So, hopefully this will work better than the last attempt, and we can really get this game underway.

Anybody who wants to make a show of presence, feel free to post here, and any ideas, suggestions or anything we want to see in the game that might encourage prospective GMs to join us are really quite welcome. :)

So... no talk yet, no interested GM has shown up either, and the rest of the team has yet to join here. I do hope this isn't all a fool's errand.

Anyway, in the interest of starting at least some form of discussion, I was wondering, what's everybody's opinion on copying the public threads from the original game here? Should I do it? And if yes, should it be both the OOC and the IC ones, or only one of the two?

Relatedly, if we actually do manage to find a new GM and start the game again, but not every player wants to keep going, should we replay the initial segment with less players, continue from where we are and leave the player-lacking PCs to be NPCs, or look to recruit more new players?

Just trying to get a sense for what everybody wants here - well, that and keeping a conversation of some form going. I tend to get ansty when any game I'm in goes more than two days without new posts.

If not everyone hops over, there's not much point in keeping the existing IC stuff, since we'd have to retcon what happened to those characters - or just leave them locked up in the cell or something. It'd be weird.

Yeah, that's what I was thinking too, which is why I didn't import it directly - as I said, the only two alternative I could see would be recruiting new players or letting those be backup NPCs which are run by the GM, but neither would be really that good of an idea.

What of the OOC thread, though? Is there any value to copying it here, do you think?

My first impulse? Not really.

What might be valuable instead would be perhaps importing the thread containing the character creation guidelines we used to generate these characters so that a prospective GM could get an understanding of how our expectations for the game were set and have more info to make a decision on whether they wanted to take the job on.

That's an excellent point. I'll get to it now then; shouldn't take long.

By the way, I'll be going to sleep in half an hour or so, so should you make a new post and not receive a prompt answer, that'll probably be why.

While we're doing a shakeup/reset, I'm actually considering going for a different character. Mags was my third choice submission and happened to be the one the last GM snagged. I think I ended up trying to bite off too much of the Spheres system at once and ended up with an awkward build, for a character I realized might not fit in with the expectations of the story (given that she was just a CN lout with no real respect for authority, in a game where we'll eventually be working for a higher authority towards Evil Goals).

I've got a concept in my head for a Skinwalker from beyond the Watch Wall (a bit like the GoT wildlings), with a grudge against the murderous fat cats of Talingarde who sit in their castles and cities while her people is forced to endure the frigid wilds of the North. Mechanically, looking at either an Ranger (Apex Predator) or Armorist (Living Weapon), with a defensive focus aimed at being a big scary self-healing damage sponge.

While getting an extra frontliner wouldn't hurt the team composition, considering that certainly Akaj and also probably Bell won't be around, I do think that losing what I took to be our primry source of equipment in your blacksmith build might leave us a bit resource-starved. Still, not having enough frontliners in a team with so many squishy mages could be just as bad, and in the end, you should play something you like.

As for the precise concept, I feel like you should discuss the specifics of it with the GM once they're in - I know that, if I was running Way of the Wicked, I'd alter the sociopolitical landscape of Talingarde a good deal to give the country a bit more personality and coherence, so there's a chance your idea might not jell too well with the new GM's plans. But that's what talking character concepts is all about - to make sure your plans and those of the GM can fit together into a good story.

I suppose my issue with Magan, mechanically at least, is that I tried to make a frontliner out of a caster, and the casting thing was sort of awkwardly bolted on just because I thought it was neat, rather than necessarily true to the original character concept. If I rebuilt her as a straight Blacksmith, Armiger, or Conscript she'd be better at the job, but the issue of personality and personal stake in the mission might still arise.

I'd say you do you. It looks like our prospective GM wants to rerun the first bit of the game anyhow, so now seems to be the time to rework anything you feel needs reworking - whether that's just the mechanics or the entire character.

Yeah, I've said it before: in the end, the important part is to do what you feel is right.

And on that note, as nobody spoke against accetting our first GM candidate, I'm gonna add them to the game shortly; everybody might want to start collecting their private thread(s) from the older game so that the new GM can see what our RTJ was like, what our plans for our respective builds are, and discuss wether keeping, removing or changing anything might be necessary to make the game run smoothly. :)

Hello then.

I've read through the PMs and threads that are here.  Gone back and gone over the books and considered how to bind it together.

First I've only got 2 sheets right now.  Could people move the other sheets across ASAP or let me know if you want to change characters.  I'm easy either way.

Second both sheets have characters who are chaotic in nature.  The campaign as written has devils (so lawful evil) as the key elements.  That being said its not difficult to rework the elements that would need to change to move the patron of this campaign to being demons rather than devils.  What would the views on that be?

On the same note I think clarifying my views on the difference between lawful and chaotic might help a bit.  Law is about society, about the bonds that tie people together being more important than your own individual desires.  So Lawful good is about using those bonds to help people while lawful evil is about misusing those bonds to oppress others.  Chaos is about self over others.  So Chaotic good is about helping individuals irrespective of the cost to society while chaotic evil is about doing whatever it is you want irrespective of anyone elses wishes.

Last thing is the starting point of this campaign.  Given all the threads aren't in this game it seems a little illogical to start from the point you'd got to just because of the work involved and missing players.  So that gives two options.

1) Restart Branderscar
2) There is a second logical start point which is the first encounter after Branderscar where you meet your patron.  Here you would just be rescued before Branderscar and we could move on.  Being honest I almost wonder if this was the original start point of the module and Branderscar was stuck in to make Talinguarde more dislikable.  It would explain things.

So partly as a presence check and partly to start discussion can I have views on

1) Changing patron to a demon rather than a devil and the focus to Chaotic Evil rather than Lawful Evil
2) Where you want to start the campaign

Welcome!

Given our still-missing cast members, and the fact we hadn't gotten very far, means a reset would probably be in order.

The suggestion about moving to Chaos vs Lawful is an interesting one. On the one hand, I like the idea of playing out the conflict of non-lawful characters operating within a lawful organization/acting under lawful orders (and it's not like LE has qualms with using more chaotic forces to do the dirty work). On the other hand, getting a chance to stretch that chaos and burn it all to the ground is also appealing, though perhaps not necessarily as compelling of a narrative.

I did want to change characters, in part because of Magan being envisioned as CN, which conflicts on two axes with an LE story. I've got a sheet all made up for an NE Skinwalker Reaper with a different take on Cult of the Wolf (aimed at emulation of lycanthropes rather than their elimination), based around the whole "apex predator" idea, with inspiration taken from some of the darker aspects of World of Darkness werewolves. Of course, she's a worshipper of a CE deity, so there's some possible conflict there.

I'll get my sheet moved over, though I should note that I was/am STRONGLY lawful evil. My original character concept was a Diabolist and I've adapted it to fit into the Spheres system. Personally, I don't think the campaign concept holds together as well with a chaotic focus, from what little I've read of it (basically the backs of the books). The organized and systematic destruction of a kingdom smacks too much of a lawfully-aligned evil organization for it to be otherwise.

I think I made my point already in PM over why I don't think my being Chaotic would particularly matter; while I mostly agree with your definition of Chaotic Evil and Lawful Evil, Dryssa is built specifically so that what she actually wants and what the campaigns requires the players to want to do are the same thing. So, her "do whatever you want" and the others "use laws to oppress" shouldn't conflict at all.

Additionally, I must admit that I was a bit curious to see how well I would be able to run a chaotic character as the (supposed) leader of a mostly lawful group working at a lawful goal for a lawful patron. It felt like a really interesting challenge. And I most certainly wouldn't want to make Shaela's character harder to play, so if the choice is between shifting my own alignment and changing the game's setup, I'd rather change myself than forcing a changed game on everybody else.

Having said all that, I consider myself very flexible as a player, so anything that is good for the whole group is also good for me.
This message was last edited by the player at 22:55, Sat 09 Feb 2019.

Greetings and welcome to our new overlord :D.



I should have moved everything over myself.  Let me know if you think I'm missing anything.



Carver's NE so I'm good either way :D



Point 1: Full disclosure I've never played WotW before so I wouldn't notice a change in the first place lol.

I suspect the LE focus of the campaign is likely to balance the danger of a party of evil characters.  I've notice in the past (not applicable to anyone here) that certain players here evil and immediately start plotting against the party.... cause that's what evil characters do??

So LE is probably a mechanism to herd the evil cats as it were.  Either way I'm fine with it.

Point 2: I'm not sure we even need a reboot.  We literally haven't done anything but get a visitor right? We've had what, an hour, IC time pass?  Can we just retconed the others out?  Or have them moved cells?

Then again if people want to change the start point, as long as we don't have problem with lagging in the XP we'd have earned from escaping, I'm all good. Again, won't really know whats being skipped anyhow lol.

Yeah, same for me on that last point. Prison or the meeting point, all the same to me, really, since I don't know what I'm missing.

To one of the other points: Anyone who has their character immediately plot against everyone else just because they're evil hasn't been paying attention to literature at all. Or, hell, even real life.

Take, as an example, the Galactic Empire from Star Wars. While it has a couple of evil characters that might kill allies for mistakes (*coughVadercough*) most are perfectly happy to work together to crush their opposition in a coordinated, brutal, and efficient way. This is a textbook lawful evil empire. Their actions are unquestionably evil - I mean, they even destroy an entire planet full of noncombatants - but they don't just willy-nilly turn on their own allies (and, hell, even Vader only does this like twice in the original trilogy, I think).

Yeah, the trick to play evil characters is to play an evil person, instead of an evil asshole. Once you get a character with a proper backstory, motivations, goals, personality and interest, then "finding" ways to work together with your fellow players is perfectly possible. Even when they're good and thus you might need to hide some of your actions from them - after all, if your character didn't already want to work with them, why would they have joined a team with them in the first place?

And in a fully evil team, there's not even that hurdle to overcome - it's just a matter of finding a commonly shared goal that everybody can work towards, and then use that to keep all intra-party conflict to manageable levels. So, really, the way I see it, it's not playing evil characters that is the problem, is people using the "evil" label to justify not playing along with the other players in the game.

Which, as Carver rightly said, I don't think will be a problem here - I think we'll manage to work together as a team perfectly fine, and in fact I'm really looking forward to it. :)

OK - I've been through the sheets I've got (4).

Apart from Dyrssa having a minor problem with the number of spell points I think they're basically solid.

However couple of things.

1) No healer.  You have no way of healing three of the characters and this is not a game that's going to be flush with NPC healers.

2) Two of your characters are going to find casting a pain until you're out of Branderscar and you're all heavy casters barring one.


Right now I'm planning to go with starting in Branderscar and sticking with Devils.  I'll get the first post up in 24hrs.  However our fifth seems to be somewhat missing right now.  I'm happy to wait but right now we have three spheres of power and one champion and no might characters which is a little lopsided.