The Patrician Maker (Inactive)

Game Master Shadowtail24

Uhm,
Liquid Ice is an alchemical device. Unless you're saying it's not in the gameworld? I had thought anything in the rules was valid.

LIQUID ICE
Price 40 gp; Weight 2 lbs.
Also known as “alchemist's ice,” this sealed jar contains crystalline blue fluid that immediately starts to hiss and evaporate once opened. During the 1d6 rounds after it is opened but before it evaporates completely, you can use it to freeze a liquid or to coat an object in a thin layer of ice. You can also throw liquid ice as a splash weapon. A direct hit deals 1d6 points of cold damage; creatures within 5 feet of where it hits take 1 point of cold damage from the splash. Crafting this item is a DC 25 Craft (alchemy) check.

You can find it here.

Odd, I searched around the SRD and didn't see it. Ok, just make sure you're appropriating costs for it.

Tanz, that would give you a plus 1 bonus to the temp chart for 1d6 times 1.5 rounds.

Odd, I searched around the SRD and didn't see it. Ok, just make sure you're appropriating costs for it.

Tanz, that would give you a plus 1 bonus to the temp chart for 1d6 times 1.5 rounds.

I am, I spent 20GP per for them during character creation (self crafted).

Just a heads up, I'm travelling for work Thursday and Friday, so I may be slow to post, 'specially Friday Night.

GM? Are you waiting on me? Or did life get busy?

I was hoping Tanz would post so I could do it all in one. I'll post once I finish ill with this rug doctor.

Just checking, but shouldn't the patent have had everyone involved in the project on it? So, the two brothers, Reggie, Raul, Tanz, Trops, and Rizbeth? Plus Igorina and Igor?

Sorry, should say the patent filed by Reggie and the two brothers. The patent itself has not been completed; 1 month to get a patent filed, what is this, not Disc world? The original patent has the 3 just listed as the backers and the project workers, including yourself, as the rightful owners/users.

Ok, so we'd have to get to the government offices to make sure everyone is still on the patent.

But either way, if we'd all died underground, that would have left Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum as the sole holders of the patent

How high up in the guild are Dee & Dum?

They are regular guild members. Alchemists largely work alone so outside of the ruling council and the Head Alchemist, there aren't stringent ranks.

So... what does Raul think should be the next step?

Follow our tip, see where it leads

Risbeth assumes we'll all meet up at her place at dark? The mortals can sleep, and Risbeth can earn some money being a doctor. :)

I am leaving for my spouse's family house which is in the countryside and does't have internet. So, I should not be able to post in the next 3 or 4 days. I might be able to seend a few messages with a smartphone, but they will be really short.

So, feel free to take control of Trops.

Also: merry christmas everyone!

Risbeth looks up from draining the blood out of Vimes. "Happy holidays!"

Igorina gives Raul a bill

Igorina giggles and makes notes.

Hey guys,
A) Merry Christmas et al
B) I am getting married and going on my honeymoon so I will be offline until the 6th.
C)You can fast forward to the night when you gather again and arrange a plan of attack if you wish. Raul and Trops have a lead(?) to the fools guild, though the others do not have much to go on, other then an impossible amount of suspects

Risbeth pokes the thread to see if it's still alive, having heard nothing from Raul/Trops about being done.

WhatnewpostshowdidInotseethemlostthedotwhat?

No more caffeine for Raul.

Risbeth sneaks up on the sleeping thread and backstabs it!

Risbeth does MASSIVE DAMAGE!

It's the holidays, I wouldn't worry about it too much. Even the game that I'm DM'ing has slowed considerably.

Risbeth smiles at Raul sweetly. "Oh, I know hon. I'm just distracting you..."

Raul cracks his knuckles and goes hybrid form. "Let's put this silver greataxe to use."

Honestly, I'm sort of lost at this point. It sounds like we don't really have anything approaching a solid lead. The best we've got is a second hand 'maybe they did it' lead, but no one specific to investigate, and no contacts or way into the fool's guild.

Am I missing something? I mean, are we basically just going to go to the fool's guild and start busting heads? With no proof? I think we'd end up in jail fast. :(

Ok not actually busting heads, maybe just busting some feelings. But yes, are leads are fairly weak atm.

The fools guild lead is actually pretty decent, it's just mired in disc world convalescence. If it seems unappealing though, I have catalogued responses from every major player or institution in Discworld, so don't feel hemmed in by only your initial choices.

The problem is, there's not really anywhere to follow that lead though. He said he was from the Fool's Guild, but did he even stop in at that guild? Would you be honest about your guild if you were in town to make trouble? Risbeth would pick a guild that seemed least likely to be involved, like the Toothfairy guild.

Perhaps we should try the other way around? We traced his steps back, but we got lost at the Fool's Guild lead. Maybe if we tried to find someone who remembers him coming into town?

Sorry, it just seems like, in character, there's nothing to really follow up on other than going to the Fool's Guild and asking someone there 'Excuse me, did you kill our guild member and attempt to kill us and frame us for it?'. It doesn't seem like that would do any good either way.

I think the lead on the fool's guild could be useful, not because I think they are involved, but because it might allow us to identify the leader. From there, we could try to find motivations. I feel that it is more about identifying the guy then finding who sent him (for now).

On an unrelated note, I'm trying to build an arcane archer and am at a road block. If you would like to submit your thoughts, I have a thread here. I bring this to you because you guys are some of the better players I know on the boards and if you choose to give feedback then I know it will be good!

I am sure you are refering to mdt (just reading your thread I learned a lot about the arcan archer), so I shall abstain!

Is it a character for a pbp game?

Indeed, for a homebrew game currently in recruitment. I believe the GM really likes my character, so I think my chances are high.

Sorry Raul,
Normally I'd be happy to help, but honestly my brain is fried and I can't really think too straight right now.

I'll try tomorrow if that's ok.

I actually figured it out, I had a very quick and quality response. Thank you though!

Just poking with a stick so everyone know's I'm still here, and still feeling lost (short of blowing the doors off the fool's guild and shooting people at random to see if we get a lead).

Raul approves of that idea.

Lots of other important people in the city to talk to, like the times, or mr slant, or mr shine, etc.

Yes, but Risbeth doesn't have any ties to them. She's asked everyone she has ties to. I was hoping someone else would have ties to someone we could ask, but it seems we've hit our 'friends limit'. And none of Risbeth's contacts had any suggestions on others to talk to, so no way of getting an intro. And when I asked earlier about getting Madam Palm to do an intro, I got shot down, so I honestly don't know how to go about asking an important person in AnkhMorpork questions when one has no intro to them. As they are busy and important and in the habit of not seeing people without appointments.

I mean, I could just randomly go down the list of 'who is who in AnkhMorpork, Spring Edition, volume CLXII' but it seems rather crass, desperate, and OOC cheesy to do.

Madam Palm would fall into a category of people that are too close to the players to give helpful information too. That would make it easy. In reality, I'm sure Madam Palm knows as much as the Times, or Vimes, though maybe not the Patrician. But having her on hand to talk to her friendly guild member ruins the spirit of the quest. I won't go so far as to say not entering the incredibly ridiculously trapped Fool's Guild ruins the spirit of the quest, but we all know how much fun it will be. If anyone had claimed a place in the watch their supervising officer also would have been strangely unknowing.

I set the quets to involve the more distinguished individuals in Ankh-Morpork to have certain amounts of information that you guys would have to parse through. I didn't think it would be a problem for characters IC to visit the various establishments of Ankh-Morpork in search of information. In the morning you'll have a meeting with Vimes which will set up some additional arrangements. You could also interact with those you might know personally, not Madam Palm who would know too much but maybe a fellow doctor or seamstress, and I can extend the knowledge paths to them. I'll try to not make it a "you fellow seamstress seems to think the Times would be a good place to look" kind of conversation either.

I'm a little stumped, but I'm not frustrated. I just need to revisit some detailed information about the town and reevaluate what our options are. I, for one, am enjoying a game that isn't spoon feeding us what we should do.

I'm not asking for spoon feeding, but here is my problem.

It sounds like we are supposed to go around asking random 'known people' information. But, there's no in game reason to go ask Moris Von Lipwig if he knows anything. He's not associated with the Alchemist's guild, he's not an acquiantence of anyone, he's not come up in conversations with the people we know. It seems like anyone we know automatically doesn't know anything, no exceptions. So... they can't even point us toward people who know something. We're literally supposed to randomly go up to people in AP and ask them if they are involved in murder.

Even Discworld has logic, it's it's own twisted logic, but it's still logic. In the books, the Watch doesn't go down the street asking doctors about petty theft in the docks district. Nor do they ask the farmers coming in the gates about sunken treasure. None of us have connections to, for example, Mr. Slant. Mr. Slant is the head of a guild, he's not going to take an audience with 5 low ranking people who got kicked out of the Alchemist's guild.

So, per the GM, anyone we know has no information because we know them, and we can't get introductions or leads from them. So the only recourse is to randomly go down the list of 'who is who' and ask well known and important people what they know about murder? Even for discworld, that's totally nuts in character.

Well 1, it's actually not that crazy to just go around asking people if they know anything. That is precisely what you do when you don't have a lead and there is nothing else to investigate. And 2, have you considered that we just missed something? Overlooked or not well thought out, in a subtle campaign the small details are what really matter.

Not quite that everyone you know has no information. It's that someone who would have a lot of information does not have a lot of information now. As for following leads, the dead assassins pointed you to Dibbler who pointed you to the beggar's who pointed you to the Fool's Guild.

The Watch, after Vimes and Carrot and Angua have their own initial investigation, will point you in a direction.

The Patrician pointed you in a direction.

The Wizards are too uninvolved to point anyone anywhere, though fun to talk to.

The Alchemist's Guild itself probably won't help but a meeting with Mortham and Stortham might point you somewhere.

When I say Mr. Slant I mean the Lawyer's Guild that you would be directed to. People who are suspects in a murder could possibly use a lawyer EDITED from MURDER to LAWYER. I was not calling a group of Lawyer's a murder..

So let's say Risbeth was alone in this situation. Her first thought would be to go to Madam Palm. We already discussed that. Option 2 is probably the Watch. That hasn't materialized yet. What is option 3?

See, that's where I think the frustration is coming from. I have no issue going to find a lawyer, or talking to someone from a guild, or even asking questions of random people who are at least related to the issue. But what I got from your posts was, I have to pick the one or two people you've decided have the information out of a hat, with no leads to them, basically just pulling well known discworld people out of a hat, like Mr. Slant specifically has to be consulted. That's what got me frustrated, because it feels not like solving a mystery but like playing 'pick the right card out of the pile'.

Yup, real mysteries are hard. Criminals usually don't attempt to leave a trail.

Fine, whatever then. Just ignore me, do whatever you want then. Apaprently I'm in the minority that feels there's a difference between hard, and feeling like everything is just random noise. I'll just go along with whatever Raul watns from now on. I'm tired of arguing.

I'm not ignoring you. If I chose to ignore you then I would not have responded to your frustrations at all. I'm stating my opinion that this mystery is designed to be very difficult and we have not exhausted all of our options yet. I believe that is a more probable possibility than the mystery being underdeveloped. But I don't know, I didn't design it, and I am used to solving very complex puzzles so I thought this was one of them. I'm sorry you feel this way, I did not even realize this was an argument.

From my perspective, so maybe people will understand why I'm feeling very frustrated with this game right now.

ME : Not sure how to proceed other than asking random strangers since none of my contacts knew anything.

GM : Well, no, none of your contacts can give you leads because I don't want your contacts to be able to help you any on this. YOu need to ask the right people, but that can't be your contacts.

Raul : Yeah, this is supposed to be hard.

ME : So we just ask people at random? I don't know who I'd even ask other than ALchemist's guild people, we haven't done that.

GM : No, those won't do any good, but you haven't talk to Mr. Slant. Or other well knowns.

ME : I have to go randomly talk to a Guild Masters I don't know and can't get an invite to see? Why would they see me, since my contacts can't even get me an invite to see them?

GM : Well, ok, meant Lawyers, not Mr. Slant, himself. You haven't talked to the lawyers yet about the murder.

ME : Ok, I don't have a problem seeing a lawyer, but the posts made it seem like I had to pick the right well known person from AP out of a hat.

Raul : Well, it's supposed to be hard, suck it.

Me : Whatever.

GM : Well, no, none of your contacts can give you leads because I don't want your contacts to be able to help you any on this. YOu need to ask the right people, but that can't be your contacts.

I think maybe I poorly phrased this. Let me put it a better way that also will change some philosophy; major leads in this quest will still be held by certain high notoriety characters. However, leading leads, where maybe a person heard that someone else might now someone, can be optioned from anyone. Any established contact you have will now provide a leading lead. As a 2nd revision, while characters like madam palm can't be helpful initially to keep quest balance, they could be helpful after a few substantial leads have been confirmed. That's a vague way of putting it but I'll give you an idea of when they might provide information.

How does that sound? I think it will make it messier for the characters to accomplish stuff without leaving the major evidence spread among relatively unimportant characters?

Thanks for bearing with Me on this, it is my first time running this particular quest.