4.Fail satire project.

Roy · Post by **Roy** » Wed Jul 01, 2009 12:25 pm

Split off due to offtopicness.

The goal here is to emphasize the mock worthy elements as much as possible. The closer they are to true, the better. In particular, the MMO elements are good things to show off in this context. So participants should be using that terminology and those mindsets and such to create a funny and short one shot that will be made into a public lol log once done that like any good satire, can be used to illuminate the (in this case many) flaws with the subject.

Since five players are recommended for a 4.Fail game, we'll need five more - 4 more players and one mod/DM to make this happen.

I may also take guests, because since it is an MMO parody there should be others around. Most likely guests will show up anyways, to whine and flail about how that's not how 4.Fail works. And even they're helping, whether they mean to or not.

So, any questions or interest?

Edit:

DM: TheDarkFuzz.

Player 1: Roy. (laser Cleric)
Player 2: Judging Eagle.
Player 3: Mask De H.
Player 4: Josh Kablack. (Righteous Brand Manager)
Player 5: Violence in the media.

That should be a full group, so now organizing and getting ready to go.

Korwin · Post by **Korwin** » Wed Jul 01, 2009 1:32 pm

Hmm for an MMO context, my bad english would actually be good.
But I dont know the rules of D&D4 (Its like an sleep pill overdose for me).

Roy · Post by **Roy** » Wed Jul 01, 2009 1:36 pm

Korwin wrote:Hmm for an MMO context, my bad english would actually be good.
But I dont know the rules of D&D4 (Its like an sleep pill overdose for me).

Doesn't really matter. Best way to show the humor is to play as if unfamiliar with it. So if you actually aren't so it's not an act...

And hopefully the humor will cancel out the Fail so participants can properly mock it.

Judging__Eagle · Post by **Judging__Eagle** » Wed Jul 01, 2009 4:14 pm

Sounds like fun. Count me in.

I've been playing quite a few different MMOs over the years. Not forever, but a while.

Doom · Post by **Doom** » Wed Jul 01, 2009 4:16 pm

Can I play my War-metawarrior?

I've been kicking around an idea for a good satire class, with abilities that go beyond what we have now (eg, class abilities that interfere with monster abilities recharging, or fundamentally negate monster powers with the 'encounter' keyword). Other class abilities would be like "Health for Brains" (you can use Constitution as your attribute for intelligence-based skills, like History). I also want to give him a "sword" that fires bullets and is kept in a holster, in honor of so many DnD4.0 words being used as crude copies of what they used to mean.

Additionally, the class would have powers like:

Complete Annihilation War-metawarrior 1

An awesome bolt of multicolored light fires from your eyes and strikes your foe, disintegrating him into a fine dust in a nonmagical way.

At-will: Martial, Weapon
Standard Action Melee Weapon ("sword", range 10/20)
Target: One Creature
Attack: Con vs AC
Hit: [W] + Con, and the target is slowed.

I know, since this guy is still using a sword and using martial powers, he's basically a fighter class, and some might say we don't need any more of those.

I've had so much writing and traveling to do this summer that I've been hard pressed to sit down and put this together well, but I think there's potential for humor there.

Roy · Post by **Roy** » Wed Jul 01, 2009 4:17 pm

Ok, so two definitely in (presumably as players, unless JE wants to run it?) and two possibly in (Korwin and... I forget the other guy. PR?)

Edit: Remember the line about the closer to real the better? Well making up classes doesn't convey the proper tone. Playing one of the existing ones like that 'Lol, TELEKINETIC WARLORDS' style is a far better way of doing it.

Edit again: Most MMO conversations take place in Vent or similar because it takes too long to type with MOBs beating on you. So stuff should also be written like it was a Vent conversation, even if it's just text.

Psychic Robot · Post by **Psychic Robot** » Wed Jul 01, 2009 5:01 pm

I just woke up, so I'm pretty much out of it, but is this going to be play-by-post, Ventrilo, or something like OpenRPG?

Roy · Post by **Roy** » Wed Jul 01, 2009 5:06 pm

Psychic Robot wrote:I just woke up, so I'm pretty much out of it, but is this going to be play-by-post, Ventrilo, or something like OpenRPG?

Dunno yet. Depends on who is interested and what they want. Voice chat doesn't leave logs, and recording it means lol big files. Though any sort of voice acting skill at that point would be a bonus. See: Aelbabble.

Play by post is probably the best idea, but skip any recruitment thread. The mods will whine and flail about some non existent edition war. If one of the closer to live programs like OpenRPG works for everyone and can be logged easily that would be better. But again, depends on what the people interested want. First we need to know who is all in, and who is running this lol train.

Judging__Eagle · Post by **Judging__Eagle** » Wed Jul 01, 2009 7:55 pm

I don't have the time or brain cycles to run an other game. I can play though.

I plan on making some jokes along the lines of "god, this game stucks, I'm going to play make believe and say that my 'whatever' is 'something else'." It's not like I haven't done that in a game before.

As well as "with great skill.... I succeed my skill challenge. Again."

I think point out the flaws is what we want to do in this game.

I'm thinking that a plot where we start off with a mixed group of classes (ranged & melee); and then all change to one type of class (ranged, please) when we realize "holy shit, -not- getting hit = win".

Hopefully through some horribly contrived manner. Like the players decide that they want to make all ranged characters; and the DM doesn't want them to. So they fight their next encounter with the aim to TPK, the ranged characters running into melee, and the melee characters allowing themselves to be beaten to death.

Then the horribleness of single class groups is shown. They kill everything.

The "DM" coming up with a way to allow for ranged and melee to co-exist (Range deals "you take more melee damage" abilities (blindness, lowered AC, nausea, etc.) while Melee deals "you can't run fast no more" (speed damage) as the special effect of their melee attacks. Which is the suggestion that Frank made to make 4e more inclusive of mixed type parties.

Also, since this is more a "story" project, not quite a "game", we can seriously not do the super optimizing bit. Instead we can focus more on the game as a whole on what we want to show in the project. Stuff like the outline above for game "plot" is one idea.

Other things would be to include skill challanges, where the PCs always succeed. Even insane ones.

Making a Yogi Hat Ranger later on is also a good idea. For later.

Right now, the ranged classes in the core book are?

And we're going to just use the core stuff, right?

Psychic Robot · Post by **Psychic Robot** » Wed Jul 01, 2009 7:57 pm

Shit, you know what would be better? Getting one of the 4e supporters to run a game and then satirizing it while he's being serious. Though that might be a little cruel.

Roy · Post by **Roy** » Wed Jul 01, 2009 8:00 pm

Psychic Robot wrote:Shit, you know what would be better? Getting one of the 4e supporters to run a game and then satirizing it while he's being serious. Though that might be a little cruel.

They totally have it coming though. But since they'll get all BAW BAW BUTTHURT anyways, let's go with the intentional satire approach. Besides, what supporter is going to come here and not immediately be chain smited for great justice?

Psychic Robot · Post by **Psychic Robot** » Wed Jul 01, 2009 8:02 pm

Play here? Shit, play on Myth-Weavers or ENWorld or RPG.net. I would like to run it, but I have work and not enough spare time or patience to deal with 4e.

Roy · Post by **Roy** » Wed Jul 01, 2009 8:05 pm

Psychic Robot wrote:Play here? Shit, play on Myth-Weavers or ENWorld or RPG.net. I would like to run it, but I have work and not enough spare time or patience to deal with 4e.

When I said 'come here' I meant more in terms of getting involved. Posting a recruitment thread anywhere would be derailed by excessive whining.

Also, where the fuck was the thread where this first get mentioned?

Edit: This is intended to be a cheap and easy one shot. So it'd either take like... an hour or two of real time, or a couple of minutes a day for a month or two depending on if it's PbP or something like OpenRPG that's closer to real time interaction.

Josh_Kablack · Post by **Josh_Kablack** » Wed Jul 01, 2009 11:36 pm

Hrm, my time is kinda tight right now, but it would be mad fun to play a Righteous Brand Manager.

Mask_De_H · Post by **Mask_De_H** » Thu Jul 02, 2009 4:39 am

I'd be down for some satire, and the masochist in me wants to play 4E so sign me up.

The subverting a person who likes 4E's game seems like the better idea, but that could end badly.

Maxus · Post by **Maxus** » Thu Jul 02, 2009 4:43 am

Well, I've done the occasional game on AIM.

Which lets you log it, and the diceroll is simple.

//roll-dice#-sides#

You may consider that, if you can get everyone's schedules to work.

Psychic Robot · Post by **Psychic Robot** » Thu Jul 02, 2009 5:00 am

I'm retarded; nevermind.

Absentminded_Wizard · Post by **Absentminded_Wizard** » Thu Jul 02, 2009 9:54 am

If I'd ever played an MMO in my life, I'd sign up for this. As it is, I'll be eagerly awaiting the log.

Doom314 wrote: Complete Annihilation War-metawarrior 1

An awesome bolt of multicolored light fires from your eyes and strikes your foe, disintegrating him into a fine dust in a nonmagical way.

At-will: Martial, Weapon
Standard Action Melee Weapon ("sword", range 10/20)
Target: One Creature
Attack: Con vs AC
Hit: [W] + Con, and the target is slowed.

Complete Annihilation = [W] + Con, target slowed. Priceless.

I have my first sig on the new Den.

Roy · Post by **Roy** » Thu Jul 02, 2009 11:05 am

You know, the only reason I even knew this edit was here half a page up is because the boards have a borked go to last unread feature.

Judging__Eagle wrote:I don't have the time or brain cycles to run an other game. I can play though.

I plan on making some jokes along the lines of "god, this game stucks, I'm going to play make believe and say that my 'whatever' is 'something else'." It's not like I haven't done that in a game before.

As well as "with great skill.... I succeed my skill challenge. Again."

I think point out the flaws is what we want to do in this game.

Yes.

I'm thinking that a plot where we start off with a mixed group of classes (ranged & melee); and then all change to one type of class (ranged, please) when we realize "holy shit, -not- getting hit = win".

Hopefully through some horribly contrived manner. Like the players decide that they want to make all ranged characters; and the DM doesn't want them to. So they fight their next encounter with the aim to TPK, the ranged characters running into melee, and the melee characters allowing themselves to be beaten to death.

That works. And playing off the MMO angle there's plenty of funny lines that can come from that.

Then the horribleness of single class groups is shown. They kill everything.

The "DM" coming up with a way to allow for ranged and melee to co-exist (Range deals "you take more melee damage" abilities (blindness, lowered AC, nausea, etc.) while Melee deals "you can't run fast no more" (speed damage) as the special effect of their melee attacks. Which is the suggestion that Frank made to make 4e more inclusive of mixed type parties.

It's an MMO. So no he doesn't. That would just feed the 'claiming to play 4.Fail while not actually playing it is awesome' troll squad.

Also, since this is more a "story" project, not quite a "game", we can seriously not do the super optimizing bit. Instead we can focus more on the game as a whole on what we want to show in the project. Stuff like the outline above for game "plot" is one idea.

I doubt most of those interested would be doing that. Though since 'super optimizing' means shit like picking up a bow, it can easily happen by pure accident.

Other things would be to include skill challanges, where the PCs always succeed. Even insane ones.

Making a Yogi Hat Ranger later on is also a good idea. For later.

Right now, the ranged classes in the core book are?

And we're going to just use the core stuff, right?

It'd be easier to keep it core only, and also cut out the straw man whiners who ignore the 'everything is core' and will try to handwave justify it off as splatbooks.

And um... Ranger, Warlock, Wizard, Cleric (lasers) and... I dunno.

Speaking of which, I call the laser cleric. For obvious reasons.

Though I wonder if that and the LOL HEAL PLZ spam would add to the humor or detract from it.

AW: I've never played an MMO in my life. It's still easy to get the terminology.

Maxus: AIM can work, if everyone has it and can schedule an hour or two together. Though in order to post it anywhere the user names would have to be replaced with something else for obvious reasons, so you'd basically have to rewrite the entire thing. Probably be better to go with OpenRPG or something. Especially given how often I get stalker troll infestations.

Edit: As for this tormenting a 4.Fail thing - sounds funny and would result in much amusing whining and flailing. But would also likely result in early termination of the experiment with a players on MMO mod war. And that's not the sort of humor we need.

Roy · Post by **Roy** » Thu Jul 02, 2009 12:00 pm

Double post, but justified since I came up with much more detail regarding a funny outline that basically consolidates everything said so far.

The DM is not serious. But he acts like he is, and acts like he's trying to get some new players into the game. And the humor is really subtle at first, so it actually seems like a typical Fail cult induction. At least, as long as people's names are removed from it so the whiners don't immediately realize it's a Den project.

So if someone makes the occasional MMO reference, it's not really a giveaway.

People try making a 'balanced' party. They step on each other's toes. DM keeps spouting lies about how this is supposed to work... even when it doesn't. TPK apparently caused by ignorance.

Then include implied surfing the net to learn how things really work during a dinner break, as if this were a text log of a face to face game. Or something.

When play starts again the party is something that actually works. Like 4 wizards and a warlord, or Mongols, or whatthefuckever.

Party proceeds to slaughter things over and over. DM gets mad and tries nerfing. That just ticks the players off and now the MMO jokes really start flying.

And it ends with the DM 'realizing' the players are right, this game sucks, let's play some 3.5. It's much more balanced.

violence in the media · Thu Jul 02, 2009 1:37 pm

I'd be tempted to jump in as a player for this, but I just don't think I have the time right now.

TheDarkFuzz · Post by **TheDarkFuzz** » Thu Jul 02, 2009 1:40 pm

Roy wrote:Plot synopsis!

Y'know, that really sounds less like a game and more like a script. I mean, Roy, you could really just sit down and write that whole thing out yourself and then we could all have a good laugh about it. If it's a game, then it should just work however it works, and the humor should come from the fact that it doesn't really work at all. It shouldn't take planning and intention to satirize a system that fails to create even so much as a mildly believable vehicle for storytelling, much less actual gameplay.

I wouldn't mind doing the DM thing if PbP is cool, cause I enjoy silly things like this. Writing for a 4th edition game isn't hard to generate. Also, fun!

-----

The wounded orc looks up at your group, the light slowly fading from his eyes. The scorch marks of your divine lasers and bruisings of your iron tides seem to weigh heavily upon him, for he was not created with healing surges, yet you cannot help but pity this poor elite as he expires in the snow. His "mob" had been nothing but weak-ass minions, and he himself had folded before your simple spamming tactics like a closet troll being kited from horseback. "How..." he croaks out, the sound barely audible above the chill breeze of the frosty plain. "How...I mine for fish?"

With a sigh, he expires. Above his body there appear twin signs in green and blue, divine messages that herald the reward of your deeds. +100 XP one reads, and the other +50 gp. His body, possessions and all, fades from view as is proper, preventing his useless corpse from lying around just to lag the framerate of reality.

Unfortunately, your party is not given much time to contemplate the orc's noble death, or lament the lack of drops. From over the rolling hill in front of you, an Orc Warlord appears, dressed in Chain Armor, with massive shoulderpads as black as death. "GANK THEM!" he bellows, pointing at your crew, and a dozen or more fierce-looking orcs rally behind him. The same thought runs through the minds of every member of your company. Had you managed to draw aggro from a mob you were not equipped to handle? Was it time to take this train to zone?

Roy · Post by **Roy** » Thu Jul 02, 2009 1:49 pm

TDF: It was a suggestion for an outline, taking into account all the feedback so far. It is by no means the only one possible, or even required at all. Just a means of putting it all together. And it's hardly comprehensive, since that's what outline means.

Whatever happens happens is fine too, but satire definitionally should not be too obvious at first.

And PbP is fine with me. It would also help the people who don't have much time, since you can seriously just take a spare minute one or a few times a day and fire off some lulz.

Which given that VitM and PR said this was a problem and we only need one more to get started should be enough.

As for the PbP game... MW? Seems to have the best software for it, and they shouldn't complain as long as you don't make an advertisement thread (which is pointless, if you have everyone anyways).

violence in the media · Thu Jul 02, 2009 1:50 pm

That's fucking awesome!

Roy · Post by **Roy** » Thu Jul 02, 2009 1:51 pm

violence in the media wrote:That's fucking awesome!

Which part is?