SURVEY QUESTION: MOVES!

[Jade Harley]

What is your opinion of the current moves system and how might we improve it?

MEMBERS: Keep things civil and on-topic or your response will be deleted. I know some of you hate writing moves, but stay respectful of what Omni created for us and please be honest in a constructive way.

MODS: You, too.

[Dane Regan]

Food for thought, regarding improving the process more than changing the system:
>Would a meta-thread explaining my thoughts when dealing with moves be useful? At least for those of you who try to make more complicated stuff. I guess I could add a Q&A to it for stuff relating to the thread itself - but anything that could go in the MCW, Quick Questions, or Move Approval would still go there.
>Templates. Do you guys think having a couple of different templates for moves would make it easier? Obviously, these would probably always be optional, but it could be a way to condense and make it more obvious what you need to include.
>I assume most people find example moves useful. Either for a basis as "what's cool". Or just to compare a move they're making to it to make sure they've got everything. Or just to steal it, maybe changing some numbers and modifing the fluff along the way. If you've got a cool move - go ahead and send it Daniel (or me, and I'll relay it over), he's collecting some right now for that purpose.

[PepsiYuuka]

I'll make this quick and simple, like tearing off a band-aid.

I agree with what Alex has said once in that it feels that the direction the moves system is going is heading less towards "what can my character do?" and more towards "how can i most effectively screw over my opponent?" There is a hyper-competitiveness in the current atmosphere of moves, constantly trying to get the "best" or "most versatile" move for the lowest price, be it in OM, or requirements, or drawbacks. Certainly no one single person is to blame here, rather the atmosphere of ever increasing "gameyness" of moves partially ushered in by the stricter application of limits- as the format becomes more of a "game" and less of a traditional play by post roleplay, members are becoming more and more encouraged to make the "best" character, or move, or stat build, instead of an interesting one. "Tack on another drawback I'll mostly ignore and make it bigger, or better."

I don't exactly know how to fix this, though, aside from asserting to users that this is not a wholly PvP experience where you have to make the absolute bestest and most perfect character to "win," which I think we already kind of do.

[Handsome Jack]

The simplest solution would be to create a list of Moves and limit people to only purchasing those (with the option to flavour to fit their character). Obviously, this limits creativity, but you could allow members to submit new Moves for review by staff to see if they should be added to the list, if they already fit within another Move, or if they're too unbalanced to be workable.

[Bandit With No Name]

Ok, long story short: It's way to complicated and pricing seems esoteric.

The purpose of moves, powers, stats, and literally EVERY mechanical part of this site is to give good prompts for writing, and to open up creative avenues for players to do interesting things with, and the current way Moves are generated and priced does not reflect that. The amount of specificity is WAY too high, and the strictness of "variability" costing more is way too much. A Pistol, a shotgun and a machine gun are all fairly different weapons in the real world, but in the OV, they all function essentially the same. You're not gonna get a WILD amount of creative differences in writing when it comes to a fight, and fights are graded based on WRITING.

I feel like most of the irritating things about Moves rules (fatigue, Focus, Damage, exact ranges, extremely precise measurements, by the second refresh times) are metrics that hold next to NO MEANING in an actual fight. They would make sense as things to measure in a tabletop game, but we're not playing by those rules. Those numbers all fly out the window as soon as rubber hits the road.

Trying to focus on how something effects the WRITING of the writer and not the "stats" of the character is something that would help this out a lot, I think. 300 OM per "variable benefit" of a move is a decent way to price things, but when we start pricing an M4 at 900 OM because it has a selector switch with 3 options is completely pointless. Firing a cutting beam laser and firing individual laser "bullets" would be a meaningful difference, so, sure, I can see that being 600 OM.

What does it ADD to the game (meaning, how does it ADD to the writer's potential) to have that many specifics? If a person really wants to include the caliber and the exact range and the refresh time on a Move, that's their prerogative, but it shouldn't be the standard.

It's WAY too convoluted, and I can say with absolute certainty that the complexity of the rules surrounding moves has scared away several of my friends from writing with me here on the site. I quit the site for a year because of the goddamn Moves rules. I know that the only person I HAVE goten to join us here has stalwartly refused to even try to get moves because it's daunting, cumbersome, and irritating. It's not fun, and it doesn't contribute to the system in a meaningful way.

[Bandit With No Name]

As far as making "powerful" moves: Your Moves aren't powerful or not powerful. What makes a move powerful is the creative potential you can leverage through the use of your moves. I understand and appreciate that we want to create a somewhat level playing field for what we're using here, but you can't kill you opponent with moves. There's not really a meaningful Damage system (and the one we have should really be something that's relegated to special events), and even if you hit be with a missile that exploded and made the whole map explode, I'd just write around it. That's like, how this works. Judging a move on what CREATIVE POTENTIAL something has is a much better metric for pricing and balance than "is it powerful."

My character can punch as hard as a shotgun with an ATK of 6 without any moves at all. I am currently fighting an opponent with a DEF of 1. If we had some kind of damage system in place, I'd punch them and their face would explode. "Powerful" doesn't mean a goddamn thing.

[Retane]

Tough subject. Really nervous about touching this thread. I'm going to use Chubbs as an example, but it's mostly where I have most of my expereince making moves. I know this isnt CDBZ, so please no one get upset.

For me, I think there are too many restrictions. Mostly when it comes to writing up the moves and having to use exact numbers.

Example: X charges Y move for Z seconds and then fires an attack at the rate of V speed to do U damage.

That confuses me, because what happens when said character goes T3 power up and his speed/tec gets a huge boost. That means X still got to charge for Z seconds and it still fires at V speed? That's where it makes little sense to me. I think we should be ale to use our own common sense(I know some of us lack it) instead of having to define it to exact numbers.

Then there is this 'fatigue'. Where is this meter/Guage? How long does it last? How fast does it take to get to red/debilitating? I can't find this information.

It actually scares me to make moves. Especially, when I'm a guy known for having over twenty plus moves. I like moves for writing fodder and they have to make sense for my character. Hell, I have a list of over twenty moves sitting in a file, some that will never make it just because... But most of them could. Having to write them out as a math equations just seems bleh to me.

Another thing I saw in some posts, was people almost directly writing out what their move does, verbatim. Just doesnt seem like an interesting read after that. So yeah. I think their should be some more vagueness, in my opinion.

Or what Bandit said<_<

[Bandit With No Name]

So the actual effective "strength" of a move is actually, in all practicality, how much NARRATIVE AGENCY it removes from the other writer. A move that prevents a player from doing something, or that imbues a clearly defined negative consequence (like, being tied up is a clear lack of narrative agency. Not being able to see or sense your opponents. Even being hit with a bullet or bazooka reduces narrative freedom, because you have to write as being injured or risk your work being garbage).

Pricing things off of:
What narrative opportunities they afford their owner
and
What narrative agency they remove from the opponent

would make a lot of sense. In this way, the "300 OM per variable" somewhat makes sense, and is a pretty easily measured metric, but obviously that's breaking down. Trying to figure out a method of figuring that out is gonna be where the trouble and the goal lies.

[Trixie]

Ok, long story short: It's way to complicated and pricing seems esoteric.

The purpose of moves, powers, stats, and literally EVERY mechanical part of this site is to give good prompts for writing, and to open up creative avenues for players to do interesting things with, and the current way Moves are generated and priced does not reflect that. The amount of specificity is WAY too high, and the strictness of "variability" costing more is way too much. A Pistol, a shotgun and a machine gun are all fairly different weapons in the real world, but in the OV, they all function essentially the same. You're not gonna get a WILD amount of creative differences in writing when it comes to a fight, and fights are graded based on WRITING.

I feel like most of the irritating things about Moves rules (fatigue, Focus, Damage, exact ranges, extremely precise measurements, by the second refresh times) are metrics that hold next to NO MEANING in an actual fight. They would make sense as things to measure in a tabletop game, but we're not playing by those rules. Those numbers all fly out the window as soon as rubber hits the road.

Trying to focus on how something effects the WRITING of the writer and not the "stats" of the character is something that would help this out a lot, I think. 300 OM per "variable benefit" of a move is a decent way to price things, but when we start pricing an M4 at 900 OM because it has a selector switch with 3 options is completely pointless. Firing a cutting beam laser and firing individual laser "bullets" would be a meaningful difference, so, sure, I can see that being 600 OM.

What does it ADD to the game (meaning, how does it ADD to the writer's potential) to have that many specifics? If a person really wants to include the caliber and the exact range and the refresh time on a Move, that's their prerogative, but it shouldn't be the standard.

This basically sums up my current thoughts so I'll just reiterate it in a quote and add it to the pile.

[Bandit With No Name]

The simplest solution would be to create a list of Moves and limit people to only purchasing those (with the option to flavour to fit their character). Obviously, this limits creativity, but you could allow members to submit new Moves for review by staff to see if they should be added to the list, if they already fit within another Move, or if they're too unbalanced to be workable.

Using a Mutants and Masterminds style of "simple powers list" is actually something I considered bringing up. You can literally make ANY character in Mutants and Masterminds, if you're willing to get fiddly with the rules. It's not completely unreasonable to have a list of mix and match powers that you skin differently. I could probably go through and convert every move written in this game into Mutants and Masterminds power sets.

[Dane Regan]

@Yuuka: I think that's somewhat incorrect. Because...

>The majority of members definitely don't make moves like that. At least not noticeably. Usually, juggling drawbacks only comes into play when someone's trying to balance a more complicated move, and I try my best to help them out with that. I'm sure some members definitely try to get the most they can for as little, primarily to avoid charge times, I guess. But I was under the impression they were a minority. Then again, I can't read minds.

>The moves system hasn't really been going anywhere. The last time the move rules were substantially changed was long before I joined the OV, but it was smoothed along with an update some time last year to make some parts easier.

>I might be wrong on this part, but at least to me, isn't the whole "best character" debate all a big fun fudge? Do people actually take it seriously? TEC is still best stat. Realism should always play some part in fights. And, if someone would find it hard to hit someone else, then they've gotta think of a creative way to do it or just get a lucky shot. 5 TEC only blocks *most* stuff from unskilled fighters, no all.

@Jeff: Something like that could work for join apps, maybe? But that does kinda lock creativity a lot. Having a good list of example moves, I'm all for that. I dunno about everyone else, but I like feeling my moves are at least somewhat personal. Even if Eb ain't the only Scythe wielder out there, that's her scythe.

@Bandit: Some comments...

"and the strictness of "variability" costing more is way too much"
>That's mostly because you'd getting 2 or more moves for the price of one otherwise. Often, I find most moves tend to end up cheaper than people expect.
"A Pistol, a shotgun and a machine gun are all fairly different weapons in the real world, but in the OV, they all function essentially the same."
>Yeah. Pistols do basically work the same in the OV. Which is why it's totally fine to just say "it has this much ammo, can be shot this often, and takes about this long to reload". That's it.
"and fights are graded based on WRITING."
>Some part of who wins a fight is based around "who would win" as well as the actual writing itself. Different judges do weight it somewhat differently. This DA is pure writing, last DA definitely wasn't.

"I feel like most of the irritating things about Moves rules (fatigue, Focus, Damage, exact ranges, extremely precise measurements, by the second refresh times) are metrics that hold next to NO MEANING in an actual fight."
>Fatigue: While I'm sure some people don't have the words to include this, isn't getting tired and pushing through your limits something most writers try to include in most fights? Anyway, fatigue cost doesn't need to be included in moves. It's a drawback you can choose to add.
>Focus: This is more implied. It's just a natural thing. If you're fighting with a sword in one hand, it'll be hard to shoot people with the pistol in your others. It's writing fodder, yeah. You don't really need to say "I am focusing" in your moves. If you're charging something up, you're probably focusing. If you're aiming something, you're probably focusing.
>Damage: This does not need to be specified in moves. Damage is implied by the drawbacks. If you have a long charge time, it will be high damage. If it's quick and easy, it'll be lower. I'll only recommend for you to add this if you intend to make a powerful move and aren't sure if the drawbacks justify that, or if your drawbacks are really obscure.
>Exact Ranges: You do not need a range for projectiles. We assume bullets travel until they hit something. It's not a requirement for moves. I'll only ask for a range on explosions or summoned stuff and other types of attacks. Specifying a range is usually optional.
>Extremely Precise Measurements: Not really. For speeds "as fast as a bullet/arrow" is fine. As are other irl comparisons. For sizes, "about a metre" "about 3ft" is fine. We don't need the exact size. But we do need a rough measurement. Although I tend to find giving your sword an exact size in cm tends to make it more personalised.
>By The Second Refresh Times: If you want a charge time or something, yeah. We do want that specifically. Is it 3 seconds? 5 seconds? How long is a moment? I don't think that's so unreasonable, and if you want to vary the charge time about, just spend an extra 300 OM and you can charge it for as long or little as you want.

"but when we start pricing an M4 at 900 OM because it has a selector switch with 3 options is completely pointless."
>It's like having 3 different guns. Burst does more damage in a short period of time. Semi-auto does more damage per bullet, but paced over time. Etc.

[Bandit With No Name]

"Which is why it's totally fine to just say "it has this much ammo, can be shot this often, and takes about this long to reload". That's it"
That is to much information in my opinion and it doesn't matter in the confines of a fight. Having to write, "And then I reloaded" has no bearing on the writing of a story, offers no narrative benefit to the owner of the character and offers no narrative restriction to the opponent. If the opponent wants the gun to run out of ammo, they can just DO that.

Basically all of those details are... pointless. THey mean literally nothing in the course of writing a story. They are details that could be completely ignored and it would have little to no bearing on a fight.

As far as the "who would win" aspect of fight: Oh trust me, I know. I've been involved in some of the largest fights the site has seen, and we used those rules. And all that minutia? It didn't matter

[Daniel]

I would just like to point out that you can purchase guns that never need to be reloaded. That's 100% an option.

[Handsome Jack]

I actually like the M&M idea Thaal tossed out. It could allow for customizable Moves that are easy to balance.

Let's say I want a katana that coats people in ice and can fire ice beams at people. I could grab "medium length melee weapon" "slow debuff" and "medium speed projectile", each of which would have their own costs associated with them. If I wanted a M4 with a Grenade Launcher I could just purchase "fast projectile" and "explosive projectile", both of which again would have their associated costs. It would allow for the same creativity, speed the approval process, and make actually creating Moves fun and easy.

[Bandit With No Name]

Q: How are fight winners determined?
A: The short answer is that it comes down to who the judge feels wrote better. However, a significant level difference can give an advantage to one player. A level difference of say, 3, isn't that big of a deal, but if you're level 1 and your opponent is level 11, you'll have to be the definitively superior writer (in the judge's opinion) to win. Other advantages include, if your opponent had an injury or used most of their SP before the fight, or if they choose not to use SP whereas you do (for example, if they're in an ongoing storyline and saving their SP for later).

In terms of writing, what matters most is creativity in using the situation. We want to be surprised, we want to be interested, we want to be engaged with the characters. We want to enjoy the read. That also includes having a good writing style (a typo or an awkward sentence here and there isn't a big deal, but if it's to the point that it distracts the reader, it won't help) and representing characters fairly and realistically in your writing. We want to reward those who put the effort in, both in the long and short-term, and we want to read epic stories.

The primary indicator of victory is writing, and it always has been. The other factors in a fight are: Level, SP use, and previous injuries. Stat measuring, busting out how many rounds are in their glock, or how many selector switches are on their M4 have no bearing, and have NEVER had bearing, on victory. It doesn't make sense to even include those kinds of details in a fiction piece, and any inclusion of them is at creative discretion. Whether or not Taloc has to wait 5 seconds or 10 really doesn't matter because the use of his poison spines are about how CREATIVE I can get with them. It's about an INTERESTING STORY. And none of that extra shit matters for that.

[Clownpiece]

How would that work for moves that are more... out there?
Things like Clowno's Torch or Summer's Storm-summoning?

[Handsome Jack]

Did a quick look at your Torch

"Short Melee Weapon"
"Fatigue Debuff"
"Area Debuff"
"Confusion Debuff"

Would that cover everything? Did I miss an option? With those, I think you could use flavour to make the Torch.

[Sans]

One of the things I ended up noticing after giving the Move System some thought is the idea of time specifications feeling, in the essence of the actual writing process, rather arbitrary, and never really having much bearing as to the actual events of a fight.

As an example, let's say I have a beam move or something (call it Iron Man Beams or some such) that I can shoot in the span of one second. Fair enough. So, what exactly would count as a second in writing terms? That sort of thing not only varies from writer to writer, but from story to story, paragraph to paragraph, sometimes even sentence to sentence. A second in real time can be anything in the writing world, where the author has complete and total control over how long something lasts.

To give you an example as to what I mean, let's say your guy is heavily injured and on the ground and my guy, who has said Iron Man Beams, is shooting at you. As the beam is hurtling towards your guy, you decided to write a long internal monologue about various things because you're like me and like having your characters get introspective all the time. In that span of a second, you have written about your character's horrifically tragic backstory, all their motivations, and their current feelings on the subject of death, and only by the time you've reached the next paragraph (with the one you currently just wrote being about 600 of the normally 800 word count) has the blast actually landed on the character.

Can one even say that lasted more than one second? I mean, I'm sure realistically one cannot actually go through that in one second, but again, this is primarily fiction. And the authors are in primary control of the happenings in their fictional craft. One of those things is the passage and flow of time. I cannot tell you how many writers (myself included) have written about how "time slowed down/sped up" because adrenaline or some such. How time is perceived depends so heavily on who is writing at the time that it seems a bit unneeded to ask for time requirements for the traveling of projectiles or how fast/slow someone swings a saber. Because if you're like me, your writing gets wordy, and fight scenes that realistically would only last about 30 seconds can last entire chapters because you're too busy getting introspective, and so much can happen in those few seconds because you're delving deep into the mind.

[Dane Regan]

There's not really a meaningful Damage system (and the one we have should really be something that's relegated to special events), and even if you hit be with a missile that exploded and made the whole map explode, I'd just write around it. That's like, how this works. Judging a move on what CREATIVE POTENTIAL something has is a much better metric for pricing and balance than "is it powerful."

My character can punch as hard as a shotgun with an ATK of 6 without any moves at all. I am currently fighting an opponent with a DEF of 1. If we had some kind of damage system in place, I'd punch them and their face would explode. "Powerful" doesn't mean a goddamn thing.

Balancing based on Creative Potential is way more subjective. So I can't see that as feasible, outside of denying specific moves because they limit the opponents writing options too much.

As for damage, yeah. That's pretty much only used in sagas. In normal fights, it's just extra fluff added on at the end.

Yeah, you're right about the "low DEF people should die in most of their fights if they get hit". Although those people usually have ways to avoid getting hit so much, so it balances out.

Example: X charges Y move for Z seconds and  then fires an attack at the rate of V speed to do U damage.

That confuses me, because what happens when said character goes T3 power up and his speed/tec gets a huge boost. That means X still got to charge for Z seconds and it still fires at V speed? That's where it makes little sense to me. I think we should be ale to use our own common sense(I know some of us lack it) instead of having to define it to exact numbers.

Then there is this 'fatigue'. Where is this meter/Guage? How long does it last? How fast does it take to get to red/debilitating? I can't find this information.

It actually scares me to make moves.  Especially, when I'm a guy known for having over twenty plus moves. I like moves for writing fodder and they have to make sense for my character. Hell, I have a list of over twenty moves sitting in a file, some that will never make it just because... But most of them could. Having to write them out as a math equations just seems bleh to me.

A skilled or strong dude can't shoot a bullet faster. It's assumed spells are the same. Making a fireball go faster if you have more ATK is an option. 

See this for fatigue: https://omniverse-rpg.com/omnistats.php#Stats

Moves don't need equations, I just need to know what it does exactly. Then I'll approve it.

"Which is why it's totally fine to just say "it has this much ammo, can be shot this often, and takes about this long to reload". That's it"
That is to much information in my opinion and it doesn't matter in the confines of a fight. Having to write, "And then I reloaded" has no bearing on the writing of a story, offers no narrative benefit to the owner of the character and offers no narrative restriction to the opponent. If the opponent wants the gun to run out of ammo, they can just DO that.

Basically all of those details are... pointless. THey mean literally nothing in the course of writing a story. They are details that could be completely ignored and it would have little to no bearing on a fight.

As far as the "who would win" aspect of fight: Oh trust me, I know. I've been involved in some of the largest fights the site has seen, and we used those rules. And all that minutia? It didn't matter

Details are only pointless if you choose not you use them. Having a gun that always seems to have the right or wrong amount of ammo breaks immersion. I'm not expecting you to count bullets in your post - but you may choose to if you're describing the fight in more detail. Reloading can definitely be made into a plot point.

Fight results will always depend on the judge somewhat.

[Clownpiece]

Did a quick look at your Torch

"Short Melee Weapon"
"Fatigue Debuff"
"Area Debuff"
"Confusion Debuff"

Would that cover everything? Did I miss an option? With those, I think you could use flavour to make the Torch.

It's also got some buffs in there. But okay, yeah. Long as it's still possible to get creative in it, it sounds like a fair system.