FS3

[faraday]

@Tempest Yeah, that's been my biggest disappointment with the system. It's like people are all: "Well, I know this system isn't really a good fit for my game and I don't like it all that much, but I'll inflict it on my players anyway because I have no other options."

[Auspice]

@Three-Eyed-Crow said in FS3:

@Tempest
Yeah, this is legit, and I presume it's due to a lack of other plug-and-play alternatives. It's like how that Kushiel's Debut game was running on a modified WoD system, which I always assumed was in part because it's fairly easy to get the pieces to slap together a WoD chargen.

Pretty much this. FS3 is there and it can be made to work. It's not a perfect solution, but there aren't other solutions unless you're a coder or you have a dedicated coder you can keep around, y'know?

I plan to use FS3 for my game (modern setting). It's not a perfect fit. You know what would be? FATE.

You know what we've discussed would be an immense headache and can't really be translated to MU*?

... FATE.

So FS3 is about what I have to work with.

HOWEVER ... I plan to make the system very, very secondary to the RP. I'm actually way way more interested in everything else AresMUSH can do.

[Three-Eyed Crow]

My dream AresMUSH project which I'll probably never build is a Leverage RPG game (which just uses 4-sided to 12-sided dice pools based on your 'class'). I'm assuming doing up something like this with Fara's MU in a box, minus FS3 (since iirc it functions as a plugin?), is actually quite possible. I just haven't asked about it before because asking about things implies I might actually do them and...the laziness.

Leverage is deeply fun, though, and I miss playing it.

[Lithium]

My biggest beef with FS3 has been what people have forced it to do. It felt really clunky on the few games I tried to play that had it.

I've been meaning to try BSU but just haven't had the time of late between my own projects and the little RP I do get to do.

[faraday]

@Lithium said in FS3:

My biggest beef with FS3 has been what people have forced it to do. It felt really clunky on the few games I tried to play that had it.

Isn't that kinda like saying your biggest beef with a hammer is when someone uses it to smash a glass window?

I tease. But really, I get it. @Thenomain is always ribbing me for trying to talk people out of using FS3 around here, but seriously... folks trying to square-peg-round-hole games into it causes no end of frustration for all concerned.

[Sunny]

@faraday said in FS3:

@Lithium said in FS3:

My biggest beef with FS3 has been what people have forced it to do. It felt really clunky on the few games I tried to play that had it.

Isn't that kinda like saying your biggest beef with a hammer is when someone uses it to smash a glass window?

I tease. But really, I get it. @Thenomain is always ribbing me for trying to talk people out of using FS3 around here, but seriously... folks trying to square-peg-round-hole games into it causes no end of frustration for all concerned.

Can confirm. Was rolling around trying to square peg round hole FS3 for a while. It was possible, but man. I don't think it was a very good idea. Frustrating is a word for it. ^^

[faraday]

@Sunny Right. That's why for the 3rd Ed docs I made a whole article about what kinds of games FS3 was suited for and better guidance for tweaking it. I mean sure, you can use it for other things, but that doesn't mean it's going to do what you (or your players) want.

It's like... sure, I could make a WoD game using FATE but dear lord why do that to myself???

[WildBaboons]

@faraday said in FS3:

It's like... sure, I could make a WoD game using FATE but dear lord why do that to myself???

Welllll...... that's basically DFRPG

[Thenomain]

@WildBaboons said in FS3:

@faraday said in FS3:

It's like... sure, I could make a WoD game using FATE but dear lord why do that to myself???

Welllll...... that's basically DFRPG

You shut your mouth! DFRPG is a proper Urban Fantasy game.

[Bobotron]

@Three-Eyed-Crow
There is a piece of softcode floating around that is a Cortex system that only uses d8s. It'd be possible to tweak that to have it use the standard Cortex stuff.

[ThatGuyThere]

@Arkandel said in FS3:

To get back to a D&D-themed game though, is a system that important as long as it's not primarily aimed at going into dungeons to kill things and loot their corpses for gear?

What could get me excited about a MU* on Faerun for example is the chance to play in the setting; as long as the mechanics don't get in the way of doing that, should we not be more concerned about whether the system matches the game's goals rather than what the system is in a vacuum?

To me it depends, there are three basic selling points to a game for me, Story potential (which to me includes setting), RP availability, and system. The First two can very hard to get to get a read on if new to the game and not going in with a group, the third is the one most easily known at the outset. So while I will definitely place it as the least important of the three factors I mentioned in a MUSH, coming in fresh it is the one that I can get the most solid and detailed info about so it tends to be the one I make decisions on.

[Arkandel]

@ThatGuyThere The only time the system was too much for me when everything else was clicking was Dawn of Defiance. Great setting, very nice company, but SAGA broke me.

[ThatGuyThere]

@Arkandel
I have to agree with you there. Never played saga system online but have played it table top a few times, never been a big fan of it, and player discontent with it has actually lead to our group using the old WEG Star Wars for a system when we get the space opera itch.
Semi-related to the topic at hand, I have always been curious how FS3 would work for a Star Wars game. Biggest issue would likely be the force but since I always play pilots is SW anyway...

[faraday]

@ThatGuyThere said in FS3:

I have always been curious how FS3 would work for a Star Wars game.

There have been a couple places that tried it. Jedi are the big problem there. FS3 doesn't scale well for superpowers. As I mentioned earlier in the thread, the difference between starting PC and max PC levels is relatively minor. This is by design to avoid the "dino problem" endemic to MUSHes but it also means that it's hard to be really super duper awesome like jedi are supposed to be. And there's no "riposte" type action for deflecting blasters with your lightsaber.
Shields are also something it doesn't really model, though you could maybe fake it somehow.

[SG]

@faraday said in FS3:

And there's no "riposte" type action for deflecting blasters with your lightsaber.

Would adding lightsaber to the blaster weapons work? The way cannons are resisted by piloting instead of reflexes?

[faraday]

@SG No, that won't help. What I presume you ultimately want is for a jedi with a lightsaber to defend with "lightsaber skill" but everyone else to still defend with the base defense (or "3" by default). And even that wouldn't let you deflect a blaster bolt back at them (which is what I meant by "riposte") or use any other force abilities.

You can hack all that into the system in whatever way you choose. It just doesn't support any of it out of the box via configuration.

[SG]

Kind of a feature request, I don't know if it's possible with the way things are currently set up, but I think it would be cool to have quick loaded NPC teams of some sort for the combats.

Like, if I ran a plot with NPC squad Alpha Niner who had 5 NPCs:
Pvt. Juniper
Cpl. Jacobs
Pvt. Shootme
Sgt. Rock
Pvt. Schlub

The next time I ran a plot and wanted the same npc squad as support characters, I could just type +load Alpha Niner to the combat or something, and it would autopopulate?

Ideally maybe have the squads as objects that you could look at and see the status, of them, or leave them in rooms to hangout and count as present guards, maybe with a link to the wiki where you can read notes on the squad. I remember NPCs developing backgrounds on FS3 games and thought that was really cool, this might help out.

[Ganymede]

@sg

I want to say that the combat system saves NPC combatants. At least, I believe it does. In which case, this shouldn't be too difficult.

[Auspice]

@ganymede said in FS3:

@sg

I want to say that the combat system saves NPC combatants. At least, I believe it does. In which case, this shouldn't be too difficult.

It does save profiles for singular NPCs, but not entire teams/squads. I think that's the explicit request. And it would be handy. It did get old loading in 12 Cylons to setup combat.

[faraday]

Thanks for the suggestion @SG.

The PennMUSH version of FS3 allowed you to save NPCs. It maintained their damage lists, skill levels and whatnot. However, across numerous FS3 games I saw that feature get used... almost never. So it was dropped from the Ares version since everything needed to be re-coded in Ares. If there's enough interest I can recreate it Ares-style.

In the mean time, the best I can suggest is to make a sort of log file script of the commands to set up squad A-9 and then use your client's "upload" feature to send it to the game. If you want multiple people to be able to do that, you can share the script on the wiki.