Wordmaker

Final details:

Sorry I'm late, got stuck in traffic.

The rooms for tonight's mission are as follows:

#COH_WORDMAKER

#COH_WORDMAKER_OOC

I'm in there now, and Jen should be there soon too.

Fixed

Okay, for tonight, I'm hoping to get started sometime around 7, if that's possible for everyone. Just a few details:

Log on to Random EU Undernet for the server.

I -have- to get this done in one night, because of RL commitments, etc. So, if a player takes too long to respond to something or say what they're doing, I'll have something bad happen to their character. Not "death" bad, but definitely severe injury/put out of commission bad. Sorry, but I've no idea how long this may take, so I need to get it done.

Also, at about half eleven, if it looks like the encounter isn't near completion, I'll make something really big and bad happen, since what Riegan is doing isn't all smiles and roses, and will have definite consequences.

Any questions?

And I still need stats from everyone else...

Well, since I had to get the song lyrics listening to the song over and over, I'm sure I got something wrong.

What? That's it? All I get is a smiley? Bad Birdy! And at Christmas, too...

"It's the last night on Earth, before the great divide,
My hands are shaking, time was, never on our side,
There's no such thing as a beautiful goodbye,
As an ordinary day, I've prayed for you a thousand times,

It's never enough, no matter how many times
I try to tell you this is love,

And if tomorrow never comes, I wat you to know right now,
That I'm gonna love you until the day I die,
And if tomorrow falls asleep, can you hold me fast,
I'm gonna love you like it's the last night on Earth."
-Delta Goodrem, Last Night on Earth

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The thick smell of straw and horses woke Richard. For a moment, he saw the sun stroking wooden beams over his head, and her golden curls lying across his chest, rising and falling with his breath.

Of course, it was not real. No more real than a fleeting memory. But one he had seen many times before, as tangible and vibrant as it had been, a hundred years ago. Another lifetime. He rose from the bed, finding his clothes in the dark with ease. As he buttoned his shirt, he glanced back to where Bevery lay, still sleeping, the fallen blanket exposing the pale skin of her back. Her hair, a vibrant red in this lifetime, tumbled over her shoulders. Richard leaned over to draw the blanket over her, tenderly drawing some loose strands away from her face before leaning in to kiss her cheek. The smell of her hair and perfume invaded his senses, and again he was back in the loft of her father's stable, locked in her embrace. She barely seventeen, he a young man of twenty five. Their inhibitions and doubts cast aside by whiskey and desire.

Only a few hours before, he'd told her he was going up against Riegan. An old enemy he had faced over and over again, in a myriad of incarnations. It sometimes seemed to be a karmic joke on the part of Destiny that Richard would meet so many enemies time and again, always on opposing sides. He'd warned her, that he might not come back after the Solstice. If he didn't, she was to get her mother and her sister, and get out of the city. Richard had lost to Riegan before, lost loved ones to him, watched them suffer...

Putting on his hat, Richard took one look back at the woman he loved, a woman he'd searched for in the lifetimes since they'd been husband and wife. "I'll be back, Bevery. If not, I'll find you again, next time around...I promise."

Very, very nice, Birdy! I love Jason's character. And he's so very smooth!

Disappointed, at her wanting to tag along, or that she basically covered herself up?

Eeep, by "here" I meant Ireland....

Yep, looks fine. I'll need you to tell me exactly what effect you're trying to achieve with the Kheldian powers on a case by case basis.

Here, most roleplayers I know are guys, and would never play a [censored] or female character.

Then again, I've never played a female character as a PC, usually because I simply enjoy playing men more than women.

What Ravenswing and Gideon are to men playing women, Z is to women playing men. She can do it all!

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for a brief alt one bigendered,

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Who was that??

Yep, Gideon's -really- good at it, too. I honestly thought Sara's player was a woman for months.

I've been GMing for nearly ten years, I've had to roleplay romantic relationships, face to face, with guys because I was playing the female NPC their character was in love with.

It's surprisingly easy to get right, if you pay attention to people's behaviour.

Heck, I've even played a character who I only realised -during- the campaign was bisexual.

That said, men playing women online are surprisingly easy to spot. I think the best I've seen so far is Ravenswing.

No, this is happening out of game, using an IRC program, though it is part of events happening at the GG meets every night on Union.

You too.

Personally, and this will probably be my last post, too, because I don't know as much as others about the setting, and because so much is open to (mis)interpretation, and we have to accept that Dr. Vahzilok will -always- be in that sewer, I try to keep my characters and plots as seperate as possible from the game world's villains.

I find this to be more entertaining, taking a small amount of inspiration from the game's background, but for the most part, working from my own imagination. It also frees me up to have any kind of character and plot I want.

Differences of opinion, yes. Differences in RP style.

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The thing is, the world doesn't state you can't be a Martial Artist as well, just that you can't show it in your gameplay. Sameway, Weez would be going into complete shivers everytime he was in a Crey Chamber and lobbing huge bolts around as soon as he was out in the Parks.

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But you're doing exactly what Ravenswing, myself, and others, do right there. The setting and game as presented in the mechanics doesn't fully accommodate you, so you change it, or add to it, or leave parts out. It's the same thing.

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Just don't see a need to fight against the game. If it's too repetitive in certain areas, don't dwell on it. There's more out there to explore. We rejigged an entire mission around someone's undefined origin before; had a great time.

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I never said we "fight" against the game. We just have to work around it sometimes. Under yout own admission, you've done the same thing as us, changing how you view certain elements IC.

And, there really isn't all that much more to explore, you know. There's only so many story arcs. Only so many times the Unity Virus can be cured, only so many times Terra Volta can be saved "in the nick of time" if you fail the respec. The missions are for the most part, the same stuff all over again. Nothing can change that. The plotlines are linear, and completely unalterable, nothing you do in game terms actually matters, even if you RP it fully, because even when you "fail" a mission, someone else saves the day instead.

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Oh, I never ignore material, I just find the right place to put it. It's all good; just needs to be in the right area.

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We'll chalk that one up to creative differences, then. I can think of quite a lot of stuff that just does not work, even in terms of the story arcs and missions you get in CoH. Things that make you say "why am I doing this?" Protecting a cosmetics company that performs animal testing, a number of my characters wouldn't do that. Destroying a Crey clone lab, with all the clones and anyone else inside left to die. So much for my character's code against killing, huh?

Weasel, at this point, you've contradicted yourself a couple of times. You've said you RP everything as you find it, but admitted to changing things about your character or the world. You've also painted a rather poor picture of your character, who took part in attempts to physically harm and drive off Lusca, yet now feels sorry that it is left alone, by itself? Does he think the Lusca enjoys being attacked? Does he feel any sympathy for the people who are (supposedly) being killed by its rampage?

Good idea, I'll need documents open for my NPCs, anyway. If I get a chance I'll pre-write some flavour text,

Oh, and people wishing to take part should go to www.mirc.com and download mIRC, it's a free IRC program.

I'll be using it to run the adventure/mission thing, since it'll be easier to look up stats for everything than if I have to alt-tab out of CoH.

Yes, this means I won't be in-game Wednesday at all. This is my first time running something over IRC, I won't be able to switch between the two.

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As for Fly; You need to accept certain axioms for fly to work; but these axioms are then overturned by in-game occurences; so the suspension of disbelief is collapsed twice. (E.G. Caltrops affecting you)

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Yeah, caltrops affecting someone who isn't touching the ground... not a fan of that

I'm with you on the Vahzilok thing as well; I tend to call it a Virus as the Doc is a Tech MM controlling Magic Minions. So I'm sure there's a perfect reason for a robot, a mermaid, an energy being, or a golem to have a 'Virus' planted in them.

Eh...not quite how I understand it. As far as I knew, he was always pure Science, at least for anything that isn't an Eidolon.

I dunno. That's the thing about this game. It tells you one thing is true, then presents you with evidence to the contrary. The villains in CoH clearly do not adhere to Origins, Enhancements, ATs, or powersets, so I see no reason why we, the players, should have our characters adhere to them when we roleplay.

Hence why my TA/Archery Defender is also an accomplished martial artist, swordsman, and mage. I picked the bow sets because they're fun.

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I tend to keep my own alts separate, and I find arcs come about at different enough times to let each character shine with a slightly different re-telling of the story.

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This isn't even to do with my alts. I usually keep them seperate too. When I was talking about hearing how other characters had done the same thing that my characters had, I was referring to other players I roleplay with.

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I just don't like this idea of ignoring material; sticks in my throat as a writer

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Funnily enough, as a writer myself I've found it's often more important to know what you -should- ignore and leave out than include.

I should point out, I'm not a fan of doing missions IC, really. Aside from the problems of repetition, it's very difficult to roleplay properly in a situation where talking means you're risking your life, and it makes missions take an increasingly long amount of time, which is fine for short missions, but you can never know how long a mission is going to take until you're about halfway through and realise "Oh <insert deity of choice here>, we've at least another hour of this to go!"

And, just so I have a place where all the stats are together in one spot for easy reference:

White Warlock

Stats
Strength: Fair
Agility: Fair
Stamina: Good
Perception: Great
Mind: Superb
Willpower: Superb

Skills
Biology (specialisation; genetics): Good
Spellcraft (specialisations; illusions/weather control): Superb
Knowledge - Supernatural events and occurences (specialisation; magic): Great
Knowledge - Criminal groups of Paragon (specialisation; magic users): Good

Powers and misc resources
Localised weather control: temperature/airflow manipulation
Magic: Does what it says on the tin - mainly illusion magic but has access to a wide variety of other spells
Knowledge resource: Library of the British mage's council.

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But that's the crux of the argument Wordy. You, I or Ravenswing could rationalise anything happening against one of the 'rules' put down in game; therefore why not rationalise to work 'within' the game?

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Because doing so allows us more time to come up with our own plots instead of re-hashing why we're trying to retrieve all the pieces of the Wheel of Destruction for the sixth time?

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Fly still works with it's own set of physics; but the physics in this game don't support how fly is supposed to work within the game. That's why it's there as an example.

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But it's an example completely unrelated to the discussion.

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What you are doing though is looking at things from a 'Wordmaker' PoV, rather than a character PoV.
How does your character know that everyone in Paragon has had the Vahzilok Virus? Maybe your contact did know, but knew you'd be able to get rid of it, perhaps for his own reasons.

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Actually, my characters have seen and heard of several people contracting the Vahzilok disease, or talking about how to cure it. Even when I RPed that Nevermore had it, I ruled that it was a variant strain, and was actually injected -into- him by one of Vahzilok's servants.

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If your characters a robot, perhaps he's only faking the disease to get closer to Doctor Vahzilok. Perhaps he has organic components? Perhaps, as the Dr. Zombies are cyber-organic, it affects metal as well?

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I already pointed out that the example robot didn't have organic components. And how exactly can a disease affect metal? Chemicals, physical damage, that affects metal. And diseases that cause physical damage tend to cause excrutiating pain.

(point: I'm not sure if we should be calling it a disease, really. Is virus a better word? I'm honestly curious, I always get it mixed up)

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I'm not saying that I don't accept you find it enjoyable to ignore chunks of the game. I'm just a little curious to find out why, when there are seprate plot threads there waiting to happen.

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Yes, there are many opportunities to use what's in the game. But not enough to keep up variety among a group larger than about five people. I think that's one of the key things for me, variety. I want my hero's actions to be unique, his victories to be personal. If everyone else and their puppy has beaten Dr. Vahzilok, my character's victory is lessened, because it's not special anymore.

Okay, as an example of what I'm looking for, here's how Memory looks when built with the Fudge rules:

Memory:

Strength: Good
Agility: Great
Stamina: Good
Perception: Great
Mind: Superb
Willpower: Superb

Skills:
Archery: Great
Occult Knowledge: Superb
History: Superb
Martial Arts: Good
Sword: Great
Spellcasting: Great

Gifts/Powers:
Athena's Wisdom: remembers past lives of himself and others.
Enchanted Arrows: alchemically-enchanted arrows can create a variety of effects to hinder foes, such as nets, being encased in ice, blinding flashes, sticky substances, grappling lines, etc.
Magic: Illusions (all senses), ritual effects, and some quickfire battle magic.

Gear:
Bow, arrows
Sword
Kevlar jacket.
Magical components

You choice of phrasing indicated you were calling into question how I could state that certain things call for too much suspension of disbelief in a setting where a person can fly. And you said it in a manner I found to be patronising. If that wasn't your intent, I apologise.

Powers do not, however, manifest in different ways. Why should a perfectly natural hero glow when they use Martial Arts or Super Reflexes? Are you also saying if you saw Nevermore using Superjump, IC, you wouldn't accept that I roleplay that as using a grappling line? That's working around the power, ruling that it's something which it is not.

With the amount of firepower available in Paragon City, lusca should be sushi by now. End of story. I can't think of any character I've met who'd actually let that thing just be "driven off" to come back another day.

Yes, everyone's had the flu. I can't comment on the Legacy Virus, I don't read Marvel. But getting the flu is a lot easier than getting the Vahzilok disease, which has to be contracted from contact with infected corpses. And always in the same manner, because of the mission. Without working around what the game tells you, how can you justify the fact that still, your contact never warns you about the chance of infection?

And here's another one: Say your character's a robot. Completely artificial, no organic or biological parts whatsoever. Why does the disease affect him?

This argument is just going in circles. You're obviously not going to accept that we find it far more enjoyable to ignore the aspects of the game that don't quite fit into how we roleplay. Comics do that all the time.In No Man's Land, Superman could probably have rebuilt all of Gotham on his own. But he didn't. He appeared in two issues relating to No Man's Land, and only in one did he actually try to help. Why? Because Superman sweeping in to save the day doesn't work in the kind of storylines featured in Batman titles.

Certain things don't fit into every character's story. You cannot, unless you're really just trying for the sake of it, incorporate every in-game even as being an IC one.

Quiet you!

*stuffs Birdy in a closet*