Interest Check: SBURB

[Meliai]

   
   
   
   

   
   
   
   
   

Thanks for checking the thread! First thing's first: Do you know what SBURB is?

Yes? Click here!

Awesome! There's way less explaining to do for you then ;D
So basically my roommate and boyfriend cajoled me into reading Homestuck a few months ago and I've been hooked ever since. The other day I got to thinking that I'd like to try and GM a group game, and it occured to me that Sburb could make for a really great character-driven adventure game. This RP will not be following the plot of Homestuck itself so sorry, no trolls, no Lord English, no Bunny to go back into any box. This will be a "vanilla" Sburb game, you'll be playing humans in a session running parallel to the original Chums' session or, if we end up needing a First Guardian, in an alternate universe where your group are the "main characters" as opposed to John, Rose, Dave and Jade.
You'll supply the character (who will obviously be considerably older than the canon players); I'll assign a Title, Land, Exile, consorts and the like.

No? Click here!

"Sburb" is a fictional computer game central to the plot of the webcomic Homestuck; you don't need to be familiar with the comic in any way to play, in fact I think it might be more fun if most of the players go into this blind. The gist is that you will be playing a young adult who, along with a number of your online buddies, ends up playing an odd new computer game called Sburb

Sburb is a sandbox-style game that takes place superimposed over the real world, rather than in a virtual space. The server player is able to manipulate the client's environment in real time in a manner reminiscent of THE SIMS . The client of the game has no need to interact with the computer and can freely roam around completing objectives

Things start quite simply but become strange and rather arcane as the players complete objectives and begin to uncover the nature of the game, themselves, and the very universe.

This game will be character- and action-driven. Though there's plenty of room for romantic and sexual relationships between the the players sex won't be a central theme of the game, and we'll probably in the Light: Humans subforum.

Due to the unfortunate nature of group games to shed the occasional player I'll be looking for around 8 total, that way if someone is indisposed for a while or disappears from the boards completely it won't be too difficult to write them out (either temporarily or for good, depending on the nature of the absence)

This will be my first time running a group game in ages and there's a lot of elements to control; if there's enough interest to get the game going then if someone else familiar with the source material would like Co-GM (and perhaps take up the Time player?) that would be marvelous, but I'll worry about that hurdle when we come to it.

Questions? Comments? Is this all super confusing and everyone's already fled?

[CarnivalOfTheGoat]

Hmmmmm. Mixed feelings. I read about, I don't know, maybe the first 50-100 pages of Homestuck several months ago, found out there were something like a few thousand of them, looked at the most recent page, looked at the page I was on (house coming apart?) and somewhat confusedly decided that I probably didn't have the time to really catch up, much less keep up.

So on the one hand, I have a little bit of an idea about SBURB. And inventory sorting mechanisms.

And on the other hand, I'm not 100% sure of my enthusiasm.

And on the Gripping Hand (<_<, >_>) maybe it'd inspire me to sit down and try to read it again. And maybe that's good.

I guess I am interested, but will bow out if there are too many people and a bunch of 'real' fans want it?

*Goes and starts re-reading HS.*

[Revenent]

I've never read or heard of Homestuck before, but I do think this looks rather interesting. If you can assure me that someone who's going into this blind can still figure it out, you can count me in. :-)

[Chrystal]

And on the Gripping Hand (<_<, >_>) maybe it'd inspire me to sit down and try to read it again. And maybe that's good.

O.O  Fyunch-*CLICK* ?????

Um, yeah, might be interested.

I will lurk on this thread for a bit, possibly discussing Moties with Carnival, and see what develops...

[CarnivalOfTheGoat]

This RP will not be following the plot of Homestuck itself so sorry, no trolls, no Lord English, no Bunny to go back into any box.

After several hours of reading, I'm starting Act IV now. I just finished year 1. Am at the end of Act IV. And enthused about the overall idea of playing it as a PbP RPG.

But I have mixed feelings again!

Because the trolls are a pain in the butt to read for someone who didn't grow up reading L33T...But darnit, the horns are so cute.

If anyone else wants to begin the long journey (the wiki for the story says there were over 4600 pages as of April 1 but a lot of them are simple graphic 'frames' in parts of action sequences (so one might click through four or five of those at a time as 'something happens', or accompanied by a single sentence) it's at mspaintadventures.com. And it's surprisingly complex, but it layers stuff on slowly.

I think it's possibly one of the better examples I have seen of telling a story in a way that could only be done using digital tools. There is simply no way one could do this in print. Apparently there are print books of it. How the hell do they handle the hyperlinking, the animated .gifs and the .flvs?

O.O  Fyunch-*CLICK* ?????...I will lurk on this thread for a bit, possibly discussing Moties with Carnival, and see what develops...

Haha! How wonderful. I cannot think how many times I have used that expression on the internet in supposedly SF/F savvy forums, and you are the second person to ever recognize it!

[Chrystal]

Niven/Pournelle fan, here - or, more accurately, hard sci-fi fan. I love space opera (have at least one such RP going at any one time, preferably two).

The number of times I've wanted to use that expression but not done so because I knew damn well that the people I was saying it to would go "huh?"

Sooo... anyway. I'm seriously thinking about dragging you off somewhere private to discuss doing a "Mote" based RP...

[Winds Of Lust]

Color me interested ^^

Though I am a bit sad we don't have control over our Lands/Titles/and other such things, In the few HS based games I've played I used those ideas to help build my character's personality, but whatever, I'm game non the less

[Latooni Subota]

Eh, I'll give it a shot, depending on how you work this. As a long time Homestuck reader, I'm hoping it'll be interesting.

Edit: Well, I hope it'll be more interesting than the last few times me and some people tried to play the Homestuck RPG, and things died horribly. @.@

[Meliai]

Aha, great to see there's some interest, even if most of it is tentative :D
Looking back at my description for folks unfamiliar with the source information it's a bit...sparse. I think I'll flesh that out a bit and maybe add a more in-depth description for folks who don't mind spoilers ((Speaking of which, since not everyone here us up to date with the comic if you mention anything spoiler-y in a post please be sure to mark it as such and slap a couple spoiler tags around it, thanks :-) ))

After several hours of reading, I'm starting Act IV now. I just finished year 1. Am at the end of Act IV. And enthused about the overall idea of playing it as a PbP RPG.

But I have mixed feelings again!

Because the trolls are a pain in the butt to read for someone who didn't grow up reading L33T...But darnit, the horns are so cute.

Oh I agree completely, I'm not keeping the trolls out of this game because I dislike them ([GA] and [CG] are two of my favorite characters in the whole story!) but because A) Their culture is really complex and would be difficult to explain to anyone not familiar with the comic, especially since they've got the game itself to learn and B) the fact that the humans and trolls are interacting at all is the result of some major Bad Things in both their respective sessions.

Who knows, if this goes well maybe I'll try a game on Alternia ;D A FLARP league could be fun.

Eh, I'll give it a shot, depending on how you work this. As a long time Homestuck reader, I'm hoping it'll be interesting.

Edit: Well, I hope it'll be more interesting than the last few times me and some people tried to play the Homestuck RPG, and things died horribly. @.@

Well I'd be more than happy to try and alleviate your concerns if you could be a bit more specific! What bits were boring? Was there something in particular that caused these horrible RP deaths? Aside from plotting out some goofy fan-troll things with my friends I've never done a HS-based game before so I'd welcome any advice you feel like giving :)

Color me interested ^^

Though I am a bit sad we don't have control over our Lands/Titles/and other such things, In the few HS based games I've played I used those ideas to help build my character's personality, but whatever, I'm game non the less

I understand! Mostly I'm concerned that we'll get people focusing on their character's title rather than the character them self. If you have a solid idea in mind for your character's personal arc and how a certain Role/Aspect/Land component would shape that I'd be happy to work something out with you :)
As long as you aren't proposing the Knight of Badassery in the Land of Flames and Testosterone or something we should be good :D

[Latooni Subota]

People were, despite initially going OHWOW THIS IS AWESOME AN ACTUAL SYSTEM FOR RUNNING HOMESTUCK YAAAAAAY, everyone just sorta . .  punked out fast. Left me and the GM in an awkward position, is all. :(

[Winds Of Lust]

Meh, I'll be fine, I don't have anything in mind at the moment besides things I used on previous human characters, But most of my Human Characters have sadly been after thoughts compared to my troll characters ( Which is weird, I like the humans more than I do the trolls yet I drift to the trolls for games. I blame the promise of some level of physic powers )

So This will be a good chance on my to focus and give some good attention to a human character. That and I'm all to eager to see what you'll come up with. I always love seeing peoples interpretations/spins/impute on things I do.

[Revenent]

Depending on when you get this started, I may try to read my way through as much as I can of Homestuck, since I have finals next week and then I'll have the semester off to do what I want with my time.

[CarnivalOfTheGoat]

Niven/Pournelle fan, here - or, more accurately, hard sci-fi fan. I love space opera (have at least one such RP going at any one time, preferably two).

Sooo... anyway. I'm seriously thinking about dragging you off somewhere private to discuss doing a "Mote" based RP...

Maaaaaaaybe? It sounds possibly very fun, but I have to watch my time...I'm semi-committed to co-GMing a Thieves' World game. I imagine you mean in Empire-space? The Moties were such an amazingly alien species I think it'd be near impossible to deal with them in a long-term roleplay. Probably the most authentically alien-feeling aliens I've ever read. It was almost a disappointment to make their motivations even slightly more comprehensible, even if that was necessary for the plot-outcome.

Aha, great to see there's some interest, even if most of it is tentative :D Looking back at my description for folks unfamiliar with the source information it's a bit...sparse. I think I'll flesh that out a bit and maybe add a more in-depth description for folks who don't mind spoilers ((Speaking of which, since not everyone here us up to date with the comic if you mention anything spoiler-y in a post please be sure to mark it as such and slap a couple spoiler tags around it, thanks :-) ))

Well I'd be more than happy to try and alleviate your concerns if you could be a bit more specific! What bits were boring? Was there something in particular that caused these horrible RP deaths? Aside from plotting out some goofy fan-troll things with my friends I've never done a HS-based game before so I'd welcome any advice you feel like giving :)

Spoiler: Click to Show/Hide

It seems to me that, being a game which is based on a metagaming game metagame game...I think I layered that correctly...This would be REALLY dependent on players 'making things happen' to some extent themselves. The GM handles overall plot-arch and feeds tidbits and secrets and whatever the hell is going on behind the scenes is probably their bailiwick, but it seems like the whole client/server nature of SBURB means that all the players are sort-of-co-GM-ing-each-other-kind-of. I may have that wrong. I have not read the whole thing, I think I may be about half way through? (Finished Part IV?) Also, we seem to have a mix of people who are near completely unfamliar, and people like me who are semi-familiar, and people who are REALLY INTO IT, and so I am just going to spoiler everything about the nature/content of the game, because now that I think about it, the whole prototyping deal and understanding how SBURB and Grist work would be amazing things for someone to learn about via roleplay. Although it seems like the way most people roleplay most player characters would probably die in meteor strikes in the first ten minutes of gametime. (I examine the blue rod carefully. What does it look/feel/smell/taste like?)

I understand! Mostly I'm concerned that we'll get people focusing on their character's title rather than the character them self. If you have a solid idea in mind for your character's personal arc and how a certain Role/Aspect/Land component would shape that I'd be happy to work something out with you :)
As long as you aren't proposing the Knight of Badassery in the Land of Flames and Testosterone or something we should be good :D

Spoiler: Click to Show/Hide

I still haven't finished Homestuck as mentioned before, but I don't see any real evidence of the characters getting to 'choose' their roles in the classic 'I will play the cleric.' mode. Although I suppose much of the symbology of their hobbies and whatnot get involved. So in theory I guess you can front-load a character with hobbies. (I saw 'scissorkind' on the strifedex list when Egbert first equips his hammer and it has totally occurred to me to app a paper-crafter hobbyist. <_< Because ohgod combat-scissors seem so silly and yet possible in outrageously tweakable ways.) But I don't really equate the characters' hobbies or anything so far with the 'Lands' as far as I can tell? And I'm not sure how one determine Knight or that kind of thing. So it seems not entirely unreasonable for that to be in the GM's hands based on how people play/act?

I think treating this as a cooperative RP in the context of semi-co-GMing each other via Client/Server and also some OOC discussion of 'How do you see your character growing?' is probably going to be the best way to lead to everyone's enjoyment.

That is totally just my two build-Grist though.

[CarnivalOfTheGoat]

Spoiler: Click to Show/Hide

I also suggest that there be a bunch of hidden NPC players (possibly client-servering each other in another loop or something?) Because that will (a) let new player characters be added when people drop out (they are part of some other group, last survivor perhaps?) (b) if I am understanding the prototyping thing right that will mean the endboss won't be as influenced by any single PC's prototyping (so it can't be prototyped with a bunch of weak/damaged things like the clown doll...Am I the only one seeing some weird Fisher King kind of stuff going on with that or is anyone else seeing that, too? I am just waiting for it to lose a leg somehow.) (c) provide a set of NPC foils who can be used to lure/knock the PCs out of dead-ends if we manage to get into them somehow (d) provide 'smart' minor enemies since it seems like only the PCs and Jack and maybe the Queens/Kings behave with any sort of planning or cleverness? Maybe I haven't read enough of it. Probably I haven't read enough of it. Oh well. Just a few ideas.

[Winds Of Lust]

Spoiler: Click to Show/Hide

I still haven't finished Homestuck as mentioned before, but I don't see any real evidence of the characters getting to 'choose' their roles in the classic 'I will play the cleric.' mode. Although I suppose much of the symbology of their hobbies and whatnot get involved. So in theory I guess you can front-load a character with hobbies. (I saw 'scissorkind' on the strifedex list when Egbert first equips his hammer and it has totally occurred to me to app a paper-crafter hobbyist. <_< Because ohgod combat-scissors seem so silly and yet possible in outrageously tweakable ways.) But I don't really equate the characters' hobbies or anything so far with the 'Lands' as far as I can tell? And I'm not sure how one determine Knight or that kind of thing. So it seems not entirely unreasonable for that to be in the GM's hands based on how people play/act?

Spoiler: Click to Show/Hide

That not exactly what I meant, I was not talking about our characters choosing there titles or lands, they have no choice over that in the comic either, they are given titles by the game that either "Suite them best" or "Will challenge them to grow", or so it has been speculated. I was talking about us as character creators assigning titles to our characters.

That and there are also Special roles that certain classes play; for instance with what we know about the game in general there must always be someones of "Time" and "Space" since they both have specific functions in the games larger goal. We have also seen that there is has not yet been people of the same class or elemental alignment in the same game ( so there never to Knights, likewise there is never a Page of Life and a Heir of Life )

By letting the GM choose the roles, it helps assure that these specific slots are filled and that no toes are stepped on by "Sorry sir/madam, but that class/title is already taken, please choose another.

anyhow, just my counter argument  to what you said, while I do agree with you to a certain extent, I can see why the GM wants control over this aspect ^^ Figured I'd put that out there

[CarnivalOfTheGoat]

Spoiler: Click to Show/Hide

That not exactly what I meant, I was not talking about our characters choosing there titles or lands, they have no choice over that in the comic either, they are given titles by the game that either "Suite them best" or "Will challenge them to grow", or so it has been speculated. I was talking about us as character creators assigning titles to our characters.

That and there are also Special roles that certain classes play; for instance with what we know about the game in general there must always be someones of "Time" and "Space" since they both have specific functions in the games larger goal. We have also seen that there is has not yet been people of the same class or elemental alignment in the same game ( so there never to Knights, likewise there is never a Page of Life and a Heir of Life )

By letting the GM choose the roles, it helps assure that these specific slots are filled and that no toes are stepped on by "Sorry sir/madam, but that class/title is already taken, please choose another.

anyhow, just my counter argument  to what you said, while I do agree with you to a certain extent, I can see why the GM wants control over this aspect ^^ Figured I'd put that out there

Spoiler: Click to Show/Hide

I don't really see that as a counter-argument, because as near as I can tell, we are agreeing with each other. I started out by saying "I don't see any real evidence of the characters getting to 'choose' their roles in the classic 'I will play the cleric.' mode." for a reason. That was meant to implicitly agree that such a thing was not in the player's purview.  I then theorized about front-loading a character with hobbies to influence SOME elements of what that character might do (specifically referring to weapons-choice) but that was a separate matter, and not connected to Lands. And what I was trying to say was that it didn't seem how that could determine anything like being a Knight. I then said it seems NOT UNreasonable (i.e., reasonable) for that to be in the GM's hands.

So apparently we agree with each other, but my writing and your reading skills weren't playing nice in the wee hours of the morning (I totally admit that 'is not entirely unreasonable' is way more obfuscated and irritating to parse than 'is entirely reasonable'.) The placement of that 'entirely' with the double-negative is just stupidity on my part.

I think I'm maybe just being fidgety with my statements because I'm a little hesitant to make sweeping 'Yes, X should be Y!' assertions, since I haven't read the whole thing. But yes, I DO think that it's probably best if Meliai handles such matters of 'big story'. My other comment about co-GMing in the client/server thing was not meant to be interpreted in the context of this comment about titles, lands, et al. but rather in terms of small-scale scene-setting stuff and the like. Moment-to-moment 'keeping everyone involved' so that Meliai could handle the big picture without having to devote time every update to detailing the contents of everyone's closets. :)

[Winds Of Lust]

Ah, so we agree then. Sorry for the misunderstanding, I should have read more carefully.

[who149]

Sweet. I'm a real big homestuck fan, and would love to join in on this.

It would be hard to do though, Given that if just one player drops out, the whole thing is ruined, and It would be really really complicated.

[CarnivalOfTheGoat]

Sweet. I'm a real big homestuck fan, and would love to join in on this.

It would be hard to do though, Given that if just one player drops out, the whole thing is ruined, and It would be really really complicated.

That's the sort of thing that can be an issue in any PbP, and actually, I'm pretty sure there are ways around it that would fit Homestuck. Some can be accomplished via setup (NPC groups of players who aren't directly connected as clients/servers to the PC group) others could be reactive (PC X with critical thingamajig Y that is utterly necessary for plan Z drops out of sight, something happens that makes it clear plan Z wasn't such a good idea anyway and that there is an alternative way to accomplish objective whatever).

[Winds Of Lust]

Is anyone else chomping at the bit for a the character sheet outline to be put up?

Sorry if I seem over eager or impatient, I was part of a very successful SBURB game on another forum, but  just as we got all 12 of our characters into the game the forum crashed or something and has been down for the past week with no word on what happened or if/when it will be fixed : /

[CarnivalOfTheGoat]

I was getting mildly irritated towards the middle-end of Act 5. You probably know the sequence I'm thinking of.

And then the finale hit. Oh my goodness. The level of badassery just flew from middling past epic and then completely off the charts. How did we get from effectively stick-figures with clip-art and 8-bit soundtracks to THIS?

I think the writer/artist levelled up.

And speaking of writer/artists...

Is anyone else chomping at the bit for a the character sheet outline to be put up?

Spoiler: Click to Show/Hide

> [D] Meliai, get ready to GM.

;D

[who149]

I actually pretty much have my character planned out. Me and my friends did try something of a roleplay once. Though, it was more or less an Private AU-Fiction just between us. I drew something for that a while ago.

Spoiler: Click to Show/Hide

I'll probably draw a more detailed version of him, as this was pretty much just a quick sketch, probably modify a some too, a bit of his appearance so he isn't looks a bit less like me, and his room too.

[Meliai]

People were, despite initially going OHWOW THIS IS AWESOME AN ACTUAL SYSTEM FOR RUNNING HOMESTUCK YAAAAAAY, everyone just sorta . .  punked out fast. Left me and the GM in an awkward position, is all. :(

Awww, yeah that would have sucked :-(
Unfortunately it's a fairly common scenario in group games, especially online. It's doubly the kiss of death in the early stages of something like Sburb, where someone dropping out before their character has Entered throws a wrench into the whole progression of the first part of the game. That's why I'd hoped to start with a decent number of players, so that if someone drops off the face of the internet or has to take leave from the game for a while there'd still be enough people to keep the plot going. Luckily since each Player has their own personal quests to complete someone vanishing for a while AFTER everyone's Entered shouldn't be too big of a deal.

Meh, I'll be fine, I don't have anything in mind at the moment besides things I used on previous human characters, But most of my Human Characters have sadly been after thoughts compared to my troll characters ( Which is weird, I like the humans more than I do the trolls yet I drift to the trolls for games. I blame the promise of some level of physic powers )

So This will be a good chance on my to focus and give some good attention to a human character. That and I'm all to eager to see what you'll come up with. I always love seeing peoples interpretations/spins/impute on things I do.

No no I understand what you mean. I think creating a Troll character just has some innate appeal since they're so different from what we encounter day to day. Also, as Ms. Goat said earlier, the horns are kind of adorable.

Depending on when you get this started, I may try to read my way through as much as I can of Homestuck, since I have finals next week and then I'll have the semester off to do what I want with my time.

Cool! :D Be forewarned though; it's an odd story told in an odd format, and it's ramble-y-ness and weird sense of humor put some people off. Sburb can still be super fun even if you don't end up liking the comic itself.

Spoiler: Click to Show/Hide

It seems to me that, being a game which is based on a metagaming game metagame game...I think I layered that correctly...This would be REALLY dependent on players 'making things happen' to some extent themselves. The GM handles overall plot-arch and feeds tidbits and secrets and whatever the hell is going on behind the scenes is probably their bailiwick, but it seems like the whole client/server nature of SBURB means that all the players are sort-of-co-GM-ing-each-other-kind-of. I may have that wrong. I have not read the whole thing, I think I may be about half way through? (Finished Part IV?) Also, we seem to have a mix of people who are near completely unfamliar, and people like me who are semi-familiar, and people who are REALLY INTO IT, and so I am just going to spoiler everything about the nature/content of the game, because now that I think about it, the whole prototyping deal and understanding how SBURB and Grist work would be amazing things for someone to learn about via roleplay. Although it seems like the way most people roleplay most player characters would probably die in meteor strikes in the first ten minutes of gametime. (I examine the blue rod carefully. What does it look/feel/smell/taste like?)

Yup, that's the ideal outcome, hense my stressing of the character-driven aspect in the OP ;D

Spoiler: Click to Show/Hide

My tentative plan is to use the Space player in the same sort of capacity Jade worked in for the first few acts; she knows a lot about the game, but extenuating circumstances prevent her from doing much more than making sure the other players are on the right track and not going to be meteror'd into oblivion. After everyone's Entered safely I'll mostly be handling the Exiles, Carapicians still in the incipisphere, and the Denizens. Things like Underlings, dialog with the Sprites and Cloud visions/Horrorterror whispers will probably be a mix of GM and player-driven.

I think treating this as a cooperative RP in the context of semi-co-GMing each other via Client/Server and also some OOC discussion of 'How do you see your character growing?' is probably going to be the best way to lead to everyone's enjoyment.

I sure do love me some strong character arcs mmmmmhmmm <3

Spoiler: Click to Show/Hide

I still haven't finished Homestuck as mentioned before, but I don't see any real evidence of the characters getting to 'choose' their roles in the classic 'I will play the cleric.' mode. Although I suppose much of the symbology of their hobbies and whatnot get involved. So in theory I guess you can front-load a character with hobbies. (I saw 'scissorkind' on the strifedex list when Egbert first equips his hammer and it has totally occurred to me to app a paper-crafter hobbyist. <_< Because ohgod combat-scissors seem so silly and yet possible in outrageously tweakable ways.) But I don't really equate the characters' hobbies or anything so far with the 'Lands' as far as I can tell? And I'm not sure how one determine Knight or that kind of thing. So it seems not entirely unreasonable for that to be in the GM's hands based on how people play/act?

Spoiler: Click to Show/Hide

That not exactly what I meant, I was not talking about our characters choosing there titles or lands, they have no choice over that in the comic either, they are given titles by the game that either "Suite them best" or "Will challenge them to grow", or so it has been speculated. I was talking about us as character creators assigning titles to our characters.

That and there are also Special roles that certain classes play; for instance with what we know about the game in general there must always be someones of "Time" and "Space" since they both have specific functions in the games larger goal. We have also seen that there is has not yet been people of the same class or elemental alignment in the same game ( so there never to Knights, likewise there is never a Page of Life and a Heir of Life )

By letting the GM choose the roles, it helps assure that these specific slots are filled and that no toes are stepped on by "Sorry sir/madam, but that class/title is already taken, please choose another.

Spoiler: Click to Show/Hide

I don't really see that as a counter-argument, because as near as I can tell, we are agreeing with each other. I started out by saying "I don't see any real evidence of the characters getting to 'choose' their roles in the classic 'I will play the cleric.' mode." for a reason. That was meant to implicitly agree that such a thing was not in the player's purview.  I then theorized about front-loading a character with hobbies to influence SOME elements of what that character might do (specifically referring to weapons-choice) but that was a separate matter, and not connected to Lands. And what I was trying to say was that it didn't seem how that could determine anything like being a Knight. I then said it seems NOT UNreasonable (i.e., reasonable) for that to be in the GM's hands.

So apparently we agree with each other, but my writing and your reading skills weren't playing nice in the wee hours of the morning (I totally admit that 'is not entirely unreasonable' is way more obfuscated and irritating to parse than 'is entirely reasonable'.) The placement of that 'entirely' with the double-negative is just stupidity on my part.

I think I'm maybe just being fidgety with my statements because I'm a little hesitant to make sweeping 'Yes, X should be Y!' assertions, since I haven't read the whole thing. But yes, I DO think that it's probably best if Meliai handles such matters of 'big story'. My other comment about co-GMing in the client/server thing was not meant to be interpreted in the context of this comment about titles, lands, et al. but rather in terms of small-scale scene-setting stuff and the like. Moment-to-moment 'keeping everyone involved' so that Meliai could handle the big picture without having to devote time every update to detailing the contents of everyone's closets. :)

Spoiler: Click to Show/Hide

Haha looks like this more or less got resolved while I was trying to get this frighteningly huge post sorted out, but I just wanted to say that the whole titles challenging/complimenting the players thing isn't speculation at all, Andrew confirmed that either on his old formspring account or somewhere on the official forums ages ago. Rose is probably the best example of both cases: the Seer role plays to her strengths where as the Light aspect is meant to challenge her. Apparently back in the early days of the comic a lot of people had assumed Jade was the Seer of Light and Rose was the Witch of Space.

While you can't pick your title, the nature of a player's powers isn't completely out of their hands. This is sort of a spoiler for act 6, but it's just a bit of meta stuff so I don't think it's going to hurt anyone to read it. Still, I'll put it under another spoiler tag just in case.

Spoiler: Click to Show/Hide

We're told by someone in Act 6 who seems to be pretty knowledgeable about the game that the powers each Class/Aspect combination acquires are very malleable and manifest differently for each individual player. A Knight of Time and a Knight of Blood will have very different sorts of powers, whereas two players with completely different roles and aspects might have similar powers depending on how the combinations work out. She also tells us powers can also develop differently than would be expected if the player deliberately works against their "destiny" though we really haven't seen an example of that yet (that we know of)

Spoiler: Click to Show/Hide

I also suggest that there be a bunch of hidden NPC players (possibly client-servering each other in another loop or something?) Because that will (a) let new player characters be added when people drop out (they are part of some other group, last survivor perhaps?) (b) if I am understanding the prototyping thing right that will mean the endboss won't be as influenced by any single PC's prototyping (so it can't be prototyped with a bunch of weak/damaged things like the clown doll...Am I the only one seeing some weird Fisher King kind of stuff going on with that or is anyone else seeing that, too? I am just waiting for it to lose a leg somehow.) (c) provide a set of NPC foils who can be used to lure/knock the PCs out of dead-ends if we manage to get into them somehow (d) provide 'smart' minor enemies since it seems like only the PCs and Jack and maybe the Queens/Kings behave with any sort of planning or cleverness? Maybe I haven't read enough of it. Probably I haven't read enough of it. Oh well. Just a few ideas.

Spoiler: Click to Show/Hide

Ah, that is an excellent idea! It'll require a bit of hand-waving in regards to things like how many orbs are on the queens' rings/kings' scepters, but once the number of prototypings start to get high up there the Kings and Queens are pretty monstrous and it's difficult to tell just what's going on with them anyway. We only ever see the Troll session royalty in silhouette but they're...big. And complicated.
As for Planning/Cleverness from the NPCs I think it's likely that there's normally a lot more of it than what we saw in the Chum's session; Jack got his hands on the Ring and started wrecking everything before they got very far into the game. We know that certain scenarios happen in every session, but the Players actions can greatly effect how they pan out. For instance in every normal session there is an instance of WV on the battlefield, and he sparks a joint rebellion against the kings. In the Chums session Jack came along and cut off the black king's head, but usually it would be the Player's intervention on one side or the other (or their apathy towards the whole thing) that determined the end result. In every session there's an instance of Jack Noir who works for the Black Queen, but usually he'd need the aid of the players to get out from under her thumb. We don't see a lot of examples of this sort of thing because of the nature of the two sessions we've seen in the comic, but I think it's safe to assume that there are a lot of these potential enemies and allies throughout the incipisphere, but who (if any) become significant depends completely on the players' actions. We learn a bit more about how sessions adapt to the players in Act V while we follow the Troll's game for a while but overall it's still pretty vague so I think we'll be safe adding in more NPC Agents and the like to suit our needs.
Can't really address the wounding prototypings because [Spoilers] but it'll be addressed in the comic when Jade enters :D

Aaaaaaww yeah look at them sweet arts! This is gonna be good :D
I'll have a character sheet and a little chunk of background up later tonight.

[Revenent]

I feel like I'm missing something important when half of the conversation is in spoiler boxes...

[Meliai]

I feel like I'm missing something important when half of the conversation is in spoiler boxes...

Wow that is a lot of spoiler boxes now that I look back at it...
I promise it's just fiddly technical aspects of how to best translate the game as it appears in the comic to a game suitable for a text-based RPG though, nothing mindblowingly interesting  :-)
If anything starts to get confusing just let me know and I'll get it straightened up.

If it'll make you feel better you can safely open the two spoilers in Who149 and CarnivalOfTheGoat's last posts, they just have character portraits in them.