DreamLyrics™ Play-by-Post Forums Hall of Fame - Latest Top 10 completed games LMP: Lost Mines of Phandelver OOC: Resources

Yup, prioritizing Gundren is top of the agenda.

I think the question was whether or not there were other options for finding clues to Gundren, besides the Druid. If not, then yes, Druid would be best choice. I am not sure we've explored all of our options in town yet.

Iirc the only other option was the wander the hills, hope we wander into orc bandits, can defeat them without killing them all, and persuade a captive to lead us to Gundren, assuming he knows.

Thundertree and the Druid seemed like a more reliable bet.

AJ/Neptune - I will not have time to refresh Jaliera's memories and look back over the old threads until Sunday at the earliest. Work is manic ATM. Sorry.

Gypsy/AJ,
I am all for the discussion but was going to put a cap on it so that we can move forward with the game. I happen to be rather passionate about the subject and am interested in the discussion.

And I've been snickering to myself about alignments.
Chandan - Neutral Good
Jaliera - Neutral
Kriv - Lawful Evil

If asked, it feels like:

Chandan - Chaotic Neutral
Jaliera - Neutral Good
Kriv - Lawful Neutral

But I'm alright with how it's going because I've always felt that picking an alignment before the game starts is somewhat limiting when it comes to character development. As a player I usually want to feel out a game before picking an alignment niche.

Back to the matter at hand. Maybe I should create another thread for the Kriv-Jaliera discussion? This way I can proceed with the game and you can take your time to flesh out the discussion. What do you think?

Rest assured, Kriv is definitely evil. There's no charity, compassion, forgiveness or kindness anywhere to be found in his side of the dialogue. Although it is quite entertaining just how much he and Chandan have emerged as polar opposites, with Jaleira trying to find a point of balance between them.

Ongoing discussion to one side to let the game carry on is fine, I apologise for monopolizing things a bit.

No worries. This topic is very interesting to me. For the longest time I've mulled over running an overly moral politically-correct game. It would have raised the point that Killing ANYONE would be a crime, even if the person that was killed had been murderers. That's much like today's society where cops come under fire for shooting someone they thought was threatening. It always seemed curious that wanton killing is accepted in the game.

I'm OK with moving the main thread forward.

And yes, enjoying the discussion just very busy!

And alignments are open to interpretation. NGs don't for example stand by whilst prisoners are threatened/tortured for information.. at least IMO

I think Nep's point is that Jaliera isn't NG. She is N, but playing as NG.

<shrug> I don't see it that way

Gypsy,
It's OK and just was my observation. Alignments are very subjective and there's a blurred border between differing alignments. I once had a "Lawful Good" player tell me that her character owned slaves. Slavery, IMO, is evil or neutral at best. So it's all subjective.

I suspect there's relativity at play here. Jaliera isn't good, but she's considerably more good than Kriv. Kriv in turn is leaning heavily on the lawful aspect of his personality in this discussion because that's where Chandan's actions have earned the most ire: He hasn't done anything blatantly and obviously good, but he's certainly been extremely chaotic.

Chandan and Kriv are like Riggs and Murtaugh. They just need to crash a few cars and jump off some buildings together and they'll be best buddies.

I'm really enjoying the discussion too, since it's one of the things I've found most perculiar about the character. Neutral Good.

I interpret that as someone whose primary motivator is "Good", with Law or Chaos being a bit irrelevant. I think of it as being like Batman, but with more of a sense of responsibility for his actions. (I mean, how many innocent people have died because Batman keeps letting the Joker live? Yet Bats just never learns, he's almost complicit!)

I don't know whether I read the situation with the slavers correctly, but I'd just watched A Walk Amongst the Tombstones so decided the kidnappers must be very very bad people.

Reasoning behind surrender to goblins? Criminy! Was a while ago, but iirc the idea was to tie-up the 3 goblins by surrendering, thus drawing them away from the fight. I think he was at the back of the marching order, so couldn't climb up the chimney to join the battle with the bugbear unless the PCs at the top got bopped on the head. Something like that.

There are good and valid reasons for everything, and above all else, how you play Chandan is sacrosanct: Your character, your call. Kriv does not however like, respect, believe or trust him on the basis of witnessing his actions.

A better comparison would be Ian Duncan Smith and Banksy, a rich man born to privilege who applies the rules to everyone else no matter how much that hurts them despite his own sometimes questionable morality, up against a maverick impossible to pin down artist with a social conscience.

That, or Javert and Jean Valjean.

Hah yes, LMP = Les Mis: Phandelin? We have to make it happen! Kriv can't go throwing himself off a bridge yet though, we need his maul.

Imo it's good to have some inter-party conflict. (Political parties would probably disagree.) It creates drama and sometimes is thematically necessary.

Like in the Aliens game I ran, it was really necessary for the cohesion of the PCs to fray and come apart when the crisis hit. Wolf's grease monkey, Hunter, was disobeying Art in the Blood's commanding officer Salandra, and the sensible one, MikeD's science officer, Tomich, was largely ignored. Ah fun times! But of course, the films would've been extremely boring if the characters all kept their heads and worked seamlessly together.

No, they =ALWAYS= ignore the expert warning them that they were all gonna die horribly, don't they, Neil <sigh> But then again, where would the fun be in that?? <chuckle>

That really was 'fun times' and ... as much as I miss the game, I am glad we didn't get bogged down <g>

We already had the 'Throw self off a bridge' scene thanks to the Nothic.

It's that curtain of chainsaws again, Mike.

And huh, true, that was Karok right? Threw himself off a bridge, left without a song.

Anyway, I think we cna safely say that Kriv would be more of a Norm Lewis than a Russell Crowe, and the role would be in good hands.

Absolutely. That was such an 'iconic' image ... especially for a commercial <g>

Does that make the great Alfie Boe our Chandan Valchandan?

For me, John Owen-Jones is the best so he'd be my pick for Chan Valdan.

FYI everyone, Zeim is swamped at work and said he can't post for a few days.

Tomorrow.

No worries. We will be here when he has time.

Yup ... take your time ... RL comes first ... for =some= reason <weg>