Posts made by Bobotron

@Melpomene
Can people just @create object as 'my house' and go from there until their build project is taken care of?

@icanbeyourmuse
Wolfies?

Also, all this talk of Eldritch reminds me I need to finish up Hikaru's stuff for the impending supernatural opening (or if they've already opened, I have been super busy with convention stuff the past 2 weeks)

@tragedyjones
Don't go to any forum to discuss Beast. The PDF got leaked and, while stuff is changing, people are screaming SJW MRA WHY CAN'T I PLAY HEROES BEASTS SUCK I CAN'T BE A DRAGON.

It's as bad as D&D edition wars.

@Bennie
I think you're mixing genres here. The game that was originally posited in the thread is Apocalypse, WtA20.

Not that your idea isn't an interesting one itself, but it isn't lining up exactly with what @Arkandel posited (though shamelessly ripping ideas is totally good).

@purldator
More or less. Have the lead-up plot be the lead into Anthelios appearing, Rorg's attempt to destroy the Wyrm (and by physical association, Gaia), and the Triat's release, and the overarching plotlines leading into the prevention of such.

@purldator
Honestly, with me only having ever read the Apocalypse end of the world book (and only then because a friend was begging me to play in a WtA game that never materialized; we did Ascension instead), the only thing I know of multiple packs coming together is near the end of the world.

You could feasibly (it's what I'm aiming for with TheatreMUSH and Masquerade) run a game that pushes towards the end of the world with a finite lifespan and play up that angle to give people the opportunity and impetus of cooperation.

I think the concept of 'multiple cities/settings' can work, but the problem you're going to run into is critical mass, and reasons for Pack A to help Pack B; I have no idea how much cross-pack assistance and posturing and stuff like that happens in Apocalypse. But you'll have to rely on cross-pack assistance and play in order to have the potential stuff going on all over the place.

The TF and Megaman MU*s I come from do this, but it works because there's always a way to transport around easily (teleporters, flying, whatever) and there's always reason for Group A to assist other people from Group A against Group B. That's where you're going to have to figure out what to do and what you want to push, otherwise RP might focus on one sole area to the exception of others (or worse, people will not want to travel around).

@purldator
Moonbridges all day erry day. That's how you'll get around.

@Arkandel said:

I'm waiting for a VM to finish updating so I've been meaning to write this up for a while. Time to get to it.

So I've been chatting (more recently with @Misadventure) about how to set up a consent-based game, and I believe there is potential in at least discussing it here. Parts of that could apply to a fully consentual environment and other elements, such as collaboration between players, could perhaps be useful to people running games without such clauses.

I come from a background of primarily consent games, so I'll weigh in here.

Before we go further I'd like to ask that this thread remains (roughly ) on point - it's not supposed to be a discussion on whether consent based MU* are worth it and/or superior/inferior to other games but how to implement one.

So here's what I'd like to see in such a game.

1. I believe mechanics should be present. Frankly, an environment like Shang where you can roll whatever you like might have its advantages (such as a very minimal CG) but ultimately it deprives players of a common framework for abilities, randomizing the chances of success or failure, and having a standardized character progression curve (i.e. "XP", or something like it) which has its own uses. Characters only possess powers and abilities they have purchased.

In my experience, I've found that consent games that are completely freeform end up a little more listless and with more OOC conflicts, unless you have a crew of good players. Most of the consent games I've been on had systems of some sort; mostly coded systems that handled the most contentious aspect of things, combat between PCs, with the system handling everything so that one can't cheat on stuff like +rolls or bonuses and stuff. Most of them didn't have a notable progression (2k5 was one of the few that did an XP system, others just did app-based respecs).

2. Consent, in the context that I'd like to see, is defined as such: A character may not be removed from play long-termly or physically altered in a permanent manner without the explicit consent of their player. It's good to leave a loophole there (which perhaps doesn't need to be stated) that staff can override this at their discretion; this could entail cases of harassment or even players writing themselves into a corner ("No, I want to jump into the active volcano. Yes, I know there's a pool of hot lava there, I'm doing it!").

As I stated in another thread, and it really does need to be said in my experience, the ICA=ICC aspect of consent games is important, as well as staff-based overrides if people do stuff that get them into trouble. If I attempt to assassinate the Prince in Court and get caught and fail and get KOed/torpored, I can't expect to not lose my PC. The big exceptions should be, as you note, for harassment and ICA=ICC/corner writing.

3. Consent does not shield characters from social or political consequences. I.e. it doesn't matter if you refuse to have the Sheriff title stripped from your PC, no one is asking.

Agree 100%.

4. Once consent has been granted for an IC path it cannot be taken back. If Bob accepts vitae from Jane then it happened, with all of its consequences (addiction, etc). This overrides the first condition above - if Bob's player agrees to drink three times his PC will be blood bonded (which is otherwise a long term change).

Again, agree. ICA=ICC, as much as many people here hate that acronym.

5. Handling failure should be a fundamental part of a consensual game in order to promote collaboration between players even if (or especially since) their PCs are safe from permanent harm - the two don't need to be exclusive. There are two cases here:

• Player versus environment. A player can simply assume an action their PC takes is successful ("Bob climbs the wall"). They may choose to roll the dice with the appropriate mechanical penalties according to the difficulty of the task. If they fail they have to accept any consequences of the action that doesn't violate the first condition above ("Bob fails to climb the wall and the cops catch up to him"). Either way waiving the roll should award them a small amount of XP, with more given for failure than success.

As it's just me, I'm not a fan of XP based on the rolls or aspects of rolls, but allowing freeform if people feel fair in doing so is fine, and choice of success or failure.

• Player versus player. This doesn't need to be PvP, it would be any contested action ("Jane uses Awe to intimidate Jill"). If players can agree on the outcome award an intermediate amount of XP to them both (collaboration!). If the players cannot agree on the outcome and the defender wishes to automatically resist against the attacker's wishes then that's what happens, so roll no dice - but this awards no XP. If they cannot agree but agree to use mechanics use the dice to determine the action's outcome, then award a large amount of XP to both characters.

Again, if people are good with freeforming it without the systems, more power to them. Again, I'm very much meh on the XP awards for this type of thing. It feels like staff oversight would be needed for EVERY scene that could feasibly be run.

That's what I got so far. Thoughts, troubleshooting, counter-proposals, devil's advocacy and brainstorming are all welcome.

Overall I think it's pretty good. If you want, I can dig up some of the consent files from some of the games I've been involved in and pastebin them for you to read.

@crusader
I think my point is more 'you're pulling out the things people who already would be interested in playing Forsaken, would like about it'. If they want to play Werewolf: the Full Moon Killer Machine then it's really something else, as you have to strip down more or less everything that is WtF, and will draw in people who like WtF out of hand, to do so.

Doesn't mean people won't like the changes, just means that it might be easier to do in a system that allows more customization, rather than re-jiggering something that will take more work.

@silentsophia
Much hope your kitty gets well soon.

@Miss-Demeanor
And everyone's had differing experiences with that, but it doesn't make +vote a 'bad' choice in general. Some games it works, some it doesn't. It's all about how the players use (or abuse) it.

@Miss-Demeanor
So you limit the votes that can be given to the same person during a period of time, thus necessitating spreading out and RPing outside of your clique if you want more votes. RP should be about RP and fun anyway, and votes go with that, but lack of activity causes stagnation and kills games.

To go along with what @crusader has said, the limited votes (at least in my experience, of which I have no *WoD games under my belt yet), tended to push people to go out and find RP outside of their circle of crew. They'd play with their circle because it was fun, and then go find other fun people to RP with.

I also am probably one of the few who really jibes on the 'no XP, you app for what you want and can respec with another app, but what you app is what you have' setup that I came from Transformers games with as well.

So you want to write a new Werewolf game that's not WtF2e, but uses WtF2e mechanics and some terminology and NWoD2e's mechanics/system.

Gotcha. It could be an interesting premise, but at that point, you're not bringing a lot of what people like about WtF into the equation.

@Cobaltasaurus
For what it's worth, I think that's an awesome idea.

All those look fine, I guess; it feels redundant to have location in there, when most people will be checking +where for that.. You should definitely allow custom fields.

Also, perhaps profile or character notes; it's my big peeve about WoD MU*s, I +finger someone and 'yeah, you're connected, I can see that, you're IN THE ROOM WITH ME and why do I need ot know you have seventy unread mails?'. The +finger tells me nothing about your character.

Maybe it's from coming from MU*s that, that's a big thing (and probably one of the few things, besides faction/quote/subfaction) that is in the +finger.

@Quibbler
MW 1.24.1, and both are installed and working separately. They just don't work in tandem like I expected them to, per the documentation.

I'm trying to prune a lot of non-contributed users from a wiki (spambots that slipped through a leak).

Any thoughts? I'm trying the BlockandNuke extension, but it's not doing the merging thati t's supposed to using the MergeUser extension.

Any input or help is appreciated.

@Arkandel
The combat system is honestly just something to make it function smoothly and integrate everything (most of what I've seen has functioned on the same concept, and I used WoD-style dice, but with d6s, for the TF game I ran for a while), and acts as a veneer over the top of the dice. It's just a lens through which the outcome of the dice, comes through (and often simplifies, since you can set weapons/attacks/whatever to automatically take into account variations).

My comment was more 'you can have consent, and bad consequences, but staff and players must also have some logic to consent' otherwise it's always 'I DID THIS AND I GOT AWAY WITH IT BECAUSE CONSENT'. And I've seen that and it doesn't add to a game. Consent by itself is fine, particularly when tempered by logic and intent.

Honestly? Coming from a world of 'consent' games with combat that could lead up to just shy of death? If you consent to combat, you consent to the things that come from it, short of death. You get curbstomped and left unconscious in the street if you lose combat, but without your express permission you can't die. Most of these have been consent MU*s with a coded combat that determines who hits and such, like a dice system but automated.

But conversely, consent should also really follow some methods of logic; you can't go try to smoosh the Prince then scream consent when the Prince's bodyguards want to stop you and take you out during that.