OOC chat

Well, if we want to talk about anything doesn't that fit elsewhere, we'll do it here.

I was about to post this in the Rules thread, but then it occurred to me that it would be better here...

So the "Passive Proficiencies as Knowledge" rule we use (the one I added to the Rules thread) comes from The Angry GM. I love his reworked Core D&D 5e, it is so elegantly laid out. Tell me what you think about it : if you like it too, we can use it. It doesn't change much, but it favors cleverness and rewards creativity.
If you've never heard about him, The Angry GM writes awesome RPG advice especially for GMs. Some people can't stand the cartoon-character-like style, but he just delivers the best D&D (and RPG design) articles around. I've been paying for his content for years now ♥

I have nothing against using skills in passive mode, but since I've asked about active application of said skill - shouldn't it be a roll instead?

In that case, it is indeed an active use of the skill.
It's just that, as it took place in the introduction of the campaign (as opposed to in-game), I took the average score to know what information I had to deliver. The second message contained every information you could obtain with a perfect roll (Wisdom [survival], so that's 24 for you), because why not?

But yes, when a similar situation arise in the future, I will call for a roll :-)

I've extended the current characters limit in our campaign from 4 to 6 to get fresh blood. As they arrive, I will un-NPC and retire our two inactive characters.
They had nice concepts, too bad they went missing :/

agentoforange will be joining us soon!
We'll find a proper way to get him in the game when he's ready to go.

Awesome!

Hi guys, happy to join. I've got a bard in the making - just awaiting confirmation on Ornux's end. I'm not sure if it is proper to introduce or describe my character, so I'll wait until our DM has given us all more information on how my character will be joining your adventure!

Awesome! Glad to have you onboard!

Hey everyone, I hope my roleplaying of Bug didn't give you too much challenge or anything. Is everyone just busy lately?

I don't think your character bugged anyone (hehe), week-ends usually are quieter around here.

I forgot to mention it, but Magnus is on his way to the party too. Should appear in the gaming thread soon.

I'm gonna be in vacations for the next 15 days or so. I'll do my best to check the forum at least daily and post but, you know, vacations :)

Have fun!

We're kinda waiting for your response IC, chief. Tbh I thought you disappeared

Hey guys, I'm gonna reorganize the forum to make it easier to use (as it takes AGES to load the list of forums/threads). Got some great inspiration from other games I'm in (like what you did in "Adventures in Stone Fall" agentoforange).
I'll do my best to avoid losing content...

Hi there!

I'll be away for two weeks starting on Saturday for a trip to remote Thailand and Laos. I'll try to post once or twice, but I'm not sure if I'll have an Internet access or even electricity. It would be great if we could be done with the current fight so that you guys get the opportunity to RP and get to know each other, possibly taking a well deserved short rest.

On an other subject, I just wanted to let you know that I created a new game that will take place in the same realm you guys are playing (Oakfall). It will be very different from your game as it will mostly take place outdoor and involve a lot of survival, travel, etc... If you are interested in such a campaign, I'll be glad to have you in the game :)

I'll consider drafting a character!

I'm back from my trip, so without further transition let's get back to that abandoned mine business! :)

I've recently sent and received a lot of PMs here on GP, and while it is adapted to sending a message or two, is is just clunky to have a conversation.
Anyway, if any of you want to chat with me (about the game, the rules, some of my choices...), here's my Google Hangout address: i.ornux@gmail.com

PS: note that 1) I'm a busy father 2) I'm in Europe. So I hope you'll forgive me if you messages stay unanswered for a couple of hours :)

Hey All,

I'm actually going to be bowing out of Gamersplane for the foreseeable future. I've loved playing, but my life's demands have taken over.

I wish you all the best of luck!

- Justice

Hey there,
I'm very sorry to read that. I hope there nothing to worry about and wish you all the best of luck !

Let me know if you ever come back to GP :)

It appears that we lost some people along the way. I'll go hunt for fresh recruits, who's still there?

Meeh iz stil zerre

Damn, apparently it is just the two of us :/
Two new players are on their way, I might add a third one if Magnus doesn't show up quickly.

Let's move this thread here:
Correct me if I'm wrong, but this ability will only be triggered if target already has physical damage vulnerability? Because there are no such creatures or they are extremely rare. Much rarer than rolling 20 is.

You are indeed correct. After a quick research, there are exactly 4 creatures in the Monster Manual that have vulnerability to Bludgeoning damage (0 for Piercing and Slashing). I don't know what that fourth creature is, but it may make you happy if you ever face skeletons.

The weapon is not meant to be a powerful one, but it is my ruling regarding that specific property of adamantine weapons. Ooops, I told it ;D

Well, considering that it deal slashing damage - this effect won't be triggered unless Meeh would use it as a club...

Hum actually it would, my wording was very specific : it kicks in if the target has vulnerability to physical damage, which includes all three damage type. If it is good to break things, it will be good to wreck breakable creatures :)
Edit: the property is limited enough to not make it useless by narrowing even further its possible uses, IMO.

I've PMed Magnus to know if he's still around, and gave him until the end of the week before I let someone else step in. It's been three weeks since we heard from him now.
Kuroi, if agree with that, you can post in the meantime (maybe Sedror passed out?). That would allow the game to move forward. And either he'll catch up with you later, or someone else will.

I think someone might indeed catch up.

Hey guys,
I've been swamped at work for a month now, and find it increasingly difficult to take time to come and post. I am very sorry for the delays lately. I hate it probably even more than you do.
I'm really doing my best to get things back on track. Thank you for your patience.

Oh and by the way, while XP is a great GM tool and I'm glad to be back to it, tracking individual XP makes little sense, especially in our PbP games. So I'll sync everyone to the max XP, which means the newcomers just got promoted up to Mee'haïl's XP. So next time you get to tack a long rest, you'll all hit level 2!

Ya'll getting Achievement XP for meeting great Mee'hail!

:D

TL;DR: I'm back.
It would be an euphemism to say that things have been pretty tense lately on my side. Both personal and professional lives have been very demanding, and I'm just starting to get out of that swamp. I'm sorry if, combined with the loss of basically every player other than great Mee'haïl, it has kinda stopped the initial momentum of our game.
Things are getting better on the personal side, and the project planning shows that the other side will get better at the start of July. Some games I was a player in have gone on hiatus which, with the free time I'm starting to have again, leaves me with enough time to go back to my original daily posting rate.

I've created this campaign that I think will be fun to explore ancient ruins and stumble upon a bigger underling plot (come on, that's not a spoiler!). I'd like everyone to try his best to push the game forward and stick to the intended posting rate.

Life happens, and I'll never blame you for missing a post or two. I'm not perfect either ;)
But for the sake of everyone's fun (yours included), please do you best to follow that daily posting rate.

---
Also, I'll try to post more information in combat (AC, saving throws prof & bonus, etc) so that you can roll whatever roll is needed for your action, know how it went immediately and narrate what happens. I'll tell you when an enemy drops or flees.

Hey,

I suppose you have notice it, but I kinda failed to restore the momentum of the game. I'm sorry about that. And each day without a post in here, I've blamed myself for not pushing the game forward. But the game kinda got weird with all the players that dropped and those who joined. Nothing you did wrong, just that such a high rotation on the players side makes it hard to tie things together. And with work being very demanding from April to June, I just kept postponing my posting.

But I don't want to drop the game. First because I think it will be a fun game and that your party is a nice fit for the game. And because I've put an unusual amount of work to create the whole mega-dungeon and that I don't want to stop so early in the game.

So, in order to get the ball rolling again, we'll resort to a narrative ellipse.
- I'll describe all there was to discover on that first two levels
- you'll get back somewhere to rest and...
- level up! You all get to level 3
- I'll then describe what seems to come next, and let you decide how to proceed from there

What can you do to help? Well, you'll need to find a reason to stay together. The story will provide some elements, but you need to see how your characters fit together to form a cohesive group.
Also, you'll have some rolls to do in the CharGen thread :)

Do we roll for HP or take average?
Meeh embraced some of his clan's knowledge and embarked on path of druidism, receiving blessing of the Moon :)
So he is a barbearian now :D

Oh wow, a barbearian sounds terrific!
Roll HP to see if you can beat average, then pick whichever you prefer. But you'll have to stick with that choice for the next levels.

Everything in the cave seem to be dwarf-sized. I don't think any of the armor would be a good fit for an elf. She can wear it and benefit from its protection, but will look ridiculous.

Damn, blacknightrising90 just got tagged as inactive. It's been a while since we heard from Silent, and I read in another game that Kuroi doesn't have as much time as he'd like so...
... is that game ever gonna make it out? :'(

Sorry, I'm back and will try to be more active from now on.

Druid HP rolls

Thanks Kuroi. No worries, it happens to everyone to be a little busy.
Glad to have you back :)

blacknightrising90, are you still around? Tagged as inactive for 19 days, I'll leave an additional week before I free the spot.
Silent, what's your status? With blacknightrising90 missing out, your duo was kinda blasted so if you want to rework your character a little, I'm ok with it. Just tell us whether you plan on staying around or not.

In the meantime, I'll adjust the difficulty of the game for two and we'll move forward.

By the way, I'll be on vacation with the kids and everything for the next two weeks. I'll do my best to keep the game rolling, but might not be able to write the big verbose messages you are used to.
Anyway, feel free to post as much as you want, especially to RP with the other players.

Ok I'm back.
Last week left me with little time to post, but now let's see what lies in the subterranean levels of this mine...

Well, the game is officially stuck.
It took us a month to re-enter the mine and move two rooms in with no combat. That's way too much to consider the game as "active", which saddens me :(

Now, I was wondering what went wrong. Of course, the loss of like 6 players in the first two chapters of the game didn't help (thanks Kuroi for still being around, by the way!).
But would the same game -that is an exploration based megadungeon- work better in a more video-gamey style? That is, more direct style with explicit objectives and advancement, achievements and all. Less talk, more action.

What do you think ? Would you be in for that?

I feel like I should insist on the fact that the Less talk, more action I'm talking about wouldn't be a simple dungeon crawl, monsters bashing thing.
Without exploration, backtracking and reflection, you'd either end up stuck or dead.

Video-game dungeon requires video-game resource management mechanics. In DnD one action-packed encounter can drain all the resources and force party to retreat to a safe place to recuperate. Especially on lower levels.

Can be true, but I'm rather confident in my ability to control the resource draining. It's something that I'm very careful about.

Hey,
Sorry for the long silence, a lot has happened lately. The strange part is that all the games I'm involved in as a GM or as a player have gone quiet at about the same time. This, combined with IRL requiring quiet a lot of energy resulted in two things here :
- first, it was hard for me to find the time to be active in all these games
- second, I got a little disheartened by the general slowdown as well as the loss of many players

Now, I'm very sorry that you have to suffer from that because of my lack of activity. But I'm unsure of the status of this game right now. To few has happened in it for the game to be considered alive, and too many characters have gone in and out too fast.
I'd be up to try and reboot the adventure, starting at higher level (how about 5?) and with a more direct approach as suggested above.
Would you be tempted by such a game?

I've archived the 4th gaming thread and am currently getting the new game reboot.
I'll invite you guys when it's ready and put a link in there.

Here's the new game : https://gamersplane.com/games/2012/
I'll archive this one in a few days.