The Associated Worlds - archon_rpg_ooc

The Associated Worlds

archived / archon_rpg_ooc

Come one, come all to the grand opening!

01:23

Kinda!

01:23

Everyone even tentatively interested is still reading the book.

yep

Nani is this?

catch up in #random

Nani is this?

04:17

...

04:17

Image attachment

Cool

@Archon there are books?

Huh, never played Chubbos

Again, let me re-iterate that if you are confused by the books, that is normal, and I will be willing to help in any way I can

09:26

I have been trying to get 101 texts from people who make such things

....that seems like a bad sign

It's a wonderful system

09:29

But the prose focuses on artistic value over comprehensibility in places

09:30

And it just has "600 page RPG" syndrome

so, case of good game but steep learning curve?

Yeah

09:30

It takes a good bit of learning

09:31

But hey, at least you have someone to teach you :)

09:31

(I'm totally not bitter about only finding the community after my first few attempts at it crashed and burned)

09:31

It actually is one of those games which works much better as a PBP than a IRL game

09:31

Because you have more time to think and be creative?

09:32

Like, just let whatever's going on stew in the back of your head

09:35

(This is esp good for me as a GM)

So I'm at work and can't crack open the book

12:16

what's the core mechanic?

12:16

(For reference, the core mechanic in DnD is 'roll a d20, add your modifiers, see if it beats the static number the other guy generated' ) (edited)

12:17

( WoD is something like, 'determine a pool of dice from your stats and situations, roll those, and check how many exceed the target number, that's your number of hits' )

(FATAL is FUCK YOU FOR PLAYING THIS "GAME" :V) (edited)

(Eclipse Phase and CoC are roll percentile dice and hope you get lower than your skill points.) (edited)

(GURPS is like EP with 3d6)

14:06

(Traveller is like D&D with 2d6)

14:06

(FATE is like D&D with 4 "special" d6s)

14:07

(Cardinal is WoD with multiple dice types)

14:07

(Stars Without Number is like D&D for attacks, Traveller for skills, and EP for saves)

I was just giving examples, what I really care about right now is how Chubbo's works

I'm totally having my PC be a member of House Sargas, so I can have an excuse for casual sociopathy

(edited)

2

@Archon I've read the book, when do we start character creation?

... have you now?

18:35

I mean, feel free to start char-gen now.

18:35

But also we're playing pastoral

18:35

and in general, uh, "casual sociopathy" sounds to me like "Being a dick"

18:35

So don't do that

18:36

Building charecters to justify being a dick in-universe is not good.

18:38

https://karmachameleon.github.io/arcs/

18:38

Has links to the latest arcs

18:38

I think, for now, we'll play 3-arc miraculous charecters

18:39

And each of you will get a free perk granting "Superior Eldrae 2", with the option to replace that with something similar, or, if you want a higher/lower rating, buy it with your own damn skill points

Reminder: species names are not capitalized.

@o11o1 I'll admit that thinking in terms of core mechanic as a concept annoys me, WRT this game - the mechanic for skill resolution is skill+bonuses+spent willpower, compared to a table with a set of abstract results ("You are impressive", "You make progress", "You measurably improve your life"), but that also isn't the most important part of the system - miracles (which, unlike skills, make things happen with absolute certainty, barring a greater and oposite miracle, but do not make your life better), which are granted by your arc choices and powered with MP are qualitatively more capable of changing the world, which makes for an interesting contrast. (Similarly, the XP-assignment rules are of similar importance - they control pacing and story beats and show you what your incentive structure is) (edited)

Casual sociopathy played for laughs

19:47

Not being a complete dick

19:47

Being kind of crazy

No

19:48

You need 1. an actual charecter concept

Yes I have that

2. actual emotional backing

pffft who needs emotional backing when i have humor :V

To be completely clear

19:48

I don't think we share much of a sense of humor

You can tell I was being sarcastic with both the original post and my recent responses, right?

No

I was being sarcastic (edited)

Well. Then.

I do have an actual character concept

Okay, then.

19:50

I will admit that this whole thing has made me somewhat concerned

Haha

19:50

Don't worry, I'm only slightly insane

Look

...Sorry

What do you want to get out of this game?

A fun time? That's what games are for, right?

Like, my point here is not that this is going to be a serious game which needs to be held with a straight face at all times and so forth. Jokes are allowed. But also you need to make, like, and actual character, with themes and interesting stories to tell and the ability to form relationships with your fellow players and so forth.

19:54

There's really no point having a system this complex if you're not going to use it for it's intended purpose

19:54

Which is storytelling.

19:54

So what I'm saying is that I'm not sure you're suited to this game?

No, I intend to make a complex character with motivations and backstory and stuff

20:12

I was just joking around a bit

20:12

Sorry if if came out wrong

Okay, good.

20:17

Do you have specific character concepts or mechanical hooks you're interested in talking about right now?

I'm sorry, what system is this again?

Chuubo's Marvelous Wish-Granting Engine (edited)

Chuubo's Marvelous Wish-Granting Engine

20:17

DAMMIT

jinx

20:18

you now owe each other a soda

20:18

or something

20:18

idk

Hah, I spelled it right and he didn't, therefore his is invalid

shrug

/s

20:18

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Is this like Nobilis by chance?

It is!

20:36

It's the same engine

20:36

Arcs ~= attributes

20:36

But there are 24 of them

20:36

And only like three of them actually involve an estate

20:37

(Also in general you get more bang for your buck, such that 3 arcs is enough for a starting char)

20:37

+ there's a bunch of stuff for pacing/genre/xp generation

20:37

Which is really cool!

20:37

But also complex (edited)

20:38

And in my experience easiest to learn by doing

I'm assuming you're not generally playing newly invested gods in this one?

As much fun as playing as an eikone would be, probably not

This has much more breadth of chargen

20:39

I mean, you can probably swing it

20:39

As weak/not going all-out Eikone

20:39

Using, like, Awakening and a superior skill or something

20:40

If you want to skim some of the arcs

20:40

They can be very flexible

20:40

https://karmachameleon.github.io/arcs/

20:40

Has links to tumblr copies

20:40

I suggest Ace and Allegory as good ones to look at for Eldrae charecters

Reminder: species names are not capitalized.

Shouldn't we all be Immortals?

No?

We will be playing as eldrae

20:41

Who are by definition immortal (sorta)

Immortal/Frantic/Sickly doesn't cover "who lives forever"

20:41

It's a specific thematic distinction

yeah, i know, just joking around

20:42

sorry

I would rather not spread confusion for people who haven't read the game

Aight

TBH folks from this setting easily fill all three types

It's official, I'm playing as an Ace :V

Image attachment

The whole "fight against entropy, physics can go fuck itself" thing is pretty Sickly in themes

20:44

If you want to look like you're in an anime, check out the red arcs :)

I'm leaning either towards Storyteller or Bindings

Storyteller will be hard to fluff in-universe

20:48

So thinking about this is probably important

20:48

Do you have a character concept? (edited)

Yeah, I want to be some sort of scientist

20:49

Haven't fleshed it out a lot more than that

Fair

20:49

(Alchemist(Mind-states) has so much potential but is also quite evil)

20:49

(If you actually use your powers)

20:49

(Uh)

20:50

(Creature of Delirium, sorry)

20:50

(Name got changed when it got moved out of the silver slot)

Yeah, I've decided

20:50

I'm gonna be a Gatekeeper

who's the Keymaster?

20:51

I have been waiting so long to spring that on someone

Ha ha ha

and if anyone's gonna complain, who ya gonna call?

GHOSTBUSTERS! music

Think a Child of the Ash could represent a vehicular intelligence with an avatar?

I was, yes!

20:54

That would be v. cool

Sapient Starship AI?

Andromeda

@Zarpaulek You would be a great Cool Spaceship

Sapient Starship AI: Leviathan Class

20:55

(only in ref to Andromeda having a large complement of WMD's)

CotA has a large complement of WMDs

Can we stick a Wave Motion Gun onto @Zarpaulek please?

Hey, I haven't gotten to all the Arcs yet.

(is actually just a box that says Wave Motion Gun)

CotA has a general-purpose murder-things power

20:58

That said

20:59

Remember your skills and such are important as well!

Actually kind of tempted by Primordial

How would you fluff it? (edited)

something something eldritch abomination from beyond time and space

Creature of Fable maybe.

I ... don't think eldritch abominations actually fit with the hard-sci-fi

21:31

Also I don't think primordial would actually do that well?

21:32

Called Away would probably be good

21:32

(Specifically for eldritch abominations)

21:32

(If you have an idea for a good primordial char)

21:32

(Feel free)

Keep in mind that Eliera has Elementals that are used for terraforming.

Ooh, point!

21:33

They'd probably do primordial v. well

21:33

Not generally sophont, but life is about exceptions

Alternatively: something something Precursor archaeotech

I'd rather not lean on something something precursor archaeotech for all the players

My Chromebook is kind of struggling with opening the PDF, I haven't read all the Arcs yet.

@Archon good point

I can supply an ebook

21:37

Also use the tumblr versions

21:37

They have errata

21:37

And also the other half which aren't in the corebook

21:37

https://karmachameleon.github.io/arcs/

Archon 07/12/2019 9:37 PM

So what Arc would a Sargas go for you think?

... Why are we still on this?

(I mean, can we even reasonably generalise The Sargas's behavior to her family?)

22:20

(Ah, okay, found the reference)

22:22

Or, alternatively, Eldraric Houses continue to be voluntary mutual-support factions so staying stereotypical of your house is very easy since anyone who doesn't like the house reputation leaves?

22:22

But also I think we should drop this if you just want to make jokes.

arrives home, catches up on backlog. (edited)

00:10

Hey Archon

00:11

Also, so this system is diceless and built on the same bones as Nobilis, interesting.

00:11

And, being diceless, it handles Play By Post extra well.

considers. "Sanity check, would it be sensible for my character to be Von Neuman AGI of some sort, existing as a distributed intellegence and generally building out more of themselves? Presumably as part of the Empire of the Star they're well socialized enough to frame this more as rim world homesteading sort of stuff rather than trying to take materials that other people already have claim to."

00:27

I think it'd work best with some sort of colony project going on in the background, but would that work out with your plot ideas, Archon, or am I way off base?

I have no plot ideas

00:33

I was waiting on chargen

00:34

Being a Von Neuman AGI sounds cool!

00:34

There are probably several ways to implmement that

Ah good, I was about to say that I forsaw a "chicken and egg" type problem if good character designs harmonize with the plot but the plot wants to be built around the characters.

00:36

but if the Von Neuman concept is viable, then I will ask if this system has support for a character who is one some level a character, and also on another level part of the environment, be it a colony or a starship of some sort.

Yeah, definately!

00:37

I'm actually playing that in another game

00:38

But ... CotA, Primordial

00:38

Or just take a superior skill and/or a bond/affliction describing it (edited)

00:39

Though!

I am not familiar with "CotA" to convert it to the expanded form

Point

00:39

Creature of the Ash

00:39

(As in, a creature born of the world-ash)

00:39

(Tree, not burnt stuff)

ok, that leads into my second big.... i don't want to call it a concern, but uncertainty about this system/setting combo

00:41

Chubbo's seems to be aiming for a sort of dream-like fantasy reality where all kinds of things can show up just because. Eldraeverse is aiming for a fairly hard-science (tough-sci-fi?) transhumans in space kind of setting where aliens and uplifts and machine life is running around. (edited)

So a lot of that is resolved by the GMs understanding of "Plausible"

So on one hand I can see how they mesh, and on the other this meshing I only see through sunglasses covered in soup. (edited)

So yeah, there is going to be, like, a certain distinction between "this is the story" and "this is what literally happened" I suspect

00:43

But also, like

00:43

So much of that stuff is gm-invoked

00:43

This is a system which, kinda operates as "freeform but with lots of rules", if that makes sense?

00:44

The basic sanity of reality, well, it's something we as the players agree on

well, -need- to agree on

And you take note that many mechanics exist on the player-level not the charecter-level

00:44

So stuff like wounds don't have to be literally true

00:44

It's just plot armor

or, equivilently, the wounds to your body caused by being run through with a sword, and the wounds to your re-election campaign by a fabricated sex scandal are not handled on "different tracks" in this system, but all as types of wounds.

00:46

yes/no ?

Go up a meta-level

00:46

Wounds a plot armor

now see

You don't take a wound when someone stabs you

00:47

Unless you want to not suffer the consquences of being stabbed

"plot armor" isn't a trope I'm super fond of on it's face

00:47

And I suspect when you use the term I am not arriving at the cluster of ideas you intend to reference. (edited)

Possibly!

00:47

So lets be specific

00:48

Wounds, in CMWGE, are a resource you can spend when bad stuff happens to you to twist or mitigate that into something that is, if not actually harmless, at least possessed of mechanical hooks you actually like

00:49

The examples in the corebook are interesting

I'm on page 7

The Love Spell
Someone casts a love spell on you.
They come over. You welcome them in, of course. You’re under
a love spell. You flop on the couch. You start playing a video
game. They ask you, “It worked, right? You love me now?”
“Sure,” you say. “I love you. Whatever. Could you...”
You wave your hand. You want them to move to the side. They
are between you and your game.
“Just,” you say, “scooch over. You know. A little? Out of the
way? Love?”

00:50

Fair

00:50

(Sorry, I just love this example)

00:50

(It's sillier than most of them are)

00:50

But also

00:51

This system uses a lot of fuzzy-semantics-and-plot-stuff for resolution

outside of the context, I can't split up where the wound starts and stops in that example

Howso?

00:51

The hostile action here is the love spell

00:52

So you take a wound which says "Well, I'm in love with them, but not the kind of love where they can really get me to do stuff"

sort of like a Consequence in FATE, just skipping the idea of a stress track between the attack and the injected Consquence

(There's lots of different ways to do it)

00:53

Yeah, except you could also choose not to take a wound

00:53

And just role-play the love-spell

because you have a finite tank of wounds to work with, and you might have other problems to deal with

Or take a wound by twisting in a hazy fog back and forth from in love and sensible

(or just enjoy the love spell plot)

Or take a wound by instantiating the love-spell as a mechanically described Bond (edited)

00:54

Which you can then milk for bonuses and MP

MP being... Miracle Points if I recall from Nobilis

Yup!

00:54

Your casting resource

00:55

You also have Will

00:55

Which unlike Nobilis you actually care about

00:55

Because Aspect isn't a thing

at all, or it's prior functions are broken up into smaller entities?

Several of it's functions still exist

00:56

If you want to do weird mythical stuff, there's arcs for that

00:56

If you want to be hyper-competent, there's arcs for that

00:56

(Creature of Fable and Ace, respectively)

00:57

There's a list of correspondences between nobilis factions and arcs lying around somewhere (edited)

I'd been wondering if the Excrutians are still around, and what that looks like in the local 'verse

They do def still exist in the standard CMWGE-verse

00:58

(There are ... two, I think, in the standard player-sets)

00:59

(Merimie Mesmer is the remnant of a destroyed Strategist)

00:59

(And Jasmine Apocynum is a baby deceiver) (edited)

00:59

Plus there are a bunch hanging around

01:00

https://jennamoran.tumblr.com/post/183592158443/mid-march-thoughts-on-arc-assignments

"Chuubo's Marvelous Wish-Granting Engine"

Mid-March Thoughts on Arc Assignments

An update on the status of the Arcs. Immortal Bindings - Gatekeeper (rough draft: part 1, part 2, part 3) Frantic Bindings - Gatecrasher (rough draft, as “Specialist”: here.) Sickly Bindings -...

01:00

Warmains

Creature of Fable
Indomitable
Allegory
Impresario
I never fully cleared up my confusion about which Creature of X they have or whether they have Prophet instead of Allegory so eliminating this paragraph or changing Warmains is probably the next major thing that will happen here.

Example Characters: The Headmaster of the Bleak Academy (who wants to be a special snowflake with Creature of the Light but do I let him get away with it?), Mrs. Senko (who is not completely sure that she has Creature of Fable and not Creature of Delirium but is pretty sure that Orderic has Fable, so.)

          

Deceivers

Awakening
Reality Syndrome
Star Quality
Creature of Delirium
Example Characters: Jasmine Apocynum, Iolithae Septimian, Genseric Dace, the Mystery “Hedge the Fang” (by mechanical similarity.)

   

Strategists

Accursed
Gatekeeper
Troubled
Sentimental
Example Characters: Miramie Mesmer, Melanie Malakh

(edited)

you keep linking that page like I'm supposed to be able to extract meaning from it

Ah, sorry

01:01

No, you're right

oh, that's the blog post

But, uh, this is a blog-post which has, amongst other things

01:02

A list of "what arcs do nobilis charecters use"

01:02

Which might help you when you're trying to learn the arcs

01:02

(Don't try to memorise the arcs)

01:02

(There's too much)

it appears they've been laid out into a grid

01:02

so there's an X and a Y axis (edited)

They have!

so the Y axis looks color coded

The colors are symbols

01:04

Which will pop up as they go

01:04

I can explain them

01:05

They're useful for reading the system

01:05

The X-axis

01:05

Basically determines one power you get

01:05

And some symbolism

01:05

But it's much less important

01:05

But yeah

01:06

You should probably ignore my links and read the book

I am seeing mentions to a Genre and Concept of the game that I suspect even if there's some player input, will by necessity be the final decision of the HG

Indeed!

01:07

It was my intent to use the pastoral or gothic Genre

01:07

But if people go another way I will follow

01:07

This game is meant to be GMless, at least sometimes

01:08

So while ultimately I have the last say about "What is this camapaign going to be about"

01:08

I'd be a idiot and a fool not to take input

ok, so page 13 goes over Arcs

01:10

Blue and Red makes me think of the Imperial Navy right off

Huh, seeing the navy as red hadn't occured to me

01:11

(The colors are also, like, symbols that show up all over the place)

01:11

(To represent certain ideas and themes)

01:12

So, like, Gold is about hyper-competence and over-the-topness and that kind of thing

01:12

And will show up to represent that in contexts other than arcs

the eldrae are all about Gold then

Like I said, they are super Gold and Blue

01:13

Which amuses me

01:16

That said, I do love the idea of a imperial navy officer on Creature of the Light

01:16

(Divine Warrent!)

huh

01:18

so you view the eldrae as very Blue and Gold (fair), but the genre you have in mind is either Purple or Silver.

(Just to kibitz from the sidelines a little, where -- "Chubbo's seems to be aiming for a sort of dream-like fantasy reality where all kinds of things can show up just because. Eldraeverse is aiming for a fairly hard-science (tough-sci-fi?) transhumans in space kind of setting where aliens and uplifts and machine life is running around." -- is concerned, well, in the nuts and bolts of the universe, it's the latter, certainly. Thematically, on the other hand, it's about punching reality in the face with space-magic fists of doom until it gives up in the face of your sheer awesome. Hence why much of my own noodling around with possible RPG system ideas has involved things like Exalted and Nobilis and the like, because while both would be nice, IMO it's more important to preserve the themes than the crunch.)

For a number of reasons I can't really construct a response to that.

So yeah, the core point here is the genre != arc != flavor != XP actions

01:24

All genre's will have people of all arc colors takeing actions of all colors

01:24

Because you aren't a complete person unless you occasionally are decisive, (and therefor blue) about things

01:25

And you aren't a complete world unless you acknowledge that even a slice-of-life game will have people who do things other than live a quite life of hard work in them

01:26

And slice-of-life gets weird when the people you follow have sufficently interesting lives

01:26

One of the reasons I'm running in slice-of-life is because Glass-Maker's Dragon is pastoral

01:27

So I have the most insight and understanding

01:27

Another is that that's what grabbed me initally

01:27

So it's a game about over-the-top decisive people

01:27

And what stuff stuck with them in their day-to-day lives

01:27

And what people they made conncetions with

now up to page 31, getting sleepy

Fair!

01:47

Sleep is vital for humans

So anyway, my suggestion for base setting is to change Town to be Colony. Probably in some sort of generally hostile environment that's being clawed into becoming civilization but isn't there yet. (edited)

Not sure

01:47

I'm not sure the isolated enviroment is needed

01:47

TBH

01:48

So my two ideas

01:48

Are either to use basically the setting of Harbourmaster (edited)

01:48

i.e. a small colony/spaceport on a world which is mostly owned by polite-but-strange alien locals

01:49

Or to have you just, like, scatered over the core worlds but also hanging out with forks and mind-casting and just, like, being friends on the internet (edited)

the harbourmaster one feels more condusive to having a plot happen, unless you have an idea in mind that I haven't thought of yet.

The expectation is that plot will happen becuase you guys have plots inherent in your character concepts?

01:53

This is not a system where I need to sit down and ask myself "what do the PCs do next"

01:54

Because you will, ideally, have a pile of XP-actions and quests to think about

and any thinking about it you do happen to do is simply advance prep rather than a required thing

02:13

Von Neuman character probably has a standing quest related to expanding their own Self

Plausible!

02:22

Maybe not thier Arc quest, but maybe an arc quest, and maybe a basic/side quest

Maybe have every character have some sort of quest related to their background.

i think that's what Basic quests are for

Skill wise, I'm thinking a layout of Superior Fabricate 5, and Compute 3.

11:51

Might also do Superior Fabricate 4, Compute 3, Govern 1

this is likely to be a Mortal power level game rather than a miraculous one, correct?

How does the system handle "capability disparity"?

by and large it lets it happen, i suppose

This will be miraculous at arc 3

20:50

Talking a hobby skill is also worth considering

20:50

You do not have superior fabrication 5, btw

20:50

Superior 5 gets goofy

20:51

(remember that skills aren't what you can do, they're what's productive and happiness making for you)

20:55

It actually has a bunch of ways to handle it

20:56

But the main one is how context sensitive it is

20:57

And how it rewards (and assumes is worthy of game time) mundandly eating icecream with friends as much as bringing the sun's fury against your foes

So, I've been thinking about the Bleak

00:20

Which is a pretty important concept in Chuubo's default setting!

00:21

And how it thinks about the world

00:21

And TBH, it has a strong parallel in Eldraeverse

00:21

With the Flaw, with Evil, with all that stuff which would deny your nature and wash you away in the sea

00:21

That stuff,

00:21

That stuff is the bleak

00:22

And so, looking at out genre

00:22

Which I am pretty sure is Gothic, right now, but, like, happy gothic?

00:23

How do you make answer to the bleak?

00:23

How do you fight the Flaw?

00:24

Well, you judge it back - you look at it and understand it and say it's not worthy,

00:24

You name your works, you remember them, you preserve them

00:24

You work hard and do the right thing. Simple honest hard work.

00:24

That's how you fight back!

00:24

Well, that and lasers.

00:24

Lasers are def involved as well

"spread love throughout the cosmos—and by love we mean lasers"

And transhumanism does move the line for what "simple honest hard work" entails.

00:25

Look

00:25

laser data transmission is a legitimate medium!

(but yeah, that sounds extremely eldraeic)

https://eldraeverse.com/2013/03/30/the-money-the-principle-or-the-trouble/

The Money, The Principle, or The Trouble

“Context is important.” “Take, for example, this syringe. From an objective perspective, it contains a small quantity of greyish fluid, a suspension of nanoviruses and proto-cytom…

04:16

I am becoming increasingly enamored of having you guys be the shinning stars of an eldraeic mission to a new world

04:16

Not first-contact

04:17

But, like, "We just got the gate into the system, and we're starting to get the spaceport working"

04:17

So you're outside the empire.

rim tramp freighters or a specific, dedicated system?

09:07

(Also, is Superior Fabrication 4 still fine?)

Superior Fabrication 4 is probably fine but generally you should do full write-ups of superior and magical skills, if you have the time and energy after picking an arc etc

sure sure, but I'm just thinking that part of the whole deal of what a Von Nueman device -is to their core- is something that is building arrays of sub-factories and fabrication structures with every moment of spare time, at least once they've had time to spread out and get those things forged in a meaningful way

Yeah, but is that a skill, or a perk or a miracle

09:12

I like the idea of a keeper of gardens von neuman

09:12

That's the fortress/hometurf/minion maker arc

09:13

Which would imply you have magical fabriaction

09:13

Note that magical skills are still a thing

09:13

They still have the same resonance

My thought is "definately a skill" , possibly with a Miracle to forge a Tool for it, where the Tool is stationary by design

09:13

and then just leaves those tools around (edited)

That they let you do weird and impossible (for normal people) things at the price of being hard to make those things helpful and correct

09:14

Which honestly does sound in-vouge for the stuff a von neuman machine does

09:14

Hmm

09:14

I think

ah, but a VNM 's manufacturing doesn't have to be supernaturally good, it just has to clear the self replication bar

"what a normal person can do"

09:15

is the bar for "impossible"

09:15

so "Manufacture things which normally need a workshop" is impossible for most people to do

09:15

even in a posthuman society (edited)

But "Generate a workshop from raw feedstock" might be the miracle part

09:16

so part of the question is also "Can I use other peoples factory setups"

I mean, superior skills are also leaving human capability

09:16

But I like the idea that being a von neuman machine is ... unhealthy and unproductive, in a thematic sense

09:17

Even though it's very productive in a, like, gold sense

Or that there's always this pull into becoming a mindless worker/expander bot

You can ignore that if you wish

09:17

But it was where I ended up thinking

09:17

On another front

09:18

I think I'm going to say

09:18

If you wish

09:18

You can, if you have a free perk slot, take one for a shell

09:18

Which is effectively a level two superior skill representing that shell

and then swap shells situationally? (edited)

(Shells may also be, but aren't necessarily, accessories)

09:18

Yeah

09:19

But also, like, I didn't want to skill-point-tax people to buy shells!

09:19

Don't take this if you're representing your shells in other ways

09:19

And note if you do this

09:19

And your shell isn't an accessory

"shell" is a Chubbo term or just a there term?

No

09:19

Just an eldrae term

09:19

I'm making this bit up

09:20

As a camapign specific thing

09:20

"Accessory" is a CMWGE term though

also, for the skill baseline of "normal person" is that a normal human or a normal eldrae ?

normal eldrae

09:20

In terms of "capacity"

09:20

But also note that you still can't make your life better without intention 1+

09:21

even if you're notionally very smart

so a lot of self repair and it's not weird to Psycho Kinesis something around and someone could take "Psycho Kinesis -1" to not have it, or even just "Athletics -1" to drop down to normal human grade

Yeah

09:22

You can just casually use psychokinesis

09:22

But if you want to actually do something with it!

09:22

That still invokes you (mundane) psychokinesis 0 skill

09:22

Which will probably go poorly!

09:23

(Well, I mean, bonds+tools+willpower)

So most eldrae would be expected to spend will power on neat PK uses, such as Chubbo's conceptualizes such things (edited)

Reminder: species names are not capitalized.

Indeed! If you're not skilled with it, then anything which needs an intention would need a bit of will behind it

Willpower is usually a... full recharge at session start?

I think I'll be doing it per chapter

bc. forum mode (edited)

(+ recharges from bonds, finishing intentions and so forth)

how many players seem to be interested so far?

You, Morgrimmon, Marcus, Kal, Enderminion and Zarpupaulek were interested enough to ask for books

09:30

I think

09:30

If anyone else is interested or got missed, speak up!

09:30

(Plus I might end up making a GMPC if we're low on players)

09:30

(Since this game is playable GMless)

09:31

(And I'm like 50% here as a facilitator not a HG) (edited)

09:32

ooh

09:32

I know what I can do as a GMPC

09:32

Have a spaceport governer on Allegory

09:32

(makes a good quest-giver NPC)

09:33

(But also has a lot of fun mechanical hooks to pull)

I know in some other games that things still work out pretty fine with fairly low player counts

Yeah!

09:37

Like two or three would be fine

09:37

I think at least

09:37

We'll see

09:37

But that said

09:37

I do love this GMPC idea now

even if they only show up sometimes?

So I can build them as an example charecter

09:38

Yeah

09:38

Or I can just play them

09:38

TBH

09:38

Since they will be mechanically equivelent

09:38

And like I said

09:38

This game is not one which worries about such things

09:38

I don't know yet

09:38

If we get like six people I def won't play them

09:39

if we get two I will

09:39

And an example build is helpful!

aren't there like 8 example builds in the core book?

No?

09:41

Also "example build"

09:41

In this context means stepping you through all the stuff

09:41

The Iconic PCs are in GMD

09:41

... Glass Maker's Dragon

09:41

Which is a seperate book

09:42

I highly recommend it! They're great charecters and it's a great campaign (edited)

09:42

But also I don't feel like a example of, like "This is how your gm would build a character for this game"

09:42

Would actually go astray

09:43

Also I want to build them so there

Since we're in a non-traditional campaign to start

Yeah!

09:43

How are you going with the book BTW?

I'm at page 113 of chubbo's

09:44

Most of the reason I can discuss this cogently is having read through Nobilis: The Essentials a while back

Yeah, fair

09:45

That's what, 2e?

09:45

3e?

09:45

I forget which editions were which

09:46

(Well, 1e which everyone ignores, 2e with the good fluff and the rules bloat, 3e with the good rules but v. little fluff)

not sure

Hmm, 3e I think

is it wrong to think of Wish Granting Engine as "Nobilis 4th edition" ?

...

09:50

No, because there actually will be a Nobilis 4th edition

09:51

Or at least, I've heard the implication that she probably will make one in her blog posts

09:51

They're v. similar games though

ponders the function of Bonds as safety limiters on an AGI. (edited)

That feels like it'd be an affliction?

don't bonds and afflictions come from the same pool?

Bindings seems more like contracts to me

They're not granted trivially in Chuubo's

09:55

Uh

09:55

What?

09:55

But yes, they have thematic and mechanical differences though, o11o1

09:56

Mostly - afflictions are externally/HG-mediated, and they're proof against miracles with strike <= rating

09:56

Making them more "this is a divine thing the world has thrown at you" and less "This is a thing your own nature demands"

So something along the lines of "May not intentionally a known sophont" or "May not disassemble the rightful property of another being", if I took those as Afflictions, that sort of implies an event where a major polity injected those as decrees into my inner code base

Yeah! Though, like I said, you don't have to do it that way

09:59

And also

09:59

You'll have much less bondfllictions

10:00

like, most chuboo's chars have like 0-6 total levels of them

0 ?

Well

10:00

Miraculous charecters don't get them by default

10:00

you have to have a perk or arc which grants them

oh, it's mortals that start with them

Yeah

10:01

It's easy to spend one of your two starting perks on a bond though

10:01

If you have a good idea for one

i don't

Are our immortal hypertech transhumans starting as “mortals” or “miraculous”?

I mean "I am bound by the edicts of my creators" is pretty cool

10:02

Miraculous, at arc 3

arc 3 meaning "3 points of arc, so I could do a 2/1 mix?"

Yep!

10:03

Or even 3 + 0

10:03

Since the arc you are currently walking is mechanically relevent

10:03

And it doesn't have to one you already have

10:04

(Or a 1/1/1 but I wouldn't recommend it - builds like that suggest you need to keep reading arcs)

10:04

(I mean, i'm sure it's possible, but don't)

it's mechanically inefficient?

Well, yes, that doubleplus

10:06

But also it's thematically incoherrent

10:07

Which suggests you need to think about your character more

that if you're trying to use it to represent bouncing around different plots, you actually should probably have one big plot that is "getting bounced around a lot by life"

Yeah!

10:09

Or if you're trying to cobble together a bunch of weird small one-off powers you should be in one of the arcs which lets you write a lot of small custom powers

starts sketching out a sheet

10:32

names are hard

Come up with an Epithet for now

well, given how ship AIs name themselves

10:32

a Name and an Epithet and a Reporting Code aren't intrinsicly different

That what you’re planning?

That can change, but "A OOC symbolic epithet" is much easier to come up with

I'm planning a Von Neumann Machine, actually

Probably the spaceport's dedicated construction/industrial AI then?

10:34

Or are you local in make?

Which Arcs would that encompass?

I've suggested Keeper of Gardens (edited)

10:34

But he hasn't got that far

My concept is they arrive, and then start building out a factory/colony project in a likely looking location.

10:35

my brain just now generated "Metal Over Moons", as a variant of the garden keeper idea

?

10:35

(Note that Keeper of Gardens does not require literal gardening)

10:36

(It's just, like, it's core thing is - you make this place yours, you control it, you make it's substance into minions)

and then in the later stages turning over parts of the factory sprawl over to a local colony for habitation perhaps

I'm not sure what color you think you are, though?

10:36

Again

10:37

I'm thinking this place has locals

10:37

So you can't just up and take over a continent

I keep coming back to this concept of a starship AI ala Andromeda Ascendant as a Child of the Ash.

but a small moon that no one was using

Maybe a small moon

10:37

It seems like a cool idea!

10:37

How much of the core-book have you read?

also the acronym is fun if people end up living in what I build and maintain

10:38

I read through the arcs with an eye for their mortal interpretation, so I'll need to go through them again

10:38

I might be multicolor

I mean, sure

or... alternating colors in a cyclic manner

No

10:39

Like, having themes in several different colors can work

10:39

But like, what people generally do

10:39

is that they pick three likely-looking ones

10:39

And then pick one arc to play in

10:39

Which gives them the powers they want

do a caterpillar and a butterfly have the same arc color?

There is a lot of overlap

10:39

Often?

10:39

Like, 90% of the time (edited)

hmmmm

Since that's like, classic CotA

hmmmm

is the story of "I am turning into a grand monster"

I'm on page 129, wounds

(Or Primoridial)

Primordial and Keeper of Gardens might fit for what he's talking

Yeah

10:41

So pick some colors, think about, like, who you are

10:41

As well as what you are

10:42

(Or pick a mechanically cool arc and back-fill)

I mean, I can also see it being something very Creature of Fable as this entity that shows up, then works and works to convert a small moon into this weird science city of cement and aluminum, builds a giant rocket ship in the core, and then blasts away, leaving in their wake a place that to the unititated is a bizzare fairytale palace

10:44

even if the parts of the journey is a lot of Shepherd arcs

Shrugs if you think that the like, red, blurring between story and reality is what this charecter is about

10:45

That they're most interesting looked at like a story or a myth

10:45

And not like the product of hard work

I think context is also important

Yeah, but that's the point

10:46

Think about them like a fictional charecter

10:46

(because they are one)

like, if the people in the area are advanced enough to comprehend what's really going on, it's not quite so much of a mythical thing

They can be portrayed in many ways

10:46

But are they

10:46

What does the person reading the book of this person's life see

10:46

i.e. us

10:47

(I mean, someone can be super mythical without being at all inexplicable)

like say Charlemange?

(Being hypertech johnny Appleseed is not impossible)

so it's also important to consider the scale that the game is actually focused on as well, i suppose

Yeah!

10:49

Which is personal

10:49

Always and forever

10:49

This is about you as people

:/

Not about the nation

10:49

What?

10:49

(Like, the story can cut away to narrate about the colony or w/e)

10:50

But the game is about you!

10:50

Not about iron prices

10:50

Except in as much as you care

just

That's unhelpful, I guess

something about the way you said that was twigging unconfortably

Oh?

I'm not able to construct a legible reason for why that should be

Hmm

10:51

Was it too, like, sharp and absolute?

10:51

Or like, did I misunderstand you?

10:52

Oh well

10:52

If you figure it out or it happens again

10:52

I will be happy to work on it

10:52

I don't want people to be uncomfortable

partly also

10:53

I was intending to loop back around to choose the actual arc -after- I was done reading the book

10:53

or, perhaps, when there's people making characters other than me

10:54

and then people show up demanding that there are a few specific arcs that make sense for me

Very fair

10:54

Sorry

and the -worst- outcome is people hammer hard on the -correct- option and make me not want to do it

I will shut up about brainstorming for your charecter then

don't have to do so completely, i just got tripped up by veering to a stage I'm not in the mindset to process atm

10:56

like, I'm currently reading through how wounds work, my empty sheet is still in loose layout stage, I'm pretty sure I have the base skills laid out in a way I like

How do people roleplay their characters? I don't assume it's that hard?

Like, in general?

Yes

If you mean in general, we should probably go to #random

In general in the game

In this game specifically?

you will be playing super capable sophonts

roleplaying tends to be along the lines of "the GM presents a scenario that demands a response by the PCs, and each player then takes an action that seems in character for them"

So in this game

10:58

the resolution is super fuzzy

(that's a bit more of the Powered by the Apocalyse understanding of how a game works, but in CHubbo's it doesn't feel too far off)

It's pretty far off actually

10:58

It expects PCs to act first

Resolution?

Like, how it resolves outcomes

10:59

It gives you rewards like "This makes you happy"

10:59

Not ones like "You succeed"

10:59

So we don't need to simulate the effectiveness of people's plans

10:59

We can just describe them using stock stuff we know about sci-fi and the setting

11:00

But back to my thing with o11o1 - this game expects a lot more OOC negotiation about what kinds of scenes and outcomes are importants - PCs have a list of XP actions, quest goals and XP emotions they're wanting to hit

11:01

So the game starts with a PC saying "Okay, I want to hit my goal X, could we do a scene like that"

11:01

And then other people piling on possibilities

11:01

Until we have an idea for the next thing that happens in the story that we want to resolve

11:01

And then it flows from there?

11:02

I'm just here to know the rules and decide what NPCs say

(and do!)

(Well, yes)

11:03

(Unless someone takes Impresario)

How is micro-Gee combat handled?

same as heavy gee combat is

(In which case they decide what the NPCs do)

11:03

i.e. people form an intention to do something

11:03

And then we narrate the fight based on what those intentions seem to mean

so, based on the questions tron is asking, how much of the book have you had a chance to read through, @Unknown ?

Probably I would impose a 1-2 obstacle if you were unused to it

11:04

... I don't think he has a copy

ok, so let's assume he's never opened it

Which book?

11:04

I am confused

Chubbos Marvelous Wish Granting Engine

aha

The book with the rules for the game we are playing

I see

(( We... might want to pin those kinds of basic facts about the game, like what system it is and that it's play by post)

Now I understand

11:05

I thought it was a "ground-up" system (edited)

11:05

(a homebrew) (edited)

Nope

11:05

This is a existing system

just with a setting injection

(And Cerebrate stamp of approval)

Why did you choose Chubbo's? Why not GURPS? (edited)

The long list of reasons why trying to simulate a eldraeverse game would be painful and hard that I told you the last time we had this conversation?

11:09

Chubbo's isn't trying to simulate

Yes, you indeed did

It's trying to story-tell

even in simple universes GURPS can be overwrought

So we can take a lot of short-cuts

11:09

In terms of not needing rules for mirco-g combat

11:10

Because there aren't really rules for combat at all

That's what AV:T tries to do, it makes it more simulator than game, and even then it's like trying to run a flight simulator with nothing but a pen, paper and an unnatural (and quite hard to achieve and maintain) knowledge of complex math (edited)

(Or any other specific types of action)

so things like being a distributed intellegence or being able to reload from a backup mind state or swapping between morphs don't get explicit rules, they're just understood as being valid actions in this world, where other worlds would not consider those sensible things to do

... That's going to muck with the wound threshold so much. At least for physical damage. Getting an arm ripped off- it was a cheap shell, surface wound at most.

Hey, I wonder if anyone has tried to run a "multiplayer" tabletop gaming session "over the internet", possibly via mail? (edited)

Yes

11:15

It's called "Play by Post"

that reminds me a scene in Altered Carbon actually. "So you are the Hotel and the Hotel is you?" slides bar glass off table to annoy them

Yeah, probably. Considering that some of my actual BBS games get about one post every two days, it wouldn't even be that different

11:16

(though most play-by-post is chess or other simple classic games)

11:16

(If you mean actual snail-mail)

Yes, good ol' paper and pen (edited)

Play by Post games used to be run over physical mail, I remember ads for them in some gaming magazines.

Now I'd like to see someone run a tabletop FPS session over mail! (edited)

Sorry, what do you mean by FPS

Yeah, you know that classic feature of a half-played chess board in some rich person's room? They're playing by mail.

chess by mail has a long and storied history going back a long way

11:18

basically as far back as reliable mail service

First Person Shooter

Uh

Those don't exist on tabletop

yeah naw, this game is going to be totally divorced from shooter logic

How could they?

(But look up Frag)

There is one game, but it's incredulously complicated. Even simple fights can take days

11:21

just finding the name

I'd say its more, in Tabletop the difference between a "first person" and "third person" shooter becomes moot

Yeah

11:21

You can play lots of games about shooting people

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/2025/frag

Frag is the essence of early first person shooters like Doom and Quake distilled into a board game. The tagline sums up the game: "If it moves, shoot it." Players create characters by assigning stat points and spawn on the game board, then roll dice to move around the board...

But like, TTRPGs don't care about perspective

it has some Rambo type guy on the cover (edited)

So yes

11:24

When you say "FPS" do you mean "Unrealistic murder simulator with guns and only thin justification for the murder"

Not exactly an fps, but more a shooter with insanely complicated shooting and wound mechanics

11:25

It was released in the 90s, IIRC (edited)

the name Phoenix Command rings a bell?

Ring a ding ding!

11:31

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenix_Command

Phoenix Command

Phoenix Command was a role-playing game system published by Leading Edge Games, and copyrighted by Barry Nakazono and David McKenzie. Various versions of the system featured in the games Morning Star Missions, Living Steel, and Aliens Adventure Game. Phoenix Command had extre...

Also, it's 2am, so I'm off to bed

yes, sleep

not even noon for me

Someone else knows Phoenix Command?! That game was a good time, with a bit of precalculation. Nothing like it to show you how deadly modern combat is.

belatedly, @Archon having actually had a chance to read through the miraculous arcs, I'm thinking Keeper of the Gardens 3 and Child of Ash 0

I might go with Child of the Ash 2 and Impresario 1.

I'm thinking about Gatecrasher 3

Those all sound like excellent builds

14:24

@Zarpaulek which one will you be pursuing?

My specialty will be Robotics, I think

That seems a little boring and vauge to me

(Gatecrashers get a specific specialty, right?)

Did you read it?

Yes, just making sure

14:28

Look, I want to solve all my problems with robots, okay?

@Archon Possibly Impresario.

Just make sure you have niche protection with the robotic party members

Not sure how the Arc powers work, could I still get Minions if I was pursuing Impresario/Self-Made at Arc 0?

What modifications have been made to the base material to accompany the RPG?

( @Archon Do me a favor? Repost everything you said in that today-at-12:20-am-central-time message re the Bleak as one message, 'cause that should definitely go in #insightful .)

When I have a laptop, I'll be happy to

So, I've been thinking about the Bleak Which is a pretty important concept in Chuubo's default setting! And how it thinks about the world And TBH, it has a strong parallel in Eldraeverse With the Flaw, with Evil, with all that stuff which would deny your nature and wash you away in the sea That stuff, That stuff is the bleak And so, looking at out genre Which I am pretty sure is Gothic, right now, but, like, happy gothic? How do you make answer to the bleak? How do you fight the Flaw? Well, you judge it back - you look at it and understand it and say it's not worthy, You name your works, you remember them, you preserve them You work hard and do the right thing. Simple honest hard work. That's how you fight back! Well, that and lasers. Lasers are def involved as well

1

00:12

There @Overmind , text all in one post.

waves

21:09

been thinking about miraculous arcs while sitting at the laundromat

Do you have things to say?

Been writing them down to my character sheet, mostly

21:59

and trying to figure out how many perks I'm supposed to start with in the context of all the Miraculous Arcs in play

21:59

bbiab, shower time

2 perks that you choose, +all the perks your arcs grant and any connection you take to other PC's

are the Powers such as The World Like Clay part of that Perk tank?

No, only the ones which explicitly are called out as perks - I think you get a free copy of "it's like a home to me"

Yeah

22:46

There.... doesn't seem to be a list of standard perks?

Check your arc

22:48

Go to the description of Shepard arcs

22:48

Sorry

22:48

Perks are with them

22:48

And sorted by arc quest

ok, and my perks should ideally comy from my natural shepard arcs, or I'm not limited there?

Yeah, they should probably be shepard perks

23:01

If you really want something else

23:01

We can talk

23:01

(Since it's possible to get perks from sidequests)

23:01

But also, just, those should be your default

nods

23:12

Oh, other than the interchangable shell perk, the... flexible Skill 2 in something? (edited)

?

You mentioned having a perk to represent being able to build special perpose shells to be in

Yes! If you don't have any mechanics representing the shell you are currently in

00:03

Then you can take a perk granting a level 2 skill of any kind representing it!

00:05

Personally I expect you to represent your shells as your guardians and guides

00:05

At least some of the time

00:09

(also wrt keeper of gardens, you need to pick a craft skill, a command skill and a toxin)

won't my craft skill be Fabricate?

Craft skills are supposed to be magical, I think

in a way that Superior doesn't satisfy?

00:53

thematically, the way I envision this working is tasking herds of robot minions to perform the actual land sculpting, as opposed to using ontotechnology or something

Shrug, I guess

00:58

Also yes, miracles != Ontotechnology

00:59

Please don't assume that just because something is miraculous, it must be hypertech.

01:00

Lots of these things are, well, complicated!

I guess my frame of reference is that, everything my character does could in principle be done by a group of transophonts with several months or years of hard work. Like, say the way that a dyson sphere doesn't take all -that- much actual tech, the real miracle of it's construction is in the infrastructure and prep time required to get it aloft.

01:07

And in this case, the Superior bit represents the leg up from being... not a mere gang of sophonts with a plan, but being the architect and the workers and the tools they carry, fashioning the vision into matter with a holistic perspective

01:08

but i see that as distinct from cheating the laws of the universe itself.

You don't need to cheat the laws of the universe to be miraculous.

then why does a miraculous action require a skill with the Magical tag?

01:09

My reading was that it does not

hm, yes, this is a realm with Words that Mean Things and I should probably not butt in without comprehending the jargon

It doesn't

01:14

But also "magical" doesn't mean "breaks the laws of physics" either - it means, this is an uphill struggle, this is unnatural, this is not healthy or helpful

01:16

Shrug, I guess was me conceding your charecters choice

Oh. Usually when people say that it means they're unhappy with it but are too tired to argue further

01:19

it's also past 1 AM here, I'm probably not taking anything in a charitable light and should go to sleep.

Sleep!

yawns awake.

09:45

So, something else I've been wondering is how the books recurring references to the "Wishing Power of the Heart" applies to a machine entity.

You have a metaphorical heart, right?

23:37

That bit

23:38

(There is a slight issue here that the only exemplar who is robotic doesn't have a heart - this has nothing to do with his roboticness though)

(He doesn't have a heart even when he's a edge teenager)

I belive they would term it a Core

Still

01:36

Uh

01:36

The Wishing Power Of The Heart

01:36

is, like, mostly a hook for symbolism

01:37

Noone is going to take, like, Alchemist(The Wishing Power of The Heart) or anything

01:37

Because it'd be out-of-genre

Alchemist?

Uh, Creature of Delirium on the chart

23:10

Sickly Red, lets you take a bit of a person out of them and control it/them

How're people going?

08:05

(In particular, people like @Morgrim Moon and @Zarpaulek , who I remember expressing some interest but who haven't been speaking much)

I muted the channel, it's been moving too fast early in the week and I've been too busy to manage stuff like cooking dinner, let alone funstuff

08:06

sorry

Very fair

08:07

Best of luck with that!

(Chemists aren't supposed to have programmer's crunch, but that's been my week. Double the output at the cost of "oh gods shoot me now")

08:07

thanks.

08:09

also I need to find another box, the one I brought home to ship the laptop in is a cm too narrow

Oh, unfortunate

08:09

I imagine that's v. annoying.

Yeah. It's a nice box and I know it perfectly fits into a 5kg shipping satchel

I got a little preoccupied with... stuff.

@Archon So how many Arc powers do I get?

3 arc level, standard miraculous game chargen

Hmm. Now I'm imagining a singularity-gone-wrong which is on Creature of the Light (the arc for being a sacred and wonderful experience, something of beauty and transcendence, such that you are more an experience then a person, and are above mortal concerns in some way)

Working on it https://docs.google.com/document/d/1bzYsYc6LuR26jCk2YldYdPUtMIeh5UCU0FcgG5M9RcM/edit?usp=sharing

Chuubo Char Sheet

Name: CMS Trade Balance, aka “Tracy”Concept: Sapient privateer craft Skills: Astrogation 2 Cryptography 1 Weaponry 3 Economics 2 Arc Traits Child of the Ash 2 Impresario/Self-Made 1 Afflictions and Bonds Perks: Kaiju Form (starship) Defensive Shield (kinetic barri...

Why do you have the stuff you have listed in perks in perks?

22:25

Because those don't seem to be perks

22:25

They seem to be a random selection of your arc powers

22:25

(Which you get all of, BTW)

You do?

22:33

I thought arc powers were perks?

Nooooo

22:41

I told you that already

22:41

The ones which are labeled "perk" are perks

22:41

The ones ones are just neat powers (edited)

22:42

That you get because you've notionally spent the fucking 120 xp it takes to finish an arc

22:42

(How could you have a thematically complete charecter if you can't get all the powers which support the theme)

This was a bit confusing

Image attachment

It would be less so if you had read through to the section describing what perks you can choose

22:57

(In chapter 12, for referance)

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1sMess9XBopedscoRL4vO35xODaIw-qqQ

00:59

This drive should be where you put char-sheets, BTW

00:59

@Zarpaulek

00:59

@o11o1

Archon 07/21/2019 12:59 AM

@Archon folder is read only

03:45

Belatedly, Archon, i did decide that Guides, Guardians, and Symbiotes is the main way I'll represent the instantiated Agents of my will (the ones who would, say, go on adventures)

That's a weird choice?

05:24

Hmm

05:24

Yeah, okay

05:24

That's probably fine, but that's got some weird stuff

05:24

Mostly re: skill application

05:24

I'mma go talk to some friends about what that might imply mechanically

05:25

Is the link working now?

05:28

Hmm

05:28

Okay, no

05:28

I think the only reasonably way to do this is to say that if your, like, actual personal intellect is focused on a specific guardian then that's you?

05:29

You can probably use the Superior Skill of those guardians though

05:29

And that would count as your Shell Skill

Insight from my friends: You'll probably take a point of penalty - 1 from tele-prompting, 1 from light-lag if you have it, and 1 if you try to multi-task complex behavior, I think? Maybe. Obstacle penalties subject to my intuition at all times.

06:46

Complex behaviour in this context means "Stuff which isn't under your surperior fabriacation skill" essentially

(Also I think you'll need to define pretty clearly what your govern skill does for you)

07:53

(Define your skills in general)

(also suggested: have you considered sentimental instead of kog)

Think Ally Spirit, Passage to Place I Didn't Want to Go, and Miraculous Vision can work for the 'verse?

Sentimental instead of.... Kog?

13:49

My initial plan for the Govern skill is that it's intended for things like issuing orders and administrating a realm. It's -possbily- also the skill for teleprompting and such, but with a -1 that'll be.... tight.

13:50

@Archon but yeah, it seems quite reasonable that I'm only able to Assume Direct Control on one entity at a time, otherwise being limited to managing sets of standing instructions.

So I've kinda for three perks I like the look of (Shell skill, Connection to my Colonists, and the Transportation perk) but only two slots at the start?

17:35

i guess whichever one is dropped can be the target for CoA arc 1

1. shell skill is not one of your two starting slots

20:17

2. you're going to be using your guardian-creation instead of your shell skill when you can?

20:17

(Which powers are those @Zarpaulek ? I don't know the lists of specific power names off by heart)

They're under Otherworldly 1 and 2, and Shepherd 1.

20:20

Though Vision is also a "mundane" Storyteller power

Perks, okay

21:05

I'll look them up when I have a bit

Hmm

02:09

I saw the Voniensa mention

02:09

And I like the idea that the default setting is one of the vony "protected worlds"

02:10

I don't have good ideas for what kind of alien the locals are

02:14

(I do like the idea of stealing from Harbormaster and going with conservative (in the non-specific sense) eusocial insects)

My characters backstory so far works best if the local aliens have at least intraplanetary space flight, even if it's not easy for them

06:28

Perhaps the star gate hasn't been installed yet, or is still being shipped

What about your backstory do you need?

06:38

the invasion?

06:38

Could have been the vonnies?

06:38

How do you feel about being a star trek villain-of-the-week

I was thinking more that the Otherworldly 2 perk was credentials to enter Republic space if need be. Not that we were starting out in it.

06:52

Maybe it's a border world with both Vonnie and Ring Dynamics gates?

being the star trek villian of the week sounds like a great reason to have initiated Child Of the Ash to defend myself

07:00

It makes me imagine wrecked particle accelerator cannons on the surface of the moon

I meant it was one of the worlds given to the empire at the end of the epistolary experiment

07:13

So it's part of the empire now kinda

07:13

And was a vonnie state before

07:14

Probably has a Vonnie gate and maybe a new Ring Dynamics gate is being sent over

the epistolary experiment?

https://eldraeverse.com/tag/epistolary-experiment/

epistolary experiment | The Eldraeverse

Posts about epistolary experiment written by Alistair Young

08:31

The big collection of posts about the war between the empire and the vonnies?

Oh, for me that's just "The Core War and other Stories"

How goes?

I'm still here

09:55

I should be sleeping

09:55

Like, this second

yes, it's past midnight there. Shoo!

waves to rest of party

https://tanadrin.tumblr.com/post/163608316915/a-sketch-of-an-improbable-language Interesting aliens

A sketch of an improbable language

Language is a useful faculty for an intelligent species to have, allowing, as it does, the ability to offload aspects of cognition to other members of a social group, to share information without...

How goes char-gen?

20:26

( @Morgrim Moon @Zarpaulek @anyone else I missed?)

I -think- I'm basically done, waiting for opening scene?

DId you put your sheet in the folder?

I'm going to have to bail. I don't have time or energy for a new game right now

Aww

20:29

Okay

20:29

But fair enough

I can only see my sheet in the folder

Mind your permissions.

@Archon I can't see anyone else's sheets

Zarpaulek could put in his sheet

20:45

And I have it set to "Anyone with the link can edit"

I don't really know how permissions work in shared folders, but you should make sure that everyone can see your document.

Google drives does not have visbility permissions as far as I know

20:46

What can't you see?

20:46

Because I'm saying

20:47

Put your damn char-sheet in a doc in that folder

20:47

So other players can see

20:47

And me

You can set things to "anyone with the link can view" and that's distinct from not setting that, so

facepalm

I see my sheet, CMS Trade Balance, in that folder.

20:47

Naught else

No, that's just the lowest permission

20:47

Yes

20:47

That's all that's in there

I'm hesitant to fill in my Connections until I know who else is playing

Fair

@Archon sheet added

13:45

Ack!

13:45

I never figured out a bonus Emotion

By the way, were you thinking this would be play-by-post or more real-time? (edited)

I was under the impression peoples schedules are so wonk that it hast to be play by post

Good thing it’s diceless

What do you think is a good bonus emotion I should be trying to inspire in people?

14:05

none of them seemed to really... fit

Inspiration? "Wow I have to try something like that"

This was going to be play-by-post (edited)

Inspiration sounds pretty neat... specially with a sentient starship to bounce off of

01:31

heh, we have a sentient ship and a sentient colony

01:34

actually, Morg, I'm reading through and don't see Inspritation, but I do see the Shiver of Wonder/Terror (edited)

selects that one. "Thanks!"

In my experience Shiver is hard to invoke but this game will probably be good for it

02:26

Though I'd like to have more than two players

I want to, just haven’t had the time to binge the books

Fair fair

I just need to Think Big don't I?

01:29

Like, operating from an interplanetary scale seems a good start

Think big regarding what?

doing things that impresses other people

wanders around chat, looking for ore deposits

What were your starting quests?

Um, building infrastructure as the daily, something about housing colonists, and I think child of ash gives me an antagonist faction of a planetary government

22:15

I dunno if my phone will get my sheet open

Have those got full write-ups?

Probably not

22:20

I'd gave to double check. What's a 'full with up' look like in chubbos?

22:21

Have

Full write-up in this context means "Has all of the xp-triggers written out"

nods

22:33

I'll bounce ideas once home

Hmmmm, still need to do this

TBH With only two players and my current workloads and other projects, this probably isn't worth me running

20:22

I'm pretty sorry about that, but it is what it is

nod nods. "Yeah, it looked like it would be cool, but not enough people bit."

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