Best posts made by Thenomain

@lordbelh said in Social Conflict via Stats:

@Coin said in Social Conflict via Stats:

But my point is: physical stats get less flak because there's this tacit and implicit agreement in the hobby that you don't need to get along OOC to get into a physical bloody brawl IC, and "oh well, I killed your character, SUCK IT". And it's a shitty position to take as a hobby.

When do people ever do this, on which games?

We've gotten much better at it on Mushes. Darkmetal is probably the last time I saw "you're dead because I rolled better" as a common event. I've seen this happen on Haunted Memories, and even as recently as on The Reach, but even in those instances they've become things that create reactionary drama.

On a Mud, you're a slave to the system. If someone coded "you are dead" then you are dead. We don't have many Mudders here, but Evennia is expanding that.

What @Coin's point is, to me, is that most social conflicts don't have even this much. There is no "we are fucking now sucks to be you". Of course that would be an entirely stupid way to do a social system, but the lack of having any system behind it (or to reiterate @Ganymede, a system that isn't enforced, which is as good as having no system at all) is the bulk of this discussion each and every time it comes up.

@arkandel said in General Video Game Thread:

It's a good idea to plug your username/e-mail into https://haveibeenpwned.com/ now and then to see if it was ever included in a breach.

Speaking of irony: It's kind of ironic to enter your password into a third-party website to see if it's been pwn'd.

@lordbelh said in Social Conflict via Stats:

With the amount of XP a regular character on a MU WOD game carries

And so the issue once again comes back to: Most tabletop games cannot handle a persistent 24/7 environment without changing the game.

The problem with solving this problem is often: We don't know what won't work until we've committed to the change. c.f., Reach/Fallcoast's Infinite XP issue. It's too late for them, but it's not too late for you.

Another change, of course, would be tweaking Doors to better defend at higher XP values, making the characters absolute unflappable badasses in the face of the average American criminal system, which isn't bad but may be comedy gold.

@theonceler

I loved playing the end credits.

If Donut Country ever hits $5, folks, either buy it or beg a friend to gift it to you. Then just settle in under a blanket and enjoy.

@ixokai

Following pose order is easy: Remember who is before you. That's it.

Update:

https://playnite.link/ now includes Epic and Itch.io's launcher.

Enjoy!

@tragedyjones said in The State of the Chronicles of Darkness:

@Thenomain said in The State of the Chronicles of Darkness:

@tragedyjones
Changeling? Ever?

2019

Gotcha, thanks.

@Ganymede said in General Video Game Thread:

It's like our entire debate on Dragon Age 2 all over again.

Less so, because DA2 sucks.

For Battletech, I just don't click with it.

That is, I can recognize when a game is Not For Me(tm), vs. one that betrays expectations by being a completely different game between iterations. I have spent so much time in DA:O and DA:I that DA2 was a console game in an RPG series. While DA:A also felt a bit this way, it was far more RPG than DA2.

It also had more than one dungeon and more than three environments.

I think, @surreality (& others), my question in response to those is: Whose responsibility is it that your character be useful in a scene? A lot of people take it upon themselves to make sure that their character is useful for the game, though they still want to role-play a character with different traits.

In today's PrP-Driven scenarios, where is there a place for a dwarf who works at Baskin Robbins and takes care of his invalid mother? Where in WoD does it tell you that it's okay for your Eternal Spring 2 (Heal Everyone) to be powered by a mere Medicine 2? Would your average Mu*er go to you, or go to Tammy Twinkery who tho her character concept is "flower girl" has Medicine 5?

These are rough hypotheticals.

People are probably going rage against one side of this spectrum or another. Hell, I've seen @HelloRaptor argue the case for both sides.

I have no answer, but the waters are very muddy, and the games we play tend to force us to have the maximum stat for our power stat possible. Maybe if WoD wasn't designed to do that, or if we didn't have XP coming out of the ground in fountains.

@Insomnia said in General Video Game Thread:

Just going to leave this here.

Aggressive "subscribe to us!" popup. This is bad enough when I go to computer store websites.

@vulgarkitten

Because you're one of those crazy planning people, who plans. I bet you even have a GANTT chart for your character. You...planner...you.

@Ganymede said in Modiphius Games:

In your collective opinion, how well would the Modiphius system work on a MUSH?

You have a problem.

@Mr.-Pedantic said:

Hey, I was never a thread-spammer.

I also offer delusions to myself. For instance, my little explosions were always for reasonable, well-founded reasons. HR still thinks he's funny and insightful, for some reason.

If this place is designed to move away from the negativity, then I guess I'll honor that.

Designed to, no. Ended up being, more like. I think a lot of us were tired of Wora, even when we were defending it.

@Testament said in General Video Game Thread:

It was supposed to be so different, but it got changed and we're supposed to just gloss over the whole 'suns going out/dark energy' stuff that was pressed so hard on us in ME2'. You know, that massive plot hole.

You mean brought up in one recruitment mission and never again?

I think I know why we have such conflicting opinions on BioWare games, because we are picking up on entirely different things from them.

--

Incidentally, here's what I think the "sun oddity" was about: http://www.starflt.com/

Star Flight, an ancient PC game about explorers going from planet to planet running a little buggy across sometimes hostile terrains. The thing had big wheels and was kind of bouncy. This is DOS-era, so it was more how it looked than how it acted, but doesn't this sound eerily familiar?

Fuel was found in these ultra-rare crystals on some planets, and fuel was very important because many, many suns were getting dangerously hot, like they were suddenly aging faster than they should be, so finding the fuel and exploring around for a reason why is the main plot.

The secret (I'm going to spoil a 30-year-old game, sorry everyone) is that the stars are living creatures and the bits you're burning up for fuel to find this out are their eggs. (Honest, it makes sense when they tell it.) So the stars are going to kill everyone for using their eggs as fuel.

I see the whole writer's bit as an homage to Star Flight, much like the Mako, and offered up as a plot hook that wasn't picked back up. It's too bad, because I was excited to see it.

I say this because I heard that the spilled plot was about The Singularity, and it's too bad they didn't just own the shit out of this because that sounds fantastic.

--

All of this talk reminds me of the other game where I felt that the DLC was better than the main game: Fallout: New Vegas. I don't say that lightly because FONV was amazing, but the combination of the DLCs is a whole second game, not just a few things that happen for fun (and they are fun, even Dead Money and don't let anyone tell you otherwise). It even shares the same themes as the main game: What is it to be a people? A city-state, a country, a tribe.

Ahh, philosophizing over video game writing. Makes me all warm and happy.

To follow-up @surreality: The moment when you see people realize how much you can say with very little.

Did someone say digital board games? Sometimes it's nice to let the system do all the math and fiddling:

https://www.humblebundle.com/games/more-board-games-asmodee?partner=moiren

(Note: Link helps our own @Insomnia. You can drop that bit at the end if that bugs ya, but hey.)

@surreality

To be honest the original Wora was mainly there to out shitty staff by trolling them hard. This is why Rasheem, to get back to Wora’s roots, went to Pillow Fort and pretended to be nice in order to report on how they manipulated other games, and to out them hard and laugh about it.

Whether or not he was successful is another story.

My nickname at one of the places I worked was "Leroy Jenkins".

'Nuff said.

@Bennie said:

@Thenomain agree to disagree.

I don't agree to disagree. I agree to points even if I disagree with the result. In your case. I find no benefit or truth in agreeing to disagree. I find your entire thesis to be off.

When people have things to do

Having something to engage your interest helps, but it isn't the cause. I've lacked things to do and refrained from PKing anyone. In fact, I've never PK'd anyone in my entire online-RP life.

Let me contrast @HelloRaptor, who has PK'd but it was always because of normal consequence or self-defense. That is, he was engaged but it happened anyway.

The problem is that people are jerks, not that jerks must be entertained else oh no! PKs!

I used to call this "The Technocracy Effect", mainly because Techno players wanted to play up the Supernatural Cops, not because they had to. Sure, they had nothing else from staff challenging them, but they sure as hell didn't have to go after PCs. It wasn't entirely antithematic, but it sure was a dick thing do to.

@Sunny said in WoW Classic:

@Thenomain said in WoW Classic:

A bunch of young kids at work are going crazy about this “Magic the Gathering” thing. What the hell is going on in the world? Are we grasping for nostalgia so hard even people who never lived through these things are pining for it?

I think it's called 'we are getting old'. This happened with Bell Bottom pants, too.

Yeah, but these are people young enough that this is their first experience with Magic.

In retrospect, it's probably a well-supported business model and maintaining the brand and game in such a way that it's still something nerds like.