I would like to join, is this ok ?
Name: Ingvar
Description:
Appearance: He’s a gigantic man, like two meter’s tall, with a big brown beard. He looks like he’s 22 years old. He has broad shoulders and blue eyes. He’s very muscular and wears wool trousers, a wool shirt and a leather vest. His brown hair is long.
Character: Ingvar is, like all Skandäiäns, also known as Seawolves, a very wild and strong man. He never flees a fight and enjoys slaughtering with his axe. But still, he’s a friendly and noble man, he helps where he can and always honors his debts and never lets his friends down.
Background: Ingvar comes from Skandäiä, across the high seas in the far north. He’s born in the year 395. And his father, named Ragnorok, a skirl of a ship. The Skandäin ships sail by the coast, plundering the local villages, taking their riches and taking them home before the storms come. (Viking like) His father was a skirl of one of these ships. Inkhvar grew up in Halgard, the capital of Skandäiä. He was trained and drilled like any other boy. He learned to fight with axe and shield and how to sail across the high seas. When he was 16, he went on his first raid, a small village, close to Skandäiä. After that, the bigger raids came. And on his 20iest birthday, he became the skirl of a ship, the Wolfclaw. And now, he went further than any skirl had dared ever before. He sailed further and further and further….. until de storm took them, and crashed even the mighty Skandäiän ships. He lost all his riches but his life and washed on the shore.
Starting resources:
Battleaxe
Strength (+1)
Axefighting (+1)
Berserker (+1) (is this allowed? It’s like a martial trance.)
I need to be a place soon, but I'll comment on the resources and let Ardas and Shoot decide whether or not we're still at a point where players can create new continents/nations/etc (I think they should)
Axefighting and Strength do the same thing, by the looks of it. +1 to Melee.
Berserk, I could see providing +1 to Melee only when outnumbered. That's horribly not-optimal, but I guess that's ok?
YaK is about politics and war, not adventurers going around adventuring. YaK is about involving yourself within the tapestry that is being weaved alongside other players.
It is clear you want to play a wandering viking, and that you want nothing to do with the other PCs. So I have to ask you to reconsider.
I'm about to go on a rant here, it's not directed at you but at a lot of people. So please don't take offense, though I guess you might anyways.
The first YaK was created as a direct inspiration of You Are Lord, a game which Dwarmin and a few other players hijacked and turned into a freeform high-fantasy RTD, perhaps accidentally, on account of the GM becoming absent so quickly after the thread was made. The players took the role of the King/Lord's generals, advisors, lackeys, and other feudal subordinates as they fought to defend themselves from any and every threat that might have found them.
Though low fantasy, the first YaK followed in that vein. It was joint-GM'd by the King and the actual GM. It told the story of the newly made King of a small nation, and his advisors, generals, and other subordinate nobles as they sought to effectively deal with political intrigue within and without. Those few players who started as independent from the nation of Elbreth often did not last long, or have much to do-- that was the way of things, and as the King I would often stretch to try and accommodate new players even when the Kingdom did not have the funds to do such a thing. Independents did not expect to last long, were often warned against such a path for good reason, and often only had any plot thrust upon them when they chose to cease to be independent or involve themselves with others (often as antagonists).
YaK II has taken quite a turn. Mechanics have stepped up in place of story and a general sense of
what would be fun?, there has been no unifying ruler for the majority of the playerbase to flock under, and even at the beginning when someone claimed to be, they certainly did not take the role seriously and put no effort in either co-GMing or getting other characters involved. It is not a lie to say that all of the players at this moment are essentially indie, coming from different lands and with no real ties to those they serve. The majority of the playerbase isn't even actively involved with the current most important large-scale event.
This has led to issues Out-of-Character. Hostilities and rifts grow between players, as literally every other character, and thus player, is seen as a potential threat to that which they have worked so long and hard to accomplish. The sense that this is a world we are telling a story in is gone, as no person makes reference to some unified in-game culture or idea save for when it is necessary to accomplish their in-game goals. Narrativism is dead. Players grow impatient and irritated with volunteer GMs who have lives, and other things on their mind, and may not have even chosen to take part in this thankless task (to reiterate: thanks for GMing to CG, Terenos, Nuke, Iituem, etc.).
You Are King is not fun anymore. I don't know where we went wrong, but I imagine that it was somewhere between taking the game too seriously, and failing to keep the characters involved and joined with one another against some common threat.
Had I my way, independent characters would not be allowed save for special circumstances. But had I my way, we would still be playing in Elbreth, with the players unified under the same banner, save for those special-and-interesting circumstances of roleplay, and Iituem never would have had to quit just because a few people decided to take things too far OOC.