October 2025 - Emerald Flame - lists.incorporeal.org

Locke Forest Temple - the lost below
by bss 08 Jan '26

08 Jan '26

Nia successfully returns with her climbing gear. [Just starting a new thread since the Locke one was getting long and, well, we're not in Locke anymore.] -- bss (Brian S. Stephan) | https://bss.zone/ | GPG: 0x80895FCB

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OOC: Just a bit on Cypher System 2e
by bss 31 Oct '25

31 Oct '25

While we wait for Mike (who has been sick, so we'll give him a bit of time before forcing things forward), I thought I'd mention that after calling myself out on my lack of attention to detail, I did learn yesterday that it is believed that early access to Cypher System 2e (now called just Cypher) materials will be given to backers in December. I've thought a bit about trying to hack together my own bridge to the sneak peeks we've seen to this point, but considering that is only ~2 months away, I think I will just wait until I get access to those materials before making any changes to our game, /but/, here are some of the things to expect of that edition: 1. Wound system --- this seems to be the biggest change. Taking damage will usually accumulate wounds rather than going direct to your pools (but poisons, withering mental blasts, etc. may still do direct pool damage). You can spend from your Might pool to recover wounds, or rest. Still need to see some details on this one. 2. XP split --- Murph and others noticed that XP is split into two categories in the MCG tools --- Story XP and Action XP. I'm not doing anything with this yet, but it's from Neon Rain and my understanding is that it'll be in 2e as well. The gist of it is that XP from GM intrusions is Action XP which can be spent on rerolls, and immediate, short, and medium-term benefits, and character arc and GM awards are Story XP that can be spent on long-term benefits and character advancement. This makes sense to me, and I'll probably just switch to it when it's convenient to do so. 3. A distinction in block vs. dodge --- dodging will be Speed-based and an all-or-nothing attempt to avoid damage, when you can. Blocking will be a Might-based task to reduce the severity of damage on the damage track, with the strength of the armor easing the task. I think it makes sense, but it does mean a bit of a rejigger for those wearing armor. 4. More kits --- it sounds like there will be more sub-classes, essentially, in the core book, and foci will have more branching options to pick from, so people might want to respec when we see those; that'll be fine. 5. Other small stuff, probably --- they're tweaking out-of-combat durations to be more abstract, and probably other stuff like which won't matter much to character sheets. Anyway, I just wanted to get it out there that I am keeping an eye on that and hoping to fold that stuff in when we have it, because I don't think any of it will be /major/ changes. -- bss (Brian S. Stephan) | https://bss.zone/ | GPG: 0x80895FCB

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OOC: State of the Game Address
by bss 06 Oct '25

06 Oct '25

Greetings! Thought I'd take a moment to post real quick about the state of this game as I see it. Don't worry, there's nothing earthshattering here. State of the Tech --- Pretty good, actually? I dusted off mailing list stuff to start this, and wasn't entirely sure how it'd pan out, but I think this part is going pretty well despite the nature of email providers these days. I think some consistency in how we all author replies would probably help, but maybe that's asking a lot of said providers' default interfaces. I don't know. One thing that surprised me, or maybe not, is that the IRC channel is in use as a way to get at a dice bot more than as a vector to ping people. I think that's fine, I just didn't expect it, thinking people would be just rolling however they found most convenient and reporting on the result would be the norm. But maybe the IRC bot is the most convenient? State of Updates --- I've done PB-Post and PB-IRC before, and this is about what I expected, especially of my updates, where I had an optimistic hope that I'd be quicker on the draw, but suspected that it'd be difficult as life got in the way for the myriad reasons it does. So, I don't think I have anything to really push for differently here, but also, wow, it's been almost four months already. One thing of note is that we haven't seen ckeen since the game started, basically. I am always hopeful for a healthy set of active participants, but if the timing isn't working out, that's fair. My oldest gaming group had the concept of "the barrel", where characters who were out of action (because their players were) were kept, ready to pop out at any moment. I think of Asal that way. State of the Play Itself --- I think I'm struggling a bit to get to the action. I like a bit of mystery and exploration in my fantasy games, and maybe I'm trying to find the right way to balance it out and not hitting it yet. One thing I'm unsure of is how much combat might bog us down, or maybe it gives a clear set of things to transact in doing, so updates flow more readily? I guess we'll find out. Feedback welcome. Speaking of honest feedback, how is Cypher doing for folks? I know we haven't gotten to said action yet, but character build stuff, the checks we have done, is that all okay? I don't think State of the Union addresses normally end on a question to the audience, but I'll leave it as a call for feedback for now. TTFN! -- bss (Brian S. Stephan) | https://bss.zone/ | GPG: 0x80895FCB

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