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[Servant Corps]

You know what? Sod it. QML can't handle multiplayer. But the idea of invisiblity is far more interesting than the rest of the original idea. I think I know how to handle it forum-game-style.

Have a main topic, and recruit people silently. Players won't even know who else is playing. Is that small rally the work of NPCs? Or the work of demonologists? Furthermore, recruit from OTHER Boards.

Forum Gameplay would be based off the game "Republic". Only problem, of course, is that I already am running a forum game, so running a second forum game wouldn't go well.

[qwertyuiopas]

Imagine if you had signicantly advanced AI that you could NHPCs(Non Human Player characters) for either singleplayer(one against many) or as distractions(one or two near equals to the players in terms of skills) so you never knew if that was a rival player or an AI you just killed.

Maybe after a certain ammount of time(say a few days) clues toward deaths and survivors could appear.

And that leads to another interesting idea: religious figureheads or extreme followers(or masterful apprentices) where a player could find a particularily trustable NPC and make them appear to be you(the "leader" of the religion, taking orders from you but other players would see him as the target), or put powerful revealing effects on him(super person fights crowd and loses, taking 2/3 of it with it, not the real player but as far as anyone knows it was) or the player could take on the NPS as an apprentice who would, over time, grow to power levels near to the player and then be set loose. The only issue there is that if you train them too well, they will turn on you an beat you in the end, or if you don't, other players might see that they are not a player too easily.

And that itself allows the possibility of appearing the apprentice while the NPC draws the attention...

[Servant Corps]

Imagine

I don't really like that word. Personally. Meh.

But it seems that people here want multiplayer. That can only be done via forumgame. Would an RTD work in this case? Just with people not knowing who the other players are?

[SHAD0Wdump]

Not the way I imagined it.(see what I did there?)

I think you guys might be making this more complex than it needs to be.

[Servant Corps]

Gah. I posted Kagus' Unothrodox Game as a proof of concept, and now I'm worried that people might join up and I'm overwhealmed. Anyway, I'm creating the ruleset for this game, but I'm not interested in GMing it. I don't want to lose even more of my free time.

[Granite26]

You could probably handle a fighter character as well.  Not as hidden as the evil characters, but not as obvious as the priest, either

Nobody would be able to physically take him early on, but his power growth would fade into the others over time.  (Priest would have trouble getting his followers to attack a 'law abiding' citizen, demonologist and thief are busy with power building.)

Power buildup could be on a (unique) xp system, building power killing the red herring thieves and cultists

Actually, you could possibly add supes to this.  A Vampire would be a good example for the fighter class (Power by eating people OR turning them into mind-slaves), and Werewolves could be in the business of creating (biting) new werewolves.  (Which wouldn't be controlled, but keep the city guard occupied by being A-rank NPCs)

Slaves:  Either expand vision (mindlink) or serve as fighters.  Imagine turning the priest's guard?  Except the church would serve as protection from the Vamps, their servants, and likely the demonologists...


Ritual is important to a game like this.  In order to 'blend in' and make investigation useful, players should be required to do things at certain times.
Priests should be required to hold mass at regular intervals.  Your opponents will know where you are, but you are in your stronghold, surrounded by your full minion strength.  This allows people to plan their attacks accordingly.
Demonologists could be bound to their summoning circles.  Their play being to go get stuff and come back in order to do a ritual to get the full benefit.
Thieves... would need to visit fences (money buys consumables, elite gear must be stolen?)

All three should need to eat occasionally.  (This simulates a brief 20-30 seconds of vulnerability for the thief)

The supes would have patterns of feeding that lead to their exposure as well

I'm a big fan of subclasses:
Priest
   Faith : Guard is on your side 100%, many weak followers, but you can't get them to do as much:  Holy Powers involve defense and protection
   Cult : Guard is on your side 50%, fewer followers, but they are more rabid, stronger, and will do more things for you, including less than legal things.  Holy Powers involve strengthening followers and subverting city guards

Thief
   Sneak : Hide in the shadows, pick locks
   Brute : Protection Rackets and Bank Jobs.  More visible, but you get power quicker  (Also raises notoriety: chance NPCs will recognize you)

Arcanist
   Demonologist : Powers from Hell.  You get subtle demon buffs and powerful minions (Strength buffs, wings, + demon minions)
   Necromancer : Powers from Death.  You get massive personal buffs and weak minions.  (Turn into a Lich, 1 Franky Golem, many skeletons and zombies)


Minimum players is a must.  It's important that you don't move against the other players without exposing yourself (so at 3 players, if you jump at one, you're all out there for the other to strike you, plus you're likely exposed to the city.)

[Asehujiko]

Let's try to not make this too complicated, shall we? Random maps should be kept on hold for now so we can make a few solid ones for playtesting, like this:
ug_castle_town.map
ug_hamlet.map
ug_precinct.map
ug_slums.map
ug_slums_no_guard.map
Or whatever we can decide on.

[Granite26]

Let's try to not make this too complicated, shall we? Random maps should be kept on hold for now so we can make a few solid ones for playtesting, like this:
ug_castle_town.map
ug_hamlet.map
ug_precinct.map
ug_slums.map
ug_slums_no_guard.map
Or whatever we can decide on.

I don't think that would work.  You'd need to divy up resources by what each player-type needs, and make them plentiful enough to handle multiples of one character while still bottlenecking players a bit.

That is, if there's only one +5 short sword on the map to be stolen, what's the other thief going to do?

Map Needs:

Things to Steal (for thief):  This means a few wealthy homes
Abandoned Buildings (enough so the thief can't stake out each in turn and find the demonologist in the first 5 mins before he's powered up)
Churches (similar purpose, but fewer are needed... it just shouldn't be obvious from the get go where the priest will be)
Graveyards (duh)
Stores (To legitimately buy things)
Fences (for thieves, again, enough so that staking them out is non-trivial)
Guard Houses (Safe Spots for anyone with low notoriety) and other guard sources.  1 might suffice

I would do:

Villages (each with most of the building types but not all)  Wooded map.  Lots of places to hide, but you are exposed going to and from them.  Travelling Merchants to rob
Rome (Lots of big buildings, big churches, huge graveyards)  Buildings are huge and have multiple functions, but connections are few
Paris (districts, broad streets, obvious church choice, catacombs.)  Everything is tied together with tight passageways.
Edinburgh (Small map) Castle on a hill, everything is closely packed.  Few choices, and it's hard to get away.

There should be some optional things that don't necessarily favor one class over the others....

[Servant Corps]

1) You're going to need to have a Kill Command in there also.

Somebody should LP Republic: The Revoultion, just to showcase how a similar game worked.

[Asehujiko]

Let's try to not make this too complicated, shall we? Random maps should be kept on hold for now so we can make a few solid ones for playtesting, like this:
ug_castle_town.map
ug_hamlet.map
ug_precinct.map
ug_slums.map
ug_slums_no_guard.map
Or whatever we can decide on.

I don't think that would work.  You'd need to divy up resources by what each player-type needs, and make them plentiful enough to handle multiples of one character while still bottlenecking players a bit.

That is, if there's only one +5 short sword on the map to be stolen, what's the other thief going to do?

Map Needs:

Things to Steal (for thief):  This means a few wealthy homes
Abandoned Buildings (enough so the thief can't stake out each in turn and find the demonologist in the first 5 mins before he's powered up)
Churches (similar purpose, but fewer are needed... it just shouldn't be obvious from the get go where the priest will be)
Graveyards (duh)
Stores (To legitimately buy things)
Fences (for thieves, again, enough so that staking them out is non-trivial)
Guard Houses (Safe Spots for anyone with low notoriety) and other guard sources.  1 might suffice

I would do:

Villages (each with most of the building types but not all)  Wooded map.  Lots of places to hide, but you are exposed going to and from them.  Travelling Merchants to rob
Rome (Lots of big buildings, big churches, huge graveyards)  Buildings are huge and have multiple functions, but connections are few
Paris (districts, broad streets, obvious church choice, catacombs.)  Everything is tied together with tight passageways.
Edinburgh (Small map) Castle on a hill, everything is closely packed.  Few choices, and it's hard to get away.

There should be some optional things that don't necessarily favor one class over the others....

I'm just saying we should get the basics working before we start on a random generator, not come up with a lit of maps we come up with in the full game. Also, why are you telling me off for not including enough resources in my maps, something i didn't mention at all?

[Servant Corps]

Um.

Right now, I'm the only one that even started on making it, only to stop when you guys wanted multiplayer instead of some single-player game.

[Granite26]

Not telling you off, just saying that I don't think 'slums' would work as a map when a thief would need something to steal.

Then I got to thinking about what maps I would do

[Little]

This is an awesome idea!

Now, if you could make it into an actual RPG/RTS...