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[O.Wilde]

Sort of like a cross between Tomb of Horrors , Darkest Dungeon, and Madoka Magicka may be a good way to describe it.

Alternate descriptions include: Heaven. (For the players at least.)

[Xantalos]

Some people are like cocoons, kind of. They just need the right environment for their true self to break free of what they seem to be. Put in a war, a frightened child becomes a killer, or perhaps realizes their innate compassion and becomes a healer. Dumped in a random forest and some find themselves to be excellent survivalists. Some who are exposed to monsters become monsters in turn.


Man, I feel like I'm writing an opening paragraph for a World of Darkness game.

[Yoink]

You'll kill cockroach succubi with katanas and cast magic with blessed ghetto blasters and demonic cassettes. 

But is it the axe that slayed him?!



In other news, Oroboropolis. Oroboropolis allll the way. That sounds amazing.

[Empiricist]

Well, I certainly like Orobopolis the most out all those options.

[renegadelobster]

Oroboropolis is where my votes gonna go. I dunno why, but it just seems to call to me.

[Radio Controlled]

Gotta say, Oroboropolis sounds like what I'd vote for as well (though note that I'd vote for some sort of continuation of ER first, this is just the one out of those 3 that sounds the best).

And yeah, I'm gonna keep up the current poll a little longer, then take it down, report results, and put up a new one with those 3 games as options, unless anyone objects. If you'd like to see any other options in that poll, by the way, do tell.

[Devastator]

Currently in M27 Lyra is essentially useless because of her unique properties. A generic character is MUCH better for what we're doing right now.

Did you go on a diplomacy mission with a character who can't talk again?

I don't know that M27's a diplo mission, but given that Lyra's highly specialized for scouting, information gathering, and perhaps assassinations if she were to level up Con a bit, and 27's a highly public mission about guarding portals and making sure large numbers of people don't do stupid shit, being sneaky and fragile isn't much help to her.

Are you kidding?  That's a mission that should be amazing for Lyra.  You get to be the plainclothes officer, on invisible overwatch, spotting problems before they begin and shuttling people around, or doing it yourself if you want to.

That's kinda it.  There's also the need to take several times as much equipment.  Flint's had a ton of levels and has a ton of equipment, along with stuff unique to him.

Well ... yeah, if you want to be able to do anything you have to have a lot of equipment to be that flexible. That's just one of those things that kinda makes sense to me. Perhaps you disagree?

Like, when amps were still around there was often claims of them being OP. I don't think this was necessarily because the basic one could let a starting character kill a battlesuit on a good roll, moreso because they were so unbelievably versatile. With a mass amp you could manipulate things without touching them, punch things with your mind, levitate yourself/others, throw things at people, block incoming fire, and so many other things. We never saw what a vector amp could do but I'd bet it would've gotten even more ridiculously versatile. This is why they were seen as OP, because they let one stat, heavily specialized in, substitute for basically any other stat with enough wiggling. Those were legitimate issues, and I can't really say that I'd advocate for something like that.

Maybe I'm not interpreting your stance right? Specialization isn't a bad thing, it has downsides. Remember what happened the last time Xan tried to do anything that wasn't medicining someone or running away from a potential danger? He died because he removed his helmet in space. So I spend most of my time sitting around waiting to be useful, or for an opportunity to use my skills to come up. It's just the consequence of the way I've built him, and I don't regret it. But being a generalist and being a specialist are in my mind about equal anyways - the generalist can do about anything else more competently than the specialist, the specialist is good enough at what s/he does that if they creatively apply their specialization they can get around obstacles anyhow.

I'm not quite sure what you're saying, is what I'm saying. Specialization as a concept isn't a bad thing, I think.

No, it's not really a bad thing.  If you're sticking with a consistant party for long-term adventures.  Or if you like specializing.  If you don't want to be an overspecialzed character so you can read your char-sheet without wincing, you're left needing more equipment to be less capable at anything you want to do, then someone who did specialize and spent five tokens on it.  Sure, you can do anything, if you're fine with a significant rate of failure, and if you brought gear around, and if it wasn't already done by the other 2/3 of the group that can do it.  If it takes you a couple turns of setup in order to get the job done?  Tough, someone did it already.

There's two problems.  The specialist character isn't alone.. there's another bunch of specialists along for the party, and between them, they can already do everything, so there's nothing for a generalist to do.

Secondly, there's no recourse around getting gear.  Specialists get long chains of gear letting their stat do about anything, but there's no love for someone wanting one piece of gear to do multiple things with different stats, for instance.

[Devastator]

...Are you complaining that people that specialize in one thing are really good at that one thing?

I really have a hard time even understanding your criticisms sometimes Dev.  I honestly don't even know what you mean by this.

It's more that since everyone's got a thing, you need to get a thing of your own to compete.  Especially if the world is going to be 'weird', because that means everyone, not just PCs, has a thing.

It's like this.  I might be able to come up with a plan to deal with the giant metal-skinned psionic lightning-shooting beetle, but it'll take a bunch of turns and two or three rolls.  The friendly con user just blows up the entire building, or the magic user freezes it, or the combat monster walks up to it and hits it.

When you're a generalist, all defences are problems you need to solve, many of which would require seperate rolls to deal with each one.  As a specialist, 90% of them are irrelevant for your thing, no matter what thing that may be, so you've got at most one roll to deal with, and you make those rolls basically every time.

[Twinwolf]

Oroboropolis, definitely.

[Xantalos]

Oh, so your issue is that you perceive specialization as being too effective. While I'm not in a position to comment on game mechanics at all, and IIRC there was some sort of power gauntlet that could hit people with Exo, do an uncon grappling hook shot, and shoot people with Con (also no one's ever really brought up the idea of having one thing do multiple things with different stats. There's probably a way to tinker something up.), I can say that ... well, teams of specialists working together's a perfectly valid tactic. Like this:

The specialist character isn't alone.. there's another bunch of specialists along for the party, and between them, they can already do everything, so there's nothing for a generalist to do.

That's basically the description of your average DnD party. The warrior/barbarian's specialized towards fighting and tanking. The wizard's specialized towards control of the environment and illusions and blasting things and magic stuff. Cleric heals and buffs. Assassin/rogue assassins people with a bow or knives and stuff. None of them can do what the others can do, but by covering each other's weaknesses they can act as a coherent unit and take down enemies none of them could on their own.

So while I won't argue with you on how exactly ER's system may or may not favour this sort of thing, I don't really know, I will dispute what you seem to be saying in that it's OP for a bunch of specialized people acting together to be able to do things by compensating for each other's weaknesses. That's how character classes work in general, and have for ... quite a while.

It's more that since everyone's got a thing, you need to get a thing of your own to compete.  Especially if the world is going to be 'weird', because that means everyone, not just PCs, has a thing.

Hell, this could easily be interpreted as a good thing for generalists. If everything has a thing, then a generalist character is more likely to have some skill or item that counters the thing of an enemy or targets their weakness or whatever.

[Dorsidwarf]

I like orobopulis

It reminds me of Frostgrave.

[Chromatic Wasp]

Ugh, it's such a hard choice for me.

I like MMWW because "apocalyptic" and "sorcery" are two words that always strike my interest.

I like Orobopolis because "demons" and "character corruption arcs" also really get my blood pumping.

But I also like Homonculus because it sounds really weird, but in the endearing quirky kind of way (and also, the replacing limbs thing makes for some really interesting character designs and just--)

Honestly, whatever choice we make, I can say I'm going to have a good time.

[AoshimaMichio]

Paris, why are you attacking your teammate's attack?

[Ozarck]

I think MMWW would be difficult for me to play. I see a setting where "an essential part of life is disappearing" to bea rather negatively oriented game. oit lends itself pretty heavily toward conflict and control, those with power clutching it ever tighter in their fists, lest they lose all, and that's just not me. I'd have to play as some sort of nonmagical character -a a pioneer of the new world rather than a refugee of the old.

For ouroboropolos - that one sounds somewhat interesting, though I feel that the setting would need to be fairly concretely established, and again, I am not sure I would be anything otehr than a sort of generic grunt there. Unless the story unfolds in a rather taoist yin yang way, in which our purging of the dark is practically mirrored by the Holy City becoming corrupt and monstrous - the white dot in the black expanding to become the white, the black dot in the white expanding to become the black. There's interesting rp opportunity there. On the other hand, I am a tad particular about things like Holiness and Evil, so I might be dissatisfied with the in game canon.

The munchkin one sounds interesting for the moldability of the characters. It reminds me of games where you start with a generic robot and custom build yourself out of scrap, found items, and lost technology. both the fantasy and the sci fi versions of this are interesting.

I don't know quite why "a game completely separate from ER" is a voting option, as PW has Infinite Heavens already, And from what I hear, he has run several others, including perplexicon, with no connection to ER anyway. In other words, this option is already a reality, the only question is "will there be another version of ER or not."

I see good an negative points for all options and have a hard time saying "I think this one is best."

Hope that helps.

[piecewise]

Hey pw, I can put up a second poll asking what alternative (out of those 3) people would prefer the most, either next to the one already up or after we close down that first one.

Why don't we first put up a poll thats like the one we've already got up there, but with the two least popular options removed.