@Ganymede Hells yes you and @Meg are 100% spot on, here.
He/She who sways the GM, sways the game
If you're charismatic, ingratiating, fun to play with, and able to reasonably construct an OOC argument with panache, you can unlock GodMode.
Which, personally, IMO...is a point in favor of dice.
@faraday said in What Types of Games Would People Like To See?:
I think at the end of the day most players don't really want to play the apocalypse
Perhaps my take on PC mortality is just my take on the genre itself, but on this above point I agree.
I've often heard "The Walking Dead" referred to as misery porn, and I think it's accurate for the zombie/apocalypse genre. Shit. Is. Miserable. Bands of terminally ill WarBoys kidnap people for fresh organs while their boss collects pretty women as his concubines.
Be it zombies or Mad Max (another good MU idea, that), my personal opinion is that the key to apocalypse settings is that survival is difficult. It's far easier to die than it is to thrive. From the genre we learn that every character (except Max) hangs on a set of scales. The question isn't IF a character will die, it's when and in the genre itself the death machine needs to be constantly satisfied to uphold that survival/apocalypse feel.
Even in Walking Dead, major cast members (no spoilers!) are done. Gone. Zombied. The point of the series would have been lost if Negan hadn't gone through with his game of "eenie-meenie-miney-deathByBaseballBat" because the core of the genre exists in the dread of knowing that death is coming and you hope it's not your preferred Final Girl. Risk is required for survival, but risk can be often fatal.
Respectfully, I disagree. To each their own, but I don't think that a zombie apocalypse game where the only time PCs die is if they choose to will ever feel like a zombie genre. You've got to make your players understand that life in the apocalypse is fragile, and if given the choice they'll always choose no risk.
Orville.
Just sayin.
@Jennkryst I pictured Evee and Squirtle piloting a Jaeger.
I giggled.
I'd just like to point out that one of the benefits of playing an OC is not being harassed or bound by rampant canoneers.
In playing an OC, you shield yourself a bit from people making demands on character relationships, romantic or not, based on existing canon. You also protect yourself a bit from people pushing their OOC fandom, romanticized or not, onto your RP.
One of the drawbacks I see in OCs is that sometimes they don't really fit into the setting. Like any game, a player should take care when creating a character to make sure that the character us a good fit. A good example would be a pacifist OC with the mutant ability to make spaghetti out of thin air on a game that is focusing on the action and fighting of two groups of mutants who regularly shoot lasers at each other.
Each approach has its benefits and drawbacks, but with picking characters that fit the intended feel of the game and staff who reign in overpowered concepts as being NPC only, balance is possible.
Strongbad Mux
With commands like:
+punchfaces
+papers (instead of sheet)
+tothelimit
+makemansbetter (healing)
+comeonreally? (staff complaint function)
+populationtire (+who)
All PBs are memes of the actor.
Characterbit=Heygurl
PB=Ryan Gosling "Hey Girl..." Meme.
Ganymede and Alamias have posted a gif of two street pimps, one portrayed by Dave Chappelle and the other from a movie named "I'm Gonna Git U Sucka", respectively.
Ganymede's gif has Dave Chappelle's character (from the Player Hater's Ball episode) repeating that he hates people, where Alamias' has their 70s style street pimp wearing all yellow and placing what appears to be a Blaxploitation sombrero on his head.
(Disclaimer: I'm totally not doing this to cheekily note that anti-gif filters don't block text. I am, obviously, doing this to cater to MSB viewers with eyesight problems who need text descriptions of gifs)
Also:
Simple setup:
Take a little bit of TGG, mix it with Battlestar, whip it up with FS3, and you've got a game where a platoon of soldiers who answer to corporate Weyland-Yutani interests are sent to fight wars, enforce martial law on labor disputes, and, you know...
...kind of run into xenomorphs and predators.
@Thenomain said in What Types of Games Would People Like To See?:
And my response to that is: So what?
Because it's ethical to try to coach less experienced players on what might be a fruitless Aspiration selection or may be too large in scope for the game.
I also imagine staff wouldn't be looking to walk a player through the years of work to earn the Nobel Prize ICly, and the Aspiration being accepted by staff implies that the staff is willing to work with it. So if staff says "so what?" they knowingly imply something is acceptable with zero interest in supporting it, yet letting the player stupidly try to achieve it.
Fun facts:
POP is an onomatopoeia, but is also what people in the American Midwestern states incorrectly call soda.
Confession: I say "Jesus Christ" as a response to things so much IRL, that it's really hard sometimes roleplaying on a game where Christianity isn't canon. I can't roleplay on a Dungeons and Dragons MU and say "Oh my jesus fuck what the fuck?!?!" as a response to something.
As a result, I find I'm saying "Jesus Christ" less as a curse in real life. So, hey, progress maybe?
@Derp Given the whole theme of my whole "Are MUs a tabletop game with writing or creative writing with some minor rpg elements?" thing, I think this applies to my answer.
In tabletop RPGs, EVERYONE in the game gets XP at the same rate, same time. You play maybe 1-4 times per week maximum, so as a GM and player you give/gain xp as a group as you go. XP growth speed is a common topic in tabletop RPGs, as is the concept of gaining experience itself. XP/sheets is 100% a "tabletop RPG" element.
However, in terms of MUs, everyone is on at different times. Some people are on ALLLLL of the fuckin time. So you could have 2 players join at the same time but "PlayerA" may have a day job and 3 nights a week availability, "PlayerB" has no day job or need for sleep and is hound-dogging XP for everything, and the next time PlayerA and PlayerB meet...they look like the Rock and Kevin Hart standing next to each other. What the "mega xp asap" players in tabletop RPGs often don't understand is that there IS something detrimental to rushing to fill out all the dots on that character sheet.
Because of this, I 100% believe that MUs should be capping xp expenditures to a maximum weekly spend. You can't punish active players for being active, but you CAN try to ensure that "ultra-active" players don't use that as a way to eclipse the rest of the game in terms of sheet capability.
I think FS3 (@faraday ) handled this very well. Even with the biggest difference in stats, it was still ultimately Fudge so having better stats may have gained you extra dice, but didn't ensure godlike capability over your peers.
And most importantly
My suggestion:
My GM approach:
I feel that sometimes GMs get caught in the trap of writing some puzzle or riddle that feels obvious to them, but then in roleplay it's like you're in a game of 30 questions but aren't sure if the wrong answer is gonna get your PC killed:
"Is it...a chair?"
"No, guys, the riddle clearly says 'I wait by the eastern wing of the sky in june'..."
My method:
If they head towards one of the 2-3 ways you were prepared for? Great. If not...wing it and have fun with it.
Edit. Other things.
I think the main point is to give the players a scenario to run through where they're doing stuff. So you have to let them do stuff to resolve it, and railroading never makes players feel like they're accomplishing anything. But, if they're successful I usually end the investigation with someone stolen from other pieces of fiction, like a car chase or a hostage situation.
I agree with a temporary no alt policy
I dont think that most people would find unreasonable to be limited to 1 character for a few months to let the FC roster pan out. It would avoid a snatch and grab.
Last thing you want is within a week of the game opening to find out that only FUCKIN BEAK is available because everyone got greedy.
Let's be honest with ourselves. Being able to grab 2 ASAP would definitely result in people grabbing the best two ASAP that they could find so that no one else gets them first.
But if you have 20 players, that means FORTY FCs could disappear in the blink of an eye.
@surreality Well, he's too egotistical to understand that when his grandmother says she enjoys him reading to her, she probably means: "You could read a cookbook to me for all I care. What is important is the amount of time we spend together."
But the last time I saw him he was going on and on about how she's from a generation of rampant racism and how proud he is that she sees the importance of these facts and that she says she loves him reading the books to her.
Fuck, man, read her Anne of Green Gables and make her final year about time well spent, not educating her about shit she won't need next year.
My suggestion:
Any system with any sort of deception vs perception skill check works just fine, but as @Ganymede pointed out, policies surrounding the social rolls are needed.
...and here is what I feel is UTTERLY IMPORTANT TO INCLUDE
In short, SOMETHING needs to be codified into policy to protect the losers of social rolls from metagaming.
We've all seen this happen:
Another example:
Or
WE HAVE ALL seen these little white metagaming incidents take place and plenty of OOC gymnastics to engineer plausible metagaming like this.
That shit needs to be hit with a hammer, and as a community, need to get better about policing that lack of fairness.
@Ganymede I agree. As a former practicing Catholic I'm a fan of Pope Francis and think he's a shining example of what the faith should expect in a Pope.
I was particularly fond of his decision to turn down bullet-proof glass and the Popemobile because he wanted to walk amongst the people in the favelas of Brazil, and if it was God's expectation that he be assassinated, then that was God's will.
That's fucking faith.
And yes, there are members of the church, as well as stakeholders in Grand Canyon University, tied to the local Phoenix government. It's the Phoenix government who granted the eminent domain of the poor, low-income housing to provide inexpensive land for GCU to be built.
My accusation is that this doesn't happen without GCU being well aware that low income housing (and thus, low income people) aren't being displaced to build their for-profit school.
Private. Christian. Affordable.
