As to not clutter up the gameplay thread with ooc questions: are we reconvening at the hideout to discuss the matter of the maybe-enchanted spy?
I imagine we are.
The plan of a false operation is a good one. It will need be one that just us intend to do. We spend a day at the Wasp's Nest planning it, watch what he does. Day of the mission, we 'all' leave (but actually leave one or two hiding in the base to see what he does), while those that did leave see if he follows or leaves afterwards.
It's got to be a mission that would draw the Dottari if reported, a break-in or sabotaging of something or somewhere. Maybe a false ploy to infiltrate the Opera House that Thrune uses as his base of operations. Something that big would give our spy a sense of urgency maybe.
We need something that will make him want to inform his superior(s) ASAP. An 'imminent strike/attack/raid' on 'whatever target' will surely suffice to make that happen.
Say we go for the Opera House and that the attack is 'tomorrow morning', we then know the time frame in which he'll attempt to leave and get to his contact. I'm down with that.
Breaking into the opera house sounds good to me. I’m traveling this weekend, so I only have my phone. Hard to post.
The false flag attack is fine. If that doesn't draw him out, maybe we try some scrolls of charm on him?
Hope everyone had a Happy New Year! I'm planning to update us tomorrow evening, so if you want to clarify or add anything to the plan, please do so before then. I'm hoping we'll get back to our normal posting rate starting tomorrow as everyone gets back to their normal work schedules and such.
The false flag attack is fine. If that doesn't draw him out, maybe we try some scrolls of charm on him?
Huh bluh whaddaya mean "scrolls of charm"?! What am I, chopped liver? And please don't give Di any opportunity to say 'I told you so'. It's not healthy for her.
Oooh, you have charm already! Perfect.
For some reason, I thought you didn't have it as one of your spells!
It compliments her hellknight persona.
So I did some housekeeping on the character and noticed that I never picked out a potion for that reward we got for reaching a certain rebellion threshold. Taking a retroactive potion of Raiment of Command now, if possible. Still think that spell has serious potential in this game.
I'm fine with that, Didiana. Just please be sure to note it as needed on your section of the loot list.
Going to give Gilda till tomorrow night to post. I'll try to update us sooner if she posts before then.
Couldn't roll above a 10 while tailing Morgar, but I nat 20 a Sense Motive against the Imp.
Mutter, mutter, mutter.
Somehow it's been nothing but great rolls against the imp. Seriously, that's a string of gorgeous rolls. All we're missing is Matiscio with an 18 on, like, Profession (guru).
I'm annoyed because I'm convinced Morgar slipped a message to the Sarinis to deliver to the dottari or Thrune, but I don't know where he hid the message. Probably missed the DC to find it by, like, 2 or something.
Just got home after a 13 hour (!) workday. I'll catch up and pst tomorrow.
No worries, Matiscio. Sounds like sleep is a lot more important at the moment. Look forward to your post. : )
Didiana, regarding your question about word count, short of copy/pasting everything, I don't know that there's a way to get a perfect count, but we can get an estimate. I normally type up my posts in a google document before copying it over to here. I've currently got close to 188 pages of text, so that gives us a bit of a baseline.
Google says I have 68,190 words in there. I know I can be a bit wordy, so that's not necessarily indicative of our average word count, but, if you subtract some for my posts in the recruitment and discussion threads, we can get a rough estimate. Probably close to 100 posts were in that category. So... that leaves about 310 posts. That makes about an average of 220 words per post. So.. let's say the overall average is 120 words (a very subjective number). We're looking at around 120,000 words so far.
I'm pretty terrible at math, so I'm probably off by a lot. But that's my guess. : )
Alright, you got me curious so with this lazy Sunday being what it is, I went ahead and copy-pasted the pages of the gameplay thread, starting from page 1, into Word to get us a word count.
Until I got bored halfway through. My thoroughness is only countered by my laziness. So I doubled the number I managed to reach, added the current page, tried to account for incidentals such as the quick stat lines being included, and are you ready for this? Drum roll please.
Roughly (very roughly) 217,000 words.
It's not quite War and Peace but it is pretty darn respectable. Give yourselves a pat on the back, people. And then keep in mind that no matter how bad Zek claims he is at math, I guarantee that I'm worse.
That's crazy, Didiana. And that's with less than a single book in the AP completed. Can you imagine how many words we'll have once all is said and done?
Also, I have to say that I'm fairly confident our average words-per-post is higher than the normal average for play-by-posts. Having spied on other campaigns occasionally, I do think we've covered a lot more ground in 1,000 posts than some campaigns manage to. Well done, everyone.
*blinks*
:|
Heads up, I will be having cataract surgery tomorrow in one of my eyes. As such I will not likely be reading/writing much soon after. I may be silent this week (at the least).
Rest those eyes! Don't rush recovery!
Thank you for the heads up and what Gilda said. You'll see us soon enough. : )
Right then. What are we thinking with Morgar and the devil? Can we allow ourselves to kill it now? Or do we just want to send it back to Hell? Is there anything else it can tell us at this point?
Don't need to tell anyone what Di wants, especially with Evander catching its latest lie. Killing the thing seems justified enough if it really murdered one of our own. The one loose thread I can see is the possibility that Morgar worked with the imp willingly, but I think it more likely he was charmed or whatnot.
Is there anything more to consider?
Nope. Evander has actually been waffling on the decision whether or not to kill the imp. Knowing it was involved in the murder of Bix makes it much easier on his conscience to kill the thing outright. If we couldn't prove anything, he might have considered just grabbing and shredding the contract, but now that we know the imp killed Bix, killing it is perfectly justified.
As for Morgar, I figure we should still keep an eye on him - maybe ask Geoni to do so as well, just to make sure there aren't any lingering effects of the imp's magic - and otherwise take no action against him. It would be great to learn that the imp definitely charmed him into doing those things. We just spent all that money and time training him, it would be a shame to waste it.
Gregor's opinion of the imp hasn't changed, and his only concern is whether he gets to do the deed or not.
It's always tough when you roleplay too much in an RPG.
Otherwise you start wondering why you're not burying more bodies...
I think some of the moral gray gets hand-waved a lot, otherwise folks would feel real guilty.
I'm good with a fade to black and the sun rises the next day and there's no more imp to deal with. My gut tells me we've gotten all we needed here.
There is a +1 leather armor sitting in the loot tab unclaimed. Would everyone be okay with Di taking that? With her having taken Arcane Armor Proficiency at lv.3, it would be literally perfect for her.
Go for it. I think I had suggested it before, but you didn't have the feat back then and preferred to rely on mage armor :D
*won't say how leather fits Didiana*
Take it. Evander's got his chain shirt.
Much obliged, fellas. Coupled with the newly acquired Shield, my AC now has the option of looking decent. Mage Armor, pfft... Matiscio, you must be mistaking Di for either a coward or someone sensible. Clearly she is neither.
Zek, with the way Arcane Armor Training works I'll add that I effectively don't have swift actions anymore going forward. Like, at all. I'll be using the feat to reduce the spell failure chance every single round from now on, so I'd ask if we can just assume me doing so in every combat post. Having to write that I use the feat in literally every combat post now could get very old very fast, so is it cool if we say that, unless I specifically state otherwise, I use the feat as a given?
You drive a hard bargain, Didiana. Having weighed the pros and cons, I've decided that you needn't mention you're using the feat. You'll be a signifer before you know it!
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So, the silver dagger? I don't think we got many other things that would be a fitting gift for this rather scummy individual.
Also, I found a picture of Mauricio, Matiscio's evil twin brother.
.. stupidly Grammarly ..
Sorry, the weekend got away from me. Let's make it a silver dagger with a small ruby in the pommel. The silver dagger is 22 gp, easily affordable, and I'm not sure how much extra the ruby in the pommel would be. GM Zek?
According to this section of the prd, if we use the average cost, it would be 1,000 gp for a worked small ruby.
Okay, how about a bloodstone? That might appeal to her more, right?
That would just be 50 gp.
Also, I found a picture of Mauricio, Matiscio's evil twin brother.
.. stupidly Grammarly ..
Hah! Brilliant Grammarly! Zek, I demand that Mauricio the evil twin be added to the game. Barzillai has a new right-hand man.
And yeah, no way are we throwing 1000+ gp at a chick whose corpse we'll likely be looting in a few minutes time. Bloodstone, definitely.
I can imagine looking into our future and this dagger being an omen.
If the Silver Ravens visit you bearing a gift in the form of a silver dagger with a raven's head pommel decorated with a pair of bloodstone eyes...
Well, you'd best pack your bags before said meeting.
Be careful what you wish for, Didiana.
22 gp for the silver dagger and 50 gp for the bloodstone (eyes?), subtracted that much from your shared loot tab and added the silver bloodstone dagger.
Going to hold off on updating us since we need to hear from Evander and possibly Didiana for the Zea situation and y'all seem to still be discussing the possible propaganda pamphlet distribution.
Also, Mauricio's location is a secret that may or may not be revealed... ever.
Alright, so what are we hoping for with the whole newsletter thing? Is it going to tap into the rebellion mechanics or just stay within the realm of role-playing? Will it have a dedicated rebellion action, a la Gather Info or Reduce Danger? If so, will we need to spend some of our precious weekly actions to use it? What will the effects of 'Propagate Propaganda' be? Zek, you've hinted that it will come with an increase in infamy, but what are the benefits? More supporters? A bonus to the Recruit Supporters action if both are done in the same week, maybe? Will it depend on what we actually write? What will we write? Can we make funny hats with the surplus paper?
We should probably hash this out at some point, for the sake of transparency and so we all know what we're doing. Like, will the artistic types have to roll their respective profession skills for this? What will the cost of production be? (Paper will be 24 gp for 60 pages by my estimate) What about distribution? Does it need to be any more complicated than dumping a stack in a visible place in any given tavern?
We're clearly going off the rails of the adventure path as intended with this, so it'd be good to hear what people actually want from this. Best that players and GM are on the same proverbial page.
I’ll try to answer your questions, Didiana, then let you all discuss exactly how you want to handle it. I’m perfectly fine with you saying, ‘We include this, this, and this in the pamphlet, but we make sure to nuance this in such and such way.’ On the other hand, feel free to actually write out parts of the pamphlet or the whole thing, if you prefer. You can also request specific illustrations from Lia, if you’d like to.
The pamphlet may effect your number of followers or notoriety score, but it won’t cost you actions, since this is something you’re doing yourselves and not assigning to a team (or that’s what I’m assuming, anyway). You’ll need to spend in-game time, but not weekly actions to make the pamphlets. In terms of the exact response, part of that will naturally be a surprise, since it’s hard to predict these kinds of things. One of you will want to make a linguistics check to determine the quality of the writing itself and others can make diplomacy, intimidate, bluff, etc. checks for the contents of the writing. I’m fairly certain none of this is canonized in Paizo’s published works, but those kinds of things make sense in this context.
You can make whatever you want from the surplus paper. Use your imagination. : )
I would probably roll a check for Lia for the illustrations, any specific profession skills you contribute to the pamphlet could also be rolled for to enhance (or detract from) its quality.
You can make as many copies as you’d like, assuming you take into account the time and resources (gold) needed for them. You can distribute them however you’d like. If you want to do it during the day, you would need to make a stealth or sleight of hand check to avoid being noticed.. You could also add in a disguise check, if you want to.
That proverbial page should certainly be the goal. Doing everything exactly by the book can be boring, so hopefully little side things like these will be fun for everyone. If not, please let me know how we can adjust it to make it more enjoyable.
Let intense discussion commence!
The flu hit me really really hard. I might not post tomorrow as a result, so you know.
Alright, great. That settles more than a few questions. So the next step would be a Linguistics check from... I think Evander has the highest score among us?
And eat plenty of raw chilies, Matiscio. Punish your body. Punish it for being weak. You need to assert dominance over it. It's the only way.
I might. I haven't looked at it too hard so far. I can also throw a die of Inspiration onto the check, as well. I imagine others could give me an Aid Another boost, too.
For the first pamphlet, we should probably talk up some of the history of the Silver Ravens and emphasize we are here to protect the people of Kintargo. We should make sure that it doesn't appear to just be us versus Barzillai, while simultaneously painting Barzillai as a threat to the city. Talking up how we dispersed the Red Jills might be helpful - although that might also cost us Humboldt House as an alternate base.
Or.. the very first pamphlet is purely about the history of the Silver Ravens, but doesn't include any of our exploits yet.
It's just a history lesson of why it formed, what they did, and represented. The, when we do things and act as the Ravens, they associated the history of the group with our actions and how they are both for the greater cause.
Teach the masses about the Ravens before we start tooting our own horn.
Hope you get to feeling better soon, Matiscio. The flu has really been terrible this year. Thank you for letting us know. And I may or may not recommend taking Didiana's advice. She's a bit overly strict on her own body.
This site update, huh? Hopefully We'll get used to it sooner than later, but it's super annoying till they add back shortcuts.
Definitely continue discussing what exactly you want to be in the pamphlet. Any checks (including linguistics) that you want to make, you can go ahead and make them in the gameplay thread and roleplay out the results at that point. That might also help you decide what would make sense to include in the pamphlet.
The exact contents are really up to y'all, so you may need to do some back and forth discussion to decide what you want to put in there. Let me know if you want to advance in-game to the next day. Some of you have a fair bit of gold, not to mention the gold you could get from selling stuff, so now's a good time to buy stuff as well.
Phew, that site redesign.... Didn't know where I was for a sec...
But yeah, I'm up for the first issue being about the Silver Ravens as an organization. It's the logical first step in building up our rebellion. A random group of rebels is one thing, but a decades old near legendary group of freedom fighters with a proven track record? Our public approval is more likely to soar with the branding of the latter.
Aaand I already feel as scummy as those advertisements who use CGI famous dead people to market detergents or whatever...
The first pamphlet could just be dedicated to reminding and educating the public about what the Silver Ravens were and are now. Voice of the people, defenders of the common man, all that jazz. Informing others of Thrune's scummy practices can be saved for later. 'Thrune ignores crime!' and 'Thrune agents corrupt!' could be issue two and even three. I do feel that we can move on to the second day though, Zek. We shouldn't let this side-project bog down the game. All this really requires is an aside where Evander rolls his linguistics and everyone else rolls whatever aid another check they can think of.
Of course, don't let me stop anyone from writing something more substantial should you want to, but I get that not everyone is equally invested in this. We shouldn't allow it to slow down the game.
Anyone have an idea for a name for this publication though? 'Silver' something or other would be appropriate. How do people feel about... 'The Murder'?
You know, 'cause ravens? Too dramatic? I do like my drama.
A group of Ravens can also be called a "Conspiracy", but an angry name lends a negative overtone to our purpose/group.
How about "The Silver Lining"? We are the light of hope to the pall of dark clouds blanketing the city, a play on the Silver Ravens key color,