid 20's for offense. That's without the plethora of questionable if not outright broken merits that exist in vampire.

100% this.

A "warrior" vamp with 50xp already has all 3 physical disciplines at 5 on top of just CGing with 5 in the appropriate skill and any merits needed.

The only problem I really have with FS3 is that people pigeonhole it into every fucking thing.

Like IIRC, even Faraday's FAQ for FS3 says "not really meant for medieval/fantasy games, dude, it's meant for modern stuff" and yet I've seen half a dozen different generic Lord & Ladies game that use it, Game of Thrones games that use it, fucking Harry Potter games that use it.

To piggyback on @SunnyJ's comments about XP.

Having seen this song and dance again and again, just some things I'd like to say.

XP is not an easy thing to balance, by any means. I'm going to harp on it, but I don't mean to imply there are any 'easy' fixes.

XP can be a massively daunting thing to the entire atmosphere of a game and I swear, it seems like for whatever reason people just don't understand this or possibly are just ignoring it.

Let's assume your CG XP is set at 10xp, and your weekly XP gain is 1xp.

That doesn't sound like a lot.

The problem is, in 3 months, on a game that is openly competitive, you are already starting to inch towards the land of No Newbies Allowed. That's 12 xp, aka potentially an extra discipline at 4 dots over any newbies. Get to 6 months and that's 24xp, 8 discipline dots over newbies.

If you started at 10xp, in 6 months of 1 auto xp per week that person might only be at 34xp, which doesn't seem like a lot, but in Chronicles of Darkness that person is already basically a god compared to anybody making a new character. And nobody is going to catch up to them for a very, very long time.

One of the problems here is a rather significant portion of people are going to be aware they have a 30xp lead on other people and abuse that fact. Mister Gangrel Biker Bro who CGd into as much of a killing machine as possible, then added nothing but dots of celerity/vigor/resilience to his sheet with his 30xp is basically going to already be a god, and he knows it, and will walk all over anybody who didn't app in on opening day.

Now, moving on from that, but still somewhat related to my last point.

How does "post-apoc" work, exactly? Is everybody making Mad Max vampires?

Like...I hear "post-apoc vampire!" and I just assume everybody is going to be a Bruja Biker Bro who has claws of the unholy and pisses on anybody who doesn't roll over for them, since post-apoc doesn't exactly strike me as the sort where brainy or social Kindred are going to have much of a place.

(For the record, I like Gangrel, I am just completely out of patience for that particular bloodline and trope.)

I heard @Roz likes hockey and gifs.

@Thenomain said in Which canon property/setting would be good for a MU* ?:

@Bobotron said in Which canon property/setting would be good for a MU* ?:

@Tempest

A lot of people also have problems with people playing Changeling as 'abuse victim: the RPG'.

Ngh. No kidding. I personally find it easier to ignore than "Vampire: Lol Mind Powerz FU!!!", but to each their own.

Sounds like we need a vampire & changeling game, where the vampires can use mind powers to further abuse the changelings.

Everybody wins?

That is a pretty cat.

@deadculture said in Which canon property/setting would be good for a MU* ?:

@Aria said in Which canon property/setting would be good for a MU* ?:

My issue with Vampire isn't that I hate Vampire. I love Vampire and all of its themes as written.

My problem with Vampire is that I think it brings out the very worst in players, both IC and OOC, as most of its themes lend themselves to PVP. And because gamers are gamers, in many cases, PVP pretty much turns into the IC equivalent of the Hog Pit.

So... fuck that noise. I'mma peace out.

Changeling is way worse.

I have to say I am surprised to hear this. Admittedly, I'm no expert on Changeling. What's the problem in changeling, fighting over who gets to be Pretty Princess of each Court?

I really like the "idea" of changeling. But it kind of makes me overthink things. Sometimes I think the making a character gets me stuck. "I was turned into a FUCKING SNOWFLAKE FOR FIFTY YEARS!" Seems like it'd probably fuck you up in ways most of us can't really fathom or play out properly, so I get weird about my durance and shit. Also get stuck on 'okay how do you escape if your Keeper turned you into a thing and then basically forgets you exist? Aren't I stuck as one of a thousand snowflakes? Do I randomly will myself back into humanoid form to escape?'

The Hedge also fucks me up. Really like the idea of it. But I've never really gotten a chance to "understand" how it works.

They refused to watch a 2 hour long movie about giant robots? On a game explicitly in that setting?

I mean, I can understand on the big anime games, not watching EVERY anime it uses, or not reading 7 500 page books for a fantasy setting...

But a 2 hour movie?

@Gingerlily said in Eliminating social stats:

I feel like even if Bob is a shitty writer, its cool to let your character be convinced by his shitty writing to buy the Avon he's selling at double the price you should, because it does not hurt you and it is fun for Bob.

The problem is, social dice and stats never come up for this level of stuff.

If it did, sure, that's harmless and not painful to let happen.

In my experience (YMMV), people only start wanting to flex their social dice for stuff like "i convince you to support me to be King of the World!" or "I persuade you to betray the Emperor with me!" or "I convince you to tell me all the horrible life-threatening secrets you know about Jane!" and of course the standard "I seduce you!"

Social stats for things like selling/buying shit is one thing. That's a "okay this is done now" sort of thing. When people are trying to use social stats to influence decisions that affect the entirety of my character's future (and thus, potentially force me to RP in a particular way that isn't fun), we're not really in the same ballpark or even universe any longer.

And I don't mean 'fun' as in 'oh no I lost, no fun'. I mean it as in 'wow, now based off that social roll my character would theoretically be a lot more involved in stuff with Bob, and I as a player do not really enjoy playing with him'.

This stuff makes it important to remember we are not just playing a game.

A lot of this relates to a pretty simple and yet core reason for why MUs are deteriorating, IMO.

We almost never tell people 'NO'. Staff is afraid of the argument or afraid of looking like the 'bad guy' or afraid of the person running here to say how horrible they are, etc.

Not to put the entire blame on the people who run things either. Players are awful at accepting being told no. They'll argue incessantly or find some conspiracy theory for why they were told no.

All the 'big' games are places with almost 0 oversight where players are free to do whatever they want.

(Admittedly, we have all seen genuinely biased staff 100x who play X thing themselves but won't let other people, and whatever other related instances.)

Just imagine how much simpler and potentially 'better' this hobby would be if we got better at telling people 'no'.

I don't care if you got approved with some retarded shit on your sheet. Staff shouldn't be afraid to go 'no, you can not drop a truck on Jane while sitting in your apartment'. And players should grow the fuck up and realize that's a pretty reasonable stance.

@Jaded said in General Video Game Thread:

@Arkandel
Yes. There is a great story to it and the game is rather fun. It takes a new twist on how things like combat and magic is utilized with elemental affinities giving a nice twist on the standby of usual mechanics.

Is the elements on the ground thing as prevalent in DOS2 as it was the first one?

You like literally could not take a single action without something reacting to some pool of something on the ground/etc.

@Arkandel said in General Video Game Thread:

@Faceless Tyranny was amazing. I only finished it with one 'path' because I was just too lazy to start from scratch and grind my way out, but the story was great.

Tyranny was amazing.

And grossly disappointing. To the point that I rescind all good comments about it.

It has the most atrocious and abrupt ending I have ever seen in a video game.

I was playing Tyranny, having tons of fun. I kill a boss and get to the point of feeling 'wow, this is fantastic, the story is really picking up! looking forward to the war with the big bad!' and save the game after the boss fight and go to bed, because it was late af. Next day, I load my game and go back to my HQ and push a button and the game ends with 'MAYBE ONE DAY YOU WILL FIGHT THE BIG BAD!'

Wtf?

The ending was so abrupt, I saved the game after a boss fight, had no idea it was about to end, and the next day I 'beat' the game within 60 seconds of loading, by pushing a button in my HQ.

Leading up to that point the game is fantastic. But that was disappointing on a scale I have never encountered, because the abrupt ending is also /garbage/.

@Daeladras said in Sin City Chronicles:

Does this mean this project is dead?

@Kanye-Qwest said in Wheel of Time MU(SH|X):

@Tempest imagine if putting on armor actually gave you more health? Would it cure colds, or get rid of infections? Would it help with arthritis??

Exercise daily.

@WTFE said in Wheel of Time MU(SH|X):

Does armour work D&D probabilistic-style with a chance of just not having anything happen at all? Or does it work Runequest style as damage reduction. GURPS: "Why not both!?"

I've recently been playing through various CRPGs, including the usual suspects of the D&D games. Baldur's Gate, Icewind Dale, Neverwinter.

As somebody who has never gotten the chance to play D&D in tabletop form, but still understands most of the rules thanks to video games and MUs, can I just say...

'Armor Class' offends me. The notion of armor that doesn't actually make you more durable either by giving you DR or more HP (a-la Final Fantasy Tactics) is a sin against God.

@ShelBeast said in Eliminating social stats:

Then people whine about how the MU* community is dying.

It's dying because it's been massively poisoned by weird hipsters and the same 'political correctness/white knight' mentality that has tainted college campuses and the internet everywhere. Which has resulted in a massive dilution of quality in terms of both players and characters. Alt-girls everywhere. Bikerbros everywhere. Anime fox girl biker gang members.

WoD MUs in particular are suffocating under the weight of trash.

"Omg you elitist. And you want to ignore the rules too! YOU ARE ALL THAT IS WRONG IN THE WORLD!"

WoD is the prevailing system used by people on this board. Assuming you play WoD.

The rules for WoD are primarily written for cooperative tabletop play. They are not written for player versus player social maneuvering.