GM Abraham's Murder's Mark (Inactive)

Game Master Abraham Z.

I saw the spoiler, I just don't quite know what to do with it.

I saw the spoiler, I just don't quite know what to do with it.

You are far enough away from the sphinx that you can easily communicate with your comrades without her hearing you if you wish.

Hello everyone! Everything is calm again in my private life and am back on the boards. Sorry again for disappearing so abruptly.

I hope that you are all well!

Hello everyone! Everything is calm again in my private life and am back on the boards. Sorry again for disappearing so abruptly.

I hope that you are all well!

Welcome back, Noral! Glad to hear that things are going better for you!

Thanks a lot GM Abraham!! Have a great Sunday everyone!

My apologies to everyone for the continuing slow play. My father's illness has accelerated and it's meant that there have been some days when I just can't focus on stuff very well. I still want to continue GM-ing this through to its conclusion (there are times when it's a very nice distraction from stuff in my personal life) but I understand that some of you may be frustrated. I've also never GM-ed something as sand-boxy as this module is and I'm not sure how well I'm adapting my GM style to its demands. Be that as it may, I'm doing my best and I thank you all for your understanding.

I'll keep watching for posts. Take care of you Dad. Be with him. Record his stories, his history. You're doing fine by me with GMing. Thank you so much.

Sorry everyone for the long delay. I will be on break for over two weeks starting Thursday and will be able to get us restarted then. Thanks for your patience and understanding.

I should have an update tomorrow or Saturday and then be able to resume regular posting. Thanks again for your patience.

GM Abraham are you able to run this game or shall we search for another GM?
I see you are active in your other games but not here.

My apologies everyone - yes, I will get an update up.

Ok, here we go! Off we go again... I don't normally like to hit you with such a giant block of text, but I felt that after such a long delay it made the most sense to move us along to the next stage of the adventure. I hope that's ok.

And, again, I'm sorry to everyone for the incredibly slow play. My life was already crazy before the plague came to town. I hope you are all staying safe and healthy and that pathfinder pbp is providing some pleasant distraction from the worries of day to day life.

Everyone seems to have checked back except Cortland. I just sent him a note to let him know that we are going again. As we near the end, I'll just put him on delay if he's not available right now. Hope that's ok with everyone else.

We are nearing the end of the module but I've just learned that my father has taken a turn for the worse and I'll be driving back north to try to help on Tuesday. My posting is likely to be irregular in the days ahead. We are just about to start a battle (I'm sure you are shocked, shocked) but I think I won't start it just yet since it will be frustrating to start it if there are then several days where I may not be able to post. Thanks for your understanding.

Take care!

Yes, Take care, Prayers for you, your dad and your Family.

Thanks, everyone. I'm here in NJ with my dad. The end is near, probably some time in the next week, possibly less. It's very good to be here with him and he's not suffering.

I'm able to get online at unpredictable intervals. I think I will keep our game frozen as is for the moment, rather than starting the next battle since there's too much chance that I could do that and then not be able to get online at all for a day or two or three. Once I get back to Atlanta, after my Dad passes, I'll be self-quarantining for a couple of weeks, so that seems like a better opportunity for us to continue.

I just want to explain all this since we've already had such a long delay prior to this. I appreciate all of your understanding.

Prayer for comfort for your Dad in is last days, prayers for you and your family as they support each other in this sad time. Take care.
Christine

Thank you. He passed peacefully on Monday. We couldn't have a funeral due to the pandemic so I'm back home now and putting things back together. I'll restart the game in the next day or two. As I mourn alone (have to self-quarantine from my daughter for 2 weeks) I think some PbP pathfinder will actually be some very nice relief from the all-too-real world.

I hope you are all staying safe, healthy, and sane.

My sincere condolences.

Very sorry for your loss. Thoughts are definitely with you.

I am sorry for your loss. This is a tough time to not be able to have the support and closure usually afforded in these circumstances. I hope that you are still able to find comfort and solace.

Thank you.

Sorry for your loss.

I will keep watch on the boards

Best wishes. We'll be ready when you are.

And away we go! Again, thanks to all of you for your patience.

My condolences Abraham.

Fyi, I have a big meeting on Tuesday and a lot of prep to do beforehand. I may not be able to post again until Tuesday night.

We did go in the door he did when he fled, right?

Yes

So, I have updated the map to show who is inside and who is outside. We haven't heard from Cortland in a bit. Are we going to split the party? I'm okay with that if we do. It just means more work for GM Abraham.

Sorry for the delay - I'm a bit busy with solo parenting and Paizocon Online at the moment so I'll plan to continue on Sunday. Thanks for your patience.

no problem

Ok, I think we need a bit of metagame discussion here. Obviously, this module is a murder mystery and you all have not solved it, at least so far. I've tried not to railroad you excessively, but at the same time, the module sets up a dynamic of you all getting framed for the crimes which makes things look pretty bad for you right now. On top of that, it's hard for me to tell how interested y'all are in actually completing the mission.

So, some options:

A) If you all are just fed up and ready for this to be over, we can wrap things up with you getting arrested by the sheriff. This will require you each to pay 5 prestige for the Pathfinder Society to send its finest barristers to Ilsurian to plead your case. It will also have negative consequences for your chronicle sheets, though I'll have to consult with one of the VO's to find out what gets reduced.

B) Use force to overwhelm the sheriff and her constables and flee town. This will also have some negative chronicle repercussions, but won't cost you 5 prestige for rescue-by-lawyers.

C) Use force to overwhelm the sheriff and her constables to escape and continue your investigations. You've got some clues about leads you have not yet pursued. Let me know if you want me to give you hints or reminders about what these may be.

D) Use Diplomacy to try to persuade the Sheriff to let you continue investigating. You've already rolled a nat 20 towards this goal, which is why I had her listen to your case rather than simply arresting you outright. That said, it's not sufficient to just make a good die roll. You need to actually make a case for why she should believe that you are not the guilty parties.

E) Something else I haven't thought of.

I recognize that it's very difficult to keep track of the details of a complex story like this one when they unfold over months. I'm sure the long delays in the game due to events in my personal life haven't helped to hold your interest or engagement in the game. In addition, unfortunately, due to some bad luck on some skill checks, there are a number of clues that you have missed as we've gone along, or have even gotten some red herrings. So I get that you all may be feeling frustrated and unsure how to move forward. That's why I ad-libbed the whole discussion with Grayson, trying to help you, but it didn't seem like you were interested.

In any case, this has been the most sand-box adventure I've ever GM-ed and I don't feel like I've done a very good job - if you are all fed up and just want to wrap things up I will understand and get chronicles to you asap. On the other hand, if you want to actually finish the the module (there's basically one final location to investigate), I'm ok with that too, but in that case you're going to have to come up with a strategy that prevents the sheriff from just hauling you all off to jail.

Let me know if you have any questions/concerns/observations.

I’ll do what the group wants to do.

I picked the game up mid stream so Ive missed a lot of the early plot. The delays have also certainly had an effect on my level of enjoyment of it. If the group is ready to just be done with it, that’s fine with me.

I'd like to try and solve the mystery, but could really use a recap. Especially with overloading my plate during Outpost I've lost track of some things.

I agree with Wheeler.

I don't think I have had enough consistency to follow the leads without a recap- the details about what we know are pretty shaky for me. I would prefer to not try violence, and have never "not finished" a PFS adventure before- so I would rather try to stick with it.

Recap: In a nutshell: there has been a crime spree, including murders, robberies, pickpocketing, etc., which have been pinned on the carnival, initially on the carnival's sphinx (who you know is actually an illusion), and now most recently on yourselves.

You were led to the Braeton Manor by clues you found on the body of one of the earlier murder victims.

At Braeton Manor you were assaulted by a gang of hoodlums, led by someone who appeared disguised as Robbin but who transformed before your eyes into a man in black with a ponytail, who you later learned is likely Borvious Monchello. Although you defeated most of his henchmen, he escaped and, you later learned (from Grayson), reported the assault on the Manor (including the murder of the Brateon parents, which the group had not initially been aware of due to not searching the rest of the house while you were all together) to the sheriff, with the claim that all of you were the assailants. That claim has been corroborated by the children, who witnessed "Robbin" during the initial attack (before you all arrived) and hence have been terrified of him - and of the rest of you as his associates.

You don't know too much about Monchello, or why he would have tried to pin these crimes on you, but Grayson has informed you that he is a leading citizen of the town, and the owner, with his wife, of the Ilsurian Storage and Hauling Company; Grayson also advised you how to find their warehouse/offices.

Feel free to ask any questions for further clarification or if anything has gotten lost in the shuffle or needs reminding/explaining.

Sorry for my absence. between PaizoCon and life a lot of things slipped for a bit.

Won't have time to move us into the warehouse until after the weekend - a bit busy with ConCurrent, as I imagine some of you may be as well.

GM can you bot Cortland? He is inactive for 13 days.

Sorry for the delay - home & work both been a little rough recently. Hope to have a post up tonight or tomorrow.

Hello all,.
I will be camping with my kids for the next four days.

Robbin will try to get Flank when possible, Will use his Rope dart if not close enough for kicks and punches,

At this point he is some-what hopeful this will turn out OK but realize the fight upstairs looks really bad for the group. They had better find some really damning evidence to get them out of this pickle.

He will fight with every advantage he can find.

I will be home Monday but will likely not get back on the computer till Tuesday.

I'm Back, will be doing Gen Con online this weekend but should be able to pop in to post daily

Sorry for the delay everyone. All day divorce negotiations tomorrow and I've been too stressed about that to focus. I'm signed up for some GenCon games over the weekend, so I won't be able to post until after the weekend but then we'll get this final battle done.

Can we please try to get this thing finished?

I recognize that the GM has a lot going on, all of which is more important than a game. But, we haven't seen an in-game post since 6/26 and no word in the discussion for >10 days.

If the other players wanted, we could call the game abandoned and look for a replacement GM to take us over the finish line. I don't want to spend PP because the game died, but I have also lost the drive of the story and Gorak is my only low level character available for other games....

I don't see that option as being disrespectful to GM Abraham, as much as I view it as taking one relatively inconsequential thing off of his plate.

Sorry again, everyone. I'm working on getting the next post up now. Should be posted shortly.