DM Standback's RoW AP: Snows of Summer (Inactive)

Game Master Standback

Woo yay!

Almost finished, but certainly enough I don't have to hold you guys up any longer.

Just always remember: DONT TOUCH THE HAIR.

As far as plans for prestige classes and such..I think SHalewigg will go for...floodwalker witch.

Happy drowning people!

Or..erm....never mind.

C'mon folks, the game is afoot.

Whoops, I didn't notice that. I'll get something up there today.

Ok! I've been refreshing my memory with the various characters - we've got a kickass team here, and I'm really looking forward to this! All we need to do now is come up with a bunch of lovely excuses to wrassle y'all over to Heldren, a sleepy little village in Taldor. Now your characters are intriguing enough that that's quite a challange... oh, hey, wait, RPG challanges are something us lot are pretty good at, right?

Joseph, Landon, let me run this one past you - how about we set Groflek up as one of Yahn's very first cold-weather clients? At first I was thinking, Oy, how's a half-orc with a polar bear gonna get anywhere in Taldor,, and then I thought, Huh, we actualy do have somebody who kind of does that for a living... How does that strike you? I think it'd be an awesome opportunity to work in a "preexisting" dynamic between some of the characters. If you like this idea, try to come up with some sense of what Groflek might be travelling for, and what measures Yahn might've taken to smooth their journey (we're just first level, so they aren't necessarily much good yet...)

Pedro, I'm thinking of working your character intro right into the opening scenes of the plot. I don't want to give away any major spoilers, but between you and me, this campaign has something to do with

Steven, I'm not entirely clear on Shalewigg's motivations to go adventuring or to be nearby. You've got less background and detail so far, so I'd love to hear what you'd suggest.

Of course, if anybody has other suggestions (for your PC or anybody else), go right ahead. Every player gets to decide for their own PC, and I'm really open to anything you're happy with.

That works fine for me. Just give me the job offer and I'm sure I'll take it.

Pedro, I've got a couple questions about Arthorion's background. Two major points: Firstly, it's only Elvanna's direct children, the first generation, who are taken with Baba Yaga. Further descendants become Jadwiga. So unless Naryanne was actually Elvanna in disguise... :P
Secondly, I'm a bit uncomfortable positing a character "whose quest has taken him to all corners of Irrisen, and often beyond." Irrisen is remote, tightly guarded, and bloody dangerous. Someone questing through it for two decades should either be way past level 1, or else extremely dead.

I'm going to ask you to rethink this last part. Maybe something a little more modest, like Naryanne disappeared while pregnant and Arthorion's been trying for twenty years just to get into Irrisen. Or maybe Naryanne was massively terrified even though there was no reason for her to be - what did she know? What was different about her and her child? I'm cool with open-ended mysteries like this. Or, really, anything else that ties off this corner.

This is background, and I don't see any reason this should delay our starting posts. Just mull it over and let me know.

That works fine for me. Just give me the job offer and I'm sure I'll take it.

Well, personally, I wouldn't start off with the job offer. I'd start off "in the present," having already gotten him out of the Thanelands and through some warmer climes (or, well, at least some of that route. I need to check the map; our little group is very diverse...). Start off in media res, as it were, with the two PCs already together.

I do love a good in media res.

Sounds good to me - I'll post up my intro later today.

Hey Ziv, I just redid Arthorion's background, see if you like it better now.

Ziv, Joseph,

It looks like Groflek is going to be coming to Taldor from the west. Any chance he might encounter Yahn along the way?

So... what exactly are we waiting for in the gameplay thread? I had already written Yahn arriving in Elidir at the Silver Stoat, and it looks like Groflek is on his way.

Just for me to get in the intro posts, is all. I'm writing 'em up now.

I am paying attention, and I'll finish my background stuff soon. Just crunching away at IT.

Taking a few minutes to finish off some background, boss. Working hard!

Standback:

Google translator - english to lao to generate the "elven" characters in the gameplay thread. ;)

Oh, in the gameplay, where I wrote "on my way", please read "in my way".

Prepositions are a a tricky thing for me, it often takes me a few revisions to get them right. But alas, the boards only give us 1 hour to catch all mistakes! :P

Guys, sorry I went AWOL for a few days there - lots of big Real-World stuff has been keeping me very pressed for time. I really didn't mean for that to impact the game. Anyway, I'm going to make an effort to post at least once daily from now on (except probably Saturdays).

I know that feeling, Ziv! I was guessing that you'd be offline sundown Friday to sundown Saturdays.

I was guessing that you'd be offline sundown Friday to sundown Saturdays.

Well, in this case it was sundown Friday through sundown Wednesday :P Oy... it's been a tough week.

Anyway, sundown to sundown is quite correct. Of course, then there's timezone differences...

Checking in, gang. I'll get caught up and hopefully can introduce myself to the other PCs now.

Turnover for TaBM was last night, although there is some more work to do. Lemme tell you, writing adventures is HARD. :b

Congratulations, Steven. I'm sure it turned out great. ;)

Kudos, Steven! Really looking forward to it :D Tell us some editing battles sometime...

Congrats, Steven!

Pardon my ignorance, but what does TaBM stand for? I thought it was called the Golden Watch.

Tears at Bitter Manor, if I'm not mistaken.

The title was changed because too many Golden Watch references was considered anachronistic.

Honestly, I had a lot of drama at home while trying to write, and I feel the turnover could have been better. But I will learn from it and keep looking for work!

THanks for the kind words, everyone!

Well, I'm looking forward to it. Do you know when it's going to be available for purchase?

I think November is the rarget date, if I didn't hurt the developer's timeline too much

I am very sorry for my failure to post, gang. The combination of Gen Con and writing deadlines, in addition to regular work and family, overwhelmed me. Even now I am dead tired. But I am unfairly holding everyone up, so I'm bringing it tonight.

Thanks for your patience.

Hi guys,

Just wanted to peek in and make a couple of notes on the game so far. Primarily, I owe y'all an apology, because I've been ridiculously slow to respond, and also I forgot how ridiculously slow play-by-post games can be. I didn't anticipate that starting out with a character-heavy intro would play out in the somewhat stretched-out manner it has; I'm sure you're all raring to be past the intro and into the action, and I think both combat and character will be doing a lot better once we're past the initial hump.

Bearing that in mind, I'll try to speed up any prep we have left. You can start considering whether there's anything else in particular you'll want inside the village before you set out. And I encourage PC banter as a great way to establish character and pass the time :) And I am sincerely making every effort to up my own pace.

Cheers,

Ziv

Hey, it's all good! We're taking our time about getting going, and that's fine.

However... I'm off on holiday for a week later today, and if I do Pathfinder stuff on vacation, Mrs DLC is not going to be happy. Groflek and Farrak will come along for the ride, disapprove of everyone and be happy that the weather is cold.

Not bad timing, Landon - Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year, begins tomorrow evening; it's normally a two-day holiday, but this year it comes out three days (Thurs+Fri are holiday, and then Saturday is the sabbath). So we'll be having a quick lull anyhow :P

I don't have any other preparations before leaving.

I'm good to go.

Landon, Steven? Any preparations? Anybody need to go to the bathroom before we leave? :P

I feel like I am good. Just been writing and doing other work. Announcement soon!

Sorry, I got back from holiday and was deluged in work. Anyway, I'm reappearing. Hello!

I'm always here, on the prowl. ;)

Sorry for the downtime, guys - holidays here have been crazy.
Back and starting the crunchy stuff on Sunday :)

How do we put ourselves on the map?

How do we put ourselves on the map?

Well, I don't have anything fancy (recommendations welcomed!). I wasn't intending for you to "move your own markers." But you can just say what square on the grid you're positioning yourself on. I'll just add 'em to the map manually.

Ack. I suddenly realize I can't just swap out the map image like I'd intended to.

Does anybody know a service/site or other easy way where I could host the image, and swap the actual image every time I update it, with the URL staying the same? I've got a few hacky things I could do, but I'd rather not.

Hey guys, I'm currently traveling on vacation, that's why I haven't been able to post recently. I'm readind the thread, but will only be able to post regularly after october 18th.

Back!

Welcome back, Pedro!
I'll send out emails today to try to get back our focus :)

Soooo...?

:(

Okay, guys, I'm afraid I'm going to call the code on this one.

It doesn't look to me like we're getting this game off the ground. My apologies to you all; I did not devote enough time to keep the game at a decent clip when we started; we had momentum at the beginning, but I feel like I pretty much let it trickle away. Part of that was me being busy; part of that was individual absences from various players; part was dragging out the character intos... A whole lot of factors, but altogether, now we're at a standstill, and down to two active players.

I confess, I had a lot of trouble here; I wasn't prepared for the pace of a PF PbP game. I've played other PbP games before, but they were much more freeform and character based. In retrospect, I was having a lot of trouble all along the way figuring out where to pause and where to hurry on by - problems I didn't have in looser games. That was a lot of it, and I admit, part of me being willing to throw in the towel is that I'm enjoying the company immensely, but really not enjoying the medium.

So, my apologies, and thank you all for trying with me! I wish this had turned out better, but I'm glad we did as much as we did :)

Yours sincerely,

Ziv