@bored said in Eliminating social stats:
@Thenomain Cool story. Let us know when you've out-coded all MU social problems, which is basically what you propose in every thread
This is a serious question: Are you high, drunk, stoned, or all of the above? Because I am an advocate of code not solving social problems. I am the advocate of code not solving social problems. I'm going to more legitimately guess you have me confused for someone else.
Then I'm going to fail as greatly as possible on my own terms and try to take as many people with me into the land of Pretendy Fun-Time Games.
@Salty-Secrets said in Eliminating social stats:
@Thenomain I think any such system that doesn't take into account whether Player A put any effort into his lie at all is doomed to failure.
A system is more than its code. It's up to the same player negotiation that all interaction on every MU* ever in the history of mankind relies upon. The best code can do is have a way for one of the two players to call out the other for reasons of bad faith effort.
No code is going to solve this issue, and it's the kind of thing that you either leave to faith or leave the hobby.
@Ghost said in Eliminating social stats:
Theoretical Example:
- Player A wants to lie to Player B
- Player B wants to know if they're being lied to.
- Player B initiates a specialized, hardcoded (or string) roll for their perception stat vs target's social stats.
- The screen returns a prompt to all players that Player B's explanation is convincing.
I'm going to assume the last line is that 'Player A's explanation is convincing', since Player B isn't explaining anything in this example.
I don't see a situation where one of the two doesn't know what's going on. Eventually, the code has to ask Player A if their character is lying, which means you must absolutely trust Player A's honesty.
I don't think trusting Player A is going to be difficult; I think most players want to be honest until there's a point where they will obviously lose out if they are honest.
I like it, though; it's a Player-to-Player version of the Secret Doors check. See, in D&D, you must initiate the check for secret doors; you roll and if you succeed, THEN the DM tells you yes or no. It does have a minor downside that you know if you failed, but that's easily countered by not being able to try again until something reasonable triggers it.
I also like it because it does something that code can do well. This would, frankly, be easier than coding a tabletop system.
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I don't like that everyone gets the benefit of Player B's roll, or that Player A knows that Player B succeeded/failed, but can be part of the fine-tuning, being a theoretical example and all.
@tragedyjones said in Good TV:
At least The Hand had a reason to raze New York. In fact, razing NYC wasn't even their goal, just a byproduct of getting what they are after.
Except alexandra goes on this spiel about how you get used to seeing cities fall and how they were behind all the big ones like Pompeii. So it's still the same story beat.
Sometimes that’s the only way some people can get off.
@SunnyJ said in Eliminating social stats:
My opinion is: Social skills and attributes will not be missed. Good riddance.
The only social system I would ever use in a game again is Green Ronin's Intrigue system for Game of Thrones.
That is an amazing system! I like Fate Core’s stress tracks for mental/social, too, but requires much more player agreement.
Maybe if we can stop being such nerds for ten minutes and just enjoy the company.
@Lithium said in Eliminating social stats:
When there is a game system that /has/ social rules, not using them, or just refusing to abide them is tantamount to cheating in my book.
Except that one of the key rules of WoD and some other systems (notably The Strange) is "only use the system when it's interesting". These games were made for The Table, where The Table is a group of people who can spend quick bursts of time deciding what they want to play. There are very few RPG systems out there that are suitable for "do this always no matter what". They exist, but we tend not to play them.
@Bobotron said in Eliminating social stats:
I'l agree with 'play stats hard,' but it will never work on a MU*. Players are too ingrained into their way of thinking to allow successful social tests to color their perceptions, convince them someone is telling the truth, and all the things that social conflict requires. You will never get all players to buy into it, and that is the stumbling block that needs to be overcome.
I think some of the most fun I've had is when people volunteer to play negative traits, regardless of stats. I think the least fun I've had is when people refuse to play negative traits, regardless of stats.
From my days of creating LARP systems, I think people just want a chance to decide how they act out their lack of agency. You may tell me that I'm in great awe of this person, but don't tell me what that means; let me tell you, the GM, what that means. If that's cool with you, then win-win.
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@Three-Eyed-Crow said in Eliminating social stats:
I have never seen anyone object to using social skills to bluff an NPC guard, or strike a better deal with an NPC merchant, or talk an NPC antagonist around to being on their side.
I have seen players, even in RL tabletop games, refuse to be the target of such things from NPCs, however. PvE is all well and good, but try some EvP and see how far you get. (Further than PvP, I imagine, but not open acceptance.)
I understand what @Pyrephox was trying to say, and I kind of agree with @Lithium too in the same way that I agree with @Arkandel's premise, which I mix liberally and get:
Play the stats hard, or not at all.
As long as people stay within the spirit of the game, I don't think there's any bad play that goes to either end of the spectrum. I don't even mind people opting to not roll dice at all if they can agree on an outcome. I strongly believe the dice are there only to create an uncertain outcome (Lithium's "tension"), or when people can't agree on what the outcome should be.
@tragedyjones said in Good TV:
@Tyche They did the math on reddit (as they do) and it apparently checks out.
But really, George Martin himself in the context of the books said the exact reason he's not giving time frames in the novels is so people won't worry about the logistics, and just enjoy the story.
Are there plot holes? Sure. Is it entertaining? Damn right.
More like damn wight, eh, eh?
There's snow telling. It would be ice to find out, though.
@faraday said in POLL: Super Hero MU Gut Check:
@Thenomain It does not have DPL. It also doesn't need it because the logs list isn't actually part of the "wiki" part of the website; it's a dedicated, er, logs list.
AMGAHD how are we supposed to live like that?!
That said, I hope you can show lists from one part of the CMS to the other. I kind of like seeing a list of "logs" on someone's character page.
@faraday said in POLL: Super Hero MU Gut Check:
@Three-Eyed-Crow said in POLL: Super Hero MU Gut Check:
It's not quite at what I consider wiki-replacement level yet, but I could see it getting there in a few years, and that's exciting to me.
I'm working on adding a wiki feature right now, which will be in the first release. It won't have all the bells and whistles of something like mediawiki/wikidot, of course, but hopefully the fact that it's fully integrated with the game makes up for whatever's missing.
Does it have DPL? Oh my god does it have DPL?! Do you know how critical DPL is to a reasonable logs listing?!?!
*gags on own drama, dies*
@ZombieGenesis said in 7th Sea Second Edition:
The problem with most people on MUs today
Wow, Grampa, tell us how people your age did it in back in the day, RPing uphill both ways in the snow.
More on topic, 7th Sea is no less a toolbox a setting as Star Wars, or World of Darkness, yet people seem to find things to RP about there without someone telling them which part of the setting to engage in. I've always seen 7s as being a "play the character you were thinking about when you made it" kind of game, in which you're always engaging with the environment.
I do have an older version of Wora, I just can’t be arsed to set it up in a readable manner.
I still want to know if the Muxify will make the transfer.
And to say that I am not filled with the dread of Ark running the board as I might have a few years ago.
This probably says more about me than Ark.
@Admiral said in Indicating Discomfort in a Scene (online):
@Thenomain I've been in situations where you are forced to use that sort of system. You compare it to raising a hand in class, but that is to avoid a large group of people all shouting 'LEMME GO PEE!'
In small social environments such as a tabletop, if you aren't comfortable enough speaking up to say 'Hey, this is bothering me' then the group hasn't done a very good job of making you feel welcome/safe enough to speak up.
And is it not plausible that suggesting tools to aid in this welcome/safe sense is reasonable enough to mention? You say that the system "gets around it", while I wholeheartedly disagree: It's another tool that people use to communicate. We don't consider crutches bad when someone's leg is broken, yet we use the term "a crutch" as if all people can stand equally on their own. This isn't true, and is a flaw in our language when we relate a tool to an attitude.
Not that you said it directly, but to follow your interest in solving an issue you personally had before you personally get burned by it again, I personally believe that how someone uses a tool starts with a shape of the tool, a personal belief understood by thousands of industrial designers, coders, writers, and artists.
I will follow this up with my personal belief that drawing lines of fault to a system that hasn't been attempted is a flawed argument. I'm sorry that you got hurt by people being too worried in the past, but people have been hurt because their own flaws needed help to overcome. A kind of crutch, we might say. A tool that is usually used to help people learn how to walk when they have problems doing so.
It's for them, not you, and until someone starts forcing it on you then I really wouldn't worry about it.
Whether or not you understand this after this moment is no longer something I care to help you with. Best of luck in your future gaming endeavors.
(follow-up: Re-reading this, I apologize for my part in Soapbox's latest spate of people basically not giving a shit what other people are trying to say, and only saying what they want to hear. I know some of this wasn't your intent, Admiral, but whether or not you get it means that you don't need it, and you're far from the first person in this thread to quasi-imply, quasi-be-inferred that these people are doing something wrong. It would be great if all of us could be as mouthy as me, or bold as you, or as comfortable as Faraday, or or or, but it's not, and after what happened in the White Wolf Vampire beta adventure basically having WW's loudest douchebag saying 'lol you guys can't handle hints of pedophilia also it's not pedophilia you're wrong lol you hate me but this wasn't me lol', I'm honestly pretty glad that Onyx Path has the balls to say, up front, This Is Going To Get Bad, these might help.)
@Admiral said in Indicating Discomfort in a Scene (online):
I don't get the whole 'Touch the X' 'Touch the colored light' indirect sort of crazy stuff people seem to favor.
If something makes me uncomfortable, it's on me to say I am uncomfortable.
Hey, dude, it's like you're saying, "I don't get the whole raising your hand to indicate you want to say something. Just say it!"
This doesn't work for everyone.
Having options isn't a drawback in a system.
Ignoring the long-tail is.
edit to add: And if you don't want to use a system designed to add to options, then don't use it. I don't understand how that's a difficult thing for anyone to understand.
Yes, but this is something you have to be aware of. How we and people like us, you and I, are changing MUing is by trying to help people be aware of the context so that they can answer issues before they arise. You're aware of this. I'm aware of this. But in having this discussion with you specifically, where it appears that I'm preaching to the choir, we are showing our logic, visibly, to the audience.
You really didn't think that I was disagreeing with you, did you? Psshh.
@Ganymede said in Indicating Discomfort in a Scene (online):
If you are uncomfortable with being violated by a pack of were-bros, then you probably should not be on a World of Darkness game.
This reminds me, with both fondness for the humor of the situation, and bitterness for the situation, when this happened to a character of mine and someone they were with. A Vampire player we kind of knew said, 'Hey mind if I meet you in this spooky woods?' and we said 'Yes'. He showed up. And others showed up, though he gave no indication this would become a potential gangbang. We took it in stride. They used the situation to wave their Vampire dicks around, oooo we're bad guys, monsters monsters monsters! And we took it in stride, our characters acting scared and running away and acted logically for the situation. But when the characters went to people they knew and it looked like the Vampires were about to get in trouble for this, they OOCly flipped out, backpedalling so hard that you'd think they'd never been on a World of Darkness game before.
It wasn't funny, though, because they whined at the Vampire staffer that we were cheating, and she believed them. We had to go over her head to the headstaffers to keep from getting banned from the game, and even that was a close thing because one of them disliked us as players personally.
Haunted Memories. Good times.
Except some of those games don't always make good Mu*s. Look at how many people wanted to build, say, Pern games vs. the number of people who wanted to build ShadowRun games. Is it because Pern is that popular? Or is it because the character focus for a Pern game is far more open than a ShadowRun game?
Or let's compare SR to WoD. Both are games about supernatural beings surviving out of the limelight, both were huge RPGs in their heyday, so what made WoD wildly popular for Mu*s? I think we can go into a lot of detail and analysis, but I believe one of those reasons is that in WoD, you can pick your own 'what do the characters do'.
I only played one D&D Mu*, but it didn't last long because if the characters weren't out doing an adventure, they weren't doing anything. From what little Lolth told me about Tenebrae, players found ways to play D&D characters that did more than adventure, breaking the mold that this RPG system is about.
So in answering "what do the characters do" and "what do the players do", always always remember your audience.
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edit: I know that some of you are going to take my examples as gospel. Don't. They're just examples to illustrate a point. Talk about the point, not the examples, please. I'm so very close to making this my .sig, as the dent in my head and the nearest wall wish I knew how to be clearer.