Outline of a possible MUSH
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@Rainbow-Unicorn said:
Personally, I'd recommend FATE. The Dresden Files RPG seems to me like it'd serve as a fantastic basis here and is a popular system.
I don't get FATE at all. Honestly, it seems like if you're considering FATE, you might as well admit you're not really interested in mechanics or numbers, and just use a trait-description system like most Comic MU*s do these days.
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@Tempest Fate isn't as without crunch as some think, but it's certainly narrative driven. That's hardly a bad thing, in my view. More importantly, I think it's system of balances between storyteller and player encourage a high degree of cooperation that's often missing on a MU*, especially when it comes to PVP conflicts.
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@Rainbow-Unicorn
Eh. I don't think a system can force cooperation between people. If people don't want to cooperate, they won't regardless of system. Trust is the thing that promotes cooperation, and people somehow have an intrinsic inability to trust each other, from what I keep seeing and reading, on WoD MU*s. -
@Bobotron See, I think FATE is founded on trust. When the ST screws you over, you get a FATE point. That allows you to spend it later and say 'Now, I'm getting back at him!'. That's a basic bottom line. And then, if the ST wants his bad guy to get away, he offers you a FATE point you can take. I think it's a system that encourages coopeation and trust between players. It can't force it, but I do feel it builds a bottom line that can help foster more positive attitudes and give and take.
That said, FATE is a very popular game system in the tabletop world with a lot of people generating content for it. It's interesting to me that it hasn't penetrated the MU* world very much.
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@Rainbow-Unicorn said:
@Bobotron See, I think FATE is founded on trust. When the ST screws you over, you get a FATE point. That allows you to spend it later and say 'Now, I'm getting back at him!'. That's a basic bottom line. And then, if the ST wants his bad guy to get away, he offers you a FATE point you can take. I think it's a system that encourages coopeation and trust between players. It can't force it, but I do feel it builds a bottom line that can help foster more positive attitudes and give and take.
That said, FATE is a very popular game system in the tabletop world with a lot of people generating content for it. It's interesting to me that it hasn't penetrated the MU* world very much.
You can do this with other systems. nWoD 2e does it with allowing people to make regular Failures into Dramatic Failures for beats, and being able to resolve Conditions that the storyteller levies on you and getting beats from it.
I think Fate points is a good idea, though; it's other aspects of the system I don't really like.
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From what I hear, yeah, 2.0 does dive into the same territory. I've not dug into it too deeply yet.
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In a lot of ways, the role of Fate points in the World of Darkness is played by Willpower points, which you can spend and regain, but which have a maximum based on other stats, so you get to decide when you buy those stats how much of that you can store. The system does allow for the stoyteller to give Willpower point rewards for letting shit contrary to your character's desires (like a bad guy getting away) happen.
People just aren't used to it yet, and a lot of those that are, are very gung-ho about abusing the system to its limits instead of playing it to the spirit. On a MU, that can create an icky environment.
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@Corruption said:
@Bobotron said:
Define 'sheet flexibility?' Are you expecting outside of say, powers to have lots of different attributes/skills that different character types are going to have?
Because building sheets would be based off of the code being used for the dice roller, and whatever storage method. If everyone has the same attrs and skills like NWoD and GMC, the other parts (just grabbing power attributes) should be cake.
We'd need the obvious (Attributes, Derived attributes, list of possible Races for selection) but what skills are going to be used depend greatly on the setting choices. I would not all be adverse to having code that lets you insert what skills are available on the +sheet - you entering it into a database of skills manually? If Savage Worlds is the chosen system merits and flaws get replaced by Edges and Hindrances.
I know if we need code added I'm going to have to write decent specs...am I doing ok so far?
My system is modular. You can make whatever stat categories you want and fill them whatever information you want. It doesn't actually care what's there, only that it is there somewhere. Additionally, it's already designed to be coder friendly.
Also, because you asked.
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I do
me some Savage Worlds. Another great system not being used enough. -
@Rainbow-Unicorn said:
I do
me some Savage Worlds. Another great system not being used enough.Based on recommendations like yours I actually went and bought myself a copy of Savage Worlds.
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I don't get it. I mean, I get the rules. They're pretty simple. I don't get the rabid love for the game, though. I don't understand the appeal in the slightest. It looks like Yet Another RPG to me.
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@WTFE It's a simple system that has a certain style, that fits a certain spread of genres and can be used to do a lot of different things. I can swords and swashbuckling or space opera, and Savage Worlds will play in a way and at a pace that compliments both. It's simple in a way that lets you do a lot with a little.
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There are a few things that I think SW does better than most rpgs that I've encountered:
I feel it also does modern shooty combat in a way that is actually fun, which, quite a few rpgs fail at. My second favourite being GURPS, but it's a bit too crunchy to be the most 'fun' IMO.
There are really no gimme encounters in the system. Anyone can take anyone on and stand a puncher's chance of winning. In many systems, PCs become impervious to anything but the most twinkish NPC builds.
As goofy as it is, I actually like the deck of cards initiative system.
One really big selling point for me is that it does pretty much everything I ask it to pretty well. Not the best in every situation, but if I want to run something off the cuff, SW will handle just about any scenario/setting very easily with rules as written.
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Since it was brought up in relation to your not getting it, I don't get GURPS. It pretends to be crunchy but look too closely and you might as well be playing Risus for how much the system itself wings it.
I'll agree that the strength in Savage Worlds are its genre books. Some of its fragments (fleshed out game worlds) are good--Slipstream--and others are downright cringeworthy--Space 1889--but the general genre books allow a better toolkit than I think GURPS ever managed.
“If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.”
― Carl Sagan, Cosmos -
I'm with you on GURPS, @Thenomain. In the '90s I had a bunch of friends who were all about the GURPS and tried to turn every possible setting or campaign into a GURPS version. I stopped gaming with these friends for close to a decade because of this seeing as I, you know, absolutely fucking hated GURPS.
It's a point value system that can't decide if points measure utility or difficulty. It is, thus, incredibly hackable to the point that I described GURPS character points as "measuring nothing but how much your character costs in GURPS character points".
It has all the complexity and slowdown problems of "crunchy" systems without any actual verisimilitude, arguably the only real benefit of using a system heavy on the crunch. (An epic Usenet flamewar with this guy led to Yet Another GURPS Patch in Yet Another GURPS Supplement because he was so stung by accusations that GURPS was unrealistic way back when.)
The genre books often pretty much just rewrote the game rules almost from scratch, keeping only a tiny core of the game rules alive. The result was such that it was often as much work as learning a whole new (better suited) game system over learning the GURPS variant in use for a given genre.
