Interesting Character's page

Storyteller Shadow wrote:

Just going to open a solo law practice with a few specialties, contract drafting, divorce mediation, and estates and trust matters. I might dip into companies looking to get started in legalized pot but I would not go out of my way to try and bring in such business as there are only so many hours in the day and I am not quitting my day job :-)

All these years later and I just ran across this post.

The solo practice is going gangbusters, I presume a single person or no one will read this but it's interesting (to me) to see what I had planned back then has come to such fruition now, several years later.

I suppose the success makes all that gaming I had to give up worth it...

I noticed. Glad to see you're doing well. If you need an assistant with zero legal knowledge but some bookkeeping experience, let me know. :) I'll be the absolute worst assistant you could hope to hire. :D

Aside from working 14+ hours doing deliveries, in between deliveries or while waiting on a restaurant, I'm working on preparing to run the Witchfire trilogy in my own setting, and thus I need to post all the rule changes to account for how my world works plus a few other tweaks. It's going to be awhile at this pace.

I used to like Legal Eagle, but I noticed lately that he's really leaning on one side of politics and it seems to be affecting his discussions more and more.

OMG, I just realized! Ankha was pretending to be a succubi in that video!

Or was it Liliyashanina pretending to be Ankha?

Is coffee good?

In the words of Walter "No. It kept me awake through the whole thing. I actually had to participate!"

Does that mean succubi are lethargic after coffee?

That's a question, are succubi morning people? Is waking up next to one a desirable, or scary thing?

I had a pretty busy week, with two boulders carved out, and a salt run. Now I have to stay up until midnight to pick up my daughter from her job at the cookie shop.

She'll give you a cookie for that, right?

:)

That's the nice thing about living in my car. No worries about power outages! Just need to keep stocked up on handwarmers so I don't freeze to death. I've saved up enough to finally get a new fan for the car so I can get the heater working again, but I need to find one now. Won't help me with this cold snap though.

Still, at least I'm in texas. This cold snap is pathetic compared to living up north.

So, back to what I was going for before, get well! Don't let life get you down.

---

My days are all the same, so I'm not sure when the weekend is anymore. Thus, my plans are work, work, and more work, with a bit of texting in between.

Removed the posts that delved into pandemic data/specifics.

Please don't misrepresent my posts, especially when you are leaving alone the messages that actually do fit the description you gave.

Also, I agree with dirtypool, his posts are now confusing without the appropriate context and while the deleted posts were responses to on topic posts, his are purely responses to now non-existent posts and don't fit the current state of the thread.

But what about the potential of something drifting away from the source becoming awesome?

For example, kobolds are the coolest ever and they have changed dramatically from the source mythology, not to mention early editions.

Fair enough. I for sure lean more into the RPG side as an expression of art, and enjoy the way the rules can augment and supplement the art of the story, for sure.

So do I, but on my side of the spectrum, inconsistent or contradictory details are obvious and thus disrupt or break immersion.

So, how does the new Dune compare to the original, or the books?

I've seen the older film, but haven't gotten around to reading the books yet.

I appreciate the answers you do give. We are clearly on opposing sides of how people think, and as I study rpgs as a scientist/academic would, I'm always looking for how those on your side of the spectrum take things. And you give good answers.

So, get anything good for Christmas?

8th level characters are way too high when you run the numbers. I know paizo isn't exactly on board with the whole simulationism thing, it's kinda why I stay away from pf2, but that wasn't exactly removed from pf1.

I know lotr wasn't written around a game, but dnd was heavily influenced around it. Some of the core spells clearly are inspired by the books. Even got into a bit of legal trouble for it with hobbits.

I'm curious, how can you accept the argument of lotr characters as being 8 to 12 lvl when the numbers clearly don't support that? Is it something about the emotional content, or the fact that Aragorn is king, or something else?

Why 1-10? The books themselves never come close to reaching 10 even for the powerful good guys. I'd find it difficult to see the hobbits as being more than 2nd or 3rd level even at the end of the trilogy.

Heck, just reaching 2nd level, even as a commoner is a task beyond most people. A 2nd lvl commoner is more capable than the average person.

Is there a reason to boost the power level so far beyond the books?

Snow! I love snow! Go ahead and shovel it down this way, the Texans need to experience somd real snow for once. :)

Ah, I see. I have no idea how to get an office job. All my attempts have been met with a brick wall of silence.

Why go virtual for Omicron? That makes no sense.

I guess I can understand wanting to avoid certain spells or abilities, though I can easily deal with any of those.

But why would slaying a dragon, or a demon, be bad at low level? The entire lord of the rings trilogy is low level and that is dealing with a high level tyrant, yet none of the protagonists are above 4th or 5th level, some might claim Gandalf the white as 7th or 8th, but even by 3.x standards which are a level or so lower than Pathfinder I could easily see Gandalf as 5th or 6th. And yet that works.

If being too high level is bad because spells/abilities break the central obstacle, what is the issue with being too low level?

What do you mean by forcing stories up or down in level?

I haven't seen a single story yet except god campaigns, that can't work equally well as 1st level games.

I was meaning like how do you get clients/customers, what do you actually do, how does the money get to you. Basically if I want to make from home, how can I actually do that?

You work from home? How do you make that work?

Interesting Character wrote:

Why does no one make gingerbread dice?

They can be eaten if they roll a 1!

Not being a big fan of eating something that other gamers at the table have been clutching and hand-sweating all over would be my excuse for not making them.

What?!

:)

Are you sure you're human?

Why does no one make gingerbread dice?

They can be eaten if they roll a 1!

Well, succubi don't really need any chains, do they?

Dotting.

Matt mercer is the gm for critical role, a streamed dnd game that is on their third campaign and insanely popular. One of the players is always looking for smut stories, with tusk love as a running joke of sorts. I believe the question was even asked "what's the story about?" leading to a hilarious moment of matt needing to come up with a smut story on the spot.

So, next time Matt Mercer needs some smut stories for a particular player, you've got his back?

Let it go, let it go,
Don't it hold it back anymore,
...

2001: A Planer Odyssey!

Now with more succubi!

Ew. Take it to room where we can see while pretending not to look.

:)

This is not the lower planes, no sexy fun time on stage. :)

Feet is plural. It is correctly "what you could do with one foot more" or "one more foot."

Then of course is a foot of what?

I'm guessing you need another foot of rope (uncountable number of uses), or perhaps an extra stocking wrapped foot, or a foot for playing footsie, or... well there are a lot of feet you might need more of.

Are you always awake this late?

I'm trying to discuss variations in roleplaying. To use a metaphor, the term "roleplaying" is broad like the term "tree." I want to discuss a specific kind of roleplaying, much like how one might discuss birch, oak, or pine as specific kinds of trees, but with roleplaying we don'y have good terms for specific kinds of roleplaying. So I'm hoping you've got some ideas for that.

Interesting Character wrote:

The term "roleplaying" has been expanded quite a lot and now includes a lot of things that wouldn't fit a literal definition of the term.

So, what would you call it if trying to rather specifically reference acting 100% according to character as a real live person and not at all a character in a game nor story, to experience what the character experiences and make choices as the character thinking only of the character's knowledge and experience in a real world "combat-as-war" not as sport kind of play, no consideration of what makes a good story nor of the limitations of it being a game?

What you describe still fits under the term roleplaying.

I know it fits under that term, but so does a whole bunch of other stuff, and generally it is the other stuff people think of when you say roleplaying. So I'm just kinda wondering about being explicit about a very narrow selection of what might be considered roleplaying, not the other stuff, what terms would you use to describe it?

The term "roleplaying" has been expanded quite a lot and now includes a lot of things that wouldn't fit a literal definition of the term.

So, what would you call it if trying to rather specifically reference acting 100% according to character as a real live person and not at all a character in a game nor story, to experience what the character experiences and make choices as the character thinking only of the character's knowledge and experience in a real world "combat-as-war" not as sport kind of play, no consideration of what makes a good story nor of the limitations of it being a game?

If I recall correctly, there are both demon and devil succubi. So some might indeed accept paying per view.

I was surprised to find that there is actually artwork out there for succubus cheerleaders, not much but there is some, even an anime statuette.

Why does none of the artwork get posted here? Or do I keep missing it?

Unfortunately I'm in the wrong state. It was tempting though. I love snow and haven't seen enough of it in years.

What's the job and what's the pay?
:)

Huh, I don't like playing martials. I can actually fight well in real life (martial arts, soldier, and to some extent stick-fighting), and trying to fight as a martial in an rpg just tends to feel limited and weak compared to what I can actually do, making martials feel less heroic and more like wannabes. To me at least.

The limitations and difficulty of using the environment hurts the experience even more.

The lack of technique and expectations as well. I have probably a strength of 8 in real life, yet when a group of friends made a 50 lbs buster blade boffer weapon to try to use for larping, I used it to win, me against three, the first time I tried it. Everyone on their turn lost when trying to use it. Mainly the difference was technique that let me get by with not having the strength to swing it like a normal sword. But such a thing doesn't really exist in rpgs, sure they might have stances or similar that boosts a few numbers, but it never feels any different. Swinging that buster blade around though, that was nothing like what you see in anime or video games, my successful style has a drastically different flow to it, yet rpgs would have it be just a number, and that just can't compete.

AinvarG wrote:

... Two of my longest-lived characters weren't mine - the player ghosted and the GM had invested so much in the character's backstory that they didn't want to throw it away. I offered to step into that character's role and continue - I was even able to track down one of the players and get his blessing (and hidden backstory!), to boot. I played that particular adopted character for over five years and don't regret that I didn't roll him up for a second.

Impressive. I doubt I could ever manage to get that 'into' a character that I didn't develop. Good on you.

I've found that my most memorable and fun rp I've had was always with characters I did not make myself.

I tend to reserve the description of outcomes to myself. That gives me the freedom to A) be non-standard, i.e. a critical miss can be described as leaving one's guard open inviting an attack, or similar, rather than some bog standard "you miss and lose your weapon and take a bit of dmg from hurting yourself," B) keep things "realistic," i.e. a miss might be a deflection off the armor, or a hit knocks the wind out of the target. Simply taking hp dmg is not the same as being cut open and bleeding. And C) it lets me adjust things on the fly as needed. For example, if the players fight something simple, but it turned out strangely fun, I can keep it from ending too early, or on the reverse, keep it from dragging out too long.

you can bend over backwards to put 4 tokens in every bag

Oh, so you don't just arbitrarily decide how many to add, but you need to utilize something on the character sheet for each token to add? That makes sense, but wasn't exactly obvious.

nothing to gain by succeeding better.

True, but I've found that few will refuse to take the choice that is less likely to succeed, and when they do, it is because they simply didn't examine the choice in the way for which a better choice was obvious. For example, making a choice based on character without even looking at the mechanics will result in taking the less likely to succeed choice sometimes, but if you make a purely out of character choice that impacts chance of success, not many will ignore the obvious choice with a better outcome and no cost.

At first it sounded like the player could just add success tokens at no cost.

An old-fashioned made with mezcal instead of whisky.

?

You treat "old fashioned" like a name instead of a descriptor, a thing made with alcohol it seems. I still have no idea what that is. And why would it's name be a pure adjective that makes it sound like you mispoke?

So, why would a hero not put in 4 success tokens every time, what's the balancing aspect there?

What's a mezcal old-fashioned?

The GM is called a narrator, and encounters are called scenes.

I'm curious, why tell us this? I don't see how this tells us anything relevant or important about the system. So I'm curious, what about this makes it seem significant enough to you to share it?

===
And dirtypool, I tend to reply to comments directed at me, probably more than I should because there is always something to say or correct about such comments. If you look back, almost everytime we get in a discussion, it starts with me commenting on topic then it gets derailed, and goes off into the ether. It is not I alone derailing things. Others such as yourself complaining about me saying things I don't actually say, derails things too you know. I admit however, that if a conversation moves in a new direction naturally, I generally don't have a problem with whether it matches the thread title or not. But since you do, let's stick to the question I asked above, which is relevant to his comment.

We WANT to discuss the journey we have taken through different TTRPG systems.

This is a journey through systems. I'm on a quest seeking a certain kind of gameplay experience, which means getting more people to recognize it so I can play with them. And of course, getting a good system, but of course, how the system is used matters greatly.

That’s the opposite stance you took ... Back then it was all interchangeable and mechanics didn’t actually interact with the milieu, and thus it didn’t actually matter. Now it does for some reason?

No, there is the interaction between mechanics and the milieu. I.E. how a perception check works, whether cards or dice or whatever, doesn't generally impact the effect on milieu, but the fact there is a perception check, regardless of how the check works, does matter.

Thus specific mechanics themselves don't matter, but when, where, why, and especially how you are using mechanics does matter.

Do you not see the difference there?

Always choosing left instead of right isn’t a style, it’s a rut that you’re stuck in. If you’re a GM it likely means you’re very boring.

That analogy obviously went over your head. There is a pattern or methodology to the choices being made, that pattern/methodology is a style by which one makes choices.

There are only two implications to take from this; that we are stupid or that you are a super genius. Since it isn’t the latter, you must be claiming the former

Do you not understand the concepts of analogies and comparisons?

Besides, ignorance is not stupidity. They are different things. Ignorance itself is not insulting sven if the word itself is used when trying to make it insulting.

Also, I have professionals and tests saying I am a genius, vs you who says otherwise. As I have no reason to think you are an expert, and you certainly have not given me an actual IQ test nor reviewed those I've taken, I'll believe the professionals.

Here where you dismissively refer to us as grade schoolers isn’t meant to aggrandize you and diminish us?

First, I wasn't calling anyone gradeschoolers. It is a comparison, you know, "A is to B as C is to D." This type of comparison does not claim that B is like D, nor that A is like C, but rather that the relationship between A and B is similar to the relationship between C and D.

For example, to say that a trainer with client is like a tutor with child describes the relationship between trainer and client and does not claim the client is a child.

Thus, the experience is what I was discussing and the analogy I used was intended to be simple and easy to understand.

... isn’t meant to aggrandize you and diminish us?

Not at all. I don't need other's acceptance nor admiration, it is literally pointless to bloat my image, not that it'd do any good anyway. Thus, making me look better and making others look less does nothing for me.

I am very different from people. Through study and watching people I can see that insulting people is bad, but what people find insulting is far too subtle and varied and dependent on perspective for me to understand. People are always feeling insulted by things that are emotionally meaningless. I literally can not use my personal experience or responses to guess whether something is phrased insultingly or not because I don't get insulted by such things. This should be obvious by now and I have mentioned this before. Judging my intent by such purely social standards is doomed to failure.

Having debates and discussions however, are very desirable.

I don’t think you’re the bad guy, I think you’re unaware that what you think is groundbreaking is in fact commonplace.

Might seem like it, except I have spent my entire life watching people. One half of psychology is very logical and thus something I can learn with accuracy, it's just the other non-logical half that even psychologists can't pin down with accuracy which I'm hopeless at.

As a GM, it is part of my job to understand what works and what doesn't in my creations, and that depends on the type of person, what they seek from the game, what their expectations are, and in particular, how they think, as in how they process the information they are given and how they make decisions based on that information.

For example, if I mention finding a tripwire, do they immediately jump to the anti-trap skill without hesitation? If so, that means they didn't even bother trying find a non-mechanical in-milieu solution, instead they rely on mechanics as a default and think deeper only when there is no obvious mechanical solution.

You do realize that next month is November, right?

I don't know where you live but where I live only masochists and fugitives are crazy enough to go camping in November.

Hey, I'm not a masochist nor a fugitive! Camping in November is great, up north you might even be able to make a shelter out of snow!

Of course, down south, it's about the earliest you can go camping if you don't want to cook to death while sleeping.

:)

I was illustrating that your point about being able to interpret a mechanic multiple different ways completely breaks down when confronting a clearly defined mechanic like "how to build a dice pool."

There is a difference between a mechanic itself, and how that mechanic relates to the game/milieu.

You are talking about the mechanic itself, I'm talking about how the mechanic relates to the game/milieu. Very different things.

Yes, it's a choice of which rule to apply and when. It is not a unique "style" unto itself, no matter how often you claim that it is.

The fact that a choice exists is not style, but there is a style in what choices are chosen.

If you always choose left instead of rightm that is a style.

imply that practically every gamer but you is too stupid

Wasn't trying to imply any such thing. I was meaning the experience. Imagine if you were trying to explain the math behind quantum mechanics to someone who only knows grade school math. Do you not think that would be frustrating and awkward trying explain math that is built on several layers of concepts that are not understood?

(This shouldn't have been mistaken for stupudity anyway, as it isn't even about intellect, it is knowledge and understanding of a particular topic, which is entirely different. Even the smartest gradeshooler isn't going to solve complex formulas based on calculus if they have not learned algebra much less calculus yet.)

Right, you just described a gameist vs. a narrativist divide.

Not quite, though probably related. Narrativist is generally more about A) collaborative creation of a story rather than feeling immersed as a character, and B) generally shuns mechanics that can be used as tools, using "rules-light" systems, but those systems still adhered to as "rules are how to play" fashion,it just those rules-light rules tend towards more abstract and meta lvl mechanics.

What I'm describing, or trying to describe, is the opposite of seeing rules exclusively as binding limits on how to do things and/or thus the foundation for making choices. This applies to both gamists amd narrativists. Many narrativists use rules exactly the same way as gamists, but they use them for meta game purposes rather than in-game choices, hence favoring rules-light systems that don't bother having many, if any, rules for in-game stuff.

My example above about traps, both of those examples can be done with any system that has anti-trap skills and skill checks. The popular way of playing, of seeing rules as "how to act/play/etc," means that upon seeing a trap, players jump straight to the anti-trap skill rather than thinking about the trap as a real thing and coming up with plausible solutions, like carefully stepping over it, or just walking around it. There are two ways to avoid this limited thinking, first is to remove the mechanics about traps and the anti-trap skill, second is to change the way the player looks at the game, the mechanics, and how they relate so they don't think in terms of mechanics when encountering an obstacle.

This second solution is not narrativist, and in fact can even be applied to games bordering on gamist.

There aren't secret rules that only you can interpret. There aren't hidden implications in the rules that only you can see.

Ever hear of "reading between the lines?" How would you describe it when you've read between the lines and no one believes you.

where you call me stupid,

You're not stupid, just not open minded enough to understand. It isn't obvious to you, and you already dislike me, so you are content to stick with explanations that fit your worldview and paint me as a bad guy. So much easier than questioning the foundations of what you believe. Which is pretty normal for humanity really.