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.

[Revenent]

I just started reading the comic, now, though I have the feeling it's going to take me a while to get anywhere. :-\

[Meliai]

Awww, no it'll be fine! To be honest two of the most difficult aspects to explain are the inventory system and all the weird machines the game puts in your house, both of which are explained early on in the comic. :-) You'll be totally fine and there's lots of people here who are at least passingly familiar with the comic who can help you out if things get confusing.

[Chrystal]

Okay, well I for one am already confruzzled.

I have to be honest here and say that I very rarely join group games that are in a canon (or is that cannon? I can never remember which) setting. For one, although I know a lot of stuff, it vary rarely ties up with what other people know. I've tried doing group games before in settings where, even though the characters are all OCs, the setting itself is based directly on a book, film or comic, and they just don't work for me.

I thought this was something that the average player didn't need to know about or have read the comics in question, but the more I see in this thread, the less I'm convinced of that.

May I make a suggestion?

Rather than trying to convert the comic into a game, why not create a "sandbox" environment based upon the world the comic is set in, post some rules for character creation - details of each species, their abilities, statistics parameters, appearance parameters, behaviour parameters and the like, create a character creation form, and let us get on with it?

[CarnivalOfTheGoat]

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

Sorry, Rev.  :'(

Would it help if I said that if you discover how this works 'in play' you may enjoy some just incredible eye-opening 'Oh WOW.' moments that we're trying to let happen for those people who haven't seen it yet?  ;)  :o

[Chrystal]

Sorry, Rev.  :'(

Would it help if I said that if you discover how this works 'in play' you may enjoy some just incredible eye-opening 'Oh WOW.' moments that we're trying to let happen for those people who haven't seen it yet?  ;)  :o

Another suggestion:

Meliai, you should appoint Carnival as your assistant GM, and discuss the plot and game mechanics via PM or even add each other on one of the various IM clients...? That way, anything that is actually going to "spoil" the plot doesn't get posted here, and you can limit the discussion to things that are relevant to all of us, then spring the surprises when we get there...

[CarnivalOfTheGoat]

Okay, well I for one am already confruzzled.

I have to be honest here and say that I very rarely join group games that are in a canon (or is that cannon? I can never remember which) setting. For one, although I know a lot of stuff, it vary rarely ties up with what other people know. I've tried doing group games before in settings where, even though the characters are all OCs, the setting itself is based directly on a book, film or comic, and they just don't work for me.

I thought this was something that the average player didn't need to know about or have read the comics in question, but the more I see in this thread, the less I'm convinced of that.

May I make a suggestion?

Rather than trying to convert the comic into a game, why not create a "sandbox" environment based upon the world the comic is set in, post some rules for character creation - details of each species, their abilities, statistics parameters, appearance parameters, behaviour parameters and the like, create a character creation form, and let us get on with it?

Chrystal,

I have had some awful times trying to join canon games I wasn't familiar with, but I think you will find this an exception because of certain peculiarities about its nature. You don't, totally don't, need to know any of this, because the canon characters start out knowing nothing, too. We're spoilering because, because there are these early-on revelation moments of 'OH MY GOD, REALITY WORKS HOW?!' which were really cool and awesome to read...And we don't want to 'ruin' those moments for people who haven't seen it...And therefore might get to experience those revelations firsthand, first-time, with their OCs.

Your OC doesn't need to fit some bizarre backgroundy thing, it will just be an ordinary person. That's part of the beauty of it. Ordinary people from an ordinary world thrown into extraordinary circumstances.

And those of us who know the extraordinary circumstances are trying to discuss how to make sure the game continues if people drop out or want to join...And we don't want to ruin those moments of surprise for you by going 'Well, after event X, it will be easier to justify Y.' and thus spilling the beans about X. Or Y. Our discussion is almost entirely about game continuity.

At the same time, there's so much room for variations that still fit into the canon framework that Meliai should be able to work around whatever situation arises with people dropping or wanting to add. At least that's how I feel about the continuity worries.

I think that whether or not someone knows anything about the comic, they will still be able to be surprised by the flexibility that exists, but I also think that it'd be uncool for us to blab about stuff that might be more fun for people who haven't seen it already to figure out by going through it in-character.

You know that moment in the original From Dusk til Dawn movie when it stops being a hard-boiled bank robbery movie and suddenly WHOA WAIT VAMPIRES!!!?! It's like that. Except that you didn't see all the commercials that gave away the surprise before you got to the theatre. :)

Species and characters will be average human beings in our average, normal, real, modern world setting. Or even possibly, if you want, exceptional human beings from our average, normal, real, modern world setting! It won't matter all that much if you bring in a college student or a commando, a cashier or a political candidate. You should play a character whose personality you enjoy! This is one of those modern/mythic settings where the player characters suddenly get to see what is behind the curtains of normalcy/banality.

Some spoiler-free examples from the character introductions of the canon. Hopefully they will help:
"Your name is JOHN. As was previously mentioned it is your BIRTHDAY. A number of CAKES are scattered about your room. You have a variety of INTERESTS. You have a passion for REALLY TERRIBLE MOVIES. You like to program computers but you are NOT VERY GOOD AT IT. You have a fondness for PARANORMAL LORE, and are an aspiring AMATEUR MAGICIAN. You also like to play GAMES sometimes."

"Your name is ROSE LALONDE. You have a variety of INTERESTS. You have a passion for RATHER OBSCURE LITERATURE. You enjoy creative writing and are SOMEWHAT SECRETIVE ABOUT IT. You have a fondness for the BESTIALLY STRANGE AND FICTITIOUS, and sometimes dabble in PSYCHOANALYSIS. You also like to KNIT, and your room is a BIT OF A MESS. And on occasion, if just the right one strikes your fancy, you like to play VIDEO GAMES with your friends. Due to a violent storm, your house has just lost power, along with your wireless internet connection, although your LAPTOP COMPUTER still functions on BATTERY POWER. This has severed your link to a POPULAR VIDEO GAME you were playing with a YOUNG MAN at a CRITICAL MOMENT. That young man is relying on you to reestablish a connection somehow."

"Your name is DAVE. It is an UNSEASONABLY WARM April day. Your BEDROOM WINDOW is open to let some air in, and your FAN is cranked. Arguably even more cranked would be your FLY BEATS, which brings us to your variety of INTERESTS. A cool dude like you is sure to have plenty. You have a penchant for spinning out UNBELIEVABLY ILL JAMS with your TURNTABLES AND MIXING GEAR. You like to rave about BANDS NO ONE'S EVER HEARD OF BUT YOU. You collect WEIRD DEAD THINGS PRESERVED IN VARIOUS WAYS. You are an AMATEUR PHOTOGRAPHER and operate your own MAKESHIFT DARKROOM. You maintain a number of IRONICALLY HUMOROUS BLOGS, WEBSITES, AND SOCIAL NETWORKING PROFILES. And if the inspiration strikes, you won't hesitate to drop some PHAT RHYMES on a mofo and REPRESENT."

"Your name is JADE. You have just woken from a restful nap, and as usual, you have no recollection of having fallen asleep. You have quite a number of INTERESTS. So many in fact, you have trouble keeping track of them all, even with an assortment of COLORFUL REMINDERS on your fingers to help you sort out everything on your mind. Nevertheless, when you spend time in your GARDEN ATRIUM, the only thing on your mind is your deep passion for HORTICULTURE."

Hopefully these examples will be helpful, and even reassuring. I have heard a few people talk about an RPG based on the comic, but I don't know that there is one (or a dozen fan-made variations) and I don't know if Meliai plans to use one if there is/are! I confess I don't think that it will matter that much, compared to the interaction and creativity which the players bring to the table.

Oh man that was a lot of text!

[CarnivalOfTheGoat]

Another suggestion:

Meliai, you should appoint Carnival as your assistant GM, and discuss the plot and game mechanics via PM or even add each other on one of the various IM clients...? That way, anything that is actually going to "spoil" the plot doesn't get posted here, and you can limit the discussion to things that are relevant to all of us, then spring the surprises when we get there...

Eeek. I appreciate the vote of confidence but there are others here who know it better than I do. I've only read maybe the first half or so? I'm just talky/chatty and have very little to do this afternoon. I apologize for the big wall of spoilers, earlier.

I think I'm going to step away from the computer and go for a bike ride while there's still good light so I'm not tempted to spam the forum more.

I'm an enthusiastic amateur, that's all!

[Meliai]

Alright, here's your skeleton profile! Replace the "black" in the color tags around "GIVEN NAME" and the character's screenname with whatever your character's associated color is.

{Character portraits are optional. If you
have one stickthe url between the img
tags at the top of the code block,
otherwise delete everything between
the floatright tags. Try and keep them
relatively tall and narrow so they
don't squish your bio. If you can't
resize/crop images yourself I can help
or you can stick a width=300 into the
opening img tag.}

GIVEN NAME (all caps please)

Full name:
Age: {18 - early 20s}
Gender:
Appearance: {Pictures are optional, but you need a written description either way. Players are normal humans and their appearance should reflect that, so no crazy anime hair colors unless they're the type to color their hair. The only exception here is eye color; Players' eye colors matches their associated color (see below) even if is not an eye color that normally occurs in nature.}

Screen name: {This is what your character goes by online. Screen names follow the pattern [lowercasewordUppercaseword] and usually reflect the interests and/or personality of the character. For example in the comic [tentacleTherepist] is a girl interested in amateur psychoanalysis and Cthulhu-esque edritch horrors, [ectoBiologist] likes cheesy movies (including but not limited to the Ghostbusters franchise) and paranormal lore, [gallowsCalibrator] is a big fan of JUSTICE (and subsequent hangings) and is associated with the Libra symbol}
Associated color: {Make sure this is something that isn't too light or bright to read, and try not to pick a color that's too similar to someone else's. Here's a big huge image with a ton of color codes. Alternately, you could pick one of the named web-safe colors if you don't think you'll be able to remember a hex code, but you'll have a much smaller pallet to choose from.. This is a terrible choice. So is this. This is much better!}
Associated symbol: {This should be something small and relatively simple. Here are the symbols of the kids from the comic (In ugly chunky pixel form) for reference.}
Strife Specibus: {This is the type of weapon your character uses! There are lots of normal, practical choices such as bladekind or hammerkind or shotgunkind, but odder things like ladlekind, wrenchkid, and broomkind are also options. You shouldn't have much trouble with a stranger specibus, so feel free to pick something unusually if it fits your character. Characters might gain additional weapon proficiencies later, but start with only one. Here's the big list from the comic, but feel free to make up a new one if you'd like. This can be basically anything, as long as your character could have conceivably come into possession of the proper "weapon" at some point (so no nuclearbombkind)}
Fetch Modus: {Players have an inventory system, like in many classical RPGs, that allows them to carry more/heavier objects than they would normally be capable of lugging around. Here's a brief description from the MSPA wiki because they worded it better than I can: "The Captchalogue Deck is where artifacts are stored to be used later. Artifacts of any size and shape are stored on Captchalogue Cards, and while stored, they have no physical size or weight (so while JOHN EGBERT is unable to actually use a SLEDGEHAMMER on his own, he is still able to carry it around in his Sylladex)"
Your Fetch Modus determines how you retrieve items from your inventory. The simplest fetch modus is the Array Modus, which lets you retrieve any item from any card at any time. If you haven't read Homestuck or just don't want to deal with one of the weirder Moduses (Modi?) just use the Array Modus}

Background: {All characters were only children & raised by a single guardian}

Personality:

Current residence:
Sexual orientation:
Strengths:
Weaknesses:
Notable hobbies:
Dislikes/Fears:

Code Select Expand

[float=right][img padding=8]http://dl.dropbox.com/u/74926886/Placeholder_McMannequin.jpg[/img][/float]
[font=courier][size=24pt][color=black][b]GIVEN NAME[/b][/color][/size][/font]

[b]Full name:[/b]
[b]Age:[/b]
[b]Gender:[/b]
[b]Appearance:[/b]

[b]Screen name:[/b] [color=black][b][lowercaseUppercase][/b][/color]
[b]Associated color:[/b]
[b]Associated symbol:[/b]
[b]Strife Specibus:[/b]
[b]Fetch Modus:[/b]

[b]Background:[/b]

[b]Personality:[/b]

[b]Current residence:[/b]
[b]Sexual Orientation:[/b]
[b]Strengths:[/b]
[b]Weaknesses:[/b]
[b]Notable hobbies:[/b]
[b]Likes:[/b]
[b]Dislikes:[/b]
[b]Fears:[/b]


A Bit of Background...

At some point within the last 8 years you were contacted over the internet by a girl going by the handle [restlessRusalka]. Her grasp on the English language was rather shaky in the early days so you never quite figured out how she got your contact information, but she seemed friendly and more or less harmless. She invited you to join an online forum called the Skain Scions BBS. It was rather small and the user base was eclectic but over the years you kept visiting, at least every once in a while. Not long ago RR posted a new thread gushing excitedly about some new game she'd gotten her hands on the beta files for and insisted that everyone should play together. The torrents she posted have been slow - she seems to live out in the wilderness or something and her internet connection is terrible - but after several days you finally have the programs (or will in an hour or three.)

All characters in the game are at least passingly familiar with each other, though they've probably only ever talked online. I'll get the OOC/Discussion thread up as soon as we get a few profiles so everyone can start working out what sort of relationships they have with each other going in.

[Revenent]

Only one question: how is Given Name different from Full Name as far as this character sheet goes?

[CarnivalOfTheGoat]

Because the full list is in ridiculsmall font, I have taken my best shot at interpreting it.
Spoilered NOT because it is a spoiler, but because it is SO tall since I am not entirely sure I understand how tables work.

Spoiler: Click to Show/Hide

pizzactrkind
batkind
rollpinkind
yoyokind
scissorkind
peprsprykind
chainsawkind
crowbarkind
broomkind
pokerkind
icepickkind
golfclubkind
hammerkind
ropekind?
shovelkind?
machetkind?
spoonkind
statuekind
spatulakind
scrwdrvrkind
bladekind
pistolkind
lampkind
stungunkind
ballkind
rakekind
plankkind
glovekind
forkkind
candlkind
curlironkind
chainkind
knifekind
tablelegkind
shotgunkind
needlekind
peprmillkind
dmbellkind
hckystckkind
vacuumkind
mapkind
trophykind
fncysntakind?
ladlekind
cordkind
ironkind
sawkind
cleaverkind
iceskatekind
wrenchkind
umbrellakind
plungerkind
hosekind
bookkind
bustkind
spadekind
pipekind
nailgunkind
hairdryrkind
lcrsstckkind
thrwstarkind
tongskind
razorkind
fireextkind
branchkind
bwlgpinkind
bombkind
woodwindkind
staplerkind
riflekind
candlstkkind
paddlekind
bowkind
barbwirekind
dartkind
marblekind
plierkind
fireworkkind
chiselkind
aerosolkind
shoekind
puppetkind
fankind
brasskind
rockkind
scythekind

Most of these should be pretty obvious, but a few (fncysntakind?) I have no idea about, and the batch right below hammerkind are 'best guess' because the cursor is on top of them.

Many of them appear rather silly. There's nothing wrong with that.

[who149]

JACK SELLEK

Full name: Jackson Sellek
Age: 18
Gender: Male
Appearance: A young male who loves has a secret passion for dressing up in suits, and will be often found over dressing in any given chance. He has short dark brown hair, pale skin, and purple eyes, which he never found odd for his brother shares a similar pigment. He can often be found with a dull look on him in most social situations, but is no stranger to a satisfied smirk when things go his way. Due to a accident with an iron on his 18th birthday, most of his white shirts now have an image of a dice in the middle, which he mostly hides with his jacket.

Screen name: [buisnessGamer]
Associated color:  Purple
Associated symbol: 20-sided Die
Strife Specibus: Bookkind

Fetch Modus: Dice Moduses (8 slots. When any object is picked up, it is put into one of the slots numbered 1-8. At any given time if an Item is to be used, an 8 sided die will be rolled, and whichever number shows, is the item that will be used. Should only be used by those who are extremely lucky, or have strange dice superstitions)

Background: Jack lived his entire life with his brother, in a New York apartment. While the two got along pretty well, over the years there friendly games that the had played had gradually turned into a vicious rivalry, to the point where items had begun to be gambled. It was a constant battle for how had the best Magic the Gathering deck, who could be who at chess, and games of Risk had come close to ending in blood shed. As a result, Jack had learned to be analytical, a person who thinks about his every move, and plays accordingly.

He found dressing in suits seemed to have raised his confidence, made like he should be taken seriously as he played his brother's mind games, and he had his first real Chess victory against his brother when he first wore his suit, so started his superstitious love of fancy dressing.

While Jack's brother introduced him to Tabletop games, he rarely plays those with him. Jack mostly plays games like D&D with people online, most of the time playing as the DM. Sharing his brothers love of Mind Games and control though, people either love his unsuspecting traps, difficult foes, and over the top Gambits, or much more often, find them infuriating. He himself still loves the game more then anything else really.

For a few years now, he had kept a  yellow Cockatiel named Sunshine as a pet, which he seems to talk to whenever he's bored. He is very attached to the bird, thinking of him as something of a best friend. Jack tends to discuss his various strategies he has against his foes with his bird, mostly to say them out loud without seeming too crazy. Talking strategy with his bird is just one of his many customs and superstitions.


He has been recently itching for a new game too play, and a friend on a forum he goes too had insisted he play some new game, which your pretty excited about. It had taken literally days to download, but it got here just in time, you kind of have a Job Interview this late afternoon and are pretty worried about it. A nice game will ease you right up.



Personality: Very contemplative young man, who plays Passive Aggressive mind games with his brother, and in extension, his friends too at times.  He has a habit of taking his games very seriously, and expects his foes to take it just as seriously most of the time. Besides being competitive, he is very superstitious, he takes strange very good care of his dice, wears suits whenever he feels a game is going to be challenging or he feels he needs an intellectual edge, and he stays away from ALL cats (They are the unluckiest animal in his opinion).

Current residence: New York Apartment
Sexual Orientation: Female-Male Preference: 75/25 %
Strengths: Intellectual, Good at games of thought, good with numbers.
Weaknesses:  Physically weak, Can be socially awkward, gets a bit too obsessed with his games.
Notable hobbies:  Games of Intellect and Strategy (Chess, D&D, Magic the Gathering, Risk, Turn Based Strategy video games). Collecting statues, action figures, Posters, and dolls of things he likes. Collecting Dice and keeping them safe and untouched until use. Drawing terrible fan-art.
Likes: Board Games, Tabletop Games, Cartoons (all of them), Suits, Books, Toys Collectible figures, the Internet, good art and animation, his pet Bird.
Dislikes: Cats, people who put no effort into there work, people who throw games, games of complete luck (Especially Candy-land), misused roman numerals, people who cheat.
Fears: Cats, Broken windows, heights, water, small spaces, the dark, large fish.

[who149]

Because the full list is in ridiculsmall font, I have taken my best shot at interpreting it.
Spoilered NOT because it is a spoiler, but because it is SO tall since I am not entirely sure I understand how tables work.

Spoiler: Click to Show/Hide

pizzactrkind
batkind
rollpinkind
yoyokind
scissorkind
peprsprykind
chainsawkind
crowbarkind
broomkind
pokerkind
icepickkind
golfclubkind
hammerkind
ropekind?
shovelkind?
machetkind?
spoonkind
statuekind
spatulakind
scrwdrvrkind
bladekind
pistolkind
lampkind
stungunkind
ballkind
rakekind
plankkind
glovekind
forkkind
candlkind
curlironkind
chainkind
knifekind
tablelegkind
shotgunkind
needlekind
peprmillkind
dmbellkind
hckystckkind
vacuumkind
mapkind
trophykind
fncysntakind?
ladlekind
cordkind
ironkind
sawkind
cleaverkind
iceskatekind
wrenchkind
umbrellakind
plungerkind
hosekind
bookkind
bustkind
spadekind
pipekind
nailgunkind
hairdryrkind
lcrsstckkind
thrwstarkind
tongskind
razorkind
fireextkind
branchkind
bwlgpinkind
bombkind
woodwindkind
staplerkind
riflekind
candlstkkind
paddlekind
bowkind
barbwirekind
dartkind
marblekind
plierkind
fireworkkind
chiselkind
aerosolkind
shoekind
puppetkind
fankind
brasskind
rockkind
scythekind

Most of these should be pretty obvious, but a few (fncysntakind?) I have no idea about, and the batch right below hammerkind are 'best guess' because the cursor is on top of them.

Many of them appear rather silly. There's nothing wrong with that.

Fancy Santa Kind.


In my opinion, the duedliest weapon there is.

I'm warning you about them Santa's bro, I'm warning you dog.

[Chrystal]

Is there an unkind?

Just kidding.

Okay, I'm going to give this a shot, because I'm intrigued and because I don't want to loose touch with the only other persoin I've ever met who actually used the phrase "On the Gripping Hand"...

I do have a serious question though:

What sort of character pics are you expecting (other than tall and thin)? Art work? Photos? If you want original art, then I'm going to respectfully submit a picture of my character wearing a white suit with her face painted white out walking during a blizzard!

Also, do you specifically want PG15 safe pics or are you going to create a thread to post them in, or should we PM them to you?



Carni, table code works like this:

Code Select Expand


[table]
[tr][td]pizzactrkind[/td][td]batkind[/td][td]rollpinkind[/td][td]yoyokind[/td][td]scissorkind[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]peprsprykind[/td][td]chainsawkind[/td][td]crowbarkind[/td][td]broomkind[/td][td]pokerkind[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]icepickkind[/td][td]golfclubkind[/td][td]hammerkind[/td][td]ropekind?[/td][td]shovelkind?[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]machetkind?[/td][td]spoonkind[/td][td]statuekind[/td][td]spatulakind[/td][td]scrwdrvrkind[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]bladekind[/td][td]pistolkind[/td][td]lampkind[/td][td]stungunkind[/td][td]ballkind[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]rakekind[/td][td]plankkind[/td][td]glovekind[/td][td]forkkind[/td][td]candlkind[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]curlironkind[/td][td]chainkind[/td][td]knifekind[/td][td]tablelegkind[/td][td]shotgunkind[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]needlekind[/td][td]peprmillkind[/td][td]dmbellkind[/td][td]hckystckkind[/td][td]vacuumkind[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]mapkind[/td][td]trophykind[/td][td]fncysntakind?[/td][td]ladlekind[/td][td]cordkind[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]ironkind[/td][td]sawkind[/td][td]cleaverkind[/td][td]iceskatekind[/td][td]wrenchkind[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]umbrellakind[/td][td]plungerkind[/td][td]hosekind[/td][td]bookkind[/td][td]bustkind[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]spadekind[/td][td]pipekind[/td][td]nailgunkind[/td][td]hairdryrkind[/td][td]lcrsstckkind[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]thrwstarkind[/td][td]tongskind[/td][td]razorkind[/td][td]fireextkind[/td][td]branchkind[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]bwlgpinkind[/td][td]bombkind[/td][td]woodwindkind[/td][td]staplerkind[/td][td]riflekind[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]candlstkkind[/td][td]paddlekind[/td][td]bowkind[/td][td]barbwirekind[/td][td]dartkind[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]marblekind[/td][td]plierkind[/td][td]fireworkkind[/td][td]chiselkind[/td][td]aerosolkind[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]shoekind[/td][td]puppetkind[/td][td]fankind[/td][td]brasskind[/td][td]rockkind[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]scythekind[/td][td][/td][td][/td][td][/td][td][/td][/tr]
[/table]


What it looks like

pizzactrkind	batkind	rollpinkind	yoyokind	scissorkind
peprsprykind	chainsawkind	crowbarkind	broomkind	pokerkind
icepickkind	golfclubkind	hammerkind	ropekind?	shovelkind?
machetkind?	spoonkind	statuekind	spatulakind	scrwdrvrkind
bladekind	pistolkind	lampkind	stungunkind	ballkind
rakekind	plankkind	glovekind	forkkind	candlkind
curlironkind	chainkind	knifekind	tablelegkind	shotgunkind
needlekind	peprmillkind	dmbellkind	hckystckkind	vacuumkind
mapkind	trophykind	fncysntakind?	ladlekind	cordkind
ironkind	sawkind	cleaverkind	iceskatekind	wrenchkind
umbrellakind	plungerkind	hosekind	bookkind	bustkind
spadekind	pipekind	nailgunkind	hairdryrkind	lcrsstckkind
thrwstarkind	tongskind	razorkind	fireextkind	branchkind
bwlgpinkind	bombkind	woodwindkind	staplerkind	riflekind
candlstkkind	paddlekind	bowkind	barbwirekind	dartkind
marblekind	plierkind	fireworkkind	chiselkind	aerosolkind
shoekind	puppetkind	fankind	brasskind	rockkind
scythekind

[Revenent]

So I got to the part at the beginning where it shows you Egbert's game collection, says how he's logged hundreds of hours into them, and lets you play a few as branch-off comics.

I didn't know I would actually be logging hundreds of hours into them, too. These things are so long it's absurd.

[who149]

So I got to the part at the beginning where it shows you Egbert's game collection, says how he's logged hundreds of hours into them, and lets you play a few as branch-off comics.

I didn't know I would actually be logging hundreds of hours into them, too. These things are so long it's absurd.

yeah, listen, for the sake of time ignore those for now. Problem Sleuth is a good read, but its pretty time consuming. It was the authors first real comic on the site. (If you don't count Jail Break and Bard Quest, just flat out ignore those unless your REALLY bored)

There won't be a lot of knowledge you really need right off the bat I guess, the first Act or so should give a pretty good understanding of how the game will start, but the universe in Homestuck works in a weird way, which will be apparent as you read.

Take your time and try your best to analyze the information,  You should get all the info you really need to know off the bat before the RP starts.

[CarnivalOfTheGoat]

LILY

Full name:  Lillian O'Connell
Age: 19
Gender: Female
Appearance: Lily is a slightly tall and gawky girl at 5'7. Her curly hair is a distinctly natural red shaded a bit towards strawberry blonde and her eyes are sea-green. She has the sort of pale skin one might expect to go with it. She likes to wear old dress coats over otherwise casual (jeans/t-shirt/sneakers) garb. Lily doesn't wear makeup unless she has to. Under certain circumstances she wears elaborate Elizabethan, Victorian or Edwardian costumes and sometimes cross-dresses (because bowlers, fancy vests, jackboots and swallow tail officer's coats should be for everybody.

Screen name: [maskedSeamstress]
Associated color: Seagreen
Associated symbol:
Strife Specibus: Scissorkind

(14.5" bladed shears are skeery.)

Fetch Modus: Logical Vector Structure: Each vector is distinguished by characteristic(s) and boolean operators, and contains a FIFO queue. Some of her current vectors are =Hat, =Mask, =Costume, =Sewing, =Prop, =Book, and =Other.

Background: LILY lives in a mid-size house outside of GRAND RAPIDS. She is a costumer and sometimes plays bit parts for a local AMATEUR THEATRE COMPANY, and is also very into HISTORICAL RE-ENACTMENT, especially VICTORIAN and EDWARDIAN DANCE and HIGH TEA. Her closet is one-quarter full of NORMAL CASUAL CLOTHING, one-quarter full of MISSING THEATRE PROPS and the rest is CLOTHING THAT HASN'T BEEN STYLISH FOR A CENTURY OR SO. She has a large collection of MASKS, VIZARDS and ARCHAIC HATS. She also has a small collection of TEAPOTS. She also has far too many scraps and bolts of cloth and bits of lace and ribbon, but thinks of these as SUPPLIES rather than a COLLECTION, offerings to be made on the altar of her beat-up USED SEWING MACHINE. Because costuming is such an expensive hobby, her other hobby is papercraft, or as she calls it in her snootier moments, KIRIGAMI, because origami is so passe'. Because of her interest in KIRIGAMI and COSTUMING she has a diverse array of all sorts of SCISSORS scattered around her room. Her pet ferret SNOWBALL spends most of his time avoiding SCISSORS while stalking DUST BUNNIES among the scattered piles of CLOTH and COSTUMERY. She has had to learn some simple programming, mostly for websites and spreadsheets, due to work on her BACHELOR'S DEGREE in THEATER ARTS, which promises to be useless, even if the programming is likely one of the more useful skills she has accumulated from it, and sometimes plays MULTIPLAYER ONLINE GAMES. She still lives with her MOTHER who BREEDS RARE ORCHIDS and who constantly tries to turn the house into a STEAMY TROPICAL BOTANICAL GARDEN. It is exceedingly difficult to iron SEAMS for SEWING in a STEAMY TROPICAL BOTANICAL GARDEN.

Personality: Dashing Escapist hidden inside Shy Daydreamer. While she can totally chew the scenery in a ROLE with a COSTUME and a MASK she's much less confident in day-to-day life. If she could wander around town with a definite known ROLE and the mysterious vizard and accompany flamboyant costume, she could be entirely extroverted and ebullient, but in the rather unfriendly seeming modern world where she's never quite sure what she's supposed to be doing in large public gatherings she tends to become a wallflower.

Current residence: 3 bedroom house in a relatively pleasant suburb of Grand Rapids, Michigan
Sexual Orientation: Bi
Strengths: Crafting, performance, dance. Fine manipulation. Poise. Balance.
Weaknesses: Hostile or overly fluid social situations, endurance, math, plants.
Notable hobbies: Collecting masks, costuming, re-enactment, sewing, papercraft, High Tea, killing plants.
Likes: Elaborate dress, snobbish social re-enactment, high and low fantasy novels, small fluffy cute things. Gothic and orchestral music.
Dislikes: Drabness. Hard work that isn't creative. Rain. Competitive sports. Modern art and fashion. Plants.
Fears: Heights, awkward social situations, bugs (especially spiders), deep water.

[Chrystal]

Okay, well, I tried...

I got as far as the modus thingy and gave up.

Perhaps if you could make that simpler?

[who149]

The Modus is basically just the inventory system.

The comic this is based off of, is essentially a parody of video game cliche's, and that having inventory systems, and the shenanigans that go with it, are just an average day to day thing people in this world have to deal with.

For you, I'd just say Array.
Its simple and lacks any sort of shenanigans.

[CarnivalOfTheGoat]

Okay, well, I tried...

I got as far as the modus thingy and gave up.

Perhaps if you could make that simpler?

I second the choice of Array. Array means you can grab whatever you like, whenever you like it.

This is a computer-geek running joke, kind of, with one of the characters who has a Queue inventory. So every time they pick up an item, it goes onto the top of a sort of stack...And they drop the item at the bottom of the stack.

Except it isn't dropped so much as it is forcibly ejected in the direction they are facing.

Usually at high velocity, pointy-end first. This character can't even drop all their inventory at once...At best they pick up 'trash' items until all their 'useful' items are on the floor, then pick them up again in the order they want them to come out (thus ejecting all the 'trash' items).

Another character uses a 'Tree' which branches in different directions, which is all kinds of fun until she removes the trunk...And everything falls out of her inventory, all at once.

Another one uses a hash which organizes their inventory into slots based on the alphanumeric value of the name they are stored under. Which results in the character having to come up with increasingly silly names to avoid stowing things in slots which are already in use.

It's sort of a silly way of showing how STUPID certain data structures would be if the real world really worked the way the guts of a computer game did. <_< If that helps at all. It's only funny for about five or ten pages of the (5000+ page) comic, so not really THAT big a part of the game.

Take 'Array'. ;) It's simplest. It means you can put anything into any open slot in your inventory, and take out anything you want at any time no matter what slot it is in.

[CarnivalOfTheGoat]

Strife Specibus: Bookkind

Wow.

"Throwing the book" at someone just got a whole lot nastier.

[Chrystal]

OOOOOH I get it now!

*Closet computer geek*

I'm now contemplating how to translate a hashed random file structure into this....

Each item in the structure has a key entry in an index table which gives the address in the file of the record, and the address of the key within the index is calculated from the bit value of that index.

Wait, you already said that one....

Hmm... Relational storage, where only certain items are keyed and each item is placed in a relationship with one or more others... and you have to go via the keyed items to get to the non-keyed ones.

Would that work?

[CarnivalOfTheGoat]

OOOOOH I get it now!

*Closet computer geek*

I'm now contemplating how to translate a hashed random file structure into this....

Each item in the structure has a key entry in an index table which gives the address in the file of the record, and the address of the key within the index is calculated from the bit value of that index.

Wait, you already said that one....

Hmm... Relational storage, where only certain items are keyed and each item is placed in a relationship with one or more others... and you have to go via the keyed items to get to the non-keyed ones.

Would that work?

If you can describe the rules of HOW it would work, then you can have it work, even if it isn't REALLY strictly speaking a 'proper' computer data structure.

As you have probably figured out from some of the back and forth, the idea of SBURB is kind of (a little, at first, before things REALLY go sideways) based on the idea of 'what if you discovered that the world was a video game and you were a character in that video game?'

So the Fetch Modus is 'How stupidly abstruse is it to try to code inventory systems?'

The one I threw in for Lily was kind of a 'Yes, I get the joke here, let me go reductio in absurdum on it.' It sorts things by type IF it has a queue for that type using Boolean (+, -, >, <, =) operators if she has a Vector that the picked up thing matches. So if she picks up an 'Attractive Carnival Mask' it would go under '=Mask' (and if she was carrying too many Masks it would drop the oldest previous newest one (I forgot I had specified FIFO)).

Horrible, horrible programmer jokes. I promise that is the last of them. The rest of the comic is about adventure and the idea of worlds within worlds within worlds. It doesn't rely on abstruse hacker in-jokes once you get past the syllabus.

Here, first introduction to Fetch Modus syllabi:
http://mspaintadventures.com/?s=6&p=001907
http://mspaintadventures.com/?s=6&p=001909
http://mspaintadventures.com/?s=6&p=001910
http://mspaintadventures.com/?s=6&p=001913
http://mspaintadventures.com/?s=6&p=001914
http://mspaintadventures.com/?s=6&p=001915
http://mspaintadventures.com/?s=6&p=001917

Another player's example:
http://mspaintadventures.com/?s=6&p=002126

The only times Fetch Moduses are anything except a throwaway joke are when the ejection feature is used as a weapon, and when one character experiments with a Jenga-based Fetch Modus, and another one has trouble with their Pictionary Fetch modus properly recognizing their hurried attempts to draw the object they want to retrieve.

[Chrystal]

Okay, I have it now. I will try not to think of something original between now and tomorrow night... *winks*

[CarnivalOfTheGoat]

Trying to render complex character ideas in Hussie's style when one has no cartooning experience is haaaaaard!!!

Bother. Webcoloration or some other damn thing ate the secondary and tertiary shading greys on her hands and on the scissors.

Oh well!

I'll have to remember to plan for that next time.

[Winds Of Lust]

Working on my character and a paper and studying for one of my last tests of this semester so I will hope to have Him up by the end of the night.

And darn you Carnival, I was going to do scissors! Though I may pitch a weapon you could possible find/make later in the game, if your interested in hearing it that is.

Well I guess I am going to have to choose between Yoyokind, Stickkind, and lcrsstckkind ( lacrosse stick kind )

decisions decisions....

[who149]

Wow.

"Throwing the book" at someone just got a whole lot nastier.

Indeed, of course I'm not going to start with that. That seems more like a mid-level book. He'll probably start with something like the "D&D Monster Manuel". And his ultimate weapon is probably going to be something like "Complete Guide to SBURB" Now THAT will be a big book.

EDIT: Or this will do

Working on my character and a paper and studying for one of my last tests of this semester so I will hope to have Him up by the end of the night.

And darn you Carnival, I was going to do scissors! Though I may pitch a weapon you could possible find/make later in the game, if your interested in hearing it that is.

Well I guess I am going to have to choose between Yoyokind, Stickkind, and lcrsstckkind ( lacrosse stick kind )

decisions decisions....

I would go with Yo-Yo kind personally.

[Revenent]

Working on my character now. He's going to be a Dogkind, so I'm really looking forward to weapon progression for that one.

[Meliai]

Aaaaah Lily and Jack are both great! ;D
Also, thanks so much for helping Crystal understand the inventory nonsense

Only one question: how is Given Name different from Full Name as far as this character sheet goes?

Basically just whatever your characer is most commonly referred. It could be his first name or a nick name or whatever.

What sort of character pics are you expecting (other than tall and thin)? Art work? Photos? If you want original art, then I'm going to respectfully submit a picture of my character wearing a white suit with her face painted white out walking during a blizzard!

Also, do you specifically want PG15 safe pics or are you going to create a thread to post them in, or should we PM them to you?

Haha, no art skills required here :P
Photos and illustrations are both fine, but completely optional like I said. A regular portrait would probably be more appropriate than something steamy since sex won't be a big focus of the game, but we're all adults here so if that's what works best for your character that's fine too.
Profiles should go here for now. I'm actually looking into using the Wiki to host bios and setting information but if I can't get that figured out I'll toss up a reference sheet thread along with the OOC.

Working on my character now. He's going to be a Dogkind, so I'm really looking forward to weapon progression for that one.

Haha, THAT is going to lead to some very odd "weapons" (Like dogs with bees in their mouths so when they bark they shoot bees at you?) but I look forward to seeing how you use it ;D

[who149]

Haha, no art skills required here :P
Photos and illustrations are both fine, but completely optional like I said. A regular portrait would probably be more appropriate than something steamy since sex won't be a big focus of the game, but we're all adults here so if that's what works best for your character that's fine too.

_{(No Effort was done in the making of this)}

[CarnivalOfTheGoat]

And darn you Carnival, I was going to do scissors! Though I may pitch a weapon you could possible find/make later in the game, if your interested in hearing it that is.

Sorry. I hope it doesn't mess with your character concept, too much!  :( I'd said on the first page, pretty early...

"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."

Not a 'called it,' just a 'Didn't mean to be a surprise?' Or, oh, dammit, that was in a spoiler, wasn't it. T_T Okay. Well, sorry about that!

We could get a themed trio with rock and paper! Rock could get some pretty amazing weapons...

Spoiler: Click to Show/Hide

during the meteor bombardment phase,

I bet...Paper is a little harder to think about. Combat origami specialist?

Haha, THAT is going to lead to some very odd "weapons" (Like dogs with bees in their mouths so when they bark they shoot bees at you?) but I look forward to seeing how you use it ;D

"Whoa. Is that a St. Bernard? It's huge."
"Yeah, but it only shoots chihuahuas."
"..."
"Fifty at once. Rabid fire."

[Revenent]

Sorry for taking so long, I was having trouble deciding on several things. Here's a to-be-completed version until I get back from my last Organic Chemistry lecture for the semester. No pic yet, unless I draw one later.

Marty

Full name: Martin Storstrand
Age: 19
Gender: Male
Appearance: A tall, thin boy, about 5'11" and 150 pounds, with short blonde hair that he brushes to the right, a single strip of it dyed light blue. Wears thin-framed glasses over his green eyes, and usually dresses in warm colors (red or orange shirt with yellow shorts, mostly). When it's cold out, likes the look of a long, black coat, even though very few other people like the look of it. Smooth but slightly pale complexion from spending a lot of time indoors.

Screen name: [soundHound]
Associated color: Red
Associated symbol:

Strife Specibus: Dogkind



Fetch Modus: Wave Modus - Items in the Sylladex alternate in High Amp, Low Amp settings, each new item Captchlogued pushing all previous items into the alternate state (the newest item starts at High Amp). Only High Amp cards can be used at any time. When the Sylladex is full and the user tries to add a new card, instead of the last one being removed, the Low Amp card with the earliest alphabetical placement is removed, and then all cards before it move into place.

Background: Born in Norway, Martin was brought over to America by his father at a very young age, after his mother passed away and his father went to America to explore new career opportunities there. Since he didn't even reach school age before coming to the new country, very little is foreign about Martin other than his name, something that puts him at constant cultural odds with his father. Growing up, Martin indeed had very little closeness with his father, though this could more be accounted for how busy his father was at work.

On top of this, his father's love for fragile Russian nesting dolls meant he could not allow Martin to have a pet dog, which was the one thing he wanted the most, as a dog would easily break any of the dozens of dolls his father kept around the house. All of this put together meant Martin was extremely satisfied when he reached the age to go off to college, though it took quite a lot of reasoning to convince his father to rent a house for him rather than make him live in a dorm, where they wouldn't allow pets.

In his new little ranch house, Martin set up a sound studio to start creating less shitty music in and immediately rescued two dogs from the shelter; an old Rottweiler named Brutus and a feisty West Highland terrier named Nikolai. So began his new reign of terror on the Skain Scions BBS forum, where hardly a day passed without him posting a thread with some new sample track he composed or "funny" stories about and/or pictures of his dogs. Thankfully, though, he's nice enough that most people find him more likable than annoying, so he manages to get invited to online games from time to time.

Personality: While not exactly a social butterfly, Martin does better than most Internetaholics at talking to new people, though only if the appreciate at least one of his two favorite subjects. He really isn't a fan of stat-based games, preferring things that let him be open or creative, but as long as he has friends to play with, he can enjoy just about any game. To his friends, he's an exceedingly nice and sacrificing kind of guy, meaning he can be taken advantage of, although he does have his limits.

Current residence: Two-bedroom tenant house near Michigan State University.
Sexual Orientation: Hasn't tried either, but will give either a try.
Strengths: Good at earning the trust of animals. Can make okay music, but is much better at remembering important tunes and the like. Fairly good at making desserts.
Weaknesses: Making music that anyone would qualify as "really good." Gets too caught up in his hobbies to make it to class or do work. Very little forward planning skill, so putting him in charge of building could be a disaster.
Notable hobbies: Writing and synthesizing music (especially dubstep), studying and/or caring for animals, reading urban myths and horror stories, sharing his music online, pastries.
Likes: Animals (especially dogs, snakes, scorpions, octopi, and rabbits), dubstep, people who like animals and dubstep, classes that don't acquire much attendance or work, cakes and pies, playing cards, chances to apply his hobbies, games that are creative and wide-open instead of focused.
Dislikes: People who hate animals and dubstep, popular music artists, people who ask for too much and give too little, boring courses like math and economics, board games that move you along a single path, people who take games too seriously.
Fears: Birds, large fires, alcohol poisoning, losing his precious laptop and/or Internet.

[Chrystal]

I'm sorry. This is too much like hard work.

I am a bear of very little brain, and I'm afraid that, as much as I would love to take part, I would just end up floundering and getting lost. Sorry guys.

[Revenent]

Finished. Wish I could have found a better symbol and fleshed out some stuff a bit more, but I think I got to the point for now.

And I'm sorry to hear that, Chrystal. I wish you would stay, since it's not all that bad beyond the inventory system.

[Chrystal]

I probably would, if there were anyone else in the game who didn't know what was going on, and had the default inventory, and didn't have a hand-drawn character pic of their own making.

There is nothing worse than being "the poor relation".

[Revenent]

I don't have a character pic, I've only read the first act of the comic, and you can basically just do whatever you want for inventory, though. Just try to make it match your character somewhat (then again, it doesn't even have to).

And for the record, you'd probably do better than me, since I have absolutely no idea how Carnival's character's Modus works, even after carefully reading through it a few times.

[Chrystal]

Okay, well, in that case I will submit a partial character sheet and ask for help with the bits I am struggling with.

Incidentally, I actually have a good idea for a fetch modus, but there are other bits I'm struggling with.

I think I will have to work on it a bit at a time...

[Winds Of Lust]

I will not have a character picture either, I neither have the tech nor the talent for such a thing.

And I actually may end up going with the basic fetch system, but mostly because I am having trouble coming up with something clever <.<

[CarnivalOfTheGoat]

I will not have a character picture either, I neither have the tech nor the talent for such a thing.

And I actually may end up going with the basic fetch system, but mostly because I am having trouble coming up with something clever <.<

Because of the focus on this, I feel obliged to point out to anyone who is worrying about 'not having something special' that in a purely Meta context, what we're talking about amounts to 'How does my inventory system inconvenience and irritate my character.' with an available default option of 'It doesn't.'

It's inviting opportunities for humor/sudden obstacles at the expense of additional bookkeeping (having to actually TRACK how your inventory is handling items you acquire...Which might be tedious).

[who149]

I have to agree with goat here. Don't worry so much about the inventory system stuff. The comic itself more or less dropped it, save every now and then for the sake of comedy.

Really the important thing is the character themselves, Which is 1000x more important then any small gimmick.

And if things get a tiny bit confusing at times, don't worry too much about it, being confused about things is just part of the experience, and something you will no doubt share with your character.   ;D 

[SargentToughie]

Interested! Even though I know 0.1% about the source material!

I guess, according to the most recent post, that being confused is all part of the experience, so this should be rather interesting... Where exactly should I start? Are there any basic ground rules that I should know before I accidentally create a character that breaks the rules of the universe that this RP is set in?

[who149]

Interested! Even though I know 0.1% about the source material!

I guess, according to the most recent post, that being confused is all part of the experience, so this should be rather interesting... Where exactly should I start? Are there any basic ground rules that I should know before I accidentally create a character that breaks the rules of the universe that this RP is set in?

Breaking the rules of the universe is the other half of the experience  ;D

Kidding aside, there isn't a lot you need to worry about. Your pretty much an average 18-20 year old. You can live anywhere in the world, it really does not matter. Your an only child, with a single guardian (Comic has John and his Dad, Rose and her Mom, Dave and his Bro, and Jade and her Grandpa).

The Fetch Modus, while it seems complicated, isn't really something that is all that important to the story. its used for a few jokes and too add some flavor,  but in especially dramatic moments, its really best to ignore it.

Other then that, your pretty free I think. You know the rest of us online, in some manner.  So just pretend your making any average adult teen, and take it from there. The majority of the fun comes after we all start playing anyway.

[Winds Of Lust]

Leo Rewood

Full name: Leonardo Redwood, Leo to his friends
Age: 19
Gender: Male
Appearance: Leo is 5 foot 5 with an lean build, His skin has a nice tan to it from a lot of time out in the Austin sun, His hair is a dark brown, straight, and about the length of his shoulders. It's often combed back and held in place by his favorite hat . He is normally wearing a dark orange t-shirt with a black jacket-hoodie on or tied around his waist ( more often than not around the waist ) and a well used pair of faded blue jeans. Wears black skaters shoes and black fingerless gloves, as is the style of hard core yoyo tricksters.

Screen name: [ artisticTwister]
Associated color: Orange
Associated symbol: Fucking Spirals Man  
Strife Specibus: Yoyokind
Fetch Modus: Abstraction Modus. The items you capturelog are filled away in your "portfolio" and stored as "ABSTRACT RENDITIONS" of the item. The pictures are so abstract that even for an artist such as yourself you have trouble telling what exactly your grabbing, to use the item you have to name what the painting is of accurately. ( If this is unacceptable let me know and I'll change it to the default modus )

Background: Leo grew up happily in the wild city of Austin, Texas. City of hippies, music, bars, and artists. He grew up with his cousin, she is something of a local musician and owner a bar that is also their home. He admires his Cousin who often plays rock music with her band on the stage inside the bar. She was the one who inspired his love of the arts, though he found he had no musical talent what so ever he eventually found he had a love for the arts and has been practicing for quite some time.

Leo has always had sort of a daredevil in him and it has gotten him into trouble more than once. Most notable would be the time he went to the great bat bridge with his cousin. While his cousin was distracted by a street performance, the young Leo was growing impatient with the massive horde of bats that were supposed to fly out at any moment and decided he was going to try and wake them up, He climbed over the railing to the side of the bridge to get a look at them. He slipped and ended up hanging for dear life off the side of the bridge, his helps for help stirred the 1.5 million bats to take off in a big black swarm that  practically engulfed him for a few terrifying moments before his cousin pulled him back up. While he never lost that recklessness he did end up developing a deep fear of the bats and the dark.

Leo has yet to go to collage, he fully intends to at some point, but he doesn't see the rush. He has plenty to do to keep him occupied like street perforating with his yoyo's, doing abstract paintings, working multiple part time jobs, mostly ones delivery and odd jobs; His favorite being as a volunteer stray catcher. more often than not he'll take a stray dog or cat home to live with him for a while before finding an owner for them.

Personality: Some people would describe Leo as a HIPPY, and while it's not untrue it's not actually entirely accurate. He is a bit of a...let's say FREE SPIRIT? Growing up in AUSTIN TEXAS influenced him in various ways, making him a what can only be called an "AUSTIN ART BOY", which simply means in tastes are eclectic at best. He has a rather RELAXED OUTLOOK ON LIFE and is something of a HOPELESS OPTIMISTS. Though one of the reasons for all this optimism is due optimist comes from being OVERRCONFIDENT in his abilities. While he is not a violent person he LOVES METAL MUSIC for the EPICNESS and PASSION it has. He is very friendly, and somewhat TOUCHY-FEELY, but doesn't always realize he's making people uncomfortable till they tell him. He has an obsession with SPIRALS and SPIRALING PATTERNS.

Current residence: Leo and his cousin live in a 3 story building where the bottom floor is a bar and the upper 2 floors function as their home.
Sexual Orientation: Bi
Strengths: Quick with his hands and light on his feet with a impressive amount of stamina
Weaknesses: tends to overestimate his abilities, is no stronger than your average man, and has a crippling  fear of the dark.
Notable hobbies: playing with yoyo's, street performing with his paintings and yoyo tricks on weekends, drawing and painting abstractions, Health food.
Likes: Bright colors, flashy art, spinning things, Loud music, his pet pug: Doodles   
Dislikes: White chocolate, the dark, things that are to monochromatic, Smooth Jazz
Fears:Bats, unclosed spaces, being smothered.

[Chrystal]

Okay, I am reverting to type and using a photo. *pokes tongue out at anyone who objects*

PHINE

Full name: Josephine Hawksman
Age: 19
Gender: F
Appearance: Phine has shoulder length brown hair and brown eyes. Her face has a slightly far-Eastern appearance in spite of her having no known ancestors from that part of the world. She is 5'2" tall, weighs 113 lbs. She tends to dress comfortably rather than fashionably, usually wearing jeans and either tee shirts, hoodies or tank-tops.

Screen name: [musicofMaths]
Associated colour: Chocolate
Associated symbol:

Strife Specibus: Woodwindkind - Plays a lethal Saxophone...

This isn't really what I had in mind, but we can discuss that later

Fetch Modus: Fibonacci Sequence.

The captchalogue has an infinite number of levels, as follows:

1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 144...

Each number is calculated by adding the the two previous numbers together.

The top level (1a) is where an item that is Captchalogued goes when it is picked up. This is a temporary holding location and the item never stays there. Instead it drops down to the LOWEST level where it and the items below it will COMPLETELY FILL that level.

Example: The modus is completely empty and an item is picked up. It will drop into level 1b. The second item picked up will drop BOTH items into level 2. The third item will drop all three items into level 3. The fourth item, however will remain in level 1b until a fifth item is Captcha'ed at which point all FIVE items drop into level 5.

Removing an item from a level causes all items in that level to move up, to the lowest levels that they can completely fill.

Example: The Captchalogue contains 8 items in level 8. An item is removed. The remaining seven items are expelled from level 8 and five of them move to level 5 while the remaining two move to level 2. Which item goes where is random or at the choice of the GM...

The rule is, a level may only be completely full, never partially full.

Items may only be retrieved from the topmost level with any items in it. This means that, to retrieve one of the lower five items in the above example it is easiest to pick up an eighth item - even if it is just a rock, to drop everything into level 8, in order to take the item desired.

Background: Phine was raised in England by staunchly CofE parents. She herself has more or less rejected their religion. In school, she discovered a flair for Maths, a liking for jazz, and a dislike for boys. Exploring this, she realised that she was gay. Her parents were horrified when she told them, but slowly came to realise that there was nothing they could do about it. Her father still hopes that she will "grow out of this silly phase", but her mother has more-or-less accepted her daughter's orientation.

As part of her school curriculum, Phine needed to take a musical instrument. To be awkward, she chose the Alto Saxophone, only to learn that it was almost the same as the clarinet. However, her love of Jazz caused her to keep up with the instrument until she became rather good. However her first love is Mathematics.

Phine is currently at Teacher Training College, where she is hoping to qualify as a mathematics teacher.

Personality: Phine is actually quite shy. She spends far too much time chatting with girls on-line, and was shocked to discover that a lot of the girls in chat rooms who claim to be lesbians Were actually men or boys! Her shyness comes across in her dealings with people she meets in real life, but on-line she feels more confident. Her one hope is to meet a woman on-line who actually IS a woman, who is gay, and who lives near enough to actually meet up.

Current residence: Student lodgings, Brighton, West Sussex, England
Sexual Orientation: Lesbian
Strengths: Very intelligent, good with numbers, very loyal to those who earn her trust
Weaknesses: Not good with people, can be gullible, tends to sulk if things dont go her way
Notable hobbies: Playing the Alto Sax, collects Charlie Parker memorabilia, likes to do integral calculus for fun!
Likes: Numbers, maths, girls, computers, Jazz, The Original Bird, playing the sax, KFC, fish and chips, chocolate.
Dislikes: Pizza Hut, pop music, punk, boys - especially pushy boys, homophobes, smokers.
Fears: Dying of cancer, date rape drugs, heights.



Yay! I did it!

[CarnivalOfTheGoat]

Interested! Even though I know 0.1% about the source material!

I guess, according to the most recent post, that being confused is all part of the experience, so this should be rather interesting... Where exactly should I start? Are there any basic ground rules that I should know before I accidentally create a character that breaks the rules of the universe that this RP is set in?

Just to add to what Who said, when you create your 18-20 year old, I strongly suggest you work from the middle of the character sheet out towards the top and bottom: think up a personality and background you will have fun with, attach some hobbies you think can be used to do crazy things, THEN worry about finding a symbol that fits them, picking a color, and a screen-name based on their hobbies or interests.

The GM will be creating a sandbox that has a lot to do with the hobbies, likes, dislikes and fears of the characters, so do NOT worry about whether or not something will be 'relevant' or 'useful'. Your strife sylladex should also probably have something to do with one of your hobbies. If you decide your character is going to be sillyputtykind, then sooner or later Meliai will have to think up some kind of epic, hyper-powerful silly-putty that your character might quest for. There's nothing WRONG with having a character who is a fencing nut with a sword collection and a bladekind strife sylladex. There's a character like that in the comic, also another who is riflekind.  But there are lots of silly possibilities, too, so if that appeals to you, try playing with them! There will be opportunities to change or add to your strife sylladex later with other weaponkind.

The fetch-modus can also say something about your character (I.E., a musician who uses a fetch modus based on musical notation, or a cook whose fetch modus is based on recipes) or it can be a bland array (which in a way says something, too. It says 'I have better things to do than dick around with my fetch modus').  So again, I'd recommend picking your fetch modus later after you have a good idea of who your character is and what they might find amusing to use!

[CarnivalOfTheGoat]

Oooooh. A fractal spiral symbol AND a golden spiral/golden section!

The geometry here just ascended to the next level.

Okay, let's see...

CAST IN ORDER OF APPEARANCE:

Jack Sellek	businessGamer	Bookkind
Lily	maskedSeamstress	Scissorkind
Marty	soundHound	Dogkind
Leo Redwood	artisticTwister	Yoyokind
Phine	musicofMaths	Woodwindkind

So far!

To quote the late, great Colonel Sassacre:

"Now we are cooking with petrol!"

[Chrystal]

Fibonacci spiral! :D

Not quite sure how my Fetch Modus idea will work with what you just PMed me about cards, though. I may have to do a re-think...

[Meliai]

And everyone continues to look great! :D

Two small issues:

Winds: In the first paragraph of your bio you mention a sister who plays in a band; is that a third character or was it suppose to be Leo's cousin again?

Chrystal: Oriental, when used to describe people, is considered outdated and kind of offensive. It's not a slur, but it's sort of like calling a black person "Negro" - there's nothing inherently wrong with the word but it's heavily associated with an era where people were very bigoted and it still carries a lot of the connotations it held back then, so you might want to change that to Asian.
Captcha decks can't technically be infinite, but the cards themselves don't seem to be too valuable so I don't have a problem with Phine just having a fuckton of them

[who149]

I feel this is an Amazing cast of Characters so far ^^

I really can't wait to see how all these characters interact with each other.  Should be interesting to say the least.

How many people do we need to get this started? Would 5 be enough? Or should we have a good even number?

[Chrystal]

Uh... oookay. Asian to me means Indian, Pakistani or Bangladeshi. What we have here is a culture clash. Oriental simply means "Someone from the Orient" - literally, "Easterner".

Negro is technically offensive in English because of the way it was mispronounced, but it is the Spanish for "Black". Would a black person take offence at being called negro by a Spaniard speaking Spanish?

(As an aside, Arnold Alois Schwarzenegger has an interesting surname in that it translates roughly into English as Blackblacker...)

However, easy-going dyke that I am, I shall edit for you....

[Chrystal]

Oooooh. A fractal spiral symbol AND a golden spiral/golden section!

The geometry here just ascended to the next level.

Okay, let's see...

CAST IN ORDER OF APPEARANCE:

Jack Sellek	businessGamer	Bookkind
Lily	maskedSeamstress	Scissorkind
Marty	soundHound	Dogkind
Leo Redwood	artisticTwister	Yoyokind
Phine	musicofMaths	Woodwindkind

So far!

To quote the late, great Colonel Sassacre:

"Now we are cooking with petrol!"

Someone's been practising their tables...

Edit made. I've changed it to "far-Eastern", which is a geographical term that is non-emotive.

[Meliai]

Ah, I wondered if it might be a cultural difference since you're from the UK! In America "Asia" is generally used to refer to China/Japan/the Koreas/Mongolia, where as India, Bangladesh, and all that lot are "South Asia." Pakistan varies depending on which other countries your referring to along with it but I think in this context it would be South Asian as well.

Negro and the "mispronunciation" are two distinct words here and the issue is a lot more complicated than you're making it out to be, but that's a whole 'nother deeply, deeply depressing conversation that's not terribly relevant to this thread.

Thanks for the edit :-)

Five players should be plenty to get us started so I'll start getting things set up tomorrow. Tonight's my roommate's birthday so we're heading downtown with friends, how terrible my hangover is tomorrow will probably be the deciding factor on whether I get things kicked off tomorrow or Monday. It's a bit difficult to post from my phone but I do have internet access and will try and remember to check a few times through out the evening, so feel free to post here or PM me if you have any urgent questions.

For now, I've got the OOC thread up right over here, so feel free to start working out relationships and whatnot or just chatting.

[Winds Of Lust]

Ah that was a small error on my part, she is his cousin not his sister, spent a lot of time working on this late at night in-between final studies and paper writing. I will correct that

[Chrystal]

Interesting fact: There are a lot more named web colours than you might think:

gold (which is not orange or yellow)
fuchsia (as against purple or pink)
maroon
chocolate (is not brown)
silver is different from grey
Odly, it is even possible to use white but only if you shaddow with a dark colour: White with black glow.

The thing to do is to try the name of a colour in the [ color = name ] tag, and click preview. If it works you will see the colour, if it doesn't the text will stay black.

Some colours, like Fuchsia and Magenta, are in fact the same, so worth testing them.

[SargentToughie]

Alright everybody, here's what I got so far when it comes to my character. There are a few things that are subject to change and I'm sure that I'm going to tweak it like crazy to suit my needs, but for the most part this is what you can expect as far as my character's personality/appearance in the RP.

Annie

Full name: Annabelle Frost
Age: 18
Gender: Female
Appearance: Annabelle stands at about 5' 5'', fairly average height if just a little bit on the short side. She has rather short orange hair that doesn't go past her shoulders and a matching shade of eye color that compliments it surprisingly well. She can often be seen wearing incredibly cute clothing that has a tendency to put the form she's so proud of on display without ever getting too vulgar about it, and will have a frequent tendency to dress up as a favorite character from a movie/show that she watched recently when the mood is right for it. One thing that she makes sure to do for all of her favorite shirts is have her 'wing' engraved on the front, which costs surprisingly less then one might expect when you're a returning customer like Annie.

Screen name: [ArchangelSarrah]
Associated color: Deep Sky blue
Associated symbol:

Strife Specibus: Featherkind (Might become Wingkind later, depending on how I want to take it, and what works the best. I'll go into further detail later.)
Fetch Modus: Array (subject to change)

Background: Annabelle (Annie to anybody who addresses her on a daily basis) was born and raised with absolutely know knowledge whatsoever of who her blood parents were. While this bothered her when she was younger, it was eventually something that she learned to tolerate and even accept by the time she was in her early teens. She had Grandpa Watson, a very kind old man who adopted her when she was about 7, and that was all that she needed to be happy and content at home. However, due to the fact that she was incredibly shy growing up and didn't make a whole lot of friends, she spent an incredible amount of her free time when she got home on the computer, chatting with friends half a country away and getting away from the world where she was picked on for her less then social hobbies and her (back then) very unimpressive and unappealing physique. In her preteens she was a scrawny girl, neglected for more 'desirable' girls who matured faster then she did. It resulted in her shunning her peers, and going home to a world where her physical appearance didn't matter, where she could pretend to be anything she wanted. Of course, due to Annie having her heart stolen by a hit TV show that she watched at an early age, her absolute favorite thing to imagine herself as was an angel of justice, smiting evildoers and doing generally heroic things... Most of the time she accomplished this through lame self-insert fanfiction and other short stories.

She carried on like this for her preteen years, and she was as content as she could be. However, right before she started attending high school, there was about a year long period where something magical happened to Annie. She became hot; almost direct, living proof about the rumors concerning late bloomers. Naturally, this meant that as soon as she was given a new set of peers and a clean slate when she and her "Grandpa" moved, she was almost instantly put on a pedestal and fawned over. Anybody else would have taken this to their heads and lost their minds as a result, however, Annie spent most of her early years hating the people around her, so she ended up thinking along the lines of 'these people are skin deep, F**k them'. This did end up going away after a few years, though by that point most of the guys knew that it was a lost cause trying to just pick her up for a single night of fun before moving on. By the time she got to Senior year, she only had a scarce few relationships, and none of them got particularly far. In some ways she considered herself blessed because of that, as she saw many of her classmates lose their way and make some pretty dumb mistakes during single nights of passion or because they met their 'soul mate' and dropped out of her class.

Even with her newfound social acceptance though, Annie remained a dork at heart, often writing lame stories about angels of justice, quoting internet memes in every day conversation, letting slip that she's a budding otaku, and always... ALWAYS... going home to her second life with all of her internet friends who didn't care about her real life problems or bother her the way that real life people did. As far as relationships went, no matter how childish she told herself it seemed, she kept on waiting for that ultimate fantasy where a hero would sweep her off her feet, woo her, and carry her off to a lifetime of happiness somewhere far, far away. Sure, she's fully aware that real relationships don't work that way, but the fantasy isn't going anywhere any time soon.

Current residence: A 2 floor house where she lives with her adopted Grandfather. (technically Dad, but the age difference between them is so great that she calls him Grandpa)

Sexual Orientation: Mostly straight, but she has started to get kinda curious recently.

Strengths: Incredibly committed to her goals and passionate about them, incredibly open hearted and playful to anybody she meets at first, often energetic and cheery, even if the people around her are upset. When she's got a goal that she believes in and can get behind, she will end up putting her all into it and giving it an incredible mount of effort and passion.

Weaknesses: ...Incredibly headstrong and stubborn, can often come off as an airhead if somebody doesn't take time to get to know her. She does let her mind wander from time to time, and when she gets bored she has an incredibly difficult time focusing on one set thing, as her mind often wanders and thinks about things that are far more interesting and exciting then what she's currently dealing with.

Notable hobbies: Anime, writing corny short stories (often about angels), reading (both regular novels and manga), cooking (she's a shockingly good cook), tending to her kitten, video games, bargain hunting.

Likes: Just about anything that comes out of Japan, her pet kitten (or anything cute and fuzzy, for that matter), angels, sweet foods, fun and energetic people, seeing or experiencing new things

Dislikes: demons, bitter foods, people who are too depressing, or rude for no reason, sad endings to any form of media, overly aggressive guys hitting on her, anything that gets tedious or repetitive. 

Fears: large and tightly paced crowds, snakes, airplanes, clowns.

[Meliai]

Aside from what I mentioned in the PM you're looking good so far (but don't forget you need a written description even if you have a character portrait.)

My one suggestion would be the reconsider her associated color; silver's not too bad on the lighter background posts but on the darker blue/grey it's quite hard to read.

[Chrystal]

Try putting a black glow behind the silver?

[Meliai]

As a graphic designer that would make me weep QnQ

[Chrystal]

Lol. Sorry.

You can get some interesting effects though.... FIRE, for example!

And the glow or shadow tabs do enable lighter colours to be made to work, but I agree that they are ill-advised.

Always worth clicking the <Preview> button and checking what your post will look like. (Especially if you're messing about with a complex table structure!)

[CarnivalOfTheGoat]

Other than what has already been mentioned, looks good, Toughie!

[SargentToughie]

Alright, so I tossed in a brief physical description and me and Mel are talking about her weapon style through PM. Any suggestions as to what color that I could give her? I was thinking gold at first, but I already saw two of the 'yellow-ish' colors in the lineup, so that would just get repetitive.

[who149]

Her affinity with wings seem to be perfect for a Cyan color, sky and all that.

[Chrystal]

Cyan is a little light. sky blue is too. Teal, maybe?

[Revenent]

If you're going for blues, dodger blue could work. Or deep sky blue. I don't know how those look against the lighter post backgrounds, though. Royal blue might be the best.

EDIT: None of them look too bad, actually.

[Chrystal]

OOH, I like Deep Sky Blue. aquamarine? Oh no. way too light. azure? EEP! invisible! Of course there's always plain old blue... Navy? Or how about dark blue? Hmm, they are the same.

[SargentToughie]

Deep sky blue seems to work for her.

I'll go with that.

[CarnivalOfTheGoat]

Do we have anyone else still working on characters who needs help? I'm pretty sure we're not at our max character limit...

Latooni, are you still interested? Haven't heard from you in a bit.

[who149]

I think 6 is enough, It'll be nice to have more people, but we can do with 6.

Plus I don't think anybody new is going to show up anytime soon.

[Chrystal]

You never know, they might....

We just have to keep the thread up near the top...

[Revenent]

Let's just make it our main OOC thread so it's always on the first page.  ::)