DM Barcas - Skull & Shackles: Freedom of the Sea (Inactive)

Game Master Isaac Duplechain

Still here too. Looking forward to the New Year.

My dice are all over the place but hardly boring :)

I just want to take a moment to say that I look forward to knocking Plugg and his gang off the boat. Not only because it'll be good in and of itself, but it'll allow more room for some Firefly-like shenanigans, as originally described in the recruitment thread.

Note: I'm not complaining about a like of Fireflyness. I understand we're in a bad place now. But it'll be fun to be free of the bad place and engage in some light-hearted criminal activity, in the spirit of Jayne: "Shiny. Let's be bad guys!"

I know what you mean. Frankly, when Ollivor hears Plugg ignored the stormwarnings, he maybe tempted to throw plugg or one of his pets overboard during the tempest if he can

You'll get there.

You'll get there.

I don't doubt it, Barcas, and that's why I made a point of saying I'm not complaining.

Ollie's got a good point - if Plugg's going to kill us all by ignoring the storm, maybe now is the time to, um, demote the captain?

Who preps the ship for the storm, then? You have a fair amount of work to do to ensure the ship's survival.

I wasn't entirely serious about the suggestion, just idly wondering whether this situation will drive us to the point where we have to get rid of Plugg, for our own safety.

We'll get to work, and see what happens.

Morning Guys, I had some things come up. Long story short.. I am back home and have access to the forums. Not sure how long it will last for, but while I am here no need to get e-mail updates. I'll let you guys know if things change.

Sorry for the delay of the last few days. My wife, my son, and I are all trading off being sick. We've each had it twice over the last two weeks.

Ugh. My sympathies. Illness is no fun, musical chairs type illness is just insult to injury

Doran, I went to write up a post, but I needed to check something... I thought our weapons had been confiscated when we moved onto the Mans Promise?

Doran is the first mate and has his knives. Everybody else lacks weaponry. Doran should have a couple serrated knives, though, and it is reasonable that you all hung onto the tools you used to secure the ship immediately prior to the storm.

Hey all - just a heads-up that I'll be leaving Saturday for a week of work travel, that will then become a week of personal travel, due to return on Feb 8. I will try to keep up on posting, but I will be pretty busy.

I am on a case right now, so I'm a bit busy as well.

Thanks for the patience, amigos. I have been putting in a lot of overtime hours on this case and have had almost no time to myself. We have a rule where you can only work sixteen hours at a time, but it gets waived while we are on cases. I've had a bit of success - arresting one of four suspects - but it's come at a cost of exhaustion.

That said, I've got a quiet lull and don't want to spend it typing up the case report - so I'll be dropping an update on you in a little while.

Isaac, does the skill challenge have to be done in order? Or can I pick any of the three?

I am not Isaac, but his post says:

"Any order, but one action per round."

Any order, but stabilizing the mast will make the other tasks easier.

I wrote my last post as my MA was falling in my back and my SA was standing up with my sword. Is that possible or does me falling take up my whole turn and I now have to stand?

Getting up and retrieving your sword is a full-round action, but you are now free to act in Round 2.

Sorry, I also missed that I was up to act in round 2, just posted.

I also noticed that I never updated Doran's hit points when he hit 3rd level, so I've done that.

I charged my suspect with murder yesterday after a very long and difficult interview. I have to get the report in ASAP, but I will squeeze in my update as soon as I get the chance.

To answer your question, it was a spur of the moment decision. Do you have a link to the roll you mentioned? I can work something out.

To answer John's question, it takes a full-round action to Climb. You all can attack it together next round.

To answer your question, it was a spur of the moment decision. Do you have a link to the roll you mentioned? I can work something out.

Initial post/action (which contains the text of her moving speech): here

Expenditure of the hero point and reroll: here

Firmly Worded Once per day, Wynifrid can attempt to use Intimidate to temporarily influence a target's attitude without the target treating her as unfriendly at the end of the duration.

Congrats on the boon Wyn, that means we both have two. If I may make a suggestion (and I am not trying to be critical here). When you rolled your nat 20 on the hero point, you could have added some really outstanding flavor by writing up a post describing *how* you rallied and intimidated the man. I think that hero points represent special actions, outside of the norm and should be treated with gusto. A nat 20 is an especially important moment then, in that situation and you really could have played it up as I did. In reflection, I think it was because I did that the Barcas decided to award me a boon as a spur of the moment decision. Not so much because of the luck, but because of how I roleplayed it.

I felt at the time, the speech I had posted in the prior post was a good, heroic rallying speech. Roleplaying isn't about monologuing at length and dominating the page with effectively self-congratulatory text. It's about making the words you post in character count, whether few or many, and I feel I did that in the original post I had made. For me, I felt the reroll just better reflected my roleplaying but did not need to add to what I felt already worked. I also didn't want to unnecessarily dominate the scene I was sharing with Thorn just because of a lucky roll. That to me would feel like gloating, and stealing some of my teammates' spotlight when a number just happened to turn up good for me.

I also was fairly new to the time at the game and didn't want to write an additional, long post in case I had messed up and we weren't supposed to spend HP during that introductory scene.

And given Barcas was trying to run two separate scenes in between murder cases, I doubt he had much time at the time to notice much of anything anyway.

I didn't expect anyone to make a big deal of the roll--it's just a number--the only reason why I brought it up now was because the GM declared a condition I had met earned something that I didn't know about prior.

Also, thank you Barcas. I just realized I had neglected to say that, and that is a serious oversight indeed.

I think Ollivor is done embarrassing himself this round :) I am amused to see Doran take flight though

Indeed, this is getting oddly comedic.

Also, y'all don't forget Wyn's available for an aid another.

I agree, good comic value - a touch of the Firefly-ness we talked about recently. I threw in the bucket for flavor text to explain my low roll, but it's great to see everyone playing off it in-game.

All I need is a bucket for the popcorn, now. Cinematic text visuals, 'ere.

I don't think the RAW allows sneak attack, but you guys can use the help. (Besides, it's not as if a kraken is going to come out of the water, so it's just a matter of time until you break it down... Right?

Ms. Trout, welcome. Thanks for being a good audience.

Houston is famous! Seriously, this is the sort of thing I get to deal with. This wasn't my case, as it dropped on the weekend. (I go to weekends starting Saturday for four weeks, so it might have been if it had been delayed a week.) I saw the case file, and it is truly horrifying. (Not something I would say lightly. I've seen true evil and horror, and this set a new record for what I've seen.)

Wow, that's truly horrible indeed. I can see why turning to a fantasy world, and particularly one you get to control as the DM, would have serious appeal.

Geez, you guys are practically a Three Stooges skit. Come on, someone kick that bucket away.

Maybe it’s cursed? Vrunyar tossed it towards the hold after yanking it from Doran’s foot.

Plot hook! Cursed bucket!

Don't kick the bucket! It's a trap!

Maybe it’s cursed? Vrunyar tossed it towards the hold after yanking it from Doran’s foot.

Maybe it was a different bucket, and in her confusion, Wyn just thought it was the same one.

See that's what I get for trying to play out extreme die rolls. I just get corrected for doing something else wrong.

I don't think it's the bucket. somehow I'm sucking just fine without it :)

The die roller is certainly helping with the drama. :)

I got pretty bogged down during the week. My apologies. Except for Tuesday (when I testify on a murder case), my weekdays look pretty open this week; I should be able to respond well.

Barcas, in the text you listed Beshra as being on the Mans Promise, but the info tab has her in the Wormwood, should I assume the info page is incorrect?

Right. She is on the same ship as you all.

Forget the last post. I have been in court and it made my brain melt. It is Sandara who went missing.

Funny that we haven't really had to consider a marching order yet in this game, usually it's one of the first things discussed. Or maybe I just don't remember discussing it. In any case, how does this look:

John
Wyn
Doran
Ollivor
Vrunyar
Thorne

Looks good to me, thorn protects out back, and dock can flank off him if nessasary. John and Wyn have the teammate book and Olli is protected in the middle. Doran can move as nessasary. I like it.