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Yeah I felt like since I was the last to post it made sense that Irina was, in effect, late and running around frustrated for being late and getting there and everyone is having this sort of awkward social dialogue and this woman is crying. A light bulb went off that if Irina is really a sort of impatient creature inside then the scene might drive her to respond fairly brashly. Most of my previous characters kind have themselves put together fairly well (I play a lot of clerics) so to be more a martial/hands on type with a temper is a fun lens to think through.
Anca's my first lawful character, so running her is a bit of a challenge. But that's why I created her.
I'm here, I ended up sleeping for about 24 hours -right- after I posted last so...yeah, failure on my part. I'll be posting today after my company gets done using the computer. :)
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Anca's my first lawful character, so running her is a bit of a challenge. But that's why I created her.
I enjoy Lawful Neutral, my last couple of attempts to play it died in fiery game collapse but the idea really resonates and one of these days I'll finally get to do it ;-)
I once played a Lawful Evil character and it was AWESOME. A Dreadmaster of Bane in Forgotten Realms. That was one of the best times of my player "career" but that game ended fairly quickly.
I have yet to get a Lawful Good idea that really grips me but some of the Golarion gods inspire me to fiddle with Paladins. I might give that a shot here on PbP one day if it fits a campaign that is recruiting.
I've only played evil character's twice. The Chaotic Evil Character was great, but I think that was because he was nuts, not necessarily because he was evil.
Funny story about that character, I wanted to make a paladin, the DM told me it was an evil campaign, so I made a hex blade instead. When I went to the session, everyone had good characters, and there was a frigg'n paladin to boot. I was like, wtf?
For the most part, evil player characters has not been my thing. From my experience, evil campaigns seem to self destruct rather quickly, but that could just be my group.
Computer got horrifically hijacked, but I have it back now, so I'm now working on the post.
Good news, I got my hard copy of Carrion Crown Haunting of Harrowstone in the mail today, so I won't have to rely on having -my- computer to do posts. That means I can still post when I'm at my friend's house. :D
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I see that "Villian's by Necessity" is out of print but I will keep an eye out for it, it looks like a fun read.
I have had evil characters in a couple of my games, one of which led to one of the most awesome betrayals and funniest table moments of my life:
Upon waking the dragon asks "Who has awoken me from my slumber?" and as I looked out at my players to see who would respond, my friend who was playing a "wizard" that was really a necromancer (and had been stealing samples of the parties blood for a pact with a devil) just sort of blinked at me and said "My queen, I have brought you sacrifices!. It was one of those great moments where I started cracking up, most of my players were mortified and started yelling at the necromancer and he was just sort of shrugging at them saying that he wanted to live through the encounter. Luckily other events gave them a chance to make a run for it but it was pretty damn funny.
I have had the same experience as you jlord those sorts of games seem to implode under the pressure of justifying why people who are evil and sort of untrustworthy would agree to share the limelight in a party. I think the only reason my dreadmaster worked was that all of the other players ended up making a posse to my head cleric so I effectively could order them around.
Gaaah. Evil campaigns. In my RL party, we had an extremely competitive ADHD dude who just completely ruined all the fun in being evil by muscling in on your evil plans when he thought that they weren't good enough as they were.
I've never been in a good evil campaign. I suppose my bias against the alignment as a player has stemmed from that. Plus, I may not play heroic characters all the time, but I don't like to think of them as being deliberately EVIL because that's just abhorrent to me.
If you want to read it, Devon, I know Travis has a copy. I borrowed his last year. To me it read very much as a writeup of someone's D&D campaign, and worked from the premise that Good and Evil are opposing factions you sign up with and not descriptions of your personality. The "evil" weren't very nasty and the "good" weren't very nice. Not a premise without merit, but it was dealing with questions of moral metaphysics I'd worked through long ago.
My own evil character story is a LE warlock I played in a decently long campaign. As he put it he killed things and hurt people for money, but that's government work for you. Basically he'd decided to channel his natural desire to laugh madly while blasting people into cinders in a socially positive way by focusing attention on criminals, outlaws, and other scum with a price on their head. I had fun being the one in the party who always suggested the simple solution, ie kill things until the problem goes away, and letting the rest of them try to work out a better way.
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It's not a complicated book by any means but it is a fun read. I think of it like a popcorn film rather than a serious movie. Rather than a write up of a D&D campaign it's more a writeup of what happens to the minor villains when a D&D campaign has run it's course and the party wins.
My friends told me they wanted to play an evil campaign, and when I agreed and told them to make up characters they arrived with...neutral characters. Every one of them. Said they just couldn't think of how to be evil, but they wanted to play monsters and bad guys. When they got bored with the campaign I offed them with a green dragon. To this day the gnoll had the funniest death, with the dragon attempting to throw it into the ground, and his player looking at me triumphantly and proclaiming, "I have a ring of feather fall." The party laughs, I laugh, the dragon laughs, and then the dragon grabs him again, rips off both arms, and lawn darts the gnoll.
Good times.
Had the post half written before life happened and I got pulled away from my house. I'm going to either try to get back home soon, or rewrite the stuff on this computer.
The way I see evil is it's less 'mwahahaa I revel in my badness' evil, and more ah...being selfish enough that you don't care how much you hurt others to get what you want. Looking at it from that perspective, I'm completely okay allowing LE or even NE characters into my games, as long as they understand my view of it, can work in a party, ect. I'm reluctant to allow CE though, just because of how most other people view it. I have a character in the CoT game that I'm running that has cleared a 'dip' into evil with me for story purposes. I think stuff like that is great. My current character in DM Barcas' game could very well become evil if events happened a certain way. I won't let that happen, since I don't want to disrupt the party in that way, but I could see it happening with her.
Hmmm... we shall just have to see how Anca reacts to the challenges, and her fellow party members, then.
hehehe.
You can be sure of that. How she develops will depend on party interaction. If she's encouraged to be good, she'll probably end up swinging that way, if she feels that she has to hide her nature from them and is derided for her choices, she'll likely retreat into what is safe and comfortable, basically, resorting to the evil that she knows.
I like to think that I can play an evil character intelligently, and Anca is intelligent. I intentionally wrote her so she could go either way, but prefer not to be evil in a party of good folk. But we shall see.
I'm here. Awake, still, as well.
I just don't know what to do.
In my RotRL campaign when we stalled out for a bit, I ran an alternate scenario with someone else who was interested, but we were at a festival so it wasn't hard to just insert an NPC or two for him to interact with.
And it didn't make all that much of a difference.
But knowing nothing about Ustalav, I can't really do that here. Unless you wanna do like a bizzaro moment where we can all introduce our characters in a different setting?
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I'm here. Awake, still, as well.
I just don't know what to do.
In my RotRL campaign when we stalled out for a bit, I ran an alternate scenario with someone else who was interested, but we were at a festival so it wasn't hard to just insert an NPC or two for him to interact with.
And it didn't make all that much of a difference.
But knowing nothing about Ustalav, I can't really do that here. Unless you wanna do like a bizzaro moment where we can all introduce our characters in a different setting?
Mhhmm given the context of our first meeting it would seem more than bizzaro. Ah well...I just want to somehow keep the momentum up in this game somehow to keep it "hovering" better if that makes sense...
Hmmm. Character building exercises?
Was thinking something like - if your character was an animal what animal would she be?
I imagine Anca would be a shark. Both have only one expression, and soulless eyes. Take either out of their home element, they're completely harmless.
Although I guess I should have spoilered that. Haha.
What animal is Uriah, that's an interesting one. Let me think on it. I need something laid back with a nasty kick. Like a kangaroo.
I am SO sorry. I have excuses, but they only last until Sunday, and are kind of bad. Basically they kicked me off the computer, and then I couldn't get a ride home until late Sunday night. AFTER THAT I was just...really ashamed and panicked that I hadn't posted yet, so I didn't get -any- thing roleplay related done due to me...being so panicked that I didn't even want to look at the ooc threads. Which just made me more ashamed...you see the cycle.
I have my post half written, and I'm going to do my best to finish it tonight. I'm breaking the cycle here and letting you guys know that I -will- get this done, and it won't be like this every time I need to post. I apparently just have a lot of trouble getting started because I'm afraid of messing up, which makes me stall, ect, excuses.
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I am SO sorry. I have excuses, but they only last until Sunday, and are kind of bad. Basically they kicked me off the computer, and then I couldn't get a ride home until late Sunday night. AFTER THAT I was just...really ashamed and panicked that I hadn't posted yet, so I didn't get -any- thing roleplay related done due to me...being so panicked that I didn't even want to look at the ooc threads. Which just made me more ashamed...you see the cycle.
I have my post half written, and I'm going to do my best to finish it tonight. I'm breaking the cycle here and letting you guys know that I -will- get this done, and it won't be like this every time I need to post. I apparently just have a lot of trouble getting started because I'm afraid of messing up, which makes me stall, ect, excuses.
Well all I can say is that you shouldn't worry about getting started, you already hit that hurdle with flying colors. We are all hanging out because we are excited. Groth and I talked about hoping everything worked out before our IRL game because we are really interested in the players and the set up so far, etc etc etc. Besides you said weekends were going to be way more touch and go. As long as I know you are kicking around I am patient and I think the others feel the same way.
Don't cry over spilt milk, better late than never, strike while the iron is hot, and to err is human
follow these proverbs, and you will be fine! :)
aka what PirateDevon said...
strike while the iron is hot
..."steel is strongest, so say we all!"
Darnit, I just actually "read" this, and now at 6:15 in the morning, I have to listen to ManOwaR. Not that it's a chore, but goodness.
Anca is not a ManOwaR fan, btw, just her player.
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strike while the iron is hot
..."steel is strongest, so say we all!"
Darnit, I just actually "read" this, and now at 6:15 in the morning, I have to listen to ManOwaR. Not that it's a chore, but goodness.
Anca is not a ManOwaR fan, btw, just her player.
Arreee yyoouuu ssuurreee? It would be pretty awesome with Anca throwing down an electric axe and growling at us about the defeat of ice giants at the hand of thunder gods and all that. "Inspiring" even :-)
This is more Anca's speed, if she were to inspire with a guitar. :)
She is Varisian.
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This is more Anca's speed, if she were to inspire with a guitar. :)
She is Varisian.
Seems a little incongruous with the motif presented so far. I will be interested to see if that loose style comes from a woman who seems far more...structured. ;-P
*giggles*
Thus far...
Must'a. It's ok Acid, there's really nothing to panic about. The intro doesn't have to be 100% perfect and we're not going to get upset if it isn't.
I know I've already screwed up several times in my KM game. The spider which should have been a threat was seen because I thought he had an 11 to stealth hiding in his little trap door world actually had a 1d20+11 and might not have been seen by the party at all before he could spring up and bite one of em. So I basically made him a silly loot encounter when he should have been a challenge.
Way to go me. :P
Alright, I'm going to take about a day to calm down and re-evaluate my time and commitment to certain things. This does not mean I'm stopping the game, what I'm actually doing is taking stock of what -else- I'm doing that I can stop so I have time and energy for the games I run. I think part of it is that I took on too many things at once, which stressed me out and made me fail at ALL of them. I need break it down and decide what can go and what I -definitely- want to do. I've already decided to continue the games I run, so don't worry about that.
Thank you guys for being so awesome. I wasn't on these last few days because a mixture of freakish amounts of sleep, stress, and company, but I -will- get back to you tomorrow.
Howdy.
Oh hello.
Okies. I've cut back on some things, but some stuff just went down irl (which is why I didn't reply when I said I would) that has kind of emotionally messed with me, so I'm going to go ahead and change the posting requirement and speed, at least for a while. Even with cutting back on other things I won't have the energy to do a post a day, at least not for the next week or so. If that's a problem, I completely understand.
I'm hoping to post today though, and I'll try to post tomorrow, but I'm not going to hold myself to the second one.
I just talked it over with my friends after my last post, and I don't think it's a good idea for me to run right now. I may put up a thread looking for you guys/post here once things calm down at home, but right now I'm just too stressed, and it's not fair to keep you guys hoping and waiting. If you want, I'll try to help find another DM for you guys so you can still play.
If someone else is willing to run a game I'm willing to play this character. I understand if you aren't in a place to run a game right now, it's unfortunate but it happens. Get better and when you're in a place to run a game again keep me in mind.
I was thinking just this morning I might pick up the PDF and step in myself, if you guys like.
To preface, I'm pretty new to GMing in general, but I think I do a pretty okay thus far. At least, the players in my Kingmaker group seem to enjoy my game.
If you like, you can get a feel for my "style" Here, of course, subjective to the Kingmaker AP which is meant to be a sandbox.
Dunno if you guys would want me to run Anca alongside you since technically she'd be a GMPC at that point, but... I'll leave it to ya'll
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@DM Acid- Hope things turn around, you ever decide to run something hit me up.
@ Everyone Else- I am good wih Hu5tru taking over and I am fine with Anca as a DMPC. I would prefer to keep the group as is because the combination seemed entertaining. I suppose if jlord or Groth are no longer interested and we need to fish for more players then we could determine if we should replace Anca as well. My 2 cp.
Yeah, it'll be a few days for me to read through the first few encounters, but I promise I'll not flake out on ya'll. I should be able to post at least once a day, although with my style, I kind of prefer for players to drive the action rather than me having to hold hands and push you along.
I've been in some bad games where the GM posts more than the players, and that to me seems more like... well, since I assume we're all adults here, like masturbation via AP, and I'm definitely not into that.
I think I'm pretty able not to give into the temptation of Anca knowing everything and leading ya'll along by the nose.
Anyway, JLord and Groth will have a few days to post if they're still interested.
By the way, if you didn't click the above link, this is Anca's player's GM alias.
Okie. I've read through the city stuff and have an understanding of the basic mechanic for this particular part of the game.
My question is- since I'm essentially committing myself to this project now - would you like me to post a map of the city for you?
Bearing in mind, your characters won't actually have this map, and you'll be spinning around basically blind until... until I suppose you ask for one, if it occurs to your characters. I know that I hate as a player to be completely ignorant where stuff is in relation to where my character is standing, it's... disorientating, and seems kinda... off.
I am starting reading the encounters now, and... baring some huge disaster, I may be able to get a post up on the IC board so that we can continue in the next few days.
So... any questions ya'll have for me, or concerns about your characters given the recent change... I'll let ya'll inform me if you feel comfortable with me reading through previously spoilered posts for the GM and taking a good look at your sheets once I get confirmation that you're all still here.
If you guys would like, I could create a new OOC and game thread to minimize confusion, although I suppose I would let ya'll vote on it.
Luckily we haven't even gotten through the initial encounter, so it would not be too large of a disruption at this point. Let me know.
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Okie. I've read through the city stuff and have an understanding of the basic mechanic for this particular part of the game.
My question is- since I'm essentially committing myself to this project now - would you like me to post a map of the city for you?
Bearing in mind, your characters won't actually have this map, and you'll be spinning around basically blind until... until I suppose you ask for one, if it occurs to your characters. I know that I hate as a player to be completely ignorant where stuff is in relation to where my character is standing, it's... disorientating, and seems kinda... off.
I am starting reading the encounters now, and... baring some huge disaster, I may be able to get a post up on the IC board so that we can continue in the next few days.
So... any questions ya'll have for me, or concerns about your characters given the recent change... I'll let ya'll inform me if you feel comfortable with me reading through previously spoilered posts for the GM and taking a good look at your sheets once I get confirmation that you're all still here.
If you guys would like, I could create a new OOC and game thread to minimize confusion, although I suppose I would let ya'll vote on it.
Luckily we haven't even gotten through the initial encounter, so it would not be too large of a disruption at this point. Let me know.
My instincts say:
1. Yes new OCC thread. Clean start for at least that part and quite frankly I wouldn't be opposed to a new start of the AP too, maybe we should only do -that- if we bring in new players.
2. I would appreciate the map, it makes ooc descriptors easier and in Rise of the Runelords I didn't/don't find it disruptive that the players could see the layout of the town.
3. Review away.
Okiely-Dokely, as Ned Flanders would say.
All of you who are still interested in playing may report here.
Once those of you who are still interested report, I'll be going through spoilers here and probably have some questions for you before the end of the week.