Potential Game / Temperature Read

Auspice

@faraday said in Potential Game / Temperature Read:

@auspice said in Potential Game / Temperature Read:

Which is why I really like FS3. It's just easiest for 'dive in and go.'

Really? I mean, sure if you're doing mass combats it's comparatively easy for running something, but for anything else? It's a basic "roll and count success" system just like a million other RPG systems out there. I don't see how it's any easier to dive into. And it certainly doesn't help with generating content, as @Arkandel says. What will the players do in those settings other than relationships and BarRP... that's the key question.

For combat in general, it's easier to dive into. For character building, it's far easier than most systems. I never had trouble 'learning' FS3 and I don't know many that do.

In nWoD 2.0, for example, I generally still need help building characters and even then, it's a headache. There is no "just rolling" in that unless it's just a raw skill, but even then most people have half a dozen things to stack on with weird rules.

FS3 is straight-forward.

As for generating content- no system is going to support that in an approachable way. That's for the setting. But having a system that just about anyone can step in and understand will make it more likely that people would do so.

Thenomain

@faraday said in Potential Game / Temperature Read:

Offer encouragement? Sure, great idea. But how?

Staff needs to be the change they want to see.

This is why I think you have such good luck on your games.

faraday

@auspice Yes I agree it has advantages in character building. That's its whole point. I thought we were talking about storytelling though.

Auspice

@faraday said in Potential Game / Temperature Read:

@auspice Yes I agree it has advantages in character building. That's its whole point. I thought we were talking about storytelling though.

People who are more comfortable with a system from the word 'go' (CG) are more likely to ST in said system. They want to have a grasp of what they're doing.

So if they feel confident in character building and how the sheets work and function, they'll have an easier time stepping into that roll of ST. They'll be able to confidently ask for certain rolls, for example, rather than floundering for 'What would be best in this situation...'

It all feeds into each other.

RnMissionRun

I had a good start on an Evennia-based Expanse game, but then I lost interest in the setting and shoved the project onto the back burner, where it's sat for a good 2 months or more now.

I've been thinking about maybe starting work on it again, only this time it would be set in the Belt years before the books so that there would be no FCs, no Protomolecule metaplot and no gates system. Either that or I take the elements from the Expanse that I like and roll them into an 'original' setting. I haven't decided yet.

faraday

@auspice said in Potential Game / Temperature Read:

People who are more comfortable with a system from the word 'go' (CG) are more likely to ST in said system. They want to have a grasp of what they're doing.

Yeah I think it goes both ways though. A simple/flexible system like FUDGE, Fate or FS3 is easy to grasp because it's, well, simple. But that puts more burden on the STs to try to figure out how to apply that system in specific circumstances. What do you roll for what and with what modifiers? Contrast that with a more robust yet complicated system like Shadowrun or 7th Sea or Cortex where there are lots of specific rules for everything. It's more to learn, but easier to apply with less debate. (Rules lawyers will, of course, debate everything.)

YMMV obviously.

Auspice

@rnmissionrun said in Potential Game / Temperature Read:

I had a good start on an Evennia-based Expanse game, but then I lost interest in the setting and shoved the project onto the back burner, where it's sat for a good 2 months or more now.

If I was a stronger coder, Evennia would be great. Part of why I'd focus on a single space station (beyond expecting only a handful of players) is that I'd want a proper space system. The potential for one of these in Evennia is huge, but it's beyond my capabilities.

I'm lucky to not break things with MUSH code. Make it Python and well, yeah.

Collective

Something sci-fi with room for space merchants (ala Andre Norton's Solar Queen novels or other vintage 'space trader' SF of that era) would be amazing. So, you know, like Firefly but with 1000% less Confederate fetishism.

Auspice

@collective said in Potential Game / Temperature Read:

Something sci-fi with room for space merchants (ala Andre Norton's Solar Queen novels or other vintage 'space trader' SF of that era) would be amazing. So, you know, like Firefly but with 1000% less Confederate fetishism.

Well, Expanse would allow for space merchants too. But for my personal setting they are def. a part of things.

There's a whole society on one station nicknamed 'Junkers' so.

Wizz

@auspice said in Potential Game / Temperature Read:

So while it may draw Mage players, I think it'd turn away people who want to just delve into the setting. I don't want to go for that 'how much can I break this system to be THE MOST POWERFUL' that draws so many Mage players.

I still think you can basically discourage that attitude with the system itself, really boil it down to something that isn't so huge and intimidating and insane to use but still lets you do cool things without BREAKING THE WORLD so to speak. I dunno, maybe I'll come back with a new thread if I can actually give you guys a proof of concept and I'm not just talking out of my ass, haha.

Auspice

The more I think about it, the more I think Expanse may be best.

I just can't think of a system I personally like enough / would be happy with for Magicians. Especially since I'd be doing the bulk of / all STing at the start.

WildBaboons

If you did your original setting would you make your writings/notes/etc available?

Auspice

@wildbaboons said in Potential Game / Temperature Read:

If you did your original setting would you make your writings/notes/etc available?

I would, yes. I mean, they'd have to go into the game. But any short stories, etc., that I've written up that are suitable would be shared, too.

I think my big worries for it are:

a) How long it'd take me to put everything together. I don't have the 'brain' to format a wiki and organize it. I have yet to find an organizational method for my own stuff. My notebook is a mess of post-it flags, highlighting, and me needing to flip all over the place to find stuff. I have a lot color coded, but that's it. I'd almost need a wiki master who could put together a framework and be like 'OK put setting here, put this there, put that there.'

b) I still want to write stories in that 'world' and while I'd never use anyone's characters, I'm afraid that even if I had a warning of 'this game is a living setting that I write with/about,' people might get really antsy about the idea.

surreality

I am not so much with the scifi, so I’d vote #1. Since I’m not playing these days, uh, give that the null weight it deserves, though.

Three-Eyed Crow

A poll might be useful for this if you can add them to threads retroactively.

Apos

@faraday said in Potential Game / Temperature Read:

I don't think the discouragement is limited to those kinds of games. It's so pervasive that even when your game policies are all: "You can run plots. No really. PLEASE RUN PLOTS." nobody(*) believes you.

And because people are so sensitive about it, even the slightest thematic or continuity correction often gets taken as "ZOMG you said I could run plots WTF" and leads to people being gunshy.

To be honest, I'd say the vast majority of my time is spent coaching people and answering, "Can I run...?" type questions. That's not bad, but it becomes circular in that the more time I spend assisting other people, the less time I spend creating content myself, which in turn leads other people to want to create content to fill in the gaps, which then requires me to spend more time reviewing their suggestions. I think after a certain point, it becomes unavoidable that a head GM becomes less of a GM and more of a manager of other GMs, and if things scaled infinitely it would just be more layers of it.

Sure, we have ways planned to reduce that overhead, but even an environment that's successful in cultivating an atmosphere where players feel empowered to create content can have its drawbacks.

Ganymede

@faraday said in Potential Game / Temperature Read:

Really? I mean, sure if you're doing mass combats it's comparatively easy for running something, but for anything else? It's a basic "roll and count success" system just like a million other RPG systems out there.

I don't think you fully appreciate how awesome having an tweakable engine that can run mass combats is to an ST.

Lotherio

@ganymede said in Potential Game / Temperature Read:

@faraday said in Potential Game / Temperature Read:

Really? I mean, sure if you're doing mass combats it's comparatively easy for running something, but for anything else? It's a basic "roll and count success" system just like a million other RPG systems out there.

I don't think you fully appreciate how awesome having an tweakable engine that can run mass combats is to an ST.

Or, how awesome having an easily tweakable engine is in general.

Some of us can spend days/months coding something from scratch, or find bits and pieces to Frankentstien together from github and muschcode.com and other repositories. But even after other modular systems like Dahan's D6, the documentation and files to help with FS3 have made it that much more easy to use even when used as not intended. Dahan D6 (not the percentage based skill system) is easy to manipulate and is documented with its own help files but like altering weapons isn't written out and takes a good reading of the code a few times and still requires sheet tracking at times.

DarkDeleria

@auspice said in Potential Game / Temperature Read:

I just can't think of a system I personally like enough / would be happy with for Magicians

So I'm coming late on this thread. Personally, I loved the Magicians. I loved the characters, the worlds, the whole sha-bang-a-bang. Even the television series on SciFi (or SyFy) makes me want to re-read the books again. I enjoyed the difference between the books (high-functioning students getting into a private undergrad school vs. high-functioning students attending graduate school).

I also can see the inherent conflicts in Grossman's magical world (The Neitherlands policing the various fountains, the students/faculty at Brakebills, and the hedge-wizards with their back-ally covens).

As for a game system of which I know not a whole lot outside WoD (or at least, which I've played). Why not use a reworking of WoD? Someone mentioned magic is just a headache amongst the various books. Is there a way of scaling it down to be easy(-ier) to understand the mechanics, but still adds complexity to "will casting Bujold's Sorcerous Nail Extraction work on this thick 2x4 plank in front of me?")

There is also the Unisystem from CJ Carella's Witchcraft RPG that might be a bit easier to navigate when it comes to throwing dice and utilizing dice pools for whatever's going on between characters.

Again...these are just my random two cents.

Auspice

@darkdeleria said in Potential Game / Temperature Read:

As for a game system of which I know not a whole lot outside WoD (or at least, which I've played). Why not use a reworking of WoD? Someone mentioned magic is just a headache amongst the various books. Is there a way of scaling it down to be easy(-ier) to understand the mechanics, but still adds complexity to "will casting Bujold's Sorcerous Nail Extraction work on this thick 2x4 plank in front of me?")

If there's both a scaled down version that's approachable and code to support it, maybe.

But Mage 2.0, as it stands, makes me angry. If I wouldn't want to ST for my own game because the system frustrates me endlessly... I'm not going to foist it onto anyone else, either.

I also don't want, with Mage 2.0 as it stands, to have to constantly vet sheets to make sure people aren't overly min-maxing just to be stupid.

I personally feel the level of reworking Mage to make it fit the setting is too massive.

As for this Witchcraft RPG - I've never heard of it. Anyone got a PDF or link so I can look it over? (Tho that'd go back to one of my big issues: I am a shit coder and I have no coder on call)