How can a SS-derived system make failure interesting?
Erik Weissengruber:
Vimeo is more capacious
http://www.vimeo.com/15595315
Courage75:
Erik, can you summarise what you are after here? It is a bit hard to tell from the video. To me, it looks like you want crunch for a game about individuals who have the resources to claim habitable planets (and purchase Secrets from them), but I am not entirely sure if that is correct. I know Eero came up with some crunch to model a militaristic space navy game a while back, that might be a good place to look for ideas.
Happy to offer suggestions, just need to know what it is you are after.
Erik Weissengruber:
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Erik, can you summarise what you are after here? It is a bit hard to tell from the video. To me, it looks like you want crunch for a game about individuals who have the resources to claim habitable planets (and purchase Secrets from them), but I am not entirely sure if that is correct. I know Eero came up with some crunch to model a militaristic space navy game a while back, that might be a good place to look for ideas.
Happy to offer suggestions, just need to know what it is you are after.
a) Thanks for reminding me about Eero's space navy crunch stuff.
b) You put into a few words exactly what I am getting at.
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it looks like you want crunch for a game about individuals who have the resources to claim habitable planets (and purchase Secrets from them), but I am not entirely sure if that is correct
Individuals work as part of species teams. As a result of planning and untertaking missions individual players players acquire XP and the right to spend those XP on acquisition of secrets and keys tied to the planets. Moreover, by interacting with other players in conflict (including with members of their own species) a player may learn the secrets and keys involved.[1]
There is a between session mechanic as well. Individuals may chose to pass on secrets that they have acquired to a collective pool from which fellow species members may select their advancements. [2]
So teams are given loose orders by their homeworlds. Using a combination of oppen and hidden maneubers they find a way to adapt HQ's commands to present circumstances. Moreover, like the commanders of ancient armies -- and some not so ancient -- they have great individual leeway in achieving personal goals.
[1] This is a very lose adaptation of Maynard-Smith's contention that interspeices conflict is a kind of "communication" where the results of interaction with another population -- even one which results in the extinction of many individuals and in a decrease in population numbers -- can stimulate the development of evolutionarily stable strategies on the part of the temporarily disadvantaged population)
[2] This is falling prey to the Lamarckian temptation -- the belief that an individual's strenuous efforts may result in changes that are passed on to descendants. It is outmoded by genetics and research into DNA but Lamarckian ideas exert a strong hold on the imagination. Why do we obsess about the achievements of space opera heroes like Donal or Paul if not out of some hope that the achievements of a great individual will filter down throughout the whole "people" or "species"?
Erik Weissengruber:
I am stuck on how to give more orthodox notions of heredity in my game.
Most mutations are non-functional or disadvantageous when they first appear. But they can contribute to fitness when conditions change.
If sickle-cell anemia makes you weak and easily tired and decreases your fitness, later generations to whom you pass on that trait will find it advantageous when the rest of the population is exposed to an onslaught of malaria-carrying mosquitoes breeding in recently formed swamps.
How to turn something non- or dys- functional into an advantage when a species comes to a new planet ... ? Just an idea I am toying with. Again, my game is about individuals and their heroic roles in a culture's space-opera, not simulating hundreds of generations and populations of millions with differential chances for reproductive success.
Frank Herbert leveraged mitochondria into neat story elements in Dune and I would like to do something similar in my game.
Mathew E. Reuther:
Brittle-bone syndrome is not as large an issue in low-gravity, one would imagine, but would be a crushing disadvantage on a heavy G world.
Skin pigmentation would of course come into play depending on the atmospheric layers and spectrum of the star around which a planet revolves. Could make an albino actually advantageous under some extreme circumstances, while they might nearly instantly burn in others.
Eye color would again be an issue dependent upon light sources . . .
Extra non-muscle mass is exceptionally bad when you're on a high G world.
Height would be an issue if you were on a world that catered to short/taller beings in terms of shelter, flora, etc.
There's tons of options out there. Some more or less obvious.
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