@ Tenro: No Spells?
@ Gary: Heh, I know that, but I am also acutely aware that most people on the boards here have at least 5 years on me as a GM, and I started playing about a year and a half ago. Call it a severe inferiority complex when it comes to being a GM. :)
Rules to being a good DM:
Ask questions - of your players, of other DMs, and in the case of this AP - of the author.
Have Fun - actually this is rule #1 because if you are not, then nobody else is either.
I have spells prepared but not any that are exceedingly useful in combat outside of certain situations.
Everyone should just post their actions, or inactions, or comments which might be able to be tied into the campaign so that we are not all waiting for someone who is waiting for everyone.
There is nothing more annoying in a pbp than waiting on one person to post. So if you have not posted in a while because you feel that there is nothing for your to do, then post that your character looks around the room, or checks out the cute guard, or counts the holes in the roof tiles, or examines the queens necklace, or picks his nose and flicks it at the uptight character, or something so that you are not silent.
yeah. it really aggravated me too because i check my campaigns page ALL THE TIME from my phone at work
I'll get a post up in a little bit.
Sorry just been feeling like crap this evening.
You are feeling like crap? How about the guards who getting the crap beaten out of them by the only girl in the room.
Eh, a little duct tape and they'll be golden.
or necromantic energies...
As a suggestion to perhaps aid in the recently stated problem of running combats in a manner which leads to minimum confusion and delay and such, I recommend the format laid out in this post HERE
This format or something very similar is used in several games that I am in and through many battles over a considerable period of time and it has proven to be quite effective and the best I have personally come across thus far in several years of PbP gaming.
Here is how I do combat:
1) DM rolls Init for everyone.
i.e.
Xrezth:
R'Chir:
Dogar:
Dashuun:
Rengar:
Dimral:
Lucias:
Monster 1:
Monster 2:
2) DM lists all the combatants in the order of their init for instance:
Dimral
Rengar
Monster 2
Monster 1
Xrezth
Lucias
R'Chir
Dogar
Dashuun
3) People post in whatever order they want, but post conditional actions if they are dependent on the actions of other who have not posted.
Once someone has posted and the action has been acknowledged by the DM, then the DM unbolds that person's action. This way it is easy to know who is up next and who has been skipped because they have not yet acted in a round.
Also, it is helpful if you post your stats (hp, active AC, buffs, etc) in a spoiler so that the DM can easily reference them. Posting them in your Stat line is nice, but since this updates whenever you change them, it is good to post them in a spoiler which can be reference for historic purposes if you are wondering how you got where you are.
Had a dream last night that the dust bunnies got a TPK on us.
That leaves Dashuun with 1 of 2 chainmail and 1 of 2 daggers, Dimral with 1 of two longswords and the 2nd chainmail, and everyone else with 1 dagger, 1 longsword, and no armor (whoever wants them I guess). Any objections/claims?
I don't need any armor or weapons.
Sorry guys going to be busy with homework tonight. I'll get things rolling again tomorrow night.
I'm going to try and learn map tools as well, so might be a bit on the map.
Maptools is awesome. It's insane what you can do with movement, lighting, and fog effects.
Yeh - I was playing around with sight blocking the other day. Need to get that fixed in my campaign before the party gets into the real action.
DM Salsa - feel free to ask questions. There is a lot of cool stuff that is really not intuitive. For instance, if you create something - for instance the blast radius of a Web or Fireball with the area of effect tool, you cannot simply click on it and make it go away. However - and this took a while to learn - you can redo the blast, but instead use the erase rather than the drawing tool. Voila - effect is erased. Once you figure this little stuff out, it is pretty sweet.
Until around Wednesday I may be a bit too busy to post much. On Monday I'm moving to Texas from California, driving the whole way. If you guys are waiting on me to post then feel free to npc me. My general antics will be to stay quiet, acquire shiny, and shred guards with my claws. Keep in mind I have a 20 ft climb speed if you guys need it.
No reliable web until Monday night. Also I'm in Korea now. Npc me if need be, sorry for the absence
Poke - we all still here?
im still here intermittently. i will have more reliable internet later tonight. ive just been checking in once a day on my phone as i drift from wifi to wifi like a desert nomad
I'm here. My hard drive failed yesterday so I'm limited to using my phone and using my university's laptops in the library. Still can post just not as immediately
Well, I've had a bleh weekend. Not really bad, just kinda in a daze for most of it. I'll try and have a post and a map by Wednesday. I've got an assignment that I have got to work one today/tonight.
I'm really sorry, but I figured something like this would happen, and it'll probably get worse as the semester draws to a close. I'll try and get things moving again.
@Lucias: Sucks about the harddrive. Fortunately, if you backed up your data, you can get one with a good amount of storage for fairly cheap.
you might be able to recover the data depending on the failure. if it just stopped spinning youre most likely screwed but if its some other type of failure you could try using a slave cable
I'm ready when you are ready :D
yup here
Leaving for Texas in about 10 hours, so my posting the next 2-3 days may be limited.
Sorry, I know it's been a week, but I'm working on the map for the next part right now.
Unfortunately I'm not going to have it ready before I have to get to bed. I'll try and have it up sometime tomorrow morning or afternoon.
Again, sorry for the delay, I'll have a post tomorrow I promise.
All - gameplay is updated. It might not be updating on your campaign tab, so go and check it out.
Got secure internet and I've successfully moved to texas!
Secure?
Are you sure nobody is packet sniffing?
If you ever send anything over the internet that you do not want stolen, then you have made a mistake. There is no sure thing as secure internet.
On the flip side, you have my condolences on having to move to Texas, but look at the positive side. Now you and I can investigate Room 20 while the rest of them kill each other behind us.
Took me a second to realize that "Room 20" wasn't some scrap of Texas urban legend.
Area 51, room 20, whatever it takes.
Eh. I was raised in Texas. It's not so bad. People are nice and whatnot. I'm sure you will like it.
i went to texas for a few months about a year back. san angelo area. didnt like it. fredericksburg was nice though.
Been to El Paso/Las Cruses a few times. Drove across it twice once across I10 from El Paso to Louisiana, the other time down from Oklahoma to I20 and then west through El Paso and across NM and AZ. I must say, it is prettier than driving across Nebraska, but not much.
El paso is the ugliest part of Texas. I grew up in the Houston area, which is a lot better. The three major cities (Houston, Austin, and Dallas, maybe San Antonio) are all at least tolerable. Austin is really cool.
But El Paso has that beautiful and peaceful suburb, what is it called, oh yeh. Juarez.
Huh, "Six Degrees Of Texas"? Lived in Dallas for 6 months. Was alright. BIG city, almost impossible to get around without a vehicle.
That's the big problem in Texas. The cities were built around having a car so public transport is extremely limited.
And we were supposed to have flying cars by now.
And we were supposed to have flying cars by now.
They have flying cars in Texas, it is called Southwest. Ok, so they are flying busses, close enough.
I take over the prison, kill all the guards, and then summon a half dozen pit fiends to deal with whatever these goodie goodie Talingardians may send at me.
Heh Sorry I'll post in the Gameplay Thread in a minute.
I'm starting to think I'm not GM material. I lose focus to easily and I suck at preparing things.
I have some bad news.
I've been thinking about what I have left over the next month and a half and I don't think I'll be able to keep GMing this game or my other one. I need to focus on school and trying to run two games, or even one game, is not going to work with that.
I'm really sorry. I should have known batter than to try this when I need to focus on graduating, and I honestly feel like an ass for having to stop now, when most games are hitting their stride.
I'll try and come back to it at the beginning of the year, but right now, I need to focus on school.
Again, I'm really sorry about doing this.
just shoot me a message when you start this one back up then i suppose, ill rejoin it
No problem. RL frequently gets in the way of gaming. Finish your school and if you have time, then come back.
Thanks for trying.
NP man, best wishes with your exams!
Thanks, all of you.
I still don't know if I'm going to GM again for a long time. There are other things I want to do as well, and I've proven to be, at least to my self, extremely inept at GMing.
I wouldn't be offended if you guys wanted to get another GM to run this. You're not that far in and I haven't really hinted at anything that's not part of the AP.
Best part is this is a pretty good group, I'm sure you won't have any trouble finding someone.