Posts made by Misadventure

This adds to the frontloading of work to put up a place, but you can sort of set some power levels, whatever the system you use is, and have people start from those guidslines.

As an example, I will use M&M-LIKE Power Levels. Not actual M&M but I think its the clearest.

So lets say that human scale (fists, knives, pistols) is 1-5, and human Plus (cinematic but not supernatural martial arts and rifles and spears) is 6-10, and Strong tech is 11-15 (machine guns, APCs).

Assuming that you can still swap values like M&M you can describe a given character type, and recommend a few set powers, and leave some things unbought, then allow customization after play.

Apply that rough guidelines to the system of choice. I personally went with human normal tech weapons for my Superhero Game, using values from Guns Guns Guns, matched to how much actual damage I want to do to a PC with a given attack.

From there I set scale for everything, how much defense, the idea of the value of special senses and abilities, and movement powers, etc etc.

The core thing was to be able to ask a player "For someone like your character, are you midline, high or low for defense? Offense? For adaptability? Movement? Skill? Knowledge?" And I could then suggest how much that was from there.

So for instance many Supers game don't care about wealth as long as you can't buy minions or super weapons, so the "scale" is adjusted downwards., making owning a successful small business not that big a deal.

Thinking about the Conservative Primogen vs Ghoul As Person, I'd have to say that folks who are willing to fight for a no gain cause would be noted as non-pragmatic as reputation, and easy marks for distraction. So real deal makers would avoid them unless useful and possibly set up bad things to help "fix" as bargaining points from those sad sucker liberals.

I enjoy skill use having something more to it than a chance at success.
I'd like choices, interesting choices including more than just doing something quickly or carefully.
I'd a chance to do things my characters way, to show that ways strengths and weaknesses.
It might be nice to support some risk taking (betting).

I'll look through the examples and comment on this specific approach when I get a a chance.

@derp Two things going on there, the White Knightism, and the Only Killing is Winning.

It's been said before, but few players want to see their characters as the truly bad people, AND many people are adverse to "starting something" first. So they play the nicest vampire who ever had to murder an innocent because well they didn't want to, and if this one didn't die, many more would have to die later. And you know those vicious faction enemies, well they exist no matter what, and you can't fault their players for wanting to be on the grid. And there might be peace based on assured mutual annihilation.

Until The Incident.

Then you have unleashed the Hounds, and the more people are involved the more likely the path of Final Victory will be selected, and achievable.

I'd say make it pay off more to be more diverse forms of bad, and to hold relationships with entities you don't like. And then damage your goals when something you (unhappily) relied upon falls apart. Chaos happens, new players arrive who don't have sustainable goals. More is lost. Etc.

That's right, don't fix a social problem with code, fix it with game systems and story. TAKE THAT Tweed Robot!

As a side project I could see some fun in actually playing the protagonists, but each sequence is just the first year and how it fails.

I vastly prefer DC Heroes approach to many actions (Super Speed, Multi-attack) to Champions Speed system.

However, any system can be tuned towards what you want to see, and there are many many super hero options available. Many are just eh at it, while some definitely offer something good in one or more of the areas I listed.

The bumblebee song but creepily slower with little erratic up tempos?

Mmmm.

I don't think there is a specific meaning on a MU* to White Knight/Hat beyond they gather up and take on the bad people, whether anyone wants them to or not.

It can refer to being a bully for "good" IC, or the dogpile of good folks all looking for something to do because they are do-gooders.

You can fine tune for longevity in fights if desired.

My Champions game was heavily inspired by Villains & Vigilantes, The Elementals comic, and I guess a lot of Marvel in the 90s, so it was important to me that heroes couldn't ignore most things, yet they survived. So I made it easier to get a lot of Stun and at least moderate Regeneration, and Damage Reduction (capped, as in you stop 6 of 12 per hit) damage so you could get mauled and recover between fights.

It has been a while but I think you can allow for additional ablating defense or modifiers to that results roll for M&M. You can also change it.

Seriously, I think the question is what do you want your players to spend their time doing?
Posing awesome fight scenes?
Having intense personality conflicts?
Undergoing painful character growth?
Designing powerful characters?
Playing out tactical battles?
Emulating known properties?
Emulating the event structure of comics?

What are the points you want to hit?

-_-

I'm not done with the books yet.

However, I will yield to whatever Auspice most benefits from, as long as my characters get a free +1 to negotiations skill.

No way. Season 2 isn't even on Netflix yet.

Riddle of Steel.

Because you take your dice pool of d10s, and split it into attack and defense, then show your hands. Just like Vampire though not the 1st edition.

It makes me sad because after all the effort to emulate realistic medieval combat, they leave the tactical awareness skill of your character in the players hands. Your player vs player yomi.

So if you aren't good at guessing, your character will be bad at fighting.

Do a thing where you have to Build the (sweet taste of) Victory with a sequence of (the bitter dregs of) Challenges, Setbacks and Defeat?

@il-volpe said in Magicians Game:

Sure it does. The goal is for your team to take more squares than the opposing team, and it would be better strategy to snatch away any squares that you thought were in their wheelhouse, while leaving to the last those that you felt pretty sure they'd have a tough time taking anyway.

I was wrapped up in the way players of The Game might say avoid an athletic competition with someone who is an obvious athlete, going to something that both the candidates aren't good at (the ultimate version of this being one hand Dragon poker), but you are right. I wonder if the scoring is more than binary, meaning if you do a bad job of solving a square, its not as good as a masterful solution. That would change the value of going after squares that your opposition is stronger at.

Welters somewhat reminded me of The Game in Piers Anthony's Blue Adept series. mainly in that you had an idea of what it was, but you had to adapt on the fly either towards your own strengths, or at least away from the oppositions strengths. The latter doesn't apply I think.

In Ars Magica terms, i think of each square as being a test that has to be answered by a specific magic Verb or Noun (like Control, or Transform, or Knowledge, or Plants), and you ad on the other part(s) to get an answer. Unless you get the Golden Snitch, and win by destroying the board or what have you.

Okay you two get a room in the Hog Pit and let us know how you really feel.

@ThatGuyThere I can't remember where I first encountered it, but the Quiet Room thing really is nice.

Maybe Theno or Cobalt coded it? It's clearly OOC, no mistakes of typing disturb anyone else, you can still do channels or group paging if you like.

Those and RP rooms are excellent IMO.

I vote Quiet Room. No pages, no connect or disconnect messages, no speaking, no emits. You show on +where/who as being in the OOC Quiet Room.

Okay, maybe pages.

Typical SRD type thinking says their precise descriptions and names of things are to be protected, but ways of rolling dice, counting results, and so on etc can't be copyrighted.

How do these games address off game communications? I assume not at all, because it's impossible to police but you never know.