DM Salsa Presents: The Jade Regent (Inactive)

Game Master AdamWarnock

Echoing Soli - glad to have our keen edge back :)

Hooray! Welcome back Reiko!

Hey guys, my laptop has died and I'm stuck working the next couple of days so until I can get the issue addressed I'm limited to posting from my Kindle - which makes using maps difficult.

Just bot Soli as needed and I'll try and catch up when I get home from work tomorrow night.

Eesh... you're giving me a flashback. :( Good luck, Soli!

RL=crazy; plz bot as needed.

New laptop ordered; should have it by Tuesday :)

Yay! So what did you get?

Dude, I got a Dell. If it weren't for the fact that I do like playing games via Steam and GOG sometimes, I'd have just gotten a notebook or something...

Cool, and nice reference. I remember those commercials. :)

As an aside my home interwebs are been shockingly unreliable at the moment, so been updating at work when i can.

I'm off on leave from tonight until next Tuesday (awa doon tae Glasgae [Scots: Travelling down to Glasgow] Fri-Sun) so if home webs continue to stymie me, please bot as necessary.

Will do.

On another note, I've been thinking about running a GURPS game. I've got an idea for a setting that's kind of a mix of Guardians of the Galaxy and Firefly with a healthy dose of mechs tossed in. It's still bubbling away in my head, but I already know that I'm going to need some experience as a GURPS GM before I even try that setting.

So, I'm thinking about running an adventure for GURPS called the Caravan to Ein Arris as a one shot here or somewhere else online. I would be using either just the Basic Set or GURPS Lite only, so that would help a lot with the number of things I have to keep track of.

Would any of you be interested in playing? Do any of you have experience GMing GURPS?

Sounds interesting but I don't know anything at all about GURPS.

It's a pretty neat system. I've only played a couple of games, both of them here on the boards, and I want to try my hand at running one.

If you want a taste of what GURPS can do, there's a free PDF with a condensed version of the rules that you can grab here: GURPS Lite.

The problem is that the system is very crunchy, pretty much the opposite of Fate or other systems like Fate. It's also not a pick up and play out of the box system like Pathfinder. The Basic Set, which is about the size of the Pathfinder Core Rulebook when it's all said and done, makes it clear that it's a tool kit and that the system is very modular. The plus side is that it is a lot less reliant on GM fiat than Fate and it can be customized to fit any setting you want.

Hmmm... I've never played GURPS but I'm more than willing to take a whack it. :)

Okay, went back and found the watch order from Oct-Nov of last year.

Emi
Jerukh
Reiko
Soli
Vigny

Which covers 10 hours if you all take 2 hour watches.

Most of the time, though, I think the assumption is a 4 hour watch. So I was thinking

1st- Emi
2nd- Jerukh and Reiko
3rd - Soli and Vigny

Does this work for everyone?

Works for me. Doubling up even makes more sense. There's considerably more to watch now compared to before.

Looks good to me!

Make it so...

Home interwebs down again (were fixed Monday)... apparently being (re)fixed today.

Work posting will be sporadic as ongoing offshore headaches are sucking up my time!

Nudge Juerukh along as/if necessary.

Will do.

Hey, Just heard from Emi's player, Nate. He's, to put it simply, swamped and will be AWOL until August at least. The good news is I can just have Emi stick with the Caravan and she's right there for when he returns.

Thanks Salsa! I've really enjoyed this game, hopefully I'll see you all in a couple months.

Good luck, Emi! See you when you get back.

Good luck - see you when your back. For my part home webs still acting up and now work server won't allow access to paizo! Techpocaypse!

Can still post with phone but it's a massive chew so bear with me if I slow things up!

So, Salsa, in this battle - do you want to DMPC Emi or should one of us play her?

If one of you want to that'd be great.

I'll take a swing at it.

Thank you, and while it wouldn't have ended the fight, color spray could have definitely made it one sided.

Thanks Reiko; I'd do it but (a) I've never played a magus so I'm not very familiar with their mechanics and (b) I've already been botting the character Emi plays in our Shattered Star game, hehe.

Know that Jerukh's mutagen only drops his INT by 2 points, but as a RP trope I'm making his speech more clipped and simplistic (His STR sitting at 20 and INT at 14 makes for a more "orcish" persona - Doctor Jerukh and Mr Horde if you will ;)

I should have named the game thread "The Curious Case of Dr. Jerukh and Mr. Horde." Oh well, I've missed my chance.

Hey folks, just a heads-up that I'll be heading out town Thursday morning to a convention and likely won't be back until either very late Sunday night or very early Monday morning. I'll have my Kindle and phone with me but I'll likely not be posting at all during that time. Please feel free to bot me as needed while I'm gone :)

Once things have settled into a steady rhythm with a game I'm taking over and the Nordholm reboot, I want to try my hand at a Sci-FI themed GURPS game. I'm taking suggestions over here. so if that sounds like something you're interested in, then pop on in and put your two cents in. If you've never played GURPS, then don't worry. I plan on helping people as much as possible, so not know the system shouldn't be a barrier to entry.

But, like I said, it's not going to happen until things with these two games I'm trying to get off the ground have settled.

Tempted, but regards sci-fi action I'm holding off for Starfinder :)

Hey folks, I *am* back from my trip but between returning to work and the site being wonky it's been a challenge to get to the boards and catch up on my games. Things seem more stable now though so hopefully I'll be able to completely catch up on this game when I get home from work tomorrow evening :)

As per my rules regarding NPCs, I'm not going to force an NPC on you that you don't want along.

So, who do you want to come along on this SAR mission? Ameiko wants to come, but I can come up with a reason for her to have to stay at the camp if you don't want her along. You can choose up to two of the following.

- Ameiko
- Sandru
- Koya
- Gkirkhan
- Iona

On another note, I hope that I'm not letting my perceptions as the GM color things too much. I knew that Lucas was beaten and wasn't going to try anything, but I may not have made that very clear in the narration. If that's the case, allow me to apologize and I'll try to patch things up. I hope I won't have to retcon anything obvious, but we'll see.

I'm not sure what skillset each NPC has but I'm fine with Ameiko (definitely) and any other NPC you think would work out well - like Gkirkhan. I'd be a little dubious about bringing Koya into a battle - just because she's an old lady (regardless of her badass skillset/level). Otherwise, I'm fine with any of the picks.

Regarding the whole Lucas/torture thing... don't retcon a thing, let's just play it through. I see this as an interesting RP opportunity and morality/culture debate. As a player, I don't mind my PC getting raked over the coals for this. I knew her choice would be controversial (though very in keeping with historical samurai behavior) and I still did it. I own that decision.

I didn't look at Vigny's spoiler at that time (where Lucas surrendered). I did peek after Sandru said that Lucas had surrendered because I wanted to be sure I hadn't missed it in the thread. That wasn't in my spoiler and I try to avoid reading spoilers without my name on them. So, I didn't know he had actually surrendered BUT he was clearly not an imminent threat in my spoiler. So Sandru's arguments were reasonable.

No apology necessary, I'm not offended. But please accept my apology if I tweaked your feelings in some way. It wasn't my intention. Another element here is that I enjoy exploring the moral 'grey areas' in the game but others prefer things black & white. That can cause friction. So if I rubbed you the wrong way, again, I'm sorry.

@ Salsa: What was happening was very clear to me, so I don't think you're off. At the time Vigny reacted in accordance with it. She probably would have said something herself, although in a much milder fashion, if Sandru and Shalelu hadn't stepped in.

But with that happening and the arc completed, Vigny now has a slightly more nuanced view of it. Not exactly "ends justify means", but when they did in this case... Well maybe that should be taken a bit into account this time.

Mostly I'm just playing the whole thing now according to the Childhood Crush trait. Talking to Sandru about it means a reason to spend more time with Sandru. Plus Vigny doesn't like to see discord among friends or to upset people. Even if she did have to upset poor Raul. He just didn't understand his place in the scheme of things, nice but recreational. I mean competing with [color=red]SANDRU[/color] he just never had a chance.

Nah, no reason for you guys to apologize. I was just wondering if GM knowledge was coloring NPC reactions. I've got thick skin most of the time, so don't worry about offending me or my sensibilities. And trust me, there's going to be opportunities to explore those morally gray areas later in the adventure, but for now, things are going to be pretty black and white.

That said, yeah, the culture clash is going to be a big thing in this campaign. I'm looking forward to getting Ameiko into Tian Xia.

As Reiko pointed out, I haven't really made it clear what everyone can do. This is going to be a bit metagamey, but I think this will help with any analysis paralysis.

- Ameiko : Bard 3/Aristocrat 1/Rogue 1 - Can cast healing, buffs, and debuffs
- Sandru : Rogue (Swashbuckler) 4 - Has several skills that make him a good face
- Koya : Cleric of Desna 4 - Would mainly be a buffer and healer
- Gkirkhan : Barbarian 4/Fighter 2 - Very good at dealing damage
- Iona : Fighter 3/Oracle 2 - Buff and heal. She's a bit better with a bow than a sword, but can still handle herself well enough in either case.

Does this help at all?

If we're already taking Ameiko, which is fine with me, I'd probably choose Sandru as a second for negotiating skills.

If we're not taking Ameiko, I'd probably choose Gkirkhan and Iona.

Just to clarify - why are we taking NPC's at all?

We're a pretty big party who (I believe) punch above their weight. We expecting that we'll need powerful NPC's?

Ameiko makes sense, but not sure if we need the rest..?

That's also an option, but don't forget that Emi is currently out with a cold. There's only four of you.

Check. Forgot Emi was down with the flu.

Ameiko makes sense as a like for like sub from the bench.

It also might be a little metagamey but it seems that a large part of this particular AP is (in theory) supposed to be the relationships the PCs can build with the other NPCs. So that's another reason to have an NPC or two tag along even though with the level discrepancies it might seem like we the PCs are being 'babysat'.

And that actually does remind me, will the NPCs (eventually) level up as well or do you plan to keep them more or less where they're currently at?

*edit* And to actually answer the question at hand, I'd say that Ameiko is a fine choice for our 5th. If we needed a 6th, then maybe Iona?

Thanks for letting us know who's on the bench, Salsa. :)

So here's my thinking...

Presumably Shalelu is as equally buff as the rest of the NPCs - so maybe a Ranger 4 or 5. That's nothing to sneeze at. She got taken, possibly by surprise, by two large-ish creatures. They took her in the open and it seems likely that neither creature was killed. And they were clever/malicious enough to leave her weapons behind. Now maybe my tracking check sucked but it could be that they were skilled enough to carry her off without leaving tracks or exiting by some non-walking method.

We also don't know how many creatures have her or what they are... but I'd bet they are something as good as Bugbears to take her. That all says "beware" to me.

So I'm in favor of bringing as many big guns as we have. I'd like to take two NPCs. Since Ameiko is Shalelu's BFF, I think she's definitely one of the two. Given the possible battle-heavy scenario, I'd prepare for war not a negotiation... so I'd go with Gkirkhan or Iona (assuming we are going to get quite bloody on this) and leave the face skills to Ameiko/Soli.

That said, I'll go with any combo you guys like - but I strongly think we should take two NPCs.

Eventually, but not until you guys have a couple of levels on them.

And a big part of the AP is building relationships with the NPCs. Not so much Gkirkhan and Iona (Although I hope you'll spend time getting to know them as we continue,) but Ameiko, Koya, Sandru, and Shalelu definitely.

So, it looks like it's just going to be Ameiko along for the ride.

@Reiko - That's a good point. My reasoning behind Iona as our 6th is that she'd make a good support character, especially if she's got decent ranged capability which I think we mostly lack - but I'm happy with whatever the majority wants :)

To answer Reiko's question, Shalelu is a Ranger 4/Fighter 2, so yeah, pretty tough cookie she is.

So it looks like Ameiko and possibly Iona at the moment.

@Reiko: Makes sense and I'm good with the general consensus.

No issue with NPCs as background characters/mentors/associates and the like, but have never warmed to them used as surrogate party members (again this is just me and my cookie sense of play - no knock on this game or any other that NPC interaction/relationships are key lol).

Guess I'll have to adapt to the AP in that sense, although Jerukh being an "self imposed outsider" does allow me to be more stand offish ;)

However as such I'm not fussed on who we take - as stated above Ameiko is the only "shoe in" in my eyes.