Posts made by faraday

I've always used PennMUSH. No special reason, it's just what I learned on and it was too much of a pain to deal with the subtle differences with the others when coding. Everyone who complains about PennMUSH channels? That's me when I'm on a MUX game... OMG HOW DO I TALK?!?! Many things that we think are "intuitive" are only that way because it's what we're most familiar with.

My only requirement for a new MUSH server is that it not use MUSHCode. Seriously. I never ever want to touch another line of that stuff ever again.

(This is not to slam MUSHCode. For 80's era technology it's a pretty powerful scripting language. But by modern standards? It's like trying to code a web app in assembly language. Insanity.)

@Thenomain One thing to bear in mind... SIN is completely a UCAS artifact. The database is managed by the UCAS government. Other countries (and probably corporations) have their equivalents, but the SIN is not global. (In canon SR anyway.)

@Bobotron said in [Request] Policy Template:

I see people here saying that you don't need to define policies in the most strictest detail, but some of those polices - and people not following them -- are the very things that we bitch about on this forum. And then when it becomes a clusterfuck because there was no policy point to reference, it spirals into insanity.

I respectfully disagree. Things spiral into insanity when people act insane. Having more or fewer policies doesn't change this. I have yet to see anyone flip out and create a 10-page long thread because staff enforced a vague yet sensible policy.

I have, however, seen staff hamstrung in their attempts to deal with a problem player because "well, dang, technically they didn't break rule 602 because of the way it's worded" or "wow this guy totally sucks, but we have to give him three strikes according to the policy; hopefully he won't drive everyone off while we're waiting for him to screw up next."

@Sunny said in [Request] Policy Template:

Why is this needed?

Yes, this exactly. I like to consider "Is this really likely to become an issue?" and "what are the effects if it does become an issue?" Like, I've seen very reactionary policies sometimes. IdiotGuy did something stupid on SomewhereMUSH in 2001 therefore there needs to be a policy to keep someone else from doing the same.

Unless it was a huge catastrophe (pretty rare in my experience), or it happens ten times a year, no - there probably doesn't need to be a policy about it.

The template I use on my games, FWIW:

Golden Rule
Don't be a jerk. Don't cheat, harass, flame, stalk, etc. or you will be shown the door.

Don't Break the Game
Respect the theme when it comes to plots, characters and setting. Do not do things that will destroy or irrevocably disrupt the theme for others. Use common sense, and when in doubt - contact the staff.

Player-Run Plots
Every player is encouraged and empowered to run plots, large and small. Just remember the Don't Break the Game rule above. Staff will run plots, of course, but proactive players will get the most out of the game.

Staff Pledge
We will do our best to provide a sane, fair and friendly environment for you to tell your stories. Our goal is to respond to all apps and requests in under 24 hours. Staff alts are all public, and we do not spy on players.

Other blurbs include Rating, Alts, Consent, and Idle. They're just a few sentences each, so it's pretty short. Personally I prefer to read them all in one place, but that's a matter of preference.

I think lightweight policies are best. You don't need a lawbook to run a game. People won't read it anyway. Just outline your general expectations, and beyond that, use "dinner party rules". It's my dinner party. I don't need to provide each guest with a comprehensive list of unacceptable behaviors. If you're being a jerk, I will talk to you about it. If you persist in being a jerk, I will ask you to leave.

Dunno if this helps any but here's something I wrote awhile ago. http://aresmush.com/articles/practical-mush-coding

@somasatori It's ancient and frankly I don't remember how it works any more, but... better than nothing I guess?

https://github.com/lynnfaraday/MUSH/blob/master/farasoftcode/Unsupported/WODStoryteller.dec

Edit -- But I'm sure whatever @Thenomain has is way better. This is more his wheelhouse

@Thenomain Actually I did that in FS3 1st Ed and people were really thrown off by it because they had a hard time grasping what the skill numbers meant. Not even my pretty skill distribution graphs seemed to help. YMMV.

@Ganymede Oh Earthdawn was an awesome game and I love the system overall. But its dice had some weird effects.

@Ganymede said in Attributes or No?:

This is what I was hooking on to. In Earthdawn, a step might give you 1d12 to roll, but with the addition of a skill, that might become 2d6. Plus, there's the potential for an exploding die, which is how one could explain how an unskilled, super-talented character might take down a dragon in one shot.

The addition of a die is only true at very specific skill brackets though, like the difference between d12 and 2d6 (step 7-8), or between d20+d12 and d20+2d6 (step 18-19). In general, though, it's weighted so there's a linear progression of averages. It also caused some quirky results, like when someone would avoid raising a skill from step 13 to 14 because the die swings became less predictable. Earthdawn was weird

@Ganymede -- Coin described rolling [Skill] dice of [Attribute] value. So skill 2 might roll 2d4 or 2d6 depending. Skill 3 would be 3d4 or 3d6 or 3d8.

Earthdawn is way different, with a base die modified by the steps. For those unfamiliar, your attribute may start you off at 1d8 but then a skill of 2 would bump you to 1d12. Or your attr starts off at 1d12 and you get bumped to d8+d6.

Those sound very different to me, personally, but to each their own. Anyway, I like Earthdawn's system.

@Ganymede said in Attributes or No?:

Then you have unintentionally mined another system.

There are so many skill systems in the world, it would be difficult to come up with one that bears no resemblance to anything that's come before. @Coin's system is similar in principle to Earthdawn, but different in execution. Does that count as mining?

@ThatGuyThere said in Attributes or No?:

@Coin
Conversly the well trained but not talented is less likely to produce the maximum result. 1 time out of 64 compared to the 1 time out of 12 of the talented person, but does have the bell curve so his results will settle into the median ranges most of the time, showing a base competency but a lot of true gift.

It kinda depends on whether you think that's appropriate or not, I guess. Should someone with barely any training but natural talent really be 8 times more likely to score an A+ / hit a home run / hit the bullseye / whatever the max result is than the guy with a lot of training who's not especially gifted? Eh... doesn't seem quite right to me. It reminds me of the WoD problem, where the Mind5+Medicine1 guy (smart guy who took a first aid class once) was better than the Mind2+Medicine3 guy (average medical doctor). I also think you'll get some weird effects at higher skill levels, because the bell curves will become so concentrated around average that you might as well not even bother rolling at all because there's so little variation.

@coin CofD? That's nWoD right? They have 3 attributes in each of Physical/Mental/Social categories, but I don't think they really align with the Power/Finesse/Resistance angle, do they? (Edit) Nevermind, I forgot they changed that in nWoD, which I never actually played.

@Ganymede Can you elaborate on what about Silhouette/L5R's attribute system you like?

@ThatGuyThere said in Dragon Age: Smoke & Shadows:

@faraday
Also success is a bit less likely per die in your system then in SR and NWoD, .25 expected successes per die as opposed to SR and NWoD which are both .33 repeating expected successes per die.

It's not that different. .25 vs .3 for FS3 vs nWoD. And there are some other subtleties with the modifiers that shift it somewhat in certain cases. You can look at the statistics I ran for a detailed comparison. With a Routine task, Pete the Professional has an 83% with nWod and 86% with FS3.

Edit to add: I don't want to derail this thread with dice mechanics, but I'm happy to talk elsewhere if anyone cares.

@Thenomain said in Dragon Age: Smoke & Shadows:

Is it stat + skill in dice, or dice + stat + skill? Or ...

Stat + Skill in 8-sided dice, TN 7. Modifiers affect the number of dice you roll. Same basic mechanic as nWoD and Shadowrun4, just different dice to get the percentages to come out the way I wanted. The mechanics doc kind of sucks currently, but there you go.

Curious what folks think about skill systems having attributes. I'm on the fence.

Pros

• Differentiates between natural talent and training, reflecting folks who are just plain gifted.
• Lets you model things that aren't really skills (like Strength reflecting how much you can lift, or augmenting melee damage).
• Gives you something to roll when defaulting (like Dexterity if you're making an untrained Firearms roll).

Cons

• The line between skill and attribute is very fuzzy and confusing sometimes (is lifting capacity based on Strength or on my Weightlifting skill? How does Athletics factor in?)
• The line between skill and talent is fuzzy and confusing sometimes (If I'm a brand new pilot but I'm really awesome because I'm talented, do I take Rookie for my training or Expert because I'm as awesome as an expert?)
• More things to buy = more points required in chargen = more opportunities to min/max. I've noticed attributes tend to get min-maxed more than skills, especially ones that are rolled more or less often.

To be clear, the alternative would be a system like FATE that has only skills. A single rating encompasses both talent + training, and attribute-ish sorts of things are reflected by "Skills" like Physique and Rapport. Defaulting rolls would use Average unless the GM decided you had reason to be more or less awesome.

@Coin said in Dragon Age: Smoke & Shadows:

I believe Roll+Keep is also in L5R.

Yeah I was just braindead and used the wrong term. It's a dice pool system: stat + skill against a fixed target number. Modifiers add/remove dice.

@surreality As I've said, the contest comes with the ease with which you can install and configure wikidot vs MW. I've used the $5 DO package successfully, FWIW. Anyway, I feel like we're going in circles so I'm just going to bow out at this point.

@surreality said in How should we (as a community) handle MediaWiki:

@faraday That... yeah, if you are having to pay for game hosting one place, and wikidot as well? I'd nope the heck out of that, especially since that'd probably kill the ability to have the same domain name for both.

:shrugs: Depends on what you're going for. You can host a MUSH on a Digital Ocean micro VM for $5/month or a GenesisMUDs account for $7/month, and wikidot Pro is $4/month. Add them together and I still think that's comparable to what you'd pay for a server capable of hosting MediaWiki on top of the MUSH server. You can point your domain names so that www.yourmush.com goes to wikidot and mush.yourmush.com goes to the game.

Just to be clear - I don't really care what folks do for their own games. If you like MediaWiki, use MediaWiki. Just responding to the "nope you can't do that" type things I keep seeing in regards to Wikidot.

@surreality said in How should we (as a community) handle MediaWiki:

but I don't know how wikidot, which is on its own servers, is going to feel about people having external non-user sources from another server (the game itself) yanking from or shoving to its server.

See my comment in an earlier reply. It's totally fine, you just have to pay for the privilege (making it not-free).