VarionusNW

Destiny Reborn!

Yo, had a lot going on for a bit, but wanted to try and join the discord, the link was timed and is no longer available. @BayRat

Destiny Reborn! A Dark Fantasy Isekai with a twist.

Consider me tentatively interested, hue hue.

Yu-Gi-Oh!: Perils of the Night

Anthony Arden

Anthony Arden

21, Male

Appearance

Messy dark hair partly covers a plain and dour face framed by square glasses. His frame is that of relatively average build, though he's relatively tall, sitting around 6ft2in. He's in shape, but not exactly fit, active but not the type to deliberately work out. He is usually seen in a beat-up old bomber jacket, plain colored button-ups, a belt, jeans, and worn-out sneakers, a style he rarely deviates from or accessorizes on top of.

Personality

Anthony is a strange young man. A first impression might reveal him to be terse, cold, potentially even, mechanical, manipulative, and calculating. Others might describe him instead as insightful and friendly, though a tad too fond of rambling for his own good. He would agree with both evaluations, they're both aspects of the complicated system of factors that lead him to be who he is. That's how he views most things, in terms of elements that add up into wholes, with each part having a function towards the purpose of the thing, and a reason they were put there in the first place. People follow that rule the same as his bike, or his decks, just in a more roundabout fashion. He deeply enjoys the process of learning how things worth, and training his intuition on further data such that he can improve his understanding of the world. Knowledge is very much power to Anthony. He's a good-natured kid, ultimately, not yet losing his positivity despite the loss of his father and his mother's distance, though those elements of his personality are often guarded from most that he meets. He reserves that positive mood for his close friends and the fellow duelists he takes under his wing.

Background

background

Anthony was the second child of Mari and Tony Arden, a successful scientist and a "professional odd-jobber." He always found himself in the shadow of the people around him: his mother's scientific achievements, his sister Gwen being something of an academic savant, and even his father being somewhat successful at high level Duel Monsters tournaments. Tony never held down a job for much longer than a few months, but he was at least an ever-present force in Anthony's youth, teaching both children how to play the game he seemed to love so much, as well as generally being a source of positive advice. The kids practically grew up between home, science labs, and card shops so that their parents could avoid leaving them alone. It was a fairly loving childhood, as far as Anthony was concerned.
On Anthony's 14th birthday, his parents got into an argument, as far as he knew for the first time, and by the end of the hellish day were already planning the divorce. The assets were split by the end of the week, and it was decided Anthony would stay with his mother, and Gwen demanded to go with their father. Being 16, they let her. Anthony protested that he wanted to stay with all of them, but his Father was fairly clear that he needed to stay with her, there was no choice.
Anthony loved his mother, of course, and with her help focused more heavily on his academics. He only got back into Duel Monsters after Gwen started calling him again after about a year of near silence, essentially threatening him into playing again, and sending him several of their dad's old decks. The calls became nightly, discussing strategies and new releases. She sometimes even sent packages of cards, with him always beaming with excitement at what new tools he had to play around with. He eventually started doing what his sister and father had for him at the local card shops. He played for fun, and started teaching newer kids how to play. It was his little sanctuary, the card game, a reminder of the good times, and he wished to spread that joy to as many others as possible, and maybe win a few games thanks to the analytical eye that had been sort of trained into him. His life was finally steady again, at least for another few years.
Anthony eventually started college, and did his best to balance his hobbies with constant classes, but he was wearing a bit thin. His father, who rarely talked on the phone, mostly letting Gwen do the talking, hadn't been responding to calls, and as the weeks wore on, there was rarely a sign of Gwen either. Eventually she broke the silence and told him that their father was missing. No one had seen him for weeks. Anthony's mother seemed to already know, seeming dour when he went to her lab to talk to her. She sat and consoled him for a while, seeming rather in need of consolation herself. When the conversation fell to complete silence, she handed him a small bag, keys to the former family home, his dad's old motorcycle's key, the key to a safe of some sort, and some cash. His mother specifically warned that he should only use the safe key if he absolutely has to. Only as a last resort. After that, he was escorted away from the premises, and has barely heard from his mother outside of short, impersonal phone calls. With Gwen's calls also reduced to nearly zero, Anthony was suddenly and completely alone.
That was a year and a half ago, and ever since he's been slowly fixing up the old motorcycle, and wandering through the haunting remnants of that old house. In the basement, a large dark-green safe sits, almost taunting him. He tries to avoid thinking about it. He hasn't spent much time dueling in the last few months, but is now finally hoping to jump back into it, to find that sanctuary once again.

Deck List

deck list

duelingbook.com/deck?id=8362387

1x M-X-Saber Brightsoul*
3x Rescue Cat
3x Summoner Monk
3x X-Saber Airbellum
2x X-Saber Pashuul
2x XX-Saber Boggart Knight
3x XX-Saber Darksoul
3x XX-Saber Faultroll
2x XX-Saber Fullhelmknight

2x Book of Moon
1x Change of Heart
2x Gottoms' Second Call
1x Harpie's Feather Duster
1x Monster Reborn
1x Saber Reflection
1x Snatch Steal
2x Twin Twisters

3x Gottoms' Emergency Call
1x Reinforce Truth
2x Saber Hole
1x Titanocider

1x Brionac, Dragon of the Ice Barrier
1x Clear Wing Synchro Dragon
1x Colossal Fighter
1x Crimson Blader
1x Goyo Chaser
1x Goyo Guardian
1x Naturia Barkion
1x Naturia Beast
1x Trishula Dragon of the Ice Barrier
1x Stardust Dragon
1x X-Saber Souza
1x X-Saber Urbellum
1x XX-Saber Gottoms
2x XX-Saber Hyunlei

Custom Card

M-X-Saber Brightsoul EARTH
Level 2
[Beast/Tuner/Effect]
You can treat this as level 1 or 3 for the Synchro or XYZ summon of an "X-Saber" monster.
If this card is sent to the graveyard: Add 1 "Saber," or "Gottoms" card from your deck to your hand. You can only use this effect of "M-X-Saber Brightsoul" once per turn.
1000/1000

[PF 2E] The Whispering Grove

@Dark Cloud PF1e is essentially D&D 3.75, and PF2e is completely different and kind of sits as a mix of the PF1e "customization first" mindset and d&d5e simplification ethos. All abilities are now kinds of feats and are selected from lists, all action types are replaced with just "action" and "reaction" and you simply get 3 actions and a reaction each round. Status effects matter more than tiny bonuses and debuffs. Classes don't have archetypes, the term is now used to refer to multi class/prestige class options that are basically additional feat pools. And a bunch more stuff. It's more customizable than 5e, and less fiddly than PF1e.

It's good if you like a little crunch with a streamlined base, rather than crunchy base with sanded off edges of 5e, or the oops all crunch of PF1e. I think it actually appeals best to people who want to step away from 5e rather than former PF1e players who liked that system.
TL;DR: It's the same design philosophy but streamlined for more intuitive gameplay.

Yu-Gi-Oh!: Perils of the Night

@RickyG85 last few days were just pretty bad and busy for me so I've just not had a chance to write my ideas down. I finally have a character concept and a deck list, so I can get those sent in soonish hopefully but likely not until wednesday unless a miracle occurs. I definitely don't want to hold things up, so feel free to keep things moving and I'll catch up somehow.

Yu-Gi-Oh!: Perils of the Night

I think simply using a simulator would work for standard stationary duels and that's about it. The action duel like duels, I've just been calling them hunt duels in my head, they are majorly effected by RP and movement around a location, so can't really be resolved in a simulator. If the players in character RP in the sim chat it's kind of functional, but there isn't really time for stuff like GM intervention when necessary, and I'd still rather see the duel in prose in the end. It's a bunch of trade offs really.

Yu-Gi-Oh!: Perils of the Night

<Snipped quote by The World>

If duelbook or similar simulators have a written play by play that could be referenced after the fact for writing purposes, that might help, but still seems like more effort than my proposed system, particularly since my method can function even if you only have time to go through a single turn.

My system does have a slight stumbling block of "what if you go through a whole turn only for the other player to have a response to everything before they can even take their own turn", but at that point it's a matter of coordination between the players, making both ideas kind of a hassle in the same ways that matter, so maybe just roleplaying it is the better (or at least simpler) option?

I'd like everyone's input on this, seriously: simulate it, or just roleplay it (for the love of gods, just vote for one; "I'll just go with whatever" is completely unhelpful)

@RickyG85

Collaboration posts using a public writing pad site is usually how I've done things. Whole duel in one post. Granted that's also usually in RPs with discords or other forms of active immediate communication being utilized so that players can discuss as rhey are adding to the duel.
etherpad.wikimedia.org/p/Test as an example

Yu-Gi-Oh!: Perils of the Night

What do you all think of this?

@RickyG85

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.......

@Kero

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.

Yu-Gi-Oh!: Perils of the Night

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.

@Product

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

The Whispering Grove

I am currently potentially looking at a Thaumaturge of some sort as long as no one is going in that direction? I was also considering a summoner or sorcerer since both also kind of fit my idea, but I think Thaumaturge is the most flexible and interesting option. I can PM about specific character details to see if they sound decent enough.