Best posts made by Thenomain

Chapter Four, Continued: Oh Just Pledge Me a River!

Pledges. Ple-d-ges. Pllleeeeedges. A funny word, pledges. I never understood why people got stuck on "add + and - elements until they equal 0 and you're done". A lot of people complain that CtL pledges are hard. Speaking as someone who gets increasingly frustrated with WoD/CoD Chargen because I feel compelled to minmax across four books (minimum) and shitty page references, I have to say: What crack are you on and maybe you should get help.

Anyway. Pledges. There are now entirely different kinds. Let's look at them, shall we? (I mean, that's why I'm writing this summary, so yes, lets.)

Sealing Pledges

No, this is not how to finish them, it's a type of pledge. I'm going to get confused on that. This is a fae creature sealing the accidental promise. I like their example: “I swear, next time you come home late, I’m kicking you out.”

Fae creatures (including Changelings) can undo this attempt against them. Ha-ha. It's a trust thing. Their example: “Yes, truce, I’m not going to hurt you, now get in here.”

Like Chapter 3, I really like the writer of this section.

There are no benefits other than keeping someone to their word. Punishments start from basic (one bashing, two-die penalty for one skill for a scene) to more severe for Glamour (one lethal, loss of ability to spend Willpower for a scene).

Another sweet example: “I’m going to kick his ass.”

Sealing Pledges seem like the Cantrip of pledges. Gotchas. They require one Glamour; they're not entirely freebies. They apparently can be escalated by the ST if two Sealed Pledges are at odds. Neat.

There is a specific system for Sealing Pledges on Huntsmen. You know, we really haven't covered Huntsmen. Maybe I skimmed it as a part of the setting/theme/fluff chapter, but I don't think I did.

For now: Huntsmen are who the Gentry send out to hunt down Changelings. They are not machines and not without compelling sympathy. I mean, why else would you hold them to their word if they had no word to hold them to. This system even makes it look like you can force them to accept it.

Maybe Huntsmen are not entirely faerie creatures?

*obligatory chinrub*

Oaths

Only fae creatures can create Oaths, tho others can be involved. Here Huntsmen are included. Okay then!

Oaths are permanent. They may be changed but never ended. Oaths include: Joining a Court or Freehold, Eternal Love, Eternal Enmity.

Here's a rule that's going to be forgotten if it's not elsewhere:

For a freehold, the changeling becomes a recognized part of the local supernatural landscape; the player receives a +1 to all rolls to navigate the Hedge wherever the freehold controls it.

Seriously heavy juju. The book does say that someone breaking an Oath does not leave it, merely changes their conditions in it. It does not go on to explain them here.

More Huntsman notes:

When changelings swear oaths with Huntsmen, hos- tile oaths are the most common. It’s a gamble, but many changelings would rather take the odds of a knock-down, drag-out fight or duel than the odds of escape from a single-minded captor. Likewise, some Huntsmen would rather take the odds of blessed destruction over returning to the Gentry’s service, but getting at that desire buried beneath the Fae Title to convince the Huntsman to agree to the oath is a difficult prospect.

*more chin rubbing*

Yeah, Huntsmen are slaves.

Bargains

This kind of pledge helps Changelings hide from Huntsmen, so it's pretty necessary. That's the carrot. Now for the stick:

To make a bargain with a person, the changeling has to reveal her true nature. She doesn’t have to be honest with the mortal about the particulars of her situation, but she has to appear to the person without her Mask and propose the terms of the agreement.

This. Changes. Everything.

You know how when you play on CtL Mu*s people are all, "Ensorcellment is evil because they will forever remember and be risks!" etc. etc.? Well here we are saying that risk has a reason, a purpose, and probably critical.

What it doesn't do is give a mechanical benefit, which I would sincerely consider house-ruling or pushing into, e.g., chase rules with Huntsmen. Here's what the book says:

A bargain gives the changeling a place among mortals, and tricks the Wyrd into assuming that she should be there. Huntsmen and Fae, therefore, see her not necessarily as human, but as a natural part of the landscape, a faerie fea- ture that is and has always been. A bargain isn’t foolproof, of course — the fae are persistent and powerful, and have many ways to ferret out the Lost.

That's it.

I don't even see 'spend one Glamour' in here anywhere.

So benefits: No longer a breakable system. The only thing that can be abused is that what the human promises and what the Changeling promises don't have to be anywhere close to one another. Another benefit: No free Resources.

Drawbacks? It's vague as fuck.

My ambivalence: There's no punishment for breaking or ending the Bargain.

... Next up, Oneramanancy.
One-er-man-cy.
Dreamwalking.

@Jaunt said:

I just don't find it an unappealing or particularly effective method when the goal is actual, valuable discussion.

I would like to point out again that your first posts were about how you were going to use your own standards to determine if discussion was worthwhile, and worse you announced that you were purposefully antagonizing the rest.

Two thumbs up for trying to be the nice guy you say you normally are, one thumb down for still not quite being self-aware in your new environment. It's still one step forward, so let's call it progress toward, but not quite to, the moral high-ground.

Yes, I mixed my metaphors.

---

Incidentally, I consider being called different than all other communities out there a compliment.

---

(another edit) I'll have real content eventually, but for now I'm getting a crick in my neck from looking upward at all the riders on their high horses!

Irony nonwithstanding.

@Warma-Sheen

I read a comic where Wolverine ends up in something like a kimono because he married some Japanese woman of stature and power, and the rest of the X-men laughed at him and made fun of his getting married.

The marriage happened off panel, too.

I will take Hugh Jackman over bad storytelling any day.

—

Unfortunately, the movie was about as bad as the comic. They could have done some amazing things with it but they were trying too hard to be like the comics in the wrong places.

—

Sure, everyone is going to love something different about their entertainment, but there is no one Wolverine, even through the comics because of the evolution of and changes with the medium, the writers, and the artists.

I feel fortunate that I can mentally separate stories based on medium. LotR was not as accurate to the books as it could be, but it was still a game-changing movie trilogy that I enjoyed end to end.

@admiral said in Vampire: The Masquerade 5th Edition (VtM 5E):

They might come out with LARP rules soon, though. I'd wager on it.

Yeah, but traditionally LARP rules are horrible for MU*. We need something in between.

Pathfinder? Thanks no. But in the tradition of Nuku I do wish you guys the best of luck. Let us know if you guys go Kickstarter.

@Groth

It's "soda water" around here.

Mineral water around here is either "super-expensive tap water" or "water that tastes like rocks".

CONCERNING THE OGRE

This ability costs a point of Glamour if the Ogre makes the attack on his own behalf and not someone else’s.

You know, this makes a lot more sense if I read it:

This ability costs a point of Glamour unless the Ogre is attacking on someone else's orders.

Sorry, @Derp.

@Jaunt said:

for-profit games

Are we going to try to do that, again?

This is a major issue?

I'm still on my "seriously, what?" thought.

@insomniac7809

Isn't that every JRPG?

Okay, reading the PDF. Not going to do an overview on it (unless people really want), but some things stand out.

• The font they are using, Bookmania Light, is too thin. To see this for yourself compare the text on most pages vs. the black-backed text where they shift to Bookmania Regular.
• This book is absolutely gorgeous. We kind of knew that going in, but it really is a work of art. My complaint of font choice above is for legibility; for appropriateness in layout it's very good.
• Kudos—many, many kudos—for attention to detail and giving credit to the photographers and models. And using a Betty White style person for an alternative Ventrue. I laughed.
• While I liked the intro letter, it was a bit kitchy. I don't think it had much of a choice in order to be a giant exposition dump. It's followed by a collage of theme setting 'documents' which I glazed over because it's kind of random, and by "kind of" I mean "bring your ADHD meds".
• (Addendum to the previous two bullet-points: Note that the letter and other dossier items take place on two halves of the same desk throughout the chapter. Like I said, amazing attention to detail.)
• The Malkavian section starts with a discussion between Jeanette and Therese. (SQUEE!) I don't think that discussion would ever happen as Therese would never stand being called Malkavian, but it was a cool touch nonetheless.

Okay okay okay, I'm done, fine.

The book is a book. It's even an RPG. And if I don't see a giant neon sign above the bit or bits that Neil Gaiman wrote I'm going to be disappointed.

@HelloProject said:

I've always found the MUD side of our hobby to somewhat have the expectation of being like, super ultra professional rather than super casual like in MUSHes and such.

This explains why my first thought to @Jeshin's "a community is a board of directors" language was, "gigglesnort Yes, and I am CEO of my pants."

I still think it's silly, but seeing it in action I'm coming to the conclusion that the people who organize the games feel it's important, but the people who code the games don't really care, as long as they get to code.

My pants.

@Macha said in Dead Celebrities 2019:

Rip Taylor.

I was trying to remember who "Taylor" was. R.I.P. Taylor.

No, Theno, it's Rip Tayler!

https://deadline.com/2019/10/rip-tayler-dead-hollywood-comedy-icon-obituary-1202753636/

There goes a hero.

Follow up: This is classic Vampire.

It is designed to be depressing and rough, and the Hunger dice are mean little bastards, but this is classic Vampire, or at least classic Vampire if written by seasoned professionals for a modern era. It certainly feels more like the very first Vampire more than any book that came after.

I don’t like what they did with Jeanette and Therese, but I still like the nod to them, acknowledging Troika as good creators.

@Sunny

(Not a robot.)

---

@HelloProject

I have been a Headstaffer, and I've had mixed reactions to how approachable I was, but I was always available, almost always on the Pub channel making wise, and in the OOC lounge when I could deal with it, which considering the game this was wasn't very often. I certainly wasn't in the know and relied on my cohorts to fill me in on player issues, to which my response was mostly concerning lighting people on fire.

To concede to your point, being known is absolutely one key to being trusted. On Eldritch, I am in the OOC Lounge and in all of the channels. I don't tell people about my characters because I don't have any. I think I'm plenty social, but got quiet for a few weeks, and everyone being more social lately has helped the game's community.

The second key is being trustworthy, but that's a different discussion for another time.

---

I would like to immortalize @surreality's post for future generations about what the fundamental difference is between a Mud and a Mush.

@Seamus said in Tablet keyboard:

To be fair some of the hate on Apple is due to the way Apple presents themselves and isolates themselves from the main stream. A prime example of this is that Apple has gone out of its way to make sure that gaming on a Mac is a less than full-filling endeavor. This is not to say that I have a hate for Apple or anything, just that they've done enough marketing to encourage this OS war stupidity.

I disagree!

Not that Apple doesn’t isolate itself from the mainstream, but that isolating oneself from the competition encourages anything. People will always have problems with the Other. As an Apple user, I have gotten used to things like Derp’s nonsense, that the idea that someone is borrowing ideas that work as a bad thing.

This was funny at the time, but in retrospect this was at the height of the OS Wars Part 2 (part one involved OS/2) and it is embarrassing to look at in retrospect. It’s very Steve Jobs, but since the iPhone first came out, Apple has barely mentioned any other system but Android, and Apple has shareholders to please and marketing to do, and it’s very rare that Apple insults Android as an OS. Mostly it’s about security and privacy and, hey, I want my companies fighting over security and privacy.

So, no, Apple is proud and headstrong, but they aren’t encouraging anyone anymore, and haven’t for a decade. Most people who seriously think this are insecure to the point of needing a hug and ice cream.

Mmm, rum raisin.

@Glitch said:

Like @Thenomain said, it is the mutli-descer coder, or the person that makes their own deck of cards for poker, or an eight-ball object. It's the tinker level of coding that can't be done in Evennia, but which I argue should not be necessary for a game. The gains for usability, extensibility and maintainability outweigh the occasional person's inability to write tinker code on your game.

Hobbyists vs. Professionals, FIGHT.

Mind you, Glitch, you said I was foolish for not giving people on Eldritch a Quota so they can tinker-code. I agree that creating a good development platform is of top priority, but I won't concede that not being able to create individual code is not just beneath "mission critical".

(edit: I think I broke about five rules of english with that last sentence. tinker-code be important, yo.)

@surreality said:

Using WoD as an example, if you are making a game in the Arctic designed for werewolves hunting down The Thing, and it says so on the tin, you are generally going to say no to the player who wants to come in and play (etc. etc.)

This shouldn't be a rule. It should be a definition of playing an RPG. You follow theme and setting. If you don't want to follow theme and setting, please find your entertainment elsewhere.

@Auspice said in Which text editor?:

I've come to love Atom for code.

Ahhem.

Auspice [Today at 2:09 PM]
goddamnit atom why are you being stupid

Idle Thought: I am amused by the irony of using IRC as the live communication stream for building a better game-building engine out of modern components.

@Glitch becomes a class-traitor by saying:

I do think there is a benefit brought to the community through tinker-code, I just don't think it outweighs the considerations of the game runners and coders when choosing a platform that makes their lives easier.

And I agree, but it should be on the development roadmap, or I'm going to do it, and never having coded an interpreter or compiler before it's going to work as poorly as the softcode we have now. Is that what you want? Is it?

All the time people complain that there is not enough ice cream that's not been done before, and you take them to a place that does burnt sugar and salted caramel and gelato made with real lilac, and they order vanilla.

Repeating an old idea does not mean it's not still very good. WoD By Night remains popular because of its popularity, as well as people's laziness. I don't think this is the hobby to count laziness as a cardinal sin, but we can still accept it for what it is.