Well, I'm in for te long haul.
So am I.
Me too. You're running a great game. Breaks when you need them are no big deal.
Me too, most likely.
And Marcus? Anyone seen him recently?
We haven't heard from him in quite awhile, I was planning on having him sit out next time we get back to Oleg's. I can bring him back in quite easily if he suddenly pops back in, and he's free to do so anytime.
That's actually one of the nice aspects of Kingmaker. Easier than most games working people in and out. I'm running a Skull and Shackles game right now and your only choices would be to GM NPC them or have them meet with a grisly end which doesn't leave much opportunity to slip back in.
Challenge to Gorum to try to tear down his kingdom even as he builds it, from a worshipper of Gorum.... awesome.
Impressive!
Thank you, I thought it time for a role-playing post, I've been distracted by RL. I'm seeing Gorum as not a vain god, he doesn't care about praise from his followers, just passion. A god of chaos and destruction yet he insists on goals even though goals are meaningless.
I also see Gorum choosing most of his miracle workers, most priests of Gorum, that chose him, are warriors or experts or the like. His miracles are bestowed not for formal worship but passionate deeds, not necessarily in his name either. Training helps but after the choosing not before.
Anton is about himself really, he defines himself through deeds and realtionships but it's about him, first and last, just not in the way most would think of it.
I'm gonna have little to no internet access for the next week and a half or so. I apologize for the radio silence till I get a computer again.
I guess well have to keep things up. Thanks for the warning!
Back. New post up in just a moment.
Arkady is kind of thinking about taking Skill Focus (Diplomacy) as his next feat, just because it looks like he needs it so badly :(
Haha... well remember I'm going to give a few small bonus feats for certain things, though you guys haven't managed any yet. A couple are Diplomatic bonuses *cryptic GM grin*
Do we have a chance to do a bit of shopping and grab some more supplies from Oleg's before setting out? I realize we won't have time to commission stuff or order anything from Restov, but I'm presuming there's some stuff available, yes?
I hope I'm not playing Arkady as too intelligent here. Generally I've seen him as not so much stupid as slow -- given time to plan, or ground he's familiar with (like light cavalry tactics or being a basic noble), he can do pretty well, but he's not at all good when it comes to unexpected things, seeing behind the scenes, finding the non-obvious cause, or dealing with the unfamiliar.
(I'm also curious, out of character, if Kheldor deliberately mis-read Arkady, or just didn't get it. Not that Arkady would know one way or the other, unless he at least takes a rank in Sense Motive, but _I'm_ curious.)
Actually, *I*, the player mis read. You were either a bit to vague for me, or I was too tired when I read and replied. Not really sure which it was. I was going to make an in game reply to help explain his stance, but the game has gotten away from him...
OK, thanks. Arkady thought he was being clear enough, but of course he's good at inspiring speeches, less so on subtle motivations. :)
I think you're playing Arkady great. Slow is exactly how I see him. And somewhat oblivious.
I'll wait till morning to post again. If we don't find some bandits to use along the way, Kata's view will be to use Linier and Devlin to deliver the alcohol. Which others may not like :)
Including Linier and Devlin :(
Yup, I'm deliberately playing Arkady as somewhat oblivious, particularly to social cues, as opposed to military ones.
That's pretty much what I'm getting from him so... good job. Also, forgot to ask, how much food are you guys buying?
We probably won't have time to hunt on this scouting trip, so let's say a week's worth of food for six people (Anton, Arkady, Kata, Kheldor, and the two retainers). That should take us down there and give us a couple days to work, and then either we can hunt on the way back from success, or we'll be riding too fast to need food anyway.
That sounds like a good plan to me. Yes, Kata will be a lot quicker to use every tool at our disposal. Even our companions. Of course, better still if we find a bandit to charm along the way.
Good plan, as best we can do with what we have, it appears that Kesten will be with us, does he provide his own food?
Good job on having Arkady misunderstand Anton. I think Arkady sees Anton as a good person rather than as a good companion. It's far from true of course, Anton cares nothing for good for goodness sake! :)
One of the jobs of a paladin is to see the goodness in everyone else, in hopes that they will eventually come to see it too ;)
You're still alive Marcus. Welcome back. I think we left you at Oleg's :)
Welcome back!
Welcome back, Marcus. Left an opening for you in my post, if OK by you and the DM.
Hey, it's good to see you back Marcus. Feel free to rejoin as soon as you're ready. I'll wait a bit for you.
So I know this is too late, but you all realize that the same reservations we have about assaulting the Stag Lord in his keep, are exactly the same reasons why I said we should work on reinforcing the outpost??
They might have superior numbers, but those numbers aren't as effective when the enemy is behind the walls of some sort of base. Choke points, high ground, etc are all our allies.
Unfortunately, I couldn't justify knowing this in game, so I couldn't really sway the group from our current, very bad course of action.
We're not planning to assault the Stag Lord, we're planning to scout him out, with the awareness that things could go bad any moment. Arkady, at least, is not planning an immediate attack, though he might take advantage of a weakness if it's revealed. I thought I had made that clear earlier. If not, sorry.
Forty guys would be a bit much even for all of us in Oleg's fort. If he has less than that, then forting up becomes a viable strategy for us, assuming we have enough supplies to outlast them. (Another question Arkady didn't get the answer to, IIRC.)
Hold on. There's what, 5 of us PCs right? Plus about four combat capable main NPCs. That's 9. How many npc guard types did we get? I don't know if a number was ever given, but even if we got only five or so, that gives us 14.
Vs 40 on the field of battle would be a massacre. But we would be battling from inside the outpost. Where we could have cover to attack from. High ground to make it difficult to hit us, and add range to our attacks. One entrance, with which to pick off attackers as they come in.
Trust me, its a very viable strategy. Go watch any of the LotR movies, you'll see what I mean.
Also I was referring to yours and Marcus' OOC comments, wherein you agreed that its a bad idea to attempt an attack...which I understand we aren't doing...
Because of all the advantages we would have had we played defense...
Have to echo no plans on a frontal assault. We'll either find a weakness to exploit or we won't. If we do, our action is entirely dependent on what that is.
If we find a sneaky way in, what is wrong with picking off a number of people and then falling back once things become overwhelming. Depending on how we approach it, they might not even know we're there for a long time.
If we don't find a way in and he sends out a small force, we'll pick them off, get more intelligence about the fort and be in a better position for the next decisions. Chances are, that will present an opportunity to either infiltrate the fort or sow some havoc with a tactic like sending in the alcohol.
If he sends out his giant force, we retreat, send someone back to warn Oleg's. We can then either harass them in the woods or stay away and harass them once they go after Oleg's. I'd rather be outside with the ability to pick them off than trapped inside.
Edit: From a metagaming standpoint, I'll also add that I trust Ryuko. RPGs are cooperative storytelling between a GM and the players, not about the GM trying to kill us all (well, not usually). Maybe I misread his intent, but I believe Ryuko was trying to get us moving toward the fort. I'm confident that unless we do something completely stupid (like a full-on frontal assault), he'll give us an opportunity for corrective action. I'm all for playing out the personalities of our characters, but I don't think holing up at Oleg's is the intent here.
For the record, my initial comment above, was in direct response to Marcus and Arkady making Out Of Character comments about their reservations.
I just figured that instead of clogging up the IG thread, I would take it over here and try to explain my stance OOC, since I've done the best I could IC.
Also, at this point, if we stick more or less with the plan I put forth, and the rest of you expanded on, I have no issues in or out of character.
OOC, the problem with 'forting' up is that the Stag Lord has no reason to attack us. While we're waiting for him to attack us, he can rove up and down the countryside and even besiege us from afar, knocking out any of our supply routes.
We will need to take the fight to him, but only once we've a) got a bit more powerful and b) hopefully have picked off/converted some of his minions.
Also, some of us have to sleep, while the 40 could pick their moment for attacking, and attacking with (say) fire arrows in darkness might be very bad for us.
Mostly Arkady wants to find out if the Stag Lord really has those numbers (in which case we would be well-advised to send a messenger to Restov asking for help), or he doesn't (in which case we can fort up and hold them off till they melt away, if we have enough food inside). In either case, we might be able to ambush or defeat some small groups of bandits and so tilt the odds.
As Kata said, trust me guys. If you're about to do something incredibly stupid I'll tell you, and otherwise I have no intention of getting you dead. There is a quite deadly trap around here but I think you'll manage to avoid it and otherwise as long as you don't throw yourselves at the fort you should be fine.
Really, I mostly have the Stag Lord pull a threat to avoid the stereotypical "Orcus on his Throne" problem. I dislike villains who don't react in any way to the actions of the heroes (which is why I'll be modifying the second book intensely) and as written the Stag Lord holes himself up and sits about for months waiting on the heroes as they butcher his men.
I trusted that Ryuko wasn't trying to get us killed. As a player I noticed that it was an off-stage warning by an NPC to NPC and a fight between NPC that had Kesten, an NPC, to decide to launch an attack on the Stag Lord with our help. That's a big hint by a DM that maybe we should be more proactive, at least that's how I took it.
This is GenCon week, so I expect to be unable to post Wed-Sun. Please GM NPC as needed to keep things moving.
Apologies for my abscence, I've been having pains in my side for a few weeks now and upon visiting a doctor discovered I had appendicitis. I was in the hospital for a bit and then went into surgery. Now that I'm back home I'll be posting again. Just making sure you know what's up, post up soon.
Whoa, glad things are ok Ryuko. I'm back and will be posting sometime today.
Glad to hear you're better!
Still on vacation for a few days.
Sorry for not posting here sooner.
Best wishes for your recovery I had that too when I was a kid, no fun.
Have computer issues, am going to reformat drive, may take a day or two to get back posting.
OK, getting a little worried here; it's been a week since the last post. Labor day weekend, I did not think much of it but now it's been too long.
If you don't have a post for the gameplay, please, post here to show you are still in this. I've seen to many PbP die by the sudden and unannounced stoppage of posts. Everybody that's still here please rise their hand. ;)
Growing quite concerned now, Ryuko hasn't posted here for more than two weeks and about that anywhere. I know he has serious medical problems but the pace of this game has ground to a halt. Haven't heard from Kheldor or Marcus for a while either. Is this going PbP still going on or should I count it as inactive? Please consider this a another call for a check-in. I'm in and still checking and will for a while yet.
I'm around, somehow missed ur post on the 6th. Not the first time I've had that happen either.
Three weeks have passed with no word from Ryuko. I must assume that real life has spirited him off. I see this campaign as in a coma now. I'll keep checking every few days for the rest of the month, then maybe weekly or so thereafter. However I'll consider Anton available for other campaigns after month's end.
I am really sorry to see this die, it was slow but fun and a good group. Thanks for the memories but I have little hope now of a revival, all other games that go this long without a DM, that I've seen have died.