Granta's Cosmic Captive (June 9 - July 21) (Inactive)

Game Master Granta

Please ninja-dot the gameplay thread by making a post and then deleting it. This will add the scenario to your My Campaigns tab without cluttering up the game. Then, fill in this form with your character info.

If everybody is interested, we can start RPing right away and get to know each others' characters.

Hey there all!
GM: No link above for submitting information to you.

Player: Awenydd
Character: Amelia Rose
PFS ID: 19823-3

Whoops! Here's the link.

Graxzos here! Hope all is well.

GM Granta, can you refresh my memory on the exact dates expected for this special? I thought it wasn't starting until later, but I could be wrong...fine either way!

Official start is June 9, but I would prefer to get some background out of the way early and maybe even RP some.

Ok, great. Just FYI (posted this in the Flaxseed thread, but it would be hard to connect the two), I will be going out of the country for the last couple days of the official timespan in which the game can take place. If we're still running at that point, is it ok for me to give you botting instructions?

That's actually one of the steps in my preparation ritual, so let's go ahead and get started . . .

Please describe your character’s personality and combat strategy. If you are comfortable with another player botting you, please say so here and then add a “BOT ME” spoiler to your profile. But be aware that I do not bot characters. If another player does not post your actions, you will be delayed and/or skipped entirely.

Amelia is a know-it-all, but she comes off as more or a ditzy/easygoing/girl next door than she does an overbearing academic. She prefers to talk rather than fight, but once she realizes that talking is out of the question, she will not hold back despite the pain that killing obviously causes her. She prefers to be towards the middle of any marching order. Her weapon of choice depends on the situation: She has "Hand of the Apprentice" which allows her to throw her sword into combat, as well as her longbow and an assortment of wands.

If any other spellcasters want to discuss spell prep, we can do that! Make sure that we get our bases covered!

Darvan is generally more comfortable in the company of plants and animals than that of people; as a result, he is often seen as taciturn, if not rude. That said, he does dote a bit on his velociraptor companion, Sahba, being sure to regularly scratch her eye ridges and making sure she's well cared for.

In combat, he will generally wield his scimitar and shield, but if he has enough time to prepare he would consider using his totem transformation to gain natural attacks, or perhaps casting shillelagh on his club. With level 4 arriving shortly, he would potentially avail himself of a wild shape if needed, but that wouldn't be nearly as beneficial for combat as it will be in a couple of levels.

He will generally order Sahba to flank as he wades into the fray, significantly slower than the small dinosaur.

Hamith Caid daydreams of one day becoming the First Sword Knight of the Inheritor. He has gone through a lot already in his short time as a Pathfinder, almost dying twice, but the trials have only affirmed his belief in his deity, and that he is on the good and true path. Sometimes he appears weary of battle, worn down almost, but he always masks his pain with a charming smile, and tries to put on a cheerful demeanor for those around him.

Hamith normally charges into battle with his greatsword, or, if there is a need for it, he uses his longbow for an opening salvo before closing to melee. If he is injured below 23 hp, he will heal himself with Lay on Hands and keep fighting. He keeps a wand of cure light wounds in his spring-loaded wrist sheath for out of combat healing. He is sometimes reckless, but the Inheritor has afforded him more beneficial healing to make up for this shortcoming.

Alright. Character finally available.

Form submitted.

Player: NotEspi
Character: Anibal Ibarr
PFS: #179284-2
Faction: Grand Lodge
Day Job: Prof. Locksmith: 1d20 + 8 ⇒ (12) + 8 = 20

While good at heart, Anibal does have a reputation of a successful bounty hunter to keep. People need to be coerced to provide information, locked doors need to be open, etc. Once a contract is signed, the job needs to be done. But he does filter contracts based on his moral compass. With that said - Anibal prefers to use nonlethal methods, but when push comes to shove, Death might lurk around the corner. Outside of the current operating group, he keeps to himself and prefers to remain a nondescript face in the crowd. He utilises his wide hat, long coat, scarf, and orisons to achieve this as best as possible. While he is a man of faith (Iroran Monk), he is pragmatic about it and likes to be self-reliant instead of counting on divine intervention to achieve whatever the current goal is.

During combat, Anibal makes use of his longbow to rain arrows on the opponents, but he is not afraid to kick and punch when the current party lacks "meatshields". He finds no shame in retreating and coming back later, better prepared, if the situation is critical.

Now that that is done, I will be leaving on Monday for nearly two weeks. This means I might come a day or two late for the special. If further info/instructions are necessary, let me know. I will definitely be available by Monday 12th.

Anibal,

Please leave instructions for the other players during your absence. I do not bot players as a GM, so you will need to make sure one of your party members handles it.

Roger that.

Good to be playing with you again, Amelia! :)

Graxzos is loud, boisterous, gruff, and frequently rude. He's surprisingly outgoing and charismatic for a dwarf--it's one of the traits that's helped him get along so well in the antiquities and smuggling businesses. At the end of the day, Grax believes that the world is full of wicked, cruel, and stupid people: the main thing he's concerned with is figuring out which type he's dealing with. Despite these dark views, Grax desperately wants the approval of others, and his loyalty, once won, is unshakeable (which doesn't mean he believes his companions perfect; quite the contrary). He's a tactical thinker and an aggressive explorer, and he's willing to share with anyone who put in their chunk of the work.

In combat, Grax tries to first pick off or weaken any opponents not engaged in melee with his pistol, before moving in to finish them off with his waraxe if he has to (he doesn't yet have Precise Shot, so serious melee scrums are problematic).

Likewise, Grax. How have you been?

Evening all I am all set up and ready to go.

Oh, pretty well. Got to go to the Gloomspires. Nice spot, but I wouldn't want to move there...

Just a heads up. I will be available to post at least once per day, though I will need to post via phone so don't expect essays for the first few days.

Lol.. I hear ya there.

The map link should be active, both at the top of the campaign and in my header. Please copy your avatar images to the first slide, and then follow the steps in slides 2 & 3.

Slide 4 is an example of what combat looks like when we all use these tools.

Yeah I can't do that via phone. Would someone be so kind and do that for me?

Part of it is a tutorial, something you'll need to do yourself. There's no rush on it though, it can wait until your trip is over.

I mean if you are not in a hurry, that's fine by me. But google slides editing via phone is... Dumb. Which I personally find strange in the age of smartphones and tablets.

Sorry for the delay, but Amelia is finished with your tutorial. Am I correct in surmising that you wish for all movement to be reflected on the maps with arrows? Does this include out of combat movement?

Yes, the purpose of all that is to show movement on the maps, and I'll do it for each of the NPCs as well. For now, let's assume that precise movement matters anytime we are using a map. Depending on the path you guys choose, that won't always be the case, but I'll point out the exceptions if they pop up.

Cool! Always good to know the expectations before things get hairy!

Let's go through some other posting expectations then. How many of you have played a multi-table special on PbP before?

I haven't played a special, F2F or pbp.

-Posted with Wayfinder

I have played several, and GM'd for Blood Under Absalom. All were PbP.

I've played a couple of them as well, all PbP.

I've done one (as a player, not GM).

I've never played a special, though lots of PbP.

A word of warning then, for Hamith and Graxzos: each act, and the scenario as a whole, is timed. We will have a set number of days for each act. And not only are we on a timer, but it's already too short. The average scenario probably takes 2 months to play on PbP. Specials have even more content, and we get less than 6 weeks.

This means that we cannot wait for slow posters. So, here are some guidelines that I am pondering to keep us on pace. Please let me know what you think of them:

• Everybody must have a bot me spoiler on their profile.
  
• Each player will be responsible for botting a specific character.
  
• The action will progress everyday. Missed actions are lost.
  
• Players can be dropped/replaced for repeated slow posting.

btw, that request for feedback was to everyone, not just Hamith and Graxzos. I just realized the wording makes it seem like I'm only asking the two of them.

GM: What is your posting schedule? I live in Central time zone, USA but I work night shift at both of my jobs. Mon-Thurs, I might get a post up in the afternoon, but most of my posting is done between 2-5am central. On the weekends, I work at a computer and post prolifically though the night.

In prior time sensitive situations, I have included either a spoiler or an OOC blurb at the end of my posts to cover that I anticipate happening during your day/my sleep period. Would you accept this and work that in or would you prefer to wait until I can get online? And as such, how do you feel about retcons considering that twist to things?

I would not mind being responsible for botting a player, but once again, my being almost completely nocturnal may limit the effectiveness.

That sounds fine to me. I'm generally a pretty good poster, just will happen to be traveling on the last couple of days of the special.

Ok with me. I purposefully left my schedule lighter than normal to account for the bandwidth a special requires.

As for botting, I will put up some instructions in case I can't make a post. I live in Central time zone US. Usually I post around noon or at night around 9 pm.

I use my phone to reply to things that need immediate attention. No problem botting someone else.

-Posted with Wayfinder

I'm in the Eastern time zone, US. I try to post in the early afternoon, but if I miss that window (which I often do), then I usually can't post again until around midnight.

I view retcons as an exception for unusual circumstances, and keep them to a minimum. Posting ahead of schedule in a spoiler would probably work much better.

Given our site issues... I am wondering if GMs want to set up google hangouts for their Cosmic Captive tables so that the party can still communicate with one another when the site (inevitably) goes down.

I like Hmm's idea. Does everybody have a Google account that they'd be willing to connect with each other on?

All good here except the second point. What happens when 2 people drop and one should bot for another? An unlikely circumstance, but you never know. Might as well just post something like "Can the first person to post bot for x as well?" after 24 hours of inactivity on one player's part. Or something like that.

GM Hmm wrote:

Given our site issues... I am wondering if GMs want to set up google hangouts for their Cosmic Captive tables so that the party can still communicate with one another when the site (inevitably) goes down.

I like Hmm's idea. Does everybody have a Google account that they'd be willing to connect with each other on?

Lol.. I just replied to your comment in the flaxseed! I'm cool with this. My Google address is dragonthoughts83@gmail.com I think you can look me up that way.

My gmail is jshade3@gmail.com.

-Posted with Wayfinder

Not that I have problems with sharig the account name, but... And giventhe type of game we play here, this is a big but - You can't do dice on hangouts. Don't we have a discord for this? It is quite simple to set up a dice bot there.

I'm certainly open to the idea, though I'm not familiar enough with Discord to setup the chat or dicebot.

Also, I'm not looking to actually play the game on Hangouts. It's more for communication about Paizo's outages, i.e. the first person to notice the site is working again can let everybody else know. And would Discord notify us of new posts like Hangouts does, or would people have to login and check to get messages?

If you have the app open, you do get a notification. Depends on the settings of a particular chat. Gonna check on the official PFS Discord to see whether they have a bot. Reporting back soon.

Right. Just checked the PFS Discord server. It seems there is no dicebot installed there. Thrawn seems reluctant to add a bot. Note that they are not the owner nor mod, but have some special privileges as a user. VC status, I think.

Another alternative would be setting up a roll20.net game. A forum is available there if need be, but the chat does have a backlog as well.

I am up for whatever we need to do to keep the game going. I have played D and D/Pathfinder for years but I have not done a lot of play by post. I have a friend who will teach me what ever I need to know about the play by post. I have a Gmail account, have Discord loaded on my system (don't use it) and played on Roll20 some so I am up for those options as well.

I have played one game on roll 20 and was not too impressed, besides the fact that my phone does not play well with them and it is blocked by my work firewall so it would severely impact my posting abilities.

I know nothing of discord and have never used it. I am much more comfortable with using hangouts as a notification method and posting here.

Personally, I have not noticed these rolling outages in any way, and only know that there has been an issue because of the posts in flaxseed.

-Posted with Wayfinder

And of course as soon as I open my mouth, paizo starts acting up for me..

For emergency communication, I'm going to use Google Hangouts--or email for anyone who wishes to keep their contact info private. So if you haven't already, please provide your contact info (via PM if desired).

In case of prolonged or repeated Paizo outages, I am considering a backup thread on Myth-Weavers.

Edit: Here is a link to the Hangout, that's probably the easiest way to join.