Admin / OOC

Thanks, fellas. I get most of my best stuff from www.wwe.com.

But seriously - there is some incredible art out there these years. How do these artists do it? As someone with no artistic capability of my own, I'm fascinated with how they create such imaginative and expressive paintings and drawings.

Right there with you. I find that I want to engage Damanandros in conversation, but triggering a two way back and forth could derail the game for the rest of the group for a week, easily. PBP is an interesting experience of time travel where a perceived ten seconds becomes two days real time.

I think we need to develop some techniques that aid in the bonding between characters while limiting back and forth that eats up days. Much of the back and forth comes from trying to avoid projecting other character's actions or intents. Another contributor is that we tend to reserve bits that we want to come out in the story or character actions/dialogue, bits that would be able to surface with normal in-person conversation, but which end up getting bypassed in PBP.

My suggestion is to write out part of your character's conversation, the initial prompt that sets the tone and topic. Then add internal thoughts or OCC exposition that give one or more details about where you want the conversation to go, what the character is trying to hide (or reveal), and other pertinent details laid out for all to see.

Then the other characters can respond with wall-of-text style responses that cover a lot of ground and hand waive the exact dialogue between the two with exposition that addresses the proffered path of the conversation.

Just a suggestion, and I don't really know how well that would work. Maybe it makes for great scenes. Maybe it takes the excitement out.

I think this is a great idea, and I hope to see the coming entries on it.

Leo has already shown a knack for this sort of writing, and I welcome more of the same. CB says some good techniques above, and others work well also. Maybe some trial and error on the method, but I'm sort of waiting with bated breath to hear how Damanandros is reacting to all this. Internally in "thought bubbles", exchanges with PCs/NPCs, and manifesting in his actions - I suspect it could all come together to paint an overall picture that develops the character and drives some of the broader scenes too.

I have very little concern that any of this sort of thing would "bog the game down."

We don't know yet how the fateful night in the storm changed Damanadros - but hopefully we'll see over time.

As the player, I was really hoping that the PCs could all gather around the campfire without being confronted with another plethora of legionnaires. Mostly, to do some character bonding and try to sort out Damanandros' ordeal without prying eyes and big ears around to interfere with it.

As the characer, Syrena is simply confused by the whole incident. Damanandros appears to have been lured into the woods from his position, on guard (and without alerting others) by a gang of goblins and a big vulture. But then, he utters something about skulls and SHE, when there's no evidence of a skull that we saw and certainly nothing remotely female in these woods except Syrena, as far as she's seen so far. Except...eeew...maybe the big beetle that ate Culchas.

I hear this, and will open it up.

It's already Flashback Friday, here and here. Plus we're also moving into Casual Weekend as I write this.

I'm hereby invoking a rarely used method only available to veteran DMs and veteran Players: Multiple Parallel Threads with Time Warp Allowance (MPT/TWA).

Features of this iteration of MPT/TWA:

1) Friday through Sunday night: "Old Forest" boards open for any entries related to any of 3 timeline moments...
a) the approximately 1.5 hour of time from early dusk to full nightfall, during which time the group is gathering around a small fire and bonding, before the arrival of the soldiers
b) the moment of interaction with the soldiers
c) the moment after the interaction of the soldiers, when the group takes a private moment of withdrawal to prepare a response to the offer

2) We see where we are Monday morning. MPT/TWA could likely get extended for a partial or full day Monday, because tradition holds that Saturday/Sundays are optional.

3) PCs reset and recover. Players take casual time for small talk or non-gamebreaker Action for PCs. Commentary, CharacterDev, and OOC entries are welcome. Players' Club invited to enjoy the Champagne Room and new entry in Ascendancy.

I'll put some connectivity and queue back on the game board to kick it off. I hope this will generate cool entries and allow for plenty of leeway to sandbox through this junction point in a way that everyone feels good about before we move on.

New section thread will be starting early next week - probably Tuesday - so let's close the f out of "Old Forest" with this MPT/TWA Weekend Extravaganza.

Thanks, Players' Club.

J-Manage

After consulting with Leo, I've edited some earlier posts that involved the Harpy and the Skull Vulture. Content previously exclusive to Leo behind the "Note" function is now public.

"Goddess" Q&A is here.

Conversion Goddess to Harpy here.

There are a few other open entries, then the new reveal content is....
here,
here,
here,
here,
here,
and here.

It will still be up to Leo of course about what Damanandros shares with PCs or keeps to himself, but Players can consume content about Harpy and Skull Vulture (a hard break-up between those two - yikes I mean wow just wow) and the young mage from Kourithos in the torture murder ditch.

Also I was thinking back, and in my mind I was really thinking that Syrena was going to sprint ahead and shoot that Harpy - which would have changed the whole scene entirely. So then probably would have changed more of the story than just one scene.

I always enjoy reflecting on how a general vision of what I think might happen most often gets scrapped as the action occurs, and the scenes and thread lines turn into more and more of a surprise to me as the story unfolds. It's one of my very favorite parts about the game.

Even beyond that, for some reason I was picturing in my head that the PC who would have had to make the save on watch during Witching Hour was going to be Xenophon (sorry, Len - I don't know why, can't help sometimes when an image of a scene starts in the mind-spirit). But then Xeno all of the sudden was edited out of watch. Gennadius asked for middle watch or something. I randomized the rest. So Damanandros gets the song-bird. Saving Throw 3 of 20. One thing leads to another and Danamandros is in shambles after a torture session and make-out scene with some half-eagle sorceress?!? Wow - that escalated quickly.

Also, Players' Club, I was talking offline with Leo - he mentioned he was running a DragonLance Game on his professional table - which I thought was really retro rad. I haven't thought about DragonLance in a long time. I don't know what the consensus opinion about it now is, but back in the day, whether it's cringe or not, I was a fan-teen for DL.

It made me think back to some of the art of that era and setting. Check these out...

Leo mentioned Lord Soth, one of my favorite characters. So this was the art I remembered.



Which reminded me of another favorite character, Kitiara, and this image. Headband? Check.
External chainmail underwear? Check.
Shirt status? Acceptable.
Through the Hellscape portal? Let's fkn GO!



There was so much great art from that setting, but this likely is my favorite.
Gaudy? Tropey? mmm. Maybe... Does it work still? Hell YEAH!
(Look at her! Her heart is broken. She swears she's going to get somebody back for this.
And Stern Sturm... perfection in death. Held his post, alone, no matter the cost. Immaculate armor with decorative trim. Absolutely magnificent mustache. See you in Valhalla, King. )

Not a fan of Dragonlance. I'll leave it at that.

Yeah - I figured it was in Cringe Department for most. Including myself now. I think it's pretty cheezball at this point, but Teen J was like, "Y'all. This is the Right Stuff. And watch out for Y2K coming up for a Mad Max FUTURE!"

As I understood from a point Leo made, if you are in the business - you sell what sells. So I get that, and it sounds like there is at least some market for it. I thought that stuff was lost to 20th Century history though tbh.

What's the stuff you like, Red?

I like darker stuff.

In general, I don't run pre-existing modules from any of the many settings and, if I do, I near completely gut the contents and tailor them to my tastes and make them relative to the players and their characters. I prefer unique treasures, as opposed to (You find a +1 sword) or random stuff no one wants.

As a player, I much prefer being in a game created by the person running it. Especially, if we are on the same page creatively.

I am with you! I am a fan of cosmic horror, things that twist the mind, warp the body, and threaten the soul….and tentacles.

My own setting for Shadowdark is grimdark for sure. A subterranean dwarven realm ravaged by a "Last of us" like fungal infection that is turning the dwarves into mutated abominations.

Thanks to my patrons, I have another commissioned art piece in the pipes that illustrates the creature. I’ll share once I have acquired it. I still haven’t named it, but the illness is called Moldur.

J: ** takes notes** "... no +1 weapons .... threaten PCs' souls ..."

---

Right on. Yeah I hear that and concur.

Hey, CB, you think these two might have liked cruising with us back in the late 2010s in Dark Thrones? haha - sounds familiar.

Moldur Disease sounds pretty terrible. Got to Save vs. Poison on that.
That art is probably going to be Horror Show for sure.

Speaking of Damanandros of the Nine Fingers: I did half expect his little buddy, Gobblum, to follow along as his pet(?)

Xeno scared him off.
He had taken two semesters of Low Auran at Beastman Community College, trying to break into the out-of-forest market.

I hear that. Poor little treacherous bastard...

Don't get me started on Dark Thrones, DMJ. The others will just feel awkward as we wax romantic and eye one another.

Teenage me enjoyed the Dragonlance novels, though they weren't top shelf fantasy (strictly reserved for Tolkien and Howard). Never played in the campaign setting. I think both have been extremely influential in D&D & wider gaming since; the style and tone of a 'typical' 5e game feels much closer to Dragonlance than to pulp or sword-and-sorcery. Whether that's good or bad depends on your personal taste, I suppose!

As far as getting PC thoughts or attitudes across in posts, I generally think that if there's something about your character that you want to communicate in a post, you should just do it.

I'm happy for anyone to take a bit of license and assume Gundus' side of a conversation for a prompt, if you really want to frame a post as spoken dialogue - so long as you keep the characterisation consistent.

I know there's a concern in PBP to keep the action moving so that engagement doesn't drop off, but imo those sorts of posts are the action as much as the external plot. When they are well done they can be really interesting and enrich the game.

I think CB and DMJ's methods are both pretty elegant solutions.

Players' Club,

I've been busy today (Sun Day) - unable to game and probably won't be making any other entries tonight.

I'll be back at it tomorrow Monday (Moon Day). Between tonight and tomorrow if possible, post up some Character game entries to let me know what's happening in response to Centurion Omander's invitation (instruction?) to return to Tower 4 for the night.

My general goal is to close "The Old Forest" Thread tomorrow and start up a new section. So I'll see which way y'all are steering this hot rod to coin a broad title to the general trajectory.

Also I screwed up originally on XP math, so if you could go back and make sure you're recording the value of the new final numbers. Also I welcome anyone checking the math again and letting me know if you see any errors or anything missing. One thing I've gotten a vivid reminder about Old School game rules: it's slow to build up XP without big treasure scores. Loot is definitely the quickest route to advancement.

Looking forward to input. Read you tomorrow.

J