Rise of Alandria: Reboot Interest and Discussions

[Aldurin]

Ok, first off I take full blame for shutting down Tales of Alandria. I was impatient and it was ridiculous for me to expect anything tangible within a weeks' period of time (even Teal Mage struggles with his once-a-week schedule, and he's all hardball about rules). If nothing gets done for a month at certain points I'll still stick with it.

Now the main issue to address is that I was a bad GM in other ways, specifically design for a system that was needlessly complex, made with the full intention of "RPGs need this shit yo" which obfuscationalizated stuff and raised the required effort too much.

First change, I'm throwing out the whole "run the item shop because that's a thing you're supposed to do" system. I understand that a lot of what an RPG is about is how much direction you give to the players and how much of the direction do you leave for them to decide. So I'll bullet out the main changes.

• You run the whole damn town now. You can choose structures to add and regulate your whatnot, somewhat similar to X-com: Enemy Unknown.
• Specializations are thrown out, you'll be able to choose from certain trades or skills that your character specializes in, and that will allow them to provide close oversight to relevant buildings in Alandria, providing bonuses of some kind.
• Since this RP was made in part to begin public introduction into my superstory (mentioned earlier in other threads), I think I'll more directly throw in my specific version of Magic Theory. I promise this won't complicate mechanics, but it will add more interest in intrigue into the system.
• I have special NPCs in mind so that the GM/Player control on direction is properly handled this time, they also play into this story I'm introducing.
• Given how working at Walmart gives me shitloads of time to think, I'm brewing up a better battle system with more freeform involved.
• So one of my big selling points of ToA was crazy "fuck science, imma make a whatever" or "Revelations". That has been thrown out and put back in as a part of the freeform way you can upgrade Alandria's structures and industries beyond all reason and boundaries (want a factory that makes babies? seriously? ok fine you can do it, but you'll have to find room near the Organic Gundam farm and the 4th-dimensional windmill.)

This is an interest thread at the moment since I'm not solid on what I want in terms of character generation yet. I will probably allow for ToA PC's to be recovered by their respective players, but their stats will need to be rebuilt.

What I really need is your input on this? What ideas do you like? Any suggestions to expand certain aspects? How much control would you guys like to have over different aspects of the gameplay? How much freeform do you want? This will help me make a better game and give me more perspective so that I become a better GM.

[Astral Harmony]

Count me in, and I already have an idea for my character (tribal harpy girl, I choose you!). No ideas as for how to build and operate the RP as of yet, though I can figure it out quickly as more information is made available.

[Arhra]

Expressing interest! Gonna have to take a peek at the old thread to refresh my memory on things!

[Aldurin]

Attached the first version of the guide to the OP. Provides basic setting information and partial battle and character info. This mostly covers the base stats and the general mechanics of combat.

[Arhra]

OK, so I have read the guide and poked about a bit in older threads to absorb some relevant info.

It is a random thought, but I guess town management + beseiged by horrors with a dash of mad science has made my mind jump straight to Dwarf Fortress. Ergo, a few questions to see how much I should be unleashing my inner dorf.

How will tinkering with Alandria work? Are you using those professions from the first iteration or trying something else? How do we attract new people and why have the townspeople decided to listen to us?

Along those lines, are we intended to be nation builder sorts, or is it more a role we grow into?

Miasmus is the source of magic, but does magic have specific disciplines or anything? Is there anything in particular that you can or can't do with magic? Or that is particularly easy or particularly hard to do?

What about races? Got anything particular in mind for the world?

More setting info in general would be nice!

[Astral Harmony]

I'll see if I can't answer some of those questions as best as I am able.

- In the first game, there was basically a town with one abandoned building. Well, calling it a town would be too complimentary. More like a few buildings that were coincidentally built next to each other. Anyways, us PCs used that abandoned building to set up shops using our various professions, by finding materials, creating items from them, and even going so far as to combine our smarts and professions to create custom items. The purpose behind all that was...I think it was to help grow the town so that we might find a way to return home. Uhh, to our individual homes, that is.

- None of us had talent or professions that allowed us to build structures or anything like that. Just item creation with a hint of business management. But I'm guessing this time we will have the ability to construct buildings.

The idea I get from it is that we can now make buildings just like we made items. Ergh, could make items. We never really got far enough to make items, tee hee.

- I don't know anything about Miasmus, actually. I guess that's new. I don't even think my character used magic, so I don't really know. I just know that we weren't really powerful at all in the beginning.

- I don't think race matters at all. The story behind it is that the world of Alandria somehow yanked people from various worlds into itself, so it was kinda free game who we wanted to be.

- The setting info is pretty vague. Basically, you live in your world and in the blink of an eye, now you live in Alandria. And there are a bunch of other people from other worlds in the same situation as you. So we stumble upon this town (that I assume is called Alandria, which makes it the town of Alandria in the world of Alandria. We had a long joke frenzy* about that.). We come to live together in this one large abandoned building where we run businesses using our professions to create kickass items while traveling to dungeons 'n' such to find materials for said items. During the whole time, we're being judged by forces unknown and beyond our control, but we picked up some information that is suspected to have been left by a group of people who came before us to do what we're trying to do. But for some strange reason, we're not supposed to know about this other group or use anything they left behind to our benefit. It's a judge thing. I guess they don't like it if we get outside help with the whole 'run a business' thing.

* I think the joke frenzy regarded naming everything Alandria. Like, to create a great new alchemy item, we needed to leave the town of Alandria and go to Alandria Forest and find the Alandria Herb. But we need to watch out for the Alandria Bats and Alandria Spiders and if we're not careful, they're going to Alandria us right in our Alandrias.

[Aldurin]

Ooh, questions!

Originally Posted by Arhra

OK, so I have read the guide and poked about a bit in older threads to absorb some relevant info.

It is a random thought, but I guess town management + beseiged by horrors with a dash of mad science has made my mind jump straight to Dwarf Fortress. Ergo, a few questions to see how much I should be unleashing my inner dorf.

How will tinkering with Alandria work? Are you using those professions from the first iteration or trying something else? How do we attract new people and why have the townspeople decided to listen to us?

Along those lines, are we intended to be nation builder sorts, or is it more a role we grow into?

Miasmus is the source of magic, but does magic have specific disciplines or anything? Is there anything in particular that you can or can't do with magic? Or that is particularly easy or particularly hard to do?

What about races? Got anything particular in mind for the world?

More setting info in general would be nice!

It is going to be in many ways Dorf Fortressy, I even have a specific way to present the town map to better organize construction.

I originally pondered throwing out my original iteration of professions, but since it is broad enough to cover whatever psuedoscience you guys want to build, I think I'll keep it. I'm thinking that for advancement in this aspect you can either gain ranks in current professions or unlock new ones for your character, which will determine which and how many structures you can have personal oversight on (for example having rank 3 Biomancy (or whatever I called it) and 1 rank in Spiritualism (may rename this to something more relevant to Miasmus) would allow your character to provide oversight on 3 organic-focused facilities and 1 magic-focused facilities.) Oversight would provide small bonuses to production and allow custom item creation for anything that requires those facilities.

As for cooperation, the official population of two is already laid back enough to not care as long as you do a good job, or intimidated by this background faction that I will avoid discussing for a while. People that show up will be entrepreneurs, refugees and the like, and they may choose to leave at any point (I will probably categorize many parts of the population into statistics so that they don't have to all be named characters when Alandria is population 60,000).

For the idea of being nation-builders, I'll just say that you guys weren't specifically chosen, but over time there your characters may exhibit an unusual amount of intelligence and insight that they may or may not have ever had the potential for. To go any further would go into a lot of spoiler stuff.

Miasmus is magic, with any true source being ambiguous. The casting works in the way of a shaping system (that I'll specify in the next guide update) that converts the appropriate amount of Miasmus into the energy (or in some cases matter) that you want. To specify the casting types, there will be Physical, which is strength-based self buffs, Movement which involves speed-based self-buffs and certain forms of acceleration, and Metaphysical, which is broken down into two categories. There's Metaphysical Simple (like shooting a fireball or producing a light) and Metaphysical Complex, which covers more intricate mechanics like time dialation, mind invasion and summoning. In DnD terms, Metaphysical Simple is along the lines of Evocation and lower-level illusion, while Metaphysical Complex covers the more outrageous stuff.

AB nailed it on the head with races, once I get comprehensive character creation down, I'll let you guys propose races and their attributes that I will then approve if I deem them balanced.

Originally Posted by Armored Bishoujo

I'll see if I can't answer some of those questions as best as I am able.

- In the first game, there was basically a town with one abandoned building. Well, calling it a town would be too complimentary. More like a few buildings that were coincidentally built next to each other. Anyways, us PCs used that abandoned building to set up shops using our various professions, by finding materials, creating items from them, and even going so far as to combine our smarts and professions to create custom items. The purpose behind all that was...I think it was to help grow the town so that we might find a way to return home. Uhh, to our individual homes, that is.

- None of us had talent or professions that allowed us to build structures or anything like that. Just item creation with a hint of business management. But I'm guessing this time we will have the ability to construct buildings.

The idea I get from it is that we can now make buildings just like we made items. Ergh, could make items. We never really got far enough to make items, tee hee.

- I don't know anything about Miasmus, actually. I guess that's new. I don't even think my character used magic, so I don't really know. I just know that we weren't really powerful at all in the beginning.

- I don't think race matters at all. The story behind it is that the world of Alandria somehow yanked people from various worlds into itself, so it was kinda free game who we wanted to be.

- The setting info is pretty vague. Basically, you live in your world and in the blink of an eye, now you live in Alandria. And there are a bunch of other people from other worlds in the same situation as you. So we stumble upon this town (that I assume is called Alandria, which makes it the town of Alandria in the world of Alandria. We had a long joke frenzy* about that.). We come to live together in this one large abandoned building where we run businesses using our professions to create kickass items while traveling to dungeons 'n' such to find materials for said items. During the whole time, we're being judged by forces unknown and beyond our control, but we picked up some information that is suspected to have been left by a group of people who came before us to do what we're trying to do. But for some strange reason, we're not supposed to know about this other group or use anything they left behind to our benefit. It's a judge thing. I guess they don't like it if we get outside help with the whole 'run a business' thing.

* I think the joke frenzy regarded naming everything Alandria. Like, to create a great new alchemy item, we needed to leave the town of Alandria and go to Alandria Forest and find the Alandria Herb. But we need to watch out for the Alandria Bats and Alandria Spiders and if we're not careful, they're going to Alandria us right in our Alandrias.

Thanks for clarifying the setting for me, I think most of your stuff was answered in the answers to Arhra.

Miasmus will make a lot more sense once I flesh out the other side of casting, I promise.

And I may as well clarify, not EVERYTHING is gonna be called Alandria. There are actually other names for the residing cities and countries, I just don't know what they are yet.

I'll try to get the next guide update done tonight so you guys have more to drool over, specifically focusing on the character creation since that's what you're most keen on.

I will specify one last thing. For character backgrounds, canon Earth is off limits for very specific reasons that would make a lot of sense if I actually gave away spoilers for the whole setting, but for now you're gonna have to respect God's copyright on it and go full-blown fantasy. I guess if the one guy with the Earth character comes back, I'll do a minor retcon to an alternate Earth.

[Aldurin]

First guide update for much later than I had originally planned, stats and the bulk of the casting system are now described, with specific examples coming later. If it's hard to understand the explanations then let me know so I can reword them better.