In Golden Flame

[hard falcon]

Still no idea what to pick for ||Send In The Clowns||

Did get linked the perfect tune for ||Killer Sound|| and I'm declaring it diagetic https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_GIotvR6aEw

[void nest]

I got that and "How to Build a Mecha Girl" for that encounter: https://youtu.be/22sl6vaDVE0?si=E07_bDEdp82nVIbV

[hard falcon]

Oh, it's the same artist

... I guess I have an artist to binge when I get home

[lunar panther]

it's AI slop unfortunately

a friend played it and it was sounding so nice before alarm bells went off in my head

[ebon hatch]

the music and not just the cover art?

[lunar panther]

yeah :(

[ebon hatch]

aw damn it

[hard falcon]

Wait what

Piss

[hard falcon]

Pivoting as I read over chapter 2 notes;
||What is Howl's Entrance music, and why is it Beast of Gévaudan||

[thorn hinge]

An interesting choice. I asked Eris about this exact question when I was getting ready to run the championship scene, and it chose GGS's Smell of the Game as Howl's entrance music

[hard falcon]

Also extremely based

Brain is slightly feral for GGS atm so I will make a note of that

[thorn hinge]

I also animated the tournament intro, if you wanna see...

[hard falcon]

Yes

[thorn hinge]

..I am sick with the rona. posted the question, didn't realize the link wasn't in there, fell asleep for an hour. Anyway here
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MTD-wmSj3cI

Calamity Havok versus the defending champion, Howl.

[thorn hinge]

I had Calamity's player roll the arena rolls secretly so they didn't get to see the results. I shared them with Eris, who joined for the night to reprise the role of Howl. . The narrative then was freeform ad-libbed combat, comprising three rounds. Eris knew from the results how far it would go, but for @pliant grail? Each round passed they got to experience the same elation Calamity did, successfully making it a step further, not sure if the y would go all the way but seeing the goal become more and more real as calamity continued to hold out.

The format was single elimination, three rounds, with a break to do field repairs in between. Round one included ranged weapons, with extra guns littered around the combat space and Howl's howitzer opening things up. Calamity managed to survive and score a nice hit on Howl, but neither mech was defeated. Round two banned the guns and replaced the arena's arms with melee weapons. This time Howl came out hard, and did a good deal of damage to Calamity's mech, Fear Her FANGS The Beast is Free. When the bell rung though, she was still standing. Round three removed even the melee weapons. Both mechs have claws and teeth, and this championship was billed as the Battle of the Beasts, now it's time to live up to it. Before facing Howl in primal combat though, the tournament organizers added a twist: 100 comp/con driven combat dolls. Calamity had to fight through this horde for her chance to take on the champion in one final limitless round.

She barely began cutting into the pile of mechs before Howl, frustrated by the delay and the unfair advantage, threw herself into the comp/cons as well. They immediately regarded her as a threat, and while both Calamity and Howl took a few minor hits it wasn't long until they were done. Finally the last round, no time limit, no repairs. Eris did a magnificent job of dragging it out, keeping the threat going, and it wasn't until the final blow that Calamity and Xenguin both knew.

[pliant grail]

I have been summoned

[thorn hinge]

Calamity had gotten ||5 ticks on the clock|| She won.

[shell bison]

We love a hell fire champion

[fast parrot]

I'm going for one myself.

**when session finally happens

[willow cloak]

I went with CthuluSeeker’s remix, it’s a banger

https://youtu.be/vCaE0Q1MAp0?feature=shared

[obsidian ferry]

Contact with you is the obvious choice for that fight. It even ramps up in synch with the description text and comms chatter.

[hard falcon]

[shell bison]

I was about to post "Out of your Mind" as a theme but I forgot that was Calamity's theme, not howl's

[dense basalt]

I’m coming for that crown

[viscid charm]

Just listened to this, wow that is a cool remix.

[hard falcon]

regardless, today, ||our crew gets to go to the icebreaker. Rather than launch immediately after, they'll be launching some time later, because for some reason when I said 'jerry'll ask you to look nice' everyone got it in their head that I wanted Gala dresses.||

[willow cloak]

||It's not just you, my PCs spent 30 minutes describing their swanky outfits for that meeting||

[hard falcon]

|| two PCs drew their fancy outfits ||

||Regardless, I'm issuing a GM fiat saying that the launch to the Icebreaker is delayed by no more than 1 week||

[shell bison]

Lmao

Jerry says, "were nice clothes" the players overperformed for the assignment

[hard falcon]

||Nyambrose: WHAT TOOK YOU SO LONG?!
Players: We were told to look nice'||

(Yes the crown is mandatory on discord nicknames)

[shell bison]

[lilac shore]

They're gonna be so overdressed lmao

[sick wave]

fleshing out one of the PC's starting concept was a "runaway gang princess" and we got it to "Elske's princess that the knights got way too into the bit on"

[lilac shore]

Ah the Knights, they'd be cringe if they werent so gosh darn earnest and hardcore about the bit

[quaint pebble]

my crew were split 50:50 in character about whether they are still cringe anyway

[hard falcon]

i've also been told that ||since everyone went to all the trouble of coming up with gala nonsense, I now need to put a gala on the icebreaker so i guess I'm reworking the meeting wtih Rita||

[quaint pebble]

IIRC the younger half thought they were cooler

[hard falcon]

||I can't read 'Uncrowned King' without immediately adding the subtitle 'Bar and Grill' so I need a new meeting place name ||

[shell bison]

Shout out to @regal comet show him some love

[regal comet]

Eyo?? Thanks Void!

[hard falcon]

Man imma need to promote Mikaela to important npc at this point

[shell bison]

She's fun to play as I can unfortantely do a valley girl accent really well and have her be an obvious SSC Shill but still medical professional

[hard falcon]

Right I just realized that I can (and should) use Machinations during mission briefings

[regal comet]

She is important to my psychic well-being

[tame tide]

Me looking at my drive like... "Wait I never uploaded this map"

Anyway gridless variants uploaded

sorry it took a while

[hybrid flint]

Sick. Can’t wait to try ‘em out!

[onyx tendon]

The answers are in for how my players broke the printer. We have:
Tried to clean it and spilled solution in it
Attempted to use it to torture himself for fun
Printed a gun over and over trying to get it perfect
Put inappropriate materials in the recycling input
Tried to take it apart and put it back together to reverse engineer it and
Pushed too many print orders trying to get enough parts to fix the station

[tame tide]

Today I found out my next IGF game is going to be in September... if it happens at all

The last was on the 7th of July...

😭

Motivation for making maps will be harder

But I'll try 🥲

You lot are so supportive and motivational when I have time I must finish act 1 maps!!!

[lilac shore]

Lord two months? I'm sorry bud

[tame tide]

Yeah

Good news is I'm likely gonna start a new IGF with my house mates but that's gonna be in person so I won't need my maps for it

"Hey I made lots of really cool maps for playing online for myself and posted them but I'm not gonna use them cos I cant" lmao

[shell bison]

Ah man, hopefully it does continue!

Still, this is for you

🫂

[shell bison]

Soooooo, my player and I are cooking some real trauma for her PC.

In a twisted Treasure Planet like twist, Kat Tastro Phe was a orphan that grew up in Furnace City. For whatever reason, Capella crashed down and needed out of the city cause the Blacksmith's boys would have killed him on sight so he was deep underground to get out of the city.

Our little teen Kat always thought pirates were the epitome of freedom and was her golden ticket off world to experience pirate life. So on a sick twisted version on Captain Silver, Capella convinces her to help him off world. She's a talented little engineer so she'd make great use for the hounds.

Doesn't tell anyone of her friends she's doing it and then gets much more than she bargained for when Capella starts showing his true colors once they are off world.

10 years of abuse.
Only for Kat to magdump him, while he was exposed, with an HMG and causing him to self erasure.

[hard falcon]

couldn't kick off mission 2 last night due to player migraine.
||Have decided though that in the mission 2 wrapup, S1GN4L will be the one to provide a player with the Calendula frame||

[shell bison]

Oh are they getting new frames already?

[amber viper]

Mission 2 would be LL2 at the end

[hard falcon]

ye

||With a punchline of 'yeah S1GN4L's autotune'd voice is a gimmick and somehow he affects a baritone comparable to Irvin Reid'||

[shell bison]

oh right

[orchid seal]

(Chapter 2 Spoilers) So I couldn't help myself from going overboard and made some more assets for ||Send In The Clowns||
||(I retextured and modified this 3d model https://sketchfab.com/3d-models/ferris-wheel-675ab80b477b40f280b7311f81fee730 )||

[shell bison]

A blessing I plan to use in my starting ch2 soon

[hard falcon]

yo those are fucking rad

[orchid seal]

Quick rules question: The Jerry's Care Package reserve is Limited 2, but does that give everyone on the squad a downtime action when it's used, or does it just grant a single downtime action to a single player each use? (I'm not sure I particularly like either so I might just houserule that it's one use but everyone gets an action, but I'm curious what the intent is as written)

[shell bison]

from my read in the book it is the later

That one person gets an extra downtime action. Useful for say, someone needs to finish a "Get Creative" project

[orchid seal]

Yeah, in that context I guess it makes sense. I was kinda worried about players debating over who gets to use it but often with downtime actions it seems like there are only a couple of people with something they're really invested in and everyone else is just picking stuff (which can lead to cool scenes regardless). The only other problem is the classic consumable issue; the group never using it because they're waiting for the perfect opportunity where they need it and that never comes.

[shell bison]

It helps if you have a tab in the server you play in that shows all reserves they have access too and that one party member looks through them like aces to pull in bad situations

Like the time one of my players used the extra funds from Jerry to swindle an NPC into a deal to work for them

[hearty wave]

-rolls up in here-

[shell bison]

Hi Bree!

[hearty wave]

Hello! I'm working on my IGF session zero stuff while sitting in another game!

[shell bison]

Anything you need? :o

[hearty wave]

No! Just popping in! I keep forgetting to. Only to be slapped with rad art coming in.

[shell bison]

lmao, we got plenty to share

[hearty wave]

I will soon be contributing

[shell bison]

👀

[pastel tiger]

Anyone have good representations of the (Chapter 4) || Big evil spire thing in the mine that works for an iso map? Struggling to find something that fits ||

[lilac shore]

||I believe with Adas maps she flat out just changed format for in the mines, having to down grid at one point, so just get weird. Players might find it more memorable if it breaks format||

[remote oasis]

||Oh yes she did, that whole section messed with our heads so much, the perspective switching from isometric to top down just added to the whole thing so much. It was a really cool addition!||

[frail kayak]

Here is that thing from my map, might take some work to isolate (Chapter 4 spoilers)

[fast parrot]

Spoilers for Chapter 3!

|| Stortebecker vs coughing thief. One of us was the better raleigh pilot and it certainly was not him||

[remote oasis]

||You love to see it! Better Raleigh pilots unite! I managed to pop a fully loaded Mjolnir shot on the Thief (who also happened to have killed my lover and bounty hunting partner codenamed Peach years previously) After the fight, Calamity took the Thief for "A Walk" behind a rock to spare me from going back to killing again...||

[fast parrot]

|| it was a stortebecker admittedly, but i bolt throwered em to bits. My character had a personal stake in because he's very much discovered "oh shit i'm so badly attached to hells gate i would be willing to do awful things for them"

they let him have last words and shamkd him||

[remote oasis]

||The Stortebecker is a Raleigh in it's soul though, so I'm counting it! I've never hit such an absolutely brutal Bolt Thrower shot as that one though, that was a hell of a crit.

I love the character realization moments like that too. This campaign is so great and I love how connected everyone and their characters get to everything and everyone!||

[fast parrot]

|| our dice are really zongled this game i think||

|| cuz with the bolt thrower i either miss horribly or hit someone with the force of the sun. i've once hit a cult pyro with like... 18 damage or smk on a bolt shot||

[heady vale]

hey someone shared it a bit ago

can someone share the link again to the in golden flame character artistr's social medi apage and comms and stuff?

[worthy root]

The character artist? that's PunkR0xy: https://punkr0xy.carrd.co/. She's also in the channel

[heady vale]

Yup! Thank you

[dire cloud]

PRoxy
PunkR0xy
We know it's you on an alt account driving up business :P

[heady vale]

i wish.

Roxy deserves it tho, amazing work 😌

[twilit star]

Prolly gonna run this module, any tips? Not too experienced in running games. AlsoHaven’t read it yet, so the main thing on my mind is how far should I read ahead?

[orchid seal]

This could be a mistake on my part, but I've only read the broad strokes for the chapters past the one my group is in. It feels to me like there's enough info in the early "Running the Campaign" section to give you an idea of the big picture and where everything is going. It's possible though that I'm missing out on good opportunities for slipping in my own foreshadowing by not being intimately familiar with the details of later chapters, but it's a LOT to process and keep in your head all at once.

Once you get started reading it it's hard to stop though just because it's sooooo awesome, there's so much flavor to the setting and characters and it's continually inventive with the missions and combats.

[orchid seal]

Before my group started on it I feel like it was easier to read ahead, but there are enough new setting details + characters introduced in each mission/chapter that it feels like any deep reading ahead is just going to take up space in my head that would be better served by digging deeper into the current chapter. I'm only learning now (midway through chapter 2) the value of taking a lot of my own notes as I read and prep rather than running it purely straight out of the book (maybe something that's obvious for more experienced GMs).

Overall though there's lots of foreshadowing written into it already (and generally flagged as such when you encounter it), and I think the opening chapter does a great job of easing you (as the GM) and your party into the setting and game. The campaign seems a bit harder to run than a straight railroad like Solstice Rain, but a huge part of that is just that there's a rich setting for you to draw from as a GM and for your players to explore and interact with.

[shell bison]

We have a number of resources, people that are familiar with the setting and the creators of said module are very open to being asked certain questions and how to set things up on various tabletop rpg resources like foundry, roll20, etc. We have a number of community resources that people use if needed and as long as you are having fun you are doing something right.

[heady vale]

Does Asphodel has native flora and fauna?

I know the environment there as fucked but

[quaint pebble]

I don't believe so

[fallen geyser]

Single-celled prokaryotes

They can be found in the water of Asphodel

Their biology is actually somewhat interesting and troublesome because they're able to survive temperatures that would kill almost all terresterial life

So boiling water isn't guaranteed to kill them

You have to chemically disinfect the water of Asphodel before you can drink it

[heady vale]

Ohhhh interesting

[shell bison]

Omnifan Session Kris Kross got a selfie with two completely unrelated characters :)

[hard falcon]

https://whimsikarren.tumblr.com/ Partner drew more IGF stuff

[dire cloud]

I see the Vespiquen. :3

[heady topaz]

I HAVE ADDED MY BIGASS FOLDER OF MINIS AND MAPS TO THE RESOURCES PAGE!

ENJOY!

[minor solstice]

actually my hero

[heady topaz]

ur welcome

[past agate]

beeeees

[past agate]

LETS GO

[thorn hinge]

Kat Tastro Phe and her girlfriend Calamity Havok, all dressed up for a night on the Icebreaker Borealis.

37 colors (not including background), 210x259 pixels

Kat belongs to Forsagia, and is a PC is @shell bison's IGF campaign. Calamity belongs to @pliant grail, and is a PC in my IGF campaign as well as being a major NPC in the book.

[shell bison]

AYYYY, THAT'S MY PLAYER!

[ebon hatch]

damn I can't wait for my second campaign to start up so I get more art

[pliant grail]

I know her!

[remote oasis]

Me too!

[twilit star]

Ok the Search Function is useless in Discord, so I may as well ask here: I'm gonna be running an In Golden Flame campaign in Foundry and I was wondering if any battlemaps for the campaign are premade

Or if those will have to be made from scratch

[buoyant forge]

there's a bunch in the pinned resources folder

[twilit star]

Shoulda checked there first, thank you

wow that's a lot of resources

Anyone have recommendations for which ones to use?

[austere prism]

@rough bluff has made an amazing set of maps that I would wholeheartedly recommend

[thorn hinge]

His maps are AI based, and should be labeled as such.

[wild flame]

didn't he take them off the share drive?

[thorn hinge]

They're still in the history and it looks like someone anonymous readded them

He removed them after Vex made it clear she does not want AI generated content to be associated with IGF.

[willow cloak]

Imp/Al's maps have been great for me

[warped ibex]

depends -- do you want to use isometric or flat?

if you're using isometrics, ada's are obviously my reccomendation. for flat maps, yeah, imps maps are really good

[lilac shore]

Basically don't use Defendi if you don't want to use AI stuff, which Vex does not want associated with her module

[fossil lion]

for my campaign, i've been using a mixture of al's and jacquerel's maps

[twilit star]

Oh I really don’t want to use AI stuff thanks for the heads up

Anyway I’ll look at those maps. What about the non-map stuff, like the UI and System Map stuff, or character profiles?

Just the generally not map stuff

[warped ibex]

those i'd give a look through as you see fit and use at your own discretion -- the token pack from Vex is pretty much essential though

as it gives generic tokens for each enemy that appears by default in the module

if you want more specialized tokens (i.e. a special look for ||capella||, ||special Circuit tokens||, what have you) then there are a few of those in other people's resources, though

[twilit star]

Already got that locked and loaded!

[wild flame]

Ada's drive has a lot of solid tokens

[twilit star]

Took a look at some of them, and they seem pretty solid. They also seem to have a few exclusives that Vex’s don’t have, should I worry about that?

[lilac shore]

Eh not really, just use whatever ones you want, I don't think Vex covered all of them

[wild flame]

IIRC vex's packs don't have tokens for the NPC classes added in IGF

[twilit star]

Nah I saw a few

[lilac shore]

Also if you haven't already, check the thread on GM Corner, its invaluable for running the game imo

[twilit star]

Specifically a slinger

Oh, as for the maps, I assume layouts differ between creators, right?

[lilac shore]

Yeah

[twilit star]

Cool good to know

[wild flame]

Imp's maps have the dimensions listed in the drive, if you're planning on using those ones

[lilac shore]

IGF Feedback also has Vex and Ada popping in rather frequently

[twilit star]

Er… which thread is that?

[lilac shore]

Should be called In Golden Flame Feedback?

[warped ibex]

#909574961931362365

[lilac shore]

There it is

[warped ibex]

while there's no official distinction between the two, the feedback thread tends to be more related to gm-side stuff and upcoming content (ie act 2, act 3, the upcoming act 1 changes)

[lilac shore]

Yeah you can get a pretty good overall view of all the acts, including a draft for Act 2

[warped ibex]

while obviously there's wayyyy too much there to just sit through and read, still nice to keep an eye on it for things such as vex's commentary on stuff

[lilac shore]

And dont be afraid to ask questions on there and chat with the other GMs

[wild flame]

PSA for any players - do not go in there that thread contains unmarked gigaspoilers

[lilac shore]

Oh yeah PLEASE don't go in there if you're a player

Or intend to be a player for this at some point

[dire cloud]

Yeah, I lost out on a potential IGF game because I told the GM I'd already read the book.

[buoyant forge]

I mean yeah you don't generally read adventures you want to play cover to cover

largely shouldn't be in this channel if you're trying to play it either imo

[silver pumice]

lolmao

[wild flame]

hard disagree, this is the place for discussing the module and the games we play with it - players shouldn't be locked out of that community.

[silver pumice]

player here though a bit late-act 1 i am here to be autistic about it

[buoyant forge]

discussing having played it is one thing, trying to get into a game to play it is another

spoilers are going to fly around a channel like this

[silver pumice]

oh yeah that is fair

[lilac shore]

You know what isnt a spoiler? Jerry. Can't spoil anything, my guy

[fossil lion]

||haha, you didn't really think i'd put anything in this, did you?|| might have something to say about that

[thorn hinge]

You'd be surprised

One of my players is running his own game, and one of my other players is playing in it. I'm in a game with Vex an a bunch of other GMs playing with Cruye as a GM, and I'm looking to start a second IGF act 1 game with two of my players joining again.

Now, of course, spoilers are a thing and there's a bunch of fun twists and reveals that are nice to experience in game the first time... and of course these situations should only ever happen with tthe GM understanding your prior experience and being okay with it. But IGF seems to play really well if you know the book.

[minor solstice]

as long as you don't use meta knowledge ruin the experience for other players who haven't read/played it, its fine

[tame tide]

wearing fake moustache and glasses: hmm yes I heard this person called "Imp" or goes by "Al" instead has some cool maps. I'm not affiliated with them but I heard they're pretty cool

[wild flame]

Yeah, this. If someone wants to read the book I can't exactly stop them, and if they want to spoiler themselves then... that's fine? If they're not spreading those spoilers to people who don't want them or disruptively acting on metaknowledge they shouldn't have then I genuinely do not care. My job is to help ensure everyone is having fun, and if someone's fun involves them knowing what's gonna happen ahead of time then why should I stop them?

[quaint narwhal]

Finally getting almost finished with Chapter 2, and one of my players is headed for a Barbarosa, and models themself as an SDF-3... so I know that they would LOVE to get hold of the ||Catastrophe Beam|| ... looking at that thing's specs, it makes me VERY leery, but I was wondering if any of you guys who are way farther than we are on this narrative have found it to be too disruptive?

[shell bison]

It what way, the beam or the Barbie as a weapon?

[quaint narwhal]

the Barbie is fine, but that weapon at LL2 seems a bit early, even though it has a lot of downsides

when we played Wallflower, that Superheavy sniper rifle turned into a problem... it was like giving a Level 5 Paladin a Holy Avenger sword.

just wondering if other GMs encountered any issues with a weapon that powerful in thier games

[twilit star]

The description for furnace city says “approx. 300,000 outlanders” with an asterisk, but I can’t find the footnote for the asterisk…. So what’s an outlander supposed to be exactly?

[shell bison]

Hmm, from what I've seen the Cat Beam isn't that bad given it requires some turn set up in order to get a pay off so at most what you can do is heat gun the player a bit to make it not advised since every NPC can frag sig for 2 heat and impair. Making the cat harm but sometimes giving the big gun player that power fantasy isn't so bad.

I beleive the asterisk is to be a 'give or take' measurement as the number of outlanders can vary due to the volitile nature of the planet

[twilit star]

Ahkay… so what’s an outlander?.

[twilit star]

Gotcha

[signal canyon]

I'm trying to string together a plot thread for one of my players interested in playing a Nestorian. I've only read act 1, but I have a question about act 2 and beyond.
||Does that war criminal that Jerry extracted from Nestor when he was with the DoJ/HR come up again?||

[hybrid flint]

Decided to make some slightly souped-up boss tokens for ||Andros and Ignatius.||

[thorn hinge]

nice

[thorn hinge]

Kind of no. There's been some talk of it being a postgame note at the end of act 3; ||The one surviving member of Jerry's squad contacts him, saying they've tracked down Amren Kendrick. Jerry and Shelly leave Hell's Gate (now in as good a shape, and as good hands as it'll ever get) and join their old squad mate in the hunt.||

As GM you can bring that character up earlier and do something with them if you want, you don't have to hold out for this little epilogue which may not be there when the book finally comes out

[signal canyon]

Ah, I figured I would have to go outside the book, I just wondered if there was something important down the road I would have to connect it back to.

[shell bison]

My player found this bingo sheet to show their love for NPC's in their campaign so far.

[dusky cradle]

PCs Finally reached ||Steele Dome|| last Sunday, after a grueling journey, half the crew is foaming at the mouth itching to carve Steele a new one

||Everyone thought that Steele's gonna be directly overseeing his pet project up in the ivory tower||, ||who am I to disabuse them of the notion?||

[shell bison]

||It will only make them hate him more that he's just a monitor on a screen that bad mouths their personal drama live on stream only for them to punch the screen|| :)

[dusky cradle]

They sure did! ||Half the crew said the beef is personal, and expected a full-on duel to the death at the Dome. The Nelson pilot, who temporarily halted her romance arc with Jerry, actually decided to send him a "open in case I don't return" package right before departure to Asphodel. I think she had already figured out why Jerry quit his previous job, and had a sneaking feeling about what that job was. ||

Imagine how sad she'd be, once she found out that a glorious death is out of the question...

Oh well, they'd hate him a lot more.

[shell bison]

I mean...it'll be a funny scenario to talk about after just in case

And just making Steele a keyboard warrior makes it so much funnier and more deserving of slapping him later

[dusky cradle]

Gotta touch up my objectivist quotes again, Steele has to quote Ayn Rand in the middle of every fight, I'd make him as annoying a backseat pilot can be, and I'd die on this hill!

[shell bison]

I think it's written in his portion he will literally air out dirty laundry of the PC's just to fuck with them

[dusky cradle]

Yep, and I'd actually amassed quite a bit of this throughout the entire campaign

Cracks knuckles

[heady vale]

👀👀👀👀👀

[heady topaz]

[frozen talon]

I have terrible news. I am thinking of subjecting my players to this as Bad Star's theme music during their Bad Star fight.

|| https://youtu.be/u_FRDqHT5y0 ||

I feel like part of his contract is having his playlist just ERUPT out of the speakers... as long as Steele doesn't have to listen to it

[indigo dew]

How, and where, did you get that asset?

[frail kayak]

Oh, I built it out of several tiles in Brigador's map editor, as part of the map I have posted on the share drive

[dense crescent]

heh, better than what I used

[shell bison]

That is such a "we at the club" songlit

Also help, my chaos goblin (temperment, not the frame) pilot is vibing so hard with Mikaela and is now yearning to become a catgirl

[lilac shore]

I love that music for the IGF module. And get your goblin's ass to the SSC they'll get you neko'd up

[shell bison]

She's alright drawn art of it.

[twilit star]

For the extra NPCs on page 74, does anyone know what their pronouns are? Also should I worry about noting them down separately if they come up later, or should I just presume they're for the GM in case they want to incorporate them?

I'm reading IGF gradually so I don't know how many of these guys will come up later despite the obvious plot hooks

[digital raven]

These minis are sick, you posted them just in time for the shattered remains of the Hounds to get custom fits for mission 5

[twilit star]

don't forget to add the update date to it

cool minis though, very esoteric

[willow cloak]

Some are more plot-relevant than others, but as you guessed, that list is mostly there to give the GM a bunch of cool blorbos to write their own side-stories with. If the GM deigns to make Steeple a more important character, then he'll probably come up later.

Setting aside GM creativity, the most important of them is undoubtably ||BARTENDER_MOTHERFUCKER||, but not until Act 2 rolls around.

[twilit star]

What are Steeple’s pronouns by the way?

[twilit star]

I actually have a player whose an escaped SSC experiment so one of them will nicely fill a role I was needing an NPC for

[willow cloak]

He/him. I think most of the NPCs on that table have a pronoun used at least once.
That said, since they're basically all there as a stimulant for creativity, there's nothing stopping the GM from assigning new pronouns and genders at their discretion.

[twilit star]

I did double read and, nah Steeples didn't have one lol. Good to know

[twilit star]

._.

I'm blind

[willow cloak]

Is okay, I too am blind on occasion.

[twilit star]

Ok does Motherfucker have pronouns? I read thrice over and did not catch any pronouns from them

[tight pier]

Act 2 interchangably uses It/its (Act 2, Draft 20, pg. 110 & 257) and He/him (Act 2, Draft 20, pg. 257-258 & 307) depending on context

Probably he/him in the context of a player.

[twilit star]

I'll use he/it just in case

[digital raven]

lol, lmao, surely no GM would write themselves into a corner such that Steeple became a primary NPC (that's me, I did that, whoops)

[twilit star]

would you kindly provide context? So I can ahem avoid that in the future? cough cough

[tight pier]

To be more specific:

(HEAVY ACT 2 SPOILERS)
||B.M. primarily goes by He/Him (A2D20, pg. 257-258 & 307), but Mind, the entity that "controls" or I guess more accurately is Bartender, goes almost exclusively by It/Its pronouns (A2D20, pgs. 307, 288, 257, 240, 110). When Bartender Motherfucker is discussed in the context of being Mind, Bartender Motherfucker usually inherits Mind's It/Its (A2D20 pg. 257).||

[twilit star]

Eh if I'm gonna run Act 1 I think being spoiled can't be that big a deal

[tight pier]

||There's actually a mistake(?) on pg. 51 of the draft where Bartender is referred to by it/its pronouns.||

[heady topaz]

gotcha

[digital raven]

Sometimes the players get a reinforcements reserve in mission 1 because one of them can't make it this week and I didn't want to rebalance the OpFor and then other plot critical NPCs don't end up on screen until downtime 2 and then ||Baldur Valentinian's disembodied consciousness ends up riding shotgun in a body that is essentially a semi-retired combat android, I love my accidental throuple of boyfriends (both of them are dating Switch)||

[lilac shore]

||Mind messaging me the story behind that? I'm very curious about this.||

[digital raven]

No, that's the story, ||Steeple was on screen in Mission 1 and Switch wasn't and I moved plot elements around to match the focus of my players after Switch was introduced during Icebreaker downtime and everyone though they were a Cult spy||

[lilac shore]

||Okay but it reads like Baldur is in a second body dating switch and I'm very confused?||

[digital raven]

||for drama, I had Steeple rescue a mortally wounded Baldur from the Sunzi accident and slot their consciousness into Steeple's full body military implants, and then they both ended up dating one Ipswich Delacey, who never left the system in this timeline and became a surprisingly popular streamer||

[tight pier]

||Wow, your timeline is nuts. Our players recruited Ignatius to join them for mission 3||

[digital raven]

||and now we have a alternative dimension version of one of the PCs (replaced the original one in Boltzmann), who came from a timeline that closely mirrors the book, freaking out because they were best buds with Baldur/Switch in their timeline (this is how I explained to my players how badly I fucked the story beats)||

Doesn't matter what happens if the plates keep spinning

[tight pier]

holy shit

[lilac shore]

Damn

[minor solstice]

I have the artistic talent of a 4 year old but hey this how I have fun

[shell bison]

Hey, that's still talent! And if I was a parent I'd find that adorable.

[fast parrot]

oh my god are those props

i love it

[hard falcon]

right.

session four recap

Session 4: || Welcome To The Icebreaker!
Sere note: Memory of this session is spotty, as I woke up the next day with a fever.

After reading the Fire and Ice intro, I was told my Cecil Baldwin impression was 'Quite good' so, I felt mighty chuffed.

We cut to the briefing room, with assorted party members filing in. Ringabel was present, but not mentally due to hearing damage after working on The Gruncher with Farvicule (Read: Player wasn't there for the first part). Farvicule stood up for Jerry amidst Rita's admonishments, and that did wonders for his self-esteem. Not a whole lot, but some. The party agreed to follow through on Rita's 'job' and go to the Icebreaker.

Switch tried contacting Yon to have her distribute headshots. As a 'favour from one friend to another'. Yon is the only member of this group that has otherwise interacted with Switch. Yon's response was an indifferent 'We are not friends' and closing the door in their face.

Frita appeared within Lorelei's room to ramble about the dangers of the Icebreaker, warning of power failures, gravitational weirdness – basically, things that Rita talked about. And then went into rambling about a teleporting cult, and vanished through the ceiling. Switch showed up to hand the headshots over to Lorelei.

Roselor was contacted by Printloaf to transport stims, and cut her in on a 20% deal, on top of priority medical supplies access. ||

||Icebreaker Ambience:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xWVd_lyvOSw - FFXIV – Four-Sided Circle

We make it to the Icebreaker, and Yon almost immediately wanted to patrol in her mech. She was promptly told 'No, no, nono, that stays on the Dragon's Tooth, you will not be causing a panic.' As for downtimes...

Well, Lorelei dragged Yon to the casinos, as part of a 'let's show her a night on the town.' Yon proceeded to get yeeted from one of those casinos after she'd assaulted one of the workers upon realizing that the game was rigged. She's got one difficulty on two rolls going forward on interactions with the Icebreaker, as her first encounter after being ejected from the casino was a weirdo in a trenchcoat who offered her a way to 'really' cheat the system (Cardcount obtained)

Roselor went shopping for stims, and in the process, got her hands on a bizarre photograph taken on Asphodel. Nothing -too- bizarre really, just... a haunting feeling (Crone Photograph obtained). Yon also went shopping, got her hands on the weird optical discs, and also landed a Reserves.

Ringabel finally arrived, and she wanted to gather some information from the mech fighting rings. She rolled poorly, but still landed an interview(?) with Howl, who mainly addressed that she's seen an uptick in mechs participating in a red/orange colour scheme. And then she revealed she was stalling for time so that Security could remove Ringabel from the premises.

Farvicule of course opted for getting a drink, and wanted Ringabel around for 'Fire Team Fun Size' in terms of drinking. Farvicule woke up the next day in the Deepest Fairyland petting zoo, with no dignity, no idea how he got there, a traffic cone on his head, and a bizarre data drive in his pockets.
Farvicule player: Oh fuck I've got Vex's notes!

We then had the meeting with Rita, who was a tad annoyed that several members showed up in overly formal gear, when she's trying to be discreet. For the most part though, there wasn't really anything of note here. She gave her spiel, we talked about the alarms, very few followup questions were asked (I started to get the vibe that we were having a low-energy session)||

|| Some minor snafus on my part, I forgot that the reactor repairs were already done, and not just an ongoing thing. Which led to Yon and Farvicule going to seek out Fayad at the reactor itself. He gave some information, mainly talking about his confusion at why people would need it fixed. Yon then took this opportunity to... do what Yon does best. Pull a gun on Fayad, and then Farvicule ran into the reactor to do what Farvicule does best. Gremlin about. He tried swapping around several fuses, but was stopped by a member of The Faith. So he fired the Dog's Leg into a panel and fucked off.

Yon had taken out several members of station security, before Farvicule emerged and the two started running away. They got into a shouting match about Yon's techniques while they were on the run (to the point that I had a moment of 'oh shit is this player anger?' - the answer is no, just real good roleplay) and around the end of their running and shouting, I decided to throw them a bone, and by sheer coincidence, they ran into Loki, who overheard the last parts of their shouting match. He was mainly concerned with finding their missing scientist, and gave some light information about where they could search first. Also, he only introduced himself as Loki, as the Odin-Yon connection is a reveal I'm sitting on till end of chapter.

Ringabel went to investigate the murder scene, and found the data drive. She was a bit confused at how he was a member of the faith, but ultimately paid it little mind. Again. Low-energy session. Even when the information on the drive was provided, it elicited a 'that's it...?'

Lorelei delivered the headshots to Rat and found herself in the Zheng Yi Sao District. A local worker filled her in on how things have just been hellish lately, everything's failing, and no one is sure why. She tried to help, and found ultimately that indeed – nothing here -should- be failing as miserably as it was, but, it still was. A combination of her own skills and Switch's (The NHP) meddling, and she located the transit depot that was drawing a boatload of power.

So, the team has been called, and around this time, we were approaching our usual cutoff time, so, we set up the map.

Next session: Thermopalye -> Anti-Capital.||

[shell bison]

Glad to see your party enjoying the location

[hard falcon]

biggest regret: Not involving Roselor enough

[shell solstice]

Your teams interactions with Icebreaker were physically painful to read through when compared to my own experiences on the Icebreaker and I love that, lol

[shell bison]

Always a blast to read through the many, many alternate timelines going on. One of the best parts of being in this little community.

[shell solstice]

Yush, seeing how it all plays out differently is great.

I also love seeing how people interact with ||Gabriel Sparrow (And Kraken, Pear, and Calamity by extension)|| in their run games. He's not my blorbo in those universes but it's still great to see how people respond to him and where they take him.

[shell bison]

Oh trust me, I got plans for my players to meet him in my coming sessions.

[shell solstice]

I look forward to it lol. I've heard a bunch that were great. One of my favorites being when the GM put his art up two players seperately privately messaging the GM "Oh no, he's too hot it's not fair!"

Absolutely shattered me when Ada told me lol

[shell bison]

Oh I remember that. Cause it was me who told her

[shell solstice]

hahaha, amazing ❤️

But yeah, I love IGF so much. So well written and good and has an amazing community.

[shell bison]

I do enjoy being able to retell stories of the goings on in my campaigns I run. simply because I know you, Xen and Pear all love to read the little interactions. Along with the fact the creators of said characters get appreciated

[shell solstice]

Awww, thank you 🙂

And yeah, we love seeing the stuff with our characters, though even without that we'd still enjoy it because it's fun to see the way other people handled the same events and stresses we faced.

[shell bison]

Trust me, we are stressing out about our situations too in the games I run and the one I play in. Act 2 is WILD

[shell solstice]

Yeaaaaaah, we just got done with Act 1 and are taking a break before Act 2. We've got an idea of some of what's coming though and it definitely looks like it's going to be a ride.

[shell bison]

From what Ada and I discuss in private channels. I will simply say enjoy your time.

[shell solstice]

lmao thank you

[shell bison]

And to be fair, Ada knows things I don't since I'm just a player through some scenarios.

[minor solstice]

I stream a game and thought it would be fun to dress up as Jerry for it because he is my spirit animal

[shell bison]

...I know what my Halloween costume this year is

[silver pumice]

drew some of the ||inner cult elect|| from my group's playthrough! more coming……… soon……… also might tweak some of these later jdbfben

[shell bison]

Oh no, one of them looks really friendly

[fossil lion]

only one?

[silver pumice]

which one?

[silver pumice]

:]

[shell bison]

The one with their hand stretched out

[silver pumice]

that's ||Sung-yun, Engulfed by the Flame! she's characterized as violently goal-focused, throwing everything away in pursuit of it knowing she can just revive. she's also a recruiter, which her good looks definitely help||

||we first indirectly encountered her while doing a downtime cult investigation, in which we found her pin-board containing information about our team. and some assassination plans||

||(two actual assassination plans, for the team's resident streamer and lynk)||

[minor solstice]

My dumbass forgot to check before the fight to make sure one of the enemies had flight systems or an EVA module so they were uhhhhh chucked into space and had no way of getting back.

[heady vale]

https://www.tumblr.com/vexwerewolf/758215018786553856/in-golden-flame-v103?source=share

its a very selfish request, but could someone help me find the pages where this info is IN MAJOR WAYS, like the lore on it (not just mentions)

gotta print the locations of those changes as a packet since i turned the previous version into a printed book

the rest are like, minor things to print for me when i get there, hahaha

[thorn hinge]

I use a diff tool to see updates when vex puts out new versions, it should help you a bit. Try this one: https://www.ilovepdf.com/compare-pdf put the 1.0 pdf in first, then the new one in the other slot. Turn on Scroll Sync and any changes will be highlighted.

[heady vale]

Agony But helpful

I assume you haven't really been using this for the main PDF but for like act two stuff and before this was officially released?

I only really see one major PDF update

Also thank you!!!!

[fallen geyser]

Guys, I need to stress that if you already purchased the game, you do not need to buy it again to get the update!

The update is free for everyone who's purchased the game. Please don't give me more money for a product you've already bought!

[willow cloak]

You can't make me. What are you, some kind of money cop? Gonna force me to give you zero dollars? I'll needlessly extort myself as much as I please. I'm buying a copy for each of my pets, and I'll have you know that my lizard can't even read.

[fallen geyser]

I mean that's entirely different.

If you're buying more copies I guess I can't stop you

I guess just please don't buy more copies just because I updated the book

[shell solstice]

It's always good to know you aren't extorting your fanbase, but you can't make us stop throwing money at you!

https://tenor.com/view/shut-up-and-take-my-money-futurama-fry-take-my-money-money-gif-15195954

[quaint pebble]

I haven't figured out how itch.io would know this when I received a Kickstarter email copy, there's probably some other thing I need to do

[shell solstice]

When you got your copy via kickstart it should have been redeemed on your itch.io account. You should just be able to go to your Library and download it again.

It's in the dropdown for your profile in the upper right hand corner

Itch is a little odd compared to some other sales sites that way. It doesn't show it as already purchased on the purchase page, you have to specifically go to your Library.

[quaint pebble]

Ah that might be the thing

[fallen geyser]

Look, I only want your money if it's on purpose.

[shell solstice]

Completely fair lol

[austere prism]

so, act 2 kickstarter....?

[fallen geyser]

I'm gonna have to wait a while for that.

[twilit star]

For the ||full page Chat Logs shown directly after the Denial of Service combat,|| is that part of the files the players recover or is that GMs eyes only?

[iron lynx]

I gave those to my players

[thorn hinge]

It's really up to the GM, but most of us give it to the players. For me I stated that ||S1GN4L was still logged in||

[twilit star]

Hey for the “Join a Salvage Crew” downtime on page 103, is it supposed to say “Salvage Clock” instead of “Materials Clock” when describing the benefits from salvaging?

[clever cloud]

is there a difference?

[twilit star]

I assume not? I think “Materials Clock” is most likely a holdover name that didn’t get replaced in editing

Separate topic, but Rita reminds me of Kozma Lazlo from Midst

Thank you Vex for Mikaela Omnidocument-Format, every time she comes back up she becomes an even better tool for the personal PC subplot I wanna inflict on one of my players

And she’s a Catgirl

[shell bison]

So far, Mikaela has been a loving patner for one player, an inspiration for one player to get cat mods in two other games.

[half isle]

I've been browsing around looking at third party adventures and this one seems like it has meat on its bones, could anyone throw me a good pitch?

[shell bison]

cracks knuckles

_**Hola todos, Void here. Do you like, scarcity?

Do you enjoy the rush of having custom loading weapons that breeds a feeling of do or die mechanics that help you live that fantasy of loading with malicious intent?

How about the dynamic of a found family through shared trauma and a burning desire to protect the ones you love?

Do you enjoy White Haired Individuals?

Perhaps you like being, just a little bit silly?

Well, do I have a Lancer Module for you! This is In Golden Flame. A hellhole in the boonies of the ass end of nowhere Long Rim with the tyrannical bastard child of every nepo baby you have ever met is hitting it big. an honest religious debate leads to near societal collapse. We even have the horrible reality of when you don't download the latest firmware update to your NHP. Spoilers, it's uh....not going well.

Do you want to help this man? He's Jerry, your loveable boss that is most likely in dire need of a nap, more coffee and constantly looking on the verge of total mental collapse.

Protect Jerry.
Love Jerry.
Tuck him into bed and wish him sweet dreams while you do the grunt work.

He deserves it. Good knight, sweet prince.

Smooch on the forehead

PLAY IN GOLDEN FLAME, a Lancer module from Vex Avery, the loveable werewolf furry scamp that enables some of the wildest adventures I've ever played in a tabletop RPG. **_

[thorn hinge]

That's a fine looking bit of copy there

[shell bison]

Ada you know me, I have my IGF shill posts at the ready.

[shell solstice]

Slaps IGF "You can fit so much emotional trauma roleplaying into this badboy."

[frail kayak]

These are great! I'm going to use them in my campaign! (if that's okay, but I assume that was part of the motivation in posting them here) We have ||Sung-yun||, but who are the rest of them? I'm about to run ||Khorijin|| pretty soon

[warped ibex]

||in order, you've got Darius (Enlightened), Cassandra (Harrowed), Alessia (Humbled), Sung-Yun (Engulfed) [now Orion in current drafts], Akram (Tempered), Mykyta (Cleansed), and Khorijin (Restored)
they absolutely do not line up with their canon depictions, i should note - especially so Orion/Sung-Yun||

[frail kayak]

Thank you!

[last leaf]

I managed to accidentally set up a love triangle for one of my players using her.

[thorn hinge]

hell yes

[last leaf]

her, a naive and traumatised foxgirl, and claryana, what could possibly go wrong!™️

[silver pumice]

WHITE HAIRED INDIVIDUALS JFWJFNENF

there are So Many characters with white hair and so many players come up with white haired characters For Whatever Reason (this includes me . see: my pfp

[last leaf]

2/6 of my party members have white hair and one of those players also brought in their whole family as plot relevant npcs with white hair

[shell bison]

Sera, white hair seems to be a Calliope standard

One got the bun as well, I didn't expect it

[clever cloud]

its a side effect of blink void exposure

[silver pumice]

real

[shell bison]

Char only got the ability to teleport out of the sunzi.

One of my players exposed to blink grew a third eye and my Voladore player has an extra set of eyes

[twilit star]

||You know Bizarre Bazaar is such an easy name that I'm surprised I was offput from recognizing it here, but it's still like seeing your teacher in the grocery store||

[shell bison]

Does a patch of white hair count, cause our hacker man has black with a patch of white hair

[hard falcon]

||excellent, we can date CAUDTIC now||

[hard falcon]

Y...yay?

[silver pumice]

(lynk voice) get on my level.

[shell solstice]

Just to be clear, not a shot at your writing skills. Just hard to see people be mean to my blorbo's even when they aren't my blorbo's ❤️

It's still fun though, cause each person has different takes and approaches to the game and the NPC's they meet and that's awesome 😄

[hard falcon]

Yon's answer to everything seems to be pointing a gun at it or refusing contact

[shell solstice]

Yeah, the standard Calliope greeting.

lol

[hard falcon]

Ironic as she's an HA test tube baby

[shell bison]

What is it with Calliope and attracting test tube babies

[quaint pebble]

to be fair i expect that being born out of a tube isnt even that weird in the future

[shell bison]

True, but the white haired individuals. That's just seems Calliope coded in my brain now

[hard falcon]

It's the galaxy trash dump

[silver pumice]

it's the subconscious influence of switch, somehow

<- they did not even know about switch when they designed lynk

[last leaf]

I think more of my party is test tube baby than not tbh.

[silver pumice]

Huh

[twilit star]

You know getting to Chapter 2 made me realize that I took too many notes

To prep I mean

Like I didn’t need to write down short profiles on every optional NPC

Just the important ones

Like BARTENDER_MOTHERFUCKER

And the People of Interest I guess

Don’t even need small profiles on all the People of Interest either

[last leaf]

tbf who is going to be important when it comes to optional NPCs does to some degree depend on which ones your players latch onto tbf.

[twilit star]

Exactly, like I didn’t need to write any of them down ahead of time

[silver pumice]

there should be a bingo card for igf party traits . i might make one actually

[lilac tartan]

How to get assess to use the Jerry :help: emotional icon?

Wanna draw some oc and find out my Apple Pencil tip break into pieces after using my pencil for too much note and draft for my homework so that emotional icon is literally my emotion 🥲

[amber viper]

Oh I just made that emote for my private server, ping me in like 9 hours and I could send you a copy of the file

[lilac tartan]

Great thx, btw how to ping people in discord

[amber viper]

@ before the username.

[lilac tartan]

@amber viper

[twilit star]

For the downtimes in the module, it’s safe to say everyone gets 1 downtime action even if it isn’t explicitly stated, correct?

[twilit star]

Also I have to say I am overjoyed at the fact that ||chapter 2/beat 10 is an investigation||

[amber viper]

Yes

[thorn hinge]

When I want to steal emojis from other servers, what I do is I open discord in a browser, not the app. Then I click on the emoji, and right click the emoji preview in the popup (discord blocks right clicks on the emoji itself) use the inspect and it should find the html element and the discord emoji url. Open that url in a new tab, and you have the source image:

[shell bison]

Huh

[twilit star]

For the Guardian Angel Reserve, does Gun Brother Ten disappear after his attack or after the combat ends?

[quaint pebble]

unless it changed very recently, after the attack

[twilit star]

Also I am so, so in love with how open ended In Golden Flame is

[twilit star]

Also also I got to the end of Chapter 2 where Ipswich is first given an actual interaction and... man I imagined them to be so much more annoying and disrespectful than they actually are. They're a chill streamer apparently

For the record I imagined them to be endearingly annoying and just kinda pushy

Apparently they're super chill and respectful

[twilit star]

Also also this campaign has so many goddamn clocks, and I love it because they're super useful to have and allow the PCs to have really tangible impacts on the world, but also if I wasn't running this in Foundry I'd be really concerned about losing track of all of these

God this module is gonna make me overprepare on Foundry

(compliment)

[thorn hinge]

There's a ton of space for GMs to flavor the NPCs in so many cool ways. My PCs are in the book as NPCs and I love seeing the weird and wild directions people take them.

[twilit star]

Fair fair, I just like seeing the full official picture before deciding whether or not to replace them with my own image. Cuz more often than not I prefer the official traits

[thorn hinge]

Sure, but even sticking by what's in the book you can bend things in different ways

[twilit star]

Of course, you're practically required to fill in the blanks with your own stuff considering, ya know, this is a TTRPG module you're not given a dialogue tree

Except we kinda are for the important IGF interactions but.... you get the idea

[thorn hinge]

In my game Switch absolutely is a bit of a goofy annoying streamer who can push boundaries a bit, but they've also got some softs sides that endear them a bit. They first showed up when Calamity Havok was getting backed into a corner by an angry crowd that was about to turn into a mob, pissed about the Hell Hound living on the station. Switch suddenly appeared with allll their cameras "Whatup Switchboard, check it out! One of those SRT pilots, fresh off that mission that made sure all of us on Hell's Gate have something to eat! So Pilot, wanna chat?"

The crowd dispersed, and Switch leveraged the save into being taken on a ride-along on their next mission.

...then Switch accidentally gave away the team's position to ||S1GN4L|| who streamsniped them...

[twilit star]

||The Sunbird fight has to be one of the coolest fights I’ve ever read||

||Since the fight preceding it is back to back, would it be unfair to supply any surviving units from the previous fight as reinforcements to the Sunbird fight?||

[quaint pebble]

it probably doesn't need extra help, I would say

plus it's probably not a good idea to incentivise your players to play "kill everyone on the board" vs "do the objective" :p

[twilit star]

God every time I think “this module can’t get any cooler,” it surprises me with shit like ||The Hail Mary Pass||

Are all Lancer modules this open ended? This is the second one I’ve ever read

Also from Chapter 3, am I reading the ||Arrange a Distraction part correctly or does it only take 2 successes with that action to reduce the Enemy Attention clock to 0?||

[twilit star]

Ok I did a google search and didn’t find much, is “Christ the Buddha” an IGF thing, a Lancer thing, or an IRL thing?

[dire cloud]

Lancer.

[twilit star]

Ok cool

[thorn hinge]

you are reading that correctly

[thorn hinge]

IGF is actually mostly linear at first, but in my experience it is really really good at hiding that fact. The PCs have a ton of leeway in their choices, and the GM has a ton of room to build whole plots around the book's story. I'd say it's the best Lancer module, but I'm biased for a lot of reasons, including being on the Act 2 writing team. Hell, bias be damned, IGF act 1 is hands down the best roleplaying book I've read in my three decades in the hobby.

[maiden ferry]

I second that - and it has such exceptional foreshadowing too. The moment I read the act 2 draft was the second I decided to run it

[dusky cradle]

Memes courtesy of the Chinese community, Feat. Loki

SHUT UP! My dad works for: The Harrison Armory

And will send over an ACQUISITION AND MANAGEMENT TEAM if I mess with myself

[lilac tartan]

his dad is actually working for HA()

[main scaffold]

the low detail sherman is sending me

[dusky cradle]

Fun fact, both come from the same ZhJake art

[twilit star]

Ok the ||Enemy Attention clock is really confusing me. Its introduction says it by default has 4 segments, and beat 18 says that Combat: Bad Star happens if at least 4 segments are ticked.||

||However looking at the preceding encounters, I didn’t see anything indicating that the Enemy Attention clock could have its size increased past 4 segments. Did I miss something?||

[dusky cradle]

||Nah, no options increase Enemy Attention, you are right, but there are some narrative choices that immediately set the clock to maximum though||

[twilit star]

||Thanks, the At Least bit really threw me off||

[twilit star]

||Does the upgrade to the Dragon’s Tooth, the IPS-N Maelstrom Suite, give a free bombardment upon acquisition, or does it simply provide the means to acquire a Bombardment?||

[twilit star]

Tbh, thinking back on this, I think the module takes a big “series of sandboxes” style for how it does its linearity. Like Mario Odyssey or Mario 64. Or the Hitman games I guess.

It gives a lot of details to each area, an objective, and multiple routes to approach it with enough detail to map specific scenes while leaving things open enough to rework and stuff.

It’s Lancer, so the Mission structure is gonna linearize things a bit, but that’s perfectly ok as that’s part of the system’s intent. Plus it’s a module, not just a setting book, so some linearity is necessary. But there’s such a wide map of cause and effect as well as a lot of room to modify the space between scenes that it feels so open. Overall, yeah it’s super good, bias or no bias

Also the “series of sandboxes” style of running games is my jam personally

[dusky cradle]

||PCs now have access to Bombardment as a RESERVE through any means they would normally obtain RESERVES – Siren can now deliver it.||

||Thus, you normally acquire Reserves through downtime actions, or special actions like the one granted to you by Jerry's reserve||

||You don't actually just gain free Bombardment, it's just that whenever you gain a reserve normally you can instead tell Siren "I don't like location X, remove that location next time you find extra ammo"||

[twilit star]

||Does it mean you can now take downtime actions to acquire Bombardments, or whenever you gain a reserve you can replace it with a Bombardment?||

||Apologies, it’s a little confusing because nothing in the module said you couldn’t access Bombardments prior to this upgrade||

[digital raven]

||In general, reserves can and should be denied if they don't make narrative sense. If the players were to obtain a Bombardment reserve prior to this, they would have to explain who is firing it and from where. The weapons suite is narrative leverage to now use Bombardment in a much wider set of circumstances.||

||A quick control-F of the book shows that the original Dragon's Tooth description says this explicitly on page 65||

||Also, the weapon suite means that the Dragon Tooth is now armed to the standard of a warship of its size, previously it had mech scale weapons bolted to it instead of proper ship scale weapons||

[silver pumice]

posting a lynk doodle here again

("is that ||TRIPLE-POINT||???" haha don't worry about it <3)

[shell bison]

Good heavens

[silver pumice]

(to clarify this isn't romantic or whatever (due to ) but a secret third thing

[thorn hinge]

still cute tho

[silver pumice]

real!

[twilit star]

Binged the last 2 chapters of IGF last night. Such a good module

I think I might wait til the Kickstarter of Act 2 (I presume one is needed) before I get to reading the pre-release cuz I need to actually, ya know, prepare to run this

And also do other things with my life lol

[shell bison]

The current draft is in a really good state

[twilit star]

Yeah, but also I haven’t even got to session 1 of my IGF campaign

So… probably for the best I tackle it later. Also if any changes do get made, I can do less rereading

Out of curiosity by the way, how do y’all handle ||The Crone|| in your own games, if at all?

[lilac shore]

Not run this but based on what I've seen, ||make it extremely clear to the Players what it will mean to introduce the Crone, because once she's in the game you have a fourth-wall breaking character who is relatively simple to contact, and she won't just take her leave. Also be aware that players may not be down for her or not fully understand what they're getting with her. She'll be pulling back the curtain so there's nothing wrong with pulling the curtain back for the players a bit.||

[sour plume]

Like this.

[willow cloak]

||You can play with the 4th wall in fun ways with her. Getting discord messages from a nameless account in a different font color with the Signalis OST in the background had my players spooked.||

[twilit star]

||The Crone does provide really good horror elements TBH, but yeah. Guess that’s a good idea||

[lilac shore]

||So gonna do that||

[twilit star]

Wait how do you do that?

[shell bison]

Soooooo

one of our party members is getting an amber phantom

[willow cloak]

You can set a discord account's name to one of a number of Unicode characters that won't render, such as "᲼". For that account, I've also set the pfp to a square of discord's dark mode background color, which makes it "invisible" on the user list.

[shell bison]

and we are rwby pilled

so

Trying to make one of each

[willow cloak]

For text color, I use this ANSI code generator: https://message.style/app/tools/colored-text, but there might be easier options by which to achieve that if you take more time looking into it than I did.

[soft thicket]

I don't ; I do not think cosmic horror fits the tone of my IGF campaign, and would advise thinking thoroughly about the kind of beast you'll be unleashing by having her

[wind pine]

I simply used a transparent png image for the profile pic, myself

[willow cloak]

Ah, true, even better.

ty Ada.

[thorn hinge]

It works better, since the background color changes when a message is highlighted, and there might be some freaks out there who don't use dark mode

[willow cloak]

I have one friend who uses light mode, they in fact as strange as you'd assume.

I didn't have to contend with their preferences for this campaign, so matching the dark mode BG waas sufficient.

[thorn hinge]

The first time I played her, I deliberately spent no time preparing. I made sure to have the answers from the book ready, but I didn't try to anticipate what my players might ask, and I didn't prepare any questions for them. I went in totally ad-lib. I did need to take a moment to think sometimes, but the players understood that. Mostly they asked things that I could shoehorn into one of her prepared answers, or things that she couldn't or wouldn't fully answer outright. The very last question caught me off guard, but at that point I was so in the zone she replied immediately, and it changed the trajectory of an entire subplot I was working on. It was amazing.

The second time I played ||The Crone||, I was invited to do so for Cruye's main game. That was when I made the invisible account; Cruye invited me into her game server. As long as you set your status to invisible, it's almost impossible to notice it. The account shows up in the sidebar, but always at the end (in the offline area), and you can only see it if you mouseover it. I spent a few months in there, watching their text rp, getting a feel for them directly. Cruye gave me a massive loredump on each character in a separate channel, and we talked about them and worked together to prepare a bunch of likely questions they would ask, along with some penetrating counter-questions.

When the time came, Cruye read the intro from the book, right up to her first words. She snapped a dm to me, and I joined the chat to say the opening line. The players were freaked out. Cruye handled all narration like a GM should, but I was her voice. And I knew everything about them.

Third time I played ||The Crone|| was back in my own game for the second visit. This time, I prepped heavily, and gave the players a list of the from-the-book questions to help them along. It actually didn't go as smoothly as the first time, both the players and I had to take significant pauses to think things through, but the results were still fantastic.

[twilit star]

looks at Feather Yeah... cosmic horror is very atonal (joke)

[soft thicket]

hmm, I'd say that's just good ol' horror and big powerful mean person boss

[twilit star]

||looks at Triple-Point||

[soft thicket]

Now we're getting somewhere, but that's a ||very weird machine who does weird spooky stuff||

Cosmic horror is about the cruel joke of existence, the fleck of dust that is humanity in the grand scheme of thing, the cold, uncaring universe crushing us under its wheel simply by inattention, the pointlessness of it all

and the interplay between all that and the very human need for meaning and control of our existence

[twilit star]

Idk, I don't know too much about cosmic horror

I still need to read The King in Yellow

And maybe a lovecraft but idk how i'd feel about that considering... ya know

[soft thicket]

See, that's what the ||Crone|| made me think of

||'til all a play, and the PCs can only dance and dance to its tune, until someone starts it all up again, or until they laugh and laugh at its petiness||

[twilit star]

It's probably a point of debate whether or not NHPs qualify as points of cosmic horror

Cause they have the trappings but depending on how you run them they may not have the aformentioned themes, which then sparks the debate of "well are those themes required for cosmic horror" and then it just goes from there

[wild flame]

||except the PCs are explicitly the only people who aren't bound to dance to the tune||

[soft thicket]

||Oh I'd say the PCs are the only ones dancing||

[twilit star]

I personally feel NHPs are 100% cosmic horror and ||The Crone|| is only slightly atonal with that due to the 4th wall breaking but that's just me

[thorn hinge]

we* don't know ||what or who The Crone really is, or why she's like this. I wouldn't be so sure that she can't actually be explained... we just haven't gotten there yet. She does have some vibes of cosmic horror, but I wouldn't exactly put her in that spot. Feather, with her newfound desire to end existence? that qualifies just as much||
-# *||One person has correctly figured out who she is, apparently, but it's not telling.||

[soft thicket]

||everyone else is set dressing, bit parts||

[twilit star]

||also she explicitly seems to highlight the characters as important which does contrast the pointlessness themes of cosmic horror||

[soft thicket]

right, but, the real cosmic horror is not the ||mysterious old lady who knows a lot||

it's the ||fourth wall break||

[wild flame]

||she explicitly states that the PCs are the only people not bound by the narrative||

[soft thicket]

once that's broken, either it's horror, or it's jokes

at least how I see it

[thorn hinge]

fair

[twilit star]

||Oh i assumed we were never getting an answer as to who the crone is||

[soft thicket]

it's the ||Crone||, obviously

||She is that she is||

[twilit star]

AH right. how silly of me. it was so obvious

[twilit star]

||The Crone is really well written to go all in on the horror personally, and plays just enough with the fourth wall that it breaks but in a dam slowly cracking to drown you way rather than a Cool-Aid man way||

||But again. Haven't gotten there yet||

[thorn hinge]

not really no. But it's something that apparently you can figure out. If you have an idea, ask Vex; she'll confirm or deny. It occasionally becomes a thing we do in the other channel, lots of people throwing out some wild ideas like

[twilit star]

See I was thinking it was one of those situations where Vex knew what she was but it would be a better experience if that was never mentioned so everyone can make their own explanations

[thorn hinge]

Erismoth figured it out, but it's not going to spoil it for anybody I think. It's been friends with Vex for far longer than I have so it has a better perspective to know who she might be.

[twilit star]

I'm more than happy to not have an explanation personally

||I haven't gotten far enough to know what the fuck Calliope the Sun did to her anyhow so not like I have all the info either||

[thorn hinge]

Anyway, I do understand feeling like that character is not appropriate for the vibes you have in your game. That's fine. I felt like she was a perfect fit for mine, so I included that scene. That's the whole point of the warning in the book, after all. It's your game to play in a manner you see fit. Take what you want from the book to create your experience. ❤️

[willow cloak]

lmao

[thorn hinge]

I did a quick search and yours was the first one to make me laugh lol

[soft thicket]

||right, I think it's well written and very horrific, I just think a revelation as big as "the PCs are all, well, characters" should be either the focal point of terror of the narrative, or done not at all ; because like, I told my friend we'd pilot robots, not that they'd need their marionettes to have emotional breakdowns about their existence as marionettes xp||

[thorn hinge]

Oh, and technically I played ||The Crone|| a fourth time. Cruye's running a remix game, with the central conceit that every player has read the book, run the campaign, and/or wrote the book in Vex's case. We met ||The Crone|| last week. ||Cruye took a moment to write up the answer for each question, and then DM'd the text to one of the players to read as the Crone. After all... we've all been her before. It was really impactful, honestly. I loved that twist on it. She also then made us choose for ourselves how much astral stigmata we got for sticking it out. I took it all in one go. Given my last question, it seemed appropriate.||

[soft thicket]

after all, what's the point of us if we can't open the book and rewise its guts as we like

[soft thicket]

GM really said "How many meta levels is your ||Crone|| at ? You are like baby. Watch this."

[thorn hinge]

wanna hear the most meta thing I've done in IGF? It beats that. I think.

[soft thicket]

Shoot

[thorn hinge]

So, in the remix game, my character is friends with the NPC, Calamity Havok. I ended up backstabbing her really bad (looong story, my character was a cult spy and fucked up baaad), and we had a text play-by-post RP thread about dealing with that. It started with a long conversation between her and Siren, but then Siren invited Calamity over so I could apologize. Here's the thing. Calamity is a PC in my game, added to the book as a NPC through the kickstarter rewards. In fact, all my PCs got in the book like that; Kraken, Pear, and Gabriel too. When she came into my room to talk, Cruye invited my player Xenguin to come reprise the role of Calamity. We continued the text rp for a while, but it burned out at one point, with me waiting for calamity's player to respond.

My game then, kept going. We got to chapter 4. || If it's not clear, me and my players adore the weird shit, so I expanded a lot of the metavault stuff. The Outer Myriad and Crypt of Stars took one whole game session. The Vorshungsmotor scene? That was an entire 5 hour night. I turned it into a whole series of simulations based on information from other timelines; TRIPLEPOINT was too far gone to keep the timelines straight. I had five simulations planner per character, putting them through 20 in total. The first wave of these was based on stories I collected from other GMs here on PilotNet of how they used those NPCs. My characters got to live out a short piece of those lives. Cruye joined my game to play one of her characters for a scene. Vex played a scene as her remix game character, talking with one of my players, who was living out the NPC experience of a scene that happened in the remix. That's Meta enough, but not the peak yet.||

The peak meta happened ||in a later loop. I described the scene from the remix game thread, and then handed the reigns of the game over to Cruye. She became GM and ran the scene as I played my remix character and Calamity played her NPC self. We finished out the scene that started as text rp in another game. playing a moment that happened in both games simultaneously, one as simulation, one as reality. I became a superposition of GM and player at the same time, while Calamity became a PC and NPC at the same time.||

This came back later in my game in chapter 5, ||as the team was running to get mounted up. Calamity saw a familiar face in a crowd of people. My character from the remix game, sitting in Hell's Gate. She didn't have time to investigate. It wasn't until they were fireing up the nearlight bolt to Fort Cerberus that Calamity even fully remembered the simulation, and remembered that the woman she just saw was a Cult spy.||

[thorn hinge]

I think it's clear that this sort of content is exactly what I wanted in my game, lmao.

[shell bison]

I love reading Ada's remix game

[last leaf]

personally I feel ||the crone really fits my table, in part because they very much want their characters to be terrified by things they can't fully comprehend. But you've definitely got to be up front at the start of the campaign that there's an option down the line that includes heavy 4th wall breaking and that is something that they want. And if I'm gonna be real, I feel like the Crone sees and treats the players and pcs as interchangeable/part of a greater whole, just as much as she talks about the pc's actions as being determined by an external force. Which has quite different implications imo.||

||But I absolutely do also see how the Crone does not fit all tables and should definitely not be used at all tables. They genuinely don't improve all games and can ruin certain vibes. It's absolutely the right call to not include them a lot of the time, that disclaimer is there for a reason||

[main scaffold]

Thats such an insane method of playing that character, I adore that

[twilit star]

I’m asking at the start of the campaign if it’s ok if I include it, but also saying even if they say it’s ok I’m ultimately gonna use my own judgment when the time comes to include it or not.

That way, if they all approve, there’s still no guarantee it happens, and I either have an out or it’s still a surprise when it does happen

[last leaf]

yup, that's the smart way of doing it imo.

and you can be very explicit as to what degree of fourth wall breaking you might include (especially stressing that it might end up revealing character secrets early), without it being an obvious specific spoiler because you don't need to mention when this will happen or actually any details of the crone's actual character

and obviously, you should only make the final decision once your party has gotten to asphodel

[twilit star]

I’m just not sure what details I should explain or not. I doubt they’re gonna be able to predict what actually happens but I don’t wanna spoil it too much because I was caught off guard just reading it so I don’t wanna cheapen the surprise of the encounter happening

[last leaf]

remember, as long as you're not specific about when it happens, it will likely be more surprising than you think. There are other strange and spooky parts of the campaign (in particalar, the tach, so the crone being weird and spooky won't necessarily ping the player's radar that oh this is the 4th wall breaking bit the gm talked about 3 months ago or whatever)

Personally, this is more or less what I told my party in advance: This campaign has the option (stress that it is optional) to include extremely 4th wall breaking elements, including encounters that can forcibly reveal character secrets to the party without the player's consent, is this something that you would want to be included in the campaign?

the earlier you talk about this the better, because it gives your players more time to forget about it

[limpid badger]

Hey! Was just curious - was there any official maps for this campaign by any chance? I'm planning to run it, and just wanted to know if I'd need to nab/make battlemaps myself for Foundry

[shell bison]

There aren't any "official" maps made towards the campaign but we do have some community resource maps to use

[limpid badger]

Oh! Alright, could you point me to where they are by any chance? 👀

[willow cloak]

There’s a pinned link in this channel, enjoy.

#1059603134504255528 message

[limpid badger]

oh! Thank you!

oops wrong person pinged- sorry

[shell bison]

Oh you are fine

[lilac tartan]

https://youtu.be/hcqXjcO791s?si=-mDC_TJmxG7zoa3K

A song amazingly suit the atmosphere of IGF…

[hexed berry]

What's the vibe on running this for a group?

[digital raven]

can you ask a more specific question?

[obsidian ferry]

It's a very well written and tightly plotted campaign which is also pretty flexible in terms of fitting player backstories and adapting to fit player story threads.

I've just finished running chapter 1 and it's been a treat so far.

[dire cloud]

It's a lot better than running it solo.

[digital raven]

Like the book is a masterwork level rpg campaign with strong themes and a lot of depth while still allowing for a surprising amount of flexibility in tone. But what aspect of running it for a group are you trying to get a feel for? Tone? Mechanically complexity? What kind of group might like it?

[twilit star]

What are some songs that y’all’ve played during parts of this campaign that you’d recommend others play?

Personally, I haven’t even started yet and I already plan on using this for the Icebreaker Borealis https://youtu.be/q6miRS1pDok?si=DgifxsQL3f1Edg4E

[hexed berry]

Yeah my question should have been more specific.

What's the general themes from the module? What does it tend to focus on?

[shell bison]

Typically the primary themes are a dark comedy. A serious story told in an unserious location. Several themes of found family, brutality, abuse of power, with the potential of redemption for certain people.

[clever cloud]

theres depictions of psychotic breakdowns ||in chapter 4||

[rustic night]

For some reason, I used a lot of MPB during Space Travels, as the Dragon's Tooth intercepted "old music from supposed deactivated stations"

[hexed berry]

Sounds super rad! Generally how long is the module?

[obsidian ferry]

Act 1 is 5 Missions, Act 2 is currently a draft that ||contains 5 missions but you'll only run 4 of them||. There's no published draft for Act 3 but I think Vex has mentioned it'll have around 4 missions as well?

Generally it's a pretty long form campaign.

Mission 1 ran about 5 sessions for me. (7 so far if you count the between mission downtime)

[clever cloud]

its intended to be a full LL0-LL12 campaign

which is fucking years of your life unless you're playing 40 hours a week

[shell solstice]

Yeah the overall design structure of the full module seems to be 1 mission = 1 License Level.

[obsidian ferry]

Another GM finished their Act 1 recently and did a really cool credits with the number of sessions.

[shell solstice]

So act 1 is 5 missions to account for LL0, then then act 2 and 3 are 4 missions each

[obsidian ferry]

With the last mission at LL12.

[shell solstice]

Yeah exactly

[obsidian ferry]

It's not a short module and once you start running you'll be sowing plot threads for the long haul.

it's great

[shell solstice]

Oh yeah, though that will, in part, depend on your individual game.

I will be a very large module, but some people can run through a full mission in 3 sessions, so the entire act only takes about 3 months or so

[clever cloud]

christ... I got through a full mission in like 10 sessions

[shell solstice]

My group on the other hand, we took checks end credits 41 sessions running every other week, so 2 years or so

[amber viper]

I'm on session 75 this weekend, 8th chapter.

[clever cloud]

its taken me 2 months to prepare for this. i havent even started yet

[obsidian ferry]

I can see Mission 1 being 3 sessions, but good luck fitting Chapter 2 or Chapter 3 into anything less than 5.

[shell solstice]

Nice!

And yeah, lol I am in Ada's group and we love taking our time.

[obsidian ferry]

I guess if you have longer whole day sessions.

[shell solstice]

Sometimes our downtimes sessions take multiple sessions to complete

[clever cloud]

i wonder how do you playtest such a long module

[obsidian ferry]

IGF feels designed to encourage the approach of taking your time and enjoying the interactions and story.

[amber viper]

I started my first game when only the first three chapters existed... so yeah : p

[obsidian ferry]

Reading the book you'll see a paragraph or character description and go "man, this looks fun to do" and a single downtime activity or side bit wiill scale up to a session of gladiatorial arena duels and parties.

[thorn hinge]

Yeah, a few of us playtested while it was being finished. My game also started when the draft only had the first three missions, I'm just a lot slower than Stron lmao

[shell solstice]

It's made easier by the combats being self contained in lancer, so you can test each sitrep pretty easily well in advance. However, yeah testing can take a while. Each act is years of development and Vex has made edits to Act 1 even after it was published based on feedback from playtest groups, sit ins, and stuff they ended up planning for Act 2

[thorn hinge]

For Act 2, Vex and the writing team have played mock runs of most of the combats . That way if nothing else, we've subjected ourselves to what we made. We haven't done much playtesting of the narrative yet, but there's a few GMs like Stron that are already running through the draft there. I'm getting ready for it myself but taking a bit of a break before we start.

[amber viper]

I'm boldly forging my way into the unknown lol

But the drafts give me plenty to go off.

[thorn hinge]

There's even some minigames in act 2 with clocks where I programmed a simulation of them so we could rapidly test how they work out with varying levels of skill triggers and such. (I'm still way behind on building a simulator for the giant finale piece tho...)

[shell solstice]

To be fair, you definitely deserve a break with the amount of work you put into Act 1 ❤️

[thorn hinge]

Your definitely our Avant Guard lol. I'm still trying to get my team to choose their first mission. TBF though, I've made it very hard for them.

[amber viper]

I have found myself ignoring structures pretty often to allow my players to do combats they'd otherwise miss due to how the module is laid out

More Lancer, yknow?

[amber viper]

Sorta like how everyone runs Bad Star regardless of the attention clock.

[hexed berry]

Does the module add any addition frames?

[quaint pebble]

act 1 does not, act 2 might but is not yet in kickstarter

[shell bison]

Bad Star is a given canon event regardless

[thorn hinge]

I did that for the chapter 3 fights, but I regret skipping the ||Train Fight|| in chapter 2. The book said my players got to skip it, and I was having trouble getting a map to work in a way I liked, so I just... moved on.

[keen beacon]

Iiiiis there a way to get to the absolute top of the page after going to the bottom? I want to check out the stuff.

[amber viper]

Search people + keyword is how I do it

[keen beacon]

I give up... I'll just use Google

[austere prism]

now i'm wondering how much of this one could automate in foundry

[thorn hinge]

all of it, with effort

[austere prism]

hell, just having a tool that rolls all the dice would be neat. guess i know what i'll do once that part of act 2 is more fleshed out

[thorn hinge]

I mean, my sims are made in javascript and html as is, which is native to foundry

[twilit star]

I wouldn't punish my players like that. What I would personally do is have him rushed in and while he has his awesome entrance, the lack of safety diagnostics bites him in the ass and he has to eject while his mech blows up upon landing

[amber viper]

Considering how much they enjoyed the fight, i wouldn't consider it a punishment at all.

[twilit star]

Fair enough

[amber viper]

Honestly more of a punishment to not let them kick his ass themselves

[twilit star]

Still, I wouldn't wanna compromise the effort they put in to not max out the Enemy Attention clock

[obsidian ferry]

I'm planning to have him as a side objective instead of a mandatory encounter if they keep the clock low.
But it'll be highly encouraged.

[thorn hinge]

Really, it's something to discuss with your players and see what they want to do. Offer it, and be willing to flex on elements. You might be able to turn it into a narrative beat instead of a combat

[twilit star]

OOh good call

[hexed berry]

How supported is IGF in Foundry?

[twilit star]

Heck maybe as a final round reinforcement to the extraction combat

[thorn hinge]

as extensively as any lancer game. We have a ton of community assets in the spreadsheet linked in a pinned comment in this thread

I have made a lot of stuff specifically for foundry for IGF

[shell solstice]

I agree. Ada let me fight him alone with no stakes for losing and potential rewards for winning as a "distract the asshole." Was a ton of fun.

[thorn hinge]

For my game, @shell solstice ended up working out a plan with me to try and take on ||Bad Star|| solo. We tweaked things narratively; ||Bad Star showed up while the team was loading up the prisoners. He came to challenge Calamity who was dominating the hellfire league, but Gabriel called him out for a one on one. We ran a combat that was just Gabriel vs bad star... which... Bad star is a goofus but he's still an Ultra lmao. It was very close but Gabriel got wrecked. Just before Bad Star could finish it, Siren floated overhead with her brand new guns out, and Gabriel pointed out that he's a dumbass. This isn't a hellfire match, this is real life, and in real life it's the objectives that matter. While they were busy, the team finished the evacuation. Game over, you lose. ||

[twilit star]

Woag

Cool

Also the map I'm using for the Shoo the Vultures combat has some areas that are like space debris ridden, do you think it'd be a bad idea to make those soft cover/dangerous terrain? The terrain in the map is also somewhat sparse leaving the space pretty open so ????

There's like 3 pieces of size 2 cover total and nothing size 3

I'm also working off a template map that's similar but not the same and it has similar levels of cover

The soft cover in question is also like... in the middle of the map, lemme share a screenshot

I know it says EDeployment but I intend for that actually to be extraction for the enemies, they'll deploy slightly closer to the center. not too far in

[thorn hinge]

it's not bad, as long as you consider three dimensions. You're in space, they can take the transport up and over if they need to. That takes them out of cover though.

You can also add a lot of cover after the fact. I prefer it, actually; in foundry I make my cover pieces as deployable-type actors. That way they have evasion, armor, and HP; and they can be targeted by the game automation. Just find some space rocks or debris images. I used some I found online somewhere for mine.

Again, consider 3d. Size 3 cover is 3 spaces tall, and you can put smaller rocks at different altitudes. It complicates things but the added complexity can be fun too.

[twilit star]

ahhhh

[thorn hinge]

Ah. You might mark some areas there as difficult terrain, but if all those little rocks are difficult/dangerous you're covering most of the dang map, and that's a bad time.

[twilit star]

True true, I wasn't planning on picking all of it, just the interesting areas

[thorn hinge]

You can use the drawing tool in your vtt to add a few zones if you want. I don't think that map is too lacking in cover, but then I have a bad habit of leaving my maps a littel too open.

[twilit star]

OSR got me acclimated and in love with maze like maps personally

Makes every bit of movement so much more tactical

[twilit star]

what do you think would be better to qualify it as: soft cover, or terrain?

actually I think I'm gonna nix the idea. This could be some of the group's first ever Lancer combat, simplicity and being straightforward is fine

[thorn hinge]

probably for the best, though it could be a good way to introduce soft cover areas. call it a cloud of powdered iron that confuses sensors

[twilit star]

Personally I only really track obstruction health if my players start going out of the way to destroy it or if the sitrep makes a point of it. Otherwise AOEs become super tedious. Then again I used to in person on white boards so it was easier to draw on the board and track things. And if an AOE does enough damage to reduce the cover health to 0 outright, then I just destroy it outright.

[twilit star]

Ya know, I was skeptical when the book said to give call signs to random NPCs. But as soon as I gave a random Veteran the name “Dropkick” in foundry I started hyping up these nightmare pirates so much in my head it’s crazy

You don’t just get the players invested, you get attached dangerously fast

They’re gonna get annihilated and I’m hyping them up so much in my head

[shell solstice]

Giving the NPC's Callsign's is great, we've had stupid amounts of fun based on the random callsigns of enemies.

[twilit star]

I’m either gonna name the next one either “cream puff” or “asparagus”

Also a Hellhound

[torpid quarry]

If an NPC does something significant they should immediately be promoted to callsign status

[twilit star]

True

[thorn hinge]

Don't forget that you can bring back some callsigns, if it's not clear what happened to the pilot. When your players recognize a Hellhound later ||especially if they're sporting Cult colors in|| chapter 5 it can give a lot of life to the world

Also, some might switch sides. The ||Veteran Cataphract in Snack Run|| I gave the callsign Stomp, and he's now a fairly prominent NPC that has worked with the players a few times.Calamity helped him get out of the Hounds and get square with the Knights Code, and went through a trial as a squire before becoming a knight of the dark core proper. I even have another storyline for him which is going to pop off at the start of act 2.

[shell bison]

Personally ever enemy has gotten callsigns with a little bracket showing their template enemy type

[limpid badger]

For mooks I'm tempted to give them a squadron name, then a unique callsign if they show up again/do something in combat to warrant a unique callsign I think

[shell solstice]

I love Stomp. I also loved "Grabass" even though he never became a recurring character just cause we were joking about how he got the call sign and made him the creepiest dude possible, lol

[thorn hinge]

For a few points, like the ||Impact Dynamics forces at the arena|| I used more structured callsigns like Eagle 1-1, Eagle 1-2, Eagle 1-3, Eagle Actual. But against Pirates? Always something I felt like they either chose to be intimidating, or (like for Grabass) something that was forced on them by their fellow pirates.

[fossil lion]

i give every NPC with 2+ structure a callsign, and often a little bit of personality
though the only ones my party has ended up capturing/befriending so far were untemplated goons who didn't even get that

[willow cloak]

I give all of them call signs. It’s good fun.

[shell bison]

I recommend funny duo names like my classic rob and bob for grunts

My players saved them and they are twin brothers from Asphodel

[twilit star]

What kind of tokens did you guys use for the lakeys of s1gn4l's fight? cuz they are HORUS aligned, and... that's about it. Can't find anything in the community resource spreadsheet that has sprites for them. Should I just use the defaults?

[fossil lion]

if you want to go wacky, you could bring in Circuit tokens

[twilit star]

Yeah but there aren't any Engineers among them, and I wasn't thorough but I don't think there are any demolishers or seeders either

[obsidian ferry]

I used the Hell Hounds tokens.

You can also make your own in Retrograde

[twilit star]

Can't download any of them :/

[twilit star]

I improvised and used Foundry’s ability to tint token sprites, so now S1GN4L’s team is just the defaults but Orange and with l33t 5p34k class names

Anyway I’m gonna take a risk when it comes to my rp note taking and not take any, just try to setup as many moments where I do not have to talk so I can scramble and read what I need to read lol

All in on combat prep, nothing off on narrative prep, we fly by the seat of our pants here comrade

[warped ibex]

correct me if i'm wrong, aren't they Hell Hounds?

like, just, canonically

[amber viper]

Yeah S1GN4L is being babysat by a bunch of Hell Hounds last I checked

[torpid quarry]

I just wish there was a good way to name them all while also communicating whether or not they’re a grunt, basic enemy, or a veteran/elite or something

[willow cloak]

I don’t give callsigns to grunts, I just call them “Grunt <NPC>”. Not cool enough for a cool name. Elites and Ultras have additional activations per round, so Foundry VTT’s interfaces will show who’s got the big boy templates. For Veterans, well, you gotta keep some surprises. Sometimes the PCs shoot a mech and she doesn’t die as fast as they thought.

I think my favorites so far have been Vampires Are Real(a demolisher), Ombrophobia(a rainmaker), Badass Jimmy(a breacher), and Cucumbers(an engineer).

[twilit star]

Oh I didn’t know that. Will change then

[amber viper]

I could be wrong, but I remember that being the case, in a draft at least.

[shell bison]

Huh, I always run it as there are some Hounds there just as a security force for Signal

[twilit star]

Yeah I double checked, you right

I’m keeping the name changes tho, cuz I think it’s funny to change their Class Names to l337 5p34k cause they have to work with S1GN4L

[shell bison]

That's exactly the bit I did.

[amber viper]

Even better: S1GN4L hacking their ident codes to piss them off

[quaint pebble]

I was using hounds but I did also run them with l337 names and explain that in their spare time they also doubled as s1gn4l's chatroom moderators for hellhound comms

[last leaf]

one of my players immediately after meeting ||Yelda Ergun||

I just, can't.

[twilit star]

Oh that’s even better

“Mods. Crush their skull, thank you”

Friendship ended with “grunts who hate their boss”, “grunts who in an organization where everyone hates each other love their boss against all odds and they love them” is my new best friend

Also I can save the boss hating for Impact Dynamics

[quaint pebble]

whatever internall comms channels the hell hounds have must be utterly vile

[wispy quail]

these guys aren't just grunts, they're henchmen

[ebon hatch]

Average COD lobby. Or, in my case, average day at work when I was in college and my coworkers thought I wasn’t paying attention.

[zenith galleon]

Group I'm a player in is going into IGF post-Wallflower! Excited for how it'll go.

Have only heard good things beforehand

[thorn hinge]

Enjoy! It's absolutely my favorite campaign, and I've seen a lot in my time.

[thorn hinge]

Also I love your name. I had a catgirl hacker character in City of Heroes named Script Kitty once apon a time.

[shell bison]

Welcome to the GM group! Let us know if you need any help with setup!

[zenith galleon]

Well, I do GM, but I'm a player (and avoiding clicking spoilers) for IGF lol

(also playing the group's main Face role which is as anxiety-inducing as it sounds)

[thorn hinge]

We try to be careful about spoilers here, though mistakes happen. There's a second thread under the gm-corner channel, you'll want to avoid that. It's open on spoilers up through future unreleased acts.

[main scaffold]

a toaster-made full npc pack is slowly but surely approaching

but honest to god it’s gonna take fucking ages

[twilit star]

You’re doing RA’s work my friend

[shell bison]

We have a full community file with no tokens with the pin comments as well

[main scaffold]

…?

no tokens?

[thorn hinge]

more like a lot of tokens

[main scaffold]

i saw the folders earlier and its what im gonna use to make sprites without spoiling myself by reading the book but im confused now

yeah

[twilit star]

I mean yeah but you can never have too many tokens

Like if I wanted to use a variant token if a single enemy class with different templates appears multiple times in a scene

||Like in the very first combat presented in the book||

[thorn hinge]

I would very much recommend reading the book instead. Some characters have some very distinctive designs, and even official art, and not all token makers reflect those details.

[twilit star]

Nah yeah there are some designs from the book that still haven’t been Tokened

Like the ||[ERROR] monstrosity||

Wait I think that’s wrong now that I think about it

[main scaffold]

is there some way i can surely avoid story spoilers (disregarding asking my GM for individual screenshots)? we‘re in the middle of chapter 3

or rather, do the first two chapters have long-lasting story spoilers i could run into when looking at it for tokens?

[shell bison]

A little toast. I recommend wait for a bit. Plus we have a legion of other token makers and sharing ability if anyone needs anything specific

[main scaffold]

gotcha

i was gonna buy the book and start up my own game once we pass chapter 4 since several people told me that‘d be the best part to do it at

[shell bison]

Probably would be best

[main scaffold]

im itching to start on stuff already, and ig i can do some of the more prolific enemies from chapters 1 and 2 we fought already

[shell bison]

But yes support igf

Keep Vex fed

[main scaffold]

doing my civic duty

[thorn hinge]

Even looking at tokens will ABSOLUTELY spoil you for one of the biggest plot moments in the book.

Abort now.

[main scaffold]

:(

[thorn hinge]

Sorry. Just the truth.

If you're worried about spoilers, the assets in the pinned comment are a bad place to look

[main scaffold]

yeah no you‘re like the most qualified person short of vex herself to tell me this so im definitely adhering to it

guess im sticking to ||hellhounds and sunbird|| until further notice

or i actually get to redoing my character‘s token…

[thorn hinge]

Character tokens are fun because you can justify spending WAY more time on them

[main scaffold]

would it be self serving to post my party‘s most recent tokens

[thorn hinge]

Nope! Share, friend!

I wanna see em

[main scaffold]

omw

[shell bison]

To be fair, ada sees me spam art and stories on my campaigns

[zenith galleon]

I unfortunately have been slightly spoilt on a couple things because I am the Designated Token Creator for my GM, but I've been doing my best to remain as unspoiled as I can outside what has been requested of me

😔

[thorn hinge]

correction, I demand you spam that art at me

[thorn hinge]

Ouch. If the spoilers worry you, I'd recommend your GM check the pinned comment here, we have a lot of tokens so they can maybe use them for the more spoilery characters and give you the less story revealing ones to work on... As much as I'd love to see more takes on the foes of IGF by more creators.

[main scaffold]

here they come

Ayana „Testimony“ Nosifaq, IPS-N Bligh + Swabbers + Turret Drone

https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/1083326232063639592/1270861956508549252/gunny_bligh.png?ex=66be786d&is=66bd26ed&hm=8ab34a35786963b3e5b59ba68a63e746d4c30307ba9456e5597a7afdce9a62e8&
https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/1083326232063639592/1270861956739502174/gunny_swabbers.png?ex=66be786d&is=66bd26ed&hm=1db9907bc2f8240f8e891808a84b49dd00c04b8a02b94ce0bf062f6cf42ded88&
https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/1083326232063639592/1270861957188026441/gunny_turret_drone.png?ex=66be786e&is=66bd26ee&hm=1c6eb7f977850237b4ea6b258861c651636d876570ffe6f35e843a2e19699a62&

Skitter „Monolith“ Webbe, IPS-N Drake
https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/1125432058446098442/1271567706528809081/nilo_drake_2.png?ex=66be66b5&is=66bd1535&hm=9aca460cbd405cc12c6c78a55f5f636808bf0f04a6803aeb5c363aa6a140f4f6&

Pinnacle „Placid“ Renaissance, IPS-N Raleigh
https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/1126907547463458816/1270510675877429419/sam_raleigh_unfaded_final.png?ex=66be82c6&is=66bd3146&hm=79f017d77a1d74e03c9f6514d4feb77b31a7014de4775b2b6398f5b1d49fe2c5&

jesus christ man this party is ips-n as FUCK

[shell bison]

I know your party and that tracks

[zenith galleon]

I'm GMing a game my GM's playing in that's not IGF so I'm doing my best to partition my knowledge of things OOC and IC

thankfully I've got some experience with that from playing Cyberpunk RED under a mutual friend of me and my GM's who ran a lot of covert shenanigans in the background of the main story of that campaign

[thorn hinge]

yooo these are fire, lovely work

[main scaffold]

not portrayed: the Manticore piloted by Gaspard „Havana“ Sarasses

(hes had the same token since chapter 1)

[shell bison]

I already did earlier!

[thorn hinge]

yes, and I demanded it

[main scaffold]

https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/1168758041328488490/1270784421569761300/havana_manticore_2.png?ex=66be3038&is=66bcdeb8&hm=45ffe96bec11900c9efcd81606dabeab39d49b299b78937f68ec1434b2017314&

wait god fucking dammit this is about as close as you can get to an ips-n‘d manticore

liturgicode juiced power loader

[shell bison]

Check dms in an hour? I got to finish my gym bunny hours and I can spam some more

[thorn hinge]

more

[thorn hinge]

The glowing effects and soft shadows go hard.

[main scaffold]

they’re two of the most effective tricks i learned so far, yeah

the drake and raleigh also both have shading applied, and the raleigh is half-fading into nothingness (infiltrator stealth rig) with a layer mask transparency effect

[fast parrot]

ssc flavour tax must be paid

[zenith galleon]

Had a great first session of IGF today, coming off of Wallflower- started the first combat with this mech, Defiance Ortus Kai, a half-Emperor Gilgamesh slinging a Bolt Nexus and Steelpunch

[shell bison]

Oh good heavens

[floral glacier]

I ended up making my own token ||It was a text field with the Hiss matra from Control (2019)||

[twilit star]

The module doesn’t specify it but at the start of chapter 5 ||since the party goes near light, do they end up starting the mission with 1 Pilot HP?||

[wispy quail]

i don't remember seeing this bit before; there are so many people whose faces you can put on that wall that would instantly create a big story

you can put almost any character on the hall of fame and it becomes a plot hook

[twilit star]

You could roll on the NPC tables for it

[fossil lion]

consider: put a PC on that hall of fame

[wispy quail]

i said "character" but you're right i meant NPC

that's a great idea and i will be looking into that

[fossil lion]

if you want a bit of fodder for that: have Jhort Skiff, a player character and ex-Forger from my campaign

as the epitome of a Tokugawa pilot both in and out of character, he would absolutely pull off an insane feat of alcohol consumption (then go on to horribly regret it the next morning)

[thorn hinge]

In Cruye's remix game, Vann (jyx13's PC) is on the wall of fame. He's a former Forger, and still on mostly good terms with The Blacksmith

[last leaf]

yooo that fucks so hard

[shell solstice]

I should have tried to outdrink the Blacksmith but I feel like that would have been cheating.

[dense basalt]

Give me the go ahead chief and this channel will be flooded with pirate girl

once my schedule frees up I’m also gunna start my own IGF game! Just wanna close up act 1 as a player myself before I dm it

[shell bison]

👀

[dense basalt]

Most of your party has said as much Void. A fair few of us want to run, but are holding off because we don’t want to spoil ourselves

[shell bison]

It still shocks me so many people from other west march leaning servers listened to me about IGF and play/run/use it/see it as canon

[amber viper]

Grins in inception point of this propagation of IGF attention

[shell bison]

Stron, you walked so I could run and shill IGF, you were right those 2 years ago to say I would like this module

and the sunzi being a plot point also helps

hmm....funni teleport

[limpid badger]

Finished making my first iso battlemap for one of the first possible fights

Spoilering jic, if this is the wrong chat I can repost elsewhere

[thorn hinge]

Excellent! I love it.

[shell bison]

Looking lovely! Can't wait to hear more!

[thorn hinge]

Personally once the fight actually starts I'd delete the deployment zones and drop the alpha on all the other zones by a lot, mabye .1 or even .05. That shoudl be enough to be visible for making choices, but get out of the way of the cool looking map more. The current color intensity is great for the setup phase though.

You can even do that with a script, though there's not so many you couldn't manually do it in the foundry UI while the players argue about who goes first

[limpid badger]

Should be easy enough to do it by hand, ty for the resources in the Google docs/sheets in the first place! It's been a big help

Running IGF started as "Oh, my players I usually run for are getting interested in Lancer" to "Sure, I'll run a oneshot" to "This story seems interesting, why not" for me to not realize it's. A full campaign, and then decided "fuck it guess I'm running this".

Running this for... potentially 8 or so people is prolly gonna need some tweaking on my end, but it's also been my current brain rot focus for the past two weeks or so

[thorn hinge]

oof, that's a lot of players! do you have a plan for handling that in combat? the system does not handle more than 5 very well.

[limpid badger]

While I'm not experienced with Lancer specifically, I've spent the past few years Running 8-12 person campaigns in other systems, it'll mostly just be a matter of getting the feel of balance for how my players are doing vs how much I should scale up encounters (through additional templates or enemies), or add in additional hazards, objectives, etc to the encounters

So mostly keeping the first fight at the "use this if there's 5 players" to gimme a baseline to tweak from

And if it's absolutely just not working, I might just find a way to split encounters into two separate fights and run them at the same time in two 4/5-player count fights

[thorn hinge]

That could work well. In my experience, it can be pretty easy to plan out lancer narrative moments to end just as a combat starts, and most the fights take a good session of play. You could keep the party together and then split them into 2x4 groups and run the fight twice, once for each half. You might have some odd situations if one team loses and the other wins, but GMing is all about playing things by ear and figuring it out.

[limpid badger]

Considering how many sessions I've ran of pathfinder that have ended up being 90% in-character/narrative interaction I'll pretty much always check in to see if they actually have the energy for a combat before starting it

I do have a few buddies I can pull in as a co-dm to run them simultaneously. If one group wins and the other doesn't, just means the winning players need to finish off what the other group couldn't. If they both win then great! If they both lose... then that's a pc defeat prolly if I'm splitting up the fights.

Prolly narratively it's all on the same field, the enemies in this case just split their attention between the groups. (Also means I'll prolly have a few extra npcs to make going this route to compliment certain boss encounters, but that's par for the course )

But. Yeah! Excited to run this in a week or two 👀 I'll send occasional updates with how my players are liking it

[shell bison]

Let us know if you need any aids and such when GMing, playing, running, etc. A lot of the GM's around here are more than happy to give some help. Lot's of players to balance for so let us know, we're all here and look forward to hearing stories about your sessions!

[limpid badger]

Will do! Y'all have been really helpful pointing me in the right direction already, I appreciate it 💖

[shell bison]

Anytime, happy to help!

[thorn hinge]

also, there's a separate thread for act 2 and 3 planning and feedback, but it also serves as a GM-only space where you don't have to worry about spoiler tagging everything.
players keep out! https://discord.com/channels/426286410496999425/909574961931362365 players keep out!

[limpid badger]

Oh! Sweet, ty!

[twilit star]

Hey, if I wanted ||to have a backstory NPC be brought back by Feather, a. is there anything I need to understand about the mechanics behind that before doing that? and b. should I wait til act 2 to do that or is act 1 good?||

[shell bison]

||You are probably going to want to look deep into the chapters about the Tachyon in act 1 ch1 and how that could be as that NPC might just be arriving from that timeline like Feather did. Could be interesting to see how that relates to PC's||

[twilit star]

||Amazing amazing amazing idea holy shit that's so gooooood||

[shell bison]

I am to please!

[twilit star]

||And this way I can introduce him super early on and have him have an actual presence instead of, idk, just having him appear at the last minute or something||

||Cuz if he didn't have a presence then it'd be cheap lol||

[twilit star]

||Is pulling from alternative timelines how it actually works btw? or are you suggesting the background NPC was originally from the alt timeline?||

Also it just occurred to me, ||If Feather ""comes"" from a time where Blinkspace disappeared, then how was she able to concieve of the Fire Gates? I mean she's a deep cascade/unshackled NHP so I'm sure there's an answer but also ???||

[shell bison]

||Well, the timeline Feather originates from is a real timeline. It exists, however as she is in the campaign now there is now a paradox that both forces her to exist and also prevents it. It's part of her goal to do what needs to be done to follow the prophecy within the Faith of The One to lead to the end of the cycle which creates her timeline and cuts off blinkspace. The firegates are actually an invention by Odin Valentanian in that timeline as a quick alternative to Blink space travel. ||

[twilit star]

||Ah, so they aren't technically Blink Gates either?||

[shell bison]

||Technically, No. They are an alternative piece of tech that doesn't use the blink at all because again. Access to the blink was completely cut off. It was already a piece of hardware baked into the way FouthComm operates by the time Feather was active. So she just used the tech and brought it back to this moment in time where it is very, very powerful.||

[twilit star]

||interesting. Wonder if it has anything to do with the Firmament.||

[shell bison]

🤷‍♂️

[warped ibex]

||you may also wonder how she was able to exist in the first place, given the metafold containment unit of hers would have failed. feather's account of events may or may not be entirely reliable, depending on your table -- those contradictions are yours to sort out. as is, though, i believe she found a really old blueprint of odin valentinian's fire gate design on the tachyons systems -- since it was a research vessel into ftl travel, they had a bunch of designs for ftl devices stored, even if they were rendered nonfunctional by the death of the blink||

[warped ibex]

||also afaik this just isn't true? i can't recall anything that says fourthcomm used fire gates, and they are explicitly called out as blinkspace-gates in the text -- the Tachyon used (presumably tachyon-based) faster-than-light travel to do what it did, not odin's fire gate designs. they simply had odin's designs stored||

[shell bison]

Ah, right. My b. Might be confusing info from my game from book info. Might have mixed something up from the text as I'm tired as tad sleepy

[main scaffold]

FBI document hours in chat

[dusky cradle]

I'm just doing themed callsigns here, Hellhounds are named via a variety of predatory animals, while ||The cult uses a variety of religious paraphernalia||, and Impact Dynamics... uses literal corporate ranks straight out of an HR department

The last one is probably the easiest at doing all that, one look at "HR Director - Involuntary Labor Relations" and everyone suddenly acquires the NEED to grind this guy to dust

[shell bison]

You could also do the tride and true classic of bag guy henchman animal and number combo.
Bear-1, Bear-2, Eagle 5, Snake 6, Bat 2, etc.

[lilac tartan]

when I saw these Impact Dynamics mechs at the first glance I had type of hallucination that here is surely Warframe and we are facing Corpus
*A wave of intense Electronic BGM

[lunar panther]

WIP Terra Solus (spoilering just in case?)

[half isle]

Just bought this and very enthused after flipping through, right now my big conflict is figuring out which friend group I want to try and run this for lol.

[austere prism]

all of them

[obsidian ferry]

All of them. Parallel SRTs are a fun concept.

[thorn hinge]

The real answer is whatever subset of 3-5 of them you can get to agree to a schedule.

Though now that I've finished act 1 with my group, I'm planning on running a second game to pick up a few of my friends who couldn't make it the first time. Serial SRTs are fun too :3

[twilit star]

Ya know despite being a striker the Parallel is one of the closest NPC classes I’ve seen to a Lich NPC class

It also feels like it has a pinch of Dusk Wing too

[quaint pebble]

I finished up my map for Beat 22 and there's only 3 left to do in the whole act, scary

[shell bison]

Party 1:

Though she lost an arm during the match, Metzli is now the proud Hell's Fire league champion

Party 2:

Talk to Fayad and learned some of the issues with the union labor strike, along with a party member realizing her old "friend"wants to be his girlfriend Tarben isn't dead but MIA after a home invasion. PArty is slowly putting the ch2 pieces together.

[wild flame]

It's also pretty good at messing up a lich.

[shadow scaffold]

been using slinger and deluge

they're real fun

[shell solstice]

Saw someone talking about the availability of milk in Calliope, which lead me to thinking of "print milk." A white powered compound that when mixed with water presents proteins and minerals essential to the body in a way that can be readily absorbed, and is capable of being printed in a printer. It tastes like drinking liquefied drywall because it basically is.

I am both proud and horrified by me thinking up another way to add to the horror of living in Calliope.

[maiden ferry]

Protein paint hell yeah

[past agate]

amazinfg

[glacial tundra]

powdered milk?

[thorn hinge]

thing with powdered milk is it needs cows to make in the first place

[shell solstice]

No much worse. Powdered milk at least starts out as milk.

[thorn hinge]

It's probably almost unheard of for someone to have anything delivered to Calliope. The cost is prohibitive, the 10 year delay makes it almost useless for emergencies. The vast majority of "imports" in Calliope things that can be bartered away from ships passing through to the Long Rim.

[thorn hinge]

This conversation started in the act 2/3 feedback thread, bounced to my game server, then came here. So I'll share the bits that started this all. Because if I have to see the thing about Steele and breast milk you all have to.

[last leaf]

I apologise for my actions but not enough to retract them

[glacial tundra]

sorry, lacked context to my statement above - Tandin's response seems to have gotten my intent. I grew up on powdered milk, and find it to be pretty gross. To have something similar nutritionally and functionally, but tastes even worse is... something.

[thorn hinge]

ah, gotcha. I was mostly looking for an excuse to add the bit sabout shipping.

[wild flame]

Love me some logistics

[shell solstice]

Oh god, I need eye bleach after reading the thing with Steele and his employees milk.

[last leaf]

I apologise for that one 😔

as a more serious suggestion, I feel like SSC might have some milk for their employees, despite the absurd costs involved.

probably grown in a lab actually

[worthy root]

There clearly is some sort of Milk avilable. Switch has a Milkshake at one point

[thorn hinge]

that tends to be what sparks the milk discourse. Last time I talked with Vex about it the assumption was that it's oat or soy based

[ivory dune]

I would have to imagine that the Icebreaker has lab grown meat available for paying customers. If lab grown meat, why not lab grown milk?

[digital raven]

I think you could print what is essentially whey protein powder fairly easily, but I bet it tastes way worse than soy milk or oat milk

Caused you'd just print the 10 most common compounds, and tongues are honestly incredible analytical testing devices (I may not know how printers work but I'm reasonable sure about how sensitive tongues are as a RL chemist)

[twilit star]

Speaking of Calliope food, do you guys think Vent Crab roe tastes as bad as Vent Crab meat?

I asked Vex and this was the response I got

So to say the least the answer is nondefinitive

[clever cloud]

vent crab caviar, regardless of how awful it tastes, is a delicacy because Calliope is the only place these things are known to exist

the real reason SSC is in the system

[twilit star]

Ah yes. The Blood Diamond philosophy

[main scaffold]

thats so sick

[ebon hatch]

“It’s our only luxury export, and anyone that tells you they like it is lying through their teeth.”

[shell bison]

I thought it was the table salt in the Gate,

lol

[clever cloud]

it is

table salt is abundant due to mining

[fossil lion]

curiously, vent crab caviar and table salt taste identical

[ebon hatch]

Except you really gotta know the difference if you want to make a cake.

[twilit star]

That implies they taste good

[fossil lion]

would you describe pure table salt as tasting good?

just chugging an entire shaker of pure salt

[twilit star]

In small quantities yes

And that’s too good for Vent Crab

[clever cloud]

yes. its my hobby

[shell solstice]

I like the idea that Vent Crab roe tastes amazing, however the sweet flavor is a result of an incredibly potent toxin meant to protect the eggs from predation by other vent grabs. As a result, even a tiny amount is life threatening when consumed.

[twilit star]

That’s actually a really fun idea. It’s like Pufferfish, only 10 times harder because instead of cutting it in the exact right away, you have to figure out how to neutralize, not extract, NEUTRALIZE, an incredibly deadly toxin in hundreds of tiny eggs without compromising the flavor

I’d presume that to date no one has cracked the code

You could have a minor plot all about that lol

[shell solstice]

And since the flavor is derived from the toxin itself, it's virtually impossible to remove the toxin without destroying the flavor

[twilit star]

Exactly!

I wonder if Shelly has a side hobby trying to calculate how to do that with some other folks

Probably collabing with Al

[shell solstice]

I have a feeling Shelly and Chief McArthur have banned this research because in the unlikely event it is successful it would encourage people to breed vent crabs and there's no universe where that ends well

[twilit star]

Yeah that’s probably correct

Al is still likely attempting to figure it out tho

[shell bison]

As someone that fasts and uses specific salts for my electrolytes during water fasts, you get use to the taste

[shell solstice]

Another thought on the Vent crab caviar thing, I have a feeling most people don't try to go into that research, because then you have to deal with Kraken who doesn't take kindly to the idea of you trying to commercialize the consumption of vent crab eggs.

Kraken is one of the few people you definitely do no want to upset and they WILL find out

[twilit star]

What even is Kraken’s deal? Also why would Kraken care?

[shell bison]

Let's ask Kraken's GM

@thorn hinge We got a Craken question for you!

[thorn hinge]

okay so

the eternal boilerplate

Kraken is a PC in my game but an NPC in the book, but as a minor NPC they have only a little space to capture a much larger character. Once the book is in your hands, they're your NPC to do with as you please. You do not need to borrow traits from the "original" just because they're the source. I've seen some wild and interesting takes on Kraken and I want to see more crazy versions, not less.

Kraken as an NPC doens't have any noted link to Vent Crabs

[shell solstice]

lol yes. I am in Ada's game and I love Kraken's connection to vent crabs in our in our universe but you don't have to go that route

[thorn hinge]

Kraken as a PC lives in the vents, is perpetually covered in snip marks, and you can generally assume they have at least two live vent crabs on their person at all times.

[shell solstice]

Kraken is something of a cryptid chaos gremlin in our game and I love them.

[thorn hinge]

They haven't met Alan/Alice yet but I think they're either going to get along so well it's scary, or become bitter rivals that threaten the structural stability of the station. There's no inbetween.

[shell solstice]

https://tenor.com/view/red89z-gif-22986425

But yeah, like Pear Bradford's connection to horses, it a fun thing in our game that other people have also borrowed from, but not necessary for others to do ❤️

[shell bison]

Calliope just attracts peoples fascination with animals

[shell solstice]

A buff woman with an animal theme is one of the universal constants of the SRT after all.

[shell bison]

I'm not beating that allegation with my PC am I?

[shell solstice]

Hey, it's not a bad thing.

[shell bison]

Listen, Charlotte has to be strong. How else is she going to carry her team, her daughter, her wifegf in their hugs and hoisties?

[shell solstice]

Legit, lol. And to be fair, all the other universal constants are fun too

There may be more now, but the theory put forth by Vex last I heard from seeing all the characters people made, a disproportionate number of SRT's have at least one of each of these, if not more:

• Ripped Lady with animal theme
• Weird kid with white hair
• Someone being angsty about potentially being a clone/genetically engineered

[shell bison]

Yup, Charlotte ticks that box

[fossil lion]

for maximum comedic potential, combine all three into one character

[shell solstice]

I know some people have combined two, 3 is easily doable

[shell bison]

One of my PC's is very much a combination of two of those

[twilit star]

Well my group only has the last one so that’s another piece of evidence

[silver pumice]

i'm actually making a party traits bingo as we speak and would be open to suggestions

[silver pumice]

lynk, while Probably the youngest in their party, isn't a kid, but otherwise Yeag

[heady vale]

i feel lets see, my party has

• albatross admirer fresh eyed soldier (look every party needs its "straight man)
• tulpamancy e girl streamer who IRL is like. dead inside business boy
• a man who joined a secret gentlemans club and became springheel jack
• a hercynian (oh maybe a bingo note of "wallflower spoilers" ) who is a technopriest and treats NHPs and mechs like family
• a KTB xenoglossia runaway whos now a laid off IPS-N trucker
• a handmade clone whos whole "family" died

[silver pumice]

LMAO

(wf spoilers?) ||egregs|| in calliope is such a funny concept

i love the ipsn trucker xenoglossia runaway

[heady vale]

wallflower spoilers || i straight up have fleshed out that one of the settlements of outlanders is a small group of terraforming hercynians who are recreating the underground towns/cities of hercynia||

my games take place in a universe where wallflower already happened like 200 years early

[silver pumice]

Huh

[silver pumice]

maybe i should change the phrasing of "romancing an antagonist" to be more inclusive of aro situations
(glances at lynk and ||the circuit||.)

[zenith galleon]

Party I'm playing in that just started IGF (MSMC penal mercs contracted out to help the situation by their Handler) has got:

• potentially a clone con-man soldier with supposed HA service time who's the party's straight-shooter (very straightforward, also shoots real damn good)
• ex-Far Field Team scientist who had a bit of an Event Horizon moment on her research ship and has kind of been a bit... different since. Got LOCKED IN on following plot developments in prior events to starting IGF (a run of WF). Died and was brought back via mysterious (paracausal) means.
• former sneak-thief melee expert guy who despite being very sneaky and good with a sword, has been quite quiet about his past, but might have a connection to the part of space IGF is in. Unfortunate target of relentless teasing from the team's assigned MSMC lawyer. Is paranoid of tiny Goblins since getting Mourning Cloak teleported into the Blink on accident once.
• former merc-turned-P.I. gal who's quietly working with the team lawyer to track down an old CO-turned-foe who got her locked up in the first place.
• ex-UIB Team Leader who accidentally TBKed a Long Rim resort world to save her old team from being killed in action. Wound up (WF spoilers) ||becoming a burgeoning Empath during events on Hercynia prior to the group starting IGF||. Way too protective of her teammates for her own good.

[silver pumice]

hm should i add merc to the bingo

[zenith galleon]

it's perennial

lol

[silver pumice]

true

[twilit star]

Well all 3 are men, so we lost that. We’ve got:

• Arms dealer/defense salesman. That’s his whole gimmick. Selling defense.
• Diasporan originally blind who got contracted to become an SSC experiment catboy soldier (like full cat, Khajit look), and escaped
• Organ Trafficker who got in hot water on the Icebreaker and is trying to change professions

And idk ages but the general vibe of everyone is “middle aged drug dealer” tbh

They aren’t but it feels like it

[silver pumice]

CATBOY
SOLDIER

[twilit star]

Yes

Pretty basic as far as Lancer goes

[last leaf]

I think my party has literally all of those except for HA ties.
Well actually their strong lady isn't big. The polycule has yet to fully coalesce too but hey.

wait no I do have HA ties, I forgor

Yeah I have fox themed lesbian SSC clone (with biomods) obliviously dating Mikaela, who's got polycule potential (although it hasn't happened yet). She would be big strong lady but she is not actually very tall.
Then I have an ex pirate with unwilling HA ties.
Ex KTB bodyguard turned albatross who faked his death out of shame.
wacky ex horus hacker who's NHP buddy is a streamer with a distinct water motif to their horrifying consumptive nanites.
||Ignatius Aurum's Ex Husband. Fire motifs, nestorian, and romancing an antagonist||

[silver pumice]

||IGNATIUS AURUM'S

EX HUSBAND||

does the hacker also happen to be white haired

[last leaf]

I can't actually recall if they are or not. like 3 of the other characters are tho.

[silver pumice]

Good Lord

[last leaf]

i forgot to mention it but ||iggy's ex husband is|| as is the other party member who I didn't mention because they don't add anything to the tally. And I think they might be tbh.

[silver pumice]

hmmm any more suggestions for the currently empty spaces

[last leaf]

i mean we need horus ties on the chart

[silver pumice]

true

maybe also horizon?

[last leaf]

||to be clear, iggy's ex husband also independently, post amnesia, accidentally joined the faith during the campaign||

[last leaf]

either that or they share a spot, yeah.

[silver pumice]

LMAOOFKFJ

[last leaf]

maybe also just, NHP companion

[silver pumice]

added

two left

[lilac tartan]

Oops it seems our group cannot make a line

[silver pumice]

adding trans actually i cant believe i forgot

[silver pumice]

alas.........

[lilac tartan]

My Nelson lady can fill two and ex-pirate-robinhood-girl can fill one and no boxes else

Oh there is a white hair Union guy