Posts made by Bad at Lurking

If you go with Hero or M&M, please build some generic template characters and just let the prospective players fill in the special effects/themes. Because honestly, sitting down for 5-10 hours to do math is kind of a day job and not a fun thing for a lot of players.

I can't speak for anybody else, but the more a MU* insists on difficulty and delay in getting on the grid, the less likely I am to invest that effort when most games just prove themselves to be a waste of that effort after a few hours playing.

Icons and the dX system used in Silver Age Sentinels and The Authority come closest to that for me. I understand M&M has a lot of fans, but it is hobbled by the d20 heritage that honestly seems far too complex for a superhero game to me.

Though to be fair, the former does borrow a lot of concepts from Fate, which makes it less than ideal for MUs. As much as Aspects and such should be great for online play, they depend on a cooperative spirit among players. And good luck with that when running an open game.

@arkandel said in Wheel of Time mechanics:

Yes, that'd be great. But (and this isn't WoT-specific), what makes it worth it for them? What can they do, in practical terms?

Crafting is easier in a way - they can make cool swords and staves. Trading requires an economy, and we haven't discussed that at all, but I'd very much like to. Finally... lore.. I don't have anything here. What's going to come in as handy as the stuff we've been discussing already?

For trading, one option that might work is to tie building and equipment into a resource system. I've never played Arx, but I understand they do that and it's a great idea for a long-term game and giving players long-term goals. If you want to play Daes Dae'mar, you have to build up a warchest to bribe, gift and impress all the right people.

For lore masters, there are so many examples in the books of Rand and company going after a goal because one of his sages or scholars mentioned it. In game terms, sages might earn 'plot points' of some kind, which they can turn in for long-lasting game effects arising from staff or player run plots. And they can assign the benefits of those points to others.

Want your character to discover the lost Heron-Mark Back-Scratcher of the Lost Sedai? She better be as invested in lore as she is in the One Power. Or make very good friends with somebody who is.

Essentially, it would promote creating an RP partnership. Tomb Raider style lore masters and their Aes Sedai and Warder patrons going on wacky adventures, etc. Especially if you put a cap of one or two on the number of uncommon/unique Ter/Sa'/Angreals a given character may possess.

Basically my philosophy on MU*s these days is that it's all about cultivating RP circles and things that give you narrative reasons to do that are usually good.

One thing that I think might help with character diversity, if you ever get the point of having a population that sustains it, is making crafting, trading and lore specialties as demanding as the One Power or earning a Blademaster reputation.

It would be interesting to see these very powerful characters who basically have to build up their networks of merchants and tradespeople if they want to be able to maintain a Great House or build (and sustain) an army. Or have to consult scholars to get clues as to where McGuffin X might be, etc.

If all those specialties come out of the same base pool of points and count against some theoretical maximum, (which may be absolute or slowly lifted over time), you have characters who have to make meaningful trade-offs. Sure, it's great to be best in breed at something, but if that's ALL you are, you need a support network.

And it allows for characters like Veren and Cadsuane and some of the Sea Folk merchant captains, or how the Mayene use trade and diplomacy (in part) to keep from being eaten entirely by their larger, powerful neighbors.

I'd kill for a station-based Star Trek mu. I've had this character idea for a sleazy El-Aurian used shuttlecraft dealer for years.

And there is nothing to say that big villains can't arise in the 4th Age.

Slap some homages to The Black Company in there and come up with some new Forsaken-lite types who draw their power from a tainted Ter'angreal or skipped over from a mirror world or something.

@calindra said in Interest Check: Ancient Greek RP:

@Lithium No, no. I want to PLAY IN EGYPT.

Am I reading it right that there is a kind of Highlander undertone where people with shards of divine power can go around stabbing one another to death to gain even more power?

@sg If I could figure out how to make a space horror game sustainable, I'd go for it in a heartbeat. Unfortunately, I think horror is probably the most elusive of themes to sustain in a MU* environment.

So I have my Digital Ocean droplet and I 99% sure that I want to go with Ares and FS3 for my first mush because it just seems like it would take less effort than any other option and I'll have enough learning to do, already.

My strongest inclination for that rules set is to run a sci-fi game set on a distant colony world with little or no outside contact. I'm thinking kind of Pitch Black or Aliens feel to things. Survival, group politics, alien threats and exploration. Not to mention a good way to introduce new characters at will as more colonists (willing or not) are decanted from cold storage at the whims of an AI that doesn't listen or answer to the humans.

I could really easily tie this into the Aliens/Prometheus universe, but it would probably lack most of the things people associate with that universe. Space Marines, sure, but probably not Xenomorphs, because those seem (based on the movies) to be an unstoppable and escalating threat and having them would foster a bunker mentality I don't want people to have.

A little twisting around of the background could even make this work for anything from Stargate to Babylon 5 to just about any sci-fi property that dealt with space travel and alien worlds.

But should I? Obviously, slapping an 'Aliens' or 'Predator' or 'Stargate' in the title and the set dressing would generate more initial interest, but as a player, would you feel robbed if your character was in that universe but grounded one one planet and facing threats other the main adversaries in those franchises most of the time?

Reading that makes me foolishly optimistic about learning Python and being able to self-sufficiently run a game. So well done there!