I agree with lethal being the standard. Non-lethal is a superhero trope. Plus we still have hero points to save our asses.
Sounds cool.
So what I am hearing is that you guys want this Fallen to kill all of you ;)
Yup.
An ex-BPRD operative, perhaps?
The Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense.
From the Hellboy movies, books, and comics.
So what I am hearing is that you guys want this Fallen to kill all of you ;)
If he does so, we will blame you. Our blood will be on your soul. :)
I need to look up the crafting and splash rules when I get home. Entirely too likely I'll miss with a pitcher of water.
Hey, tumbler, would you say that throwing a pitcher of water is an Area attack already, or should I try and whip something up to help douse this thing?
I would accept well thrown water as an area attack.
I had envisioned him as recurring, which is why I took the time to look up a real world individual to base him on. I was figuring that he would be our go-to guy whenever a religiously themed issue arises. Basically, our Father Forthill (though every Catholic priest I have ever met has always gone by their first name, not their family name, which is why I had him introduce himself as Father Jim on the phone. Almost every priest I have ever met has invariably been foreign born as well, mostly from Poland and Eastern Europe, though that might just be my area. There are large Catholic populations here, though recruiting for the priesthood has been pretty tough among North American populations, from what I can tell. The native-born ones you do meet all seem to be quite elderly, but then, so is Father Jim - I couldn't find his exact birthdate online, but a few pages seemed to suggest he was mix-sixties, 65ish).
That works for me. I was imagining a threefold alliance of a priest, an imam, and a rabbi who worked together to deal with supernatural threats. They aren't really an aggressive group, more of a fortress than a weapon or attack wing.
Just finished reading "Guilty Pleasures", the first of the Vampire Hunter books by Laurell K. Hamilton. She is the author (and this is the series) that Jim Butcher lists as his number one inspiration for the Dresden Files. It wasn't too bad. I try not to judge an author by their first book, as it generally takes every author a few books to really find their stride.
The story was good, the setting interesting. The only thing I didn't really like was part of the premise; sort of like True Blood (though it came out 10 years before those books, I'm citing them as a popular example), the setting features an alternate element where vampires and other supernatural creatures are "out" to the world and starting to be publicly and legally recognized. Personally, I don't really care for that (unless the setting is post apocalyptic, or future dystopian, it just doesn't seem to fit), as I enjoy the secret, parallel, unseen version of the supernatural. I find it much more interesting when it feels like the supernatural world could be hidden around us. This kind of "out" setting kind of ruins that mystique, in my estimation.
Oh well. As I said, pretty good over all, and if it was Jim Butcher's favourite, I'm going to give it the benefit of the doubt for at least a few novels.
I agree with that assessment. There is some really cool stuff in those books. Be aware that after maybe the first seven (can't remember the number) they move more and more toward a super sensual almost soft core erotica. I finally put them down and haven't read them for a while. But there is a material there worth reading.
I've gone back and read some Simon Green, which I have had trouble with. They just are a little to high powered for me, somehow.
One of the things I love in Urban Fantasy is a feeling of Hard Boiled detective fiction. Dresden does that very well, where the main character takes a lot of punishment and is beat up by the time you get to the climax.
In this campaign, that is the thing I am having the hardest time with. There are three issues with emulating that sort of thing:
1. People who have played a lot of 3.x and Pathfinder are used to winning.
2. There isn't really persistent damage, and characters can heal pretty quickly.
3. There are more competent characters in these games than in a typical hard boiled or even urban fantasy novel. A team of heros vs. One powerful character and some supporting characters.
Working on those challenges to get the feel of the game right.
Please don't hesitate to give feedback, either privately or or here in discussion.
You mean to tell me Hamilton used to write something BESIDES porn?
There always were erotic moments in the books. I mean, there are a lot of sexy vampires and titillation. But early on that wasn't the point of the books. There is one scene in a graveyard and one scene in rural Missouri that are brilliant moments of world building.
I would agree with Kishan/Rigor that I prefer the hidden magic version of urban fantasy, unless it is whole hog the world is completely different. But that isn't all that useful for a hybrid campaign, because the more out magic is, the harder it is to fit things together.
I thought I had read something about the books being 'Very Adult oriented', but so far in this book the only indication of that was violence. There was pretty much zero sex. A few kinky situations, like something that amounts to going undercover at a swinger's club, but other than brief touches of pseudo-S&M situations with no sexual content, there was no erotica to speak of in this one. Typical of vampire fare, biting and bloodsucking was treated almost as if it were a sex act of some sort, but that is not unusual in the genre, nor really erotica in my view. If it degenerates into that in the future books, that will be disappointing, but there are plenty of other Urban Fantasy stories to move on to...
Later, Hamilton makes 'which man or both' a major theme, but, early on, there was some good stuff about her character and her magic. Once the emphasis starts on the 'power of three' (vampire/were/mage), I only lasted a few books.
The October Daye series (Seanan McGuire) fits the hard-boiled concept very well, but deals with Fey and Fey society in the world primarily.
It does 'secret world' though, but doesn't involve full mortal society very much.
Some very Harry-esque adventure runs, though.
And gets better as the series goes. (possibly because the character realizes as the series goes along how bad-ass she is)
one result from 'ask the internet'
What most folks don’t know is that you can eat apple blossoms. Soft scented, floral, only consume a few at a time because they contain a precursor to cyanide which gets released during digestion. A little is tasty. Too many is a tummy ache. A lot is a trip to the hospital.
Also
The domestic apple as we know it has been around some 6,000 years and came from Kazakhstan. There the apple trees growing to 60 feet were the dominant species of the forest. Orchards there today are remarkable in that the trees are very resistant to disease, unlike commercial crops. Further two apples from that area — the Red Delicious and the Golden Delicious — are the parents of 90% of modern commercial eating apples.
And where, you ask, did the blossoms John's gathering come from?
Yep, around Kazakhstan.
Malus sieversii (MAL-us see-VER-see-eye) is the botanical title for these wild fruits. Malus is the Dead Latin word for apple, and Sieverrii honors Ivan Sievers, a Russian botanist who discovered the wild apples in 1793 in Kazakhstan but died before describing the species. The name was given by Carl Friedrich von Ledebour, who got there in 1830. The word “apple” is also from Dead Latin and means fruit.
Shall we call the Fallen 'Malus'?
Seems a bit...on the nose, though the double meaning is quite nice.
Not trying to be annoying about keeping things moving. I'm just anxious to make sure I'm not the reason for a delay.
You're fine.
I think we're all figuring things out and worried about what will happen if we let time go by without acting.
I'm mostly feeling guilty about not putting any effort into safeguarding the other people from the container and thinking about a way to put that right.
Also thinking about how to use the apple blossoms.
Will check in ASAP. Bit of a rush at work last few days, coupled with being told I need to hand-make two Halloween costumes with a day's notice. I did the custom costume thing last year and spent about a month making a Hiccup costume (how to train your dragon 2). The costume turned out awesome, but my son wore it literally once. Decided then that I would buy a costume this year. Apparently I was wrong...
|
Hey guys, I think I should probably drop out. I'm trying to do Nanowrimo this year, and even without that I haven't been able to keep up with you. Please feel free to use Latimer as you see fit, I just feel guilty for not being able to catch up, and the further I fall behind the less it looks like I will anytime soon.
Sorry to lose you; Latimer seemed like a cool idea, and I enjoyed the interactions we had with him.
Sorry to hear it, videogeek. Good luck with your writing. That is a huge effort.
Sorry to hear that.
Messageboards have been really glitchy today. May not be able to post, as even getting through to observe the fact has been problematic...
Message boards have been glitchy for several days this week, but seem to be better now.
In my experience, at least in supers games in most settings, 'don't split the party' leads to awkwardness.
It feels odd if we go about town in a pack.
I would suggest we instead put some thought into communications and how we would do back-up.
On the other hand, it would make tumbler's job a bit easier if he doesn't have to work with two or more viewpoints.
Ya'lls opinion?
My only concern with splitting the party is getting into a situation where something is happening to two people that takes a long time to resolve and the other people end up doing not much, but I can try to modulate that to make it all work.
It seems completely genre appropriate to send people tracking down different leads.
Also, it makes it somewhat easier for me to adhere to genre tropes of beating the crap out of you guys for a while before you get together and figure out how to win. That seems to be rooted in a hard boiled detective (Dashiell Hammett or whatever) stories, and is built into Mutants and Masterminds. But it would be hard to consistently trash the whole party in a believable fashion.
So I think all of that was to say do what you like and I will figure it out.
Yeah, M&M seems largely "party split friendly", at least compared to Pathfinder (or, I'm assuming, Savage Worlds, which I recently started playing).
Recovery is easier, and characters are generally more resilient.
Sure; I'm fine either way. Hadn't considered the 'Divide and Conquer' angle, but it makes sense. I don't know that M&M is any better suited to splitting the party than regular games are; it is usually more of a logistical issue (only 1 GM) than systemic. PbP tends to be better at it than irl games, due to the time scale. However, it is still subject to the concern of leaving some players out. In PbP it can even be worse, of course, since when a combat only involving one portion of the group still takes an average of a day or more per round, the neglected players can be left out of the action for a week or more in real time. Best way to handle that of course is to try an strange separate encounters for each of the separate parties. That way, everyone is occupied most if the time, and if one combat ends earlier than the others, it is more a matter of a day or two left in the breeze, rather than a week.
Agreed on all of that. I am trying really hard in the three campaigns I have going right now to keep everyone involved, within what seems to be their preferred post frequency. And to keep time aligned for everyone in this campaign. Hasn't been too much of a problem here, except for leaving Latimer out there at the beginning.
The fact that after all of these weeks of playing, the Table 1 and Table 2 groups are basically happening in the same game time makes me feel like I can manage a split in what this group is up to. It might, at some point, require sort of fast forwarding though something, or a big research/investigation montage to speed things along. But I think everyone can cooperate with that.
Honestly, the thing I am struggling with most at this point is the pace. I don't think I realized how slow this format is. But I am enjoying the two Monsters and Men games immensely. Still trying to get the supers game back on track.
PbP is characterized by lulls and then flurries of activity when there's an immediate, pressing task (combat, a specific short goal, and so on).
The hardest part is getting everyone to agree on what to do.
It's hard to both keep to a daily post schedule and not make comments out of turn or look like you're trying to hog on camera time.
There have been days when I do not post anything so that I am not interrupting another player's action.
In spite of that, this game is going fine.
We'll smooth out how we work together over time.
AFK most of the day today.
happy saturday!!
it will be a weird weekend for me.
i've agreed to come to a 5e d&d game on sunday (with pre-gen characters) run by a friend of the family for her husband and daughter.
i have not played 5th yet.
any advice?
Haven't played 5th yet, but I hear good things. I game with a bunch of folks for whom "stripped down" and simple are not design goals.
The game went OK.
The only problem was that everyone except me was a novice roleplayer or hadn't played since 2nd edition.
And there were 7 players with a GM who hadn't run in 15+ years.
I was torn between giving a basics class and letting them learn on their own.
I'm due to help most of them level their characters on Thanksgiving.
Have a lot of work this week, so my posting my be a little spotty, but I'll keep up as much as I can.
Sadly, I think I'm gonna have to drop this one. A bit too quick and a bit of too many references I'm not getting. Have fun!
Take care Wisp; it was good having you while we did.