Aubrey's Kingmaker Campaign

Game Master Aubrey the Malformed

Merry christmas, everybody!

Isn't boxing day the day after christmas? Merry Christmas!

Yes, it is (the reason for the name is lost to history).

I'm off to see the in-laws tomorrow so I might have time to update - or I might not. I will be back by the New Year in either case, but I won't be able to update while I am there.

The Krampus picks out some really tough bad kids, makes a boxing ring, and lets them duke it out for one last chance at a present.
THEN, if they gets a tooth knocked out, the tooth fairy gives them some cash as well.

C-section tonight! Updates when I know more.

Little Emma was delivered today via c-section after 35 weeks and 3 days of gestation. She's looking great - 6 ponds 7 ounces is pretty solid for such an early birth, and she didn't need to spend any time at all in the nursery. Erin's doing well too, so this seems to have been a great success.

Happy New Year, one and all!

Aaaaand HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Yes, I'm back. Barely.
I'll play catch up as quick as I can.
:)

And GRATZ Vatt! ;)

SPEAKING of bdays,... It's official. I am now an old man.
This morning as of 8:20, at 7lbs 2 oz, my grandson was born.

I am officially 'Grandpa'.
;P

Awesome.

Sorry for the slow pace at the moment. Trying to get used to getting up early again.

A belated happy new year to everyone! And congratulations, Rags!

Dear friends,

I am experiencing a minor life crisis at the moment. One which will require all of my psychic energy to overcome.
I'm not sure if I really have the wherewithal or the motivation to run or participate in pbp for the forseeable few weeks at least. I'm not in a "happy funtime Heathy" mood at the moment.
It's nothing life threatening; it's work stuff.
As such, please let Hudak sneak off with Dravite, let Aleph get a little bit lost in the woods, let Rodergo go in the wilderness to meditate a bit....or npc them; I'm not sure what I'm going to do right now, but I think you guys need to know I'll be taking off for a bit.
I also need to put my pbp on indefinite hiatus.
In a few weeks/month(s) possibly I'll test the waters again and see if it's okay to join back in the revelry, as well as see if we want to continue with the inevitable questing in Asgard......Sigil.....Isle of Dread whathaveyou.

Your friend,

Heath

Given that Heathy can't join us online for a while, I suggest that someone NPC him for a while until this fight is over (as indeed Vatters is doing). After this the party can either return to Oleg's and Aleph can join the various parked PCs who seem to be hanging out there, or you can continue to NPC him as you see fit. Hopefully Heathy will return soon and Aleph's pause in purdah will be brief.

I don't think that Aleph's absence will cause undue problems for party balance - the party currently has three strikers, a leader, a defender and a controller. The loss of one striker just means the party has achieved 4e standard party make-up.

Sorry for the quietude of the last few days - work getting me down.

Hey guys, caught some sort of bug, so I won't be around much.

Thanks for letting us know - get well soon.

Better now! Yay!

Of course, now that the weekend is upon us, I'll probably neglect to check the thread.

I'll do my best to make sure I check no later than Monday morning (Pacific time) though.

Glad to hear your better Wag,
Sorry to hear about work Aub. (There seems to be a copious amount of 'work-bleech' going around these days!)

Riddle me this,...
As a guy who (within certain limitations) writes his own schedule, WHY am I at work on my birthday?!?!?!?!
;P

You are rubbish about writing it?

Hm.

Best guess I've heard so far! ;)

So,...
Last night,
-Toilet that wouldn't turn off,
-drainage system partially clogged by construction
-entire backstage flooded, starting to enter the stage

-Standing in water up to my ankles with 80 kids in expensive Mardi Gras outfits looking for a place to potty,... PRICELESS!

:)

I think I'm gonna come back around a little more now; I'm through the rapids as it were on this river called life.

Gimme a week or whatever, to read everything and figure out what's going on, longer if there isn't a sensible reinsertion point.

How are things? Everyone happy with the game? Any comments or criticisms, or a burning urge to heap praise upon my DMing skills?

I am liking it, i am in a constant state of we are all going to die, which makes for a fun game, but that could just be my spazz monk's personality coming out

I like it too. The AP is very different from "normal" gaming conventions, but I think that's a good thing.

I'll my +1 to the enjoying side.
It's nice being able to play without having to keep player knowledge separate from the PC. I honestly have NO idea what's coming next. And the creatures are never, quite, what I expect even once I see them.
Nice change from the "usual" dungeon-crawling monster-bashing. :)

EDIT- Oh, And I'll heap praise upon the Dm's Dm-ing skills too! :D
(It NEVER hurts to have the DM think fondly of you as you face that unexpected Crit from the BBEG!) ;P

I like the cut of your jib, Raggy.

I'm away this weekend so won't be able to post until Monday afternoon.

I like it because it's all so new.
I don't know quite what to expect.

I don't......for instance, have any idea how tuff a werewolf is, ergo how much damage it can take.....

makes things interesting.

And slowly but surely fleshing out a map that has no detail besides the inevitable "here be dragons" is kinda snazzy.

I like the skill challenges.
I'm aware of the dissection of skill challenges somewhere else, and the gnashing of teeth, but......
I got no problem with them.

Me too. I like that whole "roll a skill check and explain why that particular skill is appropriate for this situation" mechanic.

Yeah; it's like problem solving insteadda chess piece moving.

I (think) I'm coming around to actually 'liking' skill challenges.

I was ambivalent when first introduced to it, I think mainly because it 'skill-rolled' something that my RLG had always played by the seat-of-our pants. (Which actually, now that I dwell on it, became a series of self-made skill challenges that we were RP-ing through)

For a PbP setup, I think I like them because they beat the socks off of 'one chance and your done' skill or knowledge checks that we might otherwise run into.

Dot, bump and all that.

Sorry for being a bit quiet the last few days, but I was feeling a bit down about work. Then I bumped into a neighbour on the train and, after moaning on about my problems for ten minutes, asked him how he was. Turns out his kid nearly died last month from a burst appendix that didn't get diagnosed properly for several days, and he's spent the last month juggling the other kids and work while his wife was basically living at the Birmingham Children's Hospital. Which put my problems in perspective, and made me feel a bit better about tackling my issues. So the fact my neighbour's kid hovered at Death's door for a while ironically cheered me up, which feels a bit wrong but there you have it. So I'll be back in the saddle soon.

(You'll be glad to know the young gentleman is a lot better now, though still suffering from fevers from time to time. Fingers crossed, he should make a full recovery.)

Wow. Glad to hear that he's going to be alright. (And that you are too!)

Nothing like others troubles to put your own into perspective! Or, as Jerry Clower said, "It could always be worse!"

(And no, I'm not dating myself there, at all. That was one of my DAD'S albums!) ;P

So I've lost track of where we are on the map. And going back, it's not clear to me that we've been exploring it. Have we? How much more time do we need to spend to finish mapping it out?

The reason I ask is that I've been noticing our foraging hasn't been keeping up with consumption & traveling through unexplored country takes longer than through explored territory. If we're going to go Kobold hunting, I'd rather not do so on short rations. I know Hasren has a similar opinion, but I think he'd keep track better than I the player have been.

You've got lot's of exploring left - expecting to do it in a single sitting is probably not going to work. It's three to four days per square, and you've done about five on this trip, so you have been going in the wilderness for upwards of three weeks.

Map.

Sorry, I guess I didn't explain what I meant very well.

I was wondering what square on the map we're currently in & had we been exploring it? It looks like we have been based on your in-game comment.

Are we currently exploring D24?

Oh & I looked up the exploration rules you posted & it appears I was getting exploration time mixed up with travel time. The travel time's the same, it just whether you take a chance on getting lost or not.

Ok. Now that I've got that straightened out in my head I think Hasren can chip in on the conversation!

Just to let you know, I will be going on holiday from Thursday for just over a week or so. I won't have any internet access in this time.

Guys, very sorry for my recent absence - I've been busy at work and busy doing stuff that needed to be done before we go on holiday in the evening. I'm on holiday today and won't be around until about Saturday next week.

dot

Sorry for the lack of posting recently - nothing sinister, just a bit busy. Should be back on track tomorrow.

S'all good, we're here! :)
(Gives me time to get my work done!)

Gentlemen,

My wife and I have decided to move from Arizona to Norway. I'm leaving in a couple of weeks, and she'll come after (with the baby and the dog) in the fall. Right now we're in packing mode.

SO - I'm going to be rather busy over the next two weeks; then I'll fly home and switch to Aubreytime. So my posting routine is going to be both a bit more restrained than usual, and then change to a different timeslot after that.

Moving update: We're starting to move stuff into storage tomorrow, and will cancel our cable and internet as of Friday. After that I expect to be mostly busy until Thursday, before getting on the plane on Sunday. So I really don't think I'll be around much over the next ten days or so.

Heimoth will quietly tag along with whatever course the party chooses.

And then I'm back home in Norway! I'll be catching up over the next couple of days.

Guys, just to warn you (slightly) in advance, but my posting schedule is likely to be quite disrupted over the next month or so. I am in New York for business next week, then back in the UK for a week, then in Warsaw for a week, and then immediately after that I'm on holiday for two weeks. Hopefully the US and Poland trips won't be too disruptive to posting, but the holiday (or the first week and a half of it) definitely will be (in a cottage in Northumberland for a week, then a few days with the in-laws in Yorkshire, and then a few days at home).

By the way, sorry my posting has been occasionally patchy over the last few months. I've had a few issues at work but they are now all resolved, so I am now less distracted by extraneous issues.