Talk:The Big SD

Questionnaire Responses

Ralson

What do you consider makes a good SD?

A game where 20 players don't join and write 50,000 words a day (making it impenetrable to new players) and overwhelm the GM, making him get sick of addressing all our minutia and then quit in two months.

A game that's actually a 'game', with recognizable objects, objectives, and ways of 'winning'- one that has some sort of underlying mechanical rules system to support the fluff, and where players can accrue resources, materials, or other objects of statistical import alongside their enjoyment of the worldbuilding.**

What do you consider some of the best SDs you've played? (please provide likes if able)

LoE, duh.

Sphere, Steam and Sorcery I and II, Lost in Fiction (the one with all the solars)**

Why were they so good?

20 players didn't join right off the bat and the GM didn't quit in two months.

There were things to do, places to go, and stuff to get, and it wasn't just writing a story with no authorial oversight, limitation, or actual incentive. Even the more rules light games still had interesting characters, settings, and other such material that made them fun to play.**

What is the best style of GMing for an SD?

The kind where you don't quit in two months.

The kind where the GM continues to invest in the game and does more then just serve as an indexing program that manages resources and tells players "Player 2 won fight Y, player 3 won fight K". One where the GM creates a living world and continues to invest in it and makes it enticing for the players. Presenting quest options, resources, actual NPC actions- that sort of thing. A GM who is invested beyond just making the game 'run'.**

What keeps you playing an SD?

The GM not quitting in two months.

An SD where the GM works with the players and gives them interesting options to help them advance in the 'game', emphasis of the 'game' part, letting the players do awesome stuff and actually 'matter' in the grand scheme of things. Not requiring players to write 20,000 words after a single Sim.**

Why do you drop an SD?

The GM quits after two months.

The GM quits after two months, or turns into a hermit. An SD that is flat, where the player can't affect status quo, cannot actually achieve anything, and is little more than a glorified fanfic.**

Also, you forgot to ask what makes us want to join an SD. However, considering that the big problem is too many players, I guess that's prudent.

-Ral

Kerrus

What do you consider makes a good SD?

A game that's actually a 'game', with recognizable objects, objectives, and ways of 'winning'- one that has some sort of underlying mechanical rules system to support the fluff, and where players can accrue resources, materials, or other objects of statistical import alongside their enjoyment of the worldbuilding.**

What do you consider some of the best SDs you've played? (please provide likes if able)

Sphere, Steam and Sorcery I and II, Lost in Fiction (the one with all the solars)**

Why were they so good?

There were things to do, places to go, and stuff to get, and it wasn't just writing a story with no authorial oversight, limitation, or actual incentive. Even the more rules light games still had interesting characters, settings, and other such material that made them fun to play.**

What is the best style of GMing for an SD?

The kind where the GM continues to invest in the game and does more then just serve as an indexing program that manages resources and tells players "Player 2 won fight Y, player 3 won fight K". One where the GM creates a living world and continues to invest in it and makes it enticing for the players. Presenting quest options, resources, actual NPC actions- that sort of thing. A GM who is invested beyond just making the game 'run'.**

What keeps you playing an SD?

The GM not quitting in two months.

An SD where the GM works with the players and gives them interesting options to help them advance in the 'game', emphasis of the 'game' part, letting the players do awesome stuff and actually 'matter' in the grand scheme of things. Not requiring players to write 20,000 words after a single Sim.**

Why do you drop an SD?

The GM quits after two months, or turns into a hermit. An SD that is flat, where the player can't affect status quo, cannot actually achieve anything, and is little more than a glorified fanfic.**

Five

What do you consider makes a good SD?

ONE WITHOUT EZE. AND ONE WHERE EVERYONE(LIKE FUCKING EVERYONE) DOESNT WRITE HUGE FUCKING POSTS THAT MAKE IT INPENETRABLE TO NEW PLAYERS

What is the best style of GMing for an SD? THE KIND THAT DOESNT MAKE WRITING EVERY GODDAMNED POST INTO WRITING A GODDAMNED NOVELLA.

What keeps you playing an SD? THE GM NOT QUITTING AFTER TWO MONTHS.

Why do you drop an SD? THAT SHOULD BE FUCKING OBVIOUS.

-Love, Five.

-Bad Five, no flames! *smacks* -FBH

Bossmuff

What do you consider makes a good SD?

A game where people actually interact, and where there are reasons for people to engage with the game world and other players, rather than just retreat into their own posts. There should be discernable advantages and incentives to take action. Interactions beyond the diplomatic equivalent of 'Hi. Wanna trade?'

What do you consider some of the best SDs you've played? (please provide likes if able)

The Steam and Sorcery series (which had players engaging with each other and a GM who got involved), the Fantasy SD (which almost became a light nation game by the end).

Why were they so good?

The GM actually tried to do something rather than lamely sim out player actions, and actually had posts that mattered to the rest of the player base. Players responded and interacted to each others beyond greetings.

What is the best style of GMing for an SD?

An active style, where the GM actually does things that matter to the greater world and the PCs. A GM who takes player nations and gives them something to play off of, and encourages joint action between players, cooperative or antagonistic. A GM who responds to and rewards players who come out of their post-shell and try to shape the world.

What keeps you playing an SD?

Players responding and engaging with each other. The GM actually caring what the players do, and this having a discernable effect and reaction from the PCs and NPCs, as well as the setting in general. This encourages me to continue plotlines and keep writing, and to think of new things to try.

Why do you drop an SD?

Put me down for the 'GM quits after two months' category. A world that becomes utterly stagnant after planning, where the NPCs are set in stone and the PCs can't actually do anything. Also, if the other players and NPCs develop feet of clay and refuse to acknowledge anything else, this gives absolutely no reason to post. This leads to players dropping off, and a vicious cycle that kills the SD.

Five typing in allcaps about how he hates long posts doesn't help, either. :p

--Bossmuff 18:28, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

MJ12's Stuff

SD Overall Suggestions --MJ12 Commando 11:02, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

The Primary Things To Balance

Most worlds will end up as one of these, and in theory they should be roughly equal in power.

• Maximum Tech Worlds

The natural inclination of man is to go for shiny.

• High Technomagic Worlds

EVEN SHINIER.

• High Magic Worlds

Elder Scrolls of Dungeons and Exalts: The Sorcerer's Crusade, a Storytelling Game of the GM's Horror at having to make up magic rules

• Medium TL/Medium Magic

Pendleton, or for a slightly higher-tech lower-magic version, GURPS Technomancer (goddamn it I want my stealth dragons and kevlar flying carpets)

• TL4istan

The TL4istan. You know it, you love it (or hate it), but like it or not there's going to be at least a few.

These worlds, as what are probably going to be the what you see as your primary types of PC category and thus should be balanced against each other. Edge cases are going to exist but those can be winged at this point if these are roughly in balance.

Human Enhancement And Options

Human enhancement options, because everyone likes supermen. I guess maybe I could include "wacky supernatural kung fu training" as another option?

• Eugenics

Available ridiculously early, disadvantage is obviously low level and slowed population growth. Is still pretty awesome conceptually because eugenic supermen are cool (just ask all the Sparta fanboys).

• Chemical Enhancement

Available with fairly low biology (post-WWII or 1970s level will do it, with stuff like steroids), but is again relatively weak and clearly is short term versus having it all the time. Burnout's a bitch and so is tolerance and addiction.

• Genetic Engineering

Available later (postmodern or maybe moderate life magic), and is relatively cheap, eminently reliable, and safe with the disadvantage of being weakish compared to the other option available at the same time.

• Cybernetic Augmentation

Effective but must be explicitly installed. Only crazy, desperate, or dedicated people will generally lop off perfectly good bits of themselves for metal.

• Psychological Restructuring

Reconfiguring a man's entire psyche into something suited for the job, building your perfect soldiers. Available at a high level of sociology or mental magic, useful but likely to one-track your nation into some kind of overspecialized caste system.

• Turning Into A Glowy Energy Being

Available moderately late as a magical option to turn into some sort of wacky elemental/astral being/other nonphysical, and much later as a technological option. Powerful but expensive. Also glowing is bad for stealth.

Peel Tech Splurge

Material Science:

• TL1: Metalworking, carpentry and masonry.
• TL2: Steel, concrete. Filler level.
• TL3: Machine tools. Liberation of all natural substances (rubber, aluminium)
• TL4: Precision engineering. Synthetic substances.
• TL5: Nanofabrication. Smart materials.
• TL6: Free nanotechnology. Exotic matter.
• TL7: Exoticer matter. The end of plumbing.

Science of Forces:

• TL1: Muscles, mechanical storage.
• TL2: Wind & water, gunpowder.
• TL3: Steam, explosives, electricity.
• TL4: Combustion, the atom, radio.
• TL5: Advanced batteries. Fusion power.
• TL6: Wireless power. Energy projection.
• TL7: Matter conversion.

Biology:

• TL1: Herbalism & sanitation.
• TL2: An understanding of the body.
• TL3: The use of chemicals. Heredity and evolution.
• TL4: Pharmacology. Genetic engineering.
• TL5: Genetic and cybernetic augmentation.
• TL6: Genetic creation.
• TL7: Exotic life.

Sociology

• TL1: Relationship & religious networks.
• TL2: The rule of law. The nation state.
• TL3: Economics, capitalism and communism. White people.
• TL4: Psychoanalysis. Mass media. Computing.
• TL5: Social engineering. Brainwashing & conditioning. Neural links. Expert systems.
• TL6: Mental engineering. Artificial Intelligence.
• TL7: Exotic minds. Strong AI.

Cosmology:

• TL1: Astronomy, geometry. Navigation by stars.
• TL2: Cosmological model.
• TL3: Relativity.
• TL4: Dimensional science.
• TL5: Teleportation. Planar communication.
• TL6: Wormholes. Metric engineering. Planar travel.
• TL7: Exotic geometry.