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).

Sounds like a good plan, DM.

For my part, I'd let Mathias die from his wounds. I know it's a balancing act, but 4 PCs will speed up play, especially combat.

Thoughts, comrades?

Sounds good to me. I don't mind playing as just 4

I don't mind as well.

Not an issue on my mind, sounds good.

There are a couple of people that must have noticed a vacancy in our game and applied to join, but I'm good with keeping it at a group of four as well.

I haven't seen a post from Mallow since 8/24, and they don't seem to be responding to a PM to see if they're still playing. Maybe we'll give it a couple more days and see if we hear from them, and if not, we'll have to decide how to proceed without them.

Do we still have people wanting to join the campaign? Maybe a new player has to adopt an existing (orphaned) PC? Also, perhaps we should have a "one-post-per-xxx" frequency rule?

Yeah, this unfortunately happens all the time, odds are they're just ghosting the game/website. Shouldn't be too hard to recruit a replacement, then cross our fingers it won't happen again.

@therecusant: We do have the 1 post per day policy, but it doesn't really have any teeth because 1) We have to understand that people have personal lives and aren't always able to post every day, and sometimes they need to handle more important mattersand may be away from their computers for days at a time, and 2) the only thing you can really do to enforce a post per day policy is kick them for not agreeing, which puts us right back here, except now you look like an inflexible jerk and nobody wants to play with an inflexible jerk of a DM.

I did send out an invite to someone that expressed interest before, who is playing in the B/X game I'm running. That will bring us up to four again at least. And we should consider if we want to stay with four players or go back up to five...

Noted. But I don’t think it’s too much to ask people to let the DM know if real life stuff is preventing a substantive post

Oh, I agree for sure. Hopefully we get some folks interested in joining.

We have two new players to the group, if anyone wants to welcome seymore and kwil. They're whipping up some characters right now. In the mean time, if we want to continue this encounter, we have Osvaldo up next, with one goblin remaining alive, though hidden in the foliage somewhere.

welcome @seymore and @kwil :-)

Hey hey, welcome fellow players!

Greetings all! I'm very excited for this adventure, I've heard a ton of good things about it. I just submitted my character, a gnome rogue who goes by Bug.

Welcome to you both!

I like that idea a lot, I've never been a fan of the hand-wavy "you've just been there quietly the whole time" thing. I just have a few questions up the point that I'd be found.
Was I just a traveler on the road when I got ambushed? And do I know Gundren or Sildar, either before getting capturing or during my stay there?

So not to give too much of my backstory away, but I definitely think he's done his fair share of banditry, as well as escorting. Whatever happens to be paying at the moment. I can see him taking a small job, thinking it's an easy gig and letting his guard down long enough to get ambushed. I don't see him being particularly attached to anyone that he would have been traveling with at the time, but still witnessing his companions being eaten is never a pleasant experience.

@Kwil: Do you have an image for your PC? Something I can use to turn into a token for the battlemap?

It will com up on your posts as you avatar, but it won't show up on the sheet itself. That's okay though, I did a reverse image search and found it.

@ctme2000: To continue our discussion about the Tireless Feat, when I CTRL+F "Tireless" in the PHB pdf I only get 2 hits, and I can't find anything in the PHB that gives Osvaldo +5 temporary Hit Points. The section on Temporary Hit Points in the PHB (page 198) uses 5 Temporary Hit Points as an example, they use, but doesn't actually apply +5 Hit Points to anything.

Looking at the Ranger Class in the Unearthed Arcana rules you built Osvaldo on, I get this:

Tireless
As an action, you can give yourself a number of
temporary hit points equal to 1d10 + your
Wisdom modifier. You can use this special action
a number of times equal to your Wisdom
modifier (a minimum of once), and you regain all
expended uses when you finish a long rest.
In addition, whenever you finish a short rest,
your exhaustion level, if any, is decreased by 1.

Do you have a PHB page number?

Hey, page 198 as well. My understanding is that the 5 temp hit points is it's own thing, not effecting my regular HP at all. Think of it as a force field around me that has 5 points. Once those 5 points are gone, it starts effecting my regular HP. If you have an email address you're willing to share, I can send a cut of the exact text I'm referring to. Don't know how to add an image in gamer's plane via the image function.

Look up the False Life spell, its a similar idea

This might explain it better: https://www.dungeonsolvers.com/2019/03/08/temporary-hit-points-in-dd-5e/

I gotcha on how the Temporary Hit Points works out; that seems understandable enough. I'm just not understanding where the number "+5" specifically comes from. The way I'm reading it, when Osvaldo uses his Tireless Feat he rolls 1d10 and adds his +2 WIS Modifier and the result is how many Temp HP he gets, even if he's maxed out on HP as it is because they stack with current HP. But the way I'm reading it, Osvaldo roll for those Temp HP, and gets anywhere from 3-12 Temp HP depending on his d10 roll. It's not just a set-in-stone "+5 Temp HP" It's more likely going to be more than +5 depending on his d10 roll.

So as we stand, you were at 1HP. You declared to take a Short Rest AND to use your Tireless Feat. For your Short Rest you rolled your Hit Die (a d10) and got a "10" (+2 CON Mod), for a total of 12 HP regained. This puts you at 13 HP, but you max out at 12 at this level, so Osvaldo currently is at full health with 12HP.

Now if you wanted to use your Tireless Feat as well, as written up in the UA Ranger, you get to roll another d10 and add your Wisdom Modifier (also a +2 for Osvaldo). These Hit Points stack on top of your currently maxed out HP and are burned off first if you're hurt. I think I'm getting confused or hung up on the "+5" part of your explanation because I don't think the Temp HP are necessarily always a +5 across the board for your Ranger. I think they're 1d10 plus your +2 Wisdom Mod according to the Tireless description presented in the UA Ranger Class.

Does that make sense?

Yup, that's exactly it. The 5 is not a set #. I rolled 1d10 + Wis mod when using the Tireless ability and it gave me 5 temp HP. Hmm, perhaps my bad in using +5 instead of just 5, causing the confusion.

When regaining HP from a short or long rest you can never gain more then your max HP, so 12 in this case. With the 5 temp hit points on top of that.

Alright, I think my confusion was I didn't see the die roll you made, so I wasn't sure where you got the "5" from.So yeah. Osvaldo should be at 12HP + 5 Temp HP.

Hey guys. As you might've noticed I've been a bit on and off in my activity over the past few weeks, which has been due to feeling stressed, overworked and to an extent slightly depressed. I've decided to take a week or two off from GP completely to recharge my batteries. I'm more than happy to stay in the game and jump back in when I'm ready again, but I'm okay if you decide that you'd rather drop me from the game.

No, I think we can hold your place while you're gone. We can figure out where he wandered off to later. Maybe you're left to guard the cave entrance in case more goblins wander up from the trail.

I believe at Level 1 he can only Rage twice before a long rest. I think he Raged once today, but might still have another rage left. If @therecusant wishes, I'm fine with retconning it to allow rage.

In that case, Severus was using Barbarian Rage and only took 7HP Damage.

Sweet, thanks DM! Anytime @therecusant!

No worries therecusant, I botched the bridge on my turn earlier. Just fyi, you rolled d20 damage for your greataxe. It should be d12.

Also, a belated Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all! This has been a fun group to play with!

Thanks @ctme2000. I’ll correct the roll, although I think I missed anyway.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you all!

I award everyone 1 Inspiration Point from Santa. Happy holidays to all of you.

Also... Oof @therecusant... Severus is having a bad encounter...

Nice touch, DM! Thank you, and Merry Christmas.

Yes, Severus is having a potentially life-ending encounter :-(

So be it, perhaps I can RP Sildur if I don't make it :-)

You can RP his death of course. You can also use your Inspiration Point to re-roll your attack if you like. It may be a useful use of it. It may be a also be foolish waste of it.

You also get a best-of-5 Death Save system in 5e.


So it's up to you before I stamp it...

Oh, Sildur... geez... lemme think on that...

Well now, DM, since the Inspiration point was a Christmas present, and therefore available before my assualt on Goblin #1, I think I'd like to re-roll! Will do so now....

Crikey....

Brilliant DMing, sir! Most inpressed ;-)

Brilliant bit of playing there too, good sir! And gracias for the Inspiration DM!

I forgot to post yesterday (or day before yesterday) that I was going to be out of town yesterday for my middle daughter's wrestling tournament. Didn't get back until late last night. Sorry about that; I usually try and give you guys a heads up.

Not that anyone asked, but if you'll indulge me a minute to dad-brag, she went undefeated yesterday, and pinned the #1-ranked girl in the state, so she made the local news last night, and the newspaper came and did a story on her today. Pretty cool...

I'm on my mobile right now, but I'll have a post in the official gameplay forum in about an hour or so.

Amazing! Congratulations

Yeah, congrats. That sounds like quite the achievement :)

Congrats, that's super exciting! It sounds like you're raising a little monk over there!

Well we haven't had a post from Osvaldo in a week and a half. I'm wondering if they abandoned the game.

Shame, but it's looking that way. Is anyone in any other games with Osvaldo?

I haven't heard anything from them. Hopefully it was just a busy time and will return soon.

Yeah, a week and a half can go both ways. Have you tried to send them a PM?

Argh, sorry everyone! Been a bit of a whirlwind with my infant, work, and life, this site completely skipped my mind. I'll try and be better going forward, and will have a post later today. I hope my kiddo is as kick ass as your daughter one day funfun! Congrats to her!

No problem, ctme2000. This game's pacing is pretty relaxed. Just wasn't sure if we'd lost you to real life or not.

Just a heads up for everyone; on February 18 I will be heading out of town, spending most of the day traveling halfway across the state to Billings for my daughters wrestling State Championships. Then I'll be sitting in a gym for the 19th and 20th for the tournament. Then driving home on the 21st.

So for those four days, things are going to slow down a bit on my end. I'll try and check in when I get to the hotel room in the evenings though, so hopefully we don't come to a complete standstill.

That's cool. Good luck to her, I hope she kicks ass once again :)

No problem at all DM, just take the time-out, I’m sure none of us would begrudge you that. And go @littlefunfungiguy!

No problemo DM! Good luck to your daughter!! May she roll crit 20s for max damage!

Hola DM, glad to have you back, and woot woot to your daughter's championship!

Severus, better watch out, she might take over your barbarian spot with that look on her face ;-). I think she'd do a pretty good job Intimidating Klarg, et al.

Congrats man, that is awesome. Does that mean that she’ll go on to some kind of national championship as well?

Thanks, all.
Yes, I actually finished dumping about $200 in registration fees and another $350 in airfare and lodging this morning getting her registered for that today. It will be the end of next month. She'll wrestle for two days in what they call the USAW Collegiate Recruiting Showcase. That's basically just a tournament that a lot of college scouts watch. Technically, since she's a freshman, recruiters can't start talking to her until July 1st of her sophomore year, but this tournament just sort of puts her out there and gives college programs an idea of who she is and how she wrestles.

Then the day after that she wrestles in the USAW Folkstyle National Championships.

We're not going with her for those four days she's competing. We live in Montana, and the tournaments are about 1250mi away in Iowa, and it would be too expensive and a logistical pain in the butt for the whole family to take time off and arrange travel and airfare, etc. We're putting her on a plane with some of her teammates and they're going to go by themselves, and we'll watch her wrestle online. So there shouldn't be too much interruption to the game that week. Not like this last week, anyway.

I notice Bug's player hasn't made a post in a couple weeks. I'll give it another day for two and then we're going to have to figure something out. In the meantime, I'm going to send a PM.

oh, dear. Fingers crossed

Hey all, just a heads up...
I will be out of town from 3/19 - 3/22 for the AAU Folkstyle Wrestling State Championships. My daughter is wrestling and I'll be coaching her and the rest of the girls' team, so I'm not sure I'll have much time during the days to check in and post, and evenings are usually spent with coaches and parents drinking too much beer together and barking about bad calls that didn't go in our favor earier that day and celebrating good matches that did.
I'll try and log in and post if I can, but things might be a bit slow on my end for those 4 days.

Also, kwil sent me a message. Things have just busy on their end IRL, but they'll have a post up soon.

Hope your daughters rise to fame continues! Best wishes

Yup, good luck and have fun y'all!

As you might have noticed, Part 1: Goblin Arrows has been completed. It's usually around this time I ask players of the PbP campaigns I run if we would like to continue with the campaign or leave it on a milestone. Some campaigns the players wish to continue. A few, the players are getting burned out, the novelty of a new game has run ts course, and they decide they're happy ending it where a milestone or major chapter has ended.

What is everyone's thoughts so far. Would you like to leave the game here, or are you interested in continuing with Part 2 of the module? I'm honestly happy with the pacing so far and wouldn't mind continuing, but if you guys are getting burned out, there's no point running a game that feels like a chore, so I'll leave it up to you guys to discuss.

I'm good with continuing. It's a slower pace, but I don't mind that at all.

I'd like to continue as well, I've been enjoying the game

Thank you, I'm glad we're enjoying ourselves.
Yep! Severus, Osvaldo, and Alstaer should all be able to level up and should have 350XP (75 for the first goblin attack on the cart, and 275 for sacking the hideout). At 275XP, Bug isn't quite there yet , but the module specifically states that XP will be awarded differently from this point forward, based off each encounter, trap, or dealings with an NPC, so he's going to be Level 2 in almost no time at all. So quill might want to think about any changes he's going to need to make to Bug now, so they can take effect as quickly as possible.

If there's any questions about the leveling up process we can either discuss them here, ot you can go to your PC's Character Creation thread. In fact, lets do most of our "leveling up" (including rolling for new Hit Points) in the Character Creation threads. As far as gaining more Hit Points, I will let each player make a choice: you can either take a gamble by rolling your PC's Hit Die and adding your Constitution modifier, or you can use the fixed value shown in your class entry, which is the average result of the die roll (rounded up) and add your Constitution modifier. Rolling certainly gives the potential for big gains, but comes with the risk of a lousy roll. Fixed value is the safe, middle of the road route. It's each player's choice.

I'd like to carry on, though realize my post rate has slow recently. If that becomes too much of an issue, I'll bow out while we're in Phandalin so you guys can find another player. That being said, any one know if there's a notification option whenever there's an update on these posts (as that would help tremendously)? Otherwise, life happens, and this completely skips my mind.

That's alright. I think everyone has stated they're alright with the pacing of the game so far.
I know that if you click on "subscribe to forum" on the forum page it will send you an email whenever someone posts something in a thread. Or of you only want to get notifications to one individual thread, you can click on the "subscribe to thread" link in the very top right of the thread.

Personally, just set a daily reminder on my phone's calendar or a daily alarm, and then if I haven't already checked or posted for the day, I'll be reminded, but usually I just open GP first thing while I'm still laying in bed.

Ah, awesome, just subscribed to the forum and thread, that should work out pretty well. And mirroring therecusant's thoughts, excellent job GM'ing, and shout out to the players, fantastic job roleplaying!

Had some honey-do list stuff, and my son had a track meet so I didn't get a post for Part 2 up today. Sorry. I should have it up tomorrow.

Just a heads up and/or reminder:

I will be traveling out-of-state from this Sunday (6/13) until next Sunday evening (6/20). My daughter has five days' worth of big wrestling tournaments in Provo, Utah.

On both Sundays, I'll definitely be on the road all day driving 12-hour stretches, and out of communication. On Wednesday we have a break in wrestling between two different tournaments, but the family wants to go to an amusement park. It's mostly roller coasters, and I despise heights, so I may be able to get in a couple posts while I sit around below, holding the purses, and just generally being a giant pussy my kids will laugh at all afternoon.

On the days between, most of my time will be at the tournaments, but I might be able to post in the evenings from the hotel, though no guarantees.

Hey everyone, apologies, but I'm going to have to remove myself from this game. Between a toddler, home remodeling, work, and other responsibilities, just not able to make the time to be as involved as I'd like to be in this game. It's been a real pleasure playing with everyone, the DM is excellent (good luck to your daughter in her future wrestling competitions!), and I hope you guys find someone who can be more invested. Enjoy the adventure, it's got some real doozies ahead!

OKay, no problem! Thanks for giving the game a goo long go. Enjoy your family and take care!

All the best ctme2000, its been a pleasure

We have another person applying to the game already. Are we all good with continuing the game?

yes!

I guess the thing we need to discuss first is that we're down to 3 players again. There was a 4th person that applied, but after a chat with them, they pulled their interest. They didn't like the idea that we've been playing a year now and only passed the first dungeon, and figured the game was moving slower than they would prefer to play. I guess it's better now than later.

So we should figure out what we're going to do, or how I'm going to run this with only 3 PCs... I think I could post out there that we're looking for more players, but there's a new Lost Mines game posted right now, and I have a feeling any interest in this adventure module is going to be from people that would prefer to start from the beginning, and not jump in in the middle, but I could be wrong.

Why don't we each play 2 x Player Characters? Or, we could each have a side-kick?

I would be fine with either of those options, if that's what the group prefers. The next question then, I guess, would be how many people are invested in this game still? Because it seems like maybe some of the players have burned out and haven't really been especially active this last month, or longer.

Do we have some thoughts from @Sassafras or @kwil?

Sorry, I’ve been struggling to keep momentum this past month. My wife has had a bit of a medical situation (which is still unresolved although we got good news today) and that’s been taking up a lot of mental energy along with a really busy work project. I’m still up for playing, although I’m not sure I can juggle two characters right now

Best wishes to your wife @sassafras, and you too.

DM, I emphasise with you, it looks as if the viability of our game is in question. For the record, although I would love to continue, I would also completely understand if you decide to end our adventure at this point. If that is what you decide, please accept my gratiude for your efforts to date - I for one, have had a wonderful time!

Thank you

I'm thinking that we're gonna have to call this game. I just don't think we're getting frequent enough activity to keep it going, I'm not sure we could recruit new players to it, and I don't know that we could maintain new player interest from new players if we did. I do appreciate all the players, both past and current, who have carried the game up to this point, and I wish you all the best in gaming and in your personal lives.

Thank you again, and be good.

Thanks @ therecusant. Things are a lot better

I fully understand. Thank you for running the game, it was fun while it lasted :) hopefully I’ll see you all around the site