D1: Ashin's Commission (El Jefe judging)

Rystil Arden said:
(OOC: El Jefe--I need you to look over post 730 (just after Zaeryl defeated his soldier), read it carefully, and then honestly and truly tell me that you feel justified in the following assertion you made.
Yes, honestly and truly I do. Combine post 730:
Rystil Arden said:
*Zaeryl beats the soldier once again for good measure in case he was only staggered, then drags the body back towards the rest of the group--they can't let the enemies recover either of these soldiers now or else they'll tell the tale of the party and cause Duvik's safety to fall in jeopardy.*
with post 834, which came later:
Rystil Arden said:
(OOC: Zaeryl just wants to get on his horse and leave. The only thing that will change this is if the enemy appears before this happens and manifests itself as something so profoundly weak that the party can obviously beat them all
It was very clear to me that Zaeryl wanted to bag all three soldiers. It was also quite clear to me that he wanted to beat feet as soon as possible. There was obviously a tradeoff between the two, hence:
El Jefe said:
I honestly couldn't tell if your concept for Zaeryl was "let's make sure we have at least one soldier to interrogate" or if it was "let's get as many as we can but still get out of here quickly" or "let's make sure we get every last soldier and scoot". I took the actions and posts of the group at face value, and maybe that was a mistake.
Under ideal conditions, it was obvious...bag all three, definitely take them alive, and interrogate at leisure. The conditions were far from ideal, partly because of doghead's setup and partly because of my interpretation of his ideas. I had no problem with any course of action the party wished to take there...run like scared rabbits and leave all three, chance getting caught and make sure they have at least one, or commit to the possibility of another fight and scour the ground to make sure all trace of the soldiers is gone. I think I just misread your interpretation of Zaeryl and allowed him to do something you didn't intend...and you already have my apology for that.
 

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The later post was only because I was out of character certain that we had all three because I misread from the way you stated it. As you can see, though, at least now, Zaeryl was by my intentions, absolutely first and foremost making sure they had all the soldiers. Heck, he went on a crazy suicidal chase after the soldier at a full sprint and then dragged him despite obviously approaching enemies--that's pretty clear intent. If he only wanted two and a fast escape, he could have had the one Eternity dropped and Ironwolf's easy as pie and they'd have been out of there four rounds early--as such, I find the idea that you could construe he didn't want to take them all, even the obvious third one, a bit ridiculous and unholdable. I do agree that you have a right to a 'gotcha--you forgot the third one', though I wish you hadn't exerted it, but I don't think there's any room to claim that this was Zaeryl's intent. If it's intent that matters, now that it's been clarified, perhaps we could clear it up and say we have him? :heh: Guess not :(

By not allowing him to know that we only had two soldiers, even later when he mentioned we had them all (until now when I called on it out of character) you have destroyed my vision of Zaeryl and my desire to continue. In earnest, I'm strongly considering retiring the character because it has been intense enough almost to eliminate my desire to play him, and coupled with the fact that he wouldn't in character leave the party right now and that's going to be untrue to him, I think I just might stop playing him and make him an NPC or something--I don't know, but that's how much my concept was ruined. I will admit that what seemed like consistent calls that went against the party day by day blow by blow over and over to the point where I c\had to rules-lawyer just to keep us going began to lead up to this, but I think the problem would have disappeared and we were about to work it out if not for this.

I know you aren't willing to compromise here, that's absolutely your right as GM and I would never think of making you do so or especially of some kind of holding the game at ransom or filibustering it to have things changed--that's why instead of doing that, I'm just dropping out. My enjoyment of this game and even of the character have basically been eliminated, which is somewhat problematic as that affects Lasair too. Even so, I remember your mentioning earlier something about being worried about dropping out of LEW--rest assured, even if I have to pull out both of my characters, that won't happen.
 
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I read and responded to post 930 before seeing this one, so forgive me if this seems confusing.
Rystil Arden said:
No, he was definitely made out to be an idiot when he continually mentioned how they had all the soldiers and we couldn't leave any witnesses. I even mentioned this OOC a bunch of times too.
I think this might be the crux of the matter. When you mentioned (after the party had escaped the encounter and crossed the ridge) that you thought that the party had (meaning, had physical possession of) all three soldiers, I thought that you'd just misread a post or two or maybe made an unsupported assumption. As for myself, I was utterly baffled how you could be so convinced that Zaeryl couldn't have left one behind, given what was posted. Then I read post 753, where Zaeryl claimed IC that "we got all three" (emphasis mine). At the time, Zaeryl could not have any knowledge of the disposition of Private Stander, as he was out of sight. Zaeryl knew that Private Stander had been blasted and fallen, but left the area before Michael even approached the fallen soldier. So, Zaeryl is dragging Squatter, and encounters Giant Ironwolf who is carrying Kneeler, and says we got all three.

It's that blasted word got. You were (I think?) interpreting that as meaning, "the party has physical possession of all three dead or unconscious soldiers", and I interpreted it as meaning, "the party has defeated and rendered insensible all three soldiers".

Unless Zaeryl counted noses when everyone but Ironwolf regrouped on their horses, there was no way for him to know Private Stander's fate. I assumed (evidently a bad assumption) that when I posted that you were all (except Ironwolf, who you'd already seen carrying Kneeler) gathered in a clearing, all mounted, and that Hulgyr (and nobody else) had a soldier on his horse that you understood the sitation. And IC, recall that this was about the time Zaeryl was not counting noses but rather arguing with Eternity over whether Squatter should be examined or not. Zaeryl, as I recall, "couldn't be bothered with such trivialities". Again, my bad...I assumed this extended to stopping and accounting for the presence of all three soldiers.
Rystil Arden said:
I actually feel, OOC, that Michael's assumptions are unreasonable and borderline suicidal given specficially the instructions of our employer in the adventure (I had a post up that quoted Ashin a few times somewhere back there), Do I have PCs that would have done something similar? Yup, but I would have done it knowing that.
And that's your perogative, and I certainly don't have a problem with that. All I ask is that you don't assume that the DM is "out to get you" if, by some strange twist of plot or fate, that what appears to be unreasonable at first turns out to be much more sensible in the long run.
Rystil Arden said:
Not to hit on ajanders here at all, as it wasn't his fault, but I think everyone in the party except Michael did come to an agreement here. I've talked to at least one other player in private who had come to the same conclusion about the proposed plan--ask for the crystal nicely, see how they respond, take it and not attack if they gave it, and attack otherwise. Believe me, if Zaeryl was actually planning to implement a surprise attack, you can bet this would have actually turned out much more easily, as he'd have just gone up to them and blasted them. The problem was that he was trying to let the group do it the way they had all agreed--Zaeryl actually followed the plan, whereas Michael started changing it (like I said, this is probably Zaeryl's first and only time of being the one basically in the right, as he certainly wasn't on previous occasions :lol:
From my perspective as a DM, I don't care if the party splits 1:5 (say, with Zaeryl going off on his own and everyone else thinking he's nuts) or 5:1 (with 4 PCs agreeing with Zaeryl that Michael is nuts) or 3:3. I have to be fair to everyone, and if I allow Michael to run off on his own and do something the rest of the party doesn't like, then I have to also allow Zaeryl to run off on his own and do something the rest of the party doesn't like. I'd prefer for the party to be one big happy family, but think it very poor form to demand that they do so like some petty tyrant. And if the price for doing that is that I have to act like a lightning rod for these types of disagreements, then I'm willing to do that. Really, I'm just trying to give everyone the best gaming experience I can.
 

I think this might be the crux of the matter. When you mentioned (after the party had escaped the encounter and crossed the ridge) that you thought that the party had (meaning, had physical possession of) all three soldiers, I thought that you'd just misread a post or two or maybe made an unsupported assumption. As for myself, I was utterly baffled how you could be so convinced that Zaeryl couldn't have left one behind, given what was posted. Then I read post 753, where Zaeryl claimed IC that "we got all three" (emphasis mine). At the time, Zaeryl could not have any knowledge of the disposition of Private Stander, as he was out of sight. Zaeryl knew that Private Stander had been blasted and fallen, but left the area before Michael even approached the fallen soldier. So, Zaeryl is dragging Squatter, and encounters Giant Ironwolf who is carrying Kneeler, and says we got all three.

It's that blasted word got. You were (I think?) interpreting that as meaning, "the party has physical possession of all three dead or unconscious soldiers", and I interpreted it as meaning, "the party has defeated and rendered insensible all three soldiers".

Unless Zaeryl counted noses when everyone but Ironwolf regrouped on their horses, there was no way for him to know Private Stander's fate. I assumed (evidently a bad assumption) that when I posted that you were all (except Ironwolf, who you'd already seen carrying Kneeler) gathered in a clearing, all mounted, and that Hulgyr (and nobody else) had a soldier on his horse that you understood the sitation. And IC, recall that this was about the time Zaeryl was not counting noses but rather arguing with Eternity over whether Squatter should be examined or not. Zaeryl, as I recall, "couldn't be bothered with such trivialities". Again, my bad...I assumed this extended to stopping and accounting for the presence of all three soldiers.

Zaeryl saw the other party members grabbing the soldier. Absent a note from you that they left him behind, I assumed out of character that they still had him--I trusted you and counted on you as the GM to provide me with notes if anything important had changed rather than leave things out and hope we spotted them so you could gotcha us later, since obviously your descriptions were shiort and spare due to having to divide your time to six different people and write multiple things. I didn't want to be a pain and ask for you to write descriptions five times longer to cover everything, and I assumed you would tell us about something that (even with your kinda weird assumption that Zaeryl wasn't going crazy to get all three) was clearly very very important to Zaeryl. I misjudged you and make a mistake in trusting you overmuch. Thanks for the apology, but unfortunately, an apology isn't going to bring back the point that (as you've seen), he stated something several times that was so obviously untrue that Hulgyr should have been able to know the difference with his 6 mental stats.

And that's your perogative, and I certainly don't have a problem with that. All I ask is that you don't assume that the DM is "out to get you" if, by some strange twist of plot or fate, that what appears to be unreasonable at first turns out to be much more sensible in the long run.

Oh, absolutely agreed. This is why I said I have every confidence I would have recovered without a problem later on if not for the more problematic incident. I probably worded it so it seemed like more of a big deal than it was for me--those other things were just build up and would never ever have been a problem on their own. I do think you were doing a good job, and while I have to admit based on your admission above that you were annoyed, I *do* think you were at least subconsciously out to get me/us on the 'leave the third guy behind thing', I 100% accept that I could have been dead wrong on the soldier tactics thing.

From my perspective as a DM, I don't care if the party splits 1:5 (say, with Zaeryl going off on his own and everyone else thinking he's nuts) or 5:1 (with 4 PCs agreeing with Zaeryl that Michael is nuts) or 3:3. I have to be fair to everyone, and if I allow Michael to run off on his own and do something the rest of the party doesn't like, then I have to also allow Zaeryl to run off on his own and do something the rest of the party doesn't like. I'd prefer for the party to be one big happy family, but think it very poor form to demand that they do so like some petty tyrant. And if the price for doing that is that I have to act like a lightning rod for these types of disagreements, then I'm willing to do that. Really, I'm just trying to give everyone the best gaming experience I can.

100% agreed with you El Jefe. 100%. That's why I didn't complain a whit out of character when it happened. You had to deal with a tough situation there, and you did a good job of handling a big mess overall.
 
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I think I should probably qualify why I think that leaving out a change when returning to a scene and then hoping people notice is bad form, rather than saying 'the third soldier isn't there':

Imagine the following scenario--the quotes are the GM's description

"You look in the bedroom and see a beautiful soft silken bed and a fancy ornate armoire filled with clothes. The nighstand has a book and some letters on it, and a fancy carpet covers the ground, depicting scenes of knights battling dragons."

Then later...

"You return to the bedroom from before find that someone moved the book from the nightstand to the armoire."

Okay--and by the way, what I didn't tell you in my second description is that the bed is gone, which turns out to be a crucial clue to solving the mystery.

But you probably assume the bed the next time you read the description, right? Leaving omissions like that causes terrible conflict in PbP. I should know--I'm not an innocent here, I did it myself when I was first starting out. All I can say is that I've learned it can be very bad form because PCs build reasonable assumptions that were then my fault because as the master of the world who knows all the factors, I left important factors out. I realised my mistake and retconned a huge chunk of posts when this happened.
 

Holy Hyrag! I said in post 934 by mistake "I don't think you were doing a good job" when I meant "I do think you were doing a good job"

I just edited it now but I want to make 100% sure you catch the edit because that's a big big difference :(

As long as we're keeping this the 'edit' post--I reread the first of the posts you haven't responded to yet and realised that I probably came across stronger than I meant. I changed the word 'absolutely' to 'a bit', and it reads better now. :o
 
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Rystil Arden said:
Zaeryl saw the other party members grabbing the soldier. Absent a note from you that they left him behind, I assumed out of character that they still had him--I trusted you and counted on you as the GM to provide me with notes if anything important had changed rather than leave things out and hope we spotted them so you could gotcha us later, since obviously your descriptions were shiort and spare due to having to divide your time to six different people and write multiple things.
Ok, I think this is a big part of the problem. Zaeryl never saw this because it never happened. If you don't believe me, take a look at any or all of the following posts:

671, when Eternity dropped Private Stander
674
684
686
690
691
693
694
696
706, when it was clear that Zaeryl had run off into the woods and could no longer see Private Stander.

Feel free to look at any of the other posts in that range, although I think those are the only relevant ones. Nobody ever grabbed him. Eternity and Michael walked right up to him, Michael stabilized him, but nobody grabbed him. Michael immediately declared (after stabilizing him) that he was running for the horses, and Eternity and Almayce (after firing a crossbow) performed similar actions. By then Zaeryl was long gone, and chasing after what was clearly (to him as a character, to you as a player, and to me as a DM) a bigger threat.

No slight of hand here, somehow you got the wrong idea about what your character saw.

And I still don't see Zaeryl as an idiot or even having made a mistake of his own. If anything, the other PC's didn't live up to Zaeryl's high standards of tactical genius...no fault of his. Unless you want to try to convince me that Zaeryl's tactical brilliance extended to taking responsibility for the actions of other party members, which I think is a little bit of a stretch considering he was willing to abandon them to being captured and enslaved once before.
 

Rystil Arden said:
Deletia
I actually feel, OOC, that Michael's assumptions are unreasonable and borderline suicidal given specficially the instructions of our employer in the adventure (I had a post up that quoted Ashin a few times somewhere back there), Do I have PCs that would have done something similar? Yup, but I would have done it knowing that.

Reading post 30 provides the following brief from Ashin:

"So. I believe that there are some questions to address. The task is three fold. Find out what has happened in Duvik, find out what has happened to my people, and find out what has happened to the last delivery of silver."

I note, on Michael's behalf, the lack of references to "attacking Fallonese soldiers", or, indeed, anyone else.

Further reading of the post does not indicate Ashin requested we liberate the town: this has been cast as a fact-finding mission. Ashin indicated he was suspicious of Fallon, but not that he had any postive evidence of wrongdoing.

If we're going on, I suppose the DM will let us know which of us is right.
 

El Jefe said:
Ok, I think this is a big part of the problem. Zaeryl never saw this because it never happened. If you don't believe me, take a look at any or all of the following posts:

671, when Eternity dropped Private Stander
674
684
686
690
691
693
694
696
706, when it was clear that Zaeryl had run off into the woods and could no longer see Private Stander.

Feel free to look at any of the other posts in that range, although I think those are the only relevant ones. Nobody ever grabbed him. Eternity and Michael walked right up to him, Michael stabilized him, but nobody grabbed him. Michael immediately declared (after stabilizing him) that he was running for the horses, and Eternity and Almayce (after firing a crossbow) performed similar actions. By then Zaeryl was long gone, and chasing after what was clearly (to him as a character, to you as a player, and to me as a DM) a bigger threat.

No slight of hand here, somehow you got the wrong idea about what your character saw.

And I still don't see Zaeryl as an idiot or even having made a mistake of his own. If anything, the other PC's didn't live up to Zaeryl's high standards of tactical genius...no fault of his. Unless you want to try to convince me that Zaeryl's tactical brilliance extended to taking responsibility for the actions of other party members, which I think is a little bit of a stretch considering he was willing to abandon them to being captured and enslaved once before.
Feel free to look at any of the other posts in that range, although I think those are the only relevant ones. Nobody ever grabbed him. Eternity and Michael walked right up to him, Michael stabilized him, but nobody grabbed him. Michael immediately declared (after stabilizing him) that he was running for the horses, and Eternity and Almayce (after firing a crossbow) performed similar actions. By then Zaeryl was long gone, and chasing after what was clearly (to him as a character, to you as a player, and to me as a DM) a bigger threat.

This is grabbing him. They had him in their arms, admittedly treating him, but they had him. This is where Erekose thought they had him as well, if you'll recall.

And I still don't see Zaeryl as an idiot or even having made a mistake of his own. If anything, the other PC's didn't live up to Zaeryl's high standards of tactical genius...no fault of his. Unless you want to try to convince me that Zaeryl's tactical brilliance extended to taking responsibility for the actions of other party members, which I think is a little bit of a stretch considering he was willing to abandon them to being captured and enslaved once before.

You made him into an idiot, a complete imbecile, by not mentioning the absense of the soldier, not because they didn't have him in the first place. He can count to three, and this was of primary importance. He was willing to sacrifice his body to make sure all the soldiers were taken with us--there is no way he would have missed that without being portrayed as a buffoon.

I'm not sure if you can't understand where I'm coming from when I say you've 'destroyed the character concept' or think it's hyperbole, so I'll present a few more clear examples that might show how it is possible for a GM to do this, even though the player is nominally in control of their character--how it can go from something that's a mere GM 'oops' where all that's needed is an apology to something that destroys the character:

Let's say I'm playing a socialite whose character was staked on her good image, and through a GM omission, the character winds up performing a social blunder that causes her to be reviled in her city and unable to mingle anymore--that's a character-destroying moment.

Perhaps more apropros--let's say that a Paladin is in a burning building with three orphans. One orphan is in the front door, but another is all the way in the back of the burning building. Two other party members have grabbed and stabilised the orphan in the front door, so the Paladin charges into the back of the building, gets burned, has a wood plank that is burning fall on him, and pulls out the last orphan while another party member saves orphan #2. Then the GM lets the Paladin run past with the third orphan, and meanwhile the rest of the party left orphan #1 in the doorframe and he burns to death. This is only actually discovered several weeks later in real time, when the Paladin tries to Lay on Hands the three orphans and the GM says there are only two orphans. The GM apologises and says he won't take away the Paladin's powers, even though the Paladin violated his Paladin's Code by running past the boy in need in the doorframe, but that isn't the point for the Paladin's player--the GM let him leave the boy to die.
 

ajanders said:
Reading post 30 provides the following brief from Ashin:

"So. I believe that there are some questions to address. The task is three fold. Find out what has happened in Duvik, find out what has happened to my people, and find out what has happened to the last delivery of silver."

I note, on Michael's behalf, the lack of references to "attacking Fallonese soldiers", or, indeed, anyone else.

Further reading of the post does not indicate Ashin requested we liberate the town: this has been cast as a fact-finding mission. Ashin indicated he was suspicious of Fallon, but not that he had any postive evidence of wrongdoing.

If we're going on, I suppose the DM will let us know which of us is right.
Oh I think it's clear from his OOC hints that Michael was right--but in character, Ashin went to the extremes of using a magic item to ensure nobody was allied with Fallon and warned us away from them, plus other NPCs said they were herding folks up into a containment camp, so IC it would have been unreasonable to take that kind of risk--it would be more in line with Ashin's assignment to avoid capture with force if necessary than to let them bring us into their camp. Even the most polite of characters should, in my opinion, have politely declined to be taken to their camp on the grounds that even the soldiers must admit it puts the characters completely at the soldiers' mercies if the soldiers were to have bad intentions.
 
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