BrokenPromise

Do You Have RP Pet Peeves?

As a player, GMs ghosting is equally frustrating. Especially when they outright refuse to let another person step up and Co-GM. Had that happen once; GM hadn't been around. I asked about taking over in their stead, they denied, the RP ultimately died. Also once had a GM abandom her RP to take over another one and then, when asked for any notes/plot ideas she had had, her response was just "I don't care."

@IAmTheIsland

This is indeed quite the conundrum. What I suggest doing next time this happens is just creating a new RP that closely resembles the old. Ideally you'll want to wait a few months to really make sure the old one is dead, but you can wait a year or longer if you wish. The important part is to make sure that there's a player base for the RP that's willing to move forward. If former players are eager to get back into their characters after months of not playing them, that's a good sign. Not everyone will want to come back, and that's fine.

Discuss things with your player group a little bit. You want to understand why this was important to them and why they keep thinking about their characters. They will give you hints on how to run things, since you will more than likely take things in a different direction than the original GM would have. That is okay. The RP did not last with the original GM, and if your players have realistic expectations, they'll expect things to be different and be happy you can run things.

The next step is to take what you know and just make a new RP. Depending on factors, you may choose to pick up right where the last RP left off, but I would insist on a time skip to help justify why certain characters aren't around and just give everyone an easier time finding their footing. No one's been RPing their characters for a bit so they may need a few post rounds to get back into character. And then the rest depends on you.

Wow, is there really only one active thread in the Off-Topic Forum?!

Most people do their chatting in discord now.

On the bright side, there are now two "active" topics.

South Town Scuffle: Two Wolves (Terry Bogard VS Broken Promise)

Haven't forgotten about this! I'm writing the "Epic-Log" of the fight in an RP and it's a huge collab. I'll likely get something up here in a day or two.

An Idiot's Dungeon Union

"That one has outlived their ussssssfulnessssss…"

-Salbjörg of the Deep

Sal only looked at Schnupfen with contempt ash he moved about. Smugly look at her, failing to even touch the pendant, darting away. The only thing that moved were Sal’s judgemental eyes.

…

What did get her to move was when the beetle began to ram itself into the wall. Part of her wanted to stop it. "Wait!" Her eyes were wide open with panic. "We’ll get it off before long!" But her words either didn’t reach the Oracle, or he didn’t care. Because he kept on ramming. But after some consideration, she understood that he was using his new form to smash through the wall. Even when he was a four, he still thought like a ten.

By this point, Muste had finished the revolting task of removing the bones from the bird. For someone who considered themselves an intellectual, Salbjörg was a little perplexed by his choice of material. Bird bones were lightweight, largely because they were hollow and lacked much substance.

The bloodied bones hovered into the air and melded into a single mass. She flicked her fingers, and the mass started to take shape. It wasn’t too fancy, just a cylinder with a small hole to insert the pen. The blood did create a pattern on the outside, but that was hardly something Sal tried to manufacture. The inkwell fell into Musette’s hands while Salbjörg finished a pen for him. This was a much smaller part, but it took just as long to get the tip correct. With the pen complete, she flicked her fingers and it landed in the empty inkwell. With that taken care of, she turned her attention back to Oracle.

She was standing far enough away that his sudden expansion didn’t smash her or anything, but she did wince as dust and wind blew past her face. It was enough to kick up her hair, if only briefly. She sneezed once the dust settled, and not long afterwards the Oracle began praying to fate. "I don’t mind having a corporal body." She said to herself.

With Muste distracted by the little goblin, Sal was free to do… something. It seemed like the next step was to dig. With any luck, Muste would put that quill to work and draft a plan for the place.

While she walked, Sal noticed a tiny rat looking up at her while holding a soggy piece of bread. She had no idea what this creature was doing, and was about to continue on her way when she thought a bit more. Then she leaned down and picked the rat up with a single hand. She gave it a light squeeze. Yes, it was warm. She nestled the rat into her chest before continuing to walk towards the pick axes. The glue would hold it’s back in place for the moment, provided it didn’t struggle too much.

After eyeing up the picks, she reached for one of the larger ones. Salbjörg was strong for her size, but still didn’t have the arm length of an ogre to make swinging a larger pickaxe. She made a mental note that in a few more weeks, she wouldn’t have to work with all these other fives and fours any more. At least, not doing physical labor. After finding a spot that looked good, she swung her pick at the wall, and some stone burst free. This would be time consuming.

"Klein?" She called between swings. "Do you know anything about the bony cadaver in the other room?" Did that even make sense? She would have to find a way around her speech impediment eventually. But for the moment, she dug.

March of the White Rabbit: A Roll-Your-Own Magical Girl Roleplay

There you are. I thought you might show up.

I hope you don’t mind the little bait and switch last week. That was Bee Pee’s idea.

…

I’m not eating? Haha, I’m always eating, but today I was expecting you. I’m running a little behind, so I decided to hold off on the snacks until I was done. It’ll be all pretzels and trader sauce once I’m done here.

Anyway, you know the drill.

Season 3, for real this time.

...Is that an emo wig?

It’s not a wig. It’s my natural, magically grown hair. But that was the style I was going for. I thought it would be amusing given the subject matter.

That bad huh?

*Sigh*

I didn’t want to talk about this one. But we covered the others, so we might as well.

Yes, Bee Pee did not care for the third season. It had its moments, but it wasn’t to his tastes.

Tell me how he really felt.

…

Season three was a cataclysmic event. A metaphorical Chernobyl of a season. Its consequences were long lasting and far reaching, tainting the past and stunting the future. Its many unforced errors only required an ounce of care, common sense, or communication to avoid. If a bad choice could be made, it was. If the fun could be ruined for everyone, it was leaned into a hundred and ten percent.

…Is more or less how I think he’d word it.

Season Three was not a great season, but it was especially bad for Bee Pee. Many things that he tried to set up for months or even years were stunted. The Magistrates made several questionable choices with the plot, antagonists, and were reeling from mistakes made in the previous season. Not everything can be leveled at the Magistrates, but those in power are always the easiest to blame.

Before I get much further, it is my belief that everyone participating in this Reality Plenum was doing what they thought was best at the time. There are no villains here, just elevated emotions and choices made in ignorance. Recently Bee Pee was contacted by a former patron from one of his Reality Plenums out of the blue. They wanted to complain about something he did as a Grand Magistrate a year ago. Something about how a character was overpowered. No one is above criticism it seems.

We have a lot to talk about, and I’m not even sure if I want to mention it all. It’s not too late to skip to the P.O.S.T. if you’d rather.

Plot, antagonists, previous season? Oh my! Was it really that bad?

Let’s find out.

Those three are entwined a little bit and it’s hard to talk about one without touching on the other two. If you’ve been reading along, then you’ll recall that the previous seasons were not like each other at all. The first season had a strong Grand Magistrate lead plot, while the second one was a player run sandbox where the Grand Magistrate was the referee. Season one and two were as different from each other as they could be. Additionally, the players themselves were just as diverse, with half of them being into darker stories while the others preferring a more lighthearted take on things. Making something for such a group was always going to be tricky.

The temptation must have been to leave everything as it was in season two and just carry on. And the Grand Magistrate did this in some capacity. The Rave, which we’ll cover later, was cooked up by a certain vocal patron and one that was an alchemist of runes. But the Grand Magistrate understood the occasional patron hosted events wouldn’t make for a very interesting season. The Patrons needed to be motivated and put on the same page.

We needed villains everyone could rally against, a plot that involved everyone’s champions, and to restrict the freedoms that the Grand Magistrate enabled without creating a PR nightmare. It’s a tall order, motivated by the best of intentions. What could possibly go wrong?

The Villains, it was sort of Beacon this time around, right? But also Justine?

Yes, Beacon were the baddies this time around. Justine too, but she was introduced a bit later. We’ll get to her shortly.

It made sense. The pre-season started with a summit where a magical girl wanted all magical girls, corrupt or otherwise, to get along. Since that time, Beacon has always been a staunch hater of corrupt girls and the biggest obstacle in the way of peace in Penrose. Well, that and all the monster girl villains working with horrors. But Beacon was also a strange choice as a villain for just as many reasons. For one, Penny was a monster that Beacon welcomed into their ranks during the pre-season. Alicia had a cat-girl-girl-friend by the end of season one. Season two saw the purification of the Bates, which was propped up by the Beacon community. There were also a lot of Beacon Patron Champions, and you couldn’t make them the baddies!

Enter the Ascendancy. They were Beacon Buddies on steroids. A group of powerful specialist Beacon girls that were even more anti-monster than the Penrose branch. Looks good on paper, right?

That branch of Beacon had never been seen in the Reality Plenum until the end of the second season, which was coincidentally about 2 weeks before the third season started. That’s not a deal breaker on its own, but they were far too powerful and far too numerous. They would jump into events with a team of three or four and outclass everyone. It was clear that the Grand Magistrate wanted these girls to be really powerful and scary, but that wasn’t why anyone was playing. Season two had introduced coins and leaned into letting everyone experience a power fantasy, and now season three was changing course by introducing villains that were too strong for anyone to realistically face. Gumption alone could not defeat these girls, and the Grand Magistrate only doubled down on their power as the season went on. In fact some events were entirely resolved by the Ascendancy, completely removing the agency of the patron champions in the area. The Ascendancy never really lost, and no matter how hard any of the Patron Champions fought, it wouldn’t be enough to swing the event in their favor. Not until the last event of the season.

And they all had boring, flat, unremarkable, personalities. The sort of personalities that you think a character should have after you look at their art for two seconds. They were overpowered cardboard cutouts, and there were so many of them that they were impossible to tell apart. This might have felt more in place in some psudo-grimdark setting like lord of the rings, but this Reality Plenum had been doing everything in its power to make its Patrons feel strong. It almost felt like a punishment, and most patrons simply ignored the Ascendancy and skedaddled as soon as they showed up.

And no, the Patron Champions of Penrose Beacon did little if anything to stand up to the Ascendancy. Even during the last event of the season, before the christmas event, most of Penrose Beacon were assisting the Ascendancy. Even in diplomatic situations, they never attempted to change their minds unless it was to protect their own members.

The Ascendancy, monster haters extraordinaire, thought it would be a good idea to team up with Justine, monster and antagonist from the first season that served a horror. They even teamed up with Mint, their sworn nemesis. Mariette and Cradle, two tiny factions, are not worth the effort of two interdimensional organisations and a satan worshiping touhou to overcome.

Now maybe you’ll understand why Bee Pee dislikes Beacon and Mint as a general rule.

Didn’t Penny become a member of Beacon?

A long time ago, and that didn’t make a lot of sense either. Penny kind of looked like an armored knight to the puchuu so they decided to accept her into their ranks. Fortunately in season three they kicked her out, unfortunately it was done to make her even more super special awesome. Don’t worry, we’ll talk about Penny more later. Believe that.

Did Beacon, Mint, and Justine teaming up make any sense? Like, did something happen to warrant a temporary truce?

Not a good reason, no.

Justine traded Betty for some Mint favors, and Justine had some information on Mariette’s Bane. This was enough to get two factions that wanted Justine killed to team up with her instead.

It’s not even clear what Justine was after here. Revenge? Revenge makes sense, but personal revenge feels like a petty motivation for a horror to have their underling pursue. And if it was, Lily or Su would have been more ideal targets for her wrath.

Justine was spared in season one, right?

Yes, this was rather disappointing to Bee Pee.

That had been one of the major events of Season One. Su had to not let her anger consume her, and that was done by not giving into the urge to kill Justine. Having Justine come back just makes Su and everyone who supported her choice look stupid. More hardships came to everyone because Justine was not executed like she should have been. No matter how arduous her redemption arc, it’s not going to change the fact that she did some shitty things after being granted a second chance. Who’s to say her third chance isn’t going to default at any moment? Everything Justine said after she was spared was a lie.

The Patrons in Beacon were fine with the Ascendancy?

Yes, in fact there’s even a nice collaborative P.O.S.T. between Alicia and Veronica that shows the strange loyalty that Beacon has towards the Ascendancy. Alicia phones up Veronica to chastise her for not having her agents kill themselves at Rachel’s command.

Like, what?

She does come around a little bit. Perhaps Alicia herself felt somewhat entrapped by the Ascendancy's presence, but it doesn’t come through strongly. She worked closely with them and tried to complete their goals with every fiber of her being.

The pessimist in Bee Pee will say Beacon Patrons were fine working with overpowered Non-Patron-Champions so long as they got some free Beacon wins in there, even if it hurt their position.

So how good did it feel when Mariette and Cradle finally triumphed over Beacon, Mint, and Justine?

It didn’t feel that good to him.

…

*pinches toe beans together* Maybe a little bit.

Was the previous season bad?

The issue was more how it complemented season three’s goals.

We won’t retread old ground. Essentially, season three wanted more control than season two needed. The Grand Magistrate wanted to take things in a darker direction, which was a controversial choice for obvious reasons if you’ve been following along.

The problem here is obvious, but that won’t stop me from pointing it out. If you want a cone of vanilla icecream, you probably want it to taste like vanilla icecream. You might enjoy barbecue turkey sandwiches, you might enjoy sausage, you might enjoy raspberry surprise Oreos, but that is not what you want when you lick vanilla icecream.

The magical girl genre is a lot more diverse than most people realize. Fans of madoka magika aren’t guaranteed to enjoy Sailor Moon or Card Captor Sakura. The same goes for Reality Plenums. If Patrons are tuning in for a lighthearted sandbox powerfantasy, it’s risky to swap it out for an oppressive on-rails pain simulator. I can see where the Grand Magistrate felt like it wasn’t a big deal. The final combat act in season two featured the corpse of a long dead character getting used as an ingredient in a summoning ritual, some character death, and the horror responsible for it all was "satisfied" with watching how everyone suffered and chose to spare everyone instead of being defeated.

Bee Pee wants me to mention he had no part in that twist.

Regardless, (most) everyone stuck around. Same with moving from season one to season two. So why not pivot into something else?

Bee Pee doesn’t know what Ari’s thought process was here. What was apparent by the uptick in complaining on discord is that there was something wrong with season three. It was no longer the regular complainers either. It was a lot more people, sometimes nearly everyone.

Any problems with the plot specifically?

Before we discuss the plot, I should introduce you to the two Co-Magistrates assisting the Grand Magistrate. Bee Pee left and Skink was cast out, so they needed to be replaced.

The Lord of Flames was the first to be accepted. Unfortunately, neither I nor Bee Pee know much about their involvement in things. They claim that they didn’t really do anything, which is something I’m inclined to believe. That said, once Hunts became a thing, they ran and created most of them. They also had previous experience working alongside the Grand Magistrate, so they likely knew what to expect.

The second one was a certain corrosive individual. I’m just going to call them Acid. Bee Pee had built up something of a friendship with Acid, and would even take on Acid as a Co-Grand Magistrate for one of their own projects later. But that was after season three wrapped. Acid was unlike Bee Pee and Skink in that he had experience working alongside others before, and had run a few Reality Plenums himself. There were problems brewing under the surface, but we’ll touch on them later. Believe that.

Why don’t we talk about the events one at a time? We have the necromancers, the Beacon Trial, the RAVE (everyone’s personal favorite), the Park thing, The Siege on Mariette’s home, the Seige on Sanctuary, and the Christmas Event. There’s even other odds and ends we can discuss, like Bee Pee’s attempts to make Veronica relevant in a season that seemed to be about her, Or the Grand Magistrate’s attempt to force Penny into superstardom.

It’s all here, just ask.

The Necromancers, that was a trio of fights or something?

It wasn’t going to be.

Originally this was a little side thing that Amaryllis, Emily, and Tetrad were going to go on together. But the Magistrates didn’t have anything set up to debut the Ascendancy in. So Bee Pee was asked to make the event larger for everyone to participate in. Thus, one necromancer turned into a lich and joined his two other lichy cohorts and split up to make three different events.

Communication between Patrons and Magistrates hadn’t improved. Bee Pee was a little surprised that an event he dreamed up with Mr Pants was being taken over by the Magistrates. They began appropriating the liches for themselves without as much as asking if it was okay. Grand Magistrates taking control of Non-Patron-Champions in Reality Plenums is normal, but it was unheard of in season two, which made it feel like a gross overstep of the Magistrate’s authority. Fortunately, this was easily resolved. Lord of Flames wasn’t too keen to take over the event, so Bee Pee got to control one of the liches. And since that lich was the original necromancer, it was like nothing had really happened. Bee Pee got to carry on with his silly little event, and the Magistrates got their big inciting incident for everyone. It was a win/win for all. Crisis averted.

Until the Ascendancy attacked.

I’ve already covered why these girls were annoying. The Patrons had never been given a threat they couldn’t defeat or even harm, so there was a lot of confusion. As impossibly strong as they were, they are very easy to run away from. They pretty much showed up to one shot all the liches, save the one Bee Pee was controlling. He just happened to end their fight a few posts before the Ascendancy could do anything.

That’s not to say the fights were perfect. They all had their problems, as the event wasn’t intended to entertain half the RP or flex the Ascendancy’s might. But there it is.

Overall, barely a foot note.

There was a Beacon Trial?

It had to do with Serenity. Predictably, they decided not to execute her. There’s not much to cover here. The debate was based on feelings and the Cardinal was really into Alicia’s vibes.

The only bit of drama was that Alicia was gifted a special coin that was a better reward than fighting and being humiliated by the Ascendancy. But everyone else at the trial got nothing. Fortunately the Ascendancy’s controversial power level led most to ignore or forget this tiny detail in favor of arguing about the Ascendancy. But Bee Pee remembers. I remember.

*ominous music*

Other than being boring to read (no fighting) it was fine for what it was.

RAVE RAVE RAVE RAVE RAVE!...And the park thing too I guess.

Where do you even start with such an aberration? I guess I could start by giving Bee Pee’s take on it when it first happened.

…

Actually, that’s too mean. You can ask him on discord if you’re really curious.

The Rave and Park were another pair of events that further pushed things in Beacon and the Ascendancy's favor. Another event where, if none of the patron’s girls showed up, the events would have ended the exact same way. Aside from a few dead Ascendancy girls, there was nothing to write home about. The event was unfair for Cradle, but the Penrose Independent suffered even more, and there were countless other offenses that everyone took issue with. Namely Cindy’s death being entirely preventable thanks to three girls with third eye being active. One of them even wrote out that they had been trying to spot that very type of attack that took her life.

Isn’t Bee Pee all about giving characters hard challenges? What was so bad about Cradle taking an L?

Bee Pee does like it when his characters are challenged. But this particular loss yielded nothing for any of the Cradle Agents to latch onto.

The Miko twins were killed off out of plain spite.

Betty’s capture could have been interesting, but the Grand Magistrate decided to block Veronica’s ability to detect her captured agent. Unfortunately, there were no interesting developments involved with getting her back.

Unearned failures are fine, but when the Grand Magistrate decides to control Patron Champions and make them behave like idiots, you’re not doing your plot or Patrons any favors.

If only someone with behind the scenes knowledge could explain how so many errors happened!

I am at your service.

Bee Pee actually had quite a few eyes and ears on this one, if only after the fact. But let me introduce you to two important patrons for this event: Vocal and Alchemist.

Alchemist controlled a few Patron Champions. They were trying to make Chloe a big bad and had one of Chloe’s underlings organize the Rave event. Chloe had been trying to get lots of magical girls to die for some nefarious reason for a long time, and it was never really revealed. Even when Bee Pee asked them about it years later, they claimed to have forgotten what her ultimate goal was. That said, from participating in their Reality Plenums, Bee Pee can say they prefer more straightforward schemes and tend to not get stuck in the details too much.

Vocal also controlled a number of Patron Champions. The only important one for our purposes is Eden, or the Boss of the Penrose independent. Vocal’s kind of like Bee Pee in that they enjoy narrative consistency, and tend to plan their schemes extensively. Unlike Bee Pee, They tend to take planning to the extreme and will plot out and account for the smallest details. Like Alchemist, they also wanted to run an event, but were told to work it in with Alchemist’s idea

You may notice that these two approaches contrast quite a bit.

I’d like to think the Magistrates oversaw all the planning, but I have a feeling that most of the initial planning was done either with no supervision from the Magistrates or with very little input. Bee Pee recalled Vocal telling them about the planning session and seemed proud that it lasted for four hours and was long enough to get Alchemist to ask ‘why do we have to discuss this so much?’ Bee Pee did a crime trial RP where they planned a murder with Vocal. Bee Pee can attest to Vocal’s attention to detail, as well as his hyperfixation for small details. I believe he used the word ‘autistic’ to describe Vocal, but don’t tell Ghost that.

Because there aren’t enough chefs in the kitchen, the Grand Magistrate and Acid did their own planning apart from Vocal and Alchemist. Lord of Flames was also present, but they insisted they did very little. Either way, Vocal and Alchemist were not made aware of these additional plans. We’ll explain some of these things shortly.

Additionally, and unrelated to the Reality Plenum, the Grand Magistrate had an appointment to have their wisdom teeth pulled. As a magical cat, I do not need to see the dentist ever. But you can imagine the looming dread someone might feel if they didn’t like dentists and had to wait months for an invasive operation that would be due mid Rave. It’s not a good feeling, I imagine.

You can see the event was built on a powder keg of miscommunication, secrets, stress, and maybe even hubris. As soon as things started to go south, they continued to go south quickly.

The first thing to fail was the layers of authority over the event. You had the Grand Magistrate, Acid, and of course Alchemist and Vocal. Except Alchemist left before things had really started. Bee Pee did try to talk to them after the fact, but they were hesitant to say exactly why they were leaving. Though it was evident they did not care for how the event was being handled. Needless to say, having a core member of your plan leave at a critical moment is not a good feeling. The first spark, and the inferno was inevitable.

The Grand Magistrate was making weekly transcripts, and Acid was doing one or two independently from them. It would be very confusing because after the Grand Magistrate, you’d get a few transcripts from patrons before Acid would write a transcript that made previous reactions either impossible or no longer relevant. At one point a brawl was starting up and Acid decided that it would be more fun to have a fireball set everything on fire and fill the room with hazardous smoke. If you were going to start a fight (like the magistrates had instructed you to) you were now required to try and escape as fast as possible. It was a confusing time, and apparent that Acid was just doing things to cover Alchemist’s absence.

Naturally, this over reach of Acid was bothering Vocal, who felt a little unsure of everything going on. But it didn’t matter because those months of writing out Eden collecting assets were about to pay off. And with a single post, they did it. Eden was the only patron champion to kill a member of the Ascendancy, and she terminated quite a few of them. And guess what happened the very next round?

Yes, the lightning nuke.

Acid might be a halfway decent magistrate, but they also like to abuse systems. While they have tons of experience working with others, experience doesn’t always mean a patron can keep their darkest desires in check. Bee Pee and Skink might not have been the most cooperative bunch, but they were motivated to keep the Reality Plenum as fun as possible for everyone. That, and Bee Pee had Skink to restrain his ideas. The Lord of Flames nor the Grand Magistrate had the wherewithal to tell Acid to calm the frick down. Lighting up a nuke from an unknown character that rivals or surpasses Eden’s nuke within a week of each other was a misstep. But Acid couldn’t help himself. When he saw how powerful Alexander’s enchantment was, he wanted to give a character the opposite. A giant kill all nuke instead of impenetrable defences. It was likely stronger than intended because the Grand Magistrate wasn't in a great space.

It’s fair to say that between all the criticism from Vocal and Bee Pee, Alchemist leaving, Acid’s claims that ‘actually it was all the Grand Magistrate’s idea’ and the date for the wisdom teeth removal being not so far away, that the Grand Magistrate was at his breaking point. In a single post, Cindy died, the nuke killed nearly everyone in the rave, it was a mess. Things weren’t even done escalating, as Bee Pee retaliated by acting like a Co-Magistrate and knew no one could stop him from summoning a horror. The Grand Magistrate’s dread only grew along with the contempt he felt for his patrons.

Then something kind of interesting happened.

Bee Pee and Vocal didn’t just complain openly about the Magistrates choices, they complained privately too. After weeks of talking about how utterly crap the Reality Plenum had been, Bee Pee wondered why the Grand Magistrate was acting so irritably. The answer was obvious, but it was sobering to hear the Grand Magistrate’s strongest critic say ‘probably because everyone’s telling him everything he does is shit.’ That day, Bee Pee’s heart grew three times as big. He immediately contacted the Grand Magistrate privately and tried to reconcile with him. It was too little too late perhaps, but Bee Pee was able to offer a small comfort and worked with the Grand Magistrate towards the end of the event. Bee Pee would strive to be less adversarial moving forward, and did pretty well until the Christmas event.

So who do you blame for the Rave turning out the way it did? Was it Alchemist’s abrupt departure? Vocal’s high minded pursuit of perfection? Acid’s desire to see what he could get away with? Lord of Flame’s proclivity to not intervene? Bee Pee and the other critics railing against the Grand Magistrate? Perhaps it the Grand Magistrate’s fault for not being able to hold it together?

Regardless of who is to blame, they all could have done something to make the event more bearable for everyone else.

Didn’t we see Oros first here too?

Oh yes. Oros wasn’t the first meta character in the Reality Plenum, but they are the first one to use their power to criticize the powers that be. Bee Pee was rather disillusioned with the RP at this point and made the champion as a way of venting. The Grand Magistrate even asked them if everything was okay, because they suspected Oros was created to mock the Reality Plenum. Bee Pee lied and said they thought it was funny, which the Grand Magistrate found agreeable.

What Oros represented changed as the season progressed, and she’s appeared in other Reality Plenums outside this one.

Mariette can’t catch a break, huh?

Nope, but it was a break for most of the patrons.

A lot of them enjoyed the event, it was almost a throwback to the previous season where it was just magical girls beating up on each other. The Ascendancy was present, but seemed to be weaker here than in the rest of the events for no real reason. Not that anyone was going to complain, and everyone still avoided them like the plague. Except for Bee Pee, because he’s built different.

But Bee Pee themself didn’t care for the event because the Grand Magistrate had promised a cool, epic showdown between Justine and Veronica. They just kind of threw that away when Suckura (fan favorite name for Sakura) used a killing blow before a fight could even start.

Mmmm, Bee Pee didn’t really like anything the Grand Magistrate decided on this season.

Sanctuary siege was a thing that happened.

Yea and it wasn’t too popular.

Lord of Flame did some things, but it was evident that Shifty (Penny’s patron) didn’t really want anyone breaking their invincible almighty fortress. There was even a part where Oros trapped Penny in another dimension with a horror that sent a bunch of random monsters after them, and the Grand Magistrate was fine with them taking six seconds to beat all the monsters, locate the remains of beacon HQ, and build a teleporter to cross dimensions.

The event was a wet fart, but the intent had been to keep Penny out of the main event. In that respect, the event succeeded.

The Christmas Event!

Nothing too dramatic happened. It was basically just the beach event, only Christmas themed.

Acid quit during the Mariette raid and Shifty stepped in to be Co-Magistrate. There was some baby drama between Bee Pee and Shifty that isn’t too relevant right now.

Then the Keijo tournament came around again. The entire season started to feel like it had been built to prop up Penny while keeping Cradle girls as low as possible, and the Grand Magistrate giving Penny a win against Sammantha in a Keijo tournament was the straw that broke the camel’s back. It was apparent that, despite all her powers, Shifty had been outplayed by Hungry Trousers. Bee Pee left the Reality Plenum for about nine months and, while they did come back, they’ve never been the same.

They do things like have cats write their posts.

Veronica wasn’t relevant?

With everything stacked against Cradle you’d think it could have yielded a decent underdog story. But in the end, Cradle as a whole was just kind of there to be the Grand Magistrate’s punching bag. The patrons that made up Cradle tried their hearts out, but any win they might have been able to attain was snatched away from them. All they managed to do was lose and needed to rely on other factions and patrons to restore anything that was lost.

Betty won some frivolous prizes during the Christmas event, but eh…

Penny wasn’t already a superstar?

It’s true, Penny was already quite sought after by both patron and non-patron champion alike. But the Grand Magistrate felt she needed to reach even greater heights.

I need to tell you something. The Grand Magistrate? They have uh, a weird relationship with patron champions. If they like your champion, they will never fail at anything.

Nobody knows this better than Bee Pee.

Yes, Shining Scale/Amber got owned by some water blob girl, but that was largely Bee Pee’s choice. Up until that moment the only time Amber failed at anything was when another patron’s character was in her way. Sure, she got her attack thrown back at her by Minnie once, but for someone so underpowered they should have gotten beat up more. The Grand Magistrate even called them the ‘main character’ of the first season after her death got posted. And then Mika? She was stupid and did really dumb things, and the worst thing that happened to her was a troll swatting her with a club. Don’t worry, she lived, and her ‘sacrifice’ helped everyone escape the Ascendancy. Meanwhile, champions like Sam just keep taking L after L because they do not have the love of the Grand Magistrate. That and they insist on dicking around with really powerful characters.

Which is why I have to disagree with Nykannis’s assessment that ‘protagonist power’ could have ever made Finn a match for Penny. Unless this power is a representation of the favor of the Grand Magistrate, but I do not believe the way she planned on going about increasing it would have endeared Finn to the Grand Magistrate. Oh well. Who can say?

The point is, Penny was one of the Grand Magistrate’s darlings. Even in the pre-season the Grand Magistrate allowed her to join Beacon, The heaven and stars moved for her, and she always, in Bee Pee’s personal opinion, felt like a bit of a Mary Sue. When Bee Pee was a Co-Magistrate himself he would try to send some adversity her way, but the Grand Magistrate would never follow his advice completely and would try to turn everything into a boon for Penny. During the lich fight, Penny fought an enemy that was far weaker than the lich, but got an upgrade that was above and beyond what anyone else got for that fight. When Penny wanted to become whole again with a modified red coin, the Grand Magistrate tried to use it as an excuse to buff up her stats beyond what she had before the split. These are just a few of the hundreds of examples of Penny making out like a bandit. And we’ll get into this more when we talk about season four, but Shifty didn’t even want most of these enhancements. This was a Grand Magistrate doting on their favorite character.

The Grand Magistrate did try to be fair with most champions, butI don’t think Bee Pee was alone in feeling that Penny was treated better than everyone else. While that had never been a problem in the past, that was because everyone felt they could leverage Penny for their own uses or just ignore her. But then when the Grand Magistrate saw fit to grant her Sanctuary, something she earned more through happenstance than her own efforts, most of the patrons rejected it. Having a cool base of operations that was relevant to the story had been on almost everyone’s wish list, and it had been served to the most entitled magical girl. On that Poll Bee Pee made it was in the same ballpark as the Ascendency, only more divisive.

Oh right, the poll.

Yes, Bee Pee ran a poll because he wanted to know if he was going crazy. Let’s look at it together with fresh eyes.

Overall rating, not great. Two patrons also left and did not participate in the poll.

Time skips and the siege were the most favorable parts of the season. Read: Parts where the Ascendancy and Justine were kept in check.

If I had to guess, everyone was more accepting of the Ascendancy after they took their first real L. Or Bee Pee was over reacting.

This kind of surprised Bee Pee. He remembered how much everyone disliked Cradle and the red coin when he first unveiled them. Just goes to show you that opinions can change with time.

Anyone here feel like The Rave was a masterpiece? I know some of you liked it.

Not much else to say, is there?

Did Bee Pee like anything about season three?

Deni came back, which was a bright spot.

The Iron Chef Penrose collab was another one.

Oros turned out to be an interesting character, didn’t she? A little bit more interesting than the rage induced shit post she started off as?

The hunts were fantastic. Oros and Marriette teaming up was just wonderful, and while they were "easy," they were a reprieve from getting curb stomped by the Ascendancy. Bee Pee actually told Flamelord he was good at them.

…

He can’t think of anything else off the top of his head, but he’s sure there were other transcripts written over free time that he enjoyed.

If Bee Pee thinks season 3 is so bad, what would he have done differently?

If Bee Pee had been Grand Magistrate for season three, it probably would have been unrecognizable. He wouldn’t have tried to shift the Reality Plenum’s genre, nor would he have let patrons co-run events. Justine wouldn’t have appeared, and the Ascendancy would have played a much smaller part. It should be no surprise that Bee Pee would have taken the opportunity to make Veronica the main antagonist.

Meh, who really knows? Roleplays are chaotic, volatile things. Plans get dashed all the time and personalities clash too. It’s easy to say what could be done better when you don’t understand why the original choices were made.

At the end of the day, there’s only one version of season three, and like it or hate it, it’s the one we got. Maybe it could have been better or different, but it’s not like nothing good came out of it. Oros the Mad would never exist without it, and the spinoffs from Oros the Wise to Oros the Joyful wouldn’t exist either.

When you’re making the mother of all omelets, you can’t fret over every egg.

Weren’t you part of season three?

Yes, but this took long enough to report. Let’s save it for next time.

I’ll take that P.O.S.T. now

Let’s get this over with. I have snacking to do…

…

…

…

"Oh god, what have I done?"

You crave the applause yet hate the attention.

— Mac

Tonya ‘Mac’ Murphy

Age: 24/11 | Gender: Female/Female | Illusion, Gravity
Body | Power of Friendship, Regeneration, Third Eye | Cradle
Coercion, Soul Jar, Martial Training, True Sight, Parasite, Gifted, Awareness, Overcity Shift, Mystic Artifact

Magical Overload, Cradle Supply, Connected, Gifted Item (Aigorost) | Monstrous Form, Exposed, Mercy, Distrust
Redirected Magic, Second Specialization | Non-Standard Limbs, Destroyer

STR: 05 | AGI: 04 | VIT: 05 | MAG: 03 | LCK: 03
+46
STR: 20 | AGI: 20 | VIT: 20 | MAG: 20 | LCK: 20

Remaining: 8 Gold, 30 Silver, 39 Bronze
Total: 12 Gold, 162 Silver, 183 Bronze

Apparently, Mac had gone through all the effort of returning as a different person only to end up engaging with MDP anyway. She’s getting dumber by the second I tell you, which is proof that MDP is a black hole for intelligence. A lesson that Mac would soon learn was that MDP had no long term memory to speak of and just treated everyone like potential friends. The exception being if they did something to hurt someone else, physically or otherwise.

"Uh-huh." was her initial response to the sickeningly sweet girl. "I’m Mac, and, it’s, nice to meet you and Mister Hat and Mister Clock Cop and all the cactus." She adjusted her cap. "I’m something of a cop, hat, and cactus enjoyer myself." Yes, Mac. You look like you enjoy those things. "We can Play a bit."

No sooner did Mac doom herself did babysitter Penny and the sex offending Egyptian make an appearance. Mac breathed a sigh of relief, but steeled herself. This was the perfect opportunity to get bamboozled by a trick. They were in wonderland after all, and without a constant line of communication, she couldn’t be sure the people before her were the genuine article.

Certainly it wouldn’t hurt to use her various magical senses. The only one she skipped on using was that infernal sword.

---

"Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fu-"

*Shoves soap in her mouth*

— Chloe Irving

Chloe Irving

03 03 03 03 03
10 10 06 17 04
23/12 | Babe/Baby | Spirit
Mystic orb, Gauntlets | Third Eye, Tentacles | Horror
Wings, Enhanced Outfit, Big Damn Hero, Blood Magic, Interdimensional Home, Sorcery, Enhanced Transformation
Dominator | Dark Weapon
Nagash

6 Gold, 9 silver, 13 bronze

After her initial outburst, Chloe drew out her crystal ball again to see if she could figure out what the portal witch was talking about. She hadn’t seen many of Marriette’s girls around, and Mayra wasn’t exactly the leading sort. But after making a few careful inquiries, she understood what she had been referring to.

"Hmmm…"

While she doubted that the queen could do anything to Penrose, it wouldn’t hurt to have a few forces there just in case. Certainly, given the terms she and Lily were on, it would probably be best if they didn’t raid the castle together. Chloe turned to one of her trusty advisors.

"Oros the Savant." Yes, that’s a real Oros that was a Patron Champion in a tabletop campaign for Age of Sigmar. It’s not related to our favorite Oros however.

The Mortisan Boneshaper turned to its master. "Yes, mortarch?"

"The Pea Princess, Snow White, the Little Mermaid, the Lilliput Princess, the Forest Princess. I want you to make an effort to see if you can locate them. Tell them you are with Mariette and they should assist us if you can find them. I need to return to Penrose with some of our remaining forces."

"By Nagashe’s will it shall be done! But, I must ask, would it not be easier for you to locate them first with your scrying orb?"

With a groan, Chloe checked to see if she could locate any of the "Disney princesses" with her orb.

An Idiot's Dungeon Union

"REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!"

-Salbjörg of the Deep

A lot was happening, but Sal was solely focused on Zoppy for the moment. But that had less to do with wanting to take care of the goblin girl and more to do with acquiring the bell. Salbjörg knew she should have just taken it, but figured they might discuss how to divide the items first. That did not seem to be the case, as even the Oracle was pawing over the items. He probably earned his right to the treasure of his choice. Hmmm, perhaps she wasn’t just focusing on Zoppy after all.

While trying to facilitate a trade with Zoppy, Muste snuck up behind her and attempted to foil the whole scheme by revealing the trick. She immediately wrapped her arm around his head and pulled him into a headlock. So long as she kept adequate pressure on his wind pipe he shouldn’t be able to ruin things further. Fortunately, Zoppy seemed to be blissfully ignorant of Muste’s attempts to get in her way. Things could proceed.

She did remember Zoppy mentioning a ring, or something like that. But there was nothing around that looked like that, and Sal lacked the ability to craft one in a short span of time. Not a convincing one at least.

Zoppy did not look hard to convince though.

If the goblin was going to just grab things that were lying around, there was nothing stopping Sal from doing the same. It seemed that the goblin had forgotten or misplaced the mana gem she had given her earlier, which had gotten stuck on Sal with everything else. While still holding Muste in a headlock, she had some of her bones coil around the gem like a claw that ended in a ring. It looked ridiculous, but Sal had an idea it would please the goblin. She only had so much bone on hand, but she could recover it later while Zoppy was sleeping. Since the ring was made out of bone, she floated it up in the air.

The skeleton had briefly collapsed when Sal grabbed Muste, but swiftly came back to life once she was resituated. The skeleton reached for the bell and took it from the goblin’s deformed hands. It then stood up, turned it over as if examining it, and then reached overhead for the ring that seemed to have just appeared overhead. It then presented the oversized ring to Zoppy. While she was distracted, the skeleton’s arm swiftly detached to place the bell in Sal’s hand before retracting, and then the skeleton went to take a nap again.

Finally, she released Muste. Some of the bird’s feathers and other bits had stuck to the side of her, but she completely ignored that for the time being. "Read the room!" She hissed before stashing the bell in her shoulder compartment. She also made sure to wedge some bone inside the bell to prevent it from accidentally ringing. "And I refuse to touch your last meal." She scowled when she realized the bird’s tiny head had been popped open. "Give me nice, clean bone and you’ll have your pen and pot." That was something she could do herself in seconds by forcing the bones out of the bird, but Muste had proven to be nothing but a nuisance thus far. Best to keep him a little busy.

Besides, there were other problems.

"Oracle!"

It had to be the Oracle. The large presence that usually filled the dungeon was missing, and the oversized beetle was wearing the pendant she last saw them trying to put on. She approached and was about to remove it and stopped. "Wait!" Sal stepped backwards. "It could be… Curssssssed!" She leaned into the other room where Schnupfen was screwing around and bothering the workers. "You!" She practically shrieked the words when she pointed at the ghost. "Remove the pendant from the Oracle, immidiately!" He was a ghost, after all. What harm could come to him from touching a transformation amulet?

Hate adding color codes to posts? Color Code Express is here!

Tired of adding color codes while you type? Finding it tedious to proofread posts filled with BBC code? Wish those role players that complain about you not coloring your text would stop harassing you on discord? These woes and many more are addressed with my brand new program: Color Code Express! With Color Code Express (CCE), you have all sorts of fancy pants features at your fingertips! Including:

- Color all quoted text with a single click. (posts with one speaking character)
- Color collabs with multiple characters effortlessly
- Can add Italic, Bold, etc to quoted text if desired
- No-fuss gradient coloring
- "BBC paint" for adding text effects to the rest of the document
- It's 100% Free!

Requirements:

- A Windows, Mac, or Linux computer. No mobile/web support at this time.
- A desire to save time
- The ambition to follow a short tutorial
- Thick skin to tolerate being called a dingus every time an error message pops up.
- To accept that you are using an, albeit very functional, prototype program.

If any of that sounded interesting to you, head over to the Itch.io page and download that sucker!

NOTE: Password is "Oroswashere"

Known Bugs/Limitations:

- Preview windows for viewing BBC code will not preview custom BBC code correctly, like the guild's page breaks. They still look good in post.
- CCE cannot access the internet and thus cannot display images inside image tags.
- CCE will behave erratically if it's asked to add color codes to quoted text with BBC codes inside it. It is recommended to use CCE after you finish editing/proof reading your posts and then doing any other code edits afterwards.
- There are some other nitpick things that are covered in the demo.

South Town Scuffle: Two Wolves (Terry Bogard VS Broken Promise)

That would be amusing, but I'm pretty sure Yamazaki would win that particular contest. Oros is mad in the same way many of H. P. Lovecraft's characters are mad, in that they possess forbidden knowledge. Oros knows she's in a story, but otherwise thinks rationally.

It's too bad Spiderman doesn't have a reason to swing by. That would be a meme. But then we'd have two spidermans in this RP. :3

Former Shikikan, Current Writer

@UMP45 Respecter It's okay, it's a gacha game. Enjoying the art without playing the game is objectively the best way to enjoy it! Also I used UMP45 as a face claim once upon a time.

Any who, we have a handful of you media enjoyers here. You shouldn't have too much trouble finding something to join. I say that as someone in five different RPs. Yes I have issues, no I refuse to address them. If you don't see anything that interests you, just wait a few days.

Enjoy your stay.

South Town Scuffle: Two Wolves (Terry Bogard VS Broken Promise)

Feel free to have someone show up and talk to Oros. Just make sure their sanity is durable enough to take her ramblings or broken to the point she can't ruin it any further.