Re: Lost in Dreams II (OCC)
 

No, its the 13th back home, the 6th where he was, and the 14th back home when he wakes up in the mud. Sorry for the confusion

Re: Lost in Dreams II (OCC)
 

Somehow, both boys are on space stations run by cloners, but Peter is in the jungle dropping people's jaws and Julian is in a city captured by a bunch of criminals.

I'm now imagining The Suit from the dinosaur can and Royal in the same room as each other.

Re: Lost in Dreams II (OCC)
 

One group of cloners has way fewer ethical qualms than the other?
I find your assessment of Julian's situation reinforcing my belief that if Tarbreth took an approach that didn't involve sticking a knife in Julian's face he'd probably wouldn't be caught in a mess by now.

EDIT: And in another apparent parallel, the first thing both Peter and Julian is ask for a towel. Obligatory Hitchhiker's quote here.

Re: Lost in Dreams II (OCC)
 

Oh man, Julian's way off the beaten path now! :P

Re: Lost in Dreams II (OCC)
 

I'd worried about if this civil war setup had legs... glad to see that it apparently does.

Re: Lost in Dreams II (OCC)
 

I find it interesting the way it collides with Julian's background; trust vs. distrust of institutionalizing children, personal liberty vs. abandonment, the motivation for cloning being primarily economic against his experience being exploited, his self loathing playing into it too... Takes a situation that was already messy and shakes it up a bit more.

Re: Lost in Dreams II (OCC)
 

And here I thought it would be called "Jurassic-7" for marketing purposes.

Re: Lost in Dreams II (OCC)
 

On the other hand, I see quite a few of those on Julian's sheet!

Re: Lost in Dreams II (OCC)
 

The boys are very different characters... One's from the system and the hood and one's from the burbs with a nuclear family...

Re: Lost in Dreams II (OCC)
 

It really relates to the context in which I created Julian. It was just after Peter spent some time back on his home world, and how excited and happy he was to return home. I ended up thinking, "well, what would a character who would have an opposite reaction look like?" Took that idea and Julian emerged from there, perhaps the one character in lost in dreams who would wake up in front of his own house to sheer terror.

Re: Lost in Dreams II (OCC)
 

Will it be Mission Accomplished... or time for a lesson to be learned????

Re: Lost in Dreams II (OCC)
 

I'm all excited at the turn of events!

:)

Re: Lost in Dreams II (OCC)
 

Yeah, you both are in really interesting spots right now.

Re: Lost in Dreams II (OCC)
 

Peter is awarded 5 points for escaping the dinosaur pen, rescuing the girl, and providing hard evidence of serious misdeeds! (I really need a name for the company cooking up the dinosaurs). He's still got more dangling threads here than some of the other places, but we'll let the gears of law and criminal conspiracy chug along for a bit.



Lets see, what world to put him on now...

Re: Lost in Dreams II (OCC)
 

Cretaceous Corporation
Dino Design International
Yesterday's Lizards Today!
Fossils to Fun Limited
General Genetics
Orbital Megafauna Entertainment
[Name Here] [Corporate Designation] (Perhaps Hammond or Crichton if you want to be on the nose)
Designed Now Animals

Re: Lost in Dreams II (OCC)
 

I'm considering a point in Computer Operation and Research... But I did want to save for stats as Peter is coming up on 15! He's going to be a late bloomer if I don't focus there soon. I'll let you know.

Intuitive INGENnovation
CytoGen
Karyo-Tech

I think my fave would be simply...

"Helix"

How will you ever top space dinosaurs?

Re: Lost in Dreams II (OCC)
 

Thanks!

SuperHelix Incorporated... maybe a bit too modern? SuperHelix Managed, with "Managed" being a previously unknown legal term? Or maybe just SuperHelix? Peter now knows the real name of slick: Royden Mercato.

I... don't even know how to respond to that. Do you want me to stick dragons on hoverbikes somewhere in the lineup?

The options for the next world are still being assembled and decided. Decisions, Decisions*

*I make a list of three or more options and then roll to see which one he gets.

Re: Lost in Dreams II (OCC)
 

For that mash up he should be forced to jump a dragon on a hoverbike....

Are we reinventing "jumping the shark"?

Re: Lost in Dreams II (OCC)
 

Makes me think of this comic strip.

Re: Lost in Dreams II (OCC)
 

YES!!! Please apply luck!

I don't think there is an exception for Diplomacy never making a situation worse, but let's just try and get out of that abysmal roll anyway.

My google sheet is updated!

Re: Lost in Dreams II (OCC)
 

Diplomacy rolls are influence rolls, which are quick contests. Quick contests generally ignore whether either party succeeded or failed (resistance rolls are a special case where it does matter), and thus critical failures are moot. Thus, Peter has a chance (albeit a poor one, if his opponents will is 10 it's less 1 in 6) that he gets a good reaction despite his poor roll (though that assumes there's no penalties on his skill, like for no culture or language).

I like to give out bonuses/penalties for crits in contests, because by RAW, sufficiently skilled characters can just sweep away those without sufficient skill/attribute/whatever to counter (i.e. a skill 21 chess master will simply never lose to a skill 6 newbie, no matter the skill difference)

Re: Lost in Dreams II (OCC)
 

Sorry my weekend post didn't make it up until today... I thought I hit send, but it was on the screen this morning >sigh<

Re: Lost in Dreams II (OCC)
 

Okay, wow! Ritual and component free magic? Peter had to invent his own puff of smoke trick at the cost of his full energy reserve for that. Color me green with envy!

Is Julian a Star Drive now?

Re: Lost in Dreams II (OCC)
 

I have this feeling that Julian will need a source of energy to move a starship, and most of this magic kind of will center around moving things. Karana seems rather more flexible. Then again Julian has a slight edge on drawing magic like Vasic given he always has a pen...

On the other hand if Julian finds a force sword now and he'll be half way to Jedi...

Re: Lost in Dreams II (OCC)
 

Julian has had an especially strong ramp onto magic, for whatever reason. Possibly because I'm trying to be more aggressive with it now. Senarich never showed Peter how to do any magic. If that had gone differently, Peter would have a lot more at his disposal.

It is a complete but amusing coincidence that everything that Peter does involves smoke, and he started out with the ability to light fires without matches. Peter is scheduled* to go to a world with some fairly generalized magic, and we'll see what happens at that point. Also, we'll see what he gets out of the paranoid village world.

* Peter has about three running plot threads that specify places he will eventually go.

A little bit of TK doesn't make you a Jedi. The Men of Mars world (with the red and green uniforms that people never seem to make it through) has a suit of powers inspired by the Jedi. I'm not sure I want Julian's third world to add to his powers that much. And I'm not sure that Peter would stick around long enough to pick up powers properly.

Julian really hasn't explored Vasic very much. It looks like he's going to end up with two ways to teleport things that he has access to but doesn't actually know how to use. Three if you count the dreams.

Re: Lost in Dreams II (OCC)
 

I dunno, I think there's some luck of the draw to it. Tereza, one of the earliest, got a very strong start. Jane Doe (one of the longest and one of the most recent), I don't think she got a good grasp on what she was dealing with...

I'm probably off-base assuming that the jumpships are TK powered ships anyway. But if you assume that, well, Jedi level telekinesis seems in reach.

Probably a consequence of the whole kidnapping thing and seeing the Shuzu's people and Tarbreth's people as different sides of the same coin.

Re: Lost in Dreams II (OCC)
 

I remember you mentioning once that you liked to present something early, but he didn't see any magic in the first four worlds other than what Senarich could do while he was in control, and it was never presented in a way that I suspected it could be taught or learned. After the Rider-world he ended up getting sucked up in panachronic conveyor jumping to non-magical worlds.

The first magic presented was a Karana critter after we were running for a few years, and then we took another two year break before I found out he could learn that after we resumed with Lost In Dreams II.

I think he was "A Boy and his Dog" and you decided that was enough!

(In three months it will be decade since we started Peter's IC thread, can you believe it?)

Peter's ability to make friction fires and survive in the wilderness have indeed been a great boon.

What is Peter's Lost in Dreams if not "the Scouts Guide to the Multiverse"?


Interesting!

Is it that you believe Peter would find himself a problem to solve, fix it, and then be on his way by unconsciously triggering the jump when he's 'decided' it's time, before having the opportunity to learn?

He will have to think his mission is long term if he is going to be able to train to be the next Robin on Earth-209842. Hopefully he'll learn to bring his clothes along so he can keep the utility belt.

Re: Lost in Dreams II (OCC)
 

fair enough.
You're not really wrong there.

Wow. That's a long time.

That's probably a good angle.

Part of the issue is that Peter can voluntarily travel anytime the dream power comes on, and it comes on fairly often. Before people figure that out*, I give regular visions about possible plot angles.

Peter's tendency not to stay in one place is a combination of that and wanting to go back and forth on the clockwork skerry. If he resolves that, he might slow down, but that's a pretty big task if he wants the whole multi-world situation wrapped up.

*I think exactly two characters have done it: Peter and Tereza

Re: Lost in Dreams II (OCC)
 

Julian's emotional issues continue to intersect with fantastic lifestyles in interesting ways.

Re: Lost in Dreams II (OCC)
 

That looks like a BIG OL can of worms there.

Re: Lost in Dreams II (OCC)
 

He decides to open up... and he picks a professional criminal specializing in violence.

Re: Lost in Dreams II (OCC)
 

Admittedly, he's also picking someone who:

1) Has had ample opportunity to hurt him and hasn't
2) Is already aware he has abilities outside the human norm
3) Might plausibly be a little upset if he waits to tell someone else in the same group (i.e. Florence)
4) He already has some trust with (i.e. the mutual trust from the whole steal the Starpus thing)

On the other hand, this probably raises the chance that Florence will try to clone Julian, which he really doesn't like...

Re: Lost in Dreams II (OCC)
 

Can's of worms can be fun to open...

Did my wedding announcement cost Peter his last post before my period of low engagement? :P

Re: Lost in Dreams II (OCC)
 

Probably. It's a really complex post to write .

Re: Lost in Dreams II (OCC)
 

Sorry, no pressure!

You're the man!

Re: Lost in Dreams II (OCC)
 

This will be a short week: I'm not dead, just unavailable till Monday!

Re: Lost in Dreams II (OCC)
 

Hope all is or goes well as the case may be!

Re: Lost in Dreams II (OCC)
 

Will the Mars curse be broken? Will the_matrix_walker suddenly stop posting like every other Lost in Dreams player who visits Mars? Or will he just go off somewhere else?

Stay tuned...

Re: Lost in Dreams II (OCC)
 

OMG, I want it to be like John Carter of Mars and watch Goliath try to learn to walk.

https://youtu.be/C5LFH5Ze84A?t=44

Re: Lost in Dreams II (OCC)
 

Looking back, I think the old curse was due to not having a plot beyond "figure out your situation here."

Re: Lost in Dreams II (OCC)
 

I did a few searches, as I have not read all of the other Lost in Dreams threads, but it seemed the players dropped out too quickly to find out...

Re: Lost in Dreams II (OCC)
 

Zonx gave it an honest shot. I was too inexperienced to notice what went wrong.

Re: Lost in Dreams II (OCC)
 

It didn't help that they were inexperienced jumpers... Peter has many advantages going in. Especially this highly detailed clairsentient vision! Gonna milk that!

It's Dec 17 on Peter's world... just 8 days til we find out if Peter will be home for Christmas!

Re: Lost in Dreams II (OCC)
 

That's timing!

Re: Lost in Dreams II (OCC)
 

After adding a point to dreaming, Peter has four unspent.

I'm trying to save for stat increases... To reach is "adult" stats, I see Peter buying off his reduced ST, and then increasing it over 10, and increasing DX and HT by 1 more each after buying off the half point of reduced basic speed he has from the gangliness of puberty, and additionally he will need a bit more IQ (but probably without Per and Will), so that's 73 points over 4 in game years...

It haunts me every time I spend a point on a skill... but I keep spending them eventually anyway...

ya'know, screw it, I am gonna put three points into Dreaming making it four in dreaming total for @Will.... Peter deserves Dreaming at 14, he's earned it, lol.

So he has 2 unspent...

Re: Lost in Dreams II (OCC)
 

I've been updating the links for journeys... Julian has spent almost as many posts in orbit around Panogos as in Riask.


also, Julian gets really simple one-word names for his worlds, and describing Peter's words is all descriptions.

Re: Lost in Dreams II (OCC)
 

I just noticed Karaka instead of Karana in the link and thought it was a typo, but a quick search shows I've always used Karana but you've used Karaka a handful of times.

The game calendar is so close! Dec 17 in game right now and Dec 18 (my birthday!) in the real world!

I don't know why I would care, but I hoped we would advance the date in the post and synch up today lol

Re: Lost in Dreams II (OCC)
 

Yeah, one is magic system, the other is a place/legend.

The way it would have happened would be if you guys had just gone back to bed? Peter generally makes pretty efficient use of his days and doesn't stick around in one place.

Re: Lost in Dreams II (OCC)
 

And I have my own labels... but they are subject to change and will largely be Peter's book chapters.

Gotcha, Karaka is the circle. I had forgotten.

I presumed the date advanced when Peter awoke, making it the 17th, so just a day behind...

"hoped" is an overstatement... 'was amused by the notion of' is probably closer...
Peter doesn't like making his parents worry or putting them in the position to have to cover for his absences. He is aware of how he is falling behind in school and misses Marcus and his other friends. He misses a predictable world that he understands...

But something has chosen to show him terrible events in wonderful places, and put him in the path of powerful forces and the means to nudge their courses to make things better. Sometimes for a few people, and sometimes for a great many.

Peter is bound by responsibility, but it doesn't hurt that the magic also makes him feel very special*.

So he needs to get home to continue his own life, but he can't ignore an opportunity to save lives. So there will always be urgency to get the job done.

*(Thinking about it now, it's interesting I had Peter insist his magic is coming from within, while viewing his visions as being sent by a "make the universe a better place" intelligence of some kind.)

Re: Lost in Dreams II (OCC)
 

I think it's great...

I had a wonderful/terrible idea regarding Peter's attempts to keep his pants...

This is a funny notion and NOT a request...

What if he were to manage to manifest clothing when he Jumps... But only his Scout uniform and accessories.

BWAHAHAHAHA!

Re: Lost in Dreams II (OCC)
 

So far Julian has fallen into the hands of three criminal groups... I'm under the impression he likes these the best, despite the fact that they kidnapped him off the street. I supposed they've used the least violence, and they've given him pretty good material arrangements.



Also, I get a kick out of imagining Royal and Slick interacting. They'd have such very strong opinions about each other.

Re: Lost in Dreams II (OCC)
 

I mean part of it is how they responded when Julian asked if they'd let him go (i.e. "Why? This is a way better deal than being treated like any run of the mill clone."). If he asked Beatty the beat possible answer would probably be along the lines of, "Where's my money, Julian?" and with Tarbreth it'd be, "Shut up or I'll kick you again!"
It'd probably be more interesting than Slick and the Advocate, where they'd have a rather shorter interaction.

Re: Lost in Dreams II (OCC)
 

What's with all the soldiers kicking kids? :P

Re: Lost in Dreams II (OCC)
 

Height differences-- these soldiers are mounted, and Julian was on the ground when Tarbreath made his threats.


Yeah, its one of those weird things that just lines up. Like all the cloning. Or all of Peter's magic requiring material components.

Re: Lost in Dreams II (OCC)
 

Well, a pound of Silver today runs you about 330 USD. GURPS $ to real $ is hard to compare, but that should be in the ballpark.

To look at it differently: in 1899, 2 kilos of bread cost 0.63 Francs. 2 kilos of bread is about 4 pounds, so we'll call that four loaves of bread. G$1 purchases a loaf of bread, so G$4 = ~0.6 Francs or 1 Franc = ~G$6.7. 1 Franc had 4.5 g of silver in it (until WW1), so one pound of silver is about 100 Francs. Following some quick conversions, this places 1 pound of silver in the late 19th century at about G$670.

Re: Lost in Dreams II (OCC)
 

Thanks, that's useful and relevant

Re: Lost in Dreams II (OCC)
 

One would think knowledge of exchange rates on Earth in any period are of limited use on an alien planet.

Peter has only his ability to read people to determine if he is being cheated or not (unless he asked what would have been a fair exchange before going to haggle). Silver could easily be worth a tenth or a hundred times what is on Earth in this place.

Re: Lost in Dreams II (OCC)
 

As we all know Peter is on Mars, I'm making moon notes here to keep them strait:

Phobos, the larger in the sky of the two moons, travels backwards across the sky from west to east twice a day, and it rises about 3 hours earlier each day than the day before. (so every 8 days the moon will rise at the same time).

Demios takes 2.5 days to cross the sky, from east to west, and looks like a bright star. It take 5 days to complete a cycle

Mar's day is 24 hours 40 minutes. I suppose Peter might have noticed something, but I'm going to go with the Martians just making their seconds imperceptibly longer.

Re: Lost in Dreams II (OCC)
 

Keeping player agency is weird for Julian here.

Re: Lost in Dreams II (OCC)
 

It was kinda strained having Julian be the one to negotiate with the Starpus, but at least there the case could be made that as the one who was speaking directly it made sense for him to be in control. Here, it's kinda backwards. I can think of explanations why, but they have implications about the setting and/or Reena.

And to be fair, I wouldn't really mind if negotiation control was taken away from Julian.

Re: Lost in Dreams II (OCC)
 

Playing kids can't make it easy on that front.

We did take Social Stigma, Minor.

Re: Lost in Dreams II (OCC)
 

Peter makes it somewhat easy: he generally walks in and starts trying to take charge or at the very least see how he can help.



Julian is a little more timid. We'll see how he ends up.

Re: Lost in Dreams II (OCC)
 

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't Julian the 'Anti-Peter' by design? Maybe a crossover would be a bad idea... they might just explode on contact. :D

If our posts are both in the same point in their shared timeline so they could cross over, Peter's world is an older historical echo than Julian's - they are approximately the same age, but I think Peter's date of birth is years earlier as my thread started earlier.

Re: Lost in Dreams II (OCC)
 

I mean the main inversion was: "Would be really upset if he was stuck right out front of his house". Conveniently, there were a lot of things mirrored there. Some were my option. Like:
That's specifically to create a character arc. Given the premise, Julian's going to find himself being pushed in to solving problems in all the worlds he gets shoved into. Naturally, this will build confidence and assertiveness.

Well, Julian's world isn't an echo at all; he's from a superficially identical world with a trivially minor difference.

Re: Lost in Dreams II (OCC)
 

I was pondering this and that with Peter, and the nature of his relationship with Goliath.

With his 153 points in dreamer stuff, Peter is a 300 point character, and obviously Goliath is not the 100% value in the character sheet (If he could talk, he would have told Peter by now). I always assumed it was an unspoken cosmic or summonable/permanent enhanced situation, or that it was really just handwaved, and I'm certainly not quibbling over his point value, he's been wonderful.

But if having Goliath along is an unspoken dream power, might Peter be able to Using Abilities at Default from Powers (maybe by accident the first time) to alter the advantage to summon a different Ally for a jump, sending Goliath home? Maybe pulling his friend Marcus, or one of his parents, or Kumar to Mars or wherever...

Also along that line of thinking I considered the same kind of improvisation to use Jumper as Snatcher (maybe with Recall) to have Peter wake up in the same place, but with his laptop or some other possession from home or elsewhere. (This is assuming Peter has had the "unconscious only" removed from his Jumper so he could make such an improvisation attempt, but I think from the way he's been moving around and given more control says that's the case).

I know we have an energy reserve that is not listed in the package, is there a talent that we could improve?

Re: Lost in Dreams II (OCC)
 

"Base Magic Wildcard"? Nice!

Sounds like a good foundation for a kind of Sorcery for dreamers. I've kind of wanted Peter to put all these magics together and kind of build one himself one day...


What is the difficulty on Blade and Armor? I presume Healing and the portal ones are harder, but Peter will have to see them before that matters.

Has there been mention of any others?

Re: Lost in Dreams II (OCC)
 

I really just wanted a place to stick all the magic rules in one place, but it got out of hand and turned into a full recap thread... lol

Re: Lost in Dreams II (OCC)
 

I've been enjoying it: its a BIG thread.

Re: Lost in Dreams II (OCC)
 

It has become a little project. I'll keep going like I have and then come back and refine it. I may put spoilers around multiple spoilers to abridge faster, and I'll likely redo the first post as a link-index.

Re: Lost in Dreams II (OCC)
 

Wait...
This isn't quite the same Mars is it?

Re: Lost in Dreams II (OCC)
 

This is what I get for not rereading that entire thread with a fine-toothed comb!

Re: Lost in Dreams II (OCC)
 

There are a lot of Mars' out there as well as Earths!

Re: Lost in Dreams II (OCC)
 

Easy solution: Lakas/Yaka begins with a Voiced Palatal Lateral Approximant. As this is not common in English (i.e. compare with the 'll' in 'million'), different accents pronounce it with a Voiced Alveolar Lateral Approximant (i.e. 'L') or a Voiced Palatal Approximant (i.e. 'Y'). The pluralization is interchangeable.

Re: Lost in Dreams II (OCC)
 

It's not a matter of the change in terminology so much as the change it tech, I don't think the version of Mars Peter is in has starships and I think the teleportation is different than the portal Yaka. The previous threads have had different tech levels, and Peter's version appears to be the most primitive.

Re: Lost in Dreams II (OCC)
 

Well, I can think of a few different reasons for the discrepancy in tech level. Different point on the same timeline, different educational background, different contexts (Peter may have been given examples that don't require equipment he doesn't have). But "Mukhongan" and "Lakas" are two proverbial rocks in the shoe that make things hard to square up with a single timeline approach.

Re: Lost in Dreams II (OCC)
 

This isn't a "Wells" or a "Burroughs" But it's some kind of "Victorian Mars-3" or more!

The worlds are Infinite after all...

Re: Lost in Dreams II (OCC)
 

This is pretty comical when you consider that Goliath significantly outweighs Peter

Re: Lost in Dreams II (OCC)
 

Speaking of Peter's weight... I meant to increase his height an inch a while back, and he is probably due to go up another one to 5'6".


He started at 5'4" 122lbs. How would you say his nutrition has been? Should we add 2 inches and 16-ish lbs to Peter's vitals?

Re: Lost in Dreams II (OCC)
 

Most of his time has been with Kumar... that would give him decent nutrition and a really physical existence.


How long has it been since the first jump?

Re: Lost in Dreams II (OCC)
 

We didn't list a date for when he started, other than the mention that it was the month of May... So 7 months have passed.

Goliath is FULLY Grown... I gave him a half inch of shoulder height over the normal listed range.