[PFS] GM Derek W's Decline of Glory #24 (Inactive)

Game Master Derek Weil

Discuss away!

Dot.

Here, at work so I can't do a big intro post

WotR recruitment thread is up, if you're still interested!

Two days to go before we put on CoastCon. This is the big one for me (as I am the Game Room Director). I will try to check in on games I am involved with tomorrow and Thursday, but may not be able to do so. I will not be on at all Friday through Sunday. I should be able to resume normal posting on Monday. Please bot me as necessary.

If you are in one of the games I am running, I ask that you remain patient and we will resume on Monday with a more regular schedule. And, of course, if you are in the Mississippi area, feel free to stop by CoastCon in Biloxi this weekend. We are a sci-fi/fantasy convention in our 37th year and our Gaming Guest of Honor is none other than Mike Brock (our Media Guest of Honor is John de Lancie)!

There is no map provided, but it may not be necessary. How do you want to proceed?

The rain is still light enough that it hasn't drowned the fire yet. But there are the two men and their dogs.

Heading towards them, I suppose. Given that nobody else has posted, I guess we don't have any objections to that. :P

I see no reason not to continue. Presumably there are always dozens of ppl on the roads, and we come across ppl camping all the time.

PbP Game Day #2 coming up in April!

Looking for ideas of what to run. Is anyone here hankering for any scenarios in particular?

Well, I've got a couple of Silver Crusaders who'd be all too happy to tackle #5-13: Weapon in the Rift. At least one should be free by then.

In an embarrasment of local PFS riches, I played a local game both Friday night (in Pleasant Grove, UT) and last night!

For last night's game I used a level 7 pregen (Amiri) in The Golemworks Incident. Great game, btw Alice - the BBEG is totally creepy!.

But both my level 6 and 7 characters are in PBP games, so I couldn't use them. I'm not to keen on applying that chronicle to a fresh character (I have 9 at present). So I guess I hold it for Todric until he hits level 7. But that may never happen, so I'm torn. Any thoughts?

If I have anything to say about it we'll all eventually get up to level 7! ;P

That saaaaid, I wonder if it would be legal give it to one of your 6-7 characters after their PbPs have finished? I don't know how that works exactly.

Hey Derek, reckon we'll finish this before April 5th?

Just want to know whether I can assign Calanthe to any Game Day groups. Alternatively we could play our next "group" game as part of the PbP Game Day.

I'm going to aim for that. We still have nearly a month and it seems like we've been able to get through these in that time frame. This one does have several combat encounters, but I bet we can do it.

Either way we could make our next game with this group part of the game day. If Calanthe does head off somewhere, let me know. A certain Andoran swordsman might be looking for adventure himself ;)

So, does anyone want to volunteer to GM for us during the Game Day? If not, no problem.

I have committed to two games already (one is public, one private), so I can't, at least at first.

But planning ahead is good since many games are already recruiting.

I'm thinking of running one or two games in the game day, but at least one of them will be a public game for sure as various people have said they might jump in on my game.

If nobody else wants to run, I'll do one for us I s'pose.

Should be encouraging Targost and Ebon to give GMing a go ;)

I keep thinking bout it, but right now am limited to just my phone.

It was an awesome con! This was my wife's first year as Con Director, and for the most part, everything went smoothly. Everyone I've spoken to seemed to enjoy it.

Mike Brock (yes, THAT Mike Brock) was our Gaming Guest of Honor and spent every free moment at the Pathfinder tables, playing with the gamers. He was nothing short of fantastic! Terrific guy, as well. He had some great stories about GenCon and PaizoCon.

My wife, Gods bless her, put her money where her mouth is. Our charity is the Pink Hearts Fund, a group that provides wigs, breast prostheses, and other medical supplies to those recovering or suffering from various diseases, free of charge.

My lovely and kind wife stepped up and put her hair into our charity auction, taking bids to allow it to be cut. In the end, she raised $500 for the charity AND then donated the cut hair to make a child's wig! You can see the photos on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10202171392060135&set=pcb.10202 171402220389&type=1&theater.

Since FB wants to be stupid, I have provided a few photos:

My wife in Starfleet uniform (we are members of Starfleet International, U.S.S. Neptune chapter, my wife is the one in the middle)

Doing the deed.

Her new do!

That's great to hear WhtKnt! Fun pictures, although something seems a little different about the uniforms...

I'm running The Glass River Rescue and Library of the Lion as part of the PbP Game Day, if anyone is interested in playing.

*******

WhtKnt, that's awesome! Could you explain to me what Starfleet International is though? Feel like I should hand over my nerd credentials...

Starfleet International is an international organization of Star Trek fan clubs. We have members on all continents, including Antarctica (six of the researchers at McMurdo are members). Each chapter is a "ship;" ours is the USS Neptune, a Sovereign-class.

Within the club, each member starts as a crewman recruit. You make rank by doings things within the club and by taking tests from Starfleet Academy through Starfleet International. The tests are based on various things. Many are based on various aspects of Trek and real-world things (like the history of computers or mechanical engineering), but there are also colleges of topics like Charmed, Dr. Who, Star Wars, and even Burn Notice.

You can find out more info and get details on a local chapter (or even starting your own chapter) at http://www.sfi.org/portal/.

Norine, the uniforms aren't exactly standard issue; the girls wanted corset uniforms, so they made them.

Hi Alice,

I posted interest in the Glass River Rescue, although I'm not exactly sure at this point which characters I will have free; it depends on what Derek does with our existing parties, but I could also make something up.

I am in a group going through Library of the Lion right now, so I'll leave that one for someone else.

@WhtKnt - Nice! Sounds like you had a great event, and props to your wife for her support of such a worthy cause!

@Alice - Thanks for the links! I got to play Library at a con back in January, and just GM'ed it on the boards. It's pretty neat! And my rogue is currently playing in a Glass River game. But I think I still ended up signing up for 4 or 5 games, which is probably too many...

I have an APL question that I wanted to move here. I looked at Muluk's profile, and he has 2 XP - from The Glass River Rescue and from The Stolen Heir. If he wasn't doing a replay on Voice, that would get him to 3 XP and 2nd level. If true, that bumps us to 2.5 which I can round to 3 and allow us to take on the mildly more challenging subtier 3-4. So just let me know ASAP. We have more encounters coming soon...

Well, since it was a legitimate mistake, I don't think we would call done the wrath of the PFS gods if it turns out Muluk is still 1st level. I would just want to know if Muluk, especially, is comfortable taking a 1st level on a Tier 3-4.

I understand that - but I was sure he mentioned Muluk getting to 3rd after this game. Maybe he has some GM credits?

I agree - I wouldn't want to take a 1st level character into too many higher-level games. I also want to be right - the new rules about which tier you play are pretty clear and specific.

I have been going over my records and editing my characters. Apparently, Muluk should have been 2nd level, but since I did not start this adventure as such, I will continue at 1st until this adventure is complete and then apply the credits. I don't recall having said that Muluk will be 3rd, as I don't have any other credits for him. If I did say such, I was mistaken. I do have a couple of characters vying for 3rd, but he is not one of them.

As for taking on a 3-4 tier, I have no problems with such. Muluk is, above all else, a warrior and if he falls in combat, then that is his destiny.

Muluk, the problem is that we started this adventure at the 3-4 tier assuming you were level 2. If you're level 1, we can't legally play that tier as our APL is rounded down.

I think it would be fair to apply the credit to level up, but not buy anything with that gold until afterwards.

My suggestion would be to follow Calanthe's advice. In the past, I have used characters that were in a PbP at a live table game. In these cases the PbP had started, but we had yet to reach the first encounter. In those cases, I applied the credit but did not use any of the gold.

We only get to choose which tier to play when our APL is exactly between tiers. There is nothing between 1-2 and 3-4, so it's one or the other, determined entirely by our APL and the number of players at the table.

Okay, sounds fair to me. I'll go ahead and apply the credit then. Will have an update posted in a few moments.

All fixed.

Ok, I couldn't do the map at work yesterday. I can get the map image into MS Word, but now it won't copy into MapTool for me.

How do you guys use Google Docs? I can't even begin to just figure it out, so step-by-step instructions would be great! Maybe when done, I'll actually have a better methodology.

1. Go to Google docs and create a new drawing from the left sidebar.

2. From there you can insert images into the drawing from your computer, like the map extracted from the PDF or tokens.

3. Click Share > Change permissions as appropriate. I usually put it on "Anyone with the link can edit" to save time.

It really is that simple. :P The only thing I really do is to enlarge the map quite big before putting it in the document (or simply doing so in the Google drawing itself) so it's easier to see the grids and so forth.

The more "advanced" things involve using the drawing tool to depict fog of war, area of effect etc. Mostly you can just have big squares that you change to black colour to hide things. In WotR I have a big "polygonal" shape that I can adjust the points of so I can dynamically reveal sections of the cave.

Alice,
Is there a way to make a coordinate grid? I have seen a few attempts but they usually seem to get hopelessly out of sync with the grid on the map.

I've been considering Google Docs, too, though, since MapTools is buggy and I don't know if they are going to update it or not. (It's been a year, as far as I can tell, since the last update.)

Another thing I like about MapTools is that it allows you to zoom in on the part in question, an important feature on big maps like the one for The Beggar's Pearl. But, perhaps you can do the same with Docs.

Probably the only way is to add a grid on in GIMP/Photoshop. Almost all Paizo maps have grids already on there. You can't really enforce snapping to that grid, though. No zooming either, sadly.

Google Drawings isn't actually a virtual tabletop so it comes with limitations, but almost everyone can access it and it's quick/simple, sooo... trade-offs.

Well, the new map is up. Calanthe and maybe Norine are the only ones likely to be awake right now. Can you give it a test drive? If it's good, we'll proceed with the encounter!

I can't move tokens, but apart from that it's cool. (You might want to be the one to control everyone's movements tho!)

Yeah, I can't move the token, as Alice mentioned. (Without coordinates for the grid, it is probably best to allow individuals to move tokens, so that you don't in up having to say "south - south - east - east - south ...".

Looks good to me! Though, as noted, I can't move.

Aaagghh!! Flynn's outside the door!!!!
Lol. Bad guy leader? is the same icon I use for my paladin in Alice's WotR

Yeah, I thougbt you'd like that! The image is from the first boss in the Fangwood Keep module, but I've seen it used for at least 3 paldins now...

Who are we waiting on?

So, having heard nothing to the contrary, I have committed Todric to the Game Day. Since it's on mythweavers I got to use another avatar! Not sure which I like better. Maybe one day I'll hire someone to draw a sketch.

Alice, I hope Calanthe's not the jealous type. I just saw the character info for the 17 CHA Aasimar swashbuckler that'll be in our game. It would probably be too much to expect a sexually-tense rapier duel to begin spontaneously, though.

Still, there's no history can't expect Tod to fall for the next girl in line, can we?

And BTW, I'm pretty sure I'm rebuilding my Andoran rogue into a bard after his current game. Don't hate the player, hate the game...

Damn, between sexy Osiriani girls and angel-touched sweethearts Cal has no chance. :P

Wise choice on the change from rogue to bard imo. Or you might consider investigator from the Advanced Class Guide playtest? I really like the concept of that class.

But He should like Cal best, cuz you know... She's extra horny.... Hheeyyy yooooo badumpcha!

*facepalm*

*still laughing though*

One of my wifes favorite quotes:

Behind every great man, is a woman rolling her eyes!

I get the face palm a lot too.

Truer words were never spoken. But no fear Calanthe! Absence does make the heart grow fonder, and I have a feeling ol' Tod will be glad to see our favorite witch, as long as she hasn't turned into a ghoul!

But maybe Tod likes his girls with a bite attack! *cat growl*