O.O.C. Thread

[dakota]

umm, you liked it last time...


ROFL

[albatross]

Short recap:

The kids Rock, Dancer and Peacmaker came in third at the trials, but were still brought to the cave base in Vietnam to be backup pilots to the winning teams from the Gates Foundation and Egypt.

While at the Vietnam base, the kids progressed well with the giant robots they are learning to pilot to stop the demons. Rock's shield generation skills were ahead of the pack and he generated a shield that could deflect all conventional weapons including railguns, etc. Even magic and psionic attacks.

However, the demon's detected Rock's stronger shield, and started making their way to the base. The wasn't enough time to fully evacuate the base in the three days it would take the demon to arrive, so Rock volunteered to fight it.

Rock was killed in ten minutes even with his shield. The only reason he lasted that long was his superman endurance and iron will. His body was recovered and he was ressurrected by elder members of Strongbow's order. Revived, Rock was reunited with the rest of the team at the new underground base in Poland.

After the Vietnam fiasco (top pilot killed, robot detroyed), Tiger was placed in command of the program as Director.

Being killed by the demon has given Rock severe phobias of the Demons and also of Tiger, and he has been taken off the active pilot roster. He is still training, but there is no way to predict if he'll have a relapse or a breakdown against the demons. Merrow was recruited to replace Rock. She is a water alien and a good pilot.

Rock's robot is being rebuilt, and the spare is in use - so there are no more spare robots at present.

While in the Poland base, a discovery was made that Dancer's shield becomes even stronger (a whole magnetitude past Rock's - glows bright) when she isn't transformed (ie no powers).

The Egypt team and the Omega team both left to acquire objects with the power to negate super powers in order to enable Peacemaker and Merrow to get to the next level of shield generation like Dancer.

While the team was out of the country, the United States power armor team made a move to sieze Dancer to make her fight alone using her new shield generation powers - instead of waiting until all three pilots have the super shield ability. The new Gates foundation pilot rescues her and Marv and Rock fight the power armor team, preventing their escape.

[albatross]

I'll be camping in the Boundary Waters for a week, so I won't post much.

[Dome]

I just want to point to Dante's statements in my last post and say I kinda feel that way for real.

I felt this way before and its why I took so long to rejoin, and I hate putting this in words, but do our actions as players have an impact on the outcome here?

It just feels like the story has been written and we are just side stories to the main plot that all npcs seem to be handling without us.

I like the premise and I do like the story I just want to know that what my PC does matters to the story.

[albatross]

Fair question. I feel like the parts of the story with the biggest chances for change so far would be: If anyone had tried to stop Rock from fighting the demon, if anyone had investigated Rock's resurrection earlier, choosing the replacement pilot, and the most recent side mission to acquire the medallion with negate super powers.

I don't want to give too much away, but I feel each of those scenarios played a big role in how things will turn out. For example if Khris had blown the mutant rhino to bits with his automatic shotgun would the medallion be intact/usable?

Right now, perhaps two or three weeks from when the kids might combat the demons, there are still a few things the characters can do that will impact the outcome.

There are also a few interesting avenues that won't really change very much, at least not at this point.

How can I indicate which course of action will have an impact without revealing too much?

[Dome]

I don't expect you to tell us what you have planned, and what we can do to change things. That's not what I really meant. I guess I'm not explaining myself exactly right.

I guess part of it is because so much of what is happening or is going to happened is centered on the NPC kids, its hard to feel... I guess important to the game. The best way to word it is, it seems like the kids are the stars of the game, which is possible, but they are the focus too, which means it is just a story and not a game, or at least from this side, that's how it feels.

Also one of the reasons I joined back was I noted that Daks PC was the only one and the game was supposed to be a team based/squad based game, so I thought to join back so we would be together as we were in the early chapters of the game, so that he had another PC to interact with and not just NPC's as he was left with(not that there is anything wrong with NPC's) and yet he was sent off on his own, which I can't speak for him but had it been me, I would have found a little frustrating. Now the kids training continues, Katja and Dante are just wandering around because everything is running whether they are there or not.

I understand that due to people dropping out the game must go on, but to see so many NPC's doing things and PC's just standing around with no real work to do, leaves my PC feeling irrelevant.

[sasqaricious]

I think to add perspective, in many ways it feels like the story is already weaved and is on a timeline which can not be deviated from. Where as I have fun with the character interactions more so then the actual background things which to me are the training sessions themselves.

This makes us/me feel that we seem to be tools to be used in an established story, instead of a story being written as we interact. It might be the style, it might be where the story is.

Perhaps a new start, or new something else, I am not sure.

(Adding my two cents)

[albatross]

The part about splitting up and having Khris investigate the power armor teams is a mistake.

Tiger never said not to take Dante along on that mission. Never mentioned it either way, just assuming Khris would bring a teammate or two.

Rather, Tiger told Khris not to use Dante to directly investiate Foxglove. She even said Dante could help pick other psychics to help pick which psychics to use to investigate her.

So that was unclear writing on my part. When I wrote not to use Dante, I was thinking only of the Foxglove investigation, not the power armor recruiting. I considered intervening on that, but for a moment I thought Khris was going to bring Dante regardless and when he didn't I wasn't sure it was worth rewinding.

And part of the reason I didn't step in, is that selecting a new power armor team is interesting, but will probably have no further major implications.

Not trying to pidgen hole the characters, but generally speaking I write all my adventures so the group remains together as much as possible. And even when the player characters separate, I like to have at least one significant npc to interact with. So the way I would have expected things to go is: Katja's introduction to the training and command center with both Khris and Dante present. Then all three (and perhaps some npcs) go to Sweden to recruit power armor pilots. Then Khris and Dante work with Marv and the Egyptians to investigate Foxglove while Katja and Bel work to heal Rock. Etc.

Again, the mixup is probably due more to unclear writing on my part. Right now I'm planning the next portion that will occur when Khris returns to the base.

Does that make sense?

[Dome]

Yes it makes sense.

Like I said my main concern, the main reason for saying anything is because I want to feel that my PC matters to the game, and not that my PC is watching a story unfold without him. Right now, I don't feel that, the focus and the stars are the kids and the demons. Our actions don't seem to matter to that eventuality.

If the kid story line was more in the back ground and the focus was more on what the PC's were doing and how what they were doing mattered to what happened to the battle between the pilots and the demons, then it would feel more compelling. Or even that what they were doing mattered to the GM, then it would feel better.

The best way I can relate it is to a Video Game where the last stage is set no matter what you do during the game that last level will be the same, but if you did certain things during the game, then you may have the right weapons, right amount of ammo, right npc's with you, right armies by your side or the outcome you want once you face that final battle. During the entire game though, the entire focus has been on your character, and what it was doing, although there may have been a story in the back ground that is guiding the whole plot. Even if you can guess during the first level what the final battle will be, you still don't know exactly how it will turn out until you get through everything else.

This is just my opinion. I felt I had to say something.

I'm game to keep going and see how everything turns out, but I felt I had to say something in the hopes that things can be adjusted some.

[albatross]

How would everyone feel about a mission closer to the demons? For the Omega Team, not the kids?

[dakota]

whatever works

[sasqaricious]

I know I recently rejoined, but I just accepted a new position in the company. This unfortunately comes with 180 hours of course work to do by April and different role and job type. From 90% IT to 50% and a might bit different of free time.

As such I am sorry to say but until I am done the courses I have to cut back on games which is not fun for me but has to be done. This one was being one of the ones that I joined recently and had to be put on the list.

My apologies.

[albatross]

FYI - I'll post about the arrival of the refugee camp whenever you are ready. Just flag me at the end of one of the posts. Don't want to rush your strategy session:)

Albatross

[Dome]

guess we are ready to move forward, know i am anyway