The Levee - Life and Death on the Streets of a Crooked City

Game Master Zesdead

Awesome. I love cuddles :) And I really look forward to what is to be unveiled about Audria's backstory.

So this is about the time I start getting ready for work and vanish from the boards for the next few hours. Have a lovely day and I look forward to seeing what happens while I work.

No worries about that Rigo. Audria doesn't remember anything past a year, and what Zed has in store for the little firebug, I really don't know. I've just given hints and clues for him to hang a story off of if he wants. I imagine that it'll be a suitably horrible revelation given the nature of the Blight if and when that time comes.

I can respect the concept, I might even be envious. Always something I have wanted to try. My live table seem way to light hearted for that.

It's one of the things that I've been wanting to try. The other is a tag team of frontliners that are siblings, but given how recruitment for PBP games works I've never really had a chance to try it.

Don't take Rigo personally, as far as he's concerned, anyone over the age of 12 in Wicken deserved to be hung, as they either participated in, or refused to punish, the murder of his parents.

He's CG, but has some very dim views on people standing by the sidelines while others do evil.

And I gotta figure out how to keep that cat from eating Audria. And Salom. And the rest of us. But especially Salom.

Yea, from what we've gathered about Rigo's backstory, his feelings make perfect sense.

I'm afraid Rigo won't get much closure from Salom, however, who's simply too addled to have properly participated in such shenanigans. Also, Salom's extreme irreverence renders his opinion on the whole matter, well, useless. His is Gomez Addams meets the Mad Hatter meets Dr. Frankenstein, best suited to offer dark and sardonic comedy, rather than accountability.

Still, it makes for an interesting read.

Yep, that's fine. But do realize it will be awhile before Rigo decides you're neither guilty nor food. He's likely had quite a few meals more than the rest of you, given he probably snacked on rats while in prison.

There are issues with being primarily a carnivore, but there's advantages too (such as eating rats in prison!). :)

Just fyi, I'm enjoying The Blight Player's Guide to much I decided to look into Frog God's other offerings, and just purchased the Northlands Saga Complete (currently 40% off all pathfinder products with a code found on their facebook page)!

It is a very good guide, and Frog God has a good reputation - I expect you'll be pleased with your purchase.

This is my first exposure to their work as well, and I'm eagerly looking forward to it. So far so good!

Rappan Athuk is amazing--highly recommended for the masochistic dungeon crawler. In my games (as GM and PC) in that book I've seen... how many... checking records: ten PCs permanently die down there. Eleven allied NPCs as well. Maybe I'll run a PbP of it someday...

The Blight Players Guide does seem pretty cool. I like how they've placed archival photos of Victorian cities among the fantasy art. The image on page 6 looks to be the old Les Halles in Paris, setting of Emile Zola's The Belly of Paris which I read earlier this year (would recommend other Zola first, but, pretty good!), so, nerd image recognition happiness.

Related: I gnawed through a bunch of Clark Ashton Smith stories last week.

This site has a ton of his stuff posted.

I'll post the titles of my favorites so far in a bit--gotta go eat dinner now. If he's as much of an influence as the Blight Player's Guide claims, we should be very, very scared of what's going to happen to our poor characters.

I think a PBP of Rappan Athuk would be very difficult to pull off without some serious commitment on both sides of the screen. Dungeon crawls are where things tend to really bog down in my experience.

True, true. I'd probably be more interested in running something sandbox-y anyhow.

Sorry Aishe, Rigo's not really in a 'let the village people do the talking' frame of mind. Nor is he experienced dealing with people (he's mostly spent the last 6 years alone in the forest except for a dour old Dwarf Paladin for company, and you know how dour dwarf paladins are).

Speaking of Aishe--how do you pronounce that? "I-she"? Roughly as the letter "H"?

Speaking of Aishe--how do you pronounce that? "I-she"? Roughly as the letter "H"?

I'm reading it as 'Aye... Ee... Sha" as in Death in Vegas' 'Aisha'.

The lyrics are grimly appropriate to the Blight:

"Aisha, we only just me"
"But I think you should know... I'm a Murderer!!!"

I read it as 'A-sh' like long-a with a shhh sound on the end.

Sorry for the posting delay - Tuesday mornings we have a series of all-hands meetings which tie up half my day...

Rigo, it's fine for now, but I hope you grow into a team player of some sort down the road. We're in an environment where 'might makes right', but as a party, we have to act like a group... eventually. Certainly not something that's going to happen right away - if we play in character. Which I hope we do!

So I'm fine being trampled upon as it's likely what would happen to a man, standing in filth without a weapon and his own poo-stained drawers adding to his personal aroma. :D Poor bastard...

As for pronunciation, I imagined it very much like Zed's suggestion but a little different.

"Aye Ee Shay"

Yep! He will, he just has no reason to right now.

Most of you were non-natives, once he's sure of that, he'll ease up on you.

THen you get the fun of convincing him that the natives of Wicken weren't part of the lynch mob. :)

Oh what fun. Poor Audria doesn't remember anything that happened to her more than a year ago. It's going to be fun.

Honestly, I'm a jerk to my characters. I've got a sweetheart of a paladin with self-esteem issues, a stepmother from hell, and crisis of faith of sorts in Zed's Shattered Star game. I've got an outcast with a hag for a mother in another game (Sadly, I couldn't really keep up with the twenty posts while I'm at work, so not really engaged with that one, though I'm hoping to give the concept another try.) There's Audria who is covered in scars that came from thin, shallow cuts, a massive scar from being burned on her back, and no clue how she got them.

But who wants to play or read about some guy or gal whose life is perfect?

I feel you there. I had a witch with the insanity patron who I knew nothing about that the DM promised to break. I am in a gestalt Way of the Wicked who has a level in Spiritualist and the phantom is her dead husband then the other level is in a gravewalker witch, the poppet is made of her dead son. There is more I am sure.

Sorry for the lack of posts yesterday. It was my disaster of a birthday.

Happy birthday, my condolences?

Sorry for the lack of posts yesterday. It was my disaster of a birthday.

Ahhhh... birthdays, the double edged sword!!! If you'd said, I'd have made sure the good folk in the Black Hold sang Alexis a song and wished her a happy birthday!!!

Not really ;)

Gonna have to say... offering Ammos Grast the option of escape 'but we might have to kill you anyway'... that'll be a little too much honesty for the Blight - interested to see how you turn this one around!!! Remember, you folks needed to get him onside to help with infiltrating the network of lycanthropes on Festival...

Yesterday is over so I am good.

Glad you're good!

In other news, I'm so underemployed right now that I have far too much time to write these. Forgive my long and wandering posts!

No worries. They're pretty fun to read.

I'm gonna wait till Zed posts. Audria and Alexis either sit on the little island or I find somewhere else. Though not opposed to finding somewhere where the water is shallow and letting Audria on her shoulders.

Also I am totally cool with the lengthy and wondering posts. I love to read those, I am just usually to tired to do them myself. This style of gaming is like an interactive book. Which is nice since I refuse to unpack my books as we plan to move in a few months.

No worries Moira. Like Alexis said, this is really interesting!

I agree too! Role play is good play even if I'm not the one doing it. It's a pleasure to read.

Thanks for letting me splash around, crew! I was just noticing that a full half of the party has fallen asleep--and was worried the players had done the same.

Ok, back to job applications...

There's only so long that white-knuckled terror can sustain itself before you just get tired and want to sleep.

That and to be honest. Audria's not going to be doing much until things get moving again.

I agree we need a little more info about Greel before deciding whether or not to attempt to smuggle him out. It'd be a pity to break out, only to find a knife handle between our shoulder blades, or find we've unleashed yet another psychopath upon the city.

While I the player am all for gathering info Alexis doesn't care one way or the other. If he is a problem we have a scary cat :D

Ok, looks like the party is not opposed in principle to saving Greel, but wants to gather more information first. I'll make a post to that effect after the food distribution crisis is resolved, including cross-referencing his claims with whatever Sharkleys remain uneaten by Rigo.

Ok, looks like the party is not opposed in principle to saving Greel, but wants to gather more information first. I'll make a post to that effect after the food distribution crisis is resolved, including cross-referencing his claims with whatever Sharkleys remain uneaten by Rigo.

That's alright... I'll work Greel's response into a GM post - and, on the off-chance that the party don't believe him, you can go and ask around afterwards...

@Zed - Can a Tabaxi take Catfolk feats? And Catfolk rogue talents?

@Zed - Can a Tabaxi take Catfolk feats? And Catfolk rogue talents?

That would seem reasonably appropriate - but they'll need to be run past me first :)

All - I'll be winding the clock forwards to midnight fairly soon, and dragging you out of this hell to dump you in another. If you want to ask around about Greel (up to you) that's fine and I'll deal with it - anything else?

So, the Sharkley execution was the definition of a minor combat, and I get that the end result was mostly preordained--but, Rigo, I can't help but feel that you might have waited for initiative and/or declared combat and left it up to Zed to decide whether maintaining the pace of the game was worth sacrificing the ritual of turn-based combat. Not a big deal in this case, but Moira might have won init... or Sharkley. Or him and all of his brothers.

And what's our general philosophy re: The Rules? Just to get on the same page early. Is this a game where we should point out rules issues we notice, or are we running a story where the cinematic and narrative should take priority?

I'll be happy either way! And I know I haven't been as diligent about making rolls in social situations as I might have been, m'self. I've played in games where it's an evolving process/sliding scale, too, but I would like to know what y'all are thinking now, so I can frame my posts accordingly.

...

Meanwhile, Moira will definitely ask around about Greel. As someone who has a professional interest in burial and ritual, she's very concerned about the allegations of corpse theft. It's far worse than robbing banks, in her mind. If he gets a mostly-clean review, though, she'll probably figure that if she could be framed, so could he.

I prefer cinematic and narrative but the dice rolls can allow for some glorious fails and successes. I am used to the dice rolls is all though I tend to only use them when I remember or the GM says to. But knowing would help. Good question!

Having played with both Zed and Rigo before, my guess is Zed will require initiative in most instances, but Rigo clearly intended to steamroll the guy and Zed agreed it was a good cinematic moment. I.e. this is not the norm. But I don't want to speak for the GM, so take that with a grain of salt.

My interpretation was that Zed left it up to Rigo to begin combat. Since there was no surprise round, and since the guy ceded initiative to Rigo, my interpretation based on my time with Zed was that it was basically up to Rigo whether to attack or not.

I have played with him in enough games now that I feel I have a good idea of when he's ceding initiative to the player and when he's not. So please don't take that as me demanding anything. If I misread something, I'm sure he'll retcon my actions, he has before. :)

So, the Sharkley execution was the definition of a minor combat, and I get that the end result was mostly preordained--but, Rigo, I can't help but feel that you might have waited for initiative and/or declared combat and left it up to Zed to decide whether maintaining the pace of the game was worth sacrificing the ritual of turn-based combat. Not a big deal in this case, but Moira might have won init... or Sharkley. Or him and all of his brothers.

And what's our general philosophy re: The Rules? Just to get on the same page early. Is this a game where we should point out rules issues we notice, or are we running a story where the cinematic and narrative should take priority?

I'll be happy either way! And I know I haven't been as diligent about making rolls in social situations as I might have been, m'self. I've played in games where it's an evolving process/sliding scale, too, but I would like to know what y'all are thinking now, so I can frame my posts accordingly.

It's one of the key tensions in PbP really... 'story vs rules vs moving quickly'. If I wanted to be a real stickler, I could have rolled initiative and suchlike (possibly adding another few posts / hours where the non-combatants are watching from the sidelines) - but, from a story perspective - it would have added nothing. The Sharkley brother was doomed the moment he pulled a knife and so I was happy to roll with Rigo just rolling a bunch of dice...

So yeah, it's a sliding scale for sure - and, if in doubt, post something OOC to ask the question...

Also, on the subject of rules, I've been GM'ing here for a good number of years (three or four) and it is still a learning process... if you see me roll anything, not roll anything, interpret something in a wonky way or just flat-out ignore the rules, definitely point it out!!!

That makes sense, especially with many of you having played a lot together, and have built up a level of mutual understanding. Bear with me while I get the feel for it.

Did mister ratling come with us?

I put a note in my post to make sure he doesn't get left behind. That'd be pretty sad, to get on the boat and look around for our guy... whoops.

It seemed like audria was building up to something, so I planned to see what our little firebug does and write a reaction to it. That's about the best Salom can do right now... react to things :P.

Ditto on the wait and react. Moira's not about to risk blowing the whole escape by diving back into the prison hold (or telling a hilarious magic joke, or by singing...)

I went to work and came home to pass-out and things changed! Also waiting to react since I don't wanna make those check again.

Well, it wasn't a flub. :D

I wasn't planning on her blasting stuff with fire yet, but I think it might work out better this way. >:)

That was all very fun to read after a s++!ty night at work. Thank you my dear :) I want to cuddle Audria so much!

That makes me feel better about my writing at least. :)