Posts made by fatefan

@il-volpe I had not considered an Icelandic settlers vs. zombies scenario, either, I will confess.

@Coin Would/could Blood Drive as a theme work well with something like an Atomic Highway RPG framework?

@Tempest http://www.lotfp.com/RPG/about

@The-Tree-of-Woe Just to be clear on the "this" -- you mean an X-Men game, or a Gotham henchmen game? I assume the former, but since the latter was mentioned, I wanted to get some clarification on the two (or some third option).

Whether or not the game focuses exclusively on goat preservation, there seems to be enough interest that I'll consider more fully what might be doable in terms of RPG-ish infrastructure to support RPing Icelandic settlers' frontier-survival travails.

@TimmyZ

Keep people on the same page about what they're playing I agree with.

I think this is definitely an important point, and one I'll have to consider the best way to make blatantly obvious & central for such a game. I mention this in part to help myself recognize that there's a significant difference between "players can do this on X game" and "X game exists to allow players to do (that is, it facilitates RP about) this."

@Aria I'm guessing this is the Viking Answer Lady's site?

I recall a discussion a year or two ago about interest in a Witcher MUSH, although I suppose it might be difficult to get players to do something other than be a witcher or a sorceress, assuming that's a worthwhile concern at all.

@Ganymede That's true. I worked from the assumption that the far-more-popular "nobility" default character perspective would view such a situation as low stakes.

However, if the game's focus is on peasant farmers, then it becomes very much a matter of (potentially) high drama.

I'm reading through the Sagas of the Icelanders RPG and contemplating whether that sort of theme (settlers in Iceland ca. 900 trying to just stay alive and occasionally fight one another or their Norwegian cousins) would translate at all to MU*ing, given the penchant for more elevated "lords and ladies" aesthetic when it comes to fantasy or medieval-ish games.

Is "trying to make sure your pet goats survive the storm while your neighbor seeks to take your land" a compelling enough plot for a handful of characters (rather than, say, being the "downtime" scenes in between more epic drama)? Or is that sort of genre likely to become boring quickly?

@The-Tree-of-Woe Even if there's not villains, I'm hoping the Omega gang will be represented.

Edited to add: Marvel Unlimited tells me 'Utopia' as a storyline began in 2009. So look to Uncanny X-Men 510s or so for a start? I can try to triangulate some of this potential cutoff if there are certain starting points people want relating to Utopia.

@The-Tree-of-Woe The new Faserip ruleset also notes the following re: improvement/advancement:

In general, superheroes don’t improve that much over the course of a campaign. Generally, the
superpowers that your hero has acquired are likely to remain relatively static rather than starting
weak and growing greatly in strength. However, a small amount of increase is possible, and you
can learn new tricks and techniques that let you use your existing powers in more versatile ways.

Then, there are provisions for improving abilities/powers/wealth/fame & making new tech.

@Lithium The Faserip system I linked does have dodging available as an action, which basically serves to further penalize physical attacks against you until the next round of combat (like going into defensive mode).

@Lithium

Like, dodging... how do you dodge? Really? Does it take your action? Can you dodge all day and still attack?

The 'new' (free, linked) Faserip system seems to suggest that you don't passively "dodge" (although a missed attack could certainly be interpreted as a dodge). This seems reasonable to me, since an attack's success target could be shifted negatively by armor or whatnot--not unlike AC for D&D.

@The-Tree-of-Woe I did not play FASERIP back in the 80s, but it doesn't initially seem to be overly complicated at a basic level (just lots of potential modifications for specific actions).

I think it might be useful to at least run with the assumption that the basic stats are determined and there's a dice roller that can take modifiers (e.g., +roll +2, the modifier referring to RS bonus). It may be best left to OOC clarification where particular modifiers etc. are coming from (or, if desired, an explanatory comment, e.g. +roll -2=Doing something while being partially restrained).

@The-Tree-of-Woe Looks like someone made an OGL-ish version of FASERIP: http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/177913/Faserip

So, returning to the question of traits (as a nigh-ubiquitous approach to supers MU* apps):

If we were to change things up, what might be a better approach?

• Bullet points instead of paragraphs?
• Reducing the # of traits needed to show 'awareness' of a character?
  • If there are FCs on the game, is an external wiki link (e.g., Wikipedia or the marvel.com wiki) enough to do the heavy lifting?
• Stats of some kind to reflect general 'power' level, a la Savage Worlds (regardless of whether or not a power could be effectively 'contained' by that abstraction)?

@The-Tree-of-Woe Back at MXT 3.0 (? or so?), staff ran an experiment with CG that significantly trimmed down the traits-application process, replacing much of it with a question about what sorts of stories/plots a FC apper wanted to do/run.

People (read: supers MU* players in 2007 or so) seemed to fucking hate it, but it was an awesome idea.

@The-Tree-of-Woe I am happy to try and get Volund's wiki-connected PennMUSH suite up and running on a Digital Ocean droplet. (If hating wiki stuff is your POV, please don't strangle me for misunderstanding.)

@Arkandel Probably not, but I'm just trying to do my part to help ... whatever ... get off the ground.