Best posts made by Thenomain

@kitteh said in FS3:

@Thenomain said in FS3:
The trust thing I just think is ridiculous, to be blunt. Not that I disbelieve it, but... if you don't trust staff, idk, what are you even doing and how is some text of pretend dice making you trust where you didn't before?

Trust in what, exactly? Trust is not a binary, and is not all inclusive.You can trust the system and not trust staff. I have done this so many times that it's not funny. I admit, doing it once isn't funny, but no less true.

The opposite can also be true. I can be trusted to code but god forbid someone ask me to lead or to create a playable game situation. I would probably not trust @EmmahSue to make an RPG system based on statistics, but I would run over most you (on my bike; I'm not mean) to play in a plot she's constructed.

Different people need different things to trust systems. Computer game programmers are aware of this, tho we end up with pretty shit games anyway because knowing what's important and knowing how to apply it is a huge leap.

CofD has a system in combat where you must declare the purpose of the combat beforehand. If it has to do with death, you must roll and spend to maintain it.

WoD and CofD work best when you front load the challenges, so you know what modifiers to apply to this. It's really the only way to know what modifiers to apply to it.

It's not anybody's fault but their own if they don't want to live the life of modifiers outside of combat. Maybe people would only take social combat if it was actually combat, if moves had meaning.

If I had the minimal time and interest, I would open a game with a base system code and leave the players to it. (I have three base concepts that can do this.) However, the only people I've known to successfully do this are writers, and willing to use the game itself as a canvas to write a part of a story and let other people write their part and let it snowball.

Who cares about system if people are playing with it? System can only influence people so far, and god knows that people will put up with it if they see other people doing the same.

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Edit, because the above post happened when I was writing this one.

Players do not need to be spoon fed. Players need to be comfortable in their agency, and we especially in the WoD realm have been beating that agency out of them for decades. Partially because people need to play the game in front of them, partially because we got concerned with people getting rewards. Look at most WoD games struggling with PrPs. First we said that the player must build their own fun from the ground up, then we said that they can't do it without extreme vetting. And that's ignoring the bitchy behavior of manipulative and controlling staff.

Players know exactly what they want, they just don't know when they are going to step on some hyperactive staffer's indignant power-trip.

Players don't need to be spoon fed, we just turned all their fun to Mush.

@Ataru said in Fading Suns 2017:

@HelloProject If you play Fremen yes.

Gordon Fremen?

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Look, just start building the game and invite people to play while it's being built. It will either explode in popularity, or just explode. Either way means that you either didn't waste any time or didn't waste too much time, and everyone got some well-needed fun in the process.

@faraday said in Identifying Major Issues:

@Thenomain said in Identifying Major Issues:

let us look critically and completely into the systems that this broad category interacts with, and how they interact with it.

Fair enough, but my only point is that my broad experience with players across a dozen games and almost two decades is that the people willing to run their own plots are few and far between.

While I used to see it happen a lot, a lot a lot. Alot.

Now, finding the people who run things for kicks is like finding a unicorn, but the games where I've seen everyone go crazy are games where authors are writing people into their stories, and when those authors are staff then it's RP Orgy Time.

We didn't used to have a name for RP. Well, we did; it was called RP. If people on your game don't get out to RP, I don't know what to say. The last mud-like game I was on, it was D&D 4e, and the grid was tiny and nobody knew what they were supposed to be doing.

It could very well have nothing to do with staff beating creativity out of their players, that's just what I'm used to seeing.

@Derp

Cool.

Let's try to work out what works now, then. I mean, there's a reason why Fall Coast has high connect numbers in spite of I think we can agree that it's not a deeply developed game, right?

@Derp said in Identifying Major Issues:

@HelloProject said in Identifying Major Issues:

Also who doesn't have like 10 burner emails? It's not that heavy.

So much this.

It is annoying as fuck, tho, and no not everyone knows how to do this let alone cares to learn how. We've talked about the barrier to entry, and we've talked about trust, and the required email is solidly in both camps. If we're going to talk about trust, then there's absolutely zero reason, at all, even a little, for a game to need your email address. It may not be a big deal to some, but let's be blunt and also call a telnet-based game "not a big deal". And yet if you say that in this crowd, it's a good way to spark a great deal of wailing and gnashing of teeth.

There's absolutely zero reason, at all, even a little, for a game to need your email address.

Just to say, but I'm unaware of White Wolf ever explaining when changing the n-again from "10" is a good design decision. If you look at some of the statistical breakdowns, 9-again does not make a small difference until about 5 dice and doesn't make a large difference until about 9 dice.

While I am extremely glad that nWoD completely scrapped the variable target number (8 or nothing!), and I believe in reading between the lines to try and figure out what the intent is, I never got the feeling that n-again shifts were meant to be entirely one thing or another. In practice it increases number of success dice by a minor percentage of the dice rolled, or flattens that chance to a straight line (with No-Again).

@Derp said in Identifying Major Issues:

@Thenomain said in Identifying Major Issues:

There's absolutely zero reason, at all, even a little, for a game to need your email address.

You mean except for all those @surreality listed above?

Those aren't needs. Those are tools that can be handy for the player. I've never asked a player to prove that they were who they said they were with an email address, though I can understand if someone wants to. Need? No.

So no, nothing Surreality said is a requirement. As she said, and even stressed, they are OPT IN systems. Last I checked my definitions of things, this doesn't mean "need".

It's not a bar for entry.

So?

I'm serious. So what? Something not being "a bar for entry" doesn't make it a good idea. Your logic is flawed and you should feel bad, or whatever Dr. Zoidberg says,

And if I'm running a game? Honestly, there are things I will want for my own security and game features that will require this. And if you can't trust me enough to even provide a burner e-mail for that, fine. Play elsewhere. There are other options.

Your logic is still flawed and etc. etc. I don't need your permission not to play your game (something that drives me nuts; staff, I know that I can log out, and I will decide if I'm going to or not, the ball's in your court if you're going to throw me off your game).

You either missed or purposefully ignored the initial point I made: Making a burner email is not in everyone's interest, nor in everyone's capabilities. Expecting people to do so to get around a system is pretty much admitting that the system is flawed. Why not, instead, like Surreality says, make the system OPT IN. This part has nothing to do with trust.

Also, I'm sick and tired of people demanding that trust is binary, that you either trust completely or you don't at all. This logic is bad and ... you know the rest.

The staff of a game are not your martyrs, and can impose requirements on you since they are incurring costs to provide you something for free. This is a perfectly reasonable requirement to be able to benefit from that.

Wow. You think you're a martyr, now. Look at you, pretending you know what that word means. I'll look impressed just for you.

No, it's not martyring asking players to do something, but don't pretend it's because it's a) easy to get around therefore it's perfectly sensible to demand it, or b) that it's necessary for 99% of Mu* systems. It's not.

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extremely important addition: It's not. It's a staff edict, a "because we say so". Go team.

@faraday

Yeah. I know. That's why I went with MMOs. Dork.

I asked my Millenial co-worker how many people he knew would know how to make a secondary email for junk and things and things and junk, to separate their important stuff from other stuff, and he said about one third.

We here are generally very technical people. I expected him to say, "why would anyone have only one email address", but he didn't. I'm not using this as proof that two thirds of "kids these days" are not technically savvy, but as evidence that "not that hard" is a matter of great perspective.

@Roz said in Identifying Major Issues:

@Thenomain said in Identifying Major Issues:

I asked my Millenial co-worker how many people he knew would know how to make a secondary email for junk and things and things and junk, to separate their important stuff from other stuff, and he said about one third.

We here are generally very technical people. I expected him to say, "why would anyone have only one email address", but he didn't. I'm not using this as proof that two thirds of "kids these days" are not technically savvy, but as evidence that "not that hard" is a matter of great perspective.

Having multiple email addresses doesn't have to equal technically savvy.

This is why I don't like arguing with geeks. (Note: I am a total geek, and arguing with me is probably not fun either.)

The info I posted (quotes from me are being kept double-quoted to be visually distinct):

I asked my Millenial co-worker how many people he knew would know how to make a secondary email for junk and things and things and junk, to separate their important stuff from other stuff, and he said about one third.

You may disagree with my conclusion, but-- wait, I just saw this.

Did your coworker really say that only one third of millennials would know how to make another email address, or probably have a secondary email address for junk?

Let me say what happened in maybe a clearer way:

I asked him how many people he knew would know how to make a secondary email for junk, and he said about one third.

I know I'm being lightly sarcastic, here, but this is how The Telephone Game starts. I'm terrible at reading comprehension sometimes, myself. I recalled the entire conversation we had, if there's question that I was going into great detail with him. I did not.

I do know plenty of non-tech savvy millennials, but I still think most of them would know how to sign up for an email address.

But how many know that they know, how many would know how to set up and manage multiple accounts with their email client, or know how to find a better client that would do this? How many would give up before getting that far? We have been talking about the barrier of entry, and my repeated point is that "if you don't want to give out your email then just do this incredibly simple thing" is not logically consistent for how difficult people may find it to be, that it may be easy for us but not talking about it because we find it easy and therefore everyone else will find it easy is not good logic.

It's pretty crappy logic.

edit: Worse, it's absolutely horrible design, and can run very counter for recognizing issues.

The bottom line is that @surreality is building a game with certain functions and a level of wiki integration that requires an email.

The bottom line is that @surreality has said on more than one occasion that many functions she can see using are OPT IN, and I have no problem with this. It's not her specifically that I'm talking to (again The Telephone Game rears its ugly head). That said...

If folks have strong objections to using an email, personal or burner, they can play other games and it's not a big deal.

It's not, and I admit this openly and freely and repeatedly. I think it's a stupid thing to need as described almost every occasion in this thread, but that's not the same issue as I'm defending above.

@Roz

I saw the best brrraaaaaaaaiiiiiins of my generation destroyed by brrraaaaaaaiiiiins,
     starving hysterical naked,

Oh, wait, that's Allen Ginsberg.

Who is this zombie whom you are responding to?

@Rook

Do you have an objection that you want more hard complaint than soft complaint? I'm not sure the purpose of what you just said otherwise. And there were more than a few straight-up examples of Spider's behavior in the other thread, examples in which were called "shit-talking". You can't please everyone.

@Ghost said in A Constructive Thread About People We Might Not Like:

I would like to state for the record that my 'quoted' comment above was not intended to in any way start any sort of actual mob-rule banning effort, nor was it intended to start anything, really.

Then my Rhetorical Question sensor is on the fritz, sorry.

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@Rook said in A Constructive Thread About People We Might Not Like:

@Thenomain
No no. I was posting in the spirit of a more generalized thread, not her specifically. It seems to me that the comment of 'why start a thread like this' is going to come up rather quickly, so I guess I sort of answered that. Dumb?

Nope, makes sense. Thanks for clarifying.

@Ghost

Also extremely fair. My end-game is noted, and so yes I took your philosophical thoughts and ran with it. Not going to blame anyone for going, "Argh, don't blame me if this goes sour!" I'll take that hit.

But people also need to know how to identify someone they might not like but still should put up with, or how to deal with people they think may be a problem. Being able to talk it over and have people with perhaps more level-heads say, "Theno stop spazzing out, this isn't a big deal."

I've had one or two people tell me, "This is how you are, Theno, and this is why people don't take you seriously." (Alternatively: why people don't come to me for help.) I've tried to take it to heart--with varying success, obviously--and knowing how to be your own sensible friend is a pretty potent skill.

It's also nice to know when you aren't crazy, when someone you've been trying to be the better person with and understanding and so forth is just not worth it.

This is the "knowing" part, only half the battle, but the other half is going on in some discussion already so I wanted to shine a brief spotlight on the Identify The Root Problem part, because sometimes it's us and sometimes it's not.

The Storytelling system is broken in certain precise circumstances. News at 11.

@Tinuviel

Agreed. I don't think that, or much of that at least, is happening here.

@Sparks said in Coming Soon: Arx, After the Reckoning:

Physical combat is easy. There's no "I found your sword-strike unconvincing"; you got hit, you got hit. Social combat, though? That's harder to define.

Fate does this incredibly elegantly, mostly that social combat isn't about social situations, but your ability to maneuver in them. To Fate, social grace is a mental trait.

So I do wish there was a more immediately clear "Quickstart Guide to Theme". Maybe it's worth making a little Player's Handbook to Arx to put up somewhere.

Asking/wondering/confused about this is the start of what got me labeled a troll on Arx. This game needs something like this so much that it burns. The chaotic and half-complete state of their news files is absolutely heartbreaking.

I understand someone started their own wiki to solve this problem; you may want to ask around.

@Sparks said in Coming Soon: Arx, After the Reckoning:

Roz and Glitch set up an unofficial wiki some time back with staff permission, and it looks like there is a very useful and simple quick start introduction on there. (I tend to forget about the wiki, which is a real failing on my part.)

This is, without hyperbole, about the only way I could possibly have gotten started on the game. The news and theme files otherwise are like playing 52 Card Pick-Up with the 3x5 cards of someone's book outline. I hope that the quick-start wiki is still being maintained.