GM Ladile Presents: The Road Less Traveled

Game Master Lady Ladile

Glad you like her! I’m excited. My only problem is feeling super feat-starved and thus tempted to dip lore warden fighter, but I’ve already done that in Hell’s Rebels, and I’m trying to not just tread the same ground mechanically.

That said, I’m always open to discussing teamwork feats! Outflank in particular might be worth a look since we have a couple melee already and I’m going to be using a high crit range weapon and will have combat reflexes.

I feel you on the feat starvation 8''B I am going to be inaccurate as hecc until I get the PBS chain going, but my will save is way poor so Iron Will it was. Bad will saves and high DPS is a terrible combination. Outflank is great, a friend's crew cleaned the out the entire Emerald Spire with the power of murderball. For my own part I am going to be staying out of melee as much as I can, I am terrible at it.

I'm also super sad that the Saboteur archetype is gnome-only. High underwater stealth and 'blow a 5-by-5-ft hole in the target surface' bomb discovery would have some horrible possibilities in this particular campaign. Climb speed from the mutagen for mobility and engineering as a class skill too? Wow. (Big surprise, I'm going to be the party engineer) It's everything I could want, it even plays well with grenadier. *sigh* can't get them all I guess. Adopted only applies to traits, otherwise I'd go for this in a heatbeat. I've been going back and forth on if I want to swap the energy resistance racial trait for stealth bonus underwater. With this archetype I absolutely would, otherwise it's not so useful.

Oh and now that I remember, a guy from my Carrion Crown group (Tonkku, for those who play in Helsinki PFS) expressed interest in the campaign if we have room and want more players. I know Hawthwile had some people lined up, are they still joining us? I have no problem with another player.

Honestly either way I’d keep the energy resistance. It’s really underrated, especially fire and cold resist because of how they protect from weather. Cold spells are also some of the more dangerous later on once you start getting cone of cold’ed.

Good on you for thinking of your will save. Confused/dominated bomb alchemist is a scary thought. We’ll def have to be careful until you get your hit up since Precise Bombs doesn’t work if you miss. An unfortunately timed nat one can mess up allies as well as enemies.

I recently did eyes of the ten for the first time with THREE bomb alchemists in the party so I am very familiar with their shtick lol

Oh my. That sounds almost as fun as my run with two bards and no cleric. X-D

Oh god three bomb alchemists?! I have no words. Must have been like living in the middle of a fireworks show.

Energy resistance is sinfully good, I agree with that.

I remember this one game where a lv 4 pregen was brought from full health to chunky salsa in a single hit by a confused dwarf. Will saves are not optional. I do cry for my accuracy though. At least now I only hit you by accident!

Considering I was playing my sorcerer focused in evocation, there was a lot of blasting. Three bomb alchemists, a sorcerer, a witch, and a melee inquisitor. We had cleric stuff because my character has the Razmiran Priest archetype but doesn’t know she has it and think she is a divine spellcaster, not having any points in spellcraft or knowledge (arcana) to know better, especially when running around with a 5 wisdom

I have a good confusions story, too. My Hell's Rebels character (also a swashbuckler) failed a save vs confusion. However, over the course of the next half-dozen rounds, she would either rolls "Act normally" or get locked-in to attacking an enemy she would have attacked anyways. The confusion ran out of duration without her allies having any idea that she was ever confused.

Hey guys, apologies for the delay in responses - I got back from my con late Sunday night but then spent most of Monday catching up on sleep and visiting with family in from California. And then I had to go back to work last night :|

Let me see if I can catch up on some of your questions before I head to bed :)

@GM Ladile: Speaking of backgrounds, would you be cool if I said my character has done freelance loot appraisal and pay calculations and other such things for the local crews for a living? I was thinking of throwing my background skills into appraisal and maybe profession (bookkeeping) to support that.

It might also work as a plot hook. Someone could have stolen his books during the press-ganging, and he should get them back before everyone gets pissed he lost their docs. Or he finally rolled that Nat 1 on his appraisal and gave an absurd value to some piece of plunder, and now that the captain has found it out there is an angry pirate after him for the interest. Or maybe some pirate-hunting authority has figured out he actually has some rather incriminating information on a few people (even if the worst of it is written in code and using innocuous terms) and is interested in Having A Few Words with him.

Yes, I believe that would be fine. It might not come into play quite as much during our prologue adventure but I *do* think it makes sense as a way to explain having Appraisal & Profession: Bookkeeping as skills.

Another thing that comes to mind, do we want to go super IC with stuff like knowledges and social skills, or do we meta a bit and coordinate? It is always a little bit frustrating when there are three people with religion and no one with arcana.

I know this was directed more at your fellow players than at me, but I'll go on the record as saying that I have absolutely no problem if you guys want to coordinate your skills a bit. I also have no problem if any of you want to know each other prior to the start of the game.

Question to GM: Can my character have semaphore flags as a language?

I had to look up what those actually are, but you know what? Sure! I think it'd be rather amusing too :3

GM, would background skills count towards the skill-rank prerequisite for the evangelist prestige class?

I'd allow them to count, yes. The whole point of Background Skills is to further flesh out characters (and to ease the pain a little for classes that don't normally get many skill ranks) so I, personally, don't see any issue with allowing them to count for meeting prereqs for prestige classes.

Oh and now that I remember, a guy from my Carrion Crown group (Tonkku, for those who play in Helsinki PFS) expressed interest in the campaign if we have room and want more players. I know Hawthwile had some people lined up, are they still joining us? I have no problem with another player.

To the best of my knowledge Hawthwile's other two people are also in the middle of moving and will hopefully be checking in once they're settled, whenever that happens. That said, if one or both of them are unable to join after all then I'd be happy to extend an invite to your friend from your Carrion Crown group.

My only restriction is that I won't go any higher than 6 players as anything higher than 6 tends to get rather cumbersome, in my experience.

I am also not a fan of seven player tables, so I fully support you there!

By the way, just as an update: things are falling into place regarding my upcoming move but we haven't actually closed on the property yet. I expect that will happen if not Halloween, then very shortly thereafter. After that is when I'll really be busy as we get our stuff moved and all the usual business that goes with moving sorted out.

Since we'll have to pay rent for November on our apartment no matter what, we're hoping to be able to get all our moving done over the course of next month and officially be moved and in our home by the beginning of December. Once we get to December we'll evaluate where everyone is (including myself) and see if we'll be able to get the ball rolling pretty quick or if we'll need to wait a little longer due to holiday busyness.

Either option would be fine with me.

I know that's potentially a long time to wait to get started but I hope that my general post count and reputation will be enough to reassure folks that I have no plans to ghost or back out of running unless something catastrophic happens!

As eager as I am, it works well for me as I will be graduating from grad school in early December and will finally be done with my thesis, so I will have substantially less pressure on me. My wife and I aren't going anywhere for the holidays either.

Checking back in! Sorry that it's been awhile. The muse finally visited me and I got my character introduction written out for Dahlia. (Woo!)

Before I post it, I want to check where everyone's comfort level is at with potentially triggering materials along the lines of physical/sexual/emotional abuse and brainwashing/gas-lighting.

Dahlia's an escaped slave, and with that comes some not awesome experiences. She has left that all behind, is forging a new life, and is doggedly (or should I say "cattedly" haha) trying her best to recover and integrate into society.

It's not my style to go into details about those situations and Dahlia's voice is going to be more of "yeah, this s&+# happened to me but it is in the past and I would prefer not to talk to you about it". It would more come across in play as some anxious PTSD ticks and someone learning what healthy trusting relationships look like. More details might come up if a character directly asks her and pushes past her brushing things off, or if she feels like she needs to share parts of her story to express empathy and support for another character.

I want everyone to feel safe when gaming with me, so if this is going to make anyone feel BAD THINGS then I am very happy to lighten the story up. For example instead of having her raised in slavery and having terrible be normal, I can have her be more recently enslaved and now trying to get back to her family. Still keeps her motivations the same, but gives her less backstory issues to work through.

I'm still sitting with her story to see what she wants to tell and what I am comfortable writing, so I may end up lightening her up on my own too. We'll see.

Okay, now for some game mechanics questions!

@Everyone: If you have any suggestions of useful feats or spells for bards, send them my way! I get so overwhelmed by the feats list especially, so any advice or ideas to start from will be appreciated. :D

@GM Ladile:

Bard Performing Styles
Here are the ones I am wanting to do:
- Singing (straightforward, no questions here)
- Stringed instrument: Harp Guitar (slightly larger than an acoustic guitar, but still able to easily strap it on my back. Do you see any potential issues with this? And do you think this would fall under the normal costs and rules for musical instruments?)
- Trained Conversationalist (I'm assuming this would be equivalent to Oratory?)
- Dance: Aerial Silks (this is the tricky one...)

Dahlia is Catfolk and I've given her the alternative racial trait "Climber", so she gets a climb speed and a +8 to climb checks. If you want me to bump up her acrobatics too I can look at feats for that, or just pick dance as my first Versatile Performance @ level 2.

The concept of her using the existing rig work of the ships would be really cool, and it will functionally help her stay out of close combat range during shipboard combat. I'm thinking to start her out with some rope and maybe a grappling hook as her on-the-go aerial rigging. (Will probably need to invest in Dex so I can throw the hook...) Eventually I want to get her some lengths of silk, which could maybe be the equivalent of "masterwork" dance things?

Languages
By the book, she would have Common+Catfolk+[additional based on int]. If I go the backstory route of her being raised in captivity from a very young age, could I replace Catfolk with the more likely language she grew up speaking (i.e. whatever her owners spoke)?

I think that's all the questions I have for now. I'm about half way through her build process, so I'll probably have another wave of questions at a later date.

@ChaosChild I'm absolutely okay with it, and I sincerely appreciate you asking! I have two close family members with PTSD, so I'm used to dealing with it thoughtfully. I also have my share of characters with traumatized pasts (including a Gray Maiden former slave for a double-whammy of trauma) and I usually use the same approach that you are suggesting.

It also makes me think of something. I really need to get back to it at some point, but what I've seen of Black Sails informs how I imagine the general feel of a more good-aligned Skull and Shackles might go: a bunch of outcasts and traumatized people trying to make the most in a world that doesn't seem to want them.

@ChaosChild

As of right now I don't see any problem with those means of performing; the aerial silks thing could be especially interesting and fun...and dangerous! We can also certainly look into fancier/stronger fabrics as being the equivalent of 'masterwork' for her silks.

I'm also fine with Dahlia swapping out Catfolk for a different language, given the raised in captivity angle you're going for.

Like Hrothdane I also appreciate you bringing up the matter of potential triggers. I'm generally not bothered by too much myself but I most definitely want everyone to feel safe and comfortable at my tables. The X-card system doesn't really translate well to PbP so the best I can offer is this: if there's anything that comes up that makes any of you uncomfortable or is a trigger point, drop me a PM or, if you're not comfortable with that (understandable since none of you really 'know' me), have someone you trust PM me in your stead. And I'll drop whatever it is immediately. No explanations or reasons needed and no questions will be asked.

That said, I try to keep my games reasonable. Depending on the published material there might occasionally be stuff that's implied but I've never really cared to get into all the gory details when those situations come up. As a GM and a player I have no problems with PC/PC or PC/NPC romance, relationships, FWB, etc. All I ask is that any actual sexytimes be hinted at, implied, or treated in a fade-to-black manner. And of course if any of you really don't care about that sort of thing (some folks just want to be heroes and kick butt, not engage in a Dating Sim) and don't want NPCs to hit on your character, please let me know! Rivalries and friendships are just as much fun to play out, after all :)

I love playing romantic, flirty characters when I can, and I was hoping to continue that with Robin. I didn’t date at all have my first kiss until I was 28, not long after I came out, and I ended up marrying that woman, so it’s a little living vicariously, getting to reclaim those years I missed of romantic drama. But of course, I’m all for keeping it tasteful! Your described method is my preferred way of handling such things. I’m interested in stories with the complexities of character romance and relationships in a long game.

My character is *still* floundering. I am trying to figure out how the backstory plays together with his mechanical character stuff.

@GM Ladile: Thanks for the answers! In ended up straying from the concept I had in mind when making those questions, but I appreciate it anyway :D

Now I have a question about the crafting stuff. Player's guide handles siege engines and ships as their separate crafting skills. How would a more general carpentry crafting skill work on these things? Would it work just fine, allow for checks with a penalty, or not work at all? I do have plenty of knowledge (engineering) to go with it.

@ChaosChild: If you want your character to have abuse in her backstory, I am fine with it. I came to the campaign with the understanding that we will be dealing with the seedier side of society, realistically a lot of the people around will have the mindset to take things by force. Your plan of playing Dahlia's past seems tasteful, so I have no problems.

More generally, I'm cool with romance and such too. In-character actions and all, I'm not telling people how to play their characters. Just no details please |''D As for me, my character wandered pretty deep into the ace/demi land and hasn't come back yet. I'll have to see where it goes.

@Laughable - Just checking in real quick to say that I've not forgotten your question! I think depending on what you're wanting to do, you could probably make general repairs and jury-rig some things by way of Craft: Carpentry + Kn. Engineering, but if you wanted to actually build a proper ship or siege engine yourself I would think that you'd need the specialized knowledge/training to do that.

Or perhaps find/recruit someone who has that training.

Totally random tangent but I gotta say that if you ever get the chance to play #9-06 The Shores of Heaven, do it! It's a really enjoyable scenario (I thought) to both play and to GM, especially if you've got a GM that'll put in some extra effort to make the setting come alive and players that'll get into the spirit of things and interact with said setting.

I’m waiting for a chance to GM it. Valais is precious to me, enough so that I made a PC version of her and played through a whole AP with another version of her that never got experimented on. I don’t know if I can bear to have someone else RP her yet.

See, I really only got into PFS during uh...late Season 7/early Season 8 I think and I have yet to play (or GM) the earlier scenarios that feature her. Hopefully someday I can, so I can have a little better idea of how I'd want to RP her for Shores of Heaven.

When I have the bandwidth to GM pbp again, I’d be up for running them. I sadly can’t do the voices and physical acting over pbp, but they are great scenarios anyways.

I use an iteration on the Salad Fingers voice for her main voice, if you remember those weird flash animations. If you don’t, think an incredibly fragile, stuttering Northern English accent. Taught myself it just for her. (Voices are my hobby)

Oh god, Salad Fingers! Those were weird as heck but I really enjoyed them. So yes, now I have a good idea of what your main Valais voice sounds like!

First off, I used your table of Shores of Heaven as a sample of your GMing, and holy cow, I just wanted to read the whole thing even though I’ve played and run it.

Second, that map. I had to draw it by hand. It was the worst.

Third, I started Society in... Season 8, I think? But the shops where I was playing ran scenarios out of order, so it took a while for the larger picture of the Society to come alive for me. Plus the confusions of certain non-player characters acting differently at different stages of their careers.

Fourth - Hrothdane, have you thought about running a table on something like Roll20 that has audio? (Also, I totally want to be on that table. I’m so sad I never got to actually hear Dolph’s voice.)

I started right at the beginning of season 5. It was a weird period that was a big transition in my area with a lot of players really invested in the older seasons’ format and storytelling under the original campaign coordinator, while I was part of a new batch that were dealing with the growing pains. I still think season 5 is my favorite season, as it has a bunch of great gems, but it’s definitely rough around the edges and there are a couple of stinkers.

I’m still getting my bearings on roll20 as a player, and even then we just use it for maps in the games i’m in. I’ve played in a game over discord chat before, a homebrew without a grid map. As is, I think I ultimately prefer pbp format in terms of the scheduling and pacing. I like being able to write out longer posts and take my time with tactical decisions, look up things and remind myself of abilities and such. My mother always said I would never do anything fast if it was up to me, and she was right :) The writer in me likes the extra practice writing, too. Part of what’s made me able to keep me focused on this thesis novel I’ve been writing for two years (and have almost finished!) is being able to have this as a secondary creative outlet.

@Ladile: Yeah, I was thinking more 'can I keep this wreck from sinking until we can limp into port for proper repairs' than about building my own ship (cool as that might be). Maybe I'll toss some skill points into that on later levels.

Hope y'all had a good holiday weekend! I'm nearing the end of my grad school experience, turning in the final draft of my thesis on Thursday and graduating on the 13th, so I've been crunching, but still enjoying some nice time with my wife.

Woo! Congratulations!

Yes, congrats!

As for me, I had a pretty good holiday weekend! We've been in the new house for just over a week now and things are finally (mostly) in place; most of our stuff is unpacked and situated where we want it and the vital utilities (electric, water, internet, trash pickup) are up and running. There's still some unpacking to do but it's mainly just stuff like books and video games at this point.

That said, I'm afraid that I'm going to gently beg your indulgence for a little longer. The move was great and good and we're very excited but it's also been exhausting, especially trying to get it all done before Thanksgiving. As such, I've not really had any time to do any serious prep for our game yet. If it's not a deal-breaker for anyone I would like to take this month of December to not only work on prep but also to have a bit of a breather on the PbP front and just enjoy these first few weeks in the new digs as well as the Christmas season.

(It's not just you guys, either. I put my League group on break until January for the same reasons and the only reason TL;DR isn't on break is because they've already been patient to wait through my usual end-of-scenario-break I do + the interruption of service from my move.)

Would that be okay with everyone? If that's too long to wait to get started, I completely understand.

Oh, I thought we were waiting until next year already. No worries here - we’ll be traveling to visit families during December and won’t have much time for posting.

Oh I figured as much. I'm probably going to sit back enjoy the break after I graduate soon. Can finally get to some of the video games I've been holding off on, like Death Stranding!

Oh, did we decide next year? Right, I totally didn't forget that >.>

Apparently I really *do* need a bit of a break!

Hey folks.

This isn't easy for me to type or admit to but I'd better say it sooner rather than later - I don't think I'm in a good position to run an extended, lengthy AP/module/homebrew campaign right now. Not just for you guys in particular but in general.

There are two major factors that are influencing this. The first is that even though we've been in our new house for almost a month there are still several things that'll need to be done over the next couple of months like painting and some small, general repairs. (Hoho holy crap I do NOT recommend moving right before/during the holiday season.) That's going to take time and energy. And this leads into the second thing.

So this means that there are still some large tasks to handle at a time when I'm lower on energy and care than normal. And all this obviously takes a toll on my ability to be a good, effective, timely GM.

I know it's easy to see that I'm still playing in a number of games as a player and still have a couple other GM tables up so I know it might just seem like I'm making up excuses to not follow through on something that I said I would do. All I can really say there is that some of those games have ended or will end soon and I have no immediate plans to start up any new ones, even Society scenarios. I also have no immediate plans to join any new games as player. I believe that's a bandwidth that I can manage better and that will also allow me to put in a little more time on Venture Agent side of things, but I suppose I'll have to see how it goes.

I really wanted to run a good game for you guys and I'm so very, very sorry to have wasted your time and gotten your hopes up for nothing. I don't know of any GMs right off the bat that are looking to start up a long-term game but I'm absolutely willing to connect them with you guys if that changes or if I know of any good GMs that could use some players for Society games or are looking to start a game and have spots for new players. And for what it's worth, I'll put everyone down on my informal 'IOU a game' list where I keep track of folks I want to eventually GM for, whether's in repayment for them GMing for me or for my half of a GM swap, or things like this.

Once again, I'm very sorry.

It’s better to know now than in the middle of a game - goodness knows the forums are littered with APs abandoned partway through the first book. And your health and well-being are more important. Hugs, take care, and we’ll find you again on the forums.

If you do have some names of folks you think might enjoy running a game like this, I’d love to reach out to them and gauge their interest (either in this thread or via PM - your choice). And if you don’t mind leaving this campaign “active” for a little while, it would be handy to still have a place for all the players to connect with each other while we gather our spears and hunt down find another GM.

Thank you for being understanding - I greatly appreciate it. I'm more than happy to leave this thread up for a while (and I probably need to go bump the Gameplay thread so it stays active) as a hangout point for you guys. And that actually makes it a little easier for me to keep up with you guys when/if I get news about available GMs or open spots in games.

Thank you for letting us know. I’m sorry that you are having a rough time and I hope that real life calms down for you soon <3