The Fellowship of the Fourth Age (Part 1): A New Beginning Discussion Thread

[Nogrod]

Originally Posted by Undómë

Actually, it's not 12 "goodies" dead to 24 slavers in trouble or dead. Since my last post, the tab looks like this:
.........................
13. Brenna (in the grove)
14. ex-slave female (in the grove)
15. ex-slave female (in the grove)
16. ex-slave female (in the grove)
17. ex-slave female (in the grove)
18. ex-slave female (in the grove)
19. Nia (16y/o) (in the grove)
20. Gwenith (11y/o) (in the grove)
21. young child (in the grove)
22. young child (in the grove)
23. young child (in the grove)
24. young child (in the grove)
25. young child (in the grove)

How brutal of you Undómë!

But even as we're talking about innocents taking it rough, I must confess the numbers start to look more believable... although they are just numbers that look better now...

Just forget my whining and get on with it everyone. I'm feeling a bit embarrassed because of all the hassle I have seemed to arouse here...

I'll try to wake Hadith up to fumble again if I have time to do it before everything's over...

[Tevildo]

I am talking with Folwren about what to do. This isn't a case of me deciding to kill my characters. The way this story has gone in the last day in trems of "realistic" situations and body count, I really have little choice.

Azhar is trapped at the entrance to the grove with the rest of the women. She was thrown to the side and wounded. Her chances of getting out alive are very slim. Even if she does get out, she is going to have seen all that death and dying and she'd have to deal with that. She'll know she could have done something if she had only been able to put on the bear form. Seeing Rôg clubbed will also be a shock, since she's one of the few who knows that he could have saved himself by shifting forms.

I think I have even less choice with Dorran. He would not stand by and let this happen. He will try to fight and die because he was wounded and unconscious the day before. To do anything else would be totally "unrealistic".

I am going to use my save to do a set up post for Azhar and wait till after I talk with Folwren to finish everything up.

Oh, yeah....by the way, the figures everyone is using are wrong. It was a long time ago --four months--but there was a whole lot of discussion about numbers and how important it was that there be a balance between orcs and slaves. Child and Durelin said that there could be a certain number of slaves killed, but that the orcs (who are physically larger and much more experienced) had to be a much smaller group or there would not be a realistic chance of cooperation between the two bands. They both had to feel threatened with no one having the upper hand. The founders were very specific about the numbers: 65 ex-slaves, 25 slavers (now revised up to 30), and 15 orcs plus the 7 fellowship members. If anyone wants, I can give you the links.

Including Aedhild and Azhar who will likely die, we have 27 dead ex-slaves. That's a 42% mortailty rate -- I feel like I've slipped back to the slaughters of Beleriand. That leaves 38 alive, but two are badly wounded and a bunch presumably have minor wounds. It's possible those numbers about who is alive will drop because realistically you can't know your exact body count in the middle of a battle. There will be just three members of the fellowship who can fight. Everyone else is injured, dead or a woman.

At this point, I would bet on the orcs......

[Nogrod]

Originally Posted by Tevildo

There will be just three members of the fellowship who can fight. Everyone else is injured, dead or a woman.

Teehee!

At this point, I would bet on the orcs......

...who are totally drunk by now. I think it will be more than even from the point of view of the ex-slaves & the Fellowship.

But otherwise you speak well Tevildo. The headcounts from the beginning do not seem to hold anymore. So we will just have to accustom ourselves to the new situation and try to bear with it. I believe we can do it.

PS. I t would be too sad to see Dorran go at this point, so please save him in a way or another...

[Tevildo]

First, the initial part of my save is filled.

But otherwise you speak well Tevildo. The headcounts from the beginning do not seem to hold anymore. So we will just have to accustom ourselves to the new situation and try to bear with it. I believe we can do it.

I certainly know and understand what the headcount and slaughter in the grove mean for my own characters. What I can not say is what they mean for the plotline that Durelin and Child laid down at the beginning of this game.

[Undómë]

Not all of the Orcs are drunk. Mostly the males, I would think.

And the females, at least mine, will be thinking of what's best for themselves in any encounter with the Fellowship/ex-slaves over any concerns for the Orc males.

[Regin Hardhammer]

I agree with Tevildo.

Ishkur has just had a coherent conversation with Grask. The ex-slaves weren't supposed to arrive till the middle of the night and Orcs can hold a lot of alcohol(kind of like frat parties). I am putting up a save where the injured slaver stumbles into camp and Ishkur questions him and finds out the basics of what's going on at the battle. I won't do more than that till I'm sure we're all on the same page. But one alternative would be for Ishkur to recommend a pull-out from the slavers' camp and a return to our own base. Then, by the morning we'd be reasonably clear headed and ready to attack whether at one location or the other.

[Nogrod]

Originally Posted by Undómë

Not all of the Orcs are drunk. Mostly the males, I would think.

And the females, at least mine, will be thinking of what's best for themselves in any encounter with the Fellowship/ex-slaves over any concerns for the Orc males.

You're right about the drunkenness, I suppose. But I'm not sure whether the females can "foresee" that there will be any encounter, not the least an encounter with something like the fellowship and the ex-slaves (of which the latter they would know nothing anyhow)...

But maybe we'll see in due time?

[Regin Hardhammer]

Nogrod,

We've cross posted. I'm not sure if you saw what I said.

Ishkur isn't totally drunk yet and he would at least have the wits to recommend a pull-out from the camp and an attack in the morning.

[Nogrod]

Sorry guys. It seems I'm now the one who is losing touch with this game...

So one of the slavers is already back in the camp (well, one of them)? This fast? How on earth? Sorry. I may have read the last tidings badly or something.

If it is so, I'll draw back my words and apologise. It's late now here but I will check these tomorrow.

[Durelin]

I'd like to ask everyone to remove themselves from all the numbers, and rethink this story, this game in the big picture.

It is called "The Fellowship of the Fourth Age: A New Beginning."

The goal is a new beginning for the slaves, a new settlement that will last, for which you need quite a number of people. Whether or not this settlement is successful is not a question we're asking in this game, it's not an issue being explored. It is already determined that this is successful.

The capture of Azhar and Kwell, their rescue, and the attack of the slavers are all (ultimately) part of a very interesting subplot, which was so interesting that it has taken up quite a lot of time. It's only been covered in such great detail because of the amount of interest that was shown through people's posting. We're on to the ninth page and we still haven't united the Orcs with the slaves and Fellowship - when this occurs was when the game was really supposed to start.

If over half of the slaves are dead before the game was really supposed to start...well, we have to question what we're doing.

"Realism" doesn't mean as many dead people as we can manage. And is it even realistic for slavers, who make money off of capturing slaves (and this is their only way of making money, such as enough money to have food), to simply slaughter the unarmed ones? Sure, Imak has a personal vendetta, but what about the others? I doubt they're the loyal type; I doubt they care what happens as long as they get food, drink, money, and fun...

We must remember that we are applying our concepts (which may or may not be true) of the "real world" and what "realistically" occurs in the real world to a fantasy world, and more importantly, to a game. Personally, I don't want to spend an hour or so looking through a game to find all the numbers of the dead, wounded, etc...and I don't think anyone should expect anyone else to do it. How we know these statistics can be considered unrealistic, as well. How does one character know how many people have been killed around them? Running in to dead bodies or watching people die is a nasty business, and though it's going to happen, it's not going to happen to everyone.

So why should everyone be describing and tallying death on a large scale, considering roleplaying means we play a character, and write from that character's point of view - on the small scale. Here on the Barrow-Downs, sometimes roleplaying is taken in a broader view, I think: sometimes people narrate more than roleplay. There's nothing necessarily wrong with that, but I think it's really detrimental to the game in certain situations.

We just have to remember we're roleplaying. Playing a role. Playing, having fun, as a part of a game.

Everyone's writing and participation has been absolutely amazing, and I want to thank you all for all your work and interest. And I also want to continue in the way we have been: having fun and writing a great story. So I ask that everyone will sit back and have fun with this, while realizing that this is a game, and an opportunity to have fun together thanks to Child's conception of the idea.

-Durelin

[Nogrod]

I'd like to ask everyone to remove themselves from all the numbers, and rethink this story, this game in the big picture.

I do agree, indeed, even if I was the one laying this molehill that turned out to be a mountain. That was not my intention anyway.

We're on to the ninth page and we still haven't united the Orcs with the slaves and Fellowship - when this occurs was when the game was really supposed to start.
...........
We just have to remember we're roleplaying. Playing a role. Playing, having fun, as a part of a game.

Isn't the fact that we're on the page 9 just a confirmation of the latter, that we all have been enjoying this game and playing it to the fullest?

On the "realism-issue" I would think that Durelin is right about the slavers and by that I mean that they would not try to hunt down everyone to kill them but to capture as many they can and then retreat if they saw the situation too hard on them. Now most of them are dead anyhow and that can't (shouldn't) be changed... So as I said, let's just continue.

And for my part I will end this discussion about any numbers or distances or whatever here as I see it's growing too big in relation to its worth. I'll be happy with everything suggested.

As Durelin said: let's just have fun and write for our characters. And sorry about all this trouble.

[Child of the 7th Age]

Great post Durelin. I agree with much of what you've said. Now that we've had a chance to echange thoughts by pm, I'm going to put forward some of the ways we thought of that might be helpful to resolve this.

First, a personal note....and bear with me on the length of this post. As Durelin hints, this plot idea was "my baby"--a long held dream I've wanted to see spun out in an RPG or a fanfiction. The whole reason I was so careful about the numbers in the groups is that I wanted to make the plot believable. (I guess believable is the word I prefer rather than "realistic", since the latter is so often used to criticise Tolkien and negate the meaning of fantasy.) Both the Orcs and the ex-slaves have to feel that they can not make it to the north unless they rely on help from each other. Moreover, the two groups must be convinced that the physical power of each is roughly equivalent to the other, so that one band can not destroy the other. Since Orcs are better fighters both by nature and experience (though less capable of original thought), the band of ex-slaves must be considerably larger than that of the orcs.

Nogrod is certainly right to remind us that the victory of the slaves must come at a price. It can't be easy. There must be deaths. The problem comes with the specific numbers involved. I had never envisioned a death toll of 42% among the slaves (or the death of a member of the fellowship) as this would do serious damage to the careful equation we'd concocted at the beginning of the game. Regin, Tevildo, and Umdomie are also correct that such a drastic shift in numbers would necessitate a different plot than the one originally envisioned. In relation to this, here is the original agreement on the distances between the camps.

If we assume the slavers took one hour to return to camp and galloping horses go 6.7 mph (Fonstad's figure), the distance between the two camps is 6-7 miles.

Given the figure of seven miles, it is quite conceivable that the injured slaver could reach the orc camp on horseback in about an hour and spill the beans to Ishkur as to what has happened. Of course, the slaver could also go wandering off in the desert and never be heard from again.

I think we can reach a middle ground here: realistic numbers of dead but enough alive to preserve the original storyline. But to do that, minor changes will have to be made. I am therefore making the following requests.....

1. First, Tevildo, you were right about the numbers. We started off with 65 slaves. More importantly, please don't kill your characters without trying to work this out. I understand why you felt you had to do that. If the situation was this dire in the grove, Azhar would have died and Dorran as well trying to help her. Let's assume for a moment that the number of deaths is a wee bit lower, the situation grave but not to the point of breaking. I see no problem with you continuing with your two posts for Azhar and Dorran, perhaps softening the first one just a tad with a word here and there (nothing drastic).

Would you consider having Lindir come in to help pull the chestnuts out of the fire? He is the actually the character with the most experience in war and would likely keep a cool ahead and come up with a trick or two to get you two free from that brute. He may pay a small price, but being an elf who heals quickly does have certain advantages. (He also has the advantage of height and several thousand years of battling against Morgoth and Sauron.) I am not the greatest writer of battle posts, but I'll do my best.

2. Undomie - Whoa! I wish I could write with your energy and decisiveness when it comes to action. Could you soften it ever so slightly? Have some of the deaths be injuries? This wouldn't take much revision, just indicating they are stunned or whatever rather than dead. I will let you be the judge of the correct number of deaths to injuries. Just remember we have to rise again to fight a much worse enemy, and I don't mean orcs!

3. Regin -- Could you just hold off filling that save? I know you and the other orcs have good reason to be restless but please wait till the rest of this falls more into place. I really would like to keep to the original plot we agreed on: some portion of the fellowship will travel to the slavers' old camp late tonight and catch the orcs there -- the men half drunk and the women playing the role suggested by Tolkien in pleading for mercy. (Pleading? Maybe that's the wrong word...I'm not sure how an orc would ask or demand a break. That could be interesting to see.) Then the good guys will face a gigantic moral dilemma.

The glue that will hold this all together is what Aiwendil is going to find when he's out there on the plain heading back to camp snorting and smelling the night air. The one thing that's guaranteed to bring two enemies together is when they discover they have an even larger headache to face in the near future, one tha could destroy them both.

Nogrod - I know this isn't 100% of what you wanted, but I think it does tread a middle line so we can all continue with our characters and storylines.

If you or anyone has more ideas on this, just share them on the discussion thread.

Oh, yes....the death of Aedhild. That's up to you, Brinniel, and what you need to do with the character.....although at this point I'd love to see a certain number of warm, living bodies.

[Tevildo]

Child -

I am more comfortable with this so let's go ahead. There's still going to be some sad deaths and injuries in that grove but hopefully not so many that we can't continue with the same story line.

Let's assume for a moment that the number of deaths is a wee bit lower, the situation grave but not to the point of breaking. I see no problem with you continuing with your two posts for Azhar and Dorran, perhaps softening the first one just a tad with a word here and there (nothing drastic).

Yes, I can do that. But probably not till tomorrow.

Would you consider having Lindir come in to help pull the chestnuts out of the fire?

That would be helpful. I will send you my ideas. To make this believable, one of my two characters should probably get hurt, but no one will die. My characters seem to have a knack for getting sick and injured since both of them have already been in the infirmary once. Athwen could make a fortune if she could just start charging for all these "housecalls".

[Brinniel]

I definitely agree on what's being said here. While at first we may have gone over a little much on the heroics, this devastation that has suddenly swept through the camp is just too overwhelming, and in my opinion, has gone overboard. Not only would we lose the large number we need, but emotionally, how would the remaining ex-slaves carry on? We lose that many ex-slaves, and we lose that sense of hope we need to start that new beginning.

Tevildo, as others mentioned before, please don't kill your characters. Azhar and Dorran are great characters and it'd be terrible to lose them. And while I knew characters would be killed off, I never imagined them to be the main characters. I've killed off my own character before in a different RPG when I saw it necessary, and honestly it just plain sucks because once your characters are all dead, you're done. And I don't know about everyone else, but I'd hate to lose you as a writer on this RPG. Dorran may be slightly injured, but I would think he could successfully rescue Azhar. After all, he is a Rider of Rohan (not to mention ex-slave), so he should be pretty tough, right?

And as for Aedhild... If no one minds, I would still like to kill her off. After all, with Nova gone, she is now an NPC, therefore not important to the story, plus I have this really great idea on her death that I'd like to use. Here's what I could do: I'll have Aedhild be one of the woman that were mentioned in Undome's post. At that point of time, she won't have died just yet, but will be seriously injured. Eirnar will find her, and that's basically where my post will pick up. Eirnar will definitely not die; instead I can use him as another reinforcement. Depending on what Durelin posts, perhaps I will have him aid Shae and Khamir.

EDIT: Seems I'm a little slow on my posting, as I have only just read your last post Tevildo, but I'm glad to see you're not killing them off.