On a different topic.What are your plans for Bloodlines? Updating them custom (or borrowing from somewhere that has done some), or skipping them entirely like Eldritch? (I don't think this has come up in the thread before, but if it has, feel free to call me horrible names.)
Shank @tragedyjones in the eye when he tries to cut out the Zelani. 
@Tempest said:
On a different topic.What are your plans for Bloodlines? Updating them custom (or borrowing from somewhere that has done some), or skipping them entirely like Eldritch? (I don't think this has come up in the thread before, but if it has, feel free to call me horrible names.)
Shank @tragedyjones in the eye when he tries to cut out the Zelani.
Current plans are to implement everything BUT Zelani.
(I am lying(
I'm a rodeo clown.
@tragedyjones said:
@Tempest said:
On a different topic.What are your plans for Bloodlines? Updating them custom (or borrowing from somewhere that has done some), or skipping them entirely like Eldritch? (I don't think this has come up in the thread before, but if it has, feel free to call me horrible names.)
Shank @tragedyjones in the eye when he tries to cut out the Zelani.
Current plans are to implement everything BUT Zelani.
(I am lying(
No, he's actually not. That's entirely the plan.
(We're still rolling this around and haven't made decisions yet.)
@sunny I know your MS Paint skills are Top Notch, but you need to base the game's logo on something like this
http://io9.com/5462064/the-endless-tramp-stamps-and-undone-pants-of-urban-fantasy-book-covers
Shut up. That's why it's called the FAKE picture. And it's not for public consumption anyway. Why must you mock me? Why?
Also, tha'ts fucking hilarious. Funny because it's true.
Okay, so. We've now converted to Rhost. Why? Because I don't code on any codebase but Rhost anymore, and so that is the price and consequence of me stepping up to fully engage as codewiz.
It remains an open question if we start from Thenomain's GMC code; I talked to Ashen-shugar and got him to change Rhost to allow attributes to start with "." which it wouldn't do before(I asked for this feature not to support Theno's code but because I decided I liked the code-style), but I haven't decided if I'm going to just write from scratch or adapt Theno's code to Rhost.
Either way, I'm all in on Dust to Dust. Teh codez will bez like done, yo.
Down with WoD, up with Victoriana!
flees
I have a waggish sense of humor.
@Misadventure said:
Down with WoD, up with Victoriana!
flees
I know, I know. The bug bit me; I didn't expect to get so thoroughly amused and caught up in doing this project. I was all good until we started to get to the details, and suddenly INSPIRED, so yeah. Vicky maybe someday, right now it's WoD.
Our goal has been set; we're looking at launching January 1st of 2016. At the pace we're going at, that's comfortable.
Second, there's a staff meeting on Saturday for those of you who are involved but not logging in on the site itself. BE THERE. While this should not much resemble the Ashes meetings much (never ever again), I do want to at least have a pow wow about my goals and expectations, and make sure that everyone is on the same page.
(My news file rewriter has not yet gotten ahold of this; she will fix and simplify it for me, but! It's a 'basics' news file; if anyone has any major game-setup questions left after this notation, please say so so I can add things/)
People have differing expectations of a variety of things on any given game. We'd like people on the same page. So these are the Things to Know about Dust to Dust.
1: There is a metaplot, and it involves the God Machine.
2: Experience management is handled by caps; there is a monthly earning cap and a total spending cap.
3: The game will operate in year-long arcs, with both the metaplot and the experience cap. Every year, staff will evaluate the experience cap and the status of the metaplot and adjust as needed.
4: The story and game are focused on a local scope. The vast majority of the interesting things happening in the world will be happening in Bay City; the world revolves around this place. Actions and consequences from the PCs here will ripple out; there will be very little of the reverse.
5: We will never use a system to keep track of character knowledge, lore or otherwise.
6: We work on a review process, rather than an approval process. The goal is to reduce barriers to roleplay and character growth as much as possible.
7: We are using Fate Points; the biggest notation this needs is that characters can possibly come back from the dead as well as spend fate points in stories to twist things in their favor.
8: This is a cooperative game, IC and OOC. The PCs are assumed to be on the same team/side in general.
9: We encourage the use of OOC knowledge in some circumstances (detailed in another news file).
10: The game's mood is 'hopeful' with a minor focus on 'victorious'. The theme is 'every effort matters'.
11: Staff run plot will focus on neighborhoods and several factions at once; single-faction and individual plotlines will be handled primarily with PRPs.
12: Staff will not benefit in any virtual-material way from staffing.
13: We do not use the sphere structure for staffing. No sphere is an island; the game is operated as a single sphere would be in this model; all staff are facilitators of the whole game.
14: In addition to experience points and fate points used for the game, we will be using player points as the reward for contributions to the game. These can be used to purchase a variety of rewards, and are attached to the player rather than the characters.
15: As we are using experience caps, we will be offering alternatives for experience spending (aka XP dumps) that are not permanent improvements to a character's stats.
16: Various supernatural races are treated as factions, as are families and influence groups.
17: Because we will be working on review rather than approval, retcons may happen. Staff will do their best to avoid these and mitigate the extent via story explanations as necessary, but sometimes some things may simply have to be rewound. It is an option that will remain on the table.
I love that list, granted I dislike a few of the items on it, and #1 means it will not be a game for me, but I wish every game did a thing like this, putting the general policies and vision in one place in bullet points that can be digested quickly. I am sure there will be more in depth files to get into the details but something like this would help players quickly decide if it was a game they were looking for, and then also pointed to later when conflict over one of the issue arises and say see there it is clear as day.
Yeah, I really wanted to try and make sure to get as many of the make-or-break points into a bullet list like this so that people can just look at the tin to see if it's a game for them or not. We're doing a few things that I know will turn some people off, so stating it all up front is in my opinion a necessity.
As i player i definitely appreciate that, and for the record I agree with a lot of the things you are doing. Like the step away from he standard sphere structure and the focus on a cooperative environment states clearly up front, and the fact that is looks like it will have a strong meta plot.
(I had a good one pointed out to me!)
18: On the 'second chance' or 'go the fuck away' scale of disciplinary philosophies, DtD is on the 'go the fuck away' side. If you screw up badly enough to be in actual trouble, you're gone. In addition, not everyone is welcome here in the first place. Those who have a history of abuse in the mu* community (as determined, full stop, by Blue Rose) are not welcome. They will be asked to leave when they are identified, regardless of whether or not they have misbehaved on this game.
A couple of questions, @Sunny:
Without needing to commit to specific numbers but just to clarify, where do you see the experience curve of a casual compared to the annual cap? Say, assuming a pretty active player is meant to hit the annual cap, would you say a casual one would make closer to 25%, 50% or 75% of it at the end of the year?
Are you considering an approval system for spends? I'm referring to stats like Gnosis, Renown, etc.
Are you using automatic experience gains? Catch-up experience for newer players? Transfers to new alts in case of IC death/permanent retirement?
How are Fate points earned? How do they translate into the IC world if they include things often impossible in the IC world like coming back from the dead?
If I remember correctly you plan to open spheres for which the books aren't out yet. How are you planning to handle things when they are published?
Thanks!
@Arkandel said:
- Without needing to commit to specific numbers but just to clarify, where do you see the experience curve of a casual compared to the annual cap? Say, assuming a pretty active player is meant to hit the annual cap, would you say a casual one would make closer to 25%, 50% or 75% of it at the end of the year?
Whatever we decide that the cap will be, the hope will be for the real heavy XP characters to have earned (at the absolute most) 2x the cap. The goal is to create enough ways to earn XP that casual players would realistically be closer to 90% of the cap. Our control is not on earning, but (ultimately) on the spending side, so we want to make sure that earning is easy.
- Are you considering an approval system for spends? I'm referring to stats like Gnosis, Renown, etc.
Yes and no. There are some stats that will go into the approval queue (so to speak) instead of being set and added for review. This is not, however, going to be on what most people consider to be problem stats, but will primarily relate to faction status stats.
- Are you using automatic experience gains? Catch-up experience for newer players? Transfers to new alts in case of IC death/permanent retirement?
All characters will earn XP every week from the point of 'game on' -- even those not made. When everyone is awarded the weekly XP, it will add to the total characters are awarded in chargen. That's their 'catch up' experience. Permanent death/retirement will only in some cases allow all unspent experience to be transferred at 1:1. Already spent experience will not be transferred. However, there is also a roundabout mechanic to transfer XP from one active PC to another, as well. That's at a loss. As far as what cases folks get 1:1 transfers, it requires either an on-screen death or a death that other characters can investigate and verify in some fashion -- either it needs to have happened on screen, or it needs to provide other PCs with closure, essentially. (EDITED TO ADD: OMG I forgot to note, suicide does not count.)
- How are Fate points earned? How do they translate into the IC world if they include things often impossible in the IC world like coming back from the dead?
Purchased with either XP or Player Points, refresh to a certain level weekly, and in some cases they can be taken instead of beats (such as choosing to move from a failure to a dramatic failure).
- If I remember correctly you plan to open spheres for which the books aren't out yet. How are you planning to handle things when they are published?
We're not opening spheres for non-published books except in the case of those which we do not believe are going to get a 2.0 update (Geist, Changing Breeds). In those cases, if the book does end up coming out after the fact, we will be remaining with our house rules / story. The new books will be reviewed, and we will implement as much as we can without breaking IC reality. No changes will be made until the full review is finished, though.
As far as those we know are happening, we're creating vague stories/history for those races alongside the rest of the game as things progress. We'll be updating and changing this as more information becomes available. Once the books are published, we'll be going through the histories and adjusting them as necessary for what the book actually says, get it formally written up, plug their stats into chargen (that's just going to be data entry), and then open 'em. Alt limits will not change. But all the critters are around and will be doing their thing even before they're represented by PCs. This is going to be most obvious with the Lost, because we'll have Keepers written into the local history (as an example). There's an NPC freehold, and it does things in reaction to things that happen.
The reasoning behind this is that we don't want any of the spheres to feel tacked on after the fact. They might not be open, but they're still being designed as best we can manage.
Man. That list is pretty much a wish list of what I've wanted in a game for a while. Awesome!
Looks great! 
Can't wait to check it out.
On a different topic.What are your plans for Bloodlines? Updating them custom (or borrowing from somewhere that has done some), or skipping them entirely like Eldritch? (I don't think this has come up in the thread before, but if it has, feel free to call me horrible names.)
Shank @tragedyjones in the eye when he tries to cut out the Zelani.
