League of Lunacy: Fantasy Heroes (WIP, Updated 4/2/20)

Hosted Games Works In Progress
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LoL (probably not going to be allowed to use THAT acronym for long) is an amalgamation of fantasy and superheroics, where you join a clan of glorified mercenaries tasked with helping to keep the peace in a kingdom on the brink of bankruptcy. All magic in this world is temporary, aside from the Omni; a spell of mysterious origin from around seven years ago that caused all magic used on that day to be locked in place, permanently irreversible. Those impacted by this are known officially as Magetouched, though most just call them Afflicted. Many are unable to live a normal life, though they may also possess power unequaled by normal men. You will meet colorful characters, and either do that derring-do for good, or get creative and break whatever rules (or bones) you must to line your own pockets. It will be comedic, but hopefully throw a few shocks and awwwwws in there for you as well. You’ll have the chance to combat rival peacekeeping guilds, influence nobility and the general populace, learn more about the Omni, and maybe even make a few jades along the way.

I envision this as a three-city story; you start in the small burg of Grazton, then move on to a mid-range city and finally the capital itself, Sostine. Along the way the League will grow and change based on your choices, as you help select new members or bring about the excommunication (or worse) of old ones. You may even rise to the top and depose the League’s current leader, if you can live that long. You’ll have the chance to focus on investigating the mysteries of the province and unlocking what secrets lie within, manipulating and schmoozing your way through the political ranks in search of that fickle wench known as Clout, or helping turn yourself and the League into a martial power of enough repute to rise high in the esteem of the Grand Duke and his court.

This will be centered around various ‘missions’ a few thousand words in length; many will be optional, but some must be done to proceed. Each one, when completed correctly, will offer some sort of permanent enhancement, such as the ability to strengthen a spellweave, pick up a new one, or increase a stat by 1. While this initial one does not allow you to choose who accompanies you, in most of the quests you will select one from a series of available League members to accompany you on any job (though for these purposes Floater and Tow Boy count as a single entity, since you can’t have one without the other). Just be careful to treat them well; if you cheese them off too much or lead them to be hurt, they may not be available for a mission or two.

Character list (in the demo):
You- Three possible backgrounds are available, and while you don’t see your family they will play at least a small part in the story. You are not an Afflicted with permanent abilities from the Omni, but do have the ability to use magic and can pick up spellweaves along the way. Please note that I haven’t gotten spellweaves to work in battle just yet, that will be added in a subsequent update.

Knight Nudist- Leader of the League of Lunacy and owner of its home base, a slightly decrepit mansion on the outskirts of Grazton. The eccentric youngest child (albeit far from young these days, judging by the paunch forming above his ever-present utility belt) in a family of some status, whose parents barely tolerate his desire for unclothed justice in the likely vain hopes he will one day produce an heir where their other progeny have failed to do so. I literally wrote that last bit just now, but I like it so I think it will probably stick.

The Floater and Tow Boy- A deranged mage permanently stuck in levitation mode by The Omni and the mute man that serves as his sidekick, best friend, and primary mode of transportation. The Floater never lets Tow Boy’s inability to talk prevent him from having long, drawn-out, and possibly imaginary dialogues with his enigmatic colleague.

Helga Hercule- By far the most mild-mannered and timid of the team, in spite (or perhaps because) of her uncontrollable Omni-enhanced strength. She has the power to hurl a boulder half a kilometer but can never do anything that requires a gentle touch, such as pet a cat without smashing it into meat paste. She hopes to earn enough to one day be able to afford a servant to act as her ‘hands’ to overcome her superpowered disability.

Akacia Floutras- A classically-trained spellweaver of no small skill, who joins (with some reluctance) at the same time that you do and carries the same probationary status. She’s not overly impressed by the lot of you and not afraid to show it.

Sirs Not Appearing in This Demo (aka Future Characters)
Paul Ticker or Scooter Praetorius- Early in the second city you’ll have the chance to help the League choose from two creature summoner specialists. Scooter is a young, starry-eyed idealist whose naivete could prove his greatest asset or his undoing. Paul was exactly the same
in his heyday, about twenty-five years ago. As a failed child prodigy, he turned to all manner of substances when he simply wasn’t able to be the best, like no one ever was. He is accompanied by Irkzkpltyyyk, or Irk for short, a small imp Paul summoned on the fateful day of the Omni to fetch his slippers that has promptly been unable to return to his home dimension for seven years and is none too pleased about it. Expect strong PokĂ©mon vibes from these two.

Quick reference guide: 10 irons = 1 jade

Currently it’s 15,282 words, excluding code.

To play the demo, go here: https://dashingdon.com/play/hustlertwo/league-of-lunacy-fantasy-heroes/mygame/

So that’s it. Happy April Fools’ Day, and hope you enjoy what there is so far!

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And in the spirit of the day, a link to some supplemental material about my worldbuilding for this story: https://dashingdon.com/play/drdolphinrider/choose-your-own-devoured-by-clowns-adventure/mygame/

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The premise seems very interesting but for some reason, the link isn’t working for me

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Same here, the ‘Open in a new Page’ it just keep loading


Also
just 2 ladies? Hurr durr! :kissing:

Edit: So it work
but that is slow
lol it aint my browser
may wanna check that?

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I advocate for the acronym LoL U.

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I think there might be an issue here :thinking:
One moment I’m getting paid by the rat man and the second I’m beating him up?

The aside, this is an enjoyable read. I thought this was going to be all silliness for April Fools.

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It is a great honor to have played a hand in this

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Just a little thing. After the fight with the tavern owner, and spiting the money and vip table. The next button took me back attacking the rat King the former owner. besides that, so far it is a good story. Looking forward.

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Obviously all you folks are nice guys, since it was apparently just the option that didn’t involve pillaging the rat which was missing the proper *goto. It’s fixed now.

@E_RedMark Well, a lot of these characters are based on ones I created back in my roleplaying days, and I was naturally inclined to play as dudes, so that’s pretty much what happened there. I’m not opposed to more ladies in the League, though. It’s a beta, and a rather rough one at that, so I’m looking for feedback on just that sort of thing.

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well if you want honest feedback
well
do you? cose otherwise, I keep it to myself :sweat_smile:

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Of course! Don’t worry a bit about digging in here; whether it’s too wordy, too weird, too wild, even things that don’t start with W, I want to hear it. I’ve been working to get it to this point specifically so I could get some feedback to either improve it or, if it was met mostly with the sound of crickets, euthanize it and move on to something else. When you’ve written one story that bombed and another that didn’t, it kinda makes it important to make the third one something good. Don’t want to be a one-hit wonder, the Vertical Horizon of the HG world.

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ok, well for starter, is it supposed to be funny? comedy like? cose I assumed that due to the Title. But I didn’t think it was funny at all. The only part that made me chuckle a bit, were the dialogues choices I got to pick. And only the ones where you are kinda of
a Jerk! like ‘‘Whatever! let’s just go!’’ kinda of reply.

It just
its well worded I guess? but
kinda come off a bit boring. Its weird, that guy you meet? I though ‘Wow, he remind me of Elminster!’’ but he was a boring one for some reason.

So my advice is : HUMOUR! Laughter! having funny names inst enough! we need ridicule, and fun fun and Lunacy and spicey stuff!

It would make the story feel
more light? and less like ‘‘Rpg, gather your party before venturing forth’’ heavy like? But thats just me, since as I said
I assumed it be funny comedy like.

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Don’t worry, you’re not the first to point out that my comedy efforts lacked on the comedy front. It was a comment that popped up a few times in NPT (and even a couple for Parenting). It may be that I split the difference too much, trying to go for a lighthearted vibe while also doing all the straightfaced worldbuilding and plot of a normal RPG.

One other thing I really wanted feedback on was Floater and Tow Boy, specifically involving a major twist with them. I’ll put it in spoilers for anyone who would rather learn this organically once it is added to the story.

Huge Wilstaff and Bennett spoiler, all those who click be warned.

Do you think they’d be more entertaining if it was unveiled from the start that Wilstaff is a necromancer and Bennett is, in fact, an animated skeleton? The current plan is that after some hints dropped here and there, in the second city you would get a quest to deal with a potential necromancer, and when you go there Wilstaff would be in the process of raising some corpses from your previous adventures, using a legal loophole to do it on the up and up. He would also be very much on the ground; his floating schtick is a smokescreen to hide his necromantic habits, done by wearing boots that were enchanted during the Omni (a similar effect is also on Bennett’s bad toupee, to cast the glamor that hides his true nature). His actual Omni effect is Bennett, the world’s only permanently resurrected skeleton thanks to having been revived on that fateful day. Everything that Wilstaff hears Bennett ‘say’ is in fact a product of his own screwy mind; with ‘Bennett’ more of a lawful good side of him and Wilstaff quite chaotic evil, they roughly equate to a neutral character between them. I feel like it could be a fun, well-done twist, but it also might be more entertaining overall if that was revealed to you towards the beginning rather than at a midpoint in the story so you realized this was more than just one chatty person and an extremely patient mute one.

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Rush to compare it to the floating Skeleton head in Planescape Torment! then proceed to make Robe of Vecna jokes :smile:

whaaaaat? I had to! That was an opening! Right there lolol

Hum, you could make the Skeleton like the naggy conscience he is lacking, and make him funny?

I think it would be better if you are there when it happen, then revealed from the get go
beside, you got eyes! You should be able to see tha Naaaaaaaked skeleton lolol

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That’s actually largely what he is, a conscience. The better angel of Wilstaff’s nature, too often overruled. Here’s some non-joking source material for these two: the first thread where I used them in a play by post 3.5 game on the GitP forum, almost ten years ago. There are other threads after this; I ran Wil and Ben off and on for years, and sometimes interacted with other players as well. Origin stories

They were so much fun to write that doing so again was part of what made this story appeal to me. Ditto for Paul Ticker and Knight Nudist.

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Heh, I liked this, and the humour, some of it is very much my kind of humour. :grin:

I’ll keep an eye on this, and only partly to make sure the Omni isn’t trying something
 :wink:

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I loved this. I tried out all the backgrounds and enjoyed them all (although I wasn’t sure what career tracker meant until I chose it). I do hope there will be even more unique options for them, though – like the career tracker/farmer-hunter-scout-etc. start not having a sword and shield option during the weapon choice, but instead a shovel or something.

I enjoyed the style of humor present in the narrative – it made the absurd or normally cliche aspects of the plot even funnier, but also contrasted well with showing off how terrible the effects of the Omni really are. I thought having the first mission be the usual rat in the cellar plot, only for the rat to be the former owner, was great. I thought the stats names, with the mental stats having a theme going on and the physical stats having swole, amusing as well.

Most of all, though, I loved the characters. I loved the larger-their-live personalities of the league, and thought even the minor characters made the setting more interesting. My favorite was The Floater/Wilstaff Hyrax even before I read that spoiler you posted, and that spoiler makes his character even better.

I have two major complaints. The first is that there were often times where there was only one or two options – even for the choice about having only one spellweave, it might be nice to have different ways to say it so the player can develop the MC’s personality. The second is that while I liked how the battle is presented through the narrative, the inability to choose what to do in the battle stood out. In comparison to the rest of the narrative, having the MC just attack with their weapon – and especially when in a tavern – seemed a bit boring.

I noticed that if you see Tow Boy near the notice board, the MC never reads the clue (so they never appear to be interested in the league) or say outright they want to join, but the option “Hey, Floating! You do remember
” makes it seems as though they did and as if lines are missing.

combat line 61: invalid return; gosub has not yet been called
And I got this when I chose ‘play again’.

Looking forward to the next mission! :relaxed:

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Thanks, @Taylor_Enean I am glad you have enjoyed it thus far!

@expectedoperator I had never considered unique starting weapons based on background. I rather like that idea, at least giving them each one unique option. It doesn’t matter that much in the demo, especially since only some stats get used during it, but aside from the stat impact, background comes into play a lot with your family. You’ll have the option to visit or check back in with them often, and occasionally it will be mandatory. And who they are is most definitely determined by who you are.

I’m glad the characters were a hit for you; that’s definitely the part I enjoy the most about it, and what helped me get this far even when the code kept kicking my butt. Which is part of why the combat was so vanilla; I was simply having too much difficulty incorporating the spellweaves into an actual fight, so I handwaved an excuse not to do it for the demo and will have to figure out how to change that (and when I do, try to reincorporate it into that fight later). I see what you mean about the tavern, though; some sort of situational combat options might be nice, throw a bottle or hit someone with a chair or something. Same would be true if you go the other way and fight in the basement, lots of similar options there. Just because D&D frowns on the idea of improvised weaponry doesn’t mean I have to do the same.

And speaking of D&D, the first quest was definitely a nod to the cliche beginning of many a RPG.

Since you read the spoiler, what do you think: keep it as is with the slow buildup, or introduce that part of the plot earlier?

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I don’t think you should reveal the nature of the Floater and the Skeleton at first. Rather it would be better if it’s revealed in the 2nd city.

Rather IMO you should add a stats/story check in the 2nd city to successfully reveal their identities and if you fail to you are gonna get non-standard ending(s) in the 3rd city. The ending doesn’t necessarily have to be bad.

I am a very big fan of suspicious/mysterious characters who have things to hide. So my suggestion come from there.

If the reality of the characters is mandatorily revealed rather than as a quest which you can fail, then I think it doesn’t matter that much if the revelation occurs at the beginning or the middle.

But if you add the option so as the player can also not reveal them, then I think there would be some great endings or variations thereof with minimal branching.

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I see Garruk as first name. I smash people’s neck and eat animated gingerbread.

I suggest to go with your current plan of revealing the duo’s identity later. I personally thinks it’s more exciting that way.

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