Table talk (Bibracte)

Retired Play by Post Campaigns Ars Magica 5th Edition: In the Ruins of Bibracte
1641

I couldn't post this in the Houst thread. You're right, the only spell you disallowed was for Alexei to make himself a giant. he was considering one of his spells, the Wizard's Parry, but decided against it. Still, using the Parry requires you to touch the other person's weapon, and from what Alexei experienced, his weapon deflected or was moved before touching his opponent or his shield. Which leaves me with the idea that a spell was cast on the end of the lance and then deflected off the parma.

I'll make the Awareness roll later on (and likely fail it) but did Alexei get an idea of what trace of magic that was? Can he tell if it was from one of his own buffs? Once the results of the Awareness roll are made I'll decide if he'll call a timeout and review the play.

1642

No, the magnitude of the spell wasn't sufficient to determine anything other than there was a trace of magic. Guidelines indicate +1 magnitude to determine if it was a Hermetic Effect and another magnitude to determine the Technique and Form, so no idea other than there was magic that affected the leather...

1643

I'll be going quieter here until after Christmas.
Most of my posts will be happening during the daytime hours...

Merry Christmas or Chrismukkah, if you prefer. :smiley:

1644

Hannauka was last week, Christmas is next week, and after that comes Kwanza! Festivus is in there somewhere...

1645

I've already had my Christmas miracle a few minutes ago. Closed yesterday at work, went in for cleanup today, supposed to open again tomorrow. I'm scheduled 5 am-noon. Got a call a few minutes ago to not come in until 7, wear cleaning clothes but bring my uniform. What makes it a miracle is that in the last 30 days, I've had to deal with SIX communication breakdowns, two of which resulted in me getting yelled at for either stuff I did that I was supposed to but the word didn't get passed along, or for not knowing something that none of the rest of us knew, including the trainer.

Gotta take my good when I can, I guess. But I'm ready to get out of here.

1646

What is your profession and place of work?
I like to glorify my job and call myself a chef at a night club. But really I am just a low paid line cook at a bar :slight_smile:
I am also the only one on duty, and gotta wash all the dishes and bottle service to. But my solo work gives others the impression that I am a chef, and I have a wide laditude in how I am to get stuff done. It is like a marine on a ship. Same crew, but different chain of command. So a lot of authority and responsibility, but with little pay and no official title.
Really, I make peanuts!

1647

Crew member at McDonald's. Grill and assembly. I can do both for breakfast, but I'm almost never on assembly for lunch, so I'm pretty weak there.

1648

So, it's a miracle that you're cleaning instead? I'm a bit confused. :smiley:

1649

And you probably get paid better and some benefits as well. I am barely above minimum wage for Chicago law. But I eat for free, get drinks sometimes, and flirt with a lot of pretty women that are way out of my league and close to half my age.
So it has perks 8)

Hours suck, but supposedly that will change after the relaunch on the 1st.

1650

No, it's a miracle that they called me to let me know to come in at 7 instead of 5. So far, I've had a "I'll let the manager tomorrow know that you've called off," a "Oh, by the way, that 4 am on your schedule? It's actually 1am", a "Oh, by the way, we're not open today, won't be for at least two or three days, but we'll give you a call when we're ready to open again", a "Where are you, your shift started fifteen minutes ago!" (which was directly related to the last one), and a "Why don't we have any of that new breakfast burrito made?" that nobody knew about. Since November 20.

I've been there three and a half years, all told (with a six-month sabbatical this year), and make half a dollar more than minimum wage, I work an average of 28-30 hours a week, and have no benefits except for half-price food on days that I work, either for my meal break or when I get off work.

1651

Cooks shouls always eat for free. Half Price is for front of the house staff. Last week I threw a skirt steak on the grill for myself. Corporate magager asked "who's that for?". I said "It's my dinner" (at 2am). He responded "A steak?", and I said "Yup." and just kept on cooking. But Billy (manager) will just cook himself whatever whenever, and always leaves a mess on my line. But he is the only manager in this company that cooks for himself, so I don't complain.

1652

I had some work stuff blow up on me unexpectedly. My hope is to move things forward during the next week.

1653

No worries, I only just now woke up from a food coma from Christmas Eve.

1654

I've struggled with multiple main character(magi, companions) stories. I really hate them, because players have differing posting frequencies. At first I tried to limit them, but that made the stories flat and one dimensional. Then I started doing them, and it comes back to the inherent problem of different posting rates for different players at different parts of the year. I dislike making choices or actions on a character's, because it is basically me writing a story and you guys are just watching. That's not fun, either.

So. There's the problem. My idea for a solution is to designate a lead character, which I have generally done. But now that lead character player is going to get invested with powers. The primary power is to take action on another character's behalf to advance the story for the lead character. If the character is a magus, they can use spells. If they are in combat, they can make rolls and direct other characters' actions as necessary. The effects of botches will be mitigated for the the non-lead character, or will be turned around as an additional problem for the main character to solve. A lead character cannot spend Confidence for a character he is directing.

What thinkest the troupe?

((Now back to my mail server problem.))

1655

Play-by-post has a unique set of...I don't want to call them "problems", but maybe "challenges" might be a better word. In a perfect world, everyone would be able to post multiple times a day and we could just zip right through everything. Unfortunately, it's not perfect. Some people, like me, are able to spend the better part of most days derping online and can post with frightening frequency. Other people have other things they enjoy, or that they're obligated to do, others just have...stuff happen. Life, work, illness, whatever. I've actually had two sagas die under me (one twice!) because the storyguide disappeared without a trace. (One of them, it turns out he was battling cancer, but nobody else in the game knew this).

I think the key is keeping the lines of communication open. I think we should all have a somewhat regular (if infrequent) posting schedule, and if something comes up that's going to interfere, a quick "Hey guys, me and the boyfriend are going on vacation for the next week, don't know if we'll be able to post" shouldn't take that long, and saves a lot of stress.

As for me, I think I've got my profile set to show "Last Visited," and I'd be real surprised if it ever showed anything more than 24 hours old :laughing:

But, anyway, back to the question I think you asked.

I think having the "lead" character works. And I kinda like the investment idea, with qualifications. If another character (magus or companion) is brought in by his player, then that player is making a commitment, in a way. It's like he's saying, "I understand that the lead player has a certain posting rate, and by bringing my character in, I am committing myself to post at a similar rate." If for whatever reason that player isn't able to make that rate, then he's (by bringing his character in) agreed to let the lead player or the SG make decisions on his behalf or run his character for him until he's able to return, with not a real cause for complaint about what happens unless things totally go south. The flip side to this is that the Alpha Player and the Storyguide have a duty to try to keep the character "in character" and not have them do something totally out there.

For myself, I try to have a three-day rule of thumb: if there's something I see that I should respond to, I will do so within about three days. (If I ever go longer, feel free to shoot me a pm, I might have missed it, or seen it right before I had to run Mom to the doctor's office or something and forgotten about it.)

Don't know if this helps any, but I hope it does.

1656

I do this in any case:

Primary - Korvin
Secondary - Jacques
tertiary - Renaud

1657

That's how you prioritize your characters... What I'm talking about is how I would structure a story that focuses on Renaud, and have other players involved in his story. Renaud may be tertiary to you in the overall saga, but in a particular story he may be intended to be the star of the show, if that's what you and I agree on. Take Wilhelm's current story, Korvin is a secondary (or less) character to that particular story. I have to know who's playing, and who is primary, so I can structure a story accordingly.

The challenge I face, is when writing or coming up with stories for people who have vastly different posting frequencies. What brought this to a head is the Once More Unto the Breach story. You, gerg and The Fixer are all players in that story. Who drives that story is important for me to know, so I know how to write it. If Isen is the primary character, then I must write that story a bit differently, because The Fixer's posting rate is generally less than your's or gerg's. I need to write more exposition, and make PCs act a bit more (consistent with their personalities). I need to do more, and The Fixer needs to be clear about what he wants, and then we don't have misunderstandings where he thought it was preventing sound from leaving the room, rather than destroying sound inside the room, because he would be the one determining that. See where I'm going?

In PbP, giving multiple characters choices as to how they can contribute to the story can make a story unwieldy. Peregrine probably understands this best from the languishing A Giant Problem in his Canaries saga. He designated that story for a character, another character got involved and took it in a way that refocused it, and then he's tried to wrench it back to the original character. My magus is there, but I've purposely avoided playing her in that story so I don't take it over, allowing the intended player to derive as much satisfaction from the story... Which leads to the related issue. Sometimes leads need to change when the story languishes.

1658

I think you do a good job of that now. There are some hiccups but in the Dance with the Devil you allowed Korvin to get Alexei to help drive a part but not the thread. Ones with multiple magi are difficult. Jacques is limited in Into the Breach because of the magic teleporting that he does not have. When it comes to direct combat he will be very useful.

1659

I try. Thanks!

I'm trying to eliminate the hiccups to the full extent possible. One of the things I love about PbP, as compared to table top games, is I can give any, and I try to give it to every, character individualized attention. I just want to do it better. I think I can do better by designating a star. It allows multiple participation, but gives me a full license to only drive the story as the store would like to drive it. You can make a plan, all you want, and than instead of asking if there's a consensus on a plan, I can go to one person and say, what's the plan...

Or something...

1660

The problem you are having with into the Breach is mainly because it did not start with a defined lead for the thread like most of the others that you start. I will admit that I paid less attention to it because Jacques is a secondary character to me and Korvin had things to do. So when it went in the direction that Jacques could not help I just stayed quite. Does this mean there is a problem? Not really. Some threads will be like that and we just have to try and roll around them if things get slow. December is a bad time for these threads in any case. Take a deep breath and come back after the holidays.