Things I've learned while piloting around all of aetherspace:

1) forcefield is your friend
2) aetherspace is huge
3) DO NOT GLIDE IN THE SLIPSTREAM


I wish Arte was still around so I had a poor sap to strap into the grid while I explore cosmic/elemental aetherspace for ages so I can actually have a god damn map with labels.

Yes.

Yes -we- do.

if you need an empath I really have nothing better to do in Lusternia right now. (yah burnout!)

This is one thing I said when people were complaining about the Ridiculous Pig Nose.



Some of the best Fantasy Novels have humor as well as horror.

Well, I didn't like that when you said it about the Ridiculous Pig Nose either, but it's worth even less here because this is something everyone got all worked up about. They were expecting something cool because it's the obligatory end of year seal-interfering event, and it's always been dramatic in the past. Humour works better in small doses and not front and centre of the metaplot.

EDIT: Or to put it in a way that ties the two things together, it works better when peoples' faces aren't rubbed in it.

The problem Shiri is that you can't please everybody, and a lot of people are also complaining about the cliche "end of the world" stuff every year and why are the Soulless all involved, which may be why things were mixed up this year. Or maybe after six years of plots, a plot has a more whimsical background instead of grimness for a change. (And keep in mind we don't know the finale yet).

Some events and stories, you can tell fairly early on what's going on, and some, you really don't see what's behind the visible things until the very end. This event isn't a Terminator, it's more of a Donnie Darko. So you really can't judge it based on what we know now, because what we know now makes no sense at all. It's just a bunch of wildly improbable coincidences that demand, but have not yet gotten, some explanation that unifies them. You have to wait until the common cause is exposed to judge if it makes sense, and if it's even creepy. (Though the other side of that coin: if the end of the third act doesn't make all, and I mean all, of these disparate incidents tie up together into one story, that'll be twice as damning as anything anyone's said.)

For myself, my concern with the Gnafia thread isn't that it seems silly or doesn't fit Lusternia, but that this group claims to have their fingers behind everything, but apart from events of limited duration and even more limited impact, we don't see any sign that they have to do with anything going on in the Basin on an ongoing basis. I think we're supposed to be imagining this crime syndicate with fingers in every pie, but they totally come off as outsiders. Now, if we get something that explains they've always been the reason why something that has long been happening in Lusternia has been happening, that would turn it all around. Like, they're why the people in Stewartsville always forget about the last murder, or they're why Trader Bob stays in business, or they're why some denizen pays for some corpse that doesn't make sense for them to pay for (and always has the gold to do it), etc. But Lusternia's a world where the big bad powers behind everything is us; that's the whole design of the world, we are its powers, we are its commerce, we are its criminals, etc. That plus their intermittent involvement makes them feel like outsiders when they're trying to sell themselves as having always been here pulling strings. That's what rings false about it. But that also may well be answered by the end of the third act, and I'm willing to give that a chance. (Heck, I gave Donnie Darko a chance.)

(None of this really answers my previous criticisms of the event: the "keep players apart" bad idea and the "make players do rewardless make-work" bad idea.)

I find this argument really interesting so I think I'll reply.

The whole issue really is that your Lusternia is not my Lusternia, we've all developed different views of looking at it because of how encompassing the setting is. My Lusternia is a post-apocalyptic world filled with unspeakable horrors, vicious and cold people, and a million different shades of grey. Someone else's Lusternia might be a tale of different forces coming together to overcome absolute evils. Someone else might see it as a game about the play things of the few remaining Elder Gods and their struggle to survive. The issue where humour comes in is that even though humour obviously exists within Lusternia it might be the toughest part of the game to seamlessly implement. Something like the Gnafia is especially hard because it carries with it a constant meta-joke. No matter your view of Lusternia, if something is going to start shattering belief and immersion it will most likely be from something related to attempts at humour. Humour is just hard. Humour that is 100% IC is even tougher. Something that has started off funny and has always had a bit of a wink and a nod to it, gnomes and the gnafia, are now being pushed to be taken seriously. That is almost impossible to pull off.

Does this mean it can't be done? Not at all. It's entirely possible and I can think of some great ways for this story to go. But yeah, people are going to balk at the idea of funny little gnomes with their funny little names threatening the entire basin. And they've every right to express concern for it or to just say they're not enjoying it. Feedback is good, good admins know how to filter feedback and I think most of them have a hard enough shell to take it. The forums are also an echo chamber, no one is really listening too hard. And don't worry, you've got every right to love it. You might love humor in Lusternia. And that's cool, it isn't going away. And when something is big, dark, grim, and soul crushing feel free to say "I don't like this". As it comes down to it, your Lusternia is not my Lusternia. I know you're loving the gnomes and the humour, I'm not. I know I loved Nil trying to take over Faethorn, I'm not sure if that sort of dark event is your cup of tea. It's all fine.

Good God, it's like I go to sleep and the forums suddenly turn into Octomom and disgorge hundreds of bitter spawn.

Octomom is a spider egg?

You know what my issue with the event is?

You waited until I went to bed to introduce the Weather Machine™.

Bad Admins. Bad!

My own take on this Lendren is that Gnomes and Aetherspace are far beyond the Basin. They are an empire that see the Basin of Life as a little backwater, the Aetherspace we see is not the whole entirety of the gnomish empire, and (unless I am mistaken) the Facility is not their homeworld. They might even know a multiverse outside of what we know. They have technology that would make Hallifax and Magnagora shudder. They probably view the Basin as a place similar to how the Star Trek Federation looks at a single planet with limited technology. So, I don't see this being out of scope. To me the Gnafia are just seeing the Basin as something to exploit.




I think you're missing my point. There are a lot of different shades of grey in Lusternia, but there's still an objective view of things, and it's quite obvious some things in the basin are humorous. It's like original Dragonlance novels--you had a lot of grim gods and bad stuff happening, yet you had the Kender, Gully Dwarves, and Gnomes. Both were a valid part of the whole universe, and there's a lot of other examples. Some X-Files episodes are ultra-serious, others are pretty whimsical. In fact, the TV show analogy might be best. Occasionally, you're going to get those types of episodes. I mean it's quite clear when you read the histories and look at any village these tones are mixed.

I will apologize for one thing though...I might be coming off strong, but I guess in RPG world I've disliked certain levels of ultra-serious pretensions--y'know, the Vampire:TM crowd who disdained regular RPGs, and I'm a little over-senstive to the Eldritch Horror crowd that deify Cthullu, not remembering that in Lovecraft's stories that green guy got taken out by a simple boat! (I'm talking about the people who say Cthullu can take out Jesus, Sauron, Superman, etc.--and I think some of that has resulted in the plushies we get of these horrors, a natural rejection of the uberness of said beings). So sorry if I'm coming off too strong, I just think people need to accept that the tones of this game can vary.

I think the entire finger in the pie thing will be explained further. At least I hope it will. The entire maffia theme can turn out really fun if done right.

'Sup.




Call me when you're not a disgusting plague-riddled monster.

Poor Halli, I'm sure they would've loved to have stolen it and studied it!

Mathblaster was awesome. I loved the second one more than the first tho.

And while Gnafia is a fun word still, even with a less funny word, they still don't seem nearly competent enough to pull this kind of stunt off.

Preposterous.

Hallifax does not -steal-

Hallifax -acquires-

While I was off doing real-person things, I found myself absent-mindedly singing that Youtube video of the history of the Soviet Union/Tetris. Except I was re-arranging the lyrics for Hallifax. And it had a Bejeweled theme.

Hallifax does not steal, Hallifax commits grand larceny and then appeals the verdict on the grounds of discrimination against collectives.

Me too.

I had to see the few quotes and then inquire and get a second-hand story.