GM Shathira's Skull and Shackles

Game Master Kelarith

I've got no issues with ship-board romances... but why is the rum gone?

;P

Signal fire. :)

Well, as long as we know where we're headed, I reckon we'll be just fine. =)

Incidentally, I think it's safe to say that Davina, Arenya, Jack, Ri'el and Sandara have joined Eli and Grok at this point, whilst Garaveen and Astein are playing with cards (each in their own way). Are you two gonna join us, or should we move on?

We'll join up for our nightly debrief, but I think that's it.

So far, I've got 12 whole silvers to spend. ;)

I think we're headed to Grok's less to shop and more to find out what she can tell us about Plugg and Scourge, and maybe some of the ship's history. Which will hopefully help us plan our next move. =)

Astein, you did get one of the crew there for a reading. Are you going to ditch them?

No, the harrowing is quite important to Astein. Will put one together for him.

As you can see, there's quite a bit of time spent on the ship between the day and night activities, which in a ftf game would go by fairly quickly. What I'll do is compress the time in days where there was nothing happening, and just boil that down to the rolls for rum ration, and jobs, as well as any kind of searching or influencing you want to do. Unless you'd rather rp out those days too. I've definitely got enough RP tricks up my sleeve to do it.

I've noticed that during times when it's just the daily chores that posting seems to be a bit wan, but it's entirely up to the group.

I like the idea of RP, personally, though Garavaen tends to be away from the "hit shots" mostly... (Lacking diplomacy to make friends isn't helpful..)

This is the theme song for Eli in Ri'el's head. XD

My posts will vary in terms of depth depending on whether I am posting from home or work, and how busy I am at work. But I don't mind either way whether we fast-forward the less eventful days or play them out.

There are some definite similarities. ;)

So long as we manage to get the needed interactions in, I'm fine with condensing things, the first part of the book is very repetitive and can be quite boring. that being said, if we have reason to slow down, then by all means feel free to.

Shathira, in the interests of fast-forwarding, would it be helpful if we gave you an idea of our individual strategies and timelines? That way you can fast-forward and figure out likely results.

What I propose is more of a brief recap of what happens on those days where there's nothing going on (and there's a stretch of 7 days like that coming up) where I'll post like the day 3 post, but I'll do it for day x,y,z, and list the day jobs each day. Then if you want to give me the things you want to do for that day and that night, I can post results for the days all at once.

So, recapping what you've done so far:

Searched the Bilges, searched the main deck, searched the officer's quarters and quartermaster's quarters.

Rosie Cuswell is helpful
Sandara Quinn is helpful
Barefoot Samms Toppin is helpful

Aretta Bansion friendly

Conchobhar Shortstone indifferent
Giffer Tibbs indifferent
Jack Scrimshaw indifferent
Ratline Rattsberger indifferent
Tilly Brackett indifferent
Slippery Syl Lonegan indifferent

"Badger" Medlar unfriendly
"Cog" Coglin unfriendly

Shivikah hostile
Fipps Chumlett hostile
Jaundice Jape hostile
Maheem hostile
Tam "Narwhal" Nate hostile

Officers:

Grok is Helpful and will allow PCs to come to the Quartermaster's Store to buy gear (Your gear *is* there. Arenya, you may be able to convince her to give it back, but you'll need to do something to convince her)

Ambrose is Helpful
Plug is hostile
Scourge is hostile
All other officers are indifferent

Ship Actions: the PCs’ activities aboard ship—carrying out their
assigned tasks; exploring the ship; robbing, bullying,
or befriending shipmates; working; or playing—are
performed as part of ship actions. These actions reflect
the time required to set up or complete an activity, such
as gathering enough crew to play a game, scouting out a
room to make sure it’s empty, and so on. Remember that
even the cook’s mate has a job to do during the day, and
ship actions are meant to ref lect the available time a PC
can carve out from his or her work time without going
into too much detail.

Each PC can normally take two ship actions each
day, one during the day and one at night. A PC can also
attempt to take up to two additional ship actions during
the middle watch in the dead of night, but to do so the PC must
make a successful Constitution check (DC 10, +4 per extra
ship action taken) or be fatigued for the next day.

During the day, you can
1) Work Diligently gives you a +4 to any one check for a daily job, but means you cannot take any other action that day.
2) Influence another NPC by befriending, bluffing them or intimidating them to being on your side.
3) Do a quick search of an area with no need for a stealth roll
4) Shop: Take a -2 penalty to the day's jobs and visit the quartermaster (keep in mind that Grok allows you to visit at night)
5) Shirk: Take -2 penalty to all ship's jobs daily tasks, and take time exploring one area of the ship. PC can take 10 on a single Perception or other skill check, but must make a check to be undetected.

During the Night:

1)Sleep: Go to bed early, recover from fatigue
2)Gamble: Play or Gamble on a game of chance or pirate game
3)Entertain: Make a perform check to entertain the crew
4)Influence: Same as above (This can also be one of the extra middle of the night activities)
5)Sneak: Take time exploring one area of the ship. The PC can take 20 on a single Perception check, but must make a check to remain undetected (Also can be a middle of the night activity)
6)Steal: Attempt to open a locked door or locker. The PC must remain undetected to do so. (Also can be a middle of the night activity.)

Jack, I tried to send you a PM, but your account isn't set up to receive them. Are you still with us? Your last post was Monday, and I don't want to advance too far along without hearing from you. Please let us know so that we may continue.

I may have missed it, but what currency do we have to "shop" at the quartermaster or gamble with?

Astein doesn't have the face skills to do a lot of influencing, isn't a very good cook, and lacks skills to sneak or steal. Perhaps not optimal for this part of the adventure, but I feel like performing Harrowings and using his cooking efforts to stay in the cook's good graces are the only things he can do very well. Otherwise it is just diplomacy hoping for a high roll, as risking stealing or sneaking seems too risky.

I think Samms' attitude to us was entirely from your harrowing for her, and who knows, Astein might have found himself a new BFF. =)

GM appears to be allowing us to use other skills and not just diplomacy to win our ways into the hearts of the other crew members, so keep using those harrowings! =)

Sorry for the last minute springing of this, but what I thought was a weekend away next weekend is actually starting in few hours ... Feel free to keep things moving... Garavaen will be friendly with our group, share the results of his daytime explorations, do the job plus explore during the day...

... And likely go back to gambling to try to get enough coins to actually do some shipping. (Though finding something with testing might also work).

And as for me, I'll be back on Monday.

Astein, I've been allowing your Harrowing readings to assist and/or boost a person's attitude. I'm using both RP and rolls to influence people. So in Samms' case I allowed it to boost her attitude. Likewise, during the first gambling night, I gave Garavaen info on some of his gambling partners, which normally would have been an action in itself.

If you ever have a question as to whether you can do something, ask. I won't ever say no, I'll just make it a really difficult thing to do if it's outrageous. I think the worst thing you can ever say to a player is "no you can't do that." At that point, I'm no longer GMing, I'm playing your character. Most times, I'm going to say "You can try." So if you say, "I'm going to jump out of the crow's nest and fly away." I won't tell you you can't, but it would take a miraculous roll (at this level, anyway ;) ) to actually succeed. ;) And no, bouncing doesn't count as flying. (Eddings fans should get the reference)

So, Astein, you don't have any money to spend, so come up with another means to convince Grok to part with equipment....*your* equipment. If it's creative, and not too outlandish, it might just succeed. :D

Sorry, got called away to court unexpectedly. Generally I am available to post frequently during the week and sparsely on weekends/Holidays.

Yeah, love that scene in the books.

Hope you don't mind me pushing back into the past for the Harrowing.

Not at all Astein, I was kind of figuring and hoping you would. ;)

Occurs to me that doing a reading for Grok might be a good way to get some of your gear back? =)

He can offer, but she would need to want one. Also, if I have my deck, parrot, and spell component pouch, not really worried about gear.

Guys, I think you are doing a great job at winning the crew over through our face-folks, acts of kindness, harrowings, etc. It is all going well. And I'm especially glad you are carrying the weight on those efforts... because my skillset sucks for making friends. :)

I think we should "keep on keepin' on" with those efforts, targeting the Indifferent crew and turning them Friendly. I'm keeping a geeky list of the relationship status of all of the crew to us. If it would be helpful, I can post who is left in the different categories below Friendly so we can specifically go after them.

OK, so that's the positive efforts. However, I think there is an opportunity for us to break some bonds in Plugg/Scourge's little crew. Grok more or less stated that Scourge is paranoid about our group. There might be a way we can use that to make Scourge suspicious of some of his cronies. If we can get him to distrust a friend or two, we'll drive in a wedge and possibly bring more people to our side. I have an idea on how Eli might accomplish the task. There are some risks to it but the results could be worthwhile. So, if you see Eli acting a bit strange or saying odd things, it is part of my shot at Psy Ops.

Oooh...this should be interesting. =)

Also, you seem to have had plenty of success with Grok. =)

I know the combat took center stage, but hoping for some reaction to last night's Harrowing and the healing of Jack.

A retro post to answer the Harrow reading
Tilly just stares down at the cards for a while, silently contemplating what Astein has said. "The Wormwood is all that?" She shakes her head a bit bewildered, "I-I have to go. Thank you. She hurries off her head bowed towards belowdecks.

Tilly Brackett is now friendly

It was there, just short, Astein. You overwhelmed poor Tilly, but it made an impression.

Give Jack a chance ;) You guys were shuffled off pretty quickly.

Thanks!

Got a question for you Shathira. On my Heavenly Fire ability, it says you can target a foe with it and deal damage if they are evil or heal them if they are good. My question is this, can I use it to heal a friendly if they are good. The ability seems a little wonky with the target foe restriction.

You're in luck! I've had a sorc with that ability in my campaign for a long time now, so had to deal with this exact issue. The way I've always run it is, yes, you can heal a friendly if they are good aligned.

The way we worked it with Trianna (the sorceress) is that she would use the ability on ANY target, with the alignment determining what would happen. So she used it to heal many of the group, but also used it at times to check alignment on things. Good they'd heal, neutral no effect, and evil it would damage.

Quick note regarding arrows and bolts. I really hate micromanaging ammunition (another reason I don't particularly like the gunslinger), so I generally figure you can recover about 1/2 of what you fire as usable ammunition. Once you have some downtime, or a spot to buy more, I figure you are full up. If you're managing your money, just spend money once in a while on it, and we're all good.

The only time I'd be a stickler would be if you're in a prolonged fight, or in a situation where you can't craft anything new or buy anything new.

It's possible we're not being sufficiently careful around Plugg (this includes myself). We should remember that he has it out for us and that with Harrigan essentially leaving him to run the ship, he essentially calls the shots. Cheating at the fist-fight aside, he could wave it all aside with the lamest excuse and still get away with it, whilst getting us all a whipping in the process...

On another note, rather disappointed that my bid to awaken some self-respect in Owlbear failed, but it looks like we might get him on-side after all.

Figured I was getting whipped for ruining his fun anyway... It's a little to lose situation, especially if I can call him out on it.. Won't get his cronies, but may influence the others.

Kind of figured Garavaen had the gist of it. Also, all of you playing to Owlbear did help in influencing him, but you'll have to see him out of the sweatbox first! :)

Well, here's hoping the goodberries pull us through. XD

I thought that our GM was dropping us hints that Owlbear was a potential ally if we appealed to his self-respect. And that might still be the case, but I picked the wrong time to try it. XD

I'm thinking kindness will do the trick with him. Self-respect might be a bit too upper-lobe for poor Owlbear.

Haha. Yeah. I had on a previous occasion (in PFS) talked an Ulfen warrior into standing down, and I guess I was drawing on that. XD

Hope that all of us in the US had a good Thanksgiving! I was visiting family, and despite my best intentions to keep posting, it fell by the wayside a bit. Ready to jump back at it again though, so I'll be trying to respond to everything said since my last post. I apologize if I miss anything.

Wondering if we can create water at Owlbear's box every hour or so... Keep it cooler and keep him hydrated.

I can drop a darkness on it at high noon to keep the worst of the sun away, but lack the caster level to make it last long enough to matter much.

GM: My latest post was edited after posting as it was originally to influence Cog, but then I saw that Cog was playing cards so I decided to take try something different.

Just in case you missed the edit. =)

Garaveen: I'm hoping an endure elements will do the trick. =)

Okay, so character check time ;)

There are a few questions that I like to ask from time to time of each player in order to check on how they are doing with their character, and to see how that character is growing.

This AP is a bit tricky in that everyone comes in with expectations of striking out on their own, and then being thrown into a s**tstorm not of their own making. Hopefully though, you can see how that tide is starting to ebb and flow in the player's direction.

So, I'll ask the questions here, and you can reply via post/spoiler/PM to let me know, and I'll weave things around it.

1) Do you feel like the character is growing, and do you feel like you've been given the opportunities to grow?

2) In the ongoing story, do you see potential for the character to grow? If yes, what direction do you see them going, and if no, what do you think needs to be there to provide them a goal?

3) (usually my favorite) Are there any items from the characters background that you'd like to see injected into the campaign? I'll use Davina as an example. She has an aspect in her background that she's pursuing, and we discussed in PMs how to get that into the game. She's given me a lot of trust and freedom to do so, and I'll do what I can to make sure I don't mess things up. Well, other than in a frustrating, fun character way ;)

I enjoy weaving elements of everyone's personal story into the overall story. It gives everyone a chance to become more invested not only in the overreaching story, but also in each other. This connection in turn creates a strong foundation for a long lasting campaign with little character turnover. That's the goal that I'm striving for, and why I chose each of your characters. You all invested in the characters, which makes it much easier for me to invest in them as well.

So I ask these questions in order to get feedback from you not only on how you think your character is going, but also on how we can work together to make the character more fun. How we can turn this inexperienced group into heroes (or scurvy pirates). I know that I'm asking for a lot of trust, especially from someone you know only through typed text, but I guarantee you this...I'm on the player's side. I want to see you ultimately succeed, even if I make you fail and stumble along the way. The game needs players as heroes, or I'd just being playing NPCs, which would ultimately be playing with myself. And they lock you away for things like that ;)

They only lock you away when you play with yourself in public. In private I think you're ok. ;-P

Enjoying it so far, I feel it is definitely giving my character ways to grow, eventually, she just is in a superbly unpleasant situation and I think beginning to find her way through it. Also, I love that you are ging to work in side stories for characters if they wish, my home group is a bit to large to do that often. We started this AP with 12 players and still average 9-10 when we run it, makes it hard to do much sometimes, but it does tend to be loads of fun.

With Thanksgiving out of the way, hopefully things will pick up a bit for the next couple of weeks or so before Christmas.

Also, I may not post everyday, but I do lurk...alot...and tend to reply very quickly when things happen as I am sure some of you have noticed.

1) Do you feel like the character is growing, and do you feel like you've been given the opportunities to grow?

2) In the ongoing story, do you see potential for the character to grow? If yes, what direction do you see them going, and if no, what do you think needs to be there to provide them a goal?

3) (usually my favorite) Are there any items from the characters background that you'd like to see injected into the campaign? I'll use Davina as an example. She has an aspect in her background that she's pursuing, and we discussed in PMs how to get that into the game. She's given me a lot of trust and freedom to do so, and I'll do what I can to make sure I don't mess things up. Well, other than in a frustrating, fun character way ;)

Two cases that I expected to be pleas of guilty over the next two weeks are now apparently going to be trials. I will try and sneak a post in every now and then but am likely to be very unavailable for the next couple weeks.

Sorry.

Thanks for the head's up, Astein, and good luck with the cases! I know how the court thing can cross you up. I worked IT for a huge lawfirm for ten years, and when Attorneys got crossed up, so did we ;)

Sorry for the delay in responding to this -- I wanted to give it a better response than I could manage from a phone without going nuts.. ;)

1) Do you feel like the character is growing, and do you feel like you've been given the opportunities to grow?

2) In the ongoing story, do you see potential for the character to grow? If yes, what direction do you see them going, and if no, what do you think needs to be there to provide them a goal?

3) (usually my favorite) Are there any items from the characters background that you'd like to see injected into the campaign?

I did some housekeeping in the players section, just to get the "character" who listed active that were mistakes off the active player list. I did it myself with my Kelarith alias, so there weren't any of us that were perfect ;). I just like that area to show the actual active characters.

Also, I've moved Jack to the inactive characters. It's been almost two weeks since his last post, and before that it was spotty at best. We'll continue on for a while with the spot empty, so if he can come back and post once a day, and once on weekends (as an average. I know that we all miss a day or two here and there) then we can move him back to active. If nothing happens, we can decide as a group, at that point on whether we need to add another.

As another note, please, please, please just drop me a line, either in private, or on the boards here if you think you'll be away or unable to post for a time. Astein and Davina have done so already, and I respect that (especially during the holidays) we all have other commitments that trump gameplay. By doing that, you let me, or everyone, know that it's okay to move along. At best we'll roleplay more during that time, and at worst, I'll GM'Bot the character. If you don't, I tend to try to stall a bit to see if that character is going to post again, which can cause the game to sputter a bit, especially if there's some action going on that everyone is waiting to resolve.

With my schedule, I usually check the boards early in the morning, at lunch, and in the evening (an often times much more often if it's a slow day), so I do try to keep things moving, but if it ever seems like we're moving too quickly, just let me know ;)

Funnily, I saw that message when I was about to post a head's up saying that I'll be out of town and travelling in a "not getting online to check on games" sort of way for about a week, December 12-20.
I know, I know, it's a week away -- just trying to give a little advanced notice. ;)

I'll post another reminder before I go (if only to make clear when Garavaen can be switched to auto-pilot mode for a while...)

Also, I note that the 2-days-in-the-bilges IC post I wrote didn't happen. Must have previewed and closed. I hate that.