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Hi All,
I am trying to decide on a scenario to run for the online PbP group that I am GMing on here, and I can't decide on one, partly because I haven't played, run, or read that many myself. So, I was wondering, does anyone have some suggestions for ones they loved as a player?
The group has done First Step I and II, Mists of Mwangi, and are now finishing up the Frostfur Captives, with mostly second level characters and a first or two. I had thought of going old school again, perhaps with the Frozen Fingers of Midnight (although one person has played it) or the Temple of Empyreal Enlightenment (which is highly rated but seems to have a love-hate relationship for some people).
Thanks!
Matt/Otiophon
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Hey Matt,
We've talked a bit before - The Stolen Heir was one I liked as a GM from season 5. Less railroady than some - you make a big decision near the end that affects a key NPC's future dramatically.
The Disappeared (Season 4) is a short, fun, intrigue-heavy but combat lite scenario. I've GM'd it twice and played once - pretty solid to me.
The Voice in the Void (Season 1) is pretty awesome in what i've heard called a Lovecraftian way. (disclaimer: I've never read anything by Lovecraft myself).
Didn't like the The God's Market Gamble? It's one I've run twice and played (which is as much exposure as I have to any scenario). I personally love it, but my first character is a ranger, so part of me roots for the BBEG a little too much...
In summary, I would highly recommend:
Season 1: The Voice in the Void
Season 3: The God's Market Gamble
Season 4: The Disappeared
Season 5: The Stolen Heir
-Derek
Yep, those are all ones I've enjoyed.
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Maybe the God's Market Gamble would be good, except there were nearly two player kills (one of them me!) when I played your game.
I was waiting on Voice in the Void since I was hoping that I would get a chance to play it first myself, following up on Mists of Mwangi (*hint hint*).
The Stolen Heir sounds interesting from that, and the Disappeared does, too. The problem I have with The Disappeared, from what little I've read, is that it has or could have a disguise component, and I've never understood how that could possibly work with your average group of Pathfinders: "Why does that servant have a glaive, scale mail, and a backpack under their uniform?"
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I've not played many, but Voice in the Void is probably the least interesting I've run, just seemed to be a series of rooms with pretty random encounters. The Confirmation is great so far, and as a DM I'm really enjoying the early season 0 scenarios Silent Tide and Black Waters. Silent Tide in particular feels pretty darn epic, there are some odd elements, but the encounters are inventive and awesome with nice maps and unique mechanics - might be a bit easy for current builds, maybe run with 4 players. Plus you get to introduce your players to Grandmaster Torch so its a nice intro to the main Society storyline.
I really enjoyed The Accursed Halls Part I of Thornkeep as a player, very hard, and high chance of player death, but brilliant. It's a module, so you get to level up after it which is awesome, took about a month in PBP which was phenomenal, my ranger took and dealt about forty damage in one fight, got Str and con drained, and was inches from death again and again.
Voice is only good if you are playing the whole Blackros arc.
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I've heard Voice is really good if the GM does a really good job of adding flavor himself. Ironically, I've read all of Lovecraft (except most of the Collected Letters volumes - although I own those... :-P) but I really doubt I'd be able to add the right Lovecraftian feel to anything. It takes a special touch.
We just did the Accursed Halls with a lot of up and down, so to speak, and I'm glad that I only found out what one creature was after we finished the module!
I ran it as a face to face session and we had a really great time, it could be a bit flat in PbP as Cthulhu type games don't translate as well (in my experience)
Merry Xmas indeed - boxing day here, so I am slowly recovering.
Thanks for the B-day wishes everyone. Hope you're all having a Happy New Year! ^_^
Semi long range forecast - I will be away for a couple of weeks (14 Feb til around 1 March) - kind of annoying timing, but unlikely to have much/any internet as I will be out bush a lot.
I'm betting your lot will be done by then, Shifty. But does that mean you probably want to skip part 2?
Apologies for being a little slow on the update, was giving Li as much time as reasonable, plus I have a back/hip injury that is making it painful to sit and type for long. And of course I closed my window and lost half my post... it was more descriptive the first time around... *sigh*
So it's unseasonably cold in north-east Texas. Dropped down to 10 degrees last night! Brr... my hip/back no likey... >_<
How'er y'all doin'?
I'd prefer to be in part II, but lets play it by ear and see how we are positioned when we get close.
It's probably a good time to start to talking about it anyway, I really think Alpha will be done in the next week provided we achieve our goal of a round a weekday.
I'm considering making a third table and maybe reshuffling the groups. Maybe construct one higher tier table for those in the 2-3 level range? I think I could handle the extra work if I made a rule that I advance everyone at about the same time regardless of who shows up. Then it's a fair amount of copy and paste and then just change the details. ^_^
What do you folks think? Should we reshuffle into 3 tables for part two? Beta is really only a step behind Alpha, so we should be launching The Devil We know Part II: Cassomir's Locker in the next few weeks.
Edit: Hmmm, that probably means we should go ahead and make any day job rolls and I need to figure out how I want to send out chronicle sheets.
What do you use to make yours?
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GM - If you use Firefox, I have found the Lazarus:Form Recovery add-on to be invaluable in saving posts that would otherwise have been lost.
We could synchronize the games, especially if it is easier on the GM, although you never know how fast or slow some groups will be on combats, for example.
We could reshuffle into three groups, or see how much attrition there is between parts. When I GM, I have been keeping 6 in each group so as to have balanced parties, allow more people to play, and manage the risks. It isn't as risky (or probably as exciting) as some who keep four to a group, certainly, but from what I've looked at the math, even seemingly small cumulative risks can really add up to a situation where the majority of the players end up dying before they can even accumulate the prestige for a raise dead. (But, I am a newbie, softie GM.)
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Mujenbai fines a particularly fine albino wolf pelt which swiftly for good coin.
I've not actually sent out any chronicle sheets yet, but I plan to edit them in photoshop and then send them out via links to google docs with instructions to save them ASAP as I do not guarantee they will stay up indefinitely.
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Selter will advance to 3rd level after the first mission. So I will need a couple of days in between to complete him. Especially if there is time and cash to purchase gear. (Those decisions are difficult for me since I want everything.) Of course if you want to start and let me have the first couple RL days of intro/travel to finish the update, that would be fine.
I have no real preference on how you divide up table or how you want to run the pacing between them. The only thing I would suggest you be careful about ending up with any level 1 PC's in a group that ends up in the upper tier (unless they really want to). It's not really fair to them with the increased risk of death by a good/bad roll.
I saw that a while ago where the GM tried to get an even mix of experienced players and newbies at each table. But then he was kinda scrambling to not kill a couple of new players with level 4-5 challenges.
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No day job for Marco at this point.
I'd like to continue, but I'd prefer splitting it to three tables. With 7 characters (and an animal companion), these combats have been over before they even start in our group.
I've had a GM who ran multiple tables before in pbp, and I'm sure that he had most of his room descriptions saved on a word or txt document, and just copied and pasted them when we got there. That way, if one group went at a different pace or took a different path, they weren't slowed or rushed, or pressed to follow the same path as the other group.
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Yeah, that is how I do it! I save the file when I am all done, too, in case I or another GM wants to use the document to run the game again in the future.
On the ease question, yeah we have been knocking out the opponents really fast, either by luck or by skill. The odd part is that I remember reading somewhere about the TPK potential in this scenario, although I am not sure where it came from (I was looking for scenarios, myself, recommended for low-level characters). Perhaps it was another one, or another in this series.
It's not really a matter of physical resources so much as mental ones, and time. I could probably be better organized, and I'll try to keep better notes for our next scenario to help me keep things straight. But I found myself hard pressed to remember the differing details when one group was at a different point than another and kept having to refresh my memory of what had occurred. I kind of have to put myself in the scene, in the moment to narrate the battle, the mood, etc. But having the groups in two different places is definitely more trying to me and takes me much longer to cobble it all together. If that makes sense?
Anyway, I'm going to try and keep us apace, at least as long as it makes sense.
This is my proposed group to split off and run at the higher tier for Part II: (tier 3 nets 1200gp as opposed to the 500gp for 1-2)
Marla and Brak
Dietrich
Odo
Selter
Svetlana
Li Shuo
If any of you would prefer to run at the lower tier, let me know and I'm sure we can find someone to fill in. I'm going to shoot for parties of 5-6, so we will need to recruit a few more to fill out the tables. But it shouldn't be hard to find some. Healers and someone who can disable device will be given preferential treatment. ^_^
Alpha team has effectively finished the scenario now, I expect we'll have some wrap up as they finish investigating the room and interview the captives. If anyone would like to actually report in character to the VC, I'd be happy to RP that, but it's all sprinkles and frosting from here. Congrats Alpha Team, you made it look like a cake-walk! ^_^
Oti, Darkest Vengeance is the one in my queue that seems to be a pretty nasty one. We shall see!
Dietrich, that sounds like a good plan. Is he taking the 3rd level in thie... I mean Rogue or Fighter?
Looks like the plan is to go with 3 tables, it won't be long now!
Wait! Wait, how did Darkest Vengeance come up?! After a recent unpleasant experience, I was told to avoid Darkest Vengeance.
Well, you can step out when we come to that, but yes, I intend to run it. Original plan was for it to be our 3rd Scenario, after Part 2.
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Just remember Oti that the titel's a dead giveaway. If you need to spend prestige to be ready, it's totally worthwhile. And no, I haven't played it, but as a semi-regualr GM I read up on it and decided to hold off running it.
It looks like I won't level after this. I Gm'ed my other game after this one started, so Dietrich is "locked in" until finishing. I might get another credit to throw on him at some point between games.
My plan was to progress by alternating fighter and rogue levels, always taking the fighter level first, until I had 3 levels in each, then going pure fighter beyond that. either way, at next level I get a 3rd level feat plus either a fighter bonus feat or a rogue talent, so I will get to do more stuff.
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Hi Dietrich,
(It's Matt here, btw.)
Yeah, that is what I've figured: More darkness spells or spell-like abilities, as a fair guestimate.
Oti has darkvision, which would cut through non-magical darkness or Darkness, but not Deeper Darkness. Unfortunately, Angelkin versions of aasimars like Oti don't have the Daylight SLA. I'm really seeing how that can come in handy, since a third-level spell is otherwise a really long way off and since quite a few in the group won't have darkvision.
Darkvision, at 300 for a potion and 150 for a scroll, is probably a good expenditure, btw, just for general preparation.