Making Territory Relevent

[Chet]

I'm a fan of inserting 'levers' into territory concepts. From an extremely abstract standpoint, this can be a hook. But if you want to make it slightly more concrete, you can assign point values to different shapes, depending on your needs: a fork, for example, would be a single territory that is dependent on two territories for your objective (defense, production of money, travel), or a fulcrum, that tilts another territory when it is moved, or various shapes of triangle points, such as a square that pulls two territories along a tangent into some relationship predetermined by your rules (economic benefit via alliance, the tangent point providing mutual defense in both points by virtue of the square angle, etc.)

The point values would depend on your own needs. This is a complex, vague system, I know, but you would have to have several people hash this out, instead of one engineer, or else you'd get a very rigid system for one limited scenario.

And of course, you'd have to name the geometric territory relationships different things appropriate for your theme.

[Ex FaviIIa Surgo]

I think generating an actual map which lists where valuable resources like Hallows, Loci, and so on, and detail how they relate to each other. When you're writing your setting, describe where things are, and preferably do so visually.

From there, players should be able to unilaterally capture territory and take measures to enforce their claim:

• place their PCs on scheduled patrol duty that takes place during the character's off screen time; does someone encroach on that territory during their scheduled patrol duty? If so, there's a chance they get noticed, and are forced into a scene where there can be an altercation
• allow for monitoring devices to be placed on the premises that fire when someone encroaches on a certain part of the territory, and again, might force someone into a scene if a Pack's ward rite or whatever fires off,
• soft monitoring should also be possible; when someone encroaches on the territory, characters with Streetwise should be able to roll to see if they hear about it after the fact. The first success on the roll means they hear from the rumor mill that the territory was encroached on; each success reveals one of the following at the ST's discretion: who encroached on it, when they encroached on it, which part or parts where encroached on. From there, the Pack could deploy hunting tactics to, again, force the character in question into a scene. And there's a good chance that they get to gang up on them.

So a summary of what to do:

• explicitly defined maps,
• means for players to enforce their territory by making the game itself inform them (sometimes, on a randomized, stat-oriented basis),
• player characters who are forced into a scene with a Pack by encroaching on their territory are frozen until the scene is resolved, as is the characters who jump them, and
• players who exhibit OOC avoidant behavior for more than a week lose control of their character and the ST takes over their character for the purposes of this altercation; the ST is encouraged to make the PC do retarded shit because this is a borderline punitive measure

Framing it in terms like this allow for cunning player behavior as well. What if I go into someone else's territory and place the kind of monitoring device that is intended to be used in your own territory? Your Pack could find out when only one person is on patrol. Perfect timing for a late-night dogpile.

[Pyrephox]

@Ex-FaviIIa-Surgo I would argue against encroaching characters being forced into a scene for 'trespassing' for the MU* environment, unless the grid is large, and has clear demarcations between public spaces where everyone can go, and private territories where trespass will be punished.

A lot of players aren't going to want to deal with the OOC hassle of potentially being dragged into a hostile scene when all they wanted was for their character to hang out at a particular book store.for a scene, so they'll avoid traveling or playing in those grid rooms. Likewise other players often don't have a sense of proportionality when it comes to 'punishing' trespass. Together, this seems like a recipe for a balkanized grid where no one wants to leave their own territory or interact with potentially hostile folks.

[Ex FaviIIa Surgo]

@Pyrephox It has to be large enough that more than like two or three entities can "win," but for territory to be relevant, it means that players can't avoid dealing with it in some meaningful way. Arguing that players should be able to ignore it while going unaffected would definitionally make it irrelevant.

Also, games that are about territory are supposed to have balkanized grids. That's the point of territoriality; "us vs them."

The reason to venture out of their own territory would be that natural (or supernatural) resources are finite and can only realistically be acquired by fighting for it, negotiating for it, or stealing it surreptitiously. Your Pack has 10 members in it but your locus can realistically only support about 4 or 5. Also there are hostile spirits coming in from other territories to fuck your shit up. What now?

Well. Now you do something about it. And that probably entails pulling some shit. Walking the straight and narrow is supposed to be difficult if not impossible on WoD games.

[Arkandel]

@Pyrephox said in Making Territory Relevent:

@Ex-FaviIIa-Surgo I would argue against encroaching characters being forced into a scene for 'trespassing' for the MU* environment, unless the grid is large, and has clear demarcations between public spaces where everyone can go, and private territories where trespass will be punished.

I feel though not forcing the consequences of being somewhere you shouldn't be on the grid diminishes the value of having territory in the first place. Mechanical benefits and drawbacks nonwithstanding, the actual effect of feeling like you're somewhere you don't belong adds another dimension to gameplay.

Having said that, it probably doesn't belong in every game. It's perfectly thematic for Werewolf packs to bicker over turf for example, but maybe not as much for Mages.

[Ex FaviIIa Surgo]

@Arkandel said in Making Territory Relevent:

Having said that, it probably doesn't belong in every game. It's perfectly thematic for Werewolf packs to bicker over turf for example, but maybe not as much for Mages.

Yes. Territoriality doesn't always matter, but for it to matter, you can't make it not matter.

[Pyrephox]

My suspicion is, then, that you're likely to end up with ten mini games, each played in private rooms with only very occasional crossover when forced by staff, or when someone wants to hook up with someone outside their pack.

Which is a perfectly viable setup, but may frustrate some players who want to be able to set a fun scene in the industrial area of town without having to jump through three days of IC hoops or get jumped.

[Apos]

@Pyrephox I agree about territory. I -have- played on games where there was specifically designated territory and moving into the wrong one would get a character killed. While implementations of this would vary and I wouldn't rule out someone having a good one that didn't suppress RP, I haven't yet -seen- it done in a way that didn't suppress RP and have a quelling effect on the game environment. It's pretty immersive but exceptionally newbie unfriendly and extremely difficult to implement in a way that's not destructive to RP.

[Ganymede]

@Pyrephox said in Making Territory Relevent:

I would argue against encroaching characters being forced into a scene for 'trespassing' for the MU* environment, unless the grid is large, and has clear demarcations between public spaces where everyone can go, and private territories where trespass will be punished.

Trespassing seems an impossible thing to enforce (try doing it in RL), and an unwieldy thing for any MU*.

Instead, limiting resources to particular areas should do the trick. For example, maybe there are fifteen territories, each of which produces 1 of 5 resources, and there are three territories producing a limited amount of each resource per cycle, all spread out on the map. As a plot, you could have the sovereign over the land demand X number of a particular resource from all lords/ladies.

Time to trade up, folks.

[Taika]

To simplify, but keep it relevant, it might be worthwhile to have tracker code flag up if someone uses a resource. That way, rp isn't necessarily hindered, but if Yoda from Rebel Pack uses a locus in Bark Vader's turf, the Empire can respond. Same would work for people feeding in a vampire's turf, etc.

[Thenomain]

@Taika said in Making Territory Relevent:

Bark Vader

I am suddenly interested in this game.

[Taika]

Still open to location type or places for the setting - unless folks thought Manhattan worked well.

And I kind of want to rename it. The Descent Mux could still work, but if I change setting and some theme around, I'd want to rebrand, basically.

[Arkandel]

@Thenomain You gotta admit it explains Vader's breathing... if he's a french bulldog underneath that mask.

[Ex FaviIIa Surgo]

@Pyrephox said in Making Territory Relevent:

My suspicion is, then, that you're likely to end up with ten mini games, each played in private rooms with only very occasional crossover when forced by staff, or when someone wants to hook up with someone outside their pack.

Which is a perfectly viable setup, but may frustrate some players who want to be able to set a fun scene in the industrial area of town without having to jump through three days of IC hoops or get jumped.

This can be addressed with deliberate scarcity. If there isn't enough to go around, it creates an incentive for invasion. The idea that there isn't enough to go around -- whether it has merit or not -- is an idea that has been the basis for real life wars since likely before humankind as we know it today.

If you structure the game such that there definitely isn't enough to go around, player characters will act accordingly because few players want their character to "lose."

[Ex FaviIIa Surgo]

@Ganymede said in Making Territory Relevent:

Trespassing seems an impossible thing to enforce (try doing it in RL), and an unwieldy thing for any MU*.

You can't be serious. Border control has been a reality of nations since antiquity. Walls, moats, standing armies, armed guards, and the list goes on are all measures taken to keep the people you want to stay out from entering, and occasionally to keep the people you want to stay in from leaving. The idea that territoriality/trespassing is "an impossible thing to enforce" is simply ahistorical.

It's hardly unwieldly in a MU*, either. If someone emotes/poses in a room, and that room is marked as owned by a user (or institution), run a script that does whatever it would do in that event. This is trivial to program.

@Apos

While implementations of this would vary and I wouldn't rule out someone having a good one that didn't suppress RP, I haven't yet -seen- it done in a way that didn't suppress RP and have a quelling effect on the game environment.

The Iron Realms games did it really well.

[Thenomain]

@Ex-FaviIIa-Surgo said in Making Territory Relevent:

It's hardly unwieldly in a MU*, either. If someone emotes/poses in a room, and that room is marked as owned by a user (or institution), run a script that does whatever it would do in that event. This is trivial to program.

It's super easy to code, but "Log Everything" isn't a system I would recommend. The number of social issues with this, not the least of which are managing the system, are far from trivial.

[Ex FaviIIa Surgo]

@Thenomain said in Making Territory Relevent:

@Ex-FaviIIa-Surgo said in Making Territory Relevent:

It's hardly unwieldly in a MU*, either. If someone emotes/poses in a room, and that room is marked as owned by a user (or institution), run a script that does whatever it would do in that event. This is trivial to program.

It's super easy to code, but "Log Everything" isn't a system I would recommend. The number of social issues with this, not the least of which are managing the system, are far from trivial.

Not really. If you walk into the territory and you aren't on a whitelist to be there, there's a chance that you get noticed by their wards -- if they have any -- and in the event that you do your character and all other characters in that room get locked so that the "owners" of the territory have an opportunity to intervene. If you emote in it, do the same thing with the likelihood of being noticed being considerably higher.

Put a 24hr cooldown on the rolls required to evaluate being noticed. This all assuming they have a ward to begin with, which they might not. This entire process can be automated. While doing so wouldn't be "trivial," it could be built upon in trivial increments, until you have a rather sophisticated system in place. Just play whack-a-mole automating the parts that you have an explicit system for, where human judgment isn't necessary very often.

[Taika]

Code is a problem. I don't know any coders and haven't had much luck going the self-taught route. Without some kind of 'this is why it isn't working, we do this instead, and here is why' I just get frustrated and give up.

I have some on the game that I think I can codge together and tweak and repurpose from, but writing up a system from scratch is beyond me like woah.

Luckily, all the base stuff is in, and all I have to do is deactivate templates I don't want to use.

[Thenomain]

@Ex-FaviIIa-Surgo said in Making Territory Relevent:

If you walk into the territory and you aren't on a whitelist to be there, there's a chance that you get noticed by their wards

What wards? Wait, did you just move the goalposts? Okay, so you need a wards system. Looking into that, I tend to estimate that there are ways to get around them, or to not trigger them, to fake them, so you need a system to do that. This minigame almost writes itself, but each time you add an element, you need to refactor. Depending on your base stat system, the amount of human involvement needs factored in as well.

As a coder, I'd rather wait for the requested system and then say whether or not it would be easy. "Easy" ideas tend to get complex very quick.

[Ex FaviIIa Surgo]

@Taika I can sympathize with not wanting to code but I think it's fair to say that bothering to do so is valuable. After all, these are roleplaying games.