Posts made by Bobotron

Hrm. My advice is super-anecdotal and comes from the Transformers/etc. circuit, but...

• Don't be afraid to steal your players' ideas and run with them, especially if you can get the player to collaborate on helping out.
• Don't be afraid to let people, and even arrange for, people to have the spotlight. Just spread the love.
• Don't be afraid to have fun. We make games to have fun. People forget this. Play your characters. DO THE THING. This whole 'ZOMG YOU CAN'T DO ANYTHING COOL YOU'RE STAFF IT'S SO UNFAIR' is only unfair if the love is not spread around.
• Be willing to put your foot down. People may whine and scream and bitch, but it's your game and they need to abide by your rules.

Gamers.
Gamers make me angry this week.
I need more booze before I can handle this shit.

@Arkandel
This is entirely a culture thing too, I think. The Transformers/M3/etc. circuit, we never had social stats. We never had a problem, but these were also not non-consensual death games, and speaking from experience, it wasn't until a few years ago that I ran into 'I CANNOT BE INTIMIDATED!' 'I CANNOT BE DESECRETED!' and such. You can't make social combat work without changing the culture, and for that you need to be willing to kick people in the teeth if they are asshats and not abiding by policy.

EDIT TO ADD: One thing that popped into my head since I'm basing my Social Combat idea of the ASoIaF system. Instead of disposition towards the person, perhaps the 'defense' is based on disposition towards the idea? In SIF social combat, your disposition towards that person factors into your social defense. Instead of basing it on just how well you like the person, you set your social defense based on the idea that they posit in the beginning, and much like I'm planning on Offensive/Balanced/Defensive combat stances, you can change your disposition on the fly, as well as one of the options for the 'social attacker' being Change Disposiiton (and yes, they can fuck that up and damage their OWN social HP).

@AlexRaymond

That stuff works. No MU* should be expected, and no MU* can ever support, having EVERY PLAYER involved in EVERY PLOT.

We had an entire world grid mapped at various Transformers and Megaman MU*s, and different things worked for different characters. People find out about Ming's invasion via spies. The people on the ground and closest to the launch sites get to go all Rogue One on it; the assassins? Intelligency types get to shine.

Build your plots to cater around, not just 'HERE'S A PLOT EVERYONE HAVE AT IT'. It's unrealistic and, in honesty, at least to me, not fun. If I'm a fighty guy, I'm not going to go be the head of an intelligence gathering or building something plot. If I have no raygun skills, I'm not going to grab a raygun and go to the front lines. You just have to have an understanding that, not all plots are made for all characters. I would HOPE that players on MU*s would think the same thing, but...

@Lithium
There's tons of in-universe things, and various powers. Hell, right now, Tienshinhan and Master Roshi are going to fight in a tournament for the sake of the entire universe against other universes, with people who can give God-level Super Saiyan Goku a run for their money, and people like Krillin and them are keeping up at a decent pace. Cybernetics are a thing. Magic is a thing. I'm sure, with it being a pastiche of Journey to the West, magic peaches of Super Superness could be a thing. It's a very open world for options.

@AlexRaymond
Don't do multiple planets.

@surreality
Honestly, rape is already on the 'do not do it, do not use it for story purposes' list. I had already planned on having 'make you fuck me' on the 'cannot accomplish by social combat' list. If they want to typefuck you, they can do it, and if you want to build a social conflict around that to get something else other than your rocks off, by all means do so; or if they're up for the idea of being seduced into typefucking, go for it. If they don't want to typefuck you due to any reason (married, wrong orientation, no junk to use), then don't push the fucking issue, that cannot be done via mundane means. To me, 'complete personality change' is not within the realm of social combat anyway, since it's influencing mundanely, so I personally wouldn't list that. One thing I'm doing is having the 'start' of social conflict be declaration of intent. IE: I want you to back me to be uplifted to Patrician. is James' intent against Gladys. Gladys' isn't sold on it; she has history with James being a badmouther, and so she needs convincing, and they go to Social Combat.

ETA: Talking about damage in stages, that's what the Social HP is for; and there's always the Compromise option, where you give up a partial of what the 'attacker' wants to be able to disengage from the intrigue (IE: James hasn't completely convinced Gladys about him being a fit to be a patrician. Gladys' rolls aren't going super well, and she knows she's not going to get a giant favor out of it, if any favor at all if her dice don't give her some love. In this instance, with very few Social HP left, Gladys chooses to Compromise, backing it in exchange for a Trifling Favor and a Lesser Favor, though she'd been hoping to get a Greater Favor out of the deal. James agrees, with the stipulation that he'll make it two Lesser Favors if Gladys doesn't talk about their discourse here. She'll take that deal, she's a smart lady).

@Warma-Sheen

Perhaps one thing that needs to be said, in regards to social combat, is... guidelines? Like, if you're going to do social combat on a MUSH that involves CvC, you need to outline the guidelines so that everyone is on the same page, and if someone's being an asshat about it, you can reference them. Like, I'm developing something that's a simplified version of the ASoIaF social combat. I'm planning on some guidelines, like examples. Like...

Here are things that Social Combat can be used for:

• Improve their Disposition towards you
• Wheedling information, including secrets, out of someone
• Manipulating their information by supplying believable falsehood
• A favor or other service

Things that Social Combat can not do:

• Make anybody sexually into anybody that isn't of their chosen compatibility
• Other things i haven't come up with because I'm worn out

Additionally, having something that marks down exactly WHAT the outcome of the combat is, like damage is recorded, might be useful. Like, upon losing, the loser uses a +command that does the thing, and that sets a note on them (IE: +concede james=I will back his play for being named patrician.) I dunno, I'm just spitballing here.

The 100 season 4 finale.
OH SHIT SON.

Oso gonplei nou ste odon.

I'm going to keep an eye on this, if mostly for the development of the system. I am very much in the mindset that you are, there's no 'one system fits all' and, especially on a MUSH, development needs to be done for what you're doing. I look forward to seeing what is going on.

The obvious question, I guess, first...

Is this going to be a sandbox multisphere game, or is this 'starting metaplot' going to be something you're going to push/continue to develop as staff? What's going to be different about this game to draw people in to help you with it other than ALMOST ALL THE THINGS?

@Ganymede
I would throw money at that, Clayface is my favorite villain. A noir-ish Batman movie with the Matt Hagan actor Clayface would be beautiful.

@Ganymede
PennMUSH's mailer is hardcoded in. It's just designed differently from MUX's mailer.

There are tons of softcoded mailers on mushcode.com though.

@Thenomain
Mostly just notating that death can come a lot more easily in this than it seems to in standard VtM. At least, based on my experience with multiple attackers vs. a vampire in TT.

@Thenomain
The guy took on a whole squad of 9 guys armed with assault rifles. He died. So it models failure of one vs. many real well.

A lot of people stated they felt the characters were competent and people seemed to have fun. People didn't think the hunger mechanic was difficult in play.

@Seamus
I needed that giggle. THank you.

@Thenomain
The people who've posted about them seemed pleased with what the starting characters could do. Though the one guy did get murdered by tons of gunfire, so...

@Bobotron
And more on combat.

It was one roll, and combatants damaged each other. Armour helped to reduce damage, No soak, no dodge, no damage roll. Damage was based on attack roll and weapon used. It was made clear that we were to expect much more development, but that this simplicity would remain a key focus. One roll whenever possible is a key design goal.

And a very bad picture of the charsheet. Apparently their pre-alpha has relentlessly mined from NWoD as they were using Virtue/Vice.

More general info (sorry @Thenomain no mage info yet) from they keynote speech

• Wants to build as the 'biggest transmedia brand', with a consistent story and aspects across aspects of media
• Wants it to be a participatory entertainment
• MET Changeling the Dreaming re-interated
• They have partners in place for the WoD TV series, with a target of 2020
• Talked about being at Gencon and PDX with previews/playtests of V5 (obviously starting next year)
• No specific time for V5 playtest rules, just 'soon'
• worldofdarkness.com will become a community portal for all methods of the game, but will start with LARP focus (something that was previewed separately was a LARP game tracker with character creation, which is part of this)
• Storytellers Vault will be the first user-created content section, starting with Masquerade. It'll have spots to publish fiction, supplements, etc. along with templates for use so that fan material looks like book material
• Storyteller Vault will have sections for non-English language submissions
• Apparently this is not just a 'fan share' site as well; they mentioned that you keep half of the revenue, so it looks like it'll actually be for full-on publishing of things via WW.
• Talked about the game finder aspects, and clear labeling of content/expectations in those games
• Talked about an Augmented Reality aspect of the WoD, with an 'in world' website and newsticker
• Same setting bible will be used for every piece of transmedia, which will be reflected in the material in the V5 core and the two initial setting books, Camarilla and Anarch
• Some photos are labeled Elysium and Street; it's a dichotomy between something you'd see on a runway catwalk or in a period piece production vs. modern, yet fashionable clothes.
• Reiteration of the Gehenna stuff we already had. A bit more about the Second Inquisition, in that the vampires' own attempts to use the ABC agencies of government for their own ends is what revealed them and brought about the issue.

Also, more about Disciplines and Hunger.

On Disciplines...
Yes, disciplines are totally still a thing.
Including different level of disciplines.
Like for example you still got dominate with command, hypnosis and mesmerize. Which each got their description of what they do. Every application of your discipline, whether it is dominate or celerity, does rouse your blood a bit and thus is likely to increase your hunger after the scene concluded.

In regards of celerity the description of the various levels did change somewhat.
Like you don't get a +1 extra action anymore but like (significant) imitative boosts and stuff on the line of that.

Various clans do as well get various disciplines to start with.
Like I believe none of the Ventrue got e.g. Auspex.

If you obtain a discipline by feeding (my Ventrue got a dot of celerity after taking from a young guy on speed or similar) the effect will fade after an application. You can only have one feeding effect available at a time. Like if I got the celerity blood lingering, eating from the presence DJ wouldn't help the character on top.

I wonder if the guy is mixing up what was prior stated about, say, +1 stealth from a homeless dude.

On Hunger...
As a note if you manage to rouse blood to five before the scene concludes you will roll for hunger before the scenes end.
Like discipline happy Brujah rouses his blood by,...
throwing Presence 1, throwing Presence 2, pushing 3 attributes
-> immediate roll
The same scene, the fight begings,..
throwing Potence 1, throwing Celerity 1, pushing 2 attributes, throwing celerity 2
-> immediate roll
Healing 3 health levels after the fight
-> the scene concludes and the three rousal dice will be checked whether or not they increase hunger

So you check for hunger (which increases the hunger dice) essentially every 5 times you rouse/spend blood. Not a terrible mechanic and could be easily automated.

@Catsmeow
+100000 internets for you!

They are adorbs though. I was thinking about making onigiri with pickled plums in it sometime, these are cute enough to make. These or pandas.