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Full Name: just the name or name and class as you see fit
Race: Human Paladin 3 | HP 47/47 | AC 23 TAC 12 FF 17 | CMB +5 CMD 16 | F+7 R+5 W+6 | Per +8 Init +3 | Fire Resist 3 | Conditions/ongoing effects: none
Classes/Levels: [spoiler=Skills]Diplomacy* 8 Heal* 7 K(Religion)* 6 Perception* 8 Ride* 5 Sense Motive* 7 Acrobatics -3 Stealth -3 Handle Animal* 7 K(Nobility)* 6 Prof (brewer)* 5 [/ spoiler]
This is of course my layout. You can rearrange it how you want but these are the main display fields. To make it work you will need to remove the space from the closeout of the spoiler.
First thank you Brand for that information.
Next I am putting you on notice that you are on deck in case Lars does not show up this week. For if he does not I will be sending Brand in as an active player and putting Lars into an NPC status, until I can logically phase him out.
That being said would you care to have your character be friends with someone that is currently in the group as that would make it easy for me to segue your character in. Considering what you do for a living Shekla seems the most logical but due to your background Vilma might be viable as well. Since you need income and you served in the military the Lord could have you on retainer. Of course Salaha might work as well. The others would be a kind of a stretch, not impossible but a stretch.
Please talk to the other players and let me know what is what. Thanks
Your Languages are: Keolan(local human), Elven
I'd like to toss in my 2 cents on things like skill checks to just row a boat.
PbP are slow in even the best circumstances. Finishing content equivalent to a single adventure path book commonly takes a year or more. Anything that can be done to ease things along and smooth the way to making progress should be done.
These kind of rowing checks, which take a minute or two at a table, can eat up days by the time the rolls are asked for, all the players have read the request and made the rolls, and the results are posted.
What I'm suggesting is, if something makes no material difference in the game, hand wave it so we can get to things that do. All the endless minute tracking of things and possibilities for being stuck trying to do things that are both uninteresting and insignificant due to success checks just makes everyone miserable.
I mean seriously, if we fail this check do we go nowhere? What then? Do we keep rolling the check until we succeed so we can finally just move a boat? Or do we proceed more slowly instead? Why? What does that accomplish? Do we run out of food faster? Why are we tracking food? What would be the point?
I once wholesale quit a PbP because I would have to keep track of encumbrance and the exact number of arrows I had. It was awful combined with so little actually happening in real time as days and weeks went by, as is the nature of PbPs.
We really should not sweat the small stuff and instead have fun doing the things that make a game memorable.
Note my main purpose was to give folks a chance to interact as they rowed through the straight which is not overly easy, a full winded sail would have been a non-issue but no one has that spell. A challenge is what it is a challenge are you prepared for it or not. This helps set the stage for future challenges not all will require combat to get past but most will have more than one means of getting by. Introduce the crocodile which made the rowing a minor issue now.
Further I fully expected everyone to make at least one Strength check which would have at least got me started and I might have just limited to just one roll had everyone made one but since they did not I chose 5 to help me better weave the story of what was to come.
As to the material difference in this case, I have sort of denoted the boat might get damaged and to what degree is important as that may compromise the return trip. Which is to say, you do not need to just protect yourselves but the boat as well.
Lastly to me, for it has often been the case, it is the small stuff that creates a situation that would not normally have occurred. Okay you run out arrows what do you do now? Okay you ran out of food what do you do know? All of these are actual elements existing within the fantasy world that many DMs and even GMs hand-wave but that I as an ST find can totally change the course of the story. For instance, if a single spell caster takes the Create Water cantrip the group would never run out of drinkable water but what if no spell caster knows that simple Cantrip. What if the group runs into creatures that have never learned (Local Common) and none of spell caster have the Comprehend Language spell or Tongues what does the group do then. It is all about choices and preparation. In my world nothing that exists that players have access to is useless. Further, if you have taken it, I guarantee that it will come up in game play. If you have not taken it I can guarantee that it might come up anyway.
Lastly what is small stuff? Perhaps the fact the Dáin is a horrible swimmer which he has been nicely role playing thus far and is on his way to gaining a ST supplied Hero Point for it.
So to me nothing is actually Small as anything and everything a character could choose and not choose is important. However, this does not mean it is a game stopper. It simply dictates how easy or how difficult things are going to be.
I think I have already stated that a player once noted that when they had thoroughly researched what they were getting into they normally kicked butt but if they went in relatively blindly (like this group is doing) they usually got their butts kicked and sent packing.
I have had players disregard the statement that I make team oriented encounters and if you choose to go solo you might just get in over your head. These players usually ended up dying and I am definitely not a killer ST as I generally put as much effort if not more into each character being created as each player does.
Lastly it is sometimes what happens in these so called "small stuff" that does make a game quite memoriable. As in here nicknames can sometimes get created and other laughable moments later on during less serious situations can be brought up. Or at least that has been my experience.
Still as a final note -- I run a game for the players to enjoy -- if you are not enjoying things and/or if you have suggestions such as posed by Vilma to increase one's personal enjoyment -- I am open to hearing them and I promise I will adjust the game accordingly -- even if it means a series of mindless combats -- as if that is what most of the players want then that is what I will provide.
Keep in mind I make a game for all the players to enjoy -- if there is something you feel might be fun speak up -- as I usually can weave that into the story. However on the flip-side if there is something you do not enjoy I can work to limit or exclude that altogether.
I am currently at ground-zero which means I am operating at what I feel is the most challenge and general fun mode of adventuring. However, as I get player input -- note if you are quiet you give your voice to the most vocal person -- I adjust my game accordingly.
I hope that helps everyone better understand what I am doing and why and that each of you have a strong control of what gets detailed and what does not. Please communicate as we are not at a table where I can simply hear players casually talking to one another.
I don't think you're taking my meaning. I'm certainly not saying you should strip out everything but combat, which is only contextually interesting within the story's narrative anyway. One thing you'll rarely find in PbP game, here at least, is random encounters. Why? Because they're time suck. A moderately complicated or difficult combat can take a couple of weeks to complete.
Not everything needs to be tied to a single linear plot, but rather than rolling for random encounters and dropping a couple of trolls or whatever, it works better to create some small amount at least of narrative meaning to it. Does it tell the characters something? Or expand the world in some small way? Is it a hook for a little side quest? Does it have some meaning past a couple of trolls rolling out of the ditch beside the road to suck resources and time?
There is a difference between pointless rolls regarding things that don't matter, and Dain being afraid of water. The first does nothing but overly complicate things, the second is interesting and gives us something to work with as characters.
If you want to give characters hooks for conversation, don't hand us a seating chart to fill out and ask for skill checks to row a boat. If you do you'll get a seat number selection from most of the characters and a set of rolls back.
Instead let us get started on our way and describe the setting. What do things look like? What are we hearing? Give us chatty NPCs. If you want us to do things in Dunwich, describe the place. We don't have even a basic map, or just a list of places that exist. Are we supposed to ask if a thing exists because we would go there if it does? Do we create things by deciding they exist and posting about being there or going there? If not you need to tell us what exists so we can interact with it.
Finally there is tracking that does matter. Of course it matters if we have one spell or another or not. Of course languages can be a barrier. Etc. Etc. Etc. Tracking potions, or flasks or things that have a substantial impact on options and events matters. Tracking how many candles or days of food we have doesn't. Arrows are the same. It's drudgery in service of maybe something unexpected perhaps eventually happening. If you want to throw the archer off his standard game, why not do it by placing an encounter in dense forest or very close quarters so ranged weapons are difficult to use?
Besides, unexpected things happen without crushing us with trivia in order to maybe generate some unexpected things. Why not trust us to do unexpected things because we're creative, or thought of things you didn't rather than depending on ledgers to produce it?
Accounting and bookkeeping have never been sexy. I do enough bookkeeping and paper shuffling at work already. Help me out by not making it a central part of something I do to forget about work and balancing my checking account, and how many miles I've yet yet to drive before I need to schedule that oil change.
I'll put it this way, we've been in gameplay about 8 weeks now. We have just now set foot in a boat to go do something that isn't talking about or getting stuff for boarding this boat to start the trip finally. Almost two months to start doing the first thing we started talking about around 2 months ago. That is why things get streamlined and trifling details get dropped. If they didn't, nothing would ever go anywhere.
Respectfully, I'm forced to agree with Vilma. I know I haven't posted very much in this campaign, but that's because I'm not sure exactly what to do - quite frankly, we've been squabbling for two weeks about which kind of boots to bring on the expedition. My sincerest apologies if anything I'm doing is holding the game up, but I myself wouldn't mind a bit of a faster-paced game.
Again thanks for your input but I will counter with a few questions:
Travoril can you please expound upon what you mean by a "bit of faster-paced game" what specifically are you requesting to see?
In that regard, again I try to give each player a chance to pursue their own desires, did we spend a lot of time on the boots, I would say not, we had a couple of posts interwoven within the other posts. The biggest amount of time was devoted to getting a basic map of the region, which I am sure is at least mediocrely useful in the short run but perhaps more useful in the long run. The only other element was trying to find an individual to enlighten the group. Granted it seems to have turned up empty results but does that mean those empty results are actually truly empty. Only time will tell.
Vilma as for random encounters, I do these, but I do not do them as perhaps you are used to having them done. If you all encounter something due to a random encounter it can very well lead to a more significant side-adventure or get incorporated into the main adventure. This is to say, I never ever do anything for absolutely no reason. If you encounter something, random or not, there will be an ultimate reason for it. Thus no orc guarding a chest in a 10ft x 10ft room for absolutely no reason. That said you will probably never encounter that specific situation. However, I have created numerous alternate adventures based off of rolling a random encounter. This is to say while I let the dice dictate the randomness, I always put order to the chaos.
Again the perhaps seemingly meaningless rolls to see how well the group rows is mostly to determine how damaged the boat becomes prior to getting to your destination and whether it will be a reliable mode of transportation when the group is ready to return or will they be forced to wade through the marsh until they get back to town. Thus increasing the risk that they might not return at all.
Lastly, it is also about making those seemingly insignificant skills seem a lot more significant. Yes, not everyone has the appropriate skill and that is fine but yeah even a single Rank in a skill can be rather important when (not if) that skill comes into play.
As for giving you a chatty NPC well, initially there were not supposed to be any NPCs on this trip. And I have been ghosting Lars with his knowledge to help the group be successful. I notice Vilma you say one should not do this and do not do that but you do not often supply alternative suggestions in what to do that in turn hits on the skills that each player has chosen and not chosen to take.
Now Vilma, and I am not picking on you just responding, let us take this Archer thing you presented a bit further. An archer can choose to take a quiver of 12 arrows or a quiver of 20 arrows and they can choose to take a bundle or two of extra arrows in case they lose some arrows or choose to ignore taking valuable time to gather up the arrows they shot that are retrievable. You say this aspect is next to meaningless which would then force the GM to make abitray rolls for when the ammo runs out which I would prefer not to do. Especially when it is even simplier to simply track the ammo available versus the ammo used and not retrieved (for whatever reason). This is actually no different than tracking Spell Slots. Aka they are all limited resources including rations thus making the Survival skill an important skill as well because it can be used to augment rations. I suggest you go through all the skills that a character could have and think about how each and everyone of those skills can be made important within the game -- as I have done this in order to make each skill actually significant in the game. I mean if a skill is totality insignificant it is not even worth having or even listing as a skill. Note a non-explicitly listed skill important to this example is Craft[Bowyer/Fletcher] which would mean someone has not only the ability to repair broken arrows but the ability to craft new arrows as needed, provided they have or can gather the necessary resources. Thus yes, Craft and Profession can become viably important skills within my game.
As for "We don't have even a basic map of Dunwich, or just a list of places that exist." precisely. Have I spent hours creating the town of Dunwich, hell no that would be absurd as if the players do not choose to interact with the town that would be a tremendous amount of wasted time. For instances let us look at the current adventure thus far out of 7 players we had 2 players that chose to minutely interact with the town. Why on earth should I spend hours of time defining the entire town if the players are not even interested in interacting with it. On the flip side that is what the skills Knowledge[Local] and Diplomacy (aka Gather Information) are all about and thus again makes a couple of fairly insignificant skills much more significant. Also keep in mind the town is almost perpetually covered in fog so knowing where everything is even if you grew up here is not the easiest of things. Further I only have a small handfull or less characters that can actually say they "grew up here" and most of those may not have spent a lot of time in town. So as far as I know, no PCs have an intricate detailed knowledge of the town. The closets I think would be Shekla who as stated she has served in the town guard but she only put 1 Rank into Knowledge[Local] meaning that she does not have all that much knowledge about the town. Lastly, as I have stated anything the PCs encounter becomes written in stone but until that time it is mutable and subject to random die rolls. Now do I have a general idea of what what the town looks like? Yes I do. it is basically a town that rises up from sea level with parts of the town nearer sea level and other parts much higher up. The lower regions are for the lower folk as this region is much more subject to the devastations of the hurricane's that periodically plague these coastal regions.
Of course players asking questions about the town and interacting with the town will cause a more solidified perhaps even mappable (assuming a player does this) view of the town. Note: Maps are far from common and accurate maps are quite expensive. So I do not supply detailed maps for things the PCs do not have access to or have not even tried to have access to.
Vilma I must say I do not understand this statement: "Besides, unexpected things happen without crushing us with trivia in order to maybe generate some unexpected things. Why not trust us to do unexpected things because we're creative, or thought of things you didn't rather than depending on ledgers to produce it?"
Okay Vilma let me say, I always expect the players to do the unexpected and I am not aware of crushing the group with trivia to produce unexpected things. In fact that is not even my modus operandi, I simply let the players drive the dialog and the details based on what they themselves are interested in pursuing. So yes I actually do hope that the PCs will be creative and do things that I do not expect them to do. Whereupon, I then will react to that and if necessary create something to cover what a player just created due to pursuing the unexpected. In fact, this has already been done, and local that did not exists now exists and at least one PC is aware of this. This does not mean everything is available because the local business are driven by the economics and resources of the region.
Lastly you state, "I'll put it this way, we've been in gameplay about 8 weeks now. We have just now set foot in a boat to go do something that isn't talking about or getting stuff for boarding this boat to start the trip finally. Almost two months to start doing the first thing we started talking about around 2 months ago. That is why things get streamlined and trifling details get dropped. If they didn't, nothing would ever go anywhere." And thus I will ask, what is it that you expected to take place during this time? You were presented with your initial adventure, given free reign to ask questions and interact with the town, some chose to go back to Bale Keep to get an incomplete map (which I told you and showed you it prior to you deciding to do so). Further a couple of other PCs chose to interact with the town minimilistically and defined at least one local that was not previously defined and actually made contact with a significant individual even though they did not realize it at the time but definitely will come to light later on.
So again, please tell me what you expected to have happen within this initial time frame. I am more than happy to accomodate what the players want to see but so far my impression is simply -- we have not gotten to beat up some monsters (aka removed all the role playing and gone straight to combat mongering) which you have implied you do not want.
Lastly -- please everyone speak up and speak out -- please let me know what you do and do not want to see in the game. Without this knowledge supplied by you the players and I mean all the players not just one or two. I do not know what to deliver within the game. As some players like tomatoes, some like potatoes, and some like jalepenoes.
I hope this helps you all understand where I am coming from and where I wish to go with this game. It IS player driven but I supply something to help it keep moving if players (as it happens) do not provide any forward motion.
Jesus. I'm not going to spend much time on all this, but a few quick things.
An archer can choose to take a quiver of 12 arrows or a quiver of 20 arrows and they can choose to take a bundle or two of extra arrows in case they lose some arrows or choose to ignore taking valuable time to gather up the arrows they shot that are retrievable. You say this aspect is next to meaningless which would then force the GM to make abitray rolls for when the ammo runs out which I would prefer not to do.
No, we don't have to do either of these things. Instead we could not worry about ammo, like every single other campaign on the boards here.
I suggest you go through all the skills that a character could have and think about how each and everyone of those skills can be made important within the game -- as I have done this in order to make each skill actually significant in the game.
and
So as far as I know, no PCs have intricate detailed knowledge of the town. The closets I think would be Shekla who as stated she has served in the town guard but she only put 1 Rank into Knowledge[Local] meaning that she does not have all that much knowledge about the town.
So these two things start sounding a whole lot like a crappy "gotcha" play style on your part. On the one hand we must invest in every conceivable skill because if we don't we'll be screwed eventually. On the other hand, we must advance skills as far as possible because we don't get to know anything until we do.
This does not acknowledge the essential truth of limited skill points to invest. We can't do both, that's just the math of the game.
The general pattern I see here is you setting up a scarcity system that nobody but you wants so you can screw us over skill points, or rations, or whatever base we couldn't, or didn't think to cover because that's "interesting" or "unexpected".
As for "We don't have even a basic map of Dunwich, or just a list of places that exist." precisely. Have I spent hours creating the town of Dunwich, hell no that would be absurd as if the players do not choose to interact with the town that would be a tremendous amount of wasted time.
What? The campaign is named Dreadfulness in Dunwich. We started in Dunwich. But you're not sure we will engage with the town, which is apparently a flyspeck, enough to even be told it's basic layout and what the layout contains? I'm not asking for K Local type information as fine grained as who is schtooping who else's wife, or who has a corpse secretly buried beneath their turnip patch. I'm asking for a basic map and list of locations. Look, I've been to small towns in eastern Montana and the Oregon coast. A couple of hours casually walking around and you know where everything is. But more important than any of that is it would help us out some in getting started, whether we have in excess of 1 point invested in K Local or not.
Travoril can you please expound upon what you mean by a "bit of faster-paced game" what specifically are you requesting to see?
Seriously? How is Travoril's comment not self-explanatory? If somehow it isn't, how does what I've said not fill in the gaps for you?
Lastly -- please everyone speak up and speak out -- please let me know what you do and do not want to see in the game. Without this knowledge supplied by you the players and I mean all the players not just one or two. I do not know what to deliver within the game.
Call me crazy, but you don't seem particularly open to suggestions. I've made quite a few, and your reply has been that I just don't understand. Travoril plainly and simply asked for a faster moving game, and you asked him for clarification. Your batting average on making adjustments in light of player input, or even responding with some indication that you hear the player and take what they say to heart is at about zero.
I'm tapping out at this point. I was excited about the general concept, and I tried to be helpful because I wanted to see this campaign succeed. But at this point I'm frustrated with the entire thing and I have much better things to do than try to offer you input that will be ignored because I apparently can't grasp the opus you're creating here, or bicker with you.
One thing I do promise you is you're not going to reinvent the PbP format here. The suggestions I've made are best practices that have accumulated through trial and error over years. They are road tested and work to keep campaigns alive and moving.
Anyway, best of luck to you all, and I hope you have a great time.
Okay folks -- at this point I am going to put forth the question do you want to continue with the game or should I just close it down.
I will give it day or two. If you want to continue let me know what you want to see in the game. What will make it fun for you and please try to give me something to work with here.
To be straight up and honest all I am trying to do is run a game that is dynamic and challenging but it appears many folks just seem to want something that takes next to no thought, the path is clearly defined, and is basically just merely hack-n-slash but then they claim that hack-n-slash is not what they want and yet they seem to complain when it is not. I find that so confusing, and beginning to see why some folks just run straight up modules and say all abroad the module train next stop your first combat.
A few for instances in this case are:
1) What is the use of a magical quiver of endless ammo if ammo is already endless because you never run out?
2) What is the need for a belt of ant haul or a bag of holding if you do not have to be concerned about your carrying capacity and could literally carry a mountain of gear with no issue and with a mere strength of 3.
3) What is the use of Comprehend Languages and Tongues if everyone not only speaks the same language but everyone can read and write it as well.
So that makes me ask what mechanics should we be cherry picking?
Or maybe we should just ignore all the mechanics, as frankly I see ignoring any of the basic mechancs as just the tip of the iceberg. As ignoring one of these basic mechanics, as I hope I have demonstrated, has a snowball effect upon the rest of the game in general. Remove one thing and you need to remove 10 more things as they are now all useless.
I mean why even play Pathfinder 1e if you do not want to deal with the mechanics. There are numerous games that completely do away with the crunch altogether and are played completely freeform -- no guide rails at all, do whatever you want, however want, as much as you want. The only limit is yourself, and frankly many players that play those games tend to god-mode, unless the other players reign them in for some reason.
Travoril can you please expound upon what you mean by a "bit of faster-paced game" what specifically are you requesting to see?
In that regard, again I try to give each player a chance to pursue their own desires, did we spend a lot of time on the boots, I would say not, we had a couple of posts interwoven within the other posts. The biggest amount of time was devoted to getting a basic map of the region, which I am sure is at least mediocrely useful in the short run but perhaps more useful in the long run. The only other element was trying to find an individual to enlighten the group. Granted it seems to have turned up empty results but does that mean those empty results are actually truly empty. Only time will tell.
Your statements above and the overall tone of the game speak to a desire for promoting role-playing interactions between the players, which I can respect, and as an amateur GM myself, far be it from me to critique you harshly. However, as you have invited advice and asked for greater explanation on the advice I already gave, I would be doing both myself and you a disservice if I was dishonest with my analysis of the game. While as mentioned before I respect your dedication to role-playing, I feel that the approach used to foster it is somewhat counterproductive - from micro-managing the character creation process for close to a month to insisting that our characters are illiterate, I feel that most of the homebrew content so far has overly focused on the minutiae of the setting for maximum realism, which has hampered role-playing efforts.
Though I have significant experience with in-person games, I am relatively new to the PbP forums, and I am currently participating in only one other campaign, which I was accepted to shortly before I applied to this one. However, the comparisons between the two have largely informed the suggestions I am making here. As mentioned before, both campaigns started at around the same time, but in the other campaign, we have managed to fit several meaningful roleplaying encounters and no less than four combat encounters into that time frame, whereas in this campaign, all we have managed to do is complete a number of tedious bookkeeping tasks and drive away three players.
Likewise, I feel that your classification of both Vilma and myself as simply desirous of "combat mongering" or "hack and slash" is something of an oversimplification. Before she left, Vilma was one of the most prolific posters in the campaign, and I myself find role-playing vastly preferable to combat. Statistics-wise, the fact that both of us placed significant skill points into skills almost useless in combat, such as Diplomacy, Linguistics, Sense Motive, and Craft, would reinforce this idea. I cannot speak for Vilma's player, but my stance is actually coming from the opposite direction - I feel that the insistence on adhering to both realism and RAW detracts from the roleplaying experience for all involved. It's not that I want the game to be a dungeon crawl that takes no brainpower, it's simply that I would prefer a system where I can spend my time and energy on crafting roleplaying hooks and interacting with the other characters rather than fiddling with useless systems like the weapon versus armor class adjustment tables.
The preparations for the expedition are a good example - the primary priority was on the specific items we purchased and whether we had the necessary expertise to use them, which is what I was referring to with my "two weeks squabbling over boots" comment. Personally, I feel that your goals of fostering roleplaying might be better served if we remove the tedium of an extended shopping trip - perhaps we make a Survival or Knowledge (nature) check and select an abstract "gear kit" with the items needed, rather than picking individual items? This way, our characters can still know what items we have in our packs and how to use them without either the players or the GM having to worry about the nuts and bolts of the exploration process, in much the same way that Travoril can decipher writing in an unknown language without his player needing a doctorate in computational linguistics. This streamlines the process while still facilitating roleplaying difficult encounters - if someone rolls low on the check, their "gear kit" can still be understocked or poorly chosen without having to worry about the largely meaningless details like which precise item fails. The end result is still the same, but the intermediate section, in this case the selection of the specific pieces of equipment, can be glossed for brevity without detracting from the roleplaying experience in any meaningful way.
As for suggested alterations, I stated above my suggestion for reducing the process of equipment selection to abstracts. Regarding ammunition, perhaps we could further abstract a tedious mechanic by stating that you need to pay a sum, say 5 SP, and take a trip into town each week to restock? To your question about carrying capacity I suggest a middle ground between overly complex rules and anarchy - there are many systems that simplify but do not fully cut out the carrying capacity process, such as the intuitive and simple Bulk system successfully implemented into both Starfinder and PF2E. Finally, I have no issue with characters speaking different languages - my character is a linguist, after all - but I would prefer if we could be up-front about the limitations of the setting rather than implementing ad-hoc changes and retcons like "Common doesn't exist" or "you can't learn Aklo" midway through the character creation process and liberally interspersed with the gameplay itself. Overall, I feel that your concerns are valid to an extent, but the way they are presented presupposes a dilemma - either the overly complicated RAW or diceless roleplaying - in situations where I feel there is a middle ground between frustration and a power trip.
While I understand Vilma's decision to leave the campaign, I will attempt to remain and believe that the campaign should continue, if not necessarily as-is. I hope we can have a productive discussion and come to a mutually agreeable conclusion that satisfies all parties.
As much as I hate to do it. One more post in reply.
I, in general don't have a preference for combat. I would rather solve encounters through means such as diplomacy or deception. For example, the single best piece of a campaign I have ever played in here was book 2 of War for the Crown. Our party succeeded in meeting all our goals in that book with a total of 5 combat encounters spread over the couple of years it took to play it. It was a blast because we had to use ingenuity and tight planning in our approaches to problems, with were ROLE PLAY problems, not gear accounting problems.
PbP games are heavily dependent on narrative and story; they are a kind of collaborative writing exercise. I have been asking for RP and the tools for from you make it more possible, along with a reduction in things that slow it down.
To the questions:
1) What is the use of a magical quiver of endless ammo if ammo is already endless because you never run out?
It's of no use at all, and that's an excellent tradeoff for not constantly counting and updating crap.
2) What is the need for a belt of ant haul or a bag of holding if you do not have to be concerned about your carrying capacity and could literally carry a mountain of gear with no issue and with a mere strength of 3.
Because most all the players here are mature enough to use common sense, this does not happen. People innately understand they can't carry endless gear, and therefore don't try to. This issue becomes one of good role play on the character's part as opposed to the need to constantly be looking up the weights of every little thing we pick up or put down and recalculating everything every time there's some change. Nobody is trying to throw a 300 lb. statue over their shoulder to walk around with, or keep a catapult and ammo in their back pocket.
It doesn't make Bags of Holding or Handy Haversacks obsolete because they still have value in moving large objects or drawing items in combat.
3) What is the use of Comprehend Languages and Tongues if everyone not only speaks the same language but everyone can read and write it as well.
Neither I, nor anyone else, has suggested any changes to the standard ways of handling this. I've even affirmatively stated that nothing related to this subject should change.
I hope this will help in some way as you negotiate with continuing players.
Well Travoril I GREATLY appreciate that reply as that helps with covering some things.
Now while I like the idea of this abstract "Gear Kit" I have to say I am not completely understanding how it works -- I understand in general but I would need a few details filled in -- is the Gear Kit a specific type assigned to a skill check or perhaps a couple of related checks -- also what does it cost and how much does it weigh -- or are the cost and weight consider minutia as well? Not criticizing just trying to understand things, here.
I can see an easy way to handle ammo, if you roll a 1 on a To Hit roll whether its your first roll or your 100th roll you run out of ammo (1-3), or you break your bow (4-5), or both(6). Simplifies ammo but does not negate those magic items as they would simply remove the chance of running out of ammo, or another item that prevents the bow from breaking thus making the 1 just an automatic miss and no other side-effects. Does that sound viable?
Now I will ignore the challenge of getting through the straight and simply say the crocodile negates the need for rowing and hand wave that challenge. However, it would be helpful if I knew what challenges the group considers trivial and should not be presented with.
I mean is the boat getting damaged considered a trivial matter? Or are certain ways the boat can get damaged considered trival?
Now I am going to guess that you might have deduced that I am a player that has no issue with covering the details of their character and looking for things to tie my character more tightly into the world and the campaign which seems to rarely happen and it appears extremely few folks really care about it. So yeah I guess I should just quit trying on that one.
Shekla using her skills to try and find some information and in the process finding a future clue. Albeit not knowing that she did.
William using his skills to get those boots he wanted (which I did not require them to do).
Vilma taking you back to Bale Keep to get a copy of the map I already presented to you which I did not feel would be much help but did not stop the players from doing. And subsequently Vilma aquiring a Wayfinder from her father when she went looking for a compass.
All of these are trivial things that I should ignore presenting in the future? I am not being facetious here I am honestly wanting to know what the players want and do not want to have occur. I mean I usually let players try to do anything pretty much and then simply check to see if it is doable but if that is not want the players want I can streamline things and disallow the fringe stuff, all aboard the train so-to-speak.
For instance, I made a roll to see if their were boots available that William could even buy. The roll was in his favor and he found the dealer and failed at getting a good price on them. Even though as another player pointed out, they were surprised that William had not gotten punched in the nose. Well that was due to a roll I made to see the outcome which was in Williams favor.
Shekla's excursion was a result of a good skill check made by Lars who wanted to know about information about someone in town capable of speaking with the dead. Followed by a good skill check to locate Arlend but a failed skill check to notice he was lying. Which I have slated to come into play later on.
Vilma acquiring the Wayfinder was a random roll on my part that I then applied to her search for a compass as that ended up being the most efficient place to place that benefit as it had future ramifications as Vilma learned what she actually had and then I was hoping they might pursue trying to get the various stones she would need to complete it. Aka a sort of legacy magic item.
Lastly most of the things, since we got started, that have delayed the group from departing have been things the players wanted to do but perhaps I should have just said no to these things? Again this is an honest question, my aim is for the players to have fun and to create mysteries to solve. Perhaps I should drop the screen altogether and simply do things like -- When Shekla failed her Sense Motive check, I should say instead that she does not notice that Arlend is lying. -- Aka make things butt-ugly obvious and do away with the mystery? So yes the player knows the NPC lied but the PC does not know, and no player is going to be tempted to meta-game or perhaps that is minutia as well and I should ignore that potential aspect?
Again I am not trying to be facetious, these are just things I have noticed that seem to be what some players (maybe many players) want within the game and hopefully I can get some honest open feedback here.
I would still like to play
I want to continue to play as well.
As for everything being said, it's more about less dice rolls and more roleplay. Like nothing wrong with us rowing, but havin a sail and the crocodile pulling means there shouldn't be much of any challenge in swamp.
I do see the factor of not running out of arrows to speak, because at the table are you going to track that? I generally don't, because who cares unless we are tracking like endurance and heat and things like that.
Okay unless I am mistaken we are going with not tracking ammo and using:
If you roll a 1 on an attack roll then roll a 1d6 on a 1 to 3 you are out of ammo, on a 4 to 5 the device breaks and on a 6 both happen.
However this will change the cost of some of the ammo, and I will separate out the containers from the ammo for some of the ammo. This will thus still allow someone to purchase extra ammo in order to restock their ammo should they run ought. Fixing the devices would require a skill and extra resoureces or perhaps the Mending spell.
I will post to the Campaign page a new version of the various equipment but in short all usable ammo must be in a container be it a quiver, case, or pouch. These items will have a cost of 1gp and a weight of 1 lb.
Again I will post to the campaign page the adjustments and let you all know how that changes your character sheets so you do not have to be concerned with the book keeping aspect of this.
Final Note: If anyone wants to track their ammo they may still do so, but you need to let me know up front that you are wanting to do this, otherwise you are assumed to be using the "I do not want to track ammo" concept.
Further, once I get a better idea of how these "kits" are going to work I will implement a version of those as well.
Okay folks -- at this point I am going to put forth the question do you want to continue with the game or should I just close it down.
I will give it day or two. If you want to continue let me know what you want to see in the game. What will make it fun for you and please try to give me something to work with here.
To be straight up and honest all I am trying to do is run a game that is dynamic and challenging but it appears many folks just seem to want something that takes next to no thought, the path is clearly defined, and is basically just merely hack-n-slash but then they claim that hack-n-slash is not what they want and yet they seem to complain when it is not. I find that so confusing, and beginning to see why some folks just run straight up modules and say all abroad the module train next stop your first combat.
DJ, I want to continue this game. :)
Oh in case you have not noticed I am working on the next post have it mostly completely hope to have it up by at least the end of the day if not sooner.
Would Saurian be Greyhawk's version of Draconic, or are the two separate languages? If the two are equivalent, I can try to help with the diplomacy part, but if not, I'm afraid I can't do much.
No Saurian is what the Suarians (aka Lizardfolk) speak. While they resemble humanoid lizards they are not cold-blooded so definitely not lizards which kind of suggests Suarian or more akin to dinosaurs than to lizards.
Now Kobolds who are akin to Dragons do speak Draconic as do Dragons of course.
While no one here knows this yet, as none of you have encountered the Saurians, there are more than one sub-type to that race which can be equated out into basic terms as Small, Medium 2-versions, and Large which perhaps you all might encounter and learn more about them later on, or maybe note. Will all depend on what you all decide to do as things progress. Further some of the players might even recognize them as having been conceptually borrowed from elsewhere ;-)
Oh and colliquially speaking most folks inexperienced with them just refer to them collectively as Lizardfolk.
I'm trying to say that I mean the lizard folk no harm.
Okay I am not understanding this statement?
1) Grippli are frog folk
2) They and Shekla are simply speaking Saurin because that is a shared language.
3) It has been established that the Grippli do not seem to know Keolan (aka Human/Common)
So that means what you say to them (or out loud) will probably be meaningless, but your actions will speak volumes. So keep that in mind. ;-)
Is the croc behind us something we know about, that *I've* just forgotten about? Or did we just learn we're being stalked by a croc?
Actually the Croc behind you is something to fix a mistake the Salaha and I had made.
The Croc that a Druid gets at 1st level is Small and it does not become Medium until 4th-Level and does not become Large until 7th-Level. When I looked up the Croc I pulled it from the Monster Manual and that Croc is Large.
So the Large Croc became an aquaitence that she talked into helping out but because its a wild Croc rather than a companion she did not want to tempt it by having her Small Croc present. Further having the Large Croc present as a "companion" would help keep any men from getting strange ideas, as most of her people's dealings with men are with ignoble pirates.
I was hoping Salaha would chime in sooner and explain this via in-game but to help you all I will explain this out of game. Just keep in mind your in-game characters do not know this as of yet. So yeah Shekla would think they are being stalked by an unknown Croc.
Further I am also waiting to see how effected by the poison Salaha is while she currently is at Dex-2 she needs to make another successful Save within 5 rolls with each missed Save causing more Dex damage until a Save is made. So she might sit down like Vilma did or stay seated like Lars is doing which no one has noticed because he has not been asked to stand up yet, so he remains at the tiller.
Also, I did not inflict that poison upon Vilma and Lars by choice, the random dice did that, I just found it rather ironically appropriate and making the reason they stay behind a forced choice instead of an optted choice.
Maybe the big croc has a crush on the small croc.
Well I could see that -- like it would love to crush it within its teeth -- ;-)
Regardless in the end, I had to have a reason that the Small Croc has not been seen and why the Large Croc will be departing and that seemed like the most likely scenario.
Hopefully we have not lost Salaha so soon as their character does open certain adventure pathways that will be easier to formulate than they would with out their presence in the game.
The same goes for just about every PC in this game, each of you open certain adventure pathways that would be more difficult to do without your character's presence and I take this into account when sketching out where things might proceed past the seed adventure that will hopefully open these potential adventure paths that you can all decide to either pursue or not to pursue -- for that is the question -- tis it nobler to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous creatures or to take up arms against them and by opposing, end them.
Yes Shake's Spear is included in this game ;-) in some ways.
FYI -- I am working on a post -- if you like you can in the Discussion thread roll Initiative after the surprise round -- as the only one not surprised would be Salaha as she is aware of what is but did not communicate this to the group in general. Note I will still need an Initiative roll for Salaha.
Did I do a stupid thing?
Thanks and sorry had a bit of one of those unexpected family emergency land and that has delayed me a bit.
I can empathize. My whole month has been family emergency land (extended, not immediate), and the rest of the month isn't looking good, either. :'(
I can empathize. My whole month has been family emergency land (extended, not immediate), and the rest of the month isn't looking good, either. :'(
Well, REAL LIFE (TM) comes before gaming, so I can also empathize.
Still need some Initiatives
Salaha can you finish filling out your Paizo character sheet as that makes it easier for me to look things up quickly when posting.
That request also applies to anyone else that has not finished filling out their Paizo character sheet. Please make what I do less of a chore ;-)
Just a FYI I added this to the Campaign Notes not that this will occur in this fight on either side but just so you know later on because I am sure it will come up eventually. Of course, if you have any questions please ask.
Flanking: To make this easy I do away with the standard Flanking guidelines in favor of something that better reflects the chaos of battle and that is as follows: One is considered flanking when there are more than one attacker attacking them. Further for each additional attacker beyond 1, all the attackers gain a +1 Circumstance Bonus per attacker on their attacks up to a maximum of a +4 To Hit, as they are considered to be constantly trying to out maneuver their target and this reflects that advantage.
Multiple Attackers: Besides being Flanked a creature with multiple attackers must make a random roll using a die equal to the number of attackers for each attack they make to see which opponent presented the best target for that attack. However, one can also choose to focus on I single target forgoing all others but all the ignored attackers would gain a +4 Circumstance Bonus to hit with their next attack(s) until the beginning of that character's next turn. However, they lose their Flanking Bonus since it no longer applies. Note: This can be combined with Fighting Defensively if one chooses.
I think it's updated right
Yes you updated it, thank you.
Okay if you have not posted please do as -- regardless -- I plan to move things forward this evening 2023-07-21
Sorry folks the weekend was kind of crazy crazy (kept hoping to eat cake by the ocean but that did not happen) ;)
Should get a post up today to move things forward.