The Mechanics' Guild: An RP(G) Community

[Ralnis]

So! I'm considering refurbishing an old RP, Corporate Cosmos. Anyone have interest? Thoughts on what you liked? Thoughts on what you didn't?

I'll likely be subdividing territories more to allow for greater environmental degradation and enhancement, and limiting players from running multiple entities.

I like the idea of limiting players from running multiple entities and have more impact from the choices. I know that playing as Cyberpunk Cossacks was fun but I would want to see more actions carry more weight in what I do. Like some reactive events like someone did something that effects the stock market or regional economy?

[G-Tech Corporation]

So! I'm considering refurbishing an old RP, Corporate Cosmos. Anyone have interest? Thoughts on what you liked? Thoughts on what you didn't?

I'll likely be subdividing territories more to allow for greater environmental degradation and enhancement, and limiting players from running multiple entities.

I like the idea of limiting players from running multiple entities and have more impact from the choices. I know that playing as Cyberpunk Cossacks was fun but I would want to see more actions carry more weight in what I do. Like some reactive events like someone did something that effects the stock market or regional economy?

Hm. So some form of economic modeling. I could certainly do that with relative ease. I'm going to do a lot more impacts in the form of the Earth busy dying due to over exploitation, and how corporations can either make money fighting that, or trying to make a quick buck before they need to ship offworld.

[Harkback Union]

Would any of you be open to some live RPs?
I've decided to remake an old RP of ours into a D&D style rollfest...
viewtopic.php?f=31&t=486661

[Lord Dominator]

So! I'm considering refurbishing an old RP, Corporate Cosmos. Anyone have interest? Thoughts on what you liked? Thoughts on what you didn't?

I'll likely be subdividing territories more to allow for greater environmental degradation and enhancement, and limiting players from running multiple entities.

Def have interest, didn't play before so lack thoughts on changes

[Plzen]

Hm. So some form of economic modeling. I could certainly do that with relative ease. I'm going to do a lot more impacts in the form of the Earth busy dying due to over exploitation, and how corporations can either make money fighting that, or trying to make a quick buck before they need to ship offworld.

Note: everything written below is my personal opinion that you are under absolutely no obligation to take into account.

The primary reason why I didn't apply to the original was because I felt that the abstraction didn't match the level of detail. This would not be a concern had you been designing a board game, but we don't write these rules just for a board game - we want a roleplay, with all that such implies.

I feel that in a well-designed mechanics-based roleplay, every plausible action that the player entity can take must either be modeled in the mechanics or must be beneath the scope of the rules. Since the range of plausible actions in real life is essentially infinite, this is done through abstraction. On a game of, for example, Civilisation V, introducing steam power to a fur-coat manufactory and building a new canning plant to supply more infantry would both be abstracted under the action "build factory in city". Similarly, changing the insignia on the sleeves of military uniforms is beneath the scope of the rules - this is such a small change in reality that there is no need to update the mechanical/game model of that reality to account for it. In Portal to the Multiverse terms, this means I'd be quite comfortable freely roleplaying this sort of small change without feeling like I'm going against the mechanics.

The lower the level of abstraction, the more sophisticated the required rules are - and while having more content (more types of units, buildings, actions, etc.) is a part of this, so is having more complex and interconnected mechanics. If the only way to make my faction richer is "grow economy" with a very high level of abstraction, fine, but if the level of abstraction is low and the only way to make my faction richer is "build canning plant", I'm going to wonder why I can't build a furniture factory, or a textile plant, or a steel mill, or whatever.

This is also reinforced through the mechanical rules. A low level of abstraction is reinforced by having more specific and detailed statistics and numbers, while a higher level of abstraction is reinforced by having a more mathematical progression with smooth numbers. Contrast, for example, Civilisation V, a game with a relatively high degree of abstraction, with Victoria II, a game with a relatively low degree of abstraction. Victoria II had fairly complex and separate costs for each thing you could do in the game - build military unit, build building, etc., which helped reinforce the game's feel of being detailed and close to the action, as it were. Civilisation V, on the other hand, didn't. Buildings on the same tech-tier often had the same costs, and same for many of the units. This helped reinforce the game's feel of its units and buildings being higher-level abstractions that only vaguely represented the actual action on the ground.

Furthermore, the lower the level of abstraction in any given area, the more realistic your rules have to be in that area to not break immersion. Civilisation V can get away with a transport fleet taking two years to cross a small channel because, really, you don't expect a game with such a high degree of abstraction to bother with fussing over small details. In Victoria II, on the other hand, such a grievous error would have been utterly devastating.

I felt that the original rules of your roleplay had this mismatch. The level of abstraction in the flavour descriptions of mechanics were fairly low, whereas the mechanics seemed relatively simple and not very realistic in comparison. Allowing some degree of player freedom - letting players take action that is not covered by the rules and modeling the results of that action within the mechanical rules by OP fiat - can be a way to enhance player immersion in mechanics-based RPs, but the immersion in the RP shouldn't have to rely on that - that should come from having the appropriate level of abstraction to theme your rules with.

In addition to this point, and unrelated to the mechanical rules, I also do have some preference for the themes of the RP. I think conventional popular science-fiction is too conservative with its assessment of the 21st Century. The technological and environmental changes of the century - artificial intelligence, biotechnology, climate change, etc. - are likely to have social and political implications as large as if not larger than those had by similar changes in the 20th Century. I'd like to see you speculate on some of these changes and explore their implications as the theme of the RP. This is purely personal preference, but it would be nice to see.

EDIT: Revised many, many times as I tried to distill the vague feelings I had about the first iteration of Corporate Cosmos into clear and communicable ideas I could put into writing. I'm still uncomfortable with this, but I think this is about the limit of my ability to articulate my feelings.

---

In other news, I'll likely be busy until late June, but if you intend to start your RP after that point then I'd be interested in both participating and in making the map for it. That map you used for the original iteration of that RP is certainly one of my better works...

In any case, it would be much appreciated if you reserve Northern Europe for me. I can't imagine this would surprise you much. :p

[Dragos Bee]

Hm. So some form of economic modeling. I could certainly do that with relative ease. I'm going to do a lot more impacts in the form of the Earth busy dying due to over exploitation, and how corporations can either make money fighting that, or trying to make a quick buck before they need to ship offworld.

Note: everything written below is my personal opinion that you are under absolutely no obligation to take into account.

The primary reason why I didn't apply to the original was because I felt that the abstraction didn't match the level of detail. This would not be a concern had you been designing a board game, but we don't write these rules just for a board game - we want a roleplay, with all that such implies.

I feel that in a well-designed mechanics-based roleplay, every plausible action that the player entity can take must either be modeled in the mechanics or must be beneath the scope of the rules. Since the range of plausible actions in real life is essentially infinite, this is done through abstraction. On a game of, for example, Civilisation V, introducing steam power to a fur-coat manufactory and building a new canning plant to supply more infantry would both be abstracted under the action "build factory in city". Similarly, changing the insignia on the sleeves of military uniforms is beneath the scope of the rules - this is such a small change in reality that there is no need to update the mechanical/game model of that reality to account for it. In Portal to the Multiverse terms, this means I'd be quite comfortable freely roleplaying this sort of small change without feeling like I'm going against the mechanics.

The lower the level of abstraction, the more sophisticated the required rules are - and while having more content (more types of units, buildings, actions, etc.) is a part of this, so is having more complex and interconnected mechanics. If the only way to make my faction richer is "grow economy" with a very high level of abstraction, fine, but if the level of abstraction is low and the only way to make my faction richer is "build canning plant", I'm going to wonder why I can't build a furniture factory, or a textile plant, or a steel mill, or whatever.

This is also reinforced through the mechanical rules. A low level of abstraction is reinforced by having more specific and detailed statistics and numbers, while a higher level of abstraction is reinforced by having a more mathematical progression with smooth numbers. Contrast, for example, Civilisation V, a game with a relatively high degree of abstraction, with Victoria II, a game with a relatively low degree of abstraction. Victoria II had fairly complex and separate costs for each thing you could do in the game - build military unit, build building, etc., which helped reinforce the game's feel of being detailed and close to the action, as it were. Civilisation V, on the other hand, didn't. Buildings on the same tech-tier often had the same costs, and same for many of the units. This helped reinforce the game's feel of its units and buildings being higher-level abstractions that only vaguely represented the actual action on the ground.

Furthermore, the lower the level of abstraction in any given area, the more realistic your rules have to be in that area to not break immersion. Civilisation V can get away with a transport fleet taking two years to cross a small channel because, really, you don't expect a game with such a high degree of abstraction to bother with fussing over small details. In Victoria II, on the other hand, such a grievous error would have been utterly devastating.

I felt that the original rules of your roleplay had this mismatch. The level of abstraction in the flavour descriptions of mechanics were fairly low, whereas the mechanics seemed relatively simple and not very realistic in comparison. Allowing some degree of player freedom - letting players take action that is not covered by the rules and modeling the results of that action within the mechanical rules by OP fiat - can be a way to enhance player immersion in mechanics-based RPs, but the immersion in the RP shouldn't have to rely on that - that should come from having the appropriate level of abstraction to theme your rules with.

In addition to this point, and unrelated to the mechanical rules, I also do have some preference for the themes of the RP. I think conventional popular science-fiction is too conservative with its assessment of the 21st Century. The technological and environmental changes of the century - artificial intelligence, biotechnology, climate change, etc. - are likely to have social and political implications as large as if not larger than those had by similar changes in the 20th Century. I'd like to see you speculate on some of these changes and explore their implications as the theme of the RP. This is purely personal preference, but it would be nice to see.

EDIT: Revised many, many times as I tried to distill the vague feelings I had about the first iteration of Corporate Cosmos into clear and communicable ideas I could put into writing. I'm still uncomfortable with this, but I think this is about the limit of my ability to articulate my feelings.

---

In other news, I'll likely be busy until late June, but if you intend to start your RP after that point then I'd be interested in both participating and in making the map for it. That map you used for the original iteration of that RP is certainly one of my better works...

In any case, it would be much appreciated if you reserve Northern Europe for me. I can't imagine this would surprise you much.

I agree with what you said, Plzen. Sorry for only lurking here for at least a year or so.

[G-Tech Corporation]

So, I figured I should resurrect this thread from the pits, just for kicks.

I'm vaguely thinking of running a new incarnation of one of my older RPs, Skybound

The basic premise is that the gods are dead, killed by mankind, but the survivors of the apocalypse have inherited a portion of the power of the divines - and are thus entrusted with the remaking of the world from the void alone. While being very human, the aspects of the divine power captured by these survivors allow for some pretty impressive feats of creation and destruction, which only gather in magnitude as discovery and self-control improve.

But then, of course, there is much unknown about the last days of the Old World... and what else may have survived the End.

Anyone have any input on the topic? The mechanics weren't things I was in love with, so I'd enjoy some thoughts on how to make the premise appealing and whatnot.