Sounds good.
I just informed my players to change their avatars. They protested a bit, but I explained the reasoning and I think they'll comply.
I think there was some misunderstanding. I meant that my ideal version of this would be if the Tears used their normal aliases and just switched out their avatar picture. It's not like their Tear number is anymore known than their names. =)
I'm willing to give the reverse a shot if you and your players think that'll improve the experience.
Oh, there was. I thought you wanted the pictures.
I have already instructed them to change the pictures, so I'd like to not switch it again. If it gets to be too much just let me know and I'll do another change.
Okay, we'll give it a shot.
All my more active players have checked in. I'm trying to contact one more, but we can continue without him.
I know we finally got the ball rolling but Yolanda hit some heavy personal stuff. He's been out the last few days dealing with it. I spoke to him today and he's trying to sort things out but I don't know when he'll be back. If he hasn't posted by tomorrow I'll just NPC Yolanda.
I don't know what's up with the rest of my players. I may need to recruit some replacements. =/
When it rains, it pours, eh?
Choon, what information is publicly known about the Order? One of my players is Localing.
The Order is a privately run rehabilitation center and low-security penitentiary focusing on community service as a means of expunging criminal offences. It's managing membership is called the Order of Forgotten Sorrows. Anyone can technically be sentenced here, and it has cells for long term incarceration. However, the order specializes in low security rehabilitation, basic military training, and street-level law enforcement.
Once a sentence with the Order is complete, any and all reference to the crime for which you were sentenced is expunged. The only remaining record of the offence is kept in a singularly massive tome guarded by the Order of Forgotten Sorrows. Failure to complete a sentence or poor behavior during one's sentence, will almost certainly result in severe legal backlash, as such a failing is never removed from the offenders permanent record, and serves as a serious aggravator for all future offences.
Members of this order are called "Tears", and are referred to by inmate number at all times.
Upon being sentenced to the Order, all official connections to one's family, work, and social circles are severed (though some contact through letters is permitted for good behavior). Members serve out their term by performing various duties depending on the nature of their offence. All activities are supervised by an attendant "Sorrow". Upon completion of their sentence, the member is restored to society as if they had gone on a journey, leave of absence, or vacation.
Order of Forgotten Sorrows
Any member of the Order of Tears who finds his place among the Order of Tears and wishes not to leave, or any citizen who qualifies, may be inducted into the Order of Forgotten Sorrows as long as they pass extensive reviews. Upon induction, they are declared officially dead, with all that entails. They forgo everything, including their names, and become a "Sorrow", with a chosen name usually representing the life events that lead them to join. They wear nearly identical full-facial masks and full black robes when with anyone except other order members, and rarely speak. This makes gender and race nearly indistinguishable. The only noticeable differentiation is in body type, the style of the mask, (which denotes rank within the Order), and that Sorrow's chosen name which is embroidered along the collar and edges of their robes in silver thread.
Nice. What parts of that are scarcer known?
I'd say something like...
DC 5: The Order info about masks and only using numbers in public. Each also bears a conspicuous tattoo themed around their crime, tough it may or may not be visible. They always have a Sorrow nearby. Sorrows are no push overs. Don't make one angry.
DC 10: Their basic connection to the Legal system and their technical independence from that system.
DC 15: General info on the Order of Forgotten Sorrows, Specific info on their legal connections and the fact they failing in your service is a serious aggravator to any crime committed at any point in the future.
DC 20: Specific info on the Sorrows, including the practice of the Order keeping a secret record of all wrong doing forgiven which acts as a safeguard against anyone seeking to abuse their legal power of forgiveness. Anyone caught abusing the system can be brought up again on past charges and it is not considered Double Jeopardy because the past offence was expunged and "forgotten" by the courts.
Is there an ETA for the rest of your group, Feral?
Real time or game time?
Real time, so I can pass it along to my players.
They're at a good place now actually. I figured we'd give Yolanda and the Tears a few moments to argue before starting the festivities.
They'll show up at the start of round 3.
And we're off!
Choon, I noticed you seem to like google draw for maps. Do you mind putting one together for this? This place should be pretty big 40 x 40 or so. If you can find the tavern flip mat that would work too.
I'm going to get a tracking spreadsheet together.
I'll try to find the flip mat, but I'm not sure I have it. I'll try to get something up this afternoon/evening. If all else fails I'll just draw up something myself.
One of the curses of most Pbp is the need to constantly re-recruit for some spots, hope you have better luck Feral!
I'll handle the enemy actions this round.
This separate alias thing isn't working for me. I had to open three pages on my phone to find Freiya's will save and when I did the 'X, Y, and Z are up' section of my post I had to reference the initiative block about ten times to sort out who was who and who needed to act still.
Edit: It occurs to me that Frieya's link is in her header. Having the relevant stats in the header would be even better.
What do you want in the header? I'm happy to set it however you like.
Let's start with the stuff in your normal Pelgrev header.
Roger. I think that should do it.
Thanks.
My rouge, Johnny, has returned from sudden and serious sickness. He should be joining soon, maybe in time to save my poor tears.
Just for the record the Aspis guys were not the reason for the failure..it was whoever summoned all the creatures...and I have some theories on that.
I'll also talk to Freia, if you like, as well. It didn't seem bad in the gameplay thread, but you clearly weren't expressing your feelings there.
Good gosh! You're getting every little rules glitches and personality displays I had not yet runinto. I've also discovered that you and I check at about the same time. I've come in three times now where you've updated within the 5 mins past.
With Tobaris gone we really should lay down some guidelines for what kind of PvP this campaign is going to be about. I don’t think he defined things super well and as a result there’s been some confusion (toward unhappy ends) on both sides here. I’m leaning towards the competitive indirect PvP (like what’s going to happen at the end of the Siege). What were your thoughts?
That's what I've been saying to my players. Standoffs, threats, posturing, and the like are all good RP PvP, but I think we should provide good NPC's for the PC's to do their pounding on. Indirect PvP will be best, I agree. I'm unsure how to justify this in game as this is seeming to boil down to Aspis vs the Order. (I have a RSS feed on House Caedmon and they've not posted much recently.) This could give the game a cops and robbers feel which naturally lends itself to non-lethal damage and PC's in jail. We would need some kind of constant, elusive threat to the city in order to make a non-aggression pact seem viable.
Sorry been real sick this last week. Feeling better but not sure when and if I can bust in.
Go ahead and act now. We'll say you were there all along and biding your time. =)
It looks like we're going to NPC Ariana. What should she do?
Grease as many foes as possible, essentially completing her last post.
Ah, I am sorry that I have forgotten to post. My game has unfortunately collapsed from inactivity/lack of momentum. Good luck with everything, and I'm happy to see that this is working out. :)
A few things:
1) I finally got a chance to chat with Yolanda’s player. The hostile channeling was appropriate for his character but he never intended to create overmuch strife. He has a better grasp on the kind of ‘conflict’ we’re looking for going forward.
2) I’m still waiting on an update toward getting the campaign moved to my name for informational linking purposes. Last campaign I took over only took a couple days to make the change. I’m not sure what the hold-up is. I’ll send a bump email today.
3) The Tear # XX thing is very much not working for me – especially when folks refer to each other by number in narrative. It’s narrative folks, the audience knows who is who. The DM doesn’t, and shouldn’t need to keep a cheat sheet by his desk in order to make sense of your posts. Please just use your normal aliases in the future and refer to each other by name in narrative or at the very least give me an OOC translation somewhere in your post.
On a separate note, I’d like to ask everyone to take a step back and trust Choon and myself to give you guys a fun and fair game. Exceedingly rarely will any of these crossover objectives depend on a purely combat-related goal. The nature of the groups would make a such a combat horrifically lopsided without some heavy handicaps.
With the number of criminal organizations and evil cults running around Magnimar, I imagine the actual legal organizations are largely overwhelmed. How do you suggest we make this narrative work?
I've been thinking on this since Jen announced that the thread survival rate had dropped to 50%. I think the "Overwhelmed legal system" thing will need to be a major theme. Otherwise, why hire (or contract with) the Order?
I have aleady hinted at this. The murders were essentially uninvestigated when they arrived at the ships. The absence of noble representation can allow us to take this in a very "Law vs. Corruption" direction. I haven't given them much respect as Lawmen so far, so if the Aspis ignores them it'll kindof be par for the course (from my perspective).
I have a slight concern that the Aspis will be more free in their options because they are the "Unlawful" party. I could counter this by making my team the "Black Ops" of the Order (though this may stretch credibility with the easily identifiable silver mask thing).
Still thinking things through. What were your thoughts?
Whatever we decide, it’s important both parties understand that they’re not going to be able to just throw their weight around to accomplish their goals when it comes to the other group.
Don’t we still have lots of lead they could investigate?