The Brotherhood Campaign

[Klavice Gavin]

Chase: I congratulate you for destroying my precious barrier, but at the same time, I can not be discombobulated that easily.
Alex: Wait Chase... you, why are you doing this? Why must you destroy beorc and laguz on Tellius.
Chase: You have to know, do you? Well, truth is, I've actually hated you all my life, you getting all the attention when I clearly had not.
I wanted to destroy my parents, and all of their species so that all would bow down to me.
Alex: So... you wanted attention is why you became as powerful as you are?
Chase: Yes, I did, but we shall not talk about that right now, instead we shall talk about your death!
Alex: We must act quickly before Chase has the chance to heal all the damage we do to him!

[Kai le Chevalier]

(outside)

Tai: *starts chanting, but notices Rain ouside* What is that lizard thinking of?

Lily: its called a Bangaa

Tai: sure...any warrant forhis capture

Lily: we dont even know who he is

Tai: okay then, *continues to read the scriptures*

Anise: is he sure that this is a good idea?

Lily: no

(inside)

Taizaki: *waks to the front door, sword in hand*

[Basildon]

OOC: I find those "deus ex machinas" to be highly annoying and cliche, if you ask me. Looks like the main course of the story is decided by only one person, and it should not be like that, in my experience.

[Klavice Gavin]

OOC: The next RP will be not my work at all, sorry that you feel that this RP is 100% mine.
The first two were more controlled I believe, by "deus ex machinas" do you mean the machinery or the plot in general? (Sorry I don't really know what it means)
I try to make everyone heroes, but if this RP is too cliche for you, we'll do the best we can to improve.
It's kinda hard to make an RP WITH a plot without it being cliched or boring.
At the same time, if I just leave the RP to some people, people might go insane and destroy everything so please feel free to contribute what you believe would make this RP less cliche and less "dues ex machina".
The next one probably won't even have a plot, it won't involve the "buddy system" we have in place which means that "you cannot harm, nor kill allies".
Thanks for letting us know, we can't do much to change the current Campaign as it's almost over.
Look at the other RPs before that and see if they are more or less the same.

[Klavice Gavin]

OOC: Never mind, just looked it up.
You mean this right?

Any resolution to a story that does not pay due regard to the story's internal logic and that is so unlikely that it challenges suspension of disbelief, and presumably allows the author, director, or developer to end the story in the way that he or she desired (Ex. the protagonist waking up, realizing it was all a dream. 2nd Ex. another hero coming in out of an unexpected place to save someone at the last second).
Oh, now I'm backed into a corner, and can't devise a way out. I could sure use a deus ex machina right about now!

Well, if that is what you mean by deus ex machina, we cannot have people "dying" in RPs especially if they are not NPCs, I mean Chase kind of needed to somehow escape though because he is the main villain, I mean sure, in MMORPGs you can die, but this is a story based RP so basically we cannot have protagonists dying from a fall or something.
If you feel we don't need a plot, protagonist or antagonist please feel free to say so, and we could take an MMORPG approach with characters being able to kill eachother.
We've warned Taizaki a few times about this sort of thing how he used to magically dodge everything thrown at him, and he's improved a lot.
If you feel that I myself am the problem and that this RP is poorly written and unoriginal, I shall decide someone else to make a new plot.
Please respond with your thoughts to this, your ideas could make this RP even more popular. Sorry I am asking, I am still an amateur at RPs as are many of our members.

[magicfreak]

OOC: Well, Chase is the main villain, so it makes sense that most of the story would be influenced by Ice, who controls him.

[Basildon]

That is the point, magicfreak, the person that is "the main hero" CANNOT I cannot emphasize this enough, CANNOT be the "main villain" even though, in a top RP there are no such concepts as everyone are equal, whether side they choose. That is, unless, there is only one villain and many heroes, or vice versa.
When the same person controls the heads of both sides, guiding the plot towards where you feel it should go is inevitable, that is... simply unnatural, and it feels forced.
You may think I am taking things too serious, but that is the intricate beauty of an RP, the sublime improvisation, the dampening feelings of surprise where the plot takes a turn, I am not saying Deus Ex Machinas are bad, they are good when used correctly, and I absolutely love complicated plots with plenty of twists and turns, but when the points above addressed DO happen, an RP is transformed into a stalemate, something ugly and even boring when the main point of an RP is having fun, is not it?

[magicfreak]

OOC: Since when is Alex the main hero? From what I've seen, its pretty equal. Main heroes are for books, movies, and videogames, not rping. The characters may follow his lead at points, but thats because he knows more about Chase than we do. If someone else created a villain, then obviously they would know more about them, but that doesn't make them the main hero.

That didn't really come out how I wanted, but I hope it gets my point across.

[Sasha Fyer]

OOC: I have to say that I agree with Basildon. Klavice has pretty much made it so that the only person fighting Chase at any one time is Alex. In fact, I think that he's deliberately ignoring certain posts (remember when Eiva purified the Royal Knights and Klav made a post fighting like it never happened? And just recently, I haven't heard a single mention of the GIGANTIC attacks just launched against Chase) so he can keep control. Now, I've been holding back on saying this for a long time, but I can't hold it back any longer... Alex and Chase are Gary Stus. VERY bad Gary Stus, as well. "OMG Alex is married to Nailah! (Okay, I'll buy that... a bit.) OMG ALEX PULLS X-Y-AND Z STUNT (remember that time when Alex "died" and got revived by Ashunera? OUCH.) AND GETS AWAY WITH IT! (...Gag.) OMG ALEX ISN'T A TELLIAN BUT X-Y-AND Z SUPER SPECIAL THING!" (Oh, and while I'm at it... Chase's "I JUST WANT LUV/ATTENTION" motive is THE WORST. Acting out of some trauma I can understand, but ATTENTION is such a petty motive...) Granted, I'm not one to talk on these subjects, since I've done a bit of story-munchkining, and my characters are undoubtedly not free from the Sue stick... but it bears mentioning. Now, less nonsense, more RP.
---
Sasha: We can't just leave the Tellians here!
Darrah: We can't just let that goober Alex hoard all the glory!
Sasha: (Not smart, Darrah. Not smart.)
Eiva: Well, it's time to fall back on the old Tensakutan ritual of not trusting humans to do their own work. I say we go with Falcon. Besides, they have sheer numbers on their side! They'll be fine.
Darrah: And they've already left looking for Chase! Let's go! *she runs to the portal, dragging Sasha and Eiva along*
Sasha: ...May both our Goddesses be with them...
Darrah: (Don't even go there, Sasha.)
---
*Blah blah, Unknown Place*
?: This... this is unspeakable! I... have a splitting headache... and I told you what that meant...
??: Stay in control! I seethe with rage at how that man exploits your world as well... but we are clearly out of options.
?: What if we intervene ourselves?
??: No. I understand that you have intervened in your time, but I'm certain our appearance would raise... questions.
?: I am worried...
??: I understand. I am sorry that I cannot do more for you.

[animefreak249]

Rain: HEY! Whoever you are out there, I need you to get in here now! I can open it so that you guys can get in here for a short time! I'll explain things when you get in here!

*elsewhere*

...: Begin firing. We can't let those three live. If they do, they may be a future threat to our plans.

*at the Shadow Embassy, the group of Dark Templar are watching everything as they're protected by a barrier*

....: Yes, this power. It's magnificent!

[ledcampbell]

I dunno...I think Basildon has some valid points there. When it comes down to it, Alex is the only person who's fighting Chase - the way the campaign is set up, if we all fought Chase and Alex wasn't there, we would lose. Likewise, if only Alex fought Chase, he would win. I hate to make this comparison, but it's sortof like Ike Vs Ashera - everyone else takes a backsteat. That's not to say that we're getting crushed or anything...it's just that all the other characters need to be content with their subplots and stuff.

And in case I'm making a total fool of myself, I'll give an example. I alluded several times in my posts as Persephone that she had a grudge against Chase - that was her validation for being in the RP at all. Now, when I tried to have her actually fight Case, Alex said that there was a barrier around them and Persephone was not allowed to fight him. Which was just the problem - if we can't fight the villian, what's the point of the campaign? Eventually Alex realized that the barrier was slowing things down ad removed it - but then he had Chase run away after Persephone hit him ONE TIME. Wen I had her chase him, he sudddenly became immune to all of her attacks...and...well, that's pretty much what led up to me killing her off. I got so frustrated with the campaign that I decied the only way for me to tolerate it was in small doses - so I wanted a character who could pop in and out at will.

(I could make a rant about barriers here, but since everybody uses them I think I'll save it for another day)

Now, for a final note...I don't think that *most* of our characters are overpowered. I took great pains to ensure that Heather and Led were actually sort of unerpowered. The thing is (and this is noticeable with Persephone to a degree) that the main villians - Chase and Agarov, primarily, Falcon much less so - were so overpowered that we had to make ridiculously strong characters to compensate for it. Of course, I shouldn't be speaking for everybody, but that's my defense for Persephone atany rate.

I apologize if that was a brutal little rant I just did, but...well...I think some of thosse things needed to be said. I probably shouldn't have waited so long in saying so, but...well...I complain enough already.

EDIT: Made spaces between paragraphs to get rid of that wonderfull wall-o-text feel.

[animefreak249]

OOC: Agarov was supposed to die before the end of the campaign anyways. He's just a conerstone for other things later. Other than a handful of other characters, Rain was really the only one up to the task, and even he had trouble (took three characters using powerful attacks to kill him)....and it's still a cliched plot there. I'll have to elaborate more on Agarov's overpowered strength in another post.

I might have the group that I'm going to introduce be beatable with ease, but it's their numbers that causes them to be overpowered. As a whole group, they can beat even Rain with relative ease. Alone, they're about his level (as anyone from Ivalice will have their powers dampened). Even the people from Weyard have their powers dampened slightly. Only those relevant to Fire Emblem (well, out of the ones I'm RPing) don't have any dampened powers.

.....for future references for everyone, I did forget to mention a weakness the Templar have. Most Templar have a weakness to gun technology, so they'll be taking heavy hits from those. Only exceptions are the Dark Templar, Templar Royal Guards (who are all in Ivalice and are severely underpowered compared to the other Templar), Rain's father (who is dead), and a handful of unmentioned Templar (which they're dead as well). Rain and Nephenee are no exceptions to the weakness as they'll take heavy hits from guns. Whether or not they're weak to Magic Guns depends....(despite we haven't really been using them).

....now that I think about it, I'll have to update stuff later in the Character section....

[Kai le Chevalier]

Lily: *takes out sword* a true knight learns of danger from all places

Anise: what does that mean

Lily: trouble, at least Tai can stop them

Tai: (it seems we have visitors, my allies may not stop them, so I have to stall them for now)

(inside)

Tai: *points sword between then* You should not open the sheild for now, those intruders are beyond out ability

[animefreak249]

Rain: ....Taizaki....it's not them I'm worried about.....it's another faction of people who are trying to take every continent and have control over it.....

[Kai le Chevalier]

Tai: yes, and you dont suppose it is them outside right now, this sheild acts as our defence until those Transvaal officers can take them on