@Sebecloki: friendly bit of advice, DM to DM. your long novel posts, you spend a lot of time in the past tense, speaking as things have already happened. and there's a rather extra bits of redundancy of what your explaining. I think i read the agility and mobility and protection of bushmen trooper armor explained five different ways.
let's take an example below.
youre talking about a truck thats been up-armored from it's standard. you talk about the paint. and the strength of the armor.
Below, i made some slight modifications to what you wrote above:
Instead, it could read:
...
I honestly just overlooked some of the similar phraseology and you can't edit after a small window. I can do present tense, but long form is my standard approach, so if the length is an issue, then this probably just won't be a good fit, because I don't really do 3 sentence posts most of the time.
Thats cool.
I understand the edit window. You get one hour. Its cool.
Im not knocking the length. I do the same as well. I'll get the same urge and write out long form.
I was just commenting on the tense and how many different ways you explained various things, but they all say the same thing. if thats youre style, then cool, i can manage that, no worries. Just trying to help.
Philosophical question for our GM team and Indio. Is there any mechanical point to having an animal companion? I don't need for it to be a mechanical benefit or anything, but I have a dog and Indio has a horse. It seems to me like a non-MDC animal is of little use in a RIFTS game other than just being a cool friend. I mean, my vehicle can take missile hits, while Indio's horse would become a fine mist.
Again, I'm fine if the answer if pretty much no. The situation would be the same in RIFTS or Savage Worlds. I mean, I guess you could have a dire bear companion in some sort of MDC armor?
The question is: is there any mechanical benefit to having an animal companion that I am missing?
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I admit I don't have much experience with such things in SW, but for how you answered your question in your post, is pretty much how I would answer it.
Yeah, in the D&D conversion of SW it probably is a good idea. In a wasteland where artillery support is a very real possibility, maybe less so.
Although that bear thing would be cool.
That said I tend to take a more generous approach to animals. I won't kill them outright, and probably will ignore them if they never roll dice in combat. If someone insists on riding it into combat tho, well, it's not like they have an ECC. (Environmental Crew Compartment.)
Philosophical question for our GM team and Indio. Is there any mechanical point to having an animal companion? I don't need for it to be a mechanical benefit or anything, but I have a dog and Indio has a horse. It seems to me like a non-MDC animal is of little use in a RIFTS game other than just being a cool friend. I mean, my vehicle can take missile hits, while Indio's horse would become a fine mist.
Again, I'm fine if the answer if pretty much no. The situation would be the same in RIFTS or Savage Worlds. I mean, I guess you could have a dire bear companion in some sort of MDC armor?
I have no idea -- in the Palladium system anything that's not MDC is basically vaporized. They also can't do anything. I recently had a newbie player with a summoner character sorcel up some dingos that tried to attack thugs in MDC armor. I had to explain that was a waste of time -- there was no way they could possible damage the thugs, who could just ignore them and keep firing the boom gun on their ATV at the rest of the party.
That is pretty much what I thought. The same sort of thing happened back in 1990s RIFTS, where you could play a Vagabond with an animal companion and neither of them had any real narrative power at all.
I just wanted to make sure I didn't miss something.
I'm still trying to read about Savage Worlds -- I haven't had a lot of time to try to grok a new system. I have the impression it's a pretty differently balanced system than Palladium Rifts.
I'm interested to see how well this system captures the feel of Rifts. I've also read about conversions of the setting to GURPS and d20/Pathfinder. There's a 3pp. supplement that does 'military scale' damage for Pathfinder you could use for MDC, and I think if you just did a gestalt game with lots of 3pp. options, you can cover most stuff. The dragon hatchlings can be the Tanninim racial class from rite publishing, for example. I'm just so sick of how those recruitments work where everyone wants to have a long discussion of their theory crafting concept for stacking feat bonuses. I'm very much of the school of "here are some build rules, tell me when you're done with your sheet". I'm not going to spend hours researching obscure corner case rules interactions for weeks on end to run a recruitment.
From a previous question : I'm on EST, but I only check and post early in the mornings.
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I have no idea -- in the Palladium system anything that's not MDC is basically vaporized. They also can't do anything. I recently had a newbie player with a summoner character sorcel up some dingos that tried to attack thugs in MDC armor. I had to explain that was a waste of time -- there was no way they could possible damage the thugs, who could just ignore them and keep firing the boom gun on their ATV at the rest of the party.Philosophical question for our GM team and Indio. Is there any mechanical point to having an animal companion? I don't need for it to be a mechanical benefit or anything, but I have a dog and Indio has a horse. It seems to me like a non-MDC animal is of little use in a RIFTS game other than just being a cool friend. I mean, my vehicle can take missile hits, while Indio's horse would become a fine mist.
Again, I'm fine if the answer if pretty much no. The situation would be the same in RIFTS or Savage Worlds. I mean, I guess you could have a dire bear companion in some sort of MDC armor?
FWIW, in SW there is "Heavy" armor which is how they equate to MDC. If something has "Heavy" armor, and you fire at it with a weapon that does not have the Heavy property, then it does not damage.
Mind you, if you shoot a Heavy weapon at someone wearing normal, not-heavy, armor, then it doesn't do more damage. But Heavy things tend to have more dice, and when you just need 4 more than the target to kill them, it tends to work out.
Let's just say that if I hadn't gotten the Beastmaster for free, I wouldn't have taken it.
For me, the main benefit is really the part where animals normally doesn't attack.
The pet, hell, I went for a Horse only because, why not?
I could make it a theme and hopefully get a robot horse or a cyber horse later on, better survivability compared to a regular old grass eater.
How's it going, GM Sebecloki?
I've been at an ICU clinical the last 48 hrs, I'll update tomorrow, I can barely think I'm so tired.
Yeah, I've been stuck in places like that once or twice myself, hope you get to leave soonish.
Feel better.
Sorry to hear that. Take all the time you need.
GM, thanks for all you do! Question - do the PCs have a dog in this fight? Or are we simple observers to the fight that's about to take place? Perry is about to do something regardless.
GM, thanks for all you do! Question - do the PCs have a dog in this fight? Or are we simple observers to the fight that's about to take place? Perry is about to do something regardless.
You have to decide!
Generally, I just have stuff happen and I don't have an assumption what you're going to do. You can run away. You can get involved on one or the other side. You can ask for more clarification about what's going on from the merchant who was just telling you about the Roaner clans.
I'll take a stand. Nobody messes with my town.
On an unrelated note, I just found Indio's catchphrase, hardly original, but it works well.
Also, I took Impulsive as a major hindrance. So here we go.
Reviewing my spell list, I see that I took Speed, but that is Seasoned so I could not have taken it. I replaced it in my list with Beast Friend.
GM, thanks for all you do! Question - do the PCs have a dog in this fight? Or are we simple observers to the fight that's about to take place? Perry is about to do something regardless.You have to decide!
Generally, I just have stuff happen and I don't have an assumption what you're going to do. You can run away. You can get involved on one or the other side. You can ask for more clarification about what's going on from the merchant who was just telling you about the Roamer clans.
This introduction has a set piece feel, like the outcome is predetermined and will lead us to adventure. Are the PCs able to affect the outcome of this first encounter (should we try if we choose?), or should we let it play out? And more importantly, given that You (GM Sebecloki) created this for Rifts and not SW, is everything in the SW RAW fair game? I can already forsee Perry messing with these Roamers and I don't want you to feel blindsighted by whatever abilities we may wield.
This introduction has a set piece feel, like the outcome is predetermined and will lead us to adventure. Are the PCs able to affect the outcome of this first encounter (should we try if we choose?), or should we let it play out? And more importantly, given that You (GM Sebecloki) created this for Rifts and not SW, is everything in the SW RAW fair game? I can already forsee Perry messing with these Roamers and I don't want you to feel blindsighted by whatever abilities we may wield.GM, thanks for all you do! Question - do the PCs have a dog in this fight? Or are we simple observers to the fight that's about to take place? Perry is about to do something regardless.You have to decide!
Generally, I just have stuff happen and I don't have an assumption what you're going to do. You can run away. You can get involved on one or the other side. You can ask for more clarification about what's going on from the merchant who was just telling you about the Roamer clans.
Whatever your perception, I'm telling you there's not a present outcome, and you should believe me. I don't know what else to say -- I already told you this above and you're asking me the same question again as if you just refuse to believe that.
I don't know anything about this rules system -- Atlas is handling the mechanics, so I can't answer the second question.
Whatever your perception, I'm telling you there's not a present outcome, and you should believe me. I don't know what else to say -- I already told you this above and you're asking me the same question again as if you just refuse to believe that.
I don't know anything about this rules system -- Atlas is handling the mechanics, so I can't answer the second question.
Fair enough.
Perry - FWIW, RIFTS PC's have the Born A Hero setting rule, so you can choose Edges or Powers of any Rank at creation (and only at creation). But it seems like the new Power you chose is coming in really handy right now, so good call!
If anyone wasn't aware of that while they were creating their PC's, maybe Atlas would allow people to modify their PC's, especially seeing as we're just barely into the game and haven't used our abilities yet?
So, I'm going to try to start picking up this system -- from what I understand, SWADE is an attribute + skill roll like Storyteller/WOD. Does the dice explode of 5 or 6? Is the difficulty always 4.
The grexxaitten vary in size between 30 ft. long/15 ft. high/15 ft. wide down to about half that length, but the same height and width. They weigh between 2-8 tons.
Perry - FWIW, RIFTS PC's have the Born A Hero setting rule, so you can choose Edges or Powers of any Rank at creation (and only at creation). But it seems like the new Power you chose is coming in really handy right now, so good call!
If anyone wasn't aware of that while they were creating their PC's, maybe Atlas would allow people to modify their PC's, especially seeing as we're just barely into the game and haven't used our abilities yet?
Thanks Z, I did not know that. If I go down that road I'll probably obsess about it. I know I took Smite just to fill out the Edge advancement. That's one I might swap out for something else.
The grexxaitten vary in size between 30 ft. long/15 ft. high/15 ft. wide down to about half that length, but the same height and width. They weigh between 2-8 tons.
It only makes a difference for how many PP it costs me to cast, but it doesn't affect the result. I think your storytelling will benefit from understanding how the system can be used to influence outcomes.
I'll leave that to Atlas.
So, I'm going to try to start picking up this system -- from what I understand, SWADE is an attribute + skill roll like Storyteller/WOD. Does the dice explode of 5 or 6? Is the difficulty always 4.
From what I've gathered, you roll either trait or skill, as appropriate, never both.
Dice "explode" if you roll the maximum possible on the dice you use.And difficulty can vary, four is merely the "standard".
I think I got that right.
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So, I'm going to try to start picking up this system -- from what I understand, SWADE is an attribute + skill roll like Storyteller/WOD. Does the dice explode of 5 or 6? Is the difficulty always 4.
Excellent. Situations like this are exactly the kind of learning processes I want to see happen.
SW is a skill-based rolling game. That is, for a thing you do, there will be a skill involved, and that skill's rating will be a die, and you roll that die, along with your wild die.
To wit, to shoot guns, you have a Shooting skill, which is, say, a d8. To shoot your guns or rocket launcher or whatever you roll a d8, and PC's get the WD (wild Die).
The default target number is 4. Unless it isn't, and those situations are spelled out carefully in their sections. But for the most part, unless it states somewhere otherwise, then yes, if the book says "a success means" they mean 4. To wit, a Raise is target number +4, so often an 8 is a Raise.
(Some notable exemptions are rolling Fighting, that is, attacking in melee. That is the target's Parry rating. So to, the 4 can be modified, such as Shooting at long range, or against a target with the Dodge Edge. But these are specific and defined situations.)
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From what I've gathered, you roll either trait or skill, as appropriate, never both.So, I'm going to try to start picking up this system -- from what I understand, SWADE is an attribute + skill roll like Storyteller/WOD. Does the dice explode of 5 or 6? Is the difficulty always 4.
This is correct. A d8 Explodes on an 8. A d6 on a 6. A d12 on a 12. A d4 on a 4, which means you have a 25% chance to re-rolling an exploding d4.
This is why ZenFox has mentioned that a d6 has an average value of about 4.2. A normal d6 is, of course, 3.5. But with the crazy math of exploding, it's jacked a bit.
I realize we're still getting into the game -- but I'd like to make some suggestions that would help me narrate.
I'm looking at the character sheets, and I'm still very unclear about most of the characters -- what their background and social group is, or much else. I'm getting a bit of a sense of their personalities, but right now the two cyber knights might as well be the same character.
One reason I wanted to experiment with the simpler system for Rifts was to emphasize worldbuilding stuff -- I'm going to be inserting a mountain of local detail -- persons, places, things, events, beliefs, customs, etc. Comments on the unusual physiology of different monsters, prayers and aphorisms of local cultures, comments on unique dress styles, etc.
So for example, Perry is a mystic, and also a Bastion city local. Where did he learn his mystical skills, and what sort of arts are they? How long as he lived here. What kinds of experiences has he had with the locals -- does he clash with the authorities, or the nomads?
I'd like to try to involve the characters in that detail -- at this point I'm still struggling to get a sense of them as people. If you could try to include some more information about their experiences and background, as well as reactions based on that kind of information, in your posts, that would help me out trying to flesh out this fluff dimension of the game. The two cyber knights especially, as I've already mentioned, are basically indistinguishable to me as characters at this point, and I'd like to try to flesh out each as individuals.
In one post, I said that Zithara spends a great deal of time in the Outback, helping defend the small villages from the beasts that come thru the rifts. So she cares about others and helps those in need. Altho I haven't had a chance to display this in in-game yet, she doesn't care about her appearance, isn't looking for any more-than-friends relationships, and is very methodical and thinks things thru.
My impression of Cedrica (so far) is that she cares a lot about her appearance, is flirty, and impulsive. (Cedrica, please forgive me if I'm incorrect.) So there are already differences between us.
I think our future actions will help differentiate between us more as time goes on.
I'm very impressed by the amount of description you're coming up with Sebecloki, but just so you're aware, I have a very bad memory, and will not be able to remember one particular detail you mentioned in one multi-screen post a month ago (or even a week ago). Just so you know...
If your descriptive posts contain any specific useful situational-relevant information, maybe you could italicize it so it stands out?
In one post, I said that Zithara spends a great deal of time in the Outback, helping defend the small villages from the beasts that come thru the rifts. So she cares about others and helps those in need. Altho I haven't had a chance to display this in in-game yet, she doesn't care about her appearance, isn't looking for any more-than-friends relationships, and is very methodical and thinks things thru.
My impression of Cedrica (so far) is that she cares a lot about her appearance, is flirty, and impulsive. (Cedrica, please forgive me if I'm incorrect.) So there are already differences between us.
I think our future actions will help differentiate between us more as time goes on.
I'm very impressed by the amount of description you're coming up with Sebecloki, but just so you're aware, I have a very bad memory, and will not be able to remember one particular detail you mentioned in one multi-screen post a month ago (or even a week ago). Just so you know...
If your descriptive posts contain any specific useful situational-relevant information, maybe you could italicize it so it stands out?
I can certainly provide reminders of stuff (provided you put the effort into actually asking me what you don't remember), but if you're really just focused on fighting and rules stuff and not in it for the world building, this honestly won't be a good fit -- this is going to be a detail heavy story telling style -- there are going to be mountains of people, places, things, events, monsters etc. There will be storylines -- like the present one that's developing, about clans with different customs, languages, religious beliefs, trading habits, etc. that are discussed and come up in their interactions with the characters.
There are 95 books published on Rifts for Palladium. I have about half of those and all but 1 or 2 of the fantasy books, and will be incorporating a lot of the insanely detailed world building like the other dimensions and the various gods and alien entities mentioned in this material. I'm also going to be adding a lot of setting detail to fill in gaps in the existing material -- the published material doesn't have much detail on religion, so you can seem I'm filling in a lot of details on that with the idea all of the human cultures post-Rifts have beliefs that are confusing jumbles of half remembered stuff from pre-Rifts Earth.
I'm tentatively interested in a experimenting with a simpler rules system than the Palladium megaversal system to focus more on those elements, but I'm honestly not super interested in this system specifically, or in its rules details. I would have been perfectly happy to do something like FATE or freeform too -- there's honestly nothing specific about Savage Worlds that jumps out at me at the present -- maybe my opinion will shift as I see more of how it works. I was going to run this with the original Palladium system, but Atlas convinced me to try SWADE -- an agreement which I made on the condition I wouldn't have to be responsible for any of the rules stuff since I don't have time to sit down and learn a new system in detail right now. The books for this system are also too expensive at full price, and I'd have to wait for a sale on humble bundle or bundle of holding to get enough at a decent price to run anything. I'm going to try to learn more about it as we move on, but it's honestly a secondary consideration to me to the storyline and worldbuilding stuff, and I'm not concerned at all about exploring corner case rules interactions or discussing them at any length. All of the rules questions you've asked me in PMs about combat are not stuff I know anything about -- I'm also not shaping a story line around players using some specific power attack combo they came up with. The story will emerge organically from player actions.
The one area the details may come up are that I'm going to have some incredibly detailed combat maps that are like fully painted Warhammer boards that cover thousands of feet of space in excessive detail. There will be very detailed terrain to strategize around -- and it will involve really looking at and measuring out combat spaces with some amount of concentration.
I expect we'll need to meet in the middle somewhere to make this work. I don't have any feel at all for Rifts setting beyond what is coming through your posts, GM. If my PC is acting in a way that is inconsistent with the setting then that's just my ignorance. For example, if a person who has mystic abilities (but is not a Mystic by class) should adhere to one cult or religious sect or another, then I'm going to whiff at that.
Perry is a bon vivant personality, and a believer in One God and one infinite universe. He believes there are multiple dimensions of time that weave through the same space but which allowed properly "tuned" lifeforms to interact with time differently. I would say this trends along the lines of Scientology present in the world that you mentioned, but Perry is not a follower and cannot abide getting mixed up in cults. Life is too short for b+$##+%+.
SW doesn't exactly lend itself to spheres of magic, it's more of a jumble, but for the most part I picked powers that give Perry a toolbox to work from that is less combat intense. I intend to swap out Smite, per Z's comment above, but haven't decided on what yet.
I expect we'll need to meet in the middle somewhere to make this work. I don't have any feel at all for Rifts setting beyond what is coming through your posts, GM. If my PC is acting in a way that is inconsistent with the setting then that's just my ignorance. For example, if a person who has mystic abilities (but is not a Mystic by class) should adhere to one cult or religious sect or another, then I'm going to whiff at that.
Perry is a bon vivant personality, and a believer in One God and one infinite universe. He believes there are multiple dimensions of time that weave through the same space but which allowed properly "tuned" lifeforms to interact with time differently. I would say this trends along the lines of Scientology present in the world that you mentioned, but Perry is not a follower and cannot abide getting mixed up in cults. Life is too short for b@*~$#!*.
SW doesn't exactly lend itself to spheres of magic, it's more of a jumble, but for the most part I picked powers that give Perry a toolbox to work from that is less combat intense. I intend to swap out Smite, per Z's comment above, but haven't decided on what yet.
Australia honestly isn't that well-sketched in the official material, which is why I'm supplementing the published stuff with material from Shadowrun, Gammaworld, Aftermath, and other postapocalyptic sources.
With magic -- I honestly have no idea what SWADE does with the magical traditions.
The Palladium rules have distinct schools of magic like Pathfinder that all work slightly differently mechanically and have different origins fluff wise as well -- there are warlocks devoted to an element, elemental fusionists that combine more than one element, summoners and diabolists that use power words and summoning circles, nethermancers that graft foreign body parts to their own, tattoo magic, rune magic, etc. etc. -- fluff wise, that all still exists, but I have no idea how SWADE does magic.
You don't even need to pick something from a published source, I'm just trying to understand the characters -- like does Perry have an innate power that he discovered at an early age, or was he apprenticed to a magic worker? Or did he teach himself by studying books the Federation of Magic or some other arcane source.
Is his mysticism more like psionics or elmentalism or something to do with the music of the spheres or something else?
Has Perry ever done this best taming trick before?
Does he make his living doing magic for others, or is this something he hides? What is his job (mercenary, bounty hunter, fixer?). All I really have to go on now is (1) he's a local, (2) he's a brusque red head, (3) he has some mystical abilities. I don't know enough to know if other people in town know him, or how, or what kinds of information he might or might know, if he has family, local or otherwise, or other associates, etc. -- that doesn't all need to be developed in the next post, but I'm just asking for everyone to try to start adding some of that kind of detail in so I have more to work with.
I'm just trying to understand the most basic elements of these characters and how they might fit into a story -- the character sheets and powers are extremely general, which fits for a generalized system like this, but I didn't really see any back stories and I'm just trying to get a handle really basic elements about what everyone is doing and who they are.
Sorry I haven't been posting.
At the moment, I feel like I don't have anything stable to put a metaphorical foot on. I don't know my character well, don't know the setting well, don't know the rules well, character doesn't have predefined connections to other characters.
I need some kind of anchor or base camp that I can build out from. Right now I'm just floating in way too much information.
... way too much information.
im feeling the same way.
one: im rather disappointed that it was stated that posting on the weekends wasnt mandatory, yet it would appear that the plot still progresses on the weekends. I can understand a few posts happening over the weekend, due to an ongoing conversation between a couple people concerning an ongoing subject that was last discussed on the friday. but to say "im going to keep the thread going" and present a new encounter (and not even resolve the first one with the originating player who started the encounter), does not indicate a m-f posting rate, but rather a 7 day a week posting rate. If this had been communicated to me from the get go, idve said "hey thanks, i cannot do that. Im out!".
two: the overwhelming amount of information. I get it, @seb, your world building, youve got all these books and youre attempting to build this huge thing and you gotta convey all this info. As a DM, i can appreciate that. The detail that you do have, is awesome! i love it! But i think youre providing way way too much info. Some the stuff, like the clans, could have been put into a long form post in the disscussion page. "hey guys, heres info about these Roamer clans", "here's the info about cuts of clothing found in the city, the waste lands, etc", "here's the list of religions" and so on.
two a: also, a lot of the information, reading the rules, should have been "discovered" with skill checks, either common knowledge or notice. I think that should have been picked up by @atlas. I recognize though that this is a new system for all here, so this can be chalked up to new system learning. not the end of the world.
two B: dont be afraid to use commas, their whole point is to combine two or more sentences together into one, and greatly diminish the need to repeat words. also, use a thesaurus! there's one online, found at https://www.thesaurus.com/. It makes reading those long paragraphs of info more enjoyable.
where does this leave me? I am going to drop. Not because of the bad grammar, i can work with that, but its really the posting on the weekends and, from my POV, it seems as if this game is designed for Perry and Jacque, and not for entire group as a whole.
@atlas, thanks for the invite. i do appreciate it. if you start up another game, feel free to hit me up.
@seb: you got potential. You figure out the Neccessary/filler/useless information matrix, you'll be golden. but until then, i think there will continue to be struggles.
for the rest of the players: until next time
... way too much information.im feeling the same way.
one: im rather disappointed that it was stated that posting on the weekends wasnt mandatory, yet it would appear that the plot still progresses on the weekends. I can understand a few posts happening over the weekend, due to an ongoing conversation between a couple people concerning an ongoing subject that was last discussed on the friday. but to say "im going to keep the thread going" and present a new encounter (and not even resolve the first one with the originating player who started the encounter), does not indicate a m-f posting rate, but rather a 7 day a week posting rate. If this had been communicated to me from the get go, idve said "hey thanks, i cannot do that. Im out!".
two: the overwhelming amount of information. I get it, @seb, your world building, youve got all these books and youre attempting to build this huge thing and you gotta convey all this info. As a DM, i can appreciate that. The detail that you do have, is awesome! i love it! But i think youre providing way way too much info. Some the stuff, like the clans, could have been put into a long form post in the disscussion page. "hey guys, heres info about these Roamer clans", "here's the info about cuts of clothing found in the city, the waste lands, etc", "here's the list of religions" and so on.
two a: also, a lot of the information, reading the rules, should have been "discovered" with skill checks, either common knowledge or notice. I think that should have been picked up by @atlas. I recognize though that this is a new system for all here, so this can be chalked up to new system learning. not the end of the world.
two B: dont be afraid to use commas, their whole point is to combine two or more sentences together into one, and greatly diminish the need to repeat words. also, use a thesaurus! there's one online, found at https://www.thesaurus.com/. It makes reading those long paragraphs of info...
You don't capitalize words or use contractions correctly consistently. Some important things to work on. It is difficult, actually often painful, to read your posts.
Just my opinion, but I think the reaction to not being able to post on weekends could have stopped well short of the burning the game to the ground.
I (beginning of sentence, always capitalized) don't (apostrophe, notice the use of apostrophe there, please) understand why it's (again apostrophe, because it is a contraction) not possible to put material in a word document and run a grammar check to catch this kind of stuff before posting. It's (again, notice the apostrophe) like basic level composition errors. And (capitalization, beginning of sentence) it's (apostrophe) every other sentence, like the writer doesn't understand these super basic rules of typography and spelling (which would be rather shocking), or just doesn't care enough to use them correctly.
After re-reading Cedrica's goodbye post, I think the bit about the thesaurus was unnecessary but otherwise he was trying in a ham-fisted way to be helpful.
Anyway, let's give Zithara and Noah.James a chance to get into the flow here.
After re-reading Cedrica's goodbye post, I think the bit about the thesaurus was unnecessary but otherwise he was trying in a ham-fisted way to be helpful.
Anyway, let's give Zithara and Noah.James a chance to get into the flow here.
They don't understand basic language terminology -- the use of a thesaurus is syntax (word choice), not grammar (which concerns elements like conjugation of verb endings and pluralization, and is a distinct area of intellectual inquiry). Comma placement in the sense it's being discussed here is more fully the realm of style as opposed to grammar proper, which would deal with concerns like the use of commas to divide elements of a list.
Someone who can't even capitalize 'I' correctly on a regular basis or spell a contraction properly with an apostrophe more than 75% of the time, which is like 1st grade level grammar ability, has no business opining on any such matters, even if they understood the distinction between grammar, typography, and syntax, which they don't seem to based on this post. Putting aside the completely unimpressive characterization and descriptive ability in their posts, this isn't (notice, again, the apostrophe there, which is used in contractions in English typography because it signifies the conjunction of two separate words) a serious source of information about writing or language. I'd be more willing to take input seriously from someone who had at least a middle school level of spelling ability. The other option is I guess they're slamming it into a phone without an auto correct, but I'm still really shocked even that format can't produce a sentence more than half the time that is capitalized correctly.
I am deliberately repeating some material for the sake of clarity -- this is the same format used in popular fantasy writing like the Sword of Truth series to remind readers of specific in-world vocabulary terms and what's going on when there are a lot of actors on the board. I'm not trying to produce highly stylized academic writing or evocative literary description. If I was writing more tersely and figuratively, it'd be harder to follow like the style of the Malazan books. I'm perfectly well aware of different styles and am making conscious choices for specific reasons -- I'm multi-lingual, have two masters degrees, and have taught foreign languages at the graduate level. I can also write a basic sentence in standard American English that has all words capitalized correctly and all contractions spelled with an apostrophe, a stunning ability I've possessed since I was six years old.
Maybe a dozen years ago I ran a pbp Star Wars campaign on Blogger. It was all good, long-time friends. I hadn't really run anything like that before, but I had always wanted to run SW6 and I had a hook for a home brew and it took off from there. I patterned after the KOTOR games with multiple factions to be discovered and different planned outcomes dependent on whether or not the players took the time to learn the motivations of the key NPCs... I gave them the initial contact but also tried to be clear that the world was a sandbox for them to explore. For a while, they chose not to go talk to their contact. I thought that was such a given that I was surprised when most of them instead chose to interact with the sandbox. It seemed to me like things were going really well.
But then I got an email from one player, a friend of mine of twenty years, who was paralyzed by a lack of direction. I told him to go to the contact if he didn't want to explore anything else. He refused. I didn't understand how he could be so fixated on the lack of guardrails that he was literally incapable of deciding what to do with his character. To this day I don't get it. We're still good friends but that was a difficult period.
What I learned from that is some players need the railroad. Choice is overwhelming. Or they don't have time with the competing (hopefully dominant) responsibilities of real life. I'm sure I'm not writing anything surprising here.
Cedrica complained about things happening when he could not react, which is unfair to the rest of us - we're not on his cadence. But I think he also needed a straight line to wherever this game is going, or at least the first steps to be presented so that he could easily follow.
Your world is amazing. The amount of time and thought you put into every detail is truly impressive. And I think we're getting to the start of things with this revelation from the merchant. Your prose didn't work for Cedrica, and although he was not eloquent with his complaints it's unfair to hold that against him. Everyone has a different expectation for this medium. Personally, I find all those little punctuation errors annoying, but what does it truly matter? I'm just happy when players stick to the minimum posting cadence and keep the game moving.
I agree with the observation about sandbox vs. guardrails -- I always do sandbox instead of guardrails. I'd just play a videogame if I was going to do a predetermined plot like that. I was initially imagining there would be a combat here, but Perry's action hypnotizing the beast changed what I expected, and I altered the story around that event. If I'd been railroading, I would have had that make no impact on my preconceived concept. To me, that's the whole point of the RPG medium. I don't care for the PFS format where it's mostly go to A, go to B, go to point C, without a lot of opportunity for unusual or unexpected things to occur.
It does seem to be a big issue that most of the players here know not a thing about the setting, which is a complicated one that occupies 20,000 pages of published material. It's also not a setting with one or two major 'hooks' that can be easily summarized. Every region is like a separate campaign setting, and that's before we're getting into the alternative dimensions and other such material. Australia is relatively isolated from the rest of the world -- but even just North America has like a dozen major factions with different abilities and goals. Another element of the Rifts concept which I'm honestly rather dubious this rules system can capture is the 'gear porn' element. Rifts has entire books dedicated to the armors and armor of the Coalition Navy, for example. There are hundreds of pages of pictures and stats on different guns, rockets, transport types, and power armors. This is a big part of the setting flavor -- the glitterboy 'boomgun' is an iconic element of the Coalition forces, for example. It's an enormous railgun that fires with such force that it forces its wielder back several feet.
We're all finding our way a bit, of course there'd be some stumbling.
Some do not know the setting well, some haven't played Savage Worlds before, and our characters might still be a little undefined as of yet.
Not really an issue though, all things that's get smoothed out as we go along.
At least in my own experience.
For the record, I don't feel the game is geared towards me and Perry, I just decided to step in and try to write myself into the narrative a bit.
Once you find that opening...
Sebecloki :
Regarding Cedrica's leaving, it seems to me that the main point of contention was the weekend posting, everything else seemed to be venting.
This is a world in which you have obviously invested a LOT of time, and know VERY well.
The rest of us (I'm assuming) know nothing about it at all.
I'm very impressed with your storytelling, but perhaps you could condense the high points of this world that everyone would know into relatively *short* documents with links to them in the Campaign Info tab? Like "Here's the nations", "Here's the tribes", "Here's the religions", etc. If we're to interact with this world, we need to know the basic background of it.
But, like I've said before, I have a *very* bad memory, so as long as you can be patient with reminding me of things I get wrong because I forgot something, I'm willing to hang in there.
Regarding armor, take a look at the SW RIFTS book, pages 89-90 (in the Player's Guide). Good armor starts at $30,000, and goes up to $100,000+. How does that compare the the "actual" RIFTS prices, and any suggestions they make about how much to reward players? Unless you're willing to give us maybe $5000 *each* per mission/adventure, we're never going to be able to afford better armor. Yes, there's only 16 types of non-specialized armor as opposed to your hundreds of pages, but that's the Savage World philosophy - strip it down to its bare minimum, but no further.
Now that there's a hook in the story, I'm wondering about how to get all the PC's together, since we decided that most of us have never met before. Can you provide a way, or is it up to us to work our way into the job?
Related to that, I've never experienced a game where the GM merely made descriptive posts, without explicitly inviting (or forcing) the PC's to get involved. Once I figured that out, I started working my way into the game, like Perry and Indio. It's not wrong, just different, but my nature is to be taciturn, so the more "hooks" you can provide us to interact with your world, the better, thanks!