Admin / OOC

On watch, out on the edge...

I'm fine to wait. Just a heads up that on the 28th my family has some medical stuff to take care of, so I might be a little slow out the gates, depending on how things go.

Welcome onboard, Leo.

Hey, bro - here's the RULINGS on the scores.

1) You're out of sequence on the distribution order of the scores. It's my fault. I set up the Ability Score order list inconsistent with the old school order that is on the character sheet. But to match everyone else, here's your resulting rolls matched to the proper order...

STR 13
DEX 15
CON 17
INT 15
WIS 12
CHA 13

2) Your Innate Genius result score (13) was LOWER than your 3d6 roll (17). That's improbable, but it happened.
I want to let you keep the higher score this time around. So your base scores are what is listed above. Move on from there to the next steps (optional swap, Folk, Class).

This Ruling in #2 above gives an opportunity to some people in the rest of the crowd, detailed in next post....

In a strange turn of events, the ruling above gives an opportunity to some other Players.

Leo was given 1 roll of 3d6 and 1 roll of 6d6 keep highest. From those 2 scores, he took the highest for his Innate Genius score.

So for the fun of it, just this time in first CharGen, everyone will get a chance for a similar 2 rolls.

CB, this is brutal, but you've already rolled twice, here and here. Unfortunately, can't let you roll a 3rd time. Your result of 13 over 12 has to stand as-is.

Required Action for Len, Cowleyc, Red, Robago: Roll 3d6 on Roll Table.
Compare to 3d6 result 6d6 Innate Genius result previously determined. The higher score will become the final score in that original position.

On the statistics, chances are that it won't make a difference. BUT there is a chance it does, so throw dice and let us see the results.

Again, next time around, we'll get this right on First-Time-GO - so this double roll thing is a Santa Claus gift exception for the kick-off.

Let's GO!

J - Audible

Yeah, Len. We can work through it. I was aware of this, so thanks for the heads-up.
Most of all, best wishes to you and the family. Good luck, be well, or speedy recovery - whichever can apply!

This would be a cool in-game move...

Unlikely to beat a 17, but here goes... and I'll stick with the 17.

Thanks for you understanding re: health things. Might be fine to post at full speed, we'll see.

Pssh, as if I even wanted to change my beautiful golden nugget. I was hoping for extremes of highs and lows, got all basically slightly not mediocre. Turns out I love it and Bardy McBardFace is going to be amazing!

Thank you and hello everyone!

That feels very generous actually, so no complaints at all. I find it commendable that you want to keep everyone on a level playing field. I am still climbing the learning curve to become more proficient with Gamer's Plane, so any pointers and corrections to my methods are appreciated.
I like to play wizards / mages, and this seems like a good set of stats for a mage that isn't quite so fragile, so I may go with that if it is ok.

I would like to take advantage of the optional rule to swap two scores and make his INT a 17 and his CON a 15.
Step 3 (optional): If desired, swap a pair of rolls, exchanging positions between two Ability Scores of choice.

Introductions

I'm happy to be here with you all and thought I'd take a moment to introduce myself. We'll be spending a lot of time together through our characters and I find knowing a bit about the people behind the characters somehow makes the game even more engaging. Part of it is admiring the craft put into the posts. Part of it is the camaraderie of putting so much time and effort into something together. And there is also the part that each bit of story we compose draws on autobiographical sources in one way or another, so it is all very personal too.

I'm like 43 I think, starting to forget my actual age and have to calculate it every time now. I've got two school age kids that suffer daily from my dad jokes in between the half a dozen afterschool activities we schlep them to and from. My wife and I spent the evenings and weekends of the pandemic building a massive addition to our house ourselves. During the day I'm a software engineer working my nerdy dream job at a rocket factory.

I started gaming suuuuper young. One of my earliest memories, when I must have been like 3, was a christmas evening and my parents were playing some video game on the tv. I didn't know what it was then, but reflecting on it now they were playing Atari. Growing up I played many generations of video game consoles and the classic board games like Clue and Monopoly. Then one day, I was like in 5th grade, I found some random board game in the thrift store - Conquest of the Empire, a wargame somewhat like Risk. My friends and I puzzled our way through how to play it and got hooked. From then on there has been a trend where I find that the thicker the rule book, the more I love the game!

Then one day in my freshman or sophomore year of high school, my dad sent me a photocopy of a bunch of AD&D books. He discovered D&D while spending time incarcerated and thought I'd be interested. 100% correct! My friends and I started playing a ton of role playing games then. We immediately bought up a dozen different games and were playing a different game every week. AD&D, Rifts, Ninjas & Superspies, Paranoia, GURPS, Traveler, Shadowrun, and others I can't even remember now.

Now-a-days I don't play nearly so much. You read the part about kids and wife and building a house and having a job? As these things go, my close group of friends slowly grew apart and moved to different parts of the country and our weekly game fizzled out about a decade ago. I had a few short weekly/monthly games of Pathfinder with some random groups of people discovered through meetups. Then back in 2017 I discovered Gamers Plane. PBP works so well with my busy life! I got to spend the next few years with DMJ playing out the best game I had ever been a part of in my life up to this point. I loved that game so much that I've made backup copies of my character sheet (along with snippits of some of the best scenes of the game) so I can keep that memento with me for years into the future, whatever happens to GP. (Thanks DMJ!)

I love gritty realism, dark themes, and unforgiving challenges. DMJ delivers on all these fronts doesn't pull punches (usually), so everyone let's make sure we pull out those ten foot poles and think outside the box for everything!

Let's GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Going to clarify my question and ask a couple others. But these are diving into the weeds when we don't need to. Don't worry about actually answering.
Some noise on the comms there - we are in agreement that TWF would only work in melee. My question was does TWF work if fighting from the second rank in melee. For example, if Culchas and Xenophon are engaged in melee against a shapeshifting barbarian that has polymorphed into an aurochs. They are more or less attempting to maintain a formation, standing side by side. My character stands behind the two, attacking over their shoulders with spear. (This is what I assume ACKS means when it mentions "second rank")

In this scenario, would wielding a dagger in my offhand grant the +1 atk bonus from TWF while in the second rank?

Does fighting with a net and a spear grants the TWF +1 atk bonus too?

Does the bardic inspiration benefit the bard too?

Again, don't even worry about answering. We can leave this as open questions and answer it they ever come up in actual play. I definitely don't want to make this a tactical battle map game, so my apologies if these questions start making it feel like I am going down that route. Really, I'm hoping to spend the campaign sneaking into cultist strongholds by squeezing into a wine barrel, defeating gas traps by filling holes with wax, and murdering cultists with deadfalls while they investigate why their well crafted poison gas trap wasn't working.

And this is why it's fun to be gaming with your frens!

CB is a class-act and a true Renaissance Man too. He has such a long list of talents, capabilities, and hobbies that he would need a two-page character sheet to record them all. And as for gaming, he's a veteran at developing memorable out-of-the-ordinary characters, many of whom are quite unpredictable - hahahaha!

Thanks for accolades, Brew - very kind. And I'll follow your example getting a short intro of my own out -

also invite anyone else who wants to join the trend as well. Nothing required, but open mic for anything you want to share.

Yeah you're right - this is something worth thinking about. I'll hopefully have some time to read through the book with a closer eye to get a deeper understanding of the rules this weekend and intermittently next week.

On that cultist trap, I really dig this scene, and I'm taking notes. After the next blood sacrifice, the cultists will be working on an anti-wax defense measure on the gas chamber plumbing. Good call.

Introductions

I started gaming in secret in the mid-1980s. My gang and I could never reveal our nerdish pastime for fear of merciless ridicule and the prospect of never getting any dates from the local girls-next-door of our small town. (just kidding - kind of - not really). OR getting accused of DEVIL WORSHIP!!! "Satanic Panic" retro!!! Hahahah! Different times then.

Started in the D&D colored box sets, then added AD&D 1e. Then in high school shifted over full throttle to AD&D 2nd Edition, where we spent most of our time. I was always the DM - non-stop - no one else in town could ever give me a break haha!, but I enjoyed it too. Thus the DMJ handle emerged early. Only other side track outside of D7D was a few months in the first Cyberpunk some time in the early 1990s I think. Does anyone remember that one?

After gaming through college with the same small circle from my home town, we pretty much disbanded. I didn't game at all for I guess about 12-15 years. Later when my kids were growing up, I went back to 2e and started gaming with them, circa mid-2010s. Really fun. Some great times and shared stories. Over the years we shifted first into 3.5 Pathfinder, then converted to 5e. During that time I also revived some old games with friends which we did online connection by VTC. Pretty fun.

As CB said, I gave it a try PBP on GP in 2017. It was on a whim originally, but we got a long running game going to some good success in a game we called Dark Thrones. Multiple episodes. Lives and some dramatic deaths of multiple characters. Somewhere around 8k posts over the course of 2+ years (real world time). It was a real blast for me, and also hilarious on the sidebar comedy and hi-jinks from these guys (even though the game content was kind of gritty and grimy and even a bit stressful at times - haha).

A few other projects on GP - Len and I worked with our buddy Jabes on some lighter stuff and then on an alternative setting based on my reading interest of Vedic literature, mythology, religion. We had a medium-length run there that was quite fascinating to me, with Len showcasing some of the best writing and character development I've seen of late. And some mythic style clashes v. epic monster villains.

But I've taken some long intermittent breaks during the time span. Now glad to be back.

In The Real, I've got a hottie blonde wife and undisclosed number of kids. Kids mostly grown and launching out on their own or close to it. I'm in business consulting for employment. Free time and interests devoted mostly to developing a humble homestead. We raise birds (turkeys, chickens, guineas, and quail) and keep goats. We are starting to breed Australian Shepherds, and I'm working this year on a green house, composting bins, and expanding the gardening projects. Some success and some failure, but learning either way and having a lot of fun along the course of putting the systems in place. Aside from that - I read a good bit of non-fiction, listen to a fair amount of lectures and commentary, - enjoy studying folklore, mythology, religions and belief systems, philosophy, political theory, history.

So there it is. Background entry. Dispelling the mystery.

Let us GO.!

J-Origins

New Step 7 on Languages is up on the CharGen System thread line.
Check it out and get the gainz.

Thanks, J!

Made the alterations to Syren's languages.

BTW, are we using the 381 IY campaign year as our start?

Yes. We'll start on the 381 IY. That way we can align with published material at its limit to be consistent with any resources.

I saw that you have Syrena's birth date marked out from backwards planning on the published timeline and using the in-game calendar. That's so very righteous.
Guys, I don't play favorites here - but I like what I like in Player involvement and you know, the little things.
I repeat: No Favoritism. Never.
Nice work, Red.

I am all about the little things. <3

I found it really neat when random rolling Syrena's birthdate using the calendar I found on the boards at Autarch, that she was born on the new moon and on the traditional day of the week denoted as for traveling or starting an adventure. Perfect for an Explorer.

@DMJ, You may have also noted I have changed my avatar and image on her sheet to fit her being left handed. The original image showed a right-handed carry of the bow.

I uploaded all of the words from the "Classical Auran" vocabulary (Axioms issue 21). The translation is really thin, but you can get some stuff out of it: https://lingojam.com/ClassicalAuran

So a bard, barbarian, fighter, cleric, and explorer walk into a bar...