The Golden Gear (OOC Thread)

[Arklytte]

All the OOC that's fit to OOC.

 

Feel free to chat about anything and everything here.  Note, however, that if you have mechanics based questions, please direct them to the Character Creation Q&A Thread.  Anything else is fair game though (within MW rules, of course 😉 ).

 

[DreemWalker]

What are you thinking for posting speed? Weekly? Daily?

[Arklytte]

DreemWalker. Welcome to the madhouse. :)

 

I generally shoot for 1-2 posts a week in my games. My schedule is erratic enough that I cant promise more than that. Though, to make up for it, I try to make sure my posts are fairly meaty.

During combat scenes, that tends to speed up, of course.

[Steel Warrior]

Shakes fist at the private app making the Clockworkers thread highlighted and find nothing there lol.

[Arklytte]

You can always use the Mark All As Read function.😊

[Arklytte]

To all and sundry. I was able to get the Q&A thread questions answered, but I'm feeling kinda knackered, so I dont know if I'm going to be able to get the character thread questions answered tonight. I'll give it a shot, but if I dont get to your char thread questions tonight, I apologize. I'll do my best to get caught up tomorrow.

Feeling better, but still pretty tired, both physically and mentally. Flu sucks!!

[whitelancer]

Take time and feel better first! Do what you can and don't worry about what you can't.

[BBK]

So yeah, my original concept was sort of a telekinetic swashbuckler, but I somehow ended up with a character that is a telekinetic thief who uses his mind to not only steal from people, but habitually swaps out the things he stole with various live bombs while also taking free pot-shots at them with sword-shaped mental energy that impales them while he's at it.

And this happens while he is all the way on the other side of the room. In just his fancy clothes. With a drink in his hand. Apparently just hanging out. As if sort of wondering why your pocket just exploded and why there is suddenly a sword-shaped hole in your chest, but isn't quite curious enough to actually come over and ask.

*takes another sip of whiskey*

---

This has been an enjoyable building process so far, that's for sure. lol

Edited October 8, 2023 by BBK (see edit history)

[Arklytte]

@whitelancer Thanks Kella! Sorry I missed this initially, but I very much appreciate it. 😃

 

@BBK Love that little insight into your character. Cant wait to see how the end result comes to fruition.

[Arklytte]

ANNOUNCEMENT

<Dr Nick Voice>Hi Everybody!!</Dr Nick Voice>

 

So, I know that things have been a bit hectic, and that I've been slow to respond to everyone's questions. For that, once again, my apologies to one and all. In light of that fact, I've decided to extend the deadline for finishing by a couple of days. I'm still going to close the ad on the 11th, so I wont be accepting any new apps after that. BUT, for everyone that's got an app started by that deadline, you'll now have until Friday, Oct 13th to finish. That will allow me to take time over the weekend to review apps and make my final decision, then I can move forward at the start of next week with the final group.

 

The extra couple days should ensure that I get fully caught up with everyone's individual threads. Oh, and a note for those that have never applied to my games before. At this point in the process, THE MOST IMPORTANT THING is to make sure your fluff is done, or it's getting on towards done. I know I've said it before, but it bears repeating. More than 90% of my decision for who I choose has NOTHING WHATSOEVER to do with mechanics. I'm interested in getting to know your character, not how hard they can punch. That will come later, once the game starts, and when the time comes, we'll fully dive into the mechanics. But for this part of the process, I'd MUCH rather you be short on the crunchy bits, in favor of the fluffy ones. There'll be time, if necessary, allocated to finishing the mechanics once we have a team, and, given that I plan to do some internal balancing, there may be a need to tweak your mechanics anyway. So, focus on the fluffy bits, make sure they're solid, then finish the crunchy stuff off as we get down to the wire.

 

Once again, thanks to everyone for your patience, and for giving up your valuable time to play around in my little corner of the interwebs. The apps I've been seeing are incredible, and I know that, when the time comes, I'm going to have a hell of a time whittling it down to just four. Personally, I consider that the highest compliment you can give a DM...making apps so good that it causes genuine mental pain to choose, and I can definitely see that happening for me. So, from the bottom of my blackened DM heart, thank you, one and all.😁

 

[BBK]

3 hours ago, Arklytte said:

Love that little insight into your character. Cant wait to see how the end result comes to fruition.

My process for character-building is probably weird. I settle on a personality first. This tells me what they consider important - sometimes that ends up being a dedication to a cause, avarice, pride, empathy for others, or some other form of base motivation that shapes their personality further. Then I try to get in their head to figure out what sorts of abilities they would most want to use to overcome the various obstacles to further their base motivation. A healer might delve into obscure methods and practices in order to better help their patients or help more patients in general while a musician might train in magic or leadership in order to put together their own band to reach a bigger audience and 'live the dream'. Then I write a very short and generic background.

After that comes class selections that would facilitate the kinds of abilities the character would cultivate, then choices within those classes, traits, feats, etc. As I put together the profile, things shift and change, get swapped out for other options that are either a better fit or a more creative solution to the problem. This usually involves min-maxing at first, then changing almost all of it in the end in favor of 'flavor' or more 'it makes more sense for him to...' type choices. For example, my character for this game took the 'Orbit' talent. Its literal only use? A convenient napping place for his ferret familiar because making his best friend comfortable and happy would be more important to him than an actually mechanically useful option would be to me.

A balancing act commences as I pack in as much flavor derived from the character's personality without crippling their ability to perform their 'roles'. This means they're almost always either on the weak side overall or have serious hindrances or flaws when dealing with certain situations. But that's important because if everyone is a badass in all areas all the time, no one ever feels like a badass. I do try to always add at least 1 thing that isn't necessarily mechanically useful that the character excels at on top of their main 'roles'. For this game, that ended up being the ability to pick pockets (not something traditionally useful or often used in most games), and to leverage that ability in various ways.

Then I flesh out the background and add depth and details to reflect the character growing into the powers they've got mechanically and go on to polish, format, retool, tweak, and otherwise complete the app. Is it optimized? Absolutely not. But does that mean it's got great mechanical potential for certain situations, mechanically? Also no. But, it should be fun. lol

[Arklytte]

ANNOUNCEMENT

Ok y'all, it is currently Friday, 3AM EST. Today is the last day to finish your apps. I'm going to try and spend a bit of time answering questions, but if I, for some reason, dont manage to get to your thread, do what you can to continue working on your character's fluff, so that I have a good basis to make my choices. I'm going to officially start the selection process at the end of the day today (ie in about 21 hours), and will make an announcement of who the Final Four are sometime this weekend.

My sincerest thanks to everyone who has applied. Having to whittle the rather awesome pool of characters I've been presented, down to just four, is going to SUCK! So give yourselves a pat on the back for making my decision damn hard. 😁

Best of luck to all and sundry, and, if I dont get a chance to post anything before the official 'end' of the app period, know that I deeply appreciate everyone taking the time to come fiddle around in my little corner of the intertubez. Y'all ROCK!!

 

PS

If your app is done (insofar as being ready for me to review it for my choosing of the team), please add a Tag of 'READY TO REVIEW' to the thread.

For those that dont know how, if you open your thread, just under the thread title, there is a "+" button with the words 'Add Tag'. Click that button, type Ready to Review, then hit save. That way, I can filter just those apps that are finished, for easy perusal.

 

THANKS!!! 😁

Edited October 13, 2023 by Arklytte (see edit history)

[whitelancer]

Thank you for offering and running this idea. It was fun to think on and helped me out a lot to understand rhe origin sphere.

[Arklytte]

My pleasure, as always, Kella. 😃

[BBK]

9 hours ago, whitelancer said:

Thank you for offering and running this idea. It was fun to think on and helped me out a lot to understand rhe origin sphere.

Saaame. Nothing like flinging yourself deep into a new system because you want to do right by your new character. This was definitely a learning experience. I'd not have even bothered reading the Origin content on my own, but now I'm glad that I did. I learned a ton! :)

Plus, this game was just super fun to apply for in general. I made a lot of mental connections on how spheres can interact and learned quite a bit about not only Origins but some of the other Spheres material as well.