Darkness Gathers (Inactive)

Game Master Edeldhur

Welcome everyone!

Feel free to... Discuss stuff... While we get ready to go.

First question from me - all have their characters finished?

. believe mine is completed will check later today

Thanks for selection!

Reu should be all ready to go but will take a closer look after work later today.

Also, I have enough gold for either a familiar or one of the rock gnome tinker objects (firestarter, music box, clockwork toy). I was wondering if I could start play with such, or if you would rather I RP that in gameplay.

Thanks for letting me into the clubhouse!
I think Ispen is complete, but I'll give him a once over as well.
(As well as setting up one of those nifty little lines of pertinent info under his name)

Hello everyone!!! Happy to have been selected!!!

I believe all my Character stuff is done

Just checking in. Will get all of the alias info transferred and up later today or tomorrow.

Good to have you all on board - just throwing some more details out there:

- I am planning on using Google slides for our mapping needs (whenever and if they come up);
- In combat situations, I will 'try' to do some sort of modified block initiative (in case going first is relevant for some abilities, etc);
- Botting... I will try to avoid it as much as possible - I am in this to play with a group of people, not on my own ;) If the need arises, we will take it case by case;
- Rules lawyering - you know from the get-go I am an inexperienced 5e DM, so please bear with me on this. I will become better day by day;

Lets keep it an open an interesting game. And feel free to throw questions at me whenever. I will do the same regarding your characters. Communication is key.

Once all have checked in, we will be ready to begin!

Have double checked Davorox is ready.

Oskar is pretty close to ready. I think I've got a few more minor equipment items (trinket from his background) to add, but otherwise good enough to get under way. I tend to let the flaws, personalities, ideals, and bonds occur naturally during the game, but if you'd like to have them ahead of time I'll drop something in there.

Isn't that pic just the most Irish thing you've ever seen? You could be sipping Baily's and Guinness off the Blarney Stone and not get as Irish as this SOB right here! =}

Hrm, sorry, right'o! Johnny Boy the Leprechaun is here and if ya do not like it I'll fight ya outside, sir!

I'm mostly ready, though I too seem to have a physical allergy to putting all the finishing details on a character until at least the 2nd or 3rd in-character post. (Too many times I've added a hundred cool details to something that never got to see the light of day so now I'm gunshy.)

Yes! I love google slides! Everyone should use that!

Yes unto block init. I find what happens is 1-2 fast PCs will go first, then the monsters, and then its party up! (Yes, you are rolling init for the whole party, yeah? Of course you are.)

I find announcing a 48-hour bot ceiling (betimes called the "2-day rule") can help at the start. Life can get busy, and if I'm called away and can't get online, it'd be great if I don't have to worry that my thing isn't causing other people hardship. My thinking is that once you show that you, the GM, are committed to your posting rate ?(of 1-day or whateves) then other people will get onboard and giddy up as well.

So too, if 2 people from the party have posted a direction to take, then that should happen (sometimes called the Rule of 2). That way a single closed door or forking hallway doesn't tie up the game for a week. =p

I considered saying this in Recruitment, but decided to let Fate play out. (Turns out I made a good call. =) Many have called me a good role player. Entertaining, funny, creative, energetic. I don't say that to toot my own horn, but it is so that when I say that our man Tareth here is the greatest PbPer I have ever seen and I am not worthy to tie his sandals, then it has meaning.

(Srsly, don't even bother asking any of us a question. If you have a question, just ask Tareth and go from there. =)

In the same vein, Tareth does post 1/day so long as about half the party has posted. He's great about that, and I give his games more "mental energy" as a result. I know that if I post, I won't have to wait some cloudy number of days to see results. And I know if I don't post, he's gonna have my character do something, and while it'll be fine, it won't be nearly as awesome as if I had bothered to post. So it's a win-win all around! =)

(Also, I like to type. That, ah, you may have guessed that. =))

So guys what sort of roles does everyone have going for them. Me I'm the healer and support roles. But also can do some face and Knowledge skills.

I can bluff and intimidate when needed but don't focus in any other face type skill. I basically am a ranged hp eliminator due to my pact. Everytime I hit some one with a damage spell they lose hp total = to the ammount of damage done. THis loss is only temporary as it lasts 1 hr only but it should stop them from healing to "FULL" for that hour

I tend to let the flaws, personalities, ideals, and bonds occur naturally during the game, but if you'd like to have them ahead of time I'll drop something in there.

I'm mostly ready, though I too seem to have a physical allergy to putting all the finishing details on a character until at least the 2nd or 3rd in-character post. (Too many times I've added a hundred cool details to something that never got to see the light of day so now I'm gunshy.)

Sounds good to me ;)

Thank you for the added suggestions Johnny Boy - they seem solid.

Gameplay is now open ;)

So guys what sort of roles does everyone have going for them. Me I'm the healer and support roles. But also can do some face and Knowledge skills.

In combat I see myself being a fine front-liner. I'm not saying I'll be as good as the good dwarf fighter, but I think I can at least stand by his side and give a good accounting of myself.

For skills I've stocked up on all those Wis-based things that round out the corners. I don't have Persuasion, but I do have good Insight. I don't do Athletics, but I can do Survival. And of course there's some good Perception. ^_^

I've also got a decent Stealth, so although I'm not as good as our thief, if they do need to go scouting about, I don't think they need to go alone.

I'll be a late blooming wizard. For now probably not that impressive except in rare situations. Me talk pretty one day.

Me talk pretty one day.

Bottleneck.

Really nice opening posts!

Reuleaux, I can see you were unable to resist depicting the cover of 'The Moonsea' AD&D2e book ;)

Really nice opening posts!

Reuleaux, I can see you were unable to resist depicting the cover of 'The Moonsea' AD&D2e book ;)

his shirt suddenly feels hot against his skin. A flash of memory

Enjoying your spin on the Phantom, seems to provide endless options for writing/RP. Fun stuff.

Thanks, glad you're liking it so far. I'm still getting a feel for the character's 'voice' and what not, but having him being haunted by a whole village of ghosts does offer plenty of opportunity for side stories or one off vignettes.

Good to see Reuleaux again. The last I saw of him, he was being whisked away in a giant mecha-cube leaving his mechanical chicken behind. Glad he was able to repay whatever debt it was he owed. ;)

I like the Phantom take as well. A whole village of people is pretty awesome concept.

Critz, Im liking your Selune cleric as well. Don't forget with Identify there's that pesky 100 gp pearl needed in order to cast it. Looks like our persuasive dragonborn might get us something upfront though. :)

"No! Not now!" He suddenly shouts at what appears to be a large cube descending right on top of him. "I don't have time to deal with your petty requests. I told you I'd pay you back, just give me more time to find the right components." He starts to wave his arms as if shooing a fly. He tries to step back and away only to find the wall blocking his way.

Moments later two mechanical arms reach out, quickly grapple the gnome despite several attempts to blast it with acid, electricity and a good dose of dino fat. None seem to have effect as the top of the cube flips open and the arms drop the gnome inside. A single glass window fills with Reuleaux's face as the top flips closed and the cube launches itself high into the sky quickly disappearing into the clouds and rain.

Standing on the street not far from Reuleaux's last position is his small mechanical chicken. It looks over to Unmei with its weird mechanical eyes, tilts its head to the side as it scrapes the ground with a copper toe.

"Brock...brock...brooooock!"

Oh, I had forgotten about that. That will indeed make for an interesting story. The debt was incurred after he spent all his money on string and personalized pencils.

Yeah I know. Good thing is I have that spell always prepared as a domain spell

Knowledge domain rocks (ever read Cleric Quintet?). With not one but two expertise in Int-based skills youll give my smarty pants a run for his money Im sure. :)

Yep I'm gonna have a few corrections to your math. As she was a bookkeeper for her order and her dead husband

Hey guys, wanted to drop a note and say two things:

- Please feel free at any moment to drop ideas, suggestions or comments on the game, my DMing, anything really;
- Also wanted to have your input on something different - recently I have been looking into other PbP sites/forums. Have you ever had any experience with other platforms different from the Paizo forums? I was looking into Tavernkeeper, Gamersplane or even D&D Beyond for example, and they seem to have a few interesting features (like for example being able to introduce pictures in posts). Any of you ever tried them?

The aliases feature of paizo has been what's kept me here. The interface is also less cluttered (which I like).

I know some folks have mentioned Tavernkeeper and Myth-Weavers in the past. I've checked those sites and a few others out, but nothing really appealed to me. Mostly because I didn't care for the layout or the added complexity and thus the added learning curve. Especially since I generally GM more, I don't want to spend my already limited time learning new forum coding and interfaces. Simple is perfect for me.

Images are fine, but for me, not worth the added hassle and work. I think not having maps and images helps stretch and grow my creativity and writing skills more than extra hours spent scouring the internet for 'just the right image' or fiddling with a map. Sometime it works, sometimes it takes extra clarifying or easing the rules just a bit, but usually not having them works out fine. Of course ruleset matters. It's tough to go mapless with PF, but I think 5E and certainly more narrative systems are much better at allowing for Theater of the Mind games.

Finally, I'll say there's a great 5E community on these boards with excellent players and GM's. More than anything, that is what keeps me around.

I agree Piazo is my second favorite online gaming platform. Discord is my first.

I cut my teeth on a PbP thing called Humble's Ford. Awful experience. Just terrible. Beyond not recommending it, I'd actively campaign against it.

The actual play experience is very bare-bones. No headers OR pictures. Just a name that leads to a character sheet.
And their rules are...weird. Like, one post a day is both minimum AND maximum. Like, you're not allowed to post twice a day, or someone contacts you and asks to delete one of them. That includes the DM. It got VERY annoying when one of the PC's wanted to hold a convo with an NPC. The whole frickin' party was just parked in a holding pattern while this nard refused to let the action move on.

Also, they have people collect the stats of who posted how often that week, and they publish it in a weekly email, with shout outs to which party/group had the best posting rates and who was falling behind (oh yeah, it was compared on a change vs time stat).

That reminds me of some awful ones I used in the late 90s early 2000s. One that stings was one that I had my homebrew world on, lost it all when the website went away. That was before the days of google drive etc. I had a single paper copy that I left at a friend's gameroom who moved, and other copies on writable CDs and flashdiscs that corrupted with time (similar to my actual memory).

Yeah the early days of the internet were you ran games in AOL chat rooms or on Yahoo. Ah the good old days. Had whole world's for 2e still. Like Vastonia!!! I had all of the Vastonia stuff saved but ended up getting deleted by the time 4e rolled around.

Thank you for the feedback everyone - there is certainly a lot to be said about simplicity when DMing, to keep things running smoothly and without incurring a lot of 'extra' work.

I have played on Myth-Weavers, and was shocked at the lack of aliases though.

Same with D&D Beyond (even though it seems to have other interesting features for D&D5e) - however the community did not strike me as so engaging and welcoming as here on the Paizo forums.

Discord has a very interesting bot for D&D, I have to admit. But on the single game I played there, I had kind of a hard time when wanting to go back and read old stuff and whatnot. Admittedly, it might simply have been lack of Discord experience. I felt it would be worth a second try, and further exploration.

Of course back in the day before I discovered the Paizo forums, I actually played with friends over email.

Never heard of Humble's Ford, but it sounds like an otherworldly experience :P

Apologies on delay. My wife and I have caught covid, not horrible enough to be hospitalized or anything, but have been getting our kids tested and generally just sleeping and feeling crappy. No unnecessary drama, just sick. Will try to post later today.

Myth-Weavers was fine. People were nice, but the site was meh. Discord worked for my real-life tabletop group, for in between sessions, but was rough on pbp overall.

Selene is so going to grab Reuleaux by the ear. He is an adult and should know better!!!lol

It's fine, Catching the bug sucks, just focus on getting healthy.

He's probably wearing fake ones (ears).

lol I do not doubt it. Still she'll get him the next time

Back. Still sick.
Kids are sick now too. Nobody heading to the hospital or anything like that, but we're a plague-house at the moment.

Will try not to delay further.

Edit: Sorry for posting in discussion as Kriznox the other day. lol

Sorry to hear you and your family are not yet fully recovered Ispen… Make sure you get a lot of rest, and allow the body to fight back. Best wishes to you and yours!

Hopefully no one puts a Black X on your door or anything

I have a licensing exam for my state that is monday so don't except a post before monday night as it may not happen before then.

Awesome start, DM!

So, I've found that for any question about 5E that arises from PF rules, the answer, almost invariably, is "No, it doesn't."

Does Flanking give me Advantage?
No, it doesn't.

Do I get Disadvantage shooting into melee?
No, it doesn't.

Does Diagonal cost more?
No, it doesn't.
(I can't site the rules for this just now, but we encountered this in my IRL group and I specifically remember another player, who DM'd our last game, saying that diagonal doesn't cost more, so there we are.)

I've heard 5E described as "D&D for busy people" and that is an amazing description. =)

Though Flanking and getting Advantage is an Optional rule.

Gotcha Johnny Boy! :D

(and duly noted Selene)

Have we been awarded inspiration?

I totally thought we had been, but I can't find it now so I may be confused. o.O

I was not even aware Inspiration existed :P
Will read up on it for future reference.

Inspiration is great. Most DMs (myself included) forget about it chronically. I find its easiest for me to just blanket award it to everyone at certain milestones like levels or interesting story points. Some players spend it instantly, others hoard forever. Personally I guess I use it when I actually write something interesting and don't want to have it get jacked up to s*%@ by a crud roll.