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WotL OOC Thread IV

This 2E Dragonlance game is set in the city of Haven, during the War of the Lance. Haven is a city undergoing great upheaval. First massive numbers of refugees pour in, then the city is conquered by a draconic army. Can our heroes survive under this dark occupation?

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Re: WotL OOC Thread IV

Post by Haahque »

Sure; he'll follow them for now. Running low on -well everything- but especially invisiblity right now. Going with the party seems like a less dangerous prospect then wading through a crowd of draconians
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Re: WotL OOC Thread IV

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Okay, that's chapter 16...and the game. I hope everyone enjoyed the past five years. It was quite a ride.
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Re: WotL OOC Thread IV

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JadedDM wrote: Kendra, Gobax and Haahqae hurry down after Fiona, into the darkness of the cellar. Fortunately, the basement is still largely intact and they are able to make their way around debris to reach the bathroom area, and delve back into the sewers. By the time the draconians are able to follow, they are long gone. Fiona, the only surviving member of the resistance from that group, knows the sewers well enough to get them to a safe place to rest.

From that point on, things are not easy, but the resistance also has more success than it ever has. The four of them manage to eventually make contact with the rest of the resistance that was taken to safety by Coroccoco and Arulia. And bring in many more members as things in the city fall apart.

With Tethys and Magnus dead, the high priestess steps in to fill the power vacuum. But running the church and the city at the same time is a strain. What's more, when word gets out that the resistance not only killed the prefect, but took down his adult red dragon mount, as well, it significantly bolstered the people's resolve. Those who had given up hope entirely suddenly found themselves hopeful once again. After all, if a handful of people could kill a dragon that big, is there anything that is impossible? The resistance's ranks swelled, and there were plenty of people who would offer aid and shelter and supplies, even if they wouldn't outright join.

The next two months went poorly for the occupation. The high priestess tried to rein things in and get them under control, but she failed. The resistance was still no match for an army, but they chipped away at the occupation, bit by bit. Not destroying them, but hassling them, slowing things down, and overall making things more difficult for them.

News eventually reached the city, despite the occupation's attempts to suppress it, that things were not going well for the Dragonarmies in the war, either. The Whitestone Army, a joint effort of Solamnics, Ergothians, Qualinesti, Silvanesti, Hill Dwarves and Kender among others, led by the Golden General, Princess Laurana of the Qualinesti, managed to drive the Dragonarmy from Solamnia altogether. They wielded the legendary Dragonlances and rode upon dragons themselves. But these dragons were metallic--gold, silver, copper, brass and bronze.

By spring time, after the snows had melted, word had come in from Neraka from the Emperor himself. All forces were to fall back to Neraka to protect it. And thus did the occupation end, not with a massive battle, but with the Dragonarmy forces just up and leaving on their own.

Once again, the city of Haven was free. But it would be a long time before things were rebuilt. The Temple of Takhisis was torn down and in its place was built a Temple of Paladine. A new mayor was elected, and after a few years, things finally started getting back to normal.

As for the heroes who slew the prefect and his dragon...

Haahqae was not much for interacting with others, but his ability to turn invisible and cause distractions made him invaluable on the many small missions the resistance implemented against the occupation. When the occupation came to an end, he naturally gave all credit to himself. When the people of Haven neglected to build a statue in his honor in the market square, he decided he had enough of Haven anyway. With the army gone and the roads clear again, he packed up and left the city. Nobody is quite sure where he went or what became of him, for he never returned to Haven again.

Kendra's knowledge of the occupation's inner workings, as well as her skill as a warrior, proved quite useful to the resistance's efforts. But when the occupation was over, she found herself not feeling like she belonged. While the people of Haven were, more or less, willing to forgive the horrible things she did in light of her more recent acts...she couldn't help but feel a wide gulf between herself and the people. There were always going to be whispers and rumors of her marriage to a draconian, among other things. Eventually, she decided to pack her things and head north, toward Solamnia. It was her hope to help fight in the Whitestone Army, and perhaps one day redeem herself in the eyes of her family and her people.

Gobax found himself in a difficult situation. His efforts to aid the resistance was met with mixed reactions, as people's memories of the attacks on the market square were still fresh. The goblin found it challenging to overcome the fear and hatred that his mentor had inflicted onto innocent people in the name of freedom. When the war ended, he remained in the city for awhile, trying to build up some followers for Sirrion. He managed to recruit a handful of loyal disciples, and together they departed from the city to spread the word of the Flowing Flame to whoever would listen.

Tulbas was the final scion of House Erogund, and with his death, so too, does a family line end. His uncle's mageware shop eventually is sold to a White Robed Wizard and remained in business for many years to come. There was nothing left of Tulbas; whatever ashes remained were scattered during the dragon fight. But a small tombstone was set up next to his uncle's in the cemetery nonetheless.

Haven only knew peace for decades to come, and grew in prosperity. But that is another story, for another time...
:blob2: Claps! (in the emoji is Tulbas clapping while his butt is on the dragon fire...)

I want to say that all in all in was a pleasure to play with you all.
Jaded - Very good plot and story telling.
Guys - you added a lot of spice to the story.

Jaded again - waiting to see what you hide in your sleeve for us next...
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Re: WotL OOC Thread IV

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Thanks, BishGada. This has been my longest game yet. Heck, that last chapter nearly took a year in itself. It was probably one of my most theme-driven games ever. I wasn't sure how it was going to end, but I didn't think you'd all actually defeat the dragon. So I guess that means you got the Good ending, which is pretty impressive considering how bleak the game was in general. So congratulations on that.
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Re: WotL OOC Thread IV

Post by TristenC »

I really enjoyed the game and appreciate the work you put into the concept, story, characters and all those little extra bits that gave it more spice (like the reputation index for facrions and dieties).
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Re: WotL OOC Thread IV

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Thanks, Tristen. The faction system, in particular, is going to play an even bigger role in my next Dragonlance game.

The divine favor system needs a bit of tweaking still, I think. A problem I ran into with it is that there is a lot of overlap among the gods, and it can be difficult to figure out who should favor what. Like, if a character sees an innocent being bullied by a ruffian and they intervene, should they earn favor from Paladine for standing up against evil? Or Mishakal for showing compassion? Or Kiri-Jolith for fighting for the weak? And so on.
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Re: WotL OOC Thread IV

Post by Haahque »

Well the game has certainly been a roller coaster. And I’m glad I was able to experience it. Here’s some things about this game and me:
This game was in a lot of ways an experiment for me. This was my first time seriously playing 2nd edition (not counting computer games). This was my first game ever playing a gnome, and I think it was one of (if not my first) play by post games. And it was my first real (non computer) game set in an established campaign setting. (Typically my groups use homebrew settings). On top of all that, I was (and sort of still am) pretty inexperienced playing a caster in any edition prior to 4th edition. (In 4th ed, casters are vastly different and more similar to non-casters).

It has inspired me to join (and even run) a number of other play by post games on various websites. I’ve had a few experiences where players slow down posting and the game eventually seems to dry up, but I’ve had a few where players kept posting until the end. I haven’t (completed) any game of this magnitude (other than this one) via play-by-post yet. The longest (other) game I’ve completed is probably in the order of 2-3 of these chapters. This one seemed to just have the stamina to keep on going even when the posts per week count dropped. (I’m impressed).

I’ve enjoyed Haahqae’s character, so much so that in a short campaign I ran for my friends (in a custom made roleplaying system), I made the main villain a dedicated disciple of Haahqae, who had ascended into divinity (as he had been planning his whole live).
A little off topic; but Jaded did get me back into Dungeons and Dragons Online after a fairly extended break I took, and now I play it regularly to the point where I recently got my first completionist character. (Someone who’s got to level 20 with all classes at least once).

The bleak/dark turn sort of took me by surprise, turns out I didn’t research the game that much; just hopped in because a friend was joining it. But it certainly provided an unique experience, where I tried to twist any little thing I could find into an advantage so that Haahqae could try and get his goals back on track. Ascension is hard when you’re worried about having enough food to eat or your girlfriend being executed. It felt bad having the feeling of constantly losing and having things get more bleak chapter after chapter, but it did allow for some interesting opportunities, like putting on a show (how many games have that option as anywhere near optimal?) and preparing a heist on a well-guarded treasure vault.

I felt like the dragon fight devolved pretty quickly into a simple combat with not much in terms of player options or interesting choices, but just a game of luck with low probabilities. The exception being Haahqae’s interesting choice of if he should flee or continue to fight. Sort of a surprising turn around because…

I thought the prefect fight was pretty cool. There were lots of tools to play around with. Planning to go into the fight, ceilings to climb around in and baaz to try and turn to stone and drop on the boss. A cloud of gas to try and remove or traverse, line of sight issues to use to get good targets without making oneself a target, etc.

Re: Devines. This system didn’t really influence me much, partially because Haahqae had his own agenda with the divines which didn’t really involve winning over any of their favor. But what I can say is if an action is worthy of giving points to multiple divines, perhaps it should give a point to all of them?

I don’t think of divines as thinking “oh they did this charitable act just to garner favor with my rivals” unless they’re obviously aligned with the other gods/goddesses already. Each divine will judge each action on their own, and if an action is smiled upon by multiple, then that’s fine. A paladin of Paladine that stands up against evils such as bullying and robbery is likely going to be more in the favor of Mishakal for having compassion, then they are going to be in the favor of Hiddukel, as they’re less likely to be lying betraying and exploiting and more likely to be stopping folks from doing so.

If a character’s garnered the support of multiple similar gods this way, the petty divines may intervene through followers or dreams (or other methods) to try and gain the allegiance of the character for themselves only, before the other divines snatch up their allegiances for themselves.
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Re: WotL OOC Thread IV

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Haahque wrote:This was my first time seriously playing 2nd edition (not counting computer games).
Wow, what a first impression that must have been, considering not only how unconventional this game was, but also that I have house-ruled 2E to the point of almost being unrecognizable.
Haahque wrote: This one seemed to just have the stamina to keep on going even when the posts per week count dropped. (I’m impressed).
Thanks. If I've learned one thing about PBP games, is that pacing is everything. You have to keep things moving, or people will lose interest and stop posting. As long as you can keep some kind of momentum going, any other problem can eventually be overcome. But if that momentum stops for too long, the game's over and there's no coming back.
Haahque wrote:A little off topic; but Jaded did get me back into Dungeons and Dragons Online after a fairly extended break I took, and now I play it regularly to the point where I recently got my first completionist character.
I've been meaning to try and get back into DDO, too, but I've just been so busy with STO, CK2, NWN, and Pathfinder Kingmaker.
Haahque wrote:...but it did allow for some interesting opportunities, like putting on a show (how many games have that option as anywhere near optimal?) and preparing a heist on a well-guarded treasure vault.
The performance and the heist were some of the highlights of this game, in my opinion. That Haahqae even pulled off the heist was a surprise. The odds were stacked against him, but he still managed to do it.
Haahque wrote:I felt like the dragon fight devolved pretty quickly into a simple combat with not much in terms of player options or interesting choices, but just a game of luck with low probabilities.
Yeah, this is something I've been thinking about, as well. I've been dabbling in 5E, even running a game of it over at my site, and it's starting to really dawn on me how dull and non-dynamic 2E combat can be. There's not much room for strategy, aside from simple stuff like flanking or high ground. It mostly just boils down to just making attacks, again and again and again, until you win (or lose). Granted, the Inferno battle was sort of an extreme example of that.
Haahque wrote:But what I can say is if an action is worthy of giving points to multiple divines, perhaps it should give a point to all of them?
I was thinking along the same lines. I think I was overly cautious about giving out too much favor at once, but I might have overcompensated in the other direction, and wound up giving out so little favor that it really didn't have much impact on things.

Tristen having Gobax call out for divine intervention during the Inferno fight, which again is something I've never seen a player do before, got me thinking, too, about perhaps tying that in with favor. Like, maybe if you gather enough favor, you can cash it in for intervention. Turning in a little favor might give you a slight combat bonus or something, while turning in large amounts of it might cause a divine emissary or even an avatar to show up.

The gods are supposed to play a big role in Dragonlance, after all, and that might be a way to get them more directly involved without having them completely overshadow the PCs, since they only turn up when specifically called upon.
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Re: WotL OOC Thread IV

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Well, if there's nothing else, I'll go ahead and move this sub-forum into Completed Games in the next couple of days.
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