Since you asked, I'll PM—
But I think kids died because that's the Grendel story is fine.
If I had sent you to an alternate universe New England, it would definitely have been the one that Eben Norton Horsford was psychically in contact with.
Folks, I'm heading off soon for holiday obligations from now through 12/26 or so. I'll check on my phone but will be less active. Please feel free to bot Valerie, pun intended. :)
Happy holidays all.
I'll PM about triggery stuff when I get back. Best probably to have a reminder in a few days, not really stuff I want to think about right now. Thanks.
Putting this here for when you talk to Dr. Moore next.
Folks, I'm heading off soon for holiday obligations from now through 12/26 or so. I'll check on my phone but will be less active. Please feel free to bot Valerie, pun intended. :)
Happy holidays all.
I'll PM about triggery stuff when I get back. Best probably to have a reminder in a few days, not really stuff I want to think about right now. Thanks.
If you don't want to think too hard on the unpleasant, feel free to echo anything from my sorta-public list of... well DM Del called them "hard no's."
The first two are more like pet peeves—things I didn't think of as "that bad" until after having experienced them in-game. Note that I end with a reference to another player's hard no's; her post is directly above mine.
Still checking in regularly, but since none of the NPC responses are directed at Nissa, I'm holding off on posting.
If I have to wait until next decade, that's fine. Hope you're all enjoying the holidays!
Happy New Year!
I'm ready to proceed any time. I'm spending the holidays getting ready for next semester.
I imagine that as soon as we return, we will head out after Grendel? I'll wait for the players to tell me how and when to proceed.
For me, it's the social stuff until others are ready to move into the action. I sent a PM regarding that.
As far as Nissa's opinion on Grendel, I'm sure it's apparent she thinks he deserves death. She respects Verve's experience as a sidekick and thinks Val's mind is incredible, so she will do nothing to undermine the parley.
Likewise. I'm ready to go talk to Grendel whenever.
I would have voted to go during the day, even, but now is good.
I would have voted to go during the day, even, but now is good.
I wasn't sure when you guys wanted to go. I'd heard different ideas. If you want to back that up a bit, we can.
Just let me know what kinds of preparations or precautions you take as you head out on the Grendel hunt.
Sorry folks, I've been around off and on, but was on the road today in particular. I am ready to go. Valerie will ask the Vikings for some torches to help fight Grendel.
I'm okay with GM rolling init. That plus Block init for multiple badguys based on leader's init. Players who outroll the badguy get to attack first. Then the badguy attacks. Then all players. Badguy. Players...
I prefer it tbh.
Yeah, I prefer the GM to roll initiative and then doing block init for play-by-post games.
Agreed.
A weird double post appeared when I tried to add the troll's bite attack, which it only gets if it hits. The double post had different rolls. I deleted the one that appeared only after I edited. Sometimes I do rolls online; sometimes offline. I'd never cheat to intentionally maim a player.
In response to Val's OoC comment:
Fate is the opposite. Effectively, it's 4d3-4, which practically guarantees your bonus will determine the result, given your best and worst rolls each have a 1/64 chance.
I agree PF2 is not an improvement over PF1. I actually think Starfinder has a better system than PF2 because, while both are similar feat-wise, SF has interesting class abilities.
____
Here's a map of what I think is going on:
TGG_
_GGCC_n
_V_
__U
Nissa can use her 4d6+1 half-holy/half-fire attack without hurting a party member, and I moved her in the cave for this reason.
Not gonna try tumbling through this time, so I don't need to rely on the d20—which has been really mean to me!
There are a number of systems that use multiple dice to try to give more of a bell curve for success and failure. Having tried a couple... it's hard for me to say which I like more, though part of this may be because of other system differences than the dice.
I actually moved out into the cave where grendel is, not further back.
I actually moved out into the cave where grendel is, not further back.
Whoops, I missed that. Grendel did too as he should have gotten an AoO as you slipped past him. He must have been distracted trying to beat up Charles.
I believe we don't have any sources of healing in the party, unfortunately, so hopefully the rest of the party will be able to roll some hits and take Grendel down quickly and we'll have a day or three to rest before having to face his mom, since even with the help of good Medicine checks I techinically won't be back up to full HP for three days minimum.
Well, upside is I don't need a d20 to hit in round 6.
Oh, wait, Val has some healing magic. Forgot she's a mystic. XD
Did I miss Verve's turn for the round 4? I better slow down...
If Verve doesn't knock Grendel out in her round 5 attack, we'll let her have a second attack at the top of round 6 before Grendel's.
Verve! Verve! She’s our girl!
If she can’t do it…
…
…I’ll give Super Nova another whirl?
Looks like my post got nomnomnom'ed by Paizo. I'll repost for round 4 and then round 5 if necessary.
The description of IDing items is under the Mysticism Skill. Success means properties and command words are revealed.
The description of IDing items is under the Mysticism Skill. Success means properties and command words are revealed.
How long does it say that takes?
Per the skill description, it is "part of the action to cast detect magic," i.e., it is combined with the action to cast a spell (a few seconds).
The identify spell simply adds a bonus to the check and allows you attempt an ID more than once per 24 hours.
The devs know that spending an eternity to ID items is a hindrance to PCs without much narrative value. While there's an argument toward verisimilitude that it should take time to analyze, the gameplay factor pushes for expedience: because magic (and technological) items are useful, if not actually critical at times to gameplay, players will always prioritize identification, and that results in the the adventuring party stopping every five minutes or after every single fight to spend an hour or hours identifying items. If they can't get a clear picture of what items do, they will either waste even more time working on identification, or just not use and then sell the items because they don't want to risk item curses, etc. This actually ultimately breaks immersion far more. (And while I don't expect other GMs to do this at all, in my games, especially PBPs where keeping up your game's pacing is critical, I just auto-id everything (save for very rare, special items) so people can get back to the story faster. I've never found this practice hinders roleplay or the overall narrative, and moreover keeps players engaged because they aren't waiting for the wizard/bard/etc. to do all the IDing.)
The "once per 24 hours" suggests to me that identifying an object can take up to 24 hours.
I think it would have been boring if Gandalf just cast 'Identify' to figure out the answer was 'friend'.
I'm hearing that you don't enjoy riddles though.
I suppose I just wasn't anticipating much in the way of gear accumulation for a superhero-style game, which is part of why I went for a natural attack build.
Riddles can be interesting, but they're kind of hard in PbP, where players discussing the riddle between themselves might take days before agreeing on a solution to try.
Why would you spend days discussing before taking a guess?
Because RPG players tend to overthink things? Because I can usually only post once or twice a day? A combination of those two?
Okay, well, I wasn't looking for days of guessing or looking to spend an eternity. I was just looking for a little interaction to make it interactive.
I tend to recklessly jump to conclusions myself. It’s a time-saver… even when I’m wrong.
So. Very. Wrong.
(Which is why I my first ever PF character was stuck in a pocket-dimension shop from 2016 to 2020.)
(Which is why I my first ever PF character was stuck in a pocket-dimension shop from 2016 to 2020.)
Getting stuck in a pocket dimension for four years does not sound like fun. Getting stuck in a shopping mall for four years sounds like a nightmare.
Well, she and the shopkeeper got along well enough, and thanks to Sleeves of Many Garments, she made herself a work uniform. Their relationship remained professional.
What did they sell in this pocket dimension, pockets?
Surprisingly no.
It was a magic shop run by a devil who also grants wishes. No strings attached!
(Okay… I mean, aside from your soul, upon death, being given to some evil entity who will enslave and/or devour said soul. Fortunately, my other character got out of that deal with the help of a succubus. And THAT deal can’t possibly go south!)
I once wrote a pocket-dimension shop like that for Rite Publishing. It was run by a demon or a devil named Kaveat M. Tor or something like that. It was mostly a book of cursed magic items with some NPCs and a map.
I wrote it with Jonathan McNulty.
The "once per 24 hours" suggests to me that identifying an object can take up to 24 hours.I think it would have been boring if Gandalf just cast 'Identify' to figure out the answer was 'friend'.
I'm hearing that you don't enjoy riddles though.
It is hard not to read the last two sentences, and some of the comments in the lengthy description in the in-game thread to me, as getting a bit defensive, and I'm not sure that's called for. Communicating in a text medium of course can be fraught with misunderstanding, so I could be reading into that (and you could have been reading into my post something that wasn't there; I apologize for any lack of clarity or unintended tone). In addition to just these last couple days being insanely busy for me, I decided to step back and let things cool a bit before responding, for both our sakes.
Everything I post here here is an attempt to set the record straight for purposes of understanding, and not start or continue an argument.
I feel it is important to clarify this, first of all: my initial response to your "translation" of my item ID checks was simply one of confusion, nothing more.
A) you responded in a way I entirely didn't expect based on my own understanding of the rules or the way I have ever played d20 games with anyone, ever, in the last 30 years. I do not believe you did a bad thing, I am just pointing out that I was thrown off and explaining why.
B) I just didn't understand your post, and didn't even realize you were handing me (or the party) a "riddle" to solve. Whether I like riddles or not is irrelevant to what actually happened--embarrassingly, the first time I even realized what you wanted me to be doing was solve a riddle was when you mentioned riddles in the quoted post above. I just truly didn't get what you were aiming for. (As an aside, I do like riddles from time to time; however, I think my extraordinarily literal-minded android would be really bad at solving them, and attempting to try would be metagaming.)
My second post (the one above at 3:23 p.m.) was to point out where the rules were located, and how it worked, since you had said you couldn't find the mechanic. I was trying to be helpful. The third paragraph was to offer an explanation for why (I think) it works the way it does. (As an aside, I clearly misstated the rules, which hopefully you noticed when you read the rule for yourself: identifying a single item doesn't take 24 hours. You can actually roll an infinite number of item ID checks a day, if you have an infinite number of items to identify. It's just that if and only if you fail, you can't try again for a given specific item until the next day.) I was just trying to help you find and understand the rules; I wasn't trying to argue or passive aggressively object to the use of riddles I actually didn't even realize were present in the game. And while I disagree with your interpretation, as GM, it's your prerogative to interpret the rules as you see fit. All you have to say is "this is my rule/houserule" so we're on the same page.
Re Gandalf: LOTR is very definitely not an RPG, but even if it were, that's not how it would work (especially since mechanically, identify doesn't work that way at all). If that scene WERE in an RPG, what if Gandalf's player couldn't figure out the riddle themselves, because they are just not as smart as Gandalf? IMO, a fair GM would let Gandalf's player roll an Intelligence or skill check to attempt to determine the answer (and as a reminder, item identification is the result of a skill check, not a spell). If the roll succeeded, the GM would provide the answer. If a middling success, maybe they'd only get a hint. But they wouldn't just repeat the riddle and force the player to try to solve it. At the same time, if a player of a dull-minded dwarf PC knew the answer to the riddle, should they blurt out the answer to the riddle even though it's likely impossible their character would ever be able to figure it out? Player knowledge and PC knowledge are different things (and is why when I've pulled some random knowledge out of my ass that I think, but am not sure, Valerie would know, I've checked to be sure that is okay).
(And for the record, just in case anyone is shocked to find this out, I am not actually a celestial automaton from another dimension. :) )
I'm sorry it's taken me awhile to get back to this, and in the meantime there have been a million other posts because the pace of this game is insanely fast and everyone is apparently in a different time zone such that most of the posts appear when I am asleep.
............
Which leads me to a DIFFERENT ISSUE: I am mightily struggling to keep up with this game. And it's possible that the situation that just occurred suggests I am also too slow, mentally and temporally, to play it anyway--things are happening so fast it's hard for me to sit down and absorb really what's going on and it's leading to misunderstandings and missed details.
I had been hoping to give it another couple weeks but especially as work as been extremely hectic of late, and the PBP I am running is demanding a lot of my time and attention right now, things are straining at the seams. I am realizing this game is not a good fit for me, and rather than wait any longer I think it's best that I pull out now.
I am happy to keep playing Uncanny Valerie until there is a good moment to remove her from the game, or I can just leave now and you can decide she blips out of existence. Let me know what you would prefer.
Thanks.
I'm not interested in having a lengthy argument or debate.
We had different understandings of the rule and different understandings of what was happening in the interaction. I always look to adjust the style of play for the players. I think having some interactions around checks is normal.
I've seen you apologize a number of times for 'slowing down the game.' I've never felt you were and I have never intended to give you the impression that I thought you were.
I enjoy a fast-paced game. This one, in all ways, has exceeded my expectations. I've enjoyed your participation and characterization.
I most definitely did read your initial comment starting with "All due respect" as a complaint; complaints often start with "with all due respect...". It's a phrase used before criticisms and complaints to soften the blow.
Tone is difficult online. I may have sounded defensive, but I was feeling disappointed as I had hoped the encounter would be fun for the players and it wasn't turning out that way. I apologize that my tone didn't convey what I was feeling.
Perhaps it was a poor choice of words. What I meant was: "I think it's cool the way you wrote this, but this isn't what I expected."
I can tell you really wanted me to engage with what you were attempting, and you clearly put a lot of thought and energy how to describe the items. My brain had hit the brakes on "what is happening, I don't understand why what I expected to happen didn't happen," and couldn't get past it in the moment. If I'd just shared the initial spoiler, other folks probably would have figured it out. I am sorry for f%$*ing it up. I especially am sorry because I definitely know what it's like as a GM to work really hard on a description or scene or puzzle, and then get either no reaction or a very jarringly unexpected one. Sadly, sometimes players and GMs are just playing on different levels.
Anyway--to be clear, I am leaving this game. I can't keep up with you, and I am not having fun because I can't keep up.
Please let me know if you would prefer if I just pull out now, or you want me to play along to a point where Valerie can be written out/disappear.
Thanks.
Aw, man… well, if your mind is made up, sorry to lose Uncanny Valerie.
I would definitely not want her to wink from existence. Would learning from the Danes, making it home with the party, then traveling the globe be a more suitable out?
I ask this, NOT because I want to see you/Val go. In seven years of PbP’ing, I left two active games. One is the game I described somewhere waaaay above, which will be a four-year-old game at the end of January. I quit the game in early 2018, came back in summer 2019 when the GM asked. At the time I left, no one could have talked me out of leaving. I also didn’t want my character to hang out on our in-game ship, which was manned by a few other ex-PCs.
So yeah, if based on my experience, I thought I could talk you out of leaving, that’s what I would be doing.
Instead, I want to say that I respect your decision, and if your mind is made up, I hope Uncanny Valerie’s exit can be as true-to-character as possible. Hence my bold question.
If you're not having fun and have decided to leave, you should leave when it feels most comfortable to do so.
I conceived of this PbP to be episodic and comic-book-like so characters could come and go. I committed myself not to creating any big mysteries that couldn't be resolved in one episode.
One of the reasons this game was designed to be episodic is so people could come back any time, and you'd be more than welcome to rejoin the game if it ever seemed like fun to do so.
Uncanny Valerie can easily disappear in character. Next time you traveled transdimensionally, I was going to offer everyone the choice of arriving safely or getting lost in the Shuffle. Theo and Valerie being outsiders would be especially likely to take a different route.
However, although this wasn't originally intended, if Uncanny Valerie takes a sip of the cup whatever was preventing her from returning home will be repaired. It will make sense with what the cup's original purpose was. You could write her exit or I could, but I imagine a celestial being bursting with light in a dark cave.
If people think that will leave the party to weak too fight Grendel's mom, we could have Beowulf show up and join the remaining PCs for that last fight. I wasn't going to have him come in but it could be fun. I'd even welcome a guest PC as Beowulf, but we'd probably move too fast for anyone to join.
PC guest as Beowulf?
I could ask. One of the players from the aforementioned game has been on these boards quite some time. He’s interested in joining another game I’m in, but it’s going through a recruit phase, then the voting…
I could ask if he’s up for playing Starfinder Beowulf while he waits.
(In the game we’re in, there was a guest PC who played Peter Pan.)
The main issue is it will leave us entirely without a way to heal HP other than just resting.
That is true, but I don't think I'm giving anything away that there are only two big fights at this location in Beowulf, and, when you get back to the "real" world, we can recruit another player.