Congratulations to all who made the cut. I’m going to be reviewing each of your character sheets in depth today by recreating them in Hero Lab, and will PM you by Monday if I find any issues. You were all chosen due in large part to your facility with language and innovative character concepts; I look forward to reading your posts and seeing how your PC’s will react to the challenges ahead.
First and foremost, I’m very excited by the potential of the game we’re about to play. For the past two years I’ve participated in a Google Chat/Roll20 Carrion Crown game, and have grown frustrated by the railroading that an AP depends on in order to drive the PC’s through each ordained scenario. In response to this, I’ve purposefully created a sandbox where I know how everything begins, but have no idea how events will play out. As such, please know that my sole expectation is that you remain true to your character’s goals and values. I have no expectations in terms of outcome, and thus you need not worry about whether your actions and decisions are in accordance with my desires.
Second, this is as stated a game of high and low diplomacy. Pathfinder’s social mechanics are a bit heavy handed, and as such I want to clarify how I intend to handle diplomacy, bluff, and intimidation checks. While I am not changing the actual rules, I want to finesse our understanding of what successful rolls accomplish. I’ll spoiler this rather lengthy discussion below.
In general, rolls will not solve role playing challenges. Instead, they will buttress or detract from your IC arguments. Further, I will add or detract bonuses to rolls based on the quality of IC arguments and the actions you take. A perfunctory and disdainful demand might result in a -5, while stirring oratory might award you a +5 or more.
Diplomacy - Influence Attitude: This works as stated, but I want to be clear that simply making an NPC Friendly or even Helpful will not cause them to automatically change their positions on important matters. A Friendly NPC will become more receptive to your arguments, but usually will still need their concerns to be addressed. As such, improving an NPC’s attitude will make it easier to persuade them, but does not replace the actual need for persuasion. This also applies to Charm Person.
Diplomacy - Make Request: I want to highlight that requests that violate an NPC’s nature, go against its values or puts it in serious peril will fail automatically as per the rules. This means that you cannot use Make Request as a bludgeoning device with which to coerce cooperation. Further, know that the NPC’s you will be meeting might have covert agendas that do not align with their public stances. As such, sometimes what might seem like a reasonable Make Request attempt will fail for factors that you do not yet understand. This is not my being capricious, but rather your running afoul of goals you are not yet aware of.
Bluff/Diplomacy - Suggest Course of Action: This follows the same guidelines set forth in Make Request above, but given the more oblique approach and greater difficulty, I’ll generally be more lenient in having NPC’s consider options and courses of actions that they might have dismissed out of hand otherwise. This will still, of course, depend on the IC rp.
Intimidate - Influence Opponent’s Attitude: Again, dependent on well-written rp to function as desired. Further, I may award NPC’s ad hoc bonuses if they are of sufficient social or military station. It’s harder to intimidate a general before his troops than it is to cow a shopkeeper alone in his store.
This game is set in the world of Golarion, and hues closely to all published material. It is, however, a homebrew game, and as such I will be taking certain liberties with the canon in order to enhance the tale. This will range from populating previously blank areas of published maps to putting my own spin on the efficacy and attitudes of governments and organizations. I plan nothing egregious, but be prepared for subtle nuancing of your current understanding of how politics and events are handled in the Andoran/Cheliax region.
A word of caution: Pathfinder modules and AP’s are carefully designed so that each encounter is delicately scaled to the party’s power level, resulting in the slightly surreal ooc assumption that the group, if well rested, can defeat any group of enemies. Not so in this game. You will be operating on a national level, and as such may encounter both allies and enemies that are well beyond your ability to grind down in toe-to-toe combat. This doesn’t mean that I’ll be throwing balors against you, but rather that circumspection and caution will often be of great value.
Finally, I will be adding locations and NPC’s to the Campaign Info tab so as to provide you with a handy quick-reference guide. As the game progresses you will be meeting many people, and this should help you keep straight who is who. When appropriate, I’ll also link to portraits or artwork that illustrate their appearance.
As I said, I’m very excited about this game, and most especially for being able to run it for such quality players as yourselves. Please post any questions or comments that you may have in this thread, and I’ll kick things off tomorrow in the Gameplay thread with the first post. Welcome!
Thank you for the invite, Phil. I think your stance on social skills makes a lot of sense. I'm very excited to have been selected, and more excited to see what you have in store for us!
Thank you for the invite! I'm looking forward to digging into this one and creating something exceptional with all you wonderful writers.
Checking in. Mostly getting acquainted with the other characters as of now. Looking forward to this game!
Thanks for that, Alysandra...I was aiming for Varisian.
The first Gameplay post is live.
Please note that none of you are aware of a Chelaxian threat. The only war that is currently on the people's lips is the ongoing conflict with Taldor.
|
As awesome as Lookout is (and there's no question, we could make some crazy use out of all that surprise round time), I think it might have to just be something to table for initial character creation. That is, our characters are just meeting! I feel like getting to know each other and becoming a real team should come along the way to getting the teamwork feat. Though, that being said, I'd be happy to reserve my next feat for it, if the game ends up going that far.
Makes sense, absolutely. I didn't consider a Teamwork feat something which must necessarily be obtained by means of prolonged cooperative training, but I get your stance on the matter and I respect it.
Still, thanks to the Tactician ability I can grant its benefit to every single ally once per day. Great for ambushes!
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
Please excuse my favoriting of all the posts thus far. I'm just quietly giddy over here at the quality of the writing. Ahem. *adopts his grave and forbidding DM aspect once more*
Almost finished with my post, just giving it a once-over and cleaning up a few things.
Phew. Please excuse the length of that post. Necessary with which to set the stage, but hopefully not too cumbersome or overwhelming. This adventure has a steep learning curve as you familiarize yourselves with the geography and politics, but I'm confident once we really get going everything will fall into place.
I realize I made a few assumptions in my latest post, so I apologize if you need to retcon a bit, Phil. Callista is being aggressive and attempting to take charge early, and since they know the general direction they will be traveling, would rather plan on the way then (in her mind) waste time planning before disembarking.
Just out of curiosity, which month is it currently? A winter offensive has been mentioned, so is it safe to assume it's late summer / early autumn (4715 AR)?
Just out of curiosity, which month is it currently? A winter offensive has been mentioned, so is it safe to assume it's late summer / early autumn (4715 AR)?
Good question. It is the Oathday, the 15th of Kuthona (December). The weather in Almas is chilly and there have been a few flurries of snow, but for the most part it has been spared the more brutal winter weather that you can expect in the Asphodell Mountains.
Aaargh. Damned cold weather outfit and its whopping 7 pounds – will this discrimination against DEX-based characters ever end?
I'm going to rule that you only need to wear cold weather outfits if you are planning activity that requires survival checks, like crossing open country, or attempting to survive the night outside. For brief jaunts from one building to another, or even across town, you should be fine and not need the gear. Worst case scenario, if you get caught outside for an extended period of time, I might dole out a few non-lethal hitpoints of damage.
As of now, Callista's armor and weapons are in her Handy Haversack.
As of now, Callista's armor and weapons are in her Handy Haversack.
Cool. Those haversacks sure are handy.
They sure are! For the money they are a steal.
That and the Circlet of Persuasion are the two items I regret I couldn't afford (though it would still put Alysandra at medium encumbrance, again, DEX-based builds are a pain).
For now, I'll probably have one of the guards moonlight as a glorified mule.
EDIT: stuffed some cold weather clothes in my backpack. That's 7 extra pounds for you, Seberg.
Well I'm just determined to completely squander that +18 to bluff, aren't I? The Law of Averages says this will swing in my favor at some point.
So here's my thinking on divination spells.
One of the things I'm most excited about in this game is the liberty it gives you to make your own judgment calls and decide based on your own values and strategies which way to jump. I want to get away from the linear plots, and unfortunately divination can be seen as the DM giving you a wink and telling you the best course of action, making it foolish to ignore the spell's input and act in a contrary manner.
That doesn't mean I want to render the spell useless. What it means is that I'm going to be very cagey with my responses. If you ask big open questions about how to approach the game, I'll tend to give you advice on how to approach the decision, but not which decision to make. If you ask specific questions about particular outcomes, I will give you more specific answers.
Think of it this way: divination will be most useful when deciding tactics, but less specific when deciding over-arching strategies.
Does that make sense in the context of the game I'm trying to run? I really don't want to short change anybody here, so I'll still try to provide useful advice in the big question answers, even if I don't simply point out the best solution.
Also, Cawmirth, go ahead and give me an anticipatory linguistics check at the end of your post so that I can tell you how much you glean from the correspondence.
Definitely.
For me, it's much more exciting to see a character make a decision and grow and change from said decision (even if it's a wrong one) rather than being told what to do/learn lesson X. Mainly I was looking for how to go about making this first decision within the constraints of the world, and not a go to A, do quest B type answer, which I think is much less satisfying. Plus, I'm a sucker for a good riddle. That's a long way of saying I wholeheartedly agree with your approach.
I doubt Sebi will use this ability a great deal throughout the course of the game, not because of the answers involved or any mechanics, but because, fluff-wise, it's particularly unpleasant for her.
Cawmirth was traveling with three naked mole-rats, as far as his personal eye for beauty was concerned.
That line literally made me snort in amusement.
|
|
You mentioned that, in using the Orator feat, Cawmirth would need to actually "orate". Was the length of Cawmirth's self-effacing monologuing there enough to merit being able to use the feat?
I'm trying to feel it out in the kind of friendly, no-stakes rolling we're doing now, and have a good sense for when I'll be able to use it by the time it might be meaningful.
Petition to change the campaign's thread name to Cawmirth's Angels.
Feel free to peep into the spoiler, Alysandra, so that your fears of PC interaction can be mitigated.
Edit: I see you changed the post...I still hope your fears are allayed. :)
Edit 2: 2nd'd
Indeed, probably the Discussion thread is more apt for this sort of things. They are but... still, I maintain piercing a Bluff check would barely give Callista reasons to doubt Alysandra's words since
- everything she said is backed by both official papers and Thanasia's words (which would at least confer a bonus to her roll) and
- there were technically no lies contained in her speech (if not by omission).
I thought about creating a different alias to avoid the whole 'Interface Spoiler' thing, but for it work properly, I should have done it since Recruitment, so I eventually discarded the idea (moreover, inconsistent roll modifiers would have spoiled that too very quickly). This is why I suggested to let the role-play flow and, in the spirit of the rules Phil outlined in this thread's very first post, let him decide whether it's the case to roll beyond the curtains and which modifier to apply – if any.
Ok, so on re-reading this it has probably come out more polemical than I intended; rest assured, it was not meant to be. Indeed, this whole point has probably be rendered moot by my last post, where she clearly displayed some un-soldier-like behavior :)
I guess that's my point...she doesn't doubt a thing. She knows the woman might be hiding something (aren't they all?), but that's about it. She's completely full of crap and just trying to throw Lavinia off. If Phil would prefer to do it behind the scenes, that's fine with me. It was meant more for entertainment than anything, since I have full intentions of cooperating with everyone no matter their motivations.
Well, yes, there is that, too. :p
I'm fine with how things are playing out. I've got complete trust in everybody's abilities to distinguish between ooc/ic, and am enjoying the fencing taking place as each PC seeks to figure out and position themselves within the hierarchy of the group.
As such, continue as you guys are doing. It's fun to share these rolls and maneuvers with the rest of the group, and it's to be expected as high level diplomats and connivers start rubbing shoulders.
Also, we're all still getting to 'know' each other ooc in terms of playing styles, comfort levels, etc. I'm sure that as the game progresses, we'll all ease more into a more casual mode, and be less careful of each others boundaries and sensibilities due to increased familiarity and trust, borne of consistently mature and excellent rp. So keep at it, you're all doing great, and continue to enjoy the intra-party rp friction for what it is: fun.
You mentioned that, in using the Orator feat, Cawmirth would need to actually "orate". Was the length of Cawmirth's self-effacing monologuing there enough to merit being able to use the feat?
I'm trying to feel it out in the kind of friendly, no-stakes rolling we're doing now, and have a good sense for when I'll be able to use it by the time it might be meaningful.
Thanks for checking in. This length was appropriate, and more importantly, the tone was on point as Cawmirth was able to stand and espouse his opinions in an oratory manner for an extended period of time.
As a rule of thumb, feel comfortable to use this feat whenever you are able to get away with a similar extended monologue.
Please note, however, that as much as it pains me to do so ooc I may on rare occasion write a follow-up post where an NPC interrupts Cawmirth just before he can really build up a head of steam. Not everybody is always in the mood or sufficiently tolerant of being monologued at, especially if their attitude toward Cawmirth is less than friendly, or the situation is dire and requires prompt action. As such, I may substitute your linguistics bonus for a bluff/diplomacy bonus to reflect your truncated speech. Does that make sense?
|
|
It totally makes sense! I was, in fact, just thinking about that kind of situation. Obviously it'd be almost totally useless in anything close to combat or with people who'd just slap Cawmirth in the face if they felt he was talking too long. I suppose the one thing I could hope for is just some cues as to situations that might be like that.
Also, to all my fellow players... the love is reciprocal. Totally awesome PbP going on and the interaction is what makes it.
Or Cawmirth's naked mole-rats. That would work too, I suppose.
OK, so I'm going to roll two Gather Information rolls for Sebi and Calista, aided by Alysandra and Cawmirth. I'll also give Sebi a bonus due to her communion derived info. Expect said post shortly, but please feel free to keep rping in the meantime as you head out into the city.
It occurs to me that I just barely handwaved the activation of my Hat of Disguise; particularly, the part where I actually put it on. Since I don't quite picture Alysandra wearing a hat, could I just refluff it as a comb, or another inconspicuous object occupying the head slot?
It occurs to me that I just barely handwaved the activation of my Hat of Disguise; particularly, the part where I actually put it on. Since I don't quite picture Alysandra wearing a hat, could I just refluff it as a comb, or another inconspicuous object occupying the head slot?
Sounds good.
Sweet!
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Totally awesome PbP going on and the interaction is what makes it.
Yes, loving it!
Just an FYI, Saturday and Sunday I will be at a convention, so I will likely post in the mornings and evenings, with little activity during the day. I will be able to do small posts if something is needed to move things forward, but the kaiju posts will be delayed.
Before you guys get to entering the building and knocking on the door, let's give Cawmirth and Alysandra a chance to post.
As such, I'm going to rule that you're still outside before the entrance.
I apologize. I realized my previous description of the bard might have been a little too vague, so sought to rectify that.
No need to apologize. Just making sure things don't move too quickly.
Ok, so I've peeked under your spoiler. It looks like it's Kasoval's (supposedly) empty apartment's door we're about to knock on, still no lead on Opus.
My suggested course of action is to let Alysandra do some sort of reconnaissance from the outside before trying to enter from the door, and in case it's not as empty as it's supposed to be, use the knocking as a decoy for her to stealthily make her way in. That would get us the element of surprise, along with preventing any attempt at escaping or corrupting evidence. I was waiting for Phil to reply before outlying the plan IC (no sense in trying to elaborate a strategy it turns out it's not feasible in the first place).
I believe Kasoval is Opus. Just first and last names for the same person.
I don't mind letting Lavinia scope things out, but it is the third floor, so it might prevent logistics issues for our stealthy friend.
Oh. Right. Got him confounded with Pomander. Too many names :)
Edited my post to reflect that. Thankfully, I was still within the dreaded 1-hour window.
Indeed, I was trying to see if the wall's layout allowed for some sort of ninja action. I was thinking about throwing a hook over the roof (included in the climber's kit) or, barring that, using acrobatics to jump from ledge to ledge. Climbing a brick wall would be Climb DC 25, so out of question as I didn't max that particular skill out.
Then again, it's completely possible or even plausible that the vendor was right, the apartment's empty and I'm concocting an over-complicated plan to ambush some moldy furniture. Wouldn't surprise me in the slightest :)
Well, if the furniture turns into a mimic, we will at least have an escape plan ready. ;)