aaaah Steven Universe and Adventure Time gifs... *sheds happy tear*
Right then! I will now be closing the roleplay to new players until the IC goes live. I may re-open submissions later on, but I don't want to postpone the IC startup an indefinite amount of time.
If you have shown interest in the roleplay, don't worry. Just get your character to me as and when you're able, or send a little PM if you're worried it will take some time.
I'm going to be cleaning up the pinglist a little showing those who have submitted characters or been in contact recently. If I miss you, just let me know and I shall APOLOGISE PROFUSELY AND GROVEL FOR YOUR MERCY.
Just some quick notes clarifying a few things to make life easier for you guys. I'll be putting together a proper FAQ soon, but for now, here are some answers and clarifications to some questions and situations:
+ If your characters die you can absolutely make new characters even if the roleplay is currently closed to new characters.
+ You can also submit new characters anytime the roleplay is open for new characters (even if no characters have died) I recommend discretion in the amount of characters you feel comfortable running at once.
IMPORTANT: ON HIDDEN ACTIONS, SKILLS, ABILITIES
Sometimes you might want to take an action without other people knowing. This might be because you're using a supernatural ability, are trying to prepare to defend yourself against someone suspicious, or maybe your character is just shy at people realising they're great at cooking (or perhaps they're just trying to spike the punch...).
In these situations, please send me a PM telling me you what you would like to do, Whether it be a skill, ability or action!
I'll then roll you doing the action, tell you the result, and roll how sneaky you are doing the action.
I'll also roll for those around you (if any) to see if they notice what's going on.
Voila!
Other things you might want to PM me for:
+ ANYTHING. Honestly don't be shy if you need clarification, if you want to take an action but aren't sure how it works, or if you just want to plot or discuss your character.
One very important thing you might want to PM me for:
During every story post I check and double check to see if any characters have extra information or have one of their fears triggered, ect. However, I might miss stuff! So FEEL FREE TO SEND ME A PM if you're ever worried a skill or fear hasn't been taken into account.
+ I find wall of texts slow things down, and while I'm very happy for people to do that if they find it natural, please don't add excessive amounts of fluff to posts to up word count for no reason. 2 short but well thought out paragraghs as a rough minimum is fine.
I understand people have off days as well. (On the flip side, don't feel obliged to cut out vital information to make your posts shorter)
+ Since I had first post I just tagged everyone nearby to get things going, but we don't all have to literally bump into each other over and over and over again causing a pile up... @SilverDawn@Duskshine749eeeeeeeeeeey I'm mostly worried bout the five group but we'll see how the pacing goes :D
right o! heading to bed because i'm zonked but Targilde, Melanie and Humphrey (might wait depending on amount of posts for that group) will have responses tommorrow :D
Gonna work on a post now ^^! It shouldn't interfere with Orpheus' since we're in dif groups. Just leaving this here so I don't accidentally snipe someone or vice versa.
Since some people have already asked to start working on it, I'm releasing the Knowledge & Relation Sheet today. Since IC went live only yesterday, I didn't want to overwhelm people with Something Else To Do, but likely the sooner you have the sheet the easier it will be in future (so you're not going through your Mystery PM with a backlog of character information)
I'm going to put a soft deadline of two weeks on the sheet. I'll check in with everyone in a week's time to see how they're finding it.
@Duskshine749 I know you're on holiday right now so consider your deadline two weeks from when you return :D
For those of you still working on characters, please don't worry about this yet.
So what is the Knowledge/Relation sheet and how does it work?
Long story short it contains an overview of all your relationships, your thoughts and experiences with each character, and also all the knowledge/secrets you're aware of relating to them.
Some of this knowledge will be directly received from me as skill/ability/roll information.
(e.g. today you realised Lt. Quack is a great fisher)
But this is also a place you can keep track of all your suspicions and information you have worked out yourself.
(e.g Name is Lt. Qauck, he likes fishing and swimming, might be a duck??)
There will also be rewards for successfully deducing information at certain points in the roleplay.
Finally, any information given by the GM will not explicitly be stated as a skill, ability, quirk, hobby, ect. in most cases. It will likely be worded slightly ambiguously.
The Overview is a summary of ALL your character's relationships. The three bottom types of relationship are crossed out and will not be explained until they start cropping up IC.
These are also the tags you will use for "relationship type" with a character throughout the sheet.
This is what an Overview might look like for imaginary Lt. Quack:
Pretty much what is says on the tin, this is a little excerpt about what your relationship is (using the above tags and a little bit of specification) along with a quote in your character's own words about this character, and then a small excerpt about their history, feelings, thoughts, ect.
Here are some more examples from Lt. Quack's imaginary sheet, I've put them in hiders so this post isn't too big:
Humphrey Fredrick Stanza Dangerous? VERY "*Quack* He's a force of pure evil and suffering." Enemies: One-sided hatred
Lt. Quack witnessed Humphrey's diabolical actions himself firsthand when he was enjoying a quick dip in the local river. Humphrey turned up that day and started fishing, never once asking Lt. Quack's permission. The gall of it! Needless to say such an injustice against his very person could be taken no less then with the greatest concern.
Ever since Lt. Quack has been gnawing holes in Humphrey's oatmeal sack, so that there's never enough for him to eat come morning. (This is war, after all)
Whether or not Humphrey is totally oblivious to this is anyone's guess. Some would say definitely, but to those people Lt. Quack would warn them of Humphrey's evil genius nature. He's an evil genius, after all.
Targilde Mullen Not Dangerous "The bread he bakes is delicious *quack*." Love: Marriage of Convenience
Lt. Quack and Targilde had an understanding. Targilde would bake the bread, and Lt. Quack would eat it. It was a good deal, and they both seemed very happy with it.
That was until Targilde was asked to bake something for the household.
Lt. Quack realised, as he watched him knead the dough, that without dramatic action he would lose his V.I.P access to Targilde's delicious bread morsels. Enough was enough, so Lt. Quack proposed.
Targilde smiled with a "yes, master Quack." and the rest is history. Lt. Quack and Targilde now live on the edge of the village and he gets all the bread he wants to himself.
Oxe Not even slightly dangerous "*quack* there's some fine tailfeathers on that one." Love: One sided crush
While *techniquely* Lt. Quack has never actually spoken to Oxe, he has stood in his presence. Lt. Quack loves the tall quiet types, and while his heart will always belong to Oxe, he is bound by the ties of marriage to never act on his feelings.
His deep, totally realistically thought out feelings.
The Knowledge Sheet itselfThis is the bulk of the information. It's basically a mini-character sheet condensed. This is where you would put the first examples, such as:
(e.g. today you realised Lt. Quack is a great fisher) - might go under skills
(e.g Name is Lt. Qauck, he likes fishing and swimming, might be a duck??) - might go under race information
I'll edit up an example if people need it, though it's the biggest chunk of the sheet.
Onto more important stuff!
Where is these Sheet and what format is it in?
I've put together three formats you can use depending on your preference. The first is Google Docs, the second is a PM, and the third is an excel spreadsheet.
I highly recommend the google doc as it requires almost no setup on your part, and it's also easy to navigate.
1. Google Doc
Google Doc comes in two ways, whichever you prefer: + I send you the master template and you copy it over into a new file and send me the share link so I can see it + I duplicate the master template for you and send you the link, only we have it
Not much difference but choice is always good.
2. PMs
This requires a little bit of copy-pasting to get working. Step 1) Send a PM to me entitled BTG: YourCharacterName's Knowledge/Relation Sheet Step 2) go to the Knowledge Sheet thread and copy over the overview first. It's the top post. Step 3) Copy the other character sheets over into new replies in the PM, try to keep them in order if you can. Step 4) Remember to remove your character.
As you can see this requires a bit more work and it's more tedious for people who need to set up multiple characters.
3.Spreadsheet
This is purely for function alone and it's really ugly. It's also slightly more confusing as the sections are condensed in wording. But if you work with spreadsheets alot and want something exceedingly simple to navigate, this is the option for you. Again this comes in two ways like google docs: + I send you the master template and you copy it over into a new file and send me the share link so I can see it + I duplicate the master template for you and send you the link, only we have it
Reminder: You have two weeks to get this to me, but the sooner you do it the easier it will be (so you don't have to set it up and then copy all your mystery information into it all at once)
Phew! Thankyou for reading. There's only one final point, and that's I need to know what format you want so I can send it to you!
In tabletop terms rolling a one is called a "critical failure". But what does that actually mean in our roleplay terms?
Well, after the prologue, in situations with a chance of death rolling a 1 means a fatality. But what does it mean if you're trying to convince an NPC, trying to learn some information from a book, scouting out an area or performing a mental calculation?
(The guidelines below are for situations when a chance of death is not present, e.g. on a SAFE day at camp.)
Physical skills rolling a 1 will likely result in injury, failing the skill spectacularly, or believing you have succeeded when you have actually failed (e.g. the house looks sound --> it falls down during the night). Social skills rolling a 1 will likely lead to the opposite and prevention of the desired result, e.g. deeply insulting someone. Again, you may genuinely believe you're doing great. Mental skills rolling a 1 will result in a totally incorrect conclusion. Creative skills rolling a 1 will result in failure to appropriately create or the creation of something negative. Perception skills rolling a 1 will resuly in totally incorrect information. Survival skills rolling a 1 will result in incorrect information or total failure.
With many of these skills, there is a possibility that you and your character will not know they have failed. So there is a 1 in 20 chance you have been given incorrect information or that something you have done is dangerous or malfunctioning.
Chance of Death
Rolling a 1 indicative of a fatality is only possible in situations where danger is present. Bare in mind this roleplay leans sharply towards danger and survival, so this is often. There will be times you are safe from dying, but bear in mind just because your characters believe an area is safe doesn't mean it actually is.
It's good advice for a player to be like Ignatus and think everything is fatal unless you're SURE you're safe. Sleeping out in the open is more dangerous then in a building, for example, if something isn't lurking in the shadows inside...
Rolling a 20
Rolling a 20 is called a critical success in tabletop terms. A "natural 20", aka when you have rolled a 20 without any skill or ability modifiers, is the best result you can possibly get. I won't talk too much on it since it's just all around good.
When you a roll a 20, you succeed and then some. You go above and beyond what is required for the task and this means it ends far better then you could hope. The lumberjack fells several trees in the time it takes to fell one, the socialite wows the ball and is inundated by swooning fans, the lookout spies a single tear from the eye of a bearman miles out of sight in the mists. The mechanics creates a clockwork machine capable of life, the scholar unlocks the deepest mystery hidden in the thome, the scientist realises a natural law that could save everyone.
You'll know when you roll a natural 20, because everything will be pretty darn awesome.
How bad/good is it?
After rolling a critical success/failure there's one extra step which is rolling a d100 aka determining percentage. This determines whether what you just did is a spectacularly dangerous failure or a failure you can bounce back from. In terms of fatalities it's how utterly brutal your death is, and in terms of critical success it's whether you just did something awesome or borderline godlike.
Storypost soon, lovelies! In the meantime, I am collecting names for your Camp/Village, as likely we will be wrapping up the prologue soon and moving onto more deadly, other things. Likely it'll end up being an IC conversation, but hey! Getting people to think about it now is always good.
Suggestions so far:
Magicplace Republic of Iggy Druuktown Where All The Daddies Are New Home Camp Where we all die a little less often Totally all humans-dale Monsterville (to throw off potential raiders) Spero Oppidum
Better start making suggestions, guys. Otherwise Sinead's gonna be very upset if a silly one of these becomes an actual thing. I'm warning you...
