Furscape MUCK

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ABIRI  Abiri nods. Maybe the factions aren't -all- gone, just haven't had a lot of political RP since the player base ran low.

SANDHIA  Ah, well I see flame belongs to the mangnum intelligence agency but even though he has only a little tiny bit on it in his cinfo, he has more than the Encyclopedia Galactica has on it.

ABIRI  Abiri nods.

SANDHIA  I'll probably continue to make all kinds of catchy things up about robots, just trying to rp my profession, but it would help if there was more concrete info on it in the encyclopedia, so I'd have more to base it on.

SANDHIA  I'd also love to see the Star Ships and Jump Gates sections filled in.  It makes it tough to RP life on board ship when those two sections are blank.

ABIRI  I'd mainly stick with things that exist in real life when it comes to robot hardware. There's plenty of material out there in labs to work with.

ABIRI  If you want to come up with something that 'everybody uses them', though, best to run that by Tsye or someone.

ABIRI  I can tell you a little about ships and gates

SANDHIA  I'm all ears :)

SANDHIA  I will run Breach Spiders by Tsye next time I see her.  They are kind of a favorite of mine.  They are multi-legged welding robots with magnetic feet that repair hull breaches both outside and inside ships.

ABIRI  Ships tend to use acceleration to suppply gravity. We have to fudge the numbers a little on flight times between planets, since spaceflights are usually just a few days. Taking off and landing aren't as much of a big deal as iRL because of the good fusion reactors.

ABIRI  If people or information needs to go faster than light, it has to go through a hyperspace jumpgate.

SANDHIA  cool.  I had it take like ten or twenty minutes for them to radio a salvage claim from a spot in the Asteroids to New Philadelphia figuring that there was no faster than light commo.

ABIRI  Abiri nods.

SANDHIA  Is there any provision for exploring for new gates and worlds?

ABIRI  Nobody's quite sure who made the jumpgates or how they work, but recoms have copied them. The copies weren't all that safe at first but the safety isn't an issue in modern times.

ABIRI  It's possible to explore, but very dangerous. I'm pretty sure there's not going to be an exploration plot in the future, unless the current worlds start getting overpopulated with PCs.

SANDHIA  That's another thing I'd love to read about - we have these new planets but nothing on what else exists in their systems.

ABIRI  Only one new planet, I thought?

SANDHIA  No, I mean like we have Oceania, but what exists in the Oceania system, obviously a star, probably some uninhabitable planets, maybe an asteroid belt, and whatever, but we have no info on anything but Oceana.

SANDHIA  Those kinds of things could be important to mining plots, and with mining comes piracy, small territorial conflics and all kinds of potentially cool plots.

ABIRI  Oh, the star systems. I bet some folks who designed or often used the ships would be of some help there. Not sure how well developed the theme is there.

ABIRI  You've got a lot of good questions here. I've got a suggestion on how to present them...

SANDHIA  It would be nice if every planet's system had a name for the star, and a list of the other planets, planetary moons and asteroid belt(s).  We can get that for the Sol system by looking in astronomy books but we have nothing for the other planetary systems.

ABIRI  The stars are all named, I think

SANDHIA  No exotic metals that might exist here and there and so on.

SANDHIA  If the star for Oceania is named, it does not seem to be on the web.

SANDHIA  basically my whole thrust is stuff to hang shipboard and shipboard proffessions plots off of.

ABIRI  I see it in the jumproom- see where it says ____ Sector?

SANDHIA  Ah are the sector names the same as the star names?

ABIRI  Yup. I guess if any were binaries, there'd be a different name.

ABIRI  With regards to asking questions... I've noticed elseMU that there are some folks who don't worry about theme too much, some that are concerned about it but prefer to work on it on their own time, and a very few willing to talk it out with you in real time. In order to stay in the good graces of all, I found the best method was to ask multiple choice questions in small bites. Multiple choice shows that you're willing to put some thought and work into it, but you're not being bossy and trying to change how everything works. Seems to strike a good balance between thoughtful and humble.

SANDHIA  All my curiosity about this stuff from robotics, to planets and belts to stars and jumpgates and incedently what kind of weapons starships have (we never seem to find out) are all about me trying to run shipboard plots that conform to the muck's universe.  I'm sure people would criticize me for making too much up, but the fact is you have to because there is just very little published information to hang shipboard plots on.

SANDHIA  can you tell me what kind of weapons ships have?

SANDHIA  we were blasting asteriods the other day only we weren't sure what we were blasting them with.

ABIRI  It's really best just to ask how much is established and how much you can make up. Say you're equally willing to invent something plausible or to accept an established answer.

ABIRI  Not sure about the weapons. I'm guessing something kinetic. Coil guns?

SANDHIA  I look for established answers, usually come up empty and have to make something up or the plot grinds to a halt.

SANDHIA  sometimes we just sort of shrug.  Well, we could be firing fusion reactor powered lasers at the astroids or a 40mm cannon and we're really not sure.

ABIRI  That's plotting for you, whatever kind of RP you're doing. Got to either get your sourcebook together ahead of time, or get a GM to supervise.

ABIRI  Who are you RPing with?

SANDHIA  The Asteroid plot is with White_Ears and Jace, and Bella when she can make it, and an Owl-recom npc mathematician, and a few villainous npcs.

SANDHIA  Thankfully there is a little bit of info on asteroids and mining in the sections on Mars and Belters.

SANDHIA  Info's a bit thin, but I do the best I can.

ABIRI  A'ight. I'll forward this to a wiz, see what we can do. No staff were available to help you out when you're RPing?

SANDHIA  It takes place somewhere in the Asteroid belt in Sol System.

SANDHIA  not that I know of, but I just figured you pretty much had to run your own tinyplots.

SANDHIA  At least that's what I had experienced thus far.

SANDHIA  obviously I'm no expert.

SANDHIA  but I enjoy running plots and no one seemed to be running space plots.  They were all running shore leave kinds of plots.

ABIRI  Well, it's good that you're taking the iniative. Just ask about it beforehand.

SANDHIA  That's another thing for the web page: Guide to running tinyplots :)

ABIRI  Noted!

SANDHIA  The plot involves a ship that's stuck in an asteroid field which probably looks like a single astroid from earth, but is actually lots of little astroids all bumping and grinding :)  There is a ship called the Adrian Martin that tried to take a shortcut through there 50 years ago.  It's loaded with Iridium from astroid mining.  It's stuck in the middle in the shelter of some larger asteroids, and this mathematician hires the crew people.  He has taken years to calculate all the orbits and has a way in and a way out 3 days later.  He has only calculated the bodies of any appreciable size so they crew have to dodge and shoot the smaller stuff.

ABIRI  I'd suggest page #mail to Flame or Tsye, or whatever staff is online at that time of day, asking them to please come in to supervise and advise a bit.

ABIRI  Sounds interesting.

SANDHIA  The mathematician had a grad student that stole a copy of his research 3 years ago and he brings in some pirate ships through a second but later solution.  The owl took the earlier solution even though it was longer it was early so a salvage claim could be got first.

ABIRI  Sounds plausible to me.

SANDHIA  so they have to deal with the cagey mathematician, then the asteriods, then send in their salvage claim, and work to re-power up the Adrian Martin  and explore her while dealing with the pirates.

SANDHIA  it's been fun so far:)

SANDHIA  They got all but 3 of the small pirate ships, but one boarded the Adrian Martin so they have intruders to deal with.

SANDHIA  they have a small portion of the Adrian Martin pressurized - The bridge a conduit and the reactor room.

SANDHIA  I'm waiting on Bella  to have time though because she has the skills necessary to address the boarding part of 2-4 pirates.

SANDHIA  boarding party, rather.

SANDHIA  Anyhow it's been a nice change from the strictly social and romantic plots.

ABIRI  Is someone keeping logs of all this?

ABIRI  The website could really use some more variety in the RP logs.

SANDHIA  yes I do a log

SANDHIA  It's only part of a days log but I could potentially paste all the plot fragments together.

ABIRI  How about I put up a wiki page with all you've done so far? We'll get a wiz to look it over, then put it up on the logs page if it looks okay.

SANDHIA  you could, it's a little rough in some areas as we learn to play together.  I'm sometimes hard on Jace because he likes to decide what someone else is going to do, then react to what he's decided they would do, which is powergaming, but every group has to kind of get their land legs.

ABIRI  Cool. And that's great that it's a learning experience too. :)

ABIRI  After you get that log for me, maybe you can take a look over the RP guide and see if anything should be clarified? (Yeah, I know I'm asking a lot here, but you seem to be on a roll!)

SANDHIA  yes, that's kind of why a guide to running tinyplots came to mind for the webpage.  We all could have benefited from one, me as the sort of game master and the others too.  I also decided since Jace liked to run things to the point of powergaming sometimes, that I'd let him run the whole ship to ship thing with the pirates.  I think he got some enjoyment from being able to do that.

SANDHIA  I just gave him the basic parameter of x small pirate ships (a big ship couldn't squeak through the obribal paths even with the mathematical solution)  And I said one needed to board and he did the rest.

ABIRI  Abiri nods.

ABIRI  Any initial thoughts on our RP guide?

SANDHIA  Hmm, I've seen some from other mucks but not in recent memory.  There's usually the explanation of powergaming and not to do it, and tips on making things fun.

ABIRI  I mean the RP guide we have up on the wiki: http://www.furscape.com/doku.php/rp_guide

SANDHIA  Trying to make sure everyone feels useful is half the battle, I think.

ABIRI  Very good point.

SANDHIA  we had Jace who's the hotdog pilot, Bella who's the muscle, White_Ears who is the get the reactor and dead ship running person, and Sandhia who helps direct robots to help people do whatever without doing it for them, and fixes hull breachs.  The Breach Spiders were most used robot by far :)

ABIRI  I was looking at things from more of a small-scene point of view, since that's what I gravitate towards. I think most of the same points apply to a guide that describes bigger plots, but there are also some narrative suggestions worth making, and ones about keeping folks involved like you said.

SANDHIA  yep, I wish I were far more experienced, but I soon came to the conclusion that if I wanted to be in a shipboard adventure, I was going to have to make one up.

SANDHIA  the stuff on belters and the history of asteroid mining was very helpful

ABIRI  That's probably Zobeid's work, by the way.

SANDHIA  Even though no one plays a belter, there was more plot material for a shipboard adventure in that than anywhere else.

SANDHIA  Anyhow, I've still got a lot to learn but it's been fun :)

ABIRI  A good article, yep.

ABIRI  I'm glad you're willing to take a shot at being the GM. I'll see what we can do about lightening the load for you.

SANDHIA  Thanks!   I'll try to put that story together for you.  Even if we're way off the mark on some technology and so on, you will be able to see where there are information vaccuumes and know what stuffs people would need to know for a shipboard adventure.

ABIRI  Abiri nods!

SANDHIA  I have to head for bed, but I enjoyed the conversation and hope we can work on it together.  You can get the perspective of a newbie trying to learn to be a GM and what the pitfalls are :)