Isle of Dread (Inactive)

Game Master Wilmannator

[dice=Know(Eng.) +9 +2 (Wrigley's Song)]1d20+11

"Elon you genius! Shouts Gratum moving to grab the line tied to the other dwarf. ”You’re a fourth sail! We just gotta get you in alignment! Common Barley, bring him in a little!"

[dice=Reflex+6]1d20+6

Now that we've discussed this thoroughly, let's put it in the gameplay thread :)

Don't worry guys! I also updated the tactical with a fun image to help give you a visual.

Great picture. Rainbow parachute? - is Elon trying to tell us something?

Crafting this post will take some time. I will get it up tonight or tomorrow. Doing my best and sorry for holding things up.

Now that we've discussed this thoroughly, let's put it in the gameplay thread :)

DOH!

And the dice have officially ruined my day1 Thanks dice.

Come join me overboard, Mtumbwi!

As I posted on the Zedroom...

Okay, so Paizo has been sapping my PbP time. I had two big chunks yesterday set aside, and a big chunk today set aside for some lovely updates. Unfortunately, the site was down at every single one of those times. I see there are new posts, so I can only assume Paizo had it out for me.

I'm hoping to catch up on posts tonight and do some posting of my own on every thread I'm a part of tomorrow morning (by midday at the absolute latest).

I would apologize for my absence, but I will deliver a heartfelt "fūck you" to Paizo's web team instead.

Are any of all y'all on Google Chat? Hit me up on PainlordPFS (at) gmail (dot!) com or send me your contact info (yahoo or AIM works as well).

I do like chatting and discussing things if any of all are interested.

/me flicks dark curls

"Rand is not using Hangouts yet"

I guess it's different from Google chat, but it didn't use to be. FFS Google, consolidate your shït, don't split it apart!

Happy Halloween everyone! I'm still working on the next post (I keep getting distracted). Thank you for your patience, I'll try to get it out during the day today. Don't worry, though, we're almost there... !

So is Halloween a thing in Texas? Is it as TV leads me to believe?

Yes... and yes. Hordes of children obscured by various not-so-scary costumes going from house to house.

More focus on the treat and less on the trick these days, though (instead of a sweet, cute "twick or tweeeeeat" you are more likely to get a half-filled candy bucket shoved silently and expectantly in your face). However, you can just leave your porch light off and you're pretty much immune to everything but the sound of whining children hopped up on sugar coming from outside (depending upon how well insulated your house is).

The thing over here in Texas seems to be to hire some Mexican to drape fake spiderwebs all through your yard (once they've finished the mowing, of course).

Where we used to live, they even bussed in poorer kids to our more affluent area so they'd get more treats. You'd think they could at least teach them the phrase "thank you" on the bus ride over.

The thing over here in Texas seems to be to hire some Mexican to drape fake spiderwebs all through your yard (once they've finished the mowing, of course).

#TraditionsThatNeedToDie

Yes... and yes. Hordes of children obscured by various not-so-scary costumes going from house to house.

More focus on the treat and less on the trick these days, though (instead of a sweet, cute "twick or tweeeeeat" you are more likely to get a half-filled candy bucket shoved silently and expectantly in your face). However, you can just leave your porch light off and you're pretty much immune to everything but the sound of whining children hopped up on sugar coming from outside (depending upon how well insulated your house is).

The thing over here in Texas seems to be to hire some Mexican to drape fake spiderwebs all through your yard (once they've finished the mowing, of course).

Where we used to live, they even bussed in poorer kids to our more affluent area so they'd get more treats. You'd think they could at least teach them the phrase "thank you" on the bus ride over.

Yea, sounds about right. Not as many mexicans in Michigan though.

Its been a while since I have been in a college town though during halloween, I guess we will see if it is really like the tv and movies suggest...

Bazsil Grimalkin wrote:

"Blib doolp oolp. Blibdoolpoolp!"

If you summon some kuo-toa with this...

And I was worried that that was going to go over the head you younglings...

Just this.

And this.

Bazsil flicks his oiled hair.

Posting this to all the threads to catch all the potential GMs out there...

A guy we played with regularly, Chris B, has been absent without explanation for over 2 weeks now. We hold out hope that he will return, but this is (by 2 weeks) the longest he has been away from PbP without notice.

Chris B used to run a game (as recently as 16 days ago) of Curse of the Crimson Throne for a group of people. He did so under his alias of "DM Crispy". I played in it for a while, but bowed out due to a clash of gaming preferences (posting frequency and playing style - an issue that Chris has since resolved, actually). They've been through a few iterations (change of GM, then a change of PCs) but currently have a motivated group now, who are all posting well and regularly (daily+).

Is anyone interested in stepping up and helping out? Maybe even until Chris B returns or is confirmed permanently absent.

DM Crispy's Curse of the Crimson Throne

They seem to be in the middle of book 2.

It's not PFS, but CotCT is sanctioned, so you could get GM credits and hand out chronicle sheets for it (most of them have already signed up for PFS, and I'm sure the two hold-outs wouldn't mind creating "dummy" characters).

I'm not sure if this is an explanation but he dropped out of a scenario with me, Painlord and some Flaxseeders.

Huh. Different Chris - oddly both use Lufien as their avatar... and like to call themselves "Crispy".

Read gameplay first.

...

...

...

No seriously go there.

...

Done?

Hey all, great work pulling the ship through the Eye of Abendego. I hope it was sufficiently dramatic and not too onerous. I'm still amazed how well you all did. Great teamwork there!

So, with that over it is now time for you to LEVEL UP!

Congratulations, you are all now level 4.

Take your time to level up and feel free to just add +1 to the rolls I called for until you have a better idea of your level 4 selves. Bask in your newfound power, and it won't be long before you touch down on the Isle itself!

Hey all, great work pulling the ship through the Eye of Abendego. I hope it was sufficiently dramatic and not too onerous. I'm still amazed how well you all did. Great teamwork there!

I loved it! What an awesome, fun, unique encounter. I felt like I could use my character sheet and do lots of useful things (cast spells) and make use of my skills and ranks also. Who knew a lorekeeper on a ship could feel so useful in such a dire situation?

Kudos to you on the whole thing!

So, with that over it is now time for you to LEVEL UP!

Congratulations, you are all now level 4.

Woohoo!!! I'll have it up soon. (won't likely change very much, except some skill bumps. Extra spell or two. No level 3 spells until the next level ding)

That was an awesome combat to be a part of. Thanks, Damo.

Elon and Barley are updated.

Sorry about missing the action,.... The day of travel back, and then the exhaustion from the week overcame me. Plus working on stuff again. I'll try and post a story tomorrow AM about what Aeslin was doing (mostly saving a weasel trapped below)

Glad you guys enjoyed "Audacious vs the Eye". In case you were wondering, if you had failed your challenges, the ship would have taken damage and required repairs (and possibly side quests for materials) before you could leave the Isle (or sail around it willy-nilly). I was hoping for at least some damage, but you had everything nice and tidily cleaned up in 2 freaking rounds.

Nice work again.

I am busy as today getting ready for poker, so those posts were my last posts for today. I'll be playing until late, so I very likely won't get my typical early morning posts in tomorrow. I'll do my best to get caught up by mid-afternoon. Sorry for the late notice - I really thought I'd get more poker prep in last night.

In the meantime, though, please update your marching order on my the new Marching order Google Drawing. I'd also like your "open doors" order - because sometimes that differs. With this in play, I'll be able to make appropriate placements on maps as I need to (rather than waiting for 8 of you to put yourselves in).

From The Zedroom, and totally applicable to you guys:

I just tried to post an "I'll be away for the rest of today" notice. The site went up and down 3 times in all of that, and as I write this on my notepad I still don't know if those notices went through (as it happens one did, one didn't).

I've read all of the thread that Steve linked to. There are right ways and wrong ways to change the underlying architecture of a big site like this. You all know which way I think is happening right now. Triple the number of developers doesn't help if they're still not doing things right. Maybe they are. Maybe there are things that are truly beyond their control. I really don't know. I really don't care.

The downtime (and slow loading time) is really messing with my fun. I sometimes have to work hard to get a block of time set aside for posting (especially on a weekend, the time it's down the most) and when I can't do that I've wasted the effort at freeing up time - and I don't get my desired fun. I'm all about having fun. Not wearing out my "R" key.

I'm placing Isle of Dread and Reign of Winter on a 2.5 week hiatus (returning on Monday November 23rd). If any of you have reason to believe that the website is running better in the meantime, please let me know. I will continue to play all games I'm currently in. I will post twice daily (one in the early morning, one in the afternoon or late morning). If the site is down, I will email or text the GM to say that I tried and then I will do something else until my next posting time.

After the 2.5 weeks of hiatus from the games I am running, I will give it another go. If it happens again, I will just stop. Sorry guys, I know you've put a whole lot of effort into all of your characters and I really, really, really don't want to do this - but I'm far more often finding myself frustrated than enjoying myself. Even when I'm enjoying myself, I'm treading on eggshells wondering if the site will last long enough for me to post it. When frustration > fun, it's time to stop.

I've had a look at the alternatives, and none are a good replacement (for a whole raft of reasons already explored), with RPOL.net being the closest. However, for all of those, the set up time and all the rest of the crap that will come with sorting out another place to PbP (even if it all goes smoothly) will most definitely not be fun.

So. 2.5 weeks off from my games. Enjoy your free time.

Would anyone object me to marking this as 'inactive' until November 23rd? If not, I'll wait at least 24 hours for people to catch up on reading (and read the above notice) and then do that.

Also, is this a deal breaker for anyone? Would you prefer to quit than have such a long hiatus? If that is the case, I can re-assess my stance.

Was going to post, then got distracted by Baz's link. Now, I'm lost and sad that we are going on hiatus.

Support Hiatus (if needed)
Do Not Support Quitting

You can still post if you like - I'm just not going to respond for 2.5 weeks!

Sorry for this, but I need to get my head straight almost as much as the website we play on needs to get its architecture straight.

I understand!

Tis better to break than to cease
As this is the most fun game I have going (no offense Jack) I'm sad to see it break but it would be terrible if it just completely stopped

Baz will be around when you come back. You can't get rid of this hair that easily.

Just passing the time

Thank you everyone for your patience. Paizo.com has been stable enough for me to resume running this. Ironically, I tried to resume earlier today but the server timed out. As such, I don't have time to on gameplay until later (either later tonight or tomorrow evening).

In any event, thank you again for your patience and we're back!

For those of us in the USA, this is Thanksgiving week. I, for one, have a fair amount of stuff on so this will be a "soft" reboot. No need to step back in to the minimum daily posting rate until the 30th of November (but feel free to post as often as you like).

Thanks also to Elon, Bazsil and Gado for keeping the thread alive over the last 2.5 weeks... and also to Ciarán for the cabin fever clip. Muppets. Classic.

Let's hit it!

Wow how I have missed thee. pulls out nautical glossary once again.

In RL, snow covers the ground here, can't wait to RP my naked Mwangi man sunning himself in some tropical location.

yells to wife, "We need to book a vacation!"

Wow how I have missed thee. pulls out nautical glossary once again.

In RL, snow covers the ground here, can't wait to RP my naked Mwangi man sunning himself in some tropical location.

yells to wife, "We need to book a vacation!"

Ha! Classic. Good stuff.

So excited to be posting in Isle of Dread again. However, gotta travel today and I made a deal with the wife for her to pack our bags while I posted on PbP... in exchange, I need to be away from the 'puter tonight.

We're taking it easy this week anyway, but I just thought I'd let you know in case you missed me. :-)

Hello all! So... well... yeah...

Sorry to put a damper on the happy mood with everyone returning to the Isle of Dread game. I know everyone's happy it's starting back up after our little break, but I wanted to let everybody know that I'll be bowing out of this game as a player.

It's been a lot of fun playing with everyone, and the game has been great so far, but I'm currently fighting the all to common struggle of keeping up with my pbp load while having time to exist (and function) in RL. So, it's with a heavy heart that Wrigley will be retiring from this game. Maybe he'll be an NPC on the ship, hanging around in the background, or who knows, maybe eaten by cannibal savages :)

So, thank you everyone for the great game, and a sepcial thank you to Damien for running such an amazing game. It's seriously been great. Also, I'm happy that I got to take part in sailing through the Eye, because that whole scene was amazing.

I'll probably hold off posting in the gameplay thread from here on out. Also, I wanted to make it official so you all could figure out if you want to replace or just venture on to the island with 7.

Anyway, I hope there are no hard feelings, it's been great up to this point and me bowing out is all about trying to reduce the number of games I'm in and still have a functioning personal life :)

And good luck on the island :)

Another time, Wrigs. It was good while it lasted. Sadly, Bas and Wrigs didn't have a chance yet to really interact. Big crew and lots of players...I thought our time was to come.

*regrets*

/me flicks oiled curls back and bows goodbye to Wrigs

Bummer for this game, but I totally understand.

Gado will do his best to defend your halfling lady's honor from Baszil, who will no doubt want to bring her the news of Wrigley's demise.

Gado will not promise to defend her honor from himself.

awwwwwkward.....

@ Bazsil: It's been fun, dude. I'm glad I got to play in a game with you following gencon this year. And, there's also GenCon 2016 coming, if you'll be going to that.

@ Gado: I always pictured the lady that Wrigley fell in love with as a human, so that might work better for Gado anyway. Wrigley was never supposed to have a chance with her, he was just starry-eyed. But if you all make it off the island, back to civilization, and manage to find Wrigley's love in the shackles, then I'll even make an alt to RP that or with you when the time comes :)

Even though that would be awkward...

Wrigley and I were chatting over email about this. His diplomatic skills will be missed, but I would rather that he (or any one of you) take care of your real life rather than play in a game you're not enjoying (whether because of other time commitments or the game itself). For issues with the game itself, I'd encourage you to talk to me first and I'll see if I can help you have fun again. For time commitments (Wrigley's problem) there really isn't much I can do.

So, fare thee well Wrigley! I'll see your other PCs around.

So, who would like me to recruit another 8th player? I'm perfectly happy to keep running with 7, but if you feel you need a replacement diplomat, please do let me know. I can think of a few in-game explanations for a diplomat to 'arrive' (something like this would apply also in the event of another player leaving irrevocable PC death):

• Someone takes over Wrigley wholesale (rolling a new character, but keeping it broadly similar and 'it was Wrigley all along').
  
• A member of the crew (like Platonious or one of the mercenaries) turns out to have some unsteps up and fills the gap.
  
• An Islander you met decides to join in and help. The villages are quite isolated and ignorant of the mainland, so it wouldn't be too hard to fill someone in on the villager information and run with it.
  
• A portal opens up (like the one that the gnome who wrote the journal came through) and someone completely unconnected to the expedition steps out onto the Isle of Dread. Joining Barbarosa's crew seems his/her best bet for getting back home.
  
• Some hapless sailors accidentally sailed through the Eye of Abendego. The ship was completely destroyed, but somehow someone survived...

So, let me know if you want another player, if you prefer or don't like any of the above options and I can either find someone or continue on with 7!

Also, I've updated the map to include the legend on a separate image and a minimap (also separate image) to make things clearer. The resolution is now greatly improved! Please tell me if it's too confusing and you want it back to the old style.

Advantages to having a Diplomat:

Disadvantages to not having a diplomat:

someone will take Elon Barley seriously

someone will take Bazsil seriously

someone will take Gado seriously

WTF, Gado?! And here Bazsil thought we were getting along so well!

* * *
+1 to filling Wrig's shoes.

Also, totally unrelated to how I feel about that, totally...I have a primo candidate who would want in. He's *the* top PbP GM (and a fine player) in my book.

He's *the* top PbP GM (and a fine player) in my book.

Dude, I'm right f&&*ing here.

Bazsil Grimalkin wrote:

He's *the* top PbP GM (and a fine player) in my book.

Dude, I'm right f~$@ing here.

I know, right?

/me flicks oiled curls, smugs

You've been Grimmed!

Yeah, well, I am here, too... but I admit I pretty much suck at this. Maybe if my Serpents Rise table goes really well... er.. .really badly... I'll change my opinion.

Face to Face I rock though.

Bazsil Grimalkin wrote:

He's *the* top PbP GM (and a fine player) in my book.

Dude, I'm right f@~%ing here.

I thought you already invited me to this game?