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Reply: Diaspora:: House Rules:: Re: Hacking cluster creation to group-generate a town/city in Pathfinder

Volfield — Fri, 18 May 2012 03:06:50 +0000

Companies in Reign have Might (martial prowess), Treasure (fiscal power), Influence (social power), Territory (land mass and population), and Sovereignty (loyalty and group identity). Some subset of those might make good attributes.

Reply: Diaspora:: House Rules:: Re: Hacking cluster creation to group-generate a town/city in Pathfinder

lesulm1 — Fri, 18 May 2012 02:37:11 +0000

by lesulm1

Marqos wrote:

"If you were going to hack the Diaspora cluster creation system to generate sectors or wards of a city/town for Pathfinder, what three attributes would you choose and why?

Instead of using the cluster creation for areas of the city, how about using it to create factions within the city? I ask because areas of a single city are inherently connected, so a part of the cluster system (the links) are not as important.

If you use guilds, noble houses, military, religious groups and such as the systems, then the links could represent some sort of connection between groups. These connections could be control of one over another to some degree, debts owed, hostilities, or alliances.

For attributes, you could use magic, political power, marshal might, wealth, or support of the people.

Groups instead of sections of a city could give you more story hooks and plot ideas. Plus, a groups based system could change over time. While a sector or ward based system is more set in stone (pun intended).

Reply: Diaspora:: Rules:: Re: Investigation

Barbacobra — Thu, 17 May 2012 17:11:54 +0000

by Barbacobra

That works - it is, after all, what a private investigator 'does'. You cold us the other skills as an interaction too. "I charm the customs officer to get access to the logs" might be linked to charm, for example.

Reply: Diaspora:: House Rules:: Re: Hacking cluster creation to group-generate a town/city in Pathfinder

shawnssica — Tue, 15 May 2012 17:31:35 +0000

by shawnssica

Random_Phobosis wrote:

... Typical Orkish settlement would actually need only one attribute, "Waaagh!"

Well, so much for that swig of milk now decorating my monitor. These actually-LOL moments catch me off guard.

Reply: Diaspora:: House Rules:: Re: Hacking cluster creation to group-generate a town/city in Pathfinder

Random_Phobosis — Tue, 15 May 2012 12:48:37 +0000

by Random_Phobosis

I guess the attributes you choose depend on what is important and meaningful for your characters and your adventure.
Swashbuckling heroes would care about Style, Adventure and Money stats, while inquisitors are probably interested in Corruption, Wealth and Lies. Typical Orkish settlement would actually need only one attribute, "Waaagh!" In modern city setting I would define Crime, Business and Entertainment, which would actually leave lots of interesting details out of picture.
Anyway, by choosing a rigid structure, you'll lose something, so just choose what matters most for your story.
I guess you could actually come up with adventure ideas just by looking at the stats I pointed out, so there's no point using boring stats at all.

//Off-topic
By the way, the reason I like Fate-based systems is that you can skip stats altogether, and keep all the important details.

See, here we have a district with Power +3. What actually is Power +3? Why is this district so powerful? Imagine you've got two districts with Power +3, now what? What's the difference?

You just come up with some cool ideas and translate them into aspects.
Suppose I want to have a district where powerful mages are kept under constant surveillance by city templars, Dragon Age 2-style. Which Power does it have? +3? -2? The other district can house super-powerful monks with their chef deity, but the deity's philosophy is against acting in any way, so the monks just do nothing all the time, think "prime directive", Zen and Vivec from TES: Morrowind. Again, which Power would that be?
Who cares! Just come up with cool aspects, and you'll receive all bonuses exactly when they are applicable and apropriate.

So yeah, sorry, but... you should try out Diaspora or something like that someday.

If you like more crunchy systems, you could take a look at Houses of the Blooded, the provinces there work as an economical mini-game on their own.

Reply: Diaspora:: House Rules:: Re: Hacking cluster creation to group-generate a town/city in Pathfinder

shawnssica — Tue, 15 May 2012 05:27:27 +0000

by shawnssica

I'm on a hunt now, trying to find an older link to a blog post about using Diaspora cluster gen to build medieval households, a la Game of Thrones.

Edit 1: This is similar but not the one I was looking for - http://www.burningwheel.org/forum/archive/index.php/t-9444.h...

Edit 2: This isn't it either, but they kick around lots of good axis ideas - http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?505581-Diaspora-Alternat...

Reply: Diaspora:: House Rules:: Re: Hacking cluster creation to group-generate a town/city in Pathfinder

Volfield — Tue, 15 May 2012 03:30:06 +0000

by Volfield

Diversity, or something like that.

+4 (heterogeneous to the extreme)
0 (clear majority of one race/culture with a smattering of minorities)
-4 (monocultural and insular)

Reply: Diaspora:: House Rules:: Re: Hacking cluster creation to group-generate a town/city in Pathfinder

Marqos — Tue, 15 May 2012 03:27:36 +0000

by Marqos

Hey, great stuff from everybody... really useful and cogent.

Magic was the first thing I thought of and it seems clear now that I just didn't think about it deeply or creatively enough. My thinking was, "Well, it's D&D. There's pretty much magic everyplace. So how is that going to work?" The idea that it gives nice contrast of three of the biggest sources of power in the society is cogent too.

I thought of the Dresden Files too, having heard about its city-generation scheme, but nobody owns that one. I think at $45 bucks a throw, some of us get a little leary of buying yet another system that won't see daylight...
There's gotta be a copy I can mooch for a couple days somewhere around here, hehe.

Toph's top-of-the-head calculations look nearly usable right off the top. Damn!

And sbzine's take teaches that everything doesn't have to be quite so literal. Obviously, whoever is buying the diamonds at the end of the mining cycle in the mining area is going to have power, but the scores themselves could just reflect extreme juxtaposition, not a literal absence, necessarily. Nice.

"Activity" is a good idea too, maybe it could be lumped together with density or population...

Good, good stuff, y'all. I dig it!

Reply: Diaspora:: House Rules:: Re: Hacking cluster creation to group-generate a town/city in Pathfinder

PghArch — Mon, 14 May 2012 23:58:55 +0000

by PghArch

Another thought is Activity from +4 (a never-ending carnival) to 0 (bustle at times during the day, fairly quiet at night) to -4 (deathly silent and taboo to enter).

Reply: Diaspora:: House Rules:: Re: Hacking cluster creation to group-generate a town/city in Pathfinder

sbszine — Mon, 14 May 2012 23:26:10 +0000

by sbszine

Marqos wrote:

Anyone who's played Illuminati has been effectively taught that money=power. And what would an extremely wealthy yet powerless part of town look like?

An African diamond mining town. Greece paying tribute to Rome. Hyperinflation with wheelbarrows full of worthless scrip. The two-bit town railroad wants to run through. King Midas's curse. The snake-infested valley of gems from Sindbad. Chinese MMO gold farmers. Etc etc etc.

Reply: Diaspora:: House Rules:: Re: Hacking cluster creation to group-generate a town/city in Pathfinder

Tophocles — Mon, 14 May 2012 21:54:18 +0000

by Tophocles

Just off the top of my head, going with Magic sounds fun. I start with +4, 0, and -4, and then fill in the blanks:

4 Magic is everywhere. The air tastes different.
3 Magic provides convenience to many: streetlights, sanitation.
2 Magic is controlled and benefits the few: guilds.
1 Magic is available for those who can pay.
0 Magic is used but not obvious to most.
-1 Magic is shunned, and warrants suspicion.
-2 Magic is actively curtailed: seen as an addiction or disease.
-3 Magic use is criminal, and actively curtailed.
-4 Use of magic in the Ward is a capital offence.

Hoe this helps! Let us know how it goes!

Reply: Diaspora:: House Rules:: Re: Hacking cluster creation to group-generate a town/city in Pathfinder

vestige — Mon, 14 May 2012 19:25:34 +0000

by vestige

I've had thoughts of doing something similar if I ever get another face-to-face campaign going. However, in this case I look more toward city creation in The Dresden Files Roleplaying Game, Volume 1: Your Story - I think that produces a more directly playable urban setting as well as fuel for multiple mini-campaigns.

That said, I'd focus the third element on the fantasy element: magic! It could be arcane or divine, but the degree to which magic is integrated into a region must be essential to how society operates. Maybe the temple district would have a really big score, the river district not so much.

It also lets you see at a glance how three power centers (king, merchants, magic) would compare.

Thread: Diaspora:: House Rules:: Hacking cluster creation to group-generate a town/city in Pathfinder

Marqos — Mon, 14 May 2012 18:40:43 +0000

by Marqos

*** Bonus preemptive tl;dr for your convenience: "If you were going to hack the Diaspora cluster creation system to generate sectors or wards of a city/town for Pathfinder, what three attributes would you choose and why? ***

OK, one of my gamer buds wants to shift gears when our current Adventure Path ends in PF. He wants to do a thing where we all get together and build a town to use as a campaign setting. Then we'll use what we've built as a backdrop/setting for sessions and mini-campaigns that are shorter than Adventure Paths. (Which are pretty much too long, no? But that's a whole 'nother thread...)

Yeah, kind of a cool-sounding idea, but Asmodeus is in the details.

(Some of the more perspicacious of you are no doubt saying something like, "Shared setting creation? Rotating GM with shorter stories? Sounds like Diaspora! Why don't you just play that? Believe, I've tried to pitch this common-sense solution. Why not use a system that is designed precisely to accomplish the ends you are proposing instead of insisting on a system that is in fact hostile to those goals? Pathfinder has big lungs, I guess, and sucks up lots and lots of oxygen.)

Luckily though, one of the group had already put some work into the idea of hacking Diaspora's super-sexy cluster creation system to generate a city. Aha! At least this way I can get a little Diaspora flavor with my save-or-die orgy, even if I never get to play it properly.

Seems like it should be fairly straightforward, but is a bit of a challenge. To begin, you need three mutually-exclusive attributes that are "big" enough to be broken into nine meaningful subdivisions.

We have two to begin with that make pretty good sense: Rule of Law and Wealth. Coming up with a good third one has proven harder than it seems like it should. I've come up with a couple candidates that seem sort of meh: Power and Density.

Anyone who's played Illuminati has been effectively taught that money=power. And what would an extremely wealthy yet powerless part of town look like? Hard to imagine. Density seems like it could work, but it's just not very sexy.

So the question, then: What attribute might best complement the two we've already worked with? Or, if it looks like Rule of Law and Wealth are inherently flawed as a concept, what would be three attributes that would work together nicely for this purpose?

P.S. I saw the mini-example in the book with "Order", "Economics" and "Compassion". The first two are roughly analogous with what we've got, and Compassion is intriguing. But give me more!

Reply: Diaspora:: Rules:: Re: Swap a Skill

Tophocles — Tue, 08 May 2012 20:13:19 +0000

by Tophocles

Yes, as the others have said. It helps produce some nice stories.

there's the guy who always talks himself into free drinks (say, charm for assets), which is fine for small things, but starts to be untenable once you are in debt.

or the guy who always has a deal going on (broker for assets) -- always a bit of change lying around, but not something you can finance a ship off of.

Hope this helps.

Reply: Diaspora:: Rules:: Re: Investigation

Tophocles — Tue, 08 May 2012 20:10:01 +0000

by Tophocles

For a traditional gumshoe detective, I'd think a combination of
Stealth, Alertness, and Profession (Detective)
would serve your needs. Add Computer or Commo to get hacking and high-tech surveillance.

According to how the rules are written, Profession (Detective) can do most of what you need it to, as long as it's not part of a conflict. So any skill roll while you are detecting (placing bugs, surveilling, gathering clues, looking for fingerprints, etc) can come under that.If other skills are being used, they may be enhanced by Profession (Detective) -- there should be some benefit for being a pro!

It's only when you are in a mini game (Social Combat most likely, but possibly personal combat, if the ref has you moving from specific zone to specific zone) that the other skills have a more direct mechanical effect.

Hope this helps.

Thread: Diaspora:: Rules:: Investigation

Barbacobra — Tue, 08 May 2012 16:56:04 +0000

by Barbacobra

Hey everyone, we're just about to start up our first Diaspora game, and I'm trying to wrap my head around how a police detective would work. There's no investigation or information gathering skill, so would this be done as a function of several skills?

I wouldn't think it would be Profession (Detective), as that seems to be worded as being familiar with the ins and outs of being a detective. Would it then be a function of several skills? Perhaps Jake Gittes from Chinatown would have a high charm and awareness (to pick up on tells), whereas another detective might use intimidation as his bread and butter (he's the bad cop).

Is this the right approach? How have you tackled this?

Reply: Diaspora:: Rules:: Re: Swap a Skill

Jlerpy — Tue, 08 May 2012 03:11:58 +0000

by Jlerpy

Like Dave said. Using the alternate skill for rolling and stress are separate Stunts (otherwise you just have two skills for the price of one).

Reply: Diaspora:: Rules:: Re: Swap a Skill

Volfield — Mon, 07 May 2012 23:47:49 +0000

by Volfield

No, you don't get the track bonus. You could, however, use another stunt to also make your wealth track based on Engineering.

Thread: Diaspora:: Rules:: Swap a Skill

Ilmryn — Mon, 07 May 2012 18:15:10 +0000

by Ilmryn

If you use a Swap a Skill stunt, do you get a boost to your track, or do you stay at three dots unless you actually have the skill?

Example: If I have engineering at 5, and use Swap a Skill to be able to use my engineering as assets, do I get any bonus to my wealth stress track?

Thanks!