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if your players actually want a xanatos gambit then just make it so whatever they do, that was part of the plan. then, later on, figure out a couple of alternate options they could have done, and when you explain the whole plan say "and if you had done THIS, my guy woulda done THAT." job done.
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Mar 8, 2012 20:08
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| # ? May 8, 2024 16:45 |
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Another way to do this would be, say, have the come into a city ruled by an iron-fisted tyrant. Maybe the party is given the option of helping deal with some sort of resistance, maybe part of it is doing some questionable activity. (activating fireball scrolls in the middle of the market, etc) The party can join the resistance or help the city guard put them down. No matter which side they join, the end result is massive chaos (either from the disintegration of the central order and infighting within the resistance; or the resistance backed into a corner and unleashing their final ace, something along the lines the locate city tactical nuke) allowing the wizard who actually caused the party to find the city to have his golem army raze the city and kill everyone, so he can expand his petunia patch. I think more of a Kansas City Shuffle or some sort of Red Harvest sort of deal would be easier to pull off.
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Mar 8, 2012 20:36
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P.S. STILL COMPLETELY DEVOID OF MERIT
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I doubt they want everything they do to fail. What I think they want is the fun of unraveling a complicated, contingency-laden plot worthy of investigation. As I said, the term they used was "Moriarty" (Well, technically, they said "An evil devil version of Sherlock Holmes" but that means Moriarty) and having plots scattered across civilization and so forth.
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Mar 8, 2012 20:50
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If everything is part of the plan, it doesn't mean it fails. When they speak the words that end all necromantic magic in the city, sure it kills the horde of skeletons that the big bad was using to menace the palace. but it also kills the lich who was guarding the crown jewels! stuff like that.
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Mar 8, 2012 21:37
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Iunnrais posted:I doubt they want everything they do to fail. What I think they want is the fun of unraveling a complicated, contingency-laden plot worthy of investigation. As I said, the term they used was "Moriarty" (Well, technically, they said "An evil devil version of Sherlock Holmes" but that means Moriarty) and having plots scattered across civilization and so forth. Its not about what they want, its about what they ask for. And you giving it to them until they are little more than husks filled with regret, and choking on the bloated corpses of their shattered dreams. Real answer: It'd be up to them to derail this confrontation and find a better solution. But that's how things play out if they don't at least try to think outside the box. Such as, they do get suspicious that someone might be wanting the city to self destruct, so they go exploring, and encounter Deviliarty's garden, and fight a bunch of horrible plant monsters. But that's ok, they were just weeds. Or the party is attacked by territorial Dryads who's forest will also be plowed under for petunia planting; maybe they know this, maybe they don't, and maybe they suspect some threat. The dryads may or may not be working with the resistance. Do they fight through the dryads to get more information? Do they help the dryads protect the forest, which will make the soiler even richer when its plowed under? Basically in order for them to make any progress, it ends up "Thanks for doing my lawn work, plebes."
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Mar 8, 2012 21:45
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also if they think up a really cool, totally off the wall solution to a problem, something that there is no way the enemy could have predicted it, make it so that the enemy's plan totally depends on that part, so when everything comes together, that's his weakness and he's totally blindsided like whoa. Like if there's a dragon and his plan hinges on them either befriending the dragon, killing it, or being eaten, and they turn it into a chicken for 48 hours instead, then when the time comes that dragon is gonna come crashing in on them. and instead of attacking the big bad, as he planned (he was gonna have it kill him and then steal its body when he's a disembodied soul or something) it attacks the party and chases them off, so that when his death spell goes off there is no one around and he is cast into the void. or whatever.
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Mar 8, 2012 22:19
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Wanna play in Liesmith's game.
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Mar 8, 2012 23:56
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Iunnrais posted:Well, they've been in the wilderness all Heroic Tier, and I've been wanting to get back into a civilization type quest, though I'm not as good at it. But I'm definitely not sure how to run a GOOD Xanatos Gambit. The way I would do this would be just have a number of clues that the PCs recover after completing a quest reference Xanatos's name, dropping increasingly more information about who Xanatos is. Then when the time comes, decide for yourself what Xanatos's plan actually was, based solely on the criteria that every quest the players were on was a keystone in it. Then have the PCs uncover the truth of what Xanatos' plan was and let them have fun thwarting it at the final stage. Bonuses if you retcon Xanatos in to be one, or more, of the quest-givers in a Cunning Disguise. Extra bonuses if you do it in the manner of Prince Ludwig The Indestructible.
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Mar 9, 2012 02:48
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also any clues that you gently caress up so that they don't point to the actual end plan can be carefully placed disinformation.
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Mar 9, 2012 02:54
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When your players get a little further into the quest, give them each two rumors, one from Group A and one from Group B, that they've heard around the town. Only one rumor from Group A is false; Only one rumor from Group B is true.
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Mar 9, 2012 18:02
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Remember, too, that Xanatos was prepared to lose and has another plan. Even in losing he wins, just not in the way that winning would have won his win for him. Basically, whatever goes down, make sure that your Xanatos stays calm and collected, and make him responsible for the aftermath and more craziness down the line so that the players feel like they have to understand him better to understand what he's actually planning. EDIT: Especially if they kill him. The ultimate Xanatos gambit involves winning through the people that killed you.
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Mar 10, 2012 00:52
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What's the fairest way to sic a group of monsters on the party? Playing Dresden Files. My group is pretty strong in physical encounters and has taken out most enemies I've thrown at them in a turn or two, which has been fine so far but I wanted a more challenging encounter so I'm throwing a group of 5 zombies at them. The zombies are raising one by one as the turns progress, starting with a pretty weak one and the fourth one just popped up and is pretty nasty. There's a necromancer nearby raising them, stopping him would stop the zombies, which they are formulating plans on now. So, what's the best way to decide who to sic the zombies on? If they dogpile one character they could easily kill him, and it seems kind of unfair to do that, although that's exactly what the party is doing to the zombies (1's already re-dead, 2 is a stiff breeze from dropping at this point.) Should I be ruthless or spread the pain? My other problem is that one of the characters is built like a goddamn tank and it's really hard to actually hit him, and even if you hit him he's got damage reductions. I might have found a way around this but right now it feels like throwing an enemy at the guy is a waste of their turn, and since enemies dont tend to live past 2~3 turns that's a lot to give up on. But since that's what he built his character to do, not attacking him is just a jerk thing to do. tldr: how do you deal with tanks and enemy target picking?
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Mar 10, 2012 02:33
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mistaya posted:tldr: how do you deal with tanks and enemy target picking? Depends on the intellegence of the enemy; the zombies are dumb, but the necromancer should be pretty smart. Try to slow/cripple/fix the tank in place. Hell, just toss him into a pit trap. This will expose the vunerable support characters. This makes them choose between getting their meat shield back into play, and dealing with the oncoming horde of undead. Domination/Confusion work well also. Maybe you slip the tank some nice equipment, but, it carries a surprise curse that makes any undead within 10 feet of him become stronger (or maybe even autoraise). Enjoy the extra angst when he figures out what's causing it, and has to decide if he wants to toss his new amulet/sword/whatever or deal with the undead getting bonuses against him. RE: Targeting Again, enemy intelligence. But you also need to figure out If your players are new, guide them towards more combined arms tactics with monster selection and deployment. (Tailor weaknesses, place them so the party has to deal with aggro management) And make sure people in the party have some method of drawing the monster's attention. If your players are experienced, they should know better. Give them what's coming to them. Generally though, turn about is fair play.
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Mar 10, 2012 03:50
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Can anyone recommend a source of gaming miniatures for fantasy nonsense and pewpew laser bullshit? A while back I was looking at DnD miniatures but trying to find something that's both appropriate and cheap is a headache. Starwars miniatures seem to have gone out of production and now cost huge amounts.
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Mar 12, 2012 14:24
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kicks forts posted:Can anyone recommend a source of gaming miniatures for fantasy nonsense and pewpew laser bullshit? A while back I was looking at DnD miniatures but trying to find something that's both appropriate and cheap is a headache. Starwars miniatures seem to have gone out of production and now cost huge amounts. My tactic has been get actual minis for the players and particularly climatic battles (especially ones where I can reuse the minis) and tokens/other proxies for everything else. I know Reaper has a sci-fi line, and you can get pre-assembled (and usually babdly painted) Warhammer40K stuffs for somewhat decent prices on ebay. That's just my two cents, I'm sure someone else will offer better solutions. Edit: Like that one down there. Guesticles fucked around with this message at 15:44 on Mar 12, 2012 |
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Mar 12, 2012 14:39
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kicks forts posted:Can anyone recommend a source of gaming miniatures for fantasy nonsense and pewpew laser bullshit? A while back I was looking at DnD miniatures but trying to find something that's both appropriate and cheap is a headache. Starwars miniatures seem to have gone out of production and now cost huge amounts. If you've got a bunch of LEGO dudes in the right styles they make perfect minis when you put them on a 2x3 tile. Your players can even customize them with the right weapons and accessories. And if you've not opposed to updating your collection a bit, there are a lot of new awesome figs out there (check out dwarves, orcs and the new collectable sets). Just hit up bricklink.com -- it's like the eBay of individual LEGO pieces.
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Mar 12, 2012 15:09
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Yeah when we used to play D&D and use a proper grid and stuff I'd just haul out the lego fig box and everyone would have fun assembling the closest lego dude to their character. They also make good enemies and we ended up using horrible little lego "models" for monsters.
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Mar 13, 2012 19:34
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I'm going to be running an online campaign for a group of friends, and I was wondering where I could find a good variety of GameTable pogs, mostly for monsters and environmental stuff.
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Mar 16, 2012 23:57
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So we came across a pretty interesting situation today that I couldn't solve. What happens if a PC is moved out of reach of some monsters by an ally? Do they get an attack of opportunity on him or the ally? It does say attacks of opportunity don't trigger if you get pulled or forced out of a square, but I argued that he was never forced to do anything and should suck up the attacks for moving out of reach. Thoughts?
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Mar 18, 2012 17:39
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Affi posted:So we came across a pretty interesting situation today that I couldn't solve. What happens if a PC is moved out of reach of some monsters by an ally? Do they get an attack of opportunity on him or the ally? It does say attacks of opportunity don't trigger if you get pulled or forced out of a square, but I argued that he was never forced to do anything and should suck up the attacks for moving out of reach. Depends. Is it a move, or a slide/push/pull/teleport? The former triggers unless it says otherwise, the latter is the opposite.
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Mar 18, 2012 17:47
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NinjaDebugger posted:Depends. Is it a move, or a slide/push/pull/teleport? The former triggers unless it says otherwise, the latter is the opposite. I'm asking you. W= Warforged A = Artificer T = Tentacles code:Debate about if that triggers an attack of opportunity occurs.
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Mar 18, 2012 20:42
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Seems like you'd want to apply the grab rules to this, in which case it does sound like the grabbee is subject to forced movement (RC p. 244) and so would not provoke opportunity attacks. The phrasing isn't perfectly clear, though, so as always it's the DM's call in the end.
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Mar 18, 2012 20:52
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Affi posted:Artificer is in range of enemy, he could shift out but it has reach (not threatening though, it should have but it doesn't) and would nail him on the following turn. Warfoged says "I want to lift him up and carry him away." It's entirely up to you, since it's a situation not expressly covered by the rules. I would probably have it trigger opp attacks and give the warforged the option to take them instead.
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Mar 18, 2012 21:21
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Nevermind
Affi fucked around with this message at 20:32 on Oct 21, 2012 |
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Mar 18, 2012 23:51
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MMAgCh posted:Seems like you'd want to apply the grab rules to this, in which case it does sound like the grabbee is subject to forced movement (RC p. 244) and so would not provoke opportunity attacks. The phrasing isn't perfectly clear, though, so as always it's the DM's call in the end. Yeah, the Warforged spends its whole turn grabbing and dragging the ally away from the tentacles. Forced movement, so no attacks of opportunity. Next time, it looks like something like this might come up give the monsters some ability to mark a target, and which they can hit a targeted marked in that way when it moves away.
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Mar 19, 2012 07:32
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I'm a new DM and after running a few games on my own, I've realized my stories are shallow and kind of re skinned versions of plots from video games. Can anyone recommend anything to help me come up with deeper and more interesting plots than "Evil Guy wants to take over the world" ? I asked this in the 4e thread and Doc Hawkins recommended I check out 36 Plots which will be helpful, but I just wanted to see if anyone could give me some tips over here.
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Mar 20, 2012 02:05
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MustangCharlie posted:I'm a new DM and after running a few games on my own, I've realized my stories are shallow and kind of re skinned versions of plots from video games. Can anyone recommend anything to help me come up with deeper and more interesting plots than "Evil Guy wants to take over the world" ? Are your games always the same characters thus far? If you want to move into interesting plotlines, I've always found tying them to the characters direstly helps. Maybe give us an example of your players?
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Mar 20, 2012 02:14
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Does anyone know of something along the lines of a random divine aspect/god generator? I'm writing a setting which needs a large number of randomly generated divine aspects or small gods, the more specific the better. Gods of disease, bountiful harvest, search for knowledge etc. It's proving surprisingly difficult to google.
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Mar 20, 2012 03:06
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kicks forts posted:Does anyone know of something along the lines of a random divine aspect/god generator? I'm writing a setting which needs a large number of randomly generated divine aspects or small gods, the more specific the better. Gods of disease, bountiful harvest, search for knowledge etc. It's proving surprisingly difficult to google.
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Mar 20, 2012 03:13
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MMAgCh posted:I'd be surprised if Chaotic Shiny didn't have something useful for you. Chaotic Shiny should have a random divinities generator, but personally I've simply looked up Greek, Roman, Sumerian etc. pantheons on Wikipedia and lifted from there with a simple name change or two. Most players won't notice (except for the Mythology nerds).
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Mar 20, 2012 03:32
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MMAgCh posted:I'd be surprised if Chaotic Shiny didn't have something useful for you. That's perfect, thanks.
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Mar 20, 2012 03:38
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Generate a world in Dwarf Fortress.
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Mar 20, 2012 06:07
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Doc Hawkins posted:Generate a world in Dwarf Fortress. or design a couple of pretenders in Dominions 3 and just go by the titles the game gives them
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Mar 20, 2012 08:46
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Base them on PCs from previous games.
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Mar 20, 2012 09:16
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Nevermind
Affi fucked around with this message at 20:32 on Oct 21, 2012 |
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Mar 20, 2012 09:45
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So, I'm a pretty new DM, but me and my group have a few sessions under our belts already and it has been going fairly well so far. However, whenever the time comes to hand out loot, it always seems to become a bit chaotic. So far, I've done it by mailing randomly rolled Parcels via e-mail, but there's always two people taking the same treasure, or some treasure that doesn't get taken at all. I've been looking at the innate bonuses feature 4E has, though one of my players quite enjoys getting lots of magic equipment so I'm not sure if that's a good idea. So yeah, is there any better way of handling this? I suppose I could print everything out on paper, though that would mean dividing up loot takes up our (bi-)weekly session-time, so that's not really an ideal solution.
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Mar 21, 2012 15:34
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The cool thing about inherent bonuses is that it largely doesn't stack with the bonuses provided by items. You can use it and not worry about players keeping up mathematically, and the players can just focus on items with neat powers, or not take any at all if they don't care. So I would use them, and then just keep doing what you're doing, but with the understanding that whatever they take is what they found. That way, if two people want the same item, they can take it, because there were two of those.
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Mar 21, 2012 15:51
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So, inherent-bonuses are essentially item-bonuses when it comes to stacking? That's quite ideal actually, especially since one of my players likes to take more interesting items that don't necessarily give you stats. (He still doesn't have a neck-slot item for example, despite me advising him to take one.) So yeah, I'd better look into it more then, thanks. 
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Mar 21, 2012 16:05
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Absolutely use inherent bonuses if magic items are giving you headaches. It doesn't actually stack at all with the enhancement bonuses of items, so it's just giving you the math fix part. I use it in all my games these days whether I'm giving out items like candy or just the occasional boon.
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Mar 21, 2012 16:10
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You learn from mistakes, so here's one I made recently, in hopes someone will learn from it. My guys are fighting this beholder, and the warlock gets his with a petrifying ray. If he fails one more saving throw that's it, he'll be petrified. The wizard comes up with a desperate plan: use her whole turn to get to the warlock and put her Ring of Unwelcome Gifting on him, which she says lets someone transfer an effect onto an enemy they hit. Okay, she does that, initiative moves on. During a lull in the action we both look up the ring and discover she got it wrong, it actually works only for ongoing damage effects. She looks at me like "well poo poo" and I say, yeah, but don't worry, this is a great plan and you've spent your entire turn on it, I'll figure something out. Once the warlock is on I tell him, okay, here's the deal: the condition transfer definitely works, but only this once, and it destroys the ring unless you make a really good Arcana check. He agrees, makes the check, hits, and suddenly the beholder is one save away from being petrified. The mistake I made was this: in a fight that had already been going on well over 90 minutes, and after these dramatic and risky actions from half the party, I rolled the beholder's save in the open, and of course he made it, and the fight went on for another hour and got pretty frustrating. Rolling important stuff in the open is a good method for creating suspense, but I feel the moral is, know when to end a fight early, and recognize an opportunity when it presents itself.
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Mar 26, 2012 14:31
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