Broken Golarion

Game Master Monkeygod

Turns out that both drives in my raid failed.

Waiting to see if they can recover anything.

Ouch. That sucks.

With no real posts in two weeks, and GM Coon the only GM that posted much unprompted before that, I do consider this game pretty much over, at least on my side.

It was a fun concept, but not enough activity to sustain it.

I've messaged the GMs, so we'll see if they respond. I'm sorry this has fallen apart.

I am present. Apologies.

The three of us should take a moment to decide how we need to proceed from here.

Sounds like a good use of our group chat. Hopefully the other players are still around.

*Wave.*

Like, the problem is with DMs splitting up scenes and characters, that just made inconsistent amount of time between players as some people got responses and others didn't. Second, if someone wasn't actively doing something, they were forgotten, when they should be presented choices or prompts to find out what they're doing. The DMs should be the ones pushing things, players shouldn't have to consistently be the ones asking for replies or such. And the post rate.... was just low.

I make no excuses for my own posting rate, and offer my apologies, I know how much this can effect a game when a DM has poor posting.

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This game was set up as player driven. There are many times where Monkeygod stated players could go where they wanted, together or separately. This does change the focus from DM driven to player driven.

I personally prefer a sandbox game that is player driven. In my own game worlds I like to operate in something of an event tree. I will have a primary story arc, and several side plots and stories ready for use. Players are presented with a fork in the road. If my event tree says they need to meet a centaur to be offered a quest, it doesn't matter which fork they take, they're running into the centaur. And thereafter that centaur will now be locked to the fork they chose. Players decide they want to go off on an unexpected tangent, I present offers of quests, side plots, and wil also move a clue to help the players get back to the primary story. But this style is based on players stating what they want to do.

Player driven:
Player: "I want to go look for information about the duke."
GM: "How do you plan to do this."
Player: "I guess I'll go talk to people at the inn first."
GM: "When you walk into the inn you see..."

GM driven:
GM: "You realize that you need to learn more about the duke."
Player: "I roll diplomacy to gather info."
GM: "After spending an afternoon at the local inn, you learn that..."

Notice who's deciding where the player goes?

Other than brief preparation events or tactical choices, I discourage (strongly) players that want to go solo. Go play skyrim on your x-box if you don't want to be part of the group.

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My personal viewpoint is this:

The game is too open-ended. while the setting of world is established, the group was specifically not provided an overriding goal or mission.

Players were effectively encouraged to not act as part of a single group.

This means that instead of one game with three DM's it quickly became multiple 'games' in a shared universe. And with variable speed between GM/players, those separate 'games' would likely never be able to act together again.

For instance, one 'game' spends a couple of posts to cover the Absalom to mainland trip while another spends a couple of week's on the trip. Right here we now have two 'games' that have lost time sync by about a week IC.

Possible solutions:

1) Scrap the game. I personally would rather not, and I hope others feel the same.

2) A partial reboot. Change a couple of presumptions.
2a) Change the individual drive and keep everyone as part of a single group.
2b) Change the sandbox to a quest mission.

3) Ask the players for their ideas and go with the majority.

This game was set up as player driven. There are many times where Monkeygod stated players could go where they wanted, together or separately. This does change the focus from DM driven to player driven.

Player-driven still definitely requires a lot of DM attention, arguably more-so- It means if a player is expressing interest in something, they need the DM to be active and fill that out. If they do something, it's extra important for the DM to respond because they can't go forward without a response. And they still need the DMs to check which direction they're going in- this is something I've learned from similar experiences. Sometimes the players think they've posted enough to give direction and the DMs not realize it, so they need to ping to check whenever stuff isn't happening or just a reminder that something else affects them- like I had a companion a few times, but NPCs would mostly just talk to me.

I don't think the goal thing was a problem- The players wanted to get on the content and get involved, and we were given a couple possibilities and we went on them. We were self-motivated, that wasn't really an issue. The splitting up? That's much more of a problem.

For me, I wanted to do some diplomacy to speed along our journey- I have a diplomacy build, after all. My initial intent was to bring along most of the others, and for the diplomacy mission to involve some fairly rapid back-and-forths, and it took longer than expected while others sat around. This was a problem.

I could be down for a restart without the party splitting and with assurances of more active response.

I'm gonna be a bit honest here.

While I have absolutely no problem with the group splitting up, should they really want to, the seed for the trip to find the missing explorer was done to try and keep the group mostly together. Loc going off on his own wasn't such a big deal, especially because he was sort of under my direction via my NPC.

However, Karen refusing to go help rescue the missing npc, threw things for a loop. She had just gone off about being a good hero, refusing to work with evil or bad guys, and yet when the time comes to be a good guy she's like 'nope, I'm gonna be selfish and head to the mainland'.

Now, granted, the rescue mission wasn't a *huge* plot point, but it was supposed to be a nice way to keep the majority of the group together.

I'd like to reboot to when they all wake up. And the first thing the PC's find out is that they were brought back for a specific goal.

That's where the group mission needed to start.

The issue for Karen is that Jalmeray is weeks-months of travel away from the inner sea, and going there meant that the millions of people suffering under the combined yoke of evil was too much to take searching for a single person.

I could go with a restart. I think the "You could go anywhere" thing works better in theory than practice. It is a fantastic idea, but I think it degrades very quickly due to factors like time mentioned above.
Having a local threat to deal with first would also help solidify things before the globe trotting begins.

The issue for Karen is that Jalmeray is weeks-months of travel away from the inner sea, and going there meant that the millions of people suffering under the combined yoke of evil was too much to take searching for a single person.

For me, I viewed it as a way to get to the mainland with allies, though I could see that point.

Mainly, it was the main travel option offered, and part of Lian's operation, considering we had little actual resources, was promises fast in order to gain support, and then use that support for later action.

I would be fine with restarting as well. I like Karen a great deal, and our previous RP really helped cement her in my mind.

How many PCs do we have left btw?

I wouldn't be opposed to a restart, though it is a bit clunky. Unsure how that would actually work. If we start a new thread, we lose this discussion thread, and recruitment. Though, if we end needing to recruit new players, that would be moot.

My suggestion was going to be have you all land in roughly the same area, and go from there on the mainland.

Just add a post to IC that says "REBOOT: IGNORE PREVIOUS CONTENT"

Do the same in the OOC.

Then put a link to both of those in the campaign tab so people know where the start of the new story is.

Went ahead and PM'd Loc, to see if he's still interested.

However, it appears Mugmuff's player hasn't been active for about a month on the boards.

Which leaves us with 2, possibly 3 if Loc decides to re-join us.

We need to get up to at the very least 4, if not 5 or 6 players, so I will likely re-open recruitment, and create entirely new threads for everything. New Recruitment, gameplay, discussion.

How does that sound?

And are Karen and Lian OK with a full restart, or would you rather you both hit the mainland around the same time, and go from there??

I'm okay either way, whichever works for you.

I'm with Karen. I guess having everyone start on the mainland would help. That way we can get the story going for the new people.

Yea, the mainland is where the action is. While I don't mind politicing a path to get there, it doesn't give as much for everyone to do, and we've already done most of that part.

Alrighty folks!! I got the new recruitment up!!

Check it out, post as your character, comment there on anything I should add(or feel free to add in your own) :)

Hey guys.

Found it too! ‘Ello everyone

Wayfinder Resonant Power: 1d100 ⇒ 8

Some final adjustments on character sheet. Really look forward to starting.

Welcome :) I too hope we can get things going soon.

Hey hey!

Can I get a pm for when we are ready to start?

I plan on getting a post up tomorrow, or possibly Tues(if tomorrow ends up being too busy). Wanna give everyone the full weekend to check in.

Sounds like a game plan to me

Hi! Forgot the link to the original thread was there :P
I hope there's still some beer left for me!

Several tall mugs of ale are dropped onto the table. Enjoy yourselves! While you can.

Help out your DM's.

Put detail into your alias. I find it easiest to use google docs and make edits there, then copy/paste to the profile. You can still put the posting tags into the document.

I'm okay with linking to a google doc for your character sheet as well. These characters are complicated.

And when we have to go find the source it just takes more time.

So, when you list stuff out, if it comes from a book that isn't one of the main books, list the reference (if you are using a google doc, you can actually use hyperlinks to a website, like d20pfsrd).

Traits should have the trait type listed. You're still limited to one of each category.

If you only list the skills that you spent ranks on, have a section that at least gives your total untrained bonus for skills by attribute.

Anafa, you're missing a few feats and a trait.

Put detail into your alias. I find it easiest to use google docs and make edits there, then copy/paste to the profile. You can still put the posting tags into the document.

Checked :)

I'm okay with linking to a google doc for your character sheet as well. These characters are complicated. And when we have to go find the source it just takes more time.

Checked :)

So, when you list stuff out, if it comes from a book that isn't one of the main books, list the reference (if you are using a google doc, you can actually use hyperlinks to a website, like d20pfsrd).

Checked :)

Traits should have the trait type listed. You're still limited to one of each category.

Checked :)

If you only list the skills that you spent ranks on, have a section that at least gives your total untrained bonus for skills by attribute.

Checked :

Also, please make sure to list what Words and Gifts you have chosen, as well as what they do.

I should introduce you to someone.

This here is the boyish face that prodded you awake with the butt end of a pitchfork. He's friendly enough in a way that says he doesn't really care for many things, but keeps turning up in odd places at odd times that gives you the impression that he does actually care. It just may not be about you.
The only name you can get out of him is "the stable boy". The only person he doesn't give a bit of snark to is Penshi.

If there are any issues with my profile, please let me know. I think that everything is listed out pretty clearly.

The unpredictability of the site's updates threw me off my plan for today, so I will try to get the new game play post up tomorrow. <fingers crossed there's no new issues>

Where am I (Lian) at right now?

All 3 original PCs landed in Augustana, made their into the poor district of Copperdown, and have felt a 'tug of fate', pulling you to a tavern called the Everflowing Cup. Outside is a friend, who greets you with a warm smile, and haves you inside.

I was going to ask the same question as Lian lol.

So hard to see PMs on new layout. But I’m here!

Has anyone seen Anafa?

Who wants life-link? It lets me take the first 5 damage you suffer each round.

Godwyn has 100HP, AC29, has fast healing 3 and can lay on hands himself for 4d6+10. So he’s durable enough to take damage for the team.

I'm super squishy so I could use that.

A LE necromancer? Not being rude, but can we OOC come up with justifications for a paladin can use his powers to help your character? It’ll be much more rewarding than just ignoring that elephant in the room.

The gods raised him too, did they not? Do you dare to question their wisdom? :)