Okay guys, first I want to say I am really enjoying this game so far. Second, I know I said you could roll for me DM. But, combat is the most fun part of the game for me, and two days in a row now I've gone to bed and woken up to 50+ posts and a whole combat having happened without me. I would certainly have made different choices and it possibly would have changed how things went.
So let me revise my request. Please don't DMPC me in combat unless I am gone for more than 24 hours. Living in a radically different time zone than you guys I'd have to stay up all night to post when most of you are. It will slow down the combat portions a bit, but I'd really like to control myself in combat.
Outside combat I'm totally cool with being DMPCed and rolled for.
Also, a swarm and an enemy with whirlwind attack at the same time against level 1 characters?!?! Whoever wrote this is eeeeevvviilllll. I don't feel bad about Spiny being OP at all now.
I don't feel bad about Spiny being OP at all now.
As long as you admit it. =P
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As for not being NPCed, waiting up for you would be reasonable if we didn't have to wait for Erep too (or Erep's replacement). You guys are on literally opposite schedules. If we have to wait for both of you, we'll never get through more than one round of combat per day. That's going slow things to a crawl.
And yet that is inevitably how a PbP works, to some extent--things slow down. We can't just NPC Cuetzpalli every combat we get in to "make things run quicker". Otherwise, he's not even really playing. :P
And Jelani, Rynjin had a good point earlier. About what time each day do you believe you'll generally be able to post?
Yeah, we're in a bit of a lose-lose. Having folks on the extreme ends of the possible time zones is going to make maintaining good momentum and including everyone nearly impossible.
I was fortunate when my group ran our Skull and Shackles PBP that we were all roughly on the same schedule and our busier folks didn't mind being NPCed when it came up. We managed to finish the whole thing in ~4 months.
I can post every day of the week from about 10 AM my time (10 PM EST) until whenever four days a week, the other three I work in the evening/afternoon (middle of the night for you guys). A lot of times I'll have something going on in the evening for me (morning for you lot), but then I'm on at night often until 1 or 2 am (from ~8 AM to 1 or 2 PM your time). You'll almost never have to wait more than 12 hours for me to post. I think 1 round of combat a day is perfectly reasonable, and actually much much faster than your typical PBP. I'm lucky to get through one round a week in most of the games I run. My fastest game is about 1 round per two days or so.
Yowch. I've never had a PbP take more than a day (or two, if it starts late in the day) to get through a single COMBAT, much less a round.
1 round per 2 days is excruciating, much less a round a WEEK. I'd find it hard to stay invested in a game that slow.
1 round per 2 days is definitely a glacial pace. It could be rough maintaining everyone's interest moving that slow. I know I would likely get bored.
On a related note, a friend is working on a bot that parses PBP threads here on a paizo forums to generate data about pacing, DM turnaround time, and the health/expected success rate for a campaign. The general stat trend is exactly what you'd expect. =P
Yowch. I've never had a PbP take more than a day (or two, if it starts late in the day) to get through a single COMBAT, much less a round.
1 round per 2 days is excruciating, much less a round a WEEK. I'd find it hard to stay invested in a game that slow.
I guess my PbPs have been pretty slow, then. Then again, I haven't been involved in PbPs as much the last year or so.
I'm very reluctant to pass judgement right now, because I'm pretty tired, but this is definitely worrying. We might have to rethink how this is going to work.
I'm definitely not giving up on this game--I've been having a blast so far (albeit with somewhat mixed GM feelings about Erip's untimely execution). I want that to be clear. But we might have to take a moment aside to determine how to handle this, because a PbP is slow enough without issues like this.
Seriously? Well then you guys are extremely lucky. I have many games where updates from DMs are like once a week at best. This is definitely the fastest moving game I'm in right now. Second fastest the DM posts from his phone a lot and usually they are single word or single sentence posts riddled with spelling and grammar errors. However, the combats do go pretty quickly there.
That's why I'm in sooo many games right now, because most of them are very slow.
The fact that you finished an AP in 4 months is insane. I've not heard of anyone else doing one in less than like 2 years in PBP. I thought my game where we did a PFS scenario in about a month was doing really good.
It doesn't really matter. I think asking to wait for me to act in combat is totally fair. I have to wait for you guys every afternoon and evening while you sleep and aren't posting. I would never expect one of you to agree to be permanently botted in combat.
I dunno, MAYBE that's the norm because I always hear PbPs are slow, but that just seems unworkable. If you're running an AP and taking a literal month to get through most encounters (4 round combat, a week a round) it would take you a freakin' decade to get through a whole thing.
Whenever I run a PbP I institute a "One post per 24 hours" rule just to keep things moving at a decent clip, so maybe my experience is a mite skewed.
As for Erip's death...that's nothing on your GMing. You pulled your punches on that and it wasn't enough, c'est la vie.
No offense to Gark, but that was all on him for deciding not to Cast Defensively when he's dumped literally all his physical stats, especially with Con 9 and Dex 7 (AKA easy to hit and easy to kill).
Incidentally, finishing an AP in almost exactly four months is pretty darn impressive. I will say we probably won't be quite that expedient no matter what. ;D
Yeah, I've been in one Legacy of Fire game now that started September 20th, 2012 and we're not even through the first book yet.
I'm running a Carrion Crown that started November 6th, 2012 and we're in the middle of book 2.
Also, if it's okay to DMPC me in a fight, why isn't it okay to DMPC Carina and Robin right now? They are outvoted 3:2 even assuming neither of them changed their minds after my little speech.
The difference I personally see is that this is a roleplaying scene, not a combat scene, and I don't like DMPCing characters when roleplaying. I also waited for Cuetzpalli to give his thoughts on what direction to take now.
Heh. I don't expect most folks to finish an AP in four months. I just like to use it as an example of what's possible. =P
I started a Second Darkness game with most of the same people but this one's going a bit slower. We're at ~8 months and almost done with book 3.
For one, DMPCing someone in combat is a hell of a lot different than making RP decisions for them, please don't try to conflate the two.
Secondly, KC has said he's going to stop doing so now. Personally I don't have a problem with your posting schedule since you've been posting every day. It's a new PbP, kinks are being worked out, that's why we're having this discussion.
For the record, my general guide of an optimal PbP has always been Aubrey's. His ROTR game is on its third chapter after seven years.
Then again, like I said, I haven't been that active in PbP matters until recently.
I like Aubrey, but seven years to finish three books is too long.
14 years to finish a mid-level campaign is depressing, heh.
Alright, cool. I don't want to be difficult, but I want to have fun too. I'm sure it'll be fine. As you said, new games always have to find their pace. I think this one will definitely be fun, even if it's a little slower than theoretically possible.
Edit:Without trying to make it a further discussion I would say in my opinion combat is more important because you can die there. RP usually comes down to group majority decisions anyway. Yeah, sometimes characters refuse to go along with the party, but that's usually ends up being less fun for everyone if my past experience is anything to go off of. I would say a minimum of DMPCing the best bet in any case. Only to be used when someone is holding up the game for more than a day or so.
I like Aubrey, but seven years to finish three books is too long.
14 years to finish a mid-level campaign is depressing, heh.
And yet it's managed to keep going seven of those years. That's pretty darn impressive. :P
Impressive maybe but 14 years is way too long.
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No offense to Gark, but that was all on him for deciding not to Cast Defensively when he's dumped literally all his physical stats, especially with Con 9 and Dex 7 (AKA easy to hit and easy to kill).
If we were trying to withdraw, there was no way I could avoid an AOO/an attack next round. It was a mistake to move so far out, though.
Thanks, Dragoncat.
e: Also, what kind of class would you guys like to see? I haven't played a rogue ninja in like seven years, and we only have one relatively arcane "caster."
Yeah, looking at the way combat went, Erip going down was fairly inevitable. If the AoO hadn't brought him down, the Whirling Frenzy would have done the trick. His only way of getting out of that was a full Withdraw action.
You'd be forty feet. Withdraw allows you to double-move.
Erip curses her stupidity from beyond the grave.
About spells per day: Are you sure?
Like other spellcasters, a cleric can cast only a certain number of spells of each spell level per day.
Also, the warpriest class, like the cleric class, explicitly states they must choose one time of day to prepare spells.
Tanith’s prayer time is during the sunrise. That special hellish hour that only truly dedicated fitness devotees regularly see.
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Long-term care could also be an attractive option, if you take the time for Carina to rest later in the night and let Tanith prepare new spells.
Also, I think I'll play a cleric of Olidammara? CN human with the Chaos and Luck domains. She could encounter the party as they travel to or from town and, seeing their valuable artifacts, attempt to blackmail them into letting her join the expedition. Might just be an ex-member of a hill bandit gang who's looking for new employment, and who just asks to join the first group she meets, or the party could actively recruit in Diamond Lake (where she could be a friend of someone in the group, or just a particularly convincing candidate).
I'm leaving some time during the "resting period" for characters to roleplay (and players to decide how long the resting will last). After today, if things seem to have died down, I'll move things on.
Age of Worms: Well, three hundred posts and the wizard got eaten by bugs.
The fact that we've busted out 300 posts in four days is extremely impressive to me. Loving the game so far, great job DMing and keeping the pace up KC :)
I'm crashing for the night. If KC is staying up, keep exploring!
I'm down for the count too. Might be on a little earlier tomorrow, or a lot later, depending.
I'm laughing on the inside at this.
Carina's freaking out over an elevator. I'd hate to see how she'd react to seeing a computer... XD
Leaving for my real life game in a little bit to be gone for the rest of the day basically. If Spiny doesn't come down, Cuet will go back up and get him. (assuming Tanith doesn't break the elevator)
Then he'd want to press on down this new tunnel. Cuet first, then tanith, then Carina, then Robin, then Spiny. If the horse comes he can go wherever. We just need the squish in the middle.
As much I love playing Tanith up as a dumb animal (dat 7 int), we can't spend all day stumped by fancy engineering. =P
In hindsight, I should have quietly swapped the rolls on Tanith and Cuetzpalli so that the barbarian with the offline player would be asleep and the warpriest with the player currently waiting would be able to act.
Then again, there would still be the matter of Spiny. Oh well.
Heh, it's okay.
Six hours ago I was actually playing Way of the Wicked and murdering innocent followers of Mitra... -evil laugh-
Sorry if I held things up for a few hours, but I posted now :)
I'm planning WotW right now too, fun AP.
What book are you on?
KC's getting hungry. He's already killed a Dwarf, now he's going to kill an Animal Companion off screen. =)
We're going to round that corner after combat and find Spiny's mangled corpse, "Killed by descending scythe blades WHICH ARE COMING RIGHT AT YOU NOW MUAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!"
We are still in book one, nearing the climax I'm told.
Ah. We're in Book 3 ourselves, about halfway through.
This AP doesn't hold back when it comes to the horrific monster-types.
Hopefully there's something wrasslin' appropriate in the future. =)
You could easily grapple these things. They are tiny, their CMD is probably like 4.
Exaggerating, but yeah..