GM Niles Rippers Campaign

Game Master nilesr

Re:Library Yes, and no. Yes you can build a Library elsewhere (you can also found a Lodge in a port city and have Docks facilities) But no, the exact benefits of the Bradford Historical Society cannot be duplicated.

This is a part where I'm departing from the Plot Point Campaign and injecting a little of my own flavor into the Campaign.

Ok, so it looks like we are setting up a Lodge in Staithes located at Marsh Shipping.

Ok so, Lodges have some pretty extensive rules. So I'll post em up soon and you guys can decide on how to develop your new Lodge.

(It'll also give you something to spend money on...)

Those of us who have money to spend, anyway.

I'm struggling this week to find time to get the Lodge rules together and post our interlude.

Sorry, bear with me please.

With how much I always struggle not to be latr to post? Don't even need to apologize as far as I am concerned.

Just a little tiny weeny question: did we get to 20 exp? I remember you stating we would need to wait until after the last mission ended, but once again I am unsure if we have truly finished or are wrapping up.

Looking at the Campaign Timeline in the top of the page I've given out 19XP and 5 total favors. However, I've given out bonus XP based on Interlude postings...so you might be at 20.

Considering we did a joint interlude, you have to have at least 20

/sigh The internet is down at my work. We are suffering from a massive virus plague that is making network traffic impossible. Guess where all my PDFs are located....

On my network drive. Which is inaccessible.

I'm so sorry guys. I promise I'm trying.

Jeez, that sounds like a serious problem. Hopefully things can be fixed properly.

Great news. I still don't have internet access at my work. However, I managed to gain access to my network drive via a different location. I downloaded all my important files to an external HDD and I have my PDFS now!

So, I'm working right now on the Lodge Rules and getting us ready for the next part of the campaign.

Cabal Threat: 2d4 ⇒ (4, 2) = 6

Excellent!

Okay, the Lodge rules are completely updated and we will run the Lodge during interludes...like right now.

Also, I made a slideshow of a bunch of published Rippers Edges, so you guys can add some Rippers flavor to your characters as you level them up if you so choose.

Time is "advancing" 6 months while Tristan gets things up and running in Staithes.

So, now its time for an interlude. A big part of interludes from here on out are your Lodge actions. Typically this will mean a random "adventure" that you don't really take part of but your Lodge DOES take part in, this can mean you personally leading a mission or simply dispatching Novice Rippers. The "missions" are randomly generated and successes can net you Lodge increases and a reduction in the Cabal Threat while failures mean losses of Influence and possible death of NPC Ripper members of the Staithes lodge.

Are those faction Edges in addition to the ones in the Core book? I... actually, I really like BOTH of the Slayer options. I may have to look into those for the future. I need a higher Vigor for the other Slayer option, but I planned on doing that anyway.

Considering we did a joint interlude, you have to have at least 20

The good Doctor Jung to the rescue! I indeed remember our interlude and therefore I have 20 exp.

@Niles: Regarding the Interlude and the missions. We need to decide as a group which of those missions we choose as our 3, am I right? And then I guess we should write cooperative interludes or something?

Well, it'll kinda be a cooperative interlude...but there's gonna be an element of risk and luck involved.

But first you have to pick the missions and assign Rippers.

re:Edges Yes these are in addition to anything from the CRB.

I believe that Carl would prefer the Investigation or Research missions. They both seem right up his alley.

Harry would be in agreement there, and I don't think he'd be opposed to a social mission as well.

Let's be honest, Victoria is best suited for hunting down the monsters around Staithes, that took the fisherman.

Andrej would be best at that one as well, along with any parts of the search for inmates that involved following trails (as opposed to talking to anyone).

ETA: It looks like all the novices can do is fight, notice, and shoot. We can have one or two of them come along on each mission, to give them some experience.

This campaign disappeared for me when Paizo started having it's seizures. Everyone else still here?

I'm still good.

Yeah, the website has been crazy since like Friday.

And I've posted twice since then and looks like they've been eaten

I'm here, when there's a here.

So, what I need from you guys is 1) Who is going on what mission and 2) Who, if any, of the Novice Rippers you are taking. Once that is determined I can set up rolls/card draws. This won't be a normal interlude.

I'm also still here, but I admit I also lost track of stuff. I believe Andrej and I were planning to go on the monster hunting mission? I agree that maybe having two of them come along on each mission is a good plan. Them being able to fight and shoot is actually useful in hunting down the creepy crawlies lurking about, and at any rate it makes them a little more useful if they survive and get an Advance.

Also, since I did hit 20 XP, I took Berserker as my Edge at this Advance.

Are the rest of you still here? I know Tristan hasn't had time to post pretty much anywhere having talked to him, but I figured the rest of us could keep it going in the meantime. Who is going on the other missions?

I'm not sure what else I have to contribute. I already said that I want to be on either the Research or Investigation missions and I agree that taking 1-2 novice Rippers with each group is a good idea.

It seems like the three missions that we've expressed the most interest in are Investigation, Research, and Hunting, along with at least one person being interested in something social (which I assume means either Recruiting or Socializing). My suggestion is:

Investigation: Carl and Rasheed (Carl and Rasheed are buddies in universe and they were both there when the initial breakout so them continuing the investigation seems logical. Additionally, it makes sense that Carl would be most concerned about people who are possibly driven mad by something supernatural since that's his specialty)
Research: Harry and Tristan (Harry has the best Investigation skill and has expressed interest in being part of a Research mission already. Tristan can't post properly, but he is the one who actually got us access to the historical society to do the research so it makes sense to send him with that team and he has decent skills for it)
Hunting: Victoria and Andrej (Have both explicitly suggested they're best suited for this mission since they're combat focused and they want to deal with the monsters that seem an immediate threat)

The novice Rippers don't have any personality or interests noted, so we can either ask them to see what job they want to accompany us on and let them divide themselves up or just randomly assign two to each job to get them some experience.

Research can also be shifted to whichever social mission we'd like and that would work fine since Tristan is a good social character and Harry is the one who mentioned interest in a social mission anyway.

Does that seem to gel with what everyone else has been planning?

I thought I expressed it on my last post but I just realised I disn't.

Carl has put it simply and I do agree with him, Herr Jung and Rasheed should see the asylum situation to the end.

Perhaps bring a novice or two to show them the ropes.

I'll wait till tomorrow and then press on with what Carl posted.

Yep, I agree with that plan of action.

I'm good with that as well.

A heads-up for everyone--my work finally got around to blocking the rest of the Paizo site, so I no longer have access to the boards during workdays. Although I can still post from my phone, it's a right pain these days with the Wayfinder app not working. That's likely to slow my posting down a bit.

Question:

Can Rasheed and I make separate types of rolls? Like if I want to try to look for clues or go through recent records to look for a good starting point with an Investigate roll while Rasheed tries to use Persuasion to offer our aid to the police and try to earn their cooperation, would that work?

@Carl Yes

@Andrej That's ok, its not like I've been posting like crazy either. If we can manage something close to 3-5 posts per week I think I'll be happy. This game is fun for me, but it also takes the most work of all the games I run since I make up so much of it.

When you say choose a card, is the goal to have a higher card than the Cabal in that scenario? Is the whole idea that you have to try to manage your cards to come out on top more often than the Cabal? That seems like the most logical explanation to me, but I wanted to check.

Yes, you are trying to win hands by having a higher card. Jokers are the highest card also, Reds beat Blacks in a tie.

The final thing I forgot to mention is that there are varying degrees of success... Reds (Hearts/Diamonds) mean a better success than a Black (Clubs/Aces). The Red Joker is the actual best result you can manage for a hand.

Gotcha. In that case, Andre, I suggest we play our own Two; since it's Red, we'll still win the tie and its super unlikely we'll have another opportunity to play it and win. The three isn't much better, but it is a little, and our other two cards are face cards so we should be fine on those.

I think I'll have to watch a turn or two of this from them to really get the idea of how this is done.

Victoria--sounds good to me.

I believe Rasheed and I are planning to sacrifice the 1st pair using our 4 and take an early disadvantage so we don't have to lose a decent card early. I'll put up a brief description of Carl's actions in gameplay and my Investigation roll.

Hold up a sec- Two Skye Duncans?

Victoria, I suggest playing the jack--it's high enough that they'll hopefully have to strip out their top card to take it.

I was actually thinking maybe we could play our three. It's unlikely we'll get a win with it anyway, and with any luck they'll be forced to play a higher value card against us. However, it's also possible they don't have a card higher than a jack. We'll play it and see how it goes.

What do you think I should play? I was considering trying another high card, but I may forfeit this hand with my low card.

I would throw the low card, personally. Since Niles is responding to us this time, it makes sense to throw the low card now when you can't even know what you're playing against. That way you're in a better position to respond next time we're the ones playing second, and you're ultimately in a better spot overall.

A 27 and a 25? Some rippers have all the luck, well done!

Going to need a few days, something just happened irl here that I need to recover from. I'll be getting back to it when I can, promise.

A heads up for all my games; I'm going to be camping from Monday to Wednesday, so I won't be able to post. I should have Internet on my phone, but posting from my phone is a real chore (even ignoring the logout issue I still have on mobile) so I will be silent for a few days. I may keep up if I can get Paizo to reliably work on my phone, but if not I'll catch up when I get back.