Game Idea
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@Taika said:
Thiugh, it seems more and more like I may just have to deal with it.
You can potentially look into spend timers to try and force people to spread things out a little bit. Maybe certain things take longer to raise. Maybe you can raise a skill after (weeks x current dots), but a discipline can only be raised every (3 weeks x current dots), representing a broader investment in the supernatural foo. Or something. It's not a great system, and it's certainly somewhat limited in the fact that it'll piss a lot of people off because they can't shoot right to the top of a power tree, but it's one way to try and keep people from artificially inflating up to Godzilla level badass in a very short time.
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Another idea you could look at is diminishing returns on XP gain. Institute some type of cap, like X per month, and that cap lowers the higher your XP (as it becomes harder to find things to learn from). For example, the METVtM system uses 10 per month up to 100 XP, 8 per month up to 200, 6 up to 300, 4 up to 400 and 2 at 401+. It has worked out well in the LARP I run.
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If you get to the top too quickly, it doesn't matter if the returns are diminished. There are many many many ways to limit advancement. I don't know yet how to explain how to make one work over another, even if they're the same base idea.
“If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.”
― Carl Sagan, Cosmos -
@Thenomain
Hence the cap on <X> time period. But yeah, it won't always work; you really have to figure out how to handle that flight to the top, and how to handle across-the-board stuff. -
I'm just not sure how much lower the xp payout can even go. I think I'll stick to what I have so far (2 beats/week, 2 beats per plot, +1 for st's) and work on a 'things cost more after x spent', and maybe toss in a 'you can only raise a stat/skill once a month'. And keeping an eye on the asps/conditions/breaking points as they come in.
Between those things? If you are busting your butt enough to plot it up to the top?
Then fuck it, you earned it.
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@Taika said:
(2 beats/week, 2 beats per plot, +1 for st's
CoD already has per-plot beats worked out for you in the system. It's a default of 1, plus whatever conditions / asps / extra stuff gets done.
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@Taika said:
I'm just not sure how much lower the xp payout can even go. I think I'll stick to what I have so far (2 beats/week, 2 beats per plot, +1 for st's) and work on a 'things cost more after x spent', and maybe toss in a 'you can only raise a stat/skill once a month'. And keeping an eye on the asps/conditions/breaking points as they come in.
Between those things? If you are busting your butt enough to plot it up to the top?
Then fuck it, you earned it.
Lol. I think you took comments that 2 XP per week was too much a little too to heart. But whatever works for you.
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Maybe. But, like I said, it's easier to adjust upward than downward. And I can't play with it more until the codebase is installed anyway.
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@Taika said:
Maybe. But, like I said, it's easier to adjust upward than downward. And I can't play with it more until the codebase is installed anyway.
Implementation must follow design, not the other way around. First figure out what you want, then how to do it, then do it.
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@Taika said:
I also liked the raised cost for things. I can't remember what interval it was... Every 50 xp?
That's how it was done on RfK. As a suggestion, if you keep track of Beats only, then it's easier for you to implement the XP system; however, you would have to calculate where the breaks are in the future. So, if you make each XP cost 6 beats after 50 XP, and incrementally raise the cost by an additional beat every 50 XP, your chart looks something like this:
250 beats --> 6 beats per XP
550 beats --> 7 beats per XP
900 beats --> 8 beats per XP
1300 beats --> 9 beats per XP
1750 beats --> 10 beats per XPAnd then, I'd just cap the beats-per-XP conversion there. You could still implement a 10 beats per week system, plus beats for aspirations, conditions, and PrPs.
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Been busy, with @Sammi's help in learning how to wrangle some code. It seems like the Muxify that @Thenomain has linked the MSB is broken? It wasn't converting or saving properly.
So what we've got so far:
Room parents (Man was THAT a learning experience!)
BBS installed.
The first Neighborhood of the grid assembled and started on desc'ing.
Plot code, and events code, but I think we're missing a function for them to work. I'm learning, but slow.
And we've started working on the territory system and tossing around ideas.Which is why I'm here, to look for advice on the first and roughest draft.
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Social Attributes on grid squares will range from 0-5. 0 is a rare and catastrophic situation.
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There will be a handful of ways to interact with a grid square.
+- Attack. Population+1/2 security, rounded up. So: 1-2 is +1, 3-4 is +2, and 5 is +3 - leaving some purpose to the effort of raising an SA to 5.
+- Defend. Population+Security. Uses an action. If the winner of the contested roll scores 5 or more successes, the loser takes -1 population to reflect excessive casualties.
+- Improve. Spend an action to add +1 to one stat. Cannot raise the same stat twice in a row.
+- Erode. Spend an action to wear down an SA of another grid square. This action can be detected with Investigate. Security vs Population to initiate.
+- Shift. Move one point of one attribute to another attribute. This can be done to aid in Defending. Cannot gain more than a +1.
+- Investigate. Spend an action to patrol your land or another square. Your population vs their security.
The conflict actions don't appear to have much to do with Food, Shelter, and Water. however: Those are key components to staying alive.
Food: If your population is higher than your food for more than 2 weeks, lose 1 population.
Water: If your population is higher than your food for more than 2 weeks, lose 1 population.
Caveat: If both water and food are below population, lose 1 population per week, instead of two.
A low population and security with higher water and food resources are going to attract random, npc raids as people flock to try and soak up some of the things they need to continue living.
Each trait affects the others.
Yes, people that hold territory within the same Neighborhood can aid each other. So if Bob has Pop5 and Sec5, Billy, Susy, and Jake can band up to overthrow someone they don't like. In a case where multiple people attack the same square, the defender defends against each in the order they come in. As before, critical successes impact the population of whoever loses the confrontation. So if Billy loses, and Susy scores a crit, then Bob's population is only 4, for Jake's attack.
No, it does not mean that the stats for Billy, Susy, and Jake's territories stack. They are resolved individually with the hope of wearing down the beseiged land - this is a reflection that it is far easier to dig in and defend than to move an army in a resource tight environment.
New territory can be gained by plotting and working story to explore and open more grid rooms and neighborhoods, by copping a squat on unoccupied territory, or by beating an occupied piece of territory to Population 0, and moving in. Caveat being the limited amount of actions, and unless your buddies help you, it could be reclaimed easily. (This will tie in with a Favor system (think boons from RFK, but for all spheres) and hopefully spur more rp than just number crunching.)
We've been discussing a generic 'coterie' thing for mortals, and we might call them Camps. Basically gives the same benefit for being able to band up that Coteries and Packs get. It won't make the playing field even for mortals vs supers, but it'll help with tracking who is affiliated with who.
No, we haven't gone digging through the books to account for merits yet. This is the loosest of roughest stages, but feedback for the idea is welcomed.
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I'm using Chrome. I was told I can try to hand close the code, but some code needs spaces in weird places - so not sure if it would work or cause more problems because of my noobness.
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Progress!
http://descentmux.com/index.php/Main_Page
It's not a pretty wiki, but it is up and I'm adding policy files to it as I can, and working on hammering out the theme from scattered idea into a cohesive setting.
Run into a snag with the code insertion, but hoping that'll be sorted soon.
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So I have a vamp staffer, and a grunty staffer, and a couple people who have been letting me vet ideas past them. But what I really need is a wolf 2.0 staffer to help gel the wolf specific theme. And a wiki guru. My wiki is weaker than an overcooked noodle.
I have some policies and theme files up on the wiki, if you're interested, pm me, or poke me on Skype as taikaovtings. Thanks!
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Theme is solidifying and evolving. Looks like it's going to wind up being very 'Fallout' and 'The 100', with some Mad Max and Supernatural thrown in.
The wiki is ugly, but it holds information just fine. (http://descentmux.com/index.php/Main_Page)
And I have the laptop issue solved enough I can start trying to move forward with code installs again.
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Now that I have the laptop problem solved, I have run into another one. I can't seem to get ahold of @sammi, and haven't heard from him in a while.
And I think I'm missing functions or something. I get a handful of 'I don't see that here' or 'huh' messages when I try to copy and install theno code. And I'm at the point where I really need to get it installed
If someone that knows how to get it in feels like throwing a little love my way, I'd be seriously grateful. I can't see what I need, or what I have that I can modify until I know what all the thenocode will include. -
Updates!
Dug a 47 room grid last night. Just need to do some more cross-linking to finish off the preliminary grid, then on to parenting to make it look pretty.
Found a great map of the Manhattan neighborhoods, and modifying it as I go to display how the grid rooms interconnect. They will be color coded to show what sections are 'locked' and which have been 'unlocked' via prps/staffplot.
Which is not meant to a limiter. If someone wants to try and cross to Joisey, then we start adding Joisey grid spaces. If people want to migrate, then we migrate. Building is stupid easy and changing the grid is no big deal.
I learned how to make a flatfile. Downside: I don't know how to do it without turning off the game for a few seconds. But hey! Backups.
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I could use some advice on the grid layout. If people want to pop by and check it out the address is 104.236.218.102 port: 6667
The initial idea is an 'exterior' grid level with a general room that has a loose 'this neighborhood has this in it' type desc. Then you go deeper into the room, and get the detailed room desc. From this second room sprouts the rest of the area. Like a mini-grid off a network of map rooms.
Right now I have things named to make it easy to see on +where how they clump together.
For example:
Hell's Kitchen is the superficial layer on the map. From here you can go to other neighborhood nexii, or go 'into' Hell's Kitchen.
HK - Hell's Kitchen. The first room a layer deeper into the nexus. It has exits to go to businesses, and sometimes smaller subsections, like the Hudson River.
The Hudson River is: HK - Hudson River (hell's kitchen neighborhood - room name).
If you go to the Hudson Park, it displays as:
HK - HR - Hudson Park ( I will not go deeper into layers than this.)
My question is, when in the base Hell's Kitchen grid layer, should I make the HK - Hell's Kitchen exit have green brackets so the 'into the neighborhood' is easier to see? With maybe dark red brackets for the 'this way out to the grid'?
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Quick update:
New build staffer prettied up the front page of the wiki.
Added all the merits from CofD to the wiki - listed with name, prereqs, book name, and page number. Should make data entry for a cgen easier, since all the prereq's are already in one place and listed. Going to work on the V:tR book for merits, next.
Slapped up news/help/snews/shelp info into a few files on game after @Thenomain fixed my screw up with the install of the system. (I swear, if code was like cooking, I'd be the idiot burning water. -_-)
New buildy person has desc'd up all of the starting zone rooms, and I think they're working on adding some side rooms.
Non-measureable progress:
Begun chewing on plots and hooks in my head.
Started working on npc's.
