Over a Mug of Ale [For A Better Age]

IIRC, it was in one of my 1e books that delt with the DKs. I have the book in my garage somewhere; but I'm leaving town for a weekend trip to visit some friends in St. George and won't be back to look until late sunday night.
 
No post tonight unfortunantly. Just too beat from a long and late day at work. I'm working at an earlier time tomarrow, so I should be able to post up something without too much trouble.


Also brainingstorming on a new Path for Asyk. Probably call it something along the lines of Path of Spiritual Enlightenment. I figure it will be made up of Paths focusing on training Dragon Kings and Awakening them.
 
I had a thought about it. DK Paths run from 1 to 6, with the highest level reserved for Essence 6. Since the normal time to teach and enlighten a normal Dragon King is ten years, how about with each dot, it accelerates the process, with level six being nearly instant. So each level would reduce the time by a year or two.
 
I'm working with Table (who is a major help) on creating some Paths for Asyk to help his with the training of Dragon Kings.


I'll give some of the PCs a chance to react to Anoke's question before having Walks and other reply. Walks, Maiden, and Horizon still have some issues they would like to go over, butI can wait on that for a better moment.
 
Asyk is a bit out of his comfort zone. He leads trooops in battle and knows how to perform various prayer services. designs on which member of the aristocacy to take down is over his head, and he would be very uncomfortable with it on general principle. Anoke would know that, and he would make arrangements for Asyk to be elsewhere with General Rivers as we discuss the family businesses so I will completely have no idea that a mass assassination is being planned. He is close to the classic DnD Palidan attitude. If he sees something that he can help, he will step in. If he knows about a mass purge, he would be honor bound to try to stop it, unless a massive amount of proof is laid out in front of him to get him to stand down. Once it is finished, he will shake his head and have a few harsh words with you, but on one level he will recoginze that you have done the city a favor, especailly by not letting him know ahead of time of the plan.
 
Sherwood said:
Asyk is a bit out of his comfort zone. He leads trooops in battle and knows how to perform various prayer services. designs on which member of the aristocacy to take down is over his head, and he would be very uncomfortable with it on general principle. Anoke would know that, and he would make arrangements for Asyk to be elsewhere with General Rivers as we discuss the family businesses so I will completely have no idea that a mass assassination is being planned. He is close to the classic DnD Palidan attitude. If he sees something that he can help, he will step in. If he knows about a mass purge, he would be honor bound to try to stop it, unless a massive amount of proof is laid out in front of him to get him to stand down. Once it is finished, he will shake his head and have a few harsh words with you, but on one level he will recoginze that you have done the city a favor, especailly by not letting him know ahead of time of the plan.
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So he approves so long as he doesn't know about it before it happens.


That's retarded.


Sorry to be blunt, but this is really stupid. Especially considering Asyk is a Dragon King among the Solar Exalted, who were chosen by (supposedly) his major deity, and murdered the creators of the universe by starting with a dirty sneak attack. Look, if you're going to make a character whose preferences need to be tiptoed around by the demigod kings who are several magnitudes more important and powerful than him, and whom he will readily oppose if they don't, he will die because the Exalted can't and won't always take the preferences of their allies into account over what needs to be done (that whole hubris thing and all).


Or, more simply: you're pretty much saying your character cannot be involved with major decisions, or the Circle will have to kill him. Why even bother playing him, then, since he'll end up sitting out important parts of the game, current and future?


Even D&D paladins could condone the assassination of evil officials in a corrupt system if it would lead to a better order overall. At least, they could if they were in games being run by people who weren't idiots. Paladins were based around the idea of Arthurian Knights for chrissakes, some of the most flawed holy men in the world.


Edit: no no no, some of the most flawed holy men in history
 
Well, you want to recruit him into your criminal conspyracy, go ahead and try. YOu might just come up with an arguement that he will support instead of calling the authorities and charge you with sedition and murder. Go for it. 8)
 
We've been over this in OOC, and PbP is not the ideal place to hold long, complex, IC arguments on the moral nuances of killing the hell out of a corrupt, decadent, and murderous aristocracy while researching their history, events, and so on. It drags. If he's going to be throwing in the towel despite all the thoroughly-explored reasons we've mentioned so far, and even though the Chosen have done things like this on mortal and cosmic scales for millenia, I have no idea what to tell you.
 
Hey guys. Sorry about the extended away.


SO after making the technicians come around 5 times they decided to check the line and found the problem everything is back and stable. Give me a day or two to catch up on what's been going on.


Merry Christmas and happy new year to all since I missed wishing it to you all.
 
Keikan's going to need talked into this as well. This is a major character development point for Keikan, so I don't care if it drags. He'll probably be convinced if he sees the state of the people under the nobles' rule directly, and swallow his pride and go along "for the greater good".
 
Sarodinian said:
Keikan's going to need talked into this as well. This is a major character development point for Keikan, so I don't care if it drags. He'll probably be convinced if he sees the state of the people under the nobles' rule directly, and swallow his pride and go along "for the greater good".
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Then bluebook it. This isn't about your special character, it's about everyone, and if you expect everyone to put the game on hold to do a long and boring segment of playing tour guide for your character then you will be majorly disappointed.


Edit: that'd be like me demanding we do an in-depth scene of Ann researching Icehold's history in the library. It's saner to assume he's done it or will do it, and if I really think it's worth showing I'll write a short story on it.


Edit edit: or saying we need to have an entire scene of gameplay dedicated to the eventual birth of Ann's kid; it's of significance to him, but inconsequential in terms of plot and all the other characters
 
Remember we're in PbP. It's less of a problem here to have splits and stuff focusing on one character due to the format.


That does, of course, increase Archivist's workload, so I wouldn't assume it'll happen like that- but I wouldn't assume it won't, either.
 
"Bluebook it"? Never heard of the term.


But I figured this sort of thing could be handled with a few posts abstracting his arrival, what he sees, timeskip, come back, done. I figure this sort of thing is important enough to everyone's individual character that it merits some time spent on it.


As for a scene of researching Icehold's history...that's something I'd actually like to see, as well as the birth of Anoke's kid. Granted, we don't need to go in-depth, but a post or two detailing what happens would be nice. To me, character development like that is significant, and I feel glossing over it would be detrimental to the game.
 
MorkaisChosen said:
Remember we're in PbP. It's less of a problem here to have splits and stuff focusing on one character due to the format.
That does, of course, increase Archivist's workload, so I wouldn't assume it'll happen like that- but I wouldn't assume it won't, either.
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Yes, exactly. It'd essentially be asking our ST to split his attention for a week or more to the task of having a character flip through library books or something else of no immediate import to the plot, and of which none of us is particularly interested in seeing and of which we already know the outcome.

Sarodinian said:
"Bluebook it"? Never heard of the term.
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It's where you personally write out events, history, etc. of actual significance to your character which are too focused or irrelevant to the plot at hand.


Wanting to have Keikan come to some enlightening realization while wandering through the city? That's best handled by bluebooking, since you can better portray your character and the sights which would most affect him rather than having the ST divide his attention and spend a decent amount of time playing hit-or-miss with imagery.


Edit: hell, if he'd be up for it even a brief IC IM session with the ST or with characters to whom an event matters can be bluebooking. And isn't necessarily a bad idea if they're up for it, since it's quick and can be easily formatted for posting.
 
Tableface said:
Edit: hell, if he'd be up for it even a brief IC IM session with the ST or with characters to whom an event matters can be bluebooking. And isn't necessarily a bad idea if they're up for it, since it's quick and can be easily formatted for posting.
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I'd be up for that.
 
First off, good to see that you will be able to rejoin us Wuffy. If you have a questions about things feel free to ask. Naturally you are sitting in on the current meeting going on.


Now onto the larger discussion. Seems like a major conflict here is between wanting to play this out verse not allowing the game to be bogged down in a prolonged discussion. I wouldn’t be against some discussion, but this can really get dragged down if this takes more than a couple posts. Forcing us to play out a decision we already know the answer to.


From the looks of it, it seems that Ann is going to have to do a good deal of the talking to convince the PCs to go along with this. Him and probably the NPC’s still in the meeting. You guys can probably guess which side of the fence most of them will fall. Given Walks’ family has constantly been on the receiving end of assassinations (and whose own life is likely on the line, especially if things go badly), Maiden and Horizon have had an antagonistic relationship with the nobles in the past (in addition to just being inhuman), and Vanessa is a mercenary with no respect for the nobles and is likely in Ann’s pocket to start with. The problem with me as ST is that by arguing for a certain course of action, it feels like I am Telling you all how to handle this situation. I can do it to help go with the general consensus here on the forum, and have to regurgitate previous arguments already made OOC, but I don’t like to feel like I am stealing the free will I want your characters to have.


As pointed out, I CAN do individualized stuff. But that does significantly multiplies my workload. I don’t mind it so much at specific points, and especially when I am introducing new or expand upon old characters, or I’m trying to give out a bunch of important background information. But it does eat up my time. And the more boring or monotonous an event is (in my opinion), the more I feel like just glancing over what is going on. Especially if it doesn’t do a ton to advance the plot or character development. I specifically don’t like it when I have to put the game on hold in order to deal with just one character and his/her issues.


I wouldn’t mind doing some IC IM chat for individualized stuff like what Saro wants to do for Keikan. Seems like an easy and quick way to get that out of the way. Just a matter of editing what is typed up, and probably posting it on the forum.


Also keep in mind at least some of your characters did walk through Valhal and Icehold lands, and thus would have gotten some flavor of the local land. Thus some of you might have picked up on some of the problems in Icehold lands, and with how the people were being treated.


I have also been considering starting up a thread where more personal and individualized stuff can take place and play out on its own timing. Stuff like romances, personal study time, births, research, and one-on-one NPC character interactions in general. This could possible help to manage the more lone PC focused stuff that would happen over the course of periods like major time skips.


Edit: Also your characters have had a week and a half to half a week depending on when you got to Icehold to get an idea and do research on Icehold. Not even getting into the time before you got to Icehold. You have plenty of wealths of information in some of the NPCs you have met. Walks of course as Duke of Icehold, the spirit chatterboxes in Maiden and Horizon, and many others. You could also have talked to the thousands of nameless NPCs wandering about their lives.
 
Welcome back, Wuffy!


I personally figure Anoke is the type who could do the maneuvering to make things work right. Asyk being with the General is perfect for this, and could be a pivotal moment to realize "Hey, these guys will do dangerous shit!" and "Hey, these guys will make the world better!" are two overlapping statements. If Asyk does decide to speak up, we could have a very short moment, possibly bluebooked, where Anoke shouts him down for being angry at him for something that, by all rights, Asyk should've had the stones to be a part of.


As for Keikan, Anoke could just inform him that the nobility tried to assassinate the Duke and get him involved that way, rather than dealing with this now. If Keikan ever has any misgivings, he can be browbeaten then.


Also, what's going on with Ofran? Dude's gonna be free in less than a day.
 
So, sorry for the radio silence. It is very much not my style, and will not happen again. If you are all still willing to have me, I would still like to be a part. I'm starting on the backlogs now. Once again, incredibly sorry for disappearing.
 
Axelgear said:
Also, what's going on with Ofran? Dude's gonna be free in less than a day.
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I guess Calypso is our groups Cassandra.

magnificentmomo said:
So, sorry for the radio silence. It is very much not my style, and will not happen again. If you are all still willing to have me, I would still like to be a part. I'm starting on the backlogs now. Once again, incredibly sorry for disappearing.
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It's all cool. The holidays in general are crazy, so no worries. Just in the future if something comes up just post that you are having issues, and I can make the necessary adjustments to the game.
 
Caught up on everything but 3-2 now.


Bluebooking comes from the practice of tests having the essay portion take place in a blue book. Usually history tests. Not-so-fun fact.


Chain, although mostly irrelevant right now, will not have any major conflicts with the current IC conflict of assassination of the aristocracy.


Also, the Solar charm to help DKs enlighten was published in the overflow pdf, which I have if no one else does. Some cool MA in that as well. Copied for posterity.

New Solar Charm:
Dragon-Soul Enlightening


Method


Cost: —; Mins: Lore 5, Essence 4;


Type: Permanent


Keywords: Enlightening


Prerequisite Charms: Harmonious Academic


Methodology


Although their own methods of teaching


their young the first steps toward civilized intelligence


require several years, Solar Exalted


who know this Charm can take even the most


savage and mindless stalkers and unlock the


latent intelligence within them. This Charm


permanently enhances the Solar’s ability to


train others, permitting him to use Harmonious


Academic Methodology to awaken


Dragon Kings to rational thought, raising their


Essence score to 2 as a Training effect.


This Charm may be used only to give


stalkers who possess one dot of Essence a


second dot. It cannot be used to give Dragon


Kings additional degrees of enlightenment.


Until the stalkers’ training is completed,


the Solar must confine them, since they are


savage and cunning beasts until they regain


their reason.
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It's pretty lame, especially for an Essence 4 charm, so it will probably need some tweaking.

Archie said:
It's all cool. The holidays in general are crazy, so no worries. Just in the future if something comes up just post that you are having issues, and I can make the necessary adjustments to the game.
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I'm usually really good about that, this time it just really got away from me. Once again, deepest apologies.


edit: completely caught up now, I will let others chime in on Archies' latest post before bringing Chain in.
 
Having major electrical issues, haven't had a window of a working system for a few days. Might not have this one for much longer.
 
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