Besides, you're focused primarily on her Extra deck when her main deck also has lots of quick-effect hand Traps and negates. Either way she'll be the top duelist among us at the start so... *shrug*

To be fair I only just noticed the 3 copies of Ash Blossom and Effect Veiler. I just saw the OG Noble Knights and moved on.

I'm not so concerned about power levels so much as I am concerned with everyone having an out to every thing. I fully expect Aile to be the strongest and Tobias to be the weakest, but having someone summon a monster that is literally unbeatable for their opponent isn't great from an RP stand point. It's not about always losing, it's about how a person loses and having duels be engaging and fun.

I don't mean to single out Randomguy here, or complain about their character being too strong; like I said, Accesscode by themselves is fine. It's specifically about not having people end up in a situation where there's nothing that they can do. I've been in Yu-Gi-Oh RPs where one person having a monster that couldn't be targeted, or even just a monster that cannot be destroyed by battle, ended up breaking things because everyone else built their decks in such a way that they couldn't do anything at that point. So you either need to remove that problem card, or have everyone else add a way to beat that card.

Balancing Yu-Gi-Oh RPs is weird.

I mean if you build your deck so you don't have a single out to something like that... that's just something you can overcome after the battle, you know?

"Man, I didn't realize my deck could be countered like that. I need to pick something up so I have an out to it in the future."

and tbh getting clapped because your custom deck didn't have an out to crooked cook or whatever flavor of "I cannot be touched" card is getting thrown at you is kind of a rite of passage at this point lmao.

Been looking into it and I think I might be getting an idea for a custom card. It would basically be a "Horus" counterpart to Armed Dragon LV10, since Horus was never given a LV10 form.

I fully expect Aile to be the strongest

Hmm...well, I don't know about Aile being the strongest. Like I said, I'm still really new to the mechanics post-synchro. So how I would justify my lack of knowledge in character is that Aile is also just recently starting to get back to Duel Monsters after the entire debacle with the Conspiracy and Duelist Society. But she's rich, so she has no problem getting cards.

My "LV10 Horus" idea is a lot more challenging than I thought it would be. Horus LV8 is already pretty strong on its own with it's infinite spell negates. I honestly have no idea how to go up from there without it being game-breaking. Maybe give it the ability to negate any card activation but with a discard for cost? I'm also not sure what the Atk/Def would look like, apart from maybe something like 3200/2000 or something along those lines.

I'm interested in joining! Could you clarify how the duels will be conducted? Will they follow standard rules, or will there be elements to keep them dynamic and engaging, like using the 'heart of the cards' to draw the cards we need? I'm eager to participate and would prefer to use a thematic deck rather than a meta one.

@Double
For a Horus deck, it looks like you're forgoing a lot of its support cards, if those interest you at all. As for a new custom card... Maybe a special card?
- Since there's only one custom card per player, a Ritual is out.
- Fusion would be a little weird for a deck based around a single monster leveling up.
- Synchro would need a tuner, but since lvl 10+ is god territory anyway, maybe a level 10 synchro? I'll come back to this in a moment.
- XYZ would need multiple level 8s, which without going through your whole deck list, I don't know how plausible that is.
- Pendulum is useless in a deck with only one pendulum monster.
- Link maybe? A link 3 or 4 Horus that requires Horus Lvl 8 to be one of its chain links? That's a little more complex to come up with than the other kinds, though.

Maybe something like:


Then it's just throw in Majestic Dragon, and 1+ Tuners such as Rider of the Storm Winds to buff out the possibility of sychroing with lower than level 8 Horus.

@Double
For a Horus deck, it looks like you're forgoing a lot of its support cards, if those interest you at all. As for a new custom card... Maybe a special card?
- Since there's only one custom card per player, a Ritual is out.
- Fusion would be a little weird for a deck based around a single monster leveling up.
- Synchro would need a tuner, but since lvl 10+ is god territory anyway, maybe a level 10 synchro? I'll come back to this in a moment.
- XYZ would need multiple level 8s, which without going through your whole deck list, I don't know how plausible that is.
- Pendulum is useless in a deck with only one pendulum monster.
- Link maybe? A link 3 or 4 Horus that requires Horus Lvl 8 to be one of its chain links? That's a little more complex to come up with than the other kinds, though.

Maybe something like:

Card Idea [+]

"Horus the Majestic Black Flame"
Level 10 Synchro Monster
"Majestic Dragon" + 1+ more tuner monsters + "Horus the Black Flame Dragon"
Must first be Synchro Summoned. While this card is on the field, your opponent cannot activate Spell cards or their effects without first tributing 1 monster from their hand or field. Once per turn, you may destroy one Spell/Trap card on the field, and if you do, banish it. If this card destroys an opponent's monster by battle and sends it to the GY, inflict damage to your opponent's LP equal to the ATK of that destroyed monster.

Then it's just throw in Majestic Dragon, and 1+ Tuners such as Rider of the Storm Winds to buff out the possibility of sychroing with lower than level 8 Horus.

It's not an actual Horus deck. It's just a dragon structure deck that has Horus splashed into it. That's why it lacks the LV support cards.

@Double
Ah. Alright, wasn't sure if that was why or not.

@The World
At the end of the day I'm not even sure if he's going to use Horus long term. The only way he would is if was with a custom card because otherwise I'm not particularly fond of the Horus support cards. Too situational for my liking. I really only like Horus himself out of that archetype.

I'm interested in joining! Could you clarify how the duels will be conducted? Will they follow standard rules, or will there be elements to keep them dynamic and engaging, like using the 'heart of the cards' to draw the cards we need? I'm eager to participate and would prefer to use a thematic deck rather than a meta one.

So as far as my reading has elucidated, we are using standard rules when they come up, and otherwise things appear to be in a slightly looser format? I don't think we'll have any anime-ified rule of cool mechanics like that if they weren't mentioned in the opening post, though. I believe the GM did mention that he had a good potential way for resolving duels as well and that will hopefully be explained before the first IC post goes up.

I also wanted to ask if we can codify the specific kind of dueling we'll be doing. I assume there might be more PvE duels than PvP, and that duels will often take the place of dealing with wild monsters or hunting down other duelists of the enemy faction? Kind of like there being a field to run around in an action duel, but minus the action cards and minus a limit to the field. Would it be possible to codify these as types of duels with their own mechanics or extra weird rules to both add some interesting texture to duels and make it clear how they're supposed to work? I at least assume being near enough to your opponent to attack, and not having stuff blocking line of sight is relevant for these fuels where you're chasing people or monsters down? Would there be unique traps that care about physical location of their deployment, etc? Just stuff to think about when you have time, I suppose.@RickyG85

@VarionusNW@Double@The World@Product@Randomguy@Kero@King Cosmos

Hoo boy, I've got a big important update to make, based on everything I've been seeing.

To start, sorry I haven't been as active in these posts- my day jobs' scheduling has been difficult, and I'm just getting used to it again, which has interfered with my posting.

secondly, my city got hit with some heavy snow last night, which not only messed up road conditions, but delayed school start times(relevant to me because I have a 9 year old son), knocked out the power multiple times, and the only reason I'm able to be typing this up is because I drove 30 miles to the neighborhood where I do my dayjob in order to find functional phone/internet signals (I've never seen inclement weather interfere with weather or not my smart phone plain old functions, so, that was weird). Might I add, that heavy snow was super localized; several inches were still on the ground in spite of melting rapidly when I left my house, but here at my work you might not even know snow happened. Super weird stuff.

so, to start, I'm seeing more interest than I'd anticipated! That's awesome, but it's also going to force me to close applications, for now- don't worry, if you've expressed interest prior to this post, I'll still accept, review and (hopefully) approve an offered character/s, but going forward (for now), I won't be accepting any new applicants. I can only handle working with so many individual players, to address the why of this decision.

I was originally hoping to have the opening written and posted by yesterday, but events plus some things apparently not being clear force me to hold off on that. My tentative goal is to get it written and posted sometime this weekend, at this point.

To fully illustrate my PVP system, this is the method I've seen some success with:

You have your deck list; number each individual card.
pull up google; there's a random number generator tool.
Set the parameters for random numbers from 1 to whatever the total number of your cards is (minimum range 1-40).
open a blank writer document, keep track of what numbers are in the hand, in play, in the graveyard and banished/removed.

That's for PVP and some PVNPC, but NW is correct in their speculation that dealing with the monsters is more PVE, and all the dueling has the potential to run like an "Action Duel". Running around the environment as your engaging an opponent is encouraged, and the opening in the OOC displays this. Depending on what's going on, of course, as per the element of "show some discretion" within the setting.

I would encourage thematic decks instead of meta, and somebody mentioned some "heart of the cards" shenanigans? I think that's an interesting idea, and I already know a way to impliment it- "Bennies". In every new scene, every player has 3 "bennies", which can be used to "Heart of the cards" a duel (as in: fudge the draw to get the card you need), once per duel. These bennies can also be used prompt a character aspect to in some way steer the narrative in a particular direction-

Example: Kaiba wants to needle at Joey, specifically to provoke a rash decision from him, and make an opening to humiliate him. Kaiba's player can offer Joey's a benny for this, and if the latter accepts, he triggers the Brooklyn Rage and challenges Kaiba to a duel that, if he were thinking clearly, he would know he's going to lose.

You can also offer me one of your bennies for something in particular to happen, and I can do the same with y'all. I can also award bennies for good roleplay, such as making a good show of playing in character, clever ideas and actions, and even instances of unexpected but overwhelming success (Exodia; Obliterate!).

What do you all think of this? Did I miss anybody in the mentions?

(and of course, I greatly appreciate all these questions, as their catching my apparent blind spots in setting up this rp, and I appreciate the honest constructive feedback)

Im just trying to figure out if I should go balls to the wall and run a gamba deck or just run sky strikers...

gamba is so tempting.......

You have your deck list; number each individual card.
pull up google; there's a random number generator tool.
Set the parameters for random numbers from 1 to whatever the total number of your cards is (minimum range 1-40).

If you've built your deck in a simulator, then the deck builder might also have a shuffle option that will randomise your deck for you. I know Dueling Nexus does, not sure about others.

Im just trying to figure out if I should go balls to the wall and run a gamba deck or just run sky strikers...

gamba is so tempting.......

The suggested power level was Arc-V, if you're undecided.

What do you all think of this?

thanks for the thorough response, apologies that everything seems to be going pretty terribly for ya. I feel ya on the weather for sure, I think we got 6 inches of snow last night out of nowhere, thankfully we weren't massively effected by it. Everything sounds alright to me. The bennies idea is neat, I'm personally pretty neutral on it myself. I'd say maybe if they weren't 3 per scene, but rather 3 per some vague segment of the story, or just rewarded occasionally on top of the starting 3, but they don't get used up, only passed around. Basically works as an influence mechanic you see in some TTRPGs. Each player has 3, and can hand one to another player to influence their interaction or the duel against them. Pulling a heart of the cards gives it to the GM (or the other player still works potentially?). Then the GM can use these to power up NPCs and monsters in the same way the players can, and this could either completely remove the points from the pool or give them back to the players potentially.

Im just trying to figure out if I should go balls to the wall and run a gamba deck or just run sky strikers...

gamba is so tempting.......

Gambler is absolutely the more fun option. Plus that gives the character room to grow and get better. Granted I'm also biased and just don't like Sky Strikers too much.

The suggested power level was Arc-V, if you're undecided.

I've never seen Arc-V so idk on that front

@RickyG85
All of that sounds good, but if I were to make a suggestion, it would be to have pvp duels be done in some dueling program, like Duelingbook, if it's supposed to be an actual duel. On the one hand, this allows for a legit duel to happen, meaning luck plays a large part and there's no fudging of the game. On the other, it'd be tougher to write the duel if you know how it happened from beginning to end, unless you write as the duel goes on. Another thing to factor in would be if the opponents are collabing or writing post by post for a duel, since that could influence whether using a program is a good idea or not. And if nothing else, like King Cosmos said, a program would at least shuffle the deck for us and let us know what our hand and field are at a given time.
But since it's less "regular" dueling, I don't know how effective that would be.

What do you all think of this? Did I miss anybody in the mentions?

I think I was missed, I had already submitted my application.

Each player has 3, and can hand one to another player to influence their interaction or the duel against them. Pulling a heart of the cards gives it to the GM (or the other player still works potentially?). Then the GM can use these to power up NPCs and monsters in the same way the players can

I like this.

@King Cosmos that is certainly an option

I've never seen Arc-V so idk on that front

Master Rule 3, Pendulum era kind of decks. Not literally, you can use Links, but personally I aimed for the power level of a deck that would be casual in that format, with room to grow.

Pure Metalfoes with no staples, that I can add other Pend stuff to.