City of the Chosen: Discussion

[BasnetI]

*I take 1-2 hours making my assignments, some times I waste more time trying to feel like the character in order to decide
*Reading indeed, and then trying to figure out the others decisions and possibilities
*reading :)
*I take almost 30 mins to an hour to write something

[Xathan]

* Approximately how long did it take you to do assignments?

In past weeks, it's been about half an hour. It's really hard this week, though, because one decision (you can guess which one) is really causing me consternation to figure out. :P

* What was the longest/most demanding part? (My guess is reading.)

Actually, it's making decisions. It's really interesting; you always know in a game that making decision A will mean you won't have options B-F, but in this game you actually SEE what your options are and have it, and potential consequences, spelled out for you. I like it, but it's the hardest part.

* What was your favorite part? (Just generally)

Reading: I like the surprise every week!

* Approximately how long did it take you to do any roleplaying/fiction writing? (And perhaps: Do you consider yourself to be an especially fast/slow writer)

When I get going, I'm a fast writer. I'm very, very slow to get moving, however. I will be getting something up for this week; the holdup isn't laziness, it's making up my mind on my very first choice of Events. :P

I'll also be extracting some choice events and adding them to the rules thread along with a more detailed explanation of the way challenges work.

I'm looking forward to this!

[Raelifin]

Superbright is swamped with finals and illness. To better facilitate her involvement in the game I have extended the assignment deadline to the 10th. I'll be working on the update during this time, so it's not as much of a delay as it seems. Thank you to everyone who posted orders already. :D

[Xathan]

I just realized why I love this game so much; it's like a strange, more detailed, and more varied collaborative choose-your-own-adventure book. I look forward to the updates less because "I need to figure out what to do next" and more "I want to read the next chapter!"

Just thought I'd share. :)

[Raelifin]

Yay! That's exactly what I was going for! I've always been a fan of choose-your-own adventures, and I actually write Interactive Fiction as a hobby. I hope to build up some strategic depth as more of the landscape and dynamics of the city get revealed, but I remember pitching it to a friend early on as "an ouija board adventure, where everyone has their hand on the game but nobody knows exactly where it'll go".

Thanks for the feedback! (Which I always encourage even if it's less generous.)

[Raelifin]

Some gameplay notes about the coming turn and future turns:

1. Instead of saying "+X Element in the Whatever domain" I'll often be shortening it to "+X Element in Whatever".

2. There will be an explicit concept of "controlled territory". A more in-depth explanation of this will be in the Events thread when it updates.

3. On the occasion that an event of the same name shows up twice in one turn (at different timeslots) I sometimes won't bother to explicitly specify that you can't assign a character to the same event twice. Unless otherwise noted, a character can only be assigned to an event of a single name once per turn. (Different characters can sometimes be assigned to the same event at different timeslots, depending on the event.) If this confuses you, it's pretty much as simple as "A person can't do the same event twice. Use common sense."

4. I'm making the domains explicit, for the sake of clarity. While not necessarily exhaustive, here's the standard list:
* Combat - Anything related to fighting or physically competing.
* Melee Combat - Brawling, sword-fighting, wrestling, etc.
* Ranged Combat - Archery and gunfighting.
* Strength - Tests of raw power
* Endurance - Doing strenuous things for long periods of time
* Healing - Recovering from injury, sickness, or preventing death
* Willpower - Resisting psychic attacks or otherwise resisting temptation
* Skill - A catch-all category that involves stealth, observation, reasoning, slight-of-hand, knowledge, and luck
* Machines - A sub-category of skill that involves manipulating machines and devices
* Construction - A sub-category of skill that involves building, planning, and engineering
* Political - Anything related to social manipulation or rallying people to follow you
* Social - Charisma and ability to successfully navigate non-partisan conversations

[Steerpike]

I've always been a fan of choose-your-own adventures, and I actually write Interactive Fiction as a hobby.

My first forays into any kind of gaming were the Fighting Fantasy game-books, and my GM style has been influenced the "If this, then this" quasi-algorithmic logic of those books on some level.  Do you have anything out there that's downloadable?

[Raelifin]

Alas, I do not. I've always gotten about 60-70% of the way through a project before my steam ran out. (I promise not to let that happen with City!) I'm actually tempted to finish my most recent game, which is set on a martial colony from the perspective of an android, but all my creative energy is going elsewhere at the moment. D:

Need more hours in the day!

[Raelifin]

I got asked about event elements, and I thought I'd answer here, since I think it's relevant to everyone.
The element of an event has no mechanical significance. If an event is "Frost" or "Iron" that is a description of the event, but doesn't carry any information about the event other than to frame it in terms of the elements that govern the world.

Blood events are about impulsive decisions, passionate attempts, and often about violent attacks.
Iron events are about disasters, avoiding harm, and preventing things from going awry.
Dust events are about subtle things that require a proactive hand.
Smoke events are about mysteries, lies, or stealth.
Frost events are about long-term growth, consolidating power, or political backstabbing.

Again, these are loose categories and descriptions, just like "Crisis" and "Opportunity" (which roughly describe whether an event can safely be neglected), they hold no actual effect in the gameplay.

[BasnetI]

Rael, amazing job with the narrative, I'm getting more and more attached to this game as I keep reading it!

[Raelifin]

Embarrassing side-note: I just realized your name is BasnetI and not Basnetl. :O

Thanks for the kind words. ^_^

[Raelifin]

The Chosen Revealed Thus Far:

Player	Name	Primary Element	Age	Time Period	Homeland	Gender	Primary Ethnicity/Culture	Social Personality
Superbright	Layla al-Zakiyya	Dust	19-20	late 700s	Baghdad	Female	Arab-Persian	Introvert?
HippopotamusDundee	Saitoro	Dust	~26	mid 1500s	Japan	Male	Japanese	Introvert
TheMeanestGuest	Juliet	Blood	27	late 2000s	Western North America	Female	Canadian-American Caucasian	Introvert?
-	Riccara Vaillancourt	Frost	22	early 2000s	Maine, USA	Female	American Caucasian	Extrovert
BasnetI	Bastien "Mcgregor"	Frost	20	late 1900s	United Kingdom	Male	British	Extrovert?
-	Jens Faber	Frost	27	Far future	Norway	Male	Scandinavian	Introvert?
-	Hong Gyeong-su	Iron	46	early 900s	Korea	Male	Korean	Ambivert
-	Oryx	Blood	16	Distant Past	Egypt	Male	African	Introvert
-	Mary	Dust	33	mid 1900s	India	Female	Indian (Gond)	Introvert
-	Vitus	Smoke	?	early 100s	Rome	Male	Roman	Introvert
Xathan	John Dante	Iron	24	early 1900s	America	Male	American Caucasian	Extrovert?
-	The Medicine Man	Smoke	50s?	?	Western North America	Male	Native American	Extrovert
-	Olga Surikov	Iron	27	early 1900s	Soviet Union	Female	Eastern-European	Extrovert
-	Jéssica	Blood	23	early 1900s	Brazil	Female	African-Brazilian	Extrovert
-	Emily White	Iron	47	early-mid 2000s	Australia	Female	Chinese	Introvert
Light Dragon	Vic Fellowes	Smoke	30s?	late 1800s	Mississippi, USA	Male	American Caucasian (French?)	Extrovert
-	Jarji	Iron	40s?	mid-late 300s	Georgia/Iberia/Kartli	Male	Eastern-European	Introvert
-	Park Yoon-Ji	Smoke	28	late 1900s	South Korea	Female	Korean	Introvert
-	Estrella Salazar	Iron	31	early 1800s	New Mexico	Female	Mexican	Introvert
-	Lucie de Toulouse	Blood	5	late 1000s	France	Female	French	Extrovert
-	Mu Qi	Dust	24	early 200s	China	Male	Chinese	Extrovert
-	Chan Feng	Iron	24	early 2000s	China	Male	Chinese	Introvert
-	Mark/Thaba	Dust	36	mid 1900s	South Africa	Male	Caucasian-influenced African	Extrovert
-	"Un Sacerdote"	Smoke	~30	mid 1600s	Spain	Male	Spanish	Introvert
-	Mya	Blood	38	late 1500s	Burma	Female	Bamar	Extrovert
-	Naz	Frost	18	late 400s BC	Turkey	Female	Persian	Extrovert
-	Mohandas Sharma	Frost	35	mid-late 2000s	Indonesia	Male	Japanese/Indian/Indonesian	Extrovert
-	Henry McCormack	Blood	41	mid 1900s	Missouri, USA	Male	Irish American	Extrovert
-	Athena Transcendent	Frost	59	mid-late 2000s	Earth	Female	Semi-American Transhuman	Extrovert

Elements by character count:
Blood: 6
Iron: 7
Dust: 5
Smoke: 5
Frost: 6

13 Women, 16 Men.

12 Introverts, 16 Extroverts, 1 Ambivert.

Median age: ~27

[Raelifin]

Do any of my players specifically want to avoid reading a bigoted character use a particularly nasty racial slur that starts with the letter N? I have one in the mental pipeline and I just realized that it may be really unpleasant to read that sort of hate speech, even in the contexts of a fantasy.

[LD]

Is Juliet from 2008 or 2080? Her background refers to some conglomerations that don't exist in the present.

Also, re your list of characters. I like the list; could you maybe please put the decade for people we know the decades for in the Time Period?

Also, for clarity: I appreciate the ? next to French; Vic probably isn't French... more to be revealed in the storytelling thread. He does speak some French, and he's decent, but it isn't great French and he doesn't have a huge vocabulary. As for age... He's probably in his thirties as far as anyone knows. Whether he'll tell anyone is a mystery. That's Smoke for ya'...

[Raelifin]

Juliet was born in 2067.

The scientist in me doesn't like mixing different numbers of significant digits, and some characters have more specificity than others. I'll compromise and say "early/mid/late XX00s".