Reference Interest Measurement Thread

Since this is the Interest Measurement Thread, allow me to...measure my interest? I guess I'll measure it in Harvey Birdman terms by saying that it's...

BLACKWATCH PLAID!

 

Yeah I have to agree with you on the the darker tides I've actually been reading the updates for that wow it almost got me to join the temp boards (something I said I would not do).

 

Yet your resolve held out. Congratulations, you were able to deny yourself the pleasure for several months

 

You could say I was relieved when the boards came back as I was about to give in and register.

 

Should've registered right away at the start of the temp situation.

 

Then you could've had not only the pleasure of reading it, but in shaping a part of it

 

Oh and ruin the fact I got to rub it in that I waited never!!!

 

Oh so I don't exist

 

This is what happens Luke, we had. . .experiences for a few months and are enthused by the prospect of their not ending just because the boards are back. We look forward to you joining us and perhaps us joining your new game as well. Although truthfully I shall have to look at such things later as my brain is currently shutting down for the night.

 

Actually lets face it, the temps had few games, but exzellent ones. I am certain Castaways, War of Kings, Tempest and all the others will spearhead and dominate our new boards. They can simply rely on loyal players and tested storylines. I am very eager to see Castaways return, for example.

Truth is . . . for the RPf there are no tempboards. Only games ...

 

Actually lets face it, the temps had few games, but exzellent ones. I am certain Castaways, War of Kings, Tempest and all the others will spearhead and dominate our new boards. They can simply rely on loyal players and tested storylines. I am very eager to see Castaways return, for example.

Truth is . . . for the RPf there are no tempboards. Only games ...

 

Title says it all...I've been thinking on starting my own RP lately. I'm just not sure if I can run one like this, and if people would be interested in it (if this fits in an existing thread then move it by all means).

Basically, I was thinking on running an RP set between ANH and ESB (.5 ABY or thereabouts) with a Rebel Fleet that is hiding out in the Unknown Regions.

The plan was to have a fleet where each of the characters gets their own ship, and runs it as a character (or rather, runs the Captain as their character). I was thinking about building it around this metric for the ships:

GM: Victory Class SD (what can I say...I'm the resident fanboy of that beauty)

Moderators (of the game...not overall mods): Dreadnaughts or similarly sized ships (Carracks, Seppie destroyers, etc.)

Everyone else: Frigate (Neb-B, Seppie frigates, etc) down to starfighters for those fighter jocks out there.

Of course, this is a rough idea, and I can modify it for people who want bigger ships. And no era pre-ROTJ is off limits ship wise. So if you want a Hammerhead or an Interdictor from KOTOR feel free to pick that.

So...is this something I could do? I just don't want to start a thread unless an RP can be run like this, and people will be interested in it.

(I also have character sheet ideas and ship sheet (clever eh?) worked up too...just don't want to post them unless I can start this)

 

Well, intruiging idea, but all those ship classes don´t do a lot for me. Tell me how gameplay will look like? what will I actually do? Battles? Is it sort of a strategic game?

 

I'm a little busy right now (college FTW) but I'll get more details up later. I was just putting up the basic thing to see if I should bother with the 'extended' version.

 

The basics are little. . .too basic. We need more forecasts and possibly an opening post idea to glimpse what you want to make of this game. Keep working on it though and we look forward to it

 

Don´t hurry. I´ll be here.

 

I believe there was a ship combat game that your idea puts me in mind of, from way back. It involved having a personal ship and upgrading it and fighting battles and winning credits from those battles to purchase more stuff with.

 

And here is what I have so far (warning...IT'S LONG...even without an opening post):


Okay then…more detail:

Background:

It is five months after the Battle of Yavin…the Rebel Allliance has gained its first truly large victory against the Empire. But while this victory has gathered more planets and peoples to its cause, it has also drawn the full wrath of the Empire down on the organization.
After a futile defense of Yavin, the Rebel Fleet is broken and scattered throughout the Galaxy. All around, the scattered ships and men are being hunted down by a vengeful Darth Vader and the Imperial Navy. With their safe havens dwindling, a brave Admiral starts to gather the far-flung fleet in the Unknown Regions.

Using the planet of Lehon (Rakata Prime) as a staging point, the scattered Rebel Fleet begins to rebuild. But the Empire is never far behind, and they are determined to exact revenge for the destruction of the Death Star. And through all of this, there are the independent ship captains…Mando’s, Smugglers, pirates, honest working men ™…all of them will have a role to play in the liberation, or continued subjugation, of the Galaxy.

You are the captain of one of these vessels…whose side are you on?
*******************
Gameplay:
I’m planning on doing this as a sort of Intervention writ large, with Empire at War parts tossed in. In other words, like Intervention you are in charge of your ship. Though in this case, it can range from a fighter, to something the size of a Star Destroyer.

The Empire at War bit comes into the fact that you are running your ship in the greater Galactic Civil War, not just one planet.

As for actual role-playing…you are playing the Captain of your ship, whatever that ship may be. Anything that you do, the ship does. In the scope of the larger fleets (Rebel, Empire, Independent) you can communicate via IC posts with the other Captains to plan raids or other things like that. Or wild parties on your shore leave…that’s an option too.

The overall goal of this game, is to help your faction in the GCW, and fight your enemies. Depending on how the game goes, this could quickly turn into an Alternate Universe, for example:

The Rebel Fleet joins with the Independents and gets a swarm of really good players who start hit-and-run attacks on the Empire, whittling them down. Now the Empire is focusing on this group, and possibly ignoring Hoth, neatly sidestepping ESB. Which of course means Luke never has the fight on Bespin, which throws ROTJ out of whack. So we may end up building a new SW Galaxy here…and because of that, ULTIMATE CANON™ doesn’t matter here.

Character interaction is also important though…talk with the members of your fleet, don’t just go all John Wayne and try and fight by yourself. Get to know your allies, make friends with them, and even talk with the ‘enemy’ every once in a while.

As for the organization of the game:

Three Fleets: Empire, Rebel, Independent.

Each of these fleets gets a GM to run them, so this game with have three co-GM’s. I’m the Rebel GM, but the Imps and Indies need their own ones. First come, first serve there (though prior experience with RP's is helpful here)

Below the GM’s will be one or two (depending on player interest/population) mods to help run the game when the GM’s are busy.

Below the Mods are the regular population of players.

I’m modifying the ship list though, since I decided to bring in the new factions.

Rebel GM (me): Victory Class SD

Empire GM: Imperial Class SD

Independent GM: Providence Class Cruiser (Grevious’ ship)

The Mods’ get the same rank of ship, with the exception of the Imps, who get a Venator for their Mod to keep things fair for the other two factions.

Regular Player base get anything and everything smaller than a VSD. Anything from KOTOR till ANH is up for grabs too…so if you want a KOTOR or TOR era ship, then you can have it.

Also, to keep from killing off the player base (literally) each of the GM’s will be able to write OC ships and crews for battles. So I can write OC Rebel and Imp ships for the battles. The Regular Players can have their own OC’s too, for the crews of their ships and any fighters their ship (depending on size) may be carrying.

That’s all I have for the Role-playing aspect at the moment…if my eventual co-GM’s want to add something (since I’m new at this) they can feel free to do so.

***************************
Ship Stats:

While story telling will be the main aspect of this game (as it should) we need some sort of metric for ship battles, that way we don’t have someone going ‘nah nah! My ship OWNED your ship because I wrote it that way!!!’

I’m lifting a system from another RP I play, and its point based. Each ship has a certain number of points, and when they get into battle with another ship, the point score decides (generally) who wins. In special cases, it can have a weaker ship win though. The battles are going to require cooperation among the players, mods, and GM’s to work, since a small ship can win if both groups decide that is what they want.

Here is a tentative list:

Star Destroyers/Providence: 450 points

Cruisers: 300-400 points

Destroyers: 200-300 points

Frigates: 100-200 points

Smaller (gunships, fighters, corvettes): 1-100 points

The difference in points depends on size. For example (also a note…haven’t worked out EVERY potential ships points…that is quite the undertaking) a Dreadnaught is a mid-range cruiser, so it would be about 350 points. Whereas a Bulwark is at the high end, and would be closer to 400 points. I’m going to limit (unless the eventual Co-GM’s overwrite me) the number of the high end ships. That way we don’t have a ton of Bulwarks or other larger ships running around.

And a new idea came up from this thread…getting credits from victorious battles to upgrade your ships. So in this case, I’ll change that idea up slightly. If you win a battle, you get a certain amount of credits that go towards upgrading your ship (better shields, weapons, and so on). But if you get enough, you can jump up in the ship rankings.

In other words…win enough battles in your Carrack, and you can jump to a Dred or Bulwark.

That’s all I have for now…any comments? It will help if you have ideas to improve it (like a better system than the points I have now).

 

Actually I kinda like the whole thing. You can cut the RPing part even shorter and make it primary about the strategy, maybe. That´s what people will join for, I guess.

One weakness there is, though. I see where you are coming from (Intervention that is), but I think your amount of GMs is a bit excessive. You can think of a second GM once you reach tne players and a third after 25 or so. You do not have to have a GM for every two players you got. So institutional GMs without player numbers first is kinda odd. I politely advice to reconsider and probably have a look how other games do it.

And . . . I´d say you´re ready for GMG, our game discussion group. That´probably the more appropriate spot for this kind of thing.

 

I'm only planning on having three (at the most) GM wise. One for each fleet, that way a couple things come in:

One: I'm not overloading myself trying to run it all on my own (depending on how many people show up).

Two: That way each fleet can have a GM to go to if they want to do something in that fleet. That is to help prevent Godmodding the game.

I think you might (though I could be wrong) have gotten the GM's confused with the Mods. The Mods are going to be the lower ranking ones who are adjusted (numbers wise) with the player base. Though that's a maybe, and I'm willing to toss that if people think it improves things.

EDIT: Of course, if you are talking about the GMs...I'll of course keep an open mind there. Say we don't get enough people to have the full three fleets...then we'll drop the number down as needed. The Independent Fleet for example is going to need A LOT of people to want to not jump into the Rebel/Empire camps. We'll see how it goes once the game starts.

For the moment, its just the Rebel Fleet and me as said fleets GM...I don't know how it will go once the game starts. That we'll have to see on.

 

Well, as I said . . . instead of writing a standard article about the sense and dynamic of player/GMs have a look at some games around here. If you think you need three GMs then so be it. I just wanted to point out that huge, complicated games around here do have only one single GM and work just fine . . . that might be taken into consideration.

 

I'd advise against positioning yourself such that you're reliant on having multiple GMs you don't already have going in. It's felled many a game in my tenure here.

Also, like Draco said, you might consider taking this to the Game Group, as that's the best place to get more fleshed out ideas - such as this one - talked about.

 

Eh, I can run the game easily enough on my own. Just figured it could (emphasis on the could) help to have other people running the different fleets. But I'll save more discussion on that for the right thread...

Though I feel like an idiot...where is that Game Group thread? heh heh...