DM, is there any reason you're not moving us forward to either the next encounter or the keep? N'Rell looted the bodies, we've picked a marching order.....what am I missing?

I think we're waiting for me to react to some private info I got. Sorry to be the bottle neck here but I'm on my way to work and can't post next 12 h. (European timezone here.)

If GM figures out a way to move us on without me, I'm fine with that.

In reply to Inanah Nightbreeze (msg # 72):

Oh, that's totally fine then. Thanks for the explanation. I thought I was missing something obvious.

Yes, that is correct. I sent Inanah a private message about what she sees ahead.

And to answer your question about arrows, retrieving 1/3 is fine. And I'm not too meticulous about things like that, especially if you make a point of restocking regularly.

Sooooooo... I'm pretty sure the one guy who didn't fall asleep is gonna die with that many people jumping on him like that. Haha

In reply to N'Rell (msg # 75):

Hasan and I both held our actions to attack anyone who comes in range. But I'm guessing the hooman is dead from Innah's arrow alone.

Isolde also made some significant damage.

In reply to Inanah Nightbreeze (msg # 77):

I'm not discounting anyone's contribution to the fight. Rather, I was speculating that the attacker had less than 12hit points, since he was probably 1st level, and not a barbarian.

Hey, DM, can we get confirmation on whether the one guy was taken out? I think that's what we're waiting on to see how we are going to proceed.

He's probably out for the weekend, bud XD.

Tried to Google just how one would go about restraining someone with rope in reality. Many pages of softcore BDSM did I get......

I swear I don't Google anything anymore for that reason ... .

I've got a Charm Person spell lined up for this raider guy if he's a real nuisance but my DC isn't the highest in the world. Should hopefully fast track any interrogations without the PCs having to channel their inner Ramsey Bolton.

Hey, fun fact about me! I teach classes on that subject internationally. There are three main styles: Damsel in Distress, Kinbaku, and Fusion Bondage.

My personal favorite method of tying people up is Hojojitsu, which is the Japanese martial art of takedown, capture, restraint, and prisoner transportation. It's really pretty fascinating the stuff people did in a low-metal culture during their feudal era.

However, in this case, you probably just want to tie a quick Texas Handcuff. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ty7ov-K3DRA

That's a pretty cool job, hah, I'd love to whip that out at the next party next time someone boasts about being a doctor or a lawyer.

Hmm. Kinbaku is news to me, didn't know it was a thing in feudal Japan. Not just paintings and poems, eh? XD

In reply to Bencor Dekarrac (msg # 85):

Well, it's more a volunteer thing. Pays for a lot of my vacation time, but not what I do full time. I don't know many educators who do it full time, though there are performers out there who make a living doing shows.

Rope is a hugely important element of Japanese culture. For one thing, the method by which they weave braids is remarkably similar to how they make cloth (google "Kumihimo" and "takadai" if you want to see more), and so the "fabric of society" metaphor can get really granular with them. Ceremonially crafted rope is used to mark temple entrances, braids are used in place of belts, there's an entire artform dedicated to wrapping packages in cloth and tying them shut.

Like, you know how in western culture, you can express a lot through a bouquet of flowers? In the Meiji Era, you could insult someone by the way you tied their wedding present.

I mentioned hojojitsu before. One of the really neat things there is that they used the way in which people were bound as part of their record keeping on their prisoners. You just won a major battle, you've got 400 people to march back to base, but THREE of those guys are nobles who you can ransom for hard cash money, but the other 397 are all useless peasants you'll be sending to work your rice farms. How do you keep track? After a two week march, stripped naked and bound by rope, pretty much everybody looks the same. So what they did was, they tied up the guys who were worth money in a restraint that also contained coded messages about their rank and ransom value!

Anyway, that stuff didn't get sexualized until the Reform, as the nobility lost power and a lot of samurai tried to figure out ways to make money. All they knew how to do was fight, tie people up, and paint. Weren't allowed to fight anymore for income, so....
This message was last edited by the player at 01:41, Sun 03 Feb 2019.

I admit my knowledge of Japanese history is woefully limited to the infamous https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mh5LY4Mz15o video.



Hrmm, nice ideas for nasty, backstabby courtly RP. Love that period drama stuff. I'm off to see The Favorite sometime this week.

Nrell has gagged him. don't need to knock him out.

In reply to Bencor Dekarrac (msg # 88):

Any ruckus he makes could alert the new threat to our presence. Short of hog-tying him to a pole and carrying him, there's no way to keep him completely unable to alert others to our presence.

If I had a knife, I'd put it to his throat and make a meaningful glare. But Kathra is a warhammer-carrying kind of lady, and you know the old saying about having a hammer, right? :)

That's actually what I intended to do. I may be a magic user but that doesn't mean I'm completely unarmed. ;-)



If your only tool is a hammer, treat every problem as though it was a nail. I use that line all the time IRL. Haha

In reply to N'Rell (msg # 90):

On the one hand, my character really wants us to sneak past them unnoticed.

On the other hand, *I* really want the XP.

That's why I use milestone xp whenever I run a game. I prefer players to make decisions motivated by more than numbers. I had a tabletop game run where one player had a Ranger who, every time the party made camp, would go out and hunt wolves. His character would never do anything with the kills (use the skins/fur/etc). It was motivated by greed for xp (specifically to get more than anyone else in the group). I warned him that it was kind of a jerk move and should probably stop (insert evil GM grin) but he kept doing it... until he fired his bow at a wolf that didn't drop right away. It was a wild-shaped Druid who was tracking whoever had been hunting wolves for sport. It didn't end well for the Ranger. He rolled up a new character and didn't pull stuff like that with me again. ;-)

Depends on GM naturally, but smartly avoided encounter should still give XP, not just killing enemies.

I prefer advance-by-expenditure systems like Shadowrun. For a tabletop session I also like it when you get XP rewards for things like "stayed in character the most this session" and "best scene this session." That's obviously harder to do on a PbP system like rpol.

Gaining experience points won't be much of a problem in this part of the story; surviving might be. I'd recommend saving your resources as much as possible. But you're free to ignore my advice.