Backstory/getting started

Once you make your character, I'll PM send you a note in this thread to work out the circumstances of your arrival in Heirwater! Throughout the campaign, I'd like to use PMs notes for individual character knowledge, which your character can bring into the campaign as you choose.

Obviously we'll have to feel out that balance and figure out what's right for our group. But I think it'll be pretty fun. Anyway, expect a PM note when your character is approved!

There is also a notes function you can use. In the editor the last icon, the little red page. When you click it it asks for a username. Enter the persons username, not character name, into it. You can add multiple people onto one note as well, just separate the usernames with a space or comma.

Also as GM you can see any notes that any players post.

Oh wow!! That works great!

Jeez, it's like the site was built for roleplay or something.

Okay, let's just do this through notes, then!

Yup, only I should see that note. But if I tried to do one to just one other player, you will also see it, because the GM sees all.

Love it! Using it forever.

Just know that as of now if you put ONLY a not in a message the message looks like a blank post to everyone else. So you could always put something like:

[ I slide a note to such and such. ]

Perfect. I swapped over to another browser and saw that in the logged-out state, so I figured that was the case, but I'm glad to hear it's true from a player perspective too.

[Passing note to GM ]

Backstory acquired!

Okay, Naatkinson, let's talk some backstory!

[Passing note]

[Passing note to DM]

Passing noooootes...

Hey all, I'll have some background info coming your way later today or tomorrow. Busy at work today!

Perfect, looking forward to it! (I should be busier at work... doobeedoo...)

[Passing Note to DM]

[Reading the note, nodding sagely, striking a match, burning it.]

[Note to DM]

[Note to Naatkinson]

[Note to DM]

[Note to Naatkinson]

Now I feel left out. One of those notes better have been:

Do you like me:
[ ] Yes
[ ] No

[Note to Naatkinson]

The notes were mostly about you, actually.

[ Slides note to GM ]

[Passes note to Hobs]

[Tries to intercept notes. Fails.]

You shoulda rolled a Sleight of Hand check, I might have allowed it.

All right, Moofsalot has an awesome character built! Get ready for some notes to be passed about that.

One thing I'll say publicly is that Friar_Tuk was asking some good questions about the underworld & social order of the city over in the Heirwater thread, and there's a little more common knowledge posted there now.

[Accepts the note. Reads it, then tucks it gingerly into ancient tome with "Lovely Bedtime Stories for Children of All Ages" written in gold ink on its spine.]

Should we use this post for out of character discussions that may be too long form, or inconsequential for the main campaign thread? If so I should clarify, the Minotaurs are a medium size race. However I am almost 6' 8" and weigh nearly 300 lbs.

I am only 5' 4" and 120 lbs, so the description of you towering over me is still accurate. I made a slight change to what I said, so it might make more sense now.

[Note to DM]

[Note to Naatkinson]

Is the party actually together or are we just all in the same place at the same time? How did we come together? And how long have we been together?

As I understand it, we aren't exactly "together", just in the same area by coincidence. Unless DM says otherwise, I'm assuming none of us know each other.

Should we perhaps slow up our posts a bit? Hobs has only posted once.

In other games I've played, we do a sort of round robin; each player may post once, the DM responds, then each player may post again. This allows the less active players to get a chance to post, and not get left behind the narrative.

It slows down the pace of the game, but its kind of the only way I can think of to make sure everyone gets a fair shake.

Right--You're a group of strangers who were on the bridge together, and now seem to all have an errand in the same general direction. My oh my, how fate has drawn you all together. What are the odds? (Spoiler alert: 100%, that's what.)

Re: Your suggestion, Tuk (may I call you Tuk?), I think you're right on. Much as I'd love to keep this real-time, I don't want to drop anyone behind.

If, however, you know you're going to be offline and things are developing that you don't super care about, I'd invite you to busy your character with something on the sidelines. Like, "OOC: I'm going to the beach this weekend! Seeya, suckers! IC: I decide I need to read up on all that we've learned and go to the library." Doing so will earn you in-game benefits and/or inspiration!

You're probably right, we should slow down a bit. It's just so hard not to respond when the game is flowing like this :)

I will attempt to curb my enthusiasm a bit

Yeah same. Tosher is not one to patiently do things, but I'll cut back a bit and wait for resolutions. We should watch out for big gaps if someone does seem to drop off on posts. But that's just my experience having two players go AWOL for almost two weeks on a game.

Also if you're new to GP make sure to "Subscribe" to each forum to get email notifications on games. I've had new players to the site not realize this and never even notice when the adventure posts started.

Yeah, I'm in 4 other games, and this has by far been the most active. I like it, but I can't keep up that pace every day.

I will be especially slow to post on weekends; probably once a day if that.

I've had a couple of games be this active, it usually slows down a bit after a week or two, or so it seems to be

Yeah I've noticed a similar effect. Everyone seems to realize the speed they are moving isn't sustainable. Lol.

I had no idea that this was a function that I could use. I will set it up. I think I must be on a different schedule as others because I am able to follow the posts but not add much during the day, but I try to get in as much as I can in the evening

Yeah, opposite for me. I'm at a computer all day, but only able to post once or twice late in the evening.

This is my situation. Got time at work, but I have 3 kids and a wife at home who don't leave me much time.

No worries! Heirwater isn't going anywhere... it's been around for thousands of years, and will keep on truckin' no matter how fast we move through it. If it becomes expedient later to split up into mini-teams of daytime vs. nighttime adventurers, we can definitely explore that, too.

Yeah whenever you are on a games forum, or any forum on the site on the top right side is a Subscribe To This Forum link. It adds it to your email notifications for the site. Oddly enough players are not automatically subscribed to forums for games they are accepted into.

I kind of wish it was an automatic feature! Would make things much easier. People are more likely to look for a way to unsubscribe if they don't want the emails than they are to look for a way to subscribe.

Exactly, and it's not spelled out right away either so I just stumbled upon it after looking around.

I've played in a bunch of games that were this active- instead of plot we can have the characters interact more maybe? Sometimes it's fun to to when we're not actively trying t kill things.

To be fair. Most of Tosher's discussions have themselves ended in trying to kill things.

That's good advice. How about this... I'll try and leave a little breathing room for you all to interact, and will generally not adjudicate plot progression unless I get the sense everyone has had their turn. (I may still ask for some social rolls with NPCs if necessary.)

For example: If two of you wanted to converse, or Charles wanted to get in a philosophical discussion about the nature of magic as it pertains to unicorn warts with a scholastic NPC, I'd probably interact and let that go on for a good long time, back and forth. But if Charles tried to provoke the NPC to a duel over a point of intellectual pride (not that he'd necessarily do such a thing), I might slow things down until everyone had a chance to chime in.

Does that sound okay? Want to make sure our expectations are all aligned as we embark on the awesomeness of this adventure.

Everything has been good for me so far. I find the same thing can happen when playing around a table as well. There are always those that jump right in and those that sit back and wait for their opportunity. At big plot points we can make sure everyone gets their say before moving on.

Sorry for the delay in posting everyone! Like I said, weekends are hard for me. I work at a desk all day on weekdays, but weekends I have my 3 kids all day Saturday while my partner works, then I work Saturday night late. Sunday is usually reserved family time.

So, please excuse my slow responses on weekends! Know that there are good reasons.

No worries- I'm pretty sure most people are busy on weekends!

Agreed, please don't worry about it at all! That's the beauty of play-by-post.

We seem to be breaking off into different directions. Should we start individual threads? Or keep it all centralized? I'm fine with either, but I wanna bull through and take care of some "business" in this College of Magic...

I'm working on my own bull. Pun intended.

Once you go through the doors/over the bridge, we'll make like a videogame and I'll put up a loading screen-style jump link to new threads labeled 0.1 | The College of Magic or 0.1 | Market Square, and we'll go from there! Same logic will link you back to the main thread if you rejoin the rest of the party.

Given the sandbox nature of the game, I'm currently thinking it'll be easiest to manage by location. The trickiest part will be when events are unfolding faster in one place while other people are dealing with travel time, but we'll try and work all that out as we go.

I take it that they stopped me from allowing Charles into the academy?

Nope, they haven't yet!

Hah. Sorry, Moofs, but I just snorted when I saw that deception roll. I thought i was doing a poor job being subtle. :)

Sigh.

Start blasting your way in!

I added a note about passive perception, in case you missed it. I'm assuming notes don't prompt a notification email... still trying to get the feel of what to make public OOC tabletalk vs. notes.

Where was that note added?

Oh, sorry... that was for Moofsalot. I'll be careful not to edit them in without prompting the recipient in the future. (And I'll just try to avoid editing them in, generally.)

I should also note when you start the area with Tosher and the hooded men you should start the scene from right when we get on to the bridge to head over to the other location. Not all of us may make it to the other end of the bridge.

Haha, fair enough. You got it.

Open question... I've been sending you all various notes with different pieces of private information. Do you feel like the knowledge you have access to is making the game more fun? Do you miss the sense at an in-person game of knowing things your character doesn't? I want to make this as fun as possible for everyone, and can tweak my DM style to suit what you all prefer.

My rule of thumb right now is, if it's something only your character knows, I tell you privately. Does that work, or do you want things more open so we can have more "happy accidents"?

I'm fine either way :)

I'm enjoying the use of notes, but mostly as an experiment and because of the nature of my character. None of the other games I've been in used notes at all; didn't even know it was a thing until this game.

For me, I'm kind of enjoying the secrets. I think in a sandbox game like this, with such a high potential for us to be splitting up and pursuing different agendas, its cool to have more secrets and the possibility of a "big reveal".

Truth is, due to the use of notes in the character generation thread, I know almost nothing about all the other PCs. That's kind of new and exciting to me. I've forgotten what class everyone is and I've purposely not gone back and looked them up. I'm looking forward to see how we all interact; it will be like actually getting to know someone based on their appearance, actions, words and abilities.

If others aren't into these aspects of the game, I'm fine with being more open. But my vote is to continue as we have been.

I agree. Most games are less sandbox and the group always sticks together, so the need is limited. It's nice to have the hidden info as well to give our individual characters depth of knowledge on what is going on.

This is my first pbp that has been done this way. So far I like it, only because I've noticed that in some games, characters act on things they don't actually know, which makes it less fun for me. But in games where everyone is good at rping char vs. player info it doesn't matter as much.

It also adds mystery and intrigue as we try to figure out what everyone else is doing. :-p

I just like the idea that you see me walk off with these mystery guys and late you may just see me at the tavern drinking ale alone. Now I have quite the story to tell you. :)

Yeah! I'm enjoying this from both sides! Obviously my character is up to some under the radar business, but I also have no idea what's going on with any of your characters!

Why are the two guys entering the College? Why did the lady try and follow? WTF is a MINOTAUR doing in town anyway?!

Buy me an ale. I'll tell you all about it. Lol.

Don't know if any of us want to buy you a trough of ale lol

Oh, I haven't mentioned yet: I've been loving most of the Minotaur jokes...but for whatever reason...Goldilocks offended the heck out of me with his trough comment! I literally, out of character, read that and though, "What a racist."

If I get the slightest in character reason, I'm killing that guy.

Lol. I think that may have also sealed his fate in Tosher's mind. We shall see.

For the record, I tend to roll high or low in long streaks. This is just me getting my single-digit rolls out of the way.

Sigh.

Wow... this is just painful to watch lol

Lol. Just waiting for Olaph to appear around a corner and tell you he found a staircase that leads exactly where you want to go.