StickFig

+1 UoP DoH for trees 1/3 studs up rocks and cliffs brick-built animals 2/3 and 3/3 Almost didn't vote you for rocks/cliffs because this is such a simple small example, but it's a simple subject so I think this works. Just to be sure, the brickbuilt animals you're referring to are the blackbird (awesome) and the orgress (also awesome)? I wasn't sure what the hairpiece at the bottom right was meant to be: a squirrel, perhaps? Great build, really excellent - both imaginative and well built.

Pictures are missing right now.... some problem in Flickr?

+1 UoP DoH for wall technique 3 life in Kaliphlin For the sand dunes, I don't think this is really "dunes," per se. This is a great MOC though! Loving the walls!

Yep, that's exactly what I meant - Quest #102 was probably not as good a fit for Matthias as it would have been for some other characters for all of those reasons. I am glad that Matthias got picked for it, though!

And you should be - it was a good quest with a lot of interest! I take responsibility for this: Matthias asked about the weapon, and I was focused on it, but as an inexperienced player I forget that the characters might have things about their persons not listed in their drops or inventory. Matthias was about to suggest going to search Bors' room for the artifact when he was railroaded by the Purpearl/Watch fight. Thanks for rewarding your players when their characters actually picked that option, especially when they'd already sat out one fight and missed the associated advancement... oh, wait, no, you punished them with permanent negative bonuses and goaded them in-character until they joined the battle anyway. ...That came out really strongly; please don't take it too personally but that really is the way it felt. I think this is the hardest part for Matthias (and me as a player). Matthias has never experienced being a Hero. He came to Heroica Hall because he had no future as a young inner city gnome and he'd heard/read about the exploits of the Nova Corps Avengers Justice League Heroes of Heroica. Now that he's a member, he's been to Baltarok, on an unsatisfying mission that, while it was realistically about as successful as anyone could hope, still didn't live up to the "do good and everything will work out perfectly" expectation portrayed in the stories, and a quest specifically designed to not be heroic. ...As a player, I haven't yet experienced a straightforward quest where Heroes have even the opportunity to be unequivocally good guys. Such quests do exist: for instance, the one where the magic school was being devoured by a void eater thingee. I think that as morally exhausting as the final Baltarok battle and Debts have been, I'd sign Matthias up for a "Kill 10 Large Rats" quest line just to have a break. I have enough moral weight in my daily work; I'd like to think that gaming might be an escape - a way to put things in perspective, sure, or to explore concepts and morality, but in a more fun/lighter way. I know this all just sounds like complaining; sorry. I really do appreciate you, Zeph, and the other QMs and Sandy, for all the work this takes. Thank you so much for creating this for us to enjoy. I will lay this at the QMs' (collective) feet: if the "Heroes" of Heroica are nothing but mercenaries, it is because the Veterans are accepting missions they should not be (QMs are pitching morally ambiguous quests), and if Heroes never see the effects of their work, it is because QMs wrap up their story lines with a final battle and sometimes a "goodbye" scene. The players have much less control over the morality of Heroica than do the QMs. If the QMs as a whole decide that Heroica is going to work for whoever can pay the best, that's what the players will do, because that's how this works. If the Veterans stop accepting quests from Johnny Everyman (because he is an amoral jerk) and his ilk, then Heroes won't find themselves in such awkward positions.... P.S. - Debts was built for Guts and Nyx and Docken and Hybros (and maybe Alexis and Nerwen); I think it would have worked better with them as characters. Maybe the impact is bigger and more lasting with Matthias, though; rich, powerful, intimidating Guts especially might not notice or care nearly as much as a tiny, weak, railroaded gnome will. Maybe Matthias will want to make a difference in Heroica, to be better, now that he's seen what other Heroes are actually leaving in their wake.

Matthias wanders into Fabian's boutique, pretending to browse for a minute but failing to hide that he has plans in mind. Approaching the proprietor, he holds out Grimmau's Clothespin in one hand, and an unremarkable Helmet in the other. "Master Fabian, how about 40 gold for these two excellent pieces of headgear?"

Heckz would never be close enough to bile to get it on his beautiful clothes, you ugly idiot. Wouldn't the hands be busy holding the shield and the spear?

... Matthias blinks and rubs his eyes, no idea how long he's been out. Crawling out from under the table, he's thankful that the Hall is quiet and not many Heroes are around to see him dust himself off. The last drink he remembers having - a tall glass of something lemony sweet - is still on the table he's just come out from under, but the various pitchers and tankards of ale, wine, and cider that preceded it are gone from the table, and mostly gone from the gnome's memory. Checking his things, Matthias discovers a crossbow he vaguely remembers buying as a birthday present to himself, but he's relieved that his purse is still weighty. Stumbling past the bar, he pauses long enough for the greenskin mistress to hand him something she calls a 'vladimir' - "Hair of the warg, dearie," she says - and he heads off to find a better place to sleep.

No, no, you mean looted hahahaha. P.S. - If anyone hasn't seen this thread from Reddit, I recommend you check it out; there is a ton of interesting and insightful comment on RPing in it.

Matthias hands Rone 40 gold and accepts the Pongcanis Crossbow. "Thanks, Master Dyric!" The gnome heads to the bar and grabs another ale.

Definitely this guy. Look at that monocle!

It's Matthias' turn to whistle as Rone pulls out the big crossbow. Where did he have that thing hidden? the gnome wonders, still thinking of 'amerspace bags. "I suppose I could give you 40 gold for the Pongcanis Crossbow, if you're looking to get rid of it."

Polishing an imagined dust mite off a particularly bright bit of green enamel, Matthias admires the Extraordinaire with Rone. "She sure is one-of-a-kind, isn't she? I had an engineer from the Tritech Corporation fix her up this week." Sitting back for a moment, the date dawns on Matthias. "Hey, it's my birthday! Everyone have a drink on me!" he exclaims, laughing at his own joke.

Yes, but I think that might have been a better outcome somehow. I agree with Flipz that they were kind of a cheap device to make what should have been a fairly easy decision much harder.

It's always nice to get life lessons from people half your age But yeah, I think I just need to be a more assertive player all around. It's time for Matthias to come into his own.

Matthias slams his tankard against Rone's, sloshing a bit of cider out, and drains the rest.

Quick nitpick - and I know it's another OOC post, sorry, but Nerwen somehow got Matthias' Sword of the Red Lizard, I think, after Samuel borrowed it. Matthias should have gotten his back, and he's since dis-imbued it and sold it in the Marketplace. Does Nerwen have her own Sword of the Red Lizard? You have it listed in your inventory on your stats page now, CK.

I think I knew this intuitively from the beginning, but didn't want to say anything because I wasn't sure. Yep!

Disclaimers 1) @StickFig casts Wall of Text. It's super effective! 2) Double posting, but whatever. Let's do this. The Quest @Zepher, I know I got discouraged at the end and I really didn't mean for that to be a reflection on you as a QM or even on the quest as a whole. I think the quest was very good; there were a lot of fun moments and interesting battles. I just re-read the entire thing and it was still interesting to read, even having taken part (though that may have been because it went on... and on... and on for 173 days, longer than Baltarok!). I have been working to figure out the sources of my frustration, and this is what I think was the cause. 1) Railroading. Not necessarily by the QM (maybe a little: put these medallions on or fail, kill these two or fail, etc), but more by the party dynamics and my lack of RP experience. Because of the starting side quests, some of us had a little piece of the puzzle, but none of us ever really applied that knowledge to the main quest. For instance, having seen @Masked Builder's side quest, Alexis had two perfect opportunities to get a little more knowledge into the open about the grave robbing. Not that it would have changed much, but we might have been more prepared against Thistlethorp or the murder of Sam and Keith. I say that my own inexperience made things more difficult for me because when @Zepher told us (generally though an NPC) that we didn't have a choice, I (as a player) believed him. I want Matthias to have a high level of ingenuity, but I think I have failed on that so far just because I'm not thinking open-world enough yet. Matthias was also really difficult to play in this quest because.... 2) Matthias is (supposed to be) very moral. His main quandary as a character is that he grew up royalist and a monarchist, but there's no king in Eubric. That didn't really play into this quest, but the farther along we got in this quest, the more apparent it became that the Veterans of Heroica had sent us on a fool's errand with no moral high ground anywhere. In the future, Matthias the character is likely to quit quests like this voluntarily (or just grow up into a cyncial old man like Guts); so far he is too concerned with showing that he's a true (and worthwhile) member of Heroica to turn against a party. But seriously, for a quest with 15 battles(!), including the side-quest ones, it felt wrong to have only a few where the moral implications weren't poured on like sugar at Calvin's breakfast. I got it, battle is real and has implications that we don't always like (believe me, I know that), but this is a game.... 3) Battles. It seems like it would be very hard to balance battles for a mixed-level party with only one assailant, and yet that's what we got. Until the final duel (which should by definition have only had two people involved!) the battles were regularly against a single enemy. The Assassin battle was particularly ridiculous, and we all sort of halfway said so, and then we got to fight her again. Twice. The worst part was when we were told that the battles would be easier if we just used some consumables, two per battle, and we had already used more than that and didn't have any more. One last thing that might be affecting my enjoyment of #102 is that I think I must be missing some larger story arc? I went back and read every Zepher quest (I think) during the final battle and it didn't seem to help. The Characters (I'm only going to list the ones I have a comment for.) Alexis Fenral: Would have liked to see a lot more interaction from Fenral. Several times you missed things, and as I noted above, the party suffered from not having any idea in advance about the bodies and burying, which Alexis had at least partial knowledge of. Bart Aventine: Dunno, we barely met the guy. Seems like kind of a sniveling coward, but who knows? He's dead now. Johnny Everyman: Matthias is going to punch him in the nose kneecaps next time they meet. Seriously, does the man have no sense of decency? Sending Heroes off into the wild with no idea what's really going on and no care for anything but lining his pockets. M of Manyfaces / Midge / Malty: Matthias really liked Midge. But then Midge turned out to be a lie. Matthias also really liked Baradock and Purpearl, and look where that got him. He's just not very good at picking his friends, I suppose. Matthias: I think I've said all I can above. I'm not at all happy with how I played him, and I feel like it has taken me two full quests (at six months each) to get to a point where I'm playing him consistently. @Chromeknight, thanks for the advice, I'll be working on it. Nerwen Calmcacil: Right now, Matthias is in the Hall drinking to fellowship, but it's all a front. I don't know that he really has any friends in Heroica at this point. He gets along well with Nerwen, but he's kind of afraid of her, and in her Minstrel outfit he doesn't know what to think. Nerwen is definitely the character that I (as the player) would most like to go on a quest again with, if only because she is less of a loose cannon than some and yet still interesting and interactive. Purpearl Berthadhiell: After Baltarok, where Purpearl sided pretty heavily with the orcs because she perceived them as being oppressed, I was totally caught off guard by the snake, and then the lieutenant. At this point, Purpearl seems unpredictable and wild. Something to look out for: Purpearl often seems to know things she shouldn't, like what's just been said in Animal Talk.... Russel Ruffers & Sir Pigley: Great. Russel is perfect for comic relief, comedic interludes, and aww. Sir Pigley the Eeyore is perhaps less enjoyable, but the pair of them work really well together. XX: My favorite character, actually. Unapologetic mercenary, with bombs and cannons. And he has a softer side. It's like James Bond (the Daniel Craig version). What's not to like? Overall, great quest! :thumbup: I feel like I focused on a lot of negatives above, but that's more a reflection of the fact that it's easier to criticize than point out things that went seamlessly (only dissatisfied customers contact support).

Catching the pretty elf's blown kiss from the corner of his eye, Matthias doesn't wait for Rone to answer, but heads to the bar, returning with a cider for himself and an ale for the assassin. "Lady Nerwen is very fetching in that dress, don't you think?"

Nope, just a black technic ball joint. That's all.

Hahahahahahahahahahahaha

A black technic ball joint? Of course! Hahahahahaha

Well, we all know that Arthur's face is one-of-a-kind, so if we can't see that, how are we to know who the weird bat-helmet dude is? Might even be a girl under there... "When will my reflection show who I am inside?"