Steampunk ⚙ Big Ass Monsters

[Tera]

@ihinka I see! I'm trying to make the game mechanics more player-friendly (less bookkeeping and rules), while retaining the fun of having them. xD

[Enigmatik]

Heavy repairing and creating for my dude.

Also, found a pic.

[Tera]

Looks like a pretty tough guy

[Enigmatik]

@Traps
Love the feathers in his helmet though. Wanna be a big game hunter? Gotta have them feathers.

[Genbor]

My character is not exactly an inventor, but his personal goal is to build his very own airship over the (long) course of the RP by saving up money for parts etc. I think an adapted version of your chart could work for him as well?

[Tera]

Yes! :) A specialised inventor will have access to all four activities. Other mechanics/engineers (depending on their roles) will have access to repair/creation and a bit of innovation catered to their jobs.

Edit: you may also buy blueprints from inventors. Trading will be encouraged

[Mokley]

I read through this and went "this is friggin awesome!!" and thought I should let you know. This is friggin awesome. :D

I'mma sub, even if I can't play I'm interested to see where this goes!

[Tera]

@Mokley Thanks a lot for the support! :)
I will be sure to tag you in the OOC and you may join if you want too!

[Sierra]

My feedback would be to point out advanced section tends to attract more writers than roleplayers. The big difference in those demographics is that writers need far less direction and structure to help advance the story.

What you have there looks very cool, but you don't want to bog people down in mechanics. In excess, it changes the target demographic away from your writers and storytellers and more towards roleplayers and tabletop fans who prefer working in a GM led, very structured environment. You probably have a good number of writer type people interested here from the way the first-post is structured.

[Genbor]

@Sierra
I don't think these are mutually exclusive, having a general sense of direction and a set of rules you have to follow can be just as good for the "writer" types as for anyone esle, although I do agree with you that some people might feel it too strict if there were too many of these rulesets. I don't think having a few guidelines like what @Traps posted previously would hurt creativity, it would just narrow it down so it sticks to the logic of the world.

Those are my thoughts on this currently anyway.

[Tera]

@Sierra @Genbor Thanks a lot for the feedback! :) It's good to bring the possible issue out.

GM is an indecisive being. (sometimes)

I do understand the difference in target audiences. I have a number of game mechanics in mind, but I keep on going back and forth in whether to implement them in the game cause of this exact reason. They are more of tabletop/NRP elements and might not suit the current players' taste, but personally I really liked them because they look fun xD (*cof cof* I'm a game dev and I feel uncomfortable leaving games without mechanics, feels like dumping players into the void. So the game mechanics came to mind naturally). So that was why I wanted to ask for opinions on this, since you guys are the ones that will help play it out.

Hum... I will throw in all of my game mechanics ideas today (and possibly pitch how good they are) and get opinions on them. If the feedback is more towards a freestyle roleplay or a mix we can go for that as well. I have that ready. :)

My main reasons for game mechanics (you don't have to agree, just my opinion xD):
1. Growth: RPers get to see their characters grow with the world over time. Your possessions feel more real.
2. Impact: Allows characters to interact with and change the world in a very visible way. Does not have to rely on the GM to make the call and change the world every time a big decision is made.
3. Elements of surprise: Imagine a world that has a life of its own.
4. Games, games, and games: Plays mini-games while you write your story.
5. Immersiveness: If you are an inventor, you will think about how your inventions impact the world; if you are a politician, think about how to outwit your opponents and gain more political grounds; if you are an adventurer, be curious about what is out there, and be scared of losing your life.
6. More story content ideas: As the world changes organically being led by the game mechanics, writers may find more and more occasions to put in story ideas.

I'm trying to make the mechanics less intrusive. xD That is, you may choose to use the mechanics or not. For example, you may still navigate around the world freely without using the "Inventors' Idle Game" mechanics.

[BespeckledCeph]

@Traps I really like these Ideas, like our characters growing and having an impact on the world. I always like some weight behind my decisions, even if it's a forum RP story. I don't understand 3 and 4 much, but I also like 5 and 6

All in all, I might look at some tabletop RP's now because if they have mechanics like this, I want it all.

[Tera]

@BespeckledCeph

3. This is more of a background game mechanics. In an open world video game, things happen even when players are not interacting with them. In a forum roleplay, I can simulate that by coding a simple program that helps me generate all the (big number of) events from regional weather to location events in the beginning of every in-game week, and write them down in each location tab beforehand. For example, a clockwork suicide bomber named James Smith who was a fired doctor will go into the central hospital on Wednesday morning for a terrorist attempt. So the player may choose to intercept or Let It Go. xD

Edit: Each event will have a default aftermath if no one interferes on that particular instance.

More Edit: There will be three types of events: scripted, world-generated, and player creation.

[BespeckledCeph]

Ooohhh makes sense, as an extra layer of immersion and events @Traps

[Sierra]

@Traps Are you writing that output to any kind of database and is the randomizer reading from a file (i.e. write down a long list of possibilities and plug the file into the executable)? Me asking random off-topic programming questions .... :P

Biggest potential point of contention here is the idea of character growth. There's two ways to do it and I personally would consider one to be superior than the other in most cases.
Arbitrary: tabletop style. Raw character stats that can be increased is a purely arbitrary system. Its clear, defined, and makes comparisons and balancing very easy. This is great if you're making a tabletop-esque RPG. However, among people who come to write stories rather than play D&D (I fall into this camp most of the time where I prefer one extreme or the other, never a mix) will not favor this and would much prefer ...
Nuanced: non-quantified written description. Eliminating the need to quantify something allows it to be situational and multi-faceted in interesting ways. This becomes more difficult to enforce a balance on since the actual power level of said attribute is not quantified. This requires more faith in the players from the GM(s) but for the purposes of storytelling, is generally preferential.

So ultimately it does come down to what kind of a roleplay you want to make here. I will caveat that by reiterating that the advertising lends it to appear more as an open-option storytelling RP, rather than something that will play out similarly to tabletop roleplaying games. As long as you keep in mind what your both your current and target demographics look like, then I'll follow this through its development.

[Tera]

@Sierra Yes xD write down a long list of possibilities with the corresponding probability distributions and plug the file into the executable. Also simple things like temporary NPCs (names, roles, demographics) can be generated.

As for character growth, I would like some tabletop elements but I don't like the arbitrary system too much as stats are just numbers and do not introduce new elements to the characters as they "level up". I would rather like the growth to be more qualitative and creative than quantitative (like the inventor idle system, it allows inventors to pitch their own creations and make the customized effects visible). I will put in more details after my lunch break ^_^"

The GM is poor and hungry.

[Genbor]

@Sierra

What you described in the Arbitrary section is more of an MMORPG than a tabletop style. MMORPGs tend to gravitate to numerical values for comparisons, so that X can never beat Y no matter how creative if their stats are vastly different. On the other hand, a tabletop like D&D let's say, has a different balancing, it offers a set of game mechanics with which it sets the logic of the world, and allows the players and the GM to be on the same page as to how things work. Ultimately, it's the GM (and the dice rolls) who decides the outcomes of each different scenarios. It is more limiting in a sense than what you described in your Nuanced section, but it sets a logical limit in my opinion: a farmhand fresh out of the fields has no chance to beat a dragon with a sword (Low level player vs High level monster), but a skilled veteran can contest it, although not alone unless they are incredibly overpowered compared to the setting.

In a D&D type of tabletop game, the storytelling and RP is collaborative, and in my experience that really helps flesh things out, while the game mechanics are there to supplement the storytelling and not limit it. No one (at least not of a sane mind) will intentionally miss with an attack or fall into a pit they didn't want to fall, and the game mechanics allow for such antics to happen, but it also allows for unexpectedly epic moments to come into the limelight, like a makeshift plan working way better than it should be.

For example, a lone bard going in to a house full of hostiles, where he would likely die after his first round of combat, but instead turns the whole situation to his advantage with clever thinking and lucky dice rolls, eventually having a showdown against the boss of the scenario on the rooftop whom he has next to no chance of beating alone, but he pushes him down from the roof with a Bigby's hand, sets the house on fire and Dimension doors out of the place. All this accomplished even though he went there just to provide some distraction so that the main party could do their thing.

Of course this obviously also relies on the players and the GMs, so each experience might be different, I'm just trying to point out that it is not as binary as you would make it seem, just because there are mechanics to follow. But I do agree with you, and I think I mentioned this earlier, that a simple numerical growth and comparison would be very limiting and boring.

PS: Just to nitpick here, arbitrary means that it is not following a clear defined system, instead opting to go for personal whims, so if it is clearly defined and makes comparisons and balancing very easy, it -- by it's definition -- cannot be arbitrary. How the rule-set was established can be arbitrary, but it cannot be applied if you are talking about the system. I'm just poking you, sorry. :P

[Tera]

@Genbor That really fleshed out my thoughts on tabletop elements. xD It will only be an interesting world if there are both rewarding and punishing outcomes.

@Sierra does bring out the concern about players who will prefer a more free-form writing without the need to consider about technical mechanics. Even if the game mechanics do not restrict people on their creativity, it will in fact cost them more time and effort as they need to refer to the rules and weight their options before they post.

I do want to introduce dice element, but still figuring out how complex should it be at the moment. Particularly interested in the FUDGE/FATE tabletop systems by the way.

[Genbor]

@Traps

I've heard of the FUDGE/FATE system, but mostly by name. It did sound more like a way to bring in random elements into a story with less dice rolls required though, so it could be interesting.

[Enigmatik]

Incidentally, when are we going to get an actual thread?