OOC Discussion

This thread is for any out-of-character discussion.

I'd like to start out by addressing the preferred maturity content of my games when I run them. We're all likely new to one another, as well as anonymous. We can't really be sure what age other players are IRL, or what their personal sensitivities may be. What we can be sure of is that Dungeons & Dragons 5e publishes all of their material with big capital letters reading "AGE 12+". For these reasons, among others, I like to keep my games somewhere around the PG-13/TV-14 level on the maturity rating scale. Here's a bit of what that means:

Sexual Content: I have no plans for romantic engagements to occur in this game. They're not pre-written into the story as a plot device. That being said, I have no problem if PCs wish to roleplay romantic feelings with other PCs or NPCs should the situation somehow spontaneously manifest, but I don't want to get too sexually graphic, and if things start turning towards that direction, I'll likely intervene with something to the effect of "your character and their newfound companion head to your room in the inn and shut the door, not to be seen or heard from again until the next morning", and then we'll move along with the story. You get the gist of what's probably going on behing that closed door, without getting into the the "moist" details. I don't anticipate rape or sexual violence being a part of this campaign, and I prefer to leave that sort of stuff out altogether. I understand that topics like that are somewhat embedded in the game in not so evident ways (such as how it applies to a lot of half orc backstories), but I don't think we need to dwell too graphically on the details, if at all.

Language: I don't feel the need to use excessively vulgar language too much when describing actions, environments, or situations. Language sometimes comes up in character dialogue, and and can certainly add some fun "oomph" or "punch" to dialogue, but again, let's try and keep it PG-13. "Hell", "damn", maybe the occasional "ass" or "bastard" is fine, and can certainly fit well with the feel of the game's setting, but let's avoid the excessively vulgar, crass, or graphic language. Let's try and avoid "f-bombs", in other words. No crass or degrading terminology for male and female anatomy. Stuff like that...

Violence: Pretty hard to set a tone or governor on this one, as a lot of this game involves hacking and slashing, bashing things with bludgeoning weapons, setting fire to living creatures. A lot of opportunities to commit and reward violence present themselves, in other words... I suppose lets just avoid descriptions of violence that would fit better in torture-porn media, and if at any time someone is feeling uncomfortable with any descriptions of violence, please let us know, or at least PM me and we'll get it sorted out and toned down to a level that works for everyone.

I don't want anyone to feel uncomfortable with the campaign or our style of gameplay... I don't want anyone's mom to send me a PM asking me what the hell I think I'm doing exposing their 13yo kid to some excessively heavy "adult" material... I just want to play some D&D and have fun.

That all seems fine. I tend to swear a lot in real life, but I think I'm alright at toning it down when writing. IF I slip up and throw an f-bomb, please let me know and also feel free to edit my post to remove it, but I'll do my best to be clean.

No problem on my end keeping it PG13.

Just a quick heads up as to where we're at:

We have two characters done and ready to go. That would be a Human Fighter playerd by AOC1996, and a half orc barbarian played by Mallow.

We have two players with tentative deas right now. A sorcerer for Sassafras, and a Ranger for ctme2000.

One of the players that expressed interest in the interest check thread didn't respond to the invite element to them, so I gave approval to someone who applied earlier tonight, but haven't heard if they're still interested or not.

Ideally, I'd like to have the characters done by no later than by Saturday, so we can begin on Sunday, but if they're ready sooner than that we'll start early.

I did have a question. It says posting once a day, I know we're spread all over. I'll sometimes with my work have the capacity to respond mid day, however sometimes I will not, and won't be able to respond until 6pm Mountain time. Will that cause any issues during the week?

@AOC1996: No that shouldn't be any problem. I'm on MST time schedule as well. Generally what I do is I log in in the morning and make what I consider my main post for the day, addressing anything going on getting the day started. I check in a few times throughout the day and just monitor player's responses and reactions, answer any questions that anyone may have, take care of any clerical/bookkeeping stuff necessary on my end, and at the end of the day I try and check in at least one last time before bed and see how things played out and give myself an idea how the next morning's post is going to go.

Yeah, it’s more common than not that a game contains people from different parts of the world. I’m from Denmark and since most people on GP are from the US it seems, the time of day I have the most time to post in is usually the same to US people are asleep. As long are active, time zones aren’t that big of a deal.

I submitted my character btw

@Sassafras: Approved. Just a heads up, your character's AC should be 10, not 0. Everything else looks good.

I'm in CST, and should be able to respond in the evenings/weekends. Currently in the midst of packing and moving, but should have my character ready by this Friday/Saturday.

Alright, sounds good. We'll start as soon as it's ready.

Just a note, in case you didn't see the character creation thread: All characters have been submitted and approved. This evening I'll have a new thread posted, titled "Part 1: Goblin Arrows". This will be the official gameplay thread. I would prefer to try and keep as much of the OOC conversation in this OOC thread as possible. I'm not a complete stickler about it, but I often find myself going back in the official gameplay threads to make sure I have events and past activities recalled correctly, and it's a lot easier to find things if their not hidden in a mire of OOC conversation.

As I've stated a few times before, this is my first time DMing 5e. I feel fairly confident that,due to the PbP formatting of this game and the fact that I have ample time to double check rulebooks, DM manuals, and campaign notes before I make any rulings, we won't run into too many hurdles that often come with inexperience . That being said, if you are familiar with the rules and notice that I may have made a mistake, forgotten to apply any Advantages/Disadvantages, overlooked any proficiency bonuses, or just generally made a DMing error of some sort, please bring it to my attention. I take no offense to being corrected, and I appreciate any effort made to help me be a better and more consistent and confident DM. If I am corrected about the rules of the game or how I interpreted them, we may be able to retcon a post and apply the rules correctly. In these cases I will likely leave the old post but run a Strikethrough through the offending text, and re-werite the correct post below it. At other times, it may be too late to fix the issue and we'll just have to be sure to do it correctly the next time the situation occurs.

I hope we enjoy a successful campaign, and thanks for playing.

Quick question regarding thoughts on DMs rolling for PCs to keep the game moving:

In PbP formatted games we often encounter situations where a player will narrate or describe what their PC is doing in a situation, and based on what their character is doing, a roll may be required.

In a regular real-time game the conversation would run something like this:
Player: I want to look at this wall and see if I can find any abnormalities in the stonework that might indicate a trap, or secret door, or hidden wall, or something.
DM: Make me a Perception roll.
Player rolls: Eighteen!
DM: The wall seems continuous, and nothing indicates any abnormalities.
The whole process takes maybe ten seconds.

In a PbP format, each line of the above dialogue might take half a day or even a full day to respond to, and thos entire exchange could take three or four days. To speed things up, I've occasionally rolled dice for the players when simply asking g them to do it themselves will bring the game to a grinding halt.
For example:
Player: I want to look at this wall and see if I can find any abnormalities in the stonework that might indicate a trap, or secret door, or hidden wall, or something.
DM rolls Perception roll for Player and rolls a 12: You don't see any abnormalities in this wall.
This way the player's action is resolved in as timely manner as possible, and we can move the game along.

Does anyone have any objections to the DM making rolls for their PCs under circumstances where the player declares an Action but didn't roll necessary dice to resolve the Action?

Suggestions:

Use passive investigation, perception, or insight for things that do not really require active intent. Like if there's a hidden trap or hidden passage. You can give the clue by using [note] to the one who has the highest passive or to the ones whose passive perception(etc.) exceeds the DC.

As for active perception, let the player roll the dice I guess so you don't have to ask. If they don't need to roll or they can't make the roll, you can ignore the dice results or make penalties.

For advantage and disadvantage, players can roll two dice instead of one. You can use the first result for rolls with no advantage or disadvantage. Alternatively, you can roll the advantage/disadvantage roll without asking.

I don't have any objection with GM rolling dice. (I do that a lot myself on one game I'm GMing)

Personally, I'm all for the DM using discretion on rolling for PCs. If a PC wants to attempt something and the DM requires a roll, then let the DM roll. To my mind there is more joy to be had in role-playing than in roll-making

Yeah, I'm fine with you running it however you want

If you wanna roll, I say roll! But I do like having some agency so if it was a split, I think I'd enjoy that.

In my in person games, to cut down on senseless rolling, characters making a check that would be around medium difficulty or lesser that have proficiency in that related skill need not roll. The DM counts it as a success, but not one of major importance.

I.E.

Grogg the Barbarian would like to bust through a door. The DM plans to use Athletics as the relevant skill check to knock down this door. Grogg's got proficiency in that skill and the door is just a standard door, nothing special.

Grogg would not need to roll here, he just does it.

He CAN roll should the DM wish to see if something interesting happens, but if everyone is interested in expediency then the door just breaks under Grogg's sufficiently proficient might and they proceed.

I hope that made sense and is mildly helpful. Helps my party speed along and cuts down on excess rolls.

Sounds good, thanks for the input. As you'll see, in the last post a few PCs opted to make actions that would require Survival rolls, but rather than using a day of game time requesting and waiting for rolls, I just wen't ahead and rolled like you made the roll yourselves and told you the outcome.

Also, if you ever think maybe your character might need to roll based on actions they took, but are unsure, feel free to make a roll and attach it to your post. If I agree that the roll was appropriate we'll use it. If I think a roll wasn't necessary, we'll ignore it. If I think a roll was necessary but disagree with the skill you used to roll with I can always just explain why I think a different skill is more appropriate make the appropriate skill roll for you as if you didn't attach a roll in your post.

Sounds like a good split between player and DM agency. I'm down.

Alright, as @sassafras pointed out, @AOC1996 has left the game. Their character sheet, which they had posted on D&D Beyond is not there, so I'm going to assume it's permanent. I have all of Mathias's stats on a spreadsheet, so we could keep him as an NPC, but I really don't like running other people's creations like that, so we'll probably just have him act as a non-combative NPC suffering from a gut-shot wound until we find a way to write him out of the story. In the mean time, you're down to a party of four. The adventure is written for four to five PCs, so it shouldn't really make a huge difference in terms of difficulty, and as Mathias was a fighter and we still have two other melee characters, it doesn't leave any essential holes in the combat dynamics. If you feel more comfortable playing with a party of five, I have other NPCs that can be written in.

Meanwhile, first combat of the game is over. A few rough edges to sand off and smooth out, but I think it could have gone worse. Te two issues I saw were:

1. I think we ran into a bit of an issue about posting out of turn and, at least on my part, it caused a bit of confusion as to who was doing what and when, but it seems like towards the end those wrinkles looked like they we're being wrinkled out.

2. I would normally prefer if I could make die rolls for monsters and you be allowed to see the result of the roll without seeing the modifiers added to my rolls, as seeing the modifier can give away some clues as to the monster's capabilities, but in Gamersplane you don't seem to have that option. So from here on out, I'm thinking I will probably just make all my rolls in combat and their results available to see. You can probably harvest a little bit of metadata on the monster's ability scores from it, but it's not likely to break the game, and I prefer it over you not being able to see the dice results (especially when it comes to making damage rolls against you).