User:Evalyn

GM style

Evalyn as a GM

Here are some policies that I tend to adhere to, in no particular order;

Character Conflict

I do not agree with character death without explicit consent. I'm all for attempts on each others life, of course-- but if you cannot OOCly mediate some sort of agreement for the outcome, please don't be insulted if I DECIDE some sort of outcome, just to keep things moving along.

Yes, I am one of those terrifying players who asks that you determine the outcome of a fight OOCly. After all: we're here to make stories, not end them.

If you need help figuring out how to resolve a conflict in a non-deathy way, you could...

• ...have your character suffer some sort of non-fatal wound which incapacitates him or her. Chicks dig battle scars!
• ...be publicly embarrassed and shamed. They're not dead, but they may wish they were!
• ...lose some sort of important piece of equipment or personal memento. This could provide more RP when the character tries to get it back later!

Timelocks

I enjoy the idea that any given scene or plot could take days, weeks, or even months. I do not like being told "I can't RP, I'm in a timelocked scene." If I ask that a scene be timelocked, it will be an IC timelock, not an OOC one. Go out, have fun, RP; just keep in mind that some particular event happened, or will happen, when you play. Because seriously now, nobody likes to be told "OK, you're not allowed to RP until I get back from school."

Pose Order

Short version: if there's 6 or less players in the room, please keep pose order. I will be a damned nazi in that case. If there are more than 6 players, however, I'd like you to keep pose order-- within your own specific groups.

I've noticed that, in larger scenes, characters are not intermingling with EVERYONE. They keep to small groups and play within those small groups, while allowing themselves the opportunity to gravitate to other groups as the situation demands it. In that case, imagine that your own small group has its own pose order; pay attention to that specific order, and you're good to go.

Additionally, if the situation demands it, I may ask that each "group" precede their pose with a pre-determined tag based on allegiance or location. When you have a huge room, and you're trying to keep track of where the Alliance is (for example), or you're trying to pay attention to everyone at <The Small Table>, these tags can help keep things ordered and easy to understand.

Combat/Taskrolls

I like taskrolls, because I get to show off my massive e-peen. Don't feel embarrassed; I'm sure you like doing that too!

That said: taskrolls should not take more time than the actual posing and scene itself. For this reason, I tend to follow a series of loose rules that are designed to keep your screen full of posing, and not rolling.

Rolling in advance

There are a certain set of skills and rolls that can be used in almost any and every situation. Firearms, dodge, spot, listen skills; most of these will be used during a plot at some point and time. As such, I will often ask you to roll these in advance (during a 5 or 10 minute chat a few days ahead of the scene), and keep the results in a "pool" for your character. When the situation demands it, I will pull a result from this pool, so we don't have to wait around forever to figure things out.

If you ask me how you should take some particular action, and I give you the result without asking for a taskroll, it is NOT AN ARBITRARY DECISION. I am drawing from the "pool" of rolls you already took.

Combat

As it stands, DSS is set up such that combat can be long and drawn out between two remotely equal characters. I dislike this. Combat should be fast, and brutal, and incredibly damaging; you should not consider yourself invincible when approaching combat, and will often do better finding "non-standard" methods to defeat opponents.

As such, when in combat, I pretty much ignore health and how damage relates to it. If you fail a dodge roll, I will simply tell you to "take a wound." Yes, this is completely arbitrary-- although I may ask for more painful wounds depending on how hard you fail, or your enemy succeeds. However, I will allow you to choose where your wound is placed; this allows you to pose in a manner that is more natural, and gives you some wiggle room.

As noted before, I will never simply say "lols, you died." However, there will be penalties for taking too many wounds. If you decide to take a hit to the shoulder, you will suffer taskroll penalties for any actions that demand the use of your hand. If you shatter your kneecap, yes, you will have trouble running.

The plus side is that combat scenes will rarely take more than an hour or two, even at their longest. The same rules that apply to you will apply to my NPC's, with the addendum that they can die at any time. You may not be allowed to stealth-stab-to-death a player, but if you've got an NPC in your sights, feel free to ask me if you can "pop his head like a grape."

NPC's

NPC's are hard to keep track of. I really love using google docs. Chances are, you can see the latter as a solution to the former.

Nothing particularly interesting

I just think it's weird to transition from "COMBAT KILL DEATH YO" to "Makin' Babies." This is my faux-linebreak.

Makin' Babies

This is simultaneously a gentle guide for prospective baby-makers, and record-keeping for when the Aliens pop outta Rose.

<OOC> Babbage says, "Nothing says fun like making babies in the middle of Verbena's Free Market."

MAKIN' BABIES

1) Record the parents traits, and make punnet squares for each. Google will go a long way for determining Dominant and Recessive traits. Parents Rose: Blue eyes (Homozygous Recessive), Black (Heterozygous) Straight Hair (ww/straight hair), 5' 6"%rBabs: Brown eyes (Heterozygous), Black Hair(Heterozygous) (Ww/wavy hair), 6'0"

2) Roll one 32 sided die. If "1," you've got twins! If any other number, a single kid. Fwew, you just dodged a bullet!

2.5) Flip a coin for each child you've got. Heads: male. Tails: female.

Resulting child(ren): Twins - 1F 1M

3) Eye Color: roll an X-sided die to determine phenotype (refer to parents genotypes when deciding phenotypical ratio)

Resulting phenotype:

1F: Brown Eyes

1M: Blue Eyes

4) Hair Color: roll an X-sided die to determine phenotype (refer to parents genotypes when deciding phenotypical ratio)

Resulting phenotype:

1F: Brown Hair

1M: Black Hair

5) Hair Type: roll an X-sided die to determine phenotype (refer to parents genotypes when deciding phenotypical ratio)

5.5) Hair type is a little 'weird.' WW represents curly hair, Ww represents wavy hair, and ww straight hair. The ratio in our case would be 1:2:1, or, after rolling a 4-sided die: 1 represents Curly, 2 or 3 wavy, and 4 straight.

Resulting phenotype:

1F: Wavy Hair

1M: Curly Hair

6) Baby Abilities:

Any babies will have 3 basic "spheres" of ability; intelligence, emotion, and physicality. Each one will have a number assigned to it, between 1 and 3, representing their strength in each, with 1 being the lowest, 3 the highest. No given '1' will suggest a complete failure in the subject in question; just 'below average.' Similarly, a '3' in intelligence does not represent a child who can deliver dissertations before his first birthday, just a kid with above-average learning capacity.

One of two choices: either you're given 6 "points" to distribute amongst your three attributes, or roll a 10-sided die to determine how many points you get. The latter will have some tweaks (rolling a 4 or lower, for example, lets you re-roll).

Resulting superbabies (xI/xE/xP):

1F: 2I/3E/2P

1M: 3I/1E/3P

7) Sooner or later...

Baby-Makin' Results

Children conceived on 4/25/2010 (Sep 19, 2526 - game time)

Michelle:

Michelle has brown eyes, and wavy brown hair. She has average intelligence, and will be walking at a fairly normal age. More than anything else, she will smile, and laugh, and giggle at anything. She is very emotive.

Adrian:

Adrian has blue eyes and curly black hair. He'll be walking, talking, and making Lego-art at a relatively young age, but seems to be somewhat emotionally stunted. He won't smile or laugh very often, and may have social problems later in life.

Secondary Characters (NPCs)

This is a brief list and description of the NPC's I will regularly play, along with their known associations. Anyone is free to request the use of them or, for special cases, complete control.

• The Ashley Family

Affiliation: Rose Ashley
Description: An eclectic French family, mostly mono-lingual save for the daughter, Rose. Composed of Marjolaine, Adrian, and Joseph Ashley.

• The Forens Family

Affiliation: Evalyn Brevviax
Description: A group split up by chaos and deceit. With Joseph and Craig (married) nowhere to be found, and both Evalyn and Dannae (Daughter, Mother) apparently dead, this leaves only Michael-- the man once implicated in over a dozen murders --and Sarah-- a young girl with an obsession with Lego's and pirates.

• Miss. Evalyn Brevviax

Affiliation: Ethereal Investigations
Description: A deaf woman with a chip on her shoulder and one helluva temper. Despite being announced dead some time ago, small rumors float about suggesting that she might still have a hold on her mortal coil...

• Telephus

Affiliation: Sons Of Liberty
"Revolution is not a dinner party, nor an essay, nor a painting, nor a piece of embroidery; it cannot be advanced softly, gradually, carefully, considerately, respectfully, politely, plainly, and modestly. A revolution is an insurrection, an act of violence by which one class overthrows another." -- Mao Zedong

• Kevin

Affiliation: Sons Of Liberty
A young man in his early twenties, on parole after serving time for a series of cyber-attacks that went awry. While he's legally sworn away from anything with a network connection for the rest of his life, one might note that his old Aliases have begun to pop up again, here and there...

• Joseph

Affiliation: A Simple Plan
No association with Joseph Ashley. Kind of an emo-kid. Black, greasy hair. Smokes. Hates life and society, but is more than happy to act as a messenger-boy or a toilet-cleaner, provided you give him enough money for his next CD, because they're the only way he can express the anguish in his soul, yo.