Welcome karabooo

Welcome karabooo.

What are you hoping to get from this game?

I know you said you had some experience with DnD (and, yes I include Pathfinder as DnD:) and Fate. Do you have any past experience with PbtA (Powered by the Apocalypse) games in general? It is fine of you don't, we can teach you as we go along.

World of Dungeons is very light on rules, so it does not provide anything by way of guidance as to how the game plays, or what you need to do. If you have played, or even just read, any PbtA games, that will shape how we teach; if you have not, we will take it from the top, no worries.

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How did you find the Psybermagi game? Feel free to ask if you have questions about how things work. Not all games are run in exactly the same way.

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Take a look at the Help! thread for guidance. Feel free to ask any question here or in the General Chat depending on where they seem relevant.

You can find the Game's Rule Book copied here for easy access. You may find Character Creation section useful. Also take a squiz through some of the old Character and World Creation thread to get orientated.

We can do your character creation here, or in the Character and World Creation thread, whichever is easiest for you to follow.

We are about to add another player character to the party. Depending on what your new character turns out like, it might make sense for you to know them and be brought in on their recommendation, though knowing one of the other party members (PCs by preference, but NPCs are valid too) is equally fine. Knowing one of them is not required, but eases the introduction of new people into the party. Don't let this influence what character you make, play what you feel like.

You are also welcome to say your character was with the party for a while if that makes more sense, we will just ignore that you have been quiet for the first part of this journey. :)

Welcome Karabooo!

Welcome!

Hi! Thank you for the welcome, and I apologize for my delayed response! I'm still getting used to how forums are set up and used here at Gamer's Plane, and I only just realized this thread existed. I'm getting there. :-P

I have played a couple PBtA games before! I may need a couple refreshers, but I won't be starting from scratch. My hope is to form bonds with other people interested in pbp and experience pbp with different rules systems to see how they feel in action. As a roleplayer, I tend to focus a lot on relationships between characters and character challenges/growth.

I found this game after you reached out in the Welcome forum. One of your longstanding players also highly recommended it. I don't have a specific character in mind for this game yet. I'd be happy to be the new player's friend if that eases the transition. I enjoy collaboration and would be happy to toss ideas back and forth with the new person (or someone else!) as needed. Does the new person have a character designed yet? I'm not sure how to go about this!

I was starting to think that was the situation, and considered reaching out, but it is so hard to judge these things and being 'pushy' can put people off. The is no time pressure, so no harm done. :)
A good place to start is the 'main' page, at https://gamersplane.com/, it is a bit slow to load (a lot of database lookups that really should be cached, but caching broke things):. It should have all the posts, in all the threads, listed (or at least the latest 5).

Then there are links from that page to Latest Game Posts (which can also be slow if you are in more than a few games), which list 'all' the games and posts that have had activity in the last while.

There is also All Latest Posts which, as the name suggests, list all the posts, not limited to ones from games you are in or following.

'Following' or 'Favorites' can be a confusion, too. There is a little star-in-a-chevron icon at the top of each Game Page, and also to the left of the games in the Games page. If any of those are Favorited, then only the Favorited ones appear on the Front Page or in the list of Latest Game Posts (I am not sure that is all completely correct). If you find things are missing, then that is probably the culprit. If you want to follow a game you are not in, then that mechanism is your way forward, but don't come crying to me if you lose track of some of the games you are in... or do, actually, I will help in any way I can. :)

Have you seen how the Subscription system works? I talk about it briefly in the Email Notification section of the Help thread, but that may be a bit out of date —there have been updates since that was written— and you are welcome to ask if you need more guidance. Not everyone wants emails, and they would not have helped you yet, since you would probably not have been subscribed yet.

Which ones. It is not important, but can give us a common vocabulary to explain things.
Excellent. That tends to be a focus of my games as well. Probably a little less in this one, given it drop-in-drop-out nature but, even here, I look for ways to connect the characters.
It is not at all required, but it helps explain why you joined the party and why they accepted you. We know from the premise of the game that you will be joining the party, so it just smooths the fiction a little. We can go with any 'introduction' you like.

Maybe think a little on the type of character you will be playing, maybe roll the dice and see what you Stats are (see the Character Creation section of the Rules) and then shape the character. Then we look into who it makes the most sense for you to know or how you get into the party.
We can all toss ideas around here. You have final say, but the whole group might have ideas about your character as you make them.
Yes. They have made Gronk, and we are in the act of introducing them to the party right now in the RP Thread.

You can follow their Character Creation process in their Welcome Thread, but don't get too focused on how others did it.
Yeah. As I mentioned, this game's rules offer very little help, so read through the Rules, but don't hesitate to ask about anything that is not covered there.

The 'insert new characters in the middle of what is happening' process can also be chaotic. Take a look at the summaries of events and characters in the 'wiki'. And maybe, when you are ready and if that is still relevant, take a look at the recent events that lead us to where we are [ref].

Thank you so much for the tips and guidance! I'm currently wrapping up a game of Brindlewood Bay with some local friends. I've also played Monster of the Week. I think there might be others I've played that used the PBtA system, but they're slipping my mind right now... I've played a lot of different systems and they tend to get muddled in my memory. (I remember the stories we told better than the rules we used!)

I checked out Gronk's creation process and am getting pumped. This looks like lots of fun! I think, before I think too much about my character, I'd like to roll some stats to see what they suggest about their strengths/weaknesses....

Have you ever seen so many 1's?? LOL. At least they're often paired with 6's. How weird!

So this all translates to:

Strength: +2
Dex: +1
Con: +0
Int: +1
Wis: +1
Cha: +1

Okay, so ... we've got a person who can deal hits but can't take them. haha! Otherwise, we're kinda average... Huh... Let me chew on this for a bit before choosing skills, etc., but I'll go ahead and roll my hp now....

Sadly, yes. I have seen many 1s in this game already :P
Some say it's cursed. Others say that on a full moon vagueGM transforms into a being that eats all the 6's from your d6 dice.

I'm sure they are just stories though :)

Nice rolling. You'll be quite versatile. Don't worry about matching stats with your character idea but it can definitely be a source of inspiration. You can totally be a knight with -1 strength. You just wouldn't be a very good one. Which can also be very fun to play :)

I'd say go with what you want to be in the story.

I want to give that a go. I have only read the first edition, and I don't really know the 'source material' —I have definitely seen some Murder She Wrote, but don't recall the other references. I was impressed with what I read. I don't really do 'horror', but this amount and style appealed.
Cool. That gives us some common ground.
I know what you mean. I am used to getting strange looks when I call on my players to roll a move that does not exist ... by that name... in the game they are playing. :)
Ain't that the truth.
Apparently Strength is your strength and Weakness (or not being hardy) is your weakness? Who would have thought. :)

So many 1s? Yeah, seen that. Paired with so many 6s? Weird indeed. :)
+1 is above average. (I am saddened that there is no chance of -1s):.
+2 Is very impressive.
+3 is 'the best anyone can ever be'.

I save them up for my own rolling... but then I never roll dice and they go bad. :(

So true. If the stats don't fit that can be a bit limiting, if the image does not fit the character is a guaranteed dud.

Ha! I can tell I'm going to enjoy this crew already.

Apologies if this is listed somewhere already. I looked and haven't found it yet. Is there a place where I can read more about skills? I'm curious about Lore. Is that like historical knowledge?

Apology not accepted... not valid. :)

Don't hesitate to ask. Even if it was already answered somewhere else, we don't expect you to go find it, or that it was asked or answered in a way that would be apparent. We are happy to repeat any answers as they come up.
Only about how they work, not about what they mean. That is deliberate. When you take it, explain to us what you think it means for your character and we will try to make that work.
That's mostly what they dictionary says, so, yeah?

'Historical knowledge' might also not be 'wholly correct and accurate', especially if we are wondering far afield from our known areas. This might translate to being able to interpret and understand things in their context, but Decipher might be a better fit for that?

'Lore' might have a qualifier attached. If you are Skilled in one particular type of lore (Bird Migration Patterns, maybe, if you want to go useless), the detail level will be tempered by the specificity. You can know a lot about a small topic or a little about a broad topic. However, the system does not really cater for Skill trees or specialisations or taking the same thing twice. So just taking Lore will mean we interpret the detail level based on what you are asking, in the moment.

We don't roll a lot, so the Skills seldom directly affect the dice (they save you from a outright disaster on a 6- (but I tend not to go in for outright fails or disasters most of the time, so many may say they are a bit wasted here)), they are more about the flavour and the character. So if you are a 'learned' person, take something like Lore; if you are a 'physical' person, take a Skill the reflects that... or, if you are a obviously physical person, maybe take something like Lore to show that you are not one dimensional... but you can do that through how you play the character as well.

This crew seems pretty male dominated, so I'm exploring the idea of a very physically strong woman, for flavor.

Have you ever heard of a bacha posh? It's the practice of raising a girl as a boy in the absence of a male heir. Is it conceivable that this character could have originally been from a rather "traditional" town where such practices were not unknown? Or does that not fit this world/setting? (I know lots of people understandably like to avoid topics like gender inequality while engaging in their fantasy escapism!)

The hobby is pretty male dominated, even if it is not dominated by pretty males. :(
Go for it. Until recently the two PCs were working for/with a strong woman (Captain of the guard), but they parted ways at the end of the previous scenario. They lost two female NPCs at that time. (...although one of them was masquerading as a boy. :)
The NPC, Theo, will be very interested in your story, he has just left his sister at home where she is probably working to take over from as mayor from her father, in his very male-centric village. As a teenage girl she will have a hard time of it, though. But that village and valley is ripe for a(nother?) female revolution. :)
We can make that work. Remember the premise that you are 'Fresh Faced Adventurers', and have 'not ventured far from home'. But we don't actually care how far you are from home, just so long as you have not been out adventuring to get here.

Did you family bring you here? Did you run away? Are you from a town near here, or did you come by ship across the sea?
Just example questions, but these answers will affect how and why you join the party.
We can make it fit. Even a day's travel from home is a pretty foreign land, they do all sorts of strange things over there. :)
We have had enough of that here, so no worries. The world started out pretty equalitarian (is that a word?:), with both male and female PCs and everyone working for a strong woman with not a eyelid batted. But only two male PC's players stuck around. The NPCs come and go, if you want any new ones, we make them easily enough (though the latest is constantly kicking my finger's ass, I did not expect Humphrey to be latched onto and coming along, or I would have given him a name that is not so hard for me to type!:).

Ha! Now, if I choose hardy as an ability, do I start the game with those extra 6 hp, or does that just bump up my max?

It means your rollable HP range is 7-12 instead of 1-6, and has immediate effect.

Given how the HP work, it does mean that can't end up with less than 7 whenever you roll to Heal as well (being Hardy also means you heal quicker, or don't take as much damage as it appeared). Most people have to consider if they want to 'treat their wounds' as a bad roll can leave them with fewer HP than before the roll (it turns out, once they see them, that their injuries were worse than they thought), if a Hardy someone is above 7 they still have that risk, but tend not to worry about injury and such (it is reflected in the fiction and personality).

Okay, I'm a little confused about how treating wounds works and how it can lead to losing HP, but I'm okay figuring that out during gameplay. Once I submit it to the game, will you be able to look over the AC/HP/DMG section of my character sheet and make sure I've done that correctly?

My character's name is Ezmaray. I've been doing some brainstorming, and here is my first stab at a backstory for her:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1g5xlulYARbav-0_Fu_dV896FxvVNOpyFujl_l5aIHIg/edit?usp=sharing

This is all flexible, and I'm happy to make changes to help it fit the narrative better.

It is the most confusing part of this game, but adds an interesting element.

As the Rules say:
This is probably not the confusing part, but let's summarise:

So, at Level 1, you only ever keep the 1 best die, no matter how many you get to roll. Rolling more only increases your odds of getting a high number.

This is your current HP, not your max, there is no, 'max'. Gronk rolled a 1, but, fortunately, that only means that he starts low on HP for some reason, not that he is permanently weak.

There may come a time when your Level is higher than the number of Hit Dice you roll, which will make it more important to try to increase your CON or find 'healers' to get those missing dice that you get to keep.
As written, you re-roll your HP. So the number can be lower. The rules don't dictate how this works, so various GMs rule this in various ways (it is always a good idea to talk to one's GM about how they run things:).

We have ruled that there may be times —like when you have complete safety and all the time you need, or a very special healer, or something— where you can choose to keep your old value if you roll worse. But otherwise we follow the rules and keep the new value, whatever it is.

Think of it like this: You get hurt during an exciting and adrenaline-fueled fight. Later you rest and have someone take a look at your wounds, you take off your shirt and the crude dressing you ripped from the hem, and find —once the adrenaline has worn off— that your wounds are worse than you thought, that you are in a very bad condition and need immediate care. There are countless real-world stories of people getting stabbed or shot and not realizing till later, when they look down and see the wound/knife sticking out, then they suddenly fall over.

You can always choose not to risk re-rolling if you are still above acceptable levels. Either you are just 'not looking, in case it is bad', or we don't think too much about it in the fiction.

Being Hardy means that if you are ever below 6 HP you will always benefit from 'Healing' as you can't roll lower than a 7.

Looks good.

The 'Damage' number is part of the weapon, so there may not be much value in having it up with the HP and such. But then, the Amour value is also part of the specific gear, so who knows, at least you are likely to keep the same Armour value throughout a confrontation, and Character choice can also affect your Armour value. No harm having Damage listed, but it might become confusing if you end up with weapons that do different numbers and change during a fight.

There is little value in keeping the STR/DEX/... dice-rolled numbers. They are purely to generate the +1 Modifiers. We can always refer back to this thread if we care about them. No real harm in having them in the sheet either, but they mean nothing anymore. :)

What is the 'Weak?' column in your Stats?

There is no 'aliment' in this game, but feel free to keep that in the sheet if it helps describe the character.

There is no 'Load' concept, the fiction will dictate if you are 'encumbered' or anything.

Most GMs are not going to read multiple pages of backstory. I have no read it. :)

It is fine for you to have a strong idea of who the character is, and it might help you play them, but remember that you are a Fresh Faced adventurer with little past experience that is relevant.

Maybe summarise what is relevant into a paragraph (or two if you have to) in the sheet, and let us learn the rest as we play, if it comes up.

LOL. Apologies. It's fine for you not to read all of the backstory. I mainly wrote that to help me have a firm grasp of who I'm playing. Let me summarize what might be relevant for you to know. (I actually prefer for folks to learn stuff about my characters in the telling of the story. That way I feel less ... redundant.)

In a nutshell, my character fled to this town from far away (either by sea or land -- doesn't matter). I'm not sure how long she's been here, but probably not very long. She is an experienced trapper and will likely be investigating places where she can hunt and sell furs, etc. She is looking to earn some money to send back home. She has a friend back home named Richie whom she writes letters to. He's the son of a bandit warlord who took over her town. She is counting on him to stay abreast of how things are going back home, especially in regards to her family.

Hopefully that's enough to give you an idea of who in the crew she might know... if anyone!

Thank you for the thorough healing explanation! I'll likely be referring back to that in the future. :)

We need to think about why you would want to go adventuring to a far off land (... another, further off, land!) where there is danger and possibly not much trapping prospect and probably no chance of sending letters home.

You own 60 silvers worth of stuff, the party did just drop 2000 silver on a celebration party. So the lure of money is a very valid reason.

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With what you have said, I am thinking that it might be apropos to not know anyone yet, we can treat this as a first meeting. I see two obvious ways to handle this, depending on how much you want to be the one initiating the scenario.

Maybe you are trapping in this area and get caught up in the mist quest? You have to fight off the mistlings (hey, they just got a name!:). Maybe you need to be rescued by the party, maybe you rescue the party? Maybe it is mutual?

Or maybe you know someone who was hurt... or is hurt by the mist, and you are trying to solve the problem and encounter the party doing the same? It seems the mist attacks have lingering effects, so maybe you are looking for a answers about what to do about that, or maybe it is revenge? Or something else? Your call.

You impress them, they impress you, you hear about the money potential (from one of the NPCs probably) and bada-bing you are an adventurer.

I'm down with any of the above. If she has observed that these heroes are making a bunch of coin AND her usual industry has been interrupted by the mist creatures, that would be plenty motivation to work with them -- either to resolve the mist issue or earn an income another way. I would rather act out a scene where they meet rather than just have her suddenly appear in the story and pretend that she was there all along, but if that's going to be difficult to arrange, I understand!

We can start by dealing with the mist issue. That is local, so does not require any justification as to why you join them on a long journey.
We can worry about future adventuring after the problem were you live is resolved.
Let's do that then. Do you meet out there in the wilds while you are tackling the mistlings, or have you also heard about the strange resident of the nearby town of Oldmford who might know things about 'strange mist'?

We can either run a scene of your meeting at Gronk's place [ref]. Or have the others gather him and then make their way out to look at the mist tonight and encounter you there. As a wilderness-type person, I would think it would be more interesting if you all meet out there in the middle of the action and forge bonds in the crucible of high-stress-situations.

Yes, I agree that that does sound more interesting and exciting. No rush. I can patiently wait in the woods for the others to find me. :) And I'll leave it to you to decide who will be saving who!