DM themed play-by-post D&D game : OOC thread

[beowuuf]

Nothing yet! He's along this way, doesn't mean he's in the next room though :p Otherwise Drommal, etc would have barged passed you to get to him!

Sorry, have I been unclear - you are only at the cross-roads of the part Farel and Aurek came from, but they weren't exactly prisoners of the mage, thye were just prisoners who say the occasional solder, as Farel said each of whom threatened him with a a different fate!

If you go left thouhg, you'll eventually find the guy...if he doens't find you first...

[oh_brother]

Ah, sorry! I misread the IC update, when I re-read it made more sense!

[beowuuf]

Wow, rushed that last OOC post, sorry!

You happy with the party order suggested?

[ian_scho]

I am

[oh_brother]

Me too!

[money]

yip

[beowuuf]

Excellent! *plan Falkor in a blanket is a go*

I've put in Farel's comments, but obviously I'm waiting for LB's input into Aurek's actions before I advance you all. Sounds like a few of you are going to the room....hehe....hehe....hehegood idea.

[beowuuf]

Too much food....need sleep. Also the getting up early thing for major audit.

Will post before I leave to give LB more time. Night!

[Ameena]

Well, looking at the latest IC update for you chaps, I'd say it's a good thing Ameena managed to get away when she did .

[ian_scho]

The warrior types revel in blood and gore.

[beowuuf]

Which is why he's sitting in the corridor picking his ears

[oh_brother]

I did not mention the scrolls IC, because Westian will look at them after he has examined the room. When he does examine them he will not be too keen on picking up anything too blood-soaked – he will read a bit over Falkor’s shoulder (and Aurek’s if he is there too) and might pick up any that are clean. I rolled all the knowledge checks, I did them all at once to save time (it is clearly marked which is which though if you open the link). Religion: 13 + 5 = 18; the planes: 18 + 2 = 20; arcana: 1 + 2 = 3; history: 5 + 2 = 7.

[Ameena]

Hehe, so everyone freaks out at a bit of blood spilt on the floor, but don't seem to mind when they're the ones doing the blood-spilling .
Hey, someone learn Zo - then next time you see Drommal you can clonk a door on his head .

[beowuuf]

Hmm, a little worried LB hasn't logged in since Monday morning - hope he's ok! Did anyone think his last post sounded pneumonia ridden?

Just back from work, let me get my bearings and I'll post a little bit of an update...for everyone who is still alive!

Just joking, Ameena isn't dead. Yet.

[Ameena]

I wonder if, technically, I should be reading these threads now, since you guys can't see mine. Oh well. It's interesting, anyway . I wonder if you'll all get frazzed by the mage dude. Hey, you never know - Helm and me might have already met him and found he has an absolute phobia of rodents and thus caused him to run away anc at some point accidentally fall down a pit and get eaten by some kind of giant toothy beasty-monster thingy .

[ian_scho]

As you can both roleplay AND remember what's going on, Ameena, I don't think it will be a problem to you! I seem to forget stuff from the previous page of the thread.

[Ameena]

I can remember some of it, yeah, but I do quite often have to look back at previous posts. In fact, I have to do it in every psot I make - constantly scrolling back up to the post(s) immediately before mine so I can make sure I respond to every little word or action I think I should be responding to (whether they were aimed at my character or not). The roleplaying part, for sure, is most definitely very easy for me. The remembering part...well, I suppose I generally remember the gist of it, but some of it does get a bit muddled (hence that character-knowledge thing I started but still haven't added to since that first session, which took me up to page five of the IC thread ) and I can keep forgetting very obvious things. Like Ameena's cloak - so often I forget she even owns one, lol. I actually went back and edited one of my posts made a couple of posts before departure from the group, adding in a bit saying Ameena picked up her cloak because I'd completely forgotten about it again (despite in pretty much every post previously I'd been thinking to myself "Shall I have her pick up her cloak yet? No, she's in the middle of talking to someone...I'll wait for now") .
Anyway, I was more thinking along the lines of player knowledge risking polluting character knowledge, plus like I said, you guys can't see what my character is doing because she's separated from you so maybe that means I shouldn't be reading what your characters are doing .
If the runes on that next door are some kind of riddle or puzzle, though, I'm still gonna have a go at solving it (in PM to Wuffy, of course) and complain that it's typical that the moment my character buggers off, the group gets a riddle .

[beowuuf]

That thought was not lost on me about the riddle

Insaner day than yesterday, so I'll try to keep tabs but don't expect many words until much later tonight!

[oh_brother]

Ok, Westian is examining the scroll Falkor gave him very closely. The main things he would look out for are (i) any indication of what exactly this door/pit combo is? (ii) any indication where it is? (iii) any indication what this door/flame does? and (iv) any mention of how to open/close/operate whatever it is. Don't know if I need to make any extra rolls, or the ones in my post above are still active.

Hehe, so everyone freaks out at a bit of blood spilt on the floor, but don't seem to mind when they're the ones doing the blood-spilling .

I wouldn't say freaking out, more just disgusted. I think I would feel somewhat the same - if there was a fight and a lot of blood was spilled it would be horrifying, but could not be avoided - things just happen too fast (also Westian will have dealt with injured people before, albeit at arms length). If I walked into a room that was coated in old, sticky, smelly blood of unknown origin then the contents of my stomach would probably start trying to escape. I would only go in if I had to, and I would avoid getting smeared if at all possible.

[oh_brother]

Oh, and forgot to mention, as soon as they have finished reading then Westian will take whatever scrolls seem important (putting them in an empty pouch) and then leave. Or if Falkor or Aurek feel like carrying the scrolls themselves Westian will not complain.

[beowuuf]

Sorry, left this a little late and now eyes blurring a little, will try to answer some questions tomorrow morning before I leave. Funnily, Aurek alreayd has a full pack fm this room, but as Aurek hasn't referenced the scrolls previously, and I don't know where LB would be (I would assume with Westian, but don't want to force him there) then that revelation might need to wait.

[Lord_BoNes]

@Beo: You must've logged off 1/2 an hour before I managed to extract the internet from my FUTURE-mother-in-law (she ain't there yet... ... there MUST be a god! ). Anyhow, I've posted IC and attempted to explain my prolonged absense.
As for my previous post being potentially "pneumonia ridden"... hehehe I burst into incontrollable laughter when I read that (thank you for being concerned BTW, I honestly don't feel that many people care about my well-being these days).
Thanx for cheering up my day, it hasn't been the best so far... but that's life

[beowuuf]

Good to hear it was something benign like that. Sorry your day was sucky, better luck with this one!

[Lord_BoNes]

Sorry your day was sucky, better luck with this one!

ROFL! It still IS the same one. I posted that at 11:31am this morning. It is currently 6:47pm.
Sorry, but I couldn't help but laugh at that one! At least you've cheered me up some more... the missus has been trying pretty much all day. I've just been in one of those "can't be stuffed with anything" moods. But, hey you can't have every day as a ABSOLUTELY GREAT day, because you'd get used to it, and take it for granted. So I take it as it comes.

[beowuuf]

Exactly, ups are more 'uppy'. So hope you have an...umm...uppy day tomorrow. Today? Yesterday? I'm confused now...

Right, scroll mechanics... when Aurek first encountered the scrolls, obviously he had the player instinct to grab as many as he could carry...and then the further player instinct to of course ask about copying others for fitting in thinner paper between the gaps!

While my DM duty was to sigh, I'd do the same as a player, so let it go as follows:

10 scrolls taken = 5 ranks of knowledge, to be used whenever. The idea being you can search through the scrolls to gain up to five ranks in a knowledge check, and if you succeed it's as if we are agreeing you just 'happen' to have found a set of scrolls on the right subject. Note that this means these scrolls owuld be otherwise useless to you, so your available 'pool. of knowledge ranks available for other checks reduces. So you could blow it on two checks at +5, or five checks at +2, or any combination in between. Basically you get to use assign the scrolls as you wish, as long as you never ask for more than five of them to give you a bonus of +5

Ok, for the pieces of partchment written on (10 more) = 5 ranks again. However, hurried writing and understanding what it meant in the first place meant I imposed a few skill checks on Aurek. That led to a 85% chance at relivence when read by the party, and 85% chance of legibility when attempting to decipher it. So these second sets of scrolls are a less reliable bonus to your knolwedge check. Probably best to use them on secondary checks when failure won't kill you


Ok, it all sounds complicated, all you really need to say for Aurek's scrolls are 'I want a bonus of +1 - +5' when doing a knowledge check, and tell me if you want to use the 'good' scrolls, or the 'less good' scrolls. I'll keep track and adjust any results of knowledge checks.


I'm not going to do this for the scrolls Falkor/Westian have. Instead, what I'll say is that you have two sets of scrolls (one on corbums themselves, one on the fulya pit and its location). I will let you have a third set of interesting looking scrolls. If you don't mind the game-ness of it, then I'll allow you to say 'aha, these scrolls were about THIS THING' at any point of a major plot occurence you wish to know about. It will be an automatic success at DC30 to know what's going on - modified by Westian's ability to read the scrolls, of course

Sorry to say, the Grey Lord's research doesn't cover Gholst. However, feel free to nominate this third set of scrolls for other things


If all this sounds too meta-gamy, I can randomly assign what's on the scrolls, and filter them in if you roll for knowledge in the relevant areas. Your call!


Right, that was needlessly complicated, let's get the actual game post done!

[beowuuf]

Ok, so I've shoved you to the door and the 'puzzle'. As players, I fully expect you to try anything but solve this including fireballs, lightning, and staying at the t-junction and yelling for the thing behind the door to come through and 'try it if it thinks it's hard enough'. Any actions you want to retcon into the narrative, or any changes you want from my update, please say.

Assuming you guys want to be sublte and try and solve the puzzle, obviously you can easily feel paranoid about exactly what is required to solve it. Just so you have a clear jumping off point, I will say that to your characters it appears that this is a set of shapes that needs completed by drawing the final one into the clay. As players, you can feel free to assume it's no such thing :p

Anyway, I've left exactly the nature of the puzzle otherise nebulous. Feel free to throw around as many guesses as players that you want in the OOC thread, infact feel free to create a new thread for it here if you like. I'm not saying it's a good puzzle, I'm just saying it's obscure.

If you want a hint, or want to narrow down whcih of many avenues you've suggested it could be, feel free to roll dome intelligence checks - or other checks, if you have the justification for it


Anyway, I might not be flat out at work tomorrow so can maybe comment on any questions, the weekend I assume I won't be around too much, but might be able to

Feel free to use tomorrow and the weekend as time to solve the puzzle, firm up other actions, or just stand around discussing the scrolls, corbums and fulya again!

I shuld be less busy from next week onwards, so I'll be free to clarify anything that I've maybe written even less clearly than normal.

Get your thinking caps on (sorry for the lousy puzzle, they'll get betetr!), and more importantly have a good weekend if I don't check in again!

[ian_scho]

Is it possible to draw three swords in that one square of clay, for example?

[beowuuf]

the space is the same size as a single weapon engraving, but you can draw anything you like

the space is about the size of an outstretched hand across

[oh_brother]

I have a solution that makes sense, I don't know if it is the right solution though!

[!spoiler]How about this: each line has an equal value. So three axes (1st line) = 2 clubs (3rd line). Also 2 axes + 2 swords = 3 axes, so 1 axe = 2 swords. So 1 club = 3 swords, i.e. sword = 1, axe = 2 and club = 3. First line = 3 x 2= 6. Second line = 1 + 2 + 1 + 2 = 6. Third line = 3 + 3 = 6. Forth line = 1 + 2 + 3 = 6. Fifth line = 1 + 1 + 1 + x = 6, so the missing piece must be worth 3 (a club).[/spoiler]

[ian_scho]

I like it!
[!spoiler]I started playing around with tertiary numbers as well... 0, 1, 2.
The only thing I'd wonder about is why the multiplier on the first line whereas the rest are all additions.[/spoiler]