Hello, Skuldhellir!

Perhaps. I'd like to hear what everyone else thinks about it.

A year or so seems reasonable.

A year sounds alright, ja!

How come Ed is only a five in chronomancy? He strikes me as being a good deal more skilled in it than half of a score of ten- though he's your character, so you would know. I was going to have Sneeuw be a four or five in dark magic, but you've set the bar really low, so I think she could only be a two or three. I'm figuring Oz would be like a ten in dark magic (I'm not sure what other skills he might have that might divide the score up), so it made sense to me to have Sneeuw about a four. That seems like it would be uh... somewhere past apprentice but not quite journeyman.

Also, you say that an average, trained mage can be about nine or ten, but then you say they can't have more than five points in one school of magic. Why? What's the reason for that? What if a character only has expertise in one school of magic anyway?

I get the feeling that I'm just not grasping the system entirely- so any help I could get with that, I would appreciate greatly.

Twilight parellel do not want.

Anywho, this magic system. 'Twould be a nifty thing to try out, though I'd have a question. You say the average mage is worth, or could be, about 10 points for their schools of magic. Now, let's say I decided to bring Jin. Not only has he been alive for 7 centuries, he IS a wind elemental. And that is his school of magic and only that. 7 centuries is a long, long time to be using wind magic, and taking into account of what he really is....How would that work?
Just an interesting question.

Although I do not think I'd have any of my characters here, especially Jin, Frowin and Kieren are probably the only two I'd keep around this'un.

Good evening! It's actually past midnight for me but never mind that. I have finally, after saying my goodbyes to NK (Ausky), somewhat read through everything you have posted and for what it is worth I do like it very much. In addition I also have a few suggestions. Currently I have engrossed myself in the intriguing and effed up beyond anything lore of WoW and got a nice taste for ruins. Remnants of some grand mystical empire of beings mortals cannot begin to percieve. Or just very very interesting ruins that in some way or another shouldn't really be messed with because you will have curses and shit ruining your life.
In addition, having read everything (somewhat) the whole consent stuff adds spice but also worry. (Regarding rape you can be banned for just typing it in Furcadia, don't do it!) I suggest the highly disputable faith points. Usually you use it to alter something that just happened a character. I recently bought a rulebook for a pen and paper RP which had an interesting take on it. You have a set of X faith points which you can use once per act. They can help you avoid failing a spell or whatnot and then you get it back. HOWEVER. If you use one to save your characters life it is permanently and forever removed. Consider it a limited amount of extra lifes. If added, it should be taken into consideration with the strength/weakness system meaning you can buy a limited amount but it will count to strength so it has to be balanced out with weaknesses. And if you are unlucky, you will run out and your character will eventually die. I imagine permanent alterations will permanently cost points too and I suppose we should skip the whole "use a temporary FP to avoid fail" part of the system because it will be more difficult to keep track of when someone uses them and when they should get them back.

So... yeah. I suppose that was everything I had to add for now, I got in late because I have FAILED EVERYTHING and I'm currently looking for a job.

The faith points system sounds interesting. Really, anything that would at least slightly lighten the no consent thing as far as death, I would find agreeable. I considered asking about if characters who die in Skuldhellir might only be dead in that continuity, but can live in others, but it didn't seem like a great idea. It might make things really messy- after all, what if a character who recognizes that person as dead shows up in a place where that character is still alive and goes, "Lolwut? Necromancy of some kind?" I don't really care about permanent alteration. I would agree to there being nothing barring that except common sense and not godmoding. Having my character lose both arms would suck, but it would change her life, and change is good. Maybe she'll become a poet who dips her nose in ink and uses that to write? POSSIBILITIES!

Lemme explain, Snee!

Most/all skills (for now, anyway) are graded out of 5. Normal skills are given a usefulness rating--5 meaning the skill gives the character a major edge in the continuity. Something as simple as being a trained miner could be given a 4, simply because it's a skill that gives the character a pretty big advantage in this setting. Mediators will assign these numbers to any and all character skills that aren't magical or supernatural.

Magic works a little differently. The PLAYER applying the character rates their characters' skill in magic, because this is impossible to judge at face value for the mediators. Instead of judging the magic by how useful it would be in Skuldhellir, though, the player scores each school their character knows by how good they are at casting spells from that school. Once again, 5 is the highest this goes.

That 10, or the prep number you pick, only denotes the maximum number of preps your character can cast without exploding. It has nothing at all to do with how good at their magic they are, only how good at CHANNELING magic they are. You can have a character who's capable of casting up to 10 preps, but only has 2 points put into any school of magic. This means they can cast without penalty up to two preps, but start having to make dice rolls on 3 preps or more, even though their maximum number of preps is 10. I'll repeat: that number is the MAXIMUM amount of preps your character can cast without causing a potentially fatal rebound. The points put into certain schools of magic only shows their level of training in that school, not their magical potential. You could also have a character who can cast only up to 2 preps and has the 2 points put into one school, but the difference is that they would NOT be able to even TRY to cast beyond 2 preps at all whatsoever unless they wanted to kill themselves, whereas the character who can cast up to 10 preps with 2 points in one school CAN try to cast beyond 2 preps, they just have to roll a die every prep after 2 to see if they fail the spell.

Edward's got a 5 in chronomancy because he's a master of the art. Oz, too, would have a 5 in the dark arts. As an apprentice, Sneeuw would have a 2 or a 3, and slooooowly get up to 4 and then even 5 (through quick reapplications) as Time passes and she learns more and grasps the skill with more clarity. 2-3 is an average score.

If your character is only skilled in one school of magic, that's fine. You can take 10 preps and put 5 points into that school. As I stated before, you don't HAVE to distribute all 10 of those points, and if you don't, you have a smaller strength score to have to balance out, since it costs another 1 point for every school your character can reliably cast from.


Jin: Jin's magic would still be scored at 5. See, this is not a definitive system like an RPG game showing whose character is better at what. It's simply a system devised to help mediators test character balance with numbers. There WILL be exceptions; in Jin's case, it might be possible for him to cast an extra prep or two without the dice rolling failure penalty because of his natural talent with wind magic, but you have to admit that 5 preps are hard to get off in the first place, and no matter WHAT you are, that much magic is kind of hard to control all at once.

Just 'cause we might be doing things with this system doesn't mean we won't still consider characters on a case-by-case basis!

Raven: It's a very awesome idea, and I'd love to use it if we were doing things differently--but once again, we don't want to turn this into an RPG. We don't want things to be governed by numbers and numbers alone. This is still about writing and telling stories, not winning and maxing out your skills and having higher numbers than everyone else, or, for that matter, more chances than everyone else. Players should usually be able to get themselves out of tight situations if they didn't bring them upon themselves, and if they can't anyway, using a faith point would be kind of like cheating, a roundabout way of unfair consent. No consent seems like a really scary thing, and in many ways it is, especially in a world where explosions and stabbings are probably very common, but if your character plays smart, they won't get into trouble. Chances are they won't get killed or maimed unless they go out of their way to do something awful enough that other characters would be able to justify doing it to them.

The possibility of avoiding spell fails and similar hazards seems like a good one, but the purpose of the points system for magic is to allow magic-users to minimize the number of potential spell failures they'll come across. It'd be unfair if they had yet another way to avoid magical rebounds when magic is so powerful as it is.

^All of this is definitely still up for discussion. Thoughts and suggestions plz, and if you think I'm making no sense or overlooking something crucial or am completely failing at everything, please point it out and give me your thoughts! I've never done this before, and at the same Time I don't want to make anybody feel like their opinion doesn't matter just 'cause I'm the one throwing out the most ideas here. I just have too much Time on my hands. :B

All right, that makes sense now, Edward.

I'd like to let the 'no consent' thing go, but it's really controversial. Most places I've seen have consent rules. I can see how it would make roleplay more exciting and realistic, and it would also cut down on all the dumb characters who are overly brave and stoical, because it gives the roleplayer good reason to have their character be afraid and act accordingly. On the other hand, it might create a lot of drama. Someone who used to roleplay at a dream that had no consent said there was tons of OOC drama as a result. Ideally, the mediators are going to be able to handle things like that. Amongst ourselves- and we know each other and get along quite well- I don't foresee it being a problem, but newcomers may not be as easy to deal with.

We'll just have to take it case by case then, for the drama-folks that stir up just that with no consent. *cracks knuckles and holds up a can of whoop-ass* And if new comers don't like no consent rp... why are they trying to get into this guild anyway?

As for those who possibly abuse it (such as attacking EVERYONE for stupid OoC reasons)... we mediators will handle them. >C *shakes can of whoop-ass*

We'll try to keep things sensible.

If Billy McGrumpyface decides to come along and pose stabbing people in the face for no reason, a mediator might step in to prevent it. Sure, Billy McGrumpyface'd get killed IC for breaking the law, but he'd also end up killing a lot of other characters that can't come back either, and I can easily see trolls and haters abusing this by making throwaway characters they don't care about and then carelessly killing other ones with them.

Major things like murder will need to have a motive or other solid reason. If it's completely random and pointless and possibly an OOC hate act, it will be retconned.

People might agree to no consent, without realizing what exactly that means. They may just think, "Oh, good, no consent means I get to go around punching people in the face now, and no one can yell at me OOCly for it!" and then complain when it has consequences. It can be really hard to know how immature someone is going to be until they've shaken up and cracked open the soda can of bullshit.

And some people who are into no consent can just be elitist bastards who think they know everything about RP, too.

Well, we'll just have to see, I suppose. While it makes me uneasy, I am willing to try no consent. My character does do dangerous things, and those deeds mean more if there are actual consequences, even if it means risking her.

Edit: OLOLOL this post came a bit late. I didn't see Ed's first.

Yeah, we wouldn't allow that. XD No consent does give you more freedom, but it isn't to be abused. The main point is to make taking risks more interesting and rewarding--we'll go to some lengths to make sure characters that do noble but dangerous things will get something in return. Part of the fun is knowing there's real danger there, and trusting your character to their talents and abilities when it comes to getting out of it. This also makes playing cowards or more careful characters far more attractive than it seems in consent continuities!

No consent = serious business. All members will be holding people to their characters and the personalities of those characters; if they do something wildly OOC because of an IC upper hand and the lack of the consent rule, they'll be called out. This does mean we'll likely get a lot of asshole characters, but that's alright, since, 'cause they're assholes, people will be keeping an eye on them anyway IC.

All right, then. :3 I'll have faith and try it out. I might even throw Sneeuw into a semi-risky plot in this wild west of no consent, just to get a feel for how that is.

Just saying that I agree with Ed's textwall post back there. The faith point system is interesting, but it's adding even MORE complexity into an already rather complex application system, and I just think it'd mechanize too much. This IS still about the writing!

Everything I post is a textwall BAWWWWW WHYYYYY

I luv your textwalls, they give me much informatuns :3

I think the no consent shouldn't be worried about too much, I mean a lot of people had no concent in their sheets back at northkeep and many of them are still around.

I think, might be wrong, that outside the gnolls, orcs and monsters down in the mines actual murder might be quite unlikely to happen to people who don't make themselves be noticed overly much. It's still a crime after all. Not EVERY fight must end up in one party dying, there's always the option of knocking inconsious, disgracing them, etc.
That's even a better punishment for your archenemy, if they die they're gone and you might just be hanged for it but if they're disgraced they'll have to live with the shame.

It's a small settlement after all, you have more chances in survival if you band together than smack the crap out of each other. And we have to consider the fact we're still in a sort of medieval situation with a bunch of proud inhabitants (dwarves and mages and such.), who are more likely to have a fair duel for the honor rather than killing you. (unless you really really piss them off.). Maybe there can be small official duels that everyone can come watch in market square. All with combatants that need to settle a score with someone. With rules like 'Whoever draws first blood wins.' etc. It would provide with means of entertainment and lessen tension between arguing parties ICly.

As for non-consent, I think people just have it a bad name. It's not like -anything- goes just like that. It just means the things that are allowed to happen within a PG-13 zone, can happen and will happen if there's IC reasoning, whether you as a player like it or not.
If people don't like it, then they shouldn't RP here, period. There's plenty of other dreams where they can throw consent around like candy. We are speshiul snuuflaikz ;D

Exactly.
I mean, the fact we don't go. "I don't like u, i kill u now!" Is the thing that sets Skuldhellir's people apart from the orcs and gnolls I'd assume. :p

The official duels sound sweet though, perhaps we should have more medieval entertainment in the square. Public execution and hanging, fairs, a travelling circus. Those things were big in those times, especially those latter can change the face of the town for a while.

A long long time ago in a dream far far away I enjoyed the first years of my serious RP. This very place did not follow the consent rule and it just so happened to be one of those dreams where everyone was having fights in the tavern every two or three seconds all the time. (They could also stab you in the ass for no reason and many other herp de derp events that, with the lack of the consent rule, meant constant fear.) None the less, my characters survived for ever and ever because I acted much like I would IRL; if I fight or similar started between people capable with swords or fireballs I was quick to get the eff out. So the point is that if you don't seek out a fight, if you don't provoke people and if you just act like a normal and functional individual then frankly you would never have to worry about it. Play your character as a coward, you'll be fine. Be the brave hero, face the risk of death and, more importantly, eternal glory!

Ulrin, you seriously read my mind. I was totally going to ask about people dueling each other in case someone ruffles someone else's feathers, instead of just stabbing each other in the back. That's totes something I could go for.

I was actually explaining Skuldhellir and its no consent thing to someone tonight, and the more I explained it, the more I warmed up to the idea. If there's really no god moding, and mediators make sure the IC reasons for something make sense and there's no OOC BS fueling it, then it has potential to work really well.

The main thing selling me on the idea is that it gives more realism and depth to characters. I know I already mentioned this, but I had an opportunity to look more deeply into that idea. Mostly everywhere you went in Furcadia roleplay dreams, you would see characters who had seen it all and were never unsettled by anything. That's because they had met a variety of shady, dangerous, scary-looking characters, but those characters never had the power to do any serious harm. There was never any real danger in those characters, so the stoical ones hadn't earned their attitude.

I know that I'm guilty of doing that, myself, and I've struggled to make my character more reactive to scary things. But in a no consent roleplay, I won't have to struggle. I'll feel actual fear of losing my character, which in turn will make me roleplay her in a more realistic, in-depth manner.

So yep, I'm even more sold on the idea than I was earlier.

We totally have an arena in the dream for a reason, guys! I imagine tavern brawls and similar events will be common--these are DORFS we be talkin' aboot--but fights of honor will probably be taken to the arena. I can't say as much for other types of combat--admit it, it IS kind of fun to be walking around and then come upon people beating eachother up--but just like in real life, people who brawl where they shouldn't be brawling will eventually be dealt with IC. (As opposed to how we used to deal with these events OOC back in Northkeep, hurpedurp)


I'm really glad you're getting to like the idea, Sneeuw! You've hit the concept pretty well, and I'm going to reassure you again just for good measure; no consent, if anything, means an even stricter watch on how things are going IC. This is why we're going to have at least twice as many mediators as we did Taneests at Northkeep. Mediators are going to be dealing with the job of making sure no consent isn't abused. This doesn't mean they'll come up with a hax for your character to escape every dangerous situation, it only means that they will make sure nobody's character dies or loses an arm because of another character unless there's a relatively good reason for it.

This could result in a lot of retcons, but that's a worst case scenario. All of you guys have good heads on your shoulders, and even if we do get a couple of problematic new members, I think you'll rub off on them when it comes to making sensible IC choices.

I love the concept of duels and the like, but Ed, I always pictured the arena in the dream as a much, much shadier type of place--where nasty brutal gladiator fights take place, not honor duels. I think honor duels and public stuff like that WOULD be in the town square! I'll make it so there's no one in the middle for that reason. Or I can leave the town square empty of shops, and make the actual market beside it.

How the arena turns out is mostly up to the whims of the players. It's shut down right now, isn't it?

The town square is a viable alternative, though, I suppose. If it's anticipated that it's going to be used for things like this, then setting up a market on the side would probably be best.

Or we arange a dedicated hill with one lone dead and twisted tree, soaked red with the blood of past duels, where the two will duke it out to death in the crimson sunrise.

HOWEVER.
I friggin love the idea of a real nasty gladiator arena where criminals or feral animals or perhaps even captured orcs and such are pitted against each other in any combination. Decadence!