Discussion thread OPEN
Thanks, GM Ietsuna!
Okay, I overdue lots of things, it seems, so this is likely no different. To keep from bombarding you with too much, I will present my thoughts in bundles.
The first "bundle" is of things that came up during preparation/set up:
Handling the Riddle - It seemed to me that the bust riddle was pretty central to this scenario. The problem was, it was clear to me, that it was meant to be read allowed. Otherwise, it becomes less a riddle and more a, well, statement as the meaning of the word “sun” is no longer ambiguous. I tried creating a recording of my voice, but it seemed that the means I used took up too much memory to easily post, so I went with the website I had found, although it also provided the riddle in writing. Maybe there was just no way around this one for PbP, but I found it frustrating to try an implement. I realize this is probably a unique issue to this particular quest, but any thoughts?
What about the watch? The scenario said that the watch had been paid off-- a clever side detail explaining their unavailability/absence at the time of the murder. All well and good, I suppose. When I wanted to provide an “in game” reason for the PCs to take on this quest first (the approaching of the date listed on the back of the map), I used this detail to provide an explanation (and the good fortune that 1 PC knew the orc language, necessitating the PC strangers to have to trust and work together). One or two of the posts, however, made me fear that I had inadvertently created a red herring, putting too much emphasis on this tiny detail. My lesson here is, be careful with information you highlight, because the PCs will automatically assume that it is of paramount importance. A good lesson for any kind of GMing, but a particular concern I think in PbP where PCs can go back and read a throw away comment (or read into a throw away comment).
Setting Sun I tried hard to make the timeline work in order to have the PCs arrive at the graveyard around sun set, and then I completely failed to describe the sun/shadows when the PCs arrived at the graveyard. When I did so, it made the solution to the riddle all the more obvious. While that is not necessarily a bad thing, I think the scenario would have been better if I had made certain to include that information at the outset.
Revealing the Map The first map mistake (I will discuss another later) I think I made a mistake in presenting the map from the outset, prior to meeting Rhiannon. I think that I and the PCs would have been better served just by using descriptions of landmarks (the body/pedestal, the nearby tree, the spired mausoleum, the Tullivor tomb) rather than having the PCs placed on the map. If a map were necessary, I could have used it for just myself to track the locations of PCs based on their descriptions in posts, rather than reveal it so soon. I think my revealing the map so soon gave a false sense that combat was imminent and, thus, slowed things down.
Those are the set-up issues. I welcome any thoughts/critiques. I’d like to think I am pretty thick skinned, so don’t be afraid to hurt my feelings. I do want to improve.
I will post additional challenges/mistakes/thoughts that arose while running the scenario at a later time.
It was a pleasure GMing for your all. I look forward to the remaining quests. Is anyone in a rush for their Chronicle? Otherwise, it will likely be a few weeks.
The game may be on pause for a couple of hours. I am having some issues today, depression goblin has hit me upside the head. I will do my best to get an update up in the next few hours, but it may be tomorrow.
Here is my other bundle of thoughts on the running the quest, for those who may find it helpful
Info Dump The scenario had lots of things to examine in the graveyard, so I decided to put it all out there at once. This was probably a mistake as it seemed to slow down play and maybe even provided a little analysis paralysis. Maybe if I had broken it out more into digestible pieces, it would have been smoother. The problem there, then, is having the party focus on only one “lead” at the risk of having them ignore the others. Yet, maybe that isn’t a bad thing—especially in a replayable scenario where, if something is missed, you get the joy of discovering new the next time you play.
Getting someone to move the body I thought getting the riddle out in the open was crucial to understanding Rhiannon’s motivation. I even built into the slides a shape to remove to reveal the talking bust, but no one removed it. Perhaps I should have been more clear? Maybe, the party had played too much Pathfinder, where 9 times out of 10, trying to remove a dead body results in an ambush?
Where on the map? I mentioned this issue as part of set up, but it caused problems here too. In a PbP, when people are not moving simultaneously, it is difficult to know where the PCs are. Having them just move the tokens around helps somewhat, but what to you do if they walk by the hiding Rhiannon? My ultimate solution was to go into rounds. This helped, but it made the PCs much more cautious—as they anticipated a fight—and slowed things down. Perhaps, I could have just said, place yourself, then place arrows for the next 2 or 3 rounds of movement. Then, once Rhiannon was discovered, I would know everyone’s starting positions.
”Diplomacy” during Initiative When the party first met Rhiannon, they were in Initiative. How do you think that went? I liked that it upped the tension, but it did make things slower and seemed to require Rhiannon to answer each PC in turn, a somewhat unnatural speech pattern. Also, though I put her readied actions in spoilers, I think it was still clear that she intended to attack. Again, maybe that isn’t a bad thing.
Roleplaying a super low Bluff I probably should have had Rhiannon take 10 on the bluff, but I rolled it and got a 6. I found it difficult to play her in a way that didn’t make her cartoonishly stupid, but readily conveyed her intent. I am in the middle of running a Starfinder adventure, where it seems that I kept the NPC’s cards a little too close to the vest, perhaps it was a subconscious response to feeling that I was being too obvious with the NPC’s motivations in this game.
Human to Elf This was just a flat-out mistake. When I realized it, I fessed up, but kept going “as is”. I generally think that that is the way to go in Society play, both PbP and face to face, but I would be interested in hearing the counter arguments (or pointed to official rulings that say I can’t do that—in which case I will stop).
Tomb’s Interior/ Rhiannon Entering the Tomb My out-and-out BIGGEST mistake. The scenario doesn’t focus much on the tomb’s interior, so in prep, I didn’t either. And when the party entered the tomb in numbers, no alarms went off because I remembered there was a map pack to the Graveyard map that could stand in for the interior. But this was a mistake for two reasons. 1) The interior described in the module is much more crowded and 2) I allowed Rhiannon to enter the tomb. Once I saw Initiative coming and realized that she had no way out, I knew it would be a short fight. Her whole build is designed around mounted combat. She never had a chance. What can I say? I should have thought this one through more. I suppose I might have bene able to tone down her character to get her out alive, but I think at that time, the party had her pretty well pegged (that 6 on the Bluff again). The only saving grace, really, is that this is a replayable scenario, so you can fight her in all of her glory some other time.
Roleplaying trained animals This was a tougher thing for me to do than I thought it would be. I debated having the animals run in and try to save their mistress, but I am not sure a horse and hawk would be so loyal, so I had them wait for the command. I also didn't think that once she was dispatched that the creatures would choose to fight to the death. Besides, at that point, the battle was a foregone conclusion, so I saw no reason to prolong it (and upset Paemil and some other PCs in the process).
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@ All - I will be traveling out of town starting Wednesday, 5/23, and won't return home until the following Wednesday, 5/30. I hope to still post one a day, but my post times, post rate, and verbosity of PC will be minimizes during that time. I will leave botting instructions before I go or, if folks prefer, I am happy to let another player bot me during that time.
I was thinking the exact same thing.
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Valen,
I thought you did a lot of things well on the last scenario. Among those, the transition into diplomacy/initiative added a lot to the interaction. I might have nixed the spoilers entirely, and just left descriptions of her posture. I don't believe the GM owes the players in a PBP everything in writing. Rolls obviously belong in spoilers- but a lot of other thing (like readied actions) that the PC's would have no way of knowing. I would keep it the way you ran it.
In regards to her low bluff- I think it was played well enough. We knew she was lying- but I am not sure how you disguise her intentions anyways. Once you see her hawk and a successful survival check, then you know she killed the other NPC regardless of what she rolls. I liked that you put the sense motive +DC in spoilers. Two players had already rolled sense motive checks, so it makes sense. I would just worry that putting it in a spoiler 'forces' everyone else to try and sense motive. SM is a skill I always want my players to initiate during an interaction/encounter.
Thanks for saving Paemil from his own self and allowing him to heal the horse. He was dreading hurting them even from the moment initiative was rolled.
Things that I might have wanted to see done differently:
1. I agree that the graveyard felt very one track. Perhaps you could divide the graveyard into several different areas ("Spired Mausolem", "Open grave", "Statue", etc) from the beginning and ask where people want to investigate/go?
2.Maps on PBP are awesome and awful at the same time. Most people don't seem to move their character during RP/description scenes and that causes a lot of issues. I like your solution regarding asking for 3 rounds of moves, if possible, to help keep things moving. You were also pretty clear to the group about needing to move their markers (to a somewhat limited effect).
3. going back to #1 a little, I had a little trouble figuring out what I could (or couldn't) do. I think a post with a summary info (here is what you know, here is what you haven't done/need to do) might help get people to interact with bust or some of the other triggers that we as a group seemed to miss.
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I am also very happy to hear feedback on my play/post style- especially with an Animal Companion. I don't use them often, so I am still trying to figure out the best way to make sure Lumi is contributing to the RP/feel of Paemil without her taking away from the PC or other players.
I am still relatively new to pbp and am always looking for good feedback for how to be a better player. I definitely want to be the player type that when my name pops up on game lists that the GM/other players look forward to playing with. Valen specifically has seen me in a couple different scenarios as a GM and player.
Thanks for the feedback, Paemil! Hopefully, you've seen in the Starfinder game I am GMing with your character that I've already tried some different approaches as to tackling the map (although, since that game has a "deadline", I've been focusing more on keeping things moving).
Of the few characters, I've seen you play, Paemil is easily my favorite (although, again, given the nature of the other games, the pace of this game allows greater time/focus on role-play than the others--which I enjoy). Lumi definitely feels more like a "companion" than an extension of Paemil's character, which I appreciate and find interesting to read and engage with.
I, for one, also appreciate the use of different characters/languages as they seem to make the world more 'real'. Also, while Paemil is generally on the lower end of word usage, I think you are doing a good job of conveying his motivations through word selection, inner dialogue, and deeds.
My quest is done. A few thoughts on my section.
1. It was a bit rough. I lost track of the thread for a couple of days when some things happened in the outside world. Apologies for that.
2. The Atomie (her name is Sicklewit) was hiding in the rafters of the inn. Birdie considers her to be a house spirit, but she is really a kleptomaniac. She wanted the lantern as knew about it. She has +20 to stealth, so that is what the weird perception check was in the inn, but none of you could beat her 30-odd stealth roll.
3. Thought, constructive criticism etc welcome.
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Functional question: Can I apply a boon that I got to my character between these sessions? Or do I need to wait until the session reports out as a whole? I picked up a fun boon for Lumi that I wouldn't mind putting into play (its mostly cosmetic, but she does pick up a +1d6 fire attack 1xday)
My gut says I need to wait until all 6 are done before applying the chronicle/boon to Paemil.
Paemil, my thinking is that you won't be able to apply a new chronicle while you're still working on this one, but I'll definitely defer to more experienced GMs first.
I have my slide deck created for Colony; I'd like to take the evening to re-read the scenario and we can probably plan on kicking off on Tuesday for that.
Do I need to do anything to take over the thread? How about getting my slides linked at the top?
Transferring the thread from one GM to the next is something done by Paizo and can take a few days. If you link it here I will put it up the top.
Thanks for the reminder. One of the first things I'm noticing as a GM is that it's incredibly difficult to keep all elements of a combat straight... and this is just a simple 1st level altercation.
Tabletop is easier, as you resolve each action individually at that PCs turn in initiative. Here on PbP, you're trying to sum up everything that's happened in the round at once. It's a lot to keep track of!
Yep. And when your player puts things in their rolls without explanation, it makes it even harder. I am slowly learning to include more/too much detail in the posts to help the GM keep everything straight. Sorry I didn’t do that this time!
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Ok everyone so here's what's going on with me...I took a job over the summer to help 'get ahead' on some bills. Although the job pays excellent the hours are brutal and it leaves me exhausted at the end of the day. I would still very much like to play with this group. However, I'm afraid at the pace of play we've become accustom too...that I'll ....drag... the whole group to a stop by my slow post rate over the next couple of months.
So here's what I propose...
Silver Hex is modular..so I can have Polo drop-out of the next part (crash)..and hopefully find a GM to run it for me sometime....
Also there is no order in which the adventures must be run so the last part Silverhex could be run before my adventure webs...
The long and short of it is...I won't be able to post regularly until September...the best I could do is once or twice a week...so hoping you let me bow out for the next couple adventures and then I could run Webs in mid september.
hoping you let me bow out for the next couple adventures and then I could run Webs in mid september.
I'm fine with this. Jobs should be priority and a it's good to know your limits. (I have trouble on that front at times). Good luck with your job and looking forward to the next time we can share a table!
My concern with waiting until mid-Sept to run Webs is dead time. I suspect that we will get through both of the next two sections long before then, and we can't play these characters anywhere else until we assign the Chronicle Sheet. In that case, I would almost suggest issuing the chronicle with 5 quests; we would all still earn full xp, prestige, and gold; we would just miss one boon. It's a pretty nice boon, though.
Also, while we're allowed to run the quests in any order from a mechanical standpoint, it doesn't make a lot of sense from a story standpoint to run the final quest anywhere but the final slot. It's really because of this that I'm not a fan of this idea.
Collectively, the Quests tell a cohesive story that the players can experience in any order, though it is recommended the PCs use the Silverhex Quest as a finale.
I do agree that if you can only run Polo once or twice a week, it doesn't really make sense to stay in the game. Polo took one player-run action during Colony; I botted him for the rest of the chase scene and he delayed through the entire combat.
We do have 7 players involved in this run; who wasn't going to be GMing a session? Would you be willing to step up and run Webs in Polo's absence? I think we should be fine with 5 PCs in each session, tbh.
Scenario Notes
This was fun to run, and challenging! You guys did well with the various challenges, and I enjoyed seeing your creative solutions during the chase. The chase scene, in fact, is the reason that I wanted to run this particular quest for my session, and it didn't disappoint.
Mechanically, you needed a certain number of successes to avoid the priest getting a boost in the combat. You got the successes that you needed, and that was a big help. He would have had a mage armor spell active otherwise, and that made a difference, particularly vs. Tsuk's killing blow.
GM Reflection
I feel embarrassed at the number of mistakes I made during this Quest from a rules perspective. My major takeaway from this is that it is really challenging to keep everything straight. I've been GMing various forms of this game for nearly 30 years, and it's never been harder than it is here. And this was just 1st level!
I think part of that is that it's PFS, so I feel like I can't get it wrong. (In a home game, in realtime, I can make a ruling in the moment to keep us moving, even if that ruling is mechanically wrong. In PFS the rules have to be fairly and consistently applied, and by the book; I can't just make a guess and move on.)
It took me over an hour to compose some of the round-by-round posts. I'd read everyone's actions, and taken it all in, but then an hour later I'd forgotten that one line from somebody's post and didn't account for that mechanical effect in the final post. It's frustrating to me, because once it's pointed out (Lumi's trip, for example) I remember having read and mentally noted it.
Still, personal disappointments aside, I had a lot of fun, and I'm just going to keep working on it and trying to get better!
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I don't remember who was out as GM- I was sorta in the mindset that I was doing Silverhex- but I could run Web's if that would be better for the group.
Either way, I am sad to see Polo leave!
If we get you a chronicle sheet now, I would be happy to run a silverhex and graft you into the 3 scenarios that you would be missing.
Give me a couple days to read and prep and I'll run Webs.
Thanks Helikon. The next is Webs? Shruti, would you like to run that one?
I'd be happy to run Silverhex! Seems all too appropriate for the witch player to run the quest with "hex" in the title. Hah!
Sounds Great! I'll have gameplay, maps, and first post up by tonight!
Ietsuna- Can you add the link from my profile to the top of the page?
Thanks!
I am heading to camp with my son this weekend. I will be available to post sometime Monday, US East Coast time. Feel free to bot Razisus.
He will attack the nearest spider on his next turn with his mace. And then likely will continue to do so each round if he can.
There are no worries about the slower play. I just wanted to make sure that I wasn't playing/writing people out of the quest.
Update coming later this morning.
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Hey all. So we are almost at our final quest and the issue of chronicles and reporting looms. When I did this last time we each did a chronicle for 1 other person. I am happy to do chronicles up for everyone, but more important is reporting. We should each report the game. We each get a table of credit so we all should report it. It will pop an error but that is just the Paizo system not coping with reporting quests or evergreens very well. Sound fair?
Sounds excellent!
This will be the first time I report a game; can somebody walk me through the process?
Thanks!
Thanks for tolerating me learning the ropes. That was my first pbp GM experience- although I am now running a full table of a different scenario.
I certainly welcome all feedback- either here or on PM. Please let me know how I can continue to improve and be a better GM moving forward.
My observations:
#1: I didn't know how to run the first combat- whether to drop you all right next to the spiders, or whether to put you at the edge of the map and let you move about/explore before being dropped into initiative. I even considered rolling initiative the moment you stepped on the map. My biggest concern was the time it would take before combat, especially with everyone in initiative (so person by person moving) and being cautious because of the initiative.
#2: I was always unsure when to push the party forward or wait to hear more voices. I didn't want to advance the story without everyone being on board (or with 2 of the 5 posting a lot but not hearing from others)- but I also know that many players (myself included) will read an update and if they don't have anything to add wont post. I am struggling with this in my other scenario too- how much info can I dump at a time, and how long should I be giving people opportunities to weigh in on the scenario direction (example: questions to a VC) before cutting their autonomy in the situation. Ultimately I want to play quick and I am trying to post twice a day so I run the risk of outplaying my table.
Regarding #2, ideally the players drive this. As a player, the best practice when they have no action to add to what's going on is to post their inaction:
George stands idly by, letting brighter minds handle the negotiation.
Just a one-liner like this lets the GM and other players know that the player has seen the posts and is choosing to have the character take no actions. It also maintains the story immersion by actually roleplaying the character's lack of action. This way, there's no question about whether the table is ready to move on or not.
Now, obviously, this doesn't happen all the time, so it's up to the GM to decide when everyone has been given enough time to post.
A common rule is the "Rule of Two/Three" (it can change based on the GM). This is a PbP specific rule (guidance, really) that suggests the GM move the action forward when two or three players have all agreed on an action. This lets the table keep moving when otherwise it could lag while waiting for all voices to chime in. (I like three for this in PFS, because what happens in PFS can have permanent consequences for PCs, so waiting for three voices helps ensure things don't get rushed before people can voice their opinions.)
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You did very well RxGM! Thanks for running that quest for us!
#1: I thought you handled this well, as dropping us into initiative instantly ratcheted up the tension and made us really think about where we were moving. I was definitely excited to see where the spiders would drop.
#2: I think this is one of the major challenges of PbP from both a player and GM perspective. As a player, sometimes things in RL get busy and it's hard to put in even a one-liner post like Zin suggested, and when it's a scene that you would really love for your character to be a part of, that becomes pretty challenging. From a GM perspective, you do want to give people space to get their posts in, but don't want to hold things up. I like to go by 12-24 hour periods when I can. That should give people some time to see the posts that are up and try to contribute.
With Webs complete, we're now ready to move on to the final quest in our series here: Silverhex. I'm working on getting that together today (a mixed blessing courtesy of my car having issues, preventing me from making it to work), and I should have our intro post for the final quest up a little bit later!