Posts made by Warma Sheen

@alzie Thanks again, by the way. This is really helpful and I will use it for sure to learn if I play 1e.

@killer-klown I would actually love a game with glacial advancement again. Where the game was about the characters and the story and the roleplaying and not getting to the next stat level as quickly as possible, even if only to keep up with the other players who are surely getting to the next stat level as quickly as possible.

@thatguythere I don't think anyone will. Not only are people tired of the matchup, it isn't even expected to be a good one with the Cavs limping into the finals. I'll be shocked if the ratings aren't abysmal, especially after the first game.

@ganymede said in The Basketball Thread:

@warma-sheen said in The Basketball Thread:

Yeah, them stars have trouble being consistent in the top game. But they can win their conferences consistently with just about anyone on their team. I don't like it, but they've earned the respect. From me anyway.

I don't want this to become the Football Thread, but I team of deaf chimps could win the AFC East in the absence of the Patriots.

Sure, but that's just their division. But they manage to get through the rest of the AFC on the regular too, to get to the Super Bowl. Just like the Cavaliers. Did the Cavs do it against a Boston team without 2 of its best players? Sure. But at the end of the day this is practically an entirely new roster that they swapped out midseason and no one gave them great odds to get very deep at all and now they are in the championship. LeBron is coming up on his 8th consecutive finals appearance and that's nothing to sneeze at.

What I respect about LeBron is that he had a very similar situation in Cleveland his first time around the Cavalier block and did not handle it well at all. He crumbled under the pressure and complained about needing more help at the start of his career. Now at the end of his career, he's showing up past LeBron by doing what his younger, more athletic self could not.

Maturity is a real thing.

@arkandel Being from California I was a big fan of the Warriors. But I was really bothered by KD's addition. And the Warriors' pursuit of him. I can't really blame them... if KD's out in free agency, their responsibility is to build the best team possible... but I thought the Warriors were a more pure team without him. And their accomplishments meant more. They built themselves from the ground up in the age of free agency domination, but they lost to the Cavs in the finals and just followed everyone to the free agency well.

So I still root for them. And I want them to win tonight (thankfully, the Rockets are just losing - slight difference, same result), but their wins don't excite me anymore and that sucks as a fan.

1e or 2e? I don't remember which is which, honestly, but I know there are some difference which change everything...

@ganymede Yeah, them stars have trouble being consistent in the top game. But they can win their conferences consistently with just about anyone on their team. I don't like it, but they've earned the respect. From me anyway.

@arkandel Tom Brady can relate.

We've seen this time and time again. Everyone has different opinions. This is where staff needs to have a guiding vision for their game to say "this is our world and here is how it generally works". That's theme. It keeps things together. Yeah, it might not be your preferred method of power level comparison, but it can get everyone on the same page and temper expectations.

Not a fan of rostered characters, though I understand their utility. And the system for creating your own house is awesome, though I have found that sometimes that leads to 23 players and 22 custom houses. You may need to come up with something to avoid that. If you use established houses as well as custom, I don't think that's as much of a problem.

Other than that, I'd just like to see a new GoT game out there. Learning the system is easy enough with what is out there.

Definitely. The oWoD Demon the Fallen was my favorite gameline and in nWoD the Descent ranks near the top. Obviously, neither mix well with the other gamelines so it always left a big hole in my RPing appetite.

However... Even on its own it is a nightmare to run. I wouldn't actually recommend it for the faint of heart or even the casual staffer. Several powers rewrite reality and entire personal histories, which can cause some people headaches if they are shy about handwaving. To run a DtD game you have to be meticulous but at the same time completely fluid to major parts of the game changing on a frequent basis. If you prefer to run a game on railroad tracks, you will may end up with stifled, frustrated players.

@arkandel said in Make it fun for Me!:

The only legitimate reason to complain to someone is if they are actually doing something bad - meaning they are harassing others or trying to metagame or cheat or whatever. That's it, there's no other good reason to do it.

This is the other side of this whole conversation about fun. The anti-fun. Its bad enough that people have to contend with so many different versions of what people consider fun. On top of that, we also have to contend with tip toeing around what other people believe kills their fun. And one of the main reasons I don't MU* anymore is because I so often run into people who have their fun killed by other people having fun, even when that fun doesn't affect their character in any way. Sometimes just having more fun ruins a scene for someone else. Fun envy.

Some people just want to be the center of attention so anyone else that draws attention away is killing their fun. Those people will often give the spotlight to someone else, if for no other reason than to show they are not always the center of attention, but it is always given under their own terms. If someone takes the spotlight or starts to draw it away, the drama begins.

I agree with @Ganymede that it can be both competitive and collaborative, but rarely does that work on a MU*. Many people in this community don't know how to be competitive, meaning they can't stand going up against someone else, losing, and being okay with it - much less have fun with it. The community just isn't built for it. It is a relatively small community and in general I believe its just toxic. Just mention PvP and both players and staff freak - even on games where character death isn't even allowed.

The most fun I've ever had RPing was in tabletops and LARPs, where we'd consistently be fucking each other over (or suspect that we're fucking each other over) during the game, which led to the most unpredictable and ultimately satisfying storylines and resolutions. But that just doesn't hold up on a MU - in general. If you get a small cluster of people you trust and enjoy, maybe. There was one particular amazing player-ST I knew who had these giant storylines planned out with massive flowcharts to go in multiple directions based on what the players did and how the scenes turned out and it was the greatest fun online I've had...

But then other people point and complain that you're having more fun than them and you're cliquish and if you're having so much fun on your own then you should definitely be excluded from all the other fun cause then you'd be having way more than your share of fun, etc., etc., blah, blah, cry, complain, drama fit... And staff is all hurt because people are ignoring their storyline-on-rails that will be told regardless of what players do from start to finish (here, roll some dice in these scenes while I tell this story, that way you feel like you participated) in order to focus on scenes and people they are having more fun with and then the drama starts about how you're trying to take over and how it is bad for the game.

And suddenly your plots aren't being approved for this and that minor reason, you're being scrutinized by staff within an inch of your own life (much less your character's) and your fun is sucked out like a hull breach (because the only way to make sure other people are happy is to make sure that you are as miserable as the rest of the MU*) and all you have left is memories of a time when roleplaying used to be fun.

TL:DR Which type of fun you have is irrelevant when overshadowed by the pettiness of people determined to drag you down because whatever fun you're having, other people can't stand to see you having more of it.

That continues to be one of the funniest things I've ever watched, obviously in part because of the connection to the material. Still so hilarious.

I have not heard good things about Dawn of War 3 and the knock on Endless Space 2 is that it is too much like the original. But if you liked the original, that's not necessarily a bad thing. Either way the sale on it is great.

A lot of good stuff has already been mentioned so I'm hardly adding anything new or insightful. But as a player who has been both proactive and inactive, I can give my personal opinion on things.

The most important thing for me is to be able to affect the world my character is in, mostly because not being able to do so makes me feel as though my character is not really a part of the world he/she is supposed to exist in. That's an immediate disconnect from my character and I'll quickly fade from the game.

Rewarding active people is definitely a plus, but that's trickier than it sounds, in my opinion. If you just give blanket rewards you get a bunch of people who do forced, stale plots just to earn the rewards as well as people who do forced, stale RP in order to reap them player-side. That's my biggest gripe with +events. You have to reward the good type of proactive player without encouraging the bad kind to continue. Some people would say there's no bad type of proactive player, but I'd disagree. Depending on the type of person and how they influence the game, sometimes it hurts more than it helps, if only in the long run. That should not be encouraged.

Engaging their characters is probably the best way to reward others who are beneficial to the game and creating an environment where people who provide entertainment for others always has a ready and willing source of entertainment for themselves would be ideal. Having a set ST for those type of players is a good start.

Also for those looking for hooks WoD had a stat for that. I forget what it was called - because it became so useless, I guess. Ambitions or something like that. But rather than being used for STs to tell stories people wanted, it just became a way for people to farm themselves xp. If it was used for what it was intended to be used for by WoD, it would be a great system to tell the type of stories people want to play. I'd recommend doing something like that which people can make public (but not attaching xp to it - unless that xp is to the scene runner for including it). So if I'm running a scene and I look over the things the players in my scene want to do or experience, maybe I can fit some in without altering my scene much. In fact, the new, random elements could give the scene a greater life than it would have otherwise had.

I agree that the 'hot new thing' helps keep interest up in a particular setting. But it isn't the end all, be all of a MU. I'd love to see a Matrix MU*. I'd make one if I knew how. But the main reason the Matrix MU* isn't a thing (I think) is because no one has made one any time in recent years. And if they did, it didn't catch much interest. Could be the setting, could be the system. Also any time I hear chatter about it, it comes with rumors about legal problems or somesuch.

I still can't father that someone would waste time with legal matters over a MU* but i know that it is a real thing.

@surreality said in Where do you draw the line in having your character take what would otherwise be an "IC" action for them?:

@Warma-Sheen I have to second @WTFE on this. You're putting forward a demonstrably false hypothesis, and then trying to use that to prove something else entirely here that is well beyond its scope.

I'm not trying to prove anything. I'm just asking questions to find out what other people's experiences are with this particular topic as compared to mine.

I see a lot of people talk about affecting other people's enjoyment. But does anyone ever have those conversations? Cause I've never seen them before. I've never seen anyone else have them and no one has ever had them with me.

Are there a lot of assumptions being made about how other people are going to react to their IC actions? Because it also seems like the prevailing culture is also slanted towards avoiding anything bad happening to characters, as though people can't enjoy RP unless things are going their way.

I like to believe that people can still enjoy their characters and their RP, even when bad things happen to their characters - even if my character does something bad to their character. Not everyone believes that.

And since no one seems to be having those conversations... is it me or does that leave a whole mess of room for miscommunication and decisions based on flawed assumptions?

@Faceless said in Star Wars: Dawn of Defiance:

@Warma-Sheen I think you're being a bit more critical than is necessary. Honestly it comes off as though you feel wronged by the current staffers, for the actions of past staffers.

I could very well be more critical than is necessary. I can admit that. Maybe it just feels more personal to me because it is me. I know that's a thing. But my experience and opinions about Mercutio have nothing to do with previous staff. Everyone's accountable for their own stuff. Myself, included.

@Mercutio I really find it hard to believe that the "interpretation" was a misunderstanding. But if you say it was, then there's no point in trying to argue. You know your intentions better than I would. If you're not doing the same things I experienced anymore and other people aren't experiencing the same issues, then great. I love Star Wars and more places to play, the better. But everyone has to decide for themselves and no one reading can say they weren't warned if your song remains the same.

It is coming from my experience of you from before you were headstaff, @Mercutio, as a player and as an ST. And the game being passed to you was one of the reasons I have stayed away. And for anyone I asked, nothing seemed to have changed. Every time I check back in, hoping for things to be different, they aren't. I enjoyed my time there and it sucks that it ended the way it did, but I'm long past being surprised at the behavior of people on MU*s.

I remember my last scene with you, where you ruled out of the blue that Miraluka could ONLY see other living things - in complete contrast to any and every interpretation ever run on the game. Specifically, I was down in a mining cave or some such and when I looked around you said all I could see was some moss. Where as other people were seeing rocks and doors and tools. But I can't see 'things'? Like my own armor and weapons? Stuff I used for years without penalty and invested feats and talents in? What? Get real. I checked out then and there.

You took a twisted interpretation, turned the volume up to 11 on it and that was that. I don't know if you did it out of spite just to fuck me over because we've butted heads in the past. Only you know that. But it told me enough about you. And it told me enough about how my experiences there would be moving forward. And so I just stayed away from any future headaches and hoped that something might change some time in the future. That didn't happen.

But that's just my one experience. People are free to take it or leave it.