Posts made by Thenomain

@Auspice said in RL Anger:

Which means they only care because it's butting in on the realm of dudebro, aka superhero films.

And here's where it hurts people. "You can't like the thing I like." Really, Reactionary Hipster Movement? ('Hipster' can be removed, but I left it in for mild laughs.) One of the best things that happened to computer games was Halo, allowing in a bunch of non-gamers into gaming culture. Now look at Steam. Look at it.

They've also said hey, if you want to do a men's only event, here's our private event page. Plan one. Have at.

All prejudices fade in the presence of the green.

@Jim-Nanban

That wasn't aimed at you. I knew what you were getting at. But I also don't mind anyone who wants to say, "This is a girl's night out." Or, "This is a shelter for battered women." Or this...comic by Kate Beaton I can't find where women complain about men swearing in a bar, and one of them says, "Fuck's sake," and it's funny honest.

Point being that I care at the point where it hurts someone and not before. I don't get how women wanting a women's-only charity hurts anyone. But I think we're agreeing there. I hope. I'll be over here.

@Jim-Nanban How awful how we apply the actions of a relative few onto 50% of the population.

This is what I hate most about snarking about SJW and MRA; the bleed-over to people who are completely innocent in this budding hate-war.

@Crysta said in Coming Soon: Arx, After the Reckoning:

@Thenomain said in Coming Soon: Arx, After the Reckoning:

@Crysta said in Coming Soon: Arx, After the Reckoning:

So far my favorite first impression I've made has been two words in length:

Not impressed.

Is there a story behind this? Because it can either be super funny or kind of demeaning.

The latter, because it was someone he didn't like/get along with/got into a spat of drama because.

He got banned shortly afterward, sooo...

But you still got XP for it, right?

@Crysta said in Coming Soon: Arx, After the Reckoning:

So far my favorite first impression I've made has been two words in length:

Not impressed.

Is there a story behind this? Because it can either be super funny or kind of demeaning.

@Coin said in Social Combat: Reusing Physical Combat System?:

Or you could treat plots the same way real life is treated, where a large majority of people use their social and mental aspects far, far more often than they do their physical ones when it comes time for conflict resolution, and where the physical approach is seen, by society, as something rather barbaric.

Since many of us here know World of Darkness, I will point out: This was the point of the Morality system to begin with. Not how others see you, but as a system to punish people for being more bestial than societal.

It was not perfect—heck, it wasn't even good—but it did push people to not do certain things. There are a lot of small rules that were implemented in nWoD and CoD to make sure that people aren't getting into combat with the expectation that 'kill or be killed' is the only end result. They are ignored. Because:

[...] the problem continues to be people, not the system.

However, I am going to point out @Sparks' suggestions as an exception of my usual rule: "Be very careful when applying a code solution to a social problem." If you walk into a game knowing what the expectations are, and those expectations are codified, then you're more likely to accept them.

--

Related: There is a game called Dogs In the Vineyard, about Mormonism in 1800s America. It has a social system and a physical system. The rough rule is this:

• People escalate to violence when talking fails.
• People escalate to talking when violence fails.

The comment about "rather barbaric" reminded me of this, and it rings to me, an absolute wuss, as true.

--

(edit) In the modern Dr. Who RPG, action resolution happens in a certain order. 'Talk' is first. I like that.

@HelloProject

Dude, cut it out. One oversized animation is what it is, but this is the constructive thread about people we might not like.

@Auspice

I think what you mean is"people are weird".

@Ghost said in A Constructive Thread About People We Might Not Like:

@Thenomain said in A Constructive Thread About People We Might Not Like:

The advantage of the rumormill is that there is enough uncertainty that it doesn't become a tool for, as @ghost would say, the witch hunt. Mind you, I believe that the kind of people who would abuse the tool for that level already abuse rumors.

Agreed.

The people who abuse rumor mills and exaggerate subjective complaints to their advantage aren't going to stop doing it anyway. People have doing this as long as MUs have been open.

BUT, as I said about something else, I wouldn't want to give people the tools to make abusing knowledge about people easy. We seem do be doing okay—better, certainly—as a community about getting the word out and letting people note on their own.

--

edit:

WORA had a wiki. The WoraWiki. It was, I admit, hilarious. It was damaging, and full of rumors, and as far as I can tell had no lies in it that anyone came forward about (and when they did we deleted the lies, but not the rumors, I realize the irony and that was the point). It was also about the only place people could go to say, "Hey, I remember that game!" or, "What was that game with that thing? Oh, that thing was mentioned here. Huh!"

People knew it for what it was. It was about as an official representation of the community as I am. And it still had some pretty awesome side-effects. Replicating those side-effects as a stand-alone wiki would be great; that the wiki was tied to Wora accounts was even better. Almost no anonymity.

@Ganymede said in Social Combat: Reusing Physical Combat System?:

@Arkandel said in Social Combat: Reusing Physical Combat System?:

You guys should roll to see who wins.

I'm rolling to see if I'm getting drunk.

Are there any girls there?

@Cobaltasaurus said in A Constructive Thread About People We Might Not Like:

I don't think anyone has the right to take those records to another game.

The rumormill grape vine isn't a hugely better solution, and does roughly the same thing. The advantage of the rumormill is that there is enough uncertainty that it doesn't become a tool for, as @ghost would say, the witch hunt. Mind you, I believe that the kind of people who would abuse the tool for that level already abuse rumors.

The point here being that sometimes there are problems that span games. It is rare enough that I would absolutely not use a global database ... though I kind of would like one of Jill sightings with IP addresses so that we can hunt that Sasquatch. Not to harm, but because it's a mystery, and who doesn't like solving that kind of bizarre mystery?

@Cobaltasaurus

Almost every game I've staffed on (not DarkMetal, obviously) has asked if there's a way to keep a private database of issues and people. While "staffnote" was not originally used for this purpose, it quickly became that way.

I'm of mixed feelings on this. I see the purpose of being able to see a longer pattern of behavior, but not sure if I like giving tools like this to staff I don't trust to be responsible with it.

@Ghost said in RL Anger:

The whole point was to be able to afford college.

The 90s are gone, man. Gone.

@Meg said in Chronicles of Darkness Game: Seeking help:

@Thenomain

(one of us, one of us.)

Gobble gobble.

Edit to add: theno, you're going to teach me how to WoD when this game opens right?

Why? I like you too much.

... I mean, sure.

@Cobaltasaurus

Like I said in Skype, both of them. In spite of my desire to not use new language in RPGs where it confuses things, I prefer the first set more.

Have you played any of Telltale Games' The Walking Dead? It's available on iOS. Pre-download and play through the entirety of Season 1. Try not to cry. I dare you.

Gentrification.

I may be white, male, roughly middle-classed, but man do I fucking hate gentrification.

That is all.

@GentlemanJack said in Coming Soon: Arx, After the Reckoning:

Dance combat?

I was going to make a one-off joke about this (I was disappointed this never happened in GotG2), but apparently it's already a thing. Nothing new under the sun, I guess.

@Misadventure said in CofD and Professional Training:

Singing: How much is that Pain Bot in the window? (Bark bark!)

@Lisse24 said in Coming Soon: Arx, After the Reckoning:

@Thenomain said in Coming Soon: Arx, After the Reckoning:

@Seraphim73

If physical situations can end a character, why not social situations? Is it different if the cut comes from a knife or a tongue?

Because in physical situations, losing a character can be chalked up to bad roles. A few more successes on a defense and you could have gotten out of it! In a social situation, because we're unwilling to let the dice stand alone

I'm going to stop here because this is the most solvable issue, and is the most confusing of reasons why people don't like social combat. Several people already have said, "Man, if there was only a better way of doing it with dice," which I feel is the best answer.

Naturally, a system without buy-in is pointless. Almost nobody knows about the popular game with the system that says, "Before you can get involved with combat you must identify your goal; if you deviate from that goal you start taking penalties." Why? Because people don't like it, even though it answers many issues with Mu*-related combat.

If we're unwilling to do something to better the hobby, that's on us. If we're unwilling to even try a solution, then complaining about the problems of Social Combat is pointless.

In fact, I have lost a character in a social/political situation, and when it was over, a staffer sat me down and told me that it was because I RPed wrong, and seemed to hint that if I had just worded one part of one pose differently everything would have gone differently.

Isn't this all the more reason to come up with a Social Combat system? My comment was because someone said that "death by Social Combat should not happen", even in a situation where rolls were happening. I disagree. Social situations can kill; we call this politics, and is doubly prescient for medieval politics. (Pulling that around because of the thread; honest, I do know where I'm posting.)

I'm sorry that the staff sucked. I'm sorry that staff didn't even try to consider you, the player, over their own rigid beliefs about how the game world works.

And yes, I would be glad to talk more in another thread. IMO, fastest way to do this is start a new thread with a quote from the old.

-- Pax.