MU* Wishlists

Jennkryst

Edit to add: some idiot whispered ‘Exalted’ into my ear recently, so my hyper-focus has been on re-learning that pile of complicated rules.

AND I GOT TO THINKING…

I know WoD has problems working on Ares, because powers and dots.

… But what about Exalted? Charms are specific ‘have them or you don’t’ powers, so can be managed with a list. Ditto artifacts and such. No need for an equipment/inventory system like I’d want for a Star Wars game. But. Could work?

Testament

@Jennkryst Honestly? If I were to actually make something like that, I’d probably do something more original and custom as opposed to using an already existing system/theme.

Jennkryst

@Testament That’s fair. I wasn’t sure if the problem was Masquerade LORE or mechanics.

Testament

@Jennkryst The idea of using something like Exalted Charms for integration into Ares is actually really interesting. That’s something to consider.

Jennkryst

@Testament The best part is, unless you’re in a plot where tracking motes is important, you can always just assume pools are full at the start, and track during the scene, so no need for game-side pool tracking (… of motes. Willpower or Limit, maybe. HMM.)

This also raises the question of Exalted Essence, which is meant to be a lot more streamlined, too. Lots of potential.

Pyrephox

I was making dumb game pitches to someone and accidentally stumbled on one that I actually really liked.

Genre: Urban Fantasy/Horror
Premise: Definitely borrows from anthology style games like HorrorMU* and the Network, but I wanted to take it in a different direction.

PCs have all come to the city with the kind of need that you just can’t fill by ordinary means. Maybe it’s to be another person. Maybe it’s to destroy someone utterly. Maybe it’s to bring a loved one back from the dead. Whatever it is, it’s an obsession. Enough of one that every PC has chased rumor and mad vision to come to this city and find a specific door. Behind that door, you’re offered the chance to play a series of games. Winners get prizes beyond wealth or fame: it might be magic, or a strange device, or one step closer to making your obsession a reality. Losers die and end up back in their beds, living with that trauma. But like any good casino, you can always play again…

So, basically, PCs would be in the city between Games, and it’s a largely normal city - it has a higher percentage of Players who dropped out of the Games with their winnings, deciding that their obsession wasn’t worth the pain after all. So you can have a crime boss with magic or a Player’s death releasing the murderous dolls that were her prize in one of the Games, on top of all the other city plots you can have or personal plots like a Player’s family not understanding why they abandoned everything to live like a bum.

Games are contained ‘anthology style’ plots; every Player active gets an invitation to them, but if you’re not interested in that plot, you still have plenty to do in the city. They’re short, only about 3-4 weeks, and usually pretty brutal - there’s most often only one winner. Some games, you remember who you are. Others, you take on a new persona for the Game and don’t recognize that you’re in a Game at all. And I wanted to open it up so that people could pitch their own Games within the guidelines (there has to be an element of competition, winner-take-all, etc.) and run them, so that you could have multiple Games running at the same time.

I ended up writing more than I should have about the game’s metaplot, antagonists, lore, etc.

Coin

@Pyrephox said in MU* Wishlists:

I was making dumb game pitches to someone and accidentally stumbled on one that I actually really liked.

Genre: Urban Fantasy/Horror
Premise: Definitely borrows from anthology style games like HorrorMU* and the Network, but I wanted to take it in a different direction.

PCs have all come to the city with the kind of need that you just can’t fill by ordinary means. Maybe it’s to be another person. Maybe it’s to destroy someone utterly. Maybe it’s to bring a loved one back from the dead. Whatever it is, it’s an obsession. Enough of one that every PC has chased rumor and mad vision to come to this city and find a specific door. Behind that door, you’re offered the chance to play a series of games. Winners get prizes beyond wealth or fame: it might be magic, or a strange device, or one step closer to making your obsession a reality. Losers die and end up back in their beds, living with that trauma. But like any good casino, you can always play again…

So, basically, PCs would be in the city between Games, and it’s a largely normal city - it has a higher percentage of Players who dropped out of the Games with their winnings, deciding that their obsession wasn’t worth the pain after all. So you can have a crime boss with magic or a Player’s death releasing the murderous dolls that were her prize in one of the Games, on top of all the other city plots you can have or personal plots like a Player’s family not understanding why they abandoned everything to live like a bum.

Games are contained ‘anthology style’ plots; every Player active gets an invitation to them, but if you’re not interested in that plot, you still have plenty to do in the city. They’re short, only about 3-4 weeks, and usually pretty brutal - there’s most often only one winner. Some games, you remember who you are. Others, you take on a new persona for the Game and don’t recognize that you’re in a Game at all. And I wanted to open it up so that people could pitch their own Games within the guidelines (there has to be an element of competition, winner-take-all, etc.) and run them, so that you could have multiple Games running at the same time.

I ended up writing more than I should have about the game’s metaplot, antagonists, lore, etc.

Sounds like a less horrific and more consensual Alice in Borderland (with more overt magic and fantasy stuff).

Aria

Possibly a weird question given this crowd but are there any halfway decent World of Darkness/Chronicles of Darkness games open at the moment?

I don’t know why, but I’ve just had this weird jones for Mage all weekend. I miss it but with MUDstats down and most of the other MU-aggregators being shit for sorting by gameline, I don’t know how to find out what’s open.

junipersky

I want straight D&D, but in a Mu* style.

Jennkryst

@Aria Depending on your definition of ‘halfway decent’ and if this includes oWoD or just nWoD, the answer is a solid ‘maybe?’, with Liberation, Fulcrum (which is the new Metro), CoH, and the not-quite-CoH but technically also Proapect games all… existing.

I’m not sure if the San Francisco game is still up or not… can’t check until after work. Um. Not sure about others.

Livia

I don’t know of any Chronicles of Darkness games open and active at the moment. There’s a few oWoD games, but I just struggle to get into that setting and system.

Rucket

Kinda wild that CofD / WoD is in such a down place right now. Felt like just a few years ago there was some big games to play on. I kinda wonder what happened.

Jennkryst

@Rucket Miami got announced, people didn’t want to waste time on Fallcoast if NEW CHARACTERS were happening soon, then Miami… never finished.

Been a few smaller games pop up now and again, but they were never ALL SPHERE games, so never grew a tent pole.

Or, my alternative (joke) theory: refusal to add Mummy hit them with a curse.

Rucket

@Jennkryst said in MU* Wishlists:

@Rucket Miami got announced, people didn’t want to waste time on Fallcoast if NEW CHARACTERS were happening soon, then Miami… never finished.

Been a few smaller games pop up now and again, but they were never ALL SPHERE games, so never grew a tent pole.

Or, my alternative (joke) theory: refusal to add Mummy hit them with a curse.

Yeah that’s fair, it seemed like a lot of the Miami stuff was more recent than it actually was. Oh well, maybe someone will come along and make another big tent game again one day.

icanbeyourmuse

I wouldn’t mind a WoD game that has Possessed, Immortals, and Sin Eaters (the 3 areas I like the most).

Sin Eaters: They can get stupidly powerful if you finangle things right. Unsurprising since that seems to be the way of the higher tiered supers.

Possessed: I love playing overpowered Possessed where it is hard to tell who is in charge (the person or the demon) and gear the Vestments for all the sins to the concept I am going for.

Immortals: Body Thieves, Reborn, Blood Bathers are my favourites. The others are interesting, though.

I think my WoD re-occurring theme is I like the more duo personality types that could have, at one point, been good but went down a dark path so they are in the grey, bordering on being in the black.

Jennkryst

@icanbeyourmuse said in MU* Wishlists:

Immortals: Body Thieves, Reborn, Blood Bathers are my favourites. The others are interesting, though.

Interestingly enough, most immortals fall under the half-splat (ghoul, wolfblood, etc) of 2e Mummy, since they all cross paths through history like highlanders or torporing vampires.

icanbeyourmuse

@Jennkryst I believe Pure is the only one not considered lower tiered. Been a while since I looked, though.

Livia

@Rucket said in MU* Wishlists:

@Jennkryst said in MU* Wishlists:

@Rucket Miami got announced, people didn’t want to waste time on Fallcoast if NEW CHARACTERS were happening soon, then Miami… never finished.

Been a few smaller games pop up now and again, but they were never ALL SPHERE games, so never grew a tent pole.

Or, my alternative (joke) theory: refusal to add Mummy hit them with a curse.

Yeah that’s fair, it seemed like a lot of the Miami stuff was more recent than it actually was. Oh well, maybe someone will come along and make another big tent game again one day.

I feel like part of it is being a lot harder to find people willing to staff the CofD games too. Miami didn’t happen, a few others have popped up but staff burnout and RL and all the other things that happen eventually cause them to slow down and stop, but I’ve always noticed not a lot of people staffing.

For the CofD side, getting TinyMUX up and going and then getting Theno’s code all setup is not super difficult but it’s a decent chunk of effort vs just doing something different on Ares. A lot easier to get going. Plus I think a lot of people lately just kinda prefer Ares? I’m not sure, that’s just a vibe I get with no real evidence.

There’s been discussions before about CofD/WoD on Ares of course.

Jennkryst

Since it’s advertised on the other page, I’ll link to there, but 2e Mage Game definitely did exist at one point, and I think it is still up, and is Mage only (I think).

Edit to add: while it is up and I could connect to it, it looks like the game fizzled out. WOE.

Aria

@Jennkryst said in MU* Wishlists:

Since it’s advertised on the other page, I’ll link to there, but 2e Mage Game definitely did exist at one point, and I think it is still up, and is Mage only (I think).

Edit to add: while it is up and I could connect to it, it looks like the game fizzled out. WOE.

Oof. That looks like something I would’ve loved, but somehow missed.

As for Ares, the big draw for me is the web portal allowing distracted or async scenes. That’s been a big help for managing the fact that I sometimes have to wander off to deal with a string of panicked messages for my capstone group or some crazy change to an assignment that my professor made, as I’ve been managing a full-time courseload more semsters than not while also working full-time at a more demanding job than I had when I started the program.

Other than that feature, I’m honestly pretty neutral re: systems and FS3.