Eh, that's fair. Shoudl probably have put the battle map up and let you place yourselves on it befroe starting combat. Still learning the ropes a bit.
Also to be accurate: you aren't in Mirkwood yet, you're on the edges of the Vales traveeling up to the forest gate. But the caution is sensible :)
Edit: oh and hey, we're onto page 2 of gameplay so people can die now!
Neither IC nor OOC did my decision to vote for combat have anything to do with getting our hands dirty. IC Ólneth thought finding out what killed several travelers and their horses was important, given that we could run into it (or them) at any time. She also had no idea how dangerous grim-hawks were. OOC I thought our chances of sneaking by successfully, given that all of us have disadvantage on skill checks, were pretty slim.
However going forward I think we should all try to do better about checking out all our options before combat starts. Ólneth would 100% have been in favor of taking the high ground first, but we didn't know it was there until initiative had already been rolled.
Only one of us (who's naturally sneaky anyway) had Disadvantage on the roll to avoid, but yes we could easily have failed, hence my IC attempt to make peace :)
@GM Sarah: a tough first encounter, but then they're supposed to be, per Journey rules so no complaints! Thank you for going easier on us by not having them all use Pack Attack, which would have been devastating.
Maybe in future, a Knowledge spoiler so we can get a heads-up on beasties and their beastliness?
I remember thinking our odds weren't great, but you're right that only Ólneth actually had disadventage. (I suppose the odds really depended on how many people needed to succeed; if only half the group needed to pass then we probably could have done it, if we all needed to pass probably not.)
GM: I agree that this was tough but fair. Ólneth is going to be giving grim-hawks a wide berth for a while, but I consider it a learning experience.
On most Journey events, as long as half the party suceeds then you're OK, you get extra beneift if everyone passes. In this one, everone has to beat the stealth check in order to avoid the enemy so it's a tough ask. Stats isn't my strong point (I use computers for that srot of thing) but it was probaly 50-50 at best, maybe worse than that.
Thanks for everone's feedback, it is appreciated, especially the fact youre being nice about it :)
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Agnar, it might be worth spending Hands of a Healer to get Faem up. It sucks to have to spend it this soon, but at least you get it back after a short rest.
Oh yes now is a great time. And if we short rest we can all be back up.
I think were safe here, as we've seen if there was any other danger the birds would have either killed them, or been scared off already.
I was surprised that the three of you decided, within the span of 1 hour of real time, to start shooting. As a player who is able to check for updates multiple times daily (even when I have company), I would invoke Rule of 2 after a day has passed without activity to the contrary. It shouldn't be instantaneous, but that's my opinion. We're all getting the hang of each other and that will take time.
Agnar, I don't see how you maximised the healing, can you explain? The Hands of Healer rule is that "If instead you tend the creature for at least 10 minutes, binding their wounds, treating them with herbs and poultices, and offering soothing words, then you may multiply the 1d8 by your proficiency modifier. Then add your Wisdom modifier." So you still have to roll, I think. Lte me know if I've missed something.
Also, since the hint didn't work, let me tell you straight that you will not get a short rest here. 10 minutes is fine, longer than that is not. (again this is me being nice and telling you, don't count on it staying taht way.
I was surprised that the three of you decided, within the span of 1 hour of real time, to start shooting. As a player who is able to check for updates multiple times daily (even when I have company), I would invoke Rule of 2 after a day has passed without activity to the contrary. It shouldn't be instantaneous, but that's my opinion. We're all getting the hang of each other and that will take time.
I'm not sure I understand what you're saying here? Even if Agnar, Olneth and my posts had each been 8 hours apart, there would still have been 2 people saying attack, which is half the party. Even if you had then posted saying don't attack, that's a tie. [Also, since the GM has reminded me that we ALL had to make the stealth check in order to get away, that would have changed my mind, because at least that way we get a surprise round in. So it would have been 3 for attacking.]
PbP is a killer for decision making, which is why doors kill campaigns more than any monster.
EDIT: that said, I appreciate everyone talking it through here in discussion rather than just doing a Leroy Jenkins in gameplay. That sort of thing gets everyone killed.
I'm not sure I understand what you're saying here? Even if Agnar, Olneth and my posts had each been 8 hours apart, there would still have been 2 people saying attack, which is half the party. Even if you had then posted saying don't attack, that's a tie.
A tie means we take a day and deliberate as players with an equal say, if need be. There's really no rush, is there? I would have been in favor of combat as well, but not the way it went down. Expediency is not a justification for lack of coordination.
PbP is a killer for decision making, which is why doors kill campaigns more than any monster.
I agree with this comment more than you will ever know.
EDIT: that said, I appreciate everyone talking it through here in discussion rather than just doing a Leroy Jenkins in gameplay. That sort of thing gets everyone killed.
Yeah, but that's kinda what happened, minus the plan part.
And, maybe if we're gonna get a first ranged shot, we all could get a shot in.
??? Everyone got a chance to shoot, some of you spent your action climbing instead.
OK, I think we've done that one.
Faem, your point about taking more time to talk it through is noted and I will make an effort to do that in future.
GM, your point about letting us set up on the map in advance of combat is also appreciated, so we don't go straight from "OK, let's agree we're going to attack" to "Oh s*** we're in combat already" - I think that will help a lot.
Next decision: short rest here (strongly contra-indicated by GM), or move on?
I vote move on. We can't short rest and Faem should be at full health again, no reason not to keep going. (Keeping a very close eye on Agnar as we go to make sure he doesn't get hit by anything before he has the chance to heal.)
Also vote to move on, whatever Faem's state.
Yeah - if we run into more trouble, maybe just hang at the back and shoot it, or lock the door and hope they don't have blasters :)
Yes, I'm a big meanie making you fight again. Two things you should know
first, there is no "the Eagles are coming" moment. The dwarves aren't hlepless but they are worse fighters than you. You are the heroes of the story. How long that sotry lasts is a differnt question. SEcond, I was going to give you inspiration after the fight with the grim-hawks, a sort of reward, but nobody needed it. To make up for that, the first time you spend inspiration during htis fight you will automatically get it back straight away.
Probably don't need a plan for this one. Faem is going to short circuit Number 5 and hope to stay alive, then jump up onto the tree for that sweet, sweet advantage. Let me know when you're feeling confident enough that she can help the dwarves.
Yup. Definitely thinking Battle-Herald at 3rd level.
Of course, that means I have to survive to 3rd level...
Yup. Definitely thinking Battle-Herald at 3rd level.
Of course, that means I have to survive to 3rd level...
You havent even lost a hitpoint yet :(
Big thankyuo to WW for intorducing me to Clamavi de Profundis some years back.
How obligatory is 'more or less' for the drinking? Ólneth would accept a cup for politeness sake, but I can't imagine her drinking much more than that.
Now if it was a good red wine, that would be a different story.
Lets say, as long as you have at least one drink (the DC10 con save) you can drop out after that with a DC10 Charisma chekc. That will get you some good natrued jokes about "typical elf" but nothing more. Fail the Cha chek and you might have problems.
Loving your posts! SOme great Tolkein-inspired RP going on :)
In case it wasn't clear before, you can spend a HD to regain hitpoints, then recover a HD from the meal, then spend that HD as well. That should get you mostly back to full hitpoints. I think you also add yuor Con bonus when you recover hitpoints, but cant' find the rules right now.
Agnar, let me stop you right there. This isn't a US police procedura. Middle Earth of LOTR is dark ages, fall of rome, fall of greece, everyone out for themselves. There's no constitution. There' s no Magna Carta. You don't have civil rights. the village elder is the law, and if you disrespect her in that way there will be consequences.
(In the cities, there might be a more formal magistrate system. But out here in the sticks, its ye olde style justice)
So, either we go with Agnar having said that because he's used to city type laws, although he would ahve lived among the Foresters long enough to know that's not how they work. In which case I have to think up some negative thing to happen because you can't be insolent to the local ruler, even if they only rule a 0-horse town with lots of pigs.
Or one of the other characters can grovel and try and undo the damage.
To get us all on the same page. Gandalf gets to tell the king "the courtesy of your halls is somewhat diminished of late" because he's Gandalf. You aren't. When Aragorn tried to tell Theoden what to do, Theoden told him who's in charge. You're not Gandalf. You're not even Aragron.
(borrowed lots of this from WW who feels the same way about Merkin gamers trying to run constitutional arguments in medieval settings the same way Therenger does about doors)
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I don't think I am disrespecting her. I'm just pointing out that her unilateral kidnapping and strong-arming isn't the only way.
And I came back around to accept what was proposed anyway. Is she so thin-skinned that she'd look a gift horse in the mouth because someone she kidnapped doesn't like that they were kidnapped?
And one might think that the same leeway the players give the GM for being put on rails might also be extended for a player playing a fish-out-of-water.
If I can interject here, I think it's an issue of flavour/tone. I'm struggling slightly with this myself: I wanted to play a Ranger who's gone against the whole grim and unsmiling shtick, but there are a couple of my posts that I would go back and rewrite slightly because I think I pushed the dial too far the other way, and the result didn't feel very Tolkien.
The DM who ran the previous Mirkwood campaign I was in put it really well IMO
There's two things here: lore and tone. Lore is lore and if you get it wrong, NBD -- we can work it out.
Tone is subtler, more of a know-it-when-you-see-it kind of thing. Some breaches of tone (murderhoboing, threatening the innocent) get zapped in-game with Shadow. But some are just... off. If you're not sure whether you're in the zone, post here and we'll talk it out in advance.
Now, to grovel and try to save us from unpleasant consequences... ;)
And one might think that the same leeway the players give the GM for being put on rails might also be extended for a player playing a fish-out-of-water.
That is a very fair coment and i will bear it in mind. I would say though, which I hoep you will accept as a fair comment, that you are playing a fish-out-of-water medieval city mouse visiting a medieval country mouse, not a fsh-out-of-water 21 Century city mouse. Your character should know e.g. that this isn't a kidnapping but a legit use of authority (posse comitatus, maybe? I am SO not a lawyer, please don't @ me).
On a completely different note, what did Agnar's Nature roll tell us about Wargs? I'm pretty sure with this set-up the adventure expects us to hunt down the Warg, but don't want to risk getting in over our heads.
Yes, its a slighlty longer post becuase the issue is moot :)
Some days you hunt the warg, some days the warg hunts you!
Heh. Solving the issue of getting bogged down in legal proceedings by introducing wolves into court. I wonder if that could work in the real world?
...this sounds like a job for Science!
3 attacks and 2 crits. I shudder in fear of what the dice gods will inflict upon us in balance.
Faem, I think you might want to edit your post. Unless you really do intend to attack the village elder instead of the warg :)
I wonder what parlay might have achieved. The nat 20 Olneth rolled could have been a Persuasion/Intimidation roll instead of an attack. The warg is intelligent and has struck deals before, and though we all want it dead, we may have achieved some advantage through wordplay, or at least learned more about it - why it is here, that sort of thing. I think we missed a chance.
3 attacks and 2 crits. I shudder in fear of what the dice gods will inflict upon us in balance.
Faem, I think you might want to edit your post. Unless you really do intend to attack the village elder instead of the warg :)
Done. You may delete your post now in gameplay.
For what it's worth I doubt parlaying was ever an option. All the NPCs are already fighting goblins in the background. Getting Greymuzzle Hob and all the goblins to stop fighting long enough for us to talk is a pretty big ask even for a nat 20.
Plus, Ólneth has no intention of parlaying with Evil creatures unless there's a very good reason to do so.
The adveture module says that the warg waws looking for an excuse to go back on the agreement and attack the village, so there's that. Also, the parley ("send out your young for me to eat!") was with Gailavira, it's her village so her parley. She turned the offre down.
This is oging to come up a LOT in the Mirkwood campaing. You need to understand when you are and are not able to speak on someone else's behalf. Here, you're in Gailaavira's hall. You can have an audience with her, but you you can't speak for her. The crit was much better spent on a goblin.
Also, i have made a reading error (as some of you may have guessed, I have dyslexia, and I can only spell that word properly because I have it on Ctrl-c Crtl-v). It shoudl be the warg plus 1 goblin for every member of the party over 4. I read it as warg plus 1 goblin per party member. There shouldn't be any goblins so I will remove them. the fight with the warg will be hard enough.
The adventure module says that the warg was looking for an excuse to go back on the agreement and attack the village, so there's that. Also, the parley ("send out your young for me to eat!") was with Gailavira, it's her village so her parley. She turned the offer down.
This is going to come up a LOT in the Mirkwood campaign. You need to understand when you are and are not able to speak on someone else's behalf. Here, you're in Gailavira's hall. You can have an audience with her, but you you can't speak for her. The crit was much better spent on a goblin.
We do lose some agency in that sequence, especially considering we are in the hall against our will, and had no recourse but to be there, and the opportunity for an audience was made moot by the sudden appearance of the villain. A fight is a fight - I'm fine with that, but as a player I will often look for ways to gain advantage before and during a fight, where available, given the deadliness of everything around us. I believe a character should take survival and self-interest into account. As for Faem, she would fight because it is the right thing to do.
You also alluded to the possibility of some greater evil exerting itself against the warg. That could be a throw-away comment, like of course there is, or there could be more to it, but because you made it I think we should have the option to explore it. If we don't we might miss something later out of habit. These are just my thoughts.
Yes, you are all clearly experienced players (and GMs in smoe cases) and you are going to look for creative options. I went with a published module for my first go at GMing so I would have a framework to work with, but the downside of that is the limted flexibility and the railroading. As I get more expeirenced at GMing I will try to start using your creative input more and go in the directions you want, so please do keep offereing suggestins/comments here in discussion.
In the gameplay though at least for now, please don't go too far off the reservation (it's not that big at the moment) and plaese don't poke the scenery, it's made of Imaginarium which is not as solid as it looks :)
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As I get more expeirenced at GMing I will try to start using your creative input more and go in the directions you want, so please do keep offereing suggestins/comments here in discussion.
Actually, I've been thinking about this.
Like, you mentioned with the bags-over-the-heads thing, that you weren't sure how not to do it like that.
It seems this might fall into a trope that I see in movies all the time. I call it the "you could've just asked" trope. I think the biggest example of this was Batman V Superman in the prelude to the long-promised fight. Supes could've just taken a few quick words to explain his predicament, and then they would've bene working together. (But then no fight would've happened and we wouldn't have gotten...the line.)
Anyway. Consider if the scenario went a different way that allows the players the agency to make the decision, but instead it's a more cooperative bent:
*scene: the clearing, at night, before the party goes to sleep*
GM: Some villagers enter the clearing. Their faces show looks of morbid concern. They see the remains of the eaten pig and many of them break into unadulterated apoplectics. Strong men, pillars of the community no doubt, fall to their knees and begin to openly wail. "The pig! They ate the pig! We are doomed!" "We will all be killed!" "We'll never make it another month!" "I have three children, whatever will I do?!?"
Party: Whoa. What's going on? It looks like the pig was really important to them. We should ask them why it meant so much. Oy! Farmers! What's going on? It's only a pig.
GM: "Oh no! The pig was needed for our survival! But perhaps you can help! Come and talk to our elder to see what must be done!"
Party: Alright, just bring us to this elder person and we'll straighten this all out.
Obviously this is the abridged version, but one can see how a party of noble intent does not need to be strong-armed into an audience with the intent of righting a wrong.
(Indeed, when I saw Olneth's post commenting on Faem stabbing the Elder, I was mostly sympathetic. To start off strong-arming where words would suffice can de-rail things rather quickly and lead to the opposite of what one is going for. =)
IMHO. YMMV.
I would agree with Agnar on this. As you get more experience, you will get more confident departing from what is written; as we game together more, you'll also get a better feeling for what your players will put up with. If you want input, don't be afraid to ask for it :)
I'm really enjoying it so far, and I think it was very sensible to start with a written module, but as you have found out, they come with limitations. The rules and setting that Cubicle 7 have provided are amazingly good, and if/when the new Kingmaker is released for 5e I will definitely adapt the journey rules for hexploration. Sadly, the adventure modules are... mixed, let's be kind here.
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I actually don't mind being railroaded, but Agnar's "you could've just asked" idea makes a lot of sense and covers a lot of ground.
For another example, the fight with the goblins. Module as written goes 'you approach the dwarves and then are immediately attacked by goblins.' Nothing wrong with that. But what if we were approaching, drawn by the smell of pork, and we see the goblins preparing to launch an attack on the unsuspecting dwarves? Now we've got tactical options. Call out a warning, giving away our own position? Try to pepper the goblins with arrows from concealment, confusing them as to where they're getting attacked from? Run forward to join the dwarves and face the goblins together?
Same basic outcome, (as heroic characters we're not going to leave the dwarves to be slaughtered, and we'd deserve a whole heap of Shadow Points if we tried), but a lot more agency.
To be clear, I'm enjoying myself, and I don't think there's anything wrong with running the module as-is. We'll figure out how and what to adjust as we go along :)
Sadly, the adventure modules are... mixed, let's be kind here.
That is very, very kind.
We've all been there with Cubicle 7. Good ideas, then complete rubbish for execution. Trust yourself, GM. From this small amount of time I have adventured with you I would say you have given more thought to Middle Earth than any module writer ever has.
Got stuck in the lab yesterday, tahnks for your patience. Post in gameplay will be up soon.
Agnar and Ólneth, those are much, much better ideas than the modulce presented! Thanks for sharing.
Sadly, the adventure modules are... mixed, let's be kind here.That is very, very kind.
It's 2020. Let's be kind.
Trust yourself, GM. From this small amount of time I have adventured with you I would say you have given more thought to Middle Earth than any module writer ever has.
Aww, tha't a nice thing to say! Thank you :D
Heh. Harvard's Law giving you problems again? ;)