ToaArcan

I tend to go standard, but my last character had to be rerolled multiple times because everyone on average had really good stats (At least one 18 each, IIRC), whereas I wasn't getting anything higher than 14. Can you explain point-buy?

Question: Is this going to be play-by-post or using Skype and Roll20?

I'd be going for Warlock. Been interested in playing one.

I'd probably prefer to go with straight-up vanilla D&D, just for something a bit different to Soic stuff, which I think about way too much.

I don't think you're going to get many responses on that one, Mike.

Ooh, this should be fun.

My earliest experiences with RPGs were with Warhammer Fantasy RPG and its Warhammer 40,000 equivalent that I don't know the name of. In fact, in the second one, before we even played, we practically homebrewed an entire new race, which was extremely barebones early on, and grew with each successive use.  

Now, if you know anything about WHFRPG, you'll know that the system itself is regarded as a player killer. It's so incredibly brutal that, unless you have a very nice DM, you'd better be rolling up some extras or give your character a very large family of identical siblings with identical careers who just happen to be in the area.

Anyway, our first 40K run was mediocre, but our second? We had a huge amount of fun, even if the DM now considers it old shame.

Still, there's a story therein. Mainly that I managed to screw up the game so badly that we had to start over. In the first session.

We were all on a ship, that was being borded by random enemies. I think they were Orks. We were heading off to a landing craft to escape, when a gang of these things end up in the room with us. I look at this group, grab a grenade, and roll the dice.

100.

Now, in WHFRPG and its spinoffs, you roll on a D100 for your attacks, but you actually want to get something lower. Your stat gains with each level are helpful because you want what you rolled to be less than your stat to accomplish what you were doing. I'd just gotten the biggest possible screwup. My grenade went backwards and landed in the engine of the dropship. I destroyed our escape vessel and next session had us down on a planet instead, meeting for the first time. I gave all of my grenades to a friend's character.

Ironically, my next story involves me being given all of the party's grenades. 

We're merrily making our way across the planet, and for some reason, the DM saw fit to give me one of these.

That is an XV-15 Battlesuit. It's a suit of powered armour that contains a stealth field generator, a powerful personal jetpack, and, most obviously, a massive minigun mounted on its arm. It's called a Burst Cannon and I spent a lot of time using it to liberally distributed high-velocity plasma rounds among enemies. I'd sort of become a party leader, because I was the only one who could fly, and I had some decent weapons. Anyway, as we're blundering around and doing whatever, we come across something in the distance. It's very tall, it has lights on it,and as we get closer, it looks more and more like an enormous building-sized robot. Because it is. It's a Chaos Warhound Titan.

Now, I have no idea what on earth the DM expected us to do here. Maybe he thought we'd call in help from our superiors. Maybe he thought we'd kill the crew and leave the robot where it was due to very small grasp of the lore on our part (He knew it more, we didn't so much). 

But no. We look at this thing and decide "We're going to bloody kill this thing." The only issue is that we can't actually getup to the hatch. I can fly, but I can only carry one person. I volunteer to go alone, but one of our other players was away, and his backup volunteered to come with me. So I take all of the grenades, fly upward, and, using his knowledge (While I was a Tau, he was a human who conveniently knew the layout of a Titan's internals), we find the Titan's core generator. We put all of the grenades on it, pull the pins, and turn to run, only to get blocked by a whole squad of Chaos Space Marines. We both attack the same one, and while he gets knocked out, I manage to survive, and grab him, before rocketing over the marines. I flew out as the thing exploded, and I began to tumble to the ground with my jetpack on fire. Having recently seen Iron Man, I decide to try slowing myself with timed bursts, but ultimately, the fire reaches the fuel tank and it explodes. I fall to the ground, and end up using my buddy as a cushion. We bounce our way across the ground, crash into some really important Space Marine dude's leg, and somehow don't die. Glorious fun, absolutely impossible, but hilarious. And we felt like badasses, so it was all good.

Welcome to the site, glad to have more people here. Also great to see another artist. 

It's no secret that one of the most popular sorts of fanfiction is the fix-fic, wherein the writer latches onto something they saw as bad writing in the original work, and writes a story to "correct" that mistake, which will often please them and those like them, but may not be so popular with the fanbase of the original work as a whole. You see this frequently with Sonic fans- Writers who want to preserve the Sonic vs. Robotnik dynamic will often take the modern-day Eggman and write him to be functionally identical to the SatAM incarnation of the character, without any of his unique strengths and weaknesses. It's also not uncommon to see Scourge the Hedgehog promoted from an obvious sleaze with an explosive temper and little forethought to a smooth-talking ladies' man and a slick criminal mastermind, and his sidekick Fiona Fox presented as a legitimate villain with an actually-well-explained motive and a successful career as a foe of the Freedom Fighters under her belts, instead of a poorly-written piece of Hot Topic-styled jailbait arm candy.

This can result in good things... or it can result in the writer developing an inflated ego, believing themselves to be completely superior to canon (Though they often are, it's always good to be humble), or, in the less-skilled cases, the "fixed" characters turning into creator's pets and being used very badly.

Instead of always doing this, why not embrace these mistakes? Now, I'm not for a second suggesting that you should start writing flimsy characters and bad stories. Instead, I'm suggesting that you look at these cases and ask yourself "Why are they portrayed this way?", "Why does this not make sense?", "How could I explain this without changing the events depicted?" And then do that. Don't change things you think were poorly-done, explain them and make them work in the universe.

This is something I attempted with Fiona myself. I looked at her portrayal, and tried to come up with explanations for why she turned against her friends, what her motives were, why she'd suddenly be into someone who she'd previously been visibly put off by? Unfortunately, I didn't draw up any explanations that didn't involve mind control, but that's not necessarily a bad thing- Mind control is a very common theme in Sonic material, has been since at least one of the manuals for the original Sonic 1, and it does actually work, in a way. After all, who was Scourge working for at the time? Doctor Finitevus. Who does Fiona work for and display a heavy amount of loyalty to after Scourge is captured in Bold New Moebius? Doctor Finitevus. Who has displayed the ability to brainwash people, and did so with one very high-profile hero, completely inverting their morals? Doctor Finitevus. And who is one of the best villains the Sonic franchise has ever had? Doctor Finitevus. So in doing this, I explained a plothole in a character's story without removing everything after the plothole and starting again from scratch, I kept it close to one of the running themes of the franchise, I hit all the important points, and I tied it to one of the franchise's best villains.

So yeah, you don't always have to rewrite bad moments, you can always take a different route and explain it, making the bad point work without throwing out anything that grew from it, including potentially good moments.

Akessel raises a good point, but I think F07E knocks it out of the park in how they come across. A villain doesn't always do what they do out of malice. A great many villains do what they do for "the greater good (The greater good)" and are ultimately in the right, but end up opposing the heroes and causing misery because of it. The problem is that it was handled without a lot of nuance. Hamlin champions the cause to have Sally court-martialed, and in the very same issue was confirmed to be pursuing his own agenda. Now, if this had been kept off the table for a little while, until the characters began to question just why it was that it was always Hamlin who started things against them, then it would've been interesting, but that's not what we got. 

There was also the problem that the Council were very much focused on the opinions of the public, rather than the safety of the public. If the people of Mobotropolis wanted something intensely stupid (Like, say, Naugus as king, or Nicole to be exiled), then the Council give it to them. As a result of this, there was no-one monitoring the city's systems, because none of them thought about who would actually do Nicole's job once she was gone, and Eggman was able to destroy the city's shield generator with an infiltration bot, and the city was nearly destroyed twice over, with Naugus completely failing to deliver on all of his promises to keep it safe.

Also, note that it's "The people of Mobotropolis". Not the Acorn Republic. The council had a huge habit of making decisions that would affect the whole nation based entirely on the desires of the populace of it's capital city. Nobody outside of Mobotropolis' border supported Naugus, but he was still given power over the whole nation. 

Despite them supposedly all being fairly smart, all that was ever needed to convince them to do something stupid or antagonistic was say "But the people like it!" and suddenly everyone except Rotor and Elias was applauding the idea. The only people who actually had to justify themselves were the Freedom Fighters, whom the council trusted less than anyone else.

And hey, it's not like they ever paid attention to due process. A crowd cheered when Geoffrey put the crown on Naugus' head? I guess he's king now, with no actual explanations for why he'd be a good king. The people want Nicole out? Let's not give anyone a chance to explain why she's needed, just exile her straight away. 

The Naugus thing really is a massive hole in the council's credibility. There are so many things wrong with his accession that it forms the single greatest display of incompetence by any leadership in the comic. And this is the same universe where Maximillian Acorn and Eggman are/were world leaders. 

1) Naugus is an escaped convict who has not completed his sentence. He is thus a criminal, and should've immediately been arrested.

2) Naugus's claim to the throne is highly dubious for a variety of reasons:

-A) Nobody saw Max's promise.

-B) Max's sanity is highly debatable.

-C) It was strongly implied that he had coerced Max.

-D) Naugus has mind control powers, and thus could've brainwashed Max. However, since he doesn't try to use them on the council until the Secret Freedom arc, this point does not absolve the Council of their stupidity. "Naugus hypnotized them" isn't a valid explanation.

-E) A monarch may update the line of succession multiple times, something that Max clearly did- He made Elias the heir when he found out he was still alive, made Sally the heir again when Elias ran away, named Antoine his successor by way of marriage to Sally in the 150s, and then Elias took the throne after that, with Sally being the heir because Alexis is his stepchild, not by blood. Naugus' claim was outdated from the moment Max first changed it.

-F) All of the above is barely relevant because Max promised him the throne of the Kingdom of Acorn, a nation which was dissolved in issue 179 and replaced by the Republic of Acorn, which uses an entirely different system of government.

-G) The Republic's genesis was the Prowers' desire to avoid the mistakes of Maximillian, one of which was trusting Naugus. The council proceeded to make Naugus king.

3) The Sword of Light burns him when he touches it. This is an enormous indicator that he's evil.

4) He has tried to kill everyone in the room except Elias and Rosemary at least once.

5) His having mind control powers and the people of the city suddenly loving him would've been a huge red flag for anyone capable of joined-up thinking. However, this was an Ian Flynn story, so protagonists are only capable of that when the plot allows it.

It's broken again. Cursor is now jumping back to earlier text and deleting/typing over it. 

I'm interested in this, what Ishapar said.

I saw a suggestion that he'd just be a multiplayer/co-op character.

Because SEGA aren't doing what you wanted, they're making a smaller Classic game (Good!) and releasing it alongside a bigger Modern game (Good!) and shoehorning Classic-style gameplay into the Modern game to please the Mega Drive whiners (Bad!).

I'll be honest, the trailer looked awesome... right up until Classic Sonic appeared. His appearance tells me that this game is going to involve "Because time travels" and I'm going to spend half my 3D game in 2D even though they're making a 2D game and could've just kept them separate.

I brought this up in the SKype chat, but how long do you think it'll be before desperate fanboys take the grimmer setting and the tagline "Join the resistance" as absolute proof that the FF are definitely going to be in the game?

At first I wanted to argue that the Council weren't exactly villains, but then I looked at the lineup:

Rotor: Did the right thing every time but always got outvoted.

Chuck: Basically lost his spine and just went along with the rest of the council, and maybe went behind their backs to do the opposite, but didn't have the guts to publicly oppose them.

Dylan: Did nothing and agreed with the others.

Penelope: DId nothing and agreed with the others.

Rosemary: Seemed to be trying to screw the FF over for some reason, probably jealous that Nature vs. Nuture went the way of the latter and Tails is much more SOnic and Sally's child than he is her's.

Hamlin: Was openly trying to screw Sally over because she snubbed him from being a real FF.

Yeah, they're pretty much a problem for the FF that can't be solved by fighting.

Not sure how unpopular this one is, but hey, I'm testing the waters:

Sonic 3&K is the best classic game, and it bothers me to no end that, outside of one level in Generations, it's been pretty much ignored by SEGA's nostalgia pandering, though the Sonic Mania teaser seems to take a cue from it.

That would probably look really cool if SEGA hadn't been pulling the "IT'S STILL 1992, RIGHT GUYS!?" card since 2010. At least Tails and Knuckles are back, I guess? I mean, we've had no gameplay footage of them, but still?

Also not liking the amount of reused assets. If they're intent on doing a rehash, at least give it a fresh coat of paint and make some new character art. I'm pretty sure that's the only image of classic Knuckles that they've got.

Probably.

For an update, the bug persists even when the tab is closed and a new one is opened. Why a comment box autosaves in the first place, I don't know.

Double-header here.

Trying to respond to a comment, unfortunately, after adding a quote, I couldn't type outside the quote box. I tried to refresh to take a different approach, only to see that either the old problem of the comment box autosaving and keeping the same problem is back, or it was never fixed in the first place. 

Green Hill has probably overstayed its welcome because SEGA keep cloning it.

TO be fair, it was a prospering society of total jerks that decided they knew best for everyone else in the galaxy, and in doing so, accidentally caused at least one complete extinction of an alien race. THey also kept her and her husband imprisoned for eleven years for no reason. While the Bem were thriving, they were completely amoral.

While it might not have been derailment for her to join the council, or suggest its formation, she wasn't qualified to rule a people that she had been apart from for over a decade. 

Also that cosmic golden pool of pee was a supposedly-omniscient god. And Rosemary helped make that same wizard the king just because Geoffrey stole the crown from Elias and some people cheered. I... don't think we're supposed to agree with her, or sympathize with her. We're supposed to understand why she does what she does, and admit that she can have a point, but ultimately, she's a hindrance to the protagonists and she doesn't know what she's talking about most of the time.

Antoine's difficult. He was the joke character for the most part, his whole thing was that he didn't really grow, because he was the loser that was kinda there to make Sonic look better. Atthe same time, we've seen Archie develop him, but eventually they ran out of stuff to do with him and he got a little boring. One of the tings I like about the reboot is that they actually brought back some semblance of a rivalry with Sonic, not over Sally's affections, but just picking a SOnic's almighty ego.

Maybe start up the Bunnie/Antoine thing- I'm pretty fond of having the whole "Powerful girl, sensitive guy" stereotype reversal, it's something I aim for with Tails/Fiona in my own writing, but it's sort of undermined by Tails being an unlikely badass with Chaos powers and all manner of crazy technological weapons, topped off with an unbreakable spirit, and Fiona being a normal with a host of vulnerabilities and weaknesses that have dominated her life. She might be tough on the exterior, and Tails more quiet and reserved, but when the chips are down, Tails is going to be theone that solves the problem, and Fiona's going to be the one needing help. Thus, I prefer Bunnie and Antoine in this respect, and I liked what they were doing with that in the comics until Ian completely mangled their rekindling of their relationship

Of course, getting it up and running involves moving Antoine past his fixation on Sally, probably with having to accept that Sonic and Sally are just going to be a thing.

That said, when it comes to continuing SatAM stuff, I'm looking at this with the idea of the world actually progressing and not pulling a Sea3on and smashing the Status Quo button with a gravity hammer.

On 20/06/2016 at 3:57 AM, Prince By-Tor said:

I liked this one a lot more than your first one; the banter and descriptive prose really kept me engaged. I loved how you made this one with a character driven story, which made it very easy to read, let alone to make the read actually care about the characters. My only negative critique is that it relies too much on "official" sources and not enough original ideas/work, but other than that it was a good read.

"First" is a tricky one. This story was written over a year before Rise and Fall. However, I posted that one first because I thought it would be less controversial. 

I think the difference in liking the characters is that, in this story, the two leads we're dealing with are both intentionally sympathetic takes on the characters. It adds a layer that I felt was appropriate to both Nic herself, and her relationship with Fiona. With Rise and Fall, it was very much an evil-vs-evil situation- a demented AI with absolutely no morals against a psychopathic manchild, minus the SEGA-bran plot armour that stops him losing in the comic universe.

As for the official sources, well, it's supposed to be set in the official universe.

Regarding number 31 there, I think, judging by the fact that AMy's pursuit of Sonic is considered annoying at worst, and nobody had a problem with Tails having feelings for Fiona, bigger age gaps are somewhat more acceptable on Mobius. Not to mention that the latter is one of the only times someone's age has mattered in the entire franchise (There are four instances), and it makes the ages look entirely arbitrary. This is why I eventually threw up my hands and said "Screw it, let's get rid of comic book time and make them all adults!"

That said, Sonic and Amy are still a creepy pair. Why? Invert the genders. Make Sonic an uninterested girl, and Amy a possessive, aggressive guy. And suddenly the latter looks pretty... rape-y, for lack of a better term.