Heart Run Set-Up

[stigmateyes]

Here is what I have for a general plan:

Heart starts at 6 PM EST Thursday since this seems to be the time most people are around. It will run as long as people want to play. I don't want to rush people so I will be running this out of normal Aather time.

As previously mentioned, this heart has an objective, that being the boss fight. There are things characters must do to initiate this. My idea was to go into boss fight if initiated and run that thread and exploradora threads at the same time, concurrently. In general, changes that can occur as a result of exploradora will not affect the boss fight. The boss fight is affected purely by characters' responses.

I would also like to coordinate the endgame of the boss fight when that point is reached. So I'm not super concerned with it now.

If you have any suggestions/concerns with the basic design of this run (stuff mentioned above), mention them below and we'll try to sort this out as a group.

Comments

[idkmybffnirvash]

☕ As I said before, I will likely not make boss fight. I am absolutely golden with however Eureka gets side-tracked on that, though it may require parting her from ... Well, any Amethyst that she can find.

☕ Let me know what you think about that e-mail that Masami sent, because I would like to discuss that with you if you are game.

☕ I do have a general concern about the agency of the characters involved in this game, especially Amethyst. So far, it has felt to me that Amethyst has been largely reactive in being able to deal with situation rather than being given the chance to be proactive, though they all have their own investment in Night. Is Amethyst going to be able to destroy Alpha or otherwise accomplish something with lasting effects from this game? Or will this be like resetting the balance between Alpha and Night as it existed before?

[stigmateyes]

This will effectively destroy Alpha, as Ryner canonically no longer has Alpha and has been upgraded to True Alpha Stigma in the second half of canon. Amethyst is helping Ryner (True Heart) achieve a canonical goal. I meant it when I said this heart will have a overall POSITIVE effect. And lasting. But yeah, I created this heart run pretty much for the sole purpose of allowing Amethyst to aide Ryner in taking Alpha down for good.

There will be one negative effect (to Ryner, not to Amethyst). This negative effect is canon and required, as part of Ryner's overall contract with Alpha, started by his father. It sucks, but it won't make Ryner dangerous or affect him anymore than a memory would. It's just sad. I do want to tweak it a little so that people can at least have some dialogue, but they can't really affect that particular outcome.

[stigmateyes]

As to the other two points:

- I can have Eureka deliver damage to Alpha and then end up with one of the other NPCs for a bit?

- I am totally game with the idea that Jill can influence the battle through Dream assistance.

[idkmybffnirvash]

1. That sounds good! Really, I am easy with her, because she cares about results ahead of whatever she may want to do.

2. Aha, that wasn't quite the idea in mind. Since Jill will be leaving on extended quest, I would like her to be able to do something that helps Night out in a long-term and appreciable way. If Alpha were not going to be destroyed, then she adds an extra level of barrier on him or a boost to Night as an example. With that in mind, are you still interested?

[stigmateyes]

Hmm, that's a bit harder since I have elements in the exploradora intended to help Ryner with most of his non-Alpha issues, if interacted with. And fully awakened Ryner is somewhat more stable than Ryner-with-Alpha.

His biggest issue remains losing Amethyst... so something to affect that would probably be the only thing that really needs help.

[idkmybffnirvash]

If interacted with can be a large if, so you could potentially use it in that direction.

In any case, it is a sudden and large offer on top of planning this, so maybe you could take some time and see how the game pans out? It would give you time to think of how would like to use it for Night in a way that isn't only limited to heart game mechanics of extreme symbolism and so on.

The situation is largely that Dream would be willing to help with what is going on, but he will be relying on Jill to give it a focus which, I would assume, would be something positive to help Night out. It does not have to necessarily be only internal and can manifest in an outside form, but I would only ask that it touch his ~feelings~ and ~special place~ in a strong manner.

[ihulk]

-I will be jumping in a little later than 6 PM EST since I would like to try and be on irc for easier communication!

-I am concerned about it running on too long, because heart games tend to get mentally exhausting for me regardless of whether they are run out of time or not. If it is something that is having an effect on Night then I would like to be able to put in the appropriate amount of effort and not mentally drop off! Instead of "it will run as long as people want to play," I would prefer a hard cap of a week at most for myself, especially since GM game is next week and I don't know what's going on with that or how it will impact my characters. I don't know if you had a certain time in which you wanted the boss fight to take place, or if you were hoping to get the majority of the heart done through today or this weekend, etc, but I thought I would add that in for the sake of my mental stamina.

-My characters are largely noncombatant so I do have a minor concern of them getting tangled in a combative situation where they can't do anything or have to wait for a rescue; while that in itself is not necessarily a bad thing, if the idea is to go into Night's heart in order to help my concern would be that noncombatant characters will still come out of it not feeling overall positive if they only wait to be rescued and have purely reactive responses as opposed to proactive.

-Do you anticipate a lot of physical damage being dealt, or will it be mostly mental attacks? And would any damage be healed upon waking up/coming out of the heart? I would prefer to avoid any hugely negative backlash on Amethyst for characters being hurt outside of an official game. I know that isn't something that can be tightly controlled, but it is still a concern since it is largely out of Amethyst's control and just depends on how the heart goes.

[stigmateyes]

- My hope is that it should not take too long into next week, although that does depend on people's schedules. Like I said, I can also initiate boss battle (the essential element) if it looks like things are taking too long. Ideally, I would like to boss battle over the weekend so we'll see where things are by that point.

- For non-combatants, I have a special NPC that you will be helping during the boss battle, which will impact the fight. This NPC's focus will be emotional strength, bonds, teamliness and generally positive connection to Night. This will both boost Ryner and weakened Alpha. I don't really plan on any rescue scenarios beyond an NPC bringing people back if they die. Non-combatants really shouldn't be in any position where death is possible during the boss fight. Their greatest danger is exploradora elements because Alpha is a dick.

- I do plan physical damage for fighters, but I want primarily mental attacks. I also have an NPC who can heal pretty much anything and do what he wants.