Out Of Character

[acodispo]

This all sounds very exciting!

Hope you have a safe journey today and welcome home.

I'm off to a gig tomorrow, actually, so I'll be less active than usual for a week or so.

We're starting to get c-o-z-y!!

I love it! I'm going to explore this Under Hill, By Water rabbithole this weekend, possibly while eating pancakes.

[mushgnome]

Safe travels to you! I just got home.

[mushgnome]

As we fall down the cozy rabbit hole of Hornpipe 2.0 your friendly neighborhood DM has three questions for the players.

1: The surface world is getting a make-over. How about your own little hobbet make-over? Is there any detail you would change about your own character, that's holding you back from role-playing your PC like you want to?

2: What's the one thing that's been missing from the game until now (i.e, Dwarves for example) that you hope becomes a part of the new Hornpipe? I will strongly consider the player suggestion that gets the most votes!

3: This is a multiple choice question. You can choose more than once and rank your choices. These major continuity changes to Hornpipe 2.0 (for example the buildings being totally moved around, or a bunch of new NPCs) how do you think the characters in the world should react? (Think both from the perspective of the player characters and the NPCs.)

>.a Everybody in the world is caught off guard by this instantaneous, reality-shifting event (like The Snap). PCs and NPCs alike are wandering around town, saying, "This is not my beautiful house! This is not my beautiful wife!"
>.b The party enters a portal into a parallel universe. The PCs will be 'fish out of water' in a world where everything is 'normal' for the NPCs. It's Frederick, and he's happy to see you, but he's not exactly your Frederick, as you remember him.
>.c Everything is business as usual for all PCs and NPCs. The retconned changes in continuity are never mentioned, and the show goes on.
>.d all/none of the above (other)

I value your opinions so let me 'play with my cards on the table' and tell you my own answers: 1. My NPC, Frederick, has had a change of heart about his precious Rules. He has therefore called an Adventure Club Quorum to open the floor to Rules of the Club motions. 2. Missing from the campaign has been a detailed map of the town, and I hope I will deliver on that to your player satisfaction in the Adventures to come! 3. I like 3b because it's fun and whimsical. It reminds me of 80s movies like 'Time Bandits.' But in the end, it's up to how you play it. It's a role-playing decision. I will set up the pins and let you knock them down.

Don't worry just yet about the coins and treasure (and therefore the resulting xp distribution). What was once the background process of exchanging coins and gems now has a name and a face to it. We will role-play out the banking experience.

New Adventure is incoming...

[mushgnome]

I also want to the thank the newer players for their patience, entering the campaign at kind of an awkward moment. You've been great! Consider this whole Hornpipe 2.0 reboot as the whole party, old and new, being in the same boat together, uncharted waters.

[mushgnome]

Please jump to the new Adventure and don't forget to share your feedback here about those questions!

https://forum.immersiveink.com/viewtopic.php?f=47&t=892

[Bastet1002]

Just a quick thought Mushgnome since I'm quite new to any of this...

I'd love to see: PC Goblins and Hobbit pipes with magical pipe weed.

A large city and developed overworld in my mind sees Hobbits interacting with other types of human people. So I see, Goblins as a new kind of PC in a game still principally focused on Hobbits! Here me out:

I thought that a perfect foil to Hobbits, and perhaps sworn enemy, are Goblins. I like Goblins because in my mind they are kind of like a Hobbit version of Orcs - They are 'little people' too, and end up being more mischievous than evil. Picture if you will Hobbits stuck in a labyrinth with half the map, and they stumble upon a Goblin who has the other half of the map. Hobbits stuck in a spiderweb freed by Goblins! A Goblins tries to hire Hobbits for a quest. A Hobbit maiden is betrothed to a Goblin warrior... When the Hobbits and Goblins travel together, there is a certain distrust between them... It makes good adventure drama - but in the end they may develop unlikely friendships out of what were once unwanted travel companions....

My second thought is this... Hobbit pipes and magical pipe weed. Here I summarize excellent rules form the White Box Compendium on enchanted Smoke-Leaf. A halfling of 4th level and over have an 85% chance of properly crafting a special halfing pipe. The rules state that Hobbits (and often magic-users) grow exotic tobacco and weave magic into the plants as they dry. This is done at a cost of 5000 gp with a 1 in 1d6 chance of crop failure. One crop yields 25 doses of enchanted leaf. The "weed" must be smoked in a Hobbit pipe for one turn (ten rounds) of uninterrupted smoking and only by a Hobbit or Magic-User for the magic to work. Skilled smokers direct the smoke on themselves or to an intended target. Five types of weed include a weed for the following affects: Charm Person, Levitate, Phantasmal Force, Protection from Chaos 10ft. radius, and Sleep. There are rules about Magic-Users crafting wizard's pipes - but they may not be important here.

[mushgnome]

Great suggestion, @bastet1002! Some mischievous Brian Froud-styled goblin folk could be totally on-brand for this campaign.

[mgtremaine]

I'm a 3c vote. None of the changes really mess to much with my mind or PC. Kiplyn is pretty much exactly how I envisioned, he has gotten very lucky when backed into a corner in combat which is very hobbit like. The Sorefoot part has been fun to step back and avoid some of the dirty jobs. ;p

[mushgnome]

My second thought is this... Hobbit pipes and magical pipe weed.

Good suggestion! We've had a couple examples of pipe weed in action, back before you joined the game. The first was when some of the party members tried Ursa's pipe and experienced a sort of rudimentary low-light vision. The second was a set of smoking pipes and pouches of dried-out leaf, discovered at the spider-cult bunker. None of the party members have sampled it yet; I think everyone is (rightfully!) worried that smoking it might feel like bugs under their skin.

It's a balancing act for me as DM. I want to stay true to Tolkien's lore and mythos, of pipe-smoking Hobbits. But I don't, personally in the real world, smoke. I don't want Hobbet Heroes to turn into an overtly "psychedelic" campaign where you are running around licking every toad.

[mushgnome]

I'm a 3c vote. None of the changes really mess to much with my mind or PC. Kiplyn is pretty much exactly how I envisioned, he has gotten very lucky when backed into a corner in combat which is very hobbit like. The Sorefoot part has been fun to step back and avoid some of the dirty jobs. ;p

Thank you for saying that. You are one of the core players I had in mind when I first thought up this campaign. Just keep on Kiplyning. You're playing him well.