The future is is what you make of it.

Game Master Kroama

I was wondering if anyone here has experience with the Mythic system for GM emulation? I heard some people offer it's a decent tool to use in PbP games but i never saw many posts about in on Google-- a bit old and the CRGE is newer (another system for gm emulation).

I'm somewhat interested in joining three others in seeing how it works. The idea is that the story develops as you go about, asking questions, getting answers, and following threads of story to see how it develops. For the most part, there's no real GM though i hear some players tend to take active roles in building context.
Here is a link to the PDF version i found on google, after trying it, I'll probably buy the full Mythic pdf (apparently has its own system, if you don't want to just use the adaptation for other games as well)... though i don't know how it is now.
Mythic GM Emulator

Basic idea, is you ask a yes/no question, and based on the likelihood, you gain an answer that informs you further to the game world-- eventually enough so that you can use logic to understand what happens next.

Do you have any links? I haven't heard of this.

Updated main post to include a pdf. There's another system called CRGE which was based on Mythic GMemu but i didn't like it quite as much, reading through it. I may want to adjust the fate table to include one thing i did like, though, in that there is another option.
Instead of just "Exceptional Yes, Yes, No, Exceptional No" it would add two more "Yes, but... and No, but..." implying the answer is positive or negative, but not as clear as it seems. Adds a lot more depth to possible answers.

Wow, this sounds really interesting... could be loads of fun with the right group, and easy enough that I might actually be brave enough to GM something like this, since it seems just like improvisational storytelling rather than writing the entire plot from the beginning. I really like the idea. Hadn't heard of it before.

I'm interested in trying it out with you.

If we get a couple of other people, what were you thinking? Just making some basic core characters and see where it goes? Do you already have an opening scenario? (If not, I might have one that would work.)

Me neither; i first heard about it while searching for something entirely unrelated. No idea how well it'll work for that reason though, but i can see it being easier on a PbP where you have the time to decide how to interpret your result and develop the setting with each post.

As for actual play, i don't have any specific story in mind, since the goal is just to have an initial setting and focus of the characters. While it allows for play without a GM, really it's just that everyone takes the GM role in different capacities-- especially when you're setting up the scene for the most part.

What sort of idea did you have in mind? I wasn't even sure about it being Golarion standard, or something of a random Donjon-made world.

I was thinking of a very basic fantasy beginning. You live in an area that has been plagued by a dragon. It has been eating up livestock and has been a danger to travelers so trade is not coming in and food is scarce. The leader of the area asks for volunteers to go kill the dragon, and even offers everyone in jail a pardon if they are willing to go face the dragon. So, whether we are volunteers or petty criminals, the party ends up in front of this cave, being herded into the entrance by the guards. It is clear that it will be difficult to change our minds once inside.

So, from there, there are tons of choices, and we could totally do a Donjon thing for what is inside, or who else we meet, etc. We could do it either as too low level to fight the dragon directly, so more creativity than just head-on battle is involved, or we could do high level and we face the dragon and then move on. Or the cave could lead anywhere, to anything really. It's just a beginning for us to build on.

Personally, i always preferred starting something new low, and working my / my players' ways up. Dragons are such a difficult opponent at such a point though. I Also think it would be easier if there was something binding the group to further adventure, or at least if characters had the mentality of such a thing. Maybe we'd discover what that was investigating the dragon.

Definitely a workable concept, though-- the idea of a town asking for people to come forth to conquer a threat to it. We would definitely require an indirect means of defeating the dragon if that is actually the initial antagonist.

Yeah, I like low better too. And I think that the group will have to form up for defense fairly quickly. If you have criminals being allowed into the cave, definitely not all of them are going to volunteer to be roasted to death. I'd bet several of them are waiting inside to get rich from people coming in with supplies or out with some stolen dragon treasure.

But yeah, a reason to keep adventuring together might require some intriguing plot point like a journal on a dead body giving clues to a treasure or a curse that needs to be lifted, or we find treasure that is inscribed with a specific name and we want to return it to the owner... I'm sure some bizarre things would come up during the adventure that we could use as further plot points.

Even if it sort of hits a dead end, that'd be an interesting experience nonetheless. Plus experience in how the system works out, where it works and doesn't.

.. I really like the simple idea and concept, that's how Mythic is supposed to start (i think). Still not sure about the difficulty, from the bottom looking up-- but we could see where it goes.
A part of me wants something more feasible though xD-- such as maybe the town is just being "taxed" by a bandit lord in the area to near starvation and eventually they try to figure out how to fight back. Either way, we'll need a couple more interested, I'm very partial to smaller groups myself, so two others.

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Lower power or standard? I've read from the book and comments that Mythic is a poor system for power gamers, since you're in a way creating the challenge yourself and can word questions in your favor if you're trying to cheat the game. I was thinking 15 point buy partially for this reason as well, and we can try to keep each others' characters in check when designing them.

I think 15 point buy sounds good. In both scenarios, we start out as normal people, so that might reflect that we've only done the magic or the weapon training or whatever as a hobby so far in our lives. And yeah, for story purposes we don't want powerful characters that can blow anything away. Better to have characters that have to figure things as they go instead.

And taxed by a bandit lord is fine with me. We can leave the dragons till later. ;)

I'll think about a character. Not sure what yet. Maybe a sorcerer or an oracle, so that it makes sense for a character with no real training. I also have to read through the document more to get a better handle on how the whole "chaos" thing works. On one hand, I love the idea of the story itself telling you that you are wrong, but I am not altogether sure about when to determine that. It's hard to use the "logic" rule in a fantasy setting, at least in some ways. I've played plenty of Pathfinder games where what happens is definitely not even close to what you would expect logically. :)

Yeah, the idea is that most things should fall into play just because it plays well into good story-- but if you ever feel unsure about something, there's nothing wrong with another question! The CRGE had a really good point about two kinds of questions, Cutting vs. Chipping.

Cutting is like taking a giant leap of a question: Is Darth Vader Luke's father? The odds of it are low but not impossible

Chipping is asking a series of questions to refine the results, like "Has Darth been to Tatooine? Does he know Luke's family? Is he related to this family in some way? Is he his father?" to get to the same answer but through a different means.

Problem with asking too many questions is it sets the world as it is, more than as we know it. When a question is answered, it's not necessarily known to the characters, but it is canon in the universe. So if we were to ask a hugely broad question (in another system) such as, "Is there magic?" And got a no, that cuts off a huge portion of could be story down the road.

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On another note, Chaos is basically an idea of how "in control" of the situation the players are. After a scene ends, if things were generally out of control (nothing going as planned) the Chaos increases, causing more "Yes" answers whereas the opposite is true, with more No answers in a low-Chaos state. The idea that having more questions answered "Yes" tends to be more chaotic, with more being added to the world than lines of thought being shut shot down. I think.

Makes sense. I just need to read it over a couple of times I think so that I don't have to look it up whenever we do something, you know?

Like, when you walk into a new room of the dungeon, they were saying that you would usually ask "is the room empty," which makes sense to start... but after that, how will you know whether it is a bedroom, a barracks, a bad guy, or a portal to somewhere, you know? We might rule that a portal is less likely, or that a bad guy is more likely than a bedroom in this part of the dungeon, so the logic works to an extent, but do we just make up something? Must be spiders--or do we make a list of things that would likely be in a dungeon like this and roll for it?

The idea is you have some concept of what might be in the room, so you can either figure that, because the room is not empty it must be So and SO. Or, you could test it further, if the room is not empty, "Is it the guy we've been chasing?" If no, then was it his henchmen? Maybe a hostage he captures? Even with a series of No, eventually you could pinch onto what it might be -- asking down the lines of what you most expect. If the room itself is empty of anything interesting, that's probably not some place we'll keep the narrative for long.
I think it's better to ask if something is in the room, based on what you decide it is. We could randomize it, but i think it's fair enough to describe how we come across the sleeping quarters, the kitchen, etc. but not kitchen again since we've already seen it once. As for who decides this or is rolling for such a thing, it might be a turn-based decision or just whoever is taking most narrative control.

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Good thing about PbP is you have time to recheck the systems between posts.

True, true. :)

I suppose it would be possible to just start working towards creating something with just the two of us as well. Oracles are personally my favorite class, and i have to consciously tell myself not to default to it all the time xD

I've never really made a summoner, actually-- that may make the group effectively three people if nobody hops in to join us. Then again, with the village mindset maybe something more akin to a Druid or Hunter... hmn, maybe Hunter.

Sorcerer is my favorite class. I often revert back to it when I start building a character that is just going wrong, because I know it better and can build one quicker.

Played a fun oracle with a deathwish in PFS once though. Hilarious character.

Yeah, fitting into an everyday village life limits choices in some ways. Hmm. I've been wanting to try an Archaeologist (Bard Archetype) for a while. Might be the flexible skill monkey a 2-member party needs, and still gets some spells. Has probably been in town for a while because there are interesting ruins nearby or something.

I'll take a look and see if I can pull something together in the next couple of days.

We could also employ background skills, as that would make sense. Max gold because there's just a couple of us? 2 traits. I've also always been partial to half+1 for HP beyond level 1, unless you'd rather it be rolled, or rolled and minimum take half, something like that.
How do you feel about Automatic Bonus Progression?

Making a Human Divine Hunter atm, a clergyman now and then for the town, but a trapper the rest of the time. Plan to make him mostly an archer, but Hunters can swap to other roles if needed, fairly easily-- we'll have a wolf at our side to hopefully act as protection.

Tried making this Hunter to start. Trying to make the animal companion a bit on the tanky side. As much as a wolf can be.

I like automatic bonus progression. Probably makes sense in this kind of a scenario anyway, so we aren't tempted to ask for better equipment. :)

Another idea, although not sure if it would work or not. Since there are only two of us, we could each play a pair of characters. Like Bolton could have a wife, or a best friend (something where it is okay if they work in sync a little) that comes along with him. Too much?

I kind of want to stay away from controlling more than one PC-- since we'll already be muddling things up with how we're controlling other characters. That argument goes the other way too though, that we're already controlling a few, what's another?

Personally still like the idea of just a single true "pc"

Cool. One it is. We might die, but you know, that's part of the fun. :)

Aye. Part of this is just figuring out how it should work anyway. We'll see what happens. Plus someone else could see these posts and decide to try and join us.

Added my adjusted Fate Chart to Campaign Info page. Not as pretty on the eyes, but it's split by Chaos rank, and you only need one chart per scene anyway.

So, on the note of the story: Golarion, or a new world?

Cool. Charts look good.

On the world... hmm. I like the idea of a new world, but not sure how we would do it. For instance, as an archaeologist, my character has knowledge of some ancient languages. I chose Thassalonian for one, because that's a really old language in Golarion, but I guess I could just put Ancient Languages instead. :) Also, if Deities get involved, we might need to know what they are.

But, you know, those are minor issues and we're already going to be making up a lot of things, so whatever you prefer is good with me. My imagination is up to the challenge. :)

Oh, and posting this under the alias of my character. I still have to clean up his profile from copy and pasting from a non-text-friendly online sheet, but he's mostly made, except for equipment, I think.

Oh, and background. I'll write up something more extensive, but in general I was thinking that he is an archaeologist, but he tutors or teaches in the places that he travels to fund whatever exploration/dig he is pursuing at the time. He isn't a particularly good teacher as far as traditional curricula or classroom management goes, but he sure knows a lot and tells a lot of stories, so the students usually pick up some good things--useful or not, depending on what they want to talk about. :)

Hard decision to me, to be honest. Golarion makes things a lot easier in the sense that there's so much lore to draw upon, but at the same time part of the joy of Mythic (i think) is going with the flow and seeing the world develop before you.

We could do a new world, still, and simply adapt some of Golarions' more in-depth concepts like the deities and just ignore/adjust for any of their story points that would need to be. As for languages, I'm partial to simply running things along mostly racial languages for simplicity. Dwarves and Elves are old enough languages, I'm sure there would be an ancient language for them. Dwarvish especially, in the way that so many other races use Dwarvish script (in DnD at least) it seems that it has been in place for a long time.
Does Dwarvish and Elvish have an ancient language of its own?: Near Sure Thing: 1d100 ⇒ 38 Yes
Maybe those are ones you've studied, if we ever come across a reason to have something unique I'm sure you could handle your own until you "study" it in a levelup xD

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I'm also somewhat partial for splitting some conflicts along races lines. Nothing is black and white, of course, but i like the idea of a somewhat divided world among major players (Elves, Human, Dwarves, Orcs, Gnomes to name a few) With some races, like Halflings, tending to fall mostly in line with a one of the groups.

Okay, sounds good. A world where the world is somewhat divided into racial national boundaries?

Racial communities are somewhat insular and stick to their own kind, but of course there has to be trading and I imagine if communities that are near each other expand a lot, there arise border towns and cities where they start mixing and have to get used to each other, which would be areas of conflict for some, and areas of a growing friendship and understanding for others.

So, that said... in this new world is there such a language as "common," or is the interaction newer than that, and the races all have their own languages and have to learn others?

Oh, I guess we could roll for that. :)

So, Chaos level 5 is default, and I'll say somewhat likely (?)
Is there a common language?: 1d100 ⇒ 85 So, that would be no (even up to very likely).

So, I guess I know Human as a race language, and I'll take others in order to communicate with other communities. And take ancient race languages for the ruins in different racial areas.

(One of my archaeologist skills works only on ruins that are over 1,000 years old... I assume I can tweak that a little if we find out civilization hasn't really been around that long?) ;)

Yeah, just like that. It seems there's a little more boundary between races than initial assumption might have made xD

We can adjust things like traits sure, as long as it fits a thing we find. Maybe just long-abandoned facilities, things like that.
With Paizo, something you can do is "Preview" the post with a dice roll, and it'll not change the roll after you submit. This way, you can adjust your post in response to the result before submitting it.

I got Zakary's gear, although I made the bow a storyline flavor mystery item, partially so it didn't soak up my whole equipment budget. I could take off the +1 strength bonus of it and fit it in the budget if you prefer, but I kind of like the bow made out of a strange unidentifiable material thing. Maybe the Ancient Dwarves and Elves aren't the only ones that used to live here [mysterious background music].

Of course, I could do both... take off the +1 strength bonus AND keep the mystery. Maybe we should ask the game.

... Are you ready to jump into the gameplay thread, or are we still waiting for someone else to pop in?

Whichever you feel is more interesting.
Just a few more loose ends to finish up when i get home. Was planning on setting up a donjon world and put a few generic locations to get an idea of the world. Then a name and starting blurb for the town. Admittedly i was waiting to see anyone else pop in, but we may as well begin.

The small town of Rence stands near the border of the Human kingdom of Huinia, nearby the loose beginnings of the heavily forested Elven and mountainous Dwarven lands. As a result, the population has a few of these bordering races mixed in the genearal populous, as well as Halflings as they are found all throughout Human lands. As a result of the mixed population and relative peace Huinia has had with the Elves and Dwarves in recent times, Rence stands mostly unregarded by the kingdom at large.

Unfortunately, this holds true even fifteen years after a bandit group decided to take advantage of this situation. Oferring a "protection" to the town, a scam obvious to everyone, they have drained the livelihood of the once peaceful and prosperous small village of Rence. Over the past five years, the bandit lord has expanded his reach into other neighboring towns and grown his influence in the region. Enough so that Huinia has taken a notice, but too troublesome a task, apparently, for them to decide to deal with at the current level of threat.

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How is this? Anything you'd like to change? I'll fiddle with getting a map of some sort later.

I like it. No changes.

Alright, opened it up with that post, and a post for Bolton. Discussion tab is also active now.

If anyone else appears here though, feel free to ask about joining, try making a character.

Could I play a Oracle?

Don't see any issue with it. Still, for now the recruitment is here. Let's not start making this campaign go under two separate recruitment topics and spam this forum, yes?

Don't see any issue with it. Still, for now the recruitment is here. Let's not start making this campaign go under two separate recruitment topics and spam this forum, yes?

Thanks:) just assumed that recruitment was in the recruitment thread:)