Posts made by SparklesTheClown

Isn't that Volund?

@magee101 Back in my day (2005), it was lucky if -any- game had a turn around earlier than a week! So I don't think it's that big of a deal if it's just a few days.

When I see the pipe avatar, I immediately imagine that an old man is prepared to tell me to get off his lawn at any moment.

How does Thenomain's pipe make you feel?

If nothing else, I've decided to use Scion as the case study for what I'll try to chop this system into. Mostly because I have infinite enthusiasm for Scion despite the fact that everyone hates it (plus it easily translates to WoD as a system, I think).

Scion is actually particularly good to think about for this, because it's a game where like, once you're a god, wtf do you even do? It's kind of broken in concept before you even apply it to a MU*.

@faraday See, it's not necessarily that I want to get rid of sheet advancement (even though technically my primary game has no such thing in the traditional sense), it's just that I think there might be better ways to go about it than XP. And since many people have indeed tried, I think that seeing why those attempts didn't work out, and what worked out about them, could be educational in trying to build on top of that.

Like, what if there were a way to add an extra layer of abstraction to the concept of XP? In some way that is more contextually meaningful but also adds the sustainability of not dealing with mountains of XP? I haven't quite gotten the chance to really hammer things out (I've been super occupied with trying to acquire a Gameboy Color to use as a musical instrument), but I feel like there's some method of control that might be gained from shifting XP to more conceptualized gains that then transfer to your sheet as numbers.

Someone mentioned a game having goals and such earlier. While this idea does use a form of XP, what if games had, like, packages? Like I could see having floating in-character achievements to work toward, which nets you XP to use for stuff relevant to that achievement, which seems like a good set of things for staff to define. While goals could be more customized forms of achievements, where you work out with staff what it is that you're trying to work toward, then you work toward it!

It's a valid criticism that people you're depending on to get something done might drop out or change their mind or whatever, but this mostly seems like a common sense thing here. Like, staff should know better than to penalize someone for that, and instead just allow them to find an alternate avenue to continue with their goal. I wouldn't want to play in a game where staff don't understand simple common sense stuff like shit not always going to plan.

But anyway, in my opinion this approach also allows newbies to put in however much work they feel the desire to in order to try and catch up with oldbies and such. They're RPing anyway, so it's not like it's this huge grind, they're just focusing their goals and such. I also saw the argument that different forms of advancement aren't one sized fits all, and while this will always be true to an extent, I do think that this achievement approach could address a lot of that.

If your goal is that you wanna go fist fight vampires and such, you get achievements toward XP that's used for the sorts of skills you generally use to fight vampires. If you're someone who mostly just sits around researching and having nerd social involving that, then you'd get achievements that give you XP toward stuff that's used for -that-.

As for if said achievements are templates of XP or not, I don't necessarily think they should be hard templates, because it would restrict what the players can do a bit too

Some sort of hard caps and diminishing returns would obviously be needed, and some reasonable constraints for how much people are getting all at once. But one last thing, before this gets too long, is that I could see the achievements not only being in different categories but different tiers. Higher level oldbies could be chasing more difficult to gain achievements, like epic level stuff, while lower level players can pursue ones that can be gained in a shorter amount of time.

There are obviously flaws here, because I'm half-asleep and looking at Gameboy Colors on eBay, but this is just what I'm thinking on the fly so far.

I certainly think that there are better ways to gain the same feeling of sheet advancement as XP offers, I just think that since so far a lot of the alternatives to XP haven't really caught on or necessarily given a lot of people the same feeling of achievement as XP, it's seen as a permanent standard.

And while I don't claim that my solution will work or even necessarily be considered all that great, I do think that there is value in trying and discussing.

There's a ton of interesting stuff here. I admit that in my mind, I keep thinking stuff like "I wonder if WoD can be done without XP in a way that doesn't make everyone angry", and other such thoughts along the lines of replacing XP with something that can give people a similar feeling of achievement or advancement.

I also think a lot of the stuff about motivation and meaning for both oldbies who worked really hard, and new players who need to catch up are interesting. My time on Windy City did indeed teach me that there is value in teaming up to fight against people who are more powerful than you as an individual, if you're unhappy with their status quo.

But yeah, there's a lot of useful knowledge and experience that I'm gonna try to make something out of, though I'll need some time (I literally spent today working on a song). And I'll have to read that Angry GM rant.

edit: Oh, and re: "better for whom", I obviously don't think there's anything inherently wrong with MU*ing, I just think that everyone can agree that tabletop books aren't meant for the long-form roleplay of like 100+ people simultaneously. So, I mean better in that regard. Also, when disagreeing, it's good to provide a productive alternative to the thing that you disagree with so that people can pick up on what would be a better idea.

This all gives me a lot of interesting ideas. It's also nice that people seem to generally be more or less aligned around the same or similar needs.

My intent with all of this information is to create a general prototype of a simplified system that can be used in a long-form format. Though I might just convert specific tabletops, and start with WoD since it's big around here.

Now, I know people have done house rules and such, but what I'm thinking would be radically different from something like house rules. I'm thinking more taking an already existing system and pretty much using elements of it to create an entirely different system.

I know that might seem insane, but I'm pretty much considering doing the tabletop equivalent of chopping music samples and making a new song. Not gonna sell it or anything, I just wanna see if I can make MU*s better.

I also know that not everyone will be happy with it, and some people will get super rockist about it, but I say we should commit some blasphemies and see what we get out of it. My plan is for this to be a group project. I drop my prototype at some point, and then people can tear it apart and possibly find a way to test it and such.

This is actually a preliminary thread for a future thread I plan to make. I need to gather data for the purposes of making the second thread.

In an environment that has sheet based advancement, what is the most significant aspect of that advancement to you? It's fine if you answer in general terms, in specifics, or whatever else. Any form of answer is acceptable, even if a form of advancement that you prefer is not actually currently available anywhere.

You can also go into as little or as much detail as you like. And this is not the time to be modest! This is a no shame zone. I want to know what makes you happy.

I still haven't settled on a place, but I haven't forgotten you.

As a published and possibly soon to be award winning author of a tabletop book, I should see if I can address these problems by creating some sort of MU* based tabletop conversion system.

Possibly with black jack, and hookers, but probably mostly reasonably streamlined guidelines.

I'm gonna login to and check the wiki of everything.

@tragedyjones I generally am familiar with the people who run Fallcoast, wasn't sure if it was still going (I never did get to trying it after Reach closed). I've heard of Reno but don't really know anything about it.

Considering that the only reason I originally played WoD was because I was bored, not because I actually liked WoD, now I find myself looking back on it with a sort of fondness.

Is there something wrong with my brain? Should I re-join the WoD universe? Are psychics still terrible in nWoD? Or should I play something new and exotic?

I wonder if there is a comprehensive list of shit you can play in nWoD (I say nWoD because I enjoy the nWoD community, even though I played oWoD -after- it and I actually really like oWoD).

@faraday Oh I know, but there are ways that higher level math can be applied to coding that I'm very interested in, especially when it comes to stuff like video games (for example, Dwarf Fortress, or Minecraft).

Thank you for that link! It's very useful!

@Derp I'd be interested in knowing more about this 0_o. What is it and how does it help?

I don't know if it's alright to post this here, but this is a place for code, and I would be eventually applying what I learned to MU*s, so...

I'm trying to build a solid mathematical foundation for learning the general inner workings of computer science, which I know is kind of a deep level of learning to code, but that's what I feel like doing.

So I was wondering, what maths would you consider absolutely vital for learning linear and boolean algebra, and why? Also, is there any other high level math that you think is a great boon for computer science?

@Trundlebot I definitely agree with you here. Like, it seems as if the Big Two of comics do this thing where they lose focus and have become obsessed with these huge storylines (though DC keeps claiming that they're going to focus less on that, as they've been claiming since the creation of Nu52).

Hilariously, Marvel/DC comics have actually taken on the basic structure of Power Ranger seasons. IE: Big threat is introduced, an extended period of time is spent trying to resolve said threat, then all is well until the next season where a new set of people have to take on the big threat.

Some seasons have done a great job of bringing back the old school "side" threats, threats not necessarily directly related to the main villain, or having multiple main villains with their own motivations and desires.

But big Marvel/DC epics are pretty much, in essence, a very standard Power Ranger season. Which I say as someone who has at this point seen at -least- 23 seasons. A lot of the time, they aren't really serving us what we come to superheroes for. I think this is why lesser known companies are growing in popularity (I absolutely love Boom comics).

It's not so much that these lesser known publishers deliver on the traditional superhero arcs that seem so difficult to find these days, it's more that they release a comic, set expectation, and then deliver on that expectation. Meanwhile, Marvel/DC have this tendency to just wildly shift in tone, expectations, and sometimes even the established personality and values of a character. It's just feels more like a chore than a relaxing hobby.

Something like Boom comics just feels like a goddamned breath of fresh air, where you can buy a comic, read it, and go "Oh, that was nice", without the entire comic being like "Buy this other comic if you wanna know what happened!" like 6 times in a single issue.

@Thenomain I mean more, I have all the reason in the world to shit on MSB, due to my general hatred of WORA, so if I think MSB isn't really shitty or anything, I figure it means something.

When I say I'm not biased, I mean if I was a huge fan of WORA, obviously I'd be more inclined to also like MSB.

I feel like I know you, your Reach characters seem super familiar to me (and to a lesser extent your Windy City characters).

I was shit re: RPing on Windy City though.

I was Magnes, Wesley, and uhhh, I forget who else at the moment, on Reach.