Posts made by ThatGuyThere

I agree with Autumn, I have never taken being asked for my ID as anything but a compliment as I get older. Or baring that amusement at the question. For example Buffalo Wild Wings (at least the one I go to) cards everyone who orders a beer weather you look 21 or 90, I go there with my older brother sometimes to watch games neither of us is close to 21, yet we both smile a bit and show our ID, then delude ourselves into thinking it was cause we look young rather then policy that it was asked for.
Of course I would never leave the house without ID unless it was some sort of life threatening emergency either.

@bored said in CoD - Victorian - Penny Dreadful-ish.:

@surreality

No, there was specifically a Victorian Changeling game. @Ganymede and @Thenomain were both involved, I'm not imagining things, I promise!

Yeah I remember this game, can't remember the name of it though.
There was also after that one a game names Penny Dreadful, that was mortals, Sin-eater and changeling, run by different people though.
That said while it is not the first of it's kind I would be tempted to play it even with CoD/GMC rules.

@Thenomain said in Comics Stuff:

@Roz

If that isn't a plus, I would make it one. "Okay, bored with Cap for now, oh damn William Gibson has written a comic!"

See, comics for me seem like one of the more transient ways of absorbing entertainment. You don't have to be ADHD with them, but it helps?

This may be a very good way of looking at it. However it is not one commonly found in the fanbase.
I would say comics fans, myself included, tend to be far more OCD about them then ADHD about them.

Edit to add: I know I would add a lot more to my pull then I dropped. The dropping was usually done by the company when the series ended more then by me when I would get sick of it. Sadly this was true even when I had lost interest in a series. The force of momentum is strong especially when backed up by I have bought the first 100 + issues of this series I will ride it to the bitter end.
Thankfully the new trend of starting series over at the drop of the hat gives me a lot more jumping off points.

@Thenomain said in Comics Stuff:

The original purpose of this was to try and figure out why @Arkandel used thematic/setting reasoning to say the Captain America revelation was bullshit, when comics are and always have been riddled with similar faux pas. His approach implied, to me, that there is an internal logic to superhero comics, when a lot of what turns me off superhero comics is the complete lack of internal logic.

In this case I think the reason is that no one has trust in Marvel that the story will turn out good. A few, including @Kanye-Qwest here, have had a wait and see approach but I have not heard anyone not on Marvel's payroll say they were excited by the story, most are along the lines of assuming the eventual mind control reveal or complaining about how horrible it is.
To use the example of Iron Man there are certain core aspects of Tony Stark he is a rich genius inventor is the most basic. The cap reveal is like if in an Ironman story it was revealed that Tony was really illiterate and faking being smart this whole time and someone else built the armor. It is not just inconstant with one or two other stories in the past but what makes Ironman fans like Iron Man.
To many people myself included what makes Cap really Cap, is that he is the best a person can be not just physically but morally as well. The ultimate good guy, and this Hydra thing is basically a giant middle finger not to a few past stories but to core of the character if it is not revealed to be mind control latter.

A lot of the disconnect mught be preferences, earlier you mentioned preferring things be story driven, and comics for the most part are very focused on being character driven. Not only the stories but how they are sold. In comics shops they are grouped not by writer or artist or publisher but by character on the new release shelves. Back issues are usually sorted alphabetically by title, the focus is on the continuing book more so then on the creators.
That effects how new fans look at things as well. As you have said game design is mind control, in this case organization is. If you are new and go into the shop you are given messages that the character is the core product.

Edit to add : Even regular bookstores make this distinction. If I go into Barnes and Noble the books in each fiction section are arranged by author in graphic novels area it is by character. Back when we had a borders in town it was the same way.

@Lithium said in RPG Percentile Mechanics:

@ThatGuyThere See this right here is a problem. If I am able to throw 100 tons around without a problem, there shouldn't be any /swinginess/ when I connect. It should do an immense amount of force on impact and there shouldn't be a feel of 'anything can happen' in super hero's in my opinion. If 'anything' can happen, then what is the point of having super powers if they end up being worthless due to a swingy dice system just screwing you over all the time?

But that fits the primary source of the genre at least in superheros. Despite Spiderman's being nearly impossible to hit sometimes the nameless gun man wings him.
Thor is one of my favorite characters but he has a lot of bad loses over the years.

I generally prefer the high luck systems to the bell curve ones, since the bell curve ones tend to be the more predictable and the whole point of the dice to me is to add unpredictability.
While you don;t like the standing around because of bad luck there is nothing more boring to me then sitting around for hours to reach the result math said we would hit at the beginning of it.

@Thenomain said in Comics Stuff:

@Arkandel

All good points My curiosity is still how the fan/creator/creation triangle relationship is handled in the comics space.

Not sure exactly what you mean. But I will take a stab at it. In a lot of cases the actual creator is gone either no longer with the company or in a lot of cases with older characters passed on. Though each character is viewed to have certain core aspects that should remain the same for the most part new writers and artists to the book have leeway in making their character their own. How much leeway is usually determined by how good the results are. Ideally the editors have a the ability to maintain some consistency in the long term but that as not been the case for some time.
Best example I can think of is Swamp Thing, the character was created by Len Wein and was nothing really special perfectly serviceable comics but nothing people would say was great. Then Alan Moore took over and changed the character pretty substantially, this was loved less for the changes but more because Moore is a top notch writer. So the Moore version became the definitive version of the character. Had Moore not been good at what he did fans likely would have hated the changes. For the most part a lot of comic fans being pro or anti a specific change is liking or not liking the work and the change being the obvious lightning rod to draw those feelings.

One big difference between comics and novels is ownership of the characters, since for the most part they are considered the results of work for hire they stay with the company rather then the creator. JK Rowling owns Harry Potter granted she has a contract with a publisher that likely limits her prerogative in some ways. Compare this to the various comic creators that do not retain ownership, and in some cases most notably Bill Finger as co-creator of Batman did not even get creator credits until fall to long after the fact.

@Seraphim73
It all depends on what you want out of the system and taste.
For me it is a lot about what I am trying to represent in a campaign. In games where I want a feel of real world gritty-ness or a noir-ish tone I go for systems with a Bell curve it helps keep things grounded as extremes of both good and bad are rare and helps set tone.
For a Superhero or high action game like a space opera I would go with one dice to role be it a percentile or d20 because of the randomness it gives a mechanical feel that anything can happen and might. I think this adds to the over all feel of high adventure.
I don't there is a one true system out there it is abut creating the mechanical feel that matches the story you are wanting to tell.

@Kanye-Qwest
No worries, a lot of folks don't realize that Cap was actually created in WW2 era not just backstoried in there a la Nick Fury or Sgt Rock who both were created well after the war but who had comics set during it. (Rock was created in the mid 50s, Fury in the early 60s)
One of the tidbits I like to toss out to show how far comics in general have fallen as far as the mainstream goes in 41 Cap was frequently near the top of the best selling magazine list, not comics but magazines as a whole.
Granted comics might soon be that again but only because print publishing as a whole is cratering.

@surreality said in RPG Percentile Mechanics:

@Coin That gave me a weird idea, though, for something regarding extended tasks and potentially also team mechanics.

Percentile could prove interesting for multiple days/hours/etc. work -- roll with any mods, add up; this gives you 'how far you get on that task'. If you hit 100%, you made it. If not, you still have something. Could use the skill rating or whatever for the number of times you can roll.

that is the part of the RoleMaster mechanics, granted a lot of the rest is hard to get through but I liked that part of it. In general I preferred the scaled down RM mechanics found in MERP (Middle Earth Role Playing, long out of print) to the full ones found in RM itself, but yeah it is all percentile in nature.
Rolemaster itself is still in print and supported.

@Kanye-Qwest said in Comics Stuff:

@ThatGuyThere said in Comics Stuff:

@Kanye-Qwest
I agree some of the reactions I have seen are a bit much. Let the story finish before tearing it apart, and the mind control plot is not new to comics or Cap himself.

And slight correction on Caps creation he was not created to show the defeat of what amounts to Nazis but literal Nazis it was 1941 after all.

No, he was created to defeat "Hydra", which, while clearly a Nazi standin, is not a sovereign government led by Adolf Hitler.
.

Read the reprints of the orginial stuff he was created in 1941 by Jack Kirby and Joe Simon to fight Nazis Adolf Hitler himself appears in numerous Golden Age cap stories. As does Benito Mussolini.
http://www.coverbrowser.com/covers/captain-america
Follow that like it has most of the covers in the history of Captain America right there on the first one from March of 1941 are Nazis including Adolf himself.
Hydra is created in the 1960s mainly to torment Nick Fury in the pages of Strange Tales then branches off to Cap and the rest of the Marvel universe.

@Kanye-Qwest
I agree some of the reactions I have seen are a bit much. Let the story finish before tearing it apart, and the mind control plot is not new to comics or Cap himself.

And slight correction on Caps creation he was not created to show the defeat of what amounts to Nazis but literal Nazis it was 1941 after all.

I think one of the big reasons people are getting this upset is that it is Cap, definitely Marvel's longest running Iconic character. Yes Submariner was around first , and various other characters have been more popular for periods over the years but Cap is the only person that Marvel that has sustained popularity along the lines of Supes and Bats.

@tangent said in Comics Stuff:

@Thenomain Is it maybe because after the story ends we know how it played out and can more easily see it in perspective? For instance, I think it was awesome that Jason Todd got brained with a crowbar by Joker. The next Robin was better and then later when he did come back, Jason Todd was better as Red Hood. That being said, at the time, I think I would have been really upset (had I been a comic guy then).

I think readers were too busy being upset with the stupid way he was brought back then that he was brought back. Superboy- Prime retcon punch. If you don't know what that means don't ask please it is stupider then it sounds and requires a lot of words.

@Thenomain said in Comics Stuff:

@ThatGuyThere said in Comics Stuff:

Yeah, but until you get into comics, how do you know what team you like? And unless that team involves someone with the brand recognition like Gaiman, how do you know what they're writing at any given time? That is, like Mushes, it seems like the best way to get into comics is either diving in and working it out on your own, or being introduced by someone else.

I agree with this completely, it is like finding anything else you like be it tv or music or other writing. Ask people whose tastes are similar to yours and give it a shot. Or do like I did with the first CDs i bought back in high school and pick at random based on pretty cover art. (I got lucky with the cds for the most part)

Though honestly my recommendation for comics since the mid-aughts skews heavily towards non-superhero stuff, not because I dislike superheroes but almost no one writes them in a way that is fun any more.
As such for anyone looking for a good read pick up the Fables trade paperbacks, start with volume one, they are awesome. (At least until they defeat the big bad then the title lost a lot for me, but that was 75 issues in so likely 11 or 12 volumes in the collected form.)
Edit to add another recommendation, 100 Bullets, started slow got awesome widely available in trade paperback still.
As far as genre Fables is Urban fantasy with the characters from the various tales living in NYC main character is Bigby Wolf (bid bad wolf)
100 Bullets is crime/conspiracy drama.

@Thenomain said in Comics Stuff:

If that logic is "because it makes a good story", I'd be happy with that. Captain America going against his very reason of being is not good story. It may be forgiven as the story is revealed, it may just be bad story out of the full context, but that's the kind of thing that interests me about Superhero Comics. Not the characters, but the story.

Yeah I have no faith in them turning the current Cap thing into something good. I admit it might but I have no hopes.
Honestly I think the biggest issue with trying to maintain a continuity is the act that there are so many different creators telling the story. At various point in time there have been up to 5 authors currently handling Spiderman for example.
My personal advice for those wanting to start with comics is to look at particular creative team runs on titles rather then the series as a whole.

@Thenomain
The unaging thing is explained by them only having been active for around 10 years or so in continuity.
Which is why Ben Grimm has gone from being a pilot in WW2 to being a test pilot for the military before becoming the things.
And Frank Castle went from being a recent Vietnam vet to being to being a vet from a non-named other conflict.
In general fans will ignore inconsistencies that give them what they want. For example it is shown that Skrulls revert back to their base form after death this is what tips of the heroes to Secret Invasion, that event was then used to undo the rather stupid and pointless killing of Mockingbird in the mid-nineties, since fans like this they ignore the fact that we seen Mocky well after death in the issue she dies in human form. Why cause it gave us what we want.
On ageing in particular it is not like characters in other fiction age much if it can be avoided. When you have live actors they have to age but look at the aging on any soap opera which actor changes they remain fairly constant or at least age at a much reduced rate after hitting adulthood. Or the Simpsons, Bart and Lisa have been in the same grade for over 20 years now.
Or Star Trek which rebooted rather then dealing with the aging of actors and there fore characters.

@Vorpal
Easy Mind control. It's not like we haven't had a hypnotized/mind controlled Cap working for villains in the past.
Heck Dr. Faustus has done it one at least two occasions that I own. the same Dr. that hypnotically Mind controlled Sharon Carter into killing Cap at the end of the comic version of Civil Wat. (Yes i just spoiler-ed something that has been out for a decade)
Not saying this is a good thing to be doing, and I have zero faith in Marvel doing it well but by itself it is not stain Cap, or at least not worse then any other hero. Sadly companies doing bizarrely things with their characters is not new.

@faraday said in How does a Mu* become successful?:

I understand what you're saying. Personally I don't see a big difference between provisional RP in OOC areas with consenting folks, and provisional RP in IC areas with consenting folks. Either way, you're risking retcon -- not only for the parties involved, but also for ripple effects if there was anything significant done during those provisional scenes.

For me the big difference is being on grid. It goes to the whole public scene versus private scene discussion.
If you are unapproved and you find someone to rp with in a public grid spot that then can and does draw others in. this is fine as long as each new person is told Hey character A is not approved so this could all be retconned.
But the question gets a lot messier if Person A logs off but the scene keeps going. Now lets say there is an issue at what point to you start and stop the retcon of the scene.
Now scenes in RP rooms tend to stay with just the characters that started them, the the potential for damage is more neatly contained.

I am a bit split on Provisional rp, I will not take part in it since I hate retcons in all forms (yes sometimes they are necessary but even then I hate them.) but I see no problem with it being allowed for people that want to partake in it.

@SkinnyThicket said in Does size matter? What about duration?:

@ThatGuyThere

I wasn't aware! Is it just combat that MUSHes go turn-by-turn for? Burning Wheel comes to mind as a system that treats duels-of-wit with the same narrative gravitas as duels-of-sword.

That all depends on the MUSH and what if any system they are using, MUSHes run a large gamut of styles from Superhero games with no real system to things like WoD and even Champions which have RPG systems of varying complexity. RfK for example had downtime systems that handled things like improving territory and controlling domains.
As far as the duels of wit mechanically getting played out it is possible if you find others who want to go into the same detail on that matter. I have on NWoD games played out with full use of the social rules in the game scenes where my PC and another were each trying to convince the other to switch sides on an issue, this was pre-GMC but even the base NWoD books had rudimentary rules in that regard. With the newer stuff it goes more in depth with the Doors system.
To tie into the original topic of this thread, it tends to be about individual game culture much like posing. The are some games that I tend to pose longer on due to the fact that that is the accepted norm and even a few I have found where the excepted norm was shorter then I preferred, mechanics use on a MUSH is the same way, there are some games where I wish people would use the dice a lot more or at all. (Mostly the Superhero genre) And some that use the mechanics frequently, which is my preference. (I have yet run into a game culture the used +roll to a point where I thought no this is too much.)

@SkinnyThicket
I wouldn't call MUSHes mechanics light. When it comes to points where time is important (combat) they have can have it mapped out pretty close if they use a TT system.
you mentioned a table top background MUSHes really work like that in regards to a lot of things. In most tabletops the GM does not keep track of exactly how long it takes the PCs to cross town to talk with the mayor or exactly how long that convo lasts.
Though if they are going to the mayors office to stop a kidnapping attempt the Gm does make not of how much time is passing in much more detail, and then when they fight the bad guys time is definitely tracked rather closely.
MUSHes are like this too. No one really concerns themselves with how long the scene were you meet with Billy and find out he is a wolf too and talk with him about joining the pack, but when you and Billy go out to fight the murder spirit that is possessing hobos and turning them into killing machines you would handle that round by round like in a table top.

Personally I prefer a solid paragraph in most cases, though the big thing for me is frequency. If the wait between a new pose starts to get mush above 5 minutes I find my mind straying from the scene.
Though honestly every scene has a rhythm and that can trump personal preferences. For example not long ago my PC was in a scene with an IC friend of his and they were essentially just giving each other crap. During that part of the the scene poses got shorter but also quicker so it felt right still.
Now in a moment of high IC drama I tend to go for longer poses even if they take longer because it tends to fit the moment.