Welcome QuietPanther

Welcome QuietPanther.

We have heard good things about you. :)

What are you hoping to get from this game?

Do you know any Role Playing Games? Which ones? This can help us find a common language. 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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I see you did 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.

Ha well none of it is true. Or all of it. I will try to live up to expectations :)

I’ve played a variety of RPGs. First was D&D, both 3&5. Did some PbP games a while back, mostly role play, never got to much action. In the past few years I’ve tried a good variety of things, including a PbtA game, Fate game systems, and lately lots of Lancer. I’ve done rules-light one shots and a Pathfinder one shot. Most of the games I’ve played were in person or over video chat, but PbP has its appeals as well.

I’m hoping to get a game with some good role playing, some creative writing/storytelling, and an interesting plot. I don’t have a strong need to explore deep ideas but I’ll enjoy delving a little if they come up. Most of all, I want to have fun! I do consider challenges and some characters hardships to be fun, so I won’t shy away from conflicts or risks. Hope that’s not too tall of an order!

I have some ideas for a character, so I’m gonna throw in some rolls to see how that’ll shape things.

Welcome QuietPanther!
I think you will find everything you asked for.

Hmm, any chance I can swap Dex and Int? I can work with the current stats if that’s an important rule. But my original idea for a character was rather different from those rolls..

Sorry, we will have to ask you to leave. Joining under false pretenses and all. :)
Which one? Do you recall? (There are a lot, and they can be quite different.:)
All of that is available. This game is very collaborative, so you have the freedom —and expectation— to introduce things that you want to see. Take the elements that are happening in the story and react to them and build on them to drive things in the direction you want. In-character driving can be subtle, so, if you are trying for a particular thing, tell us, in OOC, what you are angling for, that way we can all lean our weight behind shifting the story that way.
Noted and good to know.
That's why it is probably best, in this sort of situation, to roll first, and then come up with ideas based on the roll. Admittedly, this is my least favourite aspect of WoDu, I am not a fan of random character generation (outside of quick one-shots), and everything else is 'fiction first, then roll' and this first thing a player does sets a bad example.

Tell us about your character idea. We can talk about a stat-swap if needed (and possible about what it cost you).

You rolled:
STR: 0
DEX: 0
CON: 2
INT: 3
WIS: 1
CHA: 0

Bearing in mind that 0 is average, 1 is substantially above average (with a 2d6 curve), 2 is amazing, and 3 is almost unheard of and as high as any human can ever get.

False pretenses? Better check with karabooo, the true deceiver! :P One of us always lies, and one of us always tells the truth. Unless I’m lying about that..

I’ve been hankering for a Druid for a while now, but the chance hasn’t come up in any of the other games I’ve been in(not PbPs). I will almost certainly take Wild no matter what. My ideal was Stealth and maybe Reflexes, with Survival or Awareness as the last Skill. With or without a stat swap, I could be talked into some changes. I enjoy having a balanced party, so I’m willing to tweak a character to help that along.

She will probably be called Lille, and I envisioned her spending a lot of time out in the woods. She lived out there, thus her affinity to animals. With good Dex, she could move like one too. She would likely wield a quarter staff, unless that would fall under martial weapons.

The first thing I thought of for cost was a literal money cost, like starting with less. I imagine you had something else in mind, like a penalty for character advancement or other mechanical handicap? I’m interested to know what that would look like before I commit.

The PbtA game I started with was about wrestling, like WWE. It was very much not my interest, but the GM loved it so I gave it a shot. We probably played a few others that I’ve forgotten.

Well, that's a pretty pickle. We can't kick karabooo, they are a valued member. Guess we will have to live with it. :)
It occurred to me that, if the girl in the movie Labyrinth had just gone to the one who told her the rules, she would have been fine. Either it told the truth about the rules, and therefore tells the truth, or it lied about the very rules and it does not matter. /shrug

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Maybe World Wide Wrestling? I am also not into wrestling, but I have heard that this game works very well for people who aren't. I believe I have it, but have not tried (nor read) it.

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OK. We should talk about what you are hankering for. I find that, often when people are hankering for something (but even more so when they keep playing the same character type), they are trying to get a particular experience and that need is not being met, often because they don't articulate that need to the GM.

What about a 'druid' appeals to you in this case?
Don't let that affect your decisions in this game. We have new players dropping in and out all the time, so any 'balance' will get throw off fairly often. We set the game and challenges based on what is interesting given the current party. For instance, we got an 'outdoorsman' in Ezme, so the mystery they were solving suddenly went from 'at the inn and town' to 'in the wilderness'. Play what you want, and we will make it work.
Those skills are fine. There is a fair bit of overlap with the others. But I know Albert does not mind (and your 'Awareness' is different to his), and I can't see a way to avoid overlap with Ezme as you are both outdoors people; If either of you want to tweak anything, we can talk about it.

It seems like Ezme would be a logical person for Lille to already know. This is not needed, but can help to bring them into the party.
What is the problem with Martial Weapons? There are no rules against 'druids' using them (this is not DnD:). You are welcome to define such rules and limitation, but there is no such thing as a 'druid' until you make one and tell about us them.

The difference between Martial and Light Weapons is the cost, the damage, and that Light Weapons are light enough to handle with your 'weak hand' while a Martial Weapon needs your dominant hand. A staff could be either, a light staff is a Light Weapon, a heavy staff is a Martial Weapon.

The Stat used to wield it would depend on how you describe your character wielding it in any particular situation. But a heavy weapon would be less appropriate for quick, nimble (DEX based) moves. 'Finesse' is a matter of fiction, not a mechanic.
How is that 'pronounced', even though we are not saying it, it can still help to know. :)
Makes sense.
No. That is boring, but also meaningless. You are taking a permanent boon for the cost of something that is easily replaced with minimal effort in the fiction.
I don't know. We are just tweaking the luck a little, you are not altering the Stats, just the order in which they fell. I would be most inclined towards some form of in-fiction (maybe 'bad luck') consequence, maybe explaining why you consider leaving the place you know and going adventuring with the others. This need not persist longer than it is fun, it could also involve 'money' or 'loss of gear' as a motivator.
Yes. Always negotiate the term before you commit. PbtA games demand that, don't roll the dice till you understand and accept all the possible outcomes (even if only in general terms).

Nice to have you, QuietPanther!

I see you're already well on your way to creating your character. Cool stuff!
:D All good for me.
Some input from me if I may be so bold :)
You can also be stealthy with Int instead of with Dex. Maybe you figured out animal movements by studying them intensely and therefor got good at mimicking that behavior.
Just a different way to look at things ;)

This is true. High INT is a superpower, you can do almost anything with INT, though it might take longer or need more preparation.

It is up to you if you are interested in going this route. We can talk about it if you want.

LOL. What is a deceiver but an artful weaver of words and stories? ;)

The deceit part? :)

@QuietPanther per the discussion starting here, it might help to know:

Are you keen on playing a druid in their element, or a fish out of water druid in a strange city? Given time you will get to do both (and other things) but as a start this answer will influence what we do next. Either we have an adventure travelling to Necusle, or we get there and then have an adventure in that city.

I have nothing 'planned' so whatever decision we come to is fine by me.

The thing I want as a Druid is an embodiment of nature. For me, the difference between a Ranger and Druid is that the former is good at nature whereas the latter IS nature. In many D&D settings(and others) this partly manifests in the character having the magical ability to turn into animals and manipulate/quickly grow plants. Between Wild and a great Dex score, the combo would sufficiently scratch that itch for me. Also playing Little Druid in a Big City would be the most entertaining for all of us, especially at the beginning. So I will vote for that, although some uneventful camping could allow for Lille to arrive and/or some getting-to-know-you RP.

Most of why I haven’t played that kind of character is because of the game settings(like wrestling) rather than something a GM did or didn’t do. I have been purposefully been playing very different characters, saving the Druid for game like this. Karabooo has spoken highly of YOU all, so no pressure ;)

I love having my characters and others discover each other and their backstories or secrets in game play, so I am hesitant to go into too many details here. Some things are well known enough to post here. Jordash was a hermit/ recluse who lived out in the woods. He came into town every few months to trade furs and things for supplies. Although he was friendly enough in his brief interactions, he never revealed much about his personal life, like where exactly he lived. We can decide whether he brought Lille(pronounced Leel) along a few times or never mentioned her. Or maybe there are rumors of her? In the high Int scenario, she grew up with him and a big pile of books because Reasons(can reveal that story as needed). In the case of high Dex, just Lille and her mentor.

He has recently died, though no one but Lille knows yet. His dying wish was for her to join some adventurers to learn about the world. We can have a brief scene where Ezme meets Lille before the main story, but she is sufficiently motivated to join without it. It would mainly be if we want to hurry up the group’s acceptance or trust of her.

If we stick with the high Int, I would take Lore instead of Stealth. I’m not really interested in stretching stats, and the epic knowledge would probably be useful. A few years back I did play a long D&D campaign with Karabooo (who was a ranger) as a high Int character so I was hoping for a change of pace. That said, the high Int Lille would be different and still fun to play. I don’t know what a good penalty is, but if you have a short list of options I can be quick about picking one.

I mostly wanted the quarter staff to be Light for cost in silver reasons, although the low Str is also a factor.

Lol. It just worked out this way. I swear I don’t always play rangers (and Ezmaray is very different from my Denny boy)!

Let's go with the swap and high DEX, it seems to fit better.
It should be something fun for everyone, not a penalty. If we can't come up with something fun we can ignore it and just swap the Stats.

Remember, 0 INT is average, you are not 'stupid' just not very educated (which seems apropos).

With the recent death of your mentor, I don't want to go with the above suggestion of 'bad luck motivating you to leave on an adventure'. Your reason is much better.

There could be a bad luck reason for your mentor to want you to leave now that they are not around. But Lille would not know that and we can work out what that means together as we play. What do you think?
Very considerate, but the question was for you. Is that what you want? If you don't answer for yourself then it can get tricky, others assume you want something while you are trying to give them what they want, then nobody gets what they want. :)

We are gownups, we can express our desires and then talk about them and come to the most equitable solution.
Maybe you have seen Ezme out in the woods? Then you find out she is joining a 'real adventuring party that saved the town' and tag along (as per your mentor's wishes)?

Presumably you are far enough away (upriver maybe?) that you were not involved in the Mist problem that Ezme has just helped solve, and only hear afterwards that there was a town-problem.
Since you are motivated to join an adventuring party, maybe you follow along as they travel and we weave your story into theirs as things happen to them. Then we can find a good time for you to meet (it only needs to be 'good enough') and reveal that you have helped them along the way?
Sure. Go with a Light Weapon staff. Describe it however you like.
Agreed. Though, two points:

The characters are not the players, and it can be hard to bring 'secrets' into play if only you know about them. Bring the other players (including the GM) in on any secrets you want to see in play. Any secret we don't see in play might as well not exist.

Leave room for yourself to discover secrets about your character as we play. Play to find out what happens. Don't decide now more than you need to get the character going.

I kinda thought it would be funny if part of the reason Ezme’s traps weren’t catching anything was because Lille kept secretly warning the animals. Maybe Ezme caught a glimpse of her in the woods and suspected something was up? Maybe not?

This would likely create some immediate curiosity and possible tension between our characters — I dunno if you think that would be worth playing around with.

This all said, why would the druid choose to travel with the trapper if she didn’t endorse her way of life? I dunno. Just throwing around ideas.

It is obviously up to QuietPanther if their druid would object to trapping. Strikes me that someone in touch with nature would understand that predators/hunters are not 'bad' but are part of the natural order of things. Vegan druids always seemed weird to me.

Maybe Lille saw Ezme doing something she doesn’t normally witness local hunters doing, like a ceremony to honor the sacrificed animals? Maybe she witnessed Ezme getting a little weepy/emotional (desperate/homesick?) afterwards, and that’s when Ezme caught her spying and Lille ran away?

This would create space for intrigue and emotional vulnerability between our characters and not just animosity.

Oh wait! This is all happening a week after the full moon on Summer Solstice?? That's a Big Deal. Ezme definitely recently performed a ceremony to her goddess, one that likely involved a tribute to the animals sacrificed... This is probably something she normally would have done with family -- which would likely make her feel very homesick.

Ah sorry for the confusion. What I meant was, I would enjoy starting with Druid in civilization first. Also, as an added bonus I think the other players would enjoy that too. I tend to be overly wordy and perhaps overcompensated too far in the other direction this time. I agree about clear and direct communication, and in the future I will do better :)

Also good on Lille joining the party as they travel. Karabooo and I can do a quick intro scene that happen prior to the mist adventure and post it. I don’t want to hold the group up, so please continue game play at your preferred pace. I will work on replies to other topics and the mechanical side of character creation in a bit, hopefully.

Excited to be telling this story with you all!

Not a problem at all. We are learning how to communicate with each other and it gets easier once we know each other.
Cool. We will handle the journey, which is a bit of wilderness, and that can play for as long as it is fun, then end up in a new country and a new city and see what happens. I have no idea what we will find there, so there can be as much city vs wilderness there as we like, we will see how it goes.
We are all happy to take this bit slow and do it right. Once we know how the new character will be introduced to the party we will decide how to tackle the next leg of the journey. Don't rush.
That makes the most sense, but was only one of the options. If it proves problematic we can do something else, of course. We are not trying to speed this along, if it proves easier to introduce the new character before leaving we can go that route, but I don't think it will.
We can play that out in as much detail as you want. We can even do that in flashbacks or in a side-thread while seeing the journey in the 'main thread'. PbP makes all sorts of things easy.

Decide OOC if you both know of each other or if Lille espied Ezme from a distance and the 'relationship' is one-sided. Also valid is if there has been no contact before now, maybe after you learned about the recent heroics and decide that this adventuring party to join but don't know how.

Maybe the fact that this party has a girl with them helps, else we have a naive young woman joining a party of unknown men —which sounds like a recipe for disaster if I did not know these men and could not vouch for them.... well, except Humphrey, watch out for that one.
Excited to have you.

I like this. I didn’t have a very good reason for Jordash’s death. Now I want it to be a mystery. Was it related to the mists? Or something else? Stay tuned and our adventurers just may find out at some point..

Tomorrow I will get on the character sheet part. Is there a template I should be using?

Also I checked in with Karabooo and we are plotting to write an interaction scene from back around the Solstice that we can insert as tasty little flashbacks as we go. In the current time, Lille will trail Ezme/the group a bit as her method of "joining"; I like having that all connected that way. When we’ve had enough of that she can join for real. Happy to play that by ear.

Tricky part is your leaving the area and not investigating that mystery. Maybe Jordash left a clue that the answers were to be found far away?
I have tried to keep you out of the Mist events since you did nothing to solve that problem. If you knew about it then we have to explain (for a given value of 'explain') why you guys did not do anything. It is hard to insert you into the events without making your contributions seems ineffective, but I can come up with some ways to slightly-involve you if you really want.

When did Jordash die? Yesterday? Last week? Last month? Maybe his death contributed to the spirit's upramp in activity this moon? It is tricky since Lille was not involved. We don't want to deprotagonise Lille, but we also don't want to devalue the other players solution.

The cleanest solution (off the top of my head) is for you and your mentor be from far enough away on the other side of town that you were not involved. And for him to have died before the Mist problem became a problem he would have heard of.
Could just be old age and part of nature. It might be hard explore this death out here in a location that we may never come back to.

We can always introduce a mystery later, if we ever do have time to come back here. Maybe we come back and find there was more to it, or we find there was more to it and have to come back, but leaving the area with a mystery hanging over us seems wonky from a story point of view, no?
I have accepted your blank sheet. Note that the others will not be able to see the contents until you Add it to the Library.
You can use this template for World of Dungeons.

Since you have created a sheet, the simplest is to Quote that post and copy/paste the bits between the 'charsheet' tags to you sheet (don't include the [ quote] and [ charsheet] bits).

Give a shout if you want me to do that for you, I don't mind, it is trivially easy once one knows what needs to be done.

Don't worry if you get it wrong, we can fix anything.

Or you can free-form the sheet if you want. There is benefit to having something consistent to ease looking things up, but this sheet is simple enough that you can just write down the numbers and four words and be done. :)
OK. Those can get a bit awkward if the plotting goes too far and then has to be reeled back in to fit the world and the story, so keep it flexible. Also be sure to provide enough up front so the other players can follow the reasoning for your character to be around (even if unseen).
Cool. There are events in motion that will put the other characters at fewer inns and more camping. Apparently it is more intense that way.

I was concerned about the flashbacks getting awkward for other reasons... Still discussing this with QuietPanther.
Har har!

The way I envisioned it was that Lille thought Jordash was the strongest and smartest and bravest ever, but in reality he was not the protagonist type. He was also older, like late 60’s. He warned Lille to stay away from the mist for those reasons and perhaps other not yet known reasons. Even if he thought Lille was the protagonist type, she’s just one person and perhaps he was a little protective.

Then when she found him dying of mysterious reasons, he said she should leave with adventurers because "it’s not safe here" or something similar.

I wasn’t gonna give Lille a tent because she’s more of a sleep-under-the-stars person. But if it’s the only way to get a little action… ;) (I’ve been peeking at the thread to track the group’s location.)

OK. We might not get answers to this 'mysterious reason' for a long time. PbP can be slow to get back to things, if it ever does. Your character can worry about this as much or as little as you like, and we can always bring in answers later, far from here, if we need to or if it becomes relevant.
Not having a tent is a good excuse to need to share a tent?
Most players will read a fair bit, there is nothing in there about the other characters' action that the player should not know. But you also don't need to. Correct us and ask if we assume you know something that you don't.

The only important part for our current setup is that we are leaving the country we know and going to a strange place.

Albert and Roald need to get to Necusle to try find answers to a problem they encountered a while back; Necusle is a mysterious land far far away, and people don't talk about it except in hushed tones; apparently they do all sorts of magic; also, apparently they smell funny... but how can a whole country 'smell bad'?

In order to get there they took a job as delivery men, delivering three mysterious (well, more 'confidential' then 'mysterious', right?) packages to the post office in Necusle.

Daryl, an NPC from their previous adventure before the mist, is joining them; and Theo, Daryl's friend from that previous, came this far to flesh out his university application, and might come the rest of the way. (NPC involvement depends on the who the players want.)


• Have you heard anything about Necusle? What? Do you believe it?

Jordash was likely not from around here. He joined his mentor, a recluse before him, as a late teen or young man. Maybe he was from Necusle? Seems like a good place to run away from, leaving behind some mystery to be discovered decades later. Or not. Otherwise she would not have heard of it.

She might find the mystery of Jordash’s death a little bothersome but mostly just sees death as a natural thing. She didn’t perform an autopsy to determine it wasn’t a heart attack, for example. That way we leave ourselves that option in case we don’t find a good way to work in leads or clues for a while, or at all.

Seems like she probably would not have heard of it anyway. If it was so bad he ran away he probably didn't want to talk about it.

We can always find out later that there is a connection we did not know about.
Let's do it that, then. It is easy to discover and introduce a new mystery at a time when it fits, it is much harder to deal with one that does not fit into the story.

Read "a while" as "about 2 years" :P

Not for the characters, it was only a few weeks for them. :)

Quick roll for starting HP.

Well, I think I’ve got it all. Character sheet hopefully looks ok, all stats are decided, backstory is fleshed out enough for now. I’ll just keep at the starter scene with Ezme and watch the current thread for the right moment to jump in. Let me know if I’ve missed anything!

If you wouldn't mind, could you make your character sheet public? That way we can all see it :)
On the my characters screen, you have to click the note icon so it turns red. (sometimes it doesn't work on the first try)

It also did not work on the first try; I was sure I had it set right. All fixed now.

It's working now! Thanks :)

I'm sad to say though that your HP is not 8, but 5. You only get to keep the highest, hehe.
See the rules here; You have 1 Hit Die (d6) + extra hit dice equal to your CON. Roll all your hit dice and keep a number equal to your level to determine your HP.

Other than that, looking good as far as I can see.

Looks good. Aside from the HP.

You can add a portrait if you have one. Shout if you need help.

HP is fixed, will add a pic later. The flashback scene continues - maybe almost done? Then I will have time to devote to joining the current thread. Please continue with the characters’ morning naps, and Lille will arrive when y’all are conscious. Or later, however it goes.

For our flashback, do we need vagueGM to make us a separate thread to post it? We’re up to about 3 printed pages worth. Not sure what the best format will be.

Sorry to say it, but we are not going to read 3 pages of writing produced outside the game. Character backstories should be a paragraph or two at most.

You can bring any elements from this 'prep' into the story as they become relevant. Mark them as "Previously..." or "In the times Before..." or something that makes it clear the post (or part thereof) is a flashback.