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3 years ago ::
Oct 10, 2010 - 2:44PM
#1
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Date Joined:
May 28, 2008
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Thread #2!
What does LoC mean to you? How do you view it? Is it a place to tell stories? A place to interact with others? A place to sabotage the naive around you until all they own is yours?
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3 years ago ::
Oct 10, 2010 - 11:41PM
#2
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Date Joined:
May 28, 2008
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For me, LoC is a place to interact with others and tell stories together... much like a good game of DnD is a communal storytelling experience, where the characters can lead the DM far astray from their plans for a campaign, so too is the magic of LoC the ability for one's ideas to be completely twisted, bent and emerge even better than your initial idea. So many of my favorite memories of this game... my first plane, with the River flowing down the center, the siege(s) on Yrie, even the love... quadrangley thing that we had going in WW... I know I couldn't have come up with those ideas on my own... it was only with the magic of lots of people all trying to have fun playing this game that made each of those work.
In fact, I'll just say this now. Mess with my stuff. 90% of the time I'll happily jump in and explore the new situation, and as for the rest, the worst you'll get from me is a 'hey, I had something really fun planned for x. Can we wait to do this until next week?'
I can write a story by myself anytime, and honestly, I'm not all that great at coming up with ideas in just my own brain. I am good at brainstorming and coming up with ideas based on other people's input, though... and thats why I like LoC.
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3 years ago ::
Oct 13, 2010 - 12:33PM
#3
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Date Joined:
Aug 17, 2006
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First and formost LoC to me is a world-building exercise. A lot of what I try to do in game is specifically about creating interesting places and creatures for players to encounter. Often this takes the form of attempting to create new takes on things players are already familiar with; in Galara, I am particularly proud of my Halfling culture and use that in my games rather than the core info. In this one, I personally liked the idea of the outerdark.
Cooperative storytelling is a great secondary feature; I really loved the Monarch and Itja-rek's interactions, and the stories that result from this form great mythos for games as well (Itja and the Monarch are definately making appearances in the extensive pantheon for my games, probably others will too).
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3 years ago ::
Oct 13, 2010 - 5:04PM
#4
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Date Joined:
Jan 16, 2008
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I always thought that I enjoyed the competitive, almost boardgame style of play. That's why I've always pushed so hard for more rules and mechanics, more standards of play as it were. I've found myself becoming less and less interested the more this approach prevailed however, eventually leading to my almost total absence from the last two games. If others feel strongly that the new rules are benificial, I don't feel certain enough to argue. I think, in retrospect, that the unstructured elements were the most enjoyable. The characteristics of the gods, constructing my prison plane of snow and chains only to be bound there myself, the ruined Palace of Xa'an, those instances stand out most strongly in my mind.
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3 years ago ::
Oct 14, 2010 - 1:41PM
#5
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Date Joined:
May 28, 2008
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*is touched that he's going to get to be in a campaign*
Yeah, too bad Ara stopped posting... we had quite a plot worked out between the two of us as to where that was all going to go!
Angel, I agree entirely. I've thought that having a rule for everything was good because that way no one can call admin bias (that lovely phrase again), but what it does is stifle creativity... if you want to do X, you do it THIS way. The next time we do a Lords of Creation... we need to simplify.
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3 years ago ::
Oct 14, 2010 - 4:57PM
#6
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Date Joined:
Jan 16, 2008
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Yah, it seemed like a good idea but it went horribly, horribly wrong in my opinion.
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3 years ago ::
Oct 14, 2010 - 8:36PM
#7
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Date Joined:
Aug 17, 2006
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Heh. Toph, my campaign setting (which has yet to have a chance to be used, even though it has been 2ish years in development) has a pantheon of "goodish" gods, evil gods, Primordials, Primal Spirits, Nihilim (essentially, "fallen" primal spirits), Demons, Devils, and Great Old Ones. There is always room for another deity. Now if I could only figure out a place to put Aaviz... he doesn't really fit in any of those categories.
To the point at hand, I am currently reading a book (for school) called "Seeing Like A State." It is essentially why states fail when they try to do grand administrative things, like creating "designed" cities and the sort. The essential conclusion the author comes to is that it is because simplifications and rules undermine and eliminate the "chaotic" unofficial improvisations that happen on the ground.
Reason I bring that up is that while rules aren't inherently bad, they might be getting in the way of play.
Looking back over the old LoCs, I think the vagueness of their rules was actually helpful. In general, probably allowing more narrative control to the players would be benefitial.
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3 years ago ::
Oct 15, 2010 - 7:33PM
#8
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Date Joined:
Jan 16, 2008
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Yes. Thought we're totally in agreement here. We should remove most of the rules, combine actions, and make deity conflict become roleplaying. In fact, I think we should reinstate the Galara combat rules. 1PP-Attack God. That's all you need, no bidding, random dice rolls, just that 1PP.
Also, I vote that gods be banned from directly interacting with mortals. In the incarnations when we've allowed this, I feel like it lent itself to particularly lazy prose. I'm guilty of the repetitive "and He took them and shaped them and so they were Different" conceit as well, but banning direct interaction helps avoid it. Such a standard would furthermore make gods seem a little more remote from mortals. Something that I think has been missing.
Artifacts and Exarchs. We've fallen into a pattern of allowing these to just be +1PP items. Now I, for one, hate this. The beginning of every game has devolved into a race where everyone attempts to balance creating populaces and worlds with artifacts. Flavorless things that are never spoken of again except in PP entries. They serve no purpose to the game. No purpose at all.
Artifacts should be unique and powerful. Their very existence should be a flash point between gods, leading to countermeasures or augmentations by other gods. The Stars, the WanderWay, and the Skyway River are all good examples. Though other items like the Sybilline Dream and Veros' Cloak of Secrets were interesting. Perhaps not groundbreaking like the others, but in each instance at least one other god actually reacted to their existence.
Exarchs should be God-Kings, ruling mortals and leading armies in war, not divine messenger boys or PP batteries. They've fallen into the same trap as artifacts, where we just make some entity, give it a name, and then it only comes up in OOC PP expenditures or as a messenger because we're breaking the rule about being in two places at once.
Finally, I want domains back. This somewhat flies in the face of the deregulation that Thought and I have been pushing for, but they gave a helpful structure to the game. After we did away with them, Gods had a tendency to become homogenized.
I've got more opinions, but it's late so the rest of them will have to be aired later. I'm interested to know what you all think of these ideas.
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3 years ago ::
Oct 16, 2010 - 2:42AM
#9
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Artifacts and Exarchs. We've fallen into a pattern of allowing these to just be +1PP items. Now I, for one, hate this. The beginning of every game has devolved into a race where everyone attempts to balance creating populaces and worlds with artifacts. Flavorless things that are never spoken of again except in PP entries. They serve no purpose to the game. No purpose at all.
Artifacts should be unique and powerful. Their very existence should be a flash point between gods, leading to countermeasures or augmentations by other gods. The Stars, the WanderWay, and the Skyway River are all good examples. Though other items like the Sybilline Dream and Veros' Cloak of Secrets were interesting. Perhaps not groundbreaking like the others, but in each instance at least one other god actually reacted to their existence.
I agree with that.
Exarchs should be God-Kings, ruling mortals and leading armies in war, not divine messenger boys or PP batteries. They've fallen into the same trap as artifacts, where we just make some entity, give it a name, and then it only comes up in OOC PP expenditures or as a messenger because we're breaking the rule about being in two places at once.
Speaking of the ability to be in two places at the same time, I think that something like that is needed in a forum game, expecially one where the player base is variable (or at least can play at quite different times) I hate being struck in a conversation with someone that does not post for a few day, while at the same time the world around me progress and I can't do anything...
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3 years ago ::
Oct 16, 2010 - 11:44AM
#10
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Date Joined:
Aug 17, 2006
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That is what exarchs were supposed to be for; so you could still interact when a character wasn't present. These aren't supposed to be omnipresent gods, after all.
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