(OOC) Fitz's Folly (ToA PBP)

[FitzTheRuke]

I think the Sticks are in need of a Long Rest. If you will permit me, I will return the group to the Shrine of Moa and give you one. Then you can discuss what you want to do next. Don't forget, you've got a Thayan Orc Mercenary with you now. He's mostly quiet and does what you tell him to, but there's no secret that he's keeping an eye on you for the Thayans. I'd like to get this game moving again if we can! Any thoughts?

 

[Kobold Stew]

I agree a long rest would be nice.

A few thoughts on the slow-down:

• as I've just said in another thread, I think the pandemic is making post-December re-integration more of a challenge. I think we can get momentum back.
• When we first set down at the temple, you implied that there was going to be a source for arrows (and presumably other things). I don't know if that's a thread that slipped, or if we're just really slow at getting anywhere, or if I misread. In any case, it's something that I'm thinking about.
• Now that we've lied about the cube, we have put ourselves in a position where that has to come out eventually, unless we are going to play-act finding it in the temple. That involves only some of us, though (and if someone were to fill in the others in the IC thread -- "This Thayan is following us until we find a small cube in a temple" -- it would quickly resolve (devolve)). What you've just posted in the IC thread sets a limit on this, helpfully.
• I think it has been 11 real months since we leveled up. Just sayin'.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

I agree a long rest would be nice.

A few thoughts on the slow-down:

• as I've just said in another thread, I think the pandemic is making post-December re-integration more of a challenge. I think we can get momentum back.
• When we first set down at the temple, you implied that there was going to be a source for arrows (and presumably other things). I don't know if that's a thread that slipped, or if we're just really slow at getting anywhere, or if I misread. In any case, it's something that I'm thinking about.
• Now that we've lied about the cube, we have put ourselves in a position where that has to come out eventually, unless we are going to play-act finding it in the temple. That involves only some of us, though (and if someone were to fill in the others in the IC thread -- "This Thayan is following us until we find a small cube in a temple" -- it would quickly resolve (devolve)). What you've just posted in the IC thread sets a limit on this, helpfully.
• I think it has been 11 real months since we leveled up. Just sayin'.

1) Yeah, definitely. I think we'll get going again eventually.
2) I don't remember what exactly I was thinking at the time, but there should be ways to get arrows, yeah. There was probably a bunch of archers somewhere (aside from Bag-of-Nails, though he does have a lot of arrows) that I expected you to encounter and you didn't? Yet, at least? I'll take a look.
3) Yeah, it's tricky. Prickly was right, though. You found three cubes, and two of them disappeared and returned to the temple. Rodrigo will have noticed this. You can probably send the orc in to get one of those just by pointing at it. There's more on that, but I can't say.
4) Yeah, but I think you've only done two or three encounters in that time! I will do a level-up soon (it feels like its time) but let's at least get to the Milestone of having all the cubes. I'm going to avoid the grind by having the Thayans get most of them. This is something that's set in the adventure as a way to speed things up (they don't expect you to get all 9 by yourself) but I'm going to make it more. I feel like the best way to run these games here is to move on once you have the basic idea of a place. I think you all can imagine Omu pretty well by now (and there's still a bit we should do, that will take plenty long enough).

(Now, I don't know exactly how you'll get any of them off the Thayans... you might need to work with them for awhile. They're pretty tough!)

 

[Prickly Pear]

Maybe we can partner up with the Thayans for time being, until we have all the cubes. But that means we have to "find" our cube too. Then we can go to the tomb, unlock it. Once inside, we can maybe "lose" the Thayans one by one...
Not much of a plan but it might be better than fighting them all at once?

 

[Neurotic]

Myrral would not approve of intentional killing without provocation.

But we will be attacjed st some point do it may be good idea to be prepared to counter the mage

 

[FitzTheRuke]

So... I've been thinking:

Omu has a lot of nice flavour (there's quite a bit of little interesting, if inconsequential things going on) and a couple of Bigger Things. And some grindy bits.

For example: There are 9 cubes that open the Tomb. Now, a party can go to each of 9 temples, and fight whatever's there. They made it so that you can skip some by dealing with the Red Wizards (who could have some) or by taking some from... someone else. We can play all of that out, and explore the city some more.

OR.

Or we could skip ahead and turn this into a Dungeon Crawl and go to the Titular TOMB.

We've been playing this game for a few years now. You'll recall that I never quite intended to run this whole thing (it was supposed to be an IRL 10-hour prequel!) But I'm in for exploring the Tomb if you all would like.

To achieve this, without handwaving too much of the story, we'll just have the Red Wizards have all the other cubes. You'll need to ally yourselves with them, for the start at least, which will give me a lot of NPCs, but maybe I can find a way to knock a few off as time goes by.

There's one Big Event that I could do first that might knock a few of them off (regarding the "last cube") - we could do that first, and you could ally yourself with whoever's left, but that seems like a pretty big fight for me to run. (And my other games have proven that I'm not doing well with running big fights in a reasonable amount of time right now.)

Still. It could be done, and would wrap this segment up nicely to head to the Tomb.

Show of hands! Who wants:

1) Jump to the Tomb with the Sticks allied with the Thayans
2) Big three-way-fight between Sticks, Thayans, and Yaun-Ti over the cubes, then proceed.
3) Sticks go on their own, search for more cubes and explore Omu.
4) Put this game on hold. (I know we are all struggling to keep up with just about anything in life these days).

 

[FitzTheRuke]

I could tone the scale of the fight in option #2 down by having the Sticks arrive half-way through the Thayans and the Yaun-Ti fighting each other! (Maybe I should have just gone for this one without asking you... well, I'd still like your opinion on pushing the game forward.)

Level Six will happen soon, don't forget!

 

[Neurotic]

2), I'm fine with 3) if there is a tie

You could 'hire' someone from the other games to run parts or pieces of the big fight. i.e. if you don't know what yuan-ti will do against the wizards because that helper did something unexpected...well, makes for the interesting game

 

[Prickly Pear]

I was first wanting to go with option 1 but thinking about it, I think option 2 is better. That way we can be "alone" in the Tomb and not worry too much about a large number of NPCs (which would drive Fitz crazy ).

I vote option 2!

 

[Kobold Stew]

I am fine with long 2 or shortened 2. I am fine with 1, but Miss Imogen wouldn't like it, if we are concerned with characters.