OOC

I am happy with any role :)

Hey all, I'm Charles and I'm in my mid-thirties living in the Pacific Northwest of the US, living my best outdoorsy life. I spend most weekends hiking or snowboarding, and the summer is filled with backpacking to alpine lakes. I've been gaming since I was ten, starting with AD&D 2e in my friend's living room. It's only been a few years since I started exploring other systems, and I've found that the old school mindset is most aligned with my own.

Also, fun tidbit, I'm a cartographer by trade but my live games almost always have the laziest maps possible. Except for my game of Cyberpunk Red where I actually modified a map of Anchorage, AK, for my players.

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There is a tavern scene in the Gameplay thread to just get a few introductions out of the way. I'm happy to move into the module proper whenever you are.

Hi. My name's Alan, I'm in my 40s, living in New England. I practice intellectual property law, have a wife and children (hockey players), dog, cats. Have been playing TTRPGs since 1990, started with AD&D 2e. Currently I engage most with 2400, Maze Rats, and Tiny D6 games. Swords&Wizardry is a nice bit of nostalgic fun! I write games as much as I play them.

Hey all,

My name is Matt and I seem to be a long way from any of you down the bottom of the world in Sydney. I am a father of two and a Police Officer by trade.

Played a fair bit of D&D in the 80’s and early 90’s, as well as TMNT RPG. But did had a big break getting back into playing in my 40’s, mainly on here due to work and family.

Looking forward to playing in an old skhool style game :)

Hello,

My name is Andrew. I am 30 and live in Oregon. I work as a quality control technician.

I played ttrpg for a while, they range from dnd to GURPS to more obscure ones.

I look forward to dying many times.

Czespecem's hood is red! Like a gnome, though he is firmly a dwarf.

Nice alliteration in your most recent in-game, DM.

Hello everyone!

My name is Daniel and I am probably the youngest one here, being 26 years old. I make a living as a business developer, essentially buying companies for a certain investment holding and helping raise profitability and revenues of these companies. Been doing similar stuff for 8 years now and oh boy, it was a ride.

As for other stuff, I teach social dances in my free time (mainly bachata sensual, brazilian zouk and argentine tango) and started playing TTRPGs from the age of 14, when I stumbled upon a Czech version of DnD called Dragon's Nest.

Been in a number of games since then, mainly Strategies or based on free roleplay, before changing servers and coming to here. I currently GM 2 games: Dungeon Crawl Classics (OSR game) and Heart: The City Beneath (highly narrative game that keeps the risks high, which I like).

This is my first foray into Swords & Wizardry, looking forward to playing with y'all!

Clerics don’t have spells yet :(

I most likely will be offline from about Christmas until about New Years. @cowleyc, while I'm away please assume that Czespecem searches for traps and hits enemies with his shovel until he gets hurt, at which point he tries to hide behind Rogar or Brogan.

I will be active for the next ten days anyway

I'll probably be busy throughout that week as well. Good money says we'll take a week off just to play it safe.

Xmas week off would be good :)

Czespecem initially is agnostic as to where Rogar should march. Both options make sense ... then it occurs to him that, at the front, Rogar will have less opportunity to flee when he is needed most. Of course he does not express that thought. But he does direct Rogar to flank him in the first rank.

As a ranged character, Lith will probably take either the third or fourth spot, willing to adapt to his companions' preference.

See you all next year and have a Merry Xmas if that is what you are up to, otherwise have a enjoyable break :)

Happy holidays all!

Happy holidays!

Happy New Year everone.

Looking forward to moving on in our quest for death :)

Happy New Years, All!

@cowleyc, something you did in your post with the stirges seems to have broken that thread for me - the post box does not even appear. It's a problem specific to the thread. Maybe you could add some text in the post? That might help.

[table="rolls"]
[b]Melee Weapon[/b] | [b]Hands[/b] | [b]Attack with[/b] | [b]Damage[/b]
[_=crowbar] | 1 | 1d20+[_$=atk_bonus] | [_=1d4]+[_$=dmg_bonus]
[_=shovel] | 2 | 1d20+[_$=atk_bonus] | [_=1d6]+[_$=dmg_bonus] 
[/table]

I did this in my character sheet to somewhat automate rolling.

A little quiet here. How's everyone doing?

Well enough, kind of waiting for go ahead to open the door

Sorry on my part was just trying to juggle school holidays, should be getting back into a normal swing from here.

I am enjoying this far

Thanks for checking in. Some thoughts...

I know old school adventures have a lot of empty rooms as a feature, which might be fine around the table, but I am not sure they work very well in an asynchronous format. We've established a party routine, door checkers, trap checkers, etc. but there isn't much to respond to or interact with when we encounter empty rooms. We're basically following standard operating procedures.

I have noticed this same issue when I have run PbP dungeon crawls. Filler rooms don't seem to work well for maintaining pace. I am not sure there is really much that can be done about.

All this to say, I don't think the slowdown is anything on your end. I think it's a function of the medium and the nature of old school dungeon crawls.

I feel that is a fair call, filler rooms can be dealt with generically with a short posting highlighting choices to be made. (ie: check door left or door right, etc )

This is the first real dungeon crawler I have done on PbP, and concer with Pawndream

We had foreshadowing of a slow moving menace that now is behind us, some distance outside the door that we left open?

I am definitely up for a little more automation - we have established a routine of explore the room -> search for traps of chosen next door -> enter next door, repeat the cycle.

For example with the last post, the only thing Lith could do is pick up his dart and go to his position in the marching order, waiting for the GM to describe the next room (since we are searching the door, I would expect we are entering it). Could we, in the case where no traps are found, be transported directly into the next room?

If the filler rooms have only one exit, I would prefer them to be mentioned in passing and be transported onward.

So 8 damage on Derrick against his 3hp equals time for a new character then :)

I think Czespecem would add *listening for noises* to his repertoire of things-to-do-before-opening-that-door.

I wouldn't have thought that just listening for noises would take ten minutes?

Also, are we tracking light sources? Ten minutes per door and an hour (at most) per torch will run quick.

So we have a new Paladin.

I am thinking maybe a thief or Monk this time.

I am thinking that Czespecem might be wary of returning to the village where he hired two guys who got killed under his command. Still, ... does he have any other options?

@seifi @pawndream Let's get some new characters rolling! Excited to see what the second group looks like.

Thanks for the wake up call, I will do my best to finish it during the weekend.

Character submitted!

We have three thieves now lol

Well as only the thief survived the last delve, it makes sense from an evolutionary perspective to double down on what "worked"

Then let's go in and steal stuff, come back and fence it off in town. Earn Xp. Level. We avoid every fight, in true OD&D fashion?

What say you?

Sounds good, happy to turn my guy into a human assassin?

Gonna play my druid a little bit more renegade-ish to fit the group then! Pretty sure his Circle would have exiled him with those stats anyways

@cowleyc Are you going to set up a new thread for the second group or are we going to keep the original one?

I am totally on board with burglary no fighting.

Sorry. Been dealing with some nasty weather and a cold. Will jump back in shortly.

Wilric is hiring the sailor, and happy to chip in to fund the others.

Eagerwish will hire Gillaug. The cost is 2GP per day, right?

Indeed, 2gp per day!

Hi. I am in the midst of a job / client search and not really engaging with my leisure activities as I might do in a less stressful time. My posting will be sporadic as I have energy to do so.

I just posted, unless I have another post to make as well. Let me go back and re-read.

I am liking my new guy :)

Thanks for checking in. It's strange. PbP was my main gaming outlet from 2009 to 2017, when my work and life schedule was too unpredictable to commit to live/real-time gaming. 2017-2020 I was finally able to play face to face again, but kept running PbP throughout. I started winding all my PbP games in 2020 and switched to virtual tabletop (VTT) for my RPG fix. My gaming calendar is now pretty full with VTT and the occasional face to face game.

I had hoped to rekindle my love of PbP through this game, but it just isn't happening. This game is excellent by the way, so it's through no fault of the GM or other players--it's me.

This kind of saddens me, because PbP has provided so much joy for me over the years. There were many years where it was the ONLY gaming I could get in. But now, my schedule is packed with gaming--I run three different RPG groups and play in another.

All this to say, I think I am going to bow out from this game. Let's assume Nim takes his earnings and doesn't return to the tomb.

I want to thank all of you, especially the GM, for an excellent game. Best of luck to each of you, in life, and of course, gaming! :)

Take care,

Shane

It's a shame to see you go, but I absolutely get it! PbP has its place. This site will be around if you ever find the need for it, and I'd love to see you around. Best of luck in your other games!

Hehe I was expecting some halfling sass for that. Just wasn't sure why we were standing around, so I figured I'd get the ball rolling. Thanks Mathfuric :)

P.S. this is my first PbP game so feel free to let me know if I'm going against etiquette, or something.

Woohoo! Safe travels and a good weekend, all!

Sounds good! Y'all enjoy your Easter weekend.

All good! I just felt like I was saying and suggesting things, so I was waiting for other people to say their piece and declare some actions. Everyone take their time! :)

No worries! Meanwhile, maybe I can find a little time to read through the previous expedition into the monastery and get up to speed (unless that's like, too metagamey or something).

I can do a quick roundup for you Rizado . . .

A group of us went into ruins got lost and walked into our first combat, got killed except for a lone survivor Dwarf.
A new party formed went into ruins killed a group of goblins and stolen some tapestries.

Thank you, I am up to speed now, haha.

I'm digging Medwyn's new character portrait. He looks like he belongs in that band Greta Van Fleet. :metal horns:

It is very 70’s metal

Thanks very much! I used "Larry Elmore" as one of the prompts in StarryAI to get that image. If you're not familiar, he's the illustrator who did the famous D&D Red Box art from 1983. And yes, coincidentally, he also looks like he'd be in Rush, Rainbow, Jethro Tull, etc. lol.

Game’s sometimes do that and I feel you maybe right.

Thank you Cowleyc for allowing me to be a part of this, I very much enjoyed the different gaming experience.

And thanks to everyone that joined me on this adventure, I am sure I will see many of you around other games.

Math.

Hey gang.

It's been a real pleasure. This was my first PbP game, and I really enjoyed trying out this format. Thank you all for being a part of it. Hope all your future games are legendary!

Totally get that; thanks for running, Cowley! And happy gaming to everyone else, too. Maybe I'll catch y'all around.

Thank you for running the game and see you all in other ones!