Obligatory OOC thread :D

Yeah my next post will be that we're missing some pebbles, but we know what they look like.

Are all the holes in the door empty?

Okay, so this is what I have so far:

From the riddle, I bolded the gem names and underlined the ones in the pebbles bag.
Protection of the Leadership leads to Mastery but Reserve your Intellect for Self-Preservation

From the door in order 1-13, I bolded the gems from the riddle and underlined the ones in the pebbles bag.
1 - Reserve
2 - Insight
3 - Regen
4 - Leadership
5 - Fortitude
6 - Supreme Intellect
7 - Absorption
8 - Awareness
9 - Sustenance
10 - Intellect
11 - Mastery
12 - Self-Preservation
13 - Protection

One caveat is that the riddle could refer to Supreme Intellect instead of regular Intellect.

I assume we need to place just the stones from the riddle in the door. In which case, we are missing Intellect, Mastery and Self-Preservation.

I'll make sure to say something IC to this effect. But it might be more useful to lay it out like this.

Yes they will all be empty by now

By the way, should I proceed to post? Still waiting on the resolution for Agna's failed intimidation roll, but her being ignored could be the effect lol.

ah damn! I was going to reply and got distracted by something else and then just thought I did it already xD

Should Adaia do that IC, or here is better for you?

Updated with the latest stones. Underlined are the stones we have, and the bolded ones are those included in the riddle.

1 - Reserve
2 - Insight
3 - Regen
4 - Leadership
5 - Fortitude
6 - Supreme Intellect
7 - Absorption
8 - Awareness
9 - Sustenance
10 - Intellect
11 - Mastery
12 - Self-Preservation
13 - Protection

It doesn't but that would have been an excellent idea. I guess the Adventure League wasn't designed that way xD

I think that note was supposed to be for riley?

By the way, I think the riddle mentions every stone unless I missed something, not just those you bolded @riley.

Oh I'm super blind haha, good catch. No idea how I missed that...
Yeah you can ignore that then. Just missing the two stones then

yeah it was for Riley… end of a long day 😅
Ahah! Agna should totally point that out IC in the grumpiest way 🤣 I noticed Adaia was focusing on the first part of the riddle only but it wouldn’t make much difference in the end once you crack it

RAAMtentacles zzz’ed now from 20 days of inactivity. I checked the Absences thread and couldn’t find anything. I don’t think this is unusual for the end of the year so, until they are back, let’s say Izuhn went with Helda and the dwarves to explore the other part of the cave. Just to let you guys know so you don’t feel you have to wait for their input

Yeah, RAAM went absent in another of my games. Hope they're just busy with the holidays.

Ok, so that was the little "avalanche survival horror" scenario. Icewind would be reached in the next one, but RAAMtentacles is definitely inactive and riley hasn't log in in more than a week. We can keep going with just grumpy Agna, but given how this is a long campaign, it's probably not ideal.

Yeah, I don't mind putting the game on hiatus. Perhaps if riley returns we can pick back up.

Apologies, I thought I had made a post attempting to close the door. The game has definitely slowed down without RAAM, so I hadn't checked in.

Ah yes you did, but it failed so it took a bit longer to complete (also give time for Agna to run)
I'll be away for two-three weeks, so we can check if you guys want to continue or if we just say you made it to Icewind Dale when I'm back to full speed.

So it's been more than a month, I think we can count this game as closed now.

Since it's supposed to be a playtest, is there anything you'd like feedback on or ask about @CESN?

I'm back from my two-three weeks break! (still a bit busy until next week moment)

But I also see riley zzz'ed... so it's a Agna's solo now 😅
* I think we can start with the previous polls.

* Then what are the main issues you had with the system (given it's rules-light) and what you think worked well :D

* I tried to run different adventure types to check which worked best for the system (though all within D&D context).. What type of game you think it will work best for? (when did it work best or worse)

Overall, I think the pacing was unfortunately off. Part of that may be on having a different focus from Agna's point of view and what she sees as "derailment" from the main goal of getting everyone to the Ten Towns safely. IIRC it was mentioned the campaign followed story beats based on what's written in Adventure Paths (are they called that outside of Pathfinder?) but it didn't sadly work for me, especially the NPC deaths feeling a bit scripted.

I do appreciate how you worked to integrate player agency into the story. For example, when I decided that Agna's success revealed a cave where the caravan could shelter, it was in that same cave where they stumbled into the demonic(?) ruin.

Looking back at the game, I feel like I might have liked spending more time in social situations. My issues with combat being floaty I've already mentioned before. That's also why I think it does not suit running a D&D adventure where combat is the primary focus.

Going deeper into the mechanics, I am still not sure what experience from doubles are for (when rolling below a skill, rolling above and improving that skill is great). Choosing between using Agna's skill at Magic to Talk Sense or simply rolling Intimidate felt pretty samey, but that's chiefly on me for inventing an ability like that.

The resolution mechanic of 2d6 to beat target number is pretty easy to understand, and I'm a fan of the level up on doubles like mentioned above. The individual skills could be refined a little more (for example, Nature and Survival, Arcana and Magic) but it's a solid replacement for stats. I also like that wounds would possibly impact multiple skills under the same category, though it didn't really come into play during our game.

EDIT: Hah, imagine if I'd rolled another double with my fat-fingered insight check.

Thanks for the feedback!

I do agree part of the problem might have been me trying to stick with the original D&D concept and balancing the players motivations. I do remember Agna not wanting to explore the "burning village" but someone else wanted to check what was going on (or not going deeper into the caves and having Adaia being a wizard and wanting to explore the ruins). These little side things take way longer on PbP than IRL xD
Yeah they released some Encounter of the Week introduction to the Rime of the Frostmaiden which were supposed to be very light one-shots. The NPC deaths were so scripted they even counted as Adventure League awards xD I tried to keep the last one alive but those were some terrible rolls. The Rime was advertised as an horror adventure like aliens or the thing, this was their attempt of having something pick the caravan one by one.
This probably contributed to the weird pacing as well, since combat didn't go down that well. The D&D "ship dungeon" clearly didn't work here.
The doubles were supposed to be like a sort of metacurrency (Bennies, Fate point, etc. ) to get a bonus since the success probabilities are generally low. But the rules were not very clear on this and they were way too free-form to be usable. I was re-thinking doubles as re-rolls instead of having the default ability and that might make it a bit easier to use.
D&D is definitely not the best paced system since it's basically moving from combat to combat which some introduction of where to find more combat. I think I'll try re-running a different thing once I have time to have another look at the rules
ahah if you manage to find an advantage you will success on your insight 👌