Posts made by Raeras

Admittedly I will preface this by saying, I have not fully read through this thread. But I had an Ares spin up and an address but no solid ideas until I was reading over the other superhero thread and was reading all the people wanting to do an OC thing.

My current intention was to just do FS3 with the Traits system - but I'm willing to read over some of the options presented here, though I'm no coder so I'd need an assist or I'd use the RPG plugin for Ares.

The current theme I was going for is that there's a town in it's own little pocket dimension where the majority of superheroes lives/train/etc. There's non superheroes that live there also and help coordinate where assistance is needed, etc. You can fast travel from the town to anywhere on Earth.

You would be able to play any Tier from Street Level to High Powered, or even one of these Vital but Mundane 'Background Supports' (Think Cecil from Invincible or Agent Coulson from Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D).

You could be a student/faculty at the school, be a part of the SHIELD-esque agency, or the relief team, run a business in the town, or do whatever else it is you want to do. There wouldn't be an initial overarching metaplot, but instead a 'villan of the week' sort of thing, with each week focusing on a different tier of character.

If this sounds like something people would be interested in, then I'll review some of the other systems presented here and start working more fully on it.

Depending on what you're into there's three games that I'm more or less actively playing on. They're all based on the Ares Engine so have full web portal functionality to play via web and client. (I purely play via portal because I find it much less stressful!)

1. Crystal Springs - A game where you play an actor starring in a 24/7-esque television show where you play a high school student in the California city of Crystal Springs. Very active, lots of friendly players and ways to get involved in stuff. Also Pacha, the site creator/admin/ST, is fantastic.

2. The Network - Another game where you are an actor but this time it's for a place called The Network. You don't have any solid memories of who you were before coming to the Network and the theme rotates every few months. Each show you take on the entirety of your Season character and don't have any memories of anything else until you come back to the Dome - which is the place the Actors live between Seasons.. Now is an excellent time to check it out because the previous season just finished so all the Actors are back in the Dome and the next Season will be starting in a few months or so. Very active with lots of friendly players here too and lots to get involved in if you wish.

3. Gray Harbor - Set in the PNW, in Washington, Gray Harbor is a modern supernatural setting. It's fallen from the activity that it used to have but it is starting to gain steam again and there are several dedicated players who are still around and very welcoming. The best way to describe the setting to me is if you like Stephen King, you'll love this. I often like to think of 'It' and even 'The Shining' as good examples. So if you like the idea of having some psychic like abilities and supernatural things messing with you this is it! This is the game that utilizes the Web Portal for Ares the most of the three - in the sense that the time zones are often all spread out so a lot of the scenes are Asynchronous so everyone can participate.

@rucket

Speaking as the person who does 'Tech Support' essentially for 3 of the WoD Ares games, it really isn't that bad. On the one where I primarily helped with sheet work we just have people submit beat claims and xp spends once a week. The sheets are set up to automatically grant monthly XP so there's no need to go through everyone's sheets and add that.

How it works on the first place I helped set up: The sheets themselves are copied to a folder on the site gmail and then embedded into the 'Sheet' tab with the Generic RPG plugin that Faraday put together. So the players can't make any edits to the sheets themselves. I'm pretty sure it's a similar situation on the other two but I didn't have a hand in setting their system up. I just primarily keep Ares up to date and help with minor CSS things and the like

Re Movie Poster: Adds to list of movies to watch Looks like it could be an interesting watch because I too thought it looked like it could be a mock poster before I googled it xD

@bear_necessities said in Interest Check: Time Travel Agency (Ares/FS3):

@Raeras I have thought a time travel game a la HorrorMU or The Network would be interesting. You go to one point in time every "season" and focus on that time and deal with the consequences of those actions rather than have 100 different people doing 50 different things. It might be something to at least consider?

To be 100% honest, you kinda lost me in the details so I don't think this game will be for me so take my comments with a grain of salt. However, I will say that I think a game like this can quickly become confusing and overtly complicated and I would caution against that. The more complicated the game is, the less likely you will have buy-in, and the harder it is for newbies to integrate.

That's essentially what Major Paradoxes would be. There'd only be one Major thing going on at a time that needs taken care of. Then there'd be some side stuff going on that might correlate to it or it might not.

Time Travel is always going to add an element of complicated, no matter what you do but that's why we're taking the time to make sure we have the big questions that might arise ironed out and 'rules' and stuff brainstormed up. To try and lessen some of that

@Vixanic said in Interest Check: Time Travel Agency (Ares/FS3):

Sounds somewhat 'Time Stories' themed, for anyone who has played those board games.

A question along that line then - how will you approach the 'if we get it wrong this time we can just try again' trope?

For example if we arrive in the affected timeline on day 1, stay until day 13 trying to resolve the paradox and then return having failed, can we return to day 1?

Hopefully that makes sense.

Another good question!

So, in the eyes of the Committee - one a Paradox is fixed (even if the agents consider it a failure), it's resolved. The case is closed and actions can't be undone as the Timeline merges with the Divergence caused by fixing the Paradox. However, humanity is adaptive and desperate times can call for desperate measures.

There will be a couple different ways Agents could attempt to get around this but it would be unsanctioned by the Committee (unless special circumstances arose) and very dangerous/risky to attempt.

Also posting this here but going to update the main post too for clarity

Divergence - Possible outcomes seen by The Committee as a result of a Paradox. They ultimately decide which Divergence they want the Agents to try for and roll out missions based on that.

Paradox - A blip in the timeline, major or minor, that needs to be resolved in one manner or another before the timeline spirals into chaos.

Mission(s) - A set of orders given by The Committee to be followed as pertains to taking care of the Paradox (I.E: Killing 10 soldiers, rescuing a rare species of lizard, or burning down a corn field). The missions might not make sense to the agents but The Committee sees the big picture and knows how it all fits together.

@faraday said in Interest Check: Time Travel Agency (Ares/FS3):

I love time travel stories, but how would you plan to manage the ripples and parallel universes from PC shenanigans on any scale? Everyone off in time doing their own things? Seems like it would rapidly devolve into an 'infinite worlds' type of setting where there are no real stakes because anything goes. (Which is not necessarily bad if that's the goal - but it's more comic book feel than scifi.)

Great Question!

First off, there are rules that are to be followed by the Time Agency and all the PCs are members of this agency so they're expected to follow the rules unless something comes up where they need to make an exception. We're going to have several Infographs and things to help with visualization and explanations but our current thinking is this: (At least for Alpha when we get to that point)

• Each universe has 1 timeline. A primary timeline. When a paradox pops up, because the Time Agency is outside of time, they can view different possible outcomes from taking care of the paradox or letting it go on for a bit longer. These possibilities are called Divergences. Once the paradox is handled, the timeline would adjust/merge with the corresponding divergence and normal people in the timeline would be none the wiser.

• There are Major Paradoxes and Minor Paradoxes. Major Paradoxes would have Divergences that heavily affect the timeline and there would be an element of OOC voting on 'Response Time' which would directly correlate to the number of primary events for the Paradox and how long they would be spread out over. The Minor Paradoxes would have smaller effects on the timeline and would be more akin to side plots/plot-in-a-box style events

We may need to completely overhaul it after we see it in action but that's our working idea right now.

Hello All!

Inspirations: Steins;Gate, Umbrella Academy, Travellers, Doctor Who

A friend and I had an idea for a thing and we're fleshing out more information but also figured an interest check was important. We would be using the FS3 System + Ares.

We're envisioning something similar to the Time Agency from Umbrella Academy where all PCs would be agents for this Time Agency. There's going to be different varieties of agent and three different types of 'time travel': Sending information back, projecting yourself into the body of someone in the past (including yourself) (ala Travellers), and then physically traveling back in time.

The broad sketch is that though the Agency is in a place similar to Earth but outside of time and space,it is far, far into the future by our terms. Like thousands of years. Over these year the Agency has used time travel to stop a multitude of calamities that brought their world into a utopia but, as a result has also created Paradoxes (blips in the time streams that can be just about anything) that need to be cleaned up. Which is where the PCs come in!

There will be an element of crafting/developing new gadgets/items. There might be some low-level psychic powers but it is primarily going to be more tech focused with the sci-fi element of multiple parallel universes and things of that nature. Player actions will heavily influence the timelines as the effects of their actions cause ripples and possibly even divergences from the original timeline they travelled to.

While there will be ST Run plots, players will also be more than welcome to submit ideas for plots they would like to run for other players within the guidelines that we will be laying out.

Glossary:

Divergence - Possible outcomes seen by The Committee as a result of a Paradox. They ultimately decide which Divergence they want the Agents to try for and roll out missions based on that.

Paradox - A blip in the timeline, major or minor, that needs to be resolved in one manner or another before the timeline spirals into chaos.

Mission(s) - A set of orders given by The Committee to be followed as pertains to taking care of the Paradox (I.E: Killing 10 soldiers, rescuing a rare species of lizard, or burning down a corn field). The missions might not make sense to the agents but The Committee sees the big picture and knows how it all fits together.

Sounds like fun! I was disappointed I wasn't able to participate in the last game you created but I'll be keeping my eye on this thread

I know for me personally it was just RL issues. I loved the concept and my character idea but because of RL stuff I had to scale way back on the places I was playing. So decided to stick with the few sites I was already heavily involved in.

@ZombieGenesis said in What Types of Games Would People Like To See?:

@Wizz I wish fewer people would not get hung up on this concept. Get Ares, add a profile tab that supports PDF files(I can show you how if need be), have character sheets done via PDF with +dice support if need be. I'd play the crap out of a He-Man/She-Ra game and FAE works very well for it I think.

Just have to drop my 2 cents in agreement here. I run a WoD game off Ares and we use Google Sheets for the character sheets. Embedded into the Background Tab after approval. So you definitely don't need to have any knowledge of coding to start up your own MU - just have to get a little creative if it doesn't quite fit FS3/Fate/Cortex.

Especially because Faraday/the rest of the community is very helpful and hands on where there are issues that arise

All the posts lately have got me thinking I might as well try!

I used to briefly play on Fallcoast like forever ago as a Nosferatu Baddacelli named Vivian and I didn't play with too many people but one character that stood out (thought of course the name escapes me) was a Geist that was...I believe a Blacksmith. We did a few scenes and I remember two specifically - 1 helping her do some training with her walking stick and the other showing him (the geist) sounds that she had recorded and could mimic because powers. The player seemingly vanished and I think I tried to find a way to get in touch but to no avail.

If you're around feel free to drop me a PM!

@L-B-Heuschkel said in Good Horror Games?:

Gray Harbor is horror themed but has nothing to do with WoD. It comes down to what exactly you mean by 'horror' -- urban American Call of Cthulhu is probably where I'd end up if I had to apply one, quick label.

To add to this, GH also heavily reminds me of Stephen King-esque Horror. Specifically IT and probablyyy The Shining.

Hey there!

I'm the Tech Admin for Obsidian Reverie are 2e WoD, run of Ares and still working off Google Sheets like Zombie mentioned. Though I am preparing to take another crack at an Ares plugin for WoD but there's no holding breath on that xD. I am not an expert coder by any means.

Feel free to drop me a line with any questions

@Pacha I'm glad you think so! I made a Ghost myself as one of my PCs, never having playing Geist at all before and it's fun! They're a bit limited in Crossover atm since we don't have a lot of other splats/characters capable of looking into twilight. But I'm enjoying it over all.

Hope to see you there in the near future perhaps! tempts with delicious baked goods

@RDC We don't have a lot of homebrew stuff actually? So I'm not too sure what you are referring to. Can you be a little more specific? The only main homebrew thing that I am aware of off the top of my head is that I have added in a custom 'Styles' for the current compacts allowed that advances with status raise. And then allowing a couple books off of the Storyteller's Vault

If you're unclear on some things than it's likely that others are unclear as well. So knowing what specifically you're referring to will help me go in and clarify what might need clarified.

@Auspice They link the sheet in their additional notes in CC and then we make a copy of it on our staff google drive. As it stand now We'll be handling XP spends/ updating earned Beats and the like.The sheets will be embedded in the background tab so only the character and staff can see it/reference it (but then people can choose to make it public if they wish)

It's a system that will likely be refined over time some but this is what we came up with for the start. Seemed like the easiest way to go about it.

@bear_necessities and @krmbm

Thank you both

@Tempest We're using Google Sheets at the moment actually for character sheet keeping and utilizing web portal primarily for everything else because we've transitioned from a discord server. Coding a whole system for Ares is out of my realm of expertise but if one ever comes into being we'll transition to that.

@Admiral I have no idea who VASpider is xD. I have been into MUSHes for maybe a couple years. Give or take. I very briefly was a part of Fallcoast and Reno but my primarily play was on Calaveras and now Grey Harbor and a couple other Ares sites. My other staff don't have too much experience with MU* aside a couple of them giving Gray Harbor a try too.

You (and anyone else) are welcome to join us on our Discord server if you'd like to get to know us more

https://discord.gg/TUDvyfX