To Change the Way of the World: A Better Valcia Begins Today (Inactive)

Game Master Darksmokepuncher

When I got a job and posted in all 20 of my games a lot of people felt that way haha.

I don't normally lose my pants on the first date, honest.

People, just a heads up.

My girls' Summer vacations have began this week, so my posting may become sparse at times. My apologies in advance if it happens.

I will be usually around, and can probably keep up, but kids + Summer + Vacations = Mostly unpredictable ;)

No worries :)

Kids.... Enjoy :)

Apologies for the delays people - last couple of days have been really busy with job hunting.

On a side note, I will be travelling tomorrow with the family, and until about midday Tuesday - internet access will be limited to phone, so posting will probably be irregular.

Heya people,

This is one of those uncanny, strange situations when Real Life takes precedence over gaming - just today I started on a new job, a real challenge that I think may actually change things for me (and my family) in the future, so I find myself in the despicable situation of having to drop similar lines in many of my games.

My job is IT related [one if my areas of expertise I guess ;)], and most likely means soon I will be sitting in front of a laptop on my own, with enough autonomy to spend my time as I see fit - improving on my ITIL knowledge, posting on one of my numerous PbP games, whatever...

The thing is, I need to commit to this one, so it means some serious decisions regarding my games - I simply cannot stick with all of them, so I have taken the decision to stick with my oldest games, ones I have committed to long ago, and which have stuck with me for a looooong time.

DSP, what you are doing is simply amazing. The level of commitment to a homebrew such as this one is something honestly out of the ordinary, and I can only hope to someday live up to it. But not right now - I am going to drop out of your game, in spite of admiring your work, and the group of players you have managed to gather.

Erianna is definitely one of the characters I am most proud of, so I can only hope me leaving will be something quickly assimilated, and look forward to the chance of having an opportunity to play with you all in a near future, RL permitting.

I am honestly sorry for dropping out... I wish you all a great game (and I am sure it will be so), and DSP, thanks for giving me a chance of playing in your game - it was honestly worthwhile.

Thank you all again.

I hear you Erianna, and really, no apology needed.

Life flows,and we flow with it. I hope to game with you again someday.
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To the rest of you, How would you like to proceed? As it happens, the other game in this world is currently down a player, so we could, for the time being, continue on.

We will have to recruit at some point though. So, do we do it now or later?

Later would make sense thematically with where we are in the game, but I would be fine with either.

Nooooooooooooo !!!

who is going to defend me from all those souped up powerful people DM DPS is continually trowing at us?

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For Esther sake i don't know how she should react to her sister being killed or of separated...

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I would say we can recruit later. It doesn't make real since right now

Ok, for now, I will NPC Erianna and we will phase her out of the story at an appropriate time.

Yes, a front liner would be great. With tracking added on...I'm tempted to say a barbarian might fit in the niche well (although Mortimer will loathe the idea). Although I see no problem with a fighter or any other class that could be tanky.

Any other houghts Esther and Cyrus?

I will post on my break today. (I hope :P)

RECRUITMENT UP

I think a Fighter would be best. I'll keep an eye out on the thread.

How are we feeling about the applicants?

Any clear front runners in your minds?

I am merely curious :)

I warn any applicants lurking around that I'm going to be pretty honest.

Dirk I'm obviously going to be a little biased towards him since he's my local friend, but I really like his application. Covers everything we asked for, an interesting character, and favors flavor over power.

Victor Freedman Strong crunch, but I would like to see more fluff from him. Not a bad choice, but not my first.

Ezebelle Thesun I like her crunch. Waiting on fluff.

Atticus Very weak submission with minimal effort.

Alice Clearly a lot of effort put into her fluff, very detailed. However I disdain characters that are dipped into so many classes to powergame.

Norvallen Waiting on him to finish up.

Anon a mouse Decent submission all around. Fluff seems a little bland.

I like the brawler out of the two monk submission (since its one of the new classes)

Same about alice, but i know the player Ash from an other game and he is a strong poster

didn't see a crunch for dirk

Same about Victor Freedman.

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End result is between Alice and Victor

didn't see a crunch for dirk

Sorry, I forgot to separate board/IRL knowledge. He drew up crunch fairly quickly but wanted some help making it neat and organized on the boards.

End result is between Alice and Victor

I think it may be a little early to be calling it since many submissions are not completely. However I do agree with you somewhat there. I wouldn't be opposed to Victor. Alice's fluff really catches my eye, so as long as her very optimized character doesn't ruin the balance of fights she's my first choice at the moment.

i know it isn't over yet i was just giving my intake up to this moment of the draft :)

Norvallen Update I don't have access to the final version of the Advanced Class Guide so I can't perfectly evaluate his crunch. However I can tell he knows how to build a strong character and is making it match our requirements. A nit picky thing is that I don't like how his crunch looks, abilities are shortened to save room (I like to read the whole thing) and there's no formatting so it's an eyesore. Just dumb nit picky stuff though.

Jack His crunch is very confusing and has a lot of mistakes. Greatsword only adding +11 to hit on the first attack, a massive DR that I can't get my head around. Waiting on fluff, but his crunch did not impress me.

The unofficial finalists, in my mind, are Ezebelle Thesun (assuming we get some fluff), Victor Freeman, and Dirk.

I think I'll be taking two.

I'd love thoughts, but, I know we don't know about Ezebelle yet.

Dirk only had 8 posts and no Aliases, don't know what that's about.

Either way I think my vote is for the other two, only problem is they both use sword and board style.

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I'm just the slightest bit salty, not gonna lie, but whatever as long as we can get this thing moving again.

Read Dirk's original post. He's been gaming for years but this is his first venture onto the boards. Everybody has to start somewhere.

What's making you salty?

Fair enough, I saw an archetype I wasn't familiar with and with barbarians being weaker than fighters at most levels I didn't really give him the consideration I should have. His character is stronger than Ezebelle's and he's popped on fairly frequently which is a plus.

Victor's AC is great though his HP's are sad for the front-line fighter type. Saves are also low.

Ezebelle's got all the fun ranger skill's and tricks but lacks the stopping power of the other two.

Background's are weak all around considering what myself and others were asked for during the last round of recruits.

My saltyness comes from WBL.

Don't worry about WBL :)

... sure.

He's GM DPS. I wouldn't put it past him to have something to do damage to us according to our character wealth.

I don't mind not having gear so long as the whole party is in that same boat.

I gave the initial bump to the tank, so he/she can tank better.

I'm happy to take it away if you'd all feel better.

I don't mind. Him having more gear benefits the party as a whole, it's not a competition.

I'm aware that it's not a competition. I have absolutely no problem with someone else having better/more money or loot or whatever.

I'm just curious as to why? The game is stalled so it's not like we're going to make any progress until we've finalized the recruitment. Not that we've done much in these past 5 months.

Speaking of which why is the intrepid trio chasing after Mortimer when he clearly doesn't want to be followed?

It's a facade so that Mortimer can infiltrate the ranks of the bandits.

The charade, as I understand it, is for the trio to be pursuing the rogue wizard and eventually bring him to justice.

This is an open concept world though, if there is something else you'd rather do, feel free.

I believe it's time we talked end game for recruitment.

I liked Ezebelle's fluff a lot, it shows a strong personality. However I'm concerned with how long it took her to write it up, I actually sent her a PM to remind her.

My support goes to Dirk and Alice. Alice for the strongest fluff and history on the boards and a powerful crunch. Dirk for his devotion to roleplaying and the opportunity to get him into his first online game. Ezebelle comes in at a very close third. Victor comes in at fourth. I certainly wouldn't be opposed to having him in the game, but I support the previously mentioned three more.

Alice, as is, is too powerful.

I told Ashe as much and it is being addressed.

As far as I am concerned, Dirk is in: he's an RL friend and there's nothing about his build or backstory that lacks.

I'm not as certain about a second, I'm still deliberating, but I'd love more feedback.

Esther? Cyrus?

I'm sure he will be thrilled to hear that!

I'm not at all upset about needing Alice. One concern I had about the player is that he said he was loathe to make a cookie cutter character. IMHO, I don't care if you're a strait up fighter with no archetypes and your only role in combat is to stand in front and deal/take hits as long as your character is fun to role play with. That's not saying I don't appreciate smart tactics or interesting approaches to fighting, but it shouldn't be the focus of your character. When I brag about one of my favorite characters I've made, I don't say "Oh he can fly and gets 5 AoOs with a 15 foot reach so he's basically untouchable in melee! ", I say "I made this cool strix who has learned to not hate humans and he's actually becoming a member of their government."

I agree.

The character should be a living, breathing, person we care about.

We don't strut around saying, "I can bench my car, and my cell phone can summon demons and rockstars."

That's not how characters should be portrayed either.

"...my cell phone can summon demons and rockstars."

I bet there's an app for that.

Nobody has posted here or in the recruitment since Tuesday, which I see as a bad sign. We should get recruitment wrapped up and get the game moving again.

I am giving Alice til tonight to resubmit. Otherwise I'm grabbing Dirk and one other.

Posting this to all My games:

I am heading off this afternoon to a 3 day music Festival. Expect very limited posting from my part.

If the game is in the middle of combat I WILL post once a day my combat actions.

Normal posting will resume on monday 25th

Nothing from Alice, I'm brining in Victor and Dirk unless there are objections?

I'm not sure if you intended to give Alice till tonight like you mentioned, but I have no objections to those choices.

Hello all! Im happy to be chosen! Truly an honor. This is my first time online, so any tips would be very helpful. Also please be patient with any mistakes or etiquitte messups I make. Also, gm DSP, did you get that PM I sent you?

Always remember, his real name is GM DPS. When we get into combat you'll learn why.

Read the formatting tips. Also there are certain ways to speak in the gameplay thread.

"In character talk is bolded and in quotations."

Actions are normal format.

In character thoughts are in italics.

Things said out of character (as in the player speaking) are in ooc.

Those are basics, I'm sure other stuff will pop up, feel free to ask as many questions as you need to.

indeed welcome to our merry little band...

and he is really DM DPS not that other name you know :)

Howdy folks, needs to set up the Victor alias. Will have it done soon.

OK, alias is set up. Happy to be joining the party.

Welcome.

With my dedicated bodyguard (twin sister) leaving i am hoping victor will take the job :)