Black Zenith [Adventure RPG / Chapter Four: Fires of Heaven]

Also Masterblade and Psych are stuck are stuck forever in no-update land and i swear one of these days i'll get off my butt and fix that maybe perhaps.

I can't speak much for Psych, but I know Thunderpaw could theoretically have rejoined the group anywhere within this current scene with minor tweaking of the timeline. Its also worth noting that the segment in (secret) town was a welcome break from combat dungeon, combat escape from dungeon, combat aproach to next dungeon, combat dungeon 2, combat escape from dungeon, combat town, etc.

Actually, if I may interject, I think a big problem this game has is that there's a bit too much fighting going on and little to no non-fighting. Perhaps a little less of that and a little more story. Like, instead of stringing fights with large, compact plot bombs, extend the non-fighting and roleplaying out so things seem less repetitive.

I'm more than happy to continue either way, though my opinion holds little bearing while on the off bench. I think this setting still has plenty of potential. Just needs a little less "destroy everything" flow to it. The game's name IS Adventure RPG; perhaps we just need a tinge more adventure.

And some dusting off on those social stats! They've been used so little that they've practically atrophied!

I completely agree, but part of the problem as i see it is that the few times i have tried to let y'all run about in the world, talk with various npcs or have generally allowed for non-combat interaction of any kind, most of the time the result has been everyone standing around waiting for either you or Blazer to make all the decisions. Hell sometimes you two have been waiting for each other. I originally planned for there to be more non-combat stuff, but after seeing the usual results i just sort of fell back on combat in desperation i think? A good example might be the trap room in the ruins. It took forever to just get across that water hole and i was sick and tired of waiting for someone to actually do something by the end of it. Of course all this is a result of me being a poor writer, gimmicks-wise. Thats fine, as BZ has been an excellent writing experiment and i think i have some clue how to avoid some of bad things i did with it in my next game.

Also, with regards to the combat... It is so gogdamn slow and numbers-heavy and ugh even the simplest of fights take months and months and is mostly about dealing damage to the right targets and i feel i should be able to do better than that.

Also hahah yes the social stats. Im not sure i should have added them in the first place. I had a pretty sweet idea of how they were going to work but then i just kind of ended up ignoring them completely, which is fine as i think i would rather see well-written character dialogue than 'i attempt to use my charm to persuade character X to do Y'. Still, i've liked it when y'all have actually brought those stats up in the past in situations where i once again forgot they existed.