Posts made by Packrat

@lithium Basically, being rich is a big character generation investment. The idea is that if somebody is a baron, a powerful guild magnate, a senior priest? They are not likely to also be the best at things. Added to which most PCS are much more capable at their thing than generic NPCs.

A fighty PC probably cannot just walk up to a baron with a retinue and violence them in the face but if you are flying off to explore the ancient asteroid station then there might only be six places on the ship. Goons do not help you in a duel, somebody needs to face the Grimson in the gladiatorial arena death match, etc.

@d-bone That is part of why I am deliberately making the having of goons as a rich or powerful person a factor. Also an assumed factor, if you are spending X level of lifestyle? You have guards, flunkies with swords, personnel commando squads, suit wearing goons with blaster pistols, etc.

Sure if you are Baron Prettyboy Richguy and suck at swording then Dame Dirtbag can challenge you to a duel and poke a hole in you. But that is socially constrained and limited, Dame Dirtbag cannot just shove you around or punch you in the face, or rob you. Maybe Dame Dirtbag is so good at dueling that she can avoid most of the direct social consequences of being a jerk but Baron Richguy probably wanders around with a couple of knights and a dozen armed retainers.

Sure Dame Dirtbag is probably a huge badass who can fight two or three professional fighters at once but numbers tell and it is a really bad idea to instigate fights to the death with squads of elite soldiers so that you can rub a person's nose in your Melee skill being higher than theirs.

@songtress Not a reference I am familiar with, but they are very much meant to be a sympathetic antagonist/enemy faction. I think Star Crusade in some respects suffered from the 'enemy' being the Kurgans (Space Saracens) and thus obvious awkward parallels to the at the time very much still active military activities in Afghanistan and Iraq.

So instead the player characters are members of a feudal society with 'the enemy' being a star spanning technophile democracy. Having said that there are in fact excellent reasons to oppress psychics in the Fading Suns universe and violently instigating 'democracy' into feudal societies is the kind of thing prone to causing French Terror or Russian Revolution scenarios.

For that matter even the most politically activist Guild member has reasons to like the status quo. If you look at those living standard posts earlier? A full guild member gets to enjoy the nicer end of the spectrum due to monopolies and mystery cult information hoarding not due to a free and open society.

@golgoth Absolutely! I mean that generally only Brother Battle or the more violent sort of bishop are likely to view maintaining a military force as the primary destination for their benefice's income.

The fun of being cold called by insurance scam idiots 'We have heard that you were in a car accident'.

1. I do not own or drive a car
2. They could not then answer when I asked what my name was. Just how did they supposedly 'hear' this?

@surreality Thanks, that is definitely the intention. The way the setting works ensures that most people are not going to be able to really work off gut assumptions about how their character lives - even though there is very advanced technology in Fading Suns, by the time you have something approximating a modern 1st world standard of living you are also somebody who has multiple live in servants.

Basically if you are rich enough to have a toilet then you do not need to clean it yourself.

Working some more over the weekend on lifestyle expenditures.

The idea is that you sink X quantity of cash into lifestyle over each OOC month / IC season. For most purposes this is cosmetic, but at each level you have a certain degree of 'assumed gear', also 'assumed NPC minions and transport options'.

So most people in the setting live like this:

Many PCs probably more in this range:

People who hold benefices and are strategic power players though? More starting in this range, though the mighty and profligate could potentially go far beyond this:

In retrospect I rather regret deciding to be quite so detailed, I mean it is neat and something I am pretty sure I would appreciate as a player to set out what spending X amount actually means in character, but SO MUCH TEXT. Let alone trying to keep it consistent.

@buttercup Sadly only the first two rooms of character generation are actually coded yet.

Also @Arkandel it is definitely something I want to get at least the basics of nailed down prior to anything starting. Not having any kind of economy or military system was one of the main causes of staff burnout on Star Crusade not to mention infinitely frustrating for players stuck waiting a month plus for feedback on simple questions like 'How big is my army?'

@arkandel That is kind of what I am trying to work out, the strategic resources should be things that people want and need and never have enough of. Obviously maintaining military units is one expense, a bishop is a temporal as well as spiritual ruler and has feudal obligations and defense requirements demanding an army, but as a bishop that is probably not your main priority.

Unless you are one of those bishops. Or a Brother Battle.

Working now on a revised and simplified economy/benefice pass, along with things like rank and codifying of the Influence system for social capital.

I am already using a new ranking system rather than the default Fading Suns one:

Now trying to work out how to handle proximity to high rank where I am tempted to mostly steal from Arx. Basically if you are immediate family to somebody then you have their rank -1. Only immediate family though, my feeling is that if you are a duke's cousin or nephew then nobody is going to think you are as important as a count or bishop unless you are actually their heir or betrothed to a duchess, etc.

Also trying to finalise how lifestyle spending translates to Influence. Cash and Influence are both strategic resources of nominally equal value so it cannot just be a case of more Influence income if you are blowing all of your money on lavish living. Currently considering lifestyle level giving a bonus to rolls when spending Influence on things.

On which note, what kind of things should one be able to spend really big chunks of social capital on? My current thoughts:

• Buying votes
• Reducing unrest
• Instigating unrest
• Persuading the NPC Duke or Archbishop of stuff
• Having NPC allies send/lend troops
• Having NPC vassals meet their feudal obligations with troops or cash (cheaper than the above).
• Get away with psi or cybernetics, employing psychics or cyborgs

You can also convert Influence into Manpower (pretty efficiently) or Cash (Not very efficiently). Some military units require Influence both to create and maintain.

EDIT:

Also working Feudal (and similar) obligations. Essentially there are three tiers of 'real' benefice (Fief, bishopric, business, etc). They are Poor, Average or Rich with Rich having about twice the incomes of Poor and costing twice as many points in character generation.

A Count (for example) might have a Rich benefice and a half dozen to a dozen barons, abbeys, city mayors, etc sworn to them, some of whom might have Rich benefices themselves for that matter. These vassals would not directly pay taxes but the overlord has a nominal right to demand a military unit from each or payment in lieu (scrutage) if they prefer not to provide troops.

Actually demanding a military unit every season is legal but considered an asshole move unless you are at war, but the count would have an obligation to provide the duke with say, 5-6 military units, more than they can afford themselves. Also they might want to demand scrutage every season because they love money.

A good portion of benefice holders would be sworn directly to the duke, or to the local bishop, or to the archbishop instead though, with the same obligations. That probably gives you situationally more leverage but the duke in particular will demand scrutage or troops every single season due to ongoing war with the 3rd Republic.

Also no direct tie between title and benefice. You could be a Count with a Poor benefice, or even a minor one not really able to sustain a single military unit thanks to having lost your lands. You could be an abbot with a Rich benefice because you control a fortress monastery and wealthy local towns, or a knight with a Rich business of some sort (though that sounds dangerous unless you somehow avoid clashing with the guilds).

@lithium I am very much in the same boat, I just cannot use a controller, I am so used to keyboard and mouse that I just flail around uselessly if I attempt to use any other control scheme.

What I have done is put my desktop on a little trolley thing which makes it super easy to roll out, unplug, then carry through into the living room if I want to plug it into my TV and play stuff on the couch or do room scale VR. Sadly this does not help with console exclusives though.

@faraday said in Encouraging Proactive Players:

If Driven Dave is going to be discouraged by a bit of negativity, then he's really not that driven after all.

Somebody really, really does not need to be 'that driven' to drive a lot of stuff and be proactively involved though. I am admittedly not in the best mental state right now (or recently) but it only takes 1-2 of the 'right' people giving the wrong vibe to potentially kill my enthusiasm for playing on a game.

One creepy stalker, one person who is ICly in charge of your character starting to complain that your event takes into account X but they think X sucks and so it is unfair for people who think X sucks, etc. At some point things cross over from a fun relaxation diversion to 'I am going to play a computer game this evening or go to the pub instead.'

Do that for a few days then personally I find it hard to log back in again.

The farming/grinding scenes is definitely an issue, a serious one in many instances, I have seen people run 5+ scenes a week on a game to harvest the resulting goodies and have each of them a formulaic and fairly brief 'plot' that was basically a shitty fight or something, quickly resolved then also handing out goodies in 'reward' to the people who took part.

To be honest I feel the best option is to just have whoever runs a scene free to get +voted or +praised or whatever especially if those 'rewards' are a moderately limited resource. Arx works pretty well there (worked? I am talking about experienced from a year ago). If you host a party or a tournament or whatever then provided you 'remind' people the +praise command exists by using it for somebody else as things are wrapping up then it generally lead to a fair few people following on giving them to the event runner.

On the subject of actual theme stuff and writeups of what would be available to players, here is something covering the '3rd Republic':

The elites of Nestoria and some more informed individuals of the Known Worlds do know some basic facts about the 3rd Republic, but what?

• The ‘Republic’ launched a treacherous and unprovoked attack upon Nestoria about three years ago, slaughtering the Duke of Panticapaeum, most of his family and many senior nobles. Conspiring with rebels and traitors, they seized almost all of the northern continent of Nestoria before the newly crowned Duchess Carolina broke their fleet in orbit, but are too entrenched to root out.

• The 3rd Republic has inferior technology to the guilds of the Known Worlds, outside of a few outliers such as being able to mass manufacture poor quality personal energy shields.

• They are a multi system polity, with several planets, extensive populations and immense wealth.

• They purportedly follow the Universal Church but are heretics who worship technology and embrace democracy, they even laud psychic powers.

• Their army (The Republican Guard) is very well equipped and highly motivated but does not appear enormously competent, Republican troops and officers are awful with the blade yet excellent shots with primitive cybernetic enhancement. They are also cowards who refuse duels yet are prone to fighting to the death.

• This carries through to space, whilst their ship handling and crew quality are superb and they have an awful lot of heavy warships they are technologically inferior. They also shun boarding actions, relying heavily on think machine directed missiles and numerous fighters with excellent pilots.

• They have some kind of hostile contact with the Vuldrok and captured Republican Navy personnel are often veterans of void warfare against them.

• An uncanny number of those taken prisoner by the 3rd Republic then turn traitor following release.

• They conduct active and dangerously successful infiltration and espionage activities, often trying to turn members of the Guilds or minor houses.

• There are definitely people using the name Al-Malik represented amongst the upper echelons of the Republic, though they do not appear to be in charge.

• Areas occupied by the Republic are then ruled by unruly 'Elected Councils' of former serfs who often launch brutal pogroms against those who were loyal to or prosperous under the old order.

I have been working on writing up more of the theme and background for the home brewed '3rd Republic' antagonist group for Fading Suns and, speaking of music, the big inspiration I have been using for them is Christopher Tin's Sogno di Volare, the main theme for Civilisation VI.

Here

Yes, they are the 'antagonist' faction and yes they have their fair share of flaws (even up against a bunch of neo-feudal assholes in the Known Worlds groups) but they have their own 'national myth' and idealistic core that they can be genuinely inspired and driven by. Their civilisation spend centuries without even access to flight let alone space and their viewpoint is quite different to the 'end of history' medieval one more common to the Known Worlds.

In practice they are not in fact idealistic, enlightened crusaders for democracy who are returning equality and the true words of the Prophet to the worlds of human space in defiance of encroaching night. But they can definitely sell it to themselves that this is true and be heartfelt about the uplifting, glorious story.

Altered Carbon binge completed. Yep, not the same as the book but definitely worth watching albeit with gratuitous nudity in profusion.

I have been watching Altered Carbon continuously since I finished work today, holy shit this is good, I last read the books over a decade ago so it has just the right balance of memorable whilst I am unable to remember more than the broadest outlines of the plot.

@ganymede That sounds familiar from talking with my sister, she is a senior project manager for a major multinational, dozens of professionals working for her in multiple countries. But... She lives in the South East of the UK just outside of London, in a nice area, she has a young daughter.

The majority of the money she makes after tax goes straight into child care costs to allow her to work. Also the four bedroom house with a tiny garden they live in cost them the equivalent of a million dollars so I dread to think what their mortgage payments are like.

@sockmonkey To be fair with mine at a mere size 13 UK (14 US I think?) That still apparently puts my feet in the largest one percent or so of feet for the male population. Fortunately it is not uncommon for most ranges of shoes to actually exist sized for my feet in recent years it is just that very few shops stock them.

Anything larger and it really does start limiting you to specialist shoes or importing from the USA.

My 'pain in the ass to find' thing is shoes, I am a UK size 13 in an I fitting for width so both are essentially outside of the range that are actually carried in shops. If I want something that I can comfortably walk in with my gigantic hobbit feet then I am limited to ordering from online.

So then the fun of inevitably trying on and sending back a half dozen pairs of shoes which will of course be delivered whilst I am at work then need to be retrieved from the post office along with being a pain to return.