Turn II: Bloodmart
A. Bell Adams looks around at the other fighters, squints his eyes, and then decides not to engage. We casually walks off, breaking the circle, and heads through the empty isles of check out lines and into one of the many long aisles that exhibit the supermarket's retail goods. The one Adams chooses at random happens to be the cleaning themed aisle, dominated by various soaps, detergents, pest control sprays and other such substances. Browsing these items for no explicit reason, Adams has a hankering that some of these could actually be useful as improvised weapons, either by themselves in conjunction with each other. It would be better than wielding a hardened baguette as a bludgeon, anyways.
Leroy Jenkins fidgets compulsively until the round starts, and as soon as the melee commences, he lets loose with his titular catchphrase and impulsively charges Nix, battle-screeching like the hybrid child of William Wallace and Lil' Jon. [4 vs. 8] Nix jumps out of the way as Jenkins goes flying past him, his Police Baton held in front of him like a lance as he smashes into a shelf and knocks several cardboard boxes all over the floor.
Nix, after avoiding the volatile charge of Leroy Jenkins, turns on the offensive. He raises his switchblade to torso-level, blade pointed outwards, while his other hand shields his eyes. He descends upon Kyle looking like an assassin whose trying to get the sun out of his eyes. [6 vs. 2] Kyle brings his can of pepper spray up defensively, but Nix is too quick with the blade and he shanks Kyle right in the gut. Kyle backs right up against a wall, clutching his bleeding wound.
Cal gets up on out of there, spinning on his heels and dashing away from the circle into one of the corners of the supermarket where the pharmacy is, indicated by bright large letters. He stops once he gets there and looks around; the shelves are untouched and filled with a magnitude of medicines, remedies and small medical devices. There's a small counter where the pharmacists would be stationed, and like everything else it is devoid of people. Behind the counter are shelves stacked with containers of things you would need a prescription for, the more 'hardcore' stuff. Additionally there are is a phone and a few computers back there, though without a password or hacking ability, the PCs won't be of much use outside of an emergency weapon.
Timothy gets his bearings, holding his knife in two hands and trembling slightly. Someone's already been stabbed, a guy has slammed into a shelf, and people are running off. Driven purely by instinct, Timothy assaults the closest person to him, who just so happens to be Kiln Smash. [8 vs. 1] Timothy jabs his switchblade straight for Kiln's torso, who dodges, by jumping back up against a wall. However, this leaves Kiln cornered, and doesn't allow for any space when Timothy launches an unexpected follow-through strike. Kiln anticipates another jab and twists his body, but instead Timothy goes for a slash, an unconventional maneuver with the blade. The side of Kiln's neck gets cut open, red crimson flowing from it rapidly, staining his shirt.
Lalli grabs the nearest bargain bin and pulls it in front of the rest of the crowd and herself, forming an improvised barrier. The bin is difficult to drag over, and when she scours its content she sees why; the bin is filled to the brim with six-pack containers of soda cans in all sorts of bright colors. There's all of your off-brand favorite drinks, from Mr. Peppers to Sola-Cola. They might actually taste okay if they were properly cooled instead of being left in a bin for hours on end, but what's more relevant is that a full can of soda makes for a surprisingly decent throwing weapon. Someone might laugh at you for defending yourself with soda pop until a flying can of Sprite-Aid knocks out half your teeth. Ultimately, there is no hatchet. Lalli moves on, vaulting over the bin of soft drinks and launching herself at Timothy like a human torpedo. [3 vs. 5] Tim hurdles over the low flying Lalli-projectile and she hits the ground, skidding across the floor on her below and ending up in the "Frozen Entrees" aisle.
Kyle Johnson, well aware that he's sprung a leak in his belly, disengages from the fight and runs for it. He makes a beeline for the Deli, small droplets of blood forming a trail underneath him. [Speed: 3 vs. 2] Nix gives chase, and Kyle feels fingers grasping for the back of his shirt, but he hunkers down and slides away from the threatening appendages. He vaults over the counter for the Deli with Nix behind him, managing to put a small but important obstacle between the two of them. The two of them see that behind the counter there are an array of deli tools that could come in handy, whether that be pots and pans, or more strikingly, the various meat cutting/tenderizing tools sorted neatly on the wall, suspended by hooks.
Kiln Smash, currently bleeding like a motherfucker, tries to get away from bloodlusted Timothy. [Speed: 2 vs. 5] Once Kiln sees a fleeting look of distraction in Timothy's eyes, he breaks off and attempts to flee. Kiln doesn't accelerate fast enough though, and Timothy shove him hard with his free hand, sending Kiln slamming back into the wall, right where he started. Right now, it looks like he's stuck in a one-on-one confrontation.
Name: Lalli (AoshimaMichio)
Level: 0
Status: Normal
Inventory: Folding Baton.
Abilities:
Name: Kyle Johnson (kj1225)
Level: 0
Status: Gut Bleeding (Bleed-Out: 9)
Inventory: Can o' Mace (100%)
Abilities:
Name: A. Bell Adams (Sl4cker)
Level: 0
Status: Normal
Inventory: Switchblade
Abilities:
Name: Timothy (FallacyofUrist)
Level: 0
Status: Normal
Inventory: Switchblade
Abilities:
Name:Kiln Smash (OceanSoul)
Level: 0
Status: Sliced Neck (Bleed-Out: 4)
Inventory: Switchblade
Abilities:
Name: Nix (NRDL)
Level: 0
Status: Normal
Inventory: Switchblade
Abilities:
Name: Cal Ericson (Strider03)
Level:0
Status: Normal
Inventory: Switchblade
Abilities:
Name: Leeeeeeeeroy Jenkins!!!!! (TheBiggerFish)
Level: 0
Status: Normal
Inventory: Folding Baton
Abilities:
This turn got out a lil' late, as I had some unforeseen events, good and bad, come up over the weekend. If there's a delay in the future that I'm aware of at any point, I'll let y'all know. As of now, I'd like to return to the regular once-a-day updating schedule.
There's a few things I should clarify too, which I imagine will come up more and more over the course of the game, as it is a test and all that:
Surprise Attacks, are possible, in which you PM me something you want to launch unexpectedly the next turn, which remains unannounced until it unfolds the next turn. When you perform a Surprise Attack, you must succeed on a Stealth Roll against an opposing Perception Roll. If you succeed, the Surprise Attack occurs as planned. If the opposing Perception Roll is higher, your opponent gets a free Counter Attack. If both rolls are equal, no Surprise Attack occurs. This is to ensure that Surprise Attacks are powerful, but are not an ability that can be abused, which I have seen plague other arena games.
Numbers next to Status Effect denote how many turns the effect lasts for.
Once the number for Bleed-Out reaches 0, your character dies. The more bleeding wounds a character has, the faster the Bleed-Out process becomes. Several seemingly minor bleeding wounds, for example, can end up becoming a life threatening ailment.
Pain will be another common status effect. It confers harsh general penalties to rolls but usually lasts only one or two turns, outside of severe cases.
Unconscious characters can not roll for Defense, and can only attempt to wake up. They are at the mercy of their attackers until they regain consciousness, and can only hope their assailants are incompetent or get distracted.
Weapons with conventional ammunition will feature an (X/Y) marker next to themselves in your inventory. X will be the number of shots you have in your current load, and Y is the amount of ammunition you have total. For other ranged weapons that rely on substance ammunition (electric weapons, flamethrowers, acid throwers, etc.)hey will instead feature (Z%), where Z is the remaining amount of ammo they have left. This can be seen with Pepper Spray.
I'm changing the respawn policy so that instead of respawning at Level 0, you respawn at half of your Level at death, rounding down. Your abilities will be nerfed randomly in accordance with this, so if you are Level 6, you will lose a total of 3 Levels in Abilities upon respawning. This a compromise so that it doesn't feel like you can be instantly robbed of all your progress at a death that could come at any time, and also prevents any players that Level up much faster from coming back at their last Level and dominating again.
If I didn't clarify it well, there is no barrier keeping the characters within Publix. I chose Publix because it offers a lot of options but without an immediate way to get powerful weapons, forcing people to get creative with what's around them. I thought about starting this in a hardware store, but after a single turn everyone would have easily replaced their starting weapons.
Speaking of starting weapons, as I inferred earlier, they are supposed to be practical low-level weapons. This is why I wouldn't want something like a Hatchet, which is something you could keep for a long time. Starting weapons are meant to be replaced by something better eventually, while allowing starting players the ability to defend themselves. The switchblade is the starting weapon that gives players some sort of lethality to start with; its quickly outclassed, but a single good poke can do serious damage. The police baton has less lethality but greater range, giving it both offensive and defensive capabilities. The pepper spray is the true self-defense weapon, since it has practically no lethality, but it can temporarily cripple an attacker to allow players the chance to either run or get in some solid hits while their enemy is disadvantaged. I'm open to giving players the options of one or two more starting weapons, so I'm open to suggestions. The main theme of a Starting Weapon should be: "Something that will be replaced, but allows starting players to defend themselves to some degree that is superior to just using their hands and feet." Starting Weapons are also fairly mundane; I haven't heard of any women walking home at night with Shuriken in their purse for protection.
Any other comments and suggestions are always welcome.
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Topic: An Exercise in Asinine Violence [Announcement/Conclusion] (Read 6397 times)