GM Lantern's page

About GM Lantern

Welcome to my games. I hope that we can tell some awesome and impressive stories together.

I am a Human male and prefer male pronouns. I am also Autistic - to the point of being only semi-verbal. I have given up playing live TTRPG games over the table in preference for the text-only format of Play-by-Post. Here I have the home-turf advantage.

Participation Expectations: what staying active in the game means.

I generally try to keep the game moving on a 24 hour schedule. If you are checking in and participating once per day, then you are active and the scenes won't move on before you have the option to say or do something.

Combat also runs on a 24 hour schedule. I also use block initiative. Player characters and enemy characters will be grouped together and the order of taking your turn inside that group is up to you.

Null posting. If you have nothing to say in a particular scene, please post that. It greatly speeds up gameplay. If you don't post at all, it is not safe for me to assume that the reason is because you have read the current content and have decided not to interact with it. The safe assumption is that you haven't read the current content, and that I need to wait for you to do so. Yes, null posting feels a bit strange. At least at first. Try to do it anyway.

Becoming inactive. It happens - real life is more important than games. I'm not strict on a perfect 24 hour schedule, but if it has been more than a day and a half, then you will likely be considered inactive - at least temporarily.

If you become inactive while not in combat, your character will be assumed to be silently going along with the decisions and actions of the rest of the group.

If you become inactive in combat, you may be botted. Please have some botting instructions of what you prefer your character to do if you aren't there to guide their actions yourself. I prefer to have one of the other players bot your character, but I may also do it myself - if you have a preference, put it in your botting instructions.

Player Guidance: the game mechanics of you as a player.

Spoilers. As a player, you can read anything that I put in spoilers. The spoiler tag is to clearly indicate which information your characters do and don't know. Yes, there will be some unconscious metagaming as a result. I consider that to be the compensation for not being able to read my facial expressions and other body language.

Secret checks. Similar to spoilers, I don't really enjoy secret checks. I trust the players to play their successes and failures. So if there is something that you wan to do and you know what the DC is (or can guess that you succeeded/failed based on the roll result) go ahead and roll it and play it - secret check or not.

Chronomancy. Things don't need to be posted in chronological order all the time. Combat does. For other things, it is fine to react and interact with things even if the conversation, or even the scene, has moved on. Just include a short quote or other indication of what you are reacting to so that the rest of us can mentally place where the new content belongs in the timeline.

Doors. I tend to think of everything encountered in the game in terms of a dungeon crawl. A dungeon has rooms, corridors, and doors. Rooms are where something is happening. Corridors are the connection between the rooms. And Doors are what keeps the rooms separated. Doors end up being the most important for players to be aware of. A door may or may not have a check required in order to open it. But in any case, choosing to open and go through a door that is available is the way that the plot progresses.

Appoint a door kicker - one person who is authorized to make decisions for the group regarding which door to go through next ... or whatever equivalent there is for the current scene. They, of course, should do so with the plans of the entire party in mind. It doesn't have to be the same character for every scenario or circumstance. Or even be a permanent position.

I don't like having the profile header including things that change frequently. So, for example put your AC, Saves, and maximum HP in there, but not your current HP, status effects, items in hand, or spell slot usage.

Temporary stats should instead be tracked inline in the gameplay, or in a VTT that we are using. It is fine to only repost/update in the gameplay posts when the stat actually changes.

GM style guidance: what you can expect from me

Spoilers. As a player, you can read anything that I put in spoilers. The spoiler tag is to clearly indicate which information your characters do and don't know. Yes, there will be some unconscious metagaming as a result. I consider that to be the compensation for not being able to read my facial expressions and other body language.

Secret checks. Similar to spoilers, I don't really enjoy secret checks. I trust the players to play their successes and failures. So if there is something that you wan to do and you know what the DC is (or can guess that you succeeded/failed based on the roll result) go ahead and roll it and play it - secret check or not.

Chronography. Chronography is the character's playground - a block of game time where the players know what to expect and can play the scene out.

Roll for flavor. A roll for flavor is a check that has no defined consequences. The player freely chooses how to interpret the roll result for their character. A roll for flavor cannot be used to affect a different character (including NPCs) without the permission of that character's player. Any roll that is not asked for by the GM and/or is not required as part of an action that you are using will be considered a roll for flavor. I also reserve the right to downgrade a check required by the game rules to a roll for flavor - as is my perogative as a GM.

I prefer that the players are confident in their decisions. I will do my best to adapt a scene or encounter to any reasonable plan so that it is fun, challenging, possible to succeed at, and will have some sort of fail-forward option if things go badly. Any unreasonable plan that the players come up with will be explicitly warned against.

Play-by-Post adaptations: Specific things to make PBP go smoother - especially combat

Initiative. Initiative is grouped into blocks. You can post your actions at any point during your block. Effects that end at the start or end of your turn and affect other characters will end at the start or end of the block (most commonly relevant for sustained spells). Things that only affect you - like persistent damage - will happen as part of your turn as normal. Things that you start during your turn will take effect mid-block by default. If you specify wanting to take your actions before or after another character in the same block, I will try to accomodate that. But I can't guarantee that it will always work.

Reactions. If your character has a reaction that they would want to use, kindly mention that at the end of your combat posts. Especially if you have multiple of them, or if you have conditions on when you would want to use it or not or preferences on which enemy or ally it is used on. It cuts down on the amount of retcon that is needed for the enemy's turns.

My Boundaries:

Don't flirt with my NPCs. If you want to flirt with the other player characters, you can do so after getting explicit permission from their player - and keep it PG. Take anything more than PG off-screen.

I don't role-play deities. Religion exists, as do religiously affiliated characters - I have no problems with either of those. I will role-play religion leaders as well as high-ranking servants of deities who will speak to the player characters if necessary.

Your Boundaries:

If you have any boundaries, let us know in the discussion. Or message me privately about it if you are uncomfortable announcing it yourself.