This is a general discussion thread for discussing all aspects of the game.
This message was last updated by the GM at 22:50, Mon 18 Apr 2022.

This is going to be an odd first post for discussion.
As things stand I have 3 completed (well 2 finished and 1 as good as) characters.
I have had no further responses since either my initial post or the effective bump of 2 days ago. Even the original player who suggested I run a game here hasn't bothered to respond.

The choice now comes down to
1) I abandon attempting to run a game here, which in a lot of ways is unfair on the 3 of you who've bothered to take the time to create characters
2) I run with the 3 characters I have and a stack of "character NPCs", and anybody who wants to join later will have to take over one of these "character NPCs".

The background of the campaign effective precludes any "lost" Amberite characters with any Pattern knowledge/capability, which also mostly precludes any characters with Shadow traversing Trump capability.

This means any character with Amberite heritage who joins later, and it will be a while before this is even possible, will be in exactly the same boat as the starting characters are at the beginning, although they may have slightly more knowledge about some things.
What any such character won't have is all of the history and background that the characters, including the "character NPCs" will have learnt.

Having only 3 players, would make life really difficult later, which is also partly what the "character NPCs" are for, although they will only act, at least for the most part, in concert/support of what the main players do.

How we proceed from here is now down to the 3 of you so I need some opinions please

What I would personally recommend - if such a thing is possible since I don't know your campaign notes - is creating a couple of "blank slots." That is, have characters who are recruited in the initial pitch but don't become plot important at that time, so if we get a few players straggling in late, the blanks can have been hanging out in the background and involved in offscreen activities.

It's not an elegant solution by any means, but this is RPoL and we're a pickup group, so that's my idea. If not, go with Plan B.

I like the option 2  or something along the lines of what Winter had in mind. A horde of NPCs, some of which could even be 'vaguely described'. Depending on their number, obviously not all (6+) of those involved would be working together constantly. So easy enough to have the blanks (or a couple of the NPCs) be doing things separate from the main PCs (and core NPCs).

If/when someone wishes to join in, they can either take over one of the established NPCs or try to fill the more vague blanks. Perhaps only have 2 of those; enough to fill the void to get up to the approximately 5 it sounds like you were planning and then have more NPC options for extras (or those who want to join without doing a full character creation).

Okay so 2 out of 3 basically in agreement.. we'll go with option 2..

That sounds good to me as well.

Just a quick note.
I'm not going to progress the invitations thread for a couple of days.
Trying to reach a consensus of opinion with another player over their character. I think we maybe close now, so I don't to get too far ahead.

Hi. I don' know how I missed this thread but I vote to press on as well. for what it's worth

Finally, took a lot of hammer and tongs and beatings about the head, but I'm here.

And of course, now begins the most dreaded part of any new character; finding an avatar that fits even remotely.  Why do I always do this?  Make the character, describe them, and then go looking through the picture database...

Ugh, I know exactly how you feel

Hear that.

Good luck with that one. Tons of options on here.. but finding the right one is never easy.

It's easy if you're playing an attractive young woman or handsome white/black guy... by stray to far out those boxes and things begin to become limited.

Lots of heavyset/beefy bearded guys too... not too many beefy native americans.  Gonna have to find a good young pic (or commission an artist) of Will Sampson*, submit it, and then wait a bazillion years for the database team to add it.

(Or someone else... still have my eye out, but Will Sampson in The White Buffalo is really close to the look I'm aiming at...)

I had a discussion with a GM about finding a good picture for a Black woman. It was...a pain.

Often I just put the image in the description instead of using the portrait system.

If she wasn't supposed to be "classically" beautiful... yeah that can be a pain.


Ditto.  But I usually also submit a pic tot eh system and hope...

Right now I'm just trying to decide between Will Sampson (Crazy Horse The White Buffalo, Chief Bromden One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest) and Rodney Grant (Wind in his Hair Dances With Wolves).

Sampson has that rugged, not-a-pretty-boy look, but Grant has better pictures (go figure his movies are more recent) and looks younger (he was younger).

Sorry I'm a bit slow on the posting today*... I spent four hours last night typing up my Background (the long "A Tale of Two Cities" version) in Notepad only to have a power flux on the final proof-reading...

And no.  Apparently I still haven't learned my lesson about using my preferred Notepad versus something that would have sensibly been auto-saving for me (and apparently I haven't learned to just reflexively save for myself).  I promise there were tears at 4am (very Manly™ tears though).

So... well... that's what I'll be (re)doing tonight.  Hopefully I can squeeze a game post in as well, if not tomorrow Tuesday at stupid o'clock in the morning at the latest.


* And I just realized my last post wasn't "Friday night" as it feels like to me, but Saturday morning midnight-thirty... so anyway, yeah, next post might be tonight, or as I corrected above, Tuesday "first thing in the a.m." (my time is GMT-5).

Download Notepad++.. it's miles better and will autosave..

I have it... I don't like it*, it's not what I've been using for a billion years, it's younger than 20 years old, unproven technology, Unga bang rocks together!

Yes... I am one of those types.  I mean, I used Netscape for so long it would feel shameful, if I could feel shame.  I think Netscape was actually discontinued for several years before I finally migrated to Chrome and Firefox, and that was because most of the websites I enjoyed didn't work on it any more.



* Except for a few very specific uses, like opening and editing non-text files that Notepad screws up.

I get you, yeah. I still want to go back to Windows XP.

Myself, I use Wordpad for my text files out of sheer laziness.

MS can pry Win7 out of cold dead hands!


*sigh*  I know that someday they'll be a vidya game I really, really, really want to play and it'll require Win10 or 11... and I haven't decided if on that day I give up my gamer badge or not.  It might prompt me to install Linux and figure out how to shell Win10 on a virtual machine... I know it's almost as bad as actually installing it, but I'd feel better about it.

Bad enough the work computer has Win10 on it... but if it borks up, not my monkeys, not my zoo.


I hate the way Word and Wordpad format things autoannoyingly sometimes... but a spellcheck feature on Notepad would be nice.  That and auto save are all I wish it did extra.  I used to write in Word and then copypaste to Notepad to strip formatting... but that's just extra steps...

Not forgotten about anybody.. will get to those who've not had a event yet later in the week. Been having to back fill an area of the real Earth which isn't a simple matter.. if you're really interested in some reading
https://www.usgs.gov/faqs/what...ed-again-yellowstone
https://www.usgs.gov/observato...ews_science_products
https://www.usgs.gov/media/ima...wstone-supereruption
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sn/tvrad...olcano/article.shtml

Sorry y'all, lost my job on Monday and the last three days have been upside down.  But I tonight I destressed (instead of shipping resumes and hitting all the job recruiters) and tomorrow I aim to get back into the game, finish the background, etc.

Not like I'm working 10 hours a day anymore...  :|

Oh my God. I'm so sorry to hear that. I hope your next job is better and you're happier for it.