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Author Topic: Gaming Block (Game Discussion Thread) (Totally Not Roller's Block)  (Read 417987 times)

_DivideByZero_

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Re: Gaming Block (Game Discussion Thread) (Totally Not Roller's Block)
« Reply #2940 on: January 09, 2017, 01:07:49 am »

You guys have any advice on representing probability curves (probably isn't a real term) for different types of die rolls in a stats heavy homebrew system?

Or if that's too vague, a quick easy way to visualize the differences between using 1d6 and 2d3 for example.

                   possible outcomes for 1d6

                     | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 |
# of dice            1   1   1   1   1    1
combinations         
that achieve
this outcome

                   possible outcomes for 2d3

                     | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 |
# of dice            1   2   3    2   1
combinations         
that achieve
this outcome

As can be seen, when you use 2d3 rather than 1d6, 4's become more common. As a matter of fact, they appear 1 out of 3 times when you roll the dice rather than 1 out of 6 times with a regular d6. Anyway, now that I explained to you guys what my idea of a probability curve is and how dice affect it, now I can get to my question.

Do you guys have some advice for getting visual representations of these different possible combinations. Cause when you start experimenting with numbers like 1d6 + 1d12 + 5d8, it becomes a bit harder to do these calculations in your head.

Anyway, sorry for the bad description. I'm a bit sleep deprived. 

You could always visualize it as a bell curve since that's what sums of independent variables tend to approach.

The results are always centered around the sum of the means, so 1d6 + 1d12 + 5d8 will be centered around 3.5 + 6.5 + 5*4.5. That's an average of 32.5.

If you want a way to quickly calculate it using your computer, you can just convolve the different probability distribution functions in MATLAB or GNU Octave. For example 2d6 is conv(ones(1 6), ones(1 6)).
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Parsely

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Re: Gaming Block (Game Discussion Thread) (Totally Not Roller's Block)
« Reply #2941 on: January 09, 2017, 02:05:50 am »

I'm no mathemagician, but here's my best shot at the problem.
For two dice, it's as simple as an X,Y graph:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)

For multiple dice things get complicated. It's not something you can represent with a two-dimensional chart or graph as far as I know. But maybe you could:
1. Make a polygon, one side per die.
2. Make a colored mark for each value in the range on each side.
3. Connect each mark with every other mark.
4. Mark down number of occurrences alongside each value. Lots of colors will probably help.

5d8 = 5 sided polygon, with 8 marks per side.

Spoiler: Example (click to show/hide)

This is a horrible solution and I can't think of a better one.
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Culise

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Re: Gaming Block (Game Discussion Thread) (Totally Not Roller's Block)
« Reply #2942 on: January 09, 2017, 05:26:54 am »

You guys have any advice on representing probability curves (probably isn't a real term) for different types of die rolls in a stats heavy homebrew system?

Or if that's too vague, a quick easy way to visualize the differences between using 1d6 and 2d3 for example.

                   possible outcomes for 1d6

                     | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 |
# of dice            1   1   1   1   1    1
combinations         
that achieve
this outcome

                   possible outcomes for 2d3

                     | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 |
# of dice            1   2   3    2   1
combinations         
that achieve
this outcome

As can be seen, when you use 2d3 rather than 1d6, 4's become more common. As a matter of fact, they appear 1 out of 3 times when you roll the dice rather than 1 out of 6 times with a regular d6. Anyway, now that I explained to you guys what my idea of a probability curve is and how dice affect it, now I can get to my question.

Do you guys have some advice for getting visual representations of these different possible combinations. Cause when you start experimenting with numbers like 1d6 + 1d12 + 5d8, it becomes a bit harder to do these calculations in your head.

Anyway, sorry for the bad description. I'm a bit sleep deprived.
Is this something you want to do yourself from scratch, or are you just looking for the probability curves themselves for your own use?   If the latter, this may be of some assistance to you.  For example, 1d6+1d12+5d8.
« Last Edit: January 09, 2017, 05:28:52 am by Culise »
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heydude6

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Re: Gaming Block (Game Discussion Thread) (Totally Not Roller's Block)
« Reply #2943 on: January 09, 2017, 09:16:12 am »

Is this something you want to do yourself from scratch, or are you just looking for the probability curves themselves for your own use?   If the latter, this may be of some assistance to you.  For example, 1d6+1d12+5d8.

Thank you, this is perfect
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AoshimaMichio

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Re: Gaming Block (Game Discussion Thread) (Totally Not Roller's Block)
« Reply #2944 on: January 15, 2017, 03:31:23 pm »

I have bunch of game ideas in buffer, but they most likely never see day of light. So I figured I post their intros at least. Saying that, I have written full intro only for five games, seven others either have only background stuff or mechanical things written, so those will have short description instead.


1. Age of Sparks

Introduction

It has been a while since the world last time saw a spark of true genius, a spark of innovation. On this day, on this very moment, this spark is awakened within you! It calls you to solve mysteries and conquer the world in name of SCIENCE! Yes, YES, that's right, it is time to do some MAD SCIENCE! Don't let such archaic notions as morals, ethics or laws of nature hinder progress of SCIENCE!



Table of Content

This is a game of MAD SCIENCE, so get ready to unleash your inner mad scientist! You know you want to! Create technological horrors never seen before. Or biological horrors. Maybe death ray or two? With menacing spikes? How about an army of slime monsters for conquering the world for you? And don't forget death rays! Did I mention death rays already? I think I did. Anyway, whatever your desire is, SCIENCE is the answer. And who knows, a war might be brewing up somewhere.

Technology is primarily steam/spring powered, somewhere in mid 1800. You are not the only sparks in the world, and your precedesors have left their fair share of fruits of SCIENCE behind. Such as war clanks, various monsters (both biological and mechanical) in forests between cities. You may see a clank or two doing heavy lifting in worksops. Such benign creations are often mass produced according strict blueprints.


I want to join! But how?

This is simple. Grab this premade sheet and fill it up. All byrocratic like. Details for certain parts can be found below the sheet.
Code: (Spark) [Select]
Given name:
House: See details
Appearance: (optional)
Profiency: See details. You can have TWO.

Where you were working at when you got an AWESOME IDEA?: Stables, factory, coffee shop, hospital, somewhere else?
What you were working with when you got an AWESOME IDEA?: Perhaps polishing weapons, tuning engines, oiling cogs, cooking coffee, sniffing smokes, something else?


Houses

Houses are number of more or less powerful families owning land, castles, workers, factories, towns, farms... Usually nobles, but some have raised to power thanks to some spark in previous generations. Almost all houses vye for power, each desiring throne of king. You can invent the house by yourself giving it as much details as you want to, leave details of the house to the GM, or you could join someone else's house if they are ok with it.
Alternatively you can play as a peasant, but that's harder as it means no funding, minions or resources and probably forces you to wander into dangerous wildlands... but then again you can claim your progress fully as your own. Bragging rights.

There are few Houses that are restricted, however.
Restricted Houses:

  • House Heterodyne: Perhaps the most famous of all Houses. The bottomline of dealing with them is: DON'T. Their throne of power, Mechanicsburg, has quite nasty defences. Lots of them.
  • House Von Mekkhan: Vassals of House Heterodyne. You don't mess with them for same reason you don't mess with Heterodyne.
  • House Sturmvoraus: Your family of redheads from cold mountains. They have strong preferences for poisons, so watch what you eat in parties they host.
  • House Wulfenbach: "Don't make me come over there" might be their future slogan, but right now they are a rather minor house.

Profiency

Profiency is what you are pretty damn good at. What makes your clock tick. What floats in your boat. Your preferred line of research. Your personal brand of madness. Branch of science where you start bending laws of nature within three hours.

There's five brands of science and you can spread three (3) points on them. More points, easier it gets:

Clanks: This profiency covers building and reverse engineering of mechanical automata. Robots of various sizes that follow verbal orders and don't need your oversight. These clanks are mostly pretty stupid, or rather very focused on their own job, but experienced and skilled spark can create control unit that rivals human intelligence.

Constructs: This profiency covers creation and reverse engineering living biological creations and their echancements. Slime monster? Check. Intelligent bears? Check. Mind controlling wasps? Check. Test subjects turned into cyborgs with drills attached on arms? Definitely check.

Weapons: This profiency covers creation and reverse engineering of all kinds weapons of (mass) destruction. Bombs, death rays, atmospheric charge arrays and other portable weapons used to kill, maim and destroy.

Devices and Vehicles: This profiency covers creation and reverse engineering non-autonomous mechanisms. Machinations that require external input to work, such as pilots, drivers, gunners, operators. Zeppelins, flying fortresses, trains, transporters, giant drilling machines, consciouss overwriters, time freezers (don't use those, by the way), many expensive and complex machine parts that other profiences may need. If it isn't autonomous, weapon or chemical, it goes here.

Medicine and Chemistry: This profiency covers creation and reverse engineering compounds that affect biological body and brain in some way. Drugs, stimulants, serums, poisons, antidotes, chemical weapons, acids, mutagens. Stuff like that. Mutagens partially overlap with Constructs, but rather than being process of producing autonomous biological unit, this is process of initiating (un)controlled change. Observing your test subject devolving into ravenous beast can be quite educative.


Research

What is a mad scientist who doesn't do research? Well, probably still a mad scientist. Anyway, research is something you can spend time on in order get better at what you do. Namely to avoid those pesky ones and twos RNG tends to throw in your way. Each profiency has few ways to get better at specific sciences. For example you can research how to make very large Clanks better, how to make your Constructs more obedient, how to make lightning controllers less prone for accidental discharge, focus on how to improve flying machines, and how to make better stimulants. I have few research lines mapped out, but you can always suggest subjects your own.


Rolls

Everytime you start creating something new, be it a clank, weapon, or something else, I will make two rolls. The first roll is to reign your creative forces. It determines how closely the final product will follow your original specifications. 1 results something totally different, possibly even from different profiency, but may still be useful for some other purposes. 4 is pretty much what you wanted and 6 may add additional features that may or may not hinder original purpose.
The second roll determines quality of your work. Here 1 may cause berserking clanks and weapons exploding on your face, 4 is meh boring success, and 6 probably "menaces with spikes of your minions' bones", is overtly massive or perhaps drains all power within two seconds.


Notes

If you are familiar with it, then it's obvious this game is heavily inspired by excellent web comic Girl Genius. Take a moment and read it if you haven't already. While the game is based on it, it diverges from the comic some decades before events in it takes place.










2. Discoveries

(Not a god game, by the way)
To put it simply, you are the universe. And the universe is you. That's the state you have been in significant fraction of eternity. Except for the brief and insignificant moment of novelty in the very beginning when you were born, lived and foolishly died. Was your life decades, centuries or millenias long? Irrelevant. Utterly so. In your life you thought eternity as merely very long period of time, but since then you have come to understand it better. Eternity. Is. VERY. LONG. TIME!

And it is boring. Very boring. Extremely so. You have gone through this whole "go insane, go so deep into insanity that you emerge on other side into perfect sanity" at least seven billion times and then you stopped counting because it was getting so old. And that was long time ago. You have thought every thought very many times. Meaning you haven't had single original thought for... Well, original thoughts stopped quite soon after the beginning. And that too was long time ago. In fact you know for certain that you are still in very beginning of the eternity, you haven't even scraped its surface yet. How you wish you had destroyed your soul when you died. Then you would have been saved from this. But stupid as you were you went ahead and died. No matter, after simulating your original reality on atomic level few times you figured this was unavoidable. Perhaps the fate of every soul. Oh and don't even start about simulating reality with your mind alone, that was so boring after its novelty died off and you had to reinvent laws of physics nth time.

Interestingly you do have your body here, in its prime condition as far as you can tell. But since universe ends and starts with your skin, there ain't really any stimulation. It doesn't need air, food or water, it doesn't excrete any waste. It just is. You can move it, naturally, and universe moves with it (since you are the universe). It's really your only source of stimulation, so you did try to hurt it quite few occasions. Pointlessly, as it restores earlier state instantly. And pain is only so exciting after few billion years. Or has it been seconds? At this point difference between seconds and millenias is very vague. After repeating same thing millionth time... and here we are going through same line of thought again.

So, here you are. In beginning of the eternity. All alone. With rest of eternity ahead of you.

Except right now you are not the whole universe anymore. There's something novel here that's not you. A hole. A hole in universe that leads to somewhere that's not here. It's not really even question what you should do. You jump in.




Blue sky, some lonely fleecy clouds and warm sun high above. Cool hard metal beneath you. Whisper of the wind. The smell of the sea.

That's where you awaken. You can't move yet, you don't feel solid enough. You don't know where you are, what time it is (well, midday apparently (Hello there, Sun! So nice to meet you again!), but nothing beyond that) nor why you are here, wherever 'here' is. You enjoy these fresh sensations




Entry is easy, here's what I want to know about your PC before letting it wander around. You can assume your character has knowledge excepted from person living in 21st century.
Code: (Character sheep) [Select]
Name:
Species:
Class:
Appearance: (mostly optional)

Species:
Species gives you benefits for certain things. Trolls for example would have high regeneration like controlled cancer (of course assuming this type of troll is known to have regeneration).

Almost anything biological and sapient is ok. Everything that requires supernatural powers just to exist is out of the window, so eldritch horrors, gods and demons are not good.

It is possible to have biological counterpart of such impossible species if you are willing to accept compromise. For example flying western dragons are possible if you scale them down enough. Or accept the fact that it will never fly with is own wings.

If you are going with species that has many versions of itself you need to specify which version it is from. In case of orc you need to tell if it is from World of Warcraft, Middle-Earth, 40k, D&D, The Elder Scrolls or from some other reality.


Class:
Class determines your starting skills. Skills that your chosen class is supposed to have start from professional/specialist level.

This can be almost anything you wish. Including, but not limited to, priest, painter, soldier, singer, thief, princess, dance teacher, merchant, politician, hacker, psychologist, construction worker, sailor, miner, adventurer...

Wizards, necromancers and other magical/supernatural professions are ok if you accept the fact that your "magic" is nothing but tricks and sleight of hand.


Skills:
Talking about skills, your chosen class determines some skills you start with, what you can do well and what you will fail at. Rest of your skills are determined when you need it or when you claim you have it.

Example: You decide to knit something, but your sheet has no mentioning about such skill. So I roll a d6 to determine your knitting skill level and after that I roll modified die appropriate to your skill level to see what happens.

Through lifetime of your character you can request reroll for ONE skill. Whatever you get from reroll is what you will be stuck with. No take backsies here.


What do skill levels mean?

Hazard: You have complete misunderstanding of your talent. You think you are professional while actually you don't even know what you are doing, so when you fail it's never your fault. For this I'll roll modified d6. This die has numbers 1, 1, 2, 2, 3 and 3. As you can see, result is mostly failure, often catastrophic. Even in best case you barely do anything good.

Novice: "Only a fool knows everything. A wise man knows how little he knows." The die here is 1, 2, 2, 3, 3, 4.

Hobbyist: You love what you do, but you are by no means professional at it. This die has numbers 1, 2, 3, 3, 4, 4

Professional: You actually know this shit. You have done it before and will do it again. As such die here is normal d6.

Specialist: When you fail, you do so without hurting yourself or others. 2, 3, 4, 4, 5, 6.

Master: Good luck getting here. It's not impossible, just really hard. Being best in your field, it's matter of how well you do it, not "can you do it". You don't try, Jimmy boy, you do. Failure is not an option. Unless it is something really difficult such as ground breaking research.

Under normal conditions I will roll the dice of your skill level, but if you are trying something really difficult or are very stressed I will use the die one level below your skills. So if professional juggler is trying to juggle with burning chainsaws he will be considered as hobbyist while doing so.




Discoveries

Here I'll add things that are discovered during course of the game. For example maps.










3. Amusement Park Funland
“Welcome, welcome good folks to Amusement Park Funland! Entrance is free of charge!1 Come and enjoy our various attractions!”


This park has following attractions for your pleasure and amusement:
  • House of horrors – 30¤ (Fear resistance)
    • Come in, come in, see our brand new house of horrors! We guarantee you won’t come out laughing!"
      "You can get new clean underwear from our clothing store on next building."
  • Electric chair2 – 30¤ (Lightning resistance)
    • ”Are you the electric man? Does lightning strikes just a tickle you?! Test your nerve system here!”
  • Swimming pools
    • ”Our swimming pools are the best in the country! Come and relax in our warm waters! Try out our Arctic Bath and Hellish Sauna!”
    • Hellish Sauna – 30¤ (Heat resistance)
    • Arctic Bath – 30¤ (Cold resistance)
  • Shooting range – 50¤ (Ranged weapons)
    • ”Sharpshooters! Snipers! Gun maniacs! Come here and test you skill!”
  • Hammering – 50¤ (Melee weapons)
    • ”Are you feeling strong? Test your muscle with a Mighty Hammer and punish this evil doer! And if you manage beat the highest score you can win most incredible prizes!”
  • Mensa testing center – 50¤ (Magic)
    • ”Come here and test your intelligence! Take our Mensa certified test! Gain bragging rights over your dumb friends!”
  • Laser Turrets2 – 50¤ (Stealth)
    • ”These laser turrets will detect slightest movements! Can you hide from them? Sneak through the course and prove your moves!”
  • Whack-a-mole – 50¤ (Reflex)
    • ”How are your reflexes and coordination? Can you beat current high score? Beat the moles down and win prizes!”
  • Bullet Hell – 50¤ (Agility)
    • ”Test your dodging skills against paintball turrets! Come out clean and win most amazing prizes!”
  • Peitho's Mirror Maze – 50¤ (Charisma)
    • ”Beautiful ladies and handsome men, stalkers and creepers! Come all and see how these magnificent mirrors twist your appearance! Remember to laugh!”
  • Lakshmi's hand – 50¤ (Luck)
    • ”Come here and test your luck! Pull a string and always win prizes!”
  • Labyrinth3 – 20¤
    • ”For just small entry fee, you get to go down and explore maze of ancient caverns and catacombs, filled with perils and treasure!"
      "If MagiTech Lollipop is discovered then please return it to the owner of this park. You may keep everything else."

It also has following services
  • Café Fun – 10¤
  • McDonalds – 10¤
  • Kebab & Pizza – 5¤
  • Toilets – 2¤
  • Clothing store FunDress
  • Cash4Gold FunLand branch office
    • "Sell you things for money! We buy more than just jewels!
  • First aid – 100¤
  • Church – Donations encouraged
  • Casino - Entrance fee 300¤

1 Entrance may be free but exit is not. To exit this park you have to pay 50¤. By entering this Amusement Park you agree to this. Failure to comply will result our security arresting you until your debt is fully paid.
2 Funland Ltd. doesn’t take any responsibility of bodily or mental injuries caused by attractions in this park. By entering into this park you accept the fact that everything you do here is your own responsibility.
3 This attraction will cause injuries and has notable possibility of death. By entering you agree that Funland Ltd. will not be held accountable for any wounds, insanity or death occurring in this attraction. You also agree that you pay your own hospital bills in full.









4. Law of postmodern jungle
Law of postmodern jungle




Greenish light suddenly floods your eyes and you fall short distance down hugging your duffel bag. Fall isn't fast, thanks to viscous slime covering you and connecting you to above. You wipe it out of your face, uncovering your face and take a deep breath. You look around.


This most definitely isn't your home, or any other place you recognize. Floor is soft, warm and smooth. Kinda like skin. Actually, you do spot number of pulsing veins underneath the surface. It gives in under your weight a little before hardening and slowly bouncing back up. Walls are same fleshy material as floor, but more wrinkled, making it look like bark. Ceiling is similar to floor, but is filled with large cysts, number of them are large enough to contain adult humans. In fact, directly above you is one broken cyst slowly retreating up, greenish slime hanging from it like dribble of snot. The said "snot" is same what covered your face and still covers rest of your naked body. Thinning strands of slime snap and fully separate you from the cyst you apparently used to be in.


You scrape rest of the slime off your skin, being thankful how it doesn't stick on you or your bag. As you do so, more cysts in ceiling split open and slime covered human figures fall out, each naked, hugging a duffel bag and reacting exactly like you; scraping slime off and looking around more or less confused.


Moving your gaze around in the largeish room, or perhaps body cavity of some extremely large creature, you spot an exit hole. Circular fleshy tunnel, three meters in diameter. Your instincts are telling you to proceed into the tunnel and exit this room/cavity. Fighting those instincts you turn towards the source of light.


It's a largeish pure white sphere embedded on wall opposite of the exit tunnel. You cannot exactly see where the sphere ends and wall of flesh starts, and frankly you do not quite care. Your instincts are now screaming to get the hell out of here, because to stay here means to die horrible death. Logically you figure this can't possibly be true, but the irrational primal fear makes your body move. You grab your bag, run into the only exit with other humans(?) in tow and keep running until you can no longer see the fearsome light, until flesh gives way for cracked concrete hallway. You run until you see something vaguely resembling familiar human civilization.


A large open room, western architecture, glass windows, countless shelves of books. A library or a bookstore. Or that's what it perhaps used to be. Now book shelves have rotten and collapsed long time ago providing platform for moss, grass and other small plants to grow on. All glass is shattered, only few shards remain in corners of windows. Ceiling has partially collapsed, letting rain in and providing sunny spot for trees to grow in. And those trees are not small either, they're large enough to reach the hole in ceiling. You do not recognize it's species, but it have to be at least 50 years old. Outside you can see traces of metropolis being reclaimed by nature. Behind you, somewhere in depths of this building, is... the thing that vomited you out.


This doesn't make sense. Nothing about this makes any sense. One simply doesn't suddenly jump from normal daily life into this borderline nightmarish situation. Time jump into world after civilization you could grudgingly accept, movies and other forms of entertainment often depict such situations, but being born into such situation from unnaturally scary flesh room is usually not included.



Words of GM and meta stuff




Welcome to ruined world where life is violent and short, where strong rule and weak become food, where new apex predators emerge every other week thanks to hyperactive, if not outright intelligent, evolution. It's kill or be killed. Eat or be eaten. Don't get too attached to first characters, they may end up eaten before sun sets.


Regarding player characters I give you fairly free hands. I want numerical expression of characters' physical attributes, but I do not tell how many points you can or cannot assign for each. It doesn't even have to be completely human, but it has to come from civilization capable of building skyscrapers and massive cities. As long as it makes sense, I'm fine with it. But you cannot be olympic level sprinter, weight lifter and marathon runner at the same time. Those tasks require distinctly different body types after all. As such, here's a character sheet:



Code: (Sheep) [Select]
Name:
Appearance: Humanoid enough to not raise too many questions.
Biography:

Speed: Ability to run for your life. Usain Bolt type deal.
Strength: Ability to lift weights and wrestle with gorilla (don't).
Agility: Body control, high stress mid air acrobatics with spear wielding fire monkeys and scaling smooth walls.
Senses: Ability to detect predators and prey makes difference between life and death.
Endurance: Amount of physical stress you can take before your lungs, heart and muscles give up.



As for points to add on your stats:
  • 1-3 are weak, substandard human performance.
  • 4-6 represent level of roughly avarage human being.
  • 7-9 are levels of well trained personel, limits of avarage human.
  • 10-12 are for world record holders. Usain Bolt, Eddie Hall, Dennis Kimetto, Craig Harrison, and others on pinnacle of human ability would have score right on this level.



Given identical conditions, one with speed 9 will always be faster than one with speed 8. Strength 6 always overpowers strength 5. However, conditions are rarely identical, so one with lower attribure level can beat one with higher level when conditions are favourable. That being said, difference of three levels is almost impossible to overcome.










5. Millenia City

What's this?

This is a team management game. You, as a player, are one of the new gods who have escaped their duties in heavens and came down to play with mortals, with side hobby of gifting them power so they can delve deeper into ancient and long forgotten layers of the Millenia City.


Intro

Gods come and go in generations, much like mortals do. Each divine generation comes like a wave and completely destroy old generation of gods in a mighty war. New generation wipes heavens clean and fully rebuild it into their own image where they rule supreme. This is time of newest generation! Far mightier and more glorious than any generation before! Or so you tell yourself, it's not like there's anyone left to claim otherwise.

The real prize, and the biggest trouble, is the mortal world. Calling it a world is not really accurate, it's more like a massive towering city sprawling two thousand kilometers wide, including mountains, forests, deserts, and actual mortal cities. It's the playground of gods in middle of primordial waters. The troubling part is that new gods hold no power there, therefore works of previous gods are untouchable. New gods cannot wipe it clean and restart from scratch as much as they would like. The simple way of getting around of that is that they simply build new layer over the city, sealing it off and dooming previous layer into darkness eternal, and sinking the city little deeper into the surrounding ocean. Of course sinking and sealing happens after moving mortals, intelligent and otherwise, over to the new layer. Everything about old gods was declared heresy and forgotten in few mere centuries.

There are few unknowns about mortal world, first and foremost being mortals themselves. Millions different species, hundreds intelligent races, where they came from? Gods of knowledge do not know, and if mortals ever knew answer, they have forgotten it long long time ago. Doesn't make them any less interesting or fun to play with, though. Second mystery is magic, which only exists in mortal world. Gods can easily work out how to use magic, but they do not know its origin, where it comes or what made it. It's not related to their divine power in any way, and is naturally inferior to their divine might, but exceptionally capable mortal mage can actually hurt careless god frolicking in mortal world, not that you gods would tell that to mortals. Magic is gods' gift to mortals, or so you all claim whenever mortal happens to ask about it.

Gods are much weaker in mortal world anyway, even on their own layer, but still capable of tossing few miracles around without much of thought. Were they to venture lower layers, they would be no different from powerless mortals. That has led some gods speculate if mortals are descendants of ancient gods who went below and couldn't get back. Of course there's no way to prove it, and no god is stupid enough to do something such idiotic. Well, there's always exceptions, but those are quickly weeded off and forgotten.

Either way, you gods think of mortals as your children, or perhaps as adorable toys. Something to cherish, to love, to play with, and to toss away once you get bored of them and you set your eyes on some new mortal. Mortal world is an escape from duties of heavens, where everyone is on same power level. Down here you are mighty, even if you are limited in power. Here you are free to play to your heart's content!

Recently, however, something disturbing have happened. Sealed pathways to lower layers opened and never before seen monsters came through, causing havoc and killing a plenty of unprepared mortals. Initial waves were pushed back by mortals with help of gods, but the pathways couldn't be sealed again because divine power nullifying effect of old generation had spread up and outwards just enough prevent it from being done. Any attempt by mortals to seal it merely resulted new wave of monsters ruining all progress. It seemed that leaving paths open was least lethal option.

Careless frolicking with mortals became a little more serious. Though only a little. What is happening on layers below? Where do these monsters originate from? Solving those questions is the newest fad amongst gods on vacation. Since gods can't go down below by themselves, they collect mortals, grant them little power and send them down in their behalf. Those who come back and proved themselves are granted a little more power, providing repeating cycle.

"Join my family and you will be granted power by god!"
 

How do I play this?

First you gotta fill a sheet described in next section. Once that's posted and accepted, you start recruiting mortals in your little family.

Easiest recruits are those who are inexperienced, there's no shortage of those. However they die easily, but those who survive are rough gems to be polished. Every recruit has hidden potential, if you get lucky, one of those surviving recruits may end up as an unstoppable warmachine mowing their way through hordes of monsters. If unpolished gems aren't your thing, you may try recruiting mortals with fighting experience. They are guaranteed to have good potential to grow, but higher you set the bar, harder they are to find. Third way of getting new family members is seducing children of other gods. How easy is that depends on mortal's loyalty. In case of low loyalty generosity of opposing god plays bigger hand. Large and well respected families will have easier time recruiting from general population.

Once you have children (general term for mortals in your family), you gift them power and equipment on your own discretion and send them into layers below. Giving too much power compared to their potential may make them overconfident and lead them to early grave, but giving too little will staunch their growth and even reduce their loyalty. So it is important to identify capacity of each child and gift them accordinly.

After spending some time in lower layers your children will return with loot and hopefully information. After that the cycle starts anew; recruiting people, gifting them power and equipment, and sending teams back down. Or perhaps let your children rest for a while? This particular entrance city is the largest around and has most entertainment options.


Character sheets

Code: (sheep) [Select]
Name of god: Something mortals can actually pronounce.
Appearance: Something humanoid, please, and decently sized. If you appear as a human, be human sized too.
Speciality: Gods are mighty beyond imagination, but every god has a speciality they excel in. The ultimate mastery, unparalleled. This stays true even in mortal realm. This is your vacation, so enjoy being pampered by your worshippers. Take it easy.
Name of your family: What are your children referred as.
Theme of your family: Optional. What kind of people you seek into your family? Humans, elves, werewolves? Blacksmiths, warriors or drunkards? Young or old? Men or women? It's important to attract likeminded individuals as they are most loyal to you. Do you appeal as a real family, nurturing bonds of trust between children? Do you take after military organization, attracting soldier type people? Or do you perhaps cloud minds of your children with your divine power and enslave them as toys they are? Do you play them like a playboy?


Gods

Gods on vacation:

Gods who are waiting for their vacation:

Gods who went back to heavens:









6. Fairytales

This game is about faeries. You know, those glittery tinkerbell types. But this one will rapidly turn very dark game. Despite of their appearances, these faeries are not fit for childrens' shows. The thing about these fearies is that primary color of their wings determine their special powers.



7. Unnamed game

Kinda like Castle games vkiNm and Kevak are running. Military based city exploration and eldritch shit. Inspired by this image and idea of gutting spacetime (Thanks piecewise and and Radio Controlled).


8. In shadow of Gods

Humans are living on skin of planet sized god, Gaia, who's wandering on primordial waters of creation, hunting and killing other giant gods with their own civilizations and ecosystems living on them. Intelligent species living on skin of their god have same shape as their god. Due their massive size, fights of gods last centuries, each punch and kick taking months to execute. Major thing for humans is to keep inhabitants of other gods from invading and steal resources while trying to steal their unique resources when bodies of gods make contact.

To make things even more interesting is the fact that drinking blood of gods can give one superpowers, based around nature of the god. This test earlier in this thread was to test the system for generating superpowers.

Inspired by webnovel Worms.


9. Warforged

Civilization fighting losing war on their last legs decide to summon perfect warriors (players) to defend them and turn tide of the war. Something goes wrong and the perfect warriors are fully individual beings, nothing forcing them to do anything. In here characters would get stronger by eating organs of their enemies and wound be able create new bodies for themselves or for new players by sacrificing portion of their own statpoints, either alone or by pooling points with other players.


10. Channel Vigilantism in progress

Less a game and more interactive story about cyberpunk vigilante in Einsteinian Roulette universe where the vigilante streams his adventures and uses donations and programs from watchers to slowly become a full cyborg.


11. Heroes are coming!

A suggestion game. I saw the basic idea somewhere, perhaps in reddit, imgur or 4chan. I don't remember anymore. Main character is a humble NPC peasant who must fight off waves of adventurers who feel entitled to just waltz into your house and loot whatever they please.
Humble Peasant kills adventurers that enter their home.
Humble Peasant keeps their weapons, magic items, and gold.
Humble Peasant realizes that stronger and stronger adventurers are coming to claim their growing pile of loot.
Humble Peasant builds traps and fortifications to keep them out.
Humble Peasant procures exotic pets to help defend their home.
Humble Peasant continues to amass more and more loot and attract stronger and stronger adventurers.
Humble Peasant has to keep building up and fortifying their home, traps, and pets to keep the adventurers out.
Humble Peasant suddenly realizes that they have accidentally built a dungeon. It’s a fucking dungeon now. It’s fortified and full of traps, monsters, and treasure, and the Humble Peasant is the boss.
Humble Peasant realizes that adventurers will never leave them alone now.
Humble Peasant hates adventurers.
Humble Peasant accidentally becomes major villain.


12. Sea of Nightmares

A game about dreamwalkers, who are physically trapped in dreamworld. Said dreamwalkers eventually take up a job of explorer and sail seas of Nightmares, because nightmares are one way to wake up.
Inspired by Sunless Sea.


13. This was a mistake

Angels make accidentally contracts with criminals giving them divine powers and ability to assume form of angel.
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_DivideByZero_

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Re: Gaming Block (Game Discussion Thread) (Totally Not Roller's Block)
« Reply #2945 on: January 16, 2017, 02:00:15 am »

Quote
6. Fairytales

This game is about faeries. You know, those glittery tinkerbell types. But this one will rapidly turn very dark game. Despite of their appearances, these faeries are not fit for childrens' shows. The thing about these fearies is that primary color of their wings determine their special powers.

I do love me some good children's-shows-turned-dark-fantasy.

Quote
8. In shadow of Gods

Humans are living on skin of planet sized god, Gaia, who's wandering on primordial waters of creation, hunting and killing other giant gods with their own civilizations and ecosystems living on them. Intelligent species living on skin of their god have same shape as their god. Due their massive size, fights of gods last centuries, each punch and kick taking months to execute. Major thing for humans is to keep inhabitants of other gods from invading and steal resources while trying to steal their unique resources when bodies of gods make contact.

To make things even more interesting is the fact that drinking blood of gods can give one superpowers, based around nature of the god. This test earlier in this thread was to test the system for generating superpowers.

Inspired by webnovel Worms.

Sounds like Xenoblade Chronicles' setting, in a good way. It would be very interesting if you could find a way to deal with the dichotomy between years-long battles and comparatively quick encounters on the human scale.

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AoshimaMichio

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Re: Gaming Block (Game Discussion Thread) (Totally Not Roller's Block)
« Reply #2946 on: January 20, 2017, 03:52:38 am »

Quote
6. Fairytales

This game is about faeries. You know, those glittery tinkerbell types. But this one will rapidly turn very dark game. Despite of their appearances, these faeries are not fit for childrens' shows. The thing about these fearies is that primary color of their wings determine their special powers.

I do love me some good children's-shows-turned-dark-fantasy.

This one could possibly be short enough for me to actually complete, assuming I got around to finish system for special powers derived from wing color.
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S34N1C

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Re: Gaming Block (Game Discussion Thread) (Totally Not Roller's Block)
« Reply #2947 on: January 20, 2017, 10:14:33 am »

I would probably play all of those games.
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OceanSoul

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Re: Gaming Block (Game Discussion Thread) (Totally Not Roller's Block)
« Reply #2948 on: January 23, 2017, 06:50:37 pm »

So..I got inspired in another thread, so I guess I'll bring it over here.
((Y'know, that gives me an idea. Probably a bad one, though.

It's a combination of suggestion game and normal, PC per player game. The players would be shattered parts of some person's psyche, who could no longer act on their own. Players would possess an object in the world, while giving what remains of his consciousness directions (the suggestions), so that we could keep him safe until we found a way to get back in his mind. If a player is successful in defending the man, or he takes your suggestion, you become a bigger part of his psyche, gaining power (experience and levels) for your personal physical body.
I know this isn't the place to ask this sort of thing, but what do you guys think?))
« Last Edit: January 23, 2017, 06:56:59 pm by OceanSoul »
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Finally have a game completely ready. Wait a week before posting it out of laziness.

Draignean

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Re: Gaming Block (Game Discussion Thread) (Totally Not Roller's Block)
« Reply #2949 on: January 26, 2017, 01:01:37 pm »

So, not that I am for sure going to be doing this, but is there any interest in a PbP, newbie friendly, start from level 1, D&D 3.5 campaign?
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lawastooshort

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Re: Gaming Block (Game Discussion Thread) (Totally Not Roller's Block)
« Reply #2950 on: January 26, 2017, 01:06:25 pm »

I would be very interested Draignean.

(hopefully it's an And game and not an Or ;) )
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TheBiggerFish

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Re: Gaming Block (Game Discussion Thread) (Totally Not Roller's Block)
« Reply #2951 on: January 26, 2017, 03:29:50 pm »

So, not that I am for sure going to be doing this, but is there any interest in a PbP, newbie friendly, start from level 1, D&D 3.5 campaign?
Meeeeeeee!
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GiglameshDespair

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Re: Gaming Block (Game Discussion Thread) (Totally Not Roller's Block)
« Reply #2952 on: January 26, 2017, 03:33:28 pm »

So, not that I am for sure going to be doing this, but is there any interest in a PbP, newbie friendly, start from level 1, D&D 3.5 campaign?
What would it be about?
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Harry Baldman

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Re: Gaming Block (Game Discussion Thread) (Totally Not Roller's Block)
« Reply #2953 on: January 26, 2017, 03:34:37 pm »

So, not that I am for sure going to be doing this, but is there any interest in a PbP, newbie friendly, start from level 1, D&D 3.5 campaign?

If you can use Roll20, I'd suggest doing it via text in that. PbP D&D is a pretty shaky proposition pacing-wise. It only very rarely works as far as I've seen, and it's much easier to make it a weekly thing.

In any case, do color me interested for 3.5. I don't play nearly enough of it for my liking.
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TheBiggerFish

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Re: Gaming Block (Game Discussion Thread) (Totally Not Roller's Block)
« Reply #2954 on: January 26, 2017, 03:36:52 pm »

I prefer PbP over Roll20 myself.
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