Fading Suns

[silentsophia]

The sea battles were somewhat lopsided (oh god). The big problem Sofia had was that pirate guy boning the Kurgankingdude's daughter (wtf oh god), so the Kurgankingdude was like THAT'S NOT HOMEWORK and was gonna steamroll south with this hugeass fleet and people were gonna be so pissed if Sofia turned the pirateguy over or let them fight privately. Sofia was just like, 100 ships? Hahaha, fuckno, we're firing your ass out of a cannon at this guy to get him to go home.

Although, I think I just had really shitty dice and Paulus and peeps had really good ones. >_< Sofia was really the only major naval PC who was like, doing military stuff. She didn't mind the pirate guy - she just thought he was thinking with the wrong brain and ended up horribly compromised. Amber kind of ignored me until her fief needed something or she needed to remind me over the course of 4 hours that I was incompetent IC and OOC but her pirate boyfriend was totes a better warden. Honestly, I was fine with part of it - Sofia had no real administration talent. I think she did way better as Admiral and Baroness, anyway.

Also electrified spike clubs, huh.

[Apollonius]

@bored ICly, you and Chiaka were both Justinians, so if a band of random Jakovians (no doubt broadcast to everyone despite my best efforts at being covert) murdered her, your PC wouldn't have been terribly happy with that decision even if it quieted down a major thorn in feudal relations in Auberry. And for the first few weeks, I was intensely involved, RPing non-stop, and on pretty much all the time. I think about three weeks in, I settled into a more managerial groove because I sort of started to wear out from P and Lex trying to screw over Lyov and Chiaka pretty much in open revolt most of the time. I also took the idea that a Count was not supposed to be involved in little plots (unlike Renaud who was involved in EVERYTHING) to heart and kept to mostly boring managerial shit. Or TSing the Bishop of Leon.

"Because that was the story they wanted to tell."

No truer words spoken about FS. It was never about building a story narrative together. It was their story and you got to be a dumb puppet. Some people were set up so they could never fail (Renaud, Caelwyn, Amber), while others were pretty much set up only to fail (Lyov, Antonio, Karl, Lysandra... etc.). Staff favoritism was not just about getting statted specially or getting extra shit. When the entire story was stacked against you, there's no point in trying. That's why I left. Staff was not interested in providing a healthy environment for stories and ideas to grow. It was just their own sandbox and you were just objects in the way.

[bored]

@Apollonius Well, if he'd actually just let you murder people for free no dice involved etc, that wold have been a whole different problem. I'm glad he didn't. No one likes the masturbatory 'my faction can kill your faction hur hur' bullshit. So in what you're posting now, I'm not sure what you're particularly upset about with in all of that or what you would have preferred to happen, at least in terms of Karl, Chiaka, Auberry, etc.

Most of the gripes that I recall of you specifically were that you were hard to actually RP with directly, played by bbpost a lot, and did seem to get overly upset when your vassals weren't 100% loyal which obviously made things worse and made Paulus' sowing-seeds job easier. The vassals agitating was a necessary part of the game, the issue simply was the degree to which he was trying to micromanage that conflict, and the fact that he totally burned down all OOC player trust both for staff and for each other while doing it.

[Apollonius]

I had a long detailed response to IC lay of the land but it'll prolly be taken out of context or pulled further into hyperbole so I'll just say that I RPed a decent amount for a good chunk of the time I was there, especially towards the beginning.

I set up office hours when I would be guaranteed to be on, stuck by it generally, and I was always on when someone made an appointment with me. The road goes both ways and you pinged me for RP maybe half a dozen times at most during the entire time I was there.

No good deed goes unpunished and affirmatively agreeing with you just to get bitten is getting old.

Full circle, the pool of players who know and like the FS theme is pretty badly poisoned by DBTS, Vargo, and Star Crusade. The chances of a MU*, run by P or Packrat or anyone else succeeding is pretty much slim to none as a consequence.

[mietze]

I don't think it wouldn't succeed. I do think it would require someone running it who could put very clear expectations in place for players and uphold them.

It's likely a lot of the former community might have some major adjustments (and some people would not like it), but it could be done.

[Apollonius]

I just want to play a destitute Hawkwood baron-turned-barkeep at a seedy bar in the boondocks after gambling away his off-world barony to his younger brother named Bertram but using his connections and knight's allowance to run guns for the Muster.

Oh, and for the love of God, no more Kurgans. I feel like the Kurgans-as-antagonists has just been totally played out.

[Packrat]

The whole adversarial feudal politics thing does seem to be pretty much designed to cause everyone to OOCly hate and distrust each other along with leading to literal fief building among staff. I mean Vargo had multiple incarnations of people running it and the reign of Paulus/Lextius was frankly significantly less corrupt and biased than what came before not to mention infinitely more active, regardless of how railroaded a lot of that plot might have been.

Plus nobody with a wiz bit coded up an object named after the IC angel of death, set with various game crippling and player character object removing commands, and left it rigged to be remote controlled by their primary character, which is definitely what one person who staffed on Vargo did.

[mietze]

There are some of us that have seen IC pvp politics managed well by staff now. It's why I think it could work with the right staff people. You'd still have people bitching. But I have seen it happen now.

[silentsophia]

For what it is worth, I enjoyed Sofia. She did pretty well. I would probably try her again or something I can avoid politics with.

I'm on a boat!

[bored]

@Apollonius Well that escalated quickly.

I've... repeatedly said I didn't have any major issue with you (or Chiaka, who... you seem upset I don't have issues with?). It could be the disengagement I felt from you was already a result of you not giving a shit due to Paulus. So, meh. Again I don't fully understand what you're upset about or are trying to express beyond the P stuff that everyone seems to agree on.

As for the chances of a game overall, I think it just, as many people have said, needs not to be the kind of game SC was. So that means, @mietze, that no you don't really do the PvP politics, at least not on the level where people are flinging armies at each other. People will be catty and backstab each other no matter what you do, after all.

[mietze]

You seem to be making the presumption that PvP politics means going to actual physical war with each other with armies. While it's true that nobles were supposed to jockey with each other, I think given there was an external enemy that was supposed to be closing in or be eradicated and people were loosely allied with each other, that people were supposed to do that through non-warfare so their armies could be used to stomp out the external enemy first.

However, when that's not available, and the only thing people think they have is armies/combat stats then yes, in the absence of thoughtful and competant staff management of PvP politics that is what players tend to do. Give them lots of other stuff to do that's actually meaningful + alternatives to PK/utter destruction that lead to better stories and many times people will end up choosing that over just ooc cockfighting. It's by no means easy on staff, and there are some people who get off on the cockfighting, so it's not a failsafe. But there really wasn't a lot of moving, great options for fun conflict between PCs. I have seen that done well though, now.

I believe that a political game run more like RfK would be very popular, in that setting. But I do think that it'd have to be focused. I'm not sure that staff could do that AND an adventuring game (which seems to me to be even more staff intensive, though very fun). I don't think that a game can support intense PC driven politics and focus on adventure/exploration.

[Alzie]

I am sitting here coding this Fading Suns CG system and reading the life paths. I only have one question. Why would you be anything but a brother battle? Because good lord is that deck stacked. Stacked. With a capital STACKED.

[ThatGuyThere]

Because you don't want to play a religious fanatic?

Yeah stat wise one the path the are the best for combat, but not every character is a combat character, and there is a fair about of social play drawbacks.
Though I will say at least one Brother Battle has been played in any table top group I have either been in or GMed for.

[Apollonius]

Because Brother Battle is pretty much just geared towards blowing things up. With swords. Heavy swords.

Thematically, BB comes in with a lot of restrictions and they're often one note PCs.

Nobles tend to be more because there are a lot less societal restrictions and seem more 'familiar' to most people. They have weird quirks and have more flexibility in terms of what you can play and what roles you can take compared to the more specialized Church and League PCs. Nobles are also more fleshed out thematically so they can be more nuanced.

Or you can blow shit up with a punch as a BB.

[silentsophia]

Sofia had fun hanging out with the BBs. They were pretty groovy.

[bored]

@mietze I was making the assumption that since people here have been saying the SC way wasn't a good way, and you come back with a vague 'nah it could be fine' that you were arguing back against that notion which... would be in favor of SC style stuff, armies included. Apparently I'm wrong (though you can see how I might be confused!)? Anything setup like SC is going to be a shitshow like SC. There's no possible level of staffing that will overcome the issues given the extant population of the hobby.

Beyond that I'm not sure what you're saying. Every game will have interpersonal politics still. They just won't be trying to simulate Crusader Kings at the same time. People who want to play that, complete with the running armies over each other? Well, the game does have Multiplayer.

[deadculture]

@Alzie Because you want to be either a Dervish or one of those neat rogue-psis.

@mietze: as for PvP politics -- you made a comparison of RfK to FS. The problem with this is: scale. The scale is vastly different. If you're a landholder in FS, you aren't just in possession of a neighborhood or a street. You have a whole stretch of land which may encompass several towns and you draw strength from those. Further, the political system in SC was kind-of kooky. It was mismanaged because NPCs had more weight than PCs, as they did for the remainder of the game. NPCs mattered more than PC actions, so not amount of PCs pooling resources together in order to accomplish a common objective would actually gain any traction. What are twelve votes against sixty, seventy? What was needed, truly needed, were rules that weren't made on the fly, rules that had some basis on a ruleset in a book somewhere. That would make it work. Oh, and also, @toad Renaud. Would've helped.
A lot.

[Apollonius]

I'm probably biased since I've played with Custodius across multiple games before getting fed up with his total bat shit shenanigans... but which one was worse:

Custodius/Renaud or Amber?

...All y'all can say Lyov if y'all want.

I will say Amber was detected in an nWoD I helped run and she was insufferable there too. The epitome of a Mary Sue.

[mietze]

I don't know that I've seen any proposals to remake SC--just to create a FS place.

To me, while certainly SC was FS, FS is not SC. And yes, Ap, the scale is different, but the system could adjust/account.

I felt that SC tried to do too many things at once on too big of a scale, for the size/availability of the staff they had. And yes, there were some pretty glaringly huge discrepancies in expectations.

I don't feel that sours me on a political pvp FS place though. I am not a big fan of mush do-overs because you have people then coming in with extremely mismatched expectations. So I'd never advocate for a SC reboot (even though that makes me sad, I really loved the setting/world building).

[deadculture]

@Apollonius said:

I'm probably biased since I've played with Custodius across multiple games before getting fed up with his total bat shit shenanigans... but which one was worse:

Custodius/Renaud or Amber?

...All y'all can say Lyov if y'all want.

I will say Amber was detected in an nWoD I helped run and she was insufferable there too. The epitome of a Mary Sue.

Renaud.

@mietze said:

I don't know that I've seen any proposals to remake SC--just to create a FS place.

To me, while certainly SC was FS, FS is not SC. And yes, Ap, the scale is different, but the system could adjust/account.

I felt that SC tried to do too many things at once on too big of a scale, for the size/availability of the staff they had. And yes, there were some pretty glaringly huge discrepancies in expectations.

I don't feel that sours me on a political pvp FS place though. I am not a big fan of mush do-overs because you have people then coming in with extremely mismatched expectations. So I'd never advocate for a SC reboot (even though that makes me sad, I really loved the setting/world building).

I don't know about advocating, but I think people with a better sense of fair play could work the Yathrib setting better than what was done before, and maybe this time people could choose to chargen their own characters provided they had enough of a justification to do so. For instance, if you want to make one of those groovy Yoga-style psis who was a former Dervish, you could give them Soma and the other relevant Dervish powers.