GM Spazmodeus presents Rise of the Rune Lords

Game Master Spazmodeus

In the beginning...

Hi guys

Welcome...welcome!

Thanks again for your patience in waiting to be chosen, it was quite difficult.

My answers:

1. What time zone are you in?
Eastern - Up in Canada , eh.

2. How long have you been playing TTRPGs?
Since grade 5 way back in 1982.

3. What's your favorite part about playing TTRPGs?
How the story evolves, with everyone pitching in. While Face-to-Face is sort of like a play, PBP is more like a cooperative novel.

4. What do you expect from this game?
A lot of work and a lot of fun!

5. What do I expect out of you?
Respect. Even though in some ways GMing PBP is easier than face-to-face GMing, it's still quite a lot of work.
Honesty. If something isn't working for you , please let me know so we can address it.
Understanding. Like everyone, I have a busy family and work life that sometimes interferes with my efforts here. I'll promise to keep you in the loop if I have to step away temporarily.

6. What can you expect out of me?
Hopefully an engaging and fun experience! It's my goal to provide a safe, fun environment where we can all get our RP geek on.

7. (If you don't want this to be public, PM me the answer to this one and just note that you did so.) Beyond the obvious (generally stuff already prohibited by Paizo's forum rules,) what are your redlines? Are there any topics, themes, or imagery that you absolutely do not want to see in the game?
As this is a PG forum, anything of a triggering nature will be alluded to only and not described in any kind of detail - fade to black for example .If I do slip up , let me know immediately and I'll remedy the situation.

Some other bookkeeping

Posting Rate Though I'm sure we'll be fast friends by then, I don't want this to take us 10 years to get through. So a nice brisk posting rate of a minimum 1 post per day, Weekends and RL permitting, isn't too onerous I think.

My posts
In general posts , if there's anything to notice I'll put into spoilered skill checks such as:

Stepped checks, such as these for Perception, you can read any spoiler that is equal to or lower than your roll.
This way when you respond to my post, you can integrate anything your character has noticed.

In combat, I'll hide my rolls in the following spoiler, then provide a description of the resulting action.

If necessary, I'll create a spoiler with your character's name , if they'e seen/heard/experienced something only they can detect.

RAW vs RAI I tend to lean more towards RAW, as the rules give us the guidlines to ensure no one is taking advantage. But, I am also a fan of the rule-of-cool, so I reserve the right to ignore the RAW and go with the flow!

Maps I like using Google slides for maps, images etc. Less overhead than something like Roll20. Please feel free to make use of the token tools DM Salsa included in his orignal recruitment post to make tokens for the maps.

Contact Of course the PMs are available, but if you need to reach me outside of the forum : spazm0deus@outlook.com

I think most of you are new to sandpoint for the Swallowtail Festival, but I think at least one of you lives there. Too many backgrounds read to keep them straight! :)
Those of you new to sandpoint can arrive by boat or caravan, I'll let you sort that out!

Dot and Delete in the Gameplay so you see the campaign in your tab.

To be honest, I probably won't kick this off until the 16th at the earliest. I'll be out of town from the 8th to the 15th, and will be doing some prep work next week.
So we have lots of time for chit chat before we begin.

Also, just an fyi, in case it matters, I'll running the Anniversay Edition.

Any questions, ask away!

I'm sure I'm forgetting to mentions something, but that can come later...

Al

Gameplay thread's not connected.

I do have one question, Tot came in with a caravan, how long has she been in town?

Oops...gameplay is up.

Caravan and boat would arrive a day or so before the Festival.

I think everyone else is new to Sandpoint besides Zorlen. But he's been away for five years, only going back now for the festival, so he'll be coming in with a caravan as well.

Firavel would be new to Sandpoint. He's swinging by because it's the town that was closest when he started to hear that giants were gathering. Caravan entry works.

Note that I'll actually be away from March 11 to 23rd, inclusive. I'll have my mobile, so it's possible I could post from that, I just can't guarantee it given I'll be on travel status with family.

Hi all! Thanks again for the pick, GM.

Cirandiu isn't a Sandpoint local but he knows it pretty well as he has travelled through it numerous times as he spends much of his life on the road. He's heading specifically for the festival.

Hi all! Thanks again for the pick, GM.

Cirandiu isn't a Sandpoint local but he knows it pretty well as he has travelled through it numerous times as he spends much of his life on the road. He's heading specifically for the festival.

Similar situation for Amaryllis here.

Audra's completely new to Sandpoint.

Kemras is also new.

To be perfectly open, I generally won't post on Saturdays, but I'll try to get at least one IC post up every other day to the best of my ability. If this is a problem, GM, I'm okay with swapping out, as I didn't bring it up in the recruitment thread.

Well, My proposed posting rate is more aspirational than mandatory. From what I can see from the games you run , you're a pretty regular poster. That's good enough for me.

I'm not going to be an ogre about posting rate, I think we all know that without regular posts, these online PBP campaigns wither and die. No one else mentioned an issue with 1/day, so I can assume that we're all committed to posting regularly to start this game with good momentum and keep it there :)

Sensen, let's play it by ear and see how it goes.

I can manage 1/day.

One of the things I think I should mention is that I want to Tot to eventually change to a good alignment. I know for some GMs this is a big deal. How would like to handle that?

I try to keep a 1/day rate in my games, so that's what I'll be aiming for.

The alignment question is relevant to Zorlen as well, as that was also my plan.

I try 1/day as well.

I don't see Audra shifting alignment any time soon though, if even.

I also try 1/day in general.

In other news, I'm trying to figure out if multitalented for Kemras should still be Investigator and Bard, or whether I should swap it to better fit the party - assuming Spazmodeus allows it. I was thinking Medium or something like that. Alternately, I could just go with Arcane Training and stick with Investigator alone. Thoughts?

Do or do not....there is no try -- Yoda

LOL, just kidding!

Hopefully, its an organic thing where you guys want to get back to the gameplay every day to see what happened and add your own action/responses.

As for alignments and changes in alignment over time...go for it. I'm pretty ambivalent about alignment, except where is matters for rules and/or class mechanics. If your characters are slowly moved toward the good by your new friends...well, it's your character. Notions of good and evil are for the philosophers, good people do bad things sometimes. Doesn't mean their alignment is now evil. Play your character the way you want ,role play out their inner conflicts etc. It's all good.

@Kemras I chose Kemras mainly due to the fact his class fits in with the whole "discovering old civilizations' trope. And that he had access to the rogue-ish skills detect traps and disable device. So , my preference is that you stay as is...but ultimately I want you to play what you want to.

Oh, I'd be keeping the Antiquarian. Just swapping out whether or not he'd get favored class bonus for bard into something else. He's definitely sticking with Investigator for the other one - possibly focusing exclusively on that.

Cirandiu Florean wrote:

Hi all! Thanks again for the pick, GM.

Cirandiu isn't a Sandpoint local but he knows it pretty well as he has travelled through it numerous times as he spends much of his life on the road. He's heading specifically for the festival.

Similar situation for Amaryllis here.

As regular wanderers, we've been working on a bit of shared background for Cirandiu and Amaryllis. They're sometime fellow travellers rather than fast friends but have a solid foundation of trust and companionship. At present they've bumped into each other and discovered they're both heading to Sandpoint so have been travelling together for a couple of weeks.

Since it'll be two weeks before I officially start the campaign, I've put up a intro post

Feel free to RP your journey to Sandpoint on the caravan, to figure out existing relationships or figure out new ones, or just to sort out your character's voice before we start in earnest on the 16th, 17th or 18th.

Sounds good to me!

Huzzah! some more people from Salsa's recruitment got into a game: here!!!

I feel bad making you guys wait :)

But, I should be all ready to go once I'm back from vacation. If any of you created your character in HeroLab, please forward your por file to me at : Spazm0deus@outlook.com.

Love the RP in gameplay so far, and glad that everyone's participating!

In regards to posting, I have a pet peeve that I'd like to reveal. I hate the OCC only post in gameplay. Maybe I'm a bit ocd but it just irks me :)

The worst I've seen was an entire page of 50 posts of just occ posts as the players debated something. I'm perfectly fine with an accompanying occ post to your regular post, where you clarify what you're doing mechanically or asking a clarification of me.

But, for tactical discussions or 'what-do-we-do-next' discussion or completely off tangent discussions, please use this thread. Or even better, if it's appropriate have the discussion in character in the gameplay thread! :)

I think it stems from my view that this medium for playing is akin to a cooperative novel, and I like to go back and revisit my old campaigns from time to time and the ooc only posts get in the way.

Oh, and I apologize for this line from my starting post here :
What do I expect out of you?
Respect. Even though in some ways GMing PBP is easier than face-to-face GMing, it's still quite a lot of work.

I had a couple of revisions of that post going, and that was an earlier thought that snuck into the actual post. To my eyes it comes across quite dickish. The sentiment I was going for and had in a better revision was : Mutual Respect: We all put time into this game because we enjoy it, none of us should take that for granted!

Sorry if I came across as an a-hole :)

Ok. off to finalize prep for my vacation. i'll be watching and pipe in on occasion. Again, love the RP so far in Gameplay.

Look for my official kick off post next weekend!

Al

Huzzah! some more people from Salsa's recruitment got into a game: here!!!

That is good news - testament again to the quality of submissions.

Absolutely fine on OOC posts, thanks for flagging.

As far as I'm concerned at least it came across fine, I took the 'mutual' part as given. =)

And enjoy the break!

I'm absolutely okay with the OOC post thing, too - it seems reasonable to me, especially since, well, we've got a whole thread for it over here.

And yes, I agree - you were perfectly reasonable here.

Enjoy your break! But also, as a bit of an announcement - my computer's kind of borked, so I'm taking it in for repairs this week. Come Sunday evening, it'll be in the shop to be fixed, which will minimize my ability to to post at best. The whole process should take 3-5 business days, which means I (hopefully) should be back in time for the kick off, but if not, it definitely should be back by Monday. Sorry for the inconvenience this may cause.

Pretty much agree with everything you've said about OOC stuff. I have made posts asking about something game related OOC, but that's pretty rare.

Hey guys,

My return flight is delayed 12 hours. So the start to the game will be similarly delayed

Can't wait!

Oh, right. Sorry, I'd forgotten that you'd be out until tomorrow. >_<

My delayed flight got cancelled outright.
Finally found an affordable flight most of the way back home, but will have to drive the rest of the way....won't be back in the homestead until late Monday.

So our start will be pushed back until mid week-ish

Ouch. I hope they paid for lodging at least.

Oof, that sucks. Hope it's not too painful and hasn't put too much of a downer on the trip as a whole.

A bit of an announcement from me - we're currently in the middle of a major house move. Actual move day is Friday but things are currently even more chaotic than normal with boxes everywhere. I've got a chunk of time off yo sort things out so I should be able to keep up but jugging that with wrangling the small people is going to keep me busy.

Busy days for everyone, seems like. Hope everything goes well for you, GM, and best of luck, Cirandiu.

Hey guys,

Back at home and working on getting less exhausted...wow, that journey home took a lot out of us!

Finishing up some prep work today, campaign tab and images and maps and such. Hope to get a re-start up post this evening or tomorrow.

Thanks again for your patience!

First post is up...

Just a reminder, if any of you used herolab to create your character please send your por file to me : spazm0deus@outlook.com

thanks

Sent. Hopefully the second attempt gets to you. (Didn't doublecheck the email and got a bounce back when the server couldn't find a pazm0deus@outlook.com email.)

Tot, do you have horns?
If yes, what kind?

I won't yet say why i am asking. ;)

Nope, no horns. She does have a tail and some long, sharp canines, as well as pointed ears, but the rest of her looks human, if not for the coloration, red eyes, white hair, ash-gray skin.

Nope, no horns. She does have a tail and some long, sharp canines, as well as pointed ears, but the rest of her looks human, if not for the coloration, red eyes, white hair, ash-gray skin.

Picture??

Sent. Hopefully the second attempt gets to you. (Didn't doublecheck the email and got a bounce back when the server couldn't find a pazm0deus@outlook.com email.)

Got it !

Any others before I start importing you into herolab myself? Thanks!

Titania Olivia Thrune wrote:

Nope, no horns. She does have a tail and some long, sharp canines, as well as pointed ears, but the rest of her looks human, if not for the coloration, red eyes, white hair, ash-gray skin.

Picture??

Certainly has the vibe.

Audra Aellan wrote:

Titania Olivia Thrune wrote:

Nope, no horns. She does have a tail and some long, sharp canines, as well as pointed ears, but the rest of her looks human, if not for the coloration, red eyes, white hair, ash-gray skin.

Picture??

Certainly has the vibe.

I couldn't get the ears smaller, and full picture didn't want to cooperate.

I looked through the others and I agree that one is the best one.

My image here is actually a pretty decent likeness for what I’m imagining so good to use that.

Apologies for the lack of post. Move went fine but it’s still all a bit chaotic. Will try and get something up tonight.

I'm back and have just posted. Glad that I haven't missed too much.

Hey guys, sorry had some work related business to attend to.

BUt....wow, you guys just keep going! I loves it!

I'll get a post up this evening...

Ok.. I'm a filthy, dirty liar!
Post coming today...

Sorry for lack of replies, been really busy the last couple days getting tax stuff rounded up and prepping for Easter. Sneaking this post in before I pack up to head out to see family.

Apologies on this end too, been busy over the long weekend (public holiday here). Will get something up tomorrow.

Hey guys, I was giving everyone a chance to get a post in...then got a bit swamped with work.

Posts coming a bit later.

It's all good. :)

These things happen. Good luck with your work!

Thanks for your extended patience...work then family stuff...and now the eclipse! Will endeavour to get posts in this evening...