A Kingdom in the making (Inactive)

Game Master Wrath

** spoiler omitted **

Mawj

Experience to date - 200xp (150 for combat, 50 for roleplay and story development to date)

Loot from the bandits - total of 95gp,
6x suits of leather armour (most of them covered in blood),
5x standard longbows,
6x quivers of 20 arrows (some were used in combat but lets keep it simple),
5x short swords (average quality).

From the leader there are some more interesting items
2x flasks of alchemist fire (marked as such anc kept in clay jars with a red wax coating the lid),
a dagger (Has the Restov coat of arms carved into the cross guard and the writing "Protecting the Dragon Throne" on the pommel,
Composite longbow (+2) (not a masterwork weapon but certainly is harder to draw than the normal bows),
a silver pendant in the shape of a stags head.

Who is going to decide how to share loot ? anyway nothing interesting to me...except for money of course :-)

Not to metagame too much, but other Kingmaker games I have participated in have opted to give unwanted loot to Oleg in exchange for store credit. This allows us to liquidate any equipment a PC doesn't claim, plus we don't have to carry around any money or gems with us. If we need something, we request it from Oleg and he docks our credit. Does this sound alright?

I say we keep all of the 'more interesting items' and the 120 arrows from the mundane gear (since Lev and Mawj will be using a lot of them). The rest we can give to Oleg for our account.

ok for me,will see IC thread more accurately

I'll let people make their decisions on what they're after before going in to too much detail about Oleg's and Svetlana's plans. Much of that has to do with how things are handled IC over the next few days.

In general, I want you to track how much gold or equivalent you have for yourselves. How we handle it can be for flavour without interrupting that mechanic

i.e. Either credit or cash, you still track your own wealth and we'll handle it from there.

As a GM, I tend not to bog myself down in the minutiae of selling or trading, unless it is helpful to the story. Again, i am willing to be more felxible depending on how you guys want to handle things though.

Introducing my new alias ( GN here :) )

Maybe you didn't see my question a couple of days ago Wrath...i asked what software you use for updating maps and how to put in maps the avatars of the pc's if it isn't a secret please please please

Nice avatar :)

I use the suite of tools from RPTools. There's a program called mapmaker and another called token tool. They're free to download. It takes some time to learn how to use them but it can be very useful. I map for live games using this program and a laptop. On of players brings their laptop along, we network tehm together and they use it aas a display while I run things from my computer. Has sped up our gaming immensley.

To get links, I take jpeg screen captures, save them to my computer then upload these to photobucket (also free).

I'll get a link for you later, but if you want ot find it now just google RPTools.

Cheers

OK i DL all i found under RPTools ( map, tokens,char,init and dice folders ) but the hell if i got how to use them....also my feelings is i lack a .exe file to them. they don't seem to work. what i missed ?

It should all be there. There is a program called maptool launcher in the map tools files. I can't remember if theres an install program or not, or if it unzips.

It took me about three weeks of tinkering with the program before I became good enough to use it for actual game play.

The joy of the program is that you can actually link up over the internet at times when everyone is too scattered to make a live game.

Keep perservering, it will work out. (There are ttuorials and video tutes on the rptools web page as well. I used those extensively.)

Cheers

Quick note on the loot: Lev would dearly love that composite long bow. Does anyone have a problem with that going to him?

not me, all yours as far as i'm concerned

To the victor go the spoils.
Arianna would like one of the Alchemist fires, though.

Me also...the only things of some interest to a sorcerer are the dagger and the alchm fire.but nothing really indispensable for me.

Okay to sum up:

The 95 gold can be split up 6 ways with 16 going to 5 people and 15 to the 6th party member. I'm happy to be the one who takes the 15 gp and let the rest of you have the 16.

Otherwise Arianna and Elsbeth have requested the alchemist fire.

Elsbeth has expressed interest in the dagger. Anyone have the ability to do a knowledge check to determine if it's got any history? I have no objections to Elsbeth taking it, but we might want to determine if there's any significance in it before forgetting about it.

Lev has put forth a bid for the Composite Longbow.

Arrows would certainly be useful for anyone with a bow. Any other requests/ opinions re: loot?

Sounds good to me.

I'm fine with it. I don't worry too much about my PC wealth versus other PCs, since it will all be used for the success of the party anyway. As long as Mawj has what she needs to do her job, she is happy. :)

Knowledge history would do it. DC 10 so I believe eventhose not trained in it can make the roll. Knolwedge local as well, same DC

Do them in this thread and if anyone succeeds I'll tell you all there is to know about the little dagger :)

Knowledge (local): 1d20 + 6 ⇒ (4) + 6 = 10

knowledge local (untrained)1d20 + 2 ⇒ (4) + 2 = 6

Elsbeth is taking a nap :(

She isn't the only one that is sleeping...had a dinner in a pub lately this evening after work, just got home, it's 2:00 AM here, will go to bed and post in IC thread tomorrow.

And of course i'm fine with how loot has been handled. So i'll take 16 gp ,the dagger and 1 flask of alch fire for now. If some issue with it comes forth i'll hand it back np

Arianna recognises the dagger as belonging to the official regalia of a watchman from Restov. Either it was taken from a watchman by Happs or he had another reason to have it issued to him. Either way, they weren't allowed to be carried outside of town, and retired servicemen handed theirs back as a matter of course.

Loot- Also, there are six riding horses now. Different to your wagon horses, these ones move faster and have been trained to carry a rider. The other horses are draft horses, and would effectively be useless for riding, but good for hauling loads.

How you've divvied loot seems fine to me. Lev, go ahead and take the bow I say. You probably have the most use for itas Mawj has her ancestral weapon.

I'll let you know about prices and stuff that Oleg can offer once he recovers enough to talk.

Cheers

Anyone else got problems logging ? i've had for several minutes now.
And the black dots indicating the threads in which i post are gone....WTF ?

Don't worry too much, the boards play up every now and then. You seem to be having a bad run with it though GN, hoping that sorts out for you soon.

A quick question, i know it was over fairly quickly but how did everyone find the way I handled combat? Any suggestions?

Cheers

Don't worry too much, the boards play up every now and then. You seem to be having a bad run with it though GN, hoping that sorts out for you soon.

A quick question, i know it was over fairly quickly but how did everyone find the way I handled combat? Any suggestions?

Cheers

The issues of this morning ( at least here ) seemed to be server crash problems, will see in the next days. I liked the combat, the fact it lasted so little time is due to the lethality of our archers. Will see for the next one to have another example

A quick question, i know it was over fairly quickly but how did everyone find the way I handled combat? Any suggestions?

I enjoyed the way combat worked. The only thing I was missing was having the squares on the map identified so that I could state exactly which square I was moving to (and/or through). If it's too much trouble to do that with your map tools, however, I can deal without it.

You did a fine job with summing up PC actions in a way that was a pleasure to read.

I can't put numbers on for map tools (that I'm aware of). However I could go in and edit them in from photoimpact, which is what I use to convert from a screenshot to a jpeg for uploading. That may add far more time to the process though so we'll see how we go.

Thanks for teh feedback btw, its all useful. It's important to me that you let me know if there's an aspect of teh game you have ideas about to make things better. At some point I'm going to start introducing more of your backgrounds into little bits of teh game, hoping to tie your characters to the world more completely. When that starts happening, please feedback with ideas as don't want to be stepping all over the parts of the game you guys control.

Dots are back, for those of you who were so upset at losing them.

Now that Oleg is back up and about - He will give you a deal on the equipment you don't want to keep for this encounter. Effectively he'll buy everything off you at full price. In addition he gives you an awrd of 60gold to split amongst you, plus three potions he had stored in his room.

As a furhter boon to you all for saving his wife and himself, he and Svetlana will give you free food and lodging and tend the horses whilever you are here.

However, he is running a business and all other equipment you want to sell or barter will go at the usual 50% cost from this point on. e normally charges folk additional 10% on things they buy from him, but he'll wave that cost for all of you so any purchases that are available through him will be as per the books.

So - 10gp each Reward from Oleg
- 2x potions of cure light wounds (1d8+1)
- 1x Shield of faith +2
- total for selling gear not claimed (375 longbows +50 shortswords +60 leather armour) = 445gold (or roughly 75 gold each) You can take it as gold or credit, the choice is yours but track it on your sheets as normal.
- The silver stags head amulet is worth another 20 gold but I wasn't sure if you wanted to sell that or not.

He cannot afford to buy the horses, nor is he interested in them as they are not something he normally trades. However he is willing to let them pasture and be stabled at his place until you find a potential buyer if that is what you wish.

On exploration and mapping.

I have now put up the exploration map for the greenbelt. This shows the hexes you travelled through to date. The road sections are fully explored and actually belong to Brevoy, so are outside the bounds of your exploration charter.

Olegs marks the first Hex you are able to explore for your charter. Exploring takes time, the actual amount dependant on the terrain and your speed of travel.

I will reveal more hexes as you move through them, but you won't get details or special locations until you've taken the time to fully explore them. For ease of exploration, assume North is the top of the page. When you want to move into a new hex, please tell me the direction of travel you want (NE, E, SE, SW, W, NW). You must declare if you want to explore a hex, otherwise it is assumed you are just passing through.

Each Hex is 12 miles (close to 20km) across from tip to tip, a little less from side to side but I'm not going to get into the maths of that.

You won' be able to take the wagon with you, as the ground is too rough and it will get bogged quickly. However you can ride horses and take supplies on the draft horses if you wish. Remember you now have three weeks worth of rations having used some on the trip here (Mawj's survival checks not being enough to scrounge enough food for everyone to survive on). After this time you will need to order more food through Oleg, or hunt for your own.

Each time you explore, I am going to ask for a number of rolls. They will depend on the terrain and the particular hex, but you can pretty much assume it will be a perception and a survival check.

I have worked out a months weather in advance and it may affect travel rates etc as well. This also means those with survival and knowledge nature can make checks to predict weather a few days in advance. I leave those rolls up to you to inform me.

Hopefully that's enough information to go on for now. Any questions post them here and we'll deal with them as they come up.

PS. Been enjoying the RP stuff so far. Good job all of you on bringing your characters alive.

Cheers

Potion of shield of faith stack with mage armor spell ? otherwise they best be reserved for melee chars, as are the cure light woundspotions. I'll take the money ( so it is 10+75 gold each of us )?

Yep, shiled of faith stacks with mage armour. One is a deflection bonus, the other is an AC bonus.

Total gold for each player is 85 assuming everyones ok with that method of loot dispersal.

I'm a firm believer in people getting the items most useful to them by the way. It's my job to try and balance loot so everyone is getting something useful at some stage or another.

Potions of heal are always interesting to divvy up. What you need to think about is where your cleric plans on spending her time in combat. If she's up close with the melee types and she's in a healing frame of mind, then they are less likely to need the potion compared to folk in the back who might be getting targeted at range. On the other hand, if she is standing back unleashing the wrath of Pharasma on her hapless foes, then the melee guys may just need it. I'll let you guys decide how that one divvies up hehe.

I added 85 gp to my sheet. Am waiting for the others to decide on potions, but they probably best be used by Lev or Mawj or Anya

This is a hand-drawn portrait of Elsbeth i made but don't expect too much, i'm not Louis Royo ( not even 1/100000 of him to tell it all T_T )

Nice work GN! I can see why the guards on the road paid attention to her. I gotta say she's going to need something warmer when you go exploring, or constatnly cast protection from elements hehe.

Obviously she isn't dressed that way atm ;-) but i'm influenced by many many years of anime.....and by the photos of nude girls i use to draw the initial pose ( but we can skip this part )

Couple of things to comment on:

Torture: If Mawj had actually indicated that she was going to go through with the threat, Lev would have tried to stop her. I hadn't had an opportunity to post yet but he was warily viewing her words as threat only, though he was ready to intervene if necessary (since she sounded so serious).

I'm sure there will be an opportunity to RP that out before long.

I'm good of the loot dispersal as it's so far far been described. I'm somewhat inclined to take the 75 gold from the loot as credit and will describe it that way on my character sheet. The 10 gold bonus Lev will take in coin.

I'm going to wait until I hear from Anya and Alandra before bidding on the healing potion. It'd certainly be useful for Lev but so is keeping the healer alive if she's interested in dispensing the healing.

The silver stags amulet: I'd like to investigate that a little more before we sell it.

Exploration rules sound good. I'm more interested in focusing on the bandits right now than exploration but the exploration is sure to follow.

I'm fine with Lev taking the potion of CLW.

DM: For our initial negotiations with Oleg, is there any chance Lev can trade in his shorbow for full value in credit along with the other loot? That'd be an additional 30gp for Lev if so.

If not, the 15gp credit is fine.

DM: For our initial negotiations with Oleg, is there any chance Lev can trade in his shorbow for full value in credit along with the other loot? That'd be an additional 30gp for Lev if so.

If not, the 15gp credit is fine.

Yeah, he will probably be enthusiastic enough to do that for you, especially since you're willing to take it as ledgered credit rather than gold. Otherwise he wouldn't acutually have enough gold for it.

This is the day you saved his life after all, so he's rather complient.

Cheers

Awesome. Updated character sheet to include Oleg's credit and gold increase, as well as the change from the shortbow to the composite longbow.

Now that we've all got all this credit with Oleg we have even more reason to ensure he stays alive. Works out for everyone.

Would someone like to be the party quartermaster and keep track of our communal gear and finances?

Mawj wouldn't mind carrying one of the potions of CLW.

As for the torture, well, I think a philosophy of 'by any means necessary for the greater good' is very Neutral in character. Mawj wouldn't do that to a Good NPC, but to a predatory bandit who has probably tortured and killed innocents? She wouldn't have a problem at all. To use modern parlance, she is an objective utilitarian.

As for the torture, well, I think a philosophy of 'by any means necessary for the greater good' is very Neutral in character.

I'd actually disagree, but that's where alignment always gets tricky. No one ever seems to have the same perception of good/ evil or neutrality. Even my best friend and I have been arguing the true definition of neutral for the 12 years we've known each other.

Which is why, regardless of my personal perception, I tend to just go with the DM's judgment. It's particularly helpful when a DM actually shares that information as Wrath did. So thanks, Wrath! I'm happy to abide by your definitions.

As far as tracking party supplies...I'm already doing it in one pbp so I'd prefer not to. However, if no one else has any interest in doing so, I'll go ahead and take care of it.

Yeah, alignments can be tricky things. In Mawj's defence, I think this is a line that is much blurrier for her than others, given her favoured enmity. I actually enjoy the fact she is a little alien to the humans who surround her, it reminds alot of the way Eldar are written in the warhammer 40 000 universe.

I definitely want players to have organic characters and I'm flexible on most things, but I felt it was iportant that you understood where I see the line on torture. It is a slippery slope to tread, and eventually I believe would lead to the madness of evil alignment.

Keep playing your character the way you see her Tanner, I really enjoy Mawj, I just want you to know where I stand and some possible consequences of actions you may take.

As for the torture, well, I think a philosophy of 'by any means necessary for the greater good' is very Neutral in character.

I've always though of "the purpose justifies the means" philosophy as the Chaotic Good way of thinking. Of course to certain extents,it is anyway a good alignment.

I have a lot of free time usually, so i could do the quartermaster, dunno how long bfore my pbp campaign can start, and dunno how much time it'll take so i can't promise anything

"By any means necessary" and "do what it takes" are trademarks of "deluded evil" in my eyes. In fact, I once had a Blackguard who subscribed by that very ethos. If it takes a few burnt villages to drive the cultists out of hiding... well, the villages would have been killed anyway by the incoming demon horde.

Urg. Have to update my sheet - I only saw the "treasure received" now that I'm on the jump. Will do so tonight.

yeah, as I said, it is a very slippery slope. It starts off sounding like a great philosophy but turns out to be justification for any number of attrocious acts. It would not be an instant change to evil btw. A gradual decent.

However, I want everyone to remember that alignments are very blurry and some things humans might consider evil, elves may not.

I think Tanner is playing his character very nicely. Mawj is a forlorn elf with favoured enemy human, so I think she would have treated the humans exactly how she did. I think staying the other side of openly evil is one of the character traits she will constantly struggle with in this game and that makes her an interesting character.

I can guarantee that Lev is going to come across some situations very soon where he is going to have similar moral dilemmas.

And for those who haven't had the joy of travelling with Alandra before, she has a very dark side that she struggles to hold in check as well.

Hehehe, we knew this was going to be interesting coming in, and now we know just how interesting your characters are going to be.

Cheers

Since Elsbeth and Alandra share knowledge of infernal lang and i have no idea on how infernal should sound i could as well simply post in italian ( or some ancient variants like the italian from Dante Alighieri's La Divina Commedia ). Be sure that i'm not going to write insults or vulgarity, i don't even know if someone of you knows my lang. Or else i could simply write some random letters. You tell me.

Of course i'll add the translation in a spoiler for Alandra

I think a significant distinction for Mawj would be, who is suffering for whom? I would say that burning innocent villagers to flush out cultists is evil, obviously. Because presumably good, innocent people are suffering to benefit larger society. In this case, though, a murderous, lying bandit may need to be physically coerced to reveal the location of his comrades. A thoroughly evil, unrepentant person would suffer to benefit larger society. Not only that, but the benefit would be his removal from society, placing the responsibility of remediating the damage on him as well. That, and there appears to be no other possible means of attaining our goal. In the blackguard example, there are many possible alternate actions that could have been taken, implying a voluntary willingness to commit the deed rather than doing the best you can in restricted circumstances.

And here it is simplified:

Burning (bad act) innocent villagers (good people) to reveal cultists (good effect) is an evil act.

Hurting (bad act) bandits (bad people) to protect farmers and travelers (good effect) is a neutral act.

*shakes head to wipe away memories of philosophy courses* Anywho, I'm really enjoying this so far. Let's keep it up!