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A Sword Without a Hilt: A Song of Ice and Fire/D&D 3.5 Crossover

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DragonParadox said:
Viserys' story is at this point inseparable from the Empire he is building. Abstracting all the Empire building would be ripping the heart out of the character IMO.
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Tbh I like this post. It makes sense that the fairy king would at least attempt to stop his people from dying. It's not really dragging at all. What I think is dragging is that we are spending too much time on the minute of things like the Summoning for the sacrifice. We had like 5 updates of what was essentially pointless. Just say we safely summoned a lot of demons, keep the numbers abstract. Finish that shit in one update and do 4 of those updates on the sacrifice itself.
I meant abstraction in the sense of less details and pointless nitty gritty and more character focused problems or puzzles like the entrance to the easterly rock ones.

At this scale random encounters slow down the narrative, so maybe cut down on those and use something else if you want to introduce new concept like layered planes.
 
The core of the problem is that a large part of the thread, and DP for that matter, never really wanted to do any empire building and treated it as just an achievement to be unlocked. But empire begets empire and the thing grew and grew, while increasingly being treated as a hostile intrusion into Random Shenanigans.

That clash between Random D&D Shenanigans and Politicking / Empire Building has been here for ages and the consensus has always been that we are not allowed to consider a problem.
 
[X] Azel

Bruh, a peasant can know why. Because your enslaving a massive amount of people and we want to stop that. Even the Demons gave Heaven more autonomy then that.
 
Can we just move on to killing the queen and looting her murdered court for everything they're worth? We've got things to do and places to be, and she's in the way.
 
Some part of me wants to talk. I don't know, curious on her thoughts and how willing is she to surrender. I like the talks so it bias of mine.
 
Azel said:
The core of the problem is that a large part of the thread, and DP for that matter, never really wanted to do any empire building and treated it as just an achievement to be unlocked. But empire begets empire and the thing grew and grew, while increasingly being treated as a hostile intrusion into Random Shenanigans.

That clash between Random D&D Shenanigans and Politicking / Empire Building has been here for ages and the consensus has always been that we are not allowed to consider a problem.
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While I admit this was a problem, I would like to contest that I did not like empire building. I would not have written in this quest for years if I disliked such a large portion of it. I like it a lot. Some of the stuff you came up with as tools of Empire building like the road infrastructure, the sky ships the institutions are among my favorite world-building elements.
 
DragonParadox said:
If I might make a confession reading through the backlog today I got the sense that you guys just wanted this over with and that was part of the reason I struggled to write, not just being busy. It feels sometimes like the quest has gotten too big and we are all just flipping though the pages to the end. I've been considering, not seriously or anything just doing an epilogue after the coronation with all the stuff you guys achieved and starting a new one with a new protagonist for Winter's coming, just to reduce the scope of things back to where we can all enjoy it again and it no longer feels like 'easy mode'.

What do you guys think?
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I wouldn't mind following some different characters on more focused adventures in the world we've built here, at least for short tangents, but I don't want to end Viserys' journey or what we've yet to accomplish. That would make me sad.
 
Goldfish said:
I wouldn't mind following some different characters on more focused adventures in the world we've built here, at least for short tangents, but I don't want to end Viserys' journey or what we've yet to accomplish. That would make me sad.
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This is essentially my take. I'm not ready to give up on Viserys.
 
DragonParadox said:
While I admit this was a problem, I would like to contest that I did not like empire building. I would not have written in this quest for years if I disliked such a large portion of it. I like it a lot. Some of the stuff you came up with as tools of Empire building like the road infrastructure, the sky ships the institutions are among my favorite world-building elements.
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Fair enough, but that stuff was always the baby of @Crake, me, Diomedon, @egoo, @TalonofAnathrax and a few others. You always had much more of an adventure slant to everything.
 
Do think it's funny she's trying to go with the allies path when the Court has been not allies at any point. If she actually surrendered I'd consider it. If she backed talked or try to change Viserys mind I'd burn the Crown
 
@DragonParadox, I have also been getting the feeling that this quest was wrapping up. I'm not saying that we should end it tonight or anything, but at this point conquering Westeros does feel more or less like a formality, and obstacles to that are increasingly seen by the thread as annoying chores that disrupt our planning (even when they're really cool obstacles).
Let's say that if this quest wrapped up after we conquered Westeros and got a better stalemate against the Deep Ones, I wouldn't be too unhappy. But there are so many very cool plot points out there that it would be a huge shame to just leave hanging! I do hope that this continues! Still, my personal solution to this would be to establish a slightly more grounded situation. A status quo that we can rely on in the medium term, so that we can spend an entire month adventuring in Valyria if needed.
On the other hand, a defensive war against the Deep Ones sounds very fun, especially if it's really challenging! I loved Azel's idea of them attacking Braavos, for example. I know that this quest will never be hard mode, but still...

On a completely unrelated note, here's a slightly edited post I made about how I'd love to see this quest end. Click on the arrow to see the original if you're curious. Here changes are bolded, and things I no longer feel are needed (or that have already been achieved) are crossed out:
TalonofAnathrax said:
My ideal ending isn't "this quest goes on forever until Viserys rules the universe", that would just be stupid. It's something like this:
  • Plane of Balance consolidated. Strong bulwark against the Others established in Westeros and Essos, Tiamat rebuffed, local Illithid genocide 99% complete (a more reliable stalemate against the Deep Ones), Seven dealt with (we either need a better arrangement or a situation that's pushing them towards a long-term loss of preeminence in Westeros), OG pacified, 15th dead (I'm hyped for more exploration of Valyria, and for some big boss fights against the 15th! More worldbuilding, weird places, and weird monsters!), Mammon pwned harder, Essos and Westeros now living under our strong institutions and stable genius :D
  • Sultan defeated by the coalition (with some Viserys involvement, but not "Viserys wins it himself"), because fuck that asshole. Decent extraplanar position established with various other actors. I can live with current stalemate against the Sultan.
  • More reforms done within our Empire. Strong institutions established. Path to the future seems reasonably set.
  • Yi-Ti and Far East situation stabilized. Diplomatic links established. I love the Yi-Ti stuff, but the current situation is fine by me for now
  • Some sort of band-aid established for the Heaven Issue (save the souls of our subjects!), and getting the ball rolling on doing more in the long term with our various allies. An epilogue involving a promise to never give up, and reach that objective someday ! Maybe something similar involving the final force behind the Others.
Basically I want a strong, stable medium-term position established, where we can fade to black saying that we'll succeed eventually once our Imperium is built up and we can leverage the Plane of Balance's massive long-term population and potential into another Valyria-style "Archmage Dynasty/Regiment" bullshit level.

And I really, really don't want QM confirmation on whether or not we actually manage that level of hubris. Reshaping the entire Planes in our image? Ruling them all, or whatever? No, I don't want to know if we ever become that bullshit.
Please, no. Any long-term Epilogues should be nice and fluffy please.

  • Richard killing something Gargantuan with his sword.
  • Mythic Rank 10 for us, Mythic Ranks for more of our Companions (Vee ! Daenerys ! Richard !)
  • A lot more worldbuilding interludes, especially about our various institutions, their local flaws, their local successes.
  • @Snowfire coming back to help write a fluffy epilogue involving Rhaella
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Regarding this latest decision point... Well, I'd have preferred if it had offered something, or perhaps tried to convince us she already had a countermeasure to this sort of thing prepared, etc. But that's just personal preference, and IC this makes sense.
[X] Azel
And I'm not feeling bad for a Queen whose idea of a valid plan is "mass mind-control across a densely populated country".
 
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Azel said:
Fair enough, but that stuff was always the baby of @Crake, me, Diomedon, @egoo, @TalonofAnathrax and a few others. You always had much more of an adventure slant to everything.
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That is true I did lean on you guys a lot in these matters, unfairly so perhaps. I'm not sure how exactly to fix it at this late a unfortunately. Just writing more background elements is taking up a lot of time. If I tried to take all the empire building elements on board myself I'm not sure I could juggle it all.
 
DragonParadox said:
While I admit this was a problem, I would like to contest that I did not like empire building. I would not have written in this quest for years if I disliked such a large portion of it. I like it a lot. Some of the stuff you came up with as tools of Empire building like the road infrastructure, the sky ships the institutions are among my favorite world-building elements.
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Honestly I think the problem is we've made Viserys into Bruenor Battlehammer.

Bear with me it'll make sense in a minute.

Essentially we've gone from a back alley thief cutting his teeth and trying to make ends meet to a dude who has conversations with multiple gods on a regular basis. Our adventures are grand when we can get to them, but our plans are such that if Viserys has to take the field to get shit done it's because he has no one else to do it for him.

We've gone from adventurer to the dude who gives adventurers jobs and we can't leave yet because the empire is still in too young a state to run without our constant supervision.

That being said Viserys just taking a vacation at some point wouldn't be remiss.

Also

[X] Azel

Because if the bitch wanted to have words in good faith she shouldn't have spent literally all her time trying to fuck the realm we plan on governing. And she had forewarning about how we felt about her plans because of that other fae that first came for the damn crown in the first place.

She's fond of stories, so she should know the story of "The little red dragon who worked his ass off for years and got sick of everyone's shit."
 
@TalonofAnathrax, the problem of Westeros the Chore is.... complicated. At the core of it though, it's a strategic thing to do and the strategy part of the quest is... spotty...

Also, @Artemis1992, I know you have great fun doing it and hence me never saying anything, but your recent habit of building characters and having them cause long, drawn out problems for us is unbelievably frustrating on so many levels.
 
There's still things to do during and after the invasion of Westeros. Like the Faith and how their definitely going to cause problems.
 
DragonParadox said:
I feel I have to speak up here, all actual enemies @Artemis1992 makes are at my request. He never handed me one I did not ask for.
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Alright. That sounded different when you two talked with each other about this.

@Artemis1992, I'm sorry.

@DragonParadox, why all these interrupts all the time? The reason we (or at least I) often feel like going through the motions is because we are still preparing for Westeros for the last... two years or so?

I... I mean...

Screw it. I'm going to use DATA and SCIENCE on this and I will not come back until I have proof one way or another.
 
Azel said:
@DragonParadox, why all these interrupts all the time? The reason we (or at least I) often feel like going through the motions is because we are still preparing for Westeros for the last... two years or so?
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This is a complicated question. I think the answer can be broken down into three things:
  1. With sparse notes as I was until recently I sometimes winged encounters with narrative ramifications beyond what I expected
  2. Sometimes when an update gets long and I need a break point I bring out the encounter table which can flow into the above
  3. And this is the big one, there are a lot of characters whose stories I like telling and a lot of elements of the world I enjoy lingering over
I can definitely fix the first and I'm going to avoid the second, but the third I can only moderate since it is a part of how I write and even why I write.
 
DragonParadox said:
I feel I have to speak up here, all actual enemies @Artemis1992 makes are at my request. He never handed me one I did not ask for.
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Now that is not correct.
I did create a few sheets without request.
Edit: Well, more ideas without request that then became sheets after being approved.

@Azel
However what these sheets have in common is that they haven't troubled you much so far.
For example the Leafdancer Omake I wrote a while ago was about a completly unrequested enemy, but she hasn't been a problem to Viserys or the thread at all.
Similarly to most of my initiative-works.

There are quite a few Devils in Slaver's Bay that DP did not directly ask for, but you have only met one (the Deimavigga) and so far I do not think that the he was more trouble than any other high-ranking devil in his place would have been.

Similarly I made several Fey knights and lords in the Reach (on a rather general request), most of whom will likely die offscreen in the next few updates, due to the thread's decision how to handle the Reach-situation.

I think the only significant holdup in the narrative that I can take blame for was the Charnel God in Sarnor. That one I did push for and he did take up significant spotlight.
So yeah, my fault on Anu-Simung.
 
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DragonParadox said:
This is a complicated question. I think the answer can be broken down into three things:
  1. With sparse notes as I was until recently I sometimes winged encounters with narrative ramifications beyond what I expected
  2. Sometimes when an update gets long and I need a break point I bring out the encounter table which can flow into the above
  3. And this is the big one, there are a lot of characters whose stories I like telling and a lot of elements of the world I enjoy lingering over
I can definitely fix the first and I'm going to avoid the second, but the third I can only moderate since it is a part of how I write and even why I write.
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Point two in particular is a big culprit of what seem like unnecessary draining problems we spend a few updates fixing.
 
DragonParadox said:
Sometimes when an update gets long and I need a break point I bring out the encounter table which can flow into the above
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...really?

I swear to god sometime two or so years ago we had a conversation exactly about this, maybe even during a big kerfluffle.

But it was basically that we, as a group, have more than enough initiative to start our own encounters, and pick our own targets, and there's not a whole lot of credible reasons why enemies should be able to interrupt us given the logistical hurdles involved in actually finding a way to do that, or B) they can be handled off-screen by the NUMEROUS people we have recruited to... do just that.

Because other factions can, quite reasonably, not be expected to know exactly what we are doing when we are doing it, or we would be presented with several narrative opportunities and clues on how to rectify that situation and narrative would be a much greater deal than it is usually presented as. That's why the thread freaked the fuck out over Abraxas.

This is stuff going on in the background for several months... but we as a thread had no indications of it barring "Abraxas is around". That's not really instantly or automatically kludge or fudging going on, that's more like "we have categorically failed to respond to context clues, so we have to go over EVERYTHING security related!"

You are presenting problems that you thought, at the time, didn't exist, because you thought it was a neat continuation, a one-off plothook that could be scored and settled at a later date, instead of causing a new detour.

Stop busting out the encounter table when we're not traveling somewhere, or not interrupting ongoing events in an area there are other factions and factors moving around and colliding with each other actively. It is a bad idea. Also, quite cogently, sometimes we shouldn't even see what got rolled on the table for background actions.

Sometimes we just see the after effects... because if we didn't spend time looking for it, there's no real way we should have had a clue it was going on, reasonably. Narrative convenience just causes the thread to get distracted from enjoying what they were involved with, and we tend to react in a much more sanguine fashion to stuff we opted to actively ignore at the start of the month when assigning people to look into stuff.
 
I'll keep playing if y'all keep playing, I won't salt much if y'all decide to stop the quest.

I think I outgrew the emotional outbursts I used to have for the notion :V

I preferred taking things slowly in the past, but it is quite apparent that's cancer, nowadays.

I do want to see some plot points pay off that we won't get if we just drop the quest after the coronation/Reconquest, but I dont think it'd be worth to push on towards them if, say, half the active thread leaves by then.

@DragonParadox, crake is Big True, yo.

Also, poisoned with food, no edits to turnvote tonight, trying to not shit myself to death.
 
[X] Refuse to answer, cast the crown into the fire and set the great curse in motion

Well, regardless of the future, the beginning of the hot phase of the conquest is right now.
Before the day is over we will have hit-teams all over the middle of Westeros.
That will most likely not be hidden, not be ignored.
The pacification of the western provinces starts with this bang.
 
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