We are, and I'm not stealing anyone's ideas. Just that since this seems to be the way people are tilting rather than altering 2010, that I thought I'd put together something formal of how I think it ought to be implemented. If I'm out of line, say the word.

(Nothing to see here, move along.)

All right, I'm out of line. I'll hold back, and you can go ahead. And I'm sincere, here. And I'm sorry.

Apology accepted. Friends still?

I want to see your ideas. I like the way you think.

Friends still.

And ideas are, in short form (har har:)

- What I stated before, about keeping it in 2008 and advancing the date to correspond with our own, and freezing the metaplot. My reasoning:



- Come up with an in-universe reason why there is a novas-only forum. The original notion was that we were all typing on something deep within the Directive's computer systems, which seems a) a bit unfriendly to less secretive, more neophyte novas and b) doesn't jibe with how I understand the Directive's distributed intelligence network. The reason I came up with was an anonymous nova assembling a community on their own dime. Any nova can join; any non-nova can join if sponsored by a nova. The book mentions that the OpNet has registered user licenses, so those would aid in background checks that this anonymous nova - let's call them 'Aleph' after the Global Frequency character - would conduct on new members.

- I realize people loves the Strengths and Weaknesses system. I don't. Aberrant's not the most well-balanced system at the best of times, but S&W is not only imbalanced, but unintuitive and frankly rather ugly. It doesn't mesh well with the system, sitting atop it like a dog's yard cigar atop a functional if touchy car. I'd do the same for Merits & Flaws, or at least, those Merits & Flaws that need a Storyteller to properly adjudicate, such as Debt or Favor.

- Character Creation: Limited to 7/5/3 atts, 23 abs, 7 BGs, 15 BPs, and anywhere between 0 to 50 NPs. So far so good. But here's the controversial bit: no experience, and how many NPs and where the dots and points all go is semi-fluid.

Why no experience? Keeping track is a pain, first of all, and second of all, I'm all for there being fewer barriers to entry for the forum. "Everyone here is more powerful than you" is a barrier. I'd like to avoid the arms race. 50 nova points is a lot. You'd be pretty darned powerful - at least, to baselines.

Why keep things fluid? Well, it's partly realistic - people don't always get better at everything as time goes on. What I mean by semi-fluid is changing the number of NPs you are built on - lowering your overall power level if you're badly wounded, or raising if if you're practicing, up to the cap - or reallocating bonus points or skill/attribute points as you practice some things and let others lapse. As long as you're under the cap, explain changes and are conservative and gradual with them, I think it'd be fine.

But more than that, I have a theory that players like fiddling with the stats on their characters and that's a good enough substitute for experience points. It should allow PCs to learn new things without the need for experience points. If you want to leave your character room to grow, build them initially on fewer NP and then let them grow at the pace you want.

As for how to handle taint? Every drop of permanent taint you take lets you raise your 'cap' by 2, allowing you, if you wish, 2 more NP. You can say it's buying powers if you want to go the cheaper power route and raising your NP cap - or don't buy powers at all if it's just the results of powermaxing. And have this replace the buy-things-half-off system for taint, since that system's a bit skewed at character creation, most things that cost NPs having a round number. To 'buy off' taint with Chrysalis, lower your cap by 2 for each one disposed of, if you're a Terat. You keep any aberrations you picked up.

- Keep consent. I think it solves more problems than it causes and if we're going low to no moderation we'll need it.

- Make it clear what PCs are allowed to know about what. What I said before about a common launch pad for our stories is why. Things I would put on the do-not-know list include Divis Mal's real name, why novas are sterile, what happened to cause the eruptions, the secret history of Aeon, the existence of Proteus, and the Directive's eclipdisol.

- We'll probably have to change 2010's Charter if we want '10s to come in, but I support them doing so even if it's one way. Another barrier to entry is "I have a really neat character I can't bring in."

- Spell all this out in an FAQ atop each relevant subforum of this section of the site.

Bloody brilliant. I'd play in it. Thank you.

You're welcome. And again, I apologize. I got over-enthusiastic and didn't mean to step on toes.

so basically advancement is done through shifting your points around? I don't see how that's gonna work.

Just a silly thought.... this is starting in 2008, right? If you want to allow a *little* advancement, you could raise the NP cap a little bit (2? 3? 5?) each year, to represent a gradual increase in the power of the average nova in the world.

Justin: Under the system as I picture it, advancement would be a non-issue. You advance - and regress - more or less as you desire, as long as you are within the caps in place. I wanted a system that wouldn't get easily out of control, and that wouldn't intimidate new players into thinking they'd get creamed by a passing demigod. That means throttling advancement and making it apply equally, and yeah, I realize it's going to be controversial. Getting EcksPee is a big part of gaming. But that said...

PW: Raising the cap by a few NP a year sounds like a good idea. I'd put it at three - enough to get a dot in the majority of powers, or in a Level 3 power if you take some taint. That would put the cap at 80+taint in real-year 2018, and 110+taint in real-year 2028. If we're still playing by then in between shifts at the Robot Overlord Salt Mines, I will be impressed as fuck.

I have always had a probelm that not all Nova Points spend the same. Could we do it with the standard 30 NP creation plus 50~75 experience points added on instead? We could then add maybe 10xp or so there after.

Yo.

So first of all I would like to add Why is 2010 dead? I have a couple characters who have been just waiting to get going but without any real action on the board there isnt much to do or say. I think some collaborative fictions might be in order, since I prefer more plot based character interaction than , "Hi Im posting a comment on a forum, woo hoo! Aint it great to be a Nova?!"


As for the topic at hand...it seems awefully fishy to me to have a game without advancment. However I understand the idea is to avoid large scale escalation. What this means is to basically make a character that you would enjoy playing as-is and just tell stories at the level. Am I correct here?

I don't know if it's "dead" to all, but it is to me. I think it started off with too much activity, too many characters and too much stuff just spewing out. I created some really poor ideas for interacting (my fault) and as a result have just given up.

As for 2018, well that does seem dead. Cause of death? In my opinion? Too many gods, too many egos and too much epic.

I do like the concept of starting with a higher number of NP'. I was thinking of everyone beginning with 60 NP's. In addition, all characters could be 2nd generation. The dates could be moved up to 2028, or 20 years from today. Characters from the 2018 forum could be reworked into 2nd gen characters.

It is just an idea.

I'm hoping 2010 isn't dead. I've got some characters I would like to do a lot with.

I think I may be one of those writers whose fictions are not much appreciated, but I do my best.

Hmmm. Well I'll see what I can do.

I like the creation rules. I like the Cap. I would much rather see the cap raise 5 or even 10 points a year. 10+ years of realtime writing about a character for only 30 np increase would not be to my tastes. One of the biggest problems I have with most games is that advancement is so painfully slow. 5 xp per chapter and it takes 6 months of real time to do the chapter, just pains me. I like my characters to grow, and given that this is a replacement/alternative to 2018 I'd like to start out at the 50 points rather than being stuck at 50. I don't think I've ever joined a game that allowed me to start at 50 or more that actually got off the ground, and I'd like to give it a try.

Second issue is with the setting never changing. I understand your reasons for this and I agree that this would be a valid solution to it. However, Bart Simpson has been in 3rd grade for like 20 years now. I just want to yell at the little bastard to grow up already! j/k My preference would be a game that started off Canon (2008) but then from that point on anything goes, with the caveat that for major world changing events (discovery of cure for taint, or uncovering Proteus, destroying a major city, things like that) would require a vote by a majority of the players.

What do people think?

Also, I would be willing to help moderate if people wanted me to. I am one of the few people on the site that have no vested interest in what has gone on in the past with either 2010 or 2018 forums.

Are you still looking for answers to the original question, Micheal, or has the thread gone beyond that?

The floor's open to any musings on where 2018 has been, where it is, and where it ought to go, whether you think it needs fixing, export to 2010, or rebooting.

well sometimes IC chat happens like it is tonight, but it's been pretty rare lately.

Hi.

I'm sure quite a few of you don't know me as its been a while. The only important facts are I was a regular poster here, like many of you are now, and NPrime! was an important site to me. I had a great deal of fun here, contributed one or two worthwhile things with the assistance of other players, some of whom are still around. I have some good memories of the place and people. In a nutshell that's who I am.

In all honestly there is likely to be some disconnect between how some of you see NPrime and how I see it. It was a different place when I found it and changed many times while I was a regular. Sometimes in very small ways, while at other times in ways that made it almost a new site. Our situation as players was different as well. We knew nothing about the characters that were speaking and even less about each other as players. Because of that, the first order of business was often to explore who and what the character were in order to determine how they walked in the world therefore how they could affect our own characters. Getting to know the players was often a byproduct of interacting with our characters. No chat, no rules beyond those of golden hue and many different interpretations of the world. I don't particularly enjoy talking about me but I do want you to understand where I am coming from with my opinions.

To answer Michael's orginal question; there came a time when I drifted away from the site not because it wasn't fun to role play but rather because my view was very different from of the later arriving role players. I saw NPrime as "story" while others couldn't relate to the idea of the site being other than "game". I don't want to burst anyone's bubble if they're having fun but I do have a different view of the site. When my view became the minority and some frictions arose with newer players I felt it was time to move on.

Everyone seems very enthusiastic about the idea of reboot. And its not a bad idea, nor a new one. The idea has been tried before though it ended in failure at the time as no one wanted to walk away from the personal and shared history or the character they'd created.I think this time it can be successful. The active posters really seem to want to keep what they have in Nprime. Moreover, everyone is approaching the idea of a reboot in a more organized fashion than it was the last time so success is a solid possibility. However, you may find discussions about the type of points spent or caps on what can be done less of a solution than desired. Don't misunderstand me, that approach really will block the power gamer that needs their character to be able to toss bolts of plasma powerful enough to incinerate entire cities. But I have to wonder; is the problem the character having that power or the player needing it regardless of the effect it has on the site and the peeps they're playing with? City destroying bolts of divine power aren't the most disruptive things a player can do.

Give a power gamer a system and he or she will find a way to exploit it. Give a role player a system problem and they're going to feel stifled. Treat someone like dirt and they'll find some way or other to kvetch. A system that prevents an architect from making something of value is going to feel oppressing. You can mix and match anything with all the types of role players and odds are you will find there is no one answer that allows everyone to feel they're allowed to have fun. So rules are important but limited in what can be accomplished.

I'd like you consider the idea of "story" over "game", an idea that is at the heart of my opinions. In many ways, Nprime is the equivalent of a fanfic site but one where the media explicitly expects us to create new characters to flesh out the world rather than concentrate on the main characters of the film. For those into anime or manga, we don't talk about Utena except in passing because we're fleshing out Utena's classmates who are off having completely different adventures having nothing to do with Utena's despite existing in the same universe/film. In another example it’s like finding out there are several people the Terminators are after besides Jon Connors. Yeah, Ahhhhhnold is out there running around with the kid but we're playing rebels in the future, Terminators in the past, Skynet clones having second thoughts, secret agents trying to figure out what the heck is going on. We as players are not suppose to upset the apple cart when it comes to the events of the films (canon) but other than that we're off and running. None of that has anything to do with what kinds of points we're using to create the characters either. The idea is not whether a character is too powerful and never has been. The question is whether the player is using the character in a dickish way.

Once upon a time I played in a game of DnD. In that game another player created a character for a DnD party, a character carrying the scars of a being abused by a Wizard in his childhood. Great idea. Good concept. Really original stuff. In the middle of the night, while the characters camped outside a dungeon entrance, that character murdered another PC for no reason other than the player had created the character to kill users of magic whenever the opportunity arose. The player had done this without letting us know what was going on and even the GM was in the dark. The player's response to questions and disbelief was simply "I was just playing my character." I am a little embarrassed but my response to that, being much younger than I am now, was something along the lines of "You @sshole! Don't hand me that cr@p. What the hell were you thinking?"

That player didn't get into another game for a couple of months. He really was a talented role player, a really good guy, and he screwed up royally.

Think of the worst power gamer you've encountered here. Is a structure to how and when they can power a character going to keep him or her from being a power gamer? Think of the player - what we use to call a blue booker - whose sole goal in life is to play a role. Are they going to care about someone else's desire for interaction, powers or combat complete with dice? It goes on like that. Look, if there is some situation that is completely intolerable to the group by all means make a rule to prevent the situation from arising. If the problem is the individual is annoying the heck out of you by being disruptive... Rules don't prevent players from being disruptive. Rules force players, creative by definition, to be creative in circumventing the situations that are obstacles to them. What they can't get around is the need to have other players and character if only as witnesses. Once a player begins to use a character disruptively, regardless of the story that player says they are trying to tell, no one else is part of that story. Why allow a player who obviously cares so little for the rest of the troupe – troupe being everyone in this thread - to take part in the stories of the troupe. Internal consistency is one thing but a player that cares for nothing but his or her characters and his or her stories isn't part of the troupe. So don't treat them as if they are.

Combat btw, isn't something I think highly of in this environment. Not that its impossible, rather, more often than not the person desiring it was looking for a way to force an issue. In my experience here, it was rarely the logical result of a character's choices. More often it was very simply one player being upset with another.

I am NOT adverse to structure. It doesn't entice me to play but neither will it keep me away when I feel urge to talk to the really creative people hanging out here. Truthfully, over time the Story vs. Game discussion is one I've lost as often as I've prevailed. I think it’s a great idea for everyone to agree on what's expected. I just don't believe in over organizing a simple idea; don't be a dick to the people that are enabling your hobby. You can give everyone 50 novas points to create equal footing. Unfortunately, the abusers will abuse while demanding everyone recognize that they are within their rights at the same time non-abusers will refrain from being disruptive.

These are my thoughts such as they are. Personal mileage may vary.

Jack

I love you.

I vote for 2008 +/- 2 years, the only moderation to be the outrage of the other members of the forum (the "don't be a dick" rule), and starting with the Aberrant canon setting, and then writing our own future from there forward, with the restriction of anything that changes the world has to earn the approval of the others.* The 50-point cap is problematic because power-gamers will use that as their target and find new and creative ways to be the baddest mofo on 50 points. Min-maxing does not lead to good stories or compelling characters-- unless you think glass cannons are interesting.

I think we absolutely need to cut and paste large sections of Jack's post into the flavor text of the rules post for the new forum. He's right, we are a troupe, and the people who abuse the troupe are to be turned out.

I further suggest that 2010 characters would not be allowed unless there is an overwhelming majority who want to do so. This is because the exodus of 2010 characters into the new era would grievously or probably mortally wound 2010.


(* If it's a sufficiently outrageous idea to even cause someone to call you a dick, it's too outrageous.)

Wow, Fortune's Son shows up and writes a damn bible, nice work and well said.

One part however...



I'd like to make clear that 1) you are right, but also 2) it's easier than most people think.

The problem exists that most people don't want to lose. What you end up with is bickering and dice rolling and a chaotic fiction of one-up-manship to see who, as you put it, can throw the biggest city leveling plasma bolt.

Combat is difficult because it needs something some of us overlook: a script. This is not the best environment for dice rolling or number crunching. If you feel the need to scuffle with another character (and the opponent agrees) then you two need to take a moment and decide how the battle will be played out. Decide a winner, decide how much damage you're going to cause, is death an option. We're adults, and damn intelligent ones too, there's no reason why it should be difficult to script a battle.

Forget the powers, enhancement, and everything else. Those are filler. All they are for is to make the fiction a good read. Be respectful to the players you battle. If you've been decided the winner then don't just wipe the floor with your opponent and protray attacks bouncing off you. It's a battle of novas for crying out loud, make everything sound as epic possible.

In the end it's about having fun and telling a story, just like at home at the table.



Idea for Disscussion - I think advancement and character changes should be backed up with role play. If your character gains new powers or recovers from severe injuries (the type the damage attribute not health levels) then that should be backed up with appropriate fictions or something.

For example: Revenant has power XA, XB, and XC. I go idle for a month or so and come back with power XD. There is no fiction(s) to back it up, no role play in chat or posts, or nothing...

I should be called and told 'no'.

The reason I bring this up is to prevent the classic "it fits my theme" method of gaining new powers. Usually it's just because we come up with a cool idea at home or from our favorite anime, or TV show, or recent movie we caught at the theatre and with out thinking about we immediately impliment that on our character with no rhyme or reason.

The 'troupe' has a voice. If we feel something has gone overboard we should have the right to speak out on it. In the above example let majority rule. Start a poll 'Do we as player's feel Revenant's new power is justified?'

If yes, yipee. If no, fuck all of you I quit.

I kid of course, but think about it. We are our biggest enemies sometimes. We're the ones that breathe life into these characters and let's face it: sometimes we don't think.

It's an idea. Toss it around.



Eh, work with what you have. Those who would make such a character are usually the ones who end up with no one wanting to do fictions with them.

Like I said, gimme 5NP or 5,000NP and as long as I'm having a good time with the RP side of it I'll keep a character as interesting as I can for the enjoyment of all players involved.

This is an excellent suggestion.

Hi Lily! I apologize for not greeting you sooner! Hell yes you may play.

I'm not sure how I missed this earlier. This is an excellent point. The S&W and M&F* are ripe for abuse and rarely add anything to a character which cannot simply be roleplayed into existence anyway.



(* Sounds kind of kinky.)

I agree with this. I've never felt either were needed with this system. Nothing says you can't RP that flaw and with 50 nps to start you don't really need S&W.

Humbly and respectfully I disagree. I have had more than one awesome concept that required some tinkering with strengths and weaknesses. Usually it has to do with powers that are linked or dependant on other powers. One copuld argue that its possible to just roleplay but power activation requires an action so if things are supposed to happen at the same time its problematic...um example...yeah:

A quantum bolt that is so bright it has a linked simul strobe. Or with dependancy, a qbolt that can only be fired when you are bodymoprhed into fire.

Some of the strengths I agree are broken like allowing 2 levels of strength to make a maintenace power permanent. Mostly what I do is just take those 2 or 3 levels of weaknesses and just add 2 or 3 more dice to the activation roll. Not terribly abusive and for some of my more baroque ideas absolutely necessary.

Personally, I would rather build up our characters with experience points instead of nova points. I feel that you can do more to flesh out characters with that kind of system.

I like the Merit and Flaw system, but then I like how they fuel stories for my characters. I feel I earn my merits and pay for my flaws.

I see some advantages in the S&W system, but I see how it is abused too. Pity.