Posts made by Reason

@HelloProject said in Need Python Code Projects:

Okay, I've decided that I'm gonna get a server up and fuck with Evennia and just read documentation.

That's what I've narrowed things down to.

Trial by fire.

Trial by fire works. Evennia code itself is super well documented so you can open up files and putz around looking for how stuff works.

It's good to have a working knowledge of Python though too. There used to be a good years and years ago in the 'Headfirst' series of coding books: "Headfirst Python". I've recommended it more than once to folks new to writing code that were interested in Python.

Not sure how new you are, but if you want some little projects to learn the syntax and some of the "guts" of Python itself you can probably score that book for cheap.

@A-Meowley 100%

A key difference is unlike ye olde MU* code bases of yesteryear that were these weird soft-code languages that reminded me of some LISP derivative, Evennia doesn't have any softcode but because it's Python you don't have to like recompile the whole damn game when you make a code change, you just give it a quick reload.

So portable + easy to code. It's a super winner.

Great project. Really appreciate all the work you've put into Evennia.

-r

About half-way through w/ coding up a functional CP: Red Character Generation system. System is pretty clean and looks like it supports a wide range of play styles.

I've always maintained that there are really three things essential for a game: +dice, +sheets, and +CG -- and of those, +CG is the hardest to actually code correctly because poor usability will kill it.

So, if I get through w/ the second half of +CG I think there's a game here. Will hold back on making a formal Advertisement announcement until +CG is done, and +dice/+sheet are close to done.

-r

P.S. Sorry for the thread necromancy.

@Dillinger said in Interest in Cyberpunk MU*?:

I like Laughing Man type hacker based psionics like I think was mentioned.

No doubt. I think GitS is totally fair game. In the end, we're all deaf mutes.

@Ominous said in Interest in Cyberpunk MU*?:

If I can run a megacorp that fries the brains of hackers like in Android: Netrunner, I will be happy.

Yep, for sure. Black Ice ftw.

So, my larger take away from this thread so far is that Cyberpunk has some uncomfortable themes (humanity loss, for one -- discomfort in Cyberpunk is definitely a feature, not a bug), and there have been some hard passes, but a number of you would find it fair game.

Are there any objections to the Interlock/Fuzion d10 system itself that seems to be riding along w/ the current CP Red variant of the game? What's been shown so far, at least? Is there anything about that system that makes it fundamentally unfit for a MU*?

My own bias is that there are some sweet spots around either crunchy systems that work well in a MU* and super free-form systems that work well in a MU*, while tapioca mush with some infrequent grapenut crunch can wind up with non-uniform rules applications, and the subsequent hate-and-disconnect fall-out when player expectations vs outcomes aren't aligned due to a lack of consistency can be a negative -- does that make sense? That question could actually be a thread unto itself.

@Dillinger Cool -- I think we're mostly on the same page.

Maybe where we differ a bit is I could probably still get down with a little "Stranger Things" Psionics vibe bleeding into an otherwise focused Hard-CP game. Like, a subplot involving an evil Corp / Rogue Government "off-budget entity" crossing dimensional boundaries with cyber, drugs, and math and royally $#*@ing up stuff for greed, power, and domination?

To me that still seems to have a classic CP taste to it that I could live with.

I'd still want the game to be 'CyberPunk' not 'PsionicPunk' at the end of the day, though -- so I think the right balance involves generally relegating those type of boundary pushing themes to the fringes.

@Dillinger I apologize for what might seem like re-asking the same question, but is that because in your view "Psionics" and "Hard-Sci Fi" are incompatible?

Or just that pulp, magic, etc., kills the immersion of what may otherwise be a dystopian Cyberpunk experience -- and so it's more "tread lightly" than "hard no"?

@Dillinger , re: Psionics -- Out of curiosity, is the objection psionics as player characters primarily? Or just a world where yet undiscovered higher orders of cognitive functions and their impact on the physical world as a storytelling device in general, whether or not they are front and center to any actual game play?

I ask because I generally bias away from high fantasy stuff myself, but things like the PreCogs in Minority Report influencing a view into a cyberpunk world don't immediately offend my sensibilities.

@Jennkryst said in Interest in Cyberpunk MU*?:

@Reason It was the Bubblegum Crisis RPG, same rules for Mekton I think? Lots of derived stats, like weight limits for encumbrance and jump distance and other stuff. Obviously, because it was heavy on a cyberpunk anime setting with powersuits, there was a lot of stuff revolving around the specific setting and designing your own murdersuits.

There were two options, either a d10 or 3d6... and maybe a d20 one, I forget, and the book is very far away, upstairs, and I am teh lazy. At least 3d6 rolls would make the crit-fail likelihood smaller?

Oh, interesting. 3d6? Yeah, really anything that gives you non-linear probability distribution tends to hold my attention longer than 1dx systems. I'd read about some folks that did a 2d6 implementation of the 1d10 system but treated 6's as 0s. Gives you the classic 2d6 curve across a distribution of 0 - 10, and only 0s (<3% of outcomes) were critical failures.

That said, there's something to be said for just taking a vanilla system off the shelf and using it. That way everyone knows what they're in for, warts and all.

AS FOR SR5... I admit I didn't dig deep enough to learn all the matrix stuff; I know it changed from SR4 but never figured out how much.

There were some positive changes, but it was still unworkable. Personal opinion the Matrix hasn't really ever been usable in Shadowrun. In Third edition and earlier, it was actually pretty tight, it was just solo-run. So like, functional and technically tight, but a mini-game while everyone else got pizza. In 4th edition and beyond, the objective to bring everyone together into the same initiative pass was noble but...

Denver is ADAMANTLY ...

Ridiculous (in a completely constructive way). Finished that thought for you.

@Jennkryst said in Interest in Cyberpunk MU*?:

I dunno about Red, but Fuzion is pretty crunchy. It also has a decent amount of room for adding your own stuff... ironically, you could tack on a Shadowrun mod out of what was supplied with the basics of Fuzion, from what I recall.

Do you think it's adequately crunchy for a MU*? I'll be honest, the flat probability distribution of single die game systems always made me a little skeptical -- especially when you have like a 10% chance of critically failing at any given task.

What bits of the SR5 Matrix was horribad?

It's been a few years so don't quote me, but working from memory I feel like it was a combination of the parts of the design decisions around the flat security architecture in conjunction with the hand-wavey unreachable "deep matrix" -- not that I completely object w/ flat security architecture, as it's fairly prevalent in modern cloud services, but it lent itself to these weird nested permission hierarchies that made things super silly in practice because it adopted all the flatness with none of the zero-trust.

How much interest would there be there in a Cyberpunk MU*? I've noticed that Cyberpunk Red is being released this summer (in anticipation of the CDPR Cyberpunk 2077 game), which seems like CP 2020 rules with a facelift.

I got as far as building a 5th edition Shadowrun MU* but never opened the doors once I started really digging into the Matrix and realized how terrible the Matrix rules were. 6th Edition appears completely unsalvageable -- much of that work on the never-opened SR site could be refactored into a CP game though.

Are there any redflags about the Cyberpunk (Interlock? Fuzion?) game system that make it unsuitable for a MU*? Too crunchy? Not crunchy enough?

@Ifrit B A. Not A B.

Just in time for Shadowrun 6th edition. Coincidence? I don't think so.

Also: Love moving async callbacks into a decorator. Significantly lower barrier to entry.

Coming out of post retirement to say: "Right on @Griatch."

P.S. I just pulled your Evennia Container. I realized I needed a pet AWS project. With Shadowrun 6th edition right around the corner, the timing just seemed right.

@golgoth thumbs up I'm rooting for you.

-r

The free time turned out to be a lie. So much for that.

-r

@EUBanana When you do get that MU* itch, I'm pretty sure I still have your SR: London Database lying around that you're welcome to have back and spin back up.

-r

@Sammi That's actually SUPER clever, building CG around "helpfile-like pages". I really dig that. It allows for both the traditional "Chargen is a series of rooms" style builds, without coupling the functionality to an accompanying script that @digs out the rooms (though an optional script may be nice).

...and auto building data storing classes from Google Sheets is icing on the cake. I was actually sitting here tonight thinking about how onerous entering all that data by hand would be.

Very nice.

When you do add more logic in, just be mindful that some decisions will require a prior state to be reached that, when done out of order, will hose up the character build -- this is fairly straight forwardly enforced when you move a player through a series of rooms, but (forgive me, stating the obvious) you'll need to build some logic gates that key off state if you want to completely decouple the system from CG Rooms.

-r

@Tirit said in Deep Shadows - Shadowrun 5th Edition MUSH - Help Wanted:

@Reason I have a git on gitlab.com. I can get you access to see what we've work on currently. You can pull it and play with it all you want and push it back. I've got some of the Character Creation (basic rules) coded. It's probably nothing done as well as an litigate programmer can do. Hit me up on the game, I'm 'Bremen' there.

Okay. Given that your Chargen is incomplete, I think I'll see about writing one from scratch. Maybe this will turn into a generic Evennia Shadowrun CG kit, similar to how SR: Detroit/Seattle/Germany all shared CG.

Having functional +sheet, +dice, and Chargen code is probably the single largest barrier to getting a MU* off the ground.

-r

@ShelBeast Yep, totally fair question -- and actually, the unification of Magic + Matrix w/ the rest of the game system was welcomed. The issue I have w/ 5th edition Matrix rules is the Flat Topology of hosts that doesn't allow for more realistic opportunities for lateral movement through a compromised environment by a Decker. This makes compromising a system a more binary (no pun intended!) exercise of skill checks designed to speed up gameplay than a realistic topology designed to protect corporate data.

And this cuts both ways.

That said, I do have to acknowledge that modern networks have flattened to a degree. For an interesting read Google, for instance, has released all their white papers on their implementation of a Zero Trust network, though despite anchoring trust to the identity layer (similar to Shadowrun), it's more realistically implemented in gradients based on key dimensions of trust vs. system assurance requirements.

-r