Zarni's ramblings

[Zarniwoop]

Thanks Slug that would be great, I always did like your write-ups  

As for the gaming weekend lets see what we can organise, either with one of the local groups here or see if we can get any of the old gang together or a mix 
It will be great to catch up again.

Cheers

[Snakes in the Tiki Lounge]

True, but how much better if those same traits had been worked into the characters during a creation session where you have invested time and thought into building your character. You can then have one-to-one sessions during that process for the DM to introduce the links or additional background. Also the players then help to form those relationships which can often be better roleplayed because they have taken part in the process rather than read a cheat sheet..

There is good argument for both but on balance I prefer the creation process because then everyone has much more of a buy in to the story and backgrounds that way. Though not all people or systems enable that to be easy. The other benefit is again it helps people understand the system better as character creation makes you work though a lot of things so you get much more familiar with how they all interact.

Nine times out of ten, I agree with you on this. For most games, I increasingly suspect the more player involvement the better and I've been toying with front-loading a lot of that and getting players in right at setting creation effectively, stealing shamelessly from the Vampire the Requiem 2nd edition "Building the Ladder" thingy.

But there's always the corner cases, and there's definitely room in the bag of tricks for the precise method of the B5 game, especially when uncertainty and paranoia are sought after.

Hopefully, I'll soon get to try out the Vampire system in live play sometime soon, after a hell of a long build-up. Just got to put the at this point quite long-running Cyberpunk game to bed first. Should be a real hoot, as my players will be not only digging into their own character, psychology and backstory but also building a significant chunk of a New England/Maine town or city and the likely very complex web of NPC's that will make it up.

[Zarniwoop]

Well we drift towards the end of another year and whilst sweeping though the dusty corners of the Burger Bar we come across some old threads that, with a little care and attention, might come up looking interesting again... Who can tell

Things on the internerd are still meandering along but still feels like a general slowing down if you are operating outside of the "big" social media apps. Shame, as a lot of those places are actually more commercially driven than socially driven, ironic really given their tag as "Social Media".

I find it strange that when this all started once a social media site tried to become "main-stream" the trendy kids left in droves to the next new thing. Now though Face**** has become so mainstream its referred to popular TV/news etc without any of the usual caveats required for other commercial products. You never hear people on TV/Radio when mentioning Face**** links, saying other social media sites are available like they would if they mentioned a brand of drink or food odd when you think about it. Despite this integration and its obvious commercialism through targeted ads, companies having accounts etc. people are using it more and more.

I'm of an certain age and given that I lived through the birth of the modern computer era that I suppose it's inevitable that I feel an outsider looking in. To me the new age looks very soulless compared to pioneering era I lived through, the wonderment and joy of exploration as well as innovation just is not the same, if indeed it is there at all.

In some respects the gaming scene I find myself in, both boardgames and RPG, has provided a physical social environment where I can interact with like minded people and friends replacing some of the elements I was missing from the old BBS days. I still enjoy the ability to interact on sites like this one as it affords an opportunity to continue or start discussions at times when it would be difficult or impossible to have a face to face conversation with someone. It also provides that extra time to contemplate and think about your response or discussion that you may not always get to do having a "live" conversation.

Anyway I have rambled enough again for one night, stay safe and chat again soon.

[Zarniwoop]

Just had to pop over to the old meetup groups to respond to a comment over there. I have to say they have made a lot of interface changes and personally I feel it is all a bit sucky now, both groups looks to be light on activity as well which is a shame given they used to be quite the hotbed of activity in the past. Maybe this drive by internet companies to all go for this faceless black and white bland user interface is driving people away.

It does seem that all these sites are slowly blending and going for a souless generic front end that looks the same but with a different corporate logo in the corner. Where has the spark of innovation gone or is it that the world has been reduced to one set of developers pushing their only successful design to everyone?

We are definitely lacking in people with the drive, gumption and bravery to come up with fresh new ideas and bring them into fruition. Even the film industry is relying, almost entirely it seems, on reboots and sequels rather than taking a risk with untried stories or ideas.

The world I fear is becoming very grey and boring......

[Snakes in the Tiki Lounge]

Just had to pop over to the old meetup groups to respond to a comment over there. I have to say they have made a lot of interface changes and personally I feel it is all a bit sucky now, both groups looks to be light on activity as well which is a shame given they used to be quite the hotbed of activity in the past.

Who would have thought, rupturing a large and active group into two competing halves over petty politics would have a long-term downside, huh?