OOC

[Draidden]

Guys, you should reread my post. Shade did not sneak off. It states right in the post that he is looking for an alley or side street to go around and that he directs the group to follow him. If I read it right, where we are headed is not in the cordoned of area, but the road we are on goes into that area where it splits and we would have had to take the road to the east to get to our destination. Thus Shade is trying to lead everyone around it. There is no need for us to get involved in this mess.

[Terran]

I thought it was contingent which is why I waited.

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If he can find as side passage he will direct the others to it. 

Sorry, I read the part about trying not to disappear, but I was still waiting on the contingency to occur.

[Terran]

Should we assume a secondary path has been located and the signal to follow given?

[Lord of Monies]

Skold doing a quick Knowledge (History) roll here for any stories on Richmond's Rich Silks he may have heard from the merchant caravan he grew up in.

[Ruess]

Map on Roll20 has been updated to reflect your currect placement and situation.

I will now also resolve the posts that have been made and hopefully answer the questions that have been raised.

[Lord of Monies]

@Draidden To clarify Skold's actions, he's gesturing to the man being loudly talked to by the firery noble lady. She clearly only cares about her own business because nobles believe the world revolves around them, so she should be allowed to go anywhere she wants. Skold is suggesting we get her to shut up or go away because the watch has much more important things to do right now. He is not at all suggesting he help the watch deal with the people attacking the bank, so I think Shade has misunderstood what is going on here. We do the watch a small favour like that, and as Sarai suggests maybe they can do us a small favour of pass on word to our meeting we might be late as we have to go around.

[Draidden]

My point is, it is none of our business, so why stick our noses into it.

If the loud lady is a rich noble type, then us messing in her business and telling her to basically shut up and let the guard do their business is not going to make her our friend.

But if we just go around and mind our own business then no one gets mad at us.

[Lord of Monies]

First, as a meta point, we're Player Characters. For the sake of Story, it is our duty to stick our noses into it.

Second, nobody is ever going to go through their entire life without making someone even slightly upset. Yes avoidance is always better than a cure, so why risk it happening in the first place, but we can't dodge every possible instance of making someone mad. It's just not possible, which is why

Third, we make sure we annoy people responsibly. It's clear we can do Good here by acting and creating some peace for the Watch who are just trying to do their job. Maybe this noble holds a massive grudge and it vastly outweighs the good we'd get from helping the watch. Maybe the noble will immediately forget our faces when she leaves and being friends with the Watch vastly outweighs the cost of annoying her. We won't know until we try, and unless we get any knowledge rolls that give us more info on this noble character, we can't try to calculate the opportunity cost right now either.

Final point, even if we do annoy her to the point where she tries to become a problem for us, that creates conflict. Can't have a good story without some conflict! I'm not trying to be mean here, but the complete avoidance of encounters such as this feels boring. Roleplaying games are made to explore, make friends, make enemies, triumph over adversity, learn and grow from failure, and we do that by Doing Things.

[snugglepooh]

8 hours ago, Lord of Monies said:

First, as a meta point, we're Player Characters. For the sake of Story, it is our duty to stick our noses into it.

Somebody buy that man a beer.

Look, we're supposed to be heroes. Heroes help solve problems, they don't hide in a vegetable stand. We can possibly leverage this situation to our extreme advantage, or go skulk through some cabbages. I ascribe to the former school of thought, and frankly, so does my character, though I completely understand why Shade would want to go around.

[Draidden]

So you are telling me that you have never had a DM put an obstacle in your PC's way that was out of your league and it was up to you as players to realize this and decide to go around instead of trying to go through?

And being a hero does not mean you have to stick your nose into every little thing that happens around you.

Do as you wish, but Shade is going to try to go around and get to our meeting place and sell the dolphin before the chance passes. As he has it in his backpack, he won't have a problem doing that. 😉

So have fun and hopefully will catch ya later back at the tavern.

[Lord of Monies]

Everything exists within context. Is this an adult red dragon blocking our lvl 2 party? No, that would absolutely be out of our league. Is this a social encounter with an entitled noble where we are about to deploy a professional bodyguard and an enchantress? Yeah, that sounds like an applicable use of our skills that has a fair if not good chance of success.

If anything - and this is personal experience here - the last time I was in a game run by Reuss, there actually were obstacles that by all accounts did seem to be best handled by going around, but my arrogant warforged artificer decided to go through it anyway, and even though this triggered events that cut out maybe 80% of the planned adventure, we were still able to find the right tools and allies to finish overcoming the obstacle (that I created) and passed with flying colours! (Please don't talk to the locals, they would not agree with this conclusion).

My point here is that even if there is a seemingly insurmountable obstacle, I trust Reuss to make that obstacle fun regardless of the chosen path. It's just on this occasion, interacting with the people seems more fun than running through an allotment.

[snugglepooh]

When we come to a situation where sneaking and trap finding and such is required, we don’t just go around because there’s potential danger, we send in our sneak and trap finder.

when we come to a situation where there’s social turmoil, we don’t run away just because there’s potential danger, we send in our social expert.

Asking Sarai to go around this obstacle is like asking Shade not to sneak up and surprise an enemy with a sneak attack. Why would you want to deprive her of utilizing her best skills in a situation where those skills are exactly what’s required to take on the encounter?

And I need a bodyguard here. It’s perfectly alright, even appropriate, that Shade sneak quietly through the crowd unnoticed and meet us at blue-something tavern to talk to Varon. We don’t always have to stick together, but saying you’re going to go on ahead without us due to I want to play my character properly seems a little bit extreme. Just meet us on the other side of the barrier once out f sight of the picket line?

tl;dr - I didn’t build an enchantress and sacrifice my bonus feats for social proficiency ACF just to avoid social encounters, just like you didn’t build a sneak to avoid sneaking.

Edited February 6 by snugglepooh (see edit history)

[Terran]

Here is my opinion.

Sometimes in a game there is a ticking time clock. i.e., Get off the island before the volcano blows, or stop a ceremony before an evil god is summoned to our plane.

Draidden is right, this could be one of those.

We know that the person we want to see is in a meeting nearby, that we need his help to get into the ritzy quadrant, that this meeting will not last forever, and that we are not sure of his planned schedule thereafter.

However, everyone else is right too.

It's equally possible that assisting this noble woman or the Watch (depending on how it works out) might bring future benefits to the party from one side or the other, or it could be a 'red herring' waste of time.

Who knows, the noble woman might have strong connections in the part of the city we wish to access. It's possible, or that she knows someone in her circle. Or she could even be a fake.

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IN GAME LOGIC

If we can't wait to find out and some folks still want to try, then perhaps we should get a couple folks to slip through the crowd, if possible, and make connections with the man we want to see.

We will probably have to wait to catch him when his meeting is over, since I doubt interrupting his meeting with high-ups in the Watch and then asking for a personal favor just to sell art would generate bad results, just like in real life.

Then, the other group can hedge our bet by trying to fix the current argument and perhaps curry favor with the noble woman.

META GAME LOGIC

We can take the time to help the noble woman. If we miss our connection because we did not get there before the meeting ended, the DM will have some way for us to find out where to find him next. Of course, I don't play that way in game and would go with "in game logic."

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Note that I have not read any I.C. posts since I last posted, so all this might be resolved. Posting now.

[snugglepooh]

There is also the possibility that helping the noble gets us through the gate faster and we beat you guys to the contact point. We have enough knowledge of this noble, or at least Sarai does, to know she is not a fake at least. Several factors were taken into consideration when determining a course of action. It wasn't just "oh I feel like going this way."

[Terran]

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There is also the possibility that helping the noble gets us through the gate

Who knows, the noble woman might have strong connections in the part of the city we wish to access.

Hell, I couldn't have said it better myself. Opps, I already did! 😀