On the subject of titans

I was thinking about the Titanic influence system and have a few reasons to want to stop the Titanic system before it even begins.

1) Titans will add next to nothing to the game. I'm sad to say this, but after rereading the rules I think Titans cannot add that much.
2) Titans are potential gamebreakers. I've had a conversation with a certain player which revealed a lot of possible gamebreaking possibilities.
3) Titans cause team wars. Titans will essentially cause teams of two sides to form which is something I believe Twoy already warned us for.
4) It is my belief that one third of the players should not be way more powerful (not to mention all-knowing) than the other players.

I understand that if people joined as Titans they are not going to be happy about this, but I hope they can understand. Any Titan is free to back out, but I hope they will stay on as GMs for the game.

I like to hear comments on this decision. If the majority of you thinks Titans can be a good addition to the game and can give me good reasons to keep them in I will consider it.

I agree, in part.

1) I don't really get this, but if you elaborate I might be able to respond.
2) Agreed. For instance, a titan could errect a wall of mountain to block an army moving in on one of their cities. Or any number of things. I think that the titan's ability to modify the game as it's happening makes it way too random for the players and destroys a lot of aspects of strategy.
3) Super agreed. One way to circumvent would be to have each side not know which titan they're following, but 2) is a big enough issue as it is.
4) I disagree. If we take out the "team wars" deal and don't make Titans active players, I think there's no issue. The GMs are already all-knowing and all-powerful; We create the game world, and we run the game. Being a "Titan" is just adding a little fluff to our role.

My proposal:
We're still Titans, but each side doesn't have a single worshipped Titan. In the original erfworld, I don't think any side favored one titan. Alternatively, a side can choose to worship one specific titan, but this isn't going to actually make a big difference, because...

Titans can alter the terrain and create races and so forth, but only BEFORE the game, not DURING. We can assume the number of turns that it would take to create a species of modify terrain would be so great that nothing significant would change during the course of the game.

The main reason to disallow changes during the course of the game is because each titan is wanting his own sides to be victorious so that his DR can increase. If we eliminate this "team wars" aspect, we can give the titans back limited abilities, such as minor "story events". I'll leave this to the consensus of others. But without the drive to try to help our teams out, we won't be inclined to make things happen to favor a certain side. Like creating a tribe of natural allies right next to our sides so they can get to them first, or dropping artifacts down for them. But certain things, like say, dropping a minor artifact in neutral territory, or causing a volcano to erupt (when noone's around, else killing a bunch of units unfairly) and creating a lava lake, or other things like that for "plot reasons", could still occur.


So, short version of what I just said: Titans are not "overpowered" because we're not really players, removing the "team wars" aspect allows titans to act more fairly, and lessening titan's game-changing abilities to more minor events and forcing titans to agree upon events will limit their ability to disrupt the strategic nature of the game.

Tl;dr for Shu.

Take the Titan's vested interests away.

Iylzara wrote:Tl;dr for Shu.

Take the Titan's vested interests away.

And nerf 'em.

I'm sorry, but saying that GM's are overpowered seems kinda funny to me. Titans should have a story mentality, not a win one. In other words, if the GMs are trying to "win" the game, then the game is going to break, no way around it.

I don't see a problem with their powers, if anything I think they should be expanded so they can nerf a superpower to keep the game going. Otherwise they can only fudge numbers, which no one likes.

I do think that something needs to be changed to stop a team game from happening. And getting rid of the Titan part would do this.

HerbieRai wrote:I'm sorry, but saying that GM's are overpowered seems kinda funny to me. Titans should have a story mentality, not a win one. In other words, if the GMs are trying to "win" the game, then the game is going to break, no way around it.

The current system is built with Titans increasing in Divine Rank as their sides gain more cities. So they have a huge incentive to help their sides win. Eliminating the incentive eliminates titans trying to break the game.

HerbieRai wrote: I don't see a problem with their powers, if anything I think they should be expanded so they can nerf a superpower to keep the game going. Otherwise they can only fudge numbers, which no one likes.

Disagreed. I don't think titans should be able to nerf a superpower. That's sort of really unfair. If a player is winning, we should let them win, or let the other players band against them, or whatever. In a PvP game like this, it's the GM's job to moderate, not make decisions like "Hmm, Player A is too strong, let's have meteors rain on his capital to even the playing field". Honestly, if a player gets "Out of control" in terms of their number of cities and army strength, that just means they've played well and will either conquer the planet (And then onto the next Erfworld game) or be opposed by a coalition or something like that.

tl;dr - It's not up to the GMs to determine the course of the game since it's PvP, so titan powers should be reduced
(or at the very least, our incentive to act reduced or some sort of consensus needed to do anything big)

HerbieRai wrote: I do think that something needs to be changed to stop a team game from happening. And getting rid of the Titan part would do this.

Disagreed. Getting rid of the Divine Rank/# of Cities connection would stop a team game from happening. The titans themselves are just GM fluff.

I have two things to say:

1. I agree with Shusagi. In Erfworld, the Titans are sorta... absent. People believe in them, and they're clearly there, but they don't do anything.

2. On the subject of world conquest... the Vaygr would like to announce a new system of doing things. New Vaygr Policy: any enemy, once blasted down to less than 50% of his pre-war cities, will be presented with what some damn bearucrat labeled the 'Articles of Unification', for his ratification. In other words: Anyone we beat gets the opportunity to become a Clan in the Unified Clans. What that means: Foreign affairs are run by the Supreme Warlord. Your leader's title changes to Warlord of the Clan. And you are in the tightest alliance possible with all other Clans. Including the original ones, run by me... Also, one other thing. If you don't like Supreme Warlord's orders, you can go into rebellion. If you win, you get to take the Supreme Warlordship. I.E. you get to take over the Vaygr Clans. One suggestion there, though: If you can get enough Clans on your side to pull it off, it's because my leadership was working. Don't screw with it.

Mmmm... I say you just take away things where we directly affect gameplay. Things like changing the landscape, avatars, among other things. It still is our responsibility/prerogative to create things like beasts and natural allies and twitch caster generation even if we are "just" GM's.

General consensus seems to be that Titans should only have the abilities a normal GM would have. That is..

Modify terrain, beasts, allies pre-game
No affiliations with specific sides
Changes during the game, but minimal/minor ones

Basic concept that applies to almost all games of this type: The GMs decide on the setting, and decide to let the players play without interfering until it's over, when they'll make a new setting and run a new game. So, during the course of the game, the GMs don't do anything since they agreed not to, and can only make modifications if they all agree on the change.

Plus fluff: The titans build a world and a bunch of races, and then decide to let those races do their thing and battle it out without interfering till it's over, when they'll modify the terrain and change everything around and do it again. So, during the course of the game, the titans don't do anything since they all agreed not to, and can only make modifications by getting together in a council and agreeing on the change.

So as long as what the titans can do is just what a GM could do, plus fluff, I think it's fine. It just lets the GMs roleplay a bit, which I'm much more invested in than the ability to make changes during the game. So take out the titan's stats and make it a purely RP thing, and agree that no changes can be made during-game without agreement among the titans.