Posts made by Ominous

@ZombieGenesis I ninja edited on you.

You need an Other option. Not sure either of those are conducive for the genre you are aiming for. I would use Runequest 6/Mythras for this over D&D. It's magic systems, particularly Shamanism and Sorcery, are a better fit for the atmosphere. I don't know much about Symbaroum RPG's system but it is designed for a grim setting.

Ugh. Faerun. How about a D&D MU* in a setting the isn't the most boring, generic, and ridiculous setting? Forgotten Realms should have stayed forgotten.

Planescape would be awesome. Birthright would bring L&L elements. Eberron would be neat too. Dark Sun already exists as Armageddon MUD. Use a retroclone system, as many have level caps at 10ish and lower level characters can still adventure with the big dogs since there isn't the stat bloat and power spread that later systems have. Otherwise you are going to need to use E6 or something.

For those of us who came to MU*ing near the end of the last decade, what was Serpent & Unicorn?

@Autumn said in POLL: Super Hero MU Gut Check:

Like, at the start of the game everyone is in the level 2-4 range, and stories revolve around rescuing cats or beating up low-level minions or cleaning up after a more powerful NPC like you're the Sorcerer's Apprentice. Then time passes and people advance and new characters come in at the current level range, and the scope of the game shifts so that after a year or so everyone is level 7-9 (or whatever). Now the stories assume that everyone's an experienced adventurer and things are about exploring unknown regions or being an elite strike team for the government or whatever. Then some more time passes, and in another year or so everyone is level 14-16 and the game is about traveling the planes and overthrowing tyrannical nations and fighting the Lich King. And then the game ends and maybe a new one restarts in a different setting.

This made sense in old-school D&D, since your character was basically living all the death defying parts of Indiana Jones mixed with the greatest battles of World War II every week of the year. After successfully staying alive through a year of that, you would be a bad-ass veteran too. However in Old-school school D&D, the top level was around 10, so there was definitely a cap that kept people from being one punch man.

@Coin said in POLL: Super Hero MU Gut Check:

@Rook said in POLL: Super Hero MU Gut Check:
I mean I'm a dick sometimes but I try to aim my vitriol and trolling at bigger jerks than me.

You are the Dexter of Jerks.

@Jennkryst said in Which canon property/setting would be good for a MU* ?:

@Sparks said in Which canon property/setting would be good for a MU* ?:

... Stargate ...

Unpopular Opinion: scrub the SG1 Lore, because the original world where Ra was the ONLY alien involved, was hella more compelling than 'Watch MacGyver be plucky!' repeated, ad nausium.

I downvoted this so hard that it broke the downvote system and now we can only upvote.

@Chet said in Which canon property/setting would be good for a MU* ?:

I've seen this idea get adapted once, but it had great promise. Cowboy Bebop. The only problem was that it relied on the bounty hunter dynamic seen in the show. You had to get players, sometimes OOC strangers, together for a crew to even be authorized for a ship. Take the feel and universe of Cowboy Bebop, stick a crime syndicate faction like the one featured on the show, a bounty hunter mercenary faction that operated as a loose band of PCs with a bounty board, and a dedicated police force of 'space marshals', that would operate like Texas Rangers, and would be the 'hand of fate' with the two other factions.

Three competing factional dynamics in terms of order, for each type of pirate fan: authoritarians, libertarians, progressives. If you liked a military system, you'd pick the crime syndicate, if you wanted to snipe and hunt and social, you'd pick a bounty hunter, and if you wanted to make political statements, you'd pick a badge.

I suggested an idea like this once, only instead of criminal syndicates, everything is ruled by megacorporations. It basically mixed Cowboy Bebop, Serenity, Tales from the Borderlands, the Xia: Legends of a Drift System board game, Offworld Trading Company, and Android: Netrunner in a star system far, far away.

I altered it and came up with a fantasy version set on an island world that incorporated DUNE, Earthsea, Ars Magica, and Houses of the Blooded.

Stream of thought writing can back-fire hilariously. I've done it before, because the thoughts are coming too quickly to keep up with. Then I read it a day later and see I am missing whole sentences, failed to connect what I'm talking about in one paragraph to another, etc. Honestly, I just think he needs to write a draft, wait an hour, then re-read it to see if it makes sense.

I got some tidbits of what I think @chet was trying to say, but it is definitely rambling.

@surreality At that point, though, are you better served by just making your own setting with mutants? You aren't getting much of the benefits of using an existing IP (none of the existing X-Men, unless they visit; few of the locals; etc.) but you get the baggage.

@DarkDeleria Your poltergeist idea touches on themes in Call of Cthulhu and Delta Green.

Slight topic shift; however, something @Apos said and some of the discussion here brought a question to mind.

I avoid superhero games, especially mash-ups, mainly because I dislike MUs about pre-existing IPs. I would prefer a super game set in an original universe. Discussion here, though, has been about existing superhero universes, and Apos said most people play these games in order to be The Batman (TM). Does this mean that an original superhero MU would be unsuccessful from the get-go?

There is a 3rd edition D&D campaign setting for Thieves' World. I have yanked some stuff from it for D&D games I have run, like it's longer, ritualistic casting system. https://greenroninstore.com/collections/pdfs/products/thieves-world-players-manual-pdf

@EMDA So Bridge Crew Simulator: MOO Edition. Sounds awesome as I am a fan of bridge crew simulators.

@Misadventure A setting based on space-travel, which Firefly does have so would be included, tends to put the focus on adventure. It's the D&D or Traveller of narratives, focusing on resource management, exploration, more interactions with NPCs as antagonists, a faster pace in changes to setting. A setting based on just one planet is more the Ars Magica or Vampire of narratives, focusing on intrigue and politics, more interactions with other PCs as antagonists, with a much tighter focus. Additionally space-travel adds some mechanics to the MU*, such as ship building and ownership, travel times, and multiple grids for the different planets, which has the OOC issue of potentially fragmenting the playerbase and spreading them too thin.

@Salty-Secrets I was agreeing to disagree from the beginning. As I said, what makes something sci-fi or fantasy is very subjective. I am not going to convince everyone that my method for determining whether a work is one or the other is the one, true way, and it is highly unlikely anyone is going to convince me that they have a one, true way for it either.

@Thenomain No, my definition, as I outlined above is that Science Fiction is Enlightenment oriented. Setting doesn't define science fiction or fantasy for me. It's the themes and tropes used. However my definition doesn't matter. What matters is the OP's definition, so we know what it is they are really looking for. If they want space stuff, a lot of Cyberpunk, Borderlands, Trigun, Gears of War, etc. are all ruled out, because they all take place on one planet.

@Paris said in Health and Wealth and GrownUp Stuff:

Spinach is surprisingly high in protein.

That, it's iron content, and a translation error of a study is why people thought spinach was ridiculously good for you in the early 20th century and led to Popeye using it like steroids.

@Misadventure I haven't read any of his work, but this site puts it at an 8/10: https://omni.media/the-scale-of-hardness-in-science-fiction. So I would think it would be pretty safe to say it is sci-fi.

@Misadventure Yes. You get people who, if it's not on the diamond end of Mohs Scale of Sci-Fi Hardness (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MohsScaleOfScienceFictionHardness), say it isn't sci-fi.

@Salty-Secrets And I disagree. There is nothing different between a giant doom laser and a ritual that will summon the God of Nothingness to consume the world. They are both long processes that will destroy the world but give enough time for the hero to swoop in and save the day in the nick of time. That's my point, though, few people are going to agree perfectly on what constitutes a fantasy work and what constitutes a science fiction work. I have had people argue Babylon 5, BSG, and Star Trek are fantasy, because, if you go faster than light in any way and if you have psychic stuff, it's too unrealistic to be science fiction.

EDIT: I decided to give some links to people who argue that Star Wars is fantasy not science fiction, not to "prove" that it is fantasy, but to demonstrate how people have very different ideas of what constitutes fantasy and science fiction.

https://simondillonbooks.wordpress.com/2014/03/11/why-star-wars-is-not-science-fiction-and-related-matters/

https://www.google.com/amp/io9.com/5799837/10-works-of-science-fiction-that-are-really-fantasy/amp
(To further drive home the point, the first two can't agree on whether DUNE is sci-fi or fantasy.)

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.reddit.com/r/Fantasy/comments/2hawhz/can_star_wars_be_considered_fantasy/

https://www.google.com/amp/www.esquire.com/entertainment/movies/amp32507/george-lucas-sundance-quotes/
(A quote of George Lucas saying it is fantasy.)

Anyways, my point is don't ask 'are there any sci-fi games?' Instead give a quick rundown of what you mean by sci-fi, because people have very different views on what is and isn't science fiction. Does anything set in space count? Because you might get pointed to Spelljammer.

An actual differentiation of science fiction and fantasy is likely impossible as they all come from the same origin as all speculative fiction. My go-to, which isn't accurate, is figuring out which way the theme leans, enlightenment or romanticism. Enlightenment is science fiction and romanticism is fantasy. Star Trek looks boldly for a utopian future where humanity solves it's problems with diplomacy and thought and there are no absolute goods or evils, so it's science fiction. Star Wars (the original trilogy) takes place in a ruined society that looks back on it's better years and solutions come from a mythic, predestined hero using space magic and sword skills, and there are absolute goods and evils, so it's fantasy. Now this system falls apart with things like Cyberpunk, which few argue is fantasy, but definitely isn't a rosy picture.

Anyways, instead of just saying you are looking for a sci-fi game, be a bit more descriptive of what you're looking for, as one person's science fiction might be another's science fantasy or outright fantasy.

The re is a D20 campaign setting for Black Company that can be perused for ideas. Its masterwork item system is my houseruled replacement for most D&D magic items.
https://www.amazon.com/Black-Company-Campaign-Setting/dp/1932442383