so it sounds like maybe the group wants to split up? One group talks to
Ven and the other ... ?
I think we purposefully didn't want to split up. So...what's next Ro?
We go as a group to speak to one of the other I suppose........
I didn't want to split up. I didn't want to hog all the social gameplay since Jili is equally capable in social skills. I figured I'd come up with a reason why Ro would not be the one to question Ven, but if Jili doesn't want to do it I guess we can move on.
I believe the next thing on our agenda is talking to Brodert about the necklace.
We should stick together as much as possible.
What's this obsession about sticking together? Splitting the party is ALWAYS a good idea, IMO.
said the man in a hooded cloak, holding a six-foot long reaper.
heads up: I'm travelling over the next few days. I SHOULD still have some access, but will have limited opportunities to post. Please BOT me if needed.
You have many different directions you can go in town. The only place in town that you haven't checked out is visiting the scholar Brodert Quink, whom Karmid knows.
Out of town you could head out to explore the Paupers' graveyard or head to the Saintly Haven of Respite, also known as Habe's Sanatorium, where the man who survived the first attack on the con men is being kept after he lost his mind. Of the two, the sanatorium is a little closer, but not by much.
Please note that I will be traveling on June 26th, so you might not get a post from me that day. I'll be on vacation for a few weeks after that, but should be posting fairly regularly during that time.
Brodert or the Sanitarium? Either one is fine by me...
I’ll be out on the 26th as well.
I’ll be out on the 26th as well.
I forgot that my June 26th is most likely your June 25th (unless you are in Asia or similar time zone). Oops.
Oh, I’m out for the 25th and 26th... and my 25th is today.
Any other questions for Quink or can we move on, and if so then where?
How far into the day are we? Both our remaining options are some distance outside town, and don't provide a place to overnight (I suspect).
Given we'd need to return to Sandpoint at night from them if it's not early enough to go, take care of business, and return during the day, I'd prefer to wait until the next morning.
It's still very early in the morning. Hemlock got you guys up right around dawn, so about an hour has passed since then.
Oh, alright. How long does it take to get to the sanitarium? How much would taking horses reduce the time?
It's a trip of about three hours on foot, so under an hour on horseback.
I'll be away from good computer access July 12 through 22. It's time for summer holidays. Feel free to bot me.
I'll be away from good computer access July 12 through 22. It's time for summer holidays. Feel free to bot me.
Thanks for letting us know, Jili. Are your stats on the user page up to date?
Hej.
I'm back.
Apologies for having been gone, I didn't really get a chance to announce my absence.
I'd prefer not going into details at the current time, but I've spent a while at the hospital, then at home getting better with family. Only resumed computer use a few days ago - and today, notifying all those games that did not already kick me out about being stuck with me since I'm back.
I'll try and get caught up with gameplay over the next couple days and resuming posting.
Welcome back.
Hope you're recovered well.
Glad you're back, Lia. As you can see we've been puttering along in your absence, but the plot thickens!
Welcome back and glad you are doing better.
Welcome back Lia! I hope you're 100% quickly and without difficulty.
For all our games together...welcome!
I'll be away from good computer access July 12 through 22. It's time for summer holidays. Feel free to bot me.Thanks for letting us know, Jili. Are your stats on the user page up to date?
Yes they are.
Pardon my brief absence. Got back home from 2+ week vacation and am having to reimage my new laptop. Onward and upward!
I have a general question for the group: how can we better encourage more frequent posting? So far we've been doing okay, but a few people are doing most of the heavy RP lifting and we haven't had a serious combat, so infrequent posting has not caused a major slowdown for everyone. We are now moving into the more combat-heavy portions of the adventure, so more frequent posting will be a great benefit to all.
My standard practice for when we are in combat rounds is that if you haven't posted any actions in the last 24 hours when I have declared that it is your turn to post, you will be botted.
This rule only applies to when we are in combat rounds, however. What can we do to encourage more frequent posting out-of-combat?
I try to post when I see something relevant to me, as Matrim. But I also back down and let others do the talking if Matrim wouldn't contribute to the story/action.
I try to post when I see something relevant to me, as Matrim. But I also back down and let others do the talking if Matrim wouldn't contribute to the story/action.
While that's fine, anything you contribute de facto BECOMES the story line, as you all are the main characters of this game. Thinking about how your character would react to a situation and posting his or her response even if, and sometimes especially if your contribution does not seem relevant, can have a huge impact on the development of the story and everyone's enjoyment of it. Playing a PC as a real person with real fears, desires, quirks, and other character traits increases the verisimilitude of the game and IMO deepens everyone's enjoyment of it. Then it feels like you're not just a jumble of abilities and stat blocks but a real person interacting with a real world.
I try to post when I see something relevant to me, as Matrim. But I also back down and let others do the talking if Matrim wouldn't contribute to the story/action.While that's fine, anything you contribute de facto BECOMES the story line, as you all are the main characters of this game. Thinking about how your character would react to a situation and posting his or her response even if, and sometimes especially if your contribution does not seem relevant, can have a huge impact on the development of the story and everyone's enjoyment of it. Playing a PC as a real person with real fears, desires, quirks, and other character traits increases the verisimilitude of the game and IMO deepens everyone's enjoyment of it. Then it feels like you're not just a jumble of abilities and stat blocks but a real person interacting with a real world.
This? Me too. I hear you too GM. However, when things start slowing, is often when I feel it necessary to interject like you point out. I will let things 'slide by' sometimes if I feel like posting just to post 'something' is happening in my head. Role-playing just for the fun of it is necessary, but when open questions or plot lines are left open, I will more often jump in to make sure people are paying attention and have something to play off of too.
Not the best answer I'm sure.
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I try to post when I see something relevant to me, as Matrim. But I also back down and let others do the talking if Matrim wouldn't contribute to the story/action.While that's fine, anything you contribute de facto BECOMES the story line, as you all are the main characters of this game. Thinking about how your character would react to a situation and posting his or her response even if, and sometimes especially if your contribution does not seem relevant, can have a huge impact on the development of the story and everyone's enjoyment of it. Playing a PC as a real person with real fears, desires, quirks, and other character traits increases the verisimilitude of the game and IMO deepens everyone's enjoyment of it. Then it feels like you're not just a jumble of abilities and stat blocks but a real person interacting with a real world.
This is very much how I see things, and it's one of the reasons I like PbP campaigns so much. Playing at a table for 4 hours a week or so means that time to move the game forward is finite and extra time spent on one or two characters RP takes time away from others. There's always a competition between moving the game forward and enriching characters and their interactions.
In PbP that constraint isn't really there. Sure, extra posts devoted to pure RP take up some extra space in the thread, but that's all. Everyone is free to spend as much time doing things with their characters as they want. I'm personally all for taking advantage of it. Having a character well rounded out gives the player more to work with when acting or reacting to what's happening, even if they won't be the one rolling the skill check involved at the moment. It also gives other players more to work with, more hooks, when character interactions happen.
About the best analogy I can think of is an episode from Avatar: The Last Airbender. I always held the show to be an outstanding example of a serialized heroic/quest narrative. But the single episode that really stands out in my memory is Tales of Ba Sing Se, and episode where almost nothing happens to advance the larger narrative arc. It's a day in which the characters are split up doing their own things, none of which are significant for defeating the Fire Kingdom, blah blah blah. But the nothings they spend the day on do a tremendous job of helping make the characters understandable and relatable in new ways. So, if any of you have ever wondered why Ro spends time doing trivial, mundane things, that's where the idea came from. It's supposed to tell you a little something about her. Whether it mostly works or not is another matter. :)
As for getting out of combat postings up, I'm not sure. It seems to me there's sort of a chicken and egg problem. Ro often drives the direction of things, but I'm not sure if it's because people want it that way or it happens by default. A lot of times Ro makes decisions for the group because nobody else is posting any decisions. I'll go ahead and post because it's been a while and nobody has chimed in, and maybe it's become expected that Ro will decide so others are waiting?
As I remember it, making Ro the leader was originally about making the group better in combat, more a tactical role for specific situations. But over time it's continued to expand into other areas. I think it cuts down on opportunities for other players if Ro is making all the group's decisions. Fewer opportunities means fewer posts by other players because it creates a feeling that the course will be set in a particular way by Ro regardless.
The flip side is that group decisions based on consensus require timely posts from more players. If others want a say in things, they need to say it sooner or we'll have to move on as decided by Ro just to keep the game going forward.
One thing I'll mention about creating more 3-dimensional, detailed characters for what it's worth. I always decide on a Meyers Briggs personality type early on and use it as a template/guide for developing personality, habits, etc.
For example Ro is an ESFP (with some ENFP tendencies). My thinking was Bard+Desna Worshipper=ESFP as a good choice. Of course you can develop against type, but the method still works. It helps me think of traits and details to add while staying within a consistent whole. Otherwise I can wind up with a bunch of personality traits, etc. which are a jumbled mess that are hard to use together in play.
Of course there are plenty of other ways to do it, but this is the one that works best for me.
quick heads up: I will be travelling for the next few days (Thurs-Sun). I may or may not have internet access. Apologies in advance
Thanks for letting us know, Uldar. I myself have been home with the flue. Hopefully will be back up and posting soon.
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There, i potentially got a downtime job :D
Plus Lia working at a Sanitarium would just be an awesome fit.
(To be clear: It would mostly be voluntary work, she does not expect to be paid for that - not while she stays at the Cathedral, but its a kind of community service nonetheless)
Dude is just unarmed grappling me.
You could like, bludgeon some sense into him. I mean, you guys do you.
Just saying I don't quite feel threatened enough to demand you stab him dead there.
How could Lia return his hug? lol
We're trying to get you free. :P
I have an axe... I could try to hit him with it non lethal...
Haven't made a move to kill him yet.
Hehe, well, gotta flavor it somehow :P
Believe me, I would prefer going free myself. But if the dice give you lemons...
Maybe I'm not following the point of this, but there's just no world in which Ro waits around to see whether a man who just shredded his restraints, and who may now be a ghoul, chokes Lia to death. If he goes down he can be stabilized.
His illness severely reduced his Constitution.
He likely has a low amount of Hit Points, courtesy of a negative Con modifier.
Also, if he was close to death from the disease, then after he passes 0 Hit Points he probably has 1 or 2 negative HP at most, before reaching negative Con and dying.
Stabilizing him is unlikely and would only occur on the very lucky occasion that the damage dealt puts him exactly at -1 HP and he is inmediately stoppped from bleeding out.
As said, I understand the notion, but considering the abstractness of HP, he is not quite a real danger yet, so SOMEONE doing some nonlethal damage to him successfully would go a long way towards simply knocking him out, rather than accidentally going straight murderhobo on him. (murderhobo not meant negatively, but for whoever strikes him down, it probably won't be a welcome realization they killed him.)
Is that something we know in character as a general thing?
I would assume its a common sense thing.
If someone is close to death from an illness, they likely don't take well to additional burden placed on their body e.g. from blood loss resulting from getting stabbed.
As said, HP is an abstract concept, but the fact a deadly disease takes it's toll on the body should reasonably lead to the conclusion that there is a very thin thread on which his life hangs-
I really don't see Ro making those kinds of calculations in the few seconds available.
Salient to the situation for her is Grayst's abnormal demonstration of strength, his continued and determined attack on Lia with lethal intent, and Ro's inability to do anything that matters other than stabbing him.
If anyone or everyone else can knock him out or get him off Lia by other means, that's all fine. But otherwise he's continuing to attack Lia and not complying with orders to stop. In the absence of something giving somewhere, Ro will straight up kill him if that's what it takes.
Whoohoo for a power that I almost always forget I have..
For someone close to dying , he seemed to take well to a beating and with that strength It doesn't look like someone dying.
In character, I doubt that Drasven can tell how much damage Grayst has taken in terms of Constitution damage and how long more he can take.
Also he has already claimed a master and is likely not going to stop until he gets taken out which Matrim did. I would have just killed him straight since he's a danger.
@GM:
A creature wearing greased armor or clothing gains a +10 circumstance bonus on Escape Artist checks and combat maneuver checks made to escape a grapple, and to their CMD to avoid being grappled.
I think if Ro greased me, he not only failed to damage me, he failed to maintain the grapple altogether?