Out of Character

General OOC thread.

Most of the party IS younger than him! Scarlet is only 21! Hanzel is 18. Aldeera is 19. Caradoc seems to be 20. Almadel is what, 114?

Ah, I thought Scarlet was a full elf, not one of those half-human disappointments. :D

I mean, he wouldn't be so stupid as to say it aloud. Everyone knows you half-humans are a bit touchy about your lack of proper elfiness. :D

(Hopefully the :D shows this is all tongue in cheek; apologies otherwise. :) )

I see the rules says 0HP = character's death.
Do you have a special rule for that ?

I mentioned it on the recruitment thread, might be in the character creation thread too.
This first encounter is a perfect display of why I introduced this rule: you don't get a chance to act or prepare, there's no talking you messed up, no signs you didn't see, you really can't be blamed for not noticing or not doing something, it's just right into combat and if you lose the initiative, you'd end up with a dead PC before you had a chance to play them. Considering the complexity of character creation (this isn't some OSR game where you just roll a bunch of dice and come up with a replacement character in a flash) I thought it's only fair and fitting.

Thanks for the table @cowleyc I'll copy the code and use it in my next GM post!

THanks, I though I read that somewhere, but could not find it.

Happy Easter everyone! Been a bit busy these days, will try to get a post up tomorrow (Monday).

Happy Easter to those who celebrate such!

I'm going to be out from next Tuesday (April 29) until the next Sunday (May 4). We are making a trek down to Disneyworld and I will not be able to respond to posts. I should be okay to respond until that time. If I am in your game, please bot me as necessary. If you are in my game, sit tight and I'll pick up when I return (though as I said, I should be able to post up until Tuesday).

Thanks for the heads up!

Is it just me, or was that abrupt?

Greetings! Thank you for the invite. Hopefully will be joining you all soon, unless these upcoming rolls are complete trash and my character dies before joining the game.

I had received prior warning via PM after the first round of combat, apparently WanderOne considered it a dealbreaker to run combat in this manner, citing how it's "pointless without a grid". To each their own, but in my defence, I did state that would be the case well in advance when I posted the recruitment call.

I'm gonna be busy this weekend, feel free to assume Umbar in interested in being grumpy and quiet in any conversation, but still present.

Out of action till monday at least, should be able to hopefully post then again.

Glad to be joining the group. I put up my first post, hopefully it doesn't feel to much "barge into the middle of things" :)

It's fine, I don't think it was too ham-fisted and even if it was, we're doing sort of a meta concession here, the character does somehow have to join the rest of the party if we're all to play together. Besides, unless the game lends itself to paranoia and individual agendas (i.e. Vampire) I feel like the whole "who are you and why should we trust you?" part of getting a group of characters to work together can be a pointless drag.

Sorry for lack of answers in the past week, thing have come up IRL and I haven't had any time to look into this.
If OK with you I'll leave my spot to someone more available.

If it's a temporary thing, it's ok, especially when we're out of combat, the group is large enough to keep things moving forward without the need for every single person to respond. If it's a more long term thing though, I'd understand.

Should be lighter on my side (hopefully). If things come up I'll try to communicate it quicker next time though.

Hey, life happens. Good to know things are getting better for you.

I'm thinking of what extra subforums might be helpful to keep stuff organized so you don't need to skim across game threads to find a certain piece of information. An NPC directory comes to mind, but I'd rather ask you instead of setting up what I feel is needed; as the GM I already have my info sorted, so it's about what would help you players.

Some kind of NPC list would be useful. I know in some games I'm constantly scrolling through posts to find some person's name. I suppose I should keep better notes :)

Bouncing around with a bunch of interviews these days, posting might be slower than usual.

I'm finishing a vacation today, and should be able to get back into the plot ASAP!

I'm dropping out of this game, effective immediately. Sorry to let anyone down, but I won't be involved in any games involving cowleyc going forward. Thanks DR for a great game - I was really enjoying it, and was looking forward to seeing where it went next.

Sorry you felt the need to drop out! I do hope you enjoy your other games.

For context, this is related to a discussion on the GP discord server where we didn't see eye-to-eye.

Oh wow. Not sure what happened there, but I hope you two sorted it out somehow. As far as the game's concerned, I'll bot NPC Almadel until he can go off screen and in the meantime send some feelers out to recruit new people.

I'm actually feeling overextended in my games, and I have a lot of stress looking on the horizon. I'm going to step out of this game while things are pretty quiet.

Thanks everyone for this game! It's been fun! Brief, but fun.

Take care cowleyc!

Bummer to lose two so quickly, but I'm in for the long haul if the GM is game to continue.

Absolutely. I've reached out via PM to everyone who's shown interest on the recruitment thread, first refusal and all that. 2 haven't responded (matter of fact, haven't even logged on GP since!) and one turned it down due to running a lot already. I've also PM'd Lemming23 in case there's interest to rejoin and take over Almadel again, and I might make a public announcement on the recruitment thread as well.

Hi all, I'm back. I'm going to be a bit spotty in attendance for the next few days, but I'm sure DR can insert Almadel back in at the relevant opportunity. :)

So far I've kept Almadel as an NPC who said he'll stay back in Thurmaster, so it's very easy to get him back on board. Given the latest developments, it's just a matter of Umbar staying behind instead :P

Been a busy few days, I should be posting the next part by the end of the weekend.

Quick heads up, got a couple of busy days ahead again so I should be making the next post during the weekend.

I'm going to mostly be AFK for the next few days. I might be able to have a quick check in, but it's likely to be monday before you see more posts from me other than maybe a quick one liner.

That's fine, I'll give it some time so you can check in with Almadel's input to the situation and any loot claim before proceeding.

Hoping to post the next bit tomorrow. We can always have Almadel retroactive comment on the scene and work out any loot he might have claimed.

Going to be mostly afk for the newxt couple of days again, will try to post tomorrow night.

Greetings and Salutations!

Back from a LARP, still tired – and happy to be allowed to participate here. ;-)

I will read up on what I can find during the day. Please let me know if you have any requests regarding my character, be it GM or players.

Welcome to the group :)

Character finished so far - Theobald, a young boy with interest in books, if his duties are not needed. If his ousin is missed, he is intelligent enough not to go by himself alone looking for her...

Welcome both to the group. I have approved Theobald's sheet and FYI I'll be on holiday 10-19 of September so I won't be around as much. I'll try to wrap things up before my departure, so that the group can finish their stay at Kuiper's farm. Once I'm back, I'll start a new subforum with a brief summary for everyone and we can have the party return to Milborne where they'll meet the new members.

Thanks
Looking forward to it

Just to let you know I'm going to be a bit busy again this week (at least the first half). New academic year always brings up new and unexpected challenges.

I'll be going to stay somewhere with no wifi so I'll be unavailable for the next couple of days.

Just got back from holiday, will look to do a wrap up post asap and start a new subforum summarising everything so far and introducing the new PCs.

Read the posts so far - the introduction of the new characters is done by you?

Yep, I just posted the new subforum with a summary and a chance for the new characters to be introduced

Thank you for the summary write up in that post. It really helped remind where we are - so easy to get forgetful after months of play.

No problem. It's the first time I've done it myself, I just saw it in another game and thought it was a great idea. Best practices and whatnot. Glad to see it helped.

sorry guys, I had a bit of an emergency and missed the re-start.
but all good now

No problem, we haven't proceeded much so there's still a summary and very little to catch up on before introducing Constantine. Hope all is well now.

me too....

Sorry to do this, but I'm afraid I'm going to have to drop out - just not enough time right now for all my games. I think with the new characters, you have just about everything my character does covered, especially the magic part, so it shouldn't affect the rest of the group too much.

Take care, and have fun!

The same for yourself!

That's fine, I understand. Hope you enjoyed yourself, I'll have Almadel retire alongside Caradoc. Take care.

If everyone's done at the inn, I can wrap up Caradoc and Almadel leaving the group, then advance to you meeting Garyld.

That sounds fine to me.

Yup, Contantine will take his stew to go ;)

Ready.

Sounds fine to me. Sorry I haven't been posting recently, I was sick and couldn't focus on anything.

I'll try and get the post up today, on my lunch break or after work. Btw, any of you based in the UK? I'm using Imgur for the maps and NPC portraits, I know it's no longer showing the images for people with UK IPs so if anyone has issues seeing the images I'll use another hosting site.

I liked Constantine's post, but I always laugh when the characters supposedly think about my "warrior" character being so more prepared and then I glance at my character sheet with my massive 1 hp waiting to be one shot into oblivion.

ha ha
Constantine is just a wee bit naive. he's a rich kid who ran away from home for not getting what he wants, and he's bitten off more than he can chew. To him, you guys are the real deal.

Anything else to do while around Garyld's place? If not, where to next?

As a reminder, there's other places and NPCs in Milborne to explore, if you wanna get a bit sandboxy. If not, we can move on to you escorting the merchant down the river, either the next day or after you've rested enough to get back up to full hit points for those who might need it.

I'm ready to part - the lad will simply follow the elders

I'm fine to proceed to the next part.

Please proceed.

I'm fine with proceeding.

On November 29th, I am making my bi-annual trek to Walt Disney World. I will be gone until December 8th, and will likely be unable to post or check in during that time. If I am in your game, please bot me as necessary. If you are in my game, sit tight, and I'll pick up when I return. I should be able to post fairly regularly right up until leaving.

Bi-annual? how long has it been a thing?

Well, this will be our 35th or so trip. We've only just started the biannual thing about six years ago. Before that, it was pretty much an annual occurrence. My wife's eye doctor, whom she sees once a year for her glaucoma, is in Tampa, about one hour from Orlando. So when she goes to the doctor in November/December, we drop by Disney to enjoy Christmastime in WDW. We also go to the Flower & Garden Festival, Festival of the Arts, or the Food & Wine Festival. Because of her glaucoma, she is almost blind (she has about 10% of her vision remaining in her left eye only), so we are trying to let her experience as much as we can before her vision goes completely. Next year we are going to the Grand Canyon, and we're planning an Alaskan cruise in the near future.

WOW
I love roller coasters, but my wife tells me I don't, because old people don't like roller coasters.

So we have a bet, that we have never tested.....

But it's on the list.

Just out of curiosity, have you been to the California one, for comparison?

There's a hotel there I've always wanted to see.

I've been to Disneyland a few times. We went about four times while I was stationed in California, but it was over 20 years ago. Much has changed since I was there.

I will say that Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind is a wild ride, but...

It begins going forward fairly slowly, then you come to a stop and go backward at about 50 mph! The ride vehicles then spin around to reorient you towards the front of the coaster. You reach speeds of 60 mph and go into what I call death spirals. The ride vehicles go into a corkscrew spiral with the vehicles turned to face the center. It is a wild ride, but VERY disorienting. I do not recommend it if you suffer from motion sickness. That being said, it is well worth the time to go through the queue and take the "chicken out" lane. The queue is really cool.

Two other fun rides that I recommend you avoid if you have motion sickness are the ORANGE experience of Mission: Space (GREEN is much gentler) and Twilight Zone: Tower of Terror. Mission: Space is a centrifuge, and you will experience intense pressures, as well as a few moments of seeming weightlessness. Twilight Zone: Tower of Terror is an elevator ride from hell. You will experience several (as many as 13) simulated freefalls. Again, it is worth it to go through the preshow for Twilight Zone, and there is an option not to ride.

I'm in!
It is remarkable how the rides have become whole experiences. I'm not a StarTrek guy, but the Star Trek ride in Vegas is pretty fantastic.
If only the Twilight Zone ride could deposit you in a cornfield!

Not sure if you want to roleplay additional supply purchases or how exacting you intend to be with supplies.

Devon would purchase a second waterskin, a week of well preserved rations and perhaps another 20 arrows.

Normally I would, especially since this kind of system does have an element of gold/inventory management element to it, but I do believe it's something to be done around a live table. PbP is much slower and I feel like this game does tend to drag on a bit more than usual; part is me being quite busy and more sporadic in my posting than I'd like, but I do feel like sometimes we're all looking around unsure of what to do next or whose move it is. Let me know if this is just in my head, or if you agree and how we can get past that.

I do put a lot of trust into players doing their share of bookkeeping, whether it is their hp, ammunition, xp, spells slots and so on. In this case, Garyld can sell those 20 arrows to Devon for 5sp. The rest could be purchased from Rastifer's store in Milborne, which is an interesting experience, but if people would rather skip that and fast forward into the meatier parts of the experience, you can just add the waterskin and rations for 11gp total.

I'm fine with either roleplaying the store or skipping. Whatever the rest of the group might like.

I agree that pacing in these games is challenging. I definitely have appreciated your summary posts. I've a few games where I've gone digging through posts looking for information that the character heard yesterday, but was a year ago for me :)

I'd prefer to skip inventory management. In doubt if I have enough money, I'm broke, that's more interesting to play ;-)

at these low levels we only have a few coins to rub together. I think money becomes important later, when we're trying to buy big ticket items or drag thousands of coins around

Speaking of low levels, everyone gets 390XP to celebrate my 39th birthday yesterday!

Merry Christmas everyone, have a good one.

Yay!! Merry Christmas to all!! And a belated happy birthday!!!!

Merry Christmas everyone.

390xp is the best gift I got!!

Happy New Year everyone! With the holiday season winding down, I expect us to pick things up during or right after this weekend. Hope you had a good one.

How far away are the orcs at the moment?

Roughly some 30ish feet or so. Also, approaching from the angle you did, you've got both the higher ground and cover from a large rock you hid behind to observe the situation without being immediately spotted.

Couple of quick things:

It appears Devon has enough XP for 2nd level. I think I remember we will be incorporating training downtime and costs within this game? is that correct?

I think I have the ROF of the bow correct. I dug through the rules just because I play in a bunch of systems and wanted to confirm.
Bow 2/1 is a ROF of 2 attacks every 1 round

Devon with his sword has an ROF of 3/2 - which would do what you described. 1 attack on round 1 and then 2 attack on round 2 (although I've seen the extra attacks get played either first or last)

Aldeera is also ready for a level.

at first, Constantine looked up to Devon just because he is short. But now, he see's something else in him. Something impressive.

Training downtime and costs: Yep, thanks for letting me know who's hit that XP threshold. Also each class will need to find a suitable trainer. Which means the levelling is probably happening once this New Mire business is all wrapped up.

ROF: I stand corrected. Considering initiative and weapon speed factors, technically Shiraz went first, got the two orcs, then Theobald's dart killed the last one, so Devon never really did get to fire those arrows, so it doesn't affect the outcome that much (on that basis also, yeah, do assume he recovers his ammunition). I just thought that was a terrible narrative that made the NPC look great and the PCs as extras, so I switched the description a bit. But yeah, I brought ROF up as a thing going forward, and I was wrong about the rule, so thanks for that one.

No worries - mechanics should always yield to story :) Honestly, those are the first good rolls I've had in weeks. The dice rollers are rarely kind to me.

Hanzel has enough XP to go up a level as well.

Leveling party :) I sense an epic training montage in our future.

I might finally have more than 1 hit point, although always being at maximum hit points or dead is interesting as a front line fighter :)

Looks like the gems are handled. Do we want to divide the coins and pearls now or Devon can pick them up and put them in a sack on Devon's sheet for splitting later.

Remaining - 150 copper coins, 108 silver coins, 42 gold coins, 4 White Pearls worth 90gp

If there isn't much else to talk about with Shiraz, looks like the birdfolk situation is something to be dealt with at a later stage. As long as everyone's done here, shall we set out to either the headwaters of Cutter Brook or seek refuge for the night and go there the following day?

Ready to move on. Devon will pick up the remaining coins and pearls which were left when the gems were taken :)

I've put them in a separate location on my sheet. We can divide the coins now if people like or later.

I'm ready
do we need a rest?
Do we need to find refuge to avoid travelling at night?

Ready when you are

I'm ready to move on

Ready.

Sorry for blinking out of existence there, job I'd applied for and promptly forgotten about actually came back to me with an offer for an interview, so I've been prepping for that in my free time. Next week might be a bit slow (interview's on Friday) but I'll do my best to keep the ball rolling.

Good luck with the interviews :)

Thanks! I didn't get the job due to my lack of experience in that particular sector, which I was kinda expecting, but they were so excited with my other skills and enthusiasm they actually offered me a development plan to start at a lower level and work my way up. Which would still be a salary upgrade, plus I'm more invested in working for that organisation rather than getting that specific job. Very much failing forward:D

Back to the game, I'll just fast forward past the return, rest, and getting back to this location. PbP is slow as it is and I've been a bit on and off, there's no reason to slow things even further.

Hey everyone,
I just found out I need open heart surgery. I don't think it will disrupt my games much, I'll likely have a few weeks of recovery with nothing to do but play with my I-pad. But I may be out of commission for a few days after the surgery, which hasn't been scheduled yet. I may just disappear, but I won't be gone long.

Sorry to hear that news. Hopefully you will have a quick recovery and be back on your feet soon.

Best wishes for a successful operation and recovery!

Wishing all goes well and you have a speedy recovery!

Wishing you a smooth and speedy recovery THAC0.

Thank you everyone
I'm actually looking forward to it. I've been feeling terrible for a while and this should fix that. I'll most likely be able to let you know when the surgery will be, but it might happen very fast. Until then everything is normal here.

In the meantime, is everyone ok with Constantine's plan? Shall I just assume you do as he says and carry on or does anyone want to have any input or describe their bit?

yeah, you are all free to disagree

I’m signing off until Sunday – I’ll be attending a LARP and won’t have much time for digital communication.

Seems Raider has gone missing. I hope that everything is well with them.

me too

Our GM has been absent for a month. I hope they are well.

At this point, I'm going to step out of this game. It was great fun while it lasted and I have enjoyed playing with everyone here.

If @DarK_RaideR returns and restarts the game, then I would gladly consider returning.

Take care.

Nice meeting you DD. I've been quite inactive myself lately, but I think I'm about ready to start a new campaign....
Keep an eye on the Games Tavern if you're interested.

If this is it for this game then I'd just like to say that I greatly enjoyed playing and learning how this system works.

After half a year, it's time to leave, I guess.

Stay well, guys.