Luna, you've been added as a player. So go ahead and submit a character, then you'll be able to post in the test thread.
Note: it's possible to post in the thread as a player without first having a character accepted.
It seems to work at my work, so I've asked to join.
Also, Merry Festive Day of your Choice.
Okay, well after a bit of playing around, and some quality feedback, it seems that staying here and sticking with the beast we know is a better choice than transferring to a beast we don't. So... Moving on. :)
Very good.
Okey dokey.
So I am posting from work:
Apologies about not posting sooner, but I have been down internet wise for roughly a week, and will not have internet back up yet for a week or so.
This means that I haven't had internet for the last 4 days (as we had 4 days off at my work for the holiday).
It's been...an experience where I learned that I use the internet more than I thought I did.
With all of that being said, I will try to post from work as I can, but if I am in your game, please bot me as needed.
If I am running your game, please bear with me while I try to post when I can. Hopefully, sooner than better, but I want to be up front about this issue.
again, I apologize about the delay.
Hello all!
I must say, I'm a little disappointed. I thought for sure the list of "participating" businesses, possibly locate-able treasure, along with the inclusion of a sending stone and an amulet of proof against detection and location would get the ingenuity gears turning. Perhaps we're just dealing with holiday lag? If so, I completely understand that, and will wait patiently for whatever genius ideas you all have for using your new found items to get some much needed information from those you've been investigating.
At this point, I'm waiting on you all to move things along in a way that you think your investigations are best served. Essentially, I'm waiting for primers for week 3 investigations, whether those are still individual or more coordinated, is, as always, up to you. :) As far as I know there are more than enough "hooks" out there to latch onto. If you feel that is not the case, let me know. :)
Not a magic user in this game. Not sure what else Luna can do? Some holiday lag, some lack of ingenuity on my own part. VERY open to suggestions.
You don't have to be a magic user to use magic items. Or to talk to people, like shop owners. I don't want to push anything yet, as I'm sure some people will have ideas. If, after the New Year's day holiday is over, you're still lacking inspiration, I'll offer some suggestions. :)
Yes, but you do have to have magic knowledge to study them. I'll be thinking on it. I would like suggestions from others if they are willing.
With the items we've gotten, the obvious ones are trying to use the stones to trick information out of folk and using the amulet for sneakiness. Since we know the Arcane side of things has problems it's probably a good idea for anyone doing some B&E on them to wear it.
I'd still like to track down a trustworthy Alchemist to get some information about the poison dart, too. If only so we can safely use it ourselves and get some antidote ready in case the bad folk use it a lot.
Quint will have his eye on the amulet, especially after he finds out about his name appearing on those documents, but if we're going to do anything with the sending stone, it should be worn in the short term by whoever is hanging on to that, for obvious reasons (I assume items in the possession of someone wearing it can't be targeted by spells like Locate Object, right?). I could take that job, but it seemed like more of a Jun/Nikeisha thing... or maybe Psalm.
I threw the poison dart thing out there in case somebody thought that knowing an alchemist fit their backstory (probably one of the same three). If nobody else wants that lead, I can take it, as well.
The drawings of houses seems like a tailor-made lead for Quint, I'm just not sure how to make use of it. If they are just prospective targets for the Shepherds, breaking in to steal stuff probably won't get us anywhere unless Quint plans to intentionally get discovered doing so by them. If, on the other hand, they have been targeted because they're owned by a rival cult, trying to do that might be a Very Bad Idea(TM). Quint will also want to see who else has been profiled. He might know some of them. He's been busy with the chest and its trap since he arrived, so someone will have to mention those papers to him.
There were 3 businesses listed, Arviel's Armaments, Heavenly Herbs, and Skiara's Sketchbook. The last two both sound like leads for Luna or Psalm... the last one could also be Nikeisha, maybe. The first one is probably Hack, or maybe Jun. Quint could also come up with an excuse to go to the first one, but there seems to be plenty for him to do already, especially if nobody else volunteers to follow up with the dart or the sending stone. Of course, if any of them seem worth it after being checked out, we could get some orphans watching them. By having them shift between locations on different days, we can keep them less conspicuous and also create the possibility that one of them will recognize the same people (who might otherwise go unnoticed) showing up at more than one location.
We should probably try to unload the gemstones before someone tries to locate them. Quint can certainly give advice on people who buy stolen goods, but (especially if we want to intentionally sell them to someone who is a little more loose-lipped) he should try to maintain his anonymity, and someone who was actually seen on the scene (probably Jun or Hack, or maybe both) should play the part of the seller. Whoever does it needs to be prepared to be approached or followed. They don't want to give away the rest of the group. Quint can help there by discreetly checking for anyone following them by mundane means. As for magical means... maybe it should be Jun, and he should wear the amulet? That would also mean that he should be the one handling the sending stone.
Any of those roles jump out at anyone? Anything I missed?
Yes, but you do have to have magic knowledge to study them. I'll be thinking on it. I would like suggestions from others if they are willing.
Actually, Luna, you're wrong there. In 5e anyone can spend a short rest studying a magic item and identify not only it's properties, but also how to activate it. That was one of the many things I found very welcoming about this current version of D&D. :) In fact, Psalm and Nikeisha didn't have to roll anything to identify them. Their rolls, if they were for anything, were for flavor, or perhaps to see if they could identify them more quickly. I just had Psalm and Nikeisha doing the identifying because I had previously narrated that they were the characters that picked them out of the loot mix.
The identify spell is the fastest way to reveal an item's properties. Alternatively, a character can focus on one magic item during a short rest, while being in physical contact with the item. At the end of the rest, the character learns the item's properties, as well as how to use them. Potions are an exception; a little taste is enough to tell the taster what the potion does.
As you can see, not being a magic user or even having arcane knowledge doesn't prevent a character from using or learning about magic items. Potions are even easier. Just give it a taste, and you'll know immediately what it does. :) Gone are the days of waiting for the party caster to make a successful Spellcheck roll to figure out how to use the nice new shiny magic item the players got. :)
Edit: Quint's post popped in while I was previewing mine. Excellent ideas Quint. Those are just the kinds of things I was expecting would come out of this. As I mentioned, there are plenty of hooks, maybe too many hooks at this point! :)
Btw, if you want to put some names that Quint will recognize (besides the Shepherds) on the reports, there are some that I threw out there in this post: https://paizo.com/campaigns/TheWorldOfEafphquTeamGood/gameplay&page=36# 1769
Since you didn't give me much on any of those names, other than names, I'd be perfectly fine with you including any number of them as having their own personnel report among the documents. That way you can do some more imagining about who they are, and I'll have a nice concise bit of background and personality for my running NPC database. :) Two birds, one stone, as it were. ;) That also creates new hooks, as any person that the Shepherds were keeping tabs on might be very interested to know it. Just like Quint will be interested to know it, once he finds his own report. :) Possible allies with unique skill sets are always a plus. :D
Also, just wanted to mention, the very idea of taking a poison dart to an herbalist/alchemist whose shop is named "Heavenly Herbs" and is also uniquely separated on the tabulation sheet of a thieve's guild, and asking the proprietor to help you identify a poison, just sounds like magic waiting to happen. :)
Jun: "I'd like you to identify the properties of the poison on this dart for me."
Proprietor: "Why I never!"
Jun: Smiles and winks, "Rrrriiiiiiiiigggggghhhhhhhtttttt. But seriously..."
That actually could be the source of the poison, but they would never admit it, and asking there would just draw more of the wrong kind of attention to the person doing the asking.
Right, like I said, magic... :P
Hack will check out Arviel's Armaments, with Jun, if he chooses to join him?
Don't forget that Hack was there because somebody was paying him for guard duty. Might also want to check in with that employer...
Good point...planned on it...
Happy New Year everyone. I am glad to get another year to game with you all. :D
Happy New Year!
HAPPY NEW YEAR ALL!!!
Are we currently experiencing one of those situations where everyone is paralyzed by too many choices? I have a few options to give this campaign a push, but I don't want to do that without giving everyone every opportunity to set up their week 3 investigations.
If you are just unwinding from the holidays and need some time to settle back into normal routines, I totally understand, but I don't want to let too much idle time go by. I've seen campaigns die from little else.
Let me know if you all need a push. :)
Okay, so here's what I see as possible investigation primers for the next week, and I'm only putting these here to make sure that we are all on the same wavelength. I do not want to push things forward without all of your consent here. Obviously things have just become drastically more intense, more ominous, and more dangerous.
For Luna, a trip with Psalm to Skiara's Sketchbook. The purpose of said visit is to scope out the place, and to see why it might be on a "special" list of shops that the cultists have. Perhaps with a "friendly" interview with the shopowner if possible? If so, what, ultimately would you like to come away with from that? Other than just a more thorough knowledge of the business and identity of the owner? Anything specific? Also for Luna, a further investigation into the Order of the Fist Monastery, Byrthelm's conscripted monk fighting force and training compound. Of important note there, her repeated presence there is, by now, noticeable. It's possible she will have to join the monastery to get any more detailed and hidden information...
For Psalm, perhaps accompanied by Nikeisha, research into any elven citizens of the Republic, preferably living in Rydwyrna if at all possible, that might be old enough (at least 1500 years) to have been alive during the legendary Dragon War. Likewise, perhaps, seeing if they can get let into the higher levels of the Arcanium to do some more thorough research into Kraiula and or Aranon Ethalion.
For Jun, look into how Diamond Imports is handling the aftermath of the destructive battle that happened surrounding one of their shipments. Trying to further ingratiate himself into the business wherever possible, and even, again if possible, to get a face to face sit down meeting with either Aldaviel (female half-elf) the owner of Diamond Imports (if she's in town), or her Rydwyrna director Dúnorchel (female half-elf).
For Hack, see if there are any consequences for either himself or any of the other guards that were being paid to protect the shipment that got blown to kingdom come. Keeping an eye out for any possible insight into Brantar Hambuc-ham, and looking for opportunity to find out who his boss(es) are.
For Quint, put his street urchins on watching The Floating Kraken, as well as looking into all of the sites that were attacked during Enwelros' escape, searching for any connections the places might have with each other, with Diamond Imports, or with the cult at large.
Does that sound about right to everyone? Are there avenues I missed? Other areas or people some characters would want to investigate? Whenever you feel like you've got your heads wrapped around what your character would do for this upcoming third week of investigation, go ahead and post that primer in gameplay.
Aldelday (Monday's equivalent on Iewiuf) is Ilsa 23, the national holiday Freedom Day, the celebration of the end of the Nine Years War with the Highland kingdom five short years ago. Usually there is a massive military parade embellished with magical accompaniment of light shows and illusions, music, and every Senator with their own entourage. I will leave it up to your active imaginations all the possible shenanigans a devious cult might think about pulling off during such an event.
Looks good to me...upcoming post on the rolls.
I'm happy to help Psalm. Too fuzzy still to have much initiative.
I am posting this to all of my games, so apologies if you see this multiple times:
Unfortunately, I have some bad news.
A combination of work-related stuff has lead to me having to take some time off from the forums. I am, in all honesty, going to need to be gone for several months, as I am going to be travelling for extended periods of time (weeks or more) and I'll likely not have good access to the internet.
As I am not someone who would want to have you all sit and wait for me here, I am going to be withdrawing/closing all of my open forum games.
I want to thank everyone who I have had the pleasure to game with over the last couple of years here, as I have immensely enjoyed my time on the forums, and hopefully, once my work stabilizes, I will be able to rejoin the community.
Thank you again for your time and energy, and I am sorry that I won't be able to keep things moving forward in any of the games that I am running.
Best of luck, Jun!
@GM Mended Wall: What is the plan moving forward without Jun? Can we carry on, or do we need to add another party member?
Good luck Jun! And safe travels! Sorry to read your having to leave us. I have enjoyed playing with you.
Well... That's a new wrinkle, but not game-breaking. In fact, it might just be able to be turned into a powerful story hook. Perhaps Jun Valanthe, the unspoken leader of this little rag-tag group, is about to go missing... That will put the heat on the investigation, won't it?!
I think the party is still perfectly viable without Jun at the helm. Though the vacuum left by the absence of his organizational and authoritative voice might cause a bit of interior struggle with the group, that could also be good.
Speaking of the rest of the party. Jun and Hack are the only two who have given me definitive week three investigation primers. There are some posts up from the rest of you that give inclinations about how you want to go about your week three investigations, but, as of yet, no solid "here it is!" posts. Are you waiting for something specific from me? Having trouble putting your ideas into words? Or were those previous posts supposed to be the complete primer for week three? If that's the case, just let me know, and I can do my best to cobble things together. Let me know!
Sorry to see you go Jun! Blessings on your new job duties!
I think we've probably all been waiting for one another to make one choice or another. I've also been super busy with work and had a nasty cold, so I've been watching the game, but not giving it as much thought as it needs at this stage. I'll try to get something up today.
For my part, I think I need to do something with the building blueprints, but I'm not sure what. Anything else you can tell me about what Quint sees as he inspects them?
There were some other leads that I said I might do something with if nobody else wanted them. I was partially waiting to see who would bite on what (using it as an excuse to procrastinate, anyway).
Btw, great idea about having Jun go missing. Sorry to see him go from the game, but it does make a great plot hook.
Quint! With that investigation roll, and considering you have the urchin background (so you know the city well), you realize, quite quickly actually, after taking a second to look at which buildings the Shepherds had plans for, that their are five buildings in total, and the locations of those buildings outline an almost perfect pentagon, with Castle Redwood at the center. One of the buildings that they have blueprints for is within a rock's throw of the Shepherd's compound that was burned to the ground.
Of course, Quint doesn't know this yet, but I'll tell you the player, the coordinated attack that happened to help with Enwelros' escape from prison, targeted buildings that were very close to those buildings whose blue prints are currently in your grubby mitts. ;)
Ok, that's something I can work with. I'll work on a post of investigations based on that information.
Also, since Jun is out, I'm going to assume that Quint is taking the amulet, and that he's also carrying the sending stone so that the amulet can prevent the stone from being located/scryed-upon (it does work that way, right? I could have sworn I already asked about that, but couldn't find it...)
Take care Jun. Save travels.
I am hoping that now that you have smashed the box open for us we can enjoy the freedom you modeled for us. I learned a lot about gaming from the last week or so of your posts.
Um, I guess I didn't make it as an in-game post. I'm just not very good at these kind of things. I was quite clear that I was going to 'poke-around' the sketching shop, but I have no idea what to ask or do there. I also said I wanted to ask around at the Monastery, but that was for some info that Jun had asked about so ...
Sorry, Mended. I am enjoying the game, but I'm just no good at all this investigation stuff. I have not the imagination for it.
Pulse Check!
How's everybody feeling about the game? Still having fun? Still interested? We're getting danger close to some very interesting (and possibly world-altering) events here. If it feels a little "bleh" now, trust me when I tell you in the next couple of game weeks "bleh" will not be a word that describes what's happening in Rydwyrna... And that's all I'll say about that. :)
However, if people are just not enjoying the game, I do understand that. It's definitely not a hack-n-slash game, and I understand that having given this game the experimental shot, you may have realized you don't like games like this. I'll have no hard feelings if you just tell me that you're not really interested any more. Just let me know. :)
Your friendly neighborhood DM. :)
I am invested, and it has been very enjoyable thus far.
Still having fun, just a bit ... slow? or not as exciting as I had hoped? But you did warn us it would be a heavy RP, and some situations, I the player, am just not so good at RP'g. Still would like to continue on, but at the same time if you ever feel my lack of RP'g is holding up the game or spoiling it for others, let me know. I won't be offended if I am asked to drop.
Still having fun. It's definitely been slow at times. Part of that is seasonal. The big slow downs have happened in all of the other games I'm in at the same time.
Some of it is also difficulty running this type of game in PBP format, though. Without the ability for quicker back-and-forth (both with the GM and with other players, all of whom keep different hours and have levels of commitment that vary over time, depending on their meatspace circumstances), it's difficult to do much RPing with characters you don't control. If you start it, there is the very real worry that it will delay events in the game by as much as a month, and even cause players who are not involved in it to drop out.
Long narrative posts are another option, but players traditionally don't control any characters other than their own, and you can only go so far writing those with only one character. You've given us some freedom to make up NPCs to interact with, but it's difficult to know how far we can go with that, and anything that consequential to the story still needs to go through the GM. With this many players, writing those also comes with the worry of overshadowing other players and hogging the spotlight (though it's been gratifying that some of my attempts at long narrative posts seem to have inspired other players to do the same).
Something I learned in the game that I've been running is that it's important to break up the long narrative stretches. Yes, the characters are working toward some long-term, high-stakes goal, but when it can take months or years of real time to accomplish on the forums what might happen in a few sessions around a table, it's important to throw in some shorter-term, lower stakes stuff (even if it's not connected to the main story) to keep everyone engaged and feeling like they're still winning (especially when some characters are built with more of a hack-and-slash focus than others).
I am enjoying it. Very much and certainly there are some things about to happen.
We are going to feel the loss of Jun pretty heavy. Quint is doing great but they are the both the heavy social/intrigue players. So a lot of that is hitting Quint now.
Bonus points for Hack stepping into a bruiser role for investigating rather than face smashing.
Yeah...not my forte, but I am holding up...lol.
@Everyone, great to hear that people are still interested, even if a bit disconnected from their character in terms of being able to RP in certain situations.
@Quint, you bring up extremely salient points, and no I don't mean points like Thieve's Cant. :P This medium for an RP heavy, extended narrative game is absolutely not the best. I was hoping having Senator Akassa show up would actually provide one of those "lower stake" quick back and forth moments where players with time and energy could post quick snippets and get things moving forward more rapidly.
Speaking of... You'll remember I recently offered up the possibility of moving our game to a different site, but after our connected research we all determined that wasn't the greatest idea. There is another alternative to play online in a quite different, but no less inviting "play by post," venue. How many of you are familiar with the software application Discord? It is a software application that can be downloaded onto a computer'd desktop, or just run right out of any modern web browser. Last year I started hosting/DMing a live game on Discord once a week, and have found it to be a particularly excellent tool for playing D&D online. The only learning curve for people who are regular PbPers would be learning new codes for text formatting. As I said, though, I've been on Discord for a while and would be perfectly happy to help players with making the adjustment. The benefit of Discord is that unless people chose to ghost themselves, we would all know who was on when, and if quick back and forth RP's were necessary, we could do that. This also provides the great opportunity for me to RP back and forth with whomever is on whenever we're both on. In our current "I'm going here, you're going there" circumstances, that could be absolutely invaluable. I could even create separate chat rooms within the same single server for each character and any interactions they had separate from other characters could be taken care of in those "rooms." That benefit alone, for me, makes Discord a much more appealing medium for this kind of game.
As such, as I offered earlier, if people want to give Discord a look see, as an experiment to see if perhaps it is a better fit for our game, I'd appreciate it. I do realize that for some people the ability to use Discord at work would not be an option, and that could be the deciding factor. However, Discord does work on phones quite well, from what I hear. I personally don't use it there, as I like to have my fingers on a full qwerty keyboard when typing, but nonetheless, it is a viable option. As I offered before, if we decided to make the switch to Discord, I would pay every character in the form of a level up.
If you want to give Discord a try, after signing up, you can click on this invite link to go to a server I set up for our testing purposes. There you can play around with functionality. I'll be on Discord all afternoon today as I'll be running my weekly game, so I should be able to help out with questions. Here's the invite link to join the test server. Maybe see you there?
I am already on Discord, and I will follow the link.
I reviewed the discord app., and it is an alternative that we should all consider switching to.
I'm not a fan of the idea of moving the game to discord--or, as I think of it, the newfangled, proprietary IRC (now who's the old guy?). We could definitely use it as an alternate, real-time discussion thread to allow us to run smaller questions by the GM to flesh-out narrative posts. We could even consider doing some real-time RP sessions there, which need not be the whole group together, but I would prefer to see those either developed into a narrative post, or at least summarized, back here in the gameplay thread.
Of course, I suppose if it's a scene that only one PC is involved in, the other characters might not know about it other than what that that character relates to them after the fact. We haven't been very good about having our characters fill the rest in on things that supposedly only one character knows (instead assuming that everyone has read the posts/spoilers that their character wasn't present for), but if we got better about that, it might make sense to do scenes that way (which would basically amount to doing the summary posts I mentioned in-character instead of as narrative).
Several of the games I'm in have started using it as a Discussion/Chat place, and I'd be down for that. I'm up for trying a game there too, at some point.