@Ganymede said in Searching for Star Wars RPI:
That said, the sparkling fun part of DoD is its set of help files, which are extensive and detailed.
This is true of any game running Dahan-Saga. And yes, they're awesome, absolutely awesome. And the clone system that lets you try out builds/create NPC sheets makes the nerd in me (which is, admittedly, most of me) go all atwitter.
@GamerNGeek It would also require that the game system be coded. Dahan has done a bang-up job coding up Saga already, so (especially if you can get in touch with him) it's relatively easy to install the Saga Edition code and get it up and running. Coding FFG Star Wars would require starting from scratch.
@Arkandel There's also the issue with any game that's lasted more than a couple of years where people gain positions of power simply by outlasting their contemporaries. This is particularly true in GoD/DoD's case, as there was a wave of departures (in fact, DoD could be seen as one of them) that drained a lot of the upper levels of power away. It's great to see some folks like Hrellyi, Abraham, and Sinya still around, but a lot of the other names are completely new to me, or held down minor roles when GoD disintegrated.
To be perfectly fair... I recognize that I'm holding some annoyance over from GoD, and it's coming through in my views of DoD, but I'm doing my best not to let it color my posts too much. The new leadership characters may be every bit as dynamic and driven as those who aren't there anymore.
@Tempest Any level-based game is going to have problems with that. One thing that -could- be implemented to limit it would be to scale the starting level, but as you pointed out, with d20, once you get to a certain level, even specialists of a lower level can't keep up.
Perhaps it's more about Staff making sure that there are reasons for the high-level characters to delegate ("you're going to be busy doing X mission, and you also need someone to do Y mission to allow yours to have maximum impact, go find a group to do it."), and opportunities for lower-level characters to catch up quickly. Honestly, I think that level-capping some events is the absolute best way to handle that. So maybe there's a bunch of events for level 3-8, with a more occasional (but probably a bit more epic) event for level 9-12 or 9+.
@Kanye-Qwest Usually because Staffs are reluctant to remove options, and there is always a drive to limit House Rules. I never could convince the rest of the Staff on KotOR or Dark Times to trim some of the useless or wildly under-powered Feats/Talents.
Whether there are any abilities that actively keep players from being included in RP is more of a game culture call, in my opinion... if Staff allows players to tear down other players for picking up particular abilities, that's a bigger problem with the game's culture in my opinion.
@Faceless Yup... but only for show, of course.
@Ganymede There's actually a system in place to help out for muthering great space battles. Check out +help +ships. It'll track attacks, battery damage, shields, and CT-steps for a large number of capital ships at once. Combined with a 2:1 map grid (I love +maps), it's great for running capship battles.
Edit: I just did it there, didn't I? I assumed you didn't know the fancy way to do something and just told you. Well, if you didn't know about +ships, enjoy. If you did, I apologize sincerely.
@Ganymede Sadly, nope! I wish that were the case. The additional penalty only applies to the pilot facing you in the dogfight:
Elusive Dogfighter: When engaged in a dogfight, any enemy pilot engaged in the same dogfight takes a -10 penalty on attack rolls when you succeed on the opposed Pilot check (see Attacking in a Dogfight, page 171).
I think what they were GOING for is that if you succeed in the opposed Pilot check, -all- enemies shooting at you get a -10, like with the Jedi Guardian Talent Elusive Target.
To the @Arkandel 's point, yeah. If you're looked down on because you don't twink, that's bad. If people are willing to give you tips on building a character if you want them, I see that as good, but if they thrust them upon you whether you want them or not, and/or without even asking, that's bad.
And to be perfectly fair, at least on the game that DoD sprung from (Generations of Darkness), people talked a big game about building awesome +sheets, but stats were... unimportant. Except for the plots that I and a few others ran, the rules weren't followed and things were very freeform -- which can be good and bad. It can lead to awesome stories, or it can lead to the (just barely) Force Sensitive Zeltron Death Watch Mandalorian Empress of the jungle planet (yes, really) Tattooine using Move Light Object to lift a creature larger than a speeder, because obviously she is Force Sensitive, so she can lift big things, even if she doesn't have the Move Object Force Power.
A couple of the Talents actually don't do -anything- without house rules. Expert Pilot: Elusive Dogfighter, for instance, adds a penalty to attacks that... can't happen, because the person with the Talent won the Pilot check in the dogfight already. It's not the only one. Some Talents/Feats are just bad.
This doesn't excuse shaming someone for it on public channels. If you -have- to comment on it, drop them a page asking if they want +sheet advice, then handle it in pages -- if they want the input at all, otherwise, let it go. I mean... common courtesy.
Another SAGA game is in the works as well, set a year or two before Rogue One/A New Hope. No, I'm not Staffing on it, just eagerly awaiting it being ready and open. I'm sure that there will be more posted about it as it gets closer to ready.
@Ganymede I love Dahan/Gizka's Saga Edition code. Been on... 3 games now with it? Maybe 4? Beautiful stuff (although apparently very complex on the back-end).
@Arkandel I really like the Saga rules-set. It's not perfect for a MUSH (very few tabletop systems, if any, are), but it's close enough to D&D 3.5 to be familiar, while having a few differences (defenses, condition track) that I think really add to the rules-set.
@Gilette
Yup, exactly that. But without an IC backlash to breaking themely norms, you create new norms, which are usually the opposite of what you intended.
@Auspice said in Sensitive cultural/political/religious aspects of game themes.:
Give people the opportunity, but make sure they understand that they may face IC backlash for it. I've done that on games and had an -awesome- time of it.
I generally agree with you, but this can be a problem, because so few players actually provide that IC backlash. It's almost always left up to NPCs, usually run by the players taking the opportunity themselves (and often not played very harshly, very few people really like to torment their characters--yes, I know that some do, and yes, it's fun to do so). I really wish that more people would help with that sort of IC repercussions.
@faraday said in Sensitive cultural/political/religious aspects of game themes.:
Saying that the PCs are the exception to the rule only goes so far. Unless you've got people really exercising the "mainstream" NPC viewpoint, the exception becomes all you see and therefore becomes people's mental rule no matter what you say. So you get this weirdly-jarring discontinuity when the person claiming to be oppressed by totally valid IC prejudices ends up looking like a looney since it never happens on-camera. (or if it does, the poor NPC is quickly smacked down by all the modern-sensibility PCs.)
This is another one of those issues where you really need players willing to play the "average" -- characters who represent the general NPC viewpoint. I've actually had great success playing these characters because people really want to get themselves grounded in the universe by interacting with characters who actually represent the universe, rather than the outliers.
@Ganymede Is this not somewhat similar to reducing the auto-gain XP (you're just subtracting it off the front end, before the player gets a chance to pay it later as "tax")?
"Tax" may be an ugly word. I have started to think of it as "stat decay" the more we've all talked about this.
The key difference, which you touched on later in your post, is that stat decay is taking away something they have (reducing a skill), while reduced XP is taking away something they never had (the XP was never in their pocket, they just earned less of it). It's human nature to be less comfortable with losing something you already have than losing something you never had, it feels like you're being punished.
@Auspice Yeah, playing with Faraday's awesome FS3.3 has me drooling over how useful it would be for a fantasy game of any sort. It's still got the Built-for-ranged-combat-more-than-melee problem (so far as I know), but that's a feature, not a bug (just annoying for a fantasy game). But with better vehicles, mixed armor, the ability to target vehicle crew rather than just vehicles (I think that's planned if not in place)... mmm... fantasy game.
@VulgarKitten Just use SoCal instead of Forks. Done -- except for the raining ever thing.
@Arkandel In that case I would give credit to where you found the one you liked -- or where they give credit (if they do). Sure, you might miss, and at some point someone might contact you to say "actually, I did the events system that X game uses," and then you can just update it.
I generally agree with @surreality and others -- I think that if you're borrowing ideas for systems or ways to approach bits of theme: give credit where credit is due, and you should be fine. If you're talking about the systems themselves ("dreams work like X, Y, and Z" as opposed to "dream RP is an important theme"), characters, locations, or code... talk to the creator first.
@Bobotron I'm a big fan of A Song of Ice and Fire's social combat system (which this basically is), but while such a hard-and-fast combat system for social interactions is great in tabletop, where you (theoretically) trust everyone around you, it's a little more difficult on a MU*. This is, in fact, exactly the point that I'm struggling with, as the system I'm working on is (generally) based on ASoIaF as well.
I like the idea that @Arkandel put forward about instant modifiers based on the actual words/arguments used, although as others have mentioned, I would absolutely make choosing the modifier open for all to see. Another friend made another suggestion that she said would help assuage her concerns about a hard-and-fast social combat system, something I'm calling "Hills to Die On." At Chargen, each character gets to pick three ideals (with the approval of Staff, of course) that their character can never be forced by the combat system to betray. If they choose to have their character betray them in RP, that's something else of course (and would probably remove the ideal from the list). These would have to be policed carefully, because something as broad as "Loyalty" or "Unseduceable" won't work (unless the character is a eunuch?), but something like "My Word is My Bond" (if my character promises something, they will never go back on it) or "Never a One Night Stand" (self-explanatory) would.
Added my BSU characters, since there are quite a few people from here playing there.
@Groth said in Social Conflict via Stats:
So if you were player of A, having succeeded on your dice rolls to seduce character B, and you're then treated like a creepy stalker. You'd be fine with that?
I think this is actually an important point. I think that--like physical combat--the attacker's roll determines the end result, it doesn't determine how that result takes place. If the defender wants to pose that they slipped on a banana peel and that's why the attacker hit them in the face, that's their right to do so (it's being an asshole, unless the defender totally outclassed the attacker and happened to botch, but that's another matter entirely). Likewise, if the attacker's goal is to get access to the defender's bank account, they got access to the defender's bank account, didn't they? Perhaps they didn't look as smooth doing so as they would like, but they still attained their goal.
In any open-pose system, the attacker is responsible for the goal and the approach, and the defender is responsible for the result and how it is attained. Why should social combat be any different (besides letting the dice handle the result)?