Hello!

[Flamiel]

Hi, found your forum through a post on the FFG boards. I have some experience with Gamersplane, Discord, and F2F as well.

FYI to ShadoWarrior, the links in the "I'm new here, what should I do?" thread body are dead.

Looking at the Active Game List, it mentions two at the bottom that are starting up, but I haven't found any thread location for them to inquire. I'm still too new to send private messages, too.

At the moment I'm most interested in FaD characters. My first campaign was EotE, and my recent campaigns are relatively young, so I'm looking for opportunities to exercise the different Force Powers.

[DeepSpacer]

Good to have you here! A FaD campaign was mentioned, but not yet started. I have the book, but never player or GM'd in one. I currently GM a live group every other Tuesday, EotE.

[Flamiel]

Hey, thanks! I'm actually in NoVA, so same neck of the world!

[Trip]

Looking at the Active Game List, it mentions two at the bottom that are starting up, but I haven't found any thread location for them to inquire.

Welcome!
Alpha squad could use a mechanic type person with good intellect. If you want to make a force sensitive with those attributes, then that would fit in nicely.

The other Paradox game is basically anything goes as long as it is out of the Force and Destiny books since it is just starting up. Since it starts out entry level, you only get a basic power, but as we play though, you can use XP to get more. I am not sure if that is what you want either since you don't even get a lightsaber until you do the quest for one.

Let me know if anything sound good.

[DeepSpacer]

Hey, thanks! I'm actually in NoVA, so same neck of the world!

Yep! In Richmond, here.

[ShadoWarrior]

FYI to ShadoWarrior, the links in the "I'm new here, what should I do?" thread body are dead.

Thank you for bringing this to my attention. The links are now fixed.


PS - welcome to the board!

[Flamiel]

Does this website not send out email notifications? I feel like I've checked all the boxes for notifications....

[DeepSpacer]

Other sites that we used in the past did send out email notifications. We found out that this one did not. Had a choice to migrate it all (again) or stay put if no one missed them.

As one who used to get the email notifications, I found out that I check in on the website just about as often as I check email, anyways. I didnt miss them. They became more annoying as i played in more than one game. 20+ emails in a day cab be overwhelming.

[Flamiel]

I rely on email heavily for notifications of those sort, but they're not required. Did you all not consider GamersPlane for your home? That site also offers in-line dice rolling, so you don't have to use some other utility.

On a similar note, have you considered using something like swsheets.com for your character database threads?

[swrider]

First off welcome to the game. We decided against inline dice rolling as the roller we use keeps a log of all the rolls made. The other admin Shado has had problems with players cheating in the past and this prevents this option. As for the email, the board only allows 50 to be sent a day and we quickly exceeded that. To avoid the issue we simply turned off all email notifications. Besides which many people simply were not receiving emails.

I have not looked at GamersPlane but it is worth checking out in case we need to move again. This board offers a very wide level of customization as we have not only admin privileges but it is hosted on my account. This gives me complete access over the source code.

[Flamiel]

Looking at the Active Game List, it mentions two at the bottom that are starting up, but I haven't found any thread location for them to inquire.

Welcome!
Alpha squad could use a mechanic type person with good intellect. If you want to make a force sensitive with those attributes, then that would fit in nicely.

The other Paradox game is basically anything goes as long as it is out of the Force and Destiny books since it is just starting up. Since it starts out entry level, you only get a basic power, but as we play though, you can use XP to get more. I am not sure if that is what you want either since you don't even get a lightsaber until you do the quest for one.

Let me know if anything sound good.

Hi Trip,

Both sound interesting. Based on what you were saying about the Paradox game and lightsabers, do you mean that the FaD characters for the Alpha thread start with lightsabers?

[Flamiel]

First off welcome to the game. We decided against inline dice rolling as the roller we use keeps a log of all the rolls made. The other admin Shado has had problems with players cheating in the past and this prevents this option. As for the email, the board only allows 50 to be sent a day and we quickly exceeded that. To avoid the issue we simply turned off all email notifications. Besides which many people simply were not receiving emails.

I have not looked at GamersPlane but it is worth checking out in case we need to move again. This board offers a very wide level of customization as we have not only admin privileges but it is hosted on my account. This gives me complete access over the source code.

That is understandable; you will definitely have a greater level of customization here than you will at Gamersplane. I haven't seen an issue with cheating with dice rolling there -- Gamersplane does not allow you to modify a roll once it is submitted; in fact, you don't even see the result until your post is made public. The thing I like most about Gamersplane, I think, is that your user profile has an avatar, but every character you create has its own avatar, too. Then when you post as a character, you see that character's name and avatar, and your user's name and avatar as a smaller thumbnail in the corner. This helps keep things straight as to who is who.

Makes sense on the email notifications, too. Simply not feasible.

[swrider]

The character avatar seems like a nice feature.

You came at a strange time on our board, normally I would say you could join one of my games as a force user but they are full and it is a really bad time for me to start a new one. Trip's game Alpha Squad does not start with a lightsaber but Shados After the Fall might. I am not sure about the two new games Trip is starting up. Deep also mentioned he might GM a game so there should be a lot of opportunities here soon.

[ShadoWarrior]

A text post, located on this board and maintained on this board is easier and better than having to look up things on an external site. And in the case of my own games, I require players to submit a link to an XML file export from Oggdude's character generator app to save myself the time required to verify that a player has not made any mistakes in spending XP. Oggdude's app is vastly superior to swsheets, both in terms of creating a character and in maintaining one, especially in regards to equipment.

I think that you might not understand the reasons why I and swrider have this board: as admins and GMs we have full control over the forums. Using any of the many sites that exist that will host a PbP game doesn't give the GM the level of control over their games and the forums hosting those games that running a phpBB-based board affords us. For myself, I've used Obsidian Portal and RPGnet (and I've looked at Roll20). This is better.

As for a dice-rolling utility, swrider (my co-admin) wrote the app that many of us are now using on this site. It doesn't get better than having the author of the app available to make any changes that you want to see done. Try that with some other site's apps. Rider is also the owner of the domain hosting this board. As such, we have full control over the back end. That means the database underlying the forums, and the ability to add whatever the hell extensions to the board software we may wish to add. Can't do that with any other game hosting site.

Rest assured, the admins here have been doing this PbP stuff for many years and have looked at the alternatives. We do things as we do deliberately (as opposed to not knowing about other options).

Finally, in regards to emails, swrider was forced to turn off emails because we were exceeding the number of emails sent per day allowed for the free hosting service (50 total, not 50 per user), and decided it wasn't important enough at this time to move to paid hosting.

[Flamiel]

I can certainly respect that. And totally agreed on OggDude's. It was definitely worth the donation!

[Flamiel]

Looking at the Active Game List, it mentions two at the bottom that are starting up, but I haven't found any thread location for them to inquire.

Welcome!
Alpha squad could use a mechanic type person with good intellect. If you want to make a force sensitive with those attributes, then that would fit in nicely.

The other Paradox game is basically anything goes as long as it is out of the Force and Destiny books since it is just starting up. Since it starts out entry level, you only get a basic power, but as we play though, you can use XP to get more. I am not sure if that is what you want either since you don't even get a lightsaber until you do the quest for one.

Let me know if anything sound good.

Trip,

I happen to have a character concept for a female Arkanian Offshoot (if allowed) Sentinel/Artisan, who would be high INT with ranks in Computers and Mechanics. I read through the character creation rules, I see the GM grant of FR1. Does that apply to only non-FS chars, or do you intend to have FS chars start with FR2? (I'm assuming the former). I'm also not clear after reading the game concept thread: are you mixing Morality, Obligation, and Duty?

For the Paradox game, is there a game concept thread out there? I couldn't find one, so I'm not sure what is being planned there.

[Trip]

Both sound interesting. Based on what you were saying about the Paradox game and lightsabers, do you mean that the FaD characters for the Alpha thread start with lightsabers?

Alpha Squad are only force sensitives. No lightsabers yet but in the future it is an option.
Paradox will eventually have lightsabers. I am following the books so they don't have them yet.

[Trip]

Trip,

I happen to have a character concept for a female Arkanian Offshoot (if allowed) Sentinel/Artisan, who would be high INT with ranks in Computers and Mechanics. I read through the character creation rules, I see the GM grant of FR1. Does that apply to only non-FS chars, or do you intend to have FS chars start with FR2? (I'm assuming the former). I'm also not clear after reading the game concept thread: are you mixing Morality, Obligation, and Duty?

For the Paradox game, is there a game concept thread out there? I couldn't find one, so I'm not sure what is being planned there.

The Arkanian Offshoot is fine.

FS only start with a FR 1.

Paradox is based on the FFG starter game. The back story needs to include you knowing the scholar. See the Post here.
I don't have a forum yet. I need to get enough people to start the game before I can have the forum created.

[swrider]

I will great your forums on Monday. Let me know if you want anything special or just or standard template. As an example of what I mean my newest game island of the sea. Still hidden. Has a gm notes forum which is only visible to admins. I could create one visible only to Adkins and yourself. Shadow and I wouldn't look, I just can't not add us. It is a default.

[SavageBob]

The Arkanian Offshoot is fine.

FS only start with a FR 1.

Remember, too, that Flamiel should get the same bonus skills you let me take for AAA if he starts in a F&D Career. I believe it was a free rank in Well Rounded and one extra Career-skill rank over what the F&D rules grant.

[Trip]

The Arkanian Offshoot is fine.

FS only start with a FR 1.

Remember, too, that Flamiel should get the same bonus skills you let me take for AAA if he starts in a F&D Career. I believe it was a free rank in Well Rounded and one extra Career-skill rank over what the F&D rules grant.

Correct. Thanks for reminding me.

[Flamiel]

The Arkanian Offshoot is fine.

FS only start with a FR 1.

Remember, too, that Flamiel should get the same bonus skills you let me take for AAA if he starts in a F&D Career. I believe it was a free rank in Well Rounded and one extra Career-skill rank over what the F&D rules grant.

Correct. Thanks for reminding me.

Oh cool, ok. I didn't see that in the rules for char creation thread. Well Rounded turns a non-career skill into career, right? Can a rank then be applied to that skill during creation, at the career price?

[ShadoWarrior]

Well Rounded turns a non-career skill into career, right? Can a rank then be applied to that skill during creation, at the career price?

Any ranks acquired after that talent is taken are discounted. But the talent does not apply retroactively. So the sooner you get it the better. You can see how this works by using Oggdude's app.

[Flamiel]

Well Rounded turns a non-career skill into career, right? Can a rank then be applied to that skill during creation, at the career price?

Any ranks acquired after that talent is taken are discounted. But the talent does not apply retroactively. So the sooner you get it the better. You can see how this works by using Oggdude's app.

Right, I guess my point is that char creation everything happens simultaneously, except for the order you click things. So is the grant intended to allow the career cost to apply when I use the 100+xp granted by the species and then the 20xp granted by the GM, or just the 20xp granted by the GM?

[ShadoWarrior]

Actually, there are two stages to creating a character for these games: the initial build and using earned XP. Earned XP (that's XP acquired after the XP granted by species and Obligation/Duty/Morality) cannot be used to increase ability scores. A GM grant may or may not apply during the first stage. That's up to the GM. However, players also tend to conflate GM grants with XP awards (such as earned XP). Earned XP is not a GM grant. It happens after character creation. I haven't been following Trip's posts, but I'm fairly certain that any XP awards he's been issuing are Earned XP. The mechanics for how this works is pretty clear in Oggdude's app. There are separate buttons for Awards and GM Grants. Awards give XP or money. GM grants give skills, talents, or abilities. The distinction is very important.

As for whether the career cost applies, as I said in my previous post the reduced cost applies from the point at which you acquire the talent. If the GM gave you the talent as a grant, then it applies from the very beginning of character creation. In Oggdude's app it takes things in the order in which you click. Just make sure you apply GM grants before you do anything else. Then apply Earned XP awards after you have built the basic character. This is the proper way of doing it.