[OOC] Heart of Darkness (Part II)

[secretID]

All good points.

[Mindsiege]

Are you still using the google doc that I've been keeping in the GM instructions? If not, then I'm ready to keep it out of it from now on. It looks like it hasn't been used in a while and I'm not sure if you've been keeping notes on the adventure progression in a different place instead.

[secretID]

I'm not sure I've ever used it. I do keep decent notes for myself.

This is a very tricky situation. I'm treating the king as unbeatable, but I'm skeptical about escaping via Darkness or illusions. And he spoke in his language, so there's no evidence that Jimmy can communicate to him.

[Mindsiege]

Sounds good, I'll not keep the doc around any longer then.

In regards to the encounter, it's certainly tricky on a few levels. I'm curious what Jimmy's play will be.

[secretID]

Do I correctly understand the king is wounded, in the sense that healing might have an effect?

If so, I have questions about aspects of spellcasting as you see it. Can a beneficial spell be cast without any danger of it raising a concern about it being a detrimental spell - i.e., without the need for any kind of check? Does the fact that we're not currently in combat time affect that?

Edit: I'm also interested in current positions, specifically relative to the exit.

[Mindsiege]

Originally Posted by secretID

Do I correctly understand the king is wounded, in the sense that healing might have an effect?

If so, I have questions about aspects of spellcasting as you see it. Can a beneficial spell be cast without any danger of it raising a concern about it being a detrimental spell - i.e., without the need for any kind of check? Does the fact that we're not currently in combat time affect that?

Edit: I'm also interested in current positions, specifically relative to the exit.

1) He's not wounded in the sense that he has lost HP, but he's been harmed somewhat recently. With how well Jimmy rolled his Investigation he's aware that whoever attacked the elemental has done so with little success, but there are still several cut marks evident along the elemental's hide.

2) The way I treat it, characters aren't aware of a spell's effect unless they've had exposure to the spellcasting before and can recognize it as familiar. Depending on the situation it's possible to mask the spell components used for spellcasting via succeeding in a contested skill check, but in situations like this, it's particularly difficult and depending on what component is required it might even be impossible to hide the spellcasting. Unless the benign intent is understood, starting a visible spellcast might very well incite an initiative roll to resolve what happens next.

3) Let's see. After looking at it on a grid I would say that Jimmy is about 40' away from the southern exit (the one where Tink is) and 60' from the north exit (where your party came from).

[secretID]

Originally Posted by Mindsiege

After looking at it on a grid I would say that Jimmy is about 40' away from the southern exit (the one where Tink is) and 60' from the north exit (where your party came from).

Is the king directly between Jimmy and the exit, or might it be possible for Jimmy to crawl backwards from the king and also closer to the exit?

[Mindsiege]

Originally Posted by secretID

Is the king directly between Jimmy and the exit, or might it be possible for Jimmy to crawl backwards from the king and also closer to the exit?

At the moment Jimmy would be facing towards the king with the wall (let's say there's enough space between Jimmy and the wall to comfortably navigate) to his back and the closest exit to the right. Technically Boanagh would be to Jimmy's right as well, so he would have to be encouraged to also crawl to the exit (trivial persuasion) or Jimmy has to circumvent him. The king's current position is more centrally and he's not particularly in the way to approach either exit, though I would count him as engaged.

[Mindsiege]

My bad, I misspelled Loch as Lock, because that's how it's pronounced. Fixed it in my post.

[secretID]

Originally Posted by Mindsiege

before you write his post he needs to do a Perception check. Please roll that for me real quick

Dice Roll:

1d20+4

(6)+4

Total = 10

[Mindsiege]

All right. That's not going to add more knowledge about the scene. Feel free to engage with the scene however you like.

[Mindsiege]

Since I've mentioned in the past that I'm ready to do rolls for PC actions myself, I figure I've been wondering long enough if we're on the same page about that. So now I finally ask.

Originally Posted by secretID

his eyes hopped over to Sashaya’s companion a few times

Would that be my queue that you're looking for an Insight check? Whenever there's room for interpretation in the RP, as the GM I usually refrain from inviting or assuming the intent for a skill check to be rolled. For example Jimmy could find the second dryad peculiar enough to try to intuit more about what's up with her, or he's just noticing that she's there and is much more focused on his reunion with Sashaya.

Considering that you're doing it slightly differently when you GM, I thought this might be a good moment to check up with you about how you've been seeing this from the player side. When I'm the GM, I usually only resolve skill checks when there is a very clear intent that the character is employing focus and specifically engaging with a particular task that might have a difficulty attached to it. So unless it's very blatantly stated that my players are hoping for a roll, I usually just assume that the character is not paying too much attention and is merely absorbing what's passively available or what's trivially brought to their attention. Was there any intent for Jimmy to be insightful in his last post?

@edit:
To be clear, I don't require an explicit demonstration of intent inside of the narrative. As a player, that's usually what I'm using the action section of the post for, or sometimes I just inquire if a check is possible via the OOC thread.

[secretID]

Originally Posted by Mindsiege

Would that be my queue that you're looking for an Insight check?

I didn't mean it that way - he was just looking at her nervously. I was giving them a chance to speak up.

Personally, as DM I look for something like "Jimmy tries to get a sense of her feelings" or a specific request for a check, and that's what I do as a player.

FWIW, as a DM sometimes I do passive checks for things other than Perc, including Insight.

[Mindsiege]

Hmm, so sometimes it could be up to my interpretation to extract intent from the narrative. I'll do my best, but specific requests might have a higher success rate with me.

All right, so no Insight check is necessary with this post. Got it.

In regards to passive scores, I'll try to use them as much as possible. But some difficulties are intentionally a challenge for the player rather than their character. So specifically getting lied to can't of course with exceptions etc. etc.usually be beaten by a passive score and requires the player to get suspicious and display that their character is trying to scrutinize their opposite first, as an example. But yeah, passive Insight is still something I use for those that are proficient and/or have good WIS. In this case, Jimmy has easily recognized that the second dryad does not like him. Maybe the narrative of my next update will elaborate, but I'll have to properly delve into the scene first before I can tell for sure.

[secretID]

Originally Posted by Mindsiege

Hmm, so sometimes it could be up to my interpretation to extract intent from the narrative. I'll do my best, but specific requests might have a higher success rate with me.

Yeah, yeah - I didn't mean that it was on you. Actually, as I think about it, as a player I probably always note when I have a skill check in mind.