GM Viskous presents Iron Gods (Inactive)

Game Master Viskous

Weekends might need a slow down. I'm all for being botted if I fail to post in a timely fashion. Also, 4D was a late-night idea. I'm not sure what I was thinking =D

"Star Warriors sounds interesting. But as I look at most of you..." Jack trails off leaving the rest of his statement implied. "How about The Clockwork Wards . For where we're going and what we'll be doing there."

"<Process: combination> We could blend them for the Clockwork 4D Stars..." after a moment, "... never mind."

EDIT: I'm very okay with being bott'd! I don't want to hold anyone up!

I'm ok with being botted. Currently posting is always too slow but that my change if I get a job. :)

Lazur looks up and at the others, "I'm all for grouping up and investigating the Torch, but my first concern is family. Once that's seen to I'm good to go.

If we must name the group Star Warriors is as good as anything else."

For days I've had, "Imperial entanglements" going through my head.

I'm fine with being botted. Though, I shouldn't have a problem posting everyday.

Fine with being botted.

Analise collapses into uncontollable laughter at Rywokit's suggestion "Sorry, Wicket. Wasn't laughing at you. Just that name... Carries certain connotations inmy culture. As a matter of fact, the Star Warriors were a legendary group of adventurers where I'm from. They persevered through impossible odds, and they eventually freed their... land from the grip of anl evil empire. Good a name as any. I vote for it."

This is hilarious. I was not actually expecting that name to gain any traction. A laugh, maybe, or a groan, but not traction. This group is amazing, one way or the other. :D

Locke continues to watch the newly formed Star Warriors. With a name like that, it would be truly easy to keep track of their movements in Torch.

Botting is fine, of course.

"Desna approves of the name, while she usually dislikes combat, she understands that there is sometimes a need for Star Warriors." he nods and smiles, "I also think it sounds like a school sports team."

I never even heard of any Star Warriors before the term fell over here. ^^ I liked the sound of it, is all.

It's a relatively obscure/blatant reference to Star Wars; more specifically the exceedingly cheesy original Marvel comics that, not getting the tone of the films, referred to Luke et. al. as the "Star Warriors!" If you guys like it, I'm all for it! Mostly I just meant it as a joke relating to Analise's character. :)

I thought it was a joke, but I'm actually OK with Star Warriors. =)

:)

I won't be on for a few days. If I am on for some reason, it's because I was lucky.

Once a day post maintained! (Locke doesn't have anything to contribute yet based on the current moment.) I hope you are all amused with his next actions though. :-D

So! ^^ How about that there Gameplay thread, y'all?

Soon-ish, probably. EDIT: to be clear, this is a guess; I'd suggest that GM Viskous is busy on Sundays and Mondays. :)

coming soon. need to finish up some pdf hacking and then we can get a move on. Probably later tonight. Also was going to go a little earlier but want to hold off a bit for Analise, since she just messaged to be out a day or two

Oh this Sunday was very busyish. we were out a lot family thing and then we had a board game night with friends.

Monday is my day off, and I tend to not internet a ton.

We're cool. :) Enjoy!

Just checking in. Hello everyone!

Happy Tuesday!

So happy it's Tuesday!

Here are some pictures, opening gameplay in a bit.

View of Torch
Torch's namesake on normal mode

For Local Ties:
Khonnir Baine
Val Baine

Had a Chris Evans double feature in the home theater room last night! Sorry for the missing gameplay thread, though it is now open.

Hooray! Though I won't be the first to post since Locke's actions are dependent on the rest of the group.

Which Chris Evans movies?

Losers and Avengers, Push was out, but a triple wasn't in the cards.

I haven't seen Losers. All the recent marvel movies with Captain America have been great.

Losers is based off the DC Vertigo comic. Very enjoyable film, Evans is the comic relief.

Is it like Mystery Men or Zebraman?

Commando covert op group gets betrayed by CIA leaders and left for dead, they want revenge on the corrupt rogue CIA agent that caused it. Very action packed, not very bloody violence.

So not very much like those two excellent films.

"We've got a blind date with destiny... and it looks like she's ordered the lobster." - The Shoveller

"Rage... taking... over!"

"Ya, ya! We've heard all this before."

"No, no, no, no, no... Rage really taking over!!!" -- Mr. Furious

* * * * * * * * * *

Best line in the whole movie. ^^ In my opinion, anyway.

Better than...?

"And why am I wearing the watermelon on my feet again?"

"I don't remember telling you to do that."

Turns and walks away without any further word or expression.

I'm a HUGE fan of that movie.

That one's great, too. ^^ But I still like Roy getting in touch with his power the best!

Mystery Men for the win!

I... I never thought I'd find people who liked that movie... First "Star Warriors", and now Mystery Men... *sniff* I think a little man made of wood just might cry...

So if I understand it, we are all a group, except for Locke who is following but not exactly part of the team as of yet?

And after we get a Rywokit post, I will do an update and ghost Analise.

Analise ghosted, let me get home and access to all my materials and I'll arrive us in Torch.

About the size of it. The group formation was a little cheesy. :P
But since the PG had that part all handwaved anyway, it works just fine.

On a side note, any reason no one has RP'd with Locke? I've been trying to make his desire to avoid attention true to character while totally ineffective, but it's working too well since everyone keeps ignoring him. O_o

If there's something you guys need from Locke that I am not doing, please let me know.

I'd love to see a good way to build a group written into an adventure. Way of the Wicked has a good start. Dragon's demand is sorta weak, but at least its something. This and Reign of Winter seem to me to be the worse for group start. There is no reason for people to be grouped. The book actually just starts with a list of rumors and here is the town councilpersons answers to your questions if you have them. There isn't even a real Box Text™ to start the adventure.

Locke is too mysterious?
He's too good looking, the dudes are jealous and the gals are shy. Leaving a little wooden guy that has spurts of blue text everywhere!

The walk through the docking area and along the path has a lot of people gossiping and generally laying about on this warm summer day. Most appear to be some sort of smith or apprentice. You overhear some rumors.

Will look at my spoiler, soon. I've had this post sitting for, like, an hour! Life, man! Life!

So if I understand it, we are all a group, except for Locke who is following but not exactly part of the team as of yet?

And after we get a Rywokit post, I will do an update and ghost Analise.

So. Very. Ninja'd.

(I didn't see this before I posted. I'd had my text box sitting open for quite some time before getting the chance to post.) ;p

About the size of it. The group formation was a little cheesy. :P

But since the PG had that part all handwaved anyway, it works just fine.

Oh, my, was it ever. So glorious. :D

On a side note, any reason no one has RP'd with Locke? I've been trying to make his desire to avoid attention true to character while totally ineffective, but it's working too well since everyone keeps ignoring him. O_o

If there's something you guys need from Locke that I am not doing, please let me know.

Sorry! Mostly, Rywokit only pipes up when he sees someone he knows (or knows of) and either when someone specifically talks to him, or when he has something important (in his mind) to say. Honestly... he doesn't yet realize that Locke isn't really part of 'the group' [from Torch], and just kind of presumes it's all working out.

Sorry! I will try to contrive a reason to talk to you.

At least I did have him directly respond to Locke once, though - when Locke mentioned the Technic League (when apologizing for suggesting they might be bad), Rywokit directly opposed his sentiment (and launched into a big spiel about the 'League). That and he had a whole horoscope thing going on. XD

I'd love to see a good way to build a group written into an adventure. Way of the Wicked has a good start. Dragon's demand is sorta weak, but at least its something. This and Reign of Winter seem to me to be the worse for group start. There is no reason for people to be grouped. The book actually just starts with a list of rumors and here is the town councilpersons answers to your questions if you have them. There isn't even a real Box Text™ to start the adventure.

That's why I had Rywokit latch onto the others so strongly. They all know Konnir (except for that Halfling, he thinks), and thus they're all kind of like family.

And, you know, it'll save us time later. :D

Locke is too mysterious?

He's too good looking, the dudes are jealous and the gals are shy. Leaving a little wooden guy that has spurts of blue text everywhere!

Well, I admit that Locke's acting can be pretty wooden*, but I haven't seen him use any blue te- hey! Wait a minute! >:P

I'm out of character! It needs to be out of character! ... and in-character too, a bit, but, hey, you know, that's just because of that cursed item... that... I... gave... him... But it can be removed**! Easily**!

* His player does a great job, though. :D

** By spells that no one has, or in roughly 51 days.

EDIT: to finish the post!

its all your faults! I stayed up way too late watching the Mystery Men

Lol. Good job GM.

Locke, to answer your question from my perspective, Locke's posts in the gameplay forum thus far have been very internal, or directed to the GM. The only action he's taken, from the party's viewpoint, is "following".

It's hard to write a reaction post to a character who doesn't hook the other players somehow.

I'm not trying to say your posts or bad or anything, far from that. It's just that you were concerned about being ignored, and I thought I'd offer my two cents as to why. Take it as you will. :)

He's had some outbursts that were meant to drive some reaction, but I guess the group was more worried about other things. :)

Does anyone have a initiative, combat style preference?
A thread I'm reading uses a system like this one: here
The ooc gives the rundown. I like it. This means that the GM rolls the initiative.

Need some answers soon on this, especially with the way Lazur runs about.

If we go mostly map less should I just say when an Attack of Op goes off? Or should we mostly forget about them?

The initiative system is fine, if you like it - if it helps you, than do it! That's the important thing! :D

AoOs' presence (auto) or lack thereof will definitely change not only the way builds are made, but also the way strategy, tactics, movement, and the like play out. One of the things I try to do in Gob Smash One, for example, is generally presume that a player uses the optimal tactics available to them, from what I can see, to avoid AoOs and give plenty of advance warning based on their normal actions. If I've forgotten to describe something, and the PC would provoke because of it, I default to "my bad" and just let the opportunity pass without taking it (after all, with the number of creatures in the Gob Smash One game, it's not hard to envision a bad guy getting momentarily distracted!

Either way, I'm pretty sure that what you want to do is update an entire turn at one point (my vote as a player) instead of trying to respond to each person. The latter is something I experimented with a tad this last combat round, obviously (both as a morale booster, and as a means of communication), but not only is it clunky, it makes it very anarchic and difficult for people to suss out what, exactly, is going on in any given round.

Another trick you may (or may not) like that I'm using is the idea of making a narrative post (describing the action in story-terms), and then making a follow-up game post (describing the current scene in game-like terms to better allow the players to understand their over-all situation in game terms). Consistently I've had more positive feedback and few questions when I've done those as two posts. (Of course, that may just be because of my excessive writing habits... that's a possibility).

What I don't expect is that you GM like me (oh please don't GM like me: for your sake, if nothing else! ;p), but rather I'm mentioning what's worked (so far) for me.

One thing that I'm failing to do in that game - at least, I'm inconsistent at it -, is clarifying the turn rounds. It's something that just isn't coming naturally for me, but it's something that I think may well be important, unless we're into more hand-wave/narrative type durations for effects (which could be fine, too, depending on the kind of game you'll want to run).

So, uh... /ramble?

In my opinion the DM has to roll initiative for everyone otherwise things just slow down too much.

I prefer to have maps to see what is going on, I guess I'm visual, and help plan flanking and AoOs. It makes it clearer instead of asking can I move and flank, can I charge. I think anything that speeds up decisions in combat is good, as a combat could last for weeks otherwise.

I love when the DM does one post of wrap up and results of the previous round. It gives a very clear idea of what happened.

Sorry I keep running off, I'm playing Lazur as very concerned about his family since he lost one already. He'll slow down soon, what's he gets the skinny on what's going on with dad.

Rolling for initiative in one shot works for me. It makes the most sense, time-wise.

Regarding taking the whole round in one go, I'm okay with it, but I offer the suggestion of splitting the round up into sections based on when a monster gets to act.
.
.
Example:
-----------------------------------
Allen
Analise
Minotaur
Jack
Lazur
Orcus
Lock
Kobold
Raven
Rywokit

Jack and Lazur, you're up.
-----------------------------------

This would clearly be difficult if there are a bunch of monsters, but if there are only one or two, or many of them act on the same initiative, then it's kind of a combination. It's a little slower than the whole round acted out, but it's clearer on what the players can do to the monsters.

I am indifferent to the presence or absence of a map. Narrative combat sounds super entertaining, but combat builds may want to know what they can or cannot do.

So I have maps, and have been working on them. The problem is that unless we all have accounts with roll20 or with google, those mapping solutions aren't optimal.

I will host battle maps but I don't have a solution for moving your own character.

I do like the idea of a less tactical game play and more of a descriptive battle. I enjoy playing both ways, but tactical seems a lot better in person.

Yes Jack, thats basically what I was planning for initiative.

So this is sorta how I envision combat.

1. I post the opening thread with an initiative track, and a map showing current positions and a description of whats happening.
2. Ask for the first couple of peoples actions.
3. Have next couple of actions or monsters
4. Repeat til done with round.
5. Summary of round.
6. Round 2, repeat step 1 with new map positions
7. repeat till out of combat

If someone doesn't react in a timely fashion, either delay them for a bit or bot them after a certain number of hours.

Unless there is a huge outcry, I think we'll try the first combat this way and then evaluate here in discussion.

By map less, I meant more like not an active move your pieces tactical map, but a static image of the area and stuff you see.