3-26-17 Updates

Put up most of the Race & Subrace stuff as well as a bunch of History.  Will be cleaning things up and adding the last two session Adventure Journals over the next week.  Got a few off-brand GoPro type cameras and will be playing around with those, but we probably won’t be recording sessions any  time soon (still need mics, decent software, and a PC to run it all on).  Next Game Night is scheduled for Sunday 4/2/17, but there’s a lot going on around here so that’s tentative.  Comments, Questions, or Suggestions?

1-26-17 Recap

Another fun time.  Got to the Dungeon Crawl part of Episode 4; will probably wrap it up next session (shooting for Sunday March 5th; food plan is probably order-out Chinese or Tacos).  Moira took an insane amount of notes, like a freakin’ court stenographer, so the Synopsis should be up to date on the Adventure Journal page tonight or tomorrow, which means I can finally start adding the really sexy stuff to the Realm section.  Player sections all have Character Sheets besides Alena, and those are mostly accurate, except I forgot to add a blurb about Moira’s steed.  Even though they’ve been MIA for awhile, I’m going to put up some temporary sheets for Yoshy & The Samurai Guy, boosted to Level 4 with what I *think* they’d want, but they’re not getting any more freebie Xp than that until they actually show up or get used as NPC’s.  To the two Players in question: you’re always welcome at the table; don’t ever feel like you’ve “missed too much” to join back in at any time.

Volg is an interesting specimen.  We’re keeping the Merciful Healer Archetype for now, but I’m considering letting him retcon it if he doesn’t like it, since it seems like he didn’t realize all that it entailed.  Of course, I *could* just say it is what it is, and use this as an opportunity to introduce the function of the Lethe Lotus, since that’s a thing that’s now part of the ongoing story.  We’ll figure that out as we go.

Still haven’t finished tinkering with the other sites yet.  The Meadhall is entirely in the hands of another Busy-Body Family Guy; no timetable there.  I’ll talk to fellow Horseman tonight at the Super Bowl party about what he wants to do with our personal playground.

I’m thinking of using the Silent Paths site as a sort of memorial; how it all started, the college years, the struggle through all the revisions (whether personal decisions or forced because of new game editions), what it could be and why it probably won’t be much of anything.  Not sure how much content will wind up “free” or public, but there will be some.  I’d still like to eventually run campaigns in it, and will undoubtedly write some kind of fiction set in that world, but aspirations for publishing it as a commercial game line are admittedly unrealistic at the moment.  Still haven’t heard anything from my old co-conspirator on that front.  Hey, Mr. M: if you’re reading this, drop me a line.  It’s been FOREVER man.

Anyway, hope everyone has a great month.  Feel free to post suggestions, questions, & general comments.

Happy Birthday & Safe Journey to “You-Know-Who-You-Are.”

~Excelsior!

WOTC Shuts Down Forums

I recieved an e-mail from WoTC with this text body, which I guess is old news already:

Choosing to retire a former foundation of our community was not an easy decision, but we feel that we must adjust our communications structure to reflect where conversations about Wizards of the Coast games are taking place.

Social media has changed significantly over the last ten years, and discussions about games aren’t exclusive to company-hosted forums. The majority of community conversation takes place on third-party websites (such as Reddit, Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, and many other fantastic community-run websites), and it is up to us to evolve alongside our players.

We encourage past and current users to retrieve any information you want to retain from the Community Forums for both Dungeons & Dragons and Magic: The Gathering. The shutdown will occur on October 29, 2015, at 10:00 a.m. PT. We want to provide enough time for our forum members to move their content, and we recognize that given our forum’s vibrant user base and extensive history, this may take time. Any information still on the forums on the cut-off date will be deleted.

Thank you to all of our past and current forum users. You helped build our community into what it is now, and we look forward to continuing to interact with you on our many active social platforms.

There’s also a footer in the e-mail with links to temporary emergency backup files & forums if I wanted to grab any content before it vanishes forever into the void.

So… what does this really mean? Is this an indicator that Wizards isn’t making Hasbro the kind of money it wants? Is this just another example of a global company (like McDonald’s did recently with thier China deal) outsourcing most of its product/content development to third parties, slashing staff, & relying on their name to simply generate income?  Posters at Quora.com seem to think it’s a budget thing, such as the tech needing updates that are too costly.  I wonder how successful 5e has really been, or if the profit they generate really has anything to do with it (regardless of how much money they are making, not spending any money on their community is still more money for the suits).

I rarely used the forums except to find an answer to an obscure FAQ, or once in a blue moon to check out build ideas for classes that I was unfamiliar with.  Even when I did the responses were typical RPG community garbage (dozens of “well in my campaign…”), maybe getting 1 or 2 legit moderator or regular user posts to clarify anything.  We’ve been a Pathfinder troupe for years now, so I can’t say I’ll be affected by this, but it is troubling to hear about major players in the industry cutting off one of their most prominent player resources.

This basically means reddit.com and various fan-run wiki’s will be the only places for long-format or downloadable resources… I mean, can you imagine what kind of format mess trying to use Facebook to talk about anything game related would look like?  Or Twitter? or Tumblr?  And if it is fan run, powered not by money and obligation-to-accuracy (aka someone’s job), but powered by love and rainbows and gingerbread, then you’re going to see a thousand answers to your question, “What racial modifiers do Lizardfolk get as a PC race?” that all start with, “Well, in my campaign…”

Undoubtedly, this is a Hasbro decision.  I just can’t see anyone at Wizards, as lame or greedy as they have become, thinking this is a progressive move.

1-9-2017 Recap

Had a lot of fun last night.  The party has launched into Episode 4 (which might be a longer one, 2-3 sessions probably, complete with a classic dungeon crawl).  Testing out the “Posts” function, which is different from making new “Pages.”

We’re hoping to do this again Thursday January 26th, joined by the mighty Volg Gravelheart.

I’ll be farting around with the site throughout the day, cleaning up the “skeleton” outline look and dropping images and icons around.  I’m also going to focus on the Players pages, getting a Pathfinder Character Sheet pdf I can manipulate for each PC and throwing those up. Those of you who wrote backstories, let me know if you want all of it posted, or an abridged version omitting personal details you don’t want the rest of the party to know (although we’re mostly experienced role-players here who can game unbiased by out-of-character information, I guess).

Oz has brought up the issue of using more homemade stuff as opposed to copyright images in case we weaponize… I mean monetize the site.  It probably won’t be an issue while it’s just us friends doing a fun thing, but something to think about for the future.

Still a long way off from setting up mics and turning our game sessions into podcasts & YouTube videos, but that is a thing we’d like to do eventually.  I’ve already snagged the YouTube & Twitter real estate.

Anyway, anyone without a WordPress account, I suggest getting one, or doing whatever it is one has to do to post Comments here on the site.  So that you can.  I haven’t figured out how to get a “Gravitar” or whatever it’s called for visual icons attached to your handle, but I’m sure it’s pretty easy.

Anyone have suggestions for the site? For the game itself?  If you don’t mind, as a general rule, let’s stick to using Character names or Internet Handles/Nicknames when referring to Real Life People;  I don’t care if you link to your own Facebook or whatever, but let’s try to keep at least a passive level of anonymity to avoid cyber stalkers.  Because unfortunately, they are a real thing.

Once again, had a lot of fun.  Thanks to everyone for coming over!

~Excelsior!