Listening to @AdamKoebel set up this Bag of Devouring, it serves as an inspiration.
All I can think about now is how awesome the next GM Prep/Front Update stream will be. So looking forward to it, #EmbraceTheChaos
I imagine it’ll be merged into the Live Live prep at this point?
Misread your post at first, got hyped for the idea of a “live live prep” for the “live live show” the day before or so… now I want that!
@AdamKoebel PLS! @itmeJP PLS! 
Edit: Probably too easy to spoil something to the cast members…
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Hey @AdamKoebel I noticed in the post show when you were telling JP what his xp break-downs for lv.5 was that is was 2x the encounter difficulty. Did you change this since you the zine which was 3x? What made you change the xp break-down?
It isnt about regenerating a finger, its about being pulled fully into the bag and destroyed entirely.
Other powerful magi - “I know we have had out differences, but I believe this relationship can be repaired. I bring you a gift.”
Utrix - “Well then, for this opportunity I am thankful. And to you, I also give a humble gift.”
Magi - “Whatever is this? …” reaches into the bag
“By the gods!”
Utrix - “To only one deity should you plea to, I however am deaf to you.” Picks up now empty Bag
“Goodbye, friend.”
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He declared it to be a bag of devouring, briefly explaining its function. Feels like a “whoops” moment involving backpedaling when realizing how it works.
It’s either the dice and completely out of Adam’'s hands and the above is true, or Adam is responsible for designing such an item, and can’t really blame the dice all that much. It was balanced in the sense that making someone lose some of their stuff is extremely deflating, but dying would be rare, since it normally doesn’t trick the process of identifying via short rest. Messing with that balance by making it less deadly but able to simply lie to players, and having no limit to item destruction causes the item to focus into an item of attrition with minimized benefits. He’s also made it less viable to use as a weapon which was it’s previous best quality, maximizing it against PC’s and all but stripping the benefits beyond a bottomless trash can.
No, it’s more like Adam set up a trap for Ramus, who tried to identify the item on a short rest rather than using a spell. It was a fantastic set up, and one that Dan fell for hook, line, and sinker. There’s a reason Adam kept asking him “Do you want to put anything in the bag? You sure you don’t want to put everything in the bag? Come on, just put stuff in the bag.” It’s Adam being Adam. Hell, more simple, it’s a GM being a GM.
There have been a few benefits with this being an online show. With the PC’s being streamers, and the show being streamed, composure is a lot more steady with the players when things like this happen. Trying to give the benefit of the doubt, I’d expect if played irl in a casual environment like a local game shop, that amount of punishment would result in over half the time with player drop out. Even as masterful at designing story and lore and making compelling settings as Adam is, this is the kind of thing that makes players leave. So I’m not sure it’s fair to say this is how GM’s just are. If it was, they’d find a lot of empty tables eventually. This type of game play is ok only at times where such styles are agreed upon beforehand, and they recently revised things to scale down the intensity.
Though I’m fairly certain, for his own sanity bc there are also a lot of downsides to streaming a game, Adam tends to at the very least not respond to negative feedback like this. Whether or not he reads it, I wouldn’t know.
Yeah, I made it 2x for now, 3x for quests but I may change it again. We’ll see.
I don’t even see any real feedback, here. It’s mostly just people expressing their opinions, which is fine. The bag is a bag of devouring, with some modifications I made to it to fit the scene better. The trouble is that people seem to be saying “Adam did it wrong” when they mean “I would have done it differently” which is also fine!
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If anything, this is a perfect scene of why, as a GM, one should get a feel for their group. There are people who have been on Rollplay, who would have probably just been like “You know what? I’m going to bed.” after that happened. Dan rolled with it, really quite well. Like, I was expecting at least a “Goddammit Adam” and instead he just RPed straight through it, so props to @DansGaming for that.
But yeah, would this have gone as well in any other situation? It depends on the GM and it depends on the player, and it even depends on the group. Ruty from Maze Arcana had Milynn’s character on Fury’s Reach eat a dead Grung baby as a side effect of that one fruit, and it ended up hitting Twitter, after the show, when Milynn came out and was like “I did not like this, it was not okay.” Of course, there is somewhere the group came together and Ruty was like “I made the mistake of thinking this would just be consequence, and I didn’t realize what it would do.” But that is also an instance where the group did the right thing, and came together, to get over it.
But that is still the point. When a GM, or even a player!, does anything that is out of the norm, it can go really good, or it can go really bad. And when it goes bad, the group needs to work towards recovering from it, and admitting mistakes were made, or the group will die. Anyone who watched Adam’s Office Hours from the 23rd, has an idea of what I’m talking about, and I’m not sharing details of the situation because I don’t think they are mine to share, but there you go. You know what to watch.
But all in all, what’s happening in this thread is like what Adam said, there are people who are saying they wouldn’t do this, or they wouldn’t like this happening to them as a player, and that’s fine. Me, personally, this my kind of ironic sense of humor that a player who has been Greed Incarnate, would end up with an item that ate all of his current buildup of wealth. That is right up my alley. And if the execution was just this good, I’d love it even more. As a player. I honestly have no idea if I would ever do this as a GM. I’d have to be really comfortable with the person, heck, I’d have to be really comfortable with the whole group, before I thought about it.
Here, it is obviously a joke that worked well and was well-received by the party. And honestly, that’s what matters.
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Salihafa, upon identifying the cube to be Utrix’s soul implored Ramus to not touch it. I assume the fear was that the soul could have somehow infused into Ramus’s body since Ramus doesn’t have one of his own. Something I deeply wanted to see was just that. What if Ramus’s body housed the soul of the Wizard? Would Ramus no longer appear cursed and soulless as he does now, effectively curing him? Would Utrix take over the wheel and Ramus as we know him would cease to exist? Would we have the Hun of Utrix and the Poe of Ramus? Could Ramus had become a Sahir? My question for @AdamKoebel is whether any of these possibilities were on the table, and how you imagine that path going if the players had chose to pursue it?
Were it possible it would have utterly obliterated Ramus in an instant!
@AdamKoebel you said people are watching live roleplaying to see players overcome hardships/deadly encounters/impossible odds. I would say people also like to watch players enjoying their time while roleplaying. I think there was more people watching and enjoying last arc because they could see Zeke having fun roleplaying his character, JP having fun discovering your masterfully created world and it’s lore, Dan having fun playing his sarcastic PC and starting to do really cool stuff. This makes shows/streams so much better - IMO CR success in huge part was thanks to that, viewers just couldn’t stop enjoying time spent with their party.
After this episode, just like @UmbraSanctum said, I also feel like normal players would drop out. @AdamKoebel you are a GOD at creating settings ( I could never create a world such as CoS/SS/Mirrorshades), but I think you are too hard on your PCs. Amounts of hardships outweight any positives and it feels like you enjoy it much more than having your players suceed. All fails feel really punishing and all successes really meager (“so… nothing bad happens”, you get a cursed bag from your crit on looking for magic items in “low magic setting”), when most of the time odds aren’t in party’s favor (all players roll saves, DCs can be pretty high, on investigation/perception/other “get more info” checks only 1-2 players can roll). Why not give them another shot sometime? F.e. Ramus had no chance at all to figure out bag was cursed, why not after putting in X amount of items couldn’t he get a chance to roll a perception check to see if bag made a sound eating his items.
Well, writing this thing took me over an hour, I hope my English isn’t to bad to you all, native English speakers. 
I have been with Rollplay, since original series and I hope this brand just keeps getting bigger. Keep on going JP, I want to see you suceed!
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Luckily, even if Ramus had lost his holy symbol, he could still have cast spells. Holy symbols just allow the cleric to ignore nonpriced material components, and Create Food and Water has no material components, just verbal and somatic.
It’s all just expectation vs reality. I think after the revision following the string of JP deaths we were all somewhat hopeful that the tone of the game would change. Maybe that was because of misinterpretation on our ends. This story needs an upswing. For feedback, I think your viewers are just hoping to see some good happen to the party.
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Maybe they ought to try doing something decent and being worth their retribution instead of being murderous world-ruining weirdos. 
I believe in rewards being gained when they are earned. I want the PCs to succeed but yeah, I’m harder on them along the way than maybe I have to be. This is very true. I hear you!
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I’m curious if the scene in Utrix’s temple at the experiment was inspired by Nier: Automata, particularly the ‘Become as Gods’ level. In the scenes there is: chanting, faceless worshipers, and a red/gold colour palette. And creation of a god topic matches up too.
Any other similarities that I’ve missed?
BECOME AS GODS
Not consciously but it’s highly possible my subconscious was getting its Yoko Taro on.
The bag was mean! Poor Ramus, hopefully they can at least feed it dead bodies or whatever!
@AdamKoebel Now that Ramus has had his Holy Symbol eaten and more downtrodden than before, would it be a good time to remind him he can be a Forge Priest of Agni if he wants? Unless he hasnt forgotten, he seems good at remembering things!
You wont answer, but i also assume the Illithids were the Elves? Was a cool re-imagining where the c’thulu-esk elements were the armour. (As opposed to the beetle armour the other elves use or something?)
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