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It's partially unrelated, but 14th century and Persia twigged my memory of Tamerlane. A bit later than your timeline, but if you don't mind shifting it around a bit he'd make a pretty  antagonist; stuff like the massacre of Baghdad in particular is pretty crazy, plus there's that curse bit for his tomb under the Legacy section. Maybe they meet him as a young guy and help him get started.As for the original question, there's something I saw when I was reading through the Dresden Files RPG about how they run character creation (I think the DMG for D&D uses something similar too, but I might be wrong); each player writes up a few short story ideas from his or her earlier life, and then the other players add themselves into the stories to help give their characters some personality/history. Especially if she's new or not thinking in these terms I wouldn't expect something extraordinary to come out of that, but at least it'll get her on track with helping to create the story with the other characters/GM. If this game is already going on then I'd just echo Michaelos's advice. Either that or give her some kind of NPC companion to interact with (trusted information source, shopkeeper, something) and then do something horrible to him.
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Aug 26, 2010 22:11
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I need some DMing help for D&D 4e as I've never done it before. For anyone who has read "The fantasy of Dr. Ox" by Jules Verne, my one off (or two if people take too long) is going to follow that plot. For those that don't know the plot (I assume everyone) a town full of lazy people let their town fall into disarray, there's a fire, a flood and buildings falling over and nobody is doing anything about it. A scientist (Dr Ox) in the town then gets the idea to gas the whole town into liveliness via installing gas lighting, which results in increasing violence and eventually war is declared on a neighboring town. It all ends when the scientist's lab explodes. The main point about the gas is that once people leave the area of the gas it loses effectiveness. As far as the PCs are involved, they're going to be asked to help return order to the town, and have to solve the mystery of why the town is descending into madness and stop those responsible. The big issue is, the folks that our regular DM has repeatedly thrown encounters where we just kill poo poo and move on at us. None of the encounters I've worked out at all involve straight up killing (except maybe the very end one, but even that can be won without combat). So I'm worried that the group is going to just go out and kill poo poo. Any help you guys could give on how to improve/work my encounters would be handy. So far this is how my encounters are laid out: Encounter 1: Bar Fight PCs arrive at a bar find a couple people yelling at each other. If the PCs try to intervene the other bar folk try to stop them, a punch is thrown and a fight kicks off. Here's the issue with this one, there are a few ways to "win" but none of them involve slaughtering a bar full of people. The PCs can either walk away, at which point one of the two guys in the fight gets beaten to death, or the PCs can intervene and remove bar patrons without killing them. I figure for this campaign they'll be able to punch/stun people as a minor, grab as an attack and then drag people from the bar for movement. Once the patrons are outside they will return to normal. The townspeople aren't going to have any sort of HP or defense because cripes, they're townspeople. If on the off chance my group decides to murder a bar full of people they then become fugitives and will be hunted accordingly until they can clear their name. If one of the group kills someone, the rest of the group will be tasked with hunting them down and arresting them. Encounter 2: The Theater Similar to the bar fight, the PCs will have to exit a crowded theater while being assaulted by patrons. There will be potential to be knocked prone and they'll take minor damage assuming anyone actually lands a blow, which they shouldn't. Again, once the patrons leave they will return to normal. Hopefully by this point they should realize there's something weird going on. Throughout the campaign they will be given information about another town that this town once warred with, as well as information about Dr. Ox. Encounter 3: Helping Dr. Ox This one is going to be tricky, I want the PCs to meet Dr. Ox and he will request that they help build the streetlights for the town as the town is in such huge disarray. As far as I've worked out, this will be some kind of skill challenge. The tricky part is I'm going to have to distract the rogue and others who have thievery/dungeoneering from figuring out that it's a trap. I'm really not too sure how to work this so any suggestions would be helpful Encounter 4: War If the PCs fall for the red herrings sprinkled throughout the campaign they'll likely end up going to war with the neighboring village. In this case, I'm going to send a mass of NPC townspeople to aid in the attack but each round as they approach the town more townsfolk will turn back and return home as the effects of the gas wear off. Hopefully this inspires the PCs that they're heading the wrong direction, but if not... they're going to end up killing a town full of innocent people I guess Encounter 5: Dr Ox In theory this fight can be won by straight fighting, it's not what I have in mind though. All the PCs are level 2. Dr Ox is going to be a reskinned level 7 goblin skulker from MM3 (I liked the concept of someone loving up the town and sending people in the wrong direction). Dr. Ox's assistant will be a reskinned level 5 dread marauder from MM3. Is that too powerful for a group of 6 or 7 level 2s? Ideally the end result will be that the PCs rupture the tanks holding the gas and then after 3 rounds the lab explodes killing Dr. Ox. I figure if the bad guys are too hard to hit I can just have the team's range attacks accidentally rupture the tanks and hope they're smart enough to get out before everything blows up. I'm trying to be as non-railroading as possible which is why I'll have back-up encounters/plans made in case they actually do decide to just randomly slaughter towns people (I'll send mercenaries after them or something, I figure after a given amount of time the town will go batshit and kill themselves so the PCs will be free to continue their adventures), I'm just trying to go in a different direction then "and go kill poo poo" that we do each week. So any input/feedback you may have would be helpful as like I said, this is my first time so I'm not too sure on what I should be doing (only been doing tabletop RPGs for a couple months now).
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Aug 29, 2010 16:36
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Happitoo posted:Fantasy of Dr. Ox That sounds fine, unless of course, the other players only like straight combat encounters and aren't much for roleplaying, in which case, you might not want to force them away from doing what they like. To address the individual encounters: 1)What makes you think the players are going to try and drag anyone out of the bar? Every bar fight I've ever seen in a game has been the players trying to bludgeon their opponents into unconsciousness. If you have the townsfolk start throwing punches, I think you're far more likely to see the players smashing chairs over the bartenders' head than trying to defuse the situation. Especially if the group background is combat 24/7. 2)The encounter design for this seems fine, but I have a question: If the effects of this gas are so severe and quickly felt, that people can be in a room with it, go nuts, leave, and be immediately fine- why aren't the players being effected by it? 3)I think you have a plausible case for none of the players being able to recognize the brand new agitation gas Dr. Ox just invented. What's more, if you just don't make the checks and tell the party, I very much doubt anyone after the adventure would be upset with you. 4)I think it's very likely they're going to attack that town anyway. If they haven't yet had a straight combat encounter, they'll be itching by this point to use the neat powers they chose for their character because they didn't know this campaign would de-emphasize combat. If they think the neighboring town are the culprits, they might assume townies dropping out is just more of that town's trickery and attack anyway. 5)I don't have enough 4E gm experience to say whether this is balanced. You said this is a one-off, so I think a lot of the above issues can be solves or ameliorated by telling the players ahead of time that the campaign won't be heavy on combat: ideally before they create their characters. Otherwise, someone's showing up with a stupid tank and getting really upset that they have practically nothing to do. If they don't seem to want to play such an adventure then don't force them. If they're up for it, then you've made it a LOT more likely encounters 1 and 2 will go as planned instead of turning into a long slogging combat. For the record, the story in question seems to be an excellent choice for adapting an adventure, and I like the ideas. Ooh, ok, idea to maybe spice up number 4 and divert them from the innocent town. Perhaps in gas-town, another group of less scrupulous adventurers, or mercenaries, or bandits wandered in a little earlier than the PCs, and have become just as effected by the gas. They'll set out to march with everyone, but when the gas wears off on them, instead of turning around they decide to rob the PCs before heading off on their travels. A justified fight ensues, (Or they talk them out of it somehow) but either way it increases the likelihood they'll turn around and head back to gas-town instead of march on innocent-town.
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Aug 29, 2010 17:46
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Hadn't run 4e before, though at the least, that combat is always nonlethal in the game unless you choose to be lethal is a plus, they can use some of their powers with care in combat.Happitoo posted:Encounter 1: Bar Fight The first few that are affected look like the usual sort of aggressive drunks, they simply get thrown out by the bouncer/bartender after a few punches and lie outside confused about whats going on. For improved effect, have these first combatants be rather unlikely to be fighting, perhaps some old lady or preteen picking a fight. After this, check against their perception for the PCs to notice something weird in the air, right before a final, higher bonus fortitude attack to see if any of them get drugged up. This kicks off the main event. At this point, most people would have gotten the clue that Something Is Wrong, and you might see some PCs try to track it down or stop it nonlethally. Affected PCs brawling might be an issue though. quote:Encounter 2: The Theater quote:Encounter 3: Helping Dr. Ox
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Aug 29, 2010 18:12
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My Lovely Horse posted:I might simply make it a skill challenge to get out of the room once the gas is set off, with some thugs waiting outside, and depending on how well the party does they'd end up fighting them at full strength, fighting them with one PC unconscious from the gas (and needing a Heal check or two to join the fray), or everyone falling victim to the gas after all. e: vvv Yeah in retrospect I kinda dropped the ball there because even by the object rules as written, i.e. entirely without me going "nope the door is too sturdy (because this is a skill challenge dammit)", that would have been 90 HP worth of door to break down for some level 6 guys. That alone might have convinced them to try a different approach. (I do love those object rules, though.) My Lovely Horse fucked around with this message at 21:34 on Aug 29, 2010 |
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Aug 29, 2010 18:14
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Well, the "bomb the door down" solution could take a while(unless they're a higher level party), but generally speaking it might help to hint quite loudly to the players as triggers for skill challenges rather than leaving it freestyle. Just predefine a bunch of potential actions as guidelines?
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Aug 29, 2010 18:37
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My Lovely Horse posted:So, this worked out okay. But it brought a new problem to light: my group doesn't mesh well with the concept of skill challenges. Easiest way for them was to try and break the door down with spells, and I didn't have a good idea how to handle that; ended up having them hit automatically and make Arcana checks but that seems inconsistent and wasn't quite satisfying for them or me. I'm already using the alternative Obsidian skill challenge system but that doesn't seem to do the trick either, and I'm thinking of just dropping the concept of skill challenges from my game altogether (or at least restrict it to combat skill challenges only) and just giving them extra XP whenever they overcome something I would have made a skill challenge otherwise. Think of it this way. When you design a combat encounter, you pick out four to eight monsters the PCs have to defeat. But if they use non-combat cleverness to take some of those monsters out of the fight, or figure out how to skip the fight entirely, you congratulate them, give them XP, and move on. You need the same mentality with skill challenges. The complexity of the challenge is a framework for how many skill checks the players can make, but don't try to enforce it rigidly. If they figure out a clever way to bypass the skill challenge, then go with it. I'm going to disagree with veekie, though. The only way skill challenges are fun is if the players don't know they're doing them.
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Aug 29, 2010 19:30
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Chainsawdomy posted:That sounds fine, unless of course, the other players only like straight combat encounters and aren't much for roleplaying, in which case, you might not want to force them away from doing what they like. Actually quite the contrary, most of them are hardcore RPers so the non-stop kill missions have kind of grated on them To address the individual encounters: quote:1)What makes you think the players are going to try and drag anyone out of the bar? Every bar fight I've ever seen in a game has been the players trying to bludgeon their opponents into unconsciousness. If you have the townsfolk start throwing punches, I think you're far more likely to see the players smashing chairs over the bartenders' head than trying to defuse the situation. Especially if the group background is combat 24/7. Ideally, the fact that they will have been tasked with maintaining the peace will lead to a path of less violence. Also the towns people are going to be pure poo poo for attack. They're friggin' townspeople. They're not going to be trained in combat or anything. I expect a huge amount of whiffing, which hopefully once the group realizes the people can't hit them (or on the off chance they do, they'll do 1d4 of damage) they'll figure out they're not supposed to slaughter a town full of people. quote:2)The encounter design for this seems fine, but I have a question: If the effects of this gas are so severe and quickly felt, that people can be in a room with it, go nuts, leave, and be immediately fine- why aren't the players being effected by it? Don't really have an explanation for that one, I'll either go with "They're simple folk who haven't moved outside of their small town in years, so they have no immune system", or "Dr Ox did something else to them first so the gas would take effect (he only wanted them to be not lazy)" or final answer "a wizard did it" quote:3)I think you have a plausible case for none of the players being able to recognize the brand new agitation gas Dr. Ox just invented. What's more, if you just don't make the checks and tell the party, I very much doubt anyone after the adventure would be upset with you. I think that's the route I'm going to take, just not tell them as realistically the gas is not harmful to them, only the townspeople. quote:4)I think it's very likely they're going to attack that town anyway. If they haven't yet had a straight combat encounter, they'll be itching by this point to use the neat powers they chose for their character because they didn't know this campaign would de-emphasize combat. If they think the neighboring town are the culprits, they might assume townies dropping out is just more of that town's trickery and attack anyway. This is actually just a side track in the main adventure because the GM wants a couple weeks off, so they're going to be using the same characters they have the whole way along, so I don't think we'll face the issue of people wanting to use fancy powers (unless we all level to 3 this week). Honestly I'm kind of hoping they end up murdering another town and being declared fugitives. I think it would be interesting. quote:You said this is a one-off, so I think a lot of the above issues can be solves or ameliorated by telling the players ahead of time that the campaign won't be heavy on combat: ideally before they create their characters. Otherwise, someone's showing up with a stupid tank and getting really upset that they have practically nothing to do. If they don't seem to want to play such an adventure then don't force them. If they're up for it, then you've made it a LOT more likely encounters 1 and 2 will go as planned instead of turning into a long slogging combat. The players have actually been asking for more RP from our regular GM because we've been kind of railroaded into things we (I) thought didn't make any sense for our team to be partaking in. To give an example of how the course of our adventure has been going, we started at level 1 saving a dwarven kingdom from invading dragons (wyrms I guess, like I said, I've only been doing this a couple months  ) and their underlings (kobolds, lizard people, some other stuff). There were 5 different dragons all invading and making home in the various stages of the kingdom. So we save the kingdom and move on. Next encounter we get jumped by a bunch of people and they start things off by kicking the poo poo out of our rogue. So it turns out at the end of the encounter that these people had "heard our reputation of dragon slaying", were testing us and wanted us to rescue their protector... a dragon who had gone insane. But oh wait, these people want to test us some more... by kicking the poo poo out of us some more. And sending their children to kick the poo poo out of us (literally). So finally I was just like "umm why don't we say "gently caress them?"" I mean they asked for help by kicking the poo poo out of us. We say yes, they continue to kick the poo poo out of us. We just kicked the poo poo out of a bunch of dragons and their followers and we're being asked to help people who follow a dragon. We just spent 5 weeks killing those dicks, why would our characters be in any mindset to go "oh, ok, you ambushed us, beat the poo poo out of us, but that's only because you want our help to save something that we've just been killing for weeks. That seems reasonable". And then they throw children at us. So they're testing us, to save their (town/group/race whatever you want to call it) by sending the very future of their race to die? By the end of the second encounter we (the players) were all ready to just kill the leaders of this group and move on because they were such assholes. But we got railroaded into rescuing a dragon (which will happen this week). So if anything the actual desire to properly RP is there, and the desire to not straight up murder people is there. So I'm hoping by reducing the killing/fighting the players will go along with it. Also for the rest of the "tests" with the jackasses that wanted our help I decided to spend the entire fight doing sundering blows to their genitals so they couldn't procreate anymore because they were too loving stupid for their race to continue. I mean seriously, who asks for help by punching someone repeatedly and THEN going "oh, we were just testing you". Thanks everyone for their input. I would respond to all the comments but this was getting a little long and ranty and off topic.
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Aug 30, 2010 01:02
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TDG, when is it appropriate to 'break up' with a player? And how do you do this with the minimum of hurt feelings. I have a player (sister of a housemate) whos generally loud and overbearing. She's played a bit more 4E (or any RPG) than the rest of the group (who are all fresh-faced and doe-eyed). She brings up in-jokes from the previous campaign (that only I understand, and that confuse the rest of the group). She seems to expect that we adjust game runtimes around her schedule (i.e. finish early if she has an early start the next day). It all came to a head when, at the last full session (a month or so ago) she flounced from the munchkin game we were playing, after being accused of cheating (a normal and essential part of munchkin). After being argued down, she said "Fine. We have to go, I'm working early tomorrow!" (her housemate also plays with us, and she seems to treat him like a taxi). This was at least an hour before we'd usually finish, and half-way through the game of munchkin (in my defense, we were only playing munchkin because we'd come to an appropriate plot point for a break, and we weren't going to be playing again for several weeks due to holidays, etc). Having seen several of her outbursts before, I gave her a bit of a  as she got up (in reterospect, perhaps not the best idea). She responded by hitting me in the side of my head as she walked out.Since then, I did get about half of my newer players together to run through another session (unrelated, new characters) and everything went faster and more smoothly than when she's around (this could be because it's 4E, and less players = faster rounds, admittedly). I'd feel bad excluding her from the game, since there's not another one she can join, but I feel like she's killing the buzz of the game when she's around (my girlfriend, another newbie player, agrees). Pros: More fun for remaining players Less stress for GM Cons: Her housemate might stop coming if she's not invited (for fear of retribution) Not sure of how her sister (my housemate) will handle it, although I've mentioned the possibility to her before Would feel bad taking away someone's gaming opportunity Fake edit for emails: Her sister posted:I don’t want to condone [problem player]’s behavior last night at all. From what I’ve heard, it was childish and unnecessary. Problem player to sister posted:And yeah, i had an amazing temper tantrum last night. But i'm on the icu shift, so i was awake at 5am, hadn't had any coffee, and i needed to get to sleep so i could get up at 5am this morning. [DM] was accusing me of cheating all night, i'd told [pp’s housemate] several times i wanted to go home, and then he set out to gently caress me over in munchkin. So i threw a hissy fit and said i wanted to go home then. I mean, normally i'm pretty good at controlling myself and my childishness, but it all overflowed last night. horribly embaressing, but it happens. Problem player to group posted:Hi guys! Now this would all be much less of an issue if I'd handled it then and there, but I was caught up in stuff at work for the next week, then I was on holidays for two (and didn't want to think about it), and now we're here. Any thoughts or advice would be much appreciated. UrbanLabyrinth fucked around with this message at 01:01 on Sep 1, 2010 |
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Sep 1, 2010 00:49
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You should probably let her keep playing and be a bit more aware of when tensions at your table start running high. Also, don't play Munchkin, you fool.
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Sep 1, 2010 01:03
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Just tell her it's cool if she can act like a god-damned adult, and pledge to do the same. I had one player punch another in the arm in what he thought was a playful and funny gesture, but which combined with all the other 'playful' name-calling and such was going to become a big deal so I just had to step in and be like "look motherfuckers, if you can't be grown-rear end adults then you can piss off". Worked pretty well.
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Sep 1, 2010 02:03
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Riidi WW posted:You should probably let her keep playing and be a bit more aware of when tensions at your table start running high. Also, don't play Munchkin, you fool. The problem is that tensions don't seem to run high for anyone but her, and I don't want to walk on eggshells because she's a precious snowflake (and I don't want my players to do the same). Grim posted:Just tell her it's cool if she can act like a god-damned adult, and pledge to do the same. It's not the first time she's had a hissy-fit at the table, although it's the first time she's walked out. Again, my fault that I didn't respond at the time of the incident or soon after.
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Sep 1, 2010 06:05
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Riidi WW posted:You should probably let her keep playing and be a bit more aware of when tensions at your table start running high. Also, don't play Munchkin, you fool. Grim posted:Just tell her it's cool if she can act like a god-damned adult, and pledge to do the same. These times a billion All you can really do is sit down with her privately and address the problem. Do it in a neutral setting, and don't make her out to be the bad guy. If that doesn't work, running the game without her is basically your only other option. Keeping players who can't manage at least a minimum level of social decency is how you end up posting in the worst experiences thread.
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Sep 1, 2010 07:03
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What do you guys use for general use maps? I need a simple stock world map that I can annotate, preferably with plenty of desert. I've tried looking on D&D Insider but the search functions aren't that great.
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Sep 2, 2010 18:21
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SnatchRabbit posted:What do you guys use for general use maps? I need a simple stock world map that I can annotate, preferably with plenty of desert. I've tried looking on D&D Insider but the search functions aren't that great. I just have a pile of dryerase/magnetic whiteboards, that I've etched a grid into. That way I can draw the oasis in blue pen, and toss some magnets on for boulders. If I want plenty of dessert, I say "Everything else is desert." There are also Paizo maps out there that are wet/dry erase, with basic textures (forest, swamp, ocean, beach, etc.) under a grid. I bet they have one for desert.
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Sep 2, 2010 19:08
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Sam_I_Am posted:There are also Paizo maps out there that are wet/dry erase, with basic textures (forest, swamp, ocean, beach, etc.) under a grid. I bet they have one for desert. They've got Flip-Mats, which are pretty big (24"x36", or something like that), and Map Packs which are smaller but tend to have a wider variety of locales. I've got a few of the blank Flip-Mats and they work just fine, though sometimes it's tough to get ink out of the creases if you draw on them directly. The Map Packs are *not* dry erase. They're just cardstock that you lay out in 1-4 sheet groups to form a smallish location.
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Sep 2, 2010 23:18
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Happitoo posted:Stuff Cool, I didn't realize this was just an aside for the current party, or that your group was specifically looking for some good roleplay. Sounds like you have everything well in hand. Let us know how it goes! I have my own question now. Later this month, a couple friends from my old gaming group on the east coast were coming to visit me in the Midwest. We were all psyched, and they prompted me to run a followup to their favorite campaign I ran back in the day. Well now one of them can't make it, but is determined to play anyway. He suggested skyping. I've never used skype, and certainly never tried to remotely game with it. Does this seem plausible? Has anyone tried this? Anything I should be aware of? Anything I can do to make it work more smoothly?
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Sep 3, 2010 05:50
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So, I'm about to DM a 4E game with a group of friends in the next couple of weeks and decided to do a thing that we've never really touched on by doing some planar travelling. Basically I have a beginning idea, which is a basic protect x from evil horde, and the enemy that they will face right at the end of the campaign. I'm just unsure about the middle bits, as i started off mentioning, we've not done alot in the planes, so i'm not sure what sort of mischief is possible there. So I guess what i'm asking for is some adventure ideas that could be interesting things to do for a general experience of planar exploration.
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Sep 3, 2010 08:34
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Chainsawdomy posted:Cool, I didn't realize this was just an aside for the current party, or that your group was specifically looking for some good roleplay. Sounds like you have everything well in hand. Let us know how it goes! do you have a good internet connection? Do you have a webcam? Does he have these things wherever he is? If so, Skype rules pretty hard. point your webcam at anything you want him to see, turn the computer so everyone can see him, it works great. Play as long as you want, Skype is free. If you don't have a webcam it's harder, since you have to narrate literally everything and can't use visual aids at all. If he doesn't have a webcam that's OK although it's nicer if he does. If either of you has a lovely connection it will be tougher but skype is pretty forgiving.
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Sep 3, 2010 12:20
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Chainsawdomy posted:I have my own question now. Later this month, a couple friends from my old gaming group on the east coast were coming to visit me in the Midwest. We were all psyched, and they prompted me to run a followup to their favorite campaign I ran back in the day. Well now one of them can't make it, but is determined to play anyway. He suggested skyping. I've never used skype, and certainly never tried to remotely game with it. Does this seem plausible? Has anyone tried this? Anything I should be aware of? Anything I can do to make it work more smoothly? If you're playing any game that doesn't have a significant map component, Skype can work just fine, barring technical issues using it. I personally find it oddly creepy to have someone in the room and then an ethereal voice from the machine... I'm okay with Skype by itself, but this bothers me for some reason. Your tastes may vary.
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Sep 3, 2010 17:14
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Chainsawdomy posted:Cool, I didn't realize this was just an aside for the current party, or that your group was specifically looking for some good roleplay. Sounds like you have everything well in hand. Let us know how it goes! It actually went quite well. Mostly because we ended up having 9 people playing, so people split up which lead to less chances to murder townspeople. I ended up deciding to go with water + gas = crazy so that players had a chance to go crazy. When the group arrived at the town most of them and realized there was a fire/flood and tons of poo poo in shambles they all decided to head for the bar (which was encounter 1). Most everyone walked into the bar, saw the argument going on, picked up a bucket and left to try and put out the fire farther into town. Except the monk, who went to raid the kitchen of the bar since nobody was paying attention, and our cleric who tried to break up the fight, and get the townspeople to help put out the fire. So the cleric walks right into the middle of the townspeople and tries to break up the fight, which leads to a couple punches thrown at her, both missing (because these people suck at attacking) and then one of the townsfolk roll a crit and punches the cleric in the back of the head. The cleric decides to try and herd everyone out the door hoping that they'll see the fire and help extinguish it so she books it for the door and yells out "your mother's a whore" and ran out the door with all the townspeople after her, all the townies disperse and go home and which point the monk walks out of the back of the bar going "what's going on guys?" All the people on the bucket line trying to put out the fire end up taking a fort check to see if they get infected by the water, except for our idiot goliath who was like "this town is hosed up, I'm going to drink the water to see if it does anything weird" he got straight up infected. EVERY other person manages to fail their fort test, so they're all infected too. The only 3 that aren't now are the two that were at the bar, and the sorcerer that was using ice magic to put out the fire. Everyone went to the townhall to talk to the mayor and decide he's hosed up. At which point they're running all kinds of skill checks and failing because they're looking for magic/divine influence/everything except just getting hosed up by science. The mayor invited them for dinner, which they all attended, with the exception of one who broke into the theatre (which was empty). At this point they met the doctor. They were supposed to use this time to get information on the town, all they did was complain about how everything was messed up and everyone in the town is batshit insane. So then they moved on to the opera (encounter 2) When stuff at the opera starts going weird, girl that broke in was standing back stage and just booked it out the door. Then she's like "I'm going to smash the first thing that comes through the door" Half the group jumped and booked it for the back door, the other half ran down the stairs from their box and went for the front door. Everybody kept passing their will checks so none of them went crazy, until finally right before our halfling healer and the goliath got to the back door they both went crazy for a round and bashed each other in the face. The one saving grace for the team, the first thing out the door where the girl waiting to bash stuff was our paladin who caught a war maul in the side of the head. So everyone escapes, at which point the goliath decided to beat the poo poo out of the mayor for answers, who told him to go see the doctor. The monk kept trying to sneak off to explore and kept getting caught by the servant that was like "you don't need to sneak anywhere, we will gladly give you a tour" each time it happened. The doctor asks for their help repairing the town and installing lights, which they do, and then having heard stories of the other town they go over there to see if the second town has any info. They don't, but all the people there are huge assholes about the main town so the team doesn't know what's up. They return to the main town to find the streets empty. They go to the bar to see if anyone is there and find the entire town preparing for war (because they're all going crazy due to the team installing all the lights). The team asks for some time to investigate, which the mayor says he'll give them. So the team leaves to investigate the town again. While that's going on, the mayor and the whole town leave to fight a war. They finally figure out that the water is hosed up, some of them start blaming the doctor. Some are thinking it's the other town, and then they notice all the towns people marching toward the second town. So they split up. Most of them going to try and stop the war, the others going to see the doctor. They intercept the war party at the walls of the other town. The goliath out of the gate just kills the mayor. Some of the townspeople disperse. The cleric tries to talk sense into them, more of them just walk away. Someone tries to intimidate them, the rest just walk off. The team is all like "yay we stopped a war" and I was like "no you didn't, they all just went home..." at which point they're going "awww crap". and we cut to the 3 people who went to see the doctor. The doctor is confronted and he confesses that he is responsible for the town's actions. The whole fight is set up so that they can blow up the doctor by just hitting the gas tanks and then having the gas that leaks out come in contact with fire either by 1) shooting fire at it (which would be dumb) or 2) smashing his experiments up and getting the gently caress out while the room fills with gas (good idea). The only problems we faced here were 1) Everyone was using attacks that wouldn't do anything to the gas tanks or the experiments and 2) people sucked at describing their attacks. Like I kept giving the one girl a chance to use her lightning hammer attack thingy to have lighting from it fly off and hit something in the room even if it missed but every time I asked her to describe how her attack worked she just goes "I hit things with my hammer". The monk jumped on a table full of experiments and runs across it and I'm like "ok, you knock over a bunch of experiments and the table catches on fire" and he's like "no, I ran around them all". Finally I was just like "no, the table is completely COVERED in stuff. If you were to run across it you're knocking stuff over". The only range attacks anyone were using were psychic, so I couldn't have those miss and set something off like I could an arrow, or a lightning blast. The three party members were getting schooled by the doctor and his assistant until the rest of the party showed up. Eventually I had to have the assistant fall backwards from an attack and rupture one of the gas tanks so that the party had a chance of blowing the place up and getting out. Which would have went well if our goliath didn't turn around and go "I'm going to shoot a bunch of fire all over the place" and the place blew up with everyone inside. Everyone actually managed to survive the blast and the doctor disappeared. The End. Over all it went well. I was kind of disappointed that people managed to pass all of their will checks minus the two that punched each other in the theatre. But they did manage to make it through the game without murdering innocent townsfolk (minus the mayor at the end). I think if I have to do another game in the future, I'll have them come to a town where they keep hearing stories about horrible criminals in the town who have killed some people and through the course of investigation they realize that everyone is talking about them (because the goliath killed the mayor of another town and they blew up the doctor's house) and someone in the town is framing them for more murders.
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Sep 3, 2010 19:15
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Liesmith posted:do you have a good internet connection? Do you have a webcam? Does he have these things wherever he is? ZeeToo posted:Unless you have a very nice webcam, it's probably unlikely to work. Even just seeing the board isn't going to be that helpful if he can only identify its existence, not stuff/distances on it. If you want to see if that can work, I'd try to get him on before hand and ensure that he can see everything that he needs to. The game is Mutants and Masterminds (the rules of which I kind of hate, so it's a big deal that I'm running it again), which means the map isn't super important. Most of the visual elements are computer files I can just email to him as we go along. Our internet connection should be fine, although I don't know how his is. I guess it'll come down to whether we get webcams up and running; I really don't want to try and run it with just a voice playing. The whole thing is loving bizarre to me, but it's a special occasion and I'd hate to exclude him. Thanks for the tips, I'll let you know how it goes. Happitoo posted:Chaos Also, your goliath player sounds awesome.
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Sep 3, 2010 21:00
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So I have decided to run my group through Expedition to Castle Ravenloft (3.5E) because it seems cool and I know they will enjoy the undead setting. However, all of them are extremely casual when it comes to d&d. There are 4 of us total, me DMing and 3 players(I run a brainless dwarf fighter to fill the role). They don't really know anything about d&d beyond how to move/attack/roll dice. They aren't familiar with normal monsters or attacks or anything special that goes on in the game. Nobody reads any d&d books outside of the times that we meet. This seems like it might be a problem because in this module there are a lot of deadly situations involving special attacks and spells, not to mention the constant threat of ability and level drain. My concern is that this party is going to get flattened. The module recommends they start at level 6, I was consider bumping them up to level 7 for good measure. I was also thinking of peppering in some extra magic items/potions/consumables that might improve their saves or help with the tons of negative effects in this module. However, on the flip side I hate when things get too easy, so i don't know how far to go. Any ideas? I have a moderate understanding of 3.5 and a little bit of DM experience under my belt. I have the philosophy that an ideal adventure is where the party just barely survives at the end, so I usually fudge rolls rather than experience total party wipes. But I've never run an official massive module like this and I've never run a campaign above 5th level so I'm a bit wary.
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Sep 4, 2010 11:51
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RPZip posted:As for the original question, there's something I saw when I was reading through the Dresden Files RPG about how they run character creation (I think the DMG for D&D uses something similar too, but I might be wrong); each player writes up a few short story ideas from his or her earlier life, and then the other players add themselves into the stories to help give their characters some personality/history. Especially if she's new or not thinking in these terms I wouldn't expect something extraordinary to come out of that, but at least it'll get her on track with helping to create the story with the other characters/GM. We used this sort of character creation the first time I played SotC. Everyone writes a story in a single pulpy paragraph about their character, and then passes their work to someone else at the table, who adds on a twist or additional narrative involving their character. You go around until everyone has an equal number of links between characters. It definitely helps players start thinking about how their characters will interact with each other, and it helps create a shared history for the party at large.
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Sep 4, 2010 17:15
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Ok I'm looking for a bit of advice here, I'm in a bit of a tricky situation. Our group plays 3.5 D&D and we have a DM rotation system. We're not kids any more and DMs can have real life get in the way. We where all tired of making new characters every other month so we agreed to just try rotating DMs and having the new guy try and make the best of the game world every DM before him shaped. My problem is this: The last DM was quite monty haul and liked giving out lots of treasure. The party average is level 10, but the gear is more suited for a 15th-17th level group. I want to be able to give out level appropriate treasure, with maybe some more powerful stuff to "motivate" them in certain directions but as it is I would have to go to the Epic Level handbook to make them excited. I conferred with the DM before hand and he agreed to deal with the problem as best he could. In our last adventure a high level wizard hit the party with a Disjunction to thin out the magic items a bit, but a few people where missing that week and the parties Druid had such a high will save that he kept most of his gear. How can I deal with this in a way that won't piss everyone off? I don't want to hit them with a nerf bat and just have Ethereal Filchers steal it all in the night or something. I have to do something, half the players have already been Disjunctioned so I can't just ramp up the items again and pass the buck to the next DM.
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Sep 5, 2010 02:05
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Basketofpancakes posted:So I have decided to run my group through Expedition to Castle Ravenloft (3.5E) because it seems cool and I know they will enjoy the undead setting. Your party is going to get flattened. Your party is going to get flattened. Your party is going to get flattened. Again, and again, and again. I ran that module with experienced gamers and had them go through almost 9 characters before they finished. The first boss fight is going to kill at least one person if he makes the caster level check on his scroll, the first time Strahd casts cloudkill anyone with a template is going to die. The module is highly fatal, and can be made more so if you remake Strahds spell list using his actual feats and all the spells he has access to. I recommend going over it from head to toe and removing every save or die/suck effect. Also anything that causes negative levels or does stat drain. If it's a monster ::Cough cough wraiths:: replace them with something else similar and thematic. If you don't want your party to die, make sure they construct characters with good saves and some ability to shrug off undead, and that you have a real cleric so restoration can be cast if you don't want to remove neg levels and stat drain. It's a remake of an incredibly difficult game, and it's going to be difficult unless you remake the module. Giving them a rod that casts restoration 3/day would be useful, too, in that situation. But expect them to die, a lot, because with the intense amount of drain and save or dies... they're going to die.
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Sep 5, 2010 05:00
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TheAnomaly posted:Your party is going to get flattened. Your party is going to get flattened. Your party is going to get flattened. Again, and again, and again. I ran that module with experienced gamers and had them go through almost 9 characters before they finished. The first boss fight is going to kill at least one person if he makes the caster level check on his scroll, the first time Strahd casts cloudkill anyone with a template is going to die. The module is highly fatal, and can be made more so if you remake Strahds spell list using his actual feats and all the spells he has access to. Yeah, I was reading that first encounter today, and it is ridiculous. 5th level cleric using a circle of death scroll(how can he use it, it's a mage spell?). That's a DC of 19 and it affects 11d4 hit die of creatures. The encounter describes him as casting it as soon as they walk in the door. Pretty much guaranteed to insta-kill at least 2 of the party members, if not all of them. I don't get why the designers thought this was an intelligent encounter. Save or die effects are generally really bad for a game and neither players nor dms like them. They should be reserved for special occasions like super-glowing-runes-don't-touch-the-box or a final boss encounter with a necromancer where some of them might be prepared with protection spells. I'd still like to use the module because it is what I have on hand and different, I think I'm just going to remove any instant death effects and give them a slew of tailored magic items to help out. We do have a dedicated cleric so that will help. I don't know about a rod of restoration, but I was thinking of a sidequest to grab a rod of resurrection or something like that. The goal where Strahd wants to convert the PCs to vampires, I can't see how it would be possible in any way to beat a module where the DM played him as described. He could very easily sleep/dominate/drain every single party member since mind fog just completely destroys your will saves.
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Sep 5, 2010 05:46
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Well, one thing you could do is to make Save or Die effects Save or Knockout(Dying), combat wise it's the same, but if you win the fight you can bring them back or something.
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Sep 5, 2010 07:56
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veekie posted:Well, one thing you could do is to make Save or Die effects Save or Knockout(Dying), combat wise it's the same, but if you win the fight you can bring them back or something. This is D&D, bringing people back from death is pretty common too.
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Sep 5, 2010 15:34
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Rutibex posted:This is D&D, bringing people back from death is pretty common too. This is Ravenloft. Bringing someone back is discouraged where it isn't outright impossible without an Igor and a lightning storm.
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Sep 5, 2010 20:53
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FrozenGoldfishGod posted:This is Ravenloft. Bringing someone back is discouraged where it isn't outright impossible without an Igor and a lightning storm. So isn't the point of playing in such a setting to make things more challenging and harsh? If you're going to "knock out" characters instead of killing them doesn't that defeat the purpose?
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Sep 5, 2010 21:32
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There is a fine line between challenging and punishing. If you give your knocked out dudes concussions or something, -1 to most actions for a couple of hours, that would work. Murdering half your players every couple of fights doesn't work.
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Sep 5, 2010 21:52
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I have a question. I'm running a homemade campaign with Pathfinder rules set in Faerun post-spellplague, I have a party of 3-4 level 7s. I made up a little city for my players, there's a rebellion going on and the players have chosen to help the rebels overthrow the government. For the next adventure, a crazy chaotic-evil whackjob (who has run into the players and almost killed them a couple times before) will take a town temple by force, demand that the populace turn over the rebel leaders or else he will kill everyone inside the temple, including a friend of the players. It's a long story but the madman is insane, sadistic, and is trying to "help" the government. He is a sorcerer/rogue and has special abilities to do disguises and to turn invisible. So it's a rescue-the-hostages mission for my players - they must somehow break into the temple and get the people out without triggering the insane dude to kill everyone. I want it to be difficult. I figure if the crazy dude sees anyone attempt to get inside, or sees anyone attempt to leave, he'll kill everyone, maybe he has a wand of cloudkill or something. Any ideas on how to make this difficult but solvable? What kind of traps should there be, what kind of precautions would this guy have set up? What means should he use to kill everyone, if it should come to that? I'm thinking maybe there would be some kind of glyph where if someone does a spell in the area, it sets off an alarm and warns him. Any ideas?
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Sep 5, 2010 22:21
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dead friend of the family storage posted:Any ideas?
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Sep 5, 2010 22:38
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dead friend of the family storage posted:Any ideas? Be prepared to wing it. Sure, make up a lot of traps and challenges, but if your players don't figure out the one way to solve them, secretly retcon things so that their creative and plausible solutions work. Don't gently caress them over because they aren't psychic.
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Sep 5, 2010 22:54
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The players are all level 7. We have a fighter/duelist human, a gnome wizard (specializing in divination), and a half-elf rogue/cleric. They are a pretty level-headed bunch, and it's hard to pull much over their eyes. They also tend not to make grand heroic gestures or take great risks; they like to play things safe. edit: Liesmith posted:Be prepared to wing it. Sure, make up a lot of traps and challenges, but if your players don't figure out the one way to solve them, secretly retcon things so that their creative and plausible solutions work. Don't gently caress them over because they aren't psychic. Yeah, that's always something I try to do. I'm fine with leaving a lot open-ended and letting my players take me where they want. I just can't think of any reasonable traps or challenges here. The crazy guy hasn't had a lot of time to set things up ahead of time. I figure the crazy guy would say something like if anyone tries to escape, or if anyone tries to get in, he'll kill them all - but obviously there has to be some sort of method to this. Perhaps he is in the belfry with a wand of cloudkill, watching all around the temple. Perhaps he has disguised himself as one of the hostages and is waiting with them, watching some other way. A God Damn Ghost fucked around with this message at 23:03 on Sep 5, 2010 |
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Sep 5, 2010 22:57
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Basketofpancakes posted:The goal where Strahd wants to convert the PCs to vampires, I can't see how it would be possible in any way to beat a module where the DM played him as described. He could very easily sleep/dominate/drain every single party member since mind fog just completely destroys your will saves. Yes. I mean, umm, in short... yes. Seriously, read about the pre-3e Ravenloft modules. Strahd almost won, they were designed in Strahds favor... the 3.5 version is the most fair one they've ever made. Even worse, look at his spell list and metamagic feats. Try casting an enervating enervate, a ray that costs 1d4+2 levels if he hits as a fifth level spell. Then cloudkill, also fifth level, instantly kills anyone under 4 hit dice... so, a two spell one-2 that will kill almost anyone in your party near the last battle.
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Sep 5, 2010 23:19
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I'm in a student gaming society in real life, and in a few weeks' time everyone will be recruiting for campaigns. Usually, the people who're running games stand up and give a brief 60-second summary of the general idea of their game. I've made some special efforts this year to make an impression, and as such will be turning up "in character", in suit and tie, and delivering my summary from the perspective of the game. I'll then be running people through character generation as though it's an application to work at the (evil, illuminati-like) firm. So, as part of this, I'm trying to work out how to deliver my summary with just the right level of American Business Bullshit to sound authentic and faintly satirical. The plan is that I'll stand up, deliver the speech, while behind and to the side of me, a co-conspirator will flick through massive cards with things written on them, such as: "EVIL ->" "LIKE WOLFRAM AND HEART ->" "ILLUMINATI WITH MAGIC ->" "BLOWS GOATS: HAVE PROOF ->" It's the actual wording of what I'll be saying that I'm trying to nail. How does this sound? "Hi, I'm Alex. "I'm here on behalf of Preston and Preston, a Limited Liability Partnership that provides legal and financial services to businesses, governments and state-owned entities. "We're looking to recruit five junior partners into the firm, and we're very greatful to - [society name], is it? - for allowing us to join you at this recruitment faire. "If you're interested in a high-pressure, high-reward career in an extremely meritocratic environment, please come and speak to me. "As most of you are soon to graduate, we're not looking for previous experience, though any talents you can bring to our partnership will be highly valued. "And don't worry if you haven't already been fast-tracked for recruitment: we're still accepting applications. "So, if you want to advance your career by any means, please drop by our stall: I look forward to hearing from you all! "Thank you, and have a nice day."
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Sep 8, 2010 17:58
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Etherwind posted:I'm in a student gaming society in real life, and in a few weeks' time everyone will be recruiting for campaigns. Usually, the people who're running games stand up and give a brief 60-second summary of the general idea of their game. Being in character and wearing the suit and all that is fine but maybe you should drop a few more hints and hooks in the actual speech and trim back the monkey-cheese "applause" signs? It seems to me that a person in the audience that doesn't already know you is going to be distracted from your "business speech" by the dude with the signs, and nothing about your speech by itself gives anything away about the game so they're just going to be distracted. I dunno, just my opinion, your organization might go for that kind of stuff.
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Sep 8, 2010 19:05
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In terms of your specific question, yes, that speech is authentic enough for these purposes, though I'm not catching any satire. If you want specific pointers as related to law-firm recruiting: an actual recruiter would probably give their last name; I've never seen a firm admit how many attorneys they want to hire; the term "associate" or "junior associate" is more common for entry-level people, as the term "partner" implies partial ownership, though "junior partner" is sometimes used as a mid-level position with contractual profit-sharing but no ownership; most law students perform summer legal work, so a firm would not assume a lack of experience on the part of graduating students; and mentioning fast-track recruiting to people who haven't gotten it is unprofessional. That's just about making things as authentic as possible. More generally, if you're hoping to excite players to play in your game, you may want to explicitly discuss the things they'll be doing in the game, rather than vaguely implying things about the setting. It sounds like you've created your own unique setting, but you haven't provided much detail on that. It may be more productive to try to communicate what makes your setting and game unique rather than trying to satirize how boring law firms are. Make an impression by helping potential players engage with what you're trying to do. Ask yourself what the players are really going to know about your game at the end of this presentation and whether that's enough for them to make an informed decision. There are many different games that could involve a large, evil law firm trying to recruit law school graduates. Every second spent talking about imaginary fast-track recruitment is a second you're not telling the players about specific ways your game is fun. An in-character recruitment process like this might be more appropriate for the first session, using the application process to help define the character.
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Sep 8, 2010 20:13
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