Well, I tried 
I think either system is going to face an uphill battle. L5R has a more limited popularity with this crowd, and teaching a mostly manual tabletop system that isn't WoD is a steep barrier to entry. I think this is the major reason why a lot of games don't really happen in our corner of MUing, tbh.
@alzie What I'm saying is they only matter when you roll them. Once you're looking at final results, they are what they are and it doesn't matter where they came from. They do matter for explodes but that's still an intermediary step (one of the bunch I mentioned when I said its a bad system for a MU). What you're talking about with the result types is what I'm getting at, basically.
Codewise, I think your basic roll would be easy, ie something like:
+roll ring+skill : <Name> rolled <skill> with <ring> and keeps <ringval>: [success/strife] [success] [blank] <- you can still make the dice origin clear if you want to by labeling or color-coding these, if you want
What I was getting into above with 'automated' versions was saving people manually picking through, ie something like:
+roll ring+skill vs TN: <Name> rolled <skill> with <ring> vs a TN of <#> and [Succeeded/Failed]! with [#] successes, [#] opportunity and gaining [#] strife
This would be the shell command for all automated versions. The code would basically be two loops. The first would go to kept dice/ring OR TN (ie, for x,x=<ring or succCount=TN,x++), the second would loop through whatever was leftover (if you got to TN before ring). Each loop would then prioritize the dice to take, ie for the first loop: succ/opp, succ, succ/strife, opp, opp/strife (I'm ignoring explosions for now, they add some further complexity to this structure but the core idea stays the same)
The second loop would probably be defined by a switch (like I was talking about above). IE /succ would keep the above priority for both, but /opp would change it to succ/opp,opp,opp/strife,succ.
What I was getting into above about how unfortunately branching that logic is, because you have many scenarios: 'I want maximum successes no matter what' 'I want TN successes and then opportunity' 'I want TN then opportunity but not at the cost of strife' and 'I'm a crazy shugenja and I actually want strife BURN FUCKERS BURN!'
Also, you said you had your old code and the thing you did in sheet with the rings was really cool. Did you still have that?
I have my old code I think, but the +sheet isn't terribly relevant since the visuals/formatting were based on stat stuff that no longer exists. I was proud of my Ring thing too, but it's based on the whole attribute-ring pairing that 1-4E had (ie Air = Reflexes/Awareness). In 5E rings are just rings and there aren't any substats.
@alzie I don't think the dice are that hard themselves. They're basically each just a dictionary, right? 1=blank, 2=succ, 3= succ/strife, etc.
Once you've rolled, you won't have a pool of different dice any more, you'll have a set of results where what sort of dice they came from is irrelevant. IE, your total might look like [explode][success][success/strife][opportunity][blank][blank]. Technically some of those results can only come from one die type or the other (there's no raw explode on the d6), but it doesn't matter when you're picking what you keep. You're picking results, not kinds of dice.
As for what I mean by automation, is that you can't, by default, just 'tally' things. The roll above, say it was keep 3, it could be a 3 succ 1 strife result or a 2 succ 1 opportunity roll. So either you're building an interface to interactively choose dice, or doing it manually and tallying results outside of code, or you come up with some compromises to let people specify things and do it all in one roll.
I'm sitting here trying to think if there's a way to basically 'pre pick' dice. This was how I handled it on my (d10) code, where the default +roll assumed you always kept highest, but there was also a /switch to keep lowest. I just discarded the idea anyone would ever want a 'medium' roll (and did have it show dice faces so you could pick manually if you really wanted), but obviously that system was easier overall. This would be a lot more complicated in 5E.
Theoretically, you could set up your roll to take the TN as an input. This would mean you'd take successes over opportunities first, up to that number, but then you might need another /switch to specify what you'd prioritize after that (as, for instance, on attacks, extra successes = more damage, while opportnities can be used to trigger crits, so both have value). I imagine the code could be smart and prioritize opportunities if you didn't have enough possible successes to beat the TN, since the game does provide a lot of things that can be triggered even on failed rolls.
Then you'd need another switch/input that specified a ceiling to how much Strife (the negative symbol only appearing paired with good symbols) you were willing to accept on a roll. But that starts getting into some crazy forking logic. Are you willing to take extra Strife to succeed, but not for Opportunity? Or are you willing to fail to avoid it?
With so much decisionmaking, I don't know how plausible it is to try and make an automated solution. Nevermind that there are explosive results among the possible faces, which trigger further rolls etc.
We were talking a bit about the beta in the other old L5R thread. I'm always interested in L5R games but I have serious doubts about how feasible the new system is for a MU, simply because resolving a check is a pretty complicated process; once you've built your pool, you have to pick and choose dice to keep (and unlike in 1-4E, there's no simple 'you probably want to keep highest, or maybe lowest in a few scenarios), and then there are possibly additional steps of adding, removing, and rerolling dice (sometimes to be rolled, sometimes with set results) from the result.
That said, I'm always a big fan and I'd be willing to help if someone else is shouldering the code this time around. I still have all my news, setting, and grid material from Kishi Kaisei, although I assume a new game would probably want to use the new canon/setting from the LCG as its likely to be used for the RPG as well.
@tempest said in Yes! More Micro-transactions! (Activision, WB Games and EA appreciation thread):
On one hand, people tend to stay away from P2W stuff anyways, do they not?
Yes and no.
At least in the US, there's certainly some stigma against purely p2w in the, let's say, competive PC/high-end console space. The people who want to invest serious time into mastery etc and rebel against the idea of anything undermining skill as the only factor.
But that ideological conflict first reared its head in with MMOs, due to the bleed in from Asia (obviously we weren't getting Asian FPSes)... and by now subscription based MMOs are considered nonstarters in the industry vs f2p being everywhere. In the FPS and adjacent areas, AAA shooters are getting us accustomed to loot boxes while avoiding p2w (ie, such as Overwatch and CS:GO skins) but there's plenty of f2p shooters with heavy microtransactions that range all along the p2w scale (from 'unlock faster' in say, Planetside 2, to 'literally shoot money at people' in World of Tanks).
Now with things like Battlefront 2 planned with major p2w (at least in the win-faster sense) it's getting pushed even more into the spotlight.
And then... you take a look at the mobile market, where naked p2w is already basically the ubiquitous norm and unquestioned. Go look up how much money Game of War makes, and be prepared to sit there feeling bad about your life choices for a while. Unfortunately that reality sets a standard for the AAA developers to chase, as I imagine it's really upsetting for them to spend tens of millions on games (as dev costs skyrocket in our HD age) and not see the kind of profits of cheap mobile nonsense. We're maybe not there yet but we'll be there pretty soon.
@scourge I mean, I definitely agree with you. I imagine most MUers aside from a few hardcore comic types (which I think are the minority of the board regulars, though the UH drama has brought some out) are a lot more mentally invested in 90s Cartoon X-Men as their single greatest influence, 80s-hair Glamazon Rogue included. Of course, even then Jean is mostly just Jean, not Phoenix other than as a plot point, so I still chalk that one up to people being twinkish.
Anyway, I'm just not sure how you gracefully address the (former) issue on a game like this.
But those aren't Rogue's powers at the time period they're planning to set the game, or arguably for a lot of 'modern' comics (which was kind of the pitch for the setting).
Anyway, that's just kind of the point I'm trying to demonstrate. Do you actually research issue numbers and stat these characters out 'correctly' per this continuity they want to do? And if not, and people can just app what they want, how is it a continuity game any more than UH on an island?
This is one of the primary reasons I keep suggesting that, even if one wants to use a particular point of comic timeline as a setting (ie the one for Utopia, which provides an interesting point for RP), there are still some pretty gnarly hitches that come with trying to cling purely to 'continuity' as your only guideline for managing the game, including defining people's powers as 'whatever they are at that point.' Because that one's a pretty deep rabbit hole.
Do you look up the appearance nearest to the cutoff point to see what they're capable of at that particular moment in 'time'? What if that author happened to write a pretty de-powered version of the character compared to other nearby appearances? What if the character hasn't been around a while? What if they get more powerful pretty soon after? There are some pretty hilariously high and low watermarks for certain characters (e.g. Magneto who can literally only float ferrous crap around vs. Magneto who basically controls all EM and most matter).
This is why I tend to favor both fresher starts and statted systems, as they limit and constrain. People naturally gravitate toward the most powerful versions of things: you rarely see Rogue without Carol's powers (even if it makes no sense), Jean as not-Phoenix, people without their second mutations in general, etc. If you say everyone is a baseline version of the character set, that's fairly easy to work AND stat from, while everything on top of that requires increasing scrutiny and unfortunately this can add to annoying app-bloat.
Would it be viable to have the House of M/Decimation/Necrosha stuff all involve a certain degree of 'resetting' people? It doesn't work for any/all characters, but it's a thought.
It definitely gets hard once you move outside the realm of 'X is this strong, this tough, and this good at fite'
It's part of the reason why I think it would be interesting to see a game that limited the lulzy reality manipulators and other god tier chars and stuck to the ones with more clearly identifiable, compact powersets. Given a lot of reaction here, though, that might well do better as a purely OC game, given the 'need' to have certain FCs available even when they're demonstrably 'broken' in the sense of trying to have a game where people can all participate.
Lol, I think it was the useful/weird thing where the board saves posts in progress even if you move around threads or start another answer.
... and apparently posts them all simultaneously if you post anywherewhere. At least I learned something.
Honestly I don't know how you escape the continuity. Even if staff doesn't quiz people on it themselves, there are going to be players who know it in and out, playing on the assumption of everything in it, etc. How do you resolve that?
Re: Apps, I don't even know why a lot of games bother with some of the stuff they do (like making everyone re copy & paste wiki writeups). Unless you have stats, detailing out powers is BS anyway, so really the only relevant thing is just your take on the char, maybe some ideas of goals, future storylines, etc?
I'm aware of the things that can make the character potentially more interesting, but obviously, they're tied to specific storylines, which circles back to the design of the whole game. If it fit meaningfully for her to be there, OK. But I've only ever seen her on these games as a backup Jean taken by people who wanted the original. And just being the emo-tart version doesn't exactly make it better.
I do like the idea of just having one or the other, as @Bobotron gets at, and wouldn't mind Rachel instead. Overall, this is just examples of what I mean by saying you have to think about the storyline and the characters versus just smooshing everything in. Show a tiny bit of restraint, focus on the story you want to tell, etc.
@shaggy said in X-Men Game:
I think Cable and Rachel are fine. Both predate the full glut of such characters and have significant history and connections. Plus, Time Travel and Future Past storylines are just part and parcel of X-lore and allowances should probably be made that some people may enjoy that sort of RP.
Rachel is only a little weird because she's basically just 'Jean II', including sharing the code-name (I took from @Ghost's list having Marvel Girl and not Phoenix that he means for Jean to have it, which... yes, please, her being default Phoenix from day-1 is always terrible to me). I don't really object to her conceptually/power level wise as she's no worse than being a another Jean, but... she's also just another Jean and that seems pretty lazy and also niche-crowding. Plus the more of them running around, the more it forces that relationship to the center stage.
@prototart said in X-Men Game:
For like 90 percent of chars there really isnt a giant ton of stuff you just like absolutely have to at all times remember
I mean for Colossus the points are idk something like
- was a villain for a little while
- died to cure he legacy virus
- got brought back to life by aliens
- cut off a alien's arm
See... that's already what I'd consider a close to 'eyes glaze over' list when it comes to stuff you need to know, as well as excessive amounts of drama in a background as opposed to happening IC. Like, anything where you have to talk about mega world-shaking metaplots and having died already... I think that's too much.
I know people are going to split on this somewhat, and that's fine, but for me it's just not interesting to have a ton of that stuff messying up your BG, to the point where the stuff that happened off-grid is actually more dramatic than what will happen on. And yes, I realize there's biases that come from certain characters needing more of the continuity to be their coolest, most powerful selves... imo it's also more interesting NOT to start them that way, because it gives people room for growth.
@tempest said in X-Men Game:
That's actually a really good list.
I'd 10000000% bump Magik and Wanda to Iconic tier though, purely based on how sought after they are on MU. They're easily among the most popular female FCs.
Hope (edit oops) just needs to be removed from everything ever. She's a dumpster snowflake.
Yeah I'd put all the 'Summers children from future' in that category, although maybe you can make exceptions for Cable? I've said it elsewhere but I really don't see the need for every X-game to be the same story all revolving around the same single person every time.
Like, can we recognize that this is a MU, and that there's reason to create interesting story for everyone, rather than having one family of God-messiahs that everything revolves around?
@tempest said in FCs on Comic MUs:
tl;dr Nobody (except dumbasses) cares if you play a 'good' Wolverine/whatever who just happens to be gay, while staying active in your sphere/etc. When "I am playing gay so-and-so" becomes the focal point of what YOU as a player are doing, rather than just "I am playing so-and-so", is the problem.
Yeah this is really my issue with gender/sexuality swapped characters. It's oh so rarely that someone just happens to have said sexuality, it's that it's almost always 'Here is Gay/Lesbian <Name> (TM).'
And it almost always happens to specifically service active pursuit of TS and so it's hard to split them apart in terms of being bid old red flags. Wanting to have a particular line of sexual RP open to you is not, in and of itself, a valid reason to tweak an FC, imo, because that just proves you're using the character for that and not for general play and I don't think that justifies the slot.
And yes, that applies to the straight folk too. My contempt for Ruby's Rogue (and Rogues everywhere, it seems - the fact that they always seem to have some gizmo to turn off her power is a big tell) knows no bounds.
I'm definitely interested in something with more of a narrow, defined scope, and I'd probably even be willing to help somewhat on staff side depending what the setup ends up actually being.
@zombiegenesis said in X-Men Game:
So the things I'm seeing seem to be the following...
1: Base it on the comics instead of the movies/tv shows (which is fine by me).
2: There is some debate on whether it should be X-only or more inclusive.
3: Should it just be the X-Men or also include other factions (The Brotherhood, the Hellfire Club, Etc.)
4: Continuity. Start fresh (Year 1/Ultimate) or pick a cutoff point or x-reality(Utopia, 90's X-Men, Age of Apocalypse)?For me I'd want it based on the comics for sure. I'd be fine keeping it X-only but if we could find a way to fit other types in I would not be opposed to it. I'd also like to at least keep the door open for other groups like The Brotherhood or the HFC. As for continuity...I don't know. I'm not all that up on X-stuff post 90's/early 2000's but I'm not sure most people would enjoy a Year 1 style game so...
Anyway, these are the threads I'm picking up on. Anything else?
1: comics
2: X-only or X and appropriate Marvel X-adjacent (ie its probably fine to let someone play Spiderman, setting aside, the FF, Avengers-minus-Thor, etc, but there are things you want to avoid like the mystic and cosmic areas)
3: I think the other groups are good additions to improve on playable character rosters, but you probably want to organize your theme in a way that they can function as antiheros and not full villains
4: I fought about this in the other thread. It doesn't need to be year 1 but I vastly prefer a cold/clean start. If you want to work in a few iconic events for the sake of certain characters (like, you just can't tolerate Jean not being God for whatever reason), write them into your own timeline. People really underestimate how much 'just start at the end of this book in 2006' actually includes in terms of back continuity.
@ganymede This is a good breakdown, but I don't think it's an argument against the fact that you may want to restrict the higher-demand characters to the more desirable of those categories, and you admit that 1s are the most desirable. My policy would include the 2s as well, probably.
If you can figure out a way to identify 3s and give them a sort of secondary precedence after the 1s, that's fine... but I'm not sure how realistic that is outside of friend casting (and we've argued on this topic before, re uh, 'theater casting' and whatnot).
@Lotherio Obviously I'm talking about scenarios where villains are not highly played and out running most of the stories themselves, and where the game policy allows people to NPC them, but this seems like the norm (it was on UH). It's great if people PC them, but in my experience it isn't common, and most of the time people just NPC'ed villains they were not playing from their various hero alts.
The concern of villains suddenly getting picked up and played and there being discontinuity... I mean that's true of playing with literally any PC on these games, as people drop them constantly and they get picked up the next day and everything is wiped. So I don't see that as being particular to Villains or an argument against using them.