Anyone running any online games?

[ghost-angel]

Re: Anyone running any online games?

 

Since it was bantered about, providing a little bit of info on the Cyberpunk idea I have in my head as an possibly alternate:

 

Future Fail: Empire

"The future has failed, we are here to save the present."

 

Cyber and Bio-Technologies both made leaping advancements between 2010-2022 made possible by a working model creation of Nanotechnology. Nanotech is limited, nanites have limited task capacity and must remain with-in range of their 'base': essentially a nanite can be programmed with 1-2 tasks maximum (repair bone cell; destroy cold virus; increase adrenaline output; etc. . .) and must remain within a host containing a 'base' that produces and programs to nanites (as well as recycles old) the network working on a short-range wireless link (think a Bluetooth network in a human body).

 

No swarms of nanites spontaneously gaining sapience; no nanite bombs wiping out cities.

 

Governments still exist, but tend to be no more a ruling entity than corporate entities are (if you've read Jennifer Government or Snow Crash - it's a similar set up). The internet functions much like it does now (only things like a smart phone can be a cellular network you have implanted instead of a device in your pocket).

 

Netrunning in the classic "CP2020" or "Shadowrun" sense will not be a part of this game. A program cannot kill a person over the internet, as far as anyone knows you can't remotely access someone's internal nanite-group and reprogram them on the fly, or other things the movies would have the public believe. Cyberware is also not tricked out chrome arms with inline machine guns and the like, it's more subtle nanite implants, with the majority being commercial uses vs military (corporations drive the world economy and R&D - you make more money selling and upgrading the latest nanite-phone implant with built in games than you do with illegal guns....)

 

I plan on the game being 2/3 intrigue/espionage and 1/3 action oriented combat (if guns are drawn and fired you probably messed up).

 

If the interest is there in a serial series between Nol's game when he takes a break I can provide much more detail in a different thread.

[Nolgroth]

Re: Anyone running any online games?

 

Interesting. I guess no chromed to the gills street samurai types huh? That's okay. Count me as intrigued.

[Nolgroth]

Re: Anyone running any online games?

 

And once again, I prove my superiority over the common bullfrog! I got my weapons idea to work.

 

One macro to rule them all

One macro to find them

One macro to bring them all

And in the MapTools bind them

 

I figured it out. I figured out how to store weapon names in the token and have a single macro pull from whatever token is accessing it. No more individual selectTarget macros. Just one. I has a happy. Can't tell you how long I have been wanting to get this particular hurdle overcome, and now it is. This also paves the way for martial arts maneuvers to be added.

 

It should scare me that I am so happy over figuring out a coding problem.

 

Edit: Even discovered that I had no Defenses applied against the Stun of an attack and made the appropriate fixes. Posted a longer summary and updated Campaign file over in the Other Software > Maptools for HERO 6th thread.

[Nolgroth]

Re: Anyone running any online games?

 

Updated Hardesty token with new image.

[Starwolf]

Re: Anyone running any online games?

 

LOL.... you are very cool. I am excited to see how the new attack macro works.

 

On the image, the full body shot was just a fun to do thing. I have just a head shot for the token as we discussed. If you just grabbed a head shot though, I will use your image. The hardest part of the image was getting his left hand to grip the pistol. The gun grip pose I had saved was based on more modern guns so the fingers were in the wrong position. It was kind of weird bending the fingers one knuckle at a time, and the program will let you move them in strange directions. I am still not 100% happy with the thumb position...

 

John will be fine with a privateer crew. There is probably only one ship afloat he would hesitate to fire on, the HMS Narwhal, she having been his home for many years and still being (as far as he knows) under his fathers command.

[Starwolf]

Re: Anyone running any online games?

 

I added a quick Weapon Builder macro for adding weapons to your token for use with Nol's attack macro. It is a quick way to add weapons or attacks to your token. Note that the weapon or attack must already exist in the lib:combat token that Nol maintains or the attack will throw an error. Also note that the weapon name you add must be spelled the way it is spelled in the lib:combat weapon list. The code is posted in the Other Software Forum.

[Nolgroth]

Re: Anyone running any online games?

 

Awesome. Just awesome. Now all I need is to do the grunt work of adding in just about every common weapon I can find.

[Nolgroth]

Re: Anyone running any online games?

 

Starwolf I just had a chance to look over Hardesty with a fine toothed comb. Some notes;

 

1. There is a rigid cap on CV of 6. The only thing that can raise any CV value above 6 is a Combat or Martial Maneuver bonus. All things being equal, you will not be able to put both CSLs into OCV or DCV. The extra one can be used as a PSL or you can put both into DC. Other than that, you will have to split them.
   
2. Hunteds are, as always, a discretionary thing with me. With a limited geo-political area (Avalon and her colonies I presume) this makes for a potential freebie. Right now I will let it stick as one of the potential storylines I have, floating around in my head, will make that relevant.
   
3. Character looks good in all other ways.
   

Quick question on the Froissement; is that just a Martial Disarm by another name, another Disarm by another name, or a unique maneuver?

[Starwolf]

Re: Anyone running any online games?

 

How about if I split the CSLs, leave one with the swords, and put one into CSL Shipboard Cannon (I understand that it probably won't come into play that often, but it fits with my backstory)?

 

Cool about the hunted.

 

The Froissement is just a martial disarm by another name. I got it from the fencing martial art in UMA.

 

Let me know if I can help with the weapon stats. I can start with modern weapons leaving you free to concentrate on more campaign specific ones. Incidentally, what is RBR? Rounds Before reload?

[Starwolf]

Re: Anyone running any online games?

 

Here is a text list of the weapons in the current Attack macro weapons file. Just type these names into the builder spelled exactly as in the list to add to your token.

[Nolgroth]

Re: Anyone running any online games?

 

By all means you can help. RBR is Reduced By Range.

[Starwolf]

Re: Anyone running any online games?

 

Ok a couple more questions... How are we handling special damage cases, for example Armor Piercing, Penetrating, Stun Only, and NND? Should we just ignore them for now?

 

Another one that has come up as I work through the tables... How are we handling increased StunX, for example Hammers and the Maul are listed as Having +1 StunX and are killing attacks?

 

The last question is for explosions... this one has always been problematic for Maptools. Any ideas?

 

I have just started building the weapons tables from pages 204 through 209 of 6E Core book two. I should have text file so you can just cut and paste the whole list into the weapons macro tonight or tomorrow at the latest.

[Nolgroth]

Re: Anyone running any online games?

 

Honestly, I haven't gotten around to Armor Piercing and all of that. I imagine Stun Only applies to Normal Attacks only. Should not be too hard to implement there. I'll play with some concepts. For now, let's just run with what we have and we can add things like StunX multiples as we go. I am going to go down a line by line review of my code to see where we can implement.

[Nolgroth]

Re: Anyone running any online games?

 

In fact, add the following "flags" to the weapon list; Armor Piercing, Penetrating, StunX. For Stun Only attacks, we can implement an additional damageType (Stun) and I will start coding in those effects. Armor Piercing is going to be easy. The others as I can.

[Nolgroth]

Re: Anyone running any online games?

 

And one more thing, let's move general Macroing/Campaign file discussion to the Other Software thread. I'll just post campaign specific updates here.

[Starwolf]

Re: Anyone running any online games?

 

Cool.. Check there for an update

[Nolgroth]

Re: Anyone running any online games?

 

Something I changed in the way the attack macro works is causing the need for a large Stack size. When you start up for Thursday's game, set your stack size to 6 mb.

[Lezentauw]

Re: Anyone running any online games?

 

I wonder what is causing that. I don't remember Brad's getting that high

[Nolgroth]

Re: Anyone running any online games?

 

For Mac....

http://forums.rptools.net/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=11385

 

For Linux and Windows.....

http://lmwcs.com/rptools/wiki/Stack_Size

[Nolgroth]

Re: Anyone running any online games?

 

Not sure. I have a crack team of coders working on this as we speak.

[Nolgroth]

Re: Anyone running any online games?

 

And to totally get away from macros, I have been reading the 7th Sea book. Aside from the cool setting, I actually like some of the mechanics of the 7th Sea game. One of the more interesting one was the mechanic of Drama dice. Instead of just randomly rolling a Hubris (Complication), the GM has a limited amount of Drama dice. To activate the Hubris, he must spend one of his Drama dice. If the player decides to roll with it, he gets an XP bonus. If he decides that he doesn't want to roleplay that particular Hubris at the time, he can spend one of his own Drama dice to cancel out the GM's activation. The GM can either let that go or reactivate the Hubris with another Drama dice, potentially causing a bidding war between GM and Player. Usually the GM has more dice, but at the same time more people to spend his dice on. So even though the GM could "bully" a player into having to play one of his Hubris(es?), he has to balance which ones he wants to use for which player.

 

Conversely, the Player may spend a Drama dice to activate the Hubris of an NPC. For example, Lulu is trying to bribe her way past a couple of city guards into the rich district. ghost-angel decides that one of the guards is probably going to be greedy or have some other flaw. He spends a Drama die to activate it. The GM decides that the small squad of guards is, for this purpose, one NPC. Lucky for Lulu, as a whole they have the Greedy Complication. She drops some coin in the hands of the leader and continues on her way to the much larger score at Lord Dumblemoth's manor.

 

For more individual NPCs, such as the aforementioned Lord Dumblemoth, the PC has to know, by reputation or first hand knowledge what potential flaws the NPC has. Unlike PCs, NPCs cannot counter with their own Drama dice. One of the benefits of being a PC.

 

Now, whether or not this has any bearing on our own game or how to implement it, I thought it was an interesting idea to toss out on the table.

[ghost-angel]

Re: Anyone running any online games?

 

I think I'd be in for that idea, it sounds like an interesting way of inserting drama.

[Nolgroth]

Re: Anyone running any online games?

 

Like I said, might be fun. Might not be. I just thought it was an interesting mechanic. Another interesting one is the concept of Raises. In that, the player decides on taking a negative to his success chance in return for a potentially cool outcome. An obvious HERO example is Called Shots. Another potential example is using Oratory to really rally a crowd. By taking a negative voluntarily (and the player decides how much of one) and succeeding at the roll, the character could potentially whip a crowd into a riot.

 

All in all, the 7th Sea system looks like one of negotiation between the PCs and the GM for the purpose of creating dramatic storytelling play. The combat system is way too vague, even for a pro rules-lite guy like me, but the concepts I've brought up seem to be potentially fun. I'm not sure how we could implement or even if we should implement such concepts in our game. Mostly it was a point for discussion.

[Nolgroth]

Re: Anyone running any online games?

 

And an Update. While I am trying to keep macro coding talk in the Other Software forum thread, I think this bears some discussion. Right now, I have two working campaign files. The first one is what I have been working on. The Weapons macro (a reference of weapons stats) clogs up the Java memory stack, requiring a larger Java Stack Size when we start MapTool. That really isn't much of a problem, but in case it is difficult for you to change that setting (not sure for Macs as an example) that could lead to some problems.

 

The other file (a backup of the main one with some changes) does away with that, instead storing individual weapon lists in a macro and allowing the player to designate which weapon is drawn/ready. That loads a much shorter list (4-6 weapons instead of well over 100) which then sets token properties with the weapon stats. That one works at the default Java Stack Size of 2m. The only drawbacks are that it does take a second or two for the token properties to be set and when you add a weapon, you have to edit the Draw Weapon macro. The benefits are running with a default Stack and it allows for an easy way for me to set up the Disarm maneuver later (a successful Disarm essentially sets the primary weapon to Unarmed Attack).

 

I think the benefits of method two outweigh the benefit of method one (which is potentially having access to the whole weapon list). I can, however, run either way.

[Daltwisney]

Re: Anyone running any online games?

 

Something I changed in the way the attack macro works is causing the need for a large Stack size. When you start up for Thursday's game' date=' set your stack size to 6 mb.[/quote']

 

Just as a note, set your stack size for 6MB minimum. Something in the weapons coding is currently causing stack overflows with the default stack size. The higher you set it, the less likely there will be issues.