MP Game - Yarnspinners

[PashaDawg]

You guys are wacked out!!

[Alneyan]

I am quite wacked myself, because of all those squids and the silly Machakan who won't let me take their forts without a fight. Was this game supposed to be "Call of Ctuhlhu", and actually a game of survival?

Well, good luck to the remaining players against the rise of R'lyeh (and don't forget your astral magic, will you?).

[puffyn]

---- Arcoscephale, Turn 50 ----

We met them as the day died on a high, windswept plain, between the Braegen Marches and the pass over the Godsgraves. Two small battalions of hypaspists and Vinogres stood before our mystics and priests. Another squad of hypaspists formed my personal guard, and a fourth guarded Orokestes, who now leads the mystics.



Across the way, the sharp-eyed amongst us could see the invaders. Many were human: a score of elite huskarls, nearly as many men armed in wolf-skin with great two-handed swords, a squardon of archers on the right-flanks, and a group of the evil death sorceresses who had lead the ambush that killed Thymbre. There were trolls, massive creatures with great clubs. There were dwarf-mages, each cunning and ancient and cruel. There were nightmares on the left flank, their spears red in the setting sun, stained forever with Thmybre's blood. There were other wonders: an immortal fay boar, a gargoyle, animated into life... and then there were the Vans. More beautiful beings I have never seen, and the eye danced around such wonder, unable to comprehend what it was seeing. And the greatest of these sat on the world's largest horse. This is the One-eyed Bully, Lord of Frost. Ancient and terrible, with a horse swift as the wind. It is easy to see why he is a worshipped as a god.



The sky turned dark, and a freezing rain fell. Behind me, the mystics began to mutter their spells. I raised Athena's sword to point out the terrible wight which lurked at the back of the foe's army, and watched in amazement as heaven opened and smote the foul thing with lightning. I shouted a warning about the danger posed by the trolls on the flanks, gestured, and a thunderbolt fell among them. Again, I pointed, this time to the smoking ruin the blast had made, and again the sky struck the earth. One last time I raised the sword, and suddenly three men who stood near the boar vanished in a shower of light.

The nightmares charged, and the archers let fly, as my men obeyed orders and held their ground. The death-priestesses shouted foul incantations and curses to scare our forces into attacking. Praying that Athena might avenge Thymbre, I pointed my sword at them - lightning thundered down all around them - and they died with a horrible scream.



Todd now charged, heedless of my calls, far beyond the safety of the spear line. A terrible whirlwind of death descended upon him, and a frightening apparition, but he dodged the blows, struck back, as if his sword could tear the magic sinews of these charms. The nightmares had almost reached our lines, so I called out for a charge and ran forward with my men. A hail of blades fell over us. My men caught most of them on their shields, but one struck me in the arm, and I began to bleed profusely. And it was all for naught, for just as we reached the nightmares, they vanished in a hail of magic.



Now I heard shouts of alarm from the mystics. The one-eyed bully charged the length of the battlefield in a blink of an eye, skirting our phalanx to attack Orokestes. "Oh boy, I can lead the troops now!" Todd called, across the din. "You should go make sure he doesn't get stabbed or else I'll have to go home." So I went. A heavy mist had fallen now, and weapons seemed to be thrusting out of it even when no foe could be seen. The enemy must have somehow flanked us with a small force, who now roved among our unprotected magicians. I cut my way through.



Then the fog cleared a little, and I was face to face with a horse that towered over me, and danced like a storm at sea, or the face of the mountains. I called for Athena, and lightning struck around my foe, but hurt him not. Grabbing what courage I had left, I slipped amongst the thousand hooves. They flashed through the air more quickly than the eye could see, yet I was always quicker, and as I thrust my sword up toward the towering giant, lightning flew from the tip and danced over him. Suddenly he became clear, no longer a thousand images of himself. I tried again, but could not get past his spear. Orokestes called out in a loud voice, and for a moment, my foe was still. "Thymbre!" I cried, and drove towards him with my sword; Zeus' light flashed again, and the gods claimed back one of their own.




They broke soon after. None surrendered, but none escaped back to sing in the halls of Vanheim. Afterwards I came across one of the Vans. His body was crushed, but his noble face which had welcomed a thousand thousand new suns in the east remained unscathed, gazing up onto the dark, brooding sky- the last it would ever see.

---

[Sedna]

R'lyeh, Turn 50

Heh-heh, suckers all.

Man is disappearing into the waves with pleasant abandon. I'm a little concerned that the rebels up there may start to think that Xlikloth is a competent general, so I've called forth the water queens, equipped them with the finest array of magical items, and sent them onto the land. They are such beautiful killing machines that I'm sure the troops will worship them instead of the false prophet, and thus return to the sea. And Man is still fighting Machaka too, oblivious to my hordes seething outside their cities and fortresses.

Caelum was gullible enough to send me the chalice- some religious token I've never understood the importance of. Oh yes, I said, I'll send it back in a few months after I've been healed. So far I haven't seen any of its mystical healing properties, but it makes a pretty good spittoon.

Cthugul has been busy. Upset with the slow pace of the Void Gate, he collaborated with good old Sammy (I'm surprised Sammy isn't dead yet. Every other pet human I've had has died really fast) and worked up a spell to directly call an abomination. I love abominations. Almost as much as the great purple. The spell seems to damage them en route, and so they end up a bit mindless, wandering around, bumping into things, killing slaves, and ripping apart the fabric of the universe. Sammy comes through again in the pinch though, with a very helpful book called, "How to give your Abomination the gift of reason". Evidently, you can either hit them repeatedly with the book or you can shot them with nature magic, right there above the eye.

I'm going to give this one a cute name, one of those cute little frosted unicorn heads, and something to fly - and then unleash it upon an unsuspecting world. And then Cthugul will get more, and more... Sure, the spell takes a lot of magic pearls, but it's better than relying on the void gate and its endless string of Othernesses and Things.

[Sedna]

R'lyeh, Turn 51

A small set-back this month. I had ordered the garrison in Vankara sound to secure the city on the cliffs above. This is the home of the Vans, a rapidly vanishing race thanks to the genocidal efforts of Man and Arcoscephale. I thought their capitol might have some useful toys, and anyway, I certainly couldn't leave it in the hands of Man. I guess they had insufficient arrow fodder, or Man had too many magic users or something, because we were repulsed back into the sea. Ah well, I'll order them to try again.

The rest of the Manish war goes well. The trees are rapidly disappearing from the eastern lands and Machaka has recently broken the Man army in the south. In fact, a scout reports that this loss left one of their troublesome air queens stranded with a small army in Syzran. My death sorceresses up north have been constantly cursing men into ghouls in distant lands. Useful enough, but a mighty force of ghostly cavalry works much better against air queens.

The bird-folk, my last real competition in this plane of existence, have launched an ill-conceived war against the fire-humans. Perhaps they will be successful. Both sides have certainly had many years of peace in which to develop, but the birds cover much more of this world. Still, it a perfect opportunity to strike. While the fiery devils of Abysia distract the fluffy-ones, I'll quickly raise a couple armies in the deep places by their shores and then march to another swift and certain victory.

I long to join them, but this blasted chalice thing seems to be broken. Perhaps it was a mistake to use it for drinking unicorn blood mixed with baby brains. The first Abomination is all set to kill things though. I dub him Mithridates (Mithy, for short), and send him to test the strength of the birds in one of their newly conquered lands.

[Sedna]

R'lyeh, Turn 52

Thuella the air queen lives, but for how long? My ghost riders struck, slaughtering two mages and slew of archers, but the cowardly Thuella flew away. At this point, her few remaining troops are more of a liability than an aid.

Mithy did fine against the birds. They have this annoying enchantment which strengthens their local defenses, but not strong enough to stop an abomination! Mwhahahah...

Every city of Man is now under siege. We'll break into a few of them soon. I'm especially interested in pillaging their homeland in Skjomen's Steps. My lovely Limne will be directing that battle. After that, I'm going to quit fooling around with Xlikloth. I've carefully arranged things so that his army is stacked with those loyal to me, and at a single word they will slaughter him, all for the greater glory of me.

At last we have been able to summon Bathusma, queen of the deep. Most of her magic gear is ready to go, but I'm still waiting for the one item I outsourced. There is a very reasonable individual within the empire of Arcoscephale who was willing to forge a dread blood thorn for me for a fair price. That should arrive shortly, and then Bathusma will bathe in the blood of those who oppose me.

[Zen]

OOC:

I have to say this has really turned into a fantastic type of game. A little long in the running, but now that I've seen it to near completion I really like the idea. I enjoyed quite a few of the different aspects of the game.

Particularly: Puffyn's posts as well as his "Dramatis Personae" really illustrate his position in the world.

I wanted to say that for the next Yarnspinners, I'd like to join and have the entire set of Players post on (perhaps an entire website for the game) a Dramatis Personae or Index.

Have any of you that have been playing this game thought about the next game and ways to make the game more enjoyable (as mostly an AAR) for the viewers in terms of website logistics?

[Sedna]

Hi Zen,

Thanks for reading. I've thought quite a bit how to make this game better, because it's been a great deal of fun, but big improvements are possible. Obviously the biggest problems has been people dropping out. I myself am a replacement - and I think only Alneyan and Puffyn are original players. The flip side of this coin is a lack of yarns.

One solution would be to decrease the number of yarns while increasing the pace of the game. I feel that the slow pace (~2 turns/week) lost us a lot of the original players. But it's extremely difficult to post interesting, informative, or funny yarns even twice a week. I think an optimal solution might be to have just one yarn per season (thus every three turns). We could then play 48 hour turns and yet need to write only approx. one yarn a week.

This might make for long yarns in the late game if people want to report on everything that happens, but it would help with the slow pace of yarns at the beginning of the game. Let's face it, after a little bit of character development and mood, the first many turns are going to be: "Yep, we killed more independents". I get bored just thinking about writing those yarns.

I think this type of game really requires it to be PBEM. If you need to review past turns to write your yarns (which you will, at some point), it's much easier if you have an e-mail archive of them. And it's pretty easy to just rename your old Yarnspinners folder to Turn51, and slowly dump the really old ones into another folder to keep your in-game menus reasonably short. So a PBEM host as wonderful as Alneyan is also a must.

As for motivation: the point scheme clearly Zap originally proposed clearly failed. The only benefit I've received from writing yarns is that people seem to have been reluctant to attack me, for fear that they will no longer be able to read my deathless prose. Or perhaps that's just because I attack everyone before they get a chance to attack me.

I believe that the motivation to write yarns should be tied directly into the game. I'm not familiar with the possibilities of modding, so perhaps this is impractical or there is an easier way: what if PBEM host was not directly playing? He/she could maintain a neutral empire of one province with a large astral income (and no dominion). Each yarn submitted would be rewarded with one astral pearl. Again, the incentive would be greatest at the beginning of the game. Once everyone is emotionally invested in the game, I think they will keep writing. The details of this suggestion could probably use more thought.

Finally, it would be great to be able to see more pictures and maps and graphs as the game progresses. I know AARs with maps are the only ones I really bother to read. Puffyn plans to post maps for this game after it's done, but it would really help keep an audience to have them as we go along. That audience, in turn, provides more motivation to keep writing. Again, the host could play this role: a simple screen shot of the map each season (or year) with just the race banners displayed. Secrecy is all very well and good, but it can't be maintained if it interferes with the game, and good yarns are going to reveal some useful information anyway- playing with full knowledge of the map evens the playing field and allows everyone to write more honest yarns.

Oh, and baby brains. Lots of baby brains.

[Alneyan]

I concur with all the points Sedna offered (especially the one about Alneyan being such a great host; feel free to send me your prayers, gifts and firstborns).

- A quicker turnaround and fewer yarns would help keep the interest of the game high: we all, to various degrees, failed to keep up with that kind of pace, while quite a few players dropped from the game: Puffyn and myself are indeed the last ones, so Puffyn will be the only player having made it from turn 1 to turn 60 (hopefully).

- I feel a public map would be better, perhaps by adding a neutral nation with the Eyes of God enchantment as well (making it easier to take a screenshot of the map). Borders should be clearly visible, but perhaps scores should be off with this sort of setup (or made available every five turns or something along those lines).

- A nation giving gifts should not be difficult to implement, and would not have to be handled by a third party. This nation could simply be visible for everybody (it won't affect the game), so everyone would be able to check for astral gems mysteriously disappearing; it would also work well with the Eyes of God option above. In modding terms, this nation would start the game with a 0 pearl Wish spell, and would thus create a few hundred astral pearls (Wish would go back to the other nations afterwards).

- Something else I was thinking of: what about implementing a political aspect to the game, limiting the number of provinces that may be taken in a single war? The purpose would be to help those nations that are much weaker; in Yarnspinners, wars end only with the slaughter of the weaker nation (Mictlan, Atlantis, Ermor, and now Vanheim and Man collapsed, though I must say I underestimated the might of Machaka. I didn't make any such mistake with R'lyeh though). The specifics on how that would work are left as an exercise for the reader.

[puffyn]

As you can probably tell, I've been enjoying this game immensely, and it's great to hear that there are other people interested in another Yarnspinners game. Count me in...

That said, I'm all for reducing the number of yarns. I'm pleased to note that there should be no problem finishing this game -- R'lyeh doesn't scare me, and enslaved Starspawn make such cute pets -- but it's taken a lot of discipline to not miss any of my yarns, especially when I've been travelling. Lately I've been writing my turns in bunches of 2-4 at a time because I'm often too busy during the week to give my story the loving care it deserves. And I agree with Sedna - there are really only so many ways you can say "this turn we recruited another mystic and three hoplites and Limmy died against independents, again".

I like the idea of an independent nation dispensing pearls for yarns. Would we vote on the number of pearls distributed, or have an arbitrator like magnate?

The best parts of this game have been the interactions with other nations, and it's unfortunate that so few regular yarners are left to give reports on both sides of the great battles. (What great heroes lie unsung from the Man/Machaka wars?) I think the large early turnover in this game (aggravated by hosting problems and the delay when we switched to PBEM) would be lessened if we (a) had a smaller map, so first contact came quicker, and (b) had quicker turns.

As for wars leading quickly to extermination... Mictlan was of course AI, so there was no chance to negotiate. If, of course, Vanheim were writing yarns, begging for mercy, there might be a narrative necessity to stop short of killing them. Though I dunno if C'thulu would be stayed from his madness even by a well-placed yearn... Perhaps other incentives should be devised, too.