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

[beowuuf]

Lol, that's because you broke. What would Patrick Stewart say?


Anyway, yeah, hopefully it is a temporary issue. If yelling doesn;t help, try hitting it a few times

[Ameena]

Hehe yeah, good ol' percussive maintenance .

[Gambit37]

I stopped tracking the story a year ago, but I just wanted to say congrats: you've been going at it for a year and a half now!!

[beowuuf]

Yup, a year and a half come February 28th-ish It's been quite a ride!


That reminds me, maybe I should write a 'story so far' so people can at least enjoy the last little part if they want. Hmm, mentioned doing it before, might do it once he groups are passed the areas they are at now.

[raixel]

Woot! and Petal's pixie curiosity gets the bettter of her! Hope I didnt just unleash something horrible on us. I flipped a coin to see if Petal would listen to the rest of the party, or want to peek inside because I couldnt make up my mind on what to do. Guess what side came up

[beowuuf]

Sadly in to work early, or else you could all discover it's a big pile of sweets! I'll try to update at lunch. With the sweets.

[raixel]

I think I woulda liked the sweets....

[beowuuf]

British people have taken a leaf out of America's book and started using words to mean different things. 'Sweets' now means 'carnivorous plant life'. The complaints Nestle gets now...

Don't worry though, the dragon is really just a a piñata - grab a stick!

[beowuuf]

Good to see you bouncing around the site, by the way!

[raixel]

LOL.

Nestle crunch bar. Now with 100% more man eating plant! Gentle enough for a pixie, but big enough for a half-orc! Get yours today!

Yeah, I had been lurking for quite a while reading stuff but really only posted here... Then I felt the site was bereft without me putting my two cents in on everything and started posting again. Also Trantor's new dungeon has rekindled my interest in really playing DM again. AND playing DM also lead me to find out that ATI's driver auto-installer had installed the wrong driver when I updated it a couple months ago. So, winners all around!

Except for everyone else on the board who now has my ramblings inflicted on them where before was only blessed silence. But, we can ignore that part, K?

[Ameena]

Lol, I've been inflicting my ramblings for nearly eight years now (bloody hell...), and they haven't kicked me out yet . That's probably because they just boot Trantor instead, but, you know, as long as I'm still here...

[beowuuf]

Yeah, we seem to have a lort of ramblers around. If I can be an admin, and Ameena a moderator, then you know rambling isn't exacrtly discouraged around here

[oh_brother]

Nonsense, I am sure all of your 17,513 posts were pure gold! And Ameena's too.

I did not get a chance to weigh in on plot points because I was busy, but I would like to see Passin again, and have that story sorted out for better or for worse.

Even yelling *there are 5 lights!* at it didnt seem to help

Lol, I said the same thing to my internet connection a few weeks ago! Well actually my box has only 4 lights. Now that I think of it, are you sure there are 5 lights on yours? Or did you just succumb to torture?

[beowuuf]

Well, the previous 17,513 were pure gold, but the last one or two just now have probably been a little work-a-day I hope to improve upon them tonight by attempting to - as always - kill all my players. Or entertain. I get those two confused, which is why I'm not allowed in theatre groups anymore

[beowuuf]

Oh, and I'll say thing here because I keep forgettign to add it to the IC posts. The green butterfly is no-where to be found right now.

[Ameena]

Ahh I was gonna ask about that but I forgot - at what point did it fly off Ameena's shoulder, then? She'd've noticed...

[beowuuf]

It hasn't been on staying on Ameena's shoulder since the grak-grak incident really, it's been flying ahead and exploring the surroundings.

[Ameena]

Oh, I thought it came back after the grak-grak was dealt with - it reappeared and "said hello" (or whatever it did) and landed on Ameena's shoulder but I don't recall you then saying it buggered off again .

[beowuuf]

It landed on her shoulder to say hello, but then took off to indicate the direction of travel. I seem to recall it doign a few thigns like touching spores Haynuus was looking it (which crumbled) etc on the way. I also seem to recall it goign to the other side of the channel to indicate you shoudl follow. So it's been flitting around.

At least, in my head it did that... I hope I wrote that down...

[Ameena]

Lol I can't really remember - maybe it did that, I dunno.

[raixel]

Um, sorry I dont remember. Too busy exploring the anuses of plant-dragons.

[beowuuf]

Lol, why wouldn';t you?


And yes, to comment on the Combat Advantage thing, 4th edition wrapped up the mechanics for flanking and being denied your bonus to dex (including being flat footed) and called it Combat Advantage. If nothing else, it's so much easierto write and be understood saying you combat advantage' than to write 'you are denied any bonus (but not any penalty) to your AC'


Ameena, you didn't roll the extra d20 for no reason. I can roll it on your behalf when I'm updating though feel free to go ahead if you see this soon.

[Ameena]

Ohh yeah, whoops sorry I forgot about that. I see you rolled it for me anyway and have made an update so I won't bother seeing as I seem to have passed anyway .
Not got time to post IC right now - got an all-day session of club so I've gotta go out in a minute. Will post this evening...it'll be after 6pm, dunno when exactly .

[beowuuf]

All day session of club??? On a Sunday??? Cool.

[Ameena]

Yeah, we have one Sunday session a month now - I just got back about 15 mins ago. Played Deathwatch today - it was actually quite fun . But I can go over to the other thread and make an IC post now .
You know, something I want to try at some point (I've been thinking this for a while) is hosting a DnD game over chat - text chat, not voice chat. It'd mean having easy access to resources like monster stats as I could just load 'em up in the Monster Builder, plus talking would be easier if more than one person was trying to say something at once, but not as slow as PbP where you have to wait for people to put up a new post and stuff. I was talking about it with someone in Skype a couple of weeks ago and we contemplated trying it, but he's busy with stuff atm so it'll probably be a while. But I got a bit carried away with the idea and drew out a combat grid and everything (to use as a basic template which would have different furniture and obstacles and stuff put over it and saved under a different name for each battle, then just sent over to the player as it's updated - was the best way I could think of doing it...but that was imagined with only one player character and the game bein gheld over Skype where you transfer files like that), with little icons for some different monsters (only did a few...might do some more at some point if I get bored). Anyway, umm...yeah...just thought I'd mention it, lol. 'Cause someone might have Skype and be interested and in a similar time zone to me and not all the way over in bloody America or Australia or something and so only around at stupid o' clock in the morning my time .

[ian_scho]

I always wondered the mechanics of how to do it over Skype... Most of the time (I listen to the occasional podcast a couple have been done over Skype) they frankly didn't need to do any grids and stuff. But if it was me I'd get the Games Master to do it on his/her desk, take a photo and then use an application to share or send the image. There are roleplaying apps out there to help with this stuff, I've just never tested them.

[Ameena]

Personally I reckon it'd be easy enough to Rp something like this over Skype - after all, it's exactly the same as sitting around a table doing it, except you're talking via keyboard text (or microphone...though I'd prefer text) and can't physically see each other. I think a grid is necessary for DnD in order for various mechanics to work, such as flanking - it means you can actually see where everything is and how movement works etc. I drew a grid in Paintbrush and my plan was to just send the file over to the other person who was playing - I dunno if you can have multiple people in a conversation over Skype and anyway I don't know anyone else on there who might be interested in playing, plus I'm not sure whether you can send a file to multiple people at once. My connection regarding file sharing is rally slow, but as it's only a dinky little .jpeg file I don't think that'd matter. Anyway, in theory I'd only need to send the file once, to show the layout for the start of combat, and then because it uses grid references and stuff (the way Wuffy does his maps on here), people could then update their own copy of the map every time someone says they've moved to X location. As for rolling dice, those who didn't have their own could use some kind of website, and those who do have their own can just roll them on the desk or whatever - it's not like I'd expect the GM to lean over and check that you weren't lying about your roll in a normal, tabletop-based game, so I don't see that you'd need to use an online roller and then link the result - I certainly wouldn't bother checking it if I was the GM anyway .
I know there are websites out there where you can build your own combat grid - it has furniture and everything, but personally I'd rather do it myself - I've draw little token things with goblin faces and stuff on to be the mobs as well .
The GM could also (if they had the Character Builder program) get everyone to send them a copy of their character sheet and have it for reference if need be, to check stuff like Passive skills and resistances and stuff, to save constantly asking the player for the info or opening up a Word/Notepad file to note all this stuff down and asking all the players for it, etc.
Anyway, it'd be something I wouldn't mind trying at some point, to see if it works out any better than my tabletop attempt at GMing...though to be fair that only had two players so combat was a bit tricky 'cause it took ages with only two of them, lol. If I were to play it over Skype with just one person I'd suggest they use two characters and I'd bring in a couple of NPCs or something - I think a group of around 4-6 is the ideal size for DnD - fewer than that and you can't cover all four character types (Striker, etc), more than that and it gets a bit complicated and "busy" with too many people.

[beowuuf]

Sounds cool! One guy on another forum posts a set of MSN posts he does with someone else, guiding them through a gamebook. And I know Google Buzz was used as a good means of doing the voice thing and having the file/screen sharing ability.

You'll have to post your example of the grid thing to see what you mean, sounds interesting!

If you are looking to text chat not voice chat, remember you can create private rooms on the ajax chat here. That chat also has dice rolling capability.

Edit: Oh, double posted!

[beowuuf]

To answer the post I double posted with: I played a solo game witha friend (Kobold Hall) and let him have an extra NPC. Plus the new 'essentials' has a single player game portion to decide your character that I tried out, where you get an NPC. Pick the right two, and combats can be ok - but you certainly find it can be hit or miss in terms of someone staying up. Reducing the gameplay length can include the thigns you've seen me do - have a little RP in the monsters. Especially if the characters are winning, you can have the extra monsters clear out instead of fighting to the death when they can't make a difference. Means you have less monsters to fiddle with too, if the runnign away critters form the challenge an encounter or two later, along with some fresh mobs.

My timing seems a little weird just now, but if you can figure out something I can always let you abuse me over some chat program at some point!

[Ameena]

The problem with doing it over Ajax chat is that I'm pretty sure it doesn't have file-sending capabilities. All I've done for the grid, for now, is just literally drawn a large grid of squares (I think it's something like 15x15 squares or thereabouts), and done numbers and letters along the edges - Letters along the top, numbers down the left side. I've also done a few little "monster tokens" which are basically just squares a bit smaller than the grid squares and with faces on - a goblin, a skeleton, etc, and each with four little icons along the bottom which I would highlight in a different colour depending on the monster's attack type - there's a sword (melée), a bow (ranged), a spear (reach), and a Ra-type explosion symbol (spellcaster), for ease of reference in a combat with multiple different types of monster of the same species, seeing as they all have the same species icon - for example I only have one "Goblin-face" tile, but in a combat with multiple different types of goblin (ones with swords, spears, a shaman casting spells, etc), I could colour their "attack type" square in something noticeable so everyone knows what's what. though if their attack type wasn't obvious at first (for example, a spellcasting shaman-type creature having no apparent weapons and then suddnely lobbing a fireball at someone), I wouldn't change the colour of the attack-type icon till they'd actually used some form of attack. Um. That probably sounds really complicated, but I know what I mean, lol.
Anyway, that plain blank grid with the few monster tiles I've done off to one side of it is saved as a file and will be kept as tha "base file" for any combat grids - as soon as combat comes along in-game, I'd save a new version of it with a different title (thus keeping the base version for future combats) and then edit that one, drawing on furniture and stuff (nothing fancy, probably just coloured boxes and stuff - it doesn't need to be all stylish and stuff after all, just to show people what's what and imagination can do the rest ), and adding in the monster tiles. I'd also do player tiles too, for the player characters, which I'd probably just create before the game started (I like to get some character info from people before I start a game so I can set it up around them - it's no good having a "save the villagers from the bandits" scenario, for example, if the players would rather ignore the village and go explore the nearby forest instead because killing random wildlife is much more fun than saving a bunch of whiny peasants ).
Anyway, yeah...if you do happen to have (or want to get) Skype, Wuffy, we can try something at some point if you want - I'm not sure how often we're both online at the same time or for how long, but if I'm on then I show as online in Skype (shoudl you get it and want to add me, you can search by e-mail address, which you know, or username, guess what that is ) - it auto-logs me in when I wake up my comp and I do have myself showing as online (unlike Messenger where I'm hidden). If you were the only player (and like I mentioned, I'm not sure if it'd be possible to do it with more than one over Skype even if we found someone who was online at the same time and up for it), I wouldn't mind if you wanted to play more than one character if you wanted to - I played a tabletop with my dad as GM and played a full party of four characters which was quite fun, lol . But I have (or could make) characters I could use as NPCs if necessary/if I felt like it . Though as I've not had much chance to really try DMing (two sessions of a game, several weeks apart, some time back in about October/November last year), I'm not sure how the game would go, lol. I find it easier to think of stuff when I'm not face-to-face with the person I'm talking to and having to communicate out loud, though, which is why I think I might find it easier over some kind of chat thingy. I just want to try it, really, and then if it turns out well, so much the better and maybe I can do it for longer over a campaign or whatever .
And yes, it would be 4th edition .