The All Guardsmen Party

[TheOneHawk]

Is this still alive?

[Slipperychicken]

Is this still alive?

Last I heard, he said the next update would be sometime in may.

[Shoggy]

Still alive, just going slowly.

[blacklight101]

Yay, aliveness! Always excited for some more All Guardsmen.

[TheOneHawk]

Slow is fine. This whole thing is absolute gold so I'm willing to wait for more :)

[Demon 997]

New entry going up at 6 pm pacific today. WHOOOOO! Nothing like catching them live.

[TheOneHawk]

WOOT! So excited.

[PoR]

All Guardsmen Party has been the source of a couple sleepless nights for me over the past year.

Can't wait to read the new installment, I've been loving it so far. Keep 'em coming =)

[Shoggy]

Despite an absolutely glacial writing pace, the next chapter is finally up!

We head out to catch a cool bug for our boss. Cells are repaired, an incredibly hostile system is visited, Space Marines are met, communications breakdown repeatedly, and a journey is started.

Here's the HTML, archive, and imgur links to The All Guardsmen Party: Tyranid Acquisition Experts:
https://googledrive.com/host/0B3Z9sX...dFWXM/agp.html
(Any image loading problems can be addressed by shift-reloading, I'll upgrade the HTML soon)
http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/40747009
http://imgur.com/gallery/iVHrS//

[Townopolis]

Aimy is Doc's alt, right? She showed up during the one adventure where Doc was out of commission, so it was seeming like she was his alt, which would imply she was NPC'd during this episode, which would explain the odd change in behavior (suddenly exhibiting heretofore unseen generically feminine concerns). Or is she another player's character, and we're just witnessing her character picking up new dimensions?

[Shoggy]

Aimy is Doc's alt, right? She showed up during the one adventure where Doc was out of commission, so it was seeming like she was his alt, which would imply she was NPC'd during this episode, which would explain the odd change in behavior (suddenly exhibiting heretofore unseen generically feminine concerns). Or is she another player's character, and we're just witnessing her character picking up new dimensions?

Like most of our long-time NPCs, she's sort of controlled by Committee, with Doc's player taking the primary control. I find her harder to write then the rest, but here's what I'm going for:

Her character traits are generally listed as Noble Born Guardswoman, slight violent napoleon complex, bit of a bitch, PTSD from previous mission. She's become rather focused on her hair as a result of increasing insanity points. She wound up having to pick an Obsession, and since her repeated facial and scalp burns were what pushed her over the edge, the cosmetic damage was the focus we chose for her.

[Hawkstar]

At least the scout didn't bust out puppets or Letter Blocks in training the guardsmen for the mission

[blacklight101]

Quite the good chapter from All Guardsmen. Can't wait for the next one!

[TheOneHawk]

Love this stuff. Keep it coming!

[JustSomeGuy]

The pills/legs conundrum, i died.

[Draken]

The listing of famous regiments our heroes don't belong to was quite priceless.

And I couldn't help but sour a bit on Sister Hospitaler (what is her proper name anyway) because of the Fumbles mutation part.

[Cluedrew]

[MAY HAVE COME INTO CONTACT WITH SPOILERS]

Before I say anything else:

That man may be insane, but he is sometimes right.

You know who I'm talking about. For some reason I felt he was going to be right this time. Overall, another great chapter, filled with explosions and hilarity. I have a question: When a "flash back" to something that did not appear during the original sequence of events occurs, is that made up or were the original events skipped over to improve the flow of the story? In this chapter it is the loading bay, although Twitch's really big bomb back in the educators episode is another example.

From a literary perspective I also noticed the use of the word "I" which is unusual, usually their is no first person and even though it was connected directly to the narrator, it feels a little odd seeing it all of a sudden. On the other hand I do like that quotes are being used a little bit more, lets the character (literally) speak for themselves. And progress is nice, even given the episodic nature of the story it is good that things keep moving and changing.

I could go on about... a half dozen other things at least but the long and short of it is: Great chapter, will read the next one when the time comes.

[Shoggy]

Glad everyone's still having fun, especially at Tink's expense.

The listing of famous regiments our heroes don't belong to was quite priceless.

And I couldn't help but sour a bit on Sister Hospitaler (what is her proper name anyway) because of the Fumbles mutation part.

We paused the game while one of us Grabbed the OW book for that part, then just read them off in sequence, it caused much hilarity.

Don't hold it against her, she came around in the end, despite having BURN THE MUTANT screamed at her every day during her formative years. Sororitas be crazy for a reason. Anyhow, our DM wanted to convey that Fumbles' acquiring a minor-mutation and a malignancy was a fairly big deal, not just a -10 per, -10 fellowship, and Night Vision. The little confrontation in the medbay did that wonderfully. (Her name is not a thing yet, but eventually...)

[MAY HAVE COME INTO CONTACT WITH SPOILERS]

Before I say anything else:

That man may be insane, but he is sometimes right.

You know who I'm talking about. For some reason I felt he was going to be right this time. Overall, another great chapter, filled with explosions and hilarity. I have a question: When a "flash back" to something that did not appear during the original sequence of events occurs, is that made up or were the original events skipped over to improve the flow of the story? In this chapter it is the loading bay, although Twitch's really big bomb back in the educators episode is another example.

From a literary perspective I also noticed the use of the word "I" which is unusual, usually their is no first person and even though it was connected directly to the narrator, it feels a little odd seeing it all of a sudden. On the other hand I do like that quotes are being used a little bit more, lets the character (literally) speak for themselves. And progress is nice, even given the episodic nature of the story it is good that things keep moving and changing.

I could go on about... a half dozen other things at least but the long and short of it is: Great chapter, will read the next one when the time comes.

The flashback for Twitch's meltabomb, was Nubby critting an acquisition roll to "see what we brought along". Such a good roll (it boiled down to "you can have anything that's not a Tank"), required a little explanation to be retconned in. It's where it is in the story because that's where the roll happened.

The Fungus flashback is a case of the OB's sort of nebulous nature. The reason that Nubby & co.'s adventures patrolling the ship are unspecified is so when something plot relevant is needed, our DM can sort of add it in. How it worked in this case, was he asked us to roll Knowledge: This ****ty Ship, then we had a sort of Choose-Your-Own-Adventure sidequest with very few rolls. It was railroady, but a very branchy railroad, and was a lot more fun than just being handed a note saying "BAY CONTAINS FUNGUS"

As for the first person pronouns, I speak most of this alloud as I write, and they sneak in as exclamations, generally "Let me tell you", or "I mean". It's bad for consistency, but I've gotten lazy about pulling them out afterwards.

[NRSASD]

Loving the story so far! Warhammer 40K is too ludicrously grimdark for my tastes, but this story makes the setting come alive when viewed from the reference of five relatively ordinary, rather disturbed guardsmen trying not to die.

And if you want an editor, send me a section and I'll see what I can do. I actually work as a writing tutor on and off, so it'll help me stay in practice.

Spoiler: Plot-Relevant Praise

Show

That line about the room being "99% servitor free, soon as we can find a ladder" was hysterical! Twitch's player should be proud haha. Also, loved the fact that Aimy and Twitch, the two PTSD-ed troopers, hit it off so well with their mutual paranoia of anything not Guard.

[LeSwordfish]

Like most of our long-time NPCs, she's sort of controlled by Committee, with Doc's player taking the primary control.

I'd imagine that Fumbles is in a similar situation, controlled by Nubby? You can see a certain PCesque quality to him in the latest one.

[Shoggy]

Loving the story so far! Warhammer 40K is too ludicrously grimdark for my tastes, but this story makes the setting come alive when viewed from the reference of five relatively ordinary, rather disturbed guardsmen trying not to die.

And if you want an editor, send me a section and I'll see what I can do. I actually work as a writing tutor on and off, so it'll help me stay in practice.

Spoiler: Plot-Relevant Praise

Show

That line about the room being "99% servitor free, soon as we can find a ladder" was hysterical! Twitch's player should be proud haha. Also, loved the fact that Aimy and Twitch, the two PTSD-ed troopers, hit it off so well with their mutual paranoia of anything not Guard.

Thanks! It's rather hard to strike a balance between sticking to the rather depressing source material and going full-satire, so it's good to hear people saying I've hit that sweet spot between the two.

Twitch's player IS proud btw. He's very happy with how much love his character's antics have gotten, and how much weight he manages to pull in the group. I just appreciate that he's a constant source of good material.

As for the editing, I have a sort of system set up using the google-doc comment/suggestion system that's been working very well. If you're interested in joining the project, drop me an email and I'll walk you through it. My address is in the FAQ on the html.

I'd imagine that Fumbles is in a similar situation, controlled by Nubby? You can see a certain PCesque quality to him in the latest one.

Yep, Fumbles is more or less Nubby's minion at this point, so I'm largely in charge of his actions. Though as with everything, there's a lot of group participation.

[Shoggy]

Can anyone give me a quick opinion on the rebuild I'm doing on the HTML archive for these stories?

https://09cd64678bddc0198cca7fef0df8...split/agp.html

Hoping it improves usability, especially on slow connections.

[TheOneHawk]

Quick opinion is that it's good. Looks more organized. I never had issues reading it though.

[Lord_Burch]

Can anyone give me a quick opinion on the rebuild I'm doing on the HTML archive for these stories?

https://09cd64678bddc0198cca7fef0df8...split/agp.html

Hoping it improves usability, especially on slow connections.

It looks a lot better; on a tablet, anyways. Now I don't have to deal with images loading and constantly shifting around the page.

[Cluedrew]

The new layout works, I never had any real problems with the old one, but I think this may be an improvement anyways.

Also thank-you for answering my questions. Don't worry about laziness too much, if you pull out the "I"s in editing to improve consistency that's good and if you don't I'll get over it and enjoy the next chapter anyways. I do like the idea that it is the squad itself narrating the story but this doesn't break that, just a further personification.

[Lvl 2 Expert]

Did anyone tell you yet this is bloody brilliant? Okay, okay, did anyone tell you yet today? This must be an great campaign to play, right from the start there's this rich world with strong plots as seen through the eyes of this troop of unimportant uninformed characters who's players all really stick with that mindset. The DM gives you some real choices and freedom, and the writing style completely sets the scene for the reader.

Damn you, I should be studying, and I'm not even a third of the way down on the scrollbar yet.

[Brookshw]

I was trying to figure out what it is about your writing style that I like so much and when I read the first sentence it hit me that it reminds me of the dry wit of Pratchett at times, coupled with a healthy level of fatalism/cynicism that i like it pulp and bokowski (probably misspelled).

Anyway, thanks as always for the new update! Can't wait to finish it.

[Shoggy]

Thanks for looking at the rebuild guys, just put the new version up.

Did anyone tell you yet this is bloody brilliant? Okay, okay, did anyone tell you yet today? This must be an great campaign to play, right from the start there's this rich world with strong plots as seen through the eyes of this troop of unimportant uninformed characters who's players all really stick with that mindset. The DM gives you some real choices and freedom, and the writing style completely sets the scene for the reader.

Damn you, I should be studying, and I'm not even a third of the way down on the scrollbar yet.

Thanks, and you're definitely right about our DM pulling together amazing plots while still giving us a great deal of freedom. He's a wizard (also an obsessive-overpreparer and compulsive flowcharter)

Y'know he's told us he had the groundwork laid for us arbitrarily deserting to go be Rogue Traders, rebelling against our Inquisitor, sticking entirely to the Minion role, and a bunch of other game-changing forks. Someday I'd like to try building a module (or a plugin game in something like Shadowrun Returns or PoE), but I know it'd lose a lot of that fluidity in the process, and not quite come out the same. Still though...

I was trying to figure out what it is about your writing style that I like so much and when I read the first sentence it hit me that it reminds me of the dry wit of Pratchett at times, coupled with a healthy level of fatalism/cynicism that i like it pulp and bokowski (probably misspelled).

Anyway, thanks as always for the new update! Can't wait to finish it.

Pratchett is a major inspiration for everyone involved in the game (If Nubby and the Rupert weren't giveaways). We've been borrowing heavily (see: Bloodily Ripping Off) from his works since our D&D days, and I believe our current campaign is as close as you can get to the Ankh Morpork City Watch IN SPACE without descending into outright plagiarism. It's always good to hear that the writing style is lining up with that theme as well, thanks.

[Brookshw]

Spoiler: new chapter

Show

okay so I'm wondering, how was the dm expecting things to pan out if the party had decided to extract the second group of marines while running for it? It's a meta "what if" question but I can't help wondering how things would have panned out if the party chose the other door.

[Shoggy]

Spoiler: new chapter

Show

okay so I'm wondering, how was the dm expecting things to pan out if the party had decided to extract the second group of marines while running for it? It's a meta "what if" question but I can't help wondering how things would have panned out if the party chose the other door.

I imagine there would've been a desperate battle at the boarding point, complicated by our cargo no-doubt. Knowing our DM, the short-term danger would've paid off by making the next leg of the journey easier until the Marines left again and everything started falling apart. He probably would've added a few ork/nid boarders on our ship too, due to the delay in leaving the system. It's the sort of time-line controlled disaster he likes to do.

In fact I think that diverting would've really changed the next chapter's focus to be on stowaway xenos as opposed to what we ran into. Gotta say that would've been very different, and I can't imagine how the next chapter's ending would've turned out.