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Things the First:
1) Yes, sell what we can in town. How about we ask the merchants how much they think would be a fair price for the booze and go from there? If they offer a fair price, then we take it, and both parties are happy.
If they off 1 copper per barrel, then maybe we should wait.
2) Seeing as how no one has owned the house in a no-seriously century, than means that no one owns it.
.a) Things have a Statute of Limitations for a reason.
.b)There's also a section of Squatters Rights in every state, many of which state that if a property is unoccupied, but then someone is living there, they have Rights. (to wit, the smugglers squatted there\lived there, then we kicked out everyone, hence the smugglers have given up their title and we now claim it.
.c) Since most fantasy countries have quasi-feudalism, it's just a matter of greasing the right palms to have a legal claim of whatever you want. =) In this case, the Barom, which I'd wager has a good chance of just being taken care of off-screen. ^_^
3) We give the signal, the boat pulls up, we show up and converse. If conversing doesn't work, we fight.
Somehow they gotta get close to see us, and we just don't reveal ourselves (as in, stay in deep smuggler-esque cloaks) until they dock, then we do reveal ourselves and go from there.
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Just realized I should have been more clear. I wasn't talking about this game, but another one. Let's just say that I cast a spell as a prank to deflate a character's ego by making them look ridiculous for an hour and things deteriorated from there. There had been tension between that character and another PC, and that spilled over into player interactions. At this point I'm not sure if I want to continue playing because the GM has not stepped in at all and both of the other players involved have stirred or tried to stir up the pot as things were calming down.
In any case, I've just decided that it's better to keep my head down rather than to continue arguing with the player who's character I pranked.
As your friend, I have been in this position many times, on both ends. I tell you their is one (and only one) cure for this. It works like magic.
You PM the person you pranked and sincerely and at length apologize.
No, it doesn't matter if they deserved being pranked. I'm fairly certain they did. But you are buying Harmony. And this is the price.
You apologize as hard as if you killed their kitten and ate it in front of them. "I've had some time to think about this and, although it seemed like a good idea, I see now that you have been greatly wounded by this and I wish to sincerely apologize. You are a good person and a fine player. I really like how reasonable and level-headed you are and I know that you'll accept this in the spirit of continued friendship in which it is offered."
There. Balls, copy and paste that if you can't stomach to write it (I know I can't sometimes. =)
No one says you have to, but I'd feel bad if I said nothing as it seemed like you wanted an answer and this usually solves such things. ^_^
Thanks. I have apologized to him in the forums, though I got his name wrong. HIs reply was "I see someone named [Wrong Name] was apologized to. I'm happy he got an apology." I also apologized for that, but it was pretty clear that I was apologizing to him.
If you want the full story, I can just link to the gameplay posts of the incident and the discussion thread.
Re selling the goods:
Wolfram is pretty sure that you will make a good amount of money selling the booze and the silk, but he also knows that the local magistrate will take about 15% for import taxes on the sale. There's no way of getting around that unless you want to sell it illegally ... which would be smuggling. You might get a better price for it in a larger city where there's more demand, but that would involve transporting it overland or by sea, which would seriously eat into the additional profit. Considering you paid nothing for the goods, you're getting a pretty good deal in any case.
Having just written my previous post, I just want to mention that I enjoy this much verisimilitude in a game, but not everyone does. If you'd rather just gloss over all this, I can also just give you a gp amount once you decide what you're doing with the loot (which currently seems to be selling it to local merchants).
I'm for just getting the GP number, but if others want to role-play it out, that's fine...
What's the in-game procedure for procuring the house? Can we skip a little bit of finding people to talk to, and the talking to them, and get a quick estimate on how much it would cost to "buy" it from whoever? I think that'll help us make a decision really quick...
Also, while we're at it, can we talk to a local carpenter/guild off-screen about how much it would cost to make the place livable?
Finally, as Wolfram said, if we want to live there, we'll *have* to take out the pirates, which is not something I'm really interested in.
Finally, as Wolfram said, if we want to live there, we'll *have* to take out the pirates, which is not something I'm really interested in.
Is this you, the player, or you, the character? And in either case, why not?
I and Kat, I think, do want to keep a few bolts to make some nice clothes out of. That shouldn't eat too much into our profits considering there are lot of goods from what was described to us.
As for the smugglers. I'm game for it, but I think even if we try the mysterious route, we're going to have to fight our way onto the ship. We know the signal, but we don't know how they interacted with each other, whether the captain and the wizard were good pals, or even how well the ship's crew would know the smugglers. I think there are far too many things that won't add up for them not to be suspicious of us.
I'll go with what the group decides, but I don't think we're gonna have much luck trying to sneak on the ship.
That said, we could always inform the baron of our intel and see if he'd be willing to loan us some men to help out and even the odds.
Most anything that can happen "off-screen" CAN be handled in this way. There's no reason to drag everyone through the minutiae of how much it will cost unless you want to RP getting to know the local carpenter, etc.
I and Kat, I think, do want to keep a few bolts to make some nice clothes out of. That shouldn't eat too much into our profits considering there are lot of goods from what was described to us.
As for the smugglers. I'm game for it, but I think even if we try the mysterious route, we're going to have to fight our way onto the ship. We know the signal, but we don't know how they interacted with each other, whether the captain and the wizard were good pals, or even how well the ship's crew would know the smugglers. I think there are far too many things that won't add up for them not to be suspicious of us.
I'll go with what the group decides, but I don't think we're gonna have much luck trying to sneak on the ship.
Why does everyone think there is some great need to be sneaky? Of course that won't work. This is a very simple plan, which is why it has a high likelihood of succeeding. We signal the Sea Ghost. We wait for the shore boat to arrive. We demonstrate to them we are better smugglers than the last group and intimidate them into escorting us back to the Sea Ghost. Pretty simple. We don't even have to lie - everything we did in the mansion supports our claim.
Because we have no previous relationship with the smugglers. They see all new faces and they're likely to smell a rat and bolt or come in with enough numbers to swamp us. We know nothing of their organization, if there is one. We know nothing to make us seem legitimate at all. That's the issue I've been trying and apparently failing to point out.
If we were smugglers and we saw all new faces claiming to be better smugglers instead of our normal contacts, would you trust them? I wouldn't! That's the fatal flaw in that plan. It relies on them trusting us when they have absolutely no reason to and very good reason not to.
None of that matters. Smugglers don't trust other smugglers; it's a hazard of the profession. What they care about is profit, and we offer a new revenue stream. What is important is that we present a stout, united front. If Allysen is going to get weak-kneed and undermine the operation, then it will fail. How are you going to choose to play it?
In any illegal enterprise there has to be some level of basic trust, otherwise thieves and fences would never work together. Both parties have to trust that the other will uphold their end of the bargain, though they will prepare for contingencies. Without that, why work with another crew at all?
For that matter, we're not even sure if these guys are independent or if they are part of the same group as the ship's crew and officers. IF they are independent, then acting like we took over might work, but I give it 50-50 at best and that's assuming these guys are stupid and cutthroat, which aren't marks of a successful smuggler. If they aren't independent, then this plan has no chance of success.
If they see us and there's no one around to establish our legitimacy, then at the least they are going to be on high alert and they are going to be asking some hard questions. At the worst, they're going to assume we're there to either edge in on their business or to grab them in the act or to just try stealing the goods for ourselves.
That's the fatal flaw in the plan. We don't have a way to get them to trust us long enough for us to get on their ship. They're going to be looking for a rat and we don't have enough of a cover to hide it.
The fatal flaw is that it depends on our individual guile. In this case, we are assuming the role of distribution for a smuggling ring, for which we have created a demand by our actions. That's pretty typical in illicit trade. They don't need to trust us personally, so long as we prove we are better at what we do than the last group was, and they were terrible, so it's a low bar. We are a solution to a problem we freely admit we created, and if we are prepared, rational, and savvy, we'll have our way in. If we appear nervous, frightened, or duplicitous, then we fail automatically.
Or, to what MWG said, is the whole Pirate Smuggler storyline not very interesting to the rest of the group?
I'm game for tackling the smugglers with Wolfram's plan as that is pretty simple (that is a good thing, not too many moving parts).
Belros is pretty confident in the group's abilities in general and his own in particular. He also has a low opinion of both criminal intelligence and their resistance to greed.
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it's interesting to me. :)
Allyson, you seem to be misunderstanding a critical point. allow me to illustrate.
a large boat, probably a galleon, sails along two -miles- from shore. they can see major details and avoid shallows.
a cloaked figure gives the signal. they only see a light go up and down. that's why its so bold a signal, because its all they can make out.
the galleon sends a smaller boat, enough for a dozen men and some goods into the smugglers cove.
most of us remain hidden while the boat comes ashore. the rest just busy themselves with some dummy boxes, and any hales are met with incoherency and arm waves to come ashore.
hence theres no chance for them to not come. they dont expect anything and have no chance to confirm our identity.
once ashore we give the pitch, and either they go ong with it, or we are forced to kill them and steal tbe small ship and make the same play at the big ship.
very easy!
also, no chance to dissuade me, I'm Overconfident. ;)
While he wouldn't phrase it in exactly the same terms, that actually isn't too different to how Belros might phrase things!
I'm not actually misunderstanding anything. I understand that is the plan, the issue I see with it is that the guys on the ship are probably going to know the guys on the shore. If you were a smuggler and you come to shore expecting the normal guys, but see people you either don't recognize with no one you do, then what would you suspect? What would you do?
Besides that, I don't know about the rest of you, but Kat and Allysen aren't going to pass for muscle.
Actually, now that I think about it. I'm the one being misunderstood. My entire point is the same no matter what we do, whether we try to pretend we're new or say that we've taken over or whatever. The fact is we're a bunch of new, unknown faces that they have had no prior dealings with and have no reason to trust, and probably a very good reason not to if the guys in the cave were well known to the guys coming in from the ship.It doesn't matter how we present ourselves because they're going to be as suspicious as hell once they notice that we aren't the regular guys. If I were in their shoes, I wouldn't trust us and I would actually see if I could get one or two of us alone to start squeezing for information.
Does that make things more clear?
Besides that, I don't know about the rest of you, but Kat and Allysen aren't going to pass for muscle.
Especially if you're wearing "nice clothes." I understand you perfectly. You think it's important for criminals to trust one another. I disagree.
Okay then. It seems we're leaning towards doing this anyway, the only one that has posted disagreement so far is MWG. I'm willing to give it a shot, but I don't envy our chances of pulling this off without something going wrong.
And the nice clothes aren't for adventuring. They're for having fun.
Kat wants to finish off the smuggling ring. Leaving it as is just invites them to return and reform the ring (though quite possibly the local constabulary would prevent this, now that they are aware of it). All of that said, I do think that Allysen has a valid point. As soon as they see that we aren't the persons that they were expecting, they will be on guard or worse, even turn back. We've got to lure them in close enough to take them down without them seeing us for who we really are.
As for the other stuff, I'm fine with speedrunning through it and cutting to the chase. As Kat said in the other thread, the inn was just a pipe dream of hers.
And no, we would not be adventuring in nice clothes. Don't be silly!
Now for dealing with the smugglers, Kat has the shape change power. It won't let her assume the form of a humanoid but she could take the form of a small, innocuous animal like a cat or a rat. Maybe we could use that to aid us in taking them down?
@Katherine: That could be useful for getting the smugglers to underestimate our numbers.
Wow! Things are happening fast! Sorry, work's been slamming me for the last couple of days.
I/Grace too am against trying to take over the smugglers, and for much the same reasons as Allysen has voiced, which I won't repeat here, but which I very emphatically agree with. Altho the vote seems to be 4 to 2 for, so Grace will go along.
I will mention, however, that Shape Change only lasts 5 *rounds* before you have to start maintaining it, which means it will be of limited use (7-8 minutes if I calculated correctly).
On the other front :
Most anything that can happen "off-screen" CAN be handled in this way. There's no reason to drag everyone through the minutiae of how much it will cost unless you want to RP getting to know the local carpenter, etc.
So, what would it cost to acquire the house, and how much would it cost to renovate it?
If not for the time limit, I like the idea of Kat being a pocket wizard.
As an alternative, what if we hide and ambush the guys that come in? I think they'd be more curious than suspicious if they don't see anyone at first.
To be clear, I am not opposed to taking out whoever shows up in a rowboat to claim the smuggled goods, I am opposed to trying to take over the entire ship.
Out of character, it depends on the size of the ship. If we assume that the ones that we encountered here were part of the crew of the ship, which is not an unreasonable assumption, there may be only a skeleton crew aboard if it is a small vessel. Ideally, we would have questioned one of our captives, but hindsight is 20/20...
A handful of opposition, I believe that we could handle. Especially if we take the shore boat and use it to journey to the ship under cover of darkness. We could be upon them before they knew we were there and even if they saw the boat approaching, they would likely believe it is some of their number returning.
I'd like to at least see the size of the ship we are dealing with here. We can guesstimate how many crew it might hold.
Okay, so here's a rough idea of what I'd like us to do.
1) We gather the goods and sell them to the merchants, withholding what Kat and Allysen want. We'll get them on the wagon tomorrow and focus on getting a full inventory of what we have today and this evening as we move them and plan how we'll be loading the wagon and Hieronymus (our poor, oft forgotten mule) up.
2) After liquidating the goods and paying the appropriate taxes, we check with the guards to see if there are any bounties on the smugglers we can collect.
3) We return with a carpenter and a stonemason to get estimates on fixing the upper house and improving the lower areas to keep them dry and prevent flooding in storms as well as maybe expanding the dock for a proper sailing vessel.
3) We return the craftsmen home and come back to deal with the smugglers. Let's see if the guard would be willing to help even the odds with this and maybe even take the ship.
4) Once we've either chased them off or capture their ship, we can figure out where to go from there.
Since we are keeping the manor, there are some long term goals I have.
1) Acquiring a ship that can we dock in the underground cove and use for traveling and exploring up and down the coast.
2) Hiring some help to watch over the place while we're gone.
3) Fixing up the tunnels leading to the cove to allow for expansion and some storerooms
4) Turn the attic into a cozy hideaway, though that one's more for two of us than the whole party.
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While buying the manor is 3 to 1 with 1 abstaining, I think once we find out how much it will cost to buy it and fix it up, that might change some people's minds...
I agree with Wolfram, I think the manor is a distraction from adventuring. If we do go ahead with it, I hope we can speed up the process by not role-playing every little detail (like "We invite the carpenter and stone mason out to the manor, and they give us their estimates which are...").
I'll have time to look over downtime tomorrow. Apologies for the delay.
Sorry for the delay. Will post this afternoon (PDT).
Hey, guess what got published?
Sorry for the delay. Will post this afternoon (PDT).
Hey, guess what got published?
Congrats! Also, I didn't know you wrote the Dalsine Affair. I remember playing that one, and also some of the shenanigans that occurred during the session.
Congrats! Also, I didn't know you wrote the Dalsine Affair. I remember playing that one, and also some of the shenanigans that occurred during the session.
Yeah, that scenario lends itself to shenanigans.
so no one wants my magic items?
I guess I can always recycle them.
I could use either, but I'm not sure that Allysen would take them from Isagoras. Lord Belros and Wolfram could also use them since the three of us are the main fighters.
Gratz on the publication! My secret dream is to see my name on an RPG product one of these years before I die.
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'Gratz on getting published GM!
Hey, GM, since Belros hasn't asked for the items, and Wolfram already has all my powers, is it okay if I just don't take Artificer and take a different Advance instead?
I had ideas using the older SWD rules, but I see now it got kinda nerfed in SWADE and now I'm thinking I'd be better off without it. =/
Lord Belros and Wolfram could also use them since the three of us are the main fighters.
Ahem? ;)
I was waiting for others to offer to take them, but Grace will take them gladly.
Huh. According to PEG, when Boost/Lower Trait is cast into a device, it allows the user to choose which trait to Boost. That makes such devices pretty powerful! Isagoras, we could *all* benefit from such devices!
What ideas did you have in SWD that SWADE nerfed?
Sorry, I don't know why I forgot MWG. I mean, she's the monk/ninja after all. Maybe she's just that stealthy? :P
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As I recall (I don't have the books right now) the objects kept their points, but also regenerated on their own. Hence I could have a healing thing out there, and then have twice the healing and twice the regeneration.
Thanks for trying, Moves, but now that I know what I know, and that characters wern't climbing over themselves for this sweet action, this just isn't blowing my skirt up. ;)
Items from the Fantasy Companion do that, but you have to spend an Edge on *each* item that you make. I don't think the SWD Core Rules have anything on making magic items (other than the Weird Scientist's items, which "hold on" to their user's PP).
I've been horribly distracted this week. Apologies.
Hey, GM, since Belros hasn't asked for the items, and Wolfram already has all my powers, is it okay if I just don't take Artificer and take a different Advance instead?
I had ideas using the older SWD rules, but I see now it got kinda nerfed in SWADE and now I'm thinking I'd be better off without it. =/
Of course.
I currently have an earache so my response time might be affected.
Ouch. Ear infections are no fun. Hope you get better soon. :(
And...finally back in gameplay!
Lots of text to catch up on.
Thank you, Allysen. :)
Congrats, GM!
After looking at the loot sheet, I won't be keeping any of the silk. I didn't realize there were only 9 bolts.
I didn't realise that there were still unidentified magic items.
Could Belros have identified those in the meantime during his forest retreat?
Also, could a link to that spreadsheet go at the very top of the page?
With:
"MAPS
Group Benny Pool: 1"