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[Egan_BW]

Oh dear.
If you can somehow make all that work, you shall be a god among GMs.

[Person]

I've been on a sort of Tremors kick lately for some bizarre reason. Just now I had the idea to make an RTD or Forum Game of some variety based on Tremors. Figures that whenever I get a good idea, it is when I'm trying to sleep. Anyone interested? Shouldn't be too difficult creating a setting of sorts. I don't plan on being too close to the movies or anything like that.

Just gonna throw down some stuff for later when I wake up just so I don't forget when I fall asleep. Mostly just loose ideas, not all these things are gonna apply at once probably.

Doesn't have to be chunky salsa, but probably will be. RTD mechanics might not necessarily happen, but it might be a good way to ensure that people actually fail sometimes, which would definitely make things more interesting.

Gameplay Possibilities:
1: Players are town residents. Escaping the town or killing all the graboids to win. People probably submit their own character.
2: Have one player control the graboids, the rest are town folk. Graboids win if all humans die. Probably will use mostly pms for both teams.
3: All players control their own graboid, and face townsfolk controlled by me. Kill humans to evolve maybe?
Restrictions:
1: Make character types limited. Not everyone can be a paranoid gun hoarder. People can still submit their own character though.
2: Pre-made characters, first come first serve.
3: Try to enforce IC behavior. These people probably shouldn't know anything about the monsters.

Note to self: Consider using the new forms introduced in the newer movies and not just the first one. Genre savvyness might make things too easy otherwise.

[ATHATH]

What is Tremors?

Been musing recently on an urban-magic sort of game.

The chestnut idea was just a little joke about how if mage hoodlums scratched up the paintjob on your car, they might write evil runes on it just to really ruin your life.

Also been having thoughts about spell catalysts being ordinary scavenged objects, belonging to various classes (wand, staff, broomstick, effigy, idol, etc or whatever) and casting spells dependent on what they were. E.g. a length of rusty copper pipe torn from the wall of an abandoned council block might cast spells to do with hot water and steam, or maybe gas and fire. And might have varying spells attuned if it was a wand or a staff.

Might allow for a lot of variety while still keeping the system lazy.

I'd play that.

[Person]

Its an old Kevin Bacon movie. One of the best. Sort of a low budget monster movie. If you haven't seen it you really should, its kind of a classic.

Edit for brief summery: Basically, protagonists and such live in a small town called Perfection, Nevada. Total Populations around 20 people. Suddenly town comes under attack by these big underground worms, they have to figure out how to escape or combat them. Notable for having really good direction. Very little wasted time. Most of the characters are actually quite intelligent about their situation as well, which isn't the usual fare in these sorts of movies. Generally speaking, the characters don't do stupid things for no reason, and only rarely can you say "They should have done this, that, or some other thing." Example: The monster is underground? Well then, let's get up on the roofs and figure out a plan for what to do from there.

The monsters are blind, heavily armored, and generally sense prey by vibrations. Sound is a sort of vibration of course, but walking on the ground is probably most deadly for you. They're also fairly intelligent, and learn and adapt over time. The first movie is generally the best, and there are 4 more films of varying quality(and apparently one more in the works), as well as a TV series.

Edit: As an aside, the urban magic thing sounds somewhat interesting.

[Harry Baldman]

You don't actually need to play by PMs in the versus mode if the monsters can't see, since you'll be describing the landscape in different terms to them in that case, so it'll be difficult to translate the information precisely. As a welcome side effect it'll also be actually watchable and a lot more playable.

[Person]

I guess that's true. I'll probably not be doing a round like that first though. It'll be easier to make sure everything works if I only have one team to work with, so the first scenario is probably what I'll go with. Still, I'll definitely consider letting the players be monsters if I run it again(assuming I run it at all).

[NJW2000]

So... I'd like some advice/info from gms on rolling.

Do you roll for enemies, or just take the player character's rolls and decide the outcome based on those exclusively?

With each method, how do you make some enemies stronger or weaker?

[FallacyofUrist]

Ho!

When I have enemies, I roll for their action results.

To make them stronger or weaker, I either "weight" them(a 5 against an imp might kill it, a 5 against a horned devil might... not) or give them bonuses to their rolls.

I don't see how you could do it any other way.

[TCM]

So... I'd like some advice/info from gms on rolling.

Do you roll for enemies, or just take the player character's rolls and decide the outcome based on those exclusively?

With each method, how do you make some enemies stronger or weaker?

I typically treat every enemy the same as I would the players, in that they have their own stats and rolls, so that the players feel like they have more variety and more possible solutions when facing different types of unique enemies.

There are various ways you can handle the different power levels among players and enemies. One is to concretely effect the rolls; in a D20 system, a player fighting a slightly more skilled enemy may face a -1 malus to their relevant combat rolls (or you can do the opposite and give that skilled enemy a +1, this all depends on the context of the game and situation) while someone who completely outclasses them in every way might result in them getting -10 or even higher.

In classic D&D fashion, you could give weaker enemies smaller die and larger enemies bigger die.

In a more Chunky Salsa style of game, you could simply use the direct context of the situation to determine the outcome of rolls. Say in one game with a D20 die, your standard human being punches a God character, with [20 vs. 1] roll. Even if it's the greatest punch they could possibly throw, it does absolutely nothing due to the power difference between the attacker and defender. As you can see, this system is better for games where players and enemies are mostly on the same power level, where either party getting a good roll would logically do damage to the receiver. This is especially prevalent in more realistic games with Human and/or Humanoids fighting one another.

[OceanSoul]

I'm going to post this before I forget. It's inspired by TankKit's accident with his recent suggestion game. It may be TOO meta, though.
It's called "Roll to Dodge Being a Suggestion Game". It would start with all players being the same average Joe, and the goal would be to become distinctly separate people. By controlling Joe with a specific personality over several turns, you would pop into existance as a person with that personality. HOWEVER, some new players/some of Joe's players would be assigned to that new person, called Bob. If a player, as one character, acts like another character, they move to that character. Maybe there's some other goal everyone's aiming for, like finding an artifact to permanently cleave Joe's personalities from him, but this is all I have for now. What do you think?

[Egan_BW]

That's pretty cool. I tend to like suggestion game-RTD hybrid ideas. One I thought up would involve the players being an AI, and every time that AI makes a copy some active player becomes that character. Or rather, due to the coinflip nature of it, they randomly become either the original or the copy.

[OceanSoul]

That's pretty cool. I tend to like suggestion game-RTD hybrid ideas. One I thought up would involve the players being an AI, and every time that AI makes a copy some active player becomes that character. Or rather, due to the coinflip nature of it, they randomly become either the original or the copy.

Might work, but I see two problems: First, AIs would come up with a single best course of action, so the potential randomness of PCs could easily disturb the suspension of disbelief. With a good enough explanation, it could work. Second, though how would an AI become multiple different people/bodies, with individual parts easily moving between said bodies?

[Egan_BW]

First, you would appear to be assuming something big about something that does not yet exist in real life. I see no reason that artificial life would be any less fallible than organic life.
Second, by creating a new body and putting a copy of its current mind inside. The important part is not that a certain "part" of that mind's personality leaves and inhabits a new mind, but that both minds have a shared history. The single player remembers having been the original, the suggestion hivemind also remembers having been the original. What was one person becomes two identical people, who then diverge.

[OceanSoul]

Good points. Also, it gave me an idea. What if, to make a body for a certain personality type, the players need to find a NPC with that or a similar personality. For example, if one PC distinctly had a destructive personality behind their suggestions, an arsonist, demolitionist, or other such person could become their new body. A pacifistic personality might be able to take the body of a priest, or maybe a vegetarian.

[Harry Baldman]

Good points. Also, it gave me an idea. What if, to make a body for a certain personality type, the players need to find a NPC with that or a similar personality. For example, if one PC distinctly had a destructive personality behind their suggestions, an arsonist, demolitionist, or other such person could become their new body. A pacifistic personality might be able to take the body of a priest, or maybe a vegetarian.

So if I was a compulsive nude arsonist who can work a room, that'd pretty much lock me into priesthood?