Dervish

Humanity's Last Army

I'm gonna aim for a reply tomorrow; I was on a collab roll today in one of my other RPs.

Dungeons and (Krayt) Dragons, Star Wars: The Price of Freedom

Dug engine jockey and droid tinkerer inbound. Prepare for Titanfall.

..well, soonish. It's about 1/2 done.

Humanity's Last Army

Are you still accepting players?

<Snipped quote by Dervish>
But you're Canadian!

@POOHEAD189

Canadians like guns, we just don't worry about ever needing them for anything past sport or the impending return of Moosifer.

Personally, I'm partial to bullpup weapons. Those look badass.

@Fisticuffs

Man after my own heart. If they had less creepy triggers, they'd be my absolute favorite layout.

@DervishUnfortunately real steel is too rich for my blood Bought a Walther P22 with the g36

@ihinka

Especially looking at HK stuff, egads.

<Snipped quote by Dervish>

I think that's the point. Standard battle rattle is 6 mags of 25 rounds but we're only getting 15 and I'm assuming just the one so we need to back off the firing line to re-up. Can't be a lot of resources since the mining just started yesterday and I doubt we space taxi'd enough rounds to waste handing full mags to someone who's just gonna eat lead when the Bulwark get here. We're given just enough ammo to do our jobs, anything more is a waste of gear.

Quick question, how long is boot camp? I'm going with a month because of urgency but I'm basing it off of Marine doctrine because that's what I know best.

@Corporal Lance

Which is a fair point; personally, I'd rather top up fewer mags with limited rounds than spread them across several.

Someone should fire the supply officer.

Humanity's Last Army

Also, the standard issue pistol is given to people who achieve a rank past grunt, and carries 10 rounds of 5.7 FMJ.

@Roughdragon1

Those are some tinyass mags, 5.7mm is smaller than a 9mm and one of the selling points of the Five-seven is 20 round mags standard and 30 extended, which is awesome for a handgun.

I've always been partial to the fn p90 It has this 'alien' or 'futuristic' look to it... or it did before SG-1 popularized it. Other than that I've always been a fan of the h&k g36, even have an airsoft replica

@ihinka

I own a TAR-21 and Vz 58, real steel. I know what I like. ;D

A question for my beloved guild colleagues

I personally don't believe every single post needs to be read. This is my own opinions of course others need to disagree. But when two people are talking to each other and it doesn't involve the story, or the character you're a part of whatsoever then you have no obligation to read it. You may want to it may help solidify your understanding of other characters but it can also lead to some meta gaming potential say what if character A said to B that they liked cake. Then when character A meets C then C offers the aforementioned Cake for no reason.

Basically it's up to you in my own opinion. I feel the need to add 'my opinion' because I don't feel like arguing about this.

@vancexentan

Or as a counterpoint, end of a scene with posts you aren't reading suddenly include your character and you don't respond to it until after people bug you about it and now you have to read back several posts to figure out what's going on.

You might say, "Well, that's why people tell you you're involved", but that's putting responsibility on them that could be mitagated entirely if you'd just been following along.

Like Ammo said, metagaming is a personal problem that any half decent roleplayer won't get caught up in. If it is a problem, the GM needs to step in, simple as that.

The Elder Scrolls: Fruits of Contention - Chapter 1 (Completed)

Some Debts are Paid Dearly

26th Suns Height, shortly after the departure of the Steelhead, Iron-Breaker Mine...

It took time for Bharzak's eyes to adjust to the dark and barely lit corridors of Iron-Breaker Mine, and no sooner did she start to make out the cold rock walls with her adjusting eyes did she have a pick-axe thrust into her arms by Leigelf, the owner of the mine since his divorced wife met her end at the end of a Dark Brotherhood Assassin's blade during the Stormcloak Rebellions. Now in possession of both Iron-Breaker and Quicksilver mines, the Nord was fabulously wealthy and the lack of competition between Leigelf and Beitild meant the quotas were far more relaxed for the Iron-Breaker workers. It was still hard work, granted, but at least now the iron miners weren't expected to outproduce the Quicksilver miners just to try and earn the mine a bit more and their jobs weren't on the line for falling behind. Bharzak held the well-worn too uncertainly; its balance was off from an axe, and its elm handle sturdy and sporting obvious grip and stress marks along its somewhat uneven shaft; at least there'd be no splinters from its use. She grunted quietly, accepting that this was her way of paying off one debt with another, albeit she was getting pretty sick of being sent into dark caves to pay these debts off. Jonimir forcing her into the encounter with the pyromancer was still fresh on her mind.

Still, she was grateful for being alive, and rubbing where the collar had dug into her neck was a welcome reprieve she never thought she'd experience again. She'd effectively been a slave of the Kamal, and while there was a lot of distrust towards her given that unfortunate association, she'd rather deal with people not liking her based on fear and loathing than the alternative of displeasing a cruel master that held the keys to her premature demise. She was used to hate; it came with being an Orc; her people had been maligned and ostracized since the dawn of their race. She could handle scowls, they hurt less than being electrocuted to death or burned or stabbed. Not that she was afraid of a fight, but recently she discovered that the world was less interested in fair and more in wholesale slaughter.

And so, without fuss, Bharzak took the pick-axe and allowed herself to be lead to the end of the mine where they had been pursuing another sizable ore vein on account of the rusty coloured filament that was being struck free of the stone. Being shown how to handle the pickaxe and how to strike the rock without hurting herself by one of the experienced miners, the Orsimer got to work and even though she felt played out by the end of ten minutes, she kept going with only minimal breaks, taking turns with another miner every twenty minutes or so that they could keep their strength up.

After two hours and already exhausted to her core, Bharzak and her partner were told to take a 20 minute break, the Nord excusing himself to take a piss. And so the Orc sat, eagerly drinking back an entire water skin due to her mouth feeling like sandpaper for how dry it was. It occurred to her then that perhaps, just perhaps, drinking nothing but ale to try and forget her troubles the night prior wasn’t a suitable replacement for keeping hydrated. Getting up to refill the skin from a water cask that had been brought into the mine, Bharzak realized that her partner had been gone for some time, their 20 minutes had to have been up. Perplexed, the Orc moved through the tunnels, finding an end where the light was extinguished for privacy, she assumed.

“Are you done? We have to get back.” She called. No response.

About to give up on anyone being down the dark corridor, she caught the gleam of something in the dark grabbing a still lit torch behind her, Bharzak walked down towards the reflected light and realized what she was looking at. Prone on the floor with a crimson crescent dragged across his throat was her partner, who had died without anyone hearing a thing. Almost dropping the torch in alarm, Bharzak waved it back and forth in front of her, suddenly feeling very trapped in the mine without an idea of where the murderer was. She had to get out, warn the guards, escape… something!

“Everyone, get out!” She called out, hurrying down towards where the exit was, only to find the way ahead dark, the torches extinguished. Confused shouts came from up ahead, only to be cut short as if interrupted by an unseen hand across their mouths. This gave way to something far more blood chilling as a shrill scream echoed across the stones before being utterly silenced, a stampede of feet and alarmed and terrified shouts came from ahead, shadowy figures dancing across the torchlight before being snuffed out one at a time. She fled back to the back where she was working, tossing her torch behind her, hoping to hide herself in the dark and avoid whatever was lethally stalking the tunnels, the lights sequentially getting snuffed out.

Bharzak was so preoccupied by the lights further down the tunnel that she did not notice her own torch being picked up by a figure, who suddenly caught her attention as it moved towards her. Covered in layers of rags and eyes concealed by a pair of dark lensed goggles, the figure was the size of a man or mer, but far more ominous. It stared at Bharzak for a few quiet moments before it lifted a hand, and a flash of dark smoke made it disappear from sight, and a moment over, the torch was extinguished.

Bharzak grabbed her pickaxe and screamed.

~ ~ ~

One hour later…

Gunnar had drawn patrol duty that particular afternoon, a welcome reprieve of dealing with corpses, something that wasn’t getting easier as the summer heat was forcing a decision about burial sooner rather than later due to the rapid decomposition that an old blanket only did so much to conceal. Behind his helm, Gunnar’s face was concealed and he allowed the disappointment and depression of the entire week to be shown only to himself. The people of Dawnstar needed their guards to look the part, even if they didn’t really feel like they were up to that particular job. Mercenaries were drinking the town dry, and more than once had he gotten off shift to find that there wasn’t a drop of mead to be had; by the Nine, the entire town was dealing with supply shortages, the Argonian refugee not the least of the problems. The sooner the mercs left for an assignment and the murderers were caught, the sooner Gunnar would be able to sleep.

Passing by Iron-Breaker Mine, Gunnar found it conspicuously quiet and usually there were one or two people leaving or entering over the course of an hour. It had been still and quiet, and it raised an uncomfortable tick in the guard’s instinct. Heading towards the entrance, he called out into the dark, “Hello! What’s going on in there?”

“Help… me.” A croaking voice said below him. A hand shot out into the light, blooded and covered in dirt.

“Gods.” Gunnar gasped, rushing over to the man, who was covered in stab wounds. The thick scarf that had wrapped around his neck was bloodied, but Gunnar suspected it was the reason the man was still breathing rather than having had his windpipe severed. “I’m going to get you help, hang on!”

Soon, a mage was brought to the cave and a group of guards entered the mine to investigate the carnage, realizing that they were extremely fortunate to find even one survivor. Gunnar reached the end of the tunnel, a frown across his face. The green skin of an Orc was soaked with crimson; her head slumped against her chest. Bharzak, wasn’t it? He recalled that she’d been pressed into service in the mine to pay off a debt of sorts or to keep her under close watch, he recalled.

“I’m sorry.” Gunnar said softly, crouching in front of the body, noticing that just out of her reach was a blooded pickaxe. Noticing all of her wounds appeared to be that of blades, nothing resembled the blunt and brutal puncture of a pickaxe; Gunnar had seen his share of those given that drunken miners and violent disputes were all too common occurrences in Dawnstar.

He picked up the tool, looking at the Orc with a passing respect. “I know it isn’t of comfort to you, but you might have given us what we need to stop whoever did this. May you rest well among your ancestors; you died bravely, which is more than most of us get to say.” Gunnar said, standing and heading back to the exit, wondering what the wounded man would say. He wanted to visit the alchemist. Maybe, just maybe, they’d be able to figure out exactly what the blood soaked upon the iron belonged to. It was certainly more than they had an hour ago.

Rotten Spokes of the Unlawful Wheel

@Gcold I'll see if I can whip something up before the deadline broseiden of the brocean.

A question for my beloved guild colleagues

<Snipped quote by Dervish>
that while I agree with the gist of this, small summaries are very good for NRP's. At least to put at the bottom of a post. Not so that's all they read, but it helps them focus on when they do read a post so they know what army is going where, or what political upheaval has transpired and they don't miss it through a typo or flowery wording.

If they don't read the entire post, they will miss subtle hints that my King is either a grim faced hard ass, or he is jolly enough to break bread with your faction, and if they miss that then it is their loss (and they deserve the loss). However, at least the narrative will continue easier and they'll know that my army of 10,000 northmen has crossed the border. (And again, it will be an incentive to read because they'll be wondering why they crossed, and what kind of troops are they, and who leads them, etc.)

Thank you for reading thoroughly :)

@POOHEAD189

I think end post summaries are kind of a different beast than what I was referring to. I mean something like,

Poo smiled coyly, and said "hi." being the entire extent of the post rather than in your NRP example writing out a few paragraphs detailing what your nation or army or Juggalo Posse did in your turn and quickly recapping the important points to act as a quick reference or to ensure nobody missed anything.

@yoshua171 In regards to how far back someone should read if they're joining an established RP, I tend to err towards 3-5 pages as a guideline so you can get a feel for what's going on and the characters so I can put my best foot forward. I don't think I'd ever tell someome to read an entire roleplay they were just joining unless they really wanted to.

I think @Odin brings up a fair point about massive games and not reading posts that really have nothing to do with characters. I personally haven't been in a game where characters are apart for too long since they're a part of the same group, so that's where I am coming from. But sandboxes like Create a Hero, for instance, seems to run off of different cities and characters doing entirely different arcs. It's a giant playground where you're all playing tag but everyone is at different schools. If there's literally dozens of characters and you've not even in the same region as other groups, then I kind of think it's an insane amount of work to follow with everything.

A question for my beloved guild colleagues

I'm on the opinion that when you read a novel, you don't skip character sections you don't like. It puts holes in the narrative and you might miss out on crucial information.

With roleplaying, it's a similar situation. Even if characters aren't directly involved with yours, it's still a nice courtesy to read their post because they put work into it and ideally, the goal is to be writing something others in your game enjoy to read. Roleplaying is at its core collaborative storytelling, everyone who's apart of said story deserve to have their voice heard.

If you're finding it hard to keep up with all the posts or just don't like a person's character, then maybe look for games with less players in the future or at the bare minimum skim over the post for relevant information. I don't necessarily agree with doing that, but whereas people argue that ignorance can be a satisfying strength to the story, I'd argue it more often than not leads to confusion, and not in a good way.

It really makes it hard to read other people's posts when 90% is pure fluff and personal thoughts of their character.

In a perfect world you would put their thoughts into hiders and just write your 2 damn actual sentences(out of 5 paragraphs) which describe to others what their actions are.

And the dialogue... God that thing is slow when in casual and advanced and if not slow it outright forces others to become psychics.
Example:
A asks B something. A *nods their head* at B's response and changes subject to something else. A also gives B a hint on how to do something and A continues to show B how to do it in detail

I mean, the perfect dialogue model are one liners but those are only found in Free Rps and you can't pull that off in casual and advanced since you wouldn't have enough time to finish the conversation or it would be so long that it would slow the RP to a halt. So now players are forced to *use* premonition and say many things at once while *responding* to what the other might say with gestures that universally go with any thing the other might say.

Collab is the way to go for conversations but even that is too much work since you need to coordinate times when you're free and whatnot...

@Bishop

This is entirely your preferences and not indicative of how things should be, so I vehemently disagree with the sentiment that it's a "perfect world". Personally, I can't stand one liners and I find really short and detail devoid posts completely uninteresting and it's hard to give a crap about a character if there's no development or personal insight. One liners force a very utilitarian approach and a simple conversation/ short scene can take pages to complete whereas in Casual or Advanced it can be tidily wrapped up in a single collab, which honestly isn't a nightmare to do because if you just reply when you get on and see a notification/ check the writing pad, it can get done pretty quickly.

Rotten Spokes of the Unlawful Wheel

@Gcold I'm basically a talent agent.

I think I may have a better look at this. How's an arms smuggling ring sound?