TRPG General Chat

12:01 AM

Ja. I'm not sure if you've had your group get even close to ours, but at level 30, there's just too much..

I ran a game that went from 1 to the late 20s, and I participated in a game that started at level 30 and went for a couple of levels.

SlatzG

I've got a thread floating around somewhere, basically asking for help optimizing my character, because our enemies end up being so strong, it's almost a TPK each encounter.

BESW

I created a doppelganger who could turn into almost literally any object or creature (the limit was that I couldn't turn into things with more than 35 HD).

Alex P

Rawr. Back now.

BESW

@SlatzG Aye, the issue is that at those levels, you can build characters that win. But unless everyone is building at the same level, the GM faces an impossible task: challenging the high-optimization characters without marginalizing or casually destroying the low-optimization characters.

Alex P

12:04 AM

@SlatzG Mining the books for setting ideas and such can be another good way to get your "money's worth." Heck, if I have a game book that contains a picture that inspires me to create a character that lasts for more than a few sessions, I think that book overall was worth the money. >.>

SlatzG

And I'm usually pretty good at making sure my character is well researched, and focused on what he intends to do. But, even using my primary abilities, I'm still struggling.

BESW

And if your GM is trying to adhere to objective encounter standards rather than tailoring them to the party... well. Challenge ratings are bizarre and silly even at the lowest levels.

SlatzG

@BESW Ja. I know very well. Even after explaining to my current DM, he still holds to the standards of the book like it's the bible.

Alex P

Do you level faster at 30+ than at the lower levels?

I'd hate to be fighting the epic-level monsters for that long.

Hundred-hand guys and floating dead babies and stuff. :/

SlatzG

Not really. It ends up being about the same. Just harder. With more options.

Alex P

12:08 AM

I guess you could make it more enjoyable for yourself by setting some personal goals. "I want to create my own plane!" That kind of thing.

SlatzG

That's what I intend to do.

Alex P

What happens if one of you becomes a demigod?

SlatzG

I'll find out next level.

Like actually..

Every character in the group has a 1% chance of carrying a "divine spark" upon entering epic levels.

Alex P

Do you all meticulous figure out your stats or just kinda play fast and loose?

SlatzG

Mine is the only one that rolled a 1%

Meticulous, unfortunately -_-

Alex P

12:10 AM

Oh ouch.

SlatzG

Ja.

How I wish to play something closer to LotFP or S&W

Alex P

I'm reminded of a friend who was playing BESM d20. Nobody else in the game really got the rules in full, and the GM would just try to make up stuff on the spot. So eventually instead of trying to figure out all the rules for playing a sorcerer in that game (since it was very buy-stuff-with-points-y), he just changed his character sheet to 8.

Whenever he needed a modifier for anything, it was just 8.

This actually made the game a lot more balanced for him.

SlatzG

I've played BESM before, it was interesting. I played the tri stat version, however.

Alex P

The tri-stat versions seems much more reasonable.

BESM d20, from what I saw, just kinda went crazy with point-buy-ish do-anything-ness.

SlatzG

Another game I'd love to play is Mutants and Masterminds. There was a fantasy "variant" that intrigued me before they rebooted it for the new edition.

I think that'd be perfect for the game we're playing now.

BESW

12:22 AM

You've got my sympathies.

SlatzG

=)

As soon as it's my turn to GM (after the current DM takes a break), I'll be running something a lot simpler and smoother: DragonAGE RPG

Alex P

@SlatzG Did that ever get the development it was supposed to get? I just remember the first book and then it was delayed?

SlatzG

The second set was already released, and the third was finalized.

I don't think the third has hit shelves yet

Thanks for the chat guys, I'm going to retire for the night.

Alex P

12:50 AM

@BESW We decided to emphasize "guy you can follow around" over "mentor" per se (kinda inspired by your second story). So my new buddy is a spy.

BESW

I'm kinda inspiring! Hooray!

Alex P

Hooray indeed!

BESW

2:24 AM

@AlexP I'm trying to think if I've had any other NPCs that could count as mentors...

I've had a couple times when a player decided his character would consider a particular NPC to be a role model. Usually with disastrously amusing consequences.

Alex P

@BESW I think it doesn't come up as much in a D&D-like context for two reasons: 1) it's not really part of advancement; 2) unless the whole party shares a single mentor, it tends to cause some spotlight issues.

BESW

Like the palace guard whose role model was a war hero who went insane and slaughtered every man, woman, and child in the fortress he was supposed to be in charge of.

Alex P

@BESW :O Was he aware that that was what his role model was all about?

BESW

@AlexP He preferred to think about all the glorious battle stuff before the guy went mad.

It was very typical of the PC's personality: "My nation is glorious and honorable and please stop mentioning all the things that challenge my narrow world view."

The player selected this hero as a role model because the party's first adventure had us delving into the ruins of that particular fortress.

Ultimately we discovered that he'd been driven mad by the Far Realm, and we actually talked with his ghost (which had been stirred up accidentally by the cult that had set up in the ruins).

He gave the palace guard an awesome artifact that only remained with the party long enough to save the nation's king in the hero's name, and he gave us some nifty group-bonus magic items.

(So, the role model was tied to the entire group's quest, enabled the whole group feeling epic in the next quest, and the lasting mechanical benefits applied to the whole party.)

Alex P

@BESW That works.

BESW

2:32 AM

It was a deliberate balancing act, and it worked largely because the party made it work.

...also because 4e has some very interesting magic items and artifacts that enable group cohesion. I leveraged them aggressively.

The Wayfinder Badge, the Battle Standard of Healing, the Emblem of Ossandrya...

They encourage cooperation and coordination.

doppelgreener

2:59 AM

I have made a little Windows 8 dice rolling app

This is a small and nice victory

BESW

3:27 AM

@JonathanHobbs Yey!

doppelgreener

I can say XdY and it will roll X Y-sided dice and show me the results a bit like our own chat's dice

or I can say "barf!" and it will crash because it has nothing for handling non-XdY statements

BESW

Lovely.

Magician

3:54 AM

@BESW Oh, the battle standard of healing. When level 20 party, entirely out of healing surges, heals an animal companion so that everyone would regain 1 hp and stand up... repeatedly... in the final fight that would transition them to epic tier...

The same party adamantly refused to upgrade the banner to something of a higher level, because it's simply the best one.

BESW

Yes.

We had a leader who specialized in stacking generic healing bonuses and effects, so if he was the one who planted the banner, its 1 hp heal turned into something much more monstrous.

Magician

Hm. Are you sure wielder's bonuses extend to items? We assumed the standard was its own thing, basically.

Not that it matters now.

BESW

Technically, the standard's healing effect was part and parcel with its item power that was used to plant it in the ground.

Magician

Mm, I see your logic.

BESW

So whoever planted it, the standard's healing was technically their item power.

Magician

4:02 AM

Though to be fair, at high levels there's barely any difference between 1 hp and 10 hp healed

BESW

Yeah, but if your healing also lets them do things like shift 1, get +2 to a defense, stand up from prone, roll a save...

And keep in mind, that's not 10 hp instead of 1.

Magician

I... think they've fixed most of those things to only trigger on the person actually spending the healing surge.

BESW

That's 50 hp instead of 5, spread across multiple targets.

(More if you have animal companions, NPCs, etc.)

Magician

That's some impressive healer cheese that I'm unfamiliar with, and our cleric did nothing but heal.

BESW

@Magician [grin] Mostly, yes.

It's "balanced" only in that you have to work hard to get the items/feats/features that work with the banner, and some of the best typical healing cheese explicitly doesn't.

Magician

4:05 AM

But even at 1 hp, it's an impressive "get up now" item.

BESW

But when your atypical healing cheese applies to EVERYONE...

Magician

Hehe

Makes the party basically unkillable unless you can one-shot them in a round.

BESW

Yes.

If he ever got knocked over, he'd spend the rest of combat prone because minor actions were more useful than standing up.

Magician

That sounds vaguely familiar to our wizard. Who got the utility power that granted him an extra minor action to sustain spells (or something to that effect), and still refused to move from the spot, because move is another minor, eh.

BESW

@Magician His greatest flaw was dealing with focused-fire attacks.

The more AoE I threw at the party, the happier the leader got.

(Poor tank.)

Magician

4:08 AM

Hah. Auras are great!

doppelgreener

@BESW I'm beginning to understand why you could basically only challenge your epic levelled 4e players by setting them challenges you figured nearly impossible

BESW

He probably would've been even more effective, but with was the player who refused to use attack powers that actually required attack rolls.

Magician

Oh, by epic tier you need to tailor encounters to party.

BESW

@JonathanHobbs Epic, schmepic. He was rendering premade encounters moot by level 6.

Well. It wasn't just him. The pallock (Divine Challenge + Eyebite, with a healthy side serving of mind control), the fighter whose every attack pushed between 4 and 8 squares, slowed, and knocked prone...

Basically everyone specialized in subverting their class paradigm in order to be effective in ways that made standard encounter designs weep.

"What, you mean the fighter--the stickiest of all the classes, the guy who you cannot escape from--specializes in pushing people further away than his move speed?"

Magician

...yeah, that sounds tough. We've largely avoided I Win cheese like that, but even straight up interpretations of classes got monstrous quickly

And I've managed to convince Brian not to make a battlemind that would routinely give every enemy next to him -6 to attacks.

BESW

4:15 AM

We had a kobold rogue/ranger who dealt no damage in exchange for being able to spam 3x3 ranged bursts of slow/immobilize/prone/cannot teleport.

That guy had to go.

All the others, though, were fun challenges to build encounters for.

Magician

It took a lot of negotiations for us to figure out where the boundary between game-breaking and awesome lies.

BESW

Because 4e gave me so much opportunity to just make stuff up for the NPCs.

My standard gimmick was "when PC do <awesome thing>, NPCs get to <be awesome>."

And sometimes it was less about actual effectiveness and more about perception.

Magician

Which is hard to pull off without seemingly negating the awesomeness of PCs in the process

BESW

Like the illithid who had an opportunity-action teleport triggered by a creature taking psychic damage, letting him teleport adjacent to them.

...and a priest with a room-wide aura of 5 psychic damage to anyone who started their turn in it.

So every PC got an illithid in their face for their turn.

Magician

Which is as it should be

BESW

4:23 AM

In practice, this also exposed the illithid to more attacks than he should have been taking.

But in terms of perception, he was one nasty, everpresent, in-your-face bossman.

Once the priest was taken out, he could still use it to teleport next to the target of his mind blasts.

So that gimmick combo was used to make the fight easier (by letting the illithid take more damage) while also making it SEEM more epic.

(And it rendered the fighter's push mechanic largely moot vs. illithid.)

Magician

@BESW Which is an elegant solution, but can't be applied every time, or fighter will start suspecting something

BESW

Aye.

Generally, for him, I tried never to negate his ability.

But I'd make it a poor choice: These guys deal MASSIVE damage on a charge, but have a hard time disengaging afterward so they can charge again. Why are you helping them?

Or I'd put him in a space where pushes were hard to accomplish--narrow bendy corridors would make him use his item dailies that turn pushes into slides.

Magician

There was some fantastic illithid, that I don't think I even had to fiddle with to make it work. I think it would turn invisible when it dealt psychic damage. And it dealt ongoing psychic damage to people it would grab and suck brains out of. And it could briefly turn invisible on its own. So it would surprise the party by mind blasting them, walk up to a chosen victim and proceed to suck them dry.

Meanwhile, the party would be like "why are you shouting? Why are you waving your arms around? Why do you have bloody holes in your head all of a sudden?"

BESW

Yup.

I think it was "invisible to anyone with ongoing psychic damage."

This was "balanced" because its ongoing psychic damage ability had a fairly short range.

So I just handed him a group of ongoing-psychic-damage-dealing minions.

Magician

Interestingly, in the one-shot that I ran, the party basically went "Yup, he's got an illithid on him. Yup, he's going to die in 2 rounds. Nope, we're not going to help, what we're doing is more important".

Hehehe, yup

BESW

4:30 AM

[snerk]

I also enjoyed terrain effects that the enemies would start out taking advantage of, but which the party could use to their advantage later.

Classic example was a circle on one end of the battlefield which let anyone standing in it use a move action to teleport their move speed.

Kobolds would use their minor-action shift to come out of the woods, attack, then teleport back into the trees without taking OAs.

In the encounter finale, the fighter used it to teleport decisively through impossible terrain to hack down a kobold who was fleeing to get reinforcements.

Magician

They were trying to kill an elder brain. And when they got close to finishing it off, it sucked psychic force form all the illithids around it, killing them but creating, essentially, psychic-armor-Cthulhu around itself. Here's a picture.

@BESW So it was enough to have started turn in it? Or did they come out of the woods into it?

BESW

@Magician So long as you were standing in the circle when you used the move action to teleport.

They'd step out of the woods into the circle, attack, and then teleport back.

@Magician cute.

Today's out-of-context phrase is, "You impressed our test weirdo. Promising."

trogdor

5:45 AM

@BESW that was annoying to fight Kobolds with

doppelgreener

6:32 AM

@BESW Did they alternate between running out in one turn (then attacking) and in the next attacking then teleporting back?

trogdor

the Kobold racial shift was limited range

but the first time they did that was still pretty cheesy and annoying

doppelgreener

xD

trogdor

and they lived long enough to do it at least 2 more times as I recal

and they went to rather great lengths to use it, I don't remember the details of how many rounds the combat went, and the ratio of turns they managed to use the teleport to turns they didn't manage

BESW

7:15 AM

@JonathanHobbs No; the idea was that they cheesed it so they spent every not-their-turn in concealed difficult terrain.

doppelgreener

7:35 AM

@BESW Oh, wow XD Okay

BESW

Kobolds are supposed to be crafty-but-cowardly.

trogdor

yeah

they didn't turn into The Flash

BESW

Tucker's Kobolds are just mean, and don't play into the 4e experience well.

But putting kobolds in environments that play to their racial powers in interesting and frustrating ways...

So give them traps that only trigger on Medium characters, underhangs and tunnels between parts of the map that only Small creatures can easily fit through, and places where being able to shift as a minor action keeps them popping out, making ranged attacks, and then running back into cover.

doppelgreener

Oh wow xD

BESW

Simply placing some feature on the map that only the kobolds know about when the encounter starts can lead to amusing encounters that leave the party respecting kobolds even after they turned the tables.

doppelgreener

7:42 AM

I want to know the details of this encounter :)

of which one

the kobold one!

lol

I'm not talking about anything specific in my experience right now, just general "how to pump up kobold" tactics.

doppelgreener

I currently know there was forestry granting concealment everywhere, and there was a teleportation circle somewhere amongst it.

trogdor

7:42 AM

there are a lot of Kobold encounters

BESW

The kobold encounters I ran were basically minor modifications of the Keep on the Shadowfell encounters.

doppelgreener

@BESW Oh well yes but I want to understand what these' kobolds tactics were. The ones in the summoning circle encounter.

They were able to keep popping in and out and I want to know how

BESW

There was a summoning circle next to some trees.

Trees = difficult terrain + cover.

They'd shift out of the trees into the summoning circle, make a ranged attack, then teleport into a different section of the trees, making a hide check as they did so.

They could have done it without the teleport circle, but the teleporting made it harder to find them after they'd vanished.

When the party started getting too close to the teleport circle, the kobolds used it to cross a river (difficult terrain) into the trees on the other side, and continued to harass the party from across the river.

After that they broke for the cavern behind the waterfall to call for backup.

doppelgreener

Oh wow. XD

BESW

A 4e encounter is often defined by its terrain and how cleverly the combatants can use it.

trogdor

7:48 AM

and that's when it got really bad

cause there were more kobolds, but more importantly Irontooth was in there

BESW

Yes. If you hadn't been able to stop the runner from signaling to the kobolds in the cave, the two encounters would've strung together and a wipe was almost certain.

(Instead of just highly likely.)

trogdor

yeah

we almost died anyway

partly because there were only 3 of us though

BESW

No, I'd scaled the XP budget.

trogdor

ah ok

BESW

The reason you nearly wiped is that I trusted Wizards when they said that a standard three or four levels above you guys was an acceptable boss.

doppelgreener

7:53 AM

@BESW Was this with or without the guy with his healing banner?

trogdor

well Irontooth was still pretty bad

BESW

@JonathanHobbs This was level 1, before he'd even changed out from regular warlord to lazy warlord/shaman.

@trogdor Yes, that's what I'm saying.

doppelgreener

I see!

BESW

Irontooth was too many levels above you guys.

trogdor

he was

BESW

7:54 AM

He hit every time and was very hard to hit.

So his power and survival were both boring and nearly impossible to mitigate.

doppelgreener

What level was he?

trogdor

probably around 5

BESW

Ah, he was a level 3 elite brute.

trogdor

ah

BESW

@JonathanHobbs I can give you the stat sheets.

doppelgreener

7:56 AM

Is he a standard monster I'd find in the compendium? If so I can save you the trouble

Also, brb

BESW

I may have fiddled with him a bit, but he's based on the Irontooth you'll find in the compendium.

My encounter sheets will detail the whole terrain/teleport circle/etc, too.

Ahah. The teleport circle was more powerful than I remembered.

> Fey Circle: Old Elven runes are carved into these menhirs. A creature can spend a minor action while in a fey circle’s square to teleport 5 squares. Fey circles are often associated with Feywild portals.

The circle was 3x3 squares.

It took a Nature or Arcana check to figure out how to do it, but you could tell others once you figured it out.

doppelgreener

8:30 AM

I just rediscovered something I really like about this Fate Core book.

This guy.

That's a short guy. And he looks like he's a general or something.

(At least, he looks short)

BESW

He's got an Alexander the Great thing going on.

> Physically, Alexander was not prepossessing. Even by Macedonian standards he was very short, though stocky and tough. His beard was scanty, and he stood out against his hirsute Macedonian barons by going clean-shaven. His neck was in some way twisted, so that he appeared to be gazing upward at an angle. His eyes (one blue, one brown) revealed a dewy, feminine quality. He had a high complexion and a harsh voice.

trogdor

8:50 AM

which guy?

the one pointing the finger?

BESW

9:28 AM

@trogdor I assume so.

trogdor

mk

cause he is standing under people who are sitting on high seats, which are also themselves elevated by some stairs

he may be average height, possibly even a little above average

or he could even be short, but it could be an optical illusion.

Magician

You're forgetting about perspective

BESW

mm. The relative height could an art issue, but combined with his proportions (larger head than average compared to his body), and given the pop culture context of the time of publishing, I'd be surprised if it weren't Tyrion-inspired.

trogdor

my point is just that there are various things that are making him "look" short

his legs are even cut off, at least to some degree

BESW

Aye, it could just be poor art.

But it'd be an unusual combination of poor art to concertedly give the impression of a Little Person.

trogdor

9:39 AM

yeah

it would

The Oracle

3:03 PM

0

Q: Does the [system-agnostic] tag conflict with system specific tags?

In this question, the asker tagged his question with system-agnostic. He also tagged it with dnd-3.5e and dungeons-and-dragons. Is this contradictory or in some way contrary to the spirit of the tags in general? If so, it seems like we should enforce some kind of rule that a question with syst...

Joshua Aslan Smith

4:40 PM

-2

Q: Seperated from my Party; how can I track them down in a City?

While fighting a dragon, my party was attacked by kobolds. 0ne of our members attacked us as a gambit to save his own life and then ran away. I chased after him but got lost. How do I find my group again? (We are all in the same city). I am limited to 10 gp to spend on finding them.

dnd-4e

Just edited this to make it somewhat readable hopefully he comes back.

wax eagle

@JoshuaAslanSmith well, considering there are no rules for this it's essentially up to the DM to devise a skill challenge for it...

(though that's not exactly interesting, what exactly is the cost of failing such a challenge)...

Joshua Aslan Smith

Yes I agree that its like, heres some skills you can use (streetwise, perception, insight, diplomacy, etc.) or you could just pay some street urchins in copper for a more RP approach, but yeah

Also is there any accepted way for me to try to drum up attention to a question? Can I post a question on meta about my question thats on hold?

wax eagle

what kind of attention do you want to draw? for this question, editing it should put it in the reopen queue

check that, looks like the OP has to come back and edit it

Joshua Aslan Smith

nah not that

thats not mine

1

Q: What damage (item and feat) combinations exist for ki-focus implements in 4e?

The problem at hand I'm fairly proficient with the usual pathways for getting frost or fire or radiant damage combos/optimization going with regular weapons or using holy symbols, but I am new at trying to optimize damage for ki-focus implements. My usual method of grabbing a weapon that can app...

dnd-4e optimization implements damage-types

this one, which was on hold and became closed with minimal interaction with me the poster

will that get it reopened?

I didnt know you could put a bounty on a closed question

wax eagle

nm, it's currently closed...

hmmm the reopen votes it had aged away. A flag to ask the mods to reopen might be in order

Joshua Aslan Smith

4:55 PM

gotcha thanks wax talk to you later

Phil

5:45 PM

0

Q: How to make mysteries without railroading/overpowering?

Well guys, following previous recommendations here I was able to build a Horror Themed Savage Worlds campaign that has made my players excited. However they're still getting used to the style, as well as I am. As a very helpful user said, in order for them to hurt the major evils of the adventure...

savage-worlds roleplaying problem-players horror-gaming horror

Needs some Vote to Close action

C. Ross

6:08 PM

4

A: Is Fate Accelerated Edition lighter in tone than Fate Core?

You can run dark gritty games in Fate Accelerated, and light games in Fate Core. Fate Accelerated is Fate Core in a lot of ways—it's built out of that engine—it just shows you how to run the game with less mechanical detail. But mechanical detail is not an equivalence for grit, despite what other...

Fred Hicks answered my question!!!

Phil

:o)

Alex P

6:21 PM

@C.Ross :D

Problematic

@C.Ross [blink]

wax eagle

squee!

Problematic

@BESW [poke] you need to invite him to chat!

wax eagle

6:40 PM

@JoshuaAslanSmith what race is your Witcher character? I assume Helfish cheese is a no-go right?

I guess I can answer that by reading the character sheet...

Joshua Aslan Smith

haha

Hes human

for all the usual reasons

Im actually writing an answer for my own question as well, what I found in my searching

but in SE fashion it'd still be good to see what other people find and can answer

(question was closed or on hold for so long I basically assumed I wasn't going to get any help and kept driving through guides and material)

wax eagle

sure. I might look into it if I have some time this evening. non-element vuln is hard...

but I've got an AC unit to fix and dinner to make...though I think the missus is likely to head to bed early tonight so I might have time

Joshua Aslan Smith

its cool like I said I found a workable solution barring any better ones so dont stress about it, Im glad the mods opened it

wax eagle

definitely interested in what you came up with :)

Joshua Aslan Smith

7:04 PM

posted

0

A: What damage (item and feat) combinations exist for ki-focus implements in 4e?

What I've Found Using only ki-focus implements has a very limiting effect. They are one of the smaller magic item groups and very few of them have properties or powers that add or change damage types. Since I was looking for being able to permanently deal one type of damage, I've ignored ki-focu...

wax eagle

@JoshuaAslanSmith you lose some damage and a feat, but what about a double weapon and swordmage MC?

Joshua Aslan Smith

Ive thought about the swordmage MC

I think its the high cost of trying to keep 2 magic weapons up to par

wax eagle

that's why I'm suggesting the double weapon aspect

Joshua Aslan Smith

ah youre saying use a 2 ended weapon

I dont think you can only silver one end of a weapon

mechanically

wax eagle

probably not

Joshua Aslan Smith

7:08 PM

Im okay with thunder, it doesnt have vuln generation

but thunder resistance is not as common as poison or fire or the like

it has a better than average damage feat (thunders rumble gives +3 at paragon, +4 at epic)

and it stacks with echoes of thunder

Echoes of Thunder
Heroic Tier
Benefit: When you hit with any thunder attack power, you gain a +1 bonus to damage rolls until the end of your next turn. The bonus increases to +2 at 11th level and +3 at 21st leve

because EoT's bonus is untyped

wax eagle

7:22 PM

@JoshuaAslanSmith very nice

@JoshuaAslanSmith that's an extra +2 which makes up for losing vuln 5. Add in the sliding shenanigans (specially if you can up that slide beyond a slide 1) and you can give frostcheese a run for it's money

Joshua Aslan Smith

exactly

basically the ONLY viable option but a decently viable one

wax eagle

yeah, ki foci are undersupported :(

which is a shame because the classes they are built for are already underpowered, they really don't need crappy item support piled on

The Oracle

8:31 PM

0

Q: Mouseover text for community promotion ad says 2012

The advert for Community promotion ad says 2012 in its mouseover text, but the graphic links you to a 2013 site. Blah blah attention to detail yada yada? Obligatory:

bug advertising

Lord_Gareth

8:53 PM

@AlexP Thoughts on the doctor thing?

Alex P

@Lord_Gareth I was curious what the interruption was. >.>

That ended it.

Lord_Gareth

@AlexP A perfectly ordinary, if narratively convenient, engine failure.

Any particular thoughts on Karlan's characterization, though? As I've mentioned before, I feed on critique.

Alex P

@Lord_Gareth Hmm... Lemme think. I was kinda surprised that he was so indirect, to be honest.

Lord_Gareth

(I'd also love your input if you have it, @BESW)

Alex P

I kinda expected him to lay down a real hard gut-punch of "I'm only a monster because your morality is garbage!"

You did have him mention how hard people were being hypocrites about it all.

But I think if I were playing a similar NPC I'd make him much more interested in pushing buttons.

Lord_Gareth

9:03 PM

Karlan wanted validation, not an emotional reaction. He was trying to get a peer to agree with him.

Alex P

His style did fit pretty well with the protagonist's urbane style of discussion.

@Lord_Gareth I think I read some of his early stuff -- like talking about the lives of soldiers, and about the guild, and about hypocritical beliefs among people desperate to save their loved ones -- as deeply iconoclastic at heart.

Lord_Gareth

@AlexP To be fair, he is being dragged off to his death.

Alex P

@Lord_Gareth True. I'm not saying it doesn't work for me. I just see him being more rebellious.

Lord_Gareth

And now, because my wife is the one playing Ava, I shall ask you about your thoughts on her characterization.

Alex P

@Lord_Gareth The main thing that popped out was how much thought she put into how her character moved and such. I liked that.

I think it's hard to read a protagonist from one scene. She did come off as the kind of character that's fun to challenge because there's a ton of compassion and an iron will under everything else.

C. Ross

9:11 PM

@waxeagle are you going to run for C.SE mod?

Lord_Gareth

[Nods]

The GM, myself (as co-GM) and my wife are looking to tell a story about a fall from grace with Ava - about how her obsessions drive her off the brink of madness and into becoming a monster that's so much worse than Karlan.

Alex P

Reading it made me curious about what the character's like when that veil of intellectual/abstract thinking slips a bit. (I think that's why I was eager to see Karlan go for more of a visceral gut-punch against her beliefs.)

@Lord_Gareth I definitely got the vibe that the story would end up with "Ava does terrible things," but I can see her coming back from them. From that one scene it seemed like she was an experienced and worldly character but was preserving herself by keeping certain truths at arm's length.

Lord_Gareth

@AlexP Fair, very fair. Now I'm fighting the urge to mug you into reading Nail's thread (she's mine)

This has been my first PbP in something like five years

Alex P

@Lord_Gareth How quickly does it move along?

Lord_Gareth

@AlexP The game or Nail's thread? There's two scenes of significance thus far, one of which was fairly short. She's been hired in unusual circumstances and is currently in the midst of that second scene, feeling out the nature of the job and gathering information on her soon-to-be victims.

Alex P

9:20 PM

@Lord_Gareth The game in general. Like, where along Ava's trajectory does this fall? Is it right as you're introducing her, or?

Lord_Gareth

@AlexP That's literally the start of her in-game story

I was tasked with "poking her characterization and seeing how she pokes back"

Alex P

@Lord_Gareth Ohhhh. I figured the rotting death of her loved one was a reference to previous in-game events.

Lord_Gareth

@AlexP Nope, backstory. It's the reason for Ava's obsession with finding or developing the Panacea, the mythical cure-all

And that obsession is going to be what drags her into darkness.

@AlexP There's a thread that contains character bios if you wanted a link that direction. Some have backstories that are more public than others (Nail's is written entirely in ciphertext)

Alex P

@Lord_Gareth So, how does your character fit in?

Lord_Gareth

@AlexP This game runs sort of like an MMO, in that all of the threads within it take place in the same world and PCs could, theoretically, meet up - but we don't have to. Each 'Legend of...' thread is one contained story about a character or group of characters.

Ava's thread is essentially a solo game with only the setting in common with the others.

Nail's is similar.

Alex P

9:28 PM

@Lord_Gareth Ah, gotcha.

Lord_Gareth

@AlexP In more general terms, Nail (and her long list of titles) is a fey bounty hunter who specializes in her own kind, and is feared and hated by the Hidden People the world over. She is the first and thus far only fey to achieve power over iron, and to escape its hateful curse.

The names she's called by her 'fellows' reveal their thoughts about her - the Iron Banshee, the Rusted Princess, Anathema, Bloodletter, and the Queen-in-Irons

Alex P

@Lord_Gareth How'd she get into that? I assume there's some serious hate there.

Lord_Gareth

9:43 PM

@AlexP You know, the ironic thing is that it didn't start that way. Nail made a desperate deal to save her life from fey-hunters, shrieking out that if Iron would spare her life she would serve it. Thus far its one and only command has been that she offer one life a month to it, at minimum - either a fey life, killed with the blades that Iron blessed her with, or a mortal killed ritualistically.

She limited her depredations to fey criminals, but the nobility of the Seelie Court (her nation of birth) didn't care; they exiled her, then put a bounty on her head as a race traitor.

She's grown bitter, violent, and hateful over the years.

Alex P

So what's her current, like, conflict/situation/&c.?

Lord_Gareth

@AlexP In the immediate physical sense? She's been hired by a vigilante to drive organized crime from the City of Darien, to break their power and offer them violence without cease or pity until the innocent will no longer suffer their rule. In the emotional sense? Nail hates herself and despises what she's become, and is desperate to be acknowledged and loved by something other than a distant master that won't speak to her.

Alex P

@Lord_Gareth What are your (player-level) goals for the character long-term? (I ask because that seems to be part of how you set up the games in the first place.)

Lord_Gareth

@AlexP Nail's story isn't as thoroughly planned as Ava's, where all three people envisioned a pretty similar beginning, middle, and end. What I'm looking to do with Nail is to tell a story of redemption and accomplishment - of Nail finding a real purpose in life that helps her stop being a monster.

Alex P

@Lord_Gareth That's cool.

Lord_Gareth

9:56 PM

Though both the DM and I agree that at some point the terrible violence and hurt that exists between Nail and the Wildfey - the sometimes-terrorist fey nation that opposes 'civilization' - will need to be resolved. Nail preys on them almost exclusively and hates them with a passion because she sees them as threats to essential universal order.

They in turn hate her for supporting that order, and also for killing them in their hundreds.

wax eagle

@C.Ross yeah

Lord_Gareth

I'm not as certain if we want to deal with her and the Seelie Court that cast her out. Nail was more hurt by that than she admits, even (and especially) to herself, but...

Alex P

@Lord_Gareth Take their heads and sit upon the throne yourself, all bloody and in villain-slouch pose.

Lord_Gareth

@AlexP As appealing as that sounds, that'd definitely qualify as failing to find redemption. The Seelie Court can be petty and needlessly cruel but in the end they're the most 'human' of the fey and certainly avid proponents of society, universal order, and the rule of law.

The great irony is that Nail's crusade against the Wildfey is an act of heroism from the Seelie's perspective, and as a result Nail is a large shame to them - they cast her out and she repaid them by doing their dirty work for them, relentlessly massacring their enemies.

@AlexP Did you want a link to Nail's game thread? Her actual backstory is in cipher text on her bio, but her description is there if you wanted that.

Alex P

@Lord_Gareth Sure, send me a link and I'll read it later when I have some downtime at home.

Lord_Gareth

10:06 PM

@AlexP plothook.net/RPG/showthread.php?t=22582 <-Public information plothook.net/RPG/showthread.php?t=22583 <-Da thread. As always, critique is appreciated.

Alex P

Also, obligatory thread pimping: our Burning Wheel game.

@Lord_Gareth I think I asked this already, but I forgot: what's the pace of your PbP?

Lord_Gareth

@AlexP It slowed when Exe had to move across the planet. Who knows what it'll be now

Alex P

@Lord_Gareth D:

What kind of system is this using, btw?

Lord_Gareth

10:26 PM

@AlexP Legend!

Alex P

@Lord_Gareth Aha! Does that work well over PbP?

Lord_Gareth

@AlexP Great question. I'll let you know when I find out :p It certainly doesn't solve the traditional PbP problems and I imagine it works as well as 3.5. Exe is solving some of the problems by running combat and other time-intensive scenes live, though.

Alex P

@Lord_Gareth Ah ok.

Lord_Gareth

@AlexP Legend has been very successful for chat-based games and over programs like Maptool and Roll20, though

Alex P

@Lord_Gareth I remember playing AD&D 2nd Edition with an old version of one of those.

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