That does sound very cool.
Best posts made by Pyrephox
-
RE: Interest Check: Ares Facilitated Short Term Spy MU*?
-
RE: Gamecrafting: Excelsior
Last thing for a bit: an example of some of the worldbuilding. While the game takes place outside of known space, with contact with human civilization cut off, all of the colonists came from somewhere INSIDE that civilization, so they'll have ties and information about the worlds they left. There are four major powers detailed, and it's assumed that there are dozens of independent worlds and stations/ships to grow up on if a character wants to juggle geese, instead. This is the expanded write-up for one of the galactic powers:
Congregation of Allied Planets
Nickname:
CogsCapital Planet:
None (7 held planets)History:
Founded roughly 159 PD, the Congregation of Allied Planets was originally born on what was - and remains - the most ridiculously lucky system in exploration so far: three habitable worlds in one system: Veeshu, Braama, and Sheev. Although only Veeshu was a ‘Goldilocks’ world, Braama and Sheev were also tolerable for humanity, and both were exceptionally resource rich. This began a tradition of colonists living on Veeshu, and working either remotely or on site on the other worlds. As holdings and relationships spread out across an interplanetary network of stations, ships, and planets, those who would become the founders of the Congregation found that the Earth-style of geographical citizenship did not serve either their needs or their desires. Instead, they founded the concept of the ‘clade’, a nation-state built on shared interests, needs, or community, irrespective of geographical or cultural origin. The twelve largest of these clades came together in 160 PD to formally sign the Congregation of Allied Planets into being, and since it has been established, it has added the majority population of three additional planets into its union, largely through sustained efforts at recruitment until a majority of the population could be persuaded to apply for formal admission into the union. In response to this, several other interstellar societies have forbidden citizenship in a clade while one also holds citizenship in their own society, and some consider the Cogs’ recruitment strategies to be predatory and aggressive.Unlike the Earth Alliance or Stellar Systems United, the Congregation is not a particularly peaceful place. Wars between clades are not uncommon, although they have to be conducted by rules as established by the Congregation Council, which convenes every month, virtually, to review ongoing disputes between clades. Most wars are technological, destroying tech infrastructure, implants, and data over buildings and land. They’re still deadly, particularly for citizens with cybernetic implants, which has developed in the average Cog citizen a healthy wariness for such devices. It’s not considered morally wrong, just reckless, to be heavily cybered, since such devices can be turned against you. Genetic alteration is considered a superior choice, but can be hard to come by - it’s expensive, and clades are reluctant to invest the money required on someone who hasn’t truly established themselves as dependable.
The most powerful current clades are the Interstellar Transportation Union, Solip Schism Systems, and the Reverent Church of the Divine Contemplation. By organizational wealth, population, and alliances, these three clades steer a good portion of Cog policy, such as it is, and they or their allies control just over half of the Congregation Council.
Culture:
Most other groups consider Cog culture to be loud, chaotic, and ever-changing. They’re not wrong. The Congregation terminated birthright citizenship very early on, instead relying on clade membership as citizenship. One cannot be the member of a clade unless that clade has invited you to join them, and you have signed a contract agreeing to abide by the clade’s laws, procedures, and policies. Technically, there are no Cog children - children are considered ‘proxy citizens’, allowed to remain with their parents and access many of the benefits of their clade, but unable to be considered full citizens until they come of age at 17. Coming of age means that the benefits of proxy citizenship dissolve, which means that for Cogs, the teenage years are a mad scramble of applying to clades, or receiving invitations from clades, and deciding who you will join - if anyone wants you at all.This means that Cog children are taught to ‘put themselves forward’ quite early, and are encouraged to display all their strengths to best advantage. They tend to be loud, confident, ‘attention hogs’, and ambitious. The goal for most is to receive an invitation from a desirable, wealthy clade that can be signed on one’s 17th birthday, then stay with that clade until a portfolio has been built up that allows one to apply or be recruited to an even more prestigious clade, and so on and so forth. Often times, young clade members will discover an affinity for each other and a disaffinity for the more established personalities in their clade, and may terminate their citizenship in one clade to form their own. This means that the politics of clades, and their relative standing and power, are constantly in flux. Cogs never rest, the saying goes, and they tend to be aggressively productive wherever they go.
Bereft of many overarching laws or secure rights, the Congregation instead values written contracts highly, and considers verbal agreements to be worth the paper they’re written on. Interstellar Commercial Concerns, or “megacorps” as they’re more commonly known, prefer to be incorporated in the Congregation for the unprecedented freedom to dictate responsibilities and rights for their employees/clade members, but this CAN backfire if they break any of the provisions of their contracts, however small. Contract lawyer is considered one of the most desirable professions in the Congregation (and the rest of known space groans when they see a Cog lawyer show up at a negotiation).
-
RE: Gauging Interest in a new Erotic RP MU* (with anonymous survey)
I wouldn't mind an Erotic MU* with a stronger theme, as long as the theme doesn't get in the way of having erotic play, if that makes sense? Although there's nothing wrong with having an Erotic MU* that focuses on a single small set of kinks. Like, I think there are niche MUs like...Shoujo Ai MU? Or that m/m superhero MU* I don't remember the name of. Where they lean into a specific kink constellation.
But, I admit, one of the things that appeals to me about a huge 'wide theme' MU* is the ability to get a whim, create a character for a specific scenario, and be able to (theoretically) find that scenario until I get bored with it, then drop the character without causing any distress to anyone else, or messing up any sort of plots.
-
RE: Pyrephox's Playlist
@Lisse24 said:
@Pyrephox said:
Hee. That one doesn't lay at your feet. I got Real Lifed before the game closed!
And thank you, @Lisse24 - who were you?
Man, you're asking me to remember character names? Bah. But, I believe you knew me as Kara
I know, right? KARA! Man, you were awesome. I always wanted to have more scenes with you, and find some trouble to get into.
-
RE: Gamecrafting: Excelsior
@Jennkryst Neeeeever.
(I do have some ideas I think are fun for alien ruins/remnants/problems, but I want to keep the game fairly focused on the core gameplay elements; I doubt it would have lasting appeal to enough people to go broad with it.)
-
RE: Gauging Interest in a new Erotic RP MU* (with anonymous survey)
@HelloProject said in Gauging Interest in a new Erotic RP MU* (with anonymous survey):
@Pyrephox said in Gauging Interest in a new Erotic RP MU* (with anonymous survey):
I wouldn't mind an Erotic MU* with a stronger theme, as long as the theme doesn't get in the way of having erotic play, if that makes sense? Although there's nothing wrong with having an Erotic MU* that focuses on a single small set of kinks. Like, I think there are niche MUs like...Shoujo Ai MU? Or that m/m superhero MU* I don't remember the name of. Where they lean into a specific kink constellation.
But, I admit, one of the things that appeals to me about a huge 'wide theme' MU* is the ability to get a whim, create a character for a specific scenario, and be able to (theoretically) find that scenario until I get bored with it, then drop the character without causing any distress to anyone else, or messing up any sort of plots.
I have nothing against games like that, it's just that when it's pretty much nearly every game of this sort that gets made, I'm like, I'm ready for new shit.
It would be interesting! It would be a lot smaller, though - which comes with its own sets of 'downsides' for a sex-MU, since the drama is going to go through the roof. Especially if there's continuity and theme and infidelity (oh my!). Or, let's face it, perceived infidelity based on the fact that someone once pounced and snuggled someone else on a channel, and now that means THEY OWN THEM and how dare you try and break them up.
One good thing about the uber-MU*s is that you really can just nope out of any interaction you don't enjoy, and still have literally hundreds of other characters to play with.
-
RE: GuildHunter game? (Angels, Vampires)
@Cobaltasaurus It seems pretty clear - although I might suggest adding a list of the "taken" variant powers/abilities/weirdnesses from the books, since you don't want overlap. For players who haven't read the books, or just might have forgotten one or two.
-
RE: Gamecrafting: Excelsior
@Ominous said in Gamecrafting: Excelsior:
I had a similar idea, though, with more of a focus on megacorporations fighting each other for resources and plots of land. I was going to steal some ideas from Offworld Trading Company, using a hex grid to mark off the world map. Throw in some Tales from the Borderlands with its space cowboys and some cyberpunk elements and voila! Yet another game idea I won't see to fruition.
Anyways, I am very interested in seeing how this develops. It looks like you have hashed out quite a bit of where you want to go with things.
EDIT - A random thought popped into my head from previous conversations months ago. Someone mentioned the joy of space trucking in a MU*. You might want to consider creating something like H-space (I think that's what its called) on the planet that people can drive/fly/sail/whatever through to get the poly-neutronium-yttrium-silver-chloride-154 from point A to point B. Though, it's sounding like you want a smaller grid.
I had considered something like that! But, ultimately, I rejected it on two grounds: One, that it tends to put the playerbase on a lot of mutually inaccessible minigrids, which isn't something that I really want to do as a regular thing. And two, something like that really works best when it's modeling a meaningful economy of some sort, which is more simulationist than I'm looking to get with this game.
While I am developing and thinking about a lot of systems, they're more process systems than simulation systems. My goal with them is really to ensure transparency for players about HOW they can do things in the world, as well as provide a basic framework which can be adapted in a fair way for unexpected actions on the part of the playerbase.
-
RE: Influence/Reputation system?
@Tempest said:
If only those conversations ever went like that.
Even if the first part did go smoothly like that, I'm pretty sure things would blow up around 'my pc talked to other dude and negated your rolls/whatever in our previous scene!'
Except that it didn't negate the roll. Mechanics-wise, what probably happened was Rival PC opened a Door for the PC B, and how Player B decided to reflect it was "Hey, you can't use the same skill again." The previous Door was still opened, and PC A didn't lose ANY progress.
-
RE: Pyrephox's Playlist
Updating: Hadrian at Angel's Legacy. (Also, would be delighted to have character ties if anyone's thinking of apping there - 600+ years of life is a lot of opportunity for old rivalries or friendships!)
-
RE: Influence/Reputation system?
@Miss-Demeanor said:
@Derp I will note that I did not and do not question Status as a way to represent influence in social situations. So the 'thing' that was originally asked for DOES exist... but some people ignore it anyways. Much like they do with nearly all social and/or mental types of manipulation or domination. You can't get away from it. The people that are going to scream and cry and swear on a stack of holy books that their character "SO wouldn't do that" are still going to scream and cry and swear regardless of any system that's put into place. You can't change the players. The question is moot because until people stop being so anal about having their characters manipulated or dominated, the problem will persist.
So no, GMC's social rules isn't an 'answer' to the problem. Because the problem isn't a rules problem, its a people problem. I hate the GMC social rules, so yes, I will gladly take the Go With the Flow option right off the bat, take my Beat, and be on my merry. But it has nothing to do with me wanting to ignore the social rules in place. That's my way of not having to draw out something that I find to be tedious, boring, and entirely unnecessary.
The long and short of it is that there is no fix to this problem. You can't make people not be people, and the people that ignored it then will ignore it now. Doesn't mean the system in place doesn't suck.
While I agree that it's a people problem more than a system problem, I think that it's a CULTURE problem. People throw shit fits over it because, honestly, we all allow them to get away with throwing shit fits over it, and would rather say, "Oh, well, we just won't have rules then/the rules are entirely optional (screwing the players who choose to buy social skills/abilities)" than say what we need to say, which is, "These are the rules this game is using. You have a choice of learning and using the rules, or playing a different game."
Much the same way we would if people started throwing shit fits about not wanting to take damage in combat.
-
RE: Cary's Playlist
He used them! Just very judiciously. I was so disappointed that he never got into a combat worth summoning a big monster for.
-
RE: What Types of Games Would People Like To See?
@Wizz said in What Types of Games Would People Like To See?:
Street level secret world weirdness. Like, say, The Secret World but grimier; there's no globe-spanning organizations and nobody has more than scraps of anything. It's all cults and nomadic secret orders and they all want a slice of some big mystical pie nobody in their right mind should ever actually touch, because magic and old gods and the mysteries behind the universe are something that will someday, somehow, guaranteed get you buried in an unmarked grave or get you so disappeared you may as well be. But you were touched by it, and that one taste will never ever be enough.
I, too, would kill for an Unknown Armies game.
-
RE: Influence/Reputation system?
@Groth said:
@Pyrephox said:
Much the same way we would if people started throwing shit fits about not wanting to take damage in combat.
It's a lot easier for most people to go along with.
"Your characters arm just got cut off by the ogres blow, what do you do next?"
then
"Your character has been convinced that they're inlove with the prince, what do you do next?"
The former is an event that happens to your character that you're allowed to react to. In the latter case the reaction is dictated to you, your agency as a player is removed and most players have a fundamental objection to that. I don't think PC vs PC social combat will ever be well received.
By definition, any situation in which you give a single environmental stimuli and ask the player what their character does next is not a removal of player agency. For that matter, we have no trouble as a culture asking players to deal with this when it's a supernatural power that's enforcing some sort of emotion on the fictional characters we're playing. Furthermore, that's not even how the social system in GMC /works/. You do not "convince someone that they are in love with you" in GMC Doors. You say, "I need this person to agree to do X thing," and seduction might be one of the tactics you use (but it's just as likely to be bribery, or petsitting, or fixing their car), depending on whether the target thinks that's a valid choice of tactic. If you then succeed, the person either does X for you (and may immediately regret it and wonder, "Oh god, how did I get sucked into that?") or they might choose to say, "I don't think my character would ever agree to do that specific thing, but I would be willing to take this Impressed/Swooning/Leveraged Condition instead, and his guilt about not being able to help you out with this will make him more inclined to go along with you in other circumstances."
It's one of the MOST agency-preserving social systems you can possibly have while still having mechanics for social actions. Which, if you're making people spend XP on social skills and merits for their characters, you NEED to have some sort of social mechanical system. If, on the other hand, you're house ruling that players don't have to spend any points on social skills, merits, or abilities, then sure, people can play social cops and robbers "I shot you!" "No you didn't!" all day, and at least no one's screwed out of a character build.
-
RE: Web portals and scenes and grids oh my!
@Coin Weirdly, the Ares portal doesn't bother me at all. I usually have a bit logged in on the webclient for chat, and then another tab open for the scene in the portal, and that really works for me.
But! Related back to the original premise:
I think games on Ares (and other platforms with this kind of variable scene structure) who want to try and make it easier should set some expectations on 'How To Get RP' and 'How To Advertise for People To Join Your Scene'. Because although I love Ares and it works for me (tm), I do sometimes want to set up scenes that aren't exactly private, but not exactly open, but feel like 'Limited' doesn't quite scratch my itch, either. Although I should absolutely used the Limited tag more often.
-
RE: Euphoria - Feedback
Although I don't play, schools just started up in the last couple of weeks, and because 2020, that is sort of a nightmare in a lot of places - so at least part of it might just be because people have kids (or are involved in education) and are losing their minds.
-
RE: Web portals and scenes and grids oh my!
@silverfox said in Web portals and scenes and grids oh my!:
Anyone who doesn't pounce @L-B-Heuschkel when there's a chance to scene with them are crazy as futz.
This is absolute truth. I've only played with him on one game, but it was great fun.
-
RE: Influence/Reputation system?
@SG said:
@Derp said:
If there were no social -stats-, then you could completely freeform it. But since in most systems that's not the case, it's important to give the people who invest in them a meaningful way to use them as well.
I agree, but the issue is many players have difficulty separating themselves from the characters they're playing. They often can't conceive of backing down from an intimidating goon, or being momentarily charmed by someone they loathe.
Of course, quite a bit of that is tied to poorly crafted poses, or people who don't sink points into something, but go all purple on everyone and expect the same results with the point costs.
I think freeforming social is the best way, at least when other players are involved. NPCs it's fairly easy to run because most GMs don't take things too personally with mooks.
Sadly untrue. GMs, at least on MU*s, are just as likely to block or twist the attempt to use social skills on NPCs, and for the same reasons. "I'd like to persuade this cagey informant to give a straight answer." "You can't do that. Social skills aren't mind control, and he doesn't want to tell you." "I'd like to intimidate this thug into backing down." "He's more scared of his boss than he is of you and nothing's going to change that." Or worse, "I'd like to intimidate this guy into telling me what he knows." roll dice, exceptional success "You scared him so much that he's too terrified to talk. Also, he's going to attack you now."
About the only place I know that really took social skills seriously even for NPCs was RfK, and even there, they prioritized Merits over skills (even though Merits cost less than skills), and gatekeeped pretty heavily what level of Aliies/Influence you had to have in an NPC faction before you could use social skills on any member of that faction. But at least they did acknowledge that you COULD influence NPCs in a meaningful way, and had an explicit system for how that worked, which is more than most.
-
RE: Game Pitch: Three Letter Agency (modern horror setting - X-Files, Fringe, Control, SCP, etc)
@faraday Once you've had a taste of how user-friendly something CAN be, it's very hard to go back to doing it the other way.