Adding a Player when party is in a hard to access location - Ideas?

Discussion on game mastering Earthdawn. May contain spoilers; caution is recommended!
ChrisDDickey
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Re: Adding a Player when party is in a hard to access location - Ideas?

Post by ChrisDDickey » Tue Aug 22, 2017 9:33 am

Remnant of the last party is probably your best bet, especially since there was a previous party down there a few weeks/months earlier. The module says that the last member of that party starved to death weeks before the PCs show up, but you could justify one trapped behind the rock-slide with most of that parties food. The rocks on top are too heavy to move by one person, so the sole other survivor was unable to dig her companion out before she starved to death.
Also, there is at least one artifact class magic item down there, so having a teleport or suspended animation artifact (non-portable) would not be adding too much.
The sleeping beauty idea is also workable. Somebody from the last party was told by the Oracle that the way to cure his incurable disease was to immerse himself in the pool and sleep until the next person took a drought from the pool. Or maybe he was told he would sleep until X days after the next person took a drought if you need that to explain why he did not wake up until now.

Jason
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Re: Adding a Player when party is in a hard to access location - Ideas?

Post by Jason » Tue Aug 22, 2017 11:39 am

Also, there is at least one artifact class magic item down there, so having a teleport or suspended animation artifact (non-portable) would not be adding too much.
That was related to one of my ideas, of having the new character in suspended animation in the Grand Hall. I was just having trouble coming up with how it wouldn't be overly deus ex machina, but some of this suggestions are helping.
The sleeping beauty idea is also workable. Somebody from the last party was told by the Oracle that the way to cure his incurable disease was to immerse himself in the pool and sleep until the next person took a drought from the pool. Or maybe he was told he would sleep until X days after the next person took a drought if you need that to explain why he did not wake up until now.
This is good. I could definitely use this as something. Would just need to think about why they didn't see him in the pool.

Locations that the player characters haven't been/seen
  • Servants' Burial
  • Grand Hall and beyond
  • Questor's rooms
  • behind the Crumbled hall ways
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ChrisDDickey
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Re: Adding a Player when party is in a hard to access location - Ideas?

Post by ChrisDDickey » Wed Aug 23, 2017 6:42 am

No matter what you do, it is going to be pretty clearly deus ex machina. However this is a world of magic and "deus". The only hope is to present it as something that can be covered by a willing suspension of disbelief rather than a jarring note of "well the impossible happens and ...".

Since you happen to have what appears to be a rather highly ranked servant entity of one of the passions right there... Well when you think about it, you actually do have a god in a machine right there, Literally. Use it.
Jason wrote:
Tue Aug 22, 2017 11:39 am
Locations that the player characters haven't been/seen
  • Servants' Burial
  • Grand Hall and beyond
  • Questor's rooms
  • behind the Crumbled hall ways
Somebody could have been in suspended animation in any of those places for centuries. Ether in a magical trap or ... Well you need to think of why somebody went to the trouble of putting them into suspended animation but it is OK to release them now. Also, the player would need to be OK with being a character out of time. Runvars' tomb has been sealed since before the scourge was even predicted. Character would have no knowledge of centuries of history.

I would go with the disease/oracle/sleeping beauty option, I would have them wake up in one of the Questor's rooms. One of the previous party asked about curing his disease, was told to mix a certain combination from the 3 pools, and that he would sleep for a number of weeks during which time he would heal, and awaken among friendly namegivers. This was OK since the goal of the previous party was to reopen the shrine to pilgrimages again (It's location was lost to the public since before Runvar's day), so he was not planning to wake up trapped in an abandoned place. He drank the mixture of waters and fell asleep. He wakes up in one of the (unbroken) beds in the nearby questor's rooms. He is distraught to find that all of his companions are dead.

If asked why the last remaining member of that party starved to death instead of taking the same combination of waters, a successful knowledge test (or question to the Oracle) will reveal that the potion causes you to sleep until all your diseases are cured. If you aren't almost dead from disease, you are suspended for a very short period of time. If healthy, you get one good nights sleep.

Adventurers typically adventure in highly magical places. As other people have pointed out, nearly any place can have somebody caught in some weird effect. Magic, Poison, captured and dragged back to the lair to be eaten later.

Sometimes it strains the imagination. I run my campaign on Roll20, where turnover is notoriously high. Occasionally I have ended a session mid-battle, and at the start of the next session just had to say "hey guys, alter reality, You did not meet a Warrior named X last week who entered this cavern with you, instead you met a Thief named Y".

Jason
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Re: Adding a Player when party is in a hard to access location - Ideas?

Post by Jason » Wed Aug 23, 2017 12:14 pm

ChrisDDickey,

That is some fairly good thoughts.

I am also playing over roll20, however the core of the group (me and the two players) started playing Face to Face at a game shop, and we switch to roll20 when I moved across the country for family reasons. I have pondered ways to get some more players, but given the time to vet random players, I haven't taken the time yet.
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ChrisDDickey
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Re: Adding a Player when party is in a hard to access location - Ideas?

Post by ChrisDDickey » Wed Aug 23, 2017 12:44 pm

I have an Earthdawn Character sheet for Roll20. I have not published it yet as I am still adding features, but I feel it is better than the one that is published. Let me know if you want a copy. I think I will probably publish it within a month or two.

Jason
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Re: Adding a Player when party is in a hard to access location - Ideas?

Post by Jason » Wed Aug 23, 2017 6:46 pm

Thanks. I only am using a free account right now, so can't upload character sheets. I have managed working out some macro stuff and a python script so I can quickly generate ability macros.
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Dougansf
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Re: Adding a Player when party is in a hard to access location - Ideas?

Post by Dougansf » Thu Aug 24, 2017 2:36 am

With a free account you can use the sheet that is currently available on Roll20. Just go to "Game Settings" and choose from the dropdown menu for "Character Sheet Template."

It will lack the functionality of rolling dice and such, but it will serve as an online record of your characters.

Jason
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Re: Adding a Player when party is in a hard to access location - Ideas?

Post by Jason » Thu Aug 24, 2017 11:52 am

Ahh... but my method gives me dice rolling and some of the character sheet stuff. The only reason the current one doesn't work for rolling is it uses some API scripts. It could be done without them.

For example My Melee Weapons Script:

It expects to have your DEX step in an attribute called "DEX", melee talent rank in an attribute call "MeleeWeapons", and your current wound count to be traccked in bar2. It pops up a target select box, prompts for any modifiers (IE aggessive attack), & karma, then rolls. I don't have it currently addressing karma step modifiers, but that hasn't come up in our game.

Strain and karma usage has to be manually tracked. There is a few things that makes me consider the 'top' level - the api script access so I could automate some of this. What would be really nice would be the ability to auto decrease buff/debuff counter duration at the end of turns.
&{template:default}{{name=@{selected|token_name}: Melee Weapons}}{{Target: @{target|token_name}}}{{Step: [[@{selected|DEX} + @{selected|MeleeWeapons} - @{selected|bar2} + ?{Mis Mod|0} ]] Karma: ?{Karma #|0} Result [[ [[{1e3, 8}<[[{[[@{selected|DEX} + @{selected|MeleeWeapons} - @{selected|bar2} + ?{Mis Mod|0} ]] - 11, 0}kh1 % 11]] + floor([[{[[@{selected|DEX} + @{selected|MeleeWeapons} - @{selected|bar2} + ?{Mis Mod|0} ]] - 11, 0}kh1]] / 11)]]d20! + [[{2, 4, 5, 6, 7}=[[{[[@{selected|DEX} + @{selected|MeleeWeapons} - @{selected|bar2} + ?{Mis Mod|0} ]], 0}kh1 % 11]] + {1, 3}=[[{[[@{selected|DEX} + @{selected|MeleeWeapons} - @{selected|bar2} + ?{Mis Mod|0} ]], 0}kh1]] + {1e3, 3}=[[{[[@{selected|DEX} + @{selected|MeleeWeapons} - @{selected|bar2} + ?{Mis Mod|0} ]] - 11, 0}kh1 % 11]] * 2]]d[[{{([[@{selected|DEX} + @{selected|MeleeWeapons} - @{selected|bar2} + ?{Mis Mod|0} ]] - 1) * 2, 4}kh1, {12} }kl1]]! + [[{1e3, 8}<[[{[[@{selected|DEX} + @{selected|MeleeWeapons} - @{selected|bar2} + ?{Mis Mod|0} ]], 0}kh1]] * (1 - {3, 6, 10}=[[{[[@{selected|DEX} + @{selected|MeleeWeapons} - @{selected|bar2} + ?{Mis Mod|0} ]], 0}kh1 % 11]] + {1, 4, 8}=[[{[[@{selected|DEX} + @{selected|MeleeWeapons} - @{selected|bar2} + ?{Mis Mod|0} ]], 0}kh1 % 11]])]]d[[10 - {4, 5, 8, 9}=[[{[[@{selected|DEX} + @{selected|MeleeWeapons} - @{selected|bar2} + ?{Mis Mod|0} ]], 0}kh1 % 11]] * 4]]! + [[{1e3, 8}<[[{[[@{selected|DEX} + @{selected|MeleeWeapons} - @{selected|bar2} + ?{Mis Mod|0} ]], 0}kh1]] * ({0, 5, 7, 9}=[[{[[@{selected|DEX} + @{selected|MeleeWeapons} - @{selected|bar2} + ?{Mis Mod|0} ]], 1}kh1 % 11]] + 2 * {6, 10}=[[{[[@{selected|DEX} + @{selected|MeleeWeapons} - @{selected|bar2} + ?{Mis Mod|0} ]], 0}kh1 % 11]])]]d8! - [[{1, 2}=[[{[[@{selected|DEX} + @{selected|MeleeWeapons} - @{selected|bar2} + ?{Mis Mod|0} ]], 0}kh1]] * (3 - [[{[[@{selected|DEX} + @{selected|MeleeWeapons} - @{selected|bar2} + ?{Mis Mod|0} ]], 0}kh1]])]] + ?{Karma #}d6! ]]}}
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Dougansf
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Re: Adding a Player when party is in a hard to access location - Ideas?

Post by Dougansf » Thu Aug 24, 2017 1:24 pm

Jason wrote:
Thu Aug 24, 2017 11:52 am
Ahh... but my method gives me dice rolling and some of the character sheet stuff. The only reason the current one doesn't work for rolling is it uses some API scripts. It could be done without them.
Yeah, I have a generic macro for ED4 that doesn't require the API scripts, but once I fell down the API hole, there wasn't much looking back. :)
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1FL_ ... thh_o/edit
Jason wrote:
Thu Aug 24, 2017 11:52 am
For example My Melee Weapons Script:
Thanks for sharing that.
I only recently figured out how to make the targeting a selected token work, and counting successes at the same time. I'm hesitant to hard code it into the sheet though. Some people may not be using it quite so strictly.
Jason wrote:
Thu Aug 24, 2017 11:52 am
Strain and karma usage has to be manually tracked. There is a few things that makes me consider the 'top' level - the api script access so I could automate some of this. What would be really nice would be the ability to auto decrease buff/debuff counter duration at the end of turns.
Let me know if you figure that out. The best I've heard of is to give the spell effect a slot on the Turn Tracker.
For better or worse, you can't let a macro affect the attributes of a token you don't have control over. So no automatically assigning damage or debuffs. At least, the PC's can't. ;)

Jason
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Re: Adding a Player when party is in a hard to access location - Ideas?

Post by Jason » Thu Aug 24, 2017 1:43 pm

Not likely that I will figure it out with roll20 as I don't have a paid account w/ API access.

If you understand python -> here is how I generate the scripts:
I am still working on a 'fuller' script
  • Talent Name - the name of the talent
  • Attribute - the name of the roll20 Attribute to use for AttributeRank
  • TalentName - the name of the roll20 Attribute to use for TalentRank

Code: Select all

jason@jason-HP-Pavilion:~/projects/r20EDMacro$ python ability2.py 
Talent Name: Melee Weapons
Attribute: DEX
TalentName: MeleeWeapons
Targeted Ability:  [Y/n] y

Code: Select all

import sys

BASE = "&{template:default}{{name=@{selected|token_name}: Attack}}-t-{{Step: [[8 - @{selected|bar2} + ?{Mis Mod|0} ]] Karma: ?{Karma #|0} Result [[ [[{1e3, 8}<[[{[[8 - @{selected|bar2} + ?{Mis Mod|0} ]] - 11, 0}kh1 % 11]] + floor([[{[[8 - @{selected|bar2} + ?{Mis Mod|0} ]] - 11, 0}kh1]] / 11)]]d20! + [[{2, 4, 5, 6, 7}=[[{[[8 - @{selected|bar2} + ?{Mis Mod|0} ]], 0}kh1 % 11]] + {1, 3}=[[{[[8 - @{selected|bar2} + ?{Mis Mod|0} ]], 0}kh1]] + {1e3, 3}=[[{[[8 - @{selected|bar2} + ?{Mis Mod|0} ]] - 11, 0}kh1 % 11]] * 2]]d[[{{([[8 - @{selected|bar2} + ?{Mis Mod|0} ]] - 1) * 2, 4}kh1, {12} }kl1]]! + [[{1e3, 8}<[[{[[8 - @{selected|bar2} + ?{Mis Mod|0} ]], 0}kh1]] * (1 - {3, 6, 10}=[[{[[8 - @{selected|bar2} + ?{Mis Mod|0} ]], 0}kh1 % 11]] + {1, 4, 8}=[[{[[8 - @{selected|bar2} + ?{Mis Mod|0} ]], 0}kh1 % 11]])]]d[[10 - {4, 5, 8, 9}=[[{[[8 - @{selected|bar2} + ?{Mis Mod|0} ]], 0}kh1 % 11]] * 4]]! + [[{1e3, 8}<[[{[[8 - @{selected|bar2} + ?{Mis Mod|0} ]], 0}kh1]] * ({0, 5, 7, 9}=[[{[[8 - @{selected|bar2} + ?{Mis Mod|0} ]], 1}kh1 % 11]] + 2 * {6, 10}=[[{[[8 - @{selected|bar2} + ?{Mis Mod|0} ]], 0}kh1 % 11]])]]d8! - [[{1, 2}=[[{[[8 - @{selected|bar2} + ?{Mis Mod|0} ]], 0}kh1]] * (3 - [[{[[8 - @{selected|bar2} + ?{Mis Mod|0} ]], 0}kh1]])]]  + ?{Karma #}d6! ]]}}"

def query_yes_no(question, default="yes"):
    """Ask a yes/no question via raw_input() and return their answer.
        "question" is a string that is presented to the user.
        "default" is the presumed answer if the user just hits <Enter>.
        It must be "yes" (the default), "no" or None (meaning
        an answer is required of the user).

        The "answer" return value is True for "yes" or False for "no".
        """
    valid = {"yes": True, "y": True, "ye": True, "no": False, "n": False}
    if default is None:
        prompt = " [y/n] "
    elif default == "yes":
        prompt = " [Y/n] "
    elif default == "no":
        prompt = " [y/N] "
    else:
        raise ValueError("invalid default answer: '%s'" % default)

    while True:
        sys.stdout.write(question + prompt)
        choice = raw_input().lower()
        if default is not None and choice == '':
            return valid[default]
        elif choice in valid:
            return valid[choice]
        else:
            sys.stdout.write("Please respond with 'yes' or 'no' "
            "(or 'y' or 'n').\n")

def main():
    talent = raw_input("Talent Name: ")
    attr = raw_input("Attribute: ")
    rank = raw_input("TalentName: ")
    #step = raw_input("Effective Step: ")
    target = query_yes_no("Targeted Ability: ")

    if target:
        target_replace = "{{Target: @{target|token_name}}}"
    else:
        target_replace = ""

    print BASE.replace(
            '8 ', '@{selected|' + str(attr) + '} + @{selected|' + str(rank) + '} '
        ).replace(
            'Attack', talent
        ).replace(
            '-t-', target_replace
        )

if __name__ == '__main__':
    main()
Play my game jam games - made by one person in a limited time frame (usually 48 hours)

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