STGOD: A Dead Art?

[Starglider]

Generally, to keep things equitable, the attacker and defender converse in AIM or through PM prior to the post, discussing what they think fair losses are.

I'm fine with that but not everyone uses IM.

If everyone is honest and friendly,

That's the killer. As the player count increases the probability of including at least one asshole (or generously, person with broken expectations) approaches 100%. Inevitably mods will have to deal with that.

I personally would rather shy away from hard and fast rules as to the effects of combat.

If you want to get this going you might as well start dictating 'it will be so'. Clearly you'd like another STGOD2-style game, so let's just go for that. Those of us who'd like a more structured game can do that later as STGOD7. Variety is generally good.

[Tasoth]

For the background, why not go the firefly approach and have everyone involved in one system with a metric fuckton of terraformed worlds, moons, asteroids and orbitals/habitat? This would also mean that the smaller ships would be more important because the scale isn't so great and having a couple moons under your control would probably prohibit you from starting an our pouring of battleships. Plus, someone can run a pirate group. Pirates, HARRR!!

[Thirdfain]

If you want to get this going you might as well start dictating 'it will be so'. Clearly you'd like another STGOD2-style game, so let's just go for that. Those of us who'd like a more structured game can do that later as STGOD7. Variety is generally good.

I make no claim to omniscience, and I'd much rather just go with the flow. Perhaps some sort of vote to see what direction the community wants to take it? I'd be game for anything, of course.

[Dahak]

If you want to get this going you might as well start dictating 'it will be so'. Clearly you'd like another STGOD2-style game, so let's just go for that. Those of us who'd like a more structured game can do that later as STGOD7. Variety is generally good.

I make no claim to omniscience, and I'd much rather just go with the flow. Perhaps some sort of vote to see what direction the community wants to take it? I'd be game for anything, of course.

I'm with Thirdfain on this one.
It was always a strong point of STGODs to have a more story-telling/writing approach instead of number-crunching and iron-clad sheets.

If there are players who, for whatever reasons, decide to be a pain in the ass about something, they'll do it anyway, rules or no rules. We've had that.

And about the IM thing: It also works with PMs. Since not all people are online for all time and some of us are also hindered by such things as time zones. You should not expect a STGOD to run like quick paced action game...

[Academia Nut]

Yes, a vote is probably in order, but do we want to do just an informal "Aye/Nay" thing in this thread, or does someone actually want to make a poll? Personally, I'm just going to say that I think a stat-lite storyline type game would be a-okay.

[Starglider]

Incidentally here's a simple prototype of my 'game map from BBcode' idea.

[Covenant]

I suppose... but even with 'call no hits' it gets down to matters of interpertation. I'd like if we could review the OOB's before the game starts at least, so that we're not going to have people doing unsportsmanlike things. If the game hinges on fair play and honesty then we need to make sure that people are going to play in good faith. The advantage of some kind of math or 'weighting' to the things you use is that it's objective and impartial, even if it doesn't cover player 'vision'. Some sort of rough idea would be pleasent, at least something like rough performance characteristics, so we know some basics about the foes we're facing. If we're in a relatively low-tech environment like Star Trek, it would be helpful, as being able to quantify the limits of the things we're RPing about would make it much easier to conceptualize and keep people honest.

[White Haven]

Eh, the 'das ubersystem' approach is two things: Silly as all hell inherently, and quite microscopic, given even something as pathetic as a Trektech game.

[Duckie]

As far as mechanics go I say a simple system where one can determine the relative worth of one ship vs another via points (either Quota Points or 2k5 Points or whatnot) so as to understand their value (regardless of whether that value comes from heavy armor and firepower or ultra-speed or whatnot as specified in their description).

If we don't trust people to RP battles, why are we letting them STGOD at all?

[Thirdfain]

If we don't trust people to RP battles, why are we letting them STGOD at all?

Here here!

[Covenant]

If we don't trust people to RP battles, why are we letting them STGOD at all?

Here here!

Well, if you can weed them out, then fine! But we just had mention of at least one game where it went somewhat awry, and with an influx of new people we may have a lot of folks (like me) who are unsure about the degree to which you should do things for the sake of fair play.

A QuotaPoints type system would satisfy my request though. If we can assign a 'value' to a unit then we do know at least relative strengths and weaknesses of ships, instead of them being totally situational and interpertational. I just want to avoid a situation where we say it's for fun, and then someone goes "None of your ships can hit me because they use lasers and I have mirror field generators as stated here" and then the roleplay AND stats is superceded by a bizzare roleplayed-stat which has not been adequately accounted for and is applied too broadly. Like someone else mentioned with the "lol i win" tech. I get the feeling moderators solve these issues, but moderators are people too, and can occasionally rule the wrong way, so some degree of vetting would be nice.

And a quotapoints system would also be good. I trust people to RP their battles out, but I don't trust them to RP their battles turning into failures. We have too many people looking to re-create their epic ideal sci-fi nation to assume everyone is going to be totally okay with horrific losses. Adding in some degree of failsafe, like an OOB review or QuotaPoints, removes the temptation to wank.

[Academia Nut]

Oh, I don't think that anyone was thinking of doing anything less than quota points, its just that points can't be the end all and be all of the game or it gets boring. So if you have two 150-point armadas meet, it will be who can come up with the more clever roleplay and tactics that will emerge victorious. And if its a 120-point vs. 180-point set-up, then roleplay will still determine who wins, but the 120-point gut had better play damn well and take some heavy losses if he wants to win. 10-point vs. 290-pont match-ups had better damned well be described as utter massacres or instant retreats.

The points are just a way of backing up your assertions of what your ship can do.

[Thirdfain]

Precisely.

[Duckie]

However I'd still like to pimp the 2k5 system because it adds slightly to the Quota system in flexibility (you don't need escorts and such, you could have several battleship-sized escorts instead of a thousand smaller hulls) and also agknowledges the difference between a ship armed with rapid-fire point defense guns to defend a fleet from fighters and a heavy, ponderous battleship made to smash up walls and the differences between fighters and bombers and how the latter need cover support and so forth, without becoming too complicated.

[White Haven]

Aaah, Ducky? You're thinking of the proposed system from 2k6. 2k5, well, I've still got my old Sixth Cruiser OOBs, and that sort of +point setup wasn't a part of it, plus ship types were firmly divided.

[Duckie]

Aaah, Ducky? You're thinking of the proposed system from 2k6. 2k5, well, I've still got my old Sixth Cruiser OOBs, and that sort of +point setup wasn't a part of it, plus ship types were firmly divided.

Well, um, what's three hundred and sixty-five point two four and change days between friends, eh?

[SirNitram]

The less rules, the more trust must be given to the mods you select, is all I'll say. They'll be the ones who step in and speak when things are contested.

[Spyder]

If we wanted to make it really roleplay heavy but still keep structure, what we could do is have everyone start with a hundred points and have the official declarations being something along the lines of "My fleet has 60 points in heavy capital ships, 20 in cruisers, 20 in small escorts." Then in an individual engagement you say "I have put 30 points worth of heavy capital ships to this engagement" then whatever shows up, regardless of quantity, counts for half your heavy capital fleet.

Simple, easy to vet, allows the oobophiles (I mean that with the greatest affection) to go into as much detail as they want while making life easier for those that just want to jump right in.

Should also allow for plenty of flexibility, you never know if a ship's going to be carrying an extra wing of fighters that day or might just happen to have a few additional guns welded to it.

[Academia Nut]

Point of discussion. Will there be grand, major, minor, and regional powers (I think that was the sort of distinction from previous games) or will we all just start with the same classification?

[Adrian Laguna]

Same classification might be best. As the poor bastards in the lower powers could have the misfortune of having two powerful neighbors decided to come a carving.

[White Haven]

If there's variation at all, it should be much smaller than 2k5's 'multiples of the smallest power' approach.

[Spyder]

Equal playing field. Also I think we should have a ban on 'good guy' powers for the first couple of months. Expansionistic Imperialist Arseholes only thank you, reform later if you must.

[Academia Nut]

Are Tau-like "Greater Good" guys who seem nice and might even honestly think they're nice but won't hesitate to bomb your cities to glass parking lots okay?

[Spyder]

Are Tau-like "Greater Good" guys who seem nice and might even honestly think they're nice but won't hesitate to bomb your cities to glass parking lots okay?

As long as they're willing to be pro-active about it.

[SirNitram]

Time to get the Netherese Empire going then.

Hoist the colours, and prepare the nonhumans for vivisection...