Zozoken
2014-11-10, 09:47 PM
Chapter 0: The Beginning
Introduction
Greetings! I am Zozoken! I am a little shy as this is my first post on GitP, so I hope I am doing everything correctly. I read the rules of the forums and I think I have a good grasp of it all. So let's get started, shall we?
Oh right, speaking of rules: there are some... how shall we say... adult themes present in the campaign, and I mean some pretty warped stuff here, not just of a sexual or moral nature. I won't be posting any of that stuff here, so you'll just have to use your imagination to fill in some of the bits. The character I play doesn't really participate in most of the adult-themed stuff, however. There's also a lot of religion and politics backdrop present in the story, which has to equally be truncated for obvious reasons.
Sessions
I will be posting my thoughts and analysis of my role-playing experience with a Skype group called Nameless Returns, hopefully every Monday, 2 sessions behind. The sessions themselves take place on Skype via text on Thursdays.
Thank you in advance for your comments and criticisms, and I hope you enjoy it!
Meeting The Group
So my tabletop history isn't all that impressive, but recently while preparing for a Pathfinder campaign that I'm running, someone invited me to play New World of Darkness. The only thing I know about WoD consists of stereotypes: emo teenagers LARPing around as vampires, doing pretty evil things to each other in a crapsack angst-filled environment. I really only know that the only die used is the d10, and you roll a whole lot of them at a time, counting ones that are 8, 9, or 10, and rolling 10s again, I assume until infinity if you keep getting that lucky. So I'm basically going into this blind and with a possibly tainted view of the system.
The players greeted me pretty well. Almost too well. The StoryTeller, as the GM is called in White Wolf games, leads me through the process of creating a character. The StoryTeller gives me some... rather interesting information on the game as a whole. Apparently, he is running the game with several NWoD compatible books, and I am to pick one of these sets of books and make a character from them. I have a choice of Vampire, Werewolf, Mage, Hunter, Promethean, Changling... Oh I've heard about Changling, that's the one where you're a human trapped in a fairy world or something. I've been curious about that system since I heard about it, so I picked to be a Changling. I am told some more, somewhat rather disturbing, bits of information especially regarding the Changlings, one of which is the "durance", or a time when I was abducted to Arcadia, the fae world, and was sent through unimaginable abuse for a long period of time, which in the real world happens to be a very short period of time.
I decided, right then and there, based on the group's composure and feeling a little creeped out, that I was secretly going to troll the group and make the most screwed-up Rainbow Fairy Princess that I could muster. I had also decided I was going to play it as "blind" as possible, only referring to the books when absolutely necessary. Worst case scenario, I get kicked out of the group before my character is created, and I'm told this is not the group for me. Best case scenario? This campaign journal.
Chapter 0 Part 2: Character Creation
Creating My Rainbow Fairy Princess
My StoryTeller seemed pretty comfortable with my decision to play this system in the blind, and walked me through the process of character creation personally by asking me a few questions. I went on Myth-Weavers and created a character sheet, so that he could double-check my sheet for errors.
The first thing I had to decide was which of these I wanted to have as the strongest: Mental, Physical, Social. I also had to pick one to be the weakest. Well, I knew I wasn't going to be making a fighter-type, so I knew immediately I was going to pick that as my weakest. Between the two, Mental and Social, what sold me on the Mental is on the character sheet, I had a -3 for unskilled checks, whereas with Social, I had a -1. My ST assured me that I would find ways to improve my stats later, so I stuck with Mental, although I think Social would have been a better "fit" for my character concept.
Then I was given something called "dots". You get a certain amount of points called "dots" depending on which was your highest and which was your lowest. Each category can hold up to 5 dots, but the last dot costs 2 dots. Each stat underneath Mental, Physical, and Social are listed in a cross-category which I call Offense, Finesse, and Defense. These intersections make for 9 stats, which I have to put dots in. I decided to max out Intelligence (Offensive Mental stat), and spread the other dots in the other categories rather evenly. I did make sure I had at least 3 dots in Manipulation (Social Finesse stat), if only because of the name. This Rainbow Fairy Princess intends to string along the group, after all.
I am then given the choice of choosing which of the three categories (Mental, Physical, Social) I want to be highest and lowest in, concerning skills. For simplicity, I picked the same as last time: high Mental, low Physical, decent Social. I am given dots accordingly to place in skills.
The skills list is rather ridiculous-looking if you are playing this blind. Driving? Firearms? Computers? Academics? Empathy? Animal Ken?? Well this certainly seems like a very strange system to me, which apparently is going to be in a modern setting. I mostly picked randomly, but I made sure to max out Academics and put a lot of dots into Empathy. I'm not sure why I did this. I guess maybe because it reminded me of Long Live The Queen and Princess Maker.
Next I was told to pick 3 specialties, which I did. Unlike everything else so far, I got to make this up. So I decided to make my character hyper-observant, have interpersonal knowledge with abjuration (occult, D&D-based protection ward things), and... linguistics. Because why not.
I am then asked to choose some fancy words that basically equate to "Race" and "Class". I choose to be a "Polychromatic Fairest", which is the closest I could find to something like a Rainbow Fairy Princess. Great. Now I can change my mood to any color of the rainbow and I am essentially a diva. Works for me! (As an aside, "Polychromatic" comes from a splatbook, if these types of books can be called that, called Winter Masques, for those that know more about this system than I do.)
The rest of the character creation isn't as interesting, and some of the stats I was either given or I have no control over. I did get to pick Powers and Merits, though. Powers are my Changling abilities that I can use by spending these points called Glamour. I chose Dream, Mirror, Vainglory, and Fleeting Spring. I have NO idea what any of that is yet. Of the Merits, I had to dig through the book and pick some. I chose Encyclopedic Knowledge and Striking Looks, which I thought would give me some role-playing material to work with. I also chose Hollow (a cubby-hole that's all mine, I suppose to recharge or to umm... hide in) and Mantle . With the exception of Encyclopedic Knowledge, I really have no idea what any of this stuff does, but my ST assures me that when the situation comes up where I can use these abilities, he'll let me know.
Actually, there is one interesting bit I should bring up: Hollow. Apparently there is a Mage in our group that also has a cubby-hole-like Merit as well, and the ST has ruled that we can actually somewhat "share" these together, thus making us roommates. We'll get to the Mage in a little bit.
One important note is that while picking my stuff like Virtue and Vice, the topic of Flaws came up. The ST had decided it encourages min-maxing, munchkin-ing, and other forms of "badwrong" optimization a little too much, while adding unnecessary complication. Who am I to argue. So for those that know this system, just keep in mind that this game is lightly house-ruled, and we are not playing with Flaws.
After all this work, taking I'd say about 4~5 hours over the span of 2 days, my character was finally realized with the exception of a backstory...
Creating My Backstory
It was here that I thought for sure the jig was up. The ST asked me what I wanted my character to be. I said, in as serious of a tone as I could muster, "I wanna be a Rainbow Fairy Princess".
To my absolute surprise, the ENTIRE GROUP becomes ecstatic about it. The ST had no problems with it because stats-wise, I already *was* a Rainbow Fairy Princess. The rest of the group thought it was the most awesome idea ever: a Rainbow Fairy Princess partying with the likes of a Van Hellsing, golem, and an occult spellcaster. It's at this moment I thought, well hey, maybe *I'm* the one getting trolled here, but after some civil discussion, I think they just liked it because there's a female character in the team to break up the band of male characters. I shudder a little and continue.
Alright, so, I have learned that it is *incredibly* difficult to create a backstory for a silly character concept in a real-world modern-time world. From what I was told about the setting and about Changlings, and with the help of the ST, I created a somewhat terrifying backstory:
There was an 8 year old girl that was Trick or Treating, who went as a Rainbow Fairy Princess that fateful day in 1997. A tall man approached her and said he could make her a real Rainbow Fairy Princess if he will just come with him. She, being a naive 8 year old little girl, did. Then she gets whisked away to a world that is "beauty beyond beauty, beyond my most vivid imagination, a world filled with pleasure and euphoria", where I am apparently tortured and abused by someone that she calls the Wish Maker for I don't even want to think about how long. She eventually broke free to the real world, now in an adult body in present-day Philly, where the Mage that I discussed earlier took her in. She's been living there for 3 years now.
I asked the ST, "Is that all?" What the ST told me next still terrifies me: "Oh? Lots. Oh, you'll find out. You'll find out soon enough. I have PLANS."
Am I the one being trolled now?
Chapter 0 Part 3: The Cast
Meet the Players!
I have decided for now to mask the names of the [s]players guilty with the well-known 90s cartoon, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles:
Master Splinter - He is our StoryTeller, and the one responsible for this confusing mess.
Michelangelo - He plays Jack, a human Mage, occultist and the roommate of the girl I play. He keeps his character's real name a secret; only he, the ST, and I know what it is.
Donatello - He plays Harlow, a Promethean news reporter that studies the occult. He is quiet and respectful. I think he may be in on my trolling ways.
Raphael - He plays Alexander Corvanis, a human Hunter who hunts down monsters. This guy really loves combat, especially hand-to-hand combat. He is also pretty abrasive at times.
Zozoken - That's me! I play Opal Garden, an 8 year old innocent girl Changling stuck in the body of a 25 year old woman that looks like she is 19. If she were a Turtle character, she'd be April.
You will notice there is no Leonardo. Who could possibly be the leader of this rag-tag bunch of monster people?
The Setting
Present-day Philadelphia, I presume with a recently split alternate timeline unless the ST is under the impression that vampires and werewolves are real. The ST stated that he will try to make it as close to real-life Philly as humanly possible, which is good for my Encyclopedic Knowledge as well as no need for having made-up maps.
The Times
We play once a week, on Thursdays, but the actual day our characters act can be any day of that week. Generally a session covers only one day, although it might sometimes cover two or more days, or even only part of a day. We let the ST know of anything special our characters are doing during "off-screen" times; generally, this is for stuff like buying more Merits with our XP or fulfilling events that will lead up to the next plot point.
Nameless Returns: The Commentary
This is where I'll be posting direct links to each session wrap-up. Thank you for reading, and the next update should be in one week from now!
Extras: The Bonus
My Character Sheet (http://www.myth-weavers.com/sheet.html#id=50736)
Opal's Diary (https://docs.google.com/document/d/10dbFGJFqOamVUzBbfpGGvi85upQYDh0emOa1AuDG8wM/edit?usp=sharing) (only Session 0 entry is published)
Introduction
Greetings! I am Zozoken! I am a little shy as this is my first post on GitP, so I hope I am doing everything correctly. I read the rules of the forums and I think I have a good grasp of it all. So let's get started, shall we?
Oh right, speaking of rules: there are some... how shall we say... adult themes present in the campaign, and I mean some pretty warped stuff here, not just of a sexual or moral nature. I won't be posting any of that stuff here, so you'll just have to use your imagination to fill in some of the bits. The character I play doesn't really participate in most of the adult-themed stuff, however. There's also a lot of religion and politics backdrop present in the story, which has to equally be truncated for obvious reasons.
Sessions
I will be posting my thoughts and analysis of my role-playing experience with a Skype group called Nameless Returns, hopefully every Monday, 2 sessions behind. The sessions themselves take place on Skype via text on Thursdays.
Thank you in advance for your comments and criticisms, and I hope you enjoy it!
Meeting The Group
So my tabletop history isn't all that impressive, but recently while preparing for a Pathfinder campaign that I'm running, someone invited me to play New World of Darkness. The only thing I know about WoD consists of stereotypes: emo teenagers LARPing around as vampires, doing pretty evil things to each other in a crapsack angst-filled environment. I really only know that the only die used is the d10, and you roll a whole lot of them at a time, counting ones that are 8, 9, or 10, and rolling 10s again, I assume until infinity if you keep getting that lucky. So I'm basically going into this blind and with a possibly tainted view of the system.
The players greeted me pretty well. Almost too well. The StoryTeller, as the GM is called in White Wolf games, leads me through the process of creating a character. The StoryTeller gives me some... rather interesting information on the game as a whole. Apparently, he is running the game with several NWoD compatible books, and I am to pick one of these sets of books and make a character from them. I have a choice of Vampire, Werewolf, Mage, Hunter, Promethean, Changling... Oh I've heard about Changling, that's the one where you're a human trapped in a fairy world or something. I've been curious about that system since I heard about it, so I picked to be a Changling. I am told some more, somewhat rather disturbing, bits of information especially regarding the Changlings, one of which is the "durance", or a time when I was abducted to Arcadia, the fae world, and was sent through unimaginable abuse for a long period of time, which in the real world happens to be a very short period of time.
I decided, right then and there, based on the group's composure and feeling a little creeped out, that I was secretly going to troll the group and make the most screwed-up Rainbow Fairy Princess that I could muster. I had also decided I was going to play it as "blind" as possible, only referring to the books when absolutely necessary. Worst case scenario, I get kicked out of the group before my character is created, and I'm told this is not the group for me. Best case scenario? This campaign journal.
Chapter 0 Part 2: Character Creation
Creating My Rainbow Fairy Princess
My StoryTeller seemed pretty comfortable with my decision to play this system in the blind, and walked me through the process of character creation personally by asking me a few questions. I went on Myth-Weavers and created a character sheet, so that he could double-check my sheet for errors.
The first thing I had to decide was which of these I wanted to have as the strongest: Mental, Physical, Social. I also had to pick one to be the weakest. Well, I knew I wasn't going to be making a fighter-type, so I knew immediately I was going to pick that as my weakest. Between the two, Mental and Social, what sold me on the Mental is on the character sheet, I had a -3 for unskilled checks, whereas with Social, I had a -1. My ST assured me that I would find ways to improve my stats later, so I stuck with Mental, although I think Social would have been a better "fit" for my character concept.
Then I was given something called "dots". You get a certain amount of points called "dots" depending on which was your highest and which was your lowest. Each category can hold up to 5 dots, but the last dot costs 2 dots. Each stat underneath Mental, Physical, and Social are listed in a cross-category which I call Offense, Finesse, and Defense. These intersections make for 9 stats, which I have to put dots in. I decided to max out Intelligence (Offensive Mental stat), and spread the other dots in the other categories rather evenly. I did make sure I had at least 3 dots in Manipulation (Social Finesse stat), if only because of the name. This Rainbow Fairy Princess intends to string along the group, after all.
I am then given the choice of choosing which of the three categories (Mental, Physical, Social) I want to be highest and lowest in, concerning skills. For simplicity, I picked the same as last time: high Mental, low Physical, decent Social. I am given dots accordingly to place in skills.
The skills list is rather ridiculous-looking if you are playing this blind. Driving? Firearms? Computers? Academics? Empathy? Animal Ken?? Well this certainly seems like a very strange system to me, which apparently is going to be in a modern setting. I mostly picked randomly, but I made sure to max out Academics and put a lot of dots into Empathy. I'm not sure why I did this. I guess maybe because it reminded me of Long Live The Queen and Princess Maker.
Next I was told to pick 3 specialties, which I did. Unlike everything else so far, I got to make this up. So I decided to make my character hyper-observant, have interpersonal knowledge with abjuration (occult, D&D-based protection ward things), and... linguistics. Because why not.
I am then asked to choose some fancy words that basically equate to "Race" and "Class". I choose to be a "Polychromatic Fairest", which is the closest I could find to something like a Rainbow Fairy Princess. Great. Now I can change my mood to any color of the rainbow and I am essentially a diva. Works for me! (As an aside, "Polychromatic" comes from a splatbook, if these types of books can be called that, called Winter Masques, for those that know more about this system than I do.)
The rest of the character creation isn't as interesting, and some of the stats I was either given or I have no control over. I did get to pick Powers and Merits, though. Powers are my Changling abilities that I can use by spending these points called Glamour. I chose Dream, Mirror, Vainglory, and Fleeting Spring. I have NO idea what any of that is yet. Of the Merits, I had to dig through the book and pick some. I chose Encyclopedic Knowledge and Striking Looks, which I thought would give me some role-playing material to work with. I also chose Hollow (a cubby-hole that's all mine, I suppose to recharge or to umm... hide in) and Mantle . With the exception of Encyclopedic Knowledge, I really have no idea what any of this stuff does, but my ST assures me that when the situation comes up where I can use these abilities, he'll let me know.
Actually, there is one interesting bit I should bring up: Hollow. Apparently there is a Mage in our group that also has a cubby-hole-like Merit as well, and the ST has ruled that we can actually somewhat "share" these together, thus making us roommates. We'll get to the Mage in a little bit.
One important note is that while picking my stuff like Virtue and Vice, the topic of Flaws came up. The ST had decided it encourages min-maxing, munchkin-ing, and other forms of "badwrong" optimization a little too much, while adding unnecessary complication. Who am I to argue. So for those that know this system, just keep in mind that this game is lightly house-ruled, and we are not playing with Flaws.
After all this work, taking I'd say about 4~5 hours over the span of 2 days, my character was finally realized with the exception of a backstory...
Creating My Backstory
It was here that I thought for sure the jig was up. The ST asked me what I wanted my character to be. I said, in as serious of a tone as I could muster, "I wanna be a Rainbow Fairy Princess".
To my absolute surprise, the ENTIRE GROUP becomes ecstatic about it. The ST had no problems with it because stats-wise, I already *was* a Rainbow Fairy Princess. The rest of the group thought it was the most awesome idea ever: a Rainbow Fairy Princess partying with the likes of a Van Hellsing, golem, and an occult spellcaster. It's at this moment I thought, well hey, maybe *I'm* the one getting trolled here, but after some civil discussion, I think they just liked it because there's a female character in the team to break up the band of male characters. I shudder a little and continue.
Alright, so, I have learned that it is *incredibly* difficult to create a backstory for a silly character concept in a real-world modern-time world. From what I was told about the setting and about Changlings, and with the help of the ST, I created a somewhat terrifying backstory:
There was an 8 year old girl that was Trick or Treating, who went as a Rainbow Fairy Princess that fateful day in 1997. A tall man approached her and said he could make her a real Rainbow Fairy Princess if he will just come with him. She, being a naive 8 year old little girl, did. Then she gets whisked away to a world that is "beauty beyond beauty, beyond my most vivid imagination, a world filled with pleasure and euphoria", where I am apparently tortured and abused by someone that she calls the Wish Maker for I don't even want to think about how long. She eventually broke free to the real world, now in an adult body in present-day Philly, where the Mage that I discussed earlier took her in. She's been living there for 3 years now.
I asked the ST, "Is that all?" What the ST told me next still terrifies me: "Oh? Lots. Oh, you'll find out. You'll find out soon enough. I have PLANS."
Am I the one being trolled now?
Chapter 0 Part 3: The Cast
Meet the Players!
I have decided for now to mask the names of the [s]players guilty with the well-known 90s cartoon, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles:
Master Splinter - He is our StoryTeller, and the one responsible for this confusing mess.
Michelangelo - He plays Jack, a human Mage, occultist and the roommate of the girl I play. He keeps his character's real name a secret; only he, the ST, and I know what it is.
Donatello - He plays Harlow, a Promethean news reporter that studies the occult. He is quiet and respectful. I think he may be in on my trolling ways.
Raphael - He plays Alexander Corvanis, a human Hunter who hunts down monsters. This guy really loves combat, especially hand-to-hand combat. He is also pretty abrasive at times.
Zozoken - That's me! I play Opal Garden, an 8 year old innocent girl Changling stuck in the body of a 25 year old woman that looks like she is 19. If she were a Turtle character, she'd be April.
You will notice there is no Leonardo. Who could possibly be the leader of this rag-tag bunch of monster people?
The Setting
Present-day Philadelphia, I presume with a recently split alternate timeline unless the ST is under the impression that vampires and werewolves are real. The ST stated that he will try to make it as close to real-life Philly as humanly possible, which is good for my Encyclopedic Knowledge as well as no need for having made-up maps.
The Times
We play once a week, on Thursdays, but the actual day our characters act can be any day of that week. Generally a session covers only one day, although it might sometimes cover two or more days, or even only part of a day. We let the ST know of anything special our characters are doing during "off-screen" times; generally, this is for stuff like buying more Merits with our XP or fulfilling events that will lead up to the next plot point.
Nameless Returns: The Commentary
This is where I'll be posting direct links to each session wrap-up. Thank you for reading, and the next update should be in one week from now!
Extras: The Bonus
My Character Sheet (http://www.myth-weavers.com/sheet.html#id=50736)
Opal's Diary (https://docs.google.com/document/d/10dbFGJFqOamVUzBbfpGGvi85upQYDh0emOa1AuDG8wM/edit?usp=sharing) (only Session 0 entry is published)