BSS RPG -- Discussion & OOC

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but with a CON of 13 and STR of 14, her size is not much out of the ordinary

See, in BG or IWD such stats were pretty average but in pen and paper D&D the same numbers are more than decent. After all stats are only supposed to go up to 18 so with 14 you are above the average (which should be between 9 and 12 according to the 2nd edition rules which were used for the BG series).

What I'm trying to say is that there is nothing ordinary about a stat of 14 or 15 and any stat above is truly remarkable.

Thank you for the clarification. It's great to hear that; I wanted to write her fighting style as extremely vicious and brutal (you know, the HULK SMASH kind of way, albeit with more elegant exclamations - and, well, a more intelligent way of going about it) , and now I won't have to justify it with ferocity alone. Good to know!

I always had a problem with D&D stats because I think stats should have some fluctuation. I>E> Strength should improve as we adventure and IMO so should constitution. For instance Nakia is only about average in strenth and constitution but she is healthy.

Runa is a bard and bards are entertainers, influence people and I think their abilit to do so would increase as their skills improve therefore becoming more charismatic.

I am sure I am not sticking to the D*D rules about sorcerers. I did check out the 3rd edition spells and she does have quite a nice repertoire available for her to use. As a wild mage she also could develop some unique ones. Seems to me that a wild mage who didn't learn to control their magic wouldn't last long. Also my characters tend to create themselves just as Nakia the Rogue did in IWD II. Maybe my wild imagination affects my characters.

Just like us our characters have strengths and weaknesses Nakia wears her own mask that of being a fragile old woman, wants others to think of her as a witch or simple wizard. Only uses her stronger more advanced powers if necessary.

A game should be fun and some license I think should be allowed to the players. Gold Fang half Orcs need all the help they can get. Humans being the shortest lived humanoids in Faerum tend to pack a lot living into their lives and that includes suspicion of what is different. As for Nakia wild magic is dangerous to everyone around her if not controlled.

Nakia wrote:

I always had a problem with D&D stats because I think stats should have some fluctuation.

I agree, this is why I liked how NWN handled it. Every few levels one could increase a chosen stat by one point, and there were many more possibilities for multi-classing. I just found it a more realistic way of showing how a person's abilities were not set in stone.

That said, D&D rules seem to leave much room for interpretation, which is really fun .

Nakia wrote:

Maybe my wild imagination affects my characters.

And a good thing it does, as she is a very interesting character with hidden depths. All in all, I think it was a great idea to 'play by post' (that's the term for what we are doing, right? Google seems to say so ) ; it gives us all many more chances at characterization than pretty much any other method would.

Nakia wrote:

Gold Fang half Orcs need all the help they can get.

The Sorrows of Young Runa

Nakia is average looking nothing special about her except her hair. She is in good health and quite agile but trys to look more fragile than she is when around others. Her perfered clothing is homespun, woven by herself and she carries a staff ostensibly for walking but it is a weapon. Some runes have been carved into it and the tip has a dark stone embedded in it. As sorcerers cannot use piercing weapons for some reason she also has a sling and amo hidden in one of the pockets of her robe.

Her family were ordinary craftsmen. Her mother knew some simple alchemy, nothing magical but able to produce healthy potions. She was the oldest of four children and had one brother and two sisters. Had she been allowed to live a normal life she would have been a normal ordinary person. This was not allowed her and so begins her story.

Oops. Seems like I screwed up, natives of the Shadow Plane are Shadovar, not Netherese...

Oh well.

Worry not, you could always explain it in the backstory somehow. BTW, this morning I facepalmed at how I had Runa look for a piece of flint to start the fire. You know. A fourth-level bard with spells. In the illustrous company of two powerful mages. Must be all the low fantasy I was reading/writing.

As promised

Impressive and very vast. I knew this campaign had enormous potential from the day it began, but now it's getting more and more promising. All those golden blocks put me in mind of Kelermes and Kul Oba... I'll post some ideas when I get back, because apparently I'll have to be off for a few days (a week or so, not another four years - the sickness, fortunately, only occurs once). Just saying it here so that you guys know you don't have to wait for me to post if the tale grows .

Impressive indeed!

I prefer low fantasy, it makes magic feel more extraordinary and that's always a good thing.

I've been sitting on this one for a few days, and pretty much forgot about it, here's a look at Zarak's valley house which I mentioned. Not really relevent to the story per se, but just a fun build for me to do.

More green stuff, nice. It looks like a treehugger's wet dream... Well, except for the fire at the end.

Well, Zarak is a druid, he hates sunlight as well as humans, so a roofed forest away from humans is perfect. You're not the only paranoid recluse here, bro!

And the fire at the end represents what I would do to "civilization", given the opportunity. I almost wanted to edit this video and add the Testament song Apocalyptic City towards the end.

Those are great. My first thought is start with low level monsters and gradually work up to a boss monster.

Cara, what is low fantasy as opposed to high fantasy?

Nakia the Rogue wrote:

Cara, what is low fantasy as opposed to high fantasy?

In this context my understanding is that low fantasy is more realistic, more down to earth. You still have fantasy elements but you follow the logic of the real world more closely. According to this definition some good examples would be the Witcher or the Game of Thrones series.

In opposition high fantasy would have to do with myths and marvels that defy our understanding of how the real world works. There is a focus on magic and the supernatural and an epic and heroic dimension. It's larger than life. Heroes slay dragons and save the world. Most of the time things are rather clear cut in such a setting because if you're going to showcase the eternal fight between Good and Evil you don't want to leave too much room for moral ambiguity.

Many say that the Lord of the Rings is high fantasy because it takes place in another world but I don't like to make the distinction on this reason alone.

IMO the Lord of the Rings is both high and low and in fact it is the contrast between the two that make the story so engaging. The Lord of the Rings starts with the Shire and the Hobbits who live in a very British countryside in what could be defined as a very mundane setting and as the story progresses we get to experience high fantasy elements with the Elves and the tales of Valinor. I believe the dichotomy is perfectly expressed by the ambivalence of Strider/Aragorn, Strider is the subject of shady rumors and stories told by the common folk of Bree whereas Aragorn, like his forefather Beren, is a hero of legend and belongs to the myths of Middle-Earth.

I like the idea that it's a matter of perspective.

I'm sorry but I can't fucking stand LoTR. I watched the bloody movies and I even tortured myself reading the books. So BORING, SO OVERRATED!

I will let Mr. Randall Graves express my opinion on this overrated snoozefest

Interesting. Zarak I feel a bit like that about Shakespeare.

Cara, magic bores me. Although I enjoyed the Zanth series which was totally based on magic at least his earlier books. He was a punner which I found fun and he had a fairly good explanation for a world of magic. Another book series I like was about a country where magic could not be used. There were people who had psychic abilities though. I didn't care for the Game of Thrones story, the little I did read. Tried to watch the TV series and couldn't stand it.

Thanks for explaining.

I'm a big fan of Shakespeare AND of the Lord of the Rings.

The movies are incredibly bad and overrated by the way, they are very poor adaptations of the source material and they don't really work all that well purely as films but the books are simply incredible.

If you think they are boring it's fine but I can't let you say the novel is overrated because that's simply not true!

If anything most people don't show enough appreciation for the writing and all they can see is the story which is a real pity.

Also that video is funny but what about Star Wars? Star Wars is a comic book version of an epic, it's part melodrama, part western, part pseudo Eastern philosophy with a bit of Arthurian legends thrown in and the whole thing set in space with explosions making sound in a vacuum and lasers that go pew-pew.

Preferring Star Wars to the Lord of the Rings is simply acknowledging a blatant disregard for culture and good taste, it's like being invited to a fancy restaurant only to put your elbows on the table and start by picking your nose and using the wrong cutlery.

I may enjoy Star Wars but at the risk of sounding rather smug I have to say Star Wars is like burgers and fries, it's filling and easy but it simply doesn't nurture the soul.

Shakespeare is possibly the greatest playwright I can think of and as a Frenchman that's a difficult statement because we have our share of great French playwrights. The thing about Shakespeare is the incredible ability to defy any simple classification. His plays go always deeper than first expected and they always bring layers upon layers of ambiguity and complexity.

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Cara, magic bores me.

Which is exactly why in order to keep things interesting magic has to be mysterious and rare. Once you start explaining things away (just like the silly explanations relating to the Force in the new Star Wars trilogy with all the pseudo science talk of "midi-chlorians") these things lose all their magic and that's pretty embarrassing especially when talking about magic itself.

Bottom line and to get back to the topic at hand, I have to say that we should make sure that magic is kept interesting. If we look at the Lord of the Rings (sorry BZ) we have to face the fact that in the books there are only a few instances of characters using actual magic. The number of magic users is very limited.

Without taking it too far I think it would be a good idea to make sure magic remains both subtle and dangerous. Using it should come with a price especially if you start violating the laws of nature.

Don't assume I like Star Wars because I don't. I prefer Star Trek by a million country miles. I picked this video because Randall's recreating of LoTR was spot on and exactly how I felt reading through the ~1000 pages of this boring shite. Yeah, I suppose I can see your point about the writing style being good but having a good writing style doesn't mean jackshit when your story is hollow and boring. It's like covering a turd in ice cream sprinkles.

Even in book form it's still about a bunch of people walking to a fucking volcano yo get rid of a fucking ring. And I cannot take Sauron seriously after seeing it in the movies looking like a flaming vagina. I love vaginas but not when your main villain looks like one.

Fuck LoTR. And fuck Star Wars too.

Well Star Trek is pretty boring to me, guys in pajamas prancing around around the bridge of the Enterprise doing nothing but making faces and wearing make up get old pretty fast and don't get me started on the pointy eared guy at least the Vulcan in Enterprise was hot.

I can respect your opinion but calling the Lord of the Rings "shite" is pushing it. I did write my Master's thesis on the book (before the movies came out) and whether you like it or not it is a masterpiece.

So yes, one man's "boring shite" is another man's precious treasure if you take my meaning but please watch it with the language because I could probably give you a run for your money if we're getting into a fucking swearing contest.

That's your opinion, man. It's fine that you like it but don't try to force down my throat that it's a "masterpiece" because no, to me, it's not. I stand by my opinion that LoTR is a piece of shite whenever you like it or not.

But, back to the topic at hand, I will attempt to do the stone circle later tonight.

BlackZarak wrote:

That's your opinion, man. It's fine that you like it but don't try to force down my throat that it's a "masterpiece" because no, to me, it's not. I stand by my opinion that LoTR is a piece of shite whenever you like it or not.

I may not like Dickens but I wouldn't go around telling people that A Tale of Two Cities is a piece of shit and still expect to be taken seriously.

The Lord of the Rings is a great piece of literature and whether you like it or not one of the most influential novels of our time and if you can't appreciate it I guess that's your loss.

Calling it a "piece of shite" however shows that you don't know the first thing about literature and frankly you're only making a fool of yourself.

In any case I think that to keep mentioning feces in relation to literature is rather inappropriate and slightly offensive but after all considering I've majored in literature my opinion shouldn't come as a surprise to you.

Fine. Have it your way.

So. I have been thinking (seems a downright shame... ). How about changing how we've been going about this project a bit? Thing is, with the plot (a damn interesting one at that, methinks) unfolding only within Zarak's posts, the things the rest of us wrote were at a risk of becoming somewhat static - this tendency would probably get more and more visible within the story's progress: once everyone's bio and motivation has been presented, and it has been established that they become a team, internal dialogue becomes less interesting than it was before - and with only one person's posts furthering the plot, there is little left for others but dialogue and descriptions.

How about changing it? Perhaps we could discuss the plot here, decide on a final outline of it and who writes what, and go at it? Or would that be too formalized? It would change the project from RPG to a literary one, but maybe it's worth a try. Thoughts?

I miss you people's writing.

Yeah, I like your idea, my sexy demon. We could play off of each other, bounce ideas back and forth. If we can all come to terms on a plan, I am ok with that.

Do we start anew, or keep going what we have already written? Either is fine with me.