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I'm so excited this is now public. For those of you interested in soundscapes, I created an adventure playlist. You can find it here!
A Personal Response: I wanted to let you know that at least two other players at your table have seen and read this. I wouldn't be surprised if the GM has seen this either. Whenever a GM has to be switched late in a special, it's going to be rough going. The other choice was for you to not play at all. When leaving feedback like this, you may want to keep in mind that the people you're ranting about can see this.
If you think you other players were inexperienced, please understand that people play Starfinder in all sorts of ways. I can say that I've got some Starfinder experience under my belt, and my two other friends playing at the table have also played a lot of Starfinder. If you have a specific experience you want from the special events, I honestly recommend that you find a group of players that mesh well with your playstyle so you can have a better experience. Doing this has personally made my experiences during specials much better. In case you're wondering who I am, I played Valen at your table.
The golem fight was definitely brutal on my group as well. My party was a storm druid (had issues with immunity to magic), a monk (rolling very poorly!), a fighter that was focused on trying to trip it (kept crit failing), level 3 Fumbus, and a dedicated healing cleric. The druid died in the combat and the fighter was at dying 2 at the end of the combat. The +16 in high tier meant that most first attacks were crits and second attacks were hits. Likewise, the 2d8 damage dice were so swingy (and rolling max on a crit definitely didn't help). I think the lack of recall knowledge checks and an over-specialization in party roles contributed to the difficulty my party had. If they retreated, I definitely wouldn't have had the golem give chase.
I'm loving the new quests line that's been coming out this year. They're the perfect option for my group, since we play on a weekday evening. Having them be one quest per chronicle and each have their own product description makes them much easier to schedule than the previous quest packages. Please keep this line going!
Eh, I don't need a full GM school experience. I have play-by-post experience previously and plenty of society experience. I was more curious about any toolkits that the community had developed or internal norms I should be aware of as I start prepping. I just finished up the IRL convention I organized and am going to finish up prep on 1-09 Star-Crossed Voyages and then prep my Starfinder quest as an author's table option over in the SFS thread.
I've been off the Paizo forums/out of the PbP world for a while. I've back read a little to get some context, but I wanted to know if someone could help me get my PbP GMing boots back on. Is there an interest in PbP games for PFS 2E? If so, what's the one people are most interested in? I know the "recruitment" tab is best for when I'm actually ready to run. I've GMed a lot of the games in person and have a fairly good understanding of the system!
If you need some basic "what is nonbinary", the Enby Collective (enby being a term for nonbinary people, as a spelled-out version of nb) has a great 101 page. You can find it here.
Hello, Actual Nonbinary VC here, ready to help! Jen hits on most of the big points, but the other thing that you can acknowledge it as appropriate in the scenario. If there's a nonbinary npc, you can say "You see a nonbinary person ahead" just the same as you'd say "you see a man" or "you see a woman". That, honestly, is probably the most normalizing thing that you can do and it's appropriate in those contexts! If someone asks how they know, well, it's a fantasy world! Honestly, imo, the most important thing when presenting enby characters is to avoid misgendering them. People have tendency to want to lump enbies in with either men or women. Please don't do *that*.
Retroactive shopping is fine with me generally, esp since I move things on pretty quickly. It's easy for things to stall in PbPs. Typically, I will bot PCs or move plot on after 24 hours. I have a bot alias (Railroad Maintenance Service) for just those purposes. If you want to leave botting instructions in your profile, that would be helpful! Speaking of which, when I get home tonight, I'm going to move everyone to the actual encounter!
You probably know the general history of Earthfall, especially as it's been memorialized in the Aroden myths. You know absolutely nothing about the Winter Council (and any ooc knowledge about the Winter Council are spoilers, fyi. I'm really mad at the level of spoilers in the Adventure's Guide and generally about. The Winter Council is a very big reveal later on). The Lantern Bearers are a secretive organization that have been focused on keeping the knowledge of the drow as secret as possible. Those of you focused on researching drow have probably run into the Lantern Bearers before - and not on their good side, since they see the drow problem as elf business that should stay elf business. Dvalin has probably had less-than-great experiences with them, to be perfectly honest. Elven exodus is similarly shrouded, and is mostly the field of arcane scholars. This is deep background that doesn't come into play much. Book 4, Endless Night, is the big reveal of how drow society itself functions in Golarion. You essentially know nothing about how drow organize themselves. Those who had been devoted to studying them likely know that they're divided into houses that worship demon lords, but that's about the extent.
Dvalin, that's perfect and exactly what I wanted to see. If you want to drop that in your profile, that would be perfect. I'm going to add that to my notes but be sure to remind me if I forget about it. Excellent. If the new arrivals would like to... bluster in after receiving your new assignment to the "Riddleport Squad". Your initial point of contact was an Ekujae elf by the name of Kwava. He provided you a rough briefing (aka the information I provided in the recruitment thread) and essentially told you that you will be performing critical missions as needed for Eviana, the current leader of Celwynvian.
After consideration and looking over your backgrounds, I've decided to bring all three characters into the game. This puts our total party up to 6, which is doable, and all of you have characters that I'm excited about bringing in. I'm going to post in the thread now; while I'll contact you individually to work out exactly how you've gotten involved, you've been assigned to the party's current squad in the battle for Celwynvian.
You shouldn't blame yourself. It's called survivor's guilt for a reason... you narrowly dodged a event that could have killed you by a perfectly sane and reasonable happenstance. You have nothing to feel bad about.It's been a heck of a weekend here in VA x.x Spoiler:
Oh, no. I feel like I should've been there and that I didn't show up when I needed to have shown up. I should've been there. Also! Gen Con is this week! I'm very stressed out about not being ready!
Peet - Congrats on the successful recruitment. I'll be happy to see Yazan!
All of these could work. While the Crying Leaf does tend to be mostly full elves, a mercenary with particular skills could be of high demand. Which one of these do you like the best?
I'm headed out to Gen Con next week. Ideally, I'd like to do onboarding after I get back (as my posting becomes non-existence). Let's make the application deadline August 21st. Again, my priorities (in order) for the two player slots are: 1) Consistent record of posting with pbps
Yes, Second Darkness as an AP is all about drow. There may be: *Battles vs drow
Basically be prepared for a long, gnarly conflict of party vs drow. Elves are against the drow and you're working with them. That's what this game is, for truth in advertising. You will not be returning to Riddleport unless the party deliberately decides to go off the beaten path and do so.
I've found with starting HRT that sticking to a keto diet has been very very useful (since my appetite is like 10x worse than it was - though I am adding testosterone, so I'm going through the opposite process). I've also heard of trans women who find it useful to help manage weight (though you have to be careful not to overdo potassium if you're spiro, bc it's a potassium sparing diuretic). Keto is kind of a pain to keep to, but it's really up to you. Um, in LGBT gaming stuff, I just played Night in the Woods and it was very, very good. It was cool to have a protag who expressed interest in both men and women??? Like that was great! Anyway, it was also a Very Weird games but I love Very Weird games. What Remains of Edith Finch is next on my to-play list.
We are currently still on the surface. For a quick synopsis: Second Darkness begins with the players working in Riddleport at a gambling hall called the Gold Goblin. They worked for a man named Saul Vancaskerkin, a sketchy fellow with one hand who was seeking to rebuild his fortune after being harshly punished for killing his wife and engaging in some light insurance fraud. Turns out, Saul had been working with a drow named Depora in order to rebuild his good fortune (which also seemed to involve funneling money to that drow as well). Notes found in her chambers after the party knocked her out indicated that she was part of a larger conspiracy aimed at bringing down most of the surface world. After killing Depora, a mysterious blot in the sky turned out to be a meteor being pulled from the sky. Luckily, this meteor turned out to be a very small one that only caused a tsunami (which, of course, heavily damaged Riddleport). The meteor landed on a small island south of Riddleport called the Devil's Elbow. The party went there to search for skymetals and to follow up on leads from Depora that there was drow presence on the island. On the island, they found skymetal AND a rival crime lord named Clegg Zincher. Clegg Zincher had been one of Saul's chief antagonists (and was responsible in part for Saul's disgrace). Turns out, Saul had been ensorcelled by a drow on the island. This drow was Shindiira, a former associate and rival of Depora. Shindiira's journals, found after her death, indicated that she had been romantic rivals with a drow named Nolveniss. Nolveniss is the leader of the forces in Celwynvian, an ancient elven city. The journals included a large amount of information about a conflict within the city, which is an ancient Elven stronghold that was recently abandoned for unknown reasons. This information included battle plans and notes about how the meteor that was torn from the sky in Riddleport was only a test for a greater plot. The journal also indicates that there's an object called the "Armageddon Echo" located in Celwynvian. The party's Lantern Bearer contact, Kwava, got into contact after hearing of the battle plans found. The party was whisked away to join the front line of forces battling in Celwynvian. Currently, the party is elbows deep in that fight and you would be jumping right into that. Characters that are elves (particularly Lantern Bearers) would make particularly good fits for joining the plot at this point. However, I'm willing to work with you on fitting in a character option at this point. TL;DR: Currently on the surface world, engaged in a mass battle v drow in ancient elven ruins
The Player Character can also be trans! I'm just a bit sad that there's not dialog option where you try to hint that you're also trans. The whole "oh, man, I bet that person is trans, let's see if we share this experience" thing. To be fair, that could be a game in and of itself: sending out queer signals and seeing if they signal back.
Dangerous Ruins - Round 1/2 Gillian, Aishe, Tamiro
Aishe's first and final arrows hit the creature before it's able to weave away from it. The second arrow hits the creature but bounces off its chitin. The creature crawls around the walls of the ruins. It glares, and a line of electricity spews forth from its mouth. It blasts through Aishe and Nel, leaving behind static and dry air
Anyway, has it been cleared up how to divvy up the winning reward? or is the GP earned in the scenario what the prize is split between the party? It's already taken into account.
This is how I did it. I made notes about each phase. It looked a little like this: Day 1 - Phase 1
I then noted advantages, failures (and their consequences), etc. I drew out the map and moved the party mini as they progressed. I also included description of time passing (ie, moving from afternoon to evening). The survival checks would happen when those things happen in the narrative. Someone says they're getting food? Roll for the scavenge. Day 2 and no one has water? Well, that's time for that check.
This is a very frustrating conversation to watch unfold. Why? Because it's dumb and seeks to "solve" a problem that doesn't exist. It's completely devoid of any previous work done by people looking for alternative pronouns. I'm a nonbinary person who has used all sorts of pronouns over the years, and I've found that there's a cycle. 1) I use a distinct pronoun like xe or ne, and people say that they can't learn it because it's too weird.
Both parts of this cycle are rooted in the idea that nonbinary genders and pronoun usage is too difficult. I'm also constantly told to be patient regarding people learning new pronouns, and that seriously assumes that I'm not patient already. I'm terrified of telling people about my pronouns, because people react really, really badly. I've had people 1) outright respond with overt transphobia, 2) say "well, you should be called 'it' then", and 3) roll their eyes and then continue to use the pronouns they assigned to me. Being a jerk about pronouns in general reinforces transphobia, particularly in that it continues to define nonbinary genders as something "too hard" for people to accept. Nonbinary people have been working hard on this lil chestnut for a while. Maybe it's not an issue with the language itself, but instead attitudes around nonbinary people? The whole "jump through hoops to create a PERFECT option" reads more as "you must be exactly the right type of nonbinary person to be valid".
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