Stranger in a Strange Land (OOC)

Out of character chatter about Stranger in a Strange Land can go here to avoid cluttering up the Roleplay thread.This is for longer questions and answers related to that Roleplay, general rules questions not answered in the Volunteer's Guide thread can go in Volunteer Chat, or here if they are directly related to the RP.

Add a link back to the post in question so we can have context. (After posting you can right-click on the orange header and select 'copy link address' (or whatever your browser calls it), then paste that in your OOC post.)

As I understand it we don't need to do anything until there is a question, right?

Right, unless you want to, of course.

Spawning Circumstance
Per The World and Human Nature in the Volunteer's Guide - A Bestiary we are more on the 'primitive' side, but we have had writing and history for at least four hundred years before now, so we can fudge this.

• The most likely way for me to arrive in a new city seems to be by camel caravan? But did I, instead, come by ship —if such is a thing we have— or even by airship —if we want to push the technology slightly? Or some other means?

The whole place is new to me, and I stand out.

• Does the Monastery of the Order of < insert name here > (not Aibesta) accept me and provide me with accommodation and guidance? (Note that another one of the Spawning Circumstances see me 'at home —a poor dwelling behind a sawyard, which you let for a pittance from the lumberwife—', implying that I don't live at the monastery, but we will deal with that if we decide otherwise.)

• What is the name of the order from whom I am seeking succor?

I have a letter of introduction from the head of my order back home. (It might or might not be legitimate, we can see later.:) Presumably travel is hard (unless we go with having airships?) so such things are difficult to verify or query, and very valuable as a means of identification and proof.

Feel free to add details.

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Any questions?

• How old am I? Roughly. Do you have ideas, preferences?

Do we answer all of your questions here in this thread and then you write out our answers? Or are all of your questions supposed to be answered in a post we make to Stranger in a Strange Land (RP)?

... or some combination of the two?

By the book you are not 'GMs' for a game, so you are not expected to narrate things like my meeting with the mother superior of the monastery/nunnery. The intent is that you just answer the questions and let the player do all the work, as though you were serving the role of an oracle in a solo game.

However, while I am happy to play it that way and don't expect the volunteers to do more, I welcome you to post any answers in in-fiction posts in the RP thread if you want to.

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If you ever want to take on the role of playing any NPCs in any scenes we can do that too.

if you include the bbCode:

[npc=Ranger Jon]https://i.imgur.com/4cBbKAwt.jpg[/npc]

in your post then it will appear to be posted by a character with that name and that portrait.


If you want to do this often it can be useful to add a character sheet to the game with a list of NPCs that you can easily click on to post as.

The sheet would contain code like this:

[npcs="list"]
Ranger Jon   | https://i.imgur.com/4cBbKAwt.jpg
Paladin John | https://gamersplane.com/characters/avatars/17779.jpg
Ranger Sarah | https://gamersplane.com/characters/avatars/17337.jpg
[/npcs]

You could also use such a sheet for any notes you may need to keep, but that is supposed to be my job, you are not supposed to do any work. It is up to you guys though.

I'm mostly interested in the role as an 'oracle'. I don't think that means Kara has to do the same.

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• Transport: I'm thinking of something in the direction of you not standing out because you are the fancy world traveler, but rather that you are the simplistic one. For exampel, you came by camel caravan but everyone is town is like "Why didn't she just use the airship?" (I'm not saying Airships should be a thing, just exaggerating the difference in technology.

Maybe that's something to discuss in the new thread, Kara?

• Accommodation: I think it's fair to say you are given a very basic room or at least a roof over your head of some kind.

• Name: I'm not sure yet

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Is this also a discussion you should weigh in on, vague? Or are we judge, jury and executioner when it comes to answers? Maybe our ideas ruin what you were going for with your character at some point.

That sounds right.
That does not sound much like 'not standing out'. I would think most people come by camel, and sea travel is very rare? Let's ignore the airship idea, I don't know if shifting the technology level will conflict with the book later (I doubt it, but still, let's not rock the boat on the first game:).
I will definitely have some sort of roof over my head. If they don't accept me with open arm, then maybe they put me up in what amounts to 'servants' quarters'? The 'poor dwelling behind a sawyard' spoken of in the book could be from them, or something extra I get for myself?
We could leave that for later, once we have seen them in more detail.
Remember that, outside of the mechanics, I decide what I ask you, so that 'limits your power to ruin ideas'.

As with Oracles in solo play, the player decides when to call on them but also uses them as a guide and can ignore them when they don't fit. But the Oracles in this game are more intelligent than a set of dice (right?) so I would expect them to be more on-point than a random table. :)

I think you misunderstood what I wrote. Now that I read it again, my text could be interpreted that way :D

I meant that you do stand out. But not because of your fancy way of traveling, rather the opposite. You are standing out because you are taking the poor-man's transport choice.

Yes we can get rid of the airship idea :) Perhaps they could have steam power?

It is established that people here think people of my color 'to be servants. Already I have had several men assume I am there to serve' [ref]. So they are unlikely to think it strange that I arrive by 'poor-man's transport'.

Maybe it is the nuns at the monastery/nunery/abbey/ ...(I really must look up which terms to use, or just go with Monast (unless that was a typo:), yes let's go with:) ... Monast are the ones who take umbrage at my humble/lowly arrival?
That is also a bit at odds with the world as described in the Volunteer's Guide:
Again, I don't know if we will discover magics (or technologies) in the Grimoire that do something similar to steam power. Maybe we leave this undecided till we know? Camels seem like a safe bet.

Spoilers

I intend to try to keep the level of 'spoilers' as low as possible as I work through the book, but I can't make any promises (which has always been one of the tricky parts of getting volunteers for this game).

• If either of you want to read ahead and see what the world brings, you are welcome to, but that would preclude you from playing it yourself (as a 'first time experience').

Ah, right. Then scratch that :)
I got carried away by the mention of airships. (no pun intended)

I don't mind spoilers. I'm very good at forgetting things 😅. That's also why I prefer not to be in charge of plot points. I am bound to mess them up in the long run.

Me too. I also even considered making it cyberpunk. I could not recall if the book said anything about it being 'medieval', but then I went and read it again (after three years) and saw that it is a bit explicit about being even before that. :)
No worries. By the rules you are supposed to be able to be fresh volunteers each time I play, and it is my job to provide you with enough detail about what is happening for you to answer the questions without needing for you to know anything.

Since we are probably keeping the same volunteers for a while, and since we have a written record by the very nature of PbP, I will rely on you guys to ask for refreshers whenever you need them but will steer us away from contradictions that don't seem deliberate.
Then you are welcome to read what the whole of the book offers if you think that will help guide your answers. At your own discretion.

Speaking of written record. I think an NPC list with a short description would be very useful. Is this something you want to be in charge of, or do you prefer Kara and I to keep track of the people/locations/... we come up with?

Sure. I tend to be very light on my notes, I always had a good memory, but that is a more and more of a problem with PbP where games can run for years with little happening, and the characters might often want to 'return to a village they left a few days ago', but it is months of real-world time and the memory has gone fuzzy. :) Fortunately we have the written record of the previous visit... if we can find it. :(
Given my habit of just remembering these details (until I don't, and then it is too late:) I am not the best at keeping these notes and summaries. having one person in charge can help with consistency, though.

If you make a note or character sheet, I can edit it and we can share the work. If we want to use a thread with posts everyone can edit we can set up something like the wiki in WoDu.

I can easily make you both GMs in this game, then you can edit any post or sheet. Just say the word.

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Depending on how you want to use this, and if you want to post as NPCs (personally I am not sure it is worth it, it makes posts that involve more than one NPC messy) we can create a shared sheet like the one I mentioned before.

I have linked in one from another game (GM's Round Table) as an example. You should be able to click on it, below the Rolls section below the textarea, and try it out. You can use the '--list--' dropdown or click on a portrait to add the code to post as that character. You can have more than one character in a post, with mixed results.

The wiki idea sounds like it could be useful.
You are in your mid-twenties. You arrived here by camel, and the order welcoming you is called the Order of Benevolence. You are ... respectfully ... received by the Abbess and granted a warm straw bed and place to stay, however you are expected to pay for your own food/drink.

The fair-skinned redhead sister who shows you your room hesitates in the doorway before she leaves. She looks like she wants to say something? But she refrains.

(Is that sort of what you had in mind, @vagueGM?)

Done. You both should be able to create, manage, edit, and delete, any threads and posts in the Grimoire - Wiki subforum. Test it and let me know, if you can't edit each other's posts and such I will look at the Permissions more closely.
Cool. We don't need more detail than that.
With a caravan or by myself? Either answers says something we can work with in interesting ways.
We will see, as we play, if their name is ironic. :)
Interesting hesitation on that. I wonder what it means. :)
Posh. I am used to sleeping on plain stone back home, so this is a luxury I did not expect.
Are all the nuns here expected to do so? Does that mean they have to go out and work for a living? That seems at odds with nunnery, but that may be how they do things here. Maybe they are expected to beg like Buddhists do? 'Humility' is part of the teaching?
Interesting. So are we in a fair-skinned land or is she a standout in a land of olive-skinned people (who may seem 'fair' to me by contrast).
Does this seem like she wants to warn me of something or like she wants to levy an insult in my direction? Just so I can calibrate how I proceed with this plot-point.

Or am I expected to have brought my needed funding from my home Monastery?

We'll get back to you on this soon.

I'm curious how much you would like us as GMs to "lead" you with unasked for plot points and details (like how the girl hesitates in the doorway or how you are ... respectfully... greeted), and how much you just want simple and direct answers to your questions without color or details that might sway you one way or the other.

(I personally feel the impulse to try to guide you toward what I suspect might become interesting story elements, but maybe that's not my job here.... I don't want to overstep!!)

Then do that. Screw the rules! ...

Actually the rules don't say how much color and flavor you should add, it leaves this up to each group and each volunteer. I asked you guys from that group because of the player input you were putting in, so clearly did not want yes-men.

If the additional flavor does not fit we can ignore it, or treat it as a curiosity.

I am not complaining, I would rather have it be good than quick, and it will speed up once we have a sense of the world. These are supposed to be fairly quick questions and answers, so they shouldn't take more than a round of back and forth to get to the answer. I don't want it to become a burden on the volunteers, but the volunteers also need to remain invested in and interested in the game, the world, and the story, and I don't see how that can be true without them contributing part of the flavor.

You traveled with a caravan, but they refused to go into the city for reasons they would not share with you. You spent the last day or so on your own.
Your order was to cover the cost of your stay. However, you are informed that payment did not (yet) arrive. Until payment is made, you are to tend to one of the old and invalid members of the order. This will be your 'payment'.

It's likely that indeed the other nuns here serve the community in the same way.
She does not seem hostile. What was not said is either a warning or piece of advice.

Seems like there is something going on with these. I will need to be careful.
We can leave it at: 'I was supposed to have my own money', whether I was supposed to bring it, or it was supposed to be sent we can leave till later, that way we don't define the existence of contact or means of sending money before we have to. We can worry about these details when we need to know why I don't have the money, for now it is enough to know that I have to make up for that lack. Agreed?
I think I will remove the limitation of 'members of the order'. They are part of it, but also tending to old and invalid outside the order (possibly supposed to be limited to 'members of the flock'?). Agreed?

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I will make a RP post in a while. Thanks.

Agreed. This serves the same purpose.
Same.

We will try to be a bit less specific :) Or at least wait with specifics until the question is asked.

I will tend to treat specifics as examples, they can help clarify what is being said.

I have no problem with that :)

These kind of comments are great! It's nice/helpful to hear your thoughts on our suggestions. (Just a bit of feedback)

Agreed. Though I may, most often, try to put that feedback in the RP. I just don't have time to RP right now, so quick OOC feedback is the next best thing. :)

I fall quickly asleep. [ref]

• Do I wake in time to see to my duties?
• Or do I sleep all the way through payers?
(Separate questions)

@vagueGM, you do wake in time to see to your duties. The older woman you are caring for is named Sister Eutrapelia, and you find her to be something of an eccentric -- stubborn, inflexible, unreasonable, and prone to mumbling seemingly nonsensical and sometimes even blasphemous statements. You think she might be mad, but then... every now and then you catch a little glimmer in her eye, as if she's quietly studying and judging you.

Part of caring for Eutrapelia involves preparing for her a very complicated medicinal drink -- some ingredients you don't even recognize -- and monitoring her consumption of it. Getting her to drink it, however....

Long story short, you arrive late to your evening prayers.

I made my first Move... and rolled a 1, a 1, and a 2. I need to get 4, 5, or 6 to succeed, so that is zero Successes, or a Miss. Yipee!

According to the Move text: 'On a miss, tell your volunteers that you stand there lost in thought until something snaps you out of it, and ask them what.'

But I think we already established 'what', the realisation that I am late for prayers. The question seems to be if I am able to make an approximation of the medicine or if Eutrapelia has to go without?

You tell me.

Skipping over the question if we don't have an answer.

I have Successfully Unveiled Your Wizardous Senses (so no exhaustion costs) and got 1 Success on checking for spies. The question, as established in the RP, is:
• Am I being watched? Followed?

They may be watching me to see how I perform, but they may also be watching both me and Eutrapelia (can we make the names a bit easier to type in the future:) for subversive action. If they are watching, you can answer that, or leave the details of what they are watching for for later.

Not being watched would lead to my trying to get information out of Eutrapelia, which could be frustrating. :)

Don't worry, I think most names will be less difficult than that one. It's fine to simply refer to her as Sister E.

Apologies for the delayed response for the initial question. Another subscription issue on my part has been resolved. We will get back to you with an answer for both soon.

Well, one is answered and we have moved on. This is not a problem, if any questions don't spark joy or lead to interesting answers we can skip them.

I can not do the medicine. We will see if that has any consequences later. :)

None, your keen senses reveal that you are being watched.

yes, I think that will be most interesting....

It took me way longer than it should have to understand what you meant by 'None, ...'. :)

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I am thinking I may need to roll Submit to Circumstance:But I am first to ask you how bad it could be. Really, if it is not going to be that bad (likely the worst is that I can't get away and miss prayers and have to do penance) then I don't roll at all and just let that happen. If I am in real danger of something slipping out while I wrestle with Sister Eutrapelia, then the Move could help me avoid consequences.

Should I roll?

No need to roll at this time.

Hehe, me too. Shall we name the next NPC 'Everyone'? :P

Leaving off for now. [ref]

I will come back to prayers and what comes next when time permits.

Is this something that you read in the forum? It's literally what karaboo was aiming for in our secret chat, but I don't think it was mentioned in this thread.
Great minds... huh? :D

Or just the obvious option, duh? :)

No, I did not see you guys mention it, now I am suspecting there may be more truth to it, and the mind-clouding is not incidental to the medicine. None does not believe it is 'poison' per se.

Is this game on a small break or are you both waiting on me? I'm not sure if I missed something.

It seemed to go on break, I assumed because Vague was waiting on you....

No. It is my fault. I actually opened this game in a tab late Sunday, with the intent of getting back to it, but that tab is still just sitting there, in the background.

One of the reasons I wanted to try this is that I struggle with solo games, and hope having other players in the form the volunteers will help keep me on track. I did not want to post a longer post than the last one, but then, with nothing happening between, there was little to draw me back, I do have an idea of the next step, but taking that step feels weird with nothing between.

Let's try make it work, I am enjoying what we have done so far, but I worry that the rule-book may let us down. I think I want to get to reading more of the book to see how it goes.

One Success on Exert Yourself Subtly [ref] should let me sneak out unnoticed. Unless you decide otherwise I will find myself in the town before dawn and rent that place mentioned in the book as my hovel. Then we will try to Study.

Are you automatically asking one of these questions because of the hit?
If so, I think the top one is most fitting. Or the 3rd perhaps.
Technically, we can't decide anything without there being a question to answer :D

I understand that. Especially when you're unsure of where to take the story next or just not inspired in terms of storyline. I've still got an open Ironsworn solo game that I should continue before I completely forget what it was all about. But it's tough to find the motivation.

Those are example questions, the Move says 'A "chance" is something like: • ... You can invent your own chances.'. I waited until they were 'distracted' by being asleep, so I think it is pretty safe. By the Move I don't ask you those 'chance' questions, I ask you if I need to roll at all, and then use any Successes if you say I do, this time I rolled because it seemed interesting to let the dice decide.

I am asking you if you want to countermand my sneaking out. If so we turn the scene into dealing with that, else we continue with my proposed scene of finding a cheap place to hide and Study (the 'poor dwelling behind a sawyard, which I let for a pittance from the lumberwife' as the book's example of 'my home', but I am far from home, so this meets that need:).

• Do we need to see my finding someone to rent from, or, more likely at this hour, finding an abandoned place to squat, or do we assume that happens and skip to the Studying?

Understood :)

I don't find looking for a place to rent/squat particularly interesting or necessary for the story. So my thought is to skip it. How about you, Kara?

The interesting bit would come when you are discovered as a squatter.

Agreed!