OOC thread!

[beowuuf]

O.O

Wow, that is just all kinds of messed up. "We're going to assume you're lying to us, because we don't have the imagination to work out why it's not. Rather than investigate, we're just going to leave the burden of proof on you and force you to spend money you don't have, rather than devote our own resources as an actual organisation to the very simply matter of figuring out you don#t pay rent so your cost of living is less. BEcause innocent until proven guilty were words we heard once, but we didn'#t like them so we decided to ignore them"

[Lord_BoNes]

F**KING ROFL! Good one Beo!

[raixel]

Eh, yeah. You non Americans just got your first taste of IRS logic. Trust me, it's like hoping the 'eye of sauron' doesnt look directly at you cuz theres NO WAY to win if it does.

Also: Audits are over finally. Now I can get back to the important stuff, like crafting LB's weretiger. Expect that to be up soon.

[beowuuf]

Yup, definitely getting that

Sorry, seem to be pinned down a little the last few days, insanely. Will get two dice rolls and some reactions done asap!


Edit: Woohoo to the free of audits and still having a job

[raixel]

Thanks! Yeah, trust me digging up paperwork from 3 years ago over every goddamn little thing is NOT fun. I swear they looked at how much money the company was spending on toilet paper in the employee bathroom!


K, so the combats. The GIANT issue I'm having is lack of map. I'm looking for a free hosting site that wont spam me(although I do have a spam email addy called spambox666 i made for the sole purpose of signing up for sketchy stuff), spew ads everwhere, have decent bandwith, nad doesnt pull stuff after 24 hours if only a1 few people look at it. Good luck, right?

Other than that, im noyt seeing any major probs except for the length of time a round takes (those are some long six secondws there), although I think it's gonna be harder with more people. One way I was thinking of speeding it up is having everyone make 5 rolls at the beginning of each combat, and a general "plan" of action. So then if someone has to be gone for a day, I can take over their char without slowing everything down even further. I got the idea from Dragon Age, ironically, with their 'tactics' you can set for non-controlled party members. So for example, I willbe gone or 2 days while Petal is in combat. I can say "Petal will start by casting a shield, or a spell hield if magic users are present at the highest possible level. Then she will use attack spells, preferabkly fireball starting with the ON level, and proceeding downward. She will focus on the weakest enemy, or ones targeting a wounded PC. If a PC falls below 50% of health, she will move to them and cast the highest level healing potion she can, giving it to them as soon as possible." ect. Its not perfect, but it might help. Does anyone have any opinions of this?

[ian_scho]

... I think it's gonna be harder with more people. ....having everyone make 5 rolls at the beginning of each combat, and a general "plan" of action. So then if someone has to be gone for a day, I can take over their char without slowing everything down even further. ... Its not perfect, but it might help. Does anyone have any opinions of this?

Just popped in to say good idea!

[Ameena]

Hmm...would work in a "predictable" combat, where basically the idea is just "take the enemies down", but if something weird happens, such as a fellow PC gets into some kind of trouble and requires assistance (eg is knocked unconscious, or has some kind of status effect put on them which needs another PC to help remove it, or gets unexpectedly pounced on by three mobs at once while all other PCs are fighting other stuff and weren't expecting that to happen, etc), then any plans made might go out the window as people suddenly have to change what they're doing. See, this is why I didn't want to try running a game over forums - you have to spend a lot of time waiting for people to post and then stuff doesn't happen in order and stuff . I suppose making rolls in advance is a way to speed up combat though, so it'd be good for that. I'm just not keen on anyone else besides me playing my character so having the GM move people around like pieces on a game board (which, alright, they are, but you get what I mean...?) just doesn't really appeal to me, that's all.
As for the map...can't you just use something like Photobucket or any of the other picture-hosting websites out there to put up the map? Or ask Wuffy to host it or however he does his maps? I get that just e-mailing the map to people might possibly not work somehow, but surely that's an option too - it's sort of how I've been handling combats with Wuffy in our game - I have a pre-drawn grid in Paintbrush (if you want a copy ) which I just draw the scenery onto roughly, then drag pre-drawn icons of the characters and monsters into the appropriate squares - usually I do all except the characters when I'm preparing the encounter say, a week before, or whatever, then stick the characters in place, when they actually arrive on the scene. Then I just send it to Wuffy (over Skype, but as it's only a .png image obviously this would easily fit into an e-mail for sending) so we both have a copy. Then, as people move around, we both report where we're moving to (grid references - J6, B4 etc) so we can alter our own copies to keep up to date. If someone uses some kind of AE attack which lasts (eg one of Wuffy's characters has a fire-boom spell which creates an area of effect that can last a turn or two), then personally I just put orange blobs in all the affected squares. And if something is killed I put a red X over it, then it doesn't matter if I need to move someone else on top of it since dead mobs are "gone", as they would be removed from play if you wer using actual minis on a physical board. It's a pretty simple way of doing combat, I've found, though when you have to drag someone's piece into a square partially covered by something you then have to "re-draw" that bit when the character moves off the square . But we're investigating with a map-drawing tool which enables live combat on a joined server-connection thingy or something so we might not use the Paintbrush method much more if that works out okay . But yeah, just suggesting it as an option. If need be you can add a note at the end of each post stating the grid reference for where each combatant is, so that if someone's away for a while they only need to look at the end of the latest post in order to see where everyone is and update their map accordingly. Umm...of course, you might consider all that to be too much work or something...I suppose it depends how you plan on drawing your maps. Making my grid took 15 minutes and drawing little icons for stuff didn't take much longer. A combat map's only supposed to be a rough representation of a scene so you can see where everything is in relation to everything else, so I don't put much priority on detail and the maps we've used for the four combats we've had so far have basically been white backgrounds with lines and blobs drawn on them .

[raixel]

Yeah, for those kind of situations it wuldnt work, and obviously not for boss battles ect. I'm just thinking of it as a way to speed combat up for people that know they might be busy, without having to put the game on hold. It wouldnt be required, just a way to make simple "5 goblin" battles go faster, especially for hose of us who hvae a tendancy to get suddenly swamped at work for a few days (like me). Of course if something happened not covered in the "rules" the person set up, I would wait for their input instead of just moving them around.

[ian_scho]

I use imageshack.us for hosting images. You don't even need to create an account if you don't want to.

[beowuuf]

Sorry, I did mean to answer the combat question!


As I said, I can host stuff for you, and yeah, I thouht imageshack was suppose to be ok too

For rolling dice ahead of time, I find no matter how much you try not to metagame, knowing those rolls are there to trip you up, or worse are going ot be dropped, is a little irritating. I'd just roll as the DM if you need any combat rolls people aren't around to give you.

I always do try to encourage some general OOC feel for tactics, as the one thing I find easiest to do in PbP is to treat a combat round as ther messy thing it should be, and keep it narratively all happenign at the same time, with a 'delat delay' or people acting in initiative order.

Anyway, you've played in enough multiple peopel fights with me now to know if that works or not to your way of doing things. I guess if you are amalgamating all the turns in a round in to one blob, it's also relatively easy to turn a few round in to a narrative blob - in whoch case, rolling multiple times is less irritating.

[Ameena]

Another thing about rolling stuff in advance is it kinda kills the suspense. You know..."Right, gotta roll five times...d'oh, ooh nice roll, hmm average, woot a crit, d'oh...yay so I know I'm gonna crit on the thing the fourth time I hit it, and that second hit was pretty good too so maybe I've done enough damage by myself to finish the thing off". I prefer more the kind of "Ooh right it's my turn...the thing is half dead...am I gonna hit it...WOOT A CRIT!!" and then you can devote the next post to celebtrating hitting it really hard or something . Another problem with everyone just giving you a pile of rolls in one go is that no-one can react to what anyone else did - "Oh, bugger, so-and-so just botched that attack, I'd better get in and give them a hand...ahh but now that person has killed that mob so I'm free to bugger off over here and try to flank this one..." etc.
I see no need to rush combat (or anything, really) by trying to bunch together lots of actions into one go. Plus it means the GM ends up making a huuuuge long single post of everyone's moves in order. I'd rather play my character one move at a time. Well, I'd rather play my character full stop . I don't mind the way Wuffy's been doing the combat, sort of waiting for everyone else to post and then making an update with basically the results of what everyone did. If someone is gonna be away for a few days or something, then they can leave "My character will do this if this happens" notes for the GM to refer to so that the game doesn't grind to a halt till that player gets back.

[ian_scho]

Truth be told the games master could roll for the chars... It's the Same luck, no matter what people believe.

[raixel]

Yeah. I just threw the '5 rolls' out there as a concept. But I do like the base idea to keep the game flowing if someone's gonna be away..

[Ameena]

It's more a case of if someone else is making all your rolls, why bother playing? Alright so there's still the RP side of it, but personally I'd rather play every aspect of my character (she is my character, after all), not just the ones that require my personal knowledge of how they react to a situation. Same as I'd rather roll my own dice rather than use one of those computerised ones - I'm not sure quite how random they are and anyway I like rolling dice - you can actually watch it roll and see how close you came to missing a natural-20 or something .
If someone's gonna be away and it's not a combat situation, the game's still gonna slow down, especially if it's mid-conversation or something, since obviously only the player knows how their character will act and no-one has any kind of right to move their character around without their say-so. But hopefully people will know when theyr'e gonna be away and they can have their character conveniently decide to go to sleep or go for a walk or busy themselves with sorting out their stuff and not take part in the conversation or whatever .

[beowuuf]

Well since it's not a game of monopoly, I'd hope the RP was the larger side of it!

I do love my dice though....been using electronic stuff to provide tracking of the php/etc games for far too long!

[ian_scho]

It's more a case of if someone else is making all your rolls, why bother playing?

Wow, I so don't care about the luck stuff (after it's happened, I mean). It's interesting to see that you have such a different opinion.

Alright so there's still the RP side of it, but personally I'd rather play every aspect of my character

Yep it's the RP for me. Oh and watching other people/chars develop. I suspect that you 'live in the skin' of your chars far more than me!

Just keep pushing the story on if people don't post. Just as long as you communicate that you're going to do that...

[raixel]

Here. I transcribed this from my notes to help you keep all the guards/drivers/ect straight. Hell, I get confused, and I have my notes sitting right here. More will be add4ed to this as you talk to the others, or I might actually make it its own thread.

5 Wagons - 5 drivers, some of who double as the cooks and grahhssk handlers. Sssil hasnt met any of them yet although it is obvious who they are compared to the guards. there are 4 males and one female. They are all pretty non-descript.

There are 8 guards, not counting Sssil. I will list what Sssil knows about them, the weapons he has seen them carry(although they may have more), their general age and appearance and name.

A rough looking male with a dark green and grey mottled hide. His name is Dassrak. This is the one who found the token in the wagon. He appears confident in his skills. He carries a large two handed sword strapped to his back and a small crossbow at his side

A very young male with a white and light grey blotchy hide. Sssil heard Kass call him Lisssak. He appears barely older than a kakkiss, and seems like this is his first trip out. Frm watching him, Sssil can tell he is eager to prove himself. He carries a longsword.

The being with the heavy brown robes and glittering yellow eyes. This beings name is Vaathi, which is not a lizar name. She carries a wooden quarterstaff. Vaathi is a female of an unknown race, obviously a mage. She speaks Zaangaardian, but in a strange dialect with exaggerated siblants. Her hands have an extra finger joint right under her gold colored claws claws. The fingers of her hand are very long and slender The scales Sssil has seen on her hands are very fine and are a bright jade green wil silver flecks and edged in gold. Her blood looks like mercury. The gold and silver of her scales and claws is shiny and metallic looking.

A stocky almost fat male with a dark green back and pale yellow underbelly. Sssil doesnt know this one's name. Seems standoffish and unconcerned with the other guards. Spends most of his time with the drab brown female. Likes to dice. Has a bandoleer full of daggers across his chest and an axe.

A scarred drab brown female with black speckles. Like the fat green amd yellow male, Sssil doesnt know this ones name. One noticable feature about her is that she has a huge scar running across her face. The eye affected by the scar is dead, and the pupil is frozen as a tiny vertical slit. THe eye doesnt move when she looks around. Seems very unfriendly and standoffish. Has an unstrung longbow, quiver of arrows, and a shortsword.

A young-ish (human equivelent mid-20s) female with bright green face scales. This female, whose name Sssil does not know, always dresses in long grey robes which hide her body and scale patterns(unusual dress for a lizar). From what he can see of her, her face scales are almost bright enough to be a nobles, but not quite. That is very odd,as most non-noble lizar's scales are much more drab, even the light colored ones, and not found in shades of emerald green, bright crimson, ect. She appears friendly, although she keeps her distance from everyone. She has a shortsword.

A very thin female with beige and black blotched scales. Her name is Kalissa, a mage and mate of Thessan. Both her and Thessan appear very experienced, having travelled as caravan guards for many years. They are the oldest members of the group. She is not quite as talkative as her mate. She appears to always be watching everything, and it seems little escapes her notice. Sssil has not seen her wield a weapon yet

A huge scarred male named Thessan. His light green and yellow speckled scales are missing in patches from the scars that criss-cross his body. He is friendly and talkkative. Appears to aloways be willing to lend a hand, give advice, or just tell stories of his travels. He wields a huge wickedly curved and serrated blade. Most lizar would have trouble swinging the sword in one hand, but Thessan does it with ease. Thessan and Kalissa know Kass's sire, Hassta, and are good friends with him. Thessan mentored under Hassta when he first became a hssir.

Hope that helps!

EDIT: Updated.

[beowuuf]

Thanks, it will definitely help!

Chilling after a pretty shitty work day, will try to update tonight (since I'll be busy all of tomorrow)

[oh_brother]

Oh, btw, I forgot to mention that I consider darkvision much more like the infravision of second edition. I HATE that they changed it, infravision is much more realistic and cool then 'you can just see in the dark in black and white'. Mechanically, it makes no difference, but narratively, I always describe darkvision in terms of infravision.

I changed my mind about infravision when I read this article. Darkvision lacks a proper explanation, but if you think about it infravision has an explanation that does not make much sense.

[raixel]

Eh. Also in DnD you are throwing fireballs around and can heal wounds with a touch, but no one complains about that. I didnt say it made scientific sense, just that it was more realistic (as in there are creatures on earth that can sense heat, like pit vipers). In any case, I dont like darkvision and won't be using it, at least narratively. Players are welcome to do whatever they want with how their character percieves their night sight. However, all NPCs with a form of nightvision wil be describing it to the PCs as infravision.

[Ameena]

Does DnD 3rd only have Infravision, then? I mean Darkvision. Whichever one it is. Does it only have one type of night vision or is there a low-light version and a properly-dark version?

[raixel]

3rd has lowlight vision (which basically means you can see twice as far as a human in low light such as starlight, but cannot see in the *dark*. Elves and most fey have this and so do a ton of other races.) darkvision (the aforemetioned discussion. Basically it causes a weird black and white reverse image, theres a pic of it in the dmg on page 75, with the same pic as seen in the light on 74. Things that live in the dark have this such as dwarves and orcs, of varying degrees such as out to 40 feet, 60 feet, 80 feet 120 feet, ect.) tremorsense (you have no eyes or very very bad sight, but can "see" by detecting tiny vibrations in the ground. You are blind if someone is flying or causes vibrations in the ground that are very severe. Things that burrow, such as ankhegs have this, as well as many creatures from the Elemental plane of Earth), blindsight (basically using a sense other than eyes as your main source of locating things. A bat's echolocation falls under this category, as well as some dragons having a form of it due to their incredibly heightened senses. Most things that have it have poor eyesight, or no eyes, but some powerful beings can see fine. It is basically a classification for anything that can "see" by using a sense other than eyes, such as hearing or being able to "sense" life energy. You can't read paper or distinguish color, although I'd imagine that some sonars would be precise enough to detect carvings on a wall. If the sense is hearing, such as a bat's echolocation, using sonic attacks or making a lot of loud noise will effectively "blind" it.) But darkvision and lowlight vision are the main ones

The aforementioned discussion is cuz in 2nd they had infravision and not darkvision. Mechanically it was nearly the same thing, out to 40 feet 60, and so on, except for creatures using it percieved heat gradients instead of just a black and white image. So say walls were cool so might appear a blue, if you were in the underdark next to a lava vent, you could see the thermal heat of it, say as green to yellow to red as you got closer. People genrally appeared as reddish shapes shaded to show where cool and hot parts were, although some underdark beings, drow for example, saw as clearly as we do with their infravision (called in some early sources ultravision, as supposedly they used the ultraviolet scale as wel, so could see all the way from infra thru visible light to ultraviolet).

This mechanic could allow some neat narrative responses such as a PC being able to tell an NPC was angry but trying to hide it due to the flushing heat in their face, or being able to tell a body was recently dead because it was still warm. Or being able to tell that the kidnappers were "just" in front of the party because the spot where the kidnap victim layed had a slight heat (those kind of residual heat prints last for barely a minute though, and less sensitive infravision couldnt detect them at all) Drow used "signal mirrors" with a magically slightly heated plate on one side that they twisted in the air to do a sort of "morse code" that non infravision having beings couldnt see. (and i STILL havent figured out how they managed to fix that one to work with darkvision) Another problem is most DnD novels pre-2000 used this mechanic as well, cuz like i said theres neat narrative possibilities there, so it *really* blows if you read them now, totally strains your suspension of disbelief.

In any case, yeah darkvision is simpler, but I think it lost more than it gained.

[Ameena]

Okay, it sounds like the senses in 3rd are the same as in 4th, then...I couldn't rememebr at which point they'd changed as I know at least one version calls it "infravision", which as a former (and future) EQ player, tends to be what I call it as that's what the night visions were called in that - Infravision and Ultravision. As far as I'm concerned, they're all the same things (fairly good ability to see in the dark and really good ability to see in the dark ) so it doesn't really matter what they're called .

[Chaos-Shaman]

a magnificent imaginatorificaliciuosness raixel


(moved from story thread -b)

[raixel]

Hey beo, wanna start going again on monday? I just need to re-read the game thread, and I'm halfway through.

[beowuuf]

Ready when you are! Ssssil was drowning, and trying to twist the head of a giant turtle so she would let him go, if I recall correctly.

[raixel]

Something like that

[raixel]

Hahhahah I just finished the story. I knew you were fighting the turtle, but I had forgotten about what a mess youre in! Oh, this is gunna be fun! I'm posting tomorrow.

[ian_scho]

you were fighting a giant turtle head*?! Cool.

* NSFW

[beowuuf]

Oh dear...