Gert is till the Heir. It doesn't mean she'll get any special bonus or anything, it's mostly a device to get you all deeper involved with the adventure.

Your sheets are mostly done, it's mostly equipment and useful items left for most.

To sum this all up, feel free to object if you don't agree, I'm taking liberties to add ideas:

Gert Wayward, Ranger of the North, Captain. Was abandoned in Bree and eventually adopted by an elderly couple that didn't have any children of their own. In her early tweens, for whatever reason, the rangers took her under their wings, showing her the way of the land. Gert herself isn't really sure of why they've taken her in.

Larry Oakenheart, Man of Bree, Treasure Hunter. Larry grew up in Bree and, mostly due to his curious nature, knows its every nook and cranny. His family, the Oakenhearts, are reputable and close friends with the Reeve but since their craft hall in Combe was pillaged and burned they're suffering hard times. Larry is childhood friends with Perry and together they've explored places most breelanders haven't seen.

Milton Mudbottom, Hobbit of the Shire, Messenger. Milton goes to and fro delivering messages all over the Shire, Archet, Comb and Staddle as well as Bree itself. He is well known to the rangers and deliver messages for them. It's often a grand spectacle when Milton arrives in Bree to tell news in the Prancing Pony.

Nor, Dwarf of Balins Folk, Warden. Five years ago he was part of a a supply caravan headed for the Blue Mountains but saw the plight of the breelanders and decided to stay on rather than continue the path of a merchant. Nor is often travelling with Gert and whatever ranger company she keeps, patrolling the borders of Bree and Combe.

Perry Foxglove, Man of Bree, Scholar. Perry is nephew to the notoriously cantankerous Oswald Breeker, the largest landowner in the valley of Combe. Oswald has a vast library of ancient books and tomes in his estate which Perry, on sufferance, have access to. Childhood friends with Larry.

Looks good to me.

Hey Perry!

Im excited.  This _is_ my excited face.

Looks good to me too! I've had a little bit of writer's block with my background details. I have in mind what I want, but I've yet to squeeze the pencil hard enough to get it out. Sometimes I just like to start and fill in details as they come up. Schrodinger's Backstory kinda thing I suppose. Anyway, I'll dedicate some brain cycles to it today.

One thought I had was that even though the crowd at the Floating Log loves Milton's stories, he's a little shy about telling them until coerced enough. It's almost like a game to the patrons of how to get him to spin the tales...
This message was last edited by the player at 15:34, Wed 10 Jan.

In reply to Milton Mudbottom of Frogmorton (msg # 82):

It's fine, we can make things up as we go. I think we have enough for now.

In preparation to start the game I'm setting up a number of threads with useful information. I understand some (several?) of you are familiar with the 1st edition rules. Some rules in the 2nd edition differ more than others so I'm posting the most useful ones here for your reference. The list might grow during play.

I'd like your opinion on something. Here on Rpol there's sort of a standard to separate IC and OOC text in posts, to maximize immersion I suppose. The OOC text is usually in a differing format than the IC text. I've grown more and more hesitant regarding the benefit of this. We're not writing novels here after all, we're playing a game. Would you all be terrible averse if we just skip that convention and mix IC and OOC text, without any particular text formatting? To me it would be more like how it is around a real life table with the back-and-forth, quick questions and so on. Text formatting is a pain on this site as well, especially when trying to post using the mobile.

Most definitely would be averse. Without some sort of agreed-upon indicator, how are we to know where either begins or ends? I have always handled OOC text as I would footnotes, separated from the main body of a post by a hard rule (<hr>), smaller in size (<small></small>), and colored (orange being typical).

---

OOC: Exempli gratia.

Fine by me.  I often use the mobile, and it's a total pain.  I think if you just use brackets or something, tilde? we'll all clue in pretty fast.

Nor grabs the Horn of Plenty, saying "It _is_ good!" and then blows [Awe is 3, and I use a hope off that, +1d].

That's kind of my point, why does it matter? But I'm understanding that some want it like that.


I like this, maybe there's a compromise to be had.

Why does it matter if we can't tell where OOC text starts and ends? BECAUSE IT'S FUCKING OOC TEXT AND SHOULDN'T BE CONFUSED FOR IC TEXT. Would think making stuff easier to follow would be a bonus when reading on a smaller screen. Formatting is a breeze, just learn to do it long-hand... <Orange><small>OOC: Gosh, I had to type the tags in manually. I'm gonna die!</small></Orange>

oh wow. deep breath.

Gonna assume that's it for me. Please don't use my character. I've deleted all her details.

And thus we see yet another One Ring game begin to unravel...

A bout of Shadow Madness? Lol, PbP always amplifies things. Don't upend the table, I was about to agree with you Gert!

Anywho...

I personally like the separation of IC and OOC, and I prefer formatting the difference. I also understand what a pain it can be to format on a phone. What I usually do when I post from my phone is just label the OOC stuff and return and format it later.

~
OOC: Like this.
~

I also like brevity in OOC and rolls, but effort put into the IC meat of the post. Especially for a game based on the writings of the good Professor.

I'm not going to be bothered by what others want to do, I'll probably just do things the way I do in all my other games unless it really bothers someone.

I suppose we should probably address the language issue. I'd prefer to keep IC language at a Tolkien rated level, and OOC similar. Sometimes my wife or kids like to read over my shoulder.

Anything else that bothers anyone?

I agree on language.  No need for it in this setting, and personal or personal-adjacent attacks are absolutely uncalled for here.

Oh, going to be honest here, just went to put the kids to bed and absolutely didn't expect this to have happened.

I still think separation of OOC and IC text is something of a holy cow and brings us further from how games are played at the table but it's not a dealbreaker for me. As I replied to Nors' suggestion, might there be a compromise to be had? If most of you say not then fair enough, I'll keep on trucking 'cause this is our game here, together. And it's not gonna unravel until I've at least got to give you some shadow Points?


I'm more curious why you react so violently? I'm not out to force anything on anyone, I was hoping to bring something up that I've thought about and might -in the long run- counteract player attrition and (for me personally at least) GM burnout. In my other games I spend a lot of time marking up text and it's not something I enjoy.

I'm fine if you want to try something different. Do it the way you like, and if anyone has time and energy to format differently, then all the better! If the default is simple, and keeps the wheels on the wagon, then anything fancier is gravy in my way of thinking.

One other thought might be if we used Third Person Past for IC, and Present tense for OOC, then it might make unformatted text easier to differentiate?

Play-by-post is not intended to be like games are played at the table. You have chat-based gaming for that, and platforms like Roll20 and The Foundry. Play-by-post is deliberately slower in pace so we can consider our responses and write better posts. It's far more literary in character than face-to-face play on- or offline.

The summaries and whatnot and posting format are fine with me.

All right, no one is getting any joy out of this conversation so let's end it here. Gert, do you intend to leave the game? If not I'll need to know you'll keep this kind of outburst on your side of the screen. An apology for calling me lazy and stupid would be nice. I don't mind a heated debate but there's limits.

Also if the rest of you are comfortable with it? You can PM me if you don't want to talk about it here.

So this is the last we'll speak of this in this thread after you all have had a chance to reply. I'm going to archive it, start a new OOC thread and the first IC thread today or tomorrow. I'll make an example post regarding my ideas for posting format and we'll take it from there.

Don't know if you noticed but I did a Tale of Years thread where I noted that we've finished our first session so go ahead and add 3 skill and 3 adventure points.

Im fine with whatever format.  Im certain that I can tell the difference between IC and OC text no matter the color.

I did see the points! I'm not 100% sure about the adventure points though.  Only for virtue or wisdom?

I'm happy to go with the majority on OOC formatting etc.

I'm good to go on. Thanks for the points!

Virtue, Wisdom, and weapons proficiencies.

I'm sticking around. Apologies to one and all for my outburst, and thank you to our Loremaster for their forebearance.

Very well then, Tolkien level language in and out of character it is for one and all. I'll close this thread then.

Oh, if you haven't - make sure you got all your stuff accounted for in your sheets before we set off for real.