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[Harry Baldman]

We losing interest here? Because I got other games we can play if you've lost interest in IH.

My interest was vestigial when we split the party, I got a little bit back after I stopped following Xan and instead went for attempting to do my own thing as opposed to just cheerleading for fire magic.

But yeah, this is a game rather sorely lacking in any meat to it. It's like an infinite series of random encounters, mostly.

[DoctorMcTaalik]

Like most longer games, my interest in IH has waxed and waned over time, due largely to RL stuff and my inconsistent attention span. I will say, though, that due to the unstructured nature of the game and the lack of interconnecting elements in the hells (excluding the occasional reference to the "Great and Conquering King," which we haven't encountered in a while), it's hard sometimes to feel invested in the world. I also think that a big part of the problem is that there are few indicators of progress in IH, and often few ways to actually interact with the environments we're in besides walking through them and/or running the fuck away. That leads to the game feeling very flat and "same-y" at times, despite the vast differences between each hell we've been to.

I hope it doesn't sound like I'm trashing pw too much. I'm still enjoying myself overall; otherwise, I wouldn't be here. But I totally get where Harry and Aosh are coming from.

In my view, IH has been running for almost two years now; it needs a proper conclusion, not just to be abandoned. I am more than willing to keep playing until we reach that point, as long as there are other players still interested.

[Harry Baldman]

The really nice bits in this game for me were the very start, when it was more of a weird road trip as opposed to a weird fantasy adventure. The Wall of Teeth was legitimately brilliant and Slencville was cool as well, but then everything wound up in a rut where most of what we run into was either unhelpful, wildly hazardous or largely impossible to coherently interpret.

[piecewise]

The really nice bits in this game for me were the very start, when it was more of a weird road trip as opposed to a weird fantasy adventure. The Wall of Teeth was legitimately brilliant and Slencville was cool as well, but then everything wound up in a rut where most of what we run into was either unhelpful, wildly hazardous or largely impossible to coherently interpret.

Fair. Its what I intended for it to be like.

Hmm. Well we can do two things here.

I can end the game because I'm kinda meh on it at this point as well.

OR

We can hard cut here, dropping these characters, and essentially restart and try to keep things more in line with the original feel. Albeit that means we're gonna have to keep shit low powered. Part of what created the current state of affairs was the warbeast and the increasing powers of xan and the others. Its hard to make fun and dangerous roadtrip stuff when you're in a titan and can summon fire at will. Things have to be a lot more adversarial otherwise you can steam roll it.

[Xantalos]

I'm good with either, though I am of course interested in how it might continue. Hopefully the gradual mutations would still be a thing though, just not to the level of Xan and ... Cat Talky. Getting weirder is still an interesting path, just so long as it doesn't spawn into something as easily exploitable as outright magic (and my apologies for cranking it to the extent I did, I couldn't help myself).

Mayhaps also a more attainable goal? I don't doubt that I'd have eventually spread the belief of the First Heaven to such a degree that it would've actually been spawned if it didn't exist already, but it was still a very long-term, far-reaching goal. If you wanted something that lasted a while but wasn't so setting-shaking, maybe have the starting characters hear the rumour that there's some drugs/a fruit/some object or other that can bring them back to life? But it's really far off and hard to tell if it's real or not but hey why not roadtrip?

[Harry Baldman]

I speak from experience when I say that attempting to retool a game when you can think of things you'd very much rather do is a poor idea. If you're going to do something similar again (back-to-basics RTD, not necessarily IH or even related), better it be something that excites you and something you can stick to the vision of.

I do think you get too fixated on weirdness though, PW. Your best stuff tends to come out when you keep things relatively grounded.

[Ozarck]

I like the idea of the unattainable goal. It fit the setting well. the weirdness was just starting to get interesting, and the game became infinitely more enjoyable when I stopped thinking of Sebastian as an avatar of myself and started thinking of him as a toy.

I'm quite fine with ending htegame. retooling would be hard and I think it would end up meeting the same fate in the long run.

[piecewise]

I do think you get too fixated on weirdness though, PW. Your best stuff tends to come out when you keep things relatively grounded.

Hmmm.

Let me give this a think.

[Toaster]

I'm enjoying the game, but definitely the party has reached a poorly defined point of no cohesion or immediate goal.  I'm certainly keeping an eye on things.

[Ozarck]

What? Sebastian has an immediate goal. And an audience. Sebastian also has an intermediate goal - cloud crawler hell. His extramediate goals are much more vague, however.

[piecewise]

How do you guys feel about low fantasy WWII? Like Indiana jones or Wolfenstein level.

I whipped up a game for that setting, but if no one is interested I can make something else.

[Harry Baldman]

I'd be up for that sort of thing, yeah.

[Egan_BW]

Sounds fun.

[piecewise]

I should point out a few things, just as an explanation then.

The system is RTD with some complexities.

1. It's stat and skill based, with stats for basic physical abilities and skills for particular knowledge. Like shooting a gun.

2. You can get +1 to +3 on any stat or skill, however rather than being D6+1, thus removing the chance of a 1, it instead expands the 5, so to speak. So standard rtd has 5 as a perfect success. with +1 you would have 4-5 as a perfect success. At+3 You have an 85ish% chance of total success or overshot success, with a 15% chance of horrible failure.  No matter how good you get, that 1 never goes away.

3. Damage is handled a little different than most systems: You have three dice, Physical, Mental and Life. Physical is the dice you roll for stats and represents your stamina and non-lethal damage, mental is for skills and represents how sharp, focused and sane you are. Life is sort of a combo luck/HP, and it is used for lethal damage, like being shot at.   Anything that could make you tired, hurt your mind, or injure you physically has a "Risk" rating between 2-10. When you are subjected to damage, you roll your dice for whatever kind of damage it is, and if you roll over the risk rating, you are unhurt. If you fail,  get -1's on that dice equal to the amount you fail by. If a dice reaches a point where you're rolling 0 or less, then you become incapacitated, crazy or dead.  Each dice can gain bonuses, but these bonuses don't effect the roll, they just act as a buffer, preventing damage from hurting your rolls for a time.

4. Risk can often increase if the same source continues to force you to make risk rolls. That guy with the knife might be risk 2 to start with, but after a few turns, especially turns where you fail melee rolls but manage to succeed on the life roll, his risk might raise to the point that he can kill instantly. The same goes for you though. Removing threats quickly is of vital importance.

5. The game is mission based, with objectives to complete per mission. Sometimes you will be alone but sometimes you will be fighting as part of a larger force. In larger force missions, the other forces are simulated and it is possible to win the mission even if you do shit, or lose even if you do well. But your actions WILL influence the other forces, so if you do well and still lose, its because things went extremely poorly for the other people.

6. Starting gear is based on "Packages" which are like starting classes. But your stats and skills are yours to choose.

7. You're controlled by an NPC in command. No human commanders, beyond those that feel like leading groups.  Well, you're controlled assuming you have someone with a radio...

8. You are human and always will be. The things you fight may not be.

 

[Gentlefish]

That sounds neat!

Sadly, Finals is currently distracting me from everything on this forum. I'm in for it but won't be able to play until at least the weekend