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Oh, ok, our groups obviously like different things. My guys like to be suprised, and since they know I'm not going to dick them over for no reason, if I go "The Baron Has Kidnapped Your Sister", they go "cool, adventure time!" not "oh god I hope this doesn't get creepy and/or upsetting!". I'd actually prefer a style with more player engagement, but the guys I usually GM for don't, so I'm not going to try to force it on them.
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Aug 23, 2011 06:40
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So I'm thinking of some interesting plot hooks for my 4e campaign I'm running. We've got a good (and growing, surprisingly enough) group going, and I want to keep poo poo fresh. So far they've: Defeated cultist Kobolds and the young white dragon they worshiped Killed zombies in a town overrun by them to pay back a black/arcanesmith (including some spiced up ghouls with some totally-not-ripped-from-L4D abilities to make it more interesting than "Ghoul attacks. Your turn." and spice up the team building with "poo poo, we gotta get the Avenger out of the tongue. gently caress our Sorcerer got tackled!") Fought some brigands who did not put up much (if any) fight, just to steal be robbed for a small box. Almost starved in the forest Almost got eaten by wolves Fought through a cave, only to find the Assassin was technically allied with these guys, and then forced to join the clan, giving them an easy "base" point. Now I have a few more encounters lined up (sending them through goblin-infested tunnels, fighting elves, and retrieving an orb...as it gets stolen by the BBEG of the campaign). I had a few ideas of how to make this a more interesting and varied campaign. One of which being that with the orb out of a neutral parties hands, many factions that wanted it can now openly war over it without risking loss of support. Since it was in the wrong hands, they all have the chance to attack him as if they were trying to liberate it. I mainly need ideas for factions, troop styles, and perhaps some puzzles/traps/etc of how each one would handle it. So far I'm thinking: Red Scale: The Assassins Guild. They want it because they want to oppose... The Ebon Claw: The guild/clan my players joined. Their leader wants it, but won't say why. (Spoiler alert I totally haven't figured out why beyond "it's powerful and can supposedly grant wishes). Elves: The Elves want their goddamn orb back. They mostly fight at range with animals and rogues getting close. Dwarves: The Dwarves in this campaign don't HATE magic, but they have a very "Gun Control means both hands" stance on it. I.e The more magical power you possess, the easier it is to "control" said force. They fight mostly with meatshields and brute force, and a bit of old-fashioned tech. Gnolls: The Gnolls just want shiny poo poo. The Goblins want it, why shouldn't they!? Mostly instinctive with a few tribal casters and traps. Goblins: They've been gunning for this for years. The usual rush-'n'-attack style of Goblin Warfare. "Throw men at it, repeat, gain power." Kobolds: Kobolds in this are all Wyrmcult worshipers. Mini-armies, coordinated and deadly...but still kobolds. Might have a dragon or two up their sleeve. Some ideas for factions I had down the line were...: Supernal/Deities/The Astral Plane/Elemental Chaos: The Gods know that mortals with this kind of power threaten their seats. They don't want that. They also don't want to rule over a world of sand. Dragons: Dragons are like goldfish with giant claws. If it's magic and shiny, they are interested in it, regardless of what it does. Humans (thieves, etc.): Mostly interested in the artifact for the sake of artifacts. Drow: Like the Dragons, they just want it because they heard it's powerful and shiny. I'm not sure who else or what kind of angle. A lot of the story is going to be either talking through the leaders of the factions, or just plain trying to escape a dungeon they've managed to stumble upon while escaping another unrelated mess. I KNOW I want some sort of overarching power struggle as the big campaign setting, with my group as more or less a mix of the center of it as well as the mediators. I just love the idea that it's not a simple "black and white". There's one definitely EVIL dude, but there's no "Good Guys". Even my group is technically trying to steal it from the Elves (Who only seem interested in GUARDING it, not even using it for good, and even then only for traditions sake). I just need some ideas for potential story hooks that extend a bit farther, even if they are cliched but can be woven into a deeper story (for example, everything so far has led pretty handily to this point). I'm also wondering how hard I should make the encounters. So far it's 6 level 2 NPCs (5 + my mostly-autonomous wizard). ALSO! Side note: I need a goddamn magic item for a level 2 Wizard and Paladin. He'll want it Dragon based, but they killed the dragon ages ago so I told him he'll take what he gets. If it IS dragon based, it'd be cold-based. Classtoise fucked around with this message at 06:57 on Aug 23, 2011 |
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Aug 23, 2011 06:55
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Classtoise posted:I KNOW I want some sort of overarching power struggle as the big campaign setting, with my group as more or less a mix of the center of it as well as the mediators. I just love the idea that it's not a simple "black and white". There's one definitely EVIL dude, but there's no "Good Guys". Even my group is technically trying to steal it from the Elves (Who only seem interested in GUARDING it, not even using it for good, and even then only for traditions sake). I recently did something like this and decided to let The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly be my inspiration (complete with showdown in cemetery). I gave them hard (L+4, but they have themes and Drama Cards, so not as big a deal) fights first against the "Bad," then against the "Ugly." I figured they'd beat the Bad since they had their dailies and all surges, but the second fight was not so certain . . . but I'd already decided they wouldn't kill the party if they won, so I felt free to make it tougher. When you have "no black and white", you can make the encounters harder with impunity, as long as you know what happens if the party gets beaten.
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Aug 23, 2011 17:57
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I've been curious about the nature of mitigating player choice, and whether or not it's a bad thing if done in a "realistic" way. I'll just lay out this scenario to find out what you guys think: After a series of unfortunate events*, the heroes are escorting a small group of commoners through the hellish plane of Baator, seeking refuge. Their journey happens to take them into the domain of a pit fiend (a demon way beyond their power level). The demon takes notice, confronts them, and demands they pay a toll as punishment for trespassing on his land. The demon chooses a random female commoner from the group, and says that all the heroes must do is willingly bring her to him, and he will let the rest of the group proceed, while she stays behind. The pit fiend will not go into any detail on what he plans to do (though I will probably revisit all of this at a later date). So far, all of this sounds just fine to me, but here's where it gets touchy: The demon makes it absolutely clear that they have two choices. They can either bring this woman forward, or every single one of them will die. I feel that this will put the PCs in an agonizing position of realizing that they must do something terrible for the sake of survival. That can be very moving. It may sound weird, but I imagine this going down kinda like the opening scene in Inglorious Basterds. On the other hand, it does tend to run afoul of some common gaming trends. It is rarely the case that the heroes are put in a no-win scenario. Will the players meta-game, thinking that there actually is a "good answer" as opposed to the lesser-of-evils that they are presented with? Will they then try to seek out these non-existent alternatives and only bring about their own demise in the process? I think it all makes for a good scene from a story perspective, but I can easily see it being perceived as "unfair." I'm not looking for advice on how to implement this, because I probably won't go through with it as-is, but I do think it opens up an interesting discussion on the manner by which the heroes are coerced into performing actions. In my experience, it is almost always the case that positive reinforcement is the motivating factor: Save the princess, and you will be rewarded with gold and jewels. Do any of you have experience with negative reinforcement? Save the princess, or this will happen to you. *If need be, I'll go into detail on this.
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Aug 23, 2011 18:03
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Technically negative reinforcement is encouraging a certain behaviour by removing an unpleasant stimulus, you're thinking about positive punishment (adding an unpleasant stimulus to discourage certain behaviour)  Honestly in the games I'm in most of the motivation for doing things is twofold, revenge (I'M GONNA GET THAT BITCH THAT KILLED OUR THIEF AND I'M GONNA FEED HER TO DRAGONS) and looming enormous threats (... or else she'll make demons take over the world). It usually becomes 'save the princess purely out of spite for the people who said you wouldn't'. Maybe we're not exactly a traditional party, though.
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Aug 23, 2011 18:34
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I wouldn't do it constantly and I'd look for a way to give the PCs the opportunity to get revenge, but I don't think there's anything wrong with the scenario you suggest.I Am The Scum posted:So far, all of this sounds just fine to me, but here's where it gets touchy: The demon makes it absolutely clear that they have two choices. They can either bring this woman forward, or every single one of them will die. I feel that this will put the PCs in an agonizing position of realizing that they must do something terrible for the sake of survival. That can be very moving. If you want this to work, make sure you spend enough time on it. What's brutal about Inglorious Basterds is how what the farmer does is stretched out, how he's made to understand what is going to happen, and how he has time to think about as it happens. So don't just let the PCs turn her over quickly. There's at least some groups that, when presented with a situation like this, attempt to resolve it as quickly as possible and move on. So, maybe have a skill challenge for convincing the woman to go with them (lying about what's going to happen), or sneaking her through the group of people so that they don't know what happened. If you want to make sure they do it, make the "otherwise you die" point clear, but the drama comes from what they have to do, so make sure sufficient time is dedicated to it. In a roleplaying game, that's going to mean involving some mechanics with the task.
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Aug 23, 2011 18:48
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On the issue of introducing new characters, the first step is to realize that if having a PC die is going to be a big pain in the rear end, your system should make that hard to happen. Or even impossible. You can easily tweak the rules to make it so that while a PC can be taken out of the action they aren't permanently removed from play. I tend to run episodic games, which in addition to creating tighter stories also tends to be more resilient to people missing sessions or only playing sporadically. For games with high lethality you can set up in game justifications for turnover. For my long running call of cthulhu game the PCs all ran a newspaper, giving an easy introduction to either new PCs looking for work or game ideas. Also, for a system where you mitigate damage by taking a consequence you pretty much want FATE.
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Aug 23, 2011 19:09
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I Am The Scum posted:On the other hand, it does tend to run afoul of some common gaming trends. It is rarely the case that the heroes are put in a no-win scenario. Will the players meta-game, thinking that there actually is a "good answer" as opposed to the lesser-of-evils that they are presented with? Will they then try to seek out these non-existent alternatives and only bring about their own demise in the process?  at this scenario.So I feel, a no-win scenario CAN be done(pick your sacrifice, whichever happens you'll lose something), but a no-choice scenario(pick an option, wrong option ends the game) shouldn't. Players expect to be able to make a difference, and being offed usually isn't the difference they seek.
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Aug 23, 2011 19:15
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I Am The Scum posted:The demon makes it absolutely clear that they have two choices. They can either bring this woman forward, or every single one of them will die. I feel that this will put the PCs in an agonizing position of realizing that they must do something terrible for the sake of survival. That can be very moving. Out of curiosity, why does the demon want them to bring the woman forward? If he's so powerful why can't he just take her himself?
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Aug 23, 2011 19:29
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I assume its because hes a dick, wants to make people suffer, and since this will cause them to feel guilty, raises the dick level.
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Aug 23, 2011 20:13
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I appreciate the suggestions. I am reminded of some advice I read once, possibly in this very thread, that there should never be a single action, circumstance, or die roll that has the capability of bringing the game to a screeching halt, and it should be the DM's job to foresee this potential and do what it takes to stop it. I need to stick to that. After thinking about it some more, there may be a way of merging several different possibilities. The demon initially proposes his do-or-die choice. If the players do, we act it out and ignore what remains below (and they will never know that alternative choices existed). If not, the demon says that as an alternative, they may reclaim the magic macguffin from the caves of death. This will be no simple fetch quest, however, and will lead to more of their entourage dying. Since they're away from the demon's fortress on the way to the cave, I'll have one of the commoners suggest that they try to escape in the dark of night. If the PCs choose this, I'll let them do it. They get away without any demons attempting to stop them. However, years later, the PCs realize that the people they were escorting through Baator are starting to die mysteriously. They realize the pit fiend is exacting his revenge. He said he would kill them, but he did not say how or when. With this, I feel like the PCs are presented with several choices, and have the capability of carrying out those options in their own way. In case it's not absolutely clear, misery is supposed to be a sort of theme to all of this. Sir Kodiak posted:Out of curiosity, why does the demon want them to bring the woman forward? If he's so powerful why can't he just take her himself? I really like the concept of the lawful evil Baatezu, and what it means to "make a deal with the devil." I wanted to have an adversary that sticks to an evil and twisted code, and imposes it upon others. I haven't thought of a specific reason, but I have a few in mind. Maybe it involves some ritual that necessitates a sacrifice that is willingly handed over (in this scenario, the PCs are the "owners" of the commoners according to the laws of demons). Or maybe the pit fiend wants to throw the heroes into a horrible situation purely for the sake of psychologically torturing them.
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Aug 23, 2011 20:15
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I Am The Scum posted:I really like the concept of the lawful evil Baatezu, and what it means to "make a deal with the devil." I wanted to have an adversary that sticks to an evil and twisted code, and imposes it upon others. Or maybe, since devils are all about tempting people to slide into corruption of their own free will, what he wants is simply for the PCs to abandon the commoner, and for her to know that she's been abandoned. The PCs escape to go about their daily lives, and meanwhile the commoner is left in Baator, betrayed by those sworn to protect her. She expects and the PCs expect that she's been left to die -- but instead, she's treated well, spoken to daily by the pit fiend or his underlings and slowly taught dark and forbidden magics. Months or years later, bam, abandoned commoner comes back as a vengeful evil warlock seeking to destroy the PCs and everything they hold dear -- the pit fiend said that he wouldn't harm them if they handed her over, but what she does is up to her. Sure, it's been done before, but it works. Thuryl fucked around with this message at 11:06 on Aug 24, 2011 |
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Aug 24, 2011 11:03
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I'm dealing with a couple of players in a (Pathfinder) game I'm DMing where both have built horribly unoptimised melee builds and as a result both have pitiful attack bonuses (+1 and +2 at level 1). So they are just constantly missing everything, even goblins and such. I don't want to play their characters for them or tell them how to level, but they don't seem too keen on heeding advice (just little things like "maybe you should taken weapon focus as soon as possible" and "the pair of you should try to set up flanking situations wherever possible"). Frankly, it's not a sustainable situation as it's dragging combats out and meaning that both of them deplete vastly more resources than they should be. The problem is finding a solution that doesn't seem to be patting these two players on the head for making characters that can't even hit the furniture. Does anybody have any advice for dealing with a player skill disparity in a game that demands it?
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Aug 24, 2011 12:04
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Downscale encounters to fit, if all the players are that bad. No sense getting them all murderized, and the reduced XP and loot are their own loss. I'd say play to their strengths, but that sort often has none. How DO you get bonuses that bad though? Just putting your highest stat where your hitty is should do in PF, most melee classes come with built in +Xs. Theres a bigger problem when theres a large gap between skills of various players.
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Aug 24, 2011 12:44
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How many other players are in the game? Because if there's another player who's been playing Pathfinder for a while maybe you could ask him to help out in game. Or find somebody around town who is good at the game and ask them to come in and help out. It always sounds better coming from another player than the GM in my opinion.
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Aug 24, 2011 13:01
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I Am The Scum posted:I've been curious about the nature of mitigating player choice, and whether or not it's a bad thing if done in a "realistic" way. If I want to do something like that, I try to make the stakes a little smaller and more personal. So instead of the choices being "everyone dies" and "only this one lady gets hurt", the choices are more "the lady gets hurt" and "some party members (but not all) get something they want--gold, items, experience, information, etc." I ran an encounter recently where the party was escorting three injured NPCs whom they'd rescued through some fairly strange regions. They encountered a powerful woman who offered to trade them secrets for their own sanity, at a one-to-one exchange. The party declined, obviously, but one of my players thought about it a bit and asked if he could offer up two of the NPCs. It sparked a big debate at the table, as some of the other players felt that was a lovely thing to do, while others felt like information was worth more than the lives of two NPCs (my beautiful backstories  ). The pro-sacrifice players compromised such that the information they got were answers to questions the anti-sacrifice players cared about, but it's a choice that both groups still argue about today, and draw their own conclusions about how worthwhile it was. It also eases the blame off of me. Even though I constructed the whole scenario, they wind up arguing with each other instead of bitching to me about the choice I forced them to make.I guess the problem that I have with your example is that, as others pointed out, it's a Hobson's choice. What I like doing is giving the players a set of options, but making sure that the options are mutually-exclusive and that the players have conflicting reasons for preferring one option over another. Astfgl fucked around with this message at 13:35 on Aug 24, 2011 |
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Aug 24, 2011 13:32
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I Am The Scum posted:However, years later, the PCs realize that the people they were escorting through Baator are starting to die mysteriously. They realize the pit fiend is exacting his revenge. He said he would kill them, but he did not say how or when.
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Aug 24, 2011 15:54
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Well, years is probably too long, though you could then hand an Infernal contract to the mook and later on the party is plagued by a high level warlock with intimate knowledge of their abilities.
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Aug 24, 2011 16:50
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Mojo Jojo posted:Does anybody have any advice for dealing with a player skill disparity in a game that demands it? Unfortunately, the best answer is sometimes "don't play those games with those people". Not all systems suit all players, and "lack of skill", especially in character generation or levelling, is often an indication that the players want something different from the game, or even from "gaming". I mean, some people just like all gaming, but some don't. I'm happy playing Hackmaster or Dread or 4th Ed or Everyone Is John, but some people just don't have much fun in certain kinds of games. It sounds like your Pathfinder game is based on building combat-effective characters, and those guys might just not be into that. Elector_Nerdlingen fucked around with this message at 17:31 on Aug 24, 2011 |
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Aug 24, 2011 17:29
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I think this is the right place for this; I'm about to start up a Dresden Files game and need a little clarification on some rules that I'm literally too retarded to understand. As I understand, Shifts are the "extra" points you get over a test, I.E. If you need to do a +5 test and get +7 on your roll, you get 2 Shifts you can spend to do what you will with. The issue I'm really having comes in when magical attacks are made. From what I read in the book, this uses Conviction and Discipline. You first do a discipline check to make sure you can control the spell, then your spell is Weapon:Discipline+Conviction+any modifiers+shifts, with you taking however many stress as you put in when applying modifiers and shifts? the example in the book is kinda poorly worded and I know I'm getting this wrong some how.
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Aug 25, 2011 21:31
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Baronjutter posted:Am I weird for not really wanting to get into any sort of romance/domestic stuff role playing or is that pretty normal? This came into play, and ended with my character being completely embarrassed by her family while the Wizard made things worse on purpose, the Vampire made things worse on accident, and the Hexblade was completely and utterly confused. It was like our session of D&D turned into a bad romantic comedy, and it was amazing. But yeah like I said it depends on your group, so if you don't wanna do it you don't have to. But it can be fun if your DM does it the right way, as a sort of comedic or lighthearted aside from the main story. Run it by your players first though, or at least the player who's family you're gonna end up using.
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Aug 25, 2011 21:58
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Personally I've always found that romance can work, but sex never does.
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Aug 25, 2011 22:14
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Sex can work if done tasteful and as part of romance, or you are playing Apocalypse World. The best rule of thumb is give it as much screen time as the players seem comfortable with and for the love of god don't describe/roleplay it out.
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Aug 25, 2011 22:33
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Nemesis Of Moles posted:I think this is the right place for this; The three most important skills for magic users in the Dresden RPG are Conviction, Discipline, and Lore. Basically the higher your Discipline the more easily you can control a spell and the higher your Conviction the more power you can pour into a spell while only taking one point on the Mental Discipline track. So say I have a character with +3 in both Discipline and Conviction. If I call up an attack worth 3 then I only take one point on the Mental Track. Then I roll my discipline and as long as I roll a +,+,-,- or anything higher I can easily control what the spell does. If I roll under the amount then I can either take the Backlash to my character (more Mental damage) or I can cause unintended consequences to the Scene by letting the DM decide what the thing does. Edit: Starting on page 250 of Your Story is where you want to look. TheLostSkeleton fucked around with this message at 23:19 on Aug 25, 2011 |
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Aug 25, 2011 23:17
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Xand_Man posted:Sex can work if done tasteful and as part of romance, or you are playing Apocalypse World. The best rule of thumb is give it as much screen time as the players seem comfortable with and for the love of god don't describe/roleplay it out. The problem is now you have to gauge who is comfortable with what, and then censor it to the lowest common denominator, which means it's probably not effective with the people who wanted it in the first place, and you're pushing buttons with previously mentioned LCD, and that's basically assuming you've correctly gauged it. The reality is the gains are almost non-existent for the group overall as it focuses on one character and the risks just aren't worth it. It should also be noted that the "Too much screen time" is ultimately the DM's control, but it involves a player who probably is not the LCD as the LCD probably wouldn't even bring it up in the first place. For 99% of groups out there it's a terrible idea to even bring it up. Read the horror stories thread, maybe half of them involve a sexual component.
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Aug 26, 2011 02:18
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I suspect it comes down to who you are playing with. I mostly play story games where we enforce as a rule that you can "tap out" at any point, no questions asked. The subject is dropped and we move onto something different. This means people are more willing to tolerate the squicky stuff because they can always end it gracefully.
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Aug 26, 2011 02:54
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Nemesis Of Moles posted:I think this is the right place for this; "shift of power" is not the least ambiguous term they could have used for evocation strength, though each one does represent one shift above mediocre on the control roll. If you're making an evocation to attack, you decide on the "weapon type", which is weapon:strength and various other modifiers for multitarget or zone target, take your focus stress as your Conviction demands (one point plus one point per shift over conviction) and make a Discipline roll to simultaneously control the spell and attack with it. Anybody dodging will compare their roll (or score in the case of minions) to that one Discipline roll, and extra shifts will add to the weapon power of the attack normally.
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Aug 26, 2011 04:49
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mugrim posted:Personally I've always found that romance can work, but sex never does. I wish like hell that I could get romance to really work in a campaign. It's such an important motivator/complicator, historically and in literature, that it seems remiss to ignore it completely. Sometimes my players will kind of 'opt in' (I've had particular luck in campaigns where I use pictures for the NPCS), but since my players are all my straight-dude-friends, the 'relationships' always end up rather shallow, because the alternative is much creepier. Basically, I can get players to pursue a woman, but I can't really do much of anything with it once he's won (or lost) her heart. The one exception was a friend playing for the first time, where I accidentally used a picture that looked a lot like his recently-ex-girlfriend. The real, palpable jealousy that came into play when I introduced a rival for her affections was honestly pretty weird, but it had a very cool effect on the campaign.
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Aug 26, 2011 15:37
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Play games (or steal mechanics) that give tangible rewards for intangible motivations. Problem solved. The example closest to mind for me is the Keys experience system for Solar System/The Shadow of Yeaterday: have your character take the Key of Unrequited Love or the Key of Romance for someone, and they get experience every time they show it or it effects their behavior or they "take things to the next level." Since that's the only way you get experience in the game, it's in the players interests to make up keys for stuff they're interested in doing anyway. Like maybe that one guy could take the Key of Jealousy, and get experience for being sullen and suspicious for a while. I mean, if you have a wife character, it seems like some great potential for Doc Hawkins fucked around with this message at 15:52 on Aug 26, 2011 |
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Aug 26, 2011 15:49
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Doc Hawkins posted:Play games (or steal mechanics) that give tangible rewards for intangible motivations. Problem solved. I remember you talking about the "keys" mechanic months back, and I loved the sound of it. My players (and I) like playing our combat-heavy crunch games, but I think there's room to plug-in the keys. Especially because my campaign is heavily centered around feuding churches, and they'd make a great way to reward adherence to dogma and doctrine. Is Solar System public domain/free distribution at all, or is there a book I should pick up somewhere?
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Aug 26, 2011 15:57
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It's Free! http://files.crngames.com/cc/tsoy2/solar_system.html Also check out Lady Blackbird, an Ennie-winning one-shot that uses Keys. http://www.onesevendesign.com/ladyblackbird/
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Aug 26, 2011 16:58
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I highly recommend Eero Tuovinen's pamphlet-book on the subject, which is only $5, or you can read it for free here: http://solarwiki.janus-design.it/en/book/solar-system-main-rules
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Aug 26, 2011 17:21
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For my next CoC session, I want the characters to have an out of body experience - where they all find their minds inhabiting the bodies of other creatures. I don't want to say all the details, since some of my players are goons, but has anyone done this? Any suggestions or thoughts? My current thought is to make up a simple sheet for their new "host" bodies but keep their old mental skills in place. (This switch will probably be for only part of the session, in any case. I'm not interested in making them play characters that aren't their own for too long.) Sionak fucked around with this message at 18:51 on Aug 26, 2011 |
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Aug 26, 2011 18:48
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Sionak posted:For my next CoC session, I want the characters to have an out of body experience - where they all find their minds inhabiting the bodies of other creatures. I don't want to say all the details, since some of my players are goons, but has anyone done this? Any suggestions or thoughts? I've done body swaps, possession, and out-of-body experiences, to varying degrees of success. What specifically do you want to know? For me, it all depended on (a) whose bodies they're inhabiting, (b) how long this will last, and (c) what you expect them to do while in this state. For the body swap, people just traded character sheets for a few sessions. It wasn't super exciting, but in the end people stopped taking each other's abilities for granted. For the possession, only the possessed character knew that it had happened so he had to keep it a secret lest the rest of the party find out and attempt to exorcise whatever had invaded him. To help this along, I encouraged the player to RP the possessor (as opposed to the possessee), so that he would be motivated to stay hidden and avoid detection until he could accomplish whatever goals he had for possessing the guy. That one worked out really well, actually. If it's your players inhabiting other entities, though, that gets a little trickier. When I did that and I wanted them to engage in combat, I just found some stat-blocks for the creatures I'd inserted them into and gave them one each, so they'd have some point of reference during combat. This one was good because I introduced it when the PCs were on the cusp of higher levels (10+) and it reminded them how tough early, lower-level encounters could be. But then I made the mistake of leaving them in those bodies for too long and they tried looking for...creative ways to get out. Players don't like being denied access to their normal gear and abilities, and though they'll often be game for a change of pace you have to be careful not to let it wear thin.
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Aug 26, 2011 18:57
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It's the third one that I'm thinking of, where the players are inhabiting something else due to plot reasons. I'm doing it to give them a better idea of their enemies without resorting to a "cutscene" type sequence, and with the assumption that they'll probably try to get back to their original bodies as soon as possible. (I'm hoping to err on the side of "too short" rather than "too long, let's get back to our real characters" overall.) If you are familiar with the Cthulhu Mythos, I'm thinking something kind of like the Great Race of Yith which switches minds for a little while. Basically I'm just wondering how to make sure it feels pretty different from their usual characters?
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Aug 26, 2011 19:10
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Sionak posted:It's the third one that I'm thinking of, where the players are inhabiting something else due to plot reasons. I'm doing it to give them a better idea of their enemies without resorting to a "cutscene" type sequence, and with the assumption that they'll probably try to get back to their original bodies as soon as possible. (I'm hoping to err on the side of "too short" rather than "too long, let's get back to our real characters" overall.) First off, you'll have to narrate different kinds of sensations. If memory serves, the Yithians are those weird, cone-shaped, multi-tendrilled guys? Right away you'll have to deal with practical considerations like what kind of sensory-inputs do these guys have? Obviously, since we're dealing with Lovecraft, they're jacked-in to some kind of psychic network so you should definitely play around with that. And if they're also time-travellers (of a sort), then maybe they're capable of perceiving time differently than normal humanoids? I'm thinking of them being able to "sense disturbances in the Force" and poo poo like that. You may also want to focus on a lack of traditional senses like smell and touch and taste, or pervert all of them so that everything seems awful, or swap them all around so the PCs taste colours and hear smells and the like. Second, you have to think practically about what they can do in those bodies and what they can't. The most obvious is that when you have eyes on a tentacle, it's hard to be surprised. There's also the fact that the Yithians move like slugs, right? So movement will be totally different. Maybe they move slower but are no longer hindered by rough terrain and can access places that normal humans couldn't. Make sure that wherever they wind up while inhabiting the Yithian bodies gives them plenty of opportunities to play around with this. Plan the Yithian city so that there are lots of places where they can show off their new abilities, or realize how much they took for granted abilities they no longer have access to. Just remember that it should be a roughly even trade-off. Like, there should be both advantages and disadvantages to the Yithian form, just like there are advantages or disadvantages to being human. If the Yithians are all-around worse, your players will become frustrated while playing them. If the Yithians are all-around better, your players will feel cheated that their regular characters lack those same abilities. You can go against that if you're intending for them to be in this state for only a short time, but the longer they are the more pronounced those problems become. There's also the possibility of playing around with OTHER inhabited Yithians. The Yith swap bodies so they can explore time and space, so what if the players (while inhabiting Yithian bodies) met other "possessed" Yithians? That lets you foreshadow future events or re-contextualize past ones, but really you can run with that in any direction.
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Aug 26, 2011 20:56
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So I've actually managed to persuade six of my irl friends to play Call of Cthulhu, despite most of them never having played an RPG or even anything past Monopoly before. They loved it, and now I have the slimy claws of roleplaying hooked into them I'm thinking of running something else to mix it up a bit. I'd like something that's easy for new players to basically learn all the rules, isn't terribly lethal, and has an emphasis more on interaction and RPing and investigation than combat (which is why I'm definitely not running any of the 40k games.) Preferably not something ridiculously fantasy-based, which is why I'm not going to run D&D 4e, for example (even though I love it.) Any ideas for babby's first (second) RPG?
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Aug 30, 2011 11:59
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Yoshimo posted:I'd like something that's easy for new players to basically learn all the rules, isn't terribly lethal, and has an emphasis more on interaction and RPing and investigation than combat (which is why I'm definitely not running any of the 40k games.) Preferably not something ridiculously fantasy-based, which is why I'm not going to run D&D 4e, for example (even though I love it.) New World of Darkness, probably Vampire. Go heavy on the intrigue and light on the emo and you'll get a game where any combat is probably against mortals and largely biased in the players' favor, while knowledge and investigation is their only good defense against actual threats.
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Aug 30, 2011 13:53
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Aye, good idea. Are you (or anyone else) familar with the various incarnations of the Deadlands games? I remember playing a version that was all card hands and poker chips for mechanics, and rather enjoyed it, but I've heard it get panned of late.
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Aug 30, 2011 13:59
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The current version is a savage worlds setting. Anything Savage Worlds would be pretty good for your purposes as well.
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Aug 30, 2011 14:48
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