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 The land shudders. The skies weep. The seas roil. The Overlord has arrived, and the end of the world is not far off. At least, that's what everyone seems to think - you're not ready to give up just yet. If the end of the world is approaching, you're at least going to go down fighting. I'm putting very little fanfare here. As the title suggests, this is going to be a game of Fellowship 2nd Edition, with the Overlord as the game's Framework. And that is about the only detail that's set in stone at this time. Instead of the "concept-first" approach that most games take, I'm leaving the details vague. I want to set up the plot and the Overlord around the characters, instead of the other way around. Likewise, I'm not actually looking for full character sheets from your applications. I'd much rather have the players work together to build their Fellowship, and I dislike the mindset that a player's concept needs to be scrapped because the Playbook they wanted to use is already "taken." Instead, I'd like your applications to answer the following: What major themes are you interested in seeing in the story? What sort of character do you usually like to play? Tell me about one of your favorite role-playing experiences. We'll play the game here on the forums, play-by-post. I've also set up a Discord server for the game, which anyone is welcome to join. Feel free to drop in and ask questions or just chat. If you're familiar with the game's first edition but not its second, the DriveThruRPG page has a convenient synopsis of the changes made (it's not especially extensive). 5-Headed Snake God fucked around with this message at 19:38 on Jul 14, 2019 |
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Jul 14, 2019 01:36
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What major themes are you interested in seeing in the story? I think a lot of the big ones have been covered in other answers: optimism, heroism, multiculturalism, etc. My personal addition to the list would be a theme of rebuilding. The Overlord is going to blow plenty of places to hell, that's their job, but I'd love to have at least some focus on the Fellowship helping communities that have been devastated and earning fellowship through those efforts. What sort of character do you usually like to play? Toolbox types, for the most part. My least favorite thing in a game, PbP or otherwise, is not having the tools to interact with a situation. Bards, rogues, people who get by on knowledge and skill and no little daring. Overall, I think my characters tend towards being earnest do-gooders... even if they might have a tendency for collateral damage along the way. Tell me about one of your favorite role-playing experiences. My favorite experience is from another game on the forums, Cap's Masks game (which recently migrated to Discord). I came in halfway through off of a re-recruit, but my character (Mithril, protege of the world's most ethical psychic) quickly got wrapped up in the dramas and experiences of the team. Whether quickly realizing that, despite her powers always having set her apart, she was somehow one of the most normal and down to earth people on the team or the time she was invited into her zombie teammate's psyche to get the lowdown on why he was such an incredible jerk, I have a ton of fun writing her. Tricky fucked around with this message at 04:10 on Jul 15, 2019 |
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Jul 14, 2019 01:42
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I'm also interested! What major themes are you interested in seeing in the story? I like the mental image of many people from different societies and walks of life putting aside their differences to face off against a bigger threat. I also love the emphasis Fellowship puts on said different societies, and how they interact with one another, and the rumors they might have about one another; the communal worldbuilding has been an highlight of the other games I have played in the past. So I guess if I had to put it in two words I'd say: heroism and multiculturalism. What sort of character do you usually like to play? To be perfectly honest, if there is something that all my characters have in common is that they are oddballs in some way. I tend not to take the obvious route, and to build characters that are at least a bit weird in body or in spirit. I have made more Transformed in Masks than any other playbook. As far as archetypes go, I have a couple "old reliables" that can fit in most situations: the gentle giant/monster, the practical mercenary, the professional who scoffs at all this silliness. Tell me about one of your favorite role-playing experiences. We were playing the prologue of Capers, an hack of Masks that's about playing villains, and the GM had made this big post to describe the end of the school year in the academy for young villains. The leader of the academy introduces who would be the new Masters of Disaster, the top of the top of the villain academy, and I was expecting it to be us. I scroll down, and I see the portraits of various NPCs that we met during the prologue. In that moment, I got so into the game that I felt the envy of my character and I was this close to swearing terrible revenge on those fools who couldn't see my GENIUS! paradoxGentleman fucked around with this message at 13:52 on Jul 14, 2019 |
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Jul 14, 2019 13:29
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Maleketh posted:What major themes are you interested in seeing in the story? I'm living with a lot of pessimism at the moment, so: A revolution coming back from the brink. Optimism in the face of disaster. The failure of cruelty. Maleketh posted:What sort of character do you usually like to play? The scrappy brawler, the charming assassin, the overworked nanny for a team of dangerous children or the erratic but compelling genius. Maleketh posted:Tell me about one of your favorite role-playing experiences. My wizard had been killed in a fight and ended up in Hell because he was an rear end in a top hat with no allegiance to anything but his own reckless pursuit of power and had no religion to guide him to a better afterlife. Still had a few spells memorized, so he sneaked up on a guy waiting to cross the river Styx, re-killed him, and used his coins to bribe the ferryman for a ride to the ethereal plane so he could planeshift home. I don't know why that sequence sticks in my mind, other than being pretty classic trickster wizard bullshit. also your discord link has expired i think
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Jul 14, 2019 15:25
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thatbastardken posted:I'm living with a lot of pessimism at the moment Aw, I'm sorry. I hope things improve for you. thatbastardken posted:also your discord link has expired i think I thought I'd put in the permanent one, but regardless it should be good now.
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Jul 14, 2019 19:43
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Maleketh posted:What major themes are you interested in seeing in the story? The ones Fellowship is based around - a group of people from different societies gathering together to take on an evil threat, making the world a better place, having a grand adventure in doing so and making a strange and fantastic world through collaboration with everyone in the game. Maleketh posted:What sort of character do you usually like to play? I find I tend to gravitate towards fighting types, and often when I first play a game I'll play those kinds. I usually play people who want to do good, or at least have something good about them unless the game isn't about those kinds of people. Maleketh posted:Tell me about one of your favorite role-playing experiences. In one of my first Monsterhearts games on the forums I was playing a Witch and it seemed like I was going to be going down an antagonist route, or at least doing my thing. But due to various rolls, choices I made, and what the other PCs did I wound up running into their problems and getting involved in their stuff. It completely derailed the plans I had for the character and I loved it - it was the first time I saw how the Agenda of "Play to find out what happens" would work in a game and it was neat to see how a PbtA game would be different then what I had done before. Heliotrope fucked around with this message at 09:11 on Jul 15, 2019 |
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Jul 14, 2019 20:41
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I’ve never played any fellowship game so I’m definitely going to need to read up on the rules and stuff but your application request is fluid so I’m gonna toss in my hat! Major Themes? I really dig in stories that present real consequences for actions and choices. This doesn’t necessarily need to mean PC death or whatever, of course. I mean more like “the heroes manage to strike down one of the main boss’s warlords, the main boss torches a nearby town, the heroes thus take a lot of flak from the survivors”. This is a simple example, but it’s sort of what I’m getting at: the world is never fair and sometimes there’s no clear path, you’ve just gotta do what you can. Character I like to play I enjoy playing spellcasters. The idea of harnessing secret powers and bartering with dark principalities is really appealing. I liked playing psykers in Dark Heresy, for example. I also like the archetype of the lawful good character faced with the reality that the moral spectrum is fluid and the interplay between individual and greater good. This is sort of related to my type of game. Archetypes: clever sorcerer, honest Paladin Favorite Experience I was DMing a DH one-shot where at the climax of the story the group was fighting cultists on a spaceship, finally confronting the big bad. One member was in a coma and the other two were pretty injured, so I decided to throw a curveball and have the ship intersect with a tyranid fleet (basically giant killer space bugs). One of these monsters ripped through the ship. I asked them to re-roll initiative as the tyranid smashed into the room next to the main boss and one of players stops me to ask “do I still have those grenade belts from earlier?” I told him he did and he goes “gently caress initiative, I pull pins on both belts and sprint towards them both.” I’m a firm believer of cool beats rules so we figured that while he, the tyranid, and the main baddie were instantly immolated, the other members of the team survived, ending the campaign in victory. I don’t do it justice here, but it’s absolutely one of favorite badass endings.
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Jul 15, 2019 03:50
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quote:What major themes are you interested in seeing in the story? I am also interested in the exploration of the world - in addition to learning about all the different peoples from each player’s character. I’d like our fellowship to discover interesting new places and people, with a mix of the fantastic (“Ride a boat up a magic waterfall towards a city in the clouds!”) and the mundane (“Star-crossed lovers from the two biggest families cause tensions at the village’s harvest festival!”). quote:What sort of character do you usually like to play? The characters I played here on the forums may occasionally be a bit weird, but they have never been the weirdest among the characters. Usually my characters are slightly more grounded and are either fascinated or exasperated by the weirdness, but not dismissive of it. From a mechanical point of view, I like finding a good usage of the rules to make sure my character is really good at something or has some unique or clever way to deal with problems. I like some of the Fellowship playbooks and their ‘thing’ more than others, partially because of that. quote:Tell me about one of your favorite role-playing experiences. The investigators rummaged through a toolshed, when they were attacked by the resident axe murderer - or rather, the axe smashed through the door from outside, the man wielding it unseen and then… nothing. The players decided quite quickly and with once voice that their five investigators would hole up in the shed until the break of dawn, despite the fact that at that point they were armed and there was five of them and only one axe murder (who was in no way supernatural). I’m sure they played along with their investigators being scared, but I’m still happy setting the mood worked out so well.
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Jul 16, 2019 13:10
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Maleketh posted:What major themes are you interested in seeing in the story? Maleketh posted:What sort of character do you usually like to play? I usually play one of two characters. The first is an insanely brave and straightforward character who will eagerly charge straight at every problem he encounters. The other is more complicated. In terms of popular heroes he'd be like a less broody batman or green lantern style crafty do gooder who carefully weighs all the options and tries to either set up the battlefield to give his team the advantage or otherwise approach things from an unexpected angle. Maleketh posted:Tell me about one of your favorite role-playing experiences. I was playing a god game here on the forums and I thought my character had built a rainbow bridge to heaven. Instead, the bridge was just killing everyone who traveled along it. My character was so upset when he realized what he'd done that he rushed onto the bridge himself and sent everyone he could reach back to Earth. He had an opportunity to turn back, but he decided this was his mistake, and he had to do everything he could to fix it, so he kept going and was able to save several more people before the bridge killed him too. Probably my quickest character death but absolutely worth it.
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Jul 18, 2019 18:05
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Great apps from everyone. I'll be closing the doors for applications on Monday or so to make my picks, so if you've been procrastinating, don't wait much longer!
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Jul 19, 2019 22:11
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What major themes are you interested in seeing in the story? Others have repeatedly brought up optimism, multiculturalism, and generally making the world a better place, and I also really like the exploration of the world and how Fellowship gives each of the players their own chunk to define. However, what I love the most is the mix of Weirdness and Humor you can get out of Fellowship games. I always like it when games don't bother with the question "is this action realistic", and instead focus on if it would be interesting/cool/dramatic for things to work that way in this world. What sort of character do you usually like to play? I'm not actually sure if I have a type of character I get drawn to, besides thinking "it'd be fun to try to make this work". I guess I do usually avoid having characters with serious or tragic backstories, and quite a few of the characters I've made for PbP games on this forum have had at least a slight comical bent to them. So uh, I guess it just loops back around to Weird+Humor? Tell me about one of your favorite role-playing experiences. The second time I ran Marvel Heroic Roleplaying on these forums, one of my players was Kate Bishop as Hawkeye, and I had them face off against Bullseye. That fight was when I realized just how good MHR was, as it allowed me to do things like intercept Hawkeye's arrow with a playing card and have Bullseye pick up the shattered arrow and use it as a dangerous throwing weapon. And then the player, after being put in a desperate spot, managed to take advantage of Bullseye's quick reflexes and get him to catch a sonic arrow before it went off right in his face, dealing enough mental stress to take him out in one go. The entire fight lasted two rounds I think, but it was such a fun back-and-forth and the player also really enjoyed it, so it's been stuck in my mind ever since.
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Jul 20, 2019 02:15
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What major themes are you interested in seeing in the story? The idea of not just saving the world, but making it better. Being a hero doesn't just mean stopping bad guys, it means helping people who need it and leaving things better than you found them. What sort of character do you usually like to play? I like support characters. For fighty types I like playing the person who's getting in front of others to take hits and protect them, for casters I like setting up others for big hits or victories. Tell me about one of your favorite role-playing experiences. It was a long-term experience, but my favorite character I ever played was in a Buffy-turned-WoD-due-to-power-creep game. I played a teenage super-serious marital artist whose family have hunted demons for centuries, but were cursed to basically be demon-powered. A friend of mine played this character's twin brother, who was a sorcerer who was manipulated into selling his soul for magic. My character's goal was to save him by whatever means necessary, but the two of us spent the entire campaign sniping at each other, making fun of each other, and pulling each other's asses out of the fire. The campaign itself was...well it had a lot of problems but man playing love/hate demon hunting twins was so much goddamn fun.
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Jul 20, 2019 03:31
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Since we're coming up on the deadline, and I'm an active participant in this game as well, I figure it behooves me to answer my own questions.Maleketh posted:What major themes are you interested in seeing in the story? I'm a ham. I love melodramatic roleplaying, epic monologues, and heated exchanges between opponents. I also enjoy worlds in which the gods are strongly represented. Conversely, although sci-fi has its place in fantasy, I'm not big on the elf playbook's Star Elf option - something about it doesn't appeal to me. I'm not going to disallow it though. Since none of that technically answers the question I asked, though, I should also add that I'm into heroes overcoming seemingly impossible odds to eke out victory, as well as discovering deep secrets about the world and steadily growing in power. The realization that your rag-tag troupe has grown into a small but skilled army is a great feeling. Maleketh posted:What sort of character do you usually like to play? I tend to gravitate toward weird and exotic characters, but I'm not above playing something more mundane if I have a solid concept. I'm also the person most likely to fill a missing role when everyone's picking their classes. I'm ultimately happy playing just about anything. Maleketh posted:Tell me about one of your favorite role-playing experiences. My friends and I were playing game using the FATE Dresden Files RPG ruleset, but in a 1930s-era archaeological adventure setting (think Indiana Jones with magic). My character was a follower of an old god that no one was sure existed, at least until we made our way to a "lost world" area containing an ancient civilization that worshiped the same god. Over the course of the next several sessions, I ravenously collected and jealously hoarded my fate points (bennies you can spend for bonuses on rolls). I eventually accrued a collection of around 20 of them. Finally, were were able to settle the civil war that had overtaken the locals, and my character went out to make a speech to the assembled masses, hoping to restore their shaken faith in their deity. I blew all my fate points on the roll, giving me a total of around 35 (in a game where a roll of 9 is incredibly impressive). Everyone in the area heard the speech and believed absolutely that their god was right there with them. And since the gods in the setting are powered by belief and worship, it resulted in my god literally being summoned before his faithful, if only for a moment. That campaign was bonkers in all the best ways, and was easily the best in which I've ever played, but even there this scene was the highlight for me.
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Jul 21, 2019 23:59
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Okay, everyone! Applications have been reviewed and I've made my player picks. This was a tough decision to make, since I think everyone has something worthwhile to bring to the table. My picks are: Tricky paradoxGentleman areyoucontagious nil. Astus Anyone who wasn't chosen is welcome to remain in the Discord chat with us; you'll be my first picks if anyone drops and needs to be replaced. If you'd prefer not to hang around, I understand completely, but thanks for your interest regardless.
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Jul 22, 2019 13:22
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Hey Maleketh, I bit off more than I can chew between work and starting my own CYOA. You can sub me out  sorry
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Jul 22, 2019 15:55
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Happens. That being the case, I will welcome Evil Mastermind into the fold.
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Jul 22, 2019 17:40
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quote:Playbook: The Dwarf Tell us about your hero: Rajan is very curious and excitable, and has always been interested in learning how things work. While a Salamander learning some form of craft is hardly strange, Rajan's interests are a bit more eclectic than normal among his people. Smithing, stone work, wood cutting, if it allowed him to create something from the materials around him, he was interested in learning about it. Recently this has extended to alchemy, and he's gotten to the point where he only occasionally blows himself up! When you're as durable as he is, explosions are something you simply shake off as you return to the drawing board. Tell us why are you your people's champion: Normal Salamanders are only slightly more durable than the other races, despite having metallic bodies. Their basic frames are meant to be customized as they grow older, adding on bits that either help with their work, express part of their personality, or show off some accomplishment they're proud of. Rajan has spent multiple decades adding more and more armor to his frame, as his search for new materials to use in his work has lead him into danger more than once. The result is that Rajan's frame is larger and sturdier than average, and he has become very proficient in repairing it even when away from a forge. Aside from his toughness, Rajan has also been so dedicating to learning anything to do with creation (and a bit of destruction via alchemy) that he has been trusted with several secrets guarded by the Salamander Elders. In short, he's simply the most equipped for the job. Tell us three facts about your people: * Salamanders are beings of elemental fire ritually bound to a metallic "frame" that acts as their physical body. For the most part, this allows them to function most other living creatures, with some slight differences: they still need to eat and drink (in order to fuel their internal flame), they can heal from injuries over time (as their bond with their frames allows them to "reforge" their bodies, as long as they are still mostly intact), and they still have the same five sense everyone else is familiar with, despite not having any recognizable organs. Normally their frames have open vents along their back to allow in air, but these can be sealed shut if they need to submerge themselves in water (not that water is deadly to them, it's just extremely uncomfortable when it comes into contact with their flame). Eventually, no matter how much care they put into maintaining their frame, a Salamander will eventually burn through their metal bodies and pass on, but this normally takes around three centuries to occur. * Despite their fiery nature, Salamanders make their home among swamps and wetlands, where they gather iron and other metals from the marshes. They are even able to farm a special type of metal from the swamps, which they simply call "Bog Metal" when asked, due to secret techniques kept hidden from others. This special metal is what all Salamander frames are made out of, as it is the only material that the Salamander's flames can be ritually bound to. * Salamanders cannot get drunk like other races can, although they still have a great fondness for alcohol. That's not to say it has no effect on them, as heavy drinking will cause their flames to become "erratic", creating a need for some sort of physical activity to help them vent their excess energy. As a result, all Salamander bars and taverns are heavily fireproofed, even when compared to other Salamander buildings. Astus fucked around with this message at 18:53 on Jul 27, 2019 |
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Jul 23, 2019 22:41
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Here's the working draft of my character, including answers to the Guided Establishment questions. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1EZc5v8mjc0IQYy3N6HGxJTVJ_sy0xnjV1SLKzQvaOP8/edit?usp=sharing
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Jul 26, 2019 21:21
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Here's Corrin, the Heir https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Q8YpcCdiFsL1Lm9ezNOUVSZun2CYav975pyvMCL447o/edit?usp=sharing
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Jul 26, 2019 21:29
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Raikou, the https://docs.google.com/document/d/17i77hI_hUS01KW4JixNqEH2V8tZi61Wzv3LpXHb0EgI/edit
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Jul 26, 2019 23:34
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Game thread is up!
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Jul 31, 2019 01:44
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Here is my sheet: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1xOPX7i0Ru-uurS5ty1wQUpT9xJt0WLCkEWZ35sPDZyE/edit?usp=sharing
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Aug 2, 2019 11:14
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