MisterLurch |
Thank you, Zhalet. I misunderstood where the difficulty lay.
I understand your desire for more IC interaction/discussion. That is not really a thing I know how to foster in a PbP, though I would love to see it happen.
In my experience, the best I have seen is a PbP I play where it started off with great interaction that simply diminished the more the game went on.
If there is anything any of you can think of that I can do to help foster that kind of IC interaction, I would be happy to do it.
More IC interaction is one way to increase your interest and investment in the game, and thereby gain more from it.
One way to think about it is this: "Would my character simply ignore the thing someone else did/said." If the answer is no, then perhaps some kind of IC reaction is warranted. Rather than taking the reaction to the discussion thread where you explain your character's motivations, make a gameplay post where you show your character's thoughs, emotions, and speech.
MisterLurch |
I would also, at this point, like to make a very heartfelt plea to all of you.
If you have a conflict with something about the game, such as Zhalet desiring more IC interaction and less OOC summarization or Erizi being dissatisfied with his character to the point of not wanting to play it, please talk to us about the problem before it builds to the point where you want to leave the game.
"But MisterLurch," you might say, "it needs that point of crisis to get others invested in helping to resolve the problem."
Not true, in my opinion. Use plain language to talk about a thing that is significantly interfering with your enjoyment of the game. Feel free to ask for my help or the help of the other players in correcting what is affecting your enjoyment.
Rukn ed-Din |
Okay, just my point of... maybe not "view", but "why".
I understand what you mean, Zhalet and Erizi. From what I have seen here in PbP, there's a lot of people that enjoy RP to the extreme, and I do like it as well. But it seems when things go combat mode, all these RP seems to fade. Happens to me, I admit, and to many others.
It seems the nature of PbP, which makes combat long and messy, that causes that. Like if, automatically, my mind is set with the goal "don't RP now or you'll make it even messier and longer". Which isn't necessarily true, of course. It's just a reflex reaction. And then this gets stuck, and you find yourself in this "combat mode" during the whole dungeon ride.
I have tried to fight it, but sometimes I need a punch, like and old record player, to get back on the lane. The "thrill of the kill" is sometimes strong. I admit it.
But this campaign is awesome, I think Lurch is the best GM I have found here in the forums, I love my PC and with you people I enjoy every day. Your PCs are superb and you are too, and the story is quite enthralling for now. So I'm willing to try my best at it. If you feel I need a punch, please punch me. There's so much I can learn from you all, and it's well worth it. If I need to leave other games to focus here, I will, because I want this one to go on till the end.
So... I think I started with one subject and ended with a very different one, didn't I? Ok, I hope you got my point...
Kilarra Norgorkin |
Sorry for not responding earlier...I have been crazy busy with work...just got back from business trip and today was a nightmare but I sat down to try and respond since it seemed important that I do. Also due to how tired I am I am going to be direct and to the point so please do not read into what I say as I am angry please cause I am not...I am just tired and just need to get it our there sooooo here goes.
First I think you should not leave and I am surprised that a 'lack of RP' is the main reason you want to leave.
1)
This is what I mean when I say "philosophies of RP". Our characters don't interact much outside immediate and functional communication: in combat coordination, direction of travel, etc.
I am not sure if this comment includes me or not but in my perspective I have very high RP post content and have especially enjoyed others RP comments as well but maybe my standards are extremely low compared to yours. To make my point here are some recent examples of RP posts I have contributed:
- huge comment about how I explore and struggle as I earnestly pray for the first time.
- comment about learning the sign of nethys and other things from Alexander after my unexpected vision
- comment about how much I appreciate being in a group that will come save me.
- comment about making the sign I just learned as I pass the shrine demonstrating my new found respect for the gods.
- comment about looking about the hall as if touring a art gallery
- I realize this one may not count due to ooc but... OOC comment about Alexander's vision of wasting too much time here.
None of these have any game mechanic and that is just some examples within the last couple pages. I agree with Solomon that I feel we had a higher amount of RP at the outset and also more RP since Erizi made his 'departure post' but still.
2)
I did not respond to your last ICC because you and I were already talking and all too often I feel like I am only interacting with one other character and I was hoping they would chime in. I did not want it turning into a difference between just your character and mine. In hind sight I probably should have posted something like 'Kilarra looks expectantly at the rest of the group' but hey...that's life, no one is perfect and hind sight is 20/20.
3)
So, as a player who is running a character, what am I supposed to do with that? "It won't take much longer" or "We're almost finished" aren't actual reasons to do it, it's "since we're here" inertia.
Kilarra is a business woman at heart, she has worked the shops all her life and in her training in the assassins guild she has been taught that time is a critical resource and wasting it is often fatal. She also has a strong philosophy that if she wants to succeed at something she needs to do two things. First accurately assess the difficulty of the task. Second STACK THE DECK. That means that she works to get any advantage that is in reach.
How does these factors play into the current situation? Leaving when we are so close to done just to come back later to do it is a waste of time and thus not the preferred option. Second, based upon her vision Kilarra believes that there is some item/blessing/resource in here that will aid the group in their primary task of clearing the town. So these choice to finish is a purely RP decision but I am sorry that you think it is not.
Closing comments:
But this campaign is awesome, I think Lurch is the best GM I have found here in the forums, I love my PC and with you people I enjoy every day. Your PCs are superb and you are too, and the story is quite enthralling for now.
It means the scouts will be largely left out of the role-play that happens during dungeon crawls, but I'm fine with that. I'll still get to read it.
I for one would like to embrace more character development. Why don't you give another week or two, and see if we can step up our game
I AGREE!
Zhalet Soroush |
I'll stay in the campaign. There are tons of things to love about this campaign. I do like all the characters, Lurch is doing an excellent job running it, I like the setting, and other things as well. It's just frustrating to me that with all that going for it, the party isn't a little more 3-dimensional.
I would like to be clear that I was talking about the group as a whole, myself included, on the subject of RP. I wasn't referring to particular individuals. I've been phoning it in for a long time myself since things didn't seem to be developing in that direction.
Considering Kilarra's comments, maybe RP is too broad a term for what I mean. Yes, all of us are describing things, thinking things, and so forth. What I mean is a tendency that Erizi described as character vacuums. The RP tends to be self-referential, a closed circuit. Other characters don't hear thoughts, and descriptions are just descriptions. We rarely use RP to engage with other characters outside of combat. We don't cue each other very well, and don't pick up and build on cues other characters may provide. It's the interaction part that's not really there.
Again, myself included. Off the top of my head, I don't think I've had a conversation with anyone aside from Solomon that wasn't directed at the task at hand.
It probably is true that PbP games tend to be weak in this area, I'm not qualified to say for certain since my experience with them is thin. What I can say is it can be done. I'm in two other campaigns where the party has very good, and increasingly complex, interpersonal relationships. One of them is particularly excellent in this, and even though by most measurements it should have failed long ago it hasn't. We're progressing through the AP at a glacially slow rate, the GM is very busy in RL so updates are often erratic, (although we do know they will come) but everyone stays in because we all love the characters in the group so much. We did lose a couple of players early on, but we've also had a player who dropped come back. I know this sounds really cheesy, but that campaign has developed a bit of a soul and that's why everyone stays in.
I'm not saying this campaign should be like that one, just that things don't inevitably have to drop off. This campaign has all the advantages in every other way, so it should be easier to figure out if we want to.
I do have two or three ideas that might help but I'm out of time for posting them right now. I'll try to get them up later today. And if anyone else has any suggestions, anything would help.
MisterLurch |
Zhalet, I am very glad that you will be staying. I am also glad that we are having a constructive conversation about how to improve the game.
I have been having a wonderful time running the AP for you all.
I am paying attention, I am just letting you all have a minute to figure out what you will be doing...
Zhalet Soroush |
Well the weekend turned out to be more action packed than I'd expected so I'm only just getting to this. So a couple of suggestions.
First, and this one is vague but important I think. Trusting each other to separate character from player is a very big part of it. Characters may do or say things, not get along, argue, etc. but that can only work if you trust the players to be able to understand the distinction between themselves and their characters, and they can trust you to do the same. To use the current, I am neither angry or upset with Alexander nor is he upset with me. I actually thought the little dustup was quite fun. If we can do this, (and not abuse it of course, that's part of the trust) it frees us up to do much more with characters than we might feel like we can otherwise. It's very constraining, and stressful actually, if you always have to worry that you're offending a player as well.
Second, the things I mentioned about cuing other players and picking up on cues. Since players can't respond to thoughts, if a character can say something rather than think it, it invites responses. Of course not all situations are appropriate for endless garden party chatter, and not every person always needs to respond to every cue. Right now we're dungeon crawling so people aren't going to be saying so much, but at times when it would be a more natural thing to do it can help establish character relationships and build common histories.
There's not so much Lurch can do, this is really up to characters. There is one thing though that might open up more possibilities. If NPC's, when they're around, are more in the foreground they can also be people characters incorporate. Almah and Garavel are the real leaders f the caravan, so they would might be great to interact with more, unless there are reasons why that doesn't work.
One thing that can help some, and this is often done formally or informally at the beginning of campaigns, is to find connections between characters based on shared traits, histories, interests and such. We did this at the beginning too but it hasn't been used a great deal going forward. But if we each thought about the other characters and came up with maybe three or four impressions or adjectives or whatever that come to mind, those can be used to guide your characters interactions with them. It doesn't have to be fancy or shared publicly, that way you're free to use "b$#$@y" or "sanctimonious" for Zhalet if you want. Not that I'd mind anyway, I'd agree she can be sometimes. :) Written down they can be a useful reference for getting started and they can change over time as well of course.
Any other suggestions?
Zhalet Soroush |
Oh, and I do have mid to longer range plans brewing for plot threads involving Zhalet and at least a couple of other characters based on a little character inventory and some things that have happened so far.
Kilarra Norgorkin |
...I actually thought the little dustup was quite fun. If we can do this, (and not abuse it of course, that's part of the trust) it frees us up to do much more with characters than we might feel like we can otherwise. It's very constraining, and stressful actually, if you always have to worry that you're offending a player as well. Second, the things I mentioned about cuing other players and picking up on cues.
I agree and I think you said it well here. I personally enjoyed the interaction but Kilarra also would have found it interesting for totally different reasons. I think that I may be guilty of dropping hints and putting things out there that I hoped someone would have picked up on and when they did not I just let it go as 'nobody is interested'. What probably would have been better is if after dropping the in game hint I could have come to discussion and drawn peoples attention to it so that it was not so subtle.
Case in point: Kilarra is exceedingly curious about religion and the Gods in general. If I could have given her a penalty to knowledge religion I would have due to her upbringing. Both at the Monestary and now here I have expressed interest in learning more and I had hoped that the more religious members of the group might take her up on the hint. Alexander has done so a bit but I really thought the two that would have been more overt in talking to her about religion would be Zhalet and Solomon. When at the monastery neither one of you said anything I just let it die but I could have come here and said something like 'hey guys, That thing Kilarra just did, your character would get the impression that she is very curious about your faith etc. If you are interested in talking about Sarenrae this would be a great opportunity for you to do so.
I will try to remember that in the future and draw your attention to the in-game moments that I put out there for people to build on.
Solomon Azar |
I did notice that the first time it came up, but I think the game had moved on before I could initiate a conversation about it. Sorry for not following up. I'll try to find a place to make that conversation happen.
Zhalet Soroush |
Hm, I don't remember it at this point so I'm not sure if I just missed it or there was something else. If it was back when Zhalet was still a bard she might have left it for Solomon thinking it wasn't her place to respond to such things.
Also I might have misunderstood since my impression has been that Kilarra is very curious about magic. Sorry, but if it comes around again I'll pick it up.
Rukn ed-Din |
For no particular reason .. how do you guys feel about the phrase 'fire elemental swarm'?
;)
MisterLurch |
MisterLurch wrote:This.For no particular reason .. how do you guys feel about the phrase 'fire elemental swarm'?
;)
...
Please
Never do that again. Please?
/shudder
Solomon Azar |
MisterLurch wrote:This.For no particular reason .. how do you guys feel about the phrase 'fire elemental swarm'?
;)
What the hell is wrong with you?
Kilarra Norgorkin |
Anyone else think that Lurch is a master of suspense?
I have to say, for a long time I always looked at being lawful as too restrictive and in some cases it probably is but I will say that, at other times, playing a chaotic character can add a lot of stress to my life.
Rukn ed-Din |
Congratz to Kilarra for the good job using all this flaming slang :P
Kilarra Norgorkin |
Hey guys, don't forget to move your characters around on the map as you search. I am not sure if Lurch is playing distance penalties for perception but if he is then they can add up really quickly. Would be hard to spot things across the room from the hallway.
MisterLurch |
In general, if you tell me you are moving to look at things, then I will give you information based on you being close to the thing you are looking at. If you just make rolls and don't tell me you are moving, I will give you information based on where you last were.
I am not going to be a complete tool about it. (Such as assuming Alexander moved up to the doorway to look at the room.) But please remember to tell me when you are moving around to look at things, and I would prefer to have you all move your avatars to where you will be when you finish your stated actions.
Kilarra Norgorkin |
Guys, I know that the language I am using for Kilarra can be confusing and I have been challenged with communicating what she is looking for well but in case it is unclear, Kilarra was asking everyone to spread out and look for clues. All she asks is that you don't go onto/touch the center brazier.
Solomon Azar |
The haunted house I help with every year is kicking into high gear. My posting time will be extremely limited until monday. Please bot me as necessary.
Alexander Pierpoint |
Rukn ed-Din |
Sorry guys, got some problems at work which focused all my attention for the week and totally forgot about everything else. My apologies, I should have said anything, but I was totally immersed.
Zhalet Soroush |
I've also had a busy couple of weeks. Not really sure what to do anyway so I've just sort of been in a holding pattern waiting for the room to get solved...
Alexander Pierpoint |
Kilarra Norgorkin |
I missed the part where he gave the rod to Zhalet....whoever has it feel free to use spark at the torches...failing that then the Braziers...failing that Kilarra would ask that the burning hands feature be used in the same order on account that perhaps spark is not strong enough.
Alexander Pierpoint |
Mr. Lurch, given that my sword cane is my arcane bond item, would a fire crystal attached to it give me both a flaming weapon and a +1 to fire spells, or do I have to choose one?
Not being greedy! Just curious and making sure.
MisterLurch |
Mr. Lurch, given that my sword cane is my arcane bond item, would a fire crystal attached to it give me both a flaming weapon and a +1 to fire spells, or do I have to choose one?
Not being greedy! Just curious and making sure.
So normally I would say no, but in the case of a wizard's bonded item, I am inclined to allow it. You would want to form a weapon crystal and then bond with the weapon.
Kilarra Norgorkin |
hey Alexander, I just wanted to let you know we are all in the chamber now and Kilarra is just waiting on you to activate the room. I am not sure if anyone else needs to do anything before you do or not but not me.
MisterLurch |
So to simplify and put in game mechanics terms, choose what category of magic item (wonderous, ring, weapon, etc.) the fire crystal will be used to augment, or if it will augment spellcasting. I had in mind that I was going to ask for willpower checks, but since there is no time limit to form the crystals, I will not be doing so. Feel free to ask questions if you have an idea in mind that I haven't mentioned, as I cannot think of everything.
Rukn ed-Din |
I'd like mine to offer some kind of fire protection, if possible. If not, then I'll stick with attaching it to the bow.
Solomon Azar |
Would it be possible to have the gem added/formed into a holy symbol and used to augment the Warpriest's Sacred Weapon ability?