A thought...
Rather than leaning all-in on PRP, how about this:
When players go through CharGen, they get 'bonuses' from submitting Subplots for the game. Not necessarily subplots that involve their character, but for the game in general. These are then used by the GM's of yhe game to create stories and events to run.
Gives the players some stake in the game, but without yhe pressure if running that might make them uncomfortable.
Okay, getting my digital RPG library back in order, I'm wondering if there's interest in building a 7th Sea MU, using the original rules and the extra lore from Swashbuckling Adventures? I'm thinking of starting small and gradually growing; starting with a 'sea grid' and a central 'refuge' for a piracy & exploration game, gradually adding in grids or various nations & their courts for L&L and intrigue play.
Any interest?
Just my 2 cents, but I think that it's the dearth of black characters in fantasy & science fiction that RPG's and MU's are based on that leads to a smaller number of black role-players. Most minorities are under-represented in heroic roles, IMO. Why would you want to be interested in, say, Vampire when the vast majority of Vampires presented in the game books and fiction are white European/Americans? And the characters that are like you are poor stereotypes?
Of course, outsider looking in here. Feel free to slap my theory down, @Cirno
So. Paragon City is back from the ashes....
Things are pretty slammed right now, so if you want to get back in, wait for a few more days of the servers being fine-tuned is my advice.
@ZombieGenesis I think that's true of any Superhero game, and a lot of RPG's in general. Simplicity does not in itself make a system easier to use for some players. For me, systems like FATE or Cypher just feel a bit wonky and loose for superhero games because of the sheer, nearly-unlimited potential for what you can encounter or create in the genre. Or maybe I've just had bad initial experiences that soured me on them; either or. HERO/Champions and M&M feel more 'right' to me by having more defined scales and direct comparisons and measurements (5pts in HERO is 1d6 of effect. Each point in DC Heroes is twice as powerful as the previous point. Etc.)
Superhero games in particular walk a very fine line between simplicity and complexity. If you get right down to it, both HERO and M&M are fairly simple systems rules-wise; roll, add or subtract modifiers, compare result to a target number to determine success or failure. Simple. The complexity comes in building characters and powers. If you look at a game like, say, D&D (any edition), character advancement and powers, spells or otherwise, are already pre-created for you, so there's no real need for a 'tool box' to allow you to create your own powers or abilities. Making minor changes (swapping out Fire effect for Cold on Burning Hands to create a spell that shoots shards of ice instead of flames, for example) may have negligible effects on the system. Creating new paths of advancement or classes can lead to problematic imbalances in power scale (remember how broken the Gladiator class in Dark Sun was? I'm a Fighter that can use any weapon without penalty, even that brand new homebrewed weapon the DM just created! Who cares if I'm a slave; that's just about the default state for everyone here. And who cares about armor? It's 50 Bazillion degrees out and the whole planet is a desert!). Marvel FASERIP is the one system that managed to balance that walk beautifully, but all the powers are pre-built, leading to the (admittedly rare for FASERIP) occasional situation of 'What if I want to be able to do X?' where X isn't covered already by the system.
Superhero systems that get a 'complex' rap are usually systems like HERO and M&M where the bulk of the book is a customization toolkit that tells you how to create powers, skills, abilities, etc. And, several times, they don't do very good jobs at explaining how to create what you're thinking of (HERO actually does a decent job of this, with examples for just about every power in the core book). To be fair, both HERO and M&M also put out splatbooks (UNTIL Superpowers Database/Ultimate Series & Powers Database Series, respectively) that contain numerous examples of how to recreate powers and things you see in the comics with the game system. But, these aren't in the core rules. In my experience, a lot of people look at the size of the rulebook, especially MU players used to freeform, and their eyes glaze over thinking that the entire book has to be known in order to play the game.
Doing systems like HERO or M&M on mush is more difficult because character creation takes a lot of interaction between player and Staff. And Staff also have to see potential issues and feel free to say 'No' (M&M Afflictions, anyone?). It's much easier to be one on one and fine tune concepts in a tabletop environment.
One thing I would love to see for any mush that uses a TT RPG system is a 'Training Room'; an OOC area where players can go and test out the rules and action commands. I think having a set of 'target dummies' that you can practice your +attack or +cast on for an hour or so off grid or when RP is not available would help familiarize players with the game commands and system much quicker. Also, if it's done like the Power Centers in Champions Online (the MMO), players can test new powers/abilities out and examine the effectiveness firsthand, then decide if they want to do fine tuning or scrap the new power/ability entirely before committing advancement to it, it would help cut down on the +requests for 'I want to readjust my power, it's not working out for me'.
In the end, toolbox systems are what I prefer for superhero games, but a lot of times they're implemented poorly in the design of a mush. There's not enough emphasis on actually planning out your character, for both creation and advancement, and that's an important key to HERO or M&M. Mainly, from what I've seen for TT ports to mush, it's either 1) all FC's that are pre-statted, or 2) 'Okay, the concept blurb for your OC looks good, in to CharGen you go! toss the system newbie into the shark-infested deep end of the pool and wanders off to do Staff stuff'
@ZombieGenesis Agreed. Also...take a look at the Battle of Metropolis from 'Man of Steel' and the Battle of New York from 'Avengers'...
Color Palette: MoS is drenched in a saturated blue filter, adding a more gritty, depressing tone. Avengers doesn't use a color filter to affect the emotional mood of the audience.
Heroic Acts: I'll admit that this might be a bit nit-picky here, since Superman is still just one guy, despite all his powers, and you had 6 Avengers. But, you have the Avengers going out of their way to protect and rescue bystanders, prioritizing the safety of those caught in the crossfire over their own. The only civilian we see Superman actively saving is, of course, Lois Lane.
Subtle Imagery: In Avengers, there's lots of destruction. You have one of the Chitauri 'dragons' falling on and collapsing an apartment building. In Man of Steel, those gravity pulses are also brutal, but you have a scene where there's an actual person off in the corner of the frame being picked up and slammed back down by the pulse repeatedly. Sure, Avengers had civilian casualties, and they address that in the news wrap-ups, but you don't see people dying or getting brutalized like that; it just re-enforced the gritty and depressing nature of the film.
But onto more positive news....
I'm psyched for the idea of an Old Republic film(s). I would say, turn KOTOR 1 & 2, and the 'Revan' novel into 'Star Wars Story films. Then, get Dave Filloni to do an 'Old Republic' animated series, following the TOR storylines.
@fatefan said in Which canon property/setting would be good for a MU* ?:
@Misadventure I know people hate Fate, and this is technically out of the Victorian date range, but: Young Centurions is early 1910s! http://www.evilhat.com/home/young-centurions/
I don't have an issue with Fate as a TT game system. I think that the system itself sort of bogs down with MUs. It makes an already long process (combat) longer, especially for large groups. Same reason that while I love Apocalypse World and AW hacks as a TT system, I don't think they translate over to MU particularly well.
Came across my Facebook feed: 2020 Democratic Candidates as RPGs...
https://mobile.twitter.com/leftoblique/status/1207397691174440960
@Auspice Will Arnett is just amazingly awesome as the host. Yeah, it's all pre-recorded, but his bon-motts and remarks are great.
Also, the Builders mess with him at times. First episode, the challenge is to build a Theme Park, and one of the teams used the 'official' Will minifig and stuck him inside the Ferris Wheel that they built, saying that Will was shooting an action-comedy film at the scene.
Does 'Not' count as an answer?
Annnnddddd....
I just found out about Marvel 1872
http://marvel.wikia.com/wiki/1872_Vol_1_1
So, yeah. This is a thing. This is an awesome thing. This is probably an awesome thing that needs to happen.
Didn't see this at all mentioned in the thread, so I have to make my pitch for Astro City, by Kurt Busiek. It's a superhero comic, but as I'm fond of saying, Busiek is one of, if not the best, writers that knows how to emphasize the 'human' in 'superhuman' storytelling. Best of all, the series is done in story arcs that focus on individual character stories, so there's usually no overwhelming continuity that you have to research in order to understand what's going on. Also, the majority of the characters in Astro City are pastiche/homages of other characters, so you get an idea of who's who and what fairly quickly. Astro City is collected in trade paperbacks by story arcs, so it's easy to get into.
@Chet said in Which canon property/setting would be good for a MU* ?:
Birthright would approach a Civilization/Nation-States MUSH, wouldn't it?
The problem with that would be deciding who gets their own land grab, and who works for the people with the land grab.
Well...let me break it down quickly....
On the main continent, there's 5 'Nations': Anuirean (Britons/Gaulic), Brecht (German/Dutch merchants), Khinasai (Moors), Rjurik (Viking/Celts), Vos (Rus/Hun barbarians). The main area with the political action is the ruins of the Anuirean Empire, which is basically Camelot & England 500 years after Arthur's death. Anuire is divided into 23 Domains, plus an Imperial City that's neutral territory. Each geographic Domain is divided into multiple Provinces, between 1 and 10, with the average being about 4 Provinces/Domain. So right there, that's @92 Provinces, we'll say. Each Province has 4 different types of Holdings that can be controlled and count as your political power/base: Law (courts, magistrates, troops), Guilds (craftsmen and trading), Temples (organized churches), and Source (magical nodes). Depending on the Rating of a Provence, it tells you not only how much power each of the 4 Holding types can go up to, but how many Regents can divide up the ratings in each category. Example: a Rating 4 Province (fairly average), can have a max of 4 Law, 4 Guild, and 4 Temple, Source being a separate, but still connected, rating. A Rating 4 Province also means that up to 2 Regents can split each particular type of Holding. So, 1 Regent could have 3 Law and a second Regent control 1 Law in a Province. So, overall, in just Anuire alone, there's over 350 different points of political control. To me, that seems like a healthy amount for a game.
Also, all the Holdings are already distributed in the campaign book, so someone starting as the Regent of a particular Domain would start with the listed Holdings, some of which are in neighboring Domains. There's multiple Guilds with Holdings all over and multiple Temples, even dedicated to the same God/Goddess.
And that's just in 1 nation. For simplicity's sake, I wouldn't think a game would stretch out into the other Nations; that would make things too unwieldy.
In a world where Kanye West exists, is a black billionaire playboy really that unthinkable?
Not at all. I liked Connor Mason's character very much in Timeless as the eccentric billionaire inventor.
But I think it gets murkier when you have established properties. People come at it with expectations about the characters. There's more to Tony Stark than just "billionaire playboy". He has a backstory, which comes with a certain set of baggage.
For example, I didn't like it when RDM's Battlestar gender-swapped Starbuck. Not because I have anything against inclusion (on the contrary, I think it's vital), but because I had this "Dirk Benedict" image of this character etched in my head and it created a weird cognitive dissonance. I would much rather them have reimagined Sheba or Athena, or promoted a new character.
I get that it's different in comics, since there are already so many variants of characters. And that there's some marketing value in making a "female 007" versus a new and original spy character. At the end of the day, I applaud having more diversity. I just sometimes wonder if there's maybe a better way to get there.
Just my opinion, but it's sort of a 'chicken vs. egg' problem. You need to have diverse characters in order to encourage and attract diverse creators to make diverse characters that are more representative of diversity.
Example: the two iconic Black comic characters are, arguably, Luke Cage and Black Panther. But, both were created by White (Jewish) creators; Archie Goodwin and Jack Kirby, respectively. And at the time (late 60's/early 70's), Luke Cage and Black Panther sound and act like stereotypes. But, they inspired a generation of Black creators (Ta-Nehesi Coates, Christopher Priest, Dwayne McDuffy) who not only went on to make the characters more authentic and redefine them in the modern age, but also would create groundbreaking new characters like Static, and that increased the diversity of comics overall, bringing in more minority creative talents that created characters like Ms. Marvel and more.
@arkandel Yes, but the Hobbits and The Shire were supposed to be idyllic presentations of the 'green and pleasant' England of of Tolkien's youth. Which is why the Scouring of the Shire is actually an important part of the story because it presents Tolkien's views on industrialization vs. agrarian life.
Like I said, Tolkien himself wrote that he intended the Orcs to represent ethnic groups like the Huns and the Mongols; brutal, savage, pillaging raiders. And I'm sure that this wasn't considered a racist viewpoint in post-WW 1 England. The 'fiendish Oriental Mastermind' trope of Fu Manchu wasn't considered to be racist back in those days, either. Neither were some of the views on races expressed by Conan, John Carter or Doc Savage in those series. It doesn't change the fact that all those presentations were based on institutionalized racism.
Was Tolkien (or Rohmer, Howard, Burroughs, or Dent) deliberately racist? Giving them the benefit of the doubt, no.
Did they spread institutionalized racist stereotypes, even unintentionally? Yes.
No spoilers for the Moon Knight finale. Just...
WOW.
A good WOW
And there's a mid-credits scene you CANNOT miss. Just keep watching. You'll thank me later.
@lotherio There's been a couple of comics adaptations of Wlid Cards, including 1 or 2 from Marvel before. I don't think it's going to be an 'official' part of the Marvel Universe with a universe number and all that. Sort of like how Star Wars is back at Marvel again without being an official universe.
I'd like to see a similar concept Year Zero game too, but I think it's the singular origin that sort of turns potential players away, in addition to the whole 'OC only' nature.