Game Idea

[Taika]

I've been tossing around the idea of working on a 2.0 game for a while. One with a near future 'world collapsing on itself' type of theme and active overarching loose plotline.

Which leaves me in need of a couple things:

A host.
A code base (I know there's 2.0 code, but no idea how to install it. Oops.)
And ideas on location, etc. I can build and desc, etc, but not so hot at hammering out tiny details on my own.

For spheres, I'm thinking mortal/+ to start, amd adding vamp/wolf once there's a better idea of how to handle territory and the like. I really enjoyed how RFK made turf and social skills relevant, but I'm not sure I like how staff intensive the supporting systems got.

[Sammi]

@Taika said:

I've been tossing around the idea of working on a 2.0 game for a while.

There are a lot of second editions of things. You might want to start your sales pitch with something more descriptive rather than forcing people to scan through the whole post to figure out which game system's second iteration you're thinking of.

One with a near future 'world collapsing on itself' type of theme and active overarching loose plotline.

Define near future. Preferably with your choice of movies, books, TV shows, or video games to clarify the genre conventions you're looking for.

A code base (I know there's 2.0 code, but no idea how to install it. Oops.)

It's here, and it should be pretty easy to install. I'm going to do it in the near future and I'm not asking Theno for any help unless I really fuck up.

And ideas on location, etc. I can build and desc, etc, but not so hot at hammering out tiny details on my own.

Location isn't exactly a tiny detail. The specifics of which streets have coffee shops are tiny details. Your location should play into whatever big genre elements you want to emphasize. People might ignore it to some extent, but having a place that jives with your big themes helps the game feel cohesive.

[Taika]

Sorry! You're right, I should have been more specific. Chronicles of Darkness, NWoD 2.0.

For 'near future', I think Book of Eli, or Maze Runner. Not sci-fi or Shadowrun level of futuristic doodads. Close enough to be readily related to, and far enough away that the theme can be crafted into its own thing. It'll make resource gathering and holding important, even for mortals.

The 'where' I'm pretty open about - a lot of places have been done or overdone, and a grid can be built to match most locations. Leaving it open ended allows discussion on what sort of 'where' people might want to see. Having it be a near future theme also leaves more room for just making up a small settlement or city as well. I'm not sure there would be a lot of pretty little cafes sitting around chock full of food in a post-SHTF setting.

Thanks for the link! I also found the hosting link for DigitalOcean.

[Kay]

I'd be very interested in a CoD 2.0 game, but I'm still a bit lost on your theme and setting. I'm not familiar with Book of Eli and Maze Runner, other than that the latter is similar to Hunger Games in some fashion. Can you describe a bit more what you're going for? Is it just near future post-apoc, or more complicated?

[Taika]

I am Legend might be another one, sans zombies. Big cities are fairly barren and crumbling, small-ish pockets of people are banding together to make the best of a bad situation. I love a good zombie theme, but I don't want to do a zombie mush. This is also why I was hoping to find people to brainstorm with, since I have a hard time going from idea in my head to well written and planned out theme.

A little bit wild west, a little bit no-man's land, a lot of crumbling architecture and Things living in the shadows and ruins. I really like a good personal struggle/horror theme, and plan to have an overarching evolution of the state of things based on what the players do. Perhaps not as in detail as RFK had for their grid and systems, but definitely 'if group A blows up building C, it will affect the grid and plotline in a meaningful manner'.

[surreality]

It might be worth taking a peek at the series 'The 100' for this. Since it's longer than a film, it delves a bit more deeply into some of the factors in play in a post-apocalyptic society sort of setting.

[Taika]

The 100 is a great show. The series by S.M. Stirling, 'Dies the fire' came to mind as well, but I thought that would be even more obscure as a reference.

[Sammi]

Something else with similar circumstances is the Divergent series. That's a bit more high-tech than what you're looking for, but it can be good for visuals.

The "problem" with crumbling cities is that mostly just concrete crumbles, and that takes a while unless the construction was shoddy. Housing projects and Soviet block buildings crumble quickly. Buildings constructed for the use of rich people tend to be much less crumbly. You can either play with this, and emphasize the distinction between durable steel towers and collapsing concrete apartments, or you can subvert it and roll into the apocalypse an excuse for the skyscrapers to be degrading too.

[Taika]

I haven't seen that show, yet, but I'll definitely see if Netflix has it now.

Part of the loose idea I had was to plot the way through the big die off after the cataclysmic /thing/ that causes the world to go nuts (I'm leaning towards good old, mundane fiscal collapse and people straight up turning on each other. Damn Ventrue borking Wallstreet. XD). I've been talking to some friends about using part of New York for the grid, and the debate is Manhatten island, Queens, Brooklyn, etc. I'm of a mind to start small and expand a grid as needed.

Plus, the idea of romping around in the Museum of Natural History gives me giddy little flashbacks to Parasite Eve.

[Jennkryst]

In the long-long ago, there was a d20 setting called The End. The premise was a game that took place post-apocalypse. Literally. The book of Revelations happened. The catch: when the bible said the meek shall inherit the earth, it was intended not as a reward, but a warning - those who were too meek to pick a side got left on earth, the gates to the afterlife shut forever. A hilarious catch here is that the world is returning to a primal state... flora and fauna are growing crazy fast and/or big... mankind no longer rules the animal kingdom, because that was God's doing. So the critters are all mega-deadly/hostile (except for dogs, because man's best friend. No really.) Add to the mix that if humans don't interact with a thing often enough, it starts to break down into it's component elements. Buildings are crumbling if people don't go in them enough. There's some other lolzy stuff to go with it, but that's the gist. Could be neat.

[Arkandel]

@Jennkryst That sounds kinda fun.

[Kay]

@Jennkryst I think this? http://www.drivethrurpg.com/browse/pub/25/Tyranny-Games

[Bobotron]

@Jennkryst
That's neat. Plus there's also a built-in reason to disallow mages. Mages broke reality in a similar way.

[Jennkryst]

@Kay It is indeed!

@Bobotron There's no magic. Well. There is, but it's tricksy. There are the Words of God, but the language is incomplete. So you might say the word for fire, but without a definer, it could be anywhere from match-size spark to building-engulfing inferno. It's been almost a decade since I read through the book, in its 'players get d2 health per level until they qualify for a prestige class' glory

[Taika]

Alrighty, I used the link for DigitalOcean and set up a server droplet. I have no idea how to get a copy of tinymux uploaded on there or started Even reading the walk through in the How-To section has me lost.

[Lilli]

@Taika said:

Alrighty, I used the link for DigitalOcean and set up a server droplet. I have no idea how to get a copy of tinymux uploaded on there or started Even reading the walk through in the How-To section has me lost.

This walk through?

http://musoapbox.net/topic/138/zero-to-mux-with-wiki

Persnally.... I would go with PennMUSh in either case. But both are in the instructions, I believe.

[Taika]

I've never really gotten along with PennMUSH. Plus there are some interesting security leaks if you use channels at all. I mean, someone can just @chan/recall staff=200 or whatever and view what staff talks about, without even being on the channel - unless there's been a way to fix it found. (I was told it was a hardcode issue with the channels themselves.)

[faraday]

@Taika said:

I've never really gotten along with PennMUSH. Plus there are some interesting security leaks if you use channels at all. I mean, someone can just @chan/recall staff=200 or whatever and view what staff talks about, without even being on the channel - unless there's been a way to fix it found. (I was told it was a hardcode issue with the channels themselves.)

That particular issue is easily fixed by not enabling channel recall (either on the admin channel or on any channel). I'm not aware of any other general security issues regarding channels.

[Sammi]

The only existing CoD chargen that I know of is coded for MUX, so I'd go with that unless one of the coders around here really wants to modify it to fit Penn.

[Taika]

I planned on using Theno-code. Because it is awesome and a handful of people know it well enough I might be able to get some help if something happens.

Going to try and get tinymux installed tomorrow on the server. Hopefully it'll work alright and I can figure out how to upload the code to it.