I've decided to open source the (rather basic) code for my Evennia-based game, Section14.
It is a very bare-bones MUSH-like right now, but might help people that just need the basics
(character sheet, dice roller, chat, built-in wiki, and bboards).
Some of the features like the wiki are still beta-at-best , but I'll be adding code over time
as I find things that can be improved upon.
As stated in another thread, this will be a smaller scale (maybe growing with time) Modern Day Paranormal Covert Operations type game inspired by The Secret World, the Laundry Files book series, and the Netflix Travelers show. The game will likely include disturbing topics such as torture or human sacrifice and be fairly "dark" most of the time.
Players will take on the role of Agents that have (most often) been conscripted into working for Section 14 as investigators, troubleshooters, or cannon fodder that are sent to counter the horrors behind the curtain of the mundane. At the beginning of each mission, Agents' souls are injected into available Hosts (mundane humans that are near the mission objective and have a high probability of imminent death due to some magically alterable medical condition, accident or other trauma). Transfers are never wholly complete, however, so, much of the physical and mental capabilities available to the Agent for that mission will depend on the selected Host. In the event a Host dies while possessed by an Agent's Ghost, the remnants of the Agent's Soul will be collected and returned to Assets at Headquarters for debriefing. Please make sure your next-of-kin beneficiary documents are on-file and up to date before being selected for any field operations.
Players will be able to choose either a newly indoctrinated Ghost (This is probably not the Afterlife you were looking for) or can app in as a veteran once a decent backstory is worked out and you will be granted a pool of xp debt with which to create a suitable Agent (every odd future XP is then spent to repay the debt).
I am most familiar with Evennia so I will most likely be starting with that as my base, but I have not yet selected a gaming system to run with. I am expecting this to start out as more of a "Weekly TableTop" feel and expand as my Lead Storyteller skills grow and the playerbase becomes more comfortable/knowledgeable of the custom lore.
@griatch, since you've gone ahead and mentioned my game (the rogue-like-ish) as something unique, I guess I'll take a moment to introduce myself to the community, as an outsider-looking-in. Besides reddit's /r/MUD forum, this seems to be the last surviving place where the community really gets together to chat about the hobby.
I guess I am, very much, trying to build "A new platform". I'm using Evennia as my base and working on features that most of you will probably hate, but are designed explicitly to attract a new player base, of which I feel I am a prime example of. That's probably it's own thread entirely, but I will say here that I am most definitely NOT going to have my game use the current sorta-standard syntax. Only the most intrepid newbies are willing to go through that learning curve.
Anyway, uh.... Hi.
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Anomaly Detected...
Estimated Coordinates: 40.738730, -73.987413, -20 Meters.
Prognostication Engine: On-Line
Estimated Time Till Incursion: 17 hours 2 minutes
Estimated Resolution Assets Required: 6
Resolution Assets Available: Insufficient
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Contingency Asset Subsystem: On-Line
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Soul Acquired...
Formatting:
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Implanting Geas:
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Asset Indoctrination Commencing:
...Protocol1: Implanted
...Protocol2: Implanted
...Protocol3: Implanted
...WelcomeToSection14: Implanted
Asset Acquisition Complete: Resuming Resolution
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Resolution Target Hosts Required: 6
Downloading Resolution Assests to Hosts
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....Target Host lost...
Verifying Resolution Asset...Ghost Soul Recovery Complete.
Alternate Target Host Acquired...Resuming Resolution Asset Downloads...
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Download Complete...
Physical Assets onsite...
Estimated Time Till Incursion: 14 hours 53 minutes
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You wake to full consciousness in your new Host...crap...a drug addict with the needle already prepped...
The extreme probability of an overdose would be an easy way out of the next 14 hours...if only Protocol 1 would let you...
Just a note that I am nearing the finish line for coding and expect to probably go into alpha testing in a week or two.
Correct me if I'm wrong but I think @ghost's point was more coming from the "I'm a builder and want to present the player with something that isn't +docrap/with-some crazy=bullshit_syntax"?
For example presenting an HTML table of the character sheet with +/- buttons next to values to create the character....
So I saw on a different thread that someone was unable to satisfactorily use the Evennia/Arx webclient on their iPad. I am the current primary developer for the Evennia webclient bits and am always looking for feedback on good stuff and bad stuff. iPad/phone usage is one of the things that I tried hard to enable, so it sounds like there is further work to be done. That said, details on what is going wrong are always helpful.
So, please feel free to chime in here with your experiences.
So, I am going to put this project away and move on. It seems the Cthulhuian Mythos is now a bit of a polarizing game topic and I just don't feel like explaining again and again (before the game even opened) that yes, I know Lovecraft was a racist asshole and no I don't approve of that (I am an adult and can, in fact, separate the two).
Oh well, I'll leave the code available over on github for anyone that wants to use it/derive from it.
feel free to start using something like thispersondoesnotexist.com instead...
Actually I think the original idea of Razor of the Dawn Castle is a good location, and could be made to work well, if there was some Imperial reason that it suddenly needed to transform from lazy backwater border keep into a major venue to hold a Winter Court (say in two years time).
The first thing that comes to mind would be a major Shadowlands power rising that needs to be handled diplomatically rather than via the usual Crab show of force (think a new, sudden Fae Kingdom or some such that has made Alliance overtures with the Imperial Throne to help them fight some OTHER threat from the Shadowlands).
Then you'd have the PCs be envoy's from their respective Clans all racing to mini-empire build what the Clans need for the Court and to impress/ally/dominate the new Faction.
So, after reading through that linked Coriolis document, I'll say that the system seems to be reasonable, if a bit high on the fiddly special cases. There is definitely a high GM-involvement angle to the situational modifiers and determining results. @Lothario, if you are willing to GM the actual game, I can donate an Evennia server and some coding for it.
@ominous Only to some degree... I think some of the appeal in space-trucking is the complexity inherent in space travel and spaceships. The "wagons" would have to be steam/clockwork-punk contraptions travelling lethal/poisonous wastelands with lots of bells and whistles to get the same kind of feel of having say, shields, hydroponics, atmo recyclers, etc, that could all breakdown and require sudden-death hijinks to fix. There is drama in how much refits/upgrades cost, that you just dont really get with "some wagons and critters to pull em". The ship itself is a character that is missing in that scenario.
@lotherio Hmm...sounds interesting, but I don't know much of anything about Coriolis, is there a simple game-mechanics example somewhere you could point me at?
Just...WOW....YES!
Elon just tweeted that it was header tank pressure...not enough fuel...that caused the crash. They got all of the data they needed....and they already have SN-9 (a duplicate of 8), SN-10 through SN-16 already in production....
The speed at which this is all moving forward is just absolutely stunning.
For anyone who is interested in humanity becoming multi-planetary:
SpaceX is attempting it's first full-size, high-altitude launch and landing of the Starship SN-8 today in about a half hour. (4pm CST).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ap-BkkrRg-o
OOPS...time is apparently being adjusted quickly...
@Livia Huh, I have not heard of Phoenix Dawn before. This is interestingly similar to an storyline deckbuilding idea I've been working on for my main game project. Thanks for the pointer, I'm going to have to read it and see what wisdom I can glean from their designs.
Keep in mind that IPv4 addresses are essentially all taken/spoken-for, there are several ISPs in the world that only have IPv6 address space available to them (without spending huge amounts of money to obtain a public IP4 address block). You'll be seeing this more and more for the rest of time. I've heard that Asia in specific has been forced over to IPv6-only setups for the past couple years now. It wouldn't be too surprising if there are similar situations in other areas that were "late" to the IPv4 party.
What I suggest would be to setup an IPv6-to-4 proxy using an AWS-based haproxy instance to bounce the traffic through. I'm actually setting one up now just to try it out, since I haven't had much chance to play with IPv6 addresses.
https://www.fantasticfiction.com/ seems to be the sorta alternative to goodreads.
Still hard to narrow down, but, better than nothing.
