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Quote from pionoplayer»

... except maybe engie_ninja.

twin; if you read the below, don't take it too personally. I'm blowing off all the steam from just about everything I disagreed with throughout the thread, and I'll likely do the same thing to tazz, and I did the same thing internally to myself upon finishing the tvtropes thread.

And tazz, I'd take that as an okay thing, except it's been stated at points that the Godmodder is the ultimate enemy, and always really has supposed to have been. That's one of the points that's taken ridiculous amounts of self control not to bring up arguments over.

Because honestly? Twin's attempts to knock down everyone else's power scales have been completely insane in their scope and complete pointlessness. And yes, I am saying this with full awareness that twin is probably going to read this.

Twin was a great GM, and he's done a wonderful job writing the plot, but he's been trying to hard to keep a grip on it. Introducing the OP Scale was all that was needed to keep things legitimate, but then other things started creeping in that really make me feel like he's been trying to make the players as unnecessary in the plot as possible, and while I know it's not true, he still could have handled those things better.

I'm not going to bring things up in Scratch's Manor, because those memories are colored by how I thought back then, and that's the point where my line of thoughts were leading towards piono - the plot tumor that almost became malignant.

But then Psi-Scratch happened. Since then it's sort of felt like the entire thing is going closer and closer towards trying to dethrone all previous canon established by both players and other game masters, especially with the whole 'Project Binary is greater than everything else' bit. And then the Employer, who has supposedly engineered the whole thing from the beginning, rendering EVERY SINGLE OTHER CHARACTER as no more than pawns.

Even engie, whose entire shtick and purpose as a character is to be the most overpowered active contributor to the conflict.

Like, seriously. If Project Binary is supposedly powerful enough to beat the guy who has a car bigger than the entire Trifecta, orbiting universes and all, then why didn't he just win instantly? Not to mention the 'controlling the Narrative thing', that has never been practiced once, and it feels at this point that that statement was nothing more than an attempt to remove the supposed 'power' I might have over the concept, being it's creator.

Even after I had willingly relinquished it to twin.

Now, before you point out the Vord and the like, I want to say that I am very grateful twin let me use those. The Vord accomplished the story purpose I had in mind, back when I was trying to build myself up as the main character. By the time it actually hit, the only thing I still had as a goal was gameplay.

Which never happened. I'm not blaming twin for this, it was a huge undertaking, but there were supposed to be numerous mechanics that went with it, up to and including ways to deal with takers, and using the Preston Cole as a key entity (essentially required in order to beat the event) which would lead to multi-front fights.

Then there was the MBoA. That was intended to be a lead up to the final fight, an idea to have the great grand battle that told everyone that the end was coming. Right from the beginning.

Which never happened. By the time twin told me that it was getting shunted out of the last act, I had already done all my foreshadowing for it and had no way to cancel it really without completely trashing my own plot ideas and having to rework everything from scratch. It turned into a cheap gimmick, and the Vord turned into 'why piono shouldn't be allowed to touch the plot'.

I'm not blaming twin for either of those fiascoes, I probably should have called off the MBoA, and helped him out with the Vord, but that didn't happen. But at the same time, neither had any significant effect on the plot. The MBoA was passed over as if it were nothing (despite most of the major forces in the server supposedly having come together for it) beyond Scratch making note of it when explaining what happened to the trolls, and the Vord haven't even been mentioned outside a few comments about how they hijacked the trial.

And again, to clarify, I'm not griping about not being 'important enough'. Admittedly, I'm still griping and definitely blowing it out of proportion, but what I'm griping about is twin's tendency to shove other people's stuff out of the spotlight.

Let me list some of the things; maniac's repeated attempts to contribute to the backstory all got crushed underfoot, and twin would've noped his entire backstory had me AND several others not stepped in to defend him, Every single attempt to interact with Earth at all, no matter how justified, culminating with the poor excuse for godmodding that 'imprisoned' engie's drone when he and amp were messing with stuff over there, even before doing anything that actually affected Binary, which was then followed by him, significantly LESS powerful than engie, getting away from the planet with no more trouble than three ill-equipped cops. Attempting to kill off everyone's characters with Psi-Scratch (even though he rescinded after literally the entire thread exploded at him) which event was in and of itself hijacking a plotline that SERPENT kicked off, although probably with her consent, hijacking the kill of Lord English (because honestly, he couldn't just let the killing blow kill the stupid thing?), determining all of our actions in every cutscene, even when such a thing was horribly out of character, and several other instances.

I mean, shoot. I was WAY too forceful about butting my way into the plot for most of the game, and still probably am even through how hard I try not to have my shenanigans get in the way of other people having fun, and at that, I was still only a major force in what, three events? And as far I can tell, the only times other people have gotten to be major events in anything were tazz making the deal with Bill Cipher and the comb raves, which twin wrote out and would have handed off to the exact same effect had they not been claimed by the people that claimed them.

Did you guys read the early summary?

That's what first got me angry about twin minimizing other people's importance. Up until midway through Act 4, the official summary made no mention of anyone but himself and me, and that was because of the Vord event.

Fortunately he's fixed that now, but that's still stuck with me.

The whole thing that bothers me the most was the way the EoA4 post ended. With several characters who were COMPLETELY IRRELEVANT to the story up until now suddenly becoming important. Let's list them off,

The Shadow and the Binaries, all of whom have served no purpose aside from upstaging the godmodder.

The Conflict, which is, in my EXTREMELY biased opinion, a cheap cop out on why Project Binary was supposedly able to gain control of part of the Narrative and why twin has the ability to just suddenly give us a diabolus ex machina.

Flumpty Bumpty, who has been brought up a few times in a couple of other sessions, every single time with the sole intent of trying to derail the entire forum game. And was also supposedly killed by ire, which honestly SHOULD have stuck consdiering the Waluigi Thyme was supposed to be the spoil with the ability to change the plot as it was planned.

With him setting up characters like this, I'm not even sure what to think, especially considering the fact that engie is the only player who gets away with having a character anywhere NEAR those power scales without having to set up the proxy of being restrained physically by the Narrative.

Whew. I'm done. I still feel twitchy though.

Again, don't pay too much attention to the above. I needed to get it out of my system, and the people I know in real life, having not actually played this game might actually start thinking twin is a bad GM if I were to rant at them.

Reading this made me angry. Very angry. Not angry at you or anyone here. Angry at myself.

I guess I don't like it when others point out my flaws. Really, who does? I won't try to minimize most of what you've said here because they've already happened. I can't really justify any of it. This is my first forum game after all, so it's natural that there's a lot (and I mean A LOT) of things that I could have handled better or just outright didn't do a very good job with. The whole thing about players not being portrayed very well by me IS an issue, I suppose. The person who knows you better than anyone is yourself, after all. I don't know everything about your characters and can't say how they would react to everything, so I just sort of blanket them under one group. That's not a very good solution, I suppose. So I apologize for it.

Here's what I'll try to minimize.

Project Binary being able to control the Narrative wasn't well-executed in the end, but it wasn't an attempt to remove the power you had over it as its creator. It did allow him to capture all of you in the Mate, give him total control of Earth, and let Project Artemis happen on the scale it did. The Employer didn't plan EVERYTHING from the beginning. The Secret of the Void said there were some things he couldn't have foreseen, after all. He had the general idea down, that he would organize three universes and ultimately destroy them through a series of intertwining and simultaneous events. He knew the Second Godmodding War would happen, but the only thing he would end up explicitly controlling during it was the Invasion.

And in that early summary, I'm pretty sure I mentioned Serpent's role in Intermission 1 and the Invasion. But I wasn't mentioning the things everyone had done because the summary was meant to be a general synopsis of the game without going too much in depth. I've changed this for the summaries of Act 3 and Act 4, as you can see. I've mentioned several of the exploits and adventures players have done since I made that summary.

Now, let's talk about Trial 7 and the Execution. I'm going to tell you the truth. Are you ready for this? You might not be.

You could call the Conflict a cop-out if you felt inclined to. I didn't intend for it to be that, but I suppose it is on some level. And here's why. My original plan for Trial 7 was that Binary Prime, the Employer, and Project Binary would have all merged to become one giant Binary that you would have had to fight, and the Godmodder would be at its core. This Binary would have killed the Secret of the Void and be the thing responsible for the Cataclysm I mentioned throughout the game. I would have finished it off with Chemotherapy and its death would have created the black hole. Later on I added another part to it where the real-life selves of everyone would head to the Twinmobile and attack Project Binary's ships and his actual self on Earth, after I shut down all the power. And later still I thought of the idea of Godmodder Soul, whom you would have to fight in addition to Binary.

As you can see, this is drastically different than what Trial 7 was. So what happened in between then and now?

Near the tail end of Trial 6 (and by this I mean that span in July where no one had really posted due to Terraria 1.3 and ending fatigue) I got worried. Very worried. Worried that Trial 7 wouldn't be well-received at all due to, in essence, no one wanting to actually play it. So I panicked and asked for help from someone who I figured I could get an honest response from - Fseftr.

During my talks with Fseftr, we came up with the Trial 7 that actually happened. The one where the three Binaries took everyone to the Moonbase and there was a massive ship battle, and I introduced the Conflict and had you all do a boss rush in the Godmodder's mindscape when all was said and done. So, if the Conflict doesn't seem especially well developed (and it IS the things that you described in your "extremely biased opinion", although that wasn't supposed to be its purpose), that's because it isn't, in a sense. I tend to plan things out far in advance with this game, as should be obvious to you after reading the Execution, and the Conflict wasn't planned out at all.

But the reason I've fleshed out the Conflict so late in the game is for a purpose - so it can be used by other GMs in the future. The Conflict is the ULTIMATE big bad, the main antagonist of existence itself. And even though I've suggested that DTG3 be smaller than DTG2, I'd be lying if I said I wouldn't find it interesting if the Conflict played a role in the game. Hell, even if it played a role in DTG0 too.

Flumpty Bumpty wasn't killed by Irecreeper back in Trial 5. I explicitly said that Irecreeper should leave where he was before Flumpty recovered. I never said he had died at all. So him coming back should have been somewhat obvious, I suppose. And I introduced Flumpty so he could be used later, either by me or by the GM of DTG3 as a plot point. We'll see.

I'm aware that my attempts to knock down power scales have been insane in retrospect, and it is fairly stupid, in my opinion. I was just trying to make an epic story out of this game, one that I thought would be awesome for everyone to read. But I had to sacrifice a lot to get there, I suppose. And the definition of epic is subjective, for that matter.

There's my response. I apologize for everything I've done wrong throughout the game, but that's just how it is. Mistakes are made, especially when this is my first time managing a project of this size and scope. To be honest, I'm happy with all the stuff I've done right, or at least has been accepted by the playerbase. You can't say there's anything else like this game on the forum, or maybe on the internet itself.

You are right about characters not reacting how they would in scenes. But I don't care. Maniac's reactions to things are just silly Deadpool-esque things in my head.

As for Twins response....

This is your FIRST forum game!?

Wow. You did an amazing job Twin, don't let anyone tell you different. As for Trial 7, I would say that either one could work, but I prefer this one. The conflict's idea as a secret big bad is GENIUS! The idea to use them as a plot point for future DTG's is also quite smart.

But, I wouldn't have the ending any other way. Why? Well, there's one reason.

When I found out you made the ending, I read it thinking it wold be a happy ending. Instead, I felt something I've never felt when reading/watching/playing an ending.

I've seen endings that made me happy, sad, shocked, heck, even angry! But this one is an ending that made me feel one thing I've never felt before.

Defeat.

Reading the ending made me realize that this is what an ending SHOULD look like. This finishes all the plot holes, ties stories together, but, at the same time, extinguishes hope.

I'm even wondering if any of our characters will survive this.

So, no matter what anyone says, Twin, this is one of the best endings I've ever seen. PERIOD.

I thank you Twin, for leading us through everything in this game. You never quit, you never gave up when the Forums glitched, when your computer broke, when you were angry, sad, when life got in the way, when almost no one showed up. I would've given up long before this.

So, I thank you, Twin, for making DTG2 the way it is.

Quote from pionoplayer»

Okay, I have to say this though, I did a lot more bashing of twin in the above post than I really should have.

At the same time, it sort of needed to be said, so instead of taking it back, I think that I'll balance it out by making a point of what he has done right.

And let's face it, that's most of it.

EDIT: You know what, I'm tired, and it is way too hard to give long compliments, no matter how much someone deserves them.

Let's just chalk it up to;

twin's amazing.

You've given us an absolutely amazing storyline, no matter how much I might gripe, that's all it is. Griping. The story is engrossing and heavily involved, and wouldn't be nearly as amazing as it is without you.

The artwork is stunning, I've looked at every image and my jaw still hurts from hitting the floor so many times.

You're witty. You've slipped in so many hilarious jokes I'd want to make a highlight reel, but it'd still be a few hours long.

You've kept every single character IN-CHARACTER! I don't know how you do it, but the dialogue always feels like it's coming out of the character's mouth. IT isn't perfect, but it's hard for anyone other than the original creator to be 100% spot on, and even then, it's still difficult.

And the gameplay. Oh my word the gameplay. I don't know how you've managed to keep it so engrossing, it was a struggle for me the entire time, but you've come up with so many interesting gameplay mechanics, Trial 7 may not have been my favorite story-wise, but gameplay-wise, you gave us a grand finale with an astounding flourish. You've had awesome gimmicks, hilarious antics, you've had everything.

And that doesn't even take into consideration the time you've put in.

You've sacrificed more time to this game than anyone could rightfully ask of you, and you've done it to give us this great game. There's no way I could possibly do what you've done.

Thank you twin, I wish I could give you a better thank you than this, because honestly, you deserve it. Especially after that rather unfair bashing I gave you a few posts ago.

Thank you for the praise. I mean it. It's really nice to see that what I've done, despite its numerous flaws, has managed to bring over a hundred people together over the course of two years to contribute to this game, no matter how small their additions were. And it's nice to see that, for all I've done wrong, I've done much more right. I think that's pretty good for my first forum game, don't you?

Quote from ManiacMasteR»

You are right about characters not reacting how they would in scenes. But I don't care. Maniac's reactions to things are just silly Deadpool-esque things in my head.

As for Twins response....

This is your FIRST forum game!?

Wow. You did an amazing job Twin, don't let anyone tell you different. As for Trial 7, I would say that either one could work, but I prefer this one. The conflict's idea as a secret big bad is GENIUS! The idea to use them as a plot point for future DTG's is also quite smart.

But, I wouldn't have the ending any other way. Why? Well, there's one reason.

When I found out you made the ending, I read it thinking it wold be a happy ending. Instead, I felt something I've never felt when reading/watching/playing an ending.

I've seen endings that made me happy, sad, shocked, heck, even angry! But this one is an ending that made me feel one thing I've never felt before.

Defeat.

Reading the ending made me realize that this is what an ending SHOULD look like. This finishes all the plot holes, ties stories together, but, at the same time, extinguishes hope.

I'm even wondering if any of our characters will survive this.

So, no matter what anyone says, Twin, this is one of the best endings I've ever seen. PERIOD.

I thank you Twin, for leading us through everything in this game. You never quit, you never gave up when the Forums glitched, when your computer broke, when you were angry, sad, when life got in the way, when almost no one showed up. I would've given up long before this.

So, I thank you, Twin, for making DTG2 the way it is.

You... You felt defeat?

...

...

Good. That's what I wanted.

And this won't be the last time you feel defeated by the end of the game.

First twin, see my above post. I wasn't able to do the monster post I'd been hoping, but I hope it's enough to lift your spirits. I wasn't trying to make you upset. I mostly just needed to vent.

As for this being your first forum game... I'm still not 100% certain I believe that honestly. you've done way too good of a job for me to every fully believe it.

As for Project Binary capturing us... I think that I phrased it wrong. Binary controlling the Narrative was more of a cop-out. Everything that Binary supposedly did with the power of the Narrative control would've just as easily been executed with the aid of the Conflict, I mean, two sides of the same coin, right? The Narrative has done similar things.

As for the Employer's role, okay, that makes me feel a bit better. It was just that it felt a bit too much like 'The employer can beat you no matter what' and that got on my nerves.

As for everything else, Okay, most of those were legitimate mistakes, or things I myself have done. I suppose now that you've explained them, I really shouldn't have criticized you on most of it. If you'd been able to flesh the Conflict out a bit more, I wouldn't have had a problem. As long as the Godmodder still ends up being the great big bad of the series, the Conflict is a great tool that can be used as a sort of yin and yang thing with the Narrative, although when I first conceived of the Narrative, I'd had in mind that THAT would be the big bad of the multiverse, and manipulating the rise of the godmodder for some purpose.

I still haven't completely given up on those designs to be honest, but if I do anything with that, it'll be a few years from now. I'm going to be leaving on a mission when I'm 18 or 19, so I'm going to miss 2 years of DTG, so a lot of my plans for the future have revolved around being able to pick up my characters and freeze them at a certain point to hold onto so that I can jump back in when I get back.

As things are, I think we're better off with the Narrative and Conflict where they are, the Conflict the driving force of evil, the Narrative the driving force of good. It's actually pretty useful, and I'll probably use it in the DTG MSPA session.

Although, a question.

If you end up actually joining the mspa session... Could you make plans with me to bring the splinters of the Conflict in? I think we could do something awesome with that.

Y'know, the game's been long, something something bossfights... I would probably have cracked had I tried taking on the role of GM for something like this. So, kudos to you in that regard, Twin.

Quote from pionoplayer»

First twin, see my above post. I wasn't able to do the monster post I'd been hoping, but I hope it's enough to lift your spirits. I wasn't trying to make you upset. I mostly just needed to vent.

As for this being your first forum game... I'm still not 100% certain I believe that honestly. you've done way too good of a job for me to every fully believe it.

As for Project Binary capturing us... I think that I phrased it wrong. Binary controlling the Narrative was more of a cop-out. Everything that Binary supposedly did with the power of the Narrative control would've just as easily been executed with the aid of the Conflict, I mean, two sides of the same coin, right? The Narrative has done similar things.

As for the Employer's role, okay, that makes me feel a bit better. It was just that it felt a bit too much like 'The employer can beat you no matter what' and that got on my nerves.

As for everything else, Okay, most of those were legitimate mistakes, or things I myself have done. I suppose now that you've explained them, I really shouldn't have criticized you on most of it. If you'd been able to flesh the Conflict out a bit more, I wouldn't have had a problem. As long as the Godmodder still ends up being the great big bad of the series, the Conflict is a great tool that can be used as a sort of yin and yang thing with the Narrative, although when I first conceived of the Narrative, I'd had in mind that THAT would be the big bad of the multiverse, and manipulating the rise of the godmodder for some purpose.

I still haven't completely given up on those designs to be honest, but if I do anything with that, it'll be a few years from now. I'm going to be leaving on a mission when I'm 18 or 19, so I'm going to miss 2 years of DTG, so a lot of my plans for the future have revolved around being able to pick up my characters and freeze them at a certain point to hold onto so that I can jump back in when I get back.

As things are, I think we're better off with the Narrative and Conflict where they are, the Conflict the driving force of evil, the Narrative the driving force of good. It's actually pretty useful, and I'll probably use it in the DTG MSPA session.

Although, a question.

If you end up actually joining the mspa session... Could you make plans with me to bring the splinters of the Conflict in? I think we could do something awesome with that.

I did read your above post, by the way. Thank you for that.

Trust me, this is my first experience with a forum game. I've been somewhat of a storyteller for a while, but this is the first time my ideas have gone public barring that fanfiction I made two or three years ago about Minecraft. (Which is actually in the same canon as DTG, you know. But I'll explain that much later.)

I suppose you're right, but Project Binary controlled the Narrative because I hadn't thought of the Conflict back then. Although now that we have the Conflict, his actions can be explained as him trying to take over the Narrative so the Conflict could return on some form - which actually happened. The Narrative being the big bad is an interesting idea, by the way. And to be honest, I would like to see what would happen with morally grey characters. What happens when the Narrative and the Conflict are influencing a character at the same time? It's something I haven't given much thought to, but I'd like to see it happen.

I know it doesn't seem like it now, but none of the events of this game would have happened if the Godmodder hadn't stepped up and made GodCraft. None of these superpowered villains would even be here if it wasn't for him. So, even now, the Godmodder is the Big Bad. The one that started it all. The Conflict wouldn't be reforming, the Red Dragon wouldn't have been freed, Limbo would have been untouched, the Homestuck Invasion wouldn't have happened at all...

Perhaps we could work something out. I'll join the MSPA game and The Infinite War (and DTG2 infinity and DTG0 oh god help that's too many ga) after DTG2 is over, so it's a possibility...

Quote from engie_ninja»

Y'know, the game's been long, something something bossfights... I would probably have cracked had I tried taking on the role of GM for something like this. So, kudos to you in that regard, Twin.

I've cracked. I just don't think anyone knows it.

Quote from Amperz4nd»

And as such, you have nigh-unto-unlimited space to make up your own!

That... wasn't what I wanted to do though... You know I can't tolerate Homestuck enough to actually play a first guardian.

Quote from Fseftr»

Second chapter complete!: https://numbersoup.wordpress.com/2015/08/24/destroy-the-goshmodder-chapter-2/

Yes! I shall be the best not-wife of not-Dumbledore! I suspect Blue is going to be introduced next. Kinda wish Wilson was in there instead of me considering that's where I spent most of my character development efforts.

--------------------------------------

I suppose I might as well throw in my two cents about this whole thing. For a while now, it seems that there's this trend with bosses. How to make a boss/villain:
Step 1: Introduce boss. Have it face all players.
Step 2: Have boss humiliate/defeat players in a cutscene
Step 3: Give the boss an HP bar and let the players beat the Nether out of it.

Let me count real quick all the bosses that I feel have followed this... That I know of anyway...
- Scratch (kinda, pre-Psi)
- That dog thing in the manor
- The Arrival
- Psi-Scratch (Especially)
- The Incarnate
- Binary
- The Shadow

Of course, this happens with pretty much EVERY game in existence. The greatest indicator of a player's power isn't the OP scale or their alchemies or their strength or anything else like that, its whether they're in a cutscene or not. This is kinda a lose-lose situation for game design. If you make the player lose in a cutscene, the player's power is inconsistent, and that's annoying, especially to someone like me. On the other hand, if you rig a game play section to force the player to lose, you run the very real risk of people noticing that it was rigged and then that's annoying.



Speaking of story ideas... ... hm... I just had a really crazy one that would shake up what I had planned for TvT, DTG0, and the Terraria sessions... Want to hear it? Prepare yourself for a bombshell...

I was thinking of using...

...

Homestuck. Well, kinda. More specifically, using splits, which I think are from Homestuck. However, I would use them in a way nobody has before. And... nobody ever said that splits have to stay in their origin body. What would happen if one moved to someone else's? I have no idea how that would happen, but I could make up some stupid reason. That would fix a plot hole I've been struggling with for a while, but it would also bring the total character count up to 7. They wouldn't all be in the same location at any given time at least. The splits wouldn't be as important as characters, but still, my habit of coming up with new characters for every RP means that I and people who want to follow the RP have a lot to keep track of. Maybe I could put something on the DTG forum personal RP section.

Does this sound like a good idea? I don't know. It would certainly make things more... interesting. And confusing.

Quote from Talist»

-snip-

Yes! I shall be the best not-wife of not-Dumbledore! I suspect Blue is going to be introduced next. Kinda wish Wilson was in there instead of me considering that's where I spent most of my character development efforts.

-snip-

Homestuck. Well, kinda. More specifically, using splits, which I think are from Homestuck.

-snip-

I can assure you that nobody's character or character development will matter in the least. Remember, in the source fic, everybody is incredibly OOC, and my version will be no different, but maybe a bit less egregiously so.

They aren't. There's cherubs, which are similar(?), but Splits are an original concept (donut steal), I believe.

You know, I can't help but think that either J. K. Rowling directly inspired this (Hogwarts Miracles Whatever) with the whole "someone-whose-name-I-have-forgotten-since-I-read-that-one-book makes sickly-sweet fairy tales because "No, but, the CHILDREN!"", or she was referencing the fic. Can't tell which one I want to be true more or not.

Quote from Talist»

That... wasn't what I wanted to do though... You know I can't tolerate Homestuck enough to actually play a first guardian.

Yes! I shall be the best not-wife of not-Dumbledore! I suspect Blue is going to be introduced next. Kinda wish Wilson was in there instead of me considering that's where I spent most of my character development efforts.

--------------------------------------

I suppose I might as well throw in my two cents about this whole thing. For a while now, it seems that there's this trend with bosses. How to make a boss/villain:
Step 1: Introduce boss. Have it face all players.
Step 2: Have boss humiliate/defeat players in a cutscene
Step 3: Give the boss an HP bar and let the players beat the Nether out of it.

Let me count real quick all the bosses that I feel have followed this... That I know of anyway...
- Scratch (kinda, pre-Psi)
- That dog thing in the manor
- The Arrival
- Psi-Scratch (Especially)
- The Incarnate
- Binary
- The Shadow

Of course, this happens with pretty much EVERY game in existence. The greatest indicator of a player's power isn't the OP scale or their alchemies or their strength or anything else like that, its whether they're in a cutscene or not. This is kinda a lose-lose situation for game design. If you make the player lose in a cutscene, the player's power is inconsistent, and that's annoying, especially to someone like me. On the other hand, if you rig a game play section to force the player to lose, you run the very real risk of people noticing that it was rigged and then that's annoying.



Speaking of story ideas... ... hm... I just had a really crazy one that would shake up what I had planned for TvT, DTG0, and the Terraria sessions... Want to hear it? Prepare yourself for a bombshell...

I was thinking of using...

...

Homestuck. Well, kinda. More specifically, using splits, which I think are from Homestuck. However, I would use them in a way nobody has before. And... nobody ever said that splits have to stay in their origin body. What would happen if one moved to someone else's? I have no idea how that would happen, but I could make up some stupid reason. That would fix a plot hole I've been struggling with for a while, but it would also bring the total character count up to 7. They wouldn't all be in the same location at any given time at least. The splits wouldn't be as important as characters, but still, my habit of coming up with new characters for every RP means that I and people who want to follow the RP have a lot to keep track of. Maybe I could put something on the DTG forum personal RP section.

Does this sound like a good idea? I don't know. It would certainly make things more... interesting. And confusing.

I made up splits myself. Every single aspect of them was created specifically for DTG2. They were loosely based off of cherubs, which are from Homestuck, but splits are very different.

I agree a bit with talist, the power scales have been slightly inconsistent, but as I've stated before:

WARNING! Power scale not to scale!

It's sort of a thing.

And finalbattle? We've pretty much verified on multiple fronts that he's not killing off all our characters. Especially not after the fiasco in Trial 4.

That being said... One issue I've had with the game, but because of us, the players, rather than the GM...

Name one major character who has kicked the bucket.

That's right, you can't.

For a while I had a plan to have Sanford get murdered, but then that fell through. I have vague plans to try and work with that plot, and I've got vague plans to have Piono kill off Eric in the future maybe, but I'm not sure.

Basically, a lot of it doesn't feel too desperate, because our characters just aren't in danger. We don't die, except for the time we got better. I think that eventually that needs to change, but we shouldn't rush it, otherwise it'll be a pointless killing.

Also, people don't like when characters with characterization die. Read through the tvtropes thread. People flipped the gorilla out when Rayquaza died.

And Rayquaza had gotten all of 3 lines, and even then those were just to be goofy.

Is the UOSS a major character?

Not a character, it was a big summon but it didn't actually have a whole lot of emotion attached to it.

Ah. I dunno, I just felt like I could really relate to that guy, y'know?

Quote from Fseftr»

I can assure you that nobody's character or character development will matter in the least. Remember, in the source fic, everybody is incredibly OOC, and my version will be no different, but maybe a bit less egregiously so.

They aren't. There's cherubs, which are similar(?), but Splits are an original concept (donut steal), I believe.

Well, yeah. You're right. We're all meant to fit into little stereotype cubby holes anyway. But still, Wilson is my guy for RP and RP-ish things.

Oh... okay. That's good. That means both that I can feel better about using them and the rules are pretty loose. Alright.

Quote from FINALBATTLESTARTSNOW»

As far as bosses go, there is something else that can be done. Have them do number 1, and start the battle from there. Then just have the battle itself be hard.

Then the boss is just another HP bar. In writing, people tend to like heroes who first get defeated, get stronger, then turn around and beat whatever defeated them at first. Dragon Ball Z uses that concept a lot. The problem is that games' interactivity can get in the way of that because players want to win. In other mediums, the storyteller can make the hero fail for their own mistakes. Not in games though. In games, you have to force the player to fail for outside reasons, which really dilites the effect of the 'hero rising to the challenge' thing. Also, in games the process is often compressed, like what I feel happened with Psi-Scratch. I was still thinking the whole time "Oh, so now we can beat you just because we're not in a cutscene?".

Quote from pionoplayer»

I agree a bit with talist, the power scales have been slightly inconsistent, but as I've stated before:

WARNING! Power scale not to scale!

It's sort of a thing.

And finalbattle? We've pretty much verified on multiple fronts that he's not killing off all our characters. Especially not after the fiasco in Trial 4.

That being said... One issue I've had with the game, but because of us, the players, rather than the GM...

Name one major character who has kicked the bucket.

That's right, you can't.

For a while I had a plan to have Sanford get murdered, but then that fell through. I have vague plans to try and work with that plot, and I've got vague plans to have Piono kill off Eric in the future maybe, but I'm not sure.

Basically, a lot of it doesn't feel too desperate, because our characters just aren't in danger. We don't die, except for the time we got better. I think that eventually that needs to change, but we shouldn't rush it, otherwise it'll be a pointless killing.

Also, people don't like when characters with characterization die. Read through the tvtropes thread. People flipped the gorilla out when Rayquaza died.

And Rayquaza had gotten all of 3 lines, and even then those were just to be goofy.

So about characters dying...

The very first ending I planned for Wilson involved him dying. Not heroically or really tragically, but just him dying either of old age or some kind of accident involving chocolate, or even suicide. However, I became too attached to him to let that happen. And so, despite him constantly fearing death, he really is at no risk of it because he has too much plot armor. Well, it isn't exactly plot armor because his life really isn't relevant to the plot on a whole. Really, none of the player characters have true plot armor. Rather they have... ratings armor. Yeah, let's call it that. Because if they died, their player controlling them would be really upset and that would reflect badly on Twin. The ratings armor was too strong for Psi-Scratch. And speaking of that, I was considering having Wilson die there as well, but not really. I'd godmod him back to life with some excuse that Kitsune are really spirits anyway, bound to the land, blah blah blah. Then for the rest of the story, Wilson would be technically dead just as a way to guilt Twin. But that was a petty and ineffective solution.

Anyway, that's enough of my personal reflection. Due to the risk of 'ratings armor', the GM probably won't try to kill off any characters. So, the only other person who could would be the player controlling them. And they'd probably not want to either because everyone, at least on some level, RPs for their own sake. It's not like they're going to publish a book and get money off it, so you don't need to try and sucker punch anyone for popularity.

I think I might want to kill off someone for DTG0... hm... That would actually work a little better... Might be able to explain the split with it as well. However, that kinda makes him be a character solely so that he can die. Maybe I can trick people into thinking he's a major character before he snuffs it.

Quote from Netpatham»

You know, I can't help but think that either J. K. Rowling directly inspired this (Hogwarts Miracles Whatever) with the whole "someone-whose-name-I-have-forgotten-since-I-read-that-one-book makes sickly-sweet fairy tales because "No, but, the CHILDREN!"", or she was referencing the fic. Can't tell which one I want to be true more or not.

What

I don't have anything to say on Twin and the Storygripe issue other than, In his defense, the power scale is nigh-impossible to work with to make a coherent story taking into account the 'special' players. Regular Descendants like Cobalt and Generic, or even Erelye? OK, they could realistically be restrained by the Big Bad. Things like Piono (Elemental Alchemies too OP), Eric (Those rune words are almost another form of Godmodding if Godmodding wasn't mentioned as a counter; plus I think having friendly access to those many powerful characters even with the OP Scale is ridiculous), Engie (Universe Eaters are effective Eldritch Abominations on their own accord and that's not taking into account the fact Engie's a mechanical genius) and even me to an extent (Godmodding + Super Trickster + Red Sun First Guardian + Assorted other powers = too OP?)? Yeah, no, that would be dumb in some manner, and invoke Forgot About His Powers and give the stronger characters more spotlight, encouraging some weaker ones who want to get known to get stronger, causing more rash intrusions and basically destroying any semblence of plot as suddenly everyone's stronger than the Godmodder. Now, the OP Scale works for 90% of gameplay elements; when the bigger bads come into the picture, however, that's a different story, as in theory the Narrative is AGAINST some of these guys wholly and are threatening damage worse than any collateral Engie could inflict to end the fight immediately, so the OP Scale justification doesn't work anymore, especially since only two entities have ever been said to actually control the Narrative against its will (the Godmodder via his control over OP Scale, and Project Binary through the Mate), maybe three (It was stated that Psi-Scratch could manipulate the Narrative via the Disc of Mojang); If the Narrative was invested enough, given its power, would it not justify Engie suddenly roaring in full-power (or close enough) and actually starting to put the hurt on stuff? And that also assumes Engie is emotionally invested enough; the only time he really got angry was when Blue was temporarily killed by Psi-Scratch. Could the same be said of the EFVerse characters or the Aspects of Unity? The only way to prevent that is to make them at least equally strong, if not stronger. At the very least, if the Conflict was stronger than the Narrative (and merely fragmented now), then that logically makes each shard of the Conflict somewhat stronger than the Author, who is effectively a channeler of the Narrative and could be seen as a rough equivalent. It's not the most graceful solution, but there really isn't a graceful solution to begin with and it certainly beats having to nerf your characters instead, which could easily be seen as an attack on the characters in question.

Also, to be fair to Engie, though PBinary clearly overpowered ONE Drone, it was just ONE Drone, and Engie had insane amounts of them and could still fight in GodCraft, no problem. Was ONE Drone the end of the world for him? Was Engie REALLY trying to escape all that much?

As for you, FBSN: I am the GM of DTG0, and in reference to your preview, I have a few things for you. First, Players cannot go Hostile. Neutral is the closest thing; a summoned ENTITY can go Hostile. More importantly, WHICH Godmodder are you talking about? There are two in DTG0, that's one of its bigger plot elements. Finally, I am somewhat culture savvy in regards to Video Games (or at least more so than any other given medium), so don't think those references will not be unnoticed.

Chapter Trois.

Let me guess where you got the term Assistant from...

...

Also, assistants come in Erelye levels now?

I JUST FINISHED THE LOST IN THE BINDING OF ISAAC YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

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