GM_Sarc's page

Thank you but my main annoyance was that I paid a significant amount for something that isn't of use to me anymore (we started my next campaign and rotate gms so it may be years before I need another). I am sure FGG will refund and that will be the end of it. I do hope it's an awesome product once it arrives for everyone.

You are right. Way too much annoyance over an rpg product. I am going to request a refund from FGG instead of my bank and just be done with this one.

Good luck to everyone waiting it out.

And they release ANOTHER Kickstarter. That will probably be fulfilled before the Blight.

I just talked to my bank about the delay and they said given that it is more than double the expected time to fulfill the Kickstarter they would allow me to back charge it if I want. Still debating if I want to pull the plug on this one.

Just watched the interview with FGG that they did recently. Sounds like we are still a LONG ways from seeing the main book. They wouldn't give a time frame, Couldn't give any idea of page count etc... Given how long it takes to layout / print / ship a book of that size I have a feeling there is very little chance we see it in Q2

Unfortunately it doesnt sound like the two new projects are really at the beginning phase. From what has been said in the other thread about the new books it would seem they have already been fully written and will immediately be in the editing / layout phase when the kickstarter is done. Unfortunately I think thats basically the exact same phase as the blight...

Given their poor performance on the Blight my confidence in FGG's ability to put out a kickstarter is pretty low. Not willing to back another kickstarter that might take 4 times as long as they say to actually be released.

And FGG releases another Kickstarter before they can even give us a timeline for release on this one.

Even if the new release only takes away a small amount of resources from the blight its pretty ridiculous.

The way FGG has handled this is definitely souring me on any further support of their company.

A high level estimate can vary by +/- 50%, meaning it can end up being up to 50% longer than originally believed (it could also be shorter but that rarely, if ever happens).

This one is already at the 50% over due estimate (or just about at it) and doesn't show any sign of being done anytime soon. Given how long it takes just to print and distribute I wouldn't be surprised to see this end up around 100% time overrun. For a book that was ALREADY written according to their campaign that's a pretty massive delay.

I am a little surprised we haven't seen anything distributed since Bloody Jack. The last update made it sound like the crucible was imminent.

Hoping we get some more pieces and that there is some significant progress before the holidays!

I just hope they dont release any of these pending kickstarters until The Blight is completely fulfilled.

I realized I was unclear on this. What I meant was that I hope they dont launch any new kickstarter campaigns until the current ones are fulfilled.

Normally I wouldnt have a problem with a company keeping a full development and release pipeline but it appeared from comments on the Bards Gate kickstarter that product development for FGG is largely zero sum. Any time spent by layout, editing, quality control on a new kickstarter would necessarily mean resources taken off of the Blight.

I just hope they dont release any of these pending kickstarters until The Blight is completely fulfilled.

When I back a kickstarter from a new company I fully expect it to be late and look at it as patronage.

When I back a kickstarter from an established company like FGG with a history of doing huge books I expect it to be more like a pre-order. I still am un-surprised when it is a little late but given their experience I did expect them to be able to fairly reasonably ball park a delivery date (plus or minus a couple months).

It wouldnt be a big deal if it was a novel or a single player game but I dont buy RPG books that I dont intend to use pretty imminently and I had planned to use the Blight for my next campaign in January (which gave them a full extra 6 months beyond their estimated release date to complete the project). The fact that they are not going to hit that window means I wont be using the blight for that campaign and I now have invested close to $200 in products that probably wont get used for several years... if ever.

Its obviously a risk you take when backing a kickstarter but I expected it to be a much smaller risk with a reputable company. Given the way that I use RPG products it means I probably cant count on FGG kickstarted projects being completed when I would use them and probably shouldnt back their projects anymore but should rather just wait and buy them from their store when they are relevant.

I am a little surprised that as a company that survives off its Kickstarters, FGG isnt a little more proactive with communication to its backers. So far we have only gotten updates when the chorus of demands has gotten pretty loud.

Well its November! Hoping we hear something soon. Seems like if we are actually going to see this by the end of the year there would have to be some pretty concrete info very shortly. Realistically there are about 6 productive weeks left in 2016! Seems like if we dont hear about some real progress on the main book (on which we haven't really heard anything concrete) very soon, then its going to be early next year at best for the PDF and quite a bit later for the print.

Just a thought, have any of you given any thought to what writing and doing the editing and layout on a 900+ page book would entail? I hadn't. I've read the updates from Bill and Greg about how the Bard's Gate book had to be finished first because of a printing contract, and then the additional material from the stretch goals had to be written. I believe usually FGG has their books written or nearly written before they start a KS. But I am unsure if that was the case with The Blight. Add in the medical emergency with Chuck the Layout Guru and that by itself would put a crimp in anyone's plans.

I have backed several FGG KS and have never been disappointed. I am not an employee, just a fanboy (maybe I should say Fanman or just a fan). I hope to hear some good news soon. But whether I do or not is immaterial. I will wait as long as it takes.

Just my 2 cp.

I have not given it any thought.. but then I am not a publishing professional and I am not expected to do so. FGG is and they are aware of what goes into it. I am a professional in another field and sometimes I miss deadlines. Its usually for a good reason and as a result I can understand how it happens. But when it happens I still screwed up and have to figure out how to fix it with a client breathing down my neck. Its not the end of the world that this project is way behind schedule but FGG definitely screwed it up a bit on this one and I am sure they understand why people are impatient.

I will continue to support FGG, their products are great, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't give feedback when they drop the ball.

I dont really have any problem with them running a new project as long as it doesnt delay the blight. That said it probably would have been better received had they gotten the promised blight update out to us BEFORE they send an email to all the blight funders asking them to support yet another kickstarter.

I am not worried about getting it eventually and it being a high quality book, but as time goes by without seeming to pass any meaningful milestones I do start to worry about just HOW far behind schedule the project might be.

I had planned on using this for my next campaign starting in January. I figured 6 month was enough cushion to feel fairly confident about this being available and having time to give it a read through. Now I am starting to think I may need to scrap that idea and go with something else.

Hoping we get an update soonish. Its been a couple months since the last substantive one and you would think the picture would be a little clearer now.

We havent really heard much at all about where the main book sits and when it might come out but I figure even if they were to say today that its basically done and just needs final review before going to the printer we probably wouldnt have it in hand until early next year at best.

I guess I should also clarify that I wasnt envisioning this as a solo campaign. We can find a few more players that want to participate in one or both campaigns but its easy enough to find players so I thought I would figure out GMs first.

I am interested in exchanging online pathfinder campaigns with another GM. Its hard to find a campaign as a player, the ratio of player to GM seems to be about 20:1 and while I thoroughly enjoy GMing I would like the chance to play as well.

My basic idea is I will GM a campaign for your character, you will GM a campaign for my character. My initial thought is maybe a weekly game with campaigns alternating week by week.

For my part I will probably choose an existing adventure path as my time to prep a full campaign probably isnt sufficient. I am willing to mutually discuss which adventure path to GM. I am an experienced GM with a couple decades of campaigns in different systems and genres.

I am hoping to find someone who wants to do live play online - roll20, fantasy grounds, d20pro, etc. - I will GM my campaign on roll 20 as its what I know best.

Anyone interested in playing in my campaign and GMing for me in the other campaign?

I wouldnt be worried at a delay without the bards gate kickstarter. Maybe a little annoyed at the apparent scale of the delay but not worried.

Deciding to start another kickstarter that, given the size of the team, is inevitably going to cause more delays to an already significantly delayed kickstarter, for which people have already pledged 100k+ dollars, is a strange decision.

Now I suspect that they just decided to maintain their internal schedule and had planned to launch a second kickstarter in Q2 of 2016 so they did so.

Unfortunately I have seen too many kickstarters where unforseen expenses / addon costs / etc lead to cash flow problems which prompt a quick second kickstarter to be totally comfortable with the situation.

In all likelihood they are plugging along and there isnt any fundamental problem, but regardless the optics on the decision to move forward with the bards gate kickstarter arent good, and the lack of any delivery date for blight doesnt help reassure.

I just saw the updates on the Bards Gate page. Starting to worry a little about the this project.

Why is a project that was kickstarted about the time that this one was supposed to be DELIVERED already in layout while all signs point to this one not even being close? More importantly why are staff being pulled off the blight to be put onto a project that was started so much later?

In the bards gate thread a FGG rep stated that Bards Gate will be released before the Blight and he is hopeful bards gate will be released by the end of the year. Does this mean the blight is delayed at least until after the end of the year? I understand why that one is taking a little longer to deliver (it did have a lot of addons) but 6+ months late at best?

Can we please get some real concrete info on where the project stands and when it will be delivered?

My only observation to you would be that it looks like many of the social skills are going untrained. At the moment Devans base charisma is making up for it but you may want someone to invest in bluff, sense motive, disguise, intimidate etc.

Okay, while I am doing a little adjusting to the campaign to account for a moderately unusual group I am going to give everyone a chance to get started feeling out their characters. The point of this is really to give you guys a chance to begin interacting so while I will post and help move things along if needed I am hopeful you guys can mostly be the drivers for a day or two. Other than the ship captain feel free to invent crew members or other surviving soldiers for your characters to interact with

Exhaustion. Hunger. Tension.

Your eyes snap open and you see the billows of a cold mist beginning to flow up over the bow of the ship cloaking the fore cabin entirely from sight.

its ok with me, that said you have two arcane int based casters in the group already and no one with a high charisma or social skills. Up to you what you think will be more valuable

dot

Dot

Okay I had intended to take 4 characters but with the submissions I was having a hard time making a well rounded group with that so its going to be 5 characters. Thank you everyone who submitted a character.

My selections are:

Ravarel Leafblown
Ovarik Glandaur
Aelwyn
Glamdout Earthhew
Devan Cye

I am going to make a couple short tweaks to first few regions / encounters etc to balance for the party a bit and will look to have the first campaign post up towards the middle of the week.

In the meantime I will set up an intros / RP thread with a brief starting prompt for everyone to begin to get to know each other.

Please finalize your characters and have a completed alias put together. If you have any questions let me know!

Onward!

Finishing up reading characters now. Lost some time with the website being down part of yesterday. I should have a final list posted this afternoon.

Had a couple people indicate that they were planning on submitting but I wasnt able to answer their questions in time so I am going to leave this open until Friday to give those people a chance. I will review over the weekend and let everyone know on Sunday!

I thought Maldor was done, too. My last post had his personality and background, here's an update based on your questions:

1) Conflict: Brock is a dedicated soldier who is loyal to his king and country, but especially to his fellow soldiers.
2) Challenges: He is self-confidant, which sometimes comes off as cocky or bull-headed. If he thinks he is right it is very hard to convince him otherwise.
3) Attachments: Loyalty and service to his comrades. He values selfless actions over selfish motivations. But he wants to be accepted and dislikes conflict within his unit, often attempting to help solve other people's problems.
4) Passion: Primary motivation is service to others (vice selfish ambitions)

Ah sorry I looked at your alias and didnt go through each post. I have him added to the spreadsheet

Uh, you left off Devan Cye

Ah thanks I added you to my list.

Okay so here is what I have as completed characters so far:

Scouts / Skirmisher:
Caruth - Ranger
Jing - Hunter
Amboy Yalcot - Rogue

Arcane:
Aelwyn - Wizard

Divine:
Ovarik Glandaur

Obviously still lots of space left to apply!

I will say that so far the crunch on submitted characters has been solid and the backgrounds have done a decent job of telling me where you are coming from but I would like to see a bit more about WHO your characters are. Maybe consider it personality.

Generally I think these 4 questions are a good start to really getting to who your character is and what makes them tic

1) Conflict (who or what does your character fight or fight for?)
2) Challenges (what limits your character?)
3) Attachments (Who or what does your character value, why?)
4) Passion (what drives your character?)

There is a pretty solid guide to RPG personalities and backgrounds here http://www.ashami.com/rpg/ that I think can really help you think through who you are. It goes in more depth than I need you to post by far but its a solid resource.

Devan would have explicitly gone out and tried to learn the language that natives near where the expedition was going to spoke. Before the expedition sailed. Would that have been impossible?

Edit: No problem at all if this couldn't happen. But it seemed a special enough case that I'd at least ask. Character background is that he picks up EVERYTHING insanely quickly (Fast Learner combined with IQ 16).

It would be totally possible to know the languages where the expedition intended to go. Where you end up when game play starts is way off the expected path and a largely unknown land. No way you could have done that kind of preparation for somewhere you never expected to go (and maybe didnt know existed)

A couple people asked about languages. Assume there are all the usual languages and for human the only relevant dialect you would start with is Common. You might encounter humans you cant speak to but that wont matter for selecting starting languages.

GM_Sarc wrote:

Rynjin wrote:

Interested, this sounds cool. I'd probably want to build some kind of scout character, but whether that means Ranger, Slayer, Alchemist, Inquisitor, etc. is up in the air.

To get requests for 3PP material out of the way, how do you feel about Dreamscarred Press' Psionics and Path of War material?

Specifically, I would consider playing either a Psychic Warrior or a Stalker were those things available.

I am afraid I dont have either of those 3pp sources so I dont have a way to review them

Not a problem, the SRD has them right there in the hyperlinks, they go straight to the material its free.

Ah, totally missed the hyper links. I will look them over and get back to you in the next day or so.

Interested, this sounds cool. I'd probably want to build some kind of scout character, but whether that means Ranger, Slayer, Alchemist, Inquisitor, etc. is up in the air.

To get requests for 3PP material out of the way, how do you feel about Dreamscarred Press' Psionics and Path of War material?

Specifically, I would consider playing either a Psychic Warrior or a Stalker were those things available.

I am afraid I dont have either of those 3pp sources so I dont have a way to review them

How long do you expect this to go? I'd hate to build a character that only really comes together at level 9 or 10 if there isn't at least the hope of getting there.

Realized I didnt address this before. The previous time I played through this campaign it went until level 17. I dont expect the two campaigns to line up exactly and I realize that level 17 is eons in pbp time but thats about the best guideline I can provide.

GM_Sarc, in your homebrew world, does the army draft soldiers, or is it a voluntary army? I'm working on an arcane spellcaster concept.

It can really be either. Aristocracy and Citizens often send one or more of their children to exclusive academies at a young age where they are trained to be officers. Some young craftsmen choose to enlist as support with the army to get a start on their profession and build their skills. The lower classes and those from outlying areas are frequently pressed into service when major mobilizations occur.

Are we allowed to submit more than one character? Probably not but I thought that I'd check :-)

If you have a second character that you just love I am okay with that. lets not go too crazy though.

Dotting for interest.... Am considering a Ranger (Guide, Trapper) / Gunslinger (Musket Master) along the lines of an American frontiersman or Mountain Man.... Would that fit?

It could definitely work but be prepared to craft your own guns and hunt down the ingredients you need.

Could fit well though

Two catfolk is pretty obviously going to be at least one too many :-(.

I won't absolutely rule out two odd races. That said all things equal a standard race is probably more likely to be selected than a second uncommon race.

Dotting, i'm thinking an older gnome battlefield commander (master summoner).

you stated standard WBL and automatic pogression, but that system halves WBL; so we start with the 'ABP WBL' of 500 or the 'regular' 1000?

also, are the limits on ability scores including age modifiers (if any)?

Start with 1000 at 2nd level but be aware that it will generally be half from that point going forward.

I hadnt considered age modifiers to ability scores. With age modifiers I would let you go as low as 7 and as high as 19 after age and race modifiers.

Well not custom, third party, but that's fine nvm. I just have her sitting here after her game died. I'm not sure I could get you her race information anymore since a purge of my PMs which had the link to it.

Yah I would at least have to see the race. Far as I can tell her stats are about a 35 point buy so there must be some significant ability bonuses in addition to natural attacks, venom, and dark vision

I introduce thee to Sahisysha, race is built for someone else's setting to be published. She's a third party class whose special rules are fairly simplistic, at the beginning of the day I roll to find what plants I can find then cross reference what they can do.

Custom race and custom class is probably more custom material than I want to deal with. Third party race I could be ok with if you would send me a copy of it. I think you would have to choose a paizo class though.

How do you feel about an Antipaladin being Lawful Evil? It's not a requirement for my character, but it feels like it might be the best fit.

I am not necessarily opposed to lawful evil. Just make sure you give me some sense of what that means to you in your character / background

GM_Sarc, what's your GM experience like? What's your pbp experience like?

Been gm'ing since AD&D 2nd edition. Couple dozen campaigns including 3 online campaigns (2 of which are going on 2+ years), 1 pbp campaign that ran about 18 months. Played In three pbp campaigns one of which has been running almost 4 years.

I had a couple people inquire about Gunslingers as a class. I am not opposed to allowing a gunslinger but they will have limited access to equipment other than the weapons they bring with them or are able to craft themselves.

I dont have any problem with CatFolk. Just explain how a catfolk made their way into a military organization (or at least onto a ship with military people)

Awesome idea!

Since skills will be of major importance, will you allow for the picked characters to change some of their skills before the game (so the party has the most number of skills possible)?

Or will you be picking characters that compliment each other?

I am willing to let people adjust skills after selection before we get started within reason.