Best posts made by Chet

I've decided to freeware my science fiction code platform, once I finish it, with a system of coded commands to customize the coded terminology along the needs of the theme.

It includes: A pairing skill-based combat system non-reliant on statistics. A set of nine power-ups, notable for their math, that alters the skill system. A customized metapowers system that advances alongside advancement points. A zone-damage system that reduces damage synchronicity from damage/dodge tradeoff bonuses built into the combat system. An enhancements system built into a monetary marked economy for boosts in combat, that can be purchased and deployed in fight with money earned from the previously mentioned zone-based damage system. A set of non-competitive skill rolls that work to determine winners, as well as playing into the enhancements system for roll bonuses. An up-down-neutral voting system to advance player influence. A business system to allow players to purchase investments along different markers that have different meanings conducive to customization. An alliance system, to enhance gain of influence or non-competitive skills (as opposed to combat, built by fighting). A merit token system, for plot power, purchased from a pool of business capital. A ten culture system, with a voting council, rules and culture names determined by the staff. A sub-system within the ten cultures, for individual groups of players to congregate in, at the determination of players and staff. Finally, a completely integrated chargen system.

This system is almost entirely complete, besides the integration of the enhancements system.

If you're interested in the project, drop by at portent.genesismuds.com:2077.

Ignore the window dressing, I don't have a theme on this place, and I probably won't be doing a crime theme, wouldn't want to be redundant with Shadowrun: Denver already in place.

Going off of the discussion on another board under the Superhero MU Gut Check topic, about wanting to be involved in projects but not wanting your project to go public too early, and not wanting it to be in the design phase on an open board, what about a board to offer help for projects, instead of just posts asking for help for a particular project? That way, a MUSH team could recruit someone from a pool of interesting people.

Sort of like a Mos Eisley board.

I'd like a MUSH designed around Renaissance Italy's city-states, where you had different territories, trade houses, and nobilities, united under a religious or prophetic leader as a method for keeping the balance. While it's tempting to play armies and broad campaigns, a more realistic way to do this would be to play with spies, assassins, and diplomats, alongside the culture of patronage, arts, and theology. A spy could be someone that had defected from another state young and still has the ability to blend in with those in his home state, an assassin could be a pauper raised to the level of bon vivant saboteur by ancient tradition, and a diplomat could be a cultured rich man raised by tutors to bargain with others. The armies and campaigns could occur in the backdrop, perhaps controlled by staff, with secondary plots revolving around patronage by nobles, arts and trade goods controlled by the doges, and priestly emissaries striving to keep the peace.

You wouldn't have to make this a literal period piece, you could use the basis of the culture or time period in any method of work, from a space opera epic to a post apocalyptic noir. Add an external canon, or set of canons, as a plus.

At a friend's roleplaying game, who was doing a fresh take on the Megaman genre, she noticed a phenomenon where 'Tumblrettes', as she called them, rushed the game, started up activity, then migrated away en masse when the plot started to pick up. I don't think it's an deliberate conspiracy, but it's the fad mentality that takes down a lot of games. The thing you have to do is be careful where you advertise. I, for example, don't want to advertise on a game with a lot of anime fans, because my style clashes with anime, my inspiration is drawn from a lot of American science fiction literature with completely contradictory ideas about warfare, the government, theology, etc. I draw from Herbert, Clarke, or Heinlein, that's a different playset than, say, someone that wants a utopian soap opera.

X-Men Republicans, huh?

Sounds like a Senator Kelly fifth column.

Do me a favor and play the Blob for them, in the rubber costume with the shorts.

I've decided to take someone's suggestion, and make a DC Comics villains and henchmen project. I've got a combat system with a 'tango' feel gridded out for creation by an enterprising coder, which includes XP and Gear for OCs, with a faintly MMO-like flavor (FCs are mail-in applications, OCs are chargen onsite). Heroes are available per-scene, depending on player power level, to pull out of a locker, in the manner of a PvE event.

The entire combat system's necessities are sketched out in advance. I've already elected on the primary mission directives of the MUSH, and I'm just looking for anyone that wants to make a unique project. It's a little different than most comic book MUSHes, as I'm looking for a 'blended' feel between an anime MUSH's combat statistics and a comic book MUSH's adherence to flavor, with a slight terminology twist for daily RP (i.e., a scene is an 'issue', for starters).

The project is called DC Comics: Villains United, and focuses on the most proactive part of the comic book cast, the assorted cads and cadavers. If you're interested in coding, writing profiles for FCs, writing theme or grid, shoot me a page here, or log in at portent.genesismuds.com:2070 (I iceboxed the Neo-Tokyo Nights project, too difficult to finish alone). There are two documents available off a DropBox account in the main project development room, off room #0, detailing the MUSH skeletal write-up and the heroes/villains/locations/organizations roster as it stands.

Cheers!

I've resurrected my Long Halloween MUSH project, with all files save the application and command listing files, plus the policy files, complete (I need to bug surf for typos), and I've added in a perfected form of my License to Kill combat system, plus a combat branching system that I developed for another project that I've modified into the combat system.

I need people to write nice, elegant little descriptions of an already built Gotham City grid. I've decided to steer away from pre-writing FCs, and I've balanced FCs with OCs by giving FCs the ability to start at a higher stat level, but OCs have the option of increasing their stats by earning AP (FCs don't earn AP) and adding to their metapower index as they go.

If you're interested in a Gotham City based MUSH, with a unique take on the setting of Gotham City and a primer on roleplaying I feel is perfect for a comic game, I'd love to hear from you. The grid is all pre-built, I just need desc legwork.

Use the chat function on MU Soapbox, if you don't already have the addy.

My introduction to geekdom was a comic book I bought at Walgreens, in Jamaica Plain, Boston, off the rare rack, wrapped in mylar. I was in kindergarten, and the year was 1990.

The comic had been published ten years earlier, in 1980 (first draft, still own it, it's about ten feet away right now RL), Green Lantern vs. Evil Star. It discussed the ethics of imprisoning a supervillain that needed to destroy an entire planet, or else he'd wither and die of old age, in agony. A real exploration of the passing of life from the elderly, to the young, to allow society to continue on as we see it today. Today, we are Green Lantern, placing our elders in facilities where they can no longer wrack the chaos that we now inflict upon our society, in order for our children (you, the lovely reader of the comic) to grow. Tomorrow, we are Evil Star.

The second half of the comic was 'The Trial of Arkis Chummuck'. I spent a good 20 years of my life speculating on how the comic ended, since it was a cliffhanger. The comic features a Green Lantern losing a duel to an archivist civilian on a fascist planet, and having his body eaten by the archivist, in ceremonial tradition, before the ring selected the archivist (Chummuck) as the new bearer. Arkis then proceeded to defeat the military dictator of his planet in single combat, whereupon the dictator chose to die in a disintegration chamber, as befitting his culture.

Arkis was placed on trial before the Green Lanterns, on the charges of murdering the dictator. It ends with Arkis informing the court that if he is found guilty, he will be forced to kill himself under ceremonial tradition, dooming the Green Lantern council to the same fate as he, in the trial chambers.

Certainly an interesting exploration of law that haunted me throughout my years reading literature and reimagining it, to solve that quandry.

I've always thought another way to write the Matrix would be to set it post apocalyptic, where the humans were willingly in stasis pods beneath the Earth, in a virtual reality society. Humans not in the stasis chambers would be the police, and would insert into the virtual reality world to hunt rogue programs (ala the Agents, the Voyager episode with 'Fear', the other weird things), renegade hackers into the virtual reality world (something like pirates), or people inside the virtual reality subverting it from within (Cypher). It would be sort of a meta-MUSH.

I just ordered Knightfall, and I read the first issue, featuring Bane's creation and first hunt for Batman. I had an epiphany when I read it, and I think I saw the entire problem I've had the entire time I've MUSHed.

Who here would be interested in getting together and making some sort of police commando concept, with the police commandos being realistic for a macho, corrupt department, facing off with an invading crime syndicate?

I'm completely open to theme, structure, code, anything. Just let me know if you have any ideas or interest. I'm thinking something 1990's DC Comics in general attitude.

During the Cold War, the American Empire rose, at the head of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, opposing the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact. Proxy wars blazed into the night, as people fought against colonial governments and social unrest against injustice raged. After the decline of communism, there was a brief decade of peace, before forces conspired to plunge the world into war again.

Now, in 2018, the new world sees empires poised to return. The modern intelligence operation has become the centerpoint of a country's policy, whether it be a man in a corporate office, or a woman in police tactical gear. Great powers seek to do their own form of justice, as gods return to the world stage, their armies of financiers and dapper assassins clashing throughout the grand night.

And in the halls of power, tendrils reach into the hearts of humanity, playing a game as old as life itself.

The evolution of power.

At License to Kill MUSH, you take the role of a modern espionage agent, your role central to the survival of your backing interest. Gather information, capture threats, assassinate rogue actors, and slip a knife into someone's back.

portent.genesismuds.com:2077

I'm sorry if I went off on a tangent, I'm working on sharpening up a writing tactic for use in whatever little niche writing gig I can find, I've been working on a creative writing class for the past couple weeks instead of RPing.

To put it in context: if you make a game where everyone plays PvE, you are going to run into two problems.

A) You'll attract the dicks that don't play nice when they play superheroes, and are basically there to live out their fantasies of beating people up that are from the villains theme that's made to draw them in. Gotham City is for people that are into law enforcement fairness and sociological reform and the ethics of mental illness. Metropolis is for people that are into corporate industry and truth in press and national politics.

B) The other problem is that some players play someone they want to understand, either they want to put themselves into the role of the character (that's the definition of roleplay) they've seen in a media source, or they're writing something they know from another perspective. That is your 'disguise' player. The other form of player is the aspirational player, they write something they want to become, they admire, etc. So, you'll have an entire Justice League together, but you'll have someone playing Robin that wants to take down the class smartass by getting into his mind, and you'll have someone playing Batman that thinks Batman is a really cool thing to be.

That's actually the root problem with all MUSHes that have any sort of conflict, it's very subtle, but it's where cliques are from.

But on a superhero game, where the theme is already representative of current events (for instance, how does Batman get people put in jail without legal procedure? Drug informant busts are very controversial, yet a jury usually convicts based on guilt in their opinion, not the moral mind of the case), you're making it so there's no dissenting voice.

tldr; I hate PvE, especially on a comic game.

What's a little napalm between friends?

It's a big universe, and there's a lot of time, but it isn't on your side, alien scum. Duke Nukem has been around the block so many times that the block is a charred pile of ash, and his friends in the Earth Defense Force are time traveling with him across the galaxy and through dimensional parallels to fight the Rigelatins and their allies. Duke Nukem's worst enemies have arranged a grand alliance, against the outnumbered forces of humanity, with changes in history and outlandish weapons meeting to produce the battle of titans.

Do you have what it takes to engage in the most insane combat imaginable, manipulating events and forming your own personal units, forming front organizations and seizing plot power for yourself, the player? Do you want a system of completely unique fighting with innovative powerups, a non-competitive skill roll system complete with several systems of advancement throughout the game, and of course, a monitored system of world building, alliances between players, an internal intrigue among the villains that allows for manipulation, fighting, and peace, all through politics? Gadgets, guns, grenades? Time travel, retroactive continuity being thematic, and of course the grand daddy of them all, a frag tag system to hand out Duke Nukem to the most killer player, at shifting intervals?

Time to chug beer, ladies.

portent.genesismuds.com:2077 . We're in alpha phases right now, to test the system integrity. Staff positions always welcome if you want to sign on as a plot staffer, advancement point rewards for bugs and typos spotted. An immersive playworld and a bastardly dastardly arena of fun, from a simple theme expanded into every possible alley of plot and madness.

Duke Nukem: Paradise City.

I've seen this idea get adapted once, but it had great promise. Cowboy Bebop. The only problem was that it relied on the bounty hunter dynamic seen in the show. You had to get players, sometimes OOC strangers, together for a crew to even be authorized for a ship. Take the feel and universe of Cowboy Bebop, stick a crime syndicate faction like the one featured on the show, a bounty hunter mercenary faction that operated as a loose band of PCs with a bounty board, and a dedicated police force of 'space marshals', that would operate like Texas Rangers, and would be the 'hand of fate' with the two other factions.

Three competing factional dynamics in terms of order, for each type of pirate fan: authoritarians, libertarians, progressives. If you liked a military system, you'd pick the crime syndicate, if you wanted to snipe and hunt and social, you'd pick a bounty hunter, and if you wanted to make political statements, you'd pick a badge.

WTF, Batman, you're Republican now?

Green Lantern is a badge that won't give up his civilian life, Punisher lost his civilian life and refuses to come home from Vietnam?

@ThatOneDude I'd say, "It doesn't matter how many times you re-analyze the same thing, you're just reinventing the wheels for different types of wheels."

Batman is the most unlikable prick in the world, but he does good things.

Joker is one of the most popular villains in comics, but he's a homicidal maniac.

It's like space opera (Star Wars), except with spy fiction. It's about grandiose, epic journeys and missions where the main characters happen to be at the center of the most important historical events, and they only take flesh wounds.

One room object per continent, three ocean rooms, and one sea room, plus eight one room cities. That's 15 rooms to describe, and the project is complete.

You're going to want to include, in each theme file, a broad 'hook' to fit a decent group of players and concepts, and have it so the various hooks can interact with another hook, preferably in a open-ended way, with some specifications as suggestions. My suggestion is to take all four of those IC challenges, and chain together individual segments from one of each together into a four point hook as a theme point. I say this because an open city environment without an express action motor (a war, a factional battle, etc.) needs a cog-like machine to function (some sort of economy system, but one that comes in the form of game theory IC interests).