Bay 12 Games Forum

Todoroki looks confused.
"Huh? Tastes perfectly fine to me. What are you guys talking about?"

"Up to something? Good sirs, I am offering you my house and home to avoid a terrible rainstorm. Hospitality is sacred."

Theodora sighs.
"Well...sometimes it's nice to have a small circle of friends you can trust, you know?"

Rin stares right at the head of the table, where Kiyomaru is sitting, seemingly blissfully unaware. She simply smiles at Setsurou, as if nothing is wrong.

Nothing of course, except for the small sheet of torn paper she has just passed him under the table.

"Food not poisoned. No illusion. Food odd aura. Used small healing spell on Yamada to protect him and small spell to dispel any poisons."

Kiyomaru looks puzzled at Madoka and Eisuke.
"I assure you, there is no catch. The food is my gift to you as my guests. It is quite fresh."

---

~~Summer, 2016~~

"I'm home!"

The sounds of cicadas chirping could be heard outside, the summer heat permeating everything. Once again, summer had taken hold of Iwatodai, as it had for years before, and as it would for years after. A car whistled past on the road outside, and the sun was high in the sky; it was just past midday. Satoshi's shift as a lifeguard at the town's pool had just ended uneventfully. Thankfully, too. It was a good day when nobody needed his help.

Satoshi barged into his empty home with a loud yell. It was a small home; a kitchen, small living room, two bathrooms and bedrooms upstairs. Usually, it held two people; Kirihiko Akamatsu, the father of the house, who spent most of his time working in the nearby Mishima Economic District for the Mishima Corporation, and Satoshi Akamatsu, a young man in his final year at Yadomi High, who'd taken whatever he could to fill his summer.

It had been a long time since it held more than two people. Longer still since it had held three.

Satoshi slumped down on his sofa, sighing as he stared at the table, his father's customary note on it telling him to be careful and eat well and that he'd be home late so not to wait up, perched atop a pre-prepared box of tofu steamed last night. He whipped out his phone; no calls, no new texts. He frowned as he scrolled down a bit.

Two years since Hanako's last text.

Do you feel that way, about me, Akamatsu Satoshi?

Immediately, Satoshi's attention flew towards the clock. It was about one in the afternoon. Good. He promised Miss Honda he'd help her and her son move their couch in thirty minutes. He'd come home just in time. He smiled to himself.

"A little extra help will do the trick. And tonight, some yakiniku!"

Satoshi pulled himself from the couch to get ready. A change of clothes and a quick shower, perhaps; him smelling like sweat when he went over was going to be somewhat embarrassing. As he stood up, however, his phone slipped from his hand, skittering across the floor.

"Oh!"

As he leant over to grab it, however...

"Here you go."

The hairs on the back of Satoshi's neck stood up.

A pale hand handed Satoshi's phone back to him. His eyes slowly traveled up across the person that had appeared in his living room. Up her jet-black dress, made of a material that looked as smooth as silk and translucent as clouds at night. Up her thin body, a few years older than he'd last seen her. Up her too-pale skin, almost ivory-white, only an approximation of life. A curtain of dark brown hair framed her smiling face, her deep brown eyes now a crimson shade.

Hanako Saihara was standing in his living room. Hanako Saihara, Satoshi's best friend. Hanako Saihara, the girl who'd helped him gather their old friend group.

Hanako Saihara, who had been dead for two years.

"Hi, Satoshi."
....
Around Iwatodai, a certain group's phones began to buzz with messages, from a number you may not have called, texted or heard from in years.

The same message, from Satoshi.

Come to my house. Hanako is here. Send help.

What are you doing now?
//Everyone may post.

1. All non-IC stuff is to be posted at the OOC thread or on the Discord. Violators will be haunted by Hanako.

2. Post formatting mandatory. As such:
Colored normal text for PC speech!
Colored italized text for PC thinking.
_{*Colored small text or between asterisks for PC whispering*}
Normal text for generic descriptive text.
Bolded text for PC actions and orders!

3. Order of battle posts:
Players' actions -> GM resolves -> Player's actions -> GM resolves ... until all player actions have been posted -> GM posts Enemy/Ally Phase and new turn map -> Start again
If you need an action resolved before making another ask in the OOC thread.

4. Don't post until your character is properly introduced!

5. Be active if you can! I don't care if you don't want to RP, but try to post your action within a reasonable time. If you have to be warned several times your character may be automoved or put in the away list. If you can't post for personal reasons, try to warn the rest in the OOC thread. Delegating actions to other people is also allowed.
_{Definitely not ripped off from Solymr's posts, nope.}

"By the sounds of things, I don't believe they care much for consequences."
E4

"Y-yes, my queen!"
The escorts march aside and cover Shoes' charge, as Thanatos waves a hand over the surrounding land, a horde of skeletons rising from the ground to fight her guild.
"We'll clear a path! Handle the lich!"

Shoes carves a swathe through the lines of demons, as her guild pushes back the surrounding demons to cut her a path.

"Hmph! So be it! This tower shall be a memorial to your utter failure, when I make you humble, though you know it NOT!"

With a loud, wordless cry, the ground below shakes and rumbles, as a massive, skeletal, three-headed dragon emerges from the ground. The dragon's left head exudes noxious fumes from its mouth, Shoes barely managing to dodge the attack.

As a cavalcade of demons and undead emerge from the ground to fight Shoes, Shoes remembers that she does have one tool to fight such overwhelming odds.

The spear, once belonging to the Demon General of Wrath, that now belongs to her. It was a gift to Keith, originally, but when...they parted, the spear naturally went to her as her share of the loot.

This is a good day to test it.

---

Stats updated.

Quote from: King Zultan on October 08, 2022, 03:28:20 am

Anyway I have always wondered if that FEF was as complicated as it looked just scrolling through a thread, but the main reason I've never tried to join one of those games is because of all the complex backgrounds I see in the sheets of other people and I suck at making backgrounds.

The backgrounds from characters can only be as complex as the introduction to a game is and elf loves his worldbuilding, probably a bit too much, plus elf likes to experiment with mechanics leading to some of his games developing complexity creep. Compare this to my current game where setting infos are rather sparse and that sparse-ness is reflected on some characters. Tric's Artair and Chev's Rhian got accepted and are definitely on the shorter side regarding their backgrounds.

tbf it helps to be on the FEF server because it's easy to ask questions and bounce ideas around there. But generally I'm okay with short backgrounds as long as there's something that I could potentially use as a hook. There never was a Marchioness Brand before, but Tric introduced her and I can and possibly will use her in the campaign at some point.

While I slightly don't appreciate having my games low-key trashed like that () I will say I don't mind a shorter background if the writing is tight enough. In fact in general I'll accept shorter sheets if I can figure out what it is I can do with your character than not, and I feel this is generally the truth for most FEF GMs.

EDIT: And yeah a lot of GMs will experiment with their own homebrew mechanics from time to time, me included. This is the consequence of having a system that's existed as long as FEF has.