Best posts made by Thenomain

@the-sands said in Game Design: Avoiding Min-Maxing:

@thenomain said in Game Design: Avoiding Min-Maxing:

make every part of the system important

So then you want Pastry Making to be important?

If it's part of the game system, then I better be playing Shokugeki no Souma, yes.

If it's not important, then the system is not doing what it should be doing.

And if it's a "do anything" system like WoD, then the staff isn't doing what they should be doing. There's a reason people who take the the Crafts skill push staff to let them use it to make cool stuff, because that's why they took the bloody Crafts skill to begin with.

If the game has rules about making cakes, then if I engage the system I should get something out of it besides a cake. Maybe I have a personally designed cake from a staffer. Maybe I have impressed the Lord of Cats so much that he's going to give me his cat-daughter's hand in marriage and half of his little cat-kingdom as dowery. (There will also be a Day of Catnip in celebration. Many books will be knocked off shelves. It will be glorious.)

If all I get is a cake then why did anyone roll anything? This is practically Rule #1: If the success or failure is not interesting, don't roll. (Not to be mistaken for Rule #0: If the rules don't make sense, ignore them.)

@surreality said in Echoes in the Mists - CoD 2e MU:

...this would be the ad thread, I believe.

The threads we’re not supposed to be having discussions in?

@the-sands said in Game Design: Avoiding Min-Maxing:

The real thing that causes min-maxing is people wanting to be 'better' than everyone else

Min-maxing is the act of making the best of the resources at hand.

It can be used for good or evil. Good: Baking for Cats. Bad: Dump stats.

It's going to be done no matter what anyone wants. There is no stopping it. Period.

I would rather a game where I can still participate even if I don't spend a lot of time min-maxing, than a game worried about people focusing on a talent sometimes creating unbalanced situations.

I'm more worried about people abusing a system, and systems that allow themselves to be abused. I would rather balanced systems.

I've made my suggestions, largely agreeing with @Ganymede and @surreality and others I should credit: If everything in the game can be used to effect the game, then that's good enough.

And I feel fine.

@roz said in Game Design: Avoiding Min-Maxing:

@surreality I'm sure. My big objection in this particular argument isn't really about the system. It's about the attitude of "blame the newbie for not knowing the 'common sense knowledge' that WoD vets have."

I once exploded at staff who were being smug at me on Dark Metal (surprise, I know, right?) because I wasn't doing something right, and was being more-or-less punished for it.

I told them that it's staff's responsibility to make sure that the game is being played in the way that staff wants it to be played.

That was over a decade before. I only think it's more true today.

@crayon said:

How is OR as a community not entitled to define the criteria of games that the community includes?

You are entitled to define your site as you see fit. You are not entitled to define the hobby without input from all parts of the hobby, even if you disagree with them. You have taken great pains on your site to present it as a gateway to the hobby, as a place for intelligent conversation.

And yet, you refuse reasonable conversation here.

You are handily ignoring pretty much every other post I've made here, where I have answered your question at least twice. This is why I stopped responding to your posts, or even reading your site, and I'll encourage others to do the same.

@the-sands

My general coder response to that is: You worry what's best for the game, let me worry about how possible it is.

Yes, games without coders are harder to do, but it's entirely possible to run a game without detailed cgen rules if the sheet is easy enough for staff to glance and check off.

So really, make the game good for the players first, staff second, code last. And if the concern is making it so that it's easy to understand, then it will be easier to code, too, when someone gets to it.

--

edit: @surreality, You take more words to agree with people than anyone I know.

1. Do you feel as though this community has acted abusively towards OR, Jeshin and Crayon? If so, do you feel as though you had a personal hand in that, whether purposefully or unpurposefully?

Oh yes. Absolutely. However, every individual in this thread is their own person. I don't distrust OR because of your behavior; the idea of a community being a thing whole cloth falls apart at a certain level. We used to call it the "Wora Hive-Mind Fallacy," because many people quite happily said how evil Wora was because Wora is evil. Nevermind that a lot of the changes you see in the Mush community came from discussions had on Wora. Cherry-picking has its uses, when done by a craftsman. You end up with a better wine, for one.

I also talked to @Jeshin one on one as a reasonable human being, and I respect him. In your lack of reading back pages, you have undoubtedly missed where he said he was okay with this level of conversation on OR.

Yes, your boss said this kind of conversation was okay. Frustrating, infuriating, stress-inducing, but not bad. I can respect that, and have defended him many times in this thread as well.

So your own over-simplified, leading question can get Socratic with itself.

2. Do you feel that Jeshin and Crayon have failed to answer your questions to your liking due to some sort of illicit intentions, or do you feel like it's possible that there has been a breakdown in communicating clearly across the aisles?

Yes. Many, many times, yes. Most of them, yes. Do I feel that it's because of a lack of understanding? Absolutely, and I have said as such, and found different ways to say as such. You, yourself, are introducing ideas not mentioned earlier in this thread meaning that of three OR representatives, no two of them have given the same viewpoint of what OR is about.

And respectfully, no, I'm not going to show you examples of this. There is a limit of how much time I'm going to spend on your project. I have stuff of my own I need to get done.

3. Do you care enough about furthering the conversation to get the information or answers that you seek to post them specifically and clearly, and directly to me?

If you don't understand the answer to this by now, then you're not paying much attention. You want things to be in a way that you want them, which is a big reason why I don't trust you. You could have said: I don't get it, Theno, when you say xxx because I see yyy. Did I mention what I think of the Socratic method? I'm not twelve, and I'll ask you not treat me as such; please read what's in front of you.

To you, though? I've also made a very simple, straight-forward statement twice now. I don't understand why you're not understanding the words: You First.

Be engaging, and you will be engaged. Be honest, and you will be respected.

RPG systems are imperfect at accurately representing real world situations.

I have absolutely nothing more constructive to say on this matter, because RPG systems are imperfect at accurately representing real world situations.

@Ninjakitten

Thank you for picking up on that. I didn't have time to do the research at lunch. I don't think the family tree of code bases is important in this case, but the distraction of history is interesting.

Incidentally, PernMush was the code test base of TinyMush 2, tho it is the game that Shadow came from. The game developers and Amberyl & Ambar inspired him to try his own hand at it, tho I believe Penn was mostly Amberyl's project after the start of it. It's been a few decades.

Likewise, thank you for your own attempt at making the points I've been trying to make since about page one. It's refreshing when you can find concordance in a sea of vitriol.

I am willing to accept that Facebook and Google know things about me that I don't know in exchange for the services rendered, but I'm also going to do what I can and is reasonable to make this harder for them (AdBlock Plus, Ghostify, etc.)

I am paranoid that my hobby is going to make it harder for me to find a job in my field, but honestly don't know anything more that I can do about it than keep my real world name and my online name separate as much as I can at this point.

@il-volpe

It's been said before, and so far agreed upon by those not part of the Optional Realities administration, that of the three OR representatives posting here, there are three different ideologies about what their board is about. I will admit that Crayon and Jaunt's ideas are closest, but Jeshin is in charge of OR. Miscommunication is not just happening here, but it looks like it's also happening within the OR boards.

I've lived through this exact situation through too many games. I become bitter and old when I see people unaware to the point of creating a monster. A lot of you will see this as "almost every game ever created". Video games manage to get made, yet we--supposed adults--can't even manage to see drawbacks without taking it personally?

I work in an industry where real theft of property exists, and the people who are responsible for the losses manage to both take it personally and not let it affect them too much. It stresses them out, sure, but they have a job to do. They agreed upon it when they took the job.

I may not agree with @Jeshin's approach, but he's shown himself to be this kind of person. Jesh, you may be frustrated by the posts here, but even those who disagree with you have said they respect you that much. We, they, are willing to give you as much time as you want or need to do what you think is right, but for chrissakes, listen to @Ninjakitten, listen to @il-volpe. Ignore the rest of the anticonformist bullshit, even from your own people (unless you're looking for reviews about wine, I guess). These two are trying to explain what the rest of this thread has been about. That they are willing is a godsend. You are willing, too. Have the willing minds meet.

Ignore the rest.

@arkandel

Oh I don’t, sir. I do not indeed!

I'm willing to believe that Mudders genuinely don't understand how their description would be misunderstood, because this is a very human thing to assume, and has been assumed across all of recorded history.

I'm also willing to believe that some of their reaction to the lashback on this is "It's not for you", for the same reason.

@tinuviel

[Alt-Text: On the other hand, physicists like to say physics is to math as sex is to masturbation.]

Sorry, I couldn't resist.

I mean, I could, but heehee.

So the following came from a discussion with Lights Out RP's coder, who seems like a really nice guy in spite of the game he's coding for:

Crow (Vol) pages: yeah I just kind of amble from one game I'm helping to another, delivering patches and fixes. really try to stay out of politics except for the one game I actually OWN.
Crow (Vol) pages: and I'm not technically 'running' it, someone else has the reins at the moment and they just ask me for advice sometimes.
You paged Crow with 'What game is that?'
Crow (Vol) pages: Exalted MUSH: Shifting Sands.
Crow (Vol) pages: over at phantasmgames.org 2525

If you like Exalted, maybe check it out? No promises, but he's passionate about coding, and could probably use people who want to play Exalted. I can't say anything about activity, or code. It's on Penn, but no negative points for that.

Anyone who doesn't go to online communities to avoid the politics, is nice and not negative (to a complete stranger, at least) earns some respect.

@surreality

That is a very good answer, thank you.

I have, after thinking about it longer, decided that there is nothing wrong with a social game with RPG elements. The main reason I haven’t tried for a Fallout game (offered to code, mainly) is that I’m well aware that it will probably end up as Bland In the Nuclear Glow, but it’s my number one reason to be excited for the downtime systems being developed so that a game like that can be made and not be toothless. (New Vegas would make for a good stable setting, tho, or anywhere in NCR.)

I’m not giving up my thesis that we don’t need a time investment to have good story telling RP.

Seconding @Bobotron. Do it because you enjoy it, and when you feel the stress then it's okay to back off.

@faraday

I feel that Zork bends time and space. I kind of knew that, but wanted my reality to be true.

I understand where you're coming from. @HelloProject. I also would love to see new stuff happen, new ideas explored, but as someone who kvetched to Onyx Path about what they did to My Beloved Fairest Changelings, sometimes those new things absolutely suck.

I'm now just echoing Sunny, so Imma go eat some robot prunes, now.