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Re: REKT: Beyond The Edge (Main Thread)

#1052
I'm a bit late with the post, but I do have a perfectly good reason for that. I've been working out some major changes to things that I think we're going to implement prior to the next mission. I had to make sure it all made sense while it was all still fresh in my mind. I'll detail everything soon. (To be absolutely clear, in case anyone thinks it - these are not "You guys did something bad" changes - these are "things are broken and I am fixing them so I can eventually turn it into a working tabletop game" changes.)

Finishing up the post today! It's mostly done already, just need to assemble it and polish. Apologies again for the delay :) There shouldn't be any more of these. Just had a big road bump to cross over.
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Re: REKT: Beyond The Edge (Main Thread)

#1053
Well, RIP Ishmael, he was the easiest character to play, but quite honestly, I was running out of Noodly materials for him. Just shows that Pastafarianism is not a true religion - the Scriptures had no system at all, just random stupidities written to a vaguely defined narrative :(

Anyway, it was nice while it lasted, and his death was true to the character.

I think I'll take a break from REKT for a bit - this summer is very demanding work- and science- wise, but I'll be back with my serious character (Beary) at some point in the near future, if Tal is okay with that :squirrel:
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Re: REKT: Beyond The Edge (Main Thread)

#1054
I will say I didn't enjoy killing him, especially not in that manner. Mebasha is a sick, twisted individual. Ishmael really deserved better than that, but I'm glad you think his death was true to the character. :)

No worries about taking a break. You can come back whenever you have time for it. And do realize that Beary is still going to need some massive overhauls if I'm going to accept him - such as, for instance, not being a bear. :P

re: pastafarianism: I think, like most religions, it'll end up evolving over time. Pastafarianism of 3152 is probably a lot more coherent and religion-like than pastafarianism of 2019. Although I am somewhat concerned about whether Pastafarianism is copyrighted and such... might make it a bit hard to make REKT into a publishable tabletop game... :think:



In the meantime, we're back down to nine players, and there's no more waiting list. SO, at this point, it's really "first come, first served". If we don't have any new players coming in, we'll just keep it at nine for now I suppose.
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Re: REKT: Beyond The Edge (Main Thread)

#1057
Talvieno wrote:
Sat Jul 20, 2019 11:34 am
No worries about taking a break. You can come back whenever you have time for it. And do realize that Beary is still going to need some massive overhauls if I'm going to accept him - such as, for instance, not being a bear. :P
Damn :ghost: I really liked the idea of him arriving to the Nemesis frozen, as a part of the meat supplies :lol:

I might go with the evil twisted hacker character I've made as an example of intentionally difficult gameplay, then :lol:
re: pastafarianism: I think, like most religions, it'll end up evolving over time. Pastafarianism of 3152 is probably a lot more coherent and religion-like than pastafarianism of 2019. Although I am somewhat concerned about whether Pastafarianism is copyrighted and such... might make it a bit hard to make REKT into a publishable tabletop game... :think:
It is not really copy-righted, as far as I know. The general rule is that you can put it on anything you want, but you shouldn't profit from it - that is, you can't sell the images of the Lord with the goal of accumulating riches. This leaves including it / mentioning it in anything you make and sell for profit open to interpretation...but you can actually contact the church founder directly for clarification.
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Re: REKT: Beyond The Edge (Main Thread)

#1059
I decided to bin Boris since I really couldn't get myself in his mind anymore (I started making him when I still played the doc)
So here is my new proposal.
I will complete the purchases and other questions if this one is accepted. :)

Name: Alexander (Alex)
Age: 106
Gender: Male
Personal Information: Alex is a 106 year old senior. He has gray hair and a wrinkled, friendly looking face.
At 16 he joined the interstellar navy.
At this time drugs and addiction were common in the navy. Like everyone else Alex got hooked.
His military career ended when he tried to smuggle a large amount of drugs into the base, he got caught and got a dishonorable discharge at the age of 23.
That's when the street life started for Alex, he lived in the streets of his dirty home planet, begging money together to get from fix to fix.
At 27, after living on the streets for 4 years, he almost died on an overdose. That's when he decided to fix his life and to go into rehab.
In total Alex was 10 years in rehab, relapsing several times.
At 37 he officially considered himself clean and managed to get himself a simple office job as a clerk in a bank.
He worked for 23 years in the bank until a planet-wide economical crisis forced the bank to lay of some personnel, including Alex.
At 60 years old, Alex was back on the streets, with no job and little money.
He lived from his savings for 2 years, finally finding a job off-planet.
He moved to a nearby asteroid mining station to work as a bookkeeper.
Over the years, Alex got promoted a couple of times, allowing him more access to the companies books.
This allowed him to embezzle money from the company.
At 90, Alex was allowed to retire.
He manged to live a good live for 16 years, making good use from the money he embezzled.
However, this is when his world collapsed underneath him, an inspection of the companies books brought the embezzlement to light and Alex was send of to REKT as a punishment.
Personality: Alex is an easygoing, kind person. He usually wouldn't hurt a fly and is always prepared to offer advice or a hand of help.
Alex has an addictive personality, while he was able to recover from his addiction in his early life and is mostly able to resist the call of drugs. He would be easily tempted to fall back into addiction if he would meet the wrong persons.
Connected to this, Alex is easily influenced by group pressure.
Reason your character got REKT: Got caught for embezzlement 16 years after the fact. Old age does not appear to be a good excuse to not be REKT.
Stats:
  Energy: 0
  Durability: -1
  Maneuverability: 0
  Hacking: -2
  Computer: 0
  PSI Unit: 2
  Robotics: 0
  Engines: 0
Skills:
  Charisma: 0
  Intuition: 0
  Handiwork: -1
  Conventional: 0
  Unconventional: -2
  Exotics: 1
  General Knowledge: 1
  Auxiliary: 0

Purchases:
Spoiler:      SHOW
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Re: REKT: Beyond The Edge (Main Thread)

#1060
It's a good character idea. I could see Alex becoming a pretty strong part of the REKT group. As per usual, though, I do have thoughts/suggestions. Please don't take ANY of this to mean "he's a bad character and I don't like him". :P Because that's not what it means. I just want to see you develop him a bit further.

Your personality for him, as currently listed, can be condensed to "old guy, nice and gentle, easily influenced, used to take drugs". In my head, I can "unpack" that to equal his personality - and that's not many words, which means it's very loosely defined. "Old guy, nice and gentle, easily influenced" still allows room for "not that intelligent", "lazy", "scared of everything", "likes to make jokes", "avid reader", "occasionally has fainting spells", "likes to bodybuild", "enjoys gardening", etc etc etc. Some of those are easier to rule out than others, of course, but all of them are feasible, which means he could probably use being filled out a bit more.

Next, he doesn't have any real "twists" to him - he's fairly straightforward and doesn't have any "hooks" to grab the attention of either myself, or the other players. "Old" is new - I'm pretty sure we haven't had anyone over a hundred yet - but simply being old isn't really enough to get someone to say "huh, that's cool, I'd like my character to be in a team with him; it sounds fun".

And, finally, I'm going to have to mention the age. :P Just as a matter of course. Alexander is 106 years old, yes? His age equivalent to today, in each "cultural zone" of the galaxy, would be roughly:
  • Coreworlds: 70ish
  • Inner mid: 80ish
  • Outer mid: 90ish
From your description, it isn't quite clear where he lived, although you called it a "dirty home planet", so I'm going to guess it wasn't a coreworld - those are usually kept up well, and problematic people get shipped offworld - "problematic" here often meaning "homeless" or "run-of-the-mill criminal". Him only being allowed to retire at 90 sounds more like a fairly harsh inner-mid, which could work if he didn't actually see any action during his tour of service in the military. I'm going to go with that, since you didn't clearly define it. We'll say, in today's years, he's about 80 or so. And that brings me to a new, exciting problem that I've never actually had to deal with before:

I don't have a clue of how to handle old age.

I figure there ought to be some kind of penalty - after all, it wouldn't make sense to have a 90-year-old that could easily parkour their way through an obstacle course, or jump right back up if they happened to fall over. 80 year olds tend to be fairly fragile and slow, and in order to stay within the realm of believability there would need to be some kind of impact on your character. I can't imagine letting him level strength or durability up to +2, for instance, and even 0 feels like it's kind of pushing the limits of suspension of disbelief in terms of game mechanics vs story. So, I'll ask this: Are you willing to artificially limit yourself from leveling Energy/Strength/Durability/Maneuverability higher than 0, and are you willing to still roleplay him like he's an 80-year-old man? :P
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Re: REKT: Beyond The Edge (Main Thread)

#1061
Going to put this in its own post, as it's a completely different topic altogether and I don't want it to get mixed in with the stuff for Cha0zz's character.


I will be doing a complete rework of stats and skills at the end of this mission.
The stat/skill system we're using right now is almost a straight rip from Einsteinian Roulette. I never thought to question how he did things because I (mistakenly) assumed that he would have perfected his system, and questioning it was pointless. After four years, and a great deal more experience than I had when I started, I can see now that it needs a massive overhaul - if I ever plan to turn it into a working tabletop game, anyway (which I do). I can handle this system perfectly well, and so can you guys - but that's because I run it like it's a story, and not a DnD style game. If I put this in the hands of a DnD DM and their players, the whole thing would fall to pieces in a heartbeat. The system is HEAVILY skewed towards all characters being "jacks of all trades", because each level is worth a LOT less than the one before it, and the cost increase between each is fairly steep. I also really don't like how it all but forces you to keep your minimum stats as minimum stats. All that does is narrow a player's options, and that's not fun for anyone at the table AND not very realistic - it virtually breaks suspension of disbelief all by itself.

Important to note: However I decide to do it, keep in mind that I don't want it to actually have ANY effect on your characters. Their stats and skills define them as a common language between players and GM. I want them to be able to remain (mostly, at least) unchanged, so we don't have to worry about something like "My character is overpowered after the changes," or worse, "My character feels underpowered now".

Among the potential (very early WIP) changes (none of it set in stone yet) (with numbers provided solely for ease of discussion; they are in no particular order at all):

  1. All stats will be increased by either 2 or 3. This is a (mostly) cosmetic change that will simply mean that the lowest stat you could have is simply 0 (or 1). The reason behind this idea is so that new players don't see a "negative" as "it cannot be done". Even without modifiers, a -1 with conventional can still get a lucky roll and hit their target. With modifiers, their chances could increase by a wide margin. (This also means that today's "5" would then be equal to 7 or 8, depending on +2/+3).
  2. I'm going to unify character creation and leveling into a single system. The current system is interesting but it breaks as soon as you start adding players later in the game. The reason is complicated so I won't get into it here.
  3. Each stat will (probably) be worth (relative to each other!) the number of the level you're leveling to. For example, leveling from 0 to 1 would be 1, 1 to 2 would be 2, etc (or 100, 200, 300 - I'd need room to grant bits of XP here and there of course).
  4. Handiwork will probably get split into two parts: Medical and Mechanical. It doesn't make sense that every doctor instantly knows how to fix a spaceship. That ought to be split up.
  5. Ship stats MAY get split off into their own segment of stats. Not sure what I'm going to do with that, but I like the idea of getting rid of the whole "you are equal to your ship" idea, because it's confusing as hell when you guys decide to pilot an ally's ship.
  6. If ship stats get split out, they would be condensed to "Energy, Durability, Maneuverability, Robotics, Engines" (and possibly something else for psi/computer? dunno?). Anything else is a bit superfluous - like the "extra" hacking "stat" we already have. Why would we even need that, right? Even Robotics might be condensed to something else, seeing as it's not very useful by itself anyway, but I'm not entirely sure on that point. I haven't really given that much thought.
  7. Hacking will probably become known as "Security", which honestly should've happened ages ago, as I've used it for any security skill anyway.
  8. Not sure what I'm going to do with PDA. I'll either stick it into hacking, or stick it into computers.
  9. Hacking and computers will be moved to the right side, and may be condensed. Perception (the perception half of what is now Computers) will stay on the left side. Charisma and Intuition will also probably move to the left side.
  10. You will get a single pool of points that you can distribute wherever the hell you want. Various "areas" of stats/skills may cost more or less relative to each other. Not sure on that yet. If it happens, core stats (strength, willpower, agility, intuition, etc) would take more to level than core skills (conventional, mechanical, general knowledge, etc), perhaps on a 5:3 or 3:2 ratio or similar. Something like that. It's really WIP right now.
  11. There MAY be something akin to a piloting stat. I'm still not sure how that's going to work, but I like the idea of being able to be a good pilot specifically.
  12. No idea what I'm going to do with auxiliary. That's always been the "odd one out". I've always tried to "make it work" by assigning random shit to it. Well, guess what - it's never going to work. I should've just accepted that ages ago.
  13. Side note, I am horrified by all the wiki work this is going to create for me. But, you know, tough luck. Has to be done sometime, right?
  14. If we have a piloting stat, I may make specific piloting stats for other kinds of vehicles. No idea how that'll work or how I'll balance it. Tentatively I've considered adding 1 point to all ship skills per 2 levels. I've even toyed with the idea of just making CASKETs all have the same stats, and then you can improve them by upgrading a (relatively expensive) piloting skill. No idea. Can't really settle on anything solid, but I have time, I guess.
  15. I would probably remove the limit on how powerful a stat/skill can be at character creation. I don't think we'd even need that anymore. There WOULD be, however, limits on the number of things you can leave at zero. From preliminary tests, it looks like there would be a limit of a minimum of 5 zeroes over stats/skills, and a maximum of 10. This would keep players from doing the horribly-annoying "I want 0 in everything" which just ends up getting them killed, and also helps (on the other end of the scale) keep them from trying to set everything except one stat to 0. Likewise, there may also be a limit on the number of 1s you can have at start. Again, dunno. Too early for anything to be solid.

Everything else is fine and can mostly be left as-is. I'd let players rebuild their characters however they want, as long as they stick fairly close to what their character's personality and abilities already are. Then we'd just keep playing, and I'd iron out any problems as we went along.

(Finally, I'm aware that while it might be clear to me (everything above), I may not have made my intentions entirely clear to everyone else. Questions/comments/suggestions/thoughts are very welcome and, indeed, encouraged.)
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Re: REKT: Beyond The Edge (Main Thread)

#1064
It's a good character idea. I could see Alex becoming a pretty strong part of the REKT group. As per usual, though, I do have thoughts/suggestions. Please don't take ANY of this to mean "he's a bad character and I don't like him". :P Because that's not what it means. I just want to see you develop him a bit further.

Your personality for him, as currently listed, can be condensed to "old guy, nice and gentle, easily influenced, used to take drugs". In my head, I can "unpack" that to equal his personality - and that's not many words, which means it's very loosely defined. "Old guy, nice and gentle, easily influenced" still allows room for "not that intelligent", "lazy", "scared of everything", "likes to make jokes", "avid reader", "occasionally has fainting spells", "likes to bodybuild", "enjoys gardening", etc etc etc. Some of those are easier to rule out than others, of course, but all of them are feasible, which means he could probably use being filled out a bit more.
Good point, I will describe his personality better


Next, he doesn't have any real "twists" to him - he's fairly straightforward and doesn't have any "hooks" to grab the attention of either myself, or the other players. "Old" is new - I'm pretty sure we haven't had anyone over a hundred yet - but simply being old isn't really enough to get someone to say "huh, that's cool, I'd like my character to be in a team with him; it sounds fun".
Actually one of the things I was going for was for a character to be without a real twist, a character with a fairly normal (to some point) background that could've been an average person you meet on the street (ok, maybe not completely average with the drug history but still also not a master hacker, martial arts specialist or super genius) but I'm willing to try to flesh him out a little bit more to give you some more stuff to work with :)

And, finally, I'm going to have to mention the age. :P Just as a matter of course. Alexander is 106 years old, yes? His age equivalent to today, in each "cultural zone" of the galaxy, would be roughly:
  • Coreworlds: 70ish
  • Inner mid: 80ish
  • Outer mid: 90ish
From your description, it isn't quite clear where he lived, although you called it a "dirty home planet", so I'm going to guess it wasn't a coreworld - those are usually kept up well, and problematic people get shipped offworld - "problematic" here often meaning "homeless" or "run-of-the-mill criminal". Him only being allowed to retire at 90 sounds more like a fairly harsh inner-mid, which could work if he didn't actually see any action during his tour of service in the military. I'm going to go with that, since you didn't clearly define it. We'll say, in today's years, he's about 80 or so. And that brings me to a new, exciting problem that I've never actually had to deal with before:
Around 80 is perfect, I had to guess a bit how the age would scale bit this sounds about like I would've wanted it. And indeed, he didn't see a lot of military action, I will also clarify that

I don't have a clue of how to handle old age.

I figure there ought to be some kind of penalty - after all, it wouldn't make sense to have a 90-year-old that could easily parkour their way through an obstacle course, or jump right back up if they happened to fall over. 80 year olds tend to be fairly fragile and slow, and in order to stay within the realm of believability there would need to be some kind of impact on your character. I can't imagine letting him level strength or durability up to +2, for instance, and even 0 feels like it's kind of pushing the limits of suspension of disbelief in terms of game mechanics vs story. So, I'll ask this: Are you willing to artificially limit yourself from leveling Energy/Strength/Durability/Maneuverability higher than 0, and are you willing to still roleplay him like he's an 80-year-old man? :P
Don't worry, I never planned to level his strength or durability above 0, actually my original build had negative values for both but that turned out to be kinda shitty for carrying actual weapons. That's also the reason I gave him positives in PSI, exotics and general knowledge since that allows me to use weaponry not relying on stats and skills that would not fit with someone of old age.
To answer your question: Yes I'm fully committed to role-playing an 80-year old frail, breakable man and am willing to accept any penalty you would impose for old age. (for example if you tell me that I get a -1 on all rolls requiring strength go ahead, as I said I only left energy at 0 to have some weapon access)
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Re: REKT: Beyond The Edge (Main Thread)

#1065
Very pleased with your responses, especially re: age. :D
(for example if you tell me that I get a -1 on all rolls requiring strength go ahead, as I said I only left energy at 0 to have some weapon access)
No need. I have no doubts that you'll be able to handle him well without any of that. I just had to address it, as I said, as a matter of standard procedure.


And now, I'm going to go to bed, as I probably should have done a couple hours ago (but things kept me up, as they always do). Today was mostly lost to a surprise migraine (I never get those, so it was a bit out of left field) - and I should be able to finish the post tomorrow.
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