Just started my table of Golemworks Incident (that a couple of you are playing in) so that puts me at 5 active GM games plus all my player games. Bit of a hefty load but with the Shores of Heaven and Daughters of Fury games I'm in close to wrapping up, that'll help take a little pressure off.
In other news I signed up to GM...something...for RetroCon in January; won't know what assignment I get for another week or two though. Selected availability for all the options except Cosmic Captive because I've heard that one is a booger to prep and I'd just rather pass on it for now.
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I'm looking forward to wrapping up Daughters of Fury. The last fight is tough.
So this would be your sixth active GM table? You're insane. ;-)
Volunteered to GM during RetroCon, too, everything except #6–00: Legacy of the Stonelords, which I've both played and GMed.
Hopefully, some of you will be able to join my table(s).
Well, I kinda ended up running two more tables than what I'd planned for Session #1 (the second leshy table and Treacherous Waves) but it's okay - I got a lot of prep done in advance for most of them so that helps. If I can, I usually try to get my slides and a bunch of 'basic' posts (area descriptions, monster ID spoilers, skill check spoilers) done in advance so that when the relevant sections come up I can just copy+paste and then adjust the post as necessary to account for additional in-game specifics. And for Scourge, it helps even more that I've already played it so I'm a little more familiar with the scenario than I would be otherwise :)
(I'm also thinking about axing a couple of games over the next month or two that I'm not super invested in, which would free some bandwidth as well. Nothing that any of you folks are playing in/running, though!)
I won't be playing Year of the Shadow Lodge or Cosmic Captive as I've already played them during past Online events but Legacy of the Stonelords and Siege of the Diamond City both sound really cool and seem to have good reviews. I'm looking forward to playing at least one of them though I'll probably try to swing playing both if I can.
Just another check-in; Eric's game is still in progress but hopefully folks aren't getting too antsy about the wait, what with all those other games that most of us are in!
Lazarus' player just finished running the module Daughters of Fury for a couple of us in PFS mode and a great time was had by all, even if that last battle was a bit of a sphincter-clencher. Makes me want to try running a module myself at some point!
So, I have my own thoughts on the matter but I'm curious - do folks prefer for me to just tell you what sorts of magical items you come across (sans anything truly powerful or unique; I'd still make you roll for those) or would you rather me make you roll Spellcraft and/or Perception (for potions) on everything? Truth be told, I have personally seen it handled both ways during my time playing PFS and a quick forum search doesn't really pull anything useful up besides this old thread.
While I'm personally somewhat inclined to agree with this post and the one immediately following it, I can also see the arguments for making Spellcraft mandatory for item identification - especially in the case of not penalizing players who actually invest points into the skill. I'm happy to go either way and I'm primarily soliciting feedback on this so I can make a firm decision one way or the other and thus increase consistency in my games going forward.
Thoughts?
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I would lean towards making us roll, unless everyone wanted differently or set up a protocol ahead of time. Frankie obviously isn't going to be identifying anything magical besides potions, but he would be happy as heck to blindly activate wands to figure them out. I've also been a fan of the RP interactions for IDing items, especially on Mr Peppers who's a bit of a magical hog and know-it-all.
Dark Archives has faction goals for IDing items, which is not possible if not given the opportunity.
I'm glad you posted this, we can just decide as a group.
**Another possibility I've seen in the past is have some things like potions labeled, but in different languages where appropriate. Then you can either ID them in two ways.. knowing Gnomish/etc or making the check.
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It's rare to recover more than a handful of magic items in a pile of loot. A spoiler for each item listing the Spellcraft DC enables players with the skill to attempt their checks. If the item's a potion, the DC's the same for Spellcraft/Perception/Craft (alchemy) checks.
No muss, no fuss. Just like any other skill check the game calls for.
When the party encounters a trap, they're happy to have a rogue. When they encounter a haunt, they're happy to have a cleric. When they encounter an orc, they're happy to have a fighter. And when they locate a magic item, they're happy to have a mage.
I usually make an exception for an adventure's final encounter. Once that's finished, the recovered loot will no longer affect play, and most items will be shown on the Chronicles anyway.
Thanks for the feedback, guys! I also posed this same question to my other long-term PFS group and their opinions and suggestions are largely the same as what I'm reading here. Not to mention one of them did back up that they always find it pretty lame when their Spellcraft characters don't get to try to ID items. Taking the feedback that I've seen, as well as the methodology one of the players in the other group uses when they GM, I've come up with this:
(1) No ID required if someone gives you the item.
(2) No ID required if you find something labeled.
(3) No ID required for really common/low-level items like CLW potions.
(4) Automatic ID if someone in the party can achieve success with Take 10 (including Perception for potions).
(5) Detect Magic + Spellcraft required for all other cases.
Does that make sense and seem fair to everyone? It should help to keep things from bogging down too much but still give folks who invest in Spellcraft the chance to make use of said skill.
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Sounds good on my end. I'm always happy to roll more than less, especially when its often out of combat and it helps add to the RP between scenes. Being PFS you can really do as much as you want with a character's love or maybe even hatred towards IDing items. Low spellcraft? RP those failures like a boss!
Congrats, Laz! My parents celebrated 51 years yesterday. Guess October's always been a popular month for weddings :)
And I'll second Meredith's prod - kill faster, Yorad! :V
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First, a late congrats to the Mr. and Mrs. Smith! I hope that y'all get your fiftieth in another fifteen years. :)
Second, I've been working on a short story and I was wondering if I could get some help on the tone of it. I'm shooting for more of a wry, slightly sarcastic sense of humor, but I think I missed rather badly. Anyone wanting to give it a read and let me know what you thought can see the text in the spoiler below.
"Bravo Charlie Zero-Seven-Niner, This is Tartle One. We have contacts from the alpha screen. Over."
Space is mind boggling huge.
"Tartle One, Bee-See-Oh-Seventy-niner. Roger. Any details yet? Over."
So huge that it takes light from the primary of any system hours to reach the jump limit.
"That's a negative. We'll keep you informed. Tartle Two is pulling in the Echo and Foxtrot screens just in case."
So huge that even that volume of space is miniscule when compared against the distances between stars. Even so, it's an enormous volume of space when compared to ships that are best measured in units that light takes very tiny fractions of a second to traverse. Though, with radiator arrays for fusion power plants, torch drives, and communications lasers that can be picked up loud and clear from the other side of the jump limit, modern spacecraft are beacons of energy, interceptions require lots of thrust and delta-vee, a ludicrous amount of luck, or a willing target.
"Tartle One, Tartle Two. Sir, we're picking u-- Status change! We just lost the Alpha through Delta screens."
This should make things like minefields, pirates, or ambushes practically impossible given the odds of someone stumbling into your basket versus them just sailing away.
"Tartle Two! Fireplan Echo three! We've got inbound. Zero-Seven-Niner, go evasive and random walk on vector one-six-five by three-three-five relative. Do you copy?"
Of course, this flies into the cold, hard brickwall of reality where ships take courses that cost them the least amount of money and avoids the more inconvenient customs patrols. That makes the impossible only difficult.
"We copy Tartle One. Be advised our max acceleration is only two gravities on the mains."
If the baddies obtained the schedule for their target, difficult becomes easy.
"Okay, wobble on vector one-si-"
If the target is a great lumbering liner full of sophonts that would not like to learn what the inside of a maraca is like, easy turns into milk run.
"Welp, our escorts just turned into vapor."
At this point, having idiots flying escort is just gravy for the pirates.
"Attention CPV Wattatwist, You are hereby commanded to cease your futile attempts at fleeing this space. You will shut down all of your systems except those needed for life support and prepare to be boarded."
Of course, there are plenty of ways for a milk run to turn into something much worse.
"Civilian Passen- Hey! This is our prize you sniveling, tailless worms! We were tracking the too-tall fools first!"
Such as having your most hated enemies show up to collect the same prize.
"Is it too late to just suicide?"
The engineer already scrammed the powerplant. The airlocks are still fully functional if you rather die by explosive decompression than face two different races of cute, furry, xenocidal maniacs. I'm sure that the readers would love some descriptions about now.
I know I'm going to need to rewrite it a good bit, but any feedback would be appreciated.
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As a virtual stranger, I'd make a poor first-reader. I have a couple of people I trust to give me that kind of feedback, people who know me and whom I know well, and more importantly, people I trust to give me brutally honest, constructive critical feedback. It's a highly personal experience, exposing all your ego and vulnerabilities. I wouldn't have the courage to do that with people I don't know intimately.
Just a couple of questions that might help.
Who are you writing the story for? If one of them thinks the tone is right, you're probably close to the mark.
Who's telling the story? The point of view will help shape your painting of the scene and the expressing of the dialogue.
One self-teaching technique is to find a story similar to the one you want to write, written by an author you admire, and then start copying it, word for word, line by line, paragraph by paragraph. Take your time and absorb the method to the author's muse and madness.
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Really I'm just trying to see if the humor is working. It made me chuckle, but I wrote it.
I don't think "Who are you writing for" is a valid question to be asking here. To me that gets into marketing and all of the complications that come with it. I would hope I was writing for everyone, but that's not possible and trying to say something like "I'm writing for everyone who likes Schlock Mercenary's humor" isn't really going to help me figure out if I'm hitting what I'm aiming for.
A better question, I think, is what do you want to write? The answer to that is I want to write about two people who become friends while fending off furry, xenocidal pirates in a way that gets people to laugh and chuckle when they read it.
As to who's telling the story, well, that's a little harder to say. I tend to write in third-person limited where the narrator can see into the head of the viewpoint character and not really anyone else's.
So, in fairness, I should point out I was asking for the wrong thing. What I really wanted was to know if you found it funny, and it not, why?
While I don't anticipate us starting up Scourge during that time frame I appreciate the notice just the same! I hope you have a safe trip :)
Nashville! That's not too awful far from my neck of the woods. I hope you have a safe trip as well :)
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Sorry it took me some time to get back to your bit of story. It's hard for me to really give feedback on things like this, possibly for similar reasons that Lazarus stated although I've never actually tried to put such a feeling into words before. Still, I know it sucks to throw something out there and barely get a response or not get a response at all so I thought I'd try.
My initial thoughts seem to be an intersection of points made by yourself and by Lazarus. First and foremost, if you're writing for fun then I've always felt that you should write whatever you feel inspired to write. The people that want to read it will read it and the ones who don't, won't. Did I find it funny? The little punchline at the very end made me chuckle, but - and this is where Laz's point about target audiences come in - I may not be the best person to ask because sci-fi stories generally aren't my jam and the Killer Rabbit and Cute is Evil tropes seem to come up a lot within certain genres and fandoms.
Although most of you I have the means to communicate with off-site, I wanted to just check in and say that I hope everyone's other games (player & GMed) are going well and that I'm looking forward to getting started on Scourge when we can!
So when I get spare moments I try to think about things I can do to up my GM game, whether from a technical/mechanical standpoint (my earlier question re: Spellcraft) or from a storytelling perspective. By this point it's obvious (and I've grown to trust) that everyone here is enjoying themselves because you wouldn't still be here if you weren't! And so I wonder if it would be more helpful for me to ask for specific scenario feedback instead of going, 'How'd I do, guys?' In my mind specific scenario feedback encompasses things like, 'This section here seemed clunky, maybe there's a way to streamline it?' and 'The plot during this part seemed hard to follow'.
While I trust that everyone here would (and will) speak up in the moment if something seems particularly egregious I know I've had games where I enjoyed the experience as a whole but disliked certain parts or still felt confused about plot points after it was all said and done. Feedback like this obviously wouldn't come into play for you guys directly but it could help me know what sorts of adjustments to make the next time I happen to run a specific scenario. Of course sometimes such issues may just be a limitation or failing of the scenario more than lack of effort or clarity on my part but I still want to do what I can to make each scenario the best it can be when I run it.
I'd also like to take more 'requests' from my favorite players and fellow GMs on things to run in the future so folks can get a chance to play certain characters, play (or replay) a specific scenario, etc. After receiving a good bit of feedback encouraging me to narrow things down to the scenarios and modules that *I* would be most interested in running for people, I've been working on doing just that and have a preliminary list encompassing all of the PFS-sanctioned modules as well as every season of PFS up through the first few Season 10 scenarios. I'll probably make another run through that list to narrow it down further but even then I'll still probably have a sizable list to choose from.
Most of my selections are made with an eye towards RP & skill-focused scenarios but I also tried to choose some that were stated (based on reviews) to have a decent balance of the above two as well as combat. Pure dungeon crawls can be harder to make interesting (and tend to be a little more boring for me to GM and to play) *but* I saw a few that were stated to at least offer a flavorful and atmospheric setting and/or opportunities to learn more about Golarion lore that I did make note of. 'Theme' is less important to me when it comes to selection but I will admit to a bias/slant towards horror and away from deep social/political intrigue - and I have no problem with getting some tech in my fantasy (looking at you, Season 6).
Of course once I get a list that still leaves me with trying to figure out the best way to field requests without getting overwhelmed. I've seen some Flaxseed GMs who have a spreadsheet to field requests - maybe something like that with the link shared only with certain folks? Or maybe one of those Google poll things would work better. Still uncertain. Or I could just pick someone at random from my unofficial list of cool dudes and ask them directly. Decisions, decisions.
*edit* Thanks for the notice Meredith!
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Quick update - Yorad has informed me that his scenario is finally finished and so once he receives his chronicle sheet and gets any purchases he'd like to make in order, we can get started :)
*edit* Also, though it shouldn't affect Gameplay flow too much, my work schedule has been shifted to solely night shifts in the wake of our one dedicated night shift person quitting unexpectedly. This will probably be what I'm doing for the somewhat-foreseeable-future so you'll be less likely to see posts from me during daylight hours (say, anywhere from about 8-10am up to 5-7pm CST).
Hokay folks! Yorad's got his chronicle and (to the best of my knowledge) doesn't have any purchases to make at the moment. Since I know Dalen & Laz's players have been/are out of town, we'll look to get started tomorrow, probably tomorrow evening if that's good with most of you.
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You can never have too many wands of CLW in the group. Everyone should have one for their characters even if they can't use it. Someone will put it to use on your face for you. Especially since they only cost 2PP.
I am also out of town but can keep up somewhat in my conference downtime so starting anytime is fine on my end.
You just know that somewhere, some wizard is looking into the merits of wands-as-suppositories. It'll be the grandest magical advancement that absolutely no one asked for!
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(Needed to catch up on my sleep this evening and work has been busy but I'll get us rolling before too much longer.)
First Gameplay post is now live, folks! Until Paizo fixes their issue with editing campaigns the link to the relevant slideshow for this scenario will be found in the header of my GM posts rather than the link at the top of the page. Since a couple of folks are still kinda-sorta busy with travel and other commitments we can take it slow for a day or two and play another round of 'Get to Know Your Teammates' - hopefully for the last time :)
Sorry for the quiet; had some family business yesterday evening and more today. Updates to resume later this evening!
Hey no, that's okay! I don't mind people making knowledge checks even if it's on stuff that hasn't been specifically called out yet; being specific just helps me figure out what to give you if you ask about something that isn't already accounted for in the scenario :)