Re: Lost in Dreams II (OCC)
 

It wouldn't have worked on the demon... but it does feel like a good match for Peter.


He really could have used it on the Ground Sloth/ Plague world... we'll see where he ends up next.



that's what, 7 inches in 14 months? and then the last two will show up a bit more slowly? That looks quite reasonable, now that I look up what height is doing at that age. Something to look forward to with my own kids!

ok



Looks good!

Re: Lost in Dreams II (OCC)
 

I feel obligated to make a comment about "That meddling kid and his blasted dog!"

Re: Lost in Dreams II (OCC)
 

I think I want to use luck on that Dreaming roll... It's game time so it will be available the next day IIRC.

Will you make the extra rolls? My rolling has been so abominable, I might need you to break the streak for me :P

Re: Lost in Dreams II (OCC)
 

ok.... that's a curious place to use luck... 5 and 8. Streak broken. He's going home. That's a curious decision from a Metagame standpoint...

Re: Lost in Dreams II (OCC)
 

The metagame point was that I really wanted to get a point in dreaming and Peter had to succeed again first!

I honestly wasn't even thinking about him actually making it home... This should be interesting!

Re: Lost in Dreams II (OCC)
 

We've had people end up at home before... but Tereza had been a missing persons case before she left and wasn't a minor, so it will be pretty different!

Re: Lost in Dreams II (OCC)
 

He's gonna tell the truth and no one is going to believe him, lol.

In light of the leap home.. can I remove any Limitations? I'd love to get to the point where he can keep his clothes.

Re: Lost in Dreams II (OCC)
 

No limitations yet. Somehow I'm not so sure that clothing is the #1 thing he'd like to take from place to place.

Re: Lost in Dreams II (OCC)
 

True, but carrying anything requires removing Naked!

Re: Lost in Dreams II (OCC)
 

So... Is this still true? I mean you wrote this about five years ago, so assuming yes might be a bit presumptuous.

Re: Lost in Dreams II (OCC)
 

Yes, it is still true. It might be less true if I wasn't posting in this forum. Lost in dreams was intentionally designed to be easy for me to run.


EDIT: Which is to say, I'd love to have you. What sort of character are you looking at?

Re: Lost in Dreams II (OCC)
 

Julian Hayden
Not the hall of concise summaries! The only way out here is concise summaries!
Appearance
Julian Hayden has a slight, waifish build, quite literally ninety pounds soaking wet. He stands about a hundred and sixty centimeters tall, and weighing about forty kg makes him look frail and a little boney. He has yet to develop any facial hair, his eyes are grey and his brown hair is kept relatively short. Despite a history of abuse, Julian has minimal to no scarring.

Julian’s boyish looks coupled with his skittish demeanor and smaller give him a cute and harmless appearance. Unfortunately, his self esteem is so poor he doesn’t recognize how his appearance is perceived nor does he cultivate these reactions. In fact, because of social pressures, he is often inclined to act out in ways he is not well equipped for.

His appearance is currently marred by the fact that he has been living rough for the past month or so. He was most recently wearing a filthy and tattered school uniform, mostly because he was going to sleep and wanted to keep other clothes clean.

Biography
Julian Hayden does not remember a time when he wasn’t living in an institution. In fact, his earliest memories are of living in the Charitable Hands Youth Shelter, at the age of six. The steady churn of children through the shelter made it hard for him to make friends, but at the age of eight (and a half!), he made his first long-term friend with Rupert. At ten, he befriended a fellow student, Lloyd.

Both Rupert and Lloyd were kind of bookish, Lloyd more so than Rupert. Rupert kept himself busy with a lemonade stand he ran near the beach, and occasionally had time to play video games. Julian was a little jealous of both of them. They both had family (Rupert’s was his sister Rose), both were taller, and both seemed much more confident than him. He was a lot more jealous of the those who got to leave the orphanage, at least until August 2021.

In August of 2021, Julian learned the ugly truth behind the orphanage. The orphanage’s caretaker, Wyatt Beatty, is corrupt and demand payments from the wards under his care in exchange for not selling them off. He keeps his activities hidden through a mix of intimidation, bribery, and murder. Julian began spent his summer break working odd jobs hoping he would be able to meet Beatty’s demands. Unfortunately, he was unable to make enough money during the summer, and eventually had to take a part-time job at a local café during the school year.

One of his odd jobs was particularly emasculating for Julian and led to unwanted attention from other students at Port Royale Grammar School. This unwanted attention led to harassment at the café, and a poor response by his employer and need for more money led Julian to rob his employer. This did not go well; his colleague and fellow orphan Wilt was blamed, and forcibly disappeared. Beatty took the money back Julian stole with only a warning.

The attention Julian received wasn’t all bad. It led to a relationship with Aura Perry, a rich and popular girl in an upper year. Aura gave Julian an entrance into an in-crowd of careless and wealthy students. Julian began to rob them too, stealing loose cash and electronics (he eventually found a buyer for these, by the name of Hendry). Aura wasn’t in the relationship purely out of infatuation or love, she knew that Julian would be easy to manipulate. She pressured him into intimate activity, including taking naughty pictures, by offering him small sums of money. Julian wasn’t entirely comfortable but participated anyway.

Rupert had been paying Beatty for a much longer period of time than Julian. Beatty had begun extorting Rupert over his sister since she was eight years old. Rupert began to spend his savings trying to keep both him and his sister afloat, and eventually asked Julian to pay for his sister Rose, if he was taken away. This came sooner than Julian expected, as in February of 2022, Beatty had come to take Rupert away. The only thing Julian got trying to stop Beatty was hurt and poorer.

Rupert’s disappearance put considerable strain on Julian, so much so he ended up spilling everything to the new math teacher, Ms. Rivers. Ms. Rivers was too new in town and made the mistake of threatening Beatty. If she weren’t quick thinking enough to take the wrap for Julian telling her everything, Julian would have been done for. Instead, he just had to dig a grave and live with her blood on his hands. Between the late hour he got back to the orphanage at, and under intense self-loathing, Julian decided to snub Aura. This was a mistake. A couple days later when he met with Aura again, she was very mad. She told him in no uncertain terms that if he left her, all the pictures she took would come out. Aura began to grow more demanding and forceful, and Julian had no choice but to accept.

Julian eventually had a dream. He called them “pins and needles” dreams, because they left him with the strange pain in the neck the morning after. In this dream, he saw pearls on the ocean floor. This gave Julian the idea to free dive for valuables to sell to tourists. It would be legitimate form of income, and probably more lucrative than the café. As an accomplished swimmer, he figured this would be reasonably doable. Over the spring break, Julian began his attempts at gathering these pearls. There were hiccups along the way (including an encounter with a shark) but he made a tidy profit off the pearls he gathered. He decided to begin again once the holiday season resumed in December.

As the parties began to die off with the end of tourist season, and Beatty’s demands spiked again after he took on Rupert’s responsibility for paying for Rose, Julian began looking for a replacement source of income. He eventually made the decision to rob the now mostly unoccupied summer homes in a relatively remote part of Rattan. While most valuables were removed from the summer homes (and others were simply not portable for a teenager without a car), he did manage to steal many bicycles and power tools and turn a meaningful profit.

Between the demands of Aura, café work, and theft, Julian was left with very little time to spend at school. His grades began to steadily decline, and his relationship with Lloyd became more frayed. He only barely passed Year 8. He had another strange dream, where he learned about a necklace at the bottom of a cove. The necklace gave him the familiar pins and needles feeling, and he was reluctant to sell it for this reason. This was until a man who gave him the same feeling offered him an enormous sum for the necklace. Only a few days later, the body of a kid of similar appearance to Julian was found in the cove.

While the death was disturbing, it didn’t really bother Julian, until Aura tried to pressure him into going to the cove for an intimate encounter. His flat refusal led her to release the enormous library of embarrassing pictures Aura had gathered on him. He soon lost his job at the café, he almost pushed Lloyd away from himself completely, and he passed out at an assembly that everyone knew was prompted by the pictures of him. The school organized sessions with a therapist for him, which he ducked out of to meet his financial obligations.

In December, he once again went hunting for pearls. He purchased a rebreather to extend the time he could search for pearls underwater. He managed to find an enormous number of pearls, perhaps enough to pay Beatty for a year! Then, a pair of corrupt officers began accosting him for a “permit”. When he refused to pay, they smashed his rebreather and stole his entire catch.

Julian had no choice but to revert to stealing. Unfortunately, he picked the wrong house, and the owner caught him in the act. The owner recognized him, and he attempted to assault Julian. Julian stabbed the man and was unable to raise enough money to pay Beatty. He chose to flee than face the consequence of not paying Beatty, giving Rose what little he had, so she would have something to pay Beatty with. He then began living on the street for two weeks, before jumping to another world, and being lost in dreams…

Re: Lost in Dreams II (OCC)
 

Peculiarities
OK, these are things that I have weaved into Julian’s longer biography that might butt up against setting assumptions you may have (actually, I just reread the first post so I’m sure most of them butt up against them). Just listing them off:

• Julian keeps a diary. The diary is special or something because it follows him as he jumps between worlds. This is for two reasons: one, having Julian go looking for a pen and paper all the time so I can fulfill a quirk would be a pain; two, because Julian does not appreciate the transience of all things and would probably give up keeping a diary after the second jump.
• Julian begins to use some of the abilities (the supernatural detect, dream clairsentience) in the package for quite some time before the first jump.
• The supernatural detect is mostly used to detect dream clairsentience. It is also set off by the diary, at a cove, a strange necklace in the cove, and the buyer of the necklace. It manifests as a “pins and needles” feeling in the back of the neck. He pays attention to these feelings, but hasn’t a clue what the feeling is indicating, beyond “pins and needles” dreams tend to happen.
• I use dream clairsentience in about three times in the story I had written out. The first leads Julian to the diary. The second shows him pearls under the sea, giving him the idea to go diving for pearls. The third leads him to a strange necklace, which he later sells.

If any of these are too much, I can remove them. If the first one is problematic, then I’m probably just going to drop the keeping a diary bit entirely. Would be a shame; it’s half done.

Timeline Differences
Julian comes from a close parallel of Earth. Divergence point is in 1650, when an unseasonal storm defeated the Spanish force that had come to evict the English settlers and pirates from the Bay Islands of Honduras. The islands were eventually ceded in the Treaty of Madrid (1670). This has had three repercussions:

• The colony established by Claiborne in 1638 steadily grew and eventually began to thrive. Thus, the names of the islands and cities are different. It was periodically attacked by the Spanish throughout the 18th century during the Anglo-Spanish wars.
• William Walker didn’t travel to the Bay Islands to instigate rebellion against Honduras. He instead joined the Confederate Army, and was shot by a union soldier, coincidentally named Noel Salmon.
• The Bay Islands remain a British Overseas Territory in the present day (January 2023), with an economy like the Cayman Islands (Tourism, Finance). The Bay Islands has a slightly rougher character, and more of a reputation for organized crime.

Despite the relatively early divergence point, there are very few changes to events and persons far removed from the Bay Islands. There’s no COVID on this Earth, but most other 2020s era Earths don’t have it either, so that’s not notable.

Extraneous Setting Details
Development of the Bay Islands was periodically interrupted by hurricanes, which in turn led to delayed self-government. The Bay Islands use the Bay Islands Pound, which tracks closer to the GBP because it achieved self-government following decimalization. The Bay Islands have a screwed-up school calendar, with holidays starting the first Monday of December, April, and August. School resumes the first Monday of September, January, and May.

---

Just as an aside, I plan on completing the diary entries first so...

Re: Lost in Dreams II (OCC)
 

We've had an ally travel with Peter, a book and pen can also work.



A custom world is unusual... I can work with that.


The other three items are fine as well: he can be using his abilities before hand.



He is living in the bay islands, yes?

Re: Lost in Dreams II (OCC)
 

Looks like we may have another kid!

How old is he? FYI - Peter is 14 (just a few weeks from 15)... his original concept was for 12 years old, but Eric wanted to bump it up to 14.


I wondered if we might circumvent the naked limitation for specific items with signature gear.

Peter's loyal dog Goliath has been of great comfort to him, and a great help! He's a 100% point value ally, so he's a very impressive animal.

Re: Lost in Dreams II (OCC)
 

Yeah, figured that would be the answer.
Well I'm not one for conservation of detail, but it would be an oddly specific detail to mention if he didn't. Especially the extraneous details section. So yeah.


Admittedly the seed was planted with "What would a character who'd have the exact opposite of Peter's reaction to arriving right in front of his home?" and then I went on from there.
Well, he was born 2008-09-15, so that puts him at 14 years, 4 months.

Re: Lost in Dreams II (OCC)
 

Peter missed out on being the youngest Eagle Scout, now he's been usurped as the youngest dream-jumper!

Re: Lost in Dreams II (OCC)
 

I look forward to a sheet.

It seems people tend to make similar characters to each other demographically. We had one phase were we had a lot of young adult women with darker skin.

Re: Lost in Dreams II (OCC)
 

Probably lurking on IC threads and getting inspired.

OK, 85% done the diary, put together a provisional character sheet. Left myself 22 points to move around as needed.

Some notes:
→ I have no idea what to put for wealth so I just ignored it
→ I came up with one too many quirks so I'm going to ask for input as to which I should cut
→ I may have over-evened the skills a little
→ Hobby Skills (Civics) reflects civics classes in schools. The default was so generous I didn't bother with a dabbler for it.
→ I recall you mentioned Dreaming (Memory) variant in the other thread.
→ Linguistics (Language Learning) is carving off the "Roll to quadruple self-taught language rate" from the rest of the skill (recognizing languages, academics, etc.)

Re: Lost in Dreams II (OCC)
 

ok, a few thoughts:


Dreaming (Memory) is a specialty of dreaming. I normally don't allow the dreaming skill on starting characters, but with the memory specialization its a bit different. However... you still would have a default at -2, and Dreaming(control) needs to be based on will.



Will is really low. I mean really low. Could you explain that? One of the character building guidelines is having well rounded attributes. ST is probably fine.



The enemies are barely relevant. At most a quirk.


Light sleeper will make dreaming more difficult. That's not telling you its wrong, just saying you will get less benefit from your dream abilities.



Could you define/describe scratch programming?


Linguistics with only a single point in spoken spainish is odd... I would have expected more. Unless its a commentary on language education systems...


What quirk is "Cancel_1"?


where does Savoir-Faire (Servant) come from? How did he learn that?


he has knife but not brawling or wrestling... that feels unlikely. Surely this kid knows his way around a scrape.

Re: Lost in Dreams II (OCC)
 

Point accounting thing. I came up with 6 quirks and I put a "quirk" worth +1 to keep all the quirks down to -5.

Acknowledged, will adjust.

Scratch is this toy programming language that they use to teach basic concepts. It's drag and drop with blocks and stuff. I would have used dabbler here but Computer Programming has no default.

Well it's partially an artifact of when I was building the character with split Per/Will, and partially to reflect the fact that Julian's biddable, fearful, and a bit of a nervous wreck.

So drop the attribute substitution for Memory of just a "for your attention"? Saw the problem, attribute substitution was generic Dreaming, not specific.

Acknowledged. I might drop it; I only put it in because I kept putting in scenes where Julian wakes up in early morning.

It actually isn't anything like that. In the story, he doesn't take a second language in class, he picks up the language from other day labourers he works with. I felt that he picked up a foreign language too fast with too little contact. I still wanted another language for color. I wanted something to represent "faster language learning", and Linguistics (Learning Only) seemed like reasonable hack.

This is kind an artifact of "well he stabbed a shark once, so that's one point easy." I was a bit hesitant to add brawling, mostly because "get beat up" is not a skill. I think I can fit in a vignette to justify brawling.

Well, part of the reason why it's there is because I thought putting "Professional Skill (Waiter)" was a slippery slope to several professional skills. The other part's because during for three weeks in August 2021 he had a job at a woman's house as a server during her parties in the evening.

Re: Lost in Dreams II (OCC)
 

Got it.


Ahah! makes sense.

I appreciate that, but you do need to have a fairly robust and "heroic" character with a fair bit of agency.


Well, that depends on how high dreaming ends up, which depends on Will. I get that you want the ability to steer the visions without steering the worlds, at least at first. I'm just not 100% sure how to do that. Maybe a quirk giving incompetence at world steering, at least at first? Let me know if you have any ideas.


Waking up early when it makes sense doesn't necessarily mean light sleeper. It could mean good per or less sleep.


K


I suspect that even if he looses most of his fights and doesn't start them, he knows a bit more than the average american.



Ok, that makes sense.

Re: Lost in Dreams II (OCC)
 

OK, so how low are you willing to let me go? Would 10 be enough? Because that would be really easy to do.

I kind of found it hard to come up with appropriate disadvantages to reflect trauma; Chronic Depression is too harsh, Guilt Complex is Chronic Depression with extra steps, especially with an expansive Sense of Duty and random abandonment, and Nightmares would probably have fallout.

Well I really hate putting only the one point in Brawling, but sure.

Noted. I figure I can get away without it anyway.

I think there might be a disconnect here; I don't actually want to have control over the visions, just the ability to be good at remembering them (the fact that it pulled his chestnuts out of the fire repeatedly is besides the point). If that's not a skill in this game, then I'll just cut them.

Re: Lost in Dreams II (OCC)
 

10 is probably enough.


I can see that. I suppose they don't call it trauma for nothing.



Wow chronic depression is harsh.


I forgot about that rule! you can go without brawling.


Ok, that's basically automatic in this game. You don't need to spend points on it.

Re: Lost in Dreams II (OCC)
 

Yeah. Nightmares usually works well as narrative short hand and has mildish effects, but where sleeping is central to the game and it also becomes permission to hose me... It's not as attractive.

Especially if you go with "Rolling SCR often is usually bad roleplaying". Then it's as bad as No Initiative.

Well I finally managed to make it fit and now I don't know what to do with the extra point; would it be OK to take it a "free" point to add to whatever unarmed skill I end up getting a natural point in?

Re: Lost in Dreams II (OCC)
 

So one of the longer running characters actually had nightmares: Tereza. I think she eventually bought it off. She's also the character who gained the most control over her abilities.



That works.

Re: Lost in Dreams II (OCC)
 

OK, I put the files on my OneDrive:
The Summary and some character notes
Julian's Diary, which I plan to keep updated
Current Character Sheet
Character Sheet Archive

Julian's hometown of Port Royale, Rattan is located in the place as Coxen Hole, Roatan, and that can be used as a rough guideline for what his hometown is like.

Text version for your perusal, probably won't keep it updated unless you ask; it's easier to generate PDFs.

Re: Lost in Dreams II (OCC)
 

That's a really LONG diary.

If you could keep the link to the current sheet updated on that post, that will suffice.

Julian is accepted. His first world will show up soon!

I don't know if I've said this before, but when sending people to worlds, I choose three possible scenarios, and then roll to find out which one they will be going to.

if you have any requests along these lines, let me know:

Re: Lost in Dreams II (OCC)
 

Yeah, read through that recently (that crossover made things confusing). Feels more like an artifact of where she was dropped first more than anything else. I suppose nightmare do provide more motivation.

Yeah. It's one part trying to get a feel for the character in "normal" circumstances, one part spreading a bunch of events across a reasonable length of time, and one part justifying everything on the character sheet. The concise summary covers pretty much everything in the diary.

I think the only thing I'm likely to refer to that isn't there are "Television Dreams" (i.e. the uncontrollable part of Clairsentience acts out and points at a television for the duration of dream. This is mostly justification for a confused Julian on the first jump, not one who takes the dream entirely seriously right off the bat.)

Yeah, I put up a direct link to the current sheet.

A lot of these are more specific, but:
-> I'm not entirely fond of not having anyone to talk to (either because we don't share a common language at all or I'm dumped without anyone nearby, like Daniel).
-> I came up with a bit to use if Julian could see the sky when Julian awake after the first jump
-> Well, I was originally going on the assumption that wherever Julian ends up would be better or at least no worse than where he started, but if you want to toss him into a horror scenario that's worse then go ahead.
-> Having read three false starts on the Martian world I kind of want to see that one reach a more natural conclusion.

In conclusion, do whatever, we'll see how it shakes out.

Re: Lost in Dreams II (OCC)
 

I can make sure there is always someone to talk to. No promises about them all speaking English or having language magic.

The "Men of Mars" world seems to always fail, yeah. That scenario calls for a military-aged man... but choosing someone else might break our curse.

So... uhh... first world I chose for you has a distinctly non-standard sky... re-rolling... we can put that on top options...

Re: Lost in Dreams II (OCC)
 

I can work the same bit with any sky, as long as it doesn't resemble the ceiling of a storm sewer.

Re: Lost in Dreams II (OCC)
 

You have your sky... the thread is up.

Re: Lost in Dreams II (OCC)
 

Peter is really far off his predicted arc for this section... which is fine and fun, a solo play by post is perhaps the best place to completely surprise the GM.



well done.

Re: Lost in Dreams II (OCC)
 

Subverting expectations can be good fun!

Peter did make some non-standard moves... He really didn't want to get thrown in with slave labor!

I'd love to hear how you thought it would go... maybe after he moves on to the next place... (Of course, he kind of HAS moved on.)

Re: Lost in Dreams II (OCC)
 

The expected arc was a prison break!

Re: Lost in Dreams II (OCC)
 

Well, I'm not disappointed... I'll take traversing the realms of the gods over a prison break any day!


Whoohoo! Peter has made it to 100 pages!

Re: Lost in Dreams II (OCC)
 

Yeah, reading that one made me quite jelly!

Re: Lost in Dreams II (OCC)
 

The bookmarks for where Peter's worlds stop and start are really useful!

Re: Lost in Dreams II (OCC)
 

Very good!

That prompted me to update the list on my character sheet.

Maybe I'll add them as links to posts in the character post

Re: Lost in Dreams II (OCC)
 

Actually, your links are currently more up to date, and I was using them!

Re: Lost in Dreams II (OCC)
 

I realized, but I was a few hops behind before a few minutes ago ;)

Re: Lost in Dreams II (OCC)
 

I will be posting infrequently until next Thursday. I thank you for your patience.

Re: Lost in Dreams II (OCC)
 

Take care.

Because I apparently don't do anything by halves, here's a complete accounting of how many posts from arrival it took to for each character to get dressed. ? indicates questionable clothing times. F indicates the character failed to get dressed before hopping to another world or the thread ended.

The average of all of them is ~35.36. The average of the first goes excluding failures is ~45.89. Julian comes in at fourth most posts before getting dressed. Jordan appeared twice in the top five. Tereza appear four times in the bottom five.

Jordan #1278 - #1560F (283)
Jordan #1 - #197
Yolanda #1 - #181F
Julian #1 - #124
Jordan #285 - #407? (123) [It wasn't explicitly stated that he got dressed in camp, latest is 560]
Peter #1 - #84
Graham #890 - #970 (81)
Gabriel #1 - #69
Elijah #1 - #65 [#146 if you insist on more than a loincloth]
Tereza #1214 - #1266? (53) [I figure she got clothes around the same time she was sequestered]
Tereza #271 - #322 (52)
Edmund #1 - #47
Tereza #1 - #45 [Or 8, if you count the Wember]
Mellissa #1 - #43
Daniel Landvik #1 - #41F
Tereza #861 - #898F (38)
Stephen #1 - #38
Tereza #759 - #790 (32)
Michael #1 - #31? [Surely they clothed him after taking him aboard]
Graham #753 - #780 (28)
Koli #1 - #28
Jacob #1 - #27
Dr. Alan Parker #1 - #25? [I figure the Austrian police clothed him when they took him into custody]
Chandra #257 - #280 (24)
Graham #1110 - #1132 (23)
Tereza #899 - #918 (20)
Lucy #1 - #20
Vladimir #1 - #17? [Clothes were mentioned for the morning]
Peter #986 - #1000? (15) [An-Kona agrees to cover Peter up here]
Tereza #533 - #547 (15)
Koli #83 - #97 (15)
Peter #341 - #353? (13) [Not sure if he dressed in the hut or the underclothes count]
Peter #1014 - #1025 (12)
Koli #203 - #213F (11)
Jack Kilpatric #1 - #11F
Jordan #1561 - #1570 (10)
Bartholomew #1 - #10
Peter #876 - #884? (9) [He probably got dressed by the morning at the latest]
Peter #1078 - #1085? (8) [This is when Peter asks for clothes]
Jordan #936 - #943 (8)
Tereza #137 - #143? (7) [I assume the embassy gave her some clothes]
Paedrig #1 - #7
Chandra #1 - #6
Graham #1 - #6 [I couldn't find anything besides the big cloth on the first page, so…]
Jane Doe #1 - #6
Peter #1066 - #1070 (5)
Tereza #819 - #823 (5)
Tereza #671 - #675 (5)
Peter #902 - #905 (4)
Peter #595 - #598 (4)
Alexander #1 - #4
Tereza #1297 - #1299 (3)
Tereza #921 - #923 (3)
John Galley #1 - #3F [This isn't even tagged, why'd I include this?]
Tereza #1326 - #1327 (2)
Tereza #801 - #802 (2)
Koli #73 - #74 (2)
Tereza #1288 - #1288 (1) [She went exactly where she wanted to]

Re: Lost in Dreams II (OCC)
 

Thanks for the heads up. I hope all is well.

That is an impressive bit of spontaneous research!

Re: Lost in Dreams II (OCC)
 

Peter thinks "Umn... Uh oh... Scary dream! Please don't hybridize my dog." and tries to dream of somewhere pet friendly...

Re: Lost in Dreams II (OCC)
 

Hah. I've got a number of games going. The Star Craft stuff is actually for a real-time game I just wrapped up.

Re: Lost in Dreams II (OCC)
 

Not sure that follows, Just MHO but...

Merchant evaluates a value for retail or wholesale products, while broader contracts, deals and arrangements involving non-material things are more Dimplomacy's wheelhouse.

A "windfall" seems possible in either case. I would think that it is up to the quality of your dealings and the perceived value of what you're offering. I think a diplomat should absolutely be able to make a very favorable deal based on the power of their position when they know they have an exclusive resource.

Knowing the retail value of things and being able to haggle become lesser points in the face of "you need this, and only I have it".

Re: Lost in Dreams II (OCC)
 

Depends, is this the clumsy and cute type that resembles cats from internet videos or is this the Pulveresque supersoldier that resembles apex predator big cats?

Re: Lost in Dreams II (OCC)
 

But she's in a hospital gown!


Yeah, its one of those things where you expect a decent amount of stealth. She's built to be cutesy, but still has quite a bit of grace. She's got an elevated DX, but is using stealth at default. Fortunately, in this case Peter is rolling stealth and she just adds a small penalty to him (-2 for numbers and lack of skill)

Re: Lost in Dreams II (OCC)
 

I considered it when I was building Peter but I felt it just wasn't right for him.

Re: Lost in Dreams II (OCC)
 

Unfortunately it's not too useful against hired goons, even to avoid getting kicked around.

Re: Lost in Dreams II (OCC)
 

No, Peter has something aggressive to him. Maybe its the dog. Maybe its his above-average size.



Its helped him avoid getting slapped already, even in that situation.



Tarbreth... Tar breath. Its supposed to be Tarb- reth... but now I can't unsee it. And now the Taser-face scene from guardians 2 is going through my head. Thanks.

Re: Lost in Dreams II (OCC)
 

That's interesting... I don't really see Peter as aggressive, at least not in a violent sense. But I do see him as very decisive and kind of a natural leader.

Re: Lost in Dreams II (OCC)
 

"Sorry, I'm so sorry, I just keep imagining you waking up in the morning, looking in the mirror and in all seriousness to yourself saying 'You know what would be a really kick-ass name? Taserface!'."

...

"I'm sending you the coordinates for Yondu's ship! I only ask one thing in return, that your High Priestess tell him the name of the man who sentenced him to death: Taserface!"

"Bwahahahahahhaa"

OMG, so good.

Re: Lost in Dreams II (OCC)
 

I suppose the inverse is relatively unknowable here.

Well, I aim to please.

Whining isn't unnecessary, it is (especially considering Peter's age) characterization!

I dunno about aggressive, but assertive would certainly seem to apply.

Re: Lost in Dreams II (OCC)
 

His mild Impulsiveness and Overconfidence are doing their thing...

Re: Lost in Dreams II (OCC)
 

Yeah, Assertive is probably the right word.


I totally believe him as an eagle scout, for the record.

Re: Lost in Dreams II (OCC)
 

Peter is awarded 5 points for for getting the american prisoners released from Thuroma. A new Thuroma arc has started. His home visits are another on-going arc, but I don't think we've arrived at point award time on those yet.


Julian's arc has taken a wild turn. He gets 2 points for interfering with the plans to take Bumundo, and for establishing himself in a location. We will be considering his kidnapping as a different arc

Re: Lost in Dreams II (OCC)
 

What, getting kidnapped wasn't the plan? I'll take, hm, Riask (Broken/None) and Artist (Drawing). If not the language, then, I dunno, Fast-Talk? I spent a lot of time lying.

Re: Lost in Dreams II (OCC)
 

OK, so here are the relevant posts I could find:

So it appears you (we?) settled on 30 posts per "gameplay"-hour. It's worth noting that you appeared to have 30 in mind before Hide joined, so that fits with the 10 * Posters formula you made up.

Not sure if 20 or 30 fit better. 20 would let Julian make a reroll back when he decided to hop in the hole and still make a reroll today (posts 257 and 277). 30 would place the last possible reroll before he knew about a hole (post 247). Peter seems to roll less often than Julian does (that's just how he rolls 😎), but looking at the period around April-2022, he burnt Luck on post 1064-1065, 20 would give him luck back around when he made an intimidation roll (post 1084), though 30 would be roughly consistent with his second use of luck for Public Speaking (post 1093).

I dunno whether timing these rolls more closely would be a good thing or a bad thing. I've mostly been sticking with my rolls on account of uncertainty whether Luck would recover in time to help if something terrible happened. Going with "oh, just wait 30 posts" and the pacing of activity, (265: Let's Steal Something. 266: Here's what you can steal, 267: Questions about what I can steal. 268: Answers. 269: I'll steal this and hide them), that's a pretty rapid turnaround to use luck again. So maybe like a hybrid model of "post counting" and "narrative" should be used, with back and forthing counting as fewer posts so we don't end up with a relatively high rate of lucky rolls. Or at least checking that enough posts have passed at post X, not X+2 (X: I roll skill. X+1: The result is bad. Would you like to reroll? X+2: I reroll that).

Re: Lost in Dreams II (OCC)
 

Lets go with 20, with the GM reserving the right to disable posts that are "not much action". That should keep enough wiggle in the system to keep us honest.



As a side note, for posters in lost in dreams who post five times a week, that's luck every two weeks.

Re: Lost in Dreams II (OCC)
 

When this has been discussed in the past, you saved such post-count headaches by declaring it was "Game Time".

Re: Lost in Dreams II (OCC)
 

The problem with game time is (by default) a day long, which is an intensely variable amount of time. For example, 80 posts ago, I'd say a day would be less than 20 posts. 80 posts later and I'm not sure if a day has passed or not. Knowing the rate you get luck back is pretty important to judge how often you should use it.

Re: Lost in Dreams II (OCC)
 

This is quite true. I've recently become a little skeptical of the wisdom of this approach.



If you want Peter to stay on "per day", that's fine, I'm just considering the change here.

Re: Lost in Dreams II (OCC)
 

I don't disagree!

Re: Lost in Dreams II (OCC)
 

Sorry about the delay. The flu just knocked me out for two days.

Re: Lost in Dreams II (OCC)
 

I hope you're feeling better!

FYI - I'm going on vacation starting next Wednesday and won't be back until the week of Thanksgiving and my be very limited in my posting.

Re: Lost in Dreams II (OCC)
 

Thanks for letting me know.



That is shockingly similar to my upcoming vacation! thanks for bringing it up!

Re: Lost in Dreams II (OCC)
 

Well so much for hoping to get another twofer on the 11th. Enjoy your time off.

Re: Lost in Dreams II (OCC)
 

Well, that depends on how we want to proceed. I can see three ways this can end:

• He can resolve what you die of when falling, and then die
• Julian still has serendipity: someone seeing his fall who could help might be interesting
• He can fall unconscious and transition to another world: I was going to do that immediately after he explored the underside anyways.

Which direction do you want to go?

Re: Lost in Dreams II (OCC)
 

Honesty the remark about the thread ending was meant more as a joke. Though this is a much more decisive ending than any of the other threads.
Well I'm not sure if Serendipity has recovered since back with the Hawkin 75 posts ago, but using it again is cool with me. Though I'm not sure who could help. The Hawkin needed a harness. Perhaps there's a giant hawkin or someone setup a net at a lower level? Or maybe something setup to catch a barrel from the waterfall? Or perhaps more prosaically somebody catches the rope before it slips.

Though if we're going with transition towards another world anything that can be mistaken for a literal afterlife (at least at first) would be fun.

Re: Lost in Dreams II (OCC)
 

I smell crossover...

Re: Lost in Dreams II (OCC)
 

These two might get a cross-over... you post at close to the same rate, are consistent, and the two boys are a study in contrasts. They'd have a lot to say to each other. Right now they feel very uneven in experience and capabilities. Giving Julian a second world first feels right.



Peter's current world(s) are a kettle of worms. They're based on the pyramid scheme book "Broken Clockwork World", and Peter has taken it in a very unexpected direction.

Re: Lost in Dreams II (OCC)
 

Well I can't say I haven't imagined Julian ending up on the clockwork world, someone confusing him for Peter (a distorted enough rumor might do that), Julian not responding negatively (or perhaps just lying and agreeing), and quickly ending up out of his depth...

Though when I thought afterlife I was more imagining fiery caverns.
Getting Julian around or at least towards, "You're jumping between dimensions, not travelling a great distance/hallucinating/dead" is probably a step in the right direction. The way his time on Riask is ending probably pushes far more in this direction than going to bed and waking up somewhere else again would.

Re: Lost in Dreams II (OCC)
 

For the kidnapping arc, Julian receives 5 points! He got away, made it home without starving or getting eaten, and was able to get his most prominent opponent captured. That's a performance.

Hmm, how do I turn that into a classic Lost in Dreams world without going full demon?


Somehow or the other, I don't think of fiery caverns when I think of afterlives.

Re: Lost in Dreams II (OCC)
 

And he fell off a cliff, fell 200 km and survived! Spending:

Added:
1 Point to Climbing
1 Point to Vasic Operation
1 Point to Riask (Spoken)
1 Point to Fast-Talk

1 Point Saved (Towards buying off Disads eventually)

A world covered in lava maybe? (i.e. Io, Mustafar, last level in Mario games)

Well, to me it's 50/50 clouds and fire. And clouds would be too easy to write off as a lower level of Riask (Though the missing waterfall would be a clue).

Re: Lost in Dreams II (OCC)
 

Approved. Please update your sheet. As a note on vasic operation, I think he only knows energy stones at this point.

The terrain is easy, its the civilization that is hard!

Especially because my go-to cloud world is the homeworld for the Hawkin.

Re: Lost in Dreams II (OCC)
 

Updated the linked copy.
Well it would definitely have Julian figure out what's going on tout-suite.

"Hang on, I just fell from Bumundo to here. Why would that Hawkin be acting like this place is so far away?"

Re: Lost in Dreams II (OCC)
 

Well, "Julian goes to the well-funded orphanage and works on his self esteem" is probably hard to make work and doesn't really fit the theme.

On the other hand, I can see, "Julian goes to the well-funded orphanage and proceeds to say things that draw the attention of the authorities (either because he starts saying things that aren't astute or because they're aware of parallel worlds.)" working.
Hm... Sand dreamland (Tereza), the Starship with the Chimps (Tereza?), Elven homeland (Graham), the pit of with the Dwarves (Graham), the aerial world with the Dutch and the ships (???)... Guess that makes five. A few of the short ones seemed to have been dumped on Riask and abandoned early. Not sure about the broken clock world; suppose it could be not so broken that the world's changed shape. Of course, Julian would probably feel the same way about undersea cities (I believe Jordan went to one) and ocean platforms (i.e. like Freight).

Re: Lost in Dreams II (OCC)
 

So this is the 13th where he was, making it the 20th back home? Making the date at home the 21st when he awakens in the next post?