Main / PC-2021

Player Communication Archive 2021

12-15 BOB

I continue to teak the session styles. I have now have 24 changes that I have semi automated to make the text more readable.

Two more things we can change for Effect and for Cast if we want those to show up in a different color/font/style etc to help them stand out in the Environment section.

I have not found a way of highlighting the Whispers yet as they are the same formatting code as all the other environmental pieces and do not have the extra wording that Cast has for example that can be used.

12-12-2021 BOB

I am working on having the chat logs look better for us with more automation.

If you look at the Session Style Visible page you can see examples of what we currently are using.

What my current work flow looks to be is:

Open Chat Log file in Word

Remove Session header from Date to first ##660066 {the chat log file generated by FGU is one long html file, each session simply appends to the end of the existing file}

Using Replace: <br /> with ^I {hard line break}

Copy and paste to Chat Log for the session

Then Replace: 

##660066 with game mechanic formatting %env%

##000000 with BOB formatting %BOB%

##000066 with In Character NPC formatting %NPCIC%

#005500 with Out of Character formatting %ooc%

##261A12 with In Character formatting %ic%

[Elvish] with %Elvish%
[Dwarvish] with %Dwarvish%
[Goblin] with %Goblin%
[Gnomish] with %Gnomish%
[Giant] with %Jotun%
[Halfling] with %Hin%

springdew with Spring
seyfert with Carissa
MadamePsychosis with Lisa
mharmon1 with Michael
Master TMO with TMO
LemonyLemon with Lemon

Note that the translations as shown in 2021 12 10c may not be clear? How to change that?

Save in Word

Copy and Paste into Formatted Chat Log for the session.

With practice (and develop a one pass macro) I think I can do this most nights right after the session ends.

There are a few more options we can add in now.

Font color code for: 

418C12 - dice roll, success
6106D1 - dice roll, failure
880000 - In Character emoting
660066 - Whispers from BOB to a character

Do we want dice rolls to look different than the other environment entries? How to show emoting? Italics?

What about Whispers? It is the same color code as all the other environment lines

We can also change some of the actions that are in the environment too. [Effect] - show by? [CAST] - show by?

Finally I had the thought of changing the log in names to our common names. MadamePsychosis to Lisa LemonyLemon to Lemon etc.

One thing that I can change is adding in the Player Icon names to the auto formatting for OOC so that it shifts like the other when it is only the login name.

I want to note that this does not bring us back to all the work that Lisa has done over the years with the formatted pages of the chat. This does not include any spell check, grammar, or checking to see if OOC comments made IC get formatted properly.

10/22/2021 Lara | Correction: I rolled for Emerald to appraise 117 items. She was only successful at appraising 57 of the items.

10/21/2021 Lara | Done with appraising 117 items.

10/20/2021 Lara | Okay. I am halfway through the Holding for Appraisal list on the HomeBase Dragon Fen page. If you look on Emerald's CS I have a Note of all the appraisals that had successful rolls. There are still 56 gems from the Protectorate Era that Emerald must appraise.

9/27/2021 Lara

On the HomeBase in Dragon Fen page there is a list called Holding for Appraisal. Lisa, do you want me to Appraise these items so we can add their value to the list? BOB, when I use Appraise since it is a NWP can I use it over and over?

Lara - Yes, please! One roll per item so lots o' rolls needed. Lisa

Lara - But you can only roll once on a each item per level. So if you fail a check, you can't try to appraise that particular item again until your next level. - TMO

9/25/2021 Carissa

It's been a week. My tone and words aren't conveying what I want so let's try again with some sleep and additional reading. I also made the page for Sehanine Moonbow as well.

The better long and short of it is Sehanine is the mother of all Elves, either through the tears shed during battle or through the weavings with Corellon. And there's the whole she's both a single goddess but also one of the three goddesses who make up Angharradh (Hanali being one of those three) to add some more confusion. But anyways, saying finding the gown of her avatar is big is likely a vast understatement, especially for the Elves. For better known comparison, her realm is like that of Artemis, but her position is that of Hera, were we talking about the Greek Gods.

From a purely combat perspective, it's easy to think of a few who could benefit from wearing her gown, but from a Lore perspective, it's a lot more complicated. It's probably easy to guess how insulted not just the elves you know, but any elf, would be to see someone not an elf wearing the gown. It'd be like letting the weird kid down the block wear your mother's wedding dress. Sure, you usually get along with the weird kid, but you have to draw a line somewhere, right? So my initial knee-jerk reaction was to say clearly it should go to the Elves. You have two who are now very aware of its existence. But I don't think that'd work, either, now.

BOB says it's the gown of her avatar. TMO says it might be up for debate, but it really isn't, in the end. The Elves believe it to be the gown of her avatar. That's really the key, meaning we hold an item that is ridiculously holy and that'll bring with it another layer of complications. Who knows why it was where it was or if she can just make a new gown or if it is an insanely good replicate or not. It's a holy item.

So my thinking, after a little sleep, is that, nice as it is (understatement?), the best course of action is to give it to her church, take a trip to Loosend, and hand it off before we do anything else. Maybe they'll give us something equally nice in return. Maybe they'll owe us a favor. She's a goddess who guides spirit as well as divines the future so there could be invaluable insight or else a church that can raise the dead if nothing else for us.

Food for thought, but I do think we need to figure it out before we do anything else (aka go to Hell).

Or given the new Cosmological Quandaries Era you could go deliver it to Sehanine yourselves.

9-20-2021 BOB

I updated the sheets to indicate what the Level a character is and what level they are trained at.

The things we will be working on Friday:

We can advance time forward as we need for training and learning new spells, or anything the group wants.

9-19-2021 BOB

Everyone's XP is updated through the Birthday Game 2021. This plus the awards to those who are in on 2021 09 24 for the 900th session mean everyone's XP totals are now up to date. I did not update the sheets yet, that should happen before we start on Friday. I did check on who we will be doing training/updating sheets.

With that many people I know we will be advancing at least 4 weeks into the future so I here are the updated numbers for the year 351 awards.

I completed/caught up the annual High Level Experience Awards for the year 351 SKR for Branwyn, Kenna, and Ilero. The XP is added to the sheets now. The next awards will be done on the first day of 352 SKR.

TMO you also have 2,000 XP in total to distribute to the various members of the guild to represent their scouting missions, practice, etc. You can assign that as you see fit. {Check that you actually applied the previous award also}

There is also the material award for donations, taxes, trading, scouting mission fees, etc. That has a random factor to it. For that Ilero adds and additional 900 GP in wealth to the guild. Kenna adds an additional 840 GP in wealth to the church and or hospital. They both also pay taxes to Branwyn which I have already accounted for in those totals.

Branwyn got the normal taxes from the Estate plus the award for a total of 18,000 GP to the Estate coffers. Branwyn then pays 12,000 GP in taxes to the Queen so there is a balance of 6,000 GP added to the wealth of the Estate.

I did not change any wealth numbers here on the site or on the character sheets.

Thank you everyone for a wonderful Birthday Game

9-6-2021 BOB

The plan that I am sticking with:

2021 09 10 Branwyn visits Inn of the Lost Eagle Branwyn does Identify There is talking with the people living at the Inn There is OOC discussion on the end of Claiming Skull Church and the disposition of everything

We will have a strong combat encounter starting at 830'ish so that Lemon and TMO get to practice spells, combat etc. Everyone will start that encounter with full spells and fully healed. It is a mining encounter.

We finish up what ever of the other things we can that session.

2021 09 17 Beginning of the BOB's Birthday Game

Starting with everyone fully healed with full spells etc. on 1-7-350 SKR at Dragon Fen Manor.

It is a morning meeting to discuss the completion of the pathway from Skull Church to Travelers Way.

Something goes wrong.....

We continue this encounter through 2021 09 17 and 2021 09 18.

2021 09 24

Wrap up the For the Love of Mist Era. This is a 90% OOC session with lots of serious planning. Everyone should attend if possible.

This means everyone will have their full XP awarded from the Birthday Game and all the encounters, etc. Everyone will have the chance to train their characters as desired. Then we will be making decisions on who plays what characters for the next Era - Cosmological Quandaries. These could be your current fully trained healed characters ready for adventure. It could involve brand new characters for some players if they desire.

This new Era will start on 2021 10 01. It will involve the character you choose the previous session.

As is traditional it will start as a Morning Meeting at Dragon Fen Manor.

You will have an adventure here in Dragon Fen that starts you on your pathway to traveling the Planes. You know you will have an adventure in Pandemonium as Branwyn has already said she wants to test the amulet you have that gates you there. Then you know you are going to Hell because of a book. We very well might be adding an additional trip to at least one more Plane for that Era.

I expect the Cosmological Quandaries Era to run from October of 2021 until at least December of 2022.

Two sessions to handle:

Then we open up at the beginning of 2021 09 17 we start with a different morning meeting with Branwyn and Snee that leads to the final road building encounter that we play out that night and the next day for the BOB's Birthday Game.

Once that encounter is completed we will take part of one session to reassess characters, decide what players want to do going forward, and then we will start the new Era as is traditional with a morning meeting.

07/30 - Michael

What does the queen have a gambling addiction or something? I mean, I'm no Carnegie or mathematise, but that's an 86.7 percent tax rate? Are we at least getting free healthcare out of this equation???

6-12 BOB

I completed/caught up the annual High Level Experience Awards for the year 350 SKR for Branwyn, Kenna, and Ilero. The XP is added to the sheets now. The next awards will be done on the first day of 351 SKR.

TMO you also have 2,000 XP in total to distribute to the various members of the guild to represent their scouting missions, practice, etc. You can assign that as you see fit.

There is also the material award for donations, taxes, trading, scouting mission fees, etc. That has a random factor to it. For that Ilero adds and additional 1,000 GP in wealth to the guild. Kenna adds an additional 760 GP in wealth to the church and or hospital. They both also pay taxes to Branwyn which I have already accounted for in those totals.

Branwyn got the normal taxes from the Estate plus the award for a total of 15,000 GP to the Estate coffers. Branwyn then pays 12,000 GP in taxes to the Queen so there is a balance of 3,000 GP added to the wealth of the Estate.

I did not change any wealth numbers here on the site or on the character sheets.

I will be working on the Protectorate accounting, proceeds from the mines, summary notes, etc. next.

04/30/2021 - Ryan

Hi, everyone. My wife is surprising me with something this Friday, and I will have to miss that session. I should be back next week. Sorry about this.

04/30/2021 - Lara

Hi folks! My apologies for disappearing. I spoke to BOB but I wanted to let you know (Carissa, Spring, Lisa, TMO, Michael) I'm thinking of you all. I'm working on earning an industry certification that is much harder than I thought it was going to be. I had to give up something to make time to study for the exam and attend prep classes. This means I need to put the game on hold for a bit. My goal is to sit for the exam in mid-August and I plan to be back for BOB's birthday game in September. Maybe sooner if all goes well.

Game-related: excited that you adopted the name Copper Fire Mine.

04/09/2021

Taking a short break from game. Should be free later this year.

-Michael

3-23-2021 BOB

So the Mining Operations page is updated with the Lucky Dwarf Mine information and I have the starting of the Copper Fire Mine done now as well.

I will try to make sure I get the gems updated from TMO's work over the next couple of days as well.

Howard has 5 new spells, 1st level: Shield, 2nd level: Otto's Tone of Forgetfulness & Circle of Flame, 4th level: Wall of Sand, and 6th level Permanent Illusion.

I have added the Amulet of the Planes XP to the group, the Flame Sword's XP was previously added.

Other updates to come....

3-14-2021 BOB

So the math portion for our next session is completed.

We will be skipping ahead by 12 days and starting the next section of Claiming Skull Church where you deal with the Farmers Turn mysteries. Three villages each with their own problems to explore. But before we do that there is the chance for healing, letter writing, appraising, identifying, shifting goods around the Estate, etc. Sundown is taking this time to learn how to gather information for the Governor in his new role of Steward.

To get us to that point I will need some additional rolls for someone to log into Klooge and make as Tiffress who is your head of mining at the Lucky Dwarf Silver mine.

We have 9 Mining checks for Tiffress to make. Anyone who goes and makes them can please list how many successes and how many failures:

Success: 1 Failure: 5

Then we have Smiggles, your other Mining Supervisor for the second team. He needs to make 12 Mining checks please. The Mining Operations page has a list of the current mines the group is exploiting. The Copper Fire Mine was next on the list but you can designate one of the others if you want to for these rolls.

Success: 11 Failure: 7

Once those are completed I can determine both how far/deep/direction the mines will go (that will need more rolls from a player but they are based on previous rolls). You have one other gnome (Selniana) to put in charge of a team of miners. The plan is to have her replace Tiffress so that Tiff oversees the entire district with Smiggles and Selniana each in charge of a mine. That will happen with the Lucky Dwarf Silver Mine is fully exploited. Of course getting more miners would be very helpful too.

We also have 3 construction rolls for the path that Michael already did for us. The results of those rolls you will see at our next session.

With these rolls done during the week (and any appraising, identifying, etc you want to do as well) we will be organized to start on Friday.

2-17-2021 BOB

It would be great if everyone can be in this next session. This is one of those big encounters that can go either way. The entire party might die or you might get a lucky roll or two and everyone escapes without barely a scratch.

My guess is somewhere in the middle.

I do intend to have this completed no later than the end of the next session. We will not spend hours planning and then not do anything. You have three watches to do In Character talking as you prepare and days before to do the OOC plotting as well.

Three watches, then into the swamps to go after the lair and defeat the Dragon Turtle.

To give everyone a feel for the weight of this encounter. The average XP award for a full story arc is 5,000. This Dragon Turtle is worth 10,000 alone before any treasure is factored in. This is the groups chance to do something heroic and legendary.

02/12/2021 Michael

Hey everyone. I'm going to have to logout about 10 EST time tonight for work. I apologize. Will do what I can with the time I got.

1/31 Carissa

Dear Everyone,

I started a post over in SwampMonster-OOC to get us going, but want to post here so everyone sees it. In my mind, this upcoming Friday is a critical session that might determine who lives or dies. Even if you're just quietly there, I hope you'll be on at least the first few hours on Friday. We'll likely need you there. Besides, we all like when you're there, quiet or not, so you know, hope you'll be there.

That is all. Thanks!

1/23 Carissa

Okay, but this was seriously bugging me because I know we'd gone through this before, and I vaguely remembered figuring this out: lo and behold my not faulty memory!

Mind you, that's old and outdated, but I did remember that Shi knew things. Not that it mattered at all last night except to make me feel like I wasn't losing my mind. I will update later after I find the Tiberius conversation. And a computer because this isn't fun to type on mobile.

1-19 BOB

Just to wrap up in one spot in case people missed the inferences etc. The current story arc of Swamp Monster is supposed to be a quick one. One day out, solve, one day back. 2 to 4 game sessions. Then back at the center of the Protectorate, do a quick admin thing, click off a month or two of time while building housing/path construction/mining then another short story arc like this one, repeat until the path is completed and we call that the end of Claiming Skull Church.

1/08/2021 Michael

Hey Spring! First things first, I wanted to murder everything in sight and only didn't because you were there! So, congragulations on being my voice of reason and being a trooper. I know it gets rough don't worry about it. And, if you ever need to take a short break, don't fear that either. Better to be not be emotionally battered when playing. That's not fun at all :(

And, as for tonight's agenda. I've prepared this so I'm not clogging up the Chat Board. Alright for this session (01/08/2021)

Topics needed discuss:

1. We have four workers for 6 mines. Not enough. We need to be able to staff to some degree to prove we are utilizing our claim. Not to speak of potential guards.

2. We have five mines at this point. I think for now we can halt exploration activities and consolidate claims, smelting ops, etc. Free up explorers for other tasks.

3. Send Brandarus home if we have not yet done that already.

4. Need to attract workers. The Gnomes may consider switching, but they have what I assume is a profitable Gem Mine. Just checked with Bob. On a wealth scale, Gems is a BIG deal. We would have to offer a LOT to entice them to switch to our mines. Although, nothing is saying that they cannot come back to their own mine later.

5. I propose that we offer the following stakeholder percentages for outside workers from Hourglass or even asking around at River's Bend if there are interested parties. Considering the potential that we might very well become really close partners with the Bend, we can leverage that. Stakeholdership in the mine, and partnerships for warehouses, inns, etc. More on that will be discussed later I know, but right now we need workers.

6. Or simply hire outside workers beyond our areas.

7. Let's ask a Dwarf for opinion before giving a final payment scale if we simply decide to pay the miner. Like, two gold a month for Iron, etc.

1-6 TMO

Sorry for being the late responder here, but I echo the others' statements. I'm sorry that you were being pushed so much on your character that you were spending off hours time worrying over it. Personal time should only be spent planning and thinking about good things for your character, not being miserable over the bad. ;)

I will admit that until you posted I was afraid it was something I'd done or said that broke the camel's back, I'm very glad it was Silver and not Brer. ;) I don't worry about my characters, but I do worry about my players.

And if you are at all worried that we're just playing a bunch of murder hobos, just remember how much work we've put in to NOT killing all the goblins under Skull Church. :angel:

Any time you need or want to talk about the game, feel free to ping me in Discord. It can be text or voice, and I'm happy to help with questions, plans, plots, schemes, venting, worrying, laughing, or hoping. ;)

1-4 Spring

What would Snee do? Snee was at the kick-the-guy-down-a-well point in the proceedings. Next day I seriously considered an alignment shift as a moral injury or an example of how power corrupts. Then she can run around beheading people who piss her off. Or having them beheaded. Whatever.

Course if he's actually a dragon, that wouldn't have gotten anywhere.

In hindsight, she could have stared at him scornfully yet silently for the rest of the dinner. If only her player hadn't been at the last straw.

Thanks, you guys.

1-3 BOB

Spring you have nothing to be worried about, upset about or otherwise not enjoy.

You are playing Snee very well. You have taken her over time from an orphan on the streets of Dryads Lair to being the Governor of the Protectorate for Dragon Fen Estate. She is dealing with Countesses and Dukes on an equal footing. She has her own Shrine now and will attract followers to it.

All without retreating from her core ideals. You play her the way you want to play her. As Lisa said, you just be the character and DO what you want. It is my job to make the world react to what you do. Like Branwyn chasing all over the place for the Queen, or Indigo just being so nice and friendly that everyone just tells him things. Ilero not being a thief but somehow working with some of the top ones in the Kingdom. Or your own example of Kenna growing and helping everyone until she has her own hospital to help save everyday people.

Will you get your way with everything? No. Will it be frustrating when the other players/characters do not remember or listen to what Spring/Snee says she wants to do? Yes.

I am working on the bookkeeping page so that it all stays in the background and once the group makes decisions on how to run things it is as automated as reasonable so that the group deals with the fun things of encounters and not the boring parts of how many cubic feet of rock were mined this week, etc.

With the timelines in sync again we are now at the point to have group discussions and meetings about policy and future planning as well as going off to deal with those encounters that pop up. It will be fun. Promise.

1/2/21 Lisa

Spring – I’m sorry you were upset last night. It’s probably not going to make you feel any better, but welcome to being the focal point in a BOB adventure. He will push your character’s buttons and make you make choices. Will your character compromise their beliefs or morals? Will they dig in their heels and fight?

I can’t really say much for advice except to say what I do. For me, I try always to slip deep into my character and what's important to them and then just keep making decisions I think would most get my character what they want. Next week maybe let Snee loose as how *she* would react and whatever happens will happen and our characters will be there to support you. You had a plan and Silver was trying to derail it. Silver says that and Snee does what? Maybe try not to over think it OOC and let Snee take the wheel. Just my thoughts.

But no, I do not think of us as a bunch of murder hobos.

And no, this game is not supposed to be eating you up outside of Fridays. I am so sorry about that. :-(

1-2-2021 Spring

[Mr. Silver (Master)] It would be very difficult to continue construction if the local populace was encouraged to rise up and bring their concerns directly to the construction team

This is the point at which I. Lost. My. Shit. Full-on, red vision rage.

I had the overpowering feeling that I was about to say some damaging things and harm my relationships to my friends, and some small, squeaky being in a corner of my skull took control of my hand and pulled me out of there.

I should have let you know later by some other means, but each time I turned my thoughts to the matter again, rage again. I've now had a sleep and some food and a long walk with the dogs and I'm more angry at myself that I have let my pretend life harm me so. So very tiring being confused and frustrated all. the. time.

But it isn't all the time, is it? It just feels like that while I'm in the throes of it. Feels like it's happening a lot. I'm putting a lot of energy into having ideas and communicating them and trying to get buy-in and then some frustrating thing happens or we all forget what we decided or some detail is entirely different from what we planned on or - I don't know. Confusing. Confusing all the time.

Anyway, I need to find a way to get over myself and put things into perspective. It's just a game. If this jerk wants to give us the intifada while we're trying to build a road, fine. Whatever. We're just murder hobos anyway.

1-2-2021 BOB

We started the new year right with getting through tying up most of the lose ends from Claiming Skull Church's first section.

All the characters are now in sync on the timeline; no one has any pending activities. Any character can show up and be played now, taking into account travel time around Dragon Fen.

Spring and Michael did very well in help guiding through this section. They took charge as expected and have laid the ground work for a very successful addition to our stories. For a quick summary in 13 sessions that covered 5 months of game time this area of the Craniate Wastes went from an abandoned waste with dangers extending out to Dragon Fen to having Skull Church be reborn as a very real place of worship, most of the defenses dismantled, a new Kayugan shrine added, and 5 new potential sources of income for the Estate in a new mining district with one being currently exploited.

We now move into the middle section of the story arc. This will involve a few different types of problems to solve.

1- How do you deal with the Strasilo Mining District?

A - Who is in charge of the area? Currently Skarp is working with Tiff on developing the area. Will Skarp be in charge with Tiff be assigned as lieutenant in charge of the mining district. This governs who the primary character is for negotiations and which characters make the checks for various miscellaneous things.
B - We left 6 gnomes with Tiff at the Lucky Dwarf Mine to do the excavation. This gave you two teams of 2 to do the mining work with the 5 not actively mining taking care of the camp, guarding against goblins, etc. That will not be enough going forward, especially now that you have 4 additional mines you want to exploit.
C - Housing and feeding the current gnome crew is handled by the existing gnome village supplying their people except for Tiff. That will change when you bring in more miners, from someplace else. Also it is likely you will have a mixed crew soon rather than all gnomes so that will be a discussion to work out. Your Lucky Dwarf Mine is a total of 250 feet deep now at 10 foot wide and 5 foot high after all the silver is extracted. Farming here is twice as hard as the portion of Dragon Fen near Valoris and the swamps. So 70 farmers can support 4 non-farmers. But that also does not factor in fungus farming etc which will skew the numbers differently. But no matter how many, they need a place to live and they will need to be fed.

2 - Deciding on how to best take advantage of your 4 new potential mines plus others that you go in search of.

A - Exploit which ones first? How fast? Search for more?
B - Assigning lead workers for the various mines will give us which characters make the individual checks for the mining progress at each location. This covers how much you produce each month.

I will be setting up a chart to make the rolls as part of the background. Then if there are problems we will be able to create the encounters and side treks that are needed to solve them. Once these two foundational decisions are made we can move on to other bigger encounters/story arcs such as Hourglass, the battlefields, and other haunted/problematic places.