Mass Effect MU*?

[Roz]

@ganymede I'm not VOLUNTEERING them, but @Tat and @Glitch might also be able to talk a bit about some of the custom stuff they've been doing for Ares. (Also Tat and I and others staffed on a Mass Effect game for a couple years!)

[Sunny]

@ganymede I am super happy to see this is happening.

[Ganymede]

@roz said in Mass Effect MU*?:

I'm not VOLUNTEERING them, but @Tat and @Glitch might also be able to talk a bit about some of the custom stuff they've been doing for Ares. (Also Tat and I and others staffed on a Mass Effect game for a couple years!)

I'm reading that you're not volunteering them, but I'm understanding that you're TOTALLY VOLUNTEERING THEM THANK YOU!!!!!

Your experiences are greatly appreciated. I don't know what the playerbase for Mass Effect might be like. I can generally predict nWoD players, but I'm not familiar with that part of the MUSHverse. So, I may need your help. A lot.

Also, the lessons you've learned regarding such players and what they want to see.

The tipping point for me is FS3's combat engine. It is damn-near-perfect for a Mass Effect game: it can handle multiple enemies and PCs and grind out a 20-round combat in a couple of hours (if people are posing quickly and paying attention). I think that, with some tweaks, aspects like treating wounds, healing, penetration values, and so on can be modified to represent the ME world's tech-set.

At least, that's my hope.

[Roz]

@ganymede said in Mass Effect MU*?:

@roz said in Mass Effect MU*?:

I'm not VOLUNTEERING them, but @Tat and @Glitch might also be able to talk a bit about some of the custom stuff they've been doing for Ares. (Also Tat and I and others staffed on a Mass Effect game for a couple years!)

I'm reading that you're not volunteering them, but I'm understanding that you're TOTALLY VOLUNTEERING THEM THANK YOU!!!!!

Your experiences are greatly appreciated. I don't know what the playerbase for Mass Effect might be like. I can generally predict nWoD players, but I'm not familiar with that part of the MUSHverse. So, I may need your help. A lot.

Also, the lessons you've learned regarding such players and what they want to see.

The tipping point for me is FS3's combat engine. It is damn-near-perfect for a Mass Effect game: it can handle multiple enemies and PCs and grind out a 20-round combat in a couple of hours (if people are posing quickly and paying attention). I think that, with some tweaks, aspects like treating wounds, healing, penetration values, and so on can be modified to represent the ME world's tech-set.

At least, that's my hope.

Our playerbase on Alpha & Omega was very much not nWoD players, but WORA sneered at us because we were running a limited consent game on MOO without sheets or statted combat.

[Ganymede]

@roz said in Mass Effect MU*?:

Our playerbase on Alpha & Omega was very much not nWoD players, but WORA sneered at us because we were running a limited consent game on MOO without sheets or statted combat.

Right, but folks that like limited consent and non-statted actions would probably feel comfortable with FS3. It's a pretty simple system that doesn't require giant tomes to achieve awesomeness.

[Roz]

@ganymede said in Mass Effect MU*?:

@roz said in Mass Effect MU*?:

Our playerbase on Alpha & Omega was very much not nWoD players, but WORA sneered at us because we were running a limited consent game on MOO without sheets or statted combat.

Right, but folks that like limited consent and non-statted actions would probably feel comfortable with FS3. It's a pretty simple system that doesn't require giant tomes to achieve awesomeness.

Oh! I totally misread your post. I thought you were saying that you were predicting getting nWoD players. Because I'm dumb and distracted.

I will try to think on my experience with limited consent and FS3 type players and say something smart. Also I'm sure that the other staffers and players from A&O might chime in.

I do think that you're starting off right by limiting your setting and faction. For A&O, we were on Omega (which is a GREAT setting for a MU, perfect size) and all our PCs were in one merc company. So similar type of deal in terms of focusing.

[Ganymede]

@roz said in Mass Effect MU*?:

I do think that you're starting off right by limiting your setting and faction. For A&O, we were on Omega (which is a GREAT setting for a MU, perfect size) and all our PCs were in one merc company. So similar type of deal in terms of focusing.

Not going to lie, that idea was sort of lifted when I was thinking about what would work for a setting. I just decided not to set it on Omega, which is ground-based, because I saw how fun it is on BSG:U to go from planet to planet.

[Roz]

@ganymede said in Mass Effect MU*?:

@roz said in Mass Effect MU*?:

I do think that you're starting off right by limiting your setting and faction. For A&O, we were on Omega (which is a GREAT setting for a MU, perfect size) and all our PCs were in one merc company. So similar type of deal in terms of focusing.

Not going to lie, that idea was sort of lifted when I was thinking about what would work for a setting. I just decided not to set it on Omega, which is ground-based, because I saw how fun it is on BSG:U to go from planet to planet.

Hey! We went to different planets all the time. That's like what all of our plots were.

[Glitch]

@roz As long as everyone consented to go, right?

[Roz]

@glitch said in Mass Effect MU*?:

@roz As long as everyone consented to go, right?

Generally we didn't make anyone go on plots but we have a special Glitch exception for all future games.

[Ghost]

I'll offer my technical writing if you need additions for wiki text, etc. All that boring data entry stuff.

You have my axe

[Tez]

@ganymede said in Mass Effect MU*?:

Completing plots will result in obtaining resources and credits that can be crafted or traded into assets.

Players individually can contribute to the success of the company outside of plots. Every cycle brings delivers Action Points that can be spent to do things that benefit the company. Those Action Points can also be used to gain XP to improve your PC, although it still takes considerable time to do so (under FS3's system). The Action Points system is intended to be a mini-game that ties into the success of the company, and thus the PC-base.

The key is resource management for the company. That's what I need to have coded, and I don't know how well it would work. This is a bit of an experiment as well because, if successful, I can see how the "community" engine/code-bit could be used for other games

Hello I’d like to subscribe to your newsletter and hear more on this.

[Glitch]

@ganymede Biotics is pretty much just magic with a sci-fi flare, which we've done some work on. We're on hold for code changes while seeing how the big updates @faraday is in the midsts of pans out. I like where she's heading on all of it, but it does put things in a rather large state of flux.

[saosmash]

I loved running a game in the Mass Effect universe and while I'm done with the characters and story from Alpha & Omega -- it was a beautiful ride but the best stories have endings -- I am definitely interested in what you are doing here and in the possibility of maybe actually playing on a game with you for more than five minutes.

[Ganymede]

@glitch said in Mass Effect MU*?:

Biotics is pretty much just magic with a sci-fi flare, which we've done some work on. We're on hold for code changes while seeing how the big updates @faraday is in the midsts of pans out. I like where she's heading on all of it, but it does put things in a rather large state of flux.

I think @Seraphim73 or @Three-Eyed-Crow bandied about treating Biotics like weapons. Clumsy, yes, but sensible in the FS3 combat engine. Is that what you've developed?

[Three-Eyed Crow]

@ganymede
It would work for some things without much tweaking. On X-Factor, I played a pyrotechnic whose fire powers were approximated with a custom weapon @tat made up for me in about 20 minutes after chargen. That's directly comparable to a tech power like incinerate, and I think you could manage an OK approximation of the effects of damage-causing powers like Warp and Slam. Something like Statis is probably a combat/suppress thing. It'd take some finesse with some of the others, but it's not like every type of gun is coded in FS3. You can do a decent amount with modifiers the GM does during combat/good ole fashioned posing.

[Ganymede]

@three-eyed-crow said in Mass Effect MU*?:

It would work for some things without much tweaking. On X-Factor, I played a pyrotechnic whose fire powers were approximated with a custom weapon @tat made up for me in about 20 minutes after chargen. That's directly comparable to a tech power like incinerate, and I think you could manage an OK approximation of the effects of damage-causing powers like Warp and Slam.

I think that biotic powers would work like one-shot weapons, with a "reload" as a resting time. I envision two types of attacks: an area attack, which does decent damage to multiple targets; and a single-target attack, which has high penetration and damage.

Not sure what I'd do about tech powers, which always seem to be the red-headed step-children in ME. In my custom system, I boiled those powers down to hacking abilities via an Omni-tool; Incinerate became Overheat, for example. So, I can also see a sort of "hacking" attack that could shock/damage a target or cause them to lose a turn (from getting stunned or fried from an electric jolt through their shielding system).

Anyhow, my real sticking point is the resource management engine.

I'll spend some time tonight thinking of a reasonable time-table.

[Tat]

@ganymede said in Mass Effect MU*?:

The tipping point for me is FS3's combat engine. It is damn-near-perfect for a Mass Effect game: it can handle multiple enemies and PCs and grind out a 20-round combat in a couple of hours (if people are posing quickly and paying attention). I think that, with some tweaks, aspects like treating wounds, healing, penetration values, and so on can be modified to represent the ME world's tech-set.

At least, that's my hope.

It's funny you say this, because I have a smallish ME game set in London during the Reaper War that I would freaking LOVE to run, but probably won't build any time soon because I don't think FS3 can handle it (without a lot of tweaking).

It does fine with straight up gun and armor combat. Biotic COMBAT you can make work well enough - fudging weapons for certain areas of space magic and straight RP for other areas.

But then you get into the idea of shields and barriers, and the fact that some characters and skills are largely built around dealing with these. FS3 has no way to deal with shields and barriers, and you'd probably have to cut those abilities from your canon if you want to use it.

There's also the question of whether you allow combos - biotic explosions, for example - which are REALLY fun to play with. You could probably do that with FS3 and mods, as long as the GM was paying a lot of attention.

As for custom Ares stuff, it would be mildly relevant to separating biotic skills out from, say, shooty skills, but I don't think you really need that in Mass Effect. It won't, unfortunately, solve the shield/barrier problem.

Like @Three-Eyed-Crow mentioned, we did a lot of crazy weapon stuff for 'magic' mutant powers in FS3 on X-Factor and I'm totally happy to talk at extreme length about how we did it and what we did if you end up trying that for biotics or weird engineering stuff. I did a whole heck of a lot of digging into the innards of the math to try to balance things like adamantium claws with indestructible skin (with varying results).

I've also spent a lot of time thinking about how the new FS3 works with things it's totally not intended to (Faraday will probably have a heart attack, sorry!), in terms of AoE attacks, healing, etc.

Anyway this got kind of rambly but I am 1000% there for a new ME game, and can't wait to see where it goes.

[ShelBeast]

So, i've never seen/played with FS3. I hear about it a lot. It seems like it's really ONLY good for firearm combat. I've heard that it doesn't do melee well. It doesn't do magic. It doesn't do this or that.

Why hasn't someone just come up with FS4 or something? Take the general concept of FS3, if not the code, and create something similar that can handle these other things?

Other than that, I'd strongly suggest Savage Worlds for an ME game. It has rules for space, vehicles, melee, ranged, tech, and magic/psionics. And power armors and the like. It can cover every aspect of ME easily.

[Tat]

@ganymede said in Mass Effect MU*?:

Not sure what I'd do about tech powers, which always seem to be the red-headed step-children in ME. In my custom system, I boiled those powers down to hacking abilities via an Omni-tool; Incinerate became Overheat, for example. So, I can also see a sort of "hacking" attack that could shock/damage a target or cause them to lose a turn (from getting stunned or fried from an electric jolt through their shielding system).

Double post, sorry not sorry.

I think that you're getting here at one of the really fundamental questions to ask yourself in terms of what you want to run and what people want to play, which is, 'what powers are you using?'

On A&O, we used the ME3 multiplayer skill list because it was varied, but also small enough to wrap our head around, and we didn't have a combat system so it didn't matter whether things worked there or not. We saw a really varied display of types of players. Everyone got three powers, like in MP, and no two characters were the same. It was actually super interesting watching people play with their strengths and learn how to build via teamwork.

If you limit that list down, you'll have a different result. Maybe not a bad one, but definitely a different one.

Did not having a system work well for us? Sometimes. Sometimes not. It worked better for biotics and engineers than it did for truly combat-oriented characters.

You COULD possibly choose to only have straight up shooting and combat skills present in FS3 and do everything else as a background skill (this is how we did most mutation on X-Factor), and manually adjust things like, say, penetration if someone takes down a (strictly RPed) shield in the previous turn, but it starts to get clunky and weird and non-intuitive.

Anyway, I have lots of Thoughts about ME in FS3 and if you ever want to bounce things around, feel free to ping me.