This is the "OOC chat" of ASWOT.  If you have something to post that doesn't fit in any other thread, it goes here.  There is no topic, but some folks like to use this as a "clock in" and "clock out" thread.

Historical note: The first Lounge was created by Despyzer, the creator of ASWOT, back on September 13, 2002.  The thread reached over ten thousand posts in October 2006 before being closed due to changes in the RPOL site architecture.  Due to the new posting rules for RPOL v1.5, all threads over 1000 posts long lose the "all" link at the top and are therefore nearly impossible to archive.  So, the Lounge and any thread nearing 1000 posts gets closed and a duplicate or alternate is put up.

Well, my former place of employ hired me back part time.  I just had an interview with FedEx to be a package handler and I have an interview a week from tomorrow for Sheriff Dispatcher.  My work schedule is looking up, although I'm not really where I'd like to be yet.

It's good that you got hired back, even on a part-time basis.

Having work that pays is always nice.

Why pay when human slaves are so much cheaper? And you can make them wear skimpy clothing...

Vixcis! So nice to see you in here again.

Hello!! I'm back, and look I have wings!! I took a page out of your style book and became an air whateveryouare

No no no! That's not fair! You can't be an air elemental! That's MY domain! You don't see me going around trying to become a sexy, evil goddess, do you?

*ponders it* Actually I think I would enjoy seeing that, how do you feel about leather corsets?

*rears his head* Who doesn't enjoy a good corset?

I'm actually not a fan of corsets. Too hard to breathe in. I wore one to a renaissance faire once for a whole day.

Leather, when worn against the skin, is similarly uncomfortable, but for different reasons.

... soooo, gonna say, not a fan of leather corsets on me.

I don't wear corsets, but for an entirely different reason.

Oh I forgot you people have to do that breathing thing...what about some fishnets? Heath? Fishnets?

Hehe... Heath in fishnets...

Let me be more specific as to the reason:  Because I'm a man.  So, no, no fishnets, corsets or anything else that J. Edgar Hoover would have worn, except a suit--and by that, I don't mean my birthday suit.  Of course, I guess we are all always wearing our birthday suits...  But I digress.

Well I never said I enjoyed wearing them...just that I enjoyed them.

So is Eddie Izzard... and Dr. Frank N. Furter. Doesn't seem to stop either of them.

Luckily, I am not them.

Is it cool if I come back into the existence of ASWOT? I'm done moving now. >.<

"Welcome back Athena!  Your drink developed sentience while you were away and then Vixcis seduced it and tortured it to death a few times, so I'm going to pour you a fresh one."

FourLegged busies himself behind the bar.

>.< thanks FL. I could use a good drink. Whatever you recommend is fine with me

I am so, so sorry that it took me so long to come back. I dedicated myself to a day of writing; little did I know that because of underlying circumstances, that day would turn into another, and then another after that. I really am very, very sorry! Although it does look like I got some of you to post, which makes me happy.

*shrugs* We just went back to what passes for normal activity levels around here without all the active newbies posting. We always welcome anyone back who goes off for personal reasons and then remembers us weeks, months, or even years later.

Thanks, and I never forgot you. I just got a little busy, which I'm trying to somehow prevent from happening again.

Even if it does happen, don't sweat it too much. Once we break people in around here, we only really expect them to post once or twice every decade or so.

Ah, but that's too sad, and relatively boring.

Nah, it's normal. And it's not like ASWoT is the only thing occupying our time.

You guys don't live here?!

Uhh... no. No I do not.

No, I don't. I live here.  Here, of course, is defined as where I am, not where you are, because that would be there, not here.

While I am neither here nor there.

Would you like them here, or there?

I would not like them here, or there. I would not like them anywhere. I do not like green eggs and ham. I do not like them, Sam-I-am.

I don't think the bar serves food here... only drinks.

Well, then, could I have some blueberry tea? Although, I'm pretty sure the last time I tried having tea the local koala stole it, so maybe coffee is a better plan.

Ask the bartender. *points at the local koala* He makes all of our drinks. Just watch out for his Pan-Galactic Gargle Blasters. They'll kill more than a few braincells... and probably you when your head explodes...
This message was last edited by the player at 23:31, Fri 19 Sept 2014.

My wife and I just played last letter nouns together!  Do you guys and gals ever have opportunities to play the games IRL?

I realize its not going to blow anyones mind but here are the results.
dog
grue
emu
ungelate
eggplant
track
ketchup
plant
toothpaste
elf
flower
ratchet
thermos
succubus
salt
tarantula
apple
egg
goat
turtle
eraser
ruler
roadrunner
rack
knot
tank
karet

I appreciate the fact that one of you chose to use "grue" as your word.

Thank you.  Zork 2&3 were an important part of my childhood.  Same for you?   Anyone else enjoy Zorking back in the day?

Just realized that I never introduced myself.  I'm a computer programmer by trade, but have created an online business (much more passionate about that), and I am here for two reasons:

• to have fun: I have always loved word games for example: mad-libs as a kid just cracked me up so I actually do those asking for words during lulls in meetings at work.  I have always enjoyed interactive fiction (I still do! ifcomp the Interactive Fiction Competition starts in a few weeks yay!).
• to improve my speed at creating coherent responses.  Background: while I generally create quality work, I want my quality work to come from my first drafts not my third, fourth, fifth, etc.  so this is a completely serious psychological practice with the intention of getting my first drafts out of my head and into the real world quickly, and consistently increasing their quality.

I have already begun participating and I already feel welcome.  Thanks.

No, I'm a little young for that. However I'm familiar with "grue" through a pop-and-nerd-culture infested game called Kingdom of Loathing.

Self introductions aren't really necessary. Even in the OOC areas we're still at least partially "in character" around here. We share what we feel like sharing, and the rest we make up as we go along. Basically, we don't really care who or what everyone else is IRL, and all you need to know about who we "are" is whatever is in our profiles... if we have profiles. :D

Wow, way to make us sound like a bunch of uncaring, antisocial yahoos. :p

I thought that's what we were?

Yeah, what do you mean we're not, Discreet?

We might be, but I don't like being so open about it. :p

I'd complain to my 'friends' about being called a yahoo, but it's not worth the effort.

Kimi taps her empty glass on the counter. "Is it worth the effort to refill my drink?"

"Absolutely." FourLegged mixes firelizardkimi a fresh beverage.

In reply to Halford (msg # 38):

Welcome!  I too grew up with Zork, not to mention the other interactive fiction spinoffs, not the least of which was the "Leather Goddesses of Phobos."  If you know what a "TRASH 80" is, you are in good company. :)

I take it you also write interactive fiction?  I have done so in the past, though lack of time strips me of that luxury lately.  I use the Inform programming tool.  I just wish there were a way to make the final product friendly to smart phones (though maybe I'm just unaware of such an advance).

Everyone, thanks!  Heath, I dabble in the writing of IF though have nothing to show (intentionally not a high priority ATM) but I also use inform and have huge respect for anyone who does write in it.   Mobile options are definitely limited.  I had an interpreter on Palm os back in the day and it worked well and even let you tap words and it would put them into the interpreter(pretty nice).  With that said, have you seen frotz on the App Store and is it what you are looking for?

Thanks!  I've never heard of frotz but I'll definitely look into it.  I always thought the Smart Phone revolution (and texting) would be a great reintroduction of text adventures into the mainstream, selling a cheap or ad-based app to keep good quality IF on the market.

If any of you are interested in joining my Paranoia game, now would be the time to jump in:

link to another game

ASWoTers always get first preference.

HEATH! long time no riddle...

Well, well, look what the amorphous blob who drags things dragged in!

It's been awhile, praguepride!

With a vengeance.

Good to hear it!

anything alive over here?
i hae started uni and have settledso am now really rather bored

Oh! You've started university? How's it going? Do you like your classes? Have you made any friends? Have you joined any clubs or anything? Tell us all about it!!!!

 i have made some friends
some of my classes are very interesting
i hae joined the karate club
i am also working with the local guide dog groupe to make the area safer
it is a lot of fun most of the time

I'm so glad you're making IRL friends and having fun and stuff. We're cool and everything, but it's always best to have friends who are in the same country as you. What are you majoring in, or haven't you chosen yet? Why did you choose the karate club to join? How are you liking having a guide dog?

the gudide dog is awesome

i choce karate as t sounded fun

i majour in biology and forensic sciences

Karate is fun, but it can also be a lot of work. Any martial art can, really.

It sounds like you're doing very well since starting university. I'm glad. It should be a wonderful experience for you.

The work is good for me and I am making a lot of friends

That's wonderful! I'm really glad that you're making friends and doing well. Hopefully things continue to go well for you.

If any of you want to read a Paranoia game working as it should -- with everyone very paranoid and ready to shoot each other -- read this thread starting at message #59:  link to a message in another game

Hopefully, it will make you laugh too.

LuLu, Athena, and I have had some trouble with 'bigbadron' I don't think Athena will be back, but I know LuLu got shut down because she forgot her password, and so she got called for having multiple accounts.  Not that she did, but the gm is having it out on my family because he doesn't believe there could be eight people logging in from the same IP address.

That stinks.  Our game has had some run ins with the powers that be in the past, and they weren't pleasant.  Hopefully, you'll get it sorted out.  Athena and LuLu should be able to work it out with the moderators as long as they are polite and explain the situation, and are not out there flagrantly breaking rules.

Neither of their accounts seems to be in the Double Trouble thread. Seems like bigbadron is still working it out.

I hope it gets sorted.

They would be listed as their RPoL name, not their ASWoT name, if they are different.

They are quite different.  Athena isn't in the double trouble thread, she just stopped logging in after LuLu got locked out.  post #638 Midnightflames is LuLu.  I have no idea who AlbatheOwl is, but I feel sorry for them getting locked with my sister.

But it says "pending contact with site administrator," so maybe that means she can still work it out.

Heath...I wish I could be the GM that you are :P

@Heath, I certainly wish, but he already made contact with her, I don't know if her status just hasn't been updated, or if something of their contact was left unfinished.  Either way she moved on to a different Rp website now, so I don't imagine she will be back.  I just felt you should know that my little family has kind of been chased off the Rpol kick by bad blooded managers.  More because they had left off here at aSWoT with unfinished responsibilities than anything else.  I didn't want you thinking they might still have a chance to finish what they said they would if they weren't even planning to log back in.

I don't mean to judge but I don't envy the site mods. They deal with so many cheats and liars that I'm sure they have a bit of an edge in their dealings.

Flipside is that in general they seem pretty reasonable in their dealings. From casual conversations with bigbadron he seems like a decent sort. Maybe send him a picture of your family with all the posters labeled so they know :)

Flipside though is that if you are lying they don't have any tolerance. The last aswotter I know of seemed to be talking them down but then her story changed or they caught her on a half-truth or something and they slapped her with the banhammer. Again I don't know the details but honesty is the only policy when dealing with rPoL mods. They're like the well worn beat cops...they've heard it alllllll before. You don't maintain a site with hundreds of banned players and not get really good at catching them.

If you're running multiple accounts just fess up and throw yourself at their mercy...as well as figuring out why you needed so many accounts in the first place. Take a good long look at your personality that you need so many alternates :)

I didn't say what I did to create a discussion about bigbadron, or multiple accounts.  Just wanted everybody to know that L wasn't going to be around anymore, nor Athena as far as I can tell.  My own participation will of course be waned until everything passes over, and if I too get banned then I'll just find someplace else to play.  LuLu and I had every intention of finishing the Royal Recorder, and Keeper of the Hall duties, but due to this I wanted you to know that may not be possible, that is all.  My feelings on the mods are negative, and perhaps I spent a few to many words venting those feelings.

@Heath: I know it wouldn't be under their RPoL names. I just didn't look far enough back to see LuLu's account name.

Hope everything works out for you and Athena and LuLu. I'll be sorry to see you go.

Good luck. Every ASWoTer is special :)

I have not really found this to be the case.  If you've had true run ins with them, I think you learn to just try to stay off their radar.  Every time I go back and start posting something in Community Chat, for example, it's not long before I vow not to go back there again due to the stronghanded and overbearing moderation that really does not let people engage in lively discussions--shutting down discussions just because they veer from the original topic, for example, was my latest WTF moment this morning.  If something doesn't violate the ToU, then why moderate it?

Duuuude I always wanted to play a legit paranoia game. I joined one once but it died shortly after and I was left quite disappointed. :(

You should go join Heath's then. He's always happy for ASWoTers to apply.

RL has abducted me quite thoroughly these days, what with college and work and all, so that would be a bad idea. xD I'll definitely go read it though.

Ew, RL.

Yeah, it does that to me too though... well, that and WoW...

Oh I miss WoW, so much...and MMOs in general really. RL sucks, I had more fun when I had free time for internets. XD

Yeah, WoW is a major time-suck for me. I usually spend most of my Saturdays playing it, as well as a few hours every evening. I don't play as much on Sundays because I have to run errands and stuff like that.

It always surprises me when I find out that other people that I know, or people who are in the same social circles as I am, play WoW. It shouldn't, since the game has so many players, but it does. Every time.

I always used to run across fellow players online, but I've met very few IRL.  It turns out my caliber of geek-nerd-thing is a good bit less common than I've always thought.  Side effect of not going to school/not being normal, I guess. (: *not complaining*

Hmm... I don't know. I "met" a whole bunch of people in the NaNoWriMo network who play WoW.

Admittedly the only people that I know in real life who do are family (firelizardkimi) or friends from high school and college. But there are relatively few of them.

In reply to Kitty (msg # 77):

As luck would have it, I did have someone drop out over the weekend, in case you are interested in joining a Paranoia game at RPoL.

When Heath runs a game you know it's going the distance. his AD&D game which I sadly dropped has been going on what...the entire run of rPol?

That game started as a PBeM game in 1998, then went to Playbyweb, and then migrated over here soon after jase started up RPoL.  This is technically it's third incarnation, since the first group all died or got turned to stone, the second group was a "high level campaign," which also did not turn out well for the players, and then this one, which has been going for nearly 10 years now, I think.  Yeah, since June 2005.

It has more private messages than most games have posts, and the characters have already witnessed the destruction of their entire planet, traveled through time a few times, and have killed almost every creature in the Monster Manual--still have a few more to go.

My Star Frontiers game started in September 2004 and is still going strong.

I had a strong Matrix (GURPS) campaign that ran from 2004 to 2007.

So what you're saying, Heath, is not only are you a HUGE nerd, but your game has literally been running longer than this site has been in existence. :D

In reply to Kitty (msg # 83):

Oh look WoW conversation, and to think their 10th anniversary is the 21st.  I am going to reactivate my account for the first time in like three years on the 20th :p  Also, pretty much all old accounts just got auto updated to mists...  So if you really like WoW, now is a good time to try it out again, as I am.

Yes, and I must say I was very stoked--and perhaps a little giddy--when Wizards of the Coast became my client, and I got to tour their facilities and see it from the inside.  People there really care about the games, even the attorneys and executives, most of whom grew up playing the games.

In reply to Just a girl passing through (msg # 89):

Yep. Also the new expansion, Warlords of Draenor comes out on Thursday. And due to that, during the anniversary they're running a special event - 40-man Molten Core upgraded for level 100 players dropping a mount for everyone 100% on completion. I'm super psyched for that, actually. It should be fun.

In reply to Heath (msg # 90):

Neat-o. You know when they first picked up D&D from TSR I raged and fumed with all my nerdling might at how they were changing everything. Overall I always hated how linear D&D 3.0 and 3.5 was. All those powers and "+1 to this, +2 to that" just didn't have the same appeal as AD&D's vastly wildly different power levels.

In D&D 3.0 a ring of fire resistance was something like "Subtract 15 damage from all incoming fire..." while in AD&D the ring said "You were immune to fire damage. Period."

Then they added in all those magic crafting rules that most GMs I played with basically just let you custom order whatever magic item you got so everyone ended up with the same magic items (primary stat bumpers, then weapon bumps. then armor bumps). Any magic items we got were quickly converted to cash to fuel our character's progress and it became very Progress Quest-y.

ANYWAY I was upset about the switch from AD&D to D&D 3.0 and took it out on WotC. Then I got older and learned about all the behind-the-scenes stuff that happened at TSR after Gygyax was ousted and it really made me appreciate how WotC stepped up when TSR fell and was really the bastion of games and nerd-dom for years until other companies got on their feet. While I might not like how they went a little too "balanced math, small steady progression" with D&D at least D&D still existed and again even though 4E was a collosol bomb in my opinion it seems like they learned from their mistakes and 5E actually has a bit of appeal again.

All in all it's bad form to hate on WotC because they're successful and/or because they try new things. Look at MtG, their flagship product. I barely recognize it even though the basic rules haven't changed and yet they've basically created several unique games out of the same basic concept of draw a card, play a card.

In conclusion I would say your assessment doesn't surprise me. I think of WotC as really the penultimate "for us by us" kind of place, right up there with Blizzard, Valve, Steve Jackson, Fantasy Flight and the other giants of the gaming industry.

Funny, when they asked me about what version I liked best, I told them I like AD&D best and though I read the later rules, never had the energy to really run a game with 3.0 or higher.  Now, they are no longer my client.  Connection?  (No, just kidding.  I changed firms, and my contact there also changed companies.)

I was just looking at my pocket army and I realized that it's still in a time vortex thanks to Kagura

HEY! KAGURA! GIVE ME MY POCKET ARMY BACK!!!!

*frowns* I don't remember that... I'm, uh, not sure it's there anymore. Things have a habit of kind of just vanishing when time vortexes are involved...

Sorry about that.

/sigh

Description updated :(

You could always go buy another one. It's not like you don't have a ton of WOTs. Sure, nobody's in charge of keeping up with them, but who cares? As long as you know roughly how many you have, it doesn't really matter.

Or you could just fake it.

Of course, that missing army may find its way back to you some day, assuming it got dumped in the past. If it got dumped in the future then it could just sort of drop on someone's head out of nowhere one of these days...

Why do you think that I carry an umbrella?

Is it a tiny umbrella? For raining tiny armies, of course.

I could buy another one... anyone have a pocket army for sale that I can use to invade Kagura's time vortex to free my tiny troopers?

...

o_0 Did that sound dirty?

It's not my time vortex. I'm as much at their whims as everyone else.

In reply to praguepride (msg # 101):

I could have some of my newly acquired* kitchen minions** ask around.  They might find a suitable replacement pocket army for you.




* They fell out of a whirling nexus of displaced time some weeks back. Poor little guys, they landed in a pot a stew. I almost cooked them and fed them to some of the Lounge patrons. Fortunately, they managed to escape. Ruined their little green uniforms though.
I had white kitchen garments made for them and they have been happily working the kitchen ever since. A darned good job too. It has never been run with such military precision before.

** You may not have noticed them, for they are quite tiny. To use clothing as a frame of reference, one might even describe the minions as pocket sized.

EDIT: Update description
This message was last edited by the GM at 22:48, Mon 17 Nov 2014.

Wow that's weird. You have the exact same number and types of kitchen minions as I lost in pocket troops.

Isn't life just full of coincidences like that? I wonder who else lost their minions? At first I thought they might be mine but mine weren't really green but more of an veridian color.

FourLegged digs out a miniature dark teal helmet, mottled with a orangey-purplish substance that is obviously not part of it's original design. (Remnants of the previously mentioned stew.) "This was one of the surviving bits of their original uniforms garments.  As you can see, it is green and not viridian at all."

FourLegged frowns slightly. "What does viridian look like?  It'll help the kitchen minions with their search."


"In the mean time..."  FourLegged scurries around behind the bar for a few moments before returning with a fresh drink,  "...enjoy this beverage while you wait."

/takes the drink and enjoys it


Hmmm...what is viridian? Kind of a grassy leafy color...

*Drops in (literally, forming from a mysterious glowing liquid dripping from the ceiling) and wanders over to the bar and perches on a stool.*

Hey everybody! How's it going?

Oh, it's Germ Ant. Hiya there, Germ.

It's going. You know. As it does.

Ah, complete chaos then. Got it.

Maybe just a little bit less than complete chaos. More like mostly partial chaos.

Actually I was thinking the exact opposite. Or whatever "lack of significant activity for months" is to chaos...

... I never said it was energetic chaos.

Chaos can be non-energetic? Who knew?

I did.

Okay, but who aside from you?

No idea. I suppose you could ask around to find out.

Do you really think that will do any good, as dead as it is around here right now?

Lack of useful results from actions has never stopped any of us before.

True.

I wrote a novel as part of NaNoWriMo but it ended too soon. So I started a second novel and I would like to post excerpts from it for review.

Thoughts?

I tried to do NaNo... I failed again this year at just over 2k words.

What is your novel about?

The main novel is a weird combination of It's a Wonderful Life and Dante's Inferno.

The follow up novel is about a guy who discovers that not only is there an infinite number of parallel dimensions but he doesn't exist in any of them.

He must exist in one, else there would be no man to find out such things.

That is... a very trippy sounding novel.

I would totally read it though, if it's well written.

I mean he exists in no other.

One good place to put excerpts and get decent feedback on novels is at Absolutewrite.com

Meh... the more I reread the novel the more I think that I can't write :P

Hemingway used to rewrite his novels about 30 times before he liked what he saw on the page, hence his comment that a first draft is always S***.  So maybe it just needs reworking and editing.

praguepride, that's why for NaNo they encourage you to just write... and worry about editing and revising once the whole thing is done.

But it's right and proper dung :P

The fact that you can even have the perspective to make that judgment shows that you have potential.  ;)

if i break any rules someone well tell me right?? right?

We have rules?

so i been told.

Who told you that?

my computer

LIES!

yeah thats why a water boarded it.

I've never known that method to work with electronics.

Yes, that certainly seems counterintuitive if you wanted to get information out of it.

You know that's what I thought too but the guy at best buy was persistant.

Ah, of course.

why do we have NPCs?

Inactive players are put in as NPCs after awhile.  That preserves their "characters" in case they ever want to join back up.

Yes, we don't delete people around here unless they specifically ask to be removed. We just assume that everyone wants to be here forever.

Much like the Hotel California...

what if i wanted to be removed the added right back without knowing i was removed?

In reply to Heath (msg # 146):

Uh yeah... just like that... *sweatdrops*

Um so anyways. You guys need to start participating in the emoticon thread. Least see those creative justices flow. Plus it's my stab at immortality.

Not really my thing, I'm afraid. Sorry.

What she said.

An... emoticon... thread...?

I really need to look around this board a little more often.

I need a drink.  Where's the bartender around here?  Oh, right.

Still thirsty...  anybody?

Sure. Why not?

Sure. What ya serving?

I'll have a Ramos Gin Fizz

Our posting is going way down.  Where did everyone go?

Limbo.

*crickets chirping*

*a faint voice is heard, somehow just out of sight* _{I'm sorry, I was playing with the vortexes again and got carried away. Things should go back to normal eventually. I can't really say when though since I'm currently bouncing between timelines.}

I don't think we've ever gone this long without more extensive activity.  Perhaps the days of ASWoT are coming to a close...going out, not with a bang, but a whimper.

We've gone this long before. It can just sit around, waiting for people to return...

...as ZOMBIES!!  :)

Well, perhaps. But at least they'll return, right?

Like me?

Nope.

ZOMBEES?

Those would be terrifying.

Hey friends.

I always wondered how different zombie movies would be if they included zombie animals and insects and other little creepy crawly things that could really mess with the storyline. Like if a group was holed up in a house and they board all the windows and stuff then a group of zombie fire ants comes in and turns them all in their sleep.

Imagine World War Z zombified spiders.

In reply to Grant (msg # 170):

I kind of thought the same thing.  Resident Evil (the first movie) does this with dogs.

I had actually been considering for awhile a story (or even a game) where all humans are immune, but almost all animals are susceptible to becoming zombies--kind of the reverse of what you typically see.

So like some twisted mad cow disease?

In reply to Heath (msg # 172):

Yeah, the games had zombie dogs and less commonly zombie crows as well. There was one area where there was a puzzle that if you failed to solve it correctly before trying to open the door then a flock of crows would kill you in a matter of seconds, which I feel is pretty accurate; if a handful of birds were pecking and clawing at your eyes, I'm pretty sure you would either be dead in seconds or wish you were.

And would there bites leave a person for dead or could it be patched up?

Not knowing if some stranger has been bitten underneath there clothing and could possibly turn on you is kinda a major social bump I like to play. Personal Opinion

In reply to Grant (msg # 174):

If you've ever played the board game Zombicide, they have a "zombie dog" add on pack.  Very fun game, by the way, especially with the miniatures and add on packs.

I'll have to look into it. Thanks for the message

I realize we haven't seen charlotteen around for awhile, but char, if you're still looking in here from time to time, I hope you're doing well and that the recent governmental stupidity over there isn't adversely affecting you or your foster family in any way.

Also, once you graduate, get out of there as quickly as you can. Go somewhere more hospitable where the government isn't trying to punish or kill you for not being rich, privileged, and healthy. Denmark or Sweden might be good choices.

Having some experience with Denmark, I'd recommend it.

Hiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii! I'm finally finally finally back!

It's unfortunate that most of the rest of us are away.

I'm just glad to be back personally. >.< I am perfectly content to finally be able to just say Hello! Randomly hahaha

Oooh, ooh! I'm here!

I'm not here.

Neither am I.

Should we really be talking behind our backs like this, what with us not being here and all?

Sure, why not?  What we don't know can't hurt us.

I'm not here, either. *points* I'm over there.

I'm nowhere. Especially not here.

Someday we might return.

Return? Who's returning?

Nobody, apparently.

I randomly want white chocolate hot chocolate. >.<

It's too hot for hot chocolate of any kind...

Randomly, white hot white chocolate appears on the bar in front of Athena, where is quickly burns a hole through the bartop and rapidly sinks from reach.

I knew we shouldn't have made the bar out of butter.

If any of us were here, someone might have been able to stop that.

The cocoa sinking, or the bar being made of butter?

Both. All kinds of things happen simply because none of us are here.

Probably the auto-med. Nobody's seen that thing in ages, but it's clearly still causing trouble.

Maybe the auto-med got bored and started operating on random pieces of Germ Ant.

Possible. Even probable.

We should look into that.

And by "we" I obviously mean "I".

*Kagura puts on her white lab coat and heads off into the depths of ASWoT in search of the rogue auto-med*

*Decides to be a ninja and follows Kagura because she's awesome like that.*

Helllooooooo ASWoTians! I've stopped by to say hello. ^_^

Actually, it's random pieces of me getting bored and operating on themselves.

I was worried that it may be pieces of you that got flabby from a lack of use.

I suppose it could be that too, sort of. In that they may have gone flabby to relieve the boredom caused by lack of use.

Have parts of you decided to be like Super Skrull?

Maybe. I haven't really been communicating with them lately.

exams and moving stole me

I'm glad you're back! How is life? You started school, right? Has it been good? Have things been generally improving for you?

slowly life is improving
yeah i did first year of uni
hoping i passed
been busy

I'm glad your life is slowly improving. Forward motion is forward motion.

Did you make friends in uni? You mentioned joining a club or something having to do with your seeing eye dog, right?

I'm sure you passed. Don't stress it. :)

Hello, just stopping by.

Jioan, are you perhaps an Extra Credits (or at least their Extra History spinoff) watcher? I ask because your Useless Trivia post seems oddly coincident with the most recent Extra History topic.

Yeah, I love Extra Credits!  I watch all of their shows except Extra Remix.  I'm also really happy Extra History is weekly now instead of biweekly.

Yeah, that's pretty awesome.
I'm particularly enjoying this Justinian and Theodora topic, because I've read a series of alternate history/time travel (the story is about how history diverges because of some time travel from the distant future) set in the time period, and with many of the same characters (the books focus on Belisarius). It's interesting to learn about the original history the books twist.

Huh, that sounds cool.  What's the name of the book series?

The Belisarius Series by David Drake and Eric Flint. The first book is called An Oblique Approach.

So it's about a war in the future that spills over into the sixth century?  That sounds pretty interesting.

The first several books used to be available on the Baen Free Library (that's how I came to read it), but it seems like only In the Heart of Darkness still is. I have no idea why they're still offering the second book for free, but not the first. I'd think the first would be the better way to lure in new readers.

Seems pretty silly. I'll check if it's at my library the next time I go although I've got a big stack of books I own still to get through.

We need more posting around here.

We do.  I haven't been around, but it doesn't seem like anyone new has joined in the past few months.

That's because nobody's really been around for the past few months to advertise or accept new players.

Sadly true.

Is there any advertisement done aside from the Wanted - Players thread that gets bumped sometimes?

No, just Wanted - Players. That's the only place advertising is permitted anyways.

Then I suppose all we can do is bump it and hope.

I think a lot of activity here would also attract new players.  Sometimes it just dies down during the summer because of school and because some of us just post here but don't see a lot of activity from others.

That makes sense.  I remember having to compete for Royalty of the Board and for Poster of the Week were the main reasons I started posting a lot after I first joined.

In reply to Heath (msg # 229):

Except that it was dying down back in March... which is just barely spring and hasn't really picked up since then.

We may be seeing the ASWoT End of Days...

I hope not.  All we need are two or three active new posters with the veterans posting occasionally and we can get out of this slump.  Although it seems to have been a very lengthy slump.

In reply to Kagura (msg # 231):

I was kind of thinking the same thing a month or so ago.  We apparently lost a lot of old timers, and haven't really been advertising for new blood.

Yeah, I've kind of been weak on interest myself. My job sucks my energy, and these days I'm also part of a three-night-per-week progression raid team in WoW, which takes up a lot of my otherwise spare time.

In years gone by, I have often found myself unwilling to stay away.
These days, I find myself unwilling to stay.
I'm a different koala.

Two days without a post in the lounge.  I hope this doesn't become a normal thing.

We went literally MONTHS without a post in the lounge. That's just how things are right now.

well it seems i am jobless so i may as well throw some posts around
even though i am 99.99%sure i am the only one up

I mean, I'm sure we all come from varied time zones.

Hello friends!
I have arrived as was foretold by the great gods of RPol!
I shall now save you and take you to the promised land!

I mean. Hi guys I'm gonna be having a lot of fun here and I hope it's fun to play with me too.

Howdy!

I am thinking about creating a game thread in this group. The concept is for a roleplaying game experience that can be played in about sixty seconds. I tried this idea about a year ago on three websites, and it failed miserably each time. I am thinking about trying it again here because I am just that stubborn.

Movie Trailer
The GM would begin by describing a broad scenario or a setting. A player would then describe his character in a single sentence. The player would also declare a single action. Based on the tone of the setting and the difficulty of the action, the GM would set her target number ranging from 1 to 10. The player rolls a D10 with the hopes of matching or beating the target number. Based upon that roll, the player narrates what happens to the character. Each player gets one character and one action. The actions declared need not be sequential, just a dramatic line of dialog or a single action stunt. The player only gets one chance to declare and action which defines the character, and then win or lose, everyone moves onto a new scenario.

Here is an example...

GM: The Mongol-Aztec War "In a world where history has spun off course, Ghengis Khan leads his horde of soldiers to North America in search of the Seven Cities of Gold. His invasion seems unstoppable until his army crashes into another continent-wide empire, the Aztecs. Martial arts action meet blood sacrifice sorcery, and only one culture will survive on the Obsidian Continent." Default difficulty is a 5.

Player #1: "Song Kung is a grim veteran soldier, raised in the Shoalin Temples of China and labored in service to the Khan for over ten years. In a raid of an Aztec fort, Song will leap with his spear off of his horse's back and up thirty feet over the fort wall."

GM: Your difficulty is 5. If you fail, Song Kung will be severely injured.

Player #1: I rolled a 6. "Song Kung leads the charge over the wall with superhuman-like grace and power, landing on the top of the wall and burying his spear into the chest of an Aztec warrior."

Player #2: "Po-pe is a young Navajo brave who is quick with a short bow and has been hired by the Mongols as a scout with the hope that he can save his home village by siding with the winning faction. On a dark night, Po-pe will sneak into an enemy city and assassinate the Aztec military leader.

GM: Your difficulty is 6, Player 2. If you fail, Po-pe will be killed.

Player #2: I rolled a 3, groan. "Po-pe sneaks into the enemy camp and takes aim with his arrow, but the Aztec Jaguar Warrior he is targeting mystically transforms into a real jaguar at the last instant, and the arrow sail's over the cat's head. The jaguar catches the assassin's scent, chases, and mauls Po-pe."

To me, this concept seems simple enough. When I tried it, it just wouldn't work. On the first site, nobody would try it, and multiple gamers openly criticized the concept as something which seemed no fun at all to them. On the second site, one gamer agreed to give it a shot. She stuck around long enough to declare one action, but she quit before rolling her die. On the third site, I picked up a couple of players, but they just wouldn't declare any actions worthy of rolls. The actions they were declaring were "I check my inventory to see what I'm carrying" and "I look over the fence". I was quite fed up by this time, and I got snarky. They quit.

This is one of the games that I am thinking of starting here for the Timewasters. Based on my experience with it, however, I am not going to even start it here without first getting a thumbs up from the gamers who have been here longer than me.

Hm, sounds interesting but probably needs some tweaking.  I think the proper place to discuss this would be in one of the suggestion threads (there are two now), but I'd be willing to give it a shot if one of the GMs wants to make a Testing thread for it.

Also, hello to both of our new players!  Hope you both stay awhile and have a fun time.
This message was last edited by the player at 15:49, Wed 15 July 2015.

I put up a testing thread for it.  Try it, tweak it, see if it works out.

No, sorry, the ASWoT deity position is already filled. Her name is Vixcis, and she's very, er, possessive of her throne...

But welcome! Try to avoid the auto-med machine... I've been tweaking it lately, and it's gotten a bit... temperamental...

In reply to jioan (msg # 242):
I see now. I apologize for posting into the wrong thread.

I don't know if we can consider Vixcis possessive of her throne when she hasn't been around in almost a year.  That said, I would not want to be on her bad side.  Or even remotely near her bad side.

It's hard being on her good side too. But just because she doesn't seem to have been on for a year doesn't mean that she won't show up like the Spanish Inquisition...

Hmm, new people... I haven't had to kill anyone recently because all the regulars are immortal or koalas and I'm not allowed...

But hey! I'm mostly harmless. Don't usually spend time on here but I might become more active (again?).

I'd just like someone else to fight with for royalty of the board.  I've gone uncontested for awhile now.

Sorry, busy with moving stuff. Also no longer interested in holding the throne or fighting for it. Too much energy.

I understand being busy with the move, but when you have some free time you should try to get your post count up.  Also, my free time will drop drastically when I start grad school next semester, so I'm not sure if I'll come back here much especially with this level of activity.

Meh. I have raids three nights a week (Monday, Tuesday, Thursday), and I've currently got boxes blocking EVERYTHING in my room right now. Like, 15 boxes. Half of which are filled with books. Which reminds me, I need shims to put under my bookshelves so that they don't fall down on me because of the uneven floors... argh... too many things to do...

I joined ASWOT 6 years ago today!

I seem to be at the steady pace of 1000 posts/year.  At this rate only four more years until I hit 5 digits!

Happy ASWoT birthday! My 9th ASWoT birthday was back in February.

... wow, I've been a part of ASWoT for nearly a decade. That's... kind of sad, now that I think of it...

Are you suffering from an ASWOT midlife crisis?  I think it's great that this game has been around for so long and you've been such a fixture of the community.  You're always active when I return no matter when.

That's because RPoL is my homepage, and I'm OCD, so whenever I see red I want to clear it... and that means I have to look at what's been posted. And then I have reply to it because I have -thoughts-.

Hm, this is the last game I'm a part of on rpol.  I joined a few right after I made an account, but they've all fallen apart over the years.

This post is just to give Kagura a red item to clear.  :)

I'm really only in two right now and they're both being run by Heath, amusingly.

That's really impressive, Heath ,that you've been GMing so many games consistently for so long.

We started a new Inc/Dec Question game if anyone wants to chip in (it'll take forever if we don't get some help).

We could change the 2 hour limit between posts as well to hurry things along.  Like how you can always post after someone with a short break (5 minutes, I think) in the regular Inc/Dec game.

Sometimes I wish someone would continue on the WOTs system so we could buy things from the Marketplace. I miss that a bunch.

The formula to calculate your own is as follows on a weekly basis:

Let (p) = # of player posts per week

income = p - (p * 0.10)

Since they've not been calculated for awhile, just calculate from the last posted numbers and go from there...

Are the posts per week a view-able statistic somewhere, or do we manually count our own posts?

We used to manually make lists in the Poster of the Week thread, but no one has been doing it due to inactivity.

Yeah, the only way to figure posts per week is to take the previous week's total and subtract it from the current week's total.

We used to have a Keeper of the Hall and a Royal Recorder who were responsible for tracking such things, but the people who controlled them have a bad habit of losing interest or time or vanishing off the face of the planet.

I was the Keeper for a time back when I was in college. But then I lost interest in doing the job and passed it off to someone else.

I honestly wouldn't mind doing it if we had more active posting going on.  It's just depressing if someone wins with 5 posts.

It's not about being Poster of the Week. It's about figuring out how many wots one has.

Well, if all you want is your wot count couldn't you just take 90% of your total post count?  That should work for people who haven't purchased or sold anything.

Yeah, you could do that. Assuming you have no wot income or expense on your record.

We could really use more people in our Inc/Dec games... Just sayin. :)

Wait...other than Kahan, what game are you in?  I didn't realize that.

The shortest running game I have started in 2008.  The longest technically started in 1998, but went through three iterations until its current player/setting configuration.  The third game I currently run started in 2004.

One of my favorites that I ran was based on the Matrix, using GURPS and homebrew rules.  That one ran from 2004-2008.

Did you really just... Are you sure you want me to answer that?

It's his Paranoia game isn't it. You're in his Paranoia game...

Once they take on the PC persona, I sometimes forget who is who...

In reply to Grant (msg # 275):

Are you talking about ASWoT???  I don't really consider that a game, per se.  I also don't consider myself as running it.  It is run by the gods of timewasting.

I could actually take a player or two in the Paranoia game, though.  But the player must have a sense of humor and a desire to betray his fellow players....
This message was last edited by the GM at 20:45, Thu 30 July 2015.

I've never even heard of Paranoia as a game before you mentioned it so unless its incredibly easy to get into its probably not a good idea.

In reply to Grant (msg # 272):

I read the rules for one of those threads. I couldn't make heads nor tails out of it.

In regular Inc/Dec you join the side with less people (or a random team if they're even) and then you try to make the number go up if you're Inc and down if you're Dec.  If you joined now you would change it by +2.  The Question version allows you to pick your favorite of something and then add a point to it by subtracting it from another choice.  Hopefully that makes sense.

Knowledge of the Paranoia rules is treason!

Actually, I posted pretty much everything incoming players need to know about the Paranoia rules because most of them didn't know anything about it.  It can be really fun with the right group, but it is one of those games that is probably at least as dependent on good players as on a good GM.

This rules introduction will give you the gist of the game.  I tried to make it humorous:  link to a message in another game

Curiously, which edition of Paranoia are you running, Heath? The general consensus of reviews that I have read is that the earlier editions were better with their rules light approach.

I have played in one brief game that was run at the local gaming shop many, many moons ago. I don't know which edition that would have been. Using the basic concepts and a lot of drawing upon Paranoia stories which I had read on the net, I ran a version of it with a universal rules system one night. Some of the players had fun, but it was frustrating for me to deal with a table full of hyperactive teenage gamers who were actively trying to kill each others characters.

I played it in the 80s with the original rules, and my favorite rules are the XP rules, which came out about 10 years ago.  It is hard to use perversity points in the RPoL context, but otherwise it runs well.  There are later editions of the game that, consistent with what you said, fell short of the original.

The good thing about Paranoia XP is that it lets you choose styles:  a wacky ZAP style, a comedic yet plot and character driven CLASSIC style, and a STRAIGHT style, which dispenses with the comedy and presents a darker dystopian future.

I should point out that, even if you never play the game, the Paranoia XP rulebook is a great read.  There is comedy on every page.  Same with the published adventures.  One of them uses facsimiles of the Three Stooges.

The adventure I am running now (which I created) has them out to defeat an evil AI named "EVE," which is engaging in all sorts of mischief to prove her (its?) love (in a romantic sense) to the Computer--which is the AI that the PCs must serve diligently (or be summarily executed).

Did anyone die during the mission briefing.

Not this time, but in the past...yes.

From the Dungeon Game, this message was posted:



Oooooooooh



Oh-hooooo



Aaaaaaahhhhhhh



dang it

Well this game is essentially rated G so you'll not (at least you better not) be seeing anything graphic coming up in any of the threads. :P

That was pretty funny though.  Worth a best post of the month nomination.

Too bad we don't actually do that anymore.

It's still open and a possibility, but there just haven't been enough posts (or postings on that thread).

Tonight my home gaming group played a round of a game titled "I Am John". I went looking for the rules online and came up empty, but the concept is straightforward enough. I'll attempt to explain it here.

John is a person who has multiple personalities. The game has one narrator (the gamemaster) and a group of players who each roleplay one of John's personalities. The game begins with each player recording three items on a piece of paper. Each player first writes two skills that his personality possesses. Then each player writes one goal that the personality is trying to accomplish.

For example, here is what I wrote:

Skill: escape artist
Skill: combat driving
Goal: escape to Canada

This is what my wife wrote:

Skill: talk with cats
Skill: leadership
Goal: build an army of cats

Skills and goals are kept secret from the other players. If players manage to figure out each others goals, they may cooperate or work against each other.

The players take turns controlling John. Control is determined by bidding tokens. Each player has ten tokens at the beginning of the game. Whenever control of John is up for grabs, all of the players make their bids, and the player who bids the most tokens gets to determine John's actions. The winning bid of tokens is surrendered to the narrator.

Any action that the player declares becomes a die roll. The Narrator rolls her single D6 to determine the outcome of an action. Typically, any action succeeds on a roll of 3 through 6.  If the player is using a skill or spending an extra token, the action succeeds on a roll of 2 through 6. A roll of 1 is always a failure.

When the Narrator's die roll comes up as a failure, she declares that the attempt fails. Furthermore, that player's turn ends immediately. Failure is a trigger for a personality change, so another round of bidding begins.

When we played, it didn't take long before we had John escaping from a riot (which he started) in a stolen ambulance with a pack of mountain lions in the back.

The game can end in one of two ways. John dies. Otherwise, every player runs out of tokens, and the final player's turn ends when a failure is rolled. I am told that John usually dies.

This game would require some rules tweaking before it could be used here. The token bidding mechanic would be very awkward in this medium of game. Maybe we could use the thread's post count in place of secret bidding. Like, I could post if the previous post ended in a 3 and some other player could post next if the previous post ended in a 4. Maybe the turn could belong to whomever claimed it first each day or claimed it after another player lost control due to a failure.

Suggestions?

I am also thinking about starting a thread about favorite dead player characters. The thread would include short descriptions of the characters and the story of how those characters died in the game. I wouldn't be directly using these characters for anything, but the insights would be useful to me when I one day run a game about dead characters in the afterlives.

[Private to ChupaBob: Fixed your tags. ;)]
This message was last edited by the GM at 19:36, Wed 12 Aug 2015.

These should be in the Suggestions thread (one of the few notices that this game has) at the top of the thread listings. I'll wait for Heath to make up the John thread if he thinks it'll work but the dead characters one sounds like a twist of our gaming stories one. What exactly were you hoping for people to put in it?

I don't have time right now. Swamped. Go ahead if you want to.

Regarding the I Am John game, I don't think it's ready yet for prime time. We should iron out these rules first, right?

Regarding the PC Death suggestion, if it fits into the stories threads, I will just stick to those.

The earlier posts should have gone into the Suggestions thread.

A testing thread is typically created for ironing out the rules, and then it either becomes final, the game gets dismissed, or a new thread is opened with the final rules.

I've been running that game of Paleomythic, the indie RPG about cavemen and cavewomen. We are still in the first adventure, and the two parties of PCs have finally made contact with one another. The PCs from the Cloud People and the Fire People have met on an open plain. Before they could start conversing, I anticipated a question about language barriers and gave them instructions. I thought I was simply being easy on them...

Me: Before anyone asks, the dialects spoken by both tribes are similar enough that talking is possible and not all that difficult. They share about 90% of the same words.

Jaldor, Beastmaster of the Cloud People: "Hail and be sickgo.  You must be the Burning Folk that we were told we would meet.  According to a sleep vision that the wise woman of our tribe, told of us.  We are of the Rain bringer Clan, who are seeking a new site for our great family, in the small mountains to the top."

OOC: Above is what Fire People would of heard Jaldor say.  With 10% of it not being quite correct, well perhaps more then 10%. :)

Capin, Medicine Man of the Fire People: "Me am Capin Caveman.  Me fight good for justice with me fire goat stick.  Me am pleased meet you. "

Nin-kagina, Ritualist of the Fire People:
Nin-kagina listened, then responded in her own words. Her accent was unusual compared to that of the other Fire People.

"I thank thee for thy greeting," she said, "but I bear ill tidings if thou come this way seeking aid. The new Fire Chief is a wicked man, and we art exiled from his camp. He will have none who wouldst challenge his whim, nor allow any woman who darest scorn his withered prick; even less might an outsider call upon him. I am Nin-kagina, Priestess of the Dawn, once of the <something>, and then the Fire People, now kin to none but we outcasts."

Then the women of both parties started flirting with each other. After that,

"I am Yor, trapper of the Fire People, and I've heard some of your hunters around the edge of the hunting grounds. I think I remember one complaining about... I must have heard wrong, because it involved the river, urination, and... 'Going up?' Did he ever get whatever that was sorted out?"

Then there was some more flirting, and then the PC who is secretly being roleplayed by the game's designer got involved.

Balhek watches the interactions intently, moving closer, but still keeping behind the other cloud people. When there is a pause in the greetings, he steps forward and and bows his head towards the fire people women.

"I am Balhek, formerly in bondage to the the tribe some call the Scarab Women, but of late a member of the noble Cloud people"

The Beastmaster starts asking about particulars of what is happening with the Fire People's new chief.

Sulea, Healer of the Fire People: "Gremm is cruel and proud.  He does not heed the spirits of wisdom or those that speak to them.  He cares only for the comforts of his body.  He and his men did not harm us, but they took all we owned and threatened to chase after us if we did not go quietly."

Yor, trapper of the Fire People: "Yeah, Gremm threw me out for being smarter than him, using traps to get twice the food per hunt he and his lunkheads retrieved, and the fact that I was probably next on the old chief's list for successor. Also because I want to rule the valley in order to unite all humans under one banner."

Balhek the Slave: "If I may; what now are your plans? Do you seek a new home, or a new tribe"?

Nin-kagina the Ritualist: "Aye, that is what we seekest. We are, in the main, magicians and wise women; cunning Yor is our only great hunter."

Capin the Medicine Man: "Me am kind of magician not so wise. "

Hello everyone, I just wanted to introduce myself since I'm brand new =) So, yea, Hi *waves enthusiastically*

Hey, thanks for joining!  As you can see we've got lots of forum games to play and some discussion threads if you just want to talk.

And feel free to activate older games if they interest you.  Sometimes games go dormant for awhile until someone sparks renewed interest in them, and then they get really active again.

Oh enthusiasm. I remember when I had that...

Lol, thanks I'm going to be looking everything over more when I get finished with work.
As for my enthusiasm...It comes and goes< when I posted I was in a goofy mood....too much caffeine I think.

Don't worry.  Goofy is perfectly acceptable here.  As long as people don't troll or insult people, almost any kind of insanity tends to be welcome here.

Awesome, I tend to be quite quirky at times, but I am friendly for the most part, if a little wierd.

We're all quirky here. It's what keeps things interesting.

FourLegged disappears back behind the bar, serves up a fresh round of beverages, "Who are you calling quarky?" and then springs out from the back room.

Hey. Hey Heath. Are you there? I did a thing in Japanese today! It was a really short thing, but I was accurate and grammatically correct even though I haven't used my Japanese for real in AGES!

I told someone in FFXIV (I've been playing a character on a Japanese server for kicks) "Iie. Watashi wa Amerikajin desukara, solo dake desu." when they asked about me joining a free company (guild). I barely even had to think about it and I even remembered to use my desu/masu form! Sadly I had to write it in romaji because my PS3 doesn't accommodate Japanese characters, but I was clearly understood so it didn't matter~. :D

Nice!  I wouldn't have used the honorifics myself in an informal setting like that, but to the Japanese, when they see foreigners speak like that, they are impressed since they consider honorifics to be difficult for foreigners to learn.

Yeah, it's difficult for me to judge the formality level for this game since the dungeon entry/exit greetings range from よろしくお願いします／おつかれさまです to よろ〜／おつ〜. So I figured using desu/masu was probably the best way to go since that's got shades of politeness, and I was basically admitting to being a complete outsider (I'd seen some things on the forums indicating that some Japanese players don't really like non-Japanese on their servers).

I was amused when the person responded to me in English with "It's OK. Enjoy the good life Eorzea!" I just wish I'd been able to actually read the two kanji in their initial question to me (the resolution on my TV isn't good enough that I could make out the shapes correctly to look them up - that keeps making things difficult when I want to know what people are saying in kanji) so that I could be positive that my response wasn't a complete non sequitur... I'm only about 90% certain that it wasn't since the parts I could read were "FCとか。。。ありませんか？”

Eventually I'm gonna try and -actually- talk with people though. My Japanese reading/writing could use some serious work.

I wish I understood the Japanese characters you put in that last post, but honestly, my brain looked at it and went, "Omg squiggles." Which is terrible, but unfortunately how my brain interprets those characters (kanji? I don't even know).

The first group was "Yoroshiku onegaishimasu/otsukaresama desu", the second was "yoro~/otsu~", and the last was "FC to ka... arimasenka?"

First and second have basically the same meanings "Pleased to meet you/good job", and the last is along the lines of "(You) have not (yet)... a Free Company?"

I understood everything except "Free Company."  :)

It's what they call guilds in FFXIV. Because "guild" is what they call the NPC organizations where you can learn different jobs, as well as the NPC organization which (in the lore, at least) tracks all adventurers and arranges for quests to be handed out to them.

Hi! :D

Kimi teleports into midair at the new voice. She looks down at Nyoze from her new position hovering in the middle of the Lounge.

"Where did you come from? You scared me!"

Sorry, I didn't mean to.

I came from... I don't know actually... I've been too many places to know where it all started.

I'm here now though! Wherever here is.

Quietly, FourLegged prepares and serves Nyoze's beverage.

"Welcome to the Lounge."
This message was last edited by the GM at 19:59, Fri 27 Nov 2015.

Kagura appears from... somewhere. It's not really clear whether she was there all along or if she wasn't there but is now, but there is a faint odor of sulfur and mint.

Welcome to the Lounge, home of FL's famous* bar and most of the "OOC" conversation around these parts. Kind of. It varies, honestly.

_{*Famous only within the confines of ASWoT, but known (by those who can remember it) for its Pan-Galactic Gargle Blasters}

You know... Last time I had one of those, it was in a time-travelling bar I can't remeber the name of, and can't seem to find again.

Thanks for the welcome though :)

Kimi resettles herself at the bar and returns to nursing her drink.

Question regarding the rules for the Opposite Game

Is it the opposite for any definition of the word, or just for the intended definition?

IE:  I work in sales, so I hear POS I think Point of Sale, of which the opposite would be After-Sales Service.  Is that a legal answer?

I have always found that the Opposite Game is all about the pivot.  For example, anonymous is the opposite of celebrity which is the opposite of commoner, but anonymous is not the same as commoner.

I used POS as the opposite of NEG because the first thing that came to my little koala mind when I saw NEG was negative on a scientific calculator, which lead me to think of POS as a shortened version of positive.

If POS leads you to Point of Sales, go with it.  No laws will be broken, or at least you might have a plausible alibi.

I feel like Dory lol

So, between 4legged, Kagura, and Heath, you guys have about 15k more posts the RPOL says.

Got to love they delete the total message count but not the players message count lol

We archive older threads that have been closed. You'll note that most of the games around ASWoT have roman numeral iterations on them. Those are the actual number of times that those games have been recreated since the beginning of ASWoT. Multiply that number by 1000 and you'll get the approximate number of posts per game thread that there have actually been.

ASWoT is the reason that RPoL caps post counts per thread and archives/deletes older threads.

Yeah, we have several hundred thousand posts.  They have just been archived per the rules of RPoL.  This goes back to 2006, as I recall.

If you would like to view the archived posts, there are links to the Old and Current Archives in the Game Info.

The first Timewaster's Lounge post was back in September of 2002.

I started playing in March (May? A month that starts with the letter 'M') of 2003.

Yeah, and I believe we started archiving in 2006.  That's when the powers that be said we were getting too big, and at that time I think we were in the neighborhood of 130k or so posts.

This has links to archives: link to a message in this game

Post #6 also has the "birthdays" of our members (which is the date they joined ASWoT), if they wanted it included there.  So Fourlegged goes back to 2003, and I go back to 2004.

Its kinda nice having a new person around who actually cares about the history of this game, if only to try to figure out why the players have more posts than the game itself. Wish there was more people like that. Nowadays I go into the PMs and see four people who wanted to be added, got added, then subsequently asked to be removed before ever making their first post.


Anyway, welcome! Typically as long as you read the rules of a game and try to do them right, nobody will bite your head off if you "mess up". If you misunderstand the rules badly enough that it derails the game, then normally the players who frequent that thread will assist you. Nobody's going to bite your head off. Except maybe Dragon but he's not around really anymore.

I know, right? It's always the young'uns who want to know what's up.

We old timers already know the score, so we've lost our sense of curiosity... mostly because we -made- the history.

"I don't know about the rest of you, but I -make- drinks."

FourLegged mixes up a fresh round of beverages.

That's part of our history too.

I like drinks? :)

Just let the koala know what your poison is, and he'll mix it up for you.

Wait, I think I finally figured out what was in the Pangalactic Gargle Blaster... It sounds to me like it's just a combination of different aliens' spit... Ewwww...

Nope, there's ingredients. Legit ones. That aren't alien spit.

My favorite poison is iocane powder. Do you have any of that FL?

In reply to Kagura (msg # 339):

Of course that's what you'd say. You probably spit in them too! :P

Does that mean Kagura is an alien? @.@

Well she's not human so I suppose you could say that.

Well... kinda sorta. I'm not from Earth, if that's what you're asking.

O... Kay then.

It's complicated. I sort of... stowed away on the HMS Timewaster after Raz exploded it into space and it turned into a space ship My people come from a planet out past the edges of this solar system. I was looking to get off my planet anyways, and the Timewaster was convenient.

I'll take your word for it, being a eathbound human with no knowledge of external planets.

On an unrelated note... Why is everyone so quiet on mondays? :(

Because it's not Monday? It's Sunday night...

Maybe this person is from Australia? Then they'd be a day ahead of us.

That person is correct about this persons origins :(

Why are people not online sunday night?

I'm always up late sunday night, because I'm trying to pretend monday doesn't exist.

Oh Australia, with your silly backwards seasons and your future-ness.

It's about 8:45pm right this very moment for me, and I have to wake up at 5:45am for work, so I can't exactly pretend that Monday doesn't exist.

Honestly though, I don't think the problem is that it's Sunday night. People just aren't as active around here as they were back, oh, 5 or 10 years ago though (and I just realized that I've been part of ASWoT for a decade).

:P Watch out, at 12:50AM on Monday, the world will stop.  Except it won't lol.


It's not here, you guys are actually posting.  but all my other games, nothing happens on mondays, ever.  so I get 4 days a week I can actually play :(

I wouldn't mind the world stopping at 12:50a... would mean I didn't have to go in to work. I'm okay with that. Work is boring.

Maybe your other games are American too... that could certainly explain the lack of activity on your Mondays...

More then likely.  I don't know if there's a lot of aussies posting here on RPOL at all.

We did have someone who claimed to be from China once. They were pretty unreliable in terms of truth, though, so whether or not that particular tidbit was is an open question.

I know we have a girl from England here as well, although she's off at university right now, so we don't see her around much.

I think that's about it for non-Americans in ASWoT? We don't really talk about it much since our "character" backgrounds are far more interesting.

This message was deleted by the player at 02:08, Mon 07 Dec 2015.

I guess I should develop a character background at some point... I don't know :(

It's not required. I go back and forth between my "character" and my "real self" all the time. Some people never develop a "character" side, and we don't require it. Only the roleplaying threads (which have more or less died out) ever really needed that sort of thing. Those of us who were around when those were popular still retain those personas because they're fun.

And seriously, where else would you find a yoctobot-collective sentience, a bar tending koala, a wind elemental mad scientist with time manipulation abilities, dragons, and assorted super powered types hanging around chatting with otherwise normal people? Nowhere, that's where.

I -really- want to remember the name of the book with the time-travelling bar now...

You guys are fun :)

Holy crap, I was actually right about the Australia thing? I was just guessing! I never expected it to be right.

Considering the information he gave (at work, Monday), it was a pretty reasonable guess. Other options would have included New Zealand, Japan, and about half of mainland Asia. Europe's not far enough ahead of the US to have started their working day at the point when we were talking (+5/6 hrs. from the US EST so about 1 or 2 in the morning there).

Well, I could be from New Zealand, I guess.

Or an immigrant to an asian country.  I do think my language pins me as a native english speaker though.

Maybe?

You'd be surprised. I've "met" non-native English speakers who can write very nice, grammatical English.

And similarly native English speakers who can't write a grammatical sentence to save their life...