Table Talk

Retired Play by Post Campaigns Ars Magica 5th Edition: Loch Caillte (Lost Lake)
21

Huh. And Huh, again.

I'll have to see what can be done.

I know I've edited my own posts before joining the anti-spam crew. Maybe it's something that needs to be turned on on each account? I'll ask, and see what the Bee that Powers has to say...

Also, don't expect a lot of activity from me during the day. I work the late shift (1430 - 2300 GMT -6) and do most of my posting after that. Ironically, I'd have an easier time chatting via IM program with the players in England than with my players here in the US. :slight_smile:

Steve
(Buzz, Buzz...)

22

Yeah, it's No Edit for the time being. But I'll bet that could be fixed.

On the home front, 2 things are coinciding to my benefit - I'm going to be "over the hump" re workload in a day or two, AND I think I finally got a handle on the character concept I've been working on. Probably an out-doorsy type, but details remain in flux as heated negotiations between me and my muse continue...

More details as they come in...

23

Also (stupid no-editing!), we should figure out how we're going to label our various characters' posts. It's already getting unclear depending on the situation.

I intend to get a 2nd login with the name of my Mage, and a 3rd if I have to for my Companion, but a single clear and consistent format could only help. I'd suggest either using a bold label at the top of the post, OR, as in any novel, naming the character right off in that section. Or both.

[i]Bob the Magus

Bent over his cauldron, Bob the Magus scowled and muttered darkly at what he saw...[/i]

Some folk are already using [language] tags to mark when the character is speaking [Latin] or [Irish] or whatever, and that's another good and important distinction. Especially once Companions and Grogs get into the mix, "who understands what" may be quite significant IC. (I think that in Council/around the covenant, or usually between any magi, it can be assumed that Latin is used. And if addressing a non-Latin-speaking grog, the local tongue. But when in doubt, or especially when around mundanes who might overhear, it could make a huge difference exactly what is said and how.)

24

A word from the Bee that Powers on editing posts in PbP. It s set that way to keep players form "cheating" after the fact. It can be set so you can edit your own posts, but I'll only do so if everyone demands it. For the moment, I recommend using an external editor, and cut and paste.

Use of Name Tags would be a good idea. Place Tags as well.

Steve

25

To clarify : The tunic does not appear on Corvus, but appears above him and lands on him, across a shoulder. He still has to put it on.

Steve

26

Hey Mark,

I was in a hurry last time I was on the character sheets forum so I didn't read it -- just posted my own and ran.

LOVED your description of Connor Mac Conner. Really well done. I look forward to seeing him in action!

-K!

27

Thanks. Me too.

28

I'd like to see the self-editor turned on. Any edit will be clearly labeled as such ("Last edited on...") if it's edited after another post has been made, so "cheating" is unlikely, and impossible to do without being obvious.

For some reason, even if I use the "preview" feature, I find mistakes or think of changes after I post more often than before. That's my preference (and mage should appear this weekend, or before.)

29

Mark- upcoming on the Sci-Fi channel is a "made for TV" type movie right up Corvus' alley- "Kaw". Looks like "The Birds" made all with crows/ravens- could be good for inspiration or just strong images. (Wouldn't expect it to be any award winner, but a theme is a theme.)

30

Would that be US or UK sci-fi channel?

31

Oops- Didn't realize there was a significant diff in programing, just broadcast time!

US. I think(?) it said it was going to be on this Saturday.

32

Woot! More proof that new characters are forthcoming!...

(Know the terror! Run with great fear!) :laughing:

33

Oh- and if anyone else wants to join the "character" club, I have some software that can edit down any jpg to an appropriate size for the pic - just e-mail me (CH) with the file, or if it's large (> 1+ meg?),get me a link to where you found it, if that's easier.

I've also got several good sites where you can browse for same, if you don't have one in mind. (And I still wish we could Edit our own posts!)

34

Since this has come up 'upstairs'...

Rhiannon used Spont. Creo Herbam to create a plain cloth tunic. Her sigil is neatness, hence the "neat and orderly stitching".

I am of the opinion that when using creo to create something from nothing, and you are familiar with it, you get a perfectly useful, if somewhat average, item. I define familiarity as "Having Handled and Used for at least one day". Having a related Skill of 1 (or 0 + Puissant) counts as well. A finesse roll would be only be required for something like getting a correct fit, a certain styling, et al. (The fit is somewhat loose and long on Corvus, but not too bad (her Per + Finesse roll was a 5, I set a 6 for decent fit...), and he may want to find a replacement before the sun goes down... :slight_smile: )

Example : Any mage would have no problem using Creo Terram to create a perfect serviceable knife or dagger; Without the use of finesse, it will be a replica of what the magus is familiar with. However, with the appropriate finesse roll, you could create a different style of dagger, or make it look like it was of higher quality, etc.

Your sigils should be manifest in the items you make; For example Magus Frustratorus Playerus ex Tytalus has a sigil of runes appearing on the target of the spell; The above tunic would have various runes subtly woven into the fabric, and the above dagger would probably look far more menancing that it really is, having runes on the blade, hilt, and pommel...

This is how I intend to handle Creo .

Using Rego to duplicate craft skills will be RAW from Covenants.

Steve

35

For free photo editing software, google for Paint.Net, or GIMP 2.2.

GIMP is the freeware version of Photoshop, and is a little much for just resizing images. Paint.Net is a little easier to use in this regard. I use GIMP, mainly because I use it for other things besides resizing avatar images. :slight_smile:

Re: Editing your own posts, I'm working on it. I have a couple of questions in to Michelle on the subject.

Edit : I've asked for Post Editing to be turned on. Give it some time, it should show up.

Edit 2 : You should now be able to edit your own posts.

Steve
(Who edited this post again on 2007-04-06 @ 1504 CDT/GMT-6)

36

re Creo-
Check. Good by me.

re photo etc-
Sweet! The program I use is likewise rather bulky for resizing, and does little for retouching, which requires a work-around of two others - they do the job, but that's not exactly what they were originally designed to do. Will have to check those out asap.

Edit- And Editing has been turned on! Woot! 8)

37

OK, some OOC questions/comments for clarification-

  1. Question- how many labs ARE we short? (Assuming everyone needs a lab sooner or later.)

  2. Could we get a rough idea of what other Covenants are near us, and what their approx status is? (Spring/Winter, and also any reputations they have.)

  3. Languages-

At this time in Europe, there are hundreds of distinct tongues. No "native language" for any country we now know exists. There is a Middle English (ca 1200 or so) text that recounts a story I've told before, where a pilgrim leaves London to cross the channel, and a storm hits, and they are washed ashore some couple hundred miles to the North, south of York (still well within "England"), where a native greets them. The pilgrim answers "Sorry, I don't speak French".

Often, a language is defined by some relatively isolated valley or corner of a land. "French" is Norman, and Frankish, and Gascon and Provencal, Aquitaine and so on- and that doesn't include obscure dialects and such within each of those. Ireland would be somewhat the same- tho' smaller, it is also more isolated, each county from each.

And, yes, it IS a meta-pain for RP purposes, but that's why the educated (or any who travel) speak Latin.

Don't know how we want to handle that, but there it is.

38

There are 10 magi (Mab and Diedre have their own labs) and there are 4 unoccupied. That would leave 4 magi needing labs. Not a difficult proposition, considering...

I'm going to guess, based on older source books, that there are 8 covenants on the Isle. Circulus Ruber comes to mind as one. Most of the covenants on the Isle are late spring/early summer, perhaps 1 autumn. Several sites have been abandoned, or succumbed to winter. One covenant has been completely obliterated in the recent past (1197 - Ashenrise). Our nearest neighbors are probably out on the Aran Islands to the west.

As I have been told, Erse (Irish Gaelic) is still intelligible across the Isle, and in Scotland, as the two have not diverged greatly. Middle English is what I'm using for English, and the 2 versions of French, one for the North, one for the South (whose names escape me). I'm not horribly accurate with getting the right dialect for the right village in every county correct. :slight_smile: And while it takes away some of the fun trying to find an interpreter in Italy. I try to get the regional language right, though...

The nobility in England and anyone who dealt with them had to speak French, because that was the language of the court. In fact, many modern English scholars hated the "frenchification" of English Literature and such.

I'm not going to overly complicate my RP for historical (or hysterical) accuracy for language, dress, and customs. I'm doing this to have fun, not write a history text on Medieval Ireland. :slight_smile:

Steve

39

I think there are four empty labs and seven PC magi.

I'm for a more liberal application, personally.

I understand your point, and I'm not advocating "trade slang", but I think a great way for it to work without turning linguistic differences into a major story point is to simply let modern language groups guide us for the time being for common items (cup, bowl, horse, etc.), applying a die roll penalty of -1 representing dialectic differences inside those language groups if the communication is, in fact, moderately detailed and important to the story.

Another way that could work is again to stay with modern language groupings but let the "slang" specialty represent knowledge of the dialect where you received the bulk of your learning in that particular language (thus giving you a +1 bonus for locals).

Otherwise, I'll leave a lot of it up to SG judgment. If he believes that the dialectic differences are large, then they are large and I'm not going to get too caught up into it.

If we go travelling in the REAL hinterlands and we aren't on a trade route that sees a trader or merchant of some stripe every month or more, then all bets are off and I expect we'll be making a lot of COM+Gaelic/Erse/North Islands Pictish rolls.

But you do raise an excellent touchstone point. We do need to decide early on how we're going to handle the language dialect mess before we get too far down the road.

So, folks, how about it? How DO we want to deal with it?

40

Well, it matters far less what the dialect is called than to acknowledge that it exists. "Middle English" is hardly a unified tongue outside of London or so (and even that had it's own distinct peculiarities, iirc.) It was exactly in our period, 13th century and on, that the political and trade pressures began to consolidate these little backwaters into what we now know as "countries", and individual languages.

It could be a simple rule that, except for some significant exceptions, any peasant tongue is only good "around here". English is currently broken into "Anglo-Saxon English", Welsh, the misc. Viking influence up North near York (Yorvik), some dialect spoken out SW toward Land's End, and a few more I can't remember, etc.

The difference between "being intelligible" is similar to the difference between "newscaster English" and inner-city gang-land speak, yo, so I don' 'spect you be frontin', o' we be scufflin' d'rectly, yo?. The two can be understood at a basic level, but are hardly the same for complex or accurate communication.

It doesn't require becoming a medieval linguistic scholar, merely finding a good map that shows the breakdown (here's a good political one, tho' not so much for all langs: atlas-games.com/pdf_storage/europemap.pdf)
Every major cultural/political area had its own language, sometimes more than one. The nobles of England spoke Norman, from Normandy, where William t.C. and his buddies came from. Southern France speaks Provencal, Northern France speaks Frankish. Parisian is a distinct island, Norman is another xenophobic cultural bastion, and so is the tiny, independent corner of Gascony (think "Texas"), and so on.

Just to the south, there is "Spain", which could, again, roughly be broken down into the kingdoms listed- Portuguese, Leonese, Castillian, Aragonese, and, of course, the Basque and "Arabic" (which each present their own problems). :wink:

But if you want to make life easy and ignore the whole thing, it's hardly a dealbreaker. I think it adds to the flavour to the game as a whole, but I don't deny I've found my views in a minority before. :wink: