@TNP said:
Superhero games generally don't use dice. But how fast you type is also not a factor unless you take a half hour to pose every time.
I wish there was more super hero games that /did/ use dice. Pure consent FC crossover superhero games are not my cup of tea.
@Usekh said:
Considering gender of players is about parity I would suggest there may be more to this story.
I don't know if it is still the case, but it was the case when I tried to play there. Believe it or not. I had a half-orc male battle cleric that I got to play in one adventure and it was fun enough that I brought a friend over and we were going to make a dark elf sorcerer and a half-elf druid. My druid literally had a 5 line description which was mostly face, because armor and I got told mentioning 'Curves' at all made a woman a sex object and they didn't allow those type of characters.
I have no idea if it is still an ongoing thing there, maybe they finally moved past it, I don't know but I have zero reason to lie. I wasn't there long enough to come up with any opinion but my own.
I remember Whirlpool I think it was, was trying to go to bat for me (or at least tried to be reasonable) and my friend but other staff just kept going on about it until I stopped logging in for good.
@Miss-Demeanor said:
@Lithium said:
All I have to say is: A narrative by itself is not an RPG. If you do not get to make choices, then it is not an RPG. If you do get to make choices, and none of them can impede/alter/halt or end the story, it is not an RPG.
However, none of these things by themselves also make a game an RPG. So go figure.
You also just described a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure book. XD
True story!
I just happen to think of an RPG to not have specific and dedicated endings to stories. To me an RPG doesn't have established goals other than 'Have fun' and 'make your own story matter'. The players /always/ guide the games I run and I (won't say never, but) rarely have predefined events or fallout to their actions. How the players achieve something determines how the world reacts around them. It may not always be in large ways, but there is always consequences.
Maybe a year and a half, two years ago around there tops. They had a thing against 'Sexy' characters because apparently someone in the past was a problem child with a sexy character so all sexy females are just banned.
That and the inane bias against female characters. I literally had a description that only said "All her curves are covered with heavy studded leather armor." And they were like: NO! To Sexy! At which point I left since literally everything else was her facial features and her weapons. It was beyond draconian.
All I have to say is: A narrative by itself is not an RPG. If you do not get to make choices, then it is not an RPG. If you do get to make choices, and none of them can impede/alter/halt or end the story, it is not an RPG.
However, none of these things by themselves also make a game an RPG. So go figure.
@Arkandel said:
@FiranSurvivor said:
Sorry I meant in the past. I haven't played on CS for... 3-4 years. During my time there was quite a few cheaters.
I don't know the first thing about the issue at hand so take this comment with a huge grain of salt, but in my experience the definition of 'cheating' can vary wildly and it's often the by-product of badly designed systems.
For example in some games XP is derived from votes, and often people have an infinite amount but their impact is diminished (i.e. as you get voted by the same person you gain less and less XP). So it was a common phenomenon on at least one I've been on for people to 'farm' large scenes, since they had opportunities to trade +votes with impunity. They'd go to a huge gathering, type +vote/here or whatever, pose a couple of times and then idle off.
Is that cheating? I'd say no (and others would say yes) but either way it's not black and white. Was the system badly designed? You betcha.
As a note, as far as XP goes. 14 votes a week, one vote can be given to an individual per week, each vote is worth a fraction of a piece of karma. I am coding in a rep/notoriety bit so that people with social characters /can/ influence things more than dealing with just the Johnson and the occasional soft entry or getting better prices through a fixer. There will be a cap on karma from votes per week, there won't be automated xp per week, there will be rewards for running Runs that are listed as 'story centric' for the game that is larger than normal prp rewards, or from participating in the runs.
This is all subject to change of course, but I don't know enough about SQL to link a bboard in game to a bboard on the wiki/webpage. I was thinking about trying to have the local ShadowLands shard be a channel, that posted history to it's own BBoard thread but I don't think I have the coding chops to do that.
I have a lot of ideas on how to make the mush interactive but a lot of it will be limited by my coding skills so it will be... as best as I can do. Can't ask myself for more than that.
@TNP said:
@Cobaltasaurus said:
A side note: I'd freaking love to get more RP on eldritch. I'd play with anyone.
Page Jared. I play with lots of people. Though this also means I'm also often in a scene with someone or have something lined up for later that means I shouldn't start something.
I can say that Jared is pretty awesome, without Jared helping keep people in touch... I'd be pretty shut out of a lot of RP there.
Also: My werewolf pack needs more werewolves. I've got wolf-blooded but few actual wolves... For whatever that's worth I know wolves are highly limited it seems. It can be somewhat annoying since I made my PC with the idea of joining a pack not forming my own, but, everyone I asked said: Form your own, we need more packs, so I did and... yeah. /annoyed.
I always liked Mekton, it's just fun. Doesn't really translate well to a mush though, unless you remove the ability for everyone to have a custom mek.
Fuzion is solid too, but I always hated how dex, cool, and int were the win stats and nothing else really mattered yet they cost the same.
To be fair there is a large difference between a coterie/pack/krewe etc and a clique. A clique is exclusionary and reduces peoples chances to RP with others. A baked in thing like a coterie/pack/krewe etc is a thing to /facillitate/ rp and doesn't have to be a closed system.
Clique's suck. Group RP is awesome.
Twilight? Really? Fuck. No.
I'd rather rip my own eyeballs out with a shard of glass.
@Thenomain said:
@Lithium said:
Earthdawn is AWESOME.
I find Earthdawn fans to be very excited about it, but otherwise can't get into it as a system. As a generic fantasy world, Dragon Age has replaced it as more interesting to me.
Fantasy AGE (the RPG system by Green Ronin that also drives their Dragon Age games) is interesting, but pretty tightly controlled and would be fairly niche. I think the best fantasy system for Mu*s would be one that is easy to learn and explain, or is otherwise already free.
@Ganymede said:
I played Magic for about six months before I discovered Jyhad, later V:TES, which is infinitely superior.
My better-than-Magic CCG was Shadowfist. Then again, I find most household injuries to be preferable to MtG.
I've never played DragonAge as an RPG other than the video games, I have trouble getting into a tabletop that is based on a video game, because there is the video game and it always feels like no matter what the characters do, it's only side important compared to the awesomeness of a video game character.
Back When EverQuest was a huge thing, White Wolf did an EverQuest book I believe that was using the OGL or something very similar to it, the EverQuest RPG was actually pretty well done I thought, the way they did the classes and such it was a solid fantasy table-top RPG (Not so good for mushes, I dislike anything that uses levels on a mush as levels are inherently separating people from each other for content) but I could never get anyone to play it because of the name. If they liked EverQuest, they'd prefer to just play together online, or they didn't like EverQuest and wouldn't touch it at all.
Also as for DragonAge, I am still on my anti-bioware/EA kick and refuse to give them money or support ever since ME3.
I didn't even know there was a derail, now I got a new thread to read 
@Ganymede said:
@Olsson said:
So, suggestions? If you can give a synopsis why your suggestions are great that'd be grand.
Earthdawn. Earthdawn is a forgotten system, but one of the first to introduce the idea of exploding dice. It would be a nightmare to code, but it's a pretty awesome fantasy game and setting. I would play an Earthdawn game in a second. I have very fond memories of it.
Speaking of old systems, try Castle Falkenstein. It would be easy to code up for a MU*, but it lacks the crunchiness that some folks enjoy. Resolution is based on playing cards.
RuneQuest is also a game and setting that I've enjoyed. It's essentially based on a percentage system of resolution, like Palladium games. Although combat is a bit clunky, it does have Hit Locations, which always leads to humorous situations (I hit him in the abdomen again?!? His wife's gonna be pissed.) It's also set in Glorantha.
Earthdawn is AWESOME. I would love an EarthDawn game and would even help code it, once I finish with my own project assuming someone with better coding skills didn't get involved first.
I would love for a super hero game that wasn't consent based and/or the Hero System... The Super Hero supplement for Savage Worlds is actually pretty nice.
Deadlands would also be awesome though, I would play that in what spare time I have that is not devoted to coding.
Space Opera is cool, but, difficult to do as it tends to create tiny pockets of RP spread out over vast distances/areas that are hard to sustain.
I'd /love/ to see a Conanesque low fantasy game, I was going back and forth between doing that or ShadowRun but decided to go with ShadowRun so someone else needs to do that.
@Jennkryst said:
@NotaNumber said:
I love the setting of Shadowrun ... but, my experiences with Denver over the years make me question whether it is a great thing to try and use the system online.
Then again, if this gets off the ground, I'll probably try anyway because fuck it, Shadowrun.
Many of the issues with Denver stem from it being SR3 (bucketloads of karma pool), and as such, the numerous house rules floating around. Some of it also had to do with the revolving door of staffers changing things, and Alpha just wanting to play/refusal to make the hard call on staff stuff. Examples include... the attempted matrix re-write, because they were just so... unintuitive, and then the one decker player got brought on staff to consult (despite numerous complaints), and decreed 'MATRIX IS FINE AS IS, GO ABOUT YOUR BUSINESS, NO FIXES NEEDED EVER' Add onto it the current Chief of Staff constantly griping about staff decisions publically despite the fact that staff fired one of the best PR people on there ever for doing the same thing.
tl;dr, Denver's issues are more about it being Denver, and less about it being Shadowrun.
^^^^^
I played on Denver when it first opened and it was decent, then the karma bloat happened and /that/ is one of the precursors that killed the game in any meaningful way. That was a problem with SR3 and there was the endless House Rules that followed. Once there were people with more karma pool than cyberzombies firearms pool (and likely long before then) there was serious cascade failures going on with trying to make things work with that system.
Personally I am a fan of letting people make their own stories, make their own content as it were, so I am less concerned with PvP than others might be. I personally believe that nobody should feel /safe/ in ShadowRun, at any given time, because that is at odds with the setting and Denver had very draconian rules on player vs player conflict, at least when I was there (Which was admittedly forever ago).
One of the reasons I am converting 5th edition down to 2050 is because it is a lot more balanced than 3rd edition and the system is balanced enough that even a soak monster can still be taken out with just a little bit of planning so if someone steps out of line to much then they will probably get dealt with. It's also why I am making CharGen be mostly automated, to reduce the barrier to entry and perhaps make it non-existant.
For Example: If someone goes into CharGen and takes the Ganger archetype for their race, and answers the background questions they'll get approved very very quickly (maybe even with zero delay) because I want Gangs to form up. I want PC's to lead street gangs. I want the Urban Jungle to be a scary beast that will chew up runners and spit them out if they don't follow the rules or be careful and take pains to protect themselves.
I have a lot of plans and systems going into place to help promote RP though and plots. There will be runs being offered by Johnsons played by staff, and then there will be a bank of runs for players to run for their fellows should they choose that will be closely tied in to the overarching story of the game to create an interactive web of plot threads that may not seem interconnected on the surface.
Another idea I am tossing around is dedicated Fixer's for established Teams. Get a group of friends together who can all be on at the same time and work as a team and there's a good chance of weekly or bi-weekly runs for your team through your fixer to help push the story forwards and to promote the 'team' dynamic as there's only so many jobs a random collection of people put together can work on.
That is what I will primarily need staff for, someone for Deckers, someone for Gangers, someone for the Triads/Yakuza/Mafia etc.
Admittedly I have no idea how big the player base will be, so I don't know exactly how many staffers I will need but I do know this: One and done. I have zero tolerance for staff cheating.
Yep I like the lifepath system but I am modifying it a bit. The published Life paths don't take into account the wide variety of countries in ShadowRun, or even all the countries in North America like Aztlan, Cal Free State, Quebec, etc!
So I am ditching the nationality phase under the assumption that people are people, people define themselves by where they are from but it shouldn't have as large an impact as it does. So I am skipping that phase of picking a nationality and instead just having people pick a native language, set their nationality, and then refund them those points so that they have more flexibility at the final stage in where they want their character to be.
The alternative, is to try and create a lifepath for every country. While possible, it is insanely time consuming to do so and honestly, just isn't worth the time.
EDIT: So it'll be more along the lines of: Pick your childhood upbringing, pick your teen years, pick your education (if any), jobs performed (If any). So in the end it's possible to just pick your childhood, pick your teen years, and then go straight to spending remaining points at the point buy phase.
I am intending the lifepaths to be a guide, rather than a straight jacket, to help people find and define their character. Or for those that choose, they can go straight to point buy, or, can pick an already created archetype that will be applied to them and then they are ready for play after filling out the background questions.
Fallout is a nice setting, I think you could do it with WoD 2.0 as a baseline, you could have mutations be power lines (With both positive and negatives) and perks do sound like merits, so you could convert some of them into merits. As for the equipment thing, Equipment bonuses are still awesome even in WoD. You /might/ be better off using a different system though, like Savage Worlds or even the Hero System (I know the Hero System is a mathematical mess if you are new to the system, but if you define it and don't leave it open, it can do anything pretty damned well with only minor modifications, like removing Speed and the phase/segment combat system if you want things more balanced).
AHA! Yeah A2A was what I used. Never tried that other one.