The Walking Dead of Golarion, by GM Fiendish

Game Master Fiendish Zen

No worries, GM.

Also, I have a local Con coming up this weekend, so Friday-Sunday I will probably not be online.

Depending on how mini-painitng and mapmaking go, the next couple fo days maight be chaotic as well.

No worries Fiendish! And enjoy the con Valex :)

A ha! Managed to resurrect a graveyard machine, have lost an inch of screen but this one has glowy keys ^.^

No worries Valex, enjoy the con :)

Three hour train journey to London, already delayed. Bah.

On the plus side it'll give me lots of time to post today, hopefully Indigo will let us know the coast is clear and we can rest up.

I don't think it'll affect my posting too much, but I figured I'd mention that I'll be out of town Monday and Tuesday. I should have WiFi access in the hotel, but any posting I do won't be until late afternoon/early evening on those days.

I had a hard day at work yesterday, and with the recent events in France was more silent than usual.

If I understand well, there will be two groups, one (Flynn's group) going to fight our foes, and another (Lenneth) staying with the commoners?? Is it a definitive separation or not?

Lachen - totally understandable. Thoughts are definitely with you and your countrymen. More need for the free world to stand United than ever.

As for the game. I don't think anything is definitive. Flynn is just saying what he is doing and people can come or not. Fiendish might well have a different view on that though!

Hey Lachen, you all of France have been in my thoughts and prayers. I am proud of France's response too.

Game - I was more thinking that we were all looking for that safe place to drop off the non-combatants and then we all would go hunting. Of course its more likely the non-combatants will all die off first, accomplishing the same thing as far as freeing the group up. sigh.

Thank you for your prayers and thoughts.

It's hard, I won't lie. Even if I know none of the victims. It was so sudden and brutal...

Hang in there Lachen; we're all sending prayers/good thoughts to you and your country.

Re: split party - Yeah, in theory Lenneth would be willing to stay behind as hauling a baby all over the countryside would be quite a task and I'm not sure that she'd be willing to leave Aura to someone else. However, we've still got to find somewhere safe for these guys before we do much else - not mention anything can happen. So for now, let's just play it by ear and see what happens!

We're with you and your countrymen, Lachen! I've had the privilege to spend some time in Paris on a couple of occasions, and the thought of this breaks the heart.

"Liberté, Equalité, Fraternité" Lachen. The handful of times I've visited France I was always struck by the people, their Joie de vivre. Our thoughts are with you.

We try to fight back, each with his own weapons.
First we have to fight back the tears.

Do anyone else than me remember that we never opened the box found in Solace?

I think we kept trying to get Whisper to open it for us and she/we never got around to it; short of breaking it I don't think any of us have the capability of opening it ourselves :(

I have Disable device, and Valex too.
Probably Sel has the skill too.

Derp. Well in that case let's give it another try? :)

a first try, at least.

Happy Thanksgiving to all the US folks and Happy Thursday for all those that live elsewhere in our wide world! :)

Happy Thanksgiving American players :)

I'll raise my Friday night end-of-work-week drink in your direction. Enjoy your holiday!

Hey, all;
I'm travelling with limited access for the next couple of days. Please feel free to bot Valex.

Okay Valex, safe travels! :)

Sorry, Lilith.
nothing against you as a player, only Lachen speaking.
Worst is that everything is true... (p54-56 at Solace, for the most ancien stuff)

Sorry back. Lilith has not lied. She has given Lachen food, magical support, and evn Magic items. Yet he constantly sends hatred and loathing. And now he is telling Lenneth to run out on her friends if things get bad. So this is coming to a head.

Oof...I'll have to think on how to respond to this one, though I'm glad that this (as best as I can tell?) seems to be a genuinely in-character clash and not an OOC one as well.

Right. But you staying in the middle is now fueling this fire. This might look tough for Lachen and Lilith but its really you who are torn. We know where we stand. :)

@Lilith: I totally agree with you on the support you gave. Lachen even said

You are maybe the fourth elf I meet in my life, and none of them, you included, has done me wrong. It's as if something in me was perpetually angry at them, perpetually despising them, perhaps for their near immortality.

I'm currently re-reading what happened after Solace, maybe Lachen accusations of lies are my (as a player) mistake. Maybe you (Lilith's player) don't know what I'm talking about, so you (Lilith&Lenneth) should read p59, (18 august posts), and my own talk with Lenneth on the 27th August (p60) about who Lachen is.

I do not recall the specifics but through the DM Lilith picked up that while Lachen claimed to be a soldier he was likely not. I also thought that later Lachen admitted as much.

If you wanted to convince us you were military you should have put points in Profession Soldier. Per a message from our DM I picked up that you were not a soldier. Perhaps that was in IC error on my part but that is what I got.

Lilith sees Lachen as unstable and a bully. Why would Lilith ever willingly put herself in a place where she would need to depend on such a person? In this deadly world we find ourselves in you have basically created one more threat for the party to deal with. Its interesting fun and for now I think a positive overall as far as party strength but not by a lot. If the party can't trust Lachen then that greatly limits your role in the group.

Strangely Lachen reminds me of an employee I had a few years ago. He liked to intimidate people. But he had long periods of very good behavior and was a good worker 95% of the time. I fired him.

I'm all open to any slow RP change if needed.

Personnaly, I see Lachen as unstable (but for some good reasons), but not a bully. He may lack tact and diplomacy, or even empathy (that's quite an euphemism!), he has a cruel, dark sense of "humor", but he never get into a fight against any PC or used excessive force against NPC-as far as I can recall- but your point of view is really interesting for me.

The only times Lachen is quite more open is when he's with Lenneth.
So I guess it's normal that the others think he's an heartless, unsuppportable prick, because he never shows them this side of his personality, probably because he doesn't care about their opinions.

There are glimpses of Lachen's humanity, as when he freely lend his bedroll to the sick girls, so maybe it's not a lost cause. ;-)

But I'm ready to go to the Dark Side with this character too.

We seem to be ok here, as noted it's IC grief not OOC so I'm not of a mind to interfere. Usual rules apply though, if anyone (that's any of the party, not just those 'fronting up') isn't having fun then PM me and I'll anonymously move things along :)

Not to get bogged down in this but for what it’s worth, here is Flynn’s perspective.

Lachen is disruptive and potentially dangerous addition to the group. His behaviour is distasteful, disrespectful and Flynn is pretty much at his last nerve with him – honestly, I don’t think it would take much for it to become physical at this point because Flynn is already in a bad frame of mind.

I think something that we forget as players is that although months of real time has passed, it has only been something like three or four days since the fall of Solace (the one place we all had hopes for a new life), the deaths of some important people (Lives was Flynn’s only human company for months after the Harvest) and the revelation that there is an army of infinite dead gathering for who knows what purpose (likely the true end of all humanity).

That amount of trauma puts real stressors on people and from his perspective, Lachen got off absolutely on the wrong foot with Flynn due to his ‘Slip’ comment. Appreciate that he apologised for that particular incident but his attitude and general demeanour is so incongruent with Flynn’s that it makes it extremely difficult to find anything redeemable or likeable about him.

I want to stress at this point that I have absolutely nothing against Lachen – the player – this is all purely about character and since this is essentially a living novel, it wouldn’t be particularly interesting without drama.

Prior to Lachen’s arrival, Flynn was himself new to the group and let’s not forget was totally at odds with Euron. He had connected with Lenneth though – not necessarily romantically – but Lachen’s presence has marginalised that.

What I love about this is the psychology at play: Flynn is threatened and angry, Lachen enjoys antagonising people and being unpredictable, Lenneth is torn by what I think are burgeoning feelings for Lachen, Lillith sees him as misogynistic and probably intolerable in the long term whilst the others look on in a range of disbelief and upset (feel free to correct me if I’m wrong here). All in all, excellent roleplaying by everyone I think!

So, for me success is as important as RP. I know that is not popular in RP games, but that's me. I like to "win". And since I am being honest I'll continue that trend below, even if it hurts the feelings of Lachen.

The DM had set out a challenge for us, and its over the top. We have to worry about eating regularly, having warm close to wear, constant and nasty diseases, and a place to get out of the weather (Winter is coming!) on top of the threat of undead, evil death cults, and evil cannibal tyrants. And now we are saddled with innocents and another mystery group that we dare not fully trust. We are under supplied, ill informed, and outmatched. We literally do not know if we will eat tomorrow. Some of us might die tonight from disease or simple exposure. We barely have a plan and little hope.

This is the setting that Lachen is bringing his character into. We have enough troubles without a player adding significantly to our risk and danger. We are so much on the edge that I can foresee this inner party conflict being enough to push us over. I would really rather have a party that works together and gets along well enough to at least trust each other to do what we commit to do and to not attack a party member.

Another issue I have, and I am torn about it, is all the thought bubbles Lachen supplies. On the one hand it adds a lot of color and background to the story. But if I read it I have a hard time pretending I do not know it especially when there is a lot of it and its generally directed at my character. I suspect I am in the minority here but I believe the game is better off with less though bubbles. If your character thinks something and no one else knows it, then why not keep it private. I was in a game where another character was constantly critical of my character but only in thought bubbles. I asked him to scale it back. He did not, so I left.

Am I having fun? Yes. But I could have more fun with a more sane Lachen. I believe my character will decide eventually she has to kill Lachen for the good of the group. She is lawful Neutral after all. And honestly, I'd rather not play that out. She will not try to run his off as she can't trust him to not come back and attack the group. I considered pushing Lachen to violence, taking the a hit, knowing that more than one person would come to my aid. But that is NOT fun for me. Is that level of conflict what you want Lachen?

My other option is to leave the campaign. I have already thought of leaving with Hawk when that party finally splits off from ours. But its not what I want to do.

Okay, sorry for the lack of a proper response in Gameplay - in addition to thinking over what Lenn would do here, I also spent most of the day in bed sleeping off what I think must be the crud trying to take hold. Here are my thoughts, which might be a little jumbled:

From a story and RP perspective, I can appreciate the different angle that Lachen's presence brings to the group. Although the will to survive can make for some very odd alliances and strange bedfellows - evidenced by the game initially starting with both a half-orc and a hobgoblin as PCs - it's also boring if everyone gets along all the time. Thankfully I think we did have enough tension and points of contention between Polo and some of the others, Euron's sordid past once it finally came to light, etc. that it's not been boring.

The problem is that in any sort of book/movie/show about a group surviving the apocalypse, characters like Lachen certainly amp up the drama - but more often than not, it also eventually leads to someone getting killed or the group splintering in some manner. Obviously, I'd rather not see that happen here unless it's something everyone is agreed on. It works for tv, but for PbP I think it'd just create hard feelings and a headache for Fiendish.

Lenneth is growing to like Lachen because of and in spite of his brutal honesty and his sense of humor. As inappropriate as a lot of his comments and jokes are, they make her laugh and she appreciates that. However...she's been with Lilith since the beginning; they're the only two PCs remaining of the initial six when the game first started. Valex comes second since he joined with the group while they were still in Sandpoint. Polo, Turrey, Euron, and Lives are dead. Azmerai and Shomari apparently decided to take their chances alone and abandon the group. Although Lenn may not have an openly huggy-sisterly sort of relationship with Lilith, they've been through a lot together and that's not something Lenn is just going to put aside willingly.

For what it's worth, I'm personally not averse to weaving different PCs of my own in and out of the game. It came up briefly earlier, but probably the one thing right now that would cause Lenn to leave the group would be in order to care for Aura; Flynn's desire to go fight the Whispering Way doesn't lend itself well to keeping a tiny baby alive, even if she (as I suspect) has been granted some sort of power from Solace + Lenn's patron. However if she found a place and people that she trusted would care for Aura and keep her safe (as safe as can be expected in this world) then she would go with the group. I'm certainly not tired of Lenneth and I enjoy playing her, but I've also got some other potential character ideas should the time come for Lenn to exit the main story whether by her own choice or by the cruel hand of fate.

That being said, I really don't want to see other people feel that they need to leave the game but I also loathe the idea of anyone feeling that they need to seriously warp or alter their character in order to keep group cohesion. But short of Lachen undergoing a fairly massive personality overhaul (or at least keeping his mouth shut more often), I'm not really sure what a good solution would be here. I'd hate to see either player leave unless one or both would want to play new characters; if Lenn decided to leave I imagine that Lachen would probably go with her since he's not really close to anyone else in the group. And though this is an IC issue, I do want to vouch for Lachen's player OOC - we play together in a Shattered Star game and that character is probably the polar opposite of Lachen in nearly every way.

@Flynn: that's exactly my point: only a few days have passed since the Solace events, where we met. Lachen has already apologised to Flynn for calling him a "slip", he even apologised to Lilith a few nights ago (but she didn't want his apologies). Now he's trying, if not to make amends, to be at least more at peace with the elf, and once again she refuses. Lachen isn't mad, but has mercurial moods. When he asked for an hug, he was as sincere as when he called Lilith the bad word. He's CN, and quick to change his mind, while Lilith is LN and set in her ways.(that's how I see it, at least)

But Lachen can't totally change who he is in a few days, even if he tries to be better. He doesn't care much if he shocks people with his rude "in your face" attitude, but as I told Lenneth after the trench battle, he doesn't ask for apologies if someone is rude to him.
His humor is coarse because he's a soldier, an ex criminal and a lowlife at heart. And enjoying a good (or bad) joke, a laugh, is essential to him. Undead never laugh, so he tries to enjoy it, among other pleasures, while he's still alive.

@Lilith: I can cut on the thoughts bubbles, or at least on those against you. I understand that these can get on your nerves.
I realised, reading your stuff, that I totally forgot to put a point or two in Profession Soldier. I was sure I had done it. Will do at next level, if we survive.
As for his mental sanity, I think of Lachen as having a conflicting dual personality, with some RP reasons. One is his loudmouth, antagonistic, cynical usual self (CN), the other being grimmer, more violent, more evil, more organised (LE, due to Infernal bloodline)

@Lenneth:I joined this game because I enjoyed reading your adventures first. I surely didn't want to make people enjoying the game less.

What I'd like everyone to realise is that Lachen, even if he's quick to SAY the wrong thing and can be brutally honest, has been ACTING like someone you could trust. He fought side by side with you, never backed down or ran away, took his guard duties (and even took Lenn's turn so she could rest), participated in the general survival of the group by hunting...
So I don't agree with him being a "danger" to the group (unless he goes totally LE by his infernal heritage). He surely has room for improvment as an human being, but give him some time to bring these changes at his pace.

I, JZ, don't think he's a danger. Flynn, the character, does. That's the only distinction I'd make, mate.

Sorry Lachen, I think part of my post gave off the wrong impression which is what I get for not ordering my thoughts better before writing a more serious post. I don't want to see anyone go as a player and OOC I find Lachen an interesting character and I'm looking forward to hopefully seeing him grow as a person over time. IC, Lenn does not want to see anyone leave or come to blows - in a roundabout way, she was making a similar point in my latest post that Lachen and Lilith have each made on their own behalf, that when push comes to shove they've both worked fairly well together in combat and with sharing combat resources. Even if they don't ever become friends, she'd like to see them build on that teamwork for non-combat situations.

@Flynn (and others): I separate characters from players, no problem.

@Lenn: I took no offense of your posts (or those from Lilith)

I like the tension going on here, Melo also feels that this is all going to come to a big blow out at some point and sides will have to be picked with such big personalities someone has to come out ahead. While it's not aimed at me i can see where you're coming from Lilith.

I hope no one here leaves and if they feel forced out they would talk through it and we can change anything that's bothering them. This conflict while not good for the group and our goals is good for the game(wouldn't be as interesting if we were all holding hands).

Melo is very unsure of himself in this new world, he was never going to be a leader or someone important in his old life before the world started to burn he started off looking for someone to lead him but he's finding new freedoms in having his voice heard. (getting out of the pack mentality.)

Sorry for the realtive quiet, folks. I will chime in when I get a bit more of a chance.

I, JZ, don't think he's a danger. Flynn, the character, does. That's the only distinction I'd make, mate.

Exactly. Lilith is totally convinced you will try to kill her in her sleep. If you believed that about someone what would you do? Well you certainly would not hang around them or let them hang around you or your friends. Oh, and for the record Lilith would be ok with LE. That is how she grew up. :)

In a different setting the inner-party conflict would be more fun. In this one its gonna get us all killed. I think that both IC and OOC.

So, perhaps we can chart a path forward OOC that we would all be happy (happier) with than where we seem to be going?

Let's just say that Lilith is wrong about her assumptions. If it was Lachen's intentions, you would already be dead in your sleep. But what would be the point? He's not a mindless, heartless killer most of you suppose.

As far as I can remember (but I might be wrong), Lachen never said anything about killing you (or Flynn), never acted in a threatening way. Sure he had his killing thoughts, but they were thoughts, not acts, an RP tool in time of stress (the battle in the trench) or reflexion (Lachen's morning shaving).
If you can find something in my RP posts that proves otherwise, please show me.

I have been labelled as "dangerous", but I'm not the one who threatened to impale one of my companions on my lance:

Lachen my ears are small, but keen. Flynn says, a sneer on his face as he wipes down the long, ash lance. This 'length' of wood is Anfonwr - the Sender in my language - named for the greatest hero of my people. Sonna delivered my people from the freedom of slavers and rapers and those who would keep us the yoke of tyranny. his grip tightens on the bound leather handle of the lance. From Cheliax....

Now Anfonwr sends the dead on to the Boneyard - where they belong.

He stands then and lowers the lance tip toward Lachen.

From Skyfall's back and Anfonwr in hand I can strike swifter than a mongoose, more deadly than a hawk. And great lumoxes like yourself, cannot strike back.

I think the character of Lachen comes to me naturally, and I know what I want to do with this character, what I can do with him. Lachen is a tormented, angry soul, maybe too close to my "real me" sometimes. But he's a good exercise in Roleplaying.

Flynn actually punched a member of the group more or less upon his arrival too. Which was genuinely threatening.

Besides, Flynn thinks Lachen is dangerous due to his unpredictability and disruptive influence on the group.

Regardless, let's move on.

Lachen has been impulsive, aggressive, unpredictable and of rapidly changeable mood, yet also capable of doing the right thing and caring for others. His fronting up to Melo, belittling of Flynn and antagonism towards Lilith have not won him many allies either.

He's not necessarily someone I would pick as a friend, or even trust to watch my back in a zombie apocalypse, but I can understand the character's personality and motivations, and as noted he's created conflict and drama which has added some interesting RP opportunities.

Thank you everyone for chipping in with your opinions, Lachen has acknowledged the feedback, let's see what happens over the next little while and see how things pan out IC now we've discussed everything OOC.

My mailbox door is always open if anyone wants to take this 'off thread' and talk more :)

For now, as Flynn suggests, let's move on.

So...anyone doing anything fun this week for Christmas/holidays (or for the heck of it if you don't celebrate anything)? I'm guessing things will be quiet on the forums/in games, but that doesn't mean we can't chat a little here in the meantime :)

Ah I'm working through, just got the stat days off, hopefully it will be quiet in the office though ^.^

I'll be here and monitoring the thread still but no drama if peeps have other more important RL things to attend to over the next week :D

Merry Xmas everyone :)

Happy New Year guys! Can you believe the game will be 2 years old in March? Time flies! Looking forward to what will hopefully be a 2016 full of fun, mayhem, and ZOMBIES with you all :)

Happy new year everyone. My resolution is to kill more zombies!!!

Happy new year, big RP post to come..