Fandom Gladius: A Multi-Fandom RP- OOC

[Zerohex]

The Mad Queen So hey, gotta ask.
Is this going to be a trend?

So uh, do you mean exactly? I'd ask in the Discord but I don't think you're actually there.

 

[Shining Wizard]

Zerohex
Basically The Mad Queen has been consistently ignoring me and Specialist 's posts either partially or in their entirety. The most glaring example being the most recent round, where Specialist's character was botching an attempt to rob the Space DMV clerk blind while my character was interacting with Queen's (which was unceremoniously dropped with no acknowledgement my character even did anything). Then, on top of this, the section of my post that acknowledged Specialist's character trying and failing to hack someone's bank account:

There was a brief pause as alarm bells sounded throughout the office, shutters slamming down to cover the doors as the space gypsy cancelled the transaction and shouted for security. This was to be expected; it was a well-known statistic that humanoid automatons lacking synthskin accounted for over 70% of mechanoid crime rates.

...was deleted from my post. I've edited it back in until such time as The Mad Queen can actually explain why this was done.

 

[zontar]

wait, people can do that to other posts?

 

[Shining Wizard]

zontar Yeah, if you're the thread creator you can freely edit all posts. Zerohex experienced this before when the GM deleted his character sheet, if I recall.
That being said, it's a super trashy thing to do to someone. I- and presumably Specialist , since he seems like a good bloke- would have more than likely changed our posts if he'd just asked. If someone's going to edit my work without asking- or even telling- me beforehand, that tells me they're probably not planning to play ball on any level.

 

[The Mad Queen]

Oh, Jesus Christ. This is awful.

I went back to read Specalist's post, double-checking if I missed something and it did turn out that I missed something huge and based the edit off of that. That being the unauthorised access bit. I misread the post and thought they were hacking the UNSC rather than the C-Sec Quarian and thought that was something the Quarian wouldn't notice.
However, a few things to clear up:

1. It was C-Sec, not a space DMV of some kind. Though I can understand the confusion and I'm not really in a position to criticise given my own mistake. So when the post mentioned the Quarian closing shutters and asking for security even though she was a part of the security forces I got even more confused and went ahead to edit the post.

2. I only edit posts if I feel it's contradicting things and I thought it was a case of the Quarian being space DMV (rather than C-Sec) and suddenly Samus being arrested when I didn't know the cause. Outside of the character deletion thing from the start of the RP and now this it hasn't happened and I've rarely done so in the past unless it's been really big stuff (vanguard players for example, or rule-breaking).

3. Don't want to be that person but it's she, not he. Bringing this up now to avoid further confusion, honestly.

Specialist Shining Wizard
I'll fix those posts now. Sorry about this mess. I think it comes down to me trying to rush things in the RP and missing some really crucial (and let's be honest, obvious) shit. This was an honest mistake on my part and does not come from a place of malice of any kind.
Between this and the character deletion before the RP started it might seem that way but it's not. If I was as petty as I come across I probably wouldn't be running this to be honest.

 

[zontar]

I think "Space DMV" is just what Torgo, who is not privy to the same information as their player, thinks the Quarian is.

 

[The Mad Queen]

I think "Space DMV" is just what Torgo, who is not privy to the same information as their player, thinks the Quarian is.

I thought it was literal given that the Quarian seemed to be shouting for security when she herself was a security officer of some kind. Though, that only really came up in earlier posts.
But...Given Torgo's perspective on other things it's probably the former.

Also, post has been edited accordingly.

 

[Shining Wizard]

The Mad Queen Thanks for coming in to explain. I have to ask, though: couldn't this have all been solved by just communicating with us? And, you know, why you decided to edit my post if you only do it for "big stuff".
And this still doesn't really explain why your character just randomly dropped all interaction and did not actually acknowledge my guy, you know, vomiting stationary into her hands and asking to eat her credit card when you didn't think anything particularly urgent was happening? I'll admit, I'm a little confused why you're in such a rush to move this along when we're mostly just faffing about in space.

Also zontar the Space DMV thing is a joke on how the c-sec officer is apparently handing out free, armed and operable spaceships to anyone who asks. That and, you know, the idea that this random unnamed c-sec affiliated desk jockey might be fully armed, armored, and given full backup at all times did not occur to me.

 

[Ennuis]

I thought it was literal given that the Quarian seemed to be shouting for security when she herself was a security officer of some kind. Though, that only really came up in earlier posts.
But...Given Torgo's perspective on other things it's probably the former.

Also, post has been edited accordingly.

Well, security would call for other security guards whenever an "oh shit" situation hits, and in large workplaces with a lot of coworkers you may not know, calling for help like that isn't exactly odd. Especially if they're getting panicked by the alarms, which a desk guard might do.

 

[The Mad Queen]

The Mad Queen Thanks for coming in to explain. I have to ask, though: couldn't this have all been solved by just communicating with us? And, you know, why you decided to edit my post if you only do it for "big stuff".
And this still doesn't really explain why your character just randomly dropped all interaction and did not actually acknowledge my guy, you know, vomiting stationary into her hands and asking to eat her credit card when you didn't think anything particularly urgent was happening? I'll admit, I'm a little confused why you're in such a rush to move this along when we're mostly just faffing about in space.

I meant the RP in general, not just the Citadel bit as it was one part of a larger post I was rushing to pump out before I handled some work-related nonsense (paperwork is a bitch). I need to be less like EA and more like...CD Projekt, I guess?
As for Alva's lack of freaking out over the stationary and the card, she's seen weirder things and is currently trying to figure stuff out about both herself and The Multiverse being eaten. She overheard talk of a ship and kinda just walked off. Dick move on my part to be honest. Really dropped the ball on that one as there was probably much better ways of handling that scene than just Alva walking off mid-sentence.

Well, security would call for other security guards whenever an "oh shit" situation hits, and in large workplaces with a lot of coworkers you may not know, calling for help like that isn't exactly odd. Especially if they're getting panicked by the alarms, which a desk guard might do.

Like I said, I missed the hacking bit and thought it was over a declined transaction rather than Samus trying to hack C-Sec. Thought calling security over a declined transaction was a bit extreme and Specalist trying to get Samus arrested for some reason, which is why I edited it.

 

[Ennuis]

The Mad Queen
Oh no, I get that. I'm just pointing out that the way it happened isn't exactly odd, I've seen it myself a few times at work.

 

[Shining Wizard]

The Mad Queen I mean not to sound like a dick or anything but has it ever occurred to you to just run a handful of characters you liked and could commit well to and let the rest just be communally controlled NPC stuff?
Like, you don't have to be actively and constantly present in every single player group. You could just as well do generic plot hook deals so you don't have to rush to constantly respond to everyone's fluff moments.

 

[The Mad Queen]

The Mad Queen I mean not to sound like a dick or anything but has it ever occurred to you to just run a handful of characters you liked and could commit well to and let the rest just be communally controlled NPC stuff?
Like, you don't have to be actively and constantly present in every single player group. You could just as well do generic plot hook deals so you don't have to rush to constantly respond to everyone's fluff moments.

No, I get where you're coming from and you're right.

The best storylines I've been able to manage have come from tabletop games such as Dungeons and Dragons where you basically have to be every NPC in the world and I think as a result I'm looking at the RP in terms of a really big D&D game or something. A lot of micro-management, basically responding to everything and just filling it in constantly. In fact, Brymor Crossing is actually one of the cities in my current D&D game and that's where the term "Snatcher" comes from too.
Tavern of Worlds is an earlier setting from an older campaign as well, so you can see my DM hands are all over this thing. Players really enjoyed those games so I guess I've been trying to capture the same "magic" by going in with the same mindset, which obviously doesn't work for a text-based RPG.

I think it also comes down to past RP experiences where I was really relaxed about things years ago (we're talking before the site had it's big update which a good few of you probably weren't around for) and the RP ate itself. Something similar also happened in a past D&D game (this is much more recent, we're talking last year) in which one toxic player managed to ruin the whole game for everyone including me but by the time I decided to kick him it was too late.

I'll spare the details of the final session and what led me to ending the game was so disgusting it still makes me a bit angry just thinking about it. It came down to me not wanting to kick a guy who I thought was my friend (we're talking IRL too) and this led to the death of a game that had been running for nearly 2 years and the end of our friendship as well. Though that part comes down to realising what a c-word he was (RPN won't let me use that word as it's really offensive in some parts of the world but we Irish use it all the time to describe people like that).

I think I can can attribute that incident to reacting so poorly to a player who I associated with an RP I'd run that was toxic (the whole character deletion thing from a few weeks ago). Obviously it's no excuse for my actions then but at least I know why I did it.

So call it a mixture between treating this too much like D&D and being an overly-cautious handholder with a stick up her arse.

 

[Freshet]

Well on the matter of NPCs vs GMPCs (for those playing at home who are unaware, Non-player Characters vs Game Master Player Characters), I'm not sure that many NPCs are being utilized here as opposed to GMPCs.

GMPCs usually exist to fill a role lacking in a current party of players, usually a healer since no one wants to play healers, and are essentially player characters who get the same amount of focus (usually more so) than players. Non-player characters in contrast are not given as much focus as a player character and exist to fill out the world and what not.

Here in practice I am seeing more GMPCs rather than NPCs as all of these characters are hitching up to Player Groups and trying to guide them in a particular direction. An NPC would not be doing this. If we were using NPCs we would see not as many hitched up to hanging around with players, and pointing them in the general direction of the quest.

Of course that is up to the player's discretion if they want to follow that particular path or not. GMPCs are far more forceful in trying to get players to move a particular direction instead of letting stories flow naturally based on how a player reacts. Like say how the botched hacking could lead to a fun pursuit and attempt to escape security, and either they get caught and need to do a jailbreak, or they escape but now they are on the lamb in that area.

 

[Shining Wizard]

The Mad Queen Gonna be honest I have no idea what you're talking about insofar as things "not working in a text format". I've both played and GMed a bunch of voiceless games over the net and it's a perfectly serviceable way to play unless you're trying to run something esoteric like Chuubo's. In some ways it's preferable, especially if your other option is trying to use current-gen Skype for voicechat. That and running NPC's in D&D is actually pretty easy since it's all fairly basic fantasy archetypes and the number of combat-divorced mechanics is close to nil. Protip: Just keep a list of general-use personality traits and randomly roll for mannerisms when your players talk to generic NPCs. Works great.

But more to the point there's a difference between having relatively low-maintainance NPCs you can freely interchange vs a GMPC that sticks to the party like glue and dictates their every move like the Harlequin adventures from Shadowrun 2e, or Elminster (fuck Elminster btw). The former can, admittedly, get a little bland if you're not the best at improv, but GMPCs tend to run the scale from bland to masturbatory railroad machines so I've personally always erred on the side of caution player agency wise.

Unrelated, but do you think of yourself in terms like "writer" and "storyteller" when GMing?

 

[The Mad Queen]

The Mad Queen Gonna be honest I have no idea what you're talking about insofar as things "not working in a text format". I've both played and GMed a bunch of voiceless games over the net and it's a perfectly serviceable way to play unless you're trying to run something esoteric like Chuubo's. In some ways it's preferable, especially if your other option is trying to use current-gen Skype for voicechat. That and running NPC's in D&D is actually pretty easy since it's all fairly basic fantasy archetypes and the number of combat-divorced mechanics is close to nil. Protip: Just keep a list of general-use personality traits and randomly roll for mannerisms when your players talk to generic NPCs. Works great.

In terms of my D&D NPCs, I think I overdo it sometimes. Everyone from the noble lord to the random street thug has a story and something distinctive. That isn't to say they hog the limelight or anything but I try to make them feel alive in order to create a world, basically.
My D&D stuff is mostly IRL but I started with Roll20 games that used Teamspeak. This was a good while before Discord came along and even longer before I decided to be a DM.
One of the IRL D&D games I'd been in was awful. Just, the DM did everything wrong and at the same time I was listening to The Adventure Zone. So I wanted to have fun with D&D and also try to be like Griffin McElroy.

I can say I did one of those things. Griffin McElroy is a God.

(It is said this is the last thing the human brain sees before death. Can this be God himself?)

But more to the point there's a difference between having relatively low-maintainance NPCs you can freely interchange vs a GMPC that sticks to the party like glue and dictates their every move like the Harlequin adventures from Shadowrun 2e, or Elminster (fuck Elminster btw). The former can, admittedly, get a little bland if you're not the best at improv, but GMPCs tend to run the scale from bland to masturbatory railroad machines so I've personally always erred on the side of caution player agency wise.

I do a lot of improv and a lot of (if not most of) the time the detailed NPCs have their entire stories and traits made up on the fly. I have run entire sessions based on improv alone. One of my favourites and definitely the silliest was when a player took some drugs and half the session was me making stuff up for what he saw on his drug trip (and he fumbled rolls to come down from it) while the other player (only two showed up out of a party of 5) mostly just interacted with NPCs, even signing up for a dating agency I made up on the fly because the character was looking for a girlfriend.

Aside from big bosses and say NPCs the characters know prior to the game I don't really plan them out too much.

Unrelated, but do you think of yourself in terms like "writer" and "storyteller" when GMing?

A bit of both when it comes to text-based RPGs, but I see myself as a DM when it comes to tabletop.

 

[Ennuis]

One of the IRL D&D games I'd been in was awful. Just, the DM did everything wrong and at the same time I was listening to The Adventure Zone. So I wanted to have fun with D&D and also try to be like Griffin McElroy.

That's... Well, that's a huge mistake. I don't think I've ever come across a tabletop podcast dealy that actually played a game rather than acted out one.

 

[Shining Wizard]

The Mad Queen Alright, can you explain to me what "did everything wrong" means in this context? Because if you were expecting something like The Adventure Zone I'm not sure what to tell you other than, you know, those sessions are blatantly scripted in advance. I kind of assume you already knew that, though; anyone who's played a tabletop would within, like, the first podcast. Second at most, I'd say.

Also, could you elaborate on some of these distinctive points and colorful backgrounds you had for NPCs? I always do like to swap notes with other GMs when I get the chance.

 

[Zerohex]

In terms of my D&D NPCs, I think I overdo it sometimes. Everyone from the noble lord to the random street thug has a story and something distinctive. That isn't to say they hog the limelight or anything but I try to make them feel alive in order to create a world, basically.

Going back to what came up yesterday (two days ago now?), on the one hand, that's well and good and you've put in a fair chunk of writing on the lore page and the NPCs there. On the other, I feel you often end up missing the chance to let this come across in the actual narrative. Show don't tell and all that.

You have all this stuff in mind but it's just written down on the manual, it gets no display in the game proper. The focus seems to me to go towards your characters in their capacity as your characters (an extremely contentious point in P&P DMing with GMPCs typically being seen as bad form), rather than the NPCs that players are dealing with to advance the story and setting as it relates to them and their interests.

 

[zontar]

I say this as a man who's been DM'ing for 10 years: Adventure Zone and other scripted podcasts give a very bad impression of what D&D is like, and are meant to prey on people who've never actually played D&D, but want to and don't have the time or friends with consistent schedules.

And this, I also say as a man who's been DM'ing for 10 years: no plan survives first contact with the party. Learn to adapt, and learn to make sure that everyone's having fun. It's why people get into the group roleplaying hobby- if there's a story you want to tell without interference, just go write a book.

 

[The Mad Queen]

The Mad Queen Alright, can you explain to me what "did everything wrong" means in this context? Because if you were expecting something like The Adventure Zone I'm not sure what to tell you other than, you know, those sessions are blatantly scripted in advance. I kind of assume you already knew that, though; anyone who's played a tabletop would within, like, the first podcast. Second at most, I'd say.

Scripted, yes but it was the story the podcast managed to tell that incited me to pick up trying to be a DM. The worldbuilding, the interesting NPCs. I fell in love.

The bad DM I talk about, oh sweet Jesus...It's a long story.

Spoiler: Long

I played a Tiefling Sorcerer/Barbarian (we started at level 5, I think) with the pirate background in a party of mostly Chaotic characters. We had one Lawful Good boy, a dimwitted Paladin named Ser Richard with the closest thing to a more moral character being a Chaotic Good fighter named Tim Wizard, who was undead but trying to hide it. Yes, that is the same Karla and Ser Richard in this current RP.
The Ranger had an obsession with collecting kneecaps, the Rogue had a pet mouse that talked to her using a secret code, we had an Alchemist who was a tiny, angry robot/Construct and the Wizard was a 4th wall breaking machine of death and destruction. My Tiefling had a voice in her head, a being only she could see that masqueraded as her high intelligence score.

The DM only had a problem with my character. The main antagonist, another Wizard who was related to our Wizard shocked her every five seconds or whenever she spoke. 2D6 shock damage. All the time. And this Wizard was omnipotent, so it was whenever. Karla stopped talking after a while.
Upon reaching level 6 DM gives every party member a unique ability. Except Karla.

Suddenly he introduced an entire, unmentioned history to the world in which the Tieflings started a war ten years ago, lost and now everybody hates them. Well, more so than usual for 5E. Fantasy racism is a thing, I get it but the DM took it to uncomfortable levels. Every NPC we encountered would attack her or find a way to make her miserable...And yet the DM got pissy when Karla didn't want to help, so he came up with fake reasons like "You owe this person as you stole a book from them" out of nowhere, even if the other party members were being paid for it.

Even though Karla was a pirate who would have worked for those people in exchange for gold.

Rogue, Al (Alchemist) and Tim Wizard left the game as they don't like the DM. After that the DM got a whole lot worse and that wasn't helped by the Ranger who was the DM's best friend and stuck by every decision he made. The Wizard player eventually made a new character, who the DM made this super important person. Paladin player just went along with it and Ser Richard tried to defend Karla whenever he can as they're best friends.

So kneecaps Joe (can't remember character name), Elaura, Richard and Karla are sent into a city. City Watch threatens to kill Karla at the gates for being a Tiefling. Karla rolls Charisma to convince them she's innocent of any crimes. Rolls natural 20. DM ignores natural 20, and the response from the guards is "You talk again, we'll have you hanged."
We ran into one of these super powerful NPCs. Oh, I forgot to mention. The campaign was full of these! Like level 60 PCs who the DM used to keep us in our place when he retired the "Cosmic Hand of Bitchslapping", a device he used to knock PCs down to 1HP if they annoyed him.
Said NPC threatened Karla. Now, at this point Karla had called for a trial by combat at the city gates in order to stay alive and who was her champion? Ser Richard!

Ser Richard rolled a natural 20 to attack this NPC and landed a blow. Deals no damage whatsoever. NPC poked Sir Richard and knocks him out. Then throws Karla off a cliff.
Karla survives due to high CON score (Sorcerer/Barbarian, remember) and was brought before NPC who basically sells Karla into slavery.
We were actually meant to help these powerful NPCs, that was the DMs plan even if said NPCs turned into fantasy Nazis half-way through the game just to shit on me.
At that point I left the game, Karla is murdered by DM and the game ended two sessions later as Paladin left and I have an argument with the DM over Discord, causing a temper tantrum that makes him quit the game. He threatens to beat me up and at one point claims he's close to "throwing his laptop across the room" when me and one of the other ex-players compared him to a dictator.

There were a ton of other DM-related sins that related to favouritism (such as Kneecaps Joe rolling low but having his rolls treated as high), encouraging the other party members to beat Karla up (Kneecaps Joe and Elaura did this, while Ser Richard and others refused or tried to defend her), having enemies target her and ignoring other party members altogether and throwing tantrums.

...I never found out why he hated me so much. As for why I stuck around for so long before leaving, I was playing with friends and there weren't really any other groups. The DM also blackmailed me with some personal information he found out (by accident) so I didn't want to get on his bad side by leaving. Absolute wankstain.

Also, could you elaborate on some of these distinctive points and colorful backgrounds you had for NPCs? I always do like to swap notes with other GMs when I get the chance.

In the latest campaign the most recent NPC is a guy called Smir, who's name was made up on the fly due to the counter I used to represent him being an old bottlecap (used to collect them Fallout style).
When making the new world I built it around the PCs rather than the other way around. Entire regions and countries were made based off of things they told me in their backstories and it was mostly flushed out in a session zero.
One PC, the Dragonborn Paladin wants to kill a God who turned his tribe into monsters. This led me to creating a new enemy type known as "The Corrupted" who are taller Dragonborn that somewhat resemble Komodo Dragons with blackened scales. They've only been encountered via dream sequences and flashbacks as the party is level 4.

Long story short, Smir originally lived in that part of the world and was a slave to a Yuan-Ti caravan that lived there. He fought other slaves for entertainment and carried out their bidding...Until the slave caravan was attacked by The Corrupted. He used that to escape and fled to the north, using gold he looted to stay alive until he came across Lord Goldcliff who offered him a job.

This guy started as a random thug who didn't like mercenaries and was loyal to Goldcliff and the only reason this whole story existed was because one of the players quizzed him about it over drinks.
The Dragonborn Paladin you see, feels responsible for what happened to his people (and everything they've done since then) and is a Redemption Paladin. So introducing NPCs who have been affected by the actions of The Corrupted is an important part of his journey. So-far there's been like three NPCs he's encountered that have direct ties to what happened to that country and Smir is one of them.
The difference between him and the other two is that The Corrupted actually led to something positive happening just by the caravan being there in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Rather than going with a "world-ending doom and gloom" story it's more personal. Sure, the Corrupted are a thing but that's more of a country-wide outbreak than an Armageddon level threat the party has to stop. They're like four countries away at this point.
Game gets run on Tuesday nights and the party (7 people) has loved it so-far.

 

[The Mad Queen]

I say this as a man who's been DM'ing for 10 years: Adventure Zone and other scripted podcasts give a very bad impression of what D&D is like, and are meant to prey on people who've never actually played D&D, but want to and don't have the time or friends with consistent schedules.

And this, I also say as a man who's been DM'ing for 10 years: no plan survives first contact with the party. Learn to adapt, and learn to make sure that everyone's having fun. It's why people get into the group roleplaying hobby- if there's a story you want to tell without interference, just go write a book.

The reason you know it's scripted is that there's no rules lawyer at the table telling Griffin he "Can't do that" and combat doesn't take forever. I will say the most realistic aspect of actual D&D is Clint playing a healer who doesn't know how to heal his fellow party members.

The biggest inspirations for my old D&D game were The Adventure Zone, Guardians of the Galaxy, (later on) Thor: Ragnarok and (by accident) Sky Captain and The World of Tomorrow. The funny story behind that is a player who loved that movie brought it up at some point and asked it Sky Captain was an inspiration. I sat down to watch the movie and it turned out that a ton of stuff was really similar to the campaign.
This led to a joke where at some point I'd watched the movie but was sat next to a Silence from Doctor Who so I subconsciously remembered the thing and used it in the campaign.

Players have come up with really unique solutions to problems and I tend to reward creativity while I punish stupidity. One player escaped from a trap by dissolving his hands (and thus also the gauntlets holding him) in acid. Chaotic Evil Wizard who blew up planets for fun and only cared about one person in the entire universe, that being his estranged daughter.
Daughter was captured by the survivors from a planet he'd destroyed as it was "blocking a view" so he threw caution to the wind, took a ton of damage for his troubles (level 7 though so he lived) and basically burned through every spell slot he had taking over the space station. Out of game this took like 30 minutes but in game time you're talking closer to ten.
And the Wizard did this by himself. Sure, he broke a few NPCs out of the station's prison to help but he was the only party member onboard to start with. Two other PCs joined him half-way through the breakout.

Contrast this to a player who ran off from the rest of the party (in the same session), encountered a boss and tried to take them one on one. I had them roll luck checks and dropped a couple of hints as if to say "If you keep up yo gonna die"
Gave him two or three chances to run but he kept up and needless to say was killed fighting a giant skeleton made of souls.
First time I ever killed a PC...

He didn't take it well and ended up creating a vanguard character. When that didn't work he tried other means and eventually broke the game by making everyone too uncomfortable and throwing a temper tantrum when I kicked him.
Probably didn't help that one of the players was his girlfriend. I'll spare the details as I mentioned this earlier and it's really disgusting what he did to break the game.
Well, he didn't break the game so much as he broke me and the other players with it. Game was fine mechanically, it had just been tainted and wasn't fun anymore so I called it quits.

New group is having a lot of fun with a smaller-scale story so I'm going to ride that pine until the characters accomplish their goals and we'll maybe move onto another system. I came away from my space D&D game feeling rusty and it took this new game to show me I've still got my grooves.
-
Contrast this to the 2nd PC I killed. During a massive battle on a planet at the end of the 1st "season" a whole bunch of people got injured. A beloved NPC was gravely wounded taking a blade to the gut from a reoccurring boss and the Monk also took a beating as well. This NPC was an alchemist who carried a potion that could have save someone from the effects of the magical blade the boss used.
In short, it caused flesh to decay which made a lot of healing magic pretty ineffective. Nasty stuff but players were level 7 and there were 6/7 of them.

PC decides to save NPC. I tell them that means there won't be enough to save themselves. I had fully intended this to be the death of said NPC the party liked and instead the PC "Yap-Yap" gave the formula to her. He died of his wounds on the battlefield and ended up getting a Spock-esque funeral. In the "season 2" when this NPC was encountered again, she'd been really affected by the death and was reeling from it 10 years later, dedicating her life to helping others as part of a secret organisation.

Both PCs died purely due to player actions but the intentions (and mostly the players themselves) made the biggest difference between the two. One was a stubborn, toxic player who took it to heart and ended up killing the game and the other handled it with grace and felt it was a "fitting end" to Yap-Yap.

 

[Specialist]

To clarify, The Mad Queen you were right; Samus was hacking into the UNSC database and hijacking credits to wire-transfer over to the Quarian. However, since as to not risk anymore re-editing, the follow-up post could have her explain. It's up to you; I apologize for the inconvenience.

 

[Shining Wizard]

Specialist So wait, why the heck didn't you say anything prior to this, then? I mean it doesn't really matter since apparently the USNC joined C-SEC anyway and your character basically just tried to steal their payroll after explicitly stating that they couldn't outhack C-SEC but still, communication dude.

Also The Mad Queen wow, that sounds like the kind of game that would never have gotten past the first session if the guy was really going that hard on railroading. This does, however, raise an important question: If you had such a bad experience with railroading, why is it that you, in turn, are railroading your own players? With an experience as bad as that, you should know that removing player agency from the equation is always a terrible idea and communicating with them is a much better idea than using the force-edit function since there is literally no way to use it without looking like a gigantic tool.

 

[Specialist]

The Mad Queen Shining Wizard Specialist (yes I'm mentioning myself.) I'd advise against taking it personally. Communication was needed on all three fronts of what each of us were doing rather than trying to rely on interpretation of events alone. We resolve, we move forward, we adapt and overcome. There's a story to be told, and a dispute over confusion and use of editing differences isn't going to allow any of us to progress the more we contribute to the debate.