Posts made by Lotherio

Legend of Rollerball (and other better known movies), James Caan.

@faraday said in How can we incentivize IC failure?:

The BSG games (mine and others) I think show a sort of environment where players with different preferences can peacefully co-exist most of the time. In a more adversarial environment, I can certainly see where clashing expectations would be a bigger problem.

First, completely agree, its a bit of all combined somewhere in the middle and not always clearly defined to what extent of each any given Mu* might be. I do like the improv acting as another part of the spectrum/gauge, and that needle fluctuates too (is it completely improv seeing what actors come up with giving a situation, or is there more system to it such as cues from the audience, the director, other actors that can modify this situations - or in a dice game like pendragon, when I'm about to behead the leader of the revolt on my land do I roll to see if my character is more Forgiving or more Vengeful - and it comes down to how much am I the player deciding vs how much am I taking cue from the system).

@faraday said in How can we incentivize IC failure?:

The BSG games (mine and others) I think show a sort of environment where players with different preferences can peacefully co-exist most of the time. In a more adversarial environment, I can certainly see where clashing expectations would be a bigger problem.

I'd just like to say also, especially concerning @Faraday's BSG and the way stats are presented. The in between places of must Mu*s, I think they are better suited in more universal systems. FS3 on the surface is easy to understand, attributes and skills; WoD on the surface looks easy to roll those things to determine various outcomes; Open D6 is similar. This is good for MU in a not related to the topic sort of way, its when system becomes more complex does the question of how much are we following the rules system vs the spirit of creating story and groups having different levels and not getting along comes up. On the backend or under the hood, FS3 has a easy yet complex combat system. Attack/defend isn't too hard but the realistic side of a few modifiers and determination of hit location and for how much damage and what location, how much splash damage, does shrapnel hit people in a vehicle when its shelled, does someone pass out from some damage or are they strong enough to keep standing, can other rally them, etc. Its straightforward but a lot of steps to try to remember and its why the coded combat resolution through an interface/HUD is great and helps folks only focus on the sheet.

In a universal system, folks are left to play in their way when the see the sheet. Me and my friend could 'brawl' and decide we do best of 5 rounds and the loser is knocked out, we just roll strength or we roll the melee skill (or, more universal and part of the system, if someone has melee the roll that as the roll includes strength, and if not, they just roll strength). Beavis and Bill might like the 10 charts of does it hit, what part of body, is it covered in armor, does some of the armor absorb or outright block the damage, does it depend on type (piercing goes through leather easy but not so much through metal), is it more likely to hurt when it hits (5.56 ball rounds bounce around and are designed to put you down so your friends and medic pause a little to help you out while firing incendiary rounds at peole is going to slice and dice), etc.

That level is where the gauge moves when universal systems come into play for me, the mix of is it more straight system or are folks playing in favor of a story or more just improv acting to see what the characters are going to do/how they'll respond etc. But just a little spiel for I like more universal systems.

I agree with a lot of what @Ghost is getting at. Its the age old diametrically opposed viewpoints. Roll vs Role, MUD vs MU^others. Various levels of intermixing that doesn't always work out as noted.

It also begs the argument, folks that roll hard dice and abide by the systems interpretation (ie playing Pendragon and failing my virtue then proceeded to critically succeed on my vice roll) ... and then role play the results would feel offended if someone said they weren't creatively telling a story and inversely, if fols are in a game that assumes some success level for easy to moderate rolls based on how many points they put in a stat or how they described it but expresses a level of failure and they sometimes like to roll to see if they fail and/or how bad they fail might feel offended if you say they're not using some form of game system or rules.

In the end it comes down to be clear how much of each MU is, but the needle on that guage is mostly jiggling back and forth between yellow caution and red danger such that we don't really know and as @Ghost mentioned, there is some kowtowing to appease a broader player base on most places.

That said, I do have some thought on a part of what was brought up. This could be in a breakout thread; 'incentivizing systems for the more story telling focused group'. But this thread is still incentivizing failure, so here goes ...

@ghost said in How can we incentivize IC failure?:

Don't mix. if you're making a "cooperative creative writing game", you should explicitly state so and do away with codifying extensive dice systems into your games (which will only confuse the RPG players), and instead incentivize cooperation over pass/fail results. Create the game, environment, and social structure as a showcase of writing and stories, sharing written works, and remove the game concept from the MU altogether.

Now there is lot of systems out there that steer away from RNG and dice towards a storytelling system of fairness in who wins and loses, and even plays towards the wrestling stuff @Ghost has brought up in the past (every takes a fall every now and again so others get some spotlight and the understanding is when you fall you do it to help the winner look good in their moment, honor system sort of stuff). Amber diceless had players bid on stats to see who was best/etc. and its assumed the person great in one attribute is always great but circumtances can change that. Other systems have come along to introduce good karma/bad karma and mutual pools of luck (players take a loss but gain a few successes to use for their big win, or win they win the GM gets a few successes to increase story challenges and adversaries). @Ganymede brought up CoD brought parts of this into the system with taking the beatdown for XP or some boon for later.

I've brought up this idea before but it was shut down, taking a loss for a win later in a static system of character representation not unlike comic places. Like strong char has lift 75 tons as their strong, they can fail a few times for whatever reason that builds up whoever is taking the win - kryptonite got them, the winner was stronger in that moment, they had the higher ground, the other one had belief in themself more than the char had in themself and clearly defeated them through this sheer will of strength. They take the good loss but later in the story when their friend is trapped under the 85 ton building, they have the karma pool to exceed their limit to save their friend.

It was pointed out folks would game the system for losses to only use them in the most crucial moments. However, I still believe somewhere is a medium middle ground where this could work in a MU.

That was a lot of rambling, not sure I went anywhere but there are systems for story-oriented folks just I haven't seen any make the transition to MU and maybe cause folks still hold onto wanting the game aspect (sometimes to let dice determine if they win or lose)?

@tooters said in Crusader Kings III Console/PC:

CK3 isn't a bad game, but it seems like it's the same thing happening over and over again. Just like CK2, the strongest tree is knowledge bar none (I can go into detail if prodded, if not, trust me, it's Knowledge).

Never played Crusader Kings, but sounds like most Civilization games and needing writing/literacy to get advanced things like governments and such to springboard technology in other areas to get advantage over other civilizations in that game?

@faraday said in How can we incentivize IC failure?:

Han Solo could meet his end tripping on a flight of stairs because he failed a Dex check is not a world I want to RP in.

Not that its relevant to the conversation but in the original D6 system for Star wars, this wouldn't be possible. The dice pool system then, like a few others, was a total of all dice rolled vs the WoD version (each dice that totals X number is a success). In the D6 version, it would be an easy task, Han Solo had a dice pool of 3d6+1. Stairs would be too simple to assign a DC too, but giving it say, its missing a step, its still easy for most people to do this so very easy difficulty would be 1 to 5 as assigned by a gm. Han would qualify for an automatic 4 on his dice pool and wouldn't need to roll unless the difficulty became sufficient to become a challenge (stairs are open over a ravine, missing a stair, and some storm troopers are shooting at him from one side as he tries to escape them). Unlike WoD, where each die needs to be X number to net a success, or all dice lower than X number is a failure (I think the rules somewhere point out an easy thing or something reasonable for the char to pass doens't need to be rolled).

Maybe this gets into system incentivizing, where reasonable tasks are assumed to succeed (playing up to everyone winning)? Establishing reasonable tasks that don't require rolls per say. Then the thing that becomes more a consideration is when two players get together they get into competitive situations to get to the excitement of dice rolling, whether its arm wrestling, playing darts, writing songs, or stacking crackers, they want to roll a few dice for random determination to see something happen that isn't predetermined. Reasonably, if John has a high dex and Ted has a low one, John should win darts 9 out of 10 times, but bring in RNG and Ted might win more than expected.

Sorry, spammy, just putting out thoughts on this is all.

ETA: On the Han vs stairs roll, even if he failed, I'd imagine some GMs would allow a second dex roll to grab something before plunging to make it more exciting. So they fail, but their decent dex has a chance to make it not a total failure. Instead, it puts the rest of the party into a situation to pull him up before a storm trooper blasts him ala Han getting Lando from the Sarlacc pitt with the pike - a great story part from a few successive failures that gets them in a dire situation.

@arkandel said in How can we incentivize IC failure?:

@faraday said in How can we incentivize IC failure?:

@arkandel said in How can we incentivize IC failure?:

They are not being used. Most players don't roll in social encounters unless there's some kind of pivotal moment, usually around conflict. That's pretty rare. They do get used in PrPs when prompted by a GM but of course that, too, is biased toward those with access to such scenes.

Totally agree, but I don't see that as a problem. My games always contain this guidance:

Well it is a problem if the game runners assume their players are +rolling on a regular basis, and distribute XP based on that assumption.

This is a bit of a difference. For time-based XP rewards, the assumption isn't that players are even +rolling. The assumption that between RP sessions, characters are smart enough to do their own training/knowledge seeking/self improvement. Just because Player A can log on daily and pose bench pressing to get a strength increase at some point, doesn't mean Player B that only logs on once every two weeks is completely avoiding training. Even if folks only bar-RP, the character isn't a lush who sits at the bar all day (funny as that may be and some of us have played chars this way), they go out and pursue their interests off-camera. MUSH vs MUD, you don't have to do the menial stuff on MUSH, its assumed off camera.

ETA: In the time based XP/equal distribution, losing still has gains by still getting 'better' as a character/set of numbers.

Similarly when it comes to incentivizing failure, a lot of the scenarios leading to it cannot be summed down to a single roll of the dice. If the Council votes against your IC interests (which they do based on individual scenes leading up to it, the voters' private IC motivations, political maneuvering etc) what is the roll going to be?

This on the other hand gets at the heart of your initial question , incentives that aren't just XP handouts but are rewarding for all. How does one get their title reward when failing if it can't be summed down to a single roll. How is it rewarded and how do the failures get some incentive when only one person gets the reward in the end? I think some consensus (not all) is that it can't just be a XP bonus to the failing folks but needs to be more substantive story wise (and supported OOCly by the community in some aspect to give it more meaning)?

I've been stewing on this for a couple days (and enjoy the extra day off by not doing much).

@horrorhound said in How can we incentivize IC failure?:

CodeMagic, make it so skills are raised by the number AND quality of rolls made.

I think this gets to the crux of what everyone is saying. If rolling the skill a lot, success or failure, nets some gain ... then folks will game the system by sitting together in a room and spamming rolls throughout the day.

On MUDs this works, my favorite type back in the day was Nightmare LPMUDs, where I didn't get XP for killing mobs, I got it by using my skills. The higher the skill the harder the tasks I could do to raise those skills more. I couldn't kill the noob squirrels in noob woods 500 times to raise stealth by burning XP at my rogue class trainer, I had to go pick pocket the merchants a lot then when stealth was ready to train I asked the rogue trainer to raise my stealth.

On MUSH, the assumption is folks RP together, incentivizing rolling skills moves the needle away from RP'ing and more towards rolling skills, more like a MUD.

I know I'm being dicey there are fine RPI/RPE MUDs that blur the lines. But, for me at least, this is the distinction, on a MUD I could theoretically spend all day doing things solo to raise skills and such while on a MUSH, if I'm solo in a room nothing at all is happening.

This gets to the issue @Arkandel made, a GM scene has weight where as a PRP does not. There is no incentive to winning or failing in the PRP. My usual caveat, I've played for 30 years no without being in GM scenes/plots/events.

The places better for me have been the ones that do periodic XP regardless of activity. This has been the more universal system games. FS3 has given a small but even amount of XP to players on a weekly basis. The old D6 games (Dahan's included) would give so much CP per week.

The non-XP incentives and rewards can be distributed evenly between GM events and PrP, the issue then comes in accountability. Three players can sit in a room together for 8 hours and say they ran a plot to defeat the lich king to become Thespian Guildmaster of the Bardic College. But how do we know they did that with some risk/reward type rolls aside from trust? The answer has been logs but then there is a really high push back about some folks not wanting to provide logs, or not liking to log their RP or some such.

So what I'm seeing overall, is a system to reward RP and incentivize IC failure would be good but a system to reward RP and incentivize IC failure is a lot of effort?

I think adventure ideas for PCs in which they post the logs after and get some rewards is fine, but I know most folks won't do this even if you code it all the way through (+adventure/next to go to next scenario when all criteria are met, such as +roll/lute vs lich king/8 three times and the system tracks wins/losses on those three rolls). A system could easily be smart enough in old/new MUSH codes to do this. A +adventure system that initiates a scene when two or more folks agree to start it, then the first scene is so many of X rolls, it captures the first three they can't roll 12 until they get three successes. The +next part can see if they've done the rolls and to what degree and advance to the next scenario. This can be done on a MUSH (just like the Ares CG of being anywhere can be done in old MU softcode, rooms are not needed). I've literally done things to try and incentivize RP by saying do one of the following (argue with a stranger, get pick pocketed, stop a criminal, etc.) and post a scene to get some XP and no one posts scenes.

I'm falling in line with if the culture doesn't incentivize on its own for failure, then its more like what everyone has been saying. Folks just want to roll their good skill and win. I've played all walks of Mu genre, and comics are my favorite because those are the ones where more folks tend towards the sparkle rotation. They spotlight this week but spend a few weeks letting others rotate through the spotlight. @Ghost had something of this concept to transfer to other genres in his wrestling talks when saying the loser takes the fall to help make the winner look better. Or the Loser poses the results but not in a manner of, the sun was in my eyes cause I would have won on a thousand other days. Not everyone on Comic mu*s takes the fall like that, but more often than not that's where I see failure being more accepted as part of the rotation to get back to your spotlight time.

The thing that makes comics different is everyone is a snowflake, they just have their unique thing. Batman, Superman, Zatanna and Wonderwoman can rotate being badass because they each have a unique thing they tend to do. Some blurred lines with Superman and Wonderwoman sure, but they can juggle enough between backstories that they can take turns being masters of kick assery. Most comics places aren't always stat based and more folks look to the descriptions (can lift X amount of pounds, or master of fist-jitsu, or withstand heat of sun).

I don't know if this is going anywhere, but I think a game that focuses less on the rolls and more on the story may be better towards incentivizing IC failure system-wise; and good players, regardless of system, are going to make failing into a story no matter what I think.

@arkandel said in How can we incentivize IC failure?:

What I'd ask though is whether we can - or should - systematize so that even when I don't get to play the Sheriff the impact from 'losing' is mitigated. Is it EXP to reflect learning from the experience? Is it a consolation rank/plot inclusion staff throws my way to keep me moving? An OOC requirement from the new Sheriff's player to find a way to let my PC tag along?

I think aside from trying to affect the culture to embrace failure as a positive to storytelling, a boon to character development, and/or a contribution to the meta of the Mu/game, the system side comes with the caveat of what makes failure incentives fair, does it come down to staff only monitored failure, and who much more work goes to the staff. I only ask the later because to me its a cause of you can lead the horse to water (but you can't make the horse drink).

Ideally, system-wise, in my mind: Failure is noted/tracked and some form of points are denoted. PC can change in for little things like dice rerolls, dice bonuses, XP, leads/info, etc. I'd lean towards automated, some conflict type roll (roll thing vs thing, however one specifies the context), someone loses and they get their karma chit or whatever its called.

The concern/con of this is that if its just baked into the system, what prevents it from being abused; ie Bill & Ted RP playing darts, they roll their dart skill vs each other each round. Piling up karma chits, then go fight Fred and cash in their chits to put the whooping on Fred.

The other potential goods, enforcing winner to give some RP time to loser, giving some shiny to loser, still needs tracking. Still needs coding or back end hand tracking on spread sheet or something too.

For me ideally though, a chit system where the loser can save/use them for different things is idea even with the risk that Bill & Ted can cheat the system (which could probably be monitored and Staff can be like, why are they rolling dart vs each other 20 times?).

I agree there is probably not one answer to the question.

I think part of the inherent root, as folks have pointed out in other ways for years, is that the basis of MU arises from TT RPG and in the small group environment success is generally rewarded more often than failure.

There are quite a few RP'ers out there though that see it the way I do, failure is often a chance for more story and development. This more often arises out of PrP when we ST for each other over events and big things Mu-wide. But we go to get the goods, it comes down to a couple rolls, we succeed and the day is done. We tend to forget about those times, its when we fail and have to recoup, regroup and find another solution that more story is created. This is cultivated rather than assumed by most though. Those of us who do this on Mu also have done this on TT.

I freeform my campaigns as a GM/DM. A lot of other campaigns more and more seem to take a prescribed route, the group has to deiscover the evil demons are taking over the world and eventually stop this, its the overall meta amidst which all the other adventures and sessions evolve with an end point in site. I see a lot of folks prefer this for a Mu* as well. But in my campaigns, the group is prevented with various ideas and mysteries to explore and they choose what they want. I've briefly mentioned it before but long ago during an Al-Qadim campaign I saw a random encounter suggested somewhere of 'PCs find a golden feather' and I included that while they were traversing the desert to cut time between two cities. One character took the feather and wanted to explore it and this developed into the feather belonging to a swanmay sort of being that was a member of the Court of Birds, they decided they liked the swanmay and courting ensued and they traveled to meet the Sultan of Birds the char expressed their intentions they received some crazy quest to prove themselves to the court of birds which involved a challenge that could easily be solved by flying at a time no PCs had access to flying magics (easily at least). I think they spent six months traipsing about this part of the desert in RL time (24 campaign session give or take). Most of it stemmed from series of 'lost' resolutions and figuring out how to overcome and get what they wanted for the character.

Incentivizing a loss to me is rewarded by the extension/creation of story and the development of the char. I think if this could easily be made incentive it would help. More XP to represent off-camera development to overcome the failure, more story time dealing with the loss, then that would help but ...

Folks have in the past pointed out that the incentive for failure would be a lure for folks seeking mechanical advantage, if there is a reward for failing more folks will choose to fail rather than win. I brought up once a different sort of MU based on PACE rpg by Evil Hat (which was free from their site once upon a time). I don't know the name for this genre/type of RPG system but it was based on the karma pool concepts that have floated around in various incarnations. Basically there is good/player pool and evil/GM pool, if a player needs extra successes to succeed they can take from the player pool, add it on their challenge, but this moves it to the GM pool that can be used to help NPCs rolls, bring some bad karma to the group, and other misfortune. I proposed that two players in conflict could also dice/face off, but the player that loses gets a karma point. The issue became that if created so players can do their own stories, some players would milk the system and do duels with each other so one looses to gain karma points.

I guess it comes down to culture, I think it failure is an incentive of its own as a player because I tend to have more memories and create more stories out of it. I think to help it could be incentivized in some fashion but I don't know the right balance to make it enjoyable in some way verses a new way to compete for the shiny by trying to out-loose as well.

@zombiegenesis said in Comic Games And Scope:

As for Ares plugins, what kind are you looking for? There's a general dice plugin that lets you roll dice in the scene system(and there's a dice command in-game). What kind of things were you looking for, plugin wise?

If I was looking for one, I'd be shooting for the moon. An admin 'sheet' builder, that helps create a sheet and define what type of dice to roll using the dice plugin, so I can roll ability or roll skill.

I like universal systems, FS3 is good for me, but I want a little more for supers. I don' t need the awesome meat of the combat system that is there for FS3. I was spoiled ages ago being a D6 fan when Dahan made their D6 system - not to be confused with Dahan Skill System which I think is more percentile based. In Dahan's D6, they made it universal for staff such that staff had easy commands to make the abilities and skills and such for the system if one didn't want the Star Wars parts of it.

This is belated, I did want to respond.

@zombiegenesis said in Comic Games And Scope:

I guess my question is this, what type of game scope would interest you most as a player. Assume all are semi-sandbox with both staff-run plots and tools for players to run their own PrPs.

There is a lot of content in your post worthy of discussion relating to comic games and scope. I'll try to focus on your general question to help with what you're feeling out.

In your terms, my interest is between general and focused.

For me a broad game is too much. I may come in wanting aquaman, app him in, then show up for some event and the submariner/Namor is there. That, or I show up as a comic icon/paragon prototypical superhero who ends up fighting alongside a powerpuff girl, an anime legend, frankenstein's monster while we fight the staypuff marshmallow man. The former takes away from feeling super or special which is part of the draw to a comic game and the later feels too surreal to me.

Narrow is similar to the first reluctance to play on a broad game; if I'm feeling Nightcrawler and I go check out the X-Men game and he's claimed, I'm out. Or like the one recent game that had only rosters, if I go on and all the guys are checked out and no other guys to play, I'm out.

I think they appeal of broad comic or multi-splatt WoD/CoD is there is a big group of players for potential RP. I may want Justice League play but I'll go hang with swamp thing or arrowverse or x-men just to get some play. I think folks want general to focus to narrow to play their niche but those places end up small do to the reason I mentioned, X is already claimed most people move on.

For me, the time commitment it would take in ares for my dyslexic butt to create a system is a juice not worth the squeeze scenario. If there were some plugins developed for public consumption to allow more in-game dice and such, I'd have considered supers on ares myself. I'd be in for a nice comic game on ares where I fit in and can run PrP's. I have never been in a staff plot/event unless I've ran one on a game of mine and I have several decades of being on this bus ride.

So in the end, if I find a game, I prefer general to focused and I would like to feel a PrP would be easy to do without jumping through hoops, especial on a comic game. I mentioned the one that had rosters, it was also X-sphere/roster located on Genosha, I have no idea how i'd even run a multi-scene PrP let alone a one shot. Not like if we're centered in Metropolis or NYC and we can bust thugs if we want or easily get to the players general locations in the books for a few scenes of adventure.

@hobos said in Mourning a character, how do you do it?:

Sometimes I still think about Famous Outlaw and am real-life inspired by things that Famous Outlaw said. Famous Outlaw pulled on my heartstrings forever. Famous Outlaw is a fantasy character in a fantasy world but perfectly meaningful to me.

Dang, now I want to hear tales of this rakish rogue.

@arkandel More Deborah Chow, less Robert Rodriguez? Obi-Wan was good. It started slow but I liked it, I also liked the movie I Think We're Alone Now (which the others I shared it with found it slow and boring).

An old way to find books to read that one may not have read before is Project Gutenberg. Public domain works that are available for free on-line. It has lots of classics, lots of great old stuff, much of what has inspired what we read today.

@arkandel said in How do you discover books?:

So recently I discovered there's a name for one of my favorite tropes in literature; progressive fantasy. That's the kind of book where a protagonist starts from humble beginnings, they go to some kind of school or undergo training, and then by the end of the story they become badass.

Isn't this just classical fantasy? Is the humble beginning the distinguisher? Paul Atriedes and Frodo Baggins don't fit cause they're not from a humble beginning? Luke Skywalker doesn't count because even though he's an orphan that leanrs a style of teaching (jedi), he's not quite humble?

@ganymede I'm still churning what this might look like in my head with interest. I like the approach of location first but agree its important but could easily become esoteric. If we through out ideas would that help, or should we silently think encouraging thoughts to see what comes of it.

You know, back when I started Mu'ing I also did mailing list story telling groups to write/bounce idea/occasionally e-mail rp. It also helped to offer ideas and generate collaboratively, if you want someone to write things for you to say no to alot, I can throw out lots of things.

@ganymede said in Of Dreams and Nightmares:

I would caution against following Gaiman's world precisely, but I do not think that the idea of "other realm escapees" is unique to his work. In fact, there's a part of me that wants to work with that theme for players, and throwing it into a fantasy realm.

I like where you're going already.

This could be an Aberrant game or an adapted Changeling: the Lost game. I really like City of Mist, and its underlying premise fits into the game and setting I'm thinking of. Regardless, while I can work on story elements I would need assistance in coding it up. Given how I see the game working, I sense that I might need to homebrew a system that would give the game the feel I envision, which would be narrative-strong, as opposed to mechanics-crunchy.

I wish I was better at it and had more time to help. I'm slow and ask other folks hundreds of questions to get anything halfway done as it is usually. Regardless I'm curious how your take would go in world building; but I like the world building aspect of things over the crunch of mechanics myself.

@reimesu As someone who has never read The Sandman, I wouldn't mind spoilers on it. The only Neil Geiman I picked up was the Death miniseries (High Cost of Living/Time of Your Life) as that concept appealed to me over his other works, I did like the Graveyard Book too.

Can his Sandman concept be pealed away from any of its correlation with the DC Universe stuff too? Is it close to the concept in Rise of the Guardians? This is only guessing speculation on my part based on the OC powers being based on certain dreams as suggested in the other thread. Like Rise of the Guardians, the guardians have a sphere of powers based on the center/focus or what they're the guardian of, but relatively it comes from the dreams of children and Sandman is vital to that belief existing, so the villains tend to have something to affect dreams. Pitch used fear and as part of that, nightmares in the movie. Another is Lermantoff the Serpant that is a dream eater demon thing.

I'm curious to know more about The Sandman.

@zombiegenesis If I were taking this approach, I'd embrace the dream/nightmare and I would distance it from WoD. There is a lot to lean into from WoD (@Raeras mentioned Beast the Primordial, when I see dreams/nightmares and questioning if they're real or not, I start thinking classic Changeling the Dreaming). WoD takes a lot from real world horror genres, I was drawn to Changeling in the beginning because I was familiar with Arthurian Legend, and I played Pendragon and I recognized a lot of Changeling theme from classical fairy (Redcaps, Boogans, Sluagh and others are classical boogey-folks already, to me its like WoD picked up Pendragon's fairy/fae and used that as the basis to begin writing Changleling). I think if you attribute anything to WoD, even if it is only a lot of WoD mechanics, and not straight up some book version of WoD it would get a lot of blow back.

Long story short, distance it from WoD, in my opinion. It can be comic book and still have horror elements. I'd also look at Moon Knight. Its all real but not everyone sees it and mostly everyone sees him as a crazy guy. Or the dreams and nightmares are real, just not everyone sees it. Another example would be Rise of the Guardians and their books Guardians of Childhood.

As far as power, that'd be more difficult. If it is everyone appears crazy fighting mostly things that cannot be seen and just looks like people in pajamas fighting thin air, folks might not take to it. Personally, I would love this sort, its like 'keep it secret or they lock you in the looney bin' sort of similar to some sort of masquerade of sorts. And its powerful enough ala Rise of the Guardians that the OC Supers not fighting the nightmares leads to real world consequences for those that cannot see. I don't want to tie it too much into real world, but all the bad stuff going on is the nightmares winning. Mass shootings, epidemics, return of 'isms' (sex/race/gender/religion/etc). Maybe most the supers are doped up by doctors that think they're crazy or locked away and institutionalized^1 after years of psyche docs pushing for this - opioids are out there to subdue the dreamers/supers.

My spiel said, some level of mundane folks being able to see/realize dreams/nightmares to justify the supers in some context might be a better approach. Maybe dreamland is the battle ground and common folks know the supers through dream interaction but they still keep real life identity secret for their protection. If its much more popular where they run around and everyone knows they're dream/nightmare fighters, I think it takes away from having it dream/nightmare based?

ETA:

1. There are still 668 psychiatric hospitals (asylums if you will) in the US. Probably one of the highest by country (just a guess, I have no clue), but other countries still have them. I could see a TT game starting in a place like Stranger Things Hawkins Institute where the supers are controlled and maltreated until they awaken to figure out how to escape and then realize how many nightmares are out there in the world now for them to face/fight/deal with.

ETA2: I just read the Mu's I'd like to make but probably won't, Gany's idea definitely. Sandman Mythos, but look at Rise of the Guardians too, they have one 'area' of abilities that defines their power set.

@runescryer Dragonlance Mux was my first regular place for RP when I started Mu'ing back in the 90s. I'd love to see a DL Mu.

Curious how obscure of a continent. Like Adlatum, something only mentioned. Or something beyond, newly developed for the Mu as an exploration of a new area. I think world building for the new area would be an interesting exercise with a good group of folks.