OOC Chat

Just a channel for us to talk out of character.

This is a short light-hearted adventure that I drafted up which happens to be friendly for kids. If there are aspects that you would like to see let me know, and I'll see if I can add them in.

For example, there is little to no combat in the original design, but that can be added. I can keep it more family friendly, or I can increase the horror and add adult themes. Just let me know what you like best.

I think I'd most enjoy playing the kind of game that you most enjoy running.

AND personally I most enjoy gritty games that are all about PC's feelings.

AND I'm excited to play something very different from that.

Thanks for the invite! Excited to play :)

I'm doing work travel (from Europe to USA) all week - hope I have time to post, but might be slow or silent. Although hope I can at least post a sentence or two as needed. Just wanted to give a heads up.

This ranks up there in some of my most favorite sentences that I've seen in a pbp game.
I think it's a great name.

I am happy to be of service. XD

Hey everyone - I'm f4eling unwell and can't concentrate on the posts here stm. Happy for you to deal with Bay anyway you like - act for her, sideline her, whatever works best for you. Sorry. Hope to be back again soon.a

I hope you feel well soon!

Typically when this happens I have the character fade into the background unless something critical happens.

However, I’m always open to different suggestions.

Thank you @SpiritualSocket - fading into the background sounds good :)

So it's covid, realise I had it all the way through Europe<->USA work trip - no wonder I was feeling miserable heh.

Back home in Germany now, and symptoms improving - so going to check out The Story So Far and see if I've got brain space to make a post.

Feel free to post questions about what’s happened. I know it can be a lot to go back a read stuff, and I don’t mind helping you get up to speed.

Thank you! I've read through all the posts now.

One question/advice probably about GP/PbP in general - I'm finding it hard to keep the different PCs (including Bay!) seperate in my head. I guess when I play in-person/online-with-voice, then the different voices help cue me into the different personalities/characters, and I'm struggling without that. Any tips on keeping this straight in my head?

My guess is I need to make a really simple character keeper for each PC - that records the stuff I find myself remembering about them. But, yeah, wondering if that is a common challenge people find with PbP and if so, whether there are any common ways people work with it?

Great question. - Some of what you’re experiencing may be how I’m GMing the game. I tend nudge things forward quickly which doesn’t always allow the PCs’ personalities to shine through, and there hasn’t been a lot of opportunities for each PC to show off their uniqueness. This is also a classless RPG which doesn’t help differentiate each character.

I personally try to think of PCs in Mausritter in terms of the items they carry. Bay stands out to me because of his trident. Sky uses a sword and has loaded dice. And Hazel uses a bow.

One thing we can do as a group is to commit to everyone using a specific color for their dialogue. Sky has been using green. Bay could stick with Red. Then Hazel could pick whatever @soises prefers.

If you like, I can add the PCs profiles and pictures to the reference subforum.

I can also do the same for notable NPCs.

Thank you for your thoughts and feedback! I'm not feeling rushed through, and do feel I'm experiencing a solid amount of each PC personality - it's just that I struggle to keep personality, avatar, background kinda all clustered together in my head. Your describing of tracking them by what they're carrying already helps! Thanks for that. And yes, I'll use red for Bay's speaking.

I'll see how I get on now I'm back, and if I keep struggling I might come back to you about this.

Also - thanks so much for running this with us! Never considered playing Mausritter even though I'd heard of it, and am loving the change of style and pace compared to what I usually play - and it feels really good to be led through it by someone who clearly knows the game and system well!

Oh, also - @soises, if you were OK making your character sheet public, so @Adrasthea and I can also see what's in it, that might help me keep track of what's going on a bit better.

And, @Adrasthea, if you could add Sky's "Background" at the top of her sheet, I thought that might also help a bit with the keeping-track stuff.

np of course if you prefer keeping your sheets as they are :)

by now my sheet should be public. I choose the colour black for speaking with Hazel. :)

Thank you for making it public, @Soises! You might like to edit the "Background" field - I think Hazel was a member of a raft crew?

I tried out colouring text as either black or white - black doesn't work with the night theme of the site, white doesn't work with the day/light theme - @SpiritualSocket do you know if there is a way to specify a highlighter/background colour so that these two colours also work in both light-themes of the site?

Or is there something else I can do as a user to make those text colours readable all the time?

Testing black text

Testing white text

@BeardHare Unfortunately, I don't know of a way to make those readable in both themes. You can highlight like this:

Testing black text

Testing white text

Ah, that works perfectly for me, @SpiritualSocket!

@soises, if you were to post Hazel's black text by also adding a formatting tag to set the background colour to white, then it would, for me at least, show up in whichever theme you were using.

i.e. like this (just quoting this from @SpiritualSocket)

Testing black text

Maybe even using something like

Testing black text

so it also highlighted in both themes?

Here's an image of the markup I used here:

@Adrasthea, I’m checking in to see if you had any thoughts on what Sky is doing while Bay is in the library and Hazel is in the woodshed.

It’s also ok if she spends this time just resting in her room if you don’t have anything to add at the moment.

sry, been caught up at work. So I sent her to the library. I am guessing this means without rest my mousy is still a bit hurt from her fall? Will one night of sleep suffice to remedy that? Are there such things as potions/medicines in this world?

thx

Sry, i said living room in the actual story thread. 😅

Oops. Sorry about that! That's an easy fix. 😅

I did a rapid-fire update to all my game posts this morning. If I made any mistakes in interpreting your character's actions, please let me know. (I was able to catch a mistake I made with Hazel. Sorry about that!)

Just wanna say how much I'm enjoying playing this with y'all - am really enjoying everyone's roleplay, characterisation, and writing :) Splitting the party working really well - reading the action going on in the three different places is keeping the pace highly engaged and exciting. So, yeah, just wanted to say thanks!

I think this is really cool as well :)
And the story is engaging, if mysterious right now.
Thank you for a great game

shed = mouse trap!!!

I enjoy it as well, very much. Let us see if we can finish this adventure/moustery. ;-]

@DM>
You've nocticed my post as well?

Did I miss something?

nope. you're veeeerrrryyy fast and attentive. :)

I'm responding a little faster than usual today because I have a bit for free time. I can't promise that will always be the case. :)

Will wait for Adrastheia with my post. :)

Sky so far has
- found a medallion piece in their room
- found a medallion piece in the clock in the living room

- heard of a piece lying somewhere outside close to a mushroom patch
also: "in the distance a small child mouse playing in a large circular dirt patch thats completed encircled by mushrooms. The mouse looks rather skinny and malnourished, but it’s tossing something up in the air and catching it"

Bay has so far heard a lot of gossip and information about the history of the manor, the lost son, and so on.

She has seen a medallion piece in the hands of Captain Mortimor.

So: we got
1 from Gideon - check
1 in our room - check
1 in the clock - check

we know of:
1 lying outside
1 has Ms. Mellody
1 has Captain Mortimor

All in all there are 7 pieces, correct?

the one from Gideon was the one in our room, I think

I know it can be tough to go back and read through all those posts or remember everything that's happened. Here is a quick summary.

There are 6 fragment pieces
You have
1 from Gideon/room
1 from the Clock.

You know of
1 outside.
1 Ms. Melody is using as a brooch.
1 Captain Mortimer has.

Gossip and Rumors
- The original owners of the mansion had a son who went missing.
- Previous owners of the mansion didn't stay at the manor long.
- Mr. Filmon changed the trend of owners leaving.
- Mr. Filmon might have a rich benefactor.
- The house sounds spooky at night.
- Something is going on underneath the woodshed.
- Count Gregory doesn't eat meals with everyone else.
- A small child mouse was seen playing outside.
- The originally owners of the manor had treasure

This groups ability to spin words never ceases to amaze me! 😂

You should all hopefully see a player aide at the bottom of the screen. Please let me know if there is anything specific you would like me to add to it.

O.O

That's awesome! =]

AFAIK is Adrastheia on the road this weekend. So you may continue without her, or I'll take a break as well. The timelines might get stretched too much otherwise. ;)

It is possible that she may be posting sometimes, but I don't know.

Oh ok, I deleted the poll.

@BeardHare I'll let you make the call as Sky is in your scene. We'll assume she's present but silent if we move forward.

I'm enjoying the action and also the contributions from everyone in the game. So, hm, I choose to wait until @Adrastheia is back. Thanks for asking :)

Does hazel know Mr. Filmon's first name?

No one does. He never uses it.

cool. thanks for the extremly fast reply. *thumbs up*

Post is coming in the next minutes.

Adrastheia wants to post first. I will publish mine right after.

I know I said it before, but, y'all – just loving the story we're telling here :) So glad we get to do this together!

I agree! It really is a fun game so far and I am on the edge of my seat with all this mystery business :)

I feel like Bay the character is just being really really impressed by Sky at the moment. Like she is seeing a new amazing side.of her friend. I could imagine Bay starting to have a bit of a crush on Sky because of this. Is that something you'd like to have in the game, or not? Would manifest as maybe some blushing, maybe some funding it hard to find words talking with her, trying to impress her, wanting to spend time with her, stuff like that.

I think Sky is fine with being fancied a bit :)

Not to ruin too much of the "magic," but I often use the Mythic GM Emulator to answer questions about the game world. I do this because I like to be just as you surprised as you about what's going to happen.

For the torch and the tree, I asked "Does leaving the torch behind change anything about the encounter," and gave the probability as unlikely. However, the results came back with the answer "Extreme Yes," and that is why there is now a giant burning tree.

Thank you for sharing that insight, @SpiritualSocket! I play to enjoy immersion in the worlds I play in AND to learn from how other people play and run games. I have spent a lot of time reading about Emulators the last years but never used one while actually running a game. You've just inspired me to try it myself for the games I'm trying to run!

If you have specific questions about the world or NPCs please ask. I'm happy to go into more detail and clear things up.

Just to give you another idea of my GM style which is clearly not for everyone:

I'm also running an adventure that takes place in a world devastated by world war 3 where a man named Nikolai Grinchkov and his thugs stole a bunch of toys to ruin Christmas....

Thanks so much for that - you give me the sense of having the freedom to co-create with you all the way the PCs are experiencing the world. I seriously am loving the fairy tale vibe - as a horror fan, that has made the confrontation with awfullness really powerful. Turning up to find Blossom gone was one of the strongest most evocative and awful moments I can remember in games I've played. And feeling that stuff is one of the reasons I play! LOVED IT! So unexpected!

So what I'll probably be going with is a bit of retconing - that Bay found that "collect a bunch of medallion pieces" was a very odd thing to be doing. That to have such an obvious, almost game-like quest was also very odd. That Bay played along with this but has the feeling that everyone in the manor is putting on an elaborate ruse for them - and that something really dark and awful is going on here.

If any of that doesn't work so well with any of you, totally happy to change it - think that, more than anything, it was useful for me to just set it down here to organise my thoughts about how `Bay may be behaving in the future.

As a person who loves to get and give feedback I oblige. ;)

I really liked this adventure so far. That's no secret.

If I have one concern, it is that I am not sure what kind of story this is in terms of genre, so once or twice I did not know how to best behave. Because we use bows and swords, Mausritter means mouse (anointed) knight in the German language. This sounded to me much more like DnD with mouse characters. Sparrow rider, raft crew, bandit rat, ...

On the other hand it feels to me like the setting has a 20th century-felling. A mansion with some kind of murder mystery (without a murder as much as we know).

Are we hardened (classic fantasy) heroes? Moustery solving detectives? Younglings doing their first steps? Maybe in a typical table pen&paper situation this would be clear. Here? I just winged it, sometimes with the feeling of "Maybe this is too much/strong for Hazel". But so far it worked out pretty well.

To be honest, I enjoy it immensly, that this story isn't super hard and to have a sense of achievement regularly.

There are moments like the skeletons that pursue poor Hazel, who is locked up with them in a small shed and the situation with the crow and the charmed child. They feel surprising and unexpectedly dark, because most of the adventure seems so light hearted. Especially with the three friends exploring all of this together. :)

Hope you get my gist and: Good job! Keep it up, please.


PS: Huge fan of Nikolai Grinchkov btw! XD

Thank you for the feedback! I agree with all your points.

The mismatch of the genre is confusing. I took a mystery written for wizards applied the Mausritter setting and then got a lot of inspiration from Lilliputian (A Mausritter hack on the high seas). ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Not an excuse or anything. Just sharing my headspace.

But again, I agree the genre could use clarification and tightening up.

The dark moments are unintentional, and certainly not something I'm striving for. I do want to "warn" you all that the odd combination of kid-friendly-cute-adventure elements and dark-doom-danger-adventure elements look as though they are both going to reach their peaks at the exact same moment if the PCs continue on their current trajectory.

I am mostly striving for light-hearted fun, and I'm still learning what works and what doesn't.

As @soises - I am having a blast playing this game. I'm in four games at the moment (and indeed these are my four first PbP games I've ever played in) and this one is easily the most exciting and fun of them all.

AND @soises has hit the nail on the head to the source of my confusion at times - not knowing which genre/tone is intended.

AND I think that's been part of the fun and excitement for me. Because it's being played with players and a GM who are open, supportive, collaborative, who are so clearly here to enjoy telling a compelling story together, it's like we've taken that uncertainty and are playing with it and making it work (well) for us.

The totally unexpected flip from kid-friendly to horror was just AMAZING for me - I love horror, I love being shocked and surprised when it turns up, and that was SO unexpected for me...! Much more so than when the xenomorph silently drops down behind one of the colonists when I'm playing Alien RPG or something like that.

So, yeah, basically, in summary, loving it, thanks everyone, it's a real pleasure to be playing with you, learning with you, and getting to know you all!

I'm back :)

I will never tire of the puns.

@BeardHare Checking in. How are things going?

Posting this afternoon - at least that's the plan!

I'm on a full-on work trip starting tomorrow (Sunday 17) until end of the week (Friday 22). My posting may be a bit slower during that week.

On work trip and hotel wifi is atm slow or broken so its hard to post here. Hope it's better tomorrow. Sorry for the delay.

No worries. We'll wait for you.

Thank you! I have GP and work to do this evening and argh just not really possible

So I am not sure, but it seems we have missed something?

So Gideon sent us to the mansion to solve a mystery, find the other medallion pieces and get some treasure, right?
Gideon knows all the people there. He himself has been called away for some "urgent business". Now he wants to flee the place ASAP without giving a lot of explanation.

Filmon wants to enrich himself by running a haunted mansion without an actual ghost, so he learned tricks and joined a dark society to put Jack in the box, so to speak. He does not care about much else.

The pirate is posessed by the fabled treasure - no matter what it might actually be... and is the only other magic user we know of. From his statement: I conclude that he is responsible for trapping the lil mouse in the shroom circle.

As the ghost has talked about shrooms as well and we don't know how the son died, this might indicate that the pirate is responsible for another death? Maybe the boy meddled too?

Now we know that any treasure is bound to be at the tree Sky might have singed a tiny little bit. And the pirate is close and in a pissy mood, right?

phew! Depending on what happens when we leave the cellar - and don't get flattened by the skeleton guardians on the way - I'd suggest checking the tree, then maybe confronting the captain? Maybe the ghost can actually help in some form?

Opinions?

@spiritualsocker> did you bring Gideon back, because Hazel mentioned him, or was this your plan all along? :)

@Adrasthea> I am all for going outside and see what is going on. If we get so fare, then let us visit the tree. As this seems to be the best place to confront the captain and find the treasure.

Happy Holidays! :D

Thank you for the situation summary there @Adrasthea - there do indeed feel like a lot of moving pieces here... although we've brought SOME of those moving pieces together to re-form the medallion heh :)

And, yes, that sounds like how I read the situation - apart from my interpretation of that quote from the Captain was that he had sent the crow to kill Blossom, rather than (or maybe in addition to) capturing her in the circle (hence Bay's wrath toward specifically the captain).

So - again - yes to going outside, checking out the tree, and (I expect) confronting the captain...!

Merry Christmas to you all!

I appreciate your willingness to stick through this adventure! I admit it's a bit chaotic. If you ever decide to join any other of my games, I can assure you they are less confusing.

Here are summary points to help clarify things.

• Captain Mortimer is performing a ritual on his ship to summon a giant tidal wave that will send his ship hurling through the manor and possibly destroying it. (Similar to what happened in the dining room, but much much bigger. It's taking him time to channel energy).

• Captain Mortimer is beyond angry. He wants the treasure and can't find it. He thinks everyone is hiding it from him, and he's especially angry with Mr. Filmon who he considers a mouse zero good qualities.

• The Arcane Order of the Curious Mouse detected this magical energy and sent their nearest agent, Gideon.

• Gideon still has urgent business, but he had to leave it behind because this energy appears more dangerous.

• The Arcane Order of the Curious Mouse is understaffed which is why Gideon "hired" you and why he's the only one able to investigate this energy.

• Gideon in town met Count Gregory and was able to piece together some of what's going on.

• Gideon is trying to get you out of the area because of the danger of the tidal wave. He feels responsible for anything bad happening to you.

• The mushrooms are magical flora that few understand. They are an independent danger from everything else.

As always you are free to handle this any way you want: Try to stop Captain Mortimer's wave, look for the treasure and flee, seek refuge and help the ghost, flee with Gideon, take some other action, etc...

Edit: • Mr. Filmon wanted to use the ghost to help make the manor scary, but the ghost is the exact opposite of scary. It only wants to play tricks and have fun. It looks and acts friendly. This made Mr. Filmon angry because he wants the manor to be a scary place. The previous tenants of the manor heard ghost noises and fled. Mr. Filmon was the first to investigate and realized there is nothing to be scared of. He fears that once people know the truth, the manor will become a joke.

And Happy Holidays!

I am hugely enjoying this game @SpiritualSocket! I find the mash-up of tone and plots and characters - and of the commitment, enthusiasm, and creativity of you and the other players, a real treat. Never played a game quite like this, and am very glad I got to play it with y'all!

Thank you for the update. Looking forward to playing to find out what happens next!

With that summary of what's going on, Bay wants to try and stop the captain's ritual, to try and avoid harm coming to more people and property

Thanks for the summary points, SpiritualSocket. :)

There seems a lot of possibilties, so I want to declare for myself, that I would prefere not to solve everything in this adventure by playing through it.

Maybe we can have an fun & epic battle/negotiation with the captain and the rest (freeing the ghost, distributing the treasure, becoming famous adventurers, ...) will be handled off screen in a nice "happily ever after"?

What are your opinions?

I am comfortable not solving everything, and going for a big confrontation with the captain with most other things being epilogued/montaged as you describe there, @soises.

I think Bay really cares about understanding what happened to Blossom - as a player, I'm totally fine with her being dead, a ghost, or whatever else - I have the sense of an emotional arc there that it would feel good to have closed for Bay, for her to at least understand what happened.

Hello everyone, with the start of the new year, my work commitments have shifted, and I find myself in a situation at home that demands more of my attention. Consequently, my posting frequency will significantly decrease. I'm currently working on concluding or adjusting several of my ongoing games to accommodate this shift in priorities.

This game is reaching its conclusion, and while I'd prefer not to abruptly end it and spoil the fun for everyone, we might be at a point where transitioning to the epilogue is the most sensible option.

Thanks, again, for this game @SpiritualSocket - have enjoyed very much playing it, and with you all.

Wishing you lots of luck with the changing circumstances. I'm more than happy to go to epilogue now - or to first finish the current scene, whatever is best for you.

EDIT: if you go for an epilogue now, then Bay is most interested in saving the captured mice, then stopping the captain doing more nasty stuff, and then making sure Filmon gets his come-upance for his dastardly deeds.

RL first, of course. I didn't have time these past few days, so I didn't post much either. I enjoyed playing Sky and found the game to be entertaining and engaging. Thank you for having us and all the best for the challenges ahead.

Sky wants to save the little mice, but also will not part with the treasure lightly. She wants to accompany Gideon and learn more about the adventurers. She does not care about Filmon too much. She wants to stick together with her friends.

Maybe some of my mousy's wishes fit your ideas for an epiloge, if you have time to write one. If not, I am sure something else will suit these brave mice :)

Thanks for the game, y'all ;)

Sorry, if I am a bit slow. So do you want us to play through this current scene and end this one scene before progressing to the epiloge?

Or do you want to end it right now and wright a summary?

What do you prefere, SS?


Tbh some kind of experience of success for us would be nice, after all the puzzles and effort we put into this story. :)



Hazel would as well try to save the captured mice, beat the captain and free the ghost. If there is treasure to be gained - well what should a nice mouse from Muusdorf do?

In the long run she would also stay with her friends and try to become a famous adventurer. Perhaps with Gideon's help. But not necessarily.

Hope this helps with the epiloge. ;)

@soises We can certainly play out the scene and continue things so it wraps up in a satisfying way for everyone. I'll be slower than I usually am to respond.

This is such a fun group to play with, and I'd love to play other games with you all once I've gotten things more under control in RL.

Is there a way to download all the threads in the story to keep somewhere local? If it were possible to keep a record of the adventure we got up to here, would be nice to be able to check back at it, revisit it some time.

Great question BeardHare. I don't know if you can, but I'll ask around.

Again, I really enjoyed playing this game everyone! It was a shame things got so hectic in my real life and caused an abrupt end. I hope it doesn't discourage you from joining my future games. This play-by-post format for tabletop RPGs is fascinating, but I'm still figuring out what works best for me.

I'll share some general insights about the story's conclusion in the main thread but fire away if you have any burning questions. Want the inside scoop on character choices, plot twists, or anything else that went down behind the scenes? Just ask, I'm an open book.

I enjoyed the game.

Thank you for having us 🌻

Thank you all for this great game. Something very different from what I am playing normally. I enjoyed the puns so much, thanks for acknowledging and participating. ☺️

Wish you all the best! 👋