Posts made by iceshinagami

Oooooo

@ThatGuyThere said:

Three or four botched hunts in a month? Well that person might want to change the hunting style.
Granted I have only been on two mushes that had coded hunting, Kingsmouth and Darkmetal way back in the day.
Both documented what stats go into each hunting style so unless you are determined to do something you come up with botches don't come up often.
I understand some players do not like the resource management aspect of games, and while Vampire is the only game that you have it for survival it is baked into all the WoD games and serves as a limited factor to power level. Not a I can't do it limit but a is this worth using precious energy on. I think the loosening of that constraint is one reason Mage gets such a bad rep on mushes. When energy/ammo is effectively limit-less there is little disincentive to throw the biggest gun at every problem.
And if the resources from the source do not matter then what does the source? If I can be at fell blood whenever which is how most games handle it, then why work to maintain all herd or domain it has no real benefit.
I know on games where i have to do more to refresh fuel, I tend to me more careful about things and likely more in theme then those where it is type a command get stuff with no risk.

This, right here. That's why I was musing about this. Any game that lets you have unlimited energy pools , while that can be fun (i enjoy it!) Has that built in flaw as said above

@Arkandel said:

The main question here (for me) is, if you forget to, don't participate in the system or just don't find gathering scenes appealing - a likelihood when it comes to something your character is, after all, engaged in all the time - do you die from hunger/be drained to nothing eventually?

Maybe then it could be an option with a bonus?

You can make a single roll with the district modifiers and report it yourself, no scene needed:

But if you go through the scene you get .2xp (a beat in 2.0, for instance) and +2 resource? or something like that - Make it so that you can just do the gathering quick, report it to the code, and get your stuff, but get a bit more into it and get a bonus?

@Alzie well I meant 'Splat sphere' staff. Changeling staff, Vampire Staff, ect.

That would be the suckiest part - and truth be told, I don't play vamp so I have no idea what its really like. Maybe HR it to one vitae per week to stay active? Blush of Life always up? Everyone plays that way without spending blood anyways, don't they?

Also while musing at my day job, I agreed with someone in another thread that the (Edit:) Splat (Changeling/Vampire/Werewolf/ect) Sphere staffing system is absolutely horrible and should be overturned and tossed out the window. I thought I'd write down some thoughts and let people poke at them as well.

Staff 'Spheres of Influence':

Application
Administrative (XP, Mundane Equipment, Retainers, notes, ect.)
Magical Items
Build

New Player Rep

'Spheres'
Law/Crime
Politics
Hisil/Twilight
Underworld
'Other World' - Hedge, Astral, anything else someone can come up with.
Storytelling (Focus - 2-3 different splats)

Metaplot / World Changing

All staffers would have 2-3 spheres they have listed as 'Knowledgable' so if an Application staffer gets a Changeling App they can poke some different staffers for questions.

All magical items from the books, auto approve. Any custom ones need to go through the Magical Item Staff, but that doesn't need to be finished before the player gets approved on the grid.

Application staff should have a list of all the basics, and be able to open up a book to that page that says 'This is what you need to make a character!' that is in all the books. A BG Questionnaire should be enforced rather than storytime, for quick processing and so its not possible to slip in some weird BG thing in the walls of prose no sane staffer has the time to read.

Since there is already some very good mostly automated XP code and equipment request code and such, no reason that can't just be administrative.

New Player reps are half storyteller half app staff - They help new players get through the app process, and they run scenes primarily for new players. (under 50xp or under 1 month on the grid or whatever)

and the big one, the 'Spheres' They have all power over everything in that area, and it doesn't matter what splat is running into it, they control it. the Underworld staff does everything with the underworld, for all Bone Shadows, Geist, Death Mages, Changelings with the ghost/death contract ect.

Team Leads if you want, but I wouldn't even do that, just a group that makes decisions together. 3-5 staffers per sphere, depending on the popularity of that area.

Storytellers and Metaplot run stories. Doesn't matter what,they can have a focus of 2-3 spheres if they want or whatever, and their job is to run plot. Anyone can of course, but these people get to run the bigger plots.

Any PrPST can run a Grid Changing/World Changing plot, but it goes through metaplot to approve.

PrP STs have a guidelines, but generally need no approval, as long as its in the guidelines: All they do is put in a job with a 'Who What When Where' for staff to review and go to town. Some guidelines would be 'No spirits of rank 3+ without approval, no True Fae,' and that list gets updated every month: 1 true fae plot available this month. 3 plots for use with Pure available this month. 2 Banisher plots available this month. Unlimited Hedgebest/Hobgoblin. Unlimited Cryptid/Monster. Unlimited Rank 1-3 Spirits. Special, this month only: Unlimited Beshilu plots (They have infested the city!)

So I was musing during my day job, and just thought, there has got to be a good way to do resource scarcity. Not worrying at all about your Blood/Mana/Essence/Glamour is ok sometimes, but mostly it just leads to people dumping all their power points into one or two actions and not having to think up creative means to work around it...

So, critique this.

Rules/Guidelines/Framework

1. Anyone, at any time, can run an 'energy gathering scene'. This requires no approval, no waiting. This is the important part, I think, of rules for this. Can't have people waiting.

2. Areas are defined on the grid/map/world. Be that 'Domains' or districts, or different for each race, it doesn't matter. Id say generic districts that are the same for each splat is the best way to do it, that way they never need to be updated. Make them along natural geographical lines or city district lines that players would probably pick up for their pack/coterie/domain/whatever territory anyways.

3. The PrPST of the energy gathering scene will report the result. They must also check the 'Energy Reserve' code (see below) before they run the scene to see any penalties (ie: Too many people feeding here, a -3 to all rolls)

4. Feeding scenes should be a minimum of x actions that require rolls. For instance 3 roll requirement:
   a ) roll to find an area suitable for your energy gathering.
   b ) roll to break in / roll to coerce stranger / roll to get past obstacle
   c ) roll to gather energy.
   (in other words, the good basics of any scene: Find, Overcome, Gather)

5. All splats have equal access to this system. Either all splats use this or no splats use this. For vamps its finding blood, for changelings its finding emotionally charged people. For werewolves its finding minor loci that are so small they'll give a rolls worth of essence and then splurt out of existence and die (if you feel this is unthematic, build it into the meta plot). For mages... I donno. I don't know mage. I guess finding minor nodes that dry up like werewolves? Same for Geist? For Demons it would totally be a blast, plugging into the GodMachine...

Then there is part 2. The code. The code is, from the outside, really simple: but I think thats where all the hitch comes up. Nobody wants to do the coding.

1. The code can either be in game or on a webpage.

2. It shows each 'district/domain' whatever for the type of energy gathering available. These should be easily updatable for political changes (packs taking over territories, princes being dicks with domain rights, whatever) or not, if the staff decides just to make all districts static and players have to work around that. A map, or even just a couple of infoboxes.

3. The PrPST just goes there, checks the district area for any modifiers.
   a ) Click on the district area, popup window says all relevant modifiers.
   b ) and a button to take the prpst to the reporting window)

4. When done, they input: Joeschmoe fed. There are a couple of check boxes: Anyone die? Anyone see something Supernatural they shouldn't have? and the number of points of energy sucked up.A form with the following fields.
   a ) Who Gathered?
   b ) Who ST'd?
   c ) Anyone die? (Checkbox)
   d ) Anyone see anything Supernatural they shouldn't have? (Checkbox)
   e ) Any blatantly illegal or obvious tracks left behind that could be followed by hunters/police/ect? (checkbox)
   f ) How many points gathered?

5. The code keeps track of the number of energy sucked up. When it reaches certain levels (40pts of blood, 15pts of essence, whatever is deemed appropriate) it ups the difficulty modifiers for the rolls, up to of course a max of 5. If it gets to a certain point, it reports that there is no possible energy gathering in that district.
   For instance:
   a ) Every 15 points of an energy type, the modifier increases by -1
   b ) Every death in the district adds one 'major complication'
   c ) 120 points per month available (or refresh 30 points every week or something)
   d ) Every time someone see's something they shouldn't adds one 'minor complication'

6. Complications are like:
   a ) Major: Police patrolling area or Residents not out on streets at night or Gangs think someone is moving in on their turf or Hunters in the area
   b ) Minor: People shying away from strangers or Block Watch on the lookout or People traveling in groups, or additional security equipment installed (flood lights, cameras, ect)

These complications can totally just be a list that is randomly selected from every time the threshold is hit.

7. The database resets every month, or maybe if the coder is feeling ambitions, it drops a 'level' every week there is no activity there (So if district A is at -4 modifier, and no one goes there for a week, then it becomes a -3 modifier, a minor complication removed every week, a major every two weeks)

If the code can be written, then it could be really easy to maintain, and it could spit out a list of whose feeding where that can be archived if someone wants to do some investigating (Why does my packs district/territory have so little essence? oh because the neighboring werewolves are poaching our territory...)

This kind of code could tie in very well to a Territory system as well. Make the districts defined and static, and allow player groups to claim them. Assign territory merits to each territory and holding them gets those benifits for that pack/coterie/whatever. Splat overlap of course, only one werewolf pack per district, but a coterie and a motley can claim it as well. When those districts run out and all are claimed? Welcome to the world of darkness, sometimes its not so nice if all the big kids have the toys. Join one of the groups, or wage a war to take one from them.

Think both of these things would work best on a smaller grid, probably 25-30 'outside' rooms at best.

Poke holes in it people. And if some game runner wants to adapt it to their game, go for it. I'd love to see some actual resource scarcity in games.

From that link:

Refunds are designed to remove the risk from purchasing titles on Steam—not as a way to get free games. If it appears to us that you are abusing refunds, we may stop offering them to you. We do not consider it abuse to request a refund on a title that was purchased just before a sale and then immediately rebuying that title for the sale price.

that is FRIGGIN AWESOME>

why can't MU staff be like Steam?

sorry i missed you replying about it earlier I'm thinking about it with TR going away, mostly cause I was just hanging onto Nuit as she sat in a corner and gathered dust for... i donno. Sentimental reasons. And the fact that I have actually very little play time at the moment. But maybe that will change... I can wish...

so with all the spheres listed as closed, only Mortals are available? do subtemplates (Stigmata/Wolfblood) count for the sphere cap? (I assume they do) Is there a waiting list for getting into a sphere?

im surprised they don't provide 'fake' facebook pages to link your relationship to and other such social networking gimicks.

@Bennie said:

Can someone make a Demon game set in the future and let us have Mechs?

You mean..... /be/ Mechs?

What's interesting to me is that on a mush we really could do a 'average' xp of pcs on the grid. Code could take all totals and average them out and that is how much you get to start with. Or a Mean.

such a system would work best with a mush with slow xp gain, and high PC turnover. Either with a lot of PC death, or xp caps that when someone gets so strong they move on from this area. Or other methods of pcs being retired frequently for more than just players hopping concepts.

I think that would be a fair system, so that you aren't tempted to just reroll anytime you get gas, but you aren't punished by having to start completely over.

Of course, you'd also need a steady input of low xp characters. Newbies who have to start at cgen or cgen+10, or only restrict such roll overs to pc death or retirement (permanent)

It's not very big. heh

@TR

Nuit/Lux (Current)
Karasu (...dead?)

@metro

Some Son of Ether aether ship captain pirate that I can't for the life of me remember the name... She had outrageous stories of Nazi's and pirates and Aethership adventures.

Guess I should add:

Staff:
@TR: Bubastis

<sadly watches SHH people and is a bit jealous>

And by all means @Chime that is a very very reasonable peeve. I'd be kissed off at that too!

Oh yeah not saying anyone is lazy for going in later rather, we each have assigned work queues: so i can go in early and get done earlier. But then someone says God I'm not going to get done till 6 can you take some of my assigned work load so I can get done earlier? Then you should have come in earlier. I bust my ass all day, to get done by the time I want to. And part of that is coming i. Early

@Chime said:

fuckers who come in before the crack of noon, like savages.

Fixed that for you.

Hey, you get to work at 6, go to bed by 11pm you have a very nice day!

fuckers who don't show up to work till 730 (we have a 'come in as you want, you know how much work you gotta get done schedule) but then want my help to get done before 4, when I come in at 6 to get done by 1 or 2. I came in early so I can go home early, screw you.

I am an unabashed Twink. I could throw 35+ dice at a target with automatic damage on my pre GMC TR character. My current TR Character can stealth with the best of them and can throw a ton of dice to hit something too. One of the reasons I do like TR's XP though is that I can fluff out a bit. at 800+ xp, I can afford to have some non combat fluff. And I do, have a lot of it. And I buy things up that I never thought I would, because it makes sense. Nuit started with Presence 1 and it showed - she hid, she was shy, she didn't talk, she was afraid of everyone. But time has gone on. She's gotten social skills. And even though she was a combat twink from the start, and most certainly is even worse than she was before (GMC actually made her a tadbit /stronger/) presence is up to 3 now, because it fits, and a whole host of social skills have been bought.

But I am also very fond of building weaknesses into my characters. Nuit has a ton (not that I share them :P) and Karasu, beatstick that he was, was so oblivious to social situations and understandings that he could be (and was) led about by the nose and his strict sense of honor used against him multiple times. He could kill anything that he turned his sword too, but that was all he could do. He couldn't investigate. He couldn't lie convincingly (really, at all), and he was so oblivious to social manipulation that it made my head hurt sometimes what he would get into.

But i love the challenge of being a twink (ie, finding the most efficient way to do something) I love the RP flavor of weakness and balance. And, unlike Arc said, I don't shy away from 'Quarterstaff Fighting Style' (or whatever) cause it sucks. I just plan my way around it carefully to make it work out better for me, cause I like the Theme of things.