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I'm always partial to Spirit of the Century. Because of the pulp comic feel the game gives. Plus seriously easy for the good guys to take out the bad guys.
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Aug 30, 2011 15:11
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Dresden Files works well too. Any FATE system game actually.
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Aug 30, 2011 20:15
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Yoshimo posted: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. Original Deadlands is loving cool, with the poker chips and playing cards and stuff. It's also really complicated and I wouldn't recommend it for a first or second RPG at all. You'll need buckets of dice, 3 or 4 decks of cards, lots of poker chips, and a box of multicolored paper clips in addition to 2+ rulebooks. That said, it's one of my favorite "atmospheric" systems. In-universe, you cast certain spells by playing a hand of poker against a demon, and in-system, the spell is resolved by drawing a poker hand, so it's somewhat more immersive than "roll dice, resolve attack". I remember playing an undead huckster (basically a zombie wizard cowboy gambler), and it was completely awesome. We sailed a riverboat down a canyon and shot down a zeppelin with magic and flamethrowers, then looted jetpacks out of the wreckage to stop a Native American spirit/demon from destroying a town of people who were trying to build their own magic-powered ironclad in order to do something that I don't remember. If that sounds appealing, play Deadlands. Edit: There were also armor plated trains that were shooting at each other like loving battleships, but I don't remember what they had to do with anything. This is all in-universe stuff, not added in by a creative GM.
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Aug 31, 2011 03:01
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Is the new Gamma world playable if one of my group are playing through Skype? It sounds like exactly the kind of game we'd all get a big kick out of, but I see it uses cards and battle grids and historically those haven't worked too well with our group. Thoughts?
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Sep 12, 2011 16:38
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Nemesis Of Moles posted:Is the new Gamma world playable if one of my group are playing through Skype? It sounds like exactly the kind of game we'd all get a big kick out of, but I see it uses cards and battle grids and historically those haven't worked too well with our group. Thoughts? Probably not, because (like 4e) the battle grid is a pretty big part of the powers. The cards -- especially the mutations -- get used a lot. You can probably find the list of cards on the internet and draw for your friend, telling him or her the names of them so he or she can look them up, but there's still the tactical combat stuff.
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Sep 12, 2011 17:14
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I am in need of advice. I am running a Mage: The Awakening game in which the characters are young mages who have no mentor and are discovering the limits of magic on their own. One of the characters is an exchange student, an Obrimos who awakened minutes after setting his plane landed in America, and he's convinced that America is some sort of holy land. Another player is playing an Acanthus who is obsessed with discovering the limits of what magic can do. Last session the Obrimos and the Acanthus got into an argument about the greatness of America that ended with a discussion about the moon landing and how it might have been faked. The Acanthus decided to settle the matter by casting Gift of Fortune on the flag that was planted on the moon. Gift of Fortune basically allows a mage to decide the fate of an object, allowing him to decide where that object is going to end up. The Acanthus decided that the flag would end up in his hands. Here's where I need suggestions. How should the flag end up on earth? Having the moon landing be fake would be disappointing. I want something good to come of this. My only idea so far is to have part of the moon destroyed by a meteor or something and having a chunk of the moon crash on earth.
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Sep 13, 2011 05:40
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CHaKKaWaKka posted:Gift of Fortune basically allows a mage to decide the fate of an object, allowing him to decide where that object is going to end up. The Acanthus decided that the flag would end up in his hands. That Acanthus ain't gonna get poo poo. "Some items have so much belief and will behind them, conscious or otherwise, that it is essentially impossible to move them from their current circumstances. While the Hope Diamond might be able to be moved (at a –3 penalty for its celebrity; see “Cult of Celebrity,” p. 115), the Leaning Tower of Pisa isn’t going anywhere, despite the fact that the technology certainly exists to disassemble, transport and reassemble it. The threads of fortune can only be stretched so far." Not to mention that the casting roll is penalized by the sympathetic connection to the object, -10 for Described, and -3 again for being super famous. Also the maximum time taken to get an object is defined by its distance. America to Nepal is listed as possibly taking up to three months, and using that rate, the distance from Earth to the Moon would take up to seven years of waiting, so even if you do decide that the Acanthus could get his hands on the flag, you have enough room to completely leave the resolution outside the scope of your present story. Basically your Acanthus is discovering the limits of magic on his own. That said, if you do want suggestions, using a seven year time frame, one of those rich folks trying to get into space on private dollars succeeds in not only getting into space but going to the moon, where he secretly pilfers artifacts from moon landings, puts them on display, and they get stolen one day, ending up in your Acanthus' hands. Or, alternately, a Space spell goes absolutely completely wrong and your Acanthus finds himself at the Apollo 11 landing site, collapsing against the Apollo flag as he suffocates in the cold hard vacuum of space. Which would be entirely in keeping with the flavor of the spell, though your Acanthus probably won't appreciate it too much. Nicolae Carpathia fucked around with this message at 06:14 on Sep 13, 2011 |
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Sep 13, 2011 06:06
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Nicolae Carpathia posted:Not to mention that the casting roll is penalized by the sympathetic connection to the object, -10 for Described, and -3 again for being super famous. I gave him a penalty of -7, -4 for the sympathetic connection as there are pictures of the flag and -3 because the flag is a famous object, although I would agree that the flag is more like the tower of Pisa than the Hope Diamond and might fall outside of the scope of Gift of Fortune. The seven year time frame is fine, I like the idea of a rich man stealing the flag from the moon. The teleportation mishap would be easy to fit into the game given that the Acanthus spends half his time getting drunk and trying to understand and invoke paradox, but yeah, he doesn't quite have a way to get back to earth yet.
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Sep 13, 2011 06:25
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Nicolae Carpathia posted:Or, alternately, a Space spell goes absolutely completely wrong and your Acanthus finds himself at the Apollo 11 landing site, collapsing against the Apollo flag as he suffocates in the cold hard vacuum of space. Which would be entirely in keeping with the flavor of the spell, though your Acanthus probably won't appreciate it too much. Spell ultimately fizzles. Either as a result of a backlash explosion (or something) or just him feeling super tired and going to bed, he sees the above in a dream.
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Sep 13, 2011 13:51
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CHaKKaWaKka posted:I gave him a penalty of -7, -4 for the sympathetic connection as there are pictures of the flag and -3 because the flag is a famous object, although I would agree that the flag is more like the tower of Pisa than the Hope Diamond and might fall outside of the scope of Gift of Fortune. The seven year time frame is fine, I like the idea of a rich man stealing the flag from the moon. Pictures of a thing do not necessarily count as -4 sympathetic connections, especially if they're old photographs (though if you had Time you could use Temporal Sympathy to see how it would look now). Of course, you're ignoring the best option. There was no moon landing. It was all faked by the Hegemonic Ministry in order to stir up national fervor and keep the masses distracted from the hidden wars as the various Ministries in the East and West went to battle to determine who'd come out on top. Your Acanthus does get the flag - suspiciously quickly - and soon comes to realise that it's just a prop from the film set they used. Meanwhile, a minor, bureaucratic archivist in the Hegemonic Ministry notices that someone's been tampering with their carefully locked-away evidence, and takes it on herself to hunt down the offending Mage.
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Sep 14, 2011 03:56
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My group has been play for over three years now alternating between GMs and game systems every two months or so. Both of the other GMs have been running the same game almost constantly whereas on my turns I generally pick something interesting. I haven't really picked a system or game that I wanted to GM for a long period yet basically. One runs Star Trek the other runs Buffy: the Vampire Slayer. I've been through nWoD, Spirit of the Century, Mutants and Masterminds, and now I'm trying to run a Gamma World game. The problem is half the group of 5 aren't really paying attention. Mostly making comments that the rules are hard to understand. My first session literally had a single encounter before my players started to drift off. Now this could just be the way I'm running Gamma World, I'm new to using the system, but I think even if I wasn't that there would still be this issue with people not really paying attention. Should I offer my group I different game? I mean I'd rather just run another SotC or Dresden Files then get frustrated because it's all to much for certain players to manage.
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Sep 14, 2011 12:58
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TheLostSkeleton posted:Should I offer my group I different game? Longer Answer: It depends - it could just be learning curve if they aren't familiar with 4e. If you've played just one session then if your friends are willing then you could try one or two more and see if things improve. If you've played a few sessions with no improvement or if your friends don't want to bother, then absolutely you should play something you'll all enjoy. If your players are used to SotC, I can see how gamma world combats could seem boring. D&D isn't the only game that causes brain damage - if you're used to playing things a certain way, and then you try something new but keep playing the same old way, it can be very hard to see what the new system does better or why you'd want to keep playing it.
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Sep 15, 2011 04:07
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I am resurrecting this thread with an actual question! Please tell me all about DMPCs--why people love them, why people hate them, how to use them, how NOT to use them, etc. Long story short I had a four-player group (myself not included) that became a three-player group. Not really a problem, but I've found that two of the players tend to defer to the wishes of the third, which is a problem for me as GM because sometimes I want interparty debate/conflict and (in this situation) the guy that everyone follows was actually temporarily working against the party. And the fact that the other two players followed him almost blindly was infuriating. So as a result I've been debating introducing a DMPC to the group, not so that I can railroad them into my plot, but more so that the two players feel more comfortable expressing their own interests and plans. They also get full-use of him during combat, if they want, as I don't think I could compartmentalize well-enough to be a player and a GM in the same fight. Is this a good idea, bad idea, or what? I've never really done a DMPC and I've seen them get a bad rap in a lot of places.
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Oct 5, 2011 20:29
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Astfgl posted:which is a problem for me as GM because sometimes I want interparty debate/conflict Just keep in mind that what you want me not be what your players want. If your players want to be a group with a leader and two followers, I'd suggest thinking about ways to make that work for the campaign rather than letting it be a problem. You might consider bringing up this issue with the group and if they like the way things are, encourage them to recognize this dynamic in-character. Astfgl posted:and (in this situation) the guy that everyone follows was actually temporarily working against the party. And the fact that the other two players followed him almost blindly was infuriating. Why would the presence of another character make the less-assertive members of the group more comfortable expressing their own interests? Is the idea that the DMPC would introduce alternative ideas and put them in the position of having to decide? Because I think you'd risk the worse alternative of what you have in which the players follow what the DMPC says because he speaks with the voice of the GM behind him. If the issue is that two players just want to be followers, I think you may have to roll with it. If the issue is that they get caught up in the first idea that comes out, and this is usually the more assertive guy, then this can be fixed with using skill checks and non-DMPC NPCs to introduce your alternatives into the game.
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Oct 5, 2011 20:55
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I've been running a post apocalyptic Nuclear Winter game for my group using a custom made system. It's been going great, and I've been making adjustments to iron things out and make it easier to get through a session without spending 40 minuets managing inventories or recording loot. I've reached a problem that I don't know how to deal with really. Obviously everyone is going to want to stick together, or else how can it really run. Last session though the group was faced with a very hard decision about their future and there are some differing opinions on what to do. I wont describe the entire setting but to sum up, they have been just scraping by for a while, with very little. They had been stranded at sea for years and ran ashore to their first taste of a nuclear winter landscape. While they were out scavenging, the rest of their shipmates were kidnapped and the ship somewhat destroyed. They found a colony of mainland survivors who let them stay in return for help. They learned that the ruins of the city they're in is ruled by what everyone calls "tribes". It's more or less gang war, with each tribe having its own colour and vicious back and forth territory feuds. The kidnappers of their friends turned out to be the Orange tribe. Learning that the orange tribe had been spotted in the area, they went out looking to get revenge and got in a really messy fight against better armed and equipped warriors. They only came out on top because they managed to get the element of surprise on their side. Here's where the problem set in. On their way back to the colony to share their spoils with their hosts, they were confronted by a blue tribe recruiter who was pretty much a ninja. He initially intended to rob and kill them all, but seeing that the party just offed a group of Orange dudes inside blue territory, he decided to offer them a chance to join up instead of fighting. They've got two in game days to decide. Some of the players want to join up 100%, because it would help them survive, and the blue are the most direct enemy of orange, so they could get help getting their friends back. Others aren't as sure, because there's the moral conflict. They know blue had been targeting the colony of people who gave them shelter, and they're worried they'd have to do things they wouldn't be comfortable with in order to keep blue off their backs. The next game is tomorrow and I'm not sure what everyone has decided yet. Does anyone have any suggestions on how to handle it if some of the players want to join up and others refuse? I have been running the game in separate instances for those who split off from the group to do things on their own. While it would be interesting to have the characters against each other for a while, not knowing what the rest are doing, I think doing that all the time would get tiresome and wouldn't be fun for everyone. Cheap Shot fucked around with this message at 21:06 on Oct 5, 2011 |
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Oct 5, 2011 21:02
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Sir Kodiak posted:Just keep in mind that what you want me not be what your players want. If your players want to be a group with a leader and two followers, I'd suggest thinking about ways to make that work for the campaign rather than letting it be a problem. No, my players want the conflict and the divergent goals within the party--they've specifically asked for more. The problem is that two of them are not comfortable expressing in-character suspicion, so they tend to just defer to the dominant player. And even he has said that he finds it a little tiresome, because he doesn't always want to be the de facto decision maker of the group, or sometimes he'll propose bad plans for whatever reasons and the other players follow along with hardly any protest. Sir Kodiak posted:Why would the presence of another character make the less-assertive members of the group more comfortable expressing their own interests? It's more so that if one of the players expresses an interest in something, the DMPC can say "Hey, that's not a bad idea! I support that!" And suddenly there's a much better situation for having an actual discussion because the players feel supported, rather than on their own confronting a perceived authority figure. It's mostly intended to give them a boost and have someone who isn't the DM give them confidence or support. Like, one player was really suspicious about something, but never mentioned it because no one else seemed to share his opinions. With a DMPC I could say "Hey, you're right that IS kind of suspicious..." regardless of whatever knowledge I might have as a DM. Sir Kodiak posted:Is the idea that the DMPC would introduce alternative ideas and put them in the position of having to decide? Nope. Really, the DMPC would be there to provide input on what the players themselves want to do, but without that input coming from the DM and therefore seeming infallible. If one player says "let's do A" and another player says "let's do B," then the DMPC can step in and toss his support behind one of the options, which makes the eventual decision seem a lot fairer than one person making all the decisions because the other two players are too timid to question his judgment. Sir Kodiak posted:Because I think you'd risk the worse alternative of what you have in which the players follow what the DMPC says because he speaks with the voice of the GM behind him. But the DMPC won't be infallible, like the DM. Sometimes he'll throw his support behind a bad idea or a half-baked lead because it seems sensible to him at the time, even if the DM knows its destined for failure. Will players get that, or do players tend to think that DMPCs have all the knowledge that the DM does? Sir Kodiak posted:If the issue is that two players just want to be followers, I think you may have to roll with it. They don't, that's just the current out-of-character dynamic. My players are three guys: two brothers and a friend. The younger brother tends to defer to his older brother and the friend defers to the older brother, too, because he's a more dominant personality. In the game, they've all expressed the desire to be more decisive, but when push comes to shove they often don't feel confident enough to argue with the perceived "leader" even though they don't always agree with his plans.
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Oct 5, 2011 21:19
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Ah, okay, that makes sense. In that case, maybe you don't need a full-fledged DMPC? What if one of the less-dominant characters had a familiar or talking magical skull artifact or whatever which could provide a voice but which wouldn't have significant physical or magical abilities? That way you don't have to worry about the extra body in a fight and they're explicitly subordinate to the group, but there's still an avenue for you to put in the sort of information and opinions you're looking for. Astfgl posted:But the DMPC won't be infallible, like the DM. Sometimes he'll throw his support behind a bad idea or a half-baked lead because it seems sensible to him at the time, even if the DM knows its destined for failure. Will players get that, or do players tend to think that DMPCs have all the knowledge that the DM does? It's not necessarily a problem, but it can happen. That's why I'm suggesting making them explicitly less powerful, and maybe giving them clear personality traits or motivations which might make them periodically unreliable, to address it. It's just something to watch out for.
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Oct 5, 2011 21:24
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I hadn't thought about that. These are the ideas I'm looking for! I think the group was looking forward to a new character to play with during combat, though, since they just lost one of their number.Cheap Shot posted:Does anyone have any suggestions on how to handle it if some of the players want to join up and others refuse? In situations like that I just tell my players to reach a consensus. The game can't move forward until they do, but it puts the onus of decision on them, not you. Obviously, those who are anti aren't suddenly going to become pro, but hey, that makes for a better game. Plus, it's always nice to toss the losing team a bone later on down the road, like "Oh, no! The blue tribe just devastated the colony who took you in! Looks like some of you guys were right to worry!" But the important thing is to stress to the players that they need to reach a compromise on their own. Having you intervene and dictate which action gets taken, or divvy up the party into two different groups, will only lead to bad blood down the line.
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Oct 5, 2011 21:38
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Astfgl posted:I hadn't thought about that. These are the ideas I'm looking for! I think the group was looking forward to a new character to play with during combat, though, since they just lost one of their number. You could always do both. If you give them a familiar which mouths off with its opinions that you control and a mindless robot/construct/golem that they can order around then you get the best of both worlds: you get to voice an opinion with a character this is forced to go with what the group decides, and they get to have a new combatant to control as a group, with a clear in-character reason why this combatant will do whatever they say. Because, at least in my opinion, the ideal situation here is where your opinions are voiced by a character which gets to speak but doesn't get to vote, and that can be harder to justify if the opinions are coming from a character as powerful as they are. They could find the two of them together if it's too weird to introduce two important new elements at the same time by coincidence. Maybe they're locked up in a wizard's lab. The wizard is deceased and his familiar is looking for a new master (and may periodically reveal information/plot hooks that it remembers from the old days) while the construct is just there ready to use by whatever group binds it to their collective will.
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Oct 5, 2011 21:50
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Cheap Shot posted:Some of the players want to join up 100%, because it would help them survive, and the blue are the most direct enemy of orange, so they could get help getting their friends back. Others aren't as sure, because there's the moral conflict. They know blue had been targeting the colony of people who gave them shelter, and they're worried they'd have to do things they wouldn't be comfortable with in order to keep blue off their backs. The next game is tomorrow and I'm not sure what everyone has decided yet. Does anyone have any suggestions on how to handle it if some of the players want to join up and others refuse? I have been running the game in separate instances for those who split off from the group to do things on their own. While it would be interesting to have the characters against each other for a while, not knowing what the rest are doing, I think doing that all the time would get tiresome and wouldn't be fun for everyone. Before the game starts, sit everyone down and ask them how they feel about that possibility. If they want to split up for a couple sessions, just split for a couple and figure out a reason for them to come back together. If they don't want to split, then they'll have to work out within the group what to do. Maybe they have a bit of an clause in their joining contract like, "No harming those folks that gave us shelter, but we'll totally fight those Orange bastards." Just roll with what your players want to do. And if it comes down to a fight between the PCs and some super-powered NPC, remember that you're the guy who made the NPC super-powered in the first place and that the only person making a fight actually impossible is you.
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Oct 6, 2011 11:58
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I've never really understood the DMPC thing. Isn't that exactly the same as a fully-statted NPC? I mean outside the context of a terrible 13 year old DM going "so my guy casts fireball and melts the bad guy and gets the treasue, what are you guys doing?" I ran a game, back in the 90s, where the party had 2 NPC members, one of whom ended up (after a year's play) killing the other one and becoming a recurring villain, but I never thought of either character as a "DMPC" or "my character" or whatever. They were NPCs, built on the same rules as the PCs and played by me, but clearly NPCs.
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Oct 6, 2011 12:33
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A couple of characters in an ongoing game I play in with a few friends could unflateringly be described as DMPCs. One of them was basically the escort object of an escort quest, so was set out to be useful to the party to avoid him being a burden. The other turned out the be a character from one of the player written backstories and also managed to help deal with the problem of all the players characters were unable to take more than a couple of hits in combat - We had a magey-type, a berzerkery type who eschewed armour and ran blindly into danger, a theify con-man robin hood type and a private detective turned sharpshooter.
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Oct 6, 2011 13:28
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Astfgl posted:I am resurrecting this thread with an actual question! DMPCs seem to be one of those things that people either love or hate. It's sorta like politics in most circles. People that like them will defend them against all accusations and people that hate them will bring up every conceivable thing that's wrong with them. But, in a nutshell, here's what I've seen about the why. The folks that like them, like them because it's a character that is around the party all (or most) of the time that can fill a certain hole. If there were only two players and a GM, a third "player" would be able to take up the role of, say, cleric, thus letting the two players take the sorcerer and rogue like they were originally wanting to. And for some systems, having all of the organizational roles filled is almost mandatory for properly balanced encounters (especially for less experienced DMs). For games like Shadowrun, GURPS, etc., it's less necessary because you could always give the players a couple extra build points to spend on "necessary" stuff (Negotiation/Etiquette if there's no Face, etc.). The folks that don't like DMPCs don't like them because there is a (perceived or real) tendency for DMPCs not played perfectly with the group's style to steal the show. This has caused serious multiple-page arguments in the Worst Experiences thread, so I'm trying to cover my butt in the hopes that the same won't occur here. But from what I've seen, a lot of people that don't like DMPCs think that if the DM wants to play he ought to play and not also run the show, as this at the very least sets up the temptation to abuse the power. Many bad experiences with DMPCs seem to stem from the DMPC not dying, always saving the day, "miraculously" getting a high enough knowledge check to solve some puzzle, etc. This sets a lot of people on edge as they feel that it destroys some of the immersion. Go read DM of the Rings for a longer-winded (but funny) look at an example of a bad one. As to how to do it right/wrong, I'm not touching that with a standard issue ten-foot pole. It'll cause a flame war and I'd rather that was at least confined to the Worst Experiences thread. The only thing I can say is "ask your group what they'd prefer" and go with that.
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Oct 6, 2011 13:50
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ItalicSquirrels posted:Many bad experiences with DMPCs seem to stem from the DMPC not dying, always saving the day, "miraculously" getting a high enough knowledge check to solve some puzzle, etc. Even if you avoid all these pitfalls, there's an issue of spotlight time: the DM tends to get a lot of it to begin with, and every turn the DM is taking on behalf of allied NPCs is a little longer that the players have to wait to do anything with their own PCs. If you just need someone to fill out a role in combat, a PC-controlled companion character can often be a better option.
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Oct 6, 2011 14:34
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There's a great DMPC in a Fallout campaign I'm playing in (run in Cyberpunk 2020) He's the party medic, has basic understanding of guns and has dots in those pesky things like "General Education" and such. Things that have no REAL benefit, like knowing how to read. He can defend himself better than your average raider, but doesn't do much in combat except maybe hold the steering wheel or dispense stimpacks. Us all being from the same vault makes the DMPC sticking around make perfect sense. I've also had terrible DMPCs where they had to show off their golden prismatic bows who could shoot an arrow around the globe like in a loving Asterix cartoon.
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Oct 6, 2011 19:05
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One of my buddies reckons that DMPCs should be seen and not heard; this is the case for things like old-school D&D clerics basically being healbots, the Apothecary in Deathwatch, etc. That sounds like what your DMPC is like Dok, something there to sit around in the background and be a utility.
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Oct 6, 2011 19:29
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I emailed my players yesterday about the whole thing and asked them (individually) for their input. They unanimously opted for a fully-built PC whom they retain control of during combat and mechanical encounters (like skill checks and things), but whom I can voice during social interaction and such. What it came down to for them was the fact that, so far, the campaign they're in has been pretty character-driven, with each person having their own set of goals and motives. They didn't like the idea of a new character being literally just a device for me to speak through, or a mindless automaton that had no story or flavor to contribute outside of combat.
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Oct 6, 2011 19:51
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Thuryl posted:Even if you avoid all these pitfalls, there's an issue of spotlight time: the DM tends to get a lot of it to begin with, and every turn the DM is taking on behalf of allied NPCs is a little longer that the players have to wait to do anything with their own PCs. If you just need someone to fill out a role in combat, a PC-controlled companion character can often be a better option. Plus another thing is I usually find that as GM you are already managing a crapton of stuff, another character can seriously strain your ability to keep things straight. Running a character tactically while having an insight into the minds of the NPCs(because you are both, duh) is also difficult, since you need to isolate what your character might know over what the GM knows. Overall, more trouble than its worth. If the party's short just make an unobtrusive, disposable NPC they get to order around.
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Oct 8, 2011 17:25
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we've got two statted up DMPC's from an ex player who had to leave our Rogue Trader campaign due to family illness and stuff Ones a Seneschal who basically manages the minutae of the ship and helps justify us quickly attaining diplomatic connections. The Other is a sister of battle who helps out when we have a huge plan, however we are the ones who have to give her orders around rather than her being an Autonomous DMPC Both of these work really well
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Oct 9, 2011 06:52
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The first time I DMed I had a DMPC. It was the bad kind. The kind where I wrote an amazing story that didn't actually involve the players. It was a case of the party go on some unrelated quest and then typically stumble upon the DMPC saving the world. Sometimes they'd team up for a bit, and other times the PCs were in the background. I actually thought I was being clever and original but running a game that only occasionally touched the main "plot". I was, in fact, a loving idiot. Right now, I'm running another game with a DMPC. It's the good kind. Here, he's only existence is to provide a bit of intrigue and occasionally nudge the players in-character if they get "stuck". It's a Pathfinder game, but I'm using the Gestalt rules from Unearthed Arcana because I only have two PCs. The DMPC is a non-Gestalt, so he's just a bard. He's useful, but doesn't steal the spotlight or cause every combat to degenerate into avoiding letting him get killed. He also tends to piss off on a regular basis, especially when there's some kind of RP-based encounter that the bard would be the obvious choice to lead.
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Oct 9, 2011 10:47
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As the above anecdotes illustrate, DMPCs are the devil when you allow them to be Dungeon Master Protagonist Characters. Don't give them complicated plots that don't involve the actual protagonists and principals, played by your real friends. Don't set them up as if they were vehicles for fictional struggle and change on par with the actual protagonists, because you're the person who is presenting the terms of the struggle, and it will rightly bore you and piss off everyone else if one person runs both sides of a "challenge". I'm running a game of Apocalypse World today, by the rules of which, the GM can never roll dice. I really like the emphasis this places on finding out what the PCs do, and what the PCs accomplish.
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Oct 9, 2011 16:34
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I'll put aside my opinion htat there is no difference between a DMPC and an NPC to say this: I totally agree that a non-PC should never be a protagonist, but I disagree with the implication that an NPC/DMPC can't have a fantastic story. They can, it should just never take focus off the PCs. The DMPC can have similar goals to (and assist) the PCs, but maybe instead of helping kill the BBEG, he just rescues his daughter and then escapes before the final confrontation - he still has a cool story, but it's tangential to the main plot and he doesn't steal the limelight from the PCs. The players will likely remember their companion who wanted to rescue his little girl far better than "Dave III" who never speaks during adventures and just shoots at orcs whenever combat starts.
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Oct 11, 2011 02:17
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I think I've convinced some friends to give a game a try. None of us have ever played a traditional pen and paper rpg (apart from one really, really awkward half hour game in high school,) but most of us were heavy Everquest players in our youth and at least one still plays WoW. So we aren't new to the idea of pretending to be elves. I'm going to end up being the DM, which I'm nervous about but I'm willing to give it a shot. I was thinking for the first go at it I would find a short one shot and have a bunch of premade characters that they can pick from and tweak to their liking. I figured it might be easier to decide if this is something everyone enjoys if we don't spend the first two hours rolling characters and it would keep the initial investment for everyone a bit lower. My questions are these: 1. Is this the worst idea ever? 2. I was going to go for D&D 4th ed. Any suggestions for modules or other systems that would work better?
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Oct 11, 2011 07:37
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Just recently I played a game with some people I haven't seen for a year or so. The entire party was killed by the Marshall when I tried shooting the hat off another PC to intimidate him. We tried another game soon after and when I was making my character, a detective, another player decided my detective lacked the skills to be a detective and decided to make a character who did exactly what mine did because he felt I wasn't playing the game properly. It was awful. I was considering running a game for them before I played with them, but I'm wondering now if I could run a good game for them considering how awful they all were. Can a GM with very little experience run a good game for these people or should I avoid playing with them forever?
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Oct 11, 2011 08:08
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AlphaDog posted:I disagree with the implication that an NPC/DMPC can't have a fantastic story. They can, it should just never take focus off the PCs. Using game-time to share the "fantastic story" of the NPC will necessarily do exactly that. The story of an NPC is the Tale Of How [NAME] Interacted with The Protagonists. They can have pasts, and tell anecdotes and whatever, but to give them complex free-standing motivations is to lessen the centrality of the inherently important characters. ...Which is not necessarily the wrong thing for a game, but it's a GMing vice that needs to be kept under strict control, indulged only to the exact degree that it isn't the wrong thing.
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Oct 11, 2011 08:30
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Jadisan posted:I think I've convinced some friends to give a game a try. None of us have ever played a traditional pen and paper rpg (apart from one really, really awkward half hour game in high school,) but most of us were heavy Everquest players in our youth and at least one still plays WoW. So we aren't new to the idea of pretending to be elves. You can download the starter adventure for free from the Wizards website. It even includes premade characters and rules, so you don't need to buy the books if it rubs you all the wrong way.
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Oct 11, 2011 08:52
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Bootstrap Beefstud posted:We tried another game soon after and when I was making my character, a detective, another player decided my detective lacked the skills to be a detective and decided to make a character who did exactly what mine did because he felt I wasn't playing the game properly. It was awful. Roleplay them as twins, except you're the older brother by a minute and your younger brother is the family gently caress-up. Cecil & Tony Private Investigators.
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Oct 11, 2011 09:03
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Mojo Jojo posted:You can download the starter adventure for free from the Wizards website. It even includes premade characters and rules, so you don't need to buy the books if it rubs you all the wrong way. I saw this, but to be completely honest with myself I will end up buying books for something anyway. I love reading worldbuilding poo poo, from EQ to the Septim Dynasty to other retarded nerd things. I eat it up like delicious cake. Ironically, I'm not certain I will be able to apply it effectively, reading and actually building are fairly different. I'm willing to give it a drat good try though.
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Oct 11, 2011 09:49
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Doc Hawkins posted:Using game-time to share the "fantastic story" of the NPC will necessarily do exactly that. The story of an NPC is the Tale Of How [NAME] Interacted with The Protagonists. They can have pasts, and tell anecdotes and whatever, but to give them complex free-standing motivations is to lessen the centrality of the inherently important characters. Just remember: the spotlight never was the DM's to control, and it's never a smart idea to think a game will be made better by seizing it. Bootstrap Beefstud posted:Just recently I played a game with some people I haven't seen for a year or so. The entire party was killed by the Marshall when I tried shooting the hat off another PC to intimidate him. We tried another game soon after and when I was making my character, a detective, another player decided my detective lacked the skills to be a detective and decided to make a character who did exactly what mine did because he felt I wasn't playing the game properly. It was awful. Chaotic Neutral fucked around with this message at 10:02 on Oct 11, 2011 |
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Oct 11, 2011 09:59
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Jadisan posted:I saw this, but to be completely honest with myself I will end up buying books for something anyway. I love reading worldbuilding poo poo, from EQ to the Septim Dynasty to other retarded nerd things. I eat it up like delicious cake. The setting is deliberately vague and subtle so that DMs can do what they like the world (although, the more rulebooks you buy, the less this implicit setting become ague suggestions). You'll need the books anyway, if you want to play beyond the starting adventure, it just lets you get a little taste.
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Oct 11, 2011 10:01
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