Posts made by Bobotron

Is it okay to ask for help on a certain topic in this forum?

This is a great guide, and I will second the recommendation of namecheap.com. My domains are hosted through them and I have had zero problems out of them.

@Wizz said:

@Ganymede: I'm with @Coin on this one for the most part. Mortal+/Hunter sounds like an excellent place to start. If you want to bring in Endowments later, I don't personally think that's a terribad idea as long as you're mostly sticking to ones that make sense with the theme (ie, since your zombies as you described them are sci-fi Last Of Us zombies, maybe TFV's arsenal and...I'm not sure what else? I need to re-read Hunter).

EDIT: I think some altered/customized Cheiron Group Thaumatechnology would be pretty bad-ass, especially if you wind up having Resident Evil-style super zeds.

That's one of the beauties of one of the first WoD books that came out, Antagonists. The Zombie Creation Kit is probably the best thing ever for that.

@darksabrz said:

@Coin It's just a shame that Secrets of the Covenants is looking to be at least August before it comes out (at least, that's what @tragedyjones was telling us at Reno) -- they've been extremely slow about getting 2.0 Vampire out more.

I confess, though, I have certain... thoughts about playing a Dead Wolf (and while I have a way to potentially see it happen at Reno -- I could PM you for details), I'd be very interested to see how you give Dead Wolves the 2.0 treatment.

I'm just glad that more stuff is coming out for it in general. I've been sitting here re-reading B&S and thinking that 95% of the changes I really like (and holy CRAP I forgot how awesome some of the Devotions there are).

@darksabrz
They're worth picking up. This will be my third reread; something about them just makes me want to build a WoD cityscape filled with corrupt homicide dicks, delicious local regional food (as an avid food lover, the way they talk about and describe food in there always makes me hungry), and a few good-and-tough cops with the odds stacked against them.

If you have a Half-Price Books I'd suggest checking there. I got each of them for $2.99 (and I'm a nerd so I reread most everything more than once; once I finish these I'm going to restart on the Cleric Quintet, then start back with Blood and Gold again.)

@Thenomain said:

I played briefly in HM's "mortal sphere". The quotes are for sarcasm, as most mortal spheres are about as cohesive as your general metropolis. There is no social glue that all other game lines have, and I wince any time someone appoints a "mortal staffer". These people can do little more than be the important brain behind approvals, and I wince any time a player complains to them that there's nothing going on.

I feel that the "mortal sphere" is something that needs to stop. All characters need to belong to an established theme and setting, or they might as well be just taking up disk space.

That leads me to a thought. So many games have a 'mortal sphere' divided up into subspheres (Crime, High Society, Law, Police, etc. like @Coin said.) To me, that's not so much theme as it is 'in game job' stuff. So lets take a different track and assume a core theme.

So what WOULD you consider a themed mortals venue? I keep looking at TV and movie media and look at, say, Dark Shadows as a themed mortals venue (mostly), or the anime Umineko no Naku Koro Ni (which is a similar concept, big extended family) as examples of 'themed' mortals venues, after a fashion.

I've been rereading Dean Koontz's Frankenstein series. It's really nice, the first three have an extremely WoD feel to them (in the writing styles and everything).

I think it's just a division, but some players only want to play one thing, or they want to play that thing if it's mixed with others..

You won't see a 200+ person game with one sphere, but there's a Requiem game I'm looking at right now, Requiem for Kingsmouth that has about 44 people and it's a single sphere (well, 2 if you count mortals). There's also a couple of single-sphere OWoD games floating around out there as well. They just aren't the 'WHO scrolls off the screen' type games.

And that's fine. In those

My ideal setup is a single venue, with the allowance of mortals (with focus, but not the full push of the game, or at least given equal push with the other venue). If there are distinct sub-venues within that venue (say, Masquerade: Cam/Anarch and Sabbat, or Ascension: Traditions and Technocracy), I would also want to see one of those venues only (especially in that case, as having two opposing sects in the same city becomes hard to deal with in game.)

I like this because it allows you to have a focus, and a drive, to overarching plots and setups for the game when all the staff are on the same page, working in the same theme sandbox.

I just feel like it's fair to give everyone something, and then those that participate, they get what they earn. That way noone is super far behind (plus my LARP works on a pretty low monthly cap for XP, but not for plot, stuff you can get through Influence/Downtimes, and other things, since not everything revolves around ALL THE XPS!)

@Thenomain said:

@Bobotron said:

Yeah, the 'rocketship' analogy is why I like the concept of a monthly XP floor, and maybe a 'flat award' at some point

Again, we did this on DarkWater. People hated it. Not everyone, of course, but the abrupt shift in character was a turn-off to many of the people that I think we wanted to have play there.

@Glitch's Reach XP climb was meant to solve that particular problem, but after a few years the escalation was de-facto. He has already said that the system wasn't used in the way it was intended.

Between the two, a better-scaled, more elastic version of Reach's system would be my preference, as it answered the issue of keeping power levels roughly in sync far better than DW did.

For the sake of those who forgot or never knew, DarkWater made sure that people were no more than 2 months' worth of Flat-XP behind anyone else. Extra XP that was earned was not calculated in. However, this meant people who joined a year in found themselves being handed 100+ xp after a month. It was not a happy balance.

See, that's different than how I'd do it. Just frontload the process with the 25%, and if someone doesn't get ANY XP for that month, give them a flat rate. I'm not advocating 'push to <X> months behind' but 'push so that they're not sitting with nothing if they have a bad couple months for gaming'.

Of course, I'm not one of the typically concerned about keeping power levels in sync, though 200XP oldbie against 30XP noob is not my ideal; however, 200XP olbie versus 110XP 'new character 'is better, IMO. And then perhaps on the year anniversary of game open, everyone gets a flat extra 10 on top of that month's cap and/or floor.

@Wizz
For something like that, I think it'd be hard. There's so much of a cultural difference in MU*s and RPers nowadays. I just think it'd be a much harder concept to pull off nowadays.

@Wizz
For all of the foibles of that being an 'any superhero theme/genre EVAR' MUX, and us getting them to bend them to allow superhero-styled other media (Gargoyles and Power Rangers and Sailormoon and other magical girls to name just three), the game was a lot of fun. There wasn't a lot of crazy that I was privy to, and I played with a lot of fun people across casts (from fighting Superman with giant monsters, to cloning Carnage symbiote and grafting the clones onto monsters). Maybe it's because I was young when I played there, or nostalgia glasses, but I have fond memories of that game.

@Wizz said:

Heroes and Villains MUX - Astronema (character staff)

...This is embarrassing to remember, but I was the Silver Power Ranger at H&V. (Also, a Silver Surfer knock-off, aaaaand I think an alternate-universe grandkid of Peter Parker or something ridiculous like that.) Probably the first MU* I ever played. Holy shit that feels so long ago.

I remember after I apped Astronema we had a pretty large Power Ranger cast on that MUX (including a REALLY creepy cigar-smoking Goldar who tried to TS me, then quit the MUX when I said 'I'm a dude, and I don't TS, man').

Don't be embarassed, we were all young then (and come on, it's pretendy fun time, we're allowed to indulge our nerd sides.).

@ThatOneDude said:

@Wizz Zombies AND Mage ... wait, Mages would just wipe out the zombies and we'd just be left with Mage >.<

Zombies AND Mortal+ ... That could work.

And this is why, in the original treatment Gany had me write, the Mages were the cause of the zombie apocalypse and were wiped out to the last by anti-magic mutating Abyssal zombies.

@Bennie said:

@Bobotron catching up with the old characters isn't the issue, or at least not the most obvious one. The old characters being so entrenched as to never cycle back into noobs is the perceived problem imo. That they're invincible, or can't be fought, or can 1-shot you, or any of a laundry list of other 'those guys sux' arguments.

All truth. But it seems that many times the primary issue that gets brought up is 'catching up to the old guys'. The other issues you mention there can be overcome, but it requires a competent staff and a staff who is willing to let the creative players get the outcome to their endeavors (as long as they put the appropriate effort into it, and do everything per the rules to GET to that end).

A lot of these aren't the XP. They're "Staff protects those guys" arguments. They're "Those guys cheat and will say my attempt is broken/incorrect/not approved" arguments. They're "going to never put themselves in danger and hoard the power and not do anything with it" arguments. There's just this massive list of complaints people seem to have over anyone who has more XP.

Yeah; I won't deny that this happens. I've seen this on MU*s and in LARPs.

But the issue isn't the XP. The issue is, is only noobs recycling into new noobs, or is there any kind of chance for the entrenched minority to lose their place and start over too?

And even that isn't really what we're talking about, which is rollover.

You have to break it down:

1. What do I get when I have to start a new character? Nothing? Something? Something more for having had unspent XP previously? A portion of my previously spent XP?
2. Does everyone get the same opportunity? Is the opportunity selective to only people who have been PK'd? Only available when you die in a plot? Do people who have a stale character get the same benefit, or are they the odd man out?
3. Does the game have limits? Is there a limit to the amount of unspent XP you can have? Is there a limit to the amount of spent XP you can have? Is unspent XP a part of you, as a player? Is unspent XP smoke that disappears when you change characters?
4. Is the game's difficulty such that someone starting new (or over) would be behind? Are you in jeopardy in the most basic storytelling component of the game until a certain amount of XP is reached? Does everyone have to go through this learning curve each time they make an alt?
5. Is your playgroup varied? Will playing with your friends be made difficult because your XP is not on the level of their XP? Will you be forced to find new friends? Are your friendships being detrimentally impacted with changes in PCs?

All good things to think about, and I think any staffer planning on running a game should consider these. Of all of them, #5 is the one I've probably never had an issue with, both in LARP or MU*. But I have extremely limited experience with the WoD MU* circuit, so I can't give a huge comment on the varied playgroups. And as for #1-4, every game is going to be different because of different design philosophies. I am going to steal those questions and save them, because they're good questions and worth keeping.

@mietze said:

I think one problem that I still see MUSH side is this idea that people who lose a characters should have the expectation that they'll be able to spring back similarly influential in IC. Maybe it's not intentional but that is a little of what I hear when I hear people say "but I don't want to do the grind to the top." Except, if you bring in a new PC to the area, why shouldn't you expect that you will not be immediately on the top of the heap? In most cases that's not an IC or thematic expectation.

I agree. Now, that said, I think there are ways to mitigate this if 1) staff is willing and 2) players are not immediately throwing things screaming FAVORITISM. One of these things is Tiers, which feature typically harsher app strictures than a gen-and-go starting PC. One thing I was considering at one point for a game was the idea of Feature Slots, which would be blank and open, appable as a PC, but with a higher app stricture. In exchange, they get to app in as someone with higher XP, more status, and a larger inroad and prior connections than a new person might have.

While that makes sense in a tabletop setting and perhaps in a LARP, on a MUSH I think what pragmatically happens when you have the expectation of absolutely no loss of power level from old PC to new PC, is that there is also stagnation of players that get leadership roles. Some of that comes from one's network and people thinking "Oh, that player knows/is connected to this staff person and that group of old timey PCs" and gravitating towards that. But it also has the effect of keeping new people out of leadership roles even when they are clearly able to participate (and sometimes, being less jaded/busy/needing to bust their butts to build the connections, they're actually showing more initiative and activity than the dinosaurs too).

Once more, I agree. I guess I'm used to watching for those things, and being able to do so in a more manageable group (I couldn't on something the side of TR, for example). Besides, if people are making the connections and having the initiative to do so, this should reflect in the IC outcomes; someone who outmaneuvers the Prince and gains the IC loyalty of the Primogen Council and a couple of major elders, AND has their fingers in the Mayor, City Council and local hospitals deserves to get the spot that they try for (if they succeed in ousting the Prince that way, anyway).

This may be less of a concern for smaller MUSHes with staff who keep that in mind than larger ones too, I think. And maybe it's not a solvable problem (or only I think it's a problem--I admit that I do like at least there to be a solid chance of new blood getting a chance for some of the top tier spots in leadership).

Once more, we agree on this. Stagnant leadership leads to a desire not to play and the inability to push and lead the group effectively. It's just something people have to be willing to put the time into on both the staff and player side, and staff has to be willing (as do players) to let things ride without outside interference, and recognize that these changes should happen organically.

@darksabrz I'll keep that in mind, and we shall see how things go. Paul was kindof an experiment in apping on a WoD MU* (which was in and of itself a bad piece of character to use, as I have general roughness grokking the Sanctified) and I have a concept I wrote for a LARP and never got to play (Invictus Nos Galloi), so if I come there again I may freeze/nuke Paul and try that one out.

I have been neck-deep RL with a variety of projects, job and the LARP I run, but I'm needing something to help fill some of the free time and I don't get to RP as much outside of the Changeling the Lost part of the LARP.

@ThatOneDude I think I didn't articulate it well. I don't find it to be a problem, per se, just a difference in design philosophy in my head, and my personal preference. Not saying it's wrong, just not my ideal. Stratification is an aspect of roleplaying and, I understand many people feel that 'being unable to catch up to the old guys' is a bad thing. So it's a fine line to toe, and I advocate for everyone to 'do what works best for them'. The chunk works best for TR; the XP floor and scaling, with bonuses, works best for our LARP, and 'everyone gets the same XP, whether you attend or not' works for another LARP here in town.

The ranking system, I think would work if people didn't get crazy about it and being denied to a scene because they're overpowered for that scene; we know people don't like to be excluded, even for balance and logic reasons. Anecdotal example from my TF and Megaman days, when we had FCs that were stronger than OCs, we'd do similar things, but a lot of attempts to 'balance' after a fashion came from, say, appropriate numbers. When I was Rock on M3 and iX/Return X on MMX, and Optimus Prime on Genesis, there was always like 2-on-1 and 3-on-1 fights when it was FC vs. OC a lot of times, just because statistically it caused it to be fairer. Which would work in the Elder vs. Neonate example in vampire (and is to canon and expected theme for Vampire or other WoD games, lessers ganging up on those more powerful).

@darksabrz said:

@Bobotron Holy crap... we've got some history. I had several characters on BW Transmetals, including Electra (a Transmythic blue dragon), Nightshade/Whitewind (a "Doublespy" Fuzor in the basic vein of Punch/Counterpunch), and I was even Optimus Primal at one point (though I can't remember when). Had several different characters at H&V, was at Millennium Heroes (the second Beyond Superman, Jonny Kent, and was effectively headstaff there for nearly a year as Tal Rasha), and several characters at 2k5 (up through my Galvatron stint in 2007, after which I hadn't really bothered with the place).

I remember the Doublespy Fuzor character, I believe. We went through a lot of good Primal's too, but it's been so long I lost track of many of them. I haven't been on 2k5 in some time, though Geo was still there last time I logged in to chat. The MHX game, I sorely miss. I really loved the concept of Batman Beyond as a MU*, allowing people to update various DC characters to Beyond versions. If I ever have the punch/desire to dig heavy into a really heavy-build game, that would be something I'd tackle.

It's a shame your Transformers: Generations MUSH never got to take off -- I had a fun Headmaster concept that I was gonna play with, using the Machination as the means behind how the character became a Headmaster. It's good to see you around again, though.

Yeah; I was particularly happy with the theme melding we were doing, there just wasn't a market for it. I advertised, we were open, but... it just petered out due to lack of interest, and it's hard to maintain a TF game, especially one that is 1) based on the old franchises, which are getting more and more niche, and 2) folded in other stuff like we did. I still have the DB (I think I have the DBs from every MU* I ever ran, except for TF Genesis, which I sadly lost in an HD crash).

It's always good to hear from people who were on the same MU*s as me; I don't get around much anymore (MVC was my go-to place forever and a day).

@Thenomain Yeah, the 'rocketship' analogy is why I like the concept of a monthly XP floor, and maybe a 'flat award' at some point, like on a yearly or something, everyone gets <X>. I tried to app TR a couple months ago and someone told me 'You'll get 800 XP after a little bit' and I went '... I have no idea where I would SPEND that much XP, why?'

It feels a little 'artificial difficulty,' because at that point you can't make scaled challenges very easily with that much XP, and I like challenges that everyone can get into, but also challenges that are geared towards certain tiers of PC. Rank Neonates wouldn't be fighting a Master Elder Sabbat Tzimisce attacker and his schlatka, and an Elder Gangrel wouldn't give a second look to a shovelhead Pander (other than to one-shot it) when faced with said Tzimisce.
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