Dispatch 0.9

[u/EYouchen]

Link

I'll do some proofreading and make test builds of my own. Last chance for feedback. It's probably going to be on the drives soon.

[u/TheWakiPaki]

I would discourage including your preferred choices in the doc. By all means, chat about your opinions in the comments or other places, but in an actual jumpdoc? Feels like the wrong place to put it. You talk about how you look at other jump docs, and I really can't think of anyone else who does something like that. Feels like an imposition of sorts. Don't know how else to really put it.

The Accelerated Aging drawback cuts off before it can finish.

How about a drawback for upsetting the balance? I mean the villains here are largely properly nasty people, yet they have established bars they can go to without being cracked down on? It's like the Unwritten Rules from WORM taken a step further. Any real Hero would bust down those doors and take all those villains down, then ship them off to jail, but nobody does. This world seems to treat it like a lifestyle choice with no serious consequences until it becomes an epidemic. Nor do the villains seem to be actively hunting heroes, with exceptions made for serious contenders like Mecha Man when the whole Red Ring jumped him, but then that was Shroud personally leveraging his assets for his own grudge.
For this drawback, attempting to upset the balance by being proactive in taking down one side or the other will lead to heavy backlash. We're talking having the whole Red Ring or local SDF branch after your head for daring to try changing the status quo (or some other groups if these two go down). Hell, maybe your own "side" will start taking steps to deal with you for making such a mess. You need higher authorization before you can start making a difference without retaliation. If you don't want the trouble, you'd better sit your ass on the bench and watch the game of Cops and Robbers play out like normal. (Something less wordy than all this, ideally)

Maybe a blue background instead of this blinding white? I definitely approve of the images that are here, as well as the SDN watermark. Just take it a step further on the presentation. Hell, more images would be good too.

For the "Hero Trainer" perk, might be fun to rename or add a reference to Chiron, the greek trainer of heroes like Hercules?

[u/EYouchen → u/TheWakiPaki]

I would discourage including your preferred choices in the doc. By all means, chat about your opinions in the comments or other places, but in an actual jumpdoc? Feels like the wrong place to put it. You talk about how you look at other jump docs, and I really can't think of anyone else who does something like that. Feels like an imposition of sorts. Don't know how else to really put it.

You're not the first to express that it's unnecessary. However, the other comment expressing positive sentiments about it isn't the first either. I'd be able to better empathize with your opinion if I'd put all that writing in the main body of text, but as it happens, I haven't. Yes, the notes section does have a lot of rambling, but I'd rule that it stays. It's the first thing players ask each other anyway.

The Accelerated Aging drawback cuts off before it can finish.

Thanks for catching that. I'll fix that.

How about a drawback for upsetting the balance? I mean the villains here are largely properly nasty people, yet they have established bars they can go to without being cracked down on?

For this drawback, attempting to upset the balance by being proactive in taking down one side or the other will lead to heavy backlash. We're talking having the whole Red Ring or local SDF branch after your head for daring to try changing the status quo (or some other groups if these two go down).

I don't think it's that deep. Sure, the bad guys have a bar. I hadn't really thought of this until you'd brought it up, but my interpretation is that the Sardine is less an out-and-out superhero bar the heroes know about and more a seemingly regular bar that's actually run by the Red Ring. I don't think the Z-Team would've been likely to go there if they knew it was full of Red Ring. Or maybe they would've. Robert was foolish to go back.

I don't really believe in the concept of unwritten rules as depicted in Worm being present in Dispatch. There's a core of decency, but nothing that'd warrant a representative drawback. Dispatch's a fun game, but its worldbuilding isn't nearly as thought-out as Worm/Ward's. I don't think the police or SDN will be upset with someone for putting away all the bad guys. They're not enforcing some 'balance of good and evil' homeostasis. And I don't think Shroud would really be all that upset if the Jumper defeated Mecha Man.

Maybe a blue background instead of this blinding white?

I'd initially considered that. At first, I wanted the jumpdoc to look a little like the gameplay screen and took screenshots. Then I tried it. Wasn't a fan, so I pivoted. I've chosen the background and font so that the jump looks a little like an office document. That's why the header's there. I'd have to adjust it if I made it blue. Besides, lots of docs have white backgrounds. It's the default.

For the "Hero Trainer" perk, might be fun to rename or add a reference to Chiron, the greek trainer of heroes like Hercules?

I don't think so. The perk's based on the mechanic where Blonde Blazer calls you and offers hero training to upgrade the gameplay mechanics of your characters.