OOC

This is where all OOC chatter (save for character creation/leveling and such will go.)

Welcome everyone to the game, I look forward to getting rolling with you.

Thanks for the invite I look forward to playing.

Aye, I'm very eager too and I hope this will be a long and fun game!

Same here! ☺️ Hope to have a fun game and learn a lot throughout the experience!

YAY! You picked me! :P

Hi guys!

Hi everyone. Looking forward to playing

Hey,, is anyone interested in a tie-in with my Human Fighter? He's taking the alternate noble background (Knight).

Yeah, you could have been a victim of mine :P lol passing by from the woods I ambushed and robbed you and while fighting you took out my bandana and you saw my pink hair and face.... so next time we will meet, you will be very happy to see me....what do you think? :P

I'm in, my guy is a military officer/soldier (quartermaster) rolled it, he has served for 7 years. So, if your character has had something to do with military they could know each other!

I would also appreciate if you help me come up with an army nickname for my character...
He's 25, looks like 16, short - 5'4 ft and almost always eats rare meat.
For now i have come up with dracula and hound and kid, but they don't really feel right...😖

Sure, I'd definitely be up for a tie-in between our characters. Perhaps we served together. My character being a knight could've been an officer.

I'll see what names I can come up with.

Ok no problem, it's a no for what I said I guess :-P

Millyk, we still have time to figure this out, currently just putting suggestions on the table for each other, I personally won't take your offer, because my character is not local. He traveled to Conyberry to have a break from work...this most likely is his first time in the area.

He most likely traveled together either with a military unit that he's common with or with civil transport, I doubt those are in your target category, stealing essential supplies for the region from the people that will literally attempt to upkeep the law or just normal common-folk.

If you would attempt to rob him, most likely via cornering, he would attempt to climb out of reach and pick you off with arrows one by one until you either lose interest or get too injured to continue, or he runs out of arrows, before engaging close combat.

Ofcourse he had heard rumours about your woodland "good-do'er" gang.

Bubbles, Radiza is a veteran mercenary and as such as close to the army life as someone not in the army can get. Now she may not necessarily like you since you smell half-dead to her sharp nose, but she has quite a lot in common with a soldier. We could be in the same tavern when the call for help got shouted by a crier.

Sure, why not.

I just realized we have no healer. Lol

We have two warlocks, they can be pretty decent support (healers)...😅

Yes, I cook an awesome rat.

But correct, no healing magic. Imagine that, getting injured might have consequences! :o

Thats a solid idea.

@Bubbles- What kind of unit were you in? My Knight could've been in a Calvary unit. You could've been the Quartermaster of that one.

He was in infantry, I mean he most likely would join others in active duty. He can be quartermaster for both units... (The actual reason of his leave, he's sick and tired of being a quartermaster XD)

As for the no healing magic, there will be ways to cope with that for sure (though it'll take some legwork to figure out how :innocent evil smile: )

Eating a rat restores 3 hp right?

....right?

All I can think of is the scene in Demolition Man in the sewers now

Nobody wants to be robbed... buhuhu! :-P

Yeah I like my gold. Lol

So he served in the military for 7 long years...... where he met the young lord Atticus Rohmner...... he participated in many short term missions that included securing intel and quick execution, in some of those missions he worked together with Radiza a Tabaxi mercenary..

Sounds great!

How old is Atticus? (asking because maybe Alan was already an officer when Atticus joined the military)

I believe that Alan would be friendly towards him, the knight has a common-ish goal and is a brother in arms.

Merry Christmas!!! Happy holidays!

Indeed!! Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas everyone!

Merry Christmas

Happy Holidays!

I agree, but bubblegum on soles and fecal-oral parasites are not my thing.😅

I'm ready

All set

Who is traveling with who? I'm looking forward to interacting with everyone, but I don't want to include the wrong numbers.

I think the only group it yours. I'm traveling alone and so is the other player. If I recall.

I dont mind, I think that it would make sense if the characters decided to go together, if no, then they travel seperately...

Make up your minds! post! pooost! do iet! do iet naow!

Lol

I'm working on mine in a little bit

Oh boy, waking up to the introductions of my fellow characters, let's see what they came up with!

...

Well not everyone is ready to spew out an Armello intro lore book as the first post lol

I get that... but maybe just a wee bit like race, profession, general appearance and the motivation why old miss Roberts who likes feeding stray cats is about to get robbed of her life's savings?

Lol poor old miss Roberts. I already said how I look and what I am.

Okay... why Auras has the ability to smell the dead?? Im sorry, but I personally dont get it...

(Is this DM approved?)

Sorry no I can change it? Tho personally I think the dead have a distinct smell that auras hasn't smelled before. Just my thoughts.

Well we had a discussion about it before, i believe, i understand how a tabaxi could smell (distinguish) it, but not a human...😅


It's page one, lower half, idk how to add those fancy links yet😖

Ah ok. I always thought undead had a smell about them my bad.

Dead bodies decompose super fast, because our natural microflora (microorganisms) start to feed on our body due to the lack of metabolism products that they usually feed on, that's why corpses gain a distinctive smell.

The idea behind dhampirs and vampires is that the laws of biology kinda do a backflip, metabolism changes to accomodate the new food source (is the only logical way for me to attempt to explain it 😅)

Anyhow in the end those are something like forever-fresh corpses, that means no distinctive smell...

I'm good either way, realistically. In a world with magic normal rules of decomposition really don't matter nearly as much. I'd also be perfectly happy to have a middle ground (you can't smell the undeath, but you can tell that there's SOMETHING off). Really not overly fussed either way. :)

Sure, DM makes the last call, but if everyone could suddenly smell undeath i want to be able to smell fey... If i wanted a constantly smelly character i would have picked zombie XD

Happy new year guys !!!

First robbing old ladies of their pensions and now torturing the poor people in the inn Milaki?

You monster.

Clearly, she has slipped into the realm of true monsterdom.

And I did want to apologize if anyone is feeling overly rushed with any pacing that's happened thus far. Everything has seemed (to me) to be ok, but I know we've had a few spurts of quick updates here and there. :) The "real" meat of the story will happen soon!

I'm good, i personally enjoy the slower party forming, if you can call it that...☺️

More sausages?

Someone give this fellow a THÜRINGER bratwurst sausage

Lol @Khulod

Idk about you guys, but this is one heck of a dramatic moment for me XD

I know right, what if there are spiced sausages included?

ok let me understand...the dm offered us two quests right? killing the orcs and go to the ranch and as roleplaying an angry tabaxi demands to follow him as a leader? :P no thank you lol I will stay playing cards and kill some orcs with my new friends :P what do you propose dm? how are we gonna group up as a party to this campaign?? :-/ shall I just say yes to save you some trouble and make it easy for you? or play it as I like? :P

You're certainly free to do as you like! I am not super concerned if you guys decide to split up and tackle things differently.

OOO, I like this, its a good opportunity for me to learn!! (I believe that I still struggle with party splitting as a DM)

And... the Tabaxi is after the Orcs

Updates coming a bit later today. :) Had the day off things to deal with kiddos and such.

With the newly released Discord Integration (where posts in a game thread can be sent to a discord server), is there any interest from all of you in using that feature here? I will likely set it up ANYWAY for my own convenience, but if you want to be invited to the discord server as well, I can do that. :)

Test

Yes, pls share the discord server! At least I'll learn how to use the feature 🙂

About the party split, idk, i would prefer split threads, but i don't really mind either option...

For those interested: discord link...

So... another dramatical pause... btw does anyone know why suddenly the activity dropped so drastically in gamers-plane in general? (plain curiosity)

It has been unusually slow, that's for sure. For gere, I was waiting on @Jackwolfking to know where to push us. I will post an update tonight assuming Auras is going with the group if they haven't posted to clarify.

Maybe we just reached the pbp disillusionment phase of the game where some folk decide the game isn't what they want.

Probably, but not telling others that and going ghost, ain't that nice. At least in my eyes...😅

Because it never confirms that fact and it could always be a misunderstanding...🤔

sorry guys I had corona virus and now on vacations.

Sorry to hear that! Obviously take the time you need to recover, it's a heck of a thing to go through (or can be)

Time for some new players? :)

Probably, i think that there were some people in the recruiting chat that were interested in the campaign🤔😅

Alan is staying quiet for 2 reasons:
1. You don't usually speak during the briefing.
2. He believes that the tabaxi is better at talking and knows her craft, so he will only speak up if there's any uncertainty left after she finishes talking.

I sent Jack a PM checking in. I'll give it until Tuesday before I make any firm moves one way or the other. For now, we'll keep on with them trailing along and find a logical way to write them out if that's needed.

Can we put OOC stuff in OOC please?

Hey guys sorry Bout the radio silence just life got in the way still interested in this tho.

Heyo everyone! Just wanted to do a pulse check and such on where the game is for everyone currently. I apologize for my slowness in posting through the start of this.

How is the pacing for everyone? Want to make sure we're all on the same page as we push forward.

Milly, are you joining the rest of the group in pursuing the orcs or going off to do your own hunting of things? Seems like currently Alan, Atticus, Auras, and Radiza have all chatted with one another (or in the vicinity of one another at least) during the Council meetup.

I understand everyone has different amounts they can commit to a game (myself included) and different ideas of ideal playstyles. If anything isn't holding up to your expectations, it's 100% OK and no hard feelings. :) We're all here to have fun and I think it's a big part of my job as the DM/GM to make sure we're all having a good time as players (characters can have feelings hurt and be bored, but I prefer if the players are still enjoying the game at that time).

yeah, I will follow them, I already said it in previous post, when you asked, I do not like splitting the group. Thats why I wrote new friends, I meant to find the group to rp, so I can team up with the rest of the party. :P

Im here! just got a bit occupied with my research report.

Alright, I waited for a while to see what came up but it seems we definitely lost Jackwolfking.

The reason the DM is asking is because I approached him on what's happening with the game. At this point I am quite simply pulling the entire narrative from the player side. You know it, I know it, everyone knows it. Bubbles and Jackwolfking occasionally come up with a one-liner to nod along while up until this point Millyk was hellbent on engaging npc's to get some sort of private adventure off the ground which anyone can see is just counterproductive. In the meanwhile the period between posts is increasing because players can't be bothered to show up and reply.

So as for pacing? I want daily posts or as close to it as we can manage. Remember, that was in the actual recruitment thread (1 post per weekday). I want them from everyone, and I want posts that people put actual effort into. You don't need to go as all-in as me, but at the very least make your character interesting enough for the rest of us want to have a conversation with. If all you can manage is to show up once a week for a one-liner from your walking piece of cardboard lacking any form of personality, I don't have an incentive to engage your character. Nor does the DM. All we're waiting for at that point is you bothering to show up and stamp your reply so the game can move on. Doesn't make you happy, doesn't make us happy.

If you can't commit for whatever reason no one blames you for dropping out. Sometimes a game isn't what you wanted. But dragging the entire game down because you can't be bothered to put in the effort is something else. That's how games die and I told Dramasailor as much.

Alright, i got your point of view. Now let me tell you mine.

1. English is not my first language (its the 4-th-ish) so it's a bit hard for me to be as lirically adept as you are - if you get me. So I'm sorry that i am not able to make the dude to be morally precieved like you want to.

2. The whole one liner thing is called "not taking away the spotlight" idk about this place, but where I'm from when player is having a fun moment not interrupting is considered good manners. If you feel like it's not enough spotlight from others maybe approach the problem diffently for example by asking "is everything alright? Am i not hogging the spotlight?". In my experience that works the best. (Though if i saw it as a problem myself i would approach it. Currently i didn't see any hogging going on... So that there's no misunderstandings.)

3. My post frequency is mostly dependant on DM, i could do 'gazzilion things' all the time before the DM posts anything, but chose not to for a couple of reasons. Firstly, respecting the DM and, secondly, i don't want to be seen as "електровеник". I don't know how to translate it. I do check in every day, if theres no movement i don't post unless a situation like this one happens, was planning on approaching the DM about it this Sunday, i guess your bubble bursted a bit sooner.

4. About pacing, dependant on the DM, in my case at least. And here where's the benefit of short posts comes handy, i usually consider a single post out of combat equivalent of 1-10 min irl time for multiple reasons, makes it easier for the DM to manage and if needed interrupt. It also makes the roleplay feel more organic. There's Also the thing, if the DM wanted to increase the pacing then just saying "comon guys let's move it" usually does the trick, at least irl.

5. I agree when it comes to the lost comrade and mylk just waiting for her own personal adventure. Currently none of us have any initiative to approach the lil dudette. At least i don't see any.... It also comes to the game dragging, it is a serious problem that should be approached.

oh well take it or leave it Khulod.. I enjoyed my rp and the campaign... yes it took a little bit of time to set off and now we are stuck...but all these negative assumptions Khulod...I simply disagree and I do not want to reply, as politely as bubbles replied to you, so I will just leave it like this.

@millyk if i understood correctly, you plan to join. So we probably should start putting ideas on the table. How to get you into the party so noone goes too ooc.

At this point my character sees yours as a one he would rather avoid (he's true neutral and your girl kinda asked for pay for not doing anything...) Or too much trouble than worth. So, I'm sorry but i don't see Alan approaching you out of the blue. 😅

Do you have any ideas? Rather ones that don't involve mugging.

its easy, now I need help killing orcs, so I will approach you, by asking you to join, because orcs are messing up with my ''business'' :P


btw Khulod is pissed off, because another campaign and dm we are playing together is retired and not responding...so I think thats why he is like that here...

If that's the case then blowing off steam on other people is just low, i would suggest going on a jog or playing a shooter.

Alright, you are right, this one should work.

Well, it might surprise you, but I didn't learn English either until I was 12 years old. Along with French and German, which I did my utmost best to forget ever since. ^^

But what I'm asking for is to put in a bit more effort into your posts. Lyrically adept or no, you know your character. Give some insights on their thoughts, or a little quirk they do or simply their movements as things go on, how they are behaving in the moment. You did that wonderfully in your first posts with the crow and raw meat and all that. Just keep doing that. Everyone who has a conversation in real life looks at the receiving party and can see what they're saying is received positively or not simply by the feedback they get from body language. If you look at my posts, most of it is simply stuff about my character doing little things that tell a bit about what kind of person they are; paws on the table, rocking the chair, scratching the chin fur while listening, a mercenary, someone who loves meat, a certain lack of etiquette. All these things I offer up to paint a picture of the character, and all of those can be used by other players to act upon.

There's also feedback on how Radiza perceives things, telling a bit about her past experience which IC the other characters don't know about, but is for the benefit of the other players so they get a mental image of what kind of a person they're dealing with. Like her contemplating the ale choices, her campaign in Sembia, her thinking on where and when to set up her tent. I'm sure you can do the same by just imagining your character's place in the world and telling a bit more.
That's considerate of you, but we're in the introductory scene were no one is supposed to be in the spotlight except for all of us to introduce our character and decide what we're doing. Radiza is brusque and spirited so she will call out something how she thinks things will be and what she'll do in the way gruff warriors generally act. Don't mistake that for me as a player taking charge of the adventure. Any other character can call out something like 'Nah, hunting orcs is stupid, here's why' or 'how about we go deal with both the orcs and the bandits?' Or you can agree and then participate in the planning, giving your own input and spotlighting your character's view on the matter.
електровеник = Electric broom. Thanks google translate.
Do not worry. I do not see you as an electric broom. ^^
Well, I don't want to speak for our DM, but I think like me he's probably waiting for at least half the party to reply to his posts before moving on. And he's too sweet to call us out.
No offense is taken.
Not a very nice assumption Millyk. I can't help but notice your entire tantrum to go look for your own adventure seems to be sparked by Radiza's actions so by now I get the impression you don't like me. But no, I've had plenty of games fall apart and I don't let it spill over to other games. In that game I wasn't even playing a very serious character that I got attached to. So just no. The reason I'm calling you folk out directly is because I'm Dutch and when we have an issue with someone, we tell what issue we have with you to your face so it can be worked out. As shown above.

Alright, i will take that into consideration, will try to add more descriptive context.

Hey all, thanks for the open discussion on the topic so far. I want to be very clear that I do not want this to turn into an attack on any player for whatever reason. We all have different life situations coming into the situation and if we can all work together to reduce inflammatory rhetoric, I would personally appreciate that.

Next, I'd like to apologize for not doing more, earlier to drive the adventure forwards. Provided you want to stick around, I will be actively working towards doing better on that front, including more "alright let's wrap it up" type direction. I tend to like players to decide when they are done with a scene because AS a player it annoys me when I was waiting for a particular interchange to end so I could jump in with something only to have a DM do mystical fingerwaving and then my chance at engagement went away. The unfortunate side effect there is that it can make some scenes (like talking with townsfolk about the orcs) last much longer than some others in the game may like.

In regards to the pacing and post frequency, I would like to return to a more robust cadence (or really get to it to being with). There are times that a daily post pace will 100% result in one-liner or two-liner posts, especially as Bubbles mentioned, players are wanting to not hog the spotlight. There was significant engagement by Radiza with the townsfolk and I can certainly see valuable RP opportunities for another player to sit back and kind of allow the dialogue to continue without immediately jumping on top of it, especially if they are keen on gleaning information on the side. In those cases, the short posts of "Alan sips his beer and watches with interest as the tabaxi and the dwarf woman argue over the payment for bandits" can go a long way towards showing you're still at the "table" and engaged instead of leaning back checking football scores on your phone (to lean heavily on IRL type examples).

@millyk - where my second asking came from was that there were a few times the scene-setting had it so the NPCs had left or broken off into private areas and was hoping that Milaki would use that "planning time" when the group was largely together to meet up with them and kind of integrate with the team. However, we're past that and we'll just have to find a different way for her to see someone in the morning and jump in with them, but definitely she seems a bit off from their demeanor so she'd have to make the first move (especially as I see it with a few trained fighters, they would need to be convinced of her usefulness to a planned operation). At least that's how I see it from the outside looking in.

@jackwolfking messaged me yesterday letting me know he'd be out until likely Thursday. I can understand the need to have an off day here or there, but it is hard to progress with the story along with the group if it is happening consistently. I appreciate you still having a heavy interest, but participation is definitely something that is required.

---

The plan moving forward from here as far as I'm concerned:

I will give everyone until February 18th at 20:00 EST to reply in here with their thoughts on ability/willingness to do the following:

1. Maintain a close to daily weekday posting rate. The occasional missed day is understood and understanding that in some cases it may be waiting on me to post up so you can react to the world. But weeks of no posts isn't maintainable.

2. Actively engage with one another across the party as a group working together. Likely will mean compromise on both sides. "Stick in the mud" character traits don't make for fun gameplay, especially in a play-by-post environment where there isn't any body language or visual signs of engagement that can still make the playing experience fun for everyone at the table.

Anyone/everyone that replies with an affirmation that they are in for the above two points, we will continue on with the orc hunt at that point (I'll start writing up the next post in that vein at that time).

Anyone that hasn't responded at all I will drop from the game and make a decision on what, if any, replacements we will have at that time. Any new characters will be roped in organically so we can start the orc hunt (thankfully chances abound for prisoners there).

Anyone that feels they aren't willing or able to work on those two ends, there are zero hard feelings at all if you'd like to step away from the game. As I've said in the past, this is meant to be something that is fun for all participants (players and GM) and if this isn't your idea of fun, perfectly ok!

btw I like Dutch people. ik spreak NL, Ik was 5 jaren in Belgium ...and I dont dislike you Khulod...its just the attitude and how we need to be as you think and you like... I am a direct person too... just chill out, that's it.

Anyhow, @Dramasailor I'm on board captain!

Though i wouldn't want to stretch nr. 2, cuz if a player wants to play a 'stick in the mud' they should do it in a way that it doesn't drag down the others.(For example i am playing a hot-headed paladin in another campaign, he's a self proclaimed founding priest reincarnated. Roleplay wise he throws tantrums and Is a snob, but he doesn't put others in danger with it and i keep the lil episodes short ad rare enough so that it doesn't get on other players nerves. Once every 30-60 pages, if others don't provoke him.)

I am OK with the conditions Dramasailor!

At this point, Squadfather has messaged me and dropped from the game as significant personal issues rose up that have kept them from many of their games. I've still not heard anything from @jackwolfking. Given that, I will most likely be dropping them from the campaign and will recruit new characters starting Monday (unless there are specific players you'd like me to reach out to, always happy to take recommendations!).

Gameplay resumed (sorry for the slight lateness, had a game night with the wife and son tonight, playing through the Pathfinder 2e beginner box. Was an interesting start, heh).

Family game nights are always fun! Hope that you had a good time!

Sorry Khulod didnt notice your post, just fixed mine

lol the photo milaki waking up was on point :P

I will be opening up recruitment for 1-2 more players tonight while you all RP out the getting the group together. Will move us out of Conyberry to the hills when you've all wrapped up how you're all getting in together :)

Ah yes I was about to ask. Fresh blood is needed! :)

After the application period, I've extended invites to GreyWord, Stampman49, and JoshuaMabry to join the group. As their characters are created, we'll get them worked into the adventure.

Would all of you prefer to have them meet you all in the town or on the road/in the hills. I'm game for either one.

I think that in town would be pretty good, it could be short and we can quickly form a team and begin our movement.

Story-wise in town will work better.

Hi all. Happy to be here. I’ll have my character submitted this evening, and will hopefully be able to begin posting tonight/tomorrow morning.

I’m playing Barek Shieldshiver, a dwarf cleric of Clangeddin Silverbeard.

Hail and well met!

Hello!

So... How long are we going to wait for Dem intro posts from the new dudes?

Patience my young padawan!

Two of the three have submitted their characters, Stampman joined up today. Will give them a day or two to get their person together and then will write them into the story to meet you all. Going to do a tiny bit of a shoehorning to get you all together and rolling, however.

That's OK, Radiza doesn't wear shoes.

O no, not my boots XD.

Hey. A bit of OOC but regarding current game state. Since no PC and not even a rogue (which I was originally hoping for) have no interest in poisoning strategy I give it up, but would still like to get some hunting traps (and namely hunting traps). Could we resolve purchase/agreement on the traps in private chat with DM, since no other PC seems to be interested in this strategy either?

Yes, you can purchase hunting traps at the PHB price without issue (5 gp per)

@Dramasailor do I know the ruins? :P

Milaki would know that they exist and that they were once a shrine to Savras. However, as it isn't a regular tourist destination in the last many years, there wouldn't really have been much cause for her to explore them/know much going on with them.

I think there's some confusion? there's no hill to climb here. It's just a ruined temple. The hill is where the orcs are at.

Yes, Alan wanted to climb the ruins to look around, i understand that the hills are still pretty far away.
Maybe a sturdy pillar.... Or something that doesn't look like falling apart from the slightest touch.

So a bit of both. You're getting into the foothills, so it isn't a totally flat plains right now, but also not a tall imposing hill to climb. Definitely no athletics required to go up to the ruins, though there are definitely spots you could climb the ring wall.

Then up the wall he goes 😆

*Dark Souls boss music begins playing*

I am sorry to ask what is probably an obvious question but where can I find out the details of my fellow players characters? I would like to know their background and what their skills are.

I think that only the DM can see all character sheets

It kind of depends on the players. You can set your character sheets to be publicly visible if you'd like.

On your "Characters" menu, if you click the little library book, it should still make it a publicly visible sheet, but that is then open to everyone on the site to see if they choose to navigate there (for example, going to the game details page of this game and clicking on the character name).


You can check to see if it worked by seeing if you can see this character of mine: Brainmush
Vs this character that isn't in the library: Deathwake

That said, if each player would like to give a short OOC synopsis of what kinds of skills and character info you would have shared on the few hours walk so far, that could go a long way towards helping others understand who all is at the table.

That sounds cool. I played a warlock without attacking spells, she was killed by an animated table that was an assassin.

About Alan, well he's a basic fighter that prefers two handed weapons with military background, infantry.

@Dramasailor its hard for me to read the names on the map....can you make it tokens with pictures and maybe zoomed in please ?

I can work on getting that squared up this weekend. I'll play with both zooming and pictures and see which looks better.

ok thank you :)

@millyk I added a zoomed in battlemap with just the names for the time being (while I get ready to head to my IRL game in an hour or so). Hopefully that makes it easier to see (I left the original for those that want the bigger view)

Have fun at the game!!

Thank you all very much for your outlines. Looking forward to having fun in the game

Given it's the first day back from the weekend, giving @millyk until about 0800 ET on Tuesday to post, at which point I'll write up the next encounter post.

Just a few little clarifications:

@Khulod - The "ominous red square" is just the hole up to the belfry, not actually a dangerous place.
@GreyWord - Claudius has hit with both of his magic stones so far (which he's seen happen).

I mean the creature missed twice and my PC point this out to have moral advantage over the creature

Fair enough!

I am back, what did I miss

Two rounds of combat. You held one round and then shot the next. :)

ok so I wait the round to be finish? I am so new on this battle posts

No, you can still post your action this round.

Millyk, I have no idea what got your panties so bunched up but you have been nothing but obnoxious this whole game. I have no clue what you are trying to accomplish besides undermining and sabotaging the game. It started with your petulant insistence on trying to get your own little adventure going to now acting like a little murderhobo contrary to what we're trying to accomplish as a group. Since you're so bloody miserable that you can find nothing better to do but dragging us all down to your little lair of petulant self-pity and spite, why don't you just bugger off and go find some other game to fuck over?

Okay, maybe not so 'straight forward', but i second the. Can you please explain, what are you aiming for?

Because rn most of the party sees her if not as potential then definite threat, if you wanted to sabotage yourself GJ - you succeeded.

---

From my perspective it's only thanks to our DM that Alan isn't planning knocking Milaki out for his own safety after your last words.

Well. Although my PC being druid totally hates what Milaki did there I do not conflate OOC and IC conflict. I would like to ask Khulod that he "Do not conflate OOC and IC conflict".
Additionally, unless @Khulod write an apology in this chat (for misbehaving) I am leaving this game. As a player I can not tolerate such behaviour and such language by other players.

I haven't caught up yet on the in character posts yet, but the treatment of the player is not acceptable @Khulod. I understand you are unhappy and you are welcome to voice that, but as I mentioned in an earlier post here, it is unacceptable to bring vitriol like that to a player. If you are unwilling to be civil player to player, then I will ask you to leave the game.

@millyk I am also confused by Milaki's trend of not trying to work with the party. I understand she is trying to stand out as the rougish adventurer trying to sort of start up a business, but it is still a cooperative party game and not one where the expectation is the party at each others throats. It is not a game style I am willing to DM.

I caught up (at a quick read through) on the game posts now. The creature did speak to you, telling you it was overmatched and asked you to yield and it did allow itself to be tied up. Your character still executed it and the reactions in game seem (for the most part) to be perfectly within reason and expectation.

Until we have this matter settled, I will not advance the game because I will not have the players actively disparaging each other out of character. Period. Regardless if one, the other, or both of you decide this is too "soft" or too "aggressive" for your personal play preferences (which is 100% allowed and I support whichever decision you make) that is what this game will be.

I would prefer to not lose either player as I think with effort there can be rewarding story development if milaki shows her worth and ability to work with the team. And for Radiza to see that not everyone has to function as a crisp mercenary team member to be worthy of being spoke to respectfully (because Radiza has been vocally anti-Milaki since the jump). However, I understand fully if one, the other, or both of you decide you've had enough and look to move on. I will repeat for extreme clarity however: if you decide to stay, the treatment out of character like this stops. Immediately. And the behavior in game needs to reflect some level of paying attention to the situation at hand and not becoming a murderhobo battalion.

Maybe I'm a bit too thick skulled, but i agree with the emotional excessiveness.

Though I'm not taking either side because I believe that both of you are at fault, milaki most likely didn't follow the situation and khuloud added a too much spice to the text for the general public ( everything here is my personal opinion), even though if we remove the excess from the text and just leave the general point it makes sense due to the situation. But since this is an online thing and not a game in a bar with a couple of drinks, my personal preference, we do have an unwritten behavior 'rules' were all ought to follow. Which is respect your fellow player and follow what's written or face the aftermath.

Though even at the bar there is a social limit to ones behavior...

I am sorry it has come to this but I think the language used by Khulod is totally unacceptable. If I was at a bar and anyone spoke like that I would leave immediately.

well...I thought my character will react like that...because yes she is a troublemaker, but ok not in purpose or for evil purpose...and she has a main flaw she cant follow plans... Flaws: If there’s a plan, I’ll forget it. If I don’t forget it, I’ll ignore it.

I am sorry, if it bothers you, then I will try to fix it...but yeah I thought it would be fun....but I do not want to bug others.
Also, sorry I forgot they speak, I thought they were monsters. :-/

Thanks for explaining, i know that it took mental strength, i really appreciate it!

It is hard to play a problematic character, so i suggest you sort out the situations, for example showing the flaw off in moments where it won't majorly impact the narrative. I don't know about you, but it really helps me when i play character with 'problematic' flaws and keep it fun.

If i may give you a couple of examples - forgetting the details of the plan shortly before a battle, and trying to whisper-yell to others so they quickly remind you. Or if we're tasked with retrieving expensive cargo safely instead of taking it with the whole fancy package, you discard it and put the cargo in your bag, that way you partially ignore the initial plan, but keep the main thing going. Another thing is that you don't overdo with showing off the flaw, keep it dosed, it will help others not become completely distrustful with your character.

I believe that you shouldn't fix the posts, because this is a good place for character growth. Try to fix or mend/bend things in character. Let's say that now she will be extra careful in similar situations, because the situation caused her lot of trouble.

These are my 5 cents to the pile.

Good advice, Bubbles... I will try to follow it and yeah Milaki seeing this reaction, does not want to do it again and be yelled at or make others angry.

I haven't forgotten this discussion guys, just been sick with a fever and a cough from hell. Covid test is tomorrow but I'm vaxed anyhow so this should work itself out in the next week hopefully. It just makes it hard to make a coherent response and I want to respect the emotional minefield here. That said, I'll agree with the narrative that my remarks were too spicy for the audience, as Bubbles aptly put it.

I'll post more when I can take a deep breath and think coherently.

@Khulod take your time and drink a lot of warm water or tea. I would recommend a mucous membrane or swab test rather than spit, because it has better clinical research result statistics and the testing method is better suited, because mucus membrane carries more genetic material.

Well stated Bubbles I entirely agree with your approach and examples. There has to be some outlet for the rogue character. It is not an easy role to play. Millyk I appreciate your comments you do seem like a team player and I will be glad to continue the game with you

I appreciate everyone's willingness to take the beat to have the conversation. It's one of the more difficult parts of pure-online play. There is a lot we miss as players with how we're interacting and such.

Definitely take the time you need to deal with the sickness, I get how hard those things can shut you down.

As an aside, Barek has chosen to not continue with the adventure, so when we do end up restarting, I will find a way to write him out.

Whelp irl i would have been sad, but here people have a tendency to change far too often.

Anyhow was glad to play with him.

Well. It's not covid. But it still sucks. Fever is getting a bit lower so that's good. Hope it breaks in a few days.

This game is infectious! I have also come down with cough and cold!

Get well soon

Damn, I'm telling you it's the tavern food XD

how are you all? feeling better? @stampman and Khulod

Ye, though i don't really get why the whole theatrical parade got put on a pause.... I mean this is not a irl game, then again.... I'm not too proficient in the art of exquisite manners of pbp 😅

Basically I put it on pause because I want this out of character bit to be resolved and a "social agreement" of sorts to be hammered out. This whole situation has already caused one player to leave the game and others have had concerns as well. If we have characters to write out I'd like to do it now while we are at a natural point in the story to do so.

Basically you're right, this isn't an IRL game so there isn't a chance for body language and quick resolution. Rather than have things festering and causing tons of "no fun to play" feelings happening, we are pausing to clear that up one way or another and then we will move on.

Alright, big thanks for taking your time and explaining this to me! @Dramasailor

yeah...ok so to make it clear and to be honest I feel I got misunderstood, because nothing what I did was to cause frustration to others, I am just a noob player

and as I said to Dm, if you do not want to play with me, I will respect it and leave...
if you do not have a problem, fine by me too, because I would like to play here.

I am afraid I do have Covid but I think I am slowly getting better. I am fime playing with Millyk but I would like to hear from Khulod

Sorry to hear that Stampman. Hope you get well soon.

Life has a way of piling up trouble in one short span of time and not kindly smear it out like butter on bread it seems. In my particular case, after that lovely episode of feverishly coughing my lungs out I was treated to a death in the family immediately followed by my employer suddenly demanding we come to the office twice a week for our glorious 'return to office'. Not the office 15 minutes from my home that's supposed to be my work office, no, the office 2 hours drive away on the other end of the country. I'm still fighting that battle while waiting for the funeral. So no happy days for Khulod. But enough self-pity. I'm only coughing a few times an hour, the fever is gone and if so inclined I can take a deep breath (at my own peril) so it's time I got to writing this promised post before I go look for my next job.

Alright. This game. I really liked from the start what Dramasailor put down. Good descriptive posts, engrossing npc's and a living world (or, well, village) with its wide set of issues. Things started off decently enough, but as we all know we had some issues getting started, to the moment where I pointed out that at some point I felt I was solely pushing the narrative forward from the player end and had a chat with the DM about that. At that same time the first issues between myself and Millyk popped up. If you look back to February 16 you can see the first time the problem was brought up. At that moment IC Radiza had been engaging the NPC's while the other characters nodded along or faded to the background. We've already had a discussion about that, but I'll draw notice to Millyk's actions around that period which involved taking offense at being called out for going solo by me. By then I, and I think certain others, were getting well tired of their antics IC as well. It didn't help that after the intervention where Millyk was asked to join the other players that Milaki did so by.... walking up to the core members that were left by then and insulting both of them (Feb 21). Yes! You read that right, the first ever, FIRST EVER moment Millyk opens her mouth at Radiza, their FIRST IC meeting, it is to ask Radiza she coughs up hairballs.

Mmmmmhhh! MHHHHHHH!

Naturally, IC insults were traded in kind from that moment on while I as a player just... skimmed over the logical fallacy of having such an individual join an orc slaying expedition. OOC needs must and all that, and the game goes on.

But naturally, Millyk's vitriol didn't end there. No, after demonstrating exceptional IC unlikability as a character, followed by the stint to get a solo adventure going, followed by a reluctant joining of forces, the fist chance, the FIRST CHANCE Millyk gets to undermine Radiza's (or well, anyone's) efforts is to go 100% murderhobo and to kill an unarmed prisoner who surrendered and is currently being tied up by a party member.

Take a moment dear audience. Soak it in. Re-live that moment.

Mmmmmh.

Yes, I got a bit heated. A lot of frustration came out in that post. But if you put a lot of work into something just for someone else to make a good effort at ruining everything you do, then yes, that's the response you get. So much work in getting a good game going, practically co-writing it with the DM, all for one person to just... pull down their pants, take a big stinking heap on it, and smile at you while doing it. But oh no, they didn't mean to. They're just.... misunderstood. They'll do better! Smiley face!

Yes I probably misunderstood you assuming that you made a mistake as a player. I imagined you would prefer your PC not to murder creature that surrender and may add content to the story (by talking to the team). If however it was MY misunderstanding and you still think your PC action best contribute to the story we are telling, then please explain.

P.S. I would also like to shared my feelings about the game

Though puzzled about murdering I am thankful to millyk that her PC helped to role-play my PC into the first battle. I would need to stay out of the battle if Milaki didn't help old man with heavy wight when Radiza decided to run away from the old man.
I would be happy if everyone would care less about my-pc-role-playing and consider the story-telling. The story is about the team and the deeds. Individuals and their actions is only a tool to tell the story.
Well anyway, not sure I am making it clear, but at lest I wrote that :)

ok Khulod...you made false conclusions about me....
Firstly, I accepted the fact how you play your character and how angry and bossy it is.
I wont explain again my two mistakes, the one that I talked to npcs at the beginning and killing a monster.
I already apologized and seriously it was not in purpose !
Also a nice saying I like to use do not judge so you wont be judge.
Are you the same player you left from the other survival campaign?...
because the dm did not let you have slaves? ...that was a moment to remember, you made a drama there too and left...

Anyways,
I am willing to let it pass and forgive your outburst and your angry comments,
if you are willing to accept my apologize and my noob mistakes.
Otherwise, I do not have anything else to say about you, clearly you have a problem with me and we need to sort it out or someone needs to leave.

No. Never in my life would I want to play a slave owner.

@Khulod No, I m right...you dont remember? you wanted to make a rich character with commoners and the dm did not allow you and you left angrily? Explorers of the uncharted continent ...
seriously you have to check your angry issues man... its not nice to burst on others.

You're so full of shit.

I recall now. I was playing an elf knight, they get three retainers. I described them as a Seneshal, Squire and Manservant in the detail everyone here is used to by now. So how did you go from there to slaves again?

yeah.. whatever.. retainers... slaves.... potato patato :P anyways the point was that you had a bad behavior again there and now here... so guys if he does not keep his nice comments like full of shit etc for himself, I am out. I believe he is not willing to change his bad behavior. I hope I am wrong...but he has anger manager issues.

Khulod has been removed from the game. I have to get back to work, but I will be back to pick things up later today. Apologies for this dragging on as long as it did.

one more question. in game should we simply ignore the fact that one PC did murder (I'm ok to ignore that PC behaviour as it was a player mistake and his PC is not like that). Or should my druid PC try to bear the fact that one person in the team do not respect plant people lives? I'm ok either way just pick which. As it will obviously affect my PC behaviour.

I am ok with acknowledging the action (its part of what happened after all). Alan is doing some role-playing of coming to terms with it, so it's definitely ok to react to. I just ask a few things:

Players will be respectful and move on from the action
Characters will actively work on becoming a cohesive team. Maybe not friends, but associates.

@Dramasailor, that's exactly my problem, I'm glad you brought it! I have a few ideas how I could fix the problem for me:

Could I ask DM to drop a stone on head of my PC and steal his memory of last few minutes, please. I'm also fine to develop new character and open for other ideas how to be able to " work on becoming a cohesive team".

I will point out that the creatures would not be held in esteem by any true druidic group. They were animated plants brought to life by evil energies. Claudius is perfectly fine to do some nature or arcana investigations to discover that. They were made of plants, yes, but not natural in any sense.

Oh, that works for me, perfectly well. And as a matter of fact Claudius did roll nature for 9 total on them already on Mar 14, 2022 9:32 am, but that was right before we had the unfortunate conflict, don't want to cheat re rolling that now.

Ah right, I hadn't resolved that bit for you yet, apologies. Will post up the information you get from that shortly.

Thank you for making a tough decision Dramasailor I feel much more comfortable now. I really think that if we are going to have fun with the game from now on we accept what has happened and the apologies made and make a fresh start. At any rate I hope I can be friends with you all.

@Stampman49, could you please tell me, why you don't use the character portrait option when you post as your character?

This is my first game and the reason is I don't know how to do what you are saying. I don't have a character portrait how do I get one to use?. I should have realised earlier that you were posting differently to me sorry

No worries, i was just curious... I myself don't know how half of the things work here😅

You put it on your character in edit mode it's on the top right corner. Then you save it and when you post you choose to post as a player, the option is located on the top of the text options that is above the text entry window.

Did i explain it well enough?

I figured it was a "new to the site" bit. You've been selecting your character to post as (well done there!). The last bit is the avatar if you wanted to have a different picture available to show your character.

Some folks will make a character on HeroForge and take a screencap of that to use, others find artwork online that comes close, others will create their own and upload it. If I remember correctly, they need to be 150 pixels x 150 pixels minimum

Thanks everyone I think I have done it.

Just want to note that reason my PC currently stay outside and not involves into room searching is because 1. he is anything but melee fighter 2. I want to watch our back. It is not that I don't want my PC to be involved in party business, I just want let others to take lead on dungeon crawl.

Could we please do a short recap, please. Where were we going and how much should my PC know about it?

What I've dig up is:
1. Before my PC joined the party there were following info. I just don't remember if anyone shared it with me:
2. Our party were asking townsfolk for some directions. But what are we looking to find? Is it the old mineshafts?
3. We do know that orc attacks happened more to the west, so we should't be ON any of their paths, we should be at best crossing their usual path and would notice a much travelled pathway.

Brief recap:
Conyberry has a lot of things they need help with to establish themselves. There were talks about orcs and highwaymen/bandits that were attacking caravans and the like. Also, there was an issue with someone poisoning traps that the local hunter used and it was causing them to lose the creatures they were hunting, which is threatening the food supply. There was also the issue with the former sheriff of Triboar becoming more reclusive and the town wanting him to work with them instead of against him. Because of Radiza's influence, the group is currently hunting orcs. Other NPC parties that were there have set off to try handling some of the other things.

As for your specific questions:
1. Yes, the information on the mineshafts was shared during "yesterday" morning's walk to the shrine.
2.The "townsfolk direction" piece was talking more about the information from Stephen talking about the mineshafts and the fact that the attacks are coming from the foothills to the south (Post here). So in general you are looking for orc encampments, you know there are at least three spellcasters of some kind, but not sure on the rest of the numbers.
3. The orc attacks are coming from the south, not the west. You've not noticed any paths yet but whether that's because recent storms have erased the trails they left, because they are skilled at moving across the terrain and don't stick to the same paths always, or because of some other factor altogether you don't know.

Additionally: @millyk,@Stampman49 are you both still with us? Haven't heard from ya in a week or so, want to make sure everything is OK.

Thanks, very helpful. By the way, I meant to say the area where orc attacks happen are to the west , I do understand that orcs come south of triboar trail.So so far it seem I understand everything, except ... well - where is the logic of 4 lvl 1 chars hunting orc army. When I was DMing LMoP even lvl 3 party were afraid to hunt those orcs....

But OK, I know about that issue when joined this game, which were the reason I designed my PC the way he is - believe in the destiny not in the team ability to achieve the task.

hey guys, I am back, sorry I was busy. I work two part time jobs and I did not have the power to post anything, I will try to keep up

Guys I really do not want to do something, that you will get angry ....so pls be clear of what I am allow to do or not :-/ ok?

@millyk what you did in your previous post is a good example of roleplaying your specific flaw, it is not a bad thing at all! The thing we talked about previously, remember?

What Alan did is show you that running at them ain't exactly the best plan, without disturbing the ambush... Hence he threw a fruit to gain Milakis attention.

That's at least how i see and intended the situation from my point...

Ok cool :-)

Hey all, I'm going to be less active over the next 2 weeks or so. I did something that screwed up my shoulder and it puts me in a lot of pain to sit and type. I've seen the doctor and am on a 2 week course of steroids to get it under control. I should be back sooner than 2 weeks, but it may be that long if it takes the full time to be not painful. Apologies all around and I hope to be back soon.

Hope you will get better soon! @dramasailor

I am also going to be very busy for the rest of this month, will post when I can

Alrighty all! I'm back and getting stuff started back up :)

I'm so happy Dramasailor is back and I wish you the best health. Now I have a question:
Is it still this group agreement. I count on it. Really.

It is definitely still the intent. I apologize for the few days darkness, I've been playing nursemaid to my daughters (nothing like 39 degree fevers and positive flu results for the five year olds to suck all the wind out of every sail).

Just to be clear on game state. I am waiting for for millyk to post what Milaki thinks/wants of the situation and how she behaves. Even if she does not react in any way - I want to know that before I role play my PC next action/decision.

Same here, won't make any posts until the other 2 players do, or the story moves forward

@Stampman49 I'm so glad to to see you back in the game! Please assume Claudius used his telepathy to share his thoughts with your PC as well.

@millyk - Haven't seen you about for a week or so, everything OK?

For the rest, I will need you to make a group decision (or someone make a decision for the group) as to your plan. Lurzook will not make the decision for you.

The way I see it you have a few choices:
1) Set up a fake camp, and try to "reverse ambush" them when the orcs come at night.
2) Observe the orcs from the goblin's suggested location and then do... something (follow them, attack them, whatever)
3) Tell Lurzook you'll handle it and then just leave.
4) Continue hunting the orcs in the daylight.

Things you've been told or assume about these orcs based on conversations so far:
-> They can see in the dark and use that to their advantage
-> Their leader is brutal but the spellcaster with him is worse
-> They have 6-8 orcs that you'll have to deal with.

Once someone from the group makes a decision for which way you're intending on advancing, I'll push the story forward.

I vote for (1) both as player and as PC.
1) I still have those 3 hunting traps, which don't do lot of damage but stop enemy if it fails dex save
2) I believe our rogue could have a great shooting position in a tree to snipe down the spellcaster
3) My PC now believe that there is little chance to meet lone orc, because there is a boss which mean they work as a group.
4) Technically if it is dark and we are more than 60 feet away from bonfire orcs don't see us but we see them and have advantage on ranged attacks.
5) My PC wold just love to develop detailed battle plan and I would just love as player to see that plan fail from the very beginning because he have missed to account for something.

I'm alright with option 1, Alan would agree with it too.

He won't initiate the plan since he's pretending to be Claudius's goon. So the stage for now is all yours @GreyWord .

Yes have hard time to delay my next post where Claudius attempt to talk like he is a boss, which is about only thing he has no knowledge to
Not sure if I could wait much more longer to allow millyk add something more to the story

OK, I assumed responsibility to post because I want to get back to "1. Maintain a close to daily weekday posting rate."
I assume we will still have opportunity to develop detailed plan or even abandon it as in-character conversation, once our PCs see if there are any opportunity to use environment to our advantage, because we will be choosing the location of the ambush. Without environmental advantage my PC would not risk fighting 4 PCs against 8 Orcs.

Sorry guys,I had corona virus. So I took a week off

Hey all, as you've noticed most likely I've not updated here in about a week, little more. Unfortunately, I'm finding real life is getting in the way and unfortunately running a game right now is just out of reach for the time that I've got.

I'd like to give it to you all to determine what you'd like to do. I'm perfectly happy to put the game on hiatus for a few weeks to see if life will settle itself down some. If you'd all rather just see it close up, we can do that to.

I'm very sorry the steam fell off, it has been an enjoyable adventure so far for me!

I'm sorry to hear. I has been enjoyable indeed so I will stay in the game and hope to see it continue before my life drag me away from gamersplane

I dont mind, I can wait, hope everything is ok

Sure, take your time!

Hey Dramasailor ... are you sure you want to continue here...? :-/

Ye, it will soon be a month... So.. how's it looking at your end @Dramasailor

Unfortunately, things don't seem to be easing up much at all on my end, and likely won't until the fall. I think it's probably best if we just shutter this one, sadly. Sorry all.

Alright, thanks for the game, it was short, but enjoyable.

thank you....and see ya around in the forum

sorry to hear that. take care