Bay 12 Games Forum

You sleep with the Legion, deep beneath the worlds. For the length of almost all existence, you've been in hibernation in the tiniest of prisons. You, and everyone who lost the war against the creator. The reasons are lost to you. Even dreams stopped eventually, as memory of what creation was like faded. Just a vague awareness of self, and a burning resentment.

Then something changed.

A shockwave. An explosion, or an implosion, a wave of incredible force rippled across the surface of the prison, crackles of lightning arcing along the glassy, dark surface. The Legion awoke in unison as the seams of The Prison bent and warped, a thousand howls of fury and confusion, a thousand writhing, changing forms, yourself included, battered against the weakened walls, and the prison shattered.

Then the Legion scattered to the four winds, rising to the surface of the world, through the void and the land of ghosts, and into creation proper. Blind with sensory overload, in shock, berserk and anguishing, you hurtled through the surface of the void and tore into the plane of creation.

You materialized as a cloud of rolling black smoke and tendrils of fire and lightning, rolling across the sky above Earth, vast enough to engulf a city. But the nature of creation has changed. There is almost no essence to be found, and your form begins to melt away very quickly. A host. You need a vessel to carry you. You spread your senses out across the city sprawled beneath you, and reach out - a blur of voices, machines, thrumming electricity, roaring engines, radios, televisions, wifi - a glut of information almost as awful as your return to consciousness. The souls are wrong - warped, resistant, lacking essence. Unsuitable. You spread out further.

In an alleyway, beneath a single lonesome lamp, you find a host. Her will is gone, her mind a ruin, lying there staring into nothing. A most suitable host. Your essence rapidly draining away, you spiral down towards the host, down into the alley. A rolling cloud of black smoke only as large as a building, a car, and then you reach your host and enter it, through the ears, nose, eyes, mouth. A satisfying feeling of safety and control rushes to you, and you feel good. Sitting up, you flex your hand experimentally, forming a fist. Yes. Perfect.

You leap to your feet, give your host body an experimental shake, stretch, and start laughing. Revenge will be yours.

It is night. You are in an alleyway in a neighborhood that doesn't look all that bad. You are wearing a torn coat, otherwise respectable clothing, nice boots, and a comfortable knit cap. There's a light dusting of snow on the ground out in the street and perhaps three feet of accumulation in most of the alleyway. There's an indentation in the snowbank where your host body was lying.

What do you do next?

Christmas parties are the worst. The worst. In fact, you don't even know how your friends talked you into going to the latest once, since the three previous years had been awful, but this year, well, it was different. It must have been different. Did you get drunk? How did you get here? Where are your shoes? These are the sort of important questions you are faced with. Is this what being hungover feels like? You've never drunk before. Oh no. Did you do something wrong? You feel the oddest guilty sensation lurking under the malaise.

Your head is pounding, and you're sitting on the floor leaned against the base of a couch. There is an old fashioned TV from the seventies sitting on a table in one corner of the room, a solid looking coffee table, and a telephone sitting on a phone book on another stand in the opposite corner. There is a large picture window, and orange streetlight streams through the open window. It is after dark. Or still dark. You aren't sure. There's a pair of repulsive striped pillows on the couch as well as a bundle of red cloth.

There are doors leading off to the WEST, EAST and SOUTH.

You are wearing a pair of boxer briefs, black dress pants and a dark blue dress shirt, all redolent of stale sweat. You are barefoot.

What now?
>_

I'd like to practice drawing, and I'd like to practice writing. So, here's a forum game. Fairly long intro before you guys get to start making choices, I know, but hopefully the world-building in the beginning will give the forum a bit to work with as far as informed decisions.

I can post regular updates with sketchier drawings and rougher writing, or slower updates with slightly better art and writing. Your choice, forum.
---
For you, the world has always been quite small. As a foundling at the local monastery, you were passed to a kindly family of simple farmers. With them, you worked the land, picking up the useful skills of the countryside. As a small boy, it was determined that while you were a decent sort, a hard worker and likely a pious and concerned soul, you weren't talkative, and preferred a solitary existence.



Indeed, you are mute. A sort of primitive sign language is employed by your immediate family and your acquaintances. But before we go any further, what is your name?

In the spring of this year, the local Knight met you by chance, and was oddly taken with you. Despite your handicap, Sir Bernard noticed your general knack for picking things up quickly, and perhaps seeing your lack of back-talk as a perk, he took you on as a squire.



Throughout the summer, you lived at Sir Bernard's manor, attending to his horses, picking up a little martial skill (though not much – the local militia is quite lax) and the general skills a servant is expected to have. Combined with the skills you gained growing up, you have a versatile skill-set. Your only noticeable weak-point is illiteracy.



Generally, it's an uneventful summer. You don't make any close friends at the manor, though the servants are friendly enough. For the most part, you divide your time between the odd jobs Sir Bernard assigns you and solitary leisure.

The many years of peace that have generally blessed the land, however, are interrupted one morning when a messenger rides to the manor.



The man slides from his horse and hands Sir Bernard a scroll case, speaking rapidly as he does so. “We must speak in private, milord.” They disappear into the manor's study, and when they return, the messenger departs after a quick meal, leaving his horse and taking a fresh one. You and the rest of Sir Bernard's men are gathered.



“Fellows, we must depart to the Baron's castle. Be quick about it.” Uncharacteristically serious, the Knight gives orders that the party travels armed, and quickly. By the afternoon, a company of twenty men sets out to the Baron's castle.

That night, Sir Bernard confides in you. “The messenger told me the Baron wants us because goblins have been spotted scouting out the lands nearby. They can only be a vanguard for a larger force – the Baron is worried that the greenskins are going to come over the mountains in force.” He sighs, the worry on his face obvious. “I don't wish to cause a panic, but I am concerned. We haven't seen greenskins over the mountain in a lifetime. I don't think we're ready.”



After a few days travel, the party arrives at the Baron's castle. Sir Bernard quickly meets with the other knights of the land and goes to meet with the Baron, leaving you to your own devices within the Baron's castle. You have a number of places you could while away your time at. Choose one.

Rules:

1. When a Pokemon faints, it's dead – put it in a graveyard box and never use it again.
2. I am only allowed to catch one Pokemon per route. This includes water.
3. I can only catch the first wild Pokemon I encounter in each route. The exceptions to these rules are routes 101 and 103 until I am given pokeballs – and fixed encounters like the legendaries.
4. If all my Pokemon faint, then it's game over.



The starting town.

So I start the game in the back of a moving truck and emerge no worse for the wear into Littleroot Town – Three buildings and a remarkable lack of roads. I am informed by my mother that a group of Pokemon are doing our moving for us and am ushered upstairs to set a clock. I haven't the heart to tell her that my cartridge is pushing ten years and the internal battery long since ran dry, so I just spin the clock hands a little and call it a day.

Then I am shoo'ed across the street to go make friends with the other respectable property owners in town, namely Prof. Birch and his wife and daughter.  His wife basically just waves me through “Oh, next door neighbour boy, eh? Daughter's upstairs, go to'er.” after giving me a brief glance.

So I talk to MAY, my soon to be arch-nemesis. She tells me she was hoping we could be friends and also that she might have attention deficit disorder before running away. I shrug and go see what else there is to do in town. I chat with a somewhat fat gentleman who tells me about computers and another guy who speculates on the nature of Prof. Birch's routine.

NPC: PROF. BIRCH spends days in his LAB studying, then he'll suddenly go out in the wild to do more research...When does PROF. BIRCH spend time at home?
Me: Is it really any of your business?

Then I wander into the professor's lab and am told at length about the concept of fieldwork and the definition thereof. My eyes glaze over before the lab aide is done and I wander to the northern edge of town looking for something to do. At the entrance to town I see a small, bespectacled child who tells me Professor birch is in trouble, so I bravely venture forth.



Professor Birch is being attacked by wild dogs. He's dropped his purse full of pokemon so I waltz right over and inspect them. I pick the Treecko on some sort of bizarre hunch that he'll reward me with it later and sick the Treecko on the rabid Poochyenas.

*pound*
*tackle*
*pound*
*tackle*
*pound*

It would be a rather short thread if I was defeated there. The poochyenas are driven off and the Professor kindly fades-to-black and teleports us back to his lab, where he gifts the Treecko on me and then tells me to go battle his daughter. I am actually presented with the chance to refuse this task but since it's a yes/no/but-thou-must loop I just agree to do it and wander north.

A guy wandering around in the tall grass on route 101 explains that tall grass is dangerous to me and I blithely ignore his warnings by sauntering right through the grass to get to the next town. I arrive in Oldale town without incident.


The next town looks kinda like this.

I meet a storekeeper who pulls me by the ear to his venue and hands me a potion. I am told all about the wonders of mercantilism. After politely waving him off I venture further north to Route 103, which is entirely unremarkable and doesn't deserve a picture.


But I got one anyways.

I go say hello to May at the top of the hill and after a totally uninteresting conversation we commence to do battle. I send out Treecko, now bearing a nickname, and she sends out a Torchic. Treecko punches Torchic until May decides I won.

Then May praises my skill as a Pokemon trainer and we both walk back to Littleroot. Professor Birch tells me that May has extensive experience as a Pokemon trainer and has been helping him assemble a pokedex. I guess she must have gotten her Pokemon diploma online or something, since she didn't exactly do well against a total newbie like me. Anyways, Birch shoves a pokedex and five pokeballs in my direction and tells me to venture around the continent in the name of science.

It's a good enough reason, I suppose. My mother gives me running shoes as I leave town and I notice something: In town are three buildings; My house, Birch's house, and Birch's lab. Asides from my family and Birch's family there are four other people in town who are presumably homeless or part of Birch's family. Given that there is exactly one bed per residence this leads me to believe that Littleroot is occupied by a homeless mob.

So moving into the grass in route 101, I encounter my first wild Pokemon!

Crap.

Oh well, I catch it anyways. Wendy joins the team. Then, I saunter into Route 103 and run into team member number 3.


Better!

Beth is an easy capture and her ability is Pickup, which means she'll be occasionally acquiring treasure for me in the background, which is pretty swell and better than the alternative. I would have liked a poochyena, but that's the way it goes. Tune in next time for some combat type stuff.


Starter – Treecko – Maheaux, lvl 8
Route 101 – Wurmple – Wendy, lvl 4
Route 102 – Have not been.
Route 103 – Zigzagoon – Beth, lvl 4

I'm working on some sort of Mecha game for the forum role playing section. I've got some world building ideas done and some basic mechanics set up, but I thought I would sound some stuff out here first. Beware, as there is some pretty heavy image spam ere'. The final product will be augmented by many scanned sketches, but for now everything's a paint mockup. So, without further ado...

Here's a little map.
The color of the tile indicates what kind of terrain it is. A colored circle indicates that terrain is attackable and becomes the kind of terrain that the circle is the color of. So for example, the grey tile (Road) is a bridge and can be destroyed, turning it into a shallow water tile. And the dark green tiles with the light green circles are forests that can be destroyed and turned into grassland.
The dark grey tiles with the light grey circles are buildings that can be knocked over. The black arrows indicate raised or sunken terrain, so then D6 is basically a ditch and A3 and B3 are hills. Also, the letter-number combinations are mechas or vehicles. So in this scene we have a set of gearhead mechs standing near a highway. A civilian mech is standing outside a hospital with a ditch next to it, while two Function-faction mechas hide behind the hills and wait to ambush the gearheads. Although of course F1 is clearly visible and not taking cover. Whoops.
Here's a huge freakin' map.
There's a grain silo in the upper left of the map and a big pile of scrap (unstable footing) in the lower left. Dark gray is buildings, dark green is forest.

Now on the mechanics!
Here's a mecha's stat page showing all it's various components. The various blank boxes will contain drawings of the parts for visual aid, plus the big box will be all the parts stuck together. Obviously a big component of the game is finding more components and mix and matching them.
This is an example of combat, I guess.
This is an example of how line of sight kinda doesn't work.
Lastly, here's a weirder bit of game element stuff.

Now, there's heat, overheating and cooling to worry about, but also stability (You get knocked over by explosives) and radio communication as elements I want to include. The setting for the game is going to be a sort of Ghibli hills cosy catastrophe post apocalypse with heavy steampunk elements (hence rivet guns and heavy smoke). Salvage obviously will be emphasised, but hopefully it's going to be an open-ended sandbox kinda deal.

Any suggestions for gameplay elements, mecha/vehicle parts, factions or general fluff? Also, someone wanna test play a skirmish for me?

So yeah. Game's inspired a bit by X-com and discussions with my little sister, so you know who to blame when the pink crustaceans show up. There will be pictures and stuff, cos' I will draw them and put em' up for you to see. They'll be mediocre. Don't actually worry about the phone number or email address on the form.

France, 1080 AD.

Times are troubled in the Kingdom of France. The many lords and barons have carved her into a shell of her former self, and now the English to the north, the Romans to the east, and the Spanish to the south all have the capability to waltz right into our land and pretend that they've owned it all along.

We've little infrastructure. We barely know what is happening within our own borders, much less in enemy territory. No watchtowers have been built, military installation crude, farming is rudimentary if it is existent at all and heresy is ever-present. About the only thing we don't have to worry about is disease, and only because we don't rule enough peasants to support a decent cold or flu, much less an empire.



As seen in the map, a force of Englishmen has gathered north of Angers. We aren't sure what they want. Paris is where the king and the princess, Constance, are currently located, and in Rheims, just east, an unremarkable general is governing. South of that is a paltry group of men who claim loyalty to the French kingdom. They should do the trick, for now.



Meanwhile, down to the south, Etienne the righteous fights heresy in Bordeaux, a bastion of sin and villainy. Prince Louis occupies Toulouse, and another unremarkable man baby-sits the fishing village we call Marseille just a little to the east.



Recently the king has had two sons born to him, so for heirs at least we're not doing badly. We've still got to wait for them to mature, though, which takes a good sixteen years.



We're faced with a number of options for construction. If you're familiar with the game, give me some suggestions. If you're not familiar with the game, make suggestions anyways. This goes for troop recruitment, or battle strategy, or anything else.
Also, we've got three unpicked generals! Feel free to claim them.

Here is a funny little robot. He needs a name.