The P-Files (XandZero2's Game: Sign-up and OOC)

Sorry Cardbo, I didn't notice your question until today actually.

2 patients are badly beaten and bruised
2 patients are suffering from what seems to be psychological shock
1 patient is suffering from a lack of fluids - and that includes blood

BTW - Xel, you don't seem to be that big a fan of TLC.

Thanks Xand

@Xel
If you're going to help with the assist, I do know of one way. If you want the suggestion, let me know. If not, thats also cool.

I think more Gleeda just doesn't like how unprofessional TLC has been...

Me the player, found her silly. Just like how I think of Whisper, just cause my character doesn't like your NPC doesn't mean I don't like her.

Cardbo wrote:Thanks Xand

@Xel
If you're going to help with the assist, I do know of one way. If you want the suggestion, let me know. If not, thats also cool.

Oh yes... I'd love to know how to help assist... I was just about to post, but then I realized you had an idea how to help me... I'll take all the help I can get.

How's your persuasion? If you didn't have anything else in mind, you might be able to offer some inspiring words for either TLC or Coffee. More likely Coffee, as TLC has her ears covered now.

Has anyone seen Yawnmon around? He hasn't posted anything recently. Quick! Someone start a Pokemon discussion to lure back!

I know I PMed Yawn over Skype a couple weeks back, and he said he was really busy. I'm hoping he gets back to the campaign pretty soon, but if he's gone for too long we might have to start looking for a new fifth wheel.

I'm going to keep that option open, but with any luck it won't come to that. We'll just have to wait and see what's happens.

BTW guys, on a happier note, even if you're not big on the holiday..



HAPPY EASTER!!!

Spoiler:

@All
Ok, since I've revealed what the situation with those 2 patients, I've got a couple of questions.

1)Is a Psychonauts(Or Ar Tonelico, or Inception) style method of entering the minds of the two sleeping patients possible? How easy would be for Coffee to do this, with his skill?
2)Can I bring others along for the ride to help?
3)Would anyone be interested in coming along? Afterall, it'd be no fun if only a few ponies were in the dreamscape and the rest were outside not doing anything.

@Cardbo:

I would allow an Inception-esque dream entry if you want to go that route. You'd have to make a not-so-difficult History check to have knowledge of the ritual, along with a decent Arcana check to perform the ritual. You would be able to take others in with you too, and I'll get into that in more depth if you guys agree to go the dream-entry route.

I must admit, this idea does sound fun... Gleeda wont really enjoy it. But she does trust Coffee's skills, given how good he's been with mental magics so far.

I have a feeling Whisper will adapt well.

Did I stir up the hornets nest with my last post? That was meant to be funny, but considering how common 'falling' dreams are, I figured it'd probably be best to be prepared.

Well, its either going to be that, or we're all going to wind up back in High School during a test day, and we forgot to study.

I think we're just waiting on Xand to post somethin'

I sometime feel like I come across as little munchkinny, hence my concern and that last post of mine was a little out there.

given the dream realm we're in... It doesn't strike me as OP or anythin' like that.

I'd be surprised if he allowed it (at least on such a non-really high roll) but, I don't see any issue with making the attempt.

Yeah, I'm not to happy with the roll. He might allow non-functional wings. Or possibly functional wings at a stiff penalty.

Personally. I'd give you "swim" flight, where air is now water for you, so it's easy to fly, but near impossible to "land" and like have skill checks to move give you a -5 and junk.

Hey Cardbo,

*Before I start, I should note that below is a couple Skype posts that've been stitched and edited together, so they might seem familiar to Ramsus, DB, and Xel, but here goes...

Since you're not in the P-Files Chatroom on Skype, I thought I should let you know. Ramsus and I have been having a lot of trouble seeing eye-to-eye (ever since we started using Skype as a matter of fact). We've tried to get along but everything we've tried hasn't worked out too well, and considering recent events, I can't see myself continuing to play with Ramsus any longer. Well, Yawn is MIA and both DB and Xel have made it clear that they wouldn't want to continue playing without Ramsus in the game (and I can completely understand that, since Whisper was a great character). With that in mind, I think I'm just going to have to end the campaign right here

Originally, I started playing this game to have fun (because that's what I always thought a game was meant to do) and since I'm not having fun, I feel it's time to quit. I'm sorry that others have to suffer for an argument between Ramsus and myself, and I'll understand if you think poorly of me because of this. Whatever you may think of me however, I'd like to clarify that I am not ragequitting. That would imply that I wasn't in my right mind when I quit and that I did so on the spur of the moment - but in reality, I'm quitting after thinking long and hard about how this game has been stressing me out for no good reason. If I cut Ramsus then I cut the game, but if we were to continue the campaign with Ramsus, it wouldn't be the same. I wouldn't be able to enjoy things nearly as much if I was playing with someone who didn't respect me, and it would show in my GMing - I wouldn't feel nearly as creative or driven.

Therefore I'm sorry, but I just can't keep playing like nothing's happened. I agreed to continue running the P-Files earlier this week because I thought there was still hope that Ramsus and I could work things out. He's made it abundantly clear that that will not be the case, so this will be the end of the P-Files. I'll really miss playing this game, but I can't see going on like this.

Wow, what a shockingly biased viewpoint on events.

It's more like Xand harassed me until it was impossible for me to casually shrug it off. Then he started claiming he wanted to be friends and continued being a jerk even when I was giving him every opportunity to do the right things. As a note, what I made clear to Xand was that I couldn't say he was my friend. That's it. Which actually would have meant less arguing with him as I'd just tune him out. But apparently since he can't demand my friendship and respect while being a jerk to me, he's decided he can't continue to run the game.

It would have been too much to ask for that you'd learned anything and managed to take responsibility for your own actions instead of blame everything on me as usual.

Well, first off, I guess I'll respond to Ramsus' post - but I promise I'll be brief.

In my post on Sunday, it was not my intent to put all the blame for the game's end on Ramsus, and neither do I believe that's in any way what I did. My intent was to put the blame on both Ramsus and myself, because that's where I still think the blame should lie - with both of us. We wasted whole days at a time trying to work things out, but it never seemed to help all that much. It'd gotten so bad by the end that we were in a new fight over Skype every weekend of every week for the past month. It got very, very tiring - on both of us I think - but we never seemed to really make much progress, and in the end, I felt like we both could've done more.

That typed, a couple days passed since I ended the P-Files, and I'd already started to miss both it and another RP that I had been involved in with Ramsus. I approached Ramsus again on Skype, but to be honest, at that point I still wasn't planning on returning to either game. What I attempted to do was remove some of the bitterness left over from our final argument by offering Ramsus one last favor, editting a project he'd been working on (an RPG system he and theMatthew have called the Tier System). I'd originally agreed to help him with the project as a kind of peace offering after one of our past arguments, but had later refused to continue after we got into yet another of our arguments (when it seemed to me that my peace offering hadn't really helped). Well, now I intended to edit the document for Ramsus (something that would be shorter and sweeter than having to deal with him for an entire campaign), then end our antagonistic relationship on a slightly more positive note.

However, when I made my offer to edit his document, Ramsus said that he'd prefer I just continued running the P-Files instead. He said that he could avoid getting into more arguments in the future if he just held back his opinions, and he promised that we could get along.

Well, my major concern from the very beginning was really that I just wanted to be able to have fun in a game with a group of players that I enjoyed hanging out with. I felt that without those two things: fun and enjoyable players (basically = friends or friendship, at least in some sense of the word), why play in the first place? Both Ramsus and Xel have accused me in the past of trying to 'force' them to be my friends, but I don't believe that's something I ever did. I never asked them to 'fake' friendship or that the 'had' to be my friends. I just felt that without fun and friendship (-to some extent) there was no game. I also felt that because of the constant arguments between Ramsus and myself, the P-Files was losing both the fun and friendship that the game once had, at least for me (no offense DB, Xel, and Cardbo - you guys have been great for the most part - but one player can ruin an entire experience for me, and I didn't have the option of just kicking Ramsus and going on with the game).

When I first posted the Sign-up for the P-Files, I didn't hide the fact that I'm relatively new to GMing. In all the games that I'd ever been involved with before then, I'd never once disliked the players I was playing with. That did, admittedly, change after joining the PT forums, as I played in at least one other Pony RP where I disliked quite a few of the other players - but overall my RPing experiences had been extremely positive. I wasn't necessarily best friends with everyone I played with, but we were always able to have fun and enjoy ourselves. In other words, our relationships weren't so bad as to detract from the overall experience like the relationship between Ramsus and myself has been.

So going back to Ramsus asking me to restart the campaign and promising to avoid any more major confrontations, I had to think about it. Even if Ramsus still loathed me in reality, would it be okay if he treated me respectably over the net? Would that be enough to stop our issues from detracting from the gaming experience?

Well, I still don't know if it'll work out, but the bottom line is that I am willing to give it one last try.

So here's the thing guys - I am sorry for having ended the game. I know I must have bummed you all out. To what extent I'm not sure. Ramsus seems to think I hurt your feelings too, and if I did, I am also sorry about that. I didn't end the campaign because of anything you guys did (with the exeption of Xel, who did hurt my feelings a few times if I must be honest - but not nearly as much as Ramsus did). It's not fair that you guys had to suffer for something you didn't do, but being relatively new to GMing and finding myself in a difficult situation, I didn't see many options for how to solve the issues Ramsus and I are having. I still don't know if we'll be able to work things out, but like I said, I'm willing to give it one last try.

-That doesn't mean anything though if you guys aren't willing to continue, and after all that's happened, if that were the case, I'd completely understand. DB, Xel, Cardbo, and Yawn too if you're out there - again, I'm sorry you got caught between the crossfire of Ramsus and myself. If you don't want to continue the campaign I won't blame you, and even if you do want to continue, I won't sugarcoat it - this is our last chance to make things work. If Ramsus and I get into one more knockdown, drag-out fight, that will be the true end of things. The P-Files will be shut down for good. Ramsus asked that if we continue, I give everyone a warning when I feel things are about to get out of control, but really, all I can do is try in that regard. Usually our fights have started off innocently enough and then just blown up in our faces. The campaign would be a little shaky, at least for a while, and it might end at any time.

For what it's worth though, I would like to continue running The P-Files, if you'd like to continue playing.

If we did continue, I feel we would have to make some extra changes in our use of Skype too though. I feel that the issues Ramsus and I have with each other only really got started after we started using Skype, and I think we should rely much less on that program. As things were, I don't think it was fair to Cardbo to leave him out of so many of the discussions about the game that went on in Skype-chat, and in my eyes, Skype also has a tendency of tearing parties apart a lot more easily than a normal forum thread does, just because it leaves even more room for misinterpretation. If anything, I think Skype should only really be used to alert us of when someone makes a new post, or for quick questions. Otherwise we should probably keep discussions to this OOC thread - even goofball discussions like NPCs and their Pokemon typing. Cardbo strikes me as just as big a goofball as the rest of us - he shouldn't be left out.

-But with those changes, I think it would help our gaming group to get along a lot better... and I'd be more likely to check the OOC thread in a more reasonable amount of time too if anyone has a question, which is also a plus.

So to sum it all up, DB, Xel, Cardbo, and Yawn, again I ask you, would you guys be interested in giving the game one more shot? I leave it up to you.

I'm up for restarting and I am a pretty big goofball at that. I don't like using Skype myself, though thats pretty much because I can get really busy at work, and if I can't respond instantly, or even all day, I don't want anyone to think I'm snubbing them.

Personally, yeah, I'd love to return to this campaign. But... The problem is that what, are we going to just try restarting the whole campaign without Ramsus?

Hell, this whole post can easily make you seem to be wanting to avoid your own responsibility to your actions. And ignoring the facts that you and Ramsus seem to have EXTREMELY different viewpoints on actions. And both of you two don't wanta admit that eachother's views have merit. In fact I think you both keep blaming what you think the other thinks and refuses to hear what eachother view of their own actions.

So unless you can fix the damage between yourself and Ramsus, Xand. I don't think this campaign has any hope of returning...

Xel Unknown wrote:...are we going to just try restarting the whole campaign without Ramsus?

Nah. What I'm saying is that I intend to try working with Ramsus one last time, as he's basically agreed to keep his opinions to himself from what I understand.

Xel Unknown wrote:Hell, this whole post can easily make you seem to be wanting to avoid your own responsibility to your actions.

I stated many times in that post that I feel this is a problem with both of us - not just Ramsus - so I don't see why you're reading it as me trying to avoid my responsibilities. I accept responsibility for my actions. I was the one that chose to end the game. I just wanted to try to explain why I chose to do what I did.

Xel Unknown wrote:...And ignoring the facts that you and Ramsus seem to have EXTREMELY different viewpoints on actions. And both of you two don't wanta admit that each other's views have merit. In fact I think you both keep blaming what you think the other thinks and refuses to hear what each other view of their own actions.

I don't think it's that simple Xel. I believe that Ramsus and I both understand that we have very different viewpoints on our actions. The problem is that our viewpoints seem to go counter to one another. We're a lot alike in some ways and a lot different in others, and the combinations of similarities and differences in this instance make it very hard for us to see eye-to-eye.

Xel Unknown wrote:So unless you can fix the damage between yourself and Ramsus, Xand. I don't think this campaign has any hope of returning...

(Emphasis mine).

Xel, you make it sound like this is just my problem to fix, but I don't feel it's that simple. I feel that's something both Ramsus and myself have to work towards, and I'm not sure if that'll ever happen. It's hard to fix damage over the span of two days when it's been building up for months. In all honesty, this campaign might not have any hope of returning, and I already warned you of that much in my last post. We're still not standing on a solid foundation here. There's a distinct possibility that it won't work out. You want solid confirmation that Ramsus and I won't argue again, and I can't give you that.

On a more positive note though, this could be the first step to fixing the damage between Ramsus and myself. It at least seems like a better option to me than leaving things how they are, but it's up to you whether you agree with me. I'll understand if you don't.