OOC: Chapter 1 - NEW YORK, Starts 12th Jan 1925

[coffee demon]

Phew! When I read that quote in the OC thread about speaking Russian, and deeply kissing, I thought someone had already advanced on my girl!

I'm paranoid already and we haven't even started! Love it!

[Laraqua]

Oi! I just realised that my character's being too nice compared to Timour. Timour's meant to have to jump to my defence and how's he supposed to do that if I go around being nice to everyone. But you've already got the womaniser vice down pat. Not that I won't be flirtatious, but the whole, being chased with a gun thing because you've slept with a fanatical father's daughter is kinda covered by you.

[imme]

I'll leave you guys to continue with your night on the town, I'll be sending each of you information about what you know of the Carlyle Expedition before you get to the meeting at Elizabeth's apartment. For the three Russians this won't be anything, as you would really have had to have been in New York or Africa in 1919-20.

You can go into as much detail as you like about the partying tonight, but please try to move things onto the morning meeting within a day or so, so that the others can join you.

I'm happy to move onto the next day (as evidenced by my IC post). We're having a blast, but I don't see why we can't be having a blast once the plot really starts, too. Raiko, let me know when you've sent your PMs, and I'll post something starting the next morning.

[thewhatchamacallit]

Timour genuinely likes Andrei and Elizabeth, one in a he's a stiff but I'll get him to open up and have some fun and the other in a she's not stuck up in the least and daddy likes kinda way.

In the morning Timour wakes up in a bed with a Candy on one pillow and a Rose on the other and absolutely no idea what their last names are

[coffee demon]

I think it was good to have a little "night on the town" to establish how the four of us get along. It all went pretty well! Maybe I should be grateful that Maksim didn't a chance to post any more before the night was over

[Laraqua]

Maksim, as always, is reserving his judgement. Still, he thinks they're having a good enough time together and is glad to meet with them.

[imme]

Okay, I'll wait to post something about the telegram until everyone's been briefed by Raiko on what they know about the Carlyle expedition, but there's no reason why people can't show up and start to mingle in the meantime.

[Raiko]

I've PM'd all of the non-Russians now, not that anybody knows much, but it is a mystery after all.

[imme]

Ah, the Russian blood. Able to sleep outside in the middle of January. Probably found it "pleasantly cool", too.

[coffee demon]

Wow, this is fun. I'm just starting to realise the advantages to RP-ing by post like this:

1) You get the time to compose a bit of writing. Its like a collaborative novel, and fun to read!

2) The Keeper can PM at will, without anyone knowing. No limits to the amount of stuff going on behind the scenes!

3) People can split up without a problem. No players are left waiting around while the Keeper deals with one group. (There's still the problem of players knowing what the other group is up to, but I suppose you could put each group in a seperate, locked Thread or something?)

The only problem I can see is if people stop posting, etc. Hopefully this one continues for a while!

[Decrepit]

I wouldn't worry *too* much about a lack of posts. Every time I turn around, there's practically a entire new page up. Does anyone sleep around here?

Being in different parts of the world helps with that, I'm sure.

[Grafster]

Posting... so... quickly... can't... keep... up...

Good to see everyone is getting into character so quickly.

[Grafster]

3) People can split up without a problem. No players are left waiting around while the Keeper deals with one group. (There's still the problem of players knowing what the other group is up to, but I suppose you could put each group in a seperate, locked Thread or something?)

This would be interesting. I much prefer playing "in the dark". (i.e. having someone leave the room if their character isn't around). Most of the 'net games I've seen are more of an open style though.

Though a good player can change their actions for some good ironic effect. In other words it's easier for them to announce "I've known Doctor Tratoirstein for years. As a man of honor I am sure he would never betray us." At a cinematically appropriate time -after- you know OOC that he's betraying you.

[thewhatchamacallit]

I agree with everything above

Now to a serious question- How do we roll skills?

How do you know my brother isn't cheating?

(and most importantly) How do you know the Russians aren't really invading NYC enmasse?

[Raiko]

3) People can split up without a problem. No players are left waiting around while the Keeper deals with one group. (There's still the problem of players knowing what the other group is up to, but I suppose you could put each group in a seperate, locked Thread or something?)

This would be interesting. I much prefer playing "in the dark". (i.e. having someone leave the room if their character isn't around). Most of the 'net games I've seen are more of an open style though.

Though a good player can change their actions for some good ironic effect. In other words it's easier for them to announce "I've known Doctor Tratoirstein for years. As a man of honor I am sure he would never betray us." At a cinematically appropriate time -after- you know OOC that he's betraying you.

I’ll mostly handle characters splitting up by just tracking them separately in the main IC threads, I’ll always include my blue and green location and time stamps in my posts, so I can post responses to several groups of characters in the same thread, and you can easily see which part is for your character. I’ve done things that way in my Mountains of Madness campaign and it seems to be working well.

Having said that if the split in the party involves dangerous activities for one group I would be willing to start a separate thread to track this, the example one group could be posting in the main “New York” IC thread, while a second group post in a special “Temple of Cthulhu” thread. This would have to rely on an honesty system though as I want to keep all the threads public for the benefit of anyone who’s reading the campaign.

This is really up to you guys though, I’m happy just to keep all posts in the same thread, at least you can read what the others are doing if your character is inactive. Keeping all posts in the same thread also allows you to co-ordinate your own character’s timeline in sync with the others, such as the twins “crashing the party.” That was very well done with zero input from me, whereas with separate threads time management has to be completely handled by me.

So to be honest I prefer to stick to one main thread per “chapter” without any “special threads,” but I’ll go with what you guys want.

I agree with everything above

Now to a serious question- How do we roll skills?

How do you know my brother isn't cheating?

(and most importantly) How do you know the Russians aren't really invading NYC enmasse?

For “public dice rolls” I’ll be using Invisible Castle, it tracks all dice throws by character name, and remembers them forever.

Your dice rolls will be stored on there as [MON] followed by your character’s given name, eg [MON]Elizabeth, I’ll then include a hyperlink to the relevant dice throw in my post.

I haven’t made any throws yet for this game, so there aren’t any to search for. I’ve used invisible castle for the dice rolling for my BtMoM game and it works fine (except I can’t access Invisible Castle from work).

For “secret rolls” I’ll roll them myself, and keep a record of them all for “skill check” purposes. Successful rolls will be posted in the OOC thread, failed rolls will probably remain secret.

I’m going to post some “guidelines” in a separate thread shortly that detail this, as well as how I’ll handle combat, etc.

Oh, and we know that there isn't a secret Russian invasion of NY, because Nyarlathotep won't stand for any rivals.

[imme]

I prefer being able to watch what separate groups are up to. In the same way that people just have to be trusted not to look up the "secret" rolls, players should be trusted to not give their characters knowledge they don't have. PMs provide an excellent means for sneakiness and "surprise! I've actually been a cultist for three chapters now!"

Also, the skill checks, how are you keeping track of those, Raiko? Should we be marking them on our character sheets or leave you to record them?

[Raiko]

I prefer being able to watch what separate groups are up to. In the same way that people just have to be trusted not to look up the "secret" rolls, players should be trusted to not give their characters knowledge they don't have. PMs provide an excellent means for sneakiness and "surprise! I've actually been a cultist for three chapters now!"

I agree, I’ve been enjoying reading all of your posts, so I don’t think that you should be deprived (spelt correctly this time ) of reading any of them.

Also, the skill checks, how are you keeping track of those, Raiko? Should we be marking them on our character sheets or leave you to record them?

I’ll mark the relevant skill in red on the character sheet, you’ll usually find out about successful secret rolls anyway. Also all the dice throws on Invisible Castle will be in this style:

[MON]Elizabeth || Chapter 1 – Credit Rating(75%) – Book a table at the Ritz || 1d100 = 64

So it’s easy for me to double check my record of successful rolls at the end of each chapter.

[thewhatchamacallit]

Just read through the General Campaign Information. Eep

[Laraqua]

Hope you don't mind me rolling for myself at that one point. I just assumed that since Caroline had written up how she felt, it'd be simpler for me to just make a roll, see if my character was clever or not (and he wasn't), and then go from there. Is it best to do it like that amongst PCs? Or should we just intuit what we are likely to assume judging on our skills and personality dispositions? Or should we PM you, have you make the roll, wait for you to get back to us and then post - which might mean the conversation is interrupted during the meanwhile by others posting?

[Raiko]

Hope you don't mind me rolling for myself at that one point. I just assumed that since Caroline had written up how she felt, it'd be simpler for me to just make a roll, see if my character was clever or not (and he wasn't), and then go from there. Is it best to do it like that amongst PCs? Or should we just intuit what we are likely to assume judging on our skills and personality dispositions? Or should we PM you, have you make the roll, wait for you to get back to us and then post - which might mean the conversation is interrupted during the meanwhile by others posting?

I’ve got no problem with you making your own rolls to help with a post like that, so long as it’s amongst PCs. As you say it’s better than waiting for me to get back to you, especially as I can’t roll on invisible castle from work.

I’d prefer you not to make your own rolls if you’re dealing with NPC’s so that I can decide whether to make a public or a secret roll, and obviously you would need to wait for my reply in an interaction with an NPC so it wouldn’t speed the game up, but you seem to understand that anyway.

Of course if you want to make a secret roll against another PC then just PM me.