They didn’t have a plan. “They” being the writers. The Director admitted as much in one of the Director commentaries for the first season in the DVD set, and the moment I heard it I lost all interest in the series. Babylon 5 had established how one pulls off a well-planned sci-fi series a decade prior, and that numbskull thought he knew better.

@Yam

Philistines! You just don’t get my sophisticated, highbrow sense of humor.

@Jenn I loved the design of The Network but just didn’t jive with the theme. I wish there were more MU*s like it around.

@dvoraen I think it’s more of a “Git Good Waveform.” The exact skill the XP is ultimately going to go toward is spread across multiple possibilities until the player observes a particular skill needing to suddenly be increased during a dire moment, which causes the waveform to collapse into the needed skill. We know that this unintuitive bit of mathematics maps to physical reality with the double sleight experiment. A GM calls for a roll from a munchkin player who rolls, announces the result of the roll and that they succeeded, and quickly grabs the die with a sleight of hand before anyone can see it. When the GM first glances at the munchkin’s character sheet, they see barely visible pencil markings for all of the skills. When the GM asks for a closer look, the munchkin player engages in another sleight of hand, and suddenly the necessary skill is written in pen and at just the right level to pass the skill check.

EDITS: Improving the joke.

@Jennkryst

@catzilla

@Jennkryst I didn’t say you couldn’t, only that some systems use that mechanic and in some of those it’s only an optional mechanic.

In some ways, letting people suddenly up their skills mid-scene is a bit like quantum equipment in the OSR, where characters just buy generic “adventuring gear” then when they need something, one unit of gear becomes the specific item they need. Or the ability to do research and save the “knowledge” to answer a question in the future: https://todistantlands.blogspot.com/2016/01/books.html . It’s basically quantum skills.

What if a server has a special room (OOC makes the most sense, but I could also work with the right flavor) that one has to be in to spend XP? Then people couldn’t raise skills mid-scene without very obviously ducking out to do so.

@MisterBoring It sounds a bit similar to some of BRP’s games. Every time you fail a roll in a skill, you out a check by that skill. At the end of the adventure, you roll those skills. If you fail, the skill in increases by 1d4+1 points. If you succeed, it increases by just 1 point.

For MUSHes, I feel like my system makes sense. Since skill increases are incremental, you don’t have that scenario where a PC had a 2 in a skill one day, and a 7 the next. It also assumed the character is working on whatever skill(s) during the time that the player isn’t actively playing them, thereby benefitting people who aren’t super popular or have to play 16 hour a day for bunches of xp.

@Gashlycrumb I am also anti-XP as is probably well-known or know-ish at this point. If we have to go with advancement of that sort, I’d prefer a system where you set a skill or two that’s being worked on by the character, and, after some time, maybe with some random elements, it increases.

@catzilla

@Juniper Unless it’s a creative writing assignment.

I’ll be honest. If my sheet is hidden from others, I’m probably not going to use the numbers on it. Not because I am intentionally trying to cheat, but because I’m lazy and don’t want to put in the effort to look up the actual number. I’ll just use a number that’s roughly in the same ballpark, unless I know someone can call out my lazy ass. (Psssst, don’t tell my players I do this at the table as a GM. Though, they probably have guessed that considering that I seem to remember all those numbers so well without consulting my notes.)

@MisterBoring said in Coded Systems vs PDF Sheets:

At this point, it should be pretty simple for the staff of a game to create a Google Drive folder or something equivalent to hold the PDFs in a fashion that each character’s sheet can only be accessed by the player of the character and the staff of the game.

Everyone has to be able to see the stats if you’re just doing pdfs; otherwise, how do they know you’re rolling right? “Yes, I totally have five dots in every attribute and skill. You can’t see the pdf, but it’s totally there.”

@Raistlin said in Coded Systems vs PDF Sheets:

So I’m curious: would PDF sheets be a dealbreaker for you, or would it not really matter as long as the game itself was solid?

Nope. A lot of the games I played had that as the method, especially the Kushiel games. The only downside is that everyone can see your stats, so, if you’re trying to keep that hidden, coded stats it has to be.

@InkGolem The one located at the memory addresses starting at 0x7FFE4A71.

I think it would be help to clarify the distinction between the two. How many rules are needed before a “freeform” game is now a “system” game? It might be something like the Supreme Court’s definition of obscenity “I know it when I see it,” but it might be helpful to roughly delineate the boundaries, because I consider rules-lite RPGs to still be a system. If a book is being used to run a game, even if it’s only 10 pages, that’s a system to me. Whereas, kids playing cops and robbers in the backyard is freeform.

@Jumpscare The short-desc stuff is what I was meaning. I forgot to elaborate my thought in the previous post, but that’s exactly how it worked in a few of the RPIs I played.

I am pro-system for almost anything not at my dining room table. If I can’t pelt you with dice, meeples, pencils, or wads of paper for being a nuisance or coming up with inane drivel, I want some rules in place to govern our characters’ interactions.