I am taking a time out so Mallory jump in anywhere you wish in the timeline. In reality, only about an hour of gametime has passed if that.
Yep, Mallory. Just take your time, and jump in wherever. Heck, make friends with Obadiah! He's the nice kind of crazy, I promise.
Just give us an introductory post about what you look like and some basic mannerisms. If you have previous ties to another character, just say hi to them. Get your feet wet. :)
I really hope people aren't finding Obadiah to be irritating. I'm having fun with him, but if he ever becomes too much, let me know.
I hope not! I am finding Obadiah funny and he is earning the party a few XP in role playing along with the Witch Doctor and others.
It's all good so far Obadiah!!!
To be honest - I'm not thinking the mental picture I had for Sapele will work out in the long term given the other personalities in the group... so I'll make it a little easier on brvheart with respect to party size and respectfully withdraw.
Good luck in the days and weeks to come, from what I know of the Razor Coast AP... you'll need it ;)
Well Mark, I understand. Sorry to see you go.
Yep, sorry you won't be around Mark.
Sorry to see you go.
Yeah a little clarity and letting those of us who aren't online when presumably the US is awake catch up would be good. That way we can also get a back and forth.
Well, I'm in Oz, but that was my general point. Back and forth is important.
Sorry guys, like I said this is my first time running PBP so it is liable to be a little rough at the start. I am open to any suggestions you have, but that is why I have not advanced the timeline until you two checked in. How can I help on the clarity? Some things are not going to be clear here, it is Razor Coast and you are going to get things in tid bits. That is also part of my DM style that I tend to feed small puzzle pieces of information. If you think this is bad, you should have been in my first ftf game in RC. They had 10 whispers and 5 vignettes and their heads were spinning!
For combat, we will definitely have to wait on everyone to take their turns and in some roleplaying situations. For others, I would suggest you two back fill from the last time you posted. Some of what the others are doing is just 'get to know you' role playing though so far. I would hate to discourage that.
Yes, but we were then involved and that meant that responding to that involvement threw us out of synch. We also basically missed out on the encounter, because others had decided it was done before we got a chance to be involved.
So with dragonsmoke tulita there's an opening for Beth, a GM note that says the cleric's the one who can help, but then we get involved and the scene has already jumped ahead.
Better without the end of the scene as otherwise we're left out. Particularly as the character stuff could have taken place without ending the scene whilst Beth and Silas got involved.
@brvheart - I'm one of the chatty offenders - Morgan "Hoeroa" Randall/Oceanshieldwolf. ;P
I was more referring to allowing some space for Silas, Mallory and Bec.
Sandy Obi and I aren't really jumping ahead anywhere, just doing some RP anyways...
Yes, but we were then involved and that meant that responding to that involvement threw us out of synch. We also basically missed out on the encounter, because others had decided it was done before we got a chance to be involved.
So with dragonsmoke tulita there's an opening for Beth, a GM note that says the cleric's the one who can help, but then we get involved and the scene has already jumped ahead.
Better without the end of the scene as otherwise we're left out. Particularly as the character stuff could have taken place without ending the scene whilst Beth and Silas got involved.
Ah. I see your point. Hadn't thought of that. So yes, let's chill on each scene a bit...
Although - Bec can still try to cure the Tulita or take him to the church. As Bec hasn't met Sandman, Obadiah or Hoeroa it is still an open scene perhaps, even though those three have left? I dunno. I'll leave it for brvheart to co-ordinate - I hope I'm not messing with the process. :)
We haven't heard from Mallory yet, so I'm happy to wait.
Yes, but we were then involved and that meant that responding to that involvement threw us out of synch. We also basically missed out on the encounter, because others had decided it was done before we got a chance to be involved.
So with dragonsmoke tulita there's an opening for Beth, a GM note that says the cleric's the one who can help, but then we get involved and the scene has already jumped ahead.
Better without the end of the scene as otherwise we're left out. Particularly as the character stuff could have taken place without ending the scene whilst Beth and Silas got involved.
Silas, I was not ending the scene with the Tulita until you and Beth had a chance to get involved. I made my ruling on it on the gaming side. Yes, I agree we need to not end that type of scene w/o waiting.
You picked up on the reason for the Sense Motive well! That was where I left the scene last night.
Ok, going to bed. Hope you don't finish all the adventures before I return.... Morgan is happy to sit outside the tavern with Sandman - if everyone leaves to go to the chapterhouse he will enter the tavern on his own business...
Not a problem Morgan:) This is more of a function of session 5.1 than anything else. Even with 6 players at the same table I had 2 players go to the chapter house, 2 go to the tavern and 2 go shopping! We spent half the session that way! Don't worry, I have stuff for you at the tavern when you return should they decide to separate. It gets better when we get to 5.2.
I'm quite happy to do either. I'm mostly playing up the respect Silas has for Beth as a Cleric of Quell.
You are in a new city. The colonials are probably going to want to explore it and the Tulita are probably wondering what the heck am I doing here? Which is probably why the monk left. Far too chaotic a scene for him.
Just my 5 cents in. There was metagaming issue here. We got two groups of characters that have no reason to do anything together yet. On one hand, the 3 Tulita and on the other Beth and Silas plus Mallory.
Basically, what I was trying with Beth is to find an in game reason to at least meet the other characters. I'm perfectly fine with characters going their way, the idea was just to at least know each other. Which is now done, so let's jump back.
I think it's been pretty good so far.
There is a tendency in PbP games that begin with the "drop them in the sandbox" approach to rely heavily on the Law of PC Gravitation. One character describes themselves being on the road, or gets a plot hook, and then suddenly every other character just writes themselves into the scene because they don't want to get left out. It definitely gets people together fast, but nobody can ignore the fact that things feel off and/or forced from the get-go. It has to do with the fact that even though we want the game to get going, we have a hard time suspending our disbelief about the improbability of how the characters are meeting, and the frustration that goes along with feeling left out if other characters take a scene and run with it.
So far, despite the fact that we've lost a character already, the GM has done a good job of tossing story hooks out there and the players have been proactive about picking them up. That's a really good sign.
So the fact that there are two groups of characters that don't have any reason to interact yet is completely fine. Just let it play out, have the two scenes run concurrently (and jumbled if need be). There's nothing wrong with that. The GM will tie things together in time and we'll be off to the races.
Off to the races? Should I have brought the bugle?
I'm gonna try my damnedest to get caught up today and make a meaningful post, but so far this game has been moving considerably faster than I'm capable of doing, so it may well turn out that I'll only slow you down. :-/
Don't worry about slowing us down Mallory, just contribute where you can. I am used to having groups of mixed skill levels. I have to head out to the doctor's at the moment so will be back on later.
Alright, managed to catch up, for now at least. Expecting another 30 posts by the time I wake up. :P And for the record, while I haven't been involved in things yet, I'm definitely enjoying reading everyone's posts. Really looking forward to playing with you guys.
I think it would be a good idea to post what hours we are available and what time zone from Zulu.
9:00-0:30 -6:00 hrs off and on.
I'm in GMT -8, and my hours vary wildly. I check in often though.
I'm confused on the time zone format. I just know I'm in est in the us.
I'm in EST in Australia. I check in frequently.
I'm GMT. I mostly check in and can post 9am-8pm.
I'm in Eastern US, but keep an early schedule and sleep 8pm-4am. I'm rarely away from a computer when I'm awake.
GMT +1, I mostly post and check in the evening/night 9pm-1am but can also post during the morning/mid-day
Great, this gives everyone a general idea of the time differences between us:
Sandman -8
DM -6
Mallory -5
Obadiah -5
Silas GMT or 0
Beth +1
Morgan +10 is what my time zone chart says for E. OZ.
So the greatest disparity is between Morgan and Sandman of 18 hours. So for me when it is 9 AM it is 3 PM for Silas. So for our Europeans, I will be on and off from 3PM to around 6 AM daily, add 1 hour for Beth and 10 hours for Morgan. The point of this is to realize that if Obadiah is posting at 9 PM it is the middle of the night for Silas and Beth so they won't be able to respond until morning and Mallory keeps early hours. Just be patient and we will work this all out:)
Rrrrright. So did I say this now or does it come online yesterday. Or is that tomorrow? I get so confused..... Thx GM, I'm having a blast anyway.....
Lol! For me it is 9:43 AM on Wednesday and it is tomorrow for you already me thinks! Glad you are having a good time, that is what is important for me:) And glad you got your class figured out with Tim's help!
Just think of it as there's only a 4 hour difference the other way between Morgan and Sandman or is that likely to make everyone's head explode a bit?
Just think of it as there's only a 4 hour difference the other way between Morgan and Sandman or is that likely to make everyone's head explode a bit?
That's exactly what I was thinking. :)
At this point I feel that I've had plenty of spotlight time and firmly established my character's mannerisms. I'm going to hold off on posting until something directly involves me again to give the characters who haven't posted as much some time to introduce themselves.
Well if someone doesn't start posting I will have to start rolling for random encounters:) Was hoping to hold off on that until at least we got to 5.2! LOL!
Lol well I've been busy with work. Lol Dang odd shifts this week.
Not a problem Obadiah! I will be running ftf games the next 2 nights and Saturday day so I will have plenty of gaming here. If we get 2-4 hours worth of real game time per week I think it will be a lot.
Hey guys. Sorry I've been out of it. Busy work week and for some reason the thread isn't updating to show there had been new posts. Not sure how to restart that, but I'll catch up soon enough. Gotta figure out how & where to plop myself back in. Lol
I figured you were just following the party along. When my players don't show up for a session or two I place them in my special DM bag of holding so they are kept safe until they return. Safe unless somehow the party is TPKed that is! Has not happened yet! I don't like TPKs as a dm. Came close in session 5.2 of my ftf game, 2 absent, 2 died and the other 2 crawled out with 1 HP between the two of them!
Sometimes the lack of thread updates can come from accidentally clicking the little X that appears next to the new post count. I've done that a few times. It turns off the cookie that tracks updates.
When you go back into the thread it resets the cookie, so you should be fine now.
Checking in. Yesterday was unexpectedly busy. Today is likely to be more of the same. I'm glad I decided to let Sandman take a back seat for a bit.
I should be back in the swing of things by tomorrow. I'm really enjoying watching the characters come to life in this game. The feel of the setting is really starting to come out.
I have been a little busy the last few days myself with extra games this week. Told my gamers, 3 games in one week to DM is too many so I am going to keep to 2 and this game. I got my new pirate hat in yesterday though so I can dress the part!
pirate hat.
I have been a little busy the last few days myself with extra games this week. Told my gamers, 3 games in one week to DM is too many so I am going to keep to 2 and this game. I got my new pirate hat in yesterday though so I can dress the part!
pirate hat.
Well I hope this PbP is enjoyable and keeps you engaged. Is that you in the hat? :)