Posts made by Lithium

So I was thinking about this, there are times at work when I do have enough space in between calls that I could actually do something and occasionally the calls are quick enough it wouldn't actually impact my ability to RP that drastically.

So it would be nice if there was a web based client, that acted as a server to bypass port restrictions. Then I could access games on the web via ie or chrome or whatever while at work without triggering any investigations (I have pretty much unrestricted www access at work).

Anyone know of anything that can do this? It has to be pretty much just a standard webpage, that's the problem, can't download anything at all.

Any ideas?

I want to apologize for vaporware games. I really hoped I could get some of them coded up and finished, and sometimes I did finish the code, but, I couldn't find the support in order to actually /run/ the game and had no desire to try and be the solo staff of the game.

I know there was some interest in a few of my projects, but work has really eaten me lately (I am gone from my house for at least 11 hours a day these days) which leaves me little time to do much of anything, let alone try to run a game.

Maybe when I retire in 13+ years or so... if the hobby is still a thing...

But I really am sorry.

@Thenomain said in Difficulty of single-player computer games:

I always play on normal difficulty because I want to /beat/ the game, not just observe the art of the 'Game Over' screen.

That's fair I find video games to be amazingly easy most of the time, and if it is to easy I lose interest. I can totally see who dying all the time could do the same thing and I don't hold difficulty levels as some sort of yardstick of what it takes to 'beat' a game. It's just how I measure it against myself. Can I beat the game, on the hardest difficulty it's creators came up with.

@ThatGuyThere said in Computer Science:

@Lithium said in Computer Science:

Let's put it this way, they've been talking about Evennia for years now, and yet I've never seen a successful Evennia mush. They may be out there, but I've never seen it myself.

Arx runs on Evennia I believe.

Edit : Sorry posted as I read and did not realize I was beaten to this.

And as I said even in the space you quoted: They may be out there, but I've never seen it myself.

I don't play on ARX.

@Ganymede

No the gift I am referring to is one any werewolf can get, it's called Primal Strength, it adds Purity to your strength for a scene, costs 1 essence.

You're just nit picking at other stuff, the fact of the matter is that a character CAN start with a 20+ dice pool with starting xp. The other stuff is just icing on the cake.

As for Irraka vs Rahu, you are not quite right. There are many places in the book where Irraka are supposed to be the pre-eminent /killers/. They are /assassins/ and many Rahu rightly respect their ability to kill and there are book quotes where they are going 'Leave something for me to kill too Irraka'. The place where a Rahu shines, is in the big fights, where you can't just one shot assassinate something, or when there's more than one target and you need a meat shield out there making things go: Oh fuck.

Moon-Kissed only works on Auspice skills by the way, so a Rahu could take PT and Moon Kissed to get 8 again on brawl, or they can just spend 1 essence on a gift they get anyways for being a Rahu.

@Arkandel Never been on ARX. So never seen it. It has qualities in a game I dislike, I hate roster games, so I've never checked it out.

@HelloProject I don't see Evennia taking over anytime soon. Why? Inertia. The genre and hobby is decades old now, the people who are used to it are used to using the older code bases. Even things like Rhost which added a lot of functionality remains the same on the surface of how to use it.

Let's put it this way, they've been talking about Evennia for years now, and yet I've never seen a successful Evennia mush. They may be out there, but I've never seen it myself.

As for learning MUSH code, it'll never really earn you dollars, but if you want to build a game using one of the other source codes, go right ahead.

@Ganymede I don't know the ins and outs of vampire or mage in CoD, I don't even know it really that well for Werewolf, there are plenty of more bad ass werewolves than me on Reno for example.

Let's say you were going with an all out rahu build: 5 into physical, 4 into mental, 3 into social.

STR 4 DEX 1 STA 2
Brawl 5 to start, specialization in martial arts or street fighting or Claws or grappling or whatever
Purity 2 to start with gift that adds purity to str for 1 essence for the scene.
Dalu form is +2 STR
All Out is +2 dice
Willpower is +3 dice

Right there we have 19 dice (More in Gauru) with zero xp spent.

Starting Merits
Hurt Locker - Body as Weapon **: I admit not really a die, but just +1 damage
Hurt Locker - Martial Arts ***: Trapping, set aside any successes on one brawl check to add them as dice to the next one. With 16 dice
Hurt Locker - Dual Swipe for dex based builds.

GMC - Cheap Shot (Requires Street Fighting 3) - Remove targets defense on successful feint

W:TF - Warcry - Reduces targets defense by 1 and initiative by 2.

And there's a lot more that reduce defense of the opponent which in effect, add to your dice pool.

Then with 10 xp, buy two more purity and strength to 5. That puts you at 20 dice, in human form, all out with willpower. If you invest in something like relentless assault you don't even lose your defense while doing so.

So I have to assume that Vampires have a way to get more strength than a mortal, and that mages can do something similar with magic if they wanted to.

My point is dead is dead. It doesn't matter how much it's dead, just that it's dead. An exceptional success is an exceptional success for everything else.

Rote is not something that matters most times because you're already hyper specialized to the point that dead is already dead.

Honestly, I don't think it's that horrible of a merit. I've only taken it with one character, and that was a Hunter. There are a /ton/ of other things to spend my XP on that I find way more valuable than 9/again and rote quality. Why? Because any solid build shouldn't /care/ about rote quality, and if you do care about rote for a skill, then personal training is probably a good way to fill the gap.

To wit:

A werewolf can /easily/ get upwards of 20+ dice on brawl just to start. Even subtracting defense that's still going to get an exceptional success most of the time, and rote doesn't matter.

I assume the same things can be done for Vampires and other splats. I think I recall hearing some nonsense about Sin-Eaters being uber dice happy. Don't know, never played one or read their stuff.

9 again quality is nice sure, but I don't find it incredibly game breaking either.

So to me, Professional Training is fine, contacts are good sure but that depends entirely on the plots on how you can use them.

@Templari I've been using pull and throw non-stop even through my first play through. I've actually started to fall in love with Charge/Nova combo though lately.

I think my next playthrough I am going to go more Tech though.

I always play on hardest difficulty because I want to /beat/ the game, not just observe the story. I want to take everything it can throw at me, and win

All of my games have been shelved. Mainly, I can code them, but I can't run them by myself. When I've tried to get support, I didn't get anything remotely enough to have a functional game.

So anything I do at this point would only have stuff to do late nights EST which is not conducive for a living/breathing game.

I have checked out Capes and Stars or whatever it is, nice people, small game, wish them luck. Wish I could have gotten into a character there.

@golgoth I remember SR4 Seattle, and it worked ok with the web based interface. The problem was the chargen was easily breakable in 4th where you could start with nowhere to really improve.

@Thenomain Not sure why, add dice pool together, roll dice, compare to TN, get results. Not that difficult really But people's brains work differently so I can see why it might not click for some.

I actually like the system for 5e ShadowRun, I'd like to see the system hacked to be a different theme. I'd love to see another sci fi game, or a western game, which is based on the system. It'd be easy to hack and make functional really for just about any theme.

Man I wish I had the time to make another game... I'd totally hack the shit out of Hero Games System to make a Westerosi themed game now.

I must have the luckiest system in the world, I've not encountered any real bugs in my playthrough of ME:A. So far it's been quite entertaining, if it wasn't for work... I'm sure I would have finished it already and probably be working on additional playthroughs.

That said, I do miss Warp, and Annihilate and Lance just don't seem that good to me, I miss throwing curveballs around cover to tag people with warp but I /do/ love how we can mix and match powers/abilities to our hearts content.

I've been loving the pull/throw/charge build I've been using.

The thing about Champions/Hero is that you just have to say 'No'. You have to be willing to go 'No that won't fly' and that's that.

It'd be amazingly easy to code up a hero creation system that was like the suggest character types in the Champions 6e book. Pick archetype. Pick type of character (For example: Nimble Brick, Brute Brick, Brawler, etc) and then select packages of skills/powers to fit.

The problem with Champions/Hero games is that it doesn't translate to MU* well due to one stat: Speed.

Speed is what bogs the system down, if you automated rolls and speed and actions then it could do a lot but, there is a ton of minutiae to it too which is where the system gets really crunchy.

If I were to pick one system I'd probably go with Mayfair DC's, but, I'd want it to use actual points so there was actual balance.

I've considered doing something like that myself. 450 point characters (standard starting character in the system) didn't require a background, as long as the points were good, go play. More powerful characters would require time commitments or backgrounds etc, jump through more hoops.

Honestly though, Savage Worlds looks pretty good for a super hero system as well, but... if I were to do a brand new super hero game?

I'd probably hack Fate, it just does really well in MU* format.

I'm actually a fan of Hero Games System for dark and gritty fantasy. You can negate much of the customization crazy by just severely limiting the packages and options.

Standard humans get standard range with a maximum attribute, racial packages modify that, and add bonuses or negatives.
Spells can be built in standard format.
Weapons are already built.
So is armor.

It's surprisingly well balanced at the fantasy level and you can remove the nightmare of 'speed' as a stat by just stating everyone has one action per round or whatever.

With enough time taken to set it up, Hero System is nice and crunchy without being overwhelming. The problem with it is when you /don't/ take the time to set it up. Then it's open system makes it extremely tricky but you can hide a ton of it behind the scenes by just proper setup/coding.