Gallery of Evil (Inactive)

Game Master Deaths Adorable Apprentice

Theres always a chance you might be called on your accusatioms and the paintings revealed prematurely. And now you have yo fight in a panicked mob. Lemme see if i cant get the hosts attention.

You can do the detect magic thing, fun idead, just takes time Telias. You are past the second group which puts you somewhere in the clear area that has the number 3. Just need to let the others catch up so I'm not keeping track of different times.

I dont seem to have control of my token atm. It might just be the troubles of trying to do it on mobile so ill try again when i get home.

I have it set for you to control. Im sorry it is causing issues..

Gemariah not keen on banking rolls but you specified what it was for. Just try to RP it. With the crowd and the band hearing a single voice without magical assistance is going to be hard from the middle of the noisy room.

Now I know why Duergar are so grim, they're Dwarves that can't get drunk.

Onw hundred percent gonna recycle this character for something else. The moist von lipwig meets indiana jones vibe is too much not to enjoy.

Sorry been a bit busy. Wife prepping for surgery next week so a bunch of appointments. Will post in a few hours.

Welp, looks like a bunch of people are gonna get slaughtered.

Just to clarify. Are all 3 in a covered green cloth or is one not?

Is it the 3rd one for dramatic purposes?

there are four in total. three have green cloth and the last one is wrapped in paper.

Could I get into the front row, so I don't have to scream? I'm a bit confused as to where should be in the crowd. I can cast grace, if you deem that might help me to get closer without getting tangled up.

I moved you to on the map. The people with the oink lines though them are groups you have gotten though.

Okay, thanks. Would grace allow me to move up to the front? That's not exactly what the spell is meant for, but I'm trying to improvise. :P

Discharging firearms in incredibly cramped rooms always ends well.

True. But probably better than letting out two more paint monsters would end haha.

Well, there goes my good roll. :(

Ehhhhh, Telias was almost in range to do shenanigans of which he has many flavors at his disposal. And he got Sithe as close as reasonable to do different flavors of shenanigans as backup.

We'll have to see what comes of this before we can reasonably do anything now. Hopefully, the impact will be minimal and at worst some very large polite men will escort the over enthusiastic paladin partier out the door.

no one had made any progress in stopping the man. At least by my count, and at worst this distracts folks from the rest of you so you can sort it out while I'm being dealt with.

That aside, making a scene is well worth it if it means saving lives. He isn't going to take that risk, and is more than ready to accept the repercussions of firing off a pistol into the roof. Especially when the potential result of failing is releasing one of those creatures into a tightly packed room like this. No one knows we are together, so no issues there. This should however, buy time.

Fly free my shenanigans!

It's not that big of a deal, though I admit I'm a bit frustrated. Personally, I'd have preferred if you'd asked everyone if they were done being diplomatic or sneaky before firing, since this might well exclude those options. It's not a bad back-up plan, but I would have liked a try at it before we started escalating (especially since it was taking so damn long to set it up—that crowd turned out to be way more of a hassle than I initially thought). And obviously we're disagreed on the risks, here: at worst, this might turn into stampede, with us in the middle. Being escorted out is a best-case scenario.

But I'm not asking for a retcon or anything, just (hopefully) clearing up future communication. Let's see where this takes us—it might turn out to be interesting.

I'm not sure what good roll you are talking about I don't see anything after your reflex save but I may have missed it. Again, just because I do something doesn't mean it ruins your plans. As far as anyone at the party is concerned our characters have no relation to each other. As it stands, the man was about to reveal the next two paintings. Which if one was enchanted would release said creatures. Which would most certainly cause a panic and stampede. One which would hinder us in our attempts to safeguard the people. My prior attempt didn't stop him, nor others. We also have a member sneaking about who could make a move during the distraction.

Again the only reason gabrielle did this was that other attempts at distracting/stopping the man unveiling the paintings had failed. It was a "uh oh" button with the intent of buying you all more time.

Best case scenario is I am allowed to explain the situation and we resolve this issue safely and risk free. Doubtful, but a potential. Meanwhile, at least we should have time for other people to do their things now.

Shot rings out

In a turn of events its now the bard trying to save the paladin from jailtime.

Lmao now that's a first!

I'm not sure what good roll you are talking about I don't see anything after your reflex save but I may have missed it.

Wa-aay back when we started to move through the crowd, I rolled a nat 20 on Diplomacy. Ancient history, I know. :P

Honestly, the roll is not all that important, even though I'm a bit salty about wasting it—that's just how it goes sometimes. I was more frustrated about potentially losing my ability to act on the situation after a long set-up, whether it required a new roll or not.

Again, just because I do something doesn't mean it ruins your plans. As far as anyone at the party is concerned our characters have no relation to each other. As it stands, the man was about to reveal the next two paintings. Which if one was enchanted would release said creatures. Which would most certainly cause a panic and stampede. One which would hinder us in our attempts to safeguard the people. My prior attempt didn't stop him, nor others. We also have a member sneaking about who could make a move during the distraction.

Again the only reason gabrielle did this was that other attempts at distracting/stopping the man unveiling the paintings had failed. It was a "uh oh" button with the intent of buying you all more time.

Best case scenario is I am allowed to explain the situation and we resolve this issue safely and risk free. Doubtful, but a potential. Meanwhile, at least we should have time for other people to do their things now.

Your actions are completely in character for Gabrielle and not unreasonable given the circumstances; that's fine. I'm talking about OOC coordination. In hindsight, keeping the game moving forward was probably worth the risk (since everything did turn out fine in the end), but whether that risk should have been taken in the first place should, in my opinion, have warranted discussion. I would have preferred to try my less risky option first, and then pulled the trigger if necessary.

I'm sorry if I'm coming across as confrontational: I'm just trying to set up some base conventions, since this is the first time we've played together.

If you want to take that approach I would recommend saying something in character. Otherwise there's no real reason for anyone not to act the way they normally would have.

I'm generally of the mind that we're playing a game, and we should be able to discuss that game as players. That might sometimes result in situations where you have to come up with a reason to act a certain way in character, but it's not like the characters have minds of their own.

Of course, in-character negotiations might be preferrable when there's no out-of-character friction, but trying to hash out OOC disagreements IC is rarely a good idea. Gemariah isn't going to mind as much his player, and there wasn't really an opportunity for IC talk in this situation, regardless.

I'm under the impression that this was already plan B. Other attempts didn't make any real headway. I did ask ooc how we wanted to go about it. I made attempts in character to go about it that way and let others have the chance for the same. However we still ended up with his about to reveal the second two paintings despite our efforts. So, the go button was pressed. I'll give a heads up next time I suppose.

There is a new room opened up on the map for you all to talk with Belfore privately. Its a bit cramped.

Hopefully this can blow over. I want this to be a fun game with hopefully a touch of mystery and not to frustrating.

If you were to ask Telias he would just say it was premature.

The nice thing about pbp and high intelligence characters is that you have enough time to think things out as they would in a much faster timeframe.

So Telias had a plan from the start that developed as it went along. Sithe had a hunch that the last painting, the one in paper, was our man. Telias is inclined to agree based on the circumatances. Darius just dropped it off at the party so Belfore hadnt had time to unwrap it and veil ot appropriately. In fact his reaction will end up much more genuine as a result. Knowing that he could get Sithe in closer where she can slip into the crowd and do her work and move himself next to the stage and try to get his attention and handle things discreetly as to not alarm anyone and allow the host to save face. Right now seeing as discretion just made a hole in the nice plaster ceiling Telias has to adapt and save the party rather than just the honor of the host. Unfortunately that means combat either soon or at a much later date deoending on how long i can make him stall it out and make appropriate preparation.

All in all itll be a fantastically entertaining later party for belfore and all it cost was a bit of a paladins pride and a night out witha gray dwarf.

I'll give a heads up next time I suppose.

That's all I really need. You did ask before, and that's good. However, I was still very much in the middle of my own attempt, as can be seen in the posts above where I'm trying to ask about positioning and how I might get to speaking distance. But again, things ended up working out, so no harm done.

Some of my frustration was, perhaps, due to the fact that it wasn't clear from the start how difficult it would be to move through the crowd. First I assumed it was going to be just one check, but it ended up being a series of rolls. Maybe it would have been better to let us know right off the bat that it would be a skill challenge?

(The scene, as a whole, was quite interesting and well described, just so that I'm not being too negative! I clearly had the wrong expectations going in.)

Hopefully this can blow over. I want this to be a fun game with hopefully a touch of mystery and not to frustrating.

Yeah, sorry for making such big deal out of this, but I was genuinely bothered and wanted to air that, rather than just stewing silently. That sort of stuff breeds animosity, which I wanted to avoid here. Hopefully I didn't end up doing the opposite. :S

It was a challenge, at level 6, given how vicious the first fight was, it makes sense stopping this wouldn't be a cakewalk.

The fact that it was a challenge it totally fine. Definitely better than just one combat after another.

Handkerchief was for dramatic effect. And, well, i was going through the mans pockets. We can ignore it youd rather since i wasnt specific about it earlier.

I apologize that I did not make it clear enough about the skill challenge.

And the e in his name was me typing to fast and not checking myself. Its Belfor.

No need to apologise! Just something to keep in mind for later, if there are similar challenges to come.

I honestly don't think you need to tell us "Oh this is a skill challenge." Part of the fun is figuring it out. Walking into any situation assuming everything will be normal is a good way to get killed.

No one expects the GM to go..."okay guys, this hallway is trapped."

I don't find OOC confusion to be fun. The whole point of a trap is no be a hidden danger, but even then there is a procedure to follow in playing out how it is found or not found, triggered or disabled. This challenge obviously had a framework, as well, and I would have preferred to know it beforehand. Not narrative specifics or anything, but something like, "Okay, this is a skill challenge: there's going to be multiple rolls, and we'll do them one at a time. First, please roll to X..." That's not spoiling anything of import, simply letting the players know what to expect and how to proceed in an environment that is not built into the rules (as skill challenges are not part of the Core PF ruleset). Like, if you were playing with a newbie who didn't know how traps work, you'd tell them, because otherwise they're not going to know what to do as a player, and its probably going to make their character look dumb for no reason.

poke?

Just as a heads up: I'll be out of town for most of next week (Sunday to Friday), so I might not be able to post much.

Hello?

Already meandering that direction.

Wife is out of the hospital after spinal surgery, and back at home recovering. Sorry was offline for a bit.

Sorry, just checking. Valtrya hopefully everything goes smoothy.

Terribly sorry. Apparently I never hit the post button and the weekend was hectic

Ill move us forward after work today. I wanted to give time for everyone to chime in.

Sorry haven't been around too much, been a bit busy.

I would like to apologize to you all for my absence. I don't like talking about it, as usually I can deal with it, however I have, slightly random swings of burnout and apathy over the course of the year where I lose all interest in almost everything. Where even things I normally greatly enjoy feel like a chore to do at best. Normally, I can push through, continue on and eventually the "burnout" as I've called it leaves. However I've hit a particularly rough patch this time around. That coupled with doubling my work time due to the holidays has left me with the desire to do nothing. However, that doesn't excuse my radio silence in this, and my other games. So again, I would like to apologize for that.

I think I'm on the upswing, and, if you would still have me I will happily rejoin the game properly in hopefully a few days time.

Real life always takes precedence. Of course, it'd be preferable to let us know beforehand if you need to take a break for whatever reason, though I know all too well that mental health stuff doesn't always come with advance warning. Take care of yourself!

Agreed. Real life takes precedence. And I can slow the game down. Holidays are rolling around and I know things can be hectic