Heroica: Glory Amongst The Stars RPG - Game Development

[Duvors]

14 hours ago, Endgame said:

Hey, burn-out is natural, and a lot of the playerbase of Heroica 1.0 was feeling it - it's part of why there has been such a noticeable gap between 1.0 and 2.0 in the first place.

You're more than welcome to help test, if you'd like to pick from one of the remaining pre-fabricated characters:


 Ensonvilterayquis (Enson)
60 cycle old, Male Quo’ri
Vitality: 6/6
Strength: 2
Skill: 2
Smarts: 1
Spirit: 2
Proficiencies: Melee Weapons 2, Medicine 1, Religion 2
Credits: 10
Equipment: Standard Void Star Hammer (+1, Melee Elemental Weapon)
Inventory: Nanite Filter, Plasma Potion

 

Thanks, that's very kind of you. And if no one minds I think I'll take this adorable spider-monkey man.

[Endgame]

12 hours ago, Classic_Spaceman said:

Will the rules be in the first post, so that if we need to reference them in-game, we can do so more easily (rather than needing to look through this thread)? 

Also, I think that my stats are finally correct: 

Yelana Fennix (Classic_Spaceman) 
...

 

Stats look good to me - I'll change the formatting a little just for my own purposes while hosting, but the stats themselves seem good.

12 minutes ago, KotZ said:

If I may, can I please play as Kleeck? Definitely a different character from Kiray, and even in tests I want to try something different.

Consider it done.

11 minutes ago, Lord Duvors said:

Thanks, that's very kind of you. And if no one minds I think I'll take this adorable spider-monkey man.

Noted! Welcome aboard. That brings our starring cast for Mission Zero to:

• Yelana, played by Classic_Spaceman
• Kleeck, played by KotZ
• Tester-Three, played by Samurai-Turtle
• Igaz, played by Goliath
• Dunola, played by Kintobor
• Ensonvilterayquis, played by Lord Duvors

Expect a mission thread to be up tonight.

[Kintobor]

I still think I need to pick my spells. I'll send that to you shortly, Endgame.

[Endgame]

57 minutes ago, Kintobor said:

I still think I need to pick my spells. I'll send that to you shortly, Endgame.

Right, because Dunola has the Holo Scroll in her starting kit, yeah? Just let me know when they are set.

[samurai-turtle]

58 minutes ago, Endgame said:

Right, because Dunola has the Holo Scroll in her starting kit, yeah? Just let me know when they are set.

Wait do the rest of us have any spells? Because the three spells that might make sense for Tester-Three are Obfuscate, Purging Font and / or Warding Bond. But I am thinking it only gets to use one spell at a time. 

[Endgame]

20 minutes ago, samurai-turtle said:

Wait do the rest of us have any spells? Because the three spells that might make sense for Tester-Three are Obfuscate, Purging Font and / or Warding Bond. But I am thinking it only gets to use one spell at a time. 

Looking at the rules, you are allowed to know one spell per each point of spirit you have, so I will make a point of having you guys select them before the first combat.

[Yzalirk]

I know the quest just started and has yet pick up but I am really enjoying it so far!  It honestly makes me excited for when Heroica 2.0 launches officially.  I even have been putting more thought into my official character though I am still trying to understand how to properly set up the stats.

[Endgame]

1 hour ago, Goliath said:

I know the quest just started and has yet pick up but I am really enjoying it so far!  It honestly makes me excited for when Heroica 2.0 launches officially.  I even have been putting more thought into my official character though I am still trying to understand how to properly set up the stats.

I'm glad! I know I am hitting you with a lot of made-up words and not-real places. but I hope the worldbuilding will pay off when the ship touches ground and you get unleashed into Gnorra.

And yes, we all have to come to grips with the new system, me included.

[KotZ]

2 minutes ago, Endgame said:

I'm glad! I know I am hitting you with a lot of made-up words and not-real places. but I hope the worldbuilding will pay off when the ship touches ground and you get unleashed into Gnorra.

And yes, we all have to come to grips with the new system, me included.

I personally love things like this where you’re thrown into the world. Maybe you’ll get references and names, maybe you won’t. Maybe they’ll be explained later, maybe they won’t. But it helps with the world building and having the feel of something different than what we have. And everyone has been doing a great job so far with adding to the world building. 
 

The stats and system will come to people, but it’s definitely different. 

[joeshmoe554]

I decided to take a look at this today and was very pleasantly surprised to find that the new test quest just started.

The new system looks great and I look forward to seeing what some of the amazing QMs here can do with the more expanded character design.

[Endgame]

1 minute ago, KotZ said:

I personally love things like this where you’re thrown into the world. Maybe you’ll get references and names, maybe you won’t. Maybe they’ll be explained later, maybe they won’t. But it helps with the world building and having the feel of something different than what we have. And everyone has been doing a great job so far with adding to the world building. 
 

The stats and system will come to people, but it’s definitely different. 

Yep - the galaxy at large still remains mysterious, but I think the nature of how this place works like that little bit on how hard it is to clone stuff, for example) are slotting into place. That being said, the events of this test mission still remain in the non-canon zone, but if it is well liked enough we could probably slot it into the continuity.

2 minutes ago, joeshmoe554 said:

The new system looks great and I look forward to seeing what some of the amazing QMs here can do with the more expanded character design.

A huge agree there - some of the figbarfing we've seen in this topic already has been wicked cool.

[Yzalirk]

54 minutes ago, Endgame said:

I'm glad! I know I am hitting you with a lot of made-up words and not-real places. but I hope the worldbuilding will pay off when the ship touches ground and you get unleashed into Gnorra.

And yes, we all have to come to grips with the new system, me included.

I totally do not mind it!  I think a lot of it adds to the worldbuilding for Heroica 2.0.  And I really do have a soft spot for worldbuilding although I am not that great at it.  It has been roughly about two years since I tried it.

40 minutes ago, Endgame said:

Yep - the galaxy at large still remains mysterious, but I think the nature of how this place works like that little bit on how hard it is to clone stuff, for example) are slotting into place. That being said, the events of this test mission still remain in the non-canon zone, but if it is well liked enough we could probably slot it into the continuity.

A huge agree there - some of the figbarfing we've seen in this topic already has been wicked cool.

And that is one of the greatest aspects of Heroica 2.0 - the unlimited potential!  With the cloning thing, I really thought a lot about the Grineer from Warframe.  Due to constant cloning, the DNA becomes unstable and the creature experiences genetic degradation as shown in physical appearance.  Surely cloning from clones is not a good idea!  I think something like that could be a plot point to consider some time.

I will hold judgement on whether or not I think the events in this quest should be considered canon or not until the quest is ends, obviously.  Chances are that we will not be playing these characters in the official Heroica 2.0 so I wonder what will happen to them... er us.  But it would be nice to have a call back to this quest somehow.

[samurai-turtle]

1 hour ago, Goliath said:

I will hold judgement on whether or not I think the events in this quest should be considered canon or not until the quest is ends, obviously.  Chances are that we will not be playing these characters in the official Heroica 2.0 so I wonder what will happen to them... er us.  But it would be nice to have a call back to this quest somehow.

My guess is they become NPC. But right now I am having fun playing with a different characters even if it does just become some sort of NPC in the future. 

And I to would like to see more of this system in action before I make any judgement. 

[joeshmoe554]

2 hours ago, Endgame said:

Tester-Three finds a port on one of the sign poles. Although not the robot built to access them, having a proficiency with technology, manages to get some info.

NOTE: Due to revision by the Cydonia Collective, archives may be incomplete.
...

 

Given the bold text, it looks like you used Tester-Three's proficiency in technology to determine the outcome of him accessing the sign pole, but I was curious if you just gave a result based on his current proficiency level or if you did a die roll against a difficulty check?

[Endgame]

That was, in fact, a proficiency check roll!

Just for context, a Proficiency Check roll is:

(3 + Proficiency level) versus Target Number

In this case, I classified accessing the database via the signpost port as a Skilled task, so the target was 3. Tester-Three got to roll 5 dice, and got, if memory serves, 4-4-5-4-2.

In terms of immersion, would it be helpful to show the details of the calculation? I'm not really of a huge opinion either way - I think leaving it to MM's discretion is a safe bet, especially if you want to hide the difficulty rating of something for some reason.

 

Edited January 16, 2020 by Endgame

[Classic_Spaceman]

The reason why I think that we should have comms in the game (and why I assumed that they would be present), is both because of the ubiquity of communications devices in sci-fi/sci-fantasy, and because it allows the party to split - without the players and MM needing to manage which characters have certain information. Additionally, communicators allow visual data (holograms, pictures, etc) to be downloaded or scanned by one character, then used by another. 
 

[samurai-turtle]

@Endgame for calculations, 

I would put it somewhere just for learning purposes. Because for us want to be "quest master" it would help to have an example. But if you want to hide to the end that is fine with me. 

Edited January 16, 2020 by samurai-turtle
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[joeshmoe554]

14 minutes ago, Endgame said:

That was, in fact, a proficiency check roll!

Just for context, a Proficiency Check roll is:

(3 + Proficiency level) versus Target Number

In this case, I classified accessing the database via the signpost port as a Skilled task, so the target was 3. Tester-Three got to roll 5 dice, and got, if memory serves, 4-4-5-4-2.

In terms of immersion, would it be helpful to show the details of the calculation? I'm not really of a huge opinion either way - I think leaving it to MM's discretion is a safe bet, especially if you want to hide the difficulty rating of something for some reason.

I definitely wouldn't worry about showing the details of the calculation since people don't need to know every die's value, but I wonder if there would be value in showing something like (Technology Check = 4 Success) or (Technology Check = 2 Fail).  You could tell the players what the difficulty check is or just leave it up to their imagination on how likely they were to succeed.  I think I personally would like to know the results of dice rolls to know if I failed because the task is difficult or my character just tripped over his own foot.  Though most people may find that information to just be unnecessary details that clutter up the story telling and break immersion.

[Endgame]

18 minutes ago, samurai-turtle said:

@Endgame for calculations, 

I would put it somewhere just for learning purposes. Because for us want to be "quest master" it would help to have an example. But if you want to hide to the end that is fine with me. 

That's a very good point. This mission is all for the purpose of mechanical testing and transparency, so for the rest of it I will try to show the rolls.

 

19 minutes ago, Classic_Spaceman said:

The reason why I think that we should have comms in the game (and why I assumed that they would be present), is both because of the ubiquity of communications devices in sci-fi/sci-fantasy, and because it allows the party to split - without the players and MM needing to manage which characters have certain information. Additionally, communicators allow visual data (holograms, pictures, etc) to be downloaded or scanned by one character, then used by another. 
 

It's a valid assumption. I think this is something that is very worthwhile to discuss now, while we're in the testing phases.

I am okay enough with either the party has comms or the party has no comms; a point in "comms" favor is, as you've said, thematic consistency. A point for "no comms" is that it makes Mission Master's life a smidge easier.

What I will speak against right now is that "some comms" isn't fair. All of the character's in the party are fun and well realized, but the fact that Yelena, Tester-Three, and potentially Igaz all would logically have comms "inherent" to their characters, while the other three wouldn't, doesn't sit right with me.

So lets figure out which approach we want.

9 minutes ago, joeshmoe554 said:

I definitely wouldn't worry about showing the details of the calculation since people don't need to know every die's value, but I wonder if there would be value in showing something like (Technology Check = 4 Success) or (Technology Check = 2 Fail).

I actually love that, since it allows the party to gauge how hard a task is without knowing it exactly, especially if it something that needs to be done multiple times.

Edited January 16, 2020 by Endgame

[Classic_Spaceman]

14 minutes ago, Endgame said:

It's a valid assumption. I think this is something that is very worthwhile to discuss now, while we're in the testing phases.

I am okay enough with either the party has comms or the party has no comms; a point in "comms" favor is, as you've said, thematic consistency. A point for "no comms" is that it makes Mission Master's life a smidge easier.

What I will speak against right now is that "some comms" isn't fair. All of the character's in the party are fun and well realized, but the fact that Yelena, Tester-Three, and potentially Igaz all would logically have comms "inherent" to their characters, while the other three wouldn't, doesn't sit right with me.

So lets figure out which approach we want.

How does a lack of communications-equipment make MM-ing easier? I assumed that allowing the party to split, but not needing to keep up with what information each character/player has, would be the easier choice (over either splitting the party and compartmentalising information, or forcing all members of a party (particularly a larger one, such as this) to engage in only one action at a time). 

I think that all characters should have standard-issue "Heroicomms" as part of the universe's lore (Perhaps with the option to upgrade them over time). 
 

[Endgame]

There's a couple reasons, in my mind.

• Keeping track in and out of character knowledge, especially when the Quest Master splits the party on purpose, was/is often a large source of dramatic irony and tension. Especially when it is done via PM sidequest, and is meant to be something that the player/character experiences personally.
• Time flows weird when the party splits. Allowing instant transmission between two separate parties can lead to paradoxes and plot holes. Let's say that one party gets into a battle that takes a real-life one week to run but happens in ten minutes of game time, whereas the other party goes on an investigation that takes a week but happens over the course of a few hours. All of a sudden, one party might be able to use the comm system to talk to the other party and warn them of something that, on their end, doesn't happen for another 50 minutes.
• Keeping track of what each character ought to know is a little tricky, but it is a constant thing. You can accurately plan around it, and it isn't that hard, because as the Mission Master I am the one giving out the information. In that sense, I can carefully "budget" it in a way that keeps things sane. Throw in comms, and all of a sudden one character's knowledge becomes everyone's knowledge at a given, and the plot can get shattered really quick in some circumstances.

It'd definitely be an adjustment to how we play the game, and all Mission Masters would have to adjust their story structures to match. That's why it is important to talk about this now, while we're still testing. I'll fully admit my bias, by the way: I host a lot more than I play, so I tend to look at issues in the game from a hosting perspective. It's a shortfall of mine. In that sense, I lean "no comms" on this one. However, do players feel that comms would a lot of fun to the game?

Edited January 16, 2020 by Endgame

[samurai-turtle]

My current take of comms is it should be like a real life phone call. So I try to call @Classic_Spaceman but @Endgame tells him I am trying to call him, then Classic_Spaceman answers or just ignores me. 

But I think you should have to buy a standard Heroica comm for like 10 credits (or whatever) it would be like an old tool from the original game. 

For the current mission I would say the comm(s) are being scrambled by the locals because of this up coming ceremony. 

[joeshmoe554]

I think there is some advantage to short range communicators (Line of Sight comms or ad hoc system) for the party to interact in a setting like the current one. It seems like a nice hand-wave to expedite party interactions when the party members may be on opposite ends of a room or interacting with different people 50 meters or so apart.  If Faeja mentions her Oozling problem to one party member, you don't need that person to login and communicate it to the other members chatting with the old man in order for them to respond.

I agree that not having comms when the party splits seems like the better approach for the reasons you mentioned.  It is important to remember as well that even if long range comms are standard, there would always be dead zones, or caves that block the signal, or even jammers that some criminals may employ.  If long range comms are standard, they shouldn't always work.

[Classic_Spaceman]

40 minutes ago, Endgame said:

There's a couple reasons, in my mind.

• Keeping track in and out of character knowledge, especially when the Quest Master splits the party on purpose, was/is often a large source of dramatic irony and tension. Especially when it is done via PM sidequest, and is meant to be something that the player/character experiences personally.

In a case such as this, though, the MM can simply have comms be "jammed", blocked by "interference", or use some other technobabble explanation for why players cannot communicate with each other. Look at Star Trek, for example: Whenever an Away Team needs to be stranded on a planet for plot reasons, there is some kind of disruption to the ship's transporters, requiring the crew to use a shuttlecraft (which, of course, crashes/is disabled). 
 

40 minutes ago, Endgame said:

 

• Time flows weird when the party splits. Allowing instant transmission between two separate parties can lead to paradoxes and plot holes. Let's say that one party gets into a battle that takes a real-life one week to run but happens in ten minutes of game time, whereas the other party goes on an investigation that takes a week but happens over the course of a few hours. All of a sudden, one party might be able to use the comm system to talk to the other party and warn them of something that, on their end, doesn't happen for another 50 minutes.

Time flows oddly in a game like this, anyway, though, due to the effect of different time-zones/responsibilities/etc on players' posting and availability. Additionally, when in doubt: Tachyons. ?
 

40 minutes ago, Endgame said:

 

• Keeping track of what each character ought to know is a little tricky, but it is a constant thing. You can accurately plan around it, and it isn't that hard, because as the Mission Master I am the one giving out the information. Throw in comms, and all of a sudden one character's knowledge becomes everyone's knowledge, and the plot can get shattered really quick in some circumstances.

I see a party with comms as essentially the same as a party whose members are performing different actions in the same general area, information-wise (For example, when the party is exploring Haurbo City, the characters are having different conversations, but the players have access to the same information). 
 

Edited January 16, 2020 by Classic_Spaceman

[Duvors]

17 minutes ago, Endgame said:

There's a couple reasons, in my mind.

• Keeping track in and out of character knowledge, especially when the Quest Master splits the party on purpose, was/is often a large source of dramatic irony and tension. Especially when it is done via PM sidequest, and is meant to be something that the player/character experiences personally.
• Time flows weird when the party splits. Allowing instant transmission between two separate parties can lead to paradoxes and plot holes. Let's say that one party gets into a battle that takes a real-life one week to run but happens in ten minutes of game time, whereas the other party goes on an investigation that takes a week but happens over the course of a few hours. All of a sudden, one party might be able to use the comm system to talk to the other party and warn them of something that, on their end, doesn't happen for another 50 minutes.
• Keeping track of what each character ought to know is a little tricky, but it is a constant thing. You can accurately plan around it, and it isn't that hard, because as the Mission Master I am the one giving out the information. Throw in comms, and all of a sudden one character's knowledge becomes everyone's knowledge, and the plot can get shattered really quick in some circumstances.

As a player I'm against having comms for the same reasons Endgame is, particularly the first one. I love the dramatic potential and roleplaying that comes from the uneven distribution of information amongst characters. I especially enjoy PM interactions, which are meant to be somewhat personal experiences for the player, which would be impossible (or at least very difficult) if all the characters were in constant communication.

However I feel that I should bring up something from the old game that seems pertinent, and that is Z-mail.

For context, Z-mail was more or less a magical E-mail system that allowed you to send letters and items to NPC's and other players instantaneously and for free. And while it could theoretically be used in much the same way as it's suggested comms could, but they just weren't. For whatever reason the only things they were ever used for was sending things to characters in other quests or for special holiday events, probably because the effort to use them wasn't really any greater then having your character go over to where everyone else was and information-vomit all over them.

16 minutes ago, joeshmoe554 said:

I agree that not having comms when the party splits seems like the better approach for the reasons you mentioned.  It is important to remember as well that even if long range comms are standard, there would always be dead zones, or caves that block the signal, or even jammers that some criminals may employ.  If long range comms are standard, they shouldn't always work.

 

10 minutes ago, Classic_Spaceman said:

In a case such as this, though, the MM can simply have comms be "jammed", blocked by "interference", or use some other technobabble explanation for why players cannot communicate with each other. Look at Star Trek, for example: Whenever an Away Team needs to be stranded on a planet for plot reasons, there is some kind of disruption to the ship's transporters, requiring the crew to use a shuttlecraft (which, of course, crashes/is disabled). 

Yeah that honestly sounds a bit too much like how QMs used to react to people attempting to use a magic compass in the last game for my liking, a handwave to explain why this unwanted plot-breaking device doesn't work.

 

15 minutes ago, Classic_Spaceman said:

I see a party with comms as essentially the same as a party whose members are performing different actions in the same general area, information-wise (For example, when the party is exploring Haurbo City, the characters are having different conversations, but the players have access to the same information). 
 

I'm sorry but that sounds too much like metagaming. I feel that a character should actually go to the trouble of actively passing on information to the rest of the party rather than have everyone automatically know what everyone else is doing. Which I suppose is my biggest objection to the whole idea.