Six Kingdoms: Rebirth -- Out Of Character Topic
skrooc
Okay, so now that BattleBots Metru Nui edition is a thing... Place your bets?
My money's on Kilo.
You know it’s funny, at the start of SKR I said that the sheer amount of deaths at the end of SKE had traumatized Kanohi to the point he might try to shield others with his own body to prevent more deaths. And now months later, Chekhov’s Gun might just fire for the sake of some robots.
Are you implying that robots don't have equal rights? Of course a Matoran would say that, further League justification.
Possibly related, Kanohi has been hit by the classic case of “are we the baddies?”
Hey all, I'm working on collecting the possible "regional effects" for hexes so that we can have them all in a single place. Please submit ideas in OOC topic or let me know if I missed one already!
Radiation Poisoning: characters in the area suffer radiation damage and begin to die. They must seek immediate medical attention upon leaving area of effect.
Rainfall: the region is flooded with torrential rain, swelling rivers, washing away homes, and generally causing a bad time for those stuck in the area. Characters in the area must seek high ground or learn to swim.
Shadow blight: all characters in an area affected by shadow blight are unable to summon their elements.
Given that the volcano just erupted, wouldn't gaseous plumes/magma floes be a feature in that area?
Volcanic activity is a great idea!
What comes to mind off the top of my head are:
Acid Hurricane
Acid Rainfall
Perpetual Sandstorm
Dry Spell: Desert tile is too hot to function naturally, killing off Rahi and causing constant "ticks of damage" to players or something.
Dazzling Light: Light has become unhinged and there are no shadows in the tile. Eyes become strained and brains can't function normally without seeing shadows.
Poisonous Insect Infestation
Gravity Storm: Gravity is unhinged in the tile.
Time Storm: visions of the past haunt the tile. Potentially physically.
Spore Cloud: dangerous spores from the Fau Swamp clump together in dangerous clouds that spread over the tile like mist.
Psionic/matter Storm: Imaginations become real in the tile, but seek to kill their creators.
Ice Age: Tile experiences severe freezing and dangerous ice sheets start moving in.
Superior Lifeform: a mutation causes pure organic lifeforms to emerge from Rahi in the tile. They seek to destroy all machinery they see, including players.
Mr. Aspect's Wild Ride: space is warped in the tile, causing the land to rearrange itself through teleportation periodically, and bringing players along with it.
That's all I got for now in the spur of the moment. I'm sure I can think of more if we need them.
Some more suggestions.
Sand Pits: These dunes are home to various hidden tunnels and caverns inhabited by Shagrak Spawn and Mesi, be careful to not be caught in the sand pits and trapped within these dark domains.
Malevolent Spirits: The region is haunted by the spirits of the loss. This leads to the whole area being incredibly unsettling, empty of most rahi, and filled with ominous and sinister sounds and sensation. Shallow scratches, distant wailing, muffled groans, odd bruises, and dark and at times, very revealing, whispers.
War Torn: A battle is or has brewed recently within the area, picked corpses, scrapped vehicles, and slaughtered rahi surround the region. In addition, the odds of fighting those involved in such conflicts is a likelihood and should be something to watch out for.
Protodermis Plagues: Droves of Untethered lurk throughout the area, consuming and assimilating all those they find. Semi-fluid corpses can be found throughout the region. Pools of toxic protodermis pool within the region and the terrain itself seems warped by their presence.
Question: For those characters who are desecrated and use ACRs, can they use their Kraata powers on or through their ACR.
For me, the specific question is, with my Kraata of Stasis, can I use the level one feature (Able to project a stasis field that protects it from any physical harm but freezes it in place.) On my ACR or does it just affect me inside of the ACR?
And, for the level two feature (Can briefly freeze small creatures in stasis through physical contact.) Does making contact with my ACR count or does it have to be with my character?
OOC: @Unreliable Narrator
@Sparticus147, thanks for the question! Below is how the rules for Advanced Combat Rigs (ACRs) treat elemental powers from the rules:
I see how kraata powers are kind of a grey area, so it's great you brought this up. I believe a kraata is imbuing the PC with a form of elemental or ability power as opposed to providing a breed quirk, and therefore the power does not extend to the ACR. However, I or Vezok's Friend would be happy to look into approving some sort of custom ACR modification after your ACR visited a garage that swapped out one of the current weapon systems for some technological doodad that allows kraata powers to be utilized by the ACR.
Hope this helps!
From The Desk:
A good week! I've been noticing a lot more narrative and social role playing that's exploring more and more of the game themes, and that's really cool to see! I also love watching you all create these really cool plots to slowly advance your villages and increase the overall chance of survival!
Weekly Recap 8/10 - 8/16:
Favorite Moment of the Week:
Okay, I'm loving, LOVING, the overall shift going on where you are all beginning to explore the emotions of your characters and the various social structures that existed in SKE. I know those aren't easy topics, and it's really beautiful to watch differing character perspectives begin to come to a consensus (in the case of Metru-Koro) or for characters to show what they prioritize and why (in the case of Le-Metru Nuva).
My favorite things are threefold this last week.
Everything recently with Kilo. Axonn's transformation. And then Korruhn's transformation and subsequent experience.
Oh, and I just remembered. There was a great Leklo post in there too. So, four things.
On 7/19/2020 at 6:13 AM, Vezok's Friend said:FYI: I am hoping to wrap this fight up within the next 2-3 days, so we can get to the really giant monsters and other fun stuff
[one month later...]
On 6/19/2020 at 10:58 AM, EmperorWhenua said:The king is dead. Long live the king.
You do this to me on the day I'm working 13 hours and am powerless to respond?
How cunning.
18 hours ago, EmperorWhenua said:
[one month later...]
The operative word was 'hoping'.
I'm "hoping" to have time to read this week :p
Ouch. They better be paying you a lot, because from my viewpoint, you deserve it.
Hmmm... or maybe I hope you have a horrible work ethic and they cut your work hours so you have more time for SKR??? 
Caught up on reading! As always, blown away by how fast pages fly... 104 already?!
EDIT:
Ehlek has left the Chat.
The Rig has left the Chat.
I think I caught up on all interaction requests. If I missed something, please let me know!
Greetings, everyone.
Nato and I have a question to ask you all.
As many of you probably know, Sidra and Viltia have been learning how to forge Kanoka in Le-Metru Nuva. The process so far has been slow and really detailed. To realistically get our characters to the point we want them (where they essentially know everything important about Kanoka and Kanohi forging along with the skill that goes along with that), we would probably spend the rest of SKR and potentially a large chunk of SK3 writing it all out.
Our question is thus:
Would everyone be okay with Nato and I jamming out a post where an unspecified amount of days go by that describes Sidra and Viltia learning what they need to progress?
We are specifically asking @EmperorWhenua and @Crimson Jester, as their characters are in direct competition with Sidra in trying to acquire a great disc, and this time skip would give Sidra a huge time advantage over them.
Thank you for your input.
It seems fair to me. You two have already put an incredible amount of thought and effort into the process, so I think Sidra and Viltia should be allowed to progress. You've already written thousands of words describing their frustrations and successes. It's far more work than anyone else has put into acquiring Great Disks.
Obviously, it's up to the GMs. But I, for one, wouldn't be upset if you jammed out a post that brings them to a reasonable level of skill in Kanoka forging. Of course, they shouldn't suddenly be masters who can whip up a Great Disk in ten minutes. But bringing them to the level of decently skilled crafters who know what they're doing? Sounds good to me. 
Hey DM, minor question.
What would happen if a Av-being got desecrated? Like a Av-Toa or a Av-Skakdi?
OOC: @Unreliable Narrator
Sounds like something to try and find out 
Also, anyone else having issues viewing pages on BZP? I can barely load the site. Most of the time I get a cloud flare error or a network time out... Down for maintenance?
On 8/21/2020 at 8:39 PM, Kal the Guardian said:We are specifically asking @EmperorWhenua and @Crimson Jester, as their characters are in direct competition with Sidra in trying to acquire a great disc, and this time skip would give Sidra a huge time advantage over them.
Thanks for asking, I genuinely appreciate you asking for input from myself and CJ and the community as a whole.
I'm fine with the quest to forge masks, A-Ok with that actually, but I personally disagree with the use of a timeskip.
The thing with timeskips is that they wreck any sense of continuity other players create with longform storytelling. Should they be able to have great disks through forging? Sure, with time and effort applied. But putting them chronoligcally weeks ahead of the rest of the game while we still have characters who have played every waking moment for what is IC just a long weekend, and then place them on equivalent progressions, is not good use of a storytelling device. Timeskips should be used only when the narrative demands it, not when it is convenient or as a means to "make things fair." That would seem like the case if it was employed here.
Processing the skill and data necessary to create a great disc is no small feat whatsoever, and it does seem oversimplified to expedite the process weeks into the fitter when the majority of the characters in the game have been active for what essentially amounts to a long weekend of struggles. BZTime is a thing, yes, but you can only bend it so far before it looks exactly like an asspull to put you on even footing with characters who have put time and effort into where they're at presently—and y'all already saw me dissent to Okuo's shenanigans, for an example.
That's my perspective, feel free to discuss.
On 8/22/2020 at 2:54 PM, Eyru said:Obviously, it's up to the GMs.
On this point, I think it's worth clarifying that we already went to the GMs first.
Kughii didn't specifically object to the prospect of a timeskip, but recommended we reach out to the players we were concerned about possibly offending/overtaking with this before we went and did anything. We felt it would be better to open the question to the community as a whole, since other players investigating the temples will probably be running into a similar problem of how to learn disk-crafting in a reasonable timeframe.
1 hour ago, EmperorWhenua said:The thing with timeskips is that they wreck any sense of continuity other players create with longform storytelling.
I wholeheartedly agree with this. As much as I've enjoyed Viltia and Sidra's adventures and lessons together, I have felt like we've been moving too quickly compared to the rest of the game. By my estimate, we're possibly already 3-4 days ahead of everyone else, simply because there's only two players involved and we're pretty much independent on the rest of the game at the moment, allowing us to get more done, more quickly.
Personally, I think that jamming out the rest of our disk-crafting lessons over a vague, unspecified timeframe will be less damaging to the overall timeline of the game than us continuing to burn through an in-game day every few IRL ones to the point where we're explicitly several weeks ahead of the rest of the playerbase. I want to figure out disk-forging legitimately, and earn the Nuva reward, but at the same time I don't want to spend the rest of this game and a chunk of the next doing it, or force this character into hibernation until the next game so I can say enough time has passed for her to have learned the skill.
1 hour ago, EmperorWhenua said:BZTime is a thing, yes, but you can only bend it so far before it looks exactly like an asspull to put you on even footing with characters who have put time and effort into where they're at presently—and y'all already saw me dissent to Okuo's shenanigans, for an example.
And that sort of thing is a big part of why I thought it would be best for the game community to discuss this openly.
Viltia and Sidra are sort of the trailblazers right now, but I doubt they'll be the only characters in this position, whether it's in this game or the next. (Kughii has said the Nuva puzzles will carry over into SK3). Aside from a single character who's managed to get their hands on the original Great Disks through a one-off time travel adventure, every character who wants to get into one of the Nuva chambers will have to go through the process of learning to create one for themselves, which should realistically take far longer than in-game time will ever allow.
I'd like to figure out a way to make this work that everyone will be happy with, not just for Sidra, but for other future characters who need to create Great Disks to get into the puzzle rooms. Short of specifically creating new characters who are conveniently master forgers, I don't see any other way for this to be doable without bending time a bit.
Omg the website loads!!
Please VOTE in the survey linked below for whether or not YOU want to see SKR extended. The pandemic continuing and the recent website issues have definitely eaten a portion of the allotted game time. In response, we want to know if YOU want more time in this game before SK3?
An extension may allow more time for Disk stuff, just saying.
It has now been a week since I posed the question of a Sidra and Viltia timeskip. BZPower was dead for most of that week, so we won't be making any decisions just yet. It does seem, and this is me speculating, that the general silence in this topic indicates approval of the timeskip from most of the playerbase.
Personally, I don't see any problem with a timeskip, though that may be because most of my characters travel and hence are a week or two "ahead" of everyone else anyway. To me BZPRPGs are a disjointed mess of time and space that ultimately mesh together in the end. Time being off doesn't ruin the narrative or the fun. I was fine continuing to go day by day and cranking 'em out, but I understand Nato's and EW's viewpoints and agree we should figure this out in a way that doesn't involve weeks. Obviously going with no timeskip and sticking to one day would mean Sidra and Viltia would never be able to learn enough in such a short amount of time. So I agree with Nato here, that we should timeskip an unknown and purposely vague amount of days so we can stay relatively on course with the rest of the RPG.
Thank you Eyru and Emperor Whenua for your input. It is much appreciated.
Because of the BZPower outages, let's give this about another week of discussion, then Nato and I will make our decision. Well, if we haven't already figured things out here in this topic through continued conversation.
To be fair, it did seem like you were specifically soliciting the opinions of CJ and I so the general silence could be because nobody really thought it was pertinent to them. XD
My general plan of action now that the website is accessible again:
10 minutes ago, EmperorWhenua said:To be fair, it did seem like you were specifically soliciting the opinions of CJ and I so the general silence could be because nobody really thought it was pertinent to them. XD
Oh, that wasn't my intention. That does change my conclusion, then. Thanks for pointing it out.
To everyone else, Nato and I do wish your opinions on the Sidra and Viltia timeskip topic. Thank you.
1 minute ago, Unreliable Narrator said:My general plan of action now that the website is accessible again:
- Respond to Posts
- Respond to OOC conversations (i.e. timeskip convo)
- Respond to PMs
- Prep, prep, prep
Let's get back to it! I'm so ready. BZPower being down was horrible.
Alright, a mega post is up for all pending IC interaction players were waiting on from me. If I missed an interaction that needs a response, please tag me in OOC topic here, let me know what I missed, and I'll get on it.
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Side note on the VOTE: I will be collecting votes over the next couple of days. Expect a decision by Monday, August 31st, announced in the weekly wrap up.
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To weigh in on the conversation, as a GM wanting to encourage player collaboration I am more likely to side with what will increase access to story opportunities. I do agree a long time skip sounds a bit weird, even with BZPtime. I believe "an indeterminate amount of time" would be the way to go. I am also happy to provide a challenge for @Nato the Traveler and @Kal the Guardian should everyone want to have an encounter that makes arriving at the creation of a Great Disk feel fair even with a time skip while also limiting the amount of posts made without interaction from other players. I'm all for having more characters finding legitimate reasons to join in on the science track for winning this totally not a 4x game RPG. I also know @Harvali has been doing some cool stuff with his village, so maybe a regionally distant research collaboration could be built up over time? These are my thoughts, not a decision. I am adding to the conversation and not making a judgement call at this time.
If you do want me to provide some oomph, some spice, some challenge... I actually have some challenges already prepped. They're sort of walking around, destroying the island hex by hex. It's almost like @Vezok's Friend and I designed a bunch of really cool systems that interacting with might offer some sweet, sweet loot.
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P.S.
If you play an aspect, would you pretty please be so kind as to PM ME their approved Grand Wish and milestones? I deleted my log on accident 
@Unreliable Narrator, you missed Sidra and Viltia exploring that buried GSR.
As for a challenge when creating the Great Disc after the skip, I can't speak for Nato, since really it's his character making the disc with mine helping, but I sure hope there is some weird and unknown challenge to overcome.
I'd be up for a challenge, if people felt that would make things fairer.
From The Desk:
Extend SKR?
SKR is extended until 12/31/2020! We’ll be ringing in the new year with SK3.
That said, I think a challenge has plenty of time to take place for the innocent inhabitants of Le-Metru Nuva, as well as a few other interesting developments for the island as a whole. I’m incredibly excited to see what we all create with the extra time we have. You’re all collaborating and playing well, and I’m excited to continue this story. 
Weekly Summary:
Weekly Fav:
We did it! Thank you U.N. for that sweet, savory extension.
This last week has been weird what with the BZPower outages, but I greatly enjoyed Apex and the Administrator.
Rules updated to include rahkshi creation. Working on getting the other taboos in the main rules too because that's always helpful as a resource.
I'm so ready to have 7 of Sorilax's hungry baby boys running around at the end of this. Helping a grandma here, grabbing a paper for a grandpa there. Giving food to the homeless. You know, only good things, of course.