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- [18:55] == George_ [webchat@24-158-157-176.dhcp.jcsn.tn.charter.com] has joined #AgeofStrife
- [18:55] <KlavoHunter> Reason to not have Mirande in direct charge: She might need to fight daemons and go into a 30 year coma :P
- [18:56] <George_> Personally I was opposed to sending her out in the field again
- [18:57] <KlavoHunter> The way we're doing it, nobody is surprised if the Court Wizard needs to go do their own thing for wizard reasons
- [18:57] <George_> but that's definitely a point in favor of either not ruling or not going out on adventures
- [18:57] <@SuperSonicSound> Honestly even as things stand unless it's another greater daemon Mirande is just going to eat it and carry on.
- [18:57] <George_> tell that to the mutant soldiers
- [18:58] <@E3> Exactly. I mean, like I said in thread, I've always figured Mirande's characterization to this point seemed to indicate she was more inclined to go off on her own and do spooky stuff anyway. Anna's the one who's always been the center of attention. We only noticed Mirande because we can see her ridiculous stat sheet :p
- [18:58] <@SuperSonicSound> That's the crit system being silly though :p
- [18:58] <George_> we're unlikely to lose and unlikely to die when we lose, but if it's 1 in 20 then it's GOING to happen in the next 500 years if we go out once a decade
- [18:58] <@SuperSonicSound> E3 that's really not accurate though :<
- [18:58] <KlavoHunter> What if we switch to playing as Anna?
- [18:58] <@SuperSonicSound> Mirande was cultivated for leadership early on
- [18:58] <@SuperSonicSound> and then we turned her into a psyker
- [18:59] <George_> Switching to Anna doesn't fix the problems
- [18:59] <@E3> supersonicsound isn't it? Anna was very socially involved from early on, Mirande sort of kept more to herself and researched gravetender stuff. Field commander vs. forward observer. Etc. etc. I can definitely see hints of it throughout
- [18:59] <George_> and is very unsatisfying for a lot of people
- [18:59] <@SuperSonicSound> Anna was focused on in the sense of "Oh my god, Max turned her into a paranoid delusional AHHHH"
- [19:00] <@E3> I don't think that's necessarily true George_ I'd be perfectly happy with playing as Anna. Although right now it looks like it's going to be "no viewpoint character most of the time, switch to one during appropriate situations" as AN's currently thinking of it
- [19:00] == Odysseus2099 [webchat@70.15.91.172] has joined #AgeofStrife
- [19:00] <@SuperSonicSound> I'm kind of worried about that actually
- [19:00] <@SuperSonicSound> As much as I like Amber age
- [19:00] <George_> Well, to fix the problems, playing with Anna would mean Mirande goes on a bus
- [19:00] <@SuperSonicSound> I can't help but admit I don't feel any real connection to much of the characters.
- [19:00] <George_> yeah it's hard to sink your claws in to
- [19:01] == AbbyNormal [webchat@c-98-249-6-51.hsd1.va.comcast.net] has joined #AgeofStrife
- [19:01] <George_> there are characters and mechanics, but it's not the same as with Age of Strife
- [19:01] == Vel [webchat@pool-173-72-178-96.clppva.fios.verizon.net] has joined #AgeofStrife
- [19:02] == Aranfan [webchat@ool-18b8a0c2.dyn.optonline.net] has joined #AgeofStrife
- [19:02] <Aranfan> hullo?
- [19:02] <@E3> Quick everyone be quiet, pretend we're not here
- [19:02] <@SuperSonicSound> Welcome
- [19:02] * SuperSonicSound coughs
- [19:02] <Aranfan> I see you Ekans Ekans Ekans
- [19:02] <Vel> Ignore me. There is nobody here.
- [19:02] * SuperSonicSound fades into the background
- [19:03] * E3 goes to ground
- [19:03] == powerofmind [webchat@c-73-248-145-106.hsd1.nj.comcast.net] has joined #AgeofStrife
- [19:03] <powerofmind> ooo
- [19:03] <@SuperSonicSound> Also on the dice front, I think exploding dice shouldn't be more d100's
- [19:03] <Aranfan> hey
- [19:04] <George_> yeah I threw a suggestion to that effect in the thread sss
- [19:04] <Aranfan> I can agree to only 100s exploding
- [19:04] <Phantrosity> I think exploding dice should be nerfed
- [19:04] <Phantrosity> I think keeping it only being an addtional d100 on a 100
- [19:04] <Phantrosity> works
- [19:04] <Phantrosity> either that or having some alternate explosion mechanic
- [19:04] <Phantrosity> reroll your next failure or something
- [19:04] <George_> makes it an arcane feature that rarely happens though
- [19:04] <Vel> Sure
- [19:04] <Vel> But it's supposed to be.
- [19:05] <Aranfan> wait, gtg sorry guys
- [19:05] <Phantrosity> given how many dice we rool
- [19:05] == Aranfan [webchat@ool-18b8a0c2.dyn.optonline.net] has quit [Quit: Page closed]
- [19:05] <Phantrosity> not that arcane
- [19:05] <George_> well it wasn't in the original implementation
- [19:05] <@SuperSonicSound> One of the things you could with criticals is instead of them boosting absolute values of the result
- [19:05] <Vel> Also point.
- [19:05] <powerofmind> that's true, one in a hundred times you should see an explosion
- [19:05] <@E3> The way I figure, make it so that stronger characters have a smaller explosion range, since they're already hitting insane results as a baseline. Or add a confirm roll.
- [19:05] <@SuperSonicSound> is give it a lateral boost in effect.
- [19:05] <@SuperSonicSound> make criticals more than just "Sword harder"
- [19:05] <@SuperSonicSound> whilst constraining them
- [19:05] <powerofmind> but that's a little silly E3
- [19:05] == AcademiaNut [webchat@S0106c8fb267f0146.ed.shawcable.net] has joined #AgeofStrife
- [19:05] <@E3> well that's how it HAS been SSS. That was part of the problem :p
- [19:05] <George_> I was thinking just scale down the size die it adds
- [19:05] <@E3> AN's here!
- [19:05] == mode/#AgeofStrife [+o AcademiaNut] by SuperSonicSound
- [19:05] <powerofmind> welcome to your chat!
- [19:05] <KlavoHunter> HE COMES!
- [19:06] <powerofmind> :P
- [19:06] <@AcademiaNut> I am indeed here
- [19:06] <Vel> Present arms.
- [19:06] <Vel> Etc
- [19:06] <@E3> Hey boss :p
- [19:06] <@AcademiaNut> 'Allo 'allo
- [19:06] <@SuperSonicSound> What I mean by that though is give criticals a small lateral component instead of allowing them to magnify the effect of an action.
- [19:06] <@E3> Now we finally have a context where you can't dodge our questions about mechanics. Quick, change the room name to #AmberAge
- [19:06] <Vel> haha
- [19:06] <powerofmind> like affecting something other than the immediate roll
- [19:07] <@SuperSonicSound> Potentially it really depends ultimately how you want to constrain outcomes or if you do
- [19:07] <KlavoHunter> *Ordained Joe rolls 7 7's, summons Gardener of Nurgle*
- [19:07] <George_> you mean like adding an extra effect, such as eating the attacker's soul instead of just defending your own?
- [19:08] <Vel> That adds a whole new dimension to the complexity of deciding when a certain exploding dice
- [19:08] <Vel> is better or not
- [19:08] <@AcademiaNut> Thanks to Admiral Skippy I have been shown a more detailed look at Edge of Empire and I am liking the idea of having some way to separate out successes, failures, advantages, and complications
- [19:08] <powerofmind> do you have something in mind?
- [19:08] <Vel> If every exploding dice has different effects according to what you're doing that will get complex
- [19:08] <KlavoHunter> Edge of the Empire is *amazing*. It is kinda easy to farm triumphs sometimes.
- [19:09] <George_> well every roll is already a vague rule of cool thing so currently exploding dice don't change the character of what's going on
- [19:09] <Vel> Well yeah.
- [19:09] <George_> I'm not familiar with Edge of Empire so it's hard to comment on, but it does sound interested to have advantages and complications rather than just successes and failures
- [19:09] <KlavoHunter> (Or maybe my party has just had good luck when rolling 4 yellows)
- [19:10] <@SuperSonicSound> I've not had any interaction with edge of empire sadly so I'm not well positioned to talk about the system
- [19:10] <Vel> Well, Edge of Empire is a FFG game, but
- [19:10] <Vel> It's well executed
- [19:10] <Vel> Especially for a FFG game
- [19:10] <@SuperSonicSound> A first! :3
- [19:10] == Alectai [webchat@70.50.93.236] has joined #AgeofStrife
- [19:10] <Vel> Yes.
- [19:10] <Vel> Indeed.
- [19:10] <Alectai> Good Evening
- [19:10] <Alectai> Internet Friends
- [19:10] <Alectai> And enemies
- [19:10] <Vel> It's probably the only FFG game which is -not-
- [19:10] <Vel> A mess.
- [19:10] <George_> what's a roll look like for an action under it
- [19:10] <Vel> And 'lo, Alectai
- [19:11] <@E3> Yeah I know basically nothing about Edge of Empire. First I've ever heard of it.
- [19:11] <George_> welcome
- [19:11] <George_> klavo said he's used it
- [19:11] <@AcademiaNut> Okay, here is the system I am thinking of for dice roll resolution: you have both a standard d100 roll and a number of bonus dice. You add everything together and check against a target value, but you also check the bonus dice for patterns
- [19:11] <powerofmind> yeah I'm trying to find some of Edge of Empire pdf's so I can get some context of what AN is looking for
- [19:11] <@E3> I will say that I'm really fond of how the dice system has worked so far, and hope that there aren't TOO many divergences from it. It's been pretty broadly applicable, just needs some balance changes. I'm open to hearing about the EoE system though
- [19:11] <powerofmind> ohhhh
- [19:11] <powerofmind> that's really good
- [19:11] <@AcademiaNut> So stuff like doubles, triples, sequences, stuff like that can generate additional 'complications'
- [19:11] <George_> I'm leery of the patterns thing, since they are more common than we feel like they are and get blown out of proportion due to that
- [19:12] <Vel> Yeah the patterns
- [19:12] <Vel> I mean totally ignoring the 7 incidence
- [19:12] <@E3> Okay that sounds like it'd be somewhat along the same spirit as the current dice system, just a bit more formalized. I like the sound of that
- [19:12] <Vel> The patterns do sometimes cause things that aren't immediately apparent
- [19:12] <@E3> Yeah
- [19:12] <Vel> Or intuitive.
- [19:12] <Vel> Also obviously the 7 incident but
- [19:12] <Vel> Yeah.
- [19:13] <Alectai> Hah
- [19:13] <Alectai> Yeah, that's not a bad way of handling things
- [19:13] <powerofmind> well yeah, patterns already play a strong role in the existing system AN already uses
- [19:13] <Alectai> One system I made up was "1dX, but on a critical, you double your skill modifier"
- [19:13] <powerofmind> this just offers up an easier way of controlling them
- [19:13] <@AcademiaNut> The intent of stuff like this would be to open up things like say "Okay, you succeeded on your research check, but you got a triple 1 on the bonus dice, so you need to go complete Project X before you can continue on with it"
- [19:13] <Vel> Yeah of course, I'm just saying that they can be unintuitive.
- [19:14] <Vel> Or weird.
- [19:14] <powerofmind> they can be, but consider for a second that this controls power spikes like mirande really well
- [19:14] <Alectai> So we had a game that scaled from 1-10 for skill levels, and the die roll resolution was 1d20
- [19:14] <@SuperSonicSound> I'm actually not really seeing what's different so far from the previous system, I mean apart from giving more prevalence to patterns on the result.
- [19:14] <George_> I feel like any triple would end up being a special circumstance rather than just a few of them
- [19:14] <powerofmind> instead of giving Mirande +200 to her rolls, she gets a bunch of 'bonus dice' which offers the potential to have complications in a roll that we'd otherwise not se
- [19:15] <Alectai> So someone who was absurdly, ridiculously talented would never find themselves being capable of doing less than completely acceptable
- [19:15] <@E3> AcademiaNut what I really like about that is in situations where you have a lot of bonus dice (like say a powerful Psyker taking the action) it opens it up to much bigger bonus successes and complications, but either way it's something weirder. Which is both consistent with the source material AND the results we've seen thus far
- [19:15] <Vel> You do end up adding extra variance though
- [19:15] <Vel> Which isn't necessarily optimal
- [19:15] <powerofmind> that's a good thing
- [19:15] <Alectai> Still, the idea of "1d00, plus extra dice depending on supernatural gimmicks" isn't bad
- [19:15] <Vel> Sort of
- [19:15] <Vel> Some amount of variance is nice to avoid 'always succeeding'
- [19:15] <powerofmind> roll a d100 + 200 is absolutely non-varied
- [19:15] <Alectai> Say, you'd get... 1d50 or something by default, but if you're Mirande, you can make it 2d50, at the risk of doubles invoking Warp Phemoneana
- [19:15] <George_> but mirande is liable to have 10 extra dice if an exceptional person ends up with 3
- [19:16] <@E3> SuperSonicSound basically it still means that someone with extreme power will always succeed- but a lot of the time weird shit will happen, for good or for ill.
- [19:16] <Alectai> Or you can covert that 2d50 to 2d100 at the cost of guaranteeing phenomena and having an uncomfortably high chance of Perils
- [19:16] <powerofmind> yes she is, but the extra dice don't apply linearly to a given roll
- [19:16] <George_> and then if it's all the same number it never applies and if it's just triples it is super common for her
- [19:16] <Alectai> While stuff like general training and competence are what basic modifiers are for
- [19:16] <powerofmind> let's look at the hypothetical 'changer of ways' scenario with this system
- [19:16] <@SuperSonicSound> 'E3 Yes but that's not strictly a good thing?
- [19:16] <Vel> Not bad, Alectai
- [19:17] <Vel> and eh
- [19:17] <Alectai> Because skill never really goes awa
- [19:17] <@E3> SuperSonicSound well it makes sense for any time psyker powers are involved, for sure.
- [19:17] <Alectai> But magic can backfire
- [19:17] <@SuperSonicSound> How do I put this, for some situations that really shouldn't be the case
- [19:17] <Alectai> On the other hand, skill alone only goes so far
- [19:17] <Alectai> Again, one way I like doing it is setting up "Tiers"
- [19:17] <@SuperSonicSound> Also for instance with psyker powers, didn't we for instance take great pains to have Mirande take a bunch of traits to mitigate and reduce warp side effects?
- [19:17] <George_> yeah I think skill should limit the amount of weird flukes personally
- [19:18] <Alectai> Which is to say "Even if you're technically better due to shenanagans, you're still incapable of crossing this line because your body literally cannot follow through"
- [19:18] <Vel> Yeah
- [19:18] <George_> because you have an ingrained practiced way you do things
- [19:18] <@E3> AcademiaNut I do agree with SuperSonicSound to a degree. If it's just a standard research roll, someone having more bonus dice should really just increase the chances of success but not the chances of complications. They're scientists, not Sparks.
- [19:18] <Vel> IE: random mutants beat you up beacuse weirdass flukes
- [19:18] <@AcademiaNut> Well, there was also another piece I was toying with, to keep some of the original skill system. I was thinking that there would also be a skill number that most humans would have between 1-30 that would also provide a floor for. The idea would be that if you rolled less than your floor, you could use that value instead of the roll if it would get you over the DC with the bonus die, but you automatically get a complication
- [19:18] <@SuperSonicSound> Also maybe we should let AN actually hash out his vision before we try and tear it apart?
- [19:18] <Alectai> Like, for instance, again, going back to that skill 1-10 thing
- [19:18] <Vel> Tiers can sort of work though
- [19:18] <Vel> Well we're not really tearing it apart yet
- [19:18] <@E3> SuperSonicSound seems fair :p
- [19:18] <Vel> But true
- [19:18] <@SuperSonicSound> give him a chance to lay it out a bit more :)
- [19:18] <George_> What if more powers adds more dice and more skill makes the dice bigger?
- [19:19] <Alectai> Humans would be capped at, say, 6, assuming you are literally the best of the best. Even if your actual rating is higher, you're limited by the hardware you're operating on
- [19:19] <George_> then if you are unskilled and using 8 powers, crazy shit happens, and if you're really skilled with three powers it's very rare
- [19:19] <Vel> To some extent warhammer involves breaking human limits as a thing thoughh
- [19:19] <Alectai> So while in times of peace and meditation, you can technically come up with things of genius, in times of exigency, you're simply incapable of exceeding your limits without some kind of major modification
- [19:19] <@SuperSonicSound> even normal humans operate way out of normal human limits
- [19:19] <Alectai> Like, again, that system? One of the reasons Space Marines are scary is because they're Cap 8
- [19:19] <Vel> Yeah
- [19:19] <@E3> AcademiaNut I know the skill system is getting reworked, but I kind of hope you keep the traits largely the same. I really like how most of those are set up.
- [19:20] <@AcademiaNut> I think I will keep some of it, but rework it a bit
- [19:20] <@SuperSonicSound> ciaphas cain regularly outswords actual chaos space marines and orc warbosses for instance so hard capping rolls based on that seems a little iffy
- [19:20] <Alectai> He doesn't actually /beat/ them though, so much as "Avoids Dying"
- [19:20] <Alectai> Until Jurgen shows up with his Melta
- [19:20] <powerofmind> SSS AN isn't actually saying that, though
- [19:20] <@SuperSonicSound> No he actually beats them as well
- [19:20] <@SuperSonicSound> @powerofmind I know
- [19:20] <Vel> There are some other regular humans who do some pretty ridiculous feats too
- [19:21] <@E3> AcademiaNut if personal combat gets removed I will cut you :| I demand to see Mirande wrestling a Space Marine with no active powers some day >.>
- [19:21] <Vel> Even if Cain is the most obvious example
- [19:21] <Vel> Oh you.
- [19:21] <Alectai> The Ork Warboss for instance? He didn't beat him in a sword fight, he just avoided dying until it got in close and he shoved his laspistol into it's eye and fired\
- [19:21] <Vel> That doesn't exceptionally reduce the level of required skill/badassery though
- [19:21] <George_> It is interesting AN; sometimes I think I'd rather fail than introduce a complication though
- [19:21] <Vel> That's still pretty ridiculous
- [19:21] <@AcademiaNut> Oh, oh, duh, I know how to smooth out some of the 'more dice = more weirdness' thing. Every couple of extra dice and couple of special abilities should be 'complication negators'
- [19:22] <powerofmind> Rolled 100 + 97 + 61 + 76 = 336 HOLY FUCK!
- [19:22] <Alectai> Yeah, I'm not saying Cain isn't absolutely ridiculous, it's just that he makes up for it by cheating
- [19:22] <powerofmind> Let's take that roll apart
- [19:22] == Aranfan [webchat@ip-64-134-48-125.public.wayport.net] has joined #AgeofStrife
- [19:22] <@E3> AcademiaNut THAT makes a lot of sense, and actually meshes in really nicely with a lot of the traits Mirande was taking and gaining access to towards the end for psyker stabilizing stuff.
- [19:22] <powerofmind> and see what that looks like with EoE
- [19:22] <powerofmind> AN
- [19:22] <Aranfan> am back
- [19:22] <Aranfan> wwhat did I miss?
- [19:22] <Vel> AN arrived
- [19:22] <George_> yeah I like the idea of having a stability roll
- [19:22] <Alectai> Aran: Theorycrafting
- [19:22] <Vel> We started talking mechanics
- [19:22] <Vel> Etc.
- [19:22] <@SuperSonicSound> @aranfan some stuff
- [19:22] <powerofmind> what kind of bonus dice would you give Mirande for the changer of ways possession roll?
- [19:22] <George_> that you have to botch to have things actually go terribly wrong rather than just fail
- [19:22] <@SuperSonicSound> Assuming I make it to the end of the chat I'll post up a pastebin of everything
- [19:23] <Aranfan> thank you SSS
- [19:23] <powerofmind> She has the actual roll, a 100, so it's automatically awesome, but then she needs her bonus dice
- [19:23] <@AcademiaNut> Let's see here, if we were to go back to the Changer of Ways Incident, I would keep the d100 rolls the same, and still allow an explosion on a natural 100
- [19:23] <powerofmind> alrighty
- [19:23] <George_> 97 is the same as getting a 20 on a d20
- [19:24] <powerofmind> and she would have X bonus 'willpower advantage' dice
- [19:24] <George_> if there's a bonus die of around that size that's important
- [19:24] <powerofmind> we'll assume they went pretty well
- [19:24] <@AcademiaNut> Then let's assume she had 6 bonus dice for Willpower there
- [19:24] <powerofmind> and X amount of 'heroic advantage' dice
- [19:24] <powerofmind> because let's face it
- [19:24] <powerofmind> it's a hero unit
- [19:24] <George_> those might be wrapped in with those 6
- [19:24] <Vel> Yeah I think
- [19:25] <powerofmind> true
- [19:25] <Vel> Hero unit stuff is wrapped up in having
- [19:25] <powerofmind> either way
- [19:25] <Vel> Extra willpower
- [19:25] <Vel> Aka raw badassery.
- [19:25] <powerofmind> we look at the new roll
- [19:25] <Aranfan> what size are these extra dice?
- [19:25] <powerofmind> 100+97 for the actual check
- [19:25] <powerofmind> + 6 'willpower' dice
- [19:25] <powerofmind> normally this would just be an awesome possession block
- [19:26] <George_> what'd the changer of ways roll to possess us
- [19:26] <powerofmind> nothing
- [19:26] <@E3> It doesn't matter, we exploded to >300 to blow it the fuck up xD that's a soul eatin'
- [19:26] <Aranfan> IIRC it wasn't an opposed roll
- [19:26] <George_> ah right okay
- [19:26] <@E3> yeah, it was just a check against an invisible set of scaling DC's IIRC
- [19:26] <George_> I think 197 might already be more than just an awesome possession block
- [19:27] <Vel> Invisible set of scaling DC is hard to
- [19:27] <Vel> really
- [19:27] <Vel> Compare on ofc
- [19:27] <powerofmind> In 99.999% of circumstances
- [19:27] <George_> scaling dcs that aren't really decided in advance at my guess
- [19:27] <powerofmind> accidentally killing a daemon that possesses you does nothing but kill the daemon
- [19:27] <powerofmind> but those six willpower dice?
- [19:27] <George_> since it's less work to just eyeball where the roll actually fell
- [19:27] <powerofmind> all of them were 6's!
- [19:28] <George_> that's not commensurate with the unlikeliness of the incident as it was though
- [19:28] <Vel> Haha.
- [19:28] <Aranfan> Willpower dice are d6 then I assume?
- [19:28] <Alectai> With regards to Chaosy Stuff, again, that system I played gives Chaos what I call "Stupid Dice Tricks", for better or worse
- [19:28] <@SuperSonicSound> Aranfan nothing has been decided yet
- [19:28] <@SuperSonicSound> I think the numbers are spitballs
- [19:28] <powerofmind> AN simply must do something crazy to support how this went for Mirande's dice
- [19:28] <Vel> the d6 was a joke on chaos numbers I think
- [19:28] <Alectai> Since it's 1d20, the way we have it is "In addition to 1s and 20s being Crit Fail/Success. They also have their God's Sacred Number as a bonus critsuccess, but the opposing God's Sacred Number as a bonus critfail"
- [19:28] == Skippeh [~kvirc@88-106-246-196.dynamic.dsl.as9105.com] has joined #AgeofStrife
- [19:28] <George_> but yeah we can't spitball the example really without an idea how large the willpower dice are
- [19:28] <Vel> Ah, d20s
- [19:28] <Vel> Okay.
- [19:29] <Alectai> And then actual Greater Daemons have the option of deploying a secondary Stupid Dice Trick which is dependent on which one it is
- [19:29] <powerofmind> possibly, yeah
- [19:29] <Vel> That might work, but d20s are
- [19:29] <powerofmind> but as this was a possession check
- [19:29] <Vel> Well they have less room for minor variance
- [19:29] <@AcademiaNut> Yo Skippeh
- [19:29] <Vel> And this isn't an actual tabletop game
- [19:29] <Skippeh> Hi AN!
- [19:29] <powerofmind> and we critically succeeded well enough to instantly kill the possessor
- [19:29] <Alectai> Tzeentch for instance? "On an odd number, the check automatically fails, on an even, it automatically critically succeeds"
- [19:29] <Vel> So it's not like gigantic dice are a problem really
- [19:29] <Vel> And yo, Skippy.
- [19:29] <Alectai> Nurgle? "Set the random value to 10"
- [19:29] <@AcademiaNut> I was thinking of using d10s for the bonus dice, but switching up the size could also be a way to produce variation
- [19:30] == Aranfan [webchat@ip-64-134-48-125.public.wayport.net] has quit [Ping timeout]
- [19:30] <powerofmind> d10's seem like a good idea for MOST bonus dice, yeah
- [19:30] <@E3> AcademiaNut d100s when it's a psyker or otherwise warp spookiness action, for sure.
- [19:30] <Alectai> Basically, for better or worse, Nurgle /always/ has an average resul.
- [19:30] <Alectai> While Tzeentch either shoots himself in the foot or succeeds beyond expectations
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- [19:30] <@AcademiaNut> The smaller dice would also produce more 'patterns' than larger dice since they have a tighter distribution and you get more of the same numbers showing up
- [19:30] <powerofmind> you can rework powers significantly, too
- [19:31] <Vel> Of course, patterns are the source
- [19:31] <Alectai> Khorne and Slaanesh approach it from a different route, rather than change the random modifier, they change your stats
- [19:31] <Aranfan> sorry, connection went poof
- [19:31] <Vel> Of a lot of shenanigans
- [19:31] <Vel> In AoS.
- [19:31] <Alectai> Khorne can turn any conflict into a Martial Check for instance, while Slaanesh does the same for Charisma
- [19:31] <@AcademiaNut> Yeah, could turn lots of psychic powers into dice trick shenanigans
- [19:31] <powerofmind> instead of flat buffs, you can tack on a special 'precog' bonus dice
- [19:31] <powerofmind> or rerolls on bonus dice
- [19:31] <powerofmind> it stops characters from ever becoming so powerful they can't fail
- [19:32] <powerofmind> because the bonus dice could always turn against them
- [19:32] <Alectai> Yeah, the thing about heroic characters who are talented is that they don't tend to fail on trivial stuff
- [19:32] <Vel> Failing on trivial stuff is often a really silly problem
- [19:32] <@AcademiaNut> That's sort of why I had the idea of giving them a skill floor
- [19:32] <powerofmind> except Mirande wasn't exactly doing trivial stuff to not fail against
- [19:32] <Vel> in mechanics
- [19:32] <Vel> Well in fairness we -have- had
- [19:32] <Vel> Failure on comparatively trivial stuff
- [19:32] <Vel> So
- [19:32] <Alectai> Good results from baseline heroic characters likely comes in the form of a very small dice modifier from elite training, and then stuff like a floor
- [19:32] <powerofmind> true
- [19:32] <Alectai> So they consistently perform adequately
- [19:33] <Alectai> Space Marines would be that with a +++ on it, a rather impressive dice modifier and a very high floor
- [19:33] <George_> what about the psyker education trait increasing the size of your willpower dice rather than adding willpower
- [19:33] <Vel> And yeah a skill floor is probably a good idea.
- [19:33] <Alectai> Psykers instead focus on Stupid Dice Tricks
- [19:33] <powerofmind> how would you go about figuring Mags into this system?
- [19:33] <Vel> Man, let's not think about Mags yet
- [19:33] <Alectai> While the Forces of Chaos often have /both/
- [19:33] <Vel> Mags is too Mags
- [19:33] <Vel> we need to know the system first
- [19:33] <Alectai> Mag is built around Stupid Dice Tricks I think
- [19:33] <Vel> Before we Mags.
- [19:33] <George_> so mirande then would have for instance d14s but mirande now would have d24s
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- [19:34] <powerofmind> except adding willpower adds willpower dice
- [19:34] <Alectai> He essentially gets to keep rerolling at the cost of complications, but he has a trait that removes him from being a direct beneficiary of said complications, for good or ill
- [19:34] <powerofmind> more dice=more chances for pattern rolls to emerge
- [19:34] <Vel> Yeah that's both the benefit and problem with
- [19:34] <Vel> More dice
- [19:34] <George_> yeah that's why I was saying education doesn't add willpower in my suggestion
- [19:35] <Vel> If you want more pattern/dice trick stuff
- [19:35] <Alectai> Mirande meanwhile has a scarily high skill floor because she's focused on control over everything else, and is competent enough that she can pretty reliably employ some kind of bonus to everything she does
- [19:35] <Vel> More dice usually help
- [19:35] <powerofmind> if you widen the willpower dice gap, you only remove variance and pattern formation
- [19:35] <@AcademiaNut> So you could have say a guy with 17 in Willpower facing down some gribbly horror, but not too gribbly so it has a DC of 30 to not crap yourself. He gets say 3 bonus dice so he rolls d100+3d10. He rolls a 7+(2,3,10) which isn't enough, but he defaults to 17+(2,3,10). So he doesn't panic, but there is a complication - he freezes up for a second, so the enemy gets a bonus to close with him or the like
- [19:35] <George_> I think as quest voters we'd try to limit the dice trick stuff as much as possible
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- [19:36] <E3> Lost connection. Did I miss anything?
- [19:36] <Alectai> Not really, it's not really any different from what we're already doing
- [19:36] <Skippeh> AcademiaNut: That sounds nice.
- [19:36] <powerofmind> yes, but that doesn't mean we get to organize the system in such a way that a core component of gaining power reduces the usefulness of bonus dice
- [19:36] <George_> it sounds good in that example but would it scale well?
- [19:36] <E3> SuperSonicSound remod me ya scurvy dog :p
- [19:36] == mode/#AgeofStrife [+o E3] by SuperSonicSound
- [19:36] == mode/#AgeofStrife [+o Skippeh] by SuperSonicSound
- [19:36] <@E3> ty
- [19:37] <Vel> also yeah
- [19:37] <@SuperSonicSound> couple more ops incase people drop out and the channel remains modless by accident
- [19:37] <Vel> Scaling is an issue with more complex dice systems
- [19:37] <@AcademiaNut> Well, theoretically we wouldn't be going much into the 50s and 60s on stats anymore
- [19:37] <Alectai> Yeah
- [19:37] <Vel> Or I guess you could make an excel/computer program
- [19:37] <Vel> To do it for you
- [19:37] <Vel> If you're savvy.
- [19:37] <Alectai> Mirande's a freak of nature who's all but a Space Marine at this point, so she likely plays on rules similar to them
- [19:37] <@E3> AcademiaNut if your skill level acts as a floor, does that mean if your skill level alone is enough to pass a check you can just take 10 (so to speak) and bypass the whole thing without rolling, to avoid the chance of complications?
- [19:37] <George_> well we might ignore more power and focus only on recruiting fanatical followers
- [19:37] <powerofmind> hmm, so not only would you check for patterns in the bonus dice, you would also immediately add them to the core roll?
- [19:37] <Vel> Do you think it's likely
- [19:37] <Vel> that we will ignore more power?
- [19:38] <Vel> You do know what forum you're talking about?
- [19:38] <Vel> :p
- [19:38] <Alectai> Hahaha
- [19:38] <Alectai> Yeah
- [19:38] <Alectai> "Oh hey, YOU SHOULD PROBABLY DO SOMETHING ABOUT THESE ELDAR"
- [19:38] <Alectai> Everyone: "Let's keep turtling up!"
- [19:38] <Alectai> Eldar Attack
- [19:38] <powerofmind> haha
- [19:38] <George_> but using your skill floor adds a complication, so that'd be a separate mechanic
- [19:38] <powerofmind> oh that one killed me
- [19:38] <George_> there's more than one kind of power
- [19:38] <George_> if it's a poisoned well we'd pick another vector
- [19:39] <Vel> well yeah
- [19:39] <@AcademiaNut> I will admit you guys do love to take the opposite tack half the time
- [19:39] <Vel> But we've already gone far down on the 'personal power' thing
- [19:39] <Vel> In fairness it's not always clear
- [19:39] <Vel> What the proper tack is
- [19:39] <George_> for instance we went for more actions vs stronger versions of the powers we use when we opened up biomancy
- [19:39] <@E3> AcademiaNut where WILL the skill levels generally be numerically if you're planning to scale the numbers back a bit (RIP Gardener's almost-40 Learning)
- [19:39] <Vel> Or rather, the expected tack.
- [19:39] <Vel> And haha, yeah, poor Gardner.
- [19:39] <powerofmind> AN, I say that you can only take ten in a situation where you aren't pressed to succeed
- [19:40] <powerofmind> except in the case of fettering, which will need some funky rules for itself
- [19:40] <@E3> Isn't that taking 20? :p Taking 10 should work unless you're being actively disrupted.
- [19:40] <powerofmind> that's kind of what I mean
- [19:40] <@AcademiaNut> Yeah, there's always a chance of some sort of complication. But I was thinking of flattening things out to have most humans fall within a 1-30 range, and with less cheesing of traits
- [19:40] <@SuperSonicSound> In this situation we're not even discussing that, it's the equivalent of taking 0 and winning on the modifier alone
- [19:40] <Vel> I think theoretically with enough benefits/augmentations/skill you might be able to take 20
- [19:41] <George_> taking 20 in D&D takes a long time
- [19:41] <Vel> Even in a place where you'd normally be pressed
- [19:41] <George_> taking 10 takes the normal time
- [19:41] <powerofmind> in a situation we need a die roll, we can't really take 20
- [19:41] <@E3> AcademiaNut WHAT DO YOU MEAN LESS CHEESING OF TRAITS? D: Noooooooo
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- [19:41] <powerofmind> AN doesn't bother including those kinds of situations in quests
- [19:41] <Vel> True, though I figure that, for example
- [19:41] <George_> but I like cheesing traits :(
- [19:41] <Vel> Something like augmented reflexes or whatever
- [19:41] <Alectai> I figure
- [19:41] <George_> maybe they can be lower impact?
- [19:41] <Vel> And everyone likes cheesing traits
- [19:41] <Vel> It's a large portion of the game
- [19:41] <Alectai> Even if we end up nerfing Mirande in the new system on paper, she should still be head and shoulders above her peers
- [19:41] <Vel> CHEESE THOSE TRAITS
- [19:41] <@E3> Well I mean there'll still be trait cheesing I guess. Just toned down a bit maybe?
- [19:41] <powerofmind> yeah
- [19:41] <Alectai> Through use of modifiers that ordinary people don't get
- [19:42] <powerofmind> any 'nerf' applied to mirande through a system reboot
- [19:42] <Vel> The nerfs would apply
- [19:42] <Vel> Across the board
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- [19:42] <powerofmind> will apply to everyone
- [19:42] <powerofmind> exactly
- [19:42] <powerofmind> it will be significantly harder for characters to be infinitely impossible to kill
- [19:42] <George_> I'm fine with weaker traits
- [19:42] <George_> but I don't want fewer traits
- [19:43] <Vel> I'm not sure they'd really be weaker honestly
- [19:43] <Alectai> Stat Squish
- [19:43] <Vel> Due to the general 'across the board' modification
- [19:43] <@SuperSonicSound> Oh noes, the death of the paragon of vice and virtue track is at hand /o\
- [19:43] <Vel> Yeah
- [19:43] <Alectai> Not a nerf
- [19:43] <@AcademiaNut> I can see Mirande or characters like her have a 30+ willpower but having more traits that add dice tricks
- [19:43] <Vel> Stat squish.
- [19:43] <Vel> Reducing stat bloat
- [19:43] <@SuperSonicSound> my tens of hours of advocating it are for nothing :<
- [19:43] <Alectai> Haha
- [19:43] <Vel> I don't know
- [19:43] <Vel> The same amount of traits is fine
- [19:43] <Vel> If only because it gives people stuff to do
- [19:43] <Alectai> Mirande should still be ridiculous between her ridiculously optimized metabolism and the whole "I am made of stuff that makes me killier than an average space marine" thing
- [19:44] <Vel> There is a whole metagame
- [19:44] <Alectai> I'm not kidding when I say that she'd make sense to play on such a theoretical tier
- [19:44] <Vel> Based around trait stuff
- [19:44] <@E3> Yeah. I recognize that Mirande's still going to be able to climb just as far above everyone else as before. It's more that I just like the "Feel" of stuff like Stat Caps raising through education traits that unlock at 100, 200, 500 etc. years of age. And the second lifestyle trait being unlocked by similar. And of course the Vice/Virtue hybrid traits and such.
- [19:44] <Vel> Actally it's not even a metagame honestly
- [19:44] <Vel> It's a Game Game
- [19:44] <@E3> I hope you consider keeping some of the stuff like that AcademiaNut
- [19:44] <Alectai> I know one game being run has the "Ordinary" human cap being a 30
- [19:44] <@Skippeh> In general thinking about power levels of characters is a bit of a red herring.
- [19:44] <Vel> "Ordinary"
- [19:44] <Vel> Unless you have like
- [19:44] <Alectai> But simple monsters and beasts and the like can get to 40, and particularly potent things can cap at 50
- [19:44] <@Skippeh> We're more at the systems design stage here.
- [19:44] <Vel> Well yeah
- [19:44] <Alectai> With Cap 60 being the realm of high gods and elder dragons and the like
- [19:45] <Vel> But it's worth thinking about it since
- [19:45] <@SuperSonicSound> yea talking numbers right now isn't the important thing we should be discussing how action resolution works
- [19:45] <Vel> We're not talking specific characters precisely
- [19:45] <Alectai> So you might have a /Raw/ stat, but you're dragged down somewhat by your template
- [19:45] <Alectai> So like, Dia for instance might be--on paper--Martial 40 or so
- [19:45] <Vel> And yeah I don't think we're mainly talking numbers
- [19:45] <powerofmind> but she's limited, capped out, at 30
- [19:45] <Alectai> But she can only effectively apply Martial 35 or so because she just lacks the hardware to do more
- [19:45] <Vel> Though eh, Alectai, you're putting the lie to my statement
- [19:45] <Vel> Haha
- [19:46] <@E3> I'm not too concerned about the numbers specifically SuperSonicSound, I mostly just want the uh... I dunno, layered, constructive feel of the traits from the last version to be preserved.
- [19:46] <powerofmind> AN just said traits would still exist
- [19:46] <Vel> But no the numbers are just being used as a prop for discussion
- [19:46] <Vel> And/or examples.
- [19:46] <powerofmind> they would just be more trolly dice shenanigans than pure stats
- [19:46] <Vel> Eh I dunno
- [19:46] <powerofmind> I for one am wildly interested to see what the vice/virtue path looks like as dice tricks
- [19:46] <Vel> Trolly dice shenanigans can get irritating and aren't really fitting outside of stuff like chaos and psyker stuff
- [19:47] <powerofmind> rather than stat points
- [19:47] <@AcademiaNut> Hmmm... one idea might be that certain creatures might have high raw numbers to represent the fact that they always get a certain degree of success, but have fewer bonus dice or smaller bonus dice than might be expected to represent less actual skill
- [19:47] <powerofmind> whoever said all stats would be dice shenanigans?
- [19:47] <@E3> I think they have to be stat-expanding to a certain degree as well. Virtue/Vice and Psyker Education gained through age doesn't make much sense as a dice trick thing. They make sense as an expanding your stat foundations thing.
- [19:47] <Vel> You didn't
- [19:47] <powerofmind> I only said MORE traits would be dice shenanigans
- [19:47] <Vel> I wasn't implying that
- [19:47] <Vel> And eh
- [19:47] <Vel> I don't know
- [19:47] <@Skippeh> E3: That's probably one of the easier things to keep, depending on what you mean by "layered".
- [19:47] <Vel> I feel like traits as dice shenanigans doesn't really make that much sense
- [19:47] <@Skippeh> AcademiaNut: Yeah that'd work nicely.
- [19:47] <@E3> AcademiaNut the difference between a Great Unclean One and an Exalted Great Unclean one? :p
- [19:48] <Vel> And yeah
- [19:48] <Vel> That sounds pretty good, AN.
- [19:48] <George_> I still think skill should give consistency however it's implemented
- [19:48] <George_> while talent should give explosiveness
- [19:48] <Alectai> I would say it's certainly possible to expand your caps with the right Traits, but they'd have to be pretty powerful ones
- [19:48] <@SuperSonicSound> I kind of agree with George here, high levels of skill should represent consistency
- [19:48] <powerofmind> so virtues
- [19:48] <Alectai> A Tier 5 Education for instance would come with a +5/+10 boost to your (Related Stat) Cap for instance
- [19:49] <Vel> Yeah I'm definitely in favor of some kind of method to ensure consistency
- [19:49] <Alectai> Which fits because technically, Tier 5 would require you to have put a human lifetime into learning that technique
- [19:49] <powerofmind> virtues are consistant, vices are explosive
- [19:50] <@E3> Alectai Yeah. that's the kind of thing I'm talking about. T5+ Education and deep vice/virtue path stuff should be the ones that increase stat caps and/or gate the best dice tricks, basically. That's what I'd like to see out of this.
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- [19:50] <Vel> Reminds me of world of darkness, where' it's honestly thee posite
- [19:50] <Vel> But that's a quirk of WoD
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- [19:50] <Vel> And it's deliberate encouragement
- [19:50] <Vel> Of playing a horror-y game
- [19:50] <Vel> Where the GM wants you to be constantly doing vice-y things
- [19:50] <George_> virtue and vice don't impact resolution there though
- [19:50] <Vel> [20:50] <Vel> Reminds me of world of darkness, where' it's honestly the opposite [20:50] <Vel> But that's a quirk of WoD
- [19:50] <Vel> and yeah
- [19:51] <Alectai> And this is also how we model Eldar being depressingly OP
- [19:51] <Vel> Well it does sort of
- [19:51] <Vel> In that it gives willpower
- [19:51] <George_> they just restore the same pool that you can spend for bonuses
- [19:51] <Vel> Which can be spent for extra dice yeah
- [19:51] <Alectai> Because not only would they have a natural cap of 40 or something, but they're just shy of immortal, so they can stack up high tier education traits
- [19:51] <Alectai> Which increase their caps and numbers to depressingly high levels
- [19:51] <@AcademiaNut> Hmmmm... there's an idea, gaining extra bonus dice for a roll at the cost of having fewer later because you are exhausted
- [19:52] <George_> it's not a bad system alectai, but we don't even know what we need from stats until we have resolution down
- [19:52] <Alectai> Merf, I'm just throwgn stuff at the wall
- [19:52] <Alectai> And seeing if anything sticks
- [19:52] <powerofmind> resolution seems pretty solidly handled
- [19:52] <Vel> I think we all are really
- [19:52] <Vel> But yeah
- [19:52] <Vel> Though I think it'll need playtesting
- [19:52] <powerofmind> skills give a floor
- [19:52] <@E3> Yeah I definitely like the EoE system for resolution, overall.
- [19:53] <@Skippeh> It's p. awesome
- [19:53] <powerofmind> they also give a number of bonus dice to apply for things that you can't beat with just the floor
- [19:53] <George_> another idea along those lines is taking a flat malus to add a bonus die
- [19:53] <@AcademiaNut> Definitely, which is why I wanted to have a smaller scale spiritual successor game before trying to rework AoS, to allow for some playtesting
- [19:53] <George_> to attempt something crazy, such as when dia shot her bullet to shoot slag at the seer
- [19:53] <Vel> I do note that a hundred to hundred twenty turn cap
- [19:53] <Vel> Isn't really small thouh
- [19:53] <Vel> Though*
- [19:53] <powerofmind> that's just it though
- [19:53] <powerofmind> it's a cap
- [19:54] <powerofmind> not a minimum
- [19:54] <Vel> Well sure
- [19:54] <Vel> But you know that if people get interested
- [19:54] <George_> I feel like we'll be determined to resolve the experiment
- [19:54] <Vel> Well which isn't a bad thing but
- [19:54] <Vel> There's a good chance it'll stretch on
- [19:54] <George_> unless it breaks
- [19:54] <Vel> Just by the nature of this kind of thing
- [19:54] <Vel> And yeah true
- [19:54] <powerofmind> I'm sure AN can write it well enough that we don't get overly invested
- [19:54] <Vel> that's a hilarious phrase.
- [19:55] <powerofmind> he plays us like fiddles with Harzivan's narrative
- [19:55] <George_> though it's likely to break for the GM far before it breaks for the players
- [19:55] <@Skippeh> He will use his writing skills
- [19:55] <@Skippeh> to make us hate the characters
- [19:55] <@Skippeh> and the setting
- [19:55] <@Skippeh> with a passion
- [19:55] <Vel> Hahah
- [19:55] <Vel> Brilliant.
- [19:55] <powerofmind> i have absolutely no doubt that AN's choice of words and portrayal of the river mother is the only reason she was so hated
- [19:55] <@AcademiaNut> Heh. But by a 120 turn cap, I mean that you are likely to have an apocalypse by the end. So the game is more about trying to find a satisfying resolution at the end rather than keep things going
- [19:56] <@Skippeh> Yeah it has something of a defined end-point.
- [19:56] <Vel> True, just
- [19:56] <Vel> 120 is a lot of turns
- [19:56] <Alectai> "THE YAWHG WILL ARRIVE IN SIX DAYS"
- [19:56] <George_> it may be hard to get in the spirit of a game where we can't keep things going
- [19:56] <powerofmind> so what you're saying AN
- [19:56] <Alectai> "NOBODY KNEW IT WAS COMING"
- [19:56] <Vel> THE MOON
- [19:56] <Vel> IS FALLING
- [19:56] <@Skippeh> I also had the amusing experience the other day of imagining the backstory of Delta Green
- [19:56] <George_> we'd definitely have goals different than what led us to optimize mirande how we did
- [19:56] <powerofmind> is that there's a solid chance that we'll oops the apocalypse a great number of turns early
- [19:56] <@Skippeh> as us playing a quest
- [19:56] <@E3> I mean, basically the one thing I REALLY want to see is "Big" traits (Education Levels, Lifestyle Traits, stuff like Paragon of Vice/Virtue or hybrid vice/virtue traits, Psyker Discipline Levels) being used to gate higher stat caps, better dice-trick traits/abilities, etc. so that traits continue to function in the way they did before, where having the right build makes them become more than the sum of their parts.
- [19:56] <George_> though it could be freeing and good
- [19:56] <Vel> I have to admit
- [19:57] <Vel> That a Delta Green type quest thing
- [19:57] <Vel> Would be really fun
- [19:57] <Vel> I'd rather have AoS of course
- [19:57] <Vel> But I would definitely play a Delta Green quest/council/game/thing
- [19:57] <@Skippeh> And in particular the creation of MJ-12 and the debacle in Cambodia being schemes of Ekans' that got a little out of hand :P
- [19:57] <@E3> Well this is us taking AoS from CK2 to EU4 :p I suspect we'll have to do this again when we go from EU4 to Stellaris :o
- [19:57] <@AcademiaNut> There may or may not be a Count Dio Rocca as an available character at some point
- [19:57] <powerofmind> no
- [19:58] <@Skippeh> And Alzis being the character that AN kept prompting us to investigate but we never got around to
- [19:58] <@E3> Haha
- [19:58] <powerofmind> E3 this is us taking AoS from unbalanced to balanced
- [19:58] <powerofmind> nothing about a scope change here
- [19:58] <Vel> Well in fairness AN was planning a bit of a scope change
- [19:58] <Vel> Which never happened
- [19:58] <Vel> Back when AoS was still chugging along
- [19:58] <Vel> So I can see where he's coming from
- [19:58] <powerofmind> because we went to mirande
- [19:59] <Vel> Yeah but I more meant that the polity got larged enough
- [19:59] <powerofmind> and the aim was to have the scope change up for when she took over
- [19:59] <Vel> That he had to revamp the system
- [19:59] <Vel> Yeah
- [19:59] <powerofmind> but then it exploded into confusion
- [19:59] <George_> is the scope flawed, though?
- [19:59] <Vel> Well even ignoring that he had said that the polity got large enough
- [19:59] <Vel> That the scope needed to be revamped since the system was too built for small scale stuff
- [19:59] <Vel> And we were a multi city large nation by the point the game ended
- [19:59] <powerofmind> that's hardly true
- [19:59] <@SuperSonicSound> Mirande would have ended up in charge but Copro daemon happened
- [20:00] <powerofmind> CK2 is built for anything up to and including an entire empire
- [20:00] <powerofmind> it's just significantly too complex for one person to handle the entire thing
- [20:00] <Vel> Yes but CK2 automates everything.
- [20:00] <Vel> Yes.
- [20:00] <powerofmind> on paper
- [20:00] <@Skippeh> Yeah CK2 wasn't the bit that was causing problems.
- [20:00] <@SuperSonicSound> Yea but CK2 also automates everything
- [20:00] <@Skippeh> Per se
- [20:00] <powerofmind> skippy gets it
- [20:00] <powerofmind> it wasn't that CK2 was inherently flawed
- [20:00] <@Skippeh> the economic system was /hellish/ to do the number crunching for by the end
- [20:01] <George_> were there problems beyond the economic system?
- [20:01] <powerofmind> it was that the fusion of 40k and CK2 did not go well as things expanded in scope
- [20:01] <@SuperSonicSound> Yes I recall and read the system reform thread when it was a thing
- [20:01] <@Skippeh> well i don't know that much about CK2 but I do know that AN was manually running numbers for trade fluctuations
- [20:01] <@Skippeh> at one stage
- [20:01] <@Skippeh> :v
- [20:01] <@E3> Well some of AoS' stuff could be automated by spreadsheet. Although I do think that we need to make it more abstract for this stage of play :p
- [20:01] <Vel> what he really needs is some kind of programmer
- [20:01] <Vel> To program this stuff
- [20:01] <George_> I understand that, but AN has already cut that out hasn't he?
- [20:01] <@Skippeh> Yeah that wasn't insurmountable and was already sort of being surmounted, really.
- [20:01] <powerofmind> yeah
- [20:01] <powerofmind> but that's sort of not even the point of discussion
- [20:02] <powerofmind> because we fell into a random tanget
- [20:02] <George_> so are there current scope issues?
- [20:02] <@SuperSonicSound> I think you'd be better off either abstracting the economics side of things. You're likely drilling into to fine detail if that's taking up oodles of time
- [20:02] <Vel> Yeah, I'm just mentioning where E3 probably got
- [20:02] <Vel> The idea
- [20:03] <@Skippeh> The broader issue as I understand it was "fun to write", which is kind of what we're dealing with here by coming up with a new resolution system and game structure.
- [20:04] <Vel> We want to ensure it's also fun to play too, of course, but yeah pretty much
- [20:04] <George_> hard for us to help with that though
- [20:04] <powerofmind> well fortunately, it's a lot easier to retailor the empire building than the personal encounters
- [20:04] <@AcademiaNut> There were sort of three games before we went off with Mirande: econ, research, and personal stuff. Econ was the first to get dropped as "unfun", while research bloated up way too much by the end. This left personal, but the growth there went exponential when it was the only thing available
- [20:05] <Vel> I suppose that re-integrating the personal stuff
- [20:05] <Vel> With the Empire-building
- [20:05] <Vel> Might help there, then.
- [20:05] <George_> there's also the societal problems with philosophical movements and whatnot
- [20:05] <Vel> I think that was tied to Personal
- [20:05] <@E3> Research is something I REALLY want to get back to, though I will agree that it was ballooning a bit out of control. Not sure exactly how to fix that one. Econ can be fixed by just adding a layer of abstraction, I would hope.
- [20:06] <@Skippeh> Yeah there'll be a much better defined coupling between them from now on, hopefully.
- [20:06] <Vel> But yeah I'd think we re-integrate Mirande stuff with doing Empire stuff
- [20:06] <powerofmind> research is probably going to be the trickiest one
- [20:06] <Vel> So they're not totally seperate things
- [20:06] <@Skippeh> We'll see in the playtest how it works, but I'm comfident.
- [20:06] <George_> yeah I don't really see another way to do research
- [20:06] <powerofmind> we could always torture ourselves with a Master of Orion II research arrangement
- [20:06] <@Skippeh> I'm surprised to har that Research was causing you grief tho AcademiaNut, though having updated it once I can understand why lol
- [20:07] <Vel> Plus all of us are here because like
- [20:07] <Vel> both Empire and personal stuff
- [20:07] <Vel> So, two birds with one stone
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- [20:07] <@AcademiaNut> Running the numbers was a bit time intensive but was never really the issue. It was getting everything updated with proper explanations of what they do, and figuring out what came next
- [20:07] <powerofmind> so basically
- [20:08] <Vel> Huh, really? That's the kind of thing I enjoy doing endlessly
- [20:08] <Vel> In my free time.
- [20:08] <George_> research was fun but I suppose you're doing a lot more work there for the little game we get
- [20:08] <@E3> Well I really like the tech tree, it just goes in so many different directions at once. And how are sources of Research Rolls going to be handled in the new system for that matter AcademiaNut? And how will personnel modify them? o.o
- [20:08] <powerofmind> the problem was that you didn't have time to look ahead in the research tree to pre-complete it
- [20:08] <Vel> I guess anything would get boring once it becomes a job
- [20:08] <powerofmind> you were always behind the turn you were on in terms of where research was going
- [20:08] <Vel> Part of why doing things for fun tends to make people more productive
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- [20:09] <@Skippeh> Research gave people a ton of enjoyment, I think.
- [20:09] <Prim> hi?
- [20:09] <Vel> Yeah Research was a big
- [20:09] <Vel> Hindbrain
- [20:09] <Vel> Jolt of energy.
- [20:09] <Vel> Haha
- [20:09] <Vel> Also planning it out, of course.
- [20:09] <@Skippeh> It's the feeling of unlocking something
- [20:09] <@Skippeh> Oh yeah!
- [20:09] <Vel> Exactly
- [20:09] <Vel> Progression.
- [20:09] <Vel> People love to feel like they're progressing
- [20:09] <Vel> Kind of like MMOs
- [20:09] <powerofmind> the issue there, is that what AN needs to do is increase the abstraction of research as well
- [20:09] <Vel> It's addicting.
- [20:09] <powerofmind> but that's DAMN hard to do
- [20:10] <powerofmind> without taking away from the wrong things
- [20:10] <Vel> Yeah the descriptions and the variety were a lot of what people enjoyed
- [20:10] <Vel> So it's super hard to
- [20:10] <George_> well we could just have tiers of tech that subsume figuring out all of the physics and updating the relevant designs
- [20:10] <Vel> Clean up.
- [20:10] <powerofmind> He could always go with Master of Orion
- [20:10] <@SuperSonicSound> research is the ultimate skinners box :3
- [20:10] <Vel> Yep
- [20:11] <powerofmind> Techs are sorted into a set of 'disciplines', which he's already partly done
- [20:11] <powerofmind> and specific developments are gated behind a particular 'tier' of each discipline, BUT NOT TOO SPECIFIC
- [20:11] <Vel> It also feeds the primal desire to have more options
- [20:11] <George_> oh yeah we could just research those general categories that things are already labelled with
- [20:11] <Vel> And preparedness
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- [20:12] <powerofmind> for example, MOO II had a discipline called 'construction'
- [20:12] <Vel> Sure, but that sort of limits a lot of what people found fun
- [20:12] <Vel> IE: cool tech stuff
- [20:12] <George_> it'd kill the mini-game, but it'd probably worth that to reduce the work needed for updates
- [20:12] <Vel> I mean it would definitely reduce the workload
- [20:12] <Vel> But yeah
- [20:13] <powerofmind> one of the tiers was called 'Advanced Construction', I believe it was teir 3
- [20:13] <George_> fewer techs could allow longer, fluffier descriptions that might be easier for AN to write
- [20:13] <powerofmind> it had three specific undertechs
- [20:13] <Vel> True, though there wouldn't be much to think about
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- [20:13] <Vel> When it comes to selecting techs
- [20:13] <powerofmind> granted most of them made no sense in terms of what belongs in it
- [20:13] <Vel> So yeah it would totally kill the minigame
- [20:14] <Vel> Which was a pretty major part of the engagement
- [20:14] <Vel> Ofc, if it really is super odious
- [20:14] <Vel> That's a worthwhile sacrifiec
- [20:14] <@Skippeh> It may be that complex Research trees will actually be the one pain AN can actually live with (in a slightly more manageable form) if all the others are resolved. We'll see.
- [20:14] <powerofmind> Anti-missile rockets, Reinforced hulls, and fighter bays
- [20:14] <@AcademiaNut> I was sort of thinking of having both Theoretical Science and Applied Science, and reducing the number of small leaf and stem techs
- [20:14] <powerofmind> hmm
- [20:14] <George_> sounds good to me
- [20:14] <powerofmind> you could go that route
- [20:14] <George_> just what's necessary for the empire game
- [20:14] <powerofmind> more like a Sid Meiyers beyond earth?
- [20:14] <George_> though we'd have theoretical, applied, and forbidden
- [20:14] <Vel> beyond earth was
- [20:15] <powerofmind> beyond earth sucked terribly
- [20:15] <Vel> yes
- [20:15] <Vel> well
- [20:15] <Vel> not terribly
- [20:15] <Vel> But yeah it wasn't that great.
- [20:15] <powerofmind> but the tech tree might be worth salvaging out of it
- [20:15] <@AcademiaNut> Yeah. The granularity was more useful for the initial game, but it wasn't useful as things got more advanced
- [20:15] <Vel> No Civilization game is that great before expansion packs
- [20:15] <powerofmind> even after the expansion pack
- [20:15] <@AcademiaNut> Perhaps not the tech tree itself, but the structural conception of it
- [20:15] <powerofmind> really...
- [20:15] <@SuperSonicSound> Alpha Centuarai?
- [20:15] <George_> yeah
- [20:15] <powerofmind> alpha centauri was awesome
- [20:15] <powerofmind> but that's not what we're looking for
- [20:16] <Vel> Yeah
- [20:16] <powerofmind> we want to yank out beyond earth's tech system
- [20:16] <@SuperSonicSound> True
- [20:16] <George_> I think it became neat to see what happened but we had so many rolls that we weren't really directing it much at all
- [20:16] <@Skippeh> AcademiaNut: Well I think people enjoyed it a great deal.
- [20:16] <powerofmind> because it's surprisingly good
- [20:16] <Vel> Yeah the tech tree
- [20:16] <Vel> Is greatly enjoyed
- [20:16] <Vel> I know Alectai backed out of the IRC
- [20:16] <Vel> But he really loved it.
- [20:16] <Vel> For instance.
- [20:16] <powerofmind> that's true
- [20:17] <powerofmind> some people may love the old tech system SO MUCH that they'll do all of the work for you
- [20:17] <@Skippeh> Like of the aspects you've identified it's the only one where I'd say there were some positives. (Other than the exploding crits leading to good drama, but a properly-realized EotE inspired resolution system should be able to do that to.)
- [20:17] <Vel> That's honestly quite possible.
- [20:17] <@SuperSonicSound> I think the previous research system was actually very fun in that it gave us a concrete look at our societies technology and how things were built, it gave a kind of insight into what society used that wasn't strictly visible through the normal texto f the updates.
- [20:17] <George_> it's still a lot of checking and correcting even if people build mockups that he could use
- [20:17] <Vel> It was extremely fluffy about the nature of our civilization though yeah
- [20:17] <powerofmind> but that wasn't the real issue
- [20:17] <Vel> For all that it's a pain, it had a lot of good points
- [20:17] <powerofmind> AN had to roll a billion dice
- [20:18] <@Skippeh> Also the granularity also meant that past the early stages our tech growth didn't become expoential because there were so many sub-parts to cover- which was appropriate to our situation really.
- [20:18] <Vel> Yeah but I think he said the billion dice rolling
- [20:18] <Vel> Wasn't really the problematic part
- [20:18] <powerofmind> and invent an equal number of projects to persue
- [20:18] <@E3> SuperSonicSound does have a point AcademiaNut. I think that a good way to get some of that though would be to do block writeups of the kinds of things that are contained within given branches/tiers of technology. Tell us what kind of things we have access to without making them individual research projects in their own right :p
- [20:18] <George_> I think he said building the tree was worse than the dice
- [20:18] <Fumbles> The highly detailed research tree makes sense when you're dealing with a post-apocalypse society trying to pick up the pieces. It helped establish how much we lost and how far behind we were.
- [20:18] <Vel> yeah
- [20:18] <powerofmind> okay
- [20:19] <powerofmind> so we're not yet at a point where we can revamp research into 'the unknown'
- [20:19] <powerofmind> and likely never will
- [20:19] <George_> idk it could be consolidated
- [20:19] <powerofmind> but AN still has to write up hundreds upon hundreds of techs
- [20:19] <powerofmind> and worse still, he can't do it in advance
- [20:19] <George_> assuming you mean forbidden research
- [20:19] <Vel> The lack of doing it in advance is a problem yeah
- [20:19] <Vel> But
- [20:19] <powerofmind> because someone might ask 'hey, why don't we have this?'
- [20:19] <George_> he doesn't have to do that in the proposed system
- [20:19] <powerofmind> and that throws off the whole thing
- [20:20] <Vel> True but adding
- [20:20] <Vel> One or two
- [20:20] <Vel> Little things
- [20:20] <Vel> When someone points it out
- [20:20] <George_> it's just abstracted
- [20:20] <Vel> Is, while a bit of work
- [20:20] <Vel> And yeah
- [20:20] <powerofmind> but then he still has to write over a thousand words of fluff
- [20:20] <powerofmind> then two thousand, because that probably doesn't even cover the tech we HAVE
- [20:20] <Vel> Still yeah, some amount of abstraction is probably necessary
- [20:20] <powerofmind> then two thousand more...
- [20:21] <George_> presumably fluff is easier than the more concrete text he's making with research as it was
- [20:21] <Vel> True, but the research system is probably the most beloved of the specific mechanic-y stuff
- [20:21] <powerofmind> some research text was concrete
- [20:21] <powerofmind> but a fair amount was fluff covered concrete
- [20:21] <George_> sure but that doesn't mean it is producing enough enjoyment to pay for its weight
- [20:21] <Vel> Yeah
- [20:21] <George_> and we're past the best part of it
- [20:22] <@SuperSonicSound> Are we?
- [20:22] <Vel> On the other hand, if you abstract it to a certain point you're pretty much losing an entire segment of the game
- [20:22] <powerofmind> it's hard to say that
- [20:22] <George_> I think so
- [20:22] <Vel> I don't know if we are yes.
- [20:22] <@SuperSonicSound> Last I recall we were still quite early in the tech trees for most things
- [20:22] <George_> since we don't really direct stuff
- [20:22] <George_> and have so many researches rolling at once
- [20:22] <powerofmind> that's... kind of a point
- [20:23] <Vel> yeah but I don't think we've gotten past the 'post apocalyptic tech regaining' stage yet really
- [20:23] <powerofmind> we're often researching in so many directions that we're effectively capable of researching an entire discipline's worth of techs at once
- [20:23] <Vel> Even if the lack of control does mean we're getting close
- [20:23] <George_> we won't ever considering the DAoT
- [20:23] <Vel> Note that Dandriss wasn't top tier DAOT though
- [20:23] <Vel> It was low tier
- [20:23] <KlavoHunter> We are clawing our way back into space, one divination-guided Quench Gun volley at a time
- [20:23] <George_> yeah I'm just saying that we won't get back to the peak for human society
- [20:24] <powerofmind> hmmm
- [20:24] <Vel> True, but we could get back to the peak for dandriss probably
- [20:24] <George_> but we don't necessarily have to lose hearing about cool techs
- [20:24] <George_> it just has to come in a way that AN can write more easily
- [20:24] <@E3> Exactly
- [20:24] <George_> this system isn't it, so what is
- [20:24] <Vel> That's the question.
- [20:24] <KlavoHunter> Mirande Scrys another planet that we knew was human
- [20:24] <@SuperSonicSound> @AcademiaNut could you expound on what exactly made the research system so problematic for you?
- [20:25] <powerofmind> the active research tab is regularly longer than any two updates combined
- [20:25] <@E3> Well he said it was mostly having to come up with new specific techs constantly. Making it a bit less granular means that he can tell us about new techs that are useful, interesting and have an impact on society/gameplay/choices available when it's appropriate
- [20:26] <@E3> but he doesn't have to give us specific research projects every time we want to research organ replacement cybernetics and marksman eyes (which are hilariously two separate projects as it stands)
- [20:26] <powerofmind> maybe techs that are semi-silly
- [20:26] <powerofmind> or overly particular
- [20:26] <powerofmind> like the centipede walker
- [20:26] <Vel> man Annaaaa
- [20:26] <Vel> and her mechfetish
- [20:26] <Vel> researched all sorts of super specific mechs that we had no real reason
- [20:26] <Vel> to have that many kinds of mechs
- [20:27] <powerofmind> can be umbrella'd under a set of 'specialized design' I II III IV deals
- [20:27] <@Skippeh> Anna didn't need a reason
- [20:27] <Vel> big stompy robots
- [20:27] <powerofmind> like
- [20:27] <Vel> chicks dig robots.
- [20:27] <@Skippeh> are their own reason
- [20:27] <powerofmind> at a certain point
- [20:27] <@AcademiaNut> Anna likes robots
- [20:27] <@AcademiaNut> But yeah, there was excessive specificity
- [20:28] <powerofmind> you don't need to actively persue the development of a new design in a class of robot you've already figured out
- [20:28] <Vel> Yeah I feel like you could make reasonable categories of stuff
- [20:28] <Vel> Like
- [20:28] <Vel> Various mech categories
- [20:28] <Vel> Various augmentation categories
- [20:28] <powerofmind> weapon categories
- [20:28] <Vel> And you could then tier them
- [20:28] <Vel> So
- [20:28] <Vel> Yeah
- [20:28] <@AcademiaNut> In my defence, at the time everything made sense as being its own thing
- [20:28] <Vel> Plasma I, Augmenting Cybernetics I
- [20:28] <powerofmind> those three alone comprise over a thousand words of the 4k+ tech tree
- [20:29] <Vel> To be fair tons of weapons
- [20:29] <Vel> Are fun
- [20:29] <Vel> We're SV
- [20:29] <Vel> We love our dakka
- [20:29] <Vel> AN is one of us.
- [20:29] <Vel> So
- [20:29] <powerofmind> we just don't need to research every single one of those tons of weapons actively, on a high-polity scale
- [20:29] <@E3> Yeah well for stuff like the gravy gun that we found in the ruins it makes sense to have an individual research project
- [20:29] <@E3> or the Ukko
- [20:29] <Vel> But yes weapon categories could be compressed
- [20:29] <powerofmind> wait
- [20:29] <@E3> but most of the time just general design categories is plenty
- [20:29] <powerofmind> that might be it
- [20:30] <powerofmind> we develop the core technologies and techniques at a polity level
- [20:30] <@SuperSonicSound> @E3 A gun that fires gravy? Sign me :3
- [20:30] <@E3> haha
- [20:30] <Vel> Core techs and techniques at polity, regular item-y stuff at personal?
- [20:30] <Vel> Is what you were going to say?
- [20:30] <Vel> Maybe?
- [20:30] <powerofmind> and AN takes the specialized techs and makes them 'quiet projects' that we don't see at a polity level
- [20:30] <Vel> Yeah
- [20:30] <Phantrosity> ie
- [20:30] <Vel> Well if he doesn't need descriptions that at least
- [20:30] <Phantrosity> can make swords
- [20:31] <Phantrosity> polity
- [20:31] <Phantrosity> can make cool specialized chainsword
- [20:31] <Phantrosity> personal
- [20:31] <KlavoHunter> Well we need robots to fight dragons
- [20:31] <powerofmind> lol
- [20:31] <powerofmind> basically
- [20:31] <powerofmind> AN makes a tech for bots
- [20:31] <Vel> Yeah
- [20:31] <powerofmind> called walker I
- [20:31] <Vel> That's what I was meaning
- [20:31] <KlavoHunter> to fight monsters we created monsters that we now have to fight so we created some more monsters
- [20:31] <Vel> When I was like 'Augmentation Cybernetics I'
- [20:31] <Vel> or whatnot
- [20:31] <@SuperSonicSound> Hmm, that does make me wonder how things like sanctic sorcery research would fit in
- [20:31] <powerofmind> gated behind that are all the specific walkers anna researched
- [20:31] <Vel> Well I don't know if it would need to be gated
- [20:31] <powerofmind> but they don't need to be specifically researched at a polity scale
- [20:31] <Vel> They would just be auto unlocked
- [20:31] <Vel> Yeah
- [20:32] <Vel> You get teh Tier, they auto-unlock
- [20:32] <@SuperSonicSound> Although I guess with those kind of research topics you could just stay that specific
- [20:32] <powerofmind> that's sort of what I mean
- [20:32] <powerofmind> now this doesn't apply to EVERYTHING
- [20:32] <Vel> Some stuff doesn't need that yeah
- [20:32] <Vel> Like power generation tech
- [20:32] <powerofmind> there are a number of high-end techs under a tiered upgrade
- [20:32] <Vel> Really doesn't need to get specific
- [20:32] <@E3> SuperSonicSound sorcerous research is a bit unique because it's restricted stuff. But it mostly translates to giving units stuff like psyker abilities half the time, and just to regular old tech branch stuff the other half of the time, I think
- [20:32] <powerofmind> that needs specific research
- [20:32] <Vel> I do think Forbidden Research is one thing
- [20:32] <George_> eh forbidden tech can still be general
- [20:32] <Vel> That should stay specific
- [20:32] <Vel> Honestly
- [20:32] <@E3> Agreed
- [20:32] <Vel> Considering that it -is- specific
- [20:32] <powerofmind> Elite-grade gated tech
- [20:32] <powerofmind> rather than basic crap
- [20:32] <@E3> Like, everything about Dragons should be specific. Because it's specific :p
- [20:33] <Vel> Of all of the techs, Forbidden is the one that should stay specific
- [20:33] <@E3> "Dragon Science I" makes no bloody sense
- [20:33] <Vel> It doesn't baloon
- [20:33] <Vel> nearly as much
- [20:33] <@E3> XD
- [20:33] <@E3> yeah
- [20:33] <Vel> As the other techs
- [20:33] <Vel> And it's something that you want to be careful about
- [20:33] <Vel> Like, you wouldn't want to introduce a whole broad spectrum of forbidden stuff
- [20:33] <Vel> A lot of times you just want one thing.
- [20:33] <George_> is the research system necessarily the right place to figure out about dragons?
- [20:33] <powerofmind> Lets use an actual example
- [20:33] <powerofmind> Improved Explosives II - You have institutional knowledge of how to make explosives with a tremendous amount of bang for their buck
- [20:33] <powerofmind> no need to actually research anything under it
- [20:33] <George_> though maybe it's the case that forbidden techs are easier to write blurbs for anyway
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- [20:34] <Vel> I would suspect forbidden is easier yeah
- [20:34] <Vel> They're all flavorful and they're not something that balloons
- [20:34] <powerofmind> oh have we moved on...
- [20:34] <powerofmind> yes, forbidden tech can all stay the way it is
- [20:34] <@Skippeh> I'm about to get off to bed, but TBH research as-is is the one bit I wouldn't change that much.
- [20:34] <powerofmind> we have less than 500 words of forbidden tech
- [20:34] <@Skippeh> I say this as a guy who dosen't have to write it :v
- [20:34] <@SuperSonicSound> :P
- [20:34] <@SuperSonicSound> Yea I very much hope research stays the same
- [20:34] <George_> well improved explosives II might itself just be part of applied science II
- [20:34] <George_> or III or whatever
- [20:35] <Vel> Personally I really like research as is but I can acknowledge that it's
- [20:35] <Vel> Probably not the most fun for AN
- [20:35] <George_> I mean I love it too but if it's an obstacle to getting more AoS then it's a problem
- [20:35] <Vel> Though, I -do- think that if everything else gets fixed
- [20:35] <@SuperSonicSound> It would probably help to just ensure that it doesn't bloat though
- [20:35] <Vel> It might be not so bad
- [20:35] <Vel> I think you might not need to go to quite as much streamlining as we're talking
- [20:36] <Vel> Just get rid of some of the really, really hyperspecific
- [20:36] <Vel> Stuff
- [20:36] <@SuperSonicSound> Exactly.
- [20:36] <George_> just depends what parts are hard to write
- [20:36] <powerofmind> tell me that you guys think that a specific research like ARACHNE mechs are necessary
- [20:36] <powerofmind> cmon
- [20:36] <Vel> yeah that's the aforementioned
- [20:36] <Vel> really hyperspecific
- [20:36] <Vel> silliness
- [20:36] <powerofmind> you can put that and half a dozen other specific mechs
- [20:36] <@Skippeh> The elastic and plasma steels were incredibly cool.
- [20:36] <powerofmind> into a packeged deal
- [20:36] <Vel> yeah those were neat.
- [20:36] <powerofmind> 'non-biped' I
- [20:37] <Vel> Even if they are a bit specific but
- [20:37] <Vel> super neat
- [20:37] <Vel> And not 'arachne' tier superspecific at least.
- [20:37] <powerofmind> material science is more linear
- [20:37] <Vel> Yeah
- [20:37] <powerofmind> it doesn't need stupefying
- [20:37] <powerofmind> it's the leaf techs that need simplification and trim
- [20:38] <@SuperSonicSound> alright
- [20:38] <@SuperSonicSound> I'm falling asleep
- [20:38] <George_> you can still throw it under one research umbrella and just talk about the cool bits
- [20:38] <George_> I can pastebin it
- [20:38] <@SuperSonicSound> going to take a copy of the current room
- [20:38] <@SuperSonicSound> and drop off
- [20:38] <Vel> Alright.
- [20:38] <@SuperSonicSound> Cheers george
- [20:38] <Vel> Later, SSS.
- [20:38] <George_> cheers
- [20:38] <@SuperSonicSound> Ah crap
- [20:38] <Vel> ?
- [20:38] <@SuperSonicSound> The web channel has a line limit
- [20:38] <@SuperSonicSound> for scroll back
- [20:38] <George_> I was worried about that
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- [20:39] <Vel> I can scrollback all the way to the top
- [20:39] <powerofmind> like, do we really need a research for assault cannons AND autocannons? The fluff itself stats that one is literally a smaller version of the other
- [20:39] <George_> yeah same
- [20:39] <Vel> If you want I'll do the pastebin
- [20:39] <George_> I can it's np
- [20:39] <George_> but it's not time yet
- [20:39] <Vel> yeah
- [20:39] == Aranfan [webchat@ool-944ae5e7.dyn.optonline.net] has joined #AgeofStrife
- [20:39] <Aranfan> hopefully my connection will hold out this time
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- [20:39] <@SuperSonicSound> I've lost like maybe 2 minutes of stuff but Ithink it's from before AN joined the channel
- [20:40] <@SuperSonicSound> So it should be good actually.
- [20:40] <Vel> Yeah I have from pretty much the start of the convo
- [20:40] <Vel> Even Pre-AN
- [20:40] <powerofmind> AN, how would you feel about trimming the tech tree in such a way?
- [20:40] <George_> so, any thoughts or new prompts to brainstorm on AN?
- [20:41] <George_> what he'd said trims it more aggressively than what you proposed I think
- [20:41] <powerofmind> stuff like weapon mini or macro or varieties of a mech
- [20:41] <@AcademiaNut> Probably a good idea, although what I was trying to model was the challenge of miniaturization. Should probably just allow something like the Miniaturization tech in general to allow for things like that
- [20:41] <George_> I think you can handwave a lot of it
- [20:41] <powerofmind> that's what master of orion does
- [20:42] <George_> and just have the general tech level and how often we update our various stuff to the current cutting edge
- [20:42] <powerofmind> you can fit a basic laser cannon for 5 space points, but after a bunch of levels of physics and miniaturization, it only takes 1
- [20:42] <Vel> yeah but if you
- [20:42] <Vel> trim it down to super general
- [20:42] <powerofmind> that's not super-general trimming
- [20:42] <Vel> Yeah I didn't mean that
- [20:42] <@Skippeh> One thing that I recall, which may be germane here
- [20:42] <George_> what I was talking about is yeah
- [20:42] <Vel> I meant George saying 'handwave it all and just have a general tech level'
- [20:42] <powerofmind> that's removing silly, supurfluous tech like light autocannon and assault cannon
- [20:43] <Vel> yeah
- [20:43] <@E3> AcademiaNut well you can still keep the Miniaturization I, II, III etc. in as a gating thing. I rather like that one. Most of the broad categories from the old tech tree are probably good to keep.
- [20:43] <Vel> Not you powerofmind
- [20:43] <@Skippeh> and SuperSonicSound and Aranfan will also recall
- [20:43] <George_> a handful of tech levels I meant but yeah
- [20:43] <powerofmind> when you already have autocannons
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- [20:43] <@Skippeh> Is the way that research worked in Cherno Alpha Versus the World
- [20:43] <Vel> Yeah we're meaning stuff like trimming down
- [20:43] <Vel> the half dozen kinds of mechs which happen to have multi-limbs
- [20:43] <@SuperSonicSound> Mmmm, interested to see where you're going there but that was very freeform
- [20:43] <George_> that's just Anna's fault :P
- [20:43] <Vel> Stuff like 'wall-crawler mechs' are cool but
- [20:43] <Vel> And haha true
- [20:43] <powerofmind> walkers, non-biped mechs, etc
- [20:44] <Vel> Yeah
- [20:44] <Vel> Walkers, nonbipeds, wall crawling
- [20:44] <powerofmind> you can trim all that crap
- [20:44] <@Skippeh> In that quest, players outlined the thing they'd like to shoot for and sketch then set the number of sucesses we'd need
- [20:44] <George_> it's just staying true to her craziness
- [20:44] <@Skippeh> Something like that- more player driven
- [20:44] <powerofmind> down to 3 or 4 tech tiers of 'mech'
- [20:44] <Vel> Stuff that actually has an actual impact
- [20:44] <George_> but that's also easy stuff to write I think
- [20:44] <George_> once you've done the first adding more mech designs isn't hard
- [20:44] <@Skippeh> might preserve granularity and the feeling of having cool projects we can unlock
- [20:44] <@Skippeh> whilst also significantly reducting the workload of writing things up
- [20:44] <@Skippeh> on your end
- [20:44] <Aranfan> Yeah, research in Cherno Quest was pretty nice
- [20:44] <George_> so it's not critical to trim, you only need to make it consistent with what you do with the more difficult parts
- [20:44] <@Skippeh> Like literally, players came up with an idea
- [20:44] <Aranfan> We could research anything, even the impossible stuff
- [20:45] <Aranfan> just if we researched impossible stuff it wouldn't do somthing
- [20:45] <Vel> Yeah but does that work well with
- [20:45] <Vel> A polity scale thing
- [20:45] <Vel> Rather than improving your mech
- [20:45] <Aranfan> and we had no idea what was impossible until it tried it
- [20:45] <@Skippeh> Sketch said "roll for it", and we'd get some or no amount of progress, or unlock it in a turn, depending on how difficult it is based on our current level of advancement
- [20:45] <George_> it sounds neat but is there room for it in the game
- [20:45] <Aranfan> we tried it, rather
- [20:45] <@Skippeh> It was polity scale stuff actually Vel
- [20:45] <Vel> Really
- [20:45] <Vel> Odd.
- [20:45] <@SuperSonicSound> *nods*
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- [20:45] <Vel> I'm not sure how well that would work though when you're trying to have some kind of consistent technological level though
- [20:45] <@Skippeh> Most of the researches weren't even about the mech- there were conventional forces, economic upgrades, etc.
- [20:46] <@SuperSonicSound> I GMed a sister quest but research in that quest was...
- [20:46] <@SuperSonicSound> Ad-hoc
- [20:46] <@Skippeh> Well AN would be very good at saying what we could conceivably shoot for, I'm sure
- [20:46] <@SuperSonicSound> and whilst that's not strictly bad, it's definitely not systematic
- [20:46] <George_> he's saying what we could conceivably shoot for now
- [20:46] <Vel> True, true, just I'm not sure if that'd be more or less work for him
- [20:47] <@Skippeh> Like this actually gels with what you're saying about more general research categories that outline basic stuff you'd be capable of- players would then come up with something roughly in that ballpark, and AN would say whether or not we could attempt it and then set a difficulty
- [20:47] <@AcademiaNut> Well, the trial game I am thinking of would take place against a background of general tech advancement, so we could refine it down to 'What is the government working on?' and just say 'Oh, general tech hasn't advanced that far yet'
- [20:47] <powerofmind> AN would be tendering requests from 70+ different people all coming up with different techs at once
- [20:47] <powerofmind> it'd probably be worse for a while
- [20:47] <@Skippeh> since the main pain of the old research system was cool ideas and writing blurbs for things- both of which would get a massive player generated prompt-
- [20:47] <@SuperSonicSound> Nah
- [20:47] <@Skippeh> it's a significant savings in workload
- [20:47] <@SuperSonicSound> powerofmind you basically just ignore any tech requests not part of a winning plan
- [20:47] <@SuperSonicSound> to skip that issue
- [20:48] <@SuperSonicSound> so you don't deal with request bloat beyond "is this something that's not utterly impossible"
- [20:48] <powerofmind> idk
- [20:49] <Skybreaker> Honestly I'm fine with what happens as long as we have a chance to affect things once we reach an appropate level of power. Oh and that our characters not be forever barred from matching GW made characters with the exception of beings like the emperor and the primarchs.
- [20:49] <George_> yes/no verdicts are a lot easier than writing out a cool tech tree
- [20:49] <powerofmind> it seems like it would create a lot of work for AN
- [20:49] <powerofmind> you know what ekans will do to his plans every time someone comes up with a half-way thought out tech
- [20:49] <@E3> >.>
- [20:49] <Vel> haha I don't think ekans is quite that bad lol
- [20:49] <powerofmind> we all see you ekans
- [20:49] <@E3> <.<
- [20:49] <@AcademiaNut> Amber Age's upgrades are basically a tech tree
- [20:49] <@Skippeh> Yeah it's the coming up with fifteen new cool ideas on your own every few turns and writing a blurb for them
- [20:49] <@SuperSonicSound> Yea they are
- [20:49] <George_> without the sentences explaining them
- [20:49] <@Skippeh> Which is the tricky part- and yeah I was going to bring that up at some point
- [20:49] <@AcademiaNut> And then updating everything
- [20:49] <Vel> The trick with Ekans is just understanding that he spitsballs idaes
- [20:50] <Vel> all of the ideas.
- [20:50] <@E3> I do. Pretty much constantly. At least half of them are awful
- [20:50] <@E3> XD
- [20:50] <George_> you just give it a clever name and we guess
- [20:50] <powerofmind> and then subsumes every idea that appears and puts a cherry on top and says 'this is the ekans vote'
- [20:50] <@AcademiaNut> Ahem. Also, just to explain what the spin off test case game would be...
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- [20:51] <powerofmind> ohhh
- [20:51] <Vel> go on
- [20:51] <@Skippeh> Also I recall AcademiaNut, like, shooting the shit with players about what we might conceivably be able to do technologically quite frequently and that being fine- it dosen't strike me as onerous in quite the same way as writing and maintaining a tree.
- [20:51] <@E3> I never pretend I came up with them powerofmind :p I just try to cobble them all together into the best arrangement I can figure out and also get people to vote for
- [20:51] <@Skippeh> Oooh!
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- [20:51] <powerofmind> that's sort of my point E3
- [20:52] <powerofmind> if fifteen people come up with a tech that isn't initially included in your vote
- [20:52] <@E3> Well would you prefer I NOT? XD
- [20:52] <powerofmind> you'll include them all
- [20:52] <George_> there'd be an action economy on it immediately if it became a lot of work to give verdicts on techs
- [20:52] <@E3> lol like Vel said I'm not quite THAT bad :p
- [20:52] <@E3> And I like the idea of just having broad tech categories with fewer specific projects, anyway
- [20:52] <powerofmind> exactly
- [20:52] <powerofmind> I like that as well
- [20:52] <@SuperSonicSound> Also I kind of want to port Mirande to Amber age and just run her there :3
- [20:52] <powerofmind> if we WANT something specific
- [20:52] <@AcademiaNut> So the idea is to set it in a Lovecraftian cosmic horror setting. Start it in 1900 as a small sort of hobby society into more occult ideas, but by about the end of WW2 they are brought in by a government to be more like the BPRD or MiB to try to keep a lid on the weird alien things going on. By about 2000 they are more like XCOM, the only guys with the experience to deal with this shit
- [20:52] <powerofmind> that An didn't include
- [20:52] <powerofmind> we can just take it
- [20:52] <@SuperSonicSound> Mirande will be god of everything in no time :p
- [20:52] <powerofmind> and ask for it
- [20:53] <Vel> Oh so this is the Delta Green/Laundry game
- [20:53] <Vel> That you mentioned.
- [20:53] <powerofmind> awesome :D
- [20:53] <Vel> Yeah I'm all aboard
- [20:53] <Vel> the delta green/laundry-style
- [20:53] <Vel> thing
- [20:53] <powerofmind> let's do it!
- [20:53] <Vel> To the maximum.
- [20:53] <George_> I don't have a lot of experience in the genre but I'm sure you'll do it well
- [20:53] <powerofmind> so
- [20:53] <powerofmind> in this case
- [20:53] <George_> though I'll miss not having a dynasty or immortal character
- [20:53] <@SuperSonicSound> We shall call our selves "The people of letters"
- [20:53] <@SuperSonicSound> :<
- [20:53] <George_> heh
- [20:53] <powerofmind> would we, the player council, be the shadowy figure on the screen in XCom
- [20:53] <@E3> George_ the game's only lasting a century and change anyway :p
- [20:54] <Vel> yeah
- [20:54] <Vel> Because, like Delta Green/Laundry/whatever
- [20:54] <Vel> You're just postponing the inevitable.
- [20:54] <Vel> And/or preparing for it
- [20:54] <George_> sure but that's 3 main characters if it's a main character sort of game
- [20:54] <@AcademiaNut> And by about 2020 you've basically run out of time. Either the apocalypse has come (maybe you've survived) or you've managed to find a way to survive in a hostile universe. Either way, the story of your struggle has reached a conclusion
- [20:54] <George_> at the minimum
- [20:54] <powerofmind> or would we be the commanding officers in the actual military group
- [20:54] <George_> how do we know that we've found a way to survive in a hostile universe
- [20:54] <@E3> AcademiaNut important question: If this is a council-type thing, would it involve RP or no?
- [20:54] <@SuperSonicSound> AcademiaNut One concern I do have though is that we'll connect less with the characters I think I said this previously before you joined the chat, but with Amber Age whilst I do enjoy reading I'm not connecting with the character in the same was as with Age of strife
- [20:54] <George_> we should have a specific way to end it
- [20:55] <George_> or at least some good ideas so we expect it
- [20:55] <Vel> we know when the game ends and when we get an epilogue :p
- [20:55] <Vel> Probably
- [20:55] <Vel> I mean it should be apparent
- [20:55] <Vel> By reducing casualties and stuff
- [20:55] <Vel> I'm sure AN will give hints/news reports/some kind of way
- [20:55] <George_> yeah it depends how much and what sort of information we're getting
- [20:55] <Vel> To evaluate our general state on the world
- [20:55] <powerofmind> fewest casualties with the highest instance of integration of the demands of the world we'd live in
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- [20:56] <@SuperSonicSound> PoV in the new system is something I am concerned about, as with Harzivan in Amber age things feel a lot more disconnected if that makes sense?
- [20:56] <Vel> And our general impact on the world in general
- [20:56] <@AcademiaNut> This would allow for the test of character interactions, base/empire building, tech advancements, horrible gribbly monsters, and psychic powers
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- [20:56] <@SuperSonicSound> *nod*
- [20:56] <DaBoyz> I'll admit I'm kinda worried about the new system.
- [20:56] <powerofmind> well, we'd only be testing the council system, right?
- [20:56] <George_> would it test the action resolution of a ruthlessly optimized lucky character?
- [20:56] <Vel> But yeah I'm all for the Delta-Green-Laundry playtest system
- [20:56] <DaBoyz> I was more invested in the quest when we were just screwing around with Mirande.
- [20:57] <powerofmind> if it doesn't go over well, we can always go back to
- [20:57] <powerofmind> 'tyrant' voting
- [20:57] <Vel> But yeah I'm a fan.
- [20:57] <@AcademiaNut> And I would open things up to more roleplaying amongst the players and writing side stories about main characters and the like.
- [20:57] <DaBoyz> I for one welcome our Psyker overlady.
- [20:58] <powerofmind> yeah
- [20:58] <powerofmind> i'm gonna love that
- [20:58] <powerofmind> Totally willing to get in character come debate time for votes
- [20:58] <@SuperSonicSound> I think a stress test of the system using potentially broken combinations would be a good idea
- [20:58] <@SuperSonicSound> but that's something to worry about later
- [20:58] <Vel> Yeah I think
- [20:58] <powerofmind> it's the chtulu mythos
- [20:58] <Vel> Stress testing is pretty important
- [20:58] <Vel> ...sanity testing :p
- [20:58] <powerofmind> there's a lot of shit in the broken category
- [20:58] <Vel> If the game system doesn't work, obviously we've lost a lot of san points
- [20:59] <@AcademiaNut> Fortunately, by being somewhat more detached we can literally destructively test the characters!
- [20:59] <Vel> Yep
- [20:59] <powerofmind> eeeexcellent
- [20:59] <Vel> We're gonna die
- [20:59] <Vel> Several times.
- [20:59] <@SuperSonicSound> So many times
- [20:59] <Vel> All aboard the asyluym train.
- [20:59] <Vel> Asylums for everyone
- [20:59] <@SuperSonicSound> Any way...
- [20:59] <powerofmind> LETS GET DARKEST DUNGEON UP IN THIS QUEST
- [20:59] <Vel> Straightjacket for you
- [20:59] * SuperSonicSound goes to bed
- [20:59] <Vel> Straightjacket for me
- [20:59] <@SuperSonicSound> gnight every one o/
- [20:59] <Vel> Straightjacket for everybody.
- [20:59] <@AcademiaNut> So if your Operations Director is getting a bit too OP I can stick them into a bad situation and we can see where things go wrong
- [20:59] <Vel> Night, SSS.
- [20:59] <@AcademiaNut> Night
- [20:59] <DaBoyz> Night
- [21:00] <powerofmind> or you could kill everyone all the time
- [21:00] <@AcademiaNut> That works too
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- [21:00] <Vel> Well I wouldn't kill everyone -all the time-
- [21:00] <Vel> but yeah
- [21:00] <powerofmind> if we never get attached to the characters, it's hard to actually wish the game goes beyond the stop date
- [21:00] <Vel> I see no reason not to run things with Anyone Can Die
- [21:00] <Vel> Getting attached to the characters isn't bad as long as we don't get too attached
- [21:00] <George_> yeah a higher casualty rate sounds good
- [21:00] <Vel> But yeah
- [21:00] <powerofmind> exactly, Darkest Dungeon mode
- [21:01] <Fumbles> I choose to believe this quest is a continuation of New Blood and you can't stop me.
- [21:01] <@Skippeh> One Last Night at the Opera
- [21:01] <powerofmind> there's literally a disclaimer when you start the game telling you that your party members will die
- [21:01] <powerofmind> probably a lot
- [21:01] <@Skippeh> my approach to CoC was always dynamite first
- [21:01] <powerofmind> and it's all working as intended
- [21:01] <George_> and I'm sure we can just theory craft builds that we could develop with decent conditions and see how they fair
- [21:01] <@Skippeh> ask questions /never/
- [21:01] <@AcademiaNut> Or, you know, if a character gets too OP I can have them being elsewhere getting treatment or training others and pull them out in emergencies
- [21:01] <Vel> Smart man, Skippeh.
- [21:01] <Vel> Smart man.
- [21:01] <@Skippeh> we killed glaaki once
- [21:01] <Vel> Huh, really?
- [21:01] <George_> ugh, not the bus!
- [21:01] <@AcademiaNut> Hehehehehe
- [21:01] <Vel> Neat.
- [21:02] <@AcademiaNut> Anyway, one of the reasons I called for a general chat here is that there is an element of general worldbuilding I wanted to get done quickly
- [21:02] <@Skippeh> well its chamber is literally at the BOTTOM OF A SLOPED PASSAGE
- [21:02] <Vel> Alright
- [21:02] <powerofmind> cool
- [21:02] <powerofmind> lay it on us
- [21:02] <Aranfan> lay it on us
- [21:02] <George_> though prestiging characters into a training bonus is itself a munchkin thing to pursue
- [21:02] <Aranfan> ninja'd
- [21:02] <Vel> Reveal your unholy wisdom, oh dread one.
- [21:02] <powerofmind> woah, trippy
- [21:03] <powerofmind> prestiging people into teachers is kind of a real life thing to do though
- [21:03] <Vel> Heh
- [21:03] <powerofmind> else how would we have ever created things like martial arts
- [21:03] <powerofmind> or writing
- [21:03] <powerofmind> or... fuck, anything, really
- [21:03] <Vel> pft, you do it by grunting
- [21:03] <Vel> in a manly way
- [21:04] <Vel> and bulging your muscles
- [21:04] <Vel> until pure inspiration drips from your temple
- [21:04] <@AcademiaNut> So I have a couple of ideas for an initial 'society'. They are: explorer's society, university, hospital, and secret society. I will detail the pros and cons of each, but can anyone think of anything else? Government sanction is to come later in play
- [21:04] <Vel> and falls down in the form of a beautiful woman
- [21:04] <Vel> in full armor
- [21:04] <powerofmind> harzivan is an exception, not an excuse
- [21:04] <Vel> Zeus style.
- [21:04] <Vel> Haha
- [21:04] <powerofmind> hmmm
- [21:04] <@E3> AcademiaNut Ancient Cabal?
- [21:04] <Vel> It could be like...what was that
- [21:04] <DaBoyz> Secret Society?
- [21:04] <Vel> Weird Victorian pseudo religious movement
- [21:04] <@E3> Not like... secret.
- [21:04] <DaBoyz> Like a cult within a larger society?
- [21:04] <powerofmind> so the initial society is basically occult-oriented any of those things, right?
- [21:04] <@E3> Just
- [21:05] <Aranfan> I can think of one
- [21:05] <Vel> Theosophy
- [21:05] <Vel> Theosophy I think
- [21:05] <@AcademiaNut> Bit more modern. Secret Societies are more like the Freemasons or Knights of Columbus or what have you
- [21:05] <George_> does leave out honest to god religious cults
- [21:05] <Vel> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theosophy
- [21:05] <Aranfan> like the parapsychology society that never went anywhere IRL
- [21:05] <Vel> Theosophy is great.
- [21:05] <@E3> Yes, mystery cult type stuff
- [21:05] <@AcademiaNut> They're mostly Old Boy's Clubs
- [21:05] <Vel> A theosophic organization is pretty much perfect for this
- [21:05] <powerofmind> what about the explorer's society?
- [21:05] <Vel> Approaching the spiritual in a scientific way, highly old boys
- [21:05] <@AcademiaNut> Okay, to detail out the pros and cons
- [21:06] <powerofmind> technically, any society we choose will act in a theosophic manner
- [21:06] <Vel> yeah
- [21:06] <Vel> but even before this
- [21:06] <powerofmind> because we will
- [21:06] <Vel> Theosophy is a specific philosophy though
- [21:06] <Vel> Which was quite popular and trendy
- [21:07] <Aranfan> in nWOD there's a group of hunters that are basically scientists
- [21:07] <Vel> There was even a Theosophic Society
- [21:07] <Aranfan> sadly the setting is probably too early for Network Zero to be a viable start point
- [21:07] <powerofmind> :P
- [21:07] <Vel> I don't think the scientists in NWoD were Network Zero
- [21:07] <Vel> Wasn't it Null mysterium
- [21:07] <@AcademiaNut> Explorer's Society: bonuses to exploring expeditions, bonuses to influence from successful expeditions, extremely limited project capacities outside expeditions
- [21:07] <Aranfan> network zero isn't the scientists
- [21:07] <Vel> Yeah
- [21:07] <powerofmind> hmm
- [21:07] <Vel> Network Zero is
- [21:07] <Vel> Supernatural watchmen 4chan anonymous
- [21:07] <Vel> people
- [21:07] <Aranfan> yeah, Null Mysterium, that's what the scientists are
- [21:07] <powerofmind> so basically exploring is going to find weird shit like haunted houses and whatnot?
- [21:08] <powerofmind> old temples, that sort of thing?
- [21:08] <powerofmind> the artifact seeker style
- [21:08] <@AcademiaNut> University: bonuses to research, broadest possibility of projects, poor intrigue options
- [21:09] <Vel> Secret Societies ala Theosophic Organization. You could also do a Pinkerton-style detective/unionbuster organization
- [21:09] <@Skippeh> Explorers would probably also have, like, a pretty good understanding of indigenous shamanic stuff & folk traditions.
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- [21:09] <@AcademiaNut> And yeah, the explorers are the guys doing archaeological digs, searching for the origins of rivers deep in jungles, going to the poles, that sort of thing
- [21:09] <Vel> If you want an investigative/leg-breaker organization
- [21:09] <@Skippeh> Depending on the kind you're talking about.
- [21:09] <powerofmind> fairly obvious, tech and magi-tech for universities
- [21:09] <Vel> Pinkerton-style unionbreaker-detectives would be in
- [21:09] <Vel> Around the 1900 startdate
- [21:09] <powerofmind> immediate advantage is obvious
- [21:09] <@AcademiaNut> Hospitals: excellent medical and psychological research opportunities, limited options for everything else
- [21:10] <powerofmind> hero unit spammer
- [21:10] <Aranfan> Other option is have a bunch of detectives who stumbled into esoteric stuff and talk to each other about it. Without marrying them to being unionbusters
- [21:10] <powerofmind> and maintainer
- [21:10] <Vel> Yeah true
- [21:10] <Vel> But that's a bit more generic
- [21:10] <@AcademiaNut> Secret Societies: improved funding capacities, only ones that can start with intrigue actions, most other projects unavailable at start
- [21:10] <powerofmind> infrastructure/economic
- [21:10] <Vel> Infrastructure is obviously
- [21:11] <Vel> Wealthy aristocrats
- [21:11] <Vel> with too much time
- [21:11] <@Skippeh> Secret Society is very tempting
- [21:11] <@E3> Secret Society sounds like the cheese build, so it's my choice :D
- [21:11] <Vel> and/or big business
- [21:11] <powerofmind> likely to run operations through massed manpower
- [21:11] <@Skippeh> ahahaha Ekans
- [21:11] <powerofmind> rather than finesse
- [21:11] <@Skippeh> aiiight
- [21:11] <Aranfan> As a lefty irl I would prefer not marrying an option to unionbusting
- [21:11] <George_> secret society is good if the system for the other projects aren't broken
- [21:11] <powerofmind> I'm strongly, strongly tempted to go for explorer's guild
- [21:11] <Vel> I don't think IRL politics have much to do with this
- [21:11] <Vel> I mean this is the 1900s
- [21:11] <powerofmind> so I will put my hat in for the artifact master
- [21:12] <powerofmind> random powerful effects
- [21:12] <@E3> Aranfan never let irl politics influence game choices XD you must be removed. Delve into the deepest IC depths
- [21:12] <powerofmind> to make up for sucking at other areas
- [21:12] <George_> but there may be building benefits of other projects that the secret societies can't leverage
- [21:12] <Aranfan> Har har, I'd just feel uncomfortable
- [21:12] <powerofmind> and you can always support them by selling weaker artifacts
- [21:13] <powerofmind> it's the build most suited to the extended discussion we usually have
- [21:13] <George_> I'm against murder but I get over it for games
- [21:13] <powerofmind> Explorer's guild, I mean
- [21:13] <@Skippeh> ehh tbh if you aren't grabbed by something you aren't grabbed by it
- [21:13] <@Skippeh> also, what did they call that defence in Vampire?
- [21:13] <Vel> celerity?
- [21:13] <@Skippeh> The Nuremburg In Character Defense?
- [21:14] <@AcademiaNut> University is the most 'jack of all trades' build. They get the most capacity to do stuff but are middling at most of it outside of pure research (which will hit roadblocks without doing other projects). The others are more specialized, with Explorers having the most flexibility out of all of them. Hospital is probably the least flexible but with a narrow focus it can do a lot in that focus
- [21:14] <powerofmind> Explorers
- [21:14] <powerofmind> that just made it more solid for me
- [21:14] <@Skippeh> I want secret society
- [21:14] <@Skippeh> we will be wiiizzzaaraarrrddss
- [21:14] <Vel> Secret Society is the one I'd go for yeah
- [21:14] <Vel> Though
- [21:14] <@Skippeh> WIZARDS
- [21:14] <Vel> It does get us away
- [21:14] <Vel> from delta green
- [21:15] <Vel> and more towards Laundry
- [21:15] <Vel> But that's cool
- [21:15] <@Skippeh> YER A WIZARD HARRY
- [21:15] <Vel> You more mean
- [21:15] <Vel> SORCEROUS RITUALIST
- [21:15] <Vel> I cast PENTAGRAMMIC TENTACLES
- [21:15] <Vel> it backfired
- [21:15] <@Skippeh> YES EXACTLY
- [21:15] <Vel> YOU TUREND INTO A WRITHING MASS OF FLESH
- [21:15] <powerofmind> D:
- [21:15] <@Skippeh> :D
- [21:15] <powerofmind> but objects of great power!
- [21:15] <powerofmind> THAT WE DO NOT UNDERSTAND
- [21:15] <Vel> BEST STUFF
- [21:15] <powerofmind> WE MUST USE THEM ALL
- [21:15] <Vel> OBVIOUSLY
- [21:16] <Vel> This would not be in the spirit of delta green or laundry or cthulu
- [21:16] <Vel> if we were not using
- [21:16] <Vel> objects of great power
- [21:16] <Vel> that cause horrible side effects
- [21:16] <powerofmind> then I say explorers!
- [21:16] <Vel> to get any kind of vague edge on things
- [21:16] <powerofmind> MORE ARTIFACTS ALL THE TIME
- [21:16] <Vel> Pft, secret societies can have
- [21:16] <Vel> BOOKS
- [21:16] <Vel> of SECRET AND FORBIDDEN KNOWLEDGE
- [21:16] <powerofmind> and we can totes 'acquire' them all
- [21:16] <Vel> hahaha
- [21:16] <@AcademiaNut> You can also branch out over time. So some of your projects can be to expand your capacities. Secret Societies can do things like fund hospitals or universities to gain access to some of their facilities
- [21:17] <powerofmind> so secret societies are the chameleon pick
- [21:17] <powerofmind> 'we need X' 'let's buy it for a temp boost'
- [21:18] <@Skippeh> We need to do something to equal Delta Green
- [21:18] <@Skippeh> repeatedly casting Contact Deep Ones
- [21:18] <@E3> AcademiaNut that was the thing I was wondering about, and a big part of why I'm mostly interested in Secret Society. Gives you the most leverage early on which you can parlay into a broader resource base faster if that's where you focus.
- [21:18] <@Skippeh> then machine-gunning them
- [21:18] <@Skippeh> so that Deep Ones
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- [21:18] <@Skippeh> no longer respond to Contact spells :D
- [21:18] <Vel> hahaha
- [21:18] <powerofmind> i still want to be an explorer's guild
- [21:18] <Vel> of course.
- [21:18] <Vel> best plan
- [21:19] <powerofmind> *pouts
- [21:19] <Vel> oh man now I'm getting excited about this game as its own thng, hah.
- [21:19] <powerofmind> secret societies start out being able to do basically nothing on their own
- [21:19] <powerofmind> all they can do is intrigue to set others up to do it for them
- [21:20] <Vel> Sure but it gives us an excuse to do a bunch of
- [21:20] <Vel> Theft actions
- [21:20] <Vel> Daring escapes
- [21:20] <Vel> Infiltration
- [21:20] <Vel> Someone can even be Occult James Bond Sherlock Holmes
- [21:20] <Vel> The combination.
- [21:20] <powerofmind> can we really?
- [21:20] <@AcademiaNut> Pretty much. Also, can anyone think of any other general categories that might be viable picks?
- [21:20] <powerofmind> or would we just be paying someone ELSE to do it?
- [21:21] <Vel> You could possibly do a veteran's society
- [21:21] <powerofmind> not particularly
- [21:21] <Vel> too bad this starts before WWI
- [21:21] <Vel> but at the least you could do crimean and
- [21:21] <Vel> various other imperial wars
- [21:21] <Vel> Vets.
- [21:21] <George_> the game also starts out with nothing needing to be done directly, so they're in a tenable position
- [21:21] <powerofmind> do we really need to do nothing directly?
- [21:21] <Vel> Maybe the Mafia?
- [21:22] <@AcademiaNut> I would say that a veteran's society would generally fall under 'secret society'. The label is a bit narrow for what I really mean
- [21:22] <powerofmind> that sounds interesting
- [21:22] <powerofmind> and rather funny
- [21:22] <Vel> Everyone likes Cosa Nostra
- [21:22] <@AcademiaNut> Hmmmmm...
- [21:22] <George_> what about a corporate think tank?
- [21:22] <powerofmind> so secret society includes pretty much anything with 'wealth and power'
- [21:22] <Vel> I don't think corporate think tanks really exist yet
- [21:22] <Vel> as a concept
- [21:23] <George_> ah, 1900, good point
- [21:23] <powerofmind> that kind of covers mafia, doesn't it?
- [21:23] <@Skippeh> We're being strict about non-governmental right
- [21:23] <Vel> I don't know, the mafia is more
- [21:23] <Vel> about beating in heads
- [21:23] <Vel> and criminality
- [21:23] <Vel> Than using wealth and infiltration
- [21:23] <powerofmind> which mafia are you thinking of?
- [21:23] <Vel> Sicilian or Italian
- [21:23] <@AcademiaNut> These are possibly sub-categories that could also be decided on. So, if we pick Secret Society we could have things like Gentleman's Clubs, Veteran's Associations, Legitimate Businessmen's Clubs, Detective Agency, what have you. Same for the other groups
- [21:23] <powerofmind> i still want an explorer's society
- [21:24] <@Skippeh> It would be hilariously OP
- [21:24] <@Skippeh> to play the Hellsing Foundation
- [21:24] <Vel> haha
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- [21:24] <Vel> Yes, no Hellsing for us.
- [21:24] <@AcademiaNut> Hellsing is New Game+ :P
- [21:24] <@Skippeh> like not that explicitly, but something like it
- [21:24] <powerofmind> I want that immediate power spike upward, in order to spread outward
- [21:24] <powerofmind> haaa
- [21:24] <@Skippeh> AcademiaNut: lol
- [21:24] <@AcademiaNut> Poor Shard, walking in on that
- [21:24] <Vel> NO CONTEXT
- [21:26] <Vel> I guess you could also do the Irish mafia or something
- [21:26] <George_> what about a community following a famous scientist like edison or tesla
- [21:26] <Vel> Yeah I considered Edison
- [21:26] <Vel> But I wasn't sure
- [21:26] <powerofmind> wouldn't that be a form of university?
- [21:26] <Vel> If he's really unique about
- [21:26] <Vel> Yeah
- [21:26] <George_> different goals
- [21:26] <powerofmind> Xians or Xinites
- [21:26] <Vel> I mean Edison is admittedly corporate
- [21:26] <@AcademiaNut> Secret Society or I suppose a subset of University or Explorer's Society
- [21:26] <Vel> And about selling money
- [21:26] <Vel> But still more of a subset
- [21:26] <Vel> Making money*
- [21:26] <Vel> Selling money, hah.
- [21:26] <powerofmind> I'll sell you this dime for two nickles
- [21:26] <George_> but it's not secret, they're public and tell everyone what they're about
- [21:27] <George_> and it's not a university, there's no endowment and no students
- [21:27] <@AcademiaNut> Welp, stock market shenanigans are definitely now a possibility
- [21:27] <Vel> Yeah
- [21:27] <Vel> Actually you know
- [21:27] <Vel> In counterfeit money operations
- [21:27] <Vel> I suppose people may literally sell money
- [21:27] <Vel> You pay for fake money with real money.
- [21:27] <powerofmind> exactly
- [21:27] <powerofmind> so
- [21:27] <George_> granted science commune is a little narrow as a category
- [21:27] <@Skippeh> I'm veering away from the Explorer Society simply because every time someone says it
- [21:27] <DaBoyz> So this is how mankinds last defense against the tentacled dark ended.
- [21:27] <@Skippeh> I think of the Super Adventure Club
- [21:28] <DaBoyz> With a stock market crash.
- [21:28] <@Skippeh> from South Park
- [21:28] <Vel> ADVENTURE TIME
- [21:28] <powerofmind> FK YEAH
- [21:28] <George_> explorer's society just doesn't sound like it has any teeth to me
- [21:28] <powerofmind> oh wait
- [21:28] <powerofmind> those guys
- [21:28] <@Skippeh> yes
- [21:28] <@Skippeh> those guys
- [21:28] <Vel> yep
- [21:28] <George_> no one's going to believe them if they say there are dangerous occult forces afoot
- [21:28] <powerofmind> technically they're a secret society
- [21:28] <George_> and they have no funds to leverage
- [21:28] <@AcademiaNut> Oh, on the note of stock market manipulations. While most historical events are weighted towards happening, you can influence them if you want... but beware too much meddling. You *can* make the Cuban Missile Crisis go hot if you aren't careful
- [21:28] <Vel> hey
- [21:28] <powerofmind> the point isn't that they have funds
- [21:28] <Vel> it's marginally better than dying to gribblies
- [21:28] <Vel> Imagine
- [21:28] <Vel> Deliberately triggering a nuclear war
- [21:29] <@Skippeh> We shall avert WW1!
- [21:29] <Vel> To eliminate a Case Nightmare Green
- [21:29] <powerofmind> the point is that they're supercharged on artifact finding
- [21:29] <Vel> And yeah WWI is relatively avertable
- [21:29] <Vel> I mean it's a result
- [21:29] <George_> wouldn't want to piss off the eldritch time god
- [21:29] <Vel> of a powder-keg
- [21:29] <Vel> Of obligations
- [21:29] <powerofmind> and finding and deciphering artifacts can lead to huge varieties of random bonuses
- [21:29] <powerofmind> not the least of which is selling inert ones
- [21:29] <Vel> But actually I can see an event in which we would want to set off nuclear war
- [21:29] <Vel> There are worse things than nuclear war.
- [21:29] <@Skippeh> lol that would be a hilarious ending
- [21:30] <George_> similar to a think tank's advantages then, but better geared toward the setting, a group of people with the right skills
- [21:30] <Vel> heh
- [21:30] <DaBoyz> Who says it has to be an ending?
- [21:30] <Vel> Yeah I mean it's not necessarily a true ending
- [21:30] <George_> depends how big a nuclear war it is
- [21:30] <George_> if MAD protocols are engaged the quest should probably just end
- [21:30] <Vel> We do know that a lot of the whole
- [21:30] <Vel> nuclear winter stuff
- [21:30] <Vel> was overstated
- [21:30] <@AcademiaNut> Yeah. Explorers will be the ones who early on will be finding lost cities in deserts and mountains and arctic plains and finding out new things. They can branch out into research of their finds from there. Hmmm... ironically the *hospital* idea is probably the one that can go combat oriented fastest
- [21:30] <Vel> So a full nuclear war probably wouldn't be as bad as it was once thought
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- [21:31] <Vel> And huh
- [21:31] <Vel> Why the hospital?
- [21:31] <George_> how's the hospital go combat focused
- [21:31] <@E3> FRANKENSTEIN MONSTERS OBVIOUSLY
- [21:32] <George_> are the weapons we need against the aliens hugely different from conventional weapons?
- [21:32] <Vel> I think he more meant that
- [21:32] <Vel> You can heal troops
- [21:32] <powerofmind> and provide psychological assistance
- [21:32] <@AcademiaNut> Research into psychics and 'special serums' and reanimation, and you can have 'response teams' to deal with the 'psychologically disturbed'
- [21:32] <Vel> Yeah
- [21:32] <@E3> Frankenstein Monsters, damn it.
- [21:32] <powerofmind> and subsequently develop BETTER psychological assistance
- [21:32] <Vel> Well that too
- [21:32] <George_> hmm okay
- [21:32] <George_> I was forgetting to adjust to 1900 again
- [21:32] <powerofmind> basically mind armor and body armor
- [21:32] <Vel> Ekans was right
- [21:32] <Vel> Haha
- [21:32] <@E3> hehehe
- [21:32] <powerofmind> hospital is super cheese combat build
- [21:33] <@E3> Herbert West, hero of Earth.
- [21:33] <powerofmind> i had figured it from the getgo
- [21:33] <@AcademiaNut> Oh man, can you imagine Herbert West in XCOM?
- [21:33] <powerofmind> explorers, like I thought, have an early power spike that can send them spiralling in random directions from there
- [21:33] <@E3> "He's dead!" "... Barely."
- [21:33] <@AcademiaNut> Yup
- [21:33] <powerofmind> as well as the ever-important INFORMATION factor
- [21:33] <Vel> Yep
- [21:34] <powerofmind> secret societies can play all the cards, but only get part of the reward and don't have direct input on any projects
- [21:34] <Vel> Still
- [21:34] <@E3> University is tech snowball, Hospital is combat snowball, Secret Society is resource snowball and Explorers' Society is <???> Snowball
- [21:34] <Vel> I like secret society
- [21:34] <@E3> same
- [21:34] <@E3> Illuminati, motherfuckers.
- [21:35] <@Skippeh> I guess
- [21:35] <powerofmind> :/
- [21:35] <Vel> We will call ourselves the Minullati
- [21:35] <powerofmind> i still want explorer's su
- [21:35] <Vel> Obviously
- [21:35] <@Skippeh> wait didn't mean to type that
- [21:35] <Vel> haha what?
- [21:35] <Vel> Lol
- [21:35] <@E3> Did you mean to send it to us via psychic communication?
- [21:35] <George_> all of them need some careful tending and branching out to snowball
- [21:35] <@Skippeh> yes
- [21:35] <George_> except maybe explorer's
- [21:36] <George_> but there may be hard limits on how much you can find out there
- [21:36] <powerofmind> that's the thing
- [21:36] <@Skippeh> anyway the one other one that occurs to me we could have an option would be, like, a religious society
- [21:36] <@Skippeh> vatican exorcists or some shit
- [21:36] <powerofmind> explorer's start with the one thing that just wrecked us in amber age
- [21:36] <powerofmind> information
- [21:36] <George_> I mentioned religious cult earlier
- [21:36] <@Skippeh> oh cool
- [21:36] <Vel> Yeah
- [21:37] <@Skippeh> i mean i'm not drawn to it but since we were brainstorming
- [21:37] <powerofmind> pretty sure AN said that was a secret society sub-form
- [21:37] <@Skippeh> anyway i like secret society
- [21:37] <George_> I'm not sure amber age is a strong example in this context, but information is definitely powerful
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- [21:37] <George_> but for information, secret societies are the only one starting with intrigue actions
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- [21:38] <powerofmind> but explorers can end every 'turn' with a successful artifact collection or more
- [21:38] <powerofmind> which can be sold(if it sucks) to fund more action
- [21:38] <Vel> True, but the delicious money and spy-action
- [21:38] <Vel> And BOOKS
- [21:38] <George_> but secret societies just have money
- [21:38] <@AcademiaNut> Well, they all need to gather resources to do their projects. Explorers probably can't send out a major expedition every year
- [21:38] <George_> and don't need to sell artifacts
- [21:39] <powerofmind> I still support the idea that an explorer's society will fit best with the way people will end up voting
- [21:39] <@Skippeh> will there be other organizations out there
- [21:39] <Vel> Probably-maybe it seems in theme.
- [21:39] <Vel> DG and LF both had multiple organizatoins
- [21:39] <@Skippeh> in the same sense that the dragonflies and 504s represented different "starts" we could've taken
- [21:40] <powerofmind> exactly, which is why we should be explorers!
- [21:42] <powerofmind> if we're a secret society, the first thing we'll do is try to get an artifact. If it's a good one, the next thing we'll do is try to get even more artifacts until the only ones left are basically impossible to get
- [21:42] <@AcademiaNut> Yes. Since I might as well address the racist elephant in the room, while Lovecraft is an obvious inspiration, you're going to be running into dickbag white people just as often as superstitious people from Africa and Asia. Bored rich white people fucking around with eldritch tomes they don't understand will be something that happens. Herbert West/Mengele expies will be out there. The Thule Society is likely to be a rival in
- [21:42] <@Skippeh> racist elephants are such bores
- [21:42] <@Skippeh> when they get started you can never shut them up
- [21:43] <@E3> Obviously when we find Herbert Wests and the like causing trouble out there, we need to try and recruit them. Squire, prepare my Fulton balloons.
- [21:44] <powerofmind> so hang on
- [21:44] <powerofmind> are we just ironing out your first post for you, AN?
- [21:44] <@Skippeh> that sounds kewl tho
- [21:45] <Vel> Haha
- [21:45] <powerofmind> because if we are I'd prefer to go die for ten or so hours in bed
- [21:46] <@Skippeh> also tbh even in actual lovecraft, white people meddling with shit they don't understand actually tended to be the driver of problems in stories more frequently, iirc
- [21:46] <powerofmind> I'd love to help, but if, at the end of the day, it's just polish, I got work in the mornin'
- [21:46] <@Skippeh> also also i should go asleeps
- [21:47] <George_> it sounds like a good game; are you sure it's set up right to test what you need to test?
- [21:47] <George_> I never really figured out what problems of Age of Strife require new systems to be tested
- [21:48] <powerofmind> tech was too much work to create new ones for
- [21:48] <powerofmind> econ was too granulated to function at this level
- [21:48] <George_> tech doesn't need to be tested, you just implement it; econ has already been revamped afaik
- [21:49] <powerofmind> Mirande was too ridiculously powerful and literally couldn't fail against an actual army of mundanes
- [21:49] <George_> but we won't have powerful protagonists necessarily in this game that I can see
- [21:49] <powerofmind> this is a system test
- [21:50] <powerofmind> we won't necessarily have the idiot powerhouse on OUR team
- [21:50] <@AcademiaNut> Yeah. Well, I'm trying to see if I am overlooking anything that might be important
- [21:50] <powerofmind> that too
- [21:50] <powerofmind> no plan survives contact with the enemy
- [21:50] <George_> does this game test action resolution or are we moving away from the problem actions being a thing at all in AoS?
- [21:50] <powerofmind> just like no RPG survives contact with a munchkin
- [21:51] <George_> and do you mean in the game as a story or the game as a test or just in the game as a game?
- [21:51] <George_> if that makes sense
- [21:51] <@AcademiaNut> All three
- [21:51] <George_> walked into that one
- [21:51] <powerofmind> ah well
- [21:51] <powerofmind> night
- [21:51] <George_> g'night
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