Posts made by Thenomain

@ixokai

And this is why I don't agree to disagree. You're spending more time defending your viewpoint than answering the question, tho your viewpoint nor theirs nor mine have changed. Not a whole lot of agreeing, there.

I have never encountered a game where chargen needed to be coded anything but last. If I weren't in a tub I'd come up with more reasons than one, but this is my main one: If you change anyone about the stat system, you're going to have to change chargen. Each time you need to add, remove, alter stat lookup and recording, you're going to have to consider changing chargen.

Trust me, don't bother giving yourself that level of headache and just do it last.

@ixokai

Except that chargen is not mandatory. It's nice as hell, it saves brain cells from the Stygian abyss, but we used to get along without it. Hell, finding a WoD game where the chargen was complete wasn't usual until around the Haunted Memories days; woe be to staff who approved a character without double-checking the sheet beforehand.

But necessary? No. The only things you need on an RPG style game are a way to record values, a way to see values, and a way to resolve conflicts. Everything else is either management or is handled in the rule books that everybody playing has on their shelves.

I hate chargen code more than any other code in this insane hobby.

@Insomnia

On a game I was wizarding on, I ran into a couple at a location called "Door". After I looked, it was an object that they had entered. Described as a door. I very politely asked them to cut it out.

@Miss-Demeanor

Other people have made the point as well. There was a period where WoD players were particularly pushy about being allowed to do shitty things to other characters, and we did spend a great deal of time trying to find a way to balance IC theme to OOC behavior but here's the thing: We didn't see it that way.

When we started seeing it that way, we cut it out. In the last three to five years, a shitty WoD player is far more recognizable as separate from their shitty WoD character.

Where I'm playing now (Fallen World), there are a lot of questionable characters but they're not being portrayed the stereotypical PvP-oriented WoD player of the days of yore, the issues you're bringing up. We—you, me, others here, people who don't read these boards—have pushed even a modicum of empathy.

You know what other online game group is stereotypically shitty about understanding the other players? MUDders. I have seen almost as much bad behavior out of this game style as I have out of any WoD game.

I'm not saying this to shame any of the reasonable MUD-centric people on these boards, but to point out that confirmation bias is real, and it has kept me away from MUD-likes for decades.

None of this having to do with VR. Just people.

@Miss-Demeanor

Just to note: Before WoD, creeptastic things were going everywhere. Yes, creeps landed on WoD because "It's theme! You can't stop me! You're not my mom!", but there were no shortage of asocial college age ignorants trying to understand what growing up was all about.

Just sayin'.

After having coded two systems from scratch and applied them on about five different places, let me say this:

Chargen sucks.

Long ago on Wora, I said that stat setting and reading should be the first part of a stat-related game and chargen should be last. Eight years later, I'm doubling down on that. There are five things (four coded) that you need before you need chargen.

1. A way to set stats.
2. A way to read stats (includes sheet code).
3. A way to use the stats in conflict resolution (usually roll code).
4. Someone who can look at a sheet and determine that it's a valid starting character sheet.
5. A switch to flip to let this person play.

Chargen code exists because math is hard. I just went over the Shadowrun 5 chargen system and laughed my skinny white ass off.

Encoding chargen is hard, and it's the least critical part of the stat system so it could be done last. IMO, it always should be.

Otherwise, what was said before. Create objects that set things and check them. The easiest way is to verify one step of chargen before allowing the next step. Use rooms. Lock exits if they're not done with the room. Wipe work done if you leave or go backwards. Allow staff to sidestep all chargen controls so they can step in a room with someone having problems. Realize that you won't be done with chargen even after you're open.

That's the best I can do.

@Insomnia

Don't cross the streams.

(I was 100% kidding about Sakura. To not call them "Sex Games" would be a blatant lie.)

@Insomnia

Something about the world's saddest clown.

Oh, for the seasonal streaming? Anything with the word "Sakura" in the title. I dare you.

@Cobaltasaurus

TV. Too interesting for many Mu*s.

Edit: It was "kid that crooked partner was grooming into a drug lord stabs her" that pushed me to TV. This is a nuanced little bit of plot. If this is being pulled off on a Mu*, with either PCs willing to give up that much authorial control or staff able to run an NPC that dedicated, I would love to know where.

@Insomnia said in Cheap or Free Games!:

If you like Fallout 4 on PC and didn't get the season pass before the price went up, it's on sale on Steam right now, back down at the original price.

Maybe worth it for Far Harbor. Maybe.

@Ganymede

coughLast of Uscough

So, a general tool with more development time and established or excited users may beat out a proprietary tool usable only within a limited scope on a single game.

I can think of one demographic that Blizzard is targeting with this: New users. They might win if they get a critical mass of new users, or if it's considerably easier to use than Curse or Discord, the latter seemingly critical to affect the former.

@Bobotron said in Good TV:

@Thenomain
I think he means Hawaii Five-O, y'know, with McGarrett?

Hopefully that's the version he's talking about, at least the reboot I've watched has been pretty plain. And yeah, it's Hawaii Five-O, which is what I was mildly making fun of.

1. Hello again, @ArmedCarp
2. Hawaii Five-Point-Zero?

Thenomain's Witcher 3 Review:

Holy fucking shit.

@Misadventure

To me, this is an extremely viable suggestion complicated by the fact that in Shadowrun, you are a Shadowrunner, you run shadows, and that's pretty much it. It would be just as nice to have a D&D Mu* where you did more than Adventure, but difficult to pull off for all the same reasons,

@Misadventure

You do the following in order:

• Bask in the warmth that you are a fine purveyor of Chank fonts, because Chank is awesome. I have a flip lighter with his older "robot" logo on it.
• Go to the Snipple page and download it. It's free! Hurrah!
• Check Chank's free font license, because you're checking these things, right?
• Notice the following text:

You may use this font for your own personal website or communications, or for personal design work you might do for a friend, such as a birthday party invite, an indie band cd, a personal website or a personal scrapbooking project.

• Bask some more. Chank has been a very copyright-conscious designer since he's started, decades ago.
• Go to the FontSquirrel web-font conversion page.
• Install the converted web font into a directory your Mediawiki installation can reach, set up the CSS to reach it, and use it with impunity.
• Do some basking for FontSquirrel, too. Turn off your ad-blocker for them. They're not even using trackers. Huh!

I would love Mage: The Ascension done in Mage: The Awakening (v2), but I think @EmmahSue got burnt out on the idea after so long. I don't really blame her.

I'm just going to leave this here.

https://www.fontsquirrel.com

Enjoy this to the fullest.

@Ganymede said in Footballs!:

@Thenomain said in Footballs!:

MLS (Major League Soccer, aka second-tier football in any other nation) games begin with two key announcements. 1) You can't keep the balls. 2) Don't throw things onto the field.

And they wonder why it isn't as popular in the United States as it is around the world.

Upside: Less murder of players and coaches.