Nothing is more important than your family. Especially not this little diversionary pass-time.
Enjoy having the children around you while you can. Our youngest moved out this last February, and has since celebrated her 20th birthday. Life as just a couple again is nice, but it is real easy to miss the kids.
I'm back! So sorry for being away like that. I've fixed internet and all now so it should work fine from now on!
Hey, all things considered that is very good news!
Good to hear that you've got a new computer!
Is this PbP dead already?
Ok, that's fine.
Seems right, I think. I know that's where I am and where Dolin is.
I can see what you mean.
I like knowledge checks basically because I've GM'd so much I've all but memorized most of the Bestiary. Knowledge lets me know what my character would know in a fair way - and most of my characters get a lot of them.
To be fair, the long pauses between responses from the NPCs have just about killed this for me, because that interaction isn't being made available.
If I know that an interactive exchange is going to take a month or more, I'm being given an incentive to make a die roll instead, enabling me to move on to the next set of interactions which might be more responsive.
I've been staring at what was a three-way interaction between Derrick, Dolin and Finchley, watched it expand into two separate conversations involving five people and finding myself being dismissed as though I'm inherently less interesting than the barmaid from the one of the two which actually CAN BE interactive.
There are several things I CAN do to bull my way into that interaction, but the decided lack of interaction and long delays waiting for responses have left me wondering if I care or not.
Again, I agree that the social interaction part of this hobby is the thing that keeps me interested and involved. I am amazed that you would do as little about being interactive as you have and then complain that people are choosing low-interaction ways of interfacing with you.
However, there are things I don't know how to do but maybe my PC should know. I do not really know how to find out who is willing to buy illegal goods without getting myself in trouble with the law. But if my PC has the correct knowledge skills he should know how.
Also, not necessarily you, but some GM's expect startlingly specific knowledge or questions.
In a recent home game. We had done research on the opponent both at the church and through knowledge checks. We learned pretty much everything from the bestiary about it. We were convincd we didn't have much chance unless we just got real lucky with the dice. But the way the adventure was set up we didn't feel we had any choice but to try or the whole town including us would die anyway. Our 3rd level PC's only avoided a TPK because the GM got disgusted with how bad we were doing and gave us an out.
Turns out this specific version of the creature is different than the bestiary standard. If you lure it off the road it gets weaker. If you then make it jump/cross/leap over a magic weap it is defeated.
1) If at the church we had specifically asked for legends on other ways to defeat this specific one we would have learned that.
2) If we had watched/remembered a 1970's classic horror movie we would have recognized the creature of the same name.
3) Since we were losing anyway we should have tried different things to find the weakness through trial and error. (Like it would ever occur to anyone to hide the only magic weapon you have on the ground then stand defenseless as lure to get it to cross the weapon and be destroyed.)
He thought those 3 items gave us more than enough chances and was completely fair.
That would be fine.
Also good to move on.
Cool
Hand wave is fine with me.
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I am fine with speeding up the journey, unless you had anything specific planned that you are changing due to the shift in the game.
You are doing great, though. I said it once already, but I'll say it again, I am really enjoying the work you've put into the setting and the people within it.
I think that your original goal can still be attained. I feel like this is still a bit of an introductory section. We all want to get familiarized with the area, and at the moment, working together is best for us. I see myself taking Edren into more of a patrol/guard role soon, and I'm sure that's not for everyone :D
Lots of skill challenges that I presume require out-of-the-box thinking? That sounds fantastic, as do the other things you have listed, including the possibility of Sci-Fi themes!
I signed up for this expecting it to be an experimental thing that may not work. I'm happy to have participated :)
I think that once the characters have some more resources and knowledge it may be worth looking at revisiting the split group concept.
I'm happy to hand wave the trip except that if we don't get at least one encounter we're likely to think that the wilderness is safe to travel in.
hand wave is fine
Free-form sandboxes relying on PCs interacting and the GM being prepared to deal with all of that can be very difficult to pull off. I've now participated in a few of them on the boards, and none of them have really taken off. Don't feel bad, Terquem--it's not an easy game to run. I'm more than happy to participate in another of your amusing dungeon runs.
Hey Terq, quick question, a REGULAR compass provides a +2 bonus, so I made a MASTERWORK provide a +4. Is that okay or would you like me to drop it to a +3?
didn't mean to upset you, i just envisioned her as "feeling" lost in the city. Her home is the wilderness. She often left the confines of city life and spent days or sometime weeks in the woods. Soaking up all the knowledge given to her from the elders she met in the woods (other rangers/druids perhaps). I have focused on survival, but that just means I won't be as good in say combat/stealth/knowledge checks/etc.
I by no means attempted to DERAIL the challenge or the potential to get lost. And I have faith in your DM skills. I trust you to do what is best for all involved, and you've got a great game in Woodbridge going, so I know you can have a great one here as well.
Perhaps there should be 2 Survivial skills (above ground/below ground) to represent the diversity of training and that would certainly limit my ability. I would get the whole +14 for above ground but one say half or qurarter (round down) below ground since the basic training is there but not the total 'working knowledge'. Or since I have no ranks in it, I would only get my skill mod + compass to an underground check?
Just some possible solutions to keep it fresh and fun for all involved.
We our our own toughest critiques. Don't be so down on yourself :)
I don't see a problem with survival not being a problem for her. This is Portia's niche, and something her character should be able to do blindfolded (let alone with great gear). Remember she spent a Feat on being *amazing* at this.
If you want survival challenges to be a big part of the game then yeah, you'll need to do something.
You can still challenge even her Survival with things like tracking. Opposed Survival checks are great because NPCs can be really good at something too.
If there's a significant amount of metal or magnetism around that compass could become a negative rather than a positive at some point, when everyone is used to it just working
Remember Knowledge:Geography (or Knowledge:Dungeoneering?) are also important parts of navigation.
Losing a player is hard, but I think it was because you took a chance, and that's worth doing.
I don't know about you. But one of the problems I tend to have is that I get a bunch of great ideas. Then try to follow up on all of them at once. But of course, I don't actually have the free time for that. So then I would end up half-ashing all of them.
Example 1: When I decided to start playing PFS so I could try out some different PC concepts, I ended up with 4 separate characters none of which is over 5th level. I often can't remember the back story, plans, history, or persona for any given one of them when I sit down at the table to play. If I had just played through with one he would have just about made it to the 12th level retirement now, I would have been able to concentrate on the concept for that PC, I think I would have been much happier with how he played out. And I would be getting ready to start a new one right about now (that I would again be able to concentrate on).
Example 2: Last time I tried to write my own campaign I tried to do way too much. I was making a new setting. Re-vamping how the magic items system worked. Re-writing a bunch of classes and the combat system. Making a self limiting spell system that would still be playable. Designing a completely new multi-classing system. Etc... I ended up not getting anything done and the entire campaign imploded by committee of one.
I am constantly needing to force myself to decide on a very limited number of 'projects' which I will pursue. It is an ongoing battle with myself that I often lose.
So don't be to hard on yourself. Just decide which things you are going to concentrate on and try to do your best job on just those.
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That's the great thing about PbP, Terquem! Even if you are taking your time to flesh things out, we aren't sitting there waiting on you. We can do other things and check on the thread each day :D
Keep your chin up! You are doing great with this. I like that it's a little more open and it will let us branch out soon!
I would like to add to the skill challenge discussion as well. I wouldn't suggest ramping up the skill check difficulties, as that makes the characters we made feel like they aren't great at what they do. If you feel we are breezing through things too quickly, come up with skill challenges that would actually challenge the characters. Come up with neat and interesting ways for things to be resolved. This is always better than just "adding bigger numbers".
Since it is not something applicable to Nashantur, I have just deleted his post.