RPR Archive The Game Masters Guild

You misunderstood my point. I'm sticking with slots, I'm not destoying what I wanted in the first place. But we're going for slots, there will be no leveling up. And the disadvantage and new rulings should help this. Even though it won't be a problem.

 

Obi, I've a problem with teh system.

I think there should be leveling...not so much leveling as power-gain. It most Super Hero stories, characters get stronger and gain powers as they go. Like the X-men, who were known for secondary, and sometimes even thrid mutations. I think characters who do alot, or such, should get an extra power level every so often, to fill with a power, but require it be a power Related to those choosen to begin with.

 

I feel that isn't necessary. The players will have to learn their abilities, they're just waking with them. Level based would complicate things to an even greater degree. They may get rewards for PVP and such, but no other power choosing. There are few that relate anyhow.

 

He isn't saying it's dangerous - he's saying that the focus should be on writing and gameplay, and I agree with Imp.

 

I have to agree. It's one of my worries with a system like this aswell. But, like with my Hero RPG, the setup is only in the beginning. I'll in no way be putting in a level system, or furthering that. I don't care what the opinion is. That would slow down the game, and would hinder it.

 

It's still focused on the writing people. It's not liek when someone get's into a fight we're going to pull out a calculator and tell the player to add up the damage they take. We're talking about a way to make it so that people can level up certain abilities by gaining points, we aren't going to have people turning into D&D junkies(although that wouldn't be so bad).

These are casual roleplaying boards, not hardcore...If we use either system we could lose lots of players. People don't want to come and have to do anything with their characters besides play them, but the point is the points system will likely have a better output than the other system, even if it is more complicated(about as complicated as a water molecule).

 

Well, thing is that there is a serious gap between powers, and even if you don't want to do a level-up system just the way we were speaking of it, you're probably going to need to do something to represent it. If you don't want to do a system where you specifically level-up your powers, you might want to try something where the same power of different strengths would have different slot costs. No need to make everything have some sort of level system, while still allowing for some customization and differentiation of powers. Plus, as they advance, you could give them more power slots, opening the way for either improving their own abilities or picking up secondary or tertiary mutations. That way you could easily look at things if you needed to compare powers, players could expand as they felt necessary, whatever.

You might also want to remove the mandatory weaknesses, as it doesn't really feel that *super* if you're mandated to suck somehow with your powers. If the weaknesses reduced the slot costs, then you might get more of a system out of it, with the severity of the reduction being determined by the severity of the weakness (though I'd hesitate at the powers reducing it to the cost of free, maybe half a slot at the cheapest). Then you could have something like a character with a three slot flight reduced to two slots on account of it being fast, but difficult to steer, and having a five slot invulnerability reduced to four because it only works while in flight. Six slots, and a character who can fly really fast and is invincible while doing so. Basically... Cannonball.

 

The disadvantage stays, and there will be no leveling up. The specifics about how a character uses said power will be up to them. No gaining more powers, nothing of that sort. I've made my decision, I don't like the taste of it, so I won't be doing it.

 

so in other words, your going to let the players be gods in all aspects except immortality?

 

To be a Hero is to be a God. They have powers that aren't normal, the slots will limit them, they can't do everything. And what they do choose, they'll be able to use. Leveling is something I don't want to get into, or do at all. But they'll have a weakness, and that isn't god-like, they'll all have a disadvanatge, they can't escape their weakness.

 

I think because of the way you've structured the story, some sort of levelling is mandatory. We can't just wake up one day with powers and have them be as good as they're ever gonna get. We can't pick our powers and just say "Oh, but they're not actually that powerful yet. I'm just starting out, so I'm gonna downplay it for now, but eventually..."

 

Either that or it's rescuing puppies and killing rats for life.

 

Players can act with their characters that they're growing into their powers. They aren't stupid. I've seen most RPG's with this basis, and it works fine, but I do not want a leveling system.

 

Players can act with their characters that they're growing into their powers. They aren't stupid. I've seen most RPG's with this basis, and it works fine, but I do not want a leveling system.

Agreed. Outside of video games or MMORPGs, superheroes in my experience rarely level.
Normally some event happens that triggers a new power, but rarely do you see an existing power get better solely from the user's own efforts.

And with even basic bad guys armed with MP3s... (pauses to review lyrics to Smugglers Blues)...ah, MP-5s, your burgeoning superhero will largely make sure they are using any powers to the max before tackling their first hoodlum.

 

Deleted Because i think it fits more in the gamer designers guild

 

IT'S HERE!!!!!!!!

The Super Heroic RPG Hollow Men has arrived to the Role Playing Forum!

Hollow Men- Collision

After months of discussion and planning, the greatest venture into Superheroes is here. You've never played anything like this before.

 

Good job Obi!

I would like to say this...any more ideas/comments/complaints about the game should be taken over PM, to the GM of the game. If he then wishes, he can come here for oppinion. Annd, we are moving on!

Peng is up on the operating table, but I need him to PM me some things before that happens......so.....in the meantime, we will open the floor for question/answer.

How this will work is, anybody can post a question concerning a situation, or anything they have come upon whilst GMing or planning to GM a game, and then the guild will answer.

Please make sure your question is TOS, and GMG (pertaining to the GMing aspect of a game) appropriate.


Look for an update by Sunday.

 

[image=http://img155.imageshack.us/img155/2165/gmgbh9.jpg]

*The Game Masters Guild* (Official Roster)

Full Members:

Penguinator-176
Reynar_Tedros
Pheonix_Rising
Squishy_Vic
Obi-Wan21
Rayson
Sith-I-5
Zedd-Vega
Winged_Jedi

Partial Members (Add GMG to sig or bio!)

LightWarden
Darth_Vaders_cousin


*Agenda*

Now:- Specific Game Discussion - Penguinator-176

Later- GM Caseload

*Always accepting discussion ideas!*

---

Okay folks, here we are. Welcome to the first Specific Game Discussion. A big round of applause to Peng, for being the first to volunteer. So, below I've listed all of the games we could find of Peng's. In the first stage of this, I would like the guild to analyze Peng's GMing style as a whole, as seen by his games. What are things that he does, as GM, that stick out to you? Are these good qualities, or bad habbits?

Lets try to keep all criticism constructive, and civil. [face_wink]


[link=http://boards.theforce.net/non_star_wars_role_playing/b10755/23262002/p1/?143]The Steam Chronicles[/link]

[link=http://boards.theforce.net/non_star_wars_role_playing/b10755/24048776/p1/?138]Persona[/link]

[link=http://boards.theforce.net/non_star_wars_role_playing/b10755/23598512/p1/?67]Music: The Great Communicator

[/link][link=http://boards.theforce.net/non_star_wars_role_playing/b10755/25254417/p1/?101]Dr. Who[/link]



Have at it!

 

Oh, they're all bad habits.

 

I would like to discuss LSA's efforts at some point.

As for the Penguinator's, I have only played Dr. Who, and I would say it suffers the problem of completely intimidating part of the player group to the point that they don't want to play.

He and another player are the Cybermen invading London. The GM has obviously planned meticulously how he, or the games' central threat, are going to achieve this. Fair enough, this is completely in character for the role he is playing.

However, the adversaries, the player base that have come in to play the Doctor, Rose, and others, are at a serious disadvantage, which does follow the story we are trying to emulate, but while the Doctor has lots of knowledge of esoteric devices, and a history of dealing with alien threats to fall back on, I, the guy playing as him, don't. And everywhere that we turn, the Cyberman players counter it as if their side are omnipresent and omniscient.
We fart and someone is already there to catch the gas.

I have only seen this happen before once, in JediCouncilMaster's Matrix game, where he, playing as the black-suited Agents, was closing Rebels down left, right, and centre before they could even do anything, squeezing out any fun factor for their players.


Of the other games, the music one looked alright and interesting from what I saw of it.

 

I'd like to join the Game Masters Guild Please!

 

I've never participated in any of the abovementioned games GMed by good ol' Peng, but I have to say the Dr. Who game intrigued me at least until I saw commercials for the show's airing on television. The show seemed bad, and after deciding not to watch it, I chose not to participate. Not Peng's fault, but perhaps my own judgement on the show in general.

Music based games, though fun and original, never really caught my eye. How can you communicate music and drumlines through typing unless of course you are posting the chords used and experiment on your own outside of game to see how it sounds. In that case, it's an excellent idea. For the lack of those willing to try such an approach, I feel it is a bit lacking. Perhaps a bit more into the direction of the band instead of the music being played.

Persona. Two words: Detectives rule . Much like Dubya_Scott's infamous SW 007 games, detective games have always caught my eye, but I perhaps lack the ilk for playing in one. Don't get me wrong, I can solve a mystery given the right clues, but in the words of Shikamaru Nara: "it's too troublesome" and "too much work". I'm lazy at heart, and even though I could solve a mystery alongside veterans and friends alike, I just lack motivation. I joined in the first SW 007 game, and just fell from its history. Droids... never were my strong point...

As for the Steam Chronicles, it must've missed my peripheral vision because I would love to jump on a steampunk RP nowadays. But again, for me, "too troublesome". I could plan out a character, copy and paste the sheet in Word, work it out, and never send it in. I have hordes of character sheets saved on my laptop, and countles smore on floppy-disks laying around my desk.

---

Since we're discussing Peng's games, perhaps an upcoming topic would be my games? Not to sound conceited, but I'd like to know what basically "went wrong" with my games.

A discussion for another time perhaps, but I'd like some input.

 

As to the last three posts:

Sithy - If I gave the "feeling of impending doom", then I'm very proud of that. I'm sorry for driving you away from the game, but all in all, I was honestly making up the Cyberman plan as I went. Darth_Sadis, if memory serves, PMed me in regards to the plan. I gave him free reign, as I wanted to be more of a GM this time 'round, and less of a God-modding player.

StarWarsFreak444 - All ya have ta do is put it in yer sig or bio, and yer in! : )

Zedd - Doctor Who? Bad? Blasphemy! It's an acquired taste, for sure. The old sixties episodes are favourites of mine, just for the corniness (at times). Interest is a huge part of the problems surrounding my games - I liked Persona, others liked Persona, and many liked being a Detective. Two problems - one or two players were unable to take hints, very strong hints, which interfered with my storytelling. And that's my next problem.

I hate my games. Why? Because I want to tell the story I made, not let the game evolve on it's own. I create the roads, but have no intersections. Another problem - I want to play in my games! It's so...frustrating. Of all my games, I feel The Steam Chronicles had the most promise. I did walk the players through much of it, at first, but that was just to set things up and get us to the island. After that, I would've let nature take it's course - giant dinosaurs, tensions between the native islanders and the explorers...

The music game was really just poor planning and prep on my part, I think. I wasn't fully ready, jumping into the game like that.

I regret nothing, though. I've gotten to meet many people, and get to know some of them well. Sadly, these may tarnish my reputation, which may hinder some games that actually have a future.

I'm working on something new, yet again, and I hope it'll be a breath of fresh air for myself and others.

 

You appeared to be making up your plan specifically and consistently in response to what we did. Even where what you were reading, your characters should not have known about. And I found your actions just as much part of the problem.

 

I'm very sorry about that. I'm feeling a jerk right now, and I'd like to apologize. Would you have any suggestions as to how we could all continue playing, without the game getting opressive?