The Official OTC TBRPG Planning and Organization Topic

[Bloody Nine]

Because personality and character don't matter.

[Noxryn]

Moving on... Am I supposed to send my judges-approved RPG to Than via PM or wait until he stops by the topic?

You'll have to send the TBRPG to Than to get it approved, though adding the statement "This was approved by all the Judges, and now it's up to your authority" usually would remove any possible confusion in doing so.

[Lord Kaitan de Storms]

Because personality and character don't matter.

Actually, because nations hold greater interest than individuals, IMO.

Moving on... Am I supposed to send my judges-approved RPG to Than via PM or wait until he stops by the topic?

You'll have to send the TBRPG to Than to get it approved, though adding the statement "This was approved by all the Judges, and now it's up to your authority" usually would remove any possible confusion in doing so.

Okay, thank you.

[Alex Humva]

Thing about Interstellar Line was, no one wanted to lose, and thus no one could. Our wars were not for fun; sure, in the beginning they might of been, but eventually it became two players fighting over who's civilization is better. The wars became personal, and thus when they ended it, in my opinion -which in this case doesn't entirely count as I wasn't around for the big wars-, it was more anticlimatic than anything else. The galactic wars were far too much like WWII; there was D-days, but eventually someone just gave up because they no longer had the will. And then their race was reduced to rubble and they basically lost, the victors eating up their empire. IL was a game where losing was a possibility; and no one wants to lose. As best put by Necro, paraphrased since I don't have the exact quote, "You pour your creativity into your species, as does everyone else, and then you've got to go stomp on someone else's idea of an ideal society. It's way to personal." That's my only worry about this remake; that it's going end up like the IL of old, where we have to be dragged kicking and screaming through the sand to wage war against utter #####, and then afterwards have two hundred pages of politics and cattiness. EDIT: BZP still blocks the j word? That's... kinda sad. :|

Edited October 20, 2011 by Alex Humva

[Lara White]

Solution: Have something like modern geopolitics. Except for completely off-the-wall nutcases, no one wants to go to war, because that would damage their repute in international relations (Incidentally, Right of Conquest is currently considered one of the worst of all war crimes, but you can't really enforce it as a crime if the conqueror wins). In this case, perhaps there could be something like an international forum for people to air their grievances in before military action becomes an issue. I know that, in the event I go to war, I will be offering peace treaties at regular intervals (unless we run into Space Nazis). In addition, since so many people don't like to have to write up a new profile when they lose, we could exploit the large numbers we'll be dealing with and say that, in the unlikely event that a race gets completely obliterated down to its homeworld, that a few survivors managed to escape the genocide and use what they took with them to make a new homeworld.

[Alex Humva]

Yeah, the situation you described? That was IL for a painful two hundred plus pages. It isn't fun without war, because otherwise you're RPing a politician in a courtroom. That isn't fun to play or read, as I came to figure out as I caught up on those said two hundred plus pages. No war, no fun. Also, I was always taught -and observed- that real world nations didn't go to war anymore because the other guy has nukes, and if any semi-civilized nation goes to war it kicks off the nuclear holocaust.

[Lara White]

Well, I happen to like politicking. But if you have a problem because you don't want eternal war, but you also think it's boring without war, I'm not seeing a middle ground here. Perhaps this is the wrong RPG? (I'm trying to make it so that an unequivocal end to the wars which will inevitably pop up periodically will be amenable to everyone, including the loser.)

[Alex Humva]

I wasn't saying I personally have a problem with slamming someone's ideal society into the concrete; I'm saying other people wouldn't like their species getting curbstomped. Unending war is no fun; nor is unending politics. To put it another way, I'm not objecting to the morals, just pointing them out.

[Lara White]

Well, I agree that completely obliterating someone else's race into obliterated obliteration is not fair to them, considering all the work, hence my suggestion that we could say that there were survivors who fled elsewhere.

[Alex Humva]

And then what? Your civilization is destroyed, with only rag-tag survivors to continue. Your empire is split up and given to the victors, and you are left with one world, never to gain any power again unless you manage to play off of the hospitality of another player. It'd be an extremely tough uphill battle; hardly impossible, but extremely long and arduous.

[Lara White]

Well, I'm assuming they've glassed your homeworld, so you'd probably start somewhere out in the boondocks of the Orion Arm (you mentioned it would take years to fully colonize, so there'll be some space). Of course, one of the things that drives me up the wall is that I literally have no option when capturing planets except genocide. What I want to do is take over the planet and institute reforms and goodwill projects to make the populace like me, and then assimilate them into my empire. The problem with that is, according to Xom, I'd be giving another race a huge enclave within my empire, and of course the player who controls them is going to make them rebel. Even after I give them all sorts of humanitarian aid and fix all their cities and etc.

[Archer Vonn]

Because personality and character don't matter.

Actually, because nations hold greater interest than individuals, IMO.

can't develop a nation.

[Lara White]

No, but you can have characters who work for that nation that you can develop. Like I said before, Clancy-esque writing.

[Necro]

You can definitely have characterization within a nation/planet-based game like this. It's just not as in-detail as it is with single-character RPGs. It's workable, you just have to think, and I say that as a fan of character-driven works.

[Archer Vonn]

gonna go right ahead and say that developing specific characters in an rpg where you play as an entire species might be a little beside the point.

[Lara White]

Well, if you want to you can, if you don't want to you don't have to. That's the beauty.

[Necro]

*shrug* Endless delegations never get anything done. At the end of the day, you need at least one leader. It's only natural that they're not going to be a vapid shell of a character.

[Xomeron]

Well, it happened in Interstellar Line. Everyone had an ambassador, who usually just spoke with their voice, but for me, I created a Syrrinx who had all sorts of important roles within Syrrinx society. Dying twice didn't even stop her. In any case, go ahead and create one or two characters, but don't go overboard.

[Vak Il Mio Amore]

Why not just meet a middle ground and do what console/computer RPGs tend to do? Huge, faceless empires with very few named faces who are necesarry for delegation and what have you; basically how IL was if I understand it right. However, have the addition of a limited number of "Hero" classes, or unique characters who would operate separate of a regular unit, and could behave differently from most of the Empire being Roleplayed- It would help players get a feel for the race's personality in general through the expression of a few unique characters, or what have you. This would be more effective in a Fantasy setting than Deep Space, but having Boba Fett-esque characters with unique ships and the like could pull it off. ^This was all said with very little knowledge of IL; for all I know, there could have been hero classes.

[Xomeron]

There weren't. I don't want to set limits, but keep things to heads of state, military leaders, and prominent citizens/subjects/what have you.

[Bloody Nine]

Vak, that's actually what I was planning to do, should I write this medieval thinger up. Player Characters does the wetwork. So if Faction X wants Leader Y assassinated, he'd call for players in his own faction instead of calling up Generic Commando Team 2.

[Vak Il Mio Amore]

EDIT- This was a response to Dr Robert, didn't see your message at the time, Undying Just clarifying to avoid confusion. Well what I'm thinking is having a limited number of "unique citizens"/Hero Class units would help the need to have unique characters within a massive Empire, such as an Arbiter for the Covenant or Samus for the GMC, etc. Just those unique characters that everyone recognizes and knows to avoid on the field of battle for their pure prowess. If they're portrayed as this Hero Class, it'll help develop the Empire as a whole and allow for a bit of unique-character interactions or rivalries. Anywho, that's just my thoughts

Edited October 21, 2011 by Gladiator Vak

[Lara White]

Makes sense to me. Of course, it'd be optional.

[Xomeron]

That'll be entirely roleplay; I don't want to assign numbers or profiles to individual people. Also, Final Draft

Starscape Isolated from the rest of the galaxy by a vast gulf of burnspace, the Starscape Clusters are thick with life. All sorts of species thrive on these worlds, growing, rising, and falling. And when life is present, thought follows soon after. Sentient worlds are arising, turning their factories towards starships and launching those starships towards the stars. Space is a deadly and unforgiving place; will you master it through manipulation and knowledge, or through the might of your mighty battleships? For you are the leader of your race. Lead it well. --- Starscape is set in a region of space known as, what do you know, Starscape. Thousands of stars abound, but only a select few hold planets suitable for life, and all of them are hotly contested by other races. Maps:(Credit to Alex Humva) Sector 1: http://www.majhost.c...s/sector1sc.jpg Sector 2: http://www.majhost.c...s/sector2sc.jpg You begin with a single planet, your species' Homeworld. For the sake of simplicity, each star system contains at least one habitable world for your species to live on, and the resources needed to begin space travel. In addition, you may either choose to begin with two Inner Colony Worlds, or four Colonizer ships ready. If you pick the former, those two worlds were colonized by slower than light ships before your race developed star travel. Interacting With An Entire Universe Controlling an entire species may seem hard at first, but it's simple to get the hang of. Here's a quick example IC: Alarms sounded aboard the Skelvan Battleship as radar signatures from the edge of the radar's range came in; four ships, Alansik by their configuration, had appeared some two million miles away. Knowing that was far outside missile range, the Skelvan Captain gave the order to sight in with his Frigate's laser. A kill at this range would be the wildest stroke of luck, but he had to try, knowing reinforcements would be arriving as soon as they could, since the planet's warning system sent out the alert the moment the radar signatures came in. IC: “Transition successful, all systems nominal, wait.” A lieutenant on the Alansik lead cruiser reported. “Laser damage to the outer skin of the ship. Looks like they're hitting us already. Minimal damage, but that means they've found us.” The Alansik Captain sighed, and gave the order to move at full burn towards the Skelvan planet. Now, the important part here is that the player controlling the Alansik let the Skelvan player have the hit; if he'd just declared the Laser was an outright miss, it wouldn't be fair. But by ensuring the Skelvan's laser didn't do much damage, and it wouldn't at that range, he kept it fair for both sides but still sensible. And that's the most important part, keep it fair but sensible. Don't go breaking any laws of physics. Faster Than Light Travel: The ability to travel faster than light, without the relativistic consequences that entails, is utterly critical to a spacefaring empire. Without it, worlds can only be reached by generations of slow rocket travel. The Jump Drive is a possibility realized late in any race's existence, long after they've usually begun exploring their own solar system. The mathematics of the jump drive are beyond most people, so instead you get a practical explanation. A Jump Drive cannot operate deep in a gravity well. In orbit of a planet, the gravity becomes so strong that any ships trying to do so are torn apart by the brief moment of transition, where the laws of physics remake themselves in new and exciting ways. Thus, a distance of two million kilometers from any terrestrial planet is advised, though you could risk it at one million. Remember that larger gravity wells, like gas giants, stars, and black holes, require longer distances away. This also applies to jumping into space near a gravity well, which as an early warning system for the planet's defenders. In addition, Jumps, while taking less than a milisecond, do not have infinite range. One can direct the Jump Drive in a certain direction, but the Jump Drive will go towards the most powerful gravity well in that direction. This almost always means the closest, as well, so ships can only jump from one system to the nearest. In addition, a Jump Drive requires roughly an hour after jumping to vent excess radiation before it can be used again. There are also so called “Burnspace Zones” These areas are small pockets of space where it is impossible to make a jump into or out of. A massive spherical shell of burnspace surrounds the Orion Arm, locking ships inside. Burnspace Zones also make good places to hide something you want to keep secret. Their origin and nature are not well known. The inverse of Burnspace Zones, “Sweet Spots” are areas where an entire solar system's gravitational pull is equal in every direction, created only occasionally by the differing speeds of planets orbiting their star(s). These allow for ships to jump away or from their destinations far, far closer than normal. You may only use a Sweet Spot in an area you control or in an area you have detailed astronomical data on. For combat, these must be used with GM approval, but once a sweet spot is used, if the ships using it were seen by another party, that sweet spot can be used by anyone until it disappears, which a GM will decide when it happens. Communication: Faster than Light Communication sends electromagnetic waves, not mass, and is not limited by the above. You can communicate with all your worlds, and with any race who gives you their contact information. Industry Now, the amount and size of spaceships you can field depends on how many worlds you control, and how industrialized those worlds are. Each world is classed by its industrial output on a rating of -2 through 5, 5 being the highest a planet can reasonably reach. Each level has a “maturing time” which is the length of real world time it takes to grow to the next level. -2: Colony: This world is dependent on the rest of the empire for resources and population. 1 Week Growth -1: Protectorate: The world is beginning to establish its own industry and farming, but is still dependent on the rest of the empire. It may produce one resource and ship it out in exchange for the goods it imports. 1 Week Growth 0: Self-sustaining: With a zero sum survival based economy, this world can support its own population with everything they require, but its industrial output is negligible. 1 Week Growth. 1: Outer World: This world can support a very small space-navy, and has minor interstellar shipping and transport. 2 Weeks Growth. 2: Inner World: This world can support a good sized navy, and is possibly exports a good amount of goods. 3 Weeks Growth 3: Core World: This world has an excellent industrial output and can export several different resources in addition to supporting a navy. 4 Weeks Growth 4: Forge World: Massive industrial output; supports a good portion of the local navy and exports manufactured goods throughout the region. 5 Weeks Growth. 5: Homeworld: This planet is the only classification capable of producing Colonizers and putting out the population required. Valued as much for their status as centers of trade and government as for their massive industrial output. Your first planet starts at this level. A planet contributes a number of “Industry Points” equal to its level number(above) to an empire's total industry. For example, an empire consisting of a Homeworld, an Inner Worlds, a Core World, and a Colony would have a total Industry of 8(5+2+3-2=8) Thus, this empire can field 8 points worth of ships. This represents everything that it takes to field a ship, from paying and feeding the crew, replacing those members who die, upgrading and refitting the ship occasionally, repairs after a battle, and, most expensively, fueling the ship. Ships Each ship is divided into one of several classes, according to their size and upkeep. Actual roles within these classes can vary wildly, but it is mainly the size of a ship that determines how much industry must be devoted to maintaining it. Fighter: Small, one to five man ships with minimal armor and weapons, mainly used to attack larger ships and defend large ships from other fighters. Not capable of FTL travel, so they must be moved by Carriers or stationed on Starbases. Industry Cost: 0 Small: Frigates and Gunboats, crew sizes range depending on the race. Small ships are usually employed either as Fighter hunters, Scout ships, Stealth craft, and the like, and can be fielded in large numbers.Industry Cost: 1 for 4 Small Ships Medium: Cruisers, destroyers, and the like are classed as Medium ships; they can be fielded in numbers and they are useful for force projection as well as defense, making them an ideal ship of the line; these should make up the majority of any self-respecting fleet. Industry Cost: 1 Large: Battleships and Dreadnoughts are the ships that capture the hearts and minds of the masses; great, powerful ships with enormous weapon batteries, blasting holes in enemy fleets and destroying entire cities with a few barrages. Even the rumor of a large ship being present can change the tide of war. In addition, battleships can mount your Racial Superweapon; what this weapon does is up to you, but make it powerful and creative. Despite their use as an intimidation weapon and morale booster, Large ships are rather impractical, given their upkeep cost. Industry Cost: 3 Colonizers: Not necessarily one ship, perhaps a whole fleet, a colonizer is part transport, part mass-terraforming system. Colonizers are warp capable, and used to expand your empire. Only Homeworlds may build them. They are expensive to keep up, but are usually a temporary measure. The entire colonizer is recycled by the newly landed colonists, and thus cannot be re-used. Industry Cost: 4 Carriers: A modification to an existing ship, for each Carrier Bay added to a ship, its Upkeep increases by one. Starbases: Usually placed orbiting a planet, Starbases are large defensive measures used to protect a planet with orbital guns in addition to providing a docking harbor for ships which cannot land. Immobile, anchored over a planet. Carries twenty Fighters. Can make battlefield repairs on ships during a battle. Industry Cost: 1 for 3 Starbases Build Times: Each ship is a massive industrial undertaking by the world it was built by; think what the International Space Station has taken Earth; twenty years of work and it's a flimsy station that would be annihilated with a single missile. Better materials and industrial methods cut that down, but it's still a huge undertaking. Each ship class takes a certain amount of real world time to produce. Fighters: 3 Days for 10 Small: 1 Week for 2 Medium: 1 Week Large: 2 Weeks Colonizers: 2 Weeks Starbases: 1 Week Gun Sizes: Each weapon takes up a fit amount of space, power, and crew. To this end, each Weapon Size takes up a certain amount of Weapon Slots, and each ship has so many Weapon Slots. Small Weapons: Of the scale one might mount as a Main Battle Tank's Main Gun, these weapons are effective against small ships for their rate of fire and low power requirements, but can't do enough damage to slice through larger ships' armor. 1 Slot Medium Guns: Generally a Small Ship's single main gun, and a standard weapon on a Medium Ship. Capable of being used against any ship type, but ideally used against Small and Medium Ships. 4 Slots Large Guns: Used for bombarding enemy planets and destroying Battleships and Starbases, a Large Gun is usually so long it takes up the length of a Battleship. Thus, it cannot track its targets quickly enough to hit Fighters or Small ships, but it is devastating against what it can hit. 7 Slots Superweapon: Mounted only on Large ships, Superweapons are capable of utterly destroying a single ship, or carving large holes in enemy fleets. A ship only carries a single Superweapon Charge before it needs to return to a port to reload(which cannot be done mid battle) Superweapons take up their own slot. Superweapons also encourage the most creativity out of all the weapons, since they will likely define your Navy to other players. Carrier Bays: Allows ships to carry fighters and dropships inside. 10 per bay, limit 2 per ship. 5 Slots, Not allowed on Fighters. Point Defense Systems: 1 Slot, fires on incoming missiles and fighters, etc. Useless versus Lasers, Plasma, Bullets, that sort of thing. Fighter: 3 Slots Small: 7 Slots Medium: 10 Slots Large: 15 Slots, one Superweapon Slot Starbase: 17 Slots Technology Ban List Time TravelEnergy ShieldsLightsabersBlack Hole GunsSpacetime-Fabric ProjectorsTeleportationEverything SensorsArtificial Gravity(besides spinning sections on ships) Rules 1: BZP Rules Apply2: Use IC, OOC, and OICwhatudidthar3: No godmoding, auto-hitting, or auto dodging4: Yarn5: Be respectful. These are other people's thoughts, work, and in a lot of cases, opinions out in text, so be nice.6: If you don't know of a scientific or practical reason you couldn't do it, you can try it. It might get shot down by the GMs, though. Try anyway, we might be asleep Warning System: Be good to the Game Masters, or this sort of thing will happen to you. 1: Warning2: Warning3: A Sweet Spot opens up on one of your border worlds, well inside your defenses. Enjoy dealing with the invasion.4: One of your planets is lost to calamity. Perhaps a nanobot uprising, or perhaps a viral plague. Whatever happens, one planet's worth of your species extinct5: That Calamity from earlier? It spreads. Start over with a new species.6: Banned. Species Profile(PM this to me) Username: (Obvious)Species Name: (Make it interesting!)Description: (Physical appearance, psychological details, government system, etc.)History: (Why are they in space? Why do they use the government they do? Details like that)Homeworld Name: (Humans call our planet Earth for a reason. Why do these people call their world what they do?)Homeworld Location: (Try for one that's not taken.) Ship Class Profile:(Like in the real world, ships will usually be built follow the blueprints of an earlier one. This becomes known as a Class. Also, be creative with your ship naming. Maybe a neat theme, or something.) Class Name: (Generally, a ship is named, and members of its class follow the theme, like how American Aircraft Carriers are named after Admirals or Presidents.)Class Size: (Fighter, Small, Medium, Large)Class Function And Description: (Some ships are generalists, others are specialists for one role. Give us a quick explanation here.)Class Weapons: (Keep it realistic, can't put three hundred guns on a fighter.) Weapon Profile: Fill this out and add it to your profiles so we know what you're talking about in your ship profiles. Name: (Either describe its function or be creative. "Autocannon" works just as well as "Super Megalaser of Death" or "Yarn Gun")Weapon Size: (Small, medium, large, superweapon)Mechanics: (No need to explain stuff like lasers, but if you're making up an exotic weapon, be sure to explain how it works. If you want to help show off, Lloyd, The White Wolf has made a banner, which can be found Here.

Edited October 22, 2011 by Your Friend Doctor Robert

[Vak Il Mio Amore]

Oh yes, completely optional. Some people may prefer a Caeser's Legion approach, where just about everyone is faceless except perhaps the Leader or their main delegates, so that they don't get too attached to a unit they may lose. Where as others, like myself, would totally like having a hero or two in there that's iconic to us of our Empire

[Lara White]

Looks good, time to send it to the Judges. By the way, for those of us who chose to start with a few systems instead of ready colonizers, how many systems do we get?

[Xomeron]

Let me edit that answer in

[Kothra]

I was talking with Alex about the maps: the way he set up the burnspace (and especially the 'sweetspace'), didn't quite fit with what you had described, and so we were certain you would reject them.But you didn't.So if possible, could you explain the maps?

[Xomeron]

The gulfs of Burnspace are essentially walls; you cannot Jump across those walls to stars on the other side. By contrast, the Sweetspace streams are basically highways; you can get in on any point along those, and get off on any point as well... Wait. I just decided I hate the gameplay ramification behind those two. Waiting on new maps guys. PMing you Humvee.

[Kothra]

Forget my latest PM then.Thank you for revising this. I wasn't too fond of it.

[Lara White]

Same to my most recent PM. I offer my help mapmaking if need be as well.

[Xomeron]

To be perfectly clear, aside from the vast ring of Burnspace surrounding the Starscape Clusters, Burnspace should be areas no more than a few thousand kilometers wide.

[Lara White]

...That's making them essentially invisible. The Orion-Cygnus Arm a region of space that is 3,500 light years across and 10,000 light years long. "Space is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist, but that's just peanuts to space."— Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Space is the hole that we are in.— Dr. James Van Allen You have a lot of room to work with.

[Xomeron]

They wouldn't show up on the map, no, but they'd be a constant figure in a Solar System. You could hide things like Starbases in there so the enemy couldn't warp to them Also, I listened to the Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy Radio Drama. Yeah.

[Lara White]

Sorry if I sound like I'm nitpicking. it's my way of showing I like something. Frankly, if they're only within a solar system, then that just raises more questions. it basically means we need a map of the solar systems as well. Assuming that a solar system is, on average, 400 light minutes in radius, and making one hex on a grid be 100 light minutes, you'd have a hex grid that is 52,594,876 hexes long.

[Xomeron]

No, you don't. Just remember, or mark down. "there's a Burnspace Zone in 1-15's asteroid belt" or something. We did similar things in IL. Burnspace isn't that important anyway, I wanted to see what you guys would do with it.

[Lara White]

Might be a bit hard to follow, but okay. Sweetspace (which I think is a bit of an odd name...I like something like Slipspace, since it lets you slip between its shores) could possibly look like large nebulae, sorta of like a large lake that lets you jump to any point on its edge. I'm not sure how much space it's supposed to take up either, though.

[Xomeron]

Sweetspace as an area was Humvee's idea, which I don't really like. It's supposed to just be occasional spots where planets line up and create zones where gravity is equal through the whole system, letting you jump really close to a planet, and the rare tunnel from system to system(which would be game-changing events since they let you cut around the usual defense lines.)

[Lara White]

Oh, so on the same scale as Burnspace. So essentially there should be no Sweet-/Burn-space on the Orion-Cygnus Arm map. That actually makes it much easier for me if you want me to map it. By the way, how do you determine how far a ship can go in a given direction?

[Xomeron]

Ships CAN go all the way into Interstellar Space, flying out into the endless void and coming out at a different star in fifty years or so. Why you'd want to? No bloody clue.