It was nighttime. The forest was alive with the sounds of the animals. Insects chirped. An owl hooted. Off in the distance, a wolf howled causing the underbrush to rustle with the sudden retreat of scurring paws.
"Alice? Alice, are you out there?" The man's voice cut through the air, tight with worry. He almost sounded like he was pleading -- please, let this be the time she responded. The beam of his flashlight swept wide arcs in front of him, illuminating very little save the trunks of more and more trees as he pulled his light jacket closer to ward off the brisk Fall air.
A faint glow seen at the periphery of his vision caught his attention. His head snapped in that direction, quickly followed by a hurried walk to investigate. "Alice? Is that you sweetie?" He paused at the edge of a clearing, face frowning in confusion as it was illuminated by a strange neon-red glow.
Standing in the middle of the clearing was what could only be described as a doorway of sorts. Through the doorway, he could see an alleyway, illuminated by the glow of a neon sign. At the edge of his vision, he could just make out a man standing in the shadows of the alley. Squinting, he took a few slow step closer to get a better look, the other man apparently getting the same idea and likewise moving closer.
Now within arm's reach of each other, the two stopped to examine their companion. The man in the alleyway was wearing a dark tan trench coat, collar turned up to ward its wearer from the drizzle that seemed to be falling around him. The upper half of his face was largely obscured by the dark shadow thrown by his wide-brimmed fedora. He ducked slightly to try to get a look under the hat, but the other man mimicked the movement. Turn and twist as he might, every action was copied as though he were looking at a reflection of himself. A reflection that seemed to be smiling mockingly at him.
He reached out a hesitant hand to the doorway, the fedora-wearing man once again perfectly mirroring his action. His hand met a cool, hard surface. Metal? Glass? It had to be glass since after all, he was looking through it wasn't he? He rested his palm against it and pushed slightly, eyes going wide as suddenly he felt warm fingers intertwining with his own. The other's smile widened.
There was a scream. As it faded, the sounds of nature swelled once more. Peaceful. As though it had never been disturbed.
This is going to be a rather large post, but I wanted to get these things out of the way. Feel free to skip any mechanics stuff you're already familiar with.
Game Mechanics
If you haven't already, take a look at the basic moves cheat sheet. In my opinion, it does a great job laying out the basic Moves, and I'll be referencing those moves in the explanations below.
Some notes for people not familiar with PbtA games:
Powered by the Apocalypse systems typically have a bigger focus on the narrative than, say Pathfinder. In Pathfinder if you came upon a crime scene, you might immediately roll Perception to look for clues. In a PbtA game, before you could roll anything, you'd have to describe your character doing something to "trigger" that roll. In this case, how are you looking for clues? If you can't think of a way to look for clues, you can't roll the move.
Say for example, you wanted to look for tracks. That would be enough to trigger Investigate a Mystery. Which leads to another difference between Pathfinder and PbtA: PbtA worlds tend to be more mutable. In Pathfinder looking for tracks would be a Survival check against a given DC (or no DC if there are no tracks). If you fail, you can try again or someone else can try. If you fail, that probably means either any tracks that were there have been destroyed or perhaps there were never tracks there to begin with. Either way, it means this avenue of investigation is closed and other players will have to find some other approach if they want to try looking for clues.
Another thing to keep in mind with PbtA games is that moves are more about what you're trying to accomplish than what specifically you're doing. For example, take the following situation:
DM: With a roar, the golem grabs <Hunter 1> and starts to squeeze, intent upon crushing the life from him. What do you do <Hunter 2>?
Hunter 2: I hit it with my baseball bat.
- If Hunter 2 is just trying to hurt the golem, that would be Kick Some Ass.
- If they're trying to free Hunter 1, that would be Protect Someone.
- If Hunter 1 just failed their attempt to wiggle free (which would be Act Under Pressure), and Hunter 2 was trying to distract the golem to help them out, that would be Help Out.
- If instead of a golem it were a non-monster holding Hunter 1 and Hunter 2 was trying to intimidate them into releasing the other Hunter, that would be Manipulate Someone.
Another big difference between Pathfinder and PbtA games is that I the GM do not roll dice. Things happen based off of player dice rolls or things that have been set up in the narrative. This is probably the most pronounced when it comes to combat. There is no initiative and the monster doesn't have its own "turn". If you attempt to attack a monster with a baseball bat, the monster will immediately hit you back (it's why under Kick Some Ass on a 10+ you have the option to take less damage). I don't roll to hit, I just tell you the damage.
Some terminology:
As GM, I make either Soft Moves or Hard Moves against players. A Soft Move is typically a narrative set up that the player gets a chance to respond to before mechanical effects set in. A Hard Move goes straight to the mechanical effects. For example
Soft Move: You see the vampire rushing towards you, fangs bared. What do you do?
Hard Move: You see the vampire rushing towards you, fangs bared. Before you have a chance to react, she's taking a large bite out of your neck. Take 2 damage.
You might also hear references to +/- 1 ongoing/forward. Forward means it applies to your next relevant move. Ongoing means it applies to all relevant moves until something change to remove it.
MotW for people who know PbtA:
As in many other PbtA games, when you make a move, you roll 2d6 + the relevant stat. If you get 6-, you mark XP. 5 XP gives you an advancement. The basic moves cheat sheet is hopefully relatively clear, but I do want to clarify a couple of moves:
Manipulate Someone: This move is only triggered when you try to get someone to do something they otherwise wouldn't be willing to do. It also doesn't work against monsters unless you take specific moves (I think the Monstrous has a move that lets you do this).
Kick Some Ass: This move is only triggered if you're able to hurt who you're attacking and your target is able to hurt you back. If you're attacking someone with a magical force shield, you may not be able to hurt them unless you have a special weapon or figure out how to remove the shield. If you're attacking a helpless creature, it can't fight back, so you're just going to do damage without rolling. If you're far enough away and you're trying to shoot something that's moving around, it's probably going to be an Act Under Pressure roll since it's not close enough to hit you back.
MotW also has an extra mechanic called Luck. You have a pool of Luck points. After you roll, you can choose to spent a point of Luck to change your roll to a complete success. Additionally, when you use Luck, each playbook has something specific that gets triggered. When you use Luck, you do not get XP if you failed the roll. Also, be aware that Luck does not refresh. I think all the Playbooks have the ability to regain one Luck as an advancement, but that's about it. If you're out of Luck, I'm also more likely to go straight to Hard Moves against you.
Damage is handled via Harm. You start off with 0 Harm. If you take 4 Harm, you automatically become Unstable (and might as a result start to take more Harm over time/with strenuous activity if you don't get stabilized). If you take 7 Harm, you're dead. Armor reduces the amount of Harm you take on all incoming attacks except ones that are specifically label as "ignores armor."
The default + Weird move is Use Magic. If you don't think that fits your character, feel free to look at the Alternative Weird Basic Moves to pick a different one.
Logistics and Ground Rules
Since I'm running this as a one shot, you each start with 2 Luck instead of the full 7 (if I'm convinced to continue this into a campaign, I'll give everybody more Luck to get up to the normal amount).
***
Use Magic has listed "Do one thing that is beyond human limitations" as an effect. In the context of this game, something "beyond human limitations" means something like
- lifting a car just enough to free someone trapped underneath
- carrying on despite a nasty injury
- resisting a mental attack from a monster.
It does not mean doing something like flying or reading thoughts (Empath is a separate thing). If you want to accomplish those with magic, it'll be a Big Magic ritual rather than a Use Magic.
***
In a normal, face-to-face MotW game, the flow would go something like
- Player describes something
- If the action triggers a Move, GM asks for a dice roll
- Player rolls the dice
- GM narrates the results
That is going to be slow in a PBP format, but it won't always be clear if a move has been triggered or not. I plan to go by the following:
- If you think you've triggered a move, go ahead and roll it. If it not necessary, say because failure isn't interesting or there's no way to accomplish what you want, I will tell you as much. If you rolled a 6-, this will mean that you won't get the XP.
- If you roll a move but it's the wrong one, I'll use your dice roll but change your modifier appropriately.
- If you don't roll, you as a group should decide: either I can always ask you to roll or, if it'll speed things up, I can roll for you (For example, me rolling Act Under Pressure for you would speed things up but me rolling Investigate a Mystery for you would not). Which would y'all prefer?
***
Do not be surprised if you see me posting cutscenes/scenes that contain information your character does not have (the first post in gameplay is an example of this). My goal, and hopefully yours, is to tell an interesting story, and I believe showing things that are happening elsewhere is part of that. Related to that, you should feel free to read any and all spoilers as I assume you will keep player knowledge separate from character knowledge.
***
Make sure to have your basic character info in your stats line. I would suggest something like
Class/Levels: [Playbook name] | 0/5 XP
Gender: V Charm | W Cool | X Sharp | Y Tough | Z Weird
Race: 0/7 Harm | [Stable/Unstable] | 2/2 Luck
Things to do now
1) Post in discussion with what the other characters are likely to know about your character. If you want, you can just link to your submission, but if there's anything in that that wouldn't be broadly known or if you want to add any other details they know, now is the time to point it out.
2) Post the list of the options from your Histories section. If you have ideas for which characters might fit different items, go ahead and suggest them. Your goal is to connect yourself to at least 2 different PCs though you are more than welcome to pick more. You must get the other player to consent to this link before it becomes official.
3) Let me know if you're keeping Use Magic as your Weird move or if you're going with something else.
4) Dot and delete in Gameplay.
5) Weigh in on if you'd prefer me to sometimes roll for you or if you'd always like me to ask you to roll (See 3rd section under Logistics and Ground Rules)
Once we've established histories, we'll work on figuring out the best way to get all the characters involved in what's going on in Sioux Falls.
There was nothing notable about the town of Sioux Falls. It was the kind of place you only stopped at on your way to somewhere more interesting. That's why when a body is found practically torn to shreds, the local police are eager to label it a wild animal attack and move on. If they're very lucky, they might even be right. But that hasn't been your experience. You're one of the few that know the truth about the world -- that ghosts, vampires, and their ilk are more than the stuff of stories. So sure, this might be a one-off animal attack. Or it could be the beginning of much more. And if it is, you're one of the few people with the knowledge and skills to deal with it.
*****
Hello and welcome to my two-shot recruitment!
What is a Two-Shot?
It's two one-shots with connected plots. In this case, one thing that's a little different is that you'll be playing the same character but each one-shot is going to be in a different system. The first will be in Monster of the Week and the second will be in City of Mist.
Some details about the two systems:
What is Monster of the Week?
MotW is a narrative-focused, rules-lite RPG where the players are Hunters, trying to find and kill supernatural threats. Think shows like Supernatural, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and X-Files. It's a Powered by the Apocalypse game, so if you've ever played one of those you should have a good idea of how the mechanics work. If you've never played a PbtA game, the main idea is that you roll 2d6 + some attribute (ranging from -1 to +3). A 6 or less is a failure. A 7-9 is typically a mixed success or success at a cost. A 10+ is a full success.
Characters are made by picking a playbook, going through and answering the questions on the playbook. See the end of the post for some useful links and playbook summaries. The assumption for MotW is that all the characters know each other/possibly have worked together before. Once a group has been picked, we'll go through the Histories section to set up relationships between characters and figure out the details of what brought you to the area.
What is City of Mist?
CoM Quickstart Guide wrote:
City of Mist is a role-playing game of film-noir investigation and super-powered action. It is set in a modern metropolis rife with crime, conspiracies, and mysteries. The protagonists are Rifts, ordinary people who became the living embodiment of a legend, their Mythos. While your Rifts may seek to strike a balance between the mysterious nature of their Mythos and their mortal aspirations, the powers within them always threaten to tear their lives apart. They have unwittingly become a part of a secret world of clashing stories, and soon other legends will come looking for them, with demands.
CoM is another PbtA system (see MotW section). Rather than playbooks, you create a set of freeform tags to build your character, which we can talk about more when we get closer to the second half of the game.
Some types of Mythos might be
- a human character whether they possess supernatural powers or not
- a supernatural being, such as a god or a fairy
- a legendary creature or monster
- an anthropomorphic animal (like the puss in Puss in Boots)
And some possible sources that they Mythos came from
- a mythology, such as the Egyptian, Celtic, Aztec, or any other
- legend or folklore, such as Arthurian legend or West African Ashanti folklore
- a fairy tale, such as the Grimm brother’s fairy tales or The Little Mermaid
- a folk story, such as the tales of the lumberjack Paul Bunyan
- a ghost story, such as Bloody Mary
- a famous literary work, such as Peter Pan, Frankenstein, or The Wind in the Willows
- an urban legend, like the Sewer Gators or the Hook
- a real world occurrence that has received legend status, such as Jack the Ripper
I don't know one/both of those systems.
That ok. Both should be fairly easy to pick up, and I plan to teach them as I go along.
Why are you doing this?
I've been interested in both of the systems for a while now. I've also been vaguely interested in running a home-brew thing, but coming up with lots of DCs and NPC stats and encounters has always discouraged me from trying. MotW seems like exactly the kind of rules system that would be easy to tell stories without me needing to come up with all this crunch, and CoM has a lot of story-elements and flexibility that I like. I'm curious to see how I feel about running a game in both systems and how I feel about running it in a pbp format.
Might this turn into a campaign?
It's possible, but as stated earlier, this is a test run. I have no idea how I'll feel about this several months from now when we're done with the two mysteries I currently have. The safest thing to do is to have everyone assume this is a two-and-done kind of thing, and then we can adjust and re-evaluate later if need be.
The Setting
The first part will take place in a small-medium town in a nebulously defined area of New England. You do not need to be local to the area; I have some ideas of ways to get people involved depending on what playbooks are chosen. The supernatural is not publicly known and magic is relatively rare. The second part will be in an even more nebulously located city. The supernatural and magic are much more common, but something called "the Mist" prevents regular mortals from seeing supernatural things (if you've read/seen Percy Jackson, it's the same concept as the Mist from there). Both parts take place in roughly modern-day in terms of technology, though I expect the CoM segment will have more seedy vibes.
Expectations:
- I expect to post 1/day during the weekday. I expect all players to check for new posts at the same daily cadence. Whether or not you also post is up to you, but see the points below. Also, if I hear nothing from you for a week without prior notice, I'll PM you. You'll then have another week to check in before I'll consider myself free to write you out of the story.
- By and large, I expect the players to be the ones taking action to progress the story. If you're stuck or don't know what to do next, I expect you to post in Discussion saying as much. I'm more than happy to provide suggestions or guidance if I know they're wanted.
- Related to the above, I expect players to communicate. If you're stuck or waiting for something (like for the current scene to end so you can do something else), you should speak up. Silence could mean literally anything. If none of the players are posting anything, either nothing will happen or, if it's been a few IRL days, I'll just time skip until when the next thing happens (which might be after the point you wanted to do something if you haven't told me about it).
I'm interested. How do I apply?:
1) Both of these systems are much more narrative driven than Pathfinder typically is. As such, for it to work well, I need players who's typical post is going to be more than a sentence followed by a dice roll. Link me to some of your favorite roleplaying posts for other characters you've built. If you're new to the boards (and therefore don't have posts to link to), instead write me something in character for the character you wish to join this game.
2) What MotW playbook are you interested in (see below for links/summaries)? Keep in mind that two players cannot both play the same playbook. As such, you may (but are not required to) submit either 3 characters each with a different playbook or 3 possible playbooks for a single character. If you submit 3 characters, you will need to tell me about each one individually. If you submit 1 character with 3 possible playbooks, how does the character change depending on which playbook is used? Since I will be selecting characters rather than players, make sure anybody you submit would be someone you'd be excited to play.
3) Tell me a little bit about the character you want to play. Take a look through the playbook you want and include some of those details (for example, if you're the Professional, tell me a little bit about the organization you work for). You goal, in addition to telling me the basics of your character, is to convince me that they would help tell an interesting story. I personally tend to enjoy internal conflict; I like to see what will happen if I make someone choose between, for example, two things they want, or alternatively, between two things they want to prevent. So consider giving me levers I can pull to create drama or things I could tempt your character with.
4) What Mythos or legendary figure would your character be bonded to for the CoM portion of the game (see the CoM details section for some examples)? This doesn't have to be final, but I would like to give myself the chance to see if I can start working that into the narrative even before we hit the CoM segment. You may also want to set your character up to either complement your Mythos or conflict with it. A suave con man might be complemented by a Prince Charming Mythos or might come into conflict with an honorable knight like King Arthur.
5) What is your experience with Powered by the Apocalypse systems? This won't affect your chances of getting in; I just want to know my audience when I start explaining things.
I plan to keep this open for a little over a week, so I'll set the deadline for submission as Sunday June 14th at 10am US Pacific Time. I then hope to have a decision on characters by some time that night. I have one player already selected (who last I heard was leaning either Monstrous or Wronged), so I'm recruiting four others for a total party of five.
If you want to have a better idea of how MotW works while you're making your character, I would suggest checking out the Basic Moves Cheat Sheet linked below. I'll elaborate a little bit on the moves once a group has been selected. Let me know if you have any questions, and I look forward to reading about your characters!
MotW Resources and Playbook Summaries:
Resources
- Core playbooks
- Tome of Mysteries playbooks
- Basic moves cheat sheet
- Alternative Weird moves: By default, all characters have the ability to Use Magic. If that doesn't fit with your character idea, you can choose to have one of these alternative moves. For example, if you want to be a PI, maybe taking Trust Your Gut makes more sense than Use Magic.
Playbook Summaries
- The Chosen: A once-ordinary person who discovered they have a special destiny, and who has been given the power to accomplish it. The Chosen is good in a fight, with some weird powers. E.g. Buffy from Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
- The Crooked: A criminal turned monster hunter, haunted by their past and enemies. The Crooked is good in social situations and has a lot of contacts. E.g. Anna Valmont from The Dresden Files, Peter Bishop from Fringe.
- The Divine: An agent of a higher power, with a mission to fulfill. The Divine is very tough and has been granted holy powers. E.g. Castiel from Supernatural; Michael Carpenter from The Dresden Files.
- The Expert: The hunter who knows all about monsters and magic. The Expert knows a lot of hidden secrets and how to find out more, and also has a well-supplied base to work from. E.g. Bobby Singer from Supernatural; Rupert Giles from Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
- The Flake: A conspiracy theorist. The Flake is great at finding things out and seeing how the events of separate mysteries are connected. E.g. Agent Mulder or the Lone Gunmen from The X-Files.
- The Initiate: A member of an ancient monster-slaying Sect, trained to fight and use magic. The Initiate is good with magic, and their Sect provides help (and sometimes problems). E.g. The Wardens from The Dresden Files; Annelise from the Twenty Palaces series.
- The Monstrous: A monster fighting for the good guys. The Monstrous is very weird, and can have a variety of different powers based on what monster breed they are. E.g. Angel from Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel; Bill Compton from True Blood
- The Mundane: Just a normal regular person, especially good at dealing with regular people you meet and have to save, and at getting captured by monsters (which can be more useful than you might expect). E.g. Xander or Cordelia from Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
- The Professional: You work for an agency that hunts monsters. The Professional is good in a fight, and a good team player. E.g. Riley and the Initiative from Buffy the Vampire Slayer; Olivia Dunham from Fringe.
- The Spell-Slinger: A trained wizard, wielding powerful magic in their crusade against evil. The Spell-slinger’s arcane training gives them an advantage when dealing with eldritch secrets. E.g. Harry Dresden from The Dresden Files; Willow from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, in the later seasons.
- The Spooky: Has psychic or magical powers. These powers are strange and sinister ... and not completely under the Spooky’s control. E.g. Sam Winchester from Supernatural; Willow from earlier seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
- The Wronged: revenge-driven, and really tough. The Wronged is all about killing a specific breed of monster and protecting others as you do it. E.g. Dean and John Winchester from Supernatural.
- The Gumshoe: The supernatural is just another case for this private eye to solve. A tough, ethical charmer, this shamus is in the fictional tradition that stretches from classic noir characters like Sam Spade and Philip Marlowe to the modern Jessica Jones and Lisbeth Salander.
- The Hex: A witch motivated by the pursuit of forbidden power, using magic more readily—and more recklessly—than other hunters. E.g. Willow during season six of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
- The Pararomantic: A hunter with a loving—but difficult— relationship with a supernatural being. Understands monsters’ intentions and can earn their trust, but puts their own heart, and even mortality, at risk. E.g. Elena Gilbert from The Vampire Diaries, Belle from Beauty and the Beast.
- The Searcher: After an encounter with weirdness, they dedicated their life to investigating the unexplained. Very strong investigator, especially at working out what sort of thing is going on. Not really a fighter, but has some defensive options. E.g. Roy Neary in Close Encounters of the Third Kind, or (historically) Charles Fort.
Welcome everybody! The intro post is up in gameplay. Feel free to head over there and dot in or start roleplaying with each other, but kindly refrain from trying to progress things until everybody has finalized their crunches. Worst case I'll start things on Sunday February 2nd, but obviously if everybody gets done before that, we can start earlier. Here are the stat arrays we have thus far:
One thing to be aware of as you're putting the final touches on your character, you will all be spending the entirety of the module trapped in the Harrowed Realm. This means that you're going to have to be pretty much self-sufficient. There's one merchant in the realm, and you don't find him until later (how much later depends entirely on what order you decide to do things in). His supplies are also limited. To that end, make sure you have a way of handling your healing, food, and shelter needs (for the latter two, having a bedroll and a non-negative Survival skill are sufficient). Don't worry about tracking mundane ammo.
Because of the above, it's also likely that dealing with character death is going to be awkward. In an attempt to combat that, the party gets a scroll of Raise Dead and a scroll of Reincarnate. I'm hopeful neither will be used, but sometimes the dice have other plans.
You should also as a group figure out if or how you know each other. Do you want to be a pre-existing party? People who just happened to be looking for Meloigne Garracy each for their own reason? A mixture? Something else?
Let me know if you have any other questions or when you're ready to have me review your crunch, and I'm excited to get started! :-)
You find yourselves flat on your back, heads spinning. The first thing you notice is that you're no longer in the tent of the All-Seeing Hajeck. In fact, you don't seem to be inside at all. There's a blue sky above you, but it's faded like old paint. Odder yet, the sun isn't a familiar glowing orb so much as a disk with stylized flames coming out of it like you might see in a children's picture book. It seems to be attached to a long metal rod holding it in the sky.
Standing up an looking around, you find yourselves at the edge of a large clearing surrounded by trees and a thick undergrowth. The center of the clearing is dominated by what appears to be another circus, though not the Umbral Circus you were just in.
Something else that's new is that you each seem to have a series of tattoo across your arms that definitely weren't there before.
You all have 9 new tattoos on your arms, each corresponding to one of the 54 cards of the Harrow deck. Each card is linked to an element within this realm, be it a location, a creature, or an event. At any point if you think you've identified one of these associations, you may "play" one of your tattoos/cards simply by making it clear in an OOC comment that you are doing so. If you're correct, the party will gain a specific boon. If your guess is incorrect, you've lost your chance to gain that card's boon.
The first several pages of the Google Slides doc contain images of each of the cards as well as a link to descriptions. As you guess cards, I'll move them from slides saying "Unused Cards" to "Successfully Used Cards" and "Unsuccessfully Used Cards". Here are the tattoos each of you now have:
Delroy Grimm:
- The Avalanche
- The Cyclone
- The Eclipse
- The Keep
- The Rakshasa
- The Survivor
- The Trumpet
- The Twin
- The Winged Serpent
Eirnar:
- The Brass Dwarf
- The Desert
- The Idiot
- The Inquisitor
- The Juggler
- The Lost
- The Peacock
- The Paladin
- The Queen Mother
Fayn:
- The Beating
- The Cricket
- The Forge
- The Fiend
- The Joke
- The Midwife
- The Rabbit Prince
- The Sickness
- The Wanderer
Lokhir:
- The Big Sky
- The Courtesan
- The Crows
- The Demon's Lantern
- The Locksmith
- The Mute Hag
- The Theatre
- The Unicorn
- The Uprising
Kaldwell:
- The Betrayal
- The Carnival
- The Dance
- The Foreign Trader
- The Hidden Truth
- The Marriage
- The Mountain Man
- The Snakebite
- The Tangled Briar
Kyuzon/Chisomo/Ana/Yattle:
- The Bear
- The Empty Throne
- The Liar
- The Owl
- The Publican
- The Teamster
- The Tyrant
- The Vision
- The Waxworks
Your mission started off simple enough: find a missing scholar by the name of Meloigne Garracy. After asking around, you discovered he was last seen with a collection of traveling shows and merchants known as the Umbra Carnival only days ago, hunting for a fortune-teller called the "All-Seeing Hajeck." You found the woman in question inside a tumbledown tent at the edge of the encampment of wagons. When you asked about Meloigne, Hajeck revealed that the scholar had visited seeking information on a vast library gathered by a Varisian woman named Sonnorae. She said that she helped send him there but was unable to bring him back. Attempting to be of further use, she offered to help you as well and, without waiting for a response, opened a portal beneath your feet, dropping you somewhere in the "place of incredible knowledge and riches" where, presumably, Meloigne might be found.
*****
I am recruiting a group of 6 players for a run-through of The Harrowing as a one-shot adventure. I'll leave recruitment open until January 25th at about 6pm PST (UTC-8).
What you need to submit:
1) While I'm not requiring any crunch, I do want you to give me a general idea of what kind of character you plan to make. Are you making an archer? A battlefield control mage? What do you think your character is likely to be doing both in combat and out?
2) What is your character's alignment, and why did you pick it? What do they believe that causes that to be their alignment?
3) Write me an in-character scene from your character's backstory. This will be primarily how I judge your submission, and should be at least a couple of paragraphs (please try to avoid writing a novel though). The goal here is to let me see your writing style and to give me an idea of what kind of person your character is.
Crunch:
Let me start off by saying you do not need any crunch for your submission. I am providing these details, so you'll know what you have to work with when you think up your character. Crunches can be made after the party has been selected, and I will not be looking at any crunches made during the recruitment period. If all you post is a stat block without all of the things outlined in the "What you need to submit" section, it is not a valid submission.
Starting level: 9th. You will not be leveling up over the course of the module
Stats: 4d6 drop lowest. When a party has been selected, you may choose a stat array rolled by any of the players.
Materials: Any Paizo that appears on an online reference site
Races: Any Paizo with 15 RP or less
Classes: Any Paizo. However, please note that summoning magic and planar travel are harder to pull off in the setting of the module, so you may not want to build your character around those ideas. If you want to play a Summoner despite that, you must use the Unchained version.
Gold: 23,000 gp (1/2 WBL since we'll be using Automatic Bonus Progression). No more than 1/2 on a single item
HP: Max at 1st level, 1/2 HD + 1 on later levels
Traits: 2 or 3 with a drawback (I reserve the right to veto drawbacks that will never come up like Family Ties). No campaign traits
Special rules: Automatic Bonus Progression, Background skills (if you're a bard, Performance does not count as a background skill)
Misc Details:
Post rate: I typically post 1/day Sunday through Thursday. That is the pace I expect you to keep up with. If you haven't posted anything when I go to update, it's assumed your character is mutely following along. If you're in combat, I will probably bot you to keep things moving
Combat: I used block initiative, so everybody in a given block can post when that block is up. Actions are resolved in the order they're posted in unless you specify otherwise. To keep things moving, I will sometimes roll on your behalf. Typically this means initiative but this may also include things like saves or skill checks. I also use Google Slides for maps. Players are expected to move their own characters and properly outline AoEs they create or to describe these well enough that someone else can do it for them.
Knowledge checks: When combat starts, I will post the relevant knowledge skill and a DC for enemies. Anybody who has that knowledge skill can roll for it. If you beat the DC, you can pick one area from this list to ask about. For every 5 by which you beat the DC, you can pick another area. If multiple people have the skill, feel free to coordinate to make sure you get different areas of info. If the enemy is under temporary buffs, information will be given without the effects of those buffs taken into account.
Let me know if you have any questions or if I forgot to include some detail, and I look forward to seeing everyone's submissions!
Greetings all! After some players have dropped, I'm looking to recruit 2-3 players to bolster their numbers. We're currently in the middle of Masks of the Living God (basically, players have passed the main roleplay section of infiltration and started exploring the temple/causing trouble) with the intention of continuing on to the third module in the Price of Immortality trilogy when done. Here's the campaign if you're interested. Don't be scared by the past 2-ish weeks of silence; I was on vacation and had given all the players a heads up beforehand.
Current party:
- Jaed, Human Rogue
- Finnrick, Half-Elf Druid + Millsy his cat companion
- Lily, Elf necromancy (debuff) wizard
? Artair, Dwarf barbarian (may or may not be continuing; I'm giving him a bit more time to check in)
My goal is to get the group back up to 6, so depending on that 4th person, that means recruiting 2-3 new people. Most likely at least one spot will go to a frontliner of some sort. The way I'm going to work you in to the story is that I'm going to have some of the dropped players sneak out of the cultist's temple and go ask for help from the Pathfinder Society (who originally gave them the mission to infiltrate and gather intel on their more questionable activities). This doesn't, however, mean your character needs to be a member of the Society. You just need to be a helpful person who's willing to give them aid and happens to be in the area.
What to submit:
1) At least a few paragraphs written in character of some event if your character's life. If you need an idea, play out how your character volunteered to help out the current party. Basically, I want an idea of what it will be like to have you in my game. This is also what will set your submission apart from the others to me. Sorry, but I find stat sheets pretty boring.
2) Somewhere between a couple of sentences and a paragraph describing your character's basic personality.
3) Character crunch (no alias needed unless you're selected). You don't have to do all your shopping, but main purchases should all be on there.
4) The tl;dr of your crunch. Not that I won't look through it, but I find it can sometimes be hard to judge the player's intent just from the numbers. Specifically, I want a rough idea of what you're likely to do in combat, what you're likely to do out of combat, and if you're trying to specialize in something (and what).
Crunch:
Sources: Any paizo with an online reference
Stats: Pick one of these two stat arrays
17, 15, 15, 13, 13, 12
18, 14, 14, 13, 12, 10
Alignment: Any non-evil
Classes: Any
Races: All core + any race with <= 15 RP. No custom races. For Aasimar and Tieflings:
- Variant heritages are fine, no feat needed for Tieflings
- Variant abilities must either be rolled (you can choose to keep the default if you don't like the result) or spend a feat to pick them, even if you're an Aasimar
- Alternate physical features can be picked for free since they provide no mechanical benefit.
Traits: 2 traits, +1 if you take a drawback. No campaign specific traits and don't take any of the cheap drawbacks that are unlikely to come up (Like Family Ties).
Starting Level: 4th
HP: Max 1st level. Future levels are rolled or half HD + 1 if that's higher
Gold: 6,000 gp
Background Skills: Are in effect. If you're a bard, you can't use them towards versatile performance skills.
Recruitment will end next Saturday, June 17 at 11:59pm PDT.
When the PF humble bundle came out, I started a game for new players to go through Crypt of the Everflame. That's now coming to a close, so I've decided to continue with the followup module Masks of the Living God. But first, the party has decided it wants to replenish its lost players. Specifically, we need magic users. The current party consists of
Posting expectation is around 4-5 posts a week, but I don't generally strictly enforce that (posting has also slowed down somewhat since I told everyone we were almost done). However, if we're in combat, I reserve the right to bot you if 24 hours pass after your turn has come up. More importantly, if you're going to be gone for an extended period of time, I expect you to give us a heads up. This group's done a great job of doing that, so don't break the trend. ;-)
Maps are done using Google Drawings and I expect you to move yourself (or at least describe where you move if you're unable to move yourself due to being on a mobile phone or something). I'll roll your initiative and reserve the right to roll some saves or skill checks in the interest of speeding things up.
If there's enough player interest, I'll probably be running the third module in the Price of Immortality trilogy as well. It's fine if you played the series before, so long as you believe you can seperate player/character knowledge. However, you should not currently be playing in a game.
Plot Hook:
You've received a message from Cygar of the Pathfinder Society. There's recently been an incident in a small town called Kassen: a tomb robbing caused several of the bodies in the crypt to rise as undead monstrosities, turning a simple coming-of-age ceremony into something significantly more deadly. A few villagers died, but thanks to a few local heroes, the undead leader's plans for attacking the town never came to fruition.
Two possible plot hooks:
- You've been asked to aid the heroes in finding the bandits responsible for this desicration
- You're suspicious the incident may be related to the local cult dedicated to Razmir the Living God
If you want to try to come up with your own hook, that's fine, but it's not necessary. The adventure will begin after you've all arrived in Kassen before heading up to the capital city of Tamran.
Crunch:
Sources: Any paizo with an online reference
Stats: Pick one of these two stat arrays
17, 15, 15, 13, 13, 12
18, 14, 14, 13, 12, 10
Alignment: Any non-evil
Classes: Any though obviously you're not going to get picked if you make a straight fighter and you're unlikely to get picked if you make, for example, a melee character who just happens to have some magic.
Races: All core + any race with <= 15 RP. No custom races. For Aasimar and Tieflings:
- Variant heritages are fine, no feat needed for Tieflings
- Variant abilities must either be rolled (you can choose to keep the default if you don't like the result) or spend a feat to pick them, even if you're an Aasimar
- Alternate physical features can be picked for free since they provide no mechanical benefit.
Traits: 2 traits, +1 if you take a drawback. No campaign specific traits and don't take any of the cheap drawbacks that are unlikely to come up (Like Family Ties).
Starting Level: 3rd
HP: Max 1st level. Future levels are rolled or half HD + 1 if that's higher
Gold: 3,000 gp
Background Skills: Are in effect. If you're a bard, you can't use them towards versitile performance skills.
What you should submit:
1) At least a few paragraphs written in character that take place some time between receiving your message and arriving in Kassen. It can be your thoughts about the message/quest, your first impression of Kassen, something that happened during your journey, or anything else. This will be primarily what I will judge your submission on. That being said, please refrain from writing a novel.
2) Somewhere between a couple of sentences and a paragraph describing your character's basic personality.
3) One or two sentences explaining why you were summoned. Feel free to use the plot hooks I provided or to come up with your own.
4) Character crunch (no alias needed unless you're selected). You don't have to do all your shopping, but main purchases should all be on there.
5) The tl;dr of your crunch. Not that I won't look through it, but I find it can sometimes be hard to judge the player's intent just from the numbers. Specifically, I want a rough idea of what you're likely to do in combat, what you're likely to do out of combat, and if you're trying to specialize in something (and what).
If you want to look over the gameplay thread of what we have so far, it's here.
Submission Deadline is Friday October 14th at 6pm PDT (or is it PST? I'm never sure). I'll choose characters that weekend with the aim of starting the game on Monday.
This is the gameplay thread. It's where we'll make in character (IC) posts. Below your text box, you should see 'How to format your text'. 'ooc' is for Out of Character text like this. Some other common conventions are to bold text that your character says out loud and write thoughts in italics.
This is the discussion thread. It's used for out of character (ooc) conversations. For example, this will be where we create our characters.
- All characters start at level 1.
- Core classes
- Core races (human is a safe choice if you don't know what to pick)
- Pick either of these two stat arrays:
1) 17, 15, 15, 13, 13, 12
2) 18, 14, 14, 13, 12, 10
- Everybody starts off with 150 gold (focus on weapon, armor, and anything you need for you class such as a spell component pouch or thieves' tools. You'll be provided in game with things like torches and rations).
- No traits (if you don't know what a trait is, don't worry about it)
These forums have a built in dice roller that we'll be using. You can play around with it or you can wait until I talk about it.
First steps: Post here stating what class you want to play. This will help avoid having a party entirely of, say, wizards. From there, feel free to start making your character or tell me if you need guidance. I can also give advice on what choices you might want to consider. For example, there are a LOT of feats out there. If you tell me what kind of character you want, I can probably point you to several that might be helpful.
If at any point you have questions or are completely lost, please speak up! Remaining silent will do no one any good, and someone else may have the exact same question. :-)
Inspired by the various recruitments that have gone up to welcome the influx of new players, I've decided to start my own. My disclaimer is that I don't have a ton of experience DMing, but I am decently familiar with Pathfinder and these forums. This will be a one-shot game aimed at introducing people to Pathfinder play-by-posts.
Who should apply?
People who
1) have recently bought the Humble Bundle pack and
2) are either new to Pathfinder or new to tabletop RPGs in general
I will be accepting the first 4-6 people who speak up, but if you're already gotten into one of the other HB beginners' games, I'd prefer it if you gave other people a shot.
What are you committing to?
For in person games, you generally agree to meet on a given day at a given time. However, this is going to be a play-by-post game, so things are a bit different. Instead of committing a block of several hours at one given time, you will be committing to a post rate of 3-4 times a week (roughly every other day). What this means is that every couple of days you agree to check in on the game, read whatever the other players have posted, and add your response to them. This means that even a relatively "short" game will often last months. Games tend to go faster if you post more often, but I don't want to chase people away by requiring more frequent check ins.
If for some reason during the game you have to withdraw or foresee having troubles meeting the posting requirement, that's ok, but I expect you to tell me. Real life happens, and telling me allows me to come up with a way around the issue rather than leaving me wondering if you intend to come back.
How do you sign up?
Post in this thread stating your interest and tell me a little about your RPG/play by post background. I will help you through character creation and getting started on the forum and knowing your experience level will inform how I help you; if you've played D&D 5e and are just new to Pathfinder, your needs are going to be very different from if you've never played an RPG before.
Don't yet have access to all your HB stuff?
No problem! There are a number of online resources available while you wait:
- Paizo's PRD
- d20 PF SRD (This is the one I tend to use just because it's the first one I found online)
- Archives of Nethys
If you have it though, the Beginner Box's Hero's Handbook is a good place to start reading to get an idea of your options. In a little bit I'll post in the discussion thread with character creation rules.
You guys probably get several of these or maybe you already have reasons for not having these things, but I thought I'd go ahead and add my two cents.
1) Nested spoiler tags
This would allow for situations where you want a spoiler tag for if the players make their knowledge check, but they can only see that they should make that check if they first pass their perception check.
2) A way to retire/un-retire aliases
This could help organize the list of aliases on your main profile and make it clear which are still active. It could also shorten the list of options for who to post as by only listing "active" aliases. Although I have noticed that you put the alias that has posted to a thread before on top, making it easier to select, which I appreciate.
3) NPC aliases
To be honest, I'm not 100% sure how this would work, but maybe putting it out there will spark some ideas. I think it's pretty cool when DMs create separate aliases for important NPCs in a game. But I'm hesitant to try it out myself because I don't want to clutter up my profile with a bunch of NPC aliases who will all probably have less posts than my PC ones. Really what I'd like with them is to be able to recycle the NPC alias after the game is over to become a new NPC when I start a different game. But I understand that this has the potential for abuse (I assume there's a reason why you can change an alias' name so long as it has less than 10 posts but not after). But this might just be me being OCD or something. I just thought I'd put the idea out there in case it sparks a better idea in someone else.
4) Remove aliases from a campaign
I know that you can move them to "previous characters," but it'd be nice if you could actually get rid of aliases that were just people posting from the wrong one accidentally. Of if they didn't show up if the person caught their mistake in time to change who they posted as.
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These are just some things that I think would be cool/useful. Overall, I really like the system you have. I like the ability to have aliases, the text formatting, and the built in dice roller. I think they're all great. Keep up the good work guys!
You were all hired a couple of weeks ago by a merchant named Silas Gribb as caravan guards. The trip has been mostly uneventful. A few would-be bandits scared off. Some potholes forcing a broken wheel to be replaced. Nothing you weren't all more than capable of handling. The weather's been fairly nice as well with a cool breeze brushing away the heat of the summer sun and the occasional light mist of rain. Now you've all arrived at your destination: the small, sleepy town of Belhaim. It's not impressive like the large Taldoran city you left from, but it's charming in it's own quiet way.
Silas stops the lead cart out near a large building: an Inn called The Wise Piper. "Right now you lot, just help me unload these here things and then I'll pay you what I owe."
After a few minutes of unloading, you notice an official looking man approaching with what appear to be a small retinue of guards.
"Ahh, what can I be doing fer you yer sheriff-ship?" Silas addresses the man.
DM:
If you're reading this, you shouldn't be. :-P
DC10 Sense Motive:
As soon as he spotted the sheriff, Silas grew very nervous and tense. He clearly has something to hide from the lawman.
"If I could have a word with you over here, Mr. Gribb." The sheriff's voice is clipped and formal as he motions your employer off to one side. As he does so, a couple of guards peel off from his group and enter the building. The sheriff and Silas talk in hushed whispers for a while.
After a few moments, the guards that entered the inn return, pulling a feebly struggling young man. Upon seeing them, the sheriff waves one hand, motioning for two more guards to escort Silas away. As he goes, you can clearly hear him saying things like, "I'm innocent I tell ye!" and "I want a lawyer!" and "You can't do this!"
The sheriff then approaches all of you. He gives each of you an appraising look before he begins to talk. [b]"I am Sheriff Roberts, head of the law enforcement here in Belhaim. What is your business here, and what is your relationship with one Mr. Silas Gribb?"
When you post, please include a brief description of your character.
Founded by a famous dragonslayer, the small town of Belhaim has become a sleepy rural community just off the beaten path, a settlement where everyone knows everyone and strangers are the talk of the town. But when Belhaim’s peace and quiet is shattered by the sudden collapse of the last standing tower of its founder’s castle, things quickly bloom out of control. Why were there bodies of kobolds amid the rubble? What’s the sinister secret behind the strange sounds of flapping wings in the night? And what’s happened to local wizard Balthus Hunclay, who’s not answering knocks on his door? The collapsed tower had long been an eyesore to the cantankerous old man—could he have had something to do with its destruction? And what of the rumors of strange stirrings in nearby Dragonfen? Has Belhaim’s ancient draconic nemesis returned?
Starting at first level, expect to get to level 6 or 7.
Character Creation:
Stats: 25 point buy, no ability scores below 8 or above 18 before racial modifiers are applied.
Races: All core races and all Featured/Uncommon races with 10 RP (race points) or less are free. By spending 1 point buy, you get up to 2 more RP, so you can spend 1 point to play a Dhampir (11 RP), 2 for a Tiefling or Vishkanya (13 RP), etc. You're still restricted to Featured and Uncommon races though.
Classes: Any Paizo class is ok, including classes from the Advanced Class Playtest (Slayer, Inquisitor, War Priest, etc). There are only early firearms, but you can buy/upgrade them just like any other weapon.
Starting Gold: Average for your class.
Traits: 2 traits. 3 if you take a drawback (but no taking drawbacks that will have no effect on gameplay, like Family Ties).
Alignment: Any non-evil.
Crafting: Crafting is going to be limited to alchemical items, poison, and/or ammo.
Food/Lodging: You don't need to carry food or water unless you plan on using them for something other than sustenance. You also don't need to keep track of how much you spend on food/lodging while in town. If you sleep while in a dungeon, in order to get the restful benefits, you'll need something to sleep on, like a bedroll and blanket.
Ammo: As long as you don't abuse it, assume you have infinite normal arrows, crossbow bolts, sling stones, blow dart darts, and shuriken. If you have the gunsmithing feat, you also have an infinite supply of the normal black power and pellet ammunition.
Encumbrance: Keep track of how much weight you're carrying. Unless you're trying to do something ridiculous, like fit a boat into your backpack, you can ignore size (more applicable later with magic bags). Assume you have as many belt pockets as you want and a single, normal backpack for free.
If you have questions, feel free to ask. Since several of you are new to PBP, at some point in the future I will post again with details/tips as well as some info about where you are/what you're doing at the very beginning of the campaign.
