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I'm running the opening adventure of an Legend of the Five Rings game shortly, and I'd love some thoughts about how to make the middle act of the game more compelling. The PCs are newly-minted samurai, all working for the same clan. Their first assignment from their Daimyo is supposed to be a milk run -- the old, retired sensei of their clan's dojo hasn't been returning their lord's letters, and he wants some people to go check on him. If he's dead, bring back his daisho so it can be enshrined in the clan dojo. If he died in some ignoble way, it's their tacit responsibility to protect his name (he's a clan luminary, even though he's retired) and the name of the clan in any way possible. Sadly, it's not that simple: In his monastic retirement, the sensei made the acquaintance of an aged monk who espouses a brand of Shintao (L5R Buddhism) based on Pure Land Buddhism. Basically, the overall doctrine is that the Celestial Order that puts the Emperor at the top, the Samurai beneath him, and the peasants and out-castes below them, is false, and that each individual is precisely as able to achieve enlightenment and kharmic advancement as any other individual. The sensei has taken up this doctrine, and is now running a dojo in a remote village that is training peasants to be like samurai, and the village is growing into a caste-free communitarian society. All of this is completely anathema to everything the PCs have been trained to believe and respect. So, the flow of the adventure is this: In Act 1, the PCs get together, get their mission, travel to the remote part of the clan territory that the Sensei was supposed to have retired to, and are ambushed by bandits that are plaguing the area (the fact that nobody has dealt with the bandits is one of the things that caused this mini-revolt). Chances are the PCs will be wounded or stranded in these remote highlands by the attack. Based on their ingenuity, they'll either find the village on their own or be taken there by villagers who will then treat their wounds and begin to heal them up. Act 2 is the tricky part. The PCs will be in this weird commie village that is an affront to the Celestial Order they're sworn to uphold, but the enormity of this won't be immediately clear to the players. While they're healing up, the sensei, who knows that the arrival of outsiders probably means the beginning of the end for his little experiment unless they're never heard from again, stalls for time. The idea is to get the PCs invested in the life/survival of the village, while at the same time slowly revealing that the villagers are ruling themselves, and there's something horribly wrong going on here. Act 3 is the end for the village, one way or another. Either the PCs find their way out of the village and report them to the local authorities, who muster an army to quell this "rebellion," or scouts looking for the "missing" PCs find the village and dispatch an army for the same purpose. The PCs have to make a choice -- with whom do they stand? I'd love advice on the following: -Does this adventure hold together? For those of you guys who know L5R well, is it strong in the Samurai themes? -In Act 2, what are some good ways to simultaneously invest the PCs in the village while at the same time revealing the fact that they've removed themselves from the Celestial Order?
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Nov 28, 2011 17:32
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Fardels Bear posted:-In Act 2, what are some good ways to simultaneously invest the PCs in the village while at the same time revealing the fact that they've removed themselves from the Celestial Order? I'm not familiar enough with L5R to answer point 1, though it seems like a pretty good plot-line to me. I think the best way to simulate interest in the village is also one of the most obvious. Have the characters become emotionally attached to the system through the affect it has on them. Despite the fact that the caste-less system opposes all that they believe, the characters will not be able to shrug off the fact their lives have been saved. Maybe start off by having them healed up by villagers, and noticing that there are signs that some of those helping them are unusual in some way. Again, I'm not familiar with L5R, but maybe something like one of their carers having a samurai-style haircut that is clearly growing out. As they discover more and more about this village, force them to compare objective(ish) morality with their social morality. Create situations where the abnormality of the system creates a greater way of life. Also show ways in which this system creates problems, like the fact there is nobody in a position to stop the bandits. Then when Act 3 comes along the players are faced with. "Do we allow this village to be crushed? Do we help crush it? Do we forget everything we've seen or try and learn something from what has happened here?"
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Nov 28, 2011 17:51
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Nemesis Of Moles posted: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; An info pack would work. However, what's wrong with quietly rolling him a lore check (or even just deciding that the character would know 'x') and shooting the player an email or passing a note: "Incidentally, you have been thinking about your employer and the following occurs to you" I never got a bad reaction from doing that kind of thing. Once I think a player asked how his guy knew that and I said 'well, you passed a Magic Theory test", which led to an uptick in the popularity of Magic Theory, which was an unexpected plus.
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Nov 28, 2011 17:53
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ItalicSquirrels posted: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 wouldn't force it. These are warning signs. Sometimes people can successfully predict what they will and won't enjoy, and anyway, It's hard to overcome preconceptions about games. That poo poo can be a vicious cycle. quote: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". You're going to need buy-in on the part of the other players, both on the general concept of the game and the specific concept of a focused, limited arc. It would help if when you explained what game you wanted to use, their eyes lit up and they started babbling excitedly. (Optional hipster storygame bias: I've never played M&M, but you may prefer trying a game that defines what constitutes the end? For multi-session "campaigns" that end at the same time for everyone, Burning Empires and Annalise come to mind.)
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Nov 28, 2011 18:10
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Hal Gill username posted:An info pack would work. However, what's wrong with quietly rolling him a lore check (or even just deciding that the character would know 'x') and shooting the player an email or passing a note: "Incidentally, you have been thinking about your employer and the following occurs to you" Yeah, when put like that I suppose it's not too bad. I've actually decided I'll slowly wean the info onto the player in the form of incidental details and discussions and the like, and if that proves fruitless, an info pack (Something fun though, I've been meaning to do a website run by someone from the books with info about various monsters in the world.) or, in the end, a lore check I suppose will suffice. Thanks guys
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Nov 28, 2011 19:05
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Anyone have any ideas for monster abilities for "scribbles"? Basically, the fey have kidnapped children and are using the kids' imaginations and crayon scribblings to create things. Including monsters. Over time, the children will be drawn deeper and deeper into their fantasy worlds and become the heroes of their own stories, which will be to the destruction of the party. But I'm not sure what kinds of stuff I should give the scribble monsters...
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Nov 28, 2011 19:37
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Iunnrais posted:Basically, the fey have kidnapped children and are using the kids' imaginations and crayon scribblings to create things. Including monsters. Over time, the children will be drawn deeper and deeper into their fantasy worlds and become the heroes of their own stories, which will be to the destruction of the party. But I'm not sure what kinds of stuff I should give the scribble monsters... Have a limited number of children, give each one a distinctive, strong personality, and have their creations reflect that. For the monsters, these might be born from their fears or, more generally, from the more destructive parts of their personality. By having a limited number of children, the players might be able to recognize that the monsters break down into a few different types, which could make for a neat twist when they find out why. A kid struggling with undirected or sublimated anger might create formless, shifting shapes which blindly lash out with destruction. An introverted kid with social anxiety might create disguised monsters, looking like ordinary people, who move hidden through society, sapping people of the will to live. A kid with a fear of dogs might create vicious dog-like monsters. A kid suffering from the loss of a parent might make cruel, capricious creatures who delight in robbing you of what you value most. A kid who is afraid of an abusive parent might conjure towering, angry giants who verbally berate their targets. A kid who is afraid of the dark creates creatures which spread darkness and lurk in shadows. Basically, don't stop at "the fey have kidnapped children," but make it about the fey having kidnapped specific children, with specific hopes, anxieties, and outlooks on life. You'll get inspiration for monsters with more power variety than just general "scribble powers," your game will be more specific and therefore unique, and if the PCs get the chance to interact with the kids more directly you'll have already started the process of characterizing them. Sir Kodiak fucked around with this message at 20:07 on Nov 28, 2011 |
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Nov 28, 2011 20:04
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Nostalgia4ColdWar fucked around with this message at 02:46 on Mar 31, 2017 |
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Nov 29, 2011 19:13
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You're pretty much going to have to have the Stygian Blademaster and his army of faceless chumps down through the ranks. Shows up pretty much at random. All the city's supposed to be warded against Stygian magic, but somehow somebody always manages to smuggle a glowing black skull into the arena at the worst possible time. Somebody else pretty prominent: the Crimson King, a polymorphed red dragon who talks up a high-class consignment house. Escorted by golems named Ruby, Sapphire, and Emerald who look about like you'd expect, who carry around giant iron-bound chests with his day's pocket money. Also occasionally containing your secret weakness (and worth every copper!) or, if you're stupid enough to take a bribe, DEADLY HOARD SCARABS. Really though what would help in this creative process is the big question: how fake is everything? I can actually see it going three different ways:
Glazius fucked around with this message at 03:35 on Nov 30, 2011 |
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Nov 30, 2011 01:31
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I'm running a Nine Hells campaign which is going rather well, despite my earlier troubles in challenging my players. I found the trick was stunlocks + diseases which debuffed their healing (which eventually killed the Paladin... excellent.) They're not finding it easy. Which I'm really enjoying. Whats that? You entered the Second Hell in a flashy manner, prompting a constant run for your life through the entire plane, before reaching the Third Hell being chased, having the Paladin die unceremoniously in the mud of Minarious and barely make it out of Jangling Hiter (THE CITY OF TORTURE :black101) alive? Excellent. But yeah they've managed to ingeniously fake their own deaths so the authorities are off their backs, and they have decent disguises. I wanted to enter them into a major festival occuring in one of the 3rd Hell settlements, for a chance to qualify for an epic quest for loot (won't go into too much detail, story which is unecessary for here). To bring it around to my question - Any good ideas for festival competitions with a HELLISH slant? I'm going to angle it towards them being able to utilise their own skills to win various things (feats of agility/strength/endurance?) before throwing them into an arena vs a Shadow Dragon of my own devising and having them use their rewards.
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Dec 2, 2011 00:31
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Nostalgia4ColdWar fucked around with this message at 02:47 on Mar 31, 2017 |
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Dec 2, 2011 03:48
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50 Foot Ant posted:
I like this idea. I'll edit it slightly to have the snowfall of blood be artifically created, and it'll be interesting to have the players be relatively unaffected by the whole thing. They think its going to be an organised affair (relatively) - I'll have them put down their names and then have the orgy of violence begin - have some mortals torn to shreds before they get siezed upon and forced to compete in ridiculously dangerous challenges. Might split the 4 member party into 2 groups, and have one work on an intellectual puzzle while the other group do a skill challenge acrobatics puzzle, forced into it by gibbering devils who give them insane rewards. As they get more and more lauded the devils lust for their blood, demanding they be hurled into the arena against Tharnax, Ancient Dracolich (a fight which, with the Paladin dead and absent for next session, they'll probably struggle to win. Excellent.) E: Any ideas for these challenges? The reason I'm asking rather than sitting down to utilise the ol' brainbox is that this week I'm pressed for time to write a session  Off of the top of my head I might make a scroll of riddles/word puzzles one group has to work out for a wizened but dangerous devil in a certain time limit, with loot being destroyed as the timer ticks on, while the others have to do some sort of platforming challenge and work out how to disable some traps.
Lord Twisted fucked around with this message at 11:44 on Dec 2, 2011 |
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Dec 2, 2011 11:36
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Lord Twisted posted:E: Any ideas for these challenges? The reason I'm asking rather than sitting down to utilise the ol' brainbox is that this week I'm pressed for time to write a session If you're looking for ideas you might want to dig up the BBC show "Raven" and its spinoffs, or maybe "The Crystal Maze", though that one's a bit older. "Raven" is mostly for elementary-schoolers but it uses fantasy trappings, so the structure should be easy to lift. For a game you might consider the devil loading the party down with prizes but leaving them in the center of a maze of truth and lies with the wall of oblivion creeping inexorably up on them. The maze is covered with puzzles that will point the way if you can work out the right answer, but every archway you cross brings the wall of oblivion closer and closer. Good news: you can slow it down by tossing your prizes into it. Bad news: when you run out of prizes you will have to toss each other into it. 50 Foot Ant posted:It's exactly like the WWF pretended. If it's exactly like the WWF pretended then don't worry so much that your players will work out that you're ripping it off. The Stygian Blademaster is the Iron Sheik. The Crimson King is the Million Dollar Man. The WWF did not generally present stories or characters that you could not explain to a ten-year-old in ten seconds. And if it is like the WWF pretended, you've pretty much got your big stables. The squared circle is the ultimate court of public opinion, where the drama of the war plays out again in miniature.
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Dec 2, 2011 16:35
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Glazius posted:If you're looking for ideas you might want to dig up the BBC show "Raven" and its spinoffs, or maybe "The Crystal Maze", though that one's a bit older. "Raven" is mostly for elementary-schoolers but it uses fantasy trappings, so the structure should be easy to lift. Inspired brilliance. I'll kit them out with all the rewards at the beginning, and give them a RL timer for each puzzle. Every item has a timer bonus attached to it so if they sacrifice it they get more time. Timer runs out = no loot and instantly face the boss. If they make it they can get some additional potions or some poo poo and then fight the boss. Just got to make up some decent puzzles. I used to love Raven back in the day, its perfect for the kind of simple but effective puzzles I'm going to need. So I'm thinking they sign up for a regular competition, blood rain drives the demons crazy and hurls them into this hellish race.
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Dec 2, 2011 17:33
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50 Foot Ant posted:First of all, those are great ideas. It's a combination of the one I quoted and the second one, the lower ranks weed out those who don't put on a great show or don't have what it takes to shake up the higher ranks. If they're really going to stick with this pitfighting thing for a while then an obvious storyline once they start to get comfortable to run is the NWO one. Suddenly established fighters start swearing allegiance to a new faction. Even old allies turn on them to join this new group, often at the worst possible moment. Some of the community's 'best' are suddenly in league with its 'worst'. For a while there's the uncertainty of who is secretly with the new faction, and eventually there's the question of who is behind it all - allowing you to introduce a new antagonist that they haven't anticipated. If they get really invested into the pitfighting world it could be very impactful. Basically I think if you're going to mirror pro wrestling then embrace it fully. You need polarizing characters who are walking stereotypes.
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Dec 2, 2011 18:44
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Nostalgia4ColdWar fucked around with this message at 02:47 on Mar 31, 2017 |
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Dec 2, 2011 19:06
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ReelBigLizard posted:I need advice concerning one of our group... There are a few ways you could deal with this. 1) Slowly try to alter/educate the way he plays. 2) Throw him in new situations to make it happen. 3) Make him play a different character that fits in. 4) Better characters. 5) Available team roles. 1) You could do this by making RP interaction a rewardable part of the game. If he realises that there is a source of XP, to make him even more awsome at his chosen field then he'll likely go for it. Give out some extra XP, money, equipment rewards and such for the behaviour you want to see. Eventually he's likely to get the hang of it and do it more often. You could also make it clear that decent RP and suggestions provide in game advantages and disadvantages. I always find that fights stagnate when it is a case of I roll, you roll, repeat. If the players know that describing something cool and then perhaps succeeding on a skill check will get them a bonus to hit, they will do it! Once they get creative like that, it should become more pervasive, it's all about changing the way they play. Consider: Normal tabletop battle game, roll 10 dice, get 4s to hit. Deal damage. Boring RPG combat, 'I shoot him, I roll a 5, that's a hit. Take 6 damage' This is what your player is used to and if some of your fights end up like this, it's no suprise that everyone but the wargamer gets bored. Alternatively, maybe you could get everyone to have more fun in fights by cultivating this sort of thing: Player: 'I shoot him, but it's dark so I'm on an enormous -ve to hit. Hey, we're in a factory right? And I have two shots, is there anything flammable I can set on fire with my first shot so I can see better?' GM: Sure, you can try that but be careful not to hit something too important... 2) Force the player into situations where he has to RP a bit. Perhaps that traitor/spy/officer/priest looks JUST like him and he has to talk his way out of or into a situation, maybe he could be the perfect distraction for the plan, but needs to put on an act or impersonate someone. Or perhaps the contact who was supposed to call the Face character gets in touch with the wrong person, whilst everyone else is unavailable, with VITAL info. So Soulless Mc Ninjacombatchoppy has to go and deliver the news, past the guards... in a hasty disguise. Be gentle to start with, it is all probably a bit new and some people just feel plain awkward when they get put on the spot to come up with an off the cuff act. Again, after this has happened a few times, it might hopefully expand the way he plays. 3) Seems like you need to exert a bit more control (not being harsh, just an observation!) being a GM is like herding cats, cats with an unhealthy obsession with trivia, snacks, drinks and never, ever starting the game on time. Seriously though, it sounds like he is making it hard for himself. By getting obsessed with being the best (max/min) for a particular goal in your game, he's shutting himself off and you need to help him to stop this. Sometimes a GM needs to be firm and just say that such and such a character hasn't got any place in the campaign and it needs to be something different. Be up-front about it, tell him you are happy he is in your group, but all the others like to play in this style and he's the odd one out so if he does X AND ONLY X, then he will be missing out on 90% of the game. Maybe try making some more suitable characters for him, that aren't criplingly overspecialised in something. He could do a series of guest star roles, maybe with you providing notes to help him help the story along. For example: 'Voidborn Mc Spacebound, your character can't really take part in this sequence, so could you give me a hand and play this NPC?' -Takes player aside- 'I know they seem like a trustworthy type, but they are secretly a cultist and I need you to roleplay these traits, X, Y, Z and then at the right moment betray them all. After that, Voidborn Mc Spacebound can roll in to save the day and I'll take back the NPC.' 4) Better characters are not the same thing as a different character! Get the player to work more on his characters background and motivations and maybe you could input some things too. The '20 questions' idea is a good place to start, if you aren't familiar with the idea, this explains it pretty well: http://www.gnomestew.com/gming-advice/anatomy-of-20-questions And this might help your player make some initial choices: http://awakenedmmo.org/wiki/Writing_Classic_Characters 5) Finally, take a look at the other characters you have. Could it be that the only team role not covered is the fighty one? Or that by trying to cover a unique speciality that the team dosen't have your player is being left out? Is there room for another social/scheming/thief type or do the other players already have that sorted? The second half of the 2nd link I posted above might help you see where your problem player can fit into the team. I hope that helps a bit!
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Dec 4, 2011 01:08
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So I'm starting work on a new campaign and I was just wondering if you guys could look the premise over, see if I'm being an rear end in a top hat, etc: Basically in my group I have one guy that's impossible to get really into a game, but is dating one of my players so I'm gonna try to make it work. Last time we played Shadowrun he really wanted to play a Technomancer. I warned him that it could be a tricky character for a newbie but he kept saying he had played RPGs before and knew how they worked. He must have been talking about MMOs or something because every two minutes I had to remind him that literally everything is connected to some kind of network and he could influence a lot more than asking if there were traps in every room. Despite my warnings he spent most of his time trying to shoot at security guards with a light pistol and checking his phone. So this time I'm gonna let him be the star in my act one, just to get him into it. He wants to be a Wizard in the 4e campaign so good, something that he can get into without me having to dump an extra bunch of rules and it fits: So act one is going to place him and the rest of the party in his wizard's hometown during the Festival of the Glorious Dawn. Partly this is to celebrate the summer solstice but its true purpose is that children of a certain age are tested by Agents of the White Tower(wizards, sorcerers, other arcanists) and representatives of the Godspoken(a collective recruiting pool for all the divine character types). The PCs will be there either celebrating or, like this guy's Wizard, testing potential recruits as a final phase of their training. The adventure hook will come when his character's little sister walks into his tent. The test will be something simple and vaguely magic. For now let's say he presents her with a ship in a bottle and asks her to get it out. Normal students usually concentrate on the bottle and if they've got the touch the glass will shatter, the ship will teleport five inches to the left of the bottle, etc. When his sister takes her test, initially it'll look like she failed. Nothing happens to the bottle. Then as he's leading her out of the tent something weird happens. A hundred toy ships of differing design and materials rain around the tent. Every tent, poster and article of clothing within 20 yards now has a ship drawn on it, something. The wizard's master will point out that sort of thing is unusual even for the magic test, gives the wizard a small retainer and the names of a few cohorts in town(the rest of the party) and sends them to the Tower to have the High Council examine the girl. Now I'm thinking the little girl is going to eventually become the first person to bring primal or psionic powers into the world. Branded a heretic, forcing the players to choose between defying everything they've worked for or killing a little girl whose sin was going to a festival. That kind of stuff. Mechanically I was thinking of putting this in by having her once per encounter, getting a straight d20 roll. On a 6-15 nothing really happens, but on a high or low roll she accidentally creates some kind of effect that alters the encounter. I'm thinking things like: - Noxious vapors rise up from the ground. -1 to everyone's Concentration and Will. - Everyone's surrounded by a faintly glowing bubble. Everyone in the encounter gets resist 2 physical. - The local flora explodes in a burst of life. Everywhere that had grass, brush or any other kind of growth is difficult terrain. - Glittering gems begin to rain on the battlefield. d20 vs. Reflex at the beginning of everyone's turn to take 1d4 damage. After the battle loot an extra 4d6+highest Perception roll gp worth of gems. Is it still DMPCing or escort missiony to have the party truck this wild card little girl around? I intend to write that the powers that be want her ritually sacrificed at the White Tower to avoid having an Avenger just walk up and stab her in the neck. So in combat they wouldn't have to worry about her too much. Also since the characters may be on the run I'd have her be the loot distributor, "I had a dream last night that Uncle Burt was fighting a dragon with a silver sword." Burt the Paladin wakes up with a +2 Sword of rear end Kicking next to his bedroll.
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Dec 4, 2011 22:57
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Fardels Bear posted:The PCs are newly-minted samurai, all working for the same clan. Ok, so lets start from the top: Having the samurai all being from the same clan is probably a mistake. You want different clans, because that is an important party dynamic and basically your class is heavily influenced by your clan. Crab play remarkably different from Dragonfly or Crane. Do you want all of the Samurai to be warriors or do you want a mix of like Monks and Shugenja? Samurai is just a social distinction after all. Alternatively, you can have the players be Ronin, hired by a local lord to check up on rumors of bandits and the village. That more closely matches Seven Samurai which you seem to be taking inspiration from, but that is not necessarily a bad thing. Lastly, in Rokugan there exists the Brotherhood of Shinsei which already teaches something which is pretty close to your heresy - that anyone can obtain enlightenment. I don't know if the lack of caste is philosophically a problem or if it will end up being a practical political matter in what amounts to a feudal system; you have a village basically in rebellion against its feudal lord, and I think the ins and outs of the philosophy are not going to matter much to the players.
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Dec 4, 2011 23:46
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Laphroaig posted:Having the samurai all being from the same clan is probably a mistake. You want different clans, because that is an important party dynamic and basically your class is heavily influenced by your clan. Crab play remarkably different from Dragonfly or Crane. Do you want all of the Samurai to be warriors or do you want a mix of like Monks and Shugenja? Samurai is just a social distinction after all. The reason they all are going to be from the same clan is that the central theme of L5R is your duty to your lord played against your character's personal needs and desires. That's what being a Samurai is all about. When you have multi-clan groups -- and I've played in them -- I find your Lord becomes an abstraction. Having everyone sworn to the same Daimyo makes it far more concrete and specific. It's possible to do in multi-clan groups if everybody is an Imperial Magistrate, and you're all serving the Emerald Champion, or they're some sort of unusual Otokodate, but frankly, beyond that, I find that justifying a Crab, a Crane, and a Lion all walking into a tea house every session to be hugely contrived. As for your clan determining your "class," the distinction between characters in a game like L5R has to be more about who they are, not what they do. I think we'll probably have 2-3 Bushi, a Shugenja, and 1-2 non-Bushi (artisans, courtiers, etc.) I think there'll be plenty of diversity. Laphroaig posted:Lastly, in Rokugan there exists the Brotherhood of Shinsei which already teaches something which is pretty close to your heresy - that anyone can obtain enlightenment. I don't want to get all  about a religion that doesn't, in fact, exist, but the key difference is the idea that everyone is *equally* capable of achieving Enlightenment -- the BoS teaches that everyone's on a kharmic ladder, and Samurai are closer to the top than peasants. If you're an ideal Samurai, you may be on the threshold of enlightenment, whereas if you're an ideal peasant, you might be reborn Samurai. Anyway, I appreciate the advice, but I'm looking more at something like "The Mission" than "Seven Samurai." Except in the end, Robert DeNiro and Jeremy Irons are probably going to kill the natives instead of trying to save them.
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Dec 5, 2011 01:28
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I don't know about the rest of your question (seems like a 'loot distributor' is unbalanced but I don't play 4e) but this right here shot warnings at me:Razorwired posted:So this time I'm gonna let him be the star in my act one, just to get him into it. He wants to be a Wizard in the 4e campaign so good, something that he can get into without me having to dump an extra bunch of rules and it fits: In my experience, making someone the star is always a bad idea, especially if they already have trouble getting into the game. What you're doing is making this guy's interaction with the other PC's, NPC's, and campaign world integral to people having fun in your game, when really what you want to have happen is that this player just gets more involved. Instead of shooting straight to the extreme of making him play the character the whole world revolves around, just create opportunities that show him how he can get more into the role, and let rely on someone else to drive the plot forward.
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Dec 5, 2011 01:36
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Lord Yod posted:In my experience, making someone the star is always a bad idea, especially if they already have trouble getting into the game. What you're doing is making this guy's interaction with the other PC's, NPC's, and campaign world integral to people having fun in your game, when really what you want to have happen is that this player just gets more involved. Instead of shooting straight to the extreme of making him play the character the whole world revolves around, just create opportunities that show him how he can get more into the role, and let rely on someone else to drive the plot forward. Yeah, maybe it was bad phrasing. I'm in essence giving him the first half hour of the first session. And I'm mostly doing it because there was a decent group dynamic between the other players already and I think part of his disconnect is that while my husband/wife players build their characters together and usually have their poo poo figured out before the 10 minute pregame. His fiance(our mutual friend) isn't doing that with him. I'd like to keep them as players since they show up and make the occasional effort but I'm trying to get him from "Um, okay, my guy shoots the orc." to "Is there anything around 15 pounds that's flammable?" The loot distribution is there because if poo poo takes off I don't want to pause these guys being on the run so they can go loot a goblin cave or something. When I DM I rarely give anything that could affect the game out "because it's Thursday." In the previous example Burt would have done something like save Little Olivia from a drake by diving off a cliff and wrangling it. After that first bit with the Wizard I'm not planning on putting anyone in the spotlight. But if someone is awesome out of nowhere I usually give them something for that.
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Dec 5, 2011 02:13
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Fardels Bear posted:
Ok - just make sure your players understand that distinction then and what the implications of it are clearly.
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Dec 5, 2011 07:41
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Does anyone have any ideas for how to start a zombie survival horror game? I need some reason for everyone to be together on the day of the Rise, but at the same time somewhere they won't notice it until poo poo suddenly gets serious. And I need to keep loving off into the wilderness from being a good idea too. One of my players suggested a camping trip(go out into the woods with some .22s, drink, play cards, sit around a fire, sleep in tents) and nearly run out of gas in some bum-hick town. But that gives the problem of a relatively low zombie population, along the option to just fuel up and loot some food, then gently caress off back into the woods. Any suggestions or ideas?
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Dec 5, 2011 08:32
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How about a road-trip, with the car breaking down/running out of gas in a medium-sized town? They leave the car at a mechanic and head to a hotel to stay the night/go to a fast-food joint to refuel themselves.
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Dec 5, 2011 08:41
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A couple ideas... 1) Players are all coworkers in the same high rise office building, working on some huge important project so they've essentially locked themselves in a conference room and turned off their phones until they're finished. They emerge having successfully finished the work that of course no longer matters because the world is being overrun with zombies. 2) Players are prisoners. Guardd abandon the jail when they hear zombies are coming and by the time the players can get out they're surrounded. 3) Players are returning from a cruise, all asleep from partying hard the night before. They wake up to find the boat crashed into the dock and swarming with zombies. 4) Players are trapped on a subway that breaks down. When they give up waiting for someone to help them it takes forever to walk out of the tunnel and when they emerge they find the city swarming with the undead. Just random thoughts.
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Dec 5, 2011 08:42
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The players are on a trans-oceanic flight that takes off shortly before the outbreak occurs. The first they hear of it is perhaps some check to notice that the airline crew are really upset about something but trying to hide it - if they notice it and decide to do something about it they have an opportunity to maybe land the plane at a rural airstrip instead of LAX, but beyond that the plane is out of fuel so they have to land within the outbreak.
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Dec 5, 2011 09:23
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Lord Yod, I love your idea. Cuts off any easy escape, especially if the pilot gets killed. And as a bonus, gives a damned good reason for the party to be together. A small chartered flight would work amazingly well. I'll see if I can find a rural airport on google maps, and base my town on that so I'm not pulling it all out of my rear end. Slothbear, I'm liking your ideas too. I'll probably steal them for a future game. The office crew one would work amazingly with premade characters in a 'fight your way out' scenario. I'm thinking Mercy Hospital from L4D in reverse almost. Thanks guys, much appreciated.
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Dec 5, 2011 20:21
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How rural are you looking for? Ann Arbor, Michigan has a small airport and just two miles up the road is a mall, and another couple miles north of that is the University of Michigan football stadium, all great locations for zombie tropes. 120,000+ people to zombify too.
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Dec 5, 2011 20:29
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Nostalgia4ColdWar fucked around with this message at 02:47 on Mar 31, 2017 |
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Dec 5, 2011 20:32
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An All Flesh game that starts with viral zombies at OWS would actually be hilarious. We are the 99-raaaaaaawrgh BRAINS!
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Dec 5, 2011 22:17
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Out of curiosity, what system are you using for this zombie game?
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Dec 5, 2011 22:50
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The brief zombie game I ran (AFMBE) started with a sudden outbreak in a small town; all of the PCs were customers at an all-night diner when the zombies came. One was a truck driver who'd stopped for coffee, two of them were the head cheerleader and football star who were getting food after The Big Game, one was a cop who'd stopped in to check on the waitress he had a crush on, et cetera. You can always, in my experience, find an in-character reason for someone to be at Denny's or IHOP at one in the morning. As far as rural airports go, just down the road from me is Fitchburg Municipal Airport, which is a dinky little municipal airstrip that gets you into the twin 'cities' of Fitchburg and Leominster, MA, which are just urban enough to be full of stuff but just isolated enough to keep them interesting. Ten minute drive'll get you downtown - or, in the other direction, to dairy farms or a state forest.
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Dec 5, 2011 22:56
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A while back I got a link from this thread (I think) with lots o Good GM info, info on how to stave off burn out, Plot grids, that sort of thing. I know I'm being useless only giving that info but does anyone know what I'm talking about? I remember it had kind a brownish yellowish background and was pretty bare bones, as websites go these days.
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Dec 5, 2011 23:07
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BlackIronHeart posted:How rural are you looking for? Ann Arbor, Michigan has a small airport and just two miles up the road is a mall, and another couple miles north of that is the University of Michigan football stadium, all great locations for zombie tropes. 120,000+ people to zombify too. That works perfectly. Thanks Black. A heart attack in the crowd, guy dies, Rises, bites some people, bamn, rapid and violent spread in a packed area. Location works very well too. 50 Foot Ant posted:You can also have the plane land at Staffording's Place airfield, from Eat the Rich. Huh, I never even thought about the locations in Eat the Rich. I've been doing a laut of looking in Marauders for scavenging rules, because I know my players are going to go for looting soon as they can. Check your email too Ant; sent you a question regarding firearms. Quidnose posted:Out of curiosity, what system are you using for this zombie game? I'm actually using a system written by our very own 50 Foot Ant. Given his blessing, I'll PM or email you some details. Short version though is it's damned good. We've talked about it a little in the How Not to Run A Game Business thread(initial Ant post is here: http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3446178&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=9#post398123879 ) MohawkSatan fucked around with this message at 00:39 on Dec 6, 2011 |
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Dec 6, 2011 00:24
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How much "homework" is typically required for running a game? I've been running a game based on a module for a few weeks now and we're about to run out of published material, so I'm starting to need to write my own stuff and finding it more than a little intimidating in terms of building NPC's and keeping track of what's happened. We're going to start using obsidian portal to keep track of a lot of info, so that should take care of a lot of book keeping. I also have trouble keeping the players just informed enough to keep things mysterious, but I feel like every time I give them info the next thing I say is going to expose the whole mystery of the current plot arc. Any advice? edit: we're playing SIFRP, so the intrigue system in that game makes it extra hard to hide information, a successful intrigue can basically make a character spill his guts. Cactrot fucked around with this message at 05:25 on Dec 18, 2011 |
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Dec 18, 2011 05:13
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Lots for me, but I tend to go to the extreme and try and plan for any moves my players might make ahead of time with some backups just in case things go awry. After that's it's cheatsheets. Needing to take care of info? Everything on seperate cheatsheets. Keep em well organized. Tonnes of em. Bonus points if you write them in shorthand. Everything clear, concise, and to the point. As for hiding info? Easy. Nobody works for themselves. It's the Onion Approach. Layer upon layers, the outer one being the biggest, and the inner the smallest. Think it like this: 1 2.1/2.2 3.1/3.2/3.3/3.4/3.5/3.6 4.1/4.2/4.3/4.4/4.5/4.6/4.7/4/.8/4.9/4.10 Each slash represents a cut off in the information. 4.1, despite being on the same level of the plan as 4.5/ has no idea what 4.5 is doing, or maybe even that he exists. It's business: hire underlings, appoint them tasks, appoint other underling different tasks. They don't need to know what the other underlings are doing, now do they?
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Dec 18, 2011 08:50
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I'm kind of the opposite of MohawkSatan; As a GM I did virtually no pre-planning in terms of storylines and adventures. In my free time I did a lot of stuff that could be considered "homework" - I built NPCs, worked on setting details, and the like - but I never wrote out an actual adventure. Instead I just tried to have as good a sense of the setting and the goings-on as I could, so that when I asked my players what they wanted to do, I could have a good idea of how people and things might react and change in response to their answers. Honestly, "how much work is involved" varies from group to group and GM to GM. Some are much more comfortable with winging it, like me; some like more planning, like MohawkSatan. So you really kind of have to find the answer to that one yourself. One guideline I find helpful is that the more powerful the characters and the more narrative control you're willing to give the players, the easier it'll be for a 'seat of the pants' type GM; if your PCs are meeting in a tavern to go adventure in a dungeon so they can get rich, you don't want to make up the dungeon off the top of your head, but if your PCs are capable of saying 'you know what, I think we'll go undermine the corrupt government of that city-state today, that sounds neat' without any prompting from you, then it's best to run with it and let 'em.
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Dec 18, 2011 09:02
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That's actually what I try to plan for. I'm a bit of a fan of sandboxy games. All I try to do is plan out probable paths, and make sure I know enough about the ares and situations my players might run into. For instance, the first thing I plan in zombie games is a gun store. I KNOW me players are going to try to be armed to the teeth, and I'll try to account for that. On the other hand, I'll plot out a general area, NPCs, and things that might happen on courses the PCs try to take. I end up winging it fairly often, because a few players will always find something I didn't plan for. A good example is an assassination mission in a modded Shadowrun system I ran, set in the STALKER universe. While I expected the party to conserve resources like always, they went all in and got a bunch of WW2 2 inch mortars smuggled in and leveled the buildings the target was in. Hell, they hit it with incendiaries and homemade tear gas rounds first, then started lobbing HE as fast as they could. Basically, plan for what you think might happen. But be prepared for something completely different.
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Dec 18, 2011 10:19
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| # ? May 9, 2024 17:44 |
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I guess the difference is more a matter of emphasis, then - I don't try to plan for whatever my players will do because they will invariably choose something I didn't plan for. What I do is have a good idea of how things will happen if the PCs don't involve themselves at all, and then when they do finally involve themselves I wing it. No planning, no predetermination - and most importantly, no railroads. To use your example of a zombie game, instead of planning out poo poo that might happen on the way to the gun store (because there's always a gun store), I try and have a decent file of 'interesting NPCs' that I can drop in wherever, and I have a rough idea of where the Zombie Horde is moving towards. There's no "they'll meet this person on the way to the gun store" - instead it's more "Hmm, they haven't done anything fun and interesting in a few minutes, let's throw an NPC at 'em." (does that make any sense?)
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Dec 18, 2011 10:25
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