@arkandel said in The Basketball Thread:
Hot take: Lebron could take an Eastern Conference team consisted of myself, the guy who drove my bus this morning, the cashier at the Tim Horton's around the corner and my cat to the NBA Finals.
The real accomplishment will be taking more than one game from whomever wins game 7 tonight.
As much as I dislike Harden I will have to cheer for Houston tonight. I have been dreading Warriors -Cavs for for the last 6 months.
@arkandel said in Game Restarts:
Is it just nostalgia? Can it be something else?
For me the draw of a restarted game would be less nostalgia and more hey they likely have some of the kinks worked out. I would be a lot more likely to join a restart even of one I hadn't played before than a brand new game, mainly for the same reason I would be more likely to pick up the fifth novel an author wrote than the first.
@icanbeyourmuse
I appreciate the sentiment but I honestly do not have the time to add a character to the mix i am playing right now.
Edit to add, Quite a bit of real world piracy was done along the rivers of Europe. Most notably that of the Vikings but also among the groups that followed. The ocean piracy of the Pirates of the Caribbean and such happened and have quite along Golden Age but for most of history pirates have mainly been a rivers and coasts thing.
@arkandel said in The Basketball Thread:
The team had to make a choice about going along with this by bailing their future or risking the guy who just got Cleveland its first professional title in sports ever, and did.
First title if over 50 years but not ever, the Browns do have 4 NFL championships but the most recent was in 1964. And before the Browns, the Indians did win two World Series Titles the most recent of which was in 1948.
Cleveland has a very depressing sport history but they do have a few titles to point to.
@coin
I like it less knowing that it comes from Cosmo given the quality of a lot of their advice.
But it is going into the bag with "Adversity does not build character, it reveals it." As a line I will over use in the future.
@Misadventure said:
would you be fine if you went in to a investigation scene, rolled crappy, and then either the GM told you flat out that the investigation will bear no fruit unless something false in your lap in a few weeks, or even playing through all the dead ends etc and not getting any further? And that was that? Would you expect several more chances for whatever reason, like another crime in the string, or someone offering info? Or no?
I would be fine with playing out some dead ends then having another change with the next crime scene in the mystery.Most game style mysteries i have seen regardless of system had more then one incident in furtherance of the antagonists objective. Just like the PC don't need to win every fight they don't need to solve every thing at the first attempt. A good GM has a backup plan and a way to get player back on track if the first attempt is not successful. Look at the mystery genre, sometimes the protagonists miss things and don't realize it until later.
To be making a bad investigation roll and having it mean OK you never solve the mystery is like the oh you blew your disarm trap roll everyone dies. Character should have failures and successes and grow from them. Maybe blowing the first roll means the villain has more time to plan or had more men or guns when the times comes to face him that is fine tow there are lots of ways to have failure add to the story rather then take away from it. Maybe by blowing an investigation roll I chase a bad lead to a biker bar and make and enemy there to add a sub plot. or something.
I have been the person running mysteries, and trust me I am not an author, nor am I perfect at all. I did this in Champions (superheroes, often with wacky powers and high skills), Deadlands (often little character skill, just player intelligence or imagination), GURPS (player skills and player intelligence).
In all cases, one major lesson was this: if you spend a lot of time on something, and the players never see it, it's as if it was never there.
This is unfortunately true. I know from experience. I just finished running a campaign where the PCs by dumb luck and choice managed to completely avoid one of the subplots I really wanted to include so a lot of prep time was wasted on my end. Yeah it kinda sucks but in one of the hazards inherent in running a game.
I often relied on the noir/hardboiled detective approach which was that persistence would inevitably get one of the hidden actors to act against you directly, and as player characters you were heroic enough to survive and learn critical info. Being super heroes really helped with that. I also made experts available, and had the players direct their efforts the same as they would direct their own: was there anything in particular they should look for,m or a theory they should try to prove/disprove?
I use this tactic a lot myself to nudge player back towards the right track of things.
In the end, I probably let the players succeed by giving many chances often.
I think we are closer to being like minds then it appears, I always give multiple chances and opportunities for players to succeed and do my best to have it so that when loses occur they add to the story rather then take away. For example in the campaign I just finished the PCs totally blew the initial plot arc, both through rolls and decisions. It could have been very justifiable that it would end with then getting killed and everyone leaving unhappy. Instead I had the PC noble lose his title and some other non permanent losses and a it gave the character added motivation and he had the opportunity later to regain his position which he was successful at.
To me when running something I always liked the rule of only have the players roll when both success and failure are interesting, which to be also imply a related one, as the gm if I have the players roll it is my job ot make sure that the success or failure that results leads to interesting things.
to try to bring this back to Star Trek somewhat, look at the shows there is frequently points where the characters are stymied and suffer setback but then by the end of the episode or plot arc had their moments of redemption to save the day.
And I honestly have no clue what system I would use to simulate the feel of Star Trek in a game.
Whenever I read discussions like this I realize how different the time and place I grew up in was, it was very rural so knives were always seen more as a tool than weapon so not uncommon and there were even rifles in trucks in the parking lot during hunting season but not allowed in the building. Of course this in the late 80s early 90s well before the age of school shootings.
Tenebrae was a weird game for me. I did not last long there because while finding adventures was not hard there was no real connective tissue, it was basically like showing up to a gaming store and joining in random RP every few days. It could be fun at times but I wondered off quickly because there was nothing to really make me care.
I would call Maryland Mid-Atlantic by region.
Most of the Civil War historical work I have seen terms it a Border State like KY, MO, and Delaware all Slaves states that remained Union but were very much internally split. For Maryland in particular you have Pro Confederate Riots in Baltimore as Union troops marched through, but Lincoln was in no way going to let Maryland go, and the Federal control was pretty strong.
Current culture wise it really in no way resembles the Northeast, granted my travels though both the Mid Atlantic and the North East have been on the brief side but not really the same cultural feel at all.
@BetterJudgment
I did not notice that til you pointed it out. Made me giggle.
I agree and would definitely not approve the character on the game, I would just make to to leave enough blame for the original creators of the character as well as those that play them on mushes.
Unknown armies would be great, though could be a pain to code given the free form nature of skills.
@admiral
The real kicker is that stadiums depending on the size really don't do much to improve the local economy. Not sure of the size being discussed but when it comes to NFL sized venues they almost always cost more than they bring in for the city itself, and the area where businesses have significant benefits is only about a 3 to 4 block radius.
@coin said in #WIDWW pt 2 - ST, Player, or staff?:
And it was the best time because I felt like my character had earned that victory.
Most MUers don't really feel that way.
I think a big reason for this is the medium, most table top games I have been in have been played to a conclusion (not always a happy one for the PCs) so in table top I am fairly confident that I will see the end to the story, and willing to place more trust in the ST as a result.
On a mush I would say most stories I have been in over the years end due to game ending, players leaving, changes in RL schedules etc rather than reaching a conclusion on screen so each on screen scene has to be worthwhile in and of itself because there is very little confidence that i will see the rest of the story.
In the example @coin used that is great in table top, hell I have been in variations of it both as a player and GM but if in table top I have high confidence that if something takes 4 session to build up that i will be there on the fifth when the cool climax happens. On a MUSH there is little reason to assume that so I can totally see why players want the gratification now because later could very well never come.
@Ghost
I agree. The mechanics take a bit of getting used to but are kinda fun for a change of pace.
Though you forgot the top scale, the space stuff with the fleet and even more Mi go stuffs to fight. though that part of the setting is less dark then the Earth bound stuff, but I likes it, mostly because I like playing a space fighter pilot. always have since I was a kid and saw Star Wars in the theatre. (the 81 re-release.)
@arkandel said in The Basketball Thread:
You don't do that to the team who drafted you;
But he hasn't done anything to the Pacers.
I have been around forever but never really involved with the main things going on just sorta always on the edge of things so I am "that guy that is sort of there." but that is long as hell so it is "thatguythere" I use it here and a wrestling board and a Big Brother board.
the few times I have attempted Star Wars games I made a fighter pilot so this really does not concern me directly in this instance but I could never understand the premise of hey play this thing you don't want to and maybe later you can play what you want.
@auspice said in RL things I love:
I have known landlords like that! I've known people who had landlords wait two months at a time to cash stuff. I could never live that way.
I had a landlord like that it drove me crazy til I found my work around for it. Instead of a check for rent i would just go get a money order and pay with that. I would get a receipt from the landlord I held onto and the money was out of my back do no worry from me. And the money order i could get at my grocery store for 76 cents which for me was a bargain for getting rid of the did they cash my rent check yet game.
I dislike the unfindable flag on principle but I use it, because it might just be a few bad apple but boy are they bad.
One every game I start out findable and then only turn on unfindable after getting pages about why are you rping with so and so, or omg you are in a private room you must be tsing or what not.
Sadly it is not an isolated thing i end up setting myself unfindable on between 1/2 and 2/3 or the games I have played on. ddly enough I must not attract the popular type of crazy cause Reach was one of them I never had to.