It would not even occur to Barnutan that they should fall upon fellow travelers in such a manner.

Sincere apologies.
I cannot fullfil my committment, my project (150MEur) is going down and I'm under fire. Not my fault, but hey, that's what accountability is all about, so...
Would have loved to play, but I don't find the time... not for any RPOL.
Thanks anyway.
Sorry, Cheers

That a fair bit of spare change, L.

And it's understandable. Hope it L ends well, and see you soon!

In reply to Leontes (msg # 345):

Very sorry you must leave us before you really had time to play. I wish you the very best in dealing with your RL crisis and hope someday you will be able to play on RPOL again.

Sorry to hear it Leontes, but thanks for the update and good luck!

So, gang. When in the best moment to kill them all?

Well, Barnutan didn't sign up to be a member of a murdering band of road pirates.

As a player, I signed up for island exploration and, when that didn't work out, I signed on for politics/diplomacy.

That, at least in my estimation, leaves us at an impasse.

If S tries to kill them, as a character, B would defend them. Since I have zero appetite for PvP, I would have him run away instead. I would likely leave the game at that point.

If S decides to just rob them, B would probably switch sides after S had relieved them of their cash. He would pledge his service to the injured parties. That would also be game-ending.

So those are his cards; they're on the table.

So you're basically leaving the game?

I wouldn't put it that way. I would say there appears to be some irreconcilable differences here.

One possibility would be for Sandra's bloodlust to pass. She could let the rival merchants go with their coin and their lives. Barnutan would have second thoughts about her, but she wouldn't necessarily have crossed a line. Relations with the other merchants would probably be unsalvageable but the game could go on.

Another possibility would be for Sandra to incapacitate them in some manner but do no harm beyond that. I suppose that would all but guarantee that we reach the refugees first.

I suppose I could do the Jake Spoon thing from Lonesome Dove and be the shiftless guy who fell in with Bad Company, but I'm not eager to do that.

Ideas on the 'how'?

Oh, the sort of thing we've seen any number of times in movies and shows. You coldcock them with the pommel of your sword after they've been tied up. We loosen the ropes on one of them so they don't become prey to animals or the elements. Or maybe B does the loosening thing when he thinks S is looking in the other direction.

That was pretty much my plan, except I'd take Nastasia back to Dellavria for interrogation, but I don't think they're graciously letting us tie them up, considering they just refused to drop their weapons. Unless our wise GM would allow another roll to insist they disarm.

Disarming isn't off the table yet.  But one step at a time.

Kidnapping a member of one of the major families is a serious crime.  Doing so while working as an agent of one of the other families is pretty much asking to start a war.  These are things that 'Sandra would definitely know in character.  Whether or not she cares is a different question, of course.

--------

Also, happy New Year to you all, and may this scene right now be the most strife that any of us has to deal with in the coming year!

Although Makawmano has gone along with Sandra so far, I do respect Barnutan's objections to criminal violence. I hope that we can work out a practical plan that will keep us all together.

Ah, my bad then. I was working under the assumption that, although working an important mission for an important family, those guys were expendable goons such as ourselves.

Which probably invalidates the prisoners for interrogation idea, and is a +1 to killing them and making it all look like a highway robbery turned nasty, I'm afraid, B.

Our mission, though understandably obscured by the mists of time, was to investigate the possibility of this major family's interference with as much subtlety as possible.

I think the only real option is for S. to come to her senses and apologize for her rage. Even with that, it's hard to see how our patron would ever employ us again...

Orrr, you could actually help us in combat. But it makes more sense to surrender, surely.

I think this game has gone as far as it's going to.  I don't see a way out of the current situation that feels like it has a good chance of being fun, and I don't feel like putting more of my finite mental energy into finding other options.

I'm going to leave this open for a few more days in case anyone wants to save anything that they have here, and then I'm closing up shop.

It is a great pity that we seem to have reached an impasse. My only suggestion at this point if that if we really wished to try to continue, Barnutan and Sandy could discuss OOC what they think they should have done INSTEAD of getting into this situation, and then have the GM allow us to start over from a point in the encounter with the rival party at which we could all follow a mutually agreed alternative strategy.

It's time to move on. It's not worth rehashing at this point.
This message was last edited by the player at 02:39, Mon 09 Jan 2023.

I appreciate the suggestion Makawmano, but I'm with Barnutan on this one.  It's alright, there will be more games in the future.

In reply to Makawmano (msg # 362):

Scroll up, I tried. Barnutan basically said, do what I want or I'll leave. That poisoned the whole experience for me.

We can continue to argue about things we clearly disagree about, points of view we don't share, and attempt to blame each other for the consequences.

It's best, as the GM says, to move on to other tables, other games.

I'm really not interested in placing blame or holding ill will toward anyone.  What happened happened, it's a little frustrating but really all it means is the end of another play-by-post campaign.  I suspect we'll all be better served by dropping this and moving on.

Well, given the feelings of the rest of those here, I suppose we must move on. I will say I enjoyed the game until it suddenly went sour. My best wishes for all you for enjoying future games elsewhere.