Ninja Burger Play-By-Post "Rules"
These may be changed/added/subtracted as we flesh this thing out, but here goes:
1) Rule 1 is the Golden Rule. You never say what happens to someone else, only what you want to happen to you, when describing your actions. You may interact with others in inconsequential ways, but never in game-effecting ways. You should also try to phrase things as intent, not as if the final action had succeeded; interim steps will be assumed to be part of the string of actions, so you need not tangle your description with woulds and coulds - just don't assume it all happens.
Example:
"I leap off the table, push off the pirate's head, and grab the chandelier. - NOT OK"
"I'm going to try to leap off the table, push off the pirate's head, and grab the chandelier. - OK"
"I leap off the table, push off the pirate's head, and grab for the chandelier. - ALSO OK"
"I leap off the table, kick the pirate in the face, and grab for the chandelier. - ALSO OK"
"I leap off the table, kick the pirate in the face, knock out his teeth and kill him, then grab for the chandelier. - NOT OK."
2) Thou shall not deny. This is the core rule of improv comedy and as this is a comedy RPG we'll be following it. The basic concept is that if someone suggests something to you, you should never deny or refuse what they say. Instead, you should either go with it, or present your own reply in such a way as to turn their suggestion around in a funny way. This does not mean that you can't discuss tactics and disagree with one another, but only that if someone DOES choose to interact with you (see Rule 1), then you should not deny their interaction.
Example of denying (BAD BAD BAD):
Joe: "I leap off the table, push off Steve's head, and grab for the chandelier."
Steve: "No you don't. You couldn't possibly do that. I would have ducked my head."
Example of not denying, but assisting (GOOD):
Joe: "I leap off the table, push off Steve's head, and grab for the chandelier."
Steve: "As he hits my head I give him an extra boost with my hands to give him more height."
Example of not denying, but twisting (GOOD):
Joe: "I leap off the table, push off Steve's head, and grab for the chandelier."
Steve: "Unfortunately for Steve, I sneeze as he hits my head, so that might very well throw him off balance."
3) You are a ninja. You can do ninja things. Have fun, experiment, try crazy stuff. Think Batman, not Superman. You can fight, climb, sneak and pull out crazy gadgets from time to time. But try to leap a tall building, outrun a bullet or fly, and you'll likely die.
4) Posts from the Dispatcher will happen, for now, once a week, on Sundays. Players will have until Saturday to post their replies. This may increase in frequency as we go but for now it's good to start slow and build.
5) Players who do not post by Saturday will have their characters handled by the Dispatcher as he sees fit. Generally this will mean that characters who were engaged in activity will continue to engage in that activity. Characters who were doing nothing, or who complete a task, will continue to do nothing. Characters will not be killed off in this manner unless it is determined that they have not posted to avoid what they perceive as certain death.
Feel free to discuss these rules below and offer your own thoughts and suggestions.
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You may be wondering about dice rolls. We won't be using dice. I'll be getting all the numbers I need from your comments. Note this line:
Submitted by Morbus Iff on Thu, 2006-04-27 22:51:21.
That final number there in the timestamp (21) is the seconds. Since that's practically an impossible number for you to predict when you click 'Submit', it'll serve as an impartial hand of fate. Your actions will use that number as your "dice roll", with the digits added together as if they were 6-sided dice.
Of course, there are some issues with using this number to represent 6-sided dice in that numbers higher than 6 appear in the ones place (7,8,9,0) and a 6 can never appear in the tens place. So I'll be treating 0s as 10s and subtracting 4 from every number that's higher than 6. Thus, to summarize:
1 = 1
2 = 2
3,7 = 3
4,8 = 4
5,9 = 5
6,0 = 6
This slightly weights the results in your favor since you'll "roll" fewer 1s and 2s, but that's OK.
So if your timestamp says 12:21:47, we take the 47, the 7 becomes a 3, and that's a roll of 4 + 3 = 7. If your timestamp says 10:34:50, we take the 50, the 0 becomes a 6, and that's a roll of 11. If your timestamp says 29:66:75, you're cheating.
All of this is moot if Morbus finds a way to make the timestamp contain a real 2d6 result.
That IS a creative way to do rollls.
I was sort of assuming you'd simply roll dice on your own and tell us what the result was. But this seems like it could work mighty fine.
There is heroism and brute warfare on the ocean floor, unnoticed by land-dwellers. There are gods and catastrophes.
-"The Scar", China Mieville
Yeah, good one, I like it!
First, it really is skewed in our favor, why not use this method:
1 = 1
2,7 = 2
3,8 = 3
4,9 = 4
5,0 = 5
6 = 6
Second, considering morbus is a player in this game, I'd be suspicious of any way he creates to roll 2d6 ;)
- reading a signature is silly -
I suggest using the mod6 of the ascii value of the letter of the post corresponding to the full seconds value and the letter after. FREX if the seconds value were 40, the corresponding letter of this post would be "e" followed by "p". The ascii values are 101 and 112 respectively, and the mod6 values are 5 and 4.
I don't believe this to be a good method, just feeling difficult today.
Whut
Math is hard.