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.
@Kanye-Qwest said in Dragon Age: Smoke & Shadows:
Yeah, the game's in an early beta and already the FCs are taken? I'd feel a lot better about it if they'd at least held those characters for game opening, so that people could "audition".
I guess. Actually, no, I don't think I'd ever feel ok with someone rping Hawke while I was playing Random_Apostate_001.
Even a Level 2 Hawke who is schlepping around cheap goods for the Cartel?
@tragedyjones said in Attributes or No?:
Theno, you dummy, Storyteller used Perception as a base attribute. Your silly mistake has invalidated all your intelligent arguments. I am sorry, this is the internet.
Did it?
Shit, that was a stupid decision.
Almost as dumb as arguing over which skill matches with which attribute in a not-realized game system in a thread meant to discuss the general merits and drawbacks of any general system setups. I'm sure Lithium and Ganymede can go make out in their own thread. I'd say Coin could go join them, but his contribution would just be hate-sex.
(Note: "Perception" as a base attribute wasn't a horrible idea, I just forgot the power/finesse/resistance breakdown was from the Storytelling System. So much from Storyteller System were bad ideas that you just had to shrug after a while and say, "Sure, what the hell.")
(Second note: Imogen Heap, "Hide and Seek", makes it impossible for me to feel anything but relaxed and maudlin.)
My request that you guys flesh out the chargen wiki pages as mentioned in the other thread.
I mean, that page isn't going to steal itself, so spiff it up, chop chop.
Except many of them aren't stating opinions, they're stating accepted truths. I can't call them facts because of my science brain says that's the wrong word, but let's stick with "accepted truths".
The debunking of accepted truths in how humanity, societies, and people work is a huge bumfuck issue in this Rush Limbaugh world. Andy Warhol understood. CNN understands. It's terrible and depressing.
Speaking of, back to work.
My god, you people are talking about two different game lines and a book series. Nerds.
What conditions are we putting on the word "value"? Without that information, I can neither agree nor disagree with you, not even regarding Rush Limbaugh.
Also, it doesn't matter if I don't value his opinion when I'm dealing with people who do, or when dealing with something he has influence over. Under these circumstances, my opinion isn't as powerful. To live in this world I have to recognize--accepting or no--that there are people who do. That is, opinion is more than a matter of opinion.
It's not that I disagree with your opinion, it's that I am not finding the merit in it. You're clearly trying to sway opinion, but I find much more merit in reading opinions as a more complicated thing, something with weight and context. I am unconvinced.
Having run an audition-based book-character game (TwoMoons, an ElfQuest game), I can verify that it's a good idea. And with only five to eight book characters to monitor, it just means the staff has to be involved with the game.
@Sunny: The characters are involved in the game. We know exactly how and exactly when. What I don't particularly care for is knowing that nothing that these characters do can't be done by NPCs, except for Varric and possibly Sebastian and Blondie, as they all have more interaction with the city than anyone else for the first year. Maybe Lady Man-Hands after she signs on with the Watch.
All of this nervousness comes from having played WoD games for too long where I find myself picking up after the emotionally broken lowest common denominator, where I'm waiting not if but how people are going to try and abuse the system.
So I'm going to give them the benefit of the doubt.
Knowing that if someone does turn their game upside-down on them, we'll hear it here first.
From their chargen pages:
Command: +stat/set <Skill.Specialty>=1
So it's based on my code.
I think I know what this is, but I don't know if I'm supposed to know. Consider, however, that I'm not done with the Mage code because of truly annoying things like "Arcane XP" and "Proximi" and "Spells".
I'll leave it up to them to out themselves if/when they want.
Cool wiki. I can't wait to play in 1940s Americana with Mage.
Line-height could be increased a pixel or two if they're going to use that drop-shadow. Higher contrast between readable-text and background would be nice, too. Maybe the latter will solve the issue my eyes are having with the former.
More Edit: They probably should mention in their chargen pages that typing 'cg/check' will list how they're doing with setting stats, and unless they do something different on the game they missed the insanely important first step of 'stat/template <template name>'.
@WTFE said in Attributes or No?:
@Thenomain said in Attributes or No?:
Even further abstracted, this kind of "ability instead of attribute" game can be played this way: Invent your own abilities, give them numbers, and play. "Fire Magic: 3", "Pew Pew Pew!: 2d6", so forth. God help me that I can't remember the game that @WTFE loves so much in this venue.
No, no, the game with the stick-figure art. Oh yes, Risus.
See, what you're trying to do is make a statement of fact, and statements of fact can, and should, be tested. Facts can be right and wrong. Or both.
I don't disagree with you because of who you are--in fact, after our colossal misunderstanding a few months ago I was giving you more support than I give most people because of who they are--but because I disagree with the foundations of your argument.
Not your opinion, your argument. This has nothing to do with opinion. In fact, I find boiling everything down to opinion to be dangerous, and part of the problem that has let Intelligent Design push its way into classrooms. Boiling things down to opinion means that they can be dismissed, even if what they're dismissing is not really opinion.
I'm going to let Ganymede to the heavy logical lifting on this topic, but I was having problems biting my tongue.
To the person I promised I wouldn't do this, sorry. I tried to remain in the realm of reason.
Which is why I mentioned a stepped account creation system. 
@GangOfDolls said in Dragon Age: Smoke & Shadows:
FC?
I probably know what this is and are just not recognizing the abbreviation but uh, whatzat?
Feature Character. It means different things in different contexts, but here it means a named "book" character, or character well-established in the fiction of Dragon Age 2.
Regarding #3, be bold enough to smile and wave back and get back to work, or wave them to you, or look at them as if they are crazy and call out without moving, "Can I help you?" Take your time getting to them. Assert your humanity. Passive resistance works wonders and gives you time to calm yourself down before the next inevitable words come out of your mouth.
Bet you a dollar that I could invoke InviteSignup from within the game. That dollar payable to Chime's Patreon.
See, I think that even minimal interaction for account creation should be handled by staff, regardless of it's on the game or on a wiki or on some web boards for posting. Maybe if there were stricter access controls, I'd be happier. For example, sign up and get one (1) character page. Basic staff verification and get free reign to edit the "setting" namespaces. Further verification and add pages to the "setting" namespaces. Etc.
The problem with all of this is no two of us are going to agree on everything. I throw out my own ideas in hopes that they make an impact when it comes down to making that decision.
@Three-Eyed-Crow said in Dragon Age: Smoke & Shadows:
Would love some DA RP.
I'm less concerned about FCs in general than 'some rando playing Hawke' in particular, especially if the game is going to attempt to touch on some of the DA2 story points. It's not really my bag, but I'll give it a look anyhow.
Since most of it is going to happen out of sight, or up to three years from now, I don't see why it can't be NPC'd. Year one: The Hawke siblings work under someone else. Merrill is just getting there and told to sit tight. Varric and his brother are absolutely around. Qunari don't show up for a year. Fenris doesn't show up for just under a year. Anders has to participate in Dragon Age: Awakening. Isabella may or may not occasionally float into the city but isn't established for a year. Aveline may have the only other interesting story besides Varric, as she leaves the employ of whomever the Hawkes decide to work for in order to become a city guard.
After the first year, the game becomes a series of spoilers. I admit, almost none of them matter save the Qunari invasion and Martin Luther nailing his edict to the doors of the church before blowing it up because cray-cray. I can see Hawke et al. doing more interesting things between what we know of them from the game, but for the first year the most our heroes can do is play out the escapades of Hawke the Highwayman or other brief, low-level encounters.
Again, except Varric. Because Varric is badass. Nightingale and Cassandra get to do their own things too, but mostly away from Kirkwall.
All of this proves: Fans can easily ruin what they enjoy most. Stupid Theno.
You can in FUDGE and in PDQ and a small handful of other game systems that if you want I can look up.
Yes.
Oh, wait, I meant no.
Welcome, casual reader, to Game Design 480: Character Stat Foundations, an advanced course about what statistics to include in your game. Should you have stats derived by adding and dividing other stats together? Should you have core stats with a list that enhances or affects them? Skills? Attributes?
Firstly, what do we mean by Attributes? We mean the pinnacle stat, usually used to describe the character's raw capabilities. Strength, Dexterity, Stamina, Charisma, Intelligence, Wisdom. They are almost never, ever skills, which tend to be specialty items that are learned or trained. Okay, yes, you can train up your strength but as a person you tend to have limits. Attributes are before what you can learn to do; they're what you are.
I'm going to skip D&D because we should generally all get the gist of it. Skills came to D&D very late (about four versions in with 3e, tho they existed as an option in 2e). Skills are a secondary consideration as the original D&D the Attributes were never rolled, ever. They were the basis of table-lookup derived skills like "Bend Bars/Lift Gates" and "Saving Throw: Poison". Even now, I think D&D and Pathfinder half-ass it, but they half-ass it in a very comfortable and predictable way, so it's a good half-an-ass.
Paranoia 2nd Edition, Toon, and Teenagers from Outer Space all had a system where there were skills under a broad category, those categories not always but often considered to be attributes. "Chutzpah" from Paranoia being my favorite. You would add the head stat ("Chutzpah") with a subordinate stat ("Spurious Logic") to see how well you could do, but it was always "Chutzpah"; you could not link "Spurious Logic" to any other attribute.
Again, similar to D&D, tho many other games did it this way first. Everything Chaosium, for example. In this way, you had a pinnacle stat, skill or otherwise, and all its subordinate skills and abilities.
The Storyteller System (the original World of Darkness books) said, "Hey, you know, what do we roll if someone wants to recognize a gun by sound in the distance? Wouldn't they link their Firearms to something else in this case? A perception attribute we might call 'Wits'?" I'm sure other games asked the same question beforehand, but please forgive me as I'm not sure who. Possibly Shadowrun. Anyhow.
Around this time, and a little before it, a game system known as F.U.D.G.E. took the opposite notion: Let's just focus on the important stuff, the things you know and the things you can do. Okay, in FUDGE they had Attribute + Skill systems, and it took Fred Hicks to say to whomever he was driving home from a convention with at a time, "Seriously, why Attributes?" And so FATE was born.
FATE as a system goes entirely into the idea that what you can do is all that needs recorded. It doesn't matter if you're super-melee-god because you're strong, or quick, or both. You decide why it is; all that's important is that anyone getting in your way is likely to end up with a bloody nose.
Even further abstracted, this kind of "ability instead of attribute" game can be played this way: Invent your own abilities, give them numbers, and play. "Fire Magic: 3", "Pew Pew Pew!: 2d6", so forth. God help me that I can't remember the game that @WTFE loves so much in this venue.
Which leads me to answering the question in this thread. All methods have benefits and drawbacks, so much so that there's no one that's better than the other.
I'll play all of these, complain about all of these, and try to encourage everyone to play to the spirit of the rules depending on whichever one is used.
I prefer the abilities-instead-of-attributes-and-or-skills of the FATE/Fate Core method. I want to be the one who decides if my ability to bitchslap comes from being wiry or brutish or skillful. Maybe I have rapport with spirits because I'm a good bullshitter, or because I'm bat-shit crazy. Unfortunately Fate Core is such a high-adventure game that I want to see a low-power version for other kinds of play.
@Cobaltasaurus said in How should we (as a community) handle MediaWiki:
So, let's talk about what things are needed:
- For game owners
The bare minimum I believe:
- The ability to decide whether the wiki is open-to-join or requires account creation by staffers.
- The ability to decide whether the wiki is open to see or only members can see it.
- The ability to create accounts.
I spent a few weeks gathering together and testing and pondering the best extensions for the Eldritch wiki. You can see what few we ended up with here:
http://eldritch.mechanipus.com/w/index.php/Special:Version
The single best find was InviteSignup, which is perhaps the best extension for all Mush wikis that you didn't think of. (You thought of DPL3 already, which is the best.)
I would like to be able to link character objects to accounts. (Cough cough Evennia.) Your access to add, remove, post, read things from inside the game, or access information from outside it, could be based on this. It's pretty trivial from inside TinyMUX, but not from outside.
Last I read, the MediaWiki group said they were never going to install an access system beyond locking and editing, and that if this is what you want then use a different system or create a different installation. This deeply sucks.
Oh, and because I can, hee hee hee on @Chime putting herself in the position to continue maintaining a PHP install. I feel for you.