Posts made by Tat

Re: Creative Outlets

I once played a character who was a somewhat serious amateur photographer. This was a game where a lot of people wrote IC journals (another creative outlet I LOVE and wish more people loved as much as I do), and I used to write a journal for almost every scene and then find a picture to match something about the scene, a picture she could have taken.

I had a lot of fun combing through the internet for cool looking pictures of everything from IC locations to like. Laundry baskets. I probably put more thought into what sort of picture-mood she was in during that scene than anyone ever realized, but it was a lot of fun for me.

@apos said in Charging for MU* Code?:

To me it just sounded like you didn't want to feel like you were being a huge dick by saying no to people you wished you had time to help, and putting up costs would help reduce how much you're asked. I think it would help a bit, but yeah you then might get way more stressed out and feel a lot more guilt and obligation for the ones you do take. Hard to say, since I mean really only you know you and this sounded not really about money at all but for your peace of mind.

I kind of suspect this could backfire, too. Like, if I could pay for code to magically appear, I'd probably do it. But not knowing Theno really, I'd never be like 'hey, dude, could you do this for me for free?'

One of the things about the hobby growing up is that many of us have more money than time to throw at things these days. Just something to keep in mind.

@ortallus said in Encouraging Proactive Players:

Tenebrae/Symbol of Ea also has a really cute "random plot generator" for PrPs. You pull a lever and it spits something out like, "<Class/Villain type> is doing <thing> and it's pissing off <group> so they've hired a group of adventurers to stop them!"

I coded something like this for Alpha & Omega. You hit +gmscene, and it spit out either an NPC(s) + an action, or a scenario.

It got used... some. I think the scenarios were more successful than the NPC + action (probably because they tended to involve less needing to NPC). It was a cool idea, and I'd probably do it again, but it really was only a tool players who were already proactive were using for inspiration, not something that inspired people to become proactive, I think.

If you're curious, you can see the NPC/action/scenario list here.

@buttercup said in Good TV:

@thatguythere Lol, I acknowledge I may be the unhealthy one in this aspect of a relationship.

IDK man, binge-watching ahead on a show we're both into is like. Grounds for divorce in my house. I will cut him if I come home and he's watched ahead.

Things we aren't watching together are FINE, but things we started together, you'd better get permission before racing ahead!

@taika said in Table-top gadgets:

Big white board with dry erase markers. If you want to get fancy, you can spend some time and use a permanent marker to put up a square or hex grid.

Tip: You can use overhead markers for the grid and write over it with the dry erase markers. The overhead marker's won't come off (well, they will a little, but not really) without the spray solution.

So it can be semi-permanent without having to devote a white board forever and ever to a grid.

@biggles Awesome, that looks super interesting!

@biggles said in Good or New Movies Review:

Infinity Room

This?

@seraphim73 While playing on a Star Wars MUSH with really terrible fleet mechanics, I created a database of all IC ships, fighters, and armies. I learned Microsoft Access to do this. I included things like weapons and ammo so I could do quick cross-comparison searches. I had their current location.

And I updated the damn thing after every. Single. Battle.

I also once created a less fancy database containing important information about various Mass Effect worlds, like climate, who lived there, what species claimed it, how likely it was to have pirates or Prothean artifacts, etc. It was in a Google product I can't remember the name of now and it's driving me crazy that I can't remember it.

Come to think of it, I've done a lot of crazy databases. And spreadsheets.

ETA: GOOGLE FUSION TABLES! That's what it was. Man, I even prettied up the damn things: https://fusiontables.google.com/data?docid=1gkqaWh9ViKttXkqdi3-LMqaV0iezU_Q6p3CJLgg&pli=1#card:id=2

I think a good, constantly-checked listing of such games would be a really excellent second step (after projects like Evennia and Ares and whatever web platform that might come next) to expanding our hobby.

It's frustrating how dang hard it is to find games.

@sg

There's an app for that. Really.

@ganymede said in Health and Wealth and GrownUp Stuff:

Nothing sucks worse than watching a 3 year old at a near-unconscious state because she cannot breathe. They had her on a constant flow of albuterol sulfate and concentrated O2. For 8 days.

My three year old has a cold and keeps waking up at night to cough on and off for 20-45 minutes at a time.

I can barely deal with THAT. The sound of it makes my heart hurt and everything in me is frustrated that I can't magically fix it.

Which is to say, sympathies, and I'm sorry to hear it, too. I can't imagine.

@three-eyed-crow said in Xcom thoughts:

You can also give people extra Luck points, and in a situation where characters COULD die in +combat based on conditions the GM lays out, those become pretty valuable.

That's totally what I'd do. In a meat grinder game, luck would be super useful. If you're treating knock-outs as death, that'd be a huge deal.

@faraday Subdue I knew. Stress I missed, but it's super cool and offers a lot of possibilities.

@lithium said in Xcom thoughts:

The real challenge to a /good/ X-Com game would be morale and panic. That one would be tough to get people to relinquish 'control' of their character on. Muton's wouldn't be that hard, Sectoids maybe, cuz of the psionics, but when people get mind controlled, or just panic and lose their marbles, dropping their gun or firing at random scenery for a turn or three... that'd annoy the hell out of most MU'ers.

The new version of FS3 does have a 'stress' mechanic that could probably be fiddled with to good effect here: https://www.aresmush.com/fs3/fs3-3/combat-mechanics/#stress

Panicking could use subdue. The NPC tries to subdue (via panic), and the PC reacts according to the roll. Random firing would be an added complication, but I don't think you'd lose that much to just not use it. Otherwise subdue works a lot like a panic, save that it doesn't auto-expire, but a GM could deal with that.

@sg

Done right, that would be an amazing MU.

@faraday said in Mass Effect MU*?:

@ganymede said in Mass Effect MU*?:

But FS3's combat engine seems to be a simultaneous-action-resolver, right? It doesn't lend to sequential events well.

No, there's initiative. The only thing is that KO's don't happen till the end, so nobody's action gets cut off. Of course if their damage mods get up to -10 from all the hits they took before their action, it's a hail mary but at least they get their dying gasp

And you can add initiative mods to weapons, if that's ever relevant to something you're trying to do. In terms of ME, I'd definitely think of 'weapons' not only as guns and ninja swords, but also tech and biotic things as far as possible. So if a biotic ability should take precedent (say, someone doing a biotic charge at superspeed), you could crank their init up to reflect that.

There really is a LOT of flexibility in the system once you dig into all the custom stuff you can change. The new thing where you can add specials to weapons adds a ton of options, too.

@ganymede said in Mass Effect MU*?:

I'm going to glaze over a lot of the engine-specific ideas, because @faraday's got it covered and I wouldn't know what I could add to the conversation except --

-- yeah, damn right! Uh -- yeah.

@tat said in Mass Effect MU*?:

Are you envisioning 'biotic' as the skill and specific attacks/abilities as weapons?

Two questions here. I see "Biotic" as an Action Skill, just like Melee and Firearms. When you talk of specific attacks/abilities, I presume you mean things like "Carnage" and "Marksman." Unfortunately, I don't see a place for those specific powers on the game, but FS3's combat has things like "aim" and taking aggressive combat stances that serve as a substitute. With my custom system, I had those abilities in there, but I'm willing to sacrifice it for the wondrous combat engine.

That said, if there were a way to code it easily? I'm all for it.

Yes, specific skills like 'carnage' and 'marksman', but also like 'overload' and 'nova' and 'throw' and 'cryo blast'. For me, these sorts of wildly fun combat things are a big part of what gets me into ME - and it's some of the most fun I've had playing it. It is a game that allows for so many players to be so snowflakey badass in so many unique ways that really makes storytelling fun (in my opinion).

Many of these specific skills could be handled by creative use of weapons and armor and stances, plus some GMing. Some of them can't be. Interestingly, the gun ones that you mention are probably the easiest - you can use 'specials' on weapons to mimic marksman, which improves aim, and carnage, which I'd say would increase lethality. That's actual super, super simple, and you could do it on a vanilla FS3 v3 install in like 15 minutes.

PS: Some of the stuff @glitch is doing for the game we're working on MIGHT be able to be applied to some of the weird biotic stuff. It's still hacky, and some things probably still won't work, but it's a possibility. He'd know better than I.

I think there's a thin line between simplifying the gameplay and losing a lot of the flavor of what makes ME fun for a lot of people.

I'd like to think that what makes ME fun is one of two things: (1) the fast, FPS action; and (2) the interesting setting. I don't think a MUSH is going to be able to compete with the real game for (1), but it can get a bit deeper for (2) due to its nature.

I mean, I think you're not /wrong/, but I do think you're maybe discounting a little bit of what's involved in 1. Some people play ME like a shooter, but a LOT of people don't. Like, recently an A&O player was reminiscing about that one time she ninja stealthed and dropped from the ceiling to attack a yahg with a sword. THAT is the sort of badass you want to be sure to enable, IMO. Cutting out the special skills or reducing them all to 'biotic' makes that harder.

If I weren't on board building a different game, I'd be all over it. I'm pretty sure people will hit me over the head if I take on two, though.

Depending on the timeline, maybe you could come on board when it's all done. There's a lot to be said about planning, and I'm a planner.

Sure, hit me up. I can at the very least talk a lot about ways to bend FS3 in ways that make Faraday cry.

@faraday said in Mass Effect MU*?:

Yeah I have no idea how ME shields work, but assuming "generic energy shield" sort of behavior, I'd do something similar. Start with a number of shield points, tracked like ammo. Recharge value would add back so many shield points each turn. Damage would subtract shield points based on damage level. When the shield reached 0, the shield would go down and the damage would go through.

Or something like that. You'd have to touch a couple code functions but it wouldn't be too bad.

Yes, this is how ME shields function (and biotic barriers, too), and that's how I'd do it, too. With the addition that certain skills can recharge you to full.

@tat said in Mass Effect MU*?:

Wait wait. 3rd edition has SHIELDS? Is there a place where I can read more.

It's not quite done yet, but there's this new thing called "armor specials" which work like the new 3rd edition "weapon specials". They can augment protection or (in the next patch) defense. So a shield special could give you a bonus to defense rolls and some extra armor on your arm. A helmet special could give you armor on your head. You can also, of course, code in whatever special coded effects you want.

Oh good, I feel a little less bad about missing it in the documentation, then. I look forward to it!

@faraday said in Mass Effect MU*?:

3rd edition, which is in Ares, does melee combat a lot better than 2nd. It has armor specials which give you more armor flexibility for things like shields, and lets you augment melee damage with strength, and smooths out some goofiness with the way defense skills worked, adds a distract action, etc.

Wait wait. 3rd edition has SHIELDS? Is there a place where I can read more.

My level of excitement just cranked to 11.

@ganymede said in Mass Effect MU*?:

I thought about this, but I think you could modify the existing code for combat. For example, combat/treat is used to heal injuries in combat and revive people for a period of time. That command could be cloned and slightly altered to augment a PC's armor. I don't know if it can be done, but if Faraday's code is easy to modify -- I have no reason to believe it can't be -- I don't see why it isn't possible. Maybe not now, but maybe a bit later.

Armor and shields are very different things, primarily because of the re-gen factor. It's not actually the augmentation that's difficult, it's the taking down shields and barriers, and the possibility to re-generate them. For example, one of the primary uses of overload is to fry shields in one fell zap. You can take that aspect out, definitely, but for me that's part of why I like about Mass Effect.

I hesitate to call myself 'a coder', but I have written code and messed with customization in FS3. Adding what is essentially regenerating HP points could be done, but it's not a minor change. It's the bit that keeps hanging me up (that, plus I'm not ever going back to MUSH if I can help it, so I'm waiting for Ares).

It's going to work a bit different on this game.

The centerpiece is going to be the company's resource management engine, something that keeps track of the PCs' contribution to the team. It will be the driving factor that motivates players to put their PCs into combat and take risks. At least, that will be the goal.

As far as skills go, I envision Action Skills being similar to BSG:U, with a few things swapped in and out. There'd probably be a "Biotic" skill, along with a few "harvesting" and "crafting" skills relevant to the resource management system. But it won't have the "special skills" that you see in ME games.

Are you envisioning 'biotic' as the skill and specific attacks/abilities as weapons? That will work for many things, but not all. Maybe it's not an issue if you're willing to cut out anything that deals with shields and barriers. The sort of 'special skills' you're losing vs those you're keeping will definitely have a huge effect here.

I think there's a thin line between simplifying the gameplay and losing a lot of the flavor of what makes ME fun for a lot of people. It's sort of the catch 22 of setting a text-based game in the world of a game that is designed to be.... well. A game. We're never going to match those mechanics.

That said, sometimes mechanics have a lot of weight in canon, too. For example, there's a balance in terms of keeping enough biotic stuff to make the general feel and history of biotics make sense, while keeping it doable in the system.

For me, playing combat on AO was often really freaking fun because of the wild stuff we could do with ME's skills. I'm not sure how much that could've been pared down to get a similar effect.

I mean, this is going to require some work, yes. But Faraday's supportive of efforts to use her new system, and I'm hoping we can build on that. If you and @Three-Eyed-Crow, and anyone else, are on board to help out, then I think we can start considering a schedule.

If I weren't on board building a different game, I'd be all over it. I'm pretty sure people will hit me over the head if I take on two, though.

That said, if you do end up on Ares and you want any help doing things like breaking the web portal in new and interesting ways, let me know.

@three-eyed-crow said in Mass Effect MU*?:

@shelbeast said in Mass Effect MU*?:

So, i've never seen/played with FS3. I hear about it a lot. It seems like it's really ONLY good for firearm combat. I've heard that it doesn't do melee well. It doesn't do magic. It doesn't do this or that.

I think it does melee (and small vehicle combat) decently enough for modern or futuristic settings. What it's not made to handle is feudal/fantasy combat (swords and horses and stuff). There are hacks out there that try, with varying degrees of success.

I think it also depends on how much you want your combat system to be your absolute and total authority, and how much you want your GMs to be able to be like 'you know what? I screwed up with that NPC and these results are stupid and I'm changing them'.

The further you go from the intended design, the more willing you have to be to just fall back on GMing when something doesn't work as you meant it to.

Like, the one time I made a different NPC type to represent giant alien bugs, it turns out I made their armor a bit too thick and I did some modifications on the fly. Or the time my NPCs were statted higher than they should have been and kept crushing my PCs, so I modded them down. Occasionally I've flat out ignored the results of rolls (always in favor of players vs NPCs) to keep the scene moving.

If you're willing to do that sort of thing, your options are much wider.