Best posts made by Seraphim73

I agree with a lot of what has been said before: enough plot to feel like there's always something to do/talk about without it feeling like there's no breathing room, save the ending of the world for never (because you'll just have to top it next week, and averting the apocalypse should never feel like something that's done every year or so), allow time for recovery and to find a new status quo after major upsets, and dangle plothooks for players rather than shoving plot down their throats (and as a player, grab hold of those plothooks with all of your might and try to hook others on them too).

@Sunny Totally in favor of this. If PrPs have a base writeup (to assure Staff that they aren't just a social tea party (again, using hyperbole on purpose)), points gained in them go into the "big pool of important points."

@Lotherio I do like the automatic gossip idea. You could totally do weighted points instead of two different pools, but then you're just lessening the issue (which honestly might be enough of a counterbalance).

@arkandel said in Make MSB great again!:

No, these are good questions. I don't know! I think it'll depend, it's hard to make concrete rules and try to match what anyone post against them.

The best way is to probably play it by ear.

So, like pornography?

@ghost It was so awesome in part because after the initial side-session talking to the Aztech plant's player, I didn't have to do anything. The team asked him to set demo charges, give the charges to the rest of them, and keep the detonators. The team asked him to hang out by the mage while she went Astral. It was just... awesome.

@faraday I've mentioned this before, but I like my descs to say something about the character rather than just describing them. I don't always manage this, but for say... a swashbuckler, I might use more purple prose (while trying not to go overboard, because that definitely gets old fast), but a by-the-book pilot might have more of a just-the-facts description. Word choice is big for me here.

I also have problems where the PB is never -quite- right for what I picture in my head... maybe the character has facial hair that the PB doesn't, or they don't have facial hair that the PB does, or maybe they have a nasty facial scar that the PB doesn't have (and my 'shopping skills aren't advanced enough to add).

@faraday said in Character Information: Wiki or Mu*?:

And yeah, I don't know who "Sean Teale" was at a glance either, but all it took was one photo on a wiki page and now the new guy on BSG is cemented in my brain as "that guy from Gifted". That is the power of wikis for me.

This is actually one of the major dangers (Major Danger salutes) of wikis for me. Because just because the new guy from BSG looks like "that guy from Gifted," does he have the same voice? The same accent? Some of the same personality quirks?

I've fallen into that trap myself when picking PBs at times, incorporating personality traits or quirks from some of the characters that actor has played--and I ended up disappointed with myself as I was playing Vin Diesel the Whitecloak, or Drew Boley (Diego Boneta's Rock of Ages character) the Space Rocker. I've noticed other people doing it too, and before PBs, it was a lot less common.

Coincidence.

In small sample sizes, things do not happen at the rates at which they should based on statistics. Maybe it's just because we notice them when they happen... but maybe they really do happen more often than they should based on statistics.

Channing Tatum: Modern face.
Jennifer Lawrence: Modern face.
Tom Hanks: Modern face (although did well in WW2 roles).
ScarJo: Modern face.
Tom Cruise: Modern face.
Rachel McAdams: Modern face.
Matt Damon: Modern face.
Kristen Stewart: Modern face.
Mark Wahlberg: Modern face.
Julie Andrews: Period face.
Daniel Day-Lewis: Period face.
Meryl Streep: Period face.
Tom Hardy: Can go either way, but gives good period face.
Emma Watson: Likewise, can go either way.

There feels like there is a strong (but not direct) correlation between Modern Face and American Face.

@the_generic_one Yeah.... no. This is an extremely privileged position to take.

While I'm all in favor of including -isms that make sense for the setting (usually a historical one... if it's a fantasy or sci-fi setting, why not arrange -isms that aren't likely to trouble people?), and playing them somewhat delicately to avoid making people upset... just expecting people to suck it up and RP things that may disturb them in real life every day is not a good way to keep people having fun on your game--or to keep them on your game at all.

I think there are ways to make the experience immersive without shoving people's noses in the crap they have to deal with RL too. Or, I don't know, do you think a lot of people RP urinary tract infections, or tooth abscesses, or paying taxes (sure, everyone RPs raising them, but how many RP paying them)? There are some things that are too painful (physically, socially, spiritually, whatever) to be required to be RPed.

I use help/detail more than I do the links to online help. I like having as much as possible in one window.

There are definitely some things on The Eighth Sea wiki that could benefit from being on the MUSH itself (role lists, for instance), and I would love to hear what your suggestions might be, but we should probably handle that discussion elsewhere (I'm good with a Suggestions thread for the game, or private-messages).

Note to self... Supernatural Plots are great for The Eighth Sea. I'm yoinking like a third of the ones on that list that we didn't already have planned.

To stick with the theme, how about some high stakes plotlines, courtesy of The Internet (Bryn Donovan in this case, who I just discovered through some other links):

http://www.bryndonovan.com/2015/08/03/50-ideas-for-high-stakes-plots/

Some of them are from movies, some of them are really generic, but many of them could be good RP hooks for characters.

Huh, I took the test a couple of times, because the first result that I got seemed wildly out-of-sorts for me (87% socializer, very little Achiever or Killer, when I know that I enjoy both of those roles). Apparently there is an array of questions for (at least) the first section. Which questions I got varied my results quite a lot.

Does this make me an Explorer because I wanted to test it, a Socializer because I wanted to get my place in the social structure right, a Killer because I wanted to make it do what I thought was right, or an Achiever because I wanted the "right" score?

I think that this might appeal to some subset of players, but I do have one caution: removing the ability to better your character removes a series of storylines from play entirely. You cannot play the rookie who becomes a pro. A solution, if you would like to keep XP out of it, is just allow characters to come on-grid with some of their points unspent, and then later on, spend them.

I played on an RP MUD years ago that (by the end) didn't actually have any combat system, combat characters had a single stat that represented how skilled they were at personal combat, and magic users had two stats (one for their brute strength and one for their finesse). If your number was higher, you were likely going to win (unless the other player pulled off an awesome trick in a pose). It worked, it was some of the most fun I've had in my entire MU*ing career... but it's difficult to get most people interested in.

@faraday said in Sci Fi/Opera Originality:

Which I think is another hurdle Original Sci-Fi games (and established ones too) have: focus. When the entire galaxy is your playground, herding the cats together becomes more of a challenge.

Agreed 100%. I would strongly suggest to anyone looking to create original-theme sci-fi that you come up with a way for quick and easy interaction. Whether it's wormhole drives that allow instantaneous space travel, 'casting into another body like in Altered Carbon, Waygates like in The Fifth World, the ability to join anyone anywhere in real-time VR, or... I don't know... something that allows anyone anywhere to RP with anyone else anywhere else any time.

@ghost said in Social Systems:

I agree though, a preexisting proclivity is reasonable. My examples weren't iron clad, but this is why Google, surveys, etc exist. It's to find those preexisting proclivities, because ad firms pay HUGE sums of money to find those proclivities to avoid trying to sell ice to polar bears.

To be fair, many polar bears could probably use some more ice these days.

On topic, I think that any social system that doesn't include modifiers, a simple yes/no, or something to take target preferences into account is a failed one. For all the reasons that you and @faraday mentioned.

As for the question about John McClane, I would say that he has a really high Willpower (he went walking around with glass-cut feet for 1/3 of a movie, after all), but that doesn't mean that he didn't also get a free (no-roll) pass from the theoretical GM to decide to "do something" about the terrorists crashing the party.

@Ghost

I'd love to be able to effectively lie ICly to any given player and not have it be treated like an OOC betrayal or cheating.
But even with dice, they'd know deception was rolled so...

Yeah, this is another issue of trust. When we trust other players, we can trust that when their character screws our character over, they aren't screwing us over. And yes, I'd like it too. But, being fair, I have gotten myself worked up about my character being lied too previously. Looking back, I have no idea why. But it's happened.

@faraday

You can't collaborate if you don't metagame to some extent.

I think there's a difference between collaborating and the metagaming being described by Ghost and @Arkandel. Collaborating is (obviously) working together, and the metagaming they're describing (and the sort that I abhor as well) is using OOC knowledge not to make the collaborative scene better, but to gain some advantage. Yes, in order to be a good RP partner, you have to remember that you're participating in an experience with other people, and sometimes can't "perfectly" play the character, because doing so would suck for those around you.

I don't think you're in the minority, I just think that Ghost and Arkandel and I have narrower definitions of metagaming than you do.

@surreality (it's always more complicated than that). I'd be happy to take a peek at whatever you've got -- I like seeing the systems other people come up with -- although it'll probably be a while before I get a chance to. RL is busy.

@lisse24 Minor thing, but there is also some inconsistency on whether you use "the game" or "your game" in questions.

@faraday I quite agree that the skill descriptions on The 100 were... not particularly right. I think we actually talked about it at one point while the game was active, and rewriting them was on the to-do list if we didn't close the game.

That being said, Resolve and Alertness are skills everyone should have at 3 in my mind, unless you want a character who is deficient in them. In fact, I think that they were set to 2 for everyone by default (but of course could be lowered from there). Dodge was the same way (ahh, FS3 2nd Edition, and The 100's perversion of it...). Now, for the rest of the skill descriptions... I agree with you. They weren't particularly good, because as you say, (almost) everyone has told a couple of lies here and there and been believed. To go along with the point that @The-Sands made, everything probably should have been shifted slightly so that 1 in Deception was "You told a lie once and it was believed" and the previous level was actually 0.

Now that I've totally ruined the spirit of teasing (sorry), I agree with you that games should plan for a default set of skills that everyone has and tell the players what they are and that they have them already. They should plan their points outlay so that everyone can get those, and still have enough points left over for a well-rounded character with an area or two of expertise. To do otherwise is to encourage min-maxing and ignoring the areas of weakness, especially if you're just waiting to pump some XP into them to get them to where they "should" be.

Like @Arkandel and @SG, I tend to be a powergamer (I prefer that description to Min-Maxer, but in my darkest hours when I'm being honest with myself, I'm a min-maxer at heart). However, I think that the difference between a powerful character and a (negative connotation) min-maxed character is actually not the 'max' part, but the 'min' part. If your character still has all the skills they "should" have (some Alertness, some Athletics unless they're a couch potato, some Resolve/Composure, maybe some social skills unless they're explicitly anti-social, whatever they learned in school, etc), and their BG and age justifies it, I don't have a problem with a character with a high skill or two. It's when every point on the sheet except for the bare minimum has been poured into being very good at one thing (usually combat, but sometimes social or medical)... that's when I start to have a problem with the character.

@sockmonkey said in Game Design: Avoiding Min-Maxing:

I suppose I am conceptualizing a super broad design that is low on complex systems (physical combat, social combat, etc) that ends up being much more freeform:
'Hey, your character is good at this stuff, your character kind of sucks at this stuff. With that in mind, here's the world: role play.'

My suggestion for this is super-broad skills (like Savage Worlds). If there are like... 5-6 skills (maybe Athletics, Alertness, Technical, Social, Ranged, Melee (or even just Combat)) and no one can be great at everything? That prevents some min-maxing (especially if you don't get points back for 'lowering' skills), because if you want to be good at any of the stuff in that category, you have to be good at the category, and it (hopefully) encourages players to decide for themselves what part of that category their character is good at. Do they always use a sword even though the system says they're just as good with a lance, axe, mace, or martial arts? That's character-driven!

The more of a system there is, the more emphasis there will be on the system.

@surreality Ares has that too. You can drop a skill to Unskilled from Everyman. You just don't get points back for it, which I think is great.

@sockmonkey said in Game Design: Avoiding Min-Maxing:

Should there be +census for attribute and skills so players get a sense of what the actually playerbase spread is?

This is one of my favorite things about Ares. You can see what other characters have for all Action Skills, and for any Background Skills that at least 3 characters already have. It's awesome (for Staff too, making sure that they're being consistent in what they allow onto the grid.

@ganymede said in Game Design: Avoiding Min-Maxing:

That is, if you have Strength 2 and Melee 1, your total pool is 3 of a possible 10 dice, which is the same if you had Strength 1 and Melee 2.

This is what I would do differently if I did skill descriptions again for a game (besides putting in Everyman ratings appropriately). The numbers wouldn't be your skill rating, the numbers would be your dice pool. Because as you say, someone with 5 Reflexes and 1 Sword is just as skilled as someone with 1 Reflexes and 5 Sword.

The things that I look at in particular for a TT system that I'm looking at for inspiration/transition to a MU*:

1. As @Lithium said, can this be run without a GM present? Seventh Sea 2nd Edition and FFG Star Wars are hard in that way, because there are so many effects to play with. Savage Worlds' Bennies are hard too. Shadowrun is hard too, because most action takes place on Runs which either require plots-in-a-box or a GM. Any game with an integral crafting system is hard for this too, because crafting -usually- takes Staff input (crafting is the easiest of these to overcome with a little code, of course).
2. How does this work with 24 hour, long-term play? In other words, how does it do with dinosaurs? If there's no cap built in, how am I going to institute something that will limit the effects of dinos? Is the game/setting built for interesting downtime, or is that usually just handwaved? Most RP will happen during downtime, and if it isn't compelling, there won't be RP.
3. How will new characters still be valuable to older characters? This is at its worst with level-based systems, because a Level 15 character doesn't really need a Level 4 character for anything, while a 100 XP WoD beatstick may still need a 0 XP WoD techie for something.
4. ... that's what I've got for now. There's lots more, but that's what I thought up off the top of my head.