rpanons | We mustn't offend the all powerful NPCs!

We mustn't offend the all powerful NPCs!

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I'm a different anon than the one who asked about what people would like to see in a sci-fi game, I've been batting around some ideas, and most of what was in that thread was stuff I already had planned. I did want to get more feedback on the issue of "solving the jamjar" though.

I like the idea of characters coming willingly, and it fits in with the plot. There's room in the overall metaplot as well to have multiple ways of bringing in characters, and multiple entry methods is something I've personally always wanted in a game. To save a little time in explaining the whole plot, assume for this that there's A Cause that's at least a little compelling. Thing along the lines of Space Greenpeace, something positive and enriching, rather than a war. All of the below are ways that characters could come in:

- Living characters with dimensional travel abilities/within their canon can sign up to join The Cause. They can, in theory, return whenever they choose to.

- Living characters without dimensional travel abilities can stumble on a wormhole. While the wormhole is still open, they can choose to join up.

- Living characters without dimensional travel abilities can stumble on a wormhole, but it may close before they can make their choice. Joining The Cause will be their best chance at finding one back, though it's no sure thing.

- Dead characters have the option of being "spiritually" caught in a wormhole, and reconstituted into a "clone" body. Because magiscience. They do not have the option of returning home.

There would be a section on the app to explain the character's presence in game. Dropped characters would be transferred to another ship working for the same cause, rather than actually leaving the universe itself. Canon updates, and dropped characters being reapped could be attributed to spacetime anomalies with a dash of multiverse theory.

I think between those options, it misses characters with dimensional travel abilities who wouldn't want to stay, or who would just up and decide to go home, but I think there are relatively few enough characters with those abilities that it could just be worked out on a case by case basis. I would be open to letting players propose their own options and solutions as well, so long as it fit with the plot and tone.

Thoughts? Too complicated? Too wishy-washy?

At first glance my eyes glazed over.

Some of this can't be answered without knowing what your setting is or what people are signing up for. Besides 'space Greenpeace.' There's still a difference between a legit organization and something a little shadier. Not only that, but...

- Living characters without dimensional travel abilities can stumble on a wormhole. While the wormhole is still open, they can choose to join up.

- Living characters without dimensional travel abilities can stumble on a wormhole, but it may close before they can make their choice. Joining The Cause will be their best chance at finding one back, though it's no sure thing.

So how long is the wormhole open? How much time do they have to learn the situation and agree to this? Can they go between their home and the wormhole before deciding? It's like...if I called you up right now, revealed I'm an eccentric billionaire, and offered to fly you to Asia for a trip you'd still probably want some time to verify who the fuck I am and what's going on. Is the wormhole open long enough to accomplish this? If not, then why would someone who has a life and a home back on Planet XYZ willing to give it up to serve as part of Space Greenpeace?

Furthermore, re: the first, it sounds like they're agreeing to be stuck in the jamjar for some indefinite length of time, perhaps forever, foregoing the chance of returning home to see their family and friends again. Even if someone offered me my dream job in, say, Norway, with the condition of accepting the job being that I never get to see my hometown or my friends and family again (unless they came with me) I'd still have to do a lot of thinking about it. That's kind of a big deal.

Not only that, but a lot of characters are from canons in which suspicious people can zap around with portals, so they'd also probably have some questions about validity. Why should they trust some random people who popped in with a wormhole? This also doesn't account for the people who have canons in which shit gets real. Even if Jyn Erso were reconstructed with a clone body and told she could never go home, I'm still pretty sure she wouldn't settle down and go, ":> I shall trust in the Rebellion to finish what I have started and I shall settle down."

Also, I thought about it a bit more.

So if you've got dimensional travelers who can go to and from at will, and people who don't want to be there, what's stopping the dimensional traveler from going, "Sure! I'll take you home!" Or what's stopping someone who doesn't want to be there (either because they never wanted to be there in the first place, or because they chose to sign on and realized they made a mistake, or just because they're kinda bored) from popping through one of the wormholes?

Also, what's stopping the genius scientist brigade and the genius mage brigade from joining forces to try to analyze and manipulate the wormholes? I mean, besides OOC ones like 'don't do it.' Normally I'd say it's because they lack the knowledge but you've also got dimensional travelers who can rip through space in the mix, so it's not like it wouldn't be possible. Why wouldn't they want to learn how to at least stabilize the wormholes long enough so there's no accidental victims? Wouldn't that be a more worthwhile and IC goal than going with Space Greenpeace?

Now, some of this is dependent on your players playing along and not breaking the setting. But (and this is speaking from experience) you'll be better off if you have a few sticks/carrots set up ahead of time, a few barriers, so players can beat/lure their characters back in line. What if a character wonders if it would be a better use of their time and resources to take their money, set up shop on an isolated planet with 15 members of the playerbase, create a research lab, and analyze the wormholes because if they can create a nexus it would revolutionize science/magic across multiple dimensions. Isn't that a better use of everyone's time? So why can't they just bail?

And if your answer is that Space Greenpeace won't let them quit, then you're going to have to deal with characters wondering what, exactly, is Space Greenpeace really and how benign are they in truth.

If nothing else, here's my tl;dr: "solving the jamjar" is more than just how characters get there, it's what they're doing with the situation they're given, and that's what you gotta consider if you're tackling that problem.

Thanks for the feedback! I mentioned to the anon below that these options were added in response to people who wanted characters to be able to choose to come to the setting (which might have been in a different post now that I think about it), as well as being tired of the "trying to find a way home" concept. So these ideas were all based around trying to answer to that: how can characters be given an avenue to come willingly, while not excluding characters that wouldn't want to? I agree, it's a big deal for the characters to choose something like this, which is why I didn't think that having that be the only mechanic to come into the game was the right way to go. But I wanted to offer it for the types of characters who would go for it with relatively little convincing.

So how long is the wormhole open? As long as it needs to be, within reason. Likely less than a day, no more than three. If that wouldn't be enough to convince a particular character, then that wouldn't be the option for them. This would be something measurable, e.g. you have an hour to make your decision, you have a day to make your decision -- whatever the player thinks would work best.

what's stopping the dimensional traveler from going, "Sure! I'll take you home!" I did mention this. I think the number of characters who can not only dimension hop themselves and also take others with them are relatively few, that it could be worked out on an individual basis, whether that's some kind of small power nerfing, or other character specific mechanic.

Or what's stopping someone who doesn't want to be there from popping through one of the wormholes? You mean from popping back the way someone just came? They're unidirectional. That was a thing from the start that I neglected to mention.

Also, what's stopping the genius scientist brigade and the genius mage brigade from joining forces to try to analyze and manipulate the wormholes? In theory, absolutely nothing! In fact, I'd welcome that kind of plotting. But just as easily as other games can say it's not physically possible, I could just as easily say it wouldn't be something they could solve in a day or a month or even a year. Genius scientists that are native to the setting have been trying to figure this out themselves for decades or more, and if it was that easy, they would just send people on their way without a fuss.

What if a character wonders if it would be a better use of their time and resources to take their money, set up shop on an isolated planet with 15 members of the playerbase, create a research lab, and analyze the wormholes because if they can create a nexus it would revolutionize science/magic across multiple dimensions. Isn't that a better use of everyone's time? So why can't they just bail? Where are they going to get that money? Or the resources? Space Greenpeace wouldn't stop them, but that's like saying you're going to take $1000USD and the clothes on your backs, move to Siberia with ten of your friends, and start researching astrophysics. Could you do it? Sure. But it wouldn't be as easy as that. Plus, Space Greenpeace would be happy to let them join their scientists in researching this with all of their numerous resources.

"solving the jamjar" is more than just how characters get there, it's what they're doing with the situation they're given Of course there's more to it than just the arrival mechanic, but my understanding was that's a big part. I was looking at this subthread in particular:

http://rpanons.dreamwidth.org/69645.html?thread=222525197#cmt222525197

But I wanted to take it a different direction too. "Your world has been destroyed" or "you're a clone" are fine ideas but not really the kind of tone I was looking to set, and bring up their own mechanical issues. (What if characters start questioning if their world is really destroyed or not, etc etc) So how do you let the characters who would come willingly actually do that, but also provide a method for the ones who wouldn't?

I also think another part of eliminating the whole "get back home" issue is just setting the tone through the mechanics you choose as well as the setting itself, rather than what the mechanics themselves actually do. I've played in games where getting home is all characters talked about, and others where they didn't talk about it much at all, and the major difference between those games was overall tone.

I just really don't see how this is fixing the 'characters actively trying to find a way home' problem. Even if characters come willingly, since there's absolutely no way they can ever return short of figuring out wormholes or creating an alternate way back the problem solving people will probably put it on their to-do list anyway. Why wouldn't they? Even if they don't want to go back to their home, they'll probably want to check out someone else's home. Furthermore, you are seriously underestimating fictional scientists, oh my god. Brainiac 5 is canonically smarter than the entire population of planet Earth put together and accomplished dimensional travel once that I know of. (And I've seen people play him.) Depending on the version, Reed Richards of the Fantastic Four got his start by accomplishing interdimensional travel. The Lutece twins? That's just the people I can think of offhand.

And that's not even getting into the people who play canonical deities, or people who happen to have a luck stat that's so high it's an ability that needs to be nerfed in most games, and thus acquiring the money to do things shouldn't be too hard. Or the mages. Point being, there's a number of individuals who have the canonical capacity to accomplish these things and you're explicitly saying they're going to have the time and resources to accomplish this.

And I think that's great, since you seem to be open to working with people. But at the same time I'm not sure what you're trying to accomplish with this. Based upon what you're describing here, I feel like you have the great framework for creating an interdimensional jamjar space nexus where people can come and go as they will. You're giving characters everything they'll need to focus on sciencing solutions to problems and developing ways for characters who might not be happy with being stuck (e.g. Jyn Erso) to go back home. Ultimately, there's only one barrier: the mods saying, "Players, not now." There is nothing else stopping them from taking this down the interdimensional jamjar space nexus route.

And that could be fun, but is that what you want to create? If I'm basically describing what you want this to become, then great, carry on. If not, then I'd take a step back and figure out what it is you want to create and what population of characters you need for that, and then figure out what method works best in keeping those people around. These wormholes have the potential to seriously take over your game and become a plot tumor in the worst case.

I don't think I'm underestimating any fictional scientists. So you have a character that's smarter than the entire population of Earth. Okay then, some of my NPCs are smarter than the population of five Earths. Or maybe the thing they have many resources, as many are as available-- but not all the resources needed to accomplish this goal are available.

What stops characters like that from finding a way to develop interdimensional travel in their own canons, or in games already? Canon I can't say, but in games, when you boil it down-- nothing but the mods saying "no" or "not now" or "it wouldn't work like that in this setting". These characters already exist in games where interdimensional travel is clearly possible but inaccessible to the characters, either because the mods have put something in mechanically that makes it impossible, or have just straight up said they won't be able to do it, with no deeper explanation. Maybe there are power nerfs in play. These are all possibilities here as well.

But yeah that is effectively what I want to create. I want to have faith in the player base that they'll want to play in the game and not find every way to break it. Maybe that's foolish of me, but hey, nothing ventured, nothing gained. And I want to be able to say, hey characters can absolutely look into these options in their free time, they'll be given resources, there will be downtime, and that the setting overall will make that the most appealing option over all others.

So maybe that could become an arc of the game for a while too, and I'd be alright with that, if that's the way it goes. I think I'd still be in a position to set the pace and the ultimate outcome so that we don't hit endgame in three months and everyone goes home, but there's no reason that some of the missions can't be actively trying to get all these poor people home who don't really want to be there. That's absolutely something Space Greenpeace would be all about.

But maybe I'm also misunderstanding the problem other people have with the "gotta go home" conundrum. My understanding of the problem is that it's less about characters wanting to go home, and more a matter of fixation. That it becomes a huge thing in game. I don't want to take it off the table, I just want to put it in a position where it doesn't interfere with gameplay.

It's something that does bug me too, but particularly because it's an IC problem that has no satisfying IC answer. I think it's going to be something that always exists, I've even seen it in world destruction games so even that won't curtail it entirely. If telling people they literally have no home to go back to won't stop them, maybe the answer is not to try and stop them but to go with them. Just make it so that the most appealing option for doing that is the one that keeps them within the setting of the game.

Also though thanks again. I'm not decided if this is what I'm going forward with, but I do appreciate the food for thought, I really do! It's always hard to present these things without the full context, but if you write a novel more than I already did, no one will read it at this point. But maybe I'll come back when I have a working draft of the setting as well.

I agree with the above anon that in setting up your pull mechanic like this you're creating unintentional consequences and complications that don't need to be there. I would think it over again and ask yourself: what does this pull mechanic add to my premise? Is it really necessary for it to be this complicated? There are a lot of other ways to pull characters voluntarily.

If the answer is yes, this is the best fit for your premise, then go ahead and refine it. At first glance, it just seems unnecessarily convoluted.

The whole reason I was thinking about seriously implementing this is because someone on the previous post mentioned wanting characters to be able to choose to sign up. It was less trying to create consequences, and more trying to take into account that suggestion while trying to hit a broad enough range of character types.

That said, any pull mechanic is going to have consequences one way or another, no matter how you do it. We're just used to a certain set of them, which is some of the feedback that was given in the last post as well, that people are tired of the "trying to find a way home" mechanic.

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We mustn't offend the all powerful NPCs!

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