Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[escaped lurker]

Fluff
A reason why the moon isn't an option. Solar flare? Radiation? Grey goo infestation? Furry colony? I'd just like to hear from you guys on this.

Well... how about the basis of operations being a space station? Just think of ISS MK-4, the frontier of humanities space-research and space-related technological advances! Such stations are not really meant to be moved, only making some correctures to their orbit, and maybe some emergency boosters to get out of collision courses.

The "landers" might also not be constructed for leaving the inner spheres of the earths magnetic field, which could make flying to the moon hazardous and far more complicated. Making it completely impossible might be a stretch though, but them needing a complicated retrofitting, plus "heavy" spacesuits for the crew to withstand the radiation and such is more than in. As in, making it very unviable.

The players also might have been kinda left behind, with ships that could handle longer flights either lost in the last desperate struggles, or gone with those that tried to get to mars. As for their fates, hey, maybe in a very hypothetical sequel, no? ;3

Crunch
In XCOM, players have to wait at the base for missions before they can send their troops out. It's the same in this game, except I don't know how to decide how long before the players can go on a mission beyond arbitrarily choosing so. Any ideas?

Well.... there are these often cube-shaped things, with optical worth indicators on their sides. Each worth is normally unique to one of the sides, the later which can number up to 100 in special designs.
You... you kinda throw them, and depending on which side shows itself on the top, some rules fall into place. In the best case, said rules are made before you throw these things. 

Hum... that might sound far more snide than it actually should sound like, really. That aside, how about the obvious choice - how about throwing some dice? 3D6 whereas each number represents anything between 1 hour, or a quarter day, your call. Now just add some random minute thingy, so that it doesn't look too clean-cut "staged" as it actually is, and you are ready to rumble. In this regard, at least.

Kinda Both
In XCOM, the player actually plays as the Commander who sends out troops on the battlefield. I was wondering if I should give a single player control of what to build and who to send on missions and stuff. This can let more than 6 players play at once (they're characters get rotated through missions) and if we go the YAK route they can serve as a second GM so that more than 6 players can actively play at once. That's the crunch. The fluff part comes from whether I should have the commander chosen by the council (myself) or the highest-ranking player. Thoughts?

Truth be told, I am not sure if this would make the game easier for you, or even harder to manage. Either way.
Player rotation might be a good idea to not be fixed - make it first come first served, no sense in waiting for those that only play twice a week.
Same actually goes for the commander. By all means, choose him yourself. In the best case, he is the most active, and has "good" rp skills. I leave the worst case up to your imagination, but I would think that a "bad" commander could easily ruin the game for the other players.

[Andres]

Hum... that might sound far more snide than it actually should sound like, really. That aside, how about the obvious choice - how about throwing some dice? 3D6 whereas each number represents anything between 1 hour, or a quarter day, your call. Now just add some random minute thingy, so that it doesn't look too clean-cut "staged" as it actually is, and you are ready to rumble. In this regard, at least.

Yes, using dice was always part of the plan but it's assigning wait times to the dice numbers that I'm having trouble with. That 3d6 thing has given me an idea, though. Ok, so first I roll 1d4-1 to determine how many months the players have to wait per mission. On a 4, a reroll is done with a +0 modifier, on a 4 again it's with a +1 modifier, and so forth. After that, I'll roll 1d5 for weeks with a 1 being 0 weeks and a 5 being 4 weeks. Finally, I'll roll 1d7 to see how many days need to be waited out after that.

Does this seem ok?

[kj1225]

I'm thinking of making a SG that runs a bit like Hotline Miami in the everyone has one hit point.

Main differences being the the main character is stuck in a crazy arena type thing with the ability to respawn, and it takes place in a mysterious arena thing.

[Andres]

I'm thinking of making a SG that runs a bit like Hotline Miami in the everyone has one hit point.

Main differences being the the main character is stuck in a crazy arena type thing with the ability to respawn, and it takes place in a mysterious arena thing.

If you want to make the game work you either need a story or some decent character progression and maybe customisation. Nobody likes playing games of mindless violence without pay-off.

[kj1225]

I'm thinking of making a SG that runs a bit like Hotline Miami in the everyone has one hit point.

Main differences being the the main character is stuck in a crazy arena type thing with the ability to respawn, and it takes place in a mysterious arena thing.

If you want to make the game work you either need a story or some decent character progression and maybe customisation. Nobody likes playing games of mindless violence without pay-off.

You say that like mindless violence isn't a payoff in and of itself. Anyways, a link to a planning thread I set up is in my sig now.

[Nerjin]

No. That's way too many rolls. Just go with a Monthly issue.

[Andres]

Anyone know any good sources I can steal GET INSPIRATION from for tech trees and stuff?

[escaped lurker]

Anyone know any good sources I can steal GET INSPIRATION from for tech trees and stuff?

http://orbitalvector.com/Index.htm

Not sure if it is still up to date on currently developing tech, but else it is a good overview and quite solid. Especially good if you want to be realistic / nitpicky about not ignoring physics alltogether.

[Andres]

This'll do just fine. Thanks.

EDIT: Just finished reading about tech levels and now it looks like this'll do much better than fine. This is great!

EDIT2: Maybe the Commander position can be played as an SG where everyone chooses what to do.

[Andres]

Before I go with that XCOM game, I'm thinking about running a simpler game where the players play a mage. Does anyone know what the opposite of a necromancer is? Zoimancer?

[WillowLuman]

As in, biomancer (manipulates life, most likely some kind of healer), or someone who specializes in de-animating reanimated corpses?

[Andres]

The former. Definitely the former.

[Playergamer]

Cleric with turn undead, I'd suspect.

[Andres]

Cleric with turn undead, I'd suspect.

Cleric implies a religious role. How does turn undead work? Why is it even called turn undead? You're not turning them to your side, after all.

As in, biomancer (manipulates life, most likely some kind of healer)

Should've mentioned this before but I don't think biomancer is the right word. According to this, the antonym to that is thanato- which is similar but different to necro-. It also implies that it allows for the alteration of biological things, even if they're dead.

[kj1225]

Cleric with turn undead, I'd suspect.

Cleric implies a religious role. How does turn undead work? Why is it even called turn undead? You're not turning them to your side, after all.

It stems from one belief that a way to render undead harmless was to literally turn them upside down. Also, it turns them dead.