Poll Thread Re: SDNW4/4.5/5

[Siege]

If we've got to do it this way, I'd much rather just track the costs of the fighters and not the carriers.

No, again you're making this more complex than it has to be.

Game mechanics are entirely abstract. I don't know how many times I need to rephrase 'mechanics are divorced from fluff' but you don't seem to understand me at all.

100 points could represent anything. It is -mechanically- completely irrelevant if a 100 point force is described as two carriers plus their fighter wings, twenty-five space ghosts, a hundred hyperlight attack shuttles, or a single dreadnought. There should be no distinct 'carrier rules' for the same reason that there should be no 'space ghost rules': carriers and space ghosts are fluff. Under my system the rules do not concern themselves with the way players decide to fill in their points values; all that ultimately matters is the values themselves.

This setup doesn't remove player ability to do anything. It's the exact opposite: You could make up whatever you like, and assign arbitrary point values. You could have a gigantic mothership loaded with thousands of expendable snubfighters, or a handful of super interceptors, or anything inbetween. You'd be completely free to do anything you want. All you'd have to do is declare that your X is worth Y points, in which X could be a carrier, a battleship, a battlecarrier, a swarm of fighters, a wing of gunboats, any combination, anything at all, and Y could be whatever the hell number you feel fits.

Tell me how this is not clearly, demonstrably, VASTLY superior to anything else so far proposed.

[Esquire]

Wouldn't you run into problems where damaged fighter forces would be easier to replace than damaged/destroyer battleships, thus favoring carrier-based navies?

[Simon_Jester]

Honestly? As long as the part that gets the point value is also the part that has to be hazarded in order to bring harm to an enemy, I'm happy. As long as I don't have to put up with anyone trying to make up excuses for why they can strike without being struck at, I'm happy.

If carriers become a mechanism by which people can decide to do whatever the hell they want, but they're fair about it, that's good.

If carriers become a mechanism by which people claim the power to take a 100-point ship and cause harm to the enemy without hazarding the ship (because it can launch its fighters and deliver its punch from a long way off), that's bad. That gets us back into debates about missiles versus railguns versus lasers versus rocketballistas versus the power of hatred versus whatever.

So, how about replacing the carrier rules with a simple:

"Nothing can have military point value unless it is risked in combat to a meaningful degree, and its military point value is proportionate to its own effect on the enemy's armed forces."

The reason I propose this, Siege, is simply to make points act a little closer in line with how people's brains work: a thing with points can strike and be struck at, it cannot strike without being struck at. That makes it easier for many of us to be comfortable with the notion, without actually making anything complicated or raising arguments about whether something is worth 50% of its points or double or whatever.



Now, look at the implications of that:

Fighters have point value because they get close enough to the enemy to be shot at. They fight, it's what they do, that's right on the label.

Carriers can have point value, if they're designed get close enough to the enemy to be shot at. If they don't, then they don't contribute anything to your fleet's point value because they're not actually there when the shooting happens. They're just a vehicle for delivering points to the battle, not a thing with points in their own right.

Logistics ships don't have point value, because they don't get close enough to be shot at, which conveniently means we don't have to keep track of UNREP ships or anything silly and pedantic like that. Unless you build a really ballsy logistic ship that charges right into the middle of a fight to top off your missile ships' magazines while stuff is blowing up all around them, in which case sure, why not give them point value since they're directly participating in the battle?

A ship that does something exotic like electronic warfare- again, it only has point value if it gets close enough to the enemy to be shot at.

[OmegaChief]

I wholeheartedly approve of this idea, should allow us plenty of fluff vareity in OOBs without needing any rule complexity for them at all.

As long as we all understand and agree not to be dicks about it, which I don't see why we wouldn't.

[Darkevilme]

I think if I understand Siege's point correctly it's built something like this:
The only time in Siege's minds that the overral pointage of two opposing ships/fleets/armies/mecha needs to be treated as an actual mechanic as opposed to a rough yardstick for the magnitude of a force deployment is if people can't come to a compromise as to how a battle should go.

In which case the moderator steps in, tallies up the points on either side and says the guy with less points loses. And when he does this the moderator doesn't care if those points are carrier strike craft, cause that would lead to impartiality and make it open to arguement. One can't argue with maths, so it doesn't matter whether the points are in carriers or battleships, the moderator builds two piles of points and knocks over the smaller one with no regard to what the contents of the piles represents.

And if that's what he's argueing I have no objection to it.

[Siege]

Upon reflection, has it really come to the point where we bicker like the Council of Nicea to cater to those who cannot think beyond Bismarck versus Ark Royal in space? Despite the Jodorowsky quote, despite the possibility of space krakens, despite everything? God, I'm burnt out already. I'm withdrawing from the discussion and the game until further notice.

[Simon_Jester]

Upon reflection, has it really come to the point where we bicker like the Council of Nicea to cater to those who cannot think beyond Bismarck versus Ark Royal in space? Despite the Jodorowsky quote, despite the possibility of space krakens, despite everything? God, I'm burnt out already. I'm withdrawing from the discussion and the game until further notice.

...You were actively participating in the bickering! It would have ended at least a day ago if you had chosen to say nothing!



Anyway. Consider this a general announcement:

If any of you want to argue with me about the need for a rule, then storm off because there is an argument going on, then that is your choice. The only way I can think of to avoid that happening is to have you be responsible for making all the decisions. In which case, I can just back the hell off, let you run this game, or any other game, however the hell you please, and see what happens.

But pursuant to all the very things Siege said last week about the importance of communication, TELL ME you want me to back off. Don't try to backseat-drive without taking responsibility for making your own ideas work.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

Yes. Other people have lists too, and you're not living in a privileged frame of reference. If I tell the people you don't like that they can't play because it would make Fin get huffy, I have to be able to say the same to those who are disliked by anyone else.

Care to guess where that ends?

Actually, you are part of the problem. You failed to show any leadership in the chat room and allowed it to devolve into a mob of heckling and some of the logs I was shown had a fuck lot of people acting like a bunch of hooligans. I am sure that is a great example of maturity by many of the people who played the last game. Yeah, great thing going there.

Personal rancor does not make for good decisions on that score.

All in favor of Fingolfin_Noldor getting to decide who plays in SDNW5, and who gets kicked out for [insert perceived infraction here], could you please raise your hand?

Oh? Like the rancor filled chats about me? Great thing going. Honestly, you haven't exactly convinced me that you are worthy of being a mod and quite frankly, your incapability to exert any form of control because you got too cozy with the mob shows you are incapable of being impartial.

And you know what? That was a big problem with the last game. The Mob. The group think got too suffocating and everyone tried to be "one with jones". But guess what? That didn't include contributing. For all the talk about collaboration, nothing came out of it. Everything was so slow, that I swear, if people quit the chatting and instead did actual brainstorming that led to an actual product, the game wouldn't have died. But the game died, and what does that show about the people who spent more time chatting than doing anything?

And oh, what the fuck is the point of the new rules involving Carriers? Feeling too itchy to change the rules and exercise your new found super powers? Or was it White Haven, who obviously has a knack for writing silly stories, put you up on it?

[Darkevilme]

The point of changing the carrier rules is they're needlessly complicated with the whole (divide your investment in carrier capacity by two, that's how many points of strike craft you get, but points invested in strike craft count double) thing.

Converting them to (1 point of carrier investment equals 1 point of strike craft which is worth 1 point of combat power that is strike craft) is simpler and thus better.

The primary arguement seemed to be with Siege presenting a step further (1 point of ship is worth 1 point of combat power, seen as whether this point represents a fighter wing or nova cannon is irrelevant to the only time this is treated as a solid mechanic there is no point in having carrier rules at all.)

Honestly I think Siege has a good point. I just don't happen to care enough to take over argueing it for him, i'm fine whichever way we go.

[Tanasinn]

I definitely prefer the more abstract approach. As long as it's made clear that you can't handwave lost fighters (lost combat power) like you can fresh missiles and fuel, I can't see there being any big problems.

[White Haven]

I'm sorry, Fin, did something I said through any of this give you the impression that I was Siege? Some simple reading comprehension would demonstrate quite easily that I have no problem with the SDNW4 carrier rules, or the first revision of them. In fact, that same basic ability to read words and string them together into sentences would inform you that I am less than fold of oversimplification. And, as an addendum, isn't 'a knack for writing silly stories' a significant proportion of the point of an STGOD? Or would this be a bad time to bring up psi-titans and warp lances?

Moving away from poorly-aimed personal attacks, there were a load of ideas tossed around in the chat, some of which were turned into actual posts, others which were not. The entire plotline I was in the midst of launching when the game dribbled to a halt was born from idle chatter that sparked an idea. I wish I'd gotten more of it out before 4 died, if only because the next segment was going to have a textbook example of the application of empty-deck carriers in fleet engagements, which would have made a great example for the carrier rules debate itself. Ah well, these things happen, and unlike some people I'm not snarling and trying to find targets to stab over the fact that the game wasn't eternal. Hell, SDNW4 lasted VASTLY longer than most STGODs, making it a significant success, not the miserable failure you seem to think any STGOD dying means.

EDIT: And as a reminder, my planned nation has precisely zero carriers, so I don't even have a horse in this race. Can't accuse me of personal bias.

[Simon_Jester]

The point of changing the carrier rules is they're needlessly complicated with the whole (divide your investment in carrier capacity by two, that's how many points of strike craft you get, but points invested in strike craft count double) thing.

Converting them to (1 point of carrier investment equals 1 point of strike craft which is worth 1 point of combat power that is strike craft) is simpler and thus better.

The primary arguement seemed to be with Siege presenting a step further (1 point of ship is worth 1 point of combat power, seen as whether this point represents a fighter wing or nova cannon is irrelevant to the only time this is treated as a solid mechanic there is no point in having carrier rules at all.)

Honestly I think Siege has a good point. I just don't happen to care enough to take over argueing it for him, i'm fine whichever way we go.

I think the only carrier rule that we really need is:

"Things that directly cause harm to the enemy or strengthen your own side are worth points insofar as they do so. Things that serve only to carry stuff to the battle, but which do not directly harm the enemy or strengthen your own side, are worth zero points. Nothing can be worth points unless, when it goes into battle against a competent opponent, it is at risk."

From that we can deduce:

A ship that does literally nothing but reinforce the defensive shields of your other ships can be worth points, because it's strengthening your side. A squadron of fighters harms the enemy. Both end up in harm's way during battle. A carrier that launches its fighters from 3 AU away, then warps out, without ever actually crossing swords with the enemy... is not worth points.

I'd prefer to keep my original draft revision, but it isn't necessary and I'll compromise to this without any real misgivings.

---

Yes. Other people have lists too, and you're not living in a privileged frame of reference. If I tell the people you don't like that they can't play because it would make Fin get huffy, I have to be able to say the same to those who are disliked by anyone else.

Care to guess where that ends?

Actually, you are part of the problem. You failed to show any leadership in the chat room and allowed it to devolve into a mob of heckling and some of the logs I was shown had a fuck lot of people acting like a bunch of hooligans. I am sure that is a great example of maturity by many of the people who played the last game. Yeah, great thing going there.

Fin, I really have to ask: do you ever even consider that part of the reason people heckle you might be your own behavior and demeanor? That "The Mob" you decry is in fact what happens when you piss off several people at once and they all agree that you deserve to be punished for your behavior?

What does it say about you, that you were more effective at turning the player consensus against you than anyone else in the game except possibly Chaotic Neutral? What possible moderator strategy could have prevented the whole Eye of Sashaterror from blowing up, in light of the fact that you were involved? Was there anything you would ever have accepted as a resolution that didn't give you every damn thing you wanted? Or would you just have decided that the mods were mad with power and either ignored them or ragequit?

The widespread perception that this was the case is why you got badmouthed in AIM.

At first, I didn't actively try to prevent people from badmouthing you in AIM chat because I didn't think it was worth the effort to tell half a dozen annoyed people not to be mean about the person who'd annoyed them. At first, I didn't realize this could become a problem that would actually hurt people who'd done nothing wrong. I turned out to be wrong. I learned a lesson there. I do that sometimes.

If you'd wanted me to speak on your behalf to get people stop saying mean things about you, all you had to do was ask. Don't get passive-aggressive and start whining today about how I didn't do it six months ago, when you were too stinking proud to ask.

Of course, again, I learned that lesson. So if I'm supposed to mod this thing, now I'm going to have to try and stop people being mean about you even if I privately agree with them. The sort of thing that someone like Siege might well have done in the first place- and the sort of thing I doubt you would ever do, because I don't really think you can step outside your own head long enough to second-guess your reflexes that way.

Now, if you think I really am part of the problem, then start the game yourself. Write the rules, proclaim yourself mod, and see what happens. I'll step aside, do nothing out of the ordinary as a player, and watch to see what happens. I don't think it will end well, but maybe you'll surprise me.

You can judge me however you want for saying all this. All I ask is that you act on your judgment, and act like a sane grownup, instead of a petulant self-righteous twit.

Personal rancor does not make for good decisions on that score.

All in favor of Fingolfin_Noldor getting to decide who plays in SDNW5, and who gets kicked out for [insert perceived infraction here], could you please raise your hand?

Oh? Like the rancor filled chats about me? Great thing going. Honestly, you haven't exactly convinced me that you are worthy of being a mod and quite frankly, your incapability to exert any form of control because you got too cozy with the mob shows you are incapable of being impartial.

Okay. Do it yourself. Set it up, try to lead it, see how many people want to keep playing.

If that's what you want, I'm game. Surprise me.

And you know what? That was a big problem with the last game. The Mob. The group think got too suffocating and everyone tried to be "one with jones". But guess what? That didn't include contributing. For all the talk about collaboration, nothing came out of it. Everything was so slow, that I swear, if people quit the chatting and instead did actual brainstorming that led to an actual product, the game wouldn't have died. But the game died, and what does that show about the people who spent more time chatting than doing anything?

If you want to criticize me, fine- now, try and take responsibility for doing it yourself.

And oh, what the fuck is the point of the new rules involving Carriers? Feeling too itchy to change the rules and exercise your new found super powers? Or was it White Haven, who obviously has a knack for writing silly stories, put you up on it?

Nobody put me up to it. The first draft I proposed was a simplification because I got sick of explaining the SDNW4 carrier rules to people. When you have to explain the same rule to every person who joins the damn game, it's a sign that it's a pretty complicated rule. I figured it might be a good idea to simplify it. In hindsight, I'd probably have been better off not touching it, since proposing to change it meant opening up a stupidly heated debate over what to change it to.

But I didn't expect that at the time, especially from the people who kept nodding at me and saying rules weren't really that important- to me, being laid back about the rules entails not being actively hostile to them; wanting to overthrow something entirely is not the same as thinking it doesn't matter.

The second draft carrier rule, I considered because other people were eager for it- and because it was in keeping with 'points are points are points.' The third, I considered because it seemed like a compromise that could give them what they want (simplicity) and me what I think we need (not to treat fighters like rounds of ammunition).

"Super powers" my ass. What, haven't you ever seen a man do something for reasons that aren't surgically glued to his ego?

[Akhlut]

Or was it White Haven, who obviously has a knack for writing silly stories, put you up on it?

To reiterate a point I made earlier:

But, as I said, I think one of the better things we can do is try to make it so that people can air grievances with one another and have the problems settled without it boiling over into crazy internet drama. After all, even though we're dumping a lot of time, effort, and energy into this, we must keep in mind we're dealing with settings where hyper-Stalinist spacefaring bears are considered humdrum. And we're all nominally adults, too. So, hopefully if we can keep that in mind, we can adjudicate our shit without too many hassles between each other, as we're just trying to have fun with some fairly silly shit and it's not going to actually hurt us to compromise on some problems we have with one another.

(note: anytime I use "you" in the following, I mean it in the general sense, not any one person in particular)

If someone has a problem with someone else, talk about it like an adult. To take an example, raging and fuming over how many small spaceships our big spaceships can hold seems to me to be the sort of farce over fattienerd neckbeards that people make up to make fun of aforementioned fattienerd neckbeards. Do the rules make sense? If yes, then no need to argue; if no, then a reasonable discussion without insane frothing at the mouth is going to be better for everyone. A hell of a lot fewer ragequits and not so much increased blood pressure.

Additionally, stuff that happened 6 months ago (or even two days ago) is now water under the bridge. You don't have to like everyone in the game, but I don't see any reason why we can't be civil amongst each other. Just let shit go and give people a second (or third) chance and let's just try to be reasonable adults with each other. If you don't like specific rules, well, try to convince people why your version would be better; and if that fails, just compromise on it and move on. If you think the rules are unplayable for you, well, just state as much and say you just can't play as it is.

Because, think about it: while the good times from an STGOD might last a while, does it really matter that much to you about the fucking carrier rules for a freeform cooperative narrative RPG?

[Simon_Jester]

I move that we just drop the damn carrier rules issue until we've got a large number of actual players discussing things, instead of a handful of people bickering over them. I can think of at least two viable ways to solve the problem, but which one we use really does not matter as long as we aren't bound and determined to make fools of ourselves.

I regret answering OmegaChief's original question- although to be blunt, he is part of the demographic I want to appeal to, the people who didn't play SDNW4 for whatever reason and still want to join a new game anyway. So if he wants the carrier rules simplified for comprehension's sake, I'm more inclined to listen to his opinion, and less inclined to listen to someone who was perfectly happy when the rules were unnecessarily complicated, or to someone who wants to abolish rules but never actually seems to have a problem working with them when they're playing the game instead of talking about it.

[OmegaChief]

Darn, now I feel like a right idiot for bringing these up.

If it helps at all the reason I brought it up was that I was going through potential story ideas and carriers/figthers popped up once or twice, and on reviewing the SDNW4 rules tehs tuff for carriers... eh, well it felt needlessly complex, I figured it'd be a pretty harmless issue to bring up since we all seemed in favour of simlifyng things this round, and people seemed to be encouraging us to talk about the rules in more detail then 'Yea don't be a dick'.

But again, sorry I brought it up.

[Akhlut]

I, for one, think that discussing the rules right now is perfectly fine, as long as people don't work themselves into a commotion over them. For instance, when people naysayed my idea on the number of mods, I just let it go. I mean, hell, even if someone thinks they have the best rules ever for the carriers, just be civil about presenting the rules. No one needs to start raging about them.

So, for my part, I think my earlier suggestion that a carrier costs [X] points, of which [Y] points are fighters which cost [Z] points apiece. I don't think that is horribly complicated, but also allows for some customization of them and also having independent fighters. It also allows for things like battleship-carrier hybrids. Now, does that sound amenable to people?

[Simon_Jester]

Akhlut, that sounds a lot like my idea, although it's presented in a better way I think.

You are, I assume, amenable to the idea that X=Y in your description? Of a carrier that has zero point value independent of its fighter group?

Darn, now I feel like a right idiot for bringing these up.

You're not.

If the collective group were being reasonable, we could have talked about the rules like adults, and either agreed to not change them, or to change them to something I suggested, or to something someone else suggested, without bad blood.

As one of the prospective new joiners, you have a right to ask questions about the rules, and this is good.

If it helps at all the reason I brought it up was that I was going through potential story ideas and carriers/figthers popped up once or twice, and on reviewing the SDNW4 rules tehs tuff for carriers... eh, well it felt needlessly complex, I figured it'd be a pretty harmless issue to bring up since we all seemed in favour of simlifyng things this round, and people seemed to be encouraging us to talk about the rules in more detail then 'Yea don't be a dick'.

The rules Siege wanted to talk about were meta-rules: more like mod policies, and frankly I can't see how to set those ahead of game start since they depend on reaction to events.

Sorchus wanted to talk about changing basic premises of how the map is arranged and how things move around the map- I'm not seeing enough support for that to make it a change I'd care to adopt, but we should bring it up again later when we've got a signficant fraction of our future playerbase paying attention instead of just the same half dozen or so people going over everything.

[Darkevilme]

The Hidden terms worry me Akhlut. But so long as they can be simplified to "I spent X and got X amount of combat power" then we're good. I doubt anyone will be terribly confused by "cost=combat power, so mark how many points of any battlestar's cost is strike craft.".

So that being said. Do we have any other things we need to discuss here?

[Simon_Jester]

There's the whole map/transportation thing Sorchus came up with, though I'm not sure exactly which version to go off of because I've heard him both advocate for stronger warp gates and say that he "hates" warp gates.

We should try to brainstorm though.

[Esquire]

If we go tie combat power directly to point value - which I think is the right way to go about it- then repairs and replacements would also have to be tied directly to point value, i.e. it takes a week to build one point worth of combat power regardless of whether that one point is a fighter squadron or part of a thousand-point superultramegabattleship. Otherwise, it seems to me that there might be problems with fighter forces being easier to replenish (because each fighter is so cheap and easily produced compared to the aforementioned superultramegabattleship) than other sorts of navies.

Of course, that would only be a problem if this turns out to be a rules-lawyering sort of game, which the consensus seems to be against. Maybe I'm just being paranoid?

[Ryan Thunder]

There's really no reason not to treat fighters like ammunition in my opinion. If a player doesn't feel like using space carriers with space fighters he can just use space battleships with ridiculously long-ranged weaponry (and whatever else that entails).

Additionally the carrier isn't produced for free (American supercarriers are some of the most expensive ships on the planet, and they can be and are risked in combat against an equal foe) and should be a significant loss on its own unless its little more than a launch platform and a hangar with engines installed.

tl;dr "points are points are points--unless they're carriers" seems like a silly approach to me.

[Panzersharkcat]

I think that's why there was the point raised earlier about directly being in the battle. If it's just floating there not being shot at, it's not worth points.

[Ryan Thunder]

I think that's why there was the point raised earlier about directly being in the battle. If it's just floating there not being shot at, it's not worth points.

There's no reason why it can't be shot at, either, though, and it does have some value of its own even if it isn't armed.

Basically, if you make carriers free, there's really nothing stopping me from having a dozen of them per fighter. Which is silly. The carrier's the most expensive part, and its loaded with electronics and fuel and what have you.

If you must, just pretend the 100-point carrier limps away after its fighters are shot down by the 200-point battleship. There's really no reason to differentiate.

[Darkevilme]

Esquire: No one wants to track the cost of repairing their damaged space galleons. No one. But that does lead to fighters being a bit of a disadvantage due to them costing points to replace so perhaps Ryan thunder has somewhat of a point...

Though gunships can attack in different starsystems so the idea of just handwaving a carrier/battlecarriers strike craft complement under the banner of 'no special rules' is a little dubious. And I think that's the issue. Carriers with jump capable fighters are capable of power projection in a way most other ships cannot be. Though the idea of a wave motion gun blast or missile that's hyperspace capable is in its own way pretty cool i have to admit.

Non hyperspace capable fighters though probably aren't worth counting separately as they've not got much in the way of power projection.

[Ryan Thunder]

Non hyperspace capable fighters though probably aren't worth counting separately as they've not got much in the way of power projection.

This is more what I was thinking of. If a carrier is projecting trans-system power then I don't think its really worth differentiating from a battleship.

Hyperspace fighters on interstellar missions, I hadn't thought of at all. At that point, the carrier isn't really doing anything for them during combat that I can think of.

Then again, at that point they're looking more like independent warships.