The Mechanics' Guild: An RP(G) Community

[The Burning Sun]

I also have issues with your occasionally incomprehensible bookkeeping notation, but we're still chill.

A secret held within code that not even the wise can divine is safest from metagaming

Yeah, as long as the numbers add up.

[Dragos Bee]

I got banned from a Shadowrun Freeform RP and lost a friend. How is that fine?

Well Discords, and especially RPing romantic relationships... both are usually hazardous. People are more willing to say stupid things off-site, and obviously you can see the danger inherent in romantic RPing.

Still, one RP is hardly the end of the world. There are fifty more active than that Shadowrun offering. And I would hardly say you have lost a friend- people get mad at each other all the time because as humans we are bad at relating to others. Momentary disgruntlement is hardly a relationship severed.

Hell, Burning doesn’t exactly like me because we differ on RP design pathos (and I regularly thrash him ) but I’m still only too happy to drop RP ideas and invites here.

I was only interested in that Shadowrun RP and one other, but all right.

[G-Tech Corporation]

Well Discords, and especially RPing romantic relationships... both are usually hazardous. People are more willing to say stupid things off-site, and obviously you can see the danger inherent in romantic RPing.

Still, one RP is hardly the end of the world. There are fifty more active than that Shadowrun offering. And I would hardly say you have lost a friend- people get mad at each other all the time because as humans we are bad at relating to others. Momentary disgruntlement is hardly a relationship severed.

Hell, Burning doesn’t exactly like me because we differ on RP design pathos (and I regularly thrash him ) but I’m still only too happy to drop RP ideas and invites here.

I was only interested in that Shadowrun RP and one other, but all right.

Something else will come along, never fear. Perhaps one day soon. Life is long

[Dragos Bee]

I was only interested in that Shadowrun RP and one other, but all right.

Something else will come along, never fear. Perhaps one day soon. Life is long

I still lost a friend.

[G-Tech Corporation]

Something else will come along, never fear. Perhaps one day soon. Life is long

I still lost a friend.

Eh, give it a few weeks. There are people here who I’ve fallen out with for a year and more, and we’re on good terms now.

[Dragos Bee]

I still lost a friend.

Eh, give it a few weeks. There are people here who I’ve fallen out with for a year and more, and we’re on good terms now.

Hopefully that's true.

But my character in that RP is about to be killed off as well...

[G-Tech Corporation]

So, I’m working on a RP. Thoughts? viewtopic.php?p=34297481#p34297481

Mainly I’m looking for ideas on other functions Leaders can fulfill- obviously the tech tree is still being worked on.

[Indo-pasif archipelago]

So, I’m working on a RP. Thoughts? viewtopic.php?p=34297481#p34297481

Mainly I’m looking for ideas on other functions Leaders can fulfill- obviously the tech tree is still being worked on.

>Names the spoiler "The blessed continent"
>Proceeds to show the map of one big island and nine smaller islands



On a serious note (question?), so the non-free population could be used, but we must pay for their food, and free pop could be used without having to pay food right?

How do we assign the professions? At the start of the game? At the start of the turn?

I wonder how the leadership traits and favors would affect gameplay,


By the way, we all could use that thread right?

[Harkback Union]

So, I’m working on a RP. Thoughts? viewtopic.php?p=34297481#p34297481

Mainly I’m looking for ideas on other functions Leaders can fulfill- obviously the tech tree is still being worked on.

All buildings require Space, which is by default limited to 20 in each individual region. Unless otherwise noted, each building requires 1 Space.
Village: Require 3 Labor to build, 1 Food maintenance. By grouping together skilled craftsmen and artisans, it is possible for the population of men and women available to a ruler to be effectively increased, for with the first stirrings of urbanization comes much opportunity. +1 Population, +1 Free Population
Timber Camp: Requires 5 Labor to build. Primitive stone tools, hewn from flint and the bones of the earth, are still enough to eventually bring down forest giants if many men set their minds to a task. A Free Population may be assigned to work here, becoming Foresters. Foresters may not produce Labor, but instead create 1 Timber resource every two months.

Single digits?
J'approve!

[The Burning Sun]

So, I’m working on a RP. Thoughts? viewtopic.php?p=34297481#p34297481

Mainly I’m looking for ideas on other functions Leaders can fulfill- obviously the tech tree is still being worked on.

All buildings require Space, which is by default limited to 20 in each individual region. Unless otherwise noted, each building requires 1 Space.
Village: Require 3 Labor to build, 1 Food maintenance. By grouping together skilled craftsmen and artisans, it is possible for the population of men and women available to a ruler to be effectively increased, for with the first stirrings of urbanization comes much opportunity. +1 Population, +1 Free Population
Timber Camp: Requires 5 Labor to build. Primitive stone tools, hewn from flint and the bones of the earth, are still enough to eventually bring down forest giants if many men set their minds to a task. A Free Population may be assigned to work here, becoming Foresters. Foresters may not produce Labor, but instead create 1 Timber resource every two months.

Single digits?
J'approve!

Single digits are for the weak! Real men play all their games with a calculator and a spreadsheet!

Overall, it seems like the typical Civ-esque kind of thing. However, the last time you tried this someone dominated the continent before people could really get anywhere in terms of tech. In my opinion, I've always thought it was unrealistic that an entire civilization had to focus on researching one thing at a time - I mean, there are plenty of guys who could be working on something else. Have you considered allowing multiple concurrent research projects? For example, every faction gets a factionwide "Research Rate" that generates research points for all techs in a certain tier. Factions could also get a certain number of bonus RP's a turn they could allocate at will, which would allow people to specialize in a certain field and still get all the other techs. Research buildings could boost either the general or specialized research rate, or even do both. This would also have the benefit of reducing the power of tech-sharing alliances without going the route of making it massively expensive to share techs, which, as you've seen, tends to be highly unpopular.

[G-Tech Corporation]

On a serious note (question?), so the non-free population could be used, but we must pay for their food, and free pop could be used without having to pay food right?

How do we assign the professions? At the start of the game? At the start of the turn?

I wonder how the leadership traits and favors would affect gameplay,


By the way, we all could use that thread right?

Not exactly- non-free population basically represents your scavengers/subsistence farmers/serfs. People without real skills, but whose agricultural output is necessary to support a nation. You can't use them for anything other than your military, but they are an excellent reserve of bodies if you really need them.

Professions would be more like roles- assigned each turn, limited only by the amount of free pop you had. Kinda like, say, assigning workers in Age of Empires or the like.

Leadership traits will be useful, I'm debating how impactful they would be.

Single digits are for the weak! Real men play all their games with a calculator and a spreadsheet!

Overall, it seems like the typical Civ-esque kind of thing. However, the last time you tried this someone dominated the continent before people could really get anywhere in terms of tech. In my opinion, I've always thought it was unrealistic that an entire civilization had to focus on researching one thing at a time - I mean, there are plenty of guys who could be working on something else. Have you considered allowing multiple concurrent research projects? For example, every faction gets a factionwide "Research Rate" that generates research points for all techs in a certain tier. Factions could also get a certain number of bonus RP's a turn they could allocate at will, which would allow people to specialize in a certain field and still get all the other techs. Research buildings could boost either the general or specialized research rate, or even do both. This would also have the benefit of reducing the power of tech-sharing alliances without going the route of making it massively expensive to share techs, which, as you've seen, tends to be highly unpopular.

Yeah, I've thought about that- the trouble is that that really requires a very wide tech tree, with very marginal increases, which must be very carefully balanced to ensure that those who choose one research focus or another aren't utterly hosed. A more flexible and limited tech-tree is easier to work with from that standpoint. Though, perhaps after each few decades or so "base level" techs (those known to many other civilizations) could be distributed to all civilizations.

[The Burning Sun]

On a serious note (question?), so the non-free population could be used, but we must pay for their food, and free pop could be used without having to pay food right?

How do we assign the professions? At the start of the game? At the start of the turn?

I wonder how the leadership traits and favors would affect gameplay,


By the way, we all could use that thread right?

Not exactly- non-free population basically represents your scavengers/subsistence farmers/serfs. People without real skills, but whose agricultural output is necessary to support a nation. You can't use them for anything other than your military, but they are an excellent reserve of bodies if you really need them.

Professions would be more like roles- assigned each turn, limited only by the amount of free pop you had. Kinda like, say, assigning workers in Age of Empires or the like.

Leadership traits will be useful, I'm debating how impactful they would be.

Single digits are for the weak! Real men play all their games with a calculator and a spreadsheet!

Overall, it seems like the typical Civ-esque kind of thing. However, the last time you tried this someone dominated the continent before people could really get anywhere in terms of tech. In my opinion, I've always thought it was unrealistic that an entire civilization had to focus on researching one thing at a time - I mean, there are plenty of guys who could be working on something else. Have you considered allowing multiple concurrent research projects? For example, every faction gets a factionwide "Research Rate" that generates research points for all techs in a certain tier. Factions could also get a certain number of bonus RP's a turn they could allocate at will, which would allow people to specialize in a certain field and still get all the other techs. Research buildings could boost either the general or specialized research rate, or even do both. This would also have the benefit of reducing the power of tech-sharing alliances without going the route of making it massively expensive to share techs, which, as you've seen, tends to be highly unpopular.

Yeah, I've thought about that- the trouble is that that really requires a very wide tech tree, with very marginal increases, which must be very carefully balanced to ensure that those who choose one research focus or another aren't utterly hosed. A more flexible and limited tech-tree is easier to work with from that standpoint. Though, perhaps after each few decades or so "base level" techs (those known to many other civilizations) could be distributed to all civilizations.

How would someone who chose the wrong focus be any more hosed than someone who chose to research the wrong tech? If anything, choosing the wrong focus has LESS of a penalty, since you don't essentially waste turns.

[Plzen]

With regards to tech, here are a few ideas from relevant video games:

1. Each technology has a certain fixed (with modifiers) research time. A nation's research capacity is measured in how many technologies it can research simultaneously.

2. The research costs for any given technology decreases for every neighbour/enemy/player with research agreement that already has the technology being researched.

3. Scientific achievement is measured not in discrete technologies, but as a set of numerical values (each value representing a field of research). A range of factors dictate the rate of advancement in each field.

4. Player factions do not have technologies; map provinces/cities have technologies. Innovations spread from their point of initial discovery.

Mix and match to your heart's content.

[G-Tech Corporation]

Not exactly- non-free population basically represents your scavengers/subsistence farmers/serfs. People without real skills, but whose agricultural output is necessary to support a nation. You can't use them for anything other than your military, but they are an excellent reserve of bodies if you really need them.

Professions would be more like roles- assigned each turn, limited only by the amount of free pop you had. Kinda like, say, assigning workers in Age of Empires or the like.

Leadership traits will be useful, I'm debating how impactful they would be.



Yeah, I've thought about that- the trouble is that that really requires a very wide tech tree, with very marginal increases, which must be very carefully balanced to ensure that those who choose one research focus or another aren't utterly hosed. A more flexible and limited tech-tree is easier to work with from that standpoint. Though, perhaps after each few decades or so "base level" techs (those known to many other civilizations) could be distributed to all civilizations.

How would someone who chose the wrong focus be any more hosed than someone who chose to research the wrong tech? If anything, choosing the wrong focus has LESS of a penalty, since you don't essentially waste turns.

I’m not sure I follow. Certainly it is worse to be locked into a lost opportunity for multiple technologies if you adopt a focus inappropriate for your situation than it is to be able to forcibly select new technologies to research after each completed tech with no lost opportunity cost unless switching mid-stream?

[Harkback Union]

Exudus will have to be delayed some more...

I'm making a board game out of Dr. Strangelove.

[The Burning Sun]

How would someone who chose the wrong focus be any more hosed than someone who chose to research the wrong tech? If anything, choosing the wrong focus has LESS of a penalty, since you don't essentially waste turns.

I’m not sure I follow. Certainly it is worse to be locked into a lost opportunity for multiple technologies if you adopt a focus inappropriate for your situation than it is to be able to forcibly select new technologies to research after each completed tech with no lost opportunity cost unless switching mid-stream?

Well, in this format a faction researches all techs available to it simultaneously. It then chooses one tech to research at a faster rate. If a faction chooses the wrong tech to focus and wants to switch mid-stream, he can simply change at no cost - the originally focused tech retains its progress, but is only researched at the normal rate, while the newly focused tech gets researched at the bonus rate. It's less punishing because the new focus already has some progress on it from the general research rate, whereas in the typical format said faction would be starting with nothing. It might seem that this format reduces the opportunity for specialization, but in reality it only makes specializations a bit broader. A "specialization" would be your focused tech, as well as all techs available for general research due to your previous foci in a category. So if a faction focused agriculture or something, they might have their research focused on a Tier 4 agriculture tech, while a bunch of Tier 3 agriculture-related techs progress at the general rate. Meanwhile, the rest of the tree is still on Tier 2, but it's still getting done. So they're still specialized in agriculture, but at least they're not being completely crippled by their lack of military tech or whatever.

IMO, this system gives players more freedom, since they don't have to waste turns researching "essential" tech. If they're worried about falling behind but don't know which techs are more important, they can just focus on buffing their general research rate and going from there.

[G-Tech Corporation]

I’m not sure I follow. Certainly it is worse to be locked into a lost opportunity for multiple technologies if you adopt a focus inappropriate for your situation than it is to be able to forcibly select new technologies to research after each completed tech with no lost opportunity cost unless switching mid-stream?

Well, in this format a faction researches all techs available to it simultaneously. It then chooses one tech to research at a faster rate. If a faction chooses the wrong tech to focus and wants to switch mid-stream, he can simply change at no cost - the originally focused tech retains its progress, but is only researched at the normal rate, while the newly focused tech gets researched at the bonus rate. It's less punishing because the new focus already has some progress on it from the general research rate, whereas in the typical format said faction would be starting with nothing. It might seem that this format reduces the opportunity for specialization, but in reality it only makes specializations a bit broader. A "specialization" would be your focused tech, as well as all techs available for general research due to your previous foci in a category. So if a faction focused agriculture or something, they might have their research focused on a Tier 4 agriculture tech, while a bunch of Tier 3 agriculture-related techs progress at the general rate. Meanwhileousl, the rest of the tree is still on Tier 2, but it's still getting done. So they're still specialized in agriculture, but at least they're not being completely crippled by their lack of military tech or whatever.

IMO, this system gives players more freedom, since they don't have to waste turns researching "essential" tech. If they're worried about falling behind but don't know which techs are more important, they can just focus on buffing their general research rate and going from there.

Ah, I see what you’re saying- not a focus on a category of research or genre, but just a bonus to whatever a faction happens to choose while all available techs are being researched simultaneously. That would certainly be a workable idea, though I shudder to think of the bookkeeping of researching a tech tree all at once, and how wide/deep that tree would have to be to give it significant utility. I was only planning to have a dozen techs per Era or so...

[Harkback Union]

Gonna have to change my RP calendar around. Summer's gonna be busy, but in September I have an eppic magic school RP planned, but I don't want to give away anything more then that!

[Ralnis]

APP:
#2424
Nation Name: Ralnis
Experience: Most known in G's RPs and have played a session of D&D as a newbie.
Preferred Level of Detail: I'm pretty flexible with the amount of detail but don't want to go too far.
Activity: Pretty active but work does require me to do abrupt spouts of silence from time to time.
RP Example: viewtopic.php?p=33680123#p33680123

[The Burning Sun]

Gonna have to change my RP calendar around. Summer's gonna be busy, but in September I have an eppic magic school RP planned, but I don't want to give away anything more then that!

Bruh most people are gonna be too busy hating real school for that.

BTW Ralnis I got u fam.

[Harkback Union]

Gonna have to change my RP calendar around. Summer's gonna be busy, but in September I have an eppic magic school RP planned, but I don't want to give away anything more then that!

Bruh most people are gonna be too busy hating real school for that.

BTW Ralnis I got u fam.

I'll have real school myself, but usually september is pretty easy to manage.

[Harkback Union]

Who's up for homeworld 2?

[G-Tech Corporation]

Who's up for homeworld 2?

J'approve.

[Harkback Union]

Et Voila

[Plzen]

What do you guys think?

Tried to keep things incredibly simple this time. There are ultimately two things you can do, mechanically - develop your existing kingdoms and fight to take someone else's. Everything else will be sheer roleplaying. This should be relatively accessible even for newcomers to mechanics-based roleplaying. At least, that is the idea.