Take it as you can! You got a lot of work and things to take care of with a little one on the way getting closer every day!

I'm definitely not ready for a unity show down yet. I still have some ideas I'd like to implement.

Ello all. I’m moving so I’ll be spotty for a wee bit. I’ll post as I can and check in when I can’t. :)

Gonna be gone the weekend, got some shifts at an old job to help out on top of helping my sister finalize her move.

Leaving town tomorrow and coming back sunday evening.

So...are we still going?

Hello? :(

Talon probably just caught up with irl. Wouldn't be surprised if they need a bit of a break on top of it. We are coming round one of the busier times of the year, as well they are getting ever closer to a little one coming about. Just hoping that everything is okay personally

Hey there. Sorry for disappearing again, life became something of a whirlwind with the baby being born. I should have still dropped a line, but it was all getting a little overwhelming. A year later though with the baby now starting to go down for consistent bed times and daycare during work hours life is starting to get back into a reasonable rhythm.

Now that life is settling down I'm getting a creative itch. I wish I could say I knew I'd be consistent going forward, but that's definitely not certain. If anyone feels like gambling, I'm thinking of starting up a new game. Other than keeping it freeform, I don't have any firm ideas yet so I'd be open to input if anyone was passionate about any themes or settings.

Congrats on the baby. Always glad to see an update from you old friend. I'd love to say consistency was in my corner as well but no such luck unfortunately. That said if you are willing to run something I'm willing to play.

Good to see you're still around!

I'm turning over ideas in my head. Really I'm just working on the central theme to kick things off.

Mechanically I'll stick to the Patchwork model, I feel that there's more flexibility there with rewards and themes, plus maintaining the different realms sounds like a big ask after taking a long hiatus. This means it would be freeform, but I might throw in an occasional d6 roll to add some danger. I'm also thinking of adding some descriptors to the character creation portion, but that's really just a matter of giving more focus to character creation.

Thematically, lots of ideas of running through my mind, but nothing is leaping out at me. I want to keep it similar to the original Patchwork in that the world is a big unknown and built as we go. That way I don't have to frontload a lot of world building on my part, players don't have to study up on anything, and it makes exploration half the fun.

It's just a question of what sort of universe the group is going to explore:

Fated Chosen Ones - You are the sole survivors of some great cataclysm, you awaken in a temple which is the sole remaining bastion of existence which you then rediscover and salvage piece by piece?
Tone: This would likely be pretty the closest to the original Patchwork Kingdoms.

The Escaped Experiments - You were captured by an evil overlord and experimented upon, then through some stroke of luck you've escaped. Now you need to remain free and fight back.
Tone: Dark, gritty, fights would be more dangerous. The world to discover would be evil and overrun. Likely a stronger narrative than I usually run.

Colony Ship Arcane - You're one of the mages on a team within a tower that's been teleported to unformed plane. Your mission was to prepare the plane for colonization by your homeworld.
Tone: Bit of a sci-fi tone while fantasy themed. Your wizard tower is like a spaceship, your mission is to cobble together islands of reality. This game would have stronger emphasis on player drive, as I expect mages to have personal projects.

Behind the Veil: Urban fantasy. Not our own world as I don't really want to unpack that can of worms. This would be a game of the players forming a new secret society so they don't get swallowed up by the intrigues of the hidden world.
Tone: This game would have more politics and intrigue than the others, a lot of the conflict would be the result of interactions with other secret societies. This is probably the concept I'm least certain of as I feel like urban fantasy is surprisingly difficult to pull off.

Hey Talon! Nice to hear from you. It's been ages!

As for your proposition... I normally don't like most freeform games but I really like yours because you actually don't do free form, so much as you do guided freeform or mechanics backed freeform or benchmark backed freeform however you want to put it. And things like patchwork as well as that cute little game where we were fantasy heroes in a kingdom... I thought those were some of your best and most successful.

Of your four proposed concepts I and most interested in the experiment one and in the mage Tower whatever one. The first one feels a little too similar to patchwork. I would also be interested in doing something similar to that Kingdom heroes one that we did before... I felt like that had a lot of promise but it got cut short.

It has been a very long/fast year! Feels like just yesterday and also ages ago at the same time.

Glad the style was appealing! It'll be the same for the next game, free form by and large, with some numbers to provide measurable growth and ways for me to make determinations about the action. I'll make some tweaks to the rules as I usually do, but nothing too dramatic. For instance, I'm going to toss out the concept of trading. The idea of haggling and negotiation is fun in theory, but no one ever did it. Instead I'm going to layer in a rule to add some unpredictability and danger, while still keeping things lite so rules don't slow down pacing.

Typing out the thoughts helped. The concept of arcane colony ship is bubbling up some ideas. I'm going to start tentatively typing up some character creation rules. If anyone else has thoughts feel free to weigh in, nothing is set in stone yet.

Hi there Talon! Colour me interested. I fancy all of the ideas but I'm a sucker for urban fantasy. That said, I'll play in anything you run.

I threw together some ideas for rules for the magic colony ship game.  They can be perused here:

link to another game

The idea of everyone being mages appeals to me because I feel like it requires the players to get more creative. In D&D it's easy to just say "I'm a wizard in a pointy hat" and let the define them. In a game where everyone is a wizard it means they have to put more thought what makes them unique. But magic is entirely cosmetic, a fire mage can heal, an plant wizard can rewind time. The school of magic would be purely cosmetic. That again sounds more fun to me than making magic fit into stereotypical boxes.

Having everyone be mages also let me have fun with the core stats since everyone has magic I could really tailor the stats around that idea.

The rules thread itself is a bit of a jumble, I think most of the ideas made it onto paper though they'll likely need some refining.

The other ideas aren't off the table, it was just a slow work day so it was nice to do some creative noodling during downtime.

Well, as there don't seem to be strong feelings against the rules, I'll pull the trigger and start putting this game together formally. I'll throw out a players wanted ad, without the personal realms I can probably handle 5ish players so there would be room for a couple more bodies.

Rules-light-I approve. Plenty of room to grow.

Glad that sounds good! Feel free to drop me a message at the link above. For the RTJ all of you can disregard the other questions on the application and instead just give me the character name and the description of what sort of character/mage you're looking to play. Obviously everyone here will be accepted. I've posted a Wanted Players ad since I should have bandwidth for up to 5, maybe 6, players to add some fresh faces to our mix. We'll see if there's much interest, freeform games don't tend to draw a lot of interest.

Talon, check your PMs in the other game. I made a character sheet for you, and also dialectic-method questions to help clarify some char gen rules and my RTJ.

To all of you wondering, I am hoping to Create a mage whose specialty is Celestial Magic, or failing that Astral is the next closest thing.

In reply to The Prince of Blossoms (msg # 157):

Celestial Magic is what I was thinking for my character but Celestial as in space, not divinity.

I was thinking of a mixture of holy but mostly astrological themes. However I'm not absolutely married to this concept so if you wanted to go that route I am okay with choosing something else.

Because I'm equally interested in astral and maybe interpreting astral as a type of light magic.

I also have my eye on time magic as well.

Got the PM and the questions and responded to that!

Funny that you were both thinking Celestial with two separate meanings. Perhaps Divine and Cosmic might be more apt descriptions of what you're both looking for? I hadn't considered a holy-mage, but definitely there's room for it. I had an outside applicant this morning who wants to know if they can join as a non-mage entirely and I'm open to that too. the beauty of freeform is it makes for a big tent, it's easy to say yes to a lot of things.

My list of spell schools is certainly not comprehensive, it was more to inspire folks about the potential options. Having two people with the same school wouldn't be out of the question either, though it would be extra work for them both to differentiate themselves from each other and bring their own flavor to their fire mage or necromancer.

I don't really want to bring in like worship or anything tied to being. While something like light or holy could be a thing I don't want to make it connected to deities or anything like that. Like maybe magic and be used to commune with higher beings but I don't want a mages innate power to necessarily come from them like a cleric

In reply to The Prince of Blossoms (msg # 159):

I could just as happily go more along the lines of the Sun Summoner from the Grishaverse. Either idea works for me. I was going to specialise in Attack in any event.

It's ok. If anything, I think that the fact that we both wanted to be cosmic mages basically just means that great minds think alike!

So with that said, I am going to change my spell school here and just go with time.