Begin the metagaming here!
Seriously, I'm not sure how useful this thread will be for the players of our game -- you may prefer to keep it private in gmail discussion conversations.
This space could be used to post OOC theories, questions, or complaints, so that you can keep them all in one convenient place.
But if it gets too clogged (and hard to search through), I'll consider starting a wiki instead.
It is good to be on the adventure with you all again!!
Heh I just assumed he thought he was famous :)
Oh by the way guys, you can create multiple message board aliases by going into 'my account'. It's on the left hand side four boxes down. That's if you want to create separate ones ;)
ah hah! I figured out the multiple profile thing. Too bad you have to use their avatar images... actually i've had days where I looked like that.
To our dear DM - would you prefer we use this space to resolve game stuff like rolls, asking if we can do something, etc? Or should we do that inline with our game posts? Or a combination?
Gah I completely missed the bit at the start of the very first post about doing a perception check - guess THAT's a critical fumble.
I think I'm getting the hang of this, and will be able to put a bit more time into it this weekend. Let's figure out what happened to our ship...
Hey all! Sorry, but somehow I got so caught up in the game that I forgot I'd set up this thread. I'm glad it has found some use.
To answer questions: Orion, I welcome, embrace, and heartily encourage your embellishments to Dolph's culture and family history. The same goes for all of you. If there are details which conflict strongly with canon info from the adventure path, I'll modify the campaign to accommodate you.
Liz asked about die rolls, but by now it should be clear that you can post them directly in the story thread.
And now, a question for all you. How important is initiative? When combat begins (as it will very soon), I will ask yas to roll for initiative, but it's likely to play havoc with our thread. On the other hand, it's unfair to those who can only check the thread once a day to have others posting a dozen times during a combat scenario.
In other words: does anyone have any suggestions about a clean, efficient way to handle combat rounds?
The way I've been handling it in other PBP games is that we establish Initiative order and then, in every round, individual players states their actions as "intentions." Then, the DM places those actions in order into a Round Summary post, making adjustments as necessary to take into account what's happened. You have to trust the DM to do things like resolve Attacks of Opportunity, but there will be a minimum of those in this game, and it's useful to post a couple of options if your actions are at all conditional on other things.
It's also a bit of work for the DM, to be sure. I take anywhere from 30 to 60 minutes to make up a round summary when there are two full teams of characters on the (virtual) board, and you don't get the benefit, if you're late in the initiative order, to adjust your actions according to what's happened, although I kind of like that in a chaos-of-combat kind of way.
It does mean, though, that everyone can post in whatever order they like, and we don't end up waiting on one player who was held up for some (usually quite legitimate) reason. If you don't manage to post that day, then your character simply does nothing for the round. That's what I've been doing and, as long as the DM is willing to put in the time, it works pretty well.
That's just one suggestion. Anybody know of a better method?
Scott, I know I've already asked for a lot with this shield, but I had thought it would be a steel shield given that it's an heirloom and wooden shields don't generally survive more than a few battles. What do you think?
I was just going based on your character sheet -- it says "Small wooden shield" on the equipment list -- but steel is fine (and makes more sense, considering what it's doing at the moment).
That's great news. Thank you! That description of a wooden shield was back when I paying for it with minimum gold, before I found the "heirloom" trait.
Reasons why I take too long on my turns:
1)Thinking I could use a zero level spell, (Mending), to create a rope from the tattered sails of the ship.....after all, aren't they the materials of a broken rope, just in a different form? Bah. It took me a week to talk myself out of that silliness.
Generally speaking, spells do what they do and nothing more. They're not like science or engineering where you look for secondary possibilities. They're very specifically limited effects. It's a bummer for someone whose thinking is permanently stuck on "lateral," I know, but that's the way the system is designed.
Creative uses of mount notwithstanding, I'm willing to accommodate some lateral thinking regarding spells or other abilities. Where I tend to get hard-assed about things is the hard, numerical spell mechanics.
So, for example, mending has a Range of 10 feet...and you're on the cliff, not on board the ship...so the tattered sails are out of your reach. And even if you could "mend" them into something they weren't to start with, they would still be on the ship, not on land, and therefore of little use to the other PCs.
And even if you can argue your way past that, the casting time of mending is 10 minutes. The ship will have sunk in a fraction of that time.
Keep looking for creative solutions, Andy -- it's one of the many things we love about you. The challenge is finding solutions inside the parameters of the rules.
I knew "Time Stop" was good for something! ;P
I spoke too soon! Thanks for clarifying, Scott.
That's one of the things that I love about having Scott as a DM, he's willing to allow creative use of spells and abilities. It certainly makes things far more enjoyable for me!
Also I agree Andy! You're creativity is inspiring :) Never stop!
So now that that's sorted out, could someone post a move...?
I was waiting for Liz, but it's been almost two weeks since she posted, and I don't know the protocol on these sorts of games. I went ahead and posted the Round 2 summary without her.
Talked to Liz yesterday. She's crazy busy at work, apparently.
Liz writes:
I sort of completely forgot about the game. I've been really busy and involved in a lot of other things, with very little time in front of the computer at home (and very busy days at work).
It doesn't seem I'll be able to keep up with it regularly, so it's not fair to hold everyone else back. Feel free to boot my character from the game.
I'd be interested in trying another synchronous play-by-webconference session, but the play-by-post doesn't ping me unless I remember to go and look at it, and it keeps slipping my mind. Sorry about that.
What do the rest of yas want to do? I'm willing to keep running a three-player game, but I'm already second-guessing my choice of adventure -- I thought a very NPC-heavy game would encourage role-playing and world immersion, but sometimes it feels like the NPCs are hogging the spotlight. With one player fewer, the ratio feels even more unbalanced.
So we could:
a) Keep playing with three;
b) Schedule a series of synchronous sessions, as Liz suggests;
c) Start a new PbP adventure for three (either with the same characters or new ones)
d) Start a new PbP adventure and put the word out to find more players (lots of people on the Paizo boards are hankering to join Play-by-Post games, but who knows if any of them will be a match for us?)
Thoughts?
Kill off the other characters...? I'm kind of invested in this shield-obsessed weirdo at this point.
I really enjoyed the synchronous sessions, and it'd be a shame to give up on either the current characters or the current campaign.
I vote for keeping with the current game, and have no complaints about the erratic postings....it's a refreshing drink of chaos. I like it!
Okay, then! Glad to hear you're all having fun. I will keep the posts coming if you do.
As you'll see, Aria is out of the picture...for now...and the number of NPCs may be dropping sharply soon as well.
We'll keep playing by post for the time being, but maybe once every couple of weeks we can schedule a synchronous session, if the timing in the game is right (I'm sure Liz would be willing to help with these, even if she's not posting regularly). The synchronous sessions work especially well for combat, I think.
I may be unveiling another surprise soon, too...stay tuned!
Doing a live game every couple of weeks sounds fun, if we can get the timing right.