Posts made by TimmyZ

@Packrat said in Fifth Kingdom:

I have to admit that my first thought after looking through the website was along the lines of:

'Ohh god, not vaguely medieval Irish, this is going to be insufferable'. It is going to attract the worst typed accents, weird hagiographic interpretations of inherent Irishness, etc.

Our focus is Arthurian in nature, Irish Fifth secondary. Battles of kings potential abundant. But not historical, true to history loses interest and leads to squabbles of what actually happened in 6th century. There would be disagreement on the irish chariot and whether or not it's just sport spectacle or only for races at this point. Or the ' conversion' by St Patrick. I do not want to see attempts at dialect or bad stereo types.

Edit: Also FS3, with linear character generation but exponential advancement. What are your plans if any to offset making a super specialist in character generation putting you months to years ahead when it comes to skills compared to somebody who is a generalist? Most FS games thus massively favour whomever can just precisely sneak under your invisible permitted limit of min maxing.

FS3 is open in cg, no limit, maxing an action skill or two will limit in other areas. Merit is based in reputation and traits, subjective to rp and getting votes from other players. This will net modifiers. XP growth is 1 a week, no more. Growth will be seen more in traits and reputation. This can even raise the max dice pool above the 16 standard max (4 attribute and 12 skill). FS3 has a pool limit of 21 regardless. But trait and reputation are meant as the equalizer.

A few answers to questions that will come up ...

We use FS3. Not looking for discussion of pros and cons. We have chosen this specifically to be action oriented and not a combat simulator or a rules heavy, accurate portrayal of historical combat. Sorry if you don't like it, but it is what we choose.

There is L&L style play to some level involved. It is not our primary focus, but the things everyone hates about L&L (tea party politics, events, friendly gatherings) comes into play anywhere and everywhere. Most WoD games that continue to run have the very elements most people dislike about L&L in them. We aren’t opposed to these at all either. We do, however have an emphasis on action. It is by no means limited to jousting at the tourney. There will be opportunity for adventure, both on a PrP level and even the occasional staff-run encounter/plot.

The words history and fantasy are involved in describing our game. We are not recreating history, don’t drag in a debate about which century favored which polearm. We are not a typical fantasy, with options of races, or magic spells. Our focus is on Arthurian legend, as detailed in the writings of Gothic to high Gothic French authors mostly.

They put high Gothic knights into early history. They kept alive the tradition of the tales involving many adventures, but they made it interesting; they added personal character development and drama, or at least brought it to a new level. The stories involve the old slaying of giants and dragons and duels with mystery knights, but the parts we remember is the character development from these tales. This is our focus.

We are asking for an investment in developing a character. We’re not a grab some stats and roll some dice sort of place. A little history on your character, nothing much, but following approval and once you start playing, you are required to do a little more homework including helping develop your houses.

We use traits and reputation. These are not bought with XP or requested, this is a subjective voting system whereby you must portray those traits and reputations you want such that other players find it feasible. They will submit +requests if they think you are playing certain traits or reputations. These subjective measures are not meant for circles of friends to bolster each other, friends will net diminishing returns on the value of their votes. It is our merit system, XP doesn’t come that fast, but bonuses can be acquired through high traits and reputations, and the best way to get them is by RP’ing with more people.

What we are not.

We are not a historical recreation; following history to a fault. We are not looking at any historical time points to feel, relive, or recreate parts of history that sound interesting to us.

We are not a typical fantasy game; magic is rare, and the other races are just that, other races. We are not a cut and paste fantasy with a mix of whatever game system we randomly decided to use full of options and sub options and complexities in just trying to be the unique version of a prototypical fantasy game.

We are not a strategy simulator; overly detail-oriented combat and options heavy large-scale battles. We are not after accuracy of detail in how sword and armor interacts to the point everyone else is bored and leaves to find fast-paced action elsewhere nor does understanding real world strategy in troop movement, placement and interaction play a part of what we have set out to create.

What is our focus: Character development and stories of those characters as they shape their environment. There is room for knightly adventure, courtly intrigue, and politics even, but the heart of our play is a focus around the characters in a fantasy-light, alternative historical setting. The central focus of play will remain the primary characters of our players, assigned to the court of a High King. It will follow their influence on the decisions and outcomes of that realm, of its trials and tribulations, the telling of its successes and failures to come, while retaining its focus on the growth and development of the interesting characters therein.

Interested: http://fivek.wikidot.com/