I'm back and had a great time at virtual GenCon. Considering that an in-person meeting was impossible this year, and considering that they had never done this before, I thought everything went very smoothly. And not having to pay for transport and accommodations was a very nice bonus!
Welcome back. I'm glad I didn't sign up to run anything. Last week was nuts at work and home.
Apologies for being slow to post. At work the world is on fire again due to the end of enhanced unemployment compensation without a foreseeable extension or replacement for the lost benefits.
I may be slow to post the rest of the month. Hopefully by next month things will be stabilizing again.
Are you OK GM BrOp?
I read on another board you were looking the two hurricane's in the face down south. Did you survive the onslaught??
I hope they are ok.
Anything is possible? Hopefully he's OK. Prayers and good wishes being sent...
It has been a while now hasn't it?
I hope you're well and all is fine BrOp!
Same here.
I pray that everything is well on your Side BrOp.
I'll still be here so no worries if you need time to settle yourself in RL.
I took a quick look and I think the hurricane post was actually someone else's with BrOp wishing them luck. I was just quickly scanning though so take this for what it's worth.
My understanding has been that BrOp is living in the Portland area and teaching school. It could be that. The start up of the school year has been hectic and shaky with the new system based around distance learning at my son's school (also in Portland). Could be he's consumed by that at this time.
Or, if I'm correct and BrOp's in Oregon, he may be evacuated because of the fires if he's living in one of the outer areas around Portland. The last few days have been completely nuts and there are thousands of people displaced.
I hope you and your family are alright BrOp!
I'm south of Seattle. Luckily we weren't in the evacuation zone from some fires that started on Labor Day in the area. Today we are sitting in the house staring outside at a yellow haze that reminds me of the air in the Fallout Games.
I've never seen air this think and yellow. It's bad out here even if we're not in danger of getting our homes burned down.
I'm posting a bump to see who's still around, and to ask what everyone or anyone thinks we should do?
I'm not in the areas affected by the fires so I don't or can't tell how bad it really is. Though by description and what news I watch It seems really bad.
Has GM Brop logged on lately?
His last post here was 4th August.
His last post made on site was 24th Aug.
I hope everything is fine with you, GM Brop.
I'm not going anywhere yet.
As I did point out to someone in private, on twitter there was some activity on his account as late as 24th of September.
While I am afraid that a medical issue or similar prevents him from posting, I do hope that he'll be fine and make a comeback.
(No activity on the discord, but not sure if one of you tried to reach him there.)
Holding my thumb.
I'm around, and willing to wait for a bit longer.
Another month has come and gone. I'm not happy about this, but do we need to try and call this one way or another? I would hate to give up now after the years we have been playing together...but if the GM is not available, we need to discuss what we want to do from here.
I also contacted the GM by his Discord and sent a PM today from here. Hopefully something will come of it.
Rojava...?
I hope the GM is all right, but I do think it's time to look for another GM.
His twitter has activity as of the 1st. You could attempt to contact him there.
I don't do twitter. Hey Edgar! Haven't heard from you in a while. You doing ok?
I am doing well enough. My life is what it is. Got promoted to Venture Captain though, so.... yay?
Hi everyone. Good to see you Edgar!
So I contacted BrOp through Facebook back around mid-October to see how things are going with him. He has some RL stuff going on, but didn't definitively say he was out of the game. He did feel quite bad about disappearing without explanation.
I told him not to worry about it and that we'd very glad to have him back if he wanted. He said he'd think about it. Since then I haven't heard anything more. I didn't get a strong feeling one way of the other about what he would decide, but I was hoping he would come back.
It's been about 3 weeks now, which isn't good I guess. On the other hand it's been a particularly messed up and bad few months at least. This week is looking like it's going to be a long few days before the election is settled, and then we're heading into holiday season.
We could go ahead and start looking for a new GM, or we could stay on hiatus under after the holidays since BrOp might still return and this tends to be a slow time for PbPs since people are busy with other things. But maybe this year is different with little travel and so forth so who knows?
Which route would you all prefer?
I don't mind waiting if that's what we want to do. But if the majority rules to replace I won't argue. Assuming we can find someone to pick up the game as is.
Maybe the original GM is free? BrOp was originally a secondary GM running two extra versions of the game that got squeezed together once players started dropping...
I don't mind waiting, with this current period I'm guessing not a lot of us are having much of a good time with it.
Plenty of retweeting and tweeting these days on his account.
But I second the notion. We've been in a "pause" situation for the past months. Some more will not change much. My suggestion was to make the Hiatus official until 20th January, or until BrOP comes back, whatever happens first.
If by then GM has not returned, we start looking for a replacement - it would be after the holidays and after Trump forcibly gets dragged out of his bunker screaming obscenities at Biden.
In other words, when things - pandemic aside - return to a more normal state for most people.
I think we'll have more luck finding a GM then than we do now.
It also gives GM BrOP an opportunity to get their stuff in order IRL and decide to come back, or officially say their goodbye if they are inclined to do so. (Ghosting is not a nice thing).
Anyway, that's my vote - hiatus until the middle of January, if no activity then, recruit new GM.
Regarding former GM:
Original Recruiter was Nate Lang, no currently active games, last post February last year.
Not likely.
Original GM for this Table was Storyteller Shadow - who is now down to 5 active games(one of which I am in), and still sometimes struggles to maintain posting rates - I doubt he will want to pick up another game again any time soon.
I'm on board for waiting until mid-Jan. We've waited this long, and it will probably be rocky for the next couple of months for some people.
Hi there folks,
First of all, sorry for my very, very, very long absence. I've been dealing with personal issues and the overall stress caused the pandemic. The election didn't help much either, of course. I'm also sorry for not having chimed in before now to let you know what's going on. Let me explain.
The main issue is that I get anxious about doing a good job GM-ing for all of you, and if I take more than a day off from doing that I begin to feel guilty for not participating in our joint adventure and that leads to more guilt in a quickly accelerating downward spiral. It ends up with me terrified of posting due to guilt and anxiety.
This is not said as an "excuse", but simply to let you know what is going on in my head.
As I have not figured out how to get around this problem permanently, I also can't promise that it won't happen again. All I can say is that I will try to be more verbal about when it begins to creep in at the edges and ask you for help or encouragement in order to fight it off; that is, if you want me back.
Let me know. I'm interested in continuing our journey. I've gotten to really like the character interaction and the directions you've taken the story. If you're not interested, I totally understand. I've let you down as a GM.
Hi BrOp!
It's great to see you! It's been a crazy, crazy year. Everyone has been negatively affected by all stuff going on. You're certainly not alone, and all of us understand it's been hard to keep up with things that are peripheral to staying healthy and sane. You have to do what you need to to take care of yourself.
If taking care of yourself means taking breaks when you need to, that's what you need to do. No problem, don't be down on yourself about it. You get to set the pace.
We've all loved having you as a GM. You stepped in when we needed somebody and you've run a great game. We'd all be thrilled to have you back. Thanks for re-volunteering to run this game.
Thanks for the kind words, Ro.
Silly GM.
Getting anxious about wether he does a good job when people have waited months hoping for his return, and were willing to wait more months for it yet.
You need some time off, you take it. I think we've proven to be pretty resilient there, and if you don't get to post for a week, don't fret over it.
Welcome back, Brop. Glad to have you (and to hear you are generally fine.)
I'm not going anywhere. I started this adventure with the intent to finish it. I'm patient and more than willing to help you along as needed. Give me a PM if you ever want to talk?
Now...WHAT'S NEXT! My hammer craves adventure!!
=)
Good to hear from you. GM Brop.
No worries, Everyone feels anxiety.
We're still here and waiting for you so if you need time off, take it. We'll wait afterall if you're worried about giving us a good game. Worry not. You are giving us a good game.
Good to hear from you GM Brop.
This has been an especially rough year. You take care of yourself.
Your game is a really good game. I'll wait for you to be ready.
I have a serious workload currently.
No one took note that 4 staff took leave at the same time. Right now it's just me single manning a 5 man staion. Will be slow in posting.
Apologies.
No one took note that 4 staff took leave at the same time. Right now it's just me single manning a 5 man staion. Will be slow in posting.
Apologies.
Wow. Good luck!
I'll try to get a post up tonight. Busy with work and last weekend was my birthday so extra stuff going on. I'll need to go back and take a look at the posts from our 2nd trip into the house, but regardless I'm fine with going to get some help for burning down Foxglove Manor.
Take care of yourself Drasven.I can understand. My new boss has been detailed, and everyone who has any institutional knowledge has left. I spend my day teaching people and not doing my work.
I survived though I admit I was dishonest about it.
I found the 'closed' sign and redirected all traffic to the other stations. I had to explain to the managers and they accepted my explanation as it was impossible for one person to deal with up to 50 people in a single day. So in short I too received a sort of free week. Wasn't that bad though I helped out when I could at the other stations.
I don't know Drasven, to me it sounds less like dishonesty than a good strategy to handle a bad situation.
I concur. You did help out at other stations, so you simply helped to improve distribution mechanics.
It's a flow problem, and you provided a sensible solution. No cheating.
Frankly I don't want to go through that again.
I'm currently on a temp job as a swabber so It's a nightmare to swab that many people on my own.
So I might have cheated a little in the Hemlock post. I'm almost certain the star symbol was mentioned as a Sihedron in connection to Thistletop. I believe Jilli might have the amulet?
On the other hand, as I mentioned I've played through this book a few times before in campaigns that died so sometimes it's hard to keep straight what I know specifically from this one versus information I recall from earlier. I usually go back and search for the information to make sure it's there before I use it, but I'm pinched for time this weekend.
Even if we technically didn't know, we could know by now, and we've talked about going to see Broderik before, so if we haven't (I don't think we did) maybe we should go see him during the present day.
In any event, maybe it well help as a reset to the plot's continuity since some time has passed. A big weakness of PbP is often clues about something are so spread out over real time that earlier ones can be forgotten by the time we need to piece things together.
So sorry, not very sorry, if the post is a little bit of a spoiler.
No worries, Ro. As you have stated, clues can easily fall by the wayside in these games, and you really haven't spoiled much of what has already been revealed.
Howdy again folks! I've got something for those of you looking to add a game to their lists of PBP.
I have a GM running an Age of Ashes game for Pathfinder 2nd Edition. I wanted to try out 2nd with this game, and we now have an opening for a new player. If interested check out the link and contact our GM: DM Nex!
Feel free to continue the RP as long as you like, but I'd like to move things to your trip to Magnimar. I'm currently adding up the treasure from the Misgivings as well. There's also the treasure from your previous compatriots. Should I divide the sell value of it among you?
Also when it comes to travel to Magnimar, do you want to go by road or by ship? Booking passage on a ship there should not be a big problem. I'd say there's a ship headed there from Sandpoint at least once a week. Travel by ship is less likely to involve random encounters, but is more expensive and more comfortable.
I've uploaded a "Misgivings Treasure Distribution" file to the Campaign Page for you to look at. I'm assuming that Lia wants to keep Iesha, which is fine, it just comes out of her share of the final money distribution when everything that is not kept is sold.
EDIT: In case you're wondering and don't recognize some of the items, I've included all the treasure from Misgivings into the list, even if you "didn't find it". Nobody likes a cheapskate.
I also forgot to mention that everyone should upgrade their characters to level 6. Congrats!
yay level 3 spells :D
(Also, yes, Lia will keep Iesha's Scarf as a Memento - and to never forget that it might have been her instead.)
+1 BaB
+1 all Saves
+1 Level 2 Spell Slot
+2 Level 3 Spell Slots(+1 from Ability Score)
+1 Sense Motive from Outcasts Intuition
8 skill points:
+2 Knowledge(Geography)
+1 Perform(Sing)
+1 Heal
+2 Stealth
+1 Knowledge(Religion)
+1 Profession(Temple Maiden)
Level 3 Spells:
Haste(such a staple spell, but necessary in terms of game balance all the same)
Fireball(while Lia is more of a controller, taking something fiery seems fitting after burning the mansion - and I am afraid Karmid will storm right into any persistent control-spells(Stinking Cloud?) Lia may use. :D ) - so, another staple spell -
In general, that should set me up for Sphere Singer next Level(which requires Singing 6, so can only be started at Level 7 - which fits me just fine because then I won't lose spell levels).
And guess who's back?
Everybody's favorite imaginary Butterfly Sage!
+1 Bonus to all Knowledge from Sage.
+1 Arcana
+1 Planes
HP => 10 total (but luckily not real and ready to come back after a rest)