little wilson

You can do it here or you can PM me, Gamma, or Meta. All we need to know is which format you'd like to sign up for and we'll get you on the list (GM lists located here).

I'm in the middle of a Marvel marathon preparing for Age of Ultron, so I've been watching the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe--including Agent Carter, Agents of SHIELD, and Daredevil as well as the one-shots. So the last movie I watched was Guardians of the Galaxy and the last tv show was SHIELD, season 2 (just started it last night). Not counting Marvel, the last movie was Cinderella. TV show was Revolution, but that was just the first couple episodes.

I used to never have allergies. Ever. As a teenager, I took great pride in the fact that I never had to worry about seasonal allergies, particularly when my dad (who's had really bad hay fever since he was a kid), brother, and sister were all having their allergies acting up. Well, karma came back to bite me hard. It first hit in the summer of 2008. At first, I thought I had a cold, except that it persisted for far too long and nothing cleared it up, and then I visited home (I was in college), and my dad heard my symptoms and told me it sounded like allergies. The conversation went something like this: "Kendra, that sounds like allergies." "Dad, I don't have allergies." "Well, that sounds like allergies." "No, Dad, you don't understand. I don't have allergies." "Well Kendra, I don't know what to tell you, because that sounds like allergies." .....I was in denial until my sister gave me Claritin, and--surprise, surprise--I was better. For 2 hours. The Claritin was supposed to last all day. For the next, oh, 5 years, it was on and off, but never too bad. In the last two years, it's been getting progressively worse, to the point where this winter, I'd have allergy attacks when everything is supposed to be dead (and I thought they were called seasonal allergies for a reason...). Yesterday, at about 5:30pm, I started sneezing, and I could feel the pressure in my sinuses. I took some Allegra and other stuff, but nothing really worked for more than an hour (if that), and they were still bugging me something fierce when I went to bed at 11. I woke up this morning, and everything was clear. I thought it was over. But alas, I had another sneezing attack when I got into my car and the sinus pressure and just all around feeling of allergies plaguing me hasn't relented in the hour and a half since. And the worst bit? I think one of the times I sneezed a bit ago pulled something in my neck, because now it kills to look to the left. So now, I get to go the allergy doctor (since I have no idea what I'm allergic to, other than cat dander) and the chiropractor. Yay.

I've heard a lot about Studio C, but I've only seen a couple of their skits (the mafia one and the Scott Sterling one). I need to watch more, but I just haven't gotten around to it yet. Random cool piece of information: 2 of the guys live across the parking lot from me and are therefore in my ward/church. (Have I talked to them much? Not really.... )

Bingo. I'd been planning on throwing in a bit about the man having the gang leader's kids but I couldn't figure out a way to word it properly without it being way too easy.

Close but not quite.

....Probably should've prepared something before answering that..... A traveling gang leader contends with a man suffering from chronomentrophobia.

Moby Dick?

Since it's been over 10 days and Gleeman hasn't posted another question, I'll do it. WLIU, name 20 US presidents. If you only know last names, that's fine, except on the last name repeats. For example, saying Lincoln is acceptable, but Bush and Bush isn't. For the Bush's you'd have to specify between George H W and George W (or 41 and 43). And there's three freebies to start you off.

It was fun. A lot of fun. There were only 5 of us there the whole time, though I got Shardbearer to make a late appearance. It was a good start, and hopefully the turnout next time will be even better.

This is correct. And normally we'd ask for it to be removed, but I'll let this one pass since it's been almost 12 hours, and the player in question is dead. For future reference, copy/pasting any game PM (from other players or the GM) to the thread or other PMs with other players is against the rules. If players need to explain something that happened in a PM, paraphrase. Similarly, adding players to ongoing PMs is also against the rules (I'm not saying this happened, but I figured I'd mention it since it sort of fits). These rules can all be found in the General Rules. Thanks for being awesome, and please continue with your regularly scheduled killing.

Your help has been fantastic, so thank you very much. I'm about to do a massive re-write to that Kingkiller doc this weekend to both simplify the wording (since I'm realizing that there are some mechanics that I explained far more complexly than was necessary. The Horns mechanic specifically) and fit in your suggestions. Should be fun. Rewriting 8500 words is exactly what I wanted to do with my Saturday. Well, that makes two (possibly three) sorry souls now.

Oooh, that's an interesting idea. I'm assuming then that elevations would just be randomly chosen based on the impressions, regardless of how many points there are (though it would be weighted by the number of points). So someone with only one impression point could theoretically be elevated, and their points would just go back down to 0 in that field. I like this a lot. And the best part is that it makes it easier to elevate students to Masters as well, with a rule that's something like for an El'the who accumulates 10 points (or 20) in one of their fields of study, they become the Master of that field, spending all those points. That's totally do-able. I think most of the fields are already geared like that. Rhetoric probably has the most overlap, but vote-manip makes sense. I'd already added a Soothing ability in since your original suggestions (Argumentum Ad Nauseam: you start a conversation with your target about ancient Yllish agriculture or an equally dull topic, boring them so much, they fall asleep and forget to file a complaint. ). I'll take a closer look at the Elantris game for more ideas. Starting out in the Arcanum, or outside? I was planning on having 25% of the players start in the Arcanum, as E'lirs, and the rest would be outside, trying to get in. I contemplated having a few as Re'lars, but that's a little too far up the ranks and I want the players to have a choice what fields they study. I'm working with Aonar on this. I very nearly scrapped Naming there for a bit yesterday, but we're figuring out a system that isn't quite hard rules, but each name has a clear function within its basic function. Like, the ones that have a wider selection of basic functions (Wind, etc) are less powerful with things like defensive and offensive actions, but when used with defensive or offensive Names, they become more powerful. It's basically a system that will tell me exactly how powerful a Name is by itself and how powerful it is when coupled with other Names--the spread of its effects, etc. I don't plan to release the full system in the public game rules (though I'd release it post-game), but the basics of it will be there to help in knowing what kinds of actions are possible and what aren't for each Name. Sort of grounds the Names a little more. They're still really powerful and there's a lot of open-endedness to it and leeway for creativity, but it's less of a "Make an action and as long as you can explain how it works, it doesn't matter how OP it is. It'll work" which will be good. (Not that I had any intention of allowing an order like "Invoke Fire and Iron to find and kill all the Skindancers" to actually work....) Personally, I found them utterly hilarious. I'd upvote that post at least twice solely on those examples if I could....And the addition of Aonar as Master Linguist. Pure gold. He would so do that, and I would probably die of laughter watching it happen. Poor Wyrm. Nothing's going right for him.

This is the second time you've killed me in a game intro. Is there something you're trying to tell me?

Ooooh, feedback! Thank you, Hero! This is excellent! I considered trying to fit the Underthing in somewhere but wasn't sure where. That could work. Could put it as the lodging for anyone who escapes the Crockery. Possibly. I'll look into it. Good catch. Some of that stuff with the action periods I added in late, since the role abilities were among the last things I really solidified. It probably doesn't help that I also counted complaint-filing with the actions, though slightly differently. Basically, everyone starts with one role action, but that role action could be used with an item if you have an Artificery or Alchemy item or you bought something in Imre. When I say that you get a new action period, you have an additional action period, so if you have multiple abilities, or a multi-use ability/item, you can use those. So you have two action periods. Or three if you're an El'the, or four if you're a Master. At least, in those particular fields. The votes in this game work differently. There's no lynching. When players "vote" in the thread, they're actually filing a complaint against that student with the Masters. And every two votes counts as a half vote in the Master's Secret Vote. And then the Masters all send in votes to me/the GM on who they personally would like punished that cycle. And then depending on how many votes a student ends up with, they'll be punished accordingly. It's practically a guarantee that multiple students will be brought On the Horns in the same turn, and it's also possible that multiple students could get charged with malfeasance. It's even possible, though unlikely, that multiple students could get expelled in the same turn. As an example, let's say that Wyrm had 5 complaints filed against him (yes, Wyrm. People are now complaining about you too. ), Aonar had 6, and Meta had 2. Everyone else had either one or none. So Aonar enters the Secret Vote with 1 1/2 votes on him already. Wyrm has 1 (since the fifth vote doesn't count as it's only every two that puts a half vote on), and Meta has a 1/2 vote on him. Let's say that 3 Masters voted for Aonar, 2 voted for Meta, and the other 4, including the Chancellor, voted for Wyrm. The final tally would look like this: Wyrm - 5 1/2 Aonar - 4 1/2 Meta - 2 1/2 So we're now working with these: 2.5-3 votes: 60% charges dropped, 30% Undignified Mischief (apology), 10% Reckless Use of Sympathy (lashings) 4.5-5.5 votes: 20% Undignified Mischief (apology), 20% Reckless Use of Sympathy (lashings), 50% Conduct Unbecoming a Member of the Arcanum (lashings), 10% Conduct Unbecoming a Member of the Arcanum (expulsion) Let's say the dice roll favors Meta and the charges against him are dropped. He walks away free and clear (though since he was brought On the Horns, he'll have that ding against him in the tuition). Aonar's dice roll ends up with him being charged with Undignified Mischief, so now the Lord of Troll is being trolled and has to RP an apology for something he didn't do. Wyrm is horribly unfortunate with his dice roll. Somehow, his dice roll puts him in that 10% chance of getting expelled. Poor Wyrm. He's kicked out of the University. Does that make more sense? I will make that change just as soon as I'm back on my laptop. This is definitely something to consider. There would need to be more than 20 players, for sure. I was guessing it would end up closer to 30. Mostly based on past games and the fact that this is a Kingkiller game. Simply by that virtue alone, it's going to appeal to people that might not usually play the games. For example, the last time we had a non-Sanderson game, there were 6 new players that joined and 4 of them haven't participated in another game since then. They came in solely for that game. ....I'm still working on that. For a different reason though. I was working on it from the angle of "If one of the starting Masters is inactive and so is the E'lir in their field (assuming they even have an E'lir starting in their field), what happens?" I haven't decided, but I think you gave me an idea that I'm going to run with.... I really like this idea. A lot. I think I'm going to do that, and I'll adjust the voting system slightly, making it so every complaint counts as a half vote. That'll make it so the loss of the Masters won't affect the punishments, but as long as there aren't any Masters to cast their secret votes, it'll be less likely for people to be expelled. So becoming a Master is still very game-relevant, but it's not a starting position. Hm. This is good advice. I like it, and I see the merit of it. My only problem with it is that I really like some of the field abilities. They're just so perfect. I might be biased though. It also probably doesn't help that I'm thinking about this in terms of GMing, and with having cut out the Masters starting position, I'd be automating the ability-assignment side of things, so it wouldn't be too terribly complicated. The worst would be getting orders and figuring out what happened, but even then, I don't think that's too bad, since a decent amount of players are only going to have one action each cycle anyway. But from a player standpoint, it could get crazy. However, I forgot to put this in the doc, so it didn't get mentioned in game post: Elevations are public knowledge. Not what field each player was elevated in, but a list is given in each writeup to say who got elevated that cycle. So that should make it easier for people who are paying attention to that kind of stuff to know who is at what rank. Especially since there aren't Masters. Would that make it any easier? Oh, I'm not cutting a field. I don't expect fields like Arithmetic, Rhetoric, Linguistics, and even Archives in part to have as big of a draw as fields like Naming, Sympathy, Physicking, Alchemy, and Artificery, but students who go into those less immediately powerful fields and stick with them could easily become as much of a force to be reckoned with as a Namer. Personally, I'd do a cross of Archives and Linguistics if I were playing. I wouldn't even touch the arcane fields, but I guarantee that if things worked right in terms of what abilities I was given, in about 3-4 cycles, even a Namer would be hard-pressed to touch me. I actually have a vote-manipulation ability for Rhetoric. The complaint switch. Since the complaints are the votes. But I suppose I could take both a Rioting and Soothing angle to it, rather than just doing one switch. That would make more sense. Yeah....Yet another reason I can be happy that I'm cutting that starting position. I always worry about safe roles and I'd hate to see that many get exploited like that. But you're right. They'd find a way. Unfortunately. Yeah, I'll probably throw a couple hard rules in there, like that each Name can only be used for one use in the action. And there should already be a rule about not using the same Name twice in an action order. What I mean by each Name only having one use per action would be like this: Using the fourth Naming example for the main post, which was "Invoke Blood, Wind, Bone, and Stone to draw all actions to a single person," that actually wouldn't end up working with this new rule, since Blood and Bone are both pulling 5 action-types (Names, Sabotages, Alchemy, Medica, Sympathy), and Wind is drawing two action types (PM-related and misc actions). They'd now be restricted to only pulling one action-type. So Blood could be used to pull Sabotages/Kills and Bone could be used to pull Medica actions, but Sympathy, Alchemy, and Names are still out there (or you could use Blood or Bone to pull one of those instead). And then Wind could pull PM-related actions, but all the misc actions are still out there as well. That one rule should cut down on a fair bit of exploitation, and the loopholes I'm hemming in through the necessity of explanations. This particular rule is there because one, I've learned that I could never be a Namer. There's far too much open-endedness to it and leeway. And two, because I lack the creativity to really see exactly what each Name can do (Aonar's the one who wrote all the Naming examples), I need the Namer to explain what exactly is happening, so I can understand the action and know what to do with it. The nice thing about this is that if they can't explain it, the action doesn't work. And if they don't explain it, the action doesn't work. But just because it doesn't work doesn't mean that it won't be attempted. The Names will still be used and the Namer will still get the increased insanity from it.

Yeah I realized as I was typing that that Banned Books was essentially that mechanic, so good job with that. Though it is slightly different since it's a role ability. Not as much of a ding to my sanity.

Heh. Yeah.....At one point, Aonar suggested I add a mechanic that allowed people to pull Kvothes and learn things above their rank. I think I said something about how this version of the University is filled with semi-honest students who don't do stuff like that....and if I had to deal with that mechanic then I was going to end up in the Crockery by the end of it all. So he said all GM's are insane. Especially the trolls. Why did I have Aonar helping me again?

Right now, I'm guessing Nov/Dec. Right smack in the middle of the holidays. My family (particularly my mother) is going to hate me.

They do not. They'll be voting for the "Master Alchemist" or the "Master Namer," etc. I hate safe roles with a passion, and I intentionally built this one so it would be very detrimental for any of the Masters' identities to become known. Not even the people who are elevated will know the identity of the Master who elevated them. Nope. The next time you go to Imre, contracts you accepted previously and failed to fulfill will not show up for you. Same with contracts you placed. You're more than welcome to accepts contacts regarding you though.

Oh yes. I'm already signed up for it. I'll probably need help with it though, so if anyone would like to co-GM it with me, let me know. I plan on using functions to make the spreadsheet do the majority of the hard work, but I haven't started working on that yet, so I'm not sure exactly how much what I'm envisioning will be possible. Still, this is definitely happening.

The continuation of The University game..... Voting The Crockery Imre

Okay. So. I've mentioned that I've been building a Kingkiller game a few different times the last couple months. Thanks to a lot of help from Aonar (seriously, he's a game-building genius if you ever need help with a game), and other bits and pieces of help from Kas, Wyrm, and Gamma, it's finally almost complete. It's at least complete enough to show here and see what you guys think about the balance. Maybe some of you will even have ideas on powers for one of the fields I'm really discontented with and/or names for some of the role abilities that are currently lacking names. Anything, really, would be much appreciated. I should warn you all that this game is massive. Seriously. I tried to get it to encompass as much as possible about life at the University. I think it all fits together well, and it's got a great theme of risk/reward to it, but it is massive and complex. But you need to see it to fully understand. So without any further adieu, I bring you..... The University Welcome to The University! You’ve heard about the famed institution your entire life, dreaming of attending and possibly even learning the arcane arts. Well, congratulations! You’ve finally made it. You’ll have no problem impressing the Masters enough to let you into the school, though perhaps your tuition could be high. Or it could be low. You just don’t know! All you really know is that you’re where you’ve always wanted to be, and you’re here to learn all you can. But what’s this now? Rumors abound of Skindancers in The University. But the Skindancers are all supposed to be dead, right? Apparently not, because sure enough, students and Masters alike start having problems. Most of them seem to go crazy, and the Crockery is filling up, though some even die. Although you’re no Taborlin the Great or Kvothe the Bloodless, you and a bunch of fellow students have taken it upon yourselves to solve the mystery. You’ve resolved to eliminate the Skindancers once and for all. Only then will you be able to resume your studies and learn to your little heart’s content. Good luck! Factions Cycles Currency Class Admissions Lodging The Arcanum This site is saying this post is too long for one post, so I have to split it somewhere, and this looks like a good spot. To be continued in the next post.

Bingo. And I had a great moonshine-related hint lined up next too. Guess I don't get to use it.

Depending on what time it's at, I might be able to come. Not sure how long I'll be able to stay, but I should be able to make it for a bit. Might even get one of my friends to come with me--she was just saying yesterday that we need to do a meet-up with other Sharders.

None of the above. Hint 1: It all happens during a really big disagreement. Hint 2: Most of the men fail and end up tasting a lot of lead. Hint 3: One of the men really likes to be alone. He’s also a huge fan of a great American sport.