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Growing Horizons: Inner Sphere - Quest

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Warringer said:
Okay people...

Thanks to the feedback that is currently coming up...

I will be putting this on hold, while I evaluate whether to start over or continue this. Especially since everyone is coming up with Out Of Character view points, rather than dealing with the problem in an In Character way.

Aside from that, I'm currently experiencing a creative block, that is not at all helped by people nagging that they can't go in guns blasting and killing everyone on sight.

On the other hand, I had the learning experience I expected when I got into this mess. And know that I will go at things differently should I start a V 2.0 of this game.
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Well not having actual characters to get invested in or get into character of does hurt. Individual players would probable be far more committed if participating was more than just selecting a few options every 5 days or all to often just copy past someone elses vote or just something random without seemingly paying attention to what they are selecting. And i was trying to do it in character or what i thought was in character there is just a dichotomy between the peaceful and unifying nature of the OCP and what battletech is all about and the fact the players themselves hail from websites like SB where heavy handed stupidity happens. Also not helped that a large part of battletech for players is arguing tech/politics or meta builds which really does not or cannot happen here. This game is weird in how unlike basically every other BT game or cross i have seen there is no heavy sustained discussion. How much of this is based on the game being on a site with little traffic and how much that there not much reason to do so... I dont know.

Good luck with that block though given all that is prepared and could do not sure where it could be coming from. Probable check back later or tomorrow. If this game is going on hiatus i have little reason to even come to this site i am afraid.
 
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If there is one great complaint such as it is it is this is or was to easy. We have won and been winning hard the whole game with basic logical choices and sustain good rolls giving us victory after victory with no real sense we are in danger at all. The houses were never truly a threat to us just a big mess we had to deal with reluctantly and having to watch for backstabs. What other threats either are tearing themselves apart, clans with a little effort, or are basically asleep at the wheel, Hegemony. At no point was our home systems every truly threatened. The only real loss we have taken was a single failed research roll locking out insertion pods which in the grand schemes means nothing.
 
Honestly one of the major reasons I kinda don't post much anymore is that the story posts feel like reports, I know that's kinda the point but I wish there was more of a story, I really enjoyed the early portions of the quest when we saw stuff like the first reaction to sentient aliens or weird tech. I try to avoid stating too much of my personal opinion because BT and 40k are two of the only settings where I wish I had a Halo Ring because killing everyone feels like it would improve the setting as death seems preferable to the madness and pettiness of nobles or a release from the near-constant war and horribleness both settings are filled with.
Edit: Another thing that makes me less interested is that the OCP feels almost lifeless, I have seen nothing about the cultural differences and growth that would be caused by this massive new force with a completely alien view on politics and life. I found stuff like the attempted lawsuit against Lockheed Martin interesting because it felt like the people in the inner sphere were actually acting for once, it didn't feel like a bunch of puppets held up by Hanse, Katrina, or Melissa. I know writing stuff on such a ground-level seems boring but it helps a game feel less like a spreadsheet and more like an actual story.
 
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All valid points of complaint.

And this was mostly an experiment for me, as I believe I've stated in the OP that this is the first game of this kind that I've run at all.

I believe that I should have prepared a whole lot more, rather than merely fly this at the seat of my pants, as I've done for the majority of the game.

To have a character to make things more relatable is certainly point I'd take. Perhaps someone like out AI humanist Adam Prometheus. Additionally perhaps deal with something like actual political forces within the game itself, with the players actually acting more like a form of parliament, with people hopefully discussing the situation they find themselves in. Perhaps with some sort of elections every few years/turns.
 
Warringer said:
To have a character to make things more relatable is certainly point I'd take. Perhaps someone like out AI humanist Adam Prometheus. Additionally perhaps deal with something like actual political forces within the game itself, with the players actually acting more like a form of parliament, with people hopefully discussing the situation they find themselves in. Perhaps with some sort of elections every few years/turns.
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Never allow players to make choices you don't want them to make.

Grant Strategy games are just that, a grand strategy, they aren't about personality or identity, they are about a winning strategy which depending on the situation includes playing Fanatic Purifier. And more grimdark the setting, and more Stellaris similarity you want to invoke, the more attempts to play Fanatic Purifier there will be. And in all 4X, there is a Domination victory.

There isn't enough character identity in the disembodied virtual entity of the multi-national state so they aren't like to stay in-character, as they even are not a character in itself per see.

And if you control a single character, people would still form consensus around what seems to be a winning move as it is next to impossible to roleplay a character you don't have real control over. People who want to vote don't need to know who the character is, only what they want to get done, and that always lends itself to OOC decision

The only way how to force people to act in-character is RP campaigns where each player is the character of their own, preferably one they defined themselves.
Making a roleplaying post takes a lot of effort, and it usually involves less planning and more acting IC.
And even then they can possibly agree on something you don't want them to agree on, especially if they have OOC knowledge of the setting and an idea of what the winning move would be. If you give characters any position of power, they may try to use the power.

Generally, if you want people to RP, don't give them any position of power, and place them in situation where only option is to be the character, and not win any nebulous prize in the end
 
Warringer said:
I believe that I should have prepared a whole lot more, rather than merely fly this at the seat of my pants, as I've done for the majority of the game.

To have a character to make things more relatable is certainly point I'd take. Perhaps someone like out AI humanist Adam Prometheus. Additionally perhaps deal with something like actual political forces within the game itself, with the players actually acting more like a form of parliament, with people hopefully discussing the situation they find themselves in. Perhaps with some sort of elections every few years/turns.
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Yeah that is a major problem. You can make it up as you go along but its best to have branching plot outlines and what ifs yet be ready to throw it out if players derail shit. Its actually pretty dang good you kept it this coherent if you really were making it up as you went.

Though i would say more player ability to do things or interact would really help. For most this is/was a check in once every 5 days read a update then make choices then forget about it till 5 days later maybe reading comments along the way. Dealing with actual politics between both us and the npcs would have been more engaging. Me and Letsplay getting into it several times was actually kinda fun and frankly i found it frustrating how much i was talking in a empty room it seems.
 
It's funny... The moment I stopped trying to come up with anything for this Quest, I get new ideas for mainline Growing Horizons...
 
Blade4 said:
You dont consider yourself one now? You built from whole cloth at least one expansive world.
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Well... More of an author before, but quite frankly... I'm more into this for the world building, rather than writing a story... >_>
 
Blade4 said:
Could try building a world then let people tell stories in it. Hell there should be a million stories not seeing in this game.
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Shared universes have one tiny problem.
Self-inserts acting as self-inserts.
Self-insert will do something you don't like and go against the spirit of the setting.
And in a shared universe, all stories are canon, all self-inserts will try to out-self-insert each other, with spiraling problems with each entry made.
You can theoretically approve each entry for its canonicity, but it will just escalate in people getting things past your radar.
 
beast_regards said:
Shared universes have one tiny problem.
Self-inserts acting as self-inserts.
Self-insert will do something you don't like and go against the spirit of the setting.
And in a shared universe, all stories are canon, all self-inserts will try to out-self-insert each other, with spiraling problems with each entry made.
You can theoretically approve each entry for its canonicity, but it will just escalate in people getting things past your radar.
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I've started out writing FanFiction on the Anime Addventure twenty years ago. I've started the original BT Round Robin. I've written a bit for Fenspace.

I am perfectly okay with this kind of thing.

And this game isn't baseline Growing Horizons. So...
 
I would love to try and write some little culture piece but this is my first real exposure to Growing Horizons and I am rather new to BT plus a grade B writer at best. Maybe with some help, a prompt and a bit more time to get some of my future affairs in order I would like to cut my teeth in really writing fiction
 
Anon_Gamma said:
I would love to try and write some little culture piece but this is my first real exposure to Growing Horizons and I am rather new to BT plus a grade B writer at best. Maybe with some help, a prompt and a bit more time to get some of my future affairs in order I would like to cut my teeth in really writing fiction
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Just finished reading through the Quest.

Sad it is over really, but I would definitely participate in a spin-off or alt universe of some shape or form.

Oof that Patlabor got no traction though, the world needs more Patlabor.... It would have been fun to tackle Battletech with a similar yet very different Tech base.

The Cold War still running would have made things fun too.

I have to admit that I kept thinking about the Polity from the SB Quest set in the B5 universe.... The society and culture of those divergent Human Colonists was wild! I forget what they were called, but they rejected both the Shadows and Vorlons, had the UEO as another Rival polity to the EA as well.....

@Warringer that could be a fun thing.... To merge your Universe with the Quest built Polity from that Game!

Vexing that I cannot remember the name of the Race/Culture and the Game....

It had Bioships, Dryad Super Computers, Multispecies Polity, very Anarchic bunch.... Oh and there was Extinct Kilrathii Warships found on the first Colony they settled.

There was also a SI Fanfic spinoff that got made as well....
 
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