OOC: Chat Thread

LOL. I probably err too far to the other side with the prompting. Definitely more so than I would if we were sitting around a table together. I used to PbP on another site with wonderful people, but not very many people. It was way too common for games to just stall out and die there, so I got into the habit of prodding along the action when necessary. Maybe too heavy-handedly! But I guess I err on the side of too much help to preserve forward momentum.
No, this is a perfectly valid way to GM. It's frankly a sane way to GM, and not far off what Sly Flourish recommends in Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master, which is a great book. In the game I'm running that you're in, I'm using a published adventure (heavily modified, but published). In my other game (Rumble City), I did just what you've done: Set up a scenario, thought of a few key players and possible scenes, and ran with it.

Where I think we're flailing here is due to both our timidity as players (not wanting to put others at risk, leading to stalemate), and the lack of threads to pull in the search for the kids. Like, maybe beating the pirates up in the cantina would have yielded a key card or a datapad, like you suggest. But we decided to try to play nice with them, so we missed those clues. But maybe one of them could have made an offhand comment about us being just like the last bunch of outsiders to come through. Or the bartender could have mentioned that Lor-Id has the same lekku as a guy who... Then he clams up and we have to figure out how to get the info out of him.

I'm just spitballing here. But part of the improvisation we do as GMs is to think of how to relocate clues when PCs don't go looking where we think they'll look.

I'm no expert on all this, mind you. I'm just spouting some philosophy I've learned from the aforementioned Lazy Dungeon Master and by talking to lots of Call of Cthulhu players. :)

I mean, even sitting around a table, ppl miss things that ya think in your GM-brain will be obvious (or of course latch onto little things that you yourself never saw), and pbp just magnifies that.

One or more of your players having a bad day/week? They may only half-hearted read a post, put up a reply after only taking in the first sentence or two and whatever else was going on in that skimmed post just doesn't matter anymore cuz that new post is the progression of "reality", right? And that's what you have to work with.

So it really is the best side to err upon. I just need to get over it and work on my gentle prodding.
Very true. In this circumstance I feel like you guys had barely started to bat at the ball of yarn though. Cantina was second stop after the shop and you guys had been frustrated by people being tight-lipped and touchy about pirate business. So I dropped the water-supply lead - rather indelicately 😅 And so when you backed down from the fight, I was like, Meh. I hadn't caught on yet that you guys were giving the pirates due process and presuming innocence until proven guilty. I just figured you hadnt seen any cracks in the shell yet that you liked. Didn't understand that was what was going on until you closed the door on the back of the droid and went back up the hole.

By then I was just like...

I feel that the group is in a very delicate situation with little resources at their disposal and so they don’t want to make an enemy if they don’t need to. Eventually they will have to choose a side but without a significant benefit for them to make this choice, Besk at least, will be playing it safe.

Coincidentally gang, I am leaving on vacation tomorrow for a week. Will probably have some reduced activity for that time.

No worries. Enjoy the vacation :)

I'm always late to the OOC party - but this was a fun read to catch up on.

Did I read that Bob was going to be absent for a while? Or that they may need to back out of the game? Hopefully neither, but really hopefully not the latter.

Yeah, I'm on a weeklong vacay with my wife's family. The Internet here is terrible, but I'm not out of the game, just not able to post as much as I'd like. I've determined that using my phone as a hotspot lets me post (whereas the local wifi doesn't), though, so I should be able to keep up, albeit with reduced posting capacity until next week.

As for what we should do, I think jumping the droid might be our best bet, but if y'all want to try racing, we can do that. It just seems like a lot more effort than going back into the water and jumping the droid to tell us where Rance keeps his slaves.

Enjoy the vacation SavageBob. My vote is jumping the droid as well. Part of me is just curious about what is going on down there.

Let's jump that droid!

Woo-hoo! XP day! I've been saving up and finally had enough for the Grapple talent (25 XP). Dedication is only 25 XP away... :)

Just making sure that I’m not getting things confused here, Spacers are the pirates that the Hutts are in conflict with on this planet right?

Right.

Is there any way to jam the door from this side? I'm wondering if we maybe do something to buy a bit more time, fleeing up the well shaft if we have to.

You could try to slice it. Trigger a "manual override" lock type thing?

What about Star Wars door logic? Shoot the control panel of a door and, if successful, decide whether or not the door is in a constant state of open or closed until repaired. :)

Hey gang,

So I need to step back my activity level on Gamersplane.

Our oldest started on-line only kindergarten last week, and between that and normal work, and a couple of emergent "joys" of home-ownership (one of them being possible asbestos tile in our basement where we are wanting to redo our floor... 😩), I just have too much going on.

I'm gonna try to keep up with the games I'm playing in (though may drop one or two of those), but I need to put my GMing on hold.

It's "possible" that my kid returns to in-person classes at the end of October, if our state can get it's crap together RE: COVID. But who knows if that's gonna happen. Anyway, that would be the earliest I would see myself returning to GMing.

You guys can of course do with this information what you will. If that's too indefinite and you want to move on I understand. If you've got other things going on here and want to just hang out til I return, that'd be great too. I will say that in the 4+ years I've been gaming daily on GP, this is the first time I've had to take a break like this. Which is to say, I will most definitely return. Just gonna be a minute...

I wish this game was at a better stopping point, but I just have to step away now.

Anyway, hope to still see you guys around the forums. And maybe here when I come back to GMing?

Cheers,
em

Thanks for the heads up, em, and sorry your life has gotten so complicated! I'm playing in a couple of other active games, GMing one (the one you're in), and wrapping up a second. In other words, I have enough other irons in the fire to let this game go fallow without quitting. I'll almost certainly be here when you are back to fighting form.

No worries at all. Life/ Work is hectic for me right now as well. I'll be here when things settle down for you. No rush coming back and good luck with everything.

Hey gang,

So our school district is starting to phase kids back into classrooms earlier than anticipated starting with the Kindergartners in the coming weeks. And as the possibility looms that I may have more availability again soon, I'm kind of realizing that I don't have much desire to continue on with this game.

I feel like I may have pulled a rope-a-dope maneuver or something when I started the campaign with a premise that quickly switched to something very different, and that I just have generally failed at creating a story that everyone's interested in. And I don't think I have much desire to try to save it. I find myself dreading coming back to this story, which tells me that I probably shouldn't keep on with it...

Sorry to have strung you all along. Hadn't really parsed my thoughts and feelings about it until I started contemplating my ability to return.

Good to hear your life may get a bit less complicated soon, and thanks for the frank discussion about continuing the game. I've certainly been in PbP games before that caused me real anxiety (mostly due to a fellow player being a bully). I agree that if a game's not fun to run or play in most of the time, it's time to bail.

In other words, no worries or hard feelings from me. Do what you gotta do. I'll look forward to gaming with you in other contexts on GP.

Assuming we do end things, though, please let the cat out of the bag about where these damned kids are. :)