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Alex is now a Neutral character due to her continued deeds and intentions. Please change the character sheet. If you intend to continue her down this or similar paths understand you either need to discuss the intentions with me, the GM, now or she will be removed from the game. Outright evil acts will be treated as such.
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Honestly, it is a combo of the entire series of comments and actions. It was intelligent and therefore sentient, and Alex said and fully intended to enslave it. To top it off, yes killing it was also questionable. This creature may have been completely innocent and your group attacked it. That comes close to murder, though that wasn't the big issue.
In my opinion Alex has in no way shown any actions or intentions that are GOOD and many of them are borderline or outright EVIL.
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I understand how you could see that and I have made the change, however I will respectfully argue this point. I made a linguistics check and the result of that check was that it was that I was unsure that it was a language at all. Also a knowledge nature check was needed to identify it, and that implies that it is some sort of animal or a creature from the first world. In addition, I stated that I wanted to put it in a zoo, something you do to an animal.
In the end though, I did kill it. I ended the life of a creature that attacked us so that it couldn’t get up again. And I do indend on bringing it to town to find out what it is and spread the word of this potential threat and method of elimination and this is something that should be done, because no one in a party of pretty smart people had any clue what this is.
But to totally come clean, I do know what this is. When I played D&D in high school Adherers were a pretty common fake out monster and they keep you alive for days while they slowly eat you. They are horrible monsters that long ago were humans but thier minds are long gone. Perhaps in pathfinder they are different, but since I was scolded both in game and out for attempting to reason with the div, why would I ever talk with anything? Are the monsters in this AP creatures that can be reasoned with and/or redeemed or not? If I talk to them and then they just attack me anyway, shouldn’t I just kill them immediately?
You made the call and I’m ok with it, I’m actually right back to were I was at the start of this AP in terms of my alignment, but I don’t see how this makes sense in game or out, with meta knowledge or without.
I am ready to take this and move on.
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Here are two thing for consideration. These are the guidelines I am going by.
Good Versus Evil
Good characters and creatures protect innocent life. Evil characters and creatures debase or destroy innocent life, whether for fun or profit.Good implies altruism, respect for life, and a concern for the dignity of sentient beings. Good characters make personal sacrifices to help others.
Evil implies hurting, oppressing, and killing others. Some evil creatures simply have no compassion for others and kill without qualms if doing so is convenient. Others actively pursue evil, killing for sport or out of duty to some evil deity or master.
People who are neutral with respect to good and evil have compunctions against killing the innocent, but may lack the commitment to make sacrifices to protect or help others.[/qoute]
Nature (animals, fey, monstrous humanoids, plants, seasons and cycles, weather, vermin)
To make this clear... It was not the killing that was really an issue. Its kind of a grey area, but I mention it because it is a trend of behavior.
To make this clear... It was not taking the dead body to be sold. This is also kind of a grey area, but not horrible on the scale of things. (Of note, this will not gain additional gold, it will simply move the source.)
To make this clear... It was the 100% intention of selling a creature into a life of enslavement that was clearly not likely a beast. Without know anything about it you intended to sell it for profit. This is the most recent in a trend of letting GREED take over without consideration of the consequences. So now you are seeing the consequences.
And of note, the people you mention doing things like this is accurate. That does not make them GOOD!
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Monstrous humanoids are knowledge nature? I thought it was a local check. Very interesting.
I said I was OK with this and I wanted to move on. I didn't want to argue about this, but OK
I will agree that enslaving a creature is evil but I don't think I ever said slavery. I'd say that capturing evil things and getting money or a bounty from them makes me more of a bounty hunter. Bounty hunters aren't evil for tracking down dangerous creatures and then getting paid to do it however I'd say that lawful neutral makes sense and is a reasonable alignment for me to be. Please correct me if I am wrong about this, but I never said that these things were going to be slaves. Confinement yes, rehabilitation (I can always dream), but never slavery. Also the line of reasoning of me selling it into slavery is cut off by the fact that I then killed it. I could have stabilized it and dragged it out, but I didn't.
As an aside, what is the moral ground that our party stands on? Is taking a creature away from its environment so it can't hurt anyone and getting compensated for the danger that we put ourselves in really that much worse than breaking into its home, beating it to unconsciousness, and then letting it bleed to death on the floor (and then getting compensated for the danger we put ourselves in?).
Anyway, I'm glad we agree on the fact that the people that I mentioned are doing these things. And I agree that it doesn't make them good. It doesn't make them good, they are just good. They are good in spite of the fact that they do these things.
Spell casters that take on elemental familiars are good. The zookeepers in Absalom are good. The city officials who make laws that allow its guards to arrest and/or kill monstrous humanoids on sight are all good. They are good because that is the societal norm. It is the societal norm because the citizens of that city have believe, correctly, that if given the chance these creatures would kill them. If I wanted to take a monstrous humanoid, like a goblin, as a prisoner and them get money for the trouble, that doesn't make me evil. If it does then there are a few PFS scenarios that need to be reworked.
Ultimately I am not, nor will I, argue with your decision to change my alignment. It will be fun to see where it takes me. It's clear that you want me to tone down taking thing prisoner and I will. But I will argue about the reasoning behind it because in my opinion which I based on my understanding on the world of Golarion, it makes little sense.
In the future should this happen again give me a heads up. I've seen cases were a player is doing something questionable and a GM will pause the game for a second to make sure that he or she is sure that they want to do that. They give a warning before giving a player an alignment infraction. Given the length of this AP I will almost certainly make mistakes but despite the frustrations this AP puts me through I do enjoy it in a sense and don't want to change characters for the fourth time.
I find our current dialog great as our characters dont really know each other but ooc i hope no hard feelings
Bam is a highly reactive intinctual plantman?
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This is over. Move on, but take one thing from this. Your actions have weight and consequences. Your words mean things, so take the time to make sure they mean what you want. If a character acts or says things that I feel are unclear I will stop the game to make sure, but I will not be policing everything that is said so do not rely on that.
If you act in a way that is opposed to your alignment or derails the AP, then I am going to enforce things. I backed out of PFS because of people doing insane and stupid things that would never be accepted in any reasonable society simply because the GMs are put in a position of forcing the story along for everyone. I WILL NOT TOLERATE THAT TYPE OF PLAY HERE AND I WILL PLACE THE CONSEQUENCES ON YOU FOR SUCH BEHAVIOR.
This is the last I will say and I expect it is the last to be said in the discussion about this.
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I find our current dialog great as our characters dont really know each other but ooc i hope no hard feelingsAgreed. I don't mind it either. No hard feelings here. I actually really want to know more about your characters and in game RP is a fun way to find out!
Yes yes let’s keep it going. I got annoyed and Alex is angry and the two arguments have bleed over into each other but the discussion and RP are separate as are my feelings as players. I like how it’s moving with our characters and the inter group conflict is great story stuff.
Sorry pete i didnt see the post you appologized until after i posted that i tried to step on your tail. It takes a while for me to complete a post at work sometimes. So i apologize... If an attack is required gm may i intentionally take a nat 1 on it due to me not seeing the post?
Sorry pete i didnt see the post you appologized until after i posted that i tried to step on your tail. It takes a while for me to complete a post at work sometimes. So i apologize... If an attack is required gm may i intentionally take a nat 1 on it due to me not seeing the post?
From my POV, we're all good. Wires get crossed occasionally, and the timing of posts can be tricky.
It might be useful for each of us to say something about our PC's sense of personal space. I'm pretty sure that Chui would never crowd or touch Harmini (unless it was to push her to the ground to shield her from a sudden threat that she hadn't noticed because she was making a long, detailed, and very eloquent speech.).
Chui is pretty good about short periods of folks being right up next to him (of course, these restrictions don't apply when he's active in his other professional capacity), and he wouldn't object to the occasional touch, pat on the back, quick poke to silently drawn attention to something, etc.
However, like all cats, he's very sensitive about his tail and anything that might harm it or restrict it's movement. I'm trying to do some stuff with tail movement and ear position to show his mood. This is based on my very limited, but growing, knowledge of cat behavior.
1. Keep your hands to yourself
2. Keep your bodily fluids to yourself
3. Treat others the way you would like to be treated
I sort of agree, but I'd note different PCs may be more or less "mature" and the norms of what's considered to be a "civilized society" may vary broadly from place to place and culture to culture.
For example, if we were all Ulfen "vikings," we'd be belly bumping one another and would think that vomiting on someone after drinking too much was the funniest thing ever. If there were another catfolk here, Chui might groom him/her in a purely social/non-sexual way.
Harmini is, I think, the most "refined" character here, so I suspect she has higher standards about "maturity" and "civility" than the others. To a degree, all our PCs are learning about one another and what we like/dislike, find acceptable/unacceptable, etc. Bam has learned that you respect the tail of the cat, and you don't randomly hug the Lady Wakestep.
However, I would certainly agree that whatever our PCs' norms, values, ideas of acceptable behavior, etc., we'd shouldn't be asses to one another as people and players.
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This is I think the third time we've had to air stuff out and I really don't like it. We've all played with each other before and we've never had these problems. If this is going to continue we need to start being more honest with the things that are bothering us. I am willing to change my or my character's behavior if you ask me to or I will do my best to try. I know that I post too much and move thing along too fast and I am trying to work on that. I get anxious and impatient. When I start doing that, please tell me. I promise that I'll pull it back or agree to retcon it to give others a chance to speak or act. If there is something else I can do please tell me.
I will start. Mat, I like every character that you've made, they are great but could you please tone it down with Harmini. What started as a fun straight wo(man) routine at the start of the campaign has turned into a near constant drain of enjoyment. I've been playing this for almost 10 months and I'm waiting for my character to come online and it doesn't help that for the entirety of those 10 months it seems that every time Harmini posts she calls my or someone elses' character stupid and useless. I've heard us all complain about how Ron's characters are overbearing, annoying and a collection of dicks, but at least Ron allows his characters to be the butt of jokes at his expense. Right now that is Harmini. A condescending jerk that isn't fun to play without a redeeming quality because being condescending seems to be the only thing she can be. It has lead my character and myself to be more spiteful. I hate playing with Harmini and I feel more spiteful and angry every time she says or thinks anything.
This is where I will take some of the blame. I should be able to separate myself from my character and at the start I did. But it has been 10 months and I can't take it and I know that I am not the only one who feels this way. I do not have the will power to take it for the next 4 years that we play this, I just can't do it. I won't do it.
Between chui and bambara damage is covered and with timely and coordinated spell use from harmini and yourself we could be a monster to deal with.
For future reference i may be looking for a hat of disguise or something similar as my apperence may be offputting in most societies
Just to be clear im just trying to help diffuse any bad juju we curretly have. By no means am i perfect but i am trying and think this is something that we as players need to be allowed to discuss openly and freely within a scope of reason as we are all friends here. Our cumulative creativity is why i am excited about this game.
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I agree we should be honest. I have pussyfooted around this for far to long and I won't do it any more either.
I come from old school RPGs, where it was encouraged for characters to be heroes. The old stories of games and the novels they inspired were filled with heroes, though usually there was one outcast and that character was usually a fan favorite.
Somewhere though the games changed. Its now becoming normal for the party to all be the outcast. Everyone wants to be the edgy one, the brooding dark knight, EVERYONE WANTS TO BE F!%$ING BATMAN!
The problem with that is, Batman is an A##+!&*! No one likes him in the universe he exists in. He doesn't work well with others at all. And in a group setting, four Batman's always devolves into chaos.
This party of players and characters are mostly Batmans. None of you really have any reason to be heroes. You are either greedy, psychotic, unstable, stupid, or down right degenerated. Some characters were designed this way and until the second location the issues were more subtle.
Now though we added an element that broke things and I will be blunt. It is Alex. Bill you are playing Alex as a psychotic person. The ideas that have spawned from that character are insane. Purely insane. Trying to make friends with every intelligent creature you come across is one thing, but to suggest that you should make the house a museum and make the evil creature the curator... That is f+$*ing madness. Think about it from a reasonable angle. Who is going to go to this museum? Anyone going will need an armed guard and special permission just to enter the necropolis.
Next is the arrogance. The Div wrecked her. It nearly killed her and she acted like it was her that caused to stop its attack. She basically stood up on her last breath and said "Yeah you better f$@%ing run!" I contemplated killing Alex just to make the point that she's not immortal.
Then we have the slavery comment. Yes, you never said slavery but in every element of it you hinted at slavery. You don't sell a prisoner, you collect a bounty or you ransom a prisoner. You sell property, or in other words, slaves. You also don't put thing in a zoo to prevent then from harming people, you put those things in a prison.
And last we have the extreme rant Alex just went on about coming to Wati to become lord and ruler by ending the threat of the necroplois. And claiming that the city is in dire trouble because of it and the government and clergy have failed completely to do what only you alone could do. Three words... WHAT THE F#!%! Do you even understand the history of Wati?
Honestly I just don't understand how you feel that the attitudes and behaviors of Alex have any place in any reasonable society. This is a fantasy world but it still has its roots in reality. People are people, yes some of them aren't exactly human, but they still have to function in society. If any NPC in my game heard Alex saying those things there is no possible roll she could make that would have that NPC still interact with her. None, DC of 5 Million and no Nat 20 success.
Lets move on to Chui and Pete. I don't know where the line is here but nothing in the play of this character makes me feel that it is part of the group. Pete and by extension Chui cannot work as part of the team at all. Everything has to be his show, all the time. Even if your preferred actions (Claw/Claw/Bite) aren't likely to have any effect you would rather take the minimum chance of a crit than making sure that someone else has a better chance of being effective.
Shawn and Bam are mostly not an issue. Shawn's exuberance in my opinion is the cause for the assumed touchy feely thing and I've mostly let it go until just now with stepping on Chui's tail. Yes Shawn you need to stop making some assumptions about what other characters will tolerate, but in my opinion its the format mostly and now I figure you will be more aware of it. I do wish you would focus less on retooling Bam and play him more as intended but I also know that retooling characters is fun (I am guilty of this more than you know).
As for Harmini, she is a condescending b+@*& through and through, but that is the way the character has always been. Its just since Alex has shown to be a complete psycho that Mat has stepped it up. Harmini has evolved into an outright b$$@@ and I think it is in reaction to Alex. Basically the more extreme Alex becomes the more extreme Harmini becomes. What came first, the chicken or the egg... Who the f~!$ cares when the egg is rotten and the chicken is s**&ting on everything.
So, where does this put us? I like you all as people but to be honest I do not think that your play style and my style fit together. I have much different expectations of a game than Bill, Pete and Shawn do. It doesn't mean either of us are wrong, it just doesn't fit. I honestly don't know how much more I can do this.
I have my surgery next week. That is where my focus needs to be. So, feel free to continue to discuss things here if you like. I am pausing the game until after next weekend (6/16). I will not be checking this until then, I can't do it. I need to focus on myself and this is making that harder.
If I feel things can continue when I am out of the hospital based on what I read here or in discussions with people seperately, then I will restart this. If not, then we can all walk away as friends with the understanding that this experiment failed. I am ok with that as well.
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I know that you will not see this until your surgery, good luck by the way, but I’m glad you told me this and I can respond. Your biggest issue, shared by others, is with my playing Alex as a psychotic slaver and yes I understand that. When I joined this AP I thought that I would finally have the freedom to play a character a little on the shady side. I’ve heard the everyone wants to be Batman and I don’t buy it. Well ok yes a lot of people do want to be Batman, but I just wanted someone who wasn’t Dove from Hawk and Dove. I’ve been the good guy a lot. I pay for people’s resurrections, free all of the slaves, pay my taxes, all of it. All the time. I’m not perfect but most of my characters try to be.
I wanted to play someone who wasn’t milktoast. My last AP character was a gobin Barbarian that ended up being mayor of a town and I loved the idea of playing against my nature. I moved that idea over to an Aasimar who is a little shisty. Maybe someone who starts out a little crazy and then has to step up when the story book hits. Someone eho starts out from a dark path but the events of the campaign changes her. To start as a thug and become a real hero. But I never told you this. Part of this is because I don’t know the story hook is and the rest is terrible judgment. This wasn’t the AP you wanted to run and you had made that clear. You want us to be Doves. Maybe not Doves, but not crazed slavers.
I took it too far. Way too far. I couldn’t get out of my own head and I as a player acted inappropriately. If I need to play a hero in order to be in this AP, then I am willing to 180. I can be that person again.
However, if you think I have poisoned the well and at this point I can’t be a hero, I am willing to step aside someone else can be that person. Rotten to the core? I can’t disagree with that. This is open to anyone, not just Jeremy. I built a Jegga tower of mistakes and I was part of the evil echo chamber that turned this AP into what it is. If I need to remove myself to fix it, I’d rather just do that.
I’m glad we finally had this talk.
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Also about my rant, and yes it was a crazed rant, was a symptom of me not being able to keep a straight backstory. It has been has be rewritten dozens of times and each time it makes less and less sense. After all this time I can’t find a backstory or a reason for being here that works. In that regard, I am throwing in the towel. I don’t know what is being asked of me.
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I can offer an apology: I’m sorry I made this unfun for you, Bill (and everyone else). That’s not what this is supposed to be about. From the start, I knew the condescending drawback trait might take on a poisonous influence to the group if Harmini’s thoughts became words. My intention was to keep them as thoughts only as best I could. Sort of a dirty secret diary of her experiences. I did not intend them to translate into personal attacks on the characters or players. My bad. I should’ve made that distinction more obvious from the beginning. I'll tone it back significantly from now on and/or remove the drawback trait entirely.
Secondly, I appreciate the compliment on my characters. It’s nice to know that the time and effort I put into them is recognizable. That time and effort is not insignificant. I actually feel the same way about your characters. Of the players I’ve met and gamed with through PFS, yours were the most enjoyable to be around. The stories, the personalities, the quirkiness. All of it. And it never went too far off the mark…
I think we have all come to the realization now that Alex needs a bit more work to fit into the AP setting and with the rest of the group. In the beginning, we built characters that complimented each other fairly well and would work together as team. Unfortunately, we lost a lot of that functional dynamic when Wynrey and Elendra took off. It's been a struggle to build the new character relationships but I don't think it's beyond fixing.
I agree with Jeremy to some extent on the pervasive BATMANs and chaos elementals in most games. It's not the right personality choice for this AP (or most APs). Along with Harmini's changes, I feel we need to up the HERO in all of us. While the mercenary shtick is working for now, it will quickly dissolve into needing to make important story choices to drive the game. Morally gray story choices tend to be the norm in most APs and we shouldn't have a party full of evil jerks ruining everything.
In fact, the reason I quit PFS play is because of repeated bad experiences with certain individuals. I’m sick and tired of insane, munchkin'd characters whose only purpose is to stand in the spotlight for 6 seconds and derail the entire game with a childish mockery of dick and fart jokes for their own selfish enjoyment… No one cares about teamwork or strategy. No one cares about any story but their own. Am I a god yet? Where’s my kingdom and corresponding piles of gold for the zero effort I displayed in abusing the game rules? That sort of mentality is NOT fun to me and I will no longer tolerate it in my games.
That being said, I do very much enjoy the home gaming experience because the character choices and stories have a dynamic impact on the game world (totally unlike PFS). I would like to help in whatever way I can to keep this one afloat: Be it story or character development or strategy or whatever. I feel strongly that we can make it work and I hope you all feel the same.
I think this time fo discussion is a great and much needed thing. A suggestion i have is for each of us to "voice" what our characters have learned about the other 3 in the group. In my honest opinion that is the greatest show of our individual characters.
And no need to lose the drawback. I just think that as we grow it should dissipate in relation to the group
Thanks for all your thought-provoking posts. They've given me a lot to reflect on, and I hope to post my thoughts sometime tomorrow morning.
First, I’d like to continue this PbP game if at all possible. We’ve all invested a lot in it, and for the most part, I’ve greatly enjoyed it. I think the intensity of this current discussion is evidence of our investment to date and a willingness to try and make it work, rather than just walk away.
Second, apologies for any friction generated by how I’ve played Chui or any other PFS characters that you folks have played with or GMed for. I know that a couple of months ago, I may have hit rock bottom with my Kurtz PC (the Pazzusu worshiping warpriest archer) when he killed several town guards in #9-02: A Case of Missing Persons (a game which Jeremy GMed). FWIW, I’ve come to the conclusion that Kurtz is actually unplayable and was a sort of funny once joke (“Make the Abyss Great Again,” “Possession is Love,” etc.), and I haven’t played him since.
I do think Chui is a slightly different case, and as I noted early on, Chui’s nature (being a cat) and nurture (rather traumatic flight from his home and finally ending up in Wati) have shaped his currently personality. However, I am interested in seeing how he might move toward a less narcissistic outlook on life, and I’ve always anticipated that he could very likely at some point move from Chaotic Neutral to Chaotic Good. I thought I had started this process, but clearly I need to do a better job in this area. Similar to Matt, I’m thinking of removing Chui’s Cruelty drawback (along with the Reaction trait he obtained with the drawback).
I think one of the challenges for me as a player is that this game is very different from anything I’ve done before in D&D/Pathfinder. Interestingly, I’m seeing the primary issue not as the PbP nature of the campaign but the fact that it’s an Adventure Path with a story and the GM/player distinction. Back when I first played D&D, our “campaign” was much more chaotic. We did have a shared setting which grew and evolved over time (we started with the map to this old wargame), but there was no overall guiding story. Also, there were several of us who DMed and also had characters, so the DM/player distinction was very fuzzy. Finally, the overall feel of our old campaign was much more surreal and, in many ways, much more Hunter S Thompson than JRR Tolkien (though both Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and LotR top my lists of books reread). I’ll try to tone down the weirdness of Chui’s thoughts and speech as they may be a bit jarring.
For a variety of reasons, I’m leary of embracing the notion of “hero” or “heroic.” This past spring semester, I took part in a faculty reading group at PC that read and discussed a whole mess of Norse sagas. Many of the “heroes” of these stories did more amoral and violent things in 15 minutes than all of our PCs combined have done during the AP so far. However, I think with Chui, this is someone who has the potential to do two virtuous things:
1) Recognize the practical and emotional value of establishing long-term relationships with others, both the other members of the group and perhaps also his downtime love interest if Jeremy is interested in continuing to develop that portion of the story. As I noted above, I though I had started this process. For example, Chui is attempting to develop a camradely rapport with Bam, witness the ever changing series of nicknames that Chui uses for Bam. Perhaps this came off as snarky and disrespectful, and if so, I’ll change course. The whole business with the splash damage really was a mistake in that I forgot about splash damage as a thing when I had Chui toss the alchemist fire at the “not-a-mummy.”
2) Start to act more in the interests of others and be less focused on his narrow, personal self-interest. I think this has begun in terms of Chui’s relationship with the group. My favorite moment with Chui so far was during the encounter with the vargouilles when Imanish hit Harmini with the suggestion that she leave the group in order to find a “cure” for Alex’s paralysis. Chui sprinted across the second story of the house, took an attack of opportunity from one of the vargouilles, and then leapt over the banister at the top of the stairs so Harmini didn’t end up alone with Imanish. As I understand APs, at some point, a larger threat to the region will appear, and then I’m sure that Chui will step up to do his bit.
So, in conclusion, I would like to contine with this game. This interlude has been very useful for me in terms of thinking about how I play Chui here and also more generally how I create and play PCs. I think I can do a better job in terms of playing a Chui who fits in better with the party and the overall ambience and themes of the AP. I plan on tackling Shawn’s suggestion that I attempt to provide Chui’s perspective on the other members of the party either later today or perhaps sometime tomorrow.
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With all that said I think we can start the fun part, making changes. I have an idea for Alex and I think it’s a pretty good one but I want some thoughts on it.
Hear me out on this. Jeremy said that he doesn’t want us to play Batman and that gave me an idea. The more I thought about it the more I liked it. What if I played Batman? Adam West’s Batman.
Pros
1. I get an excuse to watch the tv show so I can get into character. If I do this I’m doing it hard. I might watch it anyway so maybe ignore this one.
2. Classic dialogue. Monalogs to myself, pontifications about justice and the nature of man, and a lot of Old Chums.
3. Bambara is basically already my Robin if Robin was a bloodrager and also a plant. Arguably, thier dialogs are comparable.
Also, I’d like to switch my reason for being in Wati to find out about the information regarding my Pharaoh lineage, because of my Pharaoh Blood trait. Very simple and it will take a back seat once the story hook happens.
Lastly, when I make these changes I think it would be a good idea to just hard cut to the new me. It’s going to be a drastic change that will come out of nowhere but I am ok with skipping the mountain of in game RPing needed to make this change make sense so let’s skip it. This is how I am and how I’ve always been.
Thoughts?
There is no better batman than adam west the best batman ever ol' chum
Also this sums up batman in my understanding not just the brooding jerk
Lawful Neutral
Order begets order. My word is my bond. Chaos will destroy the world. Respect rank. I live by my code and I'll die by my code. Tradition must continue. Order is the foundation of all culture. I am my own judge.
Core Concepts: Harmony, loyalty, order, organization, rank, rule, system, tradition, word
A lawful neutral character admires order and tradition, or seeks to live by a code. He might fear chaos and disorder, and perhaps have good reason to do so from past experience. A lawful neutral person is not as concerned about who rules him so much as how secure he and his compatriots are, and finds great solace in the normality of society. Such a character may admire the strongest of leaders and punishments if they keep order, and he may support wars against other nations even if his own country is a brutal invader—his only concern is the rightness of the military action.
A lawful neutral character who follows his own code never breaks it willingly, and may become a martyr to defend it.
Streight from the prd
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Chaos is is just the breeding ground for discontent and voluminous villainy, ol' chum. But seeking to right ourselves and set others on the path towards justice we can become rightous and perhaps more importantly, true citizens of our world. Take hold of these lessons Bambara.
As far as my alignment goes, I'm going to just play a good character. I know that my alignment says neutral but that makes no sense given the personality I want to play with. I need neutral good. The old Batman did supersede the law when he felt he needed to, such as the episode "Louie the Lilac"(I have been watching the shows) when Batman came to the aid of "flower children" who were being kidnapped by The Lilac and the cops didn't want to look into it. Even when the law didn't care, Batman did. In the Vietnam era that this show was taped in having Batman, the symbol of moral authority and law and order for kids falling on the side of hippies over the traditional views of the state is kind of cool and I do want to incorporate that sense of righteousness and deadpan corniness.
I stand corrected
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OK, I've digested most of this and I see a couple of things...
1. People do still want to play.
2. People are willing to work on setting things in motion to be better.
With that said there are a few things to clear up.
Pete, I actually take back most of the issues I had with Chui. I forgot the key element, you're a CAT!. I think the issue I was having was it being compounded by all the rest, or rather with the ONE BIG ISSUE that this group is suffering from, this group is not a team at all.
Shawn, as I mentioned before Bam isn't that big of an issue, its being compounded as above. Stick with posts that open up oppurtunities for another character to respond instead of posts that assume they respond how you dictate and I think it can work out. We still need to get a handle on the story though.
Harmini, toning down the b+%!* level and returning to the proper lady on the surface should be easily done, even in character.
Alex though, I am not so sure. Bill, I need to know what you want to do with her. Based on what I have seen the thought is to bring in a third over the top character. Adam West? Too much camp, plus I am not confident swinging the other way is the best idea.
So, before I even consider approving another new character, I want to entertain ways to change the current one. I ask this because I will let you in on something Bill, I am no longer going to be as free with character creation. If a new character is the solution, then the options will be much more limited.
For now I am keeping things paused but please continue to let me know what you feel and the ideas.
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OK, well I did get to watch the '66 series which was a fun activity on its own.
I have another idea that could solve both who I am playing as well as what I am doing in Wati.
I could be in Wati to learn about my lineage but also to learn old and/or forgotten magic. The ancient Oserians must have known some pretty cool spells and my goal could be to learn as much as I can. My character could be inquisitive, eager, and have the drive to explore for the sake of exploration for even being able to see things unseen for ages is knowledge that should be cataloged and recorded. Ultimately Alex would like to have the definitive Ancient Oseriani spellbook, not just filled with its spells, but also with its culture.
There is a problem with this, sorcerers do not have spellbooks. I can't learn magic and thous complete this goal as the sorcerer class. I could just build a spellbook so others could learn from it which would be OK but getting this treatise on Ancient Oserian would not benefit Alex directly. If you like this personality idea than how about we give Alex a spellbook? Alex could just be a sorcerer that casts spells as an arcanist. I don't think its too far out, we are just taking the arcanist class and moving the sorcerer/wizard hybrid much closer to sorcerer.
If this idea isn't something you want to do I am out of ideas. I am opening this up to everyone, what would you like me to play? We need something that gels, so what character do you all think would work with the group we have?
I gave you my thoughts on the matter and not everything needs to be a mechanical benifit
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If this idea isn't something you want to do I am out of ideas. I am opening this up to everyone, what would you like me to play? We need something that gels, so what character do you all think would work with the group we have?
Right. So let's see what we've got to work with here... Before we can figure out who Alex is and where she is going, we need to figure out who she was and where she's been (backstory! yay!). It's ok if you don't have answers to all of these questions right now. Just fill in what you can. (FYI. I'm actually stealing most of these questions from a character dev template that Jeremy uses).
First, let's get the simple mechanical preference out of the way:
Revised Race/Class is what? (Aasimar/Sorcerer of what Bloodline?)
Next, we need to look at some biographical preferences:
What is your name? Alex Traza?
Do you have any aliases and/or titles?
Where were you born (City/Town/Village/Country)?
Describe your parents and childhood experience.
Do you have any existing family or equivalent?
Do you have any existing enemies or rivals?
Are you a member of any known organization/s?
Describe sentimental possessions (if any) such as jewelry, clothing, tools, books, weapons etc.
What god/gods (if any) do you worship?
Explain any relationship/experiences you have with organized religion/s.
What is your understanding of magic and how it affects you?
How do you feel about creatures that use magic?
Do you have magic in your family? (this is an automatic yes if playing a sorc).
What is your alignment?
What are your character's views on the concept of law vs choas?
What are your character's views on the concept of good vs evil?
How does your character view themselves and their place in the world?
How old are you?
The current game year is 4714?
What events happened to your character between now and then?
Put all this stuff together and you should have a really good idea about not only how to play the character but also how they fit into the world around them.
Finally, find the appropriate game mechanics (feats, skills, spells, traits etc.) that make this story come to life.
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You aren’t wrong, completing my goal doesn’t need to help my character and as I said I could just make a big book of Oserian facts. I don’t know if that makes sense to do that though, I am grasping at straws.
I’ve already made several attempts to answer the questions Matt put forth (I already copy/pasted it for future character creation) but so far it has not worked. Tell me what you want and I’ll do it.
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I've been from Cheliax and my father was a noble, I've been from Axis and my father was a merchant, I've been an orphan from Apselom, and the daughter of a well off villa owner from Rhahadum. My family has liked me, hated me, kicked me out, all been dead and it doesn't work. My mother has always been a dragon, that has always been a constant because that was the character design idea that I need an adventure path to actually do. I wanted to become a dragon because that, in my opinion, is super cool. Originally that was my character's goal. Adventure, get powerful, then earn the right to fulfill my oracle destiny to dragon out. That all didn't work.
I tried to find a way for the ghornans to have children, but that wasn't going to happen. I then tried to be here to fix Bambara's curse. He had saved me in the Mana Wastes so I wanted to return the favor and use my smarts to help him. That didn't work. For a brief moment I was a pathfinder, then wanted to use my adventures so I could later get into a government position after the events of the AP. We all know how that turned out.
I am out of ideas.
On the topic of Blood Arcanist it is a good class but it doesn't work with what I wanted to do. Arcanist can't become dragon disciples because they don't cast spontaneously. I would need to be a Spell Specialist but they don't get bloodline powers. Also if I went blood arcanist I couldn't get my two bloodlines and would lose out on a lot of combat versatility, which we need. I feel like staying a sorcerer is the best. Having an arcanist would be good to build a magical and cultural library, but that's not what sorcerers do.
Shawn had suggested that I pick up a blood arcanist with a destined bloodline and have that tied into my blood of the pharaohs trait. If this is acceptable I would want to just build a new character. I can't play Alexandra and not be a dragon, that was the whole reason I made her.
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Ok. So the overall concept is most certainly rooted in dragons (inspiration = Alexstrasza - The Life Bringer from WoW?). That's important to understand. Obviously, your character won't actually become a dragon in the course of this AP. However, there are ways to get close and I can work with that.
Give me a few hours to put something together for you that fits into the Pathfinder world.
Edit: Couple quick questions - 1. Are you 100% sold on Aasimar or would a human substitute be ok? 2. Did you want another bloodline besides Draconic (color)?