Hello people! Figured might as well get this thread here to make it easier to communicate with people. Better than just the comment section. So here you can ask all your questions in relation to this little story right here: https://chyoa.com/chapter/Introduction.275273 As I said in the story in of itself, there is several race polls going on right now so get to it while you can! Let your voice be heard! Beyond that, come in and sit down, grab an Aravi or Android or Bulor hooker, and have a grand ol' time! All manner of discussions and questions in regards to the game are allowed. For those that don't know, I have made the above linked story as a promotion for a tabletop game a friend of mine is making. It's called Horizon. And yes, it's very lewd. It takes elements from various sci-fi universes (such as Star Wars, Mass Effect, Warhammer 40k, etc) and mixes them into a bowl of lewd fun. The story itself has an introduction that is all out-of-game information and links to the documents needed to play the game, know of the lore, and polls for future races to be added to the game. The story itself can be of anything you want it to be in regards to the game. You don't necessarily need to have a character that abides by the class system...so you could be like, a pop idol or a business owner if you wanted. Or you can combine classes together, it's not strict with the story itself. You are free to add onto stories made by others as well as do your own stories. It can be gratuitous sex with very little plot, or you could completely forgo the sex and just focus on blowing shit up or solving mysteries. It's up to you.
Just updated the Introduction chapter. I've been working on organizing and editing the main document for easier read. I linked to my revised document (at my friend's approval) and took away the Assault archetype from the story as it was added to the document. Sadly, the veteran classes for the Assault archetype is still in theory crafting stage. Tomorrow I'll be working on the Fringe expansion, no idea when that'll be complete and I don't know if I'll post any additions to the story itself tonight or while working on the Fringe. I also linked to this thread in the introduction so people who read it can come to here. As well as also linked a discussion thread my friend himself runs if you want to ask him stuff directly. I've been hearing that he's been in a progressively better mood. He even started to theory craft a fantasy game based off of the mechanics he made for this game. Not sure what's up with him, but I guess we'll see in the future. If another game comes out of it...get ready to have another promotional for a fantasy game. And have that game share space with the sci-fi one in this thread here.
So, I've made a few sample characters and am going to be posting my first additions in the next few days. I quite like the system and mechanics generally speaking, although I am concerned that a hex-based system might make combat difficult to resolve in a CYOA format. Of course we could very well just forget about the game mechanics and focus on the sex - I definitely don't intend my stories to be too short on sex regardless - but that would seem to defeat any 'playtesting' purpose. My initial instinct is to just handle distance, facing and other spatial considerations narratively, and by making characters with long-range weapons, high-speed movement, or both. And I *do* think it needs some playtesting. This brings me to my second concern: there currently is a bit of a lack of content for actually running the game. I mean, vehicle and starship stats can probably be done without for the time being, but some basic enemy (and ally) NPCs are a necessity. Some barebones obstacles and objects would be nice. As an experiment I tried to see what a base-line non-sentient combat android (I.E. a threat but not overpowering to new characters) would look like. It's designed to pin down opponents with brute force and has little in the way of subtlety, I imagine it being some kind of mass-produced generic military unit. It's basically built as a character with 25 stat points instead of 50, base class skills only, and mediocre equipment sans upgrades. Basic Combat Android Weapon:R78 Tornado The Tornado is widely used by shock troops to suppress parasitic alien infestations on colony worlds. Packs a lethal punch while allowing for manueverability in combat. Credits: 900 Damage: 2d8 Magazine Size: 5 [10] Shots Magazine Cost: 100 Weight: 30 lbs Crit Range: 18-20 Upgrade: extended mags Hammer ("Combat baton") (One Handed) A hammer was initially used as a tool by most races, but was eventually turned for war purposes. Effective at repairs and cracking skulls. Melee-Hammer Credits: 100 Damage: 1d12 Weight: 18 lbs Crit Range: 19-20 [Note: "Heavy support" model replaces Tornado and combat baton with: Heavy Machine Gun The Heavy Machine Gun is what amounts to as a large assault rifle, firing extremely hard hitting rounds at high speeds. This 40 Calibur gun can easily cut an enemy assault in half if used right. Credits: 4000 Damage: 4d8 Critical Range: 18-20 Weight: 90 lbs Magazine Size: 8 Shots before reloading Magazine Cost: 100 Credits] Armor:Excaliber Assault Armor Standardly used by human forces going into hostile zones, the Excalibur Assault Armor is woven with carbon fibers and has refined steel plates. This prevents small arms fire, as well as giving moderate protection against larger threats. Defense: +3 Suit HP: 20 Credits: 800 Suit Weight: 30 lbs Upgrades: Combat Droid (factored in) The android was created specifically for combat situations. Gains the cannot be rattled benefit, as well as gaining a +2 to defenses, and use of all weaponry. However, they suffer a -5 to persona checks, often having trouble seeing beyond the battlefield. Infrared optics Ballistic arm: R78 Tornado Character Skills: -Heavy Armor Training- Heavy Gunners can use Heavy Armor and below. -Heavy Gunners can use any weapons. -Damage Resistance-Heavy Gunners gain d6 Physical Damage resistance. If they have d6 physical damage resistance, increase it to d8 damage resistance instead. -Wind up-If not fired on at least once every round, increase Damage done by 2d8. Persists until fired upon. -Bug Smashing-Heavy Gunners gain 2d6 damage against any target that provokes an opprotunity attack from you. -Immovable Object-Heavy Gunners do not get knocked back by grenades, and cannot be thrown unless by a Class 3 or above Psionic. Character Statistic All new characters Start with 50 points they can Allocate into the following Stats HP: 15 [+20 armor] Accuracy: 2 [4 with weapons] Defense: 8 [10] Psionic: 0 Mental Resistance: 9 Technology: 4 Persona: 1 [-5] Luck: 1 IQ: 100 Physical Force: 22 (+2 to melee damage) Health Regeneration: None. It's a pretty chunky statblock for something so simple. Might I suggest creating some sort of simplified "minion" stats that can be reskinned and slightly tweaked to represent a variety of things?
I have linked your comments to the creator of the game. There have been some cases of minions but the mechanics of them I have no idea what they are. And at some point there was stats for different ships type, but that was scrapped early on. He has a rough time getting people to play long enough to properly test things. But as far as CHYOA promo is concerned, just do whatever ya want so long as it relates to the game itself. It doesn't have to follow the mechanics 100%. But I do like this android you came up with. It's almost point for point my own Heavy Gunner Android that I had made by Greys but made in the shape of Taurons (space minotaurs)
I talked with the creator and atm he is compiling a document for faction-based ships, mechs, vehicles, and drones. He had been juggling aroudn the idea of making factions in the Fringe and considers this a moment to flesh out the concept. Will keep updates as I get them.
Well, I'll go ahead and jump into this this evening. After toying with a fair few concepts I'm impressed with the system even if it has kinks that need to be hammered out. Here's the starting character I came up with: Let me know what you think, and I'll see about beginning her adventure with an opening post.
A very interesting concept, reaver with a flamethrower. Typically when I make psionic characters I jsut have the mdo only psionics. I haven't made a psionic slayer or psionic soldier so eh. Can't wait to see what this bad girl can do.
I have just finished reformatting the Fringe expansion for the game to make it easier to read. However the Fringe Expansion is still under development with new races and info added every so often. So please be patient as some races have less information than others
WOOT! There are now new polls! Get in on some voting action! It's the semi-finals now on who will be the next playable race of Horizon!
And the main page has been updated with a new poll, the finals. Be sure to check that out if ya want to vote. The creator of the game has also been on a bit of lore crafting spree. Currently these things have been in the work: Warp Compendium: I have seen this document and edited it. I'm just not sure of all information will be in there. I may or may not post it still, as even the Fringe Expansion is still under construction. Basically it's gonna be about all things pertaining to the Warp. This involves different Warp Daemons, all information relevant to them, tips for aspiring DMs/story makers to get an idea of what they're about and how to play them, as well as some special Warp-related veteran classes for psionic characters. Faction Index: That is right, the Fringe races will be put into factions. Now I have not seen this document yet as it is very early on in the works I assume. I only know some details about what it comprises of. Essential, all Fringe races will be put into factions similar to the Alliance races in the main document. This will get into the nitty-gritty of Fringe politics which is a step-up from the vague "Relations with Other Races" descriptions that are surface level generalizations at best. Two examples of this would be the Junkers' Union (Zasarians, Orocu, and Canids) and Free Trade Federation (Aravi, Centauri, and Sphinxes). Along with the Factions and the races that fall under said factions, we might be getting lore tidbits of how these faction developed AND the tech that they share. This goes from the different types of drones that they use with specific focuses and appearances, to ships ranging from scouts and fighters to cruisers and capital ships. We may or may not get specific stats on these things, and we may or may not get even more tidbits about the different roles each races play within their faction or even what tactics are typically employed by the factions. It's certainly gonna be dense with lore that will fundamentally change the game and how the races interact with one another. But I assume a great many people will love this to come out to help them with story ideas or how to form teams in hopeful games as it further expands the lore of the universe being made and what scenarios can arise to play. I also hear that he is thinking about making pre-made characters that people can snap up and use/modify. If it is just pre-made characters, they'll probably just be added to the main document or the Fringe Expansion. However, if this grows to template drones and ships, or even Warp-forbid pre-made scenarios, planets, and campaigns, then maybe all these pre-made items will have their own document to peruse. I also been told that a surprise loser race will also be put into the game. Now I haven't seen much of any of the creator's other methods of giving out information as I mostly get my information directly from the source. So I will keep that a mystery for now to keep up the surprise. If he has said it on other media then plz do not spoil the fun here, though everyone is free to go to the story itself and find the links to relevant sites that he posts information to. Obviously a lot of stuff is in the work. Lore fluff for Fringe Expansion is still in the works, lore fluff for Goo are still in the works, a surprise race is still in the works, Warp Compendium is still in the works, Faction Index is still in the works, and of course the polls are still ongoing. Way more than usual is being done and it is good. Hopefully I'm not the only one excited to get further details on future development.
This is all excellent news! In particular I think the move towards "factions" is a great idea since at the moment there are so many separate races that it becomes hard to conceptualize any kind of relations among them. I'm also glad to hear that it looks like we'll be getting at least some small ships to play with, if only so prospective writers can describe their characters moving between worlds without having to skip over all description of vehicles they are using. Pre-made characters are good too, at the moment, the only way that I've been able to handle combat without excessive work has been by having lots of chump NPCs with no skills except proficiency with a weapon and low stats who are designed to get mowed down.
Well the creator is very much an advocate of the 3 different levels of enemies. Mooks, elites, and bosses. Mooks being people that are just in the way and made to get ground to dust, elites being player-level enemies that are tougher to take down, and bosses to be the absolute badasses that need everything you got and earned to take down. And after years of playing with him in both D&D and Horizon, he pretty much follows this formula to the T with some stuff here and there to make it exciting. So making mooks that are designed to be easy to kill but can be a problem in large numbers is generally a good way of going about things, with maybe an elite or two here and there. And I have been given a beginning rough draft for the Faction Index and it is pretty solid so far. It goes into more detail about the Horizon Alliance, the Free Trade Federation, the Junkers' Union, the Guardias Empire, and the Bulor Empire have been made. It talks about the races that make up the factions, the history of the factions, how their economy works, their military structure, where their main base of operations are located, how the races do their part for the faction, favored military tactics, interactions with other factions, and how their diplomacy work. Nice good solid chunks of information there. I could of sworn he had said something about going into detail about tech and how ships/drones looked and worked in the Faction Index, but we will have to see. Here and there you'll see generalizations of what sort of focuses they have in regards to tech and ships, but not anything too specific. I did say we may or may not get specific stats or clear-cut descriptions, but it'll give a good enough idea I suppose. EDIT: But, I do know that a long time ago he did do some works on ships and vehicles. To the point that in one of my first games in a solo-campaign, my character did in fact have their own ship. It had a class, Hull HP, shielding, speed, and weapons. So it is very much possible that we might see improvements upon this in the near future. I was saddened seeing that he had scrapped this later on with the lack of ship stats in base game. EDIT 2: He has also talked about saving up money and hoping the Patreon gets him enough to money to commission artists. He hopes to be able to get maps made, some races have portraits, and possibly even draw some vehicles, drones, and ships to have better visualization. He has also stated interests in talking with programmers to do promotional short games to play using the Horizon setting (though I honestly have no idea if he's just joking about this ;P)
I regret to inform everyone who may read this that I will no longer be able to update the Stories of Horizon story. I will be attending a community college to further my education and will be living on campus. Sadly the campus's wifi blocks all websites that have pornography in its tags, and this includes chyoa.com. I will be attending this college for two years and hopefully with this I may be able to have an easier time attaining and keeping a well-paying career and live on my own, thus allowing me to return. I may also have a few weeks off during summer and some holidays. But beyond that, me being on this website will be random at best. I am only able to say this now because I had to take care of some pets of a friend of mine while they go to the next state over for a funeral. I'll be back at my college dorm later this weekend. It was fun trying to spread the word of this game to all of you, and it was interesting to see the story that came out of it from fyreant. I regret never having the drive to continue working on either of my two stories. But anyone is welcome to take them up and continue them as they see fit. Goodbye everyone, hope to see you all again soon enough.
Ahhhh, that's a real bummer Jizzrar. Sorry I hadn't updated my own thread in SoH anytime recently. I definitely intend to keep contributing to it periodically for anyone who may still be interested! And here's hoping that institution pulls their heads out of the 19th century and lightens up on that policy. And if they don't (and you ever happen to see this reply of mine), consider trying a proxy to get around that nonsense!
Aaaaannnnnnd for some reason I am able to get onto CHYOA. Really, really weird. Maybe they changed the policy? Well, at any rate, hopefully I'll be able to get back to updating things and keeping an eye on the stories and what not. Good to be back!
Some news! So got contacted by the creator (love saying that, we talk to each other every day he just mentioned some stuff to me last night is all) and updates for the game have been on hold for a bit, but work has continued. 1) Faction Index and Warp Compendium is going along smoothly. Not sure when exactly they will be completed but I am waiting with abaited breath. 2) We will be getting upgrades for the classes! Traits might be a new mechanic that will be introduced into the game (unless I confused this with something else). At any rate, we'll be able to further customize the classes as we deem fit. For example, a Chimera character can have different types of Gauntlets for different playstyles. You could stick with the vanilla plasma gauntlets with the possible shock upgrade...or you can be tanky by getting a shield gauntlet, or blast people away with force cannon gauntlets, or spew acid at foes. I'm curious to see where this goes once fully realized. That is mostly it for now, gonna do some prodding here and there to see if he can hurry along iwth the new documents so we can get them out there and people can have an easier time conceptualizing the universe of this game. Thanks to stress of a new school, I will also be putting my hat back into posting for this story as well as maintain my own story that just came out. Happy reading everyone!
Could we have an explanation of how missions/rewards work? Sorry to be blunt, but that seems really crucial to the game, and yet it's never really set out...
Missions and rewards are rather up to the DM's discretion. Really a "mission" is just a scenario within the campaign, like main objectives and can be loose. Maybe you're trying to find something, or kill someone, or find something out, or even just do a smuggling run. These can take a few hours to...maybe even years in-game. Trying to escape a planet you are stranded on with no help can be a mission, or it could be the whole campaign and hunting an alien boar could be a mission. Rewards have some structure. Asides from typical skills and stat boosts after a success, your rewards will be based off of the mission type and your character. For example, a simple smuggling mission could give you around 2k-4k credits depending on the merchandise or difficulty of the run. However, you could also sneak some of the product for yourself and gain a bonus for it. You could also assist in a ground assault. This will have 8k+ credits with the chance for you to salvage the battlefield. You can get some scrap that could be used to craft things later or to sell. You could also get the chance of salvaging rare equipment that you would otherwise not get. On the off chance it's a scientific mission and you got a good researcher, engineer, or doctor, you can wind up finding out new thigns to design new tech that is up to the DM's creativity and sense of fairness.
Thanks. It's just that a lot of things reference mission rewards (racial abilities, trading in xp for various things, prestige classes), and yet I couldn't find anything solid. Mind getting some reward guidelines put into the nest edition, if possible? It'll just make things easier for everyone.
Most of the reward mechanics are here and there. Before the classes it is stated that after every 10 missions you can multi-class in 3 different ways. Veteran Classes where you can go below and take a class that you match prerequisites for, Master Classing where you take the other 2 classes of your arch-type (a Bounty Hunter can mast class Hunter arch-type so you get scout and mind render), or Multi-Class with another class. Humans also have a thing with skills. There is no XP. If you succeed in a mission, get your rewards, your bonuses (if any), your 3d4 stats, and your new skill. If you fail...then you get nothing outside of what you manage to get during the mission (if anything). But, I'll pass the message along.
