OOC Discussion

Somewhere for us to put OOC comments that might lead to discussion - individual observations, stuff you don't think we'll want to respond to specifically, might fit better in the in-character thread using ooc tags.

Ahhhh @microtheMacroBear I love it! So exciting to see what you all come up with here....!

Thanks! I love that we're doing collaborative world building!

Ahhhh y'all - that's some wonderfully in-the-tone-and-spirit of the Dark Tower campfire storytelling you've shared there!

A heads up that I'm planning on posting to move things forward tomorrow (13th December).

Thanks! I really appreciated the opportunity to get extra creative and engage with the world. Looking forward to what happens next!

Me too! Looking forward to the journey.

With my VERY limited experience of PbP, in the interest of speed of progress I'd be open for @microtheMacroBear just sending Bertie out towards the farmstead, rather than waiting for an OK from everyone else on the course of action. Or to maybe wait a day for anyone to have a chance to say "No, let's wait".

But that's just my take - as players, would you rather move a bit slower and check more often for consensus on courses of action?

Or prefer for players to take more initiative than I expect most of us would if playing live, and "just do it" a lot of the time?

I like a faster paced game so for me personally- I am ok with not having consensus.

second that

not much excitement in that...

That works for me. Let's send him out.

At least he's in good company 😁
Maybe some of that armor rubs off?

Hopefully! I'm also on board with quicker paced games :)

I enjoy faster paced games- but I’m flexible as long as it’s interesting. I was really posting bc I don’t feel the need for there to be a consensus for action to be taken. It takes some of the spontaneity and individuality out of the game.

I agree; unless it's a critical decision (i.e. deciding to engage in a boss fight or doing something irrevocable), there's no need to wait for consensus in a PbP game.

For me as a GM, it's more important that everyone feels as safe and comfortable at the table as possible, than that it's exciting in ways that might upset or even harm players. So for me, Lines and Veils always take prescedence over people's wishes for content to have in the game.

For me, the post with bystanders getting hurt met the Lines and Veils by being cautious about it.

And if anyone wants content we've posted removed, then they just need to invoke the X Card and we will remove it with no questions asked about the why, although we may ask questions to work out specifically which aspect of the content is being X'd so we can avoid it in the future.

Sounds good! Thank you, Beardhare.

Just FYI @Aegis has made a character, you can see it in the Google Sheets Character Keeper.

I've not heard from them in a while, so am just playing ahead without waiting for them.

And if/when they turn up we'll work out how to bring them into the story - I expect as either a member of the existing ka-tet who's been off on their own and returns to the group, or as a new person you encounter for the first time who joins your ka-tet.

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.

Sounds good!

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.

I said before that this and another game that I started at the same time are my first ever PbP (and thus also GP) GMing.

And I just want you to all know how much I'm enjoying playing this with you all, how impressed and inspired I am with your role-playing, with how you're developing this story. I feel really lucky to be playing this with you!

Thank you! I'm really enjoying the journey so far and your GMing style.

^second that! Good stuff.

^ Third! Thanks for hosting a fun and unique game, and with such a descriptive style and inclusive manner. Really looking forward to what comes next.

Happy holidays to anyone celebrating the holidays!

Happy Holidays everyone!

Wishing you all the rest or excitement or fellowship or happiness you need as we come to the end of this year!

So! As you know - 'cause I keep talking about it! - this is one of the first GP/PbP games I've run. I started three at roughly the same time, and this is the one that has progressed the furthest.

Part of the fun I have running games is seeing and understanding the fun had by the players. In person, it's easy for me to sense that - much less so here via PbP.

Thus I'd like to check in with you for some Stars and Wishes - to help me guage how things are going for you all.

By this I mean, I'd really appreciate if you could let me know:

- one or two things/moments that have happened so far that you liked/enjoyed
- any extra things you'd be excited about having included in the game (setting, characters, mechanics we've not looked at yet) that we haven't seen yet

I'm not looking for critical feedback on things you would like me to have done differently - I'm my own harshest critic of this kind of thing, and I've learned that a better way for me to make positive change is to focus on Stars and Wishes rather than critique.

Any of that you'd be willing to share, would be much appreciated :)

-The Pixies reference was a nice touch! Love it.
-I’m new to the system, and I’m also the type to learn by doing so I’m kind of nervous about something rules structured (like combat). A part of me wants to dive into stuff like that because it’ll help me grasp the mechanics of play.
- you’ve got a good handle on writing/atmosphere and so far you’ve done really well with creating a vibe that echoes Kings writing.

Stars:
I second this!

The game really feels lived in especially the character dialog. That is really great.

I also really like the collaborative world building aspect.

Wishes:
I would love to meet the Black Tower's version of bumblers, see the sights of Lud, or take a scenic trip to Castle Discordia.

I'm not sure I get the ex-gunslinger's motivation to do such magic. The two of them do not know us, nor did we tell them about our mission. Beretta does not seem all too worried that we might choose something terrible for her companion. Why should they do such a risky thing at all, if there is no gain for them and they cannot know our true intentions?

At the moment I am not even sure which three questions we should ask, seeing as we have just started the game and do not have any context yet. I guess I don't get what this whole magic business is about and it seems kinda strange logic that we do not trust them, but we let them bespell us (with a potentially dangerous spell) in order to gain trust...?

English is not my first language so I might have misunderstood or don't get a certain nuance. At the moment I am a bit lost when it comes to the whole trust-issues-magic-curse-cost-thingy 😅

Thanks for asking, @Adrasthea, I really appreciate you reaching out about this. I'm sorry that the story-telling feels confusing and the NPC motives impenetrable. If I encountered that, I expect I'd find it frustrating, not fun - and I want the game to be not frustrating and fun! So I'm going to try and redress this.

Part of what I enjoy about The Dark Tower is what I experience as a febrile nightmare fairy-tale-like quality to the story-telling. The logic and motivation that seems to drive the characters feels often unworldly and non-sensical to me - and, even more confusingly, seems to change unpredictably.

If it were just like that, then I don't think I'd have enjoyed the books. But for me, King mixes this with just enough continuity and real-world-ness to motivations and drives to be uncanny and disturbing in a way I find spooky and enjoyable. This is part of the mood and sense I'm looking to build into this story.

Beretta and Spline could be shape-shifting monsters, high-tech robots, ex-gunslingers whose memories have been warped as the world warps around them, or something else. With the way the world moves on, the way time and space and worlds shift and distort, it's hard to tell.

Here's what I'd hoped/imagined the scene looks like so far to a PC.

Beretta and Spline could indeed be former gunslingers. That they are somehow compelled, or committed, to helping you in your quest - because they, as ex-gunslingers, and having some magic about them, can indeed understand and know what you are doing, and they feel it is very important. Maybe the most important quest in the world.

They want to help you, but in the face of the party's distrust, feel like they aren't able to help you as they need to. So they are trying everything they can think of to show that they are trustworthy.

When Mattie, however, didn't want to enter into the magic they offered, they feel the magic is less useful. But they already offered it, and don't want to take the offer away if it WOULD be useful for Henry and maybe Rose.

If anyone joins them in the magic, then Spline looses a lot, and the party members who join them end up knowing a dark secret of each other. Beretta isn't happy about this, but if it helps the party, she will do almost anything (including Spline taking all this harm) to help you.

I agree, it doesn't feel like a good deal - but Roland makes a lot of decisions that feel like a bad deal in the books, so I leave it to the PCs to decide whether they want in on this strange offer.

My guess is that I'm making the scene and the world strange and twisted in a way that makes it too hard to follow for a TTRPG. Oh, and, also, I'm not Stephen King, so I assume it's certain that I miss the fine line between weird and mundane that I love about these books. And that this takes away the fun for you from the game.

My suggestion is that we play out this current scene - and stay with the strangeness that is in it. I will then make future scenes less strange, more in line with the kind of logic and motivation we expect in "our" world, and thus hopefully more fun and accessible to you.

If it would help you, I'd be happy to share with any of you that want it, the "truth" of what is happening in the current scene by DM.

If something else would help you instead, then I'd like to try and make that work for you too.

Basically, in summary, I want us all to enjoy this, and will make potentially large changes going forward about how I guide the story, to try and indeed make it enjoyable for us all.

I can deal with weird. I just wasn't sure if I had overlooked important clues to make sense of it all. It is good to know that this is intentional and all in the name of strangeness. Let's see what happens 🙂.

Thanks for letting me know that, @Adrasthea - I'm very open, as I hope is clear, to adapting the way the story is told, where we're going with this, to lean into the preferences and interests of different people in the game.

Cool. So what is happening at the table Rose and Henry are waiting at?

At the table, I'm waiting to see if Rose/@DragonDweller62 wants to join Spline and Henry in the spell.

If you do share secrets with Rose, would you want that to be via notes so that only Rose/Henry can see them? I guess that might make it easier to avoid inadvertant metagaming?

Or would you prefer just to keep it all out in the open so everyone can see the full story, and we aim to avoid the metagaming?

Both are fine by me.

Whatever moves the scene forward quicker is fine by me.

Great. Will wait a few days (given the travel/busyness people may have at this time of year) for Rose to let us know what she wants to do.

I’d prefer everything to be written in thread despite the threat of meta gaming- lol

That's my preference too - so we'll go with that i.e. everything in the open.

Everything in the thread is fine by me :)

Thanks for waiting :) . My post is up now. I hope I understood everything to do with how the spell works.

Hi! Does using the shimmer Power automatically reduce the doom die or is it only using the doom die to bolster a roll that does that? This is a little confusing because the rules earlier makes it seem like only Spitting in the eye of Doom depletes the die.
I will update my sheet if I needed.

My reading is that you've made a 'standard' use of your Doom Die here i.e. 1 or 2 would have downgraded it, but you didn't, so it stays a d6. If you do drop to d4 or even have your d4 downgraded so that you're "Doomed", you recover your Doom Die to d6 again after a long rest.

Oh! The doom die is a usage die. That makes sense. Thank you for clearing that up for me!

Yes! That's exactly right - it's "just" a usage die with a bunch of specific uses.

Totally off topic for this game - I'm recruiting for a short game of Alien RPG at the moment, playing through the really short one-shot that comes with the core rules where you are colonists on the base that is overrun by xenomorphs during the film Aliens. As it's also horror (I think of the Dark Tower as some kind of horror) thought you might be interested.

I like the system - it does a good job of bringing over the feel of the first film Alien - it's pretty leathal...

Oh! That sounds pretty cool. I visit that page and Tales from the Loop when I've bought stuff from free league in the past, but I've not bought it. Would owning the book be required for the game?

No need to own the game :) You'll be playing pre-gen characters, and my plan is to give everyone a pre-filled-out character sheet. The rules are fairly simple, I'll walk you through them as we need to use them - you can keep this cheat sheet handy, if you want, although most of what's on there you won't need to reference (mostly just the fast and slow action list).

I'll put you on the list of interested unless you let me know otherwise

I’m unfamiliar with the rules system but would love to give it a shot if you’re looking for active players.

I am! Sweet! Glad I mentioned it :)

Here's an SRD for the Yero Zero Engine which is used in an adapted form by the Alien RPG. Alien uses the original "dice pool" approach to the system.

Oh yeah! Count me in!

Let me know if we should formally apply in a recruitment thread, etc. But it sounds fun. And terrifying!

I've got you on the list - no need to apply to the thread. I had also someone DM me about it, so I have the info on who is interested in several different places...

Nice!

Way to go Henry!

I like the system, but it will just take some time to for me to adjust to it. It's like Into the Odd/Cairn with more stuff to play with. So far I like usage die mechanic and the doom die mechanic, it makes things exciting.

Glad you are enjoying it, @microtheMacroBear :)

I feel that, even when I've used a system often before, I've always forgotten how it works the next time I sit down to play it 😬

And I agree, I really like the Doom and Usage mechanics, and I find the various feats and so on are nicely flavoured for the world.

And I enjoy the relative simplicity and speed of combat. I'm interested to try some of the other Black Hack hacks out there to see how similar/differnt they are in that (I have The Mecha Hack somewhere that's another Black Hack hack...)

There are so many! I did a search on itch.io for Black Hack hacks

Hi! @Beardhare

Let me know if it is ok to try to pre-empt stat checks. I have found that it helps keep the other games that I'm in moving along and the roll is ignored if not needed.

If this doesn't work for you, I will stop :)

Yes @microTheMacroBear! Please go for it! If I disagree I'll ask you to do something different :)

Note that I'm playing such that a failed test/roll will always bring a penalty, a cost, a complication. That'd a feature I like of eg PbtA systems - so it's not a constant perception check trap check thing going on. So I would only ask for rolls if what you are doing is risky for some reason.

Ok sounds good!

Man, Baby D is killing it with the references! A computer of fine taste, lol.

lol- I agree, this is so much fun!

Yes! This is the best! Blaine's a pain, but Baby D is a delight!

AHHHH I'M SO GLAD YOU'RE ENJOYING IT!!

sry, guys. a bit stuck right now. will post tomorrow

No worries!

Aye - no problem :) Thanks for the heads up.

I leave for a week of work travel today, will make me slower to reply. Wanted to give you a heads up on that.

Safe travels!

Thanks!

Thanks, have a safe trip!

Thanks for the heads up! Stay safe, and I hope all is well so far :) .

I'm listening to The Dark Tower again, currently at Wolves of the Calla (I read Wind Through the Keyhole last). Impressed (again) by how a story written in so many words can keep me being involved and tense and wanting to know what happens next while also enjoying where we are at the moment.

I'd forgotten quite how much the tone and structure and, hm, sense of coherence and reality changes between the books. This time around, again, my favourite is The Gunslinger (although maybe I change my mind). I love it for how weird and inconsistent and fever-dream-nightmare everything is. The way The Man in Black jumps and dives and almost swims in the air as he brings Nort back to life in Tull. The strange conversations with Brown. The meeting with The Man in Black.

And I enjoy the more coherent sense of a clear narrative in the later books.

I'm writing here about this, because while I run the game I'm trying to keep the mood and the theme and the sense of what you experience true to the books. But there's so much in them! So many different moods and themes and things to experience in them.

So far my focus has been on things like:

- an unhealthy-feeling interaction between science and magic and nature
- ritual - the way you are greeted and spoken to and what's expected of you by others in the world
- references and links to lots of parts of King's writing but also from other stories and narratives from all over the place
- a lingering sense of danger and fear
- a feeling that lots of stuff doesn't quite make sense but maybe it does...
- destiny and ka dragging people onward
- post-modern self-referential stories-within-stories

But I wanted to ask YOU - what are the things, themes, ideas that you think of with The Dark Tower?

Oh, and also:

- community, how groups of people behave together, their relationships - the people of mejis, tull, gilead bur particularly their party/ka-tet
- coincidences

That is a really concise summary encompassing what I think most people love about the novels. I was NEVER into 'western' novels or film until the Gunslinger (and even now I am selective about my likes within the genre). I really wouldn't consider myself a huge fan of Stephen King- before I started the Dark Tower series I had read a few ('The Eyes of the Dragon' with Flagg as the evil wizard was until then my favorite).

I think you are doing a really wonderful job of recreating the feel of the original writing (and I was inspired to use lyrics from Frank Black's debut solo album "Frank Black"- specifically the song 'I heard Ramona Sing') to invent a failed ka-tet for Henry. Admittedly I am much more of a Kim Deal fan- but I live in a college town in New England and Frank Black and The Catholics played here a lot when I was in my twenties (ah, the salad days).

Like you said- for me one of the best parts of the story is about how all of these people come together and make something greater than themselves. As bad-ass as Roland was, he needed his group. I LOVE the differences in each of our characters, and I enjoy the way they all kind of mesh together to make a really interesting story thus far.

Well played, all of you! And thanks for making such a fun game, @BeardHare. (I teach Art History and your Albrecht Dürer avatar makes me smile daily).

When I was a kid, I found my Mom’s copy of the Night Shift in the attic. "Jerusalem's Lot" and "The Boogeyman" terrified me in a way that made me want more. Granted, she probably shouldn’t have let an 11 year old read that book, but once the damage was done I moved onto King’s other works, starting with Salem’s Lot. For me, Stephen King’s best stuff is The Talisman/Blackhouse" and the Dark Tower series.

I think you are doing a great job capturing the feeling of the Dark Tower series and your analysis is great. The Wastelands is probably my favorite of the series. I first read that when I was in early highschool. Blaine/Little Blaine are two of my favorite characters. I’m also a sucker for crossovers and I loved that Father Callihan, formerly of Salem’s Lot, gets redemption arc at the end of the series.

So, I really really love that we are currently sort of/probably might be in Discordia with a potentially murderous AI.

Also, both you, @Beardhare, and @SenorDeebs are right about community, specifically letting in community and accepting the challenges within. Like @SenorDeebs points out, Roland needs his group to bring back his humanity. He needs his humanity to find the tower.

If I were to think back upon King’s work, I would say most of the horror, the real horror comes from the breakdown of community. Yes, there is a catalyst, but for the most part it is the personal reaction to the catalyst that is terrible. People blame other people. People create factions. People use the opportunity to further personal agendas. I feel that communities in his books tend to eat each other from the inside out and are generally already broken from the beginning of the book.

For example, the proprietor in Needful Things would have no fuel to light his fire if there wasn’t already all the small hurts stirring in Castle Rock’s collective consciousness.

I wholeheartedly agree with SenorDeebs. Well played! This is very fun and I am very glad I am part of this game! (That's fun that you teach art history. I have an art history minor. Unfortunately, that's slowly fading away as I get older. I used to be able to tell all the early 20th century art movements apart! :) )

I love what you guys have said about the buildup and breakdown of community. For me, that's what King is all about. I started with the Dark Tower series and quickly became enamored with all things King. My favorite part of any King story is seeing a community built up, from neighborhoods like 'Salem's Lot and the Boulder Free Zone to intimate circles like Rose's friend group in Rose Madder. I haven't reached the Tower yet, but my favorite book so far is The Drawing of the Three because it's the first time in the series where this motley crew of outsiders is forced to become a small community to each other. Things start out really tense here, but soon they learn to depend upon each other.

I'm glad our characters bounce off of each other in positive and negative ways to create this atmosphere of learning to depend on each other. Thanks to all our talented players and GM who are making it happen!

Thank you all :) I really appreciate hearing from you about this!

My journey into King was first via Joyland - a ghost/coming of age story. I loved it, found it extremely well written. Then I tried From a Buick 8 - and enjoyed that too. But having grown up fascinated-but-terrified by horror books and films, I was keeping away from the 'officially-horror' books by King. So next up I tried (and loved) The Dark Tower. And was like. There's horror in this. Maybe I'm now able to enjoy it.

So I went to Salem's Lot (because of the overlap with Calahagn in The Dark Tower) and enjoyed it. Then The Stand. And then sadly reached "my brain is full and I can't concentrate on books anymore" :-/ AND a loved The Stand as a febrile writhing raw chaotic fairy-tale for our modern times...

Now i only "read" via audio books - and am very glad I have them for access to fiction (so I'm listening to, not reading, The Dark Tower this time #carTrips #dogWalking).

I love the chaotic fairy-tale nightmarishness of The Stand! I can see why people call that his magnum opus next to the Tower.

In other news, I'm currently away for the weekend so I may not be able to post right now. You guys have my character sheet, so you can leverage my abilities if I'm not there to do so myself. Thanks in advance for keeping Rose alive :) .

Ah, y'all, I feel so lucky that this group of King and Dark Tower fans found each other here on GP. Playing this with you is one of my big pleasures at the moment!

Wishing you a good trip!

Ah, y'all, I feel so lucky that this group of King and Dark Tower fans found each other here on GP. Playing this with you is one of my big pleasures at the moment!

Wishing you a good trip!

Joyland is great! Most of the "reading" I do now is also audiobooks. I work at home, so podcast and audio books are always on in the background.

Have a good weekend @DragonDweller62

So... as you're descending down into the sanatorium, I'm starting to think about whether we end the game after you get to end of this location OR whether we keep on going together towards The Tower.

How are you feeling about those two options?

If any of you want to keep going to The Tower I'd be happy to run that game with you, even just one of you - depending on how many stayed on, we might look to recruit some additional people for the next stages (although I'd be keen to only have people joining that we feel are going to be similarly collaborative and open and constructive and pleasant to play with as you all are).

My idea is you'd to need to move through at least two more locations along the Spoke, and then if you get through that second one, your next location would be around/in The Tower. But could also do it with you being a bit closer to The Tower i.e just one more location needed to be visited before The Tower if you took a direct route along the same Spoke.

Meta - here is the current map I have of your gameworld. Dots with a red circle around them are "fallen" (The Dark Tower Hack has rules for putting this map together) i.e. only bad dangerous stuff in that location.

I am definitely on board with playing this out as long as you're interested in running it. I'm not sure is Henry can make it? But i'll stick it out as long as you're game.

I'm back, thanks for the well wishes! Per my PM, I would love to stay on and try to get all the way to the Tower. I can also help with the map of the sanatorium if you want, BeardHare.

I am want to try for the tower for as long as you want to continue the game @Beardhare. Welcome back @DragonDweller62!

Running a game is difficult- I like the idea of easing the burden on the GM/DM when you can. I think if there are ways we can help you as a group we should do so!

Ahhh that's great to hear! We'll keep going, in that case!

And, yes, @DragonDweller62, would be great if you could put together a map. Would indeed appreciate that a lot.

I'd like to stick with it as well :)

Hello, all, my apologies for the posting delay. Recovering from surgery on the 16th. Warned my daily game about it since I felt it would be a one-off issue, but I didn't realize the recovery would knock me down for so long. Will try to post soon, thanks for understanding.

Thanks for the heads-up, @DragonDweller62. I've always been surprised by how long it's taken me to get back to feeling OK again after surgery. Body is busy healing the wounds, and takes a lot out of us. Sending all best wishes for a full quick recovery.

Would you like us to slow down or maybe take a pause for a few days?

Sry we were all down with the flu on my end. Will post more frequently and start asap!

@Adrasthea, @DragonDweller62 Both of you feel better!

Feel better- worth the wait and good playing with all of you.

I agree. Worth the wait

I apologize for my joke. It is homophobic and crossed the sexual assault line/veil. I’ll edit it out of the game-

It's so easy to miss stuff in the Lines and Veils document. I really appreciate you checking it and adapting your post on the basis of that.

Or not? I think this may be a good time to end Henry’s journey. Thanks for the fun we had and good luck on your journey to the Tower!

Please find a creative way to end Henry’s time with the group. Maybe the demon you threw my way can take him over?

I'm really sorry you and Henry are leaving the game. I enjoyed a lot both playing with you, and Henry as a PC. Yes, the demon will do that.

I feel like I missed something, but I'm glad everyone is back on the same page about our Lines and Veils. Sorry to see you go, @SenorDeebs, but I'll be glad to see you in the game you're DMing. Good luck wherever else your gaming may take you!

In other news, I feel rested and ready to join the game again. Thank you guys for waiting, and I'll be posting shortly.

Great to hear you are feeling better @DragonDweller62!

I'm on a work trip this week so will be slow posting. Great to hear you're doing better, @DragonDweller62

I don't feel it is homophobic. Why should an assault joke automatically be construed as such?
Personally I am not easily insulted and I simply cannot be injured by any aspect of pbp roleplaying - not even crude jokes.

In any case I do not want to offend fellow players. I surely am a lousy judge when it comes to what might be affronting to others and the nature of my character does not lend itself well to such considerations. I find it hard to come up with any short jokes that are guaranteed to be safe for everyone, so I do not know how to proceed here.

In conclusion: It has been great to walk the path to the Dark Tower with you, but I think I'll better take Mattie's hat and bow out.
I wish you a lot of fun and best of luck with the infernal machine :)

Thank you, @Adrasthea, for playing Mattie. I enjoyed having you in the game, and enjoyed Mattie as a PC very much.

Do you want to keep going @microtheMacroBear @DragonDweller62, given we've lost half the players?

I'd happily keep going with the two of you :)

I wouldn't look to recruit new players, though.

I think the seriousness I take the safety tools, and my general high sensitivity makes me a bad fit to running games here, and I can't face the risk of bringing in new players who don't want to play with someone like me.

@Adrasea Mattie is a cool character it was fun playing with you.

@Beardhare I am will continue playing Oscar if we decide to continue to play.

I agree, getting into spots with Mattie was quite fun. Hope to see you around, @Adrasthea, and thanks for the luck. As for continuing the game, I would love to do so with just Rose and Oscar. Let's make this a buddy comedy! lol.

In all seriousness, BeardHare, I don't think taking the safety tools seriously makes you a bad fit for GMing on here at all. It's true that not everyone uses them, but that doesn't mean they don't have a place on GP (at least in my experience). At the end of the day, it's just a personal choice whether or not one wants to play in a game with safety tools, so I wouldn't feel bad or apologetic about using them at all. Personally, I'm so grateful for our Lines and Veils document because I can know exactly how to promote everyone's fun and enjoyment without ruining the moment with something unpleasant.

I agree with @DragonDweller62. Admittedly I'm very new here on GP, but I've been in games without safety tools and with safety tools. All lot of games use them even if the tools aren't always formalized. I've been IRL games that use lines and veils. They are common tools. I wouldn't feel bad about using them. Using them doesn't make you a bad fit for GMing on GP.

Thanks @microtheMacroBear @DragonDweller62 - really helps to hear your take on this. I was having a significant crisis of confidence there, and your thoughts and kindness helped a lot with that. I've made the game Private for now, to help me feel a bit more comfortable dealing with the changes to the game.

My plan is to edit the posts in the in-character thread to delete the one with Henry's joke in it, and the ones after it that reference it.

FWIW I'm not shocked by the joke, have heard ones that are much more unpleasant in the way the humour is based on the degree of consent around sex acts, where part of the humour is about how people might judge sex between males. And have in the past told jokes myself that have those aspects to them - even though I regret it now. AND sexual assault and homophobia were two of the lines in the Lines and Veils document, so given that the joke relied somewhat on both of those for its humour, I asked for the content to be removed. I feel that if we have that document for a game, it only has an impact if we commit to using it in this way.

A suggestion - one of you now takes on running Henry, the other takes on running Mattie, and so we find a way together by which they leave the story?

And based on what you've written, I'm also up for perhaps recruiting some new players, if you'd like that. I'd keep the story going here with us three, and then in parallel do some recruitment either on the GP discord, the GP site, or both. Please let me know if you'd like to try and do that.

Will wait a bit to hear back from you about the above ideas before I move forward with changing - and moving forward - the in-character posts.

Welcome @Beardhare!

I like both of the ideas. I am on board keeping this story going and looking for new recruits. There's a GP discord? Somehow I missed that.

One nice thing about us using Google Sheets instead of the character sheets on GP is that someone can easily play another character if it is needed.

If one of us also plays as Henry or Mattie, I don't have a preference as to who will play who. We could roll for it? Evens are Henry and Odds are Mattie?

@DragonDweller62, what are your thoughts?

Here is the Discord server - I find it fun and friendly, and people sometimes post to talk about games they're considering running there

Thanks!

Glad to help, BeardHare! Please do what you must to feel comfortable with the game; after all, it's a fun pastime, not a social obligation.

I would be glad to welcome new players; the more, the merrier! Hopefully they are on board with our safety tools as well, since a yes to one is a yes to the other.

@microtheMacroBear, if you don't mind taking Henry, I would enjoy playing Mattie. She seems like a fun character to get into the head of.

P.S. I've lurked in the Discord for a while, but I'm usually too intimidated by huge servers like that to say much. Maybe now I'll see my two new Discord pals around :) .

Yah for discord!

I'll take over playing Henry, that sounds like a fine idea :)
Fully agree!

I'm struggling with bad burnout at the moment @DragonDweller62 @microtheMacroBear and for whatever reason, getting this game rolling again is just overwhelming for me at the moment. It's been on my daily to-do list for weeks now and I can't start on it.

When I'm able to do it again, I'll let you know, and if you're still interested I'd love to keep going - I'm really sorry to be flaking like this, but just seems there's nothing in the tank at the moment for this.

No worries @Beardhare. Burnout is rough. Take care of yourself

Thank you @microtheMacroBear - appreciate that

Welcome

No worries, @BeardHare; I know the feeling. Barring real life difficulties, I think the transition period this game is in also made it hard to pick back up. If/When you want to come back to this, I'll be on board. In the meantime, take care and be safe :) .

Thanks so much for that @DragonDweller62 - reading both your messages helps me feel like less of a failure about this.

I don't think you should be so hard on yourself, BeardHare. I guess that's easier to say on the outside, but we're still communicating openly and honestly during a difficult time; I would consider that far from failure. Burnout will happen; it's nothing to be ashamed of, nor is it something that's your fault. I'm actually very grateful that we're talking honestly about it so we know where we are regarding the game. As long as communication is open, I don't feel like anyone is a failure.