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Post by bustedcasuality on Jul 19, 2012 11:44:42 GMT -5
Hello. I recently found this website through a web-address on a piece of paper that was mysteriously dropped on the doorstep along with this thrice-dammned Capatachalog thingy. Before you ask, no, I didn't see anybody.
Anyway, to make everything clear. we have 9 players in out session. In two cases, (mine and my best friend's) our family's came into the game with us, while a third player (who I don't know personally) was playing in an empty college dorm, and has ended up alone. I don't know about the others, as they have not entered crazyland yet.
The "Sprite" as it's called, has alternated between providing useful information and shape-shifting into copies of whoever it talks to before clumsily attacking their insecurities. According to it, I am "The Witch of Fate", and from what I've been able to discern I'm plot important somehow. It also keeps telling me my family is doomed, then saying it's not, so I'm not certain how reliable it is.
Speaking of reliability and lack therof, my computer shows a huge conspiracy-theory style all over my friend's walls, and I know that's not the case having been there myself, so I'm not sure how reliable the interface is.
THe house is being swarmed by goblin-like enemies shrouded in yellow fog- If you've every played Persona 4, you know what I'm talking about. Anyway, just wanted a few pointers on what to do- the number of enemies here is starting to get tough to handle. One sec, some imp thing is trying to bash my head in with a chair. Will be back later, advice would be helpful.
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Post by tenaciousTheseus on Jul 19, 2012 12:30:32 GMT -5
Witches always prototype something they really should not have, I guess. The enemies take on qualities of whatever you throw in the kernelsprite before entry. So, yeah.
Anyways, start killing the imps and such. Once they die, their corpses will disappear and be replaced with grist. Pick that up. Get your server player to build upwards from your house to the first gate. Go through that, and the number of enemies will stop growing in your house, and you can start exploring your land.
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Post by bustedcasuality on Jul 20, 2012 13:38:00 GMT -5
Allright...We did ok. Two people's families didn't make it, but the rest did. I've found a copy Gods'sGiftToGrinds FAQ, and have been paging through it, and I've been explaining what I've learned to the others. Unfourtunately, it's incomplete andd I haven't had the time to go all the way through it yet. It's been rough, but the game at least gives us something to focus on. I've learned that everyone who isn't family is timeline doomed. I haven't told anyone else yet. I haven't decided if I should.
Anyway, more questions and information. I've gleaned from the FAQ that we, as players, are obligated to act in accordance with our role or face the consequences. Unfortunately, I can't find the segments of the FAQ that explain how we're supposed to act, or the consequences for not doing so. I've been trying to extrapolate based on our titles and aspects, but I don't have much to go on. What I do know are our roles, for the most part.
My Role: Witch of Fate, as confirmed by the local badgers. I've taken to wearing a black hat and have added a cauldron to my room to help play the role, but I don't know what else to do. Will my poor choice of prototyping help me here?
SyncophanticDragon: My Closest friend, and we've confirmed his role as the Knight of Light. He seems enthusastic- he's been screwing around trying to make a lightsaber when he hasn't kept RunningWizard company, but I'm worried. Also been bouncing around like gravity's been set to 1/2 strength, is this normal?
RunningWizard: From what I know, she's the Scout of Time. She's also one of the two players whose family didn't make it. She didn't come through entirely alone- It turns out there was a couple people alseep inthe dorms where she was playing- but I'm worried about the mental health of the people around her.
FireStarter: His title's the Bane of Doubt. Lost his younger sister. He's taking it ok, but his parent's aren't, if what RW has told me is true. He's claimed he's learned to give imps the "evil eye" and scare them. I think that this is one of the superpowers we're supposed to have. Is there a list of these we can access?
TheDude: Maid of Might. Won't shut up over being given a stupid title, and has been wielding his shovel against everything that looks hostile.. I think he may give people a bonus to saving his ass; his brother does spectacularly well whenever he's around, but becomes a lot less skilled otherwise.
CellularThorn: Her Role is the Thief of Space. Is also apparently a Japanese housewife, go figure. She lost her family in the meteor strikes, and has been claiming to hear the voice of her lost husband from time to time asking her to do things. I'm worried she may be losing it, but she seems functional for the moment.
MusicalMoon: The Grace of Something or other, I don't know what. Claims the lemurs on her planet freeze and start a song-and-dance routine whenever they're about to say her aspect. It's a pretty catchy song, but it's rather bizarre.
DistantDarkness: I think he's the Sage of Mist; other people also get the called the Sage of Mist, but inconsistently, and he get's called by every title under the sun, including Grace of the Glitchy Dance. Bizzare. Seems smart enough to take the role of Sage, but a bit arrogant and he's been acting weird lately. Currently working with MM.
QuietPlease: The Guide of Rage. Has been a great help getting people organized, although a bit of a lone wolf.
Most of the players are starting to figure out their powers- I'm one of the few that haven't, so if you've got any tips that would be great. A few non-players have figured out how to pull tricks as well. I can attest that older sisters do not grow any less irritating when they learn to walk on the ceiling. Although...are non-players supposed to be able to learn abilities?
My land is mostly underground definitely not obeying the normal rules of space; I can't go anywhere without risking getting horribly lost. I don't think this is a bug (my land being the land of Warrens and Space), but it's definitely irritating. Some help navigating this non-euclidean nightmare would be appreciated.
Lastly, any suggestions about how to gather or make food would be helpful- we've got a lot of mouth's to feed.
P.S: For no reason I can divine, I just jumped out of a window. I landed on an imp that was sneaking up on my Dad, so it turned out ok, but is there any reason why I just THOUGHTLESSLY JUMPED OUT OF A THIRD STORY WINDOW TO MY DOOM! It freaking hurt!
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Post by ExtropianDreamer on Jul 20, 2012 16:26:52 GMT -5
I've learned that everyone who isn't family is timeline doomed. I haven't told anyone else yet. I haven't decided if I should.
Family is doomed too, unless they're also playing. Having folks in a session who are neither doomed nor players is rather rare, and only crops up in highly unusual circumstances.
My Role: Witch of Fate, as confirmed by the local badgers. I've taken to wearing a black hat and have added a cauldron to my room to help play the role, but I don't know what else to do. Will my poor choice of prototyping help me here?
Stop worrying.
I shouldn't really be telling you this, but both your title and aspect are centred around not answering questions. Witches make things happen and never give straight answers, whilst Fate is about not thinking about things and trusting your instincts.
Basically, stop worrying about getting answers and just go with your gut.
SyncophanticDragon: My Closest friend, and we've confirmed his role as the Knight of Light. He seems enthusastic- he's been screwing around trying to make a lightsaber when he hasn't kept RunningWizard company, but I'm worried. Also been bouncing around like gravity's been set to 1/2 strength, is this normal?
Basically his role is to fight and be both incredibly lucky and clear-sighted. Pretty simple, actually.
The gravity thing is unusual.
RunningWizard: From what I know, she's the Scout of Time. She's also one of the two players whose family didn't make it. She didn't come through entirely alone- It turns out there was a couple people alseep inthe dorms where she was playing- but I'm worried about the mental health of the people around her.
Scouts run ahead and explore. Never double back or return to where you've been if you can help it.
Time is... Well, at least she's not gonna have to go through the trauma of watching her family die horribly like the rest of you are, eh? They have all the responsibility and none of the breaks. Extra hugs for your Time player, 'kay?
FireStarter: His title's the Bane of Doubt. Lost his younger sister. He's taking it ok, but his parent's aren't, if what RW has told me is true. He's claimed he's learned to give imps the "evil eye" and scare them. I think that this is one of the superpowers we're supposed to have. Is there a list of these we can access?
Not familiar with Doubt, but I'm currently a Bane myself. The title parses as "The Beast Brought Forth By [ASPECT]". You basically function as the ultimate guard dog, though there's quite a lot of wriggle room - Bane is one of the more flexible titles.
TheDude: Maid of Might. Won't shut up over being given a stupid title, and has been wielding his shovel against everything that looks hostile.. I think he may give people a bonus to saving his ass; his brother does spectacularly well whenever he's around, but becomes a lot less skilled otherwise.
Might is the Aspect of strength, and not just physically but emotionally and mentally as well. They've also got a whole lot of psybuffs and some water abilities ('Sup Broseidion, King of the Brocean).
Maids are all about being quiet and unobtrusive in the background, making sure that everything that needs to happen, does happen. Grease the wheels, turn out the lights, remember your co-player's medication for her, etc. They rely a lot on teamwork in combat and are very support-focused.
If his brother is the Knight or Bane, then they just get bonuses for fighting on another's behalf.
CellularThorn: Her Role is the Thief of Space. Is also apparently a Japanese housewife, go figure. She lost her family in the meteor strikes, and has been claiming to hear the voice of her lost husband from time to time asking her to do things. I'm worried she may be losing it, but she seems functional for the moment.
Thieves take enemy strengths and make them their own, based on their aspect. Not sure what a Thief of Space steals off the top of my head though.
The hearing voices thing could be an Exile. They're outside observers who can give you advice and commands.
MusicalMoon: The Grace of Something or other, I don't know what. Claims the lemurs on her planet freeze and start a song-and-dance routine whenever they're about to say her aspect. It's a pretty catchy song, but it's rather bizarre.
Graces are walking timebombs. At some point in your session, she's going to flip out and do something big and gamechanging - usually it's a bad thing, but sometimes it works out for the best. It's not her fault and she needs all the support she can get.
Sounds like either a Void or Rain Aspect - Rain is made of RAINBOWS/HEADACHES/CRAZY, and thus causes a lot of weird shit, while Void is just riddled with glitches. Alternatively, it could be another Aspect I've never heard of.
DistantDarkness: I think he's the Sage of Mist; other people also get the called the Sage of Mist, but inconsistently, and he get's called by every title under the sun, including Grace of the Glitchy Dance. Bizzare. Seems smart enough to take the role of Sage, but a bit arrogant and he's been acting weird lately. Currently working with MM.
Mist is another Aspect with a lot of glitches. It's the Aspect of being all of the things and all of the things being the same thing.
Sages are all about learning and knowing, similar to Seers, except they have to actually go out and learn things the hard way. With Mist as his thing, expect him to either focus obsessively on learning about one thing, or on learning about everything.
Mist also has a fair number of glitches that can affect your personality.
QuietPlease: The Guide of Rage. Has been a great help getting people organized, although a bit of a lone wolf.
Rage is about orders and authority, they basically get to yell things into submission, even game mechanics. Guides are pathfinders they run ahead and lead the way. A bit like a Scout, but more passive.
Most of the players are starting to figure out their powers- I'm one of the few that haven't, so if you've got any tips that would be great. A few non-players have figured out how to pull tricks as well. I can attest that older sisters do not grow any less irritating when they learn to walk on the ceiling. Although...are non-players supposed to be able to learn abilities?
No, non-players are NOT supposed to learn abilities. Something weird is going on in your session. Anyone who has is probably not doomed, which is good for you.
One possibility is that the folks who've manifested abilities are your Guardians - your older ecto-siblings/parents. They're basically reserve players who are never meant to play. Normally they don't get powers and are doomed to die, but something might have set them to actual player status somehow.
Some help navigating this non-euclidean nightmare would be appreciated.
Stop asking for help and trust your instincts.
As a Witch of Fate, this is basically the answer you will get for almost every question you ask, as well as the one you should give whenever anyone asks you anything.
Lastly, any suggestions about how to gather or make food would be helpful- we've got a lot of mouth's to feed.
Your Sprite's healing powers counts as food for you, as does absorbing the light from those glowing crystal things.
You can alchemise food, though it generally turns out pretty foul. There's a cooking guide with advice on getting decent tasting food out of an Alchemiter.
P.S: For no reason I can divine, I just jumped out of a window. I landed on an imp that was sneaking up on my Dad, so it turned out ok, but is there any reason why I just THOUGHTLESSLY JUMPED OUT OF A THIRD STORY WINDOW TO MY DOOM! It freaking hurt!
Yeah, that's basically what you're supposed to be doing. Stop questioning it and just let yourself do more stuff like that. A good Fate Aspect basically goes through their session on auto-pilot. |
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Post by stanzicApparati on Jul 20, 2012 19:13:22 GMT -5
Also, the guide isn't incomplete - it's just temporally disjointed. Basically, not all of it is available for you to read at the timestamp you're in right now. If you're having troubles with something that isn't available, just ask - faster than waiting for the right timestamp.
Re: your Time player - Scout is going to be tricky to do, because she's going to have to never backtrack. But timeloops and time travel are still a thing she'll have to do anyways. Never approaching the situation from the same way twice should help some, especially if she's got the Beat on her side.
Also, tell her to get [All The Time In The Medium] and [Time Heals All Wounds] up and running on herself soon as she has the ability as well as the pluck needed to get it running. They're pluck-intensive as hell to start, but they barely cost anything to keep running - which is good, because Time players need those to help keep us sane.
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Post by bustedcasuality on Jul 23, 2012 13:30:42 GMT -5
Thanks ED, SA. I've relayed what you've told me on classes to the other players. It went...about as well as could be expected. Our Grace is flipping out about being a incoming catastrophe when she's not dealing with her aspect- given her abilities, I'm pretty sure she's Void. Our Time Player on the other hand is dealing better- she got [Time Heals All Wounds], and it seems to be working wonders. Ironically, our Maid has been greatly cheered upon learning he wielded the Aspect of, as he put it, "Being a badass", although he's still an attention whore, which will cause problems in the future.
I can handle acting without thinking if I absolutely have to- the fact it'll actually work for me is a big help- but not explaining things...I'm not doing that. Enough problems are caused by not having enough information, and I'm not adding to that. Screw Sburb. If maturity quests are all they're cracked up to be, I can probably rely on them to change my mind for me.
Anyway, I've figured out a bunch of stuff. On a whim, I threw together a pair of glasses and a Dragonball Z into the alchemizer, and got a Scouter- it cost a crapload of grist, but dear lord was it worth it. The Scouter gives you basic readout of the targets stats, although it takes awhile to work. It can also identify in-use abilities and which aspect they belong to. The process is too slow to use in combat, but it should help in cataloging the abilities of the non-players. It's going to be awhile before we have enough grist to make one for everyone, but It's going to be invaluable. How do you guys check your own stats anyway? We haven't figured it out, aside from using the scouter on a reflection of yourself. Actually, don't answer that, I'll act like a spaz and see if I stumple upon the right method.
Oh, Our knight's bounciness turned out to be a result of "infusing" herself with Light in a particular manner to reduce her weight- says the ability's name is [As a Feather], and the Scouter agrees. No issues there.
I've also managed to work with DD (our Sage of Mist) to figure out a lot of the weirdness and unanswered questions about our session. He seems to be going the "I want to know it All!" route like you mentioned, Dreamer, and managed to find a more-complete version of the FAQ than I found. We managed to find some information on Doubt at this link- archiveofourown.org/works/433811?view_adult=true.
Doubt is the Aspect of fear, suspension, and uncertainty. The last part is similar to Void and Mist in that it relates to existence, and is thus fairly badly bugged. The biggest issue is that we think a couple of his stats ended up switching- our Sage think his Item Mastery stat has been switched with with something, as he's become an utter klutz when using items. Also, his "Chlicheomter" stat has stayed stock still since the game's conception, which implies an invisible stat is vacillating all over the place. Finally, Our Bane has also found that his "evil eye" ability, [Stare] doesn't turn off properly, so he's taken to wearing dark sunglasses at all times. Idiot keeps walking into things. Oddly enough, his stat's don't seem to be "averaged" like the should be.
Another thing I think I've figured out is the issue of non-players having abilities. Our sage is pretty sure it's not Ectobiological issues, as all the usual indicators of Ectobiology- like name-text color equivalence- are absent. Instead, it seems to be a function of my prototype choice, the video game Persona 4. In the game, the main characters try an Catch a Serial killer whose MO involves dumping people through TV screens into a bizzare world where the parts of themselves they refused to accept took physical form as a an yellow-eyed double (hereafter referred to as their "Shadow), and confronted them. If the poor sap denied the parts of himself he hated most, the double turned into a monster and tried to kill them. If they accepted that what their "Shadow" was indeed part of them, it became their "Persona", and granted them superpowers. Our Sage thinks that this sequence has done something with the...Revelawesome? Seriously? (Ugh)"Revelawesome" script due to the similarities between the two. Whenever a "boss" type enemy is defeated in a fight, everyone nearby and under the mental-attack affect of the yellow fog has a chance of being hit by a Revelawesome. However, the affect of the yellow fog doesn't discriminate, and apparently neither does the Revelawesome. Everyone- enemies, players, non-players- seems to be a valid target of the script. As a result, we're seeing abilities in a lot of places they shouldn't be; our friends and family can gain powers, but the monsters have sometimes pulled out tricks they probably shouldn't have had. We're even seeing abilities from Aspects not in our session.
Again, thanks for the help.
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Post by ExtropianDreamer on Jul 23, 2012 14:09:24 GMT -5
I can handle acting without thinking if I absolutely have to- the fact it'll actually work for me is a big help- but not explaining things...I'm not doing that. Enough problems are caused by not having enough information, and I'm not adding to that. Screw Sburb. If maturity quests are all they're cracked up to be, I can probably rely on them to change my mind for me.
Relying on maturity quests to teach you a lesson you could learn on your own is a bad idea. Sometimes the game likes to give you object lessons to accompany maturity quests, and like a lot of things in Sburb these lessons are frequently fatal for someone. With all those potentially doomed non-players running around, that could turn out very badly for you. Having a loved one die because you didn't play your role is one of it's favourite tricks.
An acceptable compromise would be to give any answers in the form of either a riddle, or a set of leading questions. It's more in character for your class and allows you to still communicate necessary information. Just don't make it too obvious or the game may decide to screw you over anyway. |
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Post by bustedcasuality on Jul 23, 2012 14:18:31 GMT -5
I can handle acting without thinking if I absolutely have to- the fact it'll actually work for me is a big help- but not explaining things...I'm not doing that. Enough problems are caused by not having enough information, and I'm not adding to that. Screw Sburb. If maturity quests are all they're cracked up to be, I can probably rely on them to change my mind for me.
Relying on maturity quests to teach you a lesson you could learn on your own is a bad idea. Sometimes the game likes to give you object lessons to accompany maturity quests, and like a lot of things in Sburb these lessons are frequently fatal for someone. With all those potentially doomed non-players running around, that could turn out very badly for you. Having a loved one die because you didn't play your role is one of it's favourite tricks.
An acceptable compromise would be to give any answers in the form of either a riddle, or a set of leading questions. It's more in character for your class and allows you to still communicate necessary information. Just don't make it too obvious or the game may decide to screw you over anyway. |
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Post by ExtropianDreamer on Jul 23, 2012 15:52:02 GMT -5
...This game is a jackass. |
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Post by stanzicApparati on Jul 23, 2012 20:59:51 GMT -5
...This game is a jackass. |
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Post by tungstenTinkerer on Jul 26, 2012 4:52:59 GMT -5
Some enemies having player abilities, depending on your prototyping, is normal. It's why you get counterspells in the first place. No, that stuff is not for killing each other. Surprising, uh?
At least one consort per land having player abilities is also normal. He's called the Secret Consort, he wears a ridiculous object that used to belong to you, and I am using mine as a second vocalist.
That said, if that is the issue you are having you need to be careful about who gets the revelawesome. Be sure to clear the area of everyone but possibly your current UU. Alternatevily, be sure the Pirate Consort gets all the revelawesomes, strap him to a nuke, and launch him towards the BK.
As a native Sage of Mist, I can anticipate that your friend's path risks being a little overwhelming, if rewarding. There's a point of your quest towards late midgame where you tend to have much more synergy with your whispering than you can actually control - it's a common thing. At that point your friend will feel a lot like the Haze wass force-feeding his brain knowledge about everything at the same time.
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