Posts made by Wizz

@arkandel said in Good or New Movies Review:

Or Captain America - he's the ultimate do-gooder, right? He's a walking flag, which should have limited him even further. Yet by anchoring him as a morality beacon and letting others respond to him Marvel created a really fun character.

This could be a whole discussion topic, but I actually loathe Cap in the movieverse after Civil War, I think he was unintentionally written as incredibly selfish and basically a walking projection of not the American flag but a lot of unconscious modern jingoism, especially given how far they had to stretch to rationalize his side of the core conflict in that movie. That's not a popular opinion, I know.

(edit: Also, he just by his very nature draws the most obnoxious part of the Marvel movie fanbase to him, the "USA! USA! USAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!" crowd, at least out here anyway. Not really entirely his fault or related to the movies, but still.)

@vulgarkitten said in What is your turning point?:

We were talking about someone getting cockblocked in game and the player made the comment: "Mmmm. Speaking of lack of cock lately."

I think you basically nailed it (no pun intended), I'd say the same things really with the addition of clingy-stalker behavior as another turn-off, even if their writing is really good.

If we're sharing memories, I was applying at a Star Wars game once with a droid character and this player latched onto me CLEARLY to fulfill a kink. She was kind of funny about it at first but then it was like, every page mentioned "are you going to buy certain...UPGRADES :)" and going on and on about "polishing" me (OH YEAH ADDITIONAL TURN-OFF: talking to me in pages like I am my character), uuuuuuuuuuuuhghghghghghghghghgehuwhfguiewsnafn

Edit: Just to clarify, it's not that she had a kink and I don't mean to shame, I might have even indulged her. It's just that she was so fixated and loco about it before I had even hit the grid, like...I don't know you lady, hold your goddamn horses.

@kay

Yep, I'd be all about original content, no licensed characters but familiar archetypes are fine, etc.
I think FC games are kind of played out.

So just to bring this thread back from the murky depths, discussion in this thread over here made me consider a conversion of the system away from the default setting to SUPERHEROES!!! instead.

To recap, two issues I can think of:

• You'd need to chop off the "Mist" part of "City of Mist," which refers to the built-in Veil that hides all supernatural activity. This just isn't a very comic booky thing, heroes and villians do their thing (for the most part) in the public eye and even the really weird stuff like three-headed alien monkey-fish from Jupiter are casually acknowledged as real by Joe Everyguy in most series.
• The core of the character revolves around a fluctuating balance of the super and the mundane. You'd need to decide whether this was literal or very abstract and probably need to be willing to do a ton of handwave-fu in either case.

One way I thought of to take on the second issue, from the other thread and including a summary of the mechanics:

Some setting element [means] all characters were supposed to fluctuate between like, street-level and cosmic a la Doctor Manhattan, for example: actually all superpowers do come from A Thing, like some sort of SCIENCE!-y collapse/explosion of an LHC kinda thing that randomly empowers people all over the globe, and the only way heroes don't become weird super-detached godlike assholes (again, late-arc Doc Manhattan) is to maintain their secret identities.

The City of Mist mechanic I'm referring to gives each character four "cards" that represent either a supernatural powerset or a mundane story element that's kind of equivalent to a Chronicles of Darkness Anchor, something that ties the character to mortality. If you lose a mundane card, you gain a supernatural card and vice versa, and your power tier/level/whatever obviously fluctuates depending on how many supernatural vs. how many mundane cards you have. If you lose your last mundane card, your character becomes a completely supernatural entity with no trace of humanity left and basically runs amok as an NPC, and if you lose your last supernatural card you (obvs) become completely mundane and you're stuck on the other side of the Veil.

This COULD be made into something very comic book, ie like how Superman works at the Daily Planet as Clark Kent to both monitor global crises and maintain his ties to people. If he were to lose the job for whatever reason, he'd go sulk in his weird alien Fortress of Solitude and become just a little more out of touch with the people he's supposed to be protecting. (Which, come to think of it, is something I'm pretty sure I regurgitated from the book verbatim as an example they used.)
Not everybody's bag, and that is a very super specific setting that does restrict like ALIENS AND MUTANTS AND GODS or whatever, but it could be cool IMO.

Like it? Have a better idea for the adaptation?
Or do you like the original "80's SUPERNATURAL HORROR BONANAGONZA" better?

@tnp

Why?

@kay said in Interest check: pure OC superhero game:

What do the two of you think about M&M, are you familiar with the latest edition of it? And Wizz, I definitely think you should start a new thread so more people can brainstorm on that, including myself. For a different game I think it would be super cool, and I'd be genuinely interested in playing in it.

I'm def a +1 with @Ganymede on this. I actually really used to enjoy booting up HeroLab and just building zany characters in M&M with my beginner's understanding of the system, but every time I actually started to apply -- and this is really anecdotal so take it for what that's worth -- I quickly became very discouraged by how people seemed so focused on powergaming the system and how the MU* environment & community seemed to make that easier at those points in time and places.

I think systems that are a little more focused on narrative choices than dice, or at least find a solid balance, are a better fit for MU*s.

And yeah, I actually had an older thread about CoM! I'll necro it and throw my thoughts here about a conversion up at some point.

@wizz said in Interest check: pure OC superhero game:

The only thing that would be really problematic is that the core of a character is the balance between Mythic and Mundane, ie if you have too much of one or the other you technically are supposed to retire your PC and they're supposed to be constantly in flux, which is another mechanic that doesn't really make sense for superheroes.

Not to be too much of a doofus here by quoting myself, but to brainstorm this some more, you could arguably make this into a very interesting superhero-y thing if there was some setting element that meant all characters were supposed to fluctuate between like, street-level and cosmic a la Doctor Manhattan, for example...

@theonceler said in Interest check: pure OC superhero game:

No built in 'all superpowers come from <a thing>' nonsense which limits character concepts.

Actually all superpowers do come from A Thing, like some sort of SCIENCE!-y collapse/explosion of an LHC kinda thing that randomly empowers people all over the globe, and the only way heroes don't become weird super-detached godlike assholes (again, late-arc Doc Manhattan) is to maintain their secret identities.

The City of Mist mechanic I'm referring to gives each character four "cards" that represent either a supernatural powerset or a mundane story element that's kind of equivalent to a Chronicles of Darkness Anchor, something that ties the character to mortality. If you lose a mundane card, you gain a supernatural card and vice versa, and your power tier/level/whatever obviously fluctuates depending on how many supernatural vs. how many mundane cards you have. If you lose your last mundane card, your character becomes a completely supernatural entity with no trace of humanity left and basically runs amok as an NPC, and if you lose your last supernatural card you (obvs) become completely mundane and you're stuck on the other side of the Veil.

This COULD be made into something very comic book, ie like how Superman works at the Daily Planet as Clark Kent to both monitor global crises and maintain his ties to people. If he were to lose the job for whatever reason, he'd go sulk in his weird alien Fortress of Solitude and become just a little more out of touch with the people he's supposed to be protecting. (Which, come to think of it, is something I'm pretty sure I regurgitated from the book verbatim as an example they used.)

Not everybody's bag, and that is a very super specific setting that does restrict like ALIENS AND MUTANTS AND GODS or whatever, but it could be cool IMO.

(Sorry OP for all the word vomit BTW, haha. If you want me to split this off into a discussion topic that is absolutely fine.)

@ganymede said in Interest check: pure OC superhero game:

Have you looked into City of Mist? I see ads for it on my Facebook page all the time, and I was always a bit curious about how well it might work.

I own the book because the Fbook ads drew me in too, haha. Default setting is definitely more supernatural/occult than classic superhero, including a built-in Veil mechanic that might not really make sense for a classic superhero setting. But if you strip those things away, the system itself is pretty cool and basically allows for anything you can think up as a character concept/power set.

The only thing that would be really problematic is that the core of a character is the balance between Mythic and Mundane, ie if you have too much of one or the other you technically are supposed to retire your PC and they're supposed to be constantly in flux, which is another mechanic that doesn't really make sense for superheroes.

@arkandel

¯_(ツ)_/¯

It still seems to me like a lot of work over something that really shouldn't matter that much, but last I checked I'm not Emperor of America so it's cool.

@ganymede said in Good or New Movies Review:

I just want people to be cognizant that others may want to know absolutely nothing about it before they have the opportunity to see it.

I can sympathize with these people, I used to be that way. But I just don't think that's a very realistic expectation in this day and age and rather than these people losing their minds over it as they tend to, I'd suggest that they adapt and learn that knowing a little beforehand isn't going to absolutely ruin the experience for them. Like, some people act like they just got interrupted mid-coitus or something over spoilers, and that's just kind of a ridiculous way to be.

@calindra

Probably not, haha.

I was with one of those opening-night crowds that cheered pretty much every first appearance and "bad-ass" moment, but they were in shocked silence at the end credits where you'd usually expect that kind of crowd to applaud, it was actually pretty comical to me.

Expect a ride, you guys.

If you're not careful to check your preview and you quote somebody's spoiler section the plugin sometimes doesn't spoiler the quoted text, you have to fiddle with it a little still I believe?

I'll remove that part but IMO it was honestly pretty minor and didn't give away plot.

@jaded said in Good or New Movies Review:

Okay. Infinity War is a huge movie. And it was good. Really good.

Can confirm, I liked it a lot.

BUT, and this is a huge BUT for any MSBites like me with kids: it is super, super fucking dark. Like, shockingly so, especially if you didn't read the comics and don't know what to expect.
I would strongly suggest leaving younger tots at home, it definitely earns its PG-13 rating if not honestly a little more.

@ganymede WHAT IS BEST IN LIFE???

@auspice said in Hello MSBites! Grade your administrators.:

I also need consistency and support from my fellow moderators. And there have been (for the sake of transparency) days where I have gone to them, pointed at something, and said: "I want to moderate this." and received a sort of 'eh, I think it's fine.' in return.

That's kind of what we're all trying to say. You guys should be having that conversation once in a blue moon for weird borderline cases, not often enough to dissuade you from taking any action at all. Ark and Gany shouldn't be making a judgement call when you come to them and all that implies (mood that day, different instigators, etc etc) and the way to make it so is to establish what is or is not acceptable and put it in writing so you can turn and say "hey listen, This Person is the third in a row who is just coming down on That Person," (for example,) "I am going to remove it and link people back to the No Dogpiling rule."

"We've got moderators, but we don't want to moderate, but there's a still a problem" is the conversation that is still happening like five months after I went back to occasional lurking?

I'm not sure what you all expect. I'm still of the opinion that sometimes, you do have to come down like the fist of a vengeful god and not worry when people (edit: sorry, the people you are reprimanding) complain about it, that's just the nature of the role you all accepted. It's not something that can be fixed with a widget or putting "THIS IS THE SUBFORUM WHERE YOU CAN ALL BE SHITTY TO EACH OTHER" in bold across the top of the page, it's not something that can be fixed by deleting the forum's backlog, if you want to see a certain shitty attitude disappear, you have to disappear it.

IMHO.

Like, that's not a fun "job" to have, but in most forum communities and especially in this one, I just think you're going to find it's necessary.

@faraday said in Hello MSBites! Grade your administrators.:

There are things in this hobby that are objectively horrible and probably don't deserve kid gloves, but the vast majority of these flamefests are over disagreements as trivial as whether somebody likes chocolate or vanilla.

Hands-down the ugliest, most vicious slapfight I recall on this site that got so bitter and personal that I remember sitting there scrolling through with my mouth hanging open was over someone deciding to close their own Transformers game.

Like, that 80's cartoon about goofy neon colored robots that turn into putt-putt cars.

All of us never forget how silly all of this really is plz

So I am suuuuuuuper late to this party, but I just saw The Shape of Water the other night. I'm aware it's received a lot of praise and has a pretty high critic rating, etc. etc. but...

...was anyone else really creeped out by Elisa and the Merdude's relationship because of how extremely lopsided their emotional and intellectual capacities were?

@auspice said in Good or New Movies Review:

He doesn't have the swagger, the cadence of voice, none of it. That's why I'm just not feeling it.

I'm gonna have to agree with Gany on this one. I mean, it's honestly hard to judge based on what are literally like two or three second clips, but there's one where he's literally swaggering through a cantina, and there are some fairly Solo-ish quotes.

Plus, I mean...

I'd accept the dude as Harrison Ford's actual younger brother or son or something, there's a fair resemblance.