JCServant's Council of Thieves (Inactive)

Game Master JCServant

I've added a couple of docs about Cheliax in the dropbox folder. I'll add more information there from time to time (mostly info from the books) to help give you all more information about your surroundings and help with RP, character development, etc. For those who want the full experience, I highly recommend you buy the Cheliax player's companion.

Is anyone else threatened by Hurricane Sandy? If I disappear for a while it will be because my power will have been knocked out.

Not all the way over here in Europe, I hope you get through it as safely as possible.

I'm in NH, so I'm at risk. Work is in MA, so that could impact, too.

I'm in NC,so there's some chance we'll get a piece, but being at the outside edge of a cat 1 is not that big of a deal in these parts.

Yeah I hope you guys don't get affected too badly. I'm in the UK but I have been following the news.

Not me, I'm in Indiana. Best of luck to those that might be affected.

*crosses fingers*

Thanks for the well-wishes. I just picked up a generator, something I have been meaning to do for about three years. Lowes gave out 200 tickets to people who were at the store early enough and I was 198.

I live on the east coast of FL and was effected Thursday and Friday. We lost power for a few hours. I went to the public beach today and it was closed. The waves were out of a surf movie.

Guys, I have to say that seen on the news from across the Atlantic it looks nasty - hope you are all safe.

Cheers.

Hey, sounds awful. Also I will be out most of today, flying to Indy for and back later today so my posting will be very limited as it will be by blackberry.

We need a bard. Or I could take a point of Craft(Poetry) or Perform.

Because the muse keeps knocking...

Through the seas of darkness, the Dancing Blade did guide
The Physicker, The Braggart Sword, the Black Devil beside
The Archer Green, the Dove in White, the Gray Tom, and Bright Carver
Through the seas of darkness.

Toward, was hoped, safe harbor.

Wow, Bill. And you got one?

Wow, Bill. And you got one?

I was one of the lucky ones. Of course I am out of luck for finding a heavy extension cord or gas canister. I only have the one gallon one that I use for my lawn mower. Thankfully, a guy at a gas station was also willing to fill an empty cranberry juice container.

It's better than being in a Westcrown sewer, though.

I can make a bunch of blind rolls if you like to qualify for his actions or you can secretly roll on your side should anything materialize, up to you.

That's a good point Corellon. I've been thinking about skill checks in general, and perception checks in particular. There's a lot of confusion of exactly when to roll perception and where those rolls apply. Normally at the table, GM says "Roll perception" with a thought in mind, and that's that. In Pbp, I can't rely on everyone to roll it quicky enough to keep things moving. My newest idea is that each player, at the beginning of the day everyone can roll a perception check. That's the number that will be used though the day for checks. Alternatively, you could just declare you're taking 10 all day out of combat.

Now, there's nothing to stop someone from prevewing their roll, and then declaring they are taking 10 if its bad. I would point out, however, that I *am* an accountant :D And when I'm REAL bored at home, I whip up a worksheet and average everyone's rolls. That last time I did it, everyone was a little light...around 11-11.5. However, a couple of players were well above 13. LOL! So, roll honestly boys and girls. If we decide with the all day skill check, and you decide to roll, keep it if its a low number...don't edit your post otherwise.

I am going to have to withdraw from the game. My power was restored only recently and I missed about three pages of gameplay. It does not feel like I am in the game anymore at this point. Thanks for the experience while I was there and good gaming all.

It's up to the GM ofc, but if that is the reason, from my part you should stick around man. Those things are out of your control. On the other hand, if you wanna leave simply because you wanna leave, that's fine :D

Oh, please, Hal, stay. You're the only one who knows where the bodies are buried. :)

Look at it philosophically, you're not three days behind. You're just as lost as the rest of us.

And with Tessai lobbying for a fight, we'll want your stabbityness at the next point we can ambush some HKs.

Hey Hal, it's up to you of course. If you feel like you've missed out on too much then we all understand. I'm sure we'd all like you to stay though if you can.

Correllan wrote:

I can make a bunch of blind rolls if you like to qualify for his actions or you can secretly roll on your side should anything materialize, up to you.

That's a good point Corellon. I've been thinking about skill checks in general, and perception checks in particular. There's a lot of confusion of exactly when to roll perception and where those rolls apply. Normally at the table, GM says "Roll perception" with a thought in mind, and that's that. In Pbp, I can't rely on everyone to roll it quicky enough to keep things moving. My newest idea is that each player, at the beginning of the day everyone can roll a perception check. That's the number that will be used though the day for checks. Alternatively, you could just declare you're taking 10 all day out of combat.

Now, there's nothing to stop someone from prevewing their roll, and then declaring they are taking 10 if its bad. I would point out, however, that I *am* an accountant :D And when I'm REAL bored at home, I whip up a worksheet and average everyone's rolls. That last time I did it, everyone was a little light...around 11-11.5. However, a couple of players were well above 13. LOL! So, roll honestly boys and girls. If we decide with the all day skill check, and you decide to roll, keep it if its a low number...don't edit your post otherwise.

Never actually got to respond to this one GM - here are my two cents though:

I know that having players roll blindly a bunch of times can add more complexity to the whole thing, since, from that list, you need to keep track of which rolls have been used and not, etc...

However, I don't really like much the idea of rolling once and then using that one roll all day long - I get the feeling it just simply steals away that random chance of you doing either very well or very poorly in different tasks.

In my case, when I DM, I almost never ask my players to roll perception (I roll for them instead), simply because that would give them a hint regarding what may or may not be there to be discovered - Example: If a player rolls a natural 20 on his perception roll, and he finds or hears nothing, he can be almost sure that there is nothing to find or hear. Additionally, we agree that it doesn't make sense for them to know if they are paying attention to the correct details (when searching) or sounds (when listening), unless of course they are listening to something in particular.

So, bottom line, I wouldn't mind rolling a set of dice at the beginning of the day, but using always the same roll is not my cup of tea. Alternatively, for simplicity sake, I would rather that GM would do the needed rolls himself.

There, two cents in ;)

I agree with Tessai's points, and would (if given the option) cede my perception rolls to the GM. I do see both sides, though, and I could see some players being unhappy with not rolling, and as a GM myself, I would not want to run two methods.

Not to contradict my earlier post, but I am fine with the GM rolling for me, I like the secrecy of not knowing what I don't know.

I'm with the posters above - rolling once for the entire day seems like it puts too much on that one roll and takes away from the event-by-event tension of trying to figure out what's going on. If it would be easier for the GM to roll for everyone at once (which I think I've seen in some games elsewhere), I'm totally fine with that.

Oh hey...posts in Discussion. How did I miss that over the weekend! SOrry about the lack of response.

First, Hal, I would prefer you stay, as well. We really haven't moved that much. The party has spent I don't know how long in real time (A week...or more?) just crawling around a sewer. If you tell me exactly where you left off, story wise, I can provide you the reader's digest version of what's happened since then w/o you having to read through pages of posts and get you caught up. If you still want to leave, I respect your wishes, of course.

As far as perception checks, seems the thing everyone likes to do is for GM to roll. I'll get y'alls perception programmed into my worksheet and work that in over the next week. Thanks for the feedback!!

I guess Hal doesn't prefer to stay :(

Brandon, you mentioned you had a friend. Since Hal has moved on, perhaps it would be a good idea to invite him/her.

I'd be glad to. I'll ask him to PM you.

JC, my friend ictoo will PM you a little later. He is interested in joining and is considering a ranger which will help us as we have almost no ranged support. He can discuss this with you of course.

Sounds like a plan. I PM'd him and invited him to talk with my later tonight on phone so I can catch him out and go over houserules, questions, etc (my typing time is limited for a bit), and told him to introduce himself personally on here. His character will find a way into the story with a little help from you friendly neighborhood GM.

Hello everyone, i'd like to thank jcservant for giving me this chance to play in this pbp and look forward to playing and talking to all of you.

My names Daniel/Ictoo/Aemon

I'm 24 and live in Swanesa, Wales i'm good friends with Brandon. Currently work from home for a medical company(IT stuff and customer support)

I only started playing DND 3.5 a year ago, then moved on the pathfinder, i've played in three games and also DM'ed one.

Working from home makes it very easy for me to keep up with posts, and im looking forward to getting stuck in to the game.

Hi Dan. Glad JC gave you the opportunity and you could join.

This is a fun group and the roleplaying has been excellent so far (so no pressure!). Look forward to seeing how Aemon is introduced.

Welcome aboard Aemon. I'm sure you will enjoy the group dynamics - just jump right into it ;)

Could I get you all to do me a favor? email me your real name and character's name. I accidently deleted my worksheet, and I need to know who is who. Thanks!

Kyle: I see the conditional in your request for a song. When it looks like things have settled that way, I'll quote you, and have Devil provide a lead. He doesn't really sing well, but he does feel, and with all these canny sense motive types, that might just be more important.

Plus, maybe it'll beat Beppo's time with the Bard(Geisha?). :)

nice to have you on board Daniel.

Sudden melancholy inspiration, made me smile, want to share, some of you will get it. This HAS NO BEARING on the current game.

In the darkness of the tunnels, the party rested, a single faint light empowering the inhuman eyes of those on watch. The little feral girl was supposedly asleep, but the smallest of the 'sleeping' shapes began to inch silently toward the lone light source. Then, faintly, suddenly, was heard:

<shing!>

(giggle)

Ever miss an old character? :)

Devil owes Kyle a song. And Janiven's been practically begging for a good name for the team. Old Monkees song offers both. Let us be the Shades of Gray.

Hey, it beats 'Super Squad'.

And if heroing and revolution don't pan out, we can write improbable erotica.

Jack?

I miss Sharan :D

I sometimes strongly miss having a map. Did we just let them ride past us, in the hopes that after they cross the bridge, Janiven's party can stop them? Caltrops, missles, and J-crew runs? Then we strike?

Dutifully waiting...

BD, yes. By allowing Janiven to act first, even if the carriage went right past ya, means that the horsemen were pulled away from the main escort. You now only have 6 hellknights to deal with instead of 10 Hellknights and four warhorses. They were much less likely to notice if you if they passed you up, allowing you to get a surprise attack.

I use the status report to give a representation of exactly how far everyone is from the enemy groups and (if separated) each other.

So glad I could work in the gas. :)

Someday, we're gonna have us some gas. And NO ONE will see it coming.

Just wanted to give a shout out to our GM for keeping this up and running in am amazingly smooth way, mainly for such a large group, so many conflicting and coordinating actions. My hat is off to you SIR!

I have tried to GM once in a PbP environment, and the sheer amount of applications completely overwhelmed me.

Again, amazing job, and thanks for keeping it up.

nobody ever wants to ever be Mister Pink... :)

I don't mind 'Devil', and in this setting, it's generic.
Devil favors 'Grey' for Tessai. He's also pushing 'Shades of Grey' for the team.

Abbot and Castellan seem to fit Kyle and Beppo, though I didn't see that at first.

Brandon, Aemon, and Correlon...

If we go with colors, inspired by Tessai as 'Grey', we might be:

Grey (Tessai)
Black (Devil)
Silver (Kyle)
Gold (Beppo)
Red (Brandon, later Edmond)
White (Aemon)
Green (Corellon)

Of course, it's whatever fits, and is understood.

Miss Grey please

<- rejoices

grey sounds like my last name. I'm honored, i'm like the father figure.

we could use charcoal, slate, and ash if you want to keep it in the grey family.

Oh, that's nice. Would we have enough for everyone?

Devil would accept 'black', or if that was wanted elsewhere, 'fuligin'.

'grey'-words off the top of my head:

storm
sea
steel
night
dawn
cloud

Colours seem like a good idea to me. At least until we can all come up with super hero names :-)

By the way, sorry for the inconvenience of Brandon shutting down at the moment. He's got the human equivalent of the Blue Screen Of Death just without tech support. He may be up and running by round 3. I thought it would be interesting to play out the beginnings of a full mental breakdown especially after he slaughtered that helllknight when we were both trying to keep casualties to a minimum and it was the first person he had killed (people Edmond kills whilst under the effects of a mutagen dont count in his mind). I need to be careful he doesn't just become a liability. Interesting times!

Side note - Tessai, yes I agree this is well run and some amazing roleplaying going on, if I could get my tabletop group to roleplay half as well as this id be very happy.

Aemon - very unlucky rolls so far.

Anyway... Back to the action.