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Yeah to be honest I think categories will have to be a thing. I know it's been trialled with BILF before and some like it, some don't, but I don't see how bedroom duders can fairly be judged when dumped in with practical workhorse rigs....or the excessive wattage of some doom roomers.
This will be a more complex and involved system but I think it can be done.

Categories fo sho. Dormgaze, doomdads, people with real music jobs.

Fuck categories.

Does dungeons and dragons give a shit about categories?

All we need is a finely tuned system of character traits and a way to assign points to those traits. Just as a Mage can defeat a Barbarian, and both can be waylaid by a thief, so to the 1x12 combo can trump the pile of green tolex and dollars.

That's all subject to skill points and criticals. Do not ask me to design a mechanics system of that complexity at this point of the day, it's been too long.
You may take care to notice that a lot of RPGs will stagger progress and missions available based on class/XP. I couldn't ask someone in a position such as myself who has been out of playing some shitty band in a live context for a few years but likes to weekend warrior it to go toe to toe with one of the guys touring seriously, as neon put it.
So classes aren't a shit idea, but I don't think I will be hard assed about genres/stylings within certain categories.

But, as always gor, I admire your brevity.
Why don't we have a smilie tipping their hat?

Guysssss. I'm stoked. I know my rig is nothing crazy. Like a common thief in D&D or something... But this is so silly and awesome. So the points need to factor in tones, mojo, variety, probably more?

I'll sit down tonight and see how practical it would be to translate some game mechanics to the rig world.

I think touring guys In general will be at a disadvantage. They'll have a lot of xp but they won't have a lot of magical items because space limits in checked in luggage/tour bus etc. someone like UG, he's like an apothecary or something who has all these freaking awesome elixirs and stuff the will +5 the shit out of you, but as he belongs to some clandestine organisation we can't actually ascertain his xp leaving him perhaps vulnerable.

Anyways, this could go nowhere or it could be sick. I'm aiming for the latter but may end up at the former.

Mojo is a nonterm, so I'm going to struggle assigning a scale to that.
If you can physically feel your sound though, and I don't mean that in any emotional/esoteric/ephemeral way, I mean if you can actually feel it with your body when you play, or you can effect others with your playing, you will be awarded a force rating.
For more info refer to whiskey face and one of his many lectures on the advantages of incorporating 70s surround theatre equipment into your rig, or go watch the Hawkwind doco.

Sorry gor, you posted as I did.
I was just using XP as an example. I was more trying to demonstrate the idea of classes or tiers of competition. Assigning actual XP would arbitrary if it were based on real world experience. Plus fuck calculating that.
We could definite have XP accumulated throughout the rounds though.

As far as mechanics go, I think we may be looking at a Magic-esque system where you have a base platform, say your amps, an action to play, like your guitar selection, and then special abilities or effects, which would be pedals and what not. Each of these items would come with base ratings and bonuses, along with multipliers for combos and how they are used.
We will have to be wary to incorporate downsides and negative effects/nullifiers.
Because balance.
I intend to keep voting in the hands of the people at this stage, but if we could roll and battle based on stats that may weigh in on the decision making process.
Iunno, this is why we spitball.

Ok, ignoring classes, xp and combat mechanics.

Just looking at the 6 basic character attributes and trying to translate them into a rig world. I've had the following hypothetical rigs in mind when "translating" the features, to try and get a balanced set of attributes. Basically I would like an all Boss board and a Squier to be able to compete in some way with a Matamp full stack and an SG with an inverted cross inlay.
So I considered a small board, wired straight up. Like maybe MEC's board from BILF. I've considered Rfurt's spaceship. I've considered a 1x12 combo and a Matamp full stack.

I've also used the Wikipedia definitions of the character abilities because I can't be fucked using my brain.

With that said:

Strength - muscle endurance and stamina
muscle = ability to create volume (wattage)
endurance/stamina = ability to deliver that volume to as many people as possible (no. of speakers)

Intelligence - IQ, reasoning, learning ability
IQ = ability to create a large number of sounds and cope with different situations,
Learning ability: ability to adapt the rig to different purposes/genres or instruments

Constitution: physique, toughness, health and resiistance to disease
physique = the bigger the rig, the greater the physique
toughness: road cases and other road worthiness measures = increased toughness. Rigs put together on shagpile carpet with daisy chained dc cables everywhere = less toughness
resistance to disease= resistance to breaking down = increased complexity = less resistance to disease. Simpler rigs = greater resistance.
health - what portion of the rig is from ILF affiliated builders. More ILF = moar better. The reasoning being twofold: 1) ILF builders are rad and are by definition going to build better stuff, keeping your rig healthier, and 2) supporting ILF builders is good for the health of the forum as such.

wisdom= enlightenment, judgment, wile, willpower and intuitiveness
enlightenment and judgement = how tasty the choices are. Fairly vague but should be understandable enough
wile = deviousness, trickiness. rigs with greater complexity are more wiley, more straight forward rigs less wiley
intuitiveness and willpower = how stubborn is the rig in its vision.

Dexterity: Physical attributes
speed of movement (smaller size = greater speed)
agility = ability to use off the shelf gear = greater agility
balance = all fuzz pedals = less balance.

charisma = physical attractiveness, persuasiveness, and personal magnetism
self explanatory. How hot is that rig.

Combat modifiers:
One offs, customs and hen’s teeth
= magical items which increase combat ability
(scale from 1-3?)

Boss pedals
= armour

If this seems ok we can start spitballing on the rest of the stuff, like how to keep it very simple so that it's as inclusive as possible, but still kinda true to RPGing, and how to actually get passed the descriptors (which was really the easy part) and to actually get a fun set of combat mechanics into this. Which is a job for another day.

goroth you're a genius.

That is the perfect system, and I shall henceforth apply it in any situation where I will have to make a choice between several options.

Gor, a few things:
1. I love what you've done there.
2. It could so easily be ported into the SPECIAL system used by Fallout (that gives me a boner).
3. I have a boner.
4. MEC's board from BILF was the most righteous thing ever. You are correct. It stands as pretty strong evidence for the case of redness being brutally efficient.

I think we can definitely work with something like this. It does indeed seem balanced.
Obviously we need to tweak it for bizarre ILF style modifiers (attack bonus for reverb at the start of the chain anyone? Bonus offense points for putting a Klon in the loop of an oscillating Dwarfcraft?).
But, I love how this ball is rolling.

I am fuckin' in!...

I don't really have any other input...a lot of the stuff about XP etc are way over my head...never got into the details when i was younger...i was always the dumb warrior type that died early in games.

Goroth, that is amazing. I want that to sig that

I think there needs to be some sort of "categories" or "system" or "schematic" because if its just based on size or pure wonder than SLK or whiskey_face will post their rooms/walls and be done with it.

And what will constitute a rig: amp/cab or amp/cab/pedalboard/instrument(s)?

[quote="goroth"]
Boss pedals
= armour