Best posts made by Bobotron

Cortex Classic? IT has some vehicle scaling things and does al ot of what you want by 'dice ratings'.

@WTFE said:

The point, Alzie, isn't whether we can identify our stalkers or not (for the record I knew we could), it's that we've got a fucking stalking feature but no anti-stalking features.

Seriously, which deranged son-of-a-bitch wrote this software?

People who thought 'oh, hey, I like their posts, I want to see what they post' is a good idea? Which is a common thing on social software anymore.

@Eerie
I love you Eerie and I can only hope that the next game I run turns out so awesome at the start of it.

@Thenomain
I don't disagree. I'm the same way; flaws are there to be played out and being a 100% perfect character all the time is no fun.

As far as agency. Acting out your own agency is fine, but there's got to be a balance/point between acting out your own agency and adhering to the mechanical rules of social conflict. If I'm persuaded to give up a secret password to the Computer System of Doom and I've been appropriately placated and rolled no successes on the conflict, it's not fair of me to 'play my own agency' as being 'well I won't give it to you' because I, the player, don't want to.

That's the problem. People don't want to abide by mechanical enforcement of that.

Coming home from doing something and telling my partner 'Hey, let's go see a movie' and us just going out to go do that thing.

@faceless

I GLADLY TAKE MY SHAME!!!

Music for writing today: https://youtu.be/7rclL_8Jf7w

So, now that the holidays are upon us and I've had a little more writing time, I've been doing some more work.

On mechanics. Because I know people go insane with this type of stuff, the mechanics are really simple, and function in the same manner for both non-combat and combat resolution.

For task resolution....

• Take the attacker/initiator's test pool (for combat, something like Physical + Marksmanship for shooting a gun or Physical + Unarmed for punching a dude/cutting him with the Evisceration power); for non-combat, something like Mental + Investigation) and subtract the defender/target's test pool/difficulty (for combat, something like Physical + Prediction for dodging said gunfire; for non-combat, a flat difficulty rating).
• This creates a Chance of Success (CoS)%. Generally, equivalent stats/difficulty will result in exactly a 50% CoS. As the numbers increase or decrease from equivalency, the percentage goes up or down, to a maximum of 85% and a minimum of 15% (this is with HUGE swinging differences, like someone with an Attribute at 2, the lowest starting stat, and no ranks in a Skill, attacking someone with an Attribute at 7/max and a Skill at 5-6/max., or vice-versa).
  • There are Advantages that change up how some of the attributes combine into the pools (like an Advantage that makes your Ranged attacks and defenses key off of Mental instead of Physical, for example).
• The system rolls the appropriate check and tells you pass/fail. The system ALSO acounts for Advantage (granted by some conditions, basically roll twice and take best), buffs/debuffs, and such things like that. For combat, the system also applies any damage and all calculations based on said buffs/debuffs.

For damage...

• Everyone has an Endurance rating that starts at 100%. As you take damage/get hit, this goes down. It's a combination of actual hits and abstract other factors that render a character out of steam. At 0%, you're out of the fight; generally, this means that you are knocked out/rendered helpless in some manner. You can only be killed when you're at 0% Endurance.
• Damage is calculated based on the rating of the weapon or damage-dealing power (1 to 4), plus the applicable Attribute and Skill (and any power modifiers), and Resistance is based on any worn armor (again, rated 1 to 4), appropriate Attribute, and Willpower Attribute (and any power modifiers). Equivalence means a 15% base damage, with decrease/increase to 5%/25% at the highest/lowest differentials.
  • So a guy Highlander'ing you with a katana (a medium weapon, so 2 damage) would be 2 + Physical + Weaponry (plus any mods) against your leather jacket (a light armor, so 1 Resistance) + Physical + Willpower (plus any mods).
    • As much as I know people love things like called shots and aiming and stuff, I'm not bothering to code stuff like that. I may add it in patches down the road, but not starting out. Some of this will fall under qualities on weapons and powers though.
• Some powers have triggers based on Endurance being at below maximum, such as the Resistance power Pain to Power. Some powers also trigger automatically at 20% Endurance or lower (called Red for short, which will show up in your combat stuff).

For attributes and skills...
This stuff is pretty straightforward. The game features four (4) Attributes, in generalized categories and (at this time) 22 Skills.
The Attributes are...

• Physical: This Attribute measures a vampire’s physical prowess: raw strength, agility and stamina. This Attribute is used to resolve all tasks involving physical actions such as fighting, lifting things and running.
• Mental: This Attribute measures a vampire’s mental acuity: intelligence, reasoning capacity, wits and cunning. This Attribute is used to resolve all tasks concerned with trying to notice something or to puzzle out a clue, or thinking quickly. This Attribute is often used for the invocation of powers that rely on the strength of the mind.
• Social: This Attribute measures a vampire’s social acumen: charisma, attractiveness and presence. This Attribute is used to resolve all tasks concerned with trying to coerce, seduce, convince or con someone into doing something. This Stat is also used for activating powers based on the force of personality or ‘presence’ of the character.
• Willpower: This Attribute measures a vampire’s inner strength: resolve, discipline and self-mastery. Willpower is used to resolve all tasks concerned with resisting intimidation, fear, temptation and mind control, among others.
  • Attributes are assigned starting ratings, which are increased with XP. Maximum Attribute Ratings are (at this time) set at 7. Set one attribute at 4 (above average), two at 3 (human average) and one at 2 (below-average) at creation.

The skills are...

• Academics (learnin'!)
• Athletics (sports and movement)
• Awareness (things going on around you)
• Computers (hacking and building hardware and software)
• Deception (LIES, subterfuge and persuasion)
• Drive (THE TRANSPORTER, The Italian Job, stuff that isn't standard cars and trucks and motorbikes; you get general drive competency, and each rank of drive you pick a Drive Training outside, like jets or helicopters or Flying Nightmare Horses)
• Empathy (reading peoples' moods)
• Evasion (dodge Unarmed and Melee attacks)
• Intimidation (duh)
• Investigation (duh)
• Leadership (duh)
• Marksmanship (guns, bows, Ranged attacks)
• Medicine (general medical knowledge)
• Melee (swords, knives, power-created Melee weapons)
• Occult (knowledge of non-vampire supernatural creatures and general occult knowledge)
• Prediction (represents general knowledge and observation of people who use guns, and predicting where they'll aim and when they'll fire to dodge)
• Security (larceny and thievery and security-related stuff)
• Streetwise (knowing the criminal and underground methodology)
• Survival (wilderness and tracking)
• Unarmed (punches, kicks, claws/bites)
• Arts (singing, dancing, performances), Crafts (working with your hands), and Science (mechanics, chemistry, etc.) are bought as separate skills, each with as as their own skill (so you'd have Arts: Singing or Arts: Piano, Science: Hematology, or Crafts: Painting, for example.
  • Skills are assigned starting ratings, along the lines of Attributes. Set one at 4 (near mastery); set two at 3 (advanced training); set three at 2 (standard training); and set two at 1 (basic training). Skill maximums are normally 5 (mastery), though a couple of Advantages can increase the Skill Maximum to 6 (superhuman) per skill per time taken.

The skills may change, and the percentages and maximums and calculations may change once I'm moved out of alpha testing for the automation. So far though, things have been 'on target' mostly.

On powers...
This is the thing that's taking the most time, rejiggering powers. But it's still going. I've got frameworks and things are easily folding into the automation (whether that me the 'attack' command or just the 'test' command). Pulling resources from all kinds of fun places (WoD, Anne Rice/Vampire Chronicles) has been eye-opening. Due to now making it where all powers 'rank up' from a base level, rather than things being done on a per-rank basis like WoD has made some rejiggering a little more difficult, and a few powers I had that were 'do this thing that doesn't increase in power level' don't work now. Which is fine.

Powers (and how weaponry is written in your combat layout, just because of consistency and need for how keywords trigger in code) are made up of:

• Rank (written as [X], where X is a 1 through 4; the Rank is also the Activation Cost in Vitalis, the blood-equivalent), for powers, the Rank affects the damage a little more weighted than a standard weapon does
• Activation (Instant, which uses your turn when you use the +command; or Reflex, which doesn't)
• Category (Ranged, Physical, Special, Buff, Debuff). Ranged uses the Ranged attack pool and equipped Ranged weapon; will fail if no Ranged weapon equipped. Physical uses the Melee weapon you have equipped or, if you have no Melee weapon equipped, defaults Unarmed. Special is typically used with powers that don't use a standard pool to achieve a non-buff/non-debuff effect, like the example Mentalism and Intensity powers below. Buff causes it to appear in your (or your target's) Bonuses list; Debuff (if successful) causes it to appear in your target's Penalties list.
• Any effects (target limits, such as things that can only affect yourself, are also listed here)
  The are used in the character sheet as keywords/shorthand. When written up in the newsfiles, it'll have a descriptor of what it does. The keywords are used as shorthand and code triggers, but once you get used to the system the shorthand becomes really easy to translate.

Here are a few of the rejiggered powers, just as a teaser to whet your appetite:

• Pain to Power (Resilience): [X], Instant, Physical, Revenge
  • The vampire uses the vitalis in her body to channel her pain into her muscles, granting a boost in strength based on the pain she is suffering. When activated, Pain to Power makes a normal Physical attack, with bonus damage based off of a percentage of the END loss the user is currently suffering, calculated based off of Pain to Power's Rank. This damage is applied before any damage reduction.
• Flesh of Marble (Resilience): [X], Instant, Buff, Reflect
  • The vampire surges vitalis into her flesh; when she is struck, this vitalis hardens the skin for an instant, the attacker being treated to the sensation that they were striking a brick wall or some other hard surface, causing harmful reverb to them. When activated, Flesh of Marble grants the Reflect effect. (Reflect: When struck by a Physical attack that successfully deals damage, the attacker takes rebound damage equivalent to half of their inflicted damage, plus [X]%, where X is the Rank of Flesh of Marble. This damage is not reduced in any way. IE: A character struck for 12% damage, with Flesh of Marble [2], does 8% damage back to their attacker.)
• Psychic Assault (Mentalism): [X], Instant, Special, Ignore
  • Reaching out with their psychic powers, the vampire uses their telepathic powers to reach into the mind of their enemy, assailing them with a barrage of mental energy, causing them pain that resonates from mind to body. Psychic Assault uses the standard Mentalism test pool (Mental + Awareness) versus the target's Mental + Willpower, ignoring any physical armor. (Ignore: The attack disregards any armor the target is equipped with.)
• Shockwave (Intensity): [X], Instant, Special, Burst Stagger
  • The vampire's strength is brought to bear at range when utilizing this power, channeled however the vampire chooses, be it a thunderous clap of their hands that acts like an air cannon or a stomp sending the shockwave through the ground that explodes under her targets. Shockwave uses the vampire's standard Unarmed attack pool versus the target's Ranged defense (Physical + Prediction), can target up to three (3) targets, and may disorient the target. (Burst: The attack can target up to 3 targets. Stagger: Reduces the target's evasion by <undetermined formula>).
• Crimson Might (Intensity): [X], Reflex, Buff, Self Empower
  • The vampire uses the vitalis that animates her to increase her strength, flowing extra life force into her limbs to increase her power temporarily. When used, Crimson Might grants the Empower condition to the user. (Empower: The target of Empower gains a bonus to their Physical Attribute).

WHEW! I'm writing, got a bug up my butt. QUESTIONS AND COMMENTS WELCOME!

The Crow?
Underworld? Probably too WoD.
Grimm?
Once Upon A Time?
Titan AE?
RailDex?

So I was going to write up my city from the Masquerade MUSH that didn't pan out for Storyteller's Vault.

Only to find out that they do not allow fictional cities to be written/sold for Storyteller's Vault. And that it came up during a facebook discussion but hasn't been added to the guidelines yet.

How fucking asinine.

Plus I can't even find the original discussion where they talk about it to see the why of it.

@lithium
I love Don't Starve Together. I die a lot, but I have fun.

@surreality

I would also venture that some of the focus and methodology of Lost 2e has changed enough that it may not even make for the same interest in the game for some folks too.

Has anyone else here read Marvel Heroic from Margaret Weiss Productions? There are things you could totally mine from tat, since it uses a variant of the Cortex System.

I printed one of the character stat sheets to a PDF, located here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/5ugmtzt9mra45ss/MHR - Cyclops.pdf?dl=0

You could adapt something like that, since it's already using descriptive traits. It does two things, I find, really well...

• Plot Points: These are gained from you, as a player, doing something to gimp yourself. Cyclops' example shuts down his optic blast (typically by his visor getting yanked), and he gains a PP. Or you can roll your distinctions (which are descriptives for yourself) as a d4 (this giving you less of a chance at success) for a PP. You could, theoretically, limit how many PP someone can have at a given time.

Otherwise, the system is pretty simple: make a die pool of trait/distinction/powers/etc. and roll, and the DM has what's called the Doom Pool, which is dice representing the enemies/environment.

Remove the 'making stuff on the fly to affect the scene' aspect of it, and you have a pretty solid way to mechanize the traits system

@arkandel
OPP will still push the book out, the Kickstarter itself is for deluxe editions and any stetch/additional stuff. 50k is for things like deluxe art, hardcover, gloss paper and junk.

@ganymede

The schizotech is about the only thing that has interested me in that. But I was raised on Phantasy Star-levels of schizotech.

God and Monsters...

But not the Gods and Monsters with Zod-Superman, VampireBatman and Apokalyptian Wonder Woman.

That made me sad. I was almost hopeful for a superhero MU* there.

@fatefan
I'd have to dig; I got a copy of it because I'm a system whore and I like to have interesting systems to tinker with. I don't think they ever released a point-buy chargen, though ostensibly, since it uses a version of Cortex, you could use the point buy from Cortex Classic from things like BSG and Cortex Classic Core.

ETA: The only thing you'd have is, perhaps, a big power disparity between some characters and others. Cyclops has one power, for example. Colossus has three or four.

Spending time with the partner doing mundane things, like shopping.
And going back to look for pants that fit and finding out that, not only are they on a good clearance for like $15, but there's also an extra 33% off sale, and getting to refill the wardrobe for much cheaper than you expected.

@ghost
If you want expanded GGO stuff, there's a side-story manga that tells about another player of GGO, with some appearances by the 'main cast'. And the fourth and final arc, Alicization is getting an anime adaptation, out sometime this year.

Writing Music of the Moment: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UmQm76wFfKk

More backstory is done. In writing the backstory, I realized that half of the vampires are descended from a guy who has issues with ennui/sadness, and the other half from a woman with rage issues. I'm pondering turning that into some type of mechanic ala a Humanity-esque system.

Genitors (House Founders) are done, a couple of interludes in their history are written. Overall, informative... but not WALL OF FLUFF TEXT type deal. Just have to format it and dump it into wikiness.

Testing a couple of mechanics for viability (Lure, which is typically on Compulsion and Magnetism powers and, when used on a target, 'draws' their attack to you via overwriting the attack input, I'm having slight difficulty making this work with AoE attacks though; Exploit, which grants a bonus to END loss when used on someone who is suffering from a debuff, typically the purview of Aesthesia/enhanced senses; and critical hit/critical evasion mechanics for the autocombat)

We're chugging along! Anyone got any questions?

@thenomain
This is essentially the advise that MHR core gives you (in addition to saying, the scenarios as written are meant for the heroes statted out in the books). There are tons of extra heroes, both Marvel and DC, statted out by fans on rpg.net as well.