[Meta thread] Iron's PokeRole Adventure: The Skull Ruins

[Dragonstrike]

Well, we were certainly busy discussing things this last day. The meta thread finally surpassed the game thread's number of pages.

[Lord Windos]

You can be an empath?

Why wasn't I told at character creation?

Since I have an Insight of 4, I practically can understand people's and Pokémon's emotional states, to the point of semi-understanding what a Pokémon is actually saying, and being able to sense people actual emotional responses to him/other in real time. At 5 insight, I probably will have the equivalent of pseudo telepathy and limited influence over a person emotions directly.

If you wanted to have special powers, you could have always asked Iron about it. I had to heavily speck my charater in order to become an empath, so while I'm good with Pokémon and people, I'm not to good at battles. I'm only starting to raise my Accuracy roll pool, and I haven't even touched STR or DEX yet.

Ah yes, right.  Those trait scales in the book.  I should probably look into those a little more.  

That said, I do remember what Nathan's big one is: that Knowledge stat of 3 (could specialize in a field of study or something like that).  Hence why Nathan knows so much about the history of other regions and general pokemon training.  Still self taught though, so again, not perfect.

My Character has a 1 in Knowledge, but is able to access so much more due to his college education. Quite logically, I should have put my 3 in knowledge, but I opt for survival mainly because the Empathy skill was listed under there. After I developed his character more, his high Surivival started to make more sense.

Due to his greater connection with the world because of his empathy, he has better responses to events (Typically goes first or 2nd in fights), is constantly on the look out for the well being and happiness of other (and threats to them), and with him being so in tune with Pokémon and the natural world (when he makes the effort [poor Poliwag/Carnivine/Shellderzilla...])

I might have to have a talk and see if he'll give me more points in Knowledge to reflect my college background, or if he'll continue to let me roll knowing stuff way above my actual Knowledge.

@PhantomUnderYourDesk Shiva basically knows how to appeal to his emotional state more, respects and listens to his warnings/fears of Fairy things, and is generally able to posit her interest in magical things innocently instead of foolishly. Plus, he think she has a natural affinity for the fey, so while he's concerned about that, he believes she can handle more magic than the rest of the party right now.

[Dies Irae]

You can be an empath?

Why wasn't I told at character creation?

Since I have an Insight of 4, I practically can understand people's and Pokémon's emotional states, to the point of semi-understanding what a Pokémon is actually saying, and being able to sense people actual emotional responses to him/other in real time. At 5 insight, I probably will have the equivalent of pseudo telepathy and limited influence over a person emotions directly.

If you wanted to have special powers, you could have always asked Iron about it. I had to heavily speck my charater in order to become an empath, so while I'm good with Pokémon and people, I'm not to good at battles. I'm only starting to raise my Accuracy roll pool, and I haven't even touched STR or DEX yet.

I'm fully aware of your stat spread and the implications. Just jossing with you. Snark could come across as passive aggressive in hindsight. Apologies. I've got no beef with you as a player - as I said earlier. The sniping is great as long as we're both aware we're being jerks to each other's character.  Letting us know you have some degree of unnatural abilities (with actual mechanical implications) out-of-character would help a lot.

As I said when I rushed out the character at creation, my inspiration was a more combative Kichii Goto (Mobile Police Patlabor) who was willing to get his own hands dirty rather than just sit back and move people around like pawns on a chessboard behind the scenes. Principled, but tired and more than a little disillusioned - I borrowed hugely from traditional noir tropes as well but I dialed the brightness up extremely, since we're playing a game about being friends with magical monsters. The 'officer', was basically envisioned as fulfilling the same role as the stereotypical deep-voiced private-eye monologue in noir films and has no real mechanical impact in game.

Vincent Lee is an every-man, if you will. Beaten and worn from life, but still an every-man and it was never my intention to step beyond that. If anything, my 'special power' is hitting things with a stick, my stat spread reflects that and I'm content with that. 

As to your character backstory, if it's going to come up, it's going to come up. I expect it to be awesome when it does.

I personally quite enjoy this plot concerning these Deyo Flowers! But Shiva is developing a dislike against them for what they have caused. HOWEVER, she still finds them lovely and is somehow interested what's with them. She wouldn't enjoy returning to them to see by herself, absolutely not, but she's fine with the party members discussing them with her.

Ventus despises magical things, Shiva is quite fond of them. Still, they get along nicely. Let that sink in. I don't see this as a logical/characterwise error, but as smart role- and outplaying.

I've no doubts about that.

I've likewise pointed out that as of the moment, Vincent has no reason to be buddy-buddy with Ventus, since the Deyo field incident involving a large snake. It's not a player-clash building per se (Heck, I'd happily go out with all of you for drinks in person), but a character rivalry that erupted due to the Deyo field being the equivalent of having a gun pulled on him (which is why Vincent has stopped calling Ventus 'Doc'). Being snippy and guarded around Ventus is entirely in character for Vincent, since his experience with Ventus is entirely different from Shiva at the moment.

There is no real meta reason to discuss issues further until more information arises. I've seen Lord Windos' posts regarding Fairy-Mons and I've privately checked what I know of it by Iron as well. Since there's no reason to know that in-character, plus the fact that up until that point, most of Ventus' interactions have been with Shiva, Vincent is still in the dark. I'm simply responding with information I know in character and unfortunately, as I mentioned earlier in an above post, I don't actually have a lot of information to go along with.

[PhantomUnderYourDesk]

Mind if I jump in to the chara Stat discussion? It's quite interesting to see the reasons for this or stat distribution.

Shiva has a Knowledge of 3, same as Nathan. Her speciality is the breeeding of Pokemon (though she hasn't gathered practical experience in this field on her own yet, it's mostly asissting her father), and the mechanics of moves and abilities. You know, how they work, what Pokemon has what and how they can possibly be combined to create an additional advantage. Type matchups. If she's unsure about something, she'll just look it up somewhere. That's also why she would not believe Larry being a breeder although he's all new to this, on top with his young age... Sorry for that. Careful here, you might step into terrain she's sensitive with. For now, she was just too concentrated on the Hoppip to hear his full declaration towards Nathan about the truth, only got 'breeder' and him missing his Dad.

Insight is 3, almost as much as Ventus. She's sensitive towards emotions - her own, Pokemon's and person's she's with. Mostly sticks to internal monologue though, not speaking about them openly. She may also struggle to sort them in.

On the down side, she's unexperienced in practical fighting + training Pokemon for fights especially and is physically...weak. Relatively.

Well, we were certainly busy discussing things this last day.  The meta thread finally surpassed the game thread's number of pages.

Neat. And we haven't even arrived in Ginger town, not even speaking about the first Gym.

(...) Plus, he think she has a natural affinity for the fey, so while he's concerned about that, he believes she can handle more magic than the rest of the party right now.

Maybe should have given her a more witch-like appearance. Like this.

[Dies Irae]

Tables are incomplete, since a lot of this is based on player conjecture from character interactions. I don't think we've actually sat down and discussed this outright in person. There's plenty of information bouncing around in the threads regarding how our various characters view the stuff and how they generally respond to things whether mentioned, implied of observed.

I figured I should at least jot down information so we can at least discuss a course of action O.O.C. There's blanks though, so if you have information or I'm misrepresenting your view on the subject, let me know and I'll fix it.
Needless to say, this doesn't immediately suddenly port over to being character knowledge. Usual caveat that character knowledge may or many not be accurate reflections of the meta-plot remains.

@Iron can laugh hysterically at us on how badly I've got it wrong tomorrow. After all, the implications are clear that he's been planning something.

Considering the Deyo existed before Ventus did, he's the one making it hard for me!  

Deyo, Meteor Strikes and Odd Pokemon Locations:

Ventus: 
Character Knowledge:
1. Believes it to be connected to his theory on F.A.E.S.
Character Goal:
1. Burn it all. 

Nathan:
Character Knowledge:
1. Flowers are somehow connected to the his abused Ralts.
2. Knows about the medicinal value of the plant
3. Has prepared a batch of painkillers.
4. Knows there's more than one impact site along the route.
5. Knows about Vincent's plant sample via Ralts.
Character Goal:
1. Find out more about the situation that resulted in his abused Ralts and oddball Staryu location.
2. Find out more information about the oddball Staryu location and how a normally acquatic 'Mon has wound up in a tiny pond.

Shiva:
Character Knowledge:
1. Knows about medicinal value of plant through communication with Nathan.
2. Believes flowers are connected to F.A.E.S. as mentioned by Ventus.
2. Is annoyed that we're fighting about it.
Character Goal:
?

Larry:
Character Knowledge:
?
Character Goal:
?

Vincent: 
Character Knowledge:
1. Odd flowers tied to painkiller creation.
2. Flowers are worth a lot to certain dubious Pokemon researchers.
3. Knows there's more than one impact site along the route.
4. Has a sealed sample bag containing Deyo plants.
Character Goal:
1. Let's get them to a lab - wants to see what's actually IN the stuff.


EDIT: WTH. That's some superior forum format wonk.

[Lord Windos]

Ah, well I have a harder time with telling snark IRL and in chat, so sorry for overexplaining my character creation towards you Dies. I honestly thought you didn't know! My bad...

As for you explanation about Vincent's attitude towards Ventus, I totally agree with it. Since you shared so much about how you character distrust mine implicently now, I might as well give a crack at it and tell you how mine feels about yours..

Essentially, Ventus consider Vincent an estranged friend at this point, through the fault of his own and Vince's. He understand the consequence of his actions- namely that using Ekans on Nathan in front of a former Police Officer is not exactly kosher- , and therefore is more or less 'fine' with Vince keeping his at arms length away. He knew that his actions in the field would more than mark him as a 'bad guy', but he was fine with that if he could possible prevent Vincent and Nathan from comming to harm.

Also, he was not using Ekans on you: He was going to use it on Nathan to get his Pokémon to do what he wanted, before dragging him away. Needless to say that would not improve Vincent's opinion on him; it probably make it even worse, as a matter of fact. The only reasons Ventus didn't stay and try and duke it out with him is that : 1. It was at best a 5 (Shiva and Ventus Plus there Pokémon) vs 7 (You guys and your Pokémon) and 2. The potential harm he could cause to the others outweighed the possible good from forcing them to leave via Pokémon brutality. He wanted to protect them, so the only way he could have done so at that point is just leave, and hope that they would soon follow afterward. He did give them his warning, after all; he could hope for the best.

The problem Ventus has with Vincent has with him namely lies in his bull headedness, secretive nature, and the refusal of open discourse over the Deyo Flowers Incident in greater detail. He knows that Vincent distrust him, but he at least wants to be able to just have a civil conversation with him over exactly why he freaked out. After that backstory dump was done, if Vincent still hated him/umempathetic towards his plight and reasoning, Ventus would have been just fine with that. He would be sad that he lost a friend, but at least now they understood why he did what he did, and they can now move on with there lives.

However, Vince is giving Doc the cold shoulder, when by all rights as a Police Officer he should be grilling him about his unlawful actions and asking him those important question. In addition, Ventus reached out not once, twice, but thrice to him in an attempt to at least be on speaking terms. Its why he's been so short with Vince, because by his perspective, Vince is being unusually uncooperative and dodgy over basic communication. Hate and distrust is what he can deal with; someone with a metaphorical gag and noiseblockers, not so much. He's also just confused with why Vincent is dragging his feet on the matter, given the gun ho attitude he showed him earlier and his status as an ex-Police guy.

He's also a bit tired of the secretive nature surrounding him, and just wants him to open up more to the group about some of his issues. In Ventus' mind, not only would it help Vince, it would also band to group tighter together, resulting in greater cooperation, synergy, and plain contentment between each other. It doesn't mean Ven is right about his idea, but that is what he feel about it, at least.

Ventus was also a bit disappointed that he kept such a tight leash on his Pokémon, not really letting them interact with others besides him. He understand that discipline is necessary to raising a great Pokémon, but he believes it should be balance out by letting the Pokémon have some autonomy to itself, and allow it to socialize with other humans. Ventus will keep this tibit about trainer style to himself, though: everyone has their way of doing things, so who is he to speak out against it?

In summary: Ventus still cares about Vincent (given that he's still calling him 'Vince') but he's frustrated by this 'Speak No Evil' rule that has fallen between them, and resents the fact that he's being deliberately ignored instead of out right confronted. He justs wants the situation to be resolved, but if some sides of the conflict refuse to make peace and move on in whatever manner, that can't happen. He's getting really tired of that fact, and might just start being more passive aggressive against Vincent if he doesn't start speaking up.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

As for what bugs him about the Deyo flowers, if he knew about the Medicinal effects of them, he would have even more reason to hate them. He would classify them as extremely dangerous narcotics that have downright debilitating or deadly consequences with repeated use, and that they should be disposed of post haste for that alone.

He took a few classes in Medicine, so he knows aaaaalllll about Painkiller addiction, dependence, and eventual toxicity if taken too long. From there, it would not take a lot for him to put together why Ralts is interested in the flowers: its addicted to them for some reason. Which means that someone was dosing the little guy in stuff for some reason....

[Iron]

Some of what Ventus knows from his education is not accurate for Creshire, so that might explain his Knowledge score.



So it's not nearly as powerful as being psychic. Plus, you're a human - Pokemon will always be better than you at many, many things just by their "magical" or powerful nature. Someone with 5 insight would be as good as Earth's greatest psychologist or inspired writer - someone with 6 would start being a bit supernatural about it.

As for using Insight on a player, I will use much the same stance as I use in D&D:
The dice may say that you see no signs of a bluff, but the DM doesn't control the player, so you'll believe or disbelieve as you will.
BUT it's important to separate character knowledge from player knowledge, and Ventus can't read minds (even Ralts can only sense emotions right now). So I don't think it's reasonable for Ventus to believe Vincent encountered more Deyo, especially since they won't be the biggest thing on Vincent's mind when he gets back.

[PhantomUnderYourDesk]

Given that Cottonee was thrilled to bits as the Deyo Flowers leaked some sap upon being picked, there must also be some...attractic if not euphoriant effect on them. If Ven wouldn't have stopped her for good, she would have taken three of the flowers with her in bare hands.

@Super_trainer_Larry, did you got in touch with the Deyo Flowers as well/at all? You were following Ventus and me during berry search, but then Rachel appeared.


------------------------------------
A different thing, noticed that Plusle's Nuzzle has the potential to inflict massive damage without even leveling-up in Character's Stats - if its Accuracy Roll and Nasty Plot in a previous round succeed/suceeded. Autoparalysis is also nice. Might also be useful if the party's in need for electricity, unless the tent has a generator...?

Nuzzle, possible(!) Damage Roll:
5 Strenght (1 on default, 2 because of Plus-Minus ability triggered, 2 because of Nasty Plot) + 1 Power of move + 1 STAB + 0 Fight = 7 dice. + 1 autodamagepoint if super-effective.

I'm definitely up to teach both moves to Minun as soon as there are opportunities. Iron, Nasty Plot and Nuzzle on Minun both cost 0 XP and Plusle can easily teach them - question, is it possible to teach both moves in the same training session?

[Dragonstrike]

Given that Cottonee was thrilled to bits as the Deyo Flowers leaked some sap upon being picked, there must also be some...attractic if not euphoriant effect on them. If Ven wouldn't have stopped her for good, she would have taken three of the flowers with her in bare hands.

@Super_trainer_Larry, did you got in touch with the Deyo Flowers as well/at all? You were following Ventus and me during berry search, but then Rachel appeared.

I think the flowers must be especially attractive to fairies for some reason, considering Cottonee, Raphael, and Ralts all found them rather pleasant.  Only Ralts seems to take on a really serious attitude with them, though...

As for Larry...he's had 0 interactions with the flowers so far.  I don't think anyone's talked about it around him either.  He's...kinda out of the loop.  He'd probably be more in the loop if everyone else wasn't so afraid to talk about it in character, lest they start another fight that threatens to separate the party.

[PhantomUnderYourDesk]

I think the flowers must be especially attractive to fairies for some reason, considering Cottonee, Raphael, and Ralts all found them rather pleasant.  Only Ralts seems to take on a really serious attitude with them, though... (...)

Makes definitely sense. Ponyta/Swiftfire avoided them before you caught it, if I'm not mistaken.... And Shiva was fascinated by them as well, according to Ventus she's a somehow like a Fairy herself.

Poor Larry - but undisclosed if it might be a good idea to dragg him into the flower-issue, as you said. Maybe better not. On the other hand, lucky that he doesn't have to deal with this mess.