Shadows in the Dark (Inactive)

Game Master Edeldhur

Creeg Greythorn wrote:

How about... his father was a sailor, he grew up on them, loved them, so his work was not toward buying a house, but a ship, big enough to live on, small enough a single person could sail it, with the dream of just sailing the world, living simply.

Lightning strike and fire could have been on the port town, taking out a bunch of buildings and a bunch of ships, his being one.

No fair. You did all that in only two sentences. Showoff.

One sentence descriptions: hmmmm, An elf warrior born and raised in the forest, who wanted to be someplace else. Or: An elf warrior born and raised in the forest, who wanted to see someplace else.

Anyway, cool with whatever you want to do OSGMO. I figure it's like the old sword and sorcery short stories. The hero's start someplace very far from where they were at the end of the last short story. No cliff hangers here, they just move on.

Speaking of old school games, I've got a friend thinking about putting together an 'old school' Travellers game. here on the boards. Any of you all ever play?

I have heard a LOT about Traveller, but never had a chance to play it - would love to give it a try, as one of the most exalted old school sci-fi games.

Heard some crazy things about how your character can die during character creation, or am I mistaking it with some other game?

I GM'd a GURPS Traveller campaign for a couple of years, have played both the original Little Black Book Traveller many, many years ago and Mongoose 2nd edition Traveller a more recently. And yes, in the original and Mongoose systems you can die, get drafted, get maimed, come away with a free Scout ship, or have a bunch of other things happen during character creation because it is all mostly randomized. It's a good solid system and of course has decades of support materials so you can pretty much run any campaign you would want from military sci-fi to political intrigue to the tramp freighter crew or Star Trek type first contact/exploration.

As for the initial Shadowdark adventure, I don't mind keeping it simple and having things start right at the entrance to some cave, ruin, wizard's tower, traveling the caravan route or whatever. Pick whatever you might like to run or build off of as we go. Then in the spirit of short backgrounds, all we need is a short 2-3 sentence hook for why we are there and maybe what city/town/village we started from and then we can fill in the rest when it feels necessary through flashbacks, dialog, etc. as the game progresses. A bit like Blades in the Dark where you just roll the Engagement roll and start right in the middle of the action. Just my two cents.

My brother played original Traveller back in the day (early 80’s?). Three things I remember him telling me: all about Aslans (the leonine species); a weapon that had the power of a sun you could hold in your hand; and the time one of their crew sheared a planet in half with their ship arsenal and the resultant few days of chaos before they annihilated the rest. At least one of those three things is *actually* in the rules. As for the rest, well, put teenagers, the 80’s and handwavium into a blender and that’s what you get.

Sadly the game has never really grabbed me from a mechanical nor thematic direction. I *think* I would like to play a good Sci-fi game, and am seriously looking at Starfinder 2 with the magic stirpped out. Then again, knowing my penchant for the chassis of PF2, I would.

I played it once or twice back in middle/high school, which was a LOOOOONG time ago. Probably late 80's for me. And... I can't remember much about it sadly.

And I am happy with diving in, handwaving our purpose for either exploring for hidden treasure or hired to do something or <insert own purposes here>

You are still missing 1 HP, Creeg.

Thank you for the reminder! Fixed.

Ok, I am hoping BD will drop a line soon, but I think we have our group gathered. Five seems like a good balance for no.

I will try to have a Gameplay blurb up in the next couple of days, so we can get this rolling.

I want to try to stick close to the rules as written, and give them a chance, but I am not sure if the crawling rules in Rounds will work out well for PbP. But we'll find out.

Just FYI, my Time Zone is CEST. During the week I will usually post somewhere during the day from 8am-5pm, depending on how much work is breathing down my neck, and if I am from home or at the office.

If I post at night it will usually be somewhere from around 10pm to midnight, or something along those lines.

Of course none of this is guaranteed, and weekends are very hit and miss.

Thanks for the heads up OSGMO.

And our first post is up!

Sweet! just saw this as I was getting ready to 'sleep' my computer as I was walking out the door. I will get a post up as soon as I get back.

No worries and no hurries!

Hey gang, I would like to try something - apart from Combat, Saves and such, and unless I ask you to roll for something, I think I would like to go without 'proactive' rolling.

The reason is fourfold:

I want to keep some mystery associated to dice rolling in situations like Stealth and Perception for example, among others.

I want also to keep the results a mystery to the other players, so they are not influenced in deciding their actions by what they see in the dice rolls from others. This 'kind of' enforces the notion of 'always in Initiative' for Shadowdark.

I don't really think proactive rolling speeds things along, since the success/failure of the roll is only adjudicated when the DM posts anyway, so having the player post or not does not make much difference. Maybe the DM even decides no rolls are needed, and that for some reason the way the player described his/her action is immediately conducive to success or failure.

Which leads into the fourth reason - I would to keep dice rolling to a minimum.

What do you all think?

I think that's a brilliant idea. 'Proactive rolling' is such a habit, I don't think about not doing it. Thanks for addressing it early on :)

RE: Proactive rolling. Works for me.

Yep, fine with that, we tell you what we want to do, you determine what, if anything, needs to be rolled, and by who.

One thing I want to bring up is a little sensitive vis a vis playstyles. And it has to do with metagaming and out of character discussion as it relates to tactical organisation.

I think there is a tendency in PbP to want to communicate almost everything in character, largely because we can; and in the past I think I have wanted to shy away from out of character discussion of tactics in a “players sitting around a table” fashion. But I would like to free that up a little, and be able to call out what I think I, or anyone, or the group should and shouldn’t consider, in “real time”, during and even before combats.

In PbP, a lot of posts can be taken up with posts like Iragha’s tactical offering question. “Do we go hard, go sneaky, go diplomacy”. But perhaps we can tease out the cinematic lens a little, and make at least some of these decisions “out of character”, whether in the Gameplay thread, or here, and kinda reach a consensus, as players, about what we think our characters might want to do tactically, or even just be able to lob in free unsolicited advice. I know I could often use a reminder that “OSW, you do have spells you know” or “maybe pull back to let them come to us” or “let’s go ranged on this” or whatever. I know my characters have done that in the past, but being free to do it at any time, out of turn, could be useful.

Of course, given I have opted for *not* doing this in the past, I’m quite happy continuing on that trajectory, but if folks are up for a bit of “beyond the 4th wall agency”, I am too.

It also adheres to a more “adventure gaming” mindset, which I admit I do not adhere to in its entirety, but given we are experimenting with a “new” ruleset I though I might push a few other boundaries too. I know OSGMO has some good links to articles on adventure gaming (as opposed to more “roleplaying”) so if we ask him nicely he might link them herein. Or I will if too much time passes.

OSW, you make me very proud :D

Fully agree with your post - please feel free to carry on OOC discussions as one would probably have around the table if we were sitting face to face.

Here is something I wrote down elsewhere for a different PbP game:

Another thing I wanted to run by you all is the use of the OOC thread.

We all know when we are playing around the table, and you get into a scuffle, and of course the DM pokes people to decide quickly what their actions are, you still have a chance to discuss quickly what to do, which allows for some coordination, etc. Like for example:
Joe: 'We all run? Yes?'
Mary: 'Was thinking to fight, but nevermind, let's bail'
Ron: 'Go!"

This tends to be lost in PbP, so I was wondering if any of you allow OOC discussions to take place during combat in your PbP games? I know PbP is already slow enough, but sometimes I feel some short discussion could be useful. Thoughts?

So yes, I do feel in PbP this OOC element tends to be many times overlooked, and we fall in the opposite extreme, wanting to do everything via IC posts. Much like OSW I have been in that field in the past, but I don't think things have to be like that anymore. Of course, I will prompt people to action, if I find an OOC discussion is dragging for too long during a combat round for example, again much like we would do around the table.

It also adheres to a more “adventure gaming” mindset, which I admit I do not adhere to in its entirety, but given we are experimenting with a “new” ruleset I though I might push a few other boundaries too. I know OSGMO has some good links to articles on adventure gaming (as opposed to more “roleplaying”) so if we ask him nicely he might link them herein. Or I will if too much time passes.

I don't want to get into that just yet, as I feel most people might have a knee-jerk negative reaction, and I would like to avoid it hahah.

On a side note, if you want to PM me your Discord handle, I’ll create our group chat.

Did we get to near?

As to the discussion, I do have a habit of wanting to go ahead and post, but am always accepting of suggestions, reminders or retconning anything we feel necessary. Discord I have found is a WONDERFUL way to quickly make a plan, but happy to use ooc. Creeg's suggestion of his spell was a way of in character asking that same kind of thing.

Yep, you are near John.

@Yriel - what do you mean by “we can’t just pick stuff up and take it with us”?

@All - there was some mention of “not killing” and “getting information”. While Iragha has little empathy for the former, do we want to interrogate the “prisoner”? I’m easy either way.

@I’m definitely *not* going to be having Iragha ordering people around all the time! ;)

@Yriel - what do you mean by “we can’t just pick stuff up and take it with us”?

GEAR SLOTS

You can carry a number of items equal to your Strength stat or 10,
whichever is higher.
Unless noted, all gear besides typical clothing fills one gear slot.
Gear that is hard to transport might fill more than one slot

I assumed that meant if we were going to pick something up then we would need to set something down.

Again, just an assumption?

Maybe we can put stuff in our backpack, that we don't have access to.

I am for getting information, meaning interrogation. I am going out of town over the next few days, so went ahead and posted something but threw it into spoilers in case we don't want to go that way. Good either way.

Iragha Dråghul wrote:

@Yriel - what do you mean by “we can’t just pick stuff up and take it with us”?

SPQR wrote:

GEAR SLOTS

You can carry a number of items equal to your Strength stat or 10,
whichever is higher.
Unless noted, all gear besides typical clothing fills one gear slot.
Gear that is hard to transport might fill more than one slot

I assumed that meant if we were going to pick something up then we would need to set something down.

Again, just an assumption?

Maybe we can put stuff in our backpack, that we don't have access to.

Oh. Well if you are under your limit you can pick up whatever you want. I think I have two slots left? [EDIT] Actually

Cool, I know Yriel is maxed. But maybe we can put stuff in our pack, or in a sack and carry the sack. Of course dropping it when we need to draw a weapon. No reason to go 'Murder-Hoboing' if we can't loot and pillage.

OSGMO any input about carrying capacity?

I imagine the slot limit is *the limit*. But it is a great question RH.

To be honest, I hadn’t even considered “slots” before I decided to heft a body, and only now, thinking about it, do I wonder how many slots a body would take up. At least two, possibly more!

I'm hoping it has more to do with what you can carry to function properly. I'm sure carrying (or dragging) a body for a short distance to move it would be permitted.

Clarified in Discord ;)

But in a nutshell:

It is fine to drag someone without needing to drop your equipment. But not forever
It is assumed everyone has a backpack, and that backpack holds the items you are able to carry. So it is an abstraction.
So first backpack is free (that's the abstraction), and each subsequent one takes up a slot.
And brings no real advantage.
'Treasure typically occupies one gear slot (coins occupy one slot per 100), but the GM might determine otherwise'

I had forgotten to mention it earlier, but sweet introductory post on Saturday Ralina. Way to own the character.

Also, who's Carrotness in discord?

Me. I'm carrotness.

Just then, they can make out the outline of a humanoid shape lurking in the shadows, someone hiding.

Yriel is up. Go!

Is Yriel close enough to move and attack?

Yriel is up. Go![/ooc]

so am I to repost that he ran towards the shooter, or did you count running towards the shooter already? If so Can he just keep the attack on the shooter?

Old School GM Obermind wrote:

Yriel is up. Go![/ooc]

so am I to repost that he ran towards the shooter, or did you count running towards the shooter already? If so Can he just keep the attack on the shooter?

No need to repost, Creeg, Ralina and Iragha are up. I messed up that one - corrected now ;)

So because she got a failure on her spell roll, Iragha can't cast cure wounds until she rests.

Resting heals all our HP (and any stat damage we might have had) as long as it isn't interrupted and we also have to "expend" (consume) 1 ration:

A character who successfully rests regains all lost hit points and recovers any stat damage

So we also might need a campfire, though the braziers might be enough - not sure how long they will remain lit if we don't refill them with stinky smelly smoky oil...:

In many cases, adventurers need a light source while resting. Characters can combine three torches into a campfire that can't be moved once lit.

A campfire lasts up to 8 hours while at least one character remains near to it, and it casts light out to near distance.

Now I'm not sure *why* you "need" a campfire, unless it is an interaction with more mystical effects of the "Shadowdark" that we have heretofore not interacted with.

Thanks for doing the 'leg work' on the rules Iragha

I assume the campfire is so we can see, and emphasizes we need a watch, if for no other reason to keep the fire burning.

How safe is the cave to rest in? Do we leave the fellow outside unattended? Do we return to town and come back? Do we bring the fellow in to identify the bodies? Dowe press on?

I'll ponder some of this and get a post up basically asking the same questions.

Edit:What if we bring the fellow in from outside, have him tell us who's missing, and where they sleep at and let him go?

I am guessing you do not need a campfire per se. One reason could be the darkness of course - sleeping in pitch black darkness is dangerous. Apart from that, one could argue you might need to warm up some food or boil some water, or whatever, but I am not going to push that agenda.

Campfire provides light and warmth. Relevant if it is dark and/or cold. That should suffice.

Hmm, yes, I can see that you could make the warmth/cooking part essential to “rest”. Personally I always feels better after a nice cup of tea…l

I have been considering moving the whole game to Discord. I like the ease of communication, image/map sharing, the possibility of having several simultaneous threads, etc. And would also like to give it a try, see how it works. Any thoughts?

I like discord as a place for discussion, but I've no desire to learn new mechanics. I realize there are 'dice rolling' systems and various channels which I may eventually learn, But for now, I prefer keeping the game here.

There are no new mechanics :D

To roll the dice you type /r d20+1

The rest is the same.

There are no new mechanics :D

To roll the dice you type /r d20+1

The rest is the same.

To be honest, I sat in on another GM's game, to see how it worked. I didn't like the dice mechanic or getting used to the differences. I'm comfortable with how things work on Paizo and have no desire to try something else.

Again, I may learn the system at some point. Just not interested now.

Yeah, to be honest also, the dice roller mechanics are one of the things which bug me here on the Paizo forums. I find the preview function should be removed, as is the case in other PbP forums. Then it would truly be akin to a dice roll.

I'm in games on both, so no worries either way. Aliasing is irritating in discord, but otherwise is very good.

So we are resting. Turns taking watch? Anyone setting any snares etc? Iragha is going to rest by the fire, but can likely take a watch. Or do we want two per watch?

Also, we need to mark off one torch from among our goodly number. Happy to sacrifice one of mine.

@OSGMO: a campfire usually requires three torches as an abstraction - hoping we can use the wood from the braziers stored to make and keep our campfire going?

I have been considering moving the whole game to Discord. I like the ease of communication, image/map sharing, the possibility of having several simultaneous threads, etc. And would also like to give it a try, see how it works. Any thoughts?

I’d be up for it, but given Tareth doesn’t seem to use Discord and RH’s reticence, I guess we are staying here.

I like the Alias stuff here, and the posts tend to keep clear and distinct.

Games I’ve played on Discord can be a little hard to parse, even though you can totally make a separate thread for dicerolling etc… i actually found that a little *more confusing* than less. But I did like much of the rest of the functionality.

Weirdly, my phone/tablet use of Discord is better than my computer because my old Mac can’t update its OS to a high enough level for Discord to update to. ;p

@OSGMO: a campfire usually requires three torches as an abstraction - hoping we can use the wood from the braziers stored to make and keep our campfire going?

That works ;)

Hey gang, just a heads up to let you know I will be away on vacay from the 31st July to the 11th September. My posting will be sporadic at best ;)

Continuing the conversation on how to run PbP, would people be willing to try a forum which is NOT the Paizo one? I have been in other forums where, for example, you can embed images directly on posts, which obviously makes things practical for maps, notes, etc. They also allowed for individual parallel threads, in case the group gets separated for example.