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    Best posts made by Thenomain

    • RE: Who are you?

      I am a lost soul in the surreal realm of East Philadelphia, guided by a resident and sarcastic tour-guide named John the Cat, who is a cat.

      When I was on a dial-up BBS, I wrote many small free-form snippets of story about a version of myself who was lost and I discovered that there was no such place as "East Philadelphia" (neither officially nor by reputation), and decided that an urban Wonderland would be a nicely dangerous place to be lost.

      John the Cat existed because I like cats, and I really wouldn't mind having a familiar. John is a black cat, of course. He's sarcastic, of course. But he also acted as the voice of harsh reality, the Cheshire Cat but a more constant companion. Of course if I tried to make this a story these days the idea of a "snarky animal companion" would be so tired that I'd be embarrassed, but it must speak to something because a snarky animal companion was my ideal before the word "web" was uttered outside of CERN.

      Sometimes tropes are there for a reason.

      I'm also amused when surreal things are juxtaposed with mundanity. I was the mundanity.

      I never got past writing stories for myself, but I'm still drawn to things like this, not because Alice in Wonderland was formative to me but because the world is strange and complex and I appreciate writing that leans toward this.

      I can, however, still recite The Jabberwocky from memory.

      posted in Tastes Less Game'y
      Thenomain
      Thenomain
    • RE: Skills and Fluff in WoD

      @surreality

      Well consider the RPG field of the late 80s and early 90s. D&D and other wargame style games, where if it’s written down then it absolutely is a rule. Shadowrun was written this way too, and the Vampire came out and the book said, “Eh, just have fun with it.”

      Sure, White Wolf at the time was a bunch of egotists, drug users, and hippies, but they struck a nerve and got an almost instant cult following. Beforehand, Rule Zero was not a thing.

      Nowadays it is, because almost no games are written without thinking about it. There are a few games without Rule Zero, but those are games written well enough that they don’t need one, or in some cases are worse off with it.

      So we have a torturous discussion based on the expectations of the letter of the law versus the spirit of the law.

      D&D still lives firmly in the former where Storytelling lies in the latter, each of the systems flirting across the shades of grey that separate them,

      posted in Mildly Constructive
      Thenomain
      Thenomain
    • RE: Optional Realities & Project Redshift

      @Three-Eyed-Crow said:

      I'm curious how you feel about something like Faraday's FS3.

      Faraday's code framework is love. FS3 is just the icing on the cherry on the cake.

      I missed this:
      @Jeshin said:

      You know it only now occurs to me to comment on this but....

      • If you are a roleplay focused game.

      • If you have automated system(s): this can include crafting, exploration, combat, medical code, etc etc. Doesn't have to be all but you have to have one or two.

      • If you have perma-death defined as the ability for story, characters, or the environment being able to kill off your character permanently without your consent.

      Than you too can be listed on Optional Realities

      I am having one of these days, so I'm going to respond to this a bit flippantly:

      "Go you? Did you want a cookie or something?"

      There are plenty of pure-consent games in the history of this hobby, good consent games, and I've been thinking about setting up one for fun and the fun of others. That doesn't mean there aren't stories. That doesn't mean that there aren't challenges. I think point #2 and especially point #3 is a Muddist view. I have never ran a LARP where death was more than a far-away spectre, something that was not really on the table unless the characters went running toward it with open arms.

      Now I'm being more antagonistic than I like because it's been One Of Those Days, but I disagree with the core belief that a story has no meaning if it has no risk of death. In fact, in many cases sudden death can trivialize a character's story.

      One of the John Wick RPGs requires target consent for death (7th Sea?), and I believe Spirit of the Century does too. It's a thing that happens. I don't understand the reason for the requirement.

      posted in Adver-tis-ments
      Thenomain
      Thenomain
    • RE: Buying Shit

      @paris

      The Intuos is the new low end. (Bamboo is more the note taking level at this point.)

      The basic Intuos is pressure sensitive. The wired tablet should be $80, the Bluetooth tablet $100.

      —

      Edit:

      Huion is a very cheap Wacom knockoff that is relatively well received. Will recommend.

      posted in Tastes Less Game'y
      Thenomain
      Thenomain
    • RE: Skills and Fluff in WoD

      @surreality

      The game never gave GM Fiat, and there were arguments over that even before the Internet. D&D was a wargame style RPG, and any board game cannot just make things up unless that’s a rule.

      Rule Zero flipped the discussion.

      posted in Mildly Constructive
      Thenomain
      Thenomain
    • RE: Optional Realities & Project Redshift

      The marketing jargon. It burns.

      I'm CTO of EldritchMux!

      posted in Adver-tis-ments
      Thenomain
      Thenomain
    • RE: Good or New Movies Review

      @silverfox

      “You’re Miss Independence, or at least you try, but your first story’s you running off with a guy.”

      posted in Tastes Less Game'y
      Thenomain
      Thenomain
    • RE: Settings and Canon

      For me it depends on the enormity of the event. Isn't it strange that we're more okay playing alt-history for the real world than alt-history for fictional worlds. We don't care who ended up saying "Ich Bin Ein Berliner," but god forbid if we don't get to see Serenity dive-bomb Persephone with a Reaver hot on their tail.

      posted in Mildly Constructive
      Thenomain
      Thenomain
    • RE: Eldritch - A World of Darkness MUX

      Soon after, on the Werewolf channel ...

      [Werewolf] Thenomain says, “WOLVES.”
      [Werewolf] Thenomain says, “What would you like to type if you regained Willpower because of your big Bone?”
      [Werewolf] Jack says, “Boner, clearly.”
      [Werewolf] Jack says, “Or GetBoned.”
      [Werewolf] Thenomain says, “I'm told you can have a little Bone or a big ol' Bone.”
      [Werewolf] Nick says, “+bone(/all)?”
      [Werewolf] Thenomain says, “No, it's going to be 'regain willpower' somehow.”
      [Werewolf] Jack says, “Just do +BigBone and +LittleBone.”
      [Werewolf] Jack says, “Because boring commands are boring.”
      [Werewolf] Thenomain says, “If we weren't ending up with like 500,000 commands, I'd take you up on your bone suggestion.”
      [Werewolf] Nick says, “Well, we could just do regain and regain/all maybe, and then just specify the stat?”
      [Werewolf] Jack says, “That's boring Nick. So boring I'm dropping out of the conversation. From Boredom.”
      [Werewolf] Thenomain : regain willpower=all for Bone
      [Werewolf] Nick wasn't the one that said it had to be regain! 😛
      [Werewolf] Na'iska-Ur Deviant says, “BONE FOR ALL”
      [Werewolf] Thenomain says, “And all for Bone.”

      posted in Adver-tis-ments
      Thenomain
      Thenomain
    • RE: Buying Shit

      @paris

      I have never been accused of reading closely. Or at all.

      @Taika ! What did you get?!

      posted in Tastes Less Game'y
      Thenomain
      Thenomain
    • RE: Make it fun for Me!

      @faraday

      whispering: Bartle Types.

      That is, this is me reminding everyone that people "win" at games for different reasons. Griefing is the opposite of @Three-Eyed-Crow's "telling the best story", and is how some people win.

      Some people should go get stuffed, mind you, but there's no rule against griefing someone else's story. You can't tell me that this isn't the best story; who are you to tell me how to tell stories! (etc. etc.)

      I know and agree wholeheartedly with what you two are getting at, but it still openly allows people to be selfish and get away with it within the rules. We in the WoD arena have been dealing with this since almost quite literally day one.

      posted in Mildly Constructive
      Thenomain
      Thenomain
    • RE: Visit Fallcoast, sponsored by the Fallcoast Chamber of Commerce

      @tinuviel said in Visit Fallcoast, sponsored by the Fallcoast Chamber of Commerce:

      Wellp. Guess it's "sit in the discord talking shit till @Sonder fixes it" time again.

      So you’re preserving the game’s OOC Lobby.

      posted in Adver-tis-ments
      Thenomain
      Thenomain
    • RE: Good Music

      Los Ageless has been my no-shame on-repeat song lately. Raw but not angry.

      Crush by Tessa Violet, too, who I discovered through Pomplamoose. I like the video more than just the song, but because I like the surreal camera treatment and that she looks like a normal average every-day person.

      posted in Tastes Less Game'y
      Thenomain
      Thenomain
    • RE: Make it fun for Me!

      @surreality

      Well even "good faith" is iffy. It's why I'm grooving the vibe of "good sportsmanship".

      The idea that the game trumps staff and players alike has been with me for a while now, and the more often these conversations come up, the more I believe this. Staff and players inform and facilitate gameplay, but the game is the thing that you are playing. It works best when everyone can agree on what it is.

      posted in Mildly Constructive
      Thenomain
      Thenomain
    • RE: Visit Fallcoast, sponsored by the Fallcoast Chamber of Commerce

      @the-sands said in Visit Fallcoast, sponsored by the Fallcoast Chamber of Commerce:

      That said, I'm still grappling with a Miami based concept myself.

      Miami Vice Bites.

      posted in Adver-tis-ments
      Thenomain
      Thenomain
    • RE: Steam Summer 2015 sale, beware!

      I think I would have not bought Lisa if I had paid attention that it was jrpg-style turn-based combat, but with 'overwhelmingly positive' and all this money not burning a hole in my pocket because it doesn't exist, I picked it up anyway. We'll see how far I make it.

      I made it through Breath of Death VII: The Beginning while barely knowing what was going on, so it's possible.

      Still not playing Final Fantasy VII.

      posted in Tastes Less Game'y
      Thenomain
      Thenomain
    • RE: What's missing in MUSHdom?

      @ixokai said in What's missing in MUSHdom?:

      What's missing in our games?

      A sense of holding players and staff responsible for their actions.

      What would you play if only it were there?

      Oh. OH! Oh, er, Fallout.

      edit: I agree with @faraday that a plugin for Fate Core would be nice.

      posted in Mildly Constructive
      Thenomain
      Thenomain
    • RE: Blood of Dragons

      @FiranSurvivor said:

      Someone needs to learn tact.

      Or at least respect. Glass houses, and all that.

      posted in Adver-tis-ments
      Thenomain
      Thenomain
    • RE: Random links

      @tyche said in Random links:

      I'm tempted to start a thread called '129 ways to get a husband' and see if the readers of the soapbox can do any better.

      They already have, if only by not starting a thread called '129 ways to get a husband.'

      While it's possible that you would approach it with sensibility, so far your track record puts these odds somewhere about Cleveland Browns level.

      (Watch, I say this and the Browns start their best winning streak of all time. I would take the hit to my ego for that!)

      posted in Tastes Less Game'y
      Thenomain
      Thenomain
    • RE: What's missing in MUSHdom?

      From a conversation on Fate's Harvest:

      <Public> Thenomain says, “It's a failing of all nerds. 'This is an extremely valid point, 
      because of this reason.' / 'I agree with your point but ARGLE BARGLE REASON FLAWED!' 
      ... Really, nerds? Really?”
      <Public> Thenomain says, “Half an hour later nothing's done because nerds gotta 
      nerd.”
      
      posted in Mildly Constructive
      Thenomain
      Thenomain
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