[OOC] Intrigues of Venedig - A Fantasy RP (18+)

[Letter Bee]

@Tyki@Claw2k11@Tominas@supertinyking@Overlord Thraka@Rex

Double-Post: I allowed Tyki to give Lady Vespid's minions World Spells, yes. I even allowed Tyki to use his superior knowledge of physics so that his World Magic spells can be optimally used. But what I did not want to see, what I will not tolerate, is the Big Bad of this entire RP being made into a joke. Nor will I allow 'Guards are not Mooks' to be distorted into 'PCs, however, are'.

PCs' choices matter, or rather, they should matter. If PCs make bad choices that might disrupt life for other players or bar themselves from deeper plot details, GMs are permitted to intervene. But only the absolute worst choices should be denied all escape. What am I trying to say? What I'm trying to say is that no matter how justifiably powerful Lady Vespid and her minions are, they cannot be allowed to turn the PCs and their own extraordinary capabiliites into mere chumps.

This is the PCs' story, as long as they keep to the general themes and directions set by the premise. Not mine or my Co-GM's. And so, for letting it come to this pass, I am sorry.

I have already made a GM Post that should return agency to the PCs.

[Tyki]

@Rex

Sorry, swapped seth and shaun for whatever reason. I'll edit the post at some point for archiving purposes.

@Overlord Thraka@Tominas

That is fair, And I'll be honest these minions are on the side of overly optimized for combat. On top of that, while pulling out two commanders made sense for plot reasons, in terms of power scale it might not have been a good idea. My intention was to get everyone together and away from the man attempting to murder-rape them so that they could be trained and raised into the beautiful swans of bullshit op they were meant to be. It probably doesn't help that the logical conclusion of "terrorist has shot innocent man and attempted to attack me, therefore i will capture them" is also handled in a way that removes agency considering that, again, these characters are rather potent.

As a small explaination of how the power system works; many skill will give you a wide array to pick from, however none of them will be very potent. The particular man in mask mergoux was dealing with only had two skills and two spells. He's basically just a slightly topper kek than the average mook. The issue of power that's arrisen with this system is that those two skills are focused to hell. they're kind of meant to be the sledgehammer solution lady vespid's problems. However if it had been the yellow jacket that had had a fight picked with her it would be on a much more even playing field. her single world spell requires two targets or similar mass for a quantum link so, as long as there is one assailent she can't really use it.

Finally; my word is not law. If you feel like there is something your character could do, reply with "as the man in the mask did "X" my character actually did "Y" thus changing the course of events. I recognize that I have a very strange method of rping combat sequences, and that's entirely because I'm very used to writing for spectacle more so than short, clipped sequences.

[Tyki]

@Overlord Thraka

Also, another small note. Playing a terrorist freedom fighter is a noble notion, but if you start punching the state especially if there are many factions of the state that particularly like the state as it is; then they have much bigger and heavier fists than you do. The general reason that violent revolutions don't work is that, unless you have a MASSIVE amount of support, the state can simply deploy military forces and wipe you out. In this particular instance, having a radical group such as you own is BEGGING to be kicked in the dick by any member of the state (including the nobles) that have the resources to beat you to death with their sacks of money.

And as a general rule of thumb; if someone has enough money that they can beat you to death with sacks of it, then it's probably not smart to fight them.

That being said, playing a terrorist character is fine so long as you understand that, unless your character is planning to die or get captured the planning will like have to either be handled by an npc, or your character will have had to plan, bribe, and manipulate things into going right for YEARS.

[Tominas]

@Tyki
The issue was a lot less with the fact that the minions were strong and a lot more with A) how they were written and B) that the yellow jacket had powers that didn't match the description on Vespid's character sheet.

Where you're a CoGM, i think we expect that if you wrote something, it happened. This isn't helped by the fact that from what I've seen in action sequences, more often than not, a character will write what they TRY to do through their view rather than what HAPPENS to their target if the target is written by someone else. For example, when you had the wasp swing at Margoux, generally you would write that it threw an earth-shattering blow at her chest, not that the blow connected and knocked her over wheezing. The first is describing your character's action, the second is god-modding. Similar with @Rex's Seth, you would write that she went to lift him by his throat, and at leastthat there was a reaction of some kind to the electricity AFTER he has made his move, instead of before. From what I've read, the yellow jackets don't have toughness/lightning resistance, so there should have been SOMETHING that happened on that one.

The second issue is that (though the wasps did what theyshould/could have done, and frankly should have ESSENTIALLY won the fight with Margoux as they are more combat focused) the chars did not function as described on the CS page, where the yellow jackets have six skills and no magic. That felt deceptive, considering the events that transpired in your last post, where you called the woman "yellow jacket." I think it's a fair assumption to put one and one together there.

For your argument about skills and being focused, if the man in the mask Margoux fought has two skills and two spells, that would leave him with an additional two points to use towards his own skills, meaning he would have (I'm assuming) unarmed x2 and toughness x2. Margoux, with her own swordsmanship x2 and goddamn buster sword, is also a very combat focused character designed for these sort of situations. She lacks toughness, which means she would take blows worse, but at the same timeit is @overlord thraka's job to describe the results involving his character, not yours.

TL;DR-Writing other players' reactions is godmodding, the M.I.T.M. and Margoux are both combat focused so it should have been a decent fight, the abilities held by the chars we had seen did not match what was previously described to us, and skills are actually pretty damn strong if you put multipliers on them: see "ripping men's spines out of their backs with your goddamn hands."

...and for the record,wanting agency doesn't make you a "beautiful swan of bullshit op." It makes you a normal-ass person looking to write without getting kneecapped. This is coming from the one person willingly playing a slave.

I'm not trying to start a fight, just explain issues and resolve conflict. Peace.

EDIT FOR YOUR LAST POST: you could have sent more than one guard to fight her.

[Tyki]

@Tominas

That is fair. I will attempt to do as you suggest in the future. As for the yellow jacket and man in the mask (Hugo specifically) they're basically captains. They've got an extra point to spend and are meant to be taken on by at least two player or a player with npc support in terms of combat purposes. If tiny wanted to attack hugo they probably could have won if attacking together unless they MASSIVELY fucked up. As for the lightning thing it literally fried her arm. she wasn't reacting to it because she could no longer feel it XD

[Tominas]

@Tyki

Mk. That being said, maybe give some indication of their status as captains or differentiating factors from the mook squad in the future, just so people understand what's going on, even if their characters don't. After all, there's metagaming and there's understanding a situation.

As for the lightning thing, maybe just give an indication that she has some kind of damage so that people don't think they've wasted their time? Even if you just mentioned smoke peeling off the arm, that would help.

And I'm glad we talked. I'm sure it was nothing malicious, and now everyone can go back to writing and having themselves a grand old time as the world (apparently literally) explodes around their chars :P

[Tyki]

@Tominas

I thought I'd made the distinction clear considering all the stuff I'd pointed out, as for the arm thing the cloth hid pretty much all the damage.

[Tominas]

@Tyki
Eh, your fine. No worries, I'm not stressin'. Mostly just talking to fill space at this point.

On a different note, I will be trying to get a Clarimonde post up tonight. I think enough action has passed with her sitting on the sidelines that I may as well see if she can't cause some trouble.

[Letter Bee]

@Rex

Sorry, swapped seth and shaun for whatever reason. I'll edit the post at some point for archiving purposes.

@Overlord Thraka@Tominas

That is fair, And I'll be honest these minions are on the side of overly optimized for combat. On top of that, while pulling out two commanders made sense for plot reasons, in terms of power scale it might not have been a good idea. My intention was to get everyone together and away from the man attempting to murder-rape them so that they could be trained and raised into the beautiful swans of bullshit op they were meant to be. It probably doesn't help that the logical conclusion of "terrorist has shot innocent man and attempted to attack me, therefore i will capture them" is also handled in a way that removes agency considering that, again, these characters are rather potent.

@Tyki

That overlaps a bit with what Kaspar is trying to do.

But, that said, glad the whole misunderstanding was resolved.

[Letter Bee]

@Rex, @Tyki, your turns. And make sure that Lady Vespid's captains are challenged.

[Letter Bee]

Bumpity.

[Overlord Thraka]

Sorry, just had a lack of will to post in this recently. I'll try and rig something up tonight, no promises on quality though as I'm tired

[Letter Bee]

Sorry, just had a lack of will to post in this recently. I'll try and rig something up tonight, no promises on quality though as I'm tired

@Overlord Thraka

That's okay; if you're really tired, I'll accept even a one-liner.

[Overlord Thraka]

@Letter Bee

I did a bit better than a one liner I hope. That'll have to do until I get the drive to really get back into it

To anyone else, I suppose it's fine if you follow Merg, as she's rather conspicuous, just can't promise that if you try and interact with her I'll be replying so soon.

[Letter Bee]

@Letter Bee

I did a bit better than a one liner I hope. That'll have to do until I get the drive to really get back into it

To anyone else, I suppose it's fine if you follow Merg, as she's rather conspicuous, just can't promise that if you try and interact with her I'll be replying so soon.

@Overlord Thraka

It's all right.

[supertinyking]

Sorry for the delay, my brother in law is a dumbass and got himself hurt, so this was delayed for a moment.

[Letter Bee]

Sorry for the delay, my brother in law is a dumbass and got himself hurt, so this was delayed for a moment.

@supertinyking

Glad you yourself are all right, then.

[Tyki]

Sorry for disappearing. I've been kept busy taking care of my sisters during the week

[Letter Bee]

Sorry for disappearing. I've been kept busy taking care of my sisters during the week

@Tyki

It is okay.

[Letter Bee]

@Tyki@Claw2k11@Tominas@supertinyking@Overlord Thraka@Rex

@Metronome?

Are you guys okay with this RP having its own Discord Server, so that we can keep enthusiasm alive while waiting for new player and GM posts?