Posts made by Runescryer

@apu As I understand, you're playing a human with the soul of a monster; as in Dragon, Kraken, Griffon, and so on. You have a Hunger to fulfill, like a Dragon hoarding riches. So, it's sort of psychic or mystical vampirism, I guess?

@lithium said in What Do You Want In A New Game (3-options)?:

See I like #3 using SPELLJAMMER!

Especially since 5e now has rules for it.

I'd join in a Spelljammer game in half a heartbeat. I heard that WotC finally dropped a few Spelljammer hooks for 5e, like stats for the neogi, but are they committing to a full conversion? Like 'official' official? Either way, I'd be in. A 'locked' crystal sphere like the Astromundi Cluster would probably be a good ballance of space-travel freedom and 'area concentration' for RP.

@darc, @magee101 Thanks, I just wasn't sure. I loved the rules update and consolidation of nWoD, but disliked the setting changes, especially to Werewolf and Mage. But, I do wish you guys luck and hope it goes well.

@mysticalpixel Oh, it can be a wonderful setting for a game. The initial description has a good grasp of lot of the dichotomy of The City.

So, by 1e nWoD, it's still the newer setting, yes? Vampire: Requiem, Werewolf: Forsaken, Mage: Awakening, etc.?

There's advantages of having 'This Work' over 'Based On'

1. Basic familiarity. If you say, for example, you're building a Middle Earth game set 50 years before 'The Hobbit', fans both hardcore and casual have a general idea of what to expect: The One Ring hasn't been found, Gondor and Arnor are separate nations, the Dwarves have fled Lonley Mountain, etc. Also, they can use tons of online resources to familiarize themselves with more specifics. You can slide into the game easier.

If, on the other hand, you say your game is 'inspired by Middle Earth, about 50 years before The Hobbit', things get murky and assimilation isn't as quick. A prospective player needs to find out what's the same, what's different. Is there one Elven culture or has it been split into multiples? Are magic users possible or are the wizards demi-gods? Are the Harradrim, if they exist, good, evil, or neutral? Is there a single, all powerful artifact to quest for? It can make for a longer period of acclimatization.

2. Being 'This Work' rather than 'Inspired By' means that, for better or worse, FC's that players can relate their characters to. I don't mean directly have ties to, but more 'Okay, this is a Buffy TVS game, and there's a Buffy, so there's this girl running around staking vampires; how does my character, who's an independent monster hunter, feel about/relate to that?' FC's also tie into the concept of 'points of reference' that make acclimatization easier.

3. The pastiche/fan-fic effect. Many creative writers first express their creativity by writing in established universes. This isn't something to look down on or belittle, it just is. It's also not a comment on quality of writing, either. I find it's the same with 'This Work' MU's; people trying to express their creativity by working in an established universe. It helps in that you don't have to do any world-building; just create a character to plug in and go. Some people move beyond that, some people don't; either way, again, it goes to having direct points of references to work with.

4. The 'What If?' Somewhat related to point 3, especially common in comic book games. It's a structured way of examining new aspects to a familiar character. What if Superman and Captain America actually co-existed in the same universe? Would Superman have grown up hearing about the heroics of Captain America and idolized him? How would Captain America react to meeting this living god that can shatter the world, but instead fights for the same values because he was an inspiration to Superman? How would you handle epic stories like 'The Dark Phoenix Saga' or 'Crisis on Infinite Earths' if you had been one of the major characters? Just having universes mix or playing in a single universe can cause players to examine other options, seek out 'better ways' than how things were resolved 'in canon'.

Anyways, just my .02

@kay Washington looks...different. whispers Did it get a peninsula job?

@kay Possibly. I'm not a coder, so I'm not solid on the technical names. I just remember it was a big thing around the turn of the millennium for MU's to have public rooms, like a restaurant, where you'd +join a specific table and it would act like a sub-room. You'd still be listed in the room on a +where, but characters not at your table wouldn't be able to hear the conversation.

This is going on almost 20 years ago, so my memory may not be exact. But, it seemed like every game I encountered back then used that design for public meeting rooms. Then, the RP Room design phase hit and it disappeared.

All this mean is: damn, I'm old....

@faraday Yeah, like you said, everything comes and goes in cycles. At somepoint, there'll be a game with the nested +view structure resurrected for private spaces in a public room.

@faraday said in Big city grids - likes and dislikes:

I like the idea of changing descs but I'm waaaaaay too lazy to write different versions of the same room desc.

I can't remember which game, but they had an RP room where you could store frequently used room descs and re-use them. So, if you wanted to use a 'Pop's Dinner' as a gathering spot for social RP, instead of building it as a room or +view on the grid, you go to the RP Room and load up the desc. Descs could also be PC generated for use by everyone.

Seattle but not Seattle

One of the benefits of using the PNW setting are all the nearby forests where cryptids and monsters can be dwelling. Along with hidden mystic caves of mystery in the mountains. Adds to the atmosphere and possibilities.

Now, just tossing this idea out there, but if you're wanting to go with a PNW setting and the Mutants & Masterminds system, you might want to take a look at the Emerald City setting, which is the 'official' setting for 3rd Edition. It has a lot of what you're looking for, including a 'shared' power origin for players to use if they want, 'The Silver Storm' event. Like I said, just a thought.

@kay Autologgers are used in general, not specifically for logging activity requirements. They're just extra useful on games with activity requirements Really, it all depends on how much/many logs you want to have for the game. Manual entry of RP logs can lead to some delays and backups; if that's no big deal, then it's no big deal. Logs for an OC game do help establish the kinds of characters that are being played beyond the basic sheet or wiki page info, though. It's a system that can be useful or ignored, really. All that's guaranteed is that there will be a log of any scene that uses an autologger up on a wiki page or other database for other players to look at.

@kay I'm not a coder, either

And while I do like autologgers, IMO they're most useful if a game has an activity requirement. Since this is an OC game you're proposing, though, activity requirements probably won't be a thing.

@kay Maybe a +scene script that turns of the room's ambient noise feature and starts up an autologger?

@kay It's a great idea. Maybe if there was a way to turn the ambient 'noise' off when a scene is running to cut down on the updates and spare the log?

@bobotron Yup. It's up to the Staff to decide if it's worth it or not. Personally, I think that it is worth it, YMMV.

@the-sands Any cgen for a point-buy system like Champions or M&M is going to take extra work for both the player and staff; not only does the concept and background have to fit the game, but the powers need to be built and checked over to make sure that the build won't break the game. Having pre-made templates and power sets really helps speed things along, and are very useful to new players. Fortunately, both game systems have numerous books that contain such builds and power templates; I would just take a while to document them in the game/wiki for players to use.

@lithium said in Best Superhero System for a Mush?:

@the-sands said in Best Superhero System for a Mush?:

Problem B can be handled by a GM with a firm hand (I don't care that the math works, no you may not do that) but that is somewhat problematic for a MU*. Problem A is even harder to resolve. Still, I dearly love the system.

This part is only problematic for a MU* when GM/Staff don't do it /enough/ or consistently.

Very much this

@thatguythere Yeah, no argument that DC Universe had a LOT of issues. It could have used a couple more months of playtesting, at least. But, it came at the terminal stage of WEG, so I don't suppose I blame them for not doing enough pre-release work. It's also possible that WEG wanted to do more testing, but Yeti just said 'Eh, we've already sunk our money in here. Release it and see what we can get back.'

@thatguythere Champions and M&M deal with Superspeed fairly well. They describe/code the superspeed 'hundreds of attacks' as Autofire (Champions) or Multi-Attack (M&M). So, it's only 1 roll needed. Also, with the generally lower strength of speedsters, it's really only effective against minions/henchmen/agent type NPC's, which is in keeping with comics; Flash clears the field of the henchman hordes while the big guns of the Justice League take on the Big Bad Boss.

@wizz

If it was a one-off occurance, then yes, i could chalk it up to 'immature tool'. But, it's happened 2 or 3 more times to me in supers games. And yes, I have considered the 'it's not them, it's you' possibility, but others that have been in those scenes assured me, without prompting, that it was indeed 'them'. Since the addition of 'Ratings' fields in character +fingers on many games, I've been able to avoid more of those situations by checking first before accepting or inviting someone to RP.

This isn't to wrongfun anyone; just because I'm not a fan of playing gun-toting vigilantes doesn't mean nobody should be. But, I have noticed that the 'permanent solution' vigilantes tend to attract a more hyper-aggressive kind of player; the kind that's completely willing to escalate things to a point where it makes a scene, or even a game, untenable. My most recent run in between my four color character and an anti-hero had the anti-hero threatening to hunt down and kill everyone that my character cared about unless I stepped aside and let him execute the criminals we'd just caught. Where am I supposed to go with that? Legally, I would have been justified in killing the character (following PK consent guidelines), with a claim of affirmative self-defense; he certainly had the capability to make good on his threat since he had guns that were able to take down large robots. And my character certainly had the power to do so. And the player themselves was pretty much goading me into trying to stop him, like they wanted this huge grudge to RP off of and go all Cape Fear on my character. The player wanted to poke the bear because they knew there would be no real consequences to their action; damned if I do, damned if I don't, damned because of player consent policy (which I do agree with).

So, give the heroes a place to be heroic in, give the vigilantes a place for them to do their thing in. Everyone's happy.