So far, I’m enjoying the pace and flow of the game. It doesn't feel rushed nor too slow.
Nice. I wake up this morning (okay, afternoon, what are you my mother?) and there's four new gameplay posts. That's what I like to see.
More info I forgot from the previous dump:
Xing uses the character for 'star'. Xing Zei Long means Shooting Star Dragon if you forgive my atrocious grammar. It's really more like Star, Shooting Dragon the way I have it.
The dragon is the traditional symbol of the emperor. This gives being a "dragon slayer" very different connotations.
Yeah it's a dungeon, but don't worry I like my dungeons to be Indiana Jones style: short, punchy set pieces rather than drawn-out mazes. I predict you will spend way more time in this dungeon talking to people and things than you will making attack rolls and saving throws.
In other news: Dugu Qiubai, also known as the "Sword Devil", was the most powerful swordsman who ever lived. He spent the latter half of his life in a lonely and ultimate fruitless search for a worthy opponent, and died having never fought his equal. He may or may not have left behind a manual detailing his personal style of swordplay but if he did nobody has found it yet. His big stupid trap-filled tomb would probably be a good place to start looking though.
It's still up to Wu-Yao to decide on the actual content of the message, but I think I'm safe in assuming you didn't weave that magic brain network together so you could dish about boys.
The ghost is still way far off just yet, so far it's almost silly to be measuring it in feet. Let's say 800 ft. in case anyone has abilities with ranges they need to figure out.
For clarity's sake, Message is only cast on Flying Sword, so he and I can only whisper messages to one another. Looking closely at the spell, I am of high enough level to cast it on the whole party, but I didn't this time. If I did however, each party member could only communicate this way with me, not each other. Nearby creatures can make a perception check (I think DC 25) to hear the whisper, so keep that in mind. I've a feeling this will come up again so I wanted to dig deeper into the rules. Sound good so far, GM?
And... don't give me any ideas... using this spell for gossip sounds like some really fun role-play...
I've been thinking, and I think I have a way to make combat go a bit more smoothly.
What I'm going to ask is that when everyone posts their action from now on, they include one or more "if" statements. Like "if that doesn't kill him I'll attack again next round" or "if I take any more damage I run". That way sometimes I'll be able to process two or more rounds at a time because I'll have some contingency actions for everyone.
Edit: This is also a good time for that since you guys are mostly maneuvering around and waiting to react to the whatever-it-is right now anyway.
How do you want to handle the rolls for multiple scenarios? I don't mind you rolling for me.
How do you want to handle the rolls for multiple scenarios? I don't mind you rolling for me.
Yeah my general rule of thumb is to let the players roll themselves when it's practical, but to make rolls myself if that's literally the only thing preventing me from posting results.
Generally if you post an action that requires a roll and don't attach a roll to it, I'm going to make the roll for you. Unless someone has an issue with this set-up I'm going to keep using it.
I don't think it's as big a deal here as other gaming sites, since we can roll right in the thread and everyone can see the results (although you may have noticed I do a few rolls for NPCs in secret).
Edit: You raise a good point in your post as well: since Ji's a Taoist priestess as well, and ghostbusting is sort of one of your jobs, Ji has reasons coming out of her ears to want to deal with this thing.
Also: We are getting very close to the point where people might want a tactical map. I generally don't like fussing about with maps, I prefer to do everything narratively. Now I realize this can make tactical positioning difficult for PCs so in return I'm as generous as physically possible with positioning; basically if people could be arranged in the way you want without contradicting anything that's been posted, then the are.
If, however, everyone really wants a map I'll bite the bullet and draw one. I sympathize with how much of a pain it can be to try and interpret a battlefield without a visual representation.
I was going to say that you had 6/7 1st level spells because of the charm person, but having a crazy feast should definitely refresh spells, I feel, so... this post is to say "nothing". Carry on.
Oh... you have a good point though. For some reason I was thinking "next day"...
haha.. I love the idea of Wu eating so much food at dinner he filled up on magic as well...
Oh... you have a good point though. For some reason I was thinking "next day"...
haha.. I love the idea of Wu eating so much food at dinner he filled up on magic as well...
It really fits, and no PC uses wizardry so it doesn't break suspension of disbelief to assume that a big meal would restore your spells.
I have no problem with any lack of maps for the most part. It's easy enough to ask questions and get clarification where people and terrain features are located. Plus, I'll be honest, fighting tactically is one of my weaker areas in roleplaying games.
No-map works for me. I've recently taken my IRL-players completely mapless, and I am starting to prefer it.
There, look at that description with all the distances measured in multiples of five. Now who needs a map?
Holy crap, I had to correct that thing like 3 times. If you read my latest Gameplay post prior to this post appearing I'd reread it.
Wu-Yao, I'm not picking on you. Well, I am, but it's not deliberate. You're just last in initiative order so when I have everyone's actions but yours I can process the rest of the round, get you to declare two actions, and proceed faster. It's just the impersonal and dehumanizing machinery of the game. The game as in a metaphor for life, not the game as in the game we're playing or the game we're using to play the game we're playing.
Anyway, I'm not trying to subtly intimate that your character doesn't matter. He does. He's invisible and in a position to wreck some shit. It's just that I can probably shave a day off the fight if I post now and get two actions from you.
If you do post something between now and when I finish writing things up I'll just edit your action into the post (still give me two though).
I forgot to erase NOT FINISHED from my latest post, but I can't edit it anymore so just ignore that.
It's the strings for Flying Sword if he doesn't post by tomorrow morning.
The strings, of course, means being puppeted.
Strings -- I like that.
I'm not sure how well it worked in the post, but I was going for the cinematic equivalent of waiting her "turn" to fight the opponent.
Posting nao!
Finished with 4 minutes of being able to edit it to spare.
I honestly didn't know you could stagger ghosts (but you clearly can with RAW). I'm not super thrilled with the fluff I came up with for it, but I worked with what I had.
Oh man, Flying Sword did something cool where I can see his hit points and Qi and and armor class at the top of his posts and it's convenient as hell. I have no idea how you did that but could you explain it so everyone else can? That would save me so much fiddling with character sheets during combat.
If you could get your saves and your attack bonus with your primary weapon on there too I might literally die from convenience poisoning.
Go to profile -> edit profile -> populate 'Race' or 'Classes/Levels'
I/we can put spoiler tags in that spot - so if you want me to paste in dice BB code, I can do that too. Alternately, I added a spoiler with the dice commands for a bunch of common rolls. Not sure if that would work better.
Cool beans.
Still need a combat action from you.
Weekend slowdown suuucks. Hopefully we'll get a round in today.
So my computer almost died this morning. Thought it was hard drive error. Had to manually restore a corrupt registry using cmd lines. Scary stuff.
Ugh, that sucks. I've had a couple of drives fail within the past year. What a hassle.
On another note, I greatly enjoy the combat-round recaps that you've been posting. That's good stuff.
Not again!
Sorry Wu-Yao. I'm just the vessel through which the puppetry of the universe flows.
If you post an action prior to me finishing up my combat post I'll incorporate it, otherwise I'm puppeting you.
Zhang Yong: you don't take bleed damage on the round where the bleed is applied so you can stop rolling for it. You take it on your turn and I make note of this stuff on NPC sheets so you don't need to worry about it.
That one extra damage from spite evil saved us all having to go through another combat round. I cannot express how pleased I am with myself for looking that up.
Godspeed, celestial eagle, where ever you may be.
Sorry team. I feel like a bit of a jerk. I swear I posted in that last round of combat there... I either didn't save it properly or the forums ate my post. bummer.
But hey... gooooo celestial eagle!
Sorry team. I feel like a bit of a jerk. I swear I posted in that last round of combat there... I either didn't save it properly or the forums ate my post. bummer.
But hey... gooooo celestial eagle!
Ah don't sweat it, you took your lumps. The punishment for not posting is simply having your actions dictated for you.
Well, thanks. You are going a really excellent job as GM and I don't want to interrupt your flow.
I can really see your love for the genre in the way you describe combat. it's a great standard to try to live up to as the player.
Thanks. I'm glad you guys liked the combat. If I was planning things better, the first fight wouldn't have been with a single incorporeal opponent (describing a martial arts fight against a ghost forces one to take a novel approach, to say the least).
Plans are for suckers anyway. If the GMs plans work out what's the point of even having PCs.
Edit: And if you really want to impress me, you'll post in Gameplay. Your bird did get the killshot.
Shazi's song is sung to the tune of https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qxtbNUVH4J0
Also it's a translation of a song so pretend it rhymes in Common.
Although you guys live in a world where magic is real, what just happened is still probably the most magical thing any of you (Wu-Yao included) has ever experienced.
While there are some ghosts and gods and other things without mortal bodies capable of limited teleportation, it's still impressive even when they do it. Something like this, where four living people are transported this far without even being aware, is unprecedented.
I decided to finally nail down this whole language thing:
Imperial Common is a standardization of a the diverse languages spoken in the central plaines. It is a simplified language with a smaller, less aesthetically pleasing alphabet. Most poetry or works of any import is written in the regional dialects, but a lot of it is semi-intelligible to someone who knows common (much in the same way that someone who speaks latin can fumble their way through a lot of the Romance languages).
Undercommon is an expanded common spoken by low-class city dwellers who lack a regional dialect. It is common spiced up with slang, criminal cant, and a tradition of incredibly colorful curses. Speaking it is a mark of low class, and since it has no formal vocabulary or structure it's virtually impossible for someone to learn who wasn't raised with it.
The regional dialects of the empire are Qing (spoken in the east), Zhu (spoken in the south), Bai (spoken in the west) and (Xuan) spoken in the North. Official business is conducted in Imperial common, but the language of the Xing scholarly class was Zhu (which is historically the scholarly language and which has the strongest tradition of poetry and song). Ever since the Weili came to power this has changed so that Xuan is the language of the scholarly classes.
Xuan is the regional dialect of the borderlands, but all of the dialects are spoken there because it's the frontier.
Wu-Yao's tribe probably has their own tribal language, but if he wants they can speak Xuan. Everyone else needs to decide what dialect they grew up speaking. Other than that my earlier ruling on languages stands: you can leave the slots hanging, unfilled for as long as you want but once you decide you speak a language you're stuck with it and the slot is filled. For the record the barbarian tribes in the desert have a number of different languages, and demons have a clan system each with a language so you might want to leave some. Common is like a half-language so you get it for free, instead of getting Common like normal humans you get your regional dialect.
You guys might want to decide which dialect you converse in. You could use common, but you lose a certain level of poetic meaning when you use just normal Common. Even Undercommon is much more expressive.
Pointless trivia: All of the languages are named after the color of the mythological creature that corresponds to that direction. So Qing, Zhu, Bai, and Xuan mean Azure, Vermillion, White and Black.
Edit: thinking about it that way, I'm going to have to say there's also a nearly-lost ancient language called Huang that all of these languages are based on. Huang means yellow, because there's a yellow dragon in the center. It has a very flowery idiosyncratic script that looks nice but can be hard to interpret. All of the modern alphabets are simplifications of it (although none more simple than that of Common, which most serious calligraphers won't touch).
I’m really impressed with the song. Great piece of GMing.
Same with the languages!
Aw shucks, you guys are only going to feed my pathological egotism.
You saw the third gameplay page, right?
I'm at my parents place at least until Monday (for Eater and whatnoise) so I will have diminished posting until then. I still imagine I'll be able to check at least once a day though.
Edit: Looks like Flying Sword and Zhang Yong missed the page three post too. Check out the start of page three everyone, doings are transpiring.
Okay, I'm back and my normal posting should resume.
Actually could I get a robot roll call? Just everyone post once here as soon as you read this (even if you're waiting until you have time later to post something) just so I know everyone is still around and I didn't blow the whole game with my absence.
I will point out that I said Monday at the earliest. That means technically I didn't lie. Technically I didn't say when I'd be back.
Utterly incongruous edit: I didn't want to point this out before and show too much of my hand, but the name "Shazi" basically translates to "Mutt".
Time for my billionth post in a row:
Sorry about the double gameplay post, I completely forgot that that woman was there. And if she wasn't it would have other implications that would have caused me to have to double post anyway so here we are.
If you want to greet her in a formal way you can introduce yourselves first and then ask her "what is your honorable name?". That's a pretty standard Wulin introduction that shows respect without being too submissive. Any variation of that where you're polite and introduce yourself first is also acceptable. Unless you know what her martial generation is (where she fits in the who-trained-who tree) you can't know if she's a peer, a senior, or a junior. Age can be deceptive, because if she was trained by one of the Six Sages (highly unlikely, but not out of the question) she would be your martial senior regardless of her age. More likely she's a peer or a junior, but unless you ask you risk offending someone.
You can also be more informal if you like, but now if you do it will be because you chose to. You don't know for sure she's even a member of the Wulin, although meditating in the mountains with a sword is a pretty big hint.
None of you recognize her, and you'd know by sight anyone from the Wudang, Shaolin, or Kunlun over level 5. She's not from Wu-Yao's tiny sect either, much to your shock I'm sure.
Robot roll call LOL. Good memories. Anyway, I’m here. Will post tomorrow.
Now that you've heard her name you know who she is. Her Shifu is the younger sister of the Emei sect leader and Sage Li Xiang. The Emei are a bit aloof and so while you're familiar with their martial lineage you don't always recognize individual members of your same generation by sight.
I've updated the shifu trees as well.
The Emei are an orthodox sect that is respected within the Wulin, so there is every reason for you all to be able to get along.
Just want to say hi - I'm around and still totally in!
If you want to do anything other than talk, please post it like a combat action. You can get a surprise round if you want to drop all pretense of honor and just leap at her. I don't recommend it, but it's an option.
I'm attempting to really get the flavor of the setting and roleplay right. I think a taoist priestess would also make the argument that even an Emperor with the mandate of Heaven, etc. is still human and capable of making a mistake. Disregarding such a mistake wouldn’t be a dishonorable act. Would that be too at odds with Wulin concepts of honor?