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

[ian_scho]

One of the things that I had in my head about Haynuus shortly after starting that he was infertile/barren. Dunno why.

[Ameena]

What is?
Anyway, I'm curious as to what would have happened if we hadn't rescued Haynuus when we did, or if we'd taken too long about it - it seems a bit unfair that he would have just drowned due to what the other characters did/didn't do, and would have seemed to me like a bit of a GM kill - would the giant tentacled creature have lifted him above the water or something so that people could notice it, or would the water elementals have finally decided to go in and look for him? Or would he somehow have dredged up the strength and awareness to fight his way free (thus disturbing the water a bit, possibly, so people noticed and bothered to do something about it) before probably poassing out again, or something?
Or were you (Wuffy) just counting on the rest of us having nice characters who wanted to make sure everyone was okay before faffing about doing other stuff (which I suppose is a fairly safe bet, definitely with Ameena anyway, and most likely with Petal from what I've seen of her so far )?

[raixel]

Sorry for my lack of posts as of late. Work has been very stressful and the last thing I want to do when I get home is stare at a computer screen again. Hopefully my posts will speed up by Wednesday. I'll try and get at least one or two off a day though, althpough it might be closer to 28-30 hrs between posts

[raixel]

Btw, we had a mouse in our apartment the past few days. We caught him tonight finally using a live trap and let him go outside. I thought of Ameena when I looked at him, especially when he started washing his face as I imagined she did when she was wet. I felt bad for him, he was really small and actually kinda cute and it wasnt his fault he ended up in my apt (he most likely came in along the roof ledge as my apt window doesnt have screens.)

[beowuuf]

it seems a bit unfair that he would have just drowned due to what the other characters did/didn't do, and would have seemed to me like a bit of a GM kill

That's not a GM kill though. And besides, my purpose is not to mete out punishment toindividual players based on individual actions (at least, not always) it's to provide a challenge to the group as a whole, and let you guys play together. Life isn't fair, and so the game should have a little bit of 'your actions in the group might harm the group in a way that doens't affect you at all' Anyway, Haynuus would have been killed because he chose to help Ameena. Ameena was put mentally in no danger partially because of how you played her, but also because it was quite clear that with Haynuus in the way then Ameena was sufficiently

Haynuus was making rolls and failing, and was also given a chance to guess what held him for a bonus. But yes, if the gorup doens't help each other out, cover each other's bad rolls or occasional mis-steps, and act as a unit - bad things could happen to them.

Note that Ian decided to RP taking off the armour to appease the water elemental, AND because of the water later. If there was no consequence, there's no point in Ian doing cool stuff except to amuse himself. However, it mattered, and you guys had an easy time pulling him free.

Just like it mattered what Raixel did, and infact how she got the water elementals into the game. Just like it mattered that Ameena is a murafu with good swimming, and that you put pointis into perception, points you have because you decided to play a rogue.

were you (Wuffy) just counting on the rest of us having nice characters who wanted to make sure everyone was okay before faffing about doing other stuff

Could yourself and Raixel have coasted on posting? Sure.Would it have meant Haynuus's death? Yep. However, you guys had your selves, Deephold and the water elemental. If you aren't going to engage in the onimous tone of the situation, there might be consequences.

Plus even if Haynuus died, there is a tainted alter below, and a working altar with Soorec. Again, tough things to go and get, but hopefully your characters would have been motiviated - especially your Ameena - to bring Haynuus back.


Anyway, hopefully the fact that you guys are currently under no ill conditions (Deephold will revive, I just don't have time now to post I'm afraid) depsite all the dangers means I'm pitching the dangers corrctly but not unfairly most of the time. Hopefully the fact that you guys don't have to play against type, and indeed get rewarded as much as you get challenged for playing to your characters instead of the situations, means that I'm pitching the game right to your playstyles and wishes. And hopefully the fact you guys do realise that I could actually kill your characters, or permenantly harm them, during some of these situations, means your actions do matter. The party and your fellow players do need you. I'm not being easy on you guys, it's just you guys play really well! I don't see that stopping any time soon, so I wouldn't have more than the usual health concern about it

[beowuuf]

@Raixel: Don't worry about it, remember I'm about to be distracted to the point of being unable to post at the end of this week, so you should get a chance to catch your breath away from computers! Plus you guys are on chilling time for a bit.

Poor little mouse! We had one in my mum's house, and yeah, they are so small. I thinkj we could it in an overturned bucket and let it into the builders yard next door!

[beowuuf]

Just to clarify from earlier, since I was getting distracted and also used up my lunchtime and a little bit more (didn't even get to finish my beans on toast in the end ) I have no problem with your guys asking me what the consequences of stuff could have beem, if you are ever worried it might be unfair. I'm well aware I probably manage to make every DM error in the book at some point, hopefully you guys just don't notice/comment on them, or I manage to correct them well enough :p

So yeah, it's important for you guys to know what is going on in the background - sometimes - to know the way you play is (hopefully) the driving force in the way the game is constructed, but also there will always be consequences to balance your actions meaning stuff.


Right, a reminder (I forget if I mentioned it earlier) that m,y mum will be around from Thursday afternoon so basically I won't be able to post (probably) until Tuesday lunctime I am guessing.

You guys are sort of drifting into a lull anyway to plan, so that's ok. So basically feel free to take the weekend off - and Raixel, feel free to recover from evil work more! - and wel'll pick it back up next week.

As homework, if you want it, can I suggest Ian and Ameena, you might want to come up with a background story idea of the last thing you encountered before you were drawn into this game. What was Ameena doing before in the day or two before she met Helm? What was Haynuus doing before he ran in to Westian? Just a thought!

[Ameena]

Do you want specifics, or just a general idea? And are we talking First or Second run?

[beowuuf]

Second run (which would have counted for first run too) - i liked your beth story, and would love to see the headspace your characters were in just before being shoved into a room / met each other normally

[Ameena]

So...this is the version in which they all got together naturally and decided to enter the dungeon, rather than the version in which they were going about their business and suddenly their bodies were yoinked away to the dungeon because of the whole time-travel thing?
As for Beth, that's something I thought of aaaaages ago, but only just got round to mentioning (like pretty much everything else I've come up with about the Murafu or Ameena specifically - it's all been thought of, just hasn't come up yet and may not ever). Still, Ameena will be happy to discuss any of this stuff with people IC, should they ever ask .

[beowuuf]

It's the time before there was even a split. Before Ameena met with Helm and then either a) meandered to Anaias naturally in a week or two (First Run) or b) woke up inside the dungeon (Second Run), she was walking around for a reason. Did she have an interesting encounter that made her more willing to relax with Helm for an evening, was she running from anything? Searching for anything that made her decide not to get a lift with Helm? Etc. That was all, was there an interesting secret or reason that made the characters more likely to bond with their fellow champions.

[Ameena]

Oh...no, nothing specific - she'd have just been generally wandering around looking for Interesting Things, as murafu like to do - there would have been nothing specific about the group that would've made her want to talk to them, beyond the fact that they didn't try to kick/step on/eat/stab/chase her, or anything else which might lead away from a pleasant and conversational atmosphere .

[beowuuf]

Where's the drama and sory possiblities in that? D Anyway,urely optinal homeworkiff you wanted it. Just it was cool to see Petal's backstory, and nice to see the Haynuus/Ameena little snippets of their previous life too. Of course, you can probably just interogate each other IC and have some cool moments to share instead!

[ian_scho]

Will do a short post tomorrow. Insane day Apologies

[Ameena]

Lol, what do you think Ameena's doing right now with Petal? Plenty of space there for murafu-related questions to come up. As mentioned in the OOC note at the bottom of my last post, murafu conversations are a bit difficult to do in a play-by-post - a naturally-shaped murafu convresation would probably take several pages of short posts all by itself .
As for the backstory thing...well, Ameena has been travelling about for a couple of years. I didn't think you wanted every detail, just what she was doing in the day or so before she first met Helm or whatever. The Beth thing would have been quite a while ago, early on in her travels. But as mentioned, Ameena would be happy to discuss any of this in conversation, so to meta-game it slightly (I know, I know ), if anyone else is interested then they can just have their characters bring the conversation around to "peope you used to be friends with" or whatever, and I'm sure it'll come up at some point. Ameena is careful, though, when speaking with other creatures, to at least try not to talk too much, since she's learnt that a lot of other species seem only interested in hearing the main events of a story and not all the extra little details that might pop up. She also has to make sure that she keeps her rate of speech relatively slow (compared to how fast she'd be speaking amongst other murafu), though as you may have noticed she tends to forget this when excited or scared and can make three sentences into one long word quite easily .

[raixel]

Yeah, but it might be very hard to get Petal to speak to you about her past, as she has suffered quite a bit of trauma and really doesnt like talking about it. And if it ever gets to the point where you manage to get her to tell you about her past, she will just say" Well, it started after my Test She tells you the story written in the backstory ".

[Ameena]

Ahh, I've not read that yet. If I get directed to it IC then I'll read it, but right now Ameena has no clue about it so I don't see why I should get that kind of advantage over my own character, knowledge-wise . And Ameena hasn't quite picked up on the fact that she might be upsetting Petal, but she'll probably take the hint if it goes on a bit longer. Murafu are hardly behaviour-blind, but they're never entirely sure how they should behave around other creatures in those kinds of situations because they'r not really sure whether they might accidentally upset the creature further by trying to comfort them, or whatever.

[beowuuf]

Monitoring the game, just no ability to type anything long nor creative.

Westian, if you read the OOC here, I'll try to find time to advance you today... hmm, just in time for the weekend, darn

Also realised I missed one vital piece of information for the main thread, but will include it as a kickstart to get the main thread going in a plotwise direction again instead of adding it quickly now.

[beowuuf]

Sorry, fell asleep, normal service resumes at lunchtime/this evening

[ian_scho]

at work? You fell asleep at work? Don't I work with you?! (One of my work colleagues sleeps in his chair, probably in an attempt to get them to fire him and give him some redundancy money, and nothing to do with his medication at all).

[beowuuf]

Odd, my reply disappeared! Yeah, fell asleep after work last night, then posted before work tonight Though yesterday, at least three of us were almost falling asleep at our desks, so apparently it was a thing going around!

[beowuuf]

Oh, also warnings about my distractions for the next few weeks. Friday - Sunday will have a friend down, so you can probably expect light updates from friday morning until Sunday eearly evening.

Next weekend I'll be gone all weekend, so there'll be no weekend update.

[raixel]

Im just gonna ignore Haynuus' comment about women doing the washing for now, Ian.

[ian_scho]

I just can't imagine the role and status of the female orc in their society!

[beowuuf]

There's possibly an advanced orcish civilisation at home, and the women were the ones that had the idea of getting rid of all the dumber orcs out into the real world to cause havoc there instead

[Ameena]

I can imagine that female orcs may not be particularly different from male ones, really, apart from the fact that they can have babies and the male ones can't .

[raixel]

Yeah, as far as I know theyres two differing views of orcish culture. One (more second edition based) is that orcish women are basically slaves to the men, existing only to breed and wash their mostly unfaithful husbands sweaty orc undies. The other is that orcs are more refined then that and women are warriors in their own right and are treated exactly like the men. If they choose to have babies, that is viewed as a battle with all the blood and pain associated with it. Also a warrior orc woman is viewed as a better mate because she is more likely to have strong warrior babies.

So perhaps Haynuus comes from the first style of orc culture.

On an interesting side note, ogres are matriarchal in pretty much every single edition of D&D. And troll females are stronger and larger than men.

[raixel]

Oh, btw beo, did i fully refresh spells?

[ian_scho]

Oh cool. I love the idea of ogres being in a matriarchal society!

[beowuuf]

@raixel: Yup, full spells again.

The different gender/age/meritocracy dymanics are always more interesting than 'yeah, look at those stupid non-humans!'