Best posts made by Three-Eyed Crow

I feel like both, or like the latter builds off the former for me. I start with a lot of the 'create to the game' when I start making the bones of a PC. It's (part of) why I dislike porting character concepts, because I try to build at least something key into them that's tied into that world or that take on the theme. I want to feel like there's something I can sink my teeth into in what the game's doing with itself, even if I'm not sinking them particularly deep. After that, though, I need to connect with the character and find them fun and interesting to play little personal stories about if I'm going to stick with them for any length of time. With my main PC, at least. Alts tend to work for me best as pure 'color' characters who can come out once a month, be kind of entertaining, and then go back in the box without anyone minding.

@ixokai said in Mass Effect: Andromeda: The Thread:

• I don't know why people have issue with the facial animations and stuff, I don't. But the Uncanny Valley is something that affects different people differently. I have noticed some glitches in animation/camera placement, but.

Default Female Ryder is pretty bad for me. BioWare Face does not bother me on basically any other game but her...I just could not do it. Genuine weird, and once I saw it I couldn't unsee it.

Male Ryder and the alternate faces you can turn Female Ryder into were less bothersome.

@mietze said in Finding roleplay:

Most players are far more conservative with what they want to do.

I think it really depends on the player. I'm pretty conservative and engage in a lot of self-censorship, but I've seen enough wonky idiots to know that's not the norm. It's not really rare, but a lot of people really lack for common sense.

Not that I really think this is a reason to create PrP hoops. That Guy is going to do nutty stuff anyway and you'll probably just have to deal with it one-on-one eventually whatever you're doing. The vast median generally needs to be encouraged to do something, even if it isn't perfect, so creating as little work for them as possible is probably the best idea.

@Lotherio
I never understand why the players who do this don't just start another scene. I mean, I understand it, but how do you not see that's bad social etiquette? Even if there's somebody there they want to RP with...dude not cool.

I feel like the answer to this question is always, do the best you can to find the illusive happy medium, because both staff-run plots and the feeling that I can do shit if I want to do shit are necessary for me to invest in a game. What turns me off are the extremes. I'll leave a game where staff runs no story much faster, I guess, because I'm just not into the disconnected sandbox 'All PrP all the time' thing. It's just not a style I particularly jive with.

I prefer scheduled scenes these days because otherwise I'm, realistically, going to miss most shit that happens, just because my time is somewhat limited and MU*ing is a thing I fit in (and I'm not nearly as limited as a lot of other players, even with that). Doesn't mean I h8 the idea of impromptu scenes, just that I'm probably not going to be able to get in on stuff if all scenes are totally rando. I also think STs should have the freedom to do unpredictable shit if they want, though. Like the above, I think it's a balance.

I've also, honestly, never thought of 'PrP' as 'do something vaguely more interesting than meet-and-greet coffee shop RP'. I think of them as actual plots, however long they last, that are a bit more involved than random one-off scenes you decide to do off the cuff one night. I come from cultures where if I want to run a random bar fight, or do little riffs with an NPC in the background of a scene, that's just regular RP and I've never had anybody get weird about it with me. I get that this isn't the case everywhere, though, and this is one of those conversations that seems to come down to 'how are we defining this word' as much as what people want out of PrPs and game rules surrounding them.

@saosmash said in What are you playing...?:

XFNYC (http://xfnyc.riverdark.net/wiki/index.php/Main_Page) is the superhero game. I guess "superhero" is kind of a strong word because, as aforementioned: losers.

Also playing here. Enjoying it.

I poked my head into the new 100 MUSH as well http://www.the100.wikidot.com/ . With New Job I didn't have the brain-energy for another game right now, but I liked what I saw and will probably give it another go when I do. Ground apps opening appeals.

Very neat write-up. Not much to add except that I'd play something like this if it existed (time and eventual execution permitting, of course).

This seems like a more interesting variation on the bullet-points style BG I've seen some places. Sometimes I find this much easier in terms of building a character. I don't always feel it works (and there are some cases where really important stuff isn't something I decide on until I get into play), but it's at least a cool twist on the existing formula.

I'd do something like this enthusiastically as a post-approval character-building exercise (I do a stupid amount of those) on my own steam.

@Roz said in Can RP be art?:

Totally. It's collaborative writing, and writing can be art.

I've been in scenes where I felt the same creative rush I feel when I'm in a really good writing groove. A very, very few scenes. I could probably count them on my hands with fingers to spare, and I've been doing this for 15+ years. But they're what keeps me coming back.

Is that 'art'? I don't know. I think the comparison to a jam band with friends in a garage is a good one. Or one of those 'wine and painting' classes. You are not creating high art, but you're doing something creative and fun, and that's enough most nights.

@Apu said in How Many Alts Would An Alt User Alt If An Alt User Could Use Alts:

I have seen people who have a lot of alts and I can't help but to think of one specific person who seems bad about it. This was a person who had 15 alts at one point on a game I am on. They seemed to drop alts (when relationships failed or whatever, I'm guessing) only to make more and more and... well, you see what I am getting at. Now I try not to be too judgemental, especially considering I've made characters only to then drop the alt(s) fairly quickly for whatever reason, but holy fuck. I can't even begin to understand why they'd think 15 alts was a good idea.

Yeah, This Guy type is the source of every single complaint I have about zero alt limits. I'm ambivalent about whether or not it should be policed. It's dumb as hell, but a lot of things are dumb as hell.

@surreality said in Making a MU* of your own:

I really think this is -- and this may just be a matter of terminology -- how I see an alpha/beta stage for a game. I may not be thinking of that in the same way as others do, or I might, I really couldn't say since I haven't been around on a game in alpha/beta.

This is how I see alpha/beta, too, and I've played a handful in open-beta or soft open stages. I also don't get how attempting to be prepared = sterile and wrong, but this is a knee-jerk reaction to terminology from which I will back away slowly. Save to say I...disagree with that terminology and think it worthy of having a knee-jerk reaction to.

I've always held to the idea that there are no bad concepts, only bad players.

Can you play a 19-year-old PhD based on a handful of real-world geniuses? Someone could, sure.

Is it more likely you're apping that because you don't have any idea and have done no research on how the academic system works, despite wanting to play a professor who everyone thinks is the smartest and most accomplished in their field, and it's only one of many weird things in your app? Most likely.

OH GOSH I LOVED KINGS.

I've got it on DVD and still revisit it on occasion. On top of the religious uncanny valley aspect of it, I think the alt-history quality of it took it into speculative fiction territory a lot of NBC viewers weren't comfortable (back when TV shows had massive audiences, it might do better today now that things are more fragmented). It's one of those things I'm just happy exists and got enough episodes to feel like a "story," because it's such a fine little curio piece.

At a certain point, especially with phones (I'm not a tablet-user, so idk), you're running up against the limitations of the device more than the limitations of any client. I just don't enjoy playing on my phone and my laptop is generally just as convenient when I'm actually in a headspace where I can scene.

What I prefer are bonuses for apping stuff that actually IS rare in terms of the active PCs, but shouldn't be IC. Older characters, under-populated factions and jobs, characters who are actually closer to the canon archetype and not outliers, etc. It doesn't always work. Sometimes nobody wants to play these things for specific reasons the game should address in other ways. But I think it's useful to build up specific areas during spurts of under-population.

@cupcake I'm sad you missed it! It was good times. I died a lot. I also was involved in a mini-plot where a few other players and I smuggled George Orwell out of Spain during the civil war. Still stands as about my favorite damn thing I've ever played.

I'd love to see it tried. The main hurdle for MUing for a lot of people is the need to plonk yourself down in one place for 3 hours to play. And the horror that is trying to MU on a mobile phone. Something that mitigates those would be really exciting.

I'd be curious about the logistics (how do you handle a GM'd scene when you need to call for rolls, and such?) but I'm honestly surprised there's not a more streamlined platform for this now, given the popularity of text-based RP on platform like Tumblr that're DEEPLY unsuited for it.

@Arkandel said:

Is it efficient enough to tell people "this is when I can be on, talk among yourselves and tell me when you want the next scene ran"? Is it more or less fair than that to start the next scene with an +event at some time convenient for the ST and whoever can make it may come? Or is it reasonable for players to expect the ST to go a step further and organize them?

I feel like it's reasonable to ask players when would be best for them, to try and work around their schedules if they communicate them to you, and to use web-based scheduling tools (I like When Is Good? and Doodle.com) if there's enough buy-in to make those worthwhile. I don't have much faith in players' ability to organize themselves, but beyond that, I do feel like as the GM it's your job to cat-herd to some degree. Unfortunately.

If you ask these things and players don't tell you them (or can't because their schedules are too ephemeral), meh, stuff happens when it's convenient for you to make it happen and people show up if they can, or don't. I don't wring my hands too much about it if they can't, if I feel like I've made a reasonable effort. That's the only way to stay sane.

I think a distinction should be drawn there. I don't think massive events are bad, and once in awhile the chaos can be very energizing. I do think staff should do them once in awhile. They just shouldn't be every scene, or an obligation to make every scene as much that as possible.

@Roz said in Where's your RP at?:

I feel really sorry for the OP of this thread.

RIGHT?