Important Notices

[Yygdrasil]

Re: Important Notices

And I'm fairly sure that in D&D, Intelligence is more "Academic" Intelligence.

- Charisma measures a character's personality, personal magnetism, ability to lead, and appearance.
Nothing to do with intelligence....

- Intelligence determines how well your character learns and reasons.
Everything to do with intelligence...

-Wisdom describes a character's willpower, common sense, awareness, and intuition.
Nothing to do with intelligence...

The difference, Fire... in plain english... with no room for interpretation.

Straight from the Pathfinder Handbook.

Personally I Roleplay my character having High INT, Decent CHA and Average WIS (using 8-10 as a comparison point for your average person) by making it pretty blatant that my character tends to make things up as she goes along. I think the whole Investigation in the last visit to Overlook (I still have no idea how I ended up getting stuck under the table), and my attempts at Lily trying to pass herself off as a Merc (and failing badly) in the Mercenary camps made that much apparent. I always pictured a high INT Chaotic Good Rogue as something like Han Solo or Indiana Jones in how they can come up with things on the fly.

That is the biggest and most lame cop-out I've ever heard from someone trying to write off their lack of creativity.

[Firewind]

Re: Important Notices

Hey I'm pretty sure that I've rolled Bluff, Stealth and Sleight of and in acts that may or may not have been used to boost personal wealth . Plus Adam tended to set off the traps before I could roll Disable Device except for that one time I somehow did it mid-encounter to stop him from getting us all killed.

And I'm fairly sure that in D&D, Intelligence is more "Academic" Intelligence, a truly intelligent character would have good INT, WIS and CHA. Theron being pretty insightful and working things out does make sense since his Intelligence score might just be representing the fact that the character just didn't get a formal education.

Personally I Roleplay my character having High INT, Decent CHA and Average WIS (using 8-10 as a comparison point for your average person) by making it pretty blatant that my character tends to make things up as she goes along. I think the whole Investigation in the last visit to Overlook (I still have no idea how I ended up getting stuck under the table), and my attempts at Lily trying to pass herself off as a Merc (and failing badly) in the Mercenary camps made that much apparent. I always pictured a high INT Chaotic Good Rogue as something like Han Solo or Indiana Jones in how they can come up with things on the fly.

[Yygdrasil]

Re: Important Notices

I don't like to point fingers at anyone in specific... so instead I'm shaking my fist at all 5 of you. Each of you has your own little quirk that complicates each session. Some are obviously more noticable and annoying than others. I'm not going to go into specifics, as that wouldn't end in any other way than aggresseive self-defense of your actions. Instead, I simply ask that the following SIMPLE guidelines be followed. Deviation too far from them will result in some form of universal punishment... I'm thinking a 250xp loss... as a motivator.

1. No more metagaming. You know what it is... I know you do... however I feel it's necessery to remind you of a few points. Namely... you and your character do NOT share knowledge. Should you encounter a monster that your PC has never seen before (which based on the partys backgrounds basically account for almost everything) you will have no strategic advantage besides what you can observe mid-combat. You do NOT share knowledge with other party members. If Cid decides he's going to Sense Motive and he learns that whoever you're talking to isn't telling the whole truth... that it's something you can act on until he tells you. Any future communication of such things... and all actions taken in response to such un-knowable information will be treated as if you're speaking aloud in character... or in cases of blatent abuse of un-knowable information... the 250xp penalty will be enforced. Lastly, many of you have argued that your characters are acting on their intuition (when defending why you took an action that I have previously deemed unknown to you). Understand that Intuition is encompassed within your Wisdom Score. You're only going to be as wise as your Wisdom lets you be. The same pertains to your Intelligence. Smart ideas are better left to smart characters. Similarly... any idea proposed by a character with an INT score lower than the idea would require will be rendered unusable. Unfortunately, although many good ideas originate from Armando, that makes his ideas... almost always inadmissable. On the other handm, due to his Wisdom, it makes his intuition the strongest. Remember the difference and do not attempt to blur the lines.

2. Cut out the out-of-game talk. I know I occasionally do it, but far more often I find myself stopping others from doing it. Feel free to talk about whatever you want when we're on break or gathering together at the start of a session, but be prepared to save it when it comes time to start/restart play.

3. When it's your turn, you're speaking. The only time it should be acceptable to interrupt someone else is if you're trying to roleplay and correct their wording, withhold information or something similar. Example:

Lily: You're willing to pay how much for me to steal a book from the old cleric on the hill? You don't say... and how do you feel if some kind of accident were to..."
Theron: Ahem... I think what my over zealous friend here is trying to say is that we'll pass. Thank you.
Lily: No I don't think I will... I think I'd like to hear a little more about the old bast...
Theron: *Puts Lily in a playful looking but very effective headlock* Oh lily... you jokester you! We're fine, thanks. Have a nice day! (To Lily at a whisper: What in the 7 hells is wrong with you?!)

4. More skills exist in this game than strictly Acrobatics, Perception, Sense Motive, Knowledge and Diplomacy. Find opportunities to use them sometimes. Spice things up a little. Otherwise it's kind-of a waste of your skill points if you ask me. the way I set up knowledge aquisition is by choosing a list of skills that could be used to aquire knowledge (not always knowledge checks) and attribute skill challenges to them. For instance... when you first entered the mercenary camp and I suggested that you could use this time to dig up information on Modra (and in all honest I shouldn't have had to spoon feed you that idea), the skills I attributed to the challenge were Diplomacy, Endurance, Intimidate, Streetwise and Bluff. Knowledge of any kind was completely useless... as the Shadowfell is a new experience to the entire party. You attempted none of them.

5. Roleplay. Roleplay. Roleplay. Your characters should feel like an alter-ego at this point. They have personalities... agendas... predjudices... neurotic tentancies. Play those out. It's not nearly as intimidating as it seems. All you have to do is flip a switch in your brain where you stop being Cid and Start being Vince. Don't even allow yourself to speak as Cid. If you want to take it a step farther, craft a unique voice for them... something that isn't hard to commit to for long periods of time. For instance, Mezlo could have a pompous arrogance to his voice. Something like that would mix well with the casual indifference he shows towards injuring allies. Armando on the other hand, could have a fatherly persona and pseudo-authoratative voice to accompany it. Fire and Cid are like twins desperately seeking to be different from one another. Cid maintains healthy skepticism at any and everything and as such, should sound waary and hessitant while maintaining a nearly constant impatience. Fire is more of the arrogant and boasting PC who... as he's said in the past... he models after OoTS. Jarre is a fighter... and as such... should almost always relate things as closely as he can to combat. Example: "Breaking through a door is as easy as squashing kobald skulls. You just need the proper thrust, momentum and brute force... like... SO!!" *kick* "See? I didn't even need to dirty my sword or take out any tools, heh"

[Yygdrasil]

Re: Important Notices

I understand the concern surrounding my last minute scheduling. I'll make sure to tell you guys by Thursday night/Friday morning from now on. Barring any unforseen last minute things, I should have ones posted by then.

My apologies for the past few sessions.

[Jarre]

Re: Important Notices

I'm working all weekend so can do Saturday if its on wil be nice break from the work.

[cidbahamut]

Re: Important Notices

I think the point Yyg was trying to make is that we ought to know the effects of our own spells so we don't have to look it up every time. If you're going to be using it you should know what it does and only have to look it up if there's some clarification needed on the fine details for a ruling.

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I'm also going to second Mezlo on the scheduling thing. It doesn't really affect me too much because my Saturdays are pretty wide open, but for others it's useful to know the schedule as early as possible so they can plan for it or let us know in advance if they cannot make it.

[Firewind]

Re: Important Notices

I worded it like that because I didn't want to look like I was pointing fingers or trying to assign blame for anything Mezlo

Also spell resolutions tend to be time consuming anyway so I personally don't count sorting out a spell's effects since there's so many different things that can affect it. Plus we have to look it up to tell Yyg exactly what the spell does if he can't remember what it does himself.

[Mezlo]

Re: Important Notices

think me and Cid are the only people that actually do what our characters would do without tons of talking which is why our turns tend to be pretty quick.

My turn is always faster than your turn Firewind, how dare you. I would say my attack round is the fastest. Cid is a close second. Fire, Jarre, and Armando are tied. IMO

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Next session it is mandatory that everyone be in attendance.

Do I have everyone's compliance?

Yes. As long as you can post that we are playing by Friday morning. This waiting until Friday night isn't cutting it. My family are planners, we plan out the weekend. It's bad enough we need to wait until Friday before we can plan what we are doing Saturday, but come Friday, we need to know whats up. It would be best if we could know by Wed or Thurs, but I understand your Saturday schedule revolves around Wendy's Saturday work schedule which, for whatever reason, isn't known until Friday, sometimes late Friday...

[cidbahamut]

Re: Important Notices

Two points:
I think me and Cid are the only people that actually do what our characters would do without tons of talking which is why our turns tend to be pretty quick. The only times our turns get dragged out is because 1) Someone is talking through it 2) Someone is interrupting us yelling out metagamey "Why don't you do Y instead of X?" stuff.

I dunno, there have been a few times where I've just not been paying attention and suddenly it's my turn and I'm all "Oh shit, what do I do?" and stall. The drinking is probably a factor as well. Then there's times where I just don't account for people taking five foot steps all over the place and foiling my flanking opportunities. I don't really begrudge anyone for it, but it leads to a lot of my turns becoming "I attempt to stab the monster for negligible damage and miss anyway. Next.".

[Armando]

Re: Important Notices

LASTLY: Understand your own abilities, spells and feats. Read them, research them and be prepared to vocalize their effects to me during the session. I don't have a cataloged knowledge of everything in the players handbook, nor should anyone... that's just too much crap to try and remember. Our debate over the proper use of Combat Patrol could have been avoided if it's use was better understood and less assumed when the session began.

To be fair, this is why I suggested the mock fight. Better to jog our memories with some ad-hoc encounter than slow down the actual story battles. D&D's mechanics aren't easy to remember; if it weren't the tabletop equivalent of Magic: The Gathering, I don't think people would put up with its bullshit.

[Firewind]

Re: Important Notices

Two points:

1. I think me and Cid are the only people that actually do what our characters would do without tons of talking which is why our turns tend to be pretty quick. The only times our turns get dragged out is because 1) Someone is talking through it 2) Someone is interrupting us yelling out metagamey "Why don't you do Y instead of X?" stuff.
2. Damage Rolls are lumped in with Attack Rolls with my macros because: 1) It's faster than having to dig up the damage rolls separately 2) There's not enough Space on the bar to have every single thing available. It's a compromise between space and efficiency ESPECIALLY for Spellcasters who can't possibly have space for every single spell that they might actually think they might prepare. I'll take away the damage rolls if you accept I'm going to have to take extra time in my turns to look up damage rolls for each Weapon/Spell/Ability and figure out the possible modifiers that are in play instead of just rolling a single macro and occasionally having to roll a second attack roll and second or third damage roll.

As for availability this weekend. I'm going to have to play it by ear since it's my little sister's birthday on Friday and I have no fucking clue as to if anything is happening on the Saturday.

But anyway I'm fine with complying, I've been begging for ages for people to cut down on metagaming, and overthinking and overcomplicating things for a while.

[Yygdrasil]

Re: Important Notices

Or just... less thinking... more doing. More often than not, your first instinct is the one your character would choose to do. communication can be made on the fly between turns.

I've been overly generous with the party in regards to conversations held during combat.

AKA: Should we get up to that ledge? We should, right? Can we throw a rope that high? How about if we enlarge person and then throw someone up? I bet we could do that? You guys wana try or should we just wade our way through? Who's up for the "toss Lily to the platform" idea and who's against? Show of hands? Ok then... we'll throw her up.

Meanwhile... Tusk and his forces are gridlocked in their initiative order and can't act.

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Also: For the love of god... straighten out your macros, people. Your attack rolls and damage rolls should not be lumped into 1 macro. It puts needless information on the screen in the event that you miss your attack... and it confuses things when you crit... forcing us to back-pedal anyway.

LASTLY: Understand your own abilities, spells and feats. Read them, research them and be prepared to vocalize their effects to me during the session. I don't have a cataloged knowledge of everything in the players handbook, nor should anyone... that's just too much crap to try and remember. Our debate over the proper use of Combat Patrol could have been avoided if it's use was better understood and less assumed when the session began.

It's your character, you designed it, I expect you to know how he/she works by now. If you don't know yours backwards and forwards... make sure you do between now and next session.

[Armando]

Re: Important Notices

Do I have everyone's compliance?

You have mine. Although, that being the case, I think we should enforce the 30 second per turn rule for that particular session.

[Yygdrasil]

Re: Important Notices

Next session it is mandatory that everyone be in attendance. If even 1 person cannot make it, we will postpone the session.

Anyone needing to leave early should notify the group ASAP here in Important Notices prior to the session date and time in order for me to appropriately scale the session to their time restrictions.

Next session is a MAJOR STORY RELATED SESSION. I cannot stress that enough. It will not only be fun, but also incredibly challenging. Bring your "A" game.



In addition: Combat/Encounters up to this point have been long and dragged out. They have also been loaded with metagame. In the next sessions I urge you to remain in character and not to have conversations outside of character. This is for your own benefit and total immersion into the scenario I have laid out. Also if I may ask that you all refrain from wasting what precious time we have to play talking about non-game-related topics. I would like... if possible... to fit the entirety of what I have planned into 1 session. To do this I need strict compliance to these requests I have made.

Do I have everyone's compliance?

[cidbahamut]

Re: Important Notices

I remember Mezlo giving the finger to someone, but I don't recall who.

It was probably to whoever finished off that firebat, because it happened shortly after I failed to backhand it for its last hit point.