Shadow of the Wolf GM/Spoiler Thread

[soft elbow]

I was wondering if it would work to sorta double Bond the PCs? Iirc with the bond system you can eventually “multiclass” bond features

• then you could pull up bonds the players may not expect but they still get to have one of their choice

[rancid coral]

well my influencer player wants to narratively be a seneschal (he just liked the power), but in general i'm gonna be interpreting their past and future cards myself, while keeping their 'present' ones as the actual card they've chosen

with the notable exception of the player who's living a double life under a stolen identity, for obvious reasons

[pearl inlet]

Yessss I love this 😭😂

[pearl inlet]

That is an interesting way of going about things!

[final frigate]

One thing I've really appreciated about one of my PCs is that they're from Begum, have a monk as their bodyguard, and travelled to the planet with Khan from it.

It was pure happenstance, something they narrated when I asked each player to describe how they got to the throne world and then the college itself, but it has made setting up Khans actions later in the module much more smooth.

He already knows one of them, and by extension, likes them for being a stern lil shit who respects the order as much as she does her house.

[pearl inlet]

Ok so, what I'm doing is choosing aspects of the wolf bond, like the various bond powers, and giving it to my players on a temporary basis. We are currently on M1 and some shenanigans ensued with murdering someone in cold-blood. The one who did this is has been trying to cope really hard and this felt apt. Now I'm figuring out how his accomplices are dealing with keeping this massive secret alongside all the other individual and group drama they are engaged in.

[full turret]

Just ran session 1 yesterday, one of my players decided with zero prior knowledge to be an heir to a minor house in the House of Stone who is fully against the Sanjak blockade situation and Praya just fucking haaaaaates her guts

Made for some pretty fun back-and-forth during beat 1

[rancid coral]

fall of a sparrow is done. i've got one party member who's somehow simultaneously wormed her way into being tasked by argo with undermining the rest of the party and Rawan to find out who the attackers are

[north knot]

Fia blundering her way into being caught in the middle of both parties:
https://youtu.be/y9EYt_f12wo

(I have been avoiding all your prep talk, but I still poke my head in here and there while I count the days longingly until Kat finishes the character origins project.)

[soft elbow]

Am I crazy for thinking an MBT might be cool somewhere? Maybe some kinda combined arms simulation? Maybe C4 jumpscare one?

[final frigate]

alas, one of my players has dropped out 😔

I'm debating on how to regain my 4th.

Or, whether or not I should fill the slot with a rotating cast of friendly NPCs each combat encounter from here til the campaigns end.

Basically giving the players even more ways to bond, or bridge burn.

Hell, it'd be fun to partner them up with NPCs they don't get along with.

tossing the two primor twins in as an ally would be entertaining.

[rancid coral]

simulated combined arms combat in c5 imo, throw in a squad or two as well. i was considering the same thing but rebalancing the whole combat was too much of a pain ultimately

[soft elbow]

Yea I was thinking maybe C5 also

In my case if I run sotw I’ll be bumping the ll up so I guess if it’s harder that’s fine

Wonder if the PCs should get any NPC support for that simulation if it’s changed up to fit that way

Maybe a squad or something

Maybe the added stuff would be RPVs or at least flavored as autonomous

[final frigate]

woop woop, I got a new 4th

and they're a house of sand ignoble!

with the wolf bond

[soft elbow]

Ooh maybe it could get fitted with different equipment depending on the suspected enemy

Hover and laser stuff for HA vs like reclaimed weaponry for Ungratefuls with the canister gun or something

[rancid coral]

if you want to get fancy with it, also check out reconus' squad kits, base squads aren't weak by any means but they are a bit boring imo

https://reconus.itch.io/lancer-squad-kits like an HA squad could use Stormtroopers while an Ungrateful squad uses Guerillas or something

[rancid coral]

what's people's experience been with c5?

since i started at a higher LL, they're gonna be 3 heading in, which means my Tagetes/Monarch player, by my reckoning, is gonna be able to wipe out most of the opfor in 2 turns. I've added 1 seeder and the Marine template to a bunch of the units, but I'm afraid of juicing it too much harder

i've always had very swingy experiences with sitreps like control and recon tbh

[soft elbow]

Wdym Tagetes/monarch player? Like a tagetes with sharanga missiles?

If you want some more sustain on the NPCs you could use the reinforced templates somewhere

[rancid coral]

yeah, 3 levels in the monarch license with the tagetes exotic

i think honestly it's just the nature of the next opfor to get chewed up - they want to stay bunched together, and they're slow and short ranged.

[soft elbow]

I see, rifled gandiva missiles then or something?

or pinakas?

[rancid coral]

pinakas. given this particular opfor, i ran the numbers and it's going to be a wipe by round 2

with a decent bit of luck that is

[dark tusk]

Question: For folks that do the cadenza- I know there are some fun bits of intrigue you can do around it being sabotaged but for the actual dance off/display portion how do yall handle it? Just a skill check? Something a little more involved?
I was thinking of "winning" as half the competition and half a vote from the student body to make it about the politicking as much as it is the dance

[rustic peak]

Oh I am so stealing this

[rustic peak]

The KCC seems cliquey as fuck so I imagine even if it's not an official vote there's a lot of scheming involved

[rancid coral]

i just had it as a single skill check and had them describe it, my players had a lot of fun with that

we never got to the scoring unfortunately cause i had a bomb go off right after the last performance lol

i say 'unfortunately' as if i did not specifically choose for that to happen 🤷

[cosmic blaze]

I only made them perform a skill check related to the dance if they wanted to impress someone in particular. The big checks came was when their mechs were sabotaged, I made them make a system save, then the players had to make a check to recover control of their mechs or to assist someone else in need

Depends on your group tbh, if they’re more into social RP you could be more focused on the dance, the ceremony and the politicking going on. Maybe introduce a new system and make them do a bunch of checks. My players aren’t, so I pushed through it as fast as possible

[dark tusk]

I imagine they mostly want to flirt during it and get up to shenanigans with their dates so I'll do it that way mostly if they want to impress their partner/play the crowd to impress their partner and focus on surrounding details otherwise

[rancid coral]

i had a player who wanted to dedicate his victory to elsa as part of a whole plot he has going, so i regret depriving him of the opportunity lol

[rustic peak]

I can't explain it but Argo is extremely Dennis Reynolds coded to me

[dark tusk]

110%

Absolutely

[rustic peak]

https://tenor.com/view/its-always-sunny-gif-8651199

Argo after losing one (1) structure

[rancid coral]

he is more or less running the DENNIS system on a pc of mine now that i think about it

[silver vault]

and his knife

[rustic peak]

oh no lmao

[silver vault]

it seems like every SotW campaign I've ever heard of, argo loses his knife on his first structure and spends the rest of combat flopping around like a wet fish

[pearl inlet]

My boy Argo has been taking Ls after Ls in my game. The players have been clowning on him, even in the last session I played for them. sigh I guess it's time for a poisioning to make them scared 🙄😮‍💨

[dark tusk]

Go full Clue on em

Someone poisoned Hesketh (on to clone number 5). argo, praya, rawan, the twins, Tomas, and Kay are in the room, and you have to deduce whodunnit

[rustic peak]

my players would accuse Argo immediately based on him being a huge prick

though I guess the challenge is proving it

[graceful turtle]

Argo is extremely vulnerable to getting Columbo'd

Huge ego? Check. Loves crazy schemes? Check. Dumb enough to be defeated in the time span of a TV movie? Certainly

[cosmic blaze]

Just ran half of combat 4 today, my players finally got to fight... "Wolf"

How to gaslight the players into thinking they're fighting the "Ungrateful / Harrison Armory" bbeg

But also made him just so my players could ask "does he have a shadow"

[graceful turtle]

Well does he?

[cosmic blaze]

You’re not gonna believe this

[graceful turtle]

https://tenor.com/view/roasted-shout-yell-hyped-i-cant-believe-it-gif-17867398

[soft elbow]

Is it still RPVs?

[clear nymph]

So I'm stretching out mission 1 to end right before exams by adding another combat in between the duel and fighting the other class mates. I'm thinking a Recon strep with the set up being that a BUC mech squad is acting as their opfor as training before deploying to Dawnline. Thinking a Commander Priest, and 2 each of Archers, Assaults, and Bastions. Using rebake rules for NPCs. I have 5 players and they took out Praya and Argo without too much trouble. 3 structure lost between them all. Thoughts?

[cosmic blaze]

Yeah, I hid the tag from the players, so from their pov they’re normal npcs

[rustic peak]

I'm hoping to use SotW as a jumping off point for my players to do some sandbox type missions as a merc squad. but I'm struggling a lil with how to make that gel with the tone of this squad with what Kat said above re: the Wolf

It feels odd to me to have the players try to defuse the start of a new war with HA/Sanjak and then turn around and go "oh but actually there is more fighting to be done"

Though I am thinking that Persephone from the Maximum Threat NPCs might make an interesting antagonist from the HA side in that she also seems to be fully in the "war is inevitable so I will strike first" mindset

[quartz sentinel]

Arguably there's always more fighting to be done when it comes to supporting liberation movements and opposing fascists. The tensions of SOTW aren't completely defused (canonically the DLS conflict still breaks out in Battlegroup) so however it ends there's a lot more scope for missions.

the PCs can still do a lot of good in the world as mercs if that's something they want to do; if war is inevitable then it's probably best conducted by people who care about pesky things like ethics and civilian casualties

[empty flame]

I do think it depends on where the party ends up ideologically by the end of the module, I generally would recommend running the basegame and writing from there

[pearl inlet]

yeah it's alot easier to plan around. I would say look to, at best, seed some bits and pieces for what you got planned later but you really don't have to.

Like I'm already keeping this freeform and my party looks like they might just go their seperate ways after SotW (which I'm totally ok with!). I was cooking up a possible subplot to tie into Wallflower with another GM buddy of mine and I think only some of these characters will take that bait. Others are very much hell bent on having their stories continue in the baronies + dawnline shore

[rustic peak]

That's my plan for sure

As they say, no plan survives contact with the enemy (my players) so best to be flexible

[willow frigate]

planning to run combat 4 and i made a battle intro since its the last combat of the mission

[dark tusk]

Siiiiiick as fuck how'd ya do it???

[final frigate]

Duuuuude

https://tenor.com/view/jason-bateman-what-suprised-thats-rad-gif-11937330

[willow frigate]

made a muted video in blender and used a module called scene transitions in foundry to start the vid. when it starts the transition it moves to that scene and starts the music that way when the vid ends it keeps the momentum

[clear nymph]

So cool

Now if only I knew how to use blender so I could shamelessly copy this

[willow frigate]

dont worry i dont know how to use blender either

the flashing text is me copying and pasting a fade in fade out transition because idk how to make flashing text

[final frigate]

I wish I had better presentation skills like that 😭

Its a lucky week if I get a playlist together.

[soft elbow]

That’s really cool though I gotta say it’s inbound

[willow frigate]

https://tenor.com/view/walter-white-falling-fast-gif-18043850

[pearl inlet]

what's the music/song you used for it?

would love to use the same for my C4 run

[willow frigate]

https://youtu.be/Q4iYRtY8hXE

been using gundam / ace combat music for the duels with staff and students so i thought something more electronic would fit harrison armory frames

[rancid coral]

is Kay's extra repairs reward and the extra repairs from Combat 5 supposed to be per PC? That's up to 4 extra repairs per PC, which defo seems like it would trivialise the attrition aspect of the mission

the book says per PC but i just want to double check that here

[soft elbow]

Gundam and Ace Combat music so real 🗣️

[mild spindle]

Oh boy one of my players fully clocked Aloysius

Well I'm clearly playing him well atleast!

[quartz sentinel]

let's go, good work that player for clocking him

[final frigate]

your player is based!

Love to see it.

[pearl inlet]

that's awesome!

[graceful turtle]

Bro was on that Columbo grindset, goddamn

[pearl inlet]

I have one of my players (who also GMs and really loves doing mech combat) run a mock practice combat for the team, in preparation for C4. It was nice hearing the feedback from the other players that they enjoyed this approach (they aren't fully commiting to the fight and have been RPing quite a bit in and I love that lmao). I'm just sitting there and enjoying and occasionally chiming in as Eligos, who's supervising the whole thing and giving it's 2 cents on the situation.

[marsh tinsel]

the moustache is hard carrying in making him look sly and untrustworthy, it's OP!!

[willow frigate]

done combat 1 and 2 and both times a mech got a irreversible meltdown so i made this for my players

[soft elbow]

Imagine being a spectator seeing two reactor explosions in back to back fights

Especially if they were ever like distracted during the duel or Pankrati fight as background noise and then boom nuclear vaporization

[faint panther]

Oh right!

I got my second group's LL1 chasis ready

we got a Pegasus, a Blackbeard, and a Hecatoncheires

Their names are, in order:

Amon

A̶̼͋͑ṝ̴á̶̝̚c̵̘͝h̷̬͎̀̓n̵͔̏̑ͅe̵̛͍̓

and, my totally "proficient at naming things" house of water engineer

The Final Problem: Implementation

also also

my first team is approaching combat 7

2 of them are already at 2 structure

im sure they'll be fine

[cosmic blaze]

Is that Hornet from hit game Hollow Knight: Silksong

[faint panther]

no, its H̸̲͊ơ̶͍r̸̦͝n̵͗͜é̶̦t̴͋͜ from Silskong™!

basically

(translation)
> I JUST HAD A THOUGHT
> CHATS WITH YOU IS TOTALLY NORMAL SPEECH
> THE REST OF THE CREWMATES HEAR HOWEVER

Also a fascinating potential side/back story since we decided to call the NHP Arachne instead of Sissyphus and keep the frame name Sissyphus

something something name is allegory to what both have in common, challenged the gods, won, still got cursed/struck down

[soft elbow]

Sisyphus is also not necessarily the NHP's name

"THING"-CLASS NHP is like a designation of NHP type

like Eligos is a CORONET-class NHP

[faint panther]

oh yeah we know, so far the player has requested to keep the NHP thing a bit of a mystery

gameplay wise, they dumped two talents to get Technophile III

lore wise, as a House of Rememberance and chronically online on the omninet student, they half... stumbled into this

mixture of talking with someone that resonated with them, and cryptic messages that made them more and more curious

then M1 ended and they received:

Hey... Saw the announcement from the college. Even at home or at the care of tutors and grand stone walls, one can never be too safe... 

Just remember you can talk to me. And hey, if you are interested, maybe this can help you.

print schematics that look wrong, sometimes simply don't open, other times shows different names or properties

she went on to check it out with her print credits and permission from the College, caused a major jam on the printer no one could figure out, then suddenly continued working after hours while no one was watching

chat is gone, user is gone, no trace or file concerning that person over the omninet

As to why they are called Arachne, why it can only communicate properly with the pilot, why is the pegasus their casket itself, well

not even I know, and Im the DM

(aka its a WIP still ok im not that smart ;-;)

[full turret]

How do you guys handle the classwork? I'm using the classes from the book and giving my players a choice of three classes from their syllabus and one each from the other two, so there's a lot of character overlap in classes taken, then I'm throwing together some kind of 5 minute lecture material and a homework worksheet for them to complete between sessions for a +1 accuracy to a related check. Do you think that's too much/little? There's not a lot of guidelines in the module and without classwork it feels like it just jumps from combat to combat really quickly, like every day is a fight.

[marsh tinsel]

I feel like the non-combat scenes are usually about the characters and NPCs more than the actual activity in the scene. Think of certain school/college media - their study scenes are (usually) more about how the characters interact than how well they do in tests and can apply that to their life.

For certain classes I’d try to put some NPCs in conflict with each other or the PCs, and see how it unfolds from there, rather than a homework sheet and a die roll.

[cosmic blaze]

I don’t know your group, but if I gave mine actual lectures and homework sheets to fill out all for +1 acc to checks, they’d execute me and institute a democratic GM-less table free from my tyranny

What I did was give my players 3 choices: relationship bonus with an NPC, a reserve or 2 bond XP. Then I just narrated a scene that fit what they chose, and made them do a check to overcome some obstacle.

[cosmic blaze]

I agree it’s less about the class itself but more about the shenanigans that transpire

[rancid coral]

the two main bits of conflict i had in my classes were:

• Praya shit talking the players and trying to undermine them in Standard Adversary Chassis
• The Twins trolling in Ontologies of Personhood by spreading a rumour that Eligos was a combat NHP that failed its stability testing

besides that i generally played it safe-ish, either focused just on the class or with friendly/academically focused interactions with NPCs

my players brought up an interesting point about C5 btw - if Rawan and Tomas are piloting 'rental' mechs that they've been assigned by the College itself, then they don't really have any skin in the game as far as repairs goes, since presumably they'd be able to revert back to their regular mechs. They won the combat pretty handily (as expected) but I think I might have Iphianassa force them to pay to repair them 'to teach them a lesson' or something

btw, who's the 'RV' from Beat 8 anyway? Or is that just part of the coordinates to the warehouse?

[quartz sentinel]

"rendezvous" (honestly it's just as arbitrary as a series of numbers but in playtesting the letters did in fact turn out to be a helpful clue so I left them in)

I would have written out the whole thing, but players have a tendency to inappropriately hyperfocus on details like that, since they lack the cultural context that their characters would have

(btw before anyone points it out yes I know that the standard abbreviation of rendezvous is RDV but I didn't want to make it too obvious)

[rustic peak]

One of my players has decided to make a House of Sand equivalent of a serf who got lucky and got sponsored by a Sand minor-but-important house

Argo's gonna fucken hate her lol

[marsh tinsel]

Players need obvious 😭

[final frigate]

I use classes as Mario party style mini games and improv prompts for players to act out between themselves.

People on tje strategic syllabus play out a literal war game, the people on the arts syllabus are being pissy against praya and argo, and the people on the tactical syllabus play 'identify the enemy chassis'

Its pretty fun, and i give them a bonus skill trigger increase based on the class they attended.

This week, im gonna make them play lancer print fighter in the tactical syllabus, while the strategic folk need to accurately figure out how to indirectly cripple financial flows of enemy forces.

Meanwhile the artistic students get to learn how to dance by the bisexual dads of the college (Morgan + castor)

And the political students get to try and poison each other.

[final frigate]

That said I do think i need to start working the themes of the module into the classes more.

Something something "wolf related activities".

Might literally have them try to tame a wolf as a class assignment over a few weeks.

...no, thats too on the nose.

And then id need to give them an exotic pilot gear thats just a wolf.

...that would be cool though.

[native merlin]

I'm currently commissioning artwork from u/Termite_Dust for art of the Minor NPCs in Shadow of the Wolf. Got some for the other two (Eligos and Dean Commander Doleros) in the works and I'll be sharing those too when they're done. Here's the descriptions we worked up based on their descriptions in the book and how I played them. Termite Dust is far and away more creative and talented than I, they took these vague descriptions and spun gold out of them!

Lord Hekseth I have a vague idea for how I want this one to look. Hawkish with vigilant eyes, maybe a big nose to hammer home the look. Military uniform with some subtle embellishments, maybe some tech built in or a techno monocle. He's a former Internal Intelligence agent and retired, but always just a little suspicious and probably overly cautious towards the students; there's always the threat of political assassination in the baronies he feels.

I say we go right down the list! So we'd be starting with** Lady Achilleia Cortain Joyeuse-Montmorency** (phew!) She’s house of Glass and a Pankrati warrior. So I'm thinking of a scar either on an upper arm or on the face somewhere and a smile, most of the other faculty are fairly serious and official, so it would be good for there to be one that's a little more open and easy going. House of Glass so those colors would be good somewhere in her outfit/uniform (Probably close to the Underbaron's uniform, thought she could have a half cape like Lord Castor, see Faculty above), but the only other House of Glass Characters, the twins, have some pretty artistic stuff going on. We could keep in styling and give her darker skin too, but anything beyond that is up to you!

[pearl inlet]

this is top tier stuff! Looking forward to seeing the other minor NPCs!

would it be alright if I used these in my game?

[native merlin]

Yep that's why I'm sharing them here and in the lancer reddit. I've used the community art for NPCs in Wallflower to great effect and wanted to do something similar for these characters.

[pearl inlet]

@native merlin I saw some others add their takes on Eligos, with pictures and even art I believe. I can't remember when they shared stuff but I'll find it if I can

[native merlin]

We should make a community shared Google folder like the one for Wallflower!

[pearl inlet]

I did a tactical syllabus assessment which was literally doing that same "who's that NPC chassis?!" great minds think alike

[pearl inlet]

yes! I can make one rn lol

maybe we gotta run this by someone before doing it?

[native merlin]

I'm not sure, just asking people before you put their stuff in is probably a good idea. 🤔

[final frigate]

Finished tonights session.

somehow, the campaign has devolved into a shounen battle tournament between the PCs, some NPCs, and Tomas.

they're having a martial arts style punch-off as part of todays tactical syllabus lesson.

And again, Tomas is just kinda there, reading his poetry, being gently sparred with by lady Achilleia.

he is, if nothing else, the soft uwu boy.

[native merlin]

I have to send this to one of my players. I'll send you their reaction lol

[native merlin]

He's currently romancing the hell out of Tomas. Thought he'd have more to say on it 😅

[rancid coral]

my party saw that Tomas was reading a book called 'Union Must be Destroyed', went 'oh this guy's some kind of weird fash' and then never interacted with him the entire semester lol

[pearl inlet]

I got a player doing that too lmao. Sent them this lol

[final frigate]

Tomas has that soft boy rizz no cap on god fr fr

[final frigate]

I just have him reading loveless, which i ripped wholesale from final fantasy.

None of them are nerd enough to catch it.

[pearl inlet]

@empty flame your playlists are such bangers wtffff ❤️‍🔥 🤯

sets the mood so well for the c3 and c4

[empty flame]

oh thanks!

I wanted combat 3 to have a generally older sound to sell the age-old traditional value placed on the hounds teeth, and combat 4 to sound very different from the rest of mission 1 to sell the jarring feeling of a real fight with enemies trying to kill you

[pearl inlet]

I like that alot

[soft elbow]

Is it in here somewhere?

[pearl inlet]

Y'all are the rewards given by Elsa a singular use for the entire party. As in, only one of them can use it. I remember that being the logic for the frames.

[pearl inlet]

https://youtube.com/@ailyn2930?si=q07ZIKCe9oRYj4z6
She's got music for all of the combats!!!!!!!!!!!!

[soft elbow]

Thank you

Got a lot of lancer songs rotating in my brain all the time but checking out more is fun

[cosmic blaze]

Only a single person can use Elsa's reserve, the only reserve with multiple uses IIRC is Kay's which specifically says each PC gets a copy

[soft elbow]

That and seeing ones tied to specific events

[cosmic blaze]

So I decided to extend the module, and an unexpected consequence is that my players were able to fill almost every single relationship clock to friendly, and nearly half to 10. The only neutral / frosty NPCs are Eligos, Imani, Praya, Argo, and Aloysius (who's evil in my game)
Idk how they're struggling so much with Imani even after saving them in combat 4 lol

How do I stop my players from exploiting the power of friendship 😭

[pearl inlet]

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLvXkCcgaELwqUK993ANHej7kXjUds4TQG&si=MpHh45X2KqWTuhQY
another playlist by someone else here (will ping them when I figure out who it was 😅 )

[pearl inlet]

Ahh so that's something where I could play it as individual clocks moving up and her rewarding them.

[pearl inlet]

the second playlist I shared is much more ambience that's curated for various places in the college. They even made a track for college chitter chatter!

[pearl inlet]

@velvet cedar is the person who made this! Found em!

[cosmic blaze]

I'm not sure if I understand what you mean by this. If you mean setting up a different relationship clock for each PC, relationship clocks are meant to track how the NPC regards the party as a group. So they'd only receive a single reserve from filling up Elsa's clock, which can then be given to anyone in the group (with the exception of a few like Rawan)

[pearl inlet]

do you need some new NPCs per chance 🧐

[cosmic blaze]

See that's the worst part I introduced new NPCs to keep up and they befriended them too they're friendshipmaxxing

[pearl inlet]

hahah the horror 😭 😂

[pearl inlet]

hmm ok I understood. Rawan's clock of extra core batteries is given to everyone right?

Also, for the Elsa thing, I suppose the entirety of the group is working to get into her good graces so it's not too much of an issue if like one of the PCs is responsible for nudging her clock to 8 and beyond

[north knot]

textually the core battery reserve does not make the specification that it's for every PC because that would blow the balance of the encounters out of the water. it's just one core battery for the entire party

[cosmic blaze]

It's normal for one PC to have a lot more influence over an NPC's clock than the rest of the party, and sometimes that PC will give the reserve they get to someone else in the party that has a better use for it. It makes the group more incentivized to talk to NPCs they want to talk if they know the rewards can be redistributed

[pearl inlet]

Omfg I fucked up then! It's not too bad cuz nobody used their core lmao so I shall very quietly retract the reward and move Rawan's clock down...nothing to see here folks!

[north knot]

if they didn't use it then no harm done. i would be screaming if i had 5 minmaxers with 2 everest/chomolungma cores at their fingertips lmao

[velvet cedar]

I'm hoping to make an extended version of the custom ambience at the bottom of this playlist as well! Aiming to make more ambiences for other locations in the campaign when I have a lil more free time too

[pearl inlet]

Ok! that's good to know honestly. I think I have been pretty worried cuz I want more than just 1 person to have some moments with some of the NPCs. Not necessarily all, since I know who my party are looking to interact with.

[pearl inlet]

fortunately for me, 3 of 4 of them are relatively new to the system. Just a few oneshots here and there plus they are trying out builds they didn't do previously.

[soft elbow]

Witch from Mercury and Code Geass music

https://tenor.com/view/absolute-cinema-raccoon-absolute-cinema-gif-17862327649353748812

So real

[rancid coral]

wallflower does have a mission reward that's 1 core batt per player and i can confirm that it kinda blows the balance out of the water. tbh i nerfed the extra repairs from kay / combat 5 from being per-player too but that's largely because we're using the alt structure rules and there's no risk of snake eyes suddenly spiking the repair requirements from a fight

[pearl inlet]

wait what's the alt structure rules?

[rancid coral]

uhhhh

[rancid coral]

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1unN3HDDeAK3pN1rmgFgZgAXp5flnQ9-KMu-TXt34tnU/edit?tab=t.0

we're also using the alt overcharge rules this time around as well, but not the bracing rules

[soft elbow]

I guess it’s also narratively kinda weird that they sorta give more repair credits than they should have

Tho it does smooth it out to just give every player repairs rather than have them discuss about who gets them

[rancid coral]

Yeah I see the reasoning behind it. I personally like forcing scarcity on the players that way but it does depend on the table

[pearl inlet]

As per the stress table, the mech could survive not getting destroyed when there's a critical reactor meltdown?

[full turret]

First time using a video editor, be gentle

[full turret]

I shamelessly copied you for combat 1

[rustic peak]

A second house of sand PC has arrived to ruin argo's day lmao

Also, kinda curious to see how other GMs handle Aloysius. I don't know how to properly portray his kind of scheming

[pearl inlet]

Looking funky! Tho I will say I am a bit disappointed seeing pretty much all the PCs look like AI generated images...

[pearl inlet]

I had him be a Heca tech dealer secretly working for BI. That was a fun little subplot adventure with him.

[marsh tinsel]

So far I've tried to have him be in suspiciously the right position at the right time to give them what they want (of course to have the favour returned at some point). So far he's offered exotic gear to one of the PCs who needs like a disguise but we're still before the 1st combat so they don't know they're also going to be fighting him 🤭

Also I expanded the entrance ceremony a little and described him giving a modest greeting/entrance before never being seen for the rest of the night

[full turret]

Yeah, I know; I tried to beat that outta them, but no luck

[final frigate]

It helps to think of him as a young aristocrat with excellent people skills but is also out of touch in some key ways due to his right wing politics.

Ive managed to make him work thus far by having him pay attention to other PCs interests and intentionally learning about them to create a faux connection, with the long term goal of endearing himself to them so that they'll help him as a "friend" post college.

100% a fake friend who wants to use those around them and has no compunctions about trading favours for favours if it means he can become the baron of house flynn and "fix" his major house.

My hope is, by campaigns end, he gets exposed for this, but the players have the sentiment of "you might have been a fake friend, but we made good memories."

Then either kill him or ditch him.

That said one of the players is currently falling for him romantically, pretty hard, so its hard to say.

[final frigate]

Odd question

Anyone have any idea what kind of dress Praya would wear to a ball? Trying to do a thing in an upcoming plot beat where she has done nothing but power study etiquette, arts and courtly decorum, which will require her making her one and only appearance in a dress, before realising how much she hates it.

https://tenor.com/view/movie-classicmovie-vintage-gone-with-gif-20811459

Real "this' vibes

[dark tusk]

Imagine what Elsa would wear and make it more imposing and less delicate. Think about outfits that exentuate her musculature through the shape of the dress maybe and style it in the image of the house of stone banner. Triangular, diamond like, a single firm bar demarcating the top and bottom of the outfit from the chest down.

Something with low cut shoulders to show off her bulk, maybe that little thigh cut line for physical dominance.

Rigid lines of gold wire at the top of where it meets her chest and going around her serratus anterior muscles to shape the image of her torso but not literally compress it like a corset would. Then go into something tight and flowy

If you've seen the francis ford coppola dracula I think about the muscle armor from that a lot but imagine it as like a rigidly articulated set of fabric

[final frigate]

Hmmmm

Definitely something a little on the tight side, I think. No corset could ever hope to reduce her waist, but a yellow triangle on the front, tapering down from the chest to a point at her naval, ending just before the line at her hips that bisects the dress could work nicely.

Tempted to skip sleeves entirely and instead have her accessorise with bracers and a flowing scarf to, like what the emperor has.

As for the bottom half? Hmmm...

I do like the straps idea though.

[dark tusk]

I'm just gonna keep hitting the v cut at the thigh button for the bottom half, really show off that she is comitted to leg day

[final frigate]

God, the irony of her dressing almost exactly like magenta red from dustgrave...

[dark tusk]

She is as the kids say "a boss bitch"

[final frigate]

Actually I could do archer braces. The kind that start at the wrist and end at the forearm. Have them stitched with red string but otherwise be solid black.

Also gives her something to flex out of when her discomfort hits its peak.

"This isn't me. This isn't who I am, and I won't pretend to be a dainty wallflower." flexes so hard most of her dress tears, and she leaves the ball.

[dark tusk]

swoon

[final frigate]

Suddenly, argo gets competition for his own wife.

[dark tusk]

Love me a problematic muscle mommy

[pearl inlet]

awooga 🤤

[final frigate]

Its not meant to be a sexy moment XD

[pearl inlet]

well...

https://tenor.com/view/nick-tok78-seemyselfout-allthesepieces-gif-20182960

[final frigate]

I do wanna explore her psychology more though. To do what she intends to, to so willingly and brazenly condemn potentially billions to die, while still trying to find out who she is as a person at the college? Idk. I think there's value in that.

To be presented with the possibility of companions, allies, pleasant experiences and personal satisfaction in personal growth, all rejected in favour of her goals.

If I pull off the dress moment right, it'll be one hell of a warning that she is doubling down on who she is, rather than try to attempt to be more.

[rustic peak]

Oooh drama
I may have to try and introduce this into my game

[final frigate]

Not too hard to, tbh.
I do it via the classes, since it forces interactions with npcs the group might not otherwise reach out to.

[rustic peak]

I have done zero planning for the classes in my game, but yeah this seems like what I should be trying to pull off

[final frigate]

Classes are great fun.

I turn them into Mini games, with room for banter.

Having praya try and fail at successfully growing a rose bush was a great moment.

[full turret]

First combat success, the players managed to stay on the hill despite Praya and Argos punching and kicking them off of it as much as possible. One of my players wants to bang Kiriona, so that’s fun. Combat 2 next session!

[marsh tinsel]

Who doesn't tbh

[dark tusk]

Ack okay so I finally got to talk to one of my players last night and we meet Saturday. We talked about scenes they want to do for the semester long beat and she wants to do stuff for a poetry class. I want to use it as a set up for Tomas getting bullied- like a quick collective banter scene with the PCs leading into some post-class conflict outside the door where house of stone kids harass Tomas. I was gonna originally have the party do this scene coming from their own individual beats but the set up is too good I really want to use this angle.

What kind of drama could I sprinkle in that can crop up during the discussion that is not necessarily directly focused on discussing a poem about war/imperialism?

[willow frigate]

omg i inspired someone

[final frigate]

How about tomas reads a sanjaki poem in the class in front of the others, one that's beautiful and touching, but not everyone clocks on to its deeper meaning but the house of stone kids?

Alternatively, Tomas could make a point that house stone doesn't have much of a history of poetry or some such, barring a specific historical figure that is notably disgraced in house of stone records, but well regarded by others.

Or he could be ballsy enough to ask Praya to do a reading, to which she flubs, and gets him targeted by the goons.

Or it could be something along the lines of Tomas just...being his meloncholy self, and his tendency towards sadder topics annoys the others, especially in regards to the nature of the strong needing to feast upon the weak to remain so. Hell, if you wanna be explict, have him read a poem called 'the meals in the wolf's shadow', which is all about how a wolf eats carrion birds, crows, etc, so it can keep appearing to be the most dangerous thing in all the land when in actuality it spends most of its time praying upon the week.
Tie this in to house stone goons feeling spited, and boom, bully target.

[dark tusk]

Oh I was going to have the class content be like a rewriting of "A Pict Song" by Rudyard Kipling to erase the stuff about Rome and make it be about Sanjak or an analogous people crushed under the unification of the baronies- I know how to get Tomas bullied I just didnt know what other things I could pepper in to make the scene a little more robust rather than having the PCs just discuss a poem amongst themselves for Tomas to then get shit canned

Maybe I'm overthinking it a little bit

[final frigate]

Elsa and aloynous having an argument, to which they drag a PC in, regarding a poem.

The twins playing a prank.

Kirionia using a hologram face mask to appear awake when she's sleeping in class. Right next to a pc.

Nadros looking confused and asks a PC for help interpreting, well...everything going on.

Anything that involves the players being dragged into some sort of nonsense by an npc

[graceful turtle]

using a hologram face mask to appear awake in class is actually genius

[dark tusk]

Oh the Kir and Hedros ones are perfect, I want to set up the twins as pranksters and would be a good time to do it! Thanks for the ideas :3

[final frigate]

Thank jaiden from yugioh gx for the idea.

[rustic peak]

My players have already called SotW "Lancer GX" lol

Duel Academy but for mechs

[dark tusk]

The poetry class suggestions worked great !

The flyte of fancy podcast bit I did for aloysius interviewing praya and argo to do a big plausibly deniable threat to other students "failing to uphold karrakin values" lead a bunch of PCs emailing their families saying "what can we do about this".

I've been able to weave in the hecatoncheries as a big plot point- Kay is working on it for an undergraduate thesis which is how her sponsorship with Imani was formalized, trying to domesticate the liturgicode as much as anything else and did some real I have no mouth and I must scream shit where she tried to print out the code line by line and it broke the printer making it push out black bars of ink eventuallt showing from the blank vellum, the word "Hate" sharply carved into cracks in the ink.

Then one player who is connected implicitly to Aloysius because his hagiograph dad funds Aloysius's shitty little podcast was able to bully him into just giving up the hecatoncheries chassis which he plans to sell to rawan's ungrateful cell members in broader throne karrakis

[marsh tinsel]

Anyone named the NPCs' mechs?

[final frigate]

I haven't done much with the hecatoncheries much.

I really should.

But....I've been more focused on the inter-party drama

[dark tusk]

So my big plan: Is that one of my PCs wants to sell the chassis because they suspect Rawan's real motives as a political plant for the ungratefuls and flip it to her for cold hard cash.
Kay is being romanced by one of the other players and I have her set up as working on the Heca codebase with Imani as apart of her sponsorship/final grade. If the chassis/liturgicode she is trying to "domesticate" for broader application gets leaked she is FUCKED.

And lo and behold that situation might happen right before the exams attack, and wouldn't that be a horrendous conflagration of circumstance once both Baronic Intelligence and BUC are staring at everyone on campus as possible leaks or terrorists...

I am going to make this weird hell tech a deep dramatic wedge if it kills me, or Kay, or Rawan, or a PC gdi

[dire thunder]

@spring barn ding ding ding

[spring barn]

Hi!
Toast Said I should Post this here.
Im Running Shadow of the Wolf and Running the Players through Narrative Classes, where if they do well in the classes (Succeed Checks) they gain talent ranks.

So I made them a Class list off the classes listed in the module
They Each get to pick 3 Classes from the list each term

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1kfoym9K9ZEH1cKbLu97CJR4CM9zAPWGRXVWDg2BVTH8/edit?usp=sharing

[marsh tinsel]

I love this so much I'm stealing it and wondering if I could put bond powers on here too, or give bond XP to certain bonds?? idk :3

[spring barn]

haha, I dont really use bonds, I sortof run stuff off an Improvised Powered by the Apocalypse framework.

but thats a good idea!

[marsh tinsel]

Hell yeah

[placid nest]

Why did I decide to take notes on the CRB KTB and SOTW PDFs

[pearl inlet]

~~Your mind was wiped of the Heca tech info ~~

[north knot]

because being able to pull historical facts about the KTB out of a hat is good for GM's

<- it has taken 10 pages of annotated notes and analysis of the current political climate of the Baronies

homework is good for GMs. inflict it on your players too

[placid nest]

Real

[dense pendant]

I gave it a shot:
Faculty

• Underbaron Iphianassa: Devil's Breath
• Lord Castor: Don't Get The Joke
• Stablemaster Imani: Practiced On A Daily Basis
• Lady Achilleia: Steel-Toed Waltz
• Lord Hesketh: Birdwatcher

Students

• Lord Praya: Red Right Hand
• Count Argo: The Fastest Way To A Man's Heart
• Lord Aloysius: Never Really There At All
• Principissa Elsa: I Contain Multitudes
• Lady Kiriona: Mach 12
• Primor Valentine: Now You See Me
• Primor Vivian: Now You Don't
• Captain Hedros: Easy Does It
• Kay: Another Brick In The Wall
• Rawan: Speaks For Itself
• Lord Tomas: Tilting At Windmills

[placid nest]

Oooooo

Can i steal these,,

[final frigate]

tomas got stabbed by a PC!

the poor boy was a victim of a player invoking 'go for a walk'
(I the GM chose this 😈 )

[placid nest]

Oh no…

[final frigate]

tonights session was fun.

Players took a hand to hand self defence/assassination course, with one being taught by lady achilleia, the other being taught by a homebrew ignoble teacher NPC called Mason Piraka.

The fist half was them kicking the shit outta each other in sparring matches to demonstrate what they were capable of, followed by the latter half, where one of the PCs had a philosophical debate with lady achilleia about great man theory, and how she believed that, ultimately, nobles have greater potential to affect change and are naturally able to lead ignobility owing to the talents and experience they amass along with their birthright.
Another one went on to participate in a course where Mason outlined the importance of fast, swift, efficient killing, and why its important to, not just in hand to hand, but warfare, where severing the vital arteries of state 'kills' it without killing its people, and how that is ultimately the more humane approach.

then the assassination class were tasked with finding and quickly killing some sub-alterns he had hid throughout the room on a time limit...resulting in one of the PCs stabbing Tomas in the stomach on accident because he was hiding and they thought he was one of them.

Next session is gonna be the ignoble student who stabbed him, trying to defend herself in front of staff.

the PC has;
~ gotten video footage demonstrating they did it on accident
~ witness testimonies of other students
~ convinced tomas himself it was an accident
~ gotten one of the other PCs to vouch for her.

I'm wondering how best to handle this, because expelling her is like...the realistic outcome, but not the one that results in the pc sticking around.

[marsh tinsel]

Maybe the PC needs to do a trial before the passions to prove their innocence, their purity of mind and soul.

[north knot]

academic probation seems like it'd be a pretty fitting outcome for this mishap

[final frigate]

how would that work?

[north knot]

i dont know the intricacies of your game specifically so you'd likely need to figure out the specifics narratively speaking, but my gm in the game i'm a player in gave +2 Difficulty to all rolls to acquire additional resources or bypass formalities for the rest of the mission as the mechanical outcome of my character's probationary period

[dark tusk]

Have eligor follow them around by way of a set of drones or subalterns at all hours to monitor them for compliance to terms of suspension re: no more violence and if you wave a steak knife dangerously you're ass is out.
Have it bitch at them constantly for the wasted processing power.

Reprimand the assassination teacher by the arch chancellor and/or dean for allowing kids to play with knives without the containment field active.
Have Tomas sign a writ of "fuck this shit idc" as a way of waiving any liability for the school and the legal authority to challenge the student to a duel or other trial

[final frigate]

oooh, I like the drones one.
It'll also mean that the rave the party will be attending with Rawan more fun, because now she needs to sneak out to dance out.

same goes for the rest of it, tbh, this is pretty solid, and adds some tension.

I will say, it's also really funny that the assassination teacher has been called in by the dean not once, but twice this semester due to student endangerment....granted, the first time was one of the PCs poisoning him with heart stopping toxin, and him responding by trying to kick her head off before it took full effect before being stopped by her xenoglossian monk bodyguard, so really, this is the first true instance of poor teaching practices.

[graceful turtle]

Average day at the KCC tbh

[pearl inlet]

What in the name of Tagetes is going on here!?!

[final frigate]

My group is very hinged 🙂

one of them is very normal
one of them is a himbo
one of them is in murderlove
one of them is an ignoble, who is getting treated as you might expect

[mellow valve]

sorry if I'm replying to an old message, but could you explain what you used to run this with an isometric perspective?

[raven jay]

does anyone in here know if there are playbooks for the new bonds in sotw that are like the ones that came with field guide to ktb?

[quartz sentinel]

No, we didn't produce them for the new bonds

it's possible someone has made their own but I've not seen any

[haughty shadow]

@mellow valve check #lancer-vtt there is a tutorial !

[rancid coral]

i'm pretty sure the book doesn't weigh in on this one way or the other but i'm curious - did you get the impression that Kahin is supposed to be acting on behalf of the entire Order Xenoglossia or on his own judgment?

[rancid coral]

interesting issue my party is running into - they've recognised the coordinates on kahin's message and have decided to investigate the area on foot.

||think i'm gonna have intelligence/buc try to arrest them halfway out and then run the skill challenge as them breaking back into the college, boosting their own mechs, and getting to Saremin to progress, or else treat it as them being turned in by the College.||

[rancid coral]

||this is a lot more interesting cause a party member has managed to convince sigune that they're investigating the conspiracy against the college and has a line to her to act as her eyes and ears in a way that she can't openly. If they really want to hoof it on foot it's gonna be a play-it-by-ear situation||

[mild spindle]

players lost combat 2

first time they've lost a combat

lots of rlly bad structure rolls

[mellow valve]

Sorry I meant, where did you find the assets like the isometric map?

[haughty shadow]

starlight menageri for the assets !

[final frigate]

last nights session went well.

the PC who accidentally stabbed tomas proved her innocence enough that she'll only be observed by Eligos for the rest of the mission (first year at the college), another PC has now started dating lord Aloynious (whom has intentionally learned much about her to seduce her and use her for political gain), and a third PC met with the arch chancellor to discuss how her first incarnation (she's a clone of a moments noble) ended up being sponsored by the arch chancellor all those years ago despite their mothers protests (she has two moms 😌 ).

Oh, and they were forced by Stablemaster Imani to take Kay to a rave.

because he wouldn't give permission for the probation PC to leave without taking her with them.

[final frigate]

Oh, and i lost a player due to scheduling

Hopefully I can recruit a new 4th asap

[twilit cairn]

Finished the final combat last night. Bomb successfully diffused, 1 PC mech destroyed, the other 2 PCs overcharged to make sure Praya got what was coming to her before she could escape and ended up suffering reactor meltdowns, so 0 operable mechs left on the field. 11/10 good time

[quartz sentinel]

you love to see it 💜

[marsh tinsel]

Wondering if there's anything else I should add to this post to describe the first combat

>TO:    FOOLISH DUELISTS

Present yourselves at the Stables for chassis finalisation and approval by 0990 before duel commencement at precisely 2500.

SITREP: MALIK ALTALI - King of the Hill
TIME LIMIT: Six rounds
DEPLOYMENT: All forces deployed. Machine mind reinforcements d̸e̸p̵l̸o̸y̶e̵d̵ ̶i̴n̸ ̴t̸h̶e̸ second round - 2 "H̷̟͒Ộ̸R̵N̶E̵̮͐T̵̘͘" type machines per team. These are accepted as duellists for your triumph scoring at the end of the round.
REASON: A point of honour

FORCES:
Lord Praya-Cannamos, the Ironhanded, First Daughter and Graven Heir of Stonelord Hyderad Cannamos
[ELITE VETERAN GOLIATH]
Count Argo, the Wolf’s Blade, of the House Laurent of the House of Sand, storied son of Tilimsan
[ELITE VETERAN ASSASSIN]
Baron Leontes, Savanna's Sabre, of the House Laurent of the House of Sand
[MERCENARY ASSASSIN]
Lord Aloysius Veredus Flyte, Steward Apparent of the Tower Road of the House of Smoke
[MIRAGE]

VERSUS

Katia "Flux" Terett - H. Smoke
Jack "Gleipnir" Sergeant - H. Dust
Cedar "Musketeer" Wiederwax
Kerria - Unaffiliated
Nyctelios - Unaffiliated

GET THIS DONE QUICKLY PLEASE.
MAY THE PASSIONS BE WITH YOU.```

The reinforcements are gonna be hacked by Praya so only their reinforcements come in

tho Rawan might be able to help the PCs out in un-hacking them or hacking them further

[pearl inlet]

"may the passions be with you" instead?

[pearl inlet]

oh that's a really cool idea!

[pearl inlet]

this too! nice lil mini game. You could replace her with Kay/Twins as well if you had like a short narrative beat, more like an open-ended thing, before the combat where the PCs prepare themselves. Let them do a singular skill challenge or go around the table, giving each one a chance to describe how they prep (skill checks based on the ask).

[marsh tinsel]

lmao that is what I meant to write >.<

thanks

They've mostly done as much prep as I think they wish to, I'm just going to have Rawan join the comms in combat and say "yo! crit tech attack to change the hornet's team!" and she can give a free hack 1/round or something

[pearl inlet]

Let's balance the scales type shit

[clear nymph]

Any advice on GM tactics for combat 2? Wanting to challenge my players

planning on having the twins split up and use their teleports to grab 2 nearby objectives, lock them down until Hedros and Elsa move in on one and then move up to grab another with support from Kay. Kiriona runs around and makes herself annoying. Grabbing an objective for a turn, using knock back and grappling to mess with movement, or retreating to gang up on the players if they move in.

[final frigate]

Honestly thats the best way to handle it IMO.

I like to plant Elsa on the eastern point and have the others some to her for buffs and stuff while she tech attacks and locks on from behind the size 2 cover, while the twins each pick a point to hold.

Hedros I made a point to plant on high ground in full view of the northern point to provide support to one of the twins, but kirionia? I had her run across the entire map pushing players off of points.

Elsa can hold her own durability wise against any none striker, at least until hedros or kirionia can provide her much needed support.

[dark tusk]

I concur! my only difference was I had one of the twins race the east point, Hedros and another twin take south, and Kir race to north and just camp it getting into a duel with the sagarmatha pilot extensively after. Getting the Early 3-1 split feels really good for the opfor.

The party forced it to a draw after blowing up Kir and a very lucky immobilizing hack from the chomolungma on Elsa on the last turn keeping elsa from recapping the eastern point after Hedros destroyed a PC single handedly in 4 shots over the course of 6 turns leaving the eastern point unscored.

[clear nymph]

Thanks! So I got opfor an early lead by having the twins split east and south. Kiriona zoomed up and contested north, Kay plodded up the middle and Elsa is sticking by Hedros and feeding him ammo on east. Players split 3-2 to north and west. 2nd turn Kiriona tackled one of my player's Chomos all the way back to their deployment zone, but another player in a melee sagarmatha came back to assist and with some very hot dice (rolled max damage on 3 separate attacks in a row!) Took her out with Elsa scolding a laughing Kiriona about being out of position and so aggressive. The northern everest hid behind some buildings from Hedros who proceeded to immobilize the west sagarmatha when he blitzed to the south point, eating 2 structure from a combination of shotgun and sniper rifle. The melee sagarmatha also managed to nearly take out one of the twins when they moved on the north to pressure the player everest. The everest did a point blank sniper rifle to finish the twin off. We paused at end of round 3 with a score of 4-5. The rest of the op for is almost untouched. Players are clawing it back but aren't confident they can seal the deal

[final frigate]

Its a really solid opfor imo, provided the players dont take out one of the twins too early.

Its why I place them on the north and east point in cover with their reactions, and then their regular turns, while kirionia rushed to take south or west, depending on where the players are focusing.

[clear nymph]

Hedros has switched targets to the melee sagarmatha, and Kay is going to go grapple the lone chomolungma left on the west point while his support is stuck in the south and getting shot up.

[rancid coral]

the argo bullying continues in c6

even turning him into an ultra hasn't saved him from controlheads

[pearl inlet]

I could use an alternate ending idea for Mission 1 if anyone's got any suggestions.

The way things have played out for my group, my players have done 3 combats and have C4 left to complete. For their third combat, they ended up having something very similar to the C4 scenario of saving mutliple hostages play out. I don't wanna do that all over again as C5 so looking for some suggestions!

[pearl inlet]

more like an alternate combat ending ig

[dark tusk]

Hmmmmmmmmmm

Well what matters is that it's a false flag kind of attack on the college in a deniable way that connects to a possible proxy army/terror group...

If you have enhanced combat they have some alt sit reps, like search and rescue where you go into buildings fire emblem style to save people and push them into extraction zones.

Maybe make it tents that have staff/teachers/students after the exams boarding up to head out. All the mechs are packed but the PCs are last to get their repairs done and the only ones with mechs on hand to fend off the threat and dump people next to the planes so they can leave

Maybe even make a sub goal where you have to protect the shitty little cargo planes they use to keep an extraction site "open", so planes getting blown up makes you lose extraction zones. Like little size 3 objects with like 10 HP or something. If it explodes you lose an extraction site, all the while the RPVs go through the tents and gun down mechanics/staff maybe even a choice pool of students, and the instructors.

[pearl inlet]

I do have it! And oh my does that sound like a good fucking idea!!!

[dark tusk]

I would love to see how it goes, especially as the extraction sites whittle down from plane explosions

[rich swallow]

did a little cut out for the prime baron, if anyone decides to have her show up for any reason

[rancid coral]

do you happen to have it without the background please? I've been sticking the karrakin halo as the background to my NPC art and i'd like to keep it consistent

[rich swallow]

sadly no...

since i just made that and save d no other file

[pearl inlet]

https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=-YCVoVFLMJU&si=kelG-A7lMQmMQkQX

It's a bit out there in terms of vibes for a theme song but oh boy do I like how it sounds!

Came across this today as I was thinking about my SoTW session on the weekend 😅

[clear nymph]

Idea for extending the exam into its own mission. The faculty cheerily describe it as a "Hike through the Hounds Teeth" with the exam grading being held at the college's hunting lodge. So in the middle of the flight there, they force an emergency landing of the RPV taking the players there and announce that the exam starts now, BUC forces are on their way to intercept and they need to be at the lodge in 48 hours with a subaltern of Eligos in tow that's currently being held in a BUC camp somewhere in the region. You have five minutes until the artillery finds your position.

Instructor mechs show up every so often to hound them. They have to run a Gauntlet sitrep, extract Eligos in another combat, and escort it to the Lodge where they do what would be Combat 3.

Then when they are nice and exhausted, hit them with the ambush

[cosmic blaze]

That sounds interesting. What are the other students doing during this?
When I ran my exam mission I had the other students there as well, and they had the option to help them as they made their way to their objective.
Would be interesting if the students are competing with each other in teams to find Eligos’ subalterns

[dark tusk]

Easter Egg Hunt !!

[clear nymph]

That was my plan. There are multiple bases with Eligos subalterns. Direct confrontation with other students is discouraged as they are all part of the same "force" for this wargame/exam. But if your actions while accomplishing your objectives make it difficult or impossible for another team to complete their objectives? Well tough luck

So if the players don't catch the twin's bomb in their mechs the response will be that it's an inter-student issue, you should be expected to deal with it yourself.

Also: Eligos is really not happy about playing a role in this. They have 3 million better things to spend processing power on. And they will be sure to let the players know. Loudly. And often.

They are especially put out about the subalterns being made to wear formal noble costume

[cosmic blaze]

If you give them opportunities to sabotage other teams (especially Praya's), you can also use that as evidence against them when they're set up

[pearl inlet]

I think it's got all the bones for a short and evocative examination mission. Giving me hunger games type of vibes. I like this idea from a thematic standpoint as well, as they have just finished a semester of college which has earned them some new LL1 tech to put to the test. But the real challenge now is proving you are truly tactically and stragetically minded and are worthy of a frame to establish that fact.

[cosmic blaze]

I could definitely see my players falling for this kind of bait

[pearl inlet]

yessss! I think by spiltting the campaign like this you can do a bit more actual play of the various tactical syllabi combat encounters rather than narratively implying it. Plus one can nudge their PCs into making some decisions of challenging students to bouts as well (optional combats that can give them extra reserves for the exam mission)

[pearl inlet]

Honestly, same lol. Especially if you have more moments to corner the players and have Argo and Praya give them a tough time, they'd be pissed and ready to even things out.

[pearl inlet]

it gotta act out being in danger to simulate the urgency of the hostage situation and it's Eligos in the most monotone, dour voice asking to be saved, like it reading it off a teleprompter or something.

Also how would y'all feel about having like stories on the other KCC campuses across the concern?

Maybe as a continuation, a prologue story or something unrelated.

A player and I were having a ton of fun imagining his Begi noble character back at the academy after the events of SoTW.

[graceful turtle]

lmao he switches campuses like, "Thank God nothing major is going to happen here" and little does he know he's in for a trip 💀

[pearl inlet]

"Well, sure now that the storm that was fortold by the Augur has passed I can relax and kick back on homesoil. Although he didn't explicitly tell me that the storm had passed and all was well..."

[graceful turtle]

"Nothing can go wrong!"

[final frigate]

Kats suggestion worked like a charm.

Rawan took the group to an illegal rave inside an abandoned building in one of the industrial districts, and it went very well.

Everyone got drunk,
the neo-passacaglian PC hooked up with the ignoble one after they smoked a weed/cocaine joint together.
two of the girls went outside to chat and talk deeply about politics and how they want the baronies to be better (plus how much HA sucks)
We had 3 pcs participate in a darts tourney; the one with the least investment in skill triggers won and got a stolen golden kukri as a prize.
Kay got to learn how to actually go out and party (and got laid)
Nadeer got so drunk everyone else had to literally carry him back to the campus

And last, but not least, the session went on an extra hour to touch on the aftermath of some of this because we had so much fun.

[rich swallow]

tweaked the argo sandmen opfor to be a little more... player-deadly than mech-deadly

[clear nymph]

I'm doing the same. The party will start outside their mechs like a proper ambush

[faint panther]

im starting to make my own praya for the final showdown

i dont think i'll have it in me to make tokens for all the other enemies just in case my two groups go different fights or the same fight

but since praya is on both well

[faint panther]

How proud is Lord Praya of her hou-

Y E S .

[dense pendant]

One of my players (currently at 0 repairs) just informed me that he told one of my other players (currently at 1 repair) not to worry about her repairs, since the next combat will be the last in the mission.

The next combat is Combat 3. I have only ever referred to this combat as the "final exam."

I have succeeded, and my hands are clean.

[placid nest]

rHIDHFIUHIUFHSIDFHSDIFHIDShf

[fierce moon]

One of my players had their mech destroyed in Combat 2 last night

What do I do?

[north knot]

other players can pool their resources to repair their mech, or you can work out a power at a cost deal with your player

[quartz sentinel]

Power At A Cost is an excellent tool here, since it lets you as the GM turn the screws in a narrative sense, or push them into any plots you've set up that they haven't yet bitten on

For example, "Kay will abuse her access to reprint your mech for you, but you have to find out where Aloysius got the Hecatoncheires schematics" which then opens up a plot rabbithole for the PCs to explore

[rancid coral]

the bomb in C8A should be a movable object, right? rules-wise, would it be possible to just drag it into a void tear? There's no specific rules for throwing objects into there i guess.

[quartz sentinel]

No, only characters can pass through a tear and I wouldn't advise allowing players to carry or push the bomb through unless you have a very good plan for how you are going to handle that

it's a lot simpler than trying to pass skill checks (and players will usually go for the path of least resistance), and it's the least interesting solution

that's also why the bomb immediately detonates when it's destroyed, because players would much rather deal 20HP damage than attempt skill checks

you should also make it clear that attempting to superman the bomb (eg. if you have a Taraxacum in the party) is a non-starter on the grounds that a mid-air burst is still devastating, for the same reason

it might be narratively interesting for some tables to come up with a clever solution that means you don't need to defuse the bomb while fighting, but I would guess that for most tables that's less fun than the fight would be

[soft elbow]

wouldn't blowing it up mid air be possibly even worse than it detonating on the floor?

[rancid coral]

combat 6 also went well, folks

argo tried to run away but got lassoed back into the arena and ganked lmao

[rancid coral]

yes, i was trying to think of ways to potentially make it interesting while still rewarding player creativity. maybe changing the skill checks to disarm to instead dislodge the bomb from its mount or somehting? but that depends on if the players come up with something i guess

another question about 8a please: does this detail mean that the maximum height a character can reach is 4?

[quartz sentinel]

yes, or more strictly it means there are four spaces under the ceiling

so if you're larger than size 1 your height is restricted further

[rich swallow]

sandman battle, players in a pickle

• one got pulled out of their mech (taraxacum so it's flying six spaces above them, piloted by an NPC) and is being aimed at by a sniper (there was an unsuccessful gravity gun onto monowire sword from the specter)
• another player has been wormed 3 times so far, and has successfully pulled out 3 while 3 more are still in em
• caliban has been trying really hard to shoot the sniper investitured sniper but just kept on missing its cannibal, not realising that the priest has fractal assault

and reinforcements have come

[pearl inlet]

Oh my how did you add all those height and area markers. So colourful 🤩

[full turret]

players narrowly won combat 2, had them attend a party thrown by Kiriona which got busted by Eligos (snitchin' ass NHP) which led to them "mucking out the stables" (cleaning up scorch marks, unclogging mech printers and deprogramming clusters of rogue nanites) looks like the next couple of sessions might be more narrative based and starting NPC sublots to unlock exotic gear and NPC bonuses. Their mechs are pretty fucked up NGL because Hedros hit a truly incredible amount of crits, gotta nudge them towards befriending the Stablemaster and Kay so that there's a chance they survive the rest of mission 1 lmao

[marsh tinsel]

Playing with rebaked NPCs, Argo and Praya are getting heated up quite a bit with their overcharging! Praya's 2nd stress is happening in round 3

Maybe she'll wait for her next overcharge a bit lol

[rustic peak]

Session 1 tonight hopefully

[rustic peak]

Ooh I'm also playing with the rebaked versions! And since my players are going for direct damage builds it'll be fun to see which side overheats first

[dark tusk]

Okay so I recently did a Pankrati tournament using the Suldan dueling rules and it worked perfectly! Wrapping up the finals with a PC vs Kiriona next time on the 22nd in all likelihood but it's really efficient.

I treated it like yugioh where I had every character not fighting doing something connected to or informed by it.

One player flirting with Elsa is there while they comment on the proceedings from the stands, discussing what heroism means

One player was betting on the outcome of the games with a simple system I devised they really liked

And when one of the PCs wasnt in a fight I had them join me on color commentary.

[dark tusk]

One of my players, aubreyanodyne,
made this pixel art of their PC "Myrtle Ripley" of the House of Smoke and I am totally gay normal about it

[lean topaz]

(hi i made this)

[final frigate]

she's perfect.

[trim heath]

How much would it break if I let my players skip to LL2 after mission 1?

They're headed into the exam next session, we don't meet super often and there's only 3 of them and I kinda want to just let them jump to the cool mechs

[north knot]

the attrition becomes much more brutal

they may be stronger, but GMS frames effectively have twice as many repairs for structure than licensed frames

if they've been handling the combats well up until this point and playing in the tactical layer competently then you shouldn't have to worry much, but a player could feasibly run out of repairs halfway through the second mission if they're not being careful in a licensed frame with a low repcap

[placid nest]

True
Though you can always invoke Power at a Cost and add some narrative consequences in exchange for repairs

[trim heath]

Tbh one of them has already needed to scrounge and barter for repairs but I think if I give them that warning it should be fine. Kinda funny that in this environment getting a new frame could be a nerf lol

[pearl inlet]

Truuuue!

[dark tusk]

One of my players got the tagetes after getting a damn drink with hedros and another player bullied aloysius into surrendering the chassis blueprint for the hecaton like a war thunder forums leak so act 2 is going to be very exciting re: repair cap

[pearl inlet]

Absolutely wild things are happening on throne Karrakis, I sure hope no more shit hits the ceiling!

[dark tusk]

For anyone doing the cadenza I'm trying to get fashion pilled- What were some outfits that they came up with for various characters?

[north knot]

poke around at some met gala best dressed lists from years past and look up fashion houses and their haute couture outfits

[faint panther]

Oh right, I never sent the finished design of Praya's Titan

Also, the Sandman Specter because my other team is NOT BEING BETRAYED by a PC that would've replaced the Specters in the first place

[placid nest]

Yoooo

[faint panther]

oh also

one of the players from that team

when trying to think if to trust the message from the Xenoglossary and the call to the Stables

"hm...maybe one should stay and maybe talk with one of our friends, see if they can help us or just warn them. Who knows..."

"What if the college blows up?"

They laughed, I laughed, Praya setting up the bombs laughed

[placid nest]

LOLL

[rustic peak]

I'm trying to reign in my "Evil GM" instincts but my even in their backstories my poor players are making Praya and Argo's frame-up job so so easy

"ah yes, this person has a Kobold? and they led a failed revolution in their minor house? yep, we'll send our black ops assassins to kill them, no prob"

[graceful turtle]

Imagine nobody believes Praya and Argo's frame-up job cause they're like, "Oh come on, it can't be them, it's too obvious", but with a distinct note of disappointment in Praya and Argo for not framing somebody well

"That's not how I taught you to frame people young lady, you're grounded" - Praya's dad

Like they're not bothered by what Praya and Argo did as much as they're bothered by their poor attempt to frame it on the PCs

[rustic peak]

Praya's dad is definitely going to be sending her mails complaining about her losing status when the players keep beating her in combat

"how dare you make me look bad, daughter"

actually thinking about it, if the players do decide to hang on and do a follow-on campaign from SotW, Stonelord Sr is a pretty good candidate for the overall big bad

[rancid coral]

in my game he pretty openly shamed praya for losing to these randos in front of her, nearly reduced her to tears

[dense pendant]

My players performed admirably in Combat 3
Now for the terror

Pictured: the nat 1 that hit

[rustic peak]

takes notes

[graceful turtle]

The incredibly rare post that actually made me feel bad for Praya

[final frigate]

Ooooh, stealing that.

Also, quick question, which of the two balls should I have take place first?

The "meet the sponsor" ball, where the party gets to interact with their respective sponsors and see the sponsors of the other students.

Or

The ball mentioned in the book, complete with dancing, mech dancing and an opportunity to interact with NPCs on mass.

Im tempted to go for the latter over the former, because I want a moment for Praya to just rip off a dress she's wearing after spending months in the arts and etiquette classes, declaring "this isnt her" and leaving. That, and also have one of the PCs dance with a teacher they tried to assassinate for that sweet sweet toxic ace romance energy.

[dark tusk]

That's a wonderful beat, when did you plug that in? I'm trying to figure out which NPCs from outside the cast I might plug in and he might be a good one

[rancid coral]

This was at the Cadenze, he was a visiting dignitary there (along with the Union and HA ambassadors)

[dark tusk]

Okay good cause I wanna make it as high drama as possible and if I can destroy Praya emotionally that would be super

[rancid coral]

he then very unsubtly threatened the players lol

i'm a bit split on what role i want the stonelord to have in my post-sotw game anyway, i kind of like the idea of a Solstice Rain-type game with no BBEG (or rather, one with multiple factions of antagonists with tense relationships with each other)

[clear nymph]

I am definitely stealing this. I already had the players witness her physically manhandle and threaten her minder over The Stonelord stacking the deck in her favor without her knowledge. There's going to be a sponsor meetup before the exams alongside the Xenoglossia readings. I'll have him show there

Since we m linking them, might have the sponsorship ball be a masquerade themed on the Passions

[rancid coral]

one thing i do regret about this game is not introducing the passions and highlighting their importance earlier, so that's not a bad idea at all

[rich swallow]

Sandmen battle. Argo's mech is destroyed. he's trying to escape but the ungrateful player did a lil core power thing, so he's trapped in hot baby jail

also a caliban player got grapple teleported by a specter who's abotu to blow up, and a pir vet hive got pulled in by the specter's grav gun to help it beat on the caliban

firefly's pilot nearly died last round because of a worm. it stayed on since everyone kept either getting impaired, stunned, or just rolled really badly (there were so many nat 1 rolls)

it was only by chance that the kobold player managed to extract the worm since it rolled 3 times, and with a technophile retry it manages to pull out the worm for the round

took a total of about 10 rolls from the players to remove that one worm

[pearl inlet]

No fair why does Argo get all the frozen spaghetti cubes and not me 😞

[rustic peak]

Since my first session 1 got cancelled, thinking the proper S1 will probably start with the "all the students meet each other" ball

[rustic peak]

Saving the sponsor ball for when all the players and NPCs are more familiar, cos I have some drama in mind

One player has a sponsor from a high ranking House Sand house, which means Argo is gonna hate them for existing, and Rawan is going to feel betrayed because of the Sand connection

[clear nymph]

I'm trying to come up with sponsor side missions for a couple of my players during the exam. Ideas I have is that the corporate test pilot player is tasked with stealing the twin's blink teleport tech. Another is an ignoble being groomed to top tier pankrati by a House of Glass noble, they want the player to have a camera drone on them at all times. Now for the players I'm having difficulty with.

Another player is a flash facsimile clone of a person he doesn't know was a deep cover House of Stone agent for this operation. He thinks his original self died being eaten by nanites on a mission that got Hedros the nod. The original survived and was inducted into the Karrakin Elites as payment for basically being a fall guy by proxy through his clone. Might have him as one of the other Elites in combat 8. The clone is sponsored by the House of Stone and BUC. I'm planning on having Galanthus confront the clone about their poking around the Hecatoncheries connection to Barony black ops. But not sure what mission to give him.

Another player is a House of Smoke noble, subbed in for their sibling as heir to their minor house. They lean Republican and have clashed with Aloysius. They have also established a student group for political advocacy toward a peaceful resolution to Sanjack. Sponsored by their family. I'm thinking of some form of noble connection for their assignment. Maybe get a favor from one of the other nobles?

The last player is an ignoble ward being sponsored by the Chassis Errant Free Company. The player has missed a lot of narrative sessions so not too much characterization. No idea what their assignment from the sponsor would be

[opal chasm]

planning on running this soon! have a quick question about pacing. the players don't get a true full repair/long rest until after the first four combats on account of the repair credits that the college gives out for students to better simulate real-life combat/encounters?

[north knot]

yeah, i think the idea in-narrative intent is creating an environment of scarcity of parts/inadequate tooling to simulate the realities of what field repair is like when deployed

gotta make do with what you've got, just because you're an ace doesn't mean you'll have unlimited access to printers/parts, etc etc

[opal chasm]

gotcha cool

thanks!

[final frigate]

Im so happy one of my players agreed to play as an agent under Argos thumb.

Waking them up one morning with a knife at her throat while she reported her spying findings, while she herself was covered in bite marks after having one of the best night's of their life, was one hell of a moment.

Also love how, because i never named him or hinted at who he was beyond his actions, mannerisms and overt hatred towards the PC, the players have dubbed this mysterious Prick "the misogynist"

[dark tusk]

D-did he bite her????

Cause like I get Argo as like vampire coded but like...

I love that like half the groups I see here just play this module for the dating drama as much as the mech fights

[final frigate]

Nope, one of the other players did.

They met at a rave, went to a private room, then they [REDACTED], with the end result being a lot of bite marks over one PC, after which they left to go back to the college, shower off and sleep while the other lay there

[dark tusk]

G a A a A y [affirming]

[faint panther]

prepping last sess for my first group

the house of stone shield guy on the bottom left is a new NPC thats friend to the party, the right hand woman of a player

They have 5 rounds to turn off the bombs

[clear nymph]

Anyone have any manipulators?

[dark tusk]

Like the mech system or little schemers

[clear nymph]

Mech system. Iirc it makes disarming a little easier

[north knot]

quick action instead of a full action to make the skill check if you have manipulators

[opal chasm]

oh leaving the action summary page on the map is genius

[dark tusk]

I will have to incorporate this

[opal chasm]

Me too

[graceful turtle]

"the other lay there" just makes it sound like it killed the poor fellow, lmao

[final frigate]

Naaah, they are just laying there on the bed they destroyed asleep 😅

[graceful turtle]

so it's not a praying mantis type situation, got it, lol

[final frigate]

Hey now, we don't know that just yet, we are deep in toxic yuri here.

[pearl inlet]

Anyone has this particular sheet?

[opal chasm]

It’s on itch.io, i can snag the link hold on

[opal chasm]

https://heliospectral.itch.io/lancer-action-reference-sheet

[clear nymph]

Yoink

[cosmic blaze]

Today I ran Enter Sandman for my LL3 party. I decided to make Argo an Ultra Vet with permanent invisibility and a t2 weapon
I showed the stat profile to some people and they all agreed that it was “too much at that LL” and “it’s a guaranteed tpk”
The 4 bastards killed Argo in 4 rounds and collectively lost 1 structure. They thought the fight was easy. I don’t even know what to throw at them anymore

[rancid coral]

i made argo an ultra too, with the caveat that he would leave when he reached half structure. the party puppeted him back into the middle of the arena and beat his mech to death lol

they have argo stuck in the extended compartment of the mech that only has 1 structure left, so there's a good opportunity to bust him out

[rustic peak]

It is a little annoying when your players are much better at the game than you lol

My players when I ran OSR absolutely dunked on everyone, especially Kiros

[split bobcat]

Kiros is one failed grapple away from being stunlocked into oblivion

[cedar ocean]

Quickest yoink

[rustic peak]

In my game he just got Chomolungma'd into oblivion

And there's a good chance the same will happen to Praya lol

[quartz sentinel]

I think in testing there was a party of nothing but Everests and Sagarmathas and they had a really tough time with some of the fights, while the double-Chomolungma party trivialised the majority of the module. It turns out that trying to DPS your way through Lancer sitreps doesn't always work out so well

(also, dice luck and experience with campaign play make a big difference)

[clear nymph]

Balance control lockout has been a menace for me

[clear nymph]

Which is why for the Gauntlet sitrep for their exam I'm going to throw all the grunts at them

[rustic peak]

Session 1 complete! The highlights for me:

• Every single person managed to piss off ELIGOS
• A five year old supersoldier kung fu kicked Praya into a hedge
• Aloysius tried to be weaselly and got a faceful of cheap vodka
• Argo challenged someone else to a duel and got his nose flattened, and then immediately blabbed to ELIGOS to get the party in trouble.
• Rawan invited everyone to a party.

We didn't even get to the combat

[dark tusk]

My sesh 1 I definitely waited till sesh 2 to do the honor duel

[rustic peak]

Yeah I had kinda intended for that to be the case anyway, so that I could do as much setup as I could

[cloud obsidian]

Everyone here seems to be doing the module at quite a slower pace than I've been

[north knot]

no one right way to play

I love the KTB so I'm extending play quite a lot personally, but playing the book as written is the mostly intended mode of play

every table's different and such

[cloud obsidian]

I wonder how much session length has to do with it too

I'm blessed to have a table with very long session length for our Lancer games and I think that means we might be taking larger bites of the module per session

[opal chasm]

I was looking through the module yesterday and figured that most Beats would constitute a session or two for my group and most combats would be their own session? Extensions for extra writing that comes up or Storybeats not included of course

[clear nymph]

Combats usually take 1-2 sessions at my table. Narrative beats are a full session on their own

[dark tusk]

My players want this to be a drama crockpot/dating sim with giant robots on the sly so I'm doing mission 1 a lot slower but imagining mission 2 is going to be a lot quicker

I try to make it so that we wrap up each combat as its own session from stem to stern

[cloud obsidian]

My players are pretty good at quick combat. That combined with long sessions usually means combat isn't all we do, save for the end of M1

My biggest regret I think, as far as speed goes, is not lingering a little longer in m2 on the return to classes

I did stay for a little, but I think having a few more scenes would've elevated the tension.

[opal chasm]

I know my group will want to expand on the interpersonal school drama when I run this, so I am certainly planning to expand on both the return to classes and the leadup to exams.

[dark tusk]

I recommend using the cadenza for that in part, I've milked that already for a lot of drama and havent even gotten to the actual dance yet

It gives people a social goal and a soft deadline for getting an npc student to like you in particular

I hope someone in my group is bold enough to go with another PC, I have two who are like half and half on who they are going with so mayhaps a marriage if convenience is in store

[dark tusk]

I'll keep this in mind because selling a more somber/war ready atmosphere is not something I'm immediately prepared for with what I have tbqh

[rancid coral]

i kinda agree with this yeah, i added a bit but i feel like i could have added more narrative stuff about rising political tensions generally before m2 kicks off

i also would have, in retrospect, introduced the Passions and highlighted their importance to everyday Karrakin life sooner. Maybe included a minor ritual at the Shrine of the Passions in M1 or something

[dark tusk]

Ooooh this is actually giving me a really good idea: I'm thinking of having the pcs do a shopping day to prepare for the cadenza before asking out their dates. To get to the main shopping district from a central fountain in town they have to pass through a network of cathedrals with little shrines each with their own bespoke method to offer coins to sell the vibe

Like for the wolf you offer a little bit of blood with the coin or w/e

[dark tusk]

Didnt wanna flood the chat but I came up with these

[opal chasm]

Just gonna quietly add those to my notes for multiple months from now

[dark tusk]

I'm glad you lik 'em! I always appreciate feedback >/<

I'm personally really proud of thinking of The Firebrand as having to lean on friends or canvass a little to get their tithe- I just think it's a good rp engine. What if you lie to someone so you can make your tithe to the firebrand? Very harlequin coded move I say, the fable writes itself at that point

[rustic peak]

Yoink 🫳

[pearl inlet]

You absolutely cooked with this 🔥

This is really good material for others to get inspired by and allow them curate other moments of seeing how a cultural practice spanning millennia has shaped and is being shaped by Karrakin society

[pearl inlet]

[pearl inlet]

Waow she refrenced the title of the adventure 😱😳

[faint panther]

oh hey yall my bad i never replied and sent it myself lol

i forgot about this chat

sadly my sess got moved to next weekend

[faint panther]

oh??? these are great!

might use this for the end descriptions

[faint panther]

dude, been with you but Im even more confused

I replaced the Specters with a Spec Op Veteran Specter that was designed to counter the team. And yet SOMEHOW they didn't destroy ANY OTHER MECH EXCEPT ARGOS.

i am still like

in shock of that lmao

[faint panther]

I also think one of them do but I would have to check tomorrow

[mellow valve]

I'm starting this module tomorrow with a group that is relatively new to lancer. We are planning to finish around 12-13 sessions, any tips or things I should know before getting into it?

[rancid coral]

players got a nice fast disable on the bomb lol

praya made a last ditch attempt to destroy the mech that held argo but now all their weapons are destroyed and the party's occupying the void rend spot to try and finish her off lol

[rancid coral]

lmfao

she's entered an irreversible meltdown, rip

[marsh tinsel]

top of round 5 with praya on her last structure and only the other assassin still up... ;-;

[rancid coral]

praya got her hand fuckin cut off dude

what an ending! Player challenged Praya to a duel after thoroughly wrecking her mech, cut off her hand, took both of the antagonists' weapons

[quartz sentinel]

• 12-13 sessions is a decent schedule and you shouldn't need to rush, just make sure you get through combats at a reasonable pace
• Read the FAQ and what it has to say about difficulty, and remember the options you have for adjusting things as play goes on
• Make the module your own, adapt scenes to your PCs and focus on the NPCs your players enjoy. Let your players lead the action. This module is different for everyone and that's a good thing

[quartz sentinel]

that's awesome

[faint panther]

Oh right, I should ask an important question.....

My players killed Argo, kindly, what the fuck do I do?

(killed in enter sandmen)

Like, even on the case where the players manage to save the day and clear their name, it came from a player who is a captain soldier in House of Stone

and though im sure house laurent has 100000000% resources to create clones of their storied son, I feel like there's going to be mayor repercussions

said soldier promised that he is done with the KTB and its going to like leave ASAP

but still... Im trying to think the many ways it can come up

if they fail well its simple, more 'evidence' to use against them and pin the attack on them

but if there's any way of victory, i dont know...

[mild spindle]

My group (2 campaigns deep) has been finally hit by life 😭 and we wont be able to wrap up SOTW.

Which really sucks

Only 3 sessions in but havent ran for 2 months, been going weekly for a year+

Gonna call it at five sessions and cut the plot from the module, have the downtime school session and then a finale exam combat and call it.

Feels rough to take the L but you gotta accept it sometimes, better than not finishing

[cloud obsidian]

Depending on their relationship with Baronic Intelligence from previous, it's possible that they could help him go to ground given some of the recommended epilogue content. Given the nature of what happened and support from both them and the xenoglossary, this might not be as big of a narrative hole as you may think

The character is already intending to leave; it's very possible that this gets swept under the rug.

[crisp grotto]

Just ran my second session of Shadow of the Wolf.
The two House of Moment characters got on well with Kiriona, and one tried to have a 1 vs 1 cage fight with her in the central crossing during Pankrati Charge!

They got a draw in the fight. 6 rounds in and they're evenly matched. Somehow no mech on either side was destroyed and only a couple of structures were taken by each side.

[faint panther]

..... the fact that you recreated the map physically is so damn cool

[faint panther]

Also, will have to see

I do feel like part of what can come to be is that they twist it in some way as "oh it was totally unrelated to the house" or "nothing happened, what are you talking about"

but iunno

i want the moment to be slightly impactful because the other 3 players are flipping of "oh god oh fuck we are so screwed"

[quartz sentinel]

given the place you are in the story right now, you're fine for the moment. you can leave it hanging over them. He's not expected to show up during the final combats anyway

if you're intending on taking the story further, well you just got handed a juicy plot thread and a convenient excuse to abuse the mercenary template from now until the end of time as assassins show up at the most inconvenient moments possible

House Laurent spies and assassins coming after their friends and family members is a super convenient way to motivate them as well. Maybe a kidnapping to lure the PCs into an obvious trap. A new "friend" who works by their side for a mission later turns out to be a deep cover spy feeding intel back to House Laurent. A cold war starts between houses, and the PCs get pulled into intrigue and the sharp edge of baronic politics

(as if the KCC weren't bad enough)

[crisp grotto]

Thanks! There's also the added bonus of getting to describe how the dueling field was printed overnight, then using that as an excuse to justify why the terrain isn't painted yet.

[faint panther]

cool still dude

[faint panther]

Hm..... might leave it opened up for that. Whether we are continuing the campaign after finishing the module or not is still a 'maybe' due to some scheduling issues in the future and other personal stuff

Maybe a simple letter or message to the party that things aren't over as there's a blood debt to be paid

[opal chasm]

I ran a one shot to sell my players on Lancer where they’ve been playing through the Entrance Exam for the KCC. Been a lot of fun and I’m hoping after we wrap the one shot that has turned into two sessions that they want to dive into Shadow of the Wolf all the way.

[dark tusk]

Here's a question for the room: What is the difference responsibility wise between the Archchancellor Sigune and the Dean?

Like I kinda just treat Sigune as the disciplinarian/head admin for narrative economy sake

[rustic peak]

Yoink 🫳

[crisp grotto]

From what I understand of irl university positions, a Chancellor/Archchancellor is the governing head of the school, while a dean is normally a head of faculty. Kind of like a CEO and a Director in how one handles external affairs and oversight while the other manages the admin and day to day operations

Though it seems different in the KCC

[dark tusk]

Thanks !!

[rustic peak]

What kind of mini games/activities/etc have people done for the classes?

[dark tusk]

I did some on day one, as a syllabus primer of sorts
Tac Sim: A Relay Race. Teamwork building
Tech Syll: group skill check to assemble a hydraulic arm suite, mostly focused on drama to do teamwork
Noble Arts: This hit really really well: Flower Arranging. Everyone fucks off into the garden and puts together a flower arrangement. I came up with castor making a pithy example of 6 black roses set straight up, glued to the bottom in a shallow low rim bowl. Everyone has to come up with an arrangement so people picked some really evocative ones

[dark tusk]

I find it easier doing stuff for the humanities classes cause they are more qualitative rather than mechanical

[rustic peak]

Is it mean to introduce an NPC as Argo's betrothed, knowing fully that the NPCs are going to try and sleep with her? probably

Will that stop me? lol no

also, I want there to be some kind of intrigue about the Hecatoncheires but I'm not quite sure how to properly do it

Rawan's mission at the college is definitely going to be related, maybe with Aloysius trying to get his hands on it too

[glass prism]

In the base module, Argo and Praya are already engaged, so it's not too much of a stretch (many folks try to "fix" Praya as well).

[rustic peak]

Oh yeah they are

Oops

[dark tusk]

I am kind of doing this, the way I set it up:
Player wants to romance Kay-- Kay is working with BUC on reformatting Balor/Heca liturgicode and needs help from that player to figure it out faster than otherwise.
Aloysius got it from a friend connected to B.I. War Thunder leak style. The goal from B.I. is to use the leak to track people who get it from him. A player wants the chassis and bullied him to get it after they figured out he has it.
This same player wants to flip it to Rawan for cold hard cash and to benefit the movement.
If the tech becomes visible on campus or leaking out from campus it endangers Kay's research grant essentially.

The hope is that BI and BUC are having a dispute and the PCs become divyed up on those lines for those interests because of their own wants as players/IC

[weary mesa]

I firmly believe that shadow of the wolf is an Slice of Life school anime disguised with mecha

[dark tusk]

Look if the npcs didnt have so much to work with I wouldnt feel like I have to but every time I do something I see a little thread from one I can pull on and shit gets wacky

It's gonna be hard in mission 2 doing girl kissing shenanigans when everything becomes more somber and oppressive

[weary mesa]

That’s just season two

We got you in with a cute anime girls and mechs now it’s time to get you in the feels

Your love confession to senpai won’t be drowned out by fireworks it will be drowned out by the the drum of artillery fire

[cosmic blaze]

Preparing combat 7, my players might receive an unpleasant surprise after having defeated Ultra Veteran Argo

I'm expecting them to do fine considering they've only taken 1 structure and 1 stress damage so far. But the real surprise is gonna come when they'll ||have to fight another Ultra in combat 8. ||
They made the mistake of saying an Ultra Veteran Assassin with Silvershielding was too easy, now they're in for an Ultra gauntlet

[rustic peak]

One of my players is a Balor-piloting House of Dust noble who's making deals with everybody and anybody to try and slow down the destruction of Bo

I think there's definitely some intrigue to be had there

[willow frigate]

One of my players is from a battletech inspired noble house thats allied with Harrison armory and during the beat where Vivian and valentine do their prank before hounds teeth, the players caught them and challenged them to a duel because they thought the bombs where there to assassinate them

So the Harrison player won his duel and part of his description he says how he cuts valentine’s hand off, i told him thats gonna have consequences because it wasn’t a dueling scar like another player got when they dueled praya during beat 2

This incident obviously tanked their reputation with the twins and the consequence is gonna be giving praya and argo more ammo when they frame the players for the attack on hounds teeth.

[dark tusk]

Ooooh this is good definitely- are they getting close to imani? He could be a really good source for stuff here. Maybe give al some dismissive tone about the impact of the nanites and treat it like toys/basic munitions

[dark tusk]

how could they hurt the twins they can do no wrong ;_;

[rustic peak]

I'm not at my desk and I forget who/what Imani is

They haven't interacted much with Aloysius but he's definitely going to have his hands on the Hec

[dark tusk]

The tech syllabus head- their little blurb points out they did a bunch of nano-landscaping before pivoting to chassis work and they also can hand out the heca chassis as a reward

[rustic peak]

Ahhh ty

No they haven't really interacted much with the faculty yet

[clear nymph]

I'm using the Hec as a lure for my flash clone player. He thinks his original copy died to rogue terraforming nanites and he has a love/hate relationship with the tech. House of Stone is sponsoring him and using him as a bit of a catspaw, subtly encouraging him to dig deeper into BI in search of the Hec.

Little does he know I'm planning on springing his original self on them as an add on Lurker in the climax, piloting a Hec of course

[cosmic blaze]

My players got a surprising ally for combat 7
(they used durendal my brand on a hauler truck on their way to the college)

[dark tusk]

Kerchoo

i just noticed you already did the joke on the map, no notes

Please tell me the stat line you gave it i gotta know

[cosmic blaze]

And it has mule harness

so they can ride it

[dark tusk]

god damn right they can 🥹

[cosmic blaze]

help they're riding him into battle

I gave them control over the music bot and they're playing the cars soundtrack 😭

[placid nest]

LOL

[quartz sentinel]

this is easily the funniest way I've ever seen anyone use this bond power and I'm very here for it

[graceful turtle]

party charging into battle on this thing like the rohirrim charge from LOTR

https://tenor.com/view/carica-dei-rohirrim-ride-of-the-rohirrim-the-return-of-the-king-lotr-il-signore-degli-anelli-gif-3754848213522818025

[dark tusk]

Get your kicks // on route 66

[cosmic blaze]

A story in 3 images (the ram did 9 damage)

the poor ace:

https://tenor.com/view/truck-kun-truck-red-hair-truck-damage-truck-hit-gif-26198694

[graceful turtle]

https://tenor.com/view/funny-crowd-cheer-crazy-gif-23007018

[silver vault]

I Was A Karrakin Mech Pilot And Now I've Been Reincarnated In A Fantasy World, coming soon to the omninet 5017u

[graceful turtle]

the fantasy world is just Icon

[bold musk]

👆

[cosmic blaze]

Most normal parties adopt a random NPC
Mine adopted a random truck they hijacked

This guy got more attention in one session than some students did the entire campaign

[graceful turtle]

working class represent!

[cosmic blaze]

Another highlight of the same fight, the Atlas player kicked the Hound Missile into the rainmaker's face, without knowing it'd cause a Burst 1 explosion. They failed the Agility save and took 16 damage

The Rainmaker also failed the save and died though, so technically it's a win(?)

I made the Rainmaker size 2 precisely so they couldn't just kick them into the missile, but players will always find a way

[ember raven]

Anyone got good NPC portaits for the faculty that doesnt get em in the book?
additionally, anyone know where I could find the new Bonds in SotW in the 'playbook sheet' format like what comes with the Karrakin Guide?

[rancid coral]

i used a few random ones i liked. in order:
Lady Achilleia
Lady Diana
Dean-Commander Hebriyah
Lord Hesketh
Eligos

[willow frigate]

The recording of my players for beat 6

Gonna try and edit it YTP style to implicate them in beat 8

Warning im bri*ish

[ember raven]

Wow that is way different than I was imagining Achilliea but I dig it

[rustic peak]

Session 3 approaches, I've done zero prep. Truly, I have become a GM

[cosmic blaze]

Peak GMing is when you wing it and it works out better than if you had prepped it

[rustic peak]

I don't think I've quite reached that stage yet alas

[dark tusk]

Some of my favorite adventures I've ran are basically 3 clocks running independent of the PCs actions outside of "kissing" or "kicking up drama" and pure bullshitting the whole session

Glorious stuff

[carmine trench]

I'm going to be running my 6-player group at LL2 for mission 2, does anyone have particular balancing advice? Otherwise I will just sorta free-ball it. Half-new/half-returning players to LANCER.

So far I've just been flipping one of the most threatening non-elite enemies to elite and giving them a strong optional system from their list. They haven't lost any fights yet, but they were damn close to losing their final exam lol

[silver vault]

LL2 SotW isn't super balanced, because as much as the idea of doing it with non-GMS frames sounds fun, it's a real attrition grind of a module designed around having GMS level repairs and using every last one

[quartz sentinel]

It's not designed and tested for that level, but I don't expect it to cause any particular problems. you're more likely to have issues with build variance or new players not understanding how to play their mechs than attrition. At higher LLs your PCs have more tools, more resources, and straight up hit and crit more often with their shots, which should offset losing the (very powerful) GMS mechs

in testing we saw pretty significant variation in how groups performed that was primarily a result of dice luck coupled with the skill difference between players and GM, I would expect the variation caused by those factors to strongly outweigh any issues with having or not having replaceable parts

in a vacuum I'd say you're more likely to cause problems by running for six PCs, but based on how you've described mission 1 going it sounds like you're hitting the right notes

[carmine trench]

Okay, thank you for the input! I will keep these in mind.

[cloud obsidian]

my six player game is tending to kick my ass just based on action economy, and giving certain enemies some extra stuff to combat that really helps

And be careful in Enter Sandmen, a six player group especially with access to the sort of things that the module gives you like the Tagetes can absolutely handle just about everything that sitrep throws

Giving some appropriate abilities or templates like expanding who gets the Pirate template in that fight, or giving a few of them Spec Ops from Dustgrave, can really make all the difference without increasing complexity too much

[final frigate]

One of my players almost killed tomas for the second tim3 🤣

[dark tusk]

Whyyyyy

[rustic peak]

Tomas: I'm starting to think I shouldn't hang around with you people

Speaking of whom actually, seems like at least one of my PCs has fallen hard for Tomas

[final frigate]

She was piloting an enkidu frame during a training exercise and he didnt power down his mech quick enough after his side had surrendered + he was trying to help the other PCs stop one of his own team mates rampaging while having a ptsd episode

He was trying to be a good boi and paid for it.

[rustic peak]

Story of his life

[dark tusk]

Aww

I havent been able to do much with him as I've mostly made him sweet bur melancholic and bishie

Hoping he gets more time to shine Mission 2 where his pacificism means more

[final frigate]

At this point tomas has become the unofficial woobie of the campaign.

So much bad stuff happens to him and yet he keeps on trying to shyly smile.

[quartz sentinel]

Tomas deserves a hug at basically all times

[final frigate]

Tomas has also become an unintentional 4th love interest for one of the players to.

[dark tusk]

I had him get clowned on by nameless house of stone students after praya and argo started a stochastic bullying campaign during an appearance on Aloysius Flyte's podcast

And he wanted to date a (unknown to him) lesbian PC and had another player give her a poinsetta as a marker for courting which just lead to a Wildean miscommunication

[rustic peak]

Oh my god Aloysius absolutely would be a podcaster

[final frigate]

Ive styled him more on Jacob rees mogg, but if he was actually intelligent.

https://tenor.com/view/jrm-jacob-rees-mogg-gif-9144476

[final frigate]

Oh, oh no XD

[dark tusk]

I remember talking about it in here a couple months ago, I called it "Flyte of Fancy" it's like aristocratic NPR with some ben shapipo sprinkled in

[dark tusk]

Yeah she saved him with the other PCs from the bullies and they had a really awkward "I hope we can be friends" talk after cause the girl was made to feel like a fool and embarrassed for parading around a flower she thought was from a cute girl

[dark tusk]

One of my PCs is a street rat disguised as a student he killed prior to admittance and that student funded the podcast in secret like a russian oligarch funneling money to Tim Pool. Now he is putting his name down explicitly as executive producer and plans to have a wild ass personal guest spot to make it implode

[rustic peak]

Yoink

My players already don't like him because he was kinda rude to the definitely not Pyrrha Dve NPC

So this will be very nice

[graceful turtle]

"erm. let's say, hypothetically, that i were to get punched in the face by a mech," - 🤓

[cosmic blaze]

I'll send updates on lightning mcbaron as they happen
So far Lightning McBaron has finished off the Ace by crashing them into a wall

[cosmic blaze]

.

[graceful turtle]

Actual Lancer hall of fame moment

[cosmic blaze]

Lightning mcbaron is at half hp 😭

[graceful turtle]

https://tenor.com/view/interstellar-no-no-no-gif-15094791629266170630

[cosmic blaze]

Lightning mcbaron might be goated (-2 to hit him)

They're cooking something evil help

They used blinkspace tunneler to teleport the truck halfway through the map and into an enemy for 8 damage and 3 knockback

[dark tusk]

I cant wait to hear how it goes

[dark tusk]

When the sagarmatha connects after getting through the 50/50 invis with a tempest charged blade

[silver vault]

https://tenor.com/view/redline-takeshi-koike-anime-2009-jp-gif-17366830

this random truck driver barrelling through a hole in spacetime to ram a mech

[cosmic blaze]

The truck claims another life (the demolisher)

Lightning Mcbaron is on his final breath

The sentinel is going to go for the truck

they're doing their best with overwatches to stop her

HE'S ON 1 HP

My players did power at a cost to save it at the cost of 1 Structure damage, lightning mcbaron remains at 1 HP

Lignting Mcbaron gets one final kill with a crit before the combat ends
The truck claimed 3 lives

Truck-Kun survived with 1 HP

[silver vault]

https://tenor.com/view/wilson-fisk-wilson-fisk-daredevil-matt-murdock-gif-15184540641381798206

[graceful turtle]

https://tenor.com/view/michael-bay-credits-michael-bay-meme-credits-absolute-cinema-gif-8477607763834899187

[cosmic blaze]

The saga of lightning mcbaron will continue next week when they go to combat 8

[rustic peak]

https://tenor.com/view/cinema-gif-5935759059195122434

[quartz sentinel]

little did she know

[quartz sentinel]

also this is horrible and I hate you for making me see this man's face but I cannot deny you are 100% correct

[final frigate]

What can I say, i needed him to be extra punchable

[silver vault]

the random NPC flatbed driver better be part of the star wars medal ceremony if the truck survives combat 8

[cosmic blaze]

There's no driver in the truck, the players are controlling it remotely
Or it just goes on by itself when they don't do the action to assume control

The truck itself is getting the medal of honor

[dark tusk]

Okay egg Tomas is totally a thing in the back of my mind and I was thiiiiis tempted to go for it but we need some diversity.
Praya and Argo are totally toxic het t4t like The People's Joker couple

[north knot]

tomas is having his egg cracked in my game and it's been delightful. he has been writing poetry and painting gender envy vent art about one of the pcs that he is presently romantically entangled with (pc clocked him at the matriculation ball and immediately fell dangerously and obsessively in love with him and has been buying him clothes/complimenting him to chisel at that fucking egg)

[dark tusk]

"Get in the skirt tomas, or our PC is going to have to wear it again."

[rustic peak]

Fulfilling the prophecies set by all those trans shinji memes

[graceful turtle]

This is just making me picture a closeted transmasc PC who keeps getting sent fancy feminine clothes by their parents and they just offload it to Tomas reflexively like, "hey here's a gift" and Tomas doesn't catch onto the offloading and just thinks the PC's buying all of that just for her

Tomas is like "oh wow! they bought me a fancy dress!"

and the PC is like: "If I see one more dress I am literally going to castigate the enemies of the godhead"

[dark tusk]

Omfffgggg

[final frigate]

Inventing new Karrakian insults

'Shack' = derogatory term for a minor house, used to in place of the word 'house' when discussing one you despise
'Plum sucker' = someone who uses HA mechs, or is otherwise on good terms with them

'Shack of stone' is really funny to say to.

[dark tusk]

Ooooh I like Shack that's good

[pearl inlet]

Aloysius is like Tim pool bro istg 😭😭

[spice girder]

hey, is there an unofficial repository of enemy mech tokens for SotW? or for that matter an official repository im missing

[quartz sentinel]

There aren't any official tokens but there are at least two token sets that folks in the community have made

#1343359081284501604 message is one
#1340813037266796634 message is the other

Plus I've seen a bunch of others around, if you search for character names you'll probably find them

[spice girder]

thanks a ton!!!

[final frigate]

Getting into PBP play with my players between sessions, and I finally get to show off Praya again 😌

a snippet
She stepped in closer now, really close, so much so Hestia'd feel the broad womans chest against her own; she smelt like a bonfire, with the heat to match. "Their homogeny, their devotion to such predictable ideals...it is weakness. Our great weave of reeds has stood firm for eons, and will hold long after they are gone..." She said in a low, almost threatening tone. " The only thing worth copying is their willingness to throw legions of foreign blooded fodder into the front lines, rather than let spill a drop of noble blood."

[weary mesa]

What Should the Karrikan Calvary College’s sports teams be called?

[dark tusk]

The Thrones ?
The Chargers ?
The Bucks? (Like BUC) ?
The Sophisticates?

Could be ironic and make it very hoity toity

[quartz sentinel]

Bucks is a very solid one

[dark tusk]

Okay okay just for fun the hoity toity one:
The Polished League for Ennobled Esquires in Exemplary Touchball

Either way make their song "Fight Fiercely Harvard" the instrumental should be out there somewhere

[clear nymph]

Speaking of, I definitely see the BUC having a heraldic device of a stag with its antlers entwined by various flowers representing the major houses

[dark tusk]

Oh that FUCs so hard

[final frigate]

The current group of PCs I have are called 'Plum Squad' or 'The Plums' (owing to how 3 of them use HA mechs, and one of them served in the colonial legion)

I generally like the idea of (colour) + (symbol) for simple names, maybe specifically going for the passions, but if you want something a little more standout, could be worth looking into different words used to reference 'nobles' across different languages.

Plum Squad are just...such goobers though.

I love these mal-adjusted sad lesbians, and the toxic ace.

the toxic ace really ties everything together.

[willow frigate]

threw something together for beat 9 for my players.

just noticed a spelling mistake god damn it

[pearl inlet]

Wait a min I see what you did there 😭

[pearl inlet]

Would you be open to what you end up presenting in the newsfeed? cuz I kinda got hooked on, thoughg I was reading the news headlines for a moment. You wrote them well!

[final frigate]

I wonder how a campaign would go if different players had to pick one of the students to play as, rather than make their own....

[willow frigate]

ok so context behind each one

HA diplomats: general news feed from event in story
Vivian and valentine: Players challenged them to a duel after their prank and decided to chop one of their hands off and post a and i quote "eggman style diss video" on the omninet about them. Argo decided it would be excellent cover to frame the players for their murder using infoskin to mask his face
House Virek: Player is a noble under the house of stone and thats his house
Riots on karakis: Player decided to try and circumvent the Intelligence Bureau by spreading rumors of the attack in dive bars
Bunker: Bit of lore
Praya + argo: the actual meat of the beat
IPS-N: Player who tried to circumvent the bureau also planted listening devices on campus, which i imagine would soon be discovered when security ramped up
house of dust: Another player is a member of the house of dust
Martial law: Pretty self explanatory
Stonelord: In my head cannon of SoW the stonelord knows praya has a plan but doesn't know what, hes just doing whatever praya asks, he's kind of willingly negligent

heres an early draft i had

[graceful turtle]

"Moist Class NHP"

https://tenor.com/view/me-atrapaste-es-cine-its-cinema-cinema-esto-es-cine-gif-17729711691959966457

[mild spindle]

Da big one

Im evil and replaced Iphianassa (who nobody likes) with Kay (love interest)

[final frigate]

You are da good evil.

[cloud obsidian]

To make it a challenge for my oversized play group, I added all the extra teachers.

I should've added Kiriona; our ex-Harrison seccomm era human weapon's love interest

"Harrison" y'know cause harrison didn't exist until after seccomm but you know what I mean

[mild spindle]

I violently killed Kiriona on cam to sell the dire straights 💀 💀 bc they found her funny

Im gonna have a backup clone show up and be rlly uncomfy

I added a ronin bc Im evil. Stunned the person rescuing Imani. Currently watching the worlds most desperate stabalize

first time Ive ever seen the jump rules used

theyh did it!

all three rescued!

I amped out the encounter a bit for these bitches aswell

bc I knew they needed it

[final frigate]

My group is flocking to Tomas, and we may have a tomas centric episode this week!

Its all coming up tomas!

[mild spindle]

https://tenor.com/view/evil-are-we-the-baddies-surprised-gif-19176339

the end of session 5

[quartz sentinel]

One of my favourite things about this combat is how often it forces players to reach deep into their bag of tricks

[rustic peak]

https://tenor.com/view/minor-spelling-mistake-ffxiv-final-fantasy-xiv-final-fantasy-14-ff14-gif-10167608605026655705

But fr, this rules and I'm gonna have to find a way to steal it

I wonder if anyone has done a mockup of a scifi newsletter in latex or sth

[opal chasm]

How’d you get to play in Compcon?

[willow frigate]

edited compcon using inspect elements to change the text

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1j2W5dIqjb0B3XL700RN1rEmpq653ZtwWQxjqyiUJQJ4/edit?tab=t.0

heres my noted btw on what each of the new stories mean

[cosmic blaze]

So I've found myself in a bit of a pickle for combat 8A
My party (LL3) has an Atlas with Blinkspace Tunneler, meaning they're able to go to the bomb on the first round thanks to Jager Kunst and teleport the rest of the party with them. I think only 1 player has triggers that would actually help with disarming the bomb though (+6 hack or fix), none of the others have useful triggers
I'm currently trying to decide whether to change stuff about the combat to have players defuse the bomb around round 3-4, or if its fine as is
Currently the detonation clock has 0 segments too so they won't be in a hurry

I basically don't want to run into a situation where they defuse the bomb in 2 rounds, we've already had a combat that ended in 1 round because of jager kunst + blinkspace tunneler and I don't want a repeat of that in the last combat lol

[mild spindle]

one thing Im rlly looking forward to doing in the coming sessions thats got me really pumped and I set up at the end of the last was having everyone the players know fall atleast a little bit into being some variation of horrible space reactionary

save like the two republicans

[ember raven]

So here's a fun question/prompt. Help me think of what sort of spin the RKF would put on a couple mechs in preparation for what the group im GMing will likely pick at LL2:
First up:Tortuga

(Partly because I want to give them off-license weapons/systems that would reflect that as exotic gear somewhere in there)

So, what might the vibe of a Karrakinized Tortuga be?

[dark tusk]

Is this aesthetics or like the Orchis as like partial re-imaginings of mechanics for a frame? Or like stuff you could put in this from other licenses to cherry pick and give a more distinct identity

My instinct is maybe lazy but think about the Twins sentinels sans the teleport- what vibe do they have?

[ember raven]

Stuff from other licenses. He's essentially building 'Good Guy Praya'

But also aesthetically.

(See the Twins strike me more as Fancy Raleighs)

[dense pendant]

Combat 4 completed, and the Gang is traumatized. 2/3 faculty saved.

• My artillery (HCP + Siege Stabs) player could do absolutely nothing for anyone, and almost never rolled above a 5 for any attack roll
• My Hecatoncheires player extracted Iphianassa quickly and efficiently, but stayed for a few rounds before realizing he couldn't do anything more to help
• My sniper player slowly and desparately dragged Castor back, and was only able to extract him on the last round thanks to an AMR crit + fusion hemorrhage, which took out the rest of the contesting Pyro's HP exactly
• Rawan managed to get a mean crit on a solo Hive, so... he got deleted. Unfortunately, she needed to extract right after
• My melee fighter had to leave Imani behind AFTER destroying the last contesting Pyro, since there simply Wasn't Enough Time. She is using that for narrative fuel for taking the Orchis.
  All the while I keep plinking them with lasers. Good Fun!

[faint panther]

So.... Im prepping for the final fight

im doing Ballroom Blitz

[final frigate]

Meme regarding Tomas from my game

[faint panther]

I was trying to think how to roleplay praya in this scenario where the deck is stacked on her favor and.......

https://youtu.be/BKx1oGw0IRM?si=10D_bBBUbgqUf5Us&t=1189 mid bike I realized Gabriel is the vibe. Memes included

[final frigate]

When in doubt, brag and gloat. Less gabriel angel, more 'mask off'? Like, she can drop all noble decorum and pretenses and just really be the bitch she is under all that.

[faint panther]

oh no i know but i still find it hilarious that if she gets taunted with "she has daddy issues" she would 1000000000000% go and

NO I DON'T

IM DADDY'S SPECIAL FUCKING GIRL

[final frigate]

yeeeeessssss

[faint panther]

Like, I will make her a bully that is so glad that the players were absolute suckers on biting the baits left and right (plus two players are MAD hurt)

but I do feel like she'd go some "holier than thou" shit of "the fates smile upon me"

(not a literal quote, just an example)

[willow frigate]

i got a house of stone player in my group so i imagine any "mask off" situation would just end up like this

[faint panther]

y u p same actually

[faint panther]

its kind of why I want to go with this because its "THIS IS WHAT OUR HOUSE DOES, AND IT WORKS. ITS WORKING. THE WHEEL KEEPS TURNING. AND YOU CAN'T STOP DIS"

[willow frigate]

"WHY DID YOU MAKE ME DO THIS"

"YOUR FIGHTING TO KEEP THE HOUSE OF STONE AWAY FROM ITS RIGHTFUL PLACE ON THE COUNCIL"

"EVERY HOUR WE WAIT, THE ENEMYS OF KHAYRADIN GROW STRONGER AND STRONGER"

[faint panther]

"You wanna die for this college?! Fine! What's 500 years? House of Stone can always build again. Make another college!"

[willow frigate]

"i do love argo, hes more like a tool to me, a means to an end"

[rustic peak]

In my game Argo is also saying this lmao

[willow frigate]

argo and praya both view the other as the disposable pawn in the relationship

[final frigate]

Ive been having fun with them actually loving each other, in their own fucked up way.

Players were amazed to learn they share a bed willingly

[willow frigate]

i did that where they danced together at the Cadenze de l’ Pavilios.

then i realized part way through praya's titan is size 3 and argo's sandman is half size

what did the author mean by this

[final frigate]

Look, argo is a short king.

https://tenor.com/view/motomoto-gif-24380022

this, but he's 5'1.

(praya is 6'2.)

[willow frigate]

omg it them

[quartz sentinel]

god I love this. excellent drama

[quartz sentinel]

🤐

[willow frigate]

oh damn it her

[rustic peak]

do you by any chance have examples of the legit pro-Sanjak To You Above letters? trying to write my own but not gettingt anywhere 😅

[rustic peak]

does anyone know where to find the hot spaghetti png? I know I've seen it somewhere here and I thought I had saved it but I can't find it

[cloud obsidian]

The way I played it, any large size difference between mechs was used for fancy probably-too-dangerous acrobatics in order to show up others

[empty flame]

Putting a friendly NPC from a player's backstory in as reinforcements for a fight just to take a crack at maybe killing him : )

[willow frigate]

Argo busting it down hard in the palm of prayas hand

[cloud obsidian]

Exactly; or throwing him around like a baton in a baton twirl, or even a fire staff

if you want to be heavyhanded, imply that he's being used as an instrument

[dark tusk]

Look Praya and Argo are toxic het T4T, like in the people's joker

Okay okay I'm running the cadenza in a couple weeks and I am so hype for everyone's picks.

Kay and one of my players are going together, and the pc just had to confess because of blackmail their friendship started out of political needs from her family to improve their business position and they hugged it out in the stable and cried a bunch.

Kir and Elsa clearly are into each other but Kir is messy and a total slut which doesnt vibe with Elsa's public image so they've stayed star crossed lovers at a distance. One of my players has been getting close to Elsa and wants to ask her out and is giving Kir the chance to make the move before hand as a matter of grace. BUT this same player got a damn drink with the party and I had her black out to forget the night and wake up in Kiriona's bed (with the players consent) so that's going to bubble up in some small off hand exchange during the dance that Elsa will see right through and realize that either her date or sole confidant banged her crush. So she is just going to feel manipulated and betrayed because the PC knew Elsa liked Kir before they slept together. The PC didnt have bad intentions she just didnt think about this yet and it just destroys Elsa. I'll probably hint at it the session before hand when everyone goes out and gets their outfits ready and just be like, "I trust you so much and you inspired me to be bold and reach for happiness rather than image. I know you would never go behind my back or hide something from me because you and you alone know how much Kiriona means to me" But at that point if she doesnt get it ya know.

Two of my PCs are going together purely transactionally. One wants genetic data from another PC to sate the suspicion of her sponsor over the other PCs identity and the other PC is getting paid the big bucks if she gives blood, hair, kisses, etc and is in a massive pile of debt after pankrati gambling went horribly wrong.

[faint panther]

I absolutely love this

but yeah we can all agree indeed

https://tenor.com/view/they-were-roommates-ohmygod-ohmygod-they-were-roommates-gif-13171811792749378048

[faint panther]

Almost did that myself just now

I just finished my campaign and

these were my notes mid sess

like

when I mean horrible rolls i mean

• praya missing 6 ATTACKS ON A ROW

• Two players, one lycan with Blow Something Up +4 and one Goblin with manipulators and Hack or Fix +2 (PLUS "Do It Myself" bond power), failing 4 out of 7 checks they did together (added an effect on Praya that if they were hit by Crush systems, they'd also have +3 difficulty on checks)

they started the whole combat with +3 on the Countdown clock

it took the literal LAST ROUND

[faint panther]

forgot to add unto notes then but

• Praya got not implicated with the attack but did get a lot of press with it and half cut from the family but in the "you are too hot to defend right now, so, peace"
• Argo was in an "accident" at "practice" where "there was a serious malfunction", "entirely away from all this conflict" (since he was the LITERAL ONLY DEATH IN COMBAT 7) and thus has a gene copy currently recovering from the event

[final frigate]

My players gave Tomas a series of mechsploitation novels to read and study in order to help him understand why the Enkidu pilot, who tried to kill him earlier that same day, couldn't stop herself easily 😅

[rancid coral]

did one of your players use that wolf power against argo? Would have been very apropos

[deft pine]

what application do you use to have this look? seems interesting

[graceful turtle]

mechsploitation is fucking hilarious lmao 💀

[final frigate]

I'd post the blurb of the fictional novel, but....it might be a tad saucey 😅

[final frigate]

And now one of the players wants to seduce Argo and ruin his marriage...

My group are goblins

[dark tusk]

Slowly pivoting your campaign to girlframe...

[faint panther]

no, actually

[faint panther]

Its Obsidian! I cant recall the theme just yet but I think I posted it here somewhere

alongside a way to add relationship clocks to notes

[faint panther]

well, one of my players who was secretely a house of sand operative half working with argo (not really but by M2 they cooperated and collaborated)

and every moment where the two were alone and the party found them, the reaction was

and i shit you not

something about sitting on trees and k i s s i n g

[graceful turtle]

l a n c i n g

[faint panther]

#gm-corner message found it (the relationship clock thing)

WY Console is the name of the theme

[final frigate]

*rapidly transitioning

[final frigate]

Oh damn, ive also got a house sand operative who is under argos thumb 😅

She is the enkidu mechsploitation pilot though.

[faint panther]

Lmao

[rustic peak]

session 4 approaches. time to beat up kiriona

[final frigate]

Quote from one of my players to tomas.

"Paint me like one of your Arrudyian girls"

No context shall be provided.

[rustic peak]

no context is needed

[dark tusk]

Okay okay question: I'm trying to figure out stable characterization for Praya. Most of the scenes I've done with her involve her acting like a bully or being petulant but she hasnt been super involved.

Blamed one of her lackies for tripping Kay during tech lab, doing a podcast appearance decrying parasites and low values creeping into the campus, bullying a player character during a spar before a pankrati tournament pointing out that "you should give up and accept your place" and after she lost to that pc during the tournament, throwing her helmet to the ground and trying to stab them through the visor with a great sword held back a milimeter by the containment field while calling it a fluke and a trick.

Like I see the bubbling rage and entitlement but most of her dialogue has felt simple when I put her in practice. Derisive, aggressive, sure, but I don't have a sense for what she would say to the PCs now that she sees them not just as nuisances but actual threats or in the case of our House of Sand disguised PC, a "peer". (especially assuming they make it through the exams.)

She's always on offence but I dont know what inner world to tease out or how

I have ideas: During the cadenza the stone lord will be there and put her on blast in front of the assembly, saying she has done nothing worthy of being proud of to get her to cry and run off because her father is also a massive bully and a petty tyrant

And so like she's fueled by resentment and crippling insecurity, but like- talking about history and lineage and her sense of self in that just isnt clear for me when it feels so critical for the self image she holds herself to. Given she feels like she should be the best and has a station for it I dont know how to construe her as someone striving when she feels already better than everyone else, even if she has been taking down a peg every single time ya know?

[north knot]

how I've characterized her is that she's doing all of that out of boredom, a "might makes right" mindset, and because she's a narcissist who earnestly believes that all of the other students in her cohort are peers in name alone. nobody else at the college can claim the kind of power and connections she has; namely that her father is all but guaranteed to be the next prime baron and that she believes she is prophesied to be a great person in Karrakin history. I kind of view her "turning the wheel" out of reactionary fervor and because her politics and upbringing have informed the worldview that everyone else but Khayradin and Stone are too soft and something has to be done.

in plainer terms, she's a narcissistic fascist who's lashing out and "setting things right" out of a sort of paternalistic sense of duty because nobody else is fit to do it in her eyes.

[dark tusk]

Okay the idea of living up to an image of prophecy of sorts works for me as a metaphor- no matter the setback or immediate betrayal of her image in her eyes the long arc of history bends according to her ends, and every point of failure and opposition doesnt just reinforce the necessity of her action, but the inevitability of her victory after the resentment washes through her.

[north knot]

yeah exactly

this section here makes me think that she and Argo received a reading before being sent to the college and settled upon enacting this plan fairly far in advance

but that's my head canon

perhaps they received a reading that was more favorable to their worldview, or simply a vague "you will play a significant role in future events" type of reading that galvanized them to put these plans into motion

[dark tusk]

I'm thinking I should give her more historical quotations for characterization. She seems like a history nerd preoccupied with legacies but with a bias-- trying to read the wreckage of the past like tea leaves for proof of the story she wants to tell: Force and resistance will bear fruit like it did when the federation was formed and the Khayradin were brought in but not "assimilated" because they held out against impossible odds because the enemy is simultaneously incredibly strong and shockingly weak. She uses that for her own sense of failure, the conditions on Free Sanjak/Ludra, w/e.

Maybe make her kind of superstitious in that vein because everything is a sign of weakness or strength mirrored back to her as she is the center of the universe.

She might not even care one way or the other about the Ordos Xeno because history itself repeats the same cycle and the seers have gotten it wrong before- so her superstitions are much more literal and simple. Who is where, what symbols are present, cascading events for better and worse.

I have time to tease this out still because she's mostly been reinforcing "I am unlikable" and the scope of the plot wont hit home politically until after the exams, for now she's been in the background as a kind of schoolyard bully

[rustic peak]

Combat #2 over. Took a total of 4 structure off my players, mostly from Hedros but one (and a half) from kiriona cornering the Kobold alone in one of the victory points

Elsa rolled like absolute dogshit for her recharges but did manage to help Hedros stay alive
Kay managed to pin down the Nelson, and the Deluge NPC who replaced the twins did a good job keeping the Gilgamesh pinned down

[final frigate]

So, finished session 13 tonight, pretty decent all things considered, but we ended up finishing it by rolling on the 'goblin with a fat ass' ass table for some PCs and NPCs.

The person with a 7 was ||Argo Laurent.||

On a more serious note, had a great beat today regarding the clone of a famous KTB hero coming to terms with what her original was like, and for the first time being disgusted with what she learned.

Finding out that another student, who fought alongside the original during the initial boundry garden conflict at the blink gate before it exploded, was dating her while she was his commanding officer, and that their relationship was, quote "wild, intense, amazing and something I deeply regret", has really changed her opinion on her original in ways she can't quite square away with the image of her portrayed by her family and culture at large.

[quartz sentinel]

that's fantastic, people's relationships to the figures they're cloned from is such fertile ground for storytelling

[final frigate]

Mhm. Legacy is a cornerstone of my campaigns themes, and the arc of Sybill Arint dealing with the legacy left behind, and placed upon her by those who knew her original, but not who she was in her totality, has been really fun.

You have Sybill Arint the first, the blink warden, Martyr of the boundry conflict, who died to buy time for people to escape through the gate before the station exploded.

The clone was made because one of her mothers wanted their daughter back, the other mother (yes she has two moms) wanted to regain the heir she lost and have the second one match the accomplishments of the first. The arch chancellor of the college was the one to sponsor the original to, and the way she clearly has some level of favouritism towards sybill #2 is an uncomfortable but interesting element

Hell, the NPC who dated her original is the only one making a conscious effort to treat her like someone else, and that's an oddity, an outlier, not the norm.

its great!

[rancid coral]

oh, that's a cool read on it! i never figured the idea of them being religious in that way but it totally makes sense

[faint panther]

I had a similar idea with all the talk of religion and Pasacaglia

Like.... Its not much that Stone and Sand = zealots, but they are Hagiographic. At the very least they find religious texts and ideas as something critical to their culture/way of operating. Have it reinforce their ways rather than be the cause of their actions.

If I already think of myself as the hottest shit out there and I get even the slightest of confirmation or reinforcement from a sacred reading of Bonds or religious texts, I am sure I'd have an even more massive ego

Praya and Argo, to me, are egocentrics that have some degree of "right to be" because of skills, cunning, and heritage... But above all, there's this grand sense of purpose within them. They are cruel people, yes, but they 10000000% believe to their core that this cruelty is what makes the empire of Sand and Stone stronger, if not Karrakin empire itself

[faint panther]

Also.... this is actually fascinating

I wanted to push college stuff with my groups but it worked very lightly on both sides

specially with Kiriona and the idea of cloning but alas, my players werent super interested on the lesbians

the Entities™ known as the Primors, however

[final frigate]

Kirionia I just have pop up now and again. She's at peace, in her element, ignorant to the implications of her own existence.

Like you could ask her and she'd give you a quick and half thought out answer, but if asked to really consider it, the girl'd have a mental breakdown.

"Of course im at the college, not just cos im moulins clone, but because im great!"

"Kirionia, this is the only time in the colleges history only one of her clones has attended in any given year. On average there are five of them."

"Im gonna have existential thoughts about that."

My group also hate the primors, and with good reason XD

[dark tusk]

God I love the primors so much rping them is so much fun. I've had them play bully one of my PCs but is now in ludicrous debt to them after some uncut gems shit.

Everyone thought they were quirky and a little fun/annoying because they would make puns and
Talk in half / sentences that each other would / pick up / put down / and spread like rumor. Then they blackmailed one of my PCs over her choice of prom date threatening to destroy the relationship because of political implications in the bathroom of a dive bar and they immediately realized they are quirky threats.

[dark tusk]

Yeah I mostly have Kiriona be confident and slutty and plan in mission 2 penetrating more into her psyche where flirting is a clear coping mechanism because otherwise she has to be vulnerable and she can't do that.

[cloud obsidian]

I ended up playing Kiriona as vulnerable from the jump because her existence was put into contrast by her future love interest; the ex-Harrison Enkidu Expendable Flesh Puppet

[cloud obsidian]

I read her as Real™ enough to immediately be like "This person's experience is infinitely worse than mine, yet is fundamentally similar in ways that challenge my sense of self, I want to get to know them" and so she did, I edited her intro to being more about courting that player's interest (initially unsuccessfully)) than messing around with elsa zoeva

[final frigate]

Elsa has been a weird NPC for me.

She is just...generally a good person who has her own baggage and problems but generally has her life together.

There's nothing too noteworthy about her beyond the fact she is the single most functional student on the college campus who just has a tense relationship with her mom, who did not sponsor her to be there.

I've never really done much with her, because her simply being there, acting as a pillar of relatively positive energy, tempered by training, talent and effort, does a lot for any scene she's in.

As opposed to almost everyone else, who has problems

If anything it helps sell her genuine competency.

[cosmic blaze]

Lightning McBaron update: The truck rammed Praya, critting on 3d6 damage and dealing 18 kinetic on the first round

[final frigate]

lets fucking gooooo

[cosmic blaze]

The truck lowkey solos

[cosmic blaze]

one of my players made power at a cost to save the truck

in exchange for taking 2D6+10 DAMAGE

idk why they're like this