Best posts made by Thenomain

@Ghost said:

Theo Bell Brujah

Yo quiero Theo Bell?

GAME IS UP. Working as Igor to @Chime's Frankenstien.

12:11 EDT: Game is back up. Not yet patched.
12:19 EDT: Game patched and restarted. Nothing has exploded yet.
12:22 EDT: Looks stable.
12:26 EDT: [Public] Guest307 says, “so: STARTTLS-midstream-without-cert-crash fixed! ...fascinating guest numbering bug introduced.”

Heh.

@Misadventure said in RL Anger:

Is there anything we can do to change either of those things in the online RP hobby?

Don't put up with cockgobbling elitists, learn how to communicate displeasure without blame, and never assume that everyone is entitled to their own opinion because nothing can come from that kind of echo chamber.

And I'll agree with @Arkandel on this one: Learn when to walk away. Not everything demands your absolute devotion, and there's finite time in the world to get things done. Pick your battles.

Playing computer games used to be similar. Now it's at the very least acceptable, if not taken as a bit of a waste of time by busy people. Besides, are you going to have a continued relationship with someone you hide your hobbies from? If you're just in it for "dat ass", it's not going to come up anyway.

@The-Tree-of-Woe said:

Why do some people like NChangeling? I find them to be horrifying, manipulative emotional parasites.

This may be the players.

I like playing nChangeling because it offers a low-power campaign type that I miss, where what you are messes up what you want to do. Vampires are Vampires. Werewolves are Werewolves, Mages are Mages. These are their job descriptions. Changelings are baristas and taxi drivers and lost mothers and have to decide, themselves, what they are. Are they monsters? Are they heroes? To me, a ton more interesting than another revisiting of Victorians telling us what we are and who we can be. That's just me, mind.

@Lithium said in RL Anger:

@Thenomain I have said why it is offensive, you are just choosing to disbelieve /why/ that would be offensive to someone else.

I can see how that might appear, but you have in the past said that you can't read the connotation in straight-up text. I disbelieve that "someone else thinks it's offensive" is worthy of outright stopping of any behavior. It's vague to the point of uselessness. I've already lived through one era of political correctness, and I'm not about to agree to living through it again.

I'll also note that what "someone else" thinks is offensive isn't the problem. It's never been the problem. Hense: Wora, Swofa, Soapbox. The problem is what the language and action does culturally, it's long-term and very real harmful social effects.

We don't see eye-to-eye because I'm not convinced you have an argument. I clearly think the argument is worth having else I wouldn't be giving you the time of day, and I don't think you're wrong just to say you're wrong but because I don't see you giving your opinion strong merit.

(In more blunt terms: You think the phrase is offensive because someone might think it's dismissive. Not good enough. )

I said Tyche was a /part/ of the problem. It's reading comprehension 101.

Are you sure you don't want hostility to be part of the conversation? Because this? Right here? This is hostile. It's minor, and I can put on my big boy pants, but it undermines the trust needed for such an emotionally charged discussion.

You can be a part of something without being the driving force behind it.

I'm being given a negative social condition by accident of my birth. How can you not see the outright irony of saying this is okay? I'm not parading Men's Rights here, I'm parading Human Rights. If you want everyone to be treated equal, then for fucks' sake, treat everyone equal.

That's my "social justice". That's my justification for my opinion having merit. What's yours?

For example: Not all skinheads are racist, but some skinheads are racist to the extreme. [...] It's the same thing by going with the 'Not /all/ men' defense.

W... wait. Are you saying the classification of "men", a genetic lottery draw, is the same as the classification of "skinhead", a philosophical choice? This is false equivalence, and I will have no part of it.

Firstly, I never said all men did this thing. So by doing that it is a deflection and misdirection to try and turn the fault onto the speaker by making them seem erroneous.

I have offered my defense. You chide me for failing reading comprehension, yet you make this statement in spite that I have already addressed it. I am not misdirecting, I am saying that your statement is erroneous. This is a straightforward accusation.

Let me state this in another way: "Women can't drive." Is this clear that I'm not talking about all women? No, it's not. You would be justified to call me out on this bullshit statement for being overgeneralized. This is the classification of statement that I'm arguing against.

"Men behave thusly". No, no, they don't. My objection is not opinion, it's cold, hard, logical fact. If you think "not all men" is dismissive, perhaps it is. It's dismissive to an overgeneralization that needs dismissed. Instead of getting offended, clarify. If you don't mean "all men", then what do you mean?

I personally find it downright idiotic to not consider the self as part of the problems in conversation, whatever that problem may be! You can bet your blue bippy that I've been doing heavy self-editing to make sure I'm as clear to you specifically as I can.

Second, it refuses to address the actual issue, turning the topic of conversation /away/ from the problem that needs to be discussed and addressed so that it can be lessened.

Yet you're not addressing the issue, either. You're debating the quality of the debate instead of having one. You're doing what you're objecting about, but I'm not going to be insulting to read your mind and say that you are being intentionally misdirecting. I think you're getting emotionally caught up in circles, or reciting talking-points, or otherwise lost in the rabbit warrens of conversation that we all get in.

That is, I trust you have some well-meaning, but you can't expect me to carry the responsibility of miscommunication. I will help, but it only goes so far.

Third, as @Tyche did by immediately jumping to rapes and such the topic is /again/ changed to only a small fragment.

Then as part of the discussion, it is just as much your job to inform as it is to debate. If a conversation has gone off the rails, you can either try to put it back on the rails or you can move on. It's pointless to try and lay blame as to who shoved it off the rails.

I'm personally kind of insulted that you think that I'm trying to derail your point, when I invited you to make it. If this is how low you consider my opinion, then I'd much rather you not try to engage me at all. Hell, I think talking about derailing itself is derailing! Why are you doing that! Why do you think this discussion is more important than the one you were having? Nobody, nobody forced you to reply that way.

Incidentally, this is my model of communcation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communication#/media/File:Transactional_comm_model.jpg

This is very simplified, but don't say that I'm not giving you feedback. We're both exchanging roles of the medium.

It's a bait and switch tactic to try and force discourse away from the subject matter that /can/ and /should/ be discussed.

Yes! Yes! This is why I find Anita Fucking Sarkeesian to be such a fraud! To be poison to the discussion we should be having! I find her methodology to be cultish, filled with pseudo-terminolgy, and steps away from Hate Speech.

And what are we talking about? Well, I thought we were talking about why "Not All Men" is or is not offensive, but we've both become emotionally wrapped up in the differing viewpoint that we're now pointing fingers and going "no you". Yes, you've been participating in this, in spite of your objection to same.

This /shouldn't/ be a conversation that is hostile, but certain individuals surely do their best to do that.

Yes.

Please stop.

Both please stop being hostile, and please stop giving the hostility of others importance.

I pick a video game OST to fit my mood of the moment.

Even though I don't like Eve Online, the music I have from it is something I can listen to over and over. Portal 2 was my go-to coding music for a long while. Nothing with words. I have enough time reading without someone speaking (in tunes) around my head.

So are we talking Death Metal or Heavy Metal? From the ads so far, I'm guessing more Spinal Tap.

@Cobaltasaurus said:

The end of the World is canceled. Found my compsci book.

That's okay. Your professor would have just ignored the end of the world and continued on like it didn't happen, forcing you to start your own class just for people who'd rather lose their compsci books.

@Sovereign, I like @Ganymede's answer better as it isn't just "be a hard-ass" which believe me, many PHBs are hard-asses. He (she, I still have no idea) also explains what "reasonable" means, which is otherwise a problem because "reasonable" is not a universal standard. Hell, "adult" is far more a universal standard than "reasonable". So by cutting down the uncertainty, Ganymede makes a far more understandable solution. If people can understand a procedure, they are less likely to object or find ways to object to it.

You also don't have to be a hard-ass to implement them. In the brief time being under Ganymede's staffdom, she (he?) never had to be a hard-ass. I thought some of his ideas were silly and she couldn't get them implemented on the game because of player push-back, but none of them were crime-and-punishment issues; they were game design issues.

@Arkandel

Does it feel weird when they change who plays Spider Man in the movies, or turning Thor into a woman? I think you under-estimate people's ability to just roll with it, especially when changing medium.

That said, I do hope they don't allow major game characters to be played. My view, there.

@Ganymede Brent Spiner was on a dramady called "Night Court" also. I think I see where you're taking this:

Define "time"; be 100% accurate.

This is how this and every discussion about impartiality and fairness feels to me.

@Kanye-Qwest

I'm with you, Ms. Qwest, but now it's a matter of supposition. If the Hawke siblings are doing anything other than being mercenaries, you can call them out on it. I've seen book characters work very well. Even Orisno and Merdith are locked into their roles, and we can shine a spotlight if something goes wrong.

I still agree that having players for these characters is probably not a great idea, but they deserve the chance to pleasantly surprise us.

@Ganymede said in RL Anger:

@Arkandel said in RL Anger:

Then they go on and on about how there's a wide world out there and it's the summer! Just go out and have some fun!

They don't say this where I live. Where I live, the news tells people not to go out due to allergens that are so bad that folks who have never been diagnosed with seasonal allergies collapse in unconscious, mucus-leaking heaps.

Fuck you, southwestern Ohio.

I have a fable that solves this, as fables are want to do:

Drugs. Drugs. Drugs. The end.

@Roz said:

@Thenomain said:

The second is that all new players are introduced to the game. I want to mention the AetherMUX quiz and casual newbie channel again. They also had reccs read by other players, so everyone had a chance to see everyone saying good things about everyone else. The game did not just expect a positive atmosphere, it created one.

I am interested in learning more about this!

I've mentioned this a few times in a few threads, so the simple version:

At the end of chargen, you put a room with a quiz in it. The questions are like:
"Werewolves bite people to determine their supernatural species." (Answer: No.) Or: "Which Changeling Seasonal Court is about Wrath?" (Answer: Summer.)

What this does is determine if the person has been paying even the slightest bit of attention to the game they're applying to. It was easier on Aether because the racial theme files were maybe 10 pages if you printed them all out, 15 if you included the stat system, but it said, "Hey, are you ready? Do you need more help?" And if the player did need more help, they would reach out to the newbie channel, where someone would respond without handing them the answer outright. "Check out this page. The answer's there," they would say.

So we have told the newbie that 1) people on this game will help you out, 2) but they won't hand-hold, and 3) how to use the on-line resources. Really, the more I think about it the more brilliant I think it was, even if most of that brilliance was by accident.

--

The second thing was the recommendation or "recc" system. Most of us have seen "recc" systems before, but how Aether did it was like this:

You could always +recc someone for an awesome scene, but only once per month for that player. At the end of the month, a gathering of ten players (this is important) and one staffer got together and would see all the recc's for a certain character. They would then vote "meh, yes, ohmygodyes" based on the comments people made for that player that month. Based on that, the character would get 0-3 XP (including percentages) based on how their peers voted.

This meant that different people every month would see how awesome people thought other players were. There were the occasional negatives, but since staff could always see who submitted the recc (the peer voting group couldn't), they could advise the current vote group to avoid it or that it was legit.

One benefit is that we always knew what was going on from the player perspective. The better benefit was so did other players. They were always exposed to the positives.

That's not to say that there weren't hiccups and drawbacks, but this system worked exactly as intended as long as it could be maintained. It won't be for every game, or even most games, but it was glorious while it worked.

--

And I'm pretty cruel toward systems that don't do what they intend.

WARNING: If you haven't played Dragon Age 2 and don't want to be spoiled, you should stop reading. It's been out for a while and makes an impact on Dragon Age: Inquisition, however slight, so you should play it now.

---

@Kanye-Qwest

This is partially a risk of having a game existing around established fiction. Whether or not Hawke is an NPC, she will always do That Thing. So don't try to do That Thing. The Things Hawke does is very minimal, too: work for a mercenary company, go on a Deep Roads expedition, use the massive money and moderate fame infusion to buy her old family estate, kill the Qunari leader, and be friends with the guy who blew up the church then save the city from both its insane leaders. Maybe mess around with the Dalish, which is going to be a moderate sticking point, maybe participate in the death of a Tevinter lord, maybe help out some orphans or kill some dragons. Really, Hawke doesn't do much.

She sure as hell doesn't do enough that a massive city of merchants and politics doesn't flow around her like water, only occasionally does she change its flow. The complaints about not being able to do X because of Hawke are because we know the timeline, is all.

Fearing staff gushing over Hawke is one of those things that is giving such the "too bad; I would have liked to play there" responses.

@ThatGuyThere said in Comics Stuff:

My personal advice for those wanting to start with comics is to look at particular creative team runs on titles rather then the series as a whole.

Yeah, but until you get into comics, how do you know what team you like? And unless that team involves someone with the brand recognition like Gaiman, how do you know what they're writing at any given time? That is, like Mushes, it seems like the best way to get into comics is either diving in and working it out on your own, or being introduced by someone else.

Not to turn this thread into What's Wrong With Changeling Players, but Winnie the Pooh and Hedge Bars are from people who are unfamiliar with the source material. Once things like this get approved, staff would have to take a break from their otherwise very busy day and find a good resolution to make this stuff not happen. The discussion might start with something like, "I think you may have read the wrong book."

@Kanye-Qwest said in Dragon Age: Smoke & Shadows:

I admit to a morbid curiosity about how many of the FCs are being played by staffers.

Morbid, hell, I think it should be required information. Knowing the perks of staffing is one of the checks against staff taking more advantages than players, or getting in the way of players having fun.

The downside of that is there are going to be players who use that information against the staffer, as if a staffer doesn't have the same right as they do to have fun on the game. Because this is a matter of opinion, there are going to be hurt feelings over it, thereby encouraging staff to try and keep that information secret, which would then make it even worse when it gets discovered.

It only takes one self-centered prat to ruin it for everyone.