[Gameday VIII] Hao Jin Cataclysm - GM Thread (Inactive)

Game Master Dennis Muldoon

Still haven't had the Special drop into my downloads. Not surprised. Anybody get it yet?

I'll keep checking.

none here.

Negatory, good buddy.

Online VO team attempting to escalate the scenario request.

Stay tuned

One of my players just told me that they found an unapplied chronicle that put them at level 5. My table is 3-4 tier. Do we need to do anything, or am I fine so long as the table APL is still under 4.5?

I’m still waiting for a player at my [5-6] table to check in. If we’re starting the scenario and that spot’s still open, would they want to shift tables to play in-tier?

Gum B the chewy wrote:

Any suggestions for where to have the players meet in preparation? My Discord table looks mostly mustered, and I'd like to get them introducing themselves.

I just put em on a table in a "lodge".

This is my opener if anyone else wants to use it. I don't think it says anything that isn't in the product description.

The Grand Lodge of Absalom is abuzz with activity due to the summons by the former Master of Spells, Aram Zey. In familiar fashion, the summons was abrupt and brusque. "All available Pathfinders must gather in Skyreach immediately. Be prepared for a critical mission in the Hao Jin Tapestry. More instructions will follow." As you enter the tower, Pathfinder aides are on hand to direct the chaos, splitting arriving agents into standard teams.

Feel free to get introductions out of the way this week. On the 26th, the special will officially start and there will be skill check opportunities for everyone. Please check in before the 27th and have your character contribute as they can.

I did something similar, TOZ. Put the Pathfinder Lodge map to use and stuck tokens in chairs at the entryway. Told them to chat among themselves. With a few days still to go, I should have some silliness to read through and enjoy.

One of my players just told me that they found an unapplied chronicle that put them at level 5. My table is 3-4 tier. Do we need to do anything, or am I fine so long as the table APL is still under 4.5?

If they don't end up shifting to another table, it's fine for a level 5 to play at a 3-4 table. Just make sure it doesn't bring the APL up enough to drag the whole table up to 5-6.

You should all have an email from Hmm about the scenario drops (or lack thereof). I'm holding out hope that they will be dropped later today, but if not I'd like to hear some opinions from you all: if need be we can delay the start of the special. Obviously if we don't have the scenario yet on Monday we will have to, but I'm interested to hear what you all think if the scenario drops, say, tomorrow (Friday) afternoon. Is that enough time for you to prep, at least the beginning? One of the advantages of PbP is that you don't necessarily need the whole thing ready to go on the start date, but I do want everyone to be as comfortable with the scenario as possible. So, what do you all think?

My vote: delay start to September 2nd. I want to prep this properly. It's ridiculous to expect quality GMing with the current time-frame.

I leave town for the weekend tomorrow. I will have very little time to prep and be playing quite a bit of catchup. I wouldn't mind a Wednesday kickoff, officially.

I could probably still swing it with a Friday drop. But I benefit from knowing people who have run it and can ask questions. The only trick will be getting maps and what-not ready. But it's doable for me because it's PbP.

Can those who do have the scenario at least put a maps deck together and maybe the intro post so we get the jump on day 1?

Maps. I will try to work up an intro tonight, including skill checks.

Maps. I will try to work up an intro tonight, including skill checks.

super appreciate that!!!!

It's been on my to-do list this week but laziness has gotten in the way.

Much thanks to Netherpongo, whom I copied the maps presentation from, back at the start of the thread.

Since it's PbP I'd find a Friday drop still workable - especially with champions like TOZ & Netherpongo saving a lot of prep time!

Thank you all for keeping us informed. I wish I could hurry this along for all of you.

Hmm

Thank you for the quick answer on my L5 player, GM Dennis.

As for the delay question, I'm not impacted and will defer.

I've got time this weekend as well. I could help set up the opponent slides so GM's can just copy creatures for their tier onto their maps. Granted, that can't happen until the scenario drops.

There's some material on GM Prep. Looks helpful.

My vote: delay start to September 2nd. I want to prep this properly. It's ridiculous to expect quality GMing with the current time-frame.

That's fair. The nice thing about PbP is that in this case you wouldn't necessarily need the whole thing prepped completely by Monday, just the first bit. We won't get to the second half for a month.

I'm happy to delay in support of GMs who need time to prep.

When my kids were younger, I would give them a deadline that factored in their almost inevitable tardiness. We needed to leave at eleven? "Kids, we're leaving at 10:30.

Gameday begins on August 26. "Paizo, Gameday starts on July 15."

Just a thought.

I'm among those without the scenario. As long as it drops before the weekend I would be fine with the current start date. I feel that would give me enough time to prep the first few days of the adventure at the very least.

When my kids were younger, I would give them a deadline that factored in their almost inevitable tardiness. We needed to leave at eleven? "Kids, we're leaving at 10:30.

Gameday begins on August 26. "Paizo, Gameday starts on July 15."

Just a thought.

I cannot do too much of that, because they publish the dates. However, I've always given them the date of the Friday before Gameday starts, trying to build in a bit of that cushion.

The month after GenCon simply sucks, but if we push the date back too far, we land in Thanksgiving.

:/

Hmm

In case anyone missed it:

Hey Everyone,

I have some unfortunate news. I regret to inform you all that we will have to postpone Gameday VIII by 2 weeks.

This would place our new dates for Gameday at: 09 Sept 2019 - 17 Nov 2019

WHAT IS GOING ON? WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS?

As most of you are aware, the majority of the GM’s have not received their scenario support for the Convention to include a good portion of the Specials. With Tonya occupied by other duties this weekend, we realized as a team that we are very unlikely to see the remainder of scenario support drop by Monday the 26th. Multiple avenues were discussed and what seems to be the best solution is to push Gameday back by two weeks. This will allow enough time for the GM’s to receive their scenarios and prep them.

BUT WHAT IF WE ALREADY HAVE OUR SCENARIOS, CAN WE START THEM?

Please hold off until the new start date to be able to eligible for your boon rewards. I understand this is a large inconvenience, we are doing everything we can to make this work. Part of that is to have everyone one the same start / end times rather than scattered.

We apologize for the inconvenience that this may cause, but we want all our GMs to have a chance to shine.

HOW DO I NOTIFY MY PLAYERS?

Go ahead and post the news to your tables. Feel free to copy this email if you wish. We will be posting notices in all the PBP lodges as well as the Gameday VIII Announcement page.

I know this is not what we hoped to do, and I’m sorry. Thank you for understanding that we’re scrambling to fix this.

If you have any other questions please don’t be afraid to ask.

-Tyranius

I'll get an updated schedule posted in the next day or two, but this should push all our dates back by exactly two weeks. Feel free to muster your players and start collecting scenarios played, but don't post any box text or anything until the start date.

The scenario dropped into my downloads 4 hours ago.

I have the scenario now, too.

ditto

yup

same here

Gotta laugh at that timing. Anyway, now everyone has two weeks to prep, which is nice. I encourage you all to collaborate on planning, creating map tokens, etc. Ask lots of questions, post interesting ideas, etc. That's what this thread is for!

Have received all scenarios.

I've gotten mine and I'm starting prepping (I didn't realize how long the specials were.)

How are people going to handle the Empyreal Enlightenment Temple Encounter?

It's the only one any of my players have played so I'm sure they're going to hit it.

So many skill checks can bog the flow down, especially if I'm asking them what room they want to go to between each, but I don't want to just dump them into a single post, either. That would let them get through it too fast and it would lose some of its dramatic effect.

So many skill checks can bog the flow down, especially if I'm asking them what room they want to go to between each, but I don't want to just dump them into a single post, either. That would let them get through it too fast and it would lose some of its dramatic effect.

I'm thinking I'll group it into one big post, or ask for a bunch rolls up front, and just narrate the whole result. I remember when I played it that the endless skill checks at the start didn't feel fun, so speeding that up is my plan.

^Some variant of this.

I'm not planning to use the map (or ask them for an order since they have to do them all and the order doesn't really matter).

If you're willing to move on as soon as they've succeeded (even if not all of them have rolled), I've had similar encounters go pretty quickly.

Though JChapman's suggestions would work too :-)

Alright, I've started adding tokens to the shared GM prep file. I got encounters A, F, and K done and have images for B already. Can someone (or someones) add tokens for encounters C, D, E, G, H, I, and J? Let us know in this thread which one(s) you'll take so we don't have multiple people doing the same work.

I've been creating a Document that has all the opening posts for the introduction, part 1 and each of the part 2 missions and the skill checks for the Empyreal Enlightenment mission. Would that be useful to anyone else?

I've been creating a Document that has all the opening posts for the introduction, part 1 and each of the part 2 missions and the skill checks for the Empyreal Enlightenment mission. Would that be useful to anyone else?

FUR SURE

Ok. Check for details. I edited a couple of the base descriptions to suit my party (specifically the Temple of Empyreal Enlightenment mission since they did that one.)

Here it is.

I set it for view only. Let me know if I need to change it to edit for you to copy out of it.

What the heck? Why didn't that work?

Here's the link... try cut and pasting?

https://1drv.ms/w/s!AtHFxWl5kljJgQSNkOqbm09gdc9U

Ok. Check for details. I edited a couple of the base descriptions to suit my party (specifically the Temple of Empyreal Enlightenment mission since they did that one.)

[ulr=https://1drv.ms/w/s!AtHFxWl5kljJgQSNkOqbm09gdc9U]Here[/url] it is.

I set it for view only. Let me know if I need to change it to edit for you to copy out of it.

EbonFist wrote:

Ok. Check for details. I edited a couple of the base descriptions to suit my party (specifically the Temple of Empyreal Enlightenment mission since they did that one.)

[ulr=https://1drv.ms/w/s!AtHFxWl5kljJgQSNkOqbm09gdc9U]Here[/url] it is.

I set it for view only. Let me know if I need to change it to edit for you to copy out of it.

Yup...that was it.

May have a conflict now that the whole GameDay convention is being moved back. I have a conference Oct 18-22 and another exceptionally important event the 23rd. Looking for backup coverage those days. Will be in Discord, so contact me there, @BB GumBlackwood#8523

May have a conflict now that the whole GameDay convention is being moved back. I have a conference Oct 18-22 and another exceptionally important event the 23rd. Looking for backup coverage those days. Will be in Discord, so contact me there, @BB GumBlackwood#8523

I can cover that.

I'll get an updated schedule posted in the next day or two, but this should push all our dates back by exactly two weeks. Feel free to muster your players and start collecting scenarios played, but don't post any box text or anything until the start date.

Haven't seen the updated schedule pushed out to gameplay thread yet. Just to confirm, is Part 1 starting 9/9 and Part 2 starting 9/10? Thanks!

Thanks for the reminder. I just posted the updated schedule (everything pushed back two weeks).