Alternative Lords & Ladies Settings

[Ominous]

@pyrephox said in Alternative Lords & Ladies Settings:

Which isn't to say such a game would fail or be a bad idea, just that it probably would need to consider its audience, because some of the immediate appeal of the genre for a lot of players would be absent. You DON'T see people lining up to play political games centered around guilds or senates or free cities, even those would be valid settings and even easier to have a wide variety of characters in a MU* setting.

I fucking would if a decent one was available somewhere! That's right in my wheelhouse.

[Pyrephox]

@ominous said in Alternative Lords & Ladies Settings:

@pyrephox said in Alternative Lords & Ladies Settings:

Which isn't to say such a game would fail or be a bad idea, just that it probably would need to consider its audience, because some of the immediate appeal of the genre for a lot of players would be absent. You DON'T see people lining up to play political games centered around guilds or senates or free cities, even those would be valid settings and even easier to have a wide variety of characters in a MU* setting.

I fucking would if a decent one was available somewhere! That's right in my wheelhouse.

I would, too! But I think we both can acknowledge that it's not the most popular of themes. And I know the game I want to play would not appeal to very many people, thanks to the dreaded SOCIAL ROLLS, but it lives in my head, quietly and happily.

[Jennkryst]

@pyrephox said in Alternative Lords & Ladies Settings:

SOCIAL ROLLS

Let's GOOOOOOO!

[il-volpe]

@pacha said in Alternative Lords & Ladies Settings:

@misadventure

Yeah, I mean, in the historical example I gave that is what happened. It was very common in ancient Rome. I just find it odd that we can accept dragons and magic and sentient animals but adoption is the thing that breaks immersion.

[SquirrelTalk]

@jennkryst I mean, if settings didn't have bad things in them, there wouldn't be anything for people to do. :|a

[Ominous]

@squirreltalk

They could be the bad things themselves.

[Runescryer]

@pacha said in Alternative Lords & Ladies Settings:

@misadventure

Yeah, I mean, in the historical example I gave that is what happened. It was very common in ancient Rome. I just find it odd that we can accept dragons and magic and sentient animals but adoption is the thing that breaks immersion.

Passing a title on to a successor does sometime occur in the Birthright setting. It's most common for inheritance of a Province/Domain to be passed down to a blood heir, but there are times where the inheritance is passed, willingly or unwillingly, to someone not relatedby blood. One example is the Domain of Illen, basically no more than a city on an islet rule by a wizard that passes the rulership down to their apprentice. That's the simple explanation, without going into the additional mechanics of the setting. But you can also do things like conquer a Domain, capturing the ruler and their family and threaten the ruler to kill their family unless they agree to undergo the ritual to transfer the rulership to you.

[Misadventure]

How about a bloodline family like the Dragon Blooded from Exalted, but based on the monster/powered type that rules the given area?

[Runescryer]

@misadventure There's something sort of like that in Birthright. They're called Awnsheghlien and Erhsheglien; 'Blood of Darkness' and 'Blood of Light'

Yeah, can you tell that the setting is heavily influenced by Celtic/Welsh mythology yet?

Anyways, these are mostly NPC's. Awnsheghlien are the Big Bads of the setting, Humanoids or beasts so corrupted by the blood of the dark God Azrai that they have monstrous forms. You don't fight a gorgon; you fight The Gorgon. Each one has their own Domains, so it's sort of like the Dark Lords in Ravenloft, only toned down somewhat.

Conversely, Erhsheghlien are animals or humanoids with strong bloodlines of the various Gods of Light; usually the blood of Anduiras (God of Justice) or Reynir (God of Nature). They tend to be the Gandalf or Fizzban of the setting; wanderers that can lend an adventuring party a hand or be the DM's deus ex machina from time to time.

Technically, these Bloodlines can be/are passed on, or can be absorbed like any other Bloodline.

The more this thread goes on, the more I'm tempted to try and get a MU started. Just need to find a coder that knows how to code 5e into a MUSHCode like Penn or (hopefully) Ares...

[Songtress]

@runescryer

Please no. Please no 5e. Anything but 5e.
Mutants and Masterminds?
Lords of Gossamer and Shadow ( and come up with a dice system, as the game itself is Diceless), but not 5e for the love of all that is good and Holy!

(Sorry, 5e just ticked me off when they said they were not going to make PDFs you could actually purchase and take with you aand had rules and had to do it 'their way') because an SRD just doesn't feel right.

[Ominous]

@songtress

Seconded.

[Misadventure]

There is a 5E super hero product coming up, it might be more suited than generic 5E.

[Runescryer]

@misadventure Never found a straight up 5e or d20 supers system that works for me. They're far too limiting in terms of character creation/development for the genre.

Alternatively...how do people feel about 3.5 or Pathfinder 1e? There are conversion rules for 3e, to lessen the workload.

[Too Old For This]

@runescryer I personally love 3.5 (its still my favorite edition), and while Pathfinder got a reputation for being an unwieldy chock-a-block of choices, I kinda dug it. Mind, you'll have to be firm on what you will/won't allow because there's just so much player-created content that got tossed in without being vetted. But the base concept of Pathfinder 1e is still awesome.

[Testament]

I don't mind DnD 5e, it was finally the version of the game that got me back into playing tabletop again. Up until that point, I had written DnD off unless is 2nd ed(because I like THAC0 and you can't tell me otherwise).

Playing 3.5 just felt like a White Wolf system without saying it was White Wolf and I never actually played 4th ed, but from everything I had read about it, it didn't seem all that interesting.

Never played Pathfinder, but I'm not against trying it.

I feel like you could create a system based on 5e to work in Ares, as that was something I was going for initially, but I had decided if I created a game inspired by DnD rather than trying to lift it's system directly from to try and shoehorn into Ares seemed like it would just be an exercise in frustration. It is possible to use Ares with DnD, I simply wouldn't recommend using FS3 for combat and be more reliant upon rolling it out as opposed to automated combat.

[Jennkryst]

@testament said in Alternative Lords & Ladies Settings:

2nd ed(because I like THAC0 and you can't tell me otherwise).

All hail THAC0. All hail Spelljammer!

Playing 3.5 just felt like a White Wolf system without saying it was White Wolf and I never actually played 4th ed, but from everything I had read about it, it didn't seem all that interesting.

4e isn't horrible, and I stand by my assessment that it is hands down the best D&D to play in a MU, because every power and ability is written in gamist terms. Theatre of the mind is already tricky enough before you start dropping 60' fireballs on people. You code in a grid and a 5x5 spell, set it on grid, hits that 5x5.

This makes extra sense when you realize 4e was designed alongside an online program for chatroom play or something that could track all the timers on buffs and debuffs and everything else (late 00's, so it never materialized).

Maybe it's just my wargaming background, but I was never put off by having to track all that stuff. A mu could also track it with +init somehow?

All that said, I don't think D&D is particularly good for MUs in general (levels are the dinosaur problem in convenient number format)... then again, you can solve this by following the FF14 method of 'this is a level 5 plot, I do not care if you are level 20, if you join this plot, you revert to your level 5 self'. Which... easier to do in 4e than others. Surprise benefit!

[faraday]

@testament FS3 and Ares are completely independent. You can use Ares with any system you want, including any edition of DND.

The broader issue is whether your game requires "immersive" components like crafting code, economy code, magic effects, auto-combat resolution, etc. All that would be a massive investment in any codebase. Ares just has a secondary consideration of how those systems would interact with the web portal and scene system.

Players in Ares interact with scenes and systems, not rooms and objects. So you could absolutely do some kind of 5e game in Ares. Whether it's worth the effort to fulfill your vision is gonna depend on what you're looking for.

[Songtress]

@faraday

Honestly i am torn. I miss 'Firan' in that context, but I also hated Firan's rigidity (I love the pretty custom clothing), but omg, I hated being charged 1000 stenis to go to the bath house so I didn't suffer social score loss).

I am a fan of a M&M 3e, sort of flavor as a base.
I like the menu-building approach (i.e. you can build a character with a 'Ray of X' power and its always a blast, with X, yards, with a Heat, or cold attachment. Type deal.

Something new but not complicated.
I love Lords of Gossamer and Shadow its easy (4 stats) and lots of options and its not an insane thing to code.
I miss the Road to Amber mush speaking of Lords of Gossamer (which is a TRPG derived from Amber Diceless).

For me, I want flexibility with not like Pathfinders 's 97 books worth of options. Anything we create or add should be self contained within the game with little reference material outside of it. (my 2 cents).

[faraday]

@songtress said in Alternative Lords & Ladies Settings:

Honestly i am torn. I miss 'Firan' in that context, but I also hated Firan's rigidity (I love the pretty custom clothing), but omg, I hated being charged 1000 stenis to go to the bath house so I didn't suffer social score loss).

Let's look at crafting for example. Your PC is a carpenter.

In the old-school MUSH paradigm, like Firan - you might need to go out into the forest room and +chop some wood for awhile. Then you go back to your workhop where you +craft table. Then you go to the marketplace and +list table=100 to put your table up for sale, or maybe you just RP a sale and use some kind of sell code to exchange it for Bob's silver.

That's all hard to model with Ares' scene/web focus, but that doesn't mean you can't do a crafting/economy system. It just means you need to do it differently. For example, resource gathering could be done with some kind of "action point" allocation that got you wood periodically. Then you could interact with a craft global command and crafting web dashboard that let you manage your resources and inventory. And instead of a marketplace room you could have a market global command and web dashboard that lets you buy things from other players.

It's not the same experience. It's more strategic than immersive, and for that reason I completely understand why it's not what every game will be looking for. Rhost and Evennia are great options if you're looking for something that's more old-school immersive.

[Runescryer]

@faraday So, I am a huge fan of Ares; the web integration and focus on scene/narrative in the code is amazing. I've been MUing long enough to remember when everyone was flipping out over how revolutionary +multidesc code was. And Ares is a quantum leap for the hobby. My only issue, and this is just my opinion, is that while FS3 is perfect for a rules light narrative setting, it breaks down in settings where there's a great deal of emphasis on special abilities (supers, high fantasy).