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Nanja Monja posted:Should I have let them get the entire party killed? I'm not sure if I should try to adapt to their unwillingness to use consumables or not, but I just can't seem to change their minds about it. I've directly told them after a session that they should use their items, and while they all agreed that they should they still don't. Maybe they're not really connecting the game with you. You could try introducing a healer NPC (temple cleric that heals them after quests or something) that can sell them healing items. When they come back with giant gashes, or suffering from blood loss, or however you characterize remaining damage, have the cleric say something like, "Wow, I can't believe you folks look so beat up. Can you imagine what would have happened if you hadn't used those <items> I gave you?" And then have the cleric chastize them for walking around nearly dead when they could be healing themselves with those easily replaceable consumable items.
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Nov 14, 2011 21:07
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Any suggestions for running a game in which one of the players will be joining in via teleconference? He's an excellent and talented roleplayer (very mature, etc) and we're really eager to give this a try. The other players (two of them) will be present at the table. Has anyone done something similar? What worked well/smoothly? Any tools or software you'd recommend? Maptools seems a bit excessive and complicated... I've never used it: does it have a steep learning curve? Would it be recommended for this?
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Nov 14, 2011 21:47
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If you're just conferencing in a single guy, Skype video chat with a camera aimed at the map grid sounds like it'd do the job. edit: Listen to Fosborb's good advice. palecur fucked around with this message at 22:24 on Nov 14, 2011 |
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Nov 14, 2011 21:56
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Gomi posted:If you're just conferencing in a single guy, Skype video chat with a camera aimed at the map grid sounds like it'd do the job. Yeah I completely forgot about Skype. Oops. That sounds like it'll do just fine. Thanks
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Nov 14, 2011 22:06
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Captain_Indigo posted:Fiddler's Three, Spigs, Epicurius and Barrack HUSSEIN - Don't read this! The God at least should be easy, just give them an encounter/daily power to call upon him that does something thematically correct. as for the other, you could possibly narrate his involvement by having an obstacle or issue that is "dealt with" by his assistance.
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Nov 14, 2011 22:12
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We run with a couple on skype. A good microphone on both sides is essential. Our webcams have nice mics and they allow everyone to talk at normal levels and rates which is important otherwise the odd man out will miss tons of table chatter. Echo, having to yell or repeat yourself... this will completely ruin the pace. Throwing skype onto your tv helps too so you can see their facial expressions/body language. This is surprisingly important! If you're using a battlemat, I would go so far as moving the webcam so the player can see your faces every time you are not in battle.
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Nov 14, 2011 22:18
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fosborb posted:We run with a couple on skype. A good microphone on both sides is essential. Our webcams have nice mics and they allow everyone to talk at normal levels and rates which is important otherwise the odd man out will miss tons of table chatter. Echo, having to yell or repeat yourself... this will completely ruin the pace. Maybe this is obvious, but an otherwise-quiet setting also helps. While you can leave the TV on during an IRL session, it will compete with your voices on the remote players' ends.
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Nov 15, 2011 02:23
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I've run with a friend through Skype a few times, and the main thing I've noticed: -Make sure that you have a way for the person to speak up and interject if he wants to. It's easy to see someone raise a hand or change a facial expression or something in person to prompt asking them a question or letting them interject, but it can be hard for a digital person to interject especially if there's a delay. -Make sure you have a good internet connection. We had a friend DC a bunch of times during a game, it sucked. It's not TERRIBLE and it does make you wish they were really there but it's a reasonable substitute.
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Nov 15, 2011 09:13
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I'm in two games that meet once a week (Alternating Thursdays) and they both have players that connect via Skype. One game has a player that's over 500 miles away so he's always using it and both games have a stay-at-home dad/writer who sometimes does it when he needs to stay with his child or can't be arsed due to deadlines. We worked out a pretty good system. I've got a higher-end gaming laptop running ManyCam that shuttles video from a Microsoft web-cam to Skype. The laptop is connected to a flat screen TV, acting as part of a dual-monitor setup, via HDMI for sound and video. We use a condenser mic set in the middle of the room to capture audio. The Skype window is simply put onto the TV and so everyone sees the player(s) remoting in (Mr. 500 miles has Skype premium to enable video conferencing). It works out well because everyone can see the remote players and that allows them to interject but it does need a hardline connection, wireless never works out very well. They're both goons so maybe they'll chime in with their experience. EDIT: I should mention that neither game is particularly combat heavy and we don't use game maps or anything like that so the web-cam is aimed at the other players, not a board or table. BlackIronHeart fucked around with this message at 14:48 on Nov 16, 2011 |
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Nov 15, 2011 23:19
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Cantorsdust, Astfgl, ItalicSquirrels posted:Stuff They actually already fought a wizard I was specifically trying to disable them with, but rolled insanely well against both his glitterdusts and his web. Maybe I'll have his twin show up for revenge? v  vI've already given the fighter a (much too cheap) raise dead, but next time someone dies I'll try to make it a bigger deal - as well as introduce a cleric who berates them for throwing their lives away for petty frugality. Thanks for the advice!
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Nov 15, 2011 23:24
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BlackIronHeart posted:I'm in two games that meet once a week (Alternating Thursdays) and they both have players that connect via Skype. One game has a player that's over 500 miles away so he's always using it and both games have a stay-at-home dad/writer who sometimes does it when he needs to stay with his child or can't be arsed due to deadlines. *summoned to thread* It's true: BlackIronHeart is the worst GM. The wireless problem is primarily from shooting through two floors and a kitchen to someone's poorly positioned access point but there are occasional other video problems. They are jarring to a game, but infrequent. I think the last serious one had something to do with upload rates to multiparty Skype. I haven't gone through the  to determine what kind of upload bandwidth is actually needed for three or four party Skype video calls. The most common problem I see is loss of video, but not audio.But BlackIronHeart is the primary solution driver for our whole setup and he rocks for it and even for the first attempt at a ventrilo-based setup which we will never speak of again. A limitation I find in remote play is an inability to have aside conversations between two characters. Those only happen over IM chat during the game now, but only for IM-enabled players. Otherwise, the game basically halts while people watch a screen of two other not-local people talking.
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Nov 16, 2011 00:21
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Two of my friends want me to run a campaign (D&D 4e) just for them -- which I'm happy to do, I love running for smaller groups and these two are great to play with. One is a Cleric, the other is a Sorcerer, both of whom worship Pelor so I'm going to have it generally based around doing favours for him/the temple. This is no problem at all and I can easily work these characters together but the problem is that this isn't exactly a group with high survivability. I want them to have fun and dying is not fun so I basically have these options. 1) Give them a Striker/Defender NPC to help them out and stop them dying in combat. 2) Balance combat encounters so that instead of one or two "big" guys, they'd be up against a few more guys with less HP since only one of the characters can do damage (the Cleric is a pure heal build) 3) Some combination of 1 + 2 4) Have very very little combat and instead have encounters in the forms of skill challenges, puzzles, research, investigations, etc I'm honestly leaning more towards 4, with 2 if combat is absolutely necessary but the problem with that is that the skill challenge rules for 4e really aren't that great, and from looking through my DMGs there are very few suggestions for noncombat encounters besides skill challenges and social encounters. Those are all well and good but just those two would get a bit old after a while. Of course, there's also a 5th option which is to pick a system better suited to a less combat-orientated party but D&D is what I'm most used to and the Cleric has never played any RPG like this before so I don't want her to have to learn another character creation process so soon. If I wanted to keep it D&D my only option as far as I'm aware would be Dark Sun with all its political intrigue but with both party members being arcane (and incredibly religious) that wouldn't really make much sense. The only thing I can think of is a setting for 3.5 I heard about in one of these threads, I think it was called Raven...something? That seemed to be more based around survival and political stuff, with magic and religion actually existing. If I could read more on that (and find a 4e version of the setting) that sounds like it could work. I know this is a lot of questions and I do apologise, I haven't been DMing for very long and 4e is the only system I really have any familiarity with. Still, any help would be great!
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Nov 16, 2011 14:14
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Well, I guess the first thing for you to do is ask your players how much combat they'd like. If the players do want combat (and really, as you've noticed you're kind of missing out on 4E's main virtue if you leave combat out entirely), look up the rules in the DMG2 for companion characters: you can add in an NPC ally who's built using a simplified version of the rules for building PCs and controlled in combat by the players, which gives you most of the party-balancing benefits of option 1 with few of the spotlight-stealing drawbacks.
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Nov 16, 2011 15:14
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Right so my players have decided that for the upcoming campaign, they are a traveling band of musicians. Looking at doing Reavers of Harkenwold as the opener, followed by whatever module i can make work after that. Any ideas for challenges or encounters, or just situations that might hook a group of musicians? I would like to see something incorporated into the campaign at some point that highlights the idea of traveling musicians other than "Oh thats just a background". But I seem to be running low on ideas.
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Nov 16, 2011 16:59
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Are they just musicians? If so, I think the trope of 'Travelling group of X comes into town, something/someone ends up missing/dead, X suspected.' could be fun. An adventure of getting hired to play somewhere and the troubles of getting there on time (and the fallout of arriving late) is another idea.
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Nov 16, 2011 17:09
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Thuryl posted:Well, I guess the first thing for you to do is ask your players how much combat they'd like. If the players do want combat (and really, as you've noticed you're kind of missing out on 4E's main virtue if you leave combat out entirely), look up the rules in the DMG2 for companion characters: you can add in an NPC ally who's built using a simplified version of the rules for building PCs and controlled in combat by the players, which gives you most of the party-balancing benefits of option 1 with few of the spotlight-stealing drawbacks. I just got the chance to ask both of them and they're really happy about the option of a more social intrigue based game. Which is awesome for me because it means I don't have to fret about combat but now I get to worry about how badly 4e does this stuff instead. This is going to be fun.
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Nov 16, 2011 17:32
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Yeah, honestly, if you're going to have very little if any combat, I'd seriously consider using a different system, maybe even something freeform-ish. Most of the content and character customisation options in 4E are centered around hurting people, so if your game is not going to involve appreciable amounts of that, not only are you stuck with what the system is, frankly, somewhat terrible at, but most of the mechanical decisions your players get to make (feats, powers, and so on) are going to feel largely irrelevant. At that point you have to ask yourself if you're doing anyone a favour by using 4E.
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Nov 16, 2011 22:13
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Reiterating that 4e doesn't sound like the best choice here. The poster above me suggested doing it "freeform-ish", and that's a good idea if your players are into that. However, if your players are the kind who like having rules and systems to interact with as well as roleplaying, I can't recommend Burning Wheel hard enough. You want political intrigue - the Duel of Wits system in BW brings tactical depth and cool outcomes to arguments that D&D would resolve with a skill check (or maybe a skill challenge). Oh, and clerics and sorcerers in Burning Wheel are absolutely awesome. You can check out the base rules as a free preview here (it's a zip file containing the pdfs), but if you want the Duel of Wits, Faith, and Sorcery rules you'll need to buy the book. Jimbozig fucked around with this message at 07:25 on Nov 17, 2011 |
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Nov 17, 2011 07:20
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Talkc posted:Right so my players have decided that for the upcoming campaign, they are a traveling band of musicians. I had a similar campaign, party of musicians. The most fun we had was when I introduced a competing boy band that was stealing their fans. The party arranged to crash an wreck one of the opposing bands shows. Good times.
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Nov 18, 2011 00:17
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I'm considering running an L5R campaign in my group. I really like the setting (the dynamics of the Clans especially). However, I've never run more than one-offs, and the last time I was GM I was terrible. Granted, that was 8 years ago, but I'd like to have some sound ideas before diving in. First, I'm probably not going to run the game the way the rulesbook recommend. My group really doesn't care about sticking to rigid roleplaying options (in our RT campain, one player is an Ork Tekboy, the Rogue Trader is a Hunter Thomson/Dunesburry Duke Expy, and the Void Master is essentially the Scout from TF2). I'm thinking that I might want to adjust some facts about the setting to make it more accomodating to a looser style of play, but part of me thinks that's just overcomplicating it. More importantly, I'm not sure what the campaign would be about. One possibility is to use the City of Lies module from 1st edition, but that would mean potentially messy conversion work. I saw a few ideas from the AEG boards that intrigued me, but the one I liked the most I'm not comfortable doing out of the gate. Probably the biggest issue is that I haven't broached the subject with the rest of the group, so I have no idea what kind of characters they would play.
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Nov 18, 2011 21:11
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I've finally started getting a feel for what my group wants: exploration and yet less mystery. So I figure I'll create a more traditional dungeon romp for next session (integrated into the plot) and have the big reward be a plot dump of explanations for the various mysterious things I had previously been wanting them to puzzle out themselves. They seem excited about the prospect. So that's all settled. My question is now on a more practical level of how to do it: the dungeon romp is going to be against a city of kobolds in a series of caves. The players have already stolen a priceless and religious artifact belonging to the kobolds. 1) How do I pace the dungeon such that the players aren't utterly mobbed everywhere they go, fighting a constant pitched battle? That is, what sorts of things can I do to make it so that the entire population of kobold warriors isn't following them everywhere, splitting them up, yet still making for interesting encounters? 2) I want the possibility of reconciliation with the kobolds. Basically, these are semi-civilized creatures with big hopes and dreams, and I can feel the party mood such that I think they'll be receptive to the kobolds' plight-- and it helps that the kobolds' enemies are the players' now-sworn enemies (they have really begun to HATE the fey folk). I just can't think of a reason the kobolds would stop fighting the players who have already murdered (yes, murdered, not merely killed in combat) and stolen from them. 3) Since the players have shown themselves to liking exploration, any suggestions on how to run a maze? I've done disastrous sessions of mazes with previous groups...
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Nov 20, 2011 20:02
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Iunnrais posted:3) Since the players have shown themselves to liking exploration, any suggestions on how to run a maze? I've done disastrous sessions of mazes with previous groups... Instead of a maze, which can get pretty tedious and annoying, why not try designing a larger dungeon with multiple paths that rewards the players (not that you would tell that that it does) for splitting up and exploring as such, but is ultimately generally linear and ends up with the players at the same destination? Maybe a "if there are people on the other path, you can do X on this path" kind of deal. It does take a lot of work, and it does mean that you could potentially end up with a lot of wasted work with a fully-made dungeon that only gets half-used or even less, but there's no reason you can't just take your traps and fun poo poo from the unused parts, up the DCs, and use them in another campaign.
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Nov 21, 2011 02:20
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Iunnrais posted:2) I want the possibility of reconciliation with the kobolds. Basically, these are semi-civilized creatures with big hopes and dreams, and I can feel the party mood such that I think they'll be receptive to the kobolds' plight-- and it helps that the kobolds' enemies are the players' now-sworn enemies (they have really begun to HATE the fey folk). I just can't think of a reason the kobolds would stop fighting the players who have already murdered (yes, murdered, not merely killed in combat) and stolen from them. Given that the party has an artifact of the utmost significance to the kobolds, and also that the party has been rather successfully killing off kobolds who try to get it back by force so far, they could quite reasonably be willing to negotiate for its safe return even with their enemies.
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Nov 21, 2011 03:54
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The White Dragon posted:Instead of a maze, which can get pretty tedious and annoying, why not try designing a larger dungeon with multiple paths that rewards the players (not that you would tell that that it does) for splitting up and exploring as such, but is ultimately generally linear and ends up with the players at the same destination? Maybe a "if there are people on the other path, you can do X on this path" kind of deal. It does take a lot of work, and it does mean that you could potentially end up with a lot of wasted work with a fully-made dungeon that only gets half-used or even less, but there's no reason you can't just take your traps and fun poo poo from the unused parts, up the DCs, and use them in another campaign. Or to prevent "Screw it, let's go back and take the left path." "This WAS the left path", just have them roll up a Dungeoneering check with a moderate DC to give them a "hint" more or less as to where to go.
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Nov 21, 2011 16:50
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How should I handle non-inherent permanent +stat items? I'm working on a campaign right now that has the PCs going through an derelict research lab under a mountain for an archaeologist (this is otherwise a standard medieval Pathfinder setting) and the PCs will be able to find (and permanently lock themselves out of) augmentations that will permanently modify their parameters, whether it's ability scores or combat utility or whatever. I'm thinking put in a bunch of them that they can choose to integrate to, but they can only choose one each but no more, kinda based on the half-golem templates where the player would constantly have to make will saves or permanently become a mindless Construct. I wanna add in these sorts of tantalizing rewards, but I don't want to unbalance future campaigns and I'm using a variation on the Spellborg fan rules from 3.5, no LA calculations and the bonus is essentially a permanent Misc. Any suggestions? Fur20 fucked around with this message at 09:31 on Nov 22, 2011 |
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Nov 22, 2011 09:25
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Not sure if this would be better off in the 4e thread, but we're having a session in the Feywild and I'm looking to have a pixie / other tiny fey assist the party briefly. This pixie is obsessed with gold, and if he's given some in combat (a minor action) he'll aid the party in some way: 8GP - Provide a +2 to a single attack or damage roll this turn 10GP - Use an illusory distraction to grant combat advantage against an adjacent enemy until the end of the character's next turn 12GP - Teleport the character up to 5 squares If there's a restriction that no-one can use his powers more than once per turn does this seem roughly balanced?
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Nov 22, 2011 10:48
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Party Boat posted:Not sure if this would be better off in the 4e thread, but we're having a session in the Feywild and I'm looking to have a pixie / other tiny fey assist the party briefly. This pixie is obsessed with gold, and if he's given some in combat (a minor action) he'll aid the party in some way: Might want to have that teleport take the character's move action.
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Nov 23, 2011 00:07
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homullus posted:Might want to have that teleport take the character's move action. Minor-action teleport 5 isn't really too bad for a set-piece fight or a short-term companion -- make it useful by having a lot of terrain that is hazardous or annoying to climb around, so paying the taxifey to zap them to a good ledge becomes a real pace-saver. Also, be sure to make that teleport 'willing ally only' so the party doesn't use him to bamf enemies 5sq straight up every time. Is it 'nobody can use any one power more than once per turn' or 'you can pay the fey exactly once per each of your turns'? If it's the former, paying 18GP and two minors to smack an adjacent enemy with combat advantage and +2 damage (or a net +4 to hit from CA and +2) gets pretty tempting.
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Nov 23, 2011 00:32
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Gomi posted:Minor-action teleport 5 isn't really too bad for a set-piece fight or a short-term companion -- make it useful by having a lot of terrain that is hazardous or annoying to climb around, so paying the taxifey to zap them to a good ledge becomes a real pace-saver. What level are we talking about? Not to get all mathy on you but perhaps charge in the same range as a reasonably-leveled consumable/item? Even in my mid-heroic Dark Sun campaign, those prices sound like a discount. (Using a price of maybe 2-4% of a permanent magic item for a one-time effect.) E.g.:
Other options might include:
Just be aware that it'll likely slow things down regardless of how it's used. Even killing monsters faster due to CA/+2 attack/+2 damage will likely be outweighed by even a vanilla implementation: "Hmm, which do I need more, attack or damage? What do you guys think? And is it worth 10 GP?" Also, if money doesn't mean anything to your PCs, then perhaps raise the stakes...healing surges to invoke the powers!
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Nov 23, 2011 03:34
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The PCs are level 6, and the scenario involves them escaping from the Feywild while a malevolent force turns everything around them to ice - so teleport 5 will be very useful as there will be increasing amounts of difficult terrain as the encounters wear on. I might up the price of the attacks, the party are all pretty much on standard wealth and most of it's tied up in magic items. I also think I'll make it once per round - give the fey his own initiative pass and say that he can take one of those actions each turn. Thanks for the suggestions - I'll let you know how it went!
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Nov 23, 2011 20:37
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Party Boat posted:The PCs are level 6, and the scenario involves them escaping from the Feywild while a malevolent force turns everything around them to ice - so teleport 5 will be very useful as there will be increasing amounts of difficult terrain as the encounters wear on. Just one more quick thought, because I love giving PCs the option of making difficult choices instead of outright screwing them... Instead of giving the fey his own initiatve count, make it so that the fey grants only one power per round, and recharges each successive round at the same time as the next-slowest PC instead of right after the PC who used it (because if McSmashy the rogue is at 27 and uses the fey, the next turn he'll just delay until 26.9 or whatever, no big loss). However, if someone really needs to gain the benefit before it recharges, he can recharge the fey with a healing surge and then pay the gold. That way, the people who are most likely to benefit the most from the attack bonuses and mobility (strikers and to a lesser extent controllers) will be burning through their surges quickly if they abuse the option. Good luck!
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Nov 23, 2011 21:56
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Anybody have any tips for running AFMBE? Specifically stuff like travelling, scavenging and building descriptions (how much is too much, are the players going to be looking for specific buildings or should I tell them there's a bank over there, a grocery store over there, a couple of houses over there, etc). I know the mechanics but I'm fairly inexperienced with the system, especially running it.
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Nov 25, 2011 05:25
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I have a sort-of dilemma that maybe some of y'all can help me figure out. Basically I'm running a PBP revival of Black Isle's canceled Fallout 3, or "Van Buren" as the project was called internally. My problem is this: As one would find when adapting a video game, the campaign is rather long but there are things that necessarily have to happen for the plot to move forward, and while I'm all about letting the players gently caress around and make things difficult for me in the margins of the plot, there are three acts that have to be "triggered" in specific ways. So the game has to be directed to a certain extent and I have to make the goals of the game pretty clear, even if I don't exactly give PCs a roadmap. To brass tacks: The game starts with the PCs in a prison run by a Godlike computer. In the Big Bad's evil scheme, the players have been secretly infected with a virus that the prison is built to quarantine. The Big Bad breaks out the PCs, and they're tasked with returning all the other escaped prisoners back to the facility, all the while unknowingly spreading the virus. At the end of the first act, all the prisoners are returned and the virus angle is revealed. Godlike computer analyzes its chances and comes to the conclusion that the virus' spread is unstoppable. So it activates an orbital ballistic satellite loaded with nukes, which is the Big Bad's prize. I have a couple of problems here. The first is how to motivate the PCs to actually go after the other prisoners and return to them in the first place. How do you make that a priority, make it urgent? The original design called for periodic robot attacks that the PCs would progressively realize will not stop until all prisoners are returned. But how do you convey that information through simple combat? Would an info dump by the computer or some NPC work? The second problem is the Big Bad, namely whether I should try and keep him hidden for a second-act reveal. In former runs of the game I've made him the one who, under the guise of benevolence, give the prisoner-returning quest, but players have generally been smart enough to intuit that he's the bad guy (by virtue of his knowing so much about the problem). Should I make his antagonism clear but obscure his true aim (to spread the virus) so that they undergo the task with intention to stop him and unwittingly help him? Make it seem like he's trying to control the robot horde unleashed by the prison break? I'm not sure. Basically I'm just trying to figure out how to convey information, establish proper stakes, and make it clear what the PCs need to do, in an elegant / interesting / fun way. Any suggestions would be really appreciated, since I've tried this a few times and have yet to come up with a really satisfying solution. Basic Chunnel fucked around with this message at 09:20 on Nov 25, 2011 |
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Nov 25, 2011 09:18
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thepopstalinist posted:I have a couple of problems here. The first is how to motivate the PCs to actually go after the other prisoners and return to them in the first place. How do you make that a priority, make it urgent? Spiky exploding collars, plus the promise of a commuted "sentence". quote:Basically I'm just trying to figure out how to convey information, establish proper stakes, and make it clear what the PCs need to do, in an elegant / interesting / fun way. Any suggestions would be really appreciated, since I've tried this a few times and have yet to come up with a really satisfying solution. You could always just tell them, "Hey, this is the part where you hunt prisoners, if you don't find them in 99 days, the Vault runs out of water." If they're familiar with the Fallout games at all, I think you'll need to make the urgency explicit, or they may assume they're supposed to wander around and do everything but address the "plot".
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Nov 26, 2011 08:39
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The time limit's a pretty good idea - there's always the promise of ARGOS to motivate them. I thought about the collars but they didn't make a hell of a lot of sense from a logistical perpsective (how do you wear armor?) and I ended up including "get your tracking collars off" as a prologue quest. Not that it will help them in the long run, since Godlike Computer will start tracking through Pipboys eventually. It just allows the PCs to put a bit of breathing room between when they escape and when the Computer gets its poo poo together and goes after them.
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Nov 26, 2011 09:55
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So I've got what I think is probably a common question that I have never seen answered very well, lemme throw it out there to you guys; How do you handle Player knowledge Vs Character knowledge? I'm running Dresden, one of my players is a 150 year old Wizard. He's lived with Vampires, he's been in the Wardens, he knows poo poo. At least his character does. The problem arises if I mention something from the lore that he doesn't know about. Example, if, for the sake of argument, one player's character was working for what will become the antagonist for one of the plots. There's outward signs of this that would be obvious to anyone who has read the Dresden books but not so much to people who haven't. The 150 year old wizard would notice it no problem, understand what it means perfectly an so on. How do I deal with this without something like a lore check? I realise that a good answer is "Only use stuff they do know" or "Don't only use the books" but that kinda limits what I can do in the universe. I talked to the player about it and he suggested some kind of info pack before I start the plot off that he can study. Seems like a good idea but wanted to run it by you wonderful folks first.
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Nov 26, 2011 18:44
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I need advice concerning one of our group, he came to us from W40k miniatures battles and MMORPG, and he seems to be having trouble wrapping his head around the RP side of RPG. As a group we have been drifting towards games with less game mechanics and more story focus and I can tell he's starting to feel a little lost. The problem is he keeps writing himself out of the story, usually by character design. He was so concerned about making himself an awesome pilot in our current Rogue Trader campaign he took a trait (void born) which puts him at a loss when he's planetside. So while we're all cajoling around doing subterfuge, subversion, politicking and generally having awesome times swindling everyone for everything but the kitchen sink and playing all sides against one another, he's stuck managing the ship, and doing his duties. In our SLA campaign his character is a total weapon; arrogant, bad with people but a machine in close combat and sneaking, so he never interacts with anyone and just ends up becoming (an admittedly lethal) part of the furniture. So far we've tried to mix the game up a bit with some stuff he can get his teeth into, running some space battles in the RT game and getting some good fights going in SLA; stuff to try and keep him engaged, but the rest of the group gets bored fast when anything turns into shin-kicking dice-fests (which he loves, because it's all his character can do). So I got to thinking; I think if I could get him to play a weaker character, or at least someone with some real flaws and depth I could get him to really enjoy himself. I just have no idea how to broach this with him.
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Nov 26, 2011 20:15
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Nemesis Of Moles posted:The 150 year old wizard would notice it no problem, understand what it means perfectly an so on. How do I deal with this without something like a lore check? I realise that a good answer is "Only use stuff they do know" or "Don't only use the books" but that kinda limits what I can do in the universe. I talked to the player about it and he suggested some kind of info pack before I start the plot off that he can study. Seems like a good idea but wanted to run it by you wonderful folks first.
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Nov 26, 2011 21:48
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Nemesis Of Moles posted:Example, if, for the sake of argument, one player's character was working for what will become the antagonist for one of the plots. There's outward signs of this that would be obvious to anyone who has read the Dresden books but not so much to people who haven't. Instead of describing "outward signs that would be obvious," I would say things like "He's possessed. It's obvious to you." Doing only* the former is like making players deduce where in the 10' by 10' corridor the trap is. * yes, obviously, you are allowed to make the description come alive with magibabble detail, just communicate the important information first
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Nov 27, 2011 02:49
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| # ? Jun 11, 2024 07:31 |
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Some friends and I have gotten into Warehouse 13 and, combined with my current GM's very vocal "I wonder if someone else wants to run a different game", I've decided to try to run a Warehouse game. Some things are gonna be the same, some things are gonna be a little different. Folks are cool with this. I announce that I want to run it in Mutants & Masterminds with the main characters based on street-level "superheroes" (basically just awesome people, none of them have super powers). The added bonus is I can just figure out what 'powers' an artifact has and apply the template to anyone that picks it up. Aaaaaand I'm getting a lot of flak about running it in M&M. And none of it seems to be revolving around anything specific. There's no "The combat's too simple for me" or "It's too close to D&D 3rd edition" or even "Every time I've played M&M the game's been crap". The complaints seem to be that it's not a system we usually use, like Spycraft. I'm having a lot of fun in a superhero M&M game and decided to try to bring it over to the first group. The important thing to note is that the GM of the superhero group was the only one who had ever played M&M before we started that campaign, so it's not like it's hard to learn. I dunno. I could run it in one of our usual systems that we seem to have tired of, but then folks'd probably get tired of the game before we reached some kind of finale. Even if we only play a dozen sessions, I'd like to be in a campaign that has a distinct end. I've been gaming for seven or eight years now, been involved in probably over a dozen campaigns and only one has reached what could even possibly be called "the end". Is this a case of no gaming being better than bad gaming?
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Nov 28, 2011 14:21
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