I like visuals too! ;-)

In reply to Yngvar (msg # 232):

Yeah, so far I'm enjoying it, doesn't require a ton of mental energy.  Which is nice now that this game is up and running!

Just a quick update...

Prologue threads have slowed a bit, but we're getting there.  Waiting on a few folks to post.  Herbs thread is almost finished, and I have a second one that details a system for foraging.  It will feature two methods; one is a "while travelling" method, and the other for when players are devoting time exclusively to foraging.  Also, when I get time, I have been adding kingdom information to the "Continent of Thera" thread.  As it's not immediately important to gameplay, that's kind of a lower priority for now.  Anyway, that's where we're at.

Heh, meant to post something earlier this morning, but got distracted by a Call Of Cthulhu session where my character wound up getting eaten by demons.

In reply to Aldric (msg # 237):

Wasn't that the point of Call of Cthulhu? That's all I got out of it.

Had one Cthulhu game where the resulting explosion tossed me up into a tree. Had an unusual fear of trees there-after ...

In reply to Sunny (msg # 239):

Lucky you! I recall being eaten by whatever we first encountered and, yeah, that's about it.

In reply to Benedict (msg # 238):

Well, it was a one-shot, so those tend to me more lethal than long-term play, which is usually more of a slow burn.  And I chose my fate, sacrificing myself while closing a portal keeping the demons from entering the mortal plane.

Also, the funny part (to me, at least) was that he kept making all of his Sanity rolls, so all of his Sanity losses were absolutely minimal - even as reality was shifting and changing around him, he was just kinda blase about it.  Doors in a mansion leading to alternate realities?  Huh, I guess that's a thing.    Left eye exploding after a magical ritual?  Well, we won't fill a silver flute with my blood again.  About to be ripped to shreds by demons?  Eh, I'm down to one health point anyways, so it won't hurt for long.
This message was last edited by the player at 01:53, Sun 06 Oct.

Well, there was the other game where I leapt & crashed thru the front house window ... Only to catch a foot on the window sill & plopped right outside of the window. The slimers got me ...

When the prologue has been finished, are we going to make those threads visible to everyone?  I'm interested in reading what everyone has been up to so far.

In reply to Liseth (msg # 243):

Hmmm, interesting idea.  Honestly hadn't considered that.  There's very little content in them that I would call proprietary information, but not none.  So I'll have to think about how to handle this.  I agree though, it would be kind of neat.  Maybe I could move them all over to group 0 and rename them.  Then just start new private threads as needed?

When the Prologue is finished, we probably won't need those threads anymore.  You could move them to a common Group and then Close them so that no one can make further posts there; they'd be read only.  Group 0 is the only Group visible to anyone visiting the game and reading; if you don't want random people reading information just set them and all players to a common Group, like Z.
This message was last edited by the player at 11:49, Mon 07 Oct.

It's been ages since I've ran anything on RPOL (over a decade, I think), so I don't know if this is viable or not, but if it's possible to copy (not just move) the pre-group threads, you could maybe move and then merge the copied versions after editing out any of the proprietary information.

Although that may be more hassle than it's worth.

If you see strange threads appearing and disappearing you'll know I'm trying to figure it out lol.

Dealing with a small crisis at the moment, probably won't be able to post next until possibly tomorrow evening or more likely Wednesday.

In reply to Aldric (msg # 248):

take care and be safe.

In reply to Yngvar (msg # 249):

Oh, it wasn't anything dangerous.  It was just that something that my wife and I thought we had more time to deal with very suddenly got adjusted to a much tighter time frame.  We were up pretty late last night getting all our ducks in a row, so to speak.  Fortunately, everything worked out, even if we were both exhausted today.

I didn't expect to be in any shape mentally to respond tonight, as Tuesdays are my longest work days, with an extra long drive home afterwards to boot.  Fortunately, today was slightly less hellish than normal, so I'm only somewhat loopy at the moment.*



*which is arguably not much different than normal...

Hey gang, so just an update for you all...

We're chugging along with the prologues.  Almost everybody has met up with another player and we will hopefully be getting to the festival soon.  After that the main portion of the first adventure can get underway. This whole thing was a session ".5" I ran for my table a while back.  We did characters and I ran this mini-adventure in our first session.  When I ran it irl I just had everybody already know each other and be together for "reasons", but that was a group of players new to the game.  I thought RPing the group meeting up would be more fun for experienced players on PbP.  (Just laying that out there for anyone scratching their head and wondering, "Jeez, is this going anywhere?").  I have been having a blast watching you folks interacting while I learn how to run on this format.

Having said all that, I've been doing some reading on Reddit on what makes a PbP game successful and the consensus seems to be, among other things, communication and pacing.  So, tbis update is to keep everyone in the loop.  Also, very soon I'll be pressing on the gas as far as pacing goes.  Nothing crazy, but things will start moving along quicker.

Finally, I'd much rather accept feedback than have players lose interest, so I'm open to suggestions on what you guys would want to see come out of all this.  I'm honestly more than a little surprised at the level of buy-in from you guys, and feel pretty lucky to have this group.  So thanks again for your patience and if you have any ideas or feedback, fire away.  And if this post was unnecessary, just roll your eyes and disregard it, and we'll move on!

I'm looking forward to getting to meet everyone else in Griffondale.  All of the prologue has my mind whirling with all the potential shenanigans everyone has gotten up to already.  Maybe someone can stop by the temple and say hi!
This message was last edited by the player at 12:11, Thu 10 Oct.

It can be a tricky thing in this format, and is generally easier in face-to-face games.  I've been in no small number of games, here on RPOL and other forums, that have died during the 'getting the band together' phase.

Only if you let it die! Like Liseth, I'm looking forward to it!

I agree, though, pacing and communication are key. Apologies for being scarce. As often happens, my week got hijacked by a few crazy things but this afternoon, I'm shutting it down to get caught up here. I am enjoying the game, let's continue.

No worries folks, my post wasn't an admonishment, just trying to keep folks on the same page (and reassure them that this is going somewhere lol).  I think part of my problem is that I have more time on my hands than most.  This served me well when setting up the game, but now that most of the work is done it leads to overthinking.  I'll get on tonight and start tying some threads together.

I think you're doing things right.  I agree that communication is important in keeping games together.  The best games I've been involved with had a very extensive Out of Character thread because the players would chat and joke with each other and even share life events.

My games are usually like that, a lot of OOC stuff. I have about 4 or 5 players who participate in most of my games, we've gotten to know each other fairly well. I think it takes the place of the non-stop side talk and endless jokes and puns we had in FtF games in the day. Best of all, no cheeto's to vacuum up after the fun.