Jorune: general discussion

Any questions, comments? Discuss them here.

We're going to use the Skyrealms of Jorune 3rd edition rules with little modification. If you have the Sholari Pack and/or back issues of the Sholari fanzine and want to play one of the variant occupations listed there, let me know.

The primary change to the base rules is about learning skills. As part of character generation, I'm going to ask each player to decide whether his/her character learns more by success or failure. Learning by success will improve a character's chances for improving established skills, but learning by failure improves a character's chances for improving lower skills.

Hi! Sorry, been AFK for the past couple of days. Time to play catch up! :-) Thanks!

Good to see you back! Let me know if you'd like any help or questions answered.

I have never seen such an in-depth character creation system. Loving it!

Also, what is the default way of improving skills?

Also, what are Iscin skills?

In a word? Science.

Improvement explained.

I don't know how to ask this: can you give us an idea what the numerical values of statistics and skills mean? Skills at least I sort of get because you have the descriptive unfamiliar/familiar/experienced/seasoned but the characteristics and the derived statistics are little bit more abstract. Is there a maximum value (the analog of 20 in a D&D game?). What numeric values would make one average/succeed most of the time/failure would be a fluke? I'm trying to form a basis for assigning points. :-) Thanks!

I think most things are a d20 roll, and you need to roll under your skill. Probably with situational modifiers for difficulty?

Another question,
This must mean that each skill is associated with a characteristic?
That being the case, what skills are associated with what? And do the characteristics have an effect on the skills themselves?

To address Jabes' questions: most actions don't require a roll against a rank, just a certain level of ability. A particular task might require someone trained in the task, for instance (they have at least a 1 in the skill). If the character is Familiar, it will be done faster. If the character is Experienced, it will be done particularly well.

But in combat (and certain other situations, such as trying to activate Earth-tec before a ship sinks beneath the waves), you often do need to roll. It's a d20 roll, trying to get equal or less than your skill number. You'll have noticed that a lot of skills - particularly the non-combat skills - have very low rank numbers, even in cases where the level of the skill is high. For very hard skills like Physics, for instance, someone is Seasoned in the skill with a rank of 9! What this means is that you should be avoiding using these skills under duress, but if you have to use them in dangerous situations, you should have others work to shield you from the danger so that you can work in peace. Imagine that you're on a ship that is being attacked by pirates. The ship has a complicated ancient artifact on board that must be activated for you all to escape. You have the Earth-tec skill and are confident that you can do it...but you would find it very difficult to decipher the ancient instructions and so on while pirates are swinging swords at you. You could try it (by rolling against the rank of the skill), but your chances of success wouldn't be great. On the other hand, you could appeal to your teammates: "Keep them off me for two minutes and I'll be able to get this activated and save us all!" and then the onus is on them to keep pirates from swinging swords at you for a few rounds, after which you would automatically succeed at your roll.

Rolls are typically against skills, and usually only when there is some pressure on the result: time pressure, opposition, threat, etc.

To speak to part of Naatkinson's question: Mostly the characteristics are there to determine your derived statistics. That's their primary purpose in the game mechanics. Your derived characteristics adjust as soon as your characteristics change. So your max isho or max lifting weight would change as soon as your ISHO or STRENGTH changed, for example.

That said, there are a few cases where a roll is made against a CHARACTERISTIC, rather than a skill:
* SPOT and LISTEN checks: you'll be rolling to notice stuff fairly frequently (as we've seen in the game thread already)
* STRENGTH checks: when something nasty grabs your character, this is the roll to break free.

To Qralloq: Absolutely. The game has almost-Rolemaster levels of situational modifiers. One of my jobs as GM is to shield you from those, because they are ridiculously granular. We can do it one of two ways:

1. You can describe what you're doing and roll, then I'll do the calculations, and tell you the result.

or

2. You can describe to me what you're doing, I'll respond by telling you the net modifier, you make a second post adding that modifier to your roll, and then you'll know immediately whether you succeeded or not, though I'll still describe the result.

I think I prefer the first option, because it would move the game faster. Tell me what you think, though.

Naatkinson: Different skills map to different characteristics, for the purposes of increasing the characteristics when the skills increase in level. Some characteristics do not map to any skills, and so cannot be improved by such means.

The following skills can increase by improving the level of skills: STRENGTH, SOCIAL, COLOR, AIM, LEARN, EDUCATION, and AGILITY.

- Interaction skills improve SOCIAL
- Dysha and moon skills improve COLOR
- athletic and melee combat skills improve either AGILITY or STRENGTH
- ranged combat skills improve AIM
- common/practical knowledge skills improve EDUCATION
- languages, sciences, and other skills improve LEARN

I'm assuming that increasing the ranks of a Skill at character creation doesn't give the chance to upgrade a Characteristic? That would start after game play has begun

Yes, that's my take on it, too. To do otherwise would take this into the realm of the really complicated character generation systems, like Traveller or Universe.

This is taken from Jabes Character Creation

This is why I asked, because it seems REALLY easy to game the system. Take all my skills, put them one step away from the next level and go to town increasing characteristics left and right.

Well, I'm adjusting the 3rd edition rules to make it easier, yes. So I'm fine with that. In the continuity of the story, you have been adventuring for some time, so it would make sense that you might (might) improve multiple skills in a session.

Remember that you have to specify whether your character learns by success or by failure. That decision is fueled by whether you want to develop a well-rounded character over time (got at least Familiar in everything), or have someone who is exceptional in skills that he started with.

(note: in 3rd edition played as a tabletop game, skill advancement is much more complicated - a bit of a minigame really, where you earn advancement points that are then spent in batches to make rolls to advance your character's skills. A given session's use of a skill would generate a random number of advancement points, which might or might not be enough to buy a single roll. For the purposes of our game here on GP, this seemed too complicated a load of bookkeeping. It also could end up being much slower skill advancement, depending on the quality of the rolls. Given that you still have to roll to improve a skill in my "simplification" of the system, I don't think we're losing too much by the change.)

So far I like the character creation. Not such a fan, but the sounds of it, of advancement, especially since you have to assign skills that you may or may not even use. I understand that it's part of the system, it just seems very unreliable and too reliant on luck. We will see how it plays out though :)

Looking forward to a good experiment. Never played anything outside of DnD or Pathfinder before.

Yeah, it forces the player to plan what he's going to try to use in the future, which is a little like Robo Rally or other "programming" board games, where you have to declare in advance what you're going to do. Of course, you don't have to use your foci skills, but it's pretty likely that the players are going to try to manipulate events to generate a situation where they will use the skills.

Playing it here on GP, how much depends on luck will vary depending on whether your character learns by success or failure. If success, you'll be trying to use skills where you already have a level and you will succeed automatically, unless opposed or there is some other difficulty requiring you to roll. In that case, the challenge is just, as I said above, trying to figure out a way to use that skill in the game. If you learn from failure, you'll have to try to use the skill in challenging situations, so that you can roll...or use skills where you are Unfamiliar.

Incidentally, you can join in on the game thread anytime; you don't need to wait.
Game thread

I'll be joining up tomorrow :)

A comment/question about Improvement:

This is interesting. When considering whether I would have Gythaar learn from success or from failure I realized that the skills I would like to improve (and so assigned as foci) are also those that I gave highest ranks. So learn by success then, right? Which brings me to: is there any point at all to putting focus on a skill that you are already ranked Seasoned in? What is there, if anything, beyond Seasoned?

If you choose to improve skills with high ranks/level, learning by success will be more likely to grant you improvement rolls, yes.

There's no level beyond Seasoned, but you will still improve ranks in the skill, which makes it more likely that you will succeed when you do have to roll a skill check.

I have a question about character background, in particular, Fascination: What are Skyrealms, and what are Warps? Apologies if this was explained in any of the setting info posts. I did read them all but I might've missed something.

About Racial Attitudes: I know we each need to think about our individual attitudes about other races, but what are some general cultural attitudes? From the setting information I've gotten that bronth and woffen tend to despise crugar, and that the iscin races are 2nd-class citizens (please correct me if I got any of that wrong). What else besides that? What do the human varieties think of each other? Would a crugar (or any other iscin for that matter) consent to being mounted or would that be demeaning? Would it perhaps make a difference if you've formed a bond with someone (example: Marik & Gythaar)?

Jorune the planet contains a lot of energetic crystal. That crystal energy - isho - flows in currents all over and through the planet, in seven varieties (corresponding to the seven moons). One color of isho - Ebba - has to do with force and gravity. Shifts in subterranean ebba flows will occasionally cause a section of the planet's crust to break off and float upwards. Such floating mountains/islands are called "skyrealms."

Another color of isho - white - is called Tra, which has to do with space. Using tra, portals can be opened that connect with some distant location. These portals or gates are called "warps."

Awesome! Thanks! I think Gythaar is ready. Maybe some backstory and relationship with fellow PC's, and my question above about racial attitudes, but I think I'm ready to jump into the game thread now. :-)

Waiting for more people to jump in before I start posting more in the game thread :)

About mounting PCs: a muadra riding a crugar would be pretty weird, but then, for most races, a lot of racial intermingling is weird, too. Ardoth is one of the only places on Jorune where two races choosing to spend time with each other wouldn't raise eyebrows. For most toth, each to his own. People from larger cities, as well as Drenn, would have no issues with it. Thriddle would find it fascinating; they seem to have few qualms themselves about freely interacting with anyone (though many people do have prejudice against thriddle - they are freaky monsters with bulging eyes on stalks, after all). Crugar tend to be prideful, and the affection and trust implicit in letting someone else ride you would be astonishing to crugar from the homeland of Temauntro.

On the other hand, some races are less alarming. The corastin - who are often relegated to menial labor as simpletons - are often bearers of others, for instance. But they're easily twice the mass of any other sentient race, and only a large bronth standing erect on hind legs would come close to the height of a corastin.

I got the 3rd edition rule book... the combat rules are REALLY complex, honestly not sure where to start lol

Yeah, I'm trying to shield you players from most of the heavy crunch. My friend Joe produced a bunch of material for the game right after 3rd edition was released, including the Sholari Pack, which does a good job of reorganizing and presenting the information in a more sensible way. I'm trying to leverage that and also streamline a little bit. I'm overdue in posting my thread on isho and dyshas.,,

Just to make sure... The aim bonus is added directly onto our ranks in ranged skills? Is this actually rank additions in the sense that they can raise us to the next level (Familiar to Experienced)? Or is it just a 'soft' increase that raises the number that we have to roll under?

The latter; the aim bonus alters the target number for a roll when firing a ranged weapon or launching a dysha.

That's what I thought, thanks for clarification :)

Sorry for all the mistakes...still learning the system :-D I think maybe I should get my character sheet better organized.

Gythaar just threw his only ranged weapon! Dysha time. I hope I get the rolls right! 5 ranks +1 Aim +1 STR +1 AGL = 8?

Did I do that right? How often do these advantage rolls happen?

Sorry, my previous post had been right before I turned in to bed last night, so I didn't see your question until just now.

A combat round is broken into three parts: Advantage, Actions, Damage (if any).
So you'll be rolling Advantage every round that you're in combat. That's 1d20 plus your advantage modifiers.
That determines what actions you can take:
1 - 5: you can evade.
6 - 10: you can defend, make a ranged attack, or evade.
11 - 15: you can defend or attack
16 - 19: you can defend and attack
20: You can defend and attack with +5 modifier to the target number

Aim bonus is added to the target number just as you've done.
You can also spend a round or more aiming, which will give you further modifiers to your target number. To aim in this way, you roll 1d20 vs your AIM characteristic.

Damage is always 2d6, as you've done. If you hit on an armored part of the opponent, I'll have you roll another 2d6 for armor penetration. You can choose to include that roll with your post, on the chance that it will be required, or wait for my prompt.

Thanks for the above, and sorry for all the questions! :-)

Now about those advantage rolls, you said in the game thread to roll "roll your Advantage rolls over again, using 1d20+5 (for your preparation as the dichandra noticed you), plus your other advantage bonuses." What is the +5 from? Gythaar's STR and AGL together give him +2 bonus to Advantage rolls so is that then 1d20+7?

How do we use a Dysha? Do we just roll vs our Dysha Skill in the ranged category? Do we roll vs our skill in that specific Dysha and THEN vs our Dysha Skill?

Also, I got my Isho costs for the dyshas out of the rule book, but everyone else might need them to if they don't have them already.

Jabes: The +5 was a bonus I gave to the party for round one, because they had effectively surprised the beasts. It is applied in addition to the STR and AGL modifiers you mention.

Naatkinson: To cast a dysha, tell me the level you have in that dysha (for example: "I'm going to use Healer/Experienced"). In many cases, that will be sufficient to succeed. If a roll is required for an attack dysha, it's actually two rolls: first, a roll to form the dysha (against that dysha's skill), and then a second roll to hit with the attack (against the dysha ranged attack skill). As you note, isho points are used with every dysha cast. The bundling and other multipliers are complex enough, I'm saving it for my isho article - it's complicated enough, I may split it into two articles: one for setting info, and one long one for the mechanics. Sorry it's taking me so long!

Hmm, very complex indeed. So I don't have to roll at all to use my dysha? Besides for damage?

I feel so weird to roll for some things and not for others, lol, but a very interesting system indeed

Thanks for answering my Advantage roll question!

Gythaar tried to use a dysha as his extra ranged attack. I don't know if that's ok. And it looks like I did the rolls wrong.

More practically, how would you feel about rolling anyway, while telling me the level of the skill you're using? Sometimes there may be enough stress on you to require a roll, but waiting for me to post a request for you to roll, then you posting a roll, and then we see the result seems like it's adding two unnecessary steps to a game where (by nature of PbP) any step can take hours to complete. If you post both the level of the skill and the roll, then I can refer to the roll in those rare instances where the roll was necessary.

The game logic for not requiring rolls all the time is that you have a level in the skill - Experienced, say - but the actual rank in that skill might be very low (6, for a very hard skill). Given time, a person using a skill that they are Experienced in should succeed. But if we just went by the rolls, a person Experienced in a hard skill would fail most of the time. So I go by the level unless there is special difficulty for the task. It makes more sense for the characters and keeps the action flowing.

But yes, in a case where there isn't exceptional stress on your attempt (of any Familiar or better skill, not just dyshas), the attempt will succeed regardless of the rolls, and you will roll damage (if an attack).

Sounds good to me, and speeds things up a bit too

Practical question:
I've only just realized that I've been making an assumption that people can and will post on the weekend, which might not be everyone's desire or ability. Would anyone rather I pause the game on Saturday and/or Sunday?

I can do whatever. I've just been waiting for round 2, I don't think it was ever officially announced

To be honest I'm a little lost :-) Yeah we're coming up on round two I think? I know I'e acted once and gained an extra action from advantage. And I think I've rolled advantage for Round 2 but haven't acted?

Ok, so in addition to my action in round 2 I can either defend or make another attack because of the advantage I rolled for this round, correct? And then after I take my actions I roll for next round's advantage. Did I get that right? Thanks!

I've posted the prompt for round two and round one recap.

Jabes, your 20+ advantage for round one enabled you to attack and defend with a bonus. I factored your bonus into your attack, or at least I would have, but you rolled a great success as it was! No defense was necessary, since nothing attacked you.

Your advantage from the earlier roll is in the list of advantage for round two already. You can attack and defend.

How do we roll for defense?

It's like an attack roll: roll 1d20 against the skill you're using to defend (your weapon, defend without weapon, or defend with shield if someone is using a shield). There are some modifiers for weapons - generally weapons that are more deadly for attacking, like an axe, have a penalty for defense, because they're not built for parrying. But if you are going to defend, do the roll, and I'll resolve it.

Sorry I didn't post yesterday; I hosted a wedding at my house and just crashed afterward. I will post today, but it will be a while before cleanup is finished.

Wonderful questions, Qralloq! I'm enjoying your crugar querrid.

Jabes.plays.RPG has raised the question about "reading" people in social situations, particularly through scent.

Scent really should be a derived characteristic, I think.
For crugar: SCENT is LISTEN - 1.
For woffen: SCENT is LISTEN +1.
For bronth: SCENT is LISTEN.
For humans, muadra, and boccord, SCENT is SPOT -2.

Then, to smell something or discern a particular odor, it would be a SCENT check: add/subtract any modifiers to your SCENT, then roll 1d20: equal or less than the target number succeeds.

Tangentially related to the subject are interpersonal relations. For personal interactions, each character has a host of interaction and etiquette skills, which we touched on in part four of character generation. Either interaction or etiquette might be used by a character to persuade someone, for instance. Such checks are done against the character's SOCIAL, modified by their interaction or etiquette modifier.

Interaction is knowing the social cues, body language, and other communication signals for a particular race, so each character has a modifier for human interaction, thriddle interaction, shantha interaction, and so forth. As GM I track these modifiers for you, and you get a large bonus to such checks when dealing with your own race.

Etiquette is knowing the proper way to interact with particular types of people, and can include occupations, social strata, different situations, and residents of different countries/regions. So you have Heridoth etiquette and Burdoth etiquette, as well as caji etiquette, military etiquette, and the like. As GM I track these modifiers for you - the web of modifiers is huge - and you get a large bonus when dealing with your own occupation, social position, and region.

Added an Education roll to my previous post

We both failed both of those rolls, haha.

Just thought of something: You can reassign foci every day, right? Or was it every sequence? I know we set our foci for the dichandra encounter but I don't think we set them for this flashback. We've made quite a few rolls already. I'd imagine we'd all like to focus on social interaction or exploration skills here. Am I right?

Yes, please set your foci for this "4 days earlier" sequence. I'm sorry I didn't ask for that earlier.

I want to get the group's feeling about opening the game up to new players; we have six character slots, but only three players are active (one never played after joining, another has gone inactive for weeks now, and we never had a sixth join). I'm content to continue running Barragar as an NPC, on the hope that Starhelm will return, but I feel like we could use the dynamic that a couple more players would add. What do you think?

Sounds fine to me :) bring in some new blood

Sure!

I am really digging that talmaron illustration!

Same, and I missed the post about getting new players.. your plan makes sense to me.

Welcome, welcome, can always use some more bronth in the larder, err, the party.

Welcome to the party :)

So, the new guys are ready to join. Is there more that the party would like to do in Ardoth before I do a break to transition to this next vignette?

We could do it one of two ways:
- we can role-play it out, either PCs paying for mounts and doing other things (if any) before leaving, or finding Jates and getting cash from him as well.

- we can each do a quick description of the next few hours, preparing to leave, and then wrap up this sequence and start with the PCs on the wing.

I'm happy to go either way, especially given that players may want to get skill checks done in their foci. Let me know if you have a preference.

When should we roll those checks for our foci? At the end of a sequence?

Yes, but it is optional. You can save the accumulated rolls, or spend them, but only at the end of a sequence.

So...no preference?

Hearing no responses, I'll choose. I think that I'll wrap up this sequence with a montage, and get the next sequence started so that the new players can join. I'll post this a little later today.

Sounds good to me. I though I'd responded, but must have gotten distracted before I actually posted!

Okay, sorry everyone for the long wait. I'm going to wrap up this second sequence and start the third as you are all on the wing on your talmarons, flying to Kaigon. Those of you who have been playing already - Gythaar, Marik, Miniri and Barragar (currently I'm playing him as an NPC) - can choose to roll for improvement with any rolls they've accumulated through use of their foci. Please do the rolls in the System: Improvement thread.

Everyone should decide what their foci will be for the third sequence now.

As always, let me know if you have any questions.

Could you explain foci? I didn't quite get that part...

It's all here, Couchlord >> Index > Game Forums > Strange Allies - Skyrealms of Jorune > Jorune Information > System: Improvement

A clarifying question, Naat: Do you want to do an information search, or something else?

There IS a strong thriddle presence in Kaigon, and where there are thriddle, there are archives. Information Search is for getting information out of inanimate objects: archives, libraries, journals, etc, and Marik is Experienced at that, so you could do it that way (though if you do, I'd like to know a little bit more about what sort of information you're trying to find). Or you could, if you're just trying to detect something as Miniri has done, change that roll into a LISTEN check. Or, if you're trying to engage someone in conversation and glean some information that way, you could do a SOCIAL check (though again I'd like some idea of the information you're trying to glean).

So, you've rolled a 2. Is that:
- to search through thriddle records for something (Information Search)?
- to remain alert and possibly overhear something (LISTEN)?
- to subtly and sociably grill someone for information (SOCIAL)?
- or something else?

Was going for listen, my apologies! Thanks for the clarification

This is awesome (though totally an accident). I had forgotten Ullis was there. I guess this shows the difference in professionalism between the grizzled veteran and the relatively untrained muadra.

Haha, I did to.

Hmmm... a whole link to get on board? I only have 6 yules, that means I need 4 more, right? Or did Jates give us enough cash to cover this too?

You might have to use some skills (Bargain?) or wiles to get on board, or try to arrange to work for passage, or stowaway, or borrow cash from others...

Ok, just wanted to make sure we didn't have a surplus of cash laying around somewhere!

I know it's just a typo but my first reaction to
was a joke along the lines of "Usually it's customary to wait until after the corastin grabs Miniri, climbs to the top, and starts rolling barrels before you begin climbing" but maybe Jorune Kong never would have put Nintendo on the map.

Wow, I'm bad lol! I will fix that. Damn autocorrect

Haha yeah I also wanted to make a Mario Bros. or Donkey Kong joke but came up empty. Good one, Spaceseeker! :-D

Sorry for the delay; I'm working on some more artwork to post and am composing a montage sequence so we don't have to play out all the details of operating the ship (keeping in mind foci, of course).

So, at this point I'm happy to continue the discussion in this evening when you spot Hentak and Elonpo aboard ship. But if you'd like now - or perhaps after we play out the rest of any conversation - we can go into a "shorthand" mode, where I will describe an overview of each day on the ship, and, each character may interject with two declared activities:
a) something you do publicly during the day (possibly using a focus or other skill, either as part of working on the crew or in a break). For example: "I go down into the galley and help prepare meals (using my Cooking skill)"
and
b) something you do when you're not on shift (surreptitious or otherwise private activity), if anything. For example: "I follow Renno on his rounds because I find him suspicious (using my Tailing skill)."

I vote the shorthand but am perfectly okay with either option. :-)

Shorthand sounds good to me, too.

I'm ok with the speedy way

The Crystal Ship. (soundtrack)

Both Gythaar and Marik have a contact - a non-party NPC known from before this trip other than Hentak and Elonpo - aboard the ship. Naatkinson and Jabes.plays.RPG, you can decide who that is for each character, or whether it's the same person. Contacts may provide information, assistance, or other resources depending on circumstances.

I like to incorporate your ideas and give you some freedom to create parts of the world, BUT if you'd rather not, I can make them myself. I don't want it to be a chore for you!
Yes, that's what I was thinking: just a quick overview like name, race, a word or two about personality. I'll take it from there (but see my comment about the chore, above: tell me if you'd rather not, and I'll make the contacts).

It might take a couple if days before I can get to mine

Whoa, Elvar is on the ship, too?? That's really interesting!

Yeah, I thought that might make things interesting!

Sorry, everyone, for the long delay. First there was prep for DunDraCon, then my daughter and I got very sick. I'm ramping up again now and don't want to keep you all waiting any longer.

It's all good, Spaceseeker! We're excited to continue but take as much time as you need to recover. :-)

This got a big laugh from me. Thank you!

I love these characters.

How far away from Marik is Elonpo?

You could take a step and be adjacent, since you and Barragar have only just come out of the first set of doors.

Going to step out of the game for now to save space on my forum list. Please re-invite me if it gets started back up.

Me to: I'm clicking "Leave Game" now but if there should ever be a continuation of this story, Gythaar and I would very much like to be part of it. Cheers!