Posts made by faraday

@Glitch I have no willpower.

Fixed the extra die problem. [6, 5, 3, 1, 1] will make one raise out of 6+3+1 with [5, 1] left over.

@Glitch said:

Why would there even be a mechanic for it, then? Otherwise, it'd just be floor(roll / 10).

Huh? I'm operating on the assumption that you still have to combine the dice. You can't just take your "8" die and split it into two 4's to turn [8, 7, 6] into two raises.

At any rate, I didn't realize that the leftover dice were relevant, so I didn't factor that into the algorithm. I was just looking to make 10's. Looking at the mechanics again - yeah, I have to agree that a tabletop GM wouldn't accept 6+3+1+1 as a valid raise because it denies them the opportunity to snag that extra "1" die as a danger thing. If you wanted to use that mechanic on your MUSH (I wouldn't, personally), this algorithm wouldn't work.

Amusing diversion though.

@Glitch said:

GMs can buy leftover dice, granting you a hero point and the GM as many danger points as you have remaining dice.

Ah I missed that. But still - given the "you can exceed 10" rule I cited, I don't see anything that prevents you from combining the dice any way you want to make a raise.

If you want to require them to make the "most efficient" combination of raises possible (i.e. with the most number of leftover dice) my gut tells me that you're going to have to iterate over all possible combinations. But maybe there's some advanced set theory algorithm out there - over my head, at any rate. I'm interested to see what others come up with.

At some point though I think you have to ask yourself - how faithful do you need to be to the mechanics. Usually when you adapt a pre-existing game system to a computer game, compromises get made. As long as all players are subjected to the same algorithm, it's fair.

@Glitch said:

I'm still not sure you're allowed to throw on extra dice after you've hit 10. Otherwise, what's to stop 6+5+3+1+1 and calling it a day? I feel like it's the same a saying 6+3+1 (10) +1.

The rules say: "Sometimes, you may use dice that add up to more than 10. That’s okay, it’s still a Raise." (Quickstart, p5, Step 4)

It doesn't really matter what dice are left over as far as I can tell. (Maybe there's a rule I missed?) The key is how many raises you can make. It's in your own best interests to make those raises efficiently - not wasting a die to "go over" when you could use it to make another raise. But if the extra 1 is going to be wasted either way, it doesn't seem to matter whether you make an 11 raise and have 1 die left over, or make a 10 raise and have two dice left over.

Edit to add: I know this is not the most accurate algorithm, but it was enough to satisfy my curiosity and make me run screaming from the idea of ever trying to automate this game system (although it looks fun to play on tabletop)

@Glitch I think you changed my example by adding an extra 5 and an extra 1?

[6, 5, 3, 1, 1] nets 6+1+1+3 with a [5] left over, or 6+5 with a [3, 1, 1] left over, or 6+3+1 with a [1, 5] left over. I didn't see anything in the rules that specified which order you had to combine the dice in to reach 10. A human being would naturally see that the 6+3+1 goes together to make 10 neatly, but no matter which way you combine them you still only get 1 raise. Isn't that what matters?

Also I think I wasn't clear on what I call "junk". Supposing we did have an extra dice in there for [6, 5, 5, 3, 1, 1, 1]. The only combo/pair is 5+5. The rest of the leftover stuff is what I called the junk. In your case: [6, 3, 1, 1, 1] . I freely admit the variable names are crappy - I really didn't have a lot of time to spend on it to make it clean.

@Thenomain said:

The roll resolution system is ass to code.

Understatement of the century much?

ZOMG that was hideous. The idea of converting this to MUSH code makes me want to cry, so I'll just leave this Ruby version here for anyone who cares. It optionally does the double raises and exploding 10s that you get at rank 4/5. It probably has bugs but worked decently enough on the modest number of tests I did.

Ruby 7th Sea Roller

This reminds me why I created a custom skill system (because most tabletop ones aren't designed with computers in mind).

Output:

=============================
Rolling Dice
=============================
Rolled [5, 10, 6, 5, 9, 10, 2, 9, 8, 6, 10]
Exploding 3 dice
Rolled [1, 2, 6]
Final roll: [1, 2, 2, 5, 5, 6, 6, 6, 8, 9, 9, 10, 10, 10]

=============================
Counting Combos Making 15
=============================
Found a combo! 10+5
Found a combo! 10+5
Found a combo! 9+6
0 groups of fives
6 raises so far

=============================
Counting Junk Making 15
=============================
Junk dice: [10, 9, 8, 6, 6, 2, 2, 1]
Adding up junk: [10, 1, 2, 2]
Double Raise!
Adding up junk: [9, 6]
Double Raise!
Adding up junk: [8, 6]
10 raises so far

=============================
Counting Combos Making 10
=============================
Left over: [8, 6]
0 tens
0 groups of fives
10 raises so far

=============================
Counting Junk Making 10
=============================
Junk dice: [8, 6]
Adding up junk: [8, 6]
Raise!
11 raises so far
-------------------
11 Raises Total!

Edit: Fixed the link since Gist wasn't working the way I wanted.

@Thenomain said:

@Songtress

The roll resolution system is ass to code. @Sammi, I am calling you out to come up with the proper code logic or even code for this roll and resolution (I.e., success counter) system. It's a friendly dare, because even I don't think it's worth the effort. The QuickStart will be provided if you didn't back this.

The pirate gauntlet has been thrown! Now you've got me curious.

@Arkandel said:

@Jennkryst No, I suppose I see it, I just come from a long streak of games where people can play anything thematically possible within their world, from CEOs/House Heads to criminals, doctors, police officers, drug addicts... anything. The idea of being so restricted is a bit alien to me.

Me too. I mean, I can understand restricting some concepts that are more powerful than the game wants to deal with (like a CEO in Shadowrun who's more powerful than a President) but an ER doc moonlighting on the side? Or a journalist getting mixed up in shady dealings. That's kinda... bizarre.

Double post for a more on-topic question for @Finn -- how does the MUSH handle these 'alternate' style chars? I mean, let's say I made up a street doc, or a private eye, or a journalist, or a ganger... is there actually stuff for them to do other than bar RP? Or are all the plots geared towards 'runners?

@Thenomain said:

@faraday said:

Most of the early fiction stories weren't about traditional runners at all. That helped to shape what Shadowrun means to me.

This tickled me. What defines a traditional crook in modern society? I don't know! In the third Shadowrun Returns game, you don't start out as a 'runner, but by god you end as one. Maybe it's entirely how people see you.

But the fiction characters I'm speaking of weren't crooks at all. Kyle Teller from Burning Bright was an upscale paranormal investigator specializing in missing persons cases. Dirk Montgomery in 2XS was also a private eye. Technobabel is about a Renraku corporate operative. One was about a guy working undercover for Lone Star.

Were these guys "Shadowunners"? Depends on your definition. "A criminal who does shadowruns as part of a shadowrunner team" is one definition - that's what I meant as the "traditional" one. But many take a looser definition, one that just implies someone who works in the shadows - the underbelly of society.

The Shadowrun RPG gives you rules to make up a character - any character. It gives you rules for conflict and combat resolution to apply in any situation. It gives you a rich game world. It gives you one default campaign model - the traditional shadowrunning team model - that it focuses on. It also - in the main rulebook - offers other alternate campaign models. I see it as being a lot less restrictive than you seem to.

@Thenomain said:

So as an option you can play something besides a shadowrunner, it sounds like.

Of course - every game needs to have a focus and I think (hope?) everyone would agree that "being a shadowrunner" is the focus for Shadowrun. Though as an aside, I looked it up (because I'm pedantic) and the "non-shadowrunner" variants are indeed in the main rulebook as "Alternate Campaigns".

I guess it all comes down to how you define a game. For me, setting trumps all. But then, I admit to being heavily influenced by the fiction. Most of the early fiction stories weren't about traditional runners at all. That helped to shape what Shadowrun means to me.

But when I sit down to play (which I haven't in ages)... yeah, I totally mostly play traditional shadowrunners doing traditional shadowruns. I never claimed to be consistent

@Thenomain said:

Without adventuring, a mage is still a mage. Without shadows to run, a shadowrunner is ...

I guess that's where we see things differently (which is OK). "Without adventuring, a mage is still a mage" applies equally well to Shadowrun as it does to D&D.

Neither game really explains what you do besides "be an adventurer" or "be a shadowrunner".

Except Shadowrun does. Does the fact that it's in a supplemental sourcebook and not the main book make it any less a part of the game? (Or heck, maybe it's in the main book now; I never bothered to buy 5th ed.)

Faraday, I posit that your group was still adventuring.

Absolutely. My point was just that adventure != shadowrun. And yeah... I have a hard time envisioning how a Shadowrun MUSH would work without the adventuring focus. I mean, I know they're out there, but I tried to play on them a couple of times as was just like... completely at a loss.

@Lithium said:

There's a lot of stories that can be told in ShadowRun other than: Do X for Y.

Sure, just look at all the SR novels. My favorite RP in our tabletop campaign came from things that happened outside of a traditional Shadowrun. Rescuing a runner's girlfriend, who'd been kidnapped by the Universal Brotherhood. Getting involved in an underground mixed martial arts tournament. Helping a boyfriend's street gang hijack some goods. Investigating something going down at the clinic where one of the runners was moonlighting as a medic.... actually I think we did more random stuff than we did actual 'runs

But I think that's the exception rather than the rule. The world is open for you to tell whatever stories you want to tell, but the game is structured around the idea that most players will be doing 'runs - a very limited slice of the world. I'm curious if that's what @Thenomain was getting at?

@Lithium said:

There are a lot of games to be had that aren't, go do bad things for money, and the setting is vibrant enough to allow for all of this in my opinion.

There was a section in one of the sourcebooks - 3rd edition Companion, I believe? - where it listed alternate campaign ideas. Docwagon, reporters, police, gangers... I forget the others. But these were all geared around a tabletop group running a cohesive team.

On a MUSH, you're more likely to end up with one Docwagon medic, one cop, one reporter, and two guys on different street gangs. You lose that cohesion, making it difficult to come up with interesting plots to throw at such a motley crew. (Not saying it's impossible, but it's certainly hard to do repeatedly.)

And plots are important. Downtime can be fun, but a game that was nothing but downtime would be tiresome.

@Thenomain Yeah, that was always my take on it too. There were smatterings of cyberpunk, but like you said - I think its theme had more in common with D&D than Blade Runner.

@Thenomain said:

It's ShadowRun's setting, not its technology, that I think people are holding onto.

What I find most interesting, though, is that different people have different views of the theme. You see it as "AD&D With Cybernetics", @rebekahse sees it as paranoid cyberpunk, I always viewed it as "misfit heist hijinks". Makes me wonder how one would manage such divergent thematic views on a MUSH. It's easier with a small gaming group.

@Ninjakitten Absolutely. But bear in mind that I was talking about a circle of games where everyone already uses wikidot. So there's already a concept of player identity there. And I don't have to worry about someone erroneously claiming Faraday@YourCustomWikiSite because I've already got Faraday@Wikidot. And so if you see someone posting at CoolMUSH or FooMUSH's wikidot sites with the Faraday handle, you can be assured it's the same person as the one in your player wiki.

@Ninjakitten said:

But if people are making separate accounts to join the wikidot wiki, how do you have any universal login alt verification in any way more than you do with a mediawiki where they have to make a user account to make their list anyway?

It only works if their wikidot username becomes their player identity. Let's say you've got Larry, Curly and Moe as wikidot usernames. If Larry posts an update saying Joe@CoolMUSH is an alt of Larry, you know it's legit. If Curly posts an update saying Joe@CoolMUSH is an alt of Larry, your moderator has reason to be suspicious.

Edit to clarify: If Bob the player has created two separate wikidot usernames (Larry and Curly) for two games, it's because he doesn't want those alts to be connected to each other OOCly, so him wouldn't be trying to claim them both as alts in the first place.

@surreality said:

Which gets sticky if someone is also active on wikidot for something not related to this hobby. There are just enough stalker issues that this could create more problems than it solves, unfortunately.

Interesting. Every game I've played on in the past few years uses Wikidot for their game wikis, and people have no problem creating additional logins if they don't want to use their OOC one. Some even create different wikidot logins for each game if they're worried about being stalked. :shrugs: It's a solved problem in my game circles.

@Roz You could tie it together with Wikidot too - I've done player/alt lists before on Wikidot in an automated fashion. That said, if you're more familiar with MediaWiki there's no reason to switch other than the universal login aspect for alt verification.