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 I'm planning on running an open, bi-weekly, no-commitment Pathfinder "pickup game" using SyncRPG. Players register for a game session, and then whatever characters show up are presented with a number of socially-created quests that need doing in the Three Rivers Valley and then set loose in a hex map to complete them. The sessions are designed to be self-contained and played to completion in under three hours, so there’s no ongoing commitment or scheduling nightmares to worry about! Characters are allowed to return, but never required to. It's a great way to test out character ideas you may have lingering on the shelf, and to get to know how SyncRPG works. The first session of the Riverford Freelancers will be Tuesday, October 13th, at 5pm PDT. Cut your teeth as a Tempest adventurer with night of quick quests around the Three Rivers Valley. If that timeslot doesn't work for you, speak up! We're willing to run additional games to accommodate different timezones if we have enough people. The sessions are open to all, but can only support up to five characters. If you'd like to join, please let me know your SyncRPG username and I will send you an invite on the site. If you need help setting things up or have any other questions, don't hesitate to ask! If you'd like to join us for some of these no-commitment muderhobo sessions, please head over to our Google+ Community! Character Creation Guidelines
Tech Stuff
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4WiUBOT2CIc Links SyncRPG Game Page More Information on the format of the Game Google EventLink Video Tutorials Recordings https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QLgzIKlCllU ^^^ Fighting Axebeaks and dynamic maps with flood effect https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7HdbFk8Ljk ^^^ Undead ogres in a session of the Riverford Freelancers https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-OIADvAaWc ^^^ I take some goons from YOSPOS through an escape from a Hobgoblin prison https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mai3WR_XNmw ^^^ A playtest of one of our (free!) VTT-ready adventure modules, The Rescue of Doniert Ironvale Inverse Icarus fucked around with this message at 19:35 on Apr 16, 2016 |
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Sep 27, 2015 17:32
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Voiced or text only or what?
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Sep 27, 2015 17:53
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I'm super interested in a low-commitment game like this, but I'm CET (UTC+1) so these timeslots are 2am-5am for me. With my current schedule I could make it work, but there's no telling how long that'll be true and it's obviously not ideal. I might want to sign up for the oct 13 session, but I can't commit to it just yet. Sign me up for one of those hypothetical international off-schedule sessions, though. Speaking of which, what's the selection process for a session? First come first served? And a couple of rules questions: How do you feel about the Unchained stuff? I haven't looked too deeply into it myself, but there's some new rules on multiclassing and new versions of classes. Banned, enforced, optional? What's the policy on using/abusing RAW and system quirks? E.g. Rage Cycling, where you make a Barbarian with some method of negating fatigue in order to constantly enter and exit rage for repeated use of "once per rage" rage powers. Oh, and while it's not a big deal yet, are you hoping to allow for character progression? It might be nice to hop back into a session with the swag you got from the last one, and maybe eventually a level or two.
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Sep 27, 2015 18:26
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Gamerofthegame posted:Voiced or text only or what? Sorry, first time posting a game here. We use Google Hangouts for voice and optional video. Sessions are recorded ans shared on YouTube, so you can see what you're getting into. Updated OP.
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Sep 27, 2015 18:35
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Terrorforge posted:I'm super interested in a low-commitment game like this, but I'm CET (UTC+1) so these timeslots are 2am-5am for me. With my current schedule I could make it work, but there's no telling how long that'll be true and it's obviously not ideal. I might want to sign up for the oct 13 session, but I can't commit to it just yet. Sign me up for one of those hypothetical international off-schedule sessions, though. Let me know what three-hour window works best for you. I'm keeping a spreadsheet of requests and seeing if users "cluster" around any timeslots, and if I can find at least 3 people willing to play, I'll do my best to make it happen. Terrorforge posted:Speaking of which, what's the selection process for a session? First come first served? It's first come, first served. I can really only handle five people per session, and the first five people to have a character in the system and declare interest in the G+ event will be send invites to the game on the site, and can join it with their characters. Terrorforge posted:How do you feel about the Unchained stuff? I haven't looked too deeply into it myself, but there's some new rules on multiclassing and new versions of classes. Banned, enforced, optional? I haven't read it very much, and my groups have pretty much ignored it. The primary way we handle character sheets is by using this Google Drive sheet, which has support for the Unchained classes. Due to the one-shot nature of the sessions, I'd be fine with people using Unchained rules, and I wouldn't be too strict about enforcing any of the new restrictions. If anything is hideously unbalanced I'd do my best to ramp up the encounters to keep things challenging, and we can revisit it between sessions. Terrorforge posted:What's the policy on using/abusing RAW and system quirks? E.g. Rage Cycling, where you make a Barbarian with some method of negating fatigue in order to constantly enter and exit rage for repeated use of "once per rage" rage powers. The bi-weekly Tuesday session is a public game, and I'm advertising it in various places online. I would expect more powergamers than roleplayers, but in the other public sessions I've run there have been a good number of non-optimized characters. I leave it to you to decide, and as I said above, if anything is game-breaking we'll revisit it between sessions. If you find yourself completely stealing the show every fight and making the other players feel lovely, just scale it back every once in a while. I love min-maxing personally, so I won't squash your dreams. Just don't make a lovely game for the other players. Terrorforge posted:Oh, and while it's not a big deal yet, are you hoping to allow for character progression? It might be nice to hop back into a session with the swag you got from the last one, and maybe eventually a level or two. Yes. XP and loot will be awarded as normal, and characters are allowed to return in future sessions unless they were giant assholes to the rest of the party. Inverse Icarus fucked around with this message at 00:19 on Sep 28, 2015 |
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Sep 27, 2015 18:59
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Additionally, if we can get 4-5 goons to agree on a timeslot, you could skip the Tuesday sessions and run an all-goon group whenever works best for everyone.
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Sep 27, 2015 19:01
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Inverse Icarus posted:Let me know what three-hour window works best for you. I'm keeping a spreadsheet of requests and seeing if users "cluster" around any timeslots, and if I can find at least 3 people willing to play, I'll do my best to make it happen. My schedule is pretty open right now, so any time after lunch my time on any day other than Wednesday or Sunday works. Starting anywhere from 1pm CEST to 9pm CEST (4am PDT to 12pm PDT) on any other day would be convenient. I'd prefer to start around that 1pm/4am mark on a Friday, but anywhere within that timespan is perfectly fine and I could even push it a few hours in either direction in a pinch. Oh, and I made a mistake; I'm CEST (UTC+2), not CET. Fair warning, though; the big reason I'm interested in this style of play is that my schedule and mood can both be a bit volatile so the "pickup game" quality is important. I'd prefer waiting on an awkwardly timed session that might run out of slots over committing early to a well-timed session that won't happen without me. Inverse Icarus posted:The bi-weekly Tuesday session is a public game, and I'm advertising it in various places online. I would expect more powergamers than roleplayers, but in the other public sessions I've run there have been a good number of non-optimized characters. I leave it to you to decide, and as I said above, if anything is game-breaking we'll revisit it between sessions. If you find yourself completely stealing the show every fight and making the other players feel lovely, just scale it back every once in a while. Oh, don't worry. I tend to optimize in order to make a fun build good rather than a good build broken. Don't mind jiggering stuff around after the fact if it gets out of hand, either.
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Sep 27, 2015 20:34
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I'm not part of enough recorded internet RPG groups, so I'd be down for this (GMT+1).
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Sep 27, 2015 22:06
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I'd be interested in participating in some low-commitment stuff like this; I love messing with fun character builds, and it's a chance to play with new people. I'm UTC-4 until November when my time zone will go back to being UTC-5, because that's simple to remember and makes total sense.
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Sep 27, 2015 22:32
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Oh boy goon Pathfinder! Are you ok with newbies to the setting joining up? The semi-regular session times are great for me and I haven't gotten to play Pathfinder in over a year. All my beloved character designs are wasting away since my Friday Nights IRL group broke up 
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Sep 28, 2015 00:24
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Gridlocked posted:Are you ok with newbies to the setting joining up? Yep! We've had a lot of newbies, both to Pathfinder as a whole and to the setting. Feel free to ask any questions you might have!
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Sep 28, 2015 01:21
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Inverse Icarus posted:Yep! We've had a lot of newbies, both to Pathfinder as a whole and to the setting. Feel free to ask any questions you might have! Sweet as. Time to dredge out my old character ideas.
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Sep 28, 2015 01:48
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I'm willing. Any day of the week, as long as it's after 1800 GMT-7.
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Sep 28, 2015 02:08
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Inverse Icarus could you provide some info on the setting; it's races, regions and stuff? I like to play characters with religion and I'd prefer to run within the systems confines then make my own.
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Sep 28, 2015 02:40
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Gridlocked posted:Inverse Icarus could you provide some info on the setting; it's races, regions and stuff? I like to play characters with religion and I'd prefer to run within the systems confines then make my own. Nate Ayonis is my friend, business partner, and Lead Designer of the Tempest campaign setting, and he blogs about it every Thursday in what he calls "Tempest Thursdays." There's a bunch of posts here if you're curious, the recent ones detailing interesting locations in the starting area of our campaign setting. Stormseye is an archipelago roughly the size of the UK surrounded by a perpetual, magical storm. The primary setting of the Riverford Freelancers is the Three Rivers Valley on the island of Kithera. Here's some bits from the linked post:  quote:The Three Rivers Valley is the central region of Ironhull and a broad river valley nestled between the western Black Mountains and the northeastern Orange Mountain ranges. It forms the heart of the island of Kithera and is a frontier zone, filled with a mixture of terrains, people, and creatures. The valley was once a rural pastureland of Ironist villas and commercial enterprises until an army of orcs fell upon them and drove them back to the coast. Since then, the orcish army was defeated and for decades the Ironkin have been resettling the region, but it remains a wilderness frontier that is frequently contested by the tribes of orcs that surround the valley. Today, dozens of homesteads are arranged on both banks of the three rivers that course through the lowland, but only a rare few have the courage and supplies to settle the plains. Some who do end up rich. Some end up dead. tl;dr: It's exactly the sort of rural hinterlands you'd expect in a traditional fantasy setting, with the constant threat of orc raiders, druid eco-terrorists, and as of recently, undead. If you have any specific questions or are curious about anything in particular, I love to talk about the setting! Fire away! Regarding religion, we have our own pantheon, and some small rule tweaks for divine spellcasters. There are also a class of chaotic evil god-monsters called the Defilers, but they're still being worked on. If you're planning to make a character that needs to worship a demon goddess, I'll poke Nate for some info  In general, if anything interests you about the setting let us know. We're just starting out and willing to flesh out what people find most interesting. Inverse Icarus fucked around with this message at 03:56 on Sep 28, 2015 |
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Sep 28, 2015 03:53
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Inverse Icarus posted:Regarding religion, we have our own pantheon, and some small rule tweaks for divine spellcasters. Unfortunately, these rule tweaks seem to prevent me making an Oradin, since Oracles are apparently mostly incompatible with the regular sort of divine spellcasting. Oh well! Back to the drawing board.
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Sep 28, 2015 05:03
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Quorum posted:Unfortunately, these rule tweaks seem to prevent me making an Oradin, since Oracles are apparently mostly incompatible with the regular sort of divine spellcasting. Oh well! Back to the drawing board. I am already tossing up some sort of Necromancer; I fuckin' love necromancing. I just realized the important questions I need to ask: are there Goblins (best race)? Gridlocked fucked around with this message at 08:15 on Sep 28, 2015 |
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Sep 28, 2015 05:48
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This sounds so perfect for me.  What sort of pace of character progression should we expect in terms of XP? Just wondering if I should build something that really comes alive at 5 or 6 (but definitely still works at 4), or if I'm gonna be super frustrated and should just do something else. Have a few ideas kicking around.
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Sep 28, 2015 12:43
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Quorum posted:Unfortunately, these rule tweaks seem to prevent me making an Oradin, since Oracles are apparently mostly incompatible with the regular sort of divine spellcasting. Oh well! Back to the drawing board. As far as I know, Paladins are not required to be part of orders or worship deities. Not by RAW, anyway. In fact, certain archetypes (e.g. Sacred Servant) explicitly require you to worship a deity to take them, which would be weird if it was a basic requirement for the class.
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Sep 28, 2015 14:47
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Just registered on the site, looks like the time is 1am my time, so I'll try to keep caffeinated!
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Sep 28, 2015 21:12
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Quorum posted:Unfortunately, these rule tweaks seem to prevent me making an Oradin, since Oracles are apparently mostly incompatible with the regular sort of divine spellcasting. Oh well! Back to the drawing board. I ran this by Nate to get his "official Tempest" opinion. He did a pretty decent brain dump: quote:Yes, a Paladin can exist in Tempest, but for flavor purposes the source of their divine power is still ultimately the gods. I'd encourage them to take an extreme polytheistic position in the name of their ideals, which is essentially how worship is supposed to work in Tempest anyway. He referenced the "Tetradic aphorisms," which are teachings from deities even more powerful than the modern-day gods, who have long vanished from this world. quote:The memory of the Tetradic gods has almost disappeared from the world. The details of the earliest age have faded to almost a whisper, but there are primary teachings of the original gods remains imprinted in the culture and values of the various gods to this day because of the tutelage many received in the divine paradise of Vylah. So, if you'd really love to play a Paladin / Oracle, have at it! If you'd like to RP it in a fun, setting-specific way, let us know!
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Sep 28, 2015 21:53
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I'm debating between that and a gunslinger 1/paladin 3, because the Pistol Paladin is the most fun. I'll give it some thought, thanks!
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Sep 28, 2015 21:59
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Is there an IRC channel we can hang out and talk in?
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Sep 29, 2015 01:40
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I don't normally use IRC. If you'd like to get together some time I could make the effort, but if you just want to talk about characters I'd rather use the thread, or the G+ community for SyncRPG. Nate and I both check the community throughout the day, and I'm sure he'd love to answer any questions you have about the setting. We could also have a quick hangout one night to talk about stuff and make sure people don't have any tech issues with the tools.
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Sep 29, 2015 04:54
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CaptainPsyko posted:What sort of pace of character progression should we expect in terms of XP? Just wondering if I should build something that really comes alive at 5 or 6 (but definitely still works at 4), or if I'm gonna be super frustrated and should just do something else. Have a few ideas kicking around. Somehow skipped over this. I haven't planned too much of that out, but with a quick glance I'd assume it would take 2-3 sessions to level up, depending on how quick they went. I'm hoping to run these pickup games for a long while, so it's certainly possible for a character to come to multiple sessions over a few months and level up to 5th or 6th.
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Sep 29, 2015 04:58
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Inverse Icarus posted:I don't normally use IRC. If you'd like to get together some time I could make the effort, but if you just want to talk about characters I'd rather use the thread, or the G+ community for SyncRPG. Nate and I both check the community throughout the day, and I'm sure he'd love to answer any questions you have about the setting. I shot you off a PM. I have honestly only ever used G+ poo poo once in my life. Hell I don't even use Facebook.
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Sep 29, 2015 05:09
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Fair enough, but the primary way we communicate is using Google Hangouts, which requires you to have an account. And from there it's just a hop skip and a jump to the community I shot you a PM back with a ridiculously long description of where goblins come from in Tempest.
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Sep 29, 2015 05:22
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I think I signed up using G+? Should be there as SA Gridlocked. Anyway you will have to tell me how to get into chat
Gridlocked fucked around with this message at 12:11 on Sep 29, 2015 |
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Sep 29, 2015 06:30
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I see you registered for the first session. And that makes three! You should be able to post messages in that event itself, and discuss character ideas with the other people who will be playing in that session. People who have declined the invite won't get updates on your messages. If you'd like to talk to the community at large, you can do that here. For the actual game session, we'll use Hangouts. There's a quick explanation of what you need to do here, and if you need any help testing let me know Also, for those interested, I posted a new video and blog today which shows me generating a hazard for another group on the fly, with zero prep time. This mechanic is used throughout our the hex exploration of our adventure module, and I'll be re-using the hex map and random encounter tables/macros for these games. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yo9mt3VGm2g Inverse Icarus fucked around with this message at 19:15 on Sep 29, 2015 |
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Sep 29, 2015 19:13
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Just to check, setting yourself as "Going" to the relevant G+ event is how you claim a slot, right?
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Sep 29, 2015 19:15
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Terrorforge posted:Just to check, setting yourself as "Going" to the relevant G+ event is how you claim a slot, right? Yep! The first 5 people to say "Yes" to the event get invites to the game on the website, and can then join it with a character. If you've been invited, you should see a green "Join" button on the top right of the game page, which will allow you to select one of your PCs to join the game with. This will allow me as a GM to add "events" to your character, which will be preserved on the game page, the character's page, as well as your user's profile. There's a long-winded, detailed video explaining how to add a character to the site, and pick out token art for it. (Heads up: Audio is a little loud on this video, I am terrible at things sometimes) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bUrEqkMu9FA Inverse Icarus fucked around with this message at 19:32 on Sep 29, 2015 |
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Sep 29, 2015 19:29
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Inverse Icarus posted:Yep! The first 5 people to say "Yes" to the event get invites to the game on the website, and can then join it with a character. If you've been invited, you should see a green "Join" button on the top right of the game page, which will allow you to select one of your PCs to join the game with. This will allow me as a GM to add "events" to your character, which will be preserved on the game page, the character's page, as well as your user's profile. I have to say I like this system overall, and it seems perfectly suited to precisely this kind of on-again, off-again play. Head's up, though: the timeline stuff is a little broken. Hovering over an event gives you a big ol' <a href=" mess. And speaking of characters, I was toying with the idea of a Synthesist Summoner, but, uh, there really is no convenient way to represent a character like that, is there? I guess you could sort of do the changing stats with a buff, but a character that changes worn armor, natural attacks, base stats and even type on a whim is just a bookkeeping nightmare in general. Maybe looking into "versioning" support for characters who do a lot of wonky shapeshifting stuff (like synthesists, druids and certain other flavors of gish) is an item on the list for stuff to do way, way in the future. Come to think of it, just having the option to disable equipment without removing it from the sheet could go a long way. That way you don't have to do weird things to account for the fact that you're a sparrow now and you should probably not be subject to armor check penalties from that ironwood breastplate.
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Sep 29, 2015 20:02
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Terrorforge posted:I have to say I like this system overall, and it seems perfectly suited to precisely this kind of on-again, off-again play. Head's up, though: the timeline stuff is a little broken. Hovering over an event gives you a big ol' <a href=" mess. Yup! We've had some reports of issues with the timeline, and it's at the top of our list right after we finish cleaning up Herolab PC imports. Thanks for the feedback, and please yell at me whenever you see something terrible so I can fix it. Terrorforge posted:And speaking of characters, I was toying with the idea of a Synthesist Summoner, but, uh, there really is no convenient way to represent a character like that, is there? I guess you could sort of do the changing stats with a buff, but a character that changes worn armor, natural attacks, base stats and even type on a whim is just a bookkeeping nightmare in general. Maybe looking into "versioning" support for characters who do a lot of wonky shapeshifting stuff (like synthesists, druids and certain other flavors of gish) is an item on the list for stuff to do way, way in the future. The best way to do this with the PFRPG character sheet we use is to scroll down to the "buffs" section on the main page, under the weapons and feats. If you set up a line for a thing your character does often, such as shapeshifting or a buff you know you'll be putting up all the time (Mage Armor, Rage), you can easily flip it to "Activated" to have it change all of your character's stats. Then all you have to do is right click your token in the VTT, and click "Sync." It's pretty flexible, and can even handle things like granting you extra attacks (Haste, etc.) Turning off equipment could be done by using the spreadsheet-like ability of Google Drive, you could have the shapeshift buff have a penalty to AC that references the value in your "Armor" field, and offset it. I have an old video I made for the alpha testers. I should really remake it, but here: https://vimeo.com/123773672 Inverse Icarus fucked around with this message at 21:48 on Sep 29, 2015 |
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Sep 29, 2015 21:36
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Inverse Icarus posted:It's pretty flexible, and can even handle things like granting you extra attacks (Haste, etc.) Turning off equipment could be done by using the spreadsheet-like ability of Google Drive, you could have the shapeshift buff have a penalty to AC that references the value in your "Armor" field, and offset it. You know, I had considered just putting in offset buffs/debuffs, but I disliked the idea of hardcoding e.g. 6 AC or whatever. It didn't even occur to me that I could just reference pre-existing fields. Armor check penalties remain an issue, though. Still possible, but requires a deeper level of spreadsheet magic. While you're giving me good ideas, is there any way to conveniently get more than 6 weapons/attacks? I've tried using a version of this sheet in the past with a maneuver-happy character and it got pretty crowded pretty fast.
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Sep 29, 2015 22:27
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Terrorforge posted:While you're giving me good ideas, is there any way to conveniently get more than 6 weapons/attacks? I've tried using a version of this sheet in the past with a maneuver-happy character and it got pretty crowded pretty fast. I have run into similar issues with the sheet, and to be honest we're actually a little bit behind on the author's updates I'm not sure if they've been resolved.If you're going to end up with a character that has a large number of attacks and the sheet can't support it, we can always just hard-code something in the sheet or make a special macro for you.
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Sep 29, 2015 22:36
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Inverse Icarus posted:I have run into similar issues with the sheet, and to be honest we're actually a little bit behind on the author's updates Yeah, the brute force solutions are an option. I was just hoping (vainly) that there might be a "add attack" button, as that would make it about a million times easier. We'll see if it becomes an issue. With the character concepts I'm tossing around it's a real possibility, but I'm not about to start scripting things until I absolutely have to.
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Sep 29, 2015 22:57
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I would like to know more about evil gods, the undead and necromancy in your setting.
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Sep 30, 2015 00:41
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Gridlocked posted:I would like to know more about evil gods, the undead and necromancy in your setting. Started a conversation with Nate on Google+, and tagged you in it. I'll let Nate field this one, but in general there has been a rise in the number of undead seen recently, and they feature prominently in our second adventure module, which this group will run parallel to in the timeline.
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Sep 30, 2015 01:03
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Edit 2: Never mind I am stupid. Edit 3: For reference as well I am asking about evil gods and necromancy because one of the character ideas I am throwing around is a Cleric based Necromancer. Gridlocked fucked around with this message at 07:25 on Sep 30, 2015 |
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Sep 30, 2015 01:06
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So I've mostly settled on making a Synthesist. Specifically, my concept is a sickly girl who built herself a suit of extraplanar armor as a life support system and ended up using it for adventuring. Since the Synthesist pretty much uses the Eidolon's everything except for saves and skill ranks I figured the simple thing to do would be to stat out the fused form as the "companion creature" and just make a little stat buff that I can turn on for the main guy so the skills and saves come out right. The closest thing to an official response says you can qualify for feats with your fused stats so I've been working under that assumption, but feel free to veto that because the class really doesn't need the help. On that note, while I'm not going all out on making the strongest thing possible the base power level here is pretty high and I absolutely will not be able to stop myself from doing crazy bullshit with Evolution Surge so, you know, fair warning. Oh, and would it be okay to refluff the Claws evolution as unarmed "Bash" attacks? The only functional difference would be dealing bludgeoning damage, I just find the idea of gauntlet punching folks more amusing than clawing them into ribbons.
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Oct 1, 2015 02:22
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