OOC THREAD

[Eclecticon]

The immediately obvious thing is that, while we have somewhere to note stored XP, there's no comparable field for stored AP.  We've been doing fine with the notes at the bottom, but if you're in a mood to make further additions it might be a good place to start. 

[tomcat]

I had stored AP in the cell called Advances. I added an Advances Total box, too, like for XP. I am not sure if you want to keep a running tally of how many AP points the PC has earned over their career, but it is now there.

I think I answered your request. Let me know if the change is what you were looking for and any other you may wish.

[Eclecticon]

Ah, I wondered what that was about!  I probably wouldn't bother keeping a running total, but it's good to know I have the option. 

[disench4nted]

Hey guys, just a heads up. I'm likely going to be a little bit scarce around here in the coming weeks. I'm getting married next weekend and will be off to Hawaii for my honeymoon a week after that. So, with all the last-minute planning and preparations I'm going to be pretty busy until a couple weeks into May.

I should still be able to check in and get a post off every couple days, but if I'm MIA for awhile and am holding up the story, you can go ahead and post for Rorin.

[Eclecticon]

Best wishes for the ceremony, and I hope Hawaii is a blast.

[tomcat]

Sounds great, Steve! Congrats!

I was just thinking I needed to get a new post up. Look for it tonight or tomorrow.

[Eclecticon]

I've been wondering if we're getting a bit bogged down in this Mountain Hall/goblins stuff.  The raid was certainly fun, but trying to take on everything under the Misty Mountains is probably outside our remit as wandering hero types.  I'd like to see the results of Bandy's scouting expedition, as he hasn't had much of a chance to shine since our initial introduction to Berald.  After that, though, we probably should get cracking delivering this helm - especially if we still have a side-trip planned. 

[tomcat]

Well to be honest, I am trying to think about what to add here that is stimulating to the story and play but not make it unrealistic timeframe-wise. Rorin does have a schedule to keep with his contract with Ceawin.

All this said, I do want this game to be sandbox play - not story railroading. We have the countless leagues of Middle-earth for you guys to roam around, and if you all want to go north instead of south, I will follow along with story arcs. But to get involved with the Mountain Hall's problems AND make a trek north to the Hobbit inn AND then back south to meet Ceawin...I am struggling with time. I don't want to invest in a direction of story and have it turn out lame. It is kind of how I am seeing the Mountain Hall side arc - there is a lot of story here to tell, but I don't want to go too deep if your PC's have to move on.

I hope I am making sense.

Anyway, I will post in a few.

[Telcontar]

As a result of the raid and new party injuries I am ok with skipping the hobbit inn side trip so that we can at least close the loop on the mountain hall story arc.

[tomcat]

I have a question to you guys...

I know that at least three of the players are storytellers in their own right, either playing tabletop or have run PbP games before - this is Matt, Paul and Tom.

To give the story some interesting perspectives, and since we all essentially have a PC that we run (I run Esgalwen for when Ayrn returns), would you guys be interested in doing a round-robin with the GM'ing?

What I mean is, would it be of any interest to have us switch the GM up every major year-end phase and see how we all put this story together? Or should we keep things as they are? Understand, I am fine with either. I have been running games since I was 16, so it will not hurt any feelings if you all want to leave things be. You guys just have to put up with my creative dry spells that occur about every three weeks!   

[Telcontar]

Doug,
 I think in terms of how this game is structured around a meta narrative one person should be responsible for that and how it is run. I would not rule out that other people run some sessions. I would propose that if we do that you take the story to a location or a place as part of the grand narrative and then allow another person to run a short story arc or a series of encounters to flush it out. For instance, you brought the party to Mountain Hall, someone else could have flushed out the raid by the goblins and ran the group through that portion of the adventure phase. If we do that the understudy Narrator would provide an outline of events, key people involved, and possible impacts to you to approve so that you could keep things within the rough borders of where you want things to go. For instance introducing a major NPC or campaign element may not be in keeping with your timeline so that would be worked out ahead of time.

I think if we did it that way it would preserve the grand narrative but allow for a collaborative expansion of the world.

[GandalfOfBorg]

I don't mind the way things are going or run but I wouldn't be opposed to running Part of the game either.  It'd just have to be something we coordinate at some point; im just still struggling a bit with the mechanics of this system, being so used to coda for so long.

[Eclecticon]

I'm very much with Tom.  I'm happy to run some parts of the game (though it must be said that I'm enjoying the feckless freedom of player-hood), but I don't want to trample over the broader storyline. 

I also think the best thing to do would be to run scenarios where it would be logical for our own characters to pretty much fade into the background (as Esgalwen tends to much of the time). 

[disench4nted]

Sounds like a fine idea to me!

[tomcat]

Don't worry guys - I am here.

Just been a lot going on outside of gaming life and my mind has been in a perpetual state of tired for the last two weeks. I can't believe my last post was two weeks ago!

I will get the game rolling very soon.