GM Rednal's Godbound (Inactive)

Game Master Rednal

National problems are those reported on the manual, like the Razors plaguing Vissio, or the Republic's etheric nodes failing. Personal motivations like deception, equity and honor are another thing.

Team

We need decide what to do, in order to give Rednal direction for the campaign.

SLAVERY
I think most of us can get behind it's removal. However, we don't have any steps on what to do first, i.e. now.

RAZORS
I think most of us what to protect Beatrice from the Razors, but we lack information on what to pursue. However, Giro (DM) can give us more information in a few days.

JEBAT
1. Wants the Kasirutan Archipelago to dominate the seas. My plan was a slow Elisabethian England rise. Grow the economy through trade and play the competitors against one another.

2. He has personal thing against the Empire. So, whatever can be done against them is gravy.

Bottomline, Jebat's goals are long-fused.

CONCLUSION
We need to focus on some short-term goals. While my character doesn't have any, I the player would like us to create some short-term goals.

Maybe we can iterate faster to short-term goals here in Discussion faster than Gameplay.

cheers

I mean, Khatef has some short term goals, it's just that precisely zero of them apply to Vissio.

Slavery isn't really that long term a goal. Or, not one that we can't at least lay the groundwork for now. Listrana can lean on her "champion of the people" persona to seed the idea in the populace, while Giro gets Jebat a few meetings with prominent politicians, bringing along his assistant Beatrice (the emotion manipulator...though perhaps she's better served going with Listrana) and an invisible shadow that can whisper sweet nothings in the ear of the target, or search his home and background for blackmail, or just be there to watch when Jebat turns him into a thrall.

We attack the problem from above and below, all at once, and set things in motion to naturally resolve themselves within a year with the occasional light touch from one of us or another over that time.

*Peeks in*

As far as slavery goes, there are a couple of ways of getting rid of it. The biggest thing to be aware of is the way that nations will be responding to your actions. If you march into a palace and take over a country, other nations will be very nervous about you doing exactly the same thing to them... and might look for ways of dealing with that. On the other hand, if you prefer to work with them, they'll probably be more willing to work with you.

As far as slavery goes, there are a few ways of getting rid of it. You could simply take over anywhere it's banished, try to convince local leaders to pass edicts about it, or perhaps try to remove the conditions that encourage slavery in the first place. Bringing an end to the big, ongoing war where all the captives are taken, for example, would drastically cut down on the number of new slaves... although since so much of their nation's economy relies on them, the Empire might be a bit hesitant to free those already taken.

The point is, there are options. ...And usually consequences (good or bad) for exercising those options. XD But then, you're rapidly-ascending divinities, and you're not here to go exterminate five dire rats in the nice lady's basement.

And short-term goals definitely help, given the free-form style of this game. o wo/ The more I know about what you'd like to do, the easier it is to make that happen.

My problem with Khatef's plan is the reaction of those below the government. Deprived of such a souce of income, they would likely rise up in revolt or something like that.

For short term, there's always exploring the Deep Roads looking for celestial fragments.

My problem with Khatef's plan is the reaction of those below the government. Deprived of such a souce of income, they would likely rise up in revolt or something like that.

That's why I suggested you and Listrana start working the population at the same time. Listrana as the "champion of the common people" and you perhaps as a philanthropic celebrity who has suddenly taken up a new cause (hardly far-fetched). I envision you throwing charity benefit/awareness concerts and subtly manipulating emotions with your song.

Being a martial character, Listrana would prefer to end the war first (remember, she's about defense, not offense). Given that, she'd likely really be for making the war so costly for the Empire that they have to stop, which means allying with the country the Empire is attacking.

Given how aggressive the Empire is (from what I've heard), that should give the group quite a bit of pull with other countries the Empire is a threat to (and make the Empire our enemy). I'm kind of ok with that. And it fits in with other characters dislike of the Empire. It also goes along the lines Listrana was talking about, making slavery not economically feasible. She doesn't expect to end slavery in a day. In a few years works for her.

Khatef's plan, I think, works better if we do it in the country the Empire is opposing. We can let word of mouth spread over the border into the Empire and other countries. If we can make the Empire the only country that has slavery, that makes them the outsider, and lowers their prestige, and it makes it more likely other countries will add 'and release slaves' to any trade negotiations. We can also introduce the idea of sanctions against the Empire for slavery. :)

We ARE currently in the country the Empire is opposing, unless I'm wildly mistaken. This is Vissio, they are at odds with the Patrian Empire.

Not in open conflict. They are mostly at odds with Dulimbai.
Vissio is much like Renaissance Italy, lots of power struggles, economic warfare, but wars are mostly internal squabbles.

The manual also notes that slave rebellions could be devastating for the Empire.

Wild idea: monster hunting in Raktine. They have geographical reasons to oppose the Empire, they are infested by monsters and we could carve out a small fief for ourself without it being large enough that we'd need to rule it ourself, Jebat's powers should be enough.
Otherwise, we can keep on the Razors and fast-forward until we have more info.

I'm up for Raktine monster-hunting and nation-building. It would need a long voyage around the southern coast. Maybe we might encounter something?

We can stop by the Archipelago, so I can plant some seeds. Or, "commanding happens"

cheers

NOT MY FAULT I DIDN'T POST! SITE WAS DOWN SINCE SUNDAY!

Sorry for the all caps, just very frustrated with Paizo site. it goes down every single time they go to a con.

What country is it that is at war with the Empire then, if it's not Vissio?

It's a t war with the Regency of Dulimbai.

For Raktine, we may travel overland, it shares a border with Vissio.

Overland? Overland? Ha ha ha ha. The jolly sea captain laughs.

Seriously Hannibal, you want to cross those mountains? I would prefer sailing.

cheers

Yeah, I'm not blaming anyone for not being able to effectively post the last few days - site's been down a lot.

Incidentally, you're always welcome to ask me specifically for more information about an area. o wo/ Some things are common knowledge and I'll just tell you, others are pretty easy to learn if you ask someone in-character... especially because Vissio's pretty well-connected, all things considered. They won't know secret inner workings of other nations or anything, but most general knowledge is pretty easy to get in your current location.

(If you want secret lore, one of you can dip into the Knowledge word at some point.)

Knowledge would fit Bea, I'll be torn between that, Time and Sorcery.

As for info, I kind of assumed that we'd know what's written in the manual about the countries, save the national problems.

On the note of Raktine... going by ship means navigating half the world. Whereas, if you fear mountains that much, we could go south into the Empire and then east. It's like a reverse Columbus.
OR
New objective: cut the continent in half to provide a navigable canal.

I'm leaving on a business trip without Internet connection. Plan to return Thursday night, so please bot me as necessary.

Just posting to post and not get in trouble. :)

Do we have consensus?

Sail to raktine
Stop in islands along the way
Plan to kill monsters and create new state

Sounds good.

I still believe that moving overland would be faster but I'm OK with sailing. For the new state let's start small, nothing we can't manage while being absent.

Note that speed is not necessarily the only consideration you need to keep in mind. XD There's also things like the places you'd pass through, how you want to travel (methinks Mr. Pirate Captain wants to sail anywhere reachable by sea), and so on.

I think we're all good with that as a starting point, and then once we have a power base, allying with others against the Empire, and moving on from there, knocking out slavery, etc.

Woot! Consensus!

It's tough for me to post until I return home. Who's going to post the transition posts to get us sailing?

Thanks

Anyone who wants to, I think. XD

I sort of did.

Sorry if there's something weird about that post, I'm getting a bit sleep deprived.

Khatef can't into boats.

Any of the crew able to attack/affect it? (Thinking ranged attacks, like bows, for example)?

Not to any meaningful degree. (Bows and arrows won't do much against the shell on that creature. Whale-piercing harpoons or something, sure, but not light weaponry.)

Just wondering if it's worth having them throw harpoons from a safe distance.

They'd fire the cannons if anything.

I want to get them and the ship out of harms way

As a warning I've a family vacation starting this Friday for 9 days. My posting will be spotty. Please not me as necessary.

Thanks

Speaking of, I do believe it's your "turn" Rednal.

Slightly confused on the damage taken, each seems to have been reduced, but by different amounts. Can the GM explain?

Godbound has a really WEIRD damage system, is why. Basically the higher your roll the more damage you do, but it doesn't directly correlate to the die rolled. So that 11 there does damage because any roll (well, final number including roll + modifiers) over 10 does 4 damage. The 6 and 7 both deal 2 damage because any roll between 6 and 9 deals only 2 damage.

Details are on page 20 of the rulebook if you want t read them for yourself.

There's also a quick reference over on the Campaign tab if you ever want to get the numbers without looking at the book. ^^

Thanks, it is weird.

And the campaign tab helps, thanks for the info. I often don't have access to use the electronic book (accessing from work, etc).

Jebat, is it 1d6 electrical damage, or 1d6 die of electrical damage? The difference is this. 1d6 die of electrical is roll 1d6, and find out how many dice of damage to roll (1d6-> 3 -> 3d6 damage). Where as 1d6 electrical is just that, 1d6 -> 3 = 3 on the damage scale.

Jebat's Rain of Lightning is a single 1d6 die of damage (on every target in 100 feet he wants to hit, making it mostly a "wreck commoners in large numbers" sort of skill).

Just haven't seen anything written as '1d6 die' before, so it struck me odd. Usualy it's 1d6. I've seen it as 1 d6 die, or 1 die but not often. I used to play in a game that actually did random dice of damage (IE: 1d6 die was 1 to 6 dice of damage), although I can't for the life of me remember what system it was.

The official text is "Choose a point within sight; every desired target within 100 feet suffers a 1d6 die of electrical damage as a cloud of lightning envelops them. The bolts are enough to kill the weak, but can’t destroy objects."

Wow, that's a weird way to list it. Never seen it like that before (outside that one game that actually exploded dice).

Can I speak honestly for a second here? I'm getting really demotivated to post in this game. It was mildly frustrating when the posting slowed to a crawl, but that was understandable. Transition phases between characters and partially my fault for being MIA for a bit on top.

I got excited again when we started talking about things to do, goals to achieve, etc., interesting stuff to accomplish like changing the hearts and minds of an entire country. Things only a game like this really allows us to accomplish in any reasonable timespan.

Then everybody decided "We should go kill some monsters" like every other RPG on the market. I agreed because I wanted the game to just go SOMEWHERE at the time, but I'm regretting it now for multiple reasons.

I don't think the combat system is very good, for one. Or more accurately it's very good for what it is: Being a really simple streamlined system designed to make combat breezy and FAST while making you feel powerful in brief spurts. It's not, IMO, a good enough system to make combat the primary focus of a game.

Two, as I already stated, this system allows us to do so much more besides just kill monsters and get famous. I can do that in Pathfinder. Or D&D. or Savage Worlds. Or Mutants and Masterminds. Or almost any other system. Making the next however long be based entirely on killing things to get famous feels like such a sad waste of a potentially fun system.

Third, tying into that, Khatef is not a combat character. He does not really have combat options. I can hit a thing for damage kinda hard, and that's it. I figured that was all I needed for a game that seemed like it lent itself very well to being combat light and intrigue heavy with unique stories to tell that can't be told, or told as easily, using other systems and settings. I only even took THAT because I liked the idea of setting myself up and manipulating things from the shadows with unfortunate "accidents" happening to people opposing me.

The entire direction of this game has been disappointing me. We have had three major combat encounters and almost NO chance to use our abilities in a more subtle or social sense. I feel like my entire character is wasted in a game like this. Every time combat starts I completely lose interest in posting at all, to the point that it's hard to get that interest back when it ends. Given that our goal going forward is just fight after fight after fight with only vaguely defined goals of MAYBE setting up a country from scratch afterwards, I'm seriously considering just cutting my losses and bowing out here.

I don't want to force anybody to do anything, if you guys are excited by the idea that's great, but I'm not and that may make me a bad fit for this game. That's just my opinions on the subject.

Possibly incoherent answer because I'm a bit burnt out:

- We need to be Level 2 to get the Apotheosis Word and get a following.
- We need to do something to get to Level 2
- Toppling an Empire might be a bit hard right now, as we are gods, but there are things to give us pause
- We couldn't agree a reasonably short-term goal (as could have perhaps been dealing with the Razors). I don't recall Khatef being very propositive on that end: we could have gone to his pyramid to get his revenge, or dealt with any other of the problems that were defined in creation, or even used intrigue and sociality to hunt the Razors.
- I proposed Raktine because I like Uberwalds, it looked like a nice opportunity to find quests, and you folks didn't seem that interested in investigating Stella. I have as many combat options as you, it's not my favorite part either, but balance is a swing.
- Also important: our combatful characters may as well dislike the social part in the same way.
- And most important: this is sandbox. You want to do social work? Propose some goal to be accomplished socially, perhaps simpler than "toppling the Patrian Empire". You want intrigue? Find something intrigue-based. We work together at making the game go further, I don't recall anyone saying "this way or the highway". We share responsibilities for making it be fun, and we have nothing to blame but ourselves if it isn't, we can't say "oh, Book 2 of the Whatever AP is too combat heavy, my bard had no chance to use his skills". The only way to make it good for everyone is by engagement, pushing together towards full enjoyment.

Or perhaps we may get to Level 2 and start building, using the fuller extent of our powers.

If it helps, I was planning for you to level when you arrived at your destination. At the moment, I'm kind of going with a "three situations per-level" setup, a bit like PFS.

Khatef, I feel for you. While I made Jebat combat effective, I modeled him on Zeus for better or worse. So, I'm ready for social encounters and those types of non-combat adventures. In fact, that's why I introduced my NPC Girolamo to facilitate that. Fat lot of good that did.

I don't know the game mechanics, so I don't know about 2nd level or whatever. But, it seems like we're struggling in the sandbox. Rednal appears up for anything, we just have to develop the narrative.

So, what story do you want to tell?

Listrana is combat oriented, but she's a combat goddess, so it make sense she would be. I expect her to be relatively useless at times, and very useful at others.

Don't forget, it's pretty easy to branch out once you get another level or two under your belts. ^^ That, and Miracles mean that on non-combat days, you'll still have plenty of options.

In the meantime, what sorts of encounters would the four of you be interested in seeing more of? Since this is a freeform game, our options are preeeeeeetty wide.

I assume this time we bypass the need for Dominion? If so, up for approval

+1 attack
+5 HP
+1 Effort, +1 Influence
-1 Hardiness, Evasion, Spirit

New Fact: Beatrice has studied the ways of the Merciful Hand, and can cast all the spells in the tradition. So I can heal somehow.
4 points spent: Time Word (3 points), Immediate Foresight (1 point)
Free Word: Apotheosis, Receive the Incense of Faith

The gift makes my AC drop to 0 (3 natural, -3 Dex)

Where do I find the rules for leveling up in the free rules? I can't find any rules in there for anything other than creating characters.

Advancement, page 19

Thanks, not sure how I missed that.

New Character Sheet

+1 Attack
+5 HP
+1 Effort, +1 Influence
-1 All Saves

New Fact : Listrana's armor has become so much a part of her that she wears it even when she isn't wearing it, it's aura now part of herself. It has no affect on her movements, and will appear on her at will, and protect her even if it is not on her body.

2 points spent : Endurance - Body of Iron (AC is always 3, armor doesn't work/hinder anymore), . Command - A Thousand Loyal Troops (Commit Effort, any NPC obeys as if you were their commander, and will continue to after effort reclaimed, so long as command not abused or not absurd to command them).

Free Word : Apotheosis - Receive the Incense of Faith

Reading the rules, it looks like we only get 2 points at level 2? Not sure how Beatrice spent 4 points?