Concerning your second point, "gaming the system" is popular for games, even role playing games. I've seen this behavior from both Mushers and Mudders; if you put a system in front of some people, they are going to analyze and use the system in front of them.
Posts made by Thenomain
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RE: Coming Soon: Arx, After the Reckoning
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RE: Darinelle's Playlist
@Cupcake said in Darinelle's Playlist:
And you love it.
You know that he's incapable of love, right?
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RE: RL Anger
I wrote this code yesterday. It works. I can no longer figure out why it works.
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RE: Mac Client Recommendations?
But I too have done this, especially when GM'ing, to the point I usually just have Sublime Text open to write the next GM emit.
This is probably why I don't think about dual input areas. I usually have at least three projects open in BBEdit (still can't get used to Sublime or Atom, dammit), and right now I have six (6) 'untitled' windows open with notes that I've been taking, tho usually cmd-x/quick response/cmd-v is my workflow of choice.
'you want one input area? You want six input areas? Whatever! Just enter a number!'
You want used electronics? You want broken electronics? Come to Manolios Ugly One's Lectro-pawn.
Sorry, got a little Strong Bad in there for a moment.
You know me; I'll test pre-alpha builds if it means an updated Atlantis.
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RE: Mac Client Recommendations?
@Auspice said in Mac Client Recommendations?:
And that dual-input, right? That's the main reason I'm bit-chomping. I've been missing my Potato dual-input soooooo bad.
What do you use dual-input for? I've never seen the purpose.
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RE: Fallen World MUX 1.0
@RDC
Yeah, but when have I ever done anything the easy way? The only reason I split these overlapping fighting styles into two different merits is because it was becoming teeth-grindingly implausible to go back and re-create the entire "list class" trait system. Now that I have the code logic to allow skipped levels, I can give 'cg/check' the power it needs to finalize this project.
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RE: Mac Client Recommendations?
@Sparks said in Mac Client Recommendations?:
Regardless, I'm still working on Atlantis 2.0
For those of us who live on the edge, where can we find the latest builds?
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RE: Fallen World MUX 1.0
@Ganymede said in Fallen World MUX 1.0:
So, Muay Thai is the new levels in Martial Arts? And Clinching is the new levels in Grappling?
Yes and no, in that order.
Muay Thai is the new levels in Martial Arts. We had to split Grappling so that the level 4/5 of one of the new Grappling levels matched one of the old Grappling levels (I think Grappling 3), due to prereqs. That particular prereq is not coded yet, either; staff has to be sure to count style tags until I get the xp/spend and stat/set systems doing it themselves.
Fortunately it's kind of easy.
stat tag:striking/*
will show you all the stats with 'tag:striking', which is how we're marking style tags. @skew will be adding these tips and instructions to cgen rooms and wiki pages. -
RE: Superhero Games: Quest For Villain PCs
Continuing to agree with you, and I'd also like to agree with @Ghost.
Trust starts OOC. In some game systems, trust is maintained by the system or by the table. In Mu*s there is rarely a strong sense of "the table" (aka the game) and therefore a far more tenuous sense of trust.
What @Ghost describes is a betrayal of trust. How can you trust other people if they page their friends to manipulate the situation in their favor? But on the other hand, how can you build that trust if you don't share your gaming expectations with others, which can only be done OOC, aka "table talk"?
I'm not talking about scene-by-scene, moment-by-moment expectations, but the expectations and understandings that make up the game's culture.
I clearly don't think the problem is with OOC tools, but the use of the system, both IC and OOC, against other players.
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RE: Fallen World MUX 1.0
=============================== Announcements ================================ Message: 1/20 Posted Author HURT LOCKER: Stats are In Fri Feb 17 Thenomain ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Wow. I...don't know what to say. All the Merits from Hurt Locker are now in. If you had any, they're now reflected on your sheet. We did have to split Grappling into Grappling and Clinching. We did have to split Martial Arts into Martial Arts and Muay Thai. If you had these merits, we did a little hand-waving to keep the levels they bought under the old or assumed system. Important caveat: CHARGEN AND BUYING IS NOT IN YET. If you want these merits at Chargen, if you want to buy these merits, contact your nearest staffer. 'Transfer Maneuver' also isn't in yet. It's complex enough that if it's coded, it needs more attention than the rest of the system. But otherwise, consider Hurt Locker stats fair game. Enjoy. And hey, thanks. ==============================================================================
(edit: formatting, whups about over-promising)
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RE: Superhero Games: Quest For Villain PCs
I mostly agree with you, except for this:
(@Miss-Demeanor said:)
Actually, if you think of a villainous plan as a long-term plot? Villains can absolutely win.
I mean, c'mon, President Tr--errrrr, Luthor. But where I agree with you: It starts with all players and all staff being willing to allow this. It also means that the villains don't just start killing off the heroes. It means the heroes must be imperfect, and villains must be imperfect, and as @faraday says keeping it more about the story.
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RE: Superhero Games: Quest For Villain PCs
The purpose of the villain in any story is to be foiled by the hero. That is, I think before you can have villain players, you must first have good hero players who are willing to allow villains, and villain players who are willing to be foiled. I don't see it being possible without this kind of agreement.
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RE: Game Concept: Paying for rare things
@faraday said in Game Concept: Paying for rare things:
@Thenomain But as I said, the places where it's "yes" are counter balanced by the added OOC responsibilities inherent in the role.
I think this is something that you're adding to the discussion, not that it's a necessity. I was a little baffled about the mention of facheads and found it to be a little bit of moving-the-goalposts. We seem to have very different experience or expectations about this topic.
So is an added IC cost really necessary or beneficial?
The cost isn't IC, it's systematic. It's a sub-system no different than the use of exponential XP costs (or learning times) for linear stat gains. We generally accept those even though, using pure mechanics, it's 100% nonsense.
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RE: Game Concept: Paying for rare things
@faraday said in Game Concept: Paying for rare things:
@ThatGuyThere said in Game Concept: Paying for rare things:
@faraday said in Game Concept: Paying for rare things:
Do you have to pay extra on a war game to be a Lieutenant instead of a Ensign just because there are fewer of them, even though being a Lieutenant doesn't really come with any inherent advantages? What's the point?
I agree with your general point but wouldn't a higher rank in a military setting be an inherent advantage? After all the high ranks can order the lower ranks around, that is one of the basic tenets of military discipline.
Yes and no. A squadron leader would order people around for instance but a Lt or LtJg doesn't really have an appreciable amount of authority over other junior officers. And fachead type positions usually come with added responsibilities, so making them pay for the dubious privilege of having more work is.. dubious.
That said, "yes and no" means that part of the answer is "yes". The Lords & Ladies example is quite telling: if it's accepted that the more common roles are given bonuses, this is a positive-reinforcement version of charging people for playing less common roles--negative reinforcement.
My take-away is that "economics of rarity" is okay as long as you're not punishing people for playing a reasonable character.
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RE: Cheap or Free Games!
@Catsmeow said in Cheap or Free Games!:
Tell me more about these puzzle games...
Which ones? MiniMetro is abstract, where you connect a number of shapes with colored lines in order to allow smaller shapes to travel along each color to their matching larger shape.
Over time, more larger shapes pop up forcing you to expand your network of lines, or adding new colors. Sometimes a new shape will appear, so you may end up with one diamond in a sea of circles, squares, and triangles, and now you have to figure out how to get little diamonds down to that one big diamond location.
It's good for a little while, but for me the game didn't sustain beyond a month. It gets too repetitive. It's you vs an increasingly complex grid of shapes with increasingly limited resources, but the video they have on Steam doesn't come close to do it justice for how fun it can be.
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RE: Game Concept: Paying for rare things
@Ominous said in Game Concept: Paying for rare things:
Well part of what @bobotron mention wasn't just paying for the shinies but limiting how many shinies one can ever have. So, if Seers are really popular, make that the only shiny they can get, while non-Seers can have a bunch of shinies, since those things are less shiny.
This is the sentiment that I think @Ganymede missed. Dresden Files RPG is a fantastic system where there is a balance between what you can do (powers) and how often you can bend the world around you. What @Bobotron was talking about was more in line with this, as you say; you can be as special as you want, but there is a price.
This sounds like a far, far better solution than the typical quota or justification backgrounds. Not as good as straight up "this is not a player option", but it still hits a fair middle ground.
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RE: Cheap or Free Games!
@Misadventure said in Cheap or Free Games!:
And mine. Perhaps we could edit prior posts to show which have been taken so people know who to ask for what?
I'll be using ~~strikethru~~.
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RE: Cheap or Free Games!
I have the following duplicate games from the recent Humble Freedom Bundle, so first PM first served for the following on Steam (one per person, may cause fun, void where prohibited by Mxyzptlk):
Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP (follow the smoking man's instructions to the letter)
The Stanley Parable (follow nothing to any letter, number, symbol, or smell)
The Swapper (not bad, not great)
2064: Read Only Memories(in-depth cyberpunk visual novel)
Mini Metro (puzzles puzzles puzzles)
Waking Mars (bad graphics, great story)If you get a free (old old old!) game this way, throw $2 at the ACLU. Kthx.
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This Is a Terrible February 14th Thread Title
Hey, @VulgarKitten.
In case you didn't know.
Now everyone else does too.
So there.