If you're going to kill Rhun, just get it over with. Rhun is not going to make a deal with a vampire. I really don't like games where the GM gives you a choice of 'go along with evil or die'
Well, technically, the DM can kill the PCs at any time utilizing overpowered creatures' not much fun in that. This IS a CLASSIC Greyhawk game, not all challenges you face will be your CR, there are other ways of dealing with challenges than head on :-)
This is part of the underlying plot, I don't as a rule, force PCs into a situation where they have to join or die but the PCs are the ones that forced this confrontation so let's play it out.
Still sick, still moving, and internet has fallen. So any post will likely be from my phone for a while.
Now to the game. Igdus did keep his beak shut and ran interference to avoid this very thing, so some PCs forced the issue not all thank you very much. This bird don't play with vamps. ;)
Im conflicted on how exactly a level one druid is supposed to react to finding out his boss is a vampire. Because obviously as a druid he shouldn't be down with the undead. But on the other hand he really wants to live...
*level two
Vis-a-Vis a three hundred year old vampire, I feel like the extra spell/day and 7 more hit points aren't going to make that much of a difference.
Here is where it really matters how much we know about vampires... our one slim chance is to somehow expose him to sunlight when he can't get away quickly. But yes, this is a pretty bad situation.
We could play dumb tonight, then either A) figure out a way to light fire to his wagon while he's in it during the day, hopefully exposing him to sunlight unexpectedly while he's resting, or B) slip away and abandon the caraven. He's a vampire. He can guard his own caravan.
Marya has probably been dominated, but I don't know if we'd know he can do that. It seems like the kind of thing that would turn up in stories, so we could probably at least be suspicious about it.
I doubt Marya has been dominated. If she was then she would have done more to shut Rhun down. Also our secret would be exposed or used against us.
That aside we can't beat a vampire, no matter how you slice it at the moment. You will only get yourself and others killed while dooming our mission. Possibly unleashing a undead plague upon the forest if they end up trapped rather then moving through as intended. Which will cause all sorts of problems for the region.
I don't see the issue with doing our job. Letting the cities guards and church know after we arrive. Then go about our business while they do there's. No one is going to blame common caravan guards for not picking a fight with legendary monsters like vampires without so much as a vial of holy water.
Yeah I'm gonna side with Igdus on this one. I can't see us really managing to kill a vampire, especially if his two 'guards' are thralls or spawn, which seems likely.
Plus who knows how the day guards will react. I dunno how much sway we have with them.
Except, like I said in character, this dooms our mission from the start. It will get out that we escorted a vampire out to these parts, and when it does, any good will we will have made will be destroyed.
Personally, I think our best bet is to simply leave the caravan, taking any NPCs that want to go with us. The vampire can't afford to chase us half the night, and once day comes around, we can take our time and move on.
I think warning the locals that a vampire came out on the caravan will do more for our real mission than escorting him there in secret will.
I don't advocate fighting him, but I can't go with a plan of helping him either.
See Fenrarem has no problem helping him if it means he gets to live, especially since he still doesn't know about your mission, as far as I can remember. As far as Fen is concerned were still just a bunch of guards.
That doesn't make sense to me. Your going to blame vampires getting into your city on random caravan guards who are guarding? Your expecting more from hired muscle then actual government law enforcement. Sense the vamps got out of one city already in order to get to a new one. Which they will have to get pass again to enter I will add.
Their is no reasonable way to blame us for the vamps. Anyways who is to say this is the first or only vamp run. They may already have vamps in our destination waiting for their fellows.
A lot of assumptions and what if. Igdus stance is doing his job, not going to involve himself in a deathwish.
Talk about a rock and a hard place.
When we start trying to take over, the vamp is not going to want that.
Vamp lets it slip he came out with the help of the weres.
In other words, we either get outed, or we end up spending the rest of our lives out here under his thumb.
We are not taking over a city. We are building our own. Also it takes more then a rumor to do anything to a settlement of Lycan. At that point it wouldn't matter or could be countered.
This is all assuming they survive us telling the city their staying in about them.
Vis-a-Vis a three hundred year old vampire, I feel like the extra spell/day and 7 more hit points aren't going to make that much of a difference.
hahah
also i agree with Igdus here, get them to the city and then tattle on em. throw in a line about how he looked at you with his glowing red eyes and your brain started to feel funny, maybe he dominated you... roll bluff and then roll out of there. all the better if you do it all while disguised.
We can't take him on in a fight, that much is clear. We need to continue with the mission and be prepared in case the situation becomes hostile between all of us.
Still sick, will update tomorrow, sorry for the delay.
Burn him like a witch!
Hi all,
Feeling better, which is good, because I leave on vacation today. Getting sick the week before vacation sucks.
I'll be driving all day today, but will begin vacation posting Thursday. Going to be a bit of a boring vacation (visiting in-laws in the boondocks, so not much to do). Should be able to post frequently.
MDT
Still sick, will update tomorrow, sorry for the delay.
Well... that did not go according to plan.
Every time I think I am about to break through some s~%* goes down. Anyhow, for sure an update now.
I find it ironic that Rhun is more aligned with the newcomers than her erstwhile 'allies'. :)
I'm just... at a loss as to what to do at present.
It can be pretty tricky to figure out what to do, that's for sure.
Indeed, if it's easy, what's the fun of doing it!?
There's a difference between "difficult" and "can we even do anything here?"
Perhaps I'm just being impatient, but it's getting wearying to feel like the best course of action is to wait and see.
Honestly, it's feeling like the best course of action is to wait for daybreak, and head everyone out on the horses without the wagons at maximum gallop. But then, Rhun's less concerned with the wagon train getting there than with the people getting there.
I'm semi back, internet is up by moving is still going on.
Also I had a post but took to long in writing it. So now it's worthless and you crazy people are in the forest poking around in the dark. xP
I'll have something tomorrow hopefully.
That's the second post that was ruined. Bloody maintenance. I think I'm going to have the DM bot me until this little part is over. I may break something if I fail on a third attempt. -.-
Write it up on wordpad or google docs first. That's what I do for longish posts.
I lost a post myself earlier this evening. I seem to recall Paizo saying the work was gonna be done way earlier than the time it actually got done.
Considering the massive changes the site underwent, I can't exactly blame them for the time table being wrong. Even if it was a huge difference in hours.
Im not complaining, it was just a little annoying because I thought the maintenance was over. Still undecided on whether I like the new layout though.
Yeah I heard through another game I'm in. I initally thought he was talking about a client because he works in the realm of lawyering( I believe).
Then it clicked, it's a shame to hear.
Yea, same Gris, but that's apparently not the case.
I mean, now is a good time to just roleplay in the mean time. A dramatic scene did play out.
It’s pretty late at night as I am writing this. I’ve been through a significant amount of struggles through the past two years (actually through the past 41 but especially the past 2). I’ve had worse stretches of time before but I believe that these past struggles were due to my own lack of maturity and self-awareness at the time those events took place.
Likely those events were necessary for me to experience to survive the events of the past two years and get through them as well as I have. Physical ailments, getting older and requiring more sleep, bankruptcy, and ultimately divorce. You know life is not going swimmingly when going to work feels like a vacation.
Regardless, when I first started getting involved in PbP on the boards it was a chance to play, finally! I’d been DMing for the bulk of the time that I’ve played table top that I was enjoying being able to be a player for once. Then with so many damn flaky GM’s I just started running games and well, things snow balled from there.
Life was fairly stable at the time the normal ups and downs. Then about two years ago, I started getting into PbP as a way to escape reality. Sort of the same ways drugs were casual and enjoyable for me as a teen and ultimately led me as close to suicide as I ever want to get again.
I am not saying that PbP has made me suicidal but I am saying that I recognize that I was using PbP as a coping mechanism to avoid a bad marriage. PbP did NOT lead to the failure of my marriage but it did contribute to my ability to tune it out.
I make a decent living but between bankruptcy and divorce I’ve little to show for it (well except for this killer book and RPG collection ). I could point the finger at my soon to be ex-wife but when you point one finger at a person, three more point back at you. I could have prevented things from becoming this bad and I chose not to. I did it, ironically, because I believed that if I had the marriage would have ended and ended badly, so much for best intentions. I am not going to second guess myself, what happened happened. As divorces go, this one has been rather amicable as we have put our daughter first and ourselves second.
Being married to someone who makes as much if not more money then you (depending on sales that year) places one in a position to “take it easy” when it comes to being aggressive about making money (well it placed me in such a position anyhow perhaps because making money does not move me).
Early on in my career I had an opportunity to become a premiere M&A Financial Services Tax Attorney in a Big 4 Firm. It’s a big deal and potentially a lot of money but I did not really want it because I knew I would be working a lot and traveling a lot. My ex agreed that I should turn it down as she did not want to be married to a workaholic and that was not who I wanted to be anyway. Nor do I want to be that person now. (In yet another twist of irony, she has become a workaholic, funny how things turn out).
I do not regret the decision though I do lament the loss of income that such a decision would have brought to me.
All of this rambling nonsense is leading to the point of this post, I need to work more. Not at my current job nor do I want to get a new job, I actually like being there as odd as that sounds (to me). I need to get a second and perhaps a third job, side gigs. At 41 about to turn 42 with no retirement and no savings for my daughters college, I can no longer hope that the ex’s business will come through as an investment plan. Even if it does, I will not be the beneficiary of that largesse. I need to make up for 11 years of being “comfortable” simply working.
Thus, it is with heavy heart that I am announcing that I will need to close down a number of the threads I run and withdraw from a number of the games I am a PC in.
I suppose this decision will not be a surprise to many of you as my posting rates have been abysmal since these events took a turn for the worse (in some respects the better to be honest) since Thanksgiving of 2017.
I am not generally a person that feels remorse or guilt but I do feel a level of disappointment with having to make this decision. I apologize for disappointing many of you who put work into PCs relying on my consistency as a GM/DM over the course of the past several years.
My plan had always been to run a hardcore dose of RPG’s until my daughter was a teenager and then, spend my free time writing the novel I had been working on since before she was born. I had hoped that over the next 9 years or so I could wrap up most of these campaigns and the few that remained would be more manageable.
Life has not worked out that way.
The good news is that I will still run several games but the current load is too much for me to handle in this transition. The further good news is that I believe this will allow for those games to move along much more quickly.
By tomorrow I will have made my decision as to which games I will keep and which I will shut down.
Thank you all for taking the journeys with me despite the lack of length or resolution of so many of them.
I will still be around just in a diminished capacity so this is not goodbye just a “be seeing less of you”.
Hey, life comes first, gaming comes like, eighth or tenth or something.
Take the time you need, and no need to feel guilty one way or the other. If you need the time, halt all your games until you can play because you want to play, and not to assuage guilt or help you escape something you need to take care of.
We'll all likely be here when things are better and you're in the right headspace to continue.
Like Mdt said you gotta do what's best for you and your daughter before you worry about us.
Take the time you need, cut the games you need. I haven't had a lot of time for games myself, i just barely scrape by on here. Hit me up on linkedin if you want, maybe i know someone (although probably not, but never hurts) who has an opening.
Take the time you need, cut the games you need. I haven't had a lot of time for games myself, i just barely scrape by on here. Hit me up on linkedin if you want, maybe i know someone (although probably not, but never hurts) who has an opening.
Thanks for the offer Tenro!
I'm just looking at side gigs (probably start in earnest within a month or so doing my research). My primary job I enjoy going to so not ready to give that up just yet.
I have decided to keep this particular game IN the rotation. Look for updates Wednesday night.
@Igdus
I told you no good would come from city folk and their flying machines!
Soooooo... no post's here for twenty days... is this a dead RP?
I assume so. The GM is having issues, and I don't wish to add to them by pestering them about the game. I think it's best for the GM to simply write this one off. Real Life comes first.
Good things come to those who wait, let storyteller get better.
You should check his update thread. Let's you know when he will start up again or not.
Seriously dude how do you not know about his status thread. I'm pretty sure we've told you about it at least once before in this very thread?
Well, to be fair. There is normally some OOC discussion.
But apart from that, I'm not sure its good for Shadow to try and handle so many games when he's ill/busy irl.
Well everyone is on standby, I'm willing to wait out the storm with the hopes that things adjust well for him.
I am planning to get things going again this weekend but I've been planning that for a few weeks...
For sure by next weekend things will be better this weekend is 50/50.