POLL: Super Hero MU Gut Check
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@The-Tree-of-Woe said in POLL: Super Hero MU Gut Check:
@Thenomain I will apologize for making you feel Othered, that was not my intent. I come here to let my hair down a bit and stop being nice, it gets away from me sometimes.
In the end I can concede that there are benefits to stuff being accessible off the game itself without having to head to another window, and some people do just function better that way.
No probob. I probably did my Thenoisms a bit too Thenoishly myself. I think the best solution to any accessibility consideration is to make redundancy easy. c.f., @Chime is a goddess for making hooks between Wiki and Mu*. We absolutely should be going in this direction.
edit: And yeah, I do take this topic a bit personally. I consider myself a thoughtful coder, and being told I'm not thoughtful enough is a challenge. I want every single person who interacts with my code to be able to learn it stress-free. That people still have issues with my chargen saddens me. The whole point is that you can set things in whatever order you want, and the system knows if you're right or wrong without you or staff or anyone having to remember how differing aspects interact. I feel like a shitty coder because I can't just pick up, say, Evennia and solve further usability issues. Evennia baffles the hell out of me, but I haven't seen an Evennia-based game get the game/website interaction in a way that's any better than Wikidot and a staffer paying a minimum amount of attention. So. Frustrating.
“If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.”
― Carl Sagan, Cosmos -
So, returning to the question of traits (as a nigh-ubiquitous approach to supers MU* apps):
If we were to change things up, what might be a better approach?
- Bullet points instead of paragraphs?
- Reducing the # of traits needed to show 'awareness' of a character?
- If there are FCs on the game, is an external wiki link (e.g., Wikipedia or the marvel.com wiki) enough to do the heavy lifting?
- Stats of some kind to reflect general 'power' level, a la Savage Worlds (regardless of whether or not a power could be effectively 'contained' by that abstraction)?
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I don't know. Part of me feels like if there were a simple system it could be used to add an element of randomness to combat rather than relying on people's simple narrative ability to carry it out, which might make Super-Hero combat more... fun? Is that the right word? Fulfilling?
Like, if I remember right, TSR's old Marvel RPG had really basic stats, that worked in a simple way.
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@The-Tree-of-Woe Looks like someone made an OGL-ish version of FASERIP: http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/177913/Faserip
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@fatefan And it's free...
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So given that it's free, what would people think of going old-school and using FASERIP as an option (not required) for players to add a little randomness and dynamism to RP?
Free is best price...
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@The-Tree-of-Woe I did not play FASERIP back in the 80s, but it doesn't initially seem to be overly complicated at a basic level (just lots of potential modifications for specific actions).
I think it might be useful to at least run with the assumption that the basic stats are determined and there's a dice roller that can take modifiers (e.g., +roll +2, the modifier referring to RS bonus). It may be best left to OOC clarification where particular modifiers etc. are coming from (or, if desired, an explanatory comment, e.g. +roll -2=Doing something while being partially restrained).
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FASERIP is a great system, in tabletop, the biggest problems is that there is not a lot of options for combat. Like, dodging... how do you dodge? Really? Does it take your action? Can you dodge all day and still attack? The system is very rules light because of the chart.
I /love/ FASERIP as a system, I'd love to see it on a MU*, I've even coded it once upon a time back when I made horribad code (well, more horribad than it is now) but the biggest problem... it's got a harsh penalty on experience, and how to gain it.
You'd also have to convert it to a point based system (Not impossible, but there'd be a lot of judgement calls) for there to be any level of balance but then certain FC's would break.
Hello! Long time listener, first time caller...
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Like, dodging... how do you dodge? Really? Does it take your action? Can you dodge all day and still attack?
The 'new' (free, linked) Faserip system seems to suggest that you don't passively "dodge" (although a missed attack could certainly be interpreted as a dodge). This seems reasonable to me, since an attack's success target could be shifted negatively by armor or whatnot--not unlike AC for D&D.
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@fatefan Right, but there's no rules for someone to /actively/ dodge either, afaik, I could be misremembering, it's been more than a few years.
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@Lithium The Faserip system I linked does have dodging available as an action, which basically serves to further penalize physical attacks against you until the next round of combat (like going into defensive mode).
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I don't think most FCs would be accumulating XP either. They'd get their sheet and then go with it. OCs, we'd need to work out a system.
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@The-Tree-of-Woe The new Faserip ruleset also notes the following re: improvement/advancement:
In general, superheroes don’t improve that much over the course of a campaign. Generally, the
superpowers that your hero has acquired are likely to remain relatively static rather than starting
weak and growing greatly in strength. However, a small amount of increase is possible, and you
can learn new tricks and techniques that let you use your existing powers in more versatile ways.Then, there are provisions for improving abilities/powers/wealth/fame & making new tech.
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@Thenomain said in POLL: Super Hero MU Gut Check:
Evennia baffles the hell out of me, but I haven't seen an Evennia-based game get the game/website interaction in a way that's any better than Wikidot and a staffer paying a minimum amount of attention. So. Frustrating.
It's not Evennia-based but AresMUSH seems to offer more of what I'd actually find appealing in a website-that-updates-with-game interface: http://mush.aresmush.com:8081/ I feel like that's more a matter of priorities, though. I don't love the Arx website but I feel like the game just has other priorities than it right now, and it's not the end-all/be-all of what an Evennia game website could be. What I appreciate is that this stuff is evolving. It's not quite at what I consider wiki-replacement level yet, but I could see it getting there in a few years, and that's exciting to me.
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@Three-Eyed-Crow said in POLL: Super Hero MU Gut Check:
It's not quite at what I consider wiki-replacement level yet, but I could see it getting there in a few years, and that's exciting to me.
I'm working on adding a wiki feature right now, which will be in the first release. It won't have all the bells and whistles of something like mediawiki/wikidot, of course, but hopefully the fact that it's fully integrated with the game makes up for whatever's missing.
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@Lithium said in POLL: Super Hero MU Gut Check:
@fatefan Right, but there's no rules for someone to /actively/ dodge either, afaik, I could be misremembering, it's been more than a few years.
There was in Marvel Superheroes Advanced Edition, it took place of an attack for the round and your opponents chance to hit was either shifted 2,4, or 6 columns depending on the color you got on a agility roll.
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@faraday said in POLL: Super Hero MU Gut Check:
@Three-Eyed-Crow said in POLL: Super Hero MU Gut Check:
It's not quite at what I consider wiki-replacement level yet, but I could see it getting there in a few years, and that's exciting to me.
I'm working on adding a wiki feature right now, which will be in the first release. It won't have all the bells and whistles of something like mediawiki/wikidot, of course, but hopefully the fact that it's fully integrated with the game makes up for whatever's missing.
Does it have DPL? Oh my god does it have DPL?! Do you know how critical DPL is to a reasonable logs listing?!?!
*gags on own drama, dies*
“If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.”
― Carl Sagan, Cosmos -
@Thenomain It does not have DPL. It also doesn't need it because the logs list isn't actually part of the "wiki" part of the website; it's a dedicated, er, logs list.
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@faraday said in POLL: Super Hero MU Gut Check:
@Thenomain It does not have DPL. It also doesn't need it because the logs list isn't actually part of the "wiki" part of the website; it's a dedicated, er, logs list.
AMGAHD how are we supposed to live like that?!
That said, I hope you can show lists from one part of the CMS to the other. I kind of like seeing a list of "logs" on someone's character page.
“If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.”
― Carl Sagan, Cosmos -
@Thenomain Character pages aren't part of the 'wiki' either - they're a separate character gallery. And yes, they have log lists built in along with a bunch of other stuff.
