The Factory Floor

Liath

6:52 AM

Morning all!

Tim B

8:01 AM

morning

Fulli

8:44 AM

good morning

Liath

10:59 AM

Out of interest is designing RPGs on topic at RPG.SE?

Fulli

huh?

what do you mean?

BESW

11:17 AM

@Liath Design is within our scope, although we have fewer people with experience in that field and it's often difficult to get a question about design to fit usefully into the Stack Exchange guidelines.

For myself, the Fate Core engine I use for a lot of my games encourages tinkering under the hood, and I'm also working (slowly) on a unique MLP system.

Fulli

whats an mlp system?

BESW

In this context, "system" refers to a set of rules and guidelines for running a tabletop role-playing game; "MLP" stands for "My Little Pony." I'm working on creating an RPG for pre-teen girls which their families will also enjoy, based on the current TV show for the MLP franchise.

(Specifically, I'm focusing on exploring dramatic relationships between people who are unable to keep their emotions in check.)

Fulli

so it is MLP... was couriouse about that.

fan of the first 2 seasons than i lost the trak on that show...

BESW

Working title "My Little Psyche: Friendship is a Fragile Barrier Holding Back My Seething Neuroses."

Fulli

nice

thats what most of the fanbase need

BESW

11:31 AM

My goal is to--like the show itself--design for the target audience of pre-teen girls, but without talking down to them so I can create something which is high quality enough that it can be enjoyed by people outside that demographic as well.

Liath

Thanks @BESW, I heard in about MLP in a geek shop the other day. They said the game mechanic was actually pretty good... pity about the context!

BESW

Heh. I've seen several homebrew MLP games, and some hacks of other RPGs systems to use MLP content, but nothing that really captured the emotional drama I think is central to the show's best stories.

(And to be clear, I'm talking specifically about the current Friendship is Magic iteration of the MLP TV franchise; the earlier stuff is generally mediocre-to-insulting at best.)

And man, talk about worldbuilding! That show is a fascinating example of a classic Doctor Who style approach to worldbuilding.

Liath

I can't really comment - my sister had a video when I was a kid... that's the limit of MLP exposure!

BESW

Candy-coloured ponies definitely aren't for everybody, and most of the old stuff is genuinely awful, but the current version of the TV franchise is intelligent, well-made, and does a great job of demonstrating that "for kids" doesn't have to mean "condescending" or "low quality."

Part of my trying to design an RPG inspired by it is to help wrap my brain around why I feel it's successful. As a storyteller by inclination and a designer of visual communication by trade, it fascinates me.

Chad

1:55 PM

@BESW MLP was originally action figures for girls. The original cartoon came after their sucess as toys.

BESW

@Chad Aye, hence my specifying "TV franchise."

I grew up with many of the toys, and I'm passingly familiar with the history of the franchise as a whole; it's actually rather interesting, though not often in an "enjoyable for its own sake" kind of way for me.

Chad

I think it was more sucessful because it combined the ability to collect colorful little ponies and play with them, before mlp really the only other option for girls that age was barbie dolls which really appeal to a slightly older demographic more.

Shortly after there was rainbow bright, carebears, and strawberry shortcake

BESW

Based on my personal experience and various interviews/surveys I've read, the cutie marks were a major part of the appeal, because they were cues for story improv.

Chad

But MLP was the frist in the arean

BESW

They weren't just ponies: they were ponies with a widely interpretable story prompt printed on their butts.

Toys like the Care Bears took their cue from that innovation.

Chad

2:05 PM

Yes they were more than just differnt colors they were each individuals

That is what made them more collectable than if they were just different colors

BESW

It's connected to something I've learned early on in my time with storytelling, and something I'm not sure how this site can incorporate: The Okapi's Butt.

It's the idea that in most mediums you don't have to go full Tolkien on the world: you flesh out what is important to the story you're telling, and paint cool backdrops to represent the rest of the world.

Cutie marks are paint-by-numbers okapi butts for young storytellers (which is just about every kid, really).

Fulli

2:25 PM

hello again

Chad

hi

Fulli

still mlp in discussion as i can see

Liath

Looks like!

Fulli

@liath - my spelling did a bit improve by the dictionary or didnt it?

Michael Kjörling

2:39 PM

@Fulli Your spelling is okay, the word order is a little off but understandable. :) (I always argue that the most important part is to do your best to make your intent understandable; if the community can only work out what is meant, edits can take care of copy-editing.)

BESW

Effort counts for a lot.

Michael Kjörling

@BESW That.

Fulli

germen sentences are more difficult build than the English. this is the hardest part to not "think germen".

german not germen ...

Michael Kjörling

Do your best @Fulli; if we can work out what you mean, it might just mean your posts get an edit or two they otherwise wouldn't, and it's still practice. Practice makes perfect, and all that.

My English was downright horrible say 15 years ago.

BESW

I've only seen one person with poor typing get serially downvoted, and that was more because his answers' content was awful. A couple citizens fixed up his presentation, and he got MORE downvotes on those answers because more people could see his answers were pants.

Fulli

2:45 PM

i work since the last month in a software engineering department. All the English they speak here is also a good practice but sometimes i am fluffed by it.

BESW

One of the original purposes of Stack Exchange was to help people improve their communication skills.

Fulli

i guess it never made the beta because the questions werent specific enough ?

10 minutes till work is over

Liath

You're clock watching :p

Fulli

1

Q: Did the Ewoks eat the stormtroopers?

I read a cracked article today that implied that perhaps offscreen, the Ewoks in Return of the Jedi feasted on the bodies of the stormtroopers killed/captured, as they were about to do to Han Solo earlier, before C-3PO 'rescued' him. Is there any canon source, or quote from one of the filmmakers...

Liath

Seriously don't worry about your English, it's far far better than many posts I have read. You're nearly always understandable and often there's just the odd spelling mistake (guess what I spell things wrong too) or you've phrased something slightly in an unusual way.

Fulli

2:53 PM

atm i am laughing

Liath

One thing I have noticed (in a lot of English as a 2nd language posters) is you often use capital letters when they're not needed. As a general rule only use capitals when you say "I did this", when you start a new sentence or when you are talking about someone/somewhere eg Fulli, Liath, London or Italy

I'm curious why so many people with foreign sounding names capitalise random words. I assume it's an idiosyncrasy with English but I don't know

Fulli

by "i did this", that part i did not understand

Liath

Sorry, neither did I when I re-read it

Michael Kjörling

"I" is pretty much the only word that is always capitalized in English. That, and proper names (like English).

Liath

Sorry, "I" when talking about yourself should be capitalised

Also I tend to type in UK English not US... humour, colour, serialise etc... just so you're aware :)

Michael Kjörling

2:57 PM

@Liath Hey, as long as it's consistent. (Consistency really is king!)

Fulli

we Germans do capitalise many words that are totally unnecessary. As far as I know (see what I did there?) there was a discussion in germany around the 90´s to write everything but names little.

Liath

Ah, that explains it

Yep - Germans capitalise all nouns, we only capitalise proper nowns

Michael Kjörling

IIRC all nouns are capitalized in German?

Liath

*nouns

Michael Kjörling

@Liath, hint: you can edit in chat (I think for up to two minutes). Also I believe up/down arrow keys scroll through the chat posts you can edit.

Fulli

2:59 PM

yes...

We would write this Sentence about the Stack Exchange Website like so.

Liath

The only German I remember from school is "Ich bin ein Fisch"... which is actually better than my Spanish!

@MichaelKjörling woohoo you can!

Fulli

thats some advanced nonsense of German language they told you.

Liath

And something about a rote gehara? (sp???)

Fulli

rote gehara ?

Michael Kjörling

@Fulli Beats me too, with my limited German.

Liath

3:02 PM

rote Haare?

rote Bete?

I'm going to give up

aaaaahhh red hair...

My point is your English is far better than my German

Which is pointless as I don't have red hair! :p

Fulli

but you didnt have English for most of your school time, i even had it when i studied

Liath

3:03 PM

Anyway I'm off!

Fulli

dito... 16 o clock

ahh 17 o clock

Feeds

4:00 PM

BESW has been automatically appointed as owner of this room. (What does this mean?)

githubphagocyte

@BESW now that you have the power to add RSS feeds to the room and change the name, you may be interested in the current voting results on the following meta questions:

0

Q: A name for our chat

Other Stack Exchange sites often have a clever name for their main chat room. For example Code Review has "The 2nd Monitor" and Programming Puzzles and Code Golf has "The Nineteenth Byte". What should we call our Worldbuilding chat?

discussion

7

Q: Worldbuilding chat feeds?

Inspired by RPG.SE's RSS voting meta Q, I'd like to suggest that we consider what RSS feeds we should put in our main chat room. I've found that site meta questions in the chat proper and mainsite questions in the ticker feed are a good idea for most SE site chats, but if there are blogs or news ...

discussion feature-request chat feed

Just realised that @BESW asked the second of those questions, so highlighting it may be somewhat redundant...

Vulcronos

On a name for our chat I immediatly want to reference hitchhikers guide to the galaxy somehow.

Tim B

Slartibartfast?

Vulcronos

Magrathea's Inspiration

Or something

It amuses me but probably too opaque

githubphagocyte

@Vulcronos yes as cool as it would sound, I'm still more in favour of clarity, and just calling it "Worldbuilding"

Vulcronos

4:16 PM

@githubphagocyte Yeah. Now I am trying to think of something clear but moderatly amusing. Maybe Blueprints for worlds

githubphagocyte

I think the following question will need lots of comments asking for clarification to get it in shape if it is to avoid being closed:

0

Q: What is the affect of a non-existent economy on the environment of a world

I would like some ideas on how the environment of a world where an economy (nothing financial and no currency system) did not exist - would be affected, would progress etc etc.

environment economy

Vulcronos

4:34 PM

I agree

Just looking at all your comments we need clarification before a good answer can come out

githubphagocyte

@Vulcronos seeing no response I have voted to close to protect answerers until the question is ready

Vulcronos

@githubphagocyte I have seconded your vote.

Vulcronos

5:01 PM

Apparently I am not the only one to think of Hitchhikers guide to the galaxy when thinking about names for our chat.

Envite

?

Magrathea?

It is an abandoned planet... not cool

Vulcronos

It is a planet that builds other planets. Makes sense but like I said above, probably too niche

Michael Kjörling

5:23 PM

@Vulcronos I agree, too niche. And people, don't forget that each chat room has a description as well that is visible in the "world of worlds" page (to borrow a concept from yet another story -- Narnia).

Vulcronos

I have a question for those in the know. The main reason that I object to worldbuilding for our chat name is that it is also the name of the site so naming both the same seems confusing and stagnant. Will our site name change if we make it to live?

Envite

No

It will just lose the "beta" surname

Michael Kjörling

That's for when the site graduates though, which can be quite a way off.

First it's private beta, then public beta, then after what can be quite a while the site graduates. When it graduates, it gets a "real" graphics design among some other fluff.

Vulcronos

That makes sense. But if the name doesn't change I wouldn't want our chat to have the same name as the site. Seems redundant and potentially confusing.

githubphagocyte

5:44 PM

0

Q: The focus for our next week

Now that it has been decided to give us a second week to clarify our content policies, what do you most want to see clarified? Obviously we will continue to ask and answer things as they come up, on main and meta, but for anyone with some spare time but uncertain where to focus their effort, what...

discussion

Michael Kjörling

@Vulcronos I don't think we should expect the site name to change. If it does, the name of the chat room will be the least of our worries.

Vulcronos

@MichaelKjörling I understand. I commented on the meta post that I would prefer the name of the chat room and the site to be different.

Fulli

lets name it "the first day" - like "on the first day god made earth"

would be a bit controverse but...

Michael Kjörling

6:02 PM

@Fulli I strongly disagree, actually. Stack Exchange has users from all over the world, and the site should cater to an international audience, so we should be very careful with religious references.

Fulli

i know i know - still i giggled a bit about that

githubphagocyte

I'm not completely opposed to a religious reference, but I think to set a good example to new world builders we would have to find a religion that is self consistent in its world description.

Michael Kjörling

Note that I didn't rule out the possibility completely, but I do feel we should be very careful.

githubphagocyte

6:18 PM

@MichaelKjörling that was my attempt at a subtle joke. I am in fact completely opposed to any religious reference as I agree with you that it would be impossible to judge whether something is offensive so someone somewhere, and if someone offended is put off and doesn't tell us, we are losing contributors without even realising it.

*to someone somewhere

AJ Henderson

6:33 PM

@githubphagocyte I lol'd though

I'm not committed to it though so I can't comment on the answer directly

I saw it more as a nice cultural nod

githubphagocyte

@AJHenderson I think there are plenty of people who don't follow one of the Abrahamic religions but still are familiar with the culture and would enjoy the reference. But since there are likely to be plenty of people who find the reference uncomfortable or even unwelcoming, it gets my downvote.

@AJHenderson when you say not committed, do you mean you can only access chat?

It hadn't occurred to me that although the main site is restricted to those who committed, the chat room would still be open to everyone. That's quite nice :)

Michael Kjörling

@githubphagocyte @AJHenderson is a moderator, he has... ways. :)

AJ Henderson

yeah, I apparently was told of a back door to get on the site, so I commented after all

githubphagocyte

@MichaelKjörling - ah - the mysterious mod powers...

AJ Henderson

but I still like the white mice one better. Fundamentally, I don't think "the first day" has any negative connotation though, it refers to a famous world builder, if anything it provides recognition

Michael Kjörling

6:39 PM

@githubphagocyte Yes, those.

AJ Henderson

whether it is taken in a literal or a cultural sense

Michael Kjörling

(@AJHenderson, I'm not telling if you aren't. ;))

AJ Henderson

but White Mice Room has the same kind of cultural reference without having the potential to offend those very overly easy offended

and Douglas Adams is amazing

I think chat is open to anyone anyway though, but I admit I never tried it before being a mod

Michael Kjörling

@AJHenderson It is, but you must be logged in to talk. I tried it just now in a private browsing window, this room opens fine.

AJ Henderson

if you aren't logged in, you wouldn't have rep to talk

you need 15 rep in any chat to talk

Michael Kjörling

6:42 PM

@AJHenderson Right.

But this room does load, and stay updated, even though it's tied to a private beta site and I'm not logged in in that window.

AJ Henderson

oh I see, so you were arguing that you probably could access it regardless

yeah, the chat features aren't that super well developed. They are nice for what they do, but the permissions and such are.... limited...

if comments are a second class citizen, chat is a third

chat is like the wild wild west of stack exchange

Michael Kjörling

Do we need to worldbuild a place where chat works?

Donald.McLean

7:15 PM

@MichaelKjörling Any chat room will work if you fill it with enough mods.

BESW

9:50 PM

SE chat is actually highly developed for what it is. The purpose of chat here is primarily as a steam vent for inappropriate main-site behaviour (discussion), with a secondary job of providing a real-time meta conversation tool when necessary.

For that, we do not actually need markdown, or stars, or notification sounds/popups, or conversation bookmarks, feeds, event scheduling...

But we've got a super-elegant and highly functional chat engine, which is pretty cool. The devs occasionally even throw individual sites a bone; for example, RPG.SE has a rudimentary dice bot.

Stack Exchange

BESW has made a change to the feeds posted into this room

BESW

room topic changed to Worldbuilders' General Chat: Main chat room for the worldbuilding.se beta (no tags)

0

A: A name for our chat

As I just got the Room Owner mantle automagically appointed me, I'm going with Worldbuilders' General Chat for now. Reasoning: It's obvious what SE it attaches to without being confusingly similar to the SE main site's name. I like the idea of a more "clever" name, and will occasionally return t...

Monica Cellio

10:32 PM

(Hello. Just dropping in to say I'll be offline for a few days. See y'all Saturday night. Try not to burn down meta before then. :-) )

Joshua Aslan Smith

11:18 PM

@besw ALL HAIL BESW!

Transcript for