Out of Character Chat Thread

[Shocker]

@ArtamenaV fantastic work, this is going to be a lifesaver for me. Thank you very much.

[Seardon]

First and foremost, welcome to the weave @ArtamenaV, The pre games can be a bit over whelming with it's more free form format. Though it also lends itself to show the creativity of writing from the different applicants. It's also a good way to gage how well certain people would work with each other personality wise as well as help you find your characters voice. When the game begins in earnest and the members are selected, there will be less chaos.

It's nice break down of things as far as where people are though. With quite a few well thought out character concepts. Something that helps in the PreGame threads for me is to focus on one or two people at a time or in this case, create an entry and let the narrative take me to wherever it should lead. Having a general sense of where the people are is usually secondary in terms of the interactions, but it also promotes further interactions and writing for others at times. I certainly never envy the GM on whittling down the numbers though.

[ArtamenaV]

1 minute ago, Shocker said:

@ArtamenaV fantastic work, this is going to be a lifesaver for me. Thank you very much.

Thank you, and you're very welcome! I didn't realize how much dialogue I had missed!

[ArtamenaV]

1 minute ago, Seardon said:

First and foremost, welcome to the weave @ArtamenaV, The pre games can be a bit over whelming with it's more free form format. Though it also lends itself to show the creativity of writing from the different applicants. It's also a good way to gage how well certain people would work with each other personality wise as well as help you find your characters voice. When the game begins in earnest and the members are selected, there will be less chaos.

It's nice break down of things as far as where people are though. With quite a few well thought out character concepts. Something that helps in the PreGame threads for me is to focus on one or two people at a time or in this case, create an entry and let the narrative take me to wherever it should lead. Having a general sense of where the people are is usually secondary in terms of the interactions, but it also promotes further interactions and writing for others at times. I certainly never envy the GM on whittling down the numbers though.

Thank you, I feel very welcome! That is very helpful!

[RagallachMC]

55 minutes ago, ArtamenaV said:

@RagallachMC Side Note: Both Andraste and I greatly enjoy your presence! Sketvid seems very sweet!

Sweet?! He's a lethal killing machine!

The 'uncouth & uncivilized' Barbarian trope is fun, but I'm going for something a little different.

Although, if @Peacemonger's character wouldn't have played music right at that moment, there might have been a fight.

[ArtamenaV]

Just now, RagallachMC said:

Sweet?! He's a lethal killing machine!

The 'uncouth & uncivilized' Barbarian trope is fun, but I'm going for something a little different.

Although, if @Peacemonger's character wouldn't have played music right at that moment, there might have been a fight.

🤷🏾‍♀️ I'm the kind of girl that looks at a tiger and goes "KITTTTYYYYY!!😍" Andraste is a hop, skip, and a jump away from blushing XD

[RedDingo]

Cool, now I have to roll if Thordin overheard theat conversation and decide how offended he is.

[ArtamenaV]

2 minutes ago, RedDingo said:

Cool, now I have to roll if Thordin overheard theat conversation and decide how offended he is.

Do we have to roll in the pre-game chat? I thought it was just chatting until the game begins XD

[Peacemonger]

I think rolling is optional. I rolled for Duala's violin playing just for the fun of it and ended up with a pretty lucky roll, hence I made her playing pretty good.

[ArtamenaV]

@Peacemonger Cool! I think the rolling is something I'll need the most help with, specifically in a forum setting...is there like meetings to prevent it from getting dragged out, specific times to convene?

[Peacemonger]

As far as things dragging out, playing by forum is slower even when people post daily, and most games are a bit slower than that. Still, it gives people flexibility of when to post, and time so we can be more creative with what we want to say and do.

 

For rolls, ditto to everything Seardon said. The pregame IC, for those recruitments that include it as not all do, is usually pretty casual and loose. I'll say the one faux pas to probably avoid is to roll against other PCs unless people agree on it and it's all in good fun. Like if two characters wanted to do an arm wrestling or drinking contest, that'd probably be fine. Trying to steal from someone or manipulate them probably will hurt someone's chances of being chosen.

Otherwise, don't sweat the rolls too much now. For the actual game, the GM usually can say when they want rolls and not.

[Shadeus]

I agree with @Peacemonger's assessment. Rolls are just for randomness, and that's not really the purpose of a pre-game thread. These are mostly interactions between characters, so deception, persuasion, and insight skills are not helpful where they would be in an NPC interaction. It's far better in-game when there is uncertainty...unless the two players agree to throw some dice for fun.

PM is right; roll when the DM asks for it (I'm guilty of anticipating this need, especially in PBP, because it could lead to a multiple-day delay). You could end up hurting your post as you write this beautiful paragraph of how persuasive your character was...only to roll a 1. In the game, posting is asynchronous, so there is no getting together to play or post unless it's a Discord game, which is a thing on MW. This is different from those games, though.

This pre-game thread is one of the more active ones. It's difficult because you want to get a feel for your character and are really "selling" it to the DM (and, in some cases, yourself). It's hard to keep it all together, as so many people post and go in different directions. It's chaotic and not like the in-game posts where everyone has the same objective. But those other players are looking to impress the DM to be one of the six characters selected, so it's hard to blame anyone for wanting to get their message out there.

It looks like we are coming up on the deadline. Best of luck to all applicants!

[Cointhief]

Yeah, I can't imagine a pre-game thread like this being someone's first exposure to pbp!

Its almost impossible to create the kind of wonderful shared narrative of normal play with this many people and constant new introductions. Instead we get an endless string of 'I am X. You are Y? What do you think of Z? etc etc' Feels more like an old public freeform RP chatroom or something. 

[Seardon]

Good time to say, Good luck to all on their applications.

[Kamishiro_Rin]

11 hours ago, ArtamenaV said:

Tags

@Kamishiro_RinI hope you don't mind!

 

   I do not mind!

6 hours ago, RedDingo said:

Cool, now I have to roll if Thordin overheard theat conversation and decide how offended he is.

   As a general rule, unless a player specifically mentions that they’re trying to whisper a conversation quietly so as not to be overheard—and they roll a stealth check to establish a DC by which others’ passive perceptions must meet or beat—then it is entirely up to another player whether they overheard a conversation, taking into account the cacophonic din of the room and how much attention they were paying in the first place.

   To whit, I cannot not hear music played at restaurants or when I’m out-and-about, and my brain will laser-focus on any music that it recognizes, immediately yanking me out of a conversation I’m having with friends or family.

   So what I’m saying is, even in a loud tavern full of conversations, it’s entirely possible that your character could have perked up at certain words or phrases that would have gotten their goat.

5 hours ago, Peacemonger said:

I think rolling is optional. I rolled for Duala's violin playing just for the fun of it and ended up with a pretty lucky roll, hence I made her playing pretty good.

   This is perfectly fine. The only thing the roll would affect would be NPCs’ assessment of your performance. If you had rolled badly, then your character’d have made a fool of themself to the NPCs in the tavern (none of whom I’m planning to play because I’m not even looking at the thread until the close of apps!). Everyone else (the prospective PCs) can decide for themselves how “good” it was to them in their own minds, regardless of the roll’s result.

   In your case, you got lucky, and I’d say everyone now has a very good idea of how to respond to your character’s performance. However, you’d have been perfectly within your rights just to describe your performance and let the description stand on its own. Furthermore, regardless of how well you rolled, others are perfectly within their rights to decide that your character’s performance was—in their experience—still quite bad (for example, you rolled well, but you only rolled well for a 1st-level character! The exact same roll from a 15th-level bard could, or even would, mean something vastly different).

   Everyone should keep in mind that, in order to protect and support player agency, it’s best to think of rolls as how your character interacts with the world and the NPCs in it—not how they interact with other PCs (or in this case, prospective PCs). The other way to understand a roll is when the outcome of an action is in question. Could it go one way or the other? That’s when you roll. If the outcome is so likely as to not be in question; i.e., you’re bound to fail, or your bound to succeed; then there is no roll necessary.

   To give a concrete example, the PHB says on page 182, “High Jump. When you make a high jump, you leap into the air a number of feet equal to 3 + your Strength modifier (minimum of 0 feet) if you move at least 10 feet on foot immediately before the jump. When you make a standing high jump, you can jump only half that distance. Either way, each foot you clear on the jump costs a foot of movement.” In this case, you just succeed. There’s no question about it. However, where a question comes into play is if you want to jump /higher/ than that, to which the PHB says, “In some circumstances, your DM might allow you to make a Strength (Athletics) check to jump higher than you normally can.”

5 hours ago, Shadeus said:

I agree with @Peacemonger's assessment. Rolls are just for randomness, and that's not really the purpose of a pre-game thread. These are mostly interactions between characters, so deception, persuasion, and insight skills are not helpful where they would be in an NPC interaction. It's far better in-game when there is uncertainty...unless the two players agree to throw some dice for fun.

PM is right; roll when the DM asks for it (I'm guilty of anticipating this need, especially in PBP, because it could lead to a multiple-day delay). You could end up hurting your post as you write this beautiful paragraph of how persuasive your character was...only to roll a 1. In the game, posting is asynchronous, so there is no getting together to play or post unless it's a Discord game, which is a thing on MW. This is different from those games, though.

This pre-game thread is one of the more active ones. It's difficult because you want to get a feel for your character and are really "selling" it to the DM (and, in some cases, yourself). It's hard to keep it all together, as so many people post and go in different directions. It's chaotic and not like the in-game posts where everyone has the same objective. But those other players are looking to impress the DM to be one of the six characters selected, so it's hard to blame anyone for wanting to get their message out there.

It looks like we are coming up on the deadline. Best of luck to all applicants!

   Oops. Shadeus beat me to the punch.