Posts made by Thenomain

@ganymede said in Dark Ages Vampire -- Terra Mariana:

I see what you're getting at here, and I guess I'm somewhat exasperated about plaintive resistance. To wit: can I opt out of physical combat?

This is, as someone said (sorry, would give credit where credit is due), is not an equivalence. I think they said it was stupid, but I think the lack of equivalence is why. But I think the concern is: Under what circumstances can I opt out?

I think we need to see the system to properly judge. Or I need to read the whole thread to see where the system is spelled out.

I'll wait.

@ganymede said in Dark Ages Vampire -- Terra Mariana:

There are a myriad of other ways to trick, manipulate, mindfuck, and socially outmaneuver people that don't involve social combat.

The thing about social combat (or social systems; I think calling it all "combat" is undermining what it can or should do) is that it allows people who are not themselves social devas to have their characters manipulate on a scale implausible in real life. This is true of physical, mental, and supernatural abilities, so it doesn't surprise me that anyone would focus on the social as an unusual exception.

I'm aware that you're nearing or at the point of saying "this is how we decided to do it, so this is how it's going to go", but the above did come to mind. I am fine with "because this is how we're going to do it" as an answer.

@the-sands

Yeah, even mentioning it makes it come off as antagonistic.

I was going to say "fuck you" about it, but decided that it might come off as caring anymore.

I ask questions to learn. You're assuming I'm saying it's the wrong approach. You would be wrong.

So, yeah, enough of that please.

@ganymede said in Dark Ages Vampire -- Terra Mariana:

@thenomain said in Dark Ages Vampire -- Terra Mariana:

Then what is it about the Doors system that is being hotly contested, here? I get the feeling that there is an argument going on in this thread that is only half-informed.

We're re-visiting the age-old question of whether it is good policy to allow an opt-out provision in social combat situations.

Why for social situations and not physical situations? Why social situations and not supernaturally-powered situations?

I personally think there already is a provision: Fade to Black. Nobody should be forced to RP out a situation they don't want to, tho that doesn't give them the right to say it didn't happen. (With a few exceptions that almost every game made this decade has gone with.) Even PK doesn't usually hit this list.

@ganymede said in Dark Ages Vampire -- Terra Mariana:

@thenomain said in Dark Ages Vampire -- Terra Mariana:

Incidentally, does this mean that the CoD "Doors" system is being abandoned?

No.

Then what is it about the Doors system that is being hotly contested, here? I get the feeling that there is an argument going on in this thread that is only half-informed.

@apu said in Cheap or Free Games!:

What I'm jonesing for is a good free (or cheap if that's all I can get) roguelike game, either for an older iPad (4gen) or via Steam. I have a few but they're a bit on the meh side.

Incidentally, Apple has already stopped developers from releasing new 32-bit programs onto the App Store and will stop developers from updating 32-bit apps at all later this year.

So you're probably looking at just "via Steam".

Sorry.

Incidentally, does this mean that the CoD "Doors" system is being abandoned?

@EmmahSue and I have been playing Pandemic Legacy (Season 1) on Tabletop Simulator and we're 1/3rd through the game's 12 Month storyline and I have to say that it is a storyline. It's not a story game like Near and Far, but it's definitely a story.

(There are no spoilers here. There is one, but it's so esoteric that until you play you won't know what it is.)

Right now we're playing Jung Li, Dispatcher, and Joe Bob (not Joe-Bob, but his last name is Bob), Medic, co-workers for the CDC flying around the world non-stop to contain four sudden and ongoing epidemics: Squanch, Scout, Jaeger, and Coda. Things have become tense, and our working status may be strained in the coming months.

We have stuck with the same characters since the beginning, because they work so damned well together, and we have been fortunate that certain cities have become resistant to infections, though as the game changes we're going to be hard-pressed to be able to do everything we need to do in the future.

We are both looking forward to what I'm calling "board-game caused adrenaline".

@thatguythere

The 'you' was a generic, hobby-wide statement, not meant for you specifically, unless your statement about the drawback of a small game was concerning you specifically. I assumed it wasn't, so made a similar generic statement.

The idea of "forcing a scene" is 95% Stupid to me. I think people should go into scenes to see what happens, not as part of a crafted storyline. If you didn't enjoy it then that's hard luck but it's going to happen.

Part of the fun to me in "forced" scenes is paging with people I know making table-talk. I cannot play an RPG without table-talk. I certainly can't go to sphere meetings, which is the closest thing I can imagine being a forced scene, without considering a good stiff drink to prepare me for all the player-drama.

No matter how IC things are, you can always see the player behind it.

The second kind of scene that I can think as "forced" is when someone has information, you want the information, and they make it a bloody chore to get that information. Here's an instance where asking staff to sidestep RP is probably a good idea.

The idea that one person doesn't enjoy RPing with another is fine, but I can think of multiple times where someone from Arx has said they were doing just that because there was something in it for them; information, planning, other people around, whatnot. And that is not a small game. And they seem to get over it.

Steven Soderbergh shoots entire film on iPhone.

@thatguythere said in World of Darkness -- Alternative Settings:

I think the biggest drawback to a small game is not being able to easily avoid those you want to.

Or learn how to play with people you don't want to. That's where we started, and it creates some stressful encounters but none so stressful as "now I can't play this game because xxx plays there".

Then again, we didn't have a culture of video games back in the 1600s where if someone wants to not engage there were a thousand other things to do.

@tinuviel said in Visit Fallcoast, sponsored by the Fallcoast Chamber of Commerce:

Wellp. Guess it's "sit in the discord talking shit till @Sonder fixes it" time again.

So you’re preserving the game’s OOC Lobby.

@aria

Wait until you get to Season 2. You'll be all:

@roz said in Good TV:

@aria Parks & Rec and The Good Place are the first that comes to mind for upswings.

No joke on The Good Place. There is not a single episode that is not positive. I haven’t felt this hopeful for characters since Pushing Daisies.

@auspice

Heil Kitler.

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

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

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

@buttercup That dog looks like Hitler.

You just invoked Godwin's Dog.

I think you meant Dogwin's Law.

“The longer a conversation on the Internet, the chances of someone invoking puppies reaches 1.”

edit: Did you hear about the atheist dyslexic vet? They fired him because he didn’t believe in Dog.

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

@buttercup That dog looks like Hitler.

You just invoked Godwin's Dog.

@bobotron said in World of Darkness -- Alternative Settings:

@распутин
Because Foreign City by Night inevitably becomes 'All Ameican Expats in Foreign City by Night'? People write what they know.

Even WoD games set in American cities become Generic Metropolis By Night. How quickly did this happen to The Reach, for example?

Two games I played that this didn't happen to: Paris:FdM and Haunted Memories (at least as long as Mozart was running it) because the game-runners were passionate about the setting, and so they helped make sure that the setting was part of the game too.

Which is central to so many "how do I engage people?" questions around here: Be Engaging. If you want people to engage with the setting, make the setting important. Setting can be just as much of a factor in events as anything else; use it.

@the-sands

A large part of my point is that this makes it a question for the people running the game, not the people playing it. I'm sorry to say that the question also centers around my core question: What is the purpose of this poll?

"Approximate average percentage of players engaged in RP at any point."

I don't know how to determine this. I could code a system to guess, but from a perception standpoint, how does anyone decide this?