Posts made by Misadventure

Allow an Intro Respec a few days weeks or months after playing?

To start I always look into the feel and theme elements I want to bring in, and think of ways to do so quietly or obviously. I lay out the goals of the groups and individuals involved, and focus some on the NPCs and series events that are likely to be focal and what they might do that would be surprising.

If there are requests or big character features, I think about how they might manifest and often ask the players to roughly describe how they see their character and the world if I don't already know. Basically gets some active ingredients ready to interact with what the players DO, but know them well enough to fill in some ambiance.

A flaw I often reproduce is that the opening events or information goes on long enough to paralyze the players into listening mode.

Last, this is all way more suited to STing repeatedly over several sessions which works less well on a MU*.

ETA: I generally have templates in mind as to NPC stats, and characters with reasonable related skills can usually see if someone is an amateur, solid or expert etc. Variance from there gives NPCs their roles, their specific reps, and perhaps some surprises or twists in their actions and reactions.

I am a rat bastard when it comes to the players deciding something is true. If I made a mundane serial killer, no amount of thinking they are a spirit driven serial killer will make me add that in. If players show interest in areas other than the few I have laid out in the skeleton, I absolutely go with it. I also let them know when they think they are on track or not. The characters have skills the players do not, and the players are there for the interesting bits (defined by the current players at hand).

I knew a GM who when running mysteries listened to the players and whichever solution they were most sure of, that was the answer. Every time. I find that level of "listen to your players' to be in the same realm as "I shot you." "No you missed." Use their interest or thoughts later if they don'tr fit in now.

Atlantis. The creator is out there, and she used to make appearances on MU*s and on forums.

Rewrite the condition guidelines then? Meaning okay make 1 or 2 consistent ways of handling them, resolving them, assigning penalties etc.

If you never give away xp, just reward RP, what does it matter if you shunt points between characters? The reward would be for making RP and story fun and sharing it. So who cares where it ends up? Or from the reverse angle, what does it matter if someone uses three characters or one character three times to entertain folks?

OWod, and many other games also used the increasing costs. A few games recognize that more or less an additional die has the same effective value, and so they cost the same. Because real life does not work like that, using flat costs systems is more of a way to quickly balance and identify focal traits than a measure of time, effort or experience.

In this case, use of the resources spends it. So if Player A has Character 1 spend for Character 2 only character 2 would benefit from the spent portion. I suppose synergy/requirement costs figure into it.

The system in mind would be close to sharable merits. There would definitely be an owner. The contributors would yield up control for access to more of a given resource. XP isn't a thing in this system, neither to accumulate nor to pass on to an alt. Much of what is bought with xp in some games is bought with an earn-able, expendable and renewable resource. After someone leaves, they can't "lend" their resource anymore, so the main body of it would with some.

One goal of this would be to say you utterly didn't care who lent or gave what to whomever else. Alts, queen bees whatever.

Perhaps a topic for another thread, but how would people feel about being allowed to transfer something, eg xp, etc to anyone else?

So sure you have the head of a clique, they can all xp transfer to that person. In my particular thinking, what could be transferred would be expendable resources, which makes a little more sense in the feudal structure of many groups, meaning you pass your stuff upwards, and it gets used for everyones benefit in theory.

If you desire a catch up mechanism, why not have a temporary Beat multiplier? That way passivity is not rewarded, but you can catch up,

If only there was a way to use a small group vs the setting made up of other small groups game in a small group to small group way.

Really it just abstracts everything and lets the players and ST fill in details only as needed.

I think the basic approach to handling group actions and faction actions might be applicable to any online play with a little tinkering. It works best if the players and the ST are all into making up details and situations to be interesting. If someone is used to the "dazzle of lots of stats and skill checks and 20 questions style RP they may find it does not provide for them.

It's been done before. The obvious answer is that some folks will use it, others will make multiple master accounts. Tying a sharable reward is one way to encourage usage, but anyone so intent on hiding from staff or another player won't care.

I like my taco salad with beans in it. No rice though.

Eh reuse Teenagers From Outerspace, turn it into Teenagers From The Late Late Show.

Then have the Arcane shielding on the place drop, and make it survival horror where you are the horrors, yet you are the ones having to survive.

Players can nudge their clients to not see things like Away Messages, and Staffers online.

This sounds like regular MU* play. Can we at least demand that PBs are one per characters unless they are literally the ghost/clone/twin of the previous character to use the PB?

Fuck, make a WORLD setting where 19 year old genius CEO surgeons are the norm. Then everyone can be special, and any concept that rules or setting are linked to our reality will be blissfully euthanized.

I'd make mine one where people consume talent and life force from others to stay young and ever more brilliant. Dammit, I just related talent to time and effort again. Scrap that idea.

Change your apparent age by bathing in the blood of virgins, or people younger than you. Or just a lot of blood.

I'd rather see allowing a ghost to ride with you (and your geist) in order to help them figure out what they need to do to pass on, with the attendant draw to go all vengeful or otherwise off the path to going to the final end. That way its not everyone's schtick, every time.