So first off after over a year and a half and 2494 posts of play I would like to thank all of you (those who started with us and those who've finished with us) for staying with this campaign for so long. As this was my first PBP campaign I didn't expect that a single act would take this long...and that leaves me a bit awed at how long the entire 3 act story will take to play out...I can assure everyone that we have at least a couple more years of play at this same pace to finish the story.
This post will likely be pretty long, so if you're in a hurry (you need to read the whole thing eventually) you can skip down to "what I need from you!" at the end.
Feedback
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To begin with, I'd like to ask for some feedback on the campaign so far. What do you like, what don't you. I ask that you REALLY give this some thought and not just browse over it.
From my own personal perspective, I will have to admit that the "half mystery have political thriller" I initially envisioned for this campaign has turned into a pretty typical dungeon crawl / action adventure story. There's nothing wrong with this, so long as everyone's having fun.
If you have any ideas or concepts for what you'd like to see change, and particularly HOW you'd like to see them change, feel free to let me know, I take constructive criticism VERY well and I promise not to get offended at any feedback you might want to give me.
Conversation options, dialog, and making party choices have been the largest things in this campaign that have been problematic. If any of you can come up with a better method of handling these sorts of things please don't hesitate to let me know.
Do you want to continue?
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I've committed to myself that so long as I have enough players that want to play, I'll continue the campaign. It is quite the drain on my time, however, so I want to make sure that my players really ARE interested in continuing. If the consensus is that you all (or most) would like to move on to something else (and I can't say I'd blame you after almost 2 years of this) I would be happy to write up a synopsys of the plot complete through act III and send it out in e-mail so you aren't missing anything and still get the "how it ends".
If you wish to back out, this is the opportune time to do so. If you don't like my DM style, the campaign doesn't run like you'd like, etc., or you'd just like out, feel free to finalize the Housekeeping thread below and post your exit here. No hard feelings to anyone who wants out, I promise!
Housekeeping:
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Experience / Level:
There is some housekeeping to do at this point if we intend to continue the campaign. While I hate the "giving levels" mentality of DMing, I'm afraid I'm going to have to do it in this case. I've been HORRIBLE about keeping track of XP gains through this later part of the Act and instead of spending hours to 10's of hours going back over 1K + posts looking for XP points to give, I believe I'm just going to set all characters to the same point for the start of Act II.
At this point each character will be considered to have gained enough experience points to put you 25% into Level 5. This will mean you have skipped play at Level 4 (my apologies, as I said I should have had one more level up section of play in there somewhere but I failed it) and you will all be moving from 3 to 5.
As we are on the "Medium" experience track, That will put everyone at a set total of 17000 XP.
Gold/Cash:
** Using Spoiler Text to Collapse text, you may all look at the spoilers in this post. **
The last calculation I have for everyone on accumulated treasure is 09/28/2010 and I have you at the following:
Armand: 111 PP, 219 GP
Dirk: 111 PP, 261 GP
Selena: 111 PP, 264 GP, 10 SP
Lash: 111 PP, 122 GP
Mird: 111 PP, 219 GP
Thantos: 111 PP, 258 GP
This doesn't include the recent treasure you got.
Splitting the coins equally, we have the following final treasure:
Armand: 262 PP, 1386 GP, 333 SP, 333 CP
Dirk: 262 PP, 1428 GP, 333 SP, 333 CP
Selena: 262 PP, 1431 GP, 343 SP, 333 CP
Lash: 262 PP, 1289 GP. 333 SP, 333 CP
Mird: 262 PP, 1386 GP, 333 SP, 333 CP
Thantos: 262 PP, 1425 GP, 333 SP, 333 CP
And the following items that need to be sold.
Gold Signet Ring - 20g (Blackmaer's)
Gold Bracelet - 80g (Blackmaer's)
2 Candlestick Holders - 20g Each (Bernal's)
Gems - 150 GP
Furs and Silken Sheets - 360g (Ilyana)
Silk and Cloth Robes - 180g (Ilyana)
Perfumes, Ornaments and Brushes - 214g (Ilyana)
Rules Changes:
If any of the rules changes (See below) require a rework of your character please do so as you are leveling up. If any of the rules changes below invalidate a major part of your character (Dirk, I'm looking at you at this point), or if you are feeling unhappy with the way your character is playing right now, feel free to completely re-work your character from level 1 on up...and that means removing/adding feats and abilities as you see fit. For anything DRASTIC (like you want to move from two hand weapons to sword/board or from a bow ranger to a close up 2h weapon ranger for instance) please let me know what is going on and we'll re-work your character together which may include modification of the equipment you have.
About the only thing I'm NOT allowing at this point is a complete Race/Class change...that's about the only thing static I'm holding your character to at this point.
I see the beginning of Act II as a brand new campaign starting with level 5 characters...even though the story line continues. As such I can suspend disbelief on many major changes.
Rules Changes
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As I hinted at in a post above, with the beginning of Act II, I intend to make a few changes to the rules that we've been playing under for the last 2 years.
First, and foremost, the production pathfinder rules have now been out for over a year. At this point I am dropping the "beta" rules and moving the campaign fully to production Pathfinder. I realize this will cause some character re-work, however trying to support characters from the beta ruleset without tools to do so is quite challenging.
Second: I've been waffling on including external sourcebooks. From a character CONCEPT perspective, I don't mind sourcebooks outside of the Pathfinder PH, however supporting that content within the software I use to manage the party is a pain. I've come to a decision that if I can find the information online somewhere WITHOUT having to buy another sourcebook, I'll likely allow the material. If you'd like to progress your character down a path not in the base Pathfinder PH, please provide me a reference to somewhere online that discusses/lays out the rules surrounding the path you'd like to choose. I'm not adverse to advancing your character in ways not in the base PH, I just don't want to find an unbalanced character as we progress up in rank.
Third: House Rules that will continue to be in play: (from the thread above):
* Initiative and Held Actions - From here out, holding action will allow you to act first in the NEXT ROUND only and delaying action will allow you to act last in the CURRENT round, same as described in the pathfinder rules. Your initiative order in combat will not change.
* Crit Rules - I've flip-flopped on this over the course of the campaign. I've given the house rule of an auto-crit on 20 a good hard look. First, I like the auto-crit on 20 rule because it balances the auto-fail on 1 rule...I don't have to miss a fail roll when I roll a 1 to screw up, so why should I have to confirm the crit on a nat 20?
However, looking back at what happened to Fyird, I can't help but think there IS a problem here. He was perfectly healthy and then got mega-damage with nothing he could do just because one roll was lucky.
I've come up with a new way to implement auto-crits that I will be applying throughout Act II.
* Any weapon with a x2 multiplier will auto-crit on a natural 20.
* Any weapon with a larger than x2 multiplier will require a confirm roll to crit.
I've looked through the weapons list in the PH and the ONLY weapon at use within the party right now that has a larger than x2 multiplier is a longbow by Mird. And while I don't want to penalize a single person, auto crit on a larger than x2 multiplier is a really good way to get a PC killed.
To compensate for this, I am willing to add a new feat to the game I'll call "Critical Expertise" which allows weapons > 2x multiplier to auto crit on a 20 if my players would like me to. In this way, you can be 1 feat behind others and be able to crit larger weapons on a nat 20 roll.
(Consider this a proposal right now, I'll wait for feedback before making this final).
* Lethal/Subdual Damage: From here out damage will be applied 100% either Lethal or Subdual as specified within the Pathfinder rules. Unless you specify otherwise, all damage will be considered lethal damage.
What I need from you:
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* An indication as to whether you want to continue the campaign or not. (Post back here). At the end of Act 2 you'll have another chance to get out...but that could be another year or two away.
* Feedback on what you liked/disliked about the campaign. This is your opportunity to change things about the way I DM the campaign. If you don't like a heavy handed encounter where you're "forced" into things, please make sure to let me know. If a house rule I'm using pisses you off, it's time to bring that up.
If you are planning on continuing.
* A Valid Character Sheet, based off of the Pathfinder Production rules for your character class with your character properly leveled to Level 5 with 17K experience.
* Read over the "Crit" rule change and provide me feedback.
From a character sheet submission perspective:
I personally use a tool called HeroLab which is a character maintenance application that will validate your character for you based upon pathfinder rules.
I will be happy to accept any of the following formats of character sheet:
* Hero Labs .por file of your character or an export of your character.
* PDF of a character sheet, preferably using some kind of standard format.
* Word/OpenOffice DOC/XL
If you have another electronic format you can get your character into, feel free to let me know what that is and I'll see if I can make that work. If you need an output of your CURRENT character I can provide that as well.
If you are providing a non-validated format (PDF, Doc, etc.) please make sure to double/triple check that you have ALL sections of your character sheet properly filled out (i.e. you have the proper number of feats/abilities, you've properly selected your stat increases, etc.)
I'll be rolling your character sheets into my application, so any issues I find I will be contacting you to fix.
If you need help updating your character sheet, let me know.
I'll level my character soon.
Enjoying the game so far. About the only complaint I have right now is about how much the story seems to be just an experience we are going through rather than something we can control or be involved in. I realize you have a story for us to be part of. But this seems more like an immense story that we are just the actors in, who occasionally get to roll dice for combat.
We don't seem very autonomous, is all I'm saying.
See. When I DM I never write out entire scenarios, I usually just write down a few notes. Some details. The rest is just adlibbed on what the party wants to do.
I've also had a good time with thhis game. That being said, my biggest complaint it the railroading to the point of feeling like I'm playing a game that went into movie mode, where I might as well put the controller down and watch.
Guiding the story to unfold as a coherent narrative is one thing, having players involuntarily surrender their characters for walls of posting story is another.
I think the thing that makes it more of an issue is that it keeps happening at key suspenseful moments. Party finally faces Queen on battlefield. Shift to story mode, you all lose the fight and wake up in the dungeon.
Party faces the orcs that betray them setting up a pivotal battle. Shift to story mode, cavalry kills them and you all go to the fortress.
The fact that we were all poisoned, rendered drunk and helpless, with no saves, no opportunity to question anything or act in character, Lash doesn't trust most people, Dirk wouldn't let Armand out of his sight; made the last sequence feel just kind of wrong.
He kills Armand, story mode you all stab him to death, no opportunity to capture or question him.
I know this is coming across as harsh but I've always found that if I keep having to ask people to trust me, its because my actions are making them twitchy. Just consider how many time the words Trust your GM have popped up and why we'd have to be asked to do that rather than it not be an issue.
Sorry if that comes across wrong, just wanted the feedback to be honest.
Actually it's excellent feedback from both of you, this is the kind of thing I need to hear to understand how the players want to interact within the story. I will definitely attempt to take this into account in the next couple acts...providing less "railroading" and more open story play.
That said, let me identify why I've fallen into this mode when it comes to "cutscene story". Lets take the initial encounter with the queen. You open the door and stride into the room, queen engages the party in conversation, and immediately the party jumps to action and engages in combat. This leaves very little ability for story or plot to come to light.
As many times as I've had to post "Trust your DM" there are as many parts where I've also asked the party to take part in the story through dialog. Observing party interaction, the most fluent portions of the story have been the parts where the characters can make static choices (do I go down this hall or that hall, which room do we go to next, etc.) and the combat scenarios. The portions of the story that have lagged, often times to the point of losing interest for most players, have been the open dialog / Q & A / Go around and Discover something portions of the story. (The opening scenario gathering people together, the conversation with Kavorquian's nephew, the portion after Kavorquian's Dungeon where you were back in the keep, etc.), if you'll all recall we ended up turning the open "how do you want to approach storming the castle" into mostly a choose your own adventure portion of the module with "do we do this, or this" kinds of choices.
As with you guys, I'm NOT trying to piss and moan here nor call anyone to the carpet, I WANT to tailor the story to the way you guys want to play. If the party enjoys the dice rolling aspects of the campaign I can accommodate that through long sections of controlled story. If you want a more open campaign where you are able to discover what you want to discover and do what you want to do, I'm HAPPY to provide that as well.
I AM NOT trying to railroad anyone into any controlled story. I do realize that MUCH of the story part of this campaign have come out in "book" form, put the controller down and watch the cutscene as Lash ACCURATELY puts it. Personally, I agree with ALL of you, I would MUCH prefer a different way of handling this than "controller down story" mode.
That said, for cohesion between Acts and for the "endgame" story to make sense there are things that have to come out during the campaign. In many cases the party has not taken an active part in digging up their own answers to the story...yet these answers need to be had for future scenarios to make sense and for past mysteries to be solved.
I think alot of this has to do with the length of the act...it's pretty damned hard to remember what happened 2 years ago in real life, but only a few weeks ago game time...it makes it VERY hard for the players to ask the proper questions and get answers that make sense when the event you're expected to ask questions about happened literally 2 years ago. Unfortunately, I'm not overly sure how to solve this dilema. I'm happy to take suggestions on how to make dialoging and story revelations more engaging for the party as a whole. I do not in any way absolve myself from taking the blame on this, I just don't know how to fix it.
Please don't take this as me haranging any of you about your style of play or your activity/inactivity within the story. I'm not looking to bring up a discussion of the right/wrong way to play D&D nor highlight differences in individual Role/Roll Play styles. I mention all of this ONLY because I'm trying to provide context as to WHY the last part of the campaign moved into "cutscene" mode.
I will be happy to "take out" the cutscenes and provide the party a much more interactive campaign for the next act. Just keep in mind that there HAS to be some place where the party is able to discover answers to open questions and let the plot continue. And, if it's not done in "cutscene" mode the party has to take the responsibility of digging out the story for themselves.
At the end of the day an entire kingdom was overrun by a very large assassin organisation. The party will need to answer who they are and why they undertook the task by the end of act three. There is an overarching goal to return Armand to the throne of Kethlenica that the party is working toward. There is story that has to be told for any of that to remain a party goal. Act I was all about the secret of Armand not being so secret anymore. As is obvious, the organization that spent years trying to find Armand now has.
I'd be thrilled to take out the "cutscene" story play...but that puts the impetus on the party to dig for relevant campaign information during the campaign events.
If that's what the party wants, consider the cutscenes cut. :)
--Illydth
Well, you're certainly allowed to suggest certain things through Kilenthar (if he's conscious and not in some dungeon cell being tortured), which is what a DMPC is for in some of the more complicated campaigns.
Also, if this is your first Play-by-post, you might not be used to the slow nature of things and want to jump the gun by progressing things very swiftly. Try to avoid that if you can.
I forgot how we are figuring hitpoints.
hp
BTW, anyone know if there's a way to attach another "thread" to the campaign? I'd like to start a new thread for Act II (we're already at 2500+ posts on the original Act I thread) and I wondered if it was possible to either attach it as the master thread (leaving a link to the old thread in it) or attach both.
I've seen someone have 2 games linked to the same discussion thread so it's definately possible. Not sure how though.
Leveled up. will sent updated sheet.
If you have a sheet for me, already, check my online profile here and see if everything's up to date. I don't have herolabs anymore, unfortunately. :(
Yea, actually you can link 2 games to the same discussion thread, but you can't link 2 game threads to the same campaign.
The campaign play thread defines the campaign and is unchangeable after creation. To do what I want to do I'm likely to have to do exactly this: Create a new Campaign for Act II and re-link the discussion thread under that campaign.
I still have Mird, Thantos and Dirk to get reponses and information from, so I'll figure out soon whether I want to open a new campaign for Act 2 or not. I'm leaning toward yes (with a link in the first post back to this campaign) unless someone has a good reason not to.
Sorry, massive system upgrade at work has demanded all of my attention for the last 2 weeks.
I am willing to continue, but it'll be next week before I can get Dirk leveled. Looks like the Fighter has undergone many changes in the prod rule-set so I'm going to have to spend some time looking those over.
You know my opinions, but I will share them here. I get frustrated, at times, by the glacial... sometimes tectonic slowness of the game. When postings are regular, my interest level is at it's highest and I may check the boards several times a day - but when the posts start coming in at 1 every couple of weeks I can forget to check for days at a time.
As DM, I think you do a great job at crafting your postings and keeping track of all of the various elements involved in the game. I know it can be a daunting task and I appreciate the time you put into it. I'm certain this plays into the time it can take to develop a post. If there is anything we, as players, can do to make it easier and quicker for you to assemble your posts let us know. As I've mentioned, I can aid with battle maps, etc. if that would help you.
On a side note, I think that you have a great disposition when accepting criticism or settling a rule dispute. A difficult line to walk, but you've done it admirably.
Finally, a general comment. I enjoy reading player posts that include even small details about what is going on physically with players, descriptions about where they are looking, what they are fiddling with, if they are grunting in pain, or are out of breath, or have a habit of toying with the string on their coin purse. It adds a great deal of color and flavor to the story and in a play-by-post we have the luxury of spending some time crafting these posts before presenting them. Without these details, the characters become flat, grey blobs. I'm as guilty as anyone of posting just my rolls, but I'd like to encourage us all to put more of our characters "color" into each post.
Please consider all of the above in the light of "best intentions". I am in no way bashing the game, the DM, or it's players. Overall, it's been great fun and I look forward to the next chapter.
So the only one that hasn't responded at this point is Thantos (Mird posted back in the story area) and I'm pretty sure he's willing to continue.
Over the next couple days I'll start checking my resource areas and putting your characters back in to Pathfinder/HeroLabs at level 5. We'll work through questions here in the discussion forums and start when I have everyone leveled up and ready to go.
--Doug
I will endeavor to be me more descriptive in my game posts.
As noted in the Game Play thread, I'm going to initially start pinging you folks on character stuff as of this upcoming Monday. As of Monday Morning, I'll be trying to go through and update everyone's characters based off of changes you've made/I have for you and will start calling people out asking what help they need with advancing their character to Level 5.
If you have questions, comments or need help, please don't hesitate to let me know.
Wow! I even suspect myself of cheating!
Wow! I even suspect myself of cheating!
Gotta keep that front line standing!
I'm leveled, spreadssheet was from Beta but should have everything accurate and should match up with what's in my profile.
What we need now a a place we caan spend some money without getting killed on sight.
It's interesting that you should bring this up Lash, as that's pretty much where the scenario opens on Monday. :)
I'll let you guys work through that in your heads as I continue to work with people on characters.
Character sheet submitted.
Wanted to post a quick FYI: I should have Dirk, Selena, Lash and Armand updated before I finish tonight. This leaves me Thantos and Mird who I've still not heard much from.
Dirk: I'll be contacting you to see what we can do about the other two...I know both of them are pretty swamped right now.
As a quick aside: I broke down and picked up all the major rules supplements for Hero Labs. That provides me access to:
* Advanced Player Guide
* Ultimate Combat Guide
* Ultimate Magic Guide
* Adventurer's Armory
* Bestiary 3 (Already own Bestiary 1 and 2).
I'm not sure what use Bestiary 3 would be for any of you however the rest of the sources are available as core rule sets for this campaign.
THAT SAID I do not own the actual books for these, only the rules set for Hero Labs. If you are planning on using a supplemental book listed above as a rules source for your character, please make sure to send me a source for the material that doesn't include "Page X in Y book"...I don't have hundreds of dollars to spend on pathfinder manuals.
Also, please make sure to consult me first before branching into a rules set identified within one of these referred to sources. I'm likely to deny a lot of "out of the ordinary" stuff. For instance I know "Ultimate Magic" contains a "Magus" class and "Ultimate Combat" contains a "Ninja" class. I am very highly likely to deny ranks in these "extra" classes as I am concerned how well tested those classes are and how that would fit within the confines of the campaign I'm running.
I also reserve the right to deny portions or entireties of things like weapons and spells coming from these alternate sources based upon, again, how I feel those abilities will translate into this campaign.
That said, I have no problems discussing adding a given feat/ability/rule/spell/item/weapon/class/etc. to your character, just don't get offended if I disallow the change.
Regarding "Play Rules" from alternate sources (like Ultimate Combat): Any rules affecting game play coming from these manuals will be scrutinised on a case by case basis, but, since I don't own the source material, the likeliest thing that will happen is I will deny it within the campaign since I can't look it up, ESPECIALLY if those rules conflict with something in the Basic Players Handbook. For instance (and this is made up, not an actual example): Lets say that in Ultimate Combat a special rule states that players can take a 10' step back away from combat at the end of the round as an instant action, while in the PH, the player can only take a 5' step. As I do not have the ultimate combat reference and as the ultimate combat rule conflicts with what's in the PH, I would likely deny the UC rule within the campaign.
If there are any questions on any of this, please post. Basically: I want to make limited portions of the major rules supplements available to you to broaden your characters and make them more "personal" without entirely changing the way the game is played with a bunch of references and rules and abilities I know nothing about.
As we already talked about your "witch" class, and as I believe it does make some sense for your character, I'll allow ranks in it.
That said, I have NOT read anything about the class and, as I said, I'm concerned with anything beyond the standard "base" classes we all know and love from AD&D. The "cleric" class has been done to death and play tested over the course of 15 years of gaming. Magus, Ninja and Witch? Not so much.
Do you know of a good online reference for the Witch class in regards to abilities, spells, etc.? I'm mainly concerned about special abilities and spells.
--Illydth
I pretty much use the online SRD now, instead of using any books at all. Makes PBP so much easier, just to leave a tab open there. :)
Did it die? I'm just asking cause if it did, I'll feel free to submit another character for another PBP. It was great adventuring with you all for almost two years, and I'm kind of excited that I got a 5th level character from level 1. That seems to be a pretty normal adventuring career. Even if I didn't get to spend all that loot.
Oh ok, sorry to hear about your problems. Still hanging around for you.
For anyone who wishes to see an "actual" picture of Selena (with butterfly), click HERE
Another point. I went ahead and accepted Thera's bonus to diplomacy. Since there were some balance issues with spellcraft. There is a character sheet linked on my profile which has the correct skillpoints (I was one over previously), spells (I was one under), and the weight of my items. (I haven't recalculated the weight of my new coin, but everything else is there). That being said, Selena would normally be encumbered with a Medium Weight, but she has used her horse for storage of some of the heaviest things.
As I have a few minutes here between meetings...
Over the last few days I've been trying to give some serious thought to how to run the next part of the campaign better than the first part.
One of the larger issues I think we had is the campaign bogging down at the point where conversation/story/interaction started to come into play, and I think a large part of that is the open-endedness of what a "ok, what questions do you want to ask" or "where do you want to go from here" question really means.
In most cases many of you didn't have a comment or were worried about "bogging down" the campaign / posts with conversation points and discussions.
Also, in many cases, I suspect I am asking the player to come up with ideas about things that, while their character might be proficient with, the player themselves are not. (Say: How to storm a castle? Anyone out there with experience? I didn't think so. :) )
For Act II I'm going to try something a bit differently. While I've NEVER been a fan of the omniscient DMPC, I think Armand just got a lot smarter and a lot more all knowing overnight. Many of you have suggested this, but I've not had a good idea of how to implement this till now.
The General Concept of Conversations and Decision Points.
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Each time the party is presented with a conversation ability or a decision / planning point in the next part of the story, there is experience to be had. Anywhere from a couple hundred party experience for simple conversations with simple folks up to a couple thousand experience for linchpin conversations where you're able to connect story elements and piece parts of the puzzle together or make major decisions on how to play out the story.
In general, the more interaction the party has with the situation, the higher the experience gain will be. In several cases right or wrong won't be where the experience comes from, just the engagement and the effort will be enough to net most of the XP. That said, the more the party demonstrates active participation in the events of the story, the larger that XP gain will be also.
That said, the story will never hinge around whether or not you are following along and/or understand how to go about your next tasks.
Getting Ideas when you're Stuck
---------------------------------
The first change I'd like to propose is to make knowledge, profession and even "perception" skills a bit more useful in the campaign.
Any time the party is stuck as to what to do or how to overcome/accomplish a task and wants anything from a hint to a full blown plan for how to proceed, any of you may call upon any of your knowledge, profession or even perception skills to get anything from a hint to a full understanding.
Depending upon both how pertinent the skill is to the question as well as how detailed the question you want answered (and, obviously, the skill check), will denote what kind of information you obtain.
Calling on these skills will NOT reduce the XP gain available in the given situation.
The more "generic" the skill use (like perception) the less information or more broad/general the hint will be. Following up on the knowledge you gain from your skill use will still net you experience.
The intent, here, is to help the player make sense of what their character already knows. While you may not understand how to assault the castle because you, the player, have never done it before. That engineering knowledge rank your character has gives him or her some idea on how to take down the gate or get through the wall.
Your "Ace" in the hole.
------------------------
If all else fails, you still have an ace in the hole...the DMPC. While I am NOT a fan of the all knowing DMPC, I can't deny that it's easy to have Armand feed you plot and story information when you are all stuck on what's going on or where to go next. Asking Armand to solve a problem (or allowing him to do so through lack of posts/interaction) will get the problem solved...to the best of Armand's knowledge at the time, but at a significant cost in XP to the party.
This isn't an intent to penalise anyone, this is mostly so that I don't become the only person having anything to do with the story while you guys are out there to roll dice...we certainly weren't anywhere close to that (don't get me wrong) but I don't want it to get to that point either.
Do note, however, that while the DMPC will have many of the answers, he is NOT all knowing...he does NOT have the same information I do. Do keep this in mind when relying upon Armand.
I'm hoping that a change to bring some "roll" based information into the story where "role" based information may be lacking will help everyone be more comfortable with play in general, and hopefully all of this will help me to eliminate the "auto play" scenarios that were a source of complaint for the last campaign.
If anyone has anything to add, a different way to implement or an additional thing for me to consider, please throw it out there, I'm happy to consider.
I WANT this next act to go smoother for everyone than the previous one did...any suggestions you have on how to do that, I'm all ears.
Sounds reasonable to me. I'd like to explore more of what my character can do other than perception and attack. I'm chuckling as I type this because really... that's most of what Dirk is designed to do at this point. He's a meat shield... but he's come to terms with that. ;)
For anyone who wishes to see an "actual" picture of Selena (with butterfly), click HERE
I get an error when trying to follow your link. Is your image posted on a password protected site?
Here's part of the error I get:
"Your client does not have permission to get URL..."
In the interest of adding a visual Lash
Oh, sorry... let me try making it public...AGAIN. Don't know what's going on with that.
I would prefer to share it as an image, rather than a google document, but I guess that works.
I would prefer to share it as an image, rather than a google document, but I guess that works.
That worked. Looks good. Thanks.
I am having some severe work- and life-related issues at the moment. It's taking all my energy just to deal with them. I hope they will be over in a week or so.
Take your time Selena, we're pretty much on a skeleton crew here as well as Mird and Thantos are still mostly afk themselves.
At the moment most of this is entry story and setup for act II. Lots of typing on my part, mostly non-essential interactions on your parts. We're not far from getting the real adventure started however, so if that happens before you're fully back we'll ensure you're part of it.
Thanks for the note, however, it helps me keep track of where my players are. :)
--Illydth
As a quick note to everyone: I received an e-mail from Thantos's player the other day identifying that he will be unable to continue playing the character in our campaign.
Work / Life issues have cropped up for him and his free time to check and respond to posts such as this have become limited to the point of being impossible for him.
As always, I would like to thank Josh for his participation in the campaign up to now and for helping make the campaign what it is. Particularly, Josh, your method of playing Thantos has been nothing if not inspiring, making what turned out to be a somewhat a-typical mage play very very well.
Hopefully from time to time, Josh can manage to get back here to check up on the story and see what horrors I've managed to get his character into this time. ;)
There is another player who has expressed interest in taking over Thantos's character, so we will be bringing a new player into the campaign within the next week or two...up to that point I will run Thantos as a DMPC, keeping him available within the campaign for the party.
Just wanted to keep everyone apprised of the make up of the group. :)
I'm back... apologies to everyone again... now I have to catch up.... whew... Lost my place in a few games, so I'm glad to see I'm still here.
Mmm, my other trait was Heirloom Weapon, which makes me proficient with the military longsword I have. (But with my strength penalty, I'm mainly using the dagger anyway.)
And yes, the purchases are alright. I have to edit my character profile to reflect the purchases, but should be doable soon.
Just processing the info and thinking about, Lash's most likely reaction.
Okay, I have a peeve. And I wasn't sure how to address it, because I do not wish to be rude. But I'm going to be honest here because I feel like its the best way to get through this. Please note that this is not a personal attack on anyone (or at least not intended to be in any way), but just me stating some things that I am having some problems with.
Since my unavoidable absence, I've missed about 2 or 3 pages of new posts. Normally, this would be fine, and I could catch up on them easily. However, what I now realize I missed is extensive walls of text which still seem to be railroading the characters. Walls of text I haven't entirely been able to read since returning. =(
I know sometimes posting in smaller chunks makes the game take forever, as does waiting for responses. But I can still engage and feel like I'm a participating character when I have smaller posts to read and respond to.
Um. That's all I have for now. I hope it did not come across too harshly or offend anyone.
Hey, no issues at all. From a "railroading" perspective I'm trying my best not to. What portions of the text denote railroading to you so I get an idea where your objections are? Not trying to single you out in any way, but as I said, I'm trying to stop any "foregone conclusion" things as much as I can, so if you can point out a few places, I'd be happy to look at them and see where I'm going wrong.
As to the "walls of text", I am trying to break them into smaller parts logically, but in general what I'm typing is information I feel the party needs to know along with background text / setting information that is intended to give you the feel for what's happening around you..."painting a picture" as I would call it.
Is the description too much?
Help me help you. Don't feel bad about polite criticism, but make sure to point out where I'm going down a path you're uncomfortable with/don't like so I have an example of where you'd like me to handle things differently. :)
Well, a lot of the things that we go through usually ends up like this...
Here's a description of where you are and what you're doing.
The Regent speaks in paragraph... and another paragraph... and another paragraph, then asks for questions.
And all of that in the same post.
I think it would go better for me if you post a description of where we are and what we're doing. Stop, end post.
Regent speaks a paragraph. Stop, end post. (I know as a military/political ruler, he's probably used to talking without interruption, but I feel like our characters would be more lively if we at least had the option to.)
Wait a bit. Maybe an hour or two.
Regent speaks another paragraph. Stop, end post.
I think, in this way, the "conversations" will evolve more organically. =P And will allow us to ask questions during the procedure, instead of waiting til the end of a block of text that may have two different things going on in it.
Sorry to be so critical, like I said before; I was just sharing my opinion regarding something that was making the game more difficult for me to participate in and enjoy.
Apologies for the length of this post, I'm trying to organize my thoughts and get a feeling for the feedback.
It's not critical, it's giving me feedback to make your experience better. As I said so long as it's polite I don't mind a bit of criticism...it helps me make sure the campaign is playing right.
I'm more than willing to give what you suggest a try, however there are a couple issues with it I'll warn about in advance.
I'm doing good to get a post out a day on the campaign, I administrate somewhere close to 200 systems in pretty much every major timezone in the world and have about 5 people working for me as well so my time to post at work gets pretty limited. I simply can't spend all day checking the thread for responses or posting back every couple hours with a new piece of the story.
Conversely, I don't know how many of our players would be able to jump in on a conversation in that methodology...not sure how many people are checking the thread multiple times a day...I know Mird is pretty swamped with his work, and I think Dirk is also.
My concern about the post/wait/post cycle is that I end up carrying a story for days that could be done in a single 24 hour cycle. For instance the last background story from Armand: I COMPLETELY appreciate that was a wall of text, and I'd love for that to have been a conversation instead of a diatribe, but my concern is that I'd post a paragraph or two, wait 24 hours for responses, post another paragraph or two, etc...and we'd take half a week getting through it.
Keep in mind, I don't care how long it takes to get through a story. I'm MORE than ok to have that background information sequence take 3 days or even 3 weeks if you all get a better enjoyment out of it...that, after all, is my job as a GM. If posting in paragraphs allows for a more conversational method of play, and that method of play is how you all want this to be, you have no objections from me at all.
At this point, the method I'm using is to provide the players all of the information that, in most cases Armand, has up front and then ask if any of it needs clarification. In this way I can expedite the time my players spend in conversations and get to the parts where I've typically seen more enthusiasm: the "fun bits" so to speak. It CERTAINLY creates a situation where, to ask questions, we'd have to "reverse" the conversation timeline a bit, but I don't mind that. Quote the bit you want to ask a question on and the ask your in character question and Armand will respond / the party can Dialog on it. Even if the conversation is "over" in one post it doesn't mean we can't "back up" to answer those questions.
I guess maybe I'm doing things a little differently than many DMs. I don't mind a story with "non-cohesive" time moments. Instead of stopping at each place for questions to keep "time" consistent within a given post timeframe, I'm happy to jump around in the moments within a scenario to get all the information in...I'll even recap if I feel that the conversation was too disjointed to follow.
The difference looks like this:
Armand says: "Hello, My name is Armand, What's your name?" (Game pauses for response)
Player says: "My name is Josh, nice to meet you Armand." (Game Pauses for Response)
Armand Says: "Hey Josh, I need a favor of you." (Game Pauses for Response)
Player says: "Sure, I've only known you for 5 seconds but I feel the need to help, what can I do for you!" (Game Pauses for Response).
Armand Says: "Thank you! Can you carry these Apples for me to that shop over there?"
Player Says: "Of course I'd be willing to carry those apples for you!"
Armand says: "Hello, My name is Armand, can you help me with something? I need you to carry this load of apples from here to that shop over there?"
Player writes: Josh smiles at Armand as he introduces himself and says: "Hello Armand, My name is Josh". Listening to Armand's request Josh responds: "Even though I've only known you for 5 seconds I still feel the need to help. Of course I'd be willing to carry those apples for you to that store over there."
Corny example, but the examples above highlight the two different ways of handling this. The first is obviously more natural and is the way we all hold conversations with each other every day...the second method tends (particularly in longer examples) to be more fragmented: each time a player wants to respond to something we have to jump backward in the "timeline" and pretend the player interjected something. Then, we have to continue this thread till the answer to whatever question is asked comes up and then we jump to another place in the conversation to answer the next question. This is disjointed, but tends to save on posts (and thus time).
It's up to you guys how you want to handle this. It's not about me diatribing because Armand is used to telling his subjects what to do...he's not a king and has never ruled people, so he hasn't developed those kinds of habits yet (if ever he will). Besides that, he is among friends, not subjects and would never think to tell you all to shut up while he tells a story.
The mechanic is one I have developed for getting as much story into as little time as possible. If it's distracting or taking away from the campaign, I'll be happy to go at it a bit more organically, albeit at likely a longer pace.
Again, sorry for the post length, I hope I described it well enough.
--Doug
Well, I can understand if there's some difficulty in moving forward due to the inability to post frequently, but I will wait and see how other people want to do it. I don't mind posting less frequently, even with shorter posts.
I must have an extremely short attention span, as my eyes usually glaze over after the third or fourth paragraph in walls of text and I have to stop reading. Maybe I need glasses. Maybe my eyes are irritated by black text on white computer screen. If this is a personal problem (and not one that anyone can necessarily fix), then its a personal problem and I apologize for calling anyone out on it.
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Another thing we might do is put some space between the paragraphs, that way its not a "Wall of Text", its a "Wall of Text with Windows" which might be more legible for me.
Anyway, waiting for further input. Maybe I'm the only one irritated by it.
ROFL Selena! :)
You're not the first or only person to b$!@* about my posting habits, and you certainly won't be my last. I could send you to a string of forums, dating back almost 15 years where you could hear people b!*** at me for posting too long of posts.
Feel sorry for my World of Warcraft Guildies, they had to put up with my walls of text (particularly my officers) for 7 long years. :)
I'll try to cut it down if it's hard to read.
--Doug
Here's my perspective. (Standard disclaimer: Please take it all in the light of a joint effort to improve the game... no blame being placed anywhere.)
In the last DM post (actually two posts back-to-back):
1. Mird tamed an eagle
2. We inspected the Tower from outside the walls
3. Mird led us into the Tower grounds across the bridge
4. We inspected the inside of the grounds
5. We saw and inspected a well
6. We saw the stables and inspected the inside of the stables
7. We decided to stay at the Tower
8. Dirk stabled his horse
9. Dirk climbed a ladder to check for pursuit
10 Dirk pulled up the draw bridge
11. As a group we headed for the front door of the Tower
Seems like a lot of "table top" decisions are being made for us. But I can totally see how, as DM, you would NOT want to waste time on pointless searching. Spending two days of posts of us searching around the 'well' for example - painful. All of these steps in your posts would likely have happened anyway, you've just moved the story along. At the same time, from a player perspective, it can feel a lot like we are being led by the noses to the points of interest.
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(space for Selena to regroup... :P)
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I can see both sides of the discussion. Each with its pros and cons. Perhaps we could try easing back on the throttle just a bit when leading us through something (e.g. the courtyard). I admin thinking, 'hey, I would have liked to search that well... but since the DM blew past it I'm certain it is worthless." In that case, I would not go back in time to check the well - your action of moving passed it, indicated to me that the well was not worth searching. So my action of searching it will never happen.
Anyway, if it feels like the throttling back is slowing the game down too much we can always throttle up!
It's taken 2.5 years to get to level 5... so I don't think anyone is in a huge hurry. :P
Last thought, I do enjoy the details you put in your posts... so I vote we keep them.
OK, that's all I have.
Excellent point and excellent commentary. We'll work from this perspective till someone wants to change it again.
As you'll find, I'm quite flexible, I simply don't want to either bog us down or cause delirium of days trying to get from point A to point B, but a bit more room to breathe also can't be a bad thing.
Thanks for the responses and the feedback, hopefully I can continue to make the campaign something you WANT to participate in. :)
--Doug
Odds are Mird may have seen scenes like this in the wild, I'm pretty sure an owlbear attack would yield similar results, Dirk may have seen the like on the battlefield, think berzerker with an axe.
For Lash, she definitely knows that torturers and sadistic bastards can do such work with mundate tools though she may not have personally witnessed something of this scale. Ironically the non magical party members may have had more experience with bloody scenes, magic tends to be cleaner and more instant, like a fireball.