I'm planing on running a arena fighting campine. Based on the pit fighting lore in a few books. I'm thing of a 400-450bp game but I'm unsure of the lvl and setting. I could run a longer reaching campine set in street lvl underground pitfighting or a slightly higher powered game in a legal fighting league. I'm planing on runnign this very sandboxie with little forced interplayer interaction. I might have diffrent leagues running i.e melee, guns, rigging and magic plus may be a limitless (i.e anything gose) PvP is possable so is Players fighting together against NPCs. I'm thinking of running this on IM/IRC/Google Wave/Opend RPG as most interaraction would be one and one GMing. PvP gamign would like be a 2 privet chats and a group chat. So people I want too see how many are intrested if its alot I will be lookign for a1 or 2 supporting GMs. Also what type of game are you intresting game wise.

Soooo.... basically make combat monsters and chuck them into a ring and see how well they do? I suppose that could be interesting. I think an underground type setting would be more interesting, as that would open up (more easily) things like cheating, drugs, poisoning the other guy etc etc etc.

Sounds like an concept that I would be interested in. Sadly, don't have time to play this. Good luck with the recruiting.

It's still in the works but with 1 interested party it wont really work.

The first rule of Fight Club is...

I'd be interested to see, just for the fun of it, what a match of the best one can do with an adept vs. the best one can do with 'ware.

I might give it a shot myself.

I call 'ware

I'd take that challenge... An adept would win hands down. Combat reflexes, improved perception, and mystic armor. The adept isn't going to die unless there's a background count.

Looks like we're going to have to have a couple of leagues. Adepts fight it out amongst themselves, and sammies do the same. Championship is the best of each against each other.

Are some of the optional rules going to be used, such as limiting dice pools to a maximum of 20 dice? Is the build going to be 400 BP, 450 BP, or 400 BP + 50 Karma? How often will Edge refresh? How long do you have in between fights? Those questions and more need to be considered when cementing the idea, too, as they'll all have a vastly different impact on individual builds.

what a crazy idea, I think the 'ware' can't be counted out too easy, with extra boxes for damage and high pain tolerance.. not to mention sneaky weapons.

and drugs will be a must for that extra push

the mind reels with possibilities..are there rules in these fights? or just,"2 men enter, 1 man leaves"

Well, now I'm all psyched for making a melee combat monster cyber almost-zombie. Looks like we finally have some interest, now we just need Dumori to set some ground rules.

If I can make suggestions: Hold the 20 dice cap, 400 BP is likely good, 400 + 50 karma is likely better (Gives adepts a chance to initiate, gives sammies more money to play with) and allow for... lets say 20 base availability? To even out sammies ware with adept powers when you throw in that extra karma.

Shame I was just about to go to bed. Still, I'll likely read and plot some. Muahaha! I mean... sleep well everyone

Right this is still in the hashing out stage but I'm glad this whent form one person intrested to a nice number in the time it took my to get back on DS. I'm looking at 400-430 with +50 karma atm with the more intrseting options such as AIs and jar heads being on a GM descrestion baseis. I'll be running with the 20 dice cap rule. Also I'm looking at taking on a co-GM or two in other time zones as I'm in GTM and ost of you are USA looking at your post times. I want to run as much of this game as real time if possable as PbP combat can be very very slow.

The 20 Dice Cap might make for some interesting min/max'ing.

I've been twiddling with a number of characters lately, as Karoline knows, that split their dice pools for multiple attacks, either with firearms, spells or melee weapons. The effect, RAW, is to take a 28 or 30 dice pool and turn it into 2 or 3 18 to 20 dice pools.

It isn't relevant in any of the other games I'm playing in but in a game that uses the cap it is a useful way of side-stepping it.

It reminds me slightly of The Princess Bride, in the novel Fezzik the Giant stops wrestling individuals at a certain point in his career because there is just no challenge any more and he has to start fighting groups to grow as a combatant.

I'm wondering whats allowed in the "ring"? armor? weapons? elemental strike? cyberguns? folding chairs? managers?

Just trying to understand what is expected. Will character start in the ring, at a distance form each other, with weapons ready? Will there be cover / environment, or just a sand pit. How big a ring are we talking about?

Also, assuming characters are fighting multiple times, are expendables replaced in between? (Anti-Vehicular Missiles, with a nice explosive radius, would seem to slow anyone down.)

Yours,
Joel

I'm guessing consumables would have to paid for yourself out of your earnings. The pit organizers are unlikely to foot the bill for your AV missiles or drug habits. I'm sure good fighters could get sponsors behind them and everything though.

We'd likely start from some set distance, and terrain or not would likely vary based on the match. The distance would likely also vary.

I guess the question would then be what the payouts are.

One thing that might help would be if restricted gear was prohibited.

I am presuming taht for this to be practical, there are no karma awards, and no buying of fancy equipment in between rounds?

Yorus,
Joel

Yeah, knowing payouts is very important, as well as how much backing we could get from sponsors. That is important for how much we can look to spend on drugs/ammo/other expendables in a round.

R gear being prohibited? No one can use a weapon now. That doesn't make for very entertaining pit fights, and definitely stacks the deck amazingly in favor of adepts. Even if you only make it F gear being prohibited you're still sticking it to mundanes quite a bit.

Sorry, I meant the "restricted gear" quality, not all gear with R or F ratings. (I suspect that banning just the F items wouldn't really be either appropriate or effective.)

joel

Ah, see I was taking the opposite approach and saying we should have access to higher availability due to having the 50 karma. Adepts can initiate with it, which is a huge increase to their power, so sammies should be able to get 13+ gear with it. Along those lines, the characters should likely also have access to betaware (Maybe not delta) if they so desire it.

Should probably sit back patiently and wait to get a picture of what Dumori has in mind. It's clear he has aspirations for maybe evolving it into a full campaign as opposed to just a grudge match sort of deal.

Good point, but some grudge matches could be fun too

You're on the money there.

I'm planning to run this a bit of a campine. Style wise this will be an "underground" and "illegal" pit fighting league as in megas still sponsored and its still sold pay per view on the matrix and likely held on extra territorial ground but it woul'd be illegal in the UCAS proper.

Payuts and such are still a bit iffy in my mind likely not too much enotf to make a profit but with out sponsor ship not enought for it to pay more than running or illegal work

What about some of the other questions such as increased availability?

If you're contemplating settings, Arsenal hints at a place that could use some development. The Sangre y Acero has this to say on the subject: "Beneath the dark streets of Tenochititlan lie the bloodiest pit-fighting dens in the Sixth World. Unaugmented metahumans rarely last long in the gore-stained arenas, and combatants often introduce new and unusual cyberweapons to surprise their enemies and titillate the crowd. The fighters who have survived longest collect a body of tricks and techniques known as Sangre y Acero – Blood and Steel."

That's exactly what I had been thinking.

There's one other thing that could probably be considered: You rarely receive just Karma as you advance. If granting access to beta- or even deltagrade implants and higher Availability gear, a monetary reward to go along with the bonus Karma makes a lot of sense. That may it's not just the adepts, technomancers, free spirits and whatnot that are getting an advantage by being able to initiate/submerge, but implant junkies can actually afford those beta- or deltagrade implants. And this way, everyone gets to benefit in roughly a fair way. Implant junkies gain less benefit from Karma but way more from the cash, and adepts/technomancers/etc. gain a lot more benefit out of the Karma than they do the cash. Pretty nice.

I think 50 Karma and 125,000¥ are about equal. That would probably be a good number consider if you like the idea, I think. Not enough to let a player get full (or even mostly) deltagrade implants, but enough to get most of their alphaware boosted up to betaware with a few pieces of deltaware thrown in for good measure. Assuming deltaware will even be available, of course.

Ah, sorry, I'm so used to doing it when given karma at startup that I didn't ask.

Usually people are allowed to trade in part or all of that 50 karma for nuyen at the standard 2500:1 ratio. That way sammies have some nuyen to advance with if they want it, but aren't automatically given as much as they could hope for.

Adepts and mages after all would have little use for the 125k nuyen, but sammies could find alot of uses for 50 karma (Specs for all skills is a good first step)

I can think of a lot of things for adepts, technomancers, and mages to spend their money on. Weapons, foci, binding materials, drones, formulae, etc.

What's more, they don't get Karma during character creation, but mundanes get cash. It's only far that they should get cash to blow on stuff after creation just as much as mundanes get karma to blow on things. It doesn't (and shouldn't) be the same mechanic. Especially since you do earn more than Karma as an experienced character.

Again, mundanes benefit more from the cash but still have uses for the karma. The same holds true the other way; magicians and technomancers benefit more from the karma but still have uses for the cash. It doesn't have to be mutually exclusive.

I didn't say it was, I was just saying that characters should have to make a choice with the karma/nuyen just as they have to make a choice with the BP/nuyen. There is nothing that says an adept/mage/whatever can't turn the karma into nuyen either if they want the extra nuyen for some foci or whatever. They just have to make a choice, just like the sammy does.

Also, 400BP + 50 karma is quite a bit different than 400BP + 50 karma + 125,000 nuyen, and that may not be the power level that Dumori wants to have.

The point is, however, that the karma is supposed to reflect characters with experience under their belt. Experienced characters don't just earn karma. They earn karma and nuyen. You don't get to convert karma to cash or vice-versa. That's a method found in the Karma System, whereas this game is using the Build System. You don't get to mix-and-match as you see fit between the two on a whim. This game is using 400-430 BP characters for creation, with 50 Karma tacked on as they see fit just as if they had earned it during game play. And, again, characters don't earn just karma during game play. It requires a very explicit house rule to allow karma to be spent for cash, and it's a rule that's neither consistent with the entire point of the bonus karma, nor one that's necessarily as fair or balanced for all potential concepts.

Dumori can even use it to garner more control over the characters, too, by simply saying that the build points have to be spent "by the book," with all the limitations thereof. Then, after you've created the base character, you can spend the bonus karma and nuyen to upgrade them without those limits. That means no Availability limits, exceeding the rating limits during creation, access to betagrade and deltagrade implants, and everything else that implies. It also gives him more power by determining exactly how much of each he wants to see; the 125,000¥ was just an example as part of the suggestion, not some explicit rule written in stone.

And, again, it tends to benefit mundane characters far more than it does adepts and the like, which is a balancing concern and the whole reason I mentioned it. With adepts gaining access to metamagic and potentially more Power Points as well as exceeding rating limits in native skills, mundanes should be able to afford -- not just have access to -- the higher grades of implants they need to keep up while still being able to exceed those same ratings by spending karma on them.

If mundanes have to give up the option of improving their skills and attributes just so they can afford to upgrade their implants from alpha to beta (thereby doubling the cost), there's not really gaining much other than an Essence hole that they really have nothing to fill in with. Whereas adepts are getting direct boosts to their combative abilities while still having access to the same gear they did beforehand. And that's exactly what happens if you just add a karma-for-cash rule.

Well, I've seen the system of giving bonus karma at chargen that can be converted into nuyen work just fine, and have seen it used every single time karma has been given at chargen. Giving 50 karma and saying you can convert it into cash if you want isn't really all that different than giving 25 karma and 62500 nuyen, except that it forces people's hand as to how much nuyen they've bought with their karma.

Similarly 50 karma and 125000 nuyen isn't really any different than 100 karma and the ability to turn it into cash. Once again the main difference is that the player's get to make choices, just like they do with their BPs.

Also, if you give 50 karma and 125000 nuyen, you are giving magic types a boost because they just lost basically any reason to spend any BP on equipment since they know they'll get all the free nuyen they really need.

It's all up to Dumori really, but the one thing I agree shouldn't happen is to give only karma and then not allow it to be converted into nuyen because that heavily favors awakened.

<shrugs> Whatever. And duh, of course it's up to him. I've only been offering suggestions to consider. Getting really tired of having to defend everything I say on this damn board from pendantic nitpickers.

well, you know how to avoid that, right? become a sheeple and never have an original thought. *nods*

Part of the problem is that he posts his original thoughts as though they are fact, and not simply an opinion or idea. I'm guessing this is unintentional, but that is how I've noticed nearly every one of his posts. I'm guessing I'm not the only one who looks at it that way, given how much he seems to get into arguments on the boards. That and he defends any comments against his posts venomously.

At least that's what I figure the problem is.

Let's have a look at the post that got you ranting. Underlining for emphasis.


Yep, you nailed it. I don't see anything that looks even remotely close to an opinion or an idea there. It's all so demanding and written in stone if ever I've seen such a thing.

But yes, when people start nitpicking and attacking my opinions as if they were fact, I do in fact take it personally and will defend my opinions venomously. And God knows you never assume your opinions are fact in your posts, too. (I'm still tickled over the apparent fact that neither Parazoology nor Paranormal Threats have any hope of giving you information about regeneration or critters with that power whatsoever. Oh, and how's that crusade about the apparent 'facts' about cyberware armor working out for you? Since, apparently, I'm the only one who has opinions that aren't opinions at all. Despite explicitly saying they are.)

See, there is your problem, you don't read properly. I said that was my guess about why it often happens. I didn't say that is always why it happens. And you are always overly defensive of what you say. The whole 'arguement' that you got so tired of was mostly you saying that players should get karma and nuyen or nothing at all and that karma converted to nuyen should be impossible (Because you can't do it in game), and me saying that I've seen it work quite a bit and it doesn't seem to affect game balance at all.

Now I gave my idea for why you seem to get nitpicked so often (I don't think you really do, I think you take it overboard when someone doesn't agree with you) and now you are attacking me and every post I've ever made.

I admit that I sometimes state my opinions or interpretations like fact when I don't mean to, but you're the only one I ever seem to get into a long drawn out argument with whenever our views don't match up.

<shrugs> You're the one who brought it up in this discussion. Forgive me for assuming it actually applied to the discussion it was brought up in.

well, this has been entertaining. And if Dumori hasn't run for the hills, he's a stronger man than I. I think part of the problem with communicating via Forums such as this, is that things can easily be misread or misinterprated. there's no inflection or tone of voice to get a reading on. sometimes things can sound nasty when read, that when spoken in RL are completely harmless. maybe we could add things in parenthasese like(sarcasm), or (sincere question), or(harmless poke of fun). Anyway, I think you guys are mostly in agreement on this one, Karma has to be balanced with money for the sake of the cyber sam. The devil's in the details(cheesy dr phil advice)

I've got a former company man I am thinking of throwing in the ring. I'll have to tweak him a bit but I think he is combat oriented enough to handle himself in the ring and still rounded out enough to survive outside as well.

I've got a 'two-guns' specialist I'm eager to try out.

Pfft. Just gives us more reason to go after other players in the arena. I'm sure a few people are looking forward to the idea of thrashing me soundly.

NOoooo, why would anyone want to do that?

Personally I do my best to not let like/dislike for a player affect my relations with their character. Some of my best friends OOC have been big enemies IC, and vice versa (Though we were good enough friends to sit around the same table).

Part of 'what sort of league do you want' needs to answer questions on weapons. What do you want? Anything goes? Just Pistols/MPs or less? Just close combat weapons? Just weapons that are part of your body? No overt weapons? No weapons at all?

All are viable rulesets for a Blood and Steel fighting league, and you could broadly have rules decided before each match (which could involve non combat objectives like trying to convince a the organiser to alter the rules slightly in your favour, or to find out what the exact rules are going to be so you have time to prepare: damn next fight is going to be agaisnt a gunslinger extraordinaire, hows your dogde, maybe we should run you through some training? (Pick up Dodge (Range) spec between fights) ).

Playing as non-combat characters could be fun as well. Dodgy booky who spends his time trying to get info / rig fights ; Animal trainer who doesn't fight himself, but trains fighting creatures ; spy who spends his time digging up dirt / intel and selling it to the highest bidder / who-ever hired him.

Oohh, bio-drone rigger. Although that'll get expensive if you lose. Doh, don't have that Peter F. Hamilton short story on my bookshelf for some reason.... hmmm.

I was thinking of having the leagues set up in a overlapping form. so there would be magic. mages, adepts. There would be also ranged, in that handguns, automatics and heavy as examples. there would be a cybered set of leagues as well in melee and range. Then rigging leagues. Then the open league this is an anything goes league with much less rules than the more closed leagues. There is also a matrix only league for the sake of fleshing out the arenas. While there are sub leagues I'm expecting most PCs to be played in the border ones melee, range, cyber and magic as well as the league open. The open league is the major attraction compared to the more "fair" leagues other arenas use seeing a dwarf cut a troll up or get crushed trying is more fun that same meta-human fights so is seeing a human gun down that ork ganger before he even gets close.

I'm going with 430bp plus 50 karma that can be traded in at 4k per karma. I really want odd builds for the open league I will be some running NPCs too all PCs are to be vetted by me and tweaked.

I'm guessing that is a typo and you meant to say that you want odd builds. Mine is quite odd in some ways, no worries about that Very much designed as a mage killer.

I'm leaning towards a cybermonster myself. My rough notes have him as a stoner menehune (the Hawai'ian dwarf metavariant), but I can't help but add a bit of quirkiness to my characters. I haven't fully conformed to any one idea, however, but now that Dumori has been so kind to solidify the basics I can begin narrowing one down.

I do have one lingering question for Dumori, though: Are you increasing the Availability limits during character creation, and/or allowing access to beta- or deltagrade implants?

Especially with the nuyen gained from trading in karma?