@Solstice said in Missed Settings:

…Cosmere…

I’ve actually just received the Stormlight material from the Cosmere RPG Kickstarter! Very excited to dig into it.

@Tez I don’t think that’s a wild take at all. You absolutely could run a game with “isms,” but as you said, it’s not necessary. Either way a game runner goes, the key is setting clear expectations upfront—and having a zero-tolerance policy for abuse.

@Aria I think it’s entirely fair to set those expectations for your game. You don’t need to be slaves to historical accuracy in a fantasy game; that’s not what it’s about. It’s about eldritch horror. I don’t see any problem telling people who can’t wrap their heads around that concept that this game isn’t for them.

I’d like to think most people would be totally fine ignoring the shittier aspects of history to allow for a broader, more diverse cast of characters. Not to mention making players more comfortable by not forcing them to deal with those concepts and actions, even in a fictional context.

Not sure if “Weird West” cowboys hit the same spot, but Deadlands could be pretty cool.

Along the lines of zombie apocalypse, Fallout.

I think about this all the time. If my health ever stabilizes, I’d really love to run a game again. Whenever I ponder settings, I always think “I should do something niche to be unique!” But then I wonder, “If this setting would actually draw players, why isn’t there a game for it already, or why hasn’t there been one?”

The settings I’d love to play or run, and that I’m genuinely shocked don’t have more games (or any at all), include:

1. Historical World of Darkness, specifically Victorian Age Vampire.

2. Gothic horror fantasy, along the lines of Ravenloft.

3. Dragonlance.

4. Transformers. I remember back in the day there were loads of them. Now there’s maybe one, and none are on Ares, which is really the only way I can play nowadays.

5. Buffy. The setting is so great that I’m shocked there weren’t more of these games, and there aren’t any around today.

6. Star Trek. Though after putting some serious thought into running a Star Trek game, I think I can see why there aren’t more of them.

7. Historical Fantasy: either Pirates era or ancient Greece in that God of War style.

These are the types of games that are on my mind most, and I really wish there were more of them around today!

@Livia Dragonlance! I wish there was one of those around today. Dragonlance or Ravenloft. I never played at Dragonlance MUSH and was sad I had never herad of it sooner than I had.

@MisterBoring I still get in the mood to go find a good MUD of some kind to mess around in. I know we live in the golden age of open-world RPGs, but nothing hit quite like MUDs.

@Roo LOL I hear that. Last month marked 30 years that I’ve been MUing!

I’ve recently had some pretty major health scares, and it got me reminiscing about things, MUing included. It’s been a pretty big part of my life since college, and I was thinking about the first games I played on.

I started playing at two at the same time, both World of Darkness games: Twist of Fate and Cajun Nights.

I didn’t last long on Cajun Nights. Not sure why, it was a long time ago! But I played on Twist of Fate for the duration of its existence. It was never the biggest game, but we had a blast. They even used web supplements for things like Highlander-style immortals. I stuck mostly to playing mortals and vampires.

They were the first game I ever staffed on as well. When they shut down, they were going to transition to a Victorian era game, but that never quite panned out, sadly.

From there I quickly branched out to some Star Trek and superhero games (Supers MUX and MetaMUX primarily).

I’d love to hear stories about other people’s first games. What were they? What did you play?

@MisterBoring I’m not entirely sure what your post is trying to get across. If you want to have a back-and-forth about Storypath, I’m game, but your reply mostly feels like it’s questioning my motives rather than the points I raised.

On the “You’re a <THIS> who is a member of <THAT>” comment:

• What I was pointing out is that Onyx Path doesn’t just use that as a descriptive shorthand (which, sure, all RPGs do in some way). They make it the mechanical spine of their games; your role and affiliation aren’t just flavor, they dictate what your character can do, how they progress, and even how you interact with the world. For me, that overreliance makes the designs feel narrow and repetitive.

On Dystopia Rising:

• The only reason I didn’t mention it is that I haven’t read it. No hidden motive there.

On Storypath in the context of this thread:

• Since the discussion is about which version of World of Darkness works best, I’ll clarify: I think Storypath’s core mechanics and dice resolution are fantastic. It’s a really solid system, and I love that part of it. What I don’t care for is how Onyx Path tends to implement those mechanics in their published games. That’s why I’m actually looking forward to Storypath Ultra, it seems like a cleaner, more generic take on the system that could really shine outside of those heavy-handed frameworks.

Man, Curseborne. Or really, the entire Storypath line. I think Storypath is my favorite incarnation of the overall Storyteller mechanics. While I love the system itself, I dislike almost every single attempt to execute it.

I’ve completely lost faith in Onyx Path at this point. Their insistence on building games around a “You’re a <THIS> who is a member of <THAT>” structure is old and tired, IMO. That’s the first issue. Second, they take what should be a simple and elegant system and muddy it with needlessly complex, ambiguously explained, and confusing abilities.

I find Scion 2E entirely unplayable just from reading the books. Aberrant has great moments but falls apart when you get to Nova tech. The “It Came From…” line is good but a little too cheesy and tongue-in-cheek for me. I hate the implementation of Curse Dice to power mechanics in Curseborne. Again, destroying an elegant system with kitschy mechanics. Aegis should be my absolute favorite game given the setting and its use of Storypath, but I read it and it all just falls flat.

All that said, I think the Storypath system is fantastic, and I’ve put significant work into creating a “New-New World of Darkness” type system with it. I’ve even come up with guidelines for creating Drawbacks to help flesh out characters. The system is very flexible and easy to hack.

For instance, in my custom hack, I’ve done away with Momentum and replaced it with personal pools of power. Willpower for mortals, Blood for vampires, etc. Mechanically, they all function the same (they power abilities and allow you to do things you might otherwise do with Momentum), but they shift the focus to the character rather than the group.

@MisterBoring I’m not sure if it does, but if so, it would probably take someone with more technical skill than I have to make it work.

I think I’ve got character generation where I want it now, so I decided to try modifying the dice plugin for the game. I’m pretty happy with how it turned out.

It keeps the core functionality of the original dice plugin; you can still roll whatever you want, but I added a ‘Roll DMarvel’ checkbox. When you check it, the plugin rolls DMarvel(3d6, but one die is special: rolling a 1 counts as a 6 and gives you a Fantastic result).

Roll Screen:

Result:

Thanks for the feedback. I really appreciate it.

As I put the final touches on this, I’m very tempted to do something with it. I was thinking of embracing the “Multiverse” aspect and maybe doing something crazy, like a version of the Marvel Universe that starts as a blank slate. Essentially, it’s our world where something went wild. Maybe the Reality Stone shattered or something, and suddenly, characters from various Marvel realities are appearing.

This way, if someone wanted to play Captain America, they could play whatever version of the character they wanted. If they leave, a new Cap comes on and you either keep that version or say that one vanished and here’s a new one. Something like that.

It also opens up crazy versions of characters like vampire Jubilee, Captain Carter, or whatever. Maybe even OC versions of characters. One of my favorite characters from back in the day was an OC version of Captain America.

Maybe. We’ll see. I am liking how the finished product is coming out though.

Not really anything about an actual game. I’ve just been laid up dealing with some health issues, and, for some reason, I find fighting with code relaxing. While I’ve been recovering, I wanted to see if I could do a web-based character generation and sheet for the Marvel Multiverse RPG in Ares. I’m pretty proud of it. It’s not 100% done but it’s in the final stretch, I think.

Not sure what, if anything, I’ll do with it. Just wanted to see if I could.

Wow, it just won’t stop. Hulk Hogan

@Jennkryst LOL As an aside, I thought the first two episodes of season 3 were really good.

You get a ton of stuff even at the $15 level.

Huge RPG Humble Bundle

I think this conversation is largely over with everyone’s opinions stated, but I did want to address how I would handle the various scenarios people mentioned if I were actually playing a character in this situation.

I’m making some assumptions here, including that staff supports player-driven RP. Honestly, I wouldn’t be on a game that didn’t.

1. I log on and put out a call on the OOC channels looking for players who want to RP.
2. I contact those folks and tell them their characters receive orders to report to Shuttle Bay 1.
3. My character briefs them on a subspace anomaly that needs investigation. Should be routine sensor sweeps, but in Star Trek, it’s never routine.
4. It’s not routine! The anomaly starts interfering with our warp core as we approach, meaning someone has to recalibrate the deflector array while another crew member pilots us to safety.
5. We get dramatic RP with various characters contributing - someone pilots the shuttle, someone works the sensors to analyze the phenomenon, someone reroutes power to compensate for the interference.
6. They make it back to the ship or station with their data, and now have something to debrief senior officers on and discuss in Ten Forward, setting up future RP hooks.

This small, initial scene could lead to all sorts of future RP opportunities. Engineering could discover that the anomaly is affecting the station’s reactors, a strange illness could develop affecting either the away team or other crew members, etc.

For me, I just don’t buy into the “there’d be nothing to do unless you’re a senior officer” belief. If you want RP, you can find RP. Star Trek has always been about the crew working together to solve problems, and there’s no reason a MUSH can’t capture that same collaborative spirit.