[OOC] General talk

Hi all! Here we can talking about everything out of game fiction. I encourage you to say hi for other's to see and write few words about yourself.

From here - if you are a new player - you should move to character creation Forum - there will be a new thread specially for your PC(s) creation process.

Hi. Avraham here, or Avi for short. Been playing TTRPGs since the late 1980s—exclusively D&D or one of its myriad offshoots. Played BattleTech, but only in CRPG/MMO (anyone remember EA's short-lived Battletech 3025?). In real life I work in a statistics-based STEM feel, so I know my way around a spreadsheet or some basic programming. My PbP style tends to longer posts; I often try to write as if I'm narrating a book. If I ever get on your nerves, please reach out to me and let me know!

Nice to meet everyone! I'm Quilltid and I'm pretty new to TTRPGs as I had never played them before joining here, but really enjoying it! I tend to check GP at least once a day, especially since I am GM'ing the Lego DnD game if you're following that. I tend to do long run-on sentences and use vocabulary from the latest books I'm reading so let me know if you need me to cut back on anything in the posts. Looking forward to checking out this game system with you all!

Howdy, I'm Spinningdice/Spinny from the UK. Been playing since the early 90s and love trying/playing new systems I generally check in at least once a day...

Hello everyone. I've been playing D&D since my high school days in 90s, but really started loving OSR right after the 5e fiascos and pandemic. I'm excited to play Tales of Argosa since I've played Low Fantasy Gaming quite a bit. I will do what I can to check in once per day but it might be difficult on the weekends because of my job. I would love to play ACKS on here sometime too if anyone is willing to DM that (or I suppose I could DM it once I've learned Gamers Plane systems.)

Really happy that we are getting close to begin this game! Thanks all for joining.

Shadowknight it's great you played LFG before! As I didn't and Argosa is quite new itself. So please, share any experience and comments with us about how this game works. And always willing to learn:)

Personally I don't play at weekends( as stated in R thread) so it won't be a problem from game advancement perspective:)

ACKS? What it is, and why it is so interesting to you?

Im also one of those persons that loves to explore new systems(mechanics in general).

Forgot to intro.
Call me gray. GrayWord was my pseudo at high school when I was writing poems (sorry, they are all in Latvian and I'm afraid lost them, was not worth it).

Due very light version of Dyslexia I hate to learn new systems (it is hard for me), but I do seldom. Use this opportunity to help Pedrop and the game to teach me the system without completely understanding the document.

ACKS stands for Adventurer Conqueror King System. The original book was mostly based on 1st edition D&D - one of the first OSR productions kickstarted by a large community. It has expanded a bit beyond the original book now. Supplements like Barbarians of Kanahu, Player's Companion and Heroic Fantasy Handbook (That one's my fave.) have expanded and redrafted many of the rules from Adventurer Conqueror King System. I have the primer on the official campaign setting, but have only skimmed over it for the most part, as I am mostly using the system to play my own game world.

There are quite a few other supplements out there (mostly available through DTRPG) but I mostly love how this game has captured the feeling of Sword & Sorcery (especially with the Heroic Fantasy supplement.) And the game comes with advanced rules on setting up keeps, strongholds, towers, and ruling one's own kingdom should the opportunity arise. There are also some pretty amazing battle and mass combat rules. One of the things the designer was very intent on implementing is a strong economic simulation in the game; so trade goods and other wares can be tracked studiously (supply, demand, etcetera) if that is how you want to play the game. There are even a few classes built around the economic/trading simulation. Trade goods are often found in treasure troves so it can behoove an interested party to take them to where demand is higher in the old scheme of mercantilism: Buy low (high supply/low demand); sell high (high demand/low supply).

The second edition was recently Kickstarted but its supposed to be completely reverse compatible with the other supplements, so we'll see. Fingers crossed. I definitely forked over the big bucks for the leather-bound editions, so something to look forward to at least.

About LFG.

So, I haven't bought the supplement for LFG but there were a lot of things I liked about the core book and some things I didn't like about it. I did like that they took the D&D spells and made them seem different by giving them different titles, so Knock became Sundering Sign and Magic Mouth became Timeless Envoy. One of the things I didn't like is how loose-fitting some of the rules were as though they were designed for GM adjudication rather than specifically administering a logical or rational rule. It felt a little bit too free-form, because of that. I'm happy to see that for the most part ToA seems to be pulling away from that.

Hi all! Thanks again for joining! I must say that I'm quite excited to GM this game, especially considering amounts of material I have chosen to use for it in advance(and will be able to explore with you!). I must admit that I hope to focus on this game mostly, and I don't plan to add any more games as player or GM. So hopping you all will be with me on this journey. Now... lets get back to play, and I think most PC are ready to play or are at 95% completion:)

As I communicated in Recruitment thread - I don't play at weekends. That means from Fri evening (Central Europe time) to Mon morning. So after next few post expect me to answer only at Monday.

BUT... I will leave you with 2 "tasks" that you will be able to do mostly without me:
1. Establish bonds between PCs
2. Write your introductory posts for your PCs - as we start RP thread today! :)

I will write setting up post for this in a moment.

Similar to Pedrop, I am off-line part of the weekends, from Friday evening through Saturday night. There will be some days in October where I will be out a few days in a row, but it shouldn't be more than 2.5 days, so I expect to be able to post at least 3x a week.

@Pedrop, what is your policy on waiting between IC posts? Some DMs have an n-post rule (n commonly being 3) where the same player cannot make an IC post unless n other players (including the DM) post in between. Do you have anything similar?

If anyone is interested there is final version of Tales of Argosa available to buy on DriveThru: link

Of course I don't expect anyone to buy the game, but the publisher is very small and the product is interesting -> worth to support in my opinion:) Disclaimer: My only connection to the authors is that I'm backer of ToA kickstarter:)

---

@Avraham I was going to ask you all about this, as I have different idea for that. I was thinking about something like this:
- waiting about 48h between GM current RP post and next one and then continue with story if the time is up, not waiting for missing players - in normal cures of action (when fiction allows to just assume that absent player's PC is just fallowing). It only counts Mon-Fri. So it should "ensure" game moving forward about 3 times per week. The purpose here is to: have a game moving forward, but give most players time to post. I have been in few game as player, where GM (apparently) tried almost always to wait for all players... and games turned into slog... and most players lost their interest. Of course: if all players posted in shorter time then 48h I would continue earlier:)

- optionally: I was thinking about introducing "meta-currency" I called Presence Points(PP) -> you got 5-10 at the start of a chapter. If you don't post within mentioned 48h (even something like 'OOC: Busy, please continue. My PC is following') you loose 1 PP. If you have 0 or less PP at the end of Chapter you DON'T get 1 XP for being present(and others do). But I don't know if it is too harsh? Of course no minus points if you announced your absence in advance or something like that:)

What you all think about those ideas?

You're the boss :)

Personally, I'm fine with either option. The only benefit of the n-intervening rule is to prevent a case where two on-line characters have a long discussion and someone comes back 24 hours later to 15 posts and a story that diverged quite a bit. That being said, that chaos is part of what makes this fun.

So long as the expectations and guardrails are clearly delineated, I'm good.

I think that discussion between players is not bad - usually - and me waiting for others for 48h will naturally prevent "action" to move further, not waiting for more busy players, so it should also do this aspect of addressing differences between more and less active/busy players.

But - for now: it's only what I was thinking about. Let's see how this game will go naturally, and when I will notice some problems - I will try to address them as they will come up:)

My comment to current situation and post currently in the making:
- What happens with the Object was planned by me, I'm not trying to protect Sadur[was Princess]! :) But I must say dice have generated us a really cinematic situation :D

- quilltid: the object is "rectangular, of size of horse or bigger" - so bedroll wouldn't help! But... I love the image of this in my head! A little, hobbit girl is throwing her bedroll under heavy container to make its fall weaker, while others try to protect the princess or duck away - could be a perfect fantasy art pice!

"WHAT!?! You could never know... maybe there was some good food inside!" ;) ;) ;)

Maybe anyone have some more time to play with AI image generators and try to generate art for current situation? Would be amazing! :))

I have added thread where I have written how I'm planing to use perception rolls. Any feedback is always welcome:)

I'm not sure I understand. Do you encourage us roll perception as often as possible or tell us it will happen passively?

Or maybe you try to say it requires no perception check to spot which of 10 trees are bigger or easier to climb on. A perception check on those 10 trees could nevertheless allow PC to feel something is off about one of the branches, spot a trap or something else. i.e. player only pick an object or direction when rolling a perception never the goal of that roll. If you have a goal in mind - that's an investigation instead.

Ehhh... sorry again. Apparently sometimes I'm in too much of a hurry with my descriptions (busy past and coming weeks me...). What I mainly wanted to say is very well written in Forbidden Lands players handbook:
"DON’T USE SCOUTING TO FIND HIDDEN THINGS"

The SCOUTING skill is not used to find hidden things like secret doors or hidden clues. If you describe how your PC searches the right place, the GM should simply let you discover what you are looking for if it is possible to find.
so for Argosa it would be:
"DON’T USE DETECTION(PER) ROLLS TO FIND HIDDEN THINGS"

The DETECTION(PER) skill is not used to find hidden things like secret doors or hidden clues. If you describe how your PC searches the right place, the GM should simply let you discover what you are looking for if it is possible to find.

and I think it is quite well in line with OSR philosophy (or at least how I understand parts of it): you can't do investigation just by PC rolls, there should be player agency and discovery in it.

So I treat Perception rolls more as "visual intuition" (perceptivity? :) ), not your PC ability to know where to look. And that's what I wanted to state by this, as I think it's not obvious for every system:)

Ah, I generally use Perception to just look around for general things, especially if one is not certain what exactly they are looking for.

So, for example, a Perception check to see if anyone around me is injured, but an Investigation or Apothecary check to examine a known injury.

A Perception check to see if I can find a generic something or other in the area, an Investigation check to determine if a something is ideal for the task at hand.

So, if I understand correctly, we should just verbalize that in text and @Pedrop will roll/let us know to roll if necessary.

so, let's say there is "container" never described in more details than a rectangular thing larger than a horse. And we are in a jungle
- One player don't see DM describing it a slippery surface want to climb up, hoping that his PC would find some irregularities to hold on to
- Another player want his PC to climb a tree to then jump on the top of the container
- Another player wan his PC cooperate with bound PC to use jungle vines to hold container

Question: since DM never described any tree is easy to climb, there are wines to pick or irregularities on the container - should players roll anything to let dice decide, or it will always be DM's decision?

Yes, I agree about the way you see Perception rolls.

But I would prefer to not use "investigation" rolls by player.

I.e. if there is a sheet of paper pasted under the little treasure box:
- you have to write that you are looking there, or simply look at the box from all sides,
- no perception or "investigation" roll will help you finding the sheet if the box was never even raised from the shelf by PC,
- but a Detection (Perception) roll MAY help you i.e. notice that out of all the neatly arranged things on the shelves, a small treasure chest is slightly moved,

Hope that helps and is ok for players?

Apothecary - for me - is a different thing, it requires knowledge and experience, you either know or not how to deal with the current state, usually there is nothing "hidden". And if there would be, you would have to find it by other means, and if you did you would get ADV on Apothecary roll.
Exactly:)
I envision the situation with container as happening really fast in fiction. I hoped it was implied by my description. If not, please tell me I will try to correct it next time. For me it was mere seconds, maybe 3 to 6 while container was rolling from the pterodactyl and falling down, to only hold just above Sadur.

SO... keeping in mind how I have envisioned it, the answers to your questions seem to be easy:
- you have very little time to decide what are you doing,
- if you want to check how the container looks and if its easy to climb - you are more then welcome! :) BUT: it takes precious seconds (round). Probably you will get some +mod or even advantage for climbing next round?
- if you think you want to risk it, and don't use your time for checking container - you can try to climb right away, but you will experience what is like to climb this container... while doing so:) Maybe its easy? Maybe it's smooth metal. You get to know that just as your hands first lay on it, because you choose to act first (and it often is a right, but risky choice). I may use dice to tell us that, or I have established it earlier in my head.
- similarly the same goes about i.e. the trees. You wan to check surrounding trees? Great! Very wise. BUT: it also takes time, and takes your eyes from the container.

This is how I have seen our current situation.

ALL: please tell me if you see anything wrong about this approach, so I can adjust it if I get good arguments:)

Besides: you can always ask me about some additional details, getting some of them won't take in-game time:) I usually answer OOC post much faster, than write RP post (that still take me a lot of time... ).

Quote:

out of the sack

@Pedrop could you elaborate the meaning?
I was trying to say Sadur does nothing, but follow the leadership order to stay away.

Besides as a player I just don't see why would be need to hurry - we are in safety from the container falling on us, are we not? Well I mean except for those who decided to ride it.

@Pedrop, if it is OK with you, when I post in cabin font, that is an indication that I am trying to whisper, or at least taking deliberate steps so as not be heard/noticed outside my immediate are.

I presume you recalled that the dog was lowered in the sack from the pterodactyl?

You could be in hurry about the container (and more so about it's content), because its lifted up by the pterodactyl's crew and will be very hard to reach in 2 rounds, and not available anymore in about 5 rounds - IF it will not fall by itself. What I have written in my previous RP post. But of course you are welcome to not care about it even a bit:) But for those that do, there are reasons to be in hurry :)
To be honest - due that this font is bigger than normal one - I didn't get it is whisper :) But from now on - I will try to remember that. No problem for me:)

Does container move upwards only or there is a risk that it will move beyond the clearing and fall outside of it?


Also - what's on the edge of the clearing? Is it dense jungle or stone towers ?

Without you intentionally trying to swing it -> yes, it mainly goes up only. Just wobbling a little to the sides. Also it is - now - near border of the clearing, so quite close to the trees at that border.

Are we able to give a help action to someone else to help them reroll?

You can use your action for helping someone - if that makes sense in fiction. That would usually provide the person you are helping with advantage on her or his roll, or at least some positive mod.

Re-rolls are just this: rerolls. If your PC is skilled (or sometimes have proper background) in what s/he is doing, s/he can use ONE of their Rerolls and roll the same dice as before - again. If among the dice was advantage or disadvantage or mod - should be established before first roll.

If you are asking about Shallan's roll - yes, she can reroll it using ONE of her Rerolls as she is skilled in Traps & Locks.

I will comment current situation in RP thread in a moment.

@Shadowknight Forgive me for being pedantic, but this is your first spell, so your DDM counter should be at 1, so on a 3 nothing happens, right @Pedrop? Just that his counter now becomes 2. The actual effect requires a d100 roll. Also, IIRC, Pedrop said we are using the less Lovecraftian "perilous magic" tables for DDM.

Yes, Avraham you are right:) Thanks for helping with that.

Kimbek on lvl 1 - every time he cast a spell, whether successful or not - rolls d8 and compares it with his current DDM counter. If roll result is equal or less than current DDM you trigger additional (usually not so good) effect from the table, BUT your DDM resets to 1. If the roll result is higher then DDM counter - nothing besides your spell effects happens, but DDM rises by 1.

Yes, we are using Perilous Magic table. I will link the table in resource forum in a moment.

So in our current case: there is no DDM effect now for Kimbek as he rolled 3 (not 1). But set your DDM on the sheet to 2, please.

Plus: as you said you spend this round to focus, I will resolve the spell in-ficition next round.

@spinningdice
In fact as human you have 2 rerolls, please note usage of one of your Rerolls on your sheet -> now you have 1 left. But it seams it was worth it, as that was a success! :)

No, you're right. I had misread that paragraph under the DDM check dice type. Thank you for the clarification.

We still have Kimbek's "left behind" spell that is about to resolve. As you @Shadowknight head GS with it, I will let you have some fun now:)
You control the chain that is still attached on the other side to the flying pterodactyl. You can narrate freely what mess it is now making now onboard aircraft and to its crew! But have to make a choice first:
1. The chain can throw off some useful but insignificant item (ONE) from the deck down for you all.
2. You can roll for Luck+1 [due to Belladona presence, I have noted it on your sheet] (Int) - to check if the item(1) will be somehow more useful/powerful. BUT you have to remember that with a success here your current Luck will go 1 point down.

In both cases: Please propose something in OOC thread for my acceptance. For now you can narrate that "something has fallen" and the party will find it very soon.

Aditional rules: the chain can't throw off anyone from the crew or be so strong that it will destroy the aircraft or something like that. Be reasonable with this, please:)

I almost forgot: thanks to Sadur's shouting you and your chains have some guy leaning from the deck's edge. You can use him somehow:)

@Pedrop Absolutely; that was clearly a monk-based moved. As I took the "pick skills and abilities" route, I am happy to retro-fit my character and take Heaven's Leap instead of Fork the River, with your approval.

I see you didn't choose the better option, so I think it would be:
- for a weapon: Blackjack - a special weapon/tool that I just invented for this game, with fallowing futures:
"Make a Luck(Dex) roll to sneak upon your enemy (if situation allows it). +1 mod if you have Stealth skill. On a success roll d100, with results: 1-25 Enemy falls unconscious for 2d6 minutes(Helpless condition); 26-50 Enemy is Stunned; 51-100 Enemy is enraged and gets +2 bonus on next attack, damage rolls, and Luck rolls against you. He also reroll any fumbled attacks. You can't make a normal attack with it." - so should be risky, but sometimes take out the enemy in one hit. If anyone of you ever played Thief computer game, should know what I mean:)

- tool: I don't think anyone of you have Rope. And having a rope is not bad thing:)

- third option: will be rolled in a moment. Ok, the result is: Crowbar.

Tell me Shadowknight what are you choosing?

Oh... and one more thing: your Longsword and other weapons of other players from their sheets -> you all will get very soon.

No problem with me. But let's treat it as fixed for the foreseeable future:)

Have any of you read the (IMO) masterful quadrology collaboration between David Weber and John Ringo, the Empire of Man/Prince Roger series? It is one of the best examples of the combination of survival and coming of age myths I have read. It is set in a hard science fiction setting, but I am seeing a number of parallels already between that story and this adventure. Well, simply, we have a rebellion, an heir marooned (although not precisely left for dead) who is untrained in leadership, a small cadre of experts, a massive jungle to survive, and perhaps eventually uncover how to return to the capital and bring the rebels to justice. Interesting…

@Shadowknight so what is your choice from those 3?

Unfortunately I haven't read this book:( But I'm instantly putting it on my never-ending list to read:) I think this subject of exiled royals is quite common in stories - and no wonder it provides a lot opportunities for many interesting plot twist and iteration of characters (taken out of their natural environment) with the world.

I think my main, but quite unconscious - now when I think about it - inspiration for this game concept, was from Fire Emblem games' stories, Avatar the last Airbender cartoon, The Mysterious Cities of Gold and Thorgal comics (although he is not royal per se:) ).

On the other note: I have backed Pirate Borg newest kickstarter yesterday. There are very interesting Naval Combat rules in this system - I hope you will want to try them - when the occasion will come:) I must say I'm pretty excited and hope we will see some pirate themes in the right moment of our story:) At least there will be opportunities for PC to go this way:)

Another thing: you all think we could make this game public? My main purpose for this would be to promote this system and allow some people to read along and join if someone will ever decide to drop from this game?

To be clear:
- it was only about "global decisions" - like if the group (if they decided not to split) stays or goes for the night. Or if they will go left or right in dungeons.
- I would never expect players making "specific" decisions about other player's PCs.
- this remark was a remainder that I was thinking about solving the problem in this way, but I don't intend to take such measures too soon, or maybe not at all.

"The problem" I'm referring to here is that:
- at the table or at online video cal you can have a quick exchange of ideas and deciding where to go next in such a way that no-one feels left out from the decision process is easy,
- in PbP format, such discussion can take literal weeks.

SO: I hope you will be able to make decisions fast as a group, if not I will try to make polls or wanted you to know that I think about different measures too.

I have seen quite a few games here on GP, that stopped because there was lack of decision about next direction:(

I'm fine with public. Also fine if you want to experiment with different ways to keep the story moving.

I’m also fine with public.

As for decision making, in general, my policy is to roll with the punches. If someone does something else first, I do my best to work it into the roleplay. I’m fine with letting things pan out but allowing the DM the authority to "move the story along" as needed. It’s the DMs world in which we are playing, after all.


I hope to get an IC response in later tonight. Thanks.

Kinda disappointed that link didn't lead to this.

I'm fine with public - and I'm happy to do whatever it takes to keep moving...

Ah, that was a classic. One thing I never understood is why the Condor (or whatever the golden bird airplane thing was called) had seats that were sized for children.

And yes, I'm for anything that keeps the game moving too. I once ran a Pathfinder game with 5 or 6 players, where I gave them a puzzle to figure out; It wasn't even in the adventure proper, but a test of intelligence for the organization they were joining. They were stumped by the puzzle for a few weeks and the game stalled out.

Ah, that was a classic. One thing I never understood is why the Condor (or whatever the golden bird airplane thing was called) had seats that were sized for children.

And yes, I'm for anything that keeps the game moving too. I once ran a Pathfinder game with 5 or 6 players, where I gave them a puzzle to figure out; It wasn't even in the adventure proper, but a test of intelligence for the organization they were joining. They were stumped by the puzzle for a few weeks and the game stalled out. Somehow I completely missed this. But whatever you rolled is fine. A rope would have been an easy thing to reach for. (Not sure if any of it would have been on the pterodactyl helicopter though.) A crowbar, though, that's a bit more realistic. Especially if they were carrying that large wooden container. If it's solid iron it could be used as a weapon too.

public 👍

1. @Avraham Yes, you have healers kit on you:) Apparently the Captors thought it was some kind of tea leaves. Maybe Barth is good at concealing things ? :)

To all: to make things easier for now - currently you have all of your equipment which you were entitled to because of PC creation process with exception of weapons. Only Barth has his monk's staff and Shallan has her BPW. But I don't think you should be removing your weapons from your sheet - as you got them by part of your PC creation - you will have the opportunity to get them back soon. No need to remove and add them very soon in my opinion:)

After we will reach the specific phase in our game (I will specifically inform you about it) we will get back to "you only have on your PC what you have written in your PC's sheet" rule:)

2. Apparently you are right: 5 torches take one slot :) And you can get as much as you want, but each 5 = one slot.

Everyone: please note them on your sheet if you take more touches.

Ok, as none opposed. Making the game public. Thanks!

Oh my gosh! I forgot how epic this intro was! :D I have watched it like 3 times after reading your post initially:) As a child this cartoon was soooo amazingly mysterious and imagination inducting. I also loved the documentary pieces at the beginning of each episode:)
Hehe! Nice catch! I'm still not sure if the condor was made by people or those alien-like people/creatures? Those aliens were a little smaller than average humans?
So we go with crowbar. @Shadowknight please not it on your sheet. You can fill it to your sheet as weapon with a stats of a club if you want.

And now... the main question I have in my mind is: are your PCs the children of the Sun?

;) ;) ;)

I liked Reign, or whatever it was called (Alexander the Great as a Russian Anime?)

As this is PbP I wouldn't say it's bad thing what you did! The PbP is naturally asynchronous and I always try to put resolution of your posts in proper(logical to me at least :) ) order. For someone posting a little earlier - something that will happen a little later - can keep a game going, so usually not a bad thing. So no need to wait "for proper point in time in relation to other PC" to post your actions:)

Ulysses 31 was also amazing, but I think in my country it was only available on VHS... so I have seen only like 5 episodes in total.

@GreyWord
No. No such person/player yet. My preference for now are:
1. resolve it in character,
2. resolve it with OOC posts/parts,

For this to work - I think - some players should be pro-active and take some roles or state opinions not waiting for all other players confirmations. BUT if anyone would disagree with their statements/propositions the rest have to always feel obligated to say that.

If above would take too long, I will try to "make it faster manually" - trying to figure out from your recent posts what the majority wants or I will make some poll.

In case: it won't be working too (or also will be too slow), we will try to "designate the Decisive Player in a rotational manner" - idea from earlier.

I think I touched this already, but don't believe I can find and answer. So asking this:
Are our PCs even aware of the stone towers and other remnants of civilization ? Or was it just a meta info for players?

I will be unavailable between Wednesday afternoon, October 2, and Saturday Night October 5. @Pedrop, if necessary to move the story along, please play my character as best you think I would. Thank you.

I think, soon I will conjure an abstract map for you - so you can see how your journey looks from birds view. If you will ever encounter any other civilized person around those parts - probably someone of them will have a map of area you are in.

BUT the kingdom is far away, aircraft used by your captors (available in kingdom, but still very rare, and to your knowledge only there) is much faster then even fastest water ship, not to mention overland travel... so even knowing which direction to go - your PC only has approximate sense of its direction - you will have to be well prepared for your journey. Or find something as fast as flying mechanical pterodactyl...

Besides... wouldn't be wise to amass some bigger forces or stronger means before returning to the castle? :)

All of this could come to your PCs minds, from their knowledge about the world... but what they will do - we will see by your choices:)

So far more like meta, flavor descriptions for the area you are in. But the have some merit -> your PC will have chance to encounter such stone structures either by chance of die roll or looking in proper places. And by "looking in" I mean taking a decisions that will lead them to such things. It DOESN'T mean you should describe your PC is looking into every bushes encountered on their way in case they will found such things - unfortunately it wouldn't be fun in PbP format in my opinion.

Thanks for heads up! I will use Barth only as last resort, but he will be reasonable as always... :)

"Making such rope would take about 1h "

I never wanted to suggest my PC would try to craft anything here, sorry. Looks like I misunderstand the environment.

To avoid the mistake, can you please give us at least rough length of the bridge we see and the depth of the gore ? Are we talking of a few hundreds a thousand or many thousand feet?

Perhaps you could also explain what would "go down the ravine" mean? My assumption was that it would involve some dangers and my PC with a good Str score would make it easy, while other PCs have a greater change to fall while trying to climb up.
Perhaps I'm also wrong there and there is no risk, only a time wasted because "ravine" rather this

not that

How safe would it be for the group to stay the evening by the bridge?

You could use lianas as short ropes, but they would be like 10ft(3m) max long and can brake, especially under heavier wight. That's why - if your PC would want to have useful rope to make your idea possible, I proposed you making a bigger rope by connecting many lianas together. Only stating how long it would take.

I was afraid that someone would ask me about exact numbers ... ;) But let's go with this, but please remember that my aim here is more to gamify this, rather telling you values carved in stone.

The rope bridge is quite long: like 130ft(40m) so in game terms it will be Very Far and requiring 7 Moves to cross(i.e. 3 double move rounds + 1 normal turn - doing something else besides moving).

The slopes of the ravine are quite symmetrical and measure about 360 feet(110m) from the edge to the bottom on both sides - or at least that's what you think they are.

As I have written in my last RP post's second paragraph -> if you will take a proper time to traverse them they shouldn't be too dangerous. They are rough terrain, steep, but mostly it takes time. They would only be dangerous if you would be in hurry: trying to run down the slope or climb up not paying attention to hard surfaces.

So mostly like sharp triangle (like latter V), not like square - if we are talking about its cross-section.
I presume you mean 'night' ? I would say 1-in-6 chances for travel event during the night here, assuming that you will manage to do a proper camp(no TF).

Thanks for clarity. Lianas that are few times shorted than a tree were totally unexpected by my, that's why my confusion came. No more lianas from me 😉

Probably you are right! I'm not expert in lianas! Just checked and asked AI and it says: "On average, lianas can grow to lengths between 30 to 60 meters (100 to 200 feet), with some species capable of reaching even greater lengths under ideal tropical rainforest conditions"

So... my error or... maybe the lianas that you saw so far are those of shorter species? ;) Either way your PCs can spend around 20 minutes to look for lianas as long as 30+d30 meters, but they are not as sturdy as regular ropes (I checked that too) so there will be 2-in-6 chances for it to brake in case of higher load (only 1 roll for the scene).

About the numbers and time - as Grey expressed doubts about them - I took them from OSE SRD and Movument rates section. They go as fallows:

Movement Rate
The speed at which the character can move when exploring, travelling, or during combat. Every character has a base movement rate and an encounter movement rate (noted in parentheses). The encounter movement rate is one third of the base movement rate. The default movement rate for characters is 120’ (40’)—a base movement rate of 120’ and an encounter movement rate of 40’.

Overland: The number of miles a character can travel in a day in the wilderness is determined by dividing their base movement rate by five.
Exploration: When exploring unknown areas of a dungeon, characters can move their base movement rate in feet per turn (10 minutes)

So walking down the slop is taken as Exploration by me - it would be 120ft * 6 / h (6*10m) -> 720ft/h. And as it is "rough and steep terrain", where you have to go around, under or above some heavy vegetation including big trees, I figured your PCs would be going at least at half of this speed -> 360ft/h. It's not European forest, but really dense jungle. So... those numbers feels "not that bad" to me. But as always any feedback is welcome.

Do you feel - @GreyWord especially - that OSE is doing it wrong? How it would go in 5E?

Keeping all that in mind: you can always try to go much faster then that i.e. running down from the slope. But as I described: you will risk some damage than and we will roll to see if you can avoid such injuries.

I have been trying to describe what feels mostly reasonable for your PCs, but that shouldn't make you resign from taking some more risky approaches if that's what you like. But there will be consequences for risky behavior, but mostly after bad roll that I will require in such situations:)

I wanted to describe you that the main choice is:
1. You take faster, but riskier way: rope bride,
2. If you take much more time, the risk is much lower or almost non existent: you go down and then up the ravine.

But this is RPG - the game of imagination, NOT a computer game and you can always try to do something else! But... if it will be risky, there will be a roll and it's consequences... :)

My mistake - I should have asked if Sadur estimate he can make it much faster than in 2 hours if alone. But since taking very long rope with me is not an option question is irrelevant regardless.

Probably my descriptions were too "leading", too. Next time I'll try to use fewer words.

Hmmm... not yet:)
Hehe... with this group of players - it seams - I have to check everything 3 times! :) And that was a compliment:)

Thanks for this interesting info - I'm always interested to learn something about real world while playing. I will try to act upon it.

Fortunately - what I have established about the condor - works with this info, as you may be able to discover:)

Hello. I will be out for a couple more sets of 2.5 days and then I should be good for a while. I will be offline from the afternoon of Wednesday October 16 to Saturday night October 19 and once again a week later from Wednesday afternoon October 23 until Saturday night October 26. If necessary, during that time I trust @Pedrop to run Bartholomew as an NPC to keep the story going. Thank you.

Thanks a lot for heads up! I will do as asked:)

BTW: I have posted my crude try of making a map for you in parallel thread. I hope it doesn't break/kill your immersion too much... :) Any feedback welcome - as always.

as I've mentioned earlier i have light version of dyslexia, please bear with me. It has been a lot of text to read lately and it just keep jumping off of my brain. Could you tell me in simple words what just happened? Does condor carry Bartholomew or did he die? I'm reading "Was the price they had to pay " again and again and it sound like monk is dead is he?

No problem at all Grey! I'm probably guilty of making it more confusing than it should be...

For now he is Missing in Action from the rest of PC perspective. I tried to make it look/read like a literary/movie trick - like when one of the characters disappears from the screen and most of the viewers think he's dead or gone forever. Whether that's the case - remains to be seen. But from your PC's perspective, all of this should be perceived as the loss of a friend. Without any indication if he will ever could be returned back.

The way I see it, I am currently the president and founding member of the "Island Jungle Condor Hang Gliding" Club, enjoying its maiden voyage in a mix of terror and exhilaration. May not be good for my 61 year old heart, though…😁😁

Recently I ended a first book of set of stories about "Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser" from Fritz Leiber - for the first time ever...

And now I can't resist, but start to imagine Sadur and Kimbek as similar characters to them... :) Especially now, when Kimbek joined Sadur on this little "side trek":)

Fafhrd is a barbarian from very cold norths (but human) and Gray Mouser is "magican-rouge hybrid". And they are best friends for life:)

I read most of the series in the 1980s. Definitely impression-forming!

Yeah... I was very impressed how... from one side: those stories are written in simple language, there is always something interesting happening, non-stop action, but from other: how interesting those stories were, how characters and world were build "without effort" and how ideas were interesting. Although many things from there become "classic" later - I presume, probably they felt even more original when they came out for the first time, back in the day:)

@GreyWord : Sadur had initially Will at 9 ? Or is it after Crest Mind Bug effect on him of -3 to it?

If 2nd is true: Wouldn't it be better to note it in "Situation Mod" column - so we will not forget about it?

Yes it is. Fixed. Was missing there is a nice "Situation Mod" column

@Pedrop, I just want to say I appreciate the surprises you keep throwing my way. Either you have this ridiculously planned out, or you're d@rned good at improvisation. Thank you!

I will be out of town for American thanksgiving until next week sometime.

Happy Thanksgiving!

I will be traveling out of the country next week, and for the following five weeks will be +2 UTC instead of -5 UTC. I should be able to post as usual, although the time may be different :)

Thanks! It means a lot to me, that my efforts are visible. :) What I like the most about RPG - I realized it recently - is "the exploration" aspect. Discovering new things, persons, situations and locations. I especially love the feeling that discovering ancient technology/artifacts provide... even when we are only able to do that, togheter with heroes of our favorite stories: Mysterious City of Gold, Indiana Johns, Star Gate, Tomb Raider some stories about Atlantis and Incas/Aztecs. So I try to provide those to my players:)

When we started I had only planed that you should be thrown out of the mechanical pterodactyl, have there some complications, struggle through the jungle and arrive at the place Belladona currently is: the camp. I try only to plan the "main points"/locations, and the "overarching plot" about characters, factions and what they are trying to achieve. So yes: I like improvisation a lot... :) It allows me to discover the world with you and makes thing much more interesting:) Thats also why I try to encourage you all with some world building input:)

I think it (unfortunately) requires somehow to operate in this "point crawl" predicate - if you want me to have an interesting overarching story for you. But so far I think it worked good for us? And I hope you didn't feel too constrained?

Fortunately in PbP format I'm able to keep it all sane and with some sense, I'm not sure that I'm as good at the real table. But my children still want to play with me from time to time, so probably it is not that bad;)

So: I'm really happy that at least, some of you like this style! :)
Happy Thanksgiving to all that celebrate! :)
Safe journeys! I'm at UTC +1, so no problem for me:)

Hi, I wanted to discuss/communicate few things.
1. I'm aware that you all may feel that the game slowed down in recent days... and thats true, as I was flooded with work IRL. I think it will get a little faster after Christmas, but not very much. Hope you will stick with me as I have prepared quite a few surprises in the camp Bella is investigating. Besides - I hope - this game will stay as my main and long going game, and get faster with passing time, as I have decided not to add any new game until my number of games will drop under 2. So with each other game that will end: I hope to have more time for this one:)

2. We have some time discrepancy between Belladona's group and Sadur+Kimbek. Sadur and Kimbek seams to being near the end of their "side track" so I hope those two threads will rejoin soon. But... Bella is at Afternoon 3:10 pm time, and Sadur+Kimbek will be at least at 5pm when they will manage to get to the camp. As I wouldn't like to leave all things in the camp to be discovered by Bella and have something for the boys when they get there...

I was thinking that we can hand-wave it that the planing with Shallan in the bushes and waiting to see if there is someone in the camp took much more time, so Kimbek and Sadur will get to the camp not long after Bella started to explore it? So we will make some "fast forward" with Bellas time, so she could synchronize with Sadur and Kimbek. Is that ok? Any other ideas to handle it better?

Barth has his own interesting things to explore, so I think he will be able to join the rest of the group "naturally" with his own passage of time.

3. I must say I have a lot of fun giving each of your PC more spotlight and exploring this 3 branches of current events/environments with you together. But the true is that currently it's for my like GMing 3 separated games... as I prepare/invent things for you on the spot constantly (having the overarching narrative and aims in mind)... and as I said above... currently I have a lot of work IRL. So... as hard is it to say for me, as I would like to always focus on good story the most... I would like to ask you, to try to not split up too soon in the future... unless it will be absolutely necessary for the story. It "pains" me how un-thematic it may sound, but the practicality of GMing this game unfortunately have to be on priority right now... :/

Saying that I prefer/want to Barth thread to rejoin the main one also naturally for now, so my ask is for the future. Ok?

Just a note: I really believed it is "be absolutely necessary" to get dinosaur to the other side of the gore. Besides I never imagined the decision will split us for 2 months worth of playing. I'm terribly sorry for the consequences it caused.
I promise to tag along the party in future.

Thanks for letting us know how things are going and how excited you are to keep this game going! Sounds good to stick together in the future. I don't mind waiting to post until Belladonna's stalwart companions arrive with Pepper so you can focus on just two story lines for now. You can also fast-forward the time on that thread so the times match up better as honestly I didn't really know what time it was for them anyway.

No, the blame is on me:) I think I completely consciously ran it as "3 parallel games". But didn't predict that I will be biting off more than I can chew. Besides not moving animals through the bridge was quite logical and thematic decision.
Splitting up can be good/logical for story in the future, but putting it the most concise way I'm able to ( :) ) : the more splitting you will do as a group, the slower game will be for everyone - at least with my current and near future, limited time resources. But is not bad per se.

@quilltid please continue with Bella's actions, don't wait. Sadur and Kimbek are very close right now, and she will meet them very soon. As I still have quite few things for you all to discover in the camp... :)

OK: I will adjust the time as soon the two threads will join - and inform you all about it.

Poor Bartholomew is going to expire of old age before he sees the princess again 😝😝😝😝

Hi, sorry for delays on my side... :( I have a little epidemic in my house, with some nasty virus, still lurking from previous week :( My youngest one is currently in hospital, but everything should end good. Realistically I will be able to post the soonest on Friday... But will try earlier.

Ohmigoodness, focus on your family and health first! Holidays are coming up too so take it easy and hope everyone feels better soon!

Absolutely. This is only a game. Thank you for letting us know, but please take all the time you need.