Sign Up/Discussion Luminous: An RP With A Convoluted DM-Ran Magic System

Hey, uh… I'mma say something that's kinda controversial, but I want to be completely honest because this is a turndown for me so… yeah

Spoiler

I am comfortable with roleplaying/themes of: Death and violence are fine, as well as character deaths. Shippings are cute af, love to have some, even if they're cringe or otherwise!
I am not comfortable with roleplaying/themes of: I'm fine with nigh everything, but personally - and I want to apologise beforehand; this is my Catholic conservative Asian talking - please tone down with the queerness. I support the community and have good friends who are a part of it, however having too many doesn't… sit right with me; especially as this has an Asian setting. But I don't wanna see homophobia either.
From 0 (serious, oh the misery) to 100 (absolute crack, The Deer That Works At Denny's) on the comedy scale, I would like the campaign to be around: Anywhere, honestly.
Out of these, I would like the DM to focus on the (Characters (NPCs)/Worldbuilding/Overarching Story) most.

For the overarching story, I would like:
1. A linear story, keep it simple
2. A linear story with some branching sidequests we can take
3. A story that has some branches and paths so we have some choice but it's still planned
4. Only story hooks, and we'll pursue what we want
5. I don't particularly care, just run whatever happens and we won't be any wiser

For "gameplay" I want:
1. An emphasis on puzzle solving where we use resources at hand to figure out flexible solutions (not quite Moon Dragon Lair in Evo Quest, more DnD like "ok there's a 20 foot wall in front of you, I don't have an actual solution for this, you guys have fun)
2. I prefer linear problems and solutions (use the torch to light the fire, use the recently given loot to solve the problem etc)
3. I would prefer to focus on character interaction and keep puzzles/combat to a minimum
4. I just want to write cool fight scenes for 82 pages imma be real

For combat I want:
1. Tactics and creative solutions. I will enter this fight with a comically large plate and come out the other end victorious because I managed to use it as 17 different ways
2. Minor tactical usage and work, but mostly just blasting each other in the face.
3. I will literally just recite spell names or attacks plus some dialogue, I don't want combat to be much more than that.

Note: Whatever happens, I will almost always reward creative solutions or usages of anything in a fight or a puzzle, etc. If you use one firework to cause an avalanche and wipe out 200 enemies I'm going to let you do that regardless of the system we end up using. This is really more so to set a standard.

For RNG I want:
1. Do it like DnD - I want to roll for any important action
2. Just for anything difficult like combat or magic, I want to rely on my skills
3. Keep it to a minimum - only if it's really out of the question for our character
4. This option is for Lassus, who will roll for rolling (sorry lassus ain't sold on this one yet)

And for RNG scale (I'll be rolling d20s):
1. 20 means it works to the best of our ability and then some, 1 means the action fails no matter what
2. 20 means it works to the best of our ability, 1 means the worst that could happen happens
3. Scale based on what a good/bad scenario would be, with 20 never guaranteeing a perfect success but 1 never meaning a complete fail (depending on the setup)
4. One of the above, but only in combat
(Note: Because I am genuinely bad at game balance and I doubt I can make an attempt while keeping the campaign fun, we won't be using perfect health bars, but I will be fair when it comes to attacks and effects.)

Character (Luminous) Combat Health and Energy:
1. I want health bars and numbers so I know how effective anything was, even if the numbers are mostly arbritrary. (Look guys I'm not a programmer for a reason.)
2. I don't need health bars, just a description of what happened to my character will be fine. I'll take it as I will.
3. I want a health bar but no energy bar.
4. I want an energy bar but no health bar.

Losing a Fight:
Look, just because you're the heroes and I'm trying to keep this fair doesn't mean you can't fail!
1. We ball. We die. We add a new PC again.
2. We only die if you warned us OOC something we do would kill us, like challenging an enemy way beyond our level. If we lose a fight, then we canonically lose the fight and were passed out for a while/got rescued, and face the consequences.
3. We only die if you warned us OOC something we do would kill us. If we lose a fight, we reset and try the fight again.
4. No dying. We get KO'd if you warned us OOC, or lose a fight. KOing means we canonically lose.
5. No dying. We just reset if anything goes wrong.

(Either way I will need y'all to trust me on balancing fight scenes and the like, sorry bout that to players!)

 

Last but definitely not first...

Spoiler: My Form

I am comfortable with roleplaying/themes of: Mild violence, mild Complicated Stuff(TM), character deaths (mentioned or otherwise), light romance
I am not comfortable with roleplaying/themes of: Graphic violence/death/gore, intense romance, intense Complicated Stuff(TM), racism/homophobia/volatile topics
From 0 (serious) to 100 (absolute crack) on the comedy scale, I would like the campaign to be around: ~25 - mostly serious, but the occasional funny moment is fine. Comic relief is necessary, after all.
Out of these, I would like the DM to focus on the (Characters (NPCs)/Worldbuilding/Overarching Story) most. World-building and overarching story mainly, with character focus when appropriate

For the overarching story, I would like:
1. A linear story, keep it simple
2. A linear story with some branching sidequests we can take
3. A story that has some branches and paths so we have some choice but it's still planned
4. Only story hooks, and we'll pursue what we want
5. I don't particularly care, just run whatever happens and we won't be any wiser

For "gameplay" I want:
1. An emphasis on puzzle solving where we use resources at hand to figure out flexible solutions (not quite Moon Dragon Lair in Evo Quest, more DnD like "ok there's a 20 foot wall in front of you, I don't have an actual solution for this, you guys have fun)
2. I prefer linear problems and solutions (use the torch to light the fire, use the recently given loot to solve the problem etc)
3. I would prefer to focus on character interaction and keep puzzles/combat to a minimum
4. I just want to write cool fight scenes for 82 pages imma be real

For combat I want:
1. Tactics and creative solutions. I will enter this fight with a comically large plate and come out the other end victorious because I managed to use it as 17 different ways
2. Minor tactical usage and work, but mostly just blasting each other in the face.
3. I will literally just recite spell names or attacks plus some dialogue, I don't want combat to be much more than that.

For RNG I want:
1. Do it like DnD - I want to roll for any important action
2. Just for anything difficult like combat or magic, I want to rely on my skills
3. Keep it to a minimum - only if it's really out of the question for our character
4. This option is for Lassus, who will roll for rolling (sorry lassus ain't sold on this one yet)

And for RNG scale (I'll be rolling d20s):
1. 20 means it works to the best of our ability and then some, 1 means the action fails no matter what
2. 20 means it works to the best of our ability, 1 means the worst that could happen happens
3. Scale based on what a good/bad scenario would be, with 20 never guaranteeing a perfect success but 1 never meaning a complete fail (depending on the setup)
4. One of the above, but only in combat

Character (Luminous) Combat Health and Energy:
1. I want health bars and numbers so I know how effective anything was, even if the numbers are mostly arbritrary. (Look guys I'm not a programmer for a reason.)
2. I don't need health bars, just a description of what happened to my character will be fine. I'll take it as I will.
3. I want a health bar but no energy bar.
4. I want an energy bar but no health bar.

Losing a Fight:
Look, just because you're the heroes and I'm trying to keep this fair doesn't mean you can't fail!
1. We ball. We die. We add a new PC again.
2. We only die if you warned us OOC something we do would kill us, like challenging an enemy way beyond our level. If we lose a fight, then we canonically lose the fight and were passed out for a while/got rescued, and face the consequences.
3. We only die if you warned us OOC something we do would kill us. If we lose a fight, we reset and try the fight again.
4. No dying. We get KO'd if you warned us OOC, or lose a fight. KOing means we canonically lose.
5. No dying. We just reset if anything goes wrong.

 

@ChocoChicken

Okay, I've colorized everything on mine (and I hope I did it right)

 

F

FACK YOU I'M TYPING IT RN ):<

 

It's all about the song and dance. I'll learn the rhythm here and work with it, I think best on my feet, so we'll see.

As, @ChocoChicken I accept your challenge.

{Li}

(No not stealing the fieldset idea from SAF nor 122, I've thought of using it for a while now. Used it in my most recent story, don't @. It was a good idea to use it for character creation, good thinking you two.

also choco cheers for the gaps in the thing, can't read otherwise.)

Name: Li (The name is gender neutral, and can be used to say "Pretty" for a girl, and "Powerful" for a male.)

Age: 19

Gender/Pronouns: F | She / Her

Appearance: The shining star, she was a chinese young girl who seemed to draw eyes around. Her face was small, her eyes round and bead like that of a porcelain doll. Her lips were a bright pink as if though taken from the blossoming flowers of a lily pad (it's just makeup). long silky black hair that seemed to twist and bend like birds taking flight, her bangs fold like origami braided to connect from behind her ear to the center of her forehead.She was slender, but fit around 53 Kilo (116 LBS) as well as 173 cm (5'8), C cupped breasts. She wore bandages to act as a bra of sorts, as well as a pair of shorts for cover up. Her nails are long and trimmed, painted to resemble Lotus flowers.

Her clothing was not simple...

A silky black lolita dress that hung off her breast, Spotted with bows and ribbons on the back to hold it together, a small teddy bear decal stitched on the left breast. A white button up shirt underneath with long sleeves. The dress poofed out much like a muffin liner (the thing you put in the pan when making muffins / cupcakes and the sort.) Black and white striped stockings that went slightly past her knees. Black shiny heels with white feathered bows on top. Pearly white lace gloves cover her hands up. She wore a black choker around her neck, along with a silver necklace with a small pendant.

Personality: Fuck you choco

(jokin love ya non romantically)
Li is soft spoken, not much to cause arguments nor talk back. She does as told on command, She's quiet and prefers to just sit alone and read. She loves being around people however cannot bring forth the courage to speak long. Gets strong panic attacks when too much is thrown at her.

Nature seems to calm her down, the soft strokes of the wind in her hair causing her worries to glide away. She has said in the past "If I were to ever go wild and die. I'd like my body to be thrown into the ocean to give back to the world."

She doesn't value her life, and will easily sacrifice it to save someone else she cares for.

Background:

Spoiler: CW: Bad parents, abuse

"Failing... AGAIN?" The slamming of a hand on the table. A sound heard often. "It's only an A- There's nothing wrong with that!" Frantic cries from Li echo across the house as another smack is heard.
"Nothing wrong with that... Nothing WRONG WITH THAT?" Her father's voice boomed "You'll never get your spot as a valedictorian with this behavior..." His voice went quiet as he took a swig from the opened bottle of whiskey. "I'll give you your phone once you fix your grades. Until then, you're unable to leave the house and have no phone." He wiped his lip with his fattened arm.

She clenched her fists before sighing, walking up to her room. She opened the door, it was loud, the paint worn and torn. Her room was neatly organized, the books shown in neatly kept order, potted plants lush and vibrant. Her bed was small and rigid. It looked like it was made from materials found at a pawn shop.

"Ever gonna fight back to him?" A voice called from behind her. "No... It's no use Laurence. He's just going to overpower me." She turned to see a male sitting in her windowsill. They hopped down landing softly on their feet. "Well, you've been working out. Show me what you got princess." He took off his woolen jacket and tossed it to his side. Showing muscular arms. Li sighed she threw a punch his way, which he swooped to the side to avoid. "Too obvious, put your hands to your face." He tapped her on the forehead. "For each time I tap you, you owe me ten seconds of hugs." He joked.

She rose her hands to her face, as Laurence swooped side to side like a weasel, she winded back her punches before throwing them, Laurence dodged tapping her three times. She scoffed 'You need to throw with your hip and also not wind back. It makes it easy to read. Punish your enemy when they get close for an engagement."

She swooped to the side of one of his taps, and with a swoop she knocked Laurence across the face. He stumbled before looking surprised. "Very nice!" he chimed. "That's only ... Four hours and Twenty minutes and 30 seconds of cuddling remaining!"

She decked Laurence in the arm before she heard the creaking of floorboards. She froze and ushered Laurence out the window. Her dad creaked the door open peered in and saw her on her bed reading. Scoffed and closed the door.

She sighed and laid backwards, when the reflection of the sun hit something shiny that caught her eye. She never really had any valuables besides the outfits and jewelry her mother left her. She sat up and followed the light. It lead over to her books, where on top of her books by "Alu Flande" was a scabbard.

She grabbed it slowly. It was leather, and it seemed to be thousands of years old. She grabbed a small card that was attached to it hung by a string. "If found, please return to __________ in Yangto capital." the name was scratched out. She grabbed the handle of the blade slowly pulling it out. It was an english broadsword, its hilt straight with two large orbs at the end. She admired it before seeing marks scratched into it. It didn't look like any form of chinese nor english. She looked over towards the window Laurence wasn't in sight.

"Nice sword~" A voice chimed behind her. She panicked and swung backwards towards the voice, the blade slicing the arm of Laurence. "Ow!" He fell backwards slamming in the wall, one of the potted plants fell off the edge and shattered across the room . "I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I'm sorry!" Li screamed over and over again, her voice rackety and shaken. She went over to Laurence and hugged him, clenching as hard as she could. "I didn't... I... I thought..." Her breathing grew heavy and her head hazed.

Laurence chuckled. "It's only a scratch, i'll be okay. The blades was pretty dull. He hugged Li back. He looked over towards the sword. "Say... is that normal for a sword..?"

Li looked over the sword floating in the air. She walked over and grabbed it out of the sky. It felt heavier, as if filled with something. Then she heard it, loud slamming. "OPEN THIS DAMNED DOOR!" The door itself was shaking. "Ah well, Wǒ zǒule don't die!."

She turned to see the door broken off the hinges. "A SWORD?? HAVE YOU GONE BA-" His voice was stopped as Li swung the sword downwards in front of him. A ray of light sliced downwards in the same arch of the swing, the light widens and another world is seen.

She breathed heavily, saw her father his face looked like was about to break and fume all over the place, she looked to the window to where Laurence once sat, looked at her arms of which were red and beaten. Closed her eyes and ran into another world...

Strengths and Weaknesses:

S: Can do very mundane tasks for hours on end without becoming tired, her appearance gets her some better chances at convincing someone to do something. Dextourious on her feet and has basic combat knowledge.
W: Prone to panic attacks, Agoraphobic (Fear of places with no escape. Can happen outdoors, or even closed in public transport.), very timid.

Desired Schools of Magic: Battlemage / Alch
Bonus: This might all seem like i'm womanizing or making a character be as perfect as I can. But in reality, I am showing some faults with how some asians are treated especially female ones. I have a few that deal with a lot of issues by overbearing parents and the sort. and i kinda wanted to show some attention to it.

anywho fuck you choco, suck my fetus fingernails. i'll get you the list thing whenever the character is accepted. gf wants to spend time with me so - bye bye

 

Saying this now. It’s your world. Swearing isn’t a rare thing and very common. Look at Avatar the last airbender . It has swearing, but hidden in the world building. So it’s may not be “Fuck” and “shit” but it can still have swears, just with twists

 

Aw, thanks.

Well, well, welly well...

I'm normally averse to swearing myself, but if y'all wanna swear, it's your call. Plus, I'm kinda half-expecting any of your characters go "Language!" when Elio does swear. Y'know, him being our certified baby and all.

 

@ChocoChicken

I prefer to keep swearing to a minimum (and it would be out of character for my character, anyway; save for saying Naga's name).

Also, SAF taught me how to use the fieldset too. Credit to her!

 

Aw, thanks.

Btw @ChocoChicken, does Juayang have its own deity figure in-universe? Y'know, like Naga is to Robin's home universe

 

Li will be an Atheist, so no worries.

Also as you cannot remember what color you've been using to accept people.... I've decided to say screw you and chose the wrong hues for all of this. Sucks to suck piss baby.

Spoiler: Choco is a piss baby

I am comfortable with roleplaying/themes of: Violence and Darker subjects, however I can handle calm roleplays as well without much in the way of violence or dark subjects. Romance is whatever, go for it, make the characters kiss idc. Hell I made ps2 hagrid kiss dumbefloor it's fine.
I am not comfortable with roleplaying/themes of: Plots that take 25545454 pages to move one from one small plot point for no valid reason. Such as "Hmmmm we need to find a map to get past this canyon." when the canyon is a crack of the driveway, and the characters are just dumb. Also toxic masculinity, it's a very bad subject for me at the moment. I get it can be a flaw of a character, however it's not something I can quite handle at the moment.
From 0 (serious, oh the misery) to 100 (absolute crack, The Deer That Works At Denny's) on the comedy scale, I would like the campaign to be around: I'm perfectly okay with whatever, it can be serious or it can be like I just dive bombed a line of coke off a toilet seat. BECAUSE IMMA BE DEAD ASS, EACH TIME I READ THE "Oh the misery" thing, I KEEP HEARING GOD DAMNED IMAGINE DRAGONS ENEMY GOING OFF IN MY HEAD. But even if you went with a serious gloomy atmosphere RP and story. You need humor and joy, make characters happy. Because if you want sadness to truly bite, there needs to be skin. If it's a sudden sharp turn of joy to sadness, it makes people upset.
Out of these, I would like the DM to focus on the (Characters (NPCs)/Worldbuilding/Overarching Story) most. Each of these plays off one another, you can have an amazingly made story. However if the characters aren't well polished then it falls apart. However too perfect of a cast and too poor of a world, they seem out of place. Kinda like say with a drawing you put ALL your effort into drawing the nose of your character but add two dots for eyes and a line for a smile. It looks incomplete. You need all three of these to make a characters face.
For the overarching story, I would like:
1. A linear story, keep it simple
2. A linear story with some branching side quests we can take
3. A story that has some branches and paths so we have some choice but it's still planned
4. Only story hooks, and we'll pursue what we want
5. I don't particularly care, just run whatever happens and we won't be any wiser

For "gameplay" I want:
1. An emphasis on puzzle solving where we use resources at hand to figure out flexible solutions (not quite Moon Dragon Lair in Evo Quest, more DnD like "ok there's a 20 foot wall in front of you, I don't have an actual solution for this, you guys have fun)
2. I prefer linear problems and solutions (use the torch to light the fire, use the recently given loot to solve the problem etc)
3. I would prefer to focus on character interaction and keep puzzles/combat to a minimum
4. I just want to write cool fight scenes for 82 pages imma be real

Okay I know you'd like us to just use the number system for this. However!
I'd think it's best to have characters do puzzles and such by having lots of character interactions with linear solutions. But the solution requires each other to work together with their strengths to get something done.

For combat I want:
1. Tactics and creative solutions. I will enter this fight with a comically large plate and come out the other end victorious because I managed to use it as 17 different ways
2. Minor tactical usage and work, but mostly just blasting each other in the face.
3. I will literally just recite spell names or attacks plus some dialogue, I don't want combat to be much more than that.

Note: Whatever happens, I will almost always reward creative solutions or usages of anything in a fight or a puzzle, etc. If you use one firework to cause an avalanche and wipe out 200 enemies I'm going to let you do that regardless of the system we end up using. This is really more so to set a standard.

For RNG I want:
1. Do it like DnD - I want to roll for any important action
2. Just for anything difficult like combat or magic, I want to rely on my skills
3. Keep it to a minimum - only if it's really out of the question for our character
4. This option is for Lassus, who will roll for rolling (sorry lassus ain't sold on this one yet) fck you. /j


And for RNG scale (I'll be rolling d20s):
1. 20 means it works to the best of our ability and then some, 1 means the action fails no matter what
2. 20 means it works to the best of our ability, 1 means the worst that could happen happens
3. Scale based on what a good/bad scenario would be, with 20 never guaranteeing a perfect success but 1 never meaning a complete fail (depending on the setup)
4. One of the above, but only in combat
(Note: Because I am genuinely bad at game balance and I doubt I can make an attempt while keeping the campaign fun, we won't be using perfect health bars, but I will be fair when it comes to attacks and effects.)

I have no preference on how it's handled, do as you must.

Character (Luminous) Combat Health and Energy:
1. I want health bars and numbers so I know how effective anything was, even if the numbers are mostly arbitrary. (Look guys I'm not a programmer for a reason.)
2. I don't need health bars, just a description of what happened to my character will be fine. I'll take it as I will.
3. I want a health bar but no energy bar. (a mix of 2 and 3 would work, where it tells you "Hey, you're hurt here." and has a health bar. Kinda like Project Zomboids health system!)
4. I want an energy bar but no health bar. (fuck stamina / energy)

Losing a Fight:
Look, just because you're the heroes and I'm trying to keep this fair doesn't mean you can't fail!
1. We ball. We die. We add a new PC again.
2. We only die if you warned us OOC something we do would kill us, like challenging an enemy way beyond our level. If we lose a fight, then we canonically lose the fight and were passed out for a while/got rescued, and face the consequences.
3. We only die if you warned us OOC something we do would kill us. If we lose a fight, we reset and try the fight again.
4. No dying. We get KO'd if you warned us OOC, or lose a fight. KOing means we canonically lose.
5. No dying. We just reset if anything goes wrong. (then there's no reason to fight.)

OH I SHOULD EXPLAIN TO THOSE WHO DON'T REALLY KNOW HOW ME AND CHOCO ACT TOGETHER! We typically mess around and insult one another, this is completely normal. He calls me a fetus because of my "sleep" schedule., and I call him whatever is on my head. Tho for whatever reason we work together on rps for whatever reason.

 

WHOOOOOOOOOOOOO DUMMBBLEEEFLOOORRRRRRRRRRRRRRR HAGGIE WANTS HIS SATURNIGHT HUGGGIESSS.

I see no issues with the themes, and ye about Li's backstory. It's a push for her, and a flaw of her character. Think about it, she has her appearance and can get things easier that way, however has the mental issues dealing with it.

 

That's actually normal. I remember watching a Cantonese comedy where the protagonist dramatically said "天呀 !" which literally translates to "Skies!" (although it can alternatively be referred to as "Heavens!" - but in actual modern-day practice it's not that often used)