[OOC] General Talk and Discussions

Feel free to introduce yourself in the forum here, or let us know if you are on vacation or anything like that.

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! I work from home so I am usually available, but I am offline from Friday evening to Saturday nights, and occasionally can be off for 48 hours at a time. I will post if I will have to miss a complete game.

Misc Rolls

I've posted some rules to guide player behavior on the board. Please take a look and see if I need to add anything.

Hi guys

I'm on my mobile, "watching" my kids train Jujitsu. Not the best format to work on my character, flipping back and forth from the PDF, so I thought to introduce myself.

I know I put some amount of autobiographical thoughts and influences into my writing, and I imagine there will be traces of something personal to each of you hidden amongst your posts. I am honored to share with you all through this game.

I have two kids, 12 and 8. While they train Jujitsu, soccer, and piano, I train my Dad jokes. By day I am a software engineer. By night... I am also a software engineer since I work too much.


I have been playing video and board games since I was a kid. My brother and I discovered an old Risk game buried in my grandma's closet one day when we were like 8. That thing must have been the first edition it was so old! That got us started, but I think I really got into gaming a couple years later when I discovered a game, Conquest of the Empire, at a thrift shop. My first real war game! Not long after that I discovered AD&D when I was in highschool. My friends and I then started playing that and all manner of old school RPGs (not old school at the time. Very new at the time actually!)


I think it has been a year or two since I last played on GP. I love it here. The asynchronous posting really lets me keep gaming while family and work eat up hours of my day. The best RPG campaign I have ever played was here on GP. I even made backup copies of my character and some of the best scenes in case GP goes down one day. I can't wait to make this campaign a fantastic memory as well!


I love gritty realism, dark themes, and unforgiving challenges. Iron Man mode baby. This is what I am here for!

Let's GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOooooooooooooooopoooooooopo! ::cough cough: (whew, I ran out of breath there.)

Brief Intro for me on gaming background:

I played D&D from the box sets, AD&D 1e and 2e as a youth. In SECRET back then. Definitely did not want the population to know about the nerdishness back in the day. The only diversion I had outside of D&D was a short but memorable run on Cyberpunk 2020. Pretty cool game, too.
Then was away from RPGaming for about 15 years. Returned later to learn 3.5 through Pathfinder, then 5e.
I picked up ACKS I think in 2022. I like the concept of OSR in general, and ACKS specifically I think is a great program. I do like the Auran setting as well.

Probably 99+% of my time gaming has been as DM. In truth it shakes out that I have very limited experience as a Player - have never been able to land in a game in which the DM doesn't fizzle out and the program folds up.

I've done mostly IRL games overall, but intermittently have done long stints here on GP, though under my separate DM alter avatar. I've really enjoyed some long-running games with great players. It has also been pretty funny on the OOC boards with friends. I think PBP is such an interesting newer branch of the old Tradition of gaming.

Last project here on GP was a limited time run on ACKS first level PCs last year. I thoroughly enjoyed it. A great line up of players. The system seemed to function well - streamlined, simple, nostalgic retro, generated some very fluid combat scenes - creepy and nerve-wracking - and allowed for good depth on RP without bogging down with excessive rabbit trail RNG rolls factoring in at every turn. Thumbs up to ACKS.

Overall, I prefer low-magic, gritty, sword and sorcery type games the best. The more Robert E. Howard style the better imo. That's why I was excited to see the recruitment post for this game. So, again - I want to give another round of applause to DM SHADOWKNIGHT!! Great start on this show already.
Plus this Players' Club looks very interesting and capable. A variety of good PC concepts and styles on the line-up. I bet there are some retro rad scenes coming up soon.

GM and fellow Players,

I am going to be on travel for the weekend and limited on comms beginning Saturday morning.

I should be able to get on the boards for at least short posting on Sunday night if needed, and stabilized again on Monday evening after work.

Have a good weekend.

@shadowknight I have completed my background story and character sheet. My starting income roll left him pretty poor!

I noticed that, as you are playing a noble class, I'll allow you to use a Fate point to reroll your starting income if you wish? Also, at first glance I did not see what talisman you had, so don't forget to add that.

Jomsviking, Rafn should have a base Reflex of +2 because he has access to some Thief abilities, I went ahead and modified your sheet to reflect this. It looks like you might need to finish equipping your character too. (Unless I'm missing something). Rafn's equipment seems to be a direct copy of Aengus'. We have some time if you're still editing it, just wanted to check in.

I've updated the coinage, I had made some terrible maths late at night. He's still poor by his standards, but I think it's a great RP point. Addressed and noted in my first RP post, so it's cannon now, can't change it!

Also updated character sheet to have corruption and stigma. In my background, I describe casting the black magic spell once, so I've given him 2 corruption to start.
Good catch! I've added it to his inventory and put a description for it under the proficiency.

Oh wow I completely forgot.

I guess I should introduce myself too.

I've been playing board games and rpgs since the mid 1990s at least. Possibly even the early 1990s. I think my first major experience was playing Heroquest with my father and brother. We got addicted to that game (or at least I did). When we moved to a different state, we lost most of the pieces to it. I did purchase another boxed set with my allowance money. And DragonStrike, and Key to the Kingdom, and anything else I could get a hold of that had a remotely fantasy flare. And of course I did play quite a few computer and console games. One of my favorites was a Sega Genesis game: Sorcerer's Kingdom. Blockbuster was a huge thing for my family and I when we were younger. There was a Blockbuster in a strip mall right next to a Little Caesar's, so we'd always spend our weekends by getting a few movies, maybe a game, something for the parents to watch, and then stop at Little Caesar's for their Crazy Eights deal: 2 Pizzas, 2 Toppings each, an order of crazy bread and a 2 liter for $8.88. That was back before our last move though. I remember spending allowance money to get the AD&D Second Edition rulebooks and monstrous manual. Sometime between 95 and 97.

Since then, I've enjoyed 3rd edition immensely, played Pathfinder quite a bit when we stopped playing 3rd edition. I did a play-by-post for a 4th edition adventure but never really cared for it that much, and enjoyed the renaissance of 5th edition. I also tried Warhammer Fantasy and other rpgs: Shadow of the Demon Lord is a pretty good one too. It can be quite thematic if you limit the options a little. But shortly after getting into 5th edition, I swiftly fell in love with third party rpgs. One of my favorites is "By This Axe I Hack", but "Black Sword Hack" is kind of cool also. I was on a mission to find a system that could capture the Sword & Sorcery feeling from my favorite films. And I unfortunately never really found one. The ones I like best are very close to capturing that feeling. I've tried every Conan RPG I could find. Modiphius didn't get it. At least I don't think it did based on the first book, and the 2d20 system is a bit confusing for me. (Even after watching several tutorial videos I think its an overly complicated mechanic). "Adventurer Conqueror King System" (ACKS) is possibly the closest published game for capturing Sword & Sorcery, but even the basic rules don't make magic feel rare or dangerous.

So I began working on a system of my own. Borrowing from some games that I enjoyed immensely, retheming, and playtesting over and over again. I am surprised by how much I am enjoying the new game (not published anywhere yet) I call "Savages and Sorcery". It definitely captures the Conan-esque feeling that I was searching for while also feeling like an alien world with dangers galore. And I could totally see something like this: taking place in it. I'm not entirely certain it can be played over a play-by-post, as it uses special dice for combat and channeling mana, but as a tabletop experience it is interesting and surprisingly fun and challenging.

That's about it for me. But if you know a game system that captures the feeling of that video, definitely let me know about it.

Interesting pathway through gaming. Thanks for sharing.

That video is a good one. I'm going to bookmark that and share with some of my IRL old-head gamer bros when I shift the team to a new ACKS campaign early next year.
I dig the sword and sorcery motif to the max. Despite that, I seem to keep getting pulled into High Fantasy / High Normalized Magic settings that the rest of the crowd seems to prefer. lol.
Example: I decided to revive a live game with a group of players, after around 7 years of dormancy. I gave 4 options of settings, 3 of which would be restarts of old campaign lines. They chose to revive an old Drow Elf campaign, set in Forgotten Realms and the ultra-mass-marketed Menzoberranzan. Non-humans everywhere. Everyday/everywhere no-cost magic. I decided to do it in 5e too, which I have wanted to get away from for a while. But I felt it was the easiest system for rusty gamers to return with, especially if we would possibly be limited on longevity of the campaign.
No doubt it has been fun, and I've been able to pull in another group of players who had also played that setting in the past. So, in the end I'm really happy with the good times revival and the reunion. But I laugh a bit because there I am managing another round of dark elf cheezers throwing Fireball and Mirror Image and rocking the Elfin Chain Shirt - BANG!! Haha.
I have to get over to DM ShadowKnight's Arena to watch some Sword and Sandals video and get a chance to guest-write some retro pulp entries.

Woah, what is this game? Looks rad, but I get nothing when googling.

I have always modded my games to be more gritty and low magic. ACKS fits that the closest of any system I have tried. Something about making the magic and other races rare in game just adds to the immersion for me.

I was big into hero quest for a while as a kid as well. Those minis still look amazing. I keep almost picking up a new boxed set to play with my kids, but just haven't made the jump. You may have inadvertently pushed me...

@Avraham

6'8" is giant. Big as Halfthor "The Mountain" Bjornsen

Technically 5'9" is giant being taller than 99% of all humans.

Yes, but UNTIL you called him a giant twice, in my mind, he was 5'8" 🤣🤣

That's a game I've been working on since the pandemic. Still in playtesting and there was a recent development where I'm rethinking the original dice designs to make it more thematic and changing the way the skills work. So.... still in development.

With a strength of 18 that would be one beastly man. Nearly as wide around as he is tall.

I have been playing RPGs since I used to invent them as a form of entertainment for my siblings and friends.

I am *super* Asperger's Syndrome incarnate.

I once took 18g of psilocybin cubensis and spoke in tongues for about 2 days. My friends call me "The Most High." Its not necessarily a compliment.

I am really strong and enjoy practicing JKD and throat chanting.

We may have an additional player joining us as a new character. Will get things rolling here in a bit.

Woot!

I made this theme song for Rafn

I will start making attempts at others if you don't mind.

Kinda hard to top that though.

So we are basically done with the continent geography map of the Old Continents. Does anyone have suggestions for place names or locations that you would definitely want to see on the old continents?

Always and forever my theme regardless of the character: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9tjdswqGGVg

@constablebrew

Wilfrid, Him What Knows

After 2 Attempts we arrive at this banger

Make that AI bust out something like Promentory and I'll be impressed.

That is not possible. Until the people capable of programming it are capable of playing at any advanced level en masse.

Good thing too.

But then, its free samples and you are free to remix. So why not make as many as possible? I imagine the games of the future will be collaborative in this way.

This is pretty good. I can see Rafn and Silver running through the badlands at high speeds, on the chase.

Thanks!

I resampled it and made a pretty awesome piece called Fangs of the Blue Wolf

Right on.

And I meant to mention earlier: I might go out on a limb to guess that you are an STJ enjoyer / Tom Rowsell respecter ?
Salve Dyeus Pater.

Ya, dig that. LFG.

Never heard him before. But yes, he too has a firm grasp of the obvious as I would say. But my last name means Son of Tyr so it has been obvious to me since I learned how to appreciate irony.

You have inspired me

Oh no. Are we sharing our Suno creations now. I have a few I'm particularly proud of. This one is at least rpg adjacent.

I think the music is good but the "vocals" still seem too deep in the uncanny valley for me. It is distinctly inhuman. Still pretty cool that this tool exists and makes such weird stuff

Everyone please welcome Sitara! Who can hopefully read and post on the forum now. I'm not sure what else I need to do other than invite them to the game?

I find that strange, because the vocals are very realistic to me. But then I grew up with New Romantics and New Age music where the vocals were fairly similar to this style.

Welcome Sitara, the omen bodes well.

Found this eagle flight today, without a doubt the largest eagle flight I have ever witnessed, the specimen it belonged to must be truly monstrous in size. I am going to put it on my death mask and be buried with it.



This flight next to a regular sized bald eagle flight pinion

Its not just stuff produced by AI its anything with autotune. Makes my skin crawl. You guessed it, I avoid pop music.

Great! Welcome, Sitara. Looking forward to seeing the new Character.

Hi Sitara!

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

Understood, I was hoping to get Sitara's character in on the action for the battle scene, but it looks like they will be unavailable for about a week, but Sitara will be joining us shortly. So we'll continue with the battle scene for everyone else who wants to participate.

Also, the map I commissioned has been completed and is on the World Building Forum. I didn't put any political borders on this map because the political borders have been constantly changing over the past three decades or so due to the invariable conflicts between the nations of the Old Continents. Relevant information for the founding of Averancia and its parent kingdom is available in the post with the map so it gives you an idea of where the humans and halflings of the duchy came from originally (1000 years ago).

Happy Monday! I've been a bit busy but will post up tonight.

Busy weekend here playing catch up

So I ended up fixing my washing machine instead of catching up last night. Lash and Ava carrying the team right now, and it looks really interesting. I will post after work, maybe during lunch.

Oh man, I just clicked "save" on my character sheet a bit too fast - the page was loading still and the textbox was empty. Now my entire charactersheet is gone!

😪😪😪😪😪😪

Sometimes, I keep a copy in Notepad++ for this purpose. I think I'll back up the rest of my characters now…

Borrow Sitara's. I had pretty much copied it from your character sheet anyway. I don't think there are too many differences right now. Maybe the ability scores, but you should have those on the recruitment thread?

And then, repeat this Mantra. Control-A, Control-C, Post/Save whatever. I say that from personal experience... Writing a long post on a forum, and when I went to post, it lost everything. So now if I have the slightest inkling that something's not going to save right... I use the mantra.

Speaking of Sitara.

Oh, and sorry for the delay everyone. Now that everyone is back and getting in the swing of things, work is kicking my butt. I might not be able to devote more than an hour to the game until Friday, even though they asked me if I could do some overtime this week; I haven't decided yet. But I definitely could use the money.

@sitara, could you make your sheet public?

First take care of self.

Agreed!!

Make hay while the sun shines, bro. No worries here. Good luck on the extra shifts.

How do you do this, by the way?

Is it by clicking the "Add to Library" box-looking icon on the Character's small control panel when seen from a Player's list of "All Characters"?

If so, I switched that right now. My character sheet for Aundovald may have been invisible to others until now also. Not sure.

OK, I copy pasted the character sheet back over for Wilfrid. Take a look and make sure everything is correct (as far as you remember).

Rafn is also now public

YOU CAN'T IMAGINE THE AMOUNT OF RELIEF I FEEL AT THIS MOMENT

Checking the other characters - none are visible to me.

The book icon should make the characters available for all to see. At least according to this (and my memory): https://gamersplane.com/forums/thread/2656/?p=93908#p93908

Got it. Yes, I thought I had clicked that on earlier, but saw that I had not.
I fixed it now though. Aundovald character sheet should be visible.

Hmm, I don't see a book icon on my end, is it only something the players can see (not the DM)?

Oh, that's a book icon? It looked like an industrial stapler to me for some reason. I guess I can see it now. :P

It does indeed look like an industrial stapler.

Though I always thought it looked like a composition notebook

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 @Shadowknight to run Ængus as an NPC to keep the story going. Thank you.

Sorry for the delay everyone. I'm hoping that Sitara's nobiran/wizard character can enter the game here. (As it makes the most sense; but we'll continue tonight, if there's no other questions or problems.)

I’ve been buried in work deadlines.
Will catch up on posting this weekend.

Fellas, I'm heading out soon on travel for work and a heavy schedule throughout the week. Most of the time I won't have access to my personal computer, so may not be able to get to the GP site much. Will see how it goes, but I may be light on engagement until around Thursday night.

Thanks for the heads up.

Was hoping Sir Aelwynd would post, but I'll bring in Lord Amberstead tonight if we don't have any other developments before then.

I'm going off-line through Saturday night as mentioned above, so feel free to use me as an NPC as needed. Thanks!

I fear we may have lost Constablebrew and Sitara. So, if I don't hear anything from Sitara, I'll probably make Sitara's wizard character a dmpc until we can get someone else in, just so we can continue.

What happened to Constablebrew?

Not sure? Nothing posted for some time. (Last Activity: 10 days ago)

I am reopening recruitment. Maybe we might get some biters. I will give it a few days to hopefully drum up some interest. Apologies to everyone for the long wait.

No worries. It seems that you’ve built this campaign for the long haul. That should allow for introducing new characters midstream reasonably.

Sorry again for the delay. I've been dealing with a major head flu. Finally got over the fever (48 hours, ouch).

I have invited about three other players, (the more the merrier?) Hopefully. I am still getting over my current weirdness. Thought I had beat the fever; but it came back again this morning; then I fell asleep for 20 minutes and when I woke up it was gone.

Lash, looks like we might be getting another Nobiran Armiger; and maybe a Nobiran Wizard too.

Hi all, thanks for the invite! I’m about 80% done with my sheet and should hopefully have it up in the next day or two as I continue working through the rule books. Looking forward to playing with all of you.

Hi, Honor, go ahead and roll your 1st level hit points and add it to the 12 (I put in already) from your Constitution score.

Welcome!

So many chosen by the sun, why it is as if we are a microcosm of warmth and light

Apologies for the delays everyone, again. As soon as we have our two/three(?) new characters ready, we will continue, I promise.

I was born ready.

I am having trouble with a character sheet. What template did y'all use? I no nothing about making a character sheet or editing one. Sorry this is taking me so long.

I'll do my rolling for hp and gold:

Hi. The one I sent in Games Forum didn't work for you?

My character's been submitted into the game and is ready to go. How does the GM think we should introduce our characters into the scene?

Everyone is currently in the Golden Plough Inn at Market Town, so it should be a pretty good place to introduce new characters. Ernest is approved. I was starting to wonder where he got such high saving throw numbers, then I remembered you had taken Divine Blessing.

He is going to be surprisingly immune to poisons until a goblin with a knife walks up and shanks him, because his weakness is folding over to a stiff breeze.

So I can use that without having to change anything?

I submitted my character but couldn't get the chosen weapons off the sheet.

In the top right of your sheet there’s a pencil icon. If you click that you can edit the sheet in the code. You’ll have to scroll down there under the Weapons section and delete/replace them from there.

Thanks, I got it I think. hahah

Let me know if I have to fix or add anything Shadowknight

I figured some stuff out on my character sheet.

@Lash has been absent for the past 17 days; has he officially left?

Good question. :(

No Zs yet.

When Zs appear they are usually not coming back.

☹

Now we may lament for our fallen brother.

Well, we have enough to continue now. So I'll be posting the next part tonight.

@Shadowknight is my character good?

Yes.

I'm taking a hiatus for the American holiday until next week sometime.

Enjoy the holiday!

Ængus will wait to respond until he gets told by the GM whether or not he is surprised and what the effects of the odor are. Thanks!

Sorry for all the delays. This Xmas season was hitting me up one side of the head and down the other, but hopefully things will be getting back to normal now. Or a sort of normal.

Though not nearly as dark as my last post my most recent song is about the Divine Twins Rafn referenced.

Spotify link

Sorry about the delay, everyone. Work is kicking my butt again. Will have a day off here in a bit.

I've reopened recruitment so we can hopefully get some replacements.

I believe I am going to take this time to drop out of this game. Love the concept just to slow for me. Hope you all have a good game.

Understandable. Apologies to everyone as I've been having issues with my internet connection over the past few days / week.

I’m fine taking it slow or even taking a hiatus for a bit if you need. We can pick it up on a few weeks if that helps.

All good.

I don't know if an 18 means the Beastmaster is being run out of town by a mob, but I do know it isn't good to fail by 11+

No, its not the best. :)

I fear I am going to have to discontinue the game with the sincerest hopes that you find other games. While it is true I've been dealing with internet issues, I am also dealing with some serious health issues that are a continual drain on mental and physical resources. Thank you for the participation from everyone so far. I have been enjoying it and I hope everyone else finds a game to meet their needs.

Have a good one and feel better soon.

Thank you for your perseverance thus far, and I hope you take your time to get better! Things can be tough, but they eventually get better.

Completely understood. Thank you for your time and creativity and may you have a speedy recovery!

Once again, @Shadowknight, thank you for your time, effort, and creativity. I hope all gets better in your neck of the woods as soon as it possibly can. As we have ended the game for now, I am going to withdraw my character; sorry, I'm OCD like that.

Please let me know if you ever want to start, restart, or have a new idea. I really enjoyed playing with you and the entire party.