Posts made by Seraphim73

@magee101 Necrons (and Tau) are both much, much newer. I would even call either of them "classic" even if they've been around for 5 editions (and 4 respectively, I believe).

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

I love the idea of the scenes code.

I think it should be implemented alongside a real grid, not instead of.

Yup! I love it too. And that's actually exactly what we tried to do on The Eighth Sea. We had about 30ish rooms (by the end) on the grid, but about 1/2 of them had pre-desced scene rooms that were ICly in that location that were listed below the room desc. Players were (of course) free to create their own scene rooms as well.

@faraday Yuuuuup. Totally agree. It's definitely a culture/people problem. Emblazoning "Open Scene" on open scenes is about as much as you can do from a tools perspective to help out.

@lithium Beastmen, Ratlings, Ogryns, Slann, Jokaero, Enslavers, Vampires, Ambull, and a dozen less sentient (yes, I did have my Rogue Trader book just outside of arm's reach).

I don't have huge issues over how big a grid is so long as every room in the grid has 1+ RP hooks and a specific purpose. Like, don't give me 3 "city street" rooms in a row, that doesn't help RP any--in my mind, the only purpose for that is if you have wandering mobs to fight and need room for them to wander in. But if you have 3 city street rooms to indicate a descent from a high-class neighborhood into a slum, I think that's useful, especially if each one has a particular hook to it that can encourage spontaneous RP.

I'm not quite as gung-ho about going all scenes-code as @faraday, for precisely the reason that @bored brought up: for some players, if you can't just walk into the room, and have to "teleport" in, it feels more private, and there's a barrier to entry. I think that our hobby would be better off with more scene code if we could get past this, but I don't know how to get past it. Heck, I ran T8S and I felt some of that barrier to entry myself.

I also think that there's a value in having rooms with set descriptions--we actually did this with scene code on T8S, about half of the "grid" wasn't actually attached, but could be used as a scene-room with a ready-built desc. Because there are already too few players interested in starting scenes in interesting ways, I don't want to require them to come up with a room desc every time also.

That being said, having the scenes code on-hand is freaking awesome, for when you want to create your own room for the RP (like @faraday said, we don't have to pay for sets except in the creative juice to write the desc), or for when you want to be able to go back to a location and have the room desc saved (mail it to Staff, they can plop it into an unconnected room and viola, you can go back there any time with the scene-code and not have to remember the room desc).

To get back to the original question though, I like the "neighborhood" solution put forward by @Runescryer and others, one big room to describe the general feel of the area, and then smaller rooms where most of the RP will happen (that being said, I still think there should be a specific hook or two in the neighborhood room). But please, please, please put RP hooks in all of the room descs. Not just "it's a tavern, there's a pool table, a dart board, some tables and chairs, and a bar along one wall," but "it's a tavern, the bar has nicks and chips out of it, most of the pool cues have epoxied-over breaks in them, the wall around the dart board are almost as shredded as the board itself, and the tables and chairs look like they came from about a dozen different garage sales" (hey look, there are lots of bar fights here).

@magee101 I was actually more concerned about the "feel" of living in the 40K world, rather than actual lethality levels. Because it is really, really, really not a good place to live, and Imperials in particular are highly conditioned to ignore this via massive doses of propaganda which twists their worldview pretty spectacularly.

@mr-johnson Glad to hear there's good progress, sounds like you've got a good, reasonable list of to-dos. I think a couple of the things that you're trying to do might be easier than you expect.

For fast travel, for instance, I don't think you need to fully disable the system, just take everything but the two ships and one planet off the system. Alternatively, just not list any locations as fast travel locations (I believe that it's just a Boolean setting in the room itself.

While you're looking at gear, check out the Deathhammer pistol (yes, this is a personal pet peeve of mine). It's a better "heavy blaster pistol" that is also cheaper and easier to get.

There's a list of d20flags that are applied to every new character at start--you can just add force_lightning_ok to this list.

If you need some help with anything -- well, I'm not a coder, but I can help with room descs and the like. And I've got a crapton of experience with the Saga Edition rules set.

I would definitely be interested. But I have to wonder how many players would really get into the "we're cannonfodder and we're totally okay with that because we've been indoctrinated as such for generations upon generations" feel of the 40K universe.

Beautiful, beautiful bell curves. I want high skills to succeed most of the time, with only a tiny chance of failure. I want really low skills to fail most of the time, with a small (but not tiny) chance of succeeding.

I'm not usually a superhero fan, but a late-30s to 40s OC-only game? That I might play. I mean, it's Indiana Jones + WW2... how can you go wrong? (yes, I'm enough of a history nerd that the necessary research would be fun for me and I understand that isn't for everyone).

My last three were word-of-mouth (casual invite during discussion of the game), word-of-mouth (same), and I Created It.

I have, however, discovered my next two games on MSB (KotOR-era Saga Edition and WoT), they're just not open yet.

@lotherio If I might suggest: a "suggested reading" section on the front page. Link it to the most important 4-6 pages, including your chargen help page, a historical overview, and pages on the most important cultural phenomena.

+1 Finesse.

But you could also go with just straight up "Weaving."

On a gathering storm comes a tall handsome man in a dusty black coat. There's a gleam in his eyes that tells you that he'll rekindle all the dreams it took you a lifetime to destroy. Those dark eyes'll reach deep into the hole, heal your shrinking soul, but there won't be a single thing that you can do.

His handsome features are so striking that you'll see him in your nightmares, you'll see him in your dreams. Moving with a silent step, he'll appear out of nowhere, but you know that he ain't what he seems.

He's a god, he's a man, he's a ghost, he's a guru. But hidden in his coat is a red right hand.

@arkandel I think that the player of any character who could threaten the vision that Staff has for the game should get some version of The Talk, whether it's recognized in chargen or after. If you're planning a long-term war game, you can't have someone wipe out the enemy in a single strike. If you're planning a hardscrabble survival game, you can't have someone creating a utopia in the wilderness. If you're planning a politically-charged CvC game, you can't have a someone whose first choice of actions is to murder their opponent.

This doesn't mean that the characters can't exist--so long as the players recognize that they will never succeed in their goal (okay, the last one still needs to be hit in the nose with a newspaper and told that that's not what the game is about).

I have no problem with PC action changing the story Staff originally came up with (they should, or else you're just playing on a train game), but they shouldn't change the theme Staff originally came up with, unless Staff is all behind it. I feel strongly that Staff gets to decide the type of game they want to run and to take every (ethical) action they want to in order to run that sort of game. After all, they're the ones who created the game. (Generic) You want to play on a different type of game? Find that game or make it. I think that I understand what @Apos is saying, and think that it's important to make it clear as Staff that (generic) you are saying "your idea/character is not welcome here for reason X" rather than "you are not welcome here."

I also totally agree with what @Pyrephox said--discuss the situation OOCly to avoid the player feeling like they're picked on when their IC actions fail repeatedly.

@cupcake said in What Is Missing For You?:

Lovecraft in the Roaring 20's
World War 1 such and such

Yeah, talk dirty to me. Either of those would totally be my thing. Almost as much as anything set in the 40s would be. My dream-game is set in the '40s.

@kestrel said in Heroic Sacrifice:

(Side note, is anyone else ultra excited for Season 5 airing tonight?)

Actually, surprisingly, I am. The ending of Season 3 (and Season 3 in general) kind of lost me, but I watched Season 4... and was pleasantly surprised.

On another side, I agree with you on the feel of the MUSH--there was certainly interpersonal conflict, and that was all well and good, but in general there was definitely a kumbaya feel. It would have been hard to go full Echo or Murphy, and I salute you for taking Cass as far in that direction as you did.

@apos said in Heroic Sacrifice:

Way, way, way more people are okay with their characters dying in a cool way than they are ever okay with being made to look like an idiot, or just being wrong about something. It isn't even close.

I upvoted already, but I just wanted to reinforce this. Yuuuuuuuuup.

@coin said in Heroic Sacrifice:

I would aim for a middle ground. Pick a number of "areas" a character can be skilled at...

I like it. I was pretty much going for bare-bones story-driven, nearly stat-less (as @faraday spotted when she compared it to story-telling on Storium), but your suggestions would certainly turn it into more of a game system than a simple economy.

I think I would skip the subgroups though, just stick with 4-6 areas of expertise and the modifiers.

I like the modifier working for both spending and earning Karma.

I'm not sure I would put the "tax" on losing a lot, because it's introducing more game mechanics into what was intended to be a very, very simple system, but I do like the cooldown for gaining Karma in a particular way.

I would say that ties are just that... ties. Both sides lose their Karma. Want to win? Spend more Karma. Want more Karma? Take an intermediate failure (nasty scar, lose a hand, split your pants wide open, whatever) to gain more Karma to spend.

Perhaps you can spend X time shifting a point from one to another if you would like (probably something like a month or two) as a simpler way to allow for some "character growth."

@arkandel said in Heroic Sacrifice:

When your character is lost for any reason there are two things you mainly lose:

I would say that there are three:

1. Mechanical Progress.
2. Identity.
3. Social position and IC relationships. Your new character does not have the secret to the skeletons in the Duke's closet, nor did they grow up with the Countess. ...and @faraday covered this point by rolling it into Identity, although I would actually say it's a third category entirely, due to what @tat said.

I know I give @faraday a ton of props for Ares around here, but here's another one: with FS3 and web chargen, creating a new character is really fast and easy (assuming that your Staffers don't nitpick BGs too much, or you don't go too in-depth with the BG for your new character).

@bobotron said in What Is Missing For You?:

@mr-johnson
Corrolary to this: Star Wars that is a single faction. Everyone is Rebels. Everyone is Empire. Everyone is in the Bounty Hunter Guild. Something that makes people WORK WITH EACH OTHER.

Totally agree on this (despite knowing that it will cut out some players entirely who only want to play Indies/Rebels/Empire/Jedi/Sith/Whatever). Fires of Hope tried to do this, but wasn't tightly-controlled enough in Chargen.

@ganymede said in What Is Missing For You?:

For example, when you do a melee attack, the attacker basically rolls Attribute + Weapon Skill, and that result is checked against the target's Attribute + Dodge Skill. For a fire spell, that could be adjusted to Attribute + Fire Skill against the target's Attribute + Resistance Skill. Basically, instead of "+combat/attack <target>" against a target, you do "+combat/fire <target>". Basically.

You don't even have to make this a different command. All you have to do is have a Fireball weapon--each weapon is already set up to use a particular skill. You might need a little tweaking for the default defenses, but it shouldn't be -that- hard. But yes, you could absolutely create a "combat/spell <target>" system that laid alongside weapons in combat. Then your weapons list wouldn't be as long (although you'd have a whole other list).

@kestrel said in Heroic Sacrifice:

@arkandel said in Heroic Sacrifice:

Start with rewarding failure. Not many games do this; in fact nearly none do.
I quite like the idea that failure would reward you (literally experience, or something similar), but success would cost you. Winning would have to be earned, ideally through a consecutive series of sacrifices made not just by you, but by other players throughout the story.

What about a game with only a single stat: Karma. In order to gain Karma, you have to take losses--personal, professional, physical, whatever. In order to "buy" successes (probably just in the metaplot/GMed scenes, not in day-to-day RP), you have to spend Karma.

The group can spend collective Karma, so if one person has been getting their butt kicked for months on the sparring field, they can show some awesome trick that they've learned and drop in 20 Karma, and another person can call in the (NPC) ally they made by losing a political election gracefully and drop in 15 Karma, and another person can lose a hand in the fight (gaining 50 Karma at a whack) but hold on just long enough to get the killshot by dropping in that 50 karma. If they'd spent less than 85 Karma, they couldn't have beaten the villain (but they would have gotten Karma for losing). Maybe they need 185, and so a fourth character decides to pay the ultimate sacrifice and die, gaining 100 Karma on the spot, and tackling the villain into a lava flow after the newly handless character knocked them off balance. Characters 1 and 2 were there and survived unscathed, gaining some notoriety, but characters 3 and 4 are trumpeted as the true heroes, who gave blood and life for the cause.

Clearly, Karma gains and losses would have to be measured very carefully--you don't want a guy getting insulted and taking it for 6 months and then taking out the Big Bad with an amazing sword maneuver. I would also suggest that the same kind of loss loses its potency over time. If you constantly get your butt handed to you in duels, it stops stinging after a while and people just expect it of you. Maybe the first 2-3 losses are worth 5 Karma apiece, but the next 2-3 are only work 3, and the next 2-3 are only worth 1, and after that, everyone just expects your character to lose any duel they're in.

In a less extreme system, you can always have a portion of earned XP carry over to the next character someone creates. Heck, you could even have the percentage of XP that carries over go up based on how supreme the sacrifice is (although this gets into issues of appearance of favoritism).

I also think that @faraday's point about shorter-term games is a good one. I've always wondered how a game specifically and explicitly designed to run for 6 months (or a year, or whatever) RL would do. I would -hope- that as the end of the game's lifespan neared, people would be more willing to make the ultimate sacrifice.

I'm gonna do it... it depends.

I think it depends on the game you want to run (and consequently, play). I think that one of the first game design decisions that a game set in a canon universe has to make is: how closely are we going to cleave to canon. Everything flows from that decision.

If you decide to cleave tight to canon and treat it like an alternate timeline where it's trying to "repair" itself back to the story everyone knows (but players can make a difference in how things happen, for instance), then you're going to want FCs who maintain thematic integrity (you can have OCs in The Avengers, but it's always going to have Cap and Iron Man and whoever you define as integral in it), who stick with their canon relationships, and who might need soft resets with new players to get back closer to their "canon situation."

If you decide that you're just picking a starting point and whatever happens happens after that? Then I think you can let the canon Avengers retire or join the Justice League or whatever, you can let them find true love wherever they like (so long as they continue to follow the characterization approved by Staff, as @Coin mentioned), and there's no need for resets unless someone does something totally whacky (in which case I figure it's a retcon)--and all resets should be explained ICly, as @faraday mentioned.

There are a couple of points that I think should be handled the same no matter the game type, however. First, I believe that unless someone is specifically called out as The Best at something, then OCs should be able to match them. If, however, they are called out as The Best, I think that OCs should have to be at least one step below them at all times. Second, unless you're on a comic book game, I think that FCs should be NPC quest givers only. They shouldn't be played (except by Staff as necessary to provide plot hooks to the PCs). Because while Han Solo hanging out in a bar chatting with people makes sense, Rand al'Thor doing it casually, or Lexa kom Trikru, or Commander Adama, or whomever... just doesn't feel right to me.

@auspice said in Hello MSBites! Grade your administrators.:

I also think it may be time to officially made the Ad thread ads only. No discussion whatsoever. Want to discuss a game? Put up a Hog Pit thread (for the down'n'dirty) or a Constructive thread (for the random chatter). Keep the ad thread for details (the ad, any updates such as big events, opening of new spheres or OCs etc) only.
How's that sound?

Eh. I kind of like having general-overview sort of comments about the game from others. I also think that it's valuable to have Staff answer some questions about the game there in the ad thread (system, CvC or CvE focus, Can I Have A Gold, etc). I agree that it's really easy for them to get derailed, and it may be more effort moderating them than it's worth, but I think it's definitely worth something.