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[piecewise]

Was all of the lore sorted out ahead of time then? What do you define as bookkeeping?

Well, I had a good outline of the world and such, but I mostly just worked with things as we went along because any attempts to predict player actions were impossible.

The first mission was a very simple thing of attempting to get an alien goodie. By the end we were colonizing fractal beast universes and conversing with giant sentient spiders.

[somemildmanneredidiot]

How did posting work out? It looks like you had multiple missions running at once, how often did they update?

Thank you for answering all of these questions btw, I haven't seen many games grow to this size and I know some people who are aiming for a similar size or larger as a goal for their own game, so this has been useful data wise for how to try to structure things and such.

[Ozarck]

If someone wants a game that large, it should either be rather simple in game mechanic, or the GM should have helpers to keep track of things like: player stats and inventory, npcs, locations, equipment, history of the world and of the game, etc.

that, or the Gm should be ridiculously self organized and self motivated. but, that person would need to take care not to burn out and pace themselves pretty carefully.

[piecewise]

How did posting work out? It looks like you had multiple missions running at once, how often did they update?

Thank you for answering all of these questions btw, I haven't seen many games grow to this size and I know some people who are aiming for a similar size or larger as a goal for their own game, so this has been useful data wise for how to try to structure things and such.

Usually once a day. Sometimes more, sometimes less.

A lot of the success of ER was due to the fact that I had a lot of players helping me with things. The wiki for instance. And the fact that the system was very simple. Which was its downfall, after several years.

[somemildmanneredidiot]

How did posting work out? It looks like you had multiple missions running at once, how often did they update?

Thank you for answering all of these questions btw, I haven't seen many games grow to this size and I know some people who are aiming for a similar size or larger as a goal for their own game, so this has been useful data wise for how to try to structure things and such.

Usually once a day. Sometimes more, sometimes less.

A lot of the success of ER was due to the fact that I had a lot of players helping me with things. The wiki for instance. And the fact that the system was very simple. Which was its downfall, after several years.

How so?

If someone wants a game that large, it should either be rather simple in game mechanic, or the GM should have helpers to keep track of things like: player stats and inventory, npcs, locations, equipment, history of the world and of the game, etc.

that, or the Gm should be ridiculously self organized and self motivated. but, that person would need to take care not to burn out and pace themselves pretty carefully.

It's looking like it'll be primarily the second, though the system is trying to be kept simple.

[piecewise]

How did posting work out? It looks like you had multiple missions running at once, how often did they update?

Thank you for answering all of these questions btw, I haven't seen many games grow to this size and I know some people who are aiming for a similar size or larger as a goal for their own game, so this has been useful data wise for how to try to structure things and such.

Usually once a day. Sometimes more, sometimes less.

A lot of the success of ER was due to the fact that I had a lot of players helping me with things. The wiki for instance. And the fact that the system was very simple. Which was its downfall, after several years.

How so?

If someone wants a game that large, it should either be rather simple in game mechanic, or the GM should have helpers to keep track of things like: player stats and inventory, npcs, locations, equipment, history of the world and of the game, etc.

that, or the Gm should be ridiculously self organized and self motivated. but, that person would need to take care not to burn out and pace themselves pretty carefully.

It's looking like it'll be primarily the second, though the system is trying to be kept simple.

Character advancement at a steady race over several years, combined with a large player base meant that eventually we ended up with a few godlike characters and a fair number of weaker ones. It made balancing difficult and often left people feeling not so useful.

Lesson to be learned: Either kill your players quickly or have a point of retirement.

[Radio Controlled]

How did posting work out? It looks like you had multiple missions running at once, how often did they update?

Thank you for answering all of these questions btw, I haven't seen many games grow to this size and I know some people who are aiming for a similar size or larger as a goal for their own game, so this has been useful data wise for how to try to structure things and such.

Usually once a day. Sometimes more, sometimes less.
A lot of the success of ER was due to the fact that I had a lot of players helping me with things. The wiki for instance. And the fact that the system was very simple. Which was its downfall, after several years.

How so?

Power apartheid.

Like pw said, the setting allowed for fragile humans with paperthin 'armor' to be deployed next to comparative demigods. This led to some issues, though we tried to come up with solutions. That's where the term above comes from.

It was also the fact that coming up with non-bullshit encounters became more difficult for pw over time as the powerlevels grew (not literally powerlevels, but a vague accumulation of capabilities and defensive/offensive power). Especially combat encounters.

If someone wants a game that large, it should either be rather simple in game mechanic, or the GM should have helpers to keep track of things like: player stats and inventory, npcs, locations, equipment, history of the world and of the game, etc.

that, or the Gm should be ridiculously self organized and self motivated. but, that person would need to take care not to burn out and pace themselves pretty carefully.

It's looking like it'll be primarily the second, though the system is trying to be kept simple.

If I may ask, this project, is it something on this forum?

Lesson to be learned: Either kill your players quickly or have a point of retirement.

*Begins sweating profusely.*

[somemildmanneredidiot]

Yup, it's called Castle, inspired off of a flash video series that aired on Newgrounds of the same name. It's grown a fair amount larger in scope than its origins.

This links to the latest squad OP which has the up to date links and descriptors and such. That particular squad is paused a little due to IRL factors.

Here's the OOC. We need to do some bookkeeping to have proper links and such there, as well as to revise the OP in the Foxhound thread to reflect the current lore.

The head GM person is vkiNm.

It's been fun, but we still have things we need to work out to make things easier for the long haul.

[Harry Baldman]

One of ER's big problems was that armor had no actual mechanics for it. A lot of things kind of didn't, or the attempts at introducing them were somewhat abortive, such as ranges of operation for weapons in a system where you have no idea what range you're at most of the time (and without ranges, the difference between a gauss rifle, a laser rifle and a rocket rifle were largely academical). This is why the whole 'armor thickness' thing in Tinker was so annoying. It was trying to pull mechanics out of a place that there really weren't any. The best you could hope for was that an Avatar of War protects you always, a Battlesuit protects you mostly, a MKI suit doesn't protect you at all, the kind of automanipulator you can't have protects you from everything at all times and everything in between is a crapshoot that veers toward not being helpful.

[somemildmanneredidiot]

Castle has some amount of numbers for armor and arms for both protection, penetration, and optimal ranges, but some of that is abstracted into relative power to other things due to our lack of knowledge of being able to research 23rd+ century military tech.

[Toaster]

By the way, where did our other people go? Radio, Cael, Pancake, UP, Toaster, etc. They seem to have gotten really quiet ever since we started doing this Redux stuff.

Hi!
 

So my B12 time got suddenly cut way down, and I was dealing with a lot of RL shenanigans, and various excuses combined to get me hopelessly behind in following ER and its children.  But I finally got it together to catch up on this thread!

And it was worth it.  That ending was beautiful, and I'm totally happy with how Brother Lars turned out.  <3 PW!  Next goal is catching up with DIG and seeing where it goes.

[Toaster]

Also I am struck by the muse, and not one to reject it


Brother Lars entered his personal quarters in the temple on Hera.  He moved with a speed that belied his advanced age; despite somewhat recently downgrading to more civilian-grade prosthetics, he never opted to have his legs regrown, happy with what he had.  As such, he still walked at a sprightly pace.  At 79, he still pursued his duties with the same diligence as he had on the sword.  He sat at his simple desk and reviewed his latest engraving of Saint Milno.  At an understanding with his old friends, these works were never seen out of the more private areas at the temple or the homes of some he still kept in touch with.  Those meetings were growing less frequent; the military arm of the Guiding Hand didn't really need his involvement any more.  He still trained in the little VR set he had at least twice a week, and felt confident in his abilities, even if it had been years since he fired a shot in anger.

The thought caused him to look at his cot bed, under which was stored a much more modern gauss rifle covered in many personally-done engravings.  No longer relying on markers, these were done with hand laser tools with the greatest of precision... even if the weapon had never actually been fired.  All his original gear was still down in the bowels of his temple, stored inside his battlesuit which slumbered in a shipping crate.  He looked upward, saying a quick prayer of thanks for his own health while activating the injection on his metal hip.  The year on the planetoid had done its work on him; this was his fourth cancer treatment.  His service had granted him the utmost in health care, but it was still tiring and wearing on his elderly frame.  What would the coming years hold for him?  He still spoke to the General on occasion, and had even briefly met with Saint Milno himself as he traveled through after the passing of his wife.

He stood ever ready for service... whatever that service would be.

[Xantalos]

adorable

[AoshimaMichio]

Piecewise! A word of god, if I may.

Dev and Egan think R&D people were basically equivalent of bacteria in petridish while Steve did all tech development and nurses were just extensions of Doc. Basically every human being on Sword were nothing more than cargo. I disagree. Who's right?

[Xantalos]

Well, there clearly were other PC-level experts than the ones we saw, as evidenced by the octopus guy who was head of R&D in that one Halloween event.