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Hey, I needed to let you know that my father has a mass in his throat and will be needing surgery and all of that fun stuff with in the next few weeks. As I am the only daughter and my parents are divorced I need to be with him during all of this. I have spent the past 48 hours freaking out and now that I have talked to the doctor and googled everything under the sun I am feeling a bit more hopeful that this will be ok. At this point in time I think we will be sent to Denver to the VA clinic there. Thank God that Dreamweaver (my hubby) bought me a laptop two weeks ago so I will be able to take it with me. So if you see me not posting so much this is why. Thanks for understanding.
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I'll be out of town again from April 24 - May 3rd. No access for the first 6 days. The last 4 will be at my parents' place so I should be fine there- if only checking in once or twice a day.
If anyone has any last minute recommendations for Istanbul or Adana, lay 'em out.
Our DM will be away for 10 days... after that he will have prepared some texts for the entry to Fallen and an answer for Feanor. That way the pace can pick uip quickly after his return.
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Guys, I've been following along with this game, and just wanted to say that I really enjoy it. There's an art to a real investigative scenario, and it seems to me that you guys are doing well. Can't wait until you find who dunnit!
And Ithers, your descriptions and NPC interactions are quite amazing. I'm very impressed, you really bring Sharn to life.
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btw- I've been running an obstacle course of bureaucracy in getting my visa extended (which was expiring 2 days from now) over the last two weeks. Post-wise, my procrastination was still the real problem, but all the office appointments mostly out of town haven't helped things recently. But I'm good and on file to stay for another year now. Whoo!
hmm... I think more wine and good brandy... but an ale to quench the thirst is also nice
Mmm - enjoy whatever you're up to.
Beach time with my girlfriend's new twin nephews (6 mo) in the Peloponnese. It was very nice.
I'm back now, but we have a birthday party to go to in a bit. I'll try to read up on the various threads I'm involved in later tonight and we're back on tomorrow morning.
Fantastic! I love the greek islands - only got to visit a couple of times before moving to the other side of the world.
And welcome back.
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Nani! Having just been around these babies last week I don't want to imagine trying to wrangle two kids alone. They were still a mess with a mother, nanny, and grandmother on the scene. Of course they were 6 mo old twins in this case so they demand attention at the same time constantly.
Good luck to you and in your search to find a little help.
In other news, I'm out of town again today (22nd) to Monday evening (25th). I'll see you guys then.
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So I'm considering how slow our fight is running here and trying to imagine how to compensate. In a faster paced game going with straight initiative count like I've been doing works well enough, but for our group I think it's just leaving people bored waiting for more than a week to get a chance to act. So... what can we do to get a better flow going on?
I was thinking that I might abandon the declaration by init order concept. Instead at the beginning of each round everyone will just post their intended action. Then I will take those actions and work them into a narrative flow following the init chart. If something happened to invalidate your action (target dying for example) I would pause the narrative there and give you a chance to pick something else.
That's my first thought. I'm open to other suggestions. How are things working in your other games? If we go with this model how long should we allow for the open declaration of actions? 24 hours? 48 hours?
What do you think guys?
I'm fine with that.
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As of now, I'm planning on going with mass declaration of action on the next turn. Ideally it will vastly improve our speed of action. No one should have to wait more than 2 days between actions that way.
Radavel> No one is going to meet Feanor's readied action conditions this turn since there are no more antagonists acting this turn. Did you intend to refocus by having no action this round and taking highest init next turn?
Also> if you want to make plans regarding the weapon of legacy progression go ahead and pitch an idea, unless you wanted it to be a mystery or changed your mind.
Another thing that might speed up play is when you ready an action go ahead and perform you're action in case it happens in the same post, that way if the ready action takes effect we don't have wait for the results.
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After the last week of being unable to get up my motivation to post, I've decided to retire this game. I think my extended hesitation at the beginning more or less crushed the group level of enthusiasm and interest before this one really took off. Lesson learned. At this point I think I would rather walk away with that lesson and apply it to future games.
I apologize for letting this one run on for ages at a trickling post rate. I may start a new game (Second Darkness AP) in a month or so when I have access to part 2. I think a fresh start combined with the structure that an AP provides will really make the difference. In any case- I will save space for any of you if you are interested when that gets off the ground.
Again sorry to cancel on you like this, but this was more or less my first attempt at running a pbp. Thanks for experimenting with me.
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Ithuriel, I’ve been following this game, and I’m sorry to see it go; I thought your Sharn descriptions and interludes were fantastic, and I was looking forward to the group catching on to what was going on.
Still, you have to do what you feel is right, and the game has certainly been limping along, not helped by a lot of absences. Good effort nevertheless.
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Thanks MM. This was a great group of characters too, but I couldn't realistically imagine this game getting back up to a reasonable post rate.
My goal in this opening piece was to introduce a set of recurring minor and major characters so the players would feel like they knew their contacts and had some idea about Sharn by the time the proper story started. I had a lot of fun taking on the player contacts (Mayne Jhaelian & Madame Zerrann) and I had plans to introduce more of my own making like Rodothea Maté (the reporter from the Sharn Inquisitive).
Towards the end of this one I planned to introduce a secretary for the office who would have become a regular NPC. I hadn't quite decided on that personality yet and thought I might let you all choose between the top three applicants (random interview snips from those three).
Since this was an investigation maybe you guys would like to know what was going on now-
House Vadalis has started a new gargoyle courier service in Sharn. Despite their best efforts one of their couriers in training was cruel, evil to his core, and impossible to control. In an attempt at getting him under control, they had a House sorceror lay a curse on him that would only be lifted for good behavior. The curse (-6 Charisma) caused a skin disease that turned the gargoyle bone white and resulted in persistent itching and a constant flaking away of dead skin. Rather than comply- the gargoyle rebelled, killing his handler and making an escape.
From that point Scrimshaw, as he came to call himself, went on a campaign of terror trying to find a priest he could force to heal him. Scrimshaw never quite realized that it was beyond the means of most priests to reverse. Eventually his violence and attacks caught the attention of Daask who sought him out and recruited him with a promise of breaking the curse once he had proven himself. This is the period where there was a break in the attacks. After that all attacks were against Boromar Clan allies.
After some time though, Scrimshaw suspected that Daask was only using him and had no intention of healing him. This came to a head during the warehouse killing. A goblin cleric, Krenuul, worked with him (using the Trickery domain to appear like a halfling) to draw Molo the cleric out to the Warehouse district. Krenuul deliberately used the name and appearance of a Boromar Clan member who Daask had recently killed both to draw Molo in and to give Boromar the finger. However, once the guards were dead and Scrimshaw had the priest he decided he didn't need Daask anymore. He would just force this priest to cure him. So he fought with Krenuul, trying to bite off off his fingers too (which he has started wearing as a grisly necklace). Krenuul is crafty though. He couldn't defeat a gargoyle alone, but he made an escape. Then Scrimshaw flew away with the priest hiding him in the wasteland slums of Fallen.
Then you guys are called in-
At this point Boromar Clan hires you all and Molo's superior hires Viktor St Demain. Daask is also looking for him, as is House Vadalis who has called in a specialist to take care of the problem.
I tried to leave the investigation completely open to let it go wherever you guys took it. If you went there I would try to throw out whatever I could in the way of clues. This ended up tripping me up a little because I was worried about unwittingly contradicting my storyline with clues I might add in along the way.
In the end though, the priest was still alive (though extremely battered and near death) and in the upper levels of one of the abandoned temples in Fallen. If in you chose to turn the gargoyle over to the Watch (invalidating a large part of the Boromar Clan fee) House Vadalis would have stepped in to buy your silence (Scrimshaw had a visible House brand) as part of a larger cover up. So either you gained a Boromar Clan patron or a Dragonmarked House patron.
I had a really good time describing Sharn and trying to make it seem like a real place. However- if I try to run another Eberron game at some point I think I will focus on high action. The feel of the three stories we were heading into is very "Batman" but I think I left the investigation so open ended that this one was lacking for direction at times.
Hi Ithurial; sorry that you've made this decision but it's prbably the right one. I've enjoyed the scenario, the writing, and the open-endedness of the setup.
It's a shame that we couldn't keep up momentum, but not your fault. It happens to the majority of games so far as I can see.
Good luck in your next campaign and if I spot you recruiting then I'd love to play.
Cheers, Will