Posts made by Seraphim73

@mr-johnson KotOR (the MUSH) did a very similar thing with levels. People could start at 1, 3, 5, or 8. Each one required a little more as far as BG and activity. Most people apped in at 5 or 8. There were lots of people who apped in at 8, and then just used their sheets as sticks, not worrying about requirements (which was our fault as Staff for not enforcing the requirements).

I would also say that 4 alts is probably significantly more than is necessary, unless the game is very spread out. I mean, there are 3 groups max, right? Republic/Jedi, Mandalorians, and Indies. So at most, you would need 1 per group in most cases (barring treating Republic/Jedi seprately, which I would caution against, because in my opinion you want them as unified as possible to prevent splitting the playerbase even further).

I think a lot of your ideas sound great. I particularly like the ideas of not restricting Fast Travel and of keeping Feature Characters to NPC-only. A slow divide from canon is a great idea as well--the slower the better, in my opinion, since you want the world to still be relatively recognizable to newcomers.

I have a few suggestions based on my own experiences on Saga Edition games and on the old KotOR game:

• Start your characters at level 3-4 or at level 7-8, but start them all at the same level. I would suggest 3-4, but if you want Knight-level characters, it'll have to be 7-8. If you have a varied set of starting levels, people will pick the highest one most of the time, even if they're not interested in any requirements you set (you could also have a sliding starting level, where it went up somewhat as the playerbase leveled)
• Cap the levels. Probably around 13 if you start at 3-4, and around 15 if you start at 7-8. The higher level you get, the crazier and more complicated things get.
• Find the sweet spot between permissiveness and theme strictness. If you're too strict, you lose players, if you're too permissive, you lose any sense of theme.
• In keeping with the last point, consequences. Actions should have consequences (which it sounds like you're totally on board with). But both positive and negative consequences are important.
• Have some shinies for players to chase beyond rank and credits. Medals are good for people in the military, but something along the lines of reputations that are spread by Staff and work with NPCs can be nice, as can recognized areas of expertise (Go to Grognar for grenades!).
• I would strongly suggest focusing on one military sphere (Republic, Mandalorians, or soon-to-be-Sith) and Indies. And I only add Indies because there will definitely be people who want to play Indies, and won't play if they can't. I suggest this because we discovered on the old KotOR that players got way too caught up in the CvC aspect of things, even if they weren't directly interacting.
• Tie the Indy characters you have directly to that sphere. Only allow Indy characters with explicit connections to the Republic, or the Mandalorians, or whatever. Then they can be tied into the war, and will have more to get involved in than chasing credits.
• Focus on a single sector of space at the largest. You can have scenes on Coruscant and Tattooine and wherever as needed, but keep them off-grid, with the focus on a single sector (plus a military ship?) so that you can keep your playerbase concentrated.

Just my suggestions, take them or leave them, of course.

@lithium said in Star Wars?:

An abundance of plot for high level people, and nothing for low level people.

DEFINITELY something to watch for. Availability of plots between level 4-8, 8-12, and 12+ should be split based on population in each of those zones.

@bored said in Star Wars?:

Re: Saga, I think the solution is (and this is true of d20 on MUs in general) pick some level ranges and stick to them.

I'm a fan of PCs running from 4-13, which means that you just need two splits for plots most of the time: 4-8, and 8+.

@tempest Usually, I've actually complained that Force Users are too powerful, not too weak. There's an easy fix to them (and to other issues like Pilots being a little too dodgy too): Skill Focus bonus = 1/2 level up to a max of +5.

@templari said in Star Wars?:

Never understood all the SAGA hatred.

I think that Saga Edition is actually a really great Star Wars system... for tabletop. But I don't think that any level-based system is great for a MU*, because ever-increasing hitpoints, attack bonuses, and defense mods tend to make it utterly useless to have a lower-level character along (unless they have some great teamwork trick).

@mr-johnson said in Star Wars?:

Well I've just been graciously donated an entire code base for the game

I'm curious whether it's the GoD/DoD codebase with their homebrew additions, or if it's the original Dahan code. If the former, you definitely will want to get someone in to pick out the additions before opening the game up to the public, some of them were dangerously unbalanced (and many of them weren't even written in appropriate Saga Edition language).

@faraday Oh yeah, any large-scale CvC component puts FS3 out of mind for me, definitely. And I might be allowing my FS3 familiarity to get the better of me, but I don't consider tweaking weapon stats and stances as much more than tweaking.

But again, I recognize that I'm not the average user, and that adding magic into FS3 in general is a significant modification of what you intended it to be used for. It's also just one of those "pet projects" that I kind of want to see if I can make work--my last attempt didn't turn out so well.

@faraday said in Star Wars?:

@mr-johnson Well, hope you don’t mind your Jedi being wusses and your Stormtroopers mowing people down with full auto blaster fire and everyone complaining about the unfair power balance and slow XP progression. Good luck.

I would actually LOVE another shot at trying to make Star Wars work under FS3. There's definitely some hurdles to get over, but I think it could work. Jedi defenses are really the major thing here, plus balancing lightsaber melee vs autofire. I think that -except- for Jedi, FS3 would be pretty much ideal for Star Wars. With Jedi, it just takes some tweaking. Perhaps some very strong, very hard tweaking.

My initial suggestions would be setting blasters with very high recoil mods to discourage full auto, setting lightsabers and vibroblades as really high lethality mods, and using stances with massive boosts to defense (+3-5, probably) and no penalty to offense to represent Block/Deflect (and maybe some other mods for various lightsaber forms). Other Force Powers would be weapons or non-attack things done during "combat/pass" actions.

Sidenote: I'm actually against WEG D6 because with large amounts of XP (which is -going- to happen on a MUSH, all it takes is time) Jedi are just obscene. Like, Tartatovsky-Clone Wars-level obscene. And I totally understand that Saga Edition has pretty much run its course within the MU* community.

Ares is doable for Star Wars, but not ideal. Blaster deflection/lightsaber block would probably need to be coded in (or additional stances added for lightsaber users).

Most of the Saga games that there have been (KotOR, Dark Times, GoD, DoD (I think), FoH, and others) have been using Dahan's codebase, which he seems quite happy to pass around and install for folks. I know that GoD had a bunch of pretty unbalanced homebrew additions, I assume that DoD followed up on this. Something you might want to look out for.

@cupcake said in Mutant Genesis (X-Men):

@Seraphim73 that was you?! THAT IS SO WIERD.

Yuuuuuuup.

And yes, very odd. Such a freakin' small world.

@arkandel said in Spotlight.:

It's pretty common in games to see exactly what you described, isn't it? The High Lady who's also hangin' out with the peeps at the pier, the billionaire philanthropist who sits at a bar to have a beer with the riffraff, the nobleman who's a great swordsman... these tropes are far from exceptions, they are very often the rule.

I don't have a problem with the nobleman who's a great swordsman, because the noble would actually have more access to both tutors and free time for training (assuming the noble is an "idle" noble, not a head of house).

But I totally agree that most nobles shouldn't have connections to riff-raff, or only to a few selected members of the riff-raff. I also agree that the noble shouldn't be as good at herding sheep as the shepherd, or as good at building a house as the carpenter, etc. To me, it's about opportunity and respectability -- a noble could be a perfectly good floral arranger, if arranging flowers is appropriate in your setting. But they probably aren't going to be awesome at being a butcher or a cooper -- unless that's appropriate in your setting.

The next step of this, of course, is that if you plan to have PC commoners, you should absolutely have these "inappropriate" noble skills be important to plot/mechanics.

@faraday said in Spotlight.:

want to get involved in more, talk to the game staff. Be proactive.

+100. I feel like this applies to everyone, not just support characters. If you want to be involved, talk to Staff. Look for plot hooks. Do something.

@faraday said in Spotlight.:

or even really Wedge most of the time.

Bite your tongue. Wedge is The Pilot. He's the only one with two Death Stars on the side of his X-Wing. Granted, I'm odd (definitely one of the exceptions you mentioned), don't like to play SuperSpecials, and most of Wedge's awesome is in Legends, but I would play Wedge before Luke any day. I just had to say that Wedge is freaking awesome.

@thatguythere said in Spotlight.:

To me I didn't see the pilots on the trench run as the best of the best I saw it as these are the folks we have on hand.

Totally agree that they weren't the best around, they were every single pilot available (they even had a non-junker frontline fighter available for the guy who had never flown outside an atmosphere before). But that doesn't mean they weren't special (assuming that it's a MU* scene where LukePlayer just happens to be the one who makes the shot and isn't pre-ordained to make the shot). Most MU* Events aren't the best-suited, they're whoever could log in at the right time.

@enoch Had fun in my couple of scenes, still plan to play some more. Just looking for some hooks into the actual RP... and I need actual time to play in order to get those hooks.

Bwahahaha. I picked up Colossus and chatted with @Cupcake about relationship-fu without knowing it was her at all.

I really wish I had more time to play the big Russian.

@zombiegenesis said in What's missing in MUSHdom?:

For me one of the great things about 5E is how easy it is to level up.

Yeah, just different play-styles. I want some fiddly bits to make it feel like my character's an individual, you and Arkandel prefer smooth leveling up (I think). No problems.

@arkandel said in What's missing in MUSHdom?:

They did a hell of a job with this one, and I'm not even someone who likes systems in general

I think this may be the big difference in your opinion and mine of 5E. I didn't mind combat, it was, as you and others said, nicely streamlined. But where I had my problems was leveling up--I found it difficult to distinguish characters in the same class level-to-level. There weren't a ton of ways to individualize a character on a level-to-level basis. Most levels you just gained some hitpoints, got a little better at a technique that everyone else in your class (or half of them) had, or got a new technique that everyone in your class (or half of them) also got. I missed the Feats (and I know that you can pick up Feats instead of some of the other abilities) and skill points and customization that you do in earlier editions and in Pathfinder.

This may be an issue that only I have had, since @ZombieGenesis seems to have had the exact opposite experience, but I just found myself distinctly underwhelmed by leveling up.

I don't worry about the general area that I live, the fact that I am male, the fact that I'm married, the fact that I have a daughter, or who my alts are. Some of that is male privilege though -- I expect that if I were female, I would be a lot more careful about most of that.

I'll also share details of my past professional life. Some of that could be used (if someone wanted to) to get my name, but I don't generally give that out except to people who I've known for a good long while, or folks that I've met iRL. In keeping with that, I don't generally give out my email, but I'll share it now and then with folks that I've spoken with and who seem reasonable (generally only for sharing files/logs/systems/whatever).

I don't tend to voicechat, just because I'm not particularly interested in it, and I generally only share photos if I'm planning to meet with the person.

@cupcake Mmmmm... Pagliacci's.

Pineapple pizza with jalapeno slices lurking beneath the cheese: Pain Pizza!

Also, Canadian bacon and pineapple.

Also, pepperoni and black olives.

Also, gyro pizza with tzatziki sauce for dipping.

Also, chicken caesar salad pizza (lettuce is added after cooking, of course).

@faraday said in FS3:

@tat said in FS3:

I did use the saved NPCs fairly often, but the ability to just 'goon' and 'henchman' NPCs in Ares might serve the purpose they mostly did. I suspect that for recurring big bads, I'll create a character object to use.

Yeah that's what I was thinking. You can even create additional NPC types beyond goon/henchman/miniboss/boss if you want to have more fine-tuned pre-set NPC types.

I used saved NPCs pretty regularly in the past edition, but I just figured I was a nutter, like usual. With Ares, we've used the ability to create additional NPC levels to provide set stats for various critters and beasties on T8S, without having to set them individually or anything like that. It's quite handy.

We posted a survey to our players recently, and finally managed to get out from under illness to collate the responses. I've included the survey questions and player responses below in case anyone here is interested about what players are saying and what we're looking to do about it (those respondents who had no answer to a given question or simply compliments are not included).

1. Which is your preferred option for moving forward with the storyline on The Eighth Sea?
   45% A little more of a guided tour through this section of the storyline, pushing toward a resolution and return to the Real World in 3-4 months.
   36% As intended, a slow, player-driven process taking 5-8 more months.
   9% Get us back to the Real World ASAP, even if we don't have to figure out how it happens.
   9% Do we have to go back? (player response)

2. What would you like to see more of while in the Spirit World? (choose as many as interest you):
   82% More emphasis on the "why" and "how" of The Storm
   64% Combat with NPC human adversaries
   64% New strangeness from outside the island
   55% Political maneuvering between NPC and PC groups (done via PCs, of course)
   55% Survival-style situations involving rationing supplies and forming defenses
   Other options getting votes: Spooky situations to be resolved with only RP or social skills, Monster of the Week quick-fights, Spooky situations to be resolved with only RP or social skills, Exploration of the island, and Exploration of the seas around the island

3. What sort of "shinies" would you be interested in being added to the game to provide characters, players, or both something to chase? (Choose as many as interest you)
   73% Magic items (relatively minor)
   73% Acknowledged areas of specialty/expertise (ie, "Oh, you want to buy grenadoes? You totally need to talk to Hawke")
   55% Roles in settlement governance (such as it is)
   55% Promotions in rank within crew/business/etc
   36% Luggers/Pinnaces for small-group use
   27% Gold
   Other: Faith-based charms and the like, and "Anything"

4. What would you like to see added to the grid?
   Player Houses. (Staff Sez: happy to put them together, just request where you would like it, the name you would like it to have, and what you want the desc to be).
   Themed islands (dinosaur island, aliens island, zombie island). (Staff Sez: Something //like// this is in the works in coordination with the "New strangeness from outside the island" option above).
   Locked rooms specific to a faction (Staff Sez: Probably not, because we don't intend the grid to sprawl much larger than it is. But scene-rooms are -great- for this, let us know if you want to learn how to use them).

5. What would you like to see added to theme?
   Politics, power plays between nations (after a Return). (Staff Sez: Definitely in the works. Probably between individual colonies first, then building up to nations if applicable).
   "Actual Theme, there's way too much information being passed off as theme currently. Things easily proven no less." (Staff Sez: We're not entirely sure what's meant by this comment, but we'd love to hear what you mean, drop us a request or a page?).

6. What would you like to see removed from theme?
   More spooky stuff, less Monsters Attack stuff.

7. What can we do to make it easier to get involved in day-to-day RP?
   Incentivize meeting new people?
   Give a reason for day-to-day RP. (Staff Sez: We'll try to provide more things to RP about... more detail at the end).
   Reward in-game scenes beyond posting logs. (Staff Sez: We do try to read all the logs that go up, and if people propose an adventure/mission/etc, we try to follow up with them to see if they'd like it run as a scene. We've also been known to drop a Luck point here or there for folks helping stir things up--Lafayette in particular is owed one soon. Logs are also a way we would pick out those to highlight for 'areas of expertise' and other shinies. We're interested in hearing other ideas for incentives).
   Feeling overwhelmed and without a point of entry. (Staff Sez: Ack! That's definitely not what we want to cause. Anyone who is feeling adrift, we're absolutely happy to talk about ways to weave your character into ongoing things. There's also a list of plot hooks on the bboard and on the wiki (http://the8thsea.wikidot.com/now) if you're looking for things to get interested in.

Conclusions:
We're definitely going to be shifting some things around as a result of this. We had previously been trying to lay out plot hooks and see what people followed, we'll try a more active form of storytelling to get us into some of the hows-whys-wheres-etc. We've heard on this survey and elsewhere that people are interested in sea-faring pirate-y stuff more than monster-slaying, and yeah... that's totally our bad. It's been on the list to do, but we felt like there were intermediate steps, ones that didn't seem to be happening. We're going to push them so we can get to some sea-faring skullduggery. We'll focus on some of the human monsters around, and push some of the critters into the background again. Minor magic items and charms are absolutely in the realm of creation by Pagan rituals, Voodoo favors, and Native spirit deals (Abrahamic prayers tend to be both more immediate and short-term), but we can also arrange for some to be found. We can also be more explicit in calling out areas of expertise. We will also work in some opportunities for "improved" positions and roles as well (and likely some promotions within crews as NPCs die and PCs idle out).

We also want to make it clear and explicit that we're always open to feedback and ideas. Don't wait for the next survey, if you've got something you'd like to say, drop us a page or a request. While some games may discourage directly player-Staff interaction, we're definitely not one of them.

Change "Seduce" to "Beguile" or "Entice." Then it's less likely (especially with Entice) that people try to use it to roll people into bed. Sure, some people will still do it, because there are assholes everywhere, but fewer people will do it.

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

Incidentally the system imposes no special restrictions on the transition from Good to Great. If T8S does so, that’s a house rule I have no control over.

T8S doesn't have a particular house rule on this. Staff does look a little closer at skills at Great and above in Chargen. I can't speak to the particular situation, because I don't honestly remember who @kitteh apped, but we usually suggest ways to tweak the BG if we don't think that it justifies having a Great or higher. Occasionally someone will come in with a particularly young character looking to have several skills at Great or above and we ask them to lower one or two.

As @Ganymede said, it's trivially easy for even a non-coder like myself to tweak the XP costs, XP rate, and cooldown time on skill raises. This is one of the awesome things about Ares--very configurable with limited code knowledge.

@kitteh has a very good point though that the mechanical success of a character can have a major impact on the happiness of the player, particularly if the player sees them as having a level of skill that the dice don't seem to agree with (whether due to sheeted skills or just how the dice fall). I tend to be of a similar type of player--if I've got a character who is "supposed" to be exceptionally good at something, I feel the failures a lot harder than I feel the successes. That's just game theory though... we as humans remember and fear failure a lot more than we remember and celebrate success.

That being said, I think my character got a single on-screen kill in like... the last 6 missions he was on, and he has pretty good stats. It was totally frustrating, especially watching other characters soar ahead of him. But it totally happens. Not just a "low skills" thing, just a luck-of-the-dice thing. Which doesn't, of course, make it any easier.