FFRP Central: All players start here!

[Deathkeeper]

For the record you could just go to the PBP games section and do an open recruitment for a free-form fantasy game.

[Lord Raziere]

For the record you could just go to the PBP games section and do an open recruitment for a free-form fantasy game.

Maybe. I've been stung a lot by games from there dying like mayflies through.

@Shadowcaller:
Perhaps it would just be best for me to GM the adventures I want and include the character I want to play in them. That generally seems to be how it works out. think I should just create a thread for the adventure stuff so at least its all in one place or no?

@ Iceseer:
well its not a forum people often go to, its a subforum of homebrew, and for some reason people like discussing mechanics more than the world that they're supposed to emulate. Which I don't really get, but I'm not very interested in abstract stuff like mechanical discussions anyways.

[Shadowcaller]

@Shadowcaller:
Perhaps it would just be best for me to GM the adventures I want and include the character I want to play in them. That generally seems to be how it works out. think I should just create a thread for the adventure stuff so at least its all in one place or no?

That's actually the idea with the thread called serious plots, it is supposed to be plots rather than just ordinary life stuff. There was also a thread called silly plots, which as also be for plots, but of a different nature.

It would be possible to make a "adventure thread" for the nexus, just for characters looking for adventures.

[Deathkeeper]

I honestly think that the situation is being obfuscated here.

We have an OOC thread where we as players communicate. Raziere, you almost never use it. You could have just posted there asking for a plot before you go accusing us of having nothing to do.
We have like, four different plot threads already. If you want an adventure literally all you have to do is post in Trog's or Inside and make an OOC post asking for a plot (and then wait for someone to think of something).
The only thing having a dedicated adventure plots thread will do is be redundant.

[King539]

*Perks up.* Fantasy? Free-form? Colour me interested!

[Lord Raziere]

@ Deathkeeper:
oh. thanks. Sorry

@King:
Again, fantasy is an incredibly general label. almost as general as Nexus itself. its covers so much. and we have room to do a lot with freeform. we might want to talk this out. though I do have a backlog of fantasy ideas that I want to try out, (including an entire setting devoted to magitech and another devoted to ridiculously high power levels I created myself but neither of those are general fantasy given what I was going for) its probably best to make sure we're all on the same page, since one of us could be wanting something like Final Fantasy while the other is thinking something like A Song of Ice and Fire, while a third is thinking something completely else.

[Iceseer]

Honestly i am interested in a ton of different types of fantasy. The chances of you not having me be interested is really low. With it being freeform and all.

[KerfuffleMach2]

I'm usually in the same boat as Iceseer. I'm up for trying any setting. I might expect a certain kind of fantasy, but I'm willing to give them all a shot.

[Lord Raziere]

Ok, cool, thats great but, should pick one fantasy and genre stick with it? mix them a little? keep it open so that we can add what we want as we go along?

am I just overthinking this and should we just figure this out when we make a thread and start submitting characters?

because I've got numerous ideas and not all of them might fit. if your not going to be specific about any of this, I'll just start throwing out ideas and seeing what sticks.

[Celticbear]

Ok, cool, thats great but, should pick one fantasy and genre stick with it? mix them a little? keep it open so that we can add what we want as we go along?

am I just overthinking this and should we just figure this out when we make a thread and start submitting characters?

because I've got numerous ideas and not all of them might fit. if your not going to be specific about any of this, I'll just start throwing out ideas and seeing what sticks.

Isn't that what I said a while ago?

In any case, I think we should keep things fluid. It'll start off as "Generic Fantasy World", but it will get more intricate as we go along.

[Shadowcaller]

Isn't that what I said a while ago?

In any case, I think we should keep things fluid. It'll start off as "Generic Fantasy World", but it will get more intricate as we go along.

Generic, meaning D&D based? That's kinda funny since that's exactly how the nexus started out, with a bunch of mostly D&D based characters, heck if you look at older directory posts, you can see that they indicate things like alignment, class, etc.
My point is, if you don't have anything established, making the setting generic, you're going to end up with another nexus.

[Lord Raziere]

Hm, no, I'm against the fantasy being DnD. we should at least have a few ground rules to make sure that its fantasy but has a few differences from DnD:
-no DnD morality (as in no inherently evil races, orcs aren't all evil, no alignments that sort of thing, but still having good vs evil just not to DnD's degree)
-No god wizards (magic should be mysterious, and not exploitable to the point where you can make tippyverse and casters who can prepare for anything, and especially no vancian casting)

like those are at the very minimum the things I do not want, because DnD has already has those. if its freeform, we should at least be going in a different direction, because DnD already has a big system for it, you want to play DnD you can go play that anywhere, a freeform game there are far more possibilities open and I want to explore different ones rather than retreading DnD's grounds, ok? its freeform, we can do better and more different than just DnD but with no mechanics. I have tons of ideas, but DnD is explicitly none of them, I'd honestly just rather play World of Warcraft freeform because at least then the morality is less stupid and you can play Horde.

[igordragonian]

Lately I read Brandson work.
I think it could be good inspiration-
medival-ish+ society, mysteriouse wierd super powers(which coming from eating metal in one world, or from consuming light from storm in another).
Morality is unclear... at all. At some point the main character finding hmself going through the same path, that his villian taken becauae reality is too complicated for his ideals.
cultures are very diffrent, inhumans are more than humans in cosplay- their way of thought and even biology is alien.


Just tossing the idea here.

[Iceseer]

There is Xanth a world where everyone has a talent that is practically random. The world is well established and races have different things about them. but they are more like humans with a uniform gift.

Do you want the magic to be freely available or to have a cost? Able to cast at will or limited?

Really i am good with any fantasy. Including the person above me's suggestion.

So what are your suggestions

[Lord Raziere]

ok, first I'm going to leave out Omnigalaxia and Shattered Rassiteh since both of those settings I think will just turn out like Nexus, now that I go back to look at them.

So I'm going to be sharing my incoherent half-formed ideas for various fantasy things that I only kind of sort of developed and don't really form a complete setting on their own:

Spoiler: ideas

Show

-beast knights that the ability to transform into a mythical beast partially or fully depending on the situation, drawing upon primal magic to do so, while powerful to fight off threats to civilization, civilization itself hates them for being beasts in humanoid skin.

-orcs are not evil, just a race of beings that evolved in the most harshest possible environments in the world, being incredibly resistant to disease and poison, possessing regeneration, super strength and being 8 ft tall. They actually have two ways to reproduce: either the normal reproductive methods or by implanting the corpses of their fallen foes with parasites that feed upon the corpse to grow into a new orc, and thus reproduce through both love and war. They constantly fight monsters for survival. However it is rare to see an orc wield anything more complex than a club or their own fists, this doesn't mean they're stupid but given their strength and greater physique its harder to design armor and weapons for them, but orcs don't really need such most of the time given their power.

-go real old school with elves and dwarves, cold iron weakness, salt and needing to tell the truth when asked three times, the whole works to make them Fae/Fair Folk with mystical Fae powers and such rather than just another kind of human. the normal kinds of these you might be used to are the half-elves and half-dwarves, and even then have Fae themes to them due to their half heritage, that and Changelings of course.

-I'm thinking Heaven should be a single city in the Spiritual Realms, this city has incredibly high standards and you need to be at minimum a saint to get in, no not just Good, a SAINT AT MINIMUM. to the point where a vast majority of people have been turned away by angels to go live their afterlives in other places of the Spiritual Realms with their own problems and spirits and strange rules, with the afterlife being a strange adventure all of its own

-religions like a goddess of love who smiles on couples of all types and pairings no matter their orientation and her servants are good versions of succubi who are kind and caring to all. another is a god of shadows who preaches freedom and independence and thus their followers are constantly persecuted by other religions and kings for being a threat to the status quo, only one religion of light aiming to get into Heaven, animist and polytheist religions that are NOT henotheist and so on....

-I'd say mages learn one school of magic at maximum. pyromancers wield fire, illusionists use illusions, truth mages wield truth magic, alchemists use alchemy, enchanters make magic items, and so on so forth- one mage one magic. you have to pick one magical thing to do, stick with it and use it creatively, whatever it is specialize and make the best of it. that specialization can be whatever you want, as long as its an actual specialization and the possibilities are many and varied. also magic isn't inherently tied to scholarly pursuits, its more a thing of a thing of spirit than knowledge, through scholars do study magic to try and figure it out but they are far from the only people who use it, and a magic-using warrior is more likely to be better at fighting with magic than a person who just uses pure magic. and of course cast at will

-at the same time pure fighters can train them selves to great heights of strength and fighting skill beyond real life capabilities, wield massive weapons and weird weapons as well as heavy armor made of metals that most people can't even walk in. they are not inherently worse than a magic users, which are more limited than god-wizards.

-shadowfolk who dwell in a world of shadow, not evil, and burn to death when exposed to sunlight, look like silhouettes with eyes and can reshape themselves to whatever form they want as long are not within sunlight. they can shield themselves from the sun by wearing covering up clothes or armor or hiding inside a building, or within the shadow of something else.

-hybrids in general should have some measure of significance beyond appearance, offering weaknesses and strengths they don't normally have and the results should be more mystical and supernatural than genetic.

-demons are still inherently evil but there are no succubi among them, with a focus on them being incredibly varied as non-guilty enemies to fight.

-that said, these are all just my ideas, any character concept you want to play as weird as you want as long as its within reasonable levels power would be allowed. at least one of my character concepts (a succubus spy from heaven) that I actually want to play goes against some of these setting ideas, but I have other potential roleplays for that. and of course, these are just suggestions and you can take them or leave them, and we can just work something out from there.

the only real set in stone things are no alignment and no god-wizards/vancian casting for me. all these are just possible ideas, though I want some of them more than others and I'm sure I can find some way of including them somehow in some manner if not the main way.

[Iceseer]

i like them. Though a question is there an official thieves guild and if so what are they like?

[King539]

ok, first I'm going to leave out Omnigalaxia and Shattered Rassiteh since both of those settings I think will just turn out like Nexus, now that I go back to look at them.

So I'm going to be sharing my incoherent half-formed ideas for various fantasy things that I only kind of sort of developed and don't really form a complete setting on their own:

Spoiler: ideas

Show

-beast knights that the ability to transform into a mythical beast partially or fully depending on the situation, drawing upon primal magic to do so, while powerful to fight off threats to civilization, civilization itself hates them for being beasts in humanoid skin.

-orcs are not evil, just a race of beings that evolved in the most harshest possible environments in the world, being incredibly resistant to disease and poison, possessing regeneration, super strength and being 8 ft tall. They actually have two ways to reproduce: either the normal reproductive methods or by implanting the corpses of their fallen foes with parasites that feed upon the corpse to grow into a new orc, and thus reproduce through both love and war. They constantly fight monsters for survival. However it is rare to see an orc wield anything more complex than a club or their own fists, this doesn't mean they're stupid but given their strength and greater physique its harder to design armor and weapons for them, but orcs don't really need such most of the time given their power.

-go real old school with elves and dwarves, cold iron weakness, salt and needing to tell the truth when asked three times, the whole works to make them Fae/Fair Folk with mystical Fae powers and such rather than just another kind of human. the normal kinds of these you might be used to are the half-elves and half-dwarves, and even then have Fae themes to them due to their half heritage, that and Changelings of course.

-I'm thinking Heaven should be a single city in the Spiritual Realms, this city has incredibly high standards and you need to be at minimum a saint to get in, no not just Good, a SAINT AT MINIMUM. to the point where a vast majority of people have been turned away by angels to go live their afterlives in other places of the Spiritual Realms with their own problems and spirits and strange rules, with the afterlife being a strange adventure all of its own

-religions like a goddess of love who smiles on couples of all types and pairings no matter their orientation and her servants are good versions of succubi who are kind and caring to all. another is a god of shadows who preaches freedom and independence and thus their followers are constantly persecuted by other religions and kings for being a threat to the status quo, only one religion of light aiming to get into Heaven, animist and polytheist religions that are NOT henotheist and so on....

-I'd say mages learn one school of magic at maximum. pyromancers wield fire, illusionists use illusions, truth mages wield truth magic, alchemists use alchemy, enchanters make magic items, and so on so forth- one mage one magic. you have to pick one magical thing to do, stick with it and use it creatively, whatever it is specialize and make the best of it. that specialization can be whatever you want, as long as its an actual specialization and the possibilities are many and varied. also magic isn't inherently tied to scholarly pursuits, its more a thing of a thing of spirit than knowledge, through scholars do study magic to try and figure it out but they are far from the only people who use it, and a magic-using warrior is more likely to be better at fighting with magic than a person who just uses pure magic. and of course cast at will

-at the same time pure fighters can train them selves to great heights of strength and fighting skill beyond real life capabilities, wield massive weapons and weird weapons as well as heavy armor made of metals that most people can't even walk in. they are not inherently worse than a magic users, which are more limited than god-wizards.

-shadowfolk who dwell in a world of shadow, not evil, and burn to death when exposed to sunlight, look like silhouettes with eyes and can reshape themselves to whatever form they want as long are not within sunlight. they can shield themselves from the sun by wearing covering up clothes or armor or hiding inside a building, or within the shadow of something else.

-hybrids in general should have some measure of significance beyond appearance, offering weaknesses and strengths they don't normally have and the results should be more mystical and supernatural than genetic.

-demons are still inherently evil but there are no succubi among them, with a focus on them being incredibly varied as non-guilty enemies to fight.

-that said, these are all just my ideas, any character concept you want to play as weird as you want as long as its within reasonable levels power would be allowed. at least one of my character concepts (a succubus spy from heaven) that I actually want to play goes against some of these setting ideas, but I have other potential roleplays for that. and of course, these are just suggestions and you can take them or leave them, and we can just work something out from there.

the only real set in stone things are no alignment and no god-wizards/vancian casting for me. all these are just possible ideas, though I want some of them more than others and I'm sure I can find some way of including them somehow in some manner if not the main way.

Woah. That...That's awesome. Thinking a spell caster of some sort. Or a beast knight. Or an orc. Or a dwarf. Far too many awesome options.

[Celticbear]

Alright, I love this world. It is almost EXACTLY what I wanted to see when I asked the question that if there was a fantasy world.

Thinking about digging up one of my old FATE characters, Harold Philips, who wielded Shadow magic. He was pretty much evil in all but name, but he treated his "High priest to the dark god" thing as just a job.

[Lord Raziere]

i like them. Though a question is there an official thieves guild and if so what are they like?

......Thieves Guild......hm...tricky.
the problem with thieves is that they're low-powered and thus kind of rubbish against super-powerful warriors, magical wizards, dragons, angels, demons and everything else in the entire freaking universe. So how do we fix that? How does your cynical leather-wearing rogue with a knife compete with all these supernatural stuff that would normally kill them six ways to sunday? well first they probably have to be smart, knives are for slitting throats of humans just as fragile you, bows are for sniping magical and powerful things from afar, with special arrows designed to pierce their magical defenses, and a thieves guild is probably just as magically varied as anywhere else, its just that the methods of using magic are different: a thief with fire magic has probably learned a spell to to make fire leap out of a candle without anyone being able to tell the rogue did it for assassinations and distractions, they can probably turn to smoke to pass through cracks and bars. that and there are probably multiple thieves guilds but not all with the same name and the same methods competing against each other, with the Thieves Guild itself being a general most mercantile thing accepting any advantage and method, a religious one that probably worships a god that allows them powers like turning invisible making objects they want to steal float over to them, night vision and so on, a third that might be more a mafia of werewolves or something, and no one just doesn't want to mess of a mafia of werewolves, and I can see vampires being a known thieves guild as well but I can also see them being the nobles of a particular kingdom who use their vampiric powers to defend against even greater monsters while sucking blood as a tax, perhaps the vampire thieves guild is connected to the kingdom? of course some vampires are just dirty bandits on the road with a few zombies in their control shaking people down for blood rather than money.

various things like that, what do you think?

[Deathkeeper]

......Thieves Guild......hm...tricky.
the problem with thieves is that they're low-powered and thus kind of rubbish against super-powerful warriors, magical wizards, dragons, angels, demons and everything else in the entire freaking universe. So how do we fix that? How does your cynical leather-wearing rogue with a knife compete with all these supernatural stuff that would normally kill them six ways to sunday? well first they probably have to be smart, knives are for slitting throats of humans just as fragile you, bows are for sniping magical and powerful things from afar, with special arrows designed to pierce their magical defenses, and a thieves guild is probably just as magically varied as anywhere else, its just that the methods of using magic are different: a thief with fire magic has probably learned a spell to to make fire leap out of a candle without anyone being able to tell the rogue did it for assassinations and distractions, they can probably turn to smoke to pass through cracks and bars. that and there are probably multiple thieves guilds but not all with the same name and the same methods competing against each other, with the Thieves Guild itself being a general most mercantile thing accepting any advantage and method, a religious one that probably worships a god that allows them powers like turning invisible making objects they want to steal float over to them, night vision and so on, a third that might be more a mafia of werewolves or something, and no one just doesn't want to mess of a mafia of werewolves, and I can see vampires being a known thieves guild as well but I can also see them being the nobles of a particular kingdom who use their vampiric powers to defend against even greater monsters while sucking blood as a tax, perhaps the vampire thieves guild is connected to the kingdom? of course some vampires are just dirty bandits on the road with a few zombies in their control shaking people down for blood rather than money.

various things like that, what do you think?

Uh, you're kind of assuming a lot here. In games, books, and shows, other than DnD thieves can do plenty. Elder Scrolls, for example.

[Iceseer]

I mean i really like it. It had a lot of thought put into it. And makes want to go the thief route.

[Lord Raziere]

Uh, you're kind of assuming a lot here. In games, books, and shows, other than DnD thieves can do plenty. Elder Scrolls, for example.

I'm not looking at it that way, I'm looking at from a logical perspective a "what if these thieves actually existed along side them" then drawing upon sources to fix that. in fact the religious thieves guild is pretty much inspired by the Skyrim thieves guild and the Dark Brotherhood of Skyrim. I could draw upon other sources of inspiration if need be, and create more if you want. maybe thieves so good they can steal supernatural powers and somehow put them in containers to switch around later because you have to be careful how the magical powers you have within you for some reason, or perhaps they can use Infinite Dagger Works and make their dagger super-strong, or pickpocket thoughts from peoples minds and literally steal ideas. or they just have luck magic, thats always flexible. tons of ways to be an awesome thief and if you want to demonstrate a way for one to be awesome, go ahead and make a character about it or your own setting elements demonstrating how, I don't mind.

[Deathkeeper]

You're still kind of stuck in the same bubble though.

A thief can use things other than daggers. A thief can do lots of things, include wear armor. You're needlessly restricting a concept based on tropes.
Also, you realize that if you want to make it so that people can play whatever concept you want, you could just tone down the power level of players and enemies so they DON'T instantly obliterate people without overpowered defenses?

[Lord Raziere]

You're still kind of stuck in the same bubble though.

A thief can use things other than daggers. A thief can do lots of things, include wear armor. You're needlessly restricting a concept based on tropes.
Also, you realize that if you want to make it so that people can play whatever concept you want, you could just tone down the power level of players and enemies so they DON'T instantly obliterate people without overpowered defenses?

whoa don't be salty now. all character concepts are welcome, I'm just a high-power player myself. I can't play low power, I get bored. and no I'm not needlessly restricting them, go ahead wear armor, use crossbows, spears and so on I'm not saying thats all you can do, those are just my ideas dude, they're not meant to be final draft or the only word on the subject, so thank you for pointing that out, whatever. that and I assumed that fighters would include both criminal and law abiding ones, no ones saying the super-strong guy in plate armor is following the law, in fact the super-strong guy in plate is probably likely to corrupted by the power of being stronger, better at fighting than everyone around them and probably abuse that power by using force to get their way.

[Deathkeeper]

I'm not salty since I'm not playing? I'm just saying that your initial post of "how can we make a thief that isn't 'rubbish' against anything in the universe " comes off as you plan on having the power level be super high. And also really dismissive in general.

[Lord Raziere]

I'm not salty since I'm not playing? I'm just saying that your initial post of "how can we make a thief that isn't 'rubbish' against anything in the universe " comes off as you plan on having the power level be super high. And also really dismissive in general.

Well then why do you care, if your not playing? it doesn't concern you, and I'm pretty sure we can work out a way for everyone to play the characters they want within reason. again, none of my ideas are final draft these are just suggestions. that we can discuss and modify and improve upon so that its a setting that we can all enjoy. granted no one but you is speaking out and trying to work to modify them and I am incorporating the points you point out here and there, but nevertheless. the floor is free.

that and there is already a bunch of fantasies that take the low power route, I'm not really interested in them, maybe others are and we can work something out. I don't know.

Edit: maybe there could be a low powered, low fantasy continent on the other side of an ocean where there is less magic and thus anyone who goes there becomes less powered? I don't know, I wouldn't be going to such a continent in the first place, it would give people who actually care about that an area to do that stuff without me interfering because I like my cool powers and don't really care for or are interested in low fantasy.

[igordragonian]

well, there could awesome sneaky characters, with shadow walk and other stuff... right?

[Lord Raziere]

well, there could awesome sneaky characters, with shadow walk and other stuff... right?

No one is saying there can't be if you want that. I'm just throwing out options to consider.

[Celticbear]

Something else to consider: undeath.

[Lord Raziere]

Something else to consider: undeath.

you mean like in general? well apart of me me is like "maybe make necromancy not inherently evil" but another is like "at the same time there many zombies designs that can be guilt-free kills if people want a villain to fight". I dunno, perhaps undead are like just corpse robots people use, some use them as convenient replacement for slave labor and some people send hordes of poorly designed zombies, some lord design high quality undead bodyguards or soldiers for their army, some take the corpse of a genius and make special rituals to create a super-genius spirit within that corpse to try and calculate big numbers or something and oh no why is this undead super spirit rebelling against you and how are they figuring out all this magic so quickly aaaaaaah this magic ritual went horribly wrooooong.

and some might just be frankensteins monster who some guy made with feelings and an actual sapient mind for some reason trying to figure out its existence straight of Promethean: the Created.

so.

perhaps its all just down to how you design them. perhaps some necromancers do the limb replacement thing and your a necrorg if you lose an arm, instead of a cyborg. as for ghosts, they generally just stick around for probably the usual reasons and I don't see any reason fix what ain't broke about ghosts. their reasons for being ghosts and what they do seems pretty obvious.

but of course, people are superstitious and wary of the dangers of anyone wielding magic, so just because something is useful doesn't mean people accept necromancers giving them new arms. that and any magic is dangerous in the wrong hands. thats just the nature of power. too widespread and it becomes sci-fi y'know?

point is, I think necromancy even if its not inherently evil, should still be dangerous and potentially lead to someone using it in evil ways. like all magic. there have probably been wars around where undead troops were just unleashed on the battlefield and never really stopped marching around and attacking people. just like how there are probably pyromancers leading packs of bandits to get any loot they want, or former knights enhanced by enchantments now turned bandit because the war they were fighting is over and that is all they know. common people have good reason to hold onto their cold iron and silver weapons. fantasy is dangerous! medieval society is dangerous without needing outside threats, because medieval society is actually pretty fragile at best and pretty chaotic and unstable at all other times. and fantasy is giving medieval society magical stuff that screw up the balance of power something fierce. and so on and so forth

.....but again, if you don't want this, you don't have to take my idea for it. sorry if I'm seem to get carried away.