Play-by-Post GMing 101 (Inactive)

Game Master Hmm

paste it in race, class/lvl or gender... name doesn't show in status line.

I done good :) thanks for the help!

ok... how do I get my items from drive to slides? Sorry for being so clueless... I knew this part would be a challenge for me.

Have you made a slide show? Even if it's blank? There should be a little + sign to make a new slide show if you haven't done that yet.

I done good :) thanks for the help!

You have, indeed!

I'm so proud of all of you! Do you have maps yet, Bearington?

Hmm

Ok, I'm sorry for my tardiness, but here I am. I have a lvl 1 bard who can come into play here. I am pretty comfortable preparing a scenario, though I'm still doing my homework on this particular one. Nothing has struck me as needing clarification as of yet.

My advice for images and maps has already been articulated, though I tend to prefer the Drawings bit of Google, myself. I have yet to play with Slides. If it's actually mobile friendly I may start using it, however. Drawings is not nice to mobile users, and like Hmmm I do 90% of my posting from my phone.

Holy crap. This was not updating for me. Sorry. I'll get to reading and start actually participating here in a bit. :)

Hey, glad to see you!

So... Let's talk about some PFS oddities! I think your first step is reading The Pathfinder Society Roleplaying Guild Guide, but let's do a summary of a few of the biggest changes from normal Pathfinder play:

Experience

PFS uses a simplified XP track. You do a scenario, you get 1 XP. If you take that scenario on the slow track, you get 1/2 an XP. 3 XP = 1 level.

(Exception: many Modules and APs are worth 3 XP because they're longer than a normal scenario. Always download the special rules and chronicle sheets when doing something other than a scenario.)

Prestige

PFS has a separate "prestige and fame" track. Players earn prestige by completing the scenario's primary and secondary success conditions.

In Seasons 5-8, these primary and secondary success conditions are obvious. They are listed in the back of the scenario, usually after the scenario's conclusion.

In Seasons 0-4, they used to have secondary success conditions dependent on faction missions. Some of those faction missions were great fun and useful. Others were just dumb and/or pointless. Faction missions are now an optional thing. Give them out if they provide key information, or if they will be interesting for your players. However, your players don't have to do them. They are OPTIONAL.

To determine what the secondary success conditions are in Seasons 0-4, you need to download the Secondary Success Conditions Document to know if your players succeeded well enough to earn that second prestige point.

What is prestige and fame used for, I hear you ask? I'll let the rest of the class expound upon this subject. Oh, and also expound upon how PFS does loot and magic item purchases!

Hmm

yes I made a blank slide show... I have no idea how to put things in it.. it says i can load files from my computer but both jpg and png it says they are wrong format ... what now?

yes I made a blank slide show... I have no idea how to put things in it.. it says i can load files from my computer but both jpg and png it says they are wrong format ... what now?

Try just cutting and pasting an image into the slideshow. I have put jpgs and pngs into slideshows before.

Also, can you make a link that we can see?

From what I understand, you can use Prestige Points to purchase certain items without spending gold. Items range from wands and potions to resurrections and the costs vary accordingly. I think the list in in the Field guide somewhere, but I can't find it at the moment.

As for regular gear, Page 24 of the field guide has more, but you basically have to pay full price for anything (no broken stuff or partial wands) and you can get anything basic in any town of 5,000+ people. Basic means any weapon or armor of +1 or less and any spell of caster level 1 in the form of wand or scroll. And Wayfinders. Those are available. Other than that your list of available items for purchase is governed by the chronicle sheets you've accumulated by completing adventures.

Does this link work?

It does, well done!

I suggest blocking slides you don't want players to see, but I'm not familiar with slides, so I'll let Hmmm or someone else explain if that's possible.

A single prestige point can be used to purchase any item up to 150gp. Two prestige points will get you a single item up to 750gp (conveniently the cost of a wand of cure light or the like). Unlike prestige point fame can't be spent, but it does ooen up a wider array of items for purchase outside of those "always available". As your fame increases and you get more well kniwn within your faction you can access more expensive items for purchase.

Congratulations, JAFO! You have a slide show.

There are some other things you'll need to do. One is to open it up to be edited by anyone with the link. That will allow your players to move tokens.

You will also need to get tokens for your players and your monsters.

You can use shapes from the slideshow to cover up slides to hide the portions that your players have not uncovered yet.

But hey.... We're getting there! Yay!

____

Choon, it sounds like you've already got some of this. This is great! We'll keep covering different PFS oddities as we go.

Hmm

Hmm, would you like us all to make our threads now, or wait and do them closer to each of us starting?

Nevermind. Thought i woukd see if i could do it. Link shoikd work. It'll be there for when we want it.

Hokay, got the threads set up for Manor! Here is the link :)

*edit* Have made some minor progress on my Google Drive folder + Slides stuff. Drive folder is created, Slides are created; still monkeying a bit with the maps. Same as ThinkingFlesh I've ended up having to use one of the image extractors to get my maps and such but so far it's mostly been working. Formatting needs some work and I've yet to try 'blocking' my map with the little shapes but I'll try and get some more work in on it as soon as I can.

Minor request:

Since everyone is setting up threads, I am going to ask you to not set up a recruitment thread if you have not already. Why? Recruitment threads that are not recruiting are a bit of a tease for those folks who are looking for games. If you already have your party, you won't need to recruit.

(I know some of you already have recruitment threads, so don't worry about that if you've already set one up for practice. I am just trying to prevent six recruitment threads that aren't really recruiting.)

If you can, start your campaign by adding a gameplay thread in the Play-by-Post forum.

Thanks!

Hmm

EDIT: By the way, love the enthusiasm, everyone! I've linked your campaigns above in our Campaign's short description.

ProTip: If you are going to have lots of links in your GM header, using tinyurl can help you fit more links in what is otherwise some very limited real estate. It won't matter now when you'll only have a gameplay and a map link to fit up there, but it may be useful in the future.

I second that pro tip. I once was running 6 games at once and I wish I knew about Tiny URL then.

We won't need it for a while, but here is my game thread.

Already linked in this Campaign's short description!

In addition to the link to your gameplay, you should also add links to your slideshow maps in your headers. You can separate links however you like. You can use dashes or other symbols.

I like to use // to separate different games and • to separate links within the same game, but you can use whatever you want so long as you're consistent and clear!

Hmm

For example, I tend too use | to separate items

I made a campaign and a slideshow. I don't have the map yet, but I should get it this weekend.

Ok... slow coming out of the gate, but here is a link to my campaign thread.

Eadie and Choon and other GMs reading along, if you have tips, feel free to share them! I would love to have others chiming in! Also, if you figure out how to do something, feel free to help someone else too. I want you all helping each other as we go.

I can offer some map input.

Note: this is horribly formatted... mostly just stream of thought typing! I'm sure alot of this is in the helpful thread you linked earlier... but I didn't read that =)

I just started my first PbP game during the last Gameday (doing a 6 scenario run, currently on scenario 5 of 6) (I think 2 of your GM101 GM's are in it!) ... anyway, I learned a lot during the process!

Google Slides is king!
-Roll20 looks pretty, but is way too restrictive and bloated for just mapping (its designed for a lot more then that). Takes too long to load and doesn't work on smaller devices well at all!
-Google Docs will work in a pinch, but if you've lots of maps and other info, you can't beat the multi-slide 'page' options of Slides!

1) create a Google account. You probably already have one if you've ever done anything on the internet! It covers alot of content (youtube, Hangouts, the search engine, gmail, et al)
- Although as a player, most google slide maps you can move your tokens around and do simple edits without logging in... if you want to actually create the document or add images (like tokens and maps) or change the sharing settings, you will need to be logged in.

2) Create a new document!
- Go to the base Presentation page
- Click on 'Blank' to start a new empty presentation.
- Done! (you can delete the title and subtitle boxes that are on the first slide by default)

3) Change the sharing properties!
- By default, other folks can not look at the document your creating, much less edit it (like moving around tokens and such). Not very useful for a PbP map!
- So, click on File..Share..
- Give your document a name (anything will do). Click Save.
- You're now on the Share with Others window... ignore the email box and instead click the word 'Advanced' in the bottom right corner.
- (the text box at the top has the Url you can copy and paste to create links to your map Slide... but that's for later)
- First, in the middle section on 'Who has access' there will be two entries, one for your login and one above it that says 'Private - only you can access' Click the word 'Change' to the right of that...
- select the middle option 'On - anyone with link' ... this will mean if someone has the link, they can get to your document.
- then on the same window, after you select the above option, you will see another line further down that says 'Access:Anyone (no sign-in required)' and to the right of that the phrase 'Can view'. This means although folks can come look at your page now, they can only view it! Still not good.
- click on the 'Can view' and change it to 'Can edit'. Now anyone with the link can come look at your page, and also edit it.
- click Done!

4) Now, to adding images!
- In general, its pretty easy. Lets start with a token!
- on the Paizo site, find the token you want (usually its right there beside your players posts!) and right click on it, and select 'Copy image location' (in Firefox) ... (in Internet Explorer, I think its just 'Copy' ... not sure)
- back over to Slides, and on the menu up top, select Insert...Image...
- on the window that pops up select 'By URL' and just paste in the link to the image (Control-V)
- click Select
- voila, you've added in a token... Its probably a bit large, you can resize it later, once you have a map with gridlines to align it to.

- this same process works for all images... if you want NPC's just go to Paizo's avatar library (where you went to pick your avatar in the first place) lots of options. Maps should be in the pdf for your scenario... you can even grab any old image of the internet you want... just copy its location as above and paste it in to the URL box.

- Maps can take a little more work, depending on the map. Most of them in scenarios seem to have multiple layers... although in the scenario you might see labels and marks for where NPC's go and such, if you (double) click on the image in the pdf, and copy it, then just paste it directly into the Slide, all those other layers will go away, leaving just the map.
- Note: this isn't perfect, occasionally Traps and secret doors are on the same layer I've found, keep an eye out.
- once your image is in... crop of any extra parts you don't need... (sometimes you'll get multiple maps on an image, or lots of blank space. Cut those out, you want to get all map, so its as big as possible). To crop, just double click the image on the Slide, then drag the edges to move the edges in to just show the parts you want. Then hit enter when done. (The whole image is still there, it just doesn't show it all)
- Then resize your map to fill up the whole page, so its as big as possible.
- With the map selected hit Control-Shift-DownArrow. This will move your map to the bottom of the order. Meaning your tokens will be on top instead of under the map. As you add new images, be sure to move their order around, so you can select them if they are on top of other things. Just keep the map on the bottom!
- Resize your tokens to fit the current grid. Voila!

4) Use the Insert...Shapes option alot!
- adding a square, and changing the fill color to solid will allow you cover sections of the map you don't want folks to look at.
- the same square, with transparent fill, can be used to create a 'Grease spell AE marker' (Again, don't forget to move it down in the order so the player tokens are above it, or they can't select themselves if they're in the AE)
- adding the donut-shaped circle and changing the fill color to transparent, will allow you to crate quick and dirty 'light source' templates... with the inner circle the normal light and the outer circle the dime light

5) Use the Line..Polyline option to create spell AE templates!
- make sure you have a map with a grid, then just turn on the polyline, and start drawing your template. Once you get back to where you started, the line will finish and fill in. Change the fill again to transparent, change its order on the layer, and voila, a 20' radius or 60' cone et al can easily be made, so the players can work on placing their spells.
- if you use the Polyline option, but instead of ending back where you started, just double click after a certain point, it will draw a segmented line, you can use to show routes on maps and such (just change the line weight to make it thicker if its hard to see, or hte line color to something other then black... or even change it to a dotted line or the like.

6) It is also helpful to have the current map at the top of the slide order, so its the first one players see when they click the link to get there.
- Select the slide on the left, and hit Control-UpArrow, to move it up one page at a time til its at the top.

7) Also somewhat helpful to create a slide as a sort of 'Title' page... put a copy of all your player tokens here, so you can copy them for new maps and such as they come along.

8) When creating NPC tokens.. its usually easiest to use the same 'image' for all mooks of a particular type. If you do, you can give each one a different colored border, so you can easily differentiate them. (Yellow Goblin, Blue Goblin). To do so, select the token you want, and select the Line Color button on the toolbar menu (the little pencil icon), and give it a color.

9) Revision History can help you!
- Under the File menu, is an option called Revision History... Google Slides keeps track of all changes as they are made... so you can easily see what the map looked like two days ago, if you forget where a token started out, or you accidently delete a template and want to go get a copy from an earlier version without redrawing it.
- (Just don't revert back to the earlier version by accident! But helpful to go back and look for references!)
- Note: You will have to be logged into access the Revision History... if you are just on anonymously, you won't be able to look at it.

Bonus:
- If you click on your Campaign name on the Campaign tab, you end up in the area where you can edit your Campaign.
- Note: Do not change the name of your campaign until *after* you've finished recruiting and folks have all checked in (Once you change the name, it breaks any prior links to it, so you'll lose track of your players... not insurmountable, but easily avoided by waiting til they've 'dotted' in)
- on the Campaign Info tab, click Edit This Campaign over on the right.
- Put a link to your map in the Short Description field. This will cause it to show up at the top of the campaign list for easy access. Some folks like to put a link in their profile, some here)
- Tip: If you do the link here, use the [bigger] tag on it, so its a little easier for folks to click on on small devices! (it can't hurt)
- Tip: If you want, you can create all your Initiative or Perception [dice] text and put them in the Full Description section. This section does not parse out dice rolling BBCode tags, so you can just cut and paste them whenever you need them, without having to go to other web sites.

Thanks, EM!

Lots of great stuff in there. I liked the idea of transparent shapes for spell templates. We started using that in my Mummy's Mask game.

So... I will see you all later this weekend. I am taking Saturday off (mostly) from GM 101.

Bearington was suggesting a Sunday start, which means that everyone needs to pick their characters or pregens soon.

Feel free to post with what you will be playing in Harrow.

Hmm

Okay, here's my (Lady L's) witch and her familiar, Mr. Sunshine! Profiles are janky and need some work to make them more legible but everything should be there and ready to rock :)

*scurries off to dot Harrow*

Popping in for a short moment:

I'm ceding my player spot to Ventiine so that Ventiine can participate in our discussions. Besides, I have way too many GM Babies that have started with Phantom Phenomena... I couldn't assign the credit without starting another new character!

____

We've done quite a few posts dealing with technical stuff in PBP. When we come back, should we focus more on things less technical like botting, pacing and other things like that? What topics do you want to cover? Tell me!

Hmm

Botting and pacing would be good. The thing that annoys me most about PbP is when a game gets bogged down because someone has an unexplained absence. Other than that I kind of don't know what I don't know. Things will probably come up as we move through.

I put a Bot Me! spoiler on my profile, complete with dice rolls. I'm okay with being botted if I haven't posted in ~18-24 hrs, especially if I'm the only one who hasn't acted yet.

I love "Bot me!" spoilers!

'Bot Me' spoilers are fantastic! What I'm curious about is how to best gauge when to move action along and when to let the players be to do their thing. Sometimes I've felt a bit rushed by GMs but other times I've found myself wishing that they'd just move on with the scene/game. Thoughts?

Also hiiii Ventiine! Fancy playing with you with another witch and her cat, but I promise Fran and Mr. Sunshine will be plenty different from Florence and Bynx :)

I've actually never seen "Bot me" spoilers. That's a great idea!

Pacing for me is already a huge internal challenge. I have just recently started going by something one of my players called the "Rule of Two". If the party agrees to it beforehand tab any two people suffering on a course of action first decides the action. I stress that the party has to after to that though, especially if you have wildly divergent personalities in characters.

The rule of two is one of my favorites. I use it for any decision that is not a key turning point in the adventure.

If there is an ethical dilemma or a key plot turning point on which everything else hinges, I let the party vote and talk it out. But if they're just deciding which way to turn in a dungeon, let the rule of two go!

GM Ladile, may I play the role of your witch's cat? I don't want a chronicle, but it could be fun to make cat posts.

Hmm

That works for me Hmm :)

I'm excited to be in another game with Ladile!

(Also) oooh cat posts!

The first gameplay post of the Harrow is up! Please report to the gameplay thread.

GM Hmm: Here is the tiny url for my maps/handouts slideshow.

http://tinyurl.com/jabe6n4

Bearington: That was a good into. May I suggest you add something to orient us as to the time of year and current weather. You could also add smells if you wanted though it's less common to do so. A place that smells of horse will garner a different reaction than a place that smells of fresh rain, after all.
You can also use environment to set the mood of your characters from post one. For example, the stereotypical scary camp fire sorry starts with, "It was a dark and stormy night..." We generally know what comes next. What we don't know is whether we'll sleep that night. Your characters, or rather the people playing them, will react to information like this.

I'd like to see some asides from the crowd, and maybe short descriptions of a few members. Which kinds of villagers are telling us to get out? How are they expressing that? Which ones are welcoming? We might make an unexpected friend out of a nameless NPC, if they are given a voice.

I'm assuming we'll keep critiques to the 101 thread rather than spreading them out among the discussion threads of 6 different adventures.

Ok, thanks! Keep the criticism coming.

My only concern for adding these things is the length of the post. How big a deal is it if posts turns into a wall of text?

I have been reading everyone's character sheets, mainly so I can look up anything I don't know about before my turn at the helm. I am confused by your sheet Choon. Are you a sorcerer or a bard?

I'll second the general suggestion of a little more detail about what we're seeing and such; some extra text isn't a big deal to me as long as we're not getting paragraphs and paragraphs about the beauty of a nearby flower or the size of the boogers some nearby NPC is pulling out of his nose :)

You can break up a wall of text with paragraph breaks and dialogue. For an opening post you can feel comfortable adding a lot more detail than you might for an average post or even a scene change. Like Choon said, it's good to give the setting and tone early.

Moving on, I wouldn't drop all these details on us in one post. But definitely try to work some in as you post.

Ok, I'll try to incorporate more details as we move forward!

I have been reading everyone's character sheets, mainly so I can look up anything I don't know about before my turn at the helm. I am confused by your sheet Choon. Are you a sorcerer or a bard?

Rhasuel was a sorcerer who was converted into a bard for PFS. It is entirely possible that I missed some things in the process as I did so in something of a rush. I'll take a look again. Thanks!

Some thoughts. I agree with others that more details and mood can be built here to set the tone. Having a bit of spooky and a bit of humor is great. These scenarios are thin in description, so you can add a few key telling details to set mood. However, this is something you can build out as you go.

Your second GM post was a lot of fun! I enjoyed watching Marisela swing into action.

One thought:

Marisela has a terrible to-hit bonus. Did you roll for her hit?

She has a +0 ranged touch attack bonus, and her horseshoes deal 1 point of nonlethal damage each. Whenever she successfully hits a PC, Maricella yells, “I cast you out, evil spirits!”

Feel free to yell, "I cast you out, Evil Spirits!" even if you miss. Her terrible aim can be one of the things you build upon to create the humor in this sequence.

Hmm

Hey Bearington, how were you able to insert your handout into Slides? Getting the maps isn't a problem but I can't seem to get my particular handout to carry over with the text.

I got mine into the slide using Snipping tool. I snipped it from the PDF and then pasted onto the slide.

You either have to use the snipping tool, or just copy the text on to a colored shape.

For an example of this, check out Slide 4 of my Tengus and Tomes link in my header.

Hmm

I wasn't able to copy/paste the handout with text either! I used the snipping tool to just pull it right off. If you have a windows operating system, make sure the pdf is pulled up with the handout visible. Then search your programs for "snipping tool." It comes up as a desktop application on my computer. Then I highlighted what I wanted, saved, and copied it over.

Let me know if that works for you!

EDIT: double ninja, all the way across the sky...

The Snipping Tool worked! Thankyouthankyouthankyou!

I've started using just the text copied on to a colored shape because I can enlarge the print or use a different font that I find more appealing. I think there a variety of ways to tackle this.

Hmm

I personally tend to snip just because of time constraints. I don't usually have a lot of time to play with text. However, the text option Hmm mentions definitely has it's upside, as mentioned.

Man... Spouse just called me. Our car got broken into. His laptop, lost. Kindle, lost. Our tax paperwork, lost.

I am now contacting all the credit agencies to put holds on our accounts. This... This SUCKS.

If I seem a little distracted or absent, you'll know why.

Hmm