# [Risus] An Adventurer's Life for Me! OOC



## Mark Chance (Jun 19, 2012)

*Handy Links*
IC | RG

*The Set Up*
Meckwick was once a prominent wizard whose influence extended throughout the known world. In more recent times, political maneuvering by long standing rivals has ruined Meckwick, and forced him to withdraw from society. Living in isolation, Meckwick has purchased a vacant dungeon and begun plotting his revenge. Meckwick is looking for seasoned adventurers to stock his dungeon with guards and traps and prevent his rivals from making it out alive.

Are you seasoned enough to answer this challenge?

*The Game System*
I want to use _Risus: The Anything RPG_. It's free, it's easy simple, and it's narrative, which makes it seem ideal for PbP.

*Character Creation*
_Number of Dice:_ Characters are created using 10 dice. Advanced Option: Hooks and Tales is in effect. Tales don't need to be two or three pages long, but they should be two or three paragraphs long. I'm also adding Portrait to the list. Post a picture of your character and get another die for character creation. This means you'll have 10-13 dice for character creation.

_Cliche Limits:_ As normal, starting cliches range from 1 to 4 dice.

_Advanced Options II & III:_ The pumping cliche and double-pump cliche options are in play.

*Other Stuff*
I'm looking for about 4 players. My posting rate is likely to be erratic, ranging from multiple posts per day to one a week, depending on what else I'm doing and how quickly the players post.

After this short, first adventure is done, I may be up to running another short adventure, either for the same players with or without the same characters, or for new players, or for some combination thereof.

I'm not expecting anyone to take this too seriously. It's not about wealth-by-level, keeping track of resources, or any of those other things we get to do in rules-heavy RPGs.

*Game Flow*
_Risus_ is primarily a narrative RPG. The extremely simple mechanics make a suit that must be tailored with narrative description so that the suit fits the dice. This means you, the player, will often have the power to describe the successes and failures of both your PC and my NPCs/monsters. Here're some examples of what this might look like.

_An Uncontested Challenge_
Marcus is trying to get information about of a barfly, but she has little respect for men who cannot chug a pint of stout more quickly than she can. Marcus wants to impress the barfly and says that he will use his Alcoholic cliche to do so. This seems like an appropriate use of Alcoholic, so I, the GM, set the Target Number (TN) at 5. Dice are rolled, and Marcus scores a 9, sufficient to succeed. Along with posting the dice result, *mazzoli* must also describe Marcus's success and the barfly's immediate reaction. If the dice result had been a 4, *mazzoli* would instead describe Marcus's failure and the barfly's immediate reaction.

_A Contested Challenge_
Contested challenges work pretty much the same way, only the descriptive element falls on whoever wins the challenge. If Marcus challenged the barfly to a chugging contest, there wouldn't be a static TN. Instead, the barfly would pit her Hard Drinkin' Wench cliche against Marcus's Alcoholic cliche. If the barfly's dice result was higher, I, the GM, would get to describe what happened. If Marcus's dice result was higher, *mazzoli* would get to describe the contest. Regardless, the loser forfeits a die from his or her cliche.

Should the contested challenge continue, further rolls are made until one side surrenders or loses all their dice in a cliche. The winner of this sort of protracted gets to decide the fate of the loser.


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## mazzoli (Jun 19, 2012)

I think this sounds like a good time if you'll have me. I'll take a closer look at the rules and get back to you. What I've seen so far of the rules seems to lend itself to silliness. Are you planning on running a humorous game?


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## Mark Chance (Jun 19, 2012)

Somewhere between light-hearted and humorous. Not necessarily a comedy, but definitely not an "Oh my goodness! It's all dark and gloomy!"


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## mazzoli (Jun 19, 2012)

Thanks, gives me some direction for character creation. I won't go _too_ overboard since you're not looking for flat out comedy.


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## Mark Chance (Jun 20, 2012)

mazzoli said:


> Thanks, gives me some direction for character creation. I won't go _too_ overboard since you're not looking for flat out comedy.




Cool. I'm leaning toward starting as soon as characters are done. Once a full group is assembled, we can worry about the Main Plot.


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## mazzoli (Jun 20, 2012)

Okay, I have a character concept finished. I'm going to get a picture whipped up soon to give me the final die.

Marcus
Swashbuckler (4)/Masked Bandit (3)/Dispossessed Lordling (2)/Beat Poet (2)/Alcoholic (2)[sblock=Hook]Marcus is cripplingly unsure of himself. Any time his ability is called into question he breaks down and requires a moment to compose himself. This stems from his father's rejection of him as his heir.[/sblock]
[sblock=Tale]"You do nothing right" is the cry,
The last words from my father.
He pushes me across the threshold
And I land on my face in the dirt.
The door is shut before I can stand.
My father's title is lost to me forever,
His lands and riches out of my reach.

How different it is seeing the land from the bottom!
The plight of the peasants,
So easy to ignore from the patriarch's privileged position,
Is calling to my ruptured soul.
Seeking atonement for the sins of my father,
I don the black mask and saddle of the bandit
To give back to the oppressed.

I am of course found by him who cast me out.
He takes pity and puts me on a ship across the water.
My vessel is attacked on the high seas,
Beset by pirates I must surrender myself.
They take me under their wing
Teaching me the art of swordplay
And the joys of liquor.

Fin.

Marcus steps down from the stage with a blank expression on his face, taking exquisite care to maintain that look of casual indifference as he passes by the table where the patchouli-scented bohemian chicks are sitting.[/sblock]


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## Mark Chance (Jun 20, 2012)

Looks good, mazzoli!


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## Mark Chance (Jun 21, 2012)

[MENTION=6687941]mazzoli[/MENTION]: I'm thinking of starting the game with you running solo for a bit while others join. Sound good?


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## Mlwells (Jun 21, 2012)

Francis Locke AKA Alexander West AKA Mr.  Jumpy AKA Chell AKA Behemoth AKA The Runaway AKA Roofhopper AKA Marcus AKA Samantha Thames....You know what let's just call him Aka ('ey-kuh)

Aperature Scientist 5/ Con Man 4/ Forger 2/ Freerunner 2

[sblock="Hook"]
Aka is kind of screwed up.  Beyond several irrational fears, he is extraordinarily easily distracted by pretty things, be it a woman or art.  And once he is distracted, all bets are off on what stupid, bone-headed, ludicrous things he will do.
[/sblock]

[sblock="Tale"]
Please allow me to regal you with a story of a certain man. I can't promise you will get anything out of it, but it may still be worth a listen.

At a young age a boy realized he liked making stuff and inventing newer and better technologies, but...well, this was incidental in comparison to finding out that he loved women, like, a lot.  He did not discriminate based on age, race, or really anything else.  This would likely prove to be his downfall.

A little later he found himself educated (an extracurricular lesson proved professors are kinky).  With education under his belt and a pretty redhead in his sights, the young man came to have a job as a scientist at a one Aperature Science.  This did not end well...at all.  The career taught him many things, like the importance of running, hiding, and quick problem solving (as well as leaving cryptic and very elaborate murals).

After his flight from a psychotic ex (as I said, he didn't discriminate), the young man took his passion for, well passion, and new found art skills and turned to a life of crime.  Notoriety and infamy followed soon after as he amassed a fortune from stolen and forged antiquities that he lied and cheated his way into.

His inventive mind even gave amazing insight one night as he was fleeing across some rooftops from a particularly angry spouse.  If he could learn to do tricks as he ran away, he could impress potential suitors and maybe even getting a new voluptuous escape route.

"And that's what I am doing here good sir in your lovely daughter's room.  Now, if you will excuse me, my eyes have adjusted to the light of this room and i notice that that wall there is not pale blue but is in fact white.  Also this is no place for an untitled work of Falin's.  Buh-bye now!"
[/sblock]

[sblock="cliches"]
Aperature Scientist (Testing!, Using highly advanced things for nonnormal activities, lunatic, irrational fear of potatoes and/or cake)
Con Man (Seducing, smooth talking, lying, making a run for it)
Forger (Painting, sculpting, molding, carving, identifying fakes, passion for art)
Free-Runner (Running, wall climbing, flipping, all around ninja-ing)
[/sblock]

[sblock="Portrait"]
Placeholder as I draw it
[/sblock]


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## Mark Chance (Jun 22, 2012)

Well, played, Mlwells. I'm out of town right now without Internet access except at breakfast since hotel wants to charge me $10 a day but the pancake house has free wi-fi. I'll look everything over in more detail Saturday, and start the game that evening or Sunday.


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## Mark Chance (Jun 23, 2012)

I updated the OP with some *Game Flow* information.


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## Mlwells (Jun 24, 2012)

Looking forward to this starting!


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## Mark Chance (Jun 25, 2012)

Rogue's Gallery Thread


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## Mark Chance (Jun 25, 2012)

OOC Thread | IC Thread

We're up and running.


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## Mark Chance (Jun 27, 2012)

[MENTION=6687941]mazzoli[/MENTION]: Maybe I'm particularly out of this morning, but I'm not sure what Marcus is attempting to accomplish.


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## mazzoli (Jun 27, 2012)

He's trying to distract the mob and remove himself from the situation at the same time. Pretty much all I'm trying to accomplish is running away. Discretion is the better part of valor and all that. Also, since we lost our rolls, we each lose a die in the cliche that we used, right?


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## Mark Chance (Jun 27, 2012)

I understand. Yes, there'd be some dice loss. Mea culpa. I'll get around to updating things later today. Have to meet with a student in a bit for summer tutoring.


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## mazzoli (Jun 27, 2012)

Not a problem. Thanks for the rules clarification. If I start getting a bit too over the top, just let me know and I'll rein myself in. Or at least I'll try to.


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## Mlwells (Jun 27, 2012)

Now I'm curious to know what you teach.


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## Mark Chance (Jun 27, 2012)

5th grade history, literature, writing, and grammar at Aristoi Classical Academy in Katy, Texas.


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## Mlwells (Jun 27, 2012)

I believe that you just described a level of Hell.


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## Mark Chance (Jun 29, 2012)

[MENTION=6694368]Mlwells[/MENTION]: I just realized that Aka has a 5-dice cliche. Cliches are limited to 4 dice for beginning PCs.


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## Mlwells (Jun 29, 2012)

D'oh! I ken reed. 

I think it'd make more sense with my whole Aperature Scientist schtik to move that extra one into free-running.


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## Mark Chance (Jul 10, 2012)

I'm back from Colorado. Update later today.


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## Mark Chance (Jul 11, 2012)

Game is updated! Huzzah!


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## Mark Chance (Jul 24, 2012)

BTW, y'all, this game is still recruiting.


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## Mark Chance (Jul 30, 2012)

I've not bailed on the game. Just had a deadline to meet that's taken up time and energy. Update later today or tomorrow.


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## Mlwells (Jul 30, 2012)

It's alright. I've just moved and started my career so I'm lagging a lot as well.


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## Vertexx69 (Jul 31, 2012)

I think this could be a fun little game for an incarnation of King Grommet (The Mad).
[sblock=Description]This apparently animated suit of armor stands a good foot shorter than an average man, though is twice as big around, and is covered in jerkily moving cogs and gears. One arm is wound in a chain barbed with broken cog-bits and gear-teeth, and a large clockwork shield floats silently next to him. A large half face-guard jutts up from his chest plate to cover the lower portion of the goggled helmet that peeks from behind it, with one red lens and one blue.[/sblock][sblock=Hook]King Grommet is completely untethered to any one reality, form or plane of existence. (As is often demonstrated when he carries on complete conversations with best friend... and shield... Widget.) He can wander off in the middle of literally ANYTHING, as portals to other places tend to spontaneously crop up around him, and he sometimes just walks through them, only to show up a few moments later having experienced a completely different set of events.[/sblock][sblock=Cliches]Shafeshifter (4) - Gender-swapping, Infinite wardrobe, Mind-rending displays of intimidation, Eating/Spanking/Killing stuff that's trying to eat/spank/kill King Grommet or his pals
Conjurer (4) - Pulling useful simple items out of thin air, Summoning critters from other places for a few seconds, creating portals for travel and practical jokes
Gossip-Monger (4) - Hearing everything, driving wedges between friends and allies, making up believable gossip about anyone on the spot[/sblock][sblock=Tale]So there was Grommet with his friend Widget the floating shield, just minding their own business on the bendy-melty plain, which is very pretty and drippy and flashy if they did say so themselves. Walking and floating and flying and even rolling sometimes along when Grommet heres a sound like metal rain but more all at the same time from behind this cloud of rocks. So Grommet hasn't heard this type of rain before and wanted to see if it was raining cooking pots or something like that. But then there was all these roaring and screaming and gurgling sounds, so Grommet runs up to see what is making them. Grommet comes around the cloud of rocks to find a squad of Metal clockmen just chopping and hacking apart a small bunch of traders passing through the bendy-melty plain like a short cut. Too bad they got found by these gear-tickin baddies, and got killed in a very orderly type manner.

So Grommet runs over to help the merchants not get killed, by swinging his chain-arm very hard into the head type areas of the clockmen. And boy let Grommet tell you they didn't like that one bit. Can you believe they tried to hack up Grommet too when he interupted their little "order cleansing". The metal guys kept spouting things like "order must be restored" and "death to chaotics life" but Grommet didn't know what they meant. So the biggest metal man comes up
to Grommet swinging a big hammer, but he's way too slow. Then the big clockman takes Grommet's chain right to the face and falls over onto some spikey metal rocks that had grown out of the ground behind him when he wasn't looking. He screamed in a very non-robot way before he stopped kicking. The front of his head had been torn open by the hit, and wow was Grommet surprised when he looked inside to see it was a flesh man inside a clockman suit instead of just more gears and stuff like the other ones.

Even though all the merchants were killed too, Grommet was proud to be able to stop the clockmen from doing that to any other regular type folk in his favorite place to wander. Grommet found that he quite like the look of the clockman suit, now that it wasn't trying to kill him. So he shifted into it while the landscape quietly and not so quietly churned and changed constantly around him. This puddle of mercury floated by as Grommet finished changing into the armor so he could see himself in his newest form. Grommet said to nobody in particular, "Wow Grommet looks good." And a little set of arms popped a crown-type gear over the top of his head and played playing little tune with a tin horn hidden somewhere in the suit, before folding the gear back into the collar. This pleased Grommet to no end and King Grommet spent the next several hours saying King Grommet's name until King Grommet started refering to Grommet as King Grommet. The rip the clockmen had come out of looked very strange on the other side, all wheels and gears and swinging pendulums, but then it changed to an all black place and then an all white place. When it changed to a place with trees and plants and sunshine Grommet felt he was ready to share with people the news about his title and what their new king expected of them... or just something else.[/sblock]


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## Artur Hawkwing (Jul 31, 2012)

Hey, Chance. I'm going to give this a good once over. If it seems doable, you still have one spot open to reach your ideal 4?

What the heck. I'll submit anyway, you can always keep me in queue for stand by if needed. 

[sblock=Personal Stats]
Name: Risa  
Age: Late Teens 
Hair: Brown with a frosty blue stripe from over her right eyebrow to the nape of her neck. 
Eyes: Brown
[/sblock]

[sblock=Description] Risa is just your average height of girl. Yes. Girl. But her build isn't the soft, round and voluptuous shape that men might fancy. Instead her body is lean, toned and muscled. This does not, however, diminish her feminine...gifts. Despite her efforts to sculpt herself, her female endowments atop still protrude, both a blessing and a curse. She has a leather satchel she wears, with who knows what inside. She dresses in skin tight dark black and gray accented leather with dulled, rounded studs along the seems, as well as studs along the top of her calf high boots, at least those have a reasonable heel on them. Her top is a leather bustier that is barely more than a leather bikini top with studs around the cups like those on the boots. Only her satchel lacks these studs.[/sblock]

[sblock=Hook]Risa has a penchant for shiny things. It goes along with her passion for decorating hair. She has had a problem keeping boyfriends (and some might whisper girlfriends as well) due to her waking them at times while styling their locks. She neither denies nor lays claim to the rumors of her bisexuality.[/sblock]

[sblock=Tales]Risa was born to a middle wealth family. She was the middle child, often left out and neglected when it came to family functions and wealth. Her elder sibling, a sister named Remi, can do wonders with most any material with making clothing. While she dislikes her sister's taste for showing a little too much skin and having the studs accentuating everything, she doesn't judge, instead helping maintain her sister's ever torn and dirtied wardrobe. In return, she is known for having some of the best, most trendsetting hairstyles on the continent. The younger brother, Marvin, a useless slug of a lout, took his problems growing up out on his middle older sister. Risa was not allowed to beat her younger sibling some sense, and this caused her to have rage issues. She took to hairdressing as an outlet for this energy, and it seems to have taken surprisingly well. This also led to her taking Martial Arts training from a lesbian sensei, who taught he not only how to fight, both honorably and dirty, but with her feminine charms as well. Risa hasn't seen her family in two years, and for good reason. She ran away from home after breaking her brother's nose, left arm and right foot and then taking her mother's prized jade earrings. What happened to the earrings is anyone's guess, as Risa has never told. She has taken her knacks for stealth and thievery and used them to her advantage. She has begun to dabble in magic as well, though with reportedly mixed results. If you ask the family pet, formerly a dog, now a hedgehog.[/sblock]

[sblock]Cliches
Assuming the above finds approval, I am assigning her 4 cliches, dividing among them 12 dice.
Martial Artist 4
Hairdresser 3
Catburgler (ie thief) 3
Sorcerer 2
[/sblock]


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## Mark Chance (Jul 31, 2012)

[MENTION=48854]Vertexx69[/MENTION]: Interesting. I'll get His Majesty written into the game ASAP.
 [MENTION=50177]Artur Hawkwing[/MENTION]: Bring it on!


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## Artur Hawkwing (Jul 31, 2012)

[MENTION=2795]Mark Chance[/MENTION] I Just finished posting my character of choice. Should be most...interesting. 

[sblock=Avatar] Closest I could find right now to what I visualize. Change the heels to low heeled calf length boots and put the studs on the seams and make it leather instead of the nylon/lycra look. Oy. http://backseatcuddler.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/ss_pop_05_99151a.jpg[/sblock]


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## Vertexx69 (Jul 31, 2012)

The good thing about King Grommet is that he can pop in literally anywhere. He could have been talking directly with Meckwick a moment before casually running into the other characters.  

I have a blue line sketch of King Grommet. Its a profile bust but have no way to get it online just now.


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## Mark Chance (Jul 31, 2012)

Get your retcon action here!


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## Artur Hawkwing (Aug 1, 2012)

Mark Chance said:


> Get your retcon action here!




It is done. Muahahahahahahaha!


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## Mark Chance (Aug 19, 2012)

* tap, tap *

This thing on?


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## Artur Hawkwing (Aug 20, 2012)

*squeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!*

Ow! Watch the feedback, man! 

*takes off headset, tosses it down*

Geeez, whatchu tryindo?


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## Mark Chance (Sep 5, 2012)

Well, it's look this one's done. Stick a fork in it?


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