@thenomain I didn't know I wanted this in my life, but now I feel I need it.
Best posts made by Arkandel
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RE: Good TV
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RE: A Game of Thrones MUX Discussion
@zombiegenesis said in A Game of Thrones MUX Discussion:
- Custom houses. I think this would be one of the biggest draws to a game, getting a few people together and creating your own house. The RPG has fantastic rules for this. Would people actually use such a system?
I think only having custom Houses would be counterproductive. People coming to a GoT game probably want to play a Stark or a Lannister - the characters may be different (and it's probably a good idea) but the rest of the setup is what makes Westeros tick. It's what makes Game of Thrones different than a generic L&L game, IMHO.
If you wanted to add some as well to the mix, well, I don't think anyone will mind.
- Setting. The game needs to be political, sure, but it could be Big Political or Little Political. By Big Political I mean setting it in some place like King's Landing and allowing all types of characters from all over Westeros and beyond. By Little Political I mean setting it in one specific location (Casterly Rock, say) and focus on the politics of that region. This would obviously have an impact on what custom houses were available.
I absolutely, 100% urge you to base it on a central location. You do not want your playerbase split up between a bunch of places it takes days/weeks to travel between; barring PrPs your players should never have to see a scene taking place somewhere on your grid and be unable to join because their characters are in King's Landing while it's taking place at the Wall.
Does that mean you might lose out on some opportunities for cool settings (outside of plots)? It absolutely does.
- Ready-made characters. Would having a +roster filled with characters that players could just do a small app for be worth investing time in? It seems to work on other places but I don't play on those places so I'm unsure.
Rosters seem to have worked well in other games, I don't see why they wouldn't here.
- Sticking to canon. This is something I don't really care much about. I figure we start the game and not worry about if what we do would prevent the game from eventually leading into the books or whatever. Do what we want and have fun telling our story, not worry about the story that GRR Martin will eventually tell. Would this be a deal breaker for fans of the theme?
I don't think it's a deal breaker as long as you document it well and simply. Westeros has had several upheavals, but as long as you offer fan favorite options their current circumstances shouldn't be too relevant; placing it a couple of hundred years in the past compared to the books/show is probably a good idea though.
I was just curious what, if anything, people might be looking for that may be missing from current games in the L&L/GoT niche. Thanks.
The trick here is doing something better than other games. If you rely on GoT to be that difference it won't be a great game, IMHO; if you use the setting to enhance and draw players - you'll need more than a few to make a political environment work - then it could be great.
What this absolutely depends on is your answer to this question - how ambitious are you with this project?
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RE: A Game of Thrones MUX Discussion
@zombiegenesis said in A Game of Thrones MUX Discussion:
I don't wanna be rude but could we please take the copyright questions to another thread?
Guys, please respect the OP's request. Make a different thread for the copyright stuff.
Thank you.
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RE: Book Recommendations
@deadculture said in Book Recommendations:
Song for Arbonne
Tigana and the ending to The Lions of Al-Rassan broke me. Guy Gavriel Kay is one of those authors who really knows how to get under your skin and make you care... then the motherfucker does something horrible to these fictional characters and I can't even.
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RE: Travel Times - Enforced?
@apos said in Travel Times - Enforced?:
In my experience, I think the hardcore purists who really want a very narrow scope of something are the minority. Most people even if they have an appeal of 'Oh I like more realism for my immersion' or 'I like more handwaving so it doesn't get in the way of RP' are okay as long as there's a general nod in their direction and are willing to compromise a little, so compromise systems I think do pretty well.
I don't know. I mean it's a game and I'm typically very accommodating when it comes to handwaving all kinds of stuff... but sometimes geography is part of the setting, too.
Take a Game of Thrones MUSH. The fact the Wall is out there on the edge of the map is just a major thematic element; characters bouncing between it and King's Landing on the regular wouldn't just break immersion for me, it would have a ripple effect. One occasional report via raven about some kinda weird-ass zombies could be construed as a ploy trying to get more troops or a Stark thing or whatever, but how long can you plausibly deal with people who've taken the Black walking around telling you their personal horror stories from the day before without everyone's characters going 'okay, uh, maybe there's a grain of truth here?'.
In other words geographical separation - or even isolation - in fantasy settings is often too big a factor to just discard... at least for me, others' mileage may vary. Without that regional fragmentation it's arguable events would (should) simply play out differently.
Maybe I'm overthinking it, dunno.
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RE: Book Recommendations
@deadculture You know what's funny, kinda? After a while in this hobby when I read a book I really like there's always a moment when I go "hey, maybe a MUSH about this would be cool..."
That's never happened with Kay's novels. I love them but I don't think the settings are anything that would work for a game because they are only engaging because of the specific situations and the particularly intriguing characters and relationships between them he's woven. Take those away and most of his worlds... well, they are just worlds. Kinda okay, fun even, but you'd be hard pressed to make something else out of them.
The guy just knows how to create, well, people using words.
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RE: Game Restarts
@wildbaboons said in Game Restarts:
@arkandel Nostalgia certainly would play a part too.. but also people that would rather focus their time with the effort of running a game in stead of spending months trying to get a game to run.
The most time consuming part of any game is the code - that's what actually can actually take months depending on how much you want to customize... and there is no need to bring an existing game back verbatim in order to reuse its code. A game-runner can run a completely different nWoD Vampire+Werewolf game reusing another's setup with the exact same code, as long as they come up with a new theme and populate the wiki with it.
If they don't because it's too much work then I personally wouldn't play there. That's the fun part, the portion of the exercise that stretches their creative muscles and shows me as a potential player where the heart of their theme is; skimping on it doesn't simply tell me they are lazy, which from a certain point of view I wish more staff were, it informs me they are uncreative, which is a fatal condition since it will infect the playerbase immediately.
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RE: Book Recommendations
Anyone else thing the Dunk and Egg series by George R.R. Martin is actually better than A Song of Ice and Fire? Somehow he's managed to put just as much complexity, grey areas and mysticism in there but it's just... easy to miss.
The overall plot surfaces powerfully but sporadically, major pieces like the Three-Eyed Raven are set up for the future, but at its heart the series is about a young idealistic hedge knight and his squire adventuring in Westeros. Really great stuff.
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RE: Wheel of Time MU(SH|X)
@yyrqun I envy you. The first four (arguably 5-6) books kicked ass, and I'd love to read them for the first time again.
But it did jump the shark afterwards.
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RE: Book Recommendations
@faceless I have a great one for you. Written by Pierce Brown, check out the Red Rising trilogy.
Set in the future, humanity is colonizing the solar system and in the process trying to mirror the golden days of Rome while viciously oppressing the population of entire planets to exploit them as cheap labor for their conquests. It's really engaging, the characters are great, the plot is full of twists and turns and if you're into that sort of thing I loved the strategic/tactical aspects of its warfare.
The first novel in particular is an offspring between Ender's Game and Hunger Games, but better than either.
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RE: Wheel of Time MU(SH|X)
Here are some things I consider essential to a WoT game. By its nature, the list is of course subjective.
- The channeling system; it's the coolest thing about the setting, after all.
- Politics. It's a big part of the original books - the Dragon Reborn took like ten books to get all these nations to work together even in the face of their own complete annihilation.
- Non-channeling niches. The second coolest part about the books are the fighting systems - the Flame and the Void, Warders and Far Dareis Mai, archers and sword-breakers, all that stuff.
- Prophecies. It's a Wheel of Time because things keep happening and cryptic things are destined to occur again, but no one quite knows how until after they do. I think a strong metaplot should be a given.
- Bad guys. We had some kickass ones introduced in the books both in terms of characters (the Forsaken were an amazing touch) but also the Black Ajah, darkfriends not knowing each others' identities, constant paranoia about who is one, etc.
I think if a game can retain and use these factors it will succeed, but I'll add one more that's MU* specific:
- Retaining as many book elements as possible. Sure, a game could go off script completely ("we'll place this in the Second Age, all the Houses are different, the Ajahs are different, there are no Warders, the Aiel are still getting formed...") and maybe it'd be super cool, but then you lose the instant access a book reader has to this stuff. You lose playable archetypes that got players wanting to play there in the first place.
I'd personally either place a MU's timeline in the period of the books or basically right afterwards while the dust has yet to settle.
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RE: RL things I love
@auspice said in RL things I love:
Maybe we need an 'amusing RL shit' thread.
Well, if we're doing that... this is my public transportation story.
It was the summer between my first and second year in college as a computer science student, and I was on a train carrying a Visual C++ book I had just bought. It was one of those behemoth, thick as hell books so since I was bored during the ride anyway I was kinda flipping through it when I caught the old guy sitting across from my seat staring at me.
So I pretend I didn't notice but of course he continues to stare... and finally a couple of minutes later he just tells me this, which I haven't forgotten all these years later:
"Are you going to use what's in that book to help or to harm humanity?"
Dude.
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RE: Wheel of Time MU(SH|X)
@three-eyed-crow There is no way - simply no way - you can get around the fact a channeler is more powerful than a non-channeler. I spent many hours back in the day trying to design a system that reconciles the two and the only plausible way is to force PCs to be much weaker than the (admittedly top notch, strongest-in-the-world) book characters we know about.
Otherwise a channeler can blow up a house with his damn mind. It's kinda hard to explain why a guy with a sword is as powerful in a white room situation.
I completely agree though that limiting numbers of popular archetypes is a great way to piss off your players. If they want to play Aes Sedai let them; in fact, and to be honest here, the combination of romantically involved AS+Warder couples were such a strong trope it's practically guaranteed to generate player interest.
One thing that should be done though IMHO is make sure people have to make the choice of whether to improve in channeling or in their fighting skills. Yes, Rand had a heron-marked blade. No, Joe Asha'man shouldn't be just as good as an Aiel in melee combat and be able to bust out them rolling rings of earth and fire; force them to pick what they're good at, or to be average in both.
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RE: RL things I love
I haven't seen a thread about this already, so... the Incel subreddit was banned.
Apparently the final drop in the bucket was a discussion where when a member complained his roommate had a girlfriend, others chipped in with detailed instructions about how to castrate him.
Lovely people, really. Totally well adjusted.
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RE: Wheel of Time MU(SH|X)
@seraphim73 said in Wheel of Time MU(SH|X):
Well, PCs aren't the average person. In most Star Wars games (except WEG D6 with experienced characters), Force Users aren't that much more powerful than other PCs.
True, but the IC power gap between Force-trained characters and other combatants is much smaller than that of channelers and non-channelers in the WoT. If you go by the books, just the ability to wrap an enemy in air is too much - you can't beat that. In Star Wars you have all kinds of chemicals and high-tech weaponry to bridge the gap.
@Arkandel I actually think that limiting male channelers is GOOD for the game, as mentioned above, because it helps keep some semblance of balance between channelers and non-channelers where fighting is involved.
I'm just not a fan of limiting special playable concepts. I'd rather not have them at all than restrict them - because who ends up with them? It creates a big ugly divide, generates drama and appearance of favoritism that I've never seen work out for MU*, you know?.
But yes, if you set the game pre-books, you either have to completely divorce your game from the timeline (which is fine, in my opinion) or accept that the Aiel aren't going to get involved (unless it's the Aiel War) and there won't be Asha'man. That's why I still think that the best course is either a) somewhere Saldaea/Arad Doman way during the book period, or b) Whitecloak War/Aiel War period.
If I had to pick one I'd go with the former option. Not having Aiel around (let alone Asha'man) would deprive the game from too many great options.
@yyrqun said in Wheel of Time MU(SH|X):
A couple hundred years after Hawkwing at least would be enough for all the cultures in the books to be in place. The After the Breaking years/Free Years are interesting, but might not be that familiar for a main setting.
Yeah, that's my concern. You don't want to alienate the book lovers, you want to grab their attention - in my experience deviating too far just turns the game into a playable fanfic that doesn't resemble what your players are looking for in the first place.
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RE: RL things I love
@thebird said:
Edit: Also, the new Mad Max movie? I want to go spend my entire pay check seeing that absolutely ridiculous film. Love it.
I haven't seen it but it sounds like a very much love-it-or-hate-it film. Some people on my FB feed were in the latter camp, some reviewers really dig it.
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RE: Wheel of Time MU(SH|X)
@bobgoblin Nostalgia and fandom are both strong motivators, but that's all they are - a reason to walk through the door.
I will bet you any amount of internet dollars that unless the game itself is actually done well, despite of its setting, it will fare no better or worse than anything else.
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RE: RL things I love
@auspice Fucking people in climates they can wear sleeveless anything in mid November. I hate you so much.
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RE: Interest Check: Ancient Greek RP
@zombiegenesis The usual disclaimer ("don't base it on real history or you'll get purists complaining") seems to be covered by the base premise.
A game based on ancient Greek heroes would be interesting because essentially those were the prototype superheroes. Herakles, Perseus, etc had abilities far beyond that of common people, with their heritage being basically the same plot device to grant them as say, a radioactive spiders in modern day comic books.
So you could capitalize on that with an extra hint of drama for extra effect.
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The Gods are cruel and petty, and champions are trying to defend the mortal realm from their games.
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There's a war among the Gods with the mortal world in the crossfire.
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There's a mortal war about to break (think Troy, or Persials versus the Greeks) with different Gods on each side of the conflict.
and so on. You could spin a legitimate L&L take on it using families instead of medieval Houses, but it'd need to be and feel different than traditional takes as well.
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