Heralding the Coming of the Age of Worms (Inactive)

Game Master Fanguar

If no one else wants the Natural Armor amulet, I'll take it.

Tis yours :)

It's been long enough that I'm not sure exactly why we are at this smith's shop. I know we found clues on the drow that led us this direction, but I'm not sure what we are supposed to be doing now that we are here.

A locked chest in the room is easily opened with a key found on the dead doppelganger and inside it are a host of forged and original documents detailing Greyhawk treaties, merchant dealings, and religious papers. Amid these you find a missive written in a strange spidery script, "I have a task for you, thrall. Meet me at the sewer junction beneath the cold forge and I will give you the details. There are some troublesome small minds that must be removed." The document is signed with some sort of symbol made to look like a spiraling tentacle.

You found a note that led you to the shop. The drow wore badges with the same symbol as that on the note.

Apologies for being out of it... I'll catch up if you still want me.

Pace is always slow this time of year my friend... post festives blues/busy spell. You've no missed much :)

Thanks!

Anyone buried under this snow in the NE USA?

I hope to be a little buried next week...

Tomorrow I leave for a week + of skiing. Its quite a bit of traveling and my days will be pretty filled. I hope to have internet but am not sure about quality or time availability. I'll post as time allows but please do not wait on me. I'll be back home on Sunday the 19th.

Alright, looks like another level of Rogue-y goodness.

Hey all. I am back and catching up. Unsure if we ever settled loot division to the point where we knew shares and who got what? I wanted have the chance to spend a little equipping up before setting out again. Where are we on that?

We did indeed mate - 8175GP and 4SP each for coin.

Loot sheet is updated with unclaimed stuff going a-begging...

Markus and I live in the same area so we had plenty of snow. Now we have been having unusually warm weather for February.

Checking in. The game seems to be a bit stalled.

Still here also.

Ditto. Ready to move forward here.

So somebody do something?

Trigger the trap? Throw another fireball in there? Try to stealth past it.

The baddies aren't going to give up the high ground because you want them to...

As far as I knew, Issac was the only one who'd gone ahead and seen the enemy. I was waiting for the scouting report before moving forward.

Sorry for the delay. Upstate NY got hit with a blizzard. Have about 20 inches of snow to deal with.

Stay safe frienn Issac.

And warm. Hope you still have power.

All good here. Thanks. We haven't been hit this bad in a couple of years. Thanks the gods for snow blowers.

Checking in. I'm after the Drow so I'm waiting on their action before posting.

Ditto.

Markus is up, but as he seems to be checking in only sporadically these days, I'm just going to skip him.

@Issac: To the best of my knowledge, you only get extra attacks when you full attack. I don't think there is a way of getting more than 1 attack after moving.

Pounce

Those are the ones I'm aware of off the top of my head.

He's not full attacking, or he would have more than 2 attacks.

Also, quick runner's shirt ends your turn after you use it, so you can't attack afterwards.

I am headed to a small con in Memphis and will be off line from noon tomorrow until Monday. Please bot me as needed.

He's not full attacking, or he would have more than 2 attacks.

Also, quick runner's shirt ends your turn after you use it, so you can't attack afterwards.

Unchained monks now follow the fighters attack template. Flurry of blows would give the monk 1 extra attack.

He's not full attacking, or he would have more than 2 attacks.

Also, quick runner's shirt ends your turn after you use it, so you can't attack afterwards.

Well that's new. Yet another good-but-not-great option sacrificed on the hungry alter of Caster/Martial Disparity.

Unchained monks now follow the fighters attack template. Flurry of blows would give the monk 1 extra attack.
yay for unchained monk.

Flurry of blows is still a full round action. *sad trombone*

Well that's new. Yet another good-but-not-great option sacrificed on the hungry alter of Caster/Martial Disparity.

Tell me about it. I recently was looking about getting Bracers of Falcon’s Aim for PC of mine only to find out that it's been nerfed into verdor trash.

Making the enemies roll twice and take the lowest result is a pretty standard tactic for Aerin. I can't think of a way that I can roll the enemy's saves or attacks on their turn.

How can I help you remember? Should I put it in capitals and bold like I do with party buffs to remind the group of their bonuses?

Yes.

Bold the spell name and indicate the effect. Mark the targets on the map. and understand that I will probably still forget sometimes and may not be bothered to retcon a previous post.

Alright, thank you.

Folks - just a wee heads up that I’ll be out of town this weekend. Helping out as pit-crew for a mate of mine whose racing bikes, heading off this afternoon and we’ll not be back until late Sunday. Will most likely be Monday morning before I’ll get back into the posting swing.

Okay cards on the table time folks - I dropped GM-F a wee PM regards my concerns about this game.

I think the characters are potentially a great bunch, and AOW a solid AP. My worries lie that we're falling somewhat into a pattern of combat first to the detriment of role-playing.

I know this will seem pretty ironic coming from the player of the drunken dwur berserker - and please don't see this as a gripe or dig at playing styles or whatnot - its merely the concerns of a player who enjoys a game, but feels like I'm going through the motions somewhat.

As Doomed Hero will attest, the other AP we play in (Way of the Wicked) has had some very cool cut scene style interplays, and I think that game is all the better for it.

As a group we're not particularly built for social interactions (no real face) and realise the defacto will be "shoot first" style play, but I was curious to know what everyone else reckons? Maybe its just me over thinking things (not planning on dropping out tho) - just feel we're not tapping the real potential of this group of characters (and players) enough..?

However if everything is actually hunky-dory, then I'll suck it up and swing for the fences when called upon :)

Apologies for the epic post!

BD

Some games are like that. Fanguar tends to favor a very streamlined game. It's not a bad way of doing things. It is just a play style that doesn't always mesh well with people who like to take their time and delve deeper into character and immersion.

Personally, I can go either way. I appreciate deeper role-play. I also appreciate games that flow quickly from scene to scene.

I think of it like the difference between watching a drama and an action movie.

This is a kick-in-the-door style game. I think embracing that is the best way to work with it. We can have our banter and character interactions during fights, like a comic book.

I enjoy role playing but also like the challenge of using our resources to win fights. I am happy with the mix of role and roll in this game, or would be if we could pick up the pace. My cards on the table comment will be that wth the slow pace, combined with the large number of other games I play, I have a very hard time remembering plot and goals and NPCs of this game.

If we can pick things up and get everyone posting I will both enjoy the story more and can more easily role play. Any chance we can get back to daily posting again?

Also I fear the slow pace has cost of Marcus. He has not posted in the game thread since December and not in the Discussion since February. Has he announced he has dropped? He is an excellent player when he is interested in a game. I would hate to loose him.

Thanks for the affirmation gents - believe me not looking for this to become a RP heavy game, was just concerned that our default was "fight".

Agree that losing Markus has been a wound we've not yet healed. Might be worth GM-F putting out the feelers to see if we can get a new player to join the ranks - that typically fires up slower games (at least in the short term).

Think a more regular posting schedule would also bring out more from our GM as well as the rest of the group.

Thanks for the input folks.

Re: Pace: Part of this is on me. I fully admit I'm more of a "squeaky wheel gets the grease" kind of DM on these boards. I don't Bot unless someone has arranged for it ahead of time and I'm not a fan of just forcing the game forwards. The more players post, the more I will post. I will say that I can't commit to daily posting, but it is possible. Another thing that might be worth considering is going to mapless combat. It's how a run a couple of my other campaigns and It definitely makes combat move along faster.

Part of the pacing problem is on the AP itself. Its a pretty slow burn. We are 4 adventures in and the PCs still don't know what is going on.

Re: Marcus: He didn't officially drop, but I'm carrying on as if he has. I'm also fine with recruiting some fresh blood, after this adventure. I'm tempted to recruit us up to 6, since what I can do with larger parties is just skip people without having to worry about TPKs.

Re:Re: Marcus - I did PM him and before he went to radio silence he'd been posted to his work's China office. He was a very prolific poster across a number of games here so dropping out without notification was out of character. Could be access to the boards was verboten? Regardless hope he's okay and if he were to come back I'd vouch for him.

Larger party would work - definitely a skills monkey and face are rolls we need filling, so I'd be up for a healthy injection of new blood.

Mapless combat would also work for me.

Part of the pacing problem is on the AP itself. Its a pretty slow burn. We are 4 adventures in and the PCs still don't know what is going on.

An I thought it was just me. :)

I am good with new people. 6 more might be excessive, but a total of 6 would be great.

I am good with new people. 6 more might be excessive, but a total of 6 would be great.

Ya, I meant up to a party of 6, but I can see that the phrasing as a bit ambiguous.

We seem to be stuck again... Who is up?

I wanted to give a heads up that I will be on vacation and traveling through central Europe from May 9-May 25. I'll be able to post some while traveling but will have to do so from my phone or iPad. So please bot me if required and know that I'll post when I can.

Issac is waiting for a response from the Fassah.

Hello????? have we stalled?

Hello????? have we stalled?

If you are looking for something to do, feel free to post in the Savage Tide game. You're in combat.

Hey Folks. Sorry for the radio silence. I've been thinking about this game and my DMing in general, and I'm not super happy about them. So I've been thinking about what to change and how to increase my and your engagement, because, while I can't speak for the rest of you, I know that for me its pretty low. I'm just not having fun with this particular game.

Some of that is on how I've been running things, but I must say that a lot of it falls on the AP itself. The Whispering Cairn is a great 1st level adventure, but the others so far have been pretty lackluster. Reading ahead a bit more, things don't really get that much more interesting. This thing is welded to the rails and there isn't really any room for detours. Pretty much zero player agency. Now I could completely rewrite a bunch of stuff, but I'm just not that interested in this plot to put that much effort into it. Recruiting in a couple of new people might help, but if I'm going to do a recruitment, I want it be for something I'm excited about.

Long story short, I've decided to stop running this game. Now just to be clear, I'm still interested in running games on this site and will keep running my other games (which all of you are in, and while there are some things I want to work on, I'm enjoying). Also this is not a knock against any of you as players. I'm just not happy with this particular game and would rather try to build a better one than try to fix this one. And honestly, you folks deserve better than this. It's seriously 3 more adventures before you really know what the "Age of Worms" actually is and the awesomest thing that can happen, occurs if you fail.

I plan on putting together another game ASAP (details below in another post, this one is getting a little long) and if it sounds like something you would be interested in, you're all invited to take a seat at the table.

Ok. Still with me? Good, and again, sorry about ending the age of worms game.

New game pitch:

1. This is going to be a D&D 5e game. I just wanted to get that out of the way in case it's a deal breaker for anyone, but hear me out. Wizards released a heap of stuff as a SRD, so nobody needs to buy anything (check out D&D Beyond, it's pretty slick, but there's lots of online places you can get the info). 5e strips a lot of mechanics out and streamlined a bunch of others. It's designed to promote narrative play, which is something I want to promote and I think will translate well to PbP games.

2. This will be in a homebrew setting. I've been putting together some ideas for a campaign world that I want to unleash so PCs into. If you decide to partake in the game, you'll get more info, but in brief, its a pretty standard, lowish magic fantasy setting . Lots of low level divine magic, less so arcane, few high level casters of any type. 5e is already designed to be pretty light on the magic items (eg no magic item shops), and in this setting I'm making it more so. PC's will find magic items, and they will be awesome, but there's never will be a bunch of minions walking around with +1 longswords.

3. I intend this to function as an open world game. I have no grand story that I want to tell, I just want to create a believable world to play in. I'm making a map and seeding it with NPCs, monsters and adventure hooks. I have a ton of 2nd, 3rd, and 4th edition, and pathfinder adventures that I've acquired over the years and I'm dropping them here and there. During character creation, I want to work with the players to give them hooks to early game content, but not have any obligation to follow them. I what players to have the freedom to explore, find a ogre tribe and get eaten all at first level, if they so choose.

4. I want to have a game where player agency matters, where the clock is always ticking. You wont always be able to do everything. A tribe of goblins wont wait for you to rescue the princess from the evil wizard before they attack the village. I want a game where the PCs actions matter to the game world. Adventures won't just pause until you can't get to them, sometimes bad things will happen, or another group of NPC adventurers will have taken care of the problem instead.

5. For character creation, I want to recreate the feeling of sitting around a table as much as possible. When I recruit, I'm just recruiting players, not characters. Once I have the players, we'll roll for stats and build the party as a team. I'm planning on a rolling for stats in order (e.g. First roll STR, 2nd roll DEX etc). I want players to discover their characters, not just build some pre-defined idea they already have. I'll also work with the players to sketch backgrounds that fit the setting.

It's getting late where I am, so I think I'll leave it at that. If this sounds like something you might be interested in, let me know. If not, thanks for reading and I'll see you in our other games.

First of all GM-F: Thanks for this game, and kudos for taking the difficult decision. Must admit I've been pretty close to calling it a day on this one (as I touched on recently in my OOC post). However I've enjoyed this one and its longevity. Sverrir's been a fun character to play :)

Early on in the AoW I reckon there was more of a tighter "world" feel - Whispering Cairn is excellent and laid the ground work for "flavour" campaign threads that are never really exploited.

As for the new game - colour me very interested. One of the things I loved as a neophyte player exploring the Caves of Chaos was the notion that some of those lairs were too dangerous, that if you ended up knocking heads with the gnolls, ogre or hobgob chief it would likely mean your end... Nowadays the adventures are less sandbox and, while railroading has its place, nothing beats the feeling of punching above your wait when the dice roll in your favour.

Will take a gander at 5E SRD and try and get more familiar with the rules set.

Finally to the rest of you lot - thanks for the game, and the memorable characters and moments. See you in other games we share (and hopefully this new one).

Cheers

BD

Thanks GM Fanguar. Love being part of your campaigns even though sometime I get swamped with work and tend to neglect the campaign for a bit.

I am interested in your idea and willing to try this out.
Do you have any sites that we can wander and look at the 5e rules?