What Types of Games Would People Like To See?
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@Seraphim73 - I will also note that focusing on a single faction means you can GM more effectively. You aren't writing plots for this group and this group and this group; you're writing plots for the cell. Missions they can undertake.
But canon FCs should absolutely be used sparingly; less a presence and more a guest appearance, like Leia's appearance in Rebels during the operation where they staged the theft of three frigates to cover up the fact that House Organa was delivering them to the Rebellion. You could, for instance, have a pilot flying a Rebellion courier mission shot down and captured, and need to go free this poor young "Wedge Antilles" guy, whoever he is, before the local authorities hand him over to this ambitious young Imperial officer named Rae Sloane. Or where you need to handle part of a mission off-world, and the only Rebellion ship available and equipped to run a blockade to get you there is this retrofitted Corellian VCX-100 light freighter named the Ghost.
If you are doing that sort of GM'ing, it's much more like running a tabletop campaign in some ways.
ETA: Dangit, I really want this now.
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@mietze said in What Types of Games Would People Like To See?:
I keep thinking about a Fading Suns game and have a few ideas, esp now with Ares! I think what makes me the most hesitant is how to control numbers to make an active game with lots of GM/staff attention since I think at the very least that would need to be capped at a certain number of participants and I would probably want a 1 PC per player thing. I am def keeping my eye on the games lately who restrict slots to see how sustainable that is long term, and I am kind of curious as to how one arrives at that number.
Absolutely key: if the amount of players drops, open apps back up. Don't wait until 75% of your playerbase is gone to open apps again and certainly don't limit the new slots to less than your original number.
"Excuse the hell out of you. He's a bag of dicks. I'm a carefully curated box of cocks." -- to @GirlCalledBlu upon being misrepresented.
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@Sparks I think what I am most curious about is what the balance is in a large enough group of players for independent RP/scenage that allows for a good mix (I dont think there's anything wrong with sandboxes that are essentially tabletop games, but that's a way different dynamic) while still allowing for a lot of staff deployed STing.
I know that probably that's best done with some kind of maintenance (opening up spots and being relatively quick to freeze PCs whose players have very obviously wandered off ). Which I know wont be popular either, but that's fine.
I would be really curious to hear from people who have played on games with that 15-20 number as far as if that felt satisfying enough in being able to in theory meet and play with new-to-you PCs when you wanted to while still maintaining that feeling of intimacy with your PC being individually being drawn in by staff seeing/knowing what you were doing and that being incorporated into STing. There are a lot of ways to accomplish the latter, but I'm wondering what the numbers point is for things being big enough that there's opportunity for player breathing room/ability to generate stuff on their own too, if that makes sense. That can happen with factions, but if the number of players is too small, there are issues of realistically having people feel like a faction is important to their play if theres just 2 people in it.
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@Coin Yeah, I think the maintenance would have to be constant, though I know that's hard to do too.
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@mietze said in What Types of Games Would People Like To See?:
@Coin Yeah, I think the maintenance would have to be constant, though I know that's hard to do too.
I would say: decide what your top limit is, call it 100% active presence.
When your AP drops to 50%, you open up apps until you're back at around 100%, and so on and so on.
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@mietze My suggestion? Instead of focusing on how to limit your playerbase, focus on how to empower them. Allow your PCs to run PRPs with no (or extremely few) hoops to jump through. Employ players to assist with jobs that you don't want to do (build jobs, apps, etc) so that you can focus on STing if that's what you want to do.
Yes, a game with a lot of characters can feel overwhelming at times, and maybe you can't touch EVERY SINGLE PERSON EVER at all times, but you should still be able to involve active players if they want to be involved.
If you want to focus on touching every player individually, then limit your playerbase from the beginning with the acknowledgement that you're going to be consistently opening the gates to let fresh blood in and have to repeatedly figure out how to catch the new people up from a game that was closed/blocked off for periods of time. Which tbh sounds freaking exhausting.
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I think big games are also awesome and I do have great fun on them, but it's not what I really want to run myself.
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Since this thread has lots of good ideas and has vaguely branched out into @mietze's topic of game size, I keep being captivated by the idea to run an inspired-by "The Secret World" / Laundry Files / Netflix Travellers style of game, but since I'm far more familiar with MUDs and TableTop GMing compared to MUSHes, I'm curious if anyone has a "Newbie Storytellers Guide to running a MUSH". (not the technical aspects, I can do those in my sleep, but...hmm...the soft skills parts, I guess).
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@friarzen - Give me literal Secret World. Modern conspiracy horror fantasy yes plz. I will put on my Paladin's dress whites, grab a sword, charge my cell phone, snag a few tacos, and set out to be the thin red line between the innocents of the world and the monsters in the shadows or clawing at the walls of reality. #teamred #templars #honorandtradition
a.k.a. Packetdancer (or "Pax" for short)
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@Sparks Well, I only played the Secret World enough to know I didn't like it as a game, and for this, the scope is just too big for me to deal with, but, I guess I can post a teaser over in the Advertisements of what I have in mind and you can tell me if that'll work...
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Strongbad Mux
With commands like:
+punchfaces
+papers (instead of sheet)
+tothelimit
+makemansbetter (healing)
+comeonreally? (staff complaint function)
+populationtire (+who)All PBs are memes of the actor.
Characterbit=Heygurl
PB=Ryan Gosling "Hey Girl..." Meme.Delete the Hog Pit. It'll be fun.
I really don't understand He-Man -
@Ghost You forgot the +burninate command.
Ceterum autem censeo Carthaginem esse delendam
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@Ominous That would work nicely alongside: +dig ThatchRoofCottage and +dig ThatchRoofCottagaaaaaaaze.
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@Sparks said in What Types of Games Would People Like To See?:
@friarzen - Give me literal Secret World. Modern conspiracy horror fantasy yes plz. I will put on my Paladin's dress whites, grab a sword, charge my cell phone, snag a few tacos, and set out to be the thin red line between the innocents of the world and the monsters in the shadows or clawing at the walls of reality. #teamred #templars #honorandtradition
What about Delta Green or Call of Cthulhu in a modern setting. Would that work for you?
Ceterum autem censeo Carthaginem esse delendam
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I'd love to see a game with a theme like that of the comic The Realm, modern post-apocalypse + dark fantasy tropes.
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@Ominous Both of those are on my list of considerations, actually, as are CthulhuTech.
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Going through my collection of animated series, I just got to thinking...
How about ExoSquad using BESM or Mekton.
Great setting, great story potential. Have the game centered around squads on another carrier in the ExoFleet either during the NeoSapien war or move onto the proposed 3rd season where humans and NeoSapiens have to find unity right after the war to fight off an incoming alien threat.
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You should try the Gundam game. I was working on an ExoSquad game a long time ago, but this game has all sorts of potential.
“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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@Ganymede Thinking about it. 0083 Stardust Memory was actually my introduction to Gundam.
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After playing Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night, I want a game of wuxia-ish monster hunters who go around banishing ghosts and demons and killing monsters and shit and absorbing their powers to become even more badass at the risk of corruption and going mad. This idea is not thought out at all, but it sounded really fun in my head.
Ceterum autem censeo Carthaginem esse delendam
