Doug M's Way of the Wicked (Inactive)

Game Master Douglas Muir 406

Xen you do realize we are all in the area off the officers rooms right now.

There's no reason to waste time on it. He's not at the fort so we don't have to care. Based on the other captains, he won't have anything worth taking either.

He actually is back from patrol and in the fort but alright.

This 40 minute pause is worrisome.

Put kids to bed. Started posting. Remembered #2 kid had not finished homework. (He was very tired and had a meltdown, and I judged it better to get him into bed early than to try pushing him through another page of math.) Realized that therefore I wouldn't be able to take a shower in the morning because I'd need to help him with that after breakfast (since Mrs. Muir is on the road this week, so I'm single parenting). Went and took shower. Came back.

Oh dad things. Good. For a minute I thought the long pause was because you were writing long blocks of text stating the commander, captain, and clerics were having a war council and we just tipped their conference table.

not yet.

Ah, I hadn't realized the patrol had come back. Lots of information to keep track of!

Yep - they returned early because the Commander needed three officials for the court martial. Since the elder cleric was missing, one sergeant was dead and one was the focus of the court martial, the commander needed a third official to go with himself and the magister.

For those interested the Advanced Class playtest starts today.

Why do they insist on using "Advanced" on all their books? There is nothing advanced about it. "Goofy Offshoot", "Mixed Derivative", "Making Indecisive Players' Choices Even Harder" or something similar would be much more accurate.

ha

i think I will make something for my new level 1 that gets the Eyes of the Ten Bonus

I am working on my "Advanced Guide to Understanding Dren."

I am sure there will be some great new feats and solid prestige classes.

Cуровую Intelligence for the next four minutes is at 23, which means save against her spells are two higher. Lets go for the commander now!

Question, a Rod of Extend can not be used with a Scroll right?

correct it cannot

Correct.

Please read.

Attacking now will remove all possible surprise and we may not be able to Disguise ourselves once the fort thinks there are enemies INSIDE.

We still have the GREAT advantage that they do not know we are here, we should go for the commander.

If we alert the fort by throwing Fireballs all Stealth and Bluff situations are lost and the enemy will focus all their efforts on finding us.

Those random encounters DM is rolling against us will quadruple.

That's 111 + dwarves vs 9!

Hey guys The Advanced Class play test is available here

It only removes it if they get the alarm out.

But anyhow up to our fearless leader at this point.

I think screams of shock and pain will count as calling an alarm.

Also it takes just one escape to sound the whole fort's alarm.

It's a simple matter of ordering any servant to escort us to his office or having a guard tell him to meet us because the 'magister' is on his way back to his tower.

If we deal with then Disguise ourselves as the commander we could accomplish far more than waiting to do that after.

I must mention that Edmin is wearing Sir Balin's plate mail.

+1 breastplate removed from party loot

I guess stealth is out of the question now...

I'm with Cimu on the finding & locating the commander, taking him out, then moving on. We don't want to raise mass alarms (at least not on us!)If we don't have to.

True - if we meet any questioning guards, we should use their anxiety against them. Ask them about rumors, express concern about this disease and the missing cleric. Pretty much anything to distract them from us being at all different from the rest of the guards.

We could have been summoned. Guards would not know, due to the situation.

Cy would have to bluff us past a number of guards...it would seem odd for our group to be with the Magister without anyone knowing we are supposed to be here. Not that it sin't possible but one or more may want to confirm we belong which is why I recommended killing the ones we can.

well there was that time she insisted that the plan to kill the good father was a bad one...

Bref I still love you, but we are still unfortunately PAYING for the fruits of that plan now. I repeatedly said to wait.

As you know, my suggestion was to take out the magister and cleric simultaneously at the Lord's Dalliance, away from the fort as the stew was delivered. We would kill two key individuals, their two guests and not set off any alarms because no one would know they were missing then infiltrate the tower as the four without raising any suspicion or putting the fort on the alert it is in now.

How was that not a better plan? Killing the cleric early was exactly the type of alert I wanted to avoid. But that being said we have made our bed lets sleep in it and light this town up.

i call bs on that.

this is not the zimu show. just because you disagree doesn't mean it is always right. Seriously your penchant for having to have it your way is seriously detracting from the fun of this game.

As much as I adore playing in DMDM's game the constant orders of what to do and read my plan is making me consider dropping.

I know, and I already apologized then and I'm very sorry I don't want you to feel that way, I was just saying this was what I warned about, I'm happy we got rid of the cleric and the magister but now we have to deal with a fort on alert.

Please don't. I am just saying that because you mentioned it again. I am sorry.

Both have passed. Done. After we deal with the commander I taking a back seat and assist and just letting you guys sweep us away to victory or burn with the rest of the fort.

look i don't care if yo have an idea, sometimes it is good sometimes not, but I do care that you constantly tell us what to do, and mostly ooc text. you have no idea what would have happened had we done it your way. I feel like we are constantly waiting for you to put up a huge idea, and if we have moved on we always have to go back.

I am just giving everyone fair warning that the past section has not been fun at all for me, and honestly it is because of the way you handled yourself. It has not been at all fun and I am debating quitting because of it.

That said I think DMDM is far and away the best DM I have ever had the opportunity to play with so I am going to give it real consideration before I make a rash decision and give that up.

I would actually like to point out it was Bref who has been warning of this in dreams.

To be fair, I read each and every post, sometimes I go back, be it DM or a players, so I am just trying to think things through to a logical conclusion, because every time we just gun through something, we hit a surprise twist that stops us cold.

I am not sure when this started, I think when the Warden tricked us with his Illusions, maybe it was in the room with Jax and Irin when she had us do a mission, but by the time of seal island, when we did not think to ask the crew or the bard I realized this is no ordinary campaign where we can expect some breathing room, DM has us thinking at every turn or we pay for it. (Nimpy taking off being an example)

I would actually like to point out it was Bref who has been warning of this in dreams.

glad he lives on. easily the most fun character i ever made

Plans rarely happen as we want them to, case in point the Golem. I think taking out the Cleric when we did was the best we could have hoped for. It actually led us to eliminate the Magister in the manner we did which I though worked out VERY well for us.

My suggestion as a GM, roll with the punches. We all have our notions of how we want things to work out, just expect it to rarely go that way.

Xen, I would suggest sticking it out. Doug is doing a fantastic job and I think both of you add a lot of value to the team in both flavor and posting.

All, (speaking for Doug and myself) let's just keep the feedback on player styles constructive. I think we have a lot of strong personalities here which is why we all post so often, I don't want to sour Doug or people on this PBP. I feel I was lucky to be added late to this party and am still enjoying the popcorn, chips, and drinks that are being provided!

Bref was a great character, although I didn't expect him to make the long haul...lol. I think he and Dren had a connection...albeit a very f*&^up one.

Actually I really like and still miss Bref, he was fun to watch and listen to.

Bref and Cуровую always got along too!

Actually I think all the characters are fun to watch develop as the game goes on.

It is a great campaign and a challenge and I would like Xen and Cуровую and the others to live through it.

I don't plan on "living" much longer.

Judge wants to become unlife...Dren wants to become another life form...it that a new Paizo sitcom storyline forming?????

o it has nothing to do with Doug, he is brilliant.

I am just tired of what has been happening lately, it has come to a head, and I wanted to be transparent about it. The reason I rarely do evil games is because they are often not teams. I play the game to work together, we make choices and we work together to make it happen, I just feel like that has not happened lately and the cleric and the after effects is the prime example.

I just wanted to give fair warning, but like i said I am going to think it over before I make choice, because like I said he is far and away the best I have played with.

You would not believe how many condemned persons swore at me and told me I sucked. And the answer soon will be "Yup."

bref could be the dog that everyone but Dren and Judge see that he is actually a goblin

I believe the next chapter for this game is more of a conventional dungeon crawl, I know little about it but I did read the chapter summaries about 2 years ago when they first came out.
I might be completely wrong but we probably won't have quite as much of this variable scenario stuff in the next chapter.

It does get a little tiring just from the uncertaintly it causes the entire group. Do we do A or B...what are the consequences????? Unfortunately this gets compounded on PBP when everyone gets to think about it for days before we finally do something. At the table you often just come up with the idea and move forward with it.

This will also make the game easier to run...but who knows what Doug might throw in for flavor...

I believe the next chapter for this game is more of a conventional dungeon crawl... I might be completely wrong but we probably won't have quite as much of this variable scenario stuff in the next chapter.

Ah heh heh heh heh heh.

That was a kindly grandfather, it's the holidays type of laugh right?

I do not think he is that kind of grandfather Cy. More like the type you would expect to find hanging out with the Judge, and paying him off for their misdeeds, type of grandfather.

That was a kindly grandfather, it's the holidays type of laugh right?

Absolutely.

But anyway: while fighting your way through this will probably run into January, we are on the home stretch. Win or die, you're in the final reel of the movie.

Whether the movie has a sequel will depend, of course, on how well it does in China. No, I mean on whether you survive and want to keep playing.

I bet in the bootleg edition in China our characters have more treasure.

And better theme music.

I think part of the problem was just this stretch, Bref. We had ridiculously complex plans that, at least for me, made it hard to really bother reading through posts. We already post a fair bit, I don't want to spend 15minutes trying to parse through 3-4 posts in a row detailing yet more plans while trying to keep in mind the ones we already have done, already talked about or already put in motion.

So, invisibility on me and Ragnar at least. I say Grumbles can look like a guard also. We really don't have to sneak if we fit in and look like other guards.

Originally I was thinking the two Disguised as guards carry the Cauldron of Brewing just so it looks like the magister needs them currently, we can put something in there to look heavy and cover it up, maybe Ragnar if you want Edmin.

Edmin would make a good fake guard but radiates evil so a scroll of Invisibility for him.