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The White Dragon posted:Ideas stuff Thanks White Dragon, that's actually given me some useful things to try out. I'm actually thinking of doing a sort of custom Warhammer 40K roleplay where the characters start as humans on a hive world either getting involved in a rebellion or joining the Imperium, and eventually (If it's popular with my skype group) rising to become legendary rogue traders, fleet commanders, whatever. In short, using basic rules from any of the 40K RPGs as appropriate.
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Feb 1, 2012 11:26
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Temascos posted:My Skype group's been having some scenerio trouble lately, our main DM who has solid experience has been having a lot of internet trouble and so hasn't been able to come onto our weekly session, leaving it to the rest of us. Now I was happy to run a comedy session of Fatal, set in a bar in which occured a comedy of errors that collapsed reality on itself. But I want to do a more serious session of Pathfinder (The main game we play) Try to think of it from a writer's perspective. Think of something dramatic you've read or seen in a movie that only specific terrain made possible. A train top chase or Sam and Frodo skidding down the hill in front of the Gates of Modor are good examples. If you want the encounter to be more intense, make the terrain work against the fleeing PCs or make something bad happen in X rounds. If they're having a lousy play session, make a (Spot check) hole in the wall for the wizard to shoot a AoE spell into a group of unsuspecting enemies. Remember to think 3D as well with catwalks, chandeliers, and weakened sections of the floor. Final note: High drama fights should be used sparingly. Usually your PCs will be content to wail on some goblins.
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Feb 1, 2012 11:28
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homullus posted:Steal characters from whatever TV shows or movies you've seen recently. Unless you make it ridiculously obvious (like by giving them the same catchphrase) the players will never know. And depending on how light-hearted the game is, you can even make it obvious. I ran a fantasy campaign where TV personalities would pop up all the time. Once the players had to pick a ship to travel in, and the three different captains were called Captain Maria Obatalli, Captain Robert Flay, and Captain 'Cap' Kora. Just because I'd been watching Iron Chef while planning the encounter, and couldn't come up with three different looks for the captains. At another time, the players were caught up in a Manchurian Candidate-style intrigue, and they realized that the character I'd named Lady Lansbury was actually Angela Lansbury's analogue from the film. Along those same lines, the players knew an NPC called Humphrey Belloc for a while who was kind of their rival, until they defeated a baddie for a powerful artifact and Belloc swooped in at the last second and stole it from them. Just like the actual Belloc did in Raiders of the Lost Ark. You can still tell serious stories, since Lady Lansbury, Belloc, and Captain Flay wound up being really really bad people and very conflicted characters in addition to pop-culture references, but it's also a way of cementing a character's traits or role in the story, both in your head and for your players. Kind of like a verbal shorthand.
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Feb 1, 2012 19:03
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Astfgl posted:And depending on how light-hearted the game is, you can even make it obvious. In my Eberron campaign my players are probably going to hook up with an airship crew consisting of re-skinned Star Trek characters.
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Feb 1, 2012 20:40
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Affi posted:In my Eberron campaign my players are probably going to hook up with an airship crew consisting of re-skinned Star Trek characters. The Warforged must be the Spock analogue, and Kirk must be a half-elf Bard.
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Feb 1, 2012 23:50
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Megaman's Jockstrap posted:The Warforged must be the Spock analogue, and Kirk must be a half-elf Bard. I havn't decided on Kirk/Picard (Picard is obviously a Psion) yet though Spock/Data is obviously a Warforged. What characters should the other crewmembers be though?
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Feb 2, 2012 00:34
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Affi posted:I havn't decided on Kirk/Picard (Picard is obviously a Psion) yet though Spock/Data is obviously a Warforged. What characters should the other crewmembers be though? Worf should be a dwarf that everyone refers to as Lt. Dwarf. EDIT: He handles the gun crews and security, obviously.
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Feb 2, 2012 00:49
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In one campaign I ran, one of the PCs' major sources of news and rumours was an immensely popular quartet of travelling bards named Carter, Landon, Harris and Stark. I don't think any of my players ever caught the reference.
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Feb 2, 2012 00:53
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Thuryl posted:In one campaign I ran, one of the PCs' major sources of news and rumours was an immensely popular quartet of travelling bards named Carter, Landon, Harris and Stark. I don't think any of my players ever caught the reference. It took me a little bit to figure out. That rules.
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Feb 2, 2012 01:03
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Thuryl posted:In one campaign I ran, one of the PCs' major sources of news and rumours was an immensely popular quartet of travelling bards named Carter, Landon, Harris and Stark. I don't think any of my players ever caught the reference. I don't know how you resisted doing ridiculous Beatles accents and giving the whole thing away.
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Feb 2, 2012 01:31
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CDOR Gemini posted:I don't know how you resisted doing ridiculous Beatles accents and giving the whole thing away. If I step away from the DM board in the future, I want to play a bard named Jean-Paul Jorgenringo and just do that accent in all my interactions.
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Feb 2, 2012 01:42
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Thuryl posted:In one campaign I ran, one of the PCs' major sources of news and rumours was an immensely popular quartet of travelling bards named Carter, Landon, Harris and Stark. I don't think any of my players ever caught the reference.
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Feb 2, 2012 04:34
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Quarex posted:If I were one of your players, even if you told me it was a Beatles reference, I would have stared at you and asked if you were sure you knew what the Beatles were. What is the reference referencing? C'mon man that's Jammy Carter, Jack Landon, Harris Ford, and Ransom Stark, none of which were Beatles, but I applaud the effort Fur20 fucked around with this message at 05:09 on Feb 2, 2012 |
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Feb 2, 2012 05:07
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Quarex posted:If I were one of your players, even if you told me it was a Beatles reference, I would have stared at you and asked if you were sure you knew what the Beatles were. What is the reference referencing? Name bastardizations. McCartney becomes Carter, Lennon becomes Landon, Harrison becomes Harris, and Starr becomes Stark. I don't think I'd've gotten the reference either, honestly, unless I encountered them in a tavern singing It's Been A Difficult Morning's Evening or something, but hey.
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Feb 2, 2012 06:35
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Oh god my old DM used to do that all the time. Once he had us travel with a group called "The Bards of Sorrow." I don't remember all the names, but two of them were called Robert and Trent Smith and Reznor, respectively. And another time there were two bards who would play "a song about a strange golem" on the piano and drums. Dresden Dolls, "Coin-Operated Boy"
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Feb 2, 2012 07:47
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DivineCoffeeBinge posted:Starr becomes Stark. Starkey becomes Stark, actually. Ringo Starr was a stage name. 
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Feb 2, 2012 08:43
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The White Dragon posted:C'mon man that's Jammy Carter, Jack Landon, Harris Ford, and Ransom Stark, none of which were Beatles, but I applaud the effort  DivineCoffeeBinge posted:I don't think I'd've gotten the reference either, honestly, unless I encountered them in a tavern singing It's Been A Difficult Morning's Evening or something, but hey. I would, however, still like to encounter a minstrel group at Gen-Con singing "It's Been A Difficult Morning's Evening." Of course, it would end up being Water Street Bridge, then I would wonder if I had used my wish wisely. Wait, what is this thread about? Oh, right. We should get into some kind of vicious argument about railroading versus free-form meandering; those always go poorly, and I dropped off the forums for long enough that my thread on the subject last year went into the archives. Is it railroading if you know that the last thing in the campaign has to be one of a small handful of things, but you make no effort to guide the party's actions in the process? Or is that Pneumatic Tubing?
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Feb 2, 2012 09:02
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Thuryl posted:Starkey becomes Stark, actually. Ringo Starr was a stage name. Ah! Learn a new thing every day!
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Feb 2, 2012 09:07
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Quarex posted:We should get into some kind of vicious argument about railroading versus free-form meandering; those always go poorly, and I dropped off the forums for long enough that my thread on the subject last year went into the archives. Is it railroading if you know that the last thing in the campaign has to be one of a small handful of things, but you make no effort to guide the party's actions in the process? Or is that Pneumatic Tubing? My group's preferred style is for the GM to set up a campaign with a clear idea of what it's initially going to be about : retrieving an artifact from the ruins of an ancient temple, preventing a war between two city-states, investigating the cause of a devastating series of storms -- whatever, as long as there's some kind of medium-term goal in mind and some pressure to achieve it as soon as possible. The players make PCs who care about that goal, and as long as they're attempting something that moves them toward that goal in some way, everything is cool. Once the goal's accomplished (or definitively failed, or abandoned), if they've found something else that they all care about, then they pursue that goal and the campaign continues. Otherwise it ends and we start a new one with new characters and a new goal. Thuryl fucked around with this message at 09:17 on Feb 2, 2012 |
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Feb 2, 2012 09:15
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I write my campaigns with a solid plot and goal for the party as a whole to work towards. For this overarching plot I write in several diverging points where the party's choices skew what happens in differing ways. Most recently the party was charged with delivering an unusual child to a Wizard School. Once they got there the headmaster(and party Wizard's master) said, "Good job, mind putting her in that ritual circle so we can trap her soul in this bottle forever?" The party could either listen to their superiors and basically kill a kid with the reasoning that her talents were blasphemous Fey fuckery that would screw with the world order, or they could grab her and run. If they killed the kid other potential channels for the Fey to come back and the Wizard Master Guy would give them an artifact to trap their essence in after killing them. They took the other option, which was grabbing the little girl and trying to run. This caused the wizard to get mad and attack them. Since he needs to trap the little girl's Fey spirit he can't kill them outright. So he chucks around dazes and immobilize spells until the party's pretty locked down. At which point the girl's abilities manifest and she teleports them to a point where they can get away. They're currently on the run from every major divine temple and arcane circle and are headed off to find a bunch of heretics, renegades and witches that supposedly worship the Fey and are hoping for their return. tl;dr: Preferred method with current group is to basically write 2-4 campaigns for every session or two, usually diverging at points where the party makes a choice.
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Feb 2, 2012 10:34
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I'd like to do a town defense, pretty much against waves of undead as they try to take the town, but give the players a chance to build barricades/defenses and train guards. I was thinking of using a point system on things they could spend time and stuff on, any have any ideas?
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Feb 3, 2012 02:17
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Interstellar Owl posted:I'd like to do a town defense, pretty much against waves of undead as they try to take the town, but give the players a chance to build barricades/defenses and train guards. I was thinking of using a point system on things they could spend time and stuff on, any have any ideas? If you running 4e and have DDI, there is a Chaos Scar adventure called Dead by Dawn that is a take on this idea. My group enjoyed it.
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Feb 3, 2012 06:15
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CDOR Gemini posted:If you running 4e and have DDI, there is a Chaos Scar adventure called Dead by Dawn that is a take on this idea. My group enjoyed it. I'm using 3.5.
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Feb 3, 2012 06:17
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I'm putting together a Burn Notice/Brimstone game of Leverage. The basic idea is that Hell is outsourcing its fugitive collection to a group of mortals because it is looking to improve profit margins. The escaped souls leave through The Gates of Hell which is in Las Vegas and are stuck in the city due to a ward put in place by the city itself (that's why the Devil had Bugsy work so hard to build it up). The team must track down these fugitives and send them back to Hell. I want this to be run very much like a standard Leverage game with some added supernatural stuff. As such I'm looking for a way to send the fugitives back to hell via a caper/con job. That is where I'm stuck. What does the team do and what could be used that wouldn't feel repetitive after a couple games? Obviously killing the fugitive in a battle won't work. They could need to have the fugitive be double crossed or something to send them back. Maybe even have the fugitive kill themselves. Both I feel would work once. I could go Reaper style, pull a job for an item related to the fugitive and then have to pull a second job to use it on the baddy. Problem is how does the item work? Getting the fugitive to destroy the item or touch it would get lame quickly. Any other ideas?
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Feb 3, 2012 07:44
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You're in Vegas, so I'd use a series of high stakes gaming tournaments the attraction and trap. Your players have to get them into a back room poker game or something. Then your players proceed to con the guy by losing their shirts. The team is carrying some piece of jewelery or other little doo dad that will snatch the fugitive soul if he willfully takes it. After the players make a few bad moves they offer up their engagement ring/grandad's pocket watch/lucky cufflinks and bomb the hand. Alternatively it could be a piece of gambling equipment that triggers on a certain outcome. A pair of dice in a craps game that trigger on a hard pair or a deck of cards that goes off if the guy draws pocket kings.
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Feb 3, 2012 09:11
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So the standard Leverage thing is to ruin the bad guys, right? Cut them off from all wealth and power. Obviously, the currency that escapees from hell need to stay in the world is living people who think they belong there, who they have prosaic connections with. So if you utterly ruin them, get living society to reject them, then they just...fall through. Vanish, maybe, or get pulled into a fiery crack in the earth, or whatever special effect you like. Maybe people don't even remember that they were there? It sounds like a really cool idea, by the way.
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Feb 4, 2012 06:12
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Perhaps using all of the above? Making hell a bureaucracy isn't that much of a stretch, so souls suffering punishment A have to be rejected by their living associates, while those under the care of Department X have to willingly offer themselves up, possibly as collateral in a game of chance? And don't get me started about those jerks in Office Q who only take back souls that have been captured by what they valued most in their living life.
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Feb 4, 2012 06:55
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I have a question that I hope hasn't been covered to death here: I want to run a short villains campaign for my group using Mutants and Masterminds. We generally want something rules light and we already play pathfinder and D20 CoC, so that's why we picked MnM. Any suggestions? Better systems? Common pitfalls? Previous experience?
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Feb 4, 2012 23:22
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Mr. Maltose posted:Perhaps using all of the above? Making hell a bureaucracy isn't that much of a stretch, so souls suffering punishment A have to be rejected by their living associates, while those under the care of Department X have to willingly offer themselves up, possibly as collateral in a game of chance? And don't get me started about those jerks in Office Q who only take back souls that have been captured by what they valued most in their living life. I think I'm going to run with this concept so I can use all the ideas that have been mentioned. It should work well because the feeling I'm hoping to give Hell a giant corporation feel so any and all bureaucracy is welcome. Bill Lumburg is going to be checking up on my players making sure their TPS reports for the Mengele job have been filed. Thanks for the help guys.
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Feb 5, 2012 02:43
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I need to think this out more instead of doing a braindump of campaign ideas.
wellwhoopdedooo fucked around with this message at 00:31 on Feb 14, 2012 |
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Feb 12, 2012 09:09
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I've been running a D&D 3.5 campaign with some friends where from the very start we decided to keep it very light. All of them have a little bit of nWoD experience, but no other RPG knowledge aside from some computer games. I myself haven't played D&D in about 10 years, so we are going with just the core book and an incredibly cliche fantasy setting. Everyone agreed it would mostly be something to do while drinking and nobody is looking for any serious stuff, just dumb fun. They couldn't be motivated to stop the BBEG until an NPC told him he plans to ban beer, they laugh and accept the quest. While I put in some roleplaying, puzzles and things like secret doors, etc. this usually gets ignored or they rush past it to get to the next combat. I really don't mind much and neither any of the players. However, this does make it quite challenging to keep combat fresh. We always have a good time, but I want something different for once. So far we've had; * Ambush Goblin camp, kill the Chief and take Evil Amulet This started with two critical hits from the Human Fighter with a crossbow from ambush, instantly killing the Chief. Most Goblins fled after the Dwarf Fighter and Dwarf Cleric slaughtered a handful while the Half-Elf Sorcerer was one shotted which left the Halfling Rogue defending his body with ranged support from the crossbow Fighter. * Get Ambushed by cultists after the Evil Amulet Previous fight, but in reverse. Dwarf Cleric carrying the Amulet was pincushioned when 5 shots scored 4 crits and a normal hit and went down in round 1. Half Elf Sorcerer greased the archers while the Halfling Rogue kept stabbing them on the ground. Dwarf and Human Fighter took on the boss and some standard cultists while one escaped after snatching the Amulet from the Cleric. * Stop the ritual involving the stolen Evil Amulet. A dozen cultists throw themselves at the party on a bridge over lava in the temple, suiciding to keep them from stopping the ritual. They buy enough time for the cult leader to finish and he casts fog on the room. There is a blindfight with 3 Human L2 Fighters lurking in the mist trying to protect the Wizard. There were only two left to charge the Wizard after the bodyguards took a heavy toll and his Burning Hands took down one. Human Fighter managed to kill him with just 2 HP left. * Fight Ogres to get a Druid to remove spells from the Evil Amulet Three Ogres, party wins in a drawn out battle. Nothing special. * Assault the Tomb, Ambush on escape Trying to find a compass which will point to a floating island they have to get to the tomb of the previous owner. It is guarded by some Zombies and Skeletons, nothing serious and they destroy them easily. On the way out they were ambushed by 8 Ghouls and 2 Ghasts, who were almost all destroyed by a 20/20 Turning. * Destroy the Lich who created the Amulet L6 Sorcerer Lich in his tower on the floating island. They charge in, but were long spotted by his familiar on top of the tower and all but the Half Elf Sorcerer fail the Fear test. Lich gets initiative and Burning Hands him down to 1 HP. Sorcerer runs after the fleeing party, swimming to catch up with their boat while the Lich bombards the fleeing group with Magic missiles using Fly but lets them go after a handful of barrages. Attempt 2 has them cast all sort of protective spells in advance, everyone passing their Fear check and a tight combat in the tower with Invisibility/Lich touch really giving them a hard time, but it ends with the Dwarf Cleric flooding the floor and turning it into Holy Water while the Human Fighter smashes the Lich's head with his hammer after barrages of magic missiles from the Half Elf Sorcerer and negligeble damage from the round 2 paralyzed Dwarf Fighter and the no Sneak Attack Halfling Rogue So...what do I do next? I have planned for them to get to an Earth Node to fight Cockroaches (per the Sinister Spire encounter). This is because we will be using miniatures and maps for the first time, so the cockroach thing is a good small combat to learn this. It will also teach them to deal with Swarms. It is followed by a Drow ambush in the Underdark and the idea is their cover, KO poison ranged attacks, long range darkvision, spell resistance and darkness spells make this very tactical. No miniatures unless they are within Dwarf Darkvision range, cast Dancing Lights (countered next turn by Darkness), or use other sources of light. Possible charges can be stopped by the patrol leader who has Black Tentancles and Deep Slumber. The reward for actually making it into combat is 4HP Drow who will die almost instantly and flee at the first casualties. Getting there is the task. Last fight is getting to the other Earth Node before the escaped Drow from the patrol warns the city by going through an enormous lair with one Gargantuan Spider, four Large Spiders, ten Medium Spiders and four Spider Swarms. This is a huge map, about 150x240 feet I have secretely marked Webs and I hope this will slow them down enough to not just run all the time, which combined with the Poison will make it quite tough on them. There are raised platforms they can climb on to get AoO on the smaller spiders climbing up, but these are too small to carry all of them and useless versus the biggest ones. This is without rest after the Drow fight, so they should be a bit wounded and short on spells. If things go badly I will let them escape through the Node, since the entranc is too small for the Gargantuan Spider and the rest should be no problem. If they kill it there is a shrine they can break open where the Drow have been leaving all sorts of stuff for the worshipped Spider as a reward. In case they do this, I am not yet sure if we should also have a last stand here, surviving 10 to 20 rounds versus a Drider and a much bigger Drow patrol while the Earth Node charges. Depending on the result of the Spider battle perhaps I'll give them time to rest and recover but are still a few minutes short. After that...I have no idea. I really want to try getting them on a large ship to have it ambushed by Elven pirates in three small and one medium sized ship, with the ability to board the other ships by jumping from the mast, or swinging on ropes and possibly avoiding the fight all together by damaging their masts or sails before they get close. The Dwarf Fighter in fullplate would have to defend since he cannot jump/balance/athletics/swim or anything meaning I can keep him busy while the party splits up to take care of the threats. I'm also tinkering with a temple, which features heads carved out of stone in the walls that shoot flames in random directions each round. They can be disabled by the Rogue, but there are at least six of them and there is some pressure to keep moving. Maybe there are Stone Golems which are immune to the flames and can be used as cover, but also require getting close enough for them to attack. One last thing. I always read people saying Fighters are worthless and outclassed by magic users, but when does this start to happen? Right now at L5 the Greataxe Dwarf Fighter with Great Cleave is like a meatblender while the Half Elf Sorcerer does very little aside from Grease victims for the Halfling Rogue or some Magic Missiles. I fear it'll only get worse with a second attack and Weapon Focus next level. How do you deal with this? I have already shut down the Dwarf Fighter with paralyze and hold person before, but it feels cheap to just do this every fight. He will be dominated in a session or two so hopefully that'll show them how having a big killing machine turned against you can be quite a problem, but are there other good ideas that are not annoying for the player? My problem is this player gets a bit upset when he is not in control. When he was paralyzed by the Lich he just grunted and played with his phone not really paying attention anymore. Considering our playstyle I can really understand this and it wasn't annoying for anyone. For the domination I plan to let him play himself, urging him to take revenge on the party that only uses him, so that shouldn't be the problem. BioTech fucked around with this message at 14:43 on Feb 15, 2012 |
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Feb 15, 2012 12:50
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BioTech posted:are there other good ideas that are not annoying for the player? My problem is this player gets a bit upset when he is not in control. Bodyswap/transformation. Instead of the dwarf becoming dominated, he suddenly finds himself as one of the BBEG's underlings, while the underling is now in the Dwarf's body. It will still throw a wrench into their carefully coordinated battle plan, and the party now has to keep two people from dying instead of just one. Or the toss a polymorph potion at the dwarf that turns him into some form of creature; you could even use that as a hook to get the party to the Earth Node. Alternatively, as you've already thought of, put the dwarf-player on Op-For duty. He doesn't have to roleplay his character. Have him play one of the minion squad leaders or something.
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Feb 15, 2012 17:42
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P.S. STILL COMPLETELY DEVOID OF MERIT
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My players wanted a ticking time bomb situation, and I've got one in the works, but I'm stuck on how to make it something that all the players can participate in. The basic setup is that there's a house that exists in the waking world and the dream world because of a big 'ol stone monolith that the house is built around, like one of the stones from Stonehenge rather than the monolith from 2001. The stone exists in both worlds and assists in governing transit between the two versions of the house. Long ago some enterprising souls built a near-identical mansion around it in both realms. In the waking world, the owners of the house have slowly chiseled their version of the monolith down to a stone table/altar, while in the dream world the stone is in its original condition (albeit kept slick with fresh coats of blood for maximum effect). Reality in the dream world is more malleable than in the waking realm, so the current owner of the house has opened a portal in the house in the dreamworld to a plane of pure water. He plans to seal off the dreamhouse from the inside and funnel all the water into the waking world house, triggering a massive flood in the waking world city that the other version of the house is in. (The players said they really really didn't want a bomb, but a more complex scenario, so I did my best.) The problem I'm encountering is how to make this challenge something that the warrior can assist with. The mage will be fine as a big element of the trap is understanding the different spells at play, much like the wires on a bomb. The thief will also be fine at anything meticulous but non-magical, plus he's a quieter player who takes his marching orders from others. And the bard, if he decides to pay attention, might realize that a lot of the wards seem to have been sung into existence. My thoughts for the warrior would be that finding some way of collapsing the house and/or the pillar would be an effective way of preventing the flood. But how would a medieval, non-magical warrior bring down a stone estate without C4 or any real explosive power? That also has the added downside of giving the fighter a different, and not necessarily compatible, objective from the rest of the group. And if that option doesn't fly, then how could he go about assisting the rest of the party? I don't want to just toss some minions at them while they work and have the fighter fend them off because feels like a lazy and unfair division of party roles. Any advice?
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Feb 15, 2012 19:40
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Astfgl posted:My thoughts for the warrior would be that finding some way of collapsing the house and/or the pillar would be an effective way of preventing the flood. But how would a medieval, non-magical warrior bring down a stone estate without C4 or any real explosive power? That also has the added downside of giving the fighter a different, and not necessarily compatible, objective from the rest of the group. And if that option doesn't fly, then how could he go about assisting the rest of the party? I don't want to just toss some minions at them while they work and have the fighter fend them off because feels like a lazy and unfair division of party roles. Maybe the foundation is not made of stone? If it was muddy ground or uneven they could have used a wooden support frame. He could chop away support beams, escaping just in time for the crash. Something could have slipped through and is trying to prevent him from doing that. Or perhaps the something that already leaked through is gnawing at those support beams trying to bring the house down and kill the adventurers. He has to fight it or the house will collapse while the rest of the party is inside before they can stop the ritual. So the house will collapse anyway, but he has to stop it from doing so too early. It could also be that there is a leak between the house and the water plane, meaning the basement slowly flooded, turning the ground below into mud and disturbing whatever lies there, attracted by the monoliths power before it fell asleep centuries ago. It now wakes up.
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Feb 15, 2012 21:37
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Sometimes you need to pick a lock. Other times, you just need to kick the door in. Is the mansion wood? Give him a flaming weapon. Is the mansion stone? make some of the walls preciously set. Or, how about this: The mansion is in another dimension. What if the dreamworld mansion itself is a living creature?
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Feb 16, 2012 00:22
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I'm going to do the first sessions of an All Flesh Must Be Eaten game this sunday. The game is set 5 years after a cold war with China and the Eastern Communist Bloc went nuclear and the dead started to walk (Thanks to a virus concocted from a long history that started with the Thule Society/Unit 731 and ends with North Korea throwing that stuff into a warhead). I've got my elements of how I want to do zombies down, and a few groups that have taken control of various resources and become warlords/cult leaders/remnants of the US, etc. I'm just trying to think up scenarios and situations that I can put the players in that can help give off the post-apoc vibe without being all purple prose narration about ruin porn. I'm shooting for Jericho/The Road/Mad Max with zombies. So any ideas I can rip off and pass as my own would be appreciated.
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Feb 17, 2012 02:35
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Here's the situation: I'm running PbEM Pathfinder for some friends of mine. With one exception, this is their first experience with tabletop RPGs (the one exception, like me, has over 20 years of experience). The party, all level one, is a gnomish sorcerer (the veteran); a gnomish rogue; a half-orc ranger; a halfling bard; a halfling rogue; and an elf cavalier. Everybody is CN. It's actually worked out quite well with six players, with the exception of the one time I let the party get split and I forgot to include one of the split members back on the main email recipients list when he finally met back up for like a day. Their maiden adventure, a bog-standard dungeon crawl, has almost drawn to a close. In fact, it would have ended earlier today, since the final goal (locate and rescue the gnomes that a pack of goblin raiders abducted as food) is almost within their grasp. However, what the PCs are opting to do, instead of just release the gnomes and go home, is to use them as bait for more goblins. (Not the gnomes themselves, actually. Just the idea of the gnomes. I am not entirely certain it has dawned on some of them that they have rescued the gnomes). This is the funny part: The room they're in right now contains two additional goblins(Druid 2 and Rogue 3), hanging around enjoying the benefits of their obscene Stealth ranks, that I had originally intended to sic on the PCs as part of the final battle. I relented, because the PCs have no cleric and as newbies aren't the best at strategy, so they're pretty ragged. But still. The PCs are standing around, not realizing how hosed they are, asking for another fight. I was kind of starting to like the idea of letting the goblins escape to fight another day (the PC ranger skinned the druid's animal companion, so I've got some great villain motivation right there), but now I'm starting to wonder whether I shouldn't just give people what they want in lethal doses. On a more serious note, I'm pretty sure they're having fun but the rigid nature of pbem combat (at least the way I do it) means that the more fighting they do, the more people are just sitting around waiting for their actions to get resolved (I do all the dierolling for convenience's sake) and for everybody else to act. Everybody is just starting to get the hang of their combat-related class features (especially the cavalier and the bard) and I don't know if I should push more combat to let them experiment more, or to give them some more non-combat experience. My feeling from the group is that they'd probably be just as happy with either, but I think it's because they're new and they're just getting a sense for what they want from the game. Also, there's the issue that I almost hosed the game for good when I let one party member get split off for 2 combat rounds; I shudder to think what would happen if I let everybody loose on a citywide social spree. Has anybody else got any experience running email campaigns? Any pointers, general or specific? Bottom line, do I let my wounded, cleric-less PCs get jumped by a goblin who can make sneak attacks with a spiked chain?
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Feb 17, 2012 04:23
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Its pathfinder, they're going to need to learn how to die sooner or later. Give them what they crave. Never done email; the worst I've done is forum. I'd try (if possible) maybe using trying to get your players to "High level" their actions, and, if possible, direct them to a site, like obsidian portal, or maybe a twitter feed, where the action gets resolved.
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Feb 17, 2012 06:39
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Biotech posted:One last thing. I always read people saying Fighters are worthless and outclassed by magic users, but when does this start to happen? Right now at L5 the Greataxe Dwarf Fighter with Great Cleave is like a meatblender while the Half Elf Sorcerer does very little aside from Grease victims for the Halfling Rogue or some Magic Missiles. I fear it'll only get worse with a second attack and Weapon Focus next level. How do you deal with this? It may be that you're using only the base book. But it's more likely that it's new players. Right now you're around the "sweet spot" of 3.5 where the casters come into their own a bit but aren't ending every encounter automatically. It's never about damage. If your Sorcerer is running as an Evocator(fireballs and rays) the Fighter will have free damage output that outclasses him for most of the game. And the stuff he will beat him with in damage spells he won't be able to do all day. What casters do that outclasses martial classes is Save or Lose effects. The earliest use of these is things like Color Spray which do no damage, but can disable a weak enemy so the Wizard can just waltz up and announce a Coup de Gras with his dagger. This progresses to things like Baleful Polymorph(save or be turned into a rat, or a fish that air drowns) and all the way up to Finger of Death(literally make a Will save or die. If you make the save you still take a bunch of damage). There are also rear end in a top hat magic combos like Stoneskin(you ignore X attacks before you take damage.) and Flame Shield(Attackers take Y damage). There's a lot more but if your Sorcerer wanted to he could be screwing up a lot of encounters by just disabling things rather than damaging them. And I've seen it once or twice recently. Fighters and other martial characters have enough limitations on them. So saying "He can't climb the ladder, he's wearing armor." may be a frustrating idea. In a lot of tabletops, and especially in Dungeons and Dragons, you're dealing with heroic fantasy. Jumping between ships would be a pain for your standard dark age knight. But that's not who the Fighter emulates. He's Conan the Barbarian kicking in barred doors. The Fighter is Guan Yu charging fools with a 40 pound halberd. At higher levels they are auditioning for the role of Gilgamesh or Cú Chulainn. These are the guys that charge the Celestial Bull with a bit of iron and a lot of balls. Tagging "You can't swim with heavy armor" becomes about as much fun as the Dwarf encountering signs that say "You must be this tall to fight the dragon" signs.
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Feb 17, 2012 11:00
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My players use a modified Rod of Wonder with approximately 600 permutations, spreasd over 6 tables (roll d100 to get table, then d100 on that table). The highest table, "Apocalypse table" has 6 results, the highest being a wish. One of my players has rolled this 2 sessions ago and wished to become a god; he became the god of paving slabs. Now they, inexplicably, got this result again (I was flabbergasted) and wished to all be level 30. So now I have a bunch of level 30s. I'm planning to put them into a fight whereby the bad guy attempts to flee via a trippy dimensional rift and they have to pursue him in-combat, does anyone have any ideas for how I could make this challenging for 4 level 30 players? E: I was thinking of making them fight him on a series of moving platforms in a no-fly void, with barriers that flared up every so often. Alternatively in some sort of elemental themed arena? Lord Twisted fucked around with this message at 19:41 on Feb 18, 2012 |
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Feb 18, 2012 19:38
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