Fighty

Fighty cast his eyes down at the strange little beings that beleaguered him. Their offensive strategies, while considerable, were disjointed and slack; one of the beings was growing plants and summoning snakes to defeat him, but all they succeeded in doing was tickling him. Fighty giggled at the unpleasant sensation; it was amusing, admittedly, but he didn't like the sentiment. He shot a ghastly storm of rainbow-colored flame from his maw, enveloping the plant and utterly consuming it. He batted the snakes away with little exertion - he picked up one of them and flailed Nujanii with it, sending him rocketing across the coliseum. Fighty twirled the anaconda above his head like a lasso, and then brought it crashing down on Tavahka's head, pinning him to the ground.Fighty tossed aside the dead snake and turned towards TM and Cole. He emitted a sonic roar that embodied the angst of Nirvana and exceeded 180 decibels. Its grating sound forced TM and Cole to the ground, and Fighty struck them where they lay with the flat side of his halberd, nearly crushing them. "Now... for you," Fighty growled, extricating Squishy from his plush waterbed. Fighty tossed Squishy into the air, and then gripped his halberd with both hands. As Squishy fell back down towards the ground, Fighty backhanded him with his halberd, launching him into one of the far walls of the coliseum.Fighty laughed, and summoned a gigantic purple armchair. Sitting back in it, he took a hearty swig of his Żywiec porter and put on his old Rachmaninoff recordings, eying his opponents warily. Alfredo the butler offered him a cucumber sandwich, which he ate with relish.

The technicolor dragon opened his eyes. How long he had been asleep, he knew not; nor did he know how he came to roost in this odd structure, surrounded by bloodthirsty, infinitesimal specks. At least he had his zombie butler Alfredo nearby, offering him some familiarity. The dragon yawned, stretched its enormous limbs, and stood up.The dragon raised its gigantic right paw, summoning into existence its halberd. He flourished it in the faces of the warriors beneath him, and snorted in amusement."You dare challenge me?" he chuckled, sounding like a thundercloud gargling an avalanche. "Say hello to doom... and Alfredo. He's my butler."Alfredo nodded in acknowledgment as he prepared cucumber sandwiches and a Żywiec porter."Now, en garde!" the dragon roared, stabbing the ground with its enormous halberd. Funktastic shockwaves reverberated through the ground, threatening to toss the contenders off their feet.

Well, yeah, that's definitely true.

>i've said more than like four things in this topici'll play an MMO if i want to be rewarded. TBRPGs arent MMOs, they're stories. the only reward in an RPG should be a good story. dont blur the line.listen, i have four and a half incomplete RPGs i have lying around too. i'm not posting them because they're incomplete. toa and power are asking questions you're leaving blank because its incomplete. as a heads up, finish your work before you publish it.I never said it was complete so I don't see why it should be judged as such. Moreover, why should I finish it before getting feedback? Writers are free to post synopses or excerpts and receive criticism; why are game-makers relegated to posting their whole work before they receive feedback?But I digress; your point about TBRPGs is a good one, although not one that I would consider entirely true. I think, simply because my RPG experience is somewhat limited, I'll opt for freeform magic with racial specialties, since that seems to be the most popular solution.

The appeal of a leveling system, in my opinion, is the constant reward that players receive as they play. As -JC- noted earlier, many people would be tempted to disengage from the RPG and just wait until their characters have achieved their full potential. I am naturally opposed to this and will probably revise the system to require player participation, not just "time."However, I also have a couple of other ideas floating around, too. One is to give the races basic qualities, i.e. "enhanced speed" or "resistance to poisons," and then simply allow freeform magic, as that seems to be the more popular option.I do like my idea, though, so I may still try to work out its wrinkles. I do see your point, KoS, about the race restrictions and I have a couple possible remedies in mind.@ToA: That is not a complete overview of the RPG, just a simple prologue of the history of the land. I would set up some basic factions, conflicts and crises to engage players, as well as a single, over-arching mystery, but I want a good deal of the action to be player-driven as well. Okay, so race descriptions, factions, locations, and a revision of the magic system is forthcomng. Thanks for the feedback, guys.

The H'jinn are basically humanoid cats (see: Khajiit) and the Rhy'vitin are a lizard-like humanoid race (see: Argonians). So yes, I am rather shamelessly inspired by the Elder Scrolls.Of course, detailed information for all races (religion, government, physicality) is forthcoming, this was just kind of a way to show off the magic-leveling system... which several of you seem to dislike.Okay, what alternative system do you guys think would work better?

Of course, that post was just to demonstrate how the magic system was set-up.

Hey guys, could you give me a little feedback on my RPG idea? It's a generic-fantasy RPG and it's very, very basic at this point. I need to work on locations, plot, factions and races. Below is a brief introduction to the RPG world (Draumur) and the concept of magic as it operates in the game.

Well, thanks for clarifying some confusions I had. I thought maybe you didn't develop the characters specifically because they were canonical and thus already developed, but had I not been a Bionicle fan, I would have raised that objection anyways. I still like to see good character development in stories, even if I already "know" the characters in a way. Heck, after reading two books of the Inheritance cycle, would I have wanted Brisingr to not develop the character of Eragon at all, since I already "knew" him? But of course, I can see where you're coming from and I respect your artistic decisions. They're, of course, not wrong, I just have slightly different tastes.You say that Hewkii was building up to saying those words, and yet didn't. However, your story begins with those words and Macku seems to reply to them, implying that they actually were spoken words. Thus you can see my confusion when you later stated that they were "unspoken."I now understand what you were going for with the ending, and so I can appreciate it more. However, I do feel like the lead-up to the ending was still a little flat. I would have liked to have gone deeper with Macku, to really understand her emotional state. I know you said that you wanted to do less to make the story more relatable, but I feel like you could've made it more relatable by actually getting more specific with Macku. If you'd given more detail to her grief, more personality to her sorrow, I feel like I would've cared more about her and the story would have resonated more. You don't just have to make a light story that impacts people who've felt loss, you can make a deep story and impact people who haven't felt loss because they care so much about your story. In other words, you don't have to write a story that makes someone cry because it reminds them of their dead grandmother, you can write a story that makes someone cry because OH MY GOODNESS HEWKII LEFT MACKU FOREVER SADFACE. That's just my opinion, so take it as you will.Sorry if I came off as condescending - trust me, I do not consider myself to be on the highest stratum of literary excellence. Also, you don't come off as stubborn to me - your story is well-conceived and you have every right to defend your stylistic choices.

Rookie SSCC member TheMightyFighty here to deliver your official, BZP-funded (loljk) critique.As is my penchant, I shall begin with the problems. First off, this is a grammar error. You have two independent clauses here that are linked together without so much as a conjunction or a semicolon. It does not hinder the meaning of the sentence very much at all, but it's enough to peeve grammar nazis such as myself. In fact, it was almost trivial enough for me to ignore it, but then it popped up again in this sentence: I can see what you were trying to do here, but you should have said dancing across her face. That would have made the second clause dependent on the first. As it is, they are both independent, and they are not linked together in any way shape or form. Once again, the meaning is not marred in any way, but it's a bit jarring for grammar aficionados like me. This really befuddled me. If his words were unspoken, how could she hear them in her head? Does Hewkii have some telepathic abilities that we're unaware of? Now, this sentence is pretty well-structured, aside from the preposition. Instead of 'from,' it should really be 'of.' Or you could say 'Macku seemed frightened by such talk.' But 'from' isn't really an appropriate preposition to use in that situation. Once again, though, this is an error that would only peeve grammar fanatics. "The room lit"? I think you meant you meant to say that the 'lightstone lit up to reveal a cleaner room' or 'the room was lit up by the lightstone.' What you have is basically the equivalent of saying 'the carpet cleaned,' instead of saying 'the carpet was cleaned.' It's a little confusing to read.Beyond just the grammar errors, I was also a little underwhelmed by the main romance. I realize that this is a short story, so you don't have the time to develop characters like you could in a novella or an epic. But nevertheless, I never bought into the story emotionally because the characters never drew me in. Macku's emotional roller-coaster ride left me unperturbed because I really wasn't invested in her or Hewkii as characters. I never really got time to know them, and thus, the emotional part of the story fell flat for me.I was also a little miffed by the ending. I kind of see what you were going for: Macku is emotionally traumatized, but by the story's conclusion she gets a stiff upper lip and decides to plow onward for the sake of her people. It's a solid idea for a story's conclusion. My only problem is that it happens way too fast. We get a few paragraphs detailing Macku's emotional breakdown, then another couple where is basically like 'meh, ok, my boyfriend just left, probably forever, but I'm just gonna keep on rebuilding Ga-Metru and everything's going to be fine and dandy.' Then the story ends. I felt a bit like I was reading an outline of what happened, rather than a detailed account of what happened. It was too rushed to be believable.You have the makings of a great story here, but it just needs a little more life. Give us characters that we can invest and believe in, give us good plot and character development, and give us a satisfying conclusion.Now, for the parts I liked:No spelling errors! Not a single one!That's something to be proud of for sure. You also have a good way of describing things - I was always able to get a solid picture in my mind of what you were saying, which is a great way to immerse readers in your story. You also handled dialogue well. I did complain about the characters being flat, but that was not because of their dialogue. It was well-written and believable. Now if only there had been more of it to substantiate those characters.Now, for pros and cons.Cons:[*]A couple confusing sentences.[*]Lack of character development.[*]Rushed plot.Pros: [*]Good descriptions.[*]Solid dialogue.[*]Good story concept - just missed a little in execution.This could've been a great story, but as it stands, it's simply a Good one. Don't allow my review to get you down, though; you show tons of promise as a writer. Just keep on practicing and I'm sure you'll improve. Also, just so you know, I'm judging this on the level of actual stories. Like, The Old Man and the Sea and House of Mirth. On BZP story levels, this is superb.

Seeing as I'm done with BMSMA's, I'll take Tekulo's entry as well.

Fighty walked in, facepalmed, kicked ToD in the groin repeatedly, and then walked out.Also he bought everyone a beer, increasing their drunkenness by 110%.

Alright, rookie SSCC member TheMightyFighty is here to review your delicious entry!As is my modus operandi, I'll begin with the lesser parts of the story.Now, I always hate to point this out because it makes me feel bad - but you do have several spelling errors. If it's just one or two I usually let it slide, but your misspellings actually confused the story for me, as you can see below: I assume that 'wondering' is meant to be 'wandering', correct? It took me a little while to figure that out, and it jarringly interrupted the flow of your story, which is never a good thing.You also have long sentences that veer towards being clunky. Economy of words is a virtue that all writers should strive for; even though it's tempting to drag out your sentences in a long-winded fashion, it's usually more advantageous to express your ideas as simply as possible. That way, you run little risk of confusing or boring your reader. Consider several sentences from your story, and how they might be changed to be simpler. Obviously, these are simply stylistic suggestions and not actual, objective corrections. But nevertheless, your story can be a chore to read at times due to all the superfluous helping verbs and run-on sentences. It would be a good idea in the future to try to make your stories as concise as possible. You don't need to skimp on creativity or content; just funnel that creativity and content into simple, meaningful sentences that are easy to read and comprehend.Now, for the pluses.I really enjoyed the battle-scene. Here the clunkiness of your sentences didn't bother me as much, because you had such a good sense of what was going on and you conveyed it so well. You gave me a vivid picture of what was happening, which is a great skill for a writer to have. The only downside to the battle was that it was so short; once I started reading it, I didn't want it to stop. Your story kind of faltered during Kopaka's moments of introspection, but it gained its footing once you got to the action. I thoroughly enjoyed that part of the story.I also appreciated that you gave the Matoran some autonomy here. I think everybody roots for the underdogs, and the Matoran have been very clearly distinguished as underdogs in the Bionicle mythos. They are so weak, and they are surrounded by enemies that are so strong. Thus, it's always thoroughly enjoying to read a story where the Matoran win a battle on their own, without any aid from the Toa. So, pros and cons?CONS[*]Clunky sentences[*]Misspellings[*]Slow startPROS [*]Good descriptions[*]Intense actionOverall, I'd give it a rating of Good. It's got some flaws, but it has a thoroughly enjoyable climax and a satisfying conclusion.

I'll take Bite My Shiny Metal Armour's.

Edge Magazine 10/10GameInformer 10/10Famitsu 40/40Eurogamer 10/10Nintendo World Report 10/10Wired 10/10IGN 10/10 + best Wii game of all time + best Zelda game of all time... Epic.

I've never really gotten into RvB, beyond some of the one-shots they've done like their holiday PSAs and whatnot. However, I must say that I love, love, love RoosterTeeth. Those guys are freaking hilarious, whether they're doing RvB, Immersion, Achievement Hunter, Drunk Tank, RT Shorts... whatever. They're freaking comedic genii.

Fighty walked in, gave everyone a hearty punch in the groin, and then walked out.

First, I'll start with the things I didn't like.The main problem I had with this story is that your sentences lack a sense of strong action. You tend to overuse passive voice, linking verbs, and phrases like 'it is doubtful' or 'it seemed.' These can be fine in some situations, but they tend to make sentences boring and lifeless. Here are some examples from your story, as well as examples of how they could be improved to increase a conveyed sense of action. There is nothing grammatically wrong with the way that you've structured these sentences, but they aren't very gripping and are fairly uninteresting. Having strong sentences is key to creating an engaging tale. Beyond just avoiding passive voice, you could also employ other literary tools - hyperbole, vivid descriptions, etc. - to really grab your reader's attention. Make them want to read your story. Reel them in with every passing word.There were some pretty implausible plot twists, such as the servant girl becoming ruler (the queen dies and the throne automatically goes to her lowest slave?), but considering that this is a "Brother's Grimm"-style story, I won't fault you for that. Seriously, was there ever a fairy tale that was plausible?Now, for the things I did like.Your take on the Bionicle lore was very intriguing, and your "Brothers Grimm" style helped the story immensely. It was a fun story to read; I loved your portrayal of Roodaka as the merciless dictator and Vezon as the mysterious jester. The characters were one-note but they were enjoyable and fulfilled their purpose well. I'm also a sucker for revenge tales, so I was immensely satisfied to see Roodaka get her comeuppance at the end. I also loved how you chose to off Roodaka; the ghost didn't simply kill her with his "spirit"-powers or something stupid like that, he tickled her, making her seem insolent to Makuta, who then killed her. The jester got his vengeance in a delicious twist of irony, which I appreciated.Overall, this was a delightful little tale. It wasn't exactly deep, and it had its fair share of cliches and frothiness, but it entertained me. Well done.

I might get MW3 for the Wii. </lol>Although, I'm probably getting a job soon so I might as well save up and buy an X360, XBox Live, and MW3 because that way I can actually play with my friends.

IC: Valaticus nodded tersely, "Our comms-officers will have the coordinates of our colonies for you in a matter of minutes. I thank you for your courtesy, Commander Licht. I hope this is the beginning of a long and fruitful alliance."OOC: Now that my Protectorates are all self-sustaining, I will undock the I'akoi at 1-46, 1-47, 1-44 and 1-45.

Naughty Bear 2.Lol, no. Probably Arkham City. Skyward Sword is a possibility.

IC: Valaticus turned to his fellow consuls, each of whom gave him a different glance. "May we converse privately for a moment?" Valaticus requested, and Licht nodded deftly. Bowing gratitude, Valaticus motioned for the three consuls and Tanakus to join him out of earshot of Licht.As soon as they were gathered, H'rushan launched into his customary spiel about Sanshoran independence and exceptionalism. After he'd blown some sort of fuse in his brain and shut his mouth, Calameus began."They're stronger than us. That's a key element to this deal. This 'Licht' may not be telling the truth, but if we accept or if we decline, we don't stand much of a chance either way. If he is telling the truth, this could be a huge advantage for us. I say we go with it.""The Qur'asha demands peace amongst brothers. These creatures are our equals, our brothers - disagreeing would not produce peace, but conflict. I concur with consul J'rhonikus," J'udas stated blankly. Valaticus rolled his tongue around his lips in thought, and finally conceded."I agree; we don't really have the leisure of choice in the matter." Walking back to the table, Valaticus let Licht know of their decision."We've examined your proposal, and, trusting that you will keep your word, we've found it to be conducive to the benefit of our people. We accept."

IC: Valaticus bristled a bit. It was true; the colony was fledgling and defense was inadequate. But he hated the thought of conceding inferiority to this strange new creature and his impressive military. Finally, he let some of his ego slide and replied."Yes, we do have a bit of work to do before this colony is well-established. We have several other colonies to deal with however, plus the needs of those on our homeworld as well," he said factually, as if this justified the humble state of the colony.

IC: Valaticus, regaining some composure, followed Licht down the hallways as the consuls and Tanakus fell in line behind him.

IC: Valaticus tried to take in all of the regalia that stood before him: the strange creatures, their ornate spacecraft, their menacing weapons... but he emotionally deterred himself from expressing any outward signs of awe. He took a deep breath, and then spoke."Quite... a... hrbsphm... nice... hr'ksht... place."Licht cocked his head in a confused sort of way. Desperate to salvage their appearance from Valaticus' incessant babble, Calameus stepped forward to intervene. "The Supreme Consul offers you the humblest greetings of the Sanshoran race. He wishes to know who you are and what you intend to do regarding this system that we have so recently colonized. I am one of his fellow consuls, Calameus J'rhonikus.""Yeah... whsr... what... hresrh... he... said... motherfusrhehs."