[OOC] HCL 2: Twisted tinkers' triumph

[kishin asura]

thewizardguy said
Yes, you know what was the last time I used them? Around the Daemon Story Arc, when it got to Pandora's Box. That was the last awesome arc of HCL, and one of my personal favorites, because I actually got people divided on a matter of moral perspective. There was a moral crisis, and people were taking sides. However, it was only possible because I limited the characters, and created characters like Solus, who formed a serious threat.You know as well as I do that nobody has used divine powers in HCL in the history of EVER. The closest that it came to that is when Creed played Castiel, way back when he was pretty much the only one who watched Supernatural. Furthermore, Dark Maka had her soul, the very essence of her existence, destroyed at least twice. Both times, she managed to come back. Admit it already, that character was fueled, and revived, by Bullshit Power.Next Post!Forcefully powering characters down doesn't tend to work well, in my experience. I tried that with Tsubasa, way back when you guys were chasing Stein. Everyone hated the fact that their characters were 'leveled down', and I got bunches of negative feedback. Furthermore, this would not deal with players' "absolute abilities", which function regardless of power level.Then I would prefer it if you people were to wait until I got on, or leave the matter to Tyki. I fight the guy a lot, but he's creative, and he's got the second-best Bullshit Detector in the roleplay. Knowing Tyki, he'll usually resolve the matter peacefully, at least as long as he doesn't get pissed. If neither me nor Tyki are on, refer to Tiny, my other Co-GM, for help. He's usually calmer, and he'll tell you to wait for me to appear. I'm almost sure of it. Tiny doesn't like making calls.The reason I don't want you making these calls is quite frankly because I don't know you as well as I do Tiny and Tyki and even Wraith. You appear in stories inconsistently, and you can be a massive powergamer. You don't have Tyki's sense of balance, nor Tiny's sense of preservation and patience. I've talked to these people extensively, and I've seen both of them in action as GM in my absence. They've earned my trust in these matters. Notice how neither of them has OP characters for the purpose of dealing with bullshit in the story.If there's a problem in the story, it's not the characters that are an issue. It's the player(s) in question. In those situation one has to talk to the players, either come to a solution, or have someone make a Call. If people don't listen to a GM or Co-GM's Call, then they're out of the story for the time being. Their characters and actions are irrelevant, it's about the story itself, which is handled by the player's words.The Daemon, if you recall, only threatened a single universe. This was the only Universe that existed, which meant I could establish a couple of solid locations within that universe, such as Pandora's Box, the Clone Empire Home Base, the Afterworld, LON's Palace, and multiple others, like Daemon Prisons. In a Multiverse, these locations would be unfindable among infinite universes, as is our current situation.The Genesis Devourer was a relatively quick storyline I created in order to get HCL rolling. It was a basic "big bad threatening multiverse" thing. Amusingly enough, many aspects of it inspired my current plot. Looking back, even more than even I had initially realized. The strange magick-y dude that blew up Drac's realm was supposed to be the Avatar of Balance, who had decided that the ultimate balance was absolute nonexistence. If both good and evil were completely annihilated, then there would be absolute balance in the Multiverse. He inspired the modern 'Avatars' of Omega, notably Cosmos.Genocide..... I'm not even sure what his power is yet. I got no clue what his plan is, and I'm struggling to think of a way to make this more than just another "Oh, beat up the dude with the evil moustache" thing.And I wouldn't bring back the Daemon, outside of the single universe setting they make no sense.

........when killing dark maka, did you use light energy?

You're kinda right about najimi being overpowered

[supertinyking]

kishin asura said
........when killing dark maka, did you use light energy?You're kinda right about najimi being overpowered

And by all rights, you've not only have possibly the most powerful characters to rper....but well, you've lead to other characters becoming op in a sense.

[Akihisa Yoshii]

Aaaaand I'm back. But really, I only left because it was tiring to try and think of a way for either Creed or someone I made to get 'Bullshit Power Levels' as I like to call it. Genocide, the latest villain (or last I checked the IC that is) and his destroyer team of destruction or whatever (I got bored trying to read all of the walls of text) are a good example of this. There's no point in even trying to RP with people that seem to be trying to make Gurren Lagann's power ups seem reasonable...

But since Matt's calling up another overhaul I'll check back in... For now...

[supertinyking]

Akihisa Yoshii said
Aaaaand I'm back. But really, I only left because it was tiring to try and think of a way for either Creed or someone I made to get 'Bullshit Power Levels' as I like to call it. Genocide, the latest villain (or last I checked the IC that is) and his destroyer team of destruction or whatever (I got bored trying to read all of the walls of text) are a good example of this. There's no point in even trying to RP with people that seem to be trying to make Gurren Lagann's power ups seem reasonable...But since Matt's calling up another overhaul I'll check back in... For now...

Yea, I agree with that the powerlevels are getting to high again. Of course, this keeps happening. We have hills and valleys when it comes to powerlevels here. So, when you get a chance and we are both on we could perhaps rp as well. ((My rping addiction is getting worse XD.)).

[thewizardguy]

Akihisa Yoshii said
Aaaaand I'm back. But really, I only left because it was tiring to try and think of a way for either Creed or someone I made to get 'Bullshit Power Levels' as I like to call it. Genocide, the latest villain (or last I checked the IC that is) and his destroyer team of destruction or whatever (I got bored trying to read all of the walls of text) are a good example of this. There's no point in even trying to RP with people that seem to be trying to make Gurren Lagann's power ups seem reasonable...But since Matt's calling up another overhaul I'll check back in... For now...

Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay!

Glad to have you back, man. If you ever have another problem like that, just say it. We can´t help you if we don´t know what´s bothering you, okay? I'd happily make some changes if you feel like it would help your roleplaying experience.

At this particular point in time, I've come to the conclusion that Planet-Busting should be removed, because it's just too damn massive. It makes people lose a sense of scale, and has a negative backlash on roleplaying quality. As such, I've reduced Toguro to around city-smashing level, more less on-level with the explosions seen in Fairy Tail, Bleach, or the other main shonen. I think I might like it a bit lower than that, but I want to leave plenty of room for people to create their characters. Furthermore, the Omegans are supposed to be on the higher end of the spectrum, as 'boss fights'.

If you want any help whatsoever in getting your character into the story, or if anything else bothers you, please tell me. Everyone would prefer it if you stuck around. Believe it or not, people around here actually like you, Hell if I know why ^^

[thewizardguy]

kishin asura said
........when killing dark maka, did you use light energy?You're kinda right about najimi being overpowered

I'd multiple times explained that the soul is the essence of being, it is effectively a being's energy source. Without the soul, nothing can live, ever. There have been a few exceptions to this rule, such as Primals and Daemon, both of whom weren't beings, but rather physical manifestations of either Multiversal or Universal concepts. However, Dark Maka was never mentioned as such an exception. The only reason I didn't hit her with the nerf bat hard enough to break the sound barrier is because Tiny was GMing at the time, and I wanted to see how he would handle it. The answer is that he tried to kill her over and over IC, and yet you kept inventing bullshit to keep her alive.

Now, I understand powergaming. I'm the dude who invented God Matt, after all. Having a character that can crush other characters is fun, in a way, and I can totally understand why you built Najimi like that. However, having a character of that power level makes it less fun for other people. Instead of a mutually enjoyable experience, it either becomes a domination on your part, or just a childish game of 'my bullshitium sword beats your indestructibilium shield', if you know what I mean. My goal is to create a roleplay that's fun for everyone, which is why I try and put everyone at more less the same power level.

Now, I'm reducing the power level of the Omegans, and hopefully the others will follow suit. That's usually how it's worked before. If you want to continue playing around with throwing planets, I suppose I could create a split, where we have two different locations. One with incredibly powerful characters, and one with less powerful ones, and the incredibly powerful characters can't get involved in the less powerful character's storylines.

Alternatively, you could nerf your characters as well. I'm open to both ideas, or any others you might have.

[Wraithblade6]

Maybe none of this is about the power levels of the characters we are playing, but rather the players' reactions to the assaults on their characters. Basically, nobody is writing that their character ever gets hurt.

[Akihisa Yoshii]

Yeah, thanks Matt. Anyways, all I really need to know is:
a. What the fuck is going on and
b. ... What the fuck is going on?

[supertinyking]

Akihisa Yoshii said
Yeah, thanks Matt. Anyways, all I really need to know is:a. What the fuck is going on andb. ... What the fuck is going on?

With your characters, nothing really. Minx and darkside are fighting the dork sq...sorry, I meant the Champs of omega. The dark one is in the hands of wraith's characters, although if she doesn't do something with it soon, I may throw it at someone else. As for anything else, it's just normal everyday stuff, that you can go muck up if you want.

[Akihisa Yoshii]

Well, wherever everybody was BEFORE they all went off to fight different things, Desmond got left there, sooo...
Here we go.

[supertinyking]

Akihisa Yoshii said
Well, wherever everybody was BEFORE they all went off to fight different things, Desmond got left there, sooo...Here we go.

Well, that place was blown up, but lucky for everyone, the robed dude pulled an obi-wan and gave them time to escape from the creature Cosmos.

[Wraithblade6]

Okok. I will post for the bloodhound soon.

[kishin asura]

thewizardguy said
I'd multiple times explained that the soul is the essence of being, it is effectively a being's energy source. Without the soul, nothing can live, ever. There have been a few exceptions to this rule, such as Primals and Daemon, both of whom weren't beings, but rather physical manifestations of either Multiversal or Universal concepts. However, Dark Maka was never mentioned as such an exception. The only reason I didn't hit her with the nerf bat hard enough to break the sound barrier is because Tiny was GMing at the time, and I wanted to see how he would handle it. The answer is that he tried to kill her over and over IC, and yet you kept inventing bullshit to keep her alive.Now, I understand powergaming. I'm the dude who invented God Matt, after all. Having a character that can crush other characters is fun, in a way, and I can totally understand why you built Najimi like that. However, having a character of that power level makes it less fun for other people. Instead of a mutually enjoyable experience, it either becomes a domination on your part, or just a childish game of 'my bullshitium sword beats your indestructibilium shield', if you know what I mean. My goal is to create a roleplay that's fun for everyone, which is why I try and put everyone at more less the same power level.Now, I'm reducing the power level of the Omegans, and hopefully the others will follow suit. That's usually how it's worked before. If you want to continue playing around with throwing planets, I suppose I could create a split, where we have two different locations. One with incredibly powerful characters, and one with less powerful ones, and the incredibly powerful characters can't get involved in the less powerful character's storylines.Alternatively, you could nerf your characters as well. I'm open to both ideas, or any others you might have.

Well so far, I haven't really used dark maka in the rp for quite a long time, along with alastor, who is about city level but has a pocket dimension in place of a soul (so he'd be immune to soular damage) don't ask me how it works.

Najimi, I'm not so sure. I mean yeah she's seriously overpowered, but to be honest, you had a char that could transfer any wound someone inflicted to that person's loved ones. That ability's weakness is something no one could really figure out, and something I still cannot figure out to this day. There was also the one char that absorbed/possessed kihaku. (Ues I still remember her name) that same char became ultra powerful. That same char absorbed a clone of itself, and became more ultra powerful. There was also the daemon, whose success in destroying the universe could only be delayed and apparently couldn't be prevented by any means. On an unrelated noted I noticed I misspelled yes. But back to the topic at hand. Do I need to mention the judge? The char that, despite being a mage with power over life and death that was being amplified by runes and soular energy, could somehow draw power from the void and become ultra powerful.

Not trying to justify najimi or anything btw

[thewizardguy]

Akihisa Yoshii said
Yeah, thanks Matt. Anyways, all I really need to know is:a. What the fuck is going on andb. ... What the fuck is going on?

At the moment, I just set up the Bad Guys. My idea is that a group called the Champions of Omega is going arouns the Multiverse releasing a series of Seals. These seals have something to do with their master plan to destroy balance in the multiverse, the ultimate feat of destruction. The bad guys basically just walked over, took a dump on the heroes' faces, and then left, announcing just how evil they were as they left. Thus, a ragtag team of heroes will have to form to chase these people, each in it for either pure motives, or just to wipe the shit off into their faces. It's an old-fashioned race, which I will use to set up a whole bunch of unique locations, and maybe revisit some old ones. SO if you want in, just say so, and I'll find a way to work your char into the plot.

Of course, you could also go have fun with the Dark One. I'm planning on working with Tiny to get the two storylines to overlap, perhaps the Dark One is required to open one of the Seals, or something like that.

[thewizardguy]

kishin asura said
Well so far, I haven't really used dark maka in the rp for quite a long time, along with alastor, who is about city level but has a pocket dimension in place of a soul (so he'd be immune to soular damage) don't ask me how it works.Najimi, I'm not so sure. I mean yeah she's seriously overpowered, but to be honest, you had a char that could transfer any wound someone inflicted to that person's loved ones. That ability's weakness is something no one could really figure out, and something I still cannot figure out to this day. There was also the one char that absorbed/possessed kihaku. (Ues I still remember her name) that same char became ultra powerful. That same char absorbed a clone of itself, and became more ultra powerful. There was also the daemon, whose success in destroying the universe could only be delayed and apparently couldn't be prevented by any means. On an unrelated noted I noticed I misspelled yes. But back to the topic at hand. Do I need to mention the judge? The char that, despite being a mage with power over life and death that was being amplified by runes and soular energy, could somehow draw power from the void and become ultra powerful.Not trying to justify najimi or anything btw

Yeah, I probably shouldn't harp off on Dark Maka. At this point, she's pretty much irrelevant. Yes, Devil Matt was effectively immortal, but he was immortal because he was the Big Bad. The idea of most of my stories is rather simple, beat the Big Bad. After doing that for a bit, I started delving into multiple ways in which I could present the Big Bad, and how I could make them work, and how I could agitate the characters. I was experimenting with GMing styles, and this is most evident when you look at what I did with the bad guy, the story's Big Bad.

Stein was the Original Evil. He was pretty much the first real bad guy in the history of HCL, and as such he just went around screwing people over. He broke their stuff, screwed with their family, took their artifacts, and made full abuse of the fact that everyone back then was amazingly gullible. This turned into a chase, where everyone banded together to screw over Stein, and, for a while, this worked out great. However, then I decided I needed some sort of climax, an epic battle where everything would get tied up, no loosed ends.

Let's just say that 'ending with a bang' was an undersatement, when describing this boss battle.

Next up was Devil Matt. My favorite moments with Stein were when he was actually a part of the group, hanging around and screwing with people. You knew he was evil, but he was still 'technically' in your team. Of course, I wouldn't be able to pull the same trick again. As such, Devil Matt was made effectively immortal. This, combined with his power, meant he effectively forced the cast to work with them. I tried to go a bit grimmer, confronting the players with some gruesome visuals, and the idea that their characters are forced to do evil, without being able to do anything about it. I wanted to add a bit more character and personality to the group, and, in my opinion, it worked great. I had a lot of fun with this arc.
In this version of the universe, he was one of 3 Primordial Evils, bastions of absolute darkness. The other 2 were the Millenium Earl, and Satan. He couldn't be killed, except by someone with no doubt, no hesitation, and an absolutely pure heart. My original idea for the climax would be that Bug, having redeemed himself from killing Tsukune, would have been able to temporarily adopt Tsukune's mindset. He'd then have to strike the killing blow to Devil Matt, ending his reign of terror once and for all. Then, because there must always be 3 Primordial Evil, there would be a choice. Either one of the players could become the next Primordial Evil, or a minor evil character introduced before would become evil. Preferably this Multiverse's version of Stein. Potentially Solus, or Kami.
Unfortunately, I never got to complete my plans, but it was nice while it lasted.

Next up, the Daemon. Amsusingly enough, this take went without a Big Bad for a little while. In an attempt to recapture a bit of Ancient HCL, I made it a bit more open-world-y. Tiny established his factions, and you yourself created that trio of Kishin Witch Sisters, including Lilith. I played Matt as a bored mad scientist, who was no longer the adventurous youth he had once been, but more interested in peace and order. This was a midstep into his evolution into a keeper of absolute law. For a while, just having the characters bounce off of one another was more than enough fun. However, eventually I wanted to try my hand at the Overarching Plot once more. This is when Kami showed up at the Clone Emperor's Homeworld. Of course, this dude is COMPLETELY different from the Kami inprevious incarnations, which was incredibly confusing. I've never been very good with names.
I bult up the Daemon to be completely unstoppable. I took the immortal elements of Devil Matt, but I didn't give them a weakness. Instead of an evil dude with a snappy comeback and a poisoned dagger, they were a force of nature. They were a force of nature, an unstoppable and inevitable holocaust of something that was so much bigger than the characters that it just didn't care. I wanted to throw the characters up into the face of inevitable failure, and, in the end, it was all a massive buildup for Hope, and Pandora's Box. I found it a very appropriate title.
The idea was that Hope was the only thing that could kill the Daemon. However, in order to make that possible, the players would have to commit horrible acts, mutilating a small girl's mind and body. The idea was to inspire moral debate, and it worked. I thought it was amazing, and it's one of the things I'm the most proud of to this day. While many people wnated to do the 'right' thing, and free the small girl, Tiny, for example, realized that doing so would doom all of creation. Do the needs of the many outweight the needs of the few? I loved this arc, but it would have been impossible to do without making the daemon so grossly overpowered.

Lastly, it's Hate. And I'll admit, Hate was a bit silly. I basically made her because Tyki destroyed my favorite character, so Hate was supposed to screw him over more as a revenge act than anything else. it was childish and silly, but hey, what's done is done. Eventually, it became a massive group battle where literally everone in the roleplay was fighting Hate in a massive Boss Battle, and it was amazingly epic. I remember Natsu basically launching a miniature supernova at her, and all kinds of epic explosions. This was a high-powered battle done right, with people being punched through planets and stars exploding, the closest text ever got to SFX. It would have made the perfect Micheal Bay movie, because the plot sucked, but hey. Unfortunately, it was ended by Tyki pulling Bullshit with the 'council'. Amusingly enough, this happened in the Daemon universe, before the Daemon appeared. Itw as basically just a big old duke out.

Every character was overpowered for their own reasons, and had their own styles. As the GM, it's my job to create a badass story, and without creating characters like that it's much, much harder. A bad guy that can be beaten fairly easily is worthless, and won't lead to any dramatic tension. The reason the bad guy is always more badass in the beginning is to accentuate how badass the good guys are later for beating him. Badass heroes need badass villains, that's just how the world works.

Of course, if you think you can do it better, I'd be happy to hand you the reins.

[Akihisa Yoshii]

thewizardguy said
Yeah, I probably shouldn't harp off on Dark Maka. At this point, she's pretty much irrelevant. Yes, Devil Matt was effectively immortal, but he was immortal because he was the Big Bad. The idea of most of my stories is rather simple, beat the Big Bad. After doing that for a bit, I started delving into multiple ways in which I could present the Big Bad, and how I could make them work, and how I could agitate the characters. I was experimenting with GMing styles, and this is most evident when you look at what I did with the bad guy, the story's Big Bad.Stein was the Original Evil. He was pretty much the first real bad guy in the history of HCL, and as such he just went around screwing people over. He broke their stuff, screwed with their family, took their artifacts, and made full abuse of the fact that everyone back then was amazingly gullible. This turned into a chase, where everyone banded together to screw over Stein, and, for a while, this worked out great. However, then I decided I needed some sort of climax, an epic battle where everything would get tied up, no loosed ends.Let's just say that 'ending with a bang' was an undersatement, when describing this boss battle.Next up was Devil Matt. My favorite moments with Stein were when he was actually a part of the group, hanging around and screwing with people. You knew he was evil, but he was still 'technically' in your team. Of course, I wouldn't be able to pull the same trick again. As such, Devil Matt was made effectively immortal. This, combined with his power, meant he effectively forced the cast to work with them. I tried to go a bit grimmer, confronting the players with some gruesome visuals, and the idea that their characters are forced to do evil, without being able to do anything about it. I wanted to add a bit more character and personality to the group, and, in my opinion, it worked great. I had a lot of fun with this arc. In this version of the universe, he was one of 3 Primordial Evils, bastions of absolute darkness. The other 2 were the Millenium Earl, and Satan. He couldn't be killed, except by someone with no doubt, no hesitation, and an absolutely pure heart. My original idea for the climax would be that Bug, having redeemed himself from killing Tsukune, would have been able to temporarily adopt Tsukune's mindset. He'd then have to strike the killing blow to Devil Matt, ending his reign of terror once and for all. Then, because there must always be 3 Primordial Evil, there would be a choice. Either one of the players could become the next Primordial Evil, or a minor evil character introduced before would become evil. Preferably this Multiverse's version of Stein. Potentially Solus, or Kami.Unfortunately, I never got to complete my plans, but it was nice while it lasted.Next up, the Daemon. Amsusingly enough, this take went without a Big Bad for a little while. In an attempt to recapture a bit of Ancient HCL, I made it a bit more open-world-y. Tiny established his factions, and you yourself created that trio of Kishin Witch Sisters, including Lilith. I played Matt as a bored mad scientist, who was no longer the adventurous youth he had once been, but more interested in peace and order. This was a midstep into his evolution into a keeper of absolute law. For a while, just having the characters bounce off of one another was more than enough fun. However, eventually I wanted to try my hand at the Overarching Plot once more. This is when Kami showed up at the Clone Emperor's Homeworld. Of course, this dude is COMPLETELY different from the Kami inprevious incarnations, which was incredibly confusing. I've never been very good with names.I bult up the Daemon to be completely unstoppable. I took the immortal elements of Devil Matt, but I didn't give them a weakness. Instead of an evil dude with a snappy comeback and a poisoned dagger, they were a force of nature. They were a force of nature, an unstoppable and inevitable holocaust of something that was so much bigger than the characters that it just didn't care. I wanted to throw the characters up into the face of inevitable failure, and, in the end, it was all a massive buildup for Hope, and Pandora's Box. I found it a very appropriate title.The idea was that Hope was the only thing that could kill the Daemon. However, in order to make that possible, the players would have to commit horrible acts, mutilating a small girl's mind and body. The idea was to inspire moral debate, and it worked. I thought it was amazing, and it's one of the things I'm the most proud of to this day. While many people wnated to do the 'right' thing, and free the small girl, Tiny, for example, realized that doing so would doom all of creation. Do the needs of the many outweight the needs of the few? I loved this arc, but it would have been impossible to do without making the daemon so grossly overpowered.Lastly, it's Hate. And I'll admit, Hate was a bit silly. I basically made her because Tyki destroyed my favorite character, so Hate was supposed to screw him over more as a revenge act than anything else. it was childish and silly, but hey, what's done is done. Eventually, it became a massive group battle where literally everone in the roleplay was fighting Hate in a massive Boss Battle, and it was amazingly epic. I remember Natsu basically launching a miniature supernova at her, and all kinds of epic explosions. This was a high-powered battle done right, with people being punched through planets and stars exploding, the closest text ever got to SFX. It would have made the perfect Micheal Bay movie, because the plot sucked, but hey. Unfortunately, it was ended by Tyki pulling Bullshit with the 'council'. Amusingly enough, this happened in the Daemon universe, before the Daemon appeared. Itw as basically just a big old duke out.Every character was overpowered for their own reasons, and had their own styles. As the GM, it's my job to create a badass story, and without creating characters like that it's much, much harder. A bad guy that can be beaten fairly easily is worthless, and won't lead to any dramatic tension. The reason the bad guy is always more badass in the beginning is to accentuate how badass the good guys are later for beating him. Badass heroes need badass villains, that's just how the world works.Of course, if you think you can do it better, I'd be happy to hand you the reins.

I love how you keep calling Creed Natsu because he's basically Natsu with a badass sword and a stone of immortality (which is false as even with the stone he can die, it just changes how many times you need to hit him in the head with that brick before he dies or your arm gets tired. (I think he started out with 1000 souls and now he's at 998... .8 ) )

[Akihisa Yoshii]

D-D-D-DOUBLE POST!

[kishin asura]

thewizardguy said
Yeah, I probably shouldn't harp off on Dark Maka. At this point, she's pretty much irrelevant. Yes, Devil Matt was effectively immortal, but he was immortal because he was the Big Bad. The idea of most of my stories is rather simple, beat the Big Bad. After doing that for a bit, I started delving into multiple ways in which I could present the Big Bad, and how I could make them work, and how I could agitate the characters. I was experimenting with GMing styles, and this is most evident when you look at what I did with the bad guy, the story's Big Bad.Stein was the Original Evil. He was pretty much the first real bad guy in the history of HCL, and as such he just went around screwing people over. He broke their stuff, screwed with their family, took their artifacts, and made full abuse of the fact that everyone back then was amazingly gullible. This turned into a chase, where everyone banded together to screw over Stein, and, for a while, this worked out great. However, then I decided I needed some sort of climax, an epic battle where everything would get tied up, no loosed ends.Let's just say that 'ending with a bang' was an undersatement, when describing this boss battle.Next up was Devil Matt. My favorite moments with Stein were when he was actually a part of the group, hanging around and screwing with people. You knew he was evil, but he was still 'technically' in your team. Of course, I wouldn't be able to pull the same trick again. As such, Devil Matt was made effectively immortal. This, combined with his power, meant he effectively forced the cast to work with them. I tried to go a bit grimmer, confronting the players with some gruesome visuals, and the idea that their characters are forced to do evil, without being able to do anything about it. I wanted to add a bit more character and personality to the group, and, in my opinion, it worked great. I had a lot of fun with this arc. In this version of the universe, he was one of 3 Primordial Evils, bastions of absolute darkness. The other 2 were the Millenium Earl, and Satan. He couldn't be killed, except by someone with no doubt, no hesitation, and an absolutely pure heart. My original idea for the climax would be that Bug, having redeemed himself from killing Tsukune, would have been able to temporarily adopt Tsukune's mindset. He'd then have to strike the killing blow to Devil Matt, ending his reign of terror once and for all. Then, because there must always be 3 Primordial Evil, there would be a choice. Either one of the players could become the next Primordial Evil, or a minor evil character introduced before would become evil. Preferably this Multiverse's version of Stein. Potentially Solus, or Kami.Unfortunately, I never got to complete my plans, but it was nice while it lasted.Next up, the Daemon. Amsusingly enough, this take went without a Big Bad for a little while. In an attempt to recapture a bit of Ancient HCL, I made it a bit more open-world-y. Tiny established his factions, and you yourself created that trio of Kishin Witch Sisters, including Lilith. I played Matt as a bored mad scientist, who was no longer the adventurous youth he had once been, but more interested in peace and order. This was a midstep into his evolution into a keeper of absolute law. For a while, just having the characters bounce off of one another was more than enough fun. However, eventually I wanted to try my hand at the Overarching Plot once more. This is when Kami showed up at the Clone Emperor's Homeworld. Of course, this dude is COMPLETELY different from the Kami inprevious incarnations, which was incredibly confusing. I've never been very good with names.I bult up the Daemon to be completely unstoppable. I took the immortal elements of Devil Matt, but I didn't give them a weakness. Instead of an evil dude with a snappy comeback and a poisoned dagger, they were a force of nature. They were a force of nature, an unstoppable and inevitable holocaust of something that was so much bigger than the characters that it just didn't care. I wanted to throw the characters up into the face of inevitable failure, and, in the end, it was all a massive buildup for Hope, and Pandora's Box. I found it a very appropriate title.The idea was that Hope was the only thing that could kill the Daemon. However, in order to make that possible, the players would have to commit horrible acts, mutilating a small girl's mind and body. The idea was to inspire moral debate, and it worked. I thought it was amazing, and it's one of the things I'm the most proud of to this day. While many people wnated to do the 'right' thing, and free the small girl, Tiny, for example, realized that doing so would doom all of creation. Do the needs of the many outweight the needs of the few? I loved this arc, but it would have been impossible to do without making the daemon so grossly overpowered.Lastly, it's Hate. And I'll admit, Hate was a bit silly. I basically made her because Tyki destroyed my favorite character, so Hate was supposed to screw him over more as a revenge act than anything else. it was childish and silly, but hey, what's done is done. Eventually, it became a massive group battle where literally everone in the roleplay was fighting Hate in a massive Boss Battle, and it was amazingly epic. I remember Natsu basically launching a miniature supernova at her, and all kinds of epic explosions. This was a high-powered battle done right, with people being punched through planets and stars exploding, the closest text ever got to SFX. It would have made the perfect Micheal Bay movie, because the plot sucked, but hey. Unfortunately, it was ended by Tyki pulling Bullshit with the 'council'. Amusingly enough, this happened in the Daemon universe, before the Daemon appeared. Itw as basically just a big old duke out.Every character was overpowered for their own reasons, and had their own styles. As the GM, it's my job to create a badass story, and without creating characters like that it's much, much harder. A bad guy that can be beaten fairly easily is worthless, and won't lead to any dramatic tension. The reason the bad guy is always more badass in the beginning is to accentuate how badass the good guys are later for beating him. Badass heroes need badass villains, that's just how the world works.Of course, if you think you can do it better, I'd be happy to hand you the reins.

Dude, to be honest, I really don't think I could do it better after reading your post.

Also, the battle against hate will be the closest thing to a Michael Bay movie with a gainax ending. Maybe not the gainax ending part but that's kinda debatable.

[Akihisa Yoshii]

Aaaaaaand I get skipped over in Matt's mega-posts... Again... *le sigh*

[Teoinsanity]

Yo wiz,Teo cant be mind read remeber?