Posts made by bored

@Packrat said in Space Lords and Ladies:

So-so, Star Crusade did spreadsheet badly.

I am looking more to the Spreadsheetdom of the Vargo game a couple of years prior, where the economic system actually prompted a fair few people to enthuse about how cool it was on WORA (has anyone ever enthused about any economic system apart from that one or Kingsmouth? I totally plan to keep slimming stuff down and steal from Kingsmouth). That is still spreadsheet land but a much more abstract and easily maintained spreadsheet status.

This to me sounds like you're just saying 'I want to do the thing I admitted is bad, but well.'

Which, obviously, is a fine goal. I just think it's unrealistic and wonder why you're causing yourself the grief. I mean, don't get me wrong, I'll probably play whatever you come up with, but I foresee the game's trajectory being rather similar to SC: enthusiasm for the fiddly bits -> unbalanced outcomes -> whining -> disenchantment/collapse.

I think people are being confused by 'spreadsheets are bad'. It's not that me and @deadculture are against math or spreadsheets; I'm one of the bigger system nerd types, the guy who writes Monte Carlo simulators to analyze/break these kinds of games.

It's that, again, @Packrat started the thread saying he didn't want to follow SC's mistakes. He is now describing a game that literally mirrors all of SC's mistakes. The 'spreadsheet heavy' phrase is a shortcut here for describing the type of system that SC had, not just spreadsheets in general.

It's kind of bizarre, including the total lack of self awareness.

@Packrat said in Space Lords and Ladies:

@bored said in Space Lords and Ladies:

You can say the fancy and conventional stuff balances each other, but from experience... no it won't. Whatever's the most efficient will be what gets made, the people in charge of those facilities/assets will win, etc.

The main thing being missed here is that you cannot build/make the Space Noble tech starships, there is no way to manufacture them in the area the game is set. They only exist where somebody has made a Space Noble ship captain and bought x type of ship as a merit in character generation, which is comparable in cost to ruling a continent or having a few orbital cities. Their ship and its power is their family inheritance and their ticket to being politically important, but it is probably not able to actually conquer anything without conventional support which has to be raised by other people.

If you are actually choosing your military as a 'landed' Space Noble then there is absolutely a most efficient path for raw offensive combat power if you can afford it, you get as many Ships of the Line as possible and load them with Infantry Battalions, which are absolutely not speed bumps. The most efficient possible composition is deliberate and will be clearly signposted rather than being left for people with spreadsheets to determine after number crunching, stuff like Cruisers loaded with Shock Troops or large formations of Drop Commandos are cool and have niche uses but will just lose to the basics given they will be hideously outnumbered.

Notably, the most powerful regular Space Noble ships are also not capable of outrunning fast conventional warships by any significant margin. A use of Cruisers loaded with Shock Troops? Engaging Space Noble (Or Space Elf) starships. A half dozen cruisers (note – this is crazy expensive but affordable for a landed Space Noble who wants to channel Admiral Fisher) will lose to their own cost in Ships of the Line every time but is also a serious threat to any Space Noble warship other than a Battlecruiser and can give that a really stiff fight (they -could- win if they damaged the engines then boarded, they would have triple the number of troops and are not much slower) – the lighter ones cannot fight them, the larger ones cannot outrun them.

A battlecruiser is legitimately terrifying but then that is probably on par with the character who decides they want their own entire planet in character generation. Welcome, you are an Imperial Admiral! You are a political appointee who has the position because they were someone really important's little sister, because that is how they decide who gets to be an admiral. You get spotlight time because everyone wants your terrifying monstrous starship and you also need the money/bullets/fuel to keep it going, not because you are super cool at anything (you are still a Space Noble and so pretty badass, but you are not the Space Noble who is the biggest badass at anything, apart from chilling on your gold plated Captain's Chair perhaps).

Added: I will be so happy if somebody makes like a 19 year old Space Admiral who is basically interested in parties and has minimal skills in actual Space Admiral-ing. But does have really well turned out bridge crew.

OK you seem to think I care about the specifics, or I'm arguing about them. @Lithium is upset about the void ships, my point wasn't that they'd win (I have no idea how your stuff is actually balanced), it's that something will win. Which you acknowledge. But more than that, you started this thread criticizing SC's hyper-spreadsheet nightmare economics, and now you're recreating them. It won't be balanced. That's a guarantee. I know it all sounds good to you in your head, and its not an insult to you as a person, but professional game designers routinely fail at this stuff, and I have never seen a MU do it well. So it will be broken. And it will detract from staff focus, from RP, etc.

Eh, I guess to me this sounds like far too fragile of a balance. Games rarely (never?) do even simple economies well, and this is SC level crazy spreadsheet fuckery. You can say the fancy and conventional stuff balances each other, but from experience... no it won't. Whatever's the most efficient will be what gets made, the people in charge of those facilities/assets will win, etc. It also sounds very zero sum, so you can expect pretty nasty PvP (complete with accusations of favoritism) followed by rapidly losing players both to said perceptions of favoritism (true or not) and 'well, I lost all my stuff so why keep playing?'

Or basically, you'lve kind of failed at this:

@Packrat said in Space Lords and Ladies:

• Keep It Simple Stupid when it comes to economy

I'd say, one thing I don't quite get in your theme, is what really holds your pyramid structure in shape.

If the rare elements are the key to everything, why are the guys who control them not actually in charge (or what stops them from upsetting the social order to quickly put themselves in charge)? What stops a small alliance of orbital and planetary rulers (ie, something a few friendly players could easily organize) from having a self-sufficient empire? Also what does prestige do to make it matter, and why? (Don't take this as dismissive, but they seem like game/theme design issues).

You turned around and said 'but haha it's a crap game and you have low expectations if you think it's amazing lololol' in a pretty troll way, ignoring the obvious facts we're all critics of that game anyway. For, you know, actual things it can be criticized about. But the reality is most games are like SC; ie, they have some plot, people come and make characters to do that plot, they eventually find out the staffers are shitty douchebags, get bored, TS for a while, and then quit.

If you want a game that's also fucking perfect? Yeah, good luck, when you figure that out please come by and tell all of MSB about your discovery of this unicorn of a game. But the 'omg marriages and babies' shit is wearing real thin, especially when you have exactly dick to back any of it up.

@ThatGuyThere said:

Honestly Bored if that is what you consider a positive example of anything we are far too far apart for further discussion to have meaning.
Though I do hope you find nothing but games like Star Crusade in your future, yake that as either blessing or a curse whichever you prefer.

See, this is why I made you post what your actual criteria were, because I knew once I gave an answer you'd just go 'well its not the perfect game so haha derp you're wrong!' To remind you, since you're being a goalpost-moving weasel exactly as I predicted, you didn't say 'name a perfect game.' You said:

@ThatGuyThere said:

Not a sandbox and not about relationships. So it would simply be one that had mostly staff plots and a majority of the rp was not focused on relationships.

Those were your only criteria.

Now, if you want to highlight how the game was actually more focused on relationship RP, go ahead. Talk about all the huge amounts of relationship RP. What were some PCs who focused on relationships in preference to their positions, plot duties, etc?

Of the 4 Counts, the only person you could even make an argument for was Amber, because she did very little in general. Even fucking Renaud ran plots, got into skirmishes with other Counts, led assaults, and otherwise did plot shit. I couldn't even tell you if Lyov had a boytoy tucked away somewhere, but far as I could tell he was 100% focused on politics and war. Antonio had a marriage in the works but also was the most active person in terms of military stuff and generally being loud and outrageous in public RP. Out of my 3 characters, only one had a relationship, it only started after the game was basically in its death spiral, and even then we spent most of our time plotting for war.

So explain how it was mostly a marriage/relationship/babies focused game. Otherwise? You're fucking wrong. And you are wrong about this topic in general, because most games are closer to SC than not.

Maaaaybe

@Apollonius said :

@mietze There's just too much baggage in all MU*s that have a particular theme that repeats. Think about the baggage that comes with nWoD. If you thought FS players were bad, some nWoD players come with blood feuds. I suppose FS comes a close second. My recommendation is to create a totally new themed game that has similar conceits but different structural elements. A lot of the issue lies in players willfully repeating their mistakes in an FS game. Certain players playing certain archetypes and factions over and over and over again, certain players acquiring IC positions of power over and over and over again, certain players rising to OOC positions of power over and over and over again.

Frankly I doubt that making a new 'Lords and Ladies in Space' game that will appeal to the same group of players is going to get you away from those repeated behaviors. I've seen someone play a Hazat... and a Lion, and a Castille, and a couple righteous christians on RA, etc. Custodius reused the same PBs. Heck, I came off Firan playing my Griffon High General... to play Karl

So, nah, this won't fix things. @Packrat should make the game he wants, for sure, but avoiding FS isn't going to avoid FS repeat offense behaviors.

(Reposted in the right thread because lol how those reply windows follow you around)

@ThatGuyThere

Star Crusade? I mean, this is how bad your argument is, that the most obvious and relevant to the thread game invalidates it. The only way you think that game was about those things is if you base your whole opinion of it on Cirno's trolling.

I think you're mostly confused by the fact that most people RP a lot of relationship stuff, but on a healthy game that's something that goes alongside plot, not something that replaces it. They can even (and should, in the best RP!) happen at the same time: your goal to save the world matters more if you care about the people in it, right?

@ThatGuyThere said:

If I am so uninformed and wrong name one from the past decade.

Any game that... wasn't completely focused on personal romance and babies? Name your actual standard here so you're not shifting goalposts on me later.

@ThatGuyThere said:

@bored
My point is that in the last decade I have only heard of two places that managed that sort of sustained effort.

Your lack of familiarity with many, many (many?) games is your own problem. You can claim that every game ever (other than 2!) is/was nothing more than a relationship simulator and no thematic RP has ever happened anywhere, but uh, it's so far removed from reality that it isn't worth engaging with.

Can we talk about @Packrat's game and not imagined 'omg people will have relationships all the timez?!' woes?

@surreality said:

@bored said:

PRP-only games also require next to zero staff work, so there's that.

Not so true as I'm sure a lot of people wish it was. This isn't actually the case at all.

Well, sure. I admit to some hyperbole. All games are some work, and there are other factors, like manual vs automatic CG/XP, etc. But relatively speaking, there's a pretty big gap.

@ThatGuyThere said:

RfK worked and got people involved mainly through the work of Shava not just the systems and staff work but also in paging people to bring plots that would fit their character to their attention. She would introduce people on channel and by page whose characters would play well off each other things like that. I am not saying it cannot be done but it takes a shit ton of work from dedicated people. Who do you propose would be the Shava of this game? You volunteering for that role?

Didn't play on RfK, no idea who Shava is. That said, you're basically suggesting what I've been saying repeatedly: that you need staffers who do things. True!

Who am I suggesting do it? Uh, whatever staff @Packrat hires. That's why he'd hire them, right? Would I do it? I dunno. I might offer help on an FS game, dunno about unique theme. But the point is you don't need one magic wizard, you need a staff in general that is willing to put in the work.

That may well be rarer these days due to the demographic issues of the MUing population (which is far more likely a factor in any grand changes you think you've seen). But it doesn't change that basic requirement. You want anything other than a sandbox, regardless of the genre, you need a vision and active staff to push it.

@ThatGuyThere said:

@bored
And sandbox games out number plot intensive games in the modern market. There is a reason for that, well more then one most likely. Though one that I think people over look is maybe a majority of players prefer it that way.

Eh, correlation != causation, and assuming staffers across the hobby are reacting to... uh, some kind of market research and adjusting their games to match is hilariously far-fetched.

PRP-only games also require next to zero staff work, so there's that.

@ThatGuyThere said:

My issue is not with wanted to create the L+L game that is not a marriage simulator, but the idea that all the folks are just waiting to be shown something else and then will follow along without question.
To be this strikes me as Bane level arrogance of of course once hey see my idea they will ignore what they have previously liked.
The chance is possible but it will not be easy and if you do not have the mind set of this will be a lot of work it will not happen.

Its not about anyone being shown the light, or anyone here suggesting that anything would be innovative (which was Bane's thing).

It's about this being basic, observable fact on any and every MU since basically the dawn of MUtime. Games with conflict-driven themes, staff run plots, etc have more of those things. Games that basically say 'hey this is a sandbox, you can PRP anything you want' have people sandboxing in private. I'm not sure how a person can even argue about this, its so fucking base level fundamental.

@Packrat

Sounds like generic FATE stuff, which I admit gets me the opposite of excited.

@Packrat

Whether she was a staff buddy or not, she was still a beneficiary of the really skewed general game setup. Maybe that was all done for Renaud's benefit (he was definitely buddy-buddy with Paulus; you don't take a player you admit has been a problem on prior games and make him a feature otherwise), but it benefited everyone in the south. So by putting Renaud and her together it really exacerbated things. Certainly I left because it was pretty galling to get the kinds of super-effective Kurgan attacks I did when Renaud was ignored and the only attack on Amber was led, and this is not hyperbole, by an incompetent child general.

Otherwise, she was just kind of a shitty person and dubiously someone who should have been given a feature slot since she seemed to dislike RPing with people and preferred settling things via OOC channels and discussions rather than ICly. @silentsophia's interactions are a good example of that.

Amber aside, though, I still think SC illustrates that the playerbase, even if you reduce it to 'L&L players' (as if they're totally different people), is perfectly willing to be involved in more than just TP-room fucking. So there's no reason for you not to go forward with a game focused on providing that conflict. The players will follow your lead, despite what some people are saying.

Also: Just make a Fading Suns game. Seriously. It will save you so much time on theme.

@Apos

Well, Firan did pick randomly pick people out of their room and kill them

That aside... pretty much. You'll always have players with different inclinations. But on a well-run game I rarely see the total shut-in population as anything but a tiny (and readily ignore-able) minority. Usually, the socially focused people are not total shut-ins, and they can still be a game asset. If nothing else, they want to show off their relationship in public (or else they really would be on Shangrila), so they will attend social events. That's... not worth nothing, even if it's as far as thing goes. It makes those events more active.

More often, I think, even those players who might not want combat and violence can be drawn into lower-stakes politics etc. They will definitely have friends they want to support and enemies (or at least targets of jealousy etc) that they will want to be bitches to, etc. This is all stuff that feeds RP.

Well, 30% isn't 'most', if it's even that much, so it's not correct to frame it that way when it might be a smaller core of people (which I don't disagree with; and I realize you're not the one doing so, I'm just comparing).

I think very likely the majority go where staff takes them. History supports this, and there's no reason to think anything has changed in the hobby, because we've seen games of both types, old and new. Firan's death & rape non-consent jamboree existed alongside 'everyone just RPs in private with their weyrmate' Pern games. More recently, you can put say Star Crusade next to 5th World and see very different cultures on games that were superficially very similar looking. WoD games even seem to shift within their own lifetimes, between focus on metaplot and staffers (not shockingly) burning out and leaving people to their own shit.

But I'm simply not willing to accept a view of the hobby that is so fundamentally backwards. None of the degree of obsession on game systems, mechanics, theme elements, xp and advancement, etc etc etc makes much sense if everyone wants to just get their fuck on in private, and can do so without a staffer having a chance to butt in on it on Shangrila.

@Ghost said:

You mean...the non-consent WoD games where most people spend time in private rooms and only a certain population of players and their alts actively involve in dangerous plots?

These people exist, certainly. That the ones who wholly prefer to avoid all conflict vs. the ones who settle into filler RP when nothing else is available are a majority is not something I see any evidence of, and indeed much to the contrary.

Relationship-only people will have an effect on the games around them, especially if those games have nothing else going for them. But again, your theory of MU-reality doesn't adequately explain people leaping into big conflicts when those big conflicts are available.

@Ghost said:

I don't care what the game is or what setting it is, and I'm doing my best to not sound like some bitter Grampa type when I say this, but I've come to realize that a grand majority of the MU habit is roleplaying relationship simulation. My main advice for anyone starting a game idea is to understand this. Most of your players will focus on some form of relationship arc storyline as their personal baseline, and unless they want to roleplay a character death, will choose IC actions based on their OOC RP desires to avoid having to rekindle or reset their relationship roleplay. A large number of your players will be making IC relationship plans via pages, come into chargen with an already established plan to have relationship RP with another player's character, or will put the game onto the back burner if they fail to find relationship roleplay and are getting it on another game. Because of this, most players will avoid consenting to death, assassination plots, or risk of character loss unless it is predetermined that the outcome will allow them to keep their characters. These players do NOT want to lose their RP with their IC/OOC paramours, because if their character dies and their new character hooks up with the widow, players will call foul.

I can't say I really agree/accept this like others have. I still think the staff sets the tone and the players follow.

And casual observation of the MSB-adjacent MUverse bears this out. If the overall desire for most people was to simply have their relationship RP and avoid at all costs anything that might threaten it, you wouldn't see the non-consent dominated WoD-playing population. Firan would not have been a popular game. SC, which gets (I think mostly erroneously/as a result of misinformation from Cirno) portrayed as a 'marriage simulator' was a game mostly about violence with a lot of PC risk.

So I'm kind of confused how all of these things can be popular or successful if all players desperately want to avoid them. Even on our recent example of Realms Adventurous, which definitely suffered from the problem, there were plenty of people willing to go out and fight and die (and people did!). The new staffers who took over the game wanted to make it more cuddly and friendly... and they lost some non-insignificant portion of the playerbase.

So the idea that everyone wants a safe, consensual cuddlespace seems dubious.

What I'll grant, is that there certainly are a subset of players who act exactly as your post describes. The new G&G regime in RA are those sorts of players. There are also plenty of games that are created quickly with nothing more than a thin veneer of theme to satisfy staffers who are the sorts you describe, which invite other people to join in and end up only having that kind of RP.

But I absolutely do not see this as a universal norm. There are plenty of people in this very thread saying they want more bite to their game, and asking @Packrat to provide it. If you build it (and support it thematically), they will come, and all that.