Btw, are those black lines cliffs that drop off on both sides (i.e. we are on a narrow raised rock formation of some kind)? Or is it up on one side and down on the other, so that it's a ledge on the side of a hill? Or is it up on both sides, meaning that we're in some sort of canyon?
Jun is the king of distractions. Distractions, and funerals.
What exactly was that intended to accomplish?
Ok...I am with ya, Jun.
@Quint, "cliffs" on both sides. with the southern side being higher than the northern by 20'. All of which is meant to convey that the ground is difficult terrain not only because of the mud but because of the angle(s) of descent. The top of the hill is 60' above the valley below, and within the curves it descends at exactly the rate of the grid, 5' down per 5' of movement, thus a somewhat steep angle.
@All, I've got a bit of work to do this morning, while I'm doing it I'll be processing how the field of combatants at the bottom of the hill would react to Jun's tomfoolery/ruse. I'll try and get a post up this morning before lunch. Might not be able to though. Regardless, I'm pretty sure that post will end with us being in initiative, which is going to be a hot mess... :) Especially since 5e says I should put all the guards in the same initiative count... That's a sure way for PCs to get killed...
My intent was to have the people who were hiding sneak down towards the camp, so that by the time his men get up to take a look, we can have captured his boss.
I didn't think to explain it fully (cause I was posting before going to bed), but Jun probably would have said something.
I don't think there's cover for us to sneak closer, and now you have all of them actively looking our direction.
I don't think there's cover for us to sneak closer, and now you have all of them actively looking our direction.
I have to agree with Quint on this one.
I won't fault anyone's roleplaying, but with all the stealth checks that were rolled and the subsequent discussion (which not everyone was given an opportunity to participate in), I think we had a consensus that the majority of the group wanted to handle this encounter (at least to start) by spying and seeing what was going on before doing anything that would draw attention to ourselves. It's frustrating when one player decides to take an action that cuts everyone else's strategies off at the knees, especially in such a large group.
Now, I'm not saying it's not ok to roleplay your character's disagreement, and even do something unexpected from time to time. In another game, my character recently surprised the other PCs by killing a captured NPC that other PCs intended to let go. She did this because she was in an extremely emotional state having just (seemingly) lost a lifelong companion to this NPC and his allies, and the turmoil between characters that I knew it would cause was the right RP decision for where the party was at the time.
In doing so, though, I WAITED for the other PCs to finish their interrogation of that NPC, and even then I didn't make the decision lightly. Even after we extracted the information we needed from the character, I paid attention to what the other players (or their characters) had expressed that they wanted to do.
Out of five characters including mine, one was strongly against killing him, one was good-aligned but was acting pretty ambivalent about it (he also decided he really wanted his character's alignment to be neutral during the subsequent discussion). The remaining two characters, though they were deferring to the one who was saying not to kill him for the moment, had displayed a pattern since the beginning of the game of killing (and eating!) everyone and taking no prisoners (frequently to my chagrin), and one of them was actively asking "Can we kill him now? Can we kill him now?".
Finally, there was no strategic advantage to leaving this character alive, and the arguments for doing so were based entirely on PCs roleplaying their alignments, rather than somebody having a plan that my action was derailing. If there had been, I still would have had my character make a move against the NPC, but I would have made sure she did it in a way that gave the more clear-headed characters an opportunity to stop her, rather than unilaterally steamrolling over those strategies.
This type of thought does not appear to have gone into Jun's player's decision. His character has not previously demonstrated this type of impulsiveness, nor did there seem to be any extenuating circumstances that would make him more prone to impulsiveness than usual. His actions clearly and irrevocably stepped on the plans and intentions that other players were actively discussing out-of-character and enacting in-character, and they seemed to be purely in service of a half-baked plan that the player came up with in the spur of the moment, and that he didn't bother to EXPLAIN to the group (leading several of us to express confusion), much less discuss with any of us.
Frustrating.
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I am all for strategizing and planning, but this scenario did not lend itself to such forethought. The majority of the party simply went into hiding as soon as Hack warned of a potential ambush site.
Having said that, part of the fun of RPing is NOT to meticulously plan for the desired outcome. Thinking on the fly and dealing with awkward situations is part of the reason why, at least I, play the game now and have for 30+ years. Overplanning is not realistic, and it borders too much on metagaming for my liking. Right now...this stuff is fun!
Jun and Shenkt are more off the cuff characters who sat while we thinkers second guessed the moral implications of worm killing and investigative minutiae.
Also I don't think they planned on the soldiers running up on Shenkt.
It work out even if tense moments in character. Civil War would have sucked if the heroes all agreed.
Civil War wouldn't have happened at all if the heroes agreed... O.o
Mere details.
Civil War wouldn't have happened at all if the heroes agreed... O.o
True enough.
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... "I won't fault anyone's roleplaying, but with all the stealth checks that were rolled and the subsequent discussion (which not everyone was given an opportunity to participate in), I think we had a consensus that the majority of the group wanted to handle this encounter (at least to start) by spying and seeing what was going on before doing anything that would draw attention to ourselves. It's frustrating when one player decides to take an action that cuts everyone else's strategies off at the knees, especially in such a large group." ...
I again have to agree with Quint on this statement. And I realize overplanning can get tedious & boring, especially in this kind of game-setting, and it can come out as meta-gaming as well if not done correctly. But the whole, "Wait, watch, and follow the orcs" plan did not seem at all like meta-gaming. It just made good sense. We don't have the numbers or capability of taking on the soldiers AND the orcs (half-orc included) at this time IMHO. Plus that could tie in with the rumors of orc raiders we heard about in town. Two birds with one stone anyone?
Our choices now seem MUCH more limited since the orcish group is at least somewhat aware of the presence of more than the soldiers.
I am all for strategizing and planning, but this scenario did not lend itself to such forethought. The majority of the party simply went into hiding as soon as Hack warned of a potential ambush site.
Having said that, part of the fun of RPing is NOT to meticulously plan for the desired outcome. Thinking on the fly and dealing with awkward situations is part of the reason why, at least I, play the game now and have for 30+ years. Overplanning is not realistic, and it borders too much on metagaming for my liking. Right now...this stuff is fun!
The situation didn't lend itself to coming up with a complicated plan, but the possible courses of action fell into two broad categories: those where we remain unseen long enough to learn whatever we can, and those where we don't. Most of the group had expressed, directly or through their in-character actions (hiding), that they wanted to do the former, then one player disregarded all that and took an action that made that impossible.
Look, I understand your position, Quint, but I just do not believe that continuing to harp on it is very productive for the group. Let's face it, it could very well happen again. It is how we work through it that matters. It is fruitless to attempt to control individual players who do not RP according to your wishes.
Okay, so let me explain my thinking/reason why I did what I did:
I apologize if anyone had said "let's wait for them to finish their business and then ambush the goblins later", because I flat out missed it. The takeaway I had from the situation is that everyone just disappeared into the proverbial bushes, which Jun would have taken to mean setting up an ambush.
Now since Jun has no training in Stealth and thinks more in terms of straightforward combat as opposed to sneaking around, it made sense for him (and by extension Hack - Sorry!) to provide a distraction for the group to sneak into a more advantageous position.
As I mentioned above, I was posting more tired than I usually am when I post, so that might have exacerbated the issue. I also should have made sure that there was sufficient cover to get into good ambush position, but it didn't occur to me to ask, and it certainly wouldn't have occurred to Jun.
Now since this was my plan, I felt that I should take the greatest risk, so I made myself the focus of the entire camp, which again should have been a fantastic cover for stealth (and indeed it seems to be going well so far, thanks to team Dicebot!)
With the above being said, I am more than willing to take the blame for acting such a manner, but as I mentioned at the beginning of this post, it wasn't clearly communicated to me that you weren't hiding to set up an ambush, so at least some of that falls on the rest of the group as well (since most of the group chose to hide without making any sort of plans or discussing things.
I tbink that, more than anything else, should be the takeaway: Communication is a two-way street. If asked, I would gladly have said that a Samurai "does not hide in the bushes" or somesuch, and then we could have discussed a more inclusive plan, one that likely had less...chaotic antics, if you will.
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At a table I’ve had a half-orc barbarian get bored and start wandering around a creepy library looking for picture books because he got bored of the party talking too much. He then had to run back to them, slam the door shut, and scream “It’s not my fault!”
So what I’m saying is..don’t feel too bad. You acted in character, and unlike what I did you had the party in mind
Okay, I mean this as respectfully as possible... Do we need to have a discussion about how initiative works? Jun and Lindaer, you both posted actions that will not be able to happen until your turn in the initiative count, and by then you may have wished to do something else... Do I need to be more clear in my posts about whose turn it is? Like put it in bold, large font or something? This seems to have happened in almost every combat we've been in.
Help a DM out... O.o
Are we in combat? I was just posting what Lin would do. Divine Sense is an ability of almost 0 application. I threw it in as a nod to a nat 20 deception roll. And for Jun isn’t talking a free action?
We are operating in initiative, yes, because combat could break out at any moment, and action economy matters in that situation. Also there are limits to how much talking a character can do outside of their turn, and actively trying to deceive/intimidate a potentially hostile force, for me, falls well outside the realm of what you can accomplish outside of your turn.
Gom, great suggestion, I've seen other DM's do that. I'm going to go back right now and change my post to reflect that style of initiative. Thanks.
I do like getting the current initiative posted every time the DM posts in game. That is what I try to do in the PBP game I run (as Mended should well know since he is one of my best players) :-)
I hadn't realized that we were in combat either, so I apologize for jumping the gun, although I definitely can agree with your train of logic that this could really be a "social combat" that could become a "combat combat".
I was just rolling with the ebb and flow of the conversation. I'll keep my action for now (which obviously happens on my turn), and then we'll see where it goes from there.
Okay, sounds good. Thanks for letting me know Jun.
Linkified for you... And, yeah, that's pretty much it. :P
Looks like meats back on the menu, boys! *entrails take flight*
Full-on LOL, thanks for that Gom! XD
It's too late for it to influence this fight, but we'll need to have a discussion about what "giving away your position" entails. Certainly, they would know that someone (or something) is there, but as long as she has cover, she should still be able to remain unseen. It sounds like you're saying that because she made a noise, they can see her and know she's not a zombie, and I don't think that's how that is supposed to work.
Firing an arrow would certainly give away that there were non-zombie aggressors in the bushes, but as Luna points out, she didn't actually narrate that action. Since the GM has already narrated events that I don't think would have happened if not for that, I think we just need to play it as her finger having slipped, accidentally releasing an arrow that she meant to hold drawn but not to fire.
Unfortunately, nobody actually took an aggressive action (directly) toward one of my allies, so my readied action doesn't trigger. I don't suppose I could delay my turn until after the guards have had a chance to react, keeping my action readied so that it will (presumably) trigger on their turn, after which I could immediately take my next turn in block 5?
There is, of course, only one guard left alive in block 4, and he has bigger problems than any of my allies to worry about, so that probably wouldn't trigger it either. I guess, with one guard dead by arrow, we're committed to that course, and I should just attack on my turn. That leaves the question of who to attack. I suspect the guards will all be dead before my next turn either way, but somehow I don't think that both groups having killed some of the human guards will make us allies with the orcs. If we're fighting two different groups at once who are also fighting one another, it makes strategic sense to try to keep their numbers roughly equal. Maybe if we still had a half-orc in our group, there would be some hope of a truce with them.
OTOH, if we try to save the remaining humans from the orcs, we might be able to convince them that the arrow that killed one of them was fired by another orc, who we subsequently killed in the bushes at the top of the hill. So, I guess our strategy should be to take out the orcs first...
Yes, after seeing the results of the first attack here, we should DEFINITELY concentrate on the orcs!
I had been hoping the orcs would leave along with the half-orc, and then we would only have to deal with the humans in whatever manner that was ... but, if wishes were horses ... or however that saying goes.
Ooc hint to those who have already revealed themselves: if you can convince the guards that Luna's arrow was fired by an orc, and maybe even that the fictitious necromancer was in league with orcs, maybe you can get them to fight the orcs instead of you.
Well, there goes my total command of the situation =P
Okay, there's something here that I need to address before we move forward, because, yes, I did definitely misunderstand Luna's post, but there's a very important reason I did. If your character is going to ready an action I NEED to read the words "ready action" or "readied action" in your post, . At no point were those words present in Luna's post. The reason I interpreted "take aim" as take aim and fire, is because you can always take aim with a bow. So, hopefully you will see and agree, my mistake there was completely justified.
Second thing, as Quint rightly pointed out. I felt like, besides Jun and Shenkt, and then, later, Gomdebo and Lindaer, everyone was waiting for something to happen, and like he said, spinning wheels with very little proactive to do. This is a game of combat, and sometimes, combat gotsa happen.
Thirdly, I don't see how there's any way the guards don't attack the orcs at this point. They don't know where the arrow came from, and they do know that three orcs just barreled out of the woods and killed two of their number. Which was always a potential outcome here, so if the PCs play into the chaos, they might end up being in very little danger... Or Shenkt could just lay the smack down on everybody, and our resident Robin Hood (aka Quint bowmaster) could porcupine them all with arrows. :D
Lastly, remember, we're all here to have fun. If, for whatever reason, you are no longer having any fun, you are perfectly within your rights to bow out of the campaign. I would be disappointed, obviously, but I would never begrudge someone the decision to bow out if they aren't having any fun. :)
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... If your character is going to ready an action I NEED to read the words "ready action" or "readied action" in your post, . At no point were those words present in Luna's post. The reason I interpreted "take aim" as take aim and fire, is because you can always take aim with a bow. So, hopefully you will see and agree, my mistake there was completely justified. ...
I am in FULL AGREEMENT with Mended here. It was my mistake for not saying I was readying an action. In a text based game like this, miscommunication is bound to happen. In this case I think it did actually help to get the game moving forward again as we were stalling out.
Let's just get over it and move on please.
Lastly, remember, we're all here to have fun. If, for whatever reason, you are no longer having any fun, you are perfectly within your rights to bow out of the campaign.
I think that I'll do exactly that at this point. I've long felt that there are just too many characters in this game to keep track of stuff.
And this incident has crystalized what had been becoming clear. My gaming style is somewhat at odds with the rest of the groups. I think that this is a good time for me to bow out.
Thank you for the game so far. It was fun. And I (quite sincerely) hope that all of you continue to enjoy yourselves.
I am sorry to see you go Boddy, but I can certainly understand it as well. It is a big group which adds to the difficulties of this style of gaming (PBP) as well. And in a group this size we will rarely, if ever!, have full group consent.
I find the number of characters frustrating at times, too. I almost wonder if it would be useful for us to split up again, but along different lines. I still think it would be fun to have one group focussed on stealth (and maybe deception/social engineering) etc. that fights only as a last resort, while the players that just like to fight monsters and kill things can have their own group, since (especially with such a large group) those conflicting play styles really have no choice but to get in each other's way.
We could always write the split into the story, either as a result of characters getting mad at one another over how this encounter went, or as a more amicable division of labor, with the two groups still cooperating, but splitting up to follow different leads (we certainly have enough different leads for this to make sense). The latter option would give players the opportunity to switch groups down the road, or join back up into one group if we lose too many players.
Of a more immediate concern to my character, Boddy's character's presence was a big part of my character's motivation, and I'll have to rethink some things if he's leaving. Are any of our other casters members of the arcane order?
Of a more immediate concern to my character, Boddy's character's presence was a big part of my character's motivation,
If it helps at all, feel free to write in whatever interactions with Boddy (or Vralk :-)) that would serve as a transition. He can help introduce you to the order before wandering off, show you his spellbook, etc.
That offer applies to everybody (with GM permission, of course). Treat him as a VERY cooperative NPC if it helps.
Boddy, I'm sorry that you aren't having fun in this group. It is a reality of this game, though. I've been in more than a few groups over the years where player styles didn't mesh and people decided to leave. If you are indeed set on leaving, I'll most likely take over Boddynuck as a DM NPC until there is an appropriate time for him to "check out." Thank you for playing thus far, and I wish you great gaming! :D
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Sad to see anyone go.
I know that there are conflicting approaches in game. Psalm is for all intents and purposes an environmental scientist Shenkt is Conaan. I think the different approaches make for a fun game.
This feels to me more of an in character issue that given the flow of the game will come out in the wash.
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I agree, sorry to see you go. I also do not feel this has anything to do with gaming style. Staying "in character" is driving different approaches to the challenges the party faces. Reaching complete consensus before actions are taken will likely never be an attainable goal.
I agree, sorry to see you go. I also do not feel this has anything to do with gaming style. Staying "in character" is driving different approaches to the challenges the party faces. Reaching complete consensus before actions are taken will likely never be an attainable goal.
We won't always get a consensus, but we need to make sure that the group's approach to situations is not always determined by a few characters' impulsive or assertive attitudes, thereby preventing more cautious players' play styles OR other characters' attitudes from being expressed.
I was trying to scout, but I wasn't the one doing the tracking, so I needed a direction to scout. I was surprised when most of the group decided to try to hide along with me rather than waiting for my perception check to be resolved. Then, by the time there was an opportunity to post and action, the GM had decided that we were already on top of them, and everyone who wasn't actively hiding was already visible...