HeavyMetalSunshineSister

OOC: Thoughts on my character's profile, TPtI?

OOC: And with that, the race that wins the award for "Most Shameless Rip-Off of Welsh" may begin their work. IC: The Diemawr Conclave was abuzz. The Diemawr had been picking up scattered radio signals from a nearby civilization for more than a century - for most of that time, it had simply been seen as background noise, to be filtered out for the sake of clear communications. Recently, though, an increased burst of activity seemed to indicate that their neighbors had entered space around the same time as - if not before - the Diemawr. It was this acknowledgement of the possibility of rivals that made the Diemawr nervous, and was the source of much debate at the Conclave. Some argued for the design and launch of an exploration probe, to get a closer look at these rivals. Other, more cautious members urged the Lord President to build up home defenses, citing the possibility of hostile intentions on the part of the aliens, while a third faction within the Conclave insisted that they push ahead on expansion efforts, demanding a greater supply of resources to fuel what would surely become the greatest - if not the only - empire the galaxy had ever known. The Lord President listened to the advice from the Conclave, taking great care to avoid crossing his arms, closing his hands, or resting them on the table. All of these gestures could be interpreted as signs of boredom and, more subtly, of disrespect, and would certainly be remembered if the Lord President sought to advise the Conclave on domestic matters in the future. The plain fact, though, was that he was bored. He'd made up his mind hours before, and was now only waiting for a decent pause in the argument to state his decision. At long last, the desired pause came. "I have thought on your words, associates, but in the end, only one of the three branches may be taken. Distant rivals are as unpredictable as a summer storm, and measures must be taken to ensure that we are not taken lightly when the time comes for a confrontation. Send word to our colonies - each of our three worlds shall begin construction on three Carreg-dur defensive stations." OOC: And so, construction on three Carreg-dur per planet started, to be completed next Tuesday morning.

He looks jealous of Jules's jheri-fro. To be fair, though, so is everyone else.

OOC: I think it might be best for you to go ahead and post the specs for your Orbital Defense Platforms. I'm following my usual method of making up technology as I go along, so I've got to wait for the official go ahead on the Carreg-dur.

OOC: Might as well get the ball rolling - before offense, defense. Class Name: Carreg-durClass Size: StarbaseClass Function And Description: Robust orbital-defense station, meant to hold off an invasion with minimal support from mobile forces. The Carreg-dur is an automated military satellite locked in geostationary orbit. It receives its orders from command-stations located on the planet below, and each Carreg-dur starbase serves both to detect an approaching threat and as the most reliable means of dealing with it.Class Weapons: Solet heavy armor (3), Dant-a-Grafanc (5), Gwaed-a-Dur (1), Fighter Bay (1) Name: Solet heavy armorWeapon Size: SmallMechanics: The inclusion of this on a unit's load-out indicates a coat of armor so thick that weapons slots had to be sacrificed to make room for it. Most likely to be seen on defensive units, Solet heavy armor simply provides an extra layer of protection from attack. Name: Dant-a-Grafanc Weapon Size: Point-defenseMechanics: A turret-based array of autocannons, with an attached targeting computer to enhance accuracy. Name: Gwaed-a-DurWeapon Size: MediumMechanics: Large-bore Gauss cannon, uses electromagnetic coils to accelerate a metallic projectile to high velocities for maximum damage on impact.

I'm trying to remember the name of the cereal... It was like Raisin-Bran, but with dates coated in a yogurt-based substance thrown in for good measure. Those things were a greater prize than anything else that could possible come out of a cereal box.

Oh, I'm fine with people messing about with time, so long as they are prepared to face the possible consequences. It's really only a true punishment for the people who are bad at RPing and do something stupid with time because they think they're awesome. For everyone else, it's a fun little addition to the game.

Oh, it would be fun if you're any good. If you're really good, you might even be able to weaponize it. The trouble is being quick and clever enough to avoid disembowelment, because the gloves are off when it comes to these things - if they get you in a situation where, because you screwed around with space-time, they have a perfect, unavoidable opportunity to kill you, you are dead. And, of course, that's only the space-time rules. Breakage of other rules would result in me legitimately being rather cross with you.

Yeah, some RPGs got pretty crazy. I want to limit the railroad-spike-through-head element of RPing in this as much as humanly possible, which is why I'm going to be rather strict and blunt about the rules, and if you try to smash the rules of space-time, a hole will be ripped in the universe, and invincible otherworldly monsters will chase you around until you fix what you've done.

The two-hearts thing I think is unnecessary to the comparison, so it can be left out, but the general idea is that they're going to be a long-lived race that tries to control the universe and keep things steady. I'm thinking that it might be best to keep races from being pure evil or pure good - create conflict between them, make sure they think the other side is pure evil, but don't make it so that players on one side will have characters that are basically like "Ohohoho, look how evil I am." I guarantee you, if I don't balance the sides, that will happen, and they'll somehow have a character on one side that's another character's evil twin. Of course, there will also be sapient creatures that basically act as predators. Probably not going to make those widely available to players. Finally, there will be the creatures and things I introduce to the game as plot-points, and players will be faced with the whole "Enemy of my enemy" dilemma. Right now, I really think I should get to planning out the various sides. Perhaps the most critical part for me is visualizing the creatures, because that's often how I get the ball rolling for the rest of their description.

OOC: Not 100% certain about this character, but I don't see any particular reason why the whole alien thing would be a problem. Real Name: FellwydAlias: Douglas SmithAppearance: Fellwyd is a member of an alien species called the Diemawr, 1.5-meter tall reptilians with a bulky torso, long, strong arms with four fingers and two thumbs, five-toed feet with opposable, monkey-like toes, and a prehensile tail longer than they are tall. The head of a Diemawr is boxy, with a pronounced, almost pig-like nose connected to a fleshy air-sac on top of the snout, a bony plate on top of the head, and an array of protofeather-like quills protruding from the back of the head. Fellwyd is an albino of his species, and most of the length of his tail has been lost. He wears a thick, loose protective garment made from a rough sort of leather with small metal plates sewn on.-Disguised Appearance: When using his disguise, "Douglas Smith" is a short, stocky, balding man with wire-frame glasses, a neatly pressed blue suit, a nose like a squashed tomato, and dull grey eyes. The disguise was chosen to be as unremarkable as possible.Power: Like all members of his species, Fellwyd is physically very strong, and is a naturally skilled tree-climber, though the loss of his tail impairs his balance somewhat. All of his weapons were lost when his escape pod crashed, so he has to rely on physical strength and any weapons he might find in a fight. Mentally, he is very straight-forward, and is incapable of perceiving telepathy, though he can be fooled by it. Fellwyd also possesses sort of a cloaking device that allows him to disguise himself as Douglas Smith. To aid in his disguise, Fellwyd carries a translation device with him, though, like any electronic translator, it needs sufficient exposure to a language to work with it, and is certainly capable of garbling translations.Allegiance: Solo Neutral, perhaps closer to Hero than VillainArea: Homeworld is Diemwnt-Cwn, crash-landed in Cardiff Bay.Bio: Fellwyd was a member of the Diemawr warrior class, fighting a war millions of miles from the homeworld over possession of an iron-rich asteroid field. Fellwyd was working as a gunner on a lightly armored cruiser patrolling near a suspected enemy base of operations when the ship was ambushed, with enemy lasers gutting the bridge before they had a chance to retaliate. Of the crew that did not perish in the initial volley, Fellwyd was one of the last to make it to an escape pod, and his pod was sent hurtling off into space when the cruiser finally exploded, frying the pod’s navigation systems.Devoid of any way of steering itself, the pod drifted silently through space for years, with the frozen body of its occupant stored in suspended animation until the pod was pulled into the gravity well of a blue-green rocky planet, the third from its sun. As the pod plunged through the atmosphere, the onboard computer used the last of the power to thaw Fellwyd, preparing him for impact.At 5:05 AM, on a cold December night, the pod splashed down in Cardiff Bay, slowed marginally by a parachute that had deployed automatically after re-entry. The impact with the water, unfortunately, caused the pod-doors to malfunction as Fellwyd exited the pod, snapping shut on his tail and severing the appendage. The waterlogged reptile dragged himself onto the shore after a long swim, and, after observing the planet’s inhabitants from a safe hiding place, activated his disguise and went out into the world.

Understandable. That, I think, shunts me back to Plan A - wait for Netflix to get the job done.

That is exactly the emoticon for describing my situation with Doctor Who on Netflix at the moment from a third-person perspective. From my perspective, it's more like a Smiler. Absolutely thrilled when I found out Doctor Who was on Netflix, disconcerted when I found out that neither the classic show nor Planet of the Dead was on there, and apocalyptic rage when I found out that Season 6 wasn't on there. If you can suggest a better source that requires neither money nor an eyepatch, I would be rather pleased.

The source I was using (Netflix) lacks Series 6. Needless to say, I am 11 different kinds of disappointed. Hopefully, though, Series 6 will be added sometime after the end of this year, so I can just be, you know, a year behind everyone else watching Doctor Who. Ah, the joys of not actually owning a telly.

Yeah, I think that sounds good. Maybe go with three classes of time-travel devices; 1. Small-group transport, open. Fairly uncomfortable, not always accurate, but cheaper than other methods and less conspicuous. 2. Large-group transport, closed. Like a TARDIS, basically the Cadillac of time-travel. 3. Very large-group transport, open. This would be like a ship-bound device for very creative orbital bombardments. And finally, Special: Natural time-travel. Like what the Weeping Angels do, but controlled, and not necessarily malicious. Very limited on extra transported personnel.

Yeah. I'll be spending a fair amount of time figuring out what seems coolest. Currently leaning towards something that, like the TARDIS, can travel through space and time easily, but whether it's man-portable or a big machine is uncertain at this time. May have multiple methods of time-travel present.

I would probably incorporate a species that is functionally similar to the Time Lords, yes. Humanity will likely be involved as well, and I've got another race mostly down. The time-travel mechanics are basically already done, with the question remaining of the method for time-travel - since this is neither quite Doctor Who nor Blackadder, I doubt I can get away with just using TARDISes.

Wow. I will never look at Ood Sigma the same way again. More specifically, I will now do this every time I see that character:

Should be noted that photons do not, in fact, have mass. As for the superpower I would want... Hmm. I think anything involving time-travel or immortality would prove to be more troublesome than it's worth. I'm going to have to go with complete immunity to disease. Never get the cold, or anything else again, and then just lay down and die when I get so old that there's nothing else to do.

Right, completely forgot that little detail. Same image, now in an accessible location. Terribly sorry for the inconvenience.

True enough. And, apart from that, I don't think that a Doctor Who RPG would ever really feel like it's mine.

I'm leaning towards that, but I'm probably going to end up taking Doctor Who's rules on time-travel pretty much word-for-word, because they're perfect for what I have in mind.

I speak English and Spanish very well. Thinking of learning something Gaelic, maybe Welsh, and, at some point, I just might go for Swahili.

I'm currently trying to figure out a way to incorporate time-travel into an idea without players going back in time to kill Hitler, then going back on their own time-line to high-five themselves for killing Hitler. Calm, careful writers can set up and abide by constraints for the sake of sanity and continuity - they'll obey the rules of the fictional universe because of the "carrot" of a good story. Unfortunately, we're on a forum that allows absolutely everyone to join. This means that we get people who aren't calm, careful writers, and who need the "stick" instead. The question, then, is how to apply the stick without it seeming contrived. Punishments from beyond the fourth wall irk me a little. Fortunately, speculative fiction has the answer. You break time, time bends back around and breaks you. This brings me to the ghost - the shadow, if you will - of a concept. A concept based largely on a couple of weeks of watching five years worth of Doctor Who. My question to you, then, is this - would you rather see an RPG based on an alternate-universe version of Doctor Who, one in which the Last Great Time War never happened, so you can go ahead and play as Time Lords, or a universe of my own devising, pulled directly from the vapor?

The MIT Sea Perch ROV is rather difficult to pilot with a plankton trawl attached to it, especially since it's difficult to attach the trawl at the exact center of the rear of the ROV. The trawl adds extra weight and drag to the ROV, effectively ruining the steering. The Cybermen in Doctor Who were introduced as a metaphor for communism. Similarly, the Daleks can be seen as a stand-in for fascists, and, more specifically, Nazis.