OOC Chat

This is where we can chat, joke, and talk about anything without cluttering up dedicated game threads.

Side note: I'm leaving tomorrow afternoon on a road trip to visit my daughter who just went through a miscarriage of twins...so will be investing my time with her, so likely won't be chatty much and likely won't get to a character sheet until Monday at the earliest.

Thank you for letting us know. I'm so sorry for your loss; please take all the time you need before coming back to us.

Hey all! I'm Cowleyc, and I'm addicted to the OSR!

Hey Cowleyc!

I've been playing TTRPGs since the late nineties, where I started with AD&D 2e. I've played through the editions and across the spectrum of games. Nowadays I play a lot of Shadowdark, and I've actually recently started a Pro-GMing side-career. Keep on the Borderlands is something I've tried launching a few times in both friend group and pro groups, but it never seems to happen for me. So I'm stoked that I have the opportunity to play it now!

I'm hoping the dice align and allow me to recreate Eltrezar the Medium, a character I played here in a Hommlet game that died too soon. But if not, I have plenty of character ideas that I can put to use!

Thanks...I appreciate your kind words.

Game question: were we going with one or two characters...if 1, which of the two that I proposed would you like to see?

Hi, cowleyc, it's really great to hear your enthusiasm. I've only ever gotten to run and play in a dozen sessions of OSR games—not a popular genre among my gaming friends—so I've had Keep on my radar for a long time. I'm super pleased to be able to provide for you the experience you've always wanted! Remember that you can swap two scores instead of bumping your Prime Requisite(s), so unless you get a run of eights (and for something that egregious you can reroll, lol) I'm banking on Eltrezar the Medium returning to the light of day. No matter what happens, I'm glad to have you on board.

Fun fact, when this game was just in my head it was a toss-up between this module and Hommlet. Maybe the iconic village still exists somewhere out there in the world . . . .

I strongly suggest one, but if you really want to use two at the same time I ask that you keep them far apart, i.e. not in the same party. That way, if a lot of you go with two, it won't affect game balance that much.

As for which of the two you should go with, I think Father Hevlorn the Dwarven cleric sounds pretty cool, plus you can never have too many healers. Of course, you can wait to see who everyone else makes, and the final decision is up to you.

Greetings, all. Some of you know me, but for those who don't, I'm John. I've been gaming (mostly as GM) for, gods, has it been that long? About 46 years, give or take a few months. I've played every edition of D&D except D&D One, which I have no intent to play, and dozens of other games besides (from Alternity to Warhammer). I'd be willing to bet that you can't name an RPG more than 10 years old that I haven't at least heard of, if not played. I started with the Holmes basic set and cut my teeth on the Moldvay basic. Currently, my favorite games are Pathfinder 1E and Savage Worlds, but I'll play anything once.

One thing that you should know is that my wife is blind and I serve as her eyes. Her needs come first. I read her emails to her, take her dictation to respond, and drive her to her appointments and where she needs to go. This normally does not present a problem, but if she needs me, responses may be delayed. I will try to warn you when I know this will happen. She knows that I play PbP games and tries to give me time to answer moves.

Hi folks! Thanks for the invite in, DragonDweller62.

I've gamed with a few of you before here on GP, but for those I haven't -- well met and all that. I'm an ancient gamer of about the same vintage as WhtKnt / John -- started in '83 with AD&D, and have been more or less obsessed with RPGs since then. My tastes and preferences have ranged significantly over time and are wide-ranging, but I've settled in recently with some good return-to-roots perspectives, which often lands me in the OSR in terms of the stuff I want to run and play. (Especially in neo-OSR / NSR, but that's another story.)

Really looking forward to playing, and perhaps surprisingly have no real experience with Keep on the Borderlands. I was a forever GM for a long time, and in my D&D days (83-88) I focused heavily on a Greyhawk homebrew game. So there are tons of classics I never got to the table that I can now enjoy!

Headed over to Session Zero...

Thanks for the introductions, and thanks for the heads up, WhtKnt. Glad you guys are as excited as I am to get into an iconic classic module.

Hello there,
I suppose I should introduce myself as well. I'm Chris. Seems like I might be the odd one out. I've been following ttrpg for a while now and have been wanting to play even longer than that. Sadly I never had a chance. But I enjoy playing here on GP and enjoy learning all the different systems.
I'm the father of 3 kids, so life can get busy at times, but latest once I'm at work I will have time to respond and the kids do give me time to play too, if I ask nicely.

I'm looking forward to what ever chaos will unfold for us.

Yarrt! I almost forgot to accept the invite! Was wondering why the forum page felt a game short :p

Well where to start with ourselves...
I'm Abigail, or Abby. I've been rolling bones for maybe... 12 years now? Maybe a bit more. Pbp was how I started, with only a few vtt games here and there until last year or the one before with Pathfinder 2e.
Started with DND 4e and then it got dusted pretty quickly. After that, I've played a fair bit of 3.5, 5e, and Pathfinder 1e. Some of my favorite systems to date have been Pathfinder 1e & 2e, Cyberpunk RED, 13th Age, OSE, and Basic Fantasy TRPG.
As a member of the LGBTQIA+ community, I mainly bring the T. Also, I've a brain cluttered with 80 HD tube tvs(read ADHD). It tends to not be an issue unless I suddenly become time blind and need a little bump, or get a bout of occasional depression that just locks up my mental processes.
Also, I should note that I post mainly while I'm at work to pass the time. It's a paper recycling plant, so it'll depend on my weekly position and the type of material if I'm busy or not. For example, this week is a particularly easy load, so I'll be able to check in constantly. Next week, a little less so, and then back to now. For the foreseeable future, at least.
Should I be absent for periods that require action, I would be happy to write up some conditions and parameters in the event that my character needs act.

Welcome! Planned to send out a PM to see if you were still interested, but I'm glad you're here now. I also love those last two systems you mentioned, that's what inspired me to start this game! Thanks for the heads up, will keep all that in mind. I also bring the T in LGBTQIA+, so I'm glad to have an especially kindred spirit here :D .

Yaaay!

Welcome, AbbyssalChimera!

And Chris!

Hello there, I didn't post much so far since things are pretty cluttered on my side. I will be out of town for the next two days, so won't be able to post much either. I should be able to work on my character on Friday though. Just wanted to make a life sign in the meantime!

Hi Chris, my bad missing your post. I'm glad to be introducing you to the magic and chaos of this adventure!

---

Thanks for the heads-up kwll, and welcome!

no sweat :)

Sorry I'm late, seems my invitation got lost in the mail... I'M afraid I won't have a character ready until next week seeing I'll be away this weekend. I don't want to delay you guys any further, so feel free to start without me, I'll simply tag in when I'm ready.

Welcome, kalajel! Sorry about the invitation, but I'm glad you're finally with us. Thanks for the heads-up about your absence; I'll keep that in mind if we get far enough to start before you're ready.

Happy Easter, adventurers!

Happy Easter!

Back at you! Returning from my business trip tonight, so back to regular posting this week…

Great opening post!

So -- just to be sure, we're playing both characters on the approach to the keep, to form introductions and connections and such. Then we'll break off into a single smaller party?

Thanks! Yes, the intro is just to funnel all your PCs into the keep before the main ones take over. I tried to hint at that in my prose, but here it is clearly. After the split, you can forget about your backup PCs or have them busy with some downtime activity. I don't think I could handle a party fifteen, lol.

Got it, cool. Hope to get posts up tonight.

I can only see Eltrezar's and Kraagor's rumors. I think you did it right.

Thanks, that's good to know. If anyone can see all the rumors, just let me know OOC and I'll see what I can do.

P.S.: For organization, deleted my OOC post in the gameplay thread since it was copied here.

Oh, well, never mind then...

This has turned into a monster week at work — sorry for posting delays. Move ahead if you’re waiting on my input; otherwise I hope to get to posting tonight or tomorrow night!

No problem; I also planned to post yesterday, but things got a little busy (which is why I couldn't run a daily game, lol). Expect that post today.

Friends, I a, very sorry, but I must withdraw. RL has gotten busy for me, and pulling me away from PbP. I hope everyone is well, and I’m sorry for any inconvenience this causes. Take care.

I'm sorry to see you go, WhiteDwarf, but I get how it can be. You take care as well, and I hope to see you around some time.

Hi hi! Still here! Just had a very rough week last week! I'll be catching up on everything I've missed shortly!

Hi, glad to have you back! I hope all is well. Next GM post will be coming soon.

Yes, we're using the Advanced Spell book rule. Go get yourself some new spells! Treat yo self!

According to the RAW (in OSE at least), an individual only has to cast Read Magic on a spell scroll or magical inscription once to be able to understand it. The ruling for spell books is weirdly vague, but I would rule that you need to cast Read Magic every time you want to understand it; to me, that's a big part of why copying from a spell book takes so long.

Also, for the future, note that copying a spell has a chance of failure based on the copier's Int score, with failure meaning that "the character can never learn the spell." That seems a little harsh to me, so I want to very creatively interpret that rule to say that failure means you can never learn the spell from that source. If you really wanted to learn, say, Fire Ball, but you failed to copy it from a scroll, you would have to find another one. You wouldn't be permanently unable to learn Fire Ball.

Apologies for the very late post; I've been dealing with some annoying school stuff. The post is up now. Thanks for sticking with me here.

No problem on my side. I'm with you to the bitter end.

All good ! Had my own personal issues last week.

Just to be clear, Kraagor has poor Int and abysmal Wis. He does, however, have a boatload of Con. So his commentary is not me trying to bully you into a course of action, it's a really dumb dwarf not understanding that OSE is lethal.

All good! One thing I don't think I understood was the distances involved. I thought we all got closer than a two hour walk to the camp before dispatching scouts. No matter! Let's camp and go in in the morning!

From my understanding, the party is camped as below on the map. That's why it's roughly two hours to the clearing. If anyone wants to camp somewhere else, feel free to bring it up in the game thread.In the future, I will try to be clearer about distances and map squares, including using pictures. If anyone else is confused, please let me know.

All good. The map helps a tons. What's the scale again for each square?

I was thinking we'd camp at the abandoned camp, but in hindsight, maybe camping here instead is a much better choice... We might want daylight if we're to investigate anything.

1 square is 100 yards. I'll edit that into the above post.

Cool, thanks. Presume our scouts moved very cautiously and carefully then...

I'm good with the spot!

Works for me!

I want to apologize for my unpunctual posting rate as of lately. Three posts per week is usually manageable for me as a player, when I only have to worry about myself and the game in relation, but it seems that, as a GM, I have to dedicate more mental energy to making posts than I thought. That's not to mention any irl responsibilities that may delay posting.

This may be an overreaction because I want the first PbP game I run to be perfect, but I am thinking of lowering the posting rate from 3/week to 1/week. I will still try to post as often as I can, but there will be less pressure (on you as well as me) to post as often. Maybe a less daunting deadline will help my predicament. As always, thanks for understanding as we take this journey together :) .

Yeah, the posting frequency are for players. As a GM, multiply this by 2, 3 or even 5 depending on the situation.

I'm here for the long run. Take as much time as you need. I understand (being a PbP GM as well).

Yeeeah... Life kinda sucks sometimes ^^; like for me, not being able to post much these past two weeks. I'm only JUST getting back to that mindset.

Unfortunately that's how it is sometimes. . . . Luckily you got your attack just in time, lol.

Hello all, I will be out of town for the next two weeks and won't be able to post much. Can Farem be considered a NPC our played by someone else while I am away?

Sure, that works for me. Anyone who wants to can play Farem, or I will.

Back in action.

Glad to have you back!

Unfortunately, I'm gonna bow out of the game... Brain's just not where it is to be in as many as I am right now.

Happy gaming to ya all!

I was about to PM you about this before we got into the weeds of the dungeon. No problem if you want to bow out, and thanks for adventuring with us thus far! Happy gaming to you too!

I have just added Morgan's character sheet to the game, as a public character sheet that anyone can look at. That way you can better know her abilities and how to use her services. Even though she acts like a full-fledged party member (2nd-level according to the module), I'm thinking of counting her as one of Delfarious's three retainers. Does that sound fair?

Sad to see you leave @ Abyssal. It was fun playing with you.

And yes, cheers Abbyssal!

I'm terribly sorry everyone, but I don't think I can continue playing in this game: https://gamersplane.com/forums/thread/1260/?p=1694405#p1694405

Yeah... I was excited to play with you all! And it was certainly fun while I lasted. Happy dungeon delving to you all!

Safe travels, kalajel!

I'm sorry to hear that, kalajel. Safe travels and good luck. Hope you can get back to gaming soon.

With kalajel's departure, we are currently at half the party size I envisioned for this game. Here's what I'm thinking: we continue this dungeon crawl with five players. Someone else can take up mapping, or else I can NPC Father Petronius. Robin (and maybe Petronius) will have to be written out of the narrative. When the party returns to the Keep, we can decide whether to recruit more players and/or make up the difference with retainers.

Works for me.

Fine by me.

Yup, sounds fine.

Sounds reasonable.

Apologies for the delay. Initially I was waiting to see if Darlene or Ezra would do something contrary to the party, then real life took over for a moment. I still want the pace of this game to reflect "a week or sooner if you can" so I will be posting in-game very soon.

Before we continue, I want to set a new precedent for how XP is awarded. Both treasure and monster XP will be awarded in one grand total when the party gets back to safety. Right now that means the Keep, but, once the party moves on from the Keep, it can also mean whatever town, permanent camp, or domain they consider their "home base." To keep the reward tangible, I will declare how much XP the party gets from monsters, but they won't actually get any of it in the moment. The main reason I want to stick to the RAW here is so that the Prime Requisite bonuses actually work like they're supposed to.

Finally, I will be treating Father Petronius like an NPC hireling for the rest of this dungeon crawl, but Robin will be written out of the party immediately. This is because I only have Petronius's character sheet, but also because the party needs its only cleric way more than a second thief—especially because it set out with the assumption that one would be handy. After the party gets back to the Keep, Petronius will leave in anticipation of a new cleric.

EDIT: Just found out I can still see Robin's sheet. Still writing her out for the other reason.

Hi guys I'm sorry for having been so quiet for so long. Things have been a little chaotic. I hope to catch up this week.

Seems like it. I want to use RAW and say you die at 0 hp. At the same time, I'm still unused to the lethality of B/X so it was just as jarring to me, lol. I always feel bad for poor squishy 1st-levels. Just to make sure, are we still okay with such lethality?

@ChrSch and @kwll, sorry for Ezra and Farem. If you create new PCs soon, they can be introduced immediately (so you're not waiting a long time to play again).

Well, it is the third time I am trying to play B2 online, and the second time my first character dies during the first melee combat (this time without landing a single blow), so I cannot say I wasn't warned. That's the reason I rolled a warrior this time (even though luck wasn't on my side with the dice), to at least have a better chance of surviving this time.

Oh well...

Good points both. Guess I don't have to feel bad >:)

I'm going to be pretty busy between now and Friday with painting my house, and then I'll be in Hawaii for a week (the 20th through the 27th). I'll be slow for now, and unsure if I'll post then

Understood, can we NPC Kraagor or should we wait? I will be away this weekend but that shouldn't slow my posting down.

EDIT: NPCing would probably only happen if you can't post. Slow posts should be alright for a week.

I should be able to post, either infrequently or briefly! Not that we need any detailed posts right now.

That's true, but it looks like the combat is finally swinging (no pun intended) in your favor. Too little too late? We'll see.

Correct, so it would have killed him had Morgan done one fewer point of damage against it.

If a stirge latches on to you (in OSE) it does an automatic 3 points of blood drain damage. Delfarious lost 1 point from the bite, so the next turn would have been instant death.

The stirge that bit Delfarious had 8 hp, so Morgan was safe rolling an 8+1, but it was that close lol.

Does this offer still stand?

Absolutely. You can start rolling in the Character Creation thread.

@Harrigan checking in with mapping. Still a fun minigame?

Well, there are certainly some details I don't have right in the passage we're currently in...



Close?

Everything is accurate, but the secret door should be one square below where the stirges are (120' up from the south end of the hall). You can put that the dead PCs fell in the same place that the stirges did. Overall nice mapping; I wouldn't have been able to tell where you were guessing :) .

If you want to save this and any maps for quick reference you can post them in the map thread.

Roger that. We're on Turn 21?

That is correct. :)

Sorry, one more correction to the map. The main hallway should be 40' wide instead of 10'. Rookie mistake on my part. This becomes important because the secret hall is 5' wide, meaning you'll have to go in single-file. I promise I'll get a handle on my descriptions eventually. . . .

Hi, sorry for only informing about it now. My life has gotten to busy and I can't keep up with the games I'm in.
So sadly I've got to bow out.
I had fun while I was here though and thank you all for dragging me along.

No problem at all; life happens. Thanks for playing and I'm glad you enjoyed it! Take care and I hope to see you around the boards sometime :) .

Map updates based on the 40' wide section and this:
How does this look? I've also started highlighting areas we have not explored in red. Just let me know if there are corrections!

Roger that!

Gradual improvements!


Question to the group right now is whether we go back to base, head north and west down the big corridor, or explore that little secret door with the 5' wide passage behind it -- the one that seems to dampen light.

Right now, to the PCs, it's just an ancient Thothian ruin. See below if learning which module(s) I'm using and how wouldn't ruin the immersion.P.S. been working on a lore thread for those who wish the worldbuilding was more overt than subtextual. It may only cover what would be common knowledge for (most of) the PCs.

I do believe that you'll find outside, scratched into a stone, a poorly spelled "Kragors Kafern".

Will be at a Con from Weds through Sunday... posting will be lean. Autopilot as necessary; should be back to it next week.

@DragonDweller62, if you uncheck "This is a minor edit" at the bottom of your post, it will mark it as new again. I've noticed that I'll check your post, see that it's being updated... And then promptly forget. No object permanence. ;)

Good to know, thanks! I had a vague understanding that unchecking the box did something special, but thanks for explaining it. I'll use that in the future, but for now the post in the gameplay thread is the final version.

I'm going to need a few days to process things. If I do not return, I have enjoyed the game and all of your company.

Good luck with everything, WhtKnt, I hope things improve for you.

Hoping all goes well on your side, and to see you back here soon.

@WhtKnt It was good to have you, and I hope to see you around—back here or on the boards.

Hi all, sorry for how slow things have been lately. I've been monitoring the boards but a lot of my time has gone into school finals and extracurricular projects. I'm happy to say that I should be getting back to regular posting soon, for anyone who wants to stay in the campaign. Thanks for your patience.

Okay, I'm back. I have taken the time to process what has happened and come to grips with its reality. I'm back in, if you will have me.

I'm still here!

Hi all, I've been stewing over this message because I want to deliver it as gently as possible. I have been thinking about closing this game, but not because of any of you. You all have been fantastic players. The few reasons I want to close the game all have to do with me. Losing half our player base hurt my morale a bit, and otherwise I've found myself falling a little out of love with old-school dungeon crawling. I've noticed myself losing motivation to continue a super old-school campaign. On top of all that, I've been taking on more responsibilities in my personal and academic life, forcing me to reconsider the games I'm in.

Thank you for a fun campaign, and I'm sorry to disappoint anyone who was looking forward to the long haul. Before I leave, do any of you want me to transfer GM power to you to keep the campaign going? Otherwise I'll see you around on the boards, and happy gaming!

Sorry to hear this news, but I understand. Keeping a campaign going for a considerable time via PbP is not an easy thing to do. Thank you for running! It was enjoyable.

It happens! Don't stress it too much. There is no good reason to run a game you're not vibing. Go prioritize yourself and don't worry about us!

In all honesty, this was a good reminder that OSE just isn't my OSR. Something about the rules just doesn't land for me. So while I'll miss your narration, the rules will be in my taillights.

Not a problem. Fun while it lasted -- you did a great job, and I got to brew up an annoying guy who has become one of my favorite PCs!

Thanks everyone for the game!