Posts made by Lotherio

@Ganymede said in New MUSH 'Game' Mechanics:

@Seraphim73 said in New MUSH 'Game' Mechanics:

I think this has potential. I like the idea of having to take a loss to gain points.

There's also a substantial pitfall. Who polices what qualifies as a point-gaining loss?

In the TT system, points are tracked visually for all to see. The point-gain losses originate by agreement from GM to the player playing out the loss.

The initial MU* idea is players have story points that act as environment that are used to give to players that take losses, like a +vote system in a way. Player can give points to each other which can be used to buy successes. Edit: Its a resource management system of limited points to give each other, that have other things to spend it on (conflicts between PCs, factions, territory gain, whatever resources it is that is at the heart of whatever theme/genre is chosen).

So, basically, the simple heart of the system is, your character can do what it can do (period). Randomization is removed, the exchange is in asking that player RP some form of loss to net a gain (an extra step above your character can do what it can do by saying go take a loss). It comes down to honor system really. Everyone can lie and swap points with friends or at frivolous tea parties in exchange for the fight they have later with other players. Which goes right to the games that inspired my want for such a system, Diplomacy and Mafia. More Mafia (Werewolf) as the stories and enjoyment my children had with these in light of hard fast rules of fairness was more at storytelling fun than rules mechanics.

Its the value and qualifying of the point exchange that seems the issue. In games like Mafia, the psychology of lying gets out and players learn how to spot liars, especially the longer they stay in the same group (or in MU*, well, word gets out quickly enough through OOC); part of the observation by the creator of the game (the Russian psychologist who created it for his psychology students and teaching).

@Seraphim73 's proposal was a police of the point-gain loss (or organized plots and GM'ed events gain valid points for anything, points in private between players are fluff points). I'm curious how insistent policing of points would be necessary versus the social aspect of players interacting with players (player to player social interactions and politics versus the hard mechanics of the system).

WEG d6 was meant for cinematic action, they made an Indiana Jones supplement back in the day.

Someone at MUSH might have a solution (mush.pennmush.org:4201)?

I'd start in Options > Global Events or Options > Configure Events, see if something was added in there that includes replacing backslash with forward slash?

A follow-up after reading and digesting.

I like @Chet’s AP system, knowing what can be ‘bought’ in the game to contribute, from theme changing (world building) and the crime saga. In effect, the idea of team/faction conflict and using shared points to buy something in this new system I’m envisioning (and in PACE) represents this. One could have political vampires vs savvy werewolves competing for a chunk of the city and they have a set amount of time for players to pick a side and kick in points for a faction victory. Each player contributes only once up to the value of their highest stat, so they have time to gain points then use them on the team conditions. They role-play out how, why, who they are supporting; Vampire Bill uses his charismatic charm to control someone on county commissioners board, Wolf Ted doesn’t want the rival wolves to gain control, he and his friend spend points on brute intimidation of some of the kin of his rival which actually supports Bill, Wolf Tom is opposing Bill so he incites a panic somehow in the community so they voice opinions against the board, while Vampires Jones doesn’t like Bill and has direct conflict on the street with supporters of Bil. Come the end of the month, the highest points total gains control of the Theatre District or whatever. Any theme and its GM/storyteller should know what the stakes are, and without something to compete over between players, could be some stagnancy; unless GM really pushes PvE and does run dragons or cultist factions of NPCs for players to constantly run against that takes points burning to resolve.

That said, the consensus seems to be the ultimately a fair balance is that points gained must come from similar arenas in which points are spent by characters. The eye for an eye vs social disgrace for an eye. This takes out the dumb fighter constantly being humiliated by the social scientist to gain points to be a fighting badass, or the social scientist constantly losing in fights to turn around and make genius gadgets that offer other solutions to problems.

Solutions: @Seraphim73 points can only be gained in group events (PrP/GM’ed) and generally public scenes, not just two people in private point swapping story to character points while doing nothing or having tea parties; seconded by @Ominous. This is doable, I still want more trust in the hands of players for running PrP and NPC and one-shots/plots on the fly.

I mentioned the system having a way to display the losses for all to see publically and react to; when character A takes a fail, and character B takes a point, there is a code of give and accept where the failing character writes a blurb (John and Joe start a fight, Joe punches John in the jaw, others jump in before fight continues, 1 point to Joe for his public loss in the fight). People can see this for up to a week or so ICly and comment on the gossip, ask how Joe’s jaw is publically to show he took a beating, he could have a bruise for that time, etc. etc.

What if, the points gained linger until another player chooses to accept the points in a transfer and they choose from which point gain situations the points are drawn from? A GM in an event selects if there are points to accept from the player trying to buy the win. It would be a simple system of each open points gain having a number assigned tot, and the other drawing dawn form the list of available points the other character has (command accept points joe=#points/#gain1 #points/#gain2 etc.). It keeps the social aspect of convincing each other to transfer points back and forth, and leaves the quality of the points to determination of players in various situations; if all Joe has is social disgrace and goofy silly things, John doesn’t have to accept any of them in a fist fight, another person may see them more equal. It keeps subjectivity in the value of the stories?

Sorry, verbose again. I’m seeing that the balance isn’t so much the linger and lasting effects of the fail, but half as much the quality of the pratfall to gain the points especially if they can be used for physical contests and in PvP situations.

The tracking and use is malleable, I'm open for more opinions and potential solutions as well, I want others to have a buy-in to a fast/easy system rather than view it most applicable to social fluff and my ideas are probably not the best given my history of MU*ing is for the most part different than the average persons.

Too soon but choosing the right door makes a big difference ....

@faraday said in New MUSH 'Game' Mechanics:

The PACE system limit is the two descriptive words.

If simple and fast is your goal, that's great. I'm not knocking it, it's just not my personal taste.

This I'm good with, fast and simple, and it won't suit everyone's taste.

My biggest question/concern is, does it matter if two players just oocly transfer there vote points directly, do it in silly fails, or do it in combat fails?

It matters to me. It feels like unfairly gaming the system and going against the spirit of what you're trying to accomplish. If the idea is to reward failures by increasing the success on meaningful rolls, it should reward failures that matter, not "ha ha I tripped and spilled my drink, go me." But that's just IMHO. YMMV obviously.

Exactly what I'm after, opinions. This doesn't change fast and simple above. This does change buy-in and validation more broadly I feel. And the suggestions above to manage this vs free for all points grabbing is something to consider more so. As noted by @Seraphim73 it's only a minor shift in points tracking.

Another more direct solution is using the shown fail to stimulate rp. The gossip that remains can only be removed by valid point spent successses vs time to wear off; lose in a fight to win a fight later, social faux pas only is removed after equivalent social win. Already planning to track the fails already, not much more to making a win/loss sheet, easier to balance the ledger. Balance of win and loss is at the meat of the simplicity ... Or the everyone gets a turn to sparkle philosophy that most systemless places aim for.

Self follow up.

In the transfer part of the fail for points, I envision the person failing writes a blurb that the other accepts as part of the code. Then, dependent on the level of failure the blurb shows in like finger notes for X amount of weeks. Like making a gossip but it's right on the person in the gossip. It is like a rumor, anyone can play off it. Whether it's red slap mark or social disgrace, fails carry weight in lingering effects others can see, use, hear about.

@faraday said in New MUSH 'Game' Mechanics:

All of those numbers need to be balanced of course - they were just a first draft. But I do find the idea of making skill performance less variable appealing.

That is useful @faraday, and FS3 always had that feel of some roots in Fudge to me.

Going right here to skills less variable. Is that a bad thing? The PACE system limit is the two descriptive words. Max is 7 points split between them. Shouldn't 6 win more than 4? The only requirement is negotiating with other player to have those points to spend (stemming from my initial interest of games like Mafia and Diplomacy which are fun, story driven, but oocly dependent on player to player interaction and collaboration vs numbers, stats, and randomizing effects). Through rp fail to gain points to spend on success is the basis. My biggest question/concern is, does it matter if two players just oocly transfer there vote points directly, do it in silly fails, or do it in combat fails? In the end the 6 should beat the 4 most of the time. There are ways to monitor as noted, from distinguishing PrP points vs GM points or auto loggers. But in the end social fluff vs combat fluff vs OOCly working the system, does the difference limit new player buy-in to such a system? Weighting the system to social vs combat vs GM involvement is tweeks that add complexity but gets away from simplicity of the initial concept too? Or does it?

@Seraphim73 said in New MUSH 'Game' Mechanics:

@faraday said in New MUSH 'Game' Mechanics:

Does anybody really need points to use in private scenes to jump across a balcony to kiss their love?

Nope! Doesn't stop some people from rolling to see if they can (usually when they have a ton of dice and want to look schmoove with dice as well as pose, but occasionally because they have very few dice and want to see if the scene is going to change into 'tending the wounds of the overconfident idiot). (also, that would be jump across -to- a balcony... because yeah... jumping across a balcony is way underwhelming)

Totally get where you're coming from though. I just wanted to have some use for voluntary failures in non-plot scenes. Theoretically, these Storypoints could also be used in larger "social" scenes too, although I would stop short of them being used in any sort of PvP (again, the whole "tea parties to become a badass" problem).

This exactly is the one catch. In the system as proposed, what's to stop Rogue and Gambit from sitting in a private room, and just using the slowly gained story points to convert to character points to go out and be badass later?

One is the limit on how much they can spend (based on points assigned in CG, the max is 7 points between the two words, 6/1 is min max split, but the 1 creates other pitfalls and limits later), at any one time, a player may only spend up to 6 total points on a conflict, so 10 point dragon, they still need assistance either in direct fighting or support role characters.

The second is the sustained lie mentality, if the rest of the player base knows Rogue and Gambit TS and just give each other points, are they going to bring them into other plots? The OOC arranging of stories and plots to earn points from other players is part of the interactive play. An alternative is to require logs related to the points gained as evidence if the fails validate the successes to come or not, but paperwork nightmare potential.

The in-scene Story Points as votes mentioned above is a good point, if one sees something point gain worthy, and even if a player doesn't ask, they can be optional voted over to help the other player for the enjoyment of the RP and the pose.

In the original idea, the Story Points gained are intended to transfer to Character Points to fuel successes and spends for bigger challenges, does the transfer need to be legitimized plot-wise to validate it, or leave the fun of the transfer in the hands of the players. Even if they do awkward social failures to gain points to spend later on bad-assay, the actual 'training' could be assumed to be between the scenes; that and other players will elect not to play with character or condone the behavior?

The duality of PrP points vs GM Plot points is worth considering too. I'm enjoying reading the responses and definitely looking at the potential of tweaks recommended so far, thanks for input.

Real quick my two cents. As a US daytime player I have never interacted directly with ba metaplot as most play happens in US evenings.

That said there is precedence for background metaplot that isn't affected by players but influences there day to day personal plots. For your consideration I offer the TV serirs MASH. The main characters never affected the outcome of the conflict though affected many personal lives of characters that came and went on the show. A similar example is Casablanca. WW II and all its politics is the meta, they had a more direct meta plot in the transfer of info between the politics, but really we're watching an interesting love story that is just heightened do to meta and meta plot.

No one in those examples affects the broader outcomes yet experience a lot of personal change.

@NightAngel12 You're welcome to send it on PM, I think my e-mail is listed on my profile too.

@Seraphim73 :
That is a consideration that I've been pondering. It would be easy to code up a balance/ledger system of points exchange. But as you noted, what's to stop players from swapping out points in private to make gains. What I'm looking at is tracking two pools of points, the first is personal to the character, they fail to gain these. The second is story points, used as player-run challenges. A small gain here (1 a week, and 1 is a big number in the system), meant to feed to players through personal/player based RP for use in spending later.

I completely agree, the balance in TT is everything is public. In the PACE system, there is a community pool of points to give out either way (to players, to GM even for the story side of things). The story points would be the compromise for a MU system, giving players the ability to utilize the environment or NPCs for other players. And it comes down to integrity, how many players would sit around just giving their story points away to help friends make gains. Not something anyone wants to monitor or require like logs for, that makes more work for something meant to be simple. Which leads to limits, allowing players to only keep up to X points (10?). Now the system is equipped to stop one person wins, those two numbers chosen at the beginning is the limit one can commit to a challenge or conflict; codewise, any 'conflict' started would manage overall contributions to limit how much one chips into victory.

I should have been more specific, I just tend towards more words than ever needed. The fail to gain points to win later is the totality of the entire game, including physical, political, strategic fails and successes, not simply a social system. By social, I mean the 'MU' part of MU*, how players interact to tell stories and RP. Its similar to traditional diceless/systemless Comic Mu*s, everyone takes turns winning.

The system is intended as generic, suitable to multiple themes/genres. If others snag it for social only, that's fine, its in its infancy at the moment. This was my concern, I see it utilized for any situation and conflict; and not just social conflict. The other I was talking to only sees its utility for social fluff.

The system limits the level of fail to one static max, the max level of success depends on, simply enough, a couple numbers set during character generation. The balance between fail:success is standard or 1 point of success is equivalent to 1 point of fail in terms of scope, just bigger wins can be bought especially by groups of individuals (which plays back into faction/group conflicts and the necessity of spending points for wins).

I'll try to nutshell the overall system while trying to capitalize on space here (the basic system, not the more elaborate one I'm pondering as a MUSH mechanical system, for space purposes).

CG: players decide on two descriptive words for their character (dashing prince, daring rebel, lonesome pilot, zealot priest, reluctant scientist, etc. etc.). They have 7 points to distribute between these two words; dashing (3), prince (4).

Basis of play: if a player can apply one of their descriptive words to a situation, they gain 1 success. The Dashing Prince needs to incite the people to pay more taxes, he is rather Dashing and capable of convincing folks to pay a little more now for a tax break later. The story continues. How do they determine if it applies, they ask the other players in the scene; which is done on most places anyways, RP is going on, someone oocly asks 'hey, think I can roll X skill to see if I get anything from the Librarian' and consensus is reached somehow.

The numbers behind the words. The players need to gain points they can spend, the number represents the limit of additional successes. The Dashing Prince can easily get more taxes, but what about asking for more food to prepare for a coming siege, that might need 2 successes. Convince more to join the militia, 3 successes. Or convince that the first born son of every family should enter service, maybe that's 4 successes (the max they can buy, 1 auto success, plus 3 more points for having put 3 as the number of dashing the prince had in CG).

How to gain points: Take a loss somehow. To gain some points, the Dashing Prince decides to fail at keeping the Merchants Guild in check. They want import tax relief, and argue that less tax on import will bring more merchants, which will bring more spenders to get goods in the city, which leads to increase on taxable merchandise, so it ends up gaining more money for the city. Its decided this is a 2 point loss, because others will see him as being lenient on the causes he stands on somehow, so broader affect then a 1 point fail. He has automatic 1 success as prince. 0 is just a basic fail, no one notices, this drops to -1, a noticeable failure. The effect lingers a bit for RP purposes, but the Prince gained 2 points to spend later.

Direct conflict (PvP etc.); the Dashing Prince is at the feast, and wants to dance with the Lovely Duchess. But wait, the Daring Rebel is also after the Duchess. Instead of talking out this issue, they draw swords (Dashing vs Daring). Daring Rebel has no points, but succeeds in looking all daring and no one is cut by his sword on the sidelines. The Prince decided to burn his two points, so he has 3 successes, he probably jumps up on the feast table, kicks the turkey at the Rebel, swings from the chandelier and wins the duel.

Caveat: the 'loser' of any conflict decides the outcome of the fail to the winners satisfaction (the good form Jack, so the loser isn't disgraced or compromised on the issue). Secondary to this, taking the loss outright instead of trying to spend points is just an exchange, the Rebel gains 2 points spent by the Prince for use later (for his Daring escape from the prison guards probably). If they both spend points, the loser only gains the difference, the other points are eaten up.

Points potential. The primary means of gaining is failing now to win later. A secondary way is taking the loan now and failing later. The Rebel could of decided to take a loan, to have three points to spend to assure a win, and take the Duchess with him as he swings out of the window via the tapestry there. This earns a Mark though. Anyone who sees a Mark can 'force a fail', the Mark is visible. The limit to gaining points is the max fail is -3 (or 4 points gained) or the lowest CG word used (so making the (6)/(1) char has potential, but the 1 is a limit to other aspects of the system). Once the fail is forces, the Mark is removed and they can take out a loan again, but not while they are Marked

Groups and teams can join to spend points; Two politicians running for office, highest wins. Players vote by spending points and RP'ing support; the union boss spends his union points to convince others in the union to vote for Joe, the heroic police-chief spends points based on his heroics to recommend Valerie gets it. After a set time or whatever, the highest tally of points contributed succeeds. Or group joint effort, The Adventuring Party of Mr. Pink fights the dragon and needs 10 points, the fighter fights (max of 3), the wizard spells (max of 4), the healer supports with heals (max of 2), and the thief sets a trap to trip the dragon (max of 3), they have enough points between them to defeat the dragon.

Its simple, the MU* version I'm pondering includes environmental points for players to PrP with or offer challenges and scenarios as one-shots so that points trickle to the players, for them to spend on other situations or conflicts. The overall balance is limit on points that can be stored from fails, as well as keeping some system of challenges or group conflicts to face so that points are spent, not just accumulated. Also, the other limit is the OOC social aspect of RP'ing to get into situations to gain, spend or trade points and convincing others to 'give' points when there is faction/team based conflict (Diplomacy-like)

Sorry if I'm too verbose there.

Edit for spelling, grammar and to make some sense.

Over the summer, I watched as my daughters were introduced to Mafia (Werewolf) and fell in love with it. I know some folks enjoy the psychological aspects of the game (not knowing the 'enemy' or the sustainability of lying to avoid detection by the 'bad' side); but I noticed it was more the storytelling aspect that really drew them in. The addition of the game runner telling the story of something happening based on the mechanics really drew them in.

So, I sat down to ponder how to use some diceless mechanics over the summer months to emulate the social games such as Mafia or Diplomacy; funny enough, its been showing up in a few threads of late I noticed too, not related to MU*ing but its been showing up.

I also revisited a few diceless games, old and new, and settled on PACE.

In a nutshell, players take a 'fail' to gain points to use on 'successes' later. Deciding to take a fail leads to the RP and how they fail or what they do to fail to gain the points that they use later in the action parts. Simple balance mechanics. A few tweeks to emulate the GM pool of points for players to gain, putting it into the hands of players for self motivated PrP, or simple environmental challenges or NPCs. Coupled with a system of team/faction competition as a way to spend the points to gain achievements in theme; which goes right back to Mafia and Diplomacy. A social, interactive game, where one basically needs to convince others to let them fail or gain points somehow in which they then spend to gain those achievements.

At the heart of it, I'm a bit gamed out and am looking to put the 'socially interactive' and 'storytelling' back into MUSH. I enjoy mechanics and game play, I even still play MUDs from time to time.

In talking with another and describing this system, which includes optional buy-in for dice rolls for individual conflicts, it boiled down to social fluff games only for them. I wanted to poll for opinions and thoughts for this concept here.

Is a social interactive diceless style game of balances (fails during RP to get points to spend on wins in other situations) anything worth pursuing or a waste of my time?

@kitteh Read all I wrote, that nitpicking as you call it ends with 'I am to blame for lack of theme understanding'.

@kitteh said in How low can "low stakes" be and still be compelling for RP?:

@fatefan The Realms Adventurous (Pendragon game) tried to do the more 'your goats survive' level of play when it started out (characters were knights, but the... lowest, shittiest, 'your farm pays for your armor and horse and that's it' level of knight), but a LOT of people bucked theme and went for frilly L&L. I think it maybe could have worked, but staff wasn't very big on enforcing anything so you had people basically playing in completely different themes.

Realms was neither goat squabbling (6th Century enfeoffed 'lords') or L&L. It was between them (Pendragon rpg 510 to 520 AD bridges the hypertimline up to 11th century early L&L style play and chivalry of Arthurian romance in the literature) and the players choose one or the other then took pot shots at each other to be right on theme. Our focus was knightly adventures, we didn't want to keep dealing with non relevant squabbles such as what brand of paganism was celebrated, what style of linen dress was being worn, or should homes be closer to dirt squabbling enfoeffed farmers or 11th century manors. Lack of theme understanding is entirely my fault.

If I went dirt squabbling goat herder, I'd go 866 York, politics amongst the hirths for who controls what as Ivar moves on with Amlaib to harass Ireland and Scotland. Seeing if players could work together to reach Danelaw with Alfred (886 rl).

@WTFE Let me be more specific. Pace is diceless. The totality of success and failure is optional losing to gain pips for wins later. Most folks who've played diceless comic mu*s over the years are familiar with the concept. Take turns in the spotlight.

I'm just thinking any mu* system is better served by something like this. You want to win a fight, you need to take punches too and give someone else a win.

@Bobotron said in Eliminating social stats:

I think one of the big things we're missing here (especially with the sheer amount of AUGH MY AUTONOMY!) is how to incentivize losing, or giving up that piece of information. Ignore 'using social stats to make someone want to typefuck you,' but focusing on 'I am going to flatter and wheedle you and if successful, you'll tell me that Baron McHugelarge is really passing information to the King Flooflemeier.' How do we INCENTIVIZE players being willing to take these kinds of failures? Since there seems to be a constant 'well, my character wouldn't say <X>'.

To incentivize, I've been pondering Pace, a 24 game (written in 24 hours). Pips are gained and used to supplement skills (descriptors). To gain pips for use later, a primary way is by accepting a loss. Their example has a dashing character takes a fail at flirting, the loss ends with them wearing a red mark on the cheek for a 2 pip loss in that situation. They can now use those two points for a success later.

I invoke Connor McDavid argument, If he spent all his points on combat (hockey) and must live with failing social rolls then we all must ...

https://i.redd.it/bb1ok25ctkwy.jpg

@fatefan said in Rings of Terra:

Is the game actually online? I can't seem to connect to the IP listed on the wiki.

I think all the 5's in the middle are like fake telephone numbers on TV/in movies: 402-555-1234.