Posts made by Collective

@faraday said in Mutant Genesis (X-Men):

And if that's a given game's policy, that's their business (which is what I said to @Enoch's original policy). But if you want your game's RP to have meaning, then you can't just ignore it whenever a player feels like it.

With respect, that's kind of a feature of a comic book game, rather than a bug. Comics characters have the reset button hit on their relationships all the time. Usually without a great deal of fanfare. A new writer comes in and things change, sometimes between issues.

That sort of flexibility is very convenient for the players. Also, nobody is suggesting that all the RP done with that character is wiped. Just that the relationship drama parts be stopped unless the new player wants to opt into that.

I know that if my first days on a game were expected to be in scenes where some random stranger wants to RP what a bastard my character is for breaking up with their character, I'd nod politely, pretend I had to run an errand, log out and never, ever come back.

Ever.

@faraday said in Mutant Genesis (X-Men):

The new player knew what they were getting into when they apped the character. If they didn't want to be married, there are other characters they could have taken. Encouraging new players to take a wrecking ball to existing relationships on a whim just seems... kinda cheesy to me. But it's not the red flag that retcon was, for sure.

Do you play a lot of superhero games? Because the continuity builds up fast and thick. Saying that a new player 'knew what they were getting into' isn't really fair or accurate in a lot of cases. First, the 'canon' relationships are iffy and more often than not, the last player went another way with the character. Sometimes a radically different way.

I've apped on games where the first thing I get when somebody sees the name in the who list is a page like: 'Hey, characters X and Y were in a poly relationship with the guy you're applying for, how do you want to handle that'? And I stay away from the serious TS magnet characters, like the Teen Titans.

Sometimes you don't want to deal with somebody else's past fuckbuddies. You just want to play Spider-Man.

@tempest said in Mutant Genesis (X-Men):

As long as the other players aren't actual jerks about the "ICly being mad over a breakup" kind of stuff, I think it could be fun.

Greetings, strange visitor from another continuum. I take it you've never met MU* players before?

On the relationship front, I would respectfully submit that maybe the onus should not be on the new player in regards to the 'breakup'. That should be assumed to have happened off-screen, unless the new person specifically opts in for that RP.

If I want to play, say, Iceman, I'm not going to be thrilled if Mystique and Northstar both are ICly pissed off at my character for something that had nothing to do with my RP, but because the last guy used her for a beard and him for gay training wheels.

Really well done on the wiki. Not just visually pleasing but the writing is concise, clear and effective.

But to answer the question, I guess I'd have to agree with 'both' if I must.

But honestly, 99 times out of a 100, if I want to know something about a character I check the wiki first. It's just more convenient to read and I can scan somebody's RP hooks or whatever without worrying about scrolling.

@tempest said in Character Information: Wiki or Mu*?:

IDK how people RP on phone.

Usually slowly, badly and with an 'oh, well' attitude towards being bad.

But that's a gripe for another thread.

Yay!

Somewhere I can app a prismatic furred, multi-breasted catgirl in a bondage outfit!

...

I actually feel a little a little guilty for putting that image out into the universe. Like if it comes true, it will be my fault.

@sunny said in Potential Game / Temperature Read:

@auspice I don't want to try and tackle details because I don't know what they are (I have not done an analysis or looking in pretty much forever), but I know there's SOME sort of differences in Cinematic vs Not Cinematic Unisystem, in the mechanics themselves. Buffy (and the other Cinematic stuff) is setup so you can get wilder heroics and such, to go along with a TV show sort of feel.

Cinematic is streamlined for quicker play. The main differences:

Fewer skills, more omnibus skills.
A simplified dice mechanic (no reroll and add on a 10).
A simplified damage mechanic. (Higher damage being the end result.)
Drama points, to help the player keep narrative control.
Simplified templates for the characters. Less options, but a quicker build.

And I think that's about it. It's been a decade or so, though, since I last played them.

And by the way, to add something more than complaining, here is a link to the official (and free) Witchcraft RPG core book. It would be available for all your players to download legally.

http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/692/CJ-Carrellas-WitchCraft?it=1

Oh god. Please don't go with the Storyteller/ing system.

I will read the books to play on a good game. I will watch the series. But if I have to face WoD character gen one more time, I will cry manly tears of frustration and horror.

Like D&D, WoD is kind of its own genre and the rules only work to support playing that genre, in my opinion. And even then, only sorta-kinda work.

As much as I loved TT RPGs like Adventure!, Trinity and Scion, they showed how bad that system can be when used outside the very specific story needs of the World of Darkness.

Something sci-fi with room for space merchants (ala Andre Norton's Solar Queen novels or other vintage 'space trader' SF of that era) would be amazing. So, you know, like Firefly but with 1000% less Confederate fetishism.

@lithium There are several point-based versions of the tabletop's character generation available. Or just let people pick what they want, with an understanding that staff might veto it.

The lovely thing about FASERIP is that it gives a baseline for what a character can do that allows instant comparisons with famous FCs.

We can look at the rules and see that Captain America has, for example, Rm (30) Strength and Am (50) Fighting (before his crazy level of martial arts talents that give him +1 shift for just about everything).

If somebody apps a character who is the equal or better than the big name FCs in every category, that's a bit of an alarm bell, for instance.

Did I see you talking about throwing FASERIP into the mix? Because I'm pretty sure it would be an Amazing (50) fit for an X-Men game.

I think a good approach might be an 'All-New, All-Different Year 1'.

The original five as established characters, teachers and X-Men and then bringing in later characters (from the Claremont era to today) as 'new mutants' or other former students who are now either full X-Men or living post-Xavier's School lives.

@tnp said in FCs on Comic MUs:

And if Wolverine and Hercules can get it on in canon, it's time to just stop worrying about whether an FC has been 'turned gay'. Just consider it an Alt U version and get over it. It's not like there's a ton of gay, lesbian, trans, etc FCs to choose from to begin with.

I have to admit, I wish I had the guts to just go ahead and app some characters I love as being bi or gay. As you say, there aren't a ton of choices and I always feel a little weird playing straight when I'm not for a couple of different reasons.

Firstly, I worry about making it too broad and stupid (rawr, football and boobs!)

Secondly, I've tried playing characters who have canon hetero relationships in comics and people just will not take 'my version of Spidey is focused on school and webslinging, he's not looking for love' for an answer.

On the other hand, I feel like if I app, say, Nightwing or Red Hood as being into dudes, I'm going to have to wade through a mountain of assumptions about what I'm actually doing on the game. And if I don't include that in the app and I do end up in romantic RP, then I feel like I've lied by omission to the staff, who might not be cool with Dick being into dicks.

I'd love to see something like the TV show Alias. Spy shenanigans, super-science (and maybe a little magic, we're not sure), relationship drama and the occasional evil twin.

There would be some structural challenges for MU-play, but it would be fun. And something I don't think I've seen before.

I'm a bit hesitant to offer advice on humanizing NPCs, as I'm sure that you have your own ideas and have it handled. But this being the Internet, I'll offer unsolicited advice anyway!

I wrapped up a long-running online tabletop game with high NPC casualties (and moderate PC casualties) a couple of years ago and I found a couple of techniques that really take advantage of using the Internet as a medium and a resource.

Obviously, for MU*s, casting is a thing. There has been no shortage of military shows for a while now, so finding folks with the right 'look' for Colonial Marines shouldn't be a problem. Putting faces to the names really is a great first step.

Two other techniques that worked really well for me both involved weaving those characters into the background of various scenes and situations.

For instance, I gave the campaign's Discord server a pseudo-message board feel, kind of a barebones chat/news aggregation vibe. To that end, the NPCs of note had their own chat avatars (headshots, usually) and their posts, joking back and forth about various topics (the most successful was an ongoing argument between two NPCs about hot water use in the ship that ended up being something the players loved to have their characters riff on) and sharing various news stories to the group. The links just lead to mock-ups of webpages I threw together in GIMP and Scribus, but they looked pretty good.

Also, when I was doing written cut scenes, I'd do them from the viewpoint of an NPC who was going to figure into the upcoming stories. Like the pilot interrupted while recording a letter for his family, etc. Do that a few times and the players start developing a feel for the characters and if not affection, at least a sense of attachment.

Basically, it boils down to filling the background with a pool of characters that might or might not be important but will soon be familiar. That gives their loss more of a narrative punch. And it makes for interesting background action as newbies arrive to replace the fallen NPCs as well.

@tnp That would have the potential to be a hell of a lot of fun.

Pretty much. I wasn't suggesting the ability to alter the world is bad, just that M&M is one of those systems that makes it manifest and easy to do.

But then again, it isn't as if people don't do crazy stuff like making their own islands all the time. (Cyclops, I'm looking at you and 'Utopia' getting planted in San Francisco bay or Medusa dropping the Inhuman capital city down beside Manhattan.)