Atrophy

Amongst the Lonesome- A return to Santa Somabra [Fantasy Noir]

So it's like Teen Wolf. The only time Hurk will be good at basketball is when he wolfs out, yeah?

Amongst the Lonesome- A return to Santa Somabra [Fantasy Noir]

Ya'll folks are killing it with these sweet, beautiful posts.

The Origin: A War Resumed (Arc One; Completed)

Cliffhanging son of a bitch!

WHO WANTS TO SEE A GRUDGE MATCH?!

@The Darklight Project

Like a barbed wire deathmatch!?

Amongst the Lonesome- A return to Santa Somabra [Fantasy Noir]

"No, you're not indeed", Cain agreed and a terrible smile split his face. "And you make a terrible manager, from what I hear. In fact... You're fired."

@JulienJaden

Goddammit, you magnificent son of a bitch!

What makes a great GM?

Hey RPG, it's me, Atrophy, your best friend, your fellow RPer, your secret admirer. So, I've been roleplaying for a good long time now. Like a long, long time now. Like a real, real long time now. Like so long that if I told you how long and then you looked at one of my posts you would cock your eyebrow at me and say, as nicely as possible, "Well, at least you are dedicated to your hobby." Yet in all of my years, there is one thing I have never done to this very day. Ever.

See, I've never been a GM. It's not that I don't want to be one, nor is it that I don't understand the concepts of writing an interest check, creating an OOC, and starting a RP. That's not what this topic is about. It's just that I've had this nagging question forever in the back of my head, and I can't make the plunge into GMing until I get it answered. So, I need to know: what makes a great GM?

Right, pretty broad question, isn't it? I'm going to narrow it down to a few pointed questions for the time being, but please feel free to give out any other helpful dos and don'ts when it comes to GMing.

■What are great ways to keep players engaged both IC and OOC?

■Should the character submission be the only factor in accepting players?

■How do you deal with the players who have seemingly disappeared from the RP?

■In the same vein, how do you effectively prevent the above from hindering your other players?

■What is the most graceful way to end your RP due to inactivity or (*gasp!*) your own loss of interest/time?

Looking forward to seeing what advice you folks have to offer! I'd throw my two cents here right now, but I rather not have this topic be about how wrong and misguided of a RPer I am. We can save that for a later date.

Chase the Night

@HexaflexagonWhoo! Let's get killin'!

PKing and TPKing

Are we going to pretend that when a RP becomes inactive that all of the characters involved in it are dead? Because then pretty much every RP I've been in ends in a TPK. I like to imagine they are all just standing around in a circle waiting for that one dude to say something before they do anything else and inevitably succumb to dehydration, starvation, or the elements one by one while a soft, sad piano piece plays in the background before it quietly fades to black.

The Origin: A War Resumed (Arc One; Completed)

Vesta

It had been years since the woman had been to the Homestead. Back in those days Vesta, Joy then, was something else. She had made a name for herself fighting in the Arena as a gladiator; her steel had left a countless number of men and women maimed or dead. Things were simpler, easier back then; the woman fought to live and lived to drink. Sometimes she fought while she was drinking, and sometimes she fought in the Arena when she was drunk. That was the case in her last fight. She was completely hammered going into the fight and came out of the fight after getting hammered by a maul the size of her head. It was followed by bedridden weeks of getting hammered to ease the pain.

Vesta could feel her knee shattering all over again as the Arena came into view. She moved her flask away from her chapping lips; the pain effectively killing the buzz she no longer seemed interested in maintaining. Vesta slipped behind the rest of the group as they aimlessly entered the Arena. She doubted anybody would recognize her unless she drew her blade and flashed it through some poor sap, although it wouldn’t have been an issue anyway. With Cyril’s haphazard way of recruiting anybody he saw, able or otherwise, he knew that she wouldn’t have been turned away for being a gladiator. Hell, she would even let herself be convinced that the man would wait until after they had completed their mission to throw her away if he had found out about her banditry.

Still, being in this place filled her with unease, and the feeling doubled as she met eyes with the Direwolf. They had been contemporaries back in the days of Olain, although he was more often by the King’s side than she; even then Vesta had often wondered why Olain had made her Captain instead of the Direwolf. After the failed campaign West, the nights that did not end in a blackout were filled with endless tossing and turning as she thought more and more how Olain might have been saved from himself if the Direwolf was there instead of her. In her head, she could hear him blaming her. Whatever form of comradery that she had for the man was gone, replaced by just a lingering sour taste in her mouth. She lifted her hood over her head and leaned against the wall, trying to disappear.

Ennis

The ambassador was practically bouncing up and down as they walked through the halls of the Arena. Whatever aches that had been holding him down from that morning were now gone, healed by boyish enthusiasm and a few secret spells to keep his peculiarity at bay. As Cyril explained the situation to the Chiefs, Ennis nodded along approvingly. It was good to hear that disdain for Gartian had spread to Gurata. With their allegiance they could quickly dispose of Gartian and put a more suitable, levelheaded individual on the throne. H’kela had more important things to focus on than fighting a disastrous war, like—Wait, why did that gray woman say no? thought Ennis.

“If I may—” started the ambassador softly. Too softly; he was cut off. He tried again.

“I think that—” Again, interrupted.

“If we took a se—”

“I call for Decision by Combat!”

Ennis hung his head. “Oh, great, yes, let’s go ahead and not try to talk through things peacefully,” muttered the ambassador. He rapped his knuckles against his head. “Glad to see those years of taking blows to the skull have done none of us any questionable damage.”

He heard Vesta snort at the suggestion that many of them seemed like good fighters. The ambassador shrunk back away from the group and quietly put his fist in his mouth, chewing on his knuckle to keep himself from speaking out any further. He knew that the Guratans had a sort of backwards way of government, but just because they chose to be barbaric did not mean that more sensible people had to step down to their level. Damn it, Cyril. Pain shot through Ennis’s hand as he bit harder; he let out a soft yelp and shook his hand wildly.

He quickly straightened himself out in fear that perhaps the noise would be taken as some kind of volunteering gesture. Ennis wasn’t made for fighting. It made him sweaty, ruined his clothes, and he had to be extra careful when it came to dealing with mages; not to mention that the man could barely use a sword any better than a five-year-old playing soldier with a twig. No, these sorts of things were much better suited for the son of a bloodthirsty king, a talented wizard with a fine taste in animals and poor tolerance towards alcohol (He was drunk yesterday, yes? thought Ennis), the Paladin’s protege, and—

“A pirate,” said Vesta with a hoot, shaking her head and smiling knowingly.

—a pirate. Ennis couldn’t help but think how the man was far from any seas, let alone the southern ones. Then again, since he had chosen a career of piracy the ambassador couldn’t really hold it to the man to always pick the right path to follow. Still, he did appreciate the pirate for offering to take the spot for one of them. He mulled over the best way to capitalize on this prospect as even Lora volunteered her services.

“As eager as I am to help, I would not be able to live with myself if I knew that I prevented a man from repaying a debt, nor would I want any of the Sentinels to feel left out of the opportunity to prove themselves to their Prince any further. You may have my spot, Dalious,” said Ennis as if he was doing the man a favor. “I will try and find out what I can about our opponents, and you will all have my unbridled support from the stands.”

“Nobody expected or wanted you to fight anyway, Cade, but at least you had the decency of waiting for some sacrificial lamb to step forward instead of throwing your own onto the chopping block like Damon,” said Vesta, picking herself up off of the wall. He shot her an annoyed look that she seemed to ignore as she pushed her way towards Cyril. To Ennis’s surprise, she walked right by him. He could barely make out her words, her shoulders slumping as she sighed.

“I guess one person who can actually fight will have to join you tomorrow if you want to win this,” she said. “I’ll see you at noon.”

Amongst the Lonesome- A return to Santa Somabra [Fantasy Noir]

Valorie stared at the black card that Kurtz had given her, flipping it over and over in her hand as if she was expecting it to somehow transform or disappear like an illusionist’s trick. It was heavy for its size, made out of some kind of metal, and was engraved with the same fancy ivory font that said “B&W”. She had already checked it with an ATM, and was surprised to not only find her payment for the job available for withdrawal but an extra bonus of twenty grand thrown in there by Kurtz out of good measure. Sure, it wasn’t as fun as a briefcase full of money, but it certainly was more practical—and she had taken the opportunity at the ATM to pull out a nice stack of twenties.

She put the card away into her new purse (designer, expensive as all hell) and walked out of the bathroom with her new heels clacking (also designer, expensive as all fucking hell. They were the first victims of what would become the mass spending streak of that she had set in motion. Kurtz had made it appear that all jobs would pay this well. In Valorie’s mind, that was code for “go absolutely nuts”. She had almost been killed by a psychopathic elf, herself, a corrupt cop, a bunch of ghosts, and a mannequin in less than a week. She earned a night of hedonism and frivolity.

Already she had sent a picture to Cain, dressed to the nines in the black dress and a black—what was it called, a blazer? Fancy shit, she thought— jacket as a fan of cash hid her mischevious smile and her bloodshot eyes but not the fact that she was subtly flipping him the bird. Kurtz had supplied it to her. The clothes, that is, not her middle finger or the joint that she had smoked afterwards. He thought it would be a bad idea to walk out of his office in bloody clothes. She was shocked by how well it all fit, although she couldn’t help but feel like a little girl playing dress up. Valorie may have thought herself to now be part of the nouveau riche, but she wasn’t about to go through one of those complete makeover nonsense. Still, she took the opportunity to play with Cain a little bit, and to give an excuse as to why she would probably not be in for the night. Her text read:

”Ahh, they turned me into a yuppie!”
“Jokes. If I ever talk to you about the
color of business cards then I give
you permission to set me on fire.”
“I am going to live out my life long
dream of drinking champagne on
some fancy hotel’s private VIP only
rooftop and maybe trash a room. I’d
invite you along but then they’d just”
“Think that you’re a dirty old man
and that I’m some kind of call girl,
and I wouldn’t want them to get the
wrong idea about me. Laters!”

Getting an idea, she took a few more photos and sent it to Cain, tagging it with a heart emote: “So you don’t get lonely tonight, Francis.”

And then she turned her phone off.

Hopefully he wouldn’t notice the dingy surroundings of the photo taken from within the women’s room of the Dirty Bath, the dive bar slash “Rat hole” that she had slept in only a few nights ago. Only today she was not here to escape from the effects of some drugs gone bad; she was here to buy some, and the person she was buying from was none other than her dear friend Quinn who she had been pushing off for almost an entire week. Truth be told, she was excited to see her for three reasons. One, Valorie honestly considered the woman to be both her best friend and somewhat of a bad-influence mentor during her time in the Rats. Two, Quinn always had access to the best shit there was. Three, meeting with Quinn violated Cain’s no drug rule and Kurtz’s no Rat rule: it was totally stupid, completely wrong, and absolutely thrilling.

“Jeeezus, take your time princess,” said Quinn as Valorie rejoined her at the booth.

“Yeah, yeah,” said Valorie, waving her hand dismissively.

“No, no, it’s cool man. Not like you haven’t been snubbing me all week already,” said Quinn, folding her arms across her chest. “What’s another ten minutes.”

“It was not ten minutes!” said Valorie with a huff.

“Ten fucking minutes,” whispered Quinn, leaning her elbows against the table.

The woman was, in Valorie’s opinion, disgustingly attractive. She was tall and lean like a supermodel, but without their emaciated skeletal appearance and unfairly blessed with all the right curves. Her skin was a smooth caramel and free of blemishes—a truly impressive feat, doubly so because the woman was perhaps the biggest junkie Valorie had ever met. Her hair was dyed blue with pink highlights and shaped into a lazy kind of mohawk, a sleeve of tattoos ran up her arm, and she somehow managed to make a body interlaced with piercings looks good. On a normal day Valorie looked sort of odd hanging next to her; today they could not appear to be farther apart, one looking like a businesswoman trying to hid the bruises from her nosy coworkers while the other dressed like a punk princess.

“I’m worth the wait,” said Valorie smugly, before dropping the guise. “Sorry for being a shitty friend this week. Things were kind of crazy.”

“I’d say,” said Quinn. “Looks like you went corporate. What, did the business venture with the Fifth Street Losers not pan out so well?”

“You didn’t hear?”

“Ehhhh,” Quinn shrugged. “I heard a lot of stuff. I wanna know the details. Is it true that bitch Tory got completely gutted by that grim reaper freak?” Valorie nodded. Quinn smacked the table and grabbed her beer. Her phone vibrated. “Serves her right. I fucking hated her. So, you ran away and just laid low for the past couple of days or what?”

“Nah, I ditched them before any of that shit even happened,” said Valorie. “I ran into an old friend of mine and stayed with him for a while just in case anyone thought I was involved with that bullshit.” Quinn raised an eyebrow and made an interested noise. “Not like that,” lied Valorie. “Francis is old and a friend. He knew my dad from something and hooked me up with some intern position for some firm or whatever. He’s okay, but I couldn’t really do anything fun with him watching. Wouldn’t want daddy to find out something awful about his little girl.”

“Yeah, like how she’s sending his friend nudes, or how she too stupid to make sure that she isn’t also accidentally sexting her friend as well. Holy shit jackpot,” said Quinn, turning her phone around so Valorie could see the other photos she had sent Cain (and, clearly, her friend). Valorie felt her buzz take a backseat as she turned red in the face and snatched at the phone. However, Quinn had already moved the mobile out of the way. “No way, I’m keeping these. Shit, your camera is quality.” She nodded approving as she kept swiping her phone. “When you said you wanted to get weird with me tonight I wasn’t really expecting this.”

“Dude...”

“Hmm. Have you considered waxing?” said Quinn, tilting her head inquisitively.

“Dude.”

“I’m kidding, I’m kidding. It’s cute.”

“Dude!”

“Okay, okay, I’m done,” said Quinn, sipping her drink. “And they’re deleted.”

“Don’t tell anyone about this,” said Valorie.

“What? That you sent me nudes on accident, or that you’re screwing your dad’s old golfing buddy or whatever?”

“Both. Let’s drop it, let’s drop it, okay?” asked Valorie. “It’s already weird enough as it is, let’s drop it.”

“Okay, it’s dropped, it’s dropped,” said Quinn, pocketing her phone and then rubbing her hands together in anticipation. “So! What do you need? I was able to borrow a whole shitload of stuff; they know I’m good for it. You, er, do have cash right? I’d rather not get yelled at for skimming from the supplies again.”

“Yeah. What you got,” she said, nodding to the backpack.

“Look, I know this place is kind of a shit hole,” said Quinn, “but I still probably shouldn’t start listing off names or flashing this junk around. Never know who could be a snitch around here.”

“Right,” said Valorie. “Oh, but it wasn’t a question. I’ll take what you got.”

She was handing her friend something in the shadows beneath the table. Valorie watched as Quinn looked down, her mouth almost hitting the floor as she saw the wad of money. The woman quickly grabbed the stack of cash and shoved it into her leather jacket.

“Holy shit, where did you get all of that?” asked Quinn. She didn’t wait for an answer. “Oh gross, you gold digging slut!” she said, playfully punching Valorie on her wounded shoulder. The necromancer winced and gave Quinn a pained look. It only reinforced her misconception. She laughed. “I did not know you had it in you. Wow. Way to go.”

“You got it so goddamn—” Oh, fuck it, it wasn’t like her friend was going to be judging her; Quinn had already told Valorie about the time she had been a call girl. Several times, in fact. Now she kept herself mostly to camshows when she wasn’t nodding off in some dust dream. Besides, letting Quinn convince herself of where she had gotten the money was a lot easier than trying to craft her own lie, and there was no way in hell Valorie was going to tell her about her work for the firm. “—right. I believe you were the one who told me it’s stupid to give something away for free?”

“Yeah, but I didn’t think you actually listened to me. Look, I gotta run this back to the big guy, okay? You know how Tony is. I’ll be back in an hour. Don’t go too hard before I get back here, okay?” asked Quinn.

“Uh huh.”

“For real, Vals. I’m not going to play babysitter, and if you start that biting shit again I will—”

“I got it, man,” said Valorie. “I’ll be a good kid. Scout’s honor.”

“Yeah, I don’t believe that.”

Quinn downed her drink and got up from the booth; Valorie followed her up to her feet. The two hugged, and Valorie could smell the scent of the walking dead typical of a junkie on Quinn, lingering down below a masking of scented lotion and perfume. Valorie pulled away from her friend and gave her a forced smile, noticing for the first time the lifelessness behind her friend’s eyes. It was like looking into an empty being composed of nothing but a desire for drugs, sex, and alcohol. It was pitiful to see her friend wasting herself. Was this the kind of shit Cain felt? Did he also feel guilty and disgusting for pitying her like Valorie did for Quinn?

She raised a hand to say bye as her friend pushed past the ogre bouncer, leaving her alone in the bar except for the elven bartender, an old couple in the corner, and a backpack full of drugs. She grabbed the bag and slipped into a private side room, leaving the door unlocked for Quinn whenever she came back. Maybe she could somehow get her friend clean, check her into a rehab or learn a spell that would force her to go sober. Quinn would need more than simple motivation to give up. Not like Valorie, who believed she could give up any minute as she unzipped the backpack of narcotics.

Tonight’s the last time and then I’m clean for good, she thought, dumping the contents of the bag out onto a table. There was enough junk in the bag to supply a small rave, minus the glow sticks and bad playlists, or make Hunter S. Thompson shit his pants in fear and excitement. A slow smile crept over her face as she gazed into the pile, her eyes vacant and lifeless. It’s easy. Cold turkey. A clean break. I deserve a break.

“I deserve a break,” she repeated aloud, as if it would reassure her guilt.

The Origin: A War Resumed (Arc One; Completed)

Should begin working on a post today or tomorrow!