[DragonsITP] Dragons, Dragons Everywhere! Redux OOC

[Dorizzit]

Not much to say, but I've been lurking for a bit and completely agree with Rater202.

[Grif]

I still don't like that sheet-there shouldn't be a reputation section at all and Numerical values for stats just feels wrong-Especially since we don't have a scale[-What exactly is Average for a dragon, anyway? And average how? is 30 the absolute maximum or is it just exceptional.

And do physical attributes scale with the size of a dragon or are we expected to adjust accordingly?

I still think a that either we use a letter scale system to keep things more general-E D C B A S, maybe? or just have people describe their physical attributes in an ability section in the sheet?

Speaking of which, only having a section on attacks and a breath weapon is kind of unfair-there are stories of dragons with magical powers or abilities other than breath weapons and natural weapons-really there should just be an "abilities" section that we fill in on our own.

And I still don't think we need a reputation system at all-that should be pure roleplay, putting numbers on it just gets people upset when people ignore it.

And whose the storyteller? This is freeform, there is no storyteller in freeform.

If I may?

Spoiler: Alternate sheet

Show

Description
Name:
Sex/Gender:
Dragon type-Body Type and/or Species or subspecies of dragon

Spoiler: Psychical description

Show

What you look like, in Detail, including head shape, wings if present, size, number of limbs, scale or other hide color, and other specific details on your dragon.

Spoiler: Personality and history

Show

Who you are and where you come from.

Spoiler: Abilities

Show

Describe your dragon-How strong are they? Do they have breath weapon? Can the fly? If so, how? Do they have magical powers or unique abilities? Are they poisonous? Be specific as possible, if you're a big dragon who can lift several tons, describe how many tons they can lift, and how long they cans support it. If they have natural weapons, give at least a general idea of how sharp the fangs or claws or horns are. How tough are your scales ad bones compared to, say, a human's body?

Excellent questions. One at a time.

First off. My views on a letter system. They never work. They never did in a previous RP where we used them, and they never worked in any of the free form I joined that used them subsequently. People either stick to them too rigidly, or just flat-out ignored it. Here, I'm trying to experiment, see if we can get a useful system. If your concern is that people will get upset, then they'll do so regardless a numerical or letter system is used. As what is average for a dragon, now that's a stickler, isn't it? I have no real baseline for a dragon's power here, them being fantasy creatures and all, so you got me there.

On stats, assuming we use them, yes, attributes are supposed to scale with size. They are supposed to give you an idea how strong your dragon are. Of course, only strength and toughness(?) are really only scaled with size, so that's not really a problem in my book. (Agility should scale inversely, actually.)

Agree on the "Attacks" section. That should have read as "Abilities" instead.

On reputation system. They are not meant to be binding and serve only as a guide for the start of the RP, when you'd be primarily interacting with the world first, or just with each other. I figure it is a convenient way to convey just how well-liked/disliked you are. I'm fine with dropping it if other thinks they're superfluous, however. I have no real stake in that.

On story-teller, this might be presumptuous of me, but I believe that a completely pure free-form does not work here. Not especially when we aren't borrowing from another media's setting that we could have used as a base, and essentially making up the world as we go. The chances for early player conflicts and such grows exponentially on such a patchwork setting. Especially when everyone has very different ideas on what dragons should be, what powers they should have, what the world of dragons should be. As such, I already made up a world (which I hope wouldn't go to waste, though that's a real possibility ) to start it off, and to minimise disruptions and make sure we're all on the same page, I'll be sort of playing the role of story-teller to ease everyone into it. With luck, and time, I can ease off and let you guys do your own things, and you guys can be story-tellers in turn if you so wish. (By story-teller here, I mean set the setting, and play the important NPCs like rulers of kingdoms, maybe NPC dragons, etc.)

Did I miss out anything? Oh, bear in mind everything is still Alpha^TM, so really feel free to poke holes into anything you like. Nothing's set in stone as of yet.

[Artemis97]

As a veteran FFRPer, let me put my 2cp in here. Every stats system anyone has tried to put in place, I have completely ignored and have never run into any trouble for it. My nexus characters, usually based in DnD, are statted out to epic levels, but they are able to be beaten. The trick is to work with those you're RPing with, and scale your character to the situation. In a fist fight with a level one commoner? Maybe don't become One Punch Man in that scene. It's overpowered and uninteresting and most of all it's not FUN. That's the key to it, ask yourself, is everyone having fun?


So... yeah... make and use stats if you want, but I'll probably be ignoring them. I don't like crunchy bits in my FFRP. I'll write them down and will forget about them entirely. I feel like it'll end up with someone going "Well, I have a 13 and you only have 12, so I should win." Campiun?

[Chord]

Just for the record, I'm interested in this thread

What exactly is Average for a dragon, anyway?

That depends, how they are sopossed to fit, if this is to be placed in the high fantasy setting where dragons are sleeping the whole time, till the very unfortunate day where the poor lizard wakes up to a party trying to slay him or steal his well earned hoard, then the dragon is expected to be stronger than the individuals in that party. The party will just take him down with the power of friendship in some turns. Yeah.

Also dragons are usually portrayed as being virtually immortal, (except when they happen to be the final boss of a dungeon) this mean that they are just really oblivious and are fine being lazy greedy slobs for most part of their boringly long lives, or there is something else to it, like weird maygicks that keep them from wreaking havoc everywhere.

In contrast I envision them as the perfect aristocratic class in an advanced society, think about it, they are big, they are strong, they are intelligent, and have a long lifespan, if they didn't act as detached as they do in most media, each of them could be ruling his own mega corporation. Acting for the best interest of an entire civilization or creating a state of total slavery. At least they sometimes have kobold minions, kobolds are neat I guess.

Maybe the solution about the abilities issue is to add magical disciplines as something dragons can become good at? If each dragon has dominion over some crafts instead of just "elemental breath" then for example a dragon could have psyonic powers and be an alchemist or such. Or that in adition to the elemental breath thing, I don't know.

[Rater202]

First off. My views on a letter system. They never work. They never did in a previous RP where we used them, and they never worked in any of the free form I joined that used them subsequently. People either stick to them too rigidly, or just flat-out ignored it. Here, I'm trying to experiment, see if we can get a useful system. If your concern is that people will get upset, then they'll do so regardless a numerical or letter system is used. As what is average for a dragon, now that's a stickler, isn't it? I have no real baseline for a dragon's power here, them being fantasy creatures and all, so you got me there.

Okay, how about instead of using stats or a letter system, we just say exactly what our characters are capable of in the abilities section?

I kind of also suggested that.

Did I miss out anything?

What about my alternate sheat?

As a veteran FFRPer, let me put my 2cp in here. Every stats system anyone has tried to put in place, I have completely ignored and have never run into any trouble for it. My nexus characters, usually based in DnD, are statted out to epic levels, but they are able to be beaten. The trick is to work with those you're RPing with, and scale your character to the situation. In a fist fight with a level one commoner? Maybe don't become One Punch Man in that scene. It's overpowered and uninteresting and most of all it's not FUN. That's the key to it, ask yourself, is everyone having fun?

Problem-you have to define what your character is capable of, otherwise you can have no growth of abillity and it becomes much, much harder to come to an agreement over who wins if their's a conflict between two characters.

Which is why I suggested "instead of hard numbers, either use a generalized system or just have us explain what they can do in words instead of arbitrary systems."

@Chord, um, we've already decided on doing that.

[Artemis97]

Not exactly... there's be growth and definition, it would just be done through RP. And if you can't decide on who wins a fight, you need to talk it out, and if you still can't decide, maybe you shouldn't be having that fight. FFRP is, at its core, a cooperative medium.

[Rater202]

Not exactly... there's be growth and definition, it would just be done through RP. And if you can't decide on who wins a fight, you need to talk it out, and if you still can't decide, maybe you shouldn't be having that fight. FFRP is, at its core, a cooperative medium.

No.

If you're making a character at all, you have to define what they can and cant do at the start. You can't just make up an entire character as you go along, you've got to have a starting point.

[Chord]

Problem-you have to define what your character is capable of, otherwise you can have no growth of abillity and it becomes much, much harder to come to an agreement over who wins if their's a conflict between two characters.

Which is why I suggested "instead of hard numbers, either use a generalized system or just have us explain what they can do in words instead of arbitrary systems."

Following a certain narrative, it reduces to common sense what the most likely outcome of a conflict will be. If you are in a battle of equals then it can be either decided by luck or simply dismissed as a draw.

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No.

If you're making a character at all, you have to define what they can and cant do at the start. You can't just make up an entire character as you go along, you've got to have a starting point.

That's just impractical. Everyone has a good idea of what a character can do just giving a general description of what he does, no need to point it out that a dragon with wings is able to fly unless it goes as "he is fastest than most dragon", or "faster than sound".

[Grif]

As a veteran FFRPer, let me put my 2cp in here. Every stats system anyone has tried to put in place, I have completely ignored and have never run into any trouble for it. My nexus characters, usually based in DnD, are statted out to epic levels, but they are able to be beaten. The trick is to work with those you're RPing with, and scale your character to the situation. In a fist fight with a level one commoner? Maybe don't become One Punch Man in that scene. It's overpowered and uninteresting and most of all it's not FUN. That's the key to it, ask yourself, is everyone having fun?


So... yeah... make and use stats if you want, but I'll probably be ignoring them. I don't like crunchy bits in my FFRP. I'll write them down and will forget about them entirely. I feel like it'll end up with someone going "Well, I have a 13 and you only have 12, so I should win." Campiun?

I understand your point completely. However, if I may offer a counterpoint, I myself understand the need for something a little more tangible, hence the stats. My overriding priority here is to make sure we're all on the same page: stats are just a guideline, and never ever to be used to determine the outcome of something from the outset. So when you say you have Str 13 and I have Str 12, it means you're stronger than me slightly. Sure. But maybe I win anyway due to the actions my character takes. Which is my intention from the start.

Okay, how about instead of using stats or a letter system, we just say exactly what our characters are capable of in the abilities section?

I kind of also suggested that.


What about my alternate sheat?
Problem-you have to define what your character is capable of, otherwise you can have no growth of abillity and it becomes much, much harder to come to an agreement over who wins if their's a conflict between two characters.

Which is why I suggested "instead of hard numbers, either use a generalized system or just have us explain what they can do in words instead of arbitrary systems."

@Chord, um, we've already decided on doing that.

Your sheet seems fine, I should note. Would have no qualms if people want to use that instead. However, I still offer my own sheet (the description part at least) for those who prefer to fill in exact details as to how their dragon should look like.

Just for the record, I'm interested in this thread

That depends, how they are sopossed to fit, if this is to be placed in the high fantasy setting where dragons are sleeping the whole time, till the very unfortunate day where the poor lizard wakes up to a party trying to slay him or steal his well earned hoard, then the dragon is expected to be stronger than the individuals in that party. The party will just take him down with the power of friendship in some turns. Yeah.

Also dragons are usually portrayed as being virtually immortal, (except when they happen to be the final boss of a dungeon) this mean that they are just really oblivious and are fine being lazy greedy slobs for most part of their boringly long lives, or there is something else to it, like weird maygicks that keep them from wreaking havoc everywhere.

In contrast I envision them as the perfect aristocratic class in an advanced society, think about it, they are big, they are strong, they are intelligent, and have a long lifespan, if they didn't act as detached as they do in most media, each of them could be ruling his own mega corporation. Acting for the best interest of an entire civilization or creating a state of total slavery. At least they sometimes have kobold minions, kobolds are neat I guess.

Maybe the solution about the abilities issue is to add magical disciplines as something dragons can become good at? If each dragon has dominion over some crafts instead of just "elemental breath" then for example a dragon could have psyonic powers and be an alchemist or such. Or that in adition to the elemental breath thing, I don't know.

I agree that dragons should be allowed to have a wide-range of abilities. To limit it to only breath attacks would just miss the point of these being FFRP entirely.

Allow me to give you the rough outline of the world I'm planning:
- This will take place on a continent called Latium
- There will three major powers on this continent: the Commonwealth, a coalition of various humanoid races but dominated by humans; the Conclave, which represents the old natural Order, and comprises mainly of elves of various sort, and the fey; and the Consortium, which is based described as capitalistic, meritocratic and amoral, and dominated by dwarves.
- Accordingly, the Commonwealth specialises in tech (think steampunk and Renaissance-era gunnery), Conclave in magic, and Consortium a mixture of both.
- Dragons are a common sight here, and are as varied as the humanoid species. Some worship their own gods, some think they're gods and some as just downright incompetent. Accordingly, it is not uncommon to find dragons rise to positions in power, though they'd obviously be frowned upon by their humanoid superiors.

Following a certain narrative, it reduces to common sense what the most likely outcome of a conflict will be. If you are in a battle of equals then it can be either decided by luck or simply dismissed as a draw.

I feel it's best for both players to agree before hand what the outcome of the conflict should be, or at the very least be willing to roll with the punches.

FFRP is, at its core, a cooperative medium.

I agree completely. There's nothing to "win" here.

[Rater202]

If I may clarify: Lets say my character is interacting with yours,

If you character pulls out an ability that is not in your sheet, and not something discussed ahead of time, my initial assumption is that you've made something up.

If at least general idea of what your character is and is not capable of is present in your sheet, then this isn't a problem, I can just check it, but if, for example, we're playing super a super hero game, it does not say "super strength"in the powers portion of your sheet, and there hanst been any build up to it, I'm going to assume you made it up.

So, igf you character can lift 10 tons, put it in your sheet. If your scales are as hard as diamond, say "scales as hard as diamond" in the sheet. If you can work magic, say what kind of magic and how good at it you are. If you're a five star Gourmet chef, say in your sheet that you are a five star gourmet chef. If you're a hydra and your heads grow back when they're cutt off, put it in your sheet(and include what, exactly, having multiple heads does in your case too)

and if things over the course of the game change what your character can and can't do, edit your sheet and record the changes.

You dont need to put some arbitrary number rating on it or a letter grade, but if you picture your dragon lifting 10 tons, say they can lift 10 tons.

Does that make it easier to understand my point?

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That's just impractical. Everyone has a good idea of what a character can do just giving a general description of what he does, no need to point it out that a dragon with wings is able to fly unless it goes as "he is fastest than most dragon", or "faster than sound".

I plan to play a dragon with wings that cannot fly.

Eastern dragons can flight without having wings.

seems to me like "able to fly" is something that goes on the sheet, regardless of presence of wings.

[Lord Raziere]

well until a solid sheet is worked out, I'm just gonna be posting my general concept:

basically, his name is Zarakkan, and he is a mad scientist. He is a blue dragon, with red eyes and he breathes steam. Both inhale and exhale, which means he can inhale steam attacks as if they were air as a defense. this is because he is a mix of water and fire element dragons, thus he breathes steam which is really hot water vapor. like incredibly hot, dangerously so. He uses his steam element to power his magitech, you see. He is a lithe, agile dragon, more of a speed and dodge guy than strength and toughness guy.

He likes to hoard various things from books to parts for technology, bit of a trickster and a liar type who enjoys freedom and individuality and at times has a bit of a Doctor Who vibe of eccentricity to him, which is more or less evident depending on how old he is allowed to be because of things he might remember from hundreds of years ago. He has incredibly high smarts, but is probably not all that strong for a dragon and while he has a certain rascal/dorky charm, he is lacking in common sense.

His background was that well he grew up under a bookish smart mother who was a blue dragon and a fiery short-tempered red dragon father. His father proved to be abusive and bullying to them both and he came to love his mother more for her calm caring nature. But then his father slew his mother after saying she was coddling him too much, then he in turn killed his father in revenge. Feeling sorrow at what had occurred, he left his parents lair behind and set out to make his own way in the world through steam-powered magitech.

As for his magitech itself....he has at the very least something to turn himself invisible. not sure what else he has, but I'll try to limit myself depending on how much tech you think he should have, and what makes sense for a dragon to invent.

[Artemis97]

Rater, you've called it basically. Yes you need a starting point for a character. Yes you need to have character growth (well, if you want to do interesting things anyways). However, here in FFRP, no one is obligated to spell out everything about their character. You CAN make it up as you go along. Heck, that's half the fun. Maybe my character has a gizmo in his pocket that I just thought up, are you going to call shenanigans on me for using it? In the loose format of FFRP, I find the idea that you would a bit ridiculous. This isn't a pen and paper game where every copper piece and every torch needs to be accounted for. You are allowed to just make stuff up on the fly. It's fun!

[Rater202]

Maybe my character has a gizmo in his pocket that I just thought up, are you going to call shenanigans on me for using it?

Maybe. It depends, is your character an inventor who might have such a device? What doe the device do? Is it a one time thing, or is it something you're doing all the time?

Is "occasionally pulls out a new gadget" written on your sheet?

If you just make stuff up as you go along, without any forewarning, and no talk, and you just ignore whats on your sheet, then it's not fair to people who actually take the time and effort to define what their characters can and can't do and try to stick with it and only go beyond it when it is appropriate to do so.

So, if you can lift ten tons, write "can lift ten tons" in your sheet. If you have X many gadgets in your pocket, you right "I have X many gadgets in my pocket."

Unless you define what your character can and can't do, his or her strengths and weakness, and you stick to them, then I can't interact with your character in any meaningful way-If it's my turn to tell a story, I can't make any challenges for them because if you're just going to ignore whats on your sheet and maybe make something up, I can't predict how your character will react in the situation in question.

Do you understand my problem with ignoring the sheets and making stuff up.

[Artemis97]

Honestly, no. I don't understand the problem with my decision not to write down every detail about my character before hand. I've been playing this way in FFRP for nearly a decade and have never run into a problem.

[Rater202]

If you completely ignore your sheet, and you just make stuff up as you go along, then it's not fair to players like me who actually care to take the time to define our character's strengths and limits and try to stick to them.

If you can just make stuff up, then it becomes really frustrating for me when there's something I really want my character to be able to do but I haven't had a chance for them to actually develop that ability.

It's about having a fair, clean game with no shenanigans.

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Okay, is there anyone who knows what I'm trying to say and can explain it better than I can?

[Grif]

Maybe. It depends, is your character an inventor who might have such a device? What doe the device do? Is it a one time thing, or is it something you're doing all the time?

Is "occasionally pulls out a new gadget" written on your sheet?

If you just make stuff up as you go along, without any forewarning, and no talk, and you just ignore whats on your sheet, then it's not fair to people who actually take the time and effort to define what their characters can and can't do and try to stick with it and only go beyond it when it is appropriate to do so.

So, if you can lift ten tons, write "can lift ten tons" in your sheet. If you have X many gadgets in your pocket, you right "I have X many gadgets in my pocket."

Unless you define what your character can and can't do, his or her strengths and weakness, and you stick to them, then I can't interact with your character in any meaningful way-If it's my turn to tell a story, I can't make any challenges for them because if you're just going to ignore whats on your sheet and maybe make something up, I can't predict how your character will react in the situation in question.

Do you understand my problem with ignoring the sheets and making stuff up.

Honestly, no. I don't understand the problem with my decision not to write down every detail about my character before hand. I've been playing this way in FFRP for nearly a decade and have never run into a problem.

If I may interject, I think there wouldn't be a problem if a player decides not to specify everything for a character, especially in a FFRP. That comes with the caveat that if you want do want to go this route, anything that you add to the character should be plausible both from a character point of view, and from the setting. Conversely, a normal human character shouldn't suddenly be a God of Time, obviously. I trust Artermis97 that she would exercise her right to do so wisely, given her experience.

Take for example, the inventor dragon character Raziere had posted. It wouldn't be implausible that said dragon would have some sort of weaponry on his claws at all times, even if Raziere may not have specified it at the time. Ideally, everything should have been worked out beforehand, of course, but there's something to be said in allowing players leeway to make up things as they go along as well.

[DJ Yung Crunk]

When you guys come to an agreement, let me know.

[Lord Raziere]

If I may interject, I think there wouldn't be a problem if a player decides not to specify everything for a character, especially in a FFRP. That comes with the caveat that if you want do want to go this route, anything that you add to the character should be plausible both from a character point of view, and from the setting. Conversely, a normal human character shouldn't suddenly be a God of Time, obviously. I trust Artermis97 that she would exercise her right to do so wisely, given her experience.

Take for example, the inventor dragon character Raziere had posted. It wouldn't be implausible that said dragon would have some sort of weaponry on his claws at all times, even if Raziere may not have specified it at the time. Ideally, everything should have been worked out beforehand, of course, but there's something to be said in allowing players leeway to make up things as they go along as well.

Well the compromise I would do is divide abilities into iconic gadgets and interchangeable gadgets.

think Batman: an iconic gadget of him? Batarang. Bat grappling hook. Batmobile. these are things you see in nearly every Batman incarnation without fail.

but he has a utility belt where he can pull out things to do specific things for the story, but are generally not seen all that much or used again.

so if I were doing a way to incorporate both preparation and making things up, I'd have the iconic things be the gadgets that always come back as an integral part of the character, while interchangeable stuff are stuff that either one use or easily destroyed.

iconic abilities are make sense, as for interchangeable abilities, you can justify those as limited applications of powers for a certain situation that don't really apply anywhere else that are only relevant there and if another situation comes up where it makes sense for it come up again, its reasonable to allow it.

this would allow empty slots for people to make things up on the fly, while Rater would have a flexible space to prepare new things at the beginning or whatever, and when a new story starts, the slots are cleared to make things up or prepare again. just an idea.

[Destro_Yersul]

If you completely ignore your sheet, and you just make stuff up as you go along, then it's not fair to players like me who actually care to take the time to define our character's strengths and limits and try to stick to them.

If you can just make stuff up, then it becomes really frustrating for me when there's something I really want my character to be able to do but I haven't had a chance for them to actually develop that ability.

It's about having a fair, clean game with no shenanigans.

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Okay, is there anyone who knows what I'm trying to say and can explain it better than I can?

Emphasis mine. If this is what you're looking for, FFRP is not really the best place to look. Admittedly, I've been out of FFRP for a long time, but shenanigans and just making stuff up is a staple of the experience. Back in Ye Olden Days, if you wanted your character to do something? Poof. They can do it now. I think we did have sheets, but half the time they were out of date and nobody really looked at them anyways. It's better in this style to define things in broad strokes, so that there's room to add stuff. It's considered bad form to add stuff that wouldn't be logical in-character. If I have a wizard, who has never before displayed skill with a sword, it wouldn't make a lot of sense for him to suddenly also be a master swordsman. I could do it, but it wouldn't make sense. On the other hand, if he knows a new spell he made up and hadn't used until then? Well, sure, that makes sense.

That said, I think I understand where you're coming from. I also think there's a middleground that needs to be hit between having everything established beforehand, and making up whatever you want on the fly without any care for sheets and limits. This isn't a typical tabletop RPG, where characters have blocks of stats and things they absolutely can and cannot do. This also isn't a one-upmanship contest, though it's certainly been treated that way on occassion. FFRP works best as collaborative storytelling. It's got a lote of similar ideas to FATE, if you're familiar with that? You can just make stuff up. And that's ok. But you should only be doing it if it makes the story better.

[cavalieredraghi]

So an argument and it is only the second page in? That's inviting.

[Destro_Yersul]

If I spend a great deal of time and effort defining what my character can and cannot do, and then somebody else jots down three lines, ignores them, and just makes things up as they go along, I have wasted my effort.

True. You have wasted your effort in that situation.

If you can just say "poof, my character can do this" then there is no conflict because you can just solve the problem immediately.

Sort of. If you can solve the problem immediately there's also no story, and that's not fun. So why would you want to make up an ability that lets you solve things immediately? There's nothing stopping you from doing it, it just strikes me as a strange choice. People have run Instant Problem Solver characters in the past, and those rapidly became uninteresting, and then nobody wanted to play with those characters, which led to different, more interesting characters having longer lifespans.

If I spend a great deal of effort to have my character go off and train in some special technique that'll help solve the problem, nd then I come back half a thread later and somebody else can do the same technique with no training because their player felt like it, my character has been overshadowed.

Half a thread earlier you could have had your character able to do the special technique because you felt like it. Your character is capable of whatever you say they're capable of. If that makes them uninteresting because they're capable of anything, then they stop getting played and, as above, the problem solves itself. If you really, really want to show the training effort, you can do it in a flashback.

If you're just making stuff up, you can't lose.

Unless you make up that you lose. Why would you do that? Because winning all the time is boring, and this isn't a one-upmanship contest. Nobody cares that a super-powerful ubercharacter can win all the time. It's about collaborative storytelling. If it's more interesting for your character to lose, then they should lose. If there's no game when your character wins, then they should lose.

If you don't want your character to lose, then it's true that they can't and won't ever lose. Which is boring. So the problem solves itself.

If you're ignoring what is and is not on the character sheets, then we have no idea who should win if two cahracters come into conflicts-and that leads to arguments.

It will always lead to arguments, character sheets or not. Look at it another way; if you focus entirely on what is and is not on the character sheets, then character A will always beat character B, because A's sheet says they're better at stuff. Do you want B to feel like they have no way to win? Do you want A to feel like they'll ALWAYS win? Especially when the question of who SHOULD win has nothing to do with the abilities of either character in a collaborative medium.

Let's say A is Batman, and B is the Joker. Joker shouldn't lose right away, because that's boring. He should have some interesting plans that he gets to play around with. He should win some victories. But he can't succeed at his ultimate plan of destroying the city, because then there's no city and that's boring too. So Batman has to win at the end, when it's most dramatically appropriate for Batman to win.

[Grif]

So an argument and it is only the second page in? That's inviting.

Less an argument and more a debate on how to proceed, at the moment.

I should reiterate though, this is supposed to be a collaborative storytelling, and less a game where you can "win". You're not supposed to win anything. Irrespective on whether or not we use a rigid stat system or a laissez-faire approach to character sheets, good story should always be the goal.

[cavalieredraghi]

Then when do you expect to start a IC?

[Grif]

Then when do you expect to start a IC?

As soon as we work these kinks out, have people post characters, and myself actually putting a world which everyone can agree on. A few have already shown me their characters in PM, so we're actually progressing along nicely.

[cavalieredraghi]

As soon as we work these kinks out, have people post characters, and myself actually putting a world which everyone can agree on. A few have already shown me their characters in PM, so we're actually progressing along nicely.

Well then what worlds have been submitted? I don't know if I like the original.

[Grif]

Well then what worlds have been submitted? I don't know if I like the original.

Only mine own, currently. Unless someone has an alternative world lying around, we'll probably go with that. Bear in mind, the one I linked currently is designed so we can accommodate the widest range of characters and backstories as realistically as possible.

[Lord Raziere]

I'm fine with the current setting myself. Sure there are only three factions, but I can see a lot of ways that there can be factions within factions because of how they are set up. I can easily imagine these three great powers being conglomerates of smaller factions that united over time, but still have their own little groups within groups that keeps them from being uniform.

I can also see a cold war scenario going here, with the three powers not really wanting to commit to attacking one for fear of the other attacking them- a classic game theory problem. with various little nations around them being caught between them, and not really sure how to get out, often with little wars happening within them.

a good setting one might say for something like a dragon to be something that could be a major piece in turning the tide in a war or politically or even economically if you creative enough. and of course there would be a mix of heroes, villains and all sorts in between in all three great powers all with their own motivations and goals and how an intricate web of connections, plots, motivations might unfold.

[cavalieredraghi]

Only mine own, currently. Unless someone has an alternative world lying around, we'll probably go with that. Bear in mind, the one I linked currently is designed so we can accommodate the widest range of characters and backstories as realistically as possible.

Your setting is not bad, I can agree to that. I am wondering what dragon I should do. I am almost feeling my Drixtel would be a good choice. Though on a side note, Rater I would suggest not doing another Oxy being, but in dragon form. Really doing a Primeval Zerg like dragon would be OP far to quickly, and is something you are already doing in DBitp.

[Grif]

I'm fine with the current setting myself. Sure there are only three factions, but I can see a lot of ways that there can be factions within factions because of how they are set up. I can easily imagine these three great powers being conglomerates of smaller factions that united over time, but still have their own little groups within groups that keeps them from being uniform.

I can also see a cold war scenario going here, with the three powers not really wanting to commit to attacking one for fear of the other attacking them- a classic game theory problem. with various little nations around them being caught between them, and not really sure how to get out, often with little wars happening within them.

a good setting one might say for something like a dragon to be something that could be a major piece in turning the tide in a war or politically or even economically if you creative enough. and of course there would be a mix of heroes, villains and all sorts in between in all three great powers all with their own motivations and goals and how an intricate web of connections, plots, motivations might unfold.

As it stands, yes, cold war or just uneasy peace would describe the political situation perfectly. I also left space for plenty of little petty kingdoms/nations/etc for co-exist at the borders and in or around the three great powers. Even named a few to start us off, and y'all are welcome to add more. (I believe igordragonian wants a small dwarf kingdom to himself, and another player has expressed similar intentions.)

Now I just need to actually draw a map that isn't an eye-sore and we can be set, I think.

EDIT: I should also note that kobolds are a thing in this setting, and it's not uncommon to see dragons with their own little kobold gang. (All fantastically loyal and all that.)

[igordragonian]

So.. hmm.. where a dragon protector of dwarven kingdom can fit?
May I make up a little kingdom under Wealth influence?