OOC thread!

[raixel]

Crits arent max damage, theyre double. Logically under this system they should be max, i guess. But this is the way I'm doing it.

Well, obviously. That goes without saying. If you are a quadriped you lose movement or take penalties to a claw attack, if you have wings instead of arms you lose flight speed/ability if you are flying. Thing is, its all done narratively. You as a player dont know what you hit (you are not rolling 1d5 to see) I might say "Sssil swings his long sword, severing the fighter's tendons in his wrist and causing him to drop his blade on the ground. The fighter grabs his hand and howls in pain" Basically its the exact opposite of a nat 1. When you roll a nat 1, you dont know whats gonna happen. I make it up, being fair with what exactly is going on. Ive been running called shots in my home game that I know ho wto make it work. This is just a variation. And its actually easier cuz I can just roll 1d5 instead of percentile!

[Ameena]

Hehe, okay. What I was saying about my own description is that narratively I might say "My character slashes at the man's wrist with a knife, hoping to sever the tendons and make him drop his weapon". Obviously I'm not trying to make an actual called shot, since in DnD mechanics there isn't one. But narratively that's what my character is trying to do - if I hit, you can say "You slash at the man's wrist, hitting and causing him to howl in pain", though presumably I wouldn't get lucky enough for him to drop his weapon unless I critted or something. Meanwhile, if I miss, you can just say "You slash at the man's arm, but he moves it at the last moment and blocks your attack", or something. It just adds a bit of extra fluff to the narrative, rather than "I try to hit the bloke", "You hit/miss".

[raixel]

Yeah. Youre welcome to do that. In fact I like it when players do that cuz it gives me something to go off of! Its way easier if my players give me a general description of whatthey do. If its a full-crit that doesnt hit the part the NPC were aiming at, dont worry I'll work it in there somehow.

So you say that about your attack, and then I could say (for a near miss) "the man sees the blade coming in at the last minute and twists his blade so your strike/weapon/whatever slides ineffectually off of the steel" If it was a nat 20, I could say "He howls in pain as your powerful strike slices underneath his bracer, cutting deep into his wrist and causing him to almost lose control of his blade.". And if you full-critted, but the 1d5 came up "head", it could be like "You aim for the man's wrist with your dagger. He twists sideways to avoid it, and you dodge under his outflung arm to clang solidly on the helm. There is a skirl of metal as your blade slides down the rounded helm and digs a deep line directly across the bridge of his nose, the shock of the heavy blow and the blood in his eyes staggering him.

Or something. Usually crits/full crits are even more spectacular. I like to have nat 1's be out there(although I cant do it all the time) description-wise, and nat 20s/crits be just as crazy. Especially if theres two in a row!

How about nailing your companion full force on the end of the snout with a slightly-caustic egg, which shatters all over their eyes and nose causing them to lose a round while they sit and scream "OW MY EYES", and then take penalties cuz their eyes are swollen shut from the burning. Hmm?

And I'm being nice. In my home campaign the penalty is permananent till you receive a heal check/magic healing or you make a will/fort (whichever is higher). One represents using your mental strength to push through the pain, and the other your physical strength. But considering at this point theres no magiacl healing, I wasnt gonna do that to you guys.

[Balthus]

We would use hit locations on any creature that could be broken down into the same basic five percentage ranges as humanoids. A dragon still has four limbs a torso and a head, just like the common cow. Two arms and two legs amount to the same as four legs.
Winged creatures, not flying creatures, an Ogre-Magi can fly but doesn't have wings, were treated as if they didn't have wings. Don't ask me why, that is just what we decided on.
For non-humanoids creature we didn't use hit locations. A snake is just a body, a giant spider is also just a body. If we couldn't divide the creature into hit locations then we didn't use it for the ensuing fight.

[beowuuf]

Just to go OT from the OT - Ian, did you really just roll a double crit fail???

[beowuuf]

For an idea of what to do.... do nothing. And then Thiy's arms fall off 1d6 hours later.

[ian_scho]

There is only one word to describe it. Delicious.

[raixel]

Ameena around? I need her response, cuz I wanna get you guys moving, that sections been dragging hard.

[beowuuf]

She's checked in, so it's just she's not posted. Oi, Ameena, stop being distracted by Ja'ph or Minecraft or Diablo III or whatever and reply to the nice pathfinder caravan person!


Sssssil could have replied, but it's been really nice weather so I've been walking aroudn a lot. Fopr example, I'm going to leave work (was in quickly to do somehting) and then will wander around again! Will add some more Sssssil comments/gestures later this afternoon

[raixel]

Same here. Why would I be inside my yucky hot apartment when I could be *outside*? Oh yeah, my computers in here...

[raixel]

Hm. And to think I just got the "wibbly wobbly timey wimey" reference in Beos game cuz my best friend finally sat me down and made me watch Dr Who. This shows pretty good.

If it wasnt *extremely* British I think Id like it alot more, though. The historical episodes when they go back in time to some part of England kinda arent interesting at all, cuz I either a) have no idea what the hell theyre talking about or b) don't really care cuz I wana see weird sci-fi stuff, not ye olde tyme UK.

*looks around at her audience*

*runs*



No seriously, I like it alot. Its up there with Farscape, in "*raixels big book of cool shit, chapter 2: sci-fi TV shows".

* The book I plan to write some day.

[beowuuf]

Lol, well, what can you expect from a British sci-fi show And awww, Farscape *sniff* sadly missed, though cut down episodes are going to be shown on the Nerdist channel soon.

I'd say one of the best Dr Who episodes (other than blink that I am sure you'ver been shown) is the introduction of the newest doctor, called the 11th hour, and the first episode of the fifth newest series.

[Ameena]

Yaaay, Doctor Who is cool - I agree on "Blink" being probably the best episode . If you get the "Wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey" then presumably you've already seen that one, though I think the Doctor does use the phrase a few times in later episodes as well.
And Farscape is epic . I managed to get my hands on a boxset a couple of years back. Still haven't got round to watching any of it, but I will do at some point. I keep meaning to rewatch Black Books as well, but haven't got round to that either, lol.

[raixel]

Ian, you got really lucky that the rats got killed and your nat 1(s!) didn't seem to have a detriment. Also, I cleaned up the forum and moved the character creation discussion threads into the archives so its not so cluttered out here.

[oh_brother]

Muscles from Brussels? I love it! Though now all I can think of is that Van Dame Coors Light ad (not sure if it made it to Spain or Seattle though!).

And I never saw Dr. Who, so I missed that reference!

[raixel]

Hey Ameena, remember when we were talking about accents and how its way more obvious to the people who naturally speak that way when someones faking? Well, I'm watching an episode of Dr Who where the doctor goes to America. And at least half the people are very obviously British doing pseudo American accents to me. Thats really amusing, ive never heard it before cuz usually most English actors can do an alright American accent. Rick from the Walking Dead for example. He does a perfect thick Southern accent, I about shit a brick when I heard the actor talking OOCly and hes got a straight up heavy English accent.

This is pretty cool,ive never heard "bad American accent" before. Bad English accent 100s of times, but never the other way around.

[Ameena]

Lol. I suppose some people are better at accents than others - I'd seen David Tennant in another programme before he was in Doctor Who and he spoke the same way he does as the Doctor, so I was very surprised when I saw the first episode of Doctor Who Confidential and found out that he was Scottish! Same with Colin Morgan (Merlin, plus was also in the Doctor Who episode "Midnight"), who's Irish.
Being English, I wouldn't know a fake American accent from a real one, I suppose. I don't think I know of too many Brits who play Americans. Hugh Laurie is the only one I can think of, off the top of my head.

[beowuuf]

Odd, was it the American accents in the 1960s? Maybe they went a little ott to be period with it too.

And I knew David Tennant was scottish as I'd heard him in Takin' over the Asylum when he was younger, but Colin Morgan floored me, eve after you wanred me!


Jamie Bamber I had no idea was British (didn't see hornblower) from BSG, and definitely many Brits have the American accent for certain films. Can't think of some obvious ones... wel, except Bob Hoskins, he has a New Yorker accent to fall back on.


Anyway, there are always exceptions - Sean Connery for example.

[raixel]

It was the episode called "dalek" from the first season of the new series. The one where the bad guy's an american who has the dalek in his collection. Nearly everyone had a slight British accent. The one who sounded the most American was the bad guy, but even he said a couple accented words.

And the part when the bad guy goes "which one do you like better, the democrats or republicans" and his assistant goes "democrat, sir" and he goes "why" and she goes "cuz theyre funny" makes absolutely no sense. Like whatsoever. I rewound and listened to it a couple times, sure I was missing something. But I guess it was just to cement the "we are American" stuff for all you guys. I mean, itd be like if you wee watching an American show where they were in "Britain" and someone said "Um, which do you like better,the labour party or the conservatives" "The labour party" "Why" "Cuz theyre amusing." But then again, I dont know anything about English political parties, (those are the only two I know of) so maybe it makes sense in that context...

Part of the reason I like watching this show is cuz you dont see any really ultra-British stuff here. The shows that get popular to be known over here are generally more international. And its a sci-fi to boot!

[beowuuf]

Oooooooh, not the actual one where they go to american then, nm

I guess the democrat joke is because the republicans are seen as very conservative, in line with the bad guys, so to them the democrat liberal agenda is humourous. The joke you just made works by the way with the British parties. If you had some upper class or military guy saying they like labour better (traditionally a working class party) and then saying the reason being 'because they are funny'

Also hints and not thinking that the government has any real power, of course, because you work for a powerful corporation. so politics boils down to which one amused you more, not which one shares your political ambitions and beliefs.


And yeah, James Bond is really the only other very English centred franchise that's big.

[oh_brother]

I can think of a number of cases where I discovered actors were British after having seen them play Americans, and was quite surprised. Damien Lewis from Band of Brothers and Homeland was one. And the guy who played McNulty in The Wire - supposed to be Irish-American but actually English. Then again maybe an American would have noticed something funny going on with their accents.

Btw I like the fact that Sssil can cope with poisoned friends better because you can't really see it!

[beowuuf]

Lol, it seemed like a nice non-sequitter for a lower int lower wis guy I didn't notice him saying that when Growlgra was downed with poison, of course. But it seems easier to beleive all will be well when there's not a nasty stomach wound staring you in the face and bleeding all the time :p


Also, let's just once again mention how evil this party is. Evil outsider who has turned neutral, but will still eat anything unless there's a good reason, weak lizar who might do something heroic or might just mess up or run away (and he's the best of you lot), sadistic monk who likes to crush ratties, and dour warrior who doens't blanche at torture!

[raixel]

Yeah, I wonder what it is that makes it easier for British people to do American voices than the other way around.

Oh, a side note. Just to make sure it wasn't just me, I told my ex-roomie the "democrat and republican" thing from Dr Who, not telling him why, just that it was a "sci fi I was watching and *explained the scene with the bad guy and assistant, leaving out the fact that it wasnt American* and I didn't get it, could he explain it" and he goes "Wait, what? I don't get it either. Why are they "funny"? That makes no sense.". Then I explained it to him that it was Dr Who (which he had never seen, but heard it was "very British", although good.) and they were in "America". We both agreed something must have been lost in cultural translation there.

Back to the game:

I'm rather amused by the whole concept. I thought Thiy woulda been all excited over the torture, only to see Artaxes get all "woo, eye poky!". And OB, if it comes to it, you only have to describe as much as youre comfortable with. Just because I make a habit of describing every bleeding pustule on a diseased rat and mass of flies on an evescerated corpse, doesnt mean you have to. Believe me, the description of the scene with the merchant and Thessan was pretty tame compared to how I saw it in my head. But sometimes, I find for the really horrifying stuff other poeple's imaginations can do the job way better than I ever could .

I hope poor Thessan survives. I rolled a bit to see what happened "off-screen" when Thessan entered that scene and lets just say I was like "fuckin' hell, what does THAT mean? NOT good for poor Thessan.". See, thats the thing, since I always hated those old published adventures where basically no matter what the party did "situation x" WOULD happen. Or if the party doesnt go through "door x" nothing will happen and they'll just bumble around until they finally do. I structure my adventures so that everything except for the absolute core plot is dynamic. For example, the rat fight and traitor could have gone quite a few different ways. The traitor was going to do what he did, but whether he was stopped before he got over there, was noticed, got away, or whatever could have changed the story drastically. Same with Thessan's incident.

And the plot thickens. If you guys are reading each other's threads, I'm sure you are OOCly starting to see a pattern here. Considering the fact that whats going on is a modified version of what was supposed to be just an intro with Beo, and I havent even gotten to the campaign I actually wrote for everyone, I'm seriously wondering how long this games gonna go on. Could be a couple years, especially cuz I wrote the campaign as if it was tabletop, and these PBP games go much much slower. You guys havent even met up yet!

[Ameena]

I'm not reading the other thread, no, since I prefer to keep my own knowledge and that of my character as closely aligned as possible. So I won't know anything about the other characters (except their names, which are kind of obvious as they're in the thread title ) until I meet them .

[ian_scho]

> I'm seriously wondering how long this games gonna go on

That isn't an issue. Remember you are working with some tough old fogies on this forum

> You guys havent even met up yet!

Again, not worried about this.

[beowuuf]

Yeah, remember how long my game took, and it was onyl a dungeon crawl The downside of PbP. Then again, you tend to get more character beats and fun little things (and chances to show off your DM coolness and tidbits) so it evens out in the end.


And yeah, when DM/GMing, I like to have a through line that will happen if the charcters do nothing, but also like that to be something that is easily derailed and shifted. Basically, the world must still carry on in a direction whenever the party stops doing stuff, but that direction is influenced like a bouncy beach ball

[ian_scho]

btw, will be away for the weekend!

[beowuuf]

Have I already mentioned I'm away from Tuesday afternoon until Monday? I've suddenly got this horrible thought I haven't mentioned it here Which given Sssssil's cowardly behaviour right now, might work out..?

[raixel]

Alright then. I'm calling a break till monday. I'll respond to the current posts, probably tomorrow. But as I'm gonna be kinda busy this weekend too, it would be easier to call a break.

Edit: Wait, i read that wrong. You're gonna be away from next tues to the mon after, beo? Ok, then, nevermind on your game. OB and Ian are paused till mon(which is normal). That actually kind of works, cuz Ian/OB are actually about 12 hours behind you guys, timewise. Ill give me time to catch them up. Or, I could take over Sssil. Its up to you.

[beowuuf]

Yeah, I still have a couple of days left I'm still trying to marry up the shier (shy-er? shy?) Ssssssil to the more plot-driving Sssssil right now. So I'm happy for him to fade to the background a little and need minimal NPCing. Do things with him if you want, but it would seem to match - especially if he transfuses and then poisons himself - that he would not be doing much. He's still too scared of tracking people that can skewer him or control his mind, and the worse thing that even if he tracked with heavy hitters like Urrffrah, then they could kill him. Of course, he's supposed to be a hero, so maybe his conscience will eat at him enough....


Oh, and even if the poison idea doens't work, if it manages to become any sort of weakening but not killing potion, it might be something the group can use against each other in case one gets mind controlled.