Best posts made by Thenomain

@lithium said in Repurposing a Tabletop RPG for MU* Play:

@thenomain Easy to understand rules for conflict resolution, or at least something that people can point at and go: Rules say this.

And the Rule is the Rule.

Except the rules are made for small-group gameplay.

I honestly thought this was a viable discussion after another thread banged on about how TT RPGs were not meant for Mu*s. This is true. This is a problem. And yet, even starting this discussion is more trouble than it's worth.

I will be deleting this thread shortly, because if I have to fight just to get people to talk about what's in the topic title, it's not worth it.

I'm not interested in what already works. I'm interested in what doesn't, and how to fix it.

So, y'know, fuck it.

Where I'm misunderstanding?

@Luna said:

But really, it's a very good way to get killed by trying to merge onto the 70mph freeway going 40 and people from other states do it ALL THE TIME.

Emphasis mine. I think I'm less misunderstanding and you're more mis-stating.

My peeve is: At least get to the speed limit when you hit the freeway. This has nothing to do with speeding, culture, or Texas. Natives do this all the time.

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

WoD 2E fixes this by making costs linear.

Thus making it trivial to dominate a stat pool.

I know you know this, but I'm using this for everyone as a way to say: Do not look at just one part of a system as a way to fix a problem with a system. The second thing nWoD did was reduce the XP gain. By four fifths.

And more or less doubled the number gained per session.

So what got changed wasn't the number of xp spent, but the entire xp gain and spend system.

@Corruption said:

For the love of GOD, posebreak please, Theno. It's not hard to install...

Since it's probably going to be MY CODE. For fuck's sake, you impatient people. Mutter mutter mutter grumble something something so much to do.

(note, it actually is a bit hard to install, until you know how to install it.)

So I watched the latest The Good Place and I am happy to report:

I was wrong, so wrong, it’s getting better every episode holy smokes!

I still think that a few episodes this season felt like filler but that sense of “what the fork?!” is back.

Go team cockroach!

Linear vs. Scaled advancement costs.

• Linear is easier to think about, less math, more statistically pure.
• Scaled builds time-limits into the system, and the idea that the more you know the harder it is to get that much better.

Neither is bad. They each do their thing.

I know conversation has gone a bit beyond this, but I think this was important enough to say in just some quick bullet-points.

The world also didn't have a "MediaWiki". It had many CMS, but they were arcane and clunky and, well, most of them still are.

Your mom was pretty hot back then, too, in her sabertooth bikini.

The best podcast I’ve not seen on anyone’s list yet: The Allusionist

I found this one through 99% Invisible and he’s right, it’s like stand-up about language.

And it’s hosted by a woman

If you like Lore but want your stories less...depressing, then I strongly recommend Myths and Legends (the modern telling of these old stories is very accessible to my brain) and Aaron Mahnke’s Cabinet of Curiosities for a shorter, lighter fare than his usual (Lore, Unobscured).

I will reaffirm “Science Vs.” as a good series, just don’t take it as heavy science but as taking a scientific approach to things and checking out what we know and what we don’t know.

The episode on Lyme scared the shit outta me.

@the-sands

I’ll get to the rest later, but every coder must be willing to pick up someone else’s code. It’s a truism.

#3 is probably key. It now sounds like:

Musher: Um ... yes? You can do something else. Go you.
Mudder: So when are you getting a real coding language?
Musher: I'm too busy freely posing with your mom.

We have tried economies and guilds and automated mobs and so forth (nnngh, coded language systems) and we've eventually rejected them for bringing nothing substantial to the table, or requiring a far higher investment than coding a counter and doing these things manually. On the flip side, we have been re-coding and re-re-re-coding combat systems since forever and that gets old.

To be fair, I would try a Mud if someone played there with me, not as a role-playing experience but as an MMO one. People here have praised RPI Muds, and even World of Warcraft sounds interesting except for the MMO part.

EDIT - Clarification. I believe the majority of MUD economies are objectively bad. Not the automated systems as a whole.

I think all fan-created economies are objectively bad. One of the best automated economies I've ever seen is in the board game Power Grid.

HOLY SHIT I DID NOT KNOW THAT NOELLE STEVENSON WAS EXECUTIVE PRODUCER ON SHE-RA I AM SO EXCITED FOR HER THAT I AM YELLING!

(Subtitle: I liked her before she sold out and still like her now that she’s successful. Good on her. She also did Lumberjanes and worked on Wander Over Yonder.)

@wretched

You and I both have gone off the handle trying to explain to people that without modifiers, nWoD is nothing. Situational modifiers are the blood to the attribute + stat muscular structure.

Mind you, I'm sad that this thread has been mired back down into WoD-Centric discussion.

@Jeshin said:

perma-death is a fairly crucial feature (in my opinion) of storytelling

Said no one ever. Imagine if Frodo was killed at the Prancing Pony.

Stories must have ends, but ends do not always complete a story.

https://gamerant.com/nes-snes-classic-discontinued-2018/

Why on Earth is Nintendo afraid of money?!

@mr-johnson

Are you suggesting ORE for online play?

Are you in-sane?

@Ide said:

@Thenomain, my first thought was Castle Marrach, but d'Image isn't bad either (come to think of it, weren't Marrach and d'Image related somehow? I can't remember).

It's been too long, you know. Also, you're old.

However, what stood out to me about Usurper and what elevates it above those games is how the coded systems aren't just for +roll'ing or +sheets, but more a part of the game world overall.

Unlike a system that requires you to overcome an invisible barrier to move into the spirit world? All RPGs have systems that are part of the game world. While I too appreciate what appears to be an expression of an internal discussion ("I'd like to have this system, so let's put in this theme for it"), the game designer part of me wondered why this was so impressive. I mean, this should be standard.

Maybe it's my mush-centric view.

@coin

@the-sands said in Skills and Fluff in WoD:

@thenomain Absolutely, and I'm not suggesting that they aren't.

That is not the subject being discussed. The subject is 'should skill descriptions be treated as rules?'

What kind of rule? Game system rule? Setting rule? Metagame rule? Do you subscribe to Rule Zero?

The answer to the first two should be both yes and no, because the answer to the third should always be yes.

Unless you are Lumpley and or know how to assure that your system rules match 1:1 with your setting rules. Then there is almost no need for Rule Zero.

Games with a Rule Zero are admitting that they may not have everything perfect, so to ignore things when they don’t make sense.

Therefore, your core question is the wrong question. It’s incomplete. It is without sufficient context.

Because if that, you should really go easier with people who see a different issue or answer.

I will set up my chargen system, but that's it. My New System Coding is reserved for the day that more than three people want @Ganymede's Mass Effect game.

I have been answering questions about the 7th Sea framework, and likewise, but Eldritch is eating all my code time.