OOC Discussion

[jemmus]

That's excellent. Ito's sheet is here, on the character sheets page: viewtopic.php?p=543099#p543099

Yes, Katsumi and Akemi meeting will be interesting. One is a high rank ninja on an official mission for his clan, the other is banished from her clan and on the run.

[ffilz]

Interesting, matter whether you are cautious, dutiful, or courageous, if your army is defeated, you have the same chance of a SUR result...

Cautious: SUR happens on a 6, 5 out of 36
Dutiful: SUR happens on a 4 (3 out of 36) or 11 (2 out of 36 for a net of 5 out of 36)
Courageous: SUR happens on a 2 (1 out of 36) or 9 (4 out of 36 for a net of 5 out of 36)

[jemmus]

Interesting. I was wondering about how Courageous would affect rolling for a surround.

I did two trial runs for that battle with the same two armies. Minamoto won the first time, Taira trounced them the second time. Minamoto had some bad luck this time. The Taira commander Koremori's senjo-jutsu BCS isn't that great, but he rolled it. Those +1s for 1d6 rolls have a huge effect. The Minamoto commander Yoritomo's BCS is better, but he didn't roll it.

I have to roll for what happened to Haruto's father and brother in the battle.

[jemmus]

I owe you guys Taisho's and Haruto's move forward. Should be coming soon. I've been delayed by trying to figure out how to handle some homebrew things. Bushido is kind of homebrew-intensive. Not that much good pre-made stuff out there.

Kentaro and Hiroshi need a group decision on how to proceed. Never easy for players in PBP. Feel free to discuss OOC in the IC thread. And you guys are also facing walls of black and red text there. The decision-making part is mostly in the OOC text. Exception-- There are two mounted bushi NPCs with the PCs, one Matsumoto, one Minamoto. The Matsumoto one doesn't look any worse off for injuries than the PCs. But the Minamoto one seems worse off.

[jemmus]

There's a samurai story that goes like this.

After a battle, there was a samurai bushi who was lying down with an arrow in his face. His bushi comrades came to try to remove it. He put his hand on his katana's hilt and said, "Stop! I see you have no arrow pulling tool. And no man will put his foot on the face of (such-and-such, son of such-and-such, grandson of, etc.)!" The story doesn't specifically say, but the assumption is that the wounded by proud bushi didn't survive.

(An arrow pulling tool was a yard-long pair of iron tongs. Samurai history stories are pretty much always pretty gory and graphic ).

[jemmus]

I just spotted this paragraph from after the rules' section on shugendo. Let's go by this guidance. You guys please remind when a shugenja's or gakusho's actions significantly affect the outcome of some situation. The same awarding On for good strategy or other notable things. Don't be shy.

Unlike some other role-playing games, we have not tried to codify
all the areas in which Experience may be gained, assigning hard and
fast point values to each case. Situations stated above as always
receiving Experience MUST be so rewarded by the Gamesmaster,
but he should not feel that he cannot award it for other acts as well.
Nor should players be shy about calling the Gamesmaster‘s
attention to some action they find praiseworthy! It is difficult to keep
track of everything during play and the Gamesmaster may just miss
noting that so-and-so has just performed some remarkable feat. But
the Gamesmaster’s decision must be final in such cases, and players
are urged to accept this decision with good grace.

[jemmus]

Sorry for my slow posting rate in all games. I probably mentioned already that my company installed Teramind employee surveillance on the network. In addition displaying everything that ever appears on our monitors, I sends an alert if we open an http instead of https page. So no more posting during lunch and breaks, except on my phone. That leaves me just a small window of time for posting on weekday evenings. Weekends I can catch up.

[ffilz]

Sorry for my slow posting rate in all games. I probably mentioned already that my company installed Teramind employee surveillance on the network. In addition displaying everything that ever appears on our monitors, I sends an alert if we open an http instead of https page. So no more posting during lunch and breaks, except on my phone. That leaves me just a small window of time for posting on weekday evenings. Weekends I can catch up.

Oh, dear. I see Unseen Servant as https though... And Google Docs is https. On the other hand you may not want to do any non-work related browsing...

I'm happy that I work from home on open source. I use my personal laptop to do most of my work so not only do I have my personal laptop available, it's what's in front of me... I only do personal browsing on my work laptop while waiting for my personal laptop to install updates (since I do use it to do work, updating is a work related activity ).

[jemmus]

Teramind also sends an alert if someone logs onto social media, personal email account (gmail, etc.), or a gaming site. I completely avoid opening US at work, because I don't want the owners seeing my (or your) posts. They're hardnosed businessmen and not very creative types.

That ghost in the forest scene was pretty horror show and graphic. I debated about going as far as I did. If you guys want me to tone it down a little, just say.

[ffilz]

Teramind also sends an alert if someone logs onto social media, personal email account (gmail, etc.), or a gaming site. I completely avoid opening US at work, because I don't want the owners seeing my (or your) posts. They're hardnosed businessmen and not very creative types.

That ghost in the forest scene was pretty horror show and graphic. I debated about going as far as I did. If you guys want me to tone it down a little, just say.

Oh, totally fine. Good sequence of scenes.

Understand about work.

[Marullus]

All good here as well.

[jemmus]

I'll be out of town visiting my daughter in college in Boston until Monday night. If you post, I should have a chance to read it. And not post another wall of text while waiting to file out said kid's college financial aid forms.

(You guys are in the wild now. Far, far from civilization... )

[jemmus]

I've had a lot of great fun setting up who's who, what's what, and what's happened so in this game in an campaign manager called scabard.com. It's ideal for a campaign-setting and NPCs-heavy game like this one. It's working so well that I've committed to paying $2.75 a month for a subscription. I hope you guys will check the campaign site. Features:

-On the Home page, there's an easily spotted "Graphics" tab. Busy and don't recall who the Imagawa are and what they're about? Need a reminder about who the Matsumoto are? I would, if I were a busy player and hadn't put them into the game myself. All you have to do is hit the Graphics tab and it will display a radial chart of lines to all of the Imagawas connections. Characters, enemies, friends, members, etc. There's a search box on the chart itself at the top right (kind of hard to see). Enter your PC's name, "Okitsu," "Fuji," "Fuujin," etc. and you'll get an easy to connect visual chart of how the things relate to each other.

-We can get a various things (maps, games days tracking, char sheets) all in one place. No need to try to find a post with an image or a link when you just want to get what you need and go. It's tab-based with submenus. If you want to recall what happened with fight fight on the mountains with the hidden lair rocky mountainside bandits, two clicks and you're there.

I'd need one of your throwaway email addresses to give you access. I registered two years ago, and the developer guy hasn't spammed me. Or sold my address, I'm about 100% sure. No RPG-related sales spam or phishing, at least. I really like this tool for getting everything anyone wants to know in one, menu-oriented place. Perfect for PBP. If you guys don't mind sending me any kind of email address so I can invite you, we can all literally get on the same page.

[jemmus]

Nice Haruto post! Thanks for catching up on the long GM posts and tying into the story. We have kind of a soap opera (“Outlander in Nippon”) story going, so thanks guys for bearing with me. Still having great fun with Scabard. Their are so many old ukiyo-e prints out there that I can find one to authentically illustrate all of the places in the game so far (Kai, Shinano, Suruga, etc. The game's site is looking kind of beautiful, I think. Entirely thanks to very talented artists from 400 years ago (and the people who posted it).

[ffilz]

Nice Haruto post! Thanks for catching up on the long GM posts and tying into the story. We have kind of a soap opera (“Outlander in Nippon”) story going, so thanks guys for bearing with me. Still having great fun with Scabard. Their are so many old ukiyo-e prints out there that I can find one to authentically illustrate all of the places in the game so far (Kai, Shinano, Suruga, etc. The game's site is looking kind of beautiful, I think. Entirely thanks to very talented artists from 400 years ago (and the people who posted it).

So how do we see this scabbard stuff? Or is it GM only?

[jemmus]

Hmm. Try https://www.scabard.com/pbs/campaign/1848686 That's the main page for this one. You are invited based on me sending an invite to your email address, bro. I'm the worst at these things, I have say. But I expect the link will work.

[Marullus]

Wow, nice work! Tha'ts quite helpful.

Takeda no Harumasa is a full sibling of Haruto, as Haruto is the youngest child of his mother. His half-siblings are all much younger, from the second wife.

[jemmus]

I have to fix that. Scabard set it up that way because of the dad's second marriage, i think. It thinks the second wife is Harumasa's birth mother. User error I think.

[jemmus]

FYI, I'll be starting a Boot Hill 3E game by next weekend. The setting will be Texas in 1866-67 (soon after the end of the Civil War). I'm aiming to make it as realistic as possible, so more like Lonesome Dove than A Fistful of Dollars (without it being too boring). Rex and Ogre Mage are confirmed players. Leitz is deciding whether to join it or our Bushido game. You guys are invited, of course. But I of course realize that you don't have unlimited time for RPGs.

[jemmus]

FYI again, the game announcement for my Boot Hill game is up. It's here. https://www.unseenservant.us/forum/view ... 78#p619578 As with the Bushido game, I'll probably go over the top with long, detailed GM posts and lectures on the game world setting. We've got 3 players so far. If you know anyone who might be interested in a Texas 1873 (changed from Texas 1866, so the players can access all of the firearms from the rulebook), please let them know.