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

You could just see if Xand would let you drop the prep times since you have It's Witchcraft and those both (saying that the IW DC to alter them would be so simple you didn't even need to roll).

Hey Cardbo,

From what I understand of the Mirage and Echo utilities, the benefit of having them is that you can make a mirage or echo without having to make an Arcana Check. They just are automatic successes so many times per day (and within reason). They take longer to create because they're auto success. I've been allowing you to use It's Witchcraft to create instant mirages and echoes with a successful check, but again, the difference btw IW and Mirage/Echo are DC vs. time restraints.

Ramsus brings up a good point about the utilities in tandem with It's Witchcraft though. Basically, what you could do is say, "I want to use It's Witchcraft to cast Mirage/Echo instantly!" In that case, I guess I might give you a minor check to make for it instead of a major one? For instance, maybe you'd have to roll a 15 instead of a 35.

If you still want to switch out your utilities for others though, that's fine too. Just let me know what you're getting to replace the old skills. AJoAT and TiW would be acceptable, as would FK: Illusions.

XandZero2 wrote:Hey Cardbo,

From what I understand of the Mirage and Echo utilities, the benefit of having them is that you can make a mirage or echo without having to make an Arcana Check. They just are automatic successes so many times per day (and within reason). They take longer to create because they're auto success. I've been allowing you to use It's Witchcraft to create instant mirages and echoes with a successful check, but again, the difference btw IW and Mirage/Echo are DC vs. time restraints.

Ramsus brings up a good point about the utilities in tandem with It's Witchcraft though. Basically, what you could do is say, "I want to use It's Witchcraft to cast Mirage/Echo instantly!" In that case, I guess I might give you a minor check to make for it instead of a major one? For instance, maybe you'd have to roll a 15 instead of a 35.

If you still want to switch out your utilities for others though, that's fine too. Just let me know what you're getting to replace the old skills. AJoAT and TiW would be acceptable, as would FK: Illusions.

Ok, thats really what I wanted to know, whether having Mirage and Echo changes the difficulty of Illusions cast. Since it does matter, I'll keep Mirage and Echo, then.

@Everypony:

It occurs to me that we never really discussed the ages of your characters before. Now, I know ponies age at a different rate from humans, but to keep things simple, let's just work with human years (these are magical ponies after all). I talked with Ramsus already, and he imagines Whisper to be 24. As far as a few NPC examples go, Indy Ploy is also 24 - while Excessive Force is 25. I'm thinking Black Beauty's probably around 25, the Mayor looks to be in his late 20s to early 30s, and Big Mike's probably in his 60's - seeing as he had time to retire from acting and set up shop in New Orreigns over a 12 year process.

Soooo... what do you guys imagine your characters' ages are?

I imagine Coffee in his late 20s, but since he's had to have lived long enough to get a PhD, I'd imagine he'd be like 30.

I imagine Chitin to be a few months into 20 since her backstory plays a lot into her having still been fairly young and emotionally inexperienced at the time she was with the hive. She was trained sorta like a child soldier and had been going on missions from about age 10 to 19.

I kinda think of Gleeda at her oldest being 25, at least over 20 years of age though.

Hmm. I guess Blade would be 25 making Rain Light 20 which puts her in her 2nd or 3ed year of college. Sounds about right.

I'm thinking of Trading out Perfect Focus for either Quicken or Deathwatch... But I wondered what thoughts everyone else think would be better: getting Gleeda to do combat talents quickly or having her know the HP of the enemy?

Alrighty everypony.

The ages are no surprise for the most part, though I wasn't expecting Chitin to be quite that young honestly. Whatever the case, it's cool. I need to update my notes with all this new info.

@Xel:

For what it's worth man, I REEEEEEEEEEEEALLY would prefer if you avoid taking Deathwatch since I've thought long and hard about it ever since the combat expansion was released, and that one move would make my job as GM a LOT harder. I usually rely on being able to change the HP of my enemies to suit the situation. If I find an enemy is too easy or too hard, I compensate by changing stats on the fly. For example, Box Cars started out with only 30 HP, but that would have been ridiculously easy once I figured out how much damage you guys could dish out in a turn. If I'd had to stick with 30HP, it would have made the fight a lot less climactic and fun (at least in my opinion).

-So pleeeeeeeeeeeease don't take Deathwatch...

If the GM doesn't want me to have a talent... That tells me that I'll most likely find more fun with the other one.

Going to take Quicken then... Might think that one will be more fun to RP with Gleeda too.

Chitin is apparently the youngest member of the party! But yeah, she sorta has to have been a teenager while she was with the hive for certain things.

Just so everypony knows, I'm imagining it's probably about 10 or so right now for Coffee and Blade (We'll leave Gleeda out of this consideration, as Xel seems to be happy with her ending for the day)...

@Everypony:

We're almost done with Day 2 of the Campaign, and since the 'session' is almost at a close, I thought it would be a good time to mention something I've been wanting to try - the idea of writing Friendship Letters.

Now, I'm not sure if you guys are familiar with the concept or not, but it's mentioned in the Pony Tales GM's guide. You, as the PCs, basically do something like the MLP cast does at the end of a lot of episodes, kind of sum up the day's events and friendship lessons learned (if any) in a paragraph or two. This allows everypony to be reminded of what happened (in case they forgot something), lets them have an extra RP challenge, and can net the party some extra experience.

-You could also do something else too if you wanted, and some examples are listed in the GM's guide. These options are role-played actions that build friendship in the party.

Now, either way, the GM guide recommends awarding 10 Harmony points for each player that writes a letter or does some other nice feat in-character for another player, but since this isn't a real-time RP and we've spent real-time months on each IC day, I thought I'd award some extra Harmony, I'm leaning towards 20 currently.

So, if you guys want to work on a type of Friendship Letter, let me know.

I'll probably ask you to post them in the IC thread once the day is over.

If you recall I actually did one of those for Whisper a while back in the Friendship is Dragons comments. I certainly like the idea of including them formally in the campaign. Though the question is who we're writing to and who does it each time. Do we rotate? Do we have to always write to the same person?

As a note, I highly suggest not giving personal XP. To give the short version, personal xp fucks everything up, just do group xp instead.

So are we writing them to Princess Celestia? Princess Luna? Somepony else?

Yeah, I was in a rush to make my initial post about the idea of Friendship Letters, but in response to Ramsus, I was planning to award the entire party harmony points for each pony's efforts, thus allowing you guys to gain an extra 100 harmony if you all wrote a letter or did something friendship-oriented. You also don't need to take turns, you can each write a separate letter or do a different friendship deed.

Also, in response to Cardbo, you can write your letters to Celestia, Luna, your character's friends/relatives, other NPCs, whoever you feel would be appropriate. Though the traditional recipient would be Celestia, you're not limited to only giving mail to her (why should Celestia have all the fun?). You don't have to always write to the same pony either.

I think it's a bit much to ask us to all write letters every time. It doesn't fit much with the show that way either. Honestly, I'm not sure this is the kind of thing that should come with strings attached. Might be better if we just see if anyone feels like doing one at the end of a session/day/whenever is appropriate.

You could still give us harmony for doing it but, it should be for the whole group, not individuals.

XandZero2 wrote:Yeah, I was in a rush to make my initial post about the idea of Friendship Letters, but in response to Ramsus, I was planning to award the entire party harmony points for each pony's efforts, thus allowing you guys to gain an extra 100 harmony if you all wrote a letter or did something friendship-oriented. You also don't need to take turns, you can each write a separate letter or do a different friendship deed.

Also, in response to Cardbo, you can write your letters to Celestia, Luna, your character's friends/relatives, other NPCs, whoever you feel would be appropriate. Though the traditional recipient would be Celestia, you're not limited to only giving mail to her (why should Celestia have all the fun?). You don't have to always write to the same pony either.

If Coffee wrote a letter to either Princess Celestia or Luna, would they be surprised to receive it? Have they made a general request for Friendship Reports?

EDIT: Honestly I don't mind doing a Friendship Report, but Im wondering if it implies knowing Princess Celestia or Luna on a personal level. If they have made a general request for Friendship Reports, I don't think I'd mind writing one for Coffee.

"Dear Princess Celestia. If you're reading this, it means your security has failed spectacularly. Sleep with one eye open. Signed: Your friendly neighborhood changeling."

Good question about whether you guys need to know Luna/Celestia or not.

As a quick answer, I'd say the Princesses always encourage receiving letters from their subjects, and especially friendship letters.

I'd also liken this to writing letters to the president. Anypony can do it and it's not considered weird - just be aware that they don't likely know you on an really personal level (unless perhaps you guys want to imagine that you've been writing letters to them before - maybe even since foal-hood - in which case they may recognize you from your previous post).

-As an afterthought, Luna might actually know your PCs personally, as Season 3 seems to indicate that she wanders the dream realm every night and assists any of her subjects that suffer from nightmares. If you want to RP as being personal friends with Luna, I could definitely see it. Celestia on the other hand, would be more like the writing a letter to the president scenario.

Whisper has probably been writing to Celestia since she was a foal and probably Luna on occasion as well (in fact, before she came back from the moon).

For Gleeda... I'm all the unsure if I should make such a letter or not.

^Your call Xel, though you could probably think of something to do if you tried hard enough (just so long as it doesn't turn into the fourth book in the "Fifty Shades of Gray" series or something... It's only a trilogy right? Please tell me it's only a trilogy...)

I almost want to make a joke letter on that topic now...