Lore knowledge shouldn't be too essential. As for mood, I was thinking similar to Danganronpa. The set pieces and characters can be quirky, but they should recognise the gravity of a forced life or death situation.
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Eight so far. Let's see if we can double that!
Go ahead! If it turns out that you're a cultist, then some or even all of your public identity may be false. :3 You might end up with a passenger-aligned role as well. You might be a devotee of Iomedae, with the ability to 'detect evil' once per night. Obviously, the cultists will want to eliminate someone that can identify them as soon as possible, so it may not be in your best interest to tell everyone about your faith! Or you could be a follower of Zon Kuthon. You had no idea this vacation would turn into some kind of horrifying killing game, and honestly it sounds great. Still, you are on the side of the passengers. Your flaw is that you detect as evil! Uh oh. I'm thinking about various Starfinder-themed adaptations of the classic Mafia roles. :)
The release of DR3 may or may not have inspired me to do this. :P As much as I'd like to run a more Danganronpa-like scenario, I haven't found a good ruleset. So we'll be using Mafia/Werewolf. I may throw in some twists along the way, but it depends on how many players we have and how the game goes. I haven't decided on special roles. I'll do that when the game starts, as it depends on the number of players.
16 would be ideal. If we can't get that many in a reasonable timeframe, I could start with as few as 12. Mafia/Werewolf games, especially on forums, work best with a larger group.
Yes. Players with night actions PM what they wish to do during the night to me. In the case of the cultists, they are allowed to PM each other and decide on who to kill, then PM me. Anyone that does not have a secret allegiance should not use PMs to communicate with other players regarding the game, as it is key to the atmosphere and workings of the game that passenger are unable to collude secretly (note that some passenger roles MAY allow them to PM each other as a special ability; one example is 'the lovers'. The lovers count as passengers and win if the passengers win. They also secretly know each other and can PM each other. However, if one of them dies, the other also dies.). The results of the night phase (who was killed and what their secret role was, any other events) will be posted in the announcement of the subsequent day phase.
You are passengers on the starship Hope's Peak, a luxury civilian cruiser on a leisurely voyage between each of the Pact Worlds. Your trip has been pleasant so far, having begun at Aballon and stopped at each of the worlds thereafter and has just left the vast city-ship, the Idari. You retire to your cabins as the crew prepares the ship's Drift Drive to carry you safely on to Triaxus (nobody wants to go to Eox on a luxury cruise). When you awaken, something feels different. Something feels wrong. You exit your cabin into silence. The ship should be full of the bustle of crewmembers serving passengers and readying the ship for dock. It is silent. It is empty. You find others still present, all other passengers. Not a single crewmember can be found. You make your way to the bridge. All of the controls are unresponsive, and the ship's viewports reveal a dark vista. This is not the Golarion system. This is not any system. You are adrift in the vast emptiness between the stars. Once you have all gathered on the bridge to discuss what to do, an image flicks onto the main viewscreen. A sinister figure, one eye empty and black as the void itself and the other blazing with the light of a dying red star. She cackles, her voice sounding through every speaker on the ship. It is bone-chilling, supernatural in timbre. "This is your captain speaking. Ah, now that you're all here, I can tell you about tonight's shipboard activities and amusements. I took the liberty of arranging a fun little diversion I call 'The Mutual Killing Game'." She smiles, displaying wickedly sharp teeth. "Oh, and I suppose you're wondering what happened to your previous captain and crew. Don't worry. They won't be experiencing nearly as much despair as all of you. In fact, they've found their unexpected spacewalks so peaceful that they decided never to return. How delightful! Let me introduce myself. I am The One Unhued. Is that a bit too grandiose for our exciting entertainment? Well, then. You may call me Captain Umbra!" She puts on a captain's cap. You recognise it as the one that your former captain wore. Umbra looms close in the viewscreen, her one red eye flaring with the somber plumes of an aged sun. "I bet you're dying to know what the rules of the game are. It's very simple: Some amongst you are my friends! You've already helped me so much by disposing of the crew. Now you get to start murdering the passengers! But alas, you are dreadfully outnumbered and now they're on guard. You'll have to be sneaky about it. The rest of you probably don't want to be slaughtered mercilessly, so it's up to you to figure out who the attackers are and kill them first! If you kill all of my friends, I'll graciously reactivate the ship's Drift Drive and you can go home! If you all die, well, at least you got to participate in all this fun. It's win-win!" -
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The Entity returns from the distant beyond, her unspeakable presence felt by the gods of this world and yet its people go on living, blissfully unaware of what passes above. She gathers the divinities before her and smiles. "You have fought well for this scrap of existence, but now it must pass into a new era. Its people no longer have need for gods and will survive by their own strength and ingenuity. So, to those of you that failed, I give you a choice:" "Fade into obscurity, and be forgotten; it is a restful end for a weary god. Or, abandon this realm to seek another; to start anew on a virgin world." Her gaze narrows, focusing on the lord of the centaurs. "Alosvalophos. You have proven yourself worthy of an even greater task. You are granted the power to ascend from mere planetary god to a galactic power, where you will gather new gods just as I did here. In time, one of them will join us, and the cycle will continue." The starry form of the Entity fades, leaving the centaur god above a new, untouched world. What strange forms of life and their unknown gods will come to dwell here?
Thank you everyone for taking part in this experimental game. And apologies for losing the will partway through. A big thanks to the Black Vizier for running things in my absence!
Thinking about the maintenance cost, that does actually make sense. A lot of civ games have a mechanic to discourage spreading too thin until you're ready to support a larger empire. How about this? You may support a number of settlements up to 3 + your Imperialism Advancement at no cost. When gaining Power, you must immediately pay X Power per settlement you control beyond this number. Your stockpiled Power cannot be reduced below zero by this effect. I'm thinking the cost should be around 3 or 4, so new settlements don't 'turn a profit' for a few turns. In effect, this means the imperialism advancement is great if you want to spread wide, while the religion advancement is preferable for a smaller number of high population cities. Hmm. Or something like that.
It's over, huh? I've been requested to make a closing post, but I'm just so miserable and tired of everything. :(
Yes, you need to exceed defense in order to win. Normal roll needed to do so is 3+. Armour, weapons and terrain can modify it up or down from there (minimum 2+, maximum 6+).
Yeah, that's how it works.
Thanks for helping out! I've given Alosvalophos permission to edit the map and update turns for us. I'm trusting him to do so accurately. I'll still be available for clarifications and such. I greatly appreciate his efforts here; I barely have the energy to do anything these days.
I often have such a tremendous desire to run games, to GM or to create. But I suppose I should acknowledge that for me to do so is irresponsible. I create expectation that I cannot meet. Inevitably, I crash and leave my players disappointed. It happens over and over. I have never run a game to completion.
I'm praying for you! Given that I'm some kind of Lovecraftian outer god, maybe this is the problem! :O
I'm still here, struggling against the infinite dread of my own exitence.
Battling misery. Will try to post as soon as I can muster the will to do anything useful.
The turn hasn't been processed yet. You can repost to fix that.
I suppose it means another void field if anyone cares to voyage across the ocean to settle there. It's a shame that the special materials have been largely inaccessible. If I do another game, it will have a much smaller map to encourage early contact and shorten distances between all the players.
Done. I'd forgotten about it in your transition to governing the Iremae. Also... I'm not sure why you wanted that settlement there. It just got squished by the Lesser Herald.
Addendum: The Void Consumes The destruction caused by void phenomena so far is as follows: The Dark One: 5 Shaecubi population.
Phew! That's done for now. That was a lot of combat!
2 of The Red Scaled One's armies at F9 were destroyed by Alosvalophos' divine power! Combat rule note: When an attacker or defender has armies with different attack and defense values in the same combat, the armies with the highest relative attack will apply hits first, against the opponents with the highest relative defense. Combat at D8: The Lesser Herald must roll a 6+ to hit:
Remaining forces:
Combat at E8: Alosvalophos' Centaur armies have a difficulty of 1 on this tile.
Alosvalophos' Centaur armies must roll a 4+ to hit Shaecubi and a 2+ to hit Kai-Tang:
Remaining forces:
Combat at F9: Alosvalophos' Centaur armies have a difficulty of 1 on this tile. Alosvalophos' Centaur armies must roll a 4+ to hit:
Remaining forces:
Combat at F10: The Lesser Herald must roll a 6+ to hit:
Remaining forces:
Combat at H9: The Lesser Herald must roll a 5+ to hit:
Remaining forces:
Conquests: Alosvalophos' Centaur armies conquer The Red Scaled One's Shaecubi settlement at E8, capturing 2 population and destroying 2 population!
The war in the north rages on, the Kai-Tang and Centaurs battling for dominance across the great mountain range that divides the land. Elsewhere, one god fades from this world and another takes his place. The Soul Prisons In their wake, the Heralds leave eerie, crystalline fields where once stood farms and cities. The souls of the damned are trapped there, their faces writhing across the surfaces of the crystals. They know the end draws closer, their torment increasing with each passing day. A new resource has appeared. When a Herald destroys a settlement, it leaves behind a void field. Void fields are shown as purple tiles on the map and have a difficulty of 5 for every race. Survival may reduce difficulty as normal. A settlement built on a void field can take the following action:
It's not your fault. I just didn't anticipate how prophecy would affect my workload. The domains are: Discovery: Half science cost (round up) for advancements. Travel: Your forces always succeed to move into difficult surface terrain (no roll required). Does not affect ocean movement. I would recommend Discovery. While travel is great for early expansion, you've already got enough survival that it would be redundant at this point.
Okay. One of the main burdens has been planning out all the events two turns in advance for The Dark Seer's Prophecy domain. Overall, it hasn't been terribly useful compared with other domains that grant more immediate benefits. Tacticslion, as part of assuming control of the Iremae, would you like to replace your prophecy domain with one of Prexus' domains? (discovery or travel)
Sorry. I've been doing really poorly lately. I just woke up after being asleep for something like 15 hours.
I'm busy all of today. Sorry! I'll try to do it later.
I am okay with this.
I wonder who will unlock the secrets of the void first! And what will the consequences be? >:)
There! I processed the turn. :)
The hilly jungle at G9 was lowered to shallow ocean by The Source's divine power! The mountainous forest at G10 was lowered to shallow ocean by The Source's divine power! Combat at G4: The Lesser Herald must roll a 3+ to hit: , 2 hits
Remaining forces:
Conquests: The Lesser Herald razes The Dark One's Shaecubi settlement at P4, destroying 4 population. The terrain is transformed into hilly void fields!
Mortals meet the heralds in combat. A vast creature formed from a starry void, with a shining sun in place of a head falls before the Centaur armies, although not before plunging near half of their forces into the limitless beyond. On the other side of the world, another herald looms above where once stood a city, the land now covered in strange, twisting crystals. The Void Consumes The destruction caused by void phenomena so far is as follows: The Dark One: 4 population.
The Void Fields A new type of terrain has appeared in the wake of the heralds. They are called void fields, lands where all life has vanished and from every surface grows bizarre crystal formations. Void fields have a difficulty of 5 plus elevation difficulty (if any). What benefits or hazards the void fields may present is yet to be discovered.
I'm still struggling to keep hold of my sanity. Right now I'm in a cycle of sleeping for about 3-5 hours, then being awake for 2-3 hours, then sleeping again. It's not good. It doesn't feel good. And I can't seem to break out of it.
My depression is such that I can barely do more than sleep at the moment.
It looks like 4. It didn't change this turn.
The Source's army at F9 was destroyed by The Red Scaled One's divine power! The Source's population at F9 was destroyed by The Red Scaled One's divine power! 3 of The Source's population at G9 were destroyed by The Red Scaled One's divine power! 2 of The Source's population at G10 were destroyed by The Red Scaled One's divine power! The shallow ocean at C8 was raised to become flat wetland by The Red Scaled One's divine power!
The First Sign From the darkness beyond the world they come, and to that darkness they send the doomed. The Heralds are here, untouchable by our gods, and we do not know what drives them to destroy us. Five Lesser Heralds fall to the world on random tiles. A Lesser Herald is equivalent to three armies and has no ranks of armour or weapons. Heralds cannot be destroyed with miracles. Each cycle, they move 2 tiles toward the nearest settlement. If multiple settlements are equally distant, they move toward the largest. The Heralds appear on the following tiles: A7, C12, F5, K6, O2 The appearance of the Heralds is a sign of the end to come. Though still distant, it is inevitable. Eight cycles remain.
I have half-completed the current turn's processing. I'll finish the rest when I get home.
Source, did you want to post your turn for this cycle? My post stating you'd just get power and nothing else for this turn was assuming you had disappeared from the game this turn. Since you're here, you're allowed to have a normal turn.
I'll do the turn end of today. Source will get power for this turn, but nothing else.
You know, you could have PM'd me.
And now I seem to have caught a cold. :(
Just to clarify: IF one were to raise terrain twice on one square in a turn, it would in the next turn move twice, yes? You can do that, yes? Ditto with changing climate. Yes.
Ah, yes. It just doesn't produce any power from the roll. All it's for is to check for depletion.
Hmm. In case I was unclear: 'Mine Meteor' is a city action. It has a chance of depleting the meteor and provides Power. 'Create Armies with Meteorite Equipment' is a different action, that also has a chance of depleting the meteor. Unless you inspire the city, you can't both mine it for power and equip your armies with it. Lord Yogga, you may want to let me know if you wanted a meteorite army from that action or the 2 power it produced. Edit: I probably should have called them different things, like 'transmute meteor to power' and 'forge meteor into equipment'.
No update today. The game is getting more complex and I'm not going to try to do it with my netbook. This will be the case every Thursday, since I'm away from home one day a week.
To determine random locations, I rolled 1d20 for horizontal coordinate and another 1d20 for the vertical coordinate.
The next turn is up! Phew. That was a complicated turn.
The Dark Seer's Shaecubi population at E6 was destroyed by Alosvalophos' divine power! The Dark Seer's Shaecubi army at E7 was destroyed by Alosvalophos' divine power! The Dark Seer's Shaecubi population at E7 was destroyed by The Red Scaled One's divine power! 2 of The Dark Seer's Shaecubi armies at E8 were destroyed by The Red Scaled One's divine power! Combat at F9: The Source's 2 Cordyceps armies must roll a 2+ to kill:
Remaining forces:
Combat at F10: The Source's Cordyceps army must roll a 2+ to kill:
Remaining forces:
Conquests Alosvalophos' Centaur army razes The Dark Seer's Shaecubi settlement at E7, destroying 1 population and 1 settler! The Red Scaled One's Kai-Tang army conquers The Dark Seer's Shaecubi settlement at E8, capturing 1 population and destroying 1 population! The Source's Cordyceps army conquers The Red Scaled One's Kai-Tang settlement at F9, capturing 1 population and destroying 2 population! The Source's slavery domain forces the remaining population into military service as 1 army!
While the Northern continent erupts in war, a renaissance in thought draws some of the populace away from religion and toward other scholarly arts. Fire From The Sky Blazing stone rains from the sky, devastating the land where it impacts. Meteorites impact ten random tiles. If an ocean tile is struck, everything in that tile is destroyed and adjacent tiles suffer the effects of obliterate. If a surface tile is struck, that tile becomes craters and it and those adjacent suffer the effects of obliterate. The impact sites are: C3, C12, D14, H16, J9, K16, M6, N13, O19, P14 Prexus' settlements at H15, I16 and J16 are destroyed. Lord Yogga's settlements at M13, M14 and N14 suffer much destruction but some survivors remain.
The Entity glides across the surface of the world, crossing leagues at a time. Her voyage is punctuated only with brief stops at places of civilisation. She stops at a small village - no more than a few hundred people - and invisibly observes them going about their ritual worship. Something gives her pause. The Entity watches the divine power - unseen by those generating it - rush upward into the heavens in a tremendous geyser of energy. The sheer volume of power surprises her. The Entity moves on, next arriving at a bustling city. She perches atop a great, majestic edifice of religious congregation. Again, she watches the product of the peoples' worship rush upward in the same great volume. It is, she notes, the same as that produced by the humble shrine in the village. She ponders a moment, then takes a look at the threads of fundament forming the universe. "Oh, whoops." The Entity plucks at a few strands of existence, and the error is mended. Religion Fix You gather full Power from religion this turn. If you wish to, this turn you may trade in ranks of religion for ranks of any other advancements. This opportunity exists for this turn only. On subsequent turns (not this turn), religion advancement cannot grant more Power from a settlement than that settlement's population. Meteorite!
Instead, a settlement on the site of a meteorite impact may create armies with superior meteorite weapons and armour (shown with a + after the number of armies on the tile). Meteorite equipment grants an additional +1 to attack rolls and to defense and makes the army immune to hostile miracles. For each army created with meteor equipment, roll a d6. The meteorite may be depleted as per the mining rules. Controlling Multiple Races This is not a rules change, but an important clarification now that some of you have conquered settlements: Foreign races you control count as your population, but for all purposes regarding terrain difficulty use their original home terrain. They do not benefit from any of their original advancements. Instead, they benefit from all of your advancements. If you control population, armies or settlers of different races on the same tile, when commanding them you must specify which race you are commanding.
Okay, I'm doing this really soon. I just made dinner and discovered I'm totally out of food. Going to the supermarket. Back soon, then finishing processing. Depression does things like this: I neglect to do ordinary, mundane tasks like get food.
I'm a do this! (processing now)
I am infinitely sad. However, I will try to do an update today, using the old rules. I'll post the new rules we will use in subsequent turns (minor changes such as that to religion; no turn phase rules or anything).
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