Roleplaying Discussion

[Zeus Kabob]

This thread is for general discussion about RPs. Whether that means asking people to help you improve one of your RP ideas, asking people about their preferences and experiences with RPs, or writing down an RP idea you think is great and asking someone else to tell the story, it all goes here.

If you have an RP in the works and you're not looking for major revisions, you should make an OOC thread for it to expedite the recruitment process and make it easier for players to keep track of your progress instead of making a post here.

If you're just looking to shoot the shit with some friendly people, go to General Discussion. It's the forum meant for random chat and friendly banter.

[BlueLight]

So does any one have thoughts on how to do a effective DnD system on a text RP like LOK' rp?

[Taria]

So does any one have thoughts on how to do a effective DnD system on a text RP like LOK' rp?

elaborate what you mean by DnD sytem and text RP

[That_One_Guy]

I think Blue means by DnD System is....the DnD system, such as using the d20, rolling/point stats that include attributes and skills, classes and races, feats, traits, deities, what have you, and the ability to do all that using a dice.

What it means by Text RP, is the forums, pbp(play by post)

As for thoughts on how to do it, just do it. Many people here don't seem to like RPs like that, but I for one welcome it. I'm currently working on a Borderlands game using the Savage Worlds system.

[Zender_Solarheart]

The push for more causality-based systems is indeed a trend around here, but I think a more stat-oriented build can also implement causality. For example, instead of applying stats to the characters themselves, you apply stats to their equipment, thereby influencing the tactics that go into using that weapon. To illustrate, let's say you have 4 stats for weapons in a fantasy RP: Type, Weight, Enchantment, and Material. Using these 4 stats, a steel longsword enchanted with light magic can be represented as such:

Type: Sword.
Mass: 4 (hypothetical value).
Material: Steel.
Enchantment: Light.


Then, you start determining things like damage output and ease of usage from those stats.

Let's start with the weapon's Type, which can influence things like how well it does against various forms of armor, as well as what weapons it can defend/parry against most easily. If we were to go by rules of the "weapon triangle" in Fire Emblem, then the sword would do better against axe-wielders, but not as well against someone with a spear. Since the greatsword is a weapon that can be used for stabbing as well as slashing, it would do equally well against most forms of armor.

Next, let's consider the Mass, which constitutes both size and weight. If we assume a Mass of 4 is heavy (for illustrative purposes, let's assume the heaviest weapons have a Mass of 5), then we can deduce that it is a slow, but powerful weapon. The weight also makes it more difficult to wield, but the blade's size allows for wide-sweeping attacks that can damage multiple enemies in one blow. Naturally, this weapon would be most useful against slow and/or heavily-armored targets, but its effectiveness against more agile opponents is less so.

Third, let's discuss the Material. Steel is stronger and harder to bend than Iron, so it can take more abuse without needing repaired. However, steel is also more expensive to produce, so repairing it at a smithy would cost more. In terms of its usability, this one basically comes down to "how much abuse does the player expect it to take?"

Finally, consider the Enchantment. This is where magical affinities come into play. Let's say that a Light-based enchantment will make the weapon more effective against Dark-type enemies, but weaker against Elemental-type foes. Judging from this, combined with the previous stats, one could assume this weapon would be most useful against a full-body-armored "Dark Knight" opponent, especially if said foe was wielding an axe.

On the subject of that "weapon triangle" thing I mentioned earlier, word has reached me that Paradox is planning on what could be a Fire Emblem RP. If he's still planning on that, he may find what I babbled on here to be useful...but who knows?

[Paradox]

I'm currently studying how the system works in Fire Emblem, as far as stats go, but that's interesting, Zender. I'll keep that in mind.

[Thaedael]

Fire Emblem by web has all the mechanics written down.

[BlueLight]

Since some one closed the suggestion thread i'll have to post it here.

Since Ren will be doing updates with the ability add more mods, here is something i'd like that would've been more out laddish idea then it is now.

The ability to set up some text, so they get added in a quote when some one hits a special quote button. This would be helpful for character sheet, so now all some one has to do is hit a button and they get just the character sheet with no editing required. Moving to normal post for the creative section, people will be made to make post and if designed correctly, could leave out the SWF. If a normal user doesn't want to use this template, then they hit the normal quote button for the normal results.

I can see some problems with this idea.

[Thaedael]

So much work for others being lazy.

[Suraru]

What, Thaedael, what happened to your green name?
I swore I just saw it a few seconds ago, but now it's normal.

[BlueLight]

So much work for others being lazy.

You put a tag around a area of text and , your done. The real work would be in programming and to be frank, i'd think ren would use a premade mod.

[Thaedael]

Or you can just hit quote on the template the gm made, and you know... fill it in. I never understood why people thought making something to make other things faster without understanding that the effort to do so would just be better spent filling in the thing in the first place.

[napsii]

I don't understand the necessity of that, either. There is something worrying about people who don't even possess the willpower to copy and paste something.

My personal pet peeve with bio formats are ones that are excessive or poorly-designed in general, but that's rarely an issue in my experience.

[BlueLight]

I am a programmer that started programming way after the object oriented programming got started. I'm going to think about these things because it would make more sense programming wise. Why do 10 times as much work as you need to? To me it seems lazy not to implement this on the GM side. I mean really? Your going to make your players do more work than they have to because you didn't want to put a starting tag and a end tag? As stated, this can be used in other area's of the forum like the creative area.

Really i find the whole lazy player argument horrible since your basically saying that players can't be lazy but one Game masters is justified to be lazy. Add to the fact that all the GM would have to do is create the post and add 2 tags (is the end tag considered a tag? I haven't done HTML for so long that i don't remember) and everything is set for the players to click a button.
Now right now your saying that the GM should create the post but with out 2 extra tags just so the players can copy, click a link, and then post; or so the can reformat your post.
I see where your coming from but i disagree with your arguement since it's basically justifying a greater inefficiency because something else is less inefficient.

Now if we're talking about the supply of such mods, the ability to install them on LOk or even the fact a mod like that would be extremely inefficient for the server, i don't think i could come up with a reasonable argument.

[napsii]

What is being said is that the amount of work required to create such a feature is disproportionate to the amount of work needed to perform that same task manually. Is it seriously that difficult to copy and paste like people have been doing ever since the dawn of Internet roleplaying? It's really not and I don't see the need for something like this to justify saving two mouse clicks.

[MiscChaos]

Sorry, Blue, but I'm in agreement with Thae and Naps on this one. All you really have to do is copy a character sheet, paste it somewhere else, then fill it out. At worst, you have to quote someone's page and delete everything other than the character sheet, but that's still not much of an issue. Either way, not nearly as much effort as designing the special quote even if that effort isn't all that much. Sorry, but I personally don't see the point of this.

[napsii]

I also can't come to conclusion that having to spend 0.9 seconds copy/pasting a bio format into word makes you "inefficient". Ring up an IT office and ask them if having to copy/paste things somehow makes them less efficient when it lets them replicate a body of text without having to type it out all over again like a 12th century scrivener.

I think most roleplayers would agree that efficiency is more best described in how you distribute the writing of the actual bio itself and how much you can say with just a few words, not how many mouse clicks it takes to get from copying a bio format to Word. What you are talking about is convenience, not efficiency, but I've never taken issue with having to make like two mouse clicks to copy/paste a bio format, of all things.

[BlueLight]

So this seems to be moving away from a general chat so i'm moving this. I'll edit the link once i made the post.

[Suraru]

Actually in our IT offices we do have things like that, that are not based on convenience, but for efficiency. Instead of copypasta, we use things like what Blue stated, to link to the original text. That way if someone edits the original text, then it edits everything linked to it. Which actually is way more efficient then finding all the copied text and editing them. Yes it's also convenient, but it's efficient in an office where edits are common, especially when your working on group Visual Studio projects.

Edit: Not sure how many times you'd edit a character sheet, but some RPs (like Sugar's Homestuck) add to the character sheet as the story progresses, and in others you can edit the health or things like that, but that would be more convenient because you can just check the OOC.

Edit: In a small forum though, it's not really that useful, so I'm going to side with Naps here. Sorry Blue.

[BlueLight]

ya nap, the things i'm talking about, could get you fired if you worked under my father. He's not mean, just doesn't stand for crappy programming! Hell, he's fighting with the people that his company outsources to because they wont comment their code; which doesn't improve efficient while the program is running.