agentnumalol

Of Crosses and Collapses: A Crossover Adventure of Survival on a Patchwork World.

I've been keeping an eye out every so often on this thread. I'd like for this to come back, too, at some point

Of Crosses and Collapses: A Crossover Adventure of Survival on a Patchwork World.

Ah man, it's been a while. Good to see there's still a little bit of activity going on. I can practically feel the pressure of Marston's finger against the trigger at this point.

I'm not bad, @Crosswire. It never really hit me that the holidays were coming up until my sister started screeching Mariah Carey today while driving. It's actually been a while since I've turned on the radio so I haven't heard Christmas songs in forever. It actually feels refreshing rather than annoying, but we'll see if that remains in a couple weeks. Hope y'all are doing well yourselves.

Of Crosses and Collapses: A Crossover Adventure of Survival on a Patchwork World.

Believe me, when Marston gets the chance, he'll find a way to gun down a group of baddies with a burst of Deadeye. Save the town. Honor +50, Reputation +10.

Speaking of which, I was actually considering building the reputation/honor system when building John's character, where I would stick to the good gunslinger bit and people could help me out every now and then at the cost of being hunted down by gangs seeking revenge. It would have been neat, but I didn't quite want to keep track of that stuff. Plus I probably would have liked to abuse it with bandanas.

(Ignore the man bulge album cover)

@Crosswire

You can't tell me what to do.

Of Crosses and Collapses: A Crossover Adventure of Survival on a Patchwork World.

Took a little procrastination, but I finally got a post up. I've been keeping up with the posts and stuff over the past few days, but didn't really have anything to contribute, but here we are.

Also I have a question for everyone: Should I condense my posts at all?

One of my worries about this roleplay is that how I've set it up makes it rather...slow. And when players are waiting for a while to post they gradually lose interest which is very bad. So please tell me if any of your are unhappy with the pace things are going at and I'll do my best to resolve them.

@Crosswire

I interpret the slow pace to be part of the nature of play-by-post games. I personally enjoy the amount of effort that you put in the posts, and I'm usually prepared for the posts taking a while. I'd love to keep seeing them, but if you are really concerned about the pace and want to condense your posts, that'd be fine b

So I got to thinking of a solution and it struck me.

What if I make item 'cards'? Like this:

Springfield Operator (MGS4)

I make a template in GIMP for the various item categories, weapons, armors, general items, misc stuff, ect and I can just fill it out as things come up. Everything is neat, organized, well presented, and in a easy to link picture form.

How does that sound to everyone? Would you like me to start doing that?

@Crosswire

That sounds really cool. As long as it's not too much work for you, that might be a way slicker way of handling inventory stuff. The image seems to be down right now, but I did catch a glimpse of it earlier and I am a fan of the format.

Of Crosses and Collapses: A Crossover Adventure of Survival on a Patchwork World.

Location:

Tselinoyarsk

Mentions:

@DracoLunaris @redbaron1234 @Crosswire

Marston looked the seed over that Mr. Payne handed over him. Hard. Heavy. A bright, metallic color.

“Are you sure you didn’t just hand me some shot? If this really was a seed, it’d take a smarter man than me to get this thing to grow. But I don’t think you need me to tell you that you could knock someone real good with it.”

He handed the seed back to Mr. Payne, and started heading north once he saw Quiet, Cedar, and Julian heading up the path.The path was far more narrow than the cowboy had anticipated, and the grass thicker than any plain he had ever ridden across. Marston watched his feet for snakes as he followed the others through the winding grass.

Marston recoiled slightly at the arising stench emanating from the pool of mud that spread itself before him.

“Good lord,” muttered the cowboy. It was like Irish had spent days drinking himself to sleep in the pigpens of Thieves’ Landing.

“Looks like we don’t wanna get caught in that.”

As Marston looked around the area for an alternate route, Quiet had pointed towards the north, where Marston saw the Genprey, preoccupied by their meal. John was ready for snakes, cougars, even bears, but he couldn’t even conjure up an image of bipedal, flesh-eating reptiles until they were right there before his eyes. The cowboy pulled out the ornate revolver, a heavy round loaded in the chamber.

“...And we definitely don’t want to get caught by those things, either. I think we should try to put those things down while they’re distracted. I’m pretty confident I can get a shot in on one, but that’s all I got. If one of you can get the other one, I think we’d be golden.”

Quiet and Julian looked raring to go (granted, Julian always looked pretty aggravated), but with only a knife, a pair of robotic fists, and a teenage girl between them, the element of surprise may have been lost. He looked to Mr. Payne, the semi-automatic pistol resting in his shoulder holster.

“Think you can get the other one?”

Marston turned back to Quiet, Cedar, and Julian.

“If you all have any other ideas, I’d be willing to hear ‘em.”

Marston realized the issue with asking a mute and a murderous machine to share any ideas they had, but if they had a way of crossing the swamp and getting the drop on the oversized chickens across the way, then he’d least get to save a bullet. Julian might be able to get across the thick swamp, but Marston had no idea what the quiet one was capable of. Until then, he raised the revolver, accounting for the unusual heftiness of the gun, and trained its sights on the head of the leftmost Genprey.

Of Crosses and Collapses: A Crossover Adventure of Survival on a Patchwork World.

No worries on the slowdown. I'd imagine things tend to slow immensely even a couple months after most school stuff starts.

As for how it's going, Same old, same old. Probably gonna wait for the Halloween sale on Steam and see if there's any good horror stuff popping up. Might be DMing DnD or Shadowrun in the future, since some friends wanted to play and I usually end up GMing for the latter and have DMed for the former a couple times. tfw when you become GM forever.

Of Crosses and Collapses: A Crossover Adventure of Survival on a Patchwork World.

Things are going good. Trying to get into the spooky mood by replaying through some horror games I have, but I think I really need to play something new to get the proper spookage going.

I did get to play Doki Doki Literature Club. It's free and I'd recommend it, but VN's, especially ones like these, might not be up your alley. Be warned, though, there are warnings in the game before it starts; heed them closely. That game goes in very interesting places.

Of Crosses and Collapses: A Crossover Adventure of Survival on a Patchwork World.

And post is up.

In slightly related news, WOOHOO Red Dead Redemption 2 looks awesome!

Console exclusive...not as awesome.

@Crosswire

a highly accurate reenactment of what is to come, brought to you by horrifying stock images

@DracoLunaris

Jesus H. Christ. Just in time for spooky October.

Also, just a weird little thing I want to bring up. I'd like to apologize if occasionally in descriptions I say that your character perceives, senses, or feels something. I don't want anyone to feel I'm taking control of their characters or stating things that aren't true about them or anything like that. I've just been trying to write some vivid, fun descriptions in a Dungeon Master like style.

No one's brought it up but I worried about it after recognizing it so I figured I'd mention it.

@Crosswire

Well, I'm bringing it up now, and I'll have you know that I am adamantly OK with it. It's not like we know what we're seeing until you tell us, right?

Of Crosses and Collapses: A Crossover Adventure of Survival on a Patchwork World.

Location:

Tselinoyarsk

Mentions:

@DracoLunaris @redbaron1234

Marston rolled the mushrooms over in his hand a few times, gauging the texture of the caps that sat between his fingers. It was tough, which certainly wouldn’t pair well with the unpalatable taste of the mushrooms. At least they were edible, and based on the smell, possibly even medicinal, which was a great bonus out here. What really caught the cowboy’s eyes were the unusual beans that sat amongst the colorful grasses. He pocketed the mushrooms and pulled the beans from their spot.

Beans in hand, Marston could have sworn he heard a tune, but couldn’t really place where it was coming from. Between his earlier paranoia, this rewarding jingle, and the sudden urge to raise the beans above his head, the cowboy could only conclude that his fatigue was catching up to him much faster than he had anticipated.

As he held up the beans, they caught the light that fell filtered through the jungle canopies, illuminating the colored beans within the pod’s shell.

”You two find anything good down there?”

She asked, crouching down, ready to help them get back up and over the log.

@DracoLunaris

“Luckily, I found some mushrooms that can keep us going for a stretch longer. More interestingly, though, are these things. I’ve never seen beans with these colors before, but they still look like they’ll take if we put ‘em in the ground. I ain’t willing to eat these things unless I really have to, but I think they’re worth bringing back to the fort. Need something that’ll last longer than the fish.”

As Marston finished up his investigation of the tree, he looked over to Mr Payne and his new find.

“Guess that settles it. I’m just paranoid.”

The cowboy sighed, partly out of relief that his ambush theory was misplaced, and partly in frustration that his fatigue had his mind racing in so many directions.

“Interesting find, though. Kids back home loved that kind of thing. I probably would have, too, if I weren’t already slinging iron at their age.”

It seemed that the enclosed area didn’t offer anything else of value, so he made his way back to the fallen trunk, where Ms. Shen offered a hand in scaling the side of the tree. He grabbed her hand and with her help, scaled the side of the old bark.

“Thank you,” grunted Marston, as he ascended over the side.

“Wasn’t able to scrounge up enough for the whole class, unfortunately. Hopefully, we’ll be able to find some more morsels on the way ahead, get everyone on their feet and all.”

He pulled out one of the mushrooms and offered it to Ms. Shen.

“For helping me out here. And more importantly, I don’t want you falling apart, ‘cause I don’t know what’s gonna happen with your robot when you do.”

He looked back at Mr. Payne.

“There’s one for you, too, if you’re feeling a bit empty. We could save them for later and roast ‘em if you want, though. Brings out what little flavor there is, and it could bring out some of its better characteristics. Whatever you guys want to do, I think we should rejoin the posse heading north.”

He looked to the northbound group from atop the fallen trunk. He was interested in rejoining them quickly; a couple of mushrooms and colorful beans wasn’t gonna cut it, and they needed some stable footing in this strange setting. Once Mr. Payne was out of the enclosed area, Marston planned on making his way over and exploring the rest of Tselinoyarsk.

Of Crosses and Collapses: A Crossover Adventure of Survival on a Patchwork World.

I was thinking of somewhere spooky. Seeing our characters handle a horde from L4D's airport or solving puzzles in Spencer Mansion sounds real dope (Disclaimer: I have never played the early RE's, just 4, 5, and 7).