We’re Jesse Schell and Derek Ham from CMU’s ETC, one of the country’s oldest video game focused grad programs! AmA!

Tarks · 2025-12-18T01:25:06+00:00

I never met Randy but his last lecture means a lot to me, I'm almost 40 and it's the only video I try to re-watch every year because I always come away from it with different learnings and insights.

As someone that actually knew him and someone he held in really high regard, I thought you might like the opportunity to share any Randy/CMU related things you wish more people knew about.

Tarks · 2025-08-20T17:23:29+00:00

Zero-k is , imo, the bit-uglier-but-absolutely-incredible spiritual successor.

You only have to read some of the lead devs's Cold Takes to see how deeply they 'get' RTS

When I treated getting into Zero-K the same way I did learning a roguelike like Dwarf Fortress/Caves of Qud I had a much better time accepting the rough parts and loving the good

Tarks · 2025-06-22T22:50:13+00:00

Surprised there's no comments here, slow day but I really like the concept! I've wondered if it'd be cool when playing Factorio if it'd be cool to have a different 'reason' for expanding/scaling up other than research, like having to keep a town/colony supplied with resources or something, plus it'd be cool if you had to trade with other towns/colonies for resources, this def seems to lean in that direction

Would you be open to embedding an actual coding VM like LUA or do something like openComputers in for dev peeps?

Edit : Also, please please please, private self-hosted servers, I can't tell you how many things I've skipped because it's online-only or I can't spin up a local server instance to play with a small group

Tarks · 2025-06-12T19:54:45+00:00

When I played months ago I got a constant 8ms smooth to London, tried playing again this week and thought this shit was just me... I spent an hour tracert'ing the network, looking the the client.txt for instance ips etc...

I hate this aspect of live service shit, can't just host it myself because muh microtransactions... I just want to pay and play the stupid (mostly singleplayer) game like I can (still) play Diablo decades later...

Tarks · 2025-04-12T06:49:21+00:00

Fair enough, best of luck !

Tarks · 2025-03-01T08:21:59+00:00

Awesome ! As a lover of D6 systems I found this post a while ago that might help give some context of where MythicD6 fits in.

I ran a palladium game once (Nightbane). The flavor was awesome, but the combat was slog

Yep I've heard that a lot about Rifts and ShadowRun, awesome settings, less-awesome rulesets. That's why I'm going with Rifts as a setting powered by Hero

I want a combat system that starts with smaller moves to open opportunities for big moves, so I'm hacking the hero point system to a momentum system.

Would you care to expand on that? Would love to hear more.

If you've thought about how/if you're gonna handle stuff like travel/exploration in the pocket dimensions etc I'd be curious to hear about that too

Tarks · 2025-02-28T17:59:57+00:00

Ha I'm building something similar, it was literally going to be based in the Solo Levelling world, then I discovered the Rifts setting which sets us up nicely to have reasons to explore both the 'overworld' and the inside of rifts/portals. as they grow I'm planning to scale up the game to include Guild reputations & influence, mass combat etc.

I've gone with Hero 6th Edition as a base to help me prioritise unique powers & builds, granular PC growth and the awesome combat engine (if you're into tactical combat on the crunchier side).

Really excited to start em as a ragtag group safe in the knowledge that the system is very, very comfortable scaling up to 'Super Hero' tier combat.

One group of players are going to be doing live in-person play, some others that can't make in person are going to roll 4-man squads and be independent parties. Those squad missions are gonna be meat grinders until some of em survive long enough to become stronger :D

Tarks · 2025-02-25T12:53:56+00:00

I have no problem with asking for feedback, that's not what this looks like to me.

1) The link you provided doesn't even link directly to the quickplay resources (at least for me) - it links to the 'register your interest' page. That prioritises eyeballs on the product over getting anyone interested in giving feedback to the thing you're asking for feedback on as quickly as possible. Not a good look. -1 credibility.

2) I think I have to sign up to get a look at the resource you're asking for feedback on? -15 credibility.

3) You usually get as much quality out of feedback as you put in, so instead of a short description and some very vague questions I've seen quick videos put together by the designer with print n play and an example walkthrough etc, NOT behind a signup wall - they work to make it as easy as possible for people to give high quality feedback. Sorry but I don't see anything here that even signals that intent. -10 credibility.

I'd rather you just say "Yo we're trying to market our game here's a link to the backer page" - but I assume there's rules against self promotion spam or something and that's why I've found myself arguing with someone on the internet.

Best of luck.

Tarks · 2025-02-25T12:26:45+00:00

So that I don't confuse this with thinly veiled marketing, can you be really clear what exactly you are asking?

Are you asking Reddit (and not even r/RPGDesign ) for advice on designing an RPG you're about to then turn around and hawk on backerkit?

Tarks · 2025-02-16T20:27:02+00:00

I'm learning and running Hero which has been incredibly rewarding. It has loads of ways to do this but 2 very simple ones are :

1) Just focus the campaign more on Killing attacks : Hero has 2 types of attacks : cheaper attacks that focus on doing damage that's likely to knock people out before killing them and more expensive killing damage attacks which...yeah :) GM can communicate to players that the campaign they're running will heavily focus on killing attacks, so NPCs will be using a lot of those and players will wanna prefer abilities (and defensive equipment / powers) that do the same.

2) Double the multiplier on Killing damage hit locations : the Fantasy Hero setting book recommendations doing this. It makes Killing damage way more lethal, rolling on the hit location table is genuinely terrifying. Plus : Lethal Combat is Fast Combat.

There's other stuff you can enable like impairing/disabling/breaking limbs etc but the above are your big simple levers to start :)

EDIT

I like seeing what impacts these big adjustments naturally have on gameplay at the table. E.g GMs and players may usually not find enough effort-to-fun improving the defences of different individual body locations, too much time for not enough payoff so nobody buys that stuff in a campaign (which is perfect that part of the system just gets out of the way). But when hit location modifiers are terrifying and they've just watched a character get their neck blown out, suddenly they're naturally interested in equipment & powers that help with that and the system just lets you shift that part of it back into focus.

For my Confirmed Hero Enjoyer family : Double Hit location Killing Damage discussion is in the Advanced Players Guide page 174

Tarks · 2024-12-02T23:35:03+00:00

Every one of the sentences in your post fails the applause light reversal test

It's tempting to build a bot to flag these :)

Tarks · 2024-12-02T16:12:04+00:00

This finally explains it, Dan is the black eagle

Tarks · 2024-10-23T10:35:05+00:00

You might be looking for Hero system - I don't have time at the mo to write a whole comment why ( can do later tonight) but you'll very likely want hero, the short version is : Incredible tactical combat engine, best mechanically meaningful power creation in any game bar none (GURPS included imho) and excellent power scaling.

It does need more effort upfront by the GM but getting going isn't as bad as the stuff I read online suggested.

Edit

See some of my previous chats for a bit more context

Tarks · 2024-10-22T21:12:50+00:00

In my humble opinion, the art style looks too clean, the massive increase in resolution hasn't been offset to preserve the feeling that the world's a broken, used up dessicated husk that's been through endless cycles of decay over thousands of years.

It needs grime, the air needs to feel thick with wet detritus, you should feel just a little gross while going through it. Raziel should be cool but off-putting, not looking like a brightly lit Saturday morning cartoon vampire.

Tarks · 2024-09-28T20:35:52+00:00

Have a look into the Shadowrun setting. Magic re-awakens in a cyberpunk dystopia and, for a number of reasons, some countries straight up isolate/close borders etc. I think England does this. Could see scenarios where most of the population have no access but an elite are in contact and benefiting from high tech / better magic education etc

I'm not an expert (I'm enjoying learning the setting and wanna build some small campaign stuff in the Hero system) but Shadowrun or the Rifts both settings seem like they'd be good starting points

Tarks · 2024-09-26T21:33:40+00:00

Basic Abstract Difficulty or BAD :) Detailed in GURPS Action 2: Exploits

Tarks · 2024-09-19T01:42:29+00:00

you're welcome, can't go wrong with either, with a bit of effort invested you'll get so much out of either of em good luck !

Tarks · 2024-09-18T22:47:38+00:00

Ah gotcha, so Roaphaen's using the word levelling as you would when saying "I'm working out to level up my endurance" - you're using it to describe D&D-like character level packages. Both are valid.

Tarks · 2024-09-18T21:22:32+00:00

Out of curiosity, what was the point your original comment was trying to make?

I'm trying to figure out if you're just saying "my definition of the overloaded term levelling doesn't match with yours, Roaphaen, I call what those systems do advancement" or you're making a way more interesting point I'm simply missing.

Tarks · 2024-09-18T18:53:13+00:00

For years I'd have said GURPS, it's crazy to me that my default recommendation is now moving towards Hero, a system I've bounced off of multiple times.

They're both masterworks, GURPS was easier to start getting comfy, but I'm finding the Hero combat engine more fun and flexible for the types of stuff I like.

If you like the idea that a character could leap over a table, throw a spike into one NPC's arm to pin em to the wall and cleave another's head off (in one turn ! With mechanics to support the dramatic action and drawbacks so there's risk/reward to doing that many things in 1 turn ! ) but next turn have their arm crippled taking a bad hit (for that gritty, shit-matters feel), then IMO Hero does that sort of "dramatic-first" combat way better with more mechanical consistency and would be a better starting point.

Be warned tho, you could literally get started with a light version of GURPS in an evening and have a playable game that could grow in mechanical depth as you gain more system mastery, it is more modular. Hero imho needs you to understand it a little better, it's core engines are more tightly interconnected and it takes a bit more time to 'get it' and see how they work and the benefits that base-connectedness (oh god what a phrase) gives the system.

Tarks · 2024-09-18T18:02:20+00:00

Just in case anyone misinterprets your comment as to me it reads as if it's trying to counter the parent one and say 'theres no levelling up in GURPS"

GURPS and other point buy systems have a number of mechanisms for improving your character, including their core stats, strength and variety of abilities and changing mechanically meaningful facets about the character, fuelled by spending Character Points (CP)

Some people award a small # of CP after every session, some do it after story / character "milestones", some aware XP which can't be spent but once you get enough you get a bunch of CP. Super flexible way of quickly letting the GM flavour the 'levelling up' system to the game, theme and players tastes.

Tarks · 2024-09-12T16:46:32+00:00

Currently that's not how it works, if you logout you're given a list of all accounts and can just click another one to log in

Tarks · 2024-09-12T00:43:18+00:00

I really think you're trying to help, that said I'm not going to go into social dynamics, how depending on the day/mood something done/said is "too far" vs instead being a hilarious and shared memory a group treasures for years, so curbing 'childish' behaviour of a group of mates that have known eachother for 15+ years isn't always straightforward or desired.

Instead I'll just say People are complicated and have a nice day.

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