General conversation/OOC commentary

Woody tends to avoid fights. He’d totally help the bear! 😅

Didn’t realize I needed 4 rolls, I thought it was Sleight of Hand at Disadvantage + Athletics. Do I need to make 2 more rolls now?

Ah, you're correct: one roll each to brace one support to save part of the building. But there are two supports that could be braced.

So please let woody run away with a random young girl he met in the city to live a long life of farming and gobs of children.

Seriously though, I'm experiencing family stuff, personal stuff, and I haven't been running my own game for weeks.

I think I need to bow out until I get myself in order.

I'm sorry to hear that. Narratively, it might not make sense for Woody to bow out until we finish this box/part five, so I won't look for a replacement player for a while. If your situation improves and you find yourself able to rejoin before that time, you're welcome.

That said, we're now in a position where we have:
- 2 active players
- 2 semi-active players
- 2 absent players

When I wrote the previous post about Woody sticking around, I don't think I really appreciated the situation that we actually seem to be in, where I'm playing more than half the party. Would any of you strenuously object to my phasing out Woody and/or Adran, and inviting other players to take the place of Eyes and MaJunior? I know that would slow us down again, but I'd feel a lot more comfortable with 4 active players and 2 that post when they can. Yes, it's true that we're not far from the end of part five. It's not a great situation in any case: either we introduce new characters & new players to this semi-apocalyptic scenario just before the climax (not great), or we continue with the characters we have with the DM playing between one- and two-thirds of the party (not great either).

I'd love to hear your suggestions.

We definitely need proper players. It's fine if it slows things down for a bit, I don't imagine it'll take too long to find players for a lvl 4/5 game.

The biggest problem with switching in new characters is the plothook with the oath of the orb. That is the foundation of the party.

I would suggest that you recruit for the characters, allowing the new player to rebuild the mechanics. The elven artificer battlesmith becomes an elven cleric, but he still took an oath to the orb.
The new player must agree to this when coming into the game.

An alternative is for one of the active players to take an extra secondary character. I could run Woody for instance. I wouldn't role-play him, but I could manage his actions if I had his sheet.

Yes, I was thinking of doing some sort of kludge to extend the oath to one or both of the new PCs when replacing Adran. Something like "The Orb represents the union of the four nations, so there must always be at least four who have sworn an oath to it."

Edit: Honestly, I should have done this already, to include everyone in the party.

Juniper isn’t sworn in but could be if that helps. I maaaay also have a friend who would be able to join but I also don’t want to butt in.

Do we wait to see if MaJunior is returning? I still haven’t heard from him.

I’m honestly up for anything. I like the group here (and I’m glad I was able to join again), so whatever is easiest for everyone.

I'd go the handwavium route, like what you mentioned. So, something like, the oath/pledge has somehow bound us and required X amount, and if someone fails/is found unworthy/dies/leaves of their own accord/breaks the oath, then it transfer to a willing participant in close proximation to current holders. Something to that effect.

Players dropping is a part of many D&D games, a little flexibility like this is reasonable and expected imo, but I'm fine with whatever route you choose.

that was actually something that I felt really left out of. Like woody was just a side character with no real connection to what was up. Being a kid was a good way to account for his flippant attitude.

I think If you brig in another player that person should be able to take over one of the characters attached to the orb. the character might change its style but at least they'd be attached to the main story.

There's potentially a queue of people who expressed interest the last time there was an opening; I'm going to reach out to them, giving them right of first acceptance/refusal.
I don't feel great about dropping people that haven't explicitly said they're leaving, but he's been gone from the site for more than a month at this point (just about six weeks; he was last on the site on 26 August) and has missed half of this total chapter as a result. What do you all think? Should we wait a bit longer, maybe continuing with Adran in the party until it's been eight weeks, or have we waited long enough and it'd be better to get new PCs into the party sooner rather than later?
Thank you for that. Just to be clear: however I explain it story-wise, I will have the other players swear their own oaths, and I will include each PC in the party (as I should've done from the outset). It probably only feels clumsy to me, as I'm comparing it to how I've run it in real-time games in the past (which is not really a valid comparison).
I'm sorry to have not picked up on this. I'd hoped that all the other ways the characters were tied to each other - each one being knighted, for instance - would have felt enough of a bond. I should have explicitly checked in with each of you that aren't playing oathbound PCs.
Well, as I say, I will introduce a way for the other PCs to swear oaths and be bound to the Orb along with the others.

@Eyes, since you are still here and monitoring the conversation, I'm still open to keeping Woody going in case you think you might be able to return at or before the end of the chapter. Are you thinking that you might be able to rejoin us in the next couple of months?

Maybe Ardan can have another feral moment and we just lose track of him for a while? That way if MahJunior comes back, we can weave him back in. I hope everything is okay ...

I know I'm a weak link right now. I promise I'll be more reliable once I'm fully over the first trimester sickness. The more computer I use, the sicker I get, so unfortunately I have limited time to get proper posts out. The sensitivity to smells is waning but screens and motion (scrolling, flipping between webpages/tabs, etc) still absolutely fucks me up. I have to close my eyes and scroll, then slowly open them and readjust to the new screen and I am not a very patient person so I fail to do that half the time.

Thanks for the update, @spaceseeker19 ! Also, if only one other person can be sworn in with the Oath and we don't choose a PC, then it should go to @Eyes (I just saw the message above about Woody feeling not as involved). If we need an addition, I have no problem with it but I don't think it's necessary with Juniper. I know she's not a cleric (I'm kind of wishing I did cleric now lol), but I can have her focus on the Lunea connection.

As for @MaJunior , maybe we wait until this section? I'm ASSUMING we are going to be out of combat soon (if not, I'm SO sorry everyone as Juniper only has cantrips left lol). Or like, when they have left the immediate threat? We can see if we returns and if not, go from there?

I seem to recall something similar happening in the past, where a player was gone for like 1-2 months without notice, but then came back after that. Was that in this game?

Really though, I'm fine whichever way we go. I think idylliceffie had a good idea, where Adran might turn wolf and run off for a bit, just in case he comes back.

No, that didn't happen without notice in this game. The only players who've returned announced that they were leaving and then returned later.

But we have had players just disappear in this game and in most (if not all) of the games I've played here on GP over the last decade. It happens, and I think it's inevitable that it happens. People's lives change, and often in unpredictable ways that prevent them from logging on.

For the time being, I'm inclined to say that Adran is going to hang back to either retrieve Mara or build a new one.

I'm still on the fence with Woody. On the one hand, @Eyes said that he had to step away from the site and encouraged us to retire the character. On the other hand, he did chime in with his feedback a couple of days ago. I originally offered to keep Woody going on the off chance that Eyes can return before the end of the year. I guess I'm leaning toward that option.

What this means, though, is that I will be running one PC (Woody) as an NPC for a bit longer, and the party will be down to 5 PCs. If that's fine with you, I'll continue that way and not invite another player yet.

I certainly don't want to be in a situation where I invite another player, then the other two return, and we end up with 7 players in the party at once. My other games notwithstanding, I prefer six or fewer players. Among other reasons, I like smaller groups so that we can more easily meet the expected posting rate of one-a-day. The larger the group is, the more likely it is that you have to wait for someone else to take their turn.

sounds very resonable.

Okay, keep Woody alive, I'm trying to get back into the game I'm running. when I can get back to at least daily posts, I'll hit you up.

I'll be starting the next thread shortly; I'm just doing another check on Achievements.

Just to be clear: starting 5-5 Assault on City Square does not mean that you can't continue your short rest discussions in 5-4, Civil Discourse. I often create a separate thread for "Rest Interludes" or "Conversational Vignettes" so that conversations that would take minutes of real time but take days and days in play-by-post can happen in parallel with the adventure, rather than blocking it. I realize I'm remiss in not doing this in parts 4 or 5. I will create one now, but for ease of reference, please continue this particular rest conversation in the Civil Discourse thread (since you've already started it there).