Jade Talons: OOC Discussion

[Coruja]

On 2/16/2024 at 1:38 PM, Aspekt said:

Now, with the shopping done, the open East Gate beckons towards a humble dirt road. Four days ahead a small collection of houses quietly guards the point where the road continues unmaintained into the darker, denser forest.

Inside one of those homes, two women dressed in rough woolen dresses and cloaks hold mugs of tea in their hands, warming themselves after finishing the washing. The woman closest to the fire’s warmth places her hand on the other’s shoulder. “We won’t let it happen again”, she whispers firmly. “Not here.”

18 hours ago, Coruja said:

Finally, they had come to what seemed to be the "hamlet". To call it that was being generous. It was more of a permanent gathering of a handful of people. Inside one of the houses there were people talking and instead of minding her own business, Sarah would peek. Well, not peek, but butt in. She approached awkwardly, because she wasn't a face. "Good day. Forgive the intrusion. We are the Jade Talons, working under the Silver Hawks, from Keri's Crossing. We are here to investigate Mosswood. Would you care to take us in and share any info you might have with us?" She hated doing that. She would rather prefer another person would be the face of the team.

Shall we pretend it didn't happen?

2 hours ago, Aspekt said:

OOC: Mechanics:

• Subtract 4 rations per character, to represent the 4 days of travel
• Subtract 8 days of animal feed, for the two mules

I was hoping we wouldn't have to spend rations because we were foraging. We have plenty of people capable of doing it. Also, can't the mules eat the grass growing in the ground?

[Aspekt]

Ok, if we want to forage then it may take a little longer than 4 days to get to the small hamlet, my figuring was that you're going directly there and just stopping to make camp each evening. Foraging enough to feed the whole party would probably require some side-trips into the bush off the beaten path and slow the travel down as a whole. Who would like to forage during the travel?

I think the mules can probably be grazed off of what they encounter, so that probably won't be an issue. I will edit that in the post note.

Once I have a better idea of what people like to do in terms of their roles during travel, this should be a smoother process!

[Aspekt]

As far as your post in reference to the introductions in this hamlet, I have no problem letting that stick around for now. We can pick that back up once we have our travel stories and foraging interactions for everyone done!

[8w_gremlin]

If I cast no other spells during the trip and cast them as we go to bed.
I can feed 10 creatures, including mules or create 10 Gallons of pure clean drinking water with 1st level spells, and I have 3 first-level spells per day.
just putting that out there

[Coruja]

In my mind, both ranger and druid could scout ahead and hunt/ forage, without slowing down the constant pace of the cart. If that's not possible, then the spell option is the most optimal.

[Phntm888]

21 hours ago, Aspekt said:

For reference and discussion, here's the two options. These are pretty easy to try and if we don't like one we can go with the other. Don't think it overly affects the gameplay if you swap in the middle of the game, it's more a decision making constraint. And again, this is supposed to be fun! If you don't want to play FantasyAccountingSimulator™️ we don't have to.

Standard Carrying Rules

• You can carry up to (Strength Score x 15)
• someone who has a "normal" strength of 10 can carry 150 pounds.
• I don't know if you guys have gone backpacking recently, but the last time I carried 40 pounds on my back, as a "normal" person, I thought I was going to snap in half after about 2 miles.

Variant Encumbrance:

• If you carry weight in excess of 5 times your Strength score, you are encumbered
  • aka, your speed drops by 10 feet.
• If you carry weight in excess of 10 times your Strength score, up to your maximum carrying capacity, you are instead heavily encumbered
  • aka, your speed drops by 20 feet and you have disadvantage on ability checks, attack rolls, and saving throws that use Strength, Dexterity, or Constitution.
• So to go back to our "normal person" example, with a strength score of 10 you can carry up to 50 lbs before becoming encumbered.
• You can carry 100 lbs before becoming heavily encumbered.

I think I prefer Variant Encumbrance, if everyone would enjoy the work of tracking that. I don't think it's worked well in my in-person games because it gets fiddly to figure out what everyone is carrying and do all the maths, but when I've played solo roleplaying games, I've really enjoyed it. It forces me into hard decisions like, "Well, if I carry XYZ, I can't wear my armor. But I really need XYZ, so I guess I'm going in armor-less..."

Here is a fascinating article for reference: Historical precedent for carrying weight

Looks like anywhere between 50-100 lbs has been a "fighting loadout". But I would also argue, at that 100+ mark you're encumbered and slowed, just like the Variant Encumbrance rules would indicate.

I have a personal dislike of encumbrance rules in general, as I find it to be excessive minutia that adds nothing of real interest or value to the game. If everyone wants to use encumbrance rules, that's fine, but I'd prefer we skipped them entirely in favor of common sense carrying limits.

[Coruja]

Understandable. We can find common ground on general weighing. Like only computing heavy stuff and using the variant rules as compensation.

Also, three people have shared stories already for the three nights we spent camping. I guess we can move on to the hamlet.

Ps: your stories are all fantastic! Did you came up with them by yourselves? I had a great time reading!

[Phntm888]

I'm generally a fan of using what armor someone is wearing as a baseline, and then not worrying about other stuff unless it seems like it should encumber the character. If you want to stick an extra set of full plate in your backpack, that should probably count as encumbrance. A week's worth of rations? Really not worth the hassle.

[Aspekt]

2 hours ago, Phntm888 said:

I'm generally a fan of using what armor someone is wearing as a baseline, and then not worrying about other stuff unless it seems like it should encumber the character.

I think this is my favorite technique of all. What gets me is the "video game-style" of inventory management where people are carrying around 50 swords and you're like... where are you putting those?

[Phntm888]

Yeah, a certain amount of real-world common sense needs to apply. I just don't see value in tracking every single thing.

[Aspekt]

12 hours ago, Coruja said:

In my mind, both ranger and druid could scout ahead and hunt/ forage, without slowing down the constant pace of the cart. If that's not possible, then the spell option is the most optimal.

Ok, that sounds reasonable to me. I figure for this first travel, a combination of the foraging and magic will cover the food and water requirements of travelers! I have edited the post accordingly to show that you don't need to subtract any food/water requirements.

[Aspekt]

I am going to move along the in-character thread to start exploration of the hamlet. Could you all post any scenes you want to cover in this thread so we make sure we get to them? I just want to avoid leaving anyone behind and I think that "claiming" a scene here in the OOC chat will make sure we get to everyone.

[Coruja]

I'll leave my shared story for the second part of travel.

A scene I want? Hm. Perhaps an investigation scene before we reach Mosswood, with possible clues of what we will face there?

[Phntm888]

Whelp, not getting anything with that roll.

[morgan_]

Sarah and Tevis have pretty much covered the questions that Sherrin wanted to ask in the hamlet.

Can Sherrin use the Help action to support Tevis’s persuasion roll? She’d be asking follow-up questions or helping try to convince the villagers to divulge information about Mosswood.

Edited February 20 by morgan_ (see edit history)