I did enjoy being the night, till around 5th level I was mainly the late afternoon, the early evening and the early night (suitable for workdays). Having Av go along with me was something Andrew did incidentally at first, which was surprising. Then we ended up using it strategically while doing an Agatha Chrisite reveal for the murder of Rock Rackus.
The non-static technology development in the game was great, as generally most campaigns and game worlds have tech that never moves in game time.
I think the most eccentric thing Manuel had on his steam suit an Espresso Machine and later a Mithril Waffle Iron, because it was on an equipment list and too ridiculous not to own. He enjoyed making Coffee and Waffles for various NPC's during the game and I had flavour texted his Alchemist Mutagens and Cognatogens as particularly strong coffee. He did look into ghost touch waffles at one point as he felt Nicodemus might just have ghost blood sugar problems and would possibly of calmed the hell down and listened to reason after a nice waffle or two.
The Hotchkiss 6lb Naval gun, Aasen Mortar, Rocket Grenade array, and Maxim gun where just the proper and necessary accessories for crime fighting. Although Mustard Gas (after the bit in the Bruces throne room) was vetoed by the university ethics commission
I would have liked a glider, or possibly a giant bat housing for my riding dire bat, but poor roger rapidly became a liability after about 7th level so I was largely not around for the Goblin Mecha stage of the game. I also failed to find a practical way of making the Mecha weightless for easy and dramatic deployment via dire bat.
I think the Ob's offer is not that good within context of the game. Starting as RHC constables starts the PC's as probably Lawful or Good with an initial loyalty to Risur. While Risur is not a perfect kingdom, most of its problems (poor working conditions, inequality, lack of democratic agency for citizens) are the default for most RPG Kingdoms. The RHC and Risur NPC's we encountered seemed reasonable people working for the common good of the the Kingdom. So there was nothing to undermine loyalty to this group.
Conversely our first experience of the Ob was them releasing Slijin, and generally trying to kill people and subvert our government. Which left a bad first impression, as did the later lamp and train based murder attempt. So they make a bad first impression relative to Risur.
The Ob conclave is very interesting and the point where I suspect people would debate turning. However, "do nothing to the ancient ritual that defines the world" still seems to be the best option at this point for any predominantly Good or Lawful characters. As it was presented to us there was no suspicion it needed to be changed or it was failing, merely that it could be changed. So while the Ob presented many interesting options (Millers Pyre, Panarchists) the risk to everyone on the planet appeared to far out weigh the benefit at this point. Also the Colossus & Watchmaker factions looked like a dangerous threat to the world.
Nicodemus clearing house by killing the Ob faction backing Colossus also did him no favours, it was an abrupt and merciless massacre using the ghost council, While it may have been for good intentions, it was the act of a merciless tyrannical monster and pretty much ended our sympathy for him. From that point Nicodemus had to go, if we could get an Ob run be Han or Leia we would consider working with them. But Nick was out a that point, an obsessive undead monster we could not trust to his word.
After the Ob's ritual failed and the Sun went out we attempted to approach them diplomatically. Our principle objection to there aims was disturbing the ancient ritual was dangerous, which was now both proven and a moot point. While we did not trust Nick we felt we might be able to work with the rest of the Ob to get the sun working again and deal with the hive mind problems. We even managed to meet the ghost of Leia and persuade her to accept a true resurrection from us. As we wanted her in a potential position to counter Nick and she could not do this as a ghost council member under his control. Unfortunately Nick appeared to be having a full screaming meltdown at this point and would not talk with us. So we where left with opposing him and attempting to convert the Ob to our goals.
The Ob conclave did very much inform our planar planning. We ended up building a variant of Panarchists & Williams Pyre, with a config using Fourmyle and Ostea to personally empower people, and Aretha Ket, Etherax and others to help people to be more tolerant of others. The extra planes Andrew added here where very useful. In keeping with the Panarchists, I did attempt to build Thrag into something so we could build a world where people did not need to fear death (what better equality and safeguard against tyranny?) but the other PC's where not persuaded.
I think if the conclave emphasised that the ancient ritual was failing and a replacement needed to happen in a short time frame we would have been more tempted by the Ob. Likewise if Nick had been gentler in purging the Ob at the end of the conclave (maybe imprisoned till after the ritual was done or just offered surrender) he would have retained our sympathy. The Ob was a odd mix of idealists and cynical pragmatists which made an interesting opponent. Although they should just have stopped with Bourne, as a 178,000 ton robot is a better achievement than most bad guys ever get.
The non-static technology development in the game was great, as generally most campaigns and game worlds have tech that never moves in game time.
I think the most eccentric thing Manuel had on his steam suit an Espresso Machine and later a Mithril Waffle Iron, because it was on an equipment list and too ridiculous not to own. He enjoyed making Coffee and Waffles for various NPC's during the game and I had flavour texted his Alchemist Mutagens and Cognatogens as particularly strong coffee. He did look into ghost touch waffles at one point as he felt Nicodemus might just have ghost blood sugar problems and would possibly of calmed the hell down and listened to reason after a nice waffle or two.
The Hotchkiss 6lb Naval gun, Aasen Mortar, Rocket Grenade array, and Maxim gun where just the proper and necessary accessories for crime fighting. Although Mustard Gas (after the bit in the Bruces throne room) was vetoed by the university ethics commission
I would have liked a glider, or possibly a giant bat housing for my riding dire bat, but poor roger rapidly became a liability after about 7th level so I was largely not around for the Goblin Mecha stage of the game. I also failed to find a practical way of making the Mecha weightless for easy and dramatic deployment via dire bat.
I think the Ob's offer is not that good within context of the game. Starting as RHC constables starts the PC's as probably Lawful or Good with an initial loyalty to Risur. While Risur is not a perfect kingdom, most of its problems (poor working conditions, inequality, lack of democratic agency for citizens) are the default for most RPG Kingdoms. The RHC and Risur NPC's we encountered seemed reasonable people working for the common good of the the Kingdom. So there was nothing to undermine loyalty to this group.
Conversely our first experience of the Ob was them releasing Slijin, and generally trying to kill people and subvert our government. Which left a bad first impression, as did the later lamp and train based murder attempt. So they make a bad first impression relative to Risur.
The Ob conclave is very interesting and the point where I suspect people would debate turning. However, "do nothing to the ancient ritual that defines the world" still seems to be the best option at this point for any predominantly Good or Lawful characters. As it was presented to us there was no suspicion it needed to be changed or it was failing, merely that it could be changed. So while the Ob presented many interesting options (Millers Pyre, Panarchists) the risk to everyone on the planet appeared to far out weigh the benefit at this point. Also the Colossus & Watchmaker factions looked like a dangerous threat to the world.
Nicodemus clearing house by killing the Ob faction backing Colossus also did him no favours, it was an abrupt and merciless massacre using the ghost council, While it may have been for good intentions, it was the act of a merciless tyrannical monster and pretty much ended our sympathy for him. From that point Nicodemus had to go, if we could get an Ob run be Han or Leia we would consider working with them. But Nick was out a that point, an obsessive undead monster we could not trust to his word.
After the Ob's ritual failed and the Sun went out we attempted to approach them diplomatically. Our principle objection to there aims was disturbing the ancient ritual was dangerous, which was now both proven and a moot point. While we did not trust Nick we felt we might be able to work with the rest of the Ob to get the sun working again and deal with the hive mind problems. We even managed to meet the ghost of Leia and persuade her to accept a true resurrection from us. As we wanted her in a potential position to counter Nick and she could not do this as a ghost council member under his control. Unfortunately Nick appeared to be having a full screaming meltdown at this point and would not talk with us. So we where left with opposing him and attempting to convert the Ob to our goals.
The Ob conclave did very much inform our planar planning. We ended up building a variant of Panarchists & Williams Pyre, with a config using Fourmyle and Ostea to personally empower people, and Aretha Ket, Etherax and others to help people to be more tolerant of others. The extra planes Andrew added here where very useful. In keeping with the Panarchists, I did attempt to build Thrag into something so we could build a world where people did not need to fear death (what better equality and safeguard against tyranny?) but the other PC's where not persuaded.
I think if the conclave emphasised that the ancient ritual was failing and a replacement needed to happen in a short time frame we would have been more tempted by the Ob. Likewise if Nick had been gentler in purging the Ob at the end of the conclave (maybe imprisoned till after the ritual was done or just offered surrender) he would have retained our sympathy. The Ob was a odd mix of idealists and cynical pragmatists which made an interesting opponent. Although they should just have stopped with Bourne, as a 178,000 ton robot is a better achievement than most bad guys ever get.
