At points throughout his career, I am certain our Master of Disguise has totally forgotten what his "original" form even looks like....lol.
Names are like faces, clothing, gender all interchangeable determined by the situation and circumstances.
Although that being said, Mephistopheles being named aloud probably best not uttered in polite company.
GM already gave Malleck a potential lackey:P Ahhhh. Impressionable youth...
But yeah. He won't be donning his armor just yet. Too many people that would cause suspicion on the ones he plans to meet up with
An ER visit with the baby and long evening decompression with the wife killed my day today. Updates tomorrow.
Don't worry about me. I'm enjoying reading the lead up.
I'm kinda surprised I'm not at Drownington's Manor. That's my usual hangout spot when I have to go to town. I guess I'm either stuck at the Baron's place or he got sick of me and sent me back to home base.
Hey Shadow, how long has it been since the end of the other game and the start of this one? Depending on where all of them were coming from it had to have been at least 3 weeks just for travel. Probably more.
Tiadora works fast though. I'd imagine she was contacting all of them within a day or two of finding out that nobody's minding Jack.
Yes, about a month for travel. It's amazingly convenient that everyone arrived the same day, I like to play somewhat grounded in reality but having people arrive on different days, as would happen in real life, is a time waster for PbP.
Grumble will have been back for six weeks. I think you will find it interesting where I placed you, I'll be taking some liberties and assuming some RP will have happened that we aren't going to RP. I actually alluded to the idea in the OG thread, but it wasn't followed up on.
I am enjoying this Pre-Campaign episode. Allows for us to flesh out our personality, quirks, methods of operation.
When I can, I prefer to start this way for that exact reason. The AP initially starts in about as Railroad a fashion as can be so in some ways, I am preferring this start.
Whoa Shining. Hope you and the family are okay.
As everyone has checked in, I will post an update tonight to move us along.
A few points I don't believe I mentioned yet:
1. I roll initiative for the PCs as part of the action sequences. I find this speeds up combat instead of waiting for everyone to post especially here where we are all in separate time zones.
2. I roll Perception checks for PCs in most circumstances (on a case by case basis I may have the PCs do so and just put in spoilers any results to be easily accessed by those who make successful rolls) again, I find this speeds up Gameplay.
3. I do not require daily posting as even I cannot meet that requirement due to RL circumstances. I try to give anywhere from one to two days for everyone to chime in before I push things forward. Unlike many games on the boards, I often post on the weekends as it is when I have the most flexibility. In combat, I may bot people to move things along after 2 days, PbPs generally die without DMs constantly moving things forward.
A few points I don't believe I mentioned yet:
1. I roll initiative for the PCs as part of the action sequences. I find this speeds up combat instead of waiting for everyone to post especially here where we are all in separate time zones.
2. I roll Perception checks for PCs in most circumstances (on a case by case basis I may have the PCs do so and just put in spoilers any results to be easily accessed by those who make successful rolls) again, I find this speeds up Gameplay.
3. I do not require daily posting as even I cannot meet that requirement due to RL circumstances. I try to give anywhere from one to two days for everyone to chime in before I push things forward. Unlike many games on the boards, I often post on the weekends as it is when I have the most flexibility. In combat, I may bot people to move things along after 2 days, PbPs generally die without DMs constantly moving things forward.
All very reasonable rules. I do like things that keep momentum up.
Giving Tih a chance to check in before I move everyone along.
Would it be amusing if Clyde gets overlooked but still ends up with the group as the cook? Strike from the shadows on invaders and then melt back into the shadows to make sure tea is ready when the group returns.
Would it be amusing if Clyde gets overlooked but still ends up with the group as the cook? Strike from the shadows on invaders and then melt back into the shadows to make sure tea is ready when the group returns.
It would be but don't worry, we HAVE to find you!
Giving Tih a chance to check in before I move everyone along.
I'll move us along tonight.
Updates Wednesday night, I'll be slammed at work between today/tomorrow/Wednesday during the day. Sorry for the delay!
Since we're still in downtime, I thought it might be useful to discuss the nuts and bolts of the game.
As the only character who knows what's going on a the moment, I expect to be doing a lot of posting until the rest of you are up to speed. That does not mean I intend to spotlight hog. As a player, I'm very into setting other players up to shine.
My concern is that at the beginning the tone of the game will be "Jack and his new sidekicks." I don't want that at all, so I thought it would be good to bring up the worry ahead of time. I plan to pass the spotlight to the rest of you as soon as possible.
When we're in exploration mode, our scouts are going to be in the spotlight, and should expect to be posting about 3x as often as everyone else.
In my opinion, we should have 2 scouts. That will compensate for bad luck on the dice, and let whoever is available first to post and keep things moving along.
(Jack's familiar makes a great scout, so I'm willing to be one of them if nobody else wants the job. I'd prefer to let other party members take that role though. Familiars just don't have as many options as actual characters.)
For those not familiar, it's a way to speed combat up. (Most) Enemies are assumed to Take 10 on initiative. In Round 1 the party goes either Before the enemies, or After. By the end of round 1 it becomes a back-and-forth (after the slow PCs in round 1 are the fast PCs in round 2, so round 1 is the only time the distinction matters).
PC's are allowed to post in whatever order they want, which lets everyone post as soon as they're available rather than needing to wait for someone else.
In my opinion, this system speeds things up a lot. I'm fine doing things the normal way, but if there's a choice I'd rather take the faster option.
Thoughts? Other suggestions?
Sounds good to me.
Not much to add so short and direct
My approach to Initiative is a hybrid approach where I place similarly situated baddies into a block but differential baddies separate. So the evil wizard who has 3 henchmen will act on a separate initiative from the 3 henchmen who act with the same initiative score. It's how we handled initiative in the original thread and that went fine. During combat I generally enforce a 24 or 48 hour rule where if you don't check in I bot you for that round.
I also roll almost ALL Perception checks for the Party, unless there's a special circumstance where only one person or set of persons would roll apart from the group.
I hate doors i TOTALLY agree with, there's a scene where DHs hatred of this is on full display as Grumble runs around just opening every door in sight, it's pretty hilarious. If everyone else is on board, that's ok for me. This is a semi democracy so I want to make sure there's no strong objectives to this!
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Updates forthcoming tonight.
My characters have been known to just open all the doors for mostly entertainment value, but expedient expectations are good too.
Sounds good to me
Hybrid block initiative works best for me. Full block initiative sometimes sucks when all 12 enemies all go at once and there's only two PC's up front.
We definitely need different plans for quiet and loud door opening. Looks like Jack and Clyde are the lockpicking types. They also use two handed weapons, so I'm willing to sub in to open the door while they ready their weapons. I usually have a hand free.
I'm okay with expediting the search/disable/pick/set up/open cycle.
Looking at stealth and perception, I can be one of the scouts. I'm good at bluff when we want to go quiet. If that doesn't work, I can take hits until everybody moves up.
I'm not trying to volunteer for everything, but this comes from Elliaria being ready to be a frontliner and risk taking hits while others come in.
You open the door and I throw an axe in.
Sorry folks, between my daughters school band performance, hanging out with the wife when I got home, and finalizing a massive battle in my Vampire PbP, I'm spent. Updates tomorrow as it turns out.
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My characters have been known to just open all the doors for mostly entertainment value, but expedient expectations are good too.