#demigods

<Reki|JERK> Yo Funk you around
<UnkleFunK> Hi
<Reki|JERK> so er, is the rest of demigods going to be pretty similar to what we've already had
<UnkleFunK> What do you mean
<Reki|JERK> ah fuck it, I won't beat around the bush. I'm really pretty bored with it
<UnkleFunK> Is it because Pathfinder
<Reki|JERK> only partially
<UnkleFunK> Well
<UnkleFunK> Give me an hour or so and we can talk it out
<Reki|JERK> ok
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 Reki Reki|JERK
<UnkleFunK> Hi Reki
<Reki|JERK> hi
<Reki|JERK> that wasn't an hour
<UnkleFunK> ddr went to do stuff
<Reki|JERK> that bastard
<UnkleFunK> So, what's up
<Reki|JERK> despite the individual characters being interesting, the party chemistry still manages to suck completely. being a scion doesn't feel particularlly unique or cool. it sucks when all of our plans get torn to shit for no real reason and we are reduced to murderhoboing despite desperately trying to avoid it. we're supposed to be these cool operators but mostly just bumble around in incompetence because you seem reluctant to d
<Reki|JERK> rop real hints
<UnkleFunK> That's a fair complaint
<Reki|JERK> it's a fair number if anything
<AyaS> Yeah, I guess I've just felt incredibly incompetent through the game myself too. We've been having impossible fights one after another, we got soundly beaten by our rivals in a climatic showdown, and every plan we make tends to fail miserably somehow. It's just kind of like stumbling about feeling like idiots.
* YisusCraist is now known as Yisus
<UnkleFunK> Yeah, I suck at things that don't involve numbers
<UnkleFunK> Every fight is meant to be hard because that was that point of making you all so powerful
* Ellenpage is now known as ddrddr
<UnkleFunK> What plan other than the one with Bowrn filed
<UnkleFunK> 'failed
<Reki|JERK> kidnapping the succy
<AyaS> that ended up failing because we lost to our rivals
<Reki|JERK> so I guess it failed twice
<Reki|JERK> that's impressive
<AyaS> w
<ddrddr> well, I'd better not hide
<ddrddr> actually, I've been sharing some of these frustrations too
<ddrddr> I thought when reki and I rebuilt our characters from scratch it would help shake up the party dynamic and make us gel a little better
<ddrddr> but it kinda didn't
<AyaS> Well, but yeah. It's mostly that I've felt kinda really incompetent the whole time, and yeah, the party dynamic kinda blows. Also I hate Ryuko she sucks.
<Marisu> oh, Ryuko, I get it now
<ddrddr> yeah, I kinda wanted to create a character that was quiet and loyal but just ended up with one that was awkward and wooden
<ddrddr> that is kinda my bad
<Reki|JERK> Well I guess I succeeded in making a cranky noble who is incompetent without his knight
<Reki|JERK> but it isn't quite how I imagined it somehow
<AyaS> I don't even know what I did with Ryuko, she has no personality traits whatsoever
<Reki|JERK> you were blinded by SA dice
<AyaS> so I was
<Reki|JERK> optimization always comes back to haunt
<AyaS> w
<Reki|JERK> take heed, marisu
<qvv3rty6> hello loves
* qvv3rty6 is now known as qvv3rty
<Yisus> Hello qvv3rty
<qvv3rty> Hello Yui
<qvv3rty> How's life
<UnkleFunK> I'll level with you; this whole campaign is really a hastily conceived dungeoncrawl because I was in a mood for minmaxing Pathfinder when I came up with the idea. It started way before it was really ready to be run, because of how Jade ended prematurely, and it's just got a very vague goal to it and a few ambiguous locales for the setting. It's semi-intentional, so I can create encounters and NPCs as and when the situation requires them, beca
<UnkleFunK> use I find it easier to do things that way. In all honesty I shouldn't have started running it without either spending a lot longer developing the setting and the general plot, or finding someone else who is actually good at that thing to do it for me.
<Yisus> Fun
<AyaS> Mm.
<qvv3rty> How's work going?
<Yisus> There's no work
<Yisus> Only studying ._.
<UnkleFunK> So yeah, I know it's pretty bare right now because we've reached as far as I planned and I'm coming up with entire sessions less than a week before I run them
<Yisus> My bane D:
<AyaS> Yeah, I'll say it straight too, it sorta resembles the Pathfinder campaign I'm running irl
<AyaS> Which suffers from the fact that I don't really like running it at all, where I just come up with the next session the day before I run it
<qvv3rty> Hang in there Yisus
<Yisus> It's kind of fun though
<Reki|JERK> I'm not sure if having fully planned sessions would help that much though, at least with some of the problems
<Yisus> I met a lot of nice people \o/
<AyaS> Buut, yeah, you're also kind of really strict with stuff you run. You sorta "run things straight". Yeah, we come to King Borwn with a plan that doesn't work because he hates the surface world and wouldn't want to visit it but come on
<AyaS> We don't really know jack about the world and we can't really actually come up with the plans our INT 30 characters would be able to
<AyaS> Throw us a bone there. It's not that Demigods is that boring because it doesn't have an epic plot arc going or anything, it's mostly just that we're kinda lost and useless.
<UnkleFunK> Yes, that was wrong of me and I regret it
<ddrddr> mm, yeah
<AyaS> That's making me kind of afraid of playing Shadowrun since that's all about planning, and if all our plans fail there as magnificently as in demigods...
<ddrddr> that dissonance of us being supposed awesome badasses and our crushing incompetence at, well, anything, is kinda making it hard to really get into character I think
<AyaS> yeah, I guess my only character trait is "is awesome" so when I'm the most useless person around that kinda stings
<UnkleFunK> Mmm
<Reki|JERK> It is kind of annoying that aside from random trash packs in that dojo dungeon, every single fight has been unwinnable, intentionally
<Reki|JERK> dragon in the first session, duel with the dojo master, duel with our rivals, griev...
<AyaS> or unwinnable unintentionally
<AyaS> but yeah I mean we get it that we're not the top dogs of the universe and there are plenty of people stronger than us
<AyaS> but they don't have to be half of our fights
<AyaS> Plus the slimes that made the surroundings dark were just stumbling around until they died which didn't exactly make us feel badass either so eh
<UnkleFunK> Well
<Reki|JERK> also pathfinder sucks
<AyaS> ^
<UnkleFunK> Maybe we should drop it then
<Reki|JERK> well I would feel kind of shitty to suggest that, but since you were the one to do it
<UnkleFunK> If people aren't enjoying it then there's no point in running it
<UnkleFunK> It's better for you to say something
<AyaS> Yeah, I'm sorry. I feel kinda shitty about it, but I'd rather play something else too.
<AyaS> even if the campaign took a radical turn all of a sudden, I'd still hate my character
<ddrddr> yeah, I mean I really like the demigods world and a lot of the NPCs within it, but my character is really boring and awful
<ddrddr> I'd be happy to give it a go with a totally different character, if that's something that people could get on board with
<AyaS> It feels pretty fucking awkward to switch characters like that. And I'd rather go for not pathfinder if we're changing shit around
<ddrddr> yeah I don't know whether it's pathfinder as a whole or just minmaxy gestalt that's giving me a headache
<Reki|JERK> I think it'd be nice if we just branched out in systems in general
<Marisu> trying out new systems is really fun
<Reki|JERK> there are so many neat ones out there but 90% of our games are pf or sr
<AyaS> we've only had one shadowrun campaign that was more than two sessions
<Reki|JERK> well
<Reki|JERK> we've had like 4 false start sr games
<AyaS> and that's basically shadowrun only system-wise
<Reki|JERK> so that's 8 more sessions
<AyaS> still puts the session count under deadland's ;)
<UnkleFunK> I get the feeling that anything I run will end up the same way
<Reki|JERK> deadlands rox
<ddrddr> don't sell yourself short, jade was going great until we all died
<ddrddr> like it was the highlight of my week, every week
<Marisu> Funk, your Euroge campaign is still my favorite campaign, even though it's been dead since forever ago
<Reki|JERK> restart euroge
<Reki|JERK> using WHFRP
<Marisu> you can be a badass DM, we know that
<AyaS> Jade was great, Saga was great, Euroge was great. I think you're a great GM. I just think you focused on the wrong things in Demigods.
<AyaS> Well, focused on shit I didn't personally care much for, at least.
<AyaS> Like fights and numbers
<AyaS> How about you run a short, more story-focused campaign next? Or if not story, at least not so mechanics-intensive. Just ten or twenty sessions, see how it'd go.
<AyaS> I mean, run what you want, of course, campaigns only tend to be good if the GM himself has fun
<UnkleFunK> That would probably be better
<UnkleFunK> I know I try to make things too
<UnkleFunK> All-encompasing
<AyaS> All-encompassing how
<UnkleFunK> Epic, I guess
<AyaS> yeah, that's kinda my flaw as well
<Reki|JERK> I don't think that's a bad thing
<UnkleFunK> It is, because I have no idea how to write
<Reki|JERK> it just takes an assload more planning than I think you want to do
<AyaS> It doesn't have to be, but it's much more bitch of a run and plan for.
<AyaS> Yeah
<Reki|JERK> I think it's really just a problem with perspective
<UnkleFunK> I can start a story well enough, but I have no idea how to focus it after introductions
<Reki|JERK> epic in dnd is like killing gods and shit
<Reki|JERK> epic in a game like, mouseguard would be fighting an eagle
<Reki|JERK> much easier to write
<AyaS> yeaaah
<AyaS> I like writing stories around a single bad guy, that's usually an easy structure.
<AyaS> you can just advance the plot by having the bad guy do shit, as long as you remember to give reasons for the players to personally hate the bad guy
<UnkleFunK> Well I'll think about it I guess
<UnkleFunK> Nothing's inspiring me right now
<AyaS> Yeah, sure
<Marisu> what about L5R?
<AyaS> Try to come up with some concept
<AyaS> (I would play L5R)
<UnkleFunK> I really don't think I'm the right guy to run L5R
<Reki|JERK> I think you're probably the most right to run it
<UnkleFunK> How so
<Reki|JERK> just the impression I get
<AyaS> I'd just say to run anything that's more fluid and just lets you make cool and fun shit happen, your campaigns have always been the most interesting when you've just kinda handwaved stuff and played fun and awesome NPCs and thought about the players and what they'd like, and the least interesting when you get caught up in the mechanics and try to design an epic fight to end all fights. Like,
<AyaS> I think you're great at telling stories, you just have a habit of suspending that over dice rolling.
<UnkleFunK> That's probably true
<UnkleFunK> I get worried that people are bored when there aren't any dice though
<AyaS> I get bored when there are dice
<ddrddr> yeah it is kinda the opposite
<AyaS> Like, Star Wars Saga was fucking awesome all the way through, except for a single session
<AyaS> That warehouse fight in the darkness that took like five hours because we couldn't hit the enemies and it was just rolling attack rolls back and forth forever without anything interesting happening
<AyaS> everything else was A+