But if we are taking a pause to recruit (or GMPC?), I wouldn't mind a written set of GM rules for skill checks and Perception checks. In some games, people do something like "Athletics roll if allowed" and just roll, and/or request secret Perception checks. In other games, GMs just roll Perc for players. Clarification would be great just so it's written out and set in stone
Okay. It's clear that I haven't been clear about when to roll things. I'll try to address that here: I will try to be explicit about when you roll something. If you ask to do something that requires a roll, I'll tell you what the roll is and ask you to do it--unless it's a secret roll, then I'll do it. I'll also do initiative rolls to keep things moving in combat. This is how I've been trying to do things. Does this make sense? Does this help?
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I think much of the confusion comes from us trying to offer things that we would like to try, and just leaving it up to you on whether to allow us or not. You would rather let us know what we can do, and let us take a more passive approach to playing versus a more active style.
Which is fine, but may not be quite everyone's cup of tea. We just want to help you along!
Anyway, we already know you are a brand new GM, so we will help you find your way. See what fits, you know?
We will sit back and let you figure that out. Just tell us what you'd like us to do and when it is time to do it.
Yeah, there are times when I'd say PBP players would love to fit a roll in to their post--we usually only post once a day, so we want to help move the game along, sometimes by rolling something or by moving to investigate something (which might involve a roll, or not). Although un-skill-monkey Taigan sometimes has no roll appropriate to make. ;)
Init rolls and also rolling Perc rolls for us are great.
And if we need to discuss and muddle through a bit, that is totally fine by me. The first or even second ideas don't always work.
It seems there's some friction here because I'm trying to run things as I would in a tabletop setting--players say what they want to do, I ask for a roll if necessary, say whether it succeeds or fails, say what happens, repeat. Is that not what you've been seeing from me? Happy to listen to advice to encourage a more active playing style, I'm just not sure what I'm doing wrong that gets in the way of this. Specific quotes from the gameplay thread would help. :)
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No that is fine, it is just not how we learned that 2e is run. It will just need a realignment of expectation on our (the players') part.
EDIT: As Grol mentioned, some of this comes from us having learned from playing in the PbP setting and proposing rolls in case they may be relevant to keep the game moving, rather than asking, waiting for a response, then rolling and waiting for a result.
Really, I want to be clear, I'm happy adjusting and learning too :) I understand and appreciate the value of compromise as groups learn what works for them and I want to do what I can to enable you to embrace that more active playstyle!
On the topic of finding an arcane caster, I have messaged someone and we'll see where things go there.
re the edit: I see what you mean now, that makes sense :) I'll need to really think about this a bit to change how I'm looking at things and running things. Your position is absolutely valid and makes sense given the medium :)
Righto. Joli has a monk, which is not an arcane caster, so the group won't have a caster going forward. If folks are okay with that, we can resume!
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Bardic Lore plus stumbling along should work!
Welcome aboard as well, Joli! Maybe Joli was a mercenary that defected? :D
Just wanted to say, GM Luna, that you're doing great as a first time GM.
Thank you for the kind words, folks :) rainzax, how would you like to introduce your character? We can handwave it or I can come up with something ... interesting. Let me know and we can go from there. :)
Are you ready with Joli? If so I'd love to keep moving :)
14 INT monk! I've often wanted to see an Int based monk. Kinda like Murray from Stranger Things.
I'm waiting for someone to actually open the door. :)
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Joli, if you could update your profile like the others to have things like your HP, AC, saves, perception, speed, hero points, and so on in the status line that's visible when you post, that would be quite helpful![/ooc]
Will do.
GM, what is the terrain situation?
Difficult Terrain, Obstacles, Cover, etc.
No difficult terrain. Pillars offer cover. No obstacles, but you did activate something in the previous room that you may want to watch out for?
See the gameplay post :) You didn't know what the kobolds were carrying until you moved into the room to get line of sight on them--the pillars were in the way! I'll try to include as much relevant detail as I can going forward, and please feel free to keep asking if I omit something.
Whoops, my apologies! I'll revise the post, thank you for the correction!
I'm thinking about trialing a different approach to hero points. I'm in another game where the GM runs them like D&D 5e advantage where you take the better of the two. That can still be pretty disappointing, so I'd like to propose, instead, adding a flat 1d4 to the roll. This guarantees that you'll at least do a little better without ruining the balance. The goal is not to change a critical failure into a success, but rather to enable you to save yourself from a critical failure or add that little bit of extra something that you need to make an important roll. There will still be cases where it's more likely that rolling again will produce a better result: if you roll a 1, you're guaranteed to not do worse and can instead do much better. That said, my own experiences in situations like that have shown the die roller to be pretty cruel indeed, hence the motivation for some guaranteed improvement on the roll.
Thoughts?
As he is moving he grips his sword with his second hand,
You're right that Release is free, but that's not what Risk's post says.
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Hey gang,
(Posting this in all my PbP games)
Going to be travelling tomorrow and through the weekend, meaning my posting should slow and be "lower tech" than usual, and following that, I will be attending Gencon in person (end of July through early August), slowing again. But yeah, gunna do my best to keep up.
Cheers.
Try for one post per day when possible. Sometimes it won't be, sometimes your turn in combat doesn't come up every day. If I don't hear from you in 24 hours in a combat, your character will delay or I will bot them given instructions.
I've been perhaps more patient than I should have been in this regard, but I'll be enforcing this going forward. If you don't already have botting guidelines for your character on your character sheet, please do list them so we don't have to wait if the real life monster gobbles you up. :)
This is a hard post to make.
It's become clear that folks want something different than I do with this campaign. I have been trying to emphasize the narrative nature of PbP, as I expressed in the recruitment post. I love to see lots of roleplay, character development, deep, meaningful interactions between characters, internal monologues--it's where PbP as a format excels. Writing and roleplaying are things I take seriously as a medium of creative expression and art.
Reading through the posts for the game so far, they've largely been pretty minimal on roleplaying and narrative. I want to emphasize that this is fine, I'm not upset or disappointed with anyone. We just have different expectations and the way you want to play the game is completely valid.
But it's not working for me. Running this game hasn't been fun for me for a while. I feel like I'm putting in a lot of effort with narrative and description that isn't being reciprocated. Part of that is on me; I should have tried to find players better suited to that play style. Again, I want to be clear that no one is doing anything wrong. You have your preferred style and it's clear it's working for you, and that's great! Please do not read this as an indictment of you or your play style. I should also point out that this has been on my mind for a while; I pointed out back in May that I preferred more narrative and roleplaying-heavy posts and haven't seen that.
Regardless, as I said, it's not fun for me and that's the most important thing. I'm afraid I'm going to step down as GM for this game. If folks want to continue and can find a GM to run you through the rest of the campaign--or if one of you wants to step up and do so--I'd be happy to help out with that.
I'm sorry about that, GM! I had a difficult few days and couldn't post as much. In any case, I get the style difference you're referring to, and I wish you the best in finding the players who match that.