The Tourney at Ashford

For those that don't know, I've NEVER done any type of RPG. So, I have questions. I have no idea where to post them all, so I made a thread. ^__^ And yes, I capitalized VIRGIN to attract attention.

1) I'm thinking that Kaelyn is likely staying in a noble's "tent". How do I wake up in the morning and go to sleep? I barged in on my own mentor's romance the other day thinking it was an open thread. Yeah, not looking to repeat that. But I see no place to say, "So Kaelyn went to bed. Alone. You know, because girl's never gotten some." Or, "Kaelyn woke up and spent a supremely excessive time doing her hair because braids in GoT are like SUPER HARD."

2) I heard that creating places within the game is allowed. So I did, while in conversation with many handsome gentlemen. It was a restaurant or whatever we call them, she didn't have an orgy... yet. ^_~ How do I create a place? And is anyone going to be bitter I did that?

3) Kaelyn has a Gyrfalcon. They hunt. Kaelyn has no hunting skills of her own, but the falcon will do most of the work. So Kaelyn hunts. *I* know nothing about hunting, especially medieval hunting. Is this going to be a problem? I was planning to look up some stuff on Falconry, but it's not like I'm coming into this with actual knowledge.

Thanks for the info if you can reply!

I'll do better, I promise.

I will also message you in a minute.

You don't need to do better! You do beautifully!! I'm just trying not to pester you so much and pester other people instead. ^_~

Hey girl. First of all, we all start somewhere, and we all were confused and nervous and post-shy once upon a time. When i started this style of pbp forum rpg with this crowd, it was Legend of the Five Rings (L5R), and i played a Kuni, which is a shugenja, which is like a magic-worker. What i didn't know if they always wore face paint to ward off evil spirits (or something), so my character didn't wear facepaint til like halfway through the game when it was repeatedly pointed out to me IC, and i was like "......well shit."

So! Do not worry. We're a friendly (and forgiving) bunch.

To answer some of your questions:

1. Yes you're staying in a tent. You totes don't need to post everyday going "Kaelyn woke up." and "Kaelyn went to bed (forever alone)" unless you want interaction (like in the morning, doing your hair is totally viable as a thread starter, at least to me, cuz that shit's complicated, bro. I have short hair irl for a reason >>).

2. i don't fully understand. Like, making up the names of places where you've been in the past? Go nuts. Make up ALL the things. People will roll with it, and refer back to where you've referenced being, and it'll snowball and be amazing.

3. I once played a medical examiner (in a World of darkness game). I am not a medical examiner irl. I read wikipedia and looked at some articles of autopsies, and mainly wrote a lot of bullshit. But you can also say things like, "We hunted awesomely, there was much hunting, it was glorious, my Gyrfalcon totally falconed." I know some GM's may get annoyed (with me) when I fuzz over things i don't understand but my character totally rocks at. I am not one of the GM's who get annoyed because you are not your character.

Welcome, and I hope you'll enjoy the game

1) So usually you don't have to say that you've gone to bed or woken up. You just set aside time slots in your day that cover having gone to bed and woken up. If you want to you can make threads in the slot before you sleep and after you wake up and include that there if you like for RP reasons. Also your "tent" or sleeping area is a nebulous construct that doesn't have it's own forum proper, you would simply create a new topic within the Dunn Complex and in your opening thread state that it is in your own area. This is to limit clutter of too many locations, some of which might not get used in character at all.

2) Naming a place or object within the game world is generally fine, when you want that place or object to be part of your back story or in some distant place your character has been or wishes to visit. When you wish to name a location or object that is within the confines of the area the game is being played in, you would generally want to run it by the GMs before doing so if it's something big. So it would be a GM call if you wanted to add a specific building to Ashford castle town like a tavern or inn, but if you wanted to just have a small tent in the meadow commons that sells some small food item, because there are so many small tents and vendors it is likely a non-issue to give one a name.

3) Absolutely no problem if your character knows different things than you. It does help to do some cursory research and learn a few common terms to add to the role play element of using that knowledge and information in scenes. I personally have little information of Falconry so there's not much I can do to help you specifically, but others might be more versed.

The people here are friendly and you can feel free to ask questions. If something comes up mid scene that you have a question about you can usually send a PM to that person and they can clarify. Questions are your friend, don't be afraid to ask

Edit: I got ninja'd by the GM!

I got ninja'd by a Davelyn! So stealthy!

Davelyn Sand wrote:Edit: I got ninja'd by the GM!

Actual picture of Jasper:

Just to help clarify question 2, Kaelyn and I were talking about player made locations.

It's unlikely that Kaelyn would find herself in the Dirty Dornishman or Bottom of the Barrel. Now, I'm making some assumptions here myself, but I did say that "yes, there is probably one or more other taverns and/or pubs".

Okay, I had this whole beautiful thing written up and it got lost somehow. I'm going to try to do it again!

: ahem :

About #2:
So I was under the impression we could make up places. Like a vendor that sells wine. A smithy that is actually a front for human trafficking. Or, specifically, "a place in Ashford where you bring them the gains from your hunt and they prepare it for you if they can keep the excess. They also provide the ale and wine." Possibly named "All Men Must BE Served," in Valyrian that Kaelyn totally doesn't know is a brothel. Or a name like, "Hunter's Souffle," because I wasn't actually planning the whole brothel thing.

It sounds like I need permission before creating such a place. So hey, can I create a place in Ashford where you bring them the gains from your hunt and they prepare it for you if they can keep the excess? Where they also provide the ale and wine? If not, Kaelyn could have always been thinking of the OTHER Ashford.

Kaliya Redding wrote:Just to help clarify question 2, Kaelyn and I were talking about player made locations.

It's unlikely that Kaelyn would find herself in the Dirty Dornishman or Bottom of the Barrel. Now, I'm making some assumptions here myself, but I did say that "yes, there is probably one or more other taverns and/or pubs".

Actually, the right answer - in this case - is that there isn't. Ashford is actually a fairly small town; the addition of the tournament has at least tripled the population temporarily. The Dornishman is the only drinking place in town - the Bottom of the Barrel being an extension of the Dornishman run by setting up a tent down in the Meadow. Prior, most nobles visiting would have found themselves staying at the castle as guests... but the Targaryens are currently filling that space.

Well, fuck. Ummm... How do I fix this?

We could always go with the brothel angle, that I was totally joking about but would actually kinda maybe make sense?

First, welcome it's good to ask questions. There are actually a fair number of social norms and roleplaying etiquette bits for forum gaming that can be taken for granted. Gotta learn somewhere :3

Do note about the Dornishman tavern - it says "the only tavern in the entire town". It's worth reading the location descriptions as they become available. Do definitely speak to the GMs if you have ideas or want to incorporate something ^-^

I think one big thing to convey is that threads represent scenes and all of these, even if you used every timeslot, only represent some of what your character is doing over the course of the whole day. Some things are assumed to happen - you find food and drink, you sleep, you put on clothes and take care of them, you err... relieve yourself, you do your hair or ready equipment, etc. A lot of things can therefore not be mentioned or just glossed over. If you think something is important but not worthy of a thread/scene or is just worthy noting as a regular thing they do, then note it in your PF. Here are some examples:

Kaelyn sleeps with a knife under her pillow, just in case.
She writes a letter to her mother on day 1 Mid evening (after/before X thread). The contents are: (either in detail or bullet points)
Kaelyn makes sure to fly her falcon every morning. I won't usually make a scene for this.
Kaelyn keeps her jewellery in a chest, but under the clothes inside.
In the LM day 1 I try to start a rumour - here is the roll. It succeeds/fails. The contents are...

Some of this may end up relevant, some not. All of it helps build your character. Sometimes GMs will also offer useful information that helps you immerse yourself or better understand the setting. Sometimes they may reply back to your letters or actions. They may even offer a scene based on information provided (and if they have time!).

Generally it's best to focus on scenes - whether creating your own or joining GM or PC created ones that are open or you're invited to. This is because different people have different amount of time to devote to the game. Some may load up aand have a thread of every timeslot. Others might only have a thread or two per IC day as they're busy IRL or doing other things. This all means scenes are the key places to influence the game world and do important things IC. However, as others have noted and as noted above, this doesn't mean your character is only doing things in scenes. If you want to do lesser actions, or anything super secret, then put it in your PF and wait for a GM response if appropriate.

Enjoy the game ^-^

Thank you! I will eat up all the tips I can get. ^__^

Kaelyn Dunn wrote:We could always go with the brothel angle, that I was totally joking about but would actually kinda maybe make sense?

The Bottom of the Barrel is literally an extension of the Dornishman alehouse. It's a tent put down with seating where the owner is like, "Okay let's put some beer here cuz i don't have room at my alehouse, and I'll charge twice as much for 'convenience'."

Can we fudge around a bit and make this work for you? I don't want to leave you high and dry or feeling backed into a ic corner because something wasn't clear and we're all trying to have fun Don't worry, we got this. We'll figure something out to make things make sense.

Jasper wrote:Can we fudge around a bit and make this work for you? I don't want to leave you high and dry or feeling backed into a ic corner because something wasn't clear and we're all trying to have fun

That works perfectly for me. Just set down the rules and I'm on board. I'm sorry for the mistake. I won't try to make things up again without permission.

Talieas Corbray wrote:Do note about the Dornishman tavern - it says "the only tavern in the entire town". It's worth reading the location descriptions as they become available.

To be fair, the discussion between myself And Kaelyn about player made locations happened before the Dirty Dornishman got its description updated.

Everyone started somewhere, and we've all learned a lot a long the way.


1. You can perfectly write, as you enter a thread, that "Kaelyn had awoken early that morning to perfect her already perfect appearance", or "Kaelyn had just finished a most delicious dinner as she stepped out to enjoy the nightsky". Locations like the Compounds are usually free to have multiple threads in the same timeslot going if they take place in different tents, to allow for privacy.

2. Usually, name-dropping places and people is fine, just keep in mind what actually exists within the town of Ashford. But you can totally say "oh yes, on my way here, I visited this fabulous place called [name]", or "I met this knight from Dorne, [name], who is so charming and is the best jouster". (See below for a longer answer)

3. Roleplaying Games are all about taking on roles of what we aren't in our normal lives! I am certainly not an elven Paladin who rules her own kingdom, an 8 year old bastard girl in faux-medieval England, a former spy of MI5 who now is fighting British bureucracy as he tries to save the world from tentacled horrors from beyond space-time, a priestess of air who is a renowned hero, OR a 300 year old Sith on the path to doom. Things like Wikipedia help covering the basics for most of us, and sometimes someone comes along with more info, but none of us are going to be all "omg you *don't* know how to hunt with a falcon?!". I barely have any idea how to hunt with a dog myself! So don't worry about it and feel free to gloss over details like how exactly falconry works!


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Regarding player-made locations:

In Play-by-posts, the location of the game (the castle or the town is the usual) tends to be structured enough by the GM that most players tend to not create new locales for the game. Since there is a meadow here with different tents, it is probably perfectly fine to add something like "a tent that serves Dornish wine", or "a stall with colorful paper-pinwheels for the kids". It is another matter entirely to add "and then this tavern here is a front for human trafficking and sacrifices to the Red God every sunday", because then you're entering on the territory of adding things to the world that the GMs have created that simply does not exist in the story they have attempted to set up for us to interact with. In some games, this works a lot better, but when in doubt, ask in the GM Question-thread. (This is of course advice I would bring on to other forms of Roleplaying Games, like tabletop and LARP, because GMs tend to put a lot of work into creating a gameworld. Some games encourage such inputs from the players, but those also tend to rely on playgroup or GM's permission and cooperation)

Is there a way to pull up everything that happened on Day One, or everything that's happening in Day 2? I'm getting lost, I think.

Rule number one: it's too much effort to know everything. Follow what you're told in threads, the big events and rumours. Should be closer to what your character really knows and make the IC/OOC knowledge management easier.

And by this, the best way to catch up is to get one of the more active posters into a thread and let him/her do the infodump.

Yep. Especially as a new player getting used to how the games are laid out, it may at times feel particularly daunting to keep track of things. But I don't think there are any players, or even the GMs that could possibly keep up with every bit of information that happens. Just too many people posting in too many places around the clock. But it is definitely easy to talk with folks in or out of character and ask what major things have happened.

A large chuck of the community is also here, on Discord: https://discord.gg/6tZPBJ7, on a dedicated Fallenash games server. Just dropping a question in chat usually gets it answered in no time.

Kevan Dunn wrote:A large chuck of the community is also here, on Discord: https://discord.gg/6tZPBJ7, on a dedicated Fallenash games server. Just dropping a question in chat usually gets it answered in no time.

Seconded this - I tend to notice things a lot faster on there than here... specifically cause you can @ tag me in the channel or PM me directly and it'll pop up a notification.

It can also help, if you have the time, to use the "View Active Topics" link. I don't use it much, just to avoid any drama about OOC knowledge, but it can be a good way to catch event threads you'd otherwise miss or if your character is the sort who listens for rumors and such more aggressively than the official rumor thread provides.
As an aside: I remember when I first learned how to use View My Threads--it was magical! If not for that function, these games just wouldn't work.