Difference between revisions of "Talk:Nephon Sector One-Shot"

Latest revision as of 19:14, 7 March 2007

Old Talk

--Matts 11:58, 27 February 2007 (MST)I'm cleaning this up, since the discussion spilled out to Dogs in the Vineyard in spectacular fashion.

I want to bring up discussion about 'stakes', which is one key piece I want to preserve from DitV.

I also want to notify you guys of some changes I want to make to the Sector setting.

Explicit Stakes

I think it's safe to say that DitV is a bust. That's fine. I'm leaning towards cyberpunk or white wolf systems for the game now, probably closer to White Wolf.

I propose one key shift in how we play, taken from DitV, but with the excess confusion of the system excised: that is, I say that before any roll is called for, somebody (the GM or the player, or a negotation between them) determines the stakes, ie, the outcome of that roll.

As it stands, we say, "I'm going to climb that wall", I (the GM) say "OK," and you roll. If you fail, the consequences are assigned by me: "You didn't climb the wall", "You fell and took damage", "Your gear broke and now you're going to starve to death way to go slick willy", etc. (It's not quite this way, but bear with me.) The stakes (ie the consequences of the roll) were implicit, unknown, and entirely up to me.

What I'm proposing (and we do this a bit already) is that we negotiate the stakes before the dice are rolled. You, the player, say, "I'm going to climb that wall." I say, "That wall is dangerous, crumbly, and probably full of tetanus-inducing nails. The stakes are, do you climb the wall without suffering 4 dice damage?" Now, you may say, "man, that sounds pretty crazy", and decide not to do it; you may decide to do it anyway, damn the torpedoes. But either way, what that roll means is clear as day, and hopefully the suspense of those dice plunking down on the table is palpable.

Benefits for Players

This lets you, the players, break the mold as much or as little as you like in more rigid situations like combat. Instead of shooting someone, you can say, "I shoot the chandelier above his head," and then I respond, "OK, what's at stake is, do you hit the chandelier, bring it down on him, and render him stunned for the next round?", then assign appropriate difficulty penalties, then we roll.

Benefits for the GM

This lets me, the GM, have concrete consequences for failure that I can stick to. If I say the stakes, and players don't like them, we negotiate; if the players don't like my bottom line, they don't have to do the action, but at least it gets the argument out of the way. Once the roll has happened, the consequences are enacted, and it's as fair as it can get.

I personally think I as a GM have a hard time universally enforcing failure, and I bring this up mostly because I think I'd be a better GM with this sort of policy.

Pre-Discussion

Before we all rip into this or shower it in hosannas, a few points:

• We already do this to a certain extent; I'm just saying that I intend to do this for *every* roll. Some rolls will be easier to determine the stakes of, some rolls will be harder.
• negotiation over stakes should be welcome; as the GM, though, I aim to limit discussion so the game can still move forward. I'm still the bottom line.

Discussion

Fire away, gentlemen!

--Jason 12:40, 27 February 2007 (MST)I concur with this, though I withold my hosannas for a later time.

--Gdaze-- I'm not sure I get it so I'll just see an example next time we have gaming and there is time. I just feel it is weird if we know what might happen before we do it... But then again I didn't even try the system out so I'm not really enlightened on how it works.

--Dieter the Bold 13:26, 27 February 2007 (MST) I'm down with such a change. I'm ambivalent, but mainly because it's new. I do enjoy (most of the time) not knowing what happens if I fuck up spectacularly in terms of story, but negotiating stakes does make the story more collaborative and I can see how it would take the stress off the GM to handle all the minutae himself.

--Edmiao 15:22, 27 February 2007 (MST) Matt, you make a great point here. Many times I recall players trying to do something, failing and being very suprised by the consequences, which should have been obvious to the character if the setting had been described accurately. I recall several examples of the climbing example that you give with consequences of failure unevenly applied between settings. Also, the GM should ask the players for details on how much time they are taking. Often in roleplay settings, you have lots of time and any normal person would not climb at combat speeds, thus should get some bonuses for being careful.

--Matts 15:24, 27 February 2007 (MST)Well, if it's a casual situation, the skill test might mean something different. "Make a climbing roll to scale that surface elegantly." You can scale it success or failure, because it's an amateur-hour surface, but the successful skill test means you do it with a showboat flourish.

--Edmiao 15:33, 27 February 2007 (MST) True. Also, another thought. We don't want to get hog tied by defining everything. Some consequences are obvious. And sometimes the player says they want to do something spur of the moment without fully considering the obvious consequences. As GM it's not your job to ask players to think twice. For example, Zhi Zhi tries to pick pocket a guard. Obviously the consequences are that if she fails the guard will notice, and in that case I, as the GM, didn't think I should point out the obvious and spoil the spontenaity. In another case, when the caracters were approaching the Sontaran camp "with stealth", I asked for clarification on how fast are you stealthing to give bonuses for extra time because that seemed like an natural precaution that would be taken without thinking about it. Obviously the consequence of failure would be that they notice you, which need not be stated formally.

==Setting Changes==--Dieter the Bold 03:10, 7 March 2007 (MST)

This is still a nascent idea, but I'm thinking I'm going to change the Sector to a System, stealing from Ben's Gemini ideas. It'll be similar, though, just a little more compact.

--Dieter the Bold 19:02, 28 February 2007 (MST) Question about the setting mechanics, specifically interplanetary travel: So, there are streams of charged gases throughout the system that special sails can be used to harness energy from to provide momentum. Are these streams unchanging or can they be in flux? Is travel outside these streams impossible except for "conventional" engines (chemical, ion, etc.)? What's the difference, both in physical and economic terms, of traveling via streams vs. outside? I.e., are streams fast enough that even if they aren't exactly direct to where you're target is, you can pinball there quicker than you can fly outside of them; Or even though it's slower, resources for conventional drives are simply too expensive (either in straight monetary terms or you simply need too much to feasibly carry on a journey)? Is this where pirates make their entrance? Ship traffic has to stay put in these highways, so they have known routes to strike at? What conventional engines exist and what are the advantages/disadvantages to them? Are there different noble sail types (design, construction material, etc.)? And, of course, what kind of tech base is necessary for the various engines? Also, a map of what a ship-faring crew would be familiar with would be awesome.

--Matts 19:31, 28 February 2007 (MST)I'll make a map, soon enough. As for the space lanes, I'm going to change them to "magnetic corridors" usually only used by large passenger/freighter ships. For most other ships, "hard burn" should suffice to enable fast interplanetary travel. The Noble Sail has been developed to make use of these corridors; it allows more *effecient* travel, since fuel is mostly neccesary for attitude correction than acceleration.

The corridors themselves are essentially fixed in that they link various planets regardless of the orbit states of those planets.

I'm also thinking that the Toko and Koto clusters are actually mini-systems of "moons", in the sense that they're single orbital bodies composed of several planets orbiting each other.

--Dieter the Bold 16:43, 6 March 2007 (MST) Still interested in what kind of (conventional) engines are generally available to free ships, what kind of artificial gravity is available (thrust-based, centrifugal, Star Trek) and what the frontier worlds have that the Authority is interested in. Are there lots of raw materials the Core needs to run, or is it just interested in putting its nose in everyone's bidness?

--Jason 16:53, 6 March 2007 (MST)Its strange that you are fixated on the artificial gravity question. Physics wise, the only viable type is what you call Star Trek (inertial dampeners). If any motion is transferred inside the ship, it invalidates virtually all travel paradigms. Centrifugal force is actually a fallacy and doesnt exist, if there were a force parallel to the travel in circular motion, the body would instead go straight. Artificial gravity only works one way, if the 'warp' created by the engines that allow the ship to travel somehow remove that ship from the universe and the return it in a different location. This removes all necessity to transfer momentum, because none is generated. Any kind of thrusting engine requires bullshit physics. Its really a pointless argument, why not just accept that ships have gravity and leave it at that?

--Matts 17:24, 6 March 2007 (MST)I'm following science fiction tradition, and we're not going to think about gravity; there's some kind of magic device that makes it so you can walk around in a ship. The drives are just thrusters; there's a big engine that does something fancy for big boost, and smaller thrusters for attitude correction. Let's say, attitude and atmospheric thrusters are chemical, while the big thruster is something dumb like a fission reaction.

--Dieter the Bold 00:41, 7 March 2007 (MST) I apologize if I simplified my gravity options overmuch, but I stand by my statements. 1) Rocket goes whoosh!, your ass gets shoved into the seat. This is what I mean by thrust-based. 1G acceleration would allow you to walk around somewhat like you were on a planet so long as rooms and the like were oriented in the correct position. 2) Yes, if you fly in a straight line and start spinning something on it, you'll start torquing everything. Unless you take the genius step of adding an equal counter-rotating spin, then you're all good. Or you just spin it up when you're not moving and shut it down when you are.
I'm asking about these things because the little details help me immerse myself into the campaign world and help me roleplay better. An actor acts alot better when handed a well constructed, very detailed and painted lightsaber then a broken off broomstick. Matt, I don't want to drag you down or trip you up in working things out, I just enjoy a very detailed campaign world and as I'm leaning towards a techie career path, I want to know what kind of engines I have to work with and maybe specialize in (chemical, orion, light-sail, plasma sail, anti-matter, fusion pulse, warp, jump, generic FTL) and what kind of possible problems we'd have when running around in the ship. E.g., if we have inertial dampeners, we can pull really high G maneuvers without worrying about crushing things inside the ship to jelly. While if we didn't, we'd have to worry about making sure things were securely fastened down in the ship before maneuvering, sudden changes in our vector, etc., etc. It's fine with me if you want to simplify the world: noble sail or fission drive for interplanetary travel, inertial dampeners keeps things comfy on the inside. I'd ask for (but don't necessarily have to get; I am an experienced roleplayer) maybe some basics on those systems. How much shielding needed to keep the fission reactor from giving me cancer? What's said shielding made from and where is it manufactured? How easy is it to repair? Can you sabotage shielding and inertial dampeners (nasty trick to discourage pursuit, think Scotty vs. Excelsior in ST:III) and what would be the affects of those? Can you hotshot the reactor/drive with enriched fuel and would you need to move farther away from it or have increased shielding to pull that off? Radiator issues for heat off the nuke reactor? What planets have the sweet, sweet uranium all the fuel comes from, or is it all Pu from breeder reactors, and is this a very controlled substance? What keeps us from modifying our reactor into a breeder and making nukes? I'm fine if you don't want to deal with this and will come up with it on the fly if I try and do something techie with the game tech, but the answers genuinely interest me, so I ask about them.

--Jason 02:03, 7 March 2007 (MST)This is why we shouldnt have started this conversation... 1G of acceleration means youre going about 400 MPH, which might as well be not moving at all in space. Equal counter rotating spin? What? The ship is either spinning in one direction (its vector) or it isnt. Two opposite rotating vectors cancel and there is no spin. This means the actual ship doesnt physically spin. Theres no way around that. If the movement is thrust based, and we get too deep into this, nothing works. The energy required to cancel any momentum approaches infinity at a faster rate than the energy required to power the thrust towards light speed. We actually end up with an N^N curve, with N approaching infinity. Thats not good at all in power consumption terms. Thats all fine as long as we dont get too deep into this scientifically. I will say though, that a good actor acts just as well even if nothing is in his hand; the audience, however, may be more liable to suspend their disbelief if they identify with the props.

--Dieter the Bold 03:10, 7 March 2007 (MST) A) 1G isn't all that fast, but it could be kept up over time. While I dropped physics in favor of biology, I do believe that in space, forgetting outside gravitational influences, pumping out thrust pumps the same amount into your velocity. So that 1G starts adding up. Granted you'd have to stop at some point to save on fuel, but once you reached a certain point you'd flip end over end and do the same thing, except with the thrusters in another direction. As for the rotating, again I apologize for failing to describe what I was thinking. Long tube, rocket on ass. Wheel around tube spins. Second and equal wheel spins in opposite direction. Two equal and opposite spins prevent tube from being twisted in half and killing passengers. And the peasants rejoice.
B) I am no actor. I'll be quick to admit that. I have heard from various actors via DVD commentary that well-made props, sets and costumes have given them serious boosts in their confidence and performance. As a roleplayer, I'm both actor (as character) and audience (seeing character do things (even though I'm controlling some of that) as well as other things around him). Yes, actors and I could have fun and perhaps create engaging theater with nothing at hand, but it would be much more engaging for me personally to have more as opposed to less at hand. That's the way I enjoy games so that's what I push for from the GM. If the GM doesn't want to roll that way, or doesn't want to reach as far out as I am, that's 100% the GM's decision and I respect that. Until I have a clear conversation with the GM regarding what they'll delve into and how much, I'll keep asking.

--Jason 13:23, 7 March 2007 (MST)Sup fellow physics dropper? I dropped Physics in favor of Mechanical Engineering then ended up getting Math instead. You are right about being able to add thrust to thrust, because of the lack of wind resistance. The problem is, if you are going the 400mph and producing the 1G, then want to accelerate by producing more thrust, yes its easy for the engine to do, but the effect is that those inside feel the increased thrust G effect. So its easy for the engines to increase the speed in space, but the passengers still cannot handle the G's if the thrust is too great (maybe 5G if youre in the top one thousandth of a percent, fighter pilots and astronauts test to 4G). Your spinning tubes conserve angular momentum of the projectile itself but do not save the passengers inside from experiencing the effects, and also as I mentioned originally, that rocket would be moving in a straight line, so thats not much of a maneuver.

--Matts 17:14, 7 March 2007 (MST)I will make a page with basic pseudoscience assumptions, because it's been asked. There are some rules that go with this: 1) NO DEBATE. The way it is is the way it is; I don't care if you're a phd in physics or whatever. 2) NOT CONCRETE. I reserve the right to add new twists as the game progresses. 3) NOT UNIVERSALLY ENFORCED. I am only human, not a pseudoscience storage system, and I may forget the 'rules'. You're free to point this out; you're not free to protest when the ship on the impossible approach vector magically sprouts a Spiffy Flanger that enables such a maneuver.