Best posts made by Thenomain

@mietze said in RL Anger:

By the time engineers get out of engineer school they all have the same handwriting.

And tolerance to alcohol that would make a bartender shocked.

@Wizz said:

And aren't you penalized? Not doing Changeling stuff and raising Clarity means your Wyrd falls and keeps falling, IIRC.

What? No it doesn't. First: Raising your Clarity in Changeling is moving away from the unusual and strange.

Secondly, your Wyrd can't fall unless you do so intentionally, outlined in the very last seasonal book: Equinox Road. (There were three books after it, but ER was the last planned one.)

The Storyteller system is supposed to be a toolbox.

I have never seen the core rules used as a toolbox. As these are the jumping-off points of all major templates in the Storytelling System (yay, I get to know something! 'storyteller' was oWoD), I'm going to assume that the writers were blowing smoke.

Maybe you meant all the books, but I think it's a dick move to consider anything but the core book as a requirement for an online game, just as I think it's a dick move to tell people who know the core rules to shove off because they don't know something buried in a splat somewhere.

(Or even buried in the core rules. Did you know that there are rules for finding portals in the core Changeling rules? And yet people get pissy if you want to "wing it" with combat. Why isn't hard to imagine. Consistency, as @Ganymede would say, is king.)

There was a point to this not having specifically to do with Changeling, but I can't remember what it was.

edit: Interestingly, I have a personal rule when judging scenes: What I remember or think is interesting is the rule at the moment. If you have a problem with that you can tell me once, and I will make a decision and then the scene will move on. I am not a fan of all-or-nothing consistency because it's nearly impossible to attain. but I more than understand the reasoning behind it.

I am all for breaking rules as long as it fits the requirements of "it's internally consistent to the game" and "it's interesting for those involved". (Notice I didn't say fun. Fun is what we want before our tastes become more nuanced. Engaged, interested, those are the classifications of "fun" that I want.)

@Miss-Demeanor said:

Look at the years long debate on how Separation 5 works. >.>

Hey, I told Gany at the time that I could abuse it either way she wanted to rule it. And abuse it I did.

@misadventure

I only “got rid of” VAS because I said that her presence in Changeling was unwelcome and she had to go so she took her toys and went elsewhere. She came back. And was put on Staff. So much for staff behaving like adults.

@Gingerlily said in RL Anger:

@Auspice

I was born inn 1979 and refuse to be anything but Gen X.

You (and I) should add: You're welcome, Millennials. Because thank god we didn't ruin college and killing mental hospitals or anything. We did help those idiot Boomers crash the tech sector, but then we cleaned up the bits and started over while they were ruining college and killing mental hospitals.

I say "we" like I had anything to do with it, but I do feel justified in saying that what Gen X did made way for the Millennials to do what they're doing. (Would there be Snapchat without Flickr? Would there be Facebook without Geocities? Would there be Google without ... okay, Google was inevitable, but also Gen X As Fuck.)

@Pandora said in Cultural differences between MUDs and MUSHes:

That lack of uniformity in determination seems like it could easily turn into hard feelings about favoritism or what have you. 'Bob got saved by an NPC doctor after he got stabbed in the chest, but I died after a PC doctor botched his roll. I want a do-over.'

This is a problem in RPG design, too, not just Mushes or Muds. Have you ever watched the comedy short, "The Gamers"? They do this all the time. At the table, it doesn't matter because the rules at the table are the rules for your reality. In game design, however, my preferred answer is: If you choose to roll the dice, you abide by the system.

MUDs aren't perfect, but if you've got a doctor, you're saved, and if you don't have a doctor, here's hoping you remembered to set your spouse/beneficiaries before you kicked the bucket.

This strikes me as a concession, not a solution, and what if the doctor has to roll the dice, those dice are just part of the 'health system' code that you don't see? See Above.

@arkandel

many WoD games took the first one.

You are a monster with powers far beyond human ken. This is like saying that because everyone plays a Jedi that who gets a purple lightsaber is important.

The sad thing is that this is seen as true. It’s a glitch in the culture of these games.

@Catsmeow said in RL Anger:

@Thenomain said in RL Anger:

Would there be Google without ...

.. Archie

And where would we be without Colossal Cave Adventure? It's nerds all the way down.

Nerddom transcends all societal and chronological classification.

Another thought:

If you don't have all your Defining Moments set, don't give full chargen points. As you define those moments, allow chargen points to be spent concerning that defining moment.

Incidentally, @Taika, have you ever read the Fate Core rules? This is its basis of character generation. I'm presenting their answer for creating character Aspects on the fly.

@wildbaboons said in Earning stuff:

@thenomain said in Earning stuff:

You might laugh on a public forum that Caine just rode up to a seedy bar on a motorcycle in the middle of Albuquerque, but Caine rode up to a seedy bar on a motorcycle in the middle of Albuquerque.

Context? I'm not sure why this example is a good thing?

Because something is happening. Something BIG is happening. Something that you can react to, even if it’s a copious Gen-X or Millenial rolling of the eyes. You know that somethings going down on this game, something that has weight, and weight means gravity, and gravity means movement.

Caine was the first vampire in WoD lore, but even in vaguely biblical lore, Caine stopping by a seedy bar is still something that can happen between waiting for the next +event.

The games I’ve played on lately have had little of Caine On a Motorcycle, or even little Hey Let’s Talk About Current Supernatural Events.

And that’s sad.

I don’t need to earn anything. I log in to play a character and their story. Earning things makes it more varied, but it’s a tool for play, not a reason.

@Clarity & @WTFE :

See, I don't see that from Werewolf. The Werewolf I see has little option but to "be a Werewolf, oh and you can do some other things". The way Changeling is written and presented the option is "to be a person, oh and you're also a mental rape victim with the possibility of magic powers". The focus of the rules and the theme tell us these things, which is why I started this thread.

I see nothing about this in Werewolf to insult, but to explain what it seems to be. I have found nothing in any of the nWerewolf books to say:

regular dude/dudette who has some bizarre part-time obligations

Nothing. Not even the core book, which I believe is the only book that should really matter.

I don't mean this as a bad thing, but as simply how it is. I've also said (perhaps repeatedly? this discussion feels like it's gotten circular more than once) that if you want to not engage the primary theme and setting of a game, go for it, but that you're not really playing that game unless you're using it as the exception to prove the rule.

My brain has tangented from the concept of the "toolkit". I recall when WoD 2.0 (sigh, the original "official" name of the nWoD set) came out, the goal was to let each table create their own game. The stigma of the metaplot was huge and each table was supposed to be its own world with its own conditions and social politics and so forth.

I buy that. I do. I was excited about it back then. But a few things happened.

First: White Wolf's business model relies on pushing out books at a certain rate. This is probably true of all full-time RPG companies. What I saw filling the books reversed this promise. X-Axis group is A, B, and C.

"Toolkit", I would counter myself by saying. Well, yeah, but no, Armory was a toolkit. Spelling out the history of a bloodline from day 1 and who's currently leading it and so forth ... is not. It's deep, and it's entertaining, and it fills the pages, but it takes the butterfly of freedom that toolkits are meant to be about and pins it down.

"Father Wolf" is not a toolkit element, but honestly I don't mind because it answers the "what is a Werewolf" question. A toolkit that's too open is not useful, and I've complained about Changeling similarly.

Secondly: Take the above and throw about 50 strangers into the mix. Someone above mentioned it, but you can't really afford to explain every detail of what the game is about if the books didn't already say it.

I mean, we're back and forth enough about it that I'd be tempted to say that Werewolf is about ... nothing. When Basic D&D, the blue box, can be more certain about what it's about than the fifth version of a single game line, that's horrible.

(Werewolf, Werewolf 2nd Ed, Werewolf Revised, Werewolf 2.0, Werewolf Chronicles.)

And sure, it's a bonus, too. Part of the draw of Changeling is that it's not about anything, but it's also it's largest weakness. A Werewolf can say, "Hey, let's go fuck up some spirits, because that's one of the things that gets us power and power's awesome." What can a Changeling say? "Hey, you want to go fuck up Arcadia?" What, are you mad?! "Okay, the Goblin Market?" Stop it; you're insane. "Want to hang out at the mall and drop pennies on people until the security guards chase us out, so we can get some power pool points and mess with them tomorrow?" Okay.

I don't believe Werewolf is a game about nothing. If's a game about something, then all the characters in it are geared to do that something. A Werewolf is a Werewolf. And for Mu*s, that's a good place to be.

@faraday said in Earning stuff:

And really, when you get right down to it, a+b constitutes, like, 90% of primetime TV airtime.

You know earlier when I said that way back when people logged in to write?

No?

Way back when, people logged in to write.

Even me.

Which just proves how bad of a writer I am.

@Zz said in Podcasts:

@Auspice In this vein - LORE at lorepodcast.com! It's all about old lore, horror, and supernatural stories and mixes the history behind them with an examination of human fears and fascinations.

Listened to the first episode, vampires. It's quick, succinct, and encourages people to look into it further. A++.

@bored

Victorian Reverie. I played there as one of the few humans. It was okay, tho I had a lot of problems with the staff. And the grid. Er, and the code. So, yeah.

@faraday said in Earning stuff:

I have no idea what you're getting at.

That "90% of primetime TV airtime" didn't matter. And my current experience is that a lot of people don't log in to write, but to react.

@Derp said in Mass Effect: Andromeda: The Thread:

• The animations are a little rough in some places. Characters walk through me frequently, and clip into a pose. It's distracting. Patch that shit.

Heehee, I finished a conversation with three scientists and they just stood there, unmoving and unanimated, for the rest of the time that area was loaded.

@surreality said in Pretendy Fun Time Games:

@Thenomain said in Pretendy Fun Time Games:

I generally only leave a game when I'm bored.

This is actually why I lean on 'variations in experience is more important than a balanced experience', for the record.

Even one's favorite thing gets dull as dishwater after a while if that's all you get.

Which is why multi-sphere WoD games seem to last longer, even if each sphere is practically its own game.

@ganymede

Fair.

I'm currently creating a character on a game far, far higher power than I'm comfortable with because this is what people around me are playing. I am angsting (loudly; sorry everyone around me) that I will not be able to justify this to the gatekeepers and therefore be asked to not play with those people around me.

So FH and SF may be the only two tier systems I've encountered that make a systematic difference. In my world, that's a justification to use them.

@Insomnia

I at first felt stuck with my romance option in Witcher 3, but later it became amazing. Watching a stuffy, bossy, manipulative witch casually paint a mustache on a painting? Worth it.

But multiple monogamous relationships? Yeah, like I said, the programmers dropped so many flags that you'd think it was first day for the color guard at band camp. I had someone both congratulate me for surviving taking down a base and warn me not to go try and take down the same base, in the same conversation.

@Arkandel

Okay, I'm going to rant. Not at you this time, just in general because this keeps coming up.

What in hell is the difference between typing in a Mu* client and typing in a web client?

The game doesn't change. The commands don't change. How you get things done don't change. The only plausible I can think of changing is the extras, like how Zork Zero added to the tired Infocom interface. Some text adventures had a Wizardry-like interface to show as well as tell.

All of this is interesting, but all I hear about is how "telnet bad, website good". Getting people quickly into a client and onto the game is good, but you're still using the telnet interface or one that looks identical to it I don't care if you're using sockets or telnet or AJAX or whatever you want at that point.

I'm going to invoke @WTFE here, possibly because of the people I think of who are "anything but telnet", he's the most technical and educational of them. But someone please explain this.