Thread: (RPG) WRITES & WRONGS Recruitment: The Kavetseki Incident Board: Oblivion / Ship of Fools.


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Posted by Doublethink (# 1984) on :
 
Writes & Wrongs is the Ship of Fools roleplay gaming system, that was developed by shipmates from a series of circus threads once upon time. The system runs at L2-S1-V2 on the Universal RPG Rating System.

Roleplay gaming is a sort of communal story telling. You have a gamesmaster (GM) and a group of players. The GM has an overarching plot for the players, and acts any people they meet. The players each have a character with specific knowledge and abilities, and the group of players will be told they have some sort of mission. A set of rules provides a way of resolving chance, conflict and interesting situations.

I am offering to GM & run a game using this system. Please read on for further details about the game system. The second post on this thread will give you an outline of my proposed game, including which approach to combat we will take, and an example character sheet.

Generating Your Character

There are six fundamental Potentials, which reflect your strengths and weakness in dealing with the world. You have a rank of Useless, Weak, OK, Good or Excellent in each Potential. You can distribute a total of 18 points across these six potentials, investing from 1 to 5 points into each individual potential, whereby you can obtain the ranks of; Useless - costs 1, Weak - costs 2, OK - costs 3, Good - costs 4, or Excellent - costs 5.

These Potentials are Wits, Readiness, Inspiration, Toughness, Elan & Spryness. To give you an idea of what they are good for, here are some suggested synonyms:
There are three types of combat resolution that can be used for a campaign, explained further below. If the campaign will used the advanced combat system, you will need to add a further set of statistics derived from your Writes - called Wrongs. These will give numerical values that are calculated using the point buy cost.
(*Overkill is the amount by which the dice roll exceeds a target figure given by the GM.)

You then select seven Skills, these can be anything it is possible to learn, but three of them should be directly related to your trade / social status / profession. You can be inventive, just agree the final list with the GM. Each skill will be based on one of your Potentials - for example, if you have bluff based on Elan and your Elan is good - then your bluff will be good. If you attempt a skilled action when you do not have the skill, it will be Ridiculously Hard to succeed.

There is no prior list of common skills, but you can do most things a normal person in a specific setting would be expected to know without extra training. For example, in Medieval England you would assume any adult could easily cook over a fire, in 1980s London that would be unusual. Where a skill that would apply to all players is being queried for the first time, the GM's response sets the rule for the rest of the game. (Sometimes the campaign brief will contain some additional information on available common Skills.)

You may then agree a Gift with the GM, this is a unique special ability your character has - such as night vision, underwater breathing or teleporting. What is acceptable as a Gift is primarily a game balance issue.


You then choose a single special item or transformation. In a magical setting, you may choose an enchanted object - in a non-magical setting this may be something unique, valuable or highly unusual. In a magical setting you can choose to have a Transformation instead. Transformations usually work by switching the ranks of two Potentials and roleplaying the effect. Again, this will need to be agreed with the GM.

Additonal Skills and Gifts will be acquired through game play. This system has no levels, or experience points - and it is through Gifts, Skills and Special Items that your endeavours will be rewarded.

Now you have the skeleton of your character, you need to flesh out the details. Where do they come from ? What are their motivations ? what race or social class are they ? What experiences have they had that lead them to be who they are today ? What Mundane equipment are they carrying ? Races are ornamental, because some feel that racial biases can be an issue that bleeds over too much into the real world. This means the characteristics of fantasy races are toned down, a troll may not like the sun, cover up a lot in daytime and grumble - but she is not going to turn to stone.

Metagame

There will be a story thread, with an opening post by the GM, and a metagame thread. Anything you need to say out of character should be said on the metagame thread. When making reference to game mechanics on the story thread, please use starred qualitative descriptions - this is an ***easy*** fight, it will be ***ridiculously hard*** to climb that cliff, I would like to see if I can ***find hidden*** gems in this cave etc.

You can make multiple posts per day to either thread, but only upto one post per day per character should require non-combat dice rolling. All posts with numbers in, roll results etc, go on the metagame thread. You can use the metagame thread to ask for help from other players or the GM if you are not sure about something.

A GM day will last midnight to midnight in the GM's timezone. Time in the story itself will comform to the needs of the narrative.

Mechanics

So how do your Potentials and Skills work in practice ? When you want to do something narratively important, the GM tells you how hard it will be based on your rank in the relevant Potential or Skill and any relevant story factors.

You then roll a 20 sided dice to see if you succeed, if you do not own a D20 you can find websites to do this. The difficulty will be either Ridiculously Easy (1 fails), Easy (5 and under fails) OK (10 and under fails), Hard (15 and under fails) or Ridiculously Hard (only 20 will do.)

You will only need to roll one die for any non-combat action, and magic objects or weapons will just add a set bonus/buff e.g. +1 to your roll.

If you succeed on a roll with a natural 20 (i.e. the dice roll is twenty even without any additional bonuses) then tell the GM - they will give you a permanent additional skill, working it into the story. If you roll a 1, you will suffer a temporary ill effect woven into the story by the GM.

Combat
(Please don't worry if this part seems a bit daunting, when it comes up, there will be plenty of support on the metagame thread.)

There are three combat options, and the GM will state which one is being used for a specific campaign:

Minimalist: for use in campaigns/settings where combat is intended to be largely insignificant. Combat is managed exactly like a non-combat roll - the GM tells you how hard the fight will be based on your character's Toughness and you roll a single D20 to succeed or fail.

Standard: for use in campaigns/settings where combat is intended to be narratively important from time to time. This is framed within three phases; plan, narrate battle & crisis/resolution, and it uses a win/lose/spawn fight structure. In the narrate battle phase Readiness either decides turn order, or gives an attack bonus, depending on GM's narrative decision. Players can not aid each other in fights, monsters that defeat players run off rather than attacking other party members. Subject to GM agreement and story elements, it may be possible for healing actions to happen between the narrate battle & crisis phases.

Plan

When players come to a combat opportunity, the GM will post a special context post on the story thread, requesting the players plan what they are going to do. There will be a time limit for how long this can continue - perhaps 24hrs to ensure all players have a chance to contribute. Players may use their daily non-combat skill roll over this time, to prepare weapons, analyse information etc if they wish to do so.

Narrate Battle

Once the planning stage has ended, the GM will post a meta-combat post on the meta thread. This post will specify the enemies the players will fight, the difficulty of their fight and any special considerations that apply. The choices in the plan stage can effect the difficulty of the coming fight the GM gives each player, if narratively appropriate.

There are two kinds of enemy: Minion & Nemesis

The meta-combat post for Minion will look something like this:

quote:

Fight begins:

Your party is fighting three kinds of minion: shadow demons, ghasts and the occasional giant rat. They have weak Readiness, if your Readiness is better than theirs you get +3 to your first combat roll in this encounter.

You have until 21:00 hrs GMT to defeat them.
For minion combat each player now makes two D20 rolls.

First dice roll - Combat - decides between outcomes:

The GM has set the thresholds for these via fights via difficulty level in the meta combat-post:

(Combat bonuses are added to this roll only, they are not added to the spawn roll.)

Easy & OK minion fights spawn one creature fight, and hard minion fights spawn two creature fights. After each pair of Combat+Spawn rolls, you may choose to attempt to run away - to succeed you must roll 7 or more.

The second dice roll - Spawn level - decides whether the fights this player spawns are to be:

A spawn level roll of 20 also removes a fight.

This process continues until the character has won all their fights, been left for dead or run away.

The meta-combat post for combat with a Nemesis will look something like this:

quote:

Fight begins:

Your party is fighting the Nemesis Boftzag, the mountain troll:

Boftzag has weak Readiness, if your Readiness is better than his you get +2 to your first combat roll in this encounter. Boftzag is tough, he will recover five times from being left for dead. If you fight Boftzag and he spawns an action, rather than generating additonal fights, you roll your second die and the spawn level roll resolves as follows:


If you roll a 20 on this spawn roll, your fight becomes one rank easier.

You have until 21:00 hrs GMT to defeat him.
This process continues until the player has either won, lost or run away. If you win, and the Nemesis recovers - you can initiate a new fight with the Nemesis. Everytime you start a new fight with a Nemesis in succession, without another character having attacked in between times, makes your fight a rank harder - this resets back to the fight difficulty given by the GM once your character has had a breather.

Having resolved either Minion or Nemesis combat, the player makes a post to the story thread, and to the meta thread. They can completely decide themselves how to describe the outcome of the fight determined by their various rolls.

All party members may be attacking a nemesis, so it is important to read prior posts on the meta and story threads to maintain narrative consistency.

Crisis / Resolution

Once either, all fights are completed, or the deadline is passed, the GM makes story and meta posts. These can either declare the combat over and clear up any remaining issues, or set-up a second narrate battle phase that operates exactly like the first one. Perhaps you have defeated the minions of evil and now have to face the demon himself.

Advanced: for use in campaigns/settings where combat is intended to be of primary importance to the narrative. You derive your Wrongs and have these on your character sheet. Combat is turn based, if narratively appropriate, the GM may require the players to act in order of Readiness rank or Speed. The GM will keep track of the enemies statistics.

In each combat turn players can make Onslaughts, use Skills or run away. Each action in a combat round requires 2 speed points to attempt, except running away which only requires 1 speed point and a roll of 7 or more. Speed points reset each combat round. A combat round is complete when all players and enemies have acted, attacks can be held, no geographic strategies (i.e no flanking, backstab, cover bonuses though acceptable in story description.)

The GM will tell you how much you need to roll to succeed on your Onslaught combat roll. (The GM would usually calculate the target figure by starting at 10 then adding or subtracting 5 for each rank difference between.relevant combat potential - and then adjusting for penalties and bonuses.) If you succeed, your Gouge will be calculated and subtracted from the enemy's Wellbeing. When the enemy attacks you, the GM will subtract your Negate from their Onslaught total. If the enemy's Onslaught is successful, you will be Gouged. If your Wellbeing is 0 or less, you are incapacitated. 3 combat rounds at negative Wellbeing will result in Character death. A successful instance of healing returns 1/4 of total wellbeing points. If you are on negative Wellbeing points, you recover points at the rate given by your Recovery statistic until you reach positive Wellbeing (assuming you don't die first).

The GM will probably need volunteers from the player group to act as additional combat GMs, when using the Wrongs system.

Settings

This system can be used for any world, with any level of technology and both with and without functional magic.

[ 27. May 2014, 15:20: Message edited by: Smudgie ]
 
Posted by Doublethink (# 1984) on :
 
Campaign Brief: The Kavetseki Incident

Setting: This story is taking place in an earth-like world, with functional magic.

Technology level:. Late medieval / renaissance - but who knows what you may discover ?

Tone: Varied normal storytelling, (i.e. this is not a comedy, horror, or noir game.)

Intra-party Conflict: Tensions may arise between characters from time to time, but this should not be a major a feature of gameplay. This is intended to be a co-operative story.

Communal characters: Acceptable if specific players wish to do this, not compulsory, players involved should subscribe to the character before play begins. Transfer of character control should happen on the metagame thread.

Combat Option The campaign will use the Writes Standard combat mechanic.

Quest Outline: I expect this game to last six to eight weeks, maybe longer, ideally players need to be able to post most days - but we can find solutions on occasions when players are not available.

There will be mysteries, occasional combat, investigation, magic and political intrigue. Individual quest goals, and how the party come together, will be agreed with players once character concepts have been introduced on this thread.

Characters from previous campaigns maybe adapted for this game, subject to GM agreement. Characters maybe any fantasy race, or human, you can convince the GM to accept. Characters can be communally run, by prior agreement - but no more than three players per character.

I would prefer characters to be over 16, i.e. at least technically adult, and characters that become too evil (e.g deciding to buy a child slave and sacrifice them to a Lesser god) will have the life expectancy of a snowball in a blast furnace.

Posting Etiquette:

Please ensure your character's name is in every post you make on the story thread, and that dialogue is placed in quotation marks. Unless you have the consent of the other player or GM, do not control their characters or have your character perceive sensitive information in-character that only the players (not the characters) are aware of.

When you want to interact with other characters, it is fine to ask them questions, make conversation etc - but try not to assume the other character's responses. Please refresh the thread and check for intervening posts before posting - and remember if you are unsure about anything, you can just ask on the metagame thread.

Play that persistently excludes, or marginalises, specific players' characters will attract increasingly bad luck in the game world.

Resources for Players to Explore
Or not, these are for inspiration more than anything.

Model Character Sheet

Player:

Character Name:

Brief Physical Description:

Potentials:
(Ranked Useless / Weak / OK / Good / Excellent, you have 18 points to buy ranks at 1, 2, 3, 4 & 5 points cost respectively)
(Rolls for these will be Ridiculously Easy (2-20) / Easy (5-20) / OK (10-20) / Hard (15-20) / Ridiculously Hard (20) on a D20 as advised by GM)

(Wrongs are omitted.)

Skills
(Each skill is tied to a specific potential, to start with, no more than two skills can be associated with any single potential.)

Gift:

Special item / Transformation:

Please list equipment you acquire, with any bonuses it may have:

[ 26. May 2014, 20:51: Message edited by: Smudgie ]
 
Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on :
 
May I wheel Herr Doctor Daniel van Adescant back out? I was enjoying him. I think his skill set is varied enough that he needn't bend the campaign around him.
 
Posted by Kelly Alves (# 2522) on :
 
I want to try Brandon out again, too.
 
Posted by Doublethink (# 1984) on :
 
Could we grow Brandon four years please ?
 
Posted by Autenrieth Road (# 10509) on :
 
Are we allowed to have any character we want, as long as s/he's consistent with earth-like, functional magic, late medieval technology level, at least 16, and not evil?

I ask because from the Dungeon Master's thread it seemed like IngoB was saying that we should pick our character traits in a way that would fit into the quest and be likely to contribute to team success. But I don't know how I'd do that. It seems like choosing a character with a variety of potentials and skills should be enough, and then we'll find out during the campaign how s/he contributes.

That is, am I trying to anticipate something about the game, or can I invent to please myself?

What I think I'd like to do is have someone like Arabella again, with perhaps some tweaks that I haven't firmed up in my mind yet. But I'm not sure.
 
Posted by Doublethink (# 1984) on :
 
Anything that fits with the campaign brief, once I know what people are doing I may ask for the odd tweak to make the party work.

(If you want I can pm you an adapted version of Arabella to fit the system, for you to use as a base.)

[ 26. May 2014, 21:34: Message edited by: Doublethink ]
 
Posted by Kelly Alves (# 2522) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Doublethink:
Could we grow Brandon four years please ?
Sure!

I noticed (via PM) you changed my spirit to Wolf-- I kind of prefer coyote, only because they are smaller and have more opportunities to do stealthy sneaky stuff. What was your logic?
 
Posted by Doublethink (# 1984) on :
 
It is a bit fauna specific, it can be a sneaky small wolf though - half-grown maybe ?

(I.e. We are trying to be earthlike, not tied to specific actual regions - and it is difficult to think of coyotes without thinking Americas.)

[ 26. May 2014, 21:52: Message edited by: Doublethink ]
 
Posted by Eliab (# 9153) on :
 
I'm definitely in, and will play Gunriana again. Are we supposed to post an amended character sheet to this thread?

(Essentially, exactly the same as before, except that her equipment list adds Demoslant's Principles of Rhetoric and a dirty old human skull hung by a leather thong passed through the eye-sockets, which she occasionally talks to.)
 
Posted by Kelly Alves (# 2522) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Doublethink:
It is a bit fauna specific, it can be a sneaky small wolf though - half-grown maybe ?

(I.e. We are trying to be earthlike, not tied to specific actual regions - and it is difficult to think of coyotes without thinking Americas.)
Ok, that makes sense. (there's also a whole mythos attached to coyotes that give them a built in personality-- perhaps that is an American thing, too [Biased] )

Although just to argue a bit further-- if anyone saw a coyote outside of the Americas, they would just think it was a weird-looking wild dog.

[ 26. May 2014, 22:17: Message edited by: Kelly Alves ]
 
Posted by Doublethink (# 1984) on :
 
[crosspost reply to Eliab]

Yes please. I would reimagine your perk as a gift with the same downside - but instead of a plus to your roll, you get a critical success if you roll 17 or over.

[ 26. May 2014, 22:18: Message edited by: Doublethink ]
 
Posted by Kelly Alves (# 2522) on :
 
OK, revised character sheet for Player Kelly Alves:

Character Name: Brandon Covey

Brief Physical Description: 16 years old, 4 ft 8 in. tall, stocky and muscular, dark eyes and dark hair in a "bowl cut", Dressed in skins. with very big boots.

Potentials:
(Ranked Useless / Weak / OK / Good / Excellent, you have 20 points to buy ranks at 1, 2, 3, 4 & 5 points cost respectively)
Good Wits
OK Readiness
Excellent Inspiration
OK Toughness
Weak Elan
Weak Spryness
(Rolls for these will be Ridiculously Easy (2-20) / Easy (5-20) / OK (10-20) / Hard (15-20) / Ridiculously Hard (20) on a D20 as advised by GM)

Skills
(Each skill is tied to a specific potential, to start with, no more than two skills can be associated with any single potential.)
Discernment (Wits)
Animal Kinship (Inspiration)
Tracking (Readiness)
Traditional Medicine(Inspiration)
Stealth (Wits)
Light Weapon (Toughness)
Swimming (Toughness)

Gift Quick learner, gains new skill with a roll of 19 or 20

Special Item: Wolf Spirit, x1 per week wits swaps with toughness and becomes a wolf.

Please list equipment you acquire, with any bonuses it may give.

Camping gear.
Steel toed boots
Short Sword (+1 to combat roll)
Folk medicine kit

[ 26. May 2014, 22:32: Message edited by: Kelly Alves ]
 
Posted by Doublethink (# 1984) on :
 
That should be wits swaps with toughness if you are able to edit.
 
Posted by IngoB (# 8700) on :
 
I will join again, but retire my previous character (Bayani). Unfortunately, I'm travelling till Thursday, I will post a character then.

I'm happy to share a character, so if you want to share a character with me and be involved in the "character design" phase, please drop me a PM.

Likewise, can people indicate here whether they are happy to share their character. I might join someone else's character then instead of making my own...
 
Posted by Kelly Alves (# 2522) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Doublethink:
That should be wits swaps with toughness if you are able to edit.
Yup.
 
Posted by Doublethink (# 1984) on :
 
I forgot to put party size in the campaign brief, oh well, nevermind. We will see how we go. Am hoping to leave recruitment open for a week or so.
 
Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on :
 
Character Name: Daniel Van Adescant

Brief Physical Description:

Van Adescant is tall and thin, with a thing for wide-brimmed hats and long black coats. He has blondish hair with pale skin, and a slightly unfocused stooping gaze. He keeps a scarf about his neck at all times.
He carries a spear and a crossbow when he's travelling.

Potentials:
(Ranked Useless / Weak / OK / Good / Excellent, you have 18 points to buy ranks at 1, 2, 3, 4 & 5 points cost respectively)
Excellent Wits
Weak Readiness
OK Inspiration
Weak Toughness
Weak Elan
Good Spryness
(Rolls for these will be Ridiculously Easy (2-20) / Easy (5-20) / OK (10-20) / Hard (15-20) / Ridiculously Hard (20) on a D20 as advised by GM)

Skills
(Each skill is tied to a specific potential, to start with, no more than two skills can be associated with any single potential.)
Occult (Wits) - Van Adescant knows a lot about undead, lycanthropes, dark magic, etc. He can probably rustle up rituals or so given time; whether it is wise to do so is another matter.
Turn Undead (Inspiration) - using a holy symbol or pair of candlesticks, etc, he can temporarily ward off undead. He can also perform minor infusions of positive energy - healing cuts and scrapes, minor blessings, etc.
Crossbow (Spryness) - useful for stakes.
Investigation (Wits)
Interrogation (Elan)
Staff / Spear Fighting (Spryness) - also, flaming torches.
Etiquette (Elan)

Gift: Uncorrupted, you can sense undead and you are immune to the first non-physical attempt any undead source makes to harm you x1 per week.

Special item / Transformation: Van Adescant has a curious contraption made of wire and two pieces of glass. If he puts it over his eyes (resting on his ears and nose) his Readiness, for the purposes of looking at items close by, rises to Good.

Please list equipment you acquire, with any bonuses it may have

Stakes and hammer (+1 to combat roll when used as a weapon) holy water, holy symbol, garlic and wolfsbane, crossbow (+1 to combat roll when used as a weapon), silver arrows, ordinary arrows, spear (+1 to combat roll when used as a weapon), pocket breviary.

(Note, stake and silver weapons will give +2 when used against appropriate undead.)

Letters of Introduction, from scholars, antiquarians, and a high priest (+1 to rolls when making first impressions with those professions and clergy).
 
Posted by JFH (# 14794) on :
 
I'm still deciding on whether this will work with my daily life and (the) pi, but Stone might return in a somewhat adapted shape. I'll let you know in a day or so.
 
Posted by Net Spinster (# 16058) on :
 
Sounds interesting but I might just observe.

Was thinking a ship captain's widow, older, recently shipwrecked which also killed her husband might be an interesting character to play. Skilled at bartering, piloting, and language. Special gift of almost always knowing where she is. However I'm not sure she could be made to fit (certainly not good at offensive fighting except by using a marlinspike, Jael style).
 
Posted by Autenrieth Road (# 10509) on :
 
I'm not quite clear how this works. Frithwynne has a backstory which explains her skills, but there's no place on the sheet to put it. Do I tell the story here as part of negotiating with the GM for the character sheet? Anyway, here's draft 1:

Player: Autenrieth Road

Character Name: Frithwynne

Brief Physical Description: Frithwynne is somewhat muddy and scuffed, with a drawn face and a slight build.

Potentials:
(Ranked Useless / Weak / OK / Good / Excellent, you have 18 points to buy ranks at 1, 2, 3, 4 & 5 points cost respectively)
Good Wits
OK Readiness
Good Inspiration
OK Toughness
Useless Elan
OK Spryness
(Rolls for these will be Ridiculously Easy (2-20) / Easy (5-20) / OK (10-20) / Hard (15-20) / Ridiculously Hard (20) on a D20 as advised by GM)

Skills
(Each skill is tied to a specific potential, to start with, no more than two skills can be associated with any single potential.)

Navigation (Wits)
Improvised weapons (Wits) - this will allow you to use any plausible non-weapon thing you find as a weapon, or clubs as weapons but not swords, axes or bows etc
Night Vision (Readiness)
Find Hidden (Readiness)
Intuition (Inspiration)
Animal command (Inspiration)
Climb (Spryness)


Gift: Frithwynne can navigate mazes (how to quantify this?)

Special item / Transformation: Silver chalice of Intuition (when gazed into, increases Intuition to Excellent, x1 per week)

Please list equipment you acquire, with any bonuses it may give:

Well made boots, exceptionally soft yet sturdy. If you ask her how she got them, Frithwynne will say "barter," with a look and a tone which say "don't ask."

Walking staff

Knapsack, with a few odds and ends: a tin cup, a thimble, a river-smoothed stone, a red ribbon, knitted shawl, three square white cloths wrapped around blue velvet cloth wrapped around silver chalice

Small knife and waterskin on a belt
 
Posted by Autenrieth Road (# 10509) on :
 
"Intuition" on the chalice should be "Inspiration." Which would then increase Intuition, if Frithwynne were using that Skill. But I can imagine her wanting to use the raw Potential instead.
 
Posted by Autenrieth Road (# 10509) on :
 
The red ribbon, incidentally, could be conceived of as adding +1 to Frithwynne's Useless Élan. Can I add that? This may still be completely useless to the quest (if we're ever in a situation where we're depending on Frithwynne to roll Success on an Élan task, we're in deep trouble...). But it matches how I was thinking of the ribbon when I put it in Frithwynne's pack. And who knows, maybe she'll find some Élan during the quest and then +1 might be useful?
 
Posted by Ariston (# 10894) on :
 
I'll be in, but watching character/party balance; while I think Jetse the Walking Tank still has some life in him (I intentionally made him a slowly developing character—yes, there's quite a bit of backstory behind him, no, he's not the type to spill everything at his first campfire), I'm wondering if something along the lines of a cleric (healing, support) or a mage (magic open locked doors! do nifty magic things! make big, flashy fireballs!) might be more useful.
 
Posted by Banner Lady (# 10505) on :
 
Name: Crazy Clawdine

Brief Physical Description:

A troll of a woman of indeterminable size, thanks to the many layers of tattered shawls that hang from her large frame. Her wild black matted hair has a life of its own, owing to the insect life that lives in it. She may look crazy, but her beady black eyes rarely miss much of what is going on around her, and she has a number of hidden and surprisingly useful talents.

Potentials:

Wits …………weak………….2
Readiness….excellent…….5
Inspiration..excellent…….5
Toughness…okay…………..3
Elan………….weak………….2
Spryness…..useless……….1


Skills: able to use crone lore in seven specific ways

Find hidden (R )
Spot deception (R )
Understand nature (I)
Hypnotise (I)
Use a divining rod as a weapon (T)
Brew (W)
Cook (W)

Gift: Call Water, Clawdine senses water at all times and x1 per week can cause something withered to grow.

Special ability: A compliment turns Clawdine into a tall, leggy, well endowed and fast young woman, with blonde hair and a desire to run naked through water. Spryness and Readiness ranks swap and Clawdine turns into a young naked woman. This is triggered x1 per week in a situation where she has received a compliment - but she can choose to compliment herself, provided there is a convincing reason.

Equipment:
Divining Rod (+1 to a roll when used as a weapon)
Distinctive blue caravan
 
Posted by Doublethink (# 1984) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Autenrieth Road:
The red ribbon, incidentally, could be conceived of as adding +1 to Frithwynne's Useless Élan. Can I add that? This may still be completely useless to the quest (if we're ever in a situation where we're depending on Frithwynne to roll Success on an Élan task, we're in deep trouble...). But it matches how I was thinking of the ribbon when I put it in Frithwynne's pack. And who knows, maybe she'll find some Élan during the quest and then +1 might be useful?
Yes, you can have +1 on the ribbon for elan. Please can you give us a paragraph on her background, and incate which three skills relate to it. Your gift, re navigation, you can have. It is just always available, no rolls or anything.

[ 27. May 2014, 07:01: Message edited by: Doublethink ]
 
Posted by Doublethink (# 1984) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Net Spinster:
Sounds interesting but I might just observe.

Was thinking a ship captain's widow, older, recently shipwrecked which also killed her husband might be an interesting character to play. Skilled at bartering, piloting, and language. Special gift of almost always knowing where she is. However I'm not sure she could be made to fit (certainly not good at offensive fighting except by using a marlinspike, Jael style).
Would you like me to draft you a character ? Or you might want to try co-running a character, maybe with Ingo ?

[ 27. May 2014, 07:04: Message edited by: Doublethink ]
 
Posted by Doublethink (# 1984) on :
 
Bannerlady, is Clawdine a troll this time ? Your Skills are fine, your gift can have sense water and also causing withered things to grow (but you can have do the grow thing at will, not just once a week).
 
Posted by Banner Lady (# 10505) on :
 
DT - I have used exactly the same description of her that I did last time - it was others who interpreted "a troll of a woman" as a "troll-woman". She may look like one, but whether she is or not is a moot point. Does there have to be a definitive answer to that? I think it may just be part of the mystery that goes with being a crone.
 
Posted by Yorick (# 12169) on :
 
I’d really LOVE to have a go but find the complexity somewhat daunting (having not played any RPG since D&D, about twice, as a kid) and I would probably have to be AFK for periods of a day or two, at times. Please could I share a character with one or more Shipmates? I fancy the role as Party’s Medic, if that’s somehow possible. I imagine a quiet and bookish character of either gender, colossally knowledgeable in herbal medicine and rudimentary surgery, and perhaps with a special skill of extraordinary intuitiveness and empathy. The ‘magic’ skill could perhaps be the ability to read people’s thoughts to some extent. The special weaknesses would be in fighting, wherein the medic would be a defensive liability to their friends, but who would demonstrate exceptional bravery and selflessness in tending to the wounded in the heat of battle.

Any thoughts, DT?
 
Posted by Doublethink (# 1984) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Banner Lady:
DT - I have used exactly the same description of her that I did last time - it was others who interpreted "a troll of a woman" as a "troll-woman". She may look like one, but whether she is or not is a moot point. Does there have to be a definitive answer to that? I think it may just be part of the mystery that goes with being a crone.
That's fine.
 
Posted by Doublethink (# 1984) on :
 
That should definitely be doable Yorick.
 
Posted by Hart (# 4991) on :
 
I'm in, but I think I'm going to be coming up with a new character (over the next day or so). I do have some travel coming up, but nothing that should be overly prohibitive.
 
Posted by Autenrieth Road (# 10509) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Doublethink:
...three of them [Skills] should be directly related to your trade / social status / profession
Frithwynne is the only child of a shepherd. She grew up herding sheep, training sheep dogs, and escaping to explore a shallow system of caves whenever she felt she could leave the sheep dog alone to mind the sheep (which was often). Her parents died when Frithwynne was 17, leaving a mountain of debts which resulted in the loss of their holding, leaving Frithwynne with no social place except what she could cobble together by her wits. She is now 26.

Almost all of her skills flow out of her story, but I don't know if they're tightly related enough to her "trade / social status / profession" to count. Let me know if you want me to revise some of her skills to get three background skills which are in the right relation to her background.

~~~~~~

Her Animal Command (ability to coax animals to do her will) comes from her experience with sheep and dogs.

Her Night Vision, Climb and Navigation come equally from exploring the caves and from scrambling over crags to hunt lost sheep late at night.

Her Improvised Weapons has been developed both as a child throwing rocks to ward off wolves, and as an adult using anything that came to hand to ward off those who would take what they wanted violently.

~~~~~~

The following two are less tightly coupled to her background and are simply skills I want her to have:

Her Intuition has been honed through 9 years of carefully observing the people around her from a low social position, although she has always been one to see beneath surfaces and to make surprising connections.

Her Find Hidden could be from finding lost sheep, but that doesn't feel right to me somehow; from reading about RPG it simply seems like it will be a useful skill to have.

[ 27. May 2014, 13:48: Message edited by: Autenrieth Road ]
 
Posted by Autenrieth Road (# 10509) on :
 
Would it be useful for this thread to have "RPG" in the title, so people who weren't following the Dungeon Master's thread and the development of the Writes & Wrongs system know what it's about?

Otherwise those interested in RPG may just pass it by without opening it, not realizing it's of interest.
 
Posted by Hart (# 4991) on :
 
Before I do too much detail development of my character, I wanted to share the basic idea to check if it's OK (especially as the character development does make some assumptions about the world we're in).

--

Character Name: Dorainen

Physical Description: Dorainen is a young male water elf, though most humans have a hard time telling different types of elves apart (a phenomenon that baffles elves to whom it's entirely obvious). Most humans would peg him at around 18 by his looks, but he has actually lived through 50 winters. He is tall with a slender yet athletic build by human standards, but is actually rather short and stocky by his own race's. His pale blue robes appear light and insubstantial, but are in fact made of an advanced magical fabric with advantages detailed below.

Some background: Dorainen has lived his whole life in a small teyv (or commune) of water elves, rather segregated even from other elves, yet alone other races. As he turns of age, he is required to live a full year outside of the teyv. While most water elves go only a small social distance from their upbringing (often living with elves of the mountains), Dorainen has long been fascinated by the humans he has read about in books and desires to spend his year living among them. Who knows, it may even be longer? Dorainen is well-trained in survival skills both natural and magical, but is very socially naive.


--
If this sounds like a goer, I'll work up some skills, gift and item.

[ 27. May 2014, 15:23: Message edited by: Hart ]
 
Posted by Hart (# 4991) on :
 
I should add, I'm fine with the GM either adding a little backstory for how I met up with the rest of the party before the role-playing begins, or for that to happen early on in the role-playing.
 
Posted by Autenrieth Road (# 10509) on :
 
Thanks, Smudgie!
 
Posted by Net Spinster (# 16058) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Doublethink:
quote:
Originally posted by Net Spinster:
Sounds interesting but I might just observe.

Was thinking a ship captain's widow, older, recently shipwrecked which also killed her husband might be an interesting character to play. Skilled at bartering, piloting, and language. Special gift of almost always knowing where she is. However I'm not sure she could be made to fit (certainly not good at offensive fighting except by using a marlinspike, Jael style).
Would you like me to draft you a character ? Or you might want to try co-running a character, maybe with Ingo ?
I think co-running might be easiest. I did do a little fiddling, but, I am novice.

Model Character Sheet

Player:

Character Name: Mary Drake

Brief Physical Description: 40 year old woman, middling height and weight, graying black hair, brown eyes, brown skin, calloused hands and feet Clothes are a worn dress and bonnet, much patched, and a much faded shawl. No shoes at this time though she would like to acquire a pair.

Potentials:
(Ranked Useless / Weak / OK / Good / Excellent, you have 18 points to buy ranks at 1, 2, 3, 4 & 5 points cost respectively)

4 Good Rank Wits
3 ok Rank Readiness
2 weak Rank Inspiration
2 weak Rank Toughness
4 good Rank Elan
3 ok Rank Spryness

(Rolls for these will be Ridiculously Easy (2-20) / Easy (5-20) / OK (10-20) / Hard (15-20) / Ridiculously Hard (20) on a D20 as advised by GM)

(Wrongs are omitted.)

Skills
(Each skill is tied to a specific potential, to start with, no more than two skills can be associated with any single potential.)

pilot/readiness Skill (Potential)
rope use/spryness Skill (Potential)
ship handling/spryness Skill (Potential)
swimming/toughness Skill (Potential)
accounting/wits Skill (Potential)
language/wits Skill (Potential)
barter/elan Skill (Potential)

Gift: Can almost always tell true north

Special item / Transformation: a curiously decorated leather pouch that can hold more than is apparent and is watertight and unopenable unless opened by owner

Please list equipment you acquire, with any bonuses it may have:
knife with sheath
8 inch long marlinspike
wooden boxed writing kit (however quills and ink will have to be replaced at times)

A fisherman's daughter and a ship captain's widow, she always travelled with her husband because of her ability to know where she was (at least as far as latitude). To use that ability most effectively she learned to pilot as well as some other ship related skills. In port she helped handle the disposal and acquisition of merchandise and supplies. However her most recent voyage ended in a shipwreck which killed her husband and most of the crew and left her almost destitute and a long way from her original home.
 
Posted by Gwai (# 11076) on :
 
I'm in, and I guess I may as well bring back Jerthro:

Player: Gwai

Character Name: Jerthro

Brief Physical Description:
Very fit looking young man. Probably 18 or so though he claims to be 25 usually.

General Description:
Sometimes bumbling, usually over-confident, but always cheerful, Jerthro is seriously excited to be on this adventure, and he knows it's going to be great!

Potentials:
(Ranked Useless / Weak / OK / Good / Excellent, you have 18 points to buy ranks at 1, 2, 3, 4 & 5 points cost respectively)
Weak Wits
Weak Finesse
Good Charm
OK Soul
Good Muscles
OK Vigilance
(Rolls for these will be Ridiculously Easy (2-20) / Easy (5-20) / OK (10-20) / Hard (15-20) / Ridiculously Hard (20) on a D20 as advised by GM)

Skills
(Each skill is tied to a specific potential, to start with, no more than two skills can be associated with any single potential.)
Plant/Animal Knowledge (Wits)
Bows (Muscles)
Light Weapon (Muscles)
Scouting (Vigilance)
Intuition (Wits)
Soothe (Charm)

Perk: Power Through, x1 per week Jerthro can try to power through an unfamiliar skilled task on muscle strength alone, but only the first time he encounters it.

Special item / Transformation: Leather Armour, looking at the size and the way it fits Jerthro, one suspects he inherited it from his dad. x1 per week if Jerthro wonders what his father might have done in a similar sticky situation, surprisingly useful advice will occur to him. He doesn’t realise this is a blessing conferred by his armour.

Please list equipment you acquire, with any bonuses it may give…

Bow and arrows (+1 to combat roll)

Sword and dagger (+1 to combat roll when either is used) Plain but decent. Again look like they've had more wear than Jerthro has.

Backpack and camping supplies --New, unused even, and rather excessive. For instance, no one needs three different ways to start a fire, surely?
 
Posted by Autenrieth Road (# 10509) on :
 
Hart, I hope Dorainen is approved by GM DT. I love the backstory! I don't see that it should be problematic to assume that this earth-like world contains water and mountains [Two face] [Biased] .
 
Posted by Doublethink (# 1984) on :
 
Hart - I am fine with your character concept.

Gwai - happy to have Jerthro back, but you need to tweak your character sheet, for the new potential names, a 7th skill and you will need a new concept for your gift instead of your old perk.

Net spinster - that character is a very good first try - I make your potentials only adding up to 17 though - so you could have an extra rank in something. Also please could we change accounting to double entry bookeeping (just for reasons of flavour rather than function.). You have a very strong idea of your character, so I would suggest you dive in and run it solo. They will be plenty of help on the meta thread if you get stuck.

AR - skills background link is fine - thanks for the write-up.
 
Posted by Antisocial Alto (# 13810) on :
 
I am interested but I've never done any RPGing before, in person or anything. I would be happy to generate my own character or share with someone more experienced, if that might be better for the game.
 
Posted by Yorick (# 12169) on :
 
DT, please could you make any amendments?


Player : Shared: Yorick and other(s)

Character Name: John Goode

Brief Physical Description: 45 years old, 5’10 in. tall, slim and wiry with a slightly hunched posture, kind brown eyes and an easy smile, greying short-cropped hair, smart but practical travel clothes, faintly smelling of soap, clean finger nails.

Potentials:
(Ranked Useless / Weak / OK / Good / Excellent, you have 20 points to buy ranks at 1, 2, 3, 4 & 5 points cost respectively)
Excellent Wits
OK Readiness
Excellent Inspiration
Weak Toughness
Weak Elan
Weak Spryness
(Rolls for these will be Ridiculously Easy (2-20) / Easy (5-20) / OK (10-20) / Hard (15-20) / Ridiculously Hard (20) on a D20 as advised by GM)

Skills

(Each skill is tied to a specific potential, to start with, no more than two skills can be associated with any single potential.)

Diagnostics wisdom (Wits)
Knowledge of the medicinal properties of all botanic life (Wits)
Healing hands (Inspiration)
Surgery (Inspiration)
Calm in a crisis (Readiness)

Gift: Empathic sense- ability to read the thoughts of others with a roll of 18 or higher

Special Item: Full Healing, x1 per week. Ability to bring mortally injured to full health in two days

Equipment

Shoulder bag containing:
Materia medica of dried crushed herbs, phials of oils and potions
Fine leather wallet of surgical instruments
Pouch of field dressings
 
Posted by Doublethink (# 1984) on :
 
Well, that's looking a good start. It should be an 18 pt rather than 20 point buy. Also, your special item should be a thing not an ability (unless you transform)

Be aware that healing is useful in quite limited circumstances - though you can effectively barter it for things. You have two unused skill slots, so I would suggest dropping healing hands (general healing is effectively covered by surgery - know its not in real life !) and the diagnostics. The medical botany thing is fine but it will be extensive rather than exhaustive knowledge.

Calm in a crisis is something you would roleplay rather than role for, you have seven skill slots in total so dropping that would give you four skill slots to add a second string to your bow alongside your doctoriness.
 
Posted by Doublethink (# 1984) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Antisocial Alto:
I am interested but I've never done any RPGing before, in person or anything. I would be happy to generate my own character or share with someone more experienced, if that might be better for the game.
Why not have a go at character generating, then if you want you could share with someone or go solo. What sort of character do you fancy playing ?
 
Posted by Hart (# 4991) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Autenrieth Road:
I don't see that it should be problematic to assume that this earth-like world contains water and mountains [Two face] [Biased] .
My question was more whether it would be OK for it to contain elves... But, as it is, I'll get working on a full set of specs!

Ariston: we don't really have any honest-to-goodness tough guys/gals yet, so I think Jetse would be a great addition. Not trying to stop you trying something else though...
 
Posted by Autenrieth Road (# 10509) on :
 
AR realizes she needs to work on cracking more of a smile when she makes deadpan jokes.
 
Posted by Doublethink (# 1984) on :
 
I make that 9 characters proposed so far, with two of those possibly being co-run.

I am aware that Jay-Em and JFH are not sure if they'll join. We have Yorick, Net Spinster, IngoB and Anti-social Alto considering if they'd like to co-run.

I know Ariston would definitely like to participate, and I have pm'd Curiosity Killed and Curious Kitten to see if they would like to take part - as they missed out last time.

Absolutely and completely the maximum number of characters I am prepared to try to run with is 16 (says she in an insanely optimistic manner). For a longer campaign like this, it does mean that if someone's away for a day or two the action won't stall - (I am afraid they'll have to just be laid up with a twisted ankle or something.)
 
Posted by Eliab (# 9153) on :
 
Player: Eliab


Character Name: Gunriana De Vanės

Brief Physical Description: A young lady (no more than 19 years old), dressed either in an ornate and expensive dress not quite on the cutting edge of fashion, which suits her reasonably or, when travelling, dressed in rather more practical fur-lined leggings, short-ish shirt and stout jerkin in which she seems much more at ease. Her left hand is always gloved, and the observant will note that she uses that hand as little as possible, though she shows no sign of any disability. Her speech is careful and polished, though not quite polished enough to pass for true-born aristocracy. Her eyes are intelligent and intense – enough to make many people a little uncomfortable in prolonged conversation.

Potentials:
(Ranked Useless / Weak / OK / Good / Excellent, you have 18 points to buy ranks at 1, 2, 3, 4 & 5 points cost respectively)

Good Wits
OK Readiness
Excellent Inspiration
Useless Toughness
OK Elan
Weak Spryness

(Rolls for these will be Ridiculously Easy (2-20) / Easy (5-20) / OK (10-20) / Hard (15-20) / Ridiculously Hard (20) on a D20 as advised by GM)


Skills
(Each skill is tied to a specific potential, to start with, no more than two skills can be associated with any single potential.)

Etiquette (Elan)
Stealth (Spryness)
Bluff (Wits)
Seamanship (Readiness)
Rune Magic (Inspiration)
Healing (Inspiration)
Light Weapons (Spryness)

Gift: Rune Magic (bonus/penalty for runes cut with the left hand)

Special items: Wolf’s Tooth pendant - An heirloom from Gunriana’s similarly gifted great aunt - a very old wolf-tooth strung on a twisted leather thong. It has the virtue that if a dead body is marked with it, it will hasten their passage to their final reward, and entirely frustrate any subsequent magical or necromantic attempt to enchant the body or call back the soul. Obviously those who died in the act of cowardice or treason are ineligible for such protection.

Demoslant’s Principles of Rhetoric – A non-descript old book, which is nonetheless beautifully written, and which blesses the attentive reader with unnatural eloquence. Once per week it will boost Elan by one rank for any task principally involving speech. A formal oration prepared in advance with the aid of this book will be at +1.


Other equipment:

Expensive dresses (several), cosmetics, jewellery and accessories for every season.
Travelling clothes (in tasteful silver-grey fur and matching silk lining).
Dark blue murder robes for special occasions.
Elegant and practical footwear.
One long dark grey silk glove.
Light pack containing provisions, a coil of rope, wood and stone chisels, a small mallet, a wickedly sharp pen knife, quill and ink, with a few sheets of vellum if she remembered to pack any, a few pots of foul-smelling ointment, several rolls of bandages and a few needles and stout thread. Also money – she's not short of it, but the amount she thinks to take with her varies wildly. She's a hoarder, and her pack and pockets will gradually accumulate stuff until she periodically clears out and starts again.
An old and dirty human skull, missing the lower jawbone, hung on a leather thong passed through the eye-sockets completes Gunriana’s travelling outfit. She occasionally talks to it in a disturbing fashion. She will (reluctantly) leave it out of her formal attire.

Weapons:
Scramasax in a plain leather sheath, hung openly across her front when travelling, concealed in a sleeve (or left at home) when finely dressed (+1 to combat rolls).
A light throwing spear or two if she's expecting trouble (+1 to combat rolls).

Background:

Gunriana De Vanės is a young commoner from an exceptionally rich merchant family. She has been pushed into high society by her father's ambition to improve the standing of their House and is betrothed to a younger son of powerful (though heavily indebted) Duke. As her future husband is currently eight years old, she has some time on her hands before settling down to a life of elevated tedium. She has in the past accompanied His Royal Highness Prince Testwe on his travels, and continues to undertake errands for members of the royal court. Her father has pulled more than a few strings to place her in society, and has given her instructions to (1) preserve her virginity; (2) learn how to behave as a lady; (3) keep an eye open for opportunities for profit; and (4) enjoy seeing something of the world. Gunriana does not exactly demur from any of those instructions, though it should be said that she precisely reverses their order of priority.

In truth Gunriana was born about two generations too late. Had she lived in the days when the Vanės clan spent six months a year raiding up and down the coast, and was more concerned with looting and burning trade-ships than investing in them at high rates of interest, a sharp-minded girl born with the hagall rune marked vividly on her left palm would have had but one destiny. She would been put into service of some embittered old crone, and settled with aplomb into the role of barbarian witch, to become the servant and symbol of the dark ladies to be feared and appeased by men of a race that fears nothing and bows to no one. Gunriana's life in these more civilised days is more ambiguous - to be marked so unmistakeably as a daughter of the Fates, and yet also to be obliged to take the part of a refined consort for a civilised aristocrat is perhaps asking too much of anyone. It remains to be seen which path she will ultimately choose.

Gunriana believes that runes cut or cast with her fate-marked left hand are especially strong, but destined to bring at least some measure of grief as the price of their power. She conceals her mark with a glove, and tries to avoid touching anyone with that hand, not only to avoid superstitious hostility, but also because she is more than a little afraid of fully using the darker side of her talents.
 
Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Doublethink:
I know Ariston would definitely like to participate, and I have pm'd Curiosity Killed and Curious Kitten to see if they would like to take part - as they missed out last time.
I think they might be afk for the next few days. See the Scotland thread.
 
Posted by Eliab (# 9153) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Doublethink:
[crosspost reply to Eliab]

Yes please. I would reimagine your perk as a gift with the same downside - but instead of a plus to your roll, you get a critical success if you roll 17 or over.
I'm not sure I get it - I will PM so as not to derail the general game thread.
 
Posted by Yorick (# 12169) on :
 
Thank you for the help and suggestions, DT.

I would like a trick coin for John’s Special Item. When tossed with secret trickiness this would always come up will the called side- either heads or tails.

I think Potentials could be like this, off 18 points:

Excellent Wits
Okay Readiness
Excellent Inspiration
Poor Toughness
Weak Elan
Poor Spryness

But I may have got all that arse-about-tit. Please advise.

Skills to include:

Conjuring tricks and illusions (Wits)
Insomnia (only needs three hours sleep per day) (Readiness)
Vast knowledge of the medicinal properties of botanic life (Wits)
The gab (ability to convince) (Inspiration)
Surgery (Inspiration)

Open to suggestions on other skills...

Gift of Empathic sense- the ability to read the thoughts of others- to be determined by GM.

Equipment

Shoulder bag containing:
Materia medica of dried crushed herbs, phials of oils and potions
Fine leather wallet of surgical instruments
Pouch of field dressings

I’d like to roleplay the character as a highly self-assured, charming and charismatic man who knows how to talk his way out of (and into) the most compromising positions. Something of a maverick, he can confound the sharpest players with his trickery, and seduce all with his warmth and humour. His ability to gain others’ confidence comes from his natural and unnatural empathy, and facilitates his genuine and great skill and knowledge as a medicine man.
 
Posted by Jay-Emm (# 11411) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Doublethink:
I make that 9 characters proposed so far, with two of those possibly being co-run.

I am aware that Jay-Em and JFH are not sure if they'll join.
That sounds like the games on track to be pretty full [Smile]

Will watch with interest and think I would be willing and able to cover a character if needed. Or any other temporary interactions.

Quite happy for Testwe to be developed in aside comments (or removed from Eliab's backstory, etc..) or as a NPC.
 
Posted by Doublethink (# 1984) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Yorick:
Thank you for the help and suggestions, DT.

I would like a trick coin for John’s Special Item. When tossed with secret trickiness this would always come up will the called side- either heads or tails.
Thats fine.

(However, potentials are now at 17 pt and your elan is useless when you want to be charming and confident.)

I suggest the following:

Excellent Wits
Weak Readiness
Useless Inspiration
Useless Toughness
Excellent Elan
Good Spryness

Skills as follows

Conjuring tricks and illusions (Spryness)
Vast knowledge of the medicinal properties of botanic life (Wits)
The gab (ability to convince) (Elan)
Surgery (Spryness)
Disguise (Elan)**
Understand Ancient Languages (Wits)
Use Scalpel as Weapon (Toughness)

(I have removed insomnia because it is not a skill, as in you don't train to get insomnia. Spryness includes dexterity/finesse which is why I have rejigged this way. I have given you ancient languages cos you have studied old books to expand your medical knowledge.)

Gift of Empathic sense- the ability to read the thoughts of others- on a roll of 17 or above.

You should probably add a selection of minor props to his equipment.

**I figure if you trick too many folk with your coin, you may need to get out of town without being spotted.
 
Posted by Doublethink (# 1984) on :
 
Thanks Jay-Em, we'll run this as if Testwe's peregrination never happened - or it will have plausibility issues - but he may turn up as an NPC, by way of homage [Smile]
 
Posted by Ariston (# 10894) on :
 
Well, it looks like Jetse gets to make another appearance after all!

Guardian Jetse Vos, formerly of the Mystery, Fellowship, and Company of Merchant Adventurers in the Canton of Ijzerhaven, Duchy of Joux and Mørkborg Palatinate.

Brief Physical Description:

While not especially tall, Jetse is still an absolute bear of a man, seemingly occupying the whole of any room he walks into. His black hair and moustache are turning grey at the corners, and his face, hands, and arms show the signs of long exposure to the elements, as well as a few fights that could have perhaps gone better for him. Whatever caused that necrotic wound, now a nasty scar, on his left arm couldn't have been even remotely friendly. Yet somehow, through his many campaigns on land, sea, and underground, Jetse survived.

Jetse is generally gruff and curt, sometimes bordering on rude. Being around him is slightly frightening—it's clear that he's watching you, judging your actions, determining how likely you are to attack him, and, if you are fool enough to try, how he's going to make you very much regret it. Something about being around a gruff, heavily armed, hypervigilant, and not especially friendly looking (ex?) mercenary who seems to be quite capable of landing a blow exactly where it would hurt the most tends to make people shy away

His arms and equipment are as unusual for these parts; perhaps, in the fjords, cold, and darkness of the far south, they might be more common, but here, their strange design stands out, especially the sun emblem on his breastplate. Why would a soldier from Joux wear that device? Isn't the Duchy supposed to be underground?

Potentials:
(Ranked Useless / Weak / OK / Good / Excellent, you have 18 points to buy ranks at 1, 2, 3, 4 & 5 points cost respectively)
OK Wits
Good Spryness
Useless Elan
Useless Inspiration
Excellent Toughness
Good Readiness
(Rolls for these will be Ridiculously Easy (2-20) / Easy (5-20) / OK (10-20) / Hard (15-20) / Ridiculously Hard (20) on a D20 as advised by GM)

Skills
Intimidate (Toughness)
Ride (Wits)
Climb (Spryness)
Melee Weapon Proficiency (Toughness, background skill)
Ranged Weapon Proficiency (Spryness, background skill)
Tactics (Wits, background skill)
Spot Trouble (Readiness)

Perk: The Human Wall—Sometimes, it's good to be an imposing, hulking presence. In any fight, you can choose that all opponents attack you - but the first wound you are dealt has no effect.

Special item / Transformation: Finely Crafted Breastplate. Though battered and repaired, a coat of arms depicting a three-peaked mountain over a field (a plain, or perhaps a lake?), with a sunburst design in the chief of the shield, is still visible, etched above the front of his right shoulder (-1 to opponents’ attack rolls).

Please list equipment you acquire, with any bonuses it may give…

Halberd (pole weapon, slashing/piercing, hook can be used to disarm or trip opponents, effective against charging and mounted enemies). The blades and haft of this fearsome looking poleaxe are jet black (+1 to combat roll).
Short sword (bladed weapon, slashing). Jetse's sidearm, rather than being straight, has a series of waves in the blade and a figure eight for a crossguard, and, like his halberd, is also black (+1 to combat roll).
Longbow and 20 arrows (+1 to combat roll).
Helmet. Both the breastplate and helmet are made out of a strange metal that seem more like pale and faded shadows than glittering steel. Or maybe they just need a good polish before the next parade. A really good polish.
Heavy oilskin cloak. Wherever Jetse's been, it doesn't seem like it was especially warm or dry.
Mundane equipment: pack with bedroll, waterskin, cloth sack, flint & steel, whetstone, and nigh-unpalatable dwarf bread of unknown age for very dire emergencies (starvation might be preferable, actually).
Small sun charm—some kind of holy symbol, or just a good luck token.
Clay sea-pipe
Leather breeches and gloves, for riding.
Wearing: sturdy leather boots, puffy breeches.

[ 27. May 2014, 23:54: Message edited by: Ariston ]
 
Posted by Hart (# 4991) on :
 
Player Name: Hart

Character Name: Dorainen

Physical Description: Dorainen is a young male water elf, though most humans have a hard time telling different types of elves apart (a phenomenon that baffles elves to whom it's entirely obvious). Most humans would peg him at around 18 by his looks, but he has actually lived through 50 winters. He is tall with a slender yet athletic build by human standards, but is actually rather short and stocky by his own race's. His pale blue robes appear light and insubstantial, but are in fact made of an advanced magical fabric with advantages detailed below.

Some background: Dorainen has lived his whole life in a small teyv (or commune) of water elves, rather segregated even from other elves, yet alone other races. As he turns of age, he is required to live a full year outside of the teyv. While most water elves go only a small social distance from their upbringing (often living with elves of the mountains), Dorainen has long been fascinated by the humans he has read about in books and desires to spend his year living among them. Who knows, it may even be longer? Dorainen is well-trained in survival skills both natural and magical, but is very socially naive.

Wits: Week
Readiness: OK
Inspiration: Excellent
Toughness: OK
Elan: Useless
Spryness: Good

Skills


Gift: Dorainen feels most at home in water, and gains +1 to any throw taken while in water. [Not sure if this is too perk-y].

Special Item: Sown by elven seamstresses, while his robes appear flimsy, they automatically adapt to provide comfort in any climate. They also function as light armor. If Dorainen while wearing them rolls "lose" in combat, he can roll another D20 and, with >10, spawns instead of losing. (The idea being that they help defend him, ie. make him less likely to die, but don't make him any more effective an attacker).

Equipment:

Long-bow. Gives the ability to make one distance attack when narratively plausible. This has no chance of spawning or losing, but will either win (with the same probability as if it were a normal attack) or miss (and have no effect).
Hunting knife. +1 on combat.
Harpoon. Used in aquatic combat only. +1 on combat (in addition to the +1 for being aquatic)
Studia Humana. A classic elven textbook on humans. While helpful on important questions, it is often amusingly out dated and quaint on basic social mores.
 
Posted by Autenrieth Road (# 10509) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Hart:
Sown by elven seamstresses...
Elves grow their robes?
 
Posted by Autenrieth Road (# 10509) on :
 
Oops, of course that should be (since deadpan doesn't come across in writing):

quote:
Originally posted by Hart:
Sown by elven seamstresses...
Elves grow their robes? [Biased]
 
Posted by Autenrieth Road (# 10509) on :
 
Player: Autenrieth Road


Character Name: Frithwynne


Brief Physical Description: Frithwynne is somewhat muddy and scuffed, with a drawn face and a slight build.


Background: Frithwynne is the only child of a shepherd. She grew up herding sheep, training sheep dogs, and escaping to explore a shallow system of caves whenever she felt she could leave the sheep dog alone to mind the sheep (which was often). Her parents died when Frithwynne was 17, leaving a mountain of debts which resulted in the loss of their holding, leaving Frithwynne with no social place except what she could cobble together by her wits. She is now 26.


Potentials:
(Ranked Useless / Weak / OK / Good / Excellent, you have 18 points to buy ranks at 1, 2, 3, 4 & 5 points cost respectively)

Good Wits
Excellent Readiness
Good Inspiration
Weak Toughness
Useless Elan
Weak Spryness
(Rolls for these will be Ridiculously Easy (2-20) / Easy (5-20) / OK (10-20) / Hard (15-20) / Ridiculously Hard (20) on a D20 as advised by GM)


Skills
(Each skill is tied to a specific potential, to start with, no more than two skills can be associated with any single potential.)

Navigation (Wits)
Improvised weapons (Wits) - this will allow you to use any plausible non-weapon thing you find as a weapon, or clubs as weapons but not swords, axes or bows etc
Night Vision (Readiness)
Find Hidden (Readiness)
Intuition (Inspiration)
Animal command (Inspiration)
Climb (Spryness)


Gift: Frithwynne can navigate mazes


Special item / Transformation: Silver chalice of Inspiration (when gazed into, increases Inspiration to Excellent, x1 per week)


Please list equipment you acquire, with any bonuses it may give:

Well made boots, exceptionally soft yet sturdy. If you ask her how she got them, Frithwynne will say "barter," with a look and a tone which say "don't ask."

Walking staff

Knapsack, with a few odds and ends: a tin cup, a thimble, a river-smoothed stone, a red ribbon (when worn, +1 to roll for Elan), a knitted shawl, three square white cloths wrapped around blue velvet cloth wrapped around silver chalice

Small knife and waterskin on a belt

[ 28. May 2014, 05:21: Message edited by: Autenrieth Road ]
 
Posted by Autenrieth Road (# 10509) on :
 
I think that's Frithwynne finalized, subject to DT approval of the following: I changed her a bit: gave her Excellent Readiness, dropping Toughness and Spryness to Weak to get the points for Readiness.
 
Posted by Doublethink (# 1984) on :
 
AR that is fine.

Ariston that character is fine.

Hart, I think your character is fine - but you need a different gift. How about the ability to breathe underwater ?
 
Posted by Doublethink (# 1984) on :
 
Yorick & IngoB, would you be happy to run John Goode together ?
 
Posted by IngoB (# 8700) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Doublethink:
Yorick & IngoB, would you be happy to run John Goode together ?
No, sorry. I don't really want to play a medical doctor. I'll try to post something when I finish travelling.
 
Posted by Hart (# 4991) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Doublethink:

Hart, I think your character is fine - but you need a different gift. How about the ability to breathe underwater ?
Sure, that works.
 
Posted by Doublethink (# 1984) on :
 
Congratulations you have become a plot hook [Two face]
 
Posted by Yorick (# 12169) on :
 
If anyone else would like to run John Goode with me, I'd be glad to have their input on the remaining details of his character description, etc.

Otherwise, I will finalise his character details in the next day or so.
 
Posted by Doublethink (# 1984) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Doublethink:
I make that 9 characters proposed so far, with two of those possibly being co-run.

I am aware that Jay-Em and JFH are not sure if they'll join. We have Yorick, Net Spinster, IngoB and Anti-social Alto considering if they'd like to co-run.

I know Ariston would definitely like to participate, and I have pm'd Curiosity Killed and Curious Kitten to see if they would like to take part - as they missed out last time.

Absolutely and completely the maximum number of characters I am prepared to try to run with is 16 (says she in an insanely optimistic manner). For a longer campaign like this, it does mean that if someone's away for a day or two the action won't stall - (I am afraid they'll have to just be laid up with a twisted ankle or something.)
Sooo

Characters + players so far

Probable players in waiting


[ 28. May 2014, 20:01: Message edited by: Doublethink ]
 
Posted by Hart (# 4991) on :
 
Don't know when you were planning on getting started, but I should let you know that I have some travel next week. Nothing that should prevent me from reading and posting once a day, but I might not be able to be super active beyond that.
 
Posted by Banner Lady (# 10505) on :
 
I am also happy to run a communal character if anyone wants to join in with me. (Crones unite!)
 
Posted by Antisocial Alto (# 13810) on :
 
OK- here is my character (with support from Doublethink- thank you!) I'm happy to run it jointly with anyone who asks.

Player: Antisocial Alto

Character Name: Sr. Aethelreda

Description: Aethelreda (plain ol' European human female) is a nun in her late twenties. She's stocky, dark-haired and dull-looking, but fairly bright- though blunt and graceless- to talk to.

Potentials:
Wits- 4 (Good)
Readiness – 3 (OK)
Inspiration – 4 (Good)
Toughness – 4 (Good)
Elan – 1 (Useless)
Spryness – 2 (Weak)

Skills:
Beekeeping (Wits)
Mercer's knowledge (Wits) – Thanks to her family's background in commerce, Aethelreda knows both how to evaluate and manage the group's resources and how to cook the books.
Music (Inspiration) – can sing Gregorian chant and play stringed instruments
Forgery (Spryness) - Not great at this but can do it
Prophecy (Inspiration) – She is very convincing, and sometimes right
Hidden Weapon (Toughness) - meat knife & rosary
Find Hidden (Readiness)

Gift: Time Sense - always knows what time of the day or night it is, even if awakened suddenly, because of being drilled through the Daily Office every day of her adult life.

Special Item: a Book of Hours - can ask the saints for advice and can increase her Inspiration or her Wits by one rank x1 per week.

Weapons: a small meat knife; a rosary which can be used as a garrotte

Other equipment: a nun's habit; a small sewing/darning basket; a sturdy walking stick; quills, ink and parchment; a large jar of honey and comb; a beekeeper's headpiece and veil; a priest's vestments; a set of Communion vessels

Backstory: The daughter of a shrewd, social-climbing wool merchant, Aethelreda was sent to the convent in her teens when it became clear that no one of rank would take her off her father's hands for a bride-price he was willing to pay. Although she wasn't a particularly good nun either- not being naturally pious or charitable- she did pick up useful knowledge while in the convent. She was tried out in several areas as a novice and eventually settled in as apprentice to the convent's beekeeper.

Why did she leave the convent suddenly, by night, after ten years in residence? Why does her pack contain several items which can't possibly belong to her? Is she even a real nun anymore? None of your business, she snaps.
 
Posted by Doublethink (# 1984) on :
 
Characters + players so far

Probable players in waiting


So currently 11 characters with upto four slots for potential co-running - crone, mysterious nun, rougish doctor & possibly boat-handlingly widow. If anyone currently reviving a character from a previous campaign, would like to switch to one of the available shared characters, its not too late to do so.

[ 29. May 2014, 07:10: Message edited by: Doublethink ]
 
Posted by IngoB (# 8700) on :
 
Player: IngoB

Character Name: Jack Gallows

Brief Physical Description
Jack is in his mid twenties, somewhat shorter than average height for a man and is of slight but wiry build. His most striking feature is his thick shock of red hair, which however is usually covered by a stylish black felt tricorne. He has a fine, long face with green eyes and a slightly broad nose, and seems friendly with a smile playing around his lips. His skin is pale but healthy, and his hand are thin but with long fingers. He wears black breeches with gray stockings and black leather shoes with simple buckles, a white linen shirt barely visible under a black cravat and a dark purple waistcoat, as well as a knee-length black coat. His clothes are of good make with nice trimmings, and would not be out of place for a visit to the opera. However, the cloth and materials are sturdy and will serve for a brisk walk through the countryside.

Potentials

Skills

Gift
Backstab: If hidden (usually via a prior ambush throw, though possibly by circumstance), can carry out a surprise attack that will end either in an instant kill of opponent or in a successful flight out of reach (binary outcome, throw threshold set by GM).

Special item
Magic "three shells and a pea" set: Unless countered by other magic before starting to play, people will get sucked into this game and wager something valuable they own/have control over. No matter how perceptive they may be naturally, they will loose and hand over their stake - if grudgingly. (Can be used once a week. Other player / NPC can negotiate stake, but must wager something of value / importance.)

Equipment
 
Posted by Yorick (# 12169) on :
 
Player name: Yorick

Character name: John Goode

Physical description: 45 years old, 5’10’ tall, slim and wiry with a slightly stooped posture, deep brown eyes and an easy oblique smile, greying short-cropped hair, fine but practical travel clothes, faintly smelling of soap, meticulously clean finger nails. His voice is surprisingly deep and smooth, and speech highly articulate. With a constant smile about his eyes, he holds his correspondent by looking deeply and steadily into theirs.

Wits Excellent
Readiness Weak
Inspiration Useless
Toughness Useless
Elan Excellent
Spryness Good

Skills:
Conjuring tricks and illusions (Spryness)

Vast knowledge of the medicinal properties of botanic life (Wits)
The gab (ability to convince) (Elan)

Surgery (Spryness)

Disguise (Elan)

Understand Ancient Languages (Wits)

Use Scalpel as Weapon (Toughness)

Gift: Empathic sense. The ability to read the thoughts of others- on a roll of 17 or above.

Special Item: Trick coin. When John tosses the coin it always lands his called side up- either heads or tails.

Equipment:
Shoulder bag containing:
Materia medica of dried crushed herbs, phials of oils and potions Fine leather wallet of surgical instruments
Pouch of field dressings
A Hakhdi Instrument of Light. This small plain cylinder of fine steel with a glass sphere on the end can emit a powerful focussed beam of white light. John paid half his fortune to a travelling Alchemist of the North for this most valuable of all his possessions.

Background:
John is a self-assured and attractive man who can effortlessly talk his way out of (and into) the most compromising positions. A true genius of the physic, he has gained fame and fortune as surgeon to the highest and mightiest in the kingdom. His name carries a half-feared reputation for bringing back those from the very doors of death.
Urbane and charming he has taken many lovers, and can as easily befriend a beggar as a king, but John is bored of court life with all its sycophancy and treachery and he seeks the honest danger of the wild road.
John sleeps for only two or three hours per day, though often takes naps in the afternoon. After dull years of study in the Ancient Languages and Practice of Physic he absconded for three winters to the perpetual dimness and stench of the great Souq of Kashlaan, where he was tutored in illusion and trickery by a grand Mokhta. On his return to civilisation, he began a secret double life- in daytime rising to become the most illustrious medic of his age, and in disguise during the small hours of the night amongst the murderous backstreets and filthy taverns, seeking thrills and spills in the gambling dens. With a flawless sleight of hand, he dispossesses gangs of thieves of their ill-gained silver, the addictive snag being to escape with his life by his charm and wits. With disdain, he then dumps his illicit winnings in a grimy corner of some pauper’s hovel before the first cockerel crows.

[NB. Sorry if there is some similarity with IngoB's character with regards to the gambling-tricksy thing. I'd been developing this side of my character for a day or two but hadn't managed to post the above yet. Happy to re-invent if required.]

[ 29. May 2014, 11:40: Message edited by: Yorick ]
 
Posted by IngoB (# 8700) on :
 
I don't see the trickery overlap as a problem, Yorick. It's less overlap than I had in the trial run with two other fighter/warrior types. I think it might be great for a shared backstory (we may know each other already from meeting frequently in gambling dens) and for side stories during the campaign (we can play card / dice games with each other, perhaps have a kind of skill rivalry).
 
Posted by Yorick (# 12169) on :
 
Okay, that's great. Perhaps we may have met before and failed to trick each other! Thanks, IngoB.
 
Posted by Doublethink (# 1984) on :
 
That character is fine IngoB.

(I get the impression that this campaign will probably end up running without any communal characters - but I have no issue with that.)
 
Posted by Doublethink (# 1984) on :
 
(FYI that will be Mother Aethelreda rather than Sister Aethelreda.)
 
Posted by Autenrieth Road (# 10509) on :
 
I don't understand how Jack Gallows' magic shell game Special Item and its coercive powers interacts with the principle of not narrating another player's character. Can someone clarify?

[ 29. May 2014, 18:14: Message edited by: Autenrieth Road ]
 
Posted by IngoB (# 8700) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Doublethink:
(I get the impression that this campaign will probably end up running without any communal characters - but I have no issue with that.)
I agree. I guess it's a bit like dating now, I hadn't really considered that.

My suggestion would be to next time collect the names of all people who want to play, set a fixed number of empty slots, and then assign multiple people to slots simply by chance. Then let each group agree on one in game character among themselves.
 
Posted by Doublethink (# 1984) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Autenrieth Road:
I don't understand how Jack Gallows' magic shell game Special Item and its coercive powers interacts with the principle of not narrating another player's character. Can someone clarify?
That will become clear after the game begins - until then it is a secret.
 
Posted by Hart (# 4991) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Doublethink:

(I get the impression that this campaign will probably end up running without any communal characters - but I have no issue with that.)
I think it's interesting to note that a fair few people were opening to someone sharing their character, but no-one wanted to play someone else's. Not a criticism of anyone (I've already said that I'm not particularly interested in sharing).
 
Posted by Autenrieth Road (# 10509) on :
 
OK, thanks DT.
 
Posted by IngoB (# 8700) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Autenrieth Road:
I don't understand how Jack Gallows' magic shell game Special Item and its coercive powers interacts with the principle of not narrating another player's character. Can someone clarify?
There's a difference between narrating another player's character and having one character limit the action range of another character in game by an action. Let's take a look at the following two statements. (I'm using Ariston and his character Jetse in the following, simply because Jetse has a convenient skill. I do not intend to say anything negative about Ariston with this, and I hope to cause no offence by this!)

If Ariston wrote "Jetse tells Jack to grab the spade and start digging. Immediately Jack obeys, happily, and attacks the ground ferociously with the spade." then Ariston would have taken the control of my character out of my hands. Perhaps I would have liked Jack to ignore Jetse, or even tell him to go to hell. But my side of the story has been taken from me. Ariston would de facto have been playing two characters, his Jetse and my Jack. But only the former belongs to him, the latter is my "property".

However, say in contract Ariston rolls his Intimidation skill against me on meta, and let's assume DT gives his blessings to that and Ariston rolls successfully. Then he could write "Jetse towers over Jack and shouts at him "Get digging this minute.' Scared witless, Jack grabs the shovel and starts digging the hole." In this case, it is Jetse who takes away Jack's freedom, but in the game between the characters. I'm still free to react to this intimidation, for example by posting my an inner monologue by Jack about how he resents Jetse or some such. It is true that my character's actions got constrained, but my ownership of the character was not touched. Rather, this was simply something story-internal happening to my character. It was caused here by Ariston's throw, but it has the same quality as the GM suddenly sending a zombie horde on us, to facing us with a closed door. That also constrains my character's possible actions, but in a story-internal way, not by someone taking over my character as "author".

In practice, all "player against player" action will be constrained by what DT wrote in the second post: "Intra-party Conflict: Tensions may arise between characters from time to time, but this should not be a major a feature of gameplay. This is intended to be a co-operative story." So I do not expect to seriously use this against other players, except perhaps with John Goode, who has a similar item (magic coin) and is also a gambler. And even there it would be more a "practical joke" and "back and forth" sort of thing. I'm mostly intend to use this against NPCs to win important quest items / favours off them... And since it is only a once a week thing, I will probably not waste it for just joking around with players (say winning something off them and then giving it back) . Otherwise I may not have the magic item ready for use when I need it.
 
Posted by IngoB (# 8700) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Hart:
I think it's interesting to note that a fair few people were opening to someone sharing their character, but no-one wanted to play someone else's. Not a criticism of anyone (I've already said that I'm not particularly interested in sharing).
What's funny about this is that I would have actually considered sharing your character. I was contemplating a ranger kind of guy anyhow, I like elves, and that it is a water elf was a cool twist I hadn't thought about. (And I note that I thought all this before DT made you a plot hook...) As I've said, it seems a bit like dating to me now. [Biased]
 
Posted by Autenrieth Road (# 10509) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
There's a difference between narrating another player's character and having one character limit the action range of another character in game by an action.
Thanks for explaining. I hadn't realized that there was an option for rolling against other players on a team quest.
 
Posted by Doublethink (# 1984) on :
 
It will be extremely rare.
 
Posted by Banner Lady (# 10505) on :
 
Sharing a character is probably only going to appeal to those who are time-poor but interested enough to read this thread. If someone had offered to share a character with me a month back, when I was dipping my toe into RPG waters for the first time, I would have jumped at it. It is time consuming to write up a persona, and then try to work out all the WRITES & WRONGS of it if the concept is entirely new.

Like tandem parachute jumping, it may not be entirely without risk, but the journey together should make for fun.
 
Posted by Ariston (# 10894) on :
 
I'll admit, I wouldn't mind sharing Jetse (he's not too talkative to begin with—like I mentioned, his character development and backstory is going to be a slow burn by my standards), but, by the same token, I have very definite ideas for his history, past incidents, how he became a soldier, what the significance is of that coat of arms on his armor is, what the deal is with the whole sun symbol thing, how he got that nasty wound, why he doesn't talk much, why he's so far from home, etc. I also know that nobody else is going to see him this way; the images I have of him (e.g., standing in a ship's rigging just before a naval battle starts) aren't what everybody else sees. So letting somebody else run my character is going to involve them developing in ways that I didn't foresee, and that contradict what I thought about them.

Now, I suppose I could send anyone playing him a copy of my mental character notes—assuming, of course, that I could actually write down the 30 or so pages of what I know about him and where he comes from. Anyone who's played mafia with me, especially games I've run, knows that I like to play with world building; Jetse's a citizen of a world I've been building for a while. Am I okay with letting people play with my character? Sure, why not! Letting them play with my world, however…that's a bit different.

It'd also ruin the slowly developing character arc I think he needs, but that's an entirely different matter altogether.
 
Posted by Doublethink (# 1984) on :
 
Had a pm from Curiosity Killed, she would definitely like to play - but is currently in Scotland and I am not sure when she gets back.

All things being equal, I would hope to get going on Monday.
 
Posted by Curious Kitten (# 11953) on :
 
Would like to propose a vagrant tinkerer and will come back with more details when I'm not running out of expensive Youth Hostel WiFi?
 
Posted by IngoB (# 8700) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Banner Lady:
Like tandem parachute jumping, it may not be entirely without risk, but the journey together should make for fun.
Indeed, I had expected this to be a nice device for "newbies" to try things out. But I think now that it might be even more scary for them to fear "ruining" someone's character. And if they have to ask the "old hand" about things a lot in order to avoid that, then that seems to negate any sort of advantage from double playing.

quote:
Originally posted by Ariston:
So letting somebody else run my character is going to involve them developing in ways that I didn't foresee, and that contradict what I thought about them.
FWIW, I tend to make stuff up as I go along, relying on good memory and pattern discernment to create coherence after the fact. But still, there are issues of coordination in developing a character jointly, I agree. I'm not sure if it would a disaster or simply add another level of fun complexity.
 
Posted by JFH (# 14794) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Curious Kitten:
Would like to propose a vagrant tinkerer and will come back with more details when I'm not running out of expensive Youth Hostel WiFi?
Out of the blue (or possibly tangled up in it) Stone's voice was heard, whispering, "Copy-kitten!"

I'm fine with it though, I think I'll leave Stone by the roadside for a while. Still not sure if I'll participate or not, I'll decide tomorrow.
 
Posted by Kelly Alves (# 2522) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Curious Kitten:
Would like to propose a vagrant tinkerer and will come back with more details when I'm not running out of expensive Youth Hostel WiFi?
Hey you made it! [Yipee]

(Made it a long time ago, I see. Sorry I didn't welcome you back right away.)

[ 30. May 2014, 19:30: Message edited by: Kelly Alves ]
 
Posted by Doublethink (# 1984) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by JFH:
quote:
Originally posted by Curious Kitten:
Would like to propose a vagrant tinkerer and will come back with more details when I'm not running out of expensive Youth Hostel WiFi?
Out of the blue (or possibly tangled up in it) Stone's voice was heard, whispering, "Copy-kitten!"

I'm fine with it though, I think I'll leave Stone by the roadside for a while. Still not sure if I'll participate or not, I'll decide tomorrow.
I think you are correct re Stone, given the current character mix, do consider a joint run with someone if regular contribution is going to be difficult.
 
Posted by Autenrieth Road (# 10509) on :
 
JFH and I will play Frithwynne together. We don't plan to sign in and out on the Meta thread; rather, we will trust to inspiration to weave a story together if we are posting in proximity.
 
Posted by Gwai (# 11076) on :
 
I fear Jerthro and I will have to back out. It looks fun, and the people are great, but if this last week is any sample, work's going to be too busy for me to participate properly.
 
Posted by IngoB (# 8700) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Autenrieth Road:
JFH and I will play Frithwynne together. We don't plan to sign in and out on the Meta thread; rather, we will trust to inspiration to weave a story together if we are posting in proximity.
Cool! [Cool]
 
Posted by Doublethink (# 1984) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Gwai:
I fear Jerthro and I will have to back out. It looks fun, and the people are great, but if this last week is any sample, work's going to be too busy for me to participate properly.
Sad times [Frown] do consider if a joint run on one of the other characters if that would work for you.
 
Posted by Kelly Alves (# 2522) on :
 
Hmm... Since everyone else is giving it a go, I am willing to shelve Brandon for the time being and help with Stone. I kinda like Stone.
 
Posted by Doublethink (# 1984) on :
 

So that is thirteen characters, fourteen players at this time.

Autenreith Road & JFH - if you are not signing in and out of the metagame thread you ***must*** ensure you read and refresh the story thread before posting for the character.
 
Posted by Doublethink (# 1984) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Kelly Alves:
Hmm... Since everyone else is giving it a go, I am willing to shelve Brandon for the time being and help with Stone. I kinda like Stone.
Stone isn't running Kelly, but you could co-run a different character.
 
Posted by Kelly Alves (# 2522) on :
 
Aw shucks, thought he was still thinking it over.

Antisocial Alto or net spinster, you wanna share?
 
Posted by Autenrieth Road (# 10509) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Doublethink:
Autenreith Road & JFH - if you are not signing in and out of the metagame thread you ***must*** ensure you read and refresh the story thread before posting for the character.
Of course.
 
Posted by Curious Kitten (# 11953) on :
 
Er Maker
A weathered nut brown face peers out from wild hair and cloaks. Er Maker is small, grubby, of indeterminate age, species and sex but oddly beguiling.

Writes

Ok Wit
Ok Readiness
Useless Inspiration
Weak Toughness
Excellent Elan
Good Spryness

Skills

Tinkering (Wit) - reasonable proficiency at making any mechanism work.
Light fingered (Spry) - Quick to divest any mug from their money and valuables.
Silver younger (Élan) - the conn is a game especially when my life is at stake.
As many lives as a cat(Readiness) - abnormally perceptive of any risk to own skin.
And the morales of one too (Élan) - in every port or town previously visited is at least one person with whom convivial or conjugal relationships maybe resumed.
Well travelled (Wit) - a good memory for the politics and environs of anywhere previously visited.
Muscle memory (Spry) - you don't forget how to ride a horse/steal a boat/ sail a boat/...

Gift
A trickster sorcerer gave Er the ability to change form not into a fierce wolf when threatened but a mangy Lady's lapdog at the least opportune time.
 
Posted by Doublethink (# 1984) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Curious Kitten:
Er Maker
A weathered nut brown face peers out from wild hair and cloaks. Er Maker is small, grubby, of indeterminate age, species and sex but oddly beguiling.

Writes

Ok Wit
Ok Readiness
Useless Inspiration
Weak Toughness
Excellent Elan
Good Spryness

Skills

Tinkering (Wit) - reasonable proficiency at making any mechanism work.
Light fingered (Spry) - Quick to divest any mug from their money and valuables.
Silver younger (Élan) - the conn is a game especially when my life is at stake.
As many lives as a cat(Readiness) - abnormally perceptive of any risk to own skin.
And the morales of one too (Élan) - in every port or town previously visited is at least one person with whom convivial or conjugal relationships maybe resumed.
Well travelled (Wit) - a good memory for the politics and environs of anywhere previously visited.
Muscle memory (Spry) - you don't forget how to ride a horse/steal a boat/ sail a boat/...

Gift
A trickster sorcerer gave Er the ability to change form not into a fierce wolf when threatened but a mangy Lady's lapdog at the least opportune time.
Gift idea OK, but is actually your special item / transform. If you turn into a lapdog, your elan and toughness will swap.

Some issues with your skills, these are learned things you can do. So well-travelled, light-fingered and tinkering work well. But you can't have muscle memory, or morals of a cat. You can have lives of a cat - but I would advise against it as it will give little advantage over basic readiness. I don't understand silver younger ?

Also you as you have a transform, that leads you needing an actual gift - you could do morals of a cat as your gift if you like.

[eta Don't forget to list equipment.]

[ 31. May 2014, 18:14: Message edited by: Doublethink ]
 
Posted by Doublethink (# 1984) on :
 

So that is twelve characters, fourteen players at this time.

Kelly is looking to co-run.
 
Posted by Antisocial Alto (# 13810) on :
 
Kelly, I'm happy to share Aethelreda if you want her. I could definitely use an experienced teammate and I'm not married to where the character is going, so any story ideas you have are welcome.
 
Posted by Curious Kitten (# 11953) on :
 
Silver younger was supposed to be Silver tongued, a skill dedicated to fleecing the deserving and talking ones way out of trouble. Sorry autocorrect and limited internet coluded to change it.

Morales of a cat would be a useful gift.

If silver tongued is alright I'll post equipment and fixed skills when I'm positing from a laptop not an iPhone.
 
Posted by Doublethink (# 1984) on :
 
Silver tongued is fine.
 
Posted by Net Spinster (# 16058) on :
 
Kelly,
I'm also willing to share to see what two Bay Area folk can do.

I've slightly revised Mary Drake so reposting

Model Character Sheet

Player:

Character Name: Mary Drake

Brief Physical Description: 40 year old woman, middling height and weight, graying black hair, brown eyes. Her hands show callouses and her arms a few scars Clothes are a worn off-white sleeved (to elbow) tunic stretching to just above the knee and belted with three yards of thin line, loose pale blue pantaloons below, a bonnet, and a much faded shawl.

Potentials:
(Ranked Useless / Weak / OK / Good / Excellent, you have 18 points to buy ranks at 1, 2, 3, 4 & 5 points cost respectively)

4 Good Rank Wits
3 ok Rank Readiness
2 weak Rank Inspiration
2 weak Rank Toughness
4 good Rank Elan
3 ok Rank Spryness

(Rolls for these will be Ridiculously Easy (2-20) / Easy (5-20) / OK (10-20) / Hard (15-20) / Ridiculously Hard (20) on a D20 as advised by GM)

(Wrongs are omitted.)

Skills
(Each skill is tied to a specific potential, to start with, no more than two skills can be associated with any single potential.)

pilot/readiness Skill (Potential)
rope use/spryness Skill (Potential)
ship handling/spryness Skill (Potential)
swimming/toughness Skill (Potential)
double entry bookkeeping/wits Skill (Potential)
language/wits Skill (Potential)
barter/elan Skill (Potential)

Gift: Can almost always tell true north (as opposed to magnetic north)

Special item / Transformation: a curiously decorated leather pouch that can hold more than is apparent and is watertight and unopenable unless opened by owner

Please list equipment you acquire, with any bonuses it may have:
8 inch knife with sheath
8 inch long marlinspike
wooden boxed writing kit (however quills and ink will have to be replaced at times)
the ship's logbook and account book

A fisherman's daughter and a ship captain's widow, she always travelled with her husband because her ability to know where north is is important on a ship. To use that ability most effectively she learned to pilot as well as some other ship related skills. In port she helped handle the disposal and acquisition of merchandise and supplies. Because of this she is familiar with the languages of her regular ports (though not necessarily the languages of the interiors or rural folk) and has connections with the various merchant guilds. However her most recent voyage ended in a shipwreck which killed her husband and most of the crew and left her almost destitute and a long way from her original home.
 
Posted by JFH (# 14794) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Doublethink:
Autenreith Road & JFH - if you are not signing in and out of the metagame thread you ***must*** ensure you read and refresh the story thread before posting for the character.
I'll tell you what I told Autenrieth Road, thinking about that subject:
Have you ever entered Kerygmania and seen the lengths people go to in order to weave together the multitudinous contradictions of four or more people describing supposedly the same, supposedly actual events? I'm pretty sure we can sort most things out, especially as we create the ongoings as we speak and are thus free to ad hoc ad lib at will*! [Big Grin]

*Ingo, Hart, and other Kerygmaniacs, would these last six words be a fitting description for Paul's speech on the Areopagos...? [Biased]
 
Posted by Kelly Alves (# 2522) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Net Spinster:
Kelly,
I'm also willing to share to see what two Bay Area folk can do.

I've slightly revised Mary Drake so reposting

Model Character Sheet

Player:

Character Name: Mary Drake

Brief Physical Description: 40 year old woman, middling height and weight, graying black hair, brown eyes. Her hands show callouses and her arms a few scars Clothes are a worn off-white sleeved (to elbow) tunic stretching to just above the knee and belted with three yards of thin line, loose pale blue pantaloons below, a bonnet, and a much faded shawl.
A BONNET??

I am so on it like a rat on a Cheeto. SF Bay Represent!
 
Posted by Doublethink (# 1984) on :
 

OK, so just need the final Curious characters. Have prepped my OPs and everything - excited [Yipee]
 
Posted by Kelly Alves (# 2522) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Antisocial Alto:
Kelly, I'm happy to share Aethelreda if you want her. I could definitely use an experienced teammate and I'm not married to where the character is going, so any story ideas you have are welcome.
(thanks for the offer- I was strongly tempted to play a nun till NS invoked Bay Area solidarity. [Big Grin] )
 
Posted by Curious Kitten (# 11953) on :
 
Er Maker
A weathered nut brown face peers out from wild hair and cloaks. Er Maker is small, grubby, of indeterminate age, species and sex but oddly beguiling.

Writes

Ok Wit
Ok Readiness
Useless Inspiration
Weak Toughness
Excellent Elan
Good Spryness

Skills

Tinkering (Wit) - reasonable proficiency at making any mechanism work.
Light fingered (Spry) - Quick to divest any mug from their money and valuables.
Silver younger (Élan) - the conn is a game especially when my life is at stake.
As many lives as a cat(Readiness) - abnormally perceptive of any risk to own skin.
And the morales of one too (Élan) - in every port or town previously visited is at least one person with whom convivial or conjugal relationships maybe resumed.
Well travelled (Wit) - a good memory for the politics and environs of anywhere previously visited.
Muscle memory (Spry) - you don't forget how to ride a horse/steal a boat/ sail a boat/...

Gift
A trickster sorcerer gave Er the ability to change form not into a fierce wolf when threatened but a mangy Lady's lapdog at the least opportune time.
 
Posted by Doublethink (# 1984) on :
 
Would you like me to tweak that as discussed earlier ?
 
Posted by Curious Kitten (# 11953) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Doublethink:
Would you like me to tweak that as discussed earlier ?
Nope. I would like to have posted what I meant to or the edit window to have been long enough to change it to what I intended to post.

Should have just deleted it.
 
Posted by Doublethink (# 1984) on :
 
Character as I understand it so far

Er Maker
A weathered nut brown face peers out from wild hair and cloaks. Er Maker is small, grubby, of indeterminate age, species and sex but oddly beguiling.

Writes

OK Wit
OK Readiness
Useless Inspiration
Weak Toughness
Excellent Elan
Good Spryness

Skills

Tinkering (Wit) - reasonable proficiency at making any mechanism work.
Light fingered (Spry) - Quick to divest any mug from their money and valuables.
Silver Tongued (Élan) - dedicated to fleecing the deserving and talking ones way out of trouble.
Well travelled (Wit) - a good memory for the politics and environs of anywhere previously visited.
Empty (Skill slot)
Empty (Skill slot)
Empty (Skill slot)

Gift Morals of a cat, in every port or town previously visited is at least one person with whom convivial or conjugal relationships maybe resumed.

Special Item / Transform
A trickster sorcerer gave Er the ability to change form not into a fierce wolf when threatened but a mangy Lady's lapdog at the least opportune time. Available x1 per week, if you turn into a lapdog, your elan and toughness will swap.

Equipment

None listed

[ 01. June 2014, 18:06: Message edited by: Doublethink ]
 
Posted by Antisocial Alto (# 13810) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Kelly Alves:
(thanks for the offer- I was strongly tempted to play a nun till NS invoked Bay Area solidarity. [Big Grin] )
That's OK, the Midwest will just sit over here being passive-aggressive and maybe eat a casserole. [Biased]
 
Posted by Eliab (# 9153) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Doublethink:

So that is twelve characters, fourteen players at this time.
Of those, Clawdine, Daniel, Gunriana and Jetse were in the playtest (I'm assuming that although Frithwynne is a similar character concept to Arabella, she's a different person).

Can we assume that these four know each other and have adventured together before? I'd prefer to, as it sets up some background to role-play with, and the playtest did in fact develop how I saw my own character*, but obviously its a GM call.


*she's kept the skull that Stone 'gave' her, for example, and I like that this is something she carries as a result of a roleplayed event, rather than being general background weirdness.
 
Posted by Curiosity killed ... (# 11770) on :
 
Chatting to Curious Kitten - who will have more time than me this week, but depending on how organised she is, may not be around for the full run - how does it sound that if she goes off on her next lot of travels before this finishes, I take over? Which gives me time to catch up with what's going on and keep an eye on the thread(s).
 
Posted by Doublethink (# 1984) on :
 
Eliab, I'd rather you didn't know each other, but you may have known Stone if that helps.

[ 01. June 2014, 20:06: Message edited by: Doublethink ]
 
Posted by Doublethink (# 1984) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
Chatting to Curious Kitten - who will have more time than me this week, but depending on how organised she is, may not be around for the full run - how does it sound that if she goes off on her next lot of travels before this finishes, I take over? Which gives me time to catch up with what's going on and keep an eye on the thread(s).
That's fine - but could one or other of you finish off the character please - it only needs a few things adding. But I would really like to start tomorrow, and for various nefarious reasons, I need your full characters to do that.

[ 01. June 2014, 20:16: Message edited by: Doublethink ]
 
Posted by Doublethink (# 1984) on :
 

That is eleven characters, and fourteen players.

Recruitment is now closed.

(Though we may have some NPC guest stars along later in the game.)
 
Posted by Curiosity killed ... (# 11770) on :
 
Does this work?

Er Maker
A weathered nut brown face peers out from wild hair and cloaks. Er Maker is small, grubby, of indeterminate age, species and sex but oddly beguiling.

Writes

OK Wit
OK Readiness
Useless Inspiration
Weak Toughness
Excellent Elan
Good Spryness

Skills

Tinkering (Wit) - reasonable proficiency at making any mechanism work.
Light fingered (Spry) - Quick to divest any mug from their money and valuables.
Silver Tongued (Élan) - dedicated to fleecing the deserving and talking ones way out of trouble.
Well travelled (Wit) - a good memory for the politics and environs of anywhere previously visited.
Living off the land (Readiness) good at both finding food to eat and liberating food from farms and dwellings along the route.
Some time sailor (Spry?) capable if not willing crew member - previously chain ganged so good with ropes and sails, handling ship's brig / small boat, can take a turn at the wheel and follow instructions;
Sleight of hand / Illusion (Elan) - good at the sort of tricks that earn a crust like the three cup game and/or card tricks - tricks to mislead the eye and distract.

Gift Morals of a cat, in every port or town previously visited is at least one person with whom convivial or conjugal relationships maybe resumed.

Special Item / Transform
A trickster sorcerer gave Er the ability to change form not into a fierce wolf when threatened but a mangy Lady's lapdog at the least opportune time. Available x1 per week, if you turn into a lapdog, your elan and toughness will swap.

Equipment
Tinker's pack hung with pots and pans, rabbit skins, knives, knife sharpening block - the knives are the obvious tools, but he's also a dab hand at spinning pan lids as decapitating weapons. The pack normally jingles and clatters, except when he wants to move silently. Somewhere easily hidden but readily accessible are a set of handcrafted lock picks.
 
Posted by Doublethink (# 1984) on :
 
Perfect, thanks.

[ 01. June 2014, 20:39: Message edited by: Doublethink ]
 


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