Gaming Outpost Discussions » Tag: mechanics

Gaming Outpost Discussions » Tag: mechanics - Recent Topics http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/tags/mechanics Gaming Outpost Discussions » Tag: mechanics - Recent Topics en-US Sat, 11 Feb 2012 12:37:13 +0000 http://bbpress.org/?v=1.0.2 <![CDATA[Search]]> q http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/search.php WilliamTWodium on ""Time" "Stop"" http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/time-stop#post-19025 Sat, 15 May 2010 16:00:43 +0000 WilliamTWodium 19025@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ So Maxx is about to attempt a pseudo-time stop via personal hyper-acceleration. The rule book is not terribly helpful in this regard. I find 14@1 Slow, 14@2 Haste, 14@4 Suspended Animation, and 14@8 Time Stop. Slow and Haste have baselines that adjust subjective time for the target by a factor of two. Suspended Animation is like a Slow that slows the target so much that time for the target has practically stopped. Time Stop actually stops time within a limited area, which Maxx has specifically said he is not doing. What I don't see listed is a Haste counter-part to Suspended Animation: a skill which accelerates the charter so much that time has practically stopped for everything else. Should this just be a new listing, perhaps at P14@5? That seems odd, though, because the skill is superior to the higher-biased 14@8 Time Stop in that it has no need of an area of effect. Thoughts? M. J. Young on "Behind the Screens 2009" http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/behind-the-screens-2009#post-8832 Tue, 06 Jan 2009 00:36:55 +0000 M. J. Young 8832@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ It was suggested that it might be time to retire our previous mechanics thread, <a href="http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/behind-the-screens-2008/page/21">Behind the Screens 2008</a>, so we did. And perhaps fittingly we've quite a group today for whom to do it--Kurt, Harry, Nikolaj, John 2, Adam, and Graeme all posting. Oddly, Kurt does not identify himself to the operator; but then, it's entirely likely that agents sometimes cannot do so, so they probably have provision for that. Harry confused me--somehow he got to the patient's bedside, but I didn't see that happen. (That, incidentally, means that it hasn't happened yet, because we have to agree as to what's happening.) Nikolaj rolls 50 on his medical diagnosis, but bandaging wounds is a 2@ bias level so he's got +5 for the difference in level, +1@1 SAL, +2@1 BRA, +2x5@ world tech bias--that's 47, not successful here. More significantly, he's going to have to give some sort of account of himself. John 2 rolls 49 on a skill learning attempt for the use of the laser blaster. He's got the advantage of Derek's 1@8 teaching SAL, 2@6 example, and 2@3 tech BRA, so that's a success on a 1@1 Use Laser Blaster T12@1 (borrowed from Derek Brown) skill. He's getting a bit impatient about the teacher; don't worry, the teacher is coming. Let's first get a few skills under his belt. Next time I'll roll skill advancement checks for him. Geneice rolls 66 on her emergency teleport skill, and so bounces back to the grove. I think that's the first time she's used it from beyond sight of the grove (it was learned by designing it locally, at a 1@3 SAL for her), so we'll call it new use and give her 1@4. Hey, I couldn't resist--and anyway the code was Adam's idea. Graeme is going to attempt to copy an Azmayincan spell. This should be interesting, as I didn't really put too much effort into creating the spell and have no idea how the numbers play. But I can see what he's doing and have a pretty good idea of how I designed the skill on the fly, so let's crunch some numbers. Oh, but I have some questions to which I will need answers. Hopefully that won't delay the game too long. --M. J. Young M. J. Young on "Christian Prayer Theology and Game Mechanics" http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/christian-prayer-theology-and-game-mechanics#post-14375 Sun, 25 Oct 2009 21:34:59 +0000 M. J. Young 14375@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ On the <a href='http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/nikolaj-rising/page/7'>seventh page of the thread Nikolaj Rising</a>, Nikolaj wrote <blockquote>It once again proves that no system, however good it is, can substitute or even correctly emulate the true working of the Spirit or the spiritual life.</blockquote> I certainly agree that no game system can do that; but that's ultimately because it cannot be formalized into a rationally predictable formula. The thing about Christian prayer is that it seems really to come down to what it is God wants to do; but it is more complicated than that, because it seems at least sometimes that it comes down to what we advise God to do. That is, some of the greatest prayer warriors in scripture and out (Moses virtually leaps to mind) argue with God, telling God what God has to do for God's sake. That's the power of petitionary prayer, that it asks or even tells God what to do, and God does it. It seems that that has to be part of the equation, because if we're talking about asking God to do what God was going to do anyway, we're playing some sort of mind game with ourselves--like screaming at the television or movie screen to tell the characters what to do, knowing full well that the characters are going to do what they do without our input, one way or the other. In order for prayer to matter, it must be that at least sometimes God does what we ask precisely because we ask. At the same time, we also know that God does not always do what we ask when and how we expect. Many have lost faith in God because God did not do what they told him to do--from did not give the bicycle we wanted to did not save our mother's life. He does not always answer prayers. So we fall into the trap of thinking that God answers the prayers of the good people, the people who are holiest, most righteous, most moral. This, though, is completely contrary to the concept of the gospel. We do not make ourselves more pleasing to God by what we do; we are pleasing to God because we trust Him. So then we think that the person who trusts God most fully--who has the strongest faith--is the one whose prayers are answered; and suddenly we have turned faith into a work, something you have to do well enough to get your answers. The truth of the matter is that God answers our prayers because we asked and in His view it would be the best thing for us, others, and Himself. In some sense we serve as God's advisers when we pray, telling Him what we think He should do, and then getting His answer. It has nothing to do with how good or righteous we are, and nothing to do with how strong our faith is. It has to do with His grace, His willingness to do the best thing for us, and His wisdom in understanding what that best thing would be. The only way that can be done in a game is for there to be a character who is God. Unfortunately, this character has to know what is going to happen, and has to understand the other characters better than they understand themselves, so as to be able to predict what impact the various possible answers are likely to have. I don't know that; I cannot run a non-player character who does. Games all look for ways around this. Some fall back on a works righteousness system, whereby doing good increases your prayer power and doing bad reduces it. Some give you so many points to use, as if you could use this much grace and then you've run out of it. Multiverser, though, avoids those pitfalls. We treat each prayer individually, and roll for them individually. At the same time, we assume that the prayer that involves three hours of kneeling prostrate in the presence of God is a more serious request and more likely to be answered than the one tossed off in a quick phrase as you walk into the dangerous situation in which you are hoping for protection. Thus we use probabilities based on multiple factors: how big a miracle do you want, and how much of yourself are you investing in the request? I wish I could devise a magic system for a game that was based entirely on grace, but it would ultimately come to referee fiat: did I as referee believe that God would grant this request or not? It then becomes my grace, and absent guidelines it becomes the grace of each individual referee. The referee is then caught by the reality that God does not seem to answer anyone's prayers all the time, and that some people would say God has never answered any of their prayers. It becomes a matter of personal opinion, based on what this particular referee believes God would do--and if this particular referee happens not to believe in God, or to believe that God does not often answer prayers, you'll get a very different result from the referee who believes God always answers all but the most outrageous requests. So you can't systematize what God will do and be realistic about it. It would be very like trying to create a system to predict what you will do next, and we can't do that, either. I often think that God has a hand on the dice, though, such that relatively improbable prayers are sometimes granted and relatively likely ones sometimes fail, and that's better for the player and the character and the game, because ultimately I'm not entirely persuaded that dice mechanics are truly random. --M. J. Young WilliamTWodium on "Wingnuts and Wizardry, Ritual Magic for Scott's Game" http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/wingnuts-and-wizardry-ritual-magic-for-scotts-game#post-258 Sun, 02 Sep 2007 03:31:26 +0000 WilliamTWodium 258@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ For several reasons, this "spell" will take several posts to hash out, not least of which is my unwillingness to write the whole thing down at one time. I've made this thread so we can hash it out in peace without unduly cluttering or bumping my own game thread, and also as a potential home for other complex rituals I may cook up in the future. This ritual is concerned with the creation of a Discordian holy-symbol, something that will proclaim the power of Eris to any and all who see it - or else just confuse them, which amounts to the same thing. As near as I can tell, no one has ever done this before. There are plenty of symbols and signs associated with the Faith, of course, but no one as taken to blessing one of them and wearing it around his neck. Since I'm breaking new ground - and because V-me has very little else that's interesting to do with his time - the whole thing is going to be as long, as involved, and as complicated as he can make it. It will be absolutely riddled with symbolism and bogus numerology. Riddled, I say. In any case, the core of the finished symbol will be five wingnuts, which will undergo various transmutations and so forth over the course of the ritual; by the end, each wingnut will supposedly contain the summoned essence of one of the five elements (Sweet, Boom, Pungent, Prickle, and Orange). The whole thing will take twenty-three days and will happen in five phases. Twenty-three is a number of power (2+3=5), and the five phases mirror the five seasons of the Discordian year (Chaos, Discord, Confusion, Bureaucracy and Aftermath). The first day of the ritual must be a Setting Orange (the fifth day of the five-day Discordian week), so that each subsequent day falls on the most auspicious day of the week for its particular piece of the performance. The phases follow: 1) Declaration of Intent. One day. The Pope declares his intention before Eris of creating a tangible symbol of Confusion in general and Eris in particular. Activities include personal purification, disambiguation of the Pope from a cabbage or something, ranting, getting Eris's attention in the first place, and preparations for later rituals. 2) Invocation of the Elements. Five days (one per wingnut). The Pope imbues each wingnut in turn with the essence of a different element, giving each the life, vitality, and individual identity necessary for the later steps. Activities include personal purification, preparation of the ritual space, calling upon the elements, transmutation of the wingnut(s), and sequestering each finished wingnut in a special container (in which it will remain, in meditation, for one week). 3) Emergence, Introductions and Attuning. Five days. As the wingnuts complete their five-day periods of meditation (staggered, of course, one wingnut per day), the Pope introduces them each to himself and to each other, taking time to get to know them and for everyone to become comfortable with everyone else. Activities include naming each wingnut, group games, social mealtimes, one-on-one interaction with each wingnut, and bedtime stories. 4) Binding and Formal Affirmations. Eleven days (one day ritual, ten days affirmation). The Pope performs a ritual of unification, binding the five wingnuts together and formalizing their connection to himself. He then makes this Official by filling out and filing an ever-escalating series of forms. Activities include complex transmutations, convoluted symbolic reasoning, tedious hand-copying, repetitive compulsory song, and overuse of paper clips. 5) Dissolution and Emancipation, or, "Screw You Guys." One day. The Pope gets thoroughly sick of forms, the wingnuts, and unity in general. He breaks apart the wingnuts' bindings, discards said wingnuts, and seeks wisdom in solitude. The Holy Symbol is completed when he returns to the wingnuts and once again collects them - this time without all that silly business about eternal, inseparable bonds. Activities include mistreatment of official forms, breaking things, sulking, eating hot dog buns, and awkwardly making up. That's the overview. I think I'll hit each section in detail in separate posts. In terms of mechanics, I'm interested in defining this thing's time factor. I haven't gone through and made an account of how long I spend each day on actual ritual, but I imagine it will average somewhere between one and three hours per day (23 to 69 hours total). As a player, I'm hoping I get full credit for the twenty-three days, but as a referee, I'm hoping to get some insight into adjudicating this kind of situation. M. J. Young on "Behind the Screens 2008" http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/behind-the-screens-2008#post-3050 Tue, 01 Jan 2008 16:53:12 +0000 M. J. Young 3050@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ It seemed to me good to start a new thread; after all, the old one was getting pretty long. Anyone who needs to reference it can find it as <a href="http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/behind-the-screens-continues?replies=237">Behind the Screens Continues</a>, and can get to the last game-related post <a href="http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/behind-the-screens-continues/page/8?replies=237#post-3041">here</a>. Happy New Year; John 4, Max, John 2, and Adam are the guests at today's party. John 4 adds 12 pairs of drum sticks to his equipment. I, knowing his penchant for percussion, am allowing it without a roll, as I cannot really imagine him going anywhere without them. I'm surprised they weren't in the back pocket of his pajamas. He also looks for his dog, who is on his equipment list, and she will be sleeping beside him. Max is making some solid preparations for his upcoming meeting. We'll fill in a few blanks on that. John 2 has inspired a new thread on holy magic botches, and is now praying. On examination, I conclude that the prayer is a M2@4 Cure Disease, capable of curing multiple diseases. There is a baseline of ten minutes, and he has specified "a few minutes", which I usually take as a number between three and seven, so I'll call it 5:00, and take -10 from the chance of success. I'm also not happy that he's curing multiple diseases, but I'll only take -5 for that. He gets +5 for appropriateness, +2 for sound necessary, +15 for total physical involvement, and I believe I gave him a bonus for limiting a prayer to his room previously, +10 for that. This makes the skill's inherent sit-mod -10-5+5+2+15+10=+17, and he has the +10 alliance bonus and his own +9 for religion, a 1@4 mag bias, and a 2@2 BRA. That means +17+10+9+22-24=34% chance of success. The roll is 11, which is a decent success. To consolidate, the description is 1@1 Cure Diseases M+2@4 retire to personal room or quarters, kneel with total body involvement, pray with appropriate words for healing of specified ailments, sound necessary, 5:00TF, +17SM. Adam is getting oriented to the new surroundings. This will be fascinating. --M. J. Young M. J. Young on "Realistic Game Mechanics" http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/realistic-game-mechanics#post-8190 Fri, 21 Nov 2008 23:59:47 +0000 M. J. Young 8190@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ <blockquote>And about asking for the roll on the Parkour school, I just keep forgetting that I don't know jack about how this game runs, but that's the whole point of the board, right? Something that I've never liked about this is the way you suddenly have a major skill increase. I mean if I was at 1@10+3 on my boxing, and then got my fourth new use in the middle of a fight, I would suddenly start hitting twice as hard and twice as fast? I know there's probably no better way to do it with game mechanics, but that's far from being realistic. It's not worth arguing over, but I just never liked that idea. Oh well. You designed a cool game, it's just not always that realistic. In a real fight, you might throw a kick that's from karate, throw a punch that's from boxing, then judo flip the guy. I bet there's no game mechanic for that, unless you're using special attacks.</blockquote> Let's take this in pieces. Yes, we're here to teach how to run the game. I think that my objection is not that you're trying to learn, but that you're acting like you think you already know. That is, "I'm going to look for something like Parkour, which is a sort of martial arts style that involves running, jumping, and escaping from things," is a much better approach than "I want you to roll such-and-such a mechanic to determine whether I can find this thing I'm hoping exists in this world." For one thing, it's not always "realistic" for me to make such rolls. You might ask me to roll whether there are fire breathing dragons in this world. I'm not saying that there are or that there aren't, but I would say that whether there are or aren't probably is not going to be determined so much by a General Effects Roll as by my assessment of the nature of the universe. But that's the small thing; I mention it because it was mentioned first. <blockquote>I mean if I was at 1@10+3 on my boxing, and then got my fourth new use in the middle of a fight, I would suddenly start hitting twice as hard and twice as fast? I know there's probably no better way to do it with game mechanics, but that's far from being realistic.</blockquote> As to whether there is a "better" way to do it with game mechanics, that is entirely subjective. For example, in Multiverser if you're doing ship-to-ship combat in outer space, you use skill checks based on weapon stats against protective defenses. In one classic space game the name of which slips my mind at the moment, you do trigonometric calculations for distances and directions in three-dimensional space to determine the probabily of hitting a target that size at that distance. The trig game is probably more accurate and more "realistic"; the Multiverser mechanic is a lot faster and accessible to a larger number of typical gamers, most of whom either can't or do not wish to do trig calculations for each shot in the game. I certainly could have designed a game in which each incremental increase in your skill increased everything incrementally. Let's say that your chance to hit is X, and cannot be greater than 99% or less than 1%. I could then create a damage scale by which your damage range is equal to X times the weapons maximum possible damage, and the roll determines what percent of that you actually do. Thus if the weapon has a maximum of 100, and you've got X=50 and roll 45, then you would do 45% of 50% of 100 points of damage. Since your range increases with each point of possible success the values of your rolls also increase. I could also say that you get a number of attacks equal to X times the maximum number of attacks the attack form can handle, rounded up. Then if the attack form has 10 attacks and your chance of success if 50, you've got five attacks. And if it were a computer game, maybe I would try something like that; but people have to do math at the table, and some already comment about the fact that I often bring a calculator with me (for those times when my mind is so boggled that adding a column of two-digit numbers is one too many tasks). But saying that it's "far from realistic" is misunderstanding a basic aspect of the concept of attack mechanics. In Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, an average guy weilding a sword against another average guy weilding a sword gets "one attack per round". A "round" is one minute. The game authors admit that it's silly to think that in one minute an ordinary guy is not going to be able to attempt to hit his opponent more than once. The way the mechanic works isn't by imagining two guys each of whom swings at the other once per minute, but imagining two guys swinging and parrying over the course of a minute, looking for openings and trying to land blows, and each of them having a percent chance that one of their attempting blows will hit the other guy per minute. The same reasoning applies with Multiverser: you're going to try to hit more often than you're going to roll for it; the odds are figured based on the assumption that sometimes you get the opening and sometimes you don't, but on average you'll hit this hard this often. Now, the problem with the suggested scenario above is that it is taking the dissected combat as the reality of the experience. That's tempting to do, and on one level it's necessary to do it--as referee I have to describe that you hit him, that you got hit, how badly he appears to be injured, how badly you think you're injured, and I have to do it on a move-by-move basis. In reality, though, these fights need to be seen as a whole, from the perspective of having finished them. So the kid gets in the ring, and he's pretty good, going for his shot at the big time. My paperwork says he's 1@10+3marks. He gets through the first minute and lands a blow. In the second minute he doesn't land a blow, but in the third minute he comes up with something he's never done before. He gets his new use mark, kicks into 2@1, and now he's rolling twice as often. What does it look like, really? The kid got off to a slow start, but then his training and practice seemed to come together. He pulled an unexpected stunt three minutes into the fight, putting his opponent off-balance, and from there he got his confidence, hit his stride, and pummelled the opponent for the rest of the fight, emerging as the winner. Remember, mathematically you are hitting twice as often and twice as hard, but in fact everything still rides on the dice. Those first two hits you landed--well, let's assume 1@10 BRA+1@10 SAL+2x7@ bias+1@10 MSV-1@6 TV=58%, damaging, then raise the SAL to 2@1 and we've got 59% dangerous. 58% damaging means once per round you've got a 58% chance of doing up to three intensities of damage on a hit. 59% dangerous means that twice per round you've got a 59% chance of doing up to 6 intensities of damage on either or both of two hits. Real quick extended math: <ul>damaging 20x1=20 20x2=40 18x3=58 sum=118 /100=1.18 intensities of damage per minute. dangerous 10x1=10 10x2=20 10x3=30 10x4=40 10x5=50 8x6=48 sum=198 /100=1.98 x2=3.96 intensities of damage in the average minute.</ul> What has really changed? <li>You might hit your opponent harder than you've ever hit him before; about half of your successful blows will do this, but the other half won't be any harder than anything you've done before.</li> <li>You will probably hit him twice as often--but remember, at 58% chance per minute you're really only landing a blow once every (1/(0.58x60))103 seconds, and at 59% per thirty seconds you're now landing one (1/(0.59x30)51 seconds.</li> If I gave you a list of the actual blows landed in a four-minute fight, could you actually tell without the mechanic breakdown at what point the fighter gained his level? You could probably tell that he was a better fighter at the end of the fight than he was going in, but the moment at which that happened would not be evident at all. As to this: <blockquote>In a real fight, you might throw a kick that's from karate, throw a punch that's from boxing, then judo flip the guy. I bet there's no game mechanic for that, unless you're using special attacks.</blockquote> There are several mechanics for that. <ul> <li>You have the ability to change which style you are using, shifting to the attacks and defenses of the new style, once per minute.</li> <li>You say "unless you're using special attacks", but then, that's really the whole point, isn't it? If you tell me you're using judo, then it's assumed that the "not special" attacks are all pushes, flips, throws, the sorts of things common in judo, and none of them are described, they're just rolled for success and damage. If you want a throw that is going to make more of a difference than just "you attacked him successfully and he is injured from it" then you have to use a special maneuver, a Leveraged Attack, Throw. But by the rules, special maneuvers are not locked into their styles--the only lock on them is whether you must have or not have something to do them (e.g., if you have a weapon-based disarm or parry, you must have the weapon). Thus if you tell me that you're doing Judo but you want to use the boxing punch and the karate kick, they're rolled as special maneuvers brought over from their styles and incorporated into yours.</li> <li>Anyone who has learned two or more styles knows enough to design his own style. How well he designs it--well, that's going to be dependent on how well he understands martial arts generally and how similar it is to what he's done before. But if you want to design a style that incorporates several techniques, as long as they are not inconsistent with each other you can do so.</li> </ul> So in fact you can do exactly what you've described, and people do it all the time. Modern game designers cringe at the word "realistic". It is a loaded word which means whatever the person using it wants it to mean at the time. These are simulations of imagined realities. They are always approximations, and there are always flaws in them. The trick is to get them to work as consistently as possible with the expectations of the player. I don't recall your character ever getting into a fight and you complaining that you couldn't mix bits from different fighting styles. You're complaining about things you think don't work because you've never actually seen how well they do work. I can be offended by that. You see, if Scott (who knows these rules as well as--well, within the top five people I've known) or Adam (who has expertise in several role playing game systems including nationally recognized championships) or Graeme (who was playing role playing games long before he ever became interested in Multiverser and is now the longest-running currently-active player on the forum) wants to say that there are flaws in the system that could have been handled better, I'm willing to bet that they speak from knowledge and experience. You speak (frankly) from ignorance and naivete. You tell me what's broken in parts of the game you've never seen actually in play. Have you ever seen someone improve his skill across a level barrier in the midst of combat? It happens so rarely I can't name the last time it did; that also reminds me that the game handles it so smoothly that it wasn't worth remembering. Please figure out how things really work, and test them, before you tell me why they don't. Thank you. --M. J. Young Graham on "Is Belief Enough?" http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/is-belief-enough#post-7628 Tue, 21 Oct 2008 20:43:37 +0000 Graham 7628@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ In Multiverser, where do Gods get their power from? It seems logical that some Gods are less powerful than others, and often in fiction we hear of divine wars where one side wins and one side loses. So then, is it the belief of the followers that gives power? Is it the, odd as it is, age of the god? or the time the god has had to perfect its arts? Or is it arbitrary? That leads me to my second question. Is belief in a god enough to have that god exist (in Multiverser mind) and be able to perform holy magic? Could I, in theory, make up a god and follow and belief, and then be able to perform holy magics with the help of this deity? I think these question arise more out of an ignorance of holy magic mechanics than they do from pure curiosity. Tadeusz on "Question for MJ on Prayer for Game" http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/question-for-mj-on-prayer-for-game#post-7010 Mon, 15 Sep 2008 17:58:59 +0000 Tadeusz 7010@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ PLAYTESTER==You hear invisible angels singing with you, and the wound closes. Its still red, and dented, and Rickard is pale, but he will live. The music has stopped. OOC: Limited Damage Repair 1@3 (Mag) TOM DAY:Tom thanks the Lord and then prays, "Lord, in this world where magic is more prominent, I have the opportunity to learn more of thy ways; and this might seem like a stupid question, but I have always been leery of vain repetitions, but I feel that practice might help me improve the ability to wield Thy granted power to help my fellow man. May I have thy permission to pray for practice only instead of direct aid to myself or another?" PT----OOC: I'm going to take this one to MJ the game designer. Its a useful question he may have answered before, and if not, its good to provoke thought and besides, I could use the help. ----OOC: I'm going to take this one to MJ the game designer. Its a useful question he may have answered before, and if not, its good to provoke thought and besides, I could use the help. TOM DAY[Private to Playtester: OOC: Yeah, its a bit of a conundrum for me as well. There was a School of the Prophets, and the implication of Old vs New testament pretty clearly implies a 'level of mana' mechanic in a world makes it just fine to be more inclined to pray for or expect easily seen physical miracles vs 'plausible deniability' stuff. Even praying over and over again for success on something to achieve a desired result seems scripturally (to me) solid....but praying over and over again just for practice? If that's not vain repetitions what is? Any yet at the same time, God is not a wimp, and with the set up in Multiverser, if my skill at performing a miracle is increased by practicing it, I can't see how that would be vain repetitions.] ERIC: So MJ, any thoughts? JohnA1nut on "Bonuses and such" http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/bonuses-and-such#post-6642 Sat, 23 Aug 2008 01:56:49 +0000 JohnA1nut 6642@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ I have 2@2 proficiency with my 9mm. It is a Ruger P89 9mm. The thing though is that it is one of a line of at least 14 different handguns. To my knowledge, the pistols are all exactly the same, to the extent that they can be. All of the 9mm pistols in that group take the same magazine, all the 45 pistols do, etc. Also, they are all built more or less the same. Some have shorter barrels, some have smaller grips, but they are all mechanically exactly the same in how they operate. They also field strip in exactly the same fashion. (I know the P89 and the P90 did) I know that having 2@2 with one pistol gives you 1@10 with all pistols, but what if the pistol was a Ruger P series? Maybe the 45 caliber P 90 (one of which I owned) which is exactly the same, except for the larger caliber? Would there be any kind of bonuses for that? WilliamTWodium on "Magic manipulating magic" http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/magic-manipulating-magic#post-6356 Sat, 02 Aug 2008 18:16:16 +0000 WilliamTWodium 6356@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ I'm in search of game balance advice. In the description for M4@8 Manipulate Magic, it says that if the spell targets magic and there is still a magical effect after the spell succeeds, it's a skill under that heading. It gives suggested baselines for an array of uses, but it doesn't address a spell whose purpose is merely to extend the duration of another effect already in progress. Ordinarily, I'd just eyeball it, but this struck me as something with some serious potential for imbalace. (Let's see, I'll take a +20 sit-mod on the three-hour climate control for cutting the duration down to 7:30:00, then I'll cast my guaranteed-success three-minute Extend Duration spell - that's +40 for the time factor - and I'll do that five times for +RS% to the duration each time . . .) So, I guess I'm looking for opinions in three areas: 1) What should the baseline time factor be? Most M4@8 Manipulate Magic skills run about twelve seconds, but I think this one's atypical. The standard one-to-ten TF-to-duration rule of thumb isn't much help here either. 2) How should the length of the extension be determined - based on the TF of the target skill, based on the TF of the extension skill, or fixed somehow and thus relative to neither? 3) How narrowly, at baseline, should such skills be defined? This could range from, at one extreme, a single Extend Duration skill for any in-place magical effect to, at the other, a separate skill for each specific spell the caster would like to be able to extend. What should be the standard, and what should be craziness calling for ad-hod adjustments to the other baseline values? M. J. Young on "Behind the Screens Continues" http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/behind-the-screens-continues#post-41 Sun, 19 Aug 2007 17:35:31 +0000 M. J. Young 41@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ I am going to begin by expressing my gratitude to Aaron, Jacob, and Dutch for recognizing our need to have our own official forum, and providing this so promptly. I've a lot of work to do, as I need to identify which game threads should be considered active, and get those restarted on this forum. In fairness, I am going to begin by relaunching those games which had posts on the old forum before it closed, oldest to newest, and then work backwards through those threads which have been inactive since then, newest to oldest. If your game thread is not here, please feel free to restart your game from wherever it ended. I mean no slight and am not unilaterally terminating anyone's game; it might be that I thought you had dropped out of play, or it might be that I missed your thread when I was looking back. In either case, you are welcome to post again here. For those who need to find their old threads, the archives of the Multiverser forum are at <a href="http://discussions.gamingoutpost.com/index.php?showforum=83" rel="nofollow">http://discussions.gamingoutpost.com/index.php?showforum=83</a> and should be openly accessible to anyone. You cannot post, but if you log in to your old account the unread posts markers are fixed to your last visit (and will not, apparently, update for your new visit). The old Behind the Screens at a March Pace thread is <a href="http://discussions.gamingoutpost.com/index.php?showtopic=82716">here</a>, and I will include links (if I remember to do so) in each new thread to connect to the archives of their previous play. I'm guessing on the coding to be used here; it appears that HTML is accepted, but I suspect that not all of it will be accepted, so we'll see what does and does not work as we go along and hope that the edit button actually does work on the new system. Answering the few questions asked on that thread before it closed: <ul> <li>Yes, John, it is because of the e-mail. Long ago I did everything every day, and it took forever to get through it all. I noticed that when I was involved in any discussion every day (be it by e-mail or by forum) I wrote a lot more in that discussion and put a lot more time into it. With e-mail, if I put an answer off a day or two, it slowed down the conversation and took less of my time; with forums, time away meant someone else would often answer a question adequately before I returned. Thus I sequestered the major forums in which I participated (but not the official forum site) into one day per week, arranged on alternate days, and put the e-mail between. However, as it happened I always did the e-mail first, then came here, then went to the other forums, so when I sliced down the workload I still did e-mail before Gaming Outpost and other forums after, which meant that on e-mail days Gaming Outpost was at the end of the day and on forum days it was at the beginning.</li> <li>Scott, I look forward to your next post.</li> <li>Shawn, I have not heard from Graeme since his last post here; however, he sometimes gets called away abruptly on business and does not have Internet access or time for extended stretches. Oddly, he's an engineer without Internet access at home, so he only posts when he's got time elsewhere. I'm not yet worried about him.</ul> That should be sufficient for that. Donna will be first, then Adam, then Shawn, and then I'll work backwards through the other players. Donna continues from <a href="http://discussions.gamingoutpost.com/index.php?showtopic=83039&view=getnewpost">here</a>. She needs a difficult persuasion check because she wants these children of the Englightenment to believe that she is a person of some supernatural power, but she does have the explosions in her favor so I'll bonus the effort by +3 on her effective persuasion, 1@9. The roll is 28, so it's not happening. For the record, it appears that I can use blockquote as well as href link codes, and there is a note saying that ol and ul lists work as well as basic em, amd strong formatting codes, if I remembered it right. Adam was last posted <a href="http://discussions.gamingoutpost.com/index.php?showtopic=81664&view=getnewpost">here</a>. I'm copying the last post and responding to move things forward. Shawn last posted <a href="http://discussions.gamingoutpost.com/index.php?showtopic=80964&view=getnewpost">here</a>. There is a 16 GE roll on whether the Duke of Kent will come to Zenda (and since I don't know which Shawn would prefer, that makes it easy for me), so we'll go with yes and no. That means it's time to launch threads for other people based on last posts. I will list them here and link them to their archived posts, as well as launch the new threads. Ryan from <a href="http://discussions.gamingoutpost.com/index.php?showtopic=83003&st=60&start=60">The Kid is Bah Ke'gehn</a>. Scott was posting in <a href="http://discussions.gamingoutpost.com/index.php?showtopic=83061&st=60&start=60">Scott Free or Not</a>, a rather dark high psionics world in which he has just shown his hostess, a waitress named Alice who aspires to be a writer, a copy of the famed graphic novel The Watchmen. Kyler was last playing in <a href="http://discussions.gamingoutpost.com/index.php?showtopic=82755&st=440&start=440">Kyler in a New City</a>. Graeme has been absent for a while, but last posted in <a href="http://discussions.gamingoutpost.com/index.php?showtopic=83063&st=20&start=20">Rome Wasn't Built In a Millennium</a>. Anyone who is being run by another referee should arrange with that person for how to resume play here; if there are problems, drop me a note at <a href="mailto:mjyoung@mjyoung.net">mjyoung@mjyoung.net</a>. Anyone else has been absent for more than a month, and should post here to renew their game play if they are still with us. I'll post my own game for Graeme to resume when he returns. --M. J. Young JohnA1nut on "Practicing" http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/practicing#post-1883 Wed, 21 Nov 2007 01:29:54 +0000 JohnA1nut 1883@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ I was just thinking about practicing, from the Verser's point of view. You use a skill, let's say TK pulse on practice mode. You could use it in practice mode for years, and never botch. From the verser's point of view, he's really good at TK pulse. Then all of a sudden, he tries to use the TK pulse for something important, and botches with it. How do you suppose someone like The Architect would explain this to the verser, from the verser's point of view? I could just imagine my character explaining this to The Architect. (I hate to use this example, but it's the only one I can think of) "Well Architect, I used TK pulse for months in my first world, then I got arrested by some jerkoff MP at Pearl Harbor, and knocked him out with it. What the hell happened there?" I'm trying to imagine that from the point of view of the character. How would that be explained by an elder verser? Any thoughts? Tadeusz on "Vampire Tidbit" http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/vampire-tidbit#post-1950 Thu, 22 Nov 2007 13:39:46 +0000 Tadeusz 1950@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ You'll see that this is a tidbit in more ways than one. Long Month of Doom, Month of Waiting ==================================== Verser arrives in a world where a vampire and his children raged out of control. Each one infected one more each night. Day One: The First Vampire. Day Two: Two Vampires. Day Three: Four Vampires. Day Four: Eight Vampires. Day Five: 16 Vamps. Day Six: 32 Vamps. Day Seven: 64 Vamps. Day Eight: 128 Vamps. Day Nine: 256 Vamps. Day Ten: 512 Vamps. Day Eleven: 1024 Vamps. Day Twelve: 2048 Vamps. Day Thirteen: 4096 Vamps. Day Fourteen: 8192 Vamps. Day Fifteen: 16,384 Vamps. Day Sixteen: 32,768 Vamps. Day Seventeen: 65,536 Vamps. Day Eighteen: 131,072 Vamps. Day Nineteen: 262,144 Vamps. Day Twenty: 524,288 Vamps. Day Twenty-One: 1,048,576 Vamps. Day Twenty-two: 2,097,152 Vamps. Day Twenty-three: 4,194,304 Vamps. Day Twenty-four: 8,388,608 Vamps. Day Twenty-Five: 16,777,216 Vamps. Day Twenty-Six: 33,554,432 Vamps. Day Twenty-Seven: 67,108,864 Vamps. Day Twenty-Eight: 134,217,728 Vamps. Day Twenty-Nine: 268,435,456 Vamps. Day Thirty: 536,870,912 Vamps. Day Thirty-One: 1,073,741,824 Vamps. Day Thirty-Two: 2,147,483,648 Vamps. Day Thirty-Three: 4,294,967,296 Vamps. Day Thirty-Four: Six Billion, and not everyone got to party that night. Day Thirty-Five: Hunger Pangs. Day Thirty-Six: Hatred as Vamps find there is no more prey, and they can't prey on each other. Day Thirty-Seven: Excruciating Pangs, and Murder. Day Thirty-Eight: Vampires due to lack of blood go to sleep. Day Fourty-five: Green grasses are growing across intersections. Day Sixty: Verser arrives full of nice tasty blood which six billion or so vampires can smell.... The verser sees an empty world with some corpses as he arrives in daylight. Weeds sprout in the streets. A newspaper tells of a riot. Another newspaper tells of the Air Force running out of napalm to control the 'Spread'. Piles of garbage that has been burnt, and some flung about still burning fill an area near an alley. Some graffitti on a wall shrieks out "The HUnger!". Night falls. If the verser is very resourceful, he survives to midnight. Variants: 1. What about the animals? Are they drinkable? If they are, then the vamps survive a bit longer as they exterminate the animals of Earth. 2. Can the animals be turned? 3. This version assumes that vampires cannot feed on vampires. However, if they can, then the population will be markedly less as predator hunts predator. And there will be signs of small-scale, but very brutal warfare throughout the city. 4. How did the original vampire come to be? Was this creature a verser who arrived, and then destroyed a whole planet for amusement's sake, and to make a statement about how Good does not exist? 5. Will the verser get a chance to meet the First Vampire? Perhaps after the verser is trapped somewhere? That way, both sides can have a nice chat before the slaughter. 6. The magic bias is dependent on what type of vampires these creatures are. And Tidits...well, this is a short world setting, and the verser is just a tiny morsel, a tidbit to the feeders in the night. JohnA1nut on "3@10" http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/310-1#post-744 Thu, 04 Oct 2007 05:49:09 +0000 JohnA1nut 744@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ This might sound kind of rude to some people, but I'm wondering about something. How does a player get to 3@10? The reason I am asking is that a lot of the people at this forum would probably have 3@10 typing ability. MJ almost certainly would have 3@10 typing. However, all of us, including MJ make typos, misspell words, etc. Also, I know that I could type faster than I do. My mom can type over 100 words a minute. I average probably 30-40. Why aren't we all typing impossibly fast, and with no typos?