I think we're planning to move through the courtyard and back into the hall, then proceed north. But since there was a mention of something in the courtyard, I was not necessarily assuming that we made it all the way through. Vex is up front most of the time, right?
So I guess we all gain a madness now. @GM I think we've lost Blue, unfortunately.
I don't think anyone's taken enough sanity damage to gain a greater madness. Did you want us to choose, roll on a table, or assign one to us?
Ooh madness. Maybe we can all join the guy on the wall in a sing-along?
Perfect we all become mute except we for a catch phrase.
"Praise! Praise!!!"
Nope, I have all of that happening behind the scenes. You do not notice anything yet. You guys just keep on doing what you character would be doing. But, keep in the back of your mind that this is probably the most horrific thing you have ever seen. Someone literally being eaten alive. There would need to be great disconnect from in your character from the real world if they weren't phased by it.
I will reach out to blue just to check in. I know that the holidays and me needing to take a little break caused a gap in playing, sometimes just a little friendly "how's it going" goes a long way.
Maybe I need to amp up Asrat's horrified reactions. But he has very literal fight or flight reactions when confronted with such things. Either stab it or get the hell out of there. Also being a street rat and a swindler in Osirion, he's probably seen and even done some horrible things in back alleys. Even if he doesn't remember them, he probably retains his instincts.
I'm dropping. This is not the game for me. Have fun all.
Sorry to see you go.
Wow. I'm surprised. Take care, Doc.
Doc sent me a PM with a few criticisms of how I handled three specific situations. I see Doc's point and responded with my reasonings. I want to share those with you, because if one person has an issue with something others might also.
On a couple of occasions you've told us how our characters should react to a situation. This robs us of our agency and destroys the trust between you and your players.
1. You told Vex that she believed the doppelganger's ploy, rather than saying she didn't sense any deception, a subtle but important difference. This former predetermined a course of action for her, one the player disagreed with. The latter would have allowed the player to justify another course of action they were ok with.
2. Twice now you've pointed out that our reactions to the horror was not enough. Once when we entered the courtyard and now again on this ghoul scene.
3. You are apparently not letting us have a hand in how our madness manifests. It was inevitable but since we're obstinately playing our characters we should have a say.
1) Vex believing the doppelgänger. The doppelganger's bluff blew past Vex's Sense Motive. The lie was good and Vex did not sense any deception. That is the point of the bluff vs sense motive. Their character, mechanically, believes or does not believe based on that roll. It's the line to ride between player and character knowledge.
2) PC's reactions to the scenes. I never said they weren't enough, I just want to have it in the forefront of their mind that this is some stuff their characters have never faced before. It's a gruesome scene of someone being eaten alive. I think everyone reacted fine enough. Just always like a friendly reminder.
3) Madness Manifests. You are correct. I am not allowing that. RAW says to roll a % and see what they get. I don't like that. I decided to use the Sanity system as a tool to help tell the story of what is happening.
Now, I share this not to try and throw Doc under a bus or anything, but I really want to facilitate a shared story telling experience. I want all of us to have fun playing this game together.
Moving forward, please let me know if there are things that are hindering your fun, or you believe I am doing wrong. I would love to share with you why I am doing something with the hopes that it makes things clear. Please please please reach out to me with any questions or concerns.
The cast. Losing Doc, and potentially losing Blue, will take us down to 5. That is the correct number of PCs for this module, so we will just continue on with that.
I am good continuing. As for my thoughts...
(1) Bluff and sense motive. I am with the GM here. Mechanically that is how I see bluff and sense motive working.
I've seen GMs not follow that rule before, but that is how it is written.
(2) I understand the criticism here. At the same time, I'm in another game where we are investigating a haunted house. We hear a ghost, and the reaction from the PCs is to taunt the ghost / ignore any aspect of fear. That is all-too-common for heroic PCs. Here we are in a horror game where it is specifically about having people react more realistically to horror. Being reminded of that is appropriate.
(3) I am glad that we aren't rolling. By RAW we should, and that is problematic. We haven't had any mechanical effect from madness as of yet, so I don't see criticism as of yet being valid, given that so far all we have had is word that something is behind the scenes.
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I'm sorry to hear, Delmoth. Please take care.
I don't see you necessarily telling us how our characters should react. Like Grumbaki, I think it can be appropriate to have some back and forth about the nature of the situation. TTRPGs are a difficult situation where we have an idea about how our characters should react, but the dice often tell a different story. We cede some agency to the luck of the dice/random number generator. Fear, in particular, is one of those things. It can be frustrating when your character succumbs to a fear effect and starts running away, especially if you have portrayed your character to that point as the most strong-willed person in the group, laughing in the face of danger and taunting the gods themselves. So in the case of such a "failure", it behooves the players and the GM to--within the tone of the game--determine an appropriate reaction. Maybe it means that this specific circumstance triggers a strong memory. Maybe it's the combination of everything, and this little spider is just the straw that broke the camel's back. Or maybe it's just supernatural, and there is no rhyme or reason.
Similarly with madnesses, I believe that they have an onset time rather than being immediate. I'm cautiously skeptical about the madness system, but I trust the GM and my fellow players to proceed sensibly in the manifestation.
Part of the horror of asylums is how often--even today--neurodivergent people or people with neurological and/or psychological injuries are treated awfully. We've gotten better, but it's still not great. In real life, I work with lots of people who have brain injuries or neurodegenerative disorders, who often have cognitive changes. In years past, some of them may have been committed to an asylum. Thankfully, we know better now and can do better.
I'm also not going to bring my real life into the game and start diagnosing people with this or that disorder and saying "No, that's not how someone with XYZ would talk!" But I will encourage sensitivity. Thank you for being open, Mr Clint.
And if Erebus/Slip has a problem with something, that's because he does. I will try my best to not let my character become my mouthpiece. If I have something to say about mechanics, it will be purely OoC.
It can be frustrating when your character succumbs to a fear effect and starts running away, especially if you have portrayed your character to that point as the most strong-willed person in the group, laughing in the face of danger and taunting the gods themselves. So in the case of such a "failure", it behooves the players and the GM to--within the tone of the game--determine an appropriate reaction. Maybe it means that this specific circumstance triggers a strong memory. Maybe it's the combination of everything, and this little spider is just the straw that broke the camel's back. Or maybe it's just supernatural, and there is no rhyme or reason.
I love this example above for my in person group. I always start off my session 0 with their character concepts and RP. I do this because then at the end, we do the build according the the concept and how they RPd. The above character, I would hope, would have a high Wisdom and/or Iron Will feat. But, even the bravest of people in the real world can still roll a 1. Just as the most cowardly person in the world can still roll a 20.
This way of character building is not so easy on the PBP format so I have yet to really try it.
As far as the madness, you are correct. All of the Lesser Madnesses have an onset of a day or more. Now when we get into the crazy world of Greater Madnesses that is a bit of a different story. But you all aren't ready for the Greater Madness world... yet.
I've had a busy couple days and will try and post later today, sorry to be quiet. Will try and address any concerns I may have at that point. I still intend to carry on with the game, though.
He turns around again. "I'm going to try something." He studies the man, thinking hard. "Okay. Let's play a game. I'm going to ask you some questions. If the answer is 'yes', say 'praise'. If the answer is 'no', say 'words fail'. So...does one plus one equal two?"
Very clever.
Slip asks, continuing to ask questions while Chatty works to release the man.
I'm not working to release the man. I only removed the two dead bodies. I'll have to be convinced its safe to release the man before I do so.
Sounds good! I wasn't doing anything with that until you made a roll for it, so just disregard.
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Sorry to chime in so much later than planned. I have no issues with either how the horror is being handled or the madness.
Regarding the doppelganger scene, it was mildly frustrating to me because we had an awful lot of OOC evidence that this was very, very likely to be a doppelganger; nor was the doppelganger offering any convincing explanation to counteract that evidence. Slip had visually scouted and SEEN what was in the room, came back, told us, we go around the corner into an apparent dead-end room and see instead an old woman.... when we already KNOW what we're dealing with.... But on the strength of the rolls alone, Vex was essentially 'forced' to believe something highly implausible. At the same time, other characters, who didn't make a sense motive roll, were allowed to 'believe' otherwise and simply ran with their common sense interpretation of the scene.
So it felt like I was essentially being forced to play Vex as stupidly gullible because, despite all the compelling in-world evidence of this being a doppelganger, I'd gone ahead and made a proactive Sense Motive check that just wasn't high enough.
Bluff works as written, yes, but Bluff also carries substantial penalties, written into the rules, for making an especially outlandish claim. If Slip hadn't done a scouting beforehand, it's plausible that no penalties might have been in play. With the fact that we had direct visual evidence contradicting what we were seeing very shortly later-- that would be like a -10, as per the Bluff rules. I don't know what the doppelganger rolled, but honestly, if that had been my scene to GM, I probably would have just fiated a huge bonus to everyone's SM check given the scenario was so implausible (doppelganger somehow disappears within 30 seconds, in a dead end, and now there's conveniently an old woman there who wasn't there before?). Or just dispensed with the roll entirely.
However, this was not really that big a deal to me, I was perfectly willing to roll with the scene and get some mild chuckles out of it. But it is worth keeping in mind that if we do keep having doppelgangers, our characters are now all legitimately aware that shapeshifters exist, and have lots of reasons to be paranoid, so as the GM I would be very cautious with just leaning too heavily into the 'well, sure, yeah, but your SM check wasn't high enough to beat its bluff, so, yep, you're fooled again.' Nobody likes to have to play out their character being stupider than they themselves are, as it were.
Other than that I have no particular issues going forward and am still here for the game, and going to go post, sorry for the delay.
Chatty tried a check on this but failed.
Just checking in, especially in light of recent OoC troubles. I am loving this RP moment, as I think it's very character-revealing. But if people do want to move on, we can. No worries from me.
I am good to go where your characters head.
The party is at an interesting point. 2 dead bodies and one alive still chained to a rack. Rook frozen with what is going on. Chatty moves to pick up what looked like a marble and is taken back at what he found. A door still further in this room, and all of Briarstone left to explore.
GM, can you help clean up the map links? The links for interactive map and overview map both go to maps that are not up to date. I need to search for one of your posts to find the map showing the room we are currently in.
Sorry about that.
Here is the Overview Map and the one in the map header is updated. I will only update the interactive map as we need a map with minis.
With Slips % roll it makes me wonder if I ever asked. High always good/successful for the roller? Meaning Slip's bolt did not break.
Yeah, I don't think we ever formally established that, so I'm sorry about that--I should have asked first, or put it in a spoiler to give you the option based on blind random choice.
I usually prefer high = good, and try to post my multiple rolls either in chronological order first, then alphabetical order with things happening simultaneously, to keep myself honest. I think as long as we're consistent (with this along with other multiple dice rolls in a single post) so that people can't do that tricky "oh that didn't go my way, let me edit this real quick" stuff, we should hopefully be good.
Edit: I learned something today. From the CRB:
Whenever a roll is required, the roll is noted as “d#,” with the “#” representing the number of sides on the die. If you need to roll multiple dice of the same type, there will be a number before the “d.” For example, if you are required to roll 4d6, you should roll four six-sided dice and add the results together. Sometimes there will be a + or – after the notation, meaning that you add that number to, or subtract it from, the total results of the dice (not to each individual die rolled). Most die rolls in the game use a d20 with a number of modifiers based on the character’s skills, his or her abilities, and the situation. Generally speaking, rolling high is better than rolling low. Percentile rolls are a special case, indicated as rolling d%. You can generate a random number in this range by rolling two differently colored ten-sided dice (2d10). Pick one color to represent the tens digit, then roll both dice. If the die chosen to be the tens digit rolls a “4” and the other d10 rolls a “2,” then you’ve generated a 42. A zero on the tens digit die indicates a result from 1 to 9, or 100 if both dice result in a zero. Some d10s are printed with “10,” “20,” “30,” and so on in order to make reading d% rolls easier. Unless otherwise noted, whenever you must round a number, always round down.
Even when I was rolling in person with people, we usually used a digital d100 roller rather than 2d10. The difference between the two is probably negligible, but there it is.
Sorry I've been quiet the last few days, I've been coughing my lungs out and loopy on cough medicine (its not Covid, I got tested). I'm hoping to feel up to posting this afternoon/evening but please feel free to bot me if you need to.
hey all. I apologize for the delay. With the snow and ice we've received the last two days the kids have been off school and my offices have been closed. Needless to say, free time has been limited.
Quick question, of the remaining party does anyone have spell craft?
Unfortunately no. Both Doc and Blue had the skill trained, but none of the rest of us do yet.
If it will be significant, could one of us switch up a skill rank?
Well you currently have Doc & Blue around that can make those checks, but its mainly for identifying those magic items. Also, there are magic users back in the chapel
Build an amnesiac who has no appreciable intelligence ranks, I said. It'll be realistic, I said.
*mild crying in always playing Librarian characters*
Hey all! I am apologizing again. These last two weeks our family has been passing around a bug (not covid) that has really kicked out butts. Thankfully, we are all back on the side of the "healthy." Which also means me getting back to our games and regularly posting.
Glad you feel better.
For the past few days I couldn't log in to paizo. Kept getting that damned error message. And yesterday went in for surgery on ankle (no walking for 6 weeks). Home now and can log in again. Sorry for my silence.
Yes, the website was down for a few days.
Sometimes after the website has login issues, you may need to clear your cookies and try again.
Just waiting for GM post.
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Hey, Clint, I hope that you and your family are continuing to recover well. And same, Grumbaki: especially with the new little one around, I'm sure no walking will be an extra trial!
Thank you! It is…stressful, to say the least. My wife is a saint. Feel really bad about all of the extra work that has fallen on her while I am mobility impaired.
Clint, I hope everything is okay.
Hey all, sorry for my lull too. I've been dealing with some family stuff and a situation at work that's still ongoing. I really hate to do this but I need to lighten my PbP load so I'm going to bow out of this game. I sincerely hope that things stabilize for the rest of you and your more streamlined group will be able to generate some new momentum. Happy gaming.
Take care, Wulfric.
Good luck out there.
Bolkvar sorry to hear about the surgery, hope all is on the mend.
Wulfric, I understand. I apologize for the way this game has gone. I have posted the next gameplay thread. Getting back in the saddle but want to check who is still moving forward with us?
Chatty, Angry, Slip, Vex
Gone: Doc, Rook, Blue.
Welcome back. I'm still here.
I am also still here. We'll be an interesting group!
So we have a NE human rogue, a (?) dwarf barbarian, a LN half-elf ranger, and a NG halfling oracle. This will be interesting!
Yeah, It will be an interesting group. One that does have some interesting + & -. If this ends up going to be a 4 person party I will do less with the sanity checks than I was planning on.
We could recruit more people, or add a DM cohort, or just see how it goes as is. I'm fine either way. I don't mind being creative.
We can go on as is for the moment, and add if we find ourselves lacking