The Memory of a Lost World

Game Master DM-Beowulf

Congratulations, guys. I'm excited to see where your characters take my story. For now, though, there is discussion.

First, I would like to see your initiative, perception, saves, HP, AC, CMD, and anything else you might think I will find helpful in the class/levels section of your profile.

Next, I will be discussing with all of you individually any small changes to your characters that might be needed. And this will be all of you over the next day or so, so just a heads up.

Anything I'm missing? Don't think so. Carry on.

I'm thinking of making a separate alias for Stryke, like Mr. Saturday did with his shadow, and then linking to it in my thingy. Sound good?

Also, anyone else having an issue with a sidebar ad thing opening every damn time they load a page on paizo? It's been happening since I let Beowulf use his account on my computer ten minutes ago, and I wanted to make sure if it was his fault before I kicked in his door seeking vengeance.

Oh, and it's probably worth asking; would you guys prefer a google docs map for combat, or a more abstract view based on description alone?

google maps, definitely.

Also, a neat trick with post apocalyptic games- You can use Google Earth and Google Street View to give us a really good idea of what the surroundings look like in most places. You can take the basic existing surroundings and say "that Circle K is a partially caved in husk that looks pretty unstable. Those cars on the street have long since been looted, rusted or caught fire."

You can even find areas that already look post apocalyptic and link them as here's where you guys are. Then we can get a full 360 panorama of how bad things are.

There are plenty of places that already look pretty apocalyptic. Take a Google tour of Detroit. It's scary.

DM, it looks like you haven't edited the Current Players in the Campaign Info tab. If you click the edit button, you can mark everyone who didn't make it into the game as not active, and this game won't keep updating in their campaigns tab.

Right, thanks. I'm getting caught up PMing you guys and finally getting this show on the road.

Great idea with Google Maps. I'll have to give that a try. Perhaps next post I'll include that.

Saturdays idea seems REALLY good though I have no personal preference, ideally it would be whatever makes it easiest on you. I'm going to have Harley rolled in with Cassandra for the time being since 'she' is not exceptionally autonomous. I will get on the HP/AC/Ext right now

This is a great group of very interesting characters. I'm quite happy to be a part of it, and I'm certainly looking forward to seeing where the story takes us!

Oxana's sheet is 98% done, I'm just hung up about a campaign trait to choose for her. At any rate, glad to be here and to play with you all. And google maps is fine with me.

My tabletop group began calling this NPC K-dizzle almost as soon as they met him and I'm not 100% sure if I thought it was more funny, or more ridiculous.

Oh, and here's where you are. I'll just share here. It doesn't look apocalyptic at all, but you're in a town called Franklin, Tennessee. This hotel is a few blocks from the WalMart area.

You are here

K-Dizzle, good times.

I like Google for maps, Google map things are pretty cool. Definitely makes it easier to work with our environments and abilities/actions that rely on position.

So now you all can just post what you decide to do for the night. Just let me know with ooc when you're ready for it to be dawn.

Also, because this will come up sooner rather than later, I'm thinking three options on how to do initiative:

Option 1: Everyone goes in initiative order. This is how it would work at the table, but it may cause combat to take a while.

Option 2: I take the average of the initiative rolls of the party and the enemies, then the two of you go as a group.

Option 3: I average the initiatives of the enemies, every party member who goes before that initiative goes before all enemies, every party member who goes after that initiative goes after all enemies. Well, if there's more than one type of enemy, I'll have separate initiatives for each. (Mostly worth noting for 'boss' vs 'minions', whatever the case may be.

Any preferences?

Group initiative is by far the best option for PbP games. Characters post in whatever order they can, then the enemies go.

The only time this gets sticky is in round 1, which is divided into "before enemies" and "after enemies."

After the "before enemies" group goes in round one, the enemies go, and then it just becomes back and forth by group.

I'd be inclined to vote for option three, but I'm very easygoing about it. What works best for the group works just fine for me.

Option 3 seems better for players that focus on building initiative, but at the same time enemies with very little initiative bonus might get to act first because they had one or two lucky rollers with high initiative. I agree that option 2 seems easiest, but it would probably make luck more of a factor.

Why not try one encounter with 2 and another with 3 and then see which one works the best?

I keep trying to formulate a intelligent way of responding but I cant stop laughing whenever I look at the bear avatar. I think I agree with Stryke/Baird for the mos part though, give both a swing and see how it rolls.

Same. Pretty sure I'm just going to call Stryke 'Yogi' from now on. XD

Baird and Stryke are gonna dip into rogue so they have a better chance at stealing some pic-a-nic baskets :P!

I am a fearsome creature deserving of your terror!

So all we're waiting on is Oxana and Muster Saturday to say what they're doing for the night and we'll move on to dawn.

Ready to go.

So... I noticed I said Muster Saturday. Not sure how I feel about that.

No problem. As I said when I started the campaign, I want the post rate to be relaxed, but not straight slow. If you can't post for a couple of days, I'll understand. Much over 48 hours, though, and I'll begin to worry.

Hey Beowulf do you mind if I make a slight adjustment to Cass' ability scores? I just now realized I perhaps may have focused a bit too much on having an awesome Dex but that wont exactly help Cass in the long run when many of the feats I want have a strength requirement.
the changes would be.

Strength: 13 (+2 Points)
Dexterity: 17 (-1 Point)
Charisma: 15 (+1 Point)

This will give Cass a lot more options while leveling outside of just dumping all future stat boosts into strength which is what I would need to do if I keep the scores as-is. The changes wont have any real effect on what Cass has already done(bad pre-rp dex rolls anyway!)

Your dex was originally 16 (+2 race), right? So now 15 (+2 race) That's a net gain of 3 points. Strength 11-13 is a net loss of 2 points (so you need one more) so you raise 12 (+2 race) charisma to 13 (+2 race). Checks out to me and, since none of it has officially come up, I don't mind.

In light of my friend Baird having gone to visit his family for a few days, I will post without his asking any questions. I'm imagining anything he says in response to you guys will answer any questions he has. Just let me know when you've roleplayed to your heart's content and are ready to move on.

Oxana's ready to go - as for me, my posting may be a little sporadic this week as I'm moving to a new place.

I know what that's like (moved not a couple of weeks ago myself).

That's fine. Once every couple of days is what I expect. If this week you can manage that, everything should move along... swimmingly.

Anyhow, carry on.

Alrighty, guys. Just waiting on Mister Saturday it seems. I hope things are still a-go for him.

I've looked over the Battle map and am fine with positioning. Should I assume the red squares indicate cover/ruined cars?

Ready to go when you are!

Op, yep. I meant to say that. The red bits are ruined cars. They are cover and count as difficult terrain if you pass a DC 10 Acrobatics check. Otherwise they're impassable.

DM, can you put the map link in the Class/Levels space of your GM alias? That way the link will always be available in your posts.

I can indeed.

Good to go, yo.

Everything looks good to me for the most part, are the white squares open area as well?

The places not colored still exist, I just didn't fill them in because I didn't think you'd need them. I will if you decide to move into those spaces though. The slightly lighter gray on either side of the road is the side walk. That's fair game. The buildings can be entered (and are fairly bare on the inside), but otherwise impassable (might add where doors and windows are in case it matters). The red squares are junked cars and are impassable unless you make a DC 10 acrobatics check to treat them as rough terrain instead. You can stop your movement in those squares, you're just standing on the car. If you decide to move off of the car, just note that moving into a car square is what triggers the acrobatics check, not leaving it. So you can jump down from atop a car without a check.

Anyway, I think that's all you need to know about this encounter so far. XD

Would my ability to move over the cars be made better with the fact that Cass has a climb speed?

Probably not, the issue with climbing over the cars isn't so much finding handholds and such, it's more or less vaulting yourself onto them. That's why it's an acrobatics check instead of a climb check.

We seem to be delayed. What's going on folks? The map is up. Anyone who goes before the bad guys can act, right?

Yes, but I've been waiting on you and Oxana to say you're ready to post anything further.

Oh, I apologize. I took my turn (ducking down behind cover) and I was waiting for the next round to post again. I had no idea the game was waiting on me.

It's cool, I was just wanting to know that where I placed you was adequate. I'm waiting on Oxana as well.

Yes, where I am is fine. Thank you.

Ack, sorry, didn't realize you were waiting on me - Oxana's position is fine where she is. Good spot to shoot things from.

Anyone know if everything is alright with Beowulf?

I'll go beat at his door and be like yo here in a few minutes. XD

Any word from Beowulf Baird?

He's been really busy with work and having a wife and other junk. He should post as soon as he gets a chance to sit down and post a solid chunk, but he hasn't had a chance to quite yet. Sorry about the lengthy wait.

Ah ok, just wanted to check and make sure everything was alright.