Twinking in RP MU*

HelloRaptor

Scaling XP costs were bad. Incredibly bad. Because they were both kind of dumb to begin with, and only really matter if you have a relatively finite amount of XP to play with. If your xp is at a constant upward trend, no real scarcity or diminishing return is had. I mean from a purely technical sense yes, there is a diminishing return in paying 15xp when you buy the fifth dot in a skill instead of 9xp for the third dot, but if you've got a pool of XP not only larger than what you need to buy but everything else you're likely to need to buy, AND you'll end up with enough XP to buy the next thing you want by the time you want it, more or less, diminishing returns are pretty pointless.

Scaling XP costs really only exist to slow you down, and there are ways of doing that which don't require the irrational irritation factor of a big chunk of XP doing virtually nothing for you. Going from Professional (3) to World Class (5) in a skill isn't enough to even, on average, bump your expected successes up by 1, more than likely. Meh.

Plus, we finally aren't paying for invisible fucking merit dots, which has always made me grind my teeth in the worst ways.

Bennie

This begs the question, in a MU* environment, strictly using GMC, how fast is too fast to gain Beats? In an unlimited environment - long term speaking - how fast is too fast, how slow is too slow?

Coin

@HelloRaptor said:

Scaling XP costs were bad. Incredibly bad. Because they were both kind of dumb to begin with, and only really matter if you have a relatively finite amount of XP to play with. If your xp is at a constant upward trend, no real scarcity or diminishing return is had. I mean from a purely technical sense yes, there is a diminishing return in paying 15xp when you buy the fifth dot in a skill instead of 9xp for the third dot, but if you've got a pool of XP not only larger than what you need to buy but everything else you're likely to need to buy, AND you'll end up with enough XP to buy the next thing you want by the time you want it, more or less, diminishing returns are pretty pointless.

Scaling costs work fine in tabletop, or on MUs that have very little or slow XP gain, yeah. I remember when I started MUing on Devilshire (a Buffyverse/Unisystem game) it was impossible (literally, there was a cap) to get more than 10 XP a month, and getting those 10 was really hard. And Attributes cost like Current Rating x 5, so I had to save up all of my experience for like two months just to get my Willpower to 5 on my Wizard, for example; and that's if I was raking in the maximum XP per month, which I often definitely was not, despite being one of the most active plot runners there. On that game? Yeah, sure. (Though see my complaint below regarding the 1-5 scale.)

Scaling XP costs really only exist to slow you down, and there are ways of doing that which don't require the irrational irritation factor of a big chunk of XP doing virtually nothing for you. Going from Professional (3) to World Class (5) in a skill isn't enough to even, on average, bump your expected successes up by 1, more than likely. Meh.

This is why I really kind of dislike the 1-5 scale. It's just not broad enough for the difference to really stand out. I get that if you have a Supernatural Resistance Trait that is above 5 you can go higher, but I'm still talking mortal-wise. If 5 is as high as a mortal can get, then 3 (above average, but not rare) shouldn't be less than 1 success of a difference.

Plus, we finally aren't paying for invisible fucking merit dots, which has always made me grind my teeth in the worst ways.

Still kind of are in that there are merits that are worth 2 and then another version worth 4, with no 3-dot version in the middle. But at least now every dot costs the same.

This begs the question, in a MU* environment, strictly using GMC, how fast is too fast to gain Beats? In an unlimited environment - long term speaking - how fast is too fast, how slow is too slow?

Reno gives 2 experiences per week, doled out in percentages over the course of the week. I think this is a fine number at the beginning but should probably be scaled down. I detailed somewhere else the type of gain system we'll be using on the game I'm working on with friends, which starts out at about a minimum/maximum (minimum being weekly passive gain and maximum being that plus whatever you gain from beats and plots) of 2/4 experiences for the first set of six months, 1/4 for the second set of six months, 0.5/4 for the third set, and then 0.2/4 from then on.

This would allow for an easier time for new characters to catch up to old dinosaurs, unless the dinosaurs were incredibly active, which is usually not the case and if they are, well, then they deserve the rewards of that.

Arkandel

As long as two things are true I generally don't mind any XP system:

Everyone has roughly the same access to XP. No tiered superpowers, no dinosaurs others will simply never catch up to, etc.
The system is implemented in a way to protect people from themselves.

Classic nWoD often failed at (2) because of CG. Spending freebie points to raise your power stat, for example, saved you a bunch of XP compared to buying it with XP later on; likewise spreading your starting dots around rather than mix/maxing them in CG was a pretty bad idea. And let's not go into the practice of playing any sort of combat character without a multi-attack fighting style.

Of course simply because a system protects you from making mistakes when buying things doesn't mean you don't get an enormous benefit from knowing how to use the +sheet you end up with.

Coin

@Arkandel

Pretty much.

e.g., I could be wrong, as I do not have the book with me at the moment, but I think in Demon: The Descent it says that you can buy Primum (the game's Supernatural Tolerance trait) at chargen for 3 Merit dots. But Merit dots cost 1 experience a piece and raising Primum with experience costs 5 experiences per dot. I am not sure if this was a mistake in printing (it might have been, since in the first edition it was 3 merit dots per point of a power stat), or not. Regardless, if I am not remembering incorrectly (which I very well could be), the game we're making will be switching to 5 Merit dots per dot of Primum, to keep the costs even. If we allow it at all. We might not, and just make people spend their starting experiences on Primum if they want it higher, especially since Primum is particularly useful for Demons, as it gives them access to more Covers.

ThatOneDude

I don't know, sometimes its fun to play the combat monster, and, more so when the events/PRPs ect that you go to or attend are all about combat. With that said I still loveI a well rounded character but I've found in the majority of MU* situations being focused makes more sense and even more so when in a group that has a nice spread of "experts" in various areas.

Sometimes I love playing the werewolf/vampire/mage side of things up because I'm following my hobby of creating stories and RP. In real life I can work 9-5 and be tired and do all the mundane stuff that for the most part I'd rather not RP.

Call me a twink all day, just mean it in this context and not the other >.>

Deviante

How bad is it that every time I see this thread come up all I read is "Twerking in RP MU*?"

Arkandel

@ThatOneDude said:

I don't know, sometimes its fun to play the combat monster, and, more so when the events/PRPs ect that you go to or attend are all about combat.

The more freedoms your mechanics allow (and classless systems with plentiful XP tend to be pretty accommodative in terms of such liberties) the blurrier the line is between a combat monster and other kinds of characters. For instance my Vampire on TR had no dots in brawl, melee or firearms but he could kick some pretty major ass in a fight - and did during the EotW monstrous fight scenes.

What I'm wary of, and I'll continue to be until it's demonstrated otherwise in practice rather than just by pasting mechanics, is that systemising social interactions (by implementing GMC's 'doors' system or anything like it, for example) does less damage than good, or for that matter that it gets used more often than not.

Coin

@Arkandel
I think the Social Maneuvering system (i.e., and from now on referred to as "Doors") is great, as long as it adheres to the following:

Its use is the default, but players can agree to discard it (this is going to happen whether you want it or not);
The times element is adhered to--impression levels are important, if you are very intimate with someone, maybe you can seduce them with one roll; but if you're talking up a stranger at a bar, unless they're looking for a lay, you're gonna have to play the long game, over several scenes, with one roll per scene, etc.;
Its use in PC vs. PC confrontation uses the compromise options at the end of the system description that say that even if PC1 has won every challenge and passed all of PC2's Doors, PC2 can still choose not to comply with the demand and take a Condition (e.g., Sam wants to seduce Anne, and his rolls decimate her social defenses, but Anne is married, and her player doesn't think she'd ever cheat. Anne decides to take a Condition--maybe she briefly considered it and now feels Guilty, which influences her actions with her husband when she gets home. Sam didn't get what he wanted, but Anne didn't just disregard the skillful way he attempted to seduce her);
Crucial, in my opinin: you follow the logic: ask then roll then pose. Ask refers to: communicate with the other player, ask them whats ort of actions on behalf of your character might get them closer to their goal with regards to theirs; roll refers to rollign your dice with appropriate modifiers, to see how well you do; and posing refers to posing the action you asked about in a way that reflects its efficiency based on the roll. If you follow these steps, it's much less likely that you'll have people flailing about hwo you power-posed or whatever. People might still flail because you have too many dice and now they're stuck in something, but it'll be less often. In short, communicate.
Don't fucking play complicated social interactions with people you don't minimally know, and especially with people you don't like. Keep those simple. Don't try to seduce the PC of a player you don't like or who doesn't like you. It will never end well IC or OOC and will cause drama that will inevitably spill over onto everyone around the both of you and on behalf of all those people: fuck you, jerkface.

Above all, though, communication is key. It also helps if we can, as a community, dispell this ridiculous fucking notion of preferring "roleplay over rollplay". It's stupid.

Arkandel

I'm of two minds on this.

On one hand I hate the idea of rolling in social scenes in general. I feel it interrupts their flow and takes part of the fun of allowing the poses' quality determine their impact. On top of it requiring you to play with people you know, who are decent players and with whom there's some mutual respect seems to go against the point; if those conditions are true why do you need dice in the first place?

But on the other hand there's always That Guy with Manipulation/Intelligence 2, Dexterity 4, Firearms 5 and Manipulation 1 who's playing the professional sniper-slash-political mastermind. So if they get to dominate combat scenes it's unfair they are allowed to strong-arm people in social settings as well.

It's not GMC's system I don't like, though. From what I understand without having used it, it's well designed.

Glitch

@Coin said:

Don't fucking play complicated social interactions with people you don't minimally know, and especially with people you don't like. Keep those simple. Don't try to seduce the PC of a player you don't like or who doesn't like you. It will never end well IC or OOC and will cause drama that will inevitably spill over onto everyone around the both of you and on behalf of all those people: fuck you, jerkface.

This invalidates a lot of the point behind social PvP. If you like and work well with a person, you don't really need a well-defined system in the first place. I realize you're offering a small out with the "keep it simple," but conflict is conflict. If you can flirt in a high profile way that either 1) seduces the PC of the player you don't like or 2) hits them with a Condition that may be socially embarrassing or cause issues within one of their societal groups, it's still more flexible than taking a bullet to the face. And arguably generates more RP (unless they're a total douche and try to avoid consequences or conditions, but those people don't exist, right? ... right?)

@Arkandel I think @Coin's first point addresses much of your concern. You don't need it for every social interaction, only those where conflict is expected and dice is the desired way to handle it. You certainly don't need to start rolling dice to buy another PC a drink at a bar and maybe make a nice impression.

Coin

@Glitch
I agree with that somewhat; I mean more along the lines of discouraging people who don't like someone and then socially go out of their way to mess with their character, just so they can complain about the other person.

I don't like Spider, for instance. I am highly unlikely to try to seduce her PC. I might use the social system to intimidate or inconvenience her PC, if my character would, in a mutually shared social setting--Mage meetings, whatever--but I'm not going to go out of my way.

It guess it was meant more of a: don't seek out RP that isn't going to be fun for you. It will happen, it will always happen and that's unavoidable in MUs, but don't actively seek it out on purpose with people you know you won't enjoy it with, which is common sense, which we all know isn't very common.

Also, I mildly disagree that it invalidates the need for a system. Some people like the randomization; I do. I like to be able to roll dice and let them decide the degree and speed at which my interactions go. It's fun for me. That, I will agree, is subjective; but I don't think it invalidates it.

@Arkandel I think @Coin's first point addresses much of your concern. You don't need it for every social interaction, only those where conflict is expected and dice is the desired way to handle it. You certainly don't need to start rolling dice to buy another PC a drink at a bar and maybe make a nice impression.

Yeah. I mean, if you keep that in mind, it's fine.

Ganymede

@HelloRaptor said:

If your xp is at a constant upward trend, no real scarcity or diminishing return is had.

The rate of resource growth is not at all related to the law of diminishing returns. Your statement makes no sense.

Scaled XP costs are based on the concept of diminishing returns, which reflect a measurable, RL phenomenon. GMC's linear progression system is based off mechanics-only. Paying a constant amount of XP for a discrete gain is a fine idea, but it is contrary to real-life observation. There's nothing objectively wrong with that; I simply prefer otherwise.

But, yeah. Start making sense, man.

Arkandel

There are also ways to regulate the power curve even in the presence of a theoretically (in practice: time-limited) bottomless XP well.

For instance in non-GMC nWoD you can use ROI as your glass ceiling: remove limits on attribute/skills so players can raise their Strength or whatever dots indefinitely, but keep it scaling.

Sure, there's always going to be 1-2 XP at the end of each week, but if your next spend costs 50 then it takes you half a year to get there. So you have to decide (and making tough decisions is the foundation of any great system) if you're better off spending half a year to marginally improve your Strength versus considerably expanding your contacts' network.

HelloRaptor

The rate of resource growth is not at all related to the law of diminishing returns. Your statement makes no sense.
Scaled XP costs are based on the concept of diminishing returns, which reflect a measurable, RL phenomenon.

They aren't mutually exclusive ideas. I've no idea what you want to make more sense, though.

I think in Demon: The Descent it says that you can buy Primum (the game's Supernatural Tolerance trait) at chargen for 3 Merit dots. But Merit dots cost 1 experience a piece and raising Primum with experience costs 5 experiences per dot. I am not sure if this was a mistake in printing (it might have been, since in the first edition it was 3 merit dots per point of a power stat), or not. Regardless, if I am not remembering incorrectly (which I very well could be), the game we're making will be switching to 5 Merit dots per dot of Primum, to keep the costs even. If we allow it at all.

I just look at it as sort of like Chargen Only merits, things that are more powerful than the norm for their cost because you can't purchse them out of chargen, which limits how many you can take. For a Mage it could represent a particularly strong Awakening if you're brand new, or it could be that your character has been around for a whle even if you're generating it now. Either way, you're starting out with a power stat higher than 1 as a purchased-in-chargen advantage. It's an advantage that everyone (unless for whatever reason they're not allowed to >.<) has the opportunity to gain. If they choose not to, that's on then. A higher powerstat isn't necessary to take advantage of any of the shit you can buy straight out of chargen anyway.

Everyone has roughly the same access to XP. No tiered superpowers, no dinosaurs others will simply never catch up to, etc.

Boo.

Ganymede

@HelloRaptor said:

They aren't mutually exclusive ideas. I've no idea what you want to make more sense, though.

Actually, they are, but you don't seem to understand that, and so your statement makes no actual sense. You may know what you're saying, but you're not communicating the thought cogently.

Based on the terms you've used, you're analogizing a PC's XP gain to its income. Scarcity is related to supply. The law of diminishing returns is an observation related to utility and cost. These are all separate, economic concepts that only come together in a discussion of price.

Changes in income do not affect the law of diminishing returns. Scarcity does not affect the law of diminishing returns. If you're going to use concepts and terms, know how they interact.

I'm really just getting on you because, you know, it's you.

That said, under GMC's paradigm, there is no cogent reason to cap Attributes or Skills at 5. They should proceed ad infinitum. The system proceeds under the assumption that the actual rate of achievement should not be constrained by real models. So, why bother? If you want to dump 15 XP into Firearms to get extra dice, you should be allowed too -- because fuck reality.

Bennie

That begs the question, do we think we will ever see a game that uses that model? A game where you can purchase Attributes and Skills ad infinitum as opposed to the 'human' cap of 5. We already have specific ways to raise Attributes over 5, but has anyone ever thought of incorporating a specific system for Skills? If not, why not? If yes, why not employ it?

I was thinking this week about quite the opposite: Why 5 dots? In so much as, given rules for working together, fighting as a group against a dangerous foe, and so on. It got me thinking, we never seem to touch on the idea that the world doesn't really operate solo. You don't see a single soldier making up a squad, for example. Backup usually involves more than one more cop showing up to make an environment of two. There's never only one person in the ER. You never see just one legal assistant working late at night.

Most things come in groups. So if you apply it to the GMC rules most things can be accomplished successfully with a group, and the rules seem to make this pretty obvious, whereas alone not so much. Would this be something worth integrating into the MU* environment? Why don't we push for this more often? Why is it so often a Me Against The World motif?

Coin

@Bennie said:

That begs the question, do we think we will ever see a game that uses that model? A game where you can purchase Attributes and Skills ad infinitum as opposed to the 'human' cap of 5. We already have specific ways to raise Attributes over 5, but has anyone ever thought of incorporating a specific system for Skills? If not, why not? If yes, why not employ it?

You can raise Skills above 5 in the same way you can raise Attributes above 5. Unless I missed it, it's "traits" in general that can be raised above the mortal limit of 5 once your Supernatural Tolerance has risen above 5. So this is basically already present in the system.

I was thinking this week about quite the opposite: Why 5 dots? In so much as, given rules for working together, fighting as a group against a dangerous foe, and so on. It got me thinking, we never seem to touch on the idea that the world doesn't really operate solo. You don't see a single soldier making up a squad, for example. Backup usually involves more than one more cop showing up to make an environment of two. There's never only one person in the ER. You never see just one legal assistant working late at night.

Rule of 5 is just simple, usually. there are systems that allow you to go higher and higher, for example, many D&D systems don't have limits to how high you can raise Ranks in Skills (and if they do, they certainly aren't limited to 5).

Most things come in groups. So if you apply it to the GMC rules most things can be accomplished successfully with a group, and the rules seem to make this pretty obvious, whereas alone not so much. Would this be something worth integrating into the MU* environment? Why don't we push for this more often? Why is it so often a Me Against The World motif?

I don´t know what to tell you: I've seen a lot of RP that concentrates on having to work as a group. Cops, in specific, tend to have group scenes. MUs have a hard time developing groups due to scheduling conflicts and the fact that familiarity breeds contempt sometimes, in my opinion. I have tried and tried and tried to geenrate groups that work together and complement each other. It often fails, but that doesn't mean it isn't the intent and desire of many.

Three-Eyed Crow

@Coin said:

MUs have a hard time developing groups due to scheduling conflicts and the fact that familiarity breeds contempt sometimes, in my opinion. I have tried and tried and tried to geenrate groups that work together and complement each other. It often fails, but that doesn't mean it isn't the intent and desire of many.

While scheduling is certainly part of it, I think it's also a mentality thing, and not just among people who don't enjoy RPing together. Even players in a a regular playgroup kind of have to be forced and directed to actually collaborate. Even in settings where building characters and plots together is actively encouraged, and when timezones among a group are somewhat compatible, people just don't have the instinct to do it. As much as we talk about Lone Wolfs as a problem, even decent players have a hard-on for them unless their noses are slapped, and I'm not sure how best to circumvent this.

MU*ers don't understand these are fundamentally social, interactive games, and it's bugging the hell out of me lately.

Coin

@Three-Eyed-Crow
not only that, but even the people who want to work together, are totally into the group, and would love to do all that... often become less than active, get busy randomly, enter a slump of non-activity, or whatever, just as they should be playing with the rest. It's often just bad timing and the fact that there are players that are just... idle-prone.