About time I did one of these, I guess! This is the place to discuss the Matrix game, your characters, each other, the plot, the rules, give me feedback etc. I shall make a few comments to start with,
Well now, I rather think the whole Matrix thing is going extremely well- far bettee than I had hoped. Thank you all very much for playing! In fact it has been so popular that I have a couple of problems in having to make the situations so much larger, but more importantly in that everything is being played through at such a speed that that I might run out of stuff to do sooner than intended! Still, after the current plot is exhausted I might be able to put in a few 'bonus' assignments that are mini-plots in of themselves before I start the next big story, in order to give you things to do.
The game will continue to develop as time goes by. Powers will be tweaked, and some altered and added as I continue to gain confidence in how much complexity you can handle. Awesome Downpour was made more useful than it should be for simplicity's sake but I think I can turn that back into its original function (against Named characters (i.e. non-Mundanes) only) and also put in Rain of Fury into the Leaping Strm Path, which IS for use against Mundanes. Hands of Light has a couple of 'filler' powers right now that were made up to fill gaps (one-inch Punch and Strike of the Subtle). That will recevice a proper set of powers too, before long. As time goes by, more Path are planned but they all need system testing first and for their releance to be decided; one such Path is the Path of the Angry Monkey, entirely about throwing weapons. There aree some good ideas in the works for that but the worry is that a Throwing Weapon Path might invalidate guns, by eliminating a Martial Artist's principle weakness. As time goes by and these problems are ironed out, new powers and Paths will appear. Even Agents may need new powers over time, though of course you will only see them used the hard way... you got the very basic set of Agent powers in the first Assignment, of course, which was the point. I am sure you can imagine some more they may use.
In the VERY long term I plan to bring the system far more again towards the same system we use here at home, off-line. When I first designed it, it was about 25% of that system, the rest greatly simplified (back when Paths only had two powers each, stats were out of 4, combat skills out of 6, damage went to 20 etc.). After a while, and by the time I started the training mission, it was far more 50/50 as I realised you guys could handle it. As time goes by with more and more powers going on it is become more 60/40 in favour of the original system now. I plan to bring it ever further, which means changing some basics (Speed and Strength will become out of ten, for example). However, because that will involve some work for people (and will give extra options in the Download system), I think I will do it AFTER the first main plotline ends, which even at this rate is a few months away yet. Then people can do it whilst spending experience and teaching new players how to play. As it stands, how difficult is it to learn to play right now? I appreciate it is some effort, maybe some great effort, but simply by observing others new players seem to get the hang pretty fast now- especially after a round or two of practical experience! I certainly don't seem to have a lack of players due to difficulty. Talking of which...
We reach a logical limit of maximum players eventaully- certainly maximum players on a mission, in any case! The Shez and Percy between them can only carry so much and, rather like my Star Wars game, the plot will dictate some points during which new character entry becomes impractical. What do people think of this? I'd like player feedback on the benefits vs. problems of getting as many players as possible.
Other than that, what do people make of the set-up? It would be nice if players from the different ships divide along personality lines as the shops themselves do, but it is not necessary. To demonstrate, though, here is the idea- the Shez gets Captain Dallas who is, not to put to fine a point on it, manic, whilst the Percy gets the far more thoughtfu; (certainly far more Morpheus like) Captain Marduk. Percy gets FInn, the Operator who keeps cool in a crisis and can can always guide you to safety, whilst the Shez gets Ariadne, who can get rather emotional but is VERY fast on the keyboard, bringing things up for you, checking on different parts of the Matrix etc. It is all very spontaneous style vs. careful style, the Shez having a reputation for being very... well, direct! And with Fire, Ares and Burn on board, you can certainly see why.
Talking of Dallas, what do people make of him? I remember Rex saying after the short story I wrote that Dallas seemed like Kuylen. Oooh, I could only giggle at that, at the time saying that you might notice a few differences 'during gameplay'... noticed them now, I hope! Dallas' style contracts very much with Kuylen's rather dour (and lethal) professionalism. Both are very experienced combatants and both tend to go on instinct rather than forehtought (in Kuylen's case that is because he is a Living Force adept; an evil Qui-Gon in many ways), with Dallas it's because... well, I shall leave you to imagine why it is for him. Certainly not who many of you expectec as a Captain I am sure, and we have already had questions asked about HOW he became one in the first place... certainly you will have a much easier time under Marduk, Percy guys! Kosta told me Dallas seemed like a Redneck- I am sure a 'Texan' would take that badly but I think we can all see what Kosta is getting at!
And finally, anyone got any ideas about the main plot yet? I'll leave you some unanswered questions.
- What the deal with Jericho? As has been explored, every idea you come up with raises a dozen more questions.
- IS that actually Jericho and his crew?
- Why won't the Oracle give you the info you need? Whay has she sent you on this apparently fruitless course?
- Who is this Melitus guy?
- And just how DID Dallas become a Captain...?
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"We've got maybe seconds before Darth Rosenberg grinds everybody into Jawa burgers and not one of you buds has the midi-chlorians to stop her!"
"You've never had any TINY bit of sex, have you?"
BtVS
Last edited by Ushgarak on Dec 9th, 2003 at 10:36 PM
1. Participation
2. "Danger money" (generally defined as taking on odds more than you were supposed to, due to bad play from others or players becoming unavailable)
3. Conspicuous and extreme heroism
4. Succeeding in your Path.
Participation handouts were made after the first Assignment, though until the first set of Assignments are done, that is remaining simply on record for now.
Danger money is one you should hope to never get in that it means you were thrown into a bitchy situation that you shouldn't have been in. Say, if the films were a game, that at the start of thre Freeway Chase the person playing Trinity stopped playing. Morpheus would then have to do the whole Freeway Chase on his own. That would be worth danger money.
If someone else makes a bad error snd leaves someone else badly in the lurch, that is normally worth danger money as well (for the one left in the lurch. Obviously).
You do not get danger money for throwing yourself into odds voluntarily- like when Coeus turned and charged down the jeeps in the first Assignment- he knew what he was doing, and the benefits and risks involved. So danger money is really compensation for when things have become far more difficult than I had planned for you, through no fault of your own.
Heroism is a dodgy one as you should be acting like heroes all the time, seeing as you ARE heroes. Mors took on the Agent to give Burn time to get away in the First Assignment, which WAS heroic but it wasn't quite the sort of thing we are talking here. Morpheus attacking Smith in a certain defeat scenario in order for his crew to get out- THAT is the kind of heroism we are talking. The kind where you can either NOT get away with it, facing very probably death, or in which the chances of getting away really are exceedinly low, and I will tell you of this before you do it. Should you get away with it- or maybe be rescued later- you will get a Heroism bonus.
And finally, the Philosophy and Combat Paths can be passed or failed- you score or do not score accordingly.
__________________
"We've got maybe seconds before Darth Rosenberg grinds everybody into Jawa burgers and not one of you buds has the midi-chlorians to stop her!"
No. What might happen, though, is that the entire 'Rescue Morpheus' Assignment only existed because Neo decides to do it. So he does score for doing an entire Assignment that would not otherwise have been there.
Very dangerous misison do score more for participation than less dangerous ones do, I should point out.
This is where being able to 'engage' in the Philosophy Path becomes important, you see. If you do not take part in things and just sit back, not only will you fail, you won't score any Participation at all!
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"We've got maybe seconds before Darth Rosenberg grinds everybody into Jawa burgers and not one of you buds has the midi-chlorians to stop her!"
Dallas isn't really a Captain, it's an imposter! If not, we need to check his closet for skeletons...
I think the team we saw on the first mission really was Loomis and Medea from Jericho's ship. They have just decided that they'd rather have a seat of power in the Matrix with a crime lord rather than fight machines in a seemingly hopeless war.
Well, it's your no nonsense "A problem? Let's blow the shit out of it! I am THAT good!" approach that makes you good Shez material, Burn.
I am afraid that Agent was part of a carefully controlled situation, Burn. if you had run into it and for some reason Medea couldn't help you AND all your friends outside stopped playing, or died, or something silly like that, then it would have been danger money as that was not the danger you were meant to be facing.
If things go to plan (MY plan, not yours!), you never get danger money- some missions are just meant to be dangerous. You score more just for doing them. And as I pointed out in analysis, meeting that Agent looked more scary than it was.
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"We've got maybe seconds before Darth Rosenberg grinds everybody into Jawa burgers and not one of you buds has the midi-chlorians to stop her!"
You think it is hopeless? How gloomy! Don't tell Dallas... or Morpheus!
That raises a very large number of questions though, doesn;t it- like HOW he has done this. As Locke points out, without the resources of Zion, they have no food, no water, no power, and nowhere to broadcast from.
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"We've got maybe seconds before Darth Rosenberg grinds everybody into Jawa burgers and not one of you buds has the midi-chlorians to stop her!"
You better hope not- Jericho knows the access codes to the Zion mainframe.
It also would not fit with Jericho's previous good record of great success against the Machines. Still... you don't actually know much about him. You may know some people who might...
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"We've got maybe seconds before Darth Rosenberg grinds everybody into Jawa burgers and not one of you buds has the midi-chlorians to stop her!"
Good God, you've got a point there. Maybe he's trained his crew not to need any of that, and he just sits plugged in to the Matrix in a chair sitting in a cave somewhere...or not...
Well, I guess that is why we are talking to Ni Zahn and then Melitus.
This is confusing, the business with Jericho...and who is this Melitus guy? When're we gonna find out?
Yes, I think that Dallas is nuts and the people on the Shez have a very 'let's kill them all' mentality for the most part ^_^ though I'm more of a straightforward person, too...subtlety is not one of my strong points most of the time heehee.
Oooh, well, if you are very GOOD little rebels you may just get to meet Melitus!
Another theory in my play group about Dallas (the 'did he win a competition?' theory Ariadne gave you was an idea I came up with, stolen from Father Ted though) is that he is blackmailing Locke into letting him be a Captain (he has pics of Locke with, ooh, I dunno, Switch, and is threatening to show them to Niobe)
As it is, though, Locke rather likes Dallas- because Locke is very straightforwards and no-nonsense, and likes his Captains that way. And they both hate Morpheus.
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"We've got maybe seconds before Darth Rosenberg grinds everybody into Jawa burgers and not one of you buds has the midi-chlorians to stop her!"
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Dec 9th, 2003 03:55 PM
