Whack-a-Rogue's Untitled Campaign (Inactive)

Game Master Whack-a-Rogue

I've been on the Paizo boards for many years-- when I first got into Pathfinder I was part of a Society group in 2012, and I joined to download various character things. About five years ago I started hanging out more regularly and I joined a few games. Most of them didn't last, but there was one group playing Iron Gods that managed to hold it together for several years, all the way through Book Three. Several of the folks I met in that game have become lasting friends, and we still play together in several other games on Discord. That's where all my longest lasting games have been.

Most of playing in a successful PbP game comes down to the GM, I think. Or rather, the many unsuccessful ones I've been in usually fell apart when the GM lost interest or bandwidth for whatever reasons. Often that can be because the players lose interest or bandwidth first, of course, but players can be replaced. It's a lot harder to replace a disinterested GM. So, I'm very interested in finding a game run by someone who is invested in it! The ideal is that together the players and the GM can transform their hours and hours of attention into a cool shared story.

Way back in college I got interested in a game called Ars Magica, which the creator admitted was basically a bunch of old D&D house rules done well enough to publish. In fact, since he later went on to develop D&D Third Edition, he also said that D&D went full circle because he basically house-ruled Ars Magica into D&D3E. And since Pathfinder developed out of D&D3.5, I feel like playing Pathfinder is still sort of like playing Ars. :)

Anyway, the reason I bring up Ars Magica is because I enjoyed tinkering with it so much that I started sharing my homebrew rules in various fan magazines and on the burgeoning Internet, and eventually I got tapped by the publishers to write supplements for it. So I'm a big supporter of the process, and I admire and respect the desire to improve upon the game.

Another Discord friend of mine is a big Spheres evangelist, and I've applied for other games using the ruleset, so I'm fairly familiar. We actually played through the first two books of Way of the Wicked using Spheres before real life intruded on the game. Spheres has a lot of the same modular design stuff that I admire in Ars Magica, so I really enjoy the theorycrafting there too. And I appreciate how interested you are in modding it further, because there are lots of places where blending the rules with core Pathfinder still causes some minor malfunctions, and it's nice to know we could smooth those out over the course of a game.

I'd like to say that I strive for a seamless blend of roll-play and roleplay, being both a programmer and a performer. My ideal game experience is almost simulationist, where the story and the mechanics both equally drive events such that they feel natural and engaging. When that's happened in the past the players often remark how it seems like destiny, like we conspired together to make it work. That's an awesome feeling.

As much as I like the freedom of a sandbox, in PbP you have to have hooks that the GM and players can use to drive things along, otherwise it's easy to get lost in navel-gazing theater as weeks and weeks pass. I wholeheartedly endorse anything the GM does to push the story ahead. And I think the same tools have to be used when there is rules disagreements or inter-party conflict. It is essential for everyone to step out of the game and as a group of friends figure out what needs to happen to move forward. In my experience, trying to do that stuff in character just leads to lots of hurt feelings, and that can ruin a game.

Same for PvP. It kills camaraderie, and that's not fun for anyone. Just my experience, but I've never been in a game where that didn't turn into huge problems outside of the activity. I find it's good for players to have a social contract of sorts, that says "Don't worry, we're all here to have fun and that always comes first."

I like to think I'm a dynamic player when it comes to deciding to do something, but again as a player I'm very careful not to steamroll other players. I can't tell you how many extremely charismatic characters I've seen that everyone hates because they just boss everybody around, and that translates to lost agency and players don't like that. I try to help the GM move things along, and look for out-of-character buy-in on decisions rather than just following the dominant voices.

I post all throughout the day, and often most of the night as well. When I'm not at rehearsals or driving, I am almost always in front of my computer, and I have nocturnal tendencies. Especially when combat is happening I tend to hang out on the boards, and as a final safeguard I have set up subscription services through Blogtrottr to notify me when active threads receive an update.

I suppose I'm most interested in your all-goblin Rise of the Runelords game, if I have a choice. I've been in an all-Vigilante Curse of the Crimson Throne Spheres game for about eight months now, but unfortunately the GM just decided they have to stop running it. So I guess I'm free to start it over if you have an empty spot. :)

I tend to start relatively sparse with my characters and fill in gaps as inspiration strikes during the story. Nothing mechanical, but if in Runelords we run into Ameiko I might decide that my bard got into music because he saw her playing one night or something. I find that this allows the character to engage with the setting more and doesn't require me to write an entire novel just to explain how my level 1 fighter ended up in the Sandpoint guard or whatever.

Lastly, I love gestalt, I love versatile characters and I think the three person party sounds super interesting, so I hope you will pick me.

I have played tabletop rpg since I was... 14 or so... and PbP since around 2015. I tend to think that I like a good mix of role and roll but, unlike most others who say that, I can't live without any of them. A nice setting and good roleplay is fine, and the feeling of being involved in the gameworld is truly peerless, but I need the rules. I need some choice, some complexity, and some balance in the rules, and I love to read the rules and understand them, and use them to do my bidding. With a good setting, you can sell me the rules, but also with good rules I can buy any setting. Mostly.

So, remember AD&D?

-"Hey, I've got the Book of Elves, and man, they can fire 78 shots per half-round, and the other half-round they cast spells - in elven chainmail, or course - and they still have time to pull out a sword and stick it up your ass. The sword, I mean."
+"Okay, I want to play a human... "
-"Ah, no, they don't even have a book. But hey, they have no negatives!"

So the group ended being 3 Fighter Wizard Elves and a Human. I lasted 2 sessions, then the GM decided he wanted to use tachionic points for Wizards, so I quit. That's a bit too much for anyone, I know, but gives a clear example of how the rules can ruin my game, no matter the setting. And it did happen, really.

How about PbP? Well, I have mixed feelings. I started PbP because I was bored and had no games to play at. Most of my friends were working too much, or had babies, or both. I was working as a teacher then, so I thought some practice to remove the rust from my English would be perfect.

So, I realised games die. I don't know which is the formula to success, if more players, less players, or whatever. My longest, continued campaign lasted for about 3 years, then died. I've started millions of characters from 1st level, only to see them gone like tears in rain before reaching 4th level. Sometimes after the first scene, and sometimes even before selection was made. That hasn't stopped me from trying though.

I try to post everyday, though I'm not always successful. Sometimes, my posting has to be through the mobile (cell phone for most of you :P), sometimes I check the forums and there's nothing new (due to being in Europe) and sometimes I get home and start posting... and fall asleep. You know, life is what usually stands between you and your aims :P I tend to usually err on the side of following what the majority of the party wants, or what the story asks, rather than my own goals. So yes, you could say I'm not truly a leader. But who's a leader without followers? A team with too many star players is going to have problems, sooner or later.

There's one perk about me which some people here might have noticed :P I hate, as in, it has made me reroll characters and even quit games, I can't stand when a character doesn't have a niche. And I mean something that you can do to help with a decent frequency. Some of our favourite movies have characters which do nothing other than mess it up, then comes a moment - their five seconds of glory - where they are actually needed because they "know who was the name of Abraham Lincoln's butcher's dog". That doesn't work for me. I'm okay with 2 clerics in the group, I'm not okay with 2 clerics with the same focuses, feats, etc. To have fun, I need my 5 seconds of glory, and I need them not just once in my whole career. I want to be the "we need X, let's call Y" guy. And if there was the case that 2 guys in the same group do the same thing (something unavoidable, like 2 guys going for melee, or whatever), they would have to be distinguishgable in style, and of course, be at the same level (more or less, I know). I once rerolled characters because the other ranged character in the group was doing about 30 damage mroe per round, could cast spells, and had mostly the same skills as me. And he was even a switcher! That's a big no-no, and another example of how the rules can ruin my setting (and, by the way, another of my multiple disappointments with the Monk).

But let's move on.

PbP games, according to most people, suffer from combat scenes, though I've seen investigation and social scenes cause the same or more attrition. After all, when combat's happening, most of us think "hey, I need to post, else they'll skip my turn". Other interactions don't have this perk, since you think "well, someone else will say something, I need to take the kids to bed". In the end, then, a PbP game needs some balance, imho, and most of all, it needs the GM to notice when a little help is needed to avoid stagnation.

So, this was going to be a short text and it ended up being a novel. I'm looking forward to see this game going, since I like what I see, and I'll be probably making characters for both, with CotCT being my preferred game (I already play an all-goblins one and it's quite limiting due to the race inherent flaws).

I've started playing DnD with 3.5 about 15 or 16 years ago and started PbP roughly 12-13 years ago when my tabletop group died. Haven't managed to secure a stable tabletop group since so it's been limited to several one-offs on the tabletop front.

As far as PbP goes I've played 3.5, 4e, Pathfinder and some freeform games. Started playing elsewhere, came to the Paizo boards after a few years, made a very short trip back to my old boards, just long enough to remind me why I left in first place, and then made my way back here.
The longest games I've been in actually were on the other forum though. One was a 4e game that lasted for about 5 years, ending when we were stuck without a GM and couldn't find another as 4e was more or less abandoned on those boards. During those years we replaced our defender 2-3 times and had already replaced the original GM by one of the other players. In that game I played a Hybrid Rogue|Sorcerer which functioned as a sort of melee controller in addition to being a sniper. That character also was the start of my Halfling lineage, the Fizzwinkles (about 90% of my Halflings since have carried that name).
The other game was a freeform one that lasted about 4 years The game involved a more dark take on a magic school but all characters were young adults. In hindsight it sounds rather silly but a friend got me in there and it was good fun. It's another game that ended when the GM vanished. Being freeform the players tried to carry on and we managed to do that for almost a year before it fizzled out as players started dropping out.

As far as Spheres go, I've been in a game that fizzled out very quickly. Character creation took a long time as all of the players were unfamiliar with Spheres and by the time it was all set the GM wasn't in a good place to actually start the game. So I never actually played a Spheres character. Have played in a game with Spheres casters in the group but that was before Spheres of Might and I played a martial. It seemed fun though (which was why I applied for the other Spheres game).

Concerning the roll-play vs roleplay and flavor vs power questions, I'm somewhere halfway on both. I loved and still love 4e which is notorious for being heavy on the roll-play but to me that only meant that the roleplay was almost entirely unrestricted by rolls, giving a lot of freedom there. That and I love tactics games.
For flavor v. power, I like a bit of both. I tend to come up with a character concept, either pure flavor or based on a mechanical concept (like say the Siegebreaker fighter archetype) and then I try to squeeze as much power out of it as I can without breaking concept. Power doesn't have to be raw combat ability though, could be social power or utility. When it comes to sandbox vs railroad I'd say that a (large) degree of railroad is good for pbp but it shouldn't feel like a straight jacket. And just like one of the posters above me, I like being useful to a group, have my own niche if it all possible. Note that some niches easily fit more people, like melee beatstick for instance (I remember a very fun one-off I played where I played a Fighter with a 2h and we also had a Barb with a 2h and while that looks like you might hinder each other we soon came up with the idea of our chars being close friends and working as a team, high-fiving each other when they took out an enemy. It was silly but fun).

On the conflict front I expect rules conflict and player conflict to be handled out of gameplay. In the former I expect to be heard but the GM ultimately has final say, though I do like to know why that decision was made. In the latter things should be resolved between the people, though others in the game can mediate. Honestly though I have never experienced conflict between players that didn't come from either a rules perspective or a misunderstanding.
On PvP that'd generally be a no for me but if both parties agree OOC I guess it's ok. That said, I'm fine with characters butting heads or even a bit of roughhousing when it fits the characters (like I could see with goblins) but no killing or stealing or other bad stuff (barring cases of OOC consent).

I try to at least meet the required number of posts but that might also be OOC if there is nothing or very little to add in game. I have also found that when I'm in a game that's filled with people all in another and quite far timezone from me who post in bursts together during hours when I'm asleep it's very easy to fall out of it as it feels like you need to play catch up every day and it also detracts from the feeling of usefulness I mentioned above. Things like a conversation between characters that I left when I headed to bed and that had gone on for half a page and several subjects by the time I can join up again. OOC that's not an issue at all though. As such I've found that if all players, including the GM, are in disparate timezones it often pays off to be aware of that and dial back the speed just a little bit so no one gets left behind.

When playing PbP, I prefer APs, but when playing PnP, I prefer homebrews. I won't go much into the detail as to why, but I feel it works well that way for me.

I have never played with the Spheres ruleset. I don't have an opinion about them. This proposal is interesting enough to learn a new system.

About role/roll-playing, I tend to only get invested in a game if I really like my character in terms of who he is and what motivates him. However, sometimes I get frustrated if my character isn't useful in the game. So I would say 70-30 role/roll-playing. In the same discussion, flavor is much more interesting than power. I mean... what's the point of winning if you don't do it in style? And RPGs tend to make it so the players have a decent chance of winning, so there's usually no need to min-max a character. In fact, I have more than once seen DMs (in the 3.5 days) get uninterested in the game because the PCs became too powerful.

The sandbox vs railroad question is very interesting. In PnP games I tend to prefer sandbox with gentle nudges by the GM when the players start to get lost. However, I find that in PbP the game can slow down too much in a sandbox situation, and the players can lose interest if there isn't something clear to do.

To me, rules disagreements need to be handled like this: players state their opinions. GM weighs it in and makes the final decision. Inter-party conflict and PvP can be fun if handled very carefully. I like to stay away from it because it can become unpleasant more easily than not. Examples: a conflict because the ranger disagrees with the wizard on how to best help the town is interesting and can lead to meaningful discussion and character development. But a conflict that rises because the paladin notices the CN rogue slicing the throats of unconscious guards would not be fun for either player in my opinion. It would be hard to imagine them working together in the future.

About leading/following, I usually tend to go how my character would. If they are a leader type, I'll just step forward, else I'll just advise.

I live in Rio de Janeiro and usually post during the afternoon, and I post often. That may change soon, however, as I'll move to Portugal for a new job before the end of the year.

This is a 5e game where I played Veratash. I like this post as he takes his time to wake up and take in the world.

I'm a thirty-ish (vague because it makes me feel younger!) physician from the Netherlands. I grew up on the Baldur's Gate games along with the Super Nintendo RPG classics (Chrono trigger, Lufia, etc) and have been hooked on RPG's ever since. I started playing tabletop RPG's with 3.5 but it was a bit too complicated for a group of 14-15 year olds like us to really grip beyond a base level. I moved to D&D 4e from there and then to pathfinder when it became more popular around here and 4e died. Since I was working then and had the income to support it, I frequently travelled between Germany, England and the Netherlands for the weekend-long pathfinder conventions. I would have done this more often but had to skip last year due to becoming a dad and this year due to Covid-19.

Having played most of the later seasons of PFS and through one AP (Wrath of the Righteous), I consider myself decently experienced in pathfinder first edition but not overly so. I still occasionally make a mistake here and there and keep learning from them. I'm not into rule-lawyering and try to avoid arguments about the rules at all costs. They tend to sour the experience for at least 1 person at the table.

On PBP, I'm fairly new and have only started doing this last year. My first experience there was a bit rough since I had to try and get a grasp of things in the middle of a level 15/mythic tier 6 campaign that went pretty wild pretty fast! When the GM stopped there, I paused for six months and came back afterwards. Now, I am in one homebrew PBP campaign, a newly started Giantslayer and one Iron Gods campaign where I jumped in midway. If you want to check those out to get an idea of my posting style, the aliases are Sorogar, Aradesh and Elrys. Generally, I try to avoid one-liner posts and try to include at least one or two things someone after me could react to.

On posting, I post at least once per day and try to make reactive and engaging (and hopefully amusing at times!) posts, following the stickied PBP guides and commendments on the forum as best as I can. With the iron gods campaign progressing a bit slowly, I am confident I could do at least two additional campaigns simultaneouisly before time issues become a problem.

Homebrew: I have played a decent amount of homebrew, though of course not your specific set of rules. I was involved with developing a new roleplaying game, Witch: Fated souls which was written by one of my friends. I suppose you could count that as homebrew? For pathfinder specifically, I used altered multiclassing rules and Elephant in the Room feat taxes. Nothing like complete rewrites, but I'd probably get it down by giving the system a readthrough.

Spheres of power: No experience. I've heard a lot about it however, overwhelmingly positive, so I'm curious how it would work.

Combat vs Roleplay: In PBP format, I prefer roleplaying since combats take a lot of real-life time in which very little happens in the story. I also tend to go out of my way to find creative solutions to avoid direct combat, be it by diplomacy or guile. However, without combats, things would get a bit dull after a while. I suppose my ideal mix would be fewer than normal combats but having them be more dangerous and challenging, so that the excitement from the fight outweighs the halted momentum of the story.

Flavor vs Power: In what regard? For character builds, I think what you build should make sense for the setting, region and adventure. However, I do want to be a dependable pillar for the party. I tend to reasonably optimize my character under those constraints.

Sandbox vs reailroad: Railroad. I like the story to head in a direction and feel like we're making progress. A completely open-ended setup is something I don't think works too well since it would be a massive time sink in PBP.

Rules disagreements and inter party coflict: In my experience, that is very rare. I tend to always go with the GM ruling and avoid it as much as possible. I tend to ask people in the discussion board to please point if I do something that upsets them and rexspond to it in the discussion thread.

The only real 'conflict' I can remember having was in my first PBP campaign, where I played a paladin who got thrown into a really messed up situation in a town, where a necromancer had taken over the entire town and was sacrificing children to turn into undead on the spot. We walked into a kind of aboittoir in the town church and caught him red-handed. On the city gates, literal undead were standing watch and keeping the population trapped in the town. Without a functional law force, or one that had somehow failed to detect anything was wrong, my solution was to (unsuccesfully) kill him on the spot and try to save the remaining civilians there. Then, later on, I was suspicious of the town guards for failing to notice anything, learning later more that the mayor had willingly allowed everything to happen. I then threatened him to tell us what he knew of the escaped necromancer, since if the authorities learned of this and no one testified in his defense, he would surely be executed.

The above was seen as out of character for a paladin, especially one described as a friendly young knight. I agreed that the reaction is at odds with the original premise but felt that it was still the correct response to the situation. I'm still not sure if that was right or wrong. It was a reather extreme evil setup to walk into, and I'm not entirely sure how a young idealistic knight should act in such a case. If I'd do it again, I'd try to be more understanding of the mayor, I suppose, even though we found him torturing prostitutes when we finally discovered where he was (beating his frustrations and powerlessness into them). Anyway, it was dropped after a few posts on the subject and we moved on.

Leader vs follower: Personally I am fine with the group voting on things as a whole. I gravitate towards being a leader, however, unless there is already a clearly established leader in place.

PVP: not a fan. Seen it only in one campaign and that one soured and ended really quickly aftwerwards. Having half the party kill the other half, in my experience, just creates bad feelings that are hard for people to let go.

Posting: I post at least once a day in all the campaigns I was active in. I usually post between 21:00 and 0:00 CET. This is roughly the timeframe of after my wife and children have gone to sleep. I might be able to do an additional post somewhere during the day but I can't promise that beforehand.

All of them :P Though I suppose the below one is one of my best recent ones. The background is that the party just encountered a group of Android fanatics that are on a crusade to destroy all technology, claiming it evil and that doing so would bring them closer to humanity. They insist the party lets them destroy all Numerian tech items on them, even though this would clearly kill the cyborg fighter who was the tank. If the argument is not convincing enough, bloodshed will occur. I am playing as Elrys, who is allowed a moment to speak before the fight starts.

Note that the below is a lengthy plea of her point in this discussion, and might come across as somewhat wall of texty or very dialogue heavy. I do think however that it was good Roleplaying.

https://paizo.com/campaigns/ToFaceAGodOfIron/gameplay&page=82#4075

I really enjoy PbP for the creativity and detail it allows, as well as the flexibility over live tabletop games. I like the story book feel that these games ultimately deliver.

Homebrew?
I've played in one full-on homebrew campaign which was played live, not PbP. Really enjoyed it. The two campaigns I am currently in are not entirely homebrewed, but they are very heavily houseruled. I'm able to keep up with that just fine, and find myself really enjoying it.

Spheres of Power/Might?
Love them both to absurd extremes. I played a Shattered Star campaign that used SoP and was a time/space incanter, and I played a RotRL using SoP and SoM where I was a melee-focused shifter. I've also built several other SoP characters, and I've never regretted using the system.

What's your ideal blend of roleplay vs roll-play?
I really like both, though I tend to lean a little bit more toward roll-play if I'm not careful; however, I recognize how boring a game can get with just roll-play, so I always am careful to add more depth.

Flavor vs power?
I will admit to being a power gamer; I enjoy finding powerful combinations and building a well-crafted character. However, I also pride myself on being able to build out the flavor to match the power, and if I can't make it fit flavor-wise I don't use it. There is often a badge of honor to be had by playing sub-optimal choices intentionally, but I find just as much challenge and fun in finding the flavor that matches the mechanical choices I want to make.

Sandbox vs railroad?
Overall prefer railroad if just because sandbox seems to have a higher rate of sluggishness when nobody knows what to do next. I'm not too concerned either way personally, just an observation.

How do you handle rules disagreements or inter-party conflict?
I present my case to my fellow players and/or the GM, then allow the GM to make the final call. Rules are rules but GM is king :D.

As for inter-party conflict, it hasn't happened to me very often at all; when it does happen, I'm more than able to admit when I screwed the pooch and own up to my mistakes. For a lovely example of just such a thing, see: me copping to sucking

What's your stance on PvP?
It has a place for sure, as long as it is agreed upon beforehand. One of my favorite campaigns was this 1-on-1 PvP tournament. That being said, it should only be used when fully planned and agreed upon by all. Hostile IC PvP generally should be avoided, IMO, because it is hard to overcome story-wise and can make for a tense gaming environment. But friendly PvP in the right atmosphere can be a lot of fun!

In-game, are you a leader or a follower when it comes to party decisions?
I've been both, though I tend more toward the follower side. Reluctant leader would be the best classification; if someone else can lead, I'm glad to let them, but if nobody else will I will to make sure the job gets done.

What time and how often do you typically post?
I typically post between 8-5 central time, though I absolutely do still post after hours also. I can and do post multiple times a day if the situation calls for it, though I also don't want to flood things with my posts so I pace myself to make sure everybody gets a chance.

Play examples
Out of Combat - from here to the top of the next page is a good thread to show interpersonal roleplay out of combat. I am Domitian.

In Combat - a recent example of combat for a complex battle environment. This game is mythic and gestalt, so lots of moving parts to keep track of.

Character Flavor - fun little character moment

Laughing Hideously - another fun little character moment, in combat but no actions this post, just flavor

Finally, I'll direct you to the Background spoiler here: Jazdac Background. This blurb was my attempt to justify a stonelord paladin of Angradd fighting in the worldwound, given that stonelords tend to defensive style combat defending existing strongholds while Angradd is all about offense and the worldwound is an offensive war. The justification was received happily by my GM and the game is now well underway.