Same here. Really, really sorry about your son. Makes my problems pale in comparison.

It's one of the reasons I post these updates... to remind everyone that stuff happens in Real Life that is beyond our control.

So, apologies for my delay in posting. Chemo has been doing a number on me, leaving me too tired to post most days.

Very sorry to hear that, for both things. =(
This message was last edited by the player at 20:48, Fri 24 Mar 2023.

Greetings
Let me start off with well wishes for Willem, StarMaster.

My character Xar’ach, pronounced zaar aks , has joined the Thundertree thread, I think the description and back story I’ve posted give you enough to get a feel for him pending IC interaction.

A quick introduction to the player behind the bugbear. I’ve played D&D since the brown box (yeah, that really dates me) but not much since 4e came out. That caused me to gravitate to other RPGs such as T2K, Morrow Project, and numerous GURPS settings among many others. Retired from the USAF (one of those jobs where the NDAs will outlive me), I currently work with highway and bridge engineers who all consider me to be suffering from CDO (that’s OCD that’s so pronounced it must be alphabetized). With that in mind, if my posts get too crunchy just smack me.

Welcome.

I hope you have fun and look forward to some good roleplaying. Just know this is a very...casual...game. Due to the harsh realities of life, updates will be sparse but that will give plenty of time for characters to interact with each other. :)

And something else, in case of Nemeia, the character's actions and views do not represent the player. I am a very old roleplayer, so I have tried to challenge myself to roleplay differently from all the other many...many...many characters I have played.

I am sure our character's first meeting will not lead to crossed blades...hopefully. :)

Honestly, I have spotted a theme with RPOL. A lot of GM's and players have "something" going on with them. Cancer patients, persistent migraine sufferers, paraplegic, blind to name a few, and then OCD and needy players (that's my trait) are abound.

Welcome to this band of merry men. You're no better or worse than any of us! :)

Welcome

Whew, props to StarMaster for putting in the work of changing my PM to past tense instead of just dumping the copy+paste to say nothing of hanging in there through some rough, rough stuff. Grey Willem too, if they're still checking in. Sorry to hear about all of it.

Also, hi! I'm pretty new to RPoL but not 5e or play-by-post. Do correct me if I do anything technically or culturally inappropriate. Looking forward to rolling and role-ing with y'all.

In reply to Sala Menes (msg # 34):

Better to be crazy than boring.

Sorry for the extended absence without any notification.
Will now be able to read back and contribute again.

Welcome back!

Others in same boat, so don't worry!

Thank your for posting IC for me, too :D

I was at first surprised to see that I had supposedly posted last on 30th March :))

I have to move things along as the scene calls for. As long as your character is there, he'll be doing something... not just fade into the background.


And now we come to that time again: new adventures.

I've got lots of ideas (not saying they are all good, though), so it gets down to:

1. Break up the large group into more-manageable smaller groups. The problem with this is having a character go off on one adventure and then wishing he'd joined the other group.

2. Keep the large group together. This is probably doable only if everyone cooperates.

3. Some amalgam of these two options.

4. I'm open to any other ideas.

Wasn't there some reason we needed to bring the group all together?  Some objective?

A secondary, unknown or backup invading force attacking the city from multiple sides could keep a large party occupied while being split up over a short distance. Perhaps a small number of much tougher enemies mixed with fodder so that the local militia controls what the split parties target.

I would imagine a large group being painful, purely from the fact that a lot of games tend to wait for everyone to post before continuing. That puts the pace at the lowest common denominator.

However, given that it's potentially way easier to have just one thread to update and come up with encounters for just one scenario for you, it could also run smoother.

Also set an update interval. Anybody who didn't post in time gets NPCd or takes a pause to scan the battlefield.

I can't agree with prizzard more. Hate waiting for players who afk for a week!

Good points there.

One idea was Storm Over Neverwinter where the group is dealing with a multiple layer enemy. Sort of all together, but low, medium and high.


A single thread to update sounds easy but not necessarily. Though an update deadline (Thursdays and Sundays, for instance... or three days of posts then update. Intermediate posts might still be necessary.


I certainly can't recall any overarching plot... other than stop the attack on Phandalin.

I'm not gonna lie, I personally dislike threads with huge amounts of people. It gets too confusing, chaotic, and there are way too many posts to try and read through and possibly react to, given that I can't always post every day. Shrug. But that's me personally. If the decision is everyone together, I'll try to muddle through it.

A group of six characters can be manageable. At this rate, there can be two or three different groups doing different adventures could be done but depends how much of a headache they would want.

I think the challenge with a large group is that by the time you kind of get around to post the threat has already been dealt with. Take that fight with the (conjured) wyvern (Chapter 10). The incredible damage output seen there makes it kind of moot to post, especially when 'wasting' ammunition :D.

On the other hand, being in a fairly small group and 1-2 cannot post regularly for RL reasons, be it briefly or for an extended period, might cause a problem, too.

So, I don't know, groupd of 6-8 perhaps? Which in turn would be a tough strain on the GM, though. And I am always in favour of reducing any GM's workload
This message was last edited by the player at 19:37, Mon 03 Apr 2023.

I haven’t been with the game long enough to really get a good feel so am going to say that I’ll roll with the punches. I see some good arguments for both sides, so the best answer may lie in the middle. In the end it’s really what will help StarMaster retain their sanity.

A thought popped into my head just before I hit post. There’s always a Yawning Portal type scenario, which would allow a mix of group sizes.

Not much feedback yet, but every little bit helps.

No real convincing reason to keep one large group. I was just concerned that some players would feel a bit bummed out if they didn't get to adventure with certain other characters.


Smaller groups it is.

My thought was that while they're all in one general location they're split up among more specific locations such as with the attack on Thundertree but more spread out for a larger city where each group or individual can update separately without affecting other groups at all.

I don't have any reason to think a functional threat level is impossible for any size of party, but the bigger the party the bigger the threat and the smaller the margin for error on the part of any one individual.

That said posting 15+ characters in the same thread can easily go the direction of wall of text and take up enough time that one can no longer create their own post, and get stuck in that process.

Groups of 8 ish sounds about right, if anyone has a preference you don't already know they can voice that IC or OOC to you, and we can do that.  For my part Cinnabar is generally ok with everyone, but what group she joins will be determined by how useful or important its goal seems to her at the time.