The Harbinger of Ferocity

Frokane's Mildly Politcal Hangout Thread

Regardless of its sponsorship or lack thereof, it goes to demonstrate the mentality of those persons involved. If it is an official function and forum, as it appears to be, this is one of those easily exploitable, flawed systems of the current educational enterprise. If it is entirely the decision of the students, only using the facility and their prior involvement as a point to gather, it sits less poor off, but still betrays their character, especially with regard to the students they groom, @Kassarock.

The whole conflation as you called it has a valid argument and more valid sentiment; these institutions allow or in worse cases, encourage or endorse this behavior. If I was to step aside and view a such a place as a sum of it's parts, what am I to think about students who feel fictional soldiers of a science-fantasy universe are "Too much like Nazis and thus need to be banned."? Given this hypothetical is asking of me my opinion, and my less than stellar perspective on the entirety of the education system from pre-education up to college, I would say this is a perfectly good sample of what is wrong with it. These children, for lack of better words, cannot tolerate anything outside their realm of comfort and are often coddled by professors and staff who have an agenda of indoctrination.

If such organizations are allowed to be public at all, or even private, they perfectly deserve scrutiny and especially ridicule when appropriate. I add to this that, more importantly, that it is a laughing matter at minimum. It is not about to change my opinion of them - the censoring of legitimate free speech in the halls of education at all levels has much more my ire as a whole - but if I wish to think less of people over such forged "controversy" I will. They are free to have and voice their opinions, even if bad ones, just as I am entitled to reply with my own.

As an addition for frame of reference, I view most college students and graduates, at least in our current era, as spoiled children who haven't had to experience much of reality or confront it. Granted not all are this way, but I have low expectations for their lot until generally impressed. Needless to say, few people impress me at all.

Frokane's Mildly Politcal Hangout Thread

TLDR: Why should I believe that Andreyich was there, if he won't prove it?

@catchamber

I have made note of this issue before with you, that if you stand to make an accusation, it is your task - not ours - to support your rationale. For the rest of us here, it is almost assuredly based on what we know of the person in question's character that they would attend and have the means to. However, while you might not be expected to know this, it should go without saying that we generally trust the claims of other users who have a fairly reasonable record for experiencing what they say. Now of course they could like, but that is why we view their person in whole; it tells us such an outcome is unlikely.

Regardless, it brings us to another point, or at least myself. Proof is never enough for you, @catchamber. Even if he provided you proof, knowing your tact of debate, you would then say something roughly along the lines of "Okay, so he was there, but did he see these other things?", quite rapidly and expectedly it would become a matter of "How were you not everywhere at once?" or "I have these things that say something happened, so your first hand experience is bunk."

Not to dwell on this anymore, as virtually the entire topic and its members have more or less said the same thing, but this habit of yours is one of several why your credibility has been shot.

I digress, moving on to @mdk's post, that I am honestly surprised it took them so long to outlaw fictional Stormtroopers because they share a name and concept with the actual Stormtroopers. Who would have thought the Empire, portrayed as evil and a fictional personification of fascism would have leaning toward Nazis! I am so relieved to know a college was able to decipher this for us and that it in our "new enlightened age in the educational system", opted to prevent people from attending a mass dress-up with them included.

Frokane's Mildly Politcal Hangout Thread

I find myself amused it went as well as it did, at least where I was concerned in my brief time there before disappearing as I am prone to do, @Dynamo Frokane. One of the rare times I ever make a spoken appearance.

D&D 5e - The Lost Lands

The Vale

The Crypt,
Currently

"You are no more in your land, corrupters." The Green Man thundered with life as he moved with a spirited charge, the only thing louder than the ensuing chaos behind the party that was the other half fending off a tide of darkness.

Perhaps now, as he realized just how tremendous his foe seemed in the bulwark of tarnished steel plate, lion's head and flowing cloak, Cesar might have well regretted standing first to meet the enemy, but there was no time for second thoughts, let alone even the creeping of regret. Rather, the bard could only react and bring his own, now golden blazing blade to meet the crashing strike that fell on him; Jarlbane boomed and took the brunt of the strike for its bearer, but the longsword driven by the hand of this sanctum's unexpected warden continued. The slashing blow struck him from there, throwing him a bit off balance, but rather than score the hit it was all but destined to, an enchanted shield of watery salvation absorbed the worst of the attack for the man.

The enchantment upon the Green Man's blade flared to life, almost as if sparked by the contact, yet not roused enough to erupt into its full fruition and whatever threat it carried with. Yet things were far from over there, for the primal champion took one step further, just into the bard and erupted into a roaring mist that then raced past.

The deafening sound, like finding one's self caught upon a hurricane's leading edge or being bellowed at by a slavering tiger, fell past the swordsman and his monster slaying company, utterly ignored the rest of the challenge, instead appearing behind the befuddled scholar and just beside the feline monk. Landing and taking form again, the chill mist made flesh drew its sword back and swung in an arc that threatened the pair. Fortunately for them both, the suddenness of the strike missed its actual intended target as the two women leapt back out of harm's way; it was clear the relentlessness had an agenda beyond the obvious.

Reformed completely despite still being cloaked in a mantle of mist, the man adjusted his grip upon the weapon and addressed them, "It is you who is facing me, a face of the world itself."

Effects

The Green Man charges with a leading attack from his longsword and despite Cesar Bolivar doing his best to avoid it, he is struck. However, Cesar uses his reaction to cast a watery Shield spell to save himself. After, the Green Man then erupts into a roaring mist and teleports to where Katia and Wick are. He makes an attack against the latter and narrowly misses.

In the meantime, Theodore, as he surveys the area around him through his concentration, discovers that the Shadows are aberrations the moment they come within reach of his Detect Evil and Good. This information is interrupted after as he begins to follow his bardic companion from there out.

Score
A Battle for Balance

Map
Seat of Radiance

Initiative

• Initiative - The Seat of Radiance
• Cesar (19)
• Theodore (18)
• The Green Man (14)
• Wick (10)
• Katia (9)
• Initiative - The Surging of Darkness
• Valmjr (18)
• Thea (18)
• Birbin (15)
• Shadow Summoners (10)
• Haemar (8)
• Shadow Sorcerers (4)

@Cu Chulainn, @Gordian Nought, @Hekazu, @JBRam2002, @Rig

D&D 5e - The Lost Lands

The Vale

The Crypt,
Currently

Easing the almost accusing point of the elegant blade, its glinting finish falling to the mage's side, the younger man shrugged; the display made by the other former student seemed to be not quite so moving for him as it was for her, rather it only welcomed an almost indifferent reaction. For a moment he seemed to allow the words to settle, but the almost surprise appearance of the pantherine woman evoked a soft smile from the corners of his lips. It was almost unspoken that they were all united again just... not how they had ever imagined.

"I'm glad you at least remember me, Ruron."

His address seemed to fold the concerns together from their words, as though he might well have been insulted by their accusations and confusion, as truly legitimate as they were. Unlike the others, whose hearts might have felt the depths of despair they began to plumb, he gave off an air of arrogance and impetuousness greater than he had before. He looked the part as always, that underlying enchanting radiance magicians of his kind oft had in appearance and dress, one too often to get the better of itself.

"As for being dead? I haven't tried it personally." Ruron continued, the free hand of the precocious sorcerer slipping into the interior of his dusky robe, plucking an odd gem that which Wick's eyes could not help but catch a glimpse of, one Katia was no stranger to either, "But that's enough about me."

"As for him," He turned on a heel as his seeming foe straightened himself up with a renewed vivaciousness and vigor, "That's the person your new friend, Birbin, went looking for - the 'Green Man'."

The mage laughed while Birbin looked to the two women, utterly flabbergast in expression and apparently not at all sure of how the stranger knew that; it was the only way to interpret it without words, for the wizard's mouth was agape and he could not even rouse his hands to gesture or speak as he had always done. After blinking a few times, the wide-eyed wizard bit his lip and stroked his chin in thought, adding in a soft, humbled tone to the group around him; "But... Birbin never said that to him."

"You're right, you didn't, but you led me right here just like they followed you. Too bad he beat me here..." Ruron continued as he held the midnight gem fragment freely in his hand, the other half to the ancient scholar's own, examining it with an intense stare. The stone twinkled some, but in an off and ever so subtle way, only long enough to let the elegant arcanist shoot them a glance.

"Oh, and about that light attracting the darkness?"

Again the weapon in hand gestured toward the entourage, just behind them this time, arousing some looks from their lot. Where there was nothing before, the very corners where the mystic light of the shrine did not dare stretch to, many sets of glowing purple eyes illuminated now, seemingly attracted as Ruron forewarned. It was then, with a step backward into nothing, the other mage vanished, leaving the ornamented man by himself before the great slab and its eternal glow.

"Defilers... so it is true then." A plate boot stomped forward toward the party, rattling the engraved snarling visage upon its shin, an act of obvious menace by the member driving it.

This further spurred the brawny Valmjr to hastily draw his companion axe from her resting place, much faster than he had been moving his hands toward before in secret. Thea and Haemar, both beside the arcane warrior, prepared themselves too as they surveyed the growing number of enemies behind them. Yet the Green Man was far from finished, calling up some sort of spell with a clawing motion over the length of the blade he bore.

"I will see to it this corruption ends. Feradrai ill'falel!"

The sword glinted to life with an eerie, spirited green light at his command and the chaos of battle ensued as he set himself to charge, both hands upon the grip.

Sylvan

Nature's might guide me!

Effects

The party has a brief dialogue with Ruron who seems in a hurry to depart before the Shadows arrive. During his talk, he reveals he has the other half of the dark crystal Wick has been carrying with her and seems to manipulate it in a way that allows him to seemingly vanish, but not before the enemies of the Kingdom of Light appear. Shadow Sorcerers and Shadow Summoners manifest, causing the Green Man to swell with anger. Valmjr, Thea, Birbin and Haemar rise to the cause of keeping the darkness at bay while the others are left to the challenge of the opposing swordsman, who issues a shout in an ancient, almost elven language, that of the obscure Sylvan.

This encounter takes place in an area that mirrors the last, but is distinct in that a massive glowing flame without origin sits upon a shrine. Each circular brazier that has an orange center is lit with fire, whereas the two near the door were extinguished. The dark green marker is the Green Man, whereas the small midnight marker is where Ruron vanished.

Score
A Battle for Balance

Map
Seat of Radiance

Initiative

• Initiative - The Seat of Radiance
• Cesar (19)
• Theodore (18)
• The Green Man (14)
• Wick (10)
• Katia (9)
• Initiative - The Surging of Darkness
• Valmjr (18)
• Thea (18)
• Birbin (15)
• Shadow Summoners (10)
• Haemar (8)
• Shadow Sorcerers (4)

@Cu Chulainn, @Gordian Nought, @Hekazu, @JBRam2002, @Rig

...

As a point of potential interest, one of the original core concepts we wanted to preserve was a feeling of continuity throughout the story. By this I mean, the system of open and closed worlds and that a character could only ever be in one thread at a time. The idea for this was to initially offer progression for the players, characters and concepts, but also so identities and events were preserved. Granted this method disappeared too, but it was one of the core ways we avoided a multiverse issue, let alone time disparity.

Another matter that was mostly agreed upon was that there would be a handful of lore friendly, critical worlds, of which the staff would predominantly leverage as a means of getting players on track. We intended initially to make it possible for even one player to further the plot and continue onward, that way others could join in as they go; with time all progressing at the same rate, roughly, it allowed the plot that had been written to visit each world. Characters outside this were free to do what they wished, but they were more or less only side quests. The official staff Game Masters were the ones who ensured posts in their threads and their part of the story kept going.

This is also why originally, some of you might recall we separated the world's; we did not want players to scatter to the wind and do whatever it was they wanted until the plot allowed it. This is why travel was all but barred, although we ultimately caved to pressure by the community. While I disagreed on the choice of breaking to the masses, it points out clearly a problem that arose - the system's internal integrity must be maintained. Each genre of world had its own purposes and existence and anyone could start anywhere, they were just confined there until the war itself broke out and the regular rules and governing force in the Federation splintered.

I note from when I was writing on it, it is without question a critical factor to ensure lore and story is consistent. Some issues with that were people had begun to amplify the scope much too large; playing entire races or nations when the system really only meant a single person or at most a group of diverse persons in talent. This is part of why power rankings became increasingly nonsensical and how, at first, they were designed with hard and true limits. Tier Zero meant no better or worse than an everyman, but Tier One meant some form of basic magic - cantrips - or expertise in firearms, military equipment, or light power armor. This became less coherent as we decided to focus more on approving players and less getting them to adhere to the intent of the rules.

Relating to the plot, suddenly we had a surge of ever increasingly powerful characters or factions, all of whom were meant to be limited for balance and lore reasons. Part of the objective of why groups had so many rules was because we foresaw this happening as people cannot help themselves to some extent; they wanted their character or group to be "The best." which led to another issue.

The world wasn't meant to focus on player versus player combat. In fact, it was only meant to be an option as we wanted users to have the freedom. That was part of the original design of the tier system, a sort of arbitrary way to see how outclassed a showdown was so we could judge without relying only on their writing. I believe part of the reason this evolved was because players saw characters they expected to be rivals with and worried they needed to be better, hence why profile locking was critical since we had cheaters who would edit from the very start of the game, the moment we approved them.

A way around this I think is to emphasize the overarching plot, such as the varied enemy forces which were meant to be employed. Their design was to be a perfect counter action to all the workings of the players and the Game Masters. Why? Because they needed to always be a threat and to everyone. They had to have powers and skills, let alone the means, to be just as dangerous in a fantasy world as they were in the far future. I did this by giving them a theme and design that sort of bridged all those gaps, primarily focusing on technopathy and psychic power. The original drafts made it clear they were basically unstoppable, not something you could ever get rid of, meaning they were anywhere and everywhere we needed them to move the story along if they needed to be; that and killing creatures of pure thought is more or less impossible, making it no real issue when they suffered defeat.

Hopefully this recounting adds some needed confirmation and insight for your proposals.

...

Greetings,

As one who originally had worked extensively on this project and had initially developed a tremendous amount of material for it, one of the largest points I can make is that everyone needs to be on the same page. The largest issue I encountered is that a large number wanted to deviate from what had been produced behind the scenes, so much so we were continually doing edits and rewrites of the material. Such a problem this became because everyone had different ideals and we listened to them all, that most of the hard rules, the straight and narrow as it were, broke down and were made much more flexible to the point they verged on the edge of nonsense. An added problem that further evolved from it was a system of accepting whatever was submitted for the most part as the desire became numbers rather than uniformity, which in part led to increasingly more outlandish and powerful submissions. Over such disagreements, I resigned and retired from the project as I was no longer interested in writing material or plot for it, let alone governing it, when all of my contribution become largely irrelevant.

Accounting for this, it is my opinion this project does indeed need a full, from the ground up, reintroduction - something that focuses upon having a larger narrative and a consistent set of internalized rules because of its vastness. No less, players should be held exclusively accountable to the highest degree to prevent canonical errors and or the abundant creep of power that manifest within hours as members tried to gauge would-be opponents. Uniformity is one of the largest aspects that needs to be kept in mind, that every official post, every rule, every question and answer, has the same format and design so it is clear what is an opinion and what is a ruling. Furthermore, those involved in the project need be readily available and the work distributed accordingly; tasks and duties need be placed where they are likely to be done with great oversight by a superior.

Regardless of what you choose to do, I wish you the best of luck in your endeavor with this proposal.

Frokane's Mildly Politcal Hangout Thread

You make a noteworthy point, @Andreyich. As for which media, @catchamber any of those listed, which I note the terms "far-right", "fascist" and "nationalist" in conversation are generally not affiliated with anything positive. They are more or less portraying them as something they are not by preying on the subconscious associations of the layman with these terms; a hint given, they often imply these when they make Nazi accusations. Two of the terms are indeed neutral by design, yet almost no one uses them in such a way and or conjures images of neutrality.

Frokane's Mildly Politcal Hangout Thread

I see Poland is irritating the media again by not bending knee to their values, thus more hit pieces need be put out to reinforce an artificial narrative. Consider me wholly unsurprised there, not just with the people or nation of Poland either. On a related note, I have to wonder where things will be some twenty years from now for most of mainland Europe, barring the more Slavic countries of course too. It is probably no surprise at all that I haven't high hopes, needless to say.

Weird Roleplay Ideas You're Afraid To Pitch?

This is a long ongoing project in concept, as I am curious how it would fair in execution and how to enforce portions of it, but a setting where the players themselves - those behind the screen - are the characters. Their names and some personal information changed to preserve anonymity, but the rest of them modeled as the actual people, thrust into a foreign world and forced to work together as though they were stranded. Specifically, the idea would be to mechanically reflect them through a medium such as a tabletop game, but they must explore and invent themselves within it and in as much detail and lengths they can; they must convince the Dungeon Master of these traits and provide examples to earn them, among offering hints to the others to curry some agreement.

As an off the cuff example, just how far can they run and over what time and what speed? How much education have they been exposed to and what of, be it private or public? How much life experience do they have in age, story and breadth of diversity? What do they know of the mystic and arcane, if not spiritual things in life? Have they life skills that translate from the mundane to the practical when all else fails? What terrors and triumphs have they faced first hand before?

More or less having them reflect their ability scores, classes, skills and talents the best they can, keeping them all in secret and allowing them to try and find their way through and into them with the story. Some will mature faster and take to the methods of exploring their unbound and evolving selves, others will find difficulty in that sort of reflection and legitimacy, while others yet are already the rare intuitives, those who will just know what is or is not them. In many ways this requires a great deal of trust to reveal so much about one's self, even if away from prying eyes and to a Dungeon Master who is sworn to utmost and unwavering secrecy.

The game is more about them interacting with people they do not truly know and discovering themselves in the process of the journey. A focus not so much on the end result, but the interactions and conflicts, especially the idea of losing one's self through personal alchemy; the transformation into what might well be frightening to admit, given these are inner desires and reflections. Such a creator of a game would need have great psychological skills, but the group? They get only bits of information of who these people are at all, a brief, vague write-up at absolute most almost as though it were a profile; even better, using examples of said profiles.

How does one explain their philosophy of life just allows them to feel as though they can do something. No less, can they actually do it in the game or just believe they can? What happens if they really cannot? That they explain it too poorly or insufficiently? It does not make them a bad person, or a lacking one, yet the perception and taste of failure is strong, it is personal. It says a great amount about one's self when others cannot see what they think they see.

An odd idea, one quite delicate, though I think would make for a remarkable concept. Real people having to reflect on their mirrored selves and the choices they would need make in a hypothetical, ongoing, and foreign - fantastic rather - world.