Discussion - The Reclamation of Tania

[Andy]

(08-07-2016, 06:42 PM)Swift_Assassin Wrote: Also, we never elaborated what happened to Ambrose after your hiatus started, iirc. Morgan, Shad, and Paige were captured in the monks house, but we never mentioned Ambrose being taken in with us.

We can fluff it that he Batman'd out of the way, and by the time he reappeared, what had happened already happened without him.

[Swift_Assassin]

Our protagonists need their old mentor back.Even though they haven't been together that long Shad and Paige just keep doing reckless thing after reckless thing. I think they are trying to outdo the other Unfortunately Victor hasn't been on lately. Could have gotten a reunion between Roland and Ambrose. But hey, if Victor showed back up, perhaps he could have had Roland do what Ambrose just did. Still better than me bringing in yet another npc

But hey, now all three of them can say they are wanted by the church. Shad and Paige just kinda assumed they were when they met Ambrose.

EDIT:Now that I think of it, I think Paige and Shad are trying to out reckless the other. Paige confronts bandit leader, Shad destroys bandit's bust, Paige tries to fight against bandits, Shad tries to derail meteor, Paige tries to uncover Empires secret, Shad tries to help her, Shad stops himself from attacking Keepers, Paige actually confronts Keepers, Shad uses magic in combat against Keepers, Paige leads them to get captured, Shad becomes human pincushion in the escape, Shad attacks Bern soldier, Paige frees Bern soldier.

That can't be healthy for either of them.

[Toogee]

(08-07-2016, 05:36 PM)Lavi Wrote: The battle at the inn is dispersing, people are crowded on the second floor of the inn, and Paige is being threatened by a Lycian soldier.

Furthermore, there are roughly 17 Lycian soldiers outside the inn, waiting for the others to come out "unarmed and ready to surrender". This number does not count the armed Lycian civilians who did much of the fighting. Let's say ten of them.

[Andy]

(08-08-2016, 10:43 AM)Toogee Wrote:

(08-07-2016, 05:36 PM)Lavi Wrote: The battle at the inn is dispersing, people are crowded on the second floor of the inn, and Paige is being threatened by a Lycian soldier.

Furthermore, there are roughly 17 Lycian soldiers outside the inn, waiting for the others to come out "unarmed and ready to surrender". This number does not count the armed Lycian civilians who did much of the fighting. Let's say ten of them.

Ah. See, that wasn't mentioned, like, anywhere, so I assumed all of them were with Raul waiting for the others at the foot of the stairs. My apologies.

I will now destroy the evidence activate god mode edit my post appropriately.

Edit: I hope that's better/makes more sense.

[Andy]

Hey, Swift, unless I'm mistaken, there's about ten guys left standing, and not all of them are going to be focusing on Satsume. There's still a fight to be had, here. This isn't 'Hyperion fanfiction,' man, and your plot power squad is kind of starting to annoy me. None of the rest of us have combat ready/combat capable NPCs. So if you'd lose some of yours, I'd really appreciate it. Because, think about it. If you've got those guys, why do you need the rest of us? Where's the struggle? Where's the fun for everyone but you?

[Swift_Assassin]

Uh. Let's see. They are all being affected by the galdr, so I figured the ones Alice took out were a few of the hardest hit. Alice was just creating a window so Paige isn't captive for another post. I wasn't planning to go straight to killing Commander Raul right away. As for the npcs, Marcus never drew his sword; Wolfram never cast a single spell; Cass hasn't killed anyone either; before this Alice killed one person that Morgan had fatally wounded; and Taika isn't going to do any combat, at all. Hell, even Shad only killed three people between five rps, killing the first two in Beginnings of Change. Lennox is a different story, as he's my other character, but that's because all his other rps died after three posts. And they aren't all going to be around.

Cass is still around because of Alice tailing Shad. She knows Alice isn't an enemy, but she can't trust her fully. But Shad knows she's a spy now, so Cass won't be so concerned. So she'll be heading back to Arretium to help her husband or Tyber Fen. Taika will only really be present if we don't have some base of operations or an inn to stay at, because otherwise she'd be there.

[WyvernSlayer]

All these names that I haven't heard/don't recall have got me a little concerned. Who's Tyber Fen? What's Arretium?

I don't think the problem lies in being too powerful in combat, Swift. I think it's more a matter of injecting too much of your own world into the RP that Andy is uncomfortable with.

Correct me if I'm wrong, Andy.

[Swift_Assassin]

Arretium is where Shad's family is from, just north of Aquelia. It's a town that is home to two noble families that are very insignificant to Etrurian politics. Tyber Fens family was tricked into killing most of Shad's family, was mentioned in Shad's back story, and was raising Shad's baby sister most of her life until Shad returned to Etruria, which, again, was in backstory.

That 'Young Pup of Arretium' is a very insignificant title outside of Arretium, despite Shad's boast, which is why Raul completely sandbagged him by not acknowledging it.

But I don't think I have much more in mind for Shad, so it should not be a problem after this rp. I never planned for it to show up so much, but the glacial speed of the rp made me rush it.

[WyvernSlayer]

(08-10-2016, 03:55 PM)Swift_Assassin Wrote: Arretium is where Shad's family is from, just north of Aquelia. It's a town that is home to two noble families that are very insignificant to Etrurian politics. Tyber Fens family was tricked into killing most of Shad's family, was mentioned in Shad's back story, and was raising Shad's baby sister most of her life until Shad returned to Etruria, which, again, was in backstory.

That 'Young Pup of Arretium' is a very insignificant title outside of Arretium, despite Shad's boast.

That's not the point here, though.  I've looked through your spriting thread - there are a lot of characters in there.  Many of them hold a position of some kind, to varying degrees of importance.  Hand-waving them into the RP without at least checking it out with me beforehand is rather... dodgy.

[Andy]

Swift, you've gotten defensive, here, and yet you still have not answered the three questions I asked at the end of my post. It's not combat effectiveness at all. You have got seven characters in this thread. That's more than all the rest of us combined. That's not as fun, because there's less struggle, less relying on us to use our characters alongside yours, because yours have taken the front lines ahead of us. It does not promote camaraderie, it promotes dependence on you, and I'd rather be a part of an effective team, not the B Team to your roster.

Hell, this problem is even a part of your PCs. Lennox has an ancient, ancestral named weapon, which is half a tier of power below the Legendary Weapons, and which has the power to burn those that are unworthy of it to death. Which he got from day one. Why would anyone have to rely on teamwork when we can just throw Len at them with Dyrnwyn pointed forward?

Now, when Shad and sometimes Lennox are by themselves, they're fine. They have to rely on their own skills, think for themselves, etc. With your plot power squad, he doesn't, he just has to follow the leader. Like the rest of us. And to answer your first response post, Marcus isn't in the RP, and Wolfram's in Bern, unless I missed something in the eight months I've been gone.

Like I said, we're not writing Hyperion Family Fanfiction here. The Hyperions have their own part to play, make no mistake, but you cannot make them the stars of the show by effortlessly achieving everything we need to do for us. We're not writing a guitar solo here, we're stringing together an orchestra.

Take 2g's last posts, for example. Paige freed a captive, knowing she could get in trouble for it, and I think that was what her player was gunning for, in order to help flesh out villain, setting, conflict, and set up a goal for the other PCs (namely, free her). But, instead of letting the rest of us act to free her while most of the fighters are snoozing and the rest are getting hit with a coffee crash, you have let an NPC run distraction (and kill two paper machete enemies -in passing-(which is a whole other can of bullshit)) while the dashing woman-magnet Shad cuts her free (and I believe it was mentioned that her guards are still awake), and somehow retrieves her confiscated/possibly dropped equipment from underneath the pile of twenty dudes that fell asleep on them.

Not entirely accurate, but the point is made.

[Lavi]

I'm not sure at what point the characters cease to be merely NPCs and are actual player characters that happen to be attached to Shad.

[Swift_Assassin]

. . . . .Oh god, I've become that guy.

Okay. Okay. Let me think here. Let me go through Andy's questions first. I just woke up, so I glossed over that part.

Quote:If you've got those guys, why do you need the rest of us?

I'm a very reactionary rper. I think that's why you don't really see me starting an rp or leading the story. I think I had some slack for that in the past, where most of my posts had quoting or reacting to others. Maybe Radiance Lost did this to me, but I was so used to having so many pcs and a lot of activity, so now that it isn't as active, I feel compelled to introduce npc after npc. I had npc heavy rps, but it made sense in the setting. In RL, Tyber was on a patrol with some others, but I killed two off instantly. In Dark on Night, Daren Hyperion had a ton, but that thread was meant to help escort the Ainor royalty, so it made sense for a lot of men. So without others to lead the stories, I'd be doing nothing. I think that's one of the reasons I never got into Sky or RoE was because if I didn't join a rp, I didn't rp.

Quote:Where's the struggle?

Yeah. It does kinda undermind it. Can't really argue that. I think it got a bit worse as it went on. The first time Alice tried to do something like that, I left it open ended so it could backfire. That happened again here, but then Taika just about freed Cecily.

Quote:Where's the fun for everyone but you?

Hmm. I wasn't aware that it was doing that. For that, I'm sorry.

Okay, so then let's address WS.

Quote:Many of them hold a position of some kind, to varying degrees of importance.  Hand-waving them into the RP without at least checking it out with me beforehand is rather... dodgy.

Let see. I think probably the worse of that would probably be Urai Zann being the Marquess of Aquelia, as I said he was behind the surrender of the Etrurian king and secretly working for Lycia all along. He's actually shown up in the rp, but no one said anything about it. He was in And a Toast to our Victors back when Cecily was still nobility. No one said anything, so I stayed with it. Then there was Alice's brother being an Ostian general, but that was mentioned in Manhunt and again no one said anything. I guess I took that as carte blanche. Everything else that had some sort of rank was in the distant past, if I recall.

Back to Andy.

Quote:Lennox has an ancient, ancestral named weapon, which is half a tier of power below the Legendary Weapons, and which has the power to burn those that are unworthy of it to death. Which he got from day one. Why would anyone have to rely on teamwork when we can just throw Len at them with Dyrnwyn pointed forward?

That had to be okayed by WS. With the caveat that it had story potential for it constantly being pursued by Lycian relic hunters. And I think it's mentioned in his profile as an untested theory, but it doesn't affect women. Plus, even though the rp died before we got there...Ambrose would have been found to be worthy of it.

Quote:Now, when Shad and sometimes Lennox are by themselves, they're fine. They have to rely on their own skills, think for themselves, etc. With your plot power squad, he doesn't, he just has to follow the leader. Like the rest of us. And to answer your first response post, Marcus isn't in the RP, and Wolfram's in Bern, unless I missed something in the eight months I've been gone.

He kinda falls into that most of the time anyway. Also, Marcus is in Bern and Wolfram went off on his own.

Quote:Like I said, we're not writing Hyperion Family Fanfiction here. The Hyperions have their own part to play, make no mistake, but you cannot make them the stars of the show by effortlessly achieving everything we need to do for us. We're not writing a guitar solo here, we're stringing together an orchestra.

Lets see. Alice actually accidently made things a bit harder, prior to her killing people. Cass and Alice were used as a way to get Yuri to free the group the rp before, but I don't really think there was a clear way to get Yuri to do that. Taika...yeah. I can't exactly argue that one. Carla did literally nothing. Lyanna's one post appearance was just to fix Shad up. Hmm..yeah. I can see that.

Quote:But, instead of letting the rest of us act to free her while most of the fighters are snoozing and the rest are getting hit with a coffee crash, you have let an NPC run distraction (and kill two paper machete enemies -in passing-(which is a whole other can of bullshit)) while the dashing woman-magnet Shad cuts her free (and I believe it was mentioned that her guards are still awake), and somehow retrieves her confiscated/possibly dropped equipment from underneath the pile of twenty dudes that fell asleep on them.

I was actually implying that the people she kicked/killed were the guards. The same guards that I believe 2G said had Paige's gear.

Quote:Two Lycian soldiers disarmed Paige of her rapier and light brand before binding her hands behind her back. They took her outside, but before Raul joined them…

Maybe it was meant to be two different soldiers, but I interpreted it as the two guys guarding her had her gear.

This feels like an intervention.

Fine. While it's probably a bit too late to do anything about it...all the npcs are going to leave after this rp...or at least Shad's will. Cass will return to Etruria, Alice, having her cover blown, will return to Ostia, and Taika will flee to Bern or join the Eight Republics or something. Lyanna was never appearing outside of Tania anyway.

[WyvernSlayer]

Okay, okay, that's enough.

Andy, you need to calm down, mate.  There's voicing displeasure, and then there's being a jerk.

Swift... I know I okayed your PCs' weapons.  I don't have a problem with those.  And honestly, I didn't pick up on your references to other NPCs in "A Toast to Our Victors" and "Manhunt" because I don't tend to read RPs unless they end up in the Submission thread.  If someone else had brought it to my attention, I would have said something to you about it sooner, probably through a PM.

It had initially been my intention to contact you after the event and have a man-to-man about your NPC density, rather than say something here and potentially place you in an awkward situation where you have to awkwardly send them off in-story (that's obviously not fair to you).  But now here we are, and everyone is piling on.

Quote:Swift Assassin

---

I think I had some slack for that in the past, where most of my posts had quoting or reacting to others. Maybe Radiance Lost did this to me, but I was so used to having so many pcs and a lot of activity, so now that it isn't as active, I feel compelled to introduce npc after npc. I had npc heavy rps, but it made sense in the setting. In RL, Tyber was on a patrol with some others, but I killed two off instantly. In Dark on Night, Daren Hyperion had a ton, but that thread was meant to help escort the Ainor royalty, so it made sense for a lot of men. So without others to lead the stories, I'd be doing nothing. I think that's one of the reasons I never got into Sky or RoE was because if I didn't join a rp, I didn't rp.

I don't really know what to tell you, other than that this isn't DoN, RL, or Skylessia.  Grimdark Elibe is a different can of worms - we've all had to adjust from other systems.

I'm not saying your NPCs can't exist.  But Lavi makes a good point - they seem to be so involved with your proper PCs that they basically become PCs in their own right.  That's where we're asking you to dial it down.

And yeah, I know this place isn't exactly hopping.  You got any friends that roleplay?  We'll take any and all of them.

[Swift_Assassin]

I just realized I used the wrong word in the quoted part where I meant to say flak instead of slack. Actually, I think I know now the cause of my npc explosion. I mentioned I was in a Dragon Age rp where everyone traveled in a group and almost everyone had multiple characters. I had three characters in that, but the person running the rp had like seven. And since the amount of actual individuals in the rp was pretty small, almost everyone active had multiple player characters in the same thread. Prior to Insurrection, that was the RP environment I was in. But, that's the past. Maybe. They keep trying to revive the rp.

I think honestly would have preferred this npc intervention in a pm, but whatever. It needed to be done eventually. I'll definitely have Cass and Alice leave, because in story it makes some sense. Cass brought up an issue to Shad that he put on the back burner, it finally boiled over, she can go back now. Alice blew her cover and in following her orders attacked other Lycians, so she needs to report back and try to put out the fires that started. Taika was just brought in in the rp for the sole purpose of training Shad in magic. It doesn't make sense yet for her to leave, as she has not been directly threatened or put into harms way yet. Unlike Cass and Alice, she never intends to be or was planned to be.

And as for that last part, every friend that I had that rped is either already here, disappeared due to irl stuff, or have no interest in Fire Emblem.

Anyway you look at it, no hard feelings. I'm not mad. Only thing I'm mad at is the gall of this customer I had thinking she could ring up $18 steamed clams as $1.14 bananas and get away with it.

[Andy]

You're right, WS. Sorry, Swift. Got a bit harsh, there. Problem tendency of mine. Set out to be gentle but firm, wind up raking the accused over coals for some minor thing. Sorry.

Also, with the description of that Dragon Age RP environment, I am getting reminders of my current setting. I've got four PCs, one of which is an unwed King, I have two more PCs whose profiles I need to submit, both of whom have NPC attachments, and I've taken the reins of an entirely separate nation, which is critical to the plot of one of my PCs.

[Swift_Assassin]

Like I said, no hard feelings.

[Toogee]

(08-10-2016, 08:04 PM)Swift_Assassin Wrote: I was actually implying that the people she kicked/killed were the guards. The same guards that I believe 2G said had Paige's gear.

Quote:Two Lycian soldiers disarmed Paige of her rapier and light brand before binding her hands behind her back. They took her outside, but before Raul joined them…

Maybe it was meant to be two different soldiers, but I interpreted it as the two guys guarding her had her gear.

I just want to slip in and say that this is correct. The same soldiers that were holding Paige also had her weapons. Sorry if I wasn't clear.

[Toogee]

Quote:She leaned over the librarian, turning the sleeping woman's head to the side, and sang another galdr into her ear until the woman started responding to Cecily's continued grip on her chin.

What I wish the galdr was:

"WAKE UP WAKE UP WAKE UP!" Cecily shouted into Paige's ear as she shook the librarian's head back and forth.

[Lavi]

I contemplated having Cecily just slap Paige until she comes around, but she's a REFINED lady.

[Swift_Assassin]

(08-13-2016, 12:59 AM)Lavi Wrote: I contemplated having Cecily just slap Paige until she comes around, but she's a REFINED lady.

Couldn't she just order her loyal retainer do it? Last I heard, Paige requested a divorce from him.