Trouble Brewing in the Nexus

Post by **Dray** » Mon Mar 02, 2009 9:57 am

I've been thinking about things that could be done with dragons outside of the usual breeding, bonding, and occasional writing that we've gotten used to doing over the years (and years and years. ;P)

How about a series of perils that draws dragons from all about the Nexus to help in one location or another? Say on Pern (near one particular Weyr, at least), the planet is seeing its heaviest recorded Thread-fall in recorded history and needs help from outside dragons... on Alskyr, those damned buggers are rising up and the Caers in particular need help. In Star City, a ring of especially vicious pirates (or xenos, or mad scientists. :P) are trying to force a coup on the current system and fighting has broken out in the rings...

OOC, this would be a game of chance to win points at the cost of risk (like with Whiterock Weyr). There would be the potential of death in which your dragon would be required to be listed as 'deceased' and removed from the breed/bond pool (Unless you want to play with reincarnation and ghost stories. :P)... but on the other hand, participating in each wave of events will gain points towards IC and OOC prizes.

For prizes, there could be items to help your dragons participate better (or with lower risk) in the next attack... and then prizes like pets, other dragons, bonds, or maybe even fanart or fan-stories -- points would be recorded by player, not by dragon, so you could use gained points anywhere, and keep them even if your dragon were to die.

Like with Whiterock Weyr, there could also be tiers of risk; High, middle and low would allow you to send dragons that you didn't want to die... they might not gain as much points, but you'd be able to say they participated! Conversely, if you had a whole bunch of giveaway dragons and you wanted to glean a lot of points, you could place them to participate in a higher risk area.

This would be a large undertaking -- and I think it would be best to start running it in the summer.

First I'd need a list of people willing to host and to come up with the particular wave's peril (Thread, pirates, rabid wylds, etc.).

Then I'd need people who are willing to run the dice through (and to help me set up appropriate ratios of 'normal kill/defeat, +1 point', 'critical hit! +X points!' as well as 'miss!' or 'hit! -X/X HP! They die! D:'.... where HP values are a whole new can of worms.)

Lastly, I'd need people who can help with prizes -- both in ideation and in creation. We'd need to make up a wicked list of prizes that make the potential threat of dying worth it, and we'd need to deliver on these prizes when people ask for them! I'd also love to create medals and banners -- simple ones for players who participate, then some for 'most critical hits' or 'most assists' or 'valiant efforts post mortem', etc. that participants can display proudly.

Anyways, what do you think? Does this sound like a fun summer activity for the Nexus? (XD I think it'd be a neat counter after all of the summer-based giveaways that've been happening in previous years!)

Banned User · Post by **Banned User** » Mon Mar 02, 2009 10:42 am

Would we use our current characters or make up new ones? I tend to have bad luck with games like this and would hate to lose a character because of it, or somthing. But I could help make the awards and stuff, if anything.

Post by **Dray** » Mon Mar 02, 2009 11:45 am

I was thinking current characters -- anyone from giveaway dragons to newly bondeds to old-timers... basically, you would pick who you wanted to send, people in charge of setting up stats would give your pair (or dragon, if it doesn't have a non-dragon bond) their HP and special modifiers, if any, and they'd be good to go. You wouldn't have to enter anybody if you didn't want to, and if, say, you wanted to make up new characters (or snag some dragons from other people just for this purpose) then that would be fine, too!

I think we'd need to make a runner-board for everybody's participants, just to keep things up to date. HP would be regained at the end of each wave, so you wouldn't have to worry about it getting more dangerous each time around. XD

Samber · Post by **Samber** » Mon Mar 02, 2009 1:49 pm

Hmm...I kind of like the sound of this, so long as there would be an option to send in characters without the risk of them dying.

As for the hazard...I don't know. xD I have a couple ideas but they seem a little random and silly... like the Nexus worlds start merging and sharing each others threats and this has to be reversed somehow...

Post by **Dray** » Mon Mar 02, 2009 4:13 pm

Ooh, I like the idea of 'no risk'... though you'd probably wind up with very little gain, just to be fair.

Huh, I hadn't thought about things meshing like that. O.O Creepy! (I was more thinking that, having different dilemmas at different worlds would allow for some location-specific prizes. Say... for Pern, there'd be the opportunity to 'purchase' firelizards, dragons, or Pernese-native humans with the points you earned, as well as Pern-style riding straps and firestone and the like. For Star City you could nab some cybernetic modifications, pets, Atuan dragons, or Star City-based characters, as well as special tech like, say, bubble-shields or psionic enhancers... etc. etc. XD There'd be a list of generic prizes that can be purchased with points, but you have a chance to nab location-specific stuff as a 'thank you!' for participating in that round!)

Xenoqueen · Post by **Xenoqueen** » Mon Mar 02, 2009 4:13 pm

I think the problem with huge projects is: no one has time for them anymore, what with this business of growing up and the real world and all that. :P These project concepts start out so massively ambitious, but go kerflop in the end because too many people have to be coordinated and/or too much has to be done to pull them off.

I know my head personally explodes at the thought of coming up with a standardized dice system when the dragons of the Nexus now cover so many sizes and abilities and power-levels and so forth. @_@

Maybe something smaller and less epic in scope?

Post by **Dray** » Mon Mar 02, 2009 4:16 pm

I could base it out of Atu/Star City in specific, in that case. XD I know that the dice systems are a throw-off, but I think that if it could be made fairly generic (size indicates HP, abilities modify bonuses) then it might work.

You're right, though, epic -> flop is kind of my gig these days. :X

Banned User · Post by **Banned User** » Mon Mar 02, 2009 4:22 pm

Xenoqueen wrote: I know my head personally explodes at the thought of coming up with a standardized dice system when the dragons of the Nexus now cover so many sizes and abilities and power-levels and so forth. @_@

Reason number one why I love the Pernese! *chuckles* I just wish I could find out how to determine some of the size/heights so that i can visualize them. I know some people measure differently, like for height they measure to the top of the head while others to the shoulder. That is soooo confusing sometimes...

I like simple...XD

The only character i would want to bring in would be Philippe...after his memory is returned and stuff 'cause he's a necromancer and I would have fun with him...not like I don't torture the guy already but still...And I don't know how active I'll be in the summer. I have a horse to train to kick butt at horse shows...without an instructor this year. Urg...why did Shelly have to move away...why! *cries*

Kendarath · Post by **Kendarath** » Wed Mar 04, 2009 3:42 pm

Instead of having it be just one person, or one group of people's responsibility it could be the sort of thing that agency owners run out of their own agency, just like the adopting.

If we could come up with a standard numbers system that everyone could use (ie. Size determines HP, Basic Attack, and Agility (to steal the old pokemon term for 'avoiding getting hit'), Fire abilities increase attack, Healing abilities increase/regenerate health, etc) then I don't think running something like this would be too difficult, especially if we don't make it something where you promise to have one every month, just do it when you feel you have the time to do it.

Hopefully that made some sort of sense? I'm feeling like I'm having trouble putting my thoughts into words today.

Astra · Post by **Astra** » Wed Mar 04, 2009 6:33 pm

Another thing to consider is that a lot of species of dragons have immortality, and near-invulnerability, which could effect game balance a bit I think. Like you have the balespawn, which are nigh on impossible to kill, and you go send them off to do missions and they wrack up tons of points with minimal personal risk. But then you've got the Pernese, who can breathe fire and teleport and that's about it (and if we're going to be especially technical, the golds and breeding greens don't even breathe fire) and they're going to have a lot tougher time. I know that I, for one, have several of my absolute favorite characters riding old world or modified old world dragons, but I wouldn't be able to use them for fear of getting them killed. But to modify the game to say that a Pernese is on a level playing field with a Balespawn is stupid, because one clearly and objectively overpowers the other. Hmm, in retrospect, I'm not even really sure what point I'm trying to make here. I guess what I'm saying is that there are going to be issues with game fairness, but that's probably okay, because life isn't fair. Or something like that.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not against the idea. I think it sounds fun

I'm just pointing out some stuff. And I really like Kendarath's idea of having it being run by individuals, similarly to hatchings and flights and things.

Kendarath · Post by **Kendarath** » Wed Mar 04, 2009 7:51 pm

Maybe one way to counter nearly-invulnerable dragons would be something along the lines of what Dray was saying earlier, about the tiers, and a nearly-invulnerable dragon would earn points like a dragon that was in the "low-risk" or "no-risk" tiers, even though story-wise they would/could be participating like a dragon in the "high-risk" tier?

Kendarath · Post by **Kendarath** » Fri Mar 06, 2009 3:40 am

I figured that while I had the time today, I'd write up some sort of starting point as far as numbers go. Hopefully nobody minds? It is very rough, especially the Modifiers table. I figured that we could work together on making it better?

http://nexus.darkwindart.com/aula/misc/dragongame.htm

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Fri Mar 06, 2009 5:41 am

It's six in the morning, so I might be wrong here. But I think your less-than signs are all pointing the wrong way. Unless you /meant/ that the dragons with conscious healing should only be healing when they have /more/ than half their HP. >_>;;

Post by **Dray** » Fri Mar 06, 2009 8:36 am

:D Oh sweet jebus, that's awesome!

We'd just need a table for the various baddies and their max/min damage, as well as some chances to miss or get critical hits, and we'd be ready to go on the mechanics side... we'd just need a list of prizes that could be made generic, and host-specific, and a list of medals (I remember seeing something like this floating around before... maybe Xalia was in charge of it??? I'll have to scour the Nexus) and we'd pretty much be ready to go for the summer. :3

Keilin Alyr · Post by **Keilin Alyr** » Fri Mar 06, 2009 11:40 am

Hmm, I don't know. Call me a hopeless tabletop dork, but dragons with the base stats and abilities of 3.0/3.5 first-level adventurers just doesn't feel quite right to me. I mean, 1st through 4th was where sneezing on the party wizard meant a mad scramble for healing potions, otherwise you'd be down one spellcaster. You lose a lot of the epic nature of dragons.

Of course, scaling up by too much (using 4.0 D&D as an easy example, where 1st level characters have between 20-30 hp at start), and you might have battles that drag forever at the Whiterock scale. Unless you had small combat groups of dragons. Pairing a fragile caster-type with a giant hulking tankish ally is classic.

Also, speaking from experience, trying to assemble a game project of this magnitude from scratch can be a pain in the ass. Not saying it's impossible or trying to be an old stick in the mud, but a project this size is gonna take a lot of tweaking from ground level to keep balanced. Sounds like fun though. =)

Kendarath · Post by **Kendarath** » Fri Mar 06, 2009 3:45 pm

@Ixris: Nope, you're totally right. They're definitely backwards. They should definitely be less-than not more-than.

@Dray: Maybe the good old 1=critical fail and the dragon hits itself in the head with its tail XD. I was also thinking that the enemies would determine if their attacks hit in the same way that the "player dragons", though maybe their "damage dice" should be a d3? I'm not really sure... it's probably something that will get adjusted with testing anyway...

As for medals, it would be neat if there were host specific medals, as well. Sort of something that could be added to a dragon's stat page to say something like "I braved the EXTREME dangers of the Battle of Otykaii" or something. And then dragons that respond to every challenge would get to start looking like the decorated veterans they would be.

@Keilin Alyr: The way I figured it was that if the disaster was such a disaster that dragons from all over the Nexus needed to be called in to help, it wouldn't necessarily be a situation where dragons were superior. After all, most of our worlds have their own dragon species, or at least resident dragons, so if they couldn't handle it on their own...

Though I do see your point. I imagine that it's something that will be addressed in all of the tweaking (or full out re-doing) that will be done in the testing stage. By no means do I think that the numbers I threw together are going to stay forever, I just thought having something with actual numbers in it so we could build off of it would be a good idea, so we have an actual starting place.

Kendarath · Post by **Kendarath** » Sat Mar 07, 2009 3:34 pm

I did a bit of tweaking with the mechanics...

*modified the sizes to correspond with a size chart
*added the "defense" stat
*expanded on some basic gameplay
*hopefully just made things more clear...

I was hoping to get some "volunteers" at this point to start testing how the numbers work, preferably of all sorts of sizes. I was thinking that I'd make them up a little badge/prize or something for participating, and there'd be no risk of death, of course, I'm just not very good at seeing how the numbers'll work abstractly. (Plus I wanna start playing nooooow

).

Post by **Dray** » Sat Mar 07, 2009 6:11 pm

Woot, this is the best. XD I'm a little lost with the stats but could probably figure it out... in the meantime, lemme toss some random dragons at you for stats-ing up!

Kanuhi - http://dracothrope.lmfao.org.uk/Bonds/S ... eibond.htm (3' tall, 'tiny')
Shocking Alto - http://artdragon.mine.nu/~kalyturn/bond ... ngalto.htm (16' medium-large)
Senga (three heads + lol) - http://artdragon.mine.nu/~kalyturn/bond ... .htm#senga (23' large)
Ezekiela'khan - http://artdragon.mine.nu/~kalyturn/bond ... m#ezekiela (43' - massive)
Adumbration - http://artdragon.mine.nu/~kalyturn/bond ... ration.htm (20', medium -> medium-large)

...that should be more'n enough, I suppose!

It would be neat if there were good AND bad challenges. Like, things that good guys could tackle, and things that bad guys could tackle. :3 That way, characters who wouldn't bother to help your average joe might still be involved somehow.

Astra · Post by **Astra** » Mon Mar 09, 2009 5:09 pm

So I was thinking about this, and about the whole killing characters things, and how its going to happen, somewhere along the line, that someone will really really miss one of their dead characters, and desire to revive them ((okay maybe just I will)).

So I kind of had this idea of resurrection spells, or resurrection machines in more technology-based worlds. How it would work is that for a certain amount of points, you can IC-ly bring your character back to life. It would probably have to be a fairly large amount of points, so as not to make it too easy, and would probably involve putting many poor red shirted give-away dragons at risk in order to win the chance at bringing back Ms. #1 Favorite Mary Sue. Of course if the owner of the character wants to revive them ICly through other methods, I don't see any reason to stop them, but maybe there could be a rule that the character couldn't participate in events at the agency they're killed at until they are revived at that same agency. If that makes any sense at all.

I dunno if it's a good idea or not, just something i was mulling over while working on my Pernese Weyr and wondering if I should hold Threadfalls there or not.

Post by **Dray** » Mon Mar 09, 2009 5:14 pm

I think that if it's written out in story form, a revival could be just as valid as going to the effort of garnering points... though I'd like to see a well-written, well thought-out story in which the revival isn't just, "suddenly Ms. #1Favorite MarySue found a revive-y spell and BAM, was back to life! :D" Perhaps the points need to be spent to recognize the characters as revived to play the game (or to go back to acting as a regular character), or a story written if the dragon/pair are to be used as usual, but they'd be barred from participating in the game?

Kendarath · Post by **Kendarath** » Tue Mar 10, 2009 1:38 am

I think a story-revival, or perhaps a story-component of a point-bought revival that was more about someone still alive searching for a way to revive a dead character would also be really interesting

Post by **Dray** » Tue Mar 10, 2009 10:20 am

Definitely add some different aspects to the story-writing part of the Nexus. (Which I've totally gotten lax on. >_> I feel bad for pumping up the artsy giveaway side of the Nexus for so many years that it feels like the writing side's really fallen off. D: )

Post by **Dray** » Wed Mar 11, 2009 4:22 pm

On a sidethought, what if the dragons aren't the ones that we currently possess, but newly drawn up ones? Instead of risking old and possibly precious dragons, would this be more interesting (and more streamlined) if specific breeds were created that fell in with specific categories?

If the project were done in stages -- deciding on the kinds of dragons -- and these could be expanded upon, but I'd think there'd be three or four breeds to start off with, max... just so we could get a handle on things! -- then drawing 'em up (or variations done by different artists!)... then planning and creating any prizes and medals as needed, then doing the actual activities?

Would that make this a little easier for number-crunching? And more interesting for people who would rather just keep collecting dragons than worry about risking old ones?

Kendarath · Post by **Kendarath** » Wed Mar 11, 2009 5:42 pm

On the one hand, yes, I think that's a great idea, and would probably make this a lot easier. But on the other hand I really liked that this would be something new that we could do with our existing dragons, instead of leaving them to languish.

Maybe if we did create new species for this, with the aim of eventually working out a way to include other species?

Post by **Dray** » Wed Mar 11, 2009 6:03 pm

I think that if this were to be an ongoing thing, it might be neat to start off with some beta-dragons (not the fish, but the testers! XD) to see if it pans out or not.

If it went well from launch (say, in summer, or over next winter) then we could remodel it to include pre-existing dragons -- maybe those who used their beta-dragons would get the additional status of 'vet' to make for a 'thanks for playing!' or something. :D

Kendarath · Post by **Kendarath** » Wed Mar 11, 2009 6:27 pm

*nods* That sounds like a good idea to me.

As for the "type" of dragons...

Maybe one brutish tank sort of dragon, one lithe attack-and-dodge sort of dragon, and one that's physically weak, but with nifty abilities? Rather typical sorts of types, but I think they'd work...

Post by **Dray** » Wed Mar 11, 2009 7:33 pm

If they'll work well with the system that was so generously pounded out, I think it'd be nifty to use something like that! :D

Kendarath · Post by **Kendarath** » Thu Mar 19, 2009 11:40 pm

http://www.darkwindart.com/ysrae

The Ralineg are pretty well done, I believe, the Euruar still need some work done on their abilities (any suggestions for other types?), and I'm just starting work on the Oteh now.

For some reason today seemed to be inspiration day for this. I'd been fiddling around with the Ralineg for the last week and then suddenly I sat down today and they practically leaped onto the page.

I'm hoping to get the Oteh info done tonight, and maybe some drawings as well.

Kendarath · Post by **Kendarath** » Fri Mar 20, 2009 2:24 am

I just have the relationships between the three and details on the abilities of the Oteh and Euruar to write about.

I also have:

an Oteh

and:

a Ralineg's head.

I'm having some trouble with a full-body Ralineg, and struggling with an Euruar I like, but I'm working on it.

Post by **Dray** » Fri Mar 20, 2009 4:04 pm

Ooh, are these two that you're proposing for the game, then? X3 Which is which -- for brutely, vs. spritely, vs. ability-y?