@coin said in What RPG SYSTEM do you want to play on a Mu*?:
Nobilis
I love these threads because they get me thinking about or looking at games either I've never heard of or hadn't given much of a thought to. Gonna check out Nobilis and The Strange(though I'm not a huge fan of the Cypher system, at least the Cypher core rules).
@zombiegenesis said in What RPG SYSTEM do you want to play on a Mu*?:
@coin said in What RPG SYSTEM do you want to play on a Mu*?:
Nobilis
I love these threads because they get me thinking about or looking at games either I've never heard of or hadn't given much of a thought to. Gonna check out Nobilis and The Strange(though I'm not a huge fan of the Cypher system, at least the Cypher core rules).
The Strange is basically: you live in Earth Prime, but you can transport yourself to shards/shadows of Earth Prime, some of which are based on popular books/movies/media and they vary in size (for example, Middle-Earth is all of Middle-Earth, but Sherlock Holmes might only be London--the shards can get bigger--and your aspects and defining characteristics, powers, etc., change to fit the world you're going to. So if you're a telekinetic, for example, maybe in Middle-Earth you're a wind-mage, or something like that. That's the hardest part to code, I would wager.
In Nobilis you play a Power--an Aspect of creation given consciousness that basically rules over all of that. You can be the Power of Love (very powerful) or the Power of Cardboard Boxes Used By Cats As Homes (probably popular, but not that power). You have different attributes that govern things universally ("Aspect" governs everything that's physical) and based on your rating in something you can do amazing things in that arena (and spend points of something--mana? I don't remember--to do bigger things. So with low Aspect you can do something like hiding a coin in plain sight and basic acts of legerdemain that even the most skilled mortals find difficult; with very high aspect, you can hide a mountain under your shirt.
Wow, The Strange looks very interesting. A ton of decent looking supplements too. Also found a game called Gods of the Fall for The Cypher system. I was gonna get Fate Dresden this week but now I'm not sure. Hmmm.
@zombiegenesis said in What RPG SYSTEM do you want to play on a Mu*?:
Wow, The Strange looks very interesting. A ton of decent looking supplements too. Also found a game called Gods of the Fall for The Cypher system. I was gonna get Fate Dresden this week but now I'm not sure. Hmmm.
The thing I like about The Strange for a MU* is that each "shard" also has its own rules of (meta)physics. So the rules aren't necessarily the same in Fantasy Land as they are in Noir Land, Space Opera Land, Shoot'Em Up Land, etc., etc. So each storyteller can (within a certain scope) finetune a shard to meet what they want and you can just let them run stuff on their shards with almost little to no staff supervision. You can have a few standard rules ("must warn of potential for IC death beforehand," for example, via "danger ratings" or whatever) but otherwise, what happens in a shard, stays in a shard. (You can also get "Cyphers" so maybe staff, instead of actually having to approve plot details which would be inane in this scenario, just need to approve Cyphers designed by the ST that the PCs might acquire, so as to keep the Cyphers all balanced. That's it.
And staff can concentrate on, you know, running any metaplot that affects the entire multiverse or whatever.
I do recall that the Cypher system's experience system was weird from a MU POV, but I don't remember the details, so I don't recall how it was weird.
@faraday said in What RPG SYSTEM do you want to play on a Mu*?:
Expert human (11) beats Expert human (11) -- 4 out of 10 times.
Expert vampire (15) beats Expert human (11) -- 6 out of 10 times.
Shouldn't two humans of equal skill prevail against each other 5 out of 10 times?
If you think a 20% boost is an appropriate model for a vampire with an expert Presence or Dominate - hey, go for it. But that doesn't really sound like what @Ganymede wanted when she said "bend the odds in favor of a vampire expert against a mortal expert substantially."
You're right, it's not, but the mathematics are the mathematics and numbers don't lie. It just means I need to sit down and think a little more.
That Space Opera game, though, sounds squishy-funner.
“It is better to live doing the things that you like. It is foolish to live within this dream of a world seeing unpleasantness and doing only things that you do not like.” -- Yamamoto Tsunetomo.
@ganymede said in What RPG SYSTEM do you want to play on a Mu*?:
Shouldn't two humans of equal skill prevail against each other 5 out of 10 times?
No, because of ties. You can see that reflected in the "Chance of a Draw" data table in that article I linked to before.
I have been working on coding up a game system that should be fairly adaptable for most any setting but it may no tbe flexible enough for /every/ setting. It is more a system designed where magic is good, but comparable to other types of attacks to not overshadow the rest of the people who aren't magic. You could scale up the numbers with a little editing to increase the power of course but, then balance would go quite out the window.
On the topic of Savage Worlds - because it sounds like a popular suggestion! - Do you think the card initiative system would hold up well on a MU*?
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@kumakun I think you could use the card system of Savage Worlds just fine on a MU. You'd just have to code it up as your initiative system. That said, Savage Worlds is incredibly hackable. You could do any number of things for initiative including something as simple as a D12 + Agility or something.
The problem most people have with SW is the swingy nature of their success system. The fact that PCs roll a D6 in addition to whatever else and that any dice explodes on it's "maximum" side can leave you in situations where much less skill individuals gobsmack people. Even that can be hacked to make more playable, however.
In the end I'm a huge fan of SW and I'm quite shocked I've done nothing with it MU-wise.
@zombiegenesis said in What RPG SYSTEM do you want to play on a Mu*?:
@kumakun I think you could use the card system of Savage Worlds just fine on a MU. You'd just have to code it up as your initiative system. That said, Savage Worlds is incredibly hackable. You could do any number of things for initiative including something as simple as a D12 + Agility or something.
The problem most people have with SW is the swingy nature of their success system. The fact that PCs roll a D6 in addition to whatever else and that any dice explode on it's "maximum" side can leave you in situations where much less skill individuals gobsmack people. Even that can be hacked to make more playable, however.
In the end I'm a huge fan of SW and I'm quite shocked I've done nothing with it MU-wise.
I could see the d12 + agility. I loved Deadlands way back in the day, and I've seriously considered SW: Rifts. I think making an SW library would be interesting if some of the heavily TT inspired rules (The card system for instance) Where taken care of, which is kind of heart-breaking. The 'poker game' aspect of DL combat was one of the major draws for me, I just don't really know how well it would translate.
People have issues with the success rates of most exploding dice systems I've run into over the years. Someone always gets waaaay too lucky for someone else's tastes.
I was this close (||) to creating a SW Rifts or Rifts-inspired game using the SW: Super Powers companion. My fear was it would be a decent amount of work for a game no one would play at.
@zombiegenesis I've been working, off and on, on a Custom SW MUSH system for a bit over a year now. Doing it in Evennia. System is, fairly basic on the surface. You have skills. The skills have a numeric value from 0-200+ WHen you 'roll' a skill, it divides the skill value by 40 and that is the number of d100s that get rolled. Then, depending on some various other factors, the top or bottom value is selected.
The system is also opaque. Meaning the players never see the actual stat values. Just text representations. I personally don't like min/maxers and thought this was a good solution for that.
There are other things too. An endurance system that either boosts or hinders your skill rolls. The Force is handled a little differently. There is no inherent morality to it. It is benign. Light Side and Dark side are reliant on decisions and commands used by the individual. For example, there is a +meditate command that pushes you more to the Light side of a spectrum. Then there is a cron jump type event that slowly pulls the player's alignment toward the middle. At the far ends, Light and Dark, there are boosts offered to like -aligned talents (force powers)
a lot of thought was put into these choices. But it's a huge job for one person to code. So it's taking some time to get it done.
@zombiegenesis said in What RPG SYSTEM do you want to play on a Mu*?:
I was this close (||) to creating a SW Rifts or Rifts-inspired game using the SW: Super Powers companion. My fear was it would be a decent amount of work for a game no one would play at.
I still occasionally poke at my ideas for converting Kindred of the East to CofD rules, so... yeah.
@zombiegenesis said in What RPG SYSTEM do you want to play on a Mu*?:
I was this close (||) to creating a SW Rifts or Rifts-inspired game using the SW: Super Powers companion. My fear was it would be a decent amount of work for a game no one would play at.
Seems to be a general consensus for opening up new places these days. The user base just isn't big enough for being really experimental or so It's felt since I've come back into the MU* community fold, unfortunately. IMHO of course. 
This conversation is really interesting to me because I /love/ building frameworks, and figuring out systems. I may start another topic (if I can't find it) on where people feel the future of 'modern' server tech is going, and combine it with this conversation of what would make a good MU* system translation.
I'm sitting on a mostly finished Ravenloft game using Savage Worlds that I may open one day for fun. We'll see. But yeah, I remember in the 90's and early 2000's people would open anything and get a ton of players. I miss the variety of games from "back in the day".
@faraday said in What RPG SYSTEM do you want to play on a Mu*?:
Expert human (11) beats Expert human (11) -- 4 out of 10 times.
Expert vampire (15) beats Expert human (11) -- 6 out of 10 times.If you think a 20% boost is an appropriate model for a vampire with an expert Presence or Dominate - hey, go for it. But that doesn't really sound like what @Ganymede wanted when she said "bend the odds in favor of a vampire expert against a mortal expert substantially."
Instead of adding or limiting dice, change the success target number or number of successes required when comparing mortals vs. immortals.
Aside: There is an interesting historical relationship between Fate and GURPS that was because of scaling issues. TFT--> GURPS --> Fudge --> Fate. Fudge was created because the developer (Bunnies and Burrows?) didn't like the way GURPS scaled (small critters vs. larger critters).
I think GURPS works just fine myself, because the point buy system limits character power levels.
If you look at GURPS: Vampyre, a beginning vampire gets 200-300 points to build, while modern mortals would be built using 100-150 points.
@tyche said in What RPG SYSTEM do you want to play on a Mu*?:
If you look at GURPS: Vampyre, a beginning vampire gets 200-300 points to build, while modern mortals would be built using 100-150 points.
That presents the immortals with the overall advantage, but not specific advantage. I think Faraday's point, which is well-taken, is that the specific advantage isn't a substantial advantage.
“It is better to live doing the things that you like. It is foolish to live within this dream of a world seeing unpleasantness and doing only things that you do not like.” -- Yamamoto Tsunetomo.
@ganymede said in What RPG SYSTEM do you want to play on a Mu*?:
@tyche said in What RPG SYSTEM do you want to play on a Mu*?:
If you look at GURPS: Vampyre, a beginning vampire gets 200-300 points to build, while modern mortals would be built using 100-150 points.
That presents the immortals with the overall advantage, but not specific advantage. I think Faraday's point, which is well-taken, is that the specific advantage isn't a substantial advantage.
Well it's a little more complicated in that a vampire is required to spend 55 points on a template which contains a required number of advantages and disadvantages. And of course they can spend points on disciplines that a mortal can't. For example, Celerity 5 costs 48 pts gives you +10 move and +2 attacks per turn. So you end up with mortals being able to outclass vampires in many mundane skills (hacking, shooting, driving, crafting etc.). While vampires having significant advantage in most HTH combat and "mental" combat.
Mind you, I haven't actually played it. But it reads well. 
@tyche said in What RPG SYSTEM do you want to play on a Mu*?:
Mind you, I haven't actually played it. But it reads well.
In my opinion, GURPS Vampire is absolutely horrible to play on table-top or in a MUSH environment.
That said, we were talking about whether Vampire could be adapted into a FS3 game, and I decided that I need to listen to Faraday more.
“It is better to live doing the things that you like. It is foolish to live within this dream of a world seeing unpleasantness and doing only things that you do not like.” -- Yamamoto Tsunetomo.
@ganymede said in What RPG SYSTEM do you want to play on a Mu*?:
In my opinion, GURPS
Vampireis absolutely horrible to play
Fixed that for me.
I'm not looking to start a fight, but to me GURPS is...nngh, you guys have fun with that.
@coin said in What RPG SYSTEM do you want to play on a Mu*?:
Nobilis
I love these threads because they get me thinking about or looking at games either I've never heard of or hadn't given much of a thought to. Gonna check out Nobilis and The Strange(though I'm not a huge fan of the Cypher system, at least the Cypher core rules).
