Learning a bunch of new things today (mostly at work, but hey here, too). Of course I understand the concept but didn't know it had titling, cool. Do games now normally set that rule from the outset?
They didn't used to, but it is becoming a more and more common occurrence, and I believe that is a good thing. We're all here to play a game and have fun, not be creeped out by topics that individuals within the game may have issue with.
@Baldrick:
Yeah, I'm not overly fond of needles, either, heh. ;)
Your friend's way of doing it has a lot of good starting material, and covers several things I wouldn't want to see. I like the idea of players being able to contribute to either list, and of the list of lined/veiled content being dynamic and changing as the adventure progresses, because we might encounter something that just hits someone a little funny in the moment and I'd hate for them to walk away under some kind of emotional load as a result.
It's become pretty common at games where you might not know the people you're playing with (drop-in games, rpg cons, etc). And the lines and veils that I describe above are definitely the most common that I've seen. I've also been at games where there's a system of green-yellow-red cards, where if something you aren't comfortable with comes up, you can just flip a yellow or red card and the DM will take the cue to head in a different direction.
As someone who's often anxious at events, it can be tough to be open enough to say "this is something that really bothers me" in a group of strangers, which is why it's nice when a DM gets the ball rolling.
Sometimes lines/veils don't come up in the game itself, but I've seen people with backstories that involve abuse, self-harm, etc, that might be important to them to develop their character, but the people at the table might have a hard time with that, so it's good to know in advance.
@Baldrick:
Yeah, I'm not overly fond of needles, either, heh. ;)
Your friend's way of doing it has a lot of good starting material, and covers several things I wouldn't want to see. I like the idea of players being able to contribute to either list, and of the list of lined/veiled content being dynamic and changing as the adventure progresses, because we might encounter something that just hits someone a little funny in the moment and I'd hate for them to walk away under some kind of emotional load as a result.
Oh yeah -- it's absolutely an evolving list. Sorry -- I should have elaborated that my friend's list is a starting point and from there we're all asked to contribute our own lines/veils.
For me, as a player, I'm iffy about doing romance, though I've no problem with it being a part of what others do in a game, especially if anything more explicit is veiled. I'll sometimes do a romance with an NPC, but I don't think it makes sense at all in this game given Mell's backstory. Relationshipwise, she's grieving her husband and wants to be left alone on the romance front. Friends, comrades, and companions are different - she needs those.
But I agree - knowing what bothers other people up front helps to avoid problems down the line.
I am okay with what the party decides/
I think Mell's & Baldrick's words reflect my own, except I'm okay with needles heh but it's not come up. I'd add animal abuse - taking out a "bad guy" wolf or whatever is fine, saying "the poor abused wolf" is fine, but describing it, hard pass.
If we were around an actual table, I would now spend the next half hour showing you pictures of past and present dog(s). :-)
Ah, Umikh's player is a dog lover, then! Maybe Greycastle will let us rescue some animals at some point. As a druid, Mell would totally be on board with that.
I took some time to scan through the old adventures trying to learn what the party knows about Sunblight, since I didn't get an answer for Mell's question in the Gameplay thread. What I noticed is that there were Duergar who were collecting chardalyn (the black rock magic stuff), but the party didn't seem to know why they wanted it. It sounded like you didn't think their reasons could be good for wanting it, so you wanted to head to Sunblight to investigate. Is that correct?
If so, it seems like that puts investigating Sunblight with unknown timeliness and unknown importance, though potentially it could affect more people than Mell's quest for justice, which is just a personal quest.
In the interests of getting us moving, I'd like to suggest we head for Sunblight. Mell's quest will always be there, with a little GM cooperation.
I can handle most subject matter, though there are some that I feel are distasteful, namely sexual assault. Most evils, however, I feel are meant to be fought against. My fantasy is making the world a better place, and so I tend to understand that these are placed in the world as conflict that we are meant to overcome. That being said, my character may make some 'Lawful Stupid' kind of choices, because I avoid conflict enough in RL that I am going to fight for what is right.
Anyway, I prefer veils for intimate relations and super gory stuff.
^_^
I was leaving much of that to the others, as I was running that portion and Turq was absent at that leg... He knows that several folk have been collecting the Chardalyn, including that druid that has been coating his beast army's natural weaponry with the stuff...
I missed out on the druid bit, so good to know. (The hazards of scanning!)
I missed another thing, too. There was a bit from what looked like the Duergar boss of the last fight about doom coming on dragon's wings.
If a dragon is somehow at or near Sunblight, I think that ups the stakes above a personal quest for justice. I'll now make a strong call for Sunblight as our next destination.
But maybe one of you who was present at the Duergar boss guy fight could post what he said in the Gameplay thread for the sake of Gideon and Avendryl, and maybe refreshing everyone else's memory, too?
Sounds like you got a lot of it from your skimming! I think a lot of the details have been kind of vague for us too. I'll try to summarize what I remember.
- We fought an army of animals that were corrupted by chardalyn -- we think by a renegade druid. I don't really remember how we came up with that? Maybe from that awakened animal (Mother Tusk?) that we helped out right at the very beginning (back in 2020!).
- Pieces of chardalyn that people had collected in the Ten Towns were disappearing. We tracked them down to a duergar hiding in a ferry. We found the map among his belongings, which had two areas indicated: the first is where we found the duergar "boss", the second is labelled Sunblight. We don't know what's there.
- Doom comes on dragon's wings is all we got out of that duergar boss -- I'd actually forgotten about it!
I'll give a quick overview of my character in a bit, since it occurs to me that you don't know anything about him. Gotta run for now though!
That about sums it up, have we really been playing this game for like 3 years>
So Umikh, in real life is my partner and we've been discussing lately how involved I should be when it comes to regulating behavior in the game. Lines and Veils may be a good way to handle that, but up to this point, we have not used anything like that.
As to your skimming, you've picked up on most of this stuff and while it may only be a few months of time for the characters, the real life toll does affect the memory. That being said, I think in Mell's skimming and Baldrick's summary, you've covered most of the necessary bullet points.
As for the story getting moving, that is on me. Meant to post yesterday and got sidetracked
As for Lines and Veils, I will take a look at the link and consider it.
Id like a take a vote of what people like as a group name for us. The party has been garnering quite the name for themselves around Ten Towns and it's time that people know what to call you. Before that can happenn though, we need to get some ideas. , I'll throw out the three that Aesh and I have discussed. If you guys want to toss any other ideas into the mix go for it.
Heroes of...
Forgehome
Good Forge
Good Hearth
Taking things in and around the Ten Towns area/Icewind Dale as inspiration and pairing that with my love of alliteration, here are some ideas.
Ten Towns Toughs
Mighty Mammoths
White Wolf Watchers (or even just White Wolves)
Doughty Dalers
Icewind Irregulars (think this was an earlier suggestion your group had - I liked the alliteration)
Order of the Owlbear
Chardalyn Savagers
Knucklehead Knights
Scrimshaw Slayers
Rime’s Revengers
Darkness Delvers
And the two that break the pattern:
Auril’s Bane
Petty Yetis
Eladrin and Associates ;)
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That about sums it up, have we really been playing this game for like 3 years>
This thread only goes back to 2021, but there's a (now inactive) thread where Greycastle first started us off -- that was the Mother Tusk adventure -- which started in October 2020 :)
Back then, the group name was "Ice Road Truckers" :D
I don't know if we need more suggestions of names, I just had some amusing thoughts:
- Ragtag Townies
- Forgers of Good Will
- Meader Maids (Good Mead seems to be where we spend most of our downtime...)
- Black Ice Busters
- Heroes of the Spine! Heroes with a Spine! The Spinies!! Spinal Tap!
I liked the talking walrus, IIRC he was springy for much of that and played with the otters.
Oh gosh has it really been that long?! I mean that's cool though!
That is waaaay too many good group name ideas. Being one of the smithies, I like something something Forge. FORGERs of Good Will, Heroes of the Good FORGE. I like having "good" in there for the city we're always circling back to.
The Harassers of Da Pod People ::)
Added a link to the Google Sheet reference to the NPCs in the Campaign tab. If you would like to add anyone from your own backstories, make a comment in the category and I will add it.
I'll send you a list when I get a chance to put it all together -- I think I've introduced quite a few NPCs, between DMing and Baldrick just meeting randos.
Plant man!
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"He's a plant man
Ski-bi dibby dib yo da dub dub
Yo da dub dub"
:D
I wonder how the different seasonal aspects which interact with the plant man, lol.
Please keep my 15 year old tabby in your prayers. He went to the Vet yesterday for his annual. He has lost 4 lbs since last year and the doctor is concerned. They took blood and urine and should get the results tomorrow.
@Aeshuura, do I haz the dumb - what's the link to the NPC sheet? Just wanna read. If it's DM only, nm.
@Rodalas, hope kitty is okay. Seniors can really give us a scare.
Thank you. He is acting his naughty self. I hope that whatever it is, is something that is treatable.
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@Aeshuura -- I finally had a chance to look through stuff. I emailed you a Word doc with more NPC Notes!
Vet called back. No diabetes, nothing wrong with the bones or structure, but urine is a little wet. The thyroid is elevated so they are going to run one more test to make sure that is what the issue is. They don't have to poke him again because they can still use the sample.
Fingers crossed for kitty
Thanks! If I understand correctly, if it is the thyroid it is very treatable and easy to do.
I"m hypothyroid myself. I wonder if animals get the same meds for the condition that humans do.
But yeah, keeping fingers crossed for you, Rodalas, that it's an easily treatable condition.
Our dog Jack had thyroid disease. And yeah, he took the same drugs as humans do for most of his life. Very treatable, and the thyroid meds were cheap. Regular checkups always included a blood test to determine his thyroid levels.
He didn't like the taste of the pills, and sometimes wouldn't eat it when it was just in his food bowl, but he was a champ about us opening his mouth and pushing pills to the back of his throat (followed by tons of pettings and praise). But most of the time, he just gobbled it up with the rest of his food, yay.
That is interesting. I know that you can treat feline diabetes with human insulin.
Yep, my step sister's dog has diabetes and gets insulin shots. Funny enough, since he gets the shots right before eating, he's learned to like them (!!). Prozac (depression & anxiety), phenobarbital (seizures), tramadol (pain), lots of things work the same. And then some don't. Weird!
Kitty has hyperthyroid.
I think that's harder to treat than hypothyroidism. What did your vet recommend?
He said it was easy tobtrrat. Can be trrated with a pill, a liquid, or a cream on the ear.
Sorry for the late post. I meant to post that yesterday and got REaLly delayed lol.
@Rodalas. Sorry about your cat. At least it’s treatable.
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Giving kitty the medicine is not hard. It takes longer to set up. I get the medicine tube out. Take off the top, put on glove, dial the dosage on the pen that the medicine comes in, put the dosage on the glove and rub his inner ear. Easy peezy.
Going to visit my brother and his family. Feel free to bot me. I will try to post once per day, but no promises! :)
We were out of service this weekend. Sorry for the slower posting.
When the internet is not working, it is a pain in the tookus.