Current events

This page is for discussion of stuff related to the game coming up this week, no matter when that actually is. For instance, we can all assume Nate isnt coming for some lame reason and that Ed is sick of pizza and is bringing teriyaki or some other crap. They can post something here if that happens to be untrue.

Schedule

Date...........game................Location..........(Advanced attendance)

2/13/09.....OAAAA.........Ben's Condo.........Ed likely absent, Gabe absent
2/20/09.....???.........Ben's Condo.........Ben Absent, Matt absent
2/27/09.....???.........Ben's Condo.........
3/06/09.....???.........Ben's Condo.........
3/13/09.....???.........Ben's Condo.........
3/20/09.....???.........Ben's Condo.........
3/27/09.....???.........Ben's Condo.........
4/03/09.....???.........Ben's Condo.........
4/10/09.....???.........Ben's Condo.........Dieter maybe absent
4/17/09.....???.........Ben's Condo.........
4/24/09.....???.........Ben's Condo.........Dieter absent
5/01/09.....???.........Ben's Condo.........

Attendance and Food Preference

2/20/09

Gaming canceled, magic optional.

BEN: well, that's too bad...On account of one of the organizers getting hospitalized with appendicitis, the trip I was going on this weekend has been canceled, so I was hoping to jump on board with whatever you guys were doing. I can host, if we still want to do something, unless brandon has made plans to use the place for something...doubt it though.

Edmiao that's hillarious. i have the magic cards at my house. i think it's too much changing plans, so i'm still gonna bail

--Brandon 13:33, 20 February 2009 (MST) brandon hasn't made plans to use your place, but I have. Guess I'm going to have to cancel the dance party/orgy. On a related note, I'm already obligated elsewhere for the evening. Once I find a new party/orgy venue, that is.

GABE: I'm about to pass out, but maybe once I awake I'll be feeling better. But whadever.

Ranting and raving or other random comments

--Dieter the Bold 14:02, 22 February 2009 (MST) How Ben needs to present his thesis defense

Weekly Magic Whining/Complaining/Smack Talking

Shards of Alara

Elder Dragon Highlander Rules

Edmiao Brandon and i played some good games last night. the new domain stuff is nuts. a red creautre for 2R, 2/2 first strike. RWUBG: +5/+3 and trample. So with acceleration, he was attacking with a 7/5 first strke trample on turn 4 or so. Brandon, in addition to allied strategies, look for collective restraint, 3U enchantment stops incoming attacks unless they pay 1 per your land type per creature attacking.

--Brandon 13:31, 20 February 2009 (MST) Yes, 'twas fun. That deck definitely isn't yet ready for primetime, but playing it yesterday helped me see what worked and what didn't. I think that it'll be really effective and fun with a little tuning.

BEN: magic, 6-9pm, today (sunday, the 22nd?)? post here if interested.

--Brandon 15:07, 22 February 2009 (MST) I'm interested, though Ed has all of the decks, and I probably couldn't make it until 7 or so.

Next step in Of Amor, Armor, and Alchemy

Current OAAAA XP: 75 base + 169 XP

--Dieter the Bold 11:02, 16 February 2009 (MST) Incorrect. Bonus XP for being awesome. It's now 75 + 169xp. Recap is as follows:

Galen gets taken through orc camp.
Galen spots the Kestrel and yucks it up with him some.
Galen gets audience with Grundbad, things go well enough.
Galen spots out of place hut near Grundbad's pavilion (I swear I saw chicken feet hiding under it)
Galen meets up w/ Tithe and Aeten, minor melee ensues.
The group announces itself (in Aefra's name) to the camp.
The camp moves, but Grundbad meets us on neutral ground and we chat it up.
Group gets jumped by an Imadigo ninja (aka, Sky wannabe) who tries to make off with Tithe's bag which contains Gwyndonlin's letter.
Group beats on ninja (who wickedly stabs Galen in the vitals) and retrieves the bag and letter.
Sasha ferries the group over to Grundbad's new camp.
Group finds mysterious hut again and is invited in by..... DUNdunDUNNNNNNN!!!... Jagha
Tithe is suspicious and gets stuck outside where he slowly freezes and is then turned to stone.
On the inside, Aeten and Galen chat Jagha up, reveal most of our mission.
Tithe is turned back to normal so we can have a discussion and a new accord is reached.

• All of the Auspice Bound (Daenerys and Nate's character included) owe Jagha one task of her choosing (we can all help, and she assured us they would be reasonable).
  
• Oryxys most desires what Ixymion had, mastery of magic. There exist the Novice Tomes in Csara which can teach anyone magic. We need to go there and get the tomes. We're given 20 days to do it. We can also call on Iyi for help, and Jagha will plain do it herself if we fail to do it by 20 days (we'd prefer to avoid both of the latter two options).
  

And that's game.

Edmiao wow, the wiki is running wicked slow today. re the above.... damn you all to hell!!!

BEN: LOL. One important addition: no tasks for Jagha until Daenerys is safe from her current predicament.
As for metagame info, if y'all beeline it for the tomes (you only need one of them, there are probably 3-5 copies, distributed by the Achraea school), you should be able to get one by the end of next session. That will leave one session for the return to the island and whatever resolution lies in store for all of you in Book 1. I'm being deliberately vague on that because a.) you guys have quite a bit of freedom about how you approach the situation on the island and b.) because not everything will get wrapped up in that session. This story was, as written on the OAAAA page, conceived as a story in 3 "books", which means that you won't succeed in whack-a-mole-ing everybody. Also, player actions throughout the story have significantly changed what will happen in the last session from my original conception of it. If there are particular things you'd like to see make an appearance in the last session (people or events or things) let me know either here or via email, I'm sure I don't remember every interesting encounter y'all had during the course of the last 12 sessions.
as for what happens afterwards: that's basically up to you guys. We can move on to book 2 or I can step down as GM and someone else can take over: I'm fine with either one.

GABE: Why are we doing something for the witch?

--Brandon 14:26, 16 February 2009 (MST) A little more information might help clear up the above. First of all, Tithe wasn't necessarily suspicious, he just can't eat animal stuff, so he wanted to be sure that the potion she gave us to allow access into the hut wasn't made from animals. Since Jagha wouldn't respond, he got stuck outside. And he was turned to stone because he tried to dispel the chilling effect outside, which turned out to be from Jagha's hut, which in turn made Jagha mad enough to turn him into a statue.

Secondly, dealing with the witch meant that we have a guaranteed solution to freeing Daenerys (within 23 days) that takes place BEFORE we have to do any tasks for Jagha. So, even if we all die grisly deaths in pursuit of Jagha's tasks - which she specifically stated would not be the main goal of them - Daenerys would be free of the flame and the poison. This meant we had, basically three options:

(1) The tower - I'm only putting this one here for Gabe's sake.

(2) The shield - through meeting Grunbad and seeing the whole operation, we decided that getting the shield would be possible, but would involve a lot of time and substantial risk. While dwelling on this, we were able to meet with Jagha, who offered option 3:

(3) Have Jagha supply us with a needed piece in our quest to free Daenerys, in exchange for doing 7 tasks for her (one for each auspice-bound, with certain caveats) AFTER Daenerys was freed. This seemed attractive, especially since, as Dieter stated, Jagha guaranteed a result within a fortnight and offered us aid in the form of Iyi if needed. Jagha gave us a choice of helping us to get the shield and getting a novice book (which is what Oryxys most desires). We chose the latter for various reasons, the most prominent of which is that we might be able to begin reconciliation between Graendel and the elemental world in the process of obtaining the book, which we took to be an admirable task.

So, yes, we made a deal with a hag queen, but it seemed the best option on the table. And, Jagha seemed to regard us (the auspice bound) as an interesting curiosity rather than primarily as a tool for sinister ends, so that's something. Though, of course, we may very well end up being used for sinister ends. Does that help?

GABE: Wait... So let me get this insane deal stright.

Even if we do nothing, she would have freed Daenery's anyway? Then why do we even try to find the book again? I mean I'm a little lost WHY we have to do any deal.

Also I want the exact terms of the deal, if we die during the process, she will free her anyway? I want the exact wording, as my character would not agree to certain terms without having them laid out, even more so with a witch.

--Brandon 20:15, 18 February 2009 (MST) Let's see if I can break this down for you further. Jagha is NOT going to free Daenerys. Jagha has guaranteed us a way to get the book, which we can then give to Oryxys, which will prompt him (as per our agreement) to free Daenerys. However, Jagha will not get the book herself for a fortnight (20 days). So, assuming that we want Daenerys freed ASAP, we will try to find the book sooner than that.

The deal with Jagha will then become manifest once Daenerys is free; at that point, we will owe Jagha the 7 tasks.

We laid the terms of the deal out pretty carefully - I'm sure that Matt, Dieter, and I can collectively recount the terms fairly closely - and I'm pretty sure that Jagha was clear to say she would get the book if we failed. I assume that will be true even if we die in the process of getting the book. But, this won't necessarily free Daenerys - I again assume - because the book would still have to get to Oryxys, which I imagine Jagha won't do if we're all dead. So, I suggest we not all die.

GABE: I don't get this... we owe her the favor because she told us of the book? And we are going to do 7 tasks for her...? Thats kinda an un-epic ending, I mean it comes down to a witch telling us what to do, I dunno feels like we didn't really do much. If we DON'T go for the book, do we still owe her crap?

--Matts 11:41, 19 February 2009 (MST)7 tasks for a mysterious witch is pretty dope from a story standpoint; 12 tasks of hercules, for example. We owe her a favor because she told us what it is that Oryxis most desires and offered to help us obtain it. She also alternately offered to get us the shield, but we decided to go with the thing he most desires.

Personally, I think this sets the stage for a pretty interesting second series of sessions in OAAA after we free Danerys.

--Dieter the Bold 13:37, 19 February 2009 (MST) +1 to what Brandon and Matt said. Gabe, we were basically looking at a really long time scheming and backstabbing to get the shield from Grundbad, or similar plus trappy death for the Tower. We chatted Jagha up and she basically offered to put us on a direct course to fulfill our side of the deal with Oryxys. No tricky run-arounds, no long plotting. We just go to place X and get item Y. We know where everything is. And we can even call on Iyi for some ueber-pro help if we want (although the group is hoping to avoid becoming "known" to Iyi for obvious reasons). Once we get the book, we just have to put it in Oryxys' hot little hands, hie ourselves back to Caminus and Book 1 is done. Book 2 will most likely be us dealing with fallout on Caminus (if not done this time around) and doing bizarre and dangerous tasks for a Witch Queen. So, yeah, it sucks that we owe yet another person something (7 somethings), but in return we clear all quests from the board (Oryxys, Graendel, Daenerys). Plus you now have an in with a Witch Queen, if you want to chat shop or whatever. And she was far more relatable than Gwyndolin. Tasty soup, not slug soup.

Gabe: Can we just freaking blow the doors and grab the book? That said I am interested in fallout after Caminus but will most likely drop game when it becomes missions for the witch. It just doesn't interest me as a fantasy game to be running missions for a witch, feels too forced and really not into forced missions. This is all just me, not Fantus, although he most likely would not have agreed to the deal. I related just fine to the first witch thank you very much!

Edmiao Gabe, based on past experience, i presume that Ben is not interested in running a game where the players are just bitches for a witch doing random quests with no overarching plot. If he were, i would still be good to go with it. I think that, as games go, OAAAA has had the most cohesive character group yet. Just been a bit slow in the last few sessions.

As to requests for the finale, i think we should see Grendel play a role. Don't care much if Sappho shows up or no, haven't really developed that plotline well.

Gabe: It can take us an entire sitting to get out of a city, I highly doubt doing 7 quests for a witch would be anything quick. Yeah its a good group, but again, just not fun for me, tis cool, we have enough players that one can drop out.

I agree, I would like a goblin army to show up.

Gabe: If we aren't going to be the witch's whipping boys, then I'm down for still playing.