The Arena Slaves (Forum Game)

[brontan]

You know i feel like we failed a spot check... oh well
Trips on rocks
Loving the way Clan fourem works out its problems, Trips walks into the center square while shouting obsenities about the thieves mothers.

[notimportant]

Or a Sense Motive.

[TanaNari]

Yeah, I know, we're probably going to find out something ugly very soon. But if we hold back and do nothing, we'll lose period. At least *this* way we get it done early and know to avoid it later when the threat is much greater.

[BurnsBees]

What does the red in the bar mean?

[brontan]

its the crowd gauge, right now we are in the negative 5, because the crowd guage is based off our average app.

[ArdentSilver]

I've been having power outages all night . Said power outage already ate my first post.

Raises Eyebrows

Raises Eyebrows finds himself being pushed along with the charging goblin bodies into the center of the arena. "Hey, hey -- Keeper of Doors! Do you remember that story the Teller used to tell, the one about that magic hero? Captain Arm Ica? I have a shield. Didn't he have a shield?" Raises Eyebrows idly toys with the buckler. "I think his was red though. Red and blue. Hey, hey, Lives by the Sword -- wouldn't this shield be cool if it had a spike right about here?"


**Move to center of arena**

[Cragspyder]

I don't recall "Captain Arm Ica's" shield having a spike...

Though I guess it could be thrown, its not a Buckler of Returning though!

[Ratha]

"Ahhhh, yes." says Doors, taking a brief pause from shouting obscenities at the thieves. "I remember the Teller telling us about Captain Arm Ica. I liked them, but I kept being elsewhere whenever the Teller was telling those stories."

Doors looks around. "I don't see anything we can use to make the buckler look like that. Maybe we can think of something later though. For all that people are killing each other, this is a show, so colourful weaponry would probably be favourable."

[notimportant]

Not Important envies Eyebrows ability to imagine himself as a great hero from the Stories, just because he found a round piece of wood.

"Captain Arm Ica was defeated by an ancient dragon, so mighty that the mere mention of its name could suck you out of existence. You wouldn't want to be like him."

[ArdentSilver]

Not Important envies Eyebrows ability to imagine himself as a great hero from the Stories, just because he found a round piece of wood.

"Captain Arm Ica was defeated by an ancient dragon, so mighty that the mere mention of its name could suck you out of existence. You wouldn't want to be like him."

"Are you kidding?" Raises Eyebrows... arches the hair above his eyes. "I mean, yeah, dying would suck, but everyone would remember my name! They'd be all like, 'Hey, do you remember 'Raises Eyebrows'? He got eaten by a dragon. What a way to go, but damn if he didn't look fine doing it. I think he was striking a pose when the dragon finally tore him to pieces. Man, if he was still here today, I'd give him lots of important stuff, on account of him looking so cool and being so memorable"

Raises Eyebrows continues to ramble, but quieter, to himself.

*Fixed typo.

[LoneStarNorth]

The Goblins advance as one. The Criminals... less so.

"You guys are such asses."

"Ho ho! Looks like the goblins understand the advantage of numbers better than the condemned! But the real question is, can they fight?"

The Crowd hushes briefly in anticipation of first blood...

*****

Hmm, I might have to come up with some size/spacing rules. That giant mass of goblins is a little silly looking. Also I think a Charge mechanic is definitely in order here. Oh well, live and learn. You think I got everything right in Last Ditch Dungeon the first time around? Pffft no.

[Ratha]

"This is it!" thinks Keeper of Doors. "And they come in lesser numbers! PERFECT!"

Keeper of Doors lets off a loud battle cry. Yell the loudest, and hopefully they'll look at you first, before other, less well armoured people. He jumps to attack the first crook, trying to avoid the knife, and deliver a hard kick.

"FOR CLAN... FOUREEEEEEEM!!!"

[notimportant]

Not Important
Not Important waits until the first knife human notices Doors charging him, and runs in from an angle, trying to stay unnoticed. He then leaps onto the first knife human's back, and pulls their blue headband down over their eyes. He then tries to cling to the human's back, while keeping its eyes covered and possibly getting a few bites and scratches in as well.

Summary: Attack the first human, in an underhanded fashion.

[TanaNari]

Nine to two? Sweet. Same spread I gave before, but the two that were targetting the third and fourth criminal, hit the second knifer. Everyone else- dogpile the first guy. Ok, I'll need someone else to join me in a leg attack. I got the right, someone (anyone without a weapon or armor) take the left. Let's trip this guy and kill him in the most horrifying way we can.

Aims darts quickly at the second knifer, the one he was staring down, then at the last possible moment slams into the first knifer's leg- aiming to take out one of his feet and (if possible) break the kneecap in the process to take his body down to a more desirable level for the rest of the team.

[ArdentSilver]

Raises Eyebrows

"aha!" Shouts Raises Eyebrows. "Distracted, I see!" The goblin leans forward, buckler leading, attempting to cram as much of his head and torso behind his pitiful shield as he can. "Have at thy, kneecaps! Aroaaaaa!"

The goblin bravely bolts towards the bandit *not* being menaced by Keeper of Doors. Heedless of any more meaningful combat tactics, he runs straight for the thief's knees. "The bigger they are, the harder they fall--the bigger they are, the harder they fall -- the bigger they are THE HARDER THEY FALL. Aroaaaaaa!"

[brontan]

Trips on Rocks
"Yes! Trip him! The irony!" Trip said falling into a fit of maniacal laughing as he jumps onto the second thug's face trying to stab out his eyes.

[RandomMerc]

Get Away:

I attempt to leap off one of my fellow goblin's heads (if they allow me), spear one of the crooks in the eye, tear it out of his head and with whatever momentum is left bounce off his face and leap at the other crook to attack (jump kick or spear in the heart).

[notimportant]

A thought enters Not Important's mind: Maybe it would have been more sporting of us to let two goblins face off against the two humans? Since he is doing his best to cling to an enemy at the time, the thought passes unnoticed through the mind, and back to where it came from.

[Kide]

Betrays A Friend

Is the other thief looking back to his unarmored partners? Hmmh, I wonder what they really are up to, or are they up to anything at all.... Well, it still should not make too much of a difference in the end, we still need to attack..

Betrays looks a little warily on the humans and wonders why they would spread up like this, but he would nevertheless has to attack with the rest of the group and does not let himself wonder about trivial matters more than he already has. He charges to the second knifer hoping that the knifer would concentrade on him and not to the other goblins, who then might have a better angle to attack the human. Just before the human Betrays jumps in to the air charging in to the humans torso with all his strength hoping to strike the human down to the ground with his weight. at the same time he lands on the human he will also punch him in to the stomach, hoping this would make him fall more easily.

[TanaNari]

I thought of something, LSN... instead of doing a side scroll, do a "top view". So there could be a "chessboard" grid for us to play with. Or if you're feeling fancy, a hex grid.

This will let you place items in various squares, and make movement tactics both valid and valuable in the scheme of the fight. Basically like a standard tabletop game.

[AdjectiveNoun]

EatsAnAdventurer

The nigh-constant stream of semi-relevant rambling from Eats is cut off suddenly in startlement as Get Away tries to climb on her. She reacts quickly and gives him a boost, letting him launch off her shoulders for the criminal's face. After a moment's reeling, she piles into the heap of goblins on the first knifer, pummelling, kicking, and somehow ending up chewing at his ankles.

"Uuurhhll! Uhihoksh!" (Translation: Ewww! Dirty socks!)

[LoneStarNorth]

I thought of something, LSN... make the game ten times as complicated but still update every night.

Basically like a standard tabletop game.

[TanaNari]

I don't know HOW complicated updating is. But would a grid from above really be that bad? I'd imagine it'd be simpler, really. We'd just have to have numbers on the grids so each of us could declare which spot we move to.

And I could lend you any gridded format you could ask for- I got a nice spreadsheet program I use to do it all the time.

[michael7050]

I like the current system, personally, however, maybe an overhead screenshot just to show positions, before the current slot.

I personally really like the current set out, and I don't feel there's anything wrong with it.....yet.


(except for the mass of goblins, which does look kinda bad.)

Maybe only grant a charge move at the beginning of each battle, and even then, only 3/5 charges available to the group as a whole, to stagger them out a little.

Just my tuppence worth.

[LoneStarNorth]

Updating the thread takes somewhere in the vicinity of a half hour, and there are two threads. Sometimes they take longer if I decide to be fancy and draw an action panel (hasn't come up here yet, but plenty in Last Ditch).

The real pain would be redrawing the arena and all the characters and items from a top-down perspective. Furthermore, is it going to be five spaces long? Then the same clutter problem is going to come up. Is it going to be bigger, like nine by nine? One character per space? Is everyone going to need a Move stat? And I'd have to keep track of who is in what square, you'd have to keep track as players in between updates so as not to get in each others' way. And there are other baddies, items, and rules that haven't come into play yet which would need to be rewritten. Like Last Ditch Dungeon, you guys are going to have to play the game to learn why everything is the way it is.

The design goal for these games is to achieve a certain feel (dungeon crawl, arena combat) while keeping the mechanics as simple as possible so people won't be frightened off, and so I can update quickly. I believe the current rules (with the addition of a Charge, just to correct the issue of pacing) accomplish this. In retrospect I should have just staggered the goblins differently, in three rows instead of two. Once I start drawing everyone in action poses things will clear up a bit. And I suspect this kind of mass charge won't happen all the time anyway.

So: I like the set-up as is and will keep it that way. But I might run a different style in another game. Or any of you could run it! Game mastering isn't as scary as it looks.

Game masters, on the other hand...