Posts made by Thenomain

@ganymede said in What RPG SYSTEM do you want to play on a Mu*?:

In my opinion, GURPS Vampire is absolutely horrible to play

Fixed that for me.

I'm not looking to start a fight, but to me GURPS is...nngh, you guys have fun with that.

@sunny said in How to start?:

...that started out as a joke...

From the aspect of a coder, it got funnier as you went along.

@theroguex said in General Video Game Thread:

If you want a good port of CT, find the PS1 DS version.

Funny you should mention that.

TTG Walking Dead has my attention first though. I’m rather upset what mismanagement and poor relations might do to Clementine, a completely fictional character who I completely don’t feel a small amount of personal responsibility for shut up.

Warner Brothers Entertainment (by way of the giant banner on the Steam store page):

WB Publisher sale weekend! We've got Batman!

Me:

Okay, what else?

WB:

Batman!

Me:

Yeah, I see that. Three types of Batman. Is that it?

WB:

What do you mean is that it? It's Batman! What else do you want?!

Me:

Look, I just clicked on the banner while you're protesting and you've got all the Legos--

WB:

Including Lego Batman!

Me: (continuing)

--F.E.A.R., Mad Max, and motherfucking Shadow of Mordor/War. Why are you hiding behind The Bat?

WB: (shyly)

B-because Batman. *sniff*

@faraday

You have your belief system and I have mine. It’s pretty evident from our past conversations that they are irreconcilable.

I’m not interested in derailing this thread further. You know where I am otherwise.

@faraday

Your optimism is overwhelming. Thanks.

@zombiegenesis said in WoD Alternatives:

I think this week I might pick up the Fate Core version.

Dresden led the way to Fate Core, but isn't Fate Core, unless something happened in the fifteen RPG Kickstarters and I missed it. I know this is a touch pedantic, but a lot of the more crunchy bits that were designed for Core aren't there.

It's a fantastic game, tho.

@wildbaboons said in Miami, Blood in the Water:

@wretched it's for a friend.

Are we friends now?

... Should I be concerned?

@apos said in What RPG SYSTEM do you want to play on a Mu*?:

It's hard to think of a game system I actually get excited over that isn't implicitly tied to a setting that I'd find interesting.

This is the 99% Invisible answer, and I 100% agree with this. Certain systems do certain things very well, while others don't. Some systems do nothing well but that's a trick of design.

I think it should be said, though, that the kind of game a system is good at running would come out of the implementation whether the game creator intended or not. The perfect opaque example is combat; there are RPGs that don't feature combat heavily and because of this players are less combat-focused.

--

@faraday said in What RPG SYSTEM do you want to play on a Mu*?:

@thenomain said in What RPG SYSTEM do you want to play on a Mu*?:

There is a "WoD Lite" system, the ones that introduced the nWoD v1 games in the quickstart guides. It might not be the "lite" that Ganymede wants (and almost certainly isn't), but it exists and is light.

All the more reason not to use FS3

"Because Ganymede Wants It To Work" is a reason to make it work, and makes me think it can be done because she thinks it can be done. There are few people I would say that about.

@faraday and @Ganymede :

There is a "WoD Lite" system, the ones that introduced the nWoD v1 games in the quickstart guides. It might not be the "lite" that Ganymede wants (and almost certainly isn't), but it exists and is light.

--

@Kumakun :

Deadlands does use cards, but the core Savage Worlds system uses dice. Like Cortex it's very perks-driven. SQ does feel a lot crunchier than Cortex, which depending on your desire for crunch is either good or bad.

Even for the flavor, I think Cortex was very weak; Cortex+ is much stronger and supportable.

@zombiegenesis

Do you think City of Mists would be sustainable? The front loading of keeping things balanced, a typical Fate Core problem, feels exacerbated here.

@wretched

Follow up question to make sure the language is complete: Is he or will he be involved in running Miami?

I’m asking for a friend.

@kumakun

Why Cortex and not Savage Worlds?

Now that I know that Tell Tale Games is going out of house to finish The Walking Dead, I’m thinking about asking for my money back for the next two episodes.

What a complete dick move to fire your entire staff then outsource to finish development. Continuity is shot, people are abused, just leaves a bad taste in my mouth that I want to vote with my wallet.

@arkandel

You could be Magnus/Ink@Reach. Much worse than Spider.

(edit: This doesn’t mean that Spider isn’t pretty fucking bad.)

I suggested looking at the Omega code in TinyMux’s directories too as it has a way to pull details on specific objects by dbref.

Note to your Wiki developer:

When I increase the text size (it's just a bit too small for me), the right margin doesn't adjust and everything goes off the screen. edit: Just barely, but just enough.

Thanks.

@arkandel said in Do we need staff?:

@thenomain said in Do we need staff?:

Nor should there be. "Let's systemize a social system" is a good way to fail at social systems.

Staff is not necessarily part of a social system - but I'd like your thoughts on why it must be if you disagree.

Because with the (usual) exception of code staff—including wiki coders et al.—and (sometimes) exception of build staff, staff interact with the player base to keep the wheels moving. They interpret the rules that players cannot agree upon, they do the primary job of MU* staff and that is to Facilitate. This is a social construct.

Even MMOs do this. They might not all be paid staff, but there are people whose role it is to keep the social systems running smoothly. When I was aware of how MUDs worked on a larger scale, I could argue that even MUD staff involve themselves socially in the running of the game.

So yeah, I find it to be a forgone conclusion.

@arkandel said in Do we need staff?:

@thenomain said in Do we need staff?:

Do games need staff? Yes.

Do they need a lot of staff? Up to them.

They need the right staff.

True, but there's no way to systematize right.

Nor should there be. "Let's systemize a social system" is a good way to fail at social systems.

@ganymede

The main problem with WoD is that it started as an antagonistic system. Look at Vampire from day one and we see that even the PCs have dramatic tension based on bloodline.

We largely had okay success on the original multi-sphere game, MasqueradeMUSH, where our overall staff philosophy was "work it out yourself". There was a '+judge' command when people couldn't, but my personal rule was when I had to get involved you agreed to live with it.

And of course people couldn't live with it. GOMOs (Gold/Game Of My Own) popped up as people demanded their way was better, and "their way" was either:

1. Be fair
2. Their way was the right way
3. An abusive combination of both

Nowadays we know better, but that culture plagues us. The one WoD game I know that tried to solve this, The Reach, had its well-meaning creator pretty much hammered by friends and others until he shrugged and went off to have a more reasonable life away from mushing.

My takeaway from that, from seeing it happen over and over, is that we who stay are not reasonable people.

This makes it hard to attract and keep reasonable people.

I'm glad that people are asking the hard questions, but unless a game has a PHB on staff (psycho hose-beast) to play the unreasonable viper, I feel that no game will be able to maintain reasonableness when just one player decides to piss in the apple cart, or however that phrase goes.

Oh it can be done otherwise, with all staff willing to stand firm against the unreasonable players, but that's just as tricky.

Do games need staff? Yes.

Do they need a lot of staff? Up to them.

They need the right staff.