Posts made by magee101

@Arkandel said in Magee101's Playlist:

@magee101 said in Magee101's Playlist:

The Reach: I think my first character was Miyah? Main was Alicia (Geist) I think I made one more before it closed down but don't remember.

Hah, I remember Alicia.

Sometimes you were a pain in the ass, but I never thought it was intentional and it could have been circumstantial, so that's good at least.

Generally at that point if I was a pain in the ass it was unintentional and probably because I had maybe an hour or two of sleep XD, I didn't sleep much back then.

I played there for about two months last year. The game is a little boring (or was at this point) because the playerbase was low, there wasn't a whole lot to do 'mechanics' wise and RP felt a little stiff from most of the characters I was meeting.

Not sure if this is still a thing but what made me leave was that several of the oldest players that probably didn't even play anymore, just trolled their website forums, were being general A-holes to the few new players that were discussing ways to bring the game back to popularity, or how certain things in the code might be changed to make the game feel more updated, or basically anytime two people that were not OG's were having a conversation one of these older players would come in and be a roving jackass for their own personal satisfaction (I think anyways).

Yes not an uplifting story, but that was my personal experience with the game.

@ThatGuyThere
Aha, I only ever used Grave Dirt Caul, shoulda looked at it's Shroud thanks for the heads up.

@ThatGuyThere said in Fear and Loathing:

I would definitely lean to purified not quite matching up with Sin Eaters in power levels. If you focus much at all as an SE you can be obscenely good at what you do right off the bat. Hell you don't even need to focus that much to make minor broken thing. For example you can leave c-gen with 5 armor right of the bat without really trying. (Grave Dirt key, shroud 2 stamina 3. I did it my accident making my first SE.) If go with shroud 3 and stamina 5 both easily hit in c-gen you have 8 dice of armor on activation. In GMC rules that makes you pretty much unkillable at least without the use of heavy weapons since GMC armor takes away levels of damage after the roll not dice before it.
Also the ways that Purified are powerful for the most part require a storyteller, I love working with spirits in all forms of WoD but they require storyteller or staff to have controlling them have much world impact.

You musta been playing with 1.0. 1.1 limits a lot of those things and helps scale down SE. As for example the Shroud, you only gain armor=Shroud rating. IE in your example, you would have 3 armor not 8

@Paris said in Fear and Loathing:

@magee101 It's less about indestructibility and more about the sheer gross firepower Geist brings. I like Geist but they make multi-sphere plots hard to balance for other spheres because of the power creep Geist brings to the game.

Mmm, I can see that. Geist can get a lot of dice this is true, and a lot of mitigation, but I still think Purified is the 'stronger' of the two because of the SE mortality thing. Pretty easy to reel in a Geist's power. Just houserule the maximum amount of possible bonus dice you can accumuluate. (Speaking of, the highest bonus I ever got was +40 dice >.>)

EDIT: The only rote rolls I know of are for social/mental skills, I do not believe there are any combat oriented ones. It also does take a lot of XP for Sin-Eaters to get to these sorts of power levels, around 500-600xp

@surreality said in Fear and Loathing:

Also pretty sure it's not possible to just, say, bind a SE into a random item and turn them into a fetish.

Entirely possible with a purified. They might not be dead, but being bound into, say, the rectal thermometer at the Central Park Zoo for all eternity by a pissed-off mage is probably not the happiest of fates.

No but you can rip their Geist out (thematically anyways, not all MU* allow it), which can have all sorts of side effects, the least of which is instant death

@Botulism said in Fear and Loathing:

@magee101 We'll have to agree to disagree.

I suppose we can but only if you decide to ignore that Purified have control over BOTH ghosts and spirits (Geist just deal with ghosts, and can only affect spirits if they physically manifest, or the Sin-Eater reverse possesses, and even then 99 percent of their powers don't work on them).

Geist (in the rulebook) have five lives, maximum. Purified can technically never die EVER, if they're smart enough. If they're really really really dumb, they can still die like eight or nine times in a row before they actually 'cease to exist'.

Sin-Eaters are still human, still require food/water/shelter though to a lesser degree than normal mortals. Purified do not require anything. EDIT: Okay they require Essence, yes I failed at this part of the argument but point in case is, SE=semi-mortal Purified=Spirit creature that isn't human anymore, just has a human shell)

I am sure there is more, those are just the most immediate that come to mind in where Purified are much more powerful than the Sin-Eaters.

These are in no particular chronological or logical order, just as I remember them. (FYI, I have a shitty memory so... I probably won't remember most of these character names!)

DarkMetal: Rya, didn't play long but had a ton of fun.

The Reach: I think my first character was Miyah? Main was Alicia (Geist) I think I made one more before it closed down but don't remember.

Banner's MUD: I don't remember any character names but I played there for awhile.

Battlestar Pacifica: Can't remember this character either but I played the last three months the game was open.

Shadowrun Denver: Imaki

Sindome MOO: Halli, beefy Native American chick that got into NLM corpsec and had kitty ears as a biomod.

Uhh that game that was formed from TR: Don't remember, but I staffed there for a small time as well until, story short, I made a mistake; disagreed with a policy that was in place by Headwizzes; was trying to keep a Sphere afloat in a time where we had little to 0 leadership; and summarily was let go when I was the one doing most of the work for that Sphere at the time. Fun times!

ShadowRun Denver: Imaki and Chloe
Fallcoast: Anna May (hunter) and Salome (Sin-Eater)

Current: Currently I only play at Tenebrae as Chloe (Bard/Cleric)

And yeah that's what I can remember of my playlist. I know one of these names will get love and or hate by the droves, and I will accept both! If you can guess which you win... nothing cause I'm broke.

There's a Dragon Age RPG out there, as well as an adaption of the rules for use in Generic fantasy settings rather than the Dragon Age setting. Not sure what it's called, can look it up on Google I bet though. Figured that might be worth mentioning, from what I remember the combat in that system helps with the 'gritty' and while Dragon Age's artstyle was a little cartoony, the theme of the games is very dark and gritty.

Why do I play Mu*'s?

Well, there are several reasons, I think first and foremost, my favorite 'video games' when I was first learning about games and the internet were text-based games. Specifically that I can remember I started this crazy hobby at the age of 8 (1999) in Achaea, Dreams of Divine Lands.

I remember how interactive it was, how you could customize your character with your imagination, and I never found a 'video' game that could replicate that same feeling of immersion and creation that I found in those early childhood text adventures. However, this was not to last as there came a point in my life where the internet was not readily available but an Xbox was, and I forgot the love of text-based games until I was 15.

At fifteen, I found (surprise surprise) Akashat, and then by extension Shangrila... which for one reason or another rekindled my love of text-based gameplay. I started returning to MUDs but I kept leaving them quite quickly. I came to realize I wasn't looking for a 'game' so to speak out of my text-based areas, but instead a place where I could create a character and live a whole different life.

It wasn't until I was eighteen and I found The Reach that I realized what I was looking for. I'd never played a tabletop RPG game before The Reach, and it taught me nWoD by necessity. I played TR obsessively for nearly 2 1/2 years straight with a few month or so long breaks depending on what was going on RL. I started to learn more about PnP RPGs in general and I will always have fond memories of TR because of it opening my eyes to what I was seeking in gaming but unable to find until that moment.

Then TR went through some management changes and rule changes and I was like yah know, I'm out. So I started running my own tabletop games over Roll20 and have not really been terribly active in the MU* community, mostly I've played a few oWoD/nWoD games, Denver (Shadowrun 3rd Ed), a BSG game at one point (and I'm attempting to join a new one now), and random MOOs and MUDs that caught my fancy, turned out to be too grindy or griefy and I left. Oh and I recently found a few Star Wars ones but they generally tend to suck for some reason, I don't know why.

In conclusion, I play for creation and customization; I play for new experiences and experimentation; I play because it's nostalgic to my childhood; I play because typing is a medium I am extremely proficient in and this is one way for me to use that proficiency.

There are two systems I would really like to play, though I have no idea if they'd be perfectly workable online.

1. Fiasco: Not really... a tabletop game, Fiasco is more a 'dice help to writing scripts'. You can find an example of play by typing 'Tabletop Fiasco' in Youtube and watching Wil Wheaton and some others play a game of it. Basically a few strangers hook up, roll some d6's build a story and then RP it out, great for like an afternoon, though with how text-medium works over actual voice speaking, you could turn what would be 4-5hrs playthrough into 2-3 or more various days. It isn't really a game system so much as a system to help you do more creative thinking and makes roleplaying more available, at least these are my opinions on the game.

2. Cyberpunk 203X: I think the one I have is Cyberpunk2033, but basically any of the 203X cyberpunk games would be awesome. The only cyberpunk games I've been able to find online are custombuilt MOOs (Sindome, Cybersphere) or Shadowrun 3E games. I'd really love to find a game done with the 203X system as I love the Friday Night Firefight combat system and the overall lore of the game.

Welp those are my two games I'd love to see a MU* of, not entirely sure if they'd work in an online setting but perhaps with the right types of players they could!

@Botulism said in Fear and Loathing:

Geist is awesome, but incredibly overwpowered on a multi-sphere game, so we aren't taking it. Sorry.

I know this is old, but just have to point out that you call Geist overpowered but you have Immortals, which if you allow Purified, Purified are Geistx10 in power level.

Does this game use a tabletop rule system/FS3 or is it just a freeform MU*?

Lords of Waterdeep is an excellent example of Nobles using the Adventurers to gain their own renown and such. In the game you play a noble of the city Waterdeep, hire adventurers to go on quests and buy buildings to gain points. I don't think it would be too hard to create a homebrewed points system to use in a MU*

Now MU*s vary from boardgames in that usually no one is trying to 'win' the game, but you could use the points for other things, there are several games that award points for RP etc. that you can then use to unlock new classes, races, more starting gear for your next character etc.

In regards of pocket GMs, I now this fairly well. I played on a nWoD game (RIP The Reach) for almost two years straight and I did have a few individuals and another group of players that I ran scenes for, but I also did what I liked to call my 'random badass moment of the day' which is where I'd run around the grid, find a cool looking spot, and run a little scene that was open to anyone that wanted to happen into it anytime during that scene's progression (This once turned into a scene that I ended up running for 16+ hours and I finally had to say "Okay guys, no more new people we gotta end this cause I wanna go to bed")

So there are ways you can get people involved without them having to join or participate in a clique. However as Lavit said GMs are a valuable resource, it takes a certain type of person that gets as much or more enjoyment out of creating and running things than actually playing the game.

Personally I have run several 1+ year campaigns over Roll20 simply because I love creating worlds and NPCs and cities and quests and the creation of stories and watching those stories come to life, and watching what people/characters choose to do to interact and change that story just fascinates me, so I love GM'ing because of that (plus I have this thing where if I'm not the GM, all I can think about it how I would have done things or set up puzzles etc and tend to judge other GMs too much to really enjoy playing for too long. I tend to be only able to play a MU* for a few months at the most if I don't become a GM, but if I become a GM I can habit a MU for years at a time.

In conclusion, I think a D&D approach which at the core of the game is a very inclusive game (races/cultures/religions etc come together even if in the theme they are enemies or skeptical of one another to go on grand adventures) also allows that freedom for players to be able to make those sellsword characters, or characters that just enjoy finding new people to run around with while adventuring. nWoD is not quite the same way, each supernatural creature is generally only going to interact with other members within that sphere (IE splat/gamebook. Werewolves/spirits, Sin-Eaters/Ghosts, Vampires/humans etc.) Very rarely do we see examples of the various entities coming together against a common anything, simply because they are distrustful of each other and that is typical a major part of the theme. (Of course nWoD is a bit less aggressive on the lines between supernaturals but the mistrust and the unwillingness to work with different types of supers besides yourself is still pretty engrained in the basic theme.) Where as for dungeons and dragons the very nature of the game is to find things different than yourself (race/class/disposition/alignment etc) so that you are experiencing even more of the world, learning from it and using everyone's strengths to the group's benefits.

@Arkandel

For me, a D&D Mush can be played two ways. it can be played as a standard D&D experience, you get a few friends, collect on a day of the week and run an adventure that is set within the continuous world provided by the MUSH setting.

For the second part, it allows you to do more lone-wolf stuff, or be a sword for hire, or perhaps just be a noble that might on occasion hire some adventurers to go see the world or look at a piece of property you might be buying to make sure there's no goblins or ghosts around the area. You can do a bit more political if you want.

The main thing with a D&D MUSH is that you're going to need pretty constant GM oversight, with a small game you have a dedicated team that can work in shifts of 2-3 people at the busy times and try and have at least 1 on during even the off hours. As the game grows you can slowly bring in player ST/GMs that can run events for players and forward information.

One of the biggest drawbacks to GM'ing such a large game in a continuous world is data, it is really hard to keep everything straight. This can cause setbacks or retcons all of which suck but come with MUSH'ing in general.

As for houserules, I don't think a whole lot needs to be made right off the bat, but should be looked at as the game is played. You could maybe mitigate somethings or just remove certain aspects/spells that might muck up what you're going for. Generally the biggest houserules that end up happening in a tabletop>MUSH is in regards to PVP. Thankfully D&D pvp is pretty straightforward and less convoluted than other tabletop systems since playercharacters are for the most part treated just like any other creature/character when it comes to spells/abilities/etc.

The biggest struggle I think for DND 5E going into MUSH is that of the players themselves. You have to go into it knowing it's not quite going to be like playing it at home or on website like Roll20. One of the biggest drawbacks is how the D20 systems are so spatially oriented (exact distances and LOS and stuff like that), that is hard to bring into a MUSH. Some MUSHes that run D20 systems have built mapsystems into their game so a GM can whip up a map and try and keep everything in place but they are not always pretty. A lot of it comes down to just being clear and concise as the GM when speaking about distances and positioning, taking note and making sure to keep track of any battlefield changes, and for everyone involved to be patient when it comes to people asking questions.

That said, when it comes to social/political stuff, D&D is actually really simple which is both bad and good, it pretty much boils down to a couple contested rolls and good/bad RP, which is OK when it comes to NPC>PC stuff, but PC>PC arguments are never easy to settle in D&D mechanics, it can really make people feel cheated in a way if they get a few bad dice rolls and think their character has to agree with what is being said. One of the best ways to combat that however, is to have a realization that just because you lose the dice roll, does not mean your character is forced to believe or agree with the winner, but it does mean that for all intents and purposes, the winner of the dice roll has won the argument. The character that loses does not have to agree, but the end of the rolls signals and end in the discussion, so it becomes time to agree to disagree or just to walk away.

This got a bit longer than I intended but there are some of my ideas and thoughts on what you proposed.

@lavit2099
Okay, I have been DM'ing 5e for over a year now and DM'ing in general D&D for almost a decade. Otherwise I was just gonna come poke around and get up to some sneaky elvish shenanigans

@Tennyson It's called an Anti-Paladin, there's also an Oath-Breaker version in 5e. There's not really an 'evil' or 'bad' Paladin, but there is Oath-Breaker which is up to the DM to assign as a new class if they think the player can run with it.

All the Paladin Oaths are still 'A shining example of: ________' but you can have more choices than 'My God and my sentient creatures' They're still pious to a degree and still hold certain unbreakable values or otherwise lose their powers, but not everyone wants to play a Paladin that's the ultimate altar boy.

Does anyone have connection info for this game?

@Kanye-Qwest It was waist length

I app'ed a character into SoI and they denied it because 'my character's hair was too long and would have taken too much time to groom for the time period.' so I just walked away.