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Cool.  Blank's hiding out a for a bit, and will be until someone talks about them or does something else important.

 

Also, things are moving along more than they seem.  Drake, Winter, and I have been working on the interrogation colab for a while.

EDIT: Flame on!

Edited by The Young Pyromancer
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Asking about the darkness was talking about him, in an indirect way... But I didn't really expect for Blank to speak up about that. I would think people would be talking about it when unexplained darkness covered the city earlier in the same day, but those people probably wouldn't include Blank.

Yes, that is also true. I didn't mean to imply that things are growing stagnated. There is a fair bit of progress happening behind the scenes right now.

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3 hours ago, kenod said:

should we add character viewpoints even if they don't really speak up during the meeting?

I would, but I'm not really in the meeting. Mostly I'm just waiting for the day to finish.

EDIT: I'm looking at the meeting doc, and the question Epoch has posed is a good one: Who gets what? I think we might need a link to the map for that, and here it is: https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=z88z64ULbJzQ.keX1oRs5VZbs

Edited by breakingamber
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Just now, The Young Pyromancer said:

I can edit it if necessary, as I don't think WeirdPersonX views the thread much anymore.

I read every single post actually ^.^ though if anyone has posted anything in the actual thread I haven't seen it, I don't get notifications for that for some reason. I must've missed something though, what's up?

Just now, The Young Pyromancer said:

 

 

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Just now, The Young Pyromancer said:

You just haven't really been posting, so I thought you weren't very active.  Though to be fair, my internal ratio is messed up right now because I've been working in PMs.

Nah, I've barely posted. Too much life happening to dedicate time to this. But if there's anything specific you guys need, I'll happily do it as soon as I can.

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5 hours ago, winter devotion said:

@Kobold King I was gonna reuse some of the bits of the Darkrose design I did for an original project. Obviously I’d change the powers and personality as well as tweak the design a bit, but is even that okay? 

 

That's absolutely fine by me--so much of that art was your original initiative that I don't think I get a say in where you apply it anyway. I am pleased I was able to evoke some inspiration in you, though, and I'm sure your original project is going to be brilliant. ^_^

On a similar note, I'm importing a version of Darkrose into my original setting, and I think 'No More Liars' would make a great chapter title, if that's alright with you.

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14 hours ago, Kobold King said:

 

That's absolutely fine by me--so much of that art was your original initiative that I don't think I get a say in where you apply it anyway. I am pleased I was able to evoke some inspiration in you, though, and I'm sure your original project is going to be brilliant. ^_^

On a similar note, I'm importing a version of Darkrose into my original setting, and I think 'No More Liars' would make a great chapter title, if that's alright with you.

Thank you! 

Sure! I’d love to hear more about it, actually.

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1 hour ago, winter devotion said:

Thank you! 

Sure! I’d love to hear more about it, actually.

 

I'm still changing a lot around, but this is an original project I've been brainstorming off and on for a while now. The core concept is a world where the Monster of the Week trope is almost literal--there are constant crises ranging from deranged supervillains to alien invasions to resurrected tengu emperors trying to take over the world. Keeping the peace is a group called the Knights Nine, a team of superheroes whose members range from good-intentioned moral pragmatists to monsters who would do more damage than the supervillains if the weren't being kept in check. Among their ranks is a body-possessing plant monster from space that goes by the name Verdant, who tends to leave a suspicious number of missing person cases behind it in any crisis it is sent to resolve. There's also a 'hero' named Pulsar, a genius (but insane) billionaire whom I could most efficiently describe as a triple fusion between Tony Stark, Lex Luthor, and Cave Johnson. He runs quite a few facilities that exist primarily to experiment on captured supervillains and other anomalies.

The world isn't entirely grimdark--there are a few heroes here and there who've remained uncorrupted by the constant stress of battling summoned demons and anthropomorphic hyena armies. Revolution Sunburst Jones is a character here, and her pacifist beliefs have thus far remained uncompromised. A necromancer who goes by the title Death's Voice has begun a fledgling career in superheroics, and as his powers grow he is becoming more and more effective at it.

Samara Treitner, aka "Dark Rose," used to fall into this category. Unfortunately, due to the way her powers operate in this setting, her mind has always been far more susceptible to stress and insanity than other heroes. She went off the grid for years, but when she came back into the public eye it was as a remorseless, indiscriminate killer with only one surviving conviction: to expose the misdeeds of the twisted 'heroes' she'd once been forced to suffer out of reluctant pragmatism, and see them brought low. The world might stand a far lesser chance of surviving without them, but to the creature who's now murdering her way through cities to get to them, that's a sacrifice worth making.

 

I'd also be very curious to hear about your setting, if you want to talk about it!

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6 hours ago, Kobold King said:

 

I'm still changing a lot around, but this is an original project I've been brainstorming off and on for a while now. The core concept is a world where the Monster of the Week trope is almost literal--there are constant crises ranging from deranged supervillains to alien invasions to resurrected tengu emperors trying to take over the world. Keeping the peace is a group called the Knights Nine, a team of superheroes whose members range from good-intentioned moral pragmatists to monsters who would do more damage than the supervillains if the weren't being kept in check. Among their ranks is a body-possessing plant monster from space that goes by the name Verdant, who tends to leave a suspicious number of missing person cases behind it in any crisis it is sent to resolve. There's also a 'hero' named Pulsar, a genius (but insane) billionaire whom I could most efficiently describe as a triple fusion between Tony Stark, Lex Luthor, and Cave Johnson. He runs quite a few facilities that exist primarily to experiment on captured supervillains and other anomalies.

The world isn't entirely grimdark--there are a few heroes here and there who've remained uncorrupted by the constant stress of battling summoned demons and anthropomorphic hyena armies. Revolution Sunburst Jones is a character here, and her pacifist beliefs have thus far remained uncompromised. A necromancer who goes by the title Death's Voice has begun a fledgling career in superheroics, and as his powers grow he is becoming more and more effective at it.

Samara Treitner, aka "Dark Rose," used to fall into this category. Unfortunately, due to the way her powers operate in this setting, her mind has always been far more susceptible to stress and insanity than other heroes. She went off the grid for years, but when she came back into the public eye it was as a remorseless, indiscriminate killer with only one surviving conviction: to expose the misdeeds of the twisted 'heroes' she'd once been forced to suffer out of reluctant pragmatism, and see them brought low. The world might stand a far lesser chance of surviving without them, but to the creature who's now murdering her way through cities to get to them, that's a sacrifice worth making.

 

I'd also be very curious to hear about your setting, if you want to talk about it!

Wow, cool. Broken Masks, as it’s now called, is a setting where 25 years before 2026, a couple thousand people across the world developed superpowers for Plot Reasons. It’s less about the initial event as much as the now-young-adults with powers (and the ones without) who don’t quite understand how the world was before and don’t accept the fragile compromise of hero teams (whose position is a mix of cop, celebrity, soldiers, and athlete), random supervillain attacks that leave massive devastation but are caused by a mixture of socioeconomic factors, and an underworld run by a handful of rich mob bosses, some of whom have powers and some who don’t. Some of my favorite characters so far include: magic anime knife lesbian in a suit who ran away from her criminal family to fight people straight up instead of manipulating them, angsty dragon girl who breaks out of her conditioning to join three superpowered weebs dressed as magical girls, the three superpowered weebs dressed as magical girls, Red, Martin Luther King & Malcolm X Dynamic But They’re Depressed Twenty Year Old Bisexuals With Magic Powers And A Shared Youtuber GF Who’s An Anime Fox Girl, and an absolute gremlin who will eat ANYTHING, unless it’s accepted as food by polite society.

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3 minutes ago, winter devotion said:

Wow, cool. Broken Masks, as it’s now called, is a setting where 25 years before 2026, a couple thousand people across the world developed superpowers for Plot Reasons. It’s less about the initial event as much as the now-young-adults with powers (and the ones without) who don’t quite understand how the world was before and don’t accept the fragile compromise of hero teams (whose position is a mix of cop, celebrity, soldiers, and athlete), random supervillain attacks that leave massive devastation but are caused by a mixture of socioeconomic factors, and an underworld run by a handful of rich mob bosses, some of whom have powers and some who don’t. Some of my favorite characters so far include: magic anime knife lesbian in a suit who ran away from her criminal family to fight people straight up instead of manipulating them, angsty dragon girl who breaks out of her conditioning to join three superpowered weebs dressed as magical girls, the three superpowered weebs dressed as magical girls, Red, Martin Luther King & Malcolm X Dynamic But They’re Depressed Twenty Year Old Bisexuals With Magic Powers And A Shared Youtuber GF Who’s An Anime Fox Girl, and an absolute gremlin who will eat ANYTHING, unless it’s accepted as food by polite society.

 

I'm trying to pick a character summary that's eye-catching enough for me to highlight and ask about, but honestly they all sound like awesome characters. :D

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48 minutes ago, Kobold King said:

 

I'm trying to pick a character summary that's eye-catching enough for me to highlight and ask about, but honestly they all sound like awesome characters. :D

I have an instagram account (it's @broken_masks_art) with some of the concept art I've done so far!

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Alright, I can't stand it any longer. I should probably wait until you guys decide to release it, buuut... argh argh argh!

On the plus side, I came up with two Epics I would kinda like to roleplay, one more than the other.

Spoiler

Name: Mason Filmore

Appearance: 30-ish looking male with brown hair. About 6 feet tall with a long somewhat gangly body. As his other identities, he wears  things that are more fitting than regular street clothes.

Epic Name: Downfall (Trapmaster?), Rebound, Stranglehold (Asphy? Vacuum?) (I haven't chosen names for them yet).

Primary Ability: He can swap two equally-sized portions of space that he can perceive, either through sight or through his secondary ability, as long as they don't contain living things. If they do, it just warps around them. These things preserve their momentum and shape. (ha technically not a teleporter!)

Secondary Ability: He has short-range clairvoyance, up to about 20 feet in every direction. He can only perceive objects, not sounds, colour, smell, etc. This does grant him the ability to teleport deadly things away from him as sort of a reflex and prime invincibility.

MO: He's paranoid that someone will kill him, and relies on (probably too much) misdirection  to hopefully avoid it. He's crafted three separate Epic identities, and as each one he tries to only use a small facet of his power so that people will hopefully underestimate him and try to exploit the nonexistent weaknesses in his power. While he also probably could hide out in a basement and survive for as long as his enhanced lifespan would grant him, he also likes killing people. Thus, every couple weeks, he goes to a different city as one of his identities, wreaks havoc until the usually more powerful local Epics come around for a fight, and then runs away.

  • Downfall: He pretends to be a dirt and stone manipulator, shifting the ground out from under enemies and raising earth and stone to defend himself. He once had a major field day in Newcago where he found there was no dirt and stone to manipulate, and was forced to run away really quickly.
  • Rebound: He pretends to be an Epic who can redirect harm done to him to anyone else he chooses. He usually does this by taking a small gun and pushing it against his head, and teleporting the bullet into other people's body parts just it hits him.
  • Stranglehold: He pretends to be an Epic that can make people unable to breathe. He does so by constantly teleporting the air out from around people, though he can't just move the air inside peoples' lungs because something something Notnam effect.

Weakness: Just about any living thing or something can't be blocked or penetrated can kill him. Something like Phytomagnet's trees, most invulnerable Epics, most incorporeal Epics.

Spoiler

Friend Computer. The Friend Computer icon, obvious Friend Computer quotes - they'll make him unable to use his powers. He does have Paranoia after all.

 

Actually I'll post the second one later. I'm feeling a bit tired. Would this character be too powerful in this setting? The idea was that he'd be an Epic who acts like Backtrack around  strong Epics, but also like... some jerk around maples. 

Edited by breakingamber
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I rather like this epic. Simple power, lots of uses. Reminds me a little bit of Trickster, but is actually fairly different in practice.

The ability isn't intrinsically overpowered at all. I don't see an issue with it being in the RP.

 

That said, parameters like range, size limitations for teleports, any kind of cooldown or throughput limits on teleports, and degree of fine control over the position of the destination are all pretty important. Virtually any power can either be totally useless or literally earth shattering depending on those sort of boundaries. I would caution that for powers that for powers that are typically controlled with conscious thought on the part of the user, giving it the ability to work fast enough to block bullets is both a very major increase in finesse/control, and an implied major enhancement to reaction time because a normal human can't process a bullet being fired at them fast enough to teleport it away (there are ways you could get around that though, like if they can set conditions to automatically teleport away stuff that gets close to them or something; at least from personal experience I find that clarifying how stuff like that works can flesh out a power a ton and make it more interesting).

This kind of fine control and fast deployment is massively underrated, because anyone willing to think outside of the box can make powers with these traits a great deal more powerful than they would at first appear (and even without this being a consideration, characters have a certain tendency to grow more powerful over time). Something to think about. Personally I try to make my characters use their powers at least somewhat cleverly (Epoch would probably be an exception to this), because I figure the characters themselves would be spending a lot more time thinking about how to use their powers than I would spend thinking about it as an author. However, my willingness to suspend disbelief is definitely not the same as everyone else's, and you may well have different priorities.

 

While it has the potential to be quite strong for the reasons I said above, it also has a logical weakness (cannot redirect organic weapons), in addition to a proper Epic Weakness (happiness is mandatory!), which I really definitely appreciate.

Honestly, if there's one criticism I would have for the Reckoners novels, it's that there weren't really enough good logical weaknesses. Epics have their Weakness, yes, and I get that those are totally a good plot point, but with respect to how the power itself works, those weaknesses are basically arbitrary. Being able to figure out a power and that it has certain blind spots is a lot more interesting, in my opinion. You're physically indestructible? Sure, but you still need to eat drink and breathe, and you're just as vulnerable to powers that attack your mind, and if you don't have super strength as well than somebody will probably just restrain you. Everybody around you is mentally incapable of harming you? Cool, but there's a sniper just outside of your range, or maybe handcuffing you to a bench doesn't quite count as harming you, or maybe somebody hurts you on *accident*. No power is unbeatable, and it's about what you do with the powers.

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10 minutes ago, MrakeDarshall said:

I rather like this epic. Simple power, lots of uses. Reminds me a little bit of Trickster, but is actually fairly different in practice.

The ability isn't intrinsically overpowered at all. I don't see an issue with it being in the RP.

 

That said, parameters like range, size limitations for teleports, any kind of cooldown or throughput limits on teleports, and degree of fine control over the position of the destination are all pretty important. Virtually any power can either be totally useless or literally earth shattering depending on those sort of boundaries. I would caution that for powers that for powers that are typically controlled with conscious thought on the part of the user, giving it the ability to work fast enough to block bullets is both a very major increase in finesse/control, and an implied major enhancement to reaction time because a normal human can't process a bullet being fired at them fast enough to teleport it away (there are ways you could get around that though, like if they can set conditions to automatically teleport away stuff that gets close to them or something; at least from personal experience I find that clarifying how stuff like that works can flesh out a power a ton and make it more interesting).

This kind of fine control and fast deployment is massively underrated, because anyone willing to think outside of the box can make powers with these traits a great deal more powerful than they would at first appear (and even without this being a consideration, characters have a certain tendency to grow more powerful over time). Something to think about. Personally I try to make my characters use their powers at least somewhat cleverly (Epoch would probably be an exception to this), because I figure the characters themselves would be spending a lot more time thinking about how to use their powers than I would spend thinking about it as an author. However, my willingness to suspend disbelief is definitely not the same as everyone else's, and you may well have different priorities.

 

While it has the potential to be quite strong for the reasons I said above, it also has a logical weakness (cannot redirect organic weapons), in addition to a proper Epic Weakness (happiness is mandatory!), which I really definitely appreciate.

Honestly, if there's one criticism I would have for the Reckoners novels, it's that there weren't really enough good logical weaknesses. Epics have their Weakness, yes, and I get that those are totally a good plot point, but with respect to how the power itself works, those weaknesses are basically arbitrary. Being able to figure out a power and that it has certain blind spots is a lot more interesting, in my opinion. You're physically indestructible? Sure, but you still need to eat drink and breathe, and you're just as vulnerable to powers that attack your mind, and if you don't have super strength as well than somebody will probably just restrain you. Everybody around you is mentally incapable of harming you? Cool, but there's a sniper just outside of your range, or maybe handcuffing you to a bench doesn't quite count as harming you, or maybe somebody hurts you on *accident*. No power is unbeatable, and it's about what you do with the powers.

Hm, thanks for the feedback. I didn't consider that it was kind of an inverse of Trickster's power when I wrote it, but that's basically what it is, come to think of it.

As for hard limits, I was thinking mostly reasonable sight range, so maybe about a mile, though he does actually have to be able to see and distinguish something a mile away to be able to teleport it. His control over the exact shape of the teleport is iffy at best, and he mostly uses squares and ellipsoids, and other pretty simple shapes. He could use a more complicated shape (like teleporting only a plastic bag without moving the stuff inside of it or something like that) but it would probably take more concentration and/or time. Size I haven't set a hard limit on just in case I want to try something stupid, but I'd say he can easily teleport things the size of a pretty big couch without breaking a sweat and an entire building is probably beyond him. 

As for teleporting bullets and other very fast things, I agree there's probably about two ways to go with that: enhanced reflexes or automatic teleportation of anything too close to him. I was leaning towards the first one because that lets him block things travelling way too quickly that he can't otherwise simply zap away. Also, that solves the (very) minor dilemmas of what happens when he's asleep/unconscious and what prevents him from teleporting his own clothes off (speaking of which, if the RP ever gets moving quickly enough for Tayahound to happen, will we be able to burn his/her (?) clothes off or would that not be family-friendly?).

Also, I agree that just about any reality-manipulating power can be used creatively to be extremely powerful. Even a relatively lame power like putting temporary coloured dots on things can be used to great effect blinding people and as a form of lousy illusion (and defeating Green Lanterns) This power could be used to literally destroy the world without limits, and is enough to thoroughly inconvenience even the most powerful of Epics if used to its full potential.

Finally, I disagree somewhat on the logical weakness part. (I'm going to assume I don't need to spoiler this.) Most of the High Epics probably could've been taken down by Epics which could capitalize on their weaknesses. Regalia was just as fragile as any human. While mind-control Epics seem to be relatively uncommon in the Reckonerverse, illusionists without easily-exploitable weaknesses (and probably even some with) probably could've misled and trapped Prof, though his forcefields are tough to deal with. Steelheart... alright I don't really have an answer to him. He's ridiculous. Same with Obliteration, though the bomb thing could've worked maybe possibly. Alright maybe I don't actually have a point here but still... shoot. I will say that Worm is a lot better with this because most heroes don't have literal weaknesses like they do in the Reckonerverse and largely the things exploited to beat nigh-invincible enemies are psychological weaknesses and the element of surprise.

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53 minutes ago, breakingamber said:

Hm, thanks for the feedback. I didn't consider that it was kind of an inverse of Trickster's power when I wrote it, but that's basically what it is, come to think of it.

As for hard limits, I was thinking mostly reasonable sight range, so maybe about a mile, though he does actually have to be able to see and distinguish something a mile away to be able to teleport it. His control over the exact shape of the teleport is iffy at best, and he mostly uses squares and ellipsoids, and other pretty simple shapes. He could use a more complicated shape (like teleporting only a plastic bag without moving the stuff inside of it or something like that) but it would probably take more concentration and/or time. Size I haven't set a hard limit on just in case I want to try something stupid, but I'd say he can easily teleport things the size of a pretty big couch without breaking a sweat and an entire building is probably beyond him. 

As for teleporting bullets and other very fast things, I agree there's probably about two ways to go with that: enhanced reflexes or automatic teleportation of anything too close to him. I was leaning towards the first one because that lets him block things travelling way too quickly that he can't otherwise simply zap away. Also, that solves the (very) minor dilemmas of what happens when he's asleep/unconscious and what prevents him from teleporting his own clothes off (speaking of which, if the RP ever gets moving quickly enough for Tayahound to happen, will we be able to burn his/her (?) clothes off or would that not be family-friendly?).

Also, I agree that just about any reality-manipulating power can be used creatively to be extremely powerful. Even a relatively lame power like putting temporary coloured dots on things can be used to great effect blinding people and as a form of lousy illusion (and defeating Green Lanterns) This power could be used to literally destroy the world without limits, and is enough to thoroughly inconvenience even the most powerful of Epics if used to its full potential.

Finally, I disagree somewhat on the logical weakness part. (I'm going to assume I don't need to spoiler this.) Most of the High Epics probably could've been taken down by Epics which could capitalize on their weaknesses. Regalia was just as fragile as any human. While mind-control Epics seem to be relatively uncommon in the Reckonerverse, illusionists without easily-exploitable weaknesses (and probably even some with) probably could've misled and trapped Prof, though his forcefields are tough to deal with. Steelheart... alright I don't really have an answer to him. He's ridiculous. Same with Obliteration, though the bomb thing could've worked maybe possibly. Alright maybe I don't actually have a point here but still... shoot. I will say that Worm is a lot better with this because most heroes don't have literal weaknesses like they do in the Reckonerverse and largely the things exploited to beat nigh-invincible enemies are psychological weaknesses and the element of surprise.

Sensible limits. Pretty hard to counter offensively if they can do stuff like teleport the ground underneath your feet to be on top of you and crush/entomb you, but within the range of epic power levels we already have in the RP. About on par with Orbit in terms of power level, if I had to guess.

Idk, I think it would probably be fine for Tayahound to suffer clothing damage, if it didn't get too descriptive about that.

Hm, now I'm trying to figure out how to destroy the world with a power that puts temporary colored dots on things :P I came up with a few ideas:

  • Cover all the clouds in black dots. This prevents sunlight from reaching the surface, causing the equivalent of nuclear winter for as long as it lasts.
  • Or just cover the ground in black dots. This probably heats the earth up a fair bit, causing mass extinction.
  • Why stop there? Blanket the sun in black spots and freeze the earth completely. This would probably succeed in killing all multicellular life.
  • Better yet, surround a bunch of the closest stars in white dots and reflect as much light as you can towards earth. Vaporize the earth in a couple hundred light years.
  • In the case of an infinite universe, use the properties of Hilbert's Hotel in conjunction with the light-focusing trick detailed above to blow up the entire universe.

Well, that was a fun thought experiment :P I'd ask how you would go about using a power like "controlling insects" to achieve cosmic levels of destruction, but well...

I actually had a character that was like that. One with an indescribably lame power that ended up being absurdly potent and destructive because for some reason the proper limitations just weren't there. Not a character that would actually be in this RP of course, due to how broken it would be, but a character that's important in the backstory of one of my other characters.

Yeah, you could probably kill the likes of Steelheart, Prof, and Obliteration with a couple of nuclear warheads, but for all intents and purposes of the books they were invincible except for their weaknesses. Regalia was a nice exception, since she was arguably the most effective epic in the entire series but she had literally no abilities to help with a direct confrontation. I agree that Worm is really, really good at this, and this is part of why I enjoyed Worm :) The comparison to Worm is also probably why I am pointing this out as a thing Reckoners could have done better. Reckoners also did some things better than Worm. It's kind of hard not to compare them when they have so much in common in how they approach the superhero genre.

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