POLL: Super Hero MU Gut Check
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@Three-Eyed-Crow said in POLL: Super Hero MU Gut Check:
I think it helped that the characters were supposed to have rather street-level powers, so you didn't really have Superman/Xavier-level folks running around.
Yeah, I mean... there are only so many options. You can either compromise the powers so that the code can accommodate them, you can expand the code to accommodate all kinds of super things, or you can use the code for certain things and deal with others through manual GM intervention. The more manual GM interventions are required (with the ensuing debate around them), the less effective the system becomes.
I think that's true of virtually any system, not just FS3, and is largely the reason WoD combats take forever and a day. (From what I've been told; granted I've never played on a WoD MU.)
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@Three-Eyed-Crow said in POLL: Super Hero MU Gut Check:
Admittedly, I did feel there were balance issues with powers that were harder to quantify, but I feel like those would've actually been worse, not better, in something where you were just dealing with descriptive traits. I appreciated having a dice framework at all.
As someone who had a power that had very difficult to quantify combat applications, and no coded component to it, I still had a ton of fun with that. (And I did manage to use the power for combat on a few occasions. SURPRISE TRICERATOPS GATECRASH!)
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@Bobotron said in POLL: Super Hero MU Gut Check:
Re: Superheroes
I wonder if you could full-on automate the Cortex system in Marvel Heroic.
I was considering this from a coding perspective today, honestly.
In theory, a dice rolling system could be created that would help build the dice pools, request spending of power pool for sfx, and auto-divvy plot points when 1s are rolled.
I'll have to think about it.
Delete the Hog Pit. It'll be fun.
I really don't understand He-Man -
@faraday said in POLL: Super Hero MU Gut Check:
You can either compromise the powers so that the code can accommodate them, you can expand the code to accommodate all kinds of super things, or you can use the code for certain things and deal with others through manual GM intervention.
Given the discussion above, I think the general consensus is that an effective resolution system is worth compromising powers within a combat setting. Hence, why some of us believe your system is super-wicked-effective for a superhero game.
“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.
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Given the discussion above, I think the general consensus is that an effective resolution system is worth compromising powers within a combat setting. Hence, why some of us believe your system is super-wicked-effective for a superhero game.
Yeah. I've played (and run) X-Men games both ways, and it really is pretty awesome to be able to use the system.
But also we wanted street-level anyway, because that's where we wanted to tell our stories, and because it's way easier to keep things balanced and create interesting challenges at street level. We still did some BADASS shit, but like. Not world breaking. Generally.
So it wasn't even really a compromise for us. And PERSONALLY I'd suggest that people who do superhero games think real hard about going street-level, because providing constant challenges for Superman is hard enough. Doing it for 20 Supermans is insane.
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@Ghost One recommendation I would have (I had a hand in creating HeroMux, CoMux, and Marvel: 1963) is to really set out what goals you need to hit to be successful. When we made HeroMux we wanted a large player base and made decisions to focus on that.
When we made M63 we realized right away that it would be likely, because of the setting, we would end up as a niche game. This time around we haven't been obsessed with numbers and are more interested in quality and it's been better for us.
My question for you (apologize if this has been covered) is this: recognizing that most people come to comic games to play chars they want to play, what are your expectations for the size of your game?
I think if you make that decision in the right way, that will guide you during the tough times.
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@program
I've been on a game where combat required @program-entries. It killed momentum (I think mostly 'cause people came from Penn and @program doesn't exist there). But yeah, that's likely your best option.
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@Ghost
I may ping you to brainstorm. Some of the Cortex setup is what I'm using for HotB, so some things might cross in our brains. -
The thing you have to remember about superheroes (I picked this up from reading a comic journalism book about the creation of Spider-Man, newsprint innards and all) is that they're written to appeal to bully personalities to trick them into poor tactics, and that supervillains are all written, in the comics, to appeal to bully victims, to give them various avoidances and escapes from the superheroes. Superdickery, the website sadly departed to us now, had all the top contenders for the writer jokes about the people they had heard about either a) trying to be superheroes, b) possible downfall routes for people that a character appealed to, or c) an in-joke about someone that a writer met that looked like a superhero.
For instance, I have chtirophobic conduct disorder RL, that's the Scarecrow, people that make sibilances (whistling, sing-songs, mutters) are sometimes sociopathic, and the chtirophobia (fear of birds) causes it to piss me off. So, I display sociopathic behavior to anyone that tries a sociopathic tactic. I avoided anything remotely resembling psychology in college, and although I got taken down by some Schulzstaffel types, I recovered by writing and going into the arts (I'm attending school for creative writing and fiction, Batman villains are written a certain way so they make you think about going into an authorship, media related, or artistic profession).
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@Chet said in POLL: Super Hero MU Gut Check:
The thing you have to remember about superheroes (I picked this up from reading a comic journalism book about the creation of Spider-Man, newsprint innards and all) is that they're written to appeal to bully personalities to trick them into poor tactics, and that supervillains are all written, in the comics, to appeal to bully victims, to give them various avoidances and escapes from the superheroes. Superdickery, the website sadly departed to us now, had all the top contenders for the writer jokes about the people they had heard about either a) trying to be superheroes, b) possible downfall routes for people that a character appealed to, or c) an in-joke about someone that a writer met that looked like a superhero.
For instance, I have chtirophobic conduct disorder RL, that's the Scarecrow, people that make sibilances (whistling, sing-songs, mutters) are sometimes sociopathic, and the chtirophobia (fear of birds) causes it to piss me off. So, I display sociopathic behavior to anyone that tries a sociopathic tactic. I avoided anything remotely resembling psychology in college, and although I got taken down by some Schulzstaffel types, I recovered by writing and going into the arts (I'm attending school for creative writing and fiction, Batman villains are written a certain way so they make you think about going into an authorship, media related, or artistic profession).
what
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How do we know who the dirty cop is?
He buys the Batmobile and lives in Wayne Manor.
How do we know?
One of his friends reads DC Comics.
Where's the money from?
'Business ventures'.
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seriously i need to know if i'm having a stroke that's affected my ability to read or what
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Just remember the theory if you need it.
Spider-Man was invented by Steve Ditko as an enemy of The Fly, an old superhero back when the formula wasn't pervasive. The Fly was a geek fighting for world peace, and Spider Spry was an evil heel wrestler type fighting him. The Fly took off on a fantasy fan spectrum, kind of like you see with the more passive readers that read stuff like Tolkien or Rowling, not the hardcore fans. But Spider-Man takes Spider Spry, the nerd that gets jacked, and gives him an ethical trap: if this character appeals to you, Peter Parker, you put on the suit and get beaten up by all these villains that outgun you.
Case in point: In Kevin Smith's Mallrats, Stan Lee comes out of the closet as having written himself into Dr. Doom.
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@Chet said in POLL: Super Hero MU Gut Check:
Just remember the theory if you need it.
Spider-Man was invented by Steve Ditko as an enemy of The Fly, an old superhero back when the formula wasn't pervasive. The Fly was a geek fighting for world peace, and Spider Spry was an evil heel wrestler type fighting him. The Fly took off on a fantasy fan spectrum, kind of like you see with the more passive readers that read stuff like Tolkien or Rowling, not the hardcore fans. But Spider-Man takes Spider Spry, the nerd that gets jacked, and gives him an ethical trap: if this character appeals to you, Peter Parker, you put on the suit and get beaten up by all these villains that outgun you.
Case in point: In Kevin Smith's Mallrats, Stan Lee comes out of the closet as having written himself into Dr. Doom.
dude, you make no sense, lol.
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It's literature, not gaming.
To explain it in MUSH gaming theory, imagine setting up a whole faction full of FCs for bad writers, then having it run by someone who enjoys toying with them.
Compound the issue by giving them all unbalanced combat statistics with holes in their defenses, so you can't hack and slash to win.
I've only seen it done once, that's Duo's Robot Masters at M3. You still get to play at M3, but in a training wheels faction for writers to interact with the rest of the MUSH and build confidence in writing.
A superhero is a role model that traps someone for being a virtue signaling individual (you always choose popularity over your real opinion). A supervillain is a sociology case study in a disordered personality that, if written properly, got that way because of some childhood stressor, and had a causal incident, sometimes at the hands of the proper superhero, to becoming evil.
If you want something similar, study a serial killer's background on Wikipedia. A serial killer is an extreme case that's easy to understand, and both the state's various organs, and people that could become one, often study them to avoid the pitfalls and stay away from the electric chair or incarceration.
So, to use the writing trap (this is common in some cultures, for instance a Shakespeare tragedy is a common drama prank on some poor schmuck, the individual that performs the trap is a victim of MacBeth syndrome and tries to rise to power, the play is about Shakespeare's observation of the phenomenon in England) on a MUSH, you would create a faction that is for people that always do what the theme says is popular, then give them all a major flaw that they have to overcome in their characters, to teach them to make an unpopular decision.
The save move (this is something like an biography about a famous historical figure being given to someone in need, such as Ulysses S. Grant's biography being given to someone in rehab, or the detective Vidocq to a criminal) in faction building would be creating a faction that appeals to players with behavioral issues, to force them to cooperate in building something constructive for the MUSH, instead of just wandering around in hairbrained schemes.
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@Chet said in POLL: Super Hero MU Gut Check:
It's literature, not gaming.
To explain it in MUSH gaming theory, imagine setting up a whole faction full of FCs for bad writers, then having it run by someone who enjoys toying with them.
Compound the issue by giving them all unbalanced combat statistics with holes in their defenses, so you can't hack and slash to win.
I've only seen it done once, that's Duo's Robot Masters at M3. You still get to play at M3, but in a training wheels faction for writers to interact with the rest of the MUSH and build confidence in writing.
A superhero is a role model that traps someone for being a virtue signaling individual (you always choose popularity over your real opinion). A supervillain is a sociology case study in a disordered personality that, if written properly, got that way because of some childhood stressor, and had a causal incident, sometimes at the hands of the proper superhero, to becoming evil.
If you want something similar, study a serial killer's background on Wikipedia. A serial killer is an extreme case that's easy to understand, and both the state's various organs, and people that could become one, often study them to avoid the pitfalls and stay away from the electric chair or incarceration.
So, to use the writing trap (this is common in some cultures, for instance a Shakespeare tragedy is a common drama prank on some poor schmuck, the individual that performs the trap is a victim of MacBeth syndrome and tries to rise to power, the play is about Shakespeare's observation of the phenomenon in England) on a MUSH, you would create a faction that is for people that always do what the theme says is popular, then give them all a major flaw that they have to overcome in their characters, to teach them to make an unpopular decision.
The save move (this is something like an biography about a famous historical figure being given to someone in need, such as Ulysses S. Grant's biography being given to someone in rehab, or the detective Vidocq to a criminal) in faction building would be creating a faction that appeals to players with behavioral issues, to force them to cooperate in building something constructive for the MUSH, instead of just wandering around in hairbrained schemes.
I don't actually need you to coach it MU terms for me to understand; I do know literature, I read.
I just need you to make sense, and more than that, actually speak in context.
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I'm sorry if I went off on a tangent, I'm working on sharpening up a writing tactic for use in whatever little niche writing gig I can find, I've been working on a creative writing class for the past couple weeks instead of RPing.
To put it in context: if you make a game where everyone plays PvE, you are going to run into two problems.
A) You'll attract the dicks that don't play nice when they play superheroes, and are basically there to live out their fantasies of beating people up that are from the villains theme that's made to draw them in. Gotham City is for people that are into law enforcement fairness and sociological reform and the ethics of mental illness. Metropolis is for people that are into corporate industry and truth in press and national politics.
B) The other problem is that some players play someone they want to understand, either they want to put themselves into the role of the character (that's the definition of roleplay) they've seen in a media source, or they're writing something they know from another perspective. That is your 'disguise' player. The other form of player is the aspirational player, they write something they want to become, they admire, etc. So, you'll have an entire Justice League together, but you'll have someone playing Robin that wants to take down the class smartass by getting into his mind, and you'll have someone playing Batman that thinks Batman is a really cool thing to be.
That's actually the root problem with all MUSHes that have any sort of conflict, it's very subtle, but it's where cliques are from.
But on a superhero game, where the theme is already representative of current events (for instance, how does Batman get people put in jail without legal procedure? Drug informant busts are very controversial, yet a jury usually convicts based on guilt in their opinion, not the moral mind of the case), you're making it so there's no dissenting voice.
tldr; I hate PvE, especially on a comic game.
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How does PvE attract dicks who want to beat other people up? That is the opposite of PvE.
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I don't mean beating up players, man. I mean the equivalent of a fox hunt run by a staffer, with a somewhat moderated outcome, decided by the event staffer. In a simulated environment, would you rather chase down a rabbit on a rail, or would you rather play paintball?
I just get the image of the Riddler and some outmanned goons being beaten up by Batman whenever I think about the idea of a comic book PvE MUSH enters my mind.
Besides, it's hell on event staff. The real problem is that comic books don't have defined factions in the source canon, and that's the entire carbuncle that a MUSH formula works on. So you'd have to make a few, not even the 'groups' standard, but actual organized units that stick true to the MUSH's canon inspiration. Two heroic, one villain, one support hero, is what I'd advise. Design the alternate character policy around the number and your prospective playerbase draw goal.
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@Chet do you mean carbuncle like fantastic jewel, or nasty wound? I am ready for anything.
