Wolfram

I'd say if he believes doing whatever it takes to support his supergroup makes him the good guy, he's a vigilante. Rogues are more amoral, and don't care about right and wrong as long as they get paid.

My condolences for your loss.

Will do my best to keep those dates free. I've fought the mini-Hami from the LGTF, but never the real thing.

Not many of my characters qualified as true villains in the first place, but this is something I've been affected by. Hank Delacroix underwent a slow shift in his early existence, losing a lot of the evilness I'd planned for him. I still consider him evil in the way that most career criminals are: he could make a perfectly good life for himself by honest means, but chooses not to.

Of my current villains, there are two I definitely intend to keep villain-aligned, but neither has yet been tested in an RP setting. There's the evil scientist Silbermann, who cares about nothing other than restoring himself to health and his full powers, and the corrupted angel Rive, who lives for battle and will gleefully kill anything that's capable of putting up a decent fight. There's still an argument to say that they're rogues, but they both have something they believe in that they will put before wealth or long-term power, and neither would ever work with "the good guys". Both are also... less than social, but that's an enduring problem with a lot of my characters. They're actually more likely to show up in Pocket D than some of my heroes.

HEXCore would be a possible other example, but I'm currently thinking out a complete reboot of his character, the outcome of which isn't clear yet.

Then there's Hank again (image of a Rogue), Zajin (Rogue, to match its owner), Earthbond (renegade Legacy mage who'll probably end up as a mage for hire), Captain Maximus (former hero seeking redemption, so Rogue within the game framework), Lantern Red (doing double duty as a mercenary killer and rogue Malta operative), and... probably others I've forgotten.

Sounds great, I enjoyed the last round of these so it's just a matter of choosing my contender this time around.

A couple of mine for consideration.


Jennifer Sula, archery hero/police detective


Hank Delacroix, mercenary and scoundrel

They're the ones I can see dressing up seasonally on a bet, so anything goes really.

Edit: Fixed to remove links. Thank you for this opportunity, I'm keeping my fingers crossed. You do excellent work.

I think whoever wrote the email missed out the magic words "In the new Task Force(s)...", because as it stands the claim is so untrue it's absurd.

I'd say: violent clashes have taken place, tensions are rising. The fact that Praetoria exists and is a threat is now common knowledge on Primal Earth, if it wasn't already, and governments, heroes and villains are gearing up for war. In Praetoria, rumours are filtering through about the possibility of war, and many Resistance members probably know the full story.

Tricky one. I haven't run the new TFs personally so I don't know the exact nature of the events we'll be dealing with.

I know I'm not the only person whose RP Praetorian character(s) are still making their way through the Praetoria story and haven't yet arrived in Primal. Would an open state of war between Primal and Praetoria affect these characters? Would they even be allowed in, especially if they're hesitant to abandon their loyalist allegiances?

Tentatively, and from a position of ignorance, I'd suggest acknowledging that there's been an increase in skirmishes between the two worlds, but all-out war hasn't yet arrived and the Praetorian people are being kept in the dark. Of course, events in the TFs may make that position seem frankly unbelievable, but then, if we assume all the TFs have "already happened", a lot of things get weird.

Ah, ok, sorry. I missed that paragraph.

I'd... semi-disagree with Ammon on that point. When I'm teaming IC, I treat a defeat as a defeat, but "defeat" is a deliberately vague term. Maybe in one case, it's a serious injury; in another, the character is just winded or dazed.

A character getting beaten up a lot on a team doesn't say to me, IC, that they're weak or struggling, just that they're getting hit a lot. Put it down to bad luck, enemies with a grudge, whatever you like.

Edit: If, on the other hand, the player's intention is that the character is actually weak or using bad tactics, it's up to them to convey that through roleplay, not just by getting themselves killed. Otherwise I'm inclined to overlook it, with all the dying I do at the best of times.

Way before my time.

Part of the purpose of discussions like this is to figure out whether the new mechanic is even suitable to acknowledge IC. The entire enhancement system is, in my experience, mostly ignored for IC purposes. I'd have no problem with someone saying they learned a new sniping technique from Manticore or a new healing spell from Numina, but I'd also have no problem with them not saying those things. If someone said IC that they'd found documents on a defeated Hydra blob detailing Manticore's sniping techniques, and mastered them with the aid of some weapons-grade uranium and a cybernetic arm, my character would be inclined to be sceptical.

In the case of Incarnates, I don't see any problem acknowledging the Incarnate phenomenon IC, but it's there for people to use, or not, IC and OOC.

I tried to be clear about this, but I'm really not trying to tell anyone what they can do with their character. I'll try and be more clear about the points I'm trying to make.

Simply put, to me, in-game "power" is a purely OOC effect. It's nice when things coalign and you can have convincing PvP fights IC, but it's not incumbent on any player to back up their claims, either way. Similarly, I agree with Shadowe that game mechanics are invisible IC. This leads into the same point: do whatever you like, it's your character. Just as the game treats Zajin as an Arachnos Fortunata even though Arachnos doesn't know it exists, and just like Autumnfox's Judgement power will likely represent fire support from an off-screen gunship.

So if you want incarnate power in-game but not OOC, you don't even need to explain where it's coming from. Say you're upgrading your gear, or improving your training... or don't. In-game power is an OOC effect. But if you accept this, you can't expect people to back up their claims of IC power with in-game performance. In my above example, there is nothing Billy can do to become more powerful in-game that Jimmy can't also do.

That said, I have two further thoughts on this.

Sounds like good fun. I'll have to wait until it comes to Union, but it gives me time to prepare for battle against the Sasanach aggressors/uppity colonials (depending on my mood ).

While I agree that arbitrarily overpowered characters are not good, this whole issue does raise a question for me (it's on topic, I promise!)

If it's the duty of a player who wants their character to be comparatively more powerful than others in-character to back that claim up in-game, is it then also the duty of a player who wants their character to be comparatively less powerful than others in-character to do likewise?

Becoming Incarnate is a good specific example. Several people in this thread have mentioned that they plan to upgrade their characters in-game using the incarnate system without making them incarnates in-character. (Just to be clear, I'm not trying to say they shouldn't do this. I've done the equivalent myself with other game mechanics.) So, let's say we have two hypothetical characters, call them Billy and Jimmy. Both are natural martial artists from the same school and with identical training. In-game, they have equal builds and are evenly matched in PvP.

Now, Issue 19 hits, and both players decide they want to use the incarnate system. But whereas Billy is becoming an incarnate IC, Jimmy isn't; he's just training more intensely. At the end of the day, the two characters are still equal... even though Billy is now empowered by the Well of the Furies and Jimmy is just better-trained.

Is it then fair to demand that Billy's player find a way to make Billy more powerful than Jimmy, to justify the Billy's status as a true Incarnate? Or in this case, is Jimmy's player at fault for "misusing" the incarnate system? Or, are we going to establish that the much-vaunted power of the Incarnates is nothing more than can be achieved through extra training or a technology upgrade?



Anyway, even more on-topic, I'm still not 100% sure exactly how I'll work out the IC side of my characters becoming Incarnate, but if I do end up making use of the in-game storyline for it, it will be once at most. Each character's journey has to be different, after all.

A major disparity between the Kheldians and other ATs is that Kheldians frequently have to deal with extra enemies in the form of Void Hunters, Quantum Gunners and so on. A lot has been done to tone down the nastiness of these mobs, but their presence on a mission still isn't generally appreciated. So... what if it could be?

My suggestion: Have all Voids, Quantums and other mobs that only appear for teams with Kheldians in them have a chance to drop a new kind of Merit (call it a War Council merit, say). These could then be turned in to a Peacebringer/Warshade bounty officer for various rewards. Nothing earth-shattering, but enough that the extra Voids you have to deal with due to being friends with a Kheldian aren't purely a downside. A couple of costume pieces, a "Bounty Hunter" or "Hunted the Hunters" badge, maybe let non-Kheldians buy the Kheldian costume change emotes, and some range of salvage and/or recipe rolls.

A system like this might not have been fair before Going Rogue, but now both sides can have Kheldians and the rewards would be open to all.

Workable? Idiotic? You decide!

You don't need a macro for that. Under the Pets menu in options, there's an option for "pet response text." Switch that off and your pets should shut up. /petsay commands will still work as normal.

How widely known is it at this point that Tomb was behind the attack on the school? Have the Nighthunters and Court been keeping it to themselves or has word spread?