I've only played two of Emil's games. One was an Elder Scrolls game, and the other Theomachy. In both cases the games ended prematurely unfortunately, but I do like his style and respect his GM abilities.
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Master of the Galaxy 4 was my favourite but, with no disrespect intended to Alex, that had a lot more to do with a player base that was constantly creating lore, deep politicking, and players making an interesting setting than any of the actual gameplay (though having tried and failed to start a game several times, I only have the utmost respect for Alex's dedication to running a complex stat based game.) I definitely felt like I was contributing despite not being particularly powerful or important in the scope of the game.
A close second is Star Reach: Merc Wars. Lots of creativity, and original concept, and I haven;t played a game before or since that's been even remotely similar. Stellar GMing from Bishop, too.
A close second is Star Reach: Merc Wars. Lots of creativity, and original concept, and I haven;t played a game before or since that's been even remotely similar. Stellar GMing from Bishop, too.
Asking about one's favorite game is tough, since there are many good games. All the ones mentioned so far were great games, and on a short list for favorite games of mine. But I'd say my favorite is between MGaSO 4 and Diadochi: Fate of an Empire. Agorath was my first game, and I loved it for actually having an ending, and the sheer length it had from dedicated players, but as my first game I didn't contribute as much as I would have liked, and there's a lot I would have done differently. MGaSO 4 and Diadochi were (and are in the case of the latter) games that I put far more dedication into and I very much feel like I earned my place in the world. Whether creating and nurturing a political ideology in the former or struggling to keep the Antigonid dynasty alive and relevant in the latter, I'm proud of where I took them, even if mistakes were made on the way.
XVG and Alex are great GMs who respond to their players and leave many options open to their players, while keeping them within the bounds of reason. XVG in particular deserves praise for keeping Diadochi running for nearly a year now, even through periods of lessened IC. Alex might have ended MGaSO 4 much sooner than I, or any of the players, would have prefered, but even months later we're still eagerly awaiting the remainder of the promised epilogue (wink wink nudge nudge). That's a good sign of success in my book.
XVG and Alex are great GMs who respond to their players and leave many options open to their players, while keeping them within the bounds of reason. XVG in particular deserves praise for keeping Diadochi running for nearly a year now, even through periods of lessened IC. Alex might have ended MGaSO 4 much sooner than I, or any of the players, would have prefered, but even months later we're still eagerly awaiting the remainder of the promised epilogue (wink wink nudge nudge). That's a good sign of success in my book.
My favourite ever game was forum of the Dead.
It was just fantastic.
And Fitzgerald was born, became hated, failed at suicide, had a legitimate physch assessment that correctly guessed his problems. Went crazy, got demoted twice, lead his people on an exodus to somewhere.
But failed to sleep with the police chief
Shame there was never an epilogue
It was just fantastic.
And Fitzgerald was born, became hated, failed at suicide, had a legitimate physch assessment that correctly guessed his problems. Went crazy, got demoted twice, lead his people on an exodus to somewhere.
But failed to sleep with the police chief
Shame there was never an epilogue
Oddly enough, despite the fact that I deeply enjoy the Werewolf games on this forum, it's hard to call a wide amalgamation of games a "favorite game" so I'd have to go with one of two choices.
Fallout Realism: East Coast: Because the mechanics were solid, the room for IC was immense, and the player interaction was brilliant and fun. It also introduced me to Fallout, which I've had a great time learning about.
Landfallen 2: Iis took a game that was fundamentally weak in certain aspects (Landfallen 1) such as the distances between players and the rest of the world limiting player interaction, and turned it into a game that I have had a blast playing for (has it really been most of a year?) a good while. Mechanics are solid, player interaction is great (with a few minor exceptions) and the lore has been consistently interesting throughout. The only real downside has been the lack of general activity that comes from being on the forums for so long.
Fallout Realism: East Coast: Because the mechanics were solid, the room for IC was immense, and the player interaction was brilliant and fun. It also introduced me to Fallout, which I've had a great time learning about.
Landfallen 2: Iis took a game that was fundamentally weak in certain aspects (Landfallen 1) such as the distances between players and the rest of the world limiting player interaction, and turned it into a game that I have had a blast playing for (has it really been most of a year?) a good while. Mechanics are solid, player interaction is great (with a few minor exceptions) and the lore has been consistently interesting throughout. The only real downside has been the lack of general activity that comes from being on the forums for so long.
Yeah I can't fix that unfortunately, learned that lesson in L1. But thanks <blushing embarrassingly>
So tomorrow night I'll be leaving for the rest of the week due to Thanksgiving break. Before I went I just wanted to start a topic of discussion. What are your thoughts on the delta of randomness. By this I mean the change (delta) between rolls of the dice (randomness).
So for example in a game there are rolls that determine damage, that uses a 6 sided dice. It looks like this:
As you can see the Δ of randomness varies from individual segments. The change between roll 1 and 6 is 90. This is the domain of the roll, nothing else can give more or less damage than these. Yet what if a 20 sided dice was used? Maybe a 100 sided? The change between rolls would be less, which means less Δ. Yet, the number of rolls is where the randomness comes in. For a 6 side dice you have a 1 in 6 chance to roll 90% damage or 0%, that's a 16666 repeating% chance for any given roll. in a 20 sided dice it becomes 5%. In a 100 sided dice 1%. So which would you rather? More breath of change between rolls but less of them, or less change between rolls but more randomness? There is a little more depth to this topic yet I just wanted to take it one piece at a time.
So for example in a game there are rolls that determine damage, that uses a 6 sided dice. It looks like this:
- Roll 1 = 90% damage
- Roll 2 = 70% damage
- Roll 3 = 50% damage
- Roll 4 = 30% damage
- Roll 5 = 10% damage
- Roll 6 = 0% damage
As you can see the Δ of randomness varies from individual segments. The change between roll 1 and 6 is 90. This is the domain of the roll, nothing else can give more or less damage than these. Yet what if a 20 sided dice was used? Maybe a 100 sided? The change between rolls would be less, which means less Δ. Yet, the number of rolls is where the randomness comes in. For a 6 side dice you have a 1 in 6 chance to roll 90% damage or 0%, that's a 16666 repeating% chance for any given roll. in a 20 sided dice it becomes 5%. In a 100 sided dice 1%. So which would you rather? More breath of change between rolls but less of them, or less change between rolls but more randomness? There is a little more depth to this topic yet I just wanted to take it one piece at a time.
Wouldn't it be easier to use a number generator between the numbers of 0 and 10 and just apply the number as a percentage of damage done?
That entirely depends on what is being talked about. Generally, I think that GMs want to look at games as event driven just as much as driven by RNG. They want player actions to play a larger role, or at least an equivalent role, to luck in a game. For instance, in Landfallen 2, the Combat Roll system has been criticized because the luck of the dice determines who wins. Granted, if one has a much larger army one can afford to lose more people, and certain units are tougher than others, but all the actual fighting is done by dice. In this case, it's hard to say which is better. A narrow field of change between rolls would ensure that a player couldn't lose their entire army, and the game, just because they were unlucky and for no other reason. At the same time, there needs to be a balance so that the larger army doesn't always win. Ideally, there would be some sort of tactical order system, but seeing as that would be a bit complex, I would strive for something a bit in between. A moderate range with a lot of possible outcomes.
It seems a bit of an odd way to come at the question, as range and variance aren't necessarily related, and divisions don't have to be fixed. It's fairly common to have a fairly flat distribution, but with critical success and failure occurring rarely at each end for example.
So something that looks sort of like a bell curve? High probability in the middle where you'd expect about even outcome, with great success or great defeat at either ends?
I prefer a linear scale, jusr for ease on my end so if i forget something i can remember it easier, but I did have critical failures and successes which could only be activated at specific conditions in UoS.
I'm just theoreycrafting and the 100 sided dice was an example to make sure you got what I was talking about.
Edit:
News - I won't be here the rest of the week to check on this thread so has funs.
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Frankly, when theory comes in then you're putting WAY too much effort into the game imo.
Could be. Or could just be 1 = no damage, 2-19 = normal damage, 20 = double damage. Or anything else you can think of.
The ideal is that the theory is well thought out but not at all needed by the players. If you look at the Witness variation I had in one of the Werewolf games I ran, chance of success increased by 10% each night it went unused. Your expected success rate went unchanged whatever frequency you used it at* which meant players didn't actually need to know about probability to use it effectively. They could instinctively choose the variability they were comfortable with.
*Since Werewolf has elimination you're probably better off using it early and often, but it's not a huge difference.
You need to reach parity with the village.
Basically, you need to kill the villagers to the point there is the same amount of them as the werewolves.
There are already a bunch of threads for Werewolf. You don't need to hijack unrelated threads.
I elaborated above.
They just need to kill enough villagers in order to reach the same amount of villagers as wolves.
They just need to kill enough villagers in order to reach the same amount of villagers as wolves.