Hmm's Half-Elf Absalom Initiation Campaign (Inactive)

Game Master Hmm

• Training w. Sorrina Westyr, Master of Spells (3 points)
Sekhem asked for two Scrolls of Heal (level 1)... Pretty please!

• That would be great! Thank you, I only noted the:
This grants you a +2 circumstance bonus to a single Diplomacy check to Gather Information during this scenario.

• Sekhem is only a Corporal.
She will follow the order the Officers decide upon.

If it doesn't matter to you folks, or if I don't hear from anyone else in the next two hours, I'll just roll you into the missions in the order listed in my previous post.

Alright, the party's over!

QUESTION 1:

Have you all picked your Pathfinder Training yet? Let me know what helpful items you are borrowing from the Grand Lodge!

QUESTION 2:

Would you like me to record all your gifts from the Faction Heads in a spoiler at the top of the campaign to help you keep track? Will that work for all of you?

QUESTION 3:

Do you want to pick the order you do your missions in, or do you just want me to roll you through them in the order listed below, starting you on a new mission everytime you finish the old one?

Your missions are:

Calisro wants you to go to Westgate to depetrify a falsely-accused naga friend.

Eando wants you to go to the Flotsam Graveyard to track down smuggled cargo and decide the fate of one of the creatures that has been smuggled. Is it redeemable or should it be destroyed?

Fola wants you to go to the Precipice Quarter, and retrieve a body from a house that may be haunted.

Gorm wants you to contact a scholar at the College of Mysteries in the Petal District, and bring back a copy of one of the dangerous scrolls she has been working on.

Question#1. Doesn't really apply to me since this character was recruited and doesn't belong to a school.

Question#3. Since I wasn't here for the gifts, I'm going to presume I didn't get any...

Question#3. If memory serves, the first two are on a timer while the last two are less time sensitive (i.e. first two have to be done in the first day or so while the last two don't). So, doing them in order seems to be OK. If I'm remembering this incorrectly, then it would be prudent to start with the one that has the clock crunch (i.e. we need to get it done in the least amount of time) and then go from there. In which case I actually think that might be Eando's quest but, again, I'm going strictly by memory. Regardless, the last two didn't seem to have an actual time line that was that stringent (just get it done in the next two days or so) which means they could be done last).

Ravant took all his training with the swords school, and will take two minor healing potions as his adventure supplies.

The gifts, just to catch Lyric up, are group things for use in the missions, unless I missed something - a greater antiparalysis salve for freeing the naga, for one.

I wouldn't mind having the gift stuff pinned somewhere. That would be helpful.

As far as the adventure order goes, I'm happy with any order; it seems like the GM order is also reasonably close to the time pressure order, so convenience of the GM works for me.

Yep, the gifts are group things to use during the adventure.

Three Swords (potency crystal, minor healing potion)

Keeping track of them for us would be great and I have no opinion on the order.

The things you pick up from Pathfinder training are your own to track (unless you really want me to pop them into a spoiler at the top of the campaign.). But the gifts from the Faction Heads are up at the top of the campaign now!

Oh, I thought you wanted to know what we picked. I must have misread.

I do want to know what you picked! It's interesting to hear what people grabbed. I just don't guarantee to remember it for you. Though, if you would like me to list it in the spoiler above, I can.

So who has what skills?

BARRISTER: Diplomacy or Legal Lore
SOCIALITE: Society or Absalom Lore
ACOLYTE: Religion or Any Lore pertaining to a specific deity.

Go ahead and discuss here who in your party has these given skills, so you can know who should be talking to which leaders. Remember that Tihun has Bardic Lore, which can substitute for any lore.

Sekhem can talk to the--

--Barrister w. +6 Diplomacy (Trained)

--Socialite w. +4 Society (Trained)

--Acolyte w. +6 Religion (Trained)

Alright, let's look at who's best suited to influence each person.

LYRIC:
Diplomacy +6
Lore ?
-- What background did you take? Everyone gets one, so everyone should have a Lore skill.
Lyric is best suited to the Barrister, but might have an unknown lore talent depending on her background.

OLD DOG:
Intimidation +4

He can't use any of the called for skills, but he can try to yell people down with an intimidate! This can be used on anyone.

SEKHEM:
Diplomacy +6
Religion +6
Society +4

Sekhem can help influence any of the leaders.

SERANE:
Diplomacy +5
Religion +3

Serane is best suited to the Barrister or Acolyte

TIHUN:
Has Bardic Lore, so can do any lore
Diplomacy +6
Society +5

She can do any of the leaders.

Everyone can influence the Barrister.
Only three of you (four, if you count Old Dog's Intimidate) can influence the Acolyte.
Only two of you (three, if you use Old Dog's Intimidate) can influence the Socialite.

I hope this helps you figure out who to focus upon in your two Social Rounds.

Bardic Lore is a Feat that one can get if one chooses to go with Enigma muse; I went Maestro. So, I don't have Bardic Lore; I have Lingering Composition....

My lore is Herbalism. So it doesn't exactly help here.

How am I best suited to deal with the Barrister, if we HAVE to have the specific professional talent. I mean, I know how I would deal with this situation -- as a retired professor that specialized in law and public policy (specifically civil rights law and social movement theory), yep, got this covered... but, really, how does my character's traits deal with this?

You have Diplomacy, which is one of the Barrister's skills. You can use that instead of Legal Lore.

Does this help?

Yeah, it's just the way the statement is worded, it sounds like you need to have a more specific skill set not a generic one. (i.e. diplomacy is generic, legal lore is not)...

It just means that there are options!

OK, last question: We each have two social rounds or the group has two social rounds. Meaning, if the group has two social rounds, then Tihun used up one of those social rounds.... OR, if we each get our own social rounds, then Tihun used one of her social rounds....

You each have two social rounds. Tihun used one of hers. Thanks for asking for clarifications!

Also, was my description of the layout of the slide okay?

Sorry about that.

I accidentally skimmed over the part about us coming together to discuss of social round plans and just posted my stuff.

TRUE CONFESSIONS: I do that all the time as a player. I look at Gameplay first, then post, and then realize that there are 11 posts about what we should have done in Gameplay, and I have now acted against the party plan!

Head / Desk

On the bright side, you have one leader gone already, and most of your party has yet to act in Round One, so there are a number of chances left to influence the remaining leaders!

This was one of the times I saw 18 post in gameplay and 12 in discussion in 24 hours and I decided I should probably read both :D

I am so tempted as a worshipper of Shelyn to argue that we shouldn't do it because it creates ugly and unartistic statues :D

I am so tempted as a worshipper of Shelyn to argue that we shouldn't do it because it creates ugly and unartistic statues :D

Actually, that might not be a bad argument from that religious perspective... I'd run with it if you feel you can make a good roll on the religion check.

TRUE CONFESSIONS: I do that all the time as a player. I look at Gameplay first, then post, and then realize that there are 11 posts about what we should have done in Gameplay, and I have now acted against the party plan!

Head / Desk

On the bright side, you have one leader gone already, and most of your party has yet to act in Round One, so there are a number of chances left to influence the remaining leaders!

OK, well, if we're doing the "true confessions"... I'm the professor who would give the social experiment "quiz" at the beginning of the course (it never counted for anything) that said at the very beginning of it to read all the instructions before doing anything.... At the end of the instructions it said, "Don't write on this quiz, just turn it in as is and leave. Thank you." Never failed, I'd only have maybe 1 to 2% of the students actually read the instructions....

Apparently the plan was the (counts on fingers) *fourth* casualty of contact with the enemy.

@Ravant:

Is this a secret check? If so, ignore the roll

If you have time you can always check the Archives of Nethys.

You can also just check Secret which lists things under actions and skills etc..

I think what I'll do next time is have you roll your secret checks under spoilers. That's what Numbat's been doing. I hope you all enjoyed seeing the result of an information gathering critical failure. I had fun writing it!

How exactly do you do that?

You code it like this:

[spoiler=Name of Spoiler]

Contents of Spoiler

[/spoiler]

This becomes:

Though you mainly use spoilers for OOC things, or things you wish to only have certain people see.

Like an aside or an aparté.

If Sekhem whispers to Lyric I could put that in a spoiler.
[spoiler=For Lyric

In the case of secret rolls, the idea is that you type your dice formula--
[dice=Secret Roll Gather Info' Diplo]1d20+7
And put that in a spoiler-- that you then "publish", but you do not open your own spoiler
Thus you rolled but do not know the result

Out of curiosity, how does your reading program handle spoilers? I honestly don't know.

If you're asking me does, it reads "Show" or "Hide" depending on whether or not you hit the button and then, if you hit the button, it reads the text. For example, if I hit the "Show" button by "Stats" in Sekhem's posts it'll read: "hp 1919 11 focus point spells slots 22@lvl1 11 w +1 Hero Point perc tr +5 stealth un -1...."

It simply reads whatever you write; it has a basic English vocabulary. This is to say that jargon, oddball expressions, slang, abbreviations, etc., it will not understand and will not pronounce properly and I'll have no idea what it is; I'll have to go back over it manually to figure it out (i.e. spell it out and, if I can't figure it out that way, because it's misspelled or I'm unfamiliar with the expression, abbreviation, etc., it means doing research and attempting to find the info which may or may not be available in accessible format -- particularly if it's something that is obscure slang, abbreviations, jargon, etc.). Then I just ask the person who wrote the thing or attempt to figure it out via inference or just decide whether its even worth knowing. For example, with the "stats" info. on Sekhem's list, I have no idea what "tr" stands for and there is no way for me to find out other than to ask Sekhem; at the same time, I don't really need to know because it's not important and, clearly, Sekhem didn't want anyone to know their numbers -- if they did, they wouldn't have hidden them.... So, there's that. In any case, I don't need to know what the abbreviation means; it isn't important. It's extraneous information and it won't kill me if I never find out. At the same time, there are 100 other things in RL that I don't have access to that I do need information on that I need information on... priorities....

Tr. is for trained
Ex. for expert
(the level in the Skill)

All the double numbers are 1 out of 1 ; 2 out of 2 etc.
(and I change them when I use things: 0 out of 1)

As for the spoiler, it is not to hide anything, and anyone can look in there, of course, I simply spoiler it because it is OOC game info that I'd rather not see since it is not RP and that way the GM can just check whenever they want

Thanks for letting me know!

Hmm

Sorry, I didn’t get a chance to post anything on Sunday.

I’ll try to post something in the morning

Sorry for posting so late; I was on the phone with attorneys, literally, all day....

@GM Hmm When you said that you needed a Craft check to safely investigate the floor... I'm assuming that means you need to be trained in Crafting, correct?

Apparently Serane is your only crafter. So we'll see if she can stabilize it. If not, maybe you can creatively come up with a way of breaking the floor without crashing down with it. I'm open to your plans and suggestions!

BTW, because this is a repeatable, we can roll for different story options for the haunted house. The misguided Pharasmins is only one of six options (another is the creepy doll variant that the pub sang to Old Dog.)

Was wondering about that song....

I have been having fun with information gathering failures. Also I love doing songs. If Old Dog ever has a critical success, I will have to come up with a song from that Pub that's accurate. That would be fun!

(Also, Jonathan Coulton's Creepy Doll is an irresistible song in its own right. A great send off of the horror genre.)

By the way, do any of you have any questions about PF2 or PBP that I can answer? Or any observations about how it has been going so far? I've been hoping that you've been enjoying the game.

Hmm

I think that even if a non-Half-Elf somehow got in-- joking --we are having a LOT of fun!

I've been having fun.

Thanks for running for us.

It's my pleasure. I volunteered when I heard that Numbat was helping teach newcomers to do PBP because I don't get to GM for new folks often. My tables tend to fill up with veterans the moment they're announced. So this is a treat for me too -- a chance to find new players!

What part of the world is everybody from?

I'm having a ton of fun. Never heard of that song before (or the artist) -- just looked it up on youtube today between responding to tables. I'm from Ohio originally, bounced around for work and now that I'm retired I'm back in the Buckeye State... why I do not know.... lol

I'm enjoying it. The other day in another pbp I'm in here on the forums where I play a war priest. So similarish enough character and I failed a roll and did the "hero point!" thing. The GM laughed at it in discussion and said, "why not it was amusing."

Yeah, I felt a bit embarrassed :D

I am mainly based in Paris, France-- but travel a lot all around Europe, for work.

But now I am in the countryside, on my second month of nationwide-house-arrest-lockdown-fighting-the-pandemic (so no Paris nor traveling, but sunshine and birds & Zoom meetings instead!).

I wonder how different it is being in the countryside as opposed to the city during this pandemic. I'm hearing pretty much non-stop sirens which, contrary to popular opinion is not the norm. I live in a high rise and usually see my neighbors everyday; now you rarely see anyone. Public transit isn't running so the normal city sounds aren't there. It's dead silence punctuated by the occasional bird chirping, a dog barking and, of course, the sound of ambulances racing all over the neighborhood day and night.

My wife and I only have a small place in Paris.
So we are happy to be in the countryside.
Other than not seeing the neighbors whom we normally visit regularly, note much has changed here (the garden, the stream...).

Luckily, the potion of Tennessee I live in wasn't hit too hard by the pandemic.